The Powers Ontology: Monism and Dualism

2019 ◽  
pp. 96-119
Author(s):  
Neil E. Williams

Chapter 5 argues for a monistic account of power properties that sees them as at once powerful and qualitative. The chapter is divided into three sections: the first two are negative, arguing against the two main competitor fundamental power ontologies—power monism (pandispositionalism) and dualism, respectively—and the third is positive, describing the version of mixed dualism on offer. In the first section it is argued that power monism fails to generate the sort of quality or character the world requires. This is tied to the many regresses that power monism has been charged with generating. The second section deals with power dualism, and raises a difficulty regarding the ability of non-power properties to be causally relevant without also being causally operative. The third section locates the form of mixed monism on offer among the space of extant mixed monisms.

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhonda Sader

Beaty, Andrea. Ada Twist Scientist. Illustrated by David Roberts. Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2016.With a whimsical prose and an empowering message, it’s hard to resist Ava Twist Scientist! This is the third book written by Andrea Beaty, and true to the form of Iggy Peck, Architect and Rosie Revere, Engineer, she celebrates the creativity, imagination, curiosity, and perseverance of every day children.  Ava Twist has a question for everything as she explores the world around her: “Why are there pointy things stuck to a rose?  Why are there hairs up inside of your nose?”   Her parents are puzzled and exhausted by their curious child, while at the same time supportive of her scientific endeavours. Although Ada experiences frustration in her experiments, as they don’t quite always go as planned, she perseveres and shows continued determination in finding answers to the many questions that perplex her. There are parallels in this story to Albert Einstein’s childhood, with Ada being delayed in speech, being extremely curious about the world around her, and getting into trouble at school because of it.  Einstein was puzzled by a compass, and Ava a grandfather clock.  Similarly, both made sense of their world through pictures and constant questioning.  Interestingly, in the end pages, Andrea Beaty notes she named Ada Marie Twist after two great women scientists: Marie Curie and Ada Lovelace.Focused colourful illustrations placed on a white background complement this rhyming text giving us a glimpse into Ada’s mind and her never-ending curiosity.  One of the most endearing qualities of this book is how the illustrator David Roberts includes the teacher, Iggy Peck, and Rosie Revere, characters of Beaty’s other books, as Ada’s diverse classmates, converging the stories together. This book is notable as it focuses on a young girl’s passion for science, providing a role model and empowering other girls to follow their dreams. It should be noted however, that the story is inspirational for all. And with that I must insist: Ada Twist should not be missed!   Recommended: 4 out of 4 StarsReviewer: Rhonda SaderRhonda Sader started enjoying picture books as a young girl and has never looked back.  Some of her most treasured time is spent reading books nightly with her own two children. 


Author(s):  
Nancy Shoemaker

This epilogue addresses how David Whippy, Mary D. Wallis, and John B. Williams—as they pursued respect in different ways—became party to the many changes taking place in Fiji due to foreign influence. Whippy, Wallis, and Williams were all involved, in one way or another, in the U.S.–Fiji trade. In the twentieth century, new incentives enticed Americans to Fiji. American global activism and private development schemes involved Fiji as much as other places around the world, and medical aid and research sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and a Carnegie Library at Suva introduced new forms of American influence in the islands. World War II, of course, brought Americans to the islands in droves. However, the main avenue by which Americans would come to Fiji was through the third wave of economic development that succeeded the sugar plantations of colonial Fiji: tourism. Now that the face of Fiji presented to the rest of the world evokes pleasure instead of fear, references to the cannibal isles have become nothing more than a nostalgic nod to Fiji's past. Previously considered a site of American wealth production, the islands have now become a site of American consumption.


