This book is the first to trace the origins and significance of positivism on a global scale. Taking their cues from Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill, positivists pioneered a universal, experience-based culture of scientific inquiry for studying nature and society-a new science that would enlighten all of humankind. Positivists envisaged one world united by science, but their efforts spawned many. Uncovering these worlds of positivism, the volume ranges from India, the Ottoman Empire, and the Iberian Peninsula to Central Europe, Russia, and Brazil, examining positivism's impact as one of the most far-reaching intellectual movements of the modern world. Positivists reinvented science, claiming it to be distinct from and superior to the humanities. They predicated political governance on their refashioned science of society, and as political activists, they sought and often failed to reconcile their universalism with the values of multiculturalism. Providing a genealogy of scientific governance that is sorely needed in an age of post-truth politics, this volume breaks new ground in the fields of intellectual and global history, the history of science, and philosophy.

The sea is steadily rising, presently at ~3.4 mm/y, already costing Billions in Venice, on the Thames River and in New York City, to counter sea-level-related surges. Experts anticipate an accelerated rise, and credible predictions for sea level rise by the year 2100 range from 12 inches to above 6 feet. Study of the Earth's geologic history, through ice-core samples, links sea level rise to temperature rise. Since the lifetime of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is measured in centuries, and it has upset the balance of incoming and outgoing energy, the Earth's temperature will continue to rise, even if carbon burning ceases. Engineering the Earth's solar input appears increasingly attractive and practical as a means to lower Earth's temperature, and thus, to lower sea level. The cost of engineering the climate appears small, comparable, even, to the already-incurred costs of sea level rise represented by civil engineering projects in London, Venice and New York City. Feasible deployment of geoengineering, accompanied by some reduction in carbon burning, is predicted to lower the sea level by the order of one foot by 2100 AD, negating the expected rise, to provide an immense economic benefit. The accompanying lower global temperature would reduce the severity of extreme weather, and restore habitability to lethally hot parts of the world. This book is primarily conceived to aid and inform the educated citizen: aspects may also interest climate workers.

The diagnosis of 'Dyslexia' and the medical problematisation of reading difficulties were almost unknown one hundred years ago, yet today the British Dyslexia Association estimates that up to ten per cent of the UK population may have some form of dyslexia, with numbers in the United States estimated to be as high as twenty per cent. The Government of Reading investigates how this problematisation developed and how a diagnostic category was shaped in response to this.

All students of physics need to understand the basic concepts of electricity and magnetism. E&M is central to the study of physics, and central to understanding the developments of the last two hundred years of not just science, but technology and society in general. But the core of electricity and magnetism can be difficult to understand - many of the ideas are counterintuitive and difficult to appreciate. This volume in the Greenwood Guides to Great Ideas in Science series traces the central concepts of electricity and magnetism from the ancient past to the present day, enabling students to develop a deeper understanding of how the science arose as it has. In addition, Electricity and Magnetism: A Historical Perspective supports curriculum guidelines that stress student understanding of the history and nature of the scientific enterprise. The volume examines the work of many of the most important scientists of the past: Benjamin Franklin and his fluid theory of electricity BLJames Clerk Maxwell and the development of the theory of electromagnetism BLAlbert Einstein and his special theory of relativity, which arose from debates over Maxwell's theory Electricity and Magnetism also examines the importance of the scientific research to modern technology - radio and television, computers, and light and power. Jargon and mathematics is kept to a minimum, and the volume includes a timeline and an annotated bibliography of useful print and online works for further research.Electricity and Magnetism is an ideal introduction for students studying physics and technology and who need to understand the history and nature of the scientific enterprise.

This book restores the concept of topology to its rhetorical roots to assist scholars who wish not just to criticize power dynamics, but also to invent alternatives. Topology is a spatial rather than a causal method. It works inductively to model discourse without reducing it to the actions of a few or resolving its inherent contradictions. By putting topology back in tension with opportunity, as originally designed, the contributors to this volume open up new possibilities for post-critical practice in "wicked discourses" of medicine, technology, literacy, and the environment. Readers of the volume will discover exactly how the discipline of rhetoric underscores and interacts with current notions of topology in philosophy, design, psychoanalysis, and science studies.

