Form Of Objects Research Articles

How Noncognitivists Can Avoid Wishful Thinking

Cian Dorr recently argued that noncognitivists are committed to objectionable forms of wishful thinking, if they are to legitimize certain inferences that seem intuitively acceptable. In this paper, I show how noncognitivists can escape this accusation.

Integration of what and where in the primate prefrontal cortex.

The visual system separates processing of an object's form and color ("what") from its spatial location ("where"). In order to direct action to objects, the identity and location of those objects must somehow be integrated. To examine whether this process occurs within the prefrontal (PF) cortex, the activity of 195 PF neurons was recorded during a task that engaged both what and where working memory. Some neurons showed either object-tuned (what) or location-tuned (where) delay activity. However, over half (52 percent, or 64/123) of the PF neurons with delay activity showed both what and where tuning. These neurons may contribute to the linking of object information with the spatial information needed to guide behavior.

Us Extraterritorial Jurisdiction: The Helms-burton and D'Amato Acts

The history of clashes over extraterritorial jurisdiction between the United States of America and other States in the Americas, Europe and elsewhere is a long one. That history is commonly traced back to the antitrust claims arising from the Alcoa case in 1945, in which the “effects” doctrine was advanced in the peculiar and objectionable form in which it is applied, not simply to acts which constitute elements of a single offence but which occur in different jurisdictions but, rather, to the economic repercussions of acts in one State which are felt in another. The conflict persisted into the 1950s, with the clashes over US regulation of the international shipping and paper industries. In the 1960s and 1970s there were further clashes in relation to the extraterritorial application of US competition laws, notably in disputes over shipping regulation and the notorious Uranium Antitrust litigation, in which US laws were applied to penalise the extraterritorial conduct of non-US companies, conducted with the approval of their national governments, at a time when those companies were barred by US law from trading in the United States. It was that litigation which was in large measure responsible for the adoption in the United Kingdom of the Protection of Trading Interests Act 1980, which significantly extended the powers which the British government had asserted in the 1952 Shipping Contracts and Commercial Documents Act to defend British interests against US extraterritorial claims.

Two Studies in the Early Academy (review)

280 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3 1"2 APRIL 1993 recent, competing interpretations and its accessibility to contemporary philosophers (e.g., through lucid comparisons with Frege). Loux also explores various problems with the account, though I am less sanguine than he is that these are problems with Aristotle's theory rather than with his construal of it. The interpretation demands much finessing of recalcitrant texts. For example, on his view matter is a "this" and form a "such." So passages that call form a "this" (t0de) or "this something" (rode t0 require deft maneuvering, as do passages withholding "thisness" from matter. Louxjoins a number of scholars in denying that form is predicated of the composite. This view is adopted by those who believe that form is both a universal and primary ous/a, and it seems tailored to circumvent the argument in Z. 13 that no universal is ous/a. Z. 13 is taken to show that no universal is the ous/a of a subject of which it is predicated; form is a universal, but since it is predicated only of matter, it still succeeds as 0us/a of the composite. Some philosophers and scholars will find unappealing the denial that form is predicable of the composite: it seems as odd as denying that whiteness is predicable of a white man. Moreover, if the thesis is fundamental to Aristotle's theory, we expect him somewhere to say so. Instead there are texts (e.g., Z.8.1o33a3o-3 l) that simply predicate the form of the composite, as though such predications were never in question. In contrast to Loux, many interpreters identify an object's form, 0us/a, and essence. The essence is evidently predicated of the composite (e.g., lo~9b13-14), but since Loux distinguishes 0us/a and essence, this is unproblematic for him. However, his distinction is difficult to square with. the following passage from Z. 7, where Aristotle, in discussing the generation of artifacts, says: "By form I mean the essence of each thing and its primary ous/a" (lo3~bl-~). (Loux treats this text at p. 186n48 and p. 189n54.) Also questionable on textual grounds is Loux's claim that form is always predicated of matter accidentally. A number of texts in the central books of the Metaphysics (e.g., ~o35b~4-25) and elsewhere state that the proximate matter of living organisms loses its identity when the form is removed. This evidence strongly suggests that in the case of organisms form is essentially predicated, not just of the composite, but of its proximate matter as well. If one takes seriously these textual difficulties, they raise fundamental questions about Loux's general scheme. But even if one is not persuaded by some of his central proposals, Loux has provided an exceptionally provocative, unified, and subtle analysis of Aristotle's doctrine of ous/a, and his suggestions about particular texts and criticisms of alternative positions are often insightful and helpful. The book is a major contribution to its topic. MARY LOUISE GILL University of Pittsburgh R. M. Dancy. Two Studies in the Early Academy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. Pp. xii + 219. Paper, $14.95. The first study deals with Eudoxus: it argues that he attempted to explain the relationship between forms and ordinary things by developing an "immanentist" theory--in particular, forms are to be construed as physical ingredients of things. The second BOOK REVIEWS 281 study deals with Speusippus: it argues that he attempted to explain the existence of all things by positing a principle, the One, which itself does not exist. The two studies are united by a common theme: the early Academy was not a church from which dogma was declaimed but a meeting-house in which problems were debated; and the studies gives us glimpses of two of these Academic debates. ~ The early Academy is dimly and fitfully illuminated; and Dancy presents his conjectures with an appropriate modesty. The book is written in a light style, which at times descends to the demotic; but it is also painstaking and scholarly: arguments are elaborated with rigor and care; texts are cited at length;' and references to...

