Theoretical Unification Research Articles

Theoretical unification and sociological theory: An appreciation of the contributions of T.J. Fararo

Theoretical unification and sociological theory: An appreciation of the contributions of T.J. Fararo

The Theoretical Unity of Aristotle’s Categorical Syllogistic and Sophistics

ABSTRACT The hypothesis of a theoretical unity between On Sophistical Refutations and Prior Analytics presents a major challenge to scholars attempting to unify the criteria of analysis. This paper examines this problem and proposes a middle ground between the perspectives of Woods and Boger to address this crucial question: If a unitary and coherent theory of deduction exists, why does not the technical apparatus of syllogistic modes for analyzing fallacies appear in SE? This paper makes useful contributions to the discussion on the internal unity of Aristotle's logical writings on around categorical syllogistics and the doctrine of sophistical refutations.

Neutral and niche theory in community ecology: a framework for comparing model realism

Ecological neutral theory has been controversial as an alternative to niche theory for explaining community structure. Neutral theory, which explains community structure in terms of ecological drift, is frequently charged with being unrealistic, but commentators have usually not provided an account of theory or model realism. In this paper, I propose a framework for comparing the “realism” or accuracy of alternative theories within a domain with respect to the extent to which the theories abstract and idealize. Using this framework I argue, contrary to most previous commentators, that neutral and niche theories are similarly realistic. Realism cannot provide a basis for accepting or rejecting either type of theory; instead, community ecologists should continue working with a plurality of models. While theoretical unification may become possible, we should treat a plurality of complementary, partial models as the expected situation within community ecology.

A Multi-Disciplinary Cybernetic Approach to Pedagogic Excellence

This paper presents a theory of good pedagogy that i) unifies several current theories, ii) is cybernetic, that is, content independent, and iii) operationally defined. The paper builds off a recent theoretical unification of pedagogy using the four pedagogic pillars of executive function, goal-setting, attribution theory, and self-efficacy. A novelty of the theory is avoidance of jargon, such as higher cognitive, which, while having intuitive appeal, has meaning which is ambiguous. The theory also avoids secondary terms such as creative or analytic and instead focuses on root psychological processes such as executive function and multiple modalities. The theory is applied in a multi-disciplinary setting addressing both machine and human mastery of tasks. This multi-disciplinarity is synergistic allowing simultaneous considerations of emotional (human) and efficiency (machine) issues. The theory is easily applied to new situations without the need for special training. It is hoped that instructors will begin to use this approach in their instructional design.

A Multi-Disciplinary Cybernetic Approach to Pedagogic Excellence

This paper presents a theory of good pedagogy that i) unifies several current theories, ii) is cybernetic, that is, content independent, and iii) operationally defined. The paper builds off a recent theoretical unification of pedagogy using the four pedagogic pillars of <em>executive function, goal-setting, attribution theory, </em>and <em>self-efficacy</em>. A novelty of the theory is avoidance of jargon, such as <em>higher cognitive, </em>which, while having intuitive appeal, has meaning which is ambiguous. The theory also avoids secondary terms such as <em>creative </em>or <em>analytic </em>and instead focuses on root psychological processes such as executive function and multiple modalities. The theory is applied in a multi-disciplinary setting addressing both machine and human mastery of tasks. This multi-disciplinarity is synergistic allowing simultaneous considerations of emotional (human) and efficiency (machine) issues. The theory is easily applied to new situations without the need for special training. It is hoped that instructors will begin to use this approach in their instructional design.

The Paradox of Power: Statebuilding in America, 1754–1920 by Ballard C. Campbell (review)

