18,562 research outputs found
ADAM SMITH'S OPTIMISTIC TELEOLOGICAL VIEW OF HISTORY
No full textAdam Smith's four-stage theory provides the framework for his writings on history. The fourth stage is the commercial epoch; the culmination of history in this stage is a key component in the conventional interpretation of Adam Smith as a prophet of commercialism. In two historical case studies Smith shows the capacity of commercial society to regenerate itself. This potent capacity suggests that commercial society is inevitable. At a certain point in time it also overcomes the major obstacles to its permanence. Smith's philosophy of history anticipates the end of history views of Kant and Hegel.Political Economy,
How Might Adam Smith Pay Professors Today?
No full textAdam Smith’s proposal for paying professors was intended to induce increased faculty knowledge. If students have imperfect information about what they learn, and universities can only imperfectly measure the input of faculty time in student learning, publications may be used to measure faculty knowledge. If professors’ ability to publish is positively related to their ability to produce student learning, which universities can imperfectly measure, publications may be necessary to attract more able professors. Since research signals faculty knowledge, schools that do not value publications per se could require higher publication standards and pay higher wages than schools that value only publications.
ADAM SMITH'S VIEW OF HISTORY: CONSISTENT OR PARADOXICAL?
No full textThe conventional interpretation of Adam Smith is that he is a prophet of commercialism. The liberal capitalist reading of Smith is consistent with the view that history culminates in commercial society. The first part of the article develops this optimistic interpretation of Smith's view of history. Smith implies that commercial society is the end of history because 1) it supplies the ends of nature that he identifies; 2) it is inevitable; and 3) it is permanent. The second part of the article shows that Smith has some dark moments in his writings where he seems to reject completely such teleological notions. In this more civic humanist mood he confesses that commercial society does not supply the ends of nature, nor is it inevitable, nor is it permanent. Both views exist in Smith and the commentator is forced to choose between passages in Smith's work in order to support a particular interpretation of the former's view of history.Political Economy,
Stanisław Pawłowski (1882–1940)
No full textProf. Stanisław Pawłowski (1882−1940) – geograf, geolog, pedagog – był w latach 1932−1933 rektorem Uniwersytetu Poznańskiego. Autor przedstawia sylwetkę wybitnego uczonego, badacza, dydaktyka i podróżnika. Pawłowski zaliczany jest do organizatorów Wydziału Filozoficznego Uniwersytetu Poznańskiego, założył Katedrę Geografii oraz późniejszy Instytut Geograficzny – był organizatorem poznańskiego ośrodka geograficznego. Przyczynił się w dużej mierze do badania polskiego wybrzeża Bałtyku, podejmował badania nad różnymi problemami nauk geograficznych, określał standardy metodologiczne i metodyczne geografii jako nauki oraz kierunki jej rozwoju. Stwierdzał, że przedmiotem badania geografii jest przestrzeń geograficzna, rozpoznanie substancji i zjawisk w przestrzeni oraz zbadanie związków między nimi. W swej twórczości naukowej dużo miejsca przeznaczał na problematykę geografii szkolnej. W nauczaniu geografii widział przyszłość i rozwój geografii jako dyscypliny naukowej
Taxonomist - Bogumił Pawłowski (1898-1971)
No full textDespite a signifi cant progress in the development of taxonomic research methods which are presently dominated by molecular methods, it is the specifi c man’s talent which is decisive for work quality in the fi eld of taxonomy. The variety in the world of vascular plants is enormous and it is diffi cult to fi nd the genetically established differences between the populations. It requires a well developed sense of observation and the ability of segregation of multi-trait systems. Professor Bogumił Pawłowski was exactly such a taxonomist showing that specifi c talent. Floristic research in Beskid Sądecki was his school where he recognized the variety of plants in their natural
