Theoretical construction in physics – The role of Leibniz for Weyl's ‘Philosophie der Mathematik und Naturwissenschaft’

This paper aims at closing a gap in recent Weyl research by investigating the role played by Leibniz for the development and consolidation of Weyl's notion of theoretical (symbolic) construction. For Weyl, just as for Leibniz, mathematics was not simply an accompanying tool when doing physics—for him it meant the ability to engage in well-guided speculations about a general framework of reality and experience. The paper first introduces some of the background of Weyl's notion of theoretical construction and then discusses particular Leibnizian inheritances in Weyl's ‘Philosophie der Mathematik und Naturwissenschaft’, such as the general appreciation of the principles of sufficient reason and of continuity. Afterwards the paper focuses on three themes: first, Leibniz's primary quality phenomenalism, which according to Weyl marked the decisive step in realizing that physical qualities are never apprehended directly; second, the conceptual relation between continuity and freedom; and third, Leibniz's notion of ‘expression’, which allows for a certain type of (surrogative) reasoning by structural analogy and which gave rise to Weyl's optimism regarding the scope of theoretical construction.     

‘Natures’ and ‘Laws’: The making of the concept of law of nature – Robert Grosseteste (c. 1168–1253) and Roger Bacon (1214/1220–1292)

Contemporary scholars set the Greek conception of an immanent natural order in opposition to the seventeenth century mechanistic conception of extrinsic laws imposed upon nature from without. By contrast, we argue that in the process of making the concept of law of nature, forms and laws were coherently used in theories of natural causation. We submit that such a combination can be found in the thirteenth century. The heroes of our claim are Robert Grosseteste who turned the idea of corporeal form into the common feature of matter, and Roger Bacon who described the effects of that common feature. Bacon detached the explanatory principle from matter and rendered it independent and therefore external to natural substances. Our plausibility argument, anchored in close reading of the relevant texts, facilitates a coherent conception of both ‘natures’ and ‘laws’.     

‘The Great Fiasco’ of the 1948 presidential election polls: status recognition and norms conflict in social science

All three ‘scientific’ pollsters (Crossley, Gallup and Roper) wrongly predicted incumbent President Harry Truman’s defeat in the 1948 presidential election, and thus faced a potentially serious legitimacy crisis. This ‘fiasco’ occurred at a most inopportune time. Social science was embroiled in a policy debate taking place in the halls of Congress. It was fighting a losing battle to be included, along with the natural sciences, in the National Science Foundation, for which legislation was being drafted. Faced with the failure of the polls, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) intervened quickly to prevent social science’s adversaries from using this event to degrade further its status. After all, many social scientists considered the sample survey as the paramount tool of social research, and sampling as one of social science’s greatest innovation. Concurrently, there was an ongoing conflict among polling practitioners themselves—between advocates of probability sampling and users of quotas, like the pollsters. The SSRC committee appointed to evaluate the polling debacle managed to keep this contentious issue of sampling from becoming the centre of attention. Given the inauspicious environment in which this event happened, the SSRC did not wish to advertise the fact that the house of social science was in turmoil.     

The concept of “character” in Dirichlet’s theorem on primes in an arithmetic progression

In 1837, Dirichlet proved that there are infinitely many primes in any arithmetic progression in which the terms do not all share a common factor. We survey implicit and explicit uses of Dirichlet characters in presentations of Dirichlet’s proof in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with an eye toward understanding some of the pragmatic pressures that shaped the evolution of modern mathematical method.     

The story of ‘Scientist: The Story of a Word’

This examination of an important paper by Sydney Ross is the first in a projected series of occasional reflections on ‘Annals of Science Classic Papers’ that have had enduring utility within the field of history of science and beyond. First the messages of the paper are examined, some well known but others, particularly Ross's own contemporary concerns about the use of the word ‘scientist’, less so. The varied uses made of the paper by scholars are then traced before Ross's biography is examined in order to try to understand how a figure professionally marginal to the field of history of science came to write such a significant piece. Ross’s interest in the topic appears to have been informed by a romantically tinged scientific progressivism and a deep concern with the importance of linguistic precision in science and in public affairs. The inspirations of the author and the interests of his audience have been only partially aligned, but the paper's insights remain of broad historical interest and have wider ramifications since the denotation ‘scientist’ and its proper application are much debated today in contests over the authority of science.     