Reviewed by: The Paradox of Power: Statebuilding in America, 1754–1920 by Ballard C. Campbell William D. Adler (bio) Keywords State-building, Early national state, Role of Government The Paradox of Power: Statebuilding in America, 1754–1920. By Ballard C. Campbell. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2021. Pp. 392. Paper, $34.95.) Scholars of the early U.S. have long been interested in how state-building occurred, but a massive revival of attention to the subject in the past twenty years has produced a wave of important research. The Paradox of Power enters this conversation with an impressive contribution to our understanding of the early national state through a synthetic analysis of how [End Page 340] government grew, not only nationally but at the local and state levels as well. Ballard Campbell argues in this book that American state-building has been characterized by a paradox between theory and action: a strong commitment to anti-statist values on the one hand, with a practical necessity for enhanced state action on the other. Those immediate needs, such as physical infrastructure, security, education, and others, led over time to increased state capacity as an administrative apparatus was built to handle these various functions, he argues. The anti-statist values continued apace in our culture but ultimately could not arrest the growth of government. Campbell traces these shifts from the colonial period all the way through the early twentieth century, covering well-trodden soil on how government expanded at the local, state, and national levels. The book contains a wealth of information on what government did and how it did it, including an original collection of state-level actions (contained in the Appendix) that will be of much use to scholars. The greatest contribution of this work will be for those looking for a general treatment of the subject material, as it covers a wide range of time and a similarly wide range of governmental activities. Students in advanced undergraduate courses or graduate students who need an overview of state-building throughout early American history will benefit from reading this work. As for its contributions to the scholarly literature, since it is a work of synthesis, scholars will most benefit from the above mentioned dataset on state actions as well as wrestling with its argument about the "paradox" of American state-building, although even this is familiar to students of these questions. For example, in his work Liberty and Coercion: The Paradox of American Government from the Founding to the Present (Princeton, NJ, 2015), Gary Gerstle makes a similar contention about the tension in the Constitution between personal liberties and limited government on the one hand, versus the notion of "the public good" that was more prevalent at the state level. In the field of American political development, political scientists have long debated these questions as well; most recently, in Stephen Skrowronek's Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic: The Deep State and the Unitary Executive (Oxford, UK, 2021), the authors home in on the noteworthy friction between the "unity" in executive strength within the constitutional framework as compared to the large administrative apparatus that undermines that theoretical unity. No doubt, Campbell's thesis must be situated alongside these others and is one scholars must contend with. [End Page 341] Campbell has produced an important work that should be read by scholars of the early republic who are interested in continuing to explore these fundamental debates. In particular, Chapters 3–6 will be worthwhile for readers of this journal as Campbell moves from the founding of the republic through to the cusp of the Civil War. We will likely continue debating the nature of state-building in early America for many years to come. William D. Adler William D. Adler is associate professor of political science at Northeastern Illinois University. He is the author of Engineering Expansion: The U.S. Army and Economic Development, 1787–1860 (Philadelphia, 2021) as well as articles on the early United States, the American presidency, and American political development. Copyright © 2023 Society for Historians of the Early American Republic

CONCEPTS OF SUSTAINABLE ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF LARGE-SCALE ECONOMIC PRODUCTION SYSTEMS

The formed system of conceptual provisions for ensuring the sustainability of organizational development of large-scale economic and production systems is indicative of the implementation of the author's system of hypotheses regarding: the need to use the integration capabilities of individual business entities to gain advantages in competition and to support the sustainability of coordinated development; supporting the sustainability of large-scale economic and production systems by optimizing the components of the integration base, correctly forming the architecture of large-scale economic and production systems and choosing the most appropriate organizational form; the possibility of modeling the development of large-scale economic and production systems through the correlation of its architectural representation with the stages of the life cycle; the use of the competencies of business entities as a basis for integration interaction within the framework of a certain economic and production system; subordination of the efficiency of functioning and development of large-scale economic and production systems is determined by the degree of disclosure of the potential of integration interaction of input to large-scale economic and production participants. The proof of these hypotheses made it possible to emphasize that ensuring the sustainability of the organizational development of large-scale economic and production systems is achieved due to the optimization of the structure and interaction parameters of strategic business units (participants) of the large-scale economic and production system, which increases the relevance of developments in the field of institutional regulation of the life activities of large-scale economic and production systems . Such formation of large-scale systems creates additional competitive advantages through, for example, the concentration of resources on the most effective business practices or through the creation of a more effective system of calculations. At the same time, the implementation of integration processes or an increase in the scope of activities always causes the manifestation of certain factors-threats and difficulties, the solution of which requires an appropriate economic basis. So, first of all, the increase in the scale of enterprise activity leads to the complication of the organizational structure and the appearance of numerous defects in ensuring the operation of management mechanisms. Secondly, the occurrence of any type of enterprise merger increases the probability of negative manifestation of corporate conflicts. Thirdly, attention should be paid to the threat of dispersal of property relations as a result of integration-disintegration processes. Finally, the variety of possible organizational forms of interaction between enterprises requires a certain theoretical unification.

