【Philosophy】African philosophy cannot be a thing
This essay unpacks several arguments about the metaphilosophic nature of African philosophy and charts a way through the problems these arguments enco... [more]
【Philosophy】Fusion Philosophy and Epistemic Injustice
I use the concept of epistemic injustice to think through the practice and methodology of comparative, or fusion, philosophy. I make two related claim... [more]
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Redefining the X axis: Professionals,'' Amateurs'' and the making of mid-Victori
A summary of revisionist accounts of the contextual meaning of professional'' and amateur,'' as applied to the mid-Victorian X Club, is followed by an analysis of the liberal goals and inner tensions of this coalition of gentlemen specialists and gove
Rationalizing early embryogenesis in the 1930s: Albert Dalcq on gradients and fields
The present account aims to contribute to a better characterization of the state and the dynamics of embryological knowledge at the dawn of the molecular revolution in biology. In this study, Albert Dalcq (1893-1973) was chosen as a representative of a ge
Taking consumers seriously: Two concepts of consumer sovereignty
Governments, producers, and international free trade organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO) are increasingly confronted with consumers who not only buy (or don't buy) goods, but also demand that those goods are produced conforming to certa
The origins of time-asymmetry in thermodynamics: The minus first law
This paper investigates what the source of time asymmetry is in thermodynamics, and comments on the question whether a time-symmetric formulation of the Second Law is possible. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Effective field theories, reductionism and scientific explanation
Effective field theories have been a very popular tool in quantum physics for almost two decades. And there are good reasons for this. I will argue that effective field theories share many of the advantages of both fundamental theories and phenomenologica
Spacetime visualisation and the intelligibility of physical theories
This paper argues that spacetime visualisability is not a necessary condition for the intelligibility of theories in physics. Visualisation can be an important tool for rendering a theory intelligible, but it is by no means a sine qua non. The paper exami
Taking thermodynamics too seriously
This paper discusses the mistake of understanding the laws and concepts of thermodynamics too literally in the foundations of statistical mechanics. Arguing that this error is still made in subtle ways, the article explores its occurrence in three example
Local fluctuations and local observers in equilibrium statistical mechanics
The distribution function associated with a classical gas at equilibrium is considered. We prove that apart from a factorisable multiplier, the distribution function is fully determined by the correlations among local momenta fluctuations. Using this resu
Determinism and chance
It is generally thought that objective chances for particular events different from 1 and 0 and determinism are incompatible. However, there are important scientific theories whose laws are deterministic but which also assign non-trivial probabilities to
Entanglement and open systems in algebraic quantum field theory
Entanglement has long been the subject of discussion by philosophers of quantum theory, and has recently come to play an essential role for physicists in their development of quantum information theory. In this paper we show how the formalism of algebraic
Maxwell's demon and the thermodynamics of computation
it is generally accepted, following Landauer and Bennett, that the process of measurement involves no minimum entropy cost, but the erasure of information in resetting the memory register of a computer to zero requires dissipating heat into the environmen
Direction and description
This paper deals with the dependence of directionality in the course of events-or our claims concerning such directionality - on the modes of description we use in speaking of the events in question. I argue that criteria of similarity and individuation p
Prerequisites for a consistent framework of quantum gravity
An ontological approach to the analysis of conceptual frameworks of physical theories is introduced and then applied to the case of quantum gravity. The tension between the theoretical constraints posed, respectively, by general relativity and quantum fie
Can we explain thermodynamics by quantum decoherence?
Can we explain the laws of thermodynamics, in particular the irreversible increase of entropy, from the underlying quantum mechanical dynamics? Attempts based on classical dynamics have all failed. Albert (1994a,b; 2000) proposed a way to recover thermody
Building economic machines: The FCC auctions
The auctions of the Federal Communication Commission, designed in 1994 to sell spectrum licences, are one of the few widely acclaimed and copied cases of economic engineering to date. This paper includes a detailed narrative of the process of designing, t