Was Feyerabend an anarchist? The structure(s) of ‘anything goes’

The near consensus in the secondary literature on Feyerabend is that his epistemological anarchism, characterized by the slogan ‘anything goes’, was not a positive proposal but the conclusion of a reductio argument against his opponents (Lloyd 1997; Staley 1999; Munévar 2000; Farrell 2003; Tsou 2003; Oberheim 2006; Roe 2009). This makes anarchism a mere criticism rather than a substantive position in its own right. In this paper, I argue that Feyerabend held anarchism as a positive thesis. Specifically, I present two possible interpretations of anarchism: one where anarchism is entailed by Feyerabend's radical view of pluralism and another where scientists must be ‘methodological opportunists’, which Feyerabend held simultaneously from at least 1970. I then consider how these positions fare against the more influential criticisms of anarchism (Nagel 1977; Worrall 1978; Godfrey-Smith 2003). I conclude by suggesting two avenues to constraining a literal interpretation of ‘anything goes’ on Feyerabendian grounds.     

Analogy and falsification in Descartes’ physics

In this paper I address Descartes’ use of analogy in physics. First, I introduce Descartes’ hypothetical reasoning, distinguishing between analogy and hypothesis. Second, I examine in detail Descartes’ use of analogy to both discover causes and add plausibility to his hypotheses—even though not always explicitly stated, Descartes’ practice assumes a unified view of the subject matter of physics as the extension of bodies in terms of their size, shape and the motion of their parts. Third, I present Descartes’ unique “philosophy of analogy”, where the absence of analogy serves as a criterion for falsifying proposed explanations in physics. I conclude by defending Descartes’ philosophy of analogy by appeal to the value scientists assign to simplicity in their explanations.     

The ‘Chemistry of Space’: The Sources of Hermann Grassmann's Scientific Achievements

Albert Lewis's article (Annals of Science, 1977) analysing the influence of Friedrich Schleiermacher on Hermann Grassmann, stimulated many different studies on the founder of n-dimensional outer algebra.

Following a brief outline of the various, sometimes diverging, analyses of Grassmann's creative thinking, new research is presented which confirms Lewis's original contribution and widens it considerably. It will be shown that:

i.?Grassmann, although a self-taught mathematician, was at the centre of a hitherto understated intellectual trend, which was defining for Germany. Initiated by Pestalozzi's concept of elementary mathematical education and culminating in the modern mathematics of the late 19th Century, it was reflected in the contributions of Grassmann, Riemann, Jacobi and Eisenstein.

ii.?Hermann Grassmann, his father Justus, and his brother Robert were all demonstrably influenced by Schleiermacher's dialectic; however the two brothers responded to it in very different ways.

iii.?Whilst the more philosophical parts of Hermann's 1844 Extension Theory are characterised by the influence of Schleiermacher and also by the mathematical knowledge of his father, the entire development of this work is the unfolding of a single idea based on the father's interpretation of combinatorial multiplication as a ‘chemical conjunction‘, which was developed largely dialectically by Hermann.     

‘Holding’ and ‘endorsing’ claims in the course of scientific activities

My principal aims are to show that holding, adopting and endorsing (definitions of which I provide) are distinct cognitive attitudes that may be taken towards claims at different moments of scientific activities, and that none of them are reducible to acceptance (as defined by Jonathan Cohen); to explore in detail the differences between holding and accepting, using the controversies about GMOs to provide illustrations; and to draw some implications pertinent to democratic decision-making concerning public policies about science and technology, and to the responsibilities that scientists thereby incur.     

The implication of neuronimmunoendocrine (NIE) modulatory network in the pathophysiologic process of Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder implicitly marked by the substantia nigra dopaminergic neuron degeneration and explicitly characterized by the motor and non-motor symptom complexes. Apart from the nigrostriatal dopamine depletion, the immune and endocrine study findings are also frequently reported, which, in fact, have helped to broaden the symptom spectrum and better explain the pathogenesis and progression of PD. Nevertheless, based on the neural, immune, and endocrine findings presented above, it is still difficult to fully recapitulate the pathophysiologic process of PD. Therefore, here, in this review, we have proposed the neuroimmunoendocrine (NIE) modulatory network in PD, aiming to achieve a more comprehensive interpretation of the pathogenesis and progression of this disease. As a matter of fact, in addition to the classical motor symptoms, NIE modulatory network can also underlie the non-motor symptoms such as gastrointestinal, neuropsychiatric, circadian rhythm, and sleep disorders in PD. Moreover, the dopamine (DA)–melatonin imbalance in the retino-diencephalic/mesencephalic-pineal axis also provides an alternative explanation for the motor complications in the process of DA replacement therapy. In conclusion, the NIE network can be expected to deepen our understanding and facilitate the multi-dimensional management and therapy of PD in future clinical practice.     