Exact solutions for steadily travelling water waves with submerged point vortices

This paper presents a novel theoretical framework, based on the concept of the Schwarz function of a wave, for understanding water waves with vorticity in the absence of gravity and capillarity. The framework leads naturally to a taxonomy of three subcases, herein referred to as cases 1, 2 and 3, into which fall three existing studies of water waves incorporating uniform vorticity and submerged point vortices. This provides a theoretical unification of several seemingly unrelated results in the literature. It also provides a route to finding new exact solutions with this paper focussing on new solutions falling within the case 2 category. Among several presented here are a submerged point vortex pair cotravelling with a solitary deep-water wave, von Kármán point vortex streets cotravelling with a periodic deep-water wave and a point vortex row cotravelling with a wave in water of finite depth. Some other more exotic waveforms are also constructed. All these new solutions generalize those of Crowdy & Roenby (Fluid Dyn. Res., vol. 46, 2014) who found steady waves in deep water cotravelling with a submerged point vortex row for which the free surface shapes turn out to coincide with those of pure capillary waves on deep water found by Crapper (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 2, 1957). The new exact solutions are likely to provide a useful basis for asymptotic or numerical studies when additional effects such as gravity and capillarity are incorporated.

Kantian moral universalism, the “Enlightenment Project” and experimental ethics

The main ideas of Kant’s moral philosophy were embodied in what can be called the “Enlightenment Project”. Kant’s calls for freedom, nti-paternalism and the requirement of abandonment of concern for moral behaviour are associated with ethical ideas of autonomy, the categorical imperative, negative and positive freedom, the universality of morality in relation to the human being as a rational actor etc. These ideas are consistent with the ideals of the “Enlightenment Project”. The following ideals can be distinguished: 1) the ideal of classical scientific rationality; 2) the idea of “pure reason”; 3) free, equal and autonomous individuals; 4) moral universalism; 5) the creation of a united human civilisation; 6) the ideals of moral progress and universal happiness. In contemporary philosophy and ethics the main objects of criticism are the ideals of a free and autonomous individual, as well as ideas about the possibility of the existence of universal morality. In the context of the discussion of the possibility of the existenceof rationally justified universal morality and the existing moral pluralism, the results of the experimental on-line research of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – “Moral Machine” – are interesting. The analysis of the results of this study shows the possibility of the existence of different types of rational universality (scientific-epistemological and moral). But while scientific universality requires theoretical unity of empirical data, moral universality firstly allows pluralism of norms and values and, secondly, requires a generalised normative regulation ofempirical moral diversity.

Control Method for Distortionless Zero-Cross in Active Unity Power Factor Rectifiers

Accurate synchronization and harmonics control are keys to achieve a distortionless zero-cross of currents in active unity power factor rectifiers. This article proposes a method to achieve optimal operation: 1) by settling a synchronization path that feeds the phase-locked loop with the output voltage reference that sets the theoretical unity power factor operation, and 2) low-order harmonics control with zero-cross driven antiwindup to reduce distortion further. Controller design is detailed and supported by theoretical analysis; the key performances are proved by experimental verification.

Assessment of refined higher order theories for the static and vibration analysis of laminated composite cylindrical shells

In the present study, a generalized shell theory is presented and applied for the analysis of laminated composite cylindrical shells. A theoretical unification of the several refined shell theories is presented. The principle of work done is employed to derive five differential equations corresponding to five unknowns involved in the present generalized shell theory. Five differential equations are solved by an analytical procedure suggested by the Navier. The numerical results for simply supported laminated composite cylindrical shells are presented and compared with 3D elasticity solutions. Displacements, stresses and fundamental frequencies are obtained for isotropic, orthotropic, 00/900 and 00/900/00 laminated cylindrical shells. The numerical results are obtained for h/a=0.1, a/b=1 and different values of R/a ratio. Displacements and stresses of laminated cylindrical shells are estimated under sinusoidal transverse load. In the case of free vibration analysis, first five natural frequencies are presented. It is observed that refined theories predicts displacements and stresses in close agreement with 3D elasticity solutions whereas the FST and the CST underpredict the displacements and stresses. It is also observed that the CST overestimates the natural frequencies due to neglect of shear deformation effect.

Pluralism, plurality and interdisciplinary relations in IR: shifting theoretical directions

Despite concerns over the discipline’s state of ‘fragmentation’, there is no systematic empirical analysis of how this theoretical proliferation is driven by ‘importing’ from other fields. This paper attempts to fill this gap by analysing data collected from American, European, British and Japanese journals during 2011–2015. It argues that interdisciplinary relations are not only fuelling theoretical proliferation in the field but are also creating distinct directions for IR scholarship: a new ‘transatlantic divide’ between sub-disciplinary specialisation and broadening of the disciplinary contours in the English-speaking ‘core’, continued compliance with theoretical and methodological unity of the field in the non-English-speaking ‘semi-periphery’ and parts of the ‘periphery’, and a full embrace of interdisciplinarity in other parts of the ‘periphery’. These images each symbolise the direction that IR as a discipline is (or should be) heading, which will also imply a shift in what gets accepted as ‘IR’ in the coming decades.

