Multiharmonic Hamiltonian models with applications to first-order resonances

ABSTRACT In this work, two multiharmonic Hamiltonian models for mean motion resonances are formulated and their applications to first-order resonances are discussed. For the kp:k resonance, the usual critical argument φ = kλ − kpλp + (kp − k)ϖ is taken as the resonant angle in the first model, while the second model is characterized by a new critical argument σ = φ/kp. Based on canonical transformations, the resonant Hamiltonians associated with these two models are formulated. It is found that the second Hamiltonian model holds two advantages in comparison with the first model: (i) providing a direct correspondence between phase portraits and Poincaré sections, and (ii) presenting new phase-space structures where the zero-eccentricity point is a visible saddle point. Then, the second Hamiltonian model is applied to the first-order inner and outer resonances, including the 2:1, 3:2, 4:3, 2:3, and 3:4 resonances. The phase-space structures of these first-order resonances are discussed in detail and then the libration centres and associated resonant widths are identified analytically. Simulation results show that there are pericentric and apocentric libration zones where the libration centres diverge away from the nominal resonance location as the eccentricity approaches zero and, in particular, the resonance separatrices do not vanish at arbitrary eccentricities for both the inner and outer (first-order) resonances.

Kontroversi Surat Al-Fatihah Dalam Pandangan Arthur Jeffery

Amongst some orientalist of Qur’anic studies, Arthur Jeffery was one of the controversial figures for the idea of a critical edition of the Qur’an. For Jeffery, the Qur’an existed today is unreasonable and its arrangement is clearly haphazard. One of his critical argument is surah al-Fatihah which indicated not originally part of the Qur’an. His work “the variant readings of the Fatihah” showed some peculiar nature of al-Fatiha with the evidence of two Fatihah different versions. Jeffery’s variants study is a polemical argument as its contradicts to the Muslim scholar arguments. For Muslim scholars, al-Fatihah is an integrated part of Qur’an. Therefore, this article will analyze Jeffery’s argument on al-Fatihah through a descriptive-analytic method. Based on historical, language, and qira’ah study, Jeffery’s argument is incorrect. In addition, Jeffery failed to show the existence of his evidence of variant of al-Fatihah.Keywords: Critic; Controversy; Fatiha; Muslim; the Qur’an AbstrakDiantara sekian banyak para orientalis pengkaji al-Qur’an, Arthur Jeffery merupakan salah satu sosok yang paling kontroversial dengan gagasannya untuk membuat al-Qur’an edisi kritis. Menurut Jeffery, al-Qur’an yang ada saat ini sangat tidak jelas dan susunannya dilakukan secara sembarangan. Salah satu bagian yang Jeffery kritisi adalah surat al-Fatihah yang dianggap bukan bagian dari al-Qur’an. Dalam tulisannya yang berjudul the variant readings of the Fatihah, dia menunjukkan kejanggalan dalam surat al-Fatihah dengan menunjukkan bukti dua variasi surat al-Fatihah yang berbeda. Kajian ini mengundang polemik karena bertentangan dengan pandangan para sarjana Muslim yang menganggap al-Fatihah sebagai bagian penting dari al-Qur’an. Tulisan ini akan menganalisasi pandangan Jeffery terhadap surat al-Fatihah melalui metode deskriptif-analitis. Melalui kajian historis, kebahasaan, dan ilmu qira’at, argumen skeptis Jeffery terhadap al-Fatihah terbantahkan. Ditambah lagi, Jeffery tidak mampu membuktikan keberadaan variasi surat al-Fatihah yang dia yakini. Kata Kunci: al-Fatihah; al-Qur’an; Kontroversi; Kritik; Muslim

The Role Of Truth In Explanatory Understanding

This paper discusses the polemical question of whether explanations that produce understanding must be true. It argues positively for the role of truth in reaching explanatory understanding, by presenting three lines of criticism of alternative accounts. The first is that by rejecting truth as a criterion for evaluating explanations, any non-factual account thereby effectively cuts ties with the central theories of explanations, which provide at least partial criteria for explanatory understanding. The second line of criticism is that some of the most well-known non-factual accounts implicitly operate over a notion of partial-truth, and as such, they do not provide a valid alternative. The final critical argument is that, in the place of truth evaluations, these accounts often offer a multiplicity of other criteria, and by changing a unitary criterion such as truth for a collection of other requirements, these non-factive theories introduce a level of ad hoc-ness, which diminishes their normative value.