The potential importance of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease

The exact cause of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is still unknown, but the deposition of amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques and chronic inflammation indicates that immune disturbances are involved in AD pathogenesis. Recent genetic studies have revealed that many candidate genes are expressed in both microglia and myeloid cells which infiltrate into the AD brains. Invading myeloid cells controls the functions of resident microglia in pathological conditions, such as AD pathology. AD is a neurologic disease with inflammatory component where the immune system is not able to eliminate the perpetrator, while, concurrently, it should prevent neuronal injuries induced by inflammation. Recent studies have indicated that AD brains are an immunosuppressive microenvironment, e.g., microglial cells are hyporesponsive to Aβ deposits and anti-inflammatory cytokines enhance Aβ deposition. Immunosuppression is a common element in pathological disorders involving chronic inflammation. Studies on cancer-associated inflammation have demonstrated that myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) have a crucial role in the immune escape of tumor cells. Immunosuppression is not limited to tumors, since MDSCs can be recruited into chronically inflamed tissues where inflammatory mediators enhance the proliferation and activation of MDSCs. AD brains express a range of chemokines and cytokines which could recruit and expand MDSCs in inflamed AD brains and thus generate an immunosuppressive microenvironment. Several neuroinflammatory disorders, e.g., the early phase of AD pathology, have been associated with an increase in the level of circulating MDSCs. We will elucidate the immunosuppressive armament of MDSCs and present evidences in support of the crucial role of MDSCs in the pathogenesis of AD.     

‘Chromatoid body’ in the spermatogenesis of scorpions

Zusammenfassung Die von früheren Autoren als «Chromatoidkörper» bezeichnete Struktur der Spermatozoiden von Skorpionen,Palamnaeus bengalensis, ist kein wirklicher «Chromatoidkörper», sondern ein Hilfskörper lipoprotonischer Natur ohne jegliche RNA.     

The classical ‘Golgi apparatus’ in the vertebrate nerve cells

Zusammenfassung Der Golgi-Apparat in den Neuronen des Rückenmarks der Wirbeltiere entsteht aus Ablagerungen von Osmium oder Silber an Nissl-Körperchen und an mit ihnen verbundenen Canaliculi und Spaltsystemen. Lipoidkörperchen und/oder Mitochondrien sind in bezug auf Bildung von sekundärer Bedeutung.     

Temperature-induced reversal of dominance of variegation in ‘Ornamental kale’

Résumé La transmission de l'albinisme panaché deBrassica oleracea L. ne dépend que d'un seul facteur. Chez les hétérozygotes ce caractère apparaît à basse température (7°C), mais pas à haute température (21°C). Chez les homozygotes le caractère se manifeste probablement toujours, tout en restant peu prononcé à des températures plus élevées. Ainsi il y a une inversion du caractère dominant avec changement de température.     

The proton Compton wavelength as the ‘quantum’ of length

Résumé La plupart des longueurs expérimentales concernant les forces fondamentales dans le nucleus sont des multiples intégraux de la longueur d'onde Compton, ₀, du proton, où ₀=h/m ₀ c=1.32×10^–13 cm (qui peut ainsi s'appeler un « compton »). Ces longueurs comprennent la portée effective des interactions des nucléons, et les amplitudes de dispersion.On a également trouvé par différentes méthodes que le radius d'unité,R ₀, du nucleus se situe entre 1,0 et 1,5 × 10^–13 cm. Il semble donc que le vrai radius du proton peut bien être sa longueur d'onde Compton.     

The role of ‘complex’ empiricism in the debates about satellite data and climate models

Climate scientists have been engaged in a decades-long debate over the standing of satellite measurements of the temperature trends of the atmosphere above the surface of the earth. This is especially significant because skeptics of global warming and the greenhouse effect have utilized this debate to spread doubt about global climate models used to predict future states of climate. I use this case from an understudied science to illustrate two distinct philosophical approaches to the relations among data, scientist, measurement, models, and theory. I argue that distinguishing between ‘direct’ empiricist and ‘complex’ empiricist approaches helps us understand and analyze this important scientific episode. I also introduce a complex empiricist account of testing and evaluation, and contrast it with the basic Hypothetico-Deductive approach to the climate models used by the direct empiricists. This more developed complex empiricist approach will serve philosophy of science well, as computational models become more widespread in the sciences.