An initial framework for analyzing students’ reasoning with equivalence across mathematical domains

The concept of equivalence is foundational in mathematics and is pervasive in the K-16 curriculum. Though much research has focused on equivalence, nearly all of it is domain-specific, and it is therefore unclear how students’ reasoning about equivalence in one domain might influence their reasoning about it in another, if at all. This highlights a need for increased theoretical unity and coherence. In this theoretical paper, we propose an initial framework for analyzing students’ reasoning about equivalence across domains. We use the framework to highlight commonalities amongst the ways in which equivalence is interpreted with respect to fractions, K-12 algebra, modular arithmetic, and linear algebra. We demonstrate the framework’s strength as an analytical tool by using it to conduct detailed analyses of student data from already-published studies in combinatorics and abstract algebra. We conclude by suggesting ways in which this framework lays a rich foundation for future research.

Alston, Aristotle, and Epistemic Normativity

Alston (2005) argues that there is no such thing as a single concept of epistemic justification. Instead, there is an irreducible plurality of epistemically valuable features of beliefs: ‘epistemic desiderata.’ I argue that this approach is problematic for meta-epistemological reasons. How, for instance, do we characterize epistemic evaluation and do we do we go about it if there’s no theoretical unity to epistemology? Alston’s response is to ground all epistemic desiderata, thereby unifying epistemology, in truth and truth-conduciveness. I argue that this move over-unifies epistemology, in effect, giving us a single criterion for epistemology on par with the epistemology-by-justification approach he rejects. Perhaps surprisingly, we find a similar theoretical worry in Aristotle’s argument about the science of metaphysics. Aristotle’s resolution in this problem by the ‘analogy of being’ provides a parallel framework to resolve the worries with Alston’s approach. In particular, I argue that we can focus epistemic evaluation on the person of epistemic virtue: this category will be focal, unifying the disparate desiderata, without reducing to one thing all epistemic values or relations that desiderate must bear to the central value. A virtue-centric account of epistemic normativity follows: one that can remain genuinely pluralistic and yet unified as well.

Incorporating photoemission into the theoretical unification of electron emission and space-charge limited current

Photon emitters are becoming increasingly important due to their ability to generate high brightness, low emittance, and spatiotemporally coherent electron bunches for multiple applications; however, these emitters rarely produce electrons solely due to photoemission. Often, photon emitters are prone to undesired thermionic emission; alternatively, some devices intentionally leverage field and thermionic emission to increase output current. Regardless, attempting to extract higher currents from these devices raises concerns about space-charge buildup. While theories have examined the transitions between many of these mechanisms, none have used a common framework to unify photo-, thermionic, field, and space-charge limited emission simultaneously, typically represented individually by the Fowler–Dubridge (FD), Richardson–Laue–Dushman (RLD), Fowler–Nordheim (FN), and Child–Langmuir (CL) equations, respectively. This paper derives an exact solution unifying these mechanisms and reports conditions where emission bypasses RLD to directly transition from FD to FN based on asymptotically matching the three models at a nexus point. Furthermore, we provide a step-by-step approach for developing nexus phase space plots exhibiting the operating conditions for transitions among FD, RLD, FN, CL, Mott–Gurney for space-charge limited current with collisions, and Ohm's law for an external resistor. We demonstrate the utility of nexus plots for assessing the applicability of the simple well-known theories based on a single mechanism or the necessity to use more complicated solutions combining multiple mechanisms. As such, nexus theory provides a simple framework for guiding theorists in model development, simulation experts in algorithm development and selection, and experimentalists in device design.

The cognitive science of technology.

Technology is central to human life but hard to define and study. This review synthesizes advances in fields from anthropology to evolutionary biology and neuroscience to propose an interdisciplinary cognitive science of technology. The foundation of this effort is an evolutionarily motivated definition of technology that highlights three key features: material production, social collaboration, and cultural reproduction. This broad scope respects the complexity of the subject but poses a challenge for theoretical unification. Addressing this challenge requires a comparative approach to reduce the diversity of real-world technological cognition to a smaller number of recurring processes and relationships. To this end, a synthetic perceptual-motor hypothesis (PMH) for the evolutionary-developmental-cultural construction of technological cognition is advanced as an initial target for investigation.

