Modem Research Research Articles

Diversity of transmission processes as exemplified by specific synapses in electric organs.

Against the strong tendency that has always existed among physiologists to reduce the different categories of junctional processes to one single type of transmission mechanism, one may oppose the wide diversity of synaptic properties, revealed by the bulk of modem research on the subject. A good illustration of such diversity can be found in the narrow field of electric effectors if we consider the seven different structural types they offer; for, in spite of their being devoted to the same final task, that of delivering electric shocks, they do not seem to make use of a single mechanism for their peripheral nervous control. Furthermore, as we shall see, they differ in many ways from the neuromuscular model, with which it had long been supposed they were more or less similar.

THE PREHISTORY OF RESEARCH INTO FOUNDATIONS

IN two previous articles 1 I have endeavoured to show that modem research into the foundations of mathematics and physical sciences has upset several doctrines which are important for traditional philosophy, especially Aristotle's theory of science. It was pointed out that this situation explains the bitter controversies between representatives of modern research into foundations and defendants of traditional speculative philosophy. But modem research into foundations does not compel us to take a purely negative attitude with regard to philosophical tradition. On the contrary, modem conceptions can often help us to obtain a better insight into various features of ancient philosophy, and it is the purpose of the present article to make this clear.