A synthesis algorithm for a class of 4NF

In order to ensure a better logical data base design that captures the semantics of the enterprise application, two basic approaches, decomposition and synthesis, are employed. The synthesis approach provides a schema that envelops all the given dependencies, though currently applicable to only functional dependencies and only for 3NF. However, the decomposition approach may produce data base schema in BCNF without satisfying the dependency preserving property [BEE79]. Ling et al. [LIN81] have discussed the existence of an objectionable form of attribute redundancy denoted superfluous attributes in schemas formed by decomposition and synthesis algorithms. A new synthesis algorithm, denoted Algorithm 2 [ANG83], eliminates such superfluous attributes from synthesized data base schema.In this paper, definitions for separable entities based only upon the dependency set under consideration are given. Algorithm 2 [ANG83] is shown to produce a data base schema which is in BCNF if the dependency set consists only of functional dependencies and the entities are separable. Further, a synthesis algorithm to normalize a relational schema involving only multivalued dependencies into a 4NF data base schema is proposed. The inclusion of multivalued dependencies in the synthesis algorithm permits wider units of information representation in the modeling of enterprise application. This algorithm will produce a 4NF schema if the dependency set consists only of multivalued dependencies which are not also functional dependencies and the entities are separable.

Kant on space, empirical realism and the foundations of geometry

One of the first reviews (Garve-Feder, 1782) of the Critique of Pure Reason described Kant’s system as a form of idealism of a piece with that of Berkeley. Kant (Letter to Garve, August 7, 1783) was not pleased with this comparison. In the Prolegomena (13) he explained that his system, far from agreeing with Berkeley, was the proper antidote to Berkeley’s objectionable form of idealism. In an explicit response to the offending review (Prolegomena Appendix) Kant claimed that when Berkeley made space a mere empirical representation he reduced all experience to sheer illusion. Kant continued to stress Berkeley’s failure to do justice to the special role of space as source of a priori constraints on experience when he distinguished his view from Berkeley’s in the second edition of the Critique (B 69–72, B 274, Note on B xi of Preface). In spite of these protests, quite a number of subsequent writers have offered interpretations of transcendental idealism that would have Kant in basic agreement with Berkeley. Perhaps the most clearly stated example is to be found in Colin Turbayne’s classic paper (1955), but any interpretation that construes the manifold in intuitions as sensations or appearances as subjective contents of experience will make Kant’s position true to the spirit of Berkeley’s point of view. I shall use Turbayne as an example; but, if the interpretation I propose is correct then the way Kant uses space to support his empirical realism makes his position quite different from Berkeley’s or from any kind of phenomenalism or any empiricism based on subjective experiences.