Since the middle of the 19th century, debates over evolution have occurred almost non-stop. From the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species to the recent Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, there has rarely been a time in which scientists, educators, theologians, politicians, and judges have not been involved in these debates. How can anyone keep all of these individuals straight without a scorecard? More than Darwin is that resource, providing accessible and balanced synopses of every major person, organization and place involved in the long history of the evolution-creationism controversies. The hundreds of entries in More than Darwin: The People and Places of the Evolution-Creationism Controversy cover the entire range of topics in the history of the debate: BLScientists -- for example, Charles Darwin, William Hamilton BLReligious Leaders -- Henry Ward Beecher, Bob Jones, Kent Hovind, and many others BLLawyers and Plaintiffs -- e.g., Wendell Bird, Clarence Darrow, Don Aguillard BLOrganizations -- American Civil Liberties Union, Answers in Genesis, and more BLPlaces -- Dayton, Tennessee, The Galapagos Islands, and others BLEvolution and Creationism in Popular Culture, such as The Flintstones, and Inherit the Wind The encyclopedia includes a bibliography of sources for further research and is heavily illustrated with some never-before-seen images of the people and places of this never-ending controversy.

In the Wake of the Compendia presents papers that examine the history of technical compendia as they moved between institutions and societies in ancient and medieval Mesopotamia. This volume offers new perspectives on the development and transmission of technical compilations, looking especially at the relationship between empirical knowledge and textual transmission in early scientific thinking. The eleven contributions to the volume derive from a panel held at the American Oriental Society in 2013 and cover more than three millennia of historical development, ranging from Babylonian medicine and astronomy to the persistence of Mesopotamian lore in Syriac and Arabic meditations on the properties of animals. The volume also includes major contributions on the history of Mesopotamian "rationality," epistemic labels for tested and tried remedies, and the development of depersonalized case histories in Babylonian therapeutic compendia. Together, these studies offer an overview of several important moments in the development of non-Western scientific thinking and a significant contribution to our understanding of how traditions of technical knowledge were produced and transmitted in the ancient world.

This comprehensive volume gives a balanced and systematic treatment of both the interpretation and the mathematical-conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics. It is written in a pedagogical style and addresses many thorny problems of fundamental physics. The first aspect concerns Interpretation. The author raises the central problems: formalism, measurement, non-locality, and causality. The main positions on these subjects are presented and critically analysed. The aim is to show that the main schools can converge on a core interpretation. The second aspect concerns Foundations. Here it is shown that the whole theory can be grounded on information theory. The distinction between information and signal leads us to integrating quantum mechanics and relativity. Category theory is presented and its significance for quantum information shown; the logic and epistemological bases of the theory are assessed. Of relevance to all physicists and philosophers with an interest in quantum theory and its foundations, this book is destined to become a classic work.

"Cartesian Empiricisms "considers the role Cartesians played in the acceptance of experiment in natural philosophy during the seventeenth century. It aims to correct a partial image of Cartesian philosophers as paradigmatic system builders who failed to meet challenges posed by the new science's innovative methods. Studies in this volume argue that far from being strangers to experiment, many Cartesians used and integrated it into their natural philosophies. Chapter 1 reviews the historiographies of early modern philosophy, science, and Cartesianism and their recent critiques. The first part of the volume explores various Cartesian contexts of experiment: the impact of French condemnations of Cartesian philosophy in the second half of the seventeenth century; the relation between Cartesian natural philosophy and the Parisian academies of the 1660s; the complex interplay between Cartesianism and Newtonianism in the Dutch Republic; the Cartesian influence on medical teaching at the University of Duisburg; and the challenges chemistry posed to the Cartesian theory of matter. The second part of the volume examines the work of particular Cartesians, such as Henricus Regius, Robert Desgabets, Jacques Rohault, Burchard de Volder, Antoine Le Grand, and Balthasar Bekker. Together these studies counter scientific revolution narratives that take rationalism and empiricism to be two mutually exclusive epistemological and methodological paradigms. The volume is thus a helpful instrument for anyone interested both in the histories of early modern philosophy and science, as well as for scholars interested in new evaluations of the historiographical tools that framed our traditional narratives.

