696 research outputs found
War and Paradise, An Interview with Marcus Rossberg
No full textMarcus Rossberg has been in St Andrews since 2001, finished his PhD in March 2006, and is now a postdoctoral research fellow here. His interests lie in philosophy of mathematics, philosophical logic and metaphysics. Thanks to this, he had some illuminating advice on career prospects, as well as sharing his insight on the differences between continental and analytical philosophy and other battlefronts
Introduction to Abstractionism
No full textFirst paragraph: Abstractionism in philosophy of mathematics has its origins in Gottlob Frege’s logicism—a position Frege developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Frege’s main aim was to reduce arithmetic and analysis to logic in order to provide a secure foundation for mathematical knowledge. As is well known, Frege’s development of logicism failed. The infamous Basic Law V— one of the six basic laws of logic Frege proposed in his magnum opus Grundgesetze der Arithmetik—is subject to Russell’s Paradox. The striking feature of Frege’s Basic Law V is that it takes the form of an abstraction principle
『翻訳と文学』Translation and Literature
No full textThe volume explores translation as creation, identity-construction, the vehicle of world-literature and beyond. A well-known author, poet and translator, Natsuki Ikezawa opens the book with a chapter on creative translations of classic Japanese literature into contemporary Japanese. Other contributors are Keijiro Suga (Meiji University), Hideto Tsuboi (International Centre for Japanese Studies), Akiko Uchiyama (Queensland University), Miki Sato (Sapporo University), Keisuke Hayashi (Hosei), Danae Shao (Nagoya University Foreign Studies), and Nana Sato-Rossberg
Contemporary Reviews of Frege's Grundgesetze
No full textIn the Foreword to Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, Frege comments on the lack of reception that his previous work, in particular, his Grundlagen der Arithmetik, had received and reflects on how this lack of serious engagement by his contemporaries affected his work: With this, I arrive at a second reason for the delay [of the publication of the first volume of Grundgesetze]: the despondency that at times overcame me as a result of the cool reception, or rather, the lack of reception, by mathematicians of the writings mentioned above, and the unfavourable scientific currents against which my book will have to struggle. (Frege, 1893, xi) In an accompanying footnote he goes further, detailing the lack of engagement by contemporaries with his work: One searches in vain for my Grundlagen der Arithmetik in the Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik. Researchers in the same area, Mr Dedekind, Mr Otto Stolz, Mr von Helmholtz seem not to be acquainted with my works. Kronecker does not mention them in his essay on the concept of number either. (Frege, 1893, xi) While some scholars have recently offered an explanation for the omission of Frege’s work in the Jahrbuch, there is no doubt that Frege was badly affected by this lack of attention
Trophic niche-space imaging, using resource and consumer traits
No full textThe strength of trophic (feeding) links between two species depends on the traits of both the consumer and the resource. But which traits of consumer and resource have to be measured to predict link strengths, and how many? A novel theoretical framework for systematically determining trophic traits from empirical data was recently proposed. Here we demonstrate this approach for a group of 14 consumer fish species (Labeobarbus spp., Cyprinidae) and 11 aquatic resource categories coexisting in Lake Tana in northern Ethiopia, analysing large sets of phenotypic consumer and resource traits with known roles in feeding ecology. We systematically reconstruct structure and geometry of trophic niche space, in which link strengths are predicted by the distances between consumers and resources. These distances are then represented graphically resulting in an image of trophic niche space and its occupancy. We find trophic niche to be multi-dimensional. Among the models we analysed, one with two resource and two consumer traits had the highest predictive power for link strength. Results further suggest that trophic niche space has a pseudo-Euclidean geometry, meaning that link strength decays with distance in some dimensions of trophic niche space, while it increases with distance in other dimensions. Our analysis not only informs theory and modelling, but may also be helpful for predicting trophic link strengths for pairs of other, similar species
A framework for implicit definitions and the a priori
No full textThe so called traditional connection – a position defended by Bob Hale and Crispin Wright – aims to account for our knowledge of arithmetic by appeal to the idea of implicit definitions and stipulations. The resulting picture is one that does not draw on epistemic support from empirical evidence or from pragmatic considerations and regards our arithmetical knowledge as genuinely a priori. In this paper, I will offer a general framework for a theory of implicit definitions and locate the main tenets of the traditional connection while also highlighting the main challenges this approach faces
Second-order logic : ontological and epistemological problems
No full textIn this thesis I provide a survey over different approaches to second-order logic
and its interpretation, and introduce a novel approach. Of special interest are the
questions whether (a particular form of) second-order logic can count as logic in some
(further to be specified) proper sense of logic, and what epistemic status it occupies.
More specifically, second-order logic is sometimes taken to be mathematical, a mere
notational variant of some fragment of set theory. If this is the case, it might be
argued that it does not have the "epistemic innocence" which would be needed
for, e.g., foundational programmes in (the philosophy of) mathematics for which
second-order logic is sometimes used. I suggest a Deductivist conception of logic,
that characterises logical consequence by means of inference rules, and argue that
on this conception second-order logic should count as logic in the proper sense
Stock-recruitment relations controlled by feeding interactions alone
No full textStock-recruitment (S-R) relationships are the centrepiece of fisheries management aimed at achieving maximum sustainable yield (MSY). Here we consider the possibility that the density dependence evident in S-R relations is controlled by feeding interactions alone. We simulate a food-web model with dynamic representations of intra- and interspecific size structure and a linear relation between food intake and hatchling production of adults. Population sizes of individual stocks are modified by imposing additional mortality. The predominant functional forms and the steepness of resulting S-R relationships agree well with observations. We conclude that recruitment is plausibly regulated by feeding interactions alone.<br/
Deposition of bismuth-titanate films with liquid-delivery spin MO-CVD
No full textA vertical liquid-delivery metal-organic chemical vapour deposition (MO-CVD) reactor was used to deposit Bi4Ti3O12 films on SrTiO3(100) substrates. Depending on the growth conditions the films show a pure Bi4Ti3O12 phase or additionally a Bi poor phase. Well-ordered, (001)oriented, epitaxially grown Bi4Ti3O12 films were obtained at a growth temperature of 700 degrees C, a Bi excess of 25%, and a substrate rotation between 500 and 750 rpm. The Bi deficiency can be influenced by the concentration of MO precursor in the liquid solution. Depositions on NdGaO3(110) also result in epitaxial (001)-oriented Bi4Ti3O12 films, but the structural quality was slightly poorer. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
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