Tropo de ser y haecceitas. Una interpretación de Alonso Briceño

Alonso Briceño, el primer filósofo chileno, sostuvo que, para todo x, el ser de x = la haecceitas de x y –además– que hay una distinción ‘formal’ entre el ser de x y la esencia de x. En general, hay una distinción ‘formal’ entre los ítems z y v si y solo si: (i) z  v, y (ii) z y v son mutuamente inseparables. Se sigue de estas tesis que el ‘ser’ debe tomarse como un componente ontológico específico en los objetos particulares y que es idéntico con la haecceitas del objeto. Esto se denomina aquí “la intuición de Briceño”. En este trabajo se considera la relevancia que la intuición de Briceño podría tener para dos de las teorías más importantes acerca de la naturaleza de los objetos particulares: las teorías en las que los objetos particulares están constituidos por un sustrato y sus propiedades, y las teorías en las que los objetos particulares son cúmulos de tropos. Se argumenta que en ambos casos la intuición de Briceño, esto es, la idea de que hay un tropo específico de ser en el objeto particular, trae consigo ventajas sistemáticas importantes y, lo que es más, permite la unificación teórica de ambas perspectivas, normalmente consideradas como incompatibles entre sí.

Metaphysical Foundationalism and Theoretical Unification

Some facts ground other facts. Some fact is fundamental iff there are no other facts which partially or fully ground that fact. According to metaphysical foundationalism, every non-fundamental fact is fully grounded by some fundamental fact(s). In this paper I examine and defend some neglected considerations which might be made in favor of metaphysical foundationalism. Building off of work by Ross Cameron, I suggest that foundationalist theories are more unified than, and so in one important respect simpler than, non-foundationalist theories, insofar as foundationalist theories allow us to derive all non-fundamental facts from some fundamental fact(s). Non-foundationalist theories can enjoy a similar sort of theoretical unification only by taking on objectionable metaphysical laws.

A unified psychological space for human perception of physical and social events

One of the great feats of human perception is the generation of quick impressions of both physical and social events based on sparse displays of motion trajectories. Here we aim to provide a unified theory that captures the interconnections between perception of physical and social events. A simulation-based approach is used to generate a variety of animations depicting rich behavioral patterns. Human experiments used these animations to reveal that perception of dynamic stimuli undergoes a gradual transition from physical to social events. A learning-based computational framework is proposed to account for human judgments. The model learns to identify latent forces by inferring a family of potential functions capturing physical laws, and value functions describing the goals of agents. The model projects new animations into a sociophysical space with two psychological dimensions: an intuitive sense of whether physical laws are violated, and an impression of whether an agent possesses intentions to perform goal-directed actions. This derived sociophysical space predicts a meaningful partition between physical and social events, as well as a gradual transition from physical to social perception. The space also predicts human judgments of whether individual objects are lifeless objects in motion, or human agents performing goal-directed actions. These results demonstrate that a theoretical unification based on physical potential functions and goal-related values can account for the human ability to form an immediate impression of physical and social events. This ability provides an important pathway from perception to higher cognition.

Crisis” and “re-foundation” of psychology – outmoded topics of theoretical-psychological discourse?

In the 1970-80ies critical assessments of the problematic state of psychology as science were flourishing, stressing the theoretical disintegration and practical irrelevance of psychological basic research and connecting both defects to a misplaced dependence of mainstream psychology on a scientistic notion of scientific cognition. Talks of a crisis in psychology were gaining ground again. Controverting the paradigmatic maturity vs. the pre-/non-paradigmatic state of our discipline or, alternatively, its necessarily multi-paradigmatic character, the quest for unification as against a programmatic theoretical pluralism became a top issue of scholarly dispute. The institutionalisation of ISTP in 1985 and its initial epistemological and meta-theoretical core themes clearly reflected this pervasive trend. Some 35 years later, it has become noticeably quiet about such concerns, and there is no evidence of a renewal of large-scale discussions on a foundational crisis in psychology, let alone of ambitious attempts at theoretical unification or re-foundation – despite the fact that none of the “epistemopathologial“ (Koch, 1981) diagnoses of traditional variable-psychology have been refuted or lost strategic importance. Combining historical retrospection with an exemplary analysis of topical theoretical-psychological subjects, the aim of my paper is to get a clearer idea of where Theoretical Psychology currently stands in regard to the meta-scientific study of psychological theory-problems.