From Sodom to Shalem

This chapter details the first central thesis of the book, its principal text-critical argument: that Melchizedek originally appeared in the text of Gen. 14 as the king of Sodom, but that this text was altered to Shalem to distance the patriarch Abram from the city that would come to represent God’s destruction of perversity and inhospitality. The chapter proceeds step by step through the redaction process of the word Sodom to Shalem. The chapter then discusses the death of Beraʿ, the king of Sodom, and how later literature altered the account of his death so that he could reappear later in the story, thereby causing Melchizedek to appear as someone other than the heir to the throne of Sodom. The chapter concludes with a thorough grammatical examination of Gen. 14 demonstrating that verse 18 was manipulated and wrongly interpreted to understand Melchizedek and the king of Sodom as separate individuals.

‘Reader, I married him/her’: Ali Smith, Ovid, and queer translation

This essay frames Ali Smith’s novel Girl meets boy (2007) as a ‘queer translation’ of Ovid, Metamorphoses 9.666-797. I argue that Smith’s presentation of a contemporary genderqueer Iphis and Ianthe not only fictionalizes the critical argument proposed by Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, but uses Gender Trouble as a queer translation manifesto. Reading Girl meets boy through this Butlerian lens, which foregrounds multiplicity and insists on the politically subversive potential of repetition, I show how Smith translates, re-translates, and re-writes Ovid’s text, to make queer identities that are made to disappear in the Latin ‘loosed’ in translation. I also propose a new reading of the conclusion of Ovid’s episode informed by Smith’s queer translation. I discuss Smith’s politicized use of repetition throughout the novel to produce queer translations which disrupt the surface homophobic discourse of the original text; and I situate the novel’s publication within its historical political context — before the legalization of same-sex marriage in England, Wales, and Scotland. In conclusion, I argue that a queer translation practice, as evidenced by Smith’s novel, is an activist project which combats homophobic discourse (ancient and modern) and allows ancient queer bodies and identities to retain their multiplicity in translation.

Entrenchment implies that physiological and developmental processes are not organism-bound but still organism-centric

Villalobos and Razeto-Barry argue that all living beings possess discrete bodies and that, as a consequence, embodied living beings are merely embedded in the environment surrounding them. The upshot of their analysis is that an extended conception of life is misguided. I fundamentally agree with their argument. The authors make their case by clarifying the conceptual scaffolding of the theory of autopoiesis that supposedly engenders the extended approach. I think the critical argument can be supported in a more straightforward way by showing that the biological fact of entrenchment (West-Eberhard 2003, pp. 500-503) does not imply an extension of the physical boundaries of the organism.

The Frege–Geach Problem, Modus Ponens, and Legal Language

[full article, abstract in English; only abstract in Lithuanian] This paper proposes a new pragmatic interpretation of the Frege–Geach problem and presents a possible solution using a model of ascriptive legal language. The first section includes the definition of the Frege–Geach problem. In the second section, I analyze the content of Geach’s critical argument against prescriptivism in ethics. I discuss what Geach means by ascriptivism, why he mixes it with prescriptivism, and why a particular article by Herbert Hart became the subject of criticism by Geach. The third section proposes a possible solution to the Frege–Geach problem based on the explication of the assertoric force of ascriptive legal utterances and the performativity of legal language.

Kant’s Critical Argument(s) for Immortality Reassessed

Kant’s postulate of the immortality of the soul has received strikingly little attention among Kant scholars, and only very few have regarded it positively. This is not surprising given the numerous problems associated with his argument. However, it is not the only argument for immortality that Kant offers in his critical philosophy. There is also a second argument that differs from the one furnished in the Second Critique and can be found both in the Critique of Pure Reason and later texts from the 1790s. Kant also addresses here many of the problems that interpreters have found with his postulate of immortality in both earlier and later texts. This paper considers the main difficulties associated with the postulate and proposes a coherent interpretation of Kant’s argument. I show that despite the apparent change in his approach to immortality Kant did not in fact substantially alter his position during his critical period.