Newton's classical physics and its underlying ontology are loaded with several metaphysical hypotheses that cannot be justified by rational reasoning nor by experimental evidence. Furthermore, it is well known that some of these hypotheses are not contained in the great theories of Modern Physics, such as the theory of Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. This book shows that, on the basis of Newton's classical physics and by rational reconstruction, the theory of Special Relativity as well as Quantum Mechanics can be obtained by partly eliminating or attenuating the metaphysical hypotheses. Moreover, it is shown that these reconstructions do not require additional hypotheses or new experimental results. In the second edition the rational reconstructions are completed with respect to General Relativity and Cosmology. In addition, the statistics of quantum objects is elaborated in more detail with respect to the rational reconstruction of quantum mechanics. The new material completes the approach of the book as much as it is possible at the present state of knowledge. Presumably, the most important contribution that is added to the second edition refers to the problem of interpretation of the three great theories of Modern Physics. It is shown in detail that in the light of rational reconstructions even realistic interpretations of the three theories of Modern Physics are possible and can easily be achieved.

This book presents the proceedings of the 2nd Karl Schwarzschild Meeting on Gravitational Physics, focused on the general theme of black holes, gravity and information.Specialists in the field of black hole physics and rising young researchers present the latest findings on the broad topic of black holes, gravity, and information, highlighting its applications to astrophysics, cosmology, particle physics, and strongly correlated systems.

The book shows how eastern and western perspectives and conceptions can be used to addresses recent topics laying at the crossroad between philosophy and cognitive science. It reports on new points of view and conceptions discussed during the International Conference on Philosophy and Cognitive Science (PCS2013), held at the Sun Yat-sen University, in Guangzhou, China, and the 2013 Workshop on Abductive Visual Cognition, which took place at KAIST, in Deajeon, South Korea. The book emphasizes an ever-growing cultural exchange between academics and intellectuals coming from different fields. It juxtaposes research works investigating new facets on key issues between philosophy and cognitive science, such as the role of models and causal representations in science; the status of theoretical concepts and quantum principles; abductive cognition, vision, and visualization in science from an eco-cognitive perspective. Further topics are: ignorance immunization in reasoning; moral cognition, violence, and epistemology; and models and biomorphism. The book, which presents a unique and timely account of the current state-of-the art on various aspects in philosophy and cognitive science, is expected to inspire philosophers, cognitive scientists and social scientists, and to generate fruitful exchanges and collaboration among them.

This book explores the rise of theoretical physics in 19th century Germany. The authors show how the junior second physicist in German universities over time became the theoretical physicist, of equal standing to the experimental physicist. Gustav Kirchhoff, Hermann von Helmholtz, and Max Planck are among the great German theoretical physicists whose work and career are examined in this book. Physics was then the only natural science in which theoretical work developed into a major teaching and research specialty in its own right. Readers will discover how German physicists arrived at a well-defined field of theoretical physics with well understood and generally accepted goals and needs. The authors explain the nature of the work of theoretical physics with many examples, taking care always to locate the research within the workplace. The book is a revised and shortened version of Intellectual Mastery of Nature: Theoretical Physics from Ohm to Einstein, a two-volume work by the same authors. This new edition represents a reformulation of the larger work. It retains what is most important in the original work, while including new material, sharpening discussions, and making the research more accessible to readers. It presents a thorough examination of a seminal era in physics.

