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Modern Notion (modern + notion)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences80%

Selected Abstracts

Potential and Foetal Value

JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHILOSOPHY, Issue 2 2010
J. A. BURGESS
abstract The argument from potential has been hard to assess because the versions presented by friends and those presented by enemies have born very little resemblance to each other. I here try to improve this situation by attempting to bring both versions into enforced contact. To this end, I sketch a more detailed analysis of the modern concept of potential than any hitherto attempted. As one would expect, arguments from potential couched in terms of that notion are evident non-starters. I then ask how the modern notion of potential needs to be supplemented in order to produce a more convincing argument. I then enquire whether the supplementations utilised in the most distinguished recent presentations of the argument have anything better than an ad hoc role to play in contemporary metaphysics. I conclude that the rehabilitation of the argument is unlikely; in any event, the onus of proof seems to be on the friend of that argument to show that it is uncontrived. Finally, I argue that the (modern) notion of potential has an important role to play in any plausible account of foetal value. [source]

Measuring beta-diversity from taxonomic similarity

JOURNAL OF VEGETATION SCIENCE, Issue 6 2007
Giovanni Bacaro
Abstract Question: The utility of beta (,-) diversity measures that incorporate information about the degree of taxonomic (dis)similarity between species plots is becoming increasingly recognized. In this framework, the question for this study is: can we define an ecologically meaningful index of ,-diversity that, besides indicating simple species turnover, is able to account for taxonomic similarity amongst species in plots? Methods: First, the properties of existing measures of taxonomic similarity measures are briefly reviewed. Next, a new measure of plot-to-plot taxonomic similarity is presented that is based on the maximal common subgraph of two taxonomic trees. The proposed measure is computed from species presences and absences and include information about the degree of higher-level taxonomic similarity between species plots. The performance of the proposed measure with respect to existing coefficients of taxonomic similarity and the coefficient of Jaccard is discussed using a small data set of heath plant communities. Finally, a method to quantify ,-diversity from taxonomic dissimilarities is discussed. Results: The proposed measure of taxonomic ,-diversity incorporates not only species richness, but also information about the degree of higher-order taxonomic structure between species plots. In this view, it comes closer to a modern notion of biological diversity than more traditional measures of ,-di-versity. From regression analysis between the new coefficient and existing measures of taxonomic similarity it is shown that there is an evident nonlinearity between the coefficients. This nonlinearity demonstrates that the new coefficient measures similarity in a conceptually different way from previous indices. Also, in good agreement with the findings of previous authors, the regression between the new index and the Jaccard coefficient of similarity shows that more than 80% of the variance of the former is explained by the community structure at the species level, while only the residual variance is explained by differences in the higher-order taxonomic structure of the species plots. This means that a genuine taxonomic approach to the quantification of plot-to-plot similarity is only needed if we are interested in the residual system's variation that is related to the higher-order taxonomic structure of a pair of species plots. [source]

The Persistence of Patriarchy in Franz Kafka's "Judgment"

ORBIS LITERARUM, Issue 2 2000
David Pan
Though commentators such as Gerhard Neumann have read Kafka's "Judgment" as a critique of patriarchal authority and the tyranny of familial relations, the story's powerful effect originates from the affirmation of patriarchal authority which motivates its plot. The story situates the protagonist in a conflict between the demands of a patriarchal family and a universalist culture outside the family based on friendship. The victory of the father and the resulting death of the son function as part of an attempt to recover traditional structures of authority which have been eroded by a modern notion of culture based on individual freedom and ,elective' affinities rather than binding ones. The death of the son is not an example of senseless repression but of a self-sacrifice of modern and individualist desires in favor of the patriarchal authority of the father. [source]

The Place Of Geometry: Heidegger's Mathematical Excursus On Aristotle

THE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 3 2001
Stuart Elden
,The Place of Geometry' discusses the excursus on mathematics from Heidegger's 1924,25 lecture course on Platonic dialogues, which has been published as Volume 19 of the Gesamtausgabe as Plato's Sophist, as a starting point for an examination of geometry in Euclid, Aristotle and Descartes. One of the crucial points Heidegger makes is that in Aristotle there is a fundamental difference between arithmetic and geometry, because the mode of their connection is different. The units of geometry are positioned, the units of arithmetic unpositioned. Following Heidegger's claim that the Greeks had no word for space, and David Lachterman's assertion that there is no term corresponding to or translatable as ,space' in Euclid's Elements, I examine when the term ,space' was introduced into Western thought. Descartes is central to understanding this shift, because his understanding of extension based in terms of mathematical co-ordinates is a radical break with Greek thought. Not only does this introduce this word ,space' but, by conceiving of geometrical lines and shapes in terms of numerical co-ordinates, which can be divided, it turns something that is positioned into unpositioned. Geometric problems can be reduced to equations, the length (i.e, quantity) of lines: a problem of number. The continuum of geometry is transformed into a form of arithmetic. Geometry loses position just as the Greek notion of ,place' is transformed into the modern notion of space. [source]

The Soul of Reciprocity Part One: Reciprocity Refused

MODERN THEOLOGY, Issue 3 2001
John Milbank
In this first of a two-part essay, Milbank contends that "Intersubjectivity poses itself both as a problem and as a solution only within the regime of representation that has prevailed since Descartes , although it was foreshadowed by post-Scottish scholasticism." The first part, then, is given over to a deconstruction of modern notions of the self in anticipation of the second part, which is a constructive proposal for a recovery of the soul. In the present essay, then, Milbank's intention is to show that "we should abandon the attempt to modify the regime of subjectivity with postmodern trans-humanism or else phenomenological intersubjectivity, or else again the neo-Kantian ethics of finitude, and instead attempt to recover the regime of the soul." [source]