Social Technology and Praxis

At the present time there is an increasing tendency to regard the application of the social sciences to practical affairs as in some way objectionable, and needing to be replaced by a form of social practice which has a different kind of cognitive backing. This criticism seems to me to embody various confusions and misrepresentations. My aim in what follows is to bring these to light. The objectionable form of social practice is often called social technology, and the desirable form 'praxis'. Though 'praxis' is merely a German word for 'practice', taken from the Greek, it has been adopted by various writers, among whom Jurgen Habermas is a conspicuous example, for a more specialized use, for which precedent is said to be found in Aristotle. I wish to show not only that this precedent is questionable, but that the whole distinction between technology and praxis in the social sphere is without foundation.

Points from Letters: An objectionable application form

Points from Letters: An objectionable application form

Measurements on a charge-coupled area image sensor with blooming suppression

Blooming, the lateral spreading of charge from an intensely illuminated area of an image sensor, can be present in an especially objectionable form in charge-coupled devices. Bright lines are formed in the display, owing to a charge propagation along the transfer channels. The introduction of overflow drains, i.e., stripes of a reverse-biased p-n junction placed between the transfer channels, provides a well-defined leakage path for excess carriers from saturated potential wells. An implanted threshold barrier between these drains and the integrating potential wells determines the saturation potential of the integration sites and prevents the total collapse of the associated depletion region. Therefore, the lateral diffusion of minority carriers is also greatly reduced. An existing design of a charge-coupled area image sensor with 64 × 106 resolution elements and frame transfer organization has been modified to study these methods of blooming suppression. The lateral distance of charge spreading has been reduced by a factor of seven at overload conditions of 20 dB. For stronger overloads the booming suppression becomes even more striking, but the performance of the device iS limited by frame transfer smearing. Furthermore, lens flare limits most optical systems at overloads above 30 dB. However, by using an optical fiber, well-localized overloads of 50 dB could be generated. Although, in our particular test device, the addition of blooming suppression reduced the light sensitivity by a factor of four, other geometries for overflow drain structures that should result in only a negligible loss in sensitivity are discussed.

4. Political Patronage at the Treasury, 1870–1912

It is surprising that while there is a considerable literature dealing with the reform of the civil service from the time of Burke to the setting up of the Civil Service Commission in 1855, very little attention has been paid to the final stages of reform following the introduction of open competition in 1870. Yet it was in this period that patronage ceased to be of importance and the modern civil service developed. The Order in Council of 4 June 1870 which made open competition the normal method of entry to the civil service enormously reduced the scope of patronage, but it did not kill it immediately. Right up to the First World War remnants of the old system lingered in most departments, although by then a lavish system of honours and subsidies from the party funds had displaced the most objectionable forms of political patronage. The purpose of this article is to give some indication

HINDOO ZOOPHILY AND SNAKE-BITES.

According to the government statistics no less than 24,621 persons died as the result of snake-bites in India in the last year covered by the reports. To balance this 94,548 snakes were killed by human agency. This is a remarkable showing and can hardly be explained except by the heathen Hindoo's reverence for animal life even in its most objectionable forms. A snake is one of the easiest of all animals to kill, a venomous one no more difficult than any other. In this country hundreds of thousands are annually slain at the least estimate and no bounty given, and poisonous varieties are practically exterminated in most thickly settled districts. With all allowance for special difficulties that may exist, the less than one hundred thousand snakes killed in India is a most extraordinary fact. India is the paradise of vegetarians and antivivisectionists, but it is a paradise with altogether too