This volume offers a wide range of both reconstructions of Nikolai Vasiliev's original logical ideas and their implementations in the modern logic and philosophy. A collection of works put together through the international workshop "Nikolai Vasiliev's Logical Legacy and the Modern Logic," this book also covers foundations of logic in the light of Vasiliev's contradictory ontology. Chapters range from a look at the Heuristic and Conceptual Background of Vasiliev's Imaginary Logic to Generalized Vasiliev-style Propositions. It includes works which cover Imaginary and Non-Aristotelian Logics, Inconsistent Set Theory and the Expansion of Mathematical Thinking, Plurivalent Logic, and the Impact of Vasiliev's Imaginary Logic on Epistemic Logic. The Russian logician, Vasiliev, was widely recognized as one of the forerunners of modern non-classical logic. His "imaginary logic" developed in some of his work at the beginning of 20th century is often considered to be one of the first systems of paraconsistent and multi-valued logic. The novelty of his logical project has opened up prospects for modern logic as well as for non-classical science in general. This volume contains a selection of papers written by modern specialists in the field and deals with various aspects of Vasiliev's logical ideas. The logical legacy of Nikolai Vasiliev can serve as a promising source for developing an impressive range of philosophical interpretations, as it marries promising technical innovations with challenging philosophical insights.

The book has two parts: In the first, after a review of some seminal classical accounts of laws and explanations, a new account is proposed for distinguishing between laws and accidental generalizations (LAG). Among the new consequences of this proposal it is proved that any explanation of a contingent generalization shows that the generalization is not accidental. The second part involves physical theories, their modality, and their explanatory power. In particular, it is shown that (1) Each theory has a theoretical implication structure associated with it, such that there are new physical modal operators on these structures and also special modal entities that are in these structures. A special subset of the physical modals, the nomic modals are associated with the laws of theories. (2) The familiar idea that theories always explain laws by deduction of them has to be seriously modified in light of the fact that there are a host of physical theories (including for example, Newtonian Classical mechanics, Hamiltonian, and Lagrangian theory, and probability theory) that we believe are schematic (they do not have any truth value). Nevertheless, we think that there is a kind of non-deductive explanation and generality that they achieve by subsumtion under a schema.

This book presents a detailed history of chemical warfare development during the First World War and discusses design approaches to gas masks and the performance of new filter materials that decontaminate chemical warfare agents (CWA) when applied in the vapor phase. It describes multifunctional nanocomposites containing zinc and zirconium (hydr)oxides, graphite oxide and silver or gold nanoparticles as reactive adsorbents for the degradation of the CWAs vapors. In addition it examines in detail the surface properties that are most important in the mineralization performance.

William Gascoigne (c.1612-44) was the inventor of the telescopic sight and micrometer (instruments crucial to the advance of astronomy). His name is now known to historians of science around the world. For some considerable time after his tragic death at the age of 32 in the English Civil War, however, it seemed as if his achievements would be consigned to oblivion. Most of his papers were lost and even the few that survived have largely disappeared. This is the story of how his work was rescued. Into this story is woven an account of the state of astronomy and optics during Gascoigne's lifetime, so that the reader can appreciate the significance of his discoveries.

This volume explores the inadequacies of the two standard conceptions of space or spacetime, substantivalism and relationism, and in the process, proposes a new historical interpretation of these physical theories. This book also examines and develops alternative ontological conceptions of space, and explores additional historical elements of seventeenth century theories and other metaphysical themes. The author first discusses the two main opposing theories of the ontology of space. One, known as substantivalism, proposes space to be an entity that can exist independently of material things. The other, relationism, contends that space is a relation among material things. Readers will learn about specific problems with this dichotomy. First, Newton and Leibniz are often upheld as the retrospective forerunners of substantivalism and relationism. But, their work often contradicts the central tenets of these views. Second, these theories have proven problematic when transferred to a modern setting, especially with regards to general relativity and the recent quantum gravity hypotheses. The author details an alternative set of concepts that address these problems. The author also develops a new classificational system that provides a more accurate taxonomy for the elements of all spatial ontologies. This classification obtains successful analogies between Newton, Leibniz, and other natural philosophers with contemporary physical theories.