habitats. He was engaged very early by his master Władysław Szafer in creating large works which were necessary for the botany in Poland. He becomes a co-author of the fi rst edition of “Polish Plants” and then he gets engaged in describing subsequent families in the multi-volume “Flora of Poland” which was initiated by Marian Raciborski. He also carries out intensive phytosociological research in the Tatra Mountains, along with his master and colleagues. It gives him the opportunity to recognize the fl ora of those mountains and to discover new species for them. After the II World War he becomes the main initiator of preparations for the second edition of “The Polish Plants”, i.e. the work which was rather new as it covered the post-war territory of Poland, whereby most of the book must have been changed and supplemented. At nearly the same time he works at the probably most important work of his life, i.e. “Flora of the Tatra Mountains” whose fi rst volume covering Pteridophytes, Gymnosperms and Angiosperms, is published in mid fi fties. Unfortunately, the work ended at that point, although the Professor had gathered materials for that during his whole life. In the beginning he is a coeditor, jointly with Władysław Szafer, of subsequent volumes of “The Flora of Poland”, then he becomes its editor himself, and he edits the fi nal volumes together with his disciple Adam Jasiewicz. He works out the whole families or genera for particular volumes. His greatest contribution covers the works on Alchemilla genus, where he is a highly esteemed monographer in the European scale. Those research works were carried out not only in Poland but also in other mountain ranges of our continent. Professor’s position in the fi eld of the European systematics made the editors of “Flora Europaea” engage him as their regional associate, where he works out some particular genera for the fi rst three volumes. Professor Bogumił Pawłowski showed wide interests in the fi eld of taxonomy. He published a number of works, mainly in Polish magazines, in the Latin language which he had mastered perfectly. It is worthwhile to mention the rich herbarium collections in the context of his achievements in the fi eld of systematics. It is a taxonomist’s workshop and, in principle, it will be possible to fully appreciate the Professor’s contribution in the development of taxonomy both in Poland and worldwide, as soon as they have been newly elaborated
The importance of being earnest (and average)
No full textWhen the aim of a study is comparing and contrasting texts of the same genre and achieving a good arrangement for a text clustering, we often resort to lexical-based approaches and appropriate measures of similarity/distance (Burrows, 2002; Juola, 2008; Rudman, 1998, Stamatatos, 2009; Labbé and Labbé, 2001; Tuzzi, 2010) between texts, e.g. cosine similarity, Burrows's Delta, Labbé's intertextual distance, etc. Given the properties and the formula of a distance, we obtain a square matrix that includes n×n cells and n(n-1)/2 positive non-zero non-redundant values that can be exploited for an automatic classification of the n available texts. This distance matrix might be read from an alternative perspective, i.e. as a ranking system: for each text we can sort all the other n-1 texts from the closest to the furthest. The distribution of these ranks among texts represents an interesting object of research (Alvo and Yu, 2014) when we consider the whole corpus and also when we observe groups of texts that share some properties (e.g. they belong to the same author).
A preliminary experiment involved a large corpus of contemporary Italian novels and showed that we can indentify some novels that systematically top positions in all rankings and prove to be close to most of the available texts; on the contrary, we have novels that do not show strong similarities in any list and systematically lie in the furthest positions. This study compared results achieved through different measures and formulated some hypothesis to understand when in text clustering it is worth either to distinguish "average" and "eccentric" novels or disregard them in in-depth investigations
Adam Smith and Roman Servitudes
No full textThis essay is a preprint of an article that appeared at: Tijdschrift voor Rechstsgeschiedenis, 72 (2004), 327–57.This essay discusses Adam Smith historical jurisprudence and his use of Roman law materials in his Lectures on Jurisprudence. It argues that Smith found it difficult to maintain his theory of legal development in the face of a highly developed body of Roman law literature
THE THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF ADAM SMITH'S WORK
No full textThe paper will discuss the theological foundation to Smith's writings. Teleology, final causes and divine design were initially seen as central to understanding Smith's writings. Over time, this view fell out of fashion. In the period after World War II, with the rise of positivism, commentators tended to overlook or downplay this interpretation. In the last decade, or so, teleology has started to be restored to its former position as an essential element in understanding Smith. After spelling out Smith's teleology and his view of final causes, divine design and the ends of nature, we try to explain the Panglossian nature of the 'new theistic view' of Smith. While our view differs somewhat, we agree with the essence of the 'new view' claim: a theological view exists in Smith which underpins his moral and economic theories.Political Economy,
Interview. Matthew Joseph with Adam Gussow, musician and author
No full textInterview in which Adam Gussow discusses hill country blues musi
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