PMLA ◽  
1949 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 708-723 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Samuel

The longer I live, the more I am satisfied of two things: first, that the truest lives are those that are cut rose-diamond fashion, with many facets answering to the many-planed aspects to the world about them; secondly, that society is always trying in some way or other to grind us down to a single flat surface. … People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be “consistent.” But a great many things we say can be made to appear contradictory, simply because they are partial views of a truth, and many often look unlike at first, as a front view of a face and its profile often do.—Holmes, The Professor at the Breakfast-TableThe rose-diamond cut of Milton's thought often disconcerts his reader, but perhaps nowhere so completely as in his views on learning. After the high enthusiasm for unrestricted inquiry, after all the “intent study” which he took as his own “portion in life”, in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, the ripe products of his learning, he gives to Raphael, Michael, and Jesus speeches that seem a wholesale repudiation of studies of all sorts. The three passages are too well known to quote. In the first (P.L., viii, 66–178)1 Raphael disparages Adam's inquiries about astronomy, but answers them, and then comments, “Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid.” In the second (P.L., XII, 575–587) Michael commends Adam for the inference he has drawn from his preview of universal history (that “to obey is best, / And love with fear the only God”), and admonishes him, “This having learnt, thou hast attain'd the sum / Of wisdom; hope no higher.” In the third (P.R., iv, 286–364) Jesus spurns Satan's offer of Greek learning, with an analysis of the defects of Greek philosophy and literature and a thrust at learning in general: “Many books / Wise men have said are wearisome.”


1979 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Voll

The Sudanese Mahdī has been pictured as a villain, as a hero, as a reactionary, as an anti-imperialist revolutionary, and in many other ways. The romance and excitement of the nineteenth-century Mahdiyya has inspired novels and movies, while the many faceted reality of the movement has caught the attention of a wide range of scholars in search of case studies of specific phenomena. In recent years the Mahdī has been used as an example of a ‘charismatic’ leader,1 the founder of a religionpolitical party in the ‘third world,’2 the leader of a millenarian revolt,3 an African rebel against alien rule,4 and a Semitic messiah in an African context. Many of these analyses are the constructive products of the changing situation in the world of contemporary historical studies. Each tends to reflect a broader analytical concern aroused by modern developments.


1966 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip E. Mosely

THE “third world” of the developing and, for the most part, newly independent nations is, for Communists of all brands and allegiances, both a crucial arena of political competition against the “imperialists” and the center of their hopes for new victories. Yet there are important differences in the way Moscow and Peking view these opportunities. The Soviet leadership believes that the many poor and ambitious countries will, later if not sooner, decide that Communism offers them the best prospects for raising their status in the world. Chinese Communist propaganda, on the other hand, calls for an ever more militant struggle of “national liberation” to expel the “imperialists” from Asia, Africa, and Latin America and to unite the developing countries under Peking's leadership. Thus, in addition to being a principal focus of Communist hopes and efforts, the question of the “correct” policy toward the third world has unleashed deep-set rivalries and antagonisms between and within ruling and nonruling Communist parties alike.


KronoScope ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-34
Author(s):  
Frederick Turner

Abstract This summary of the fundamental insights of J.T. Fraser dwells on four main themes. The first is the way that Fraser disposes of the ancient struggle between monism and dualism, with its related problem of ontology versus epistemology. His tree-like vision of the evolution of the many out of the one is both ordered and open-ended. The second is his critique of philosophy’s (and science’s) tendency to reify simple, defined, pure, and exclusive abstractions. Subjectivity, intentionality, consciousness, freedom, mind, cause, and the experience of time are shown by him to be composite, present in different degrees and kinds in different organisms and different times, constructed and complex. The third theme is Fraser’s decisive refutation of the metaphor of time as a line, as in clocks, calendars, and the t-axis in science. We must explore other geometries. The fourth theme is Fraser’s rehabilitations of the arts, including literature, as potentially legitimate ways of understanding the world and exploring the nature of time.


2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-286
Author(s):  
Andrzej Duszenko

This essay examines one of Joyce's references to new physics in Finnegans Wake: the allusion to Ernest Rutherford in the opening section of the third chapter of Book II. The composition of Finnegans Wake coincided with the development of the theory of relativity and quantum physics, which resulted in a variety of references to these new scientific developments in the book. The essay argues that among the many Wakean passages referring to new physics, the allusion to Rutherford stands out by virtue of being personal in nature and broad in references. The analysis of the linguistic transformations in the text of the passage suggests that Joyce saw a parallel between the work of the man who ‘split the atom’ and two aspects of his own work: the constant pattern of death and rebirth which is fundamental to the world described in Finnegans Wake, and his own lexical practice in creating a new kind of language to describe that world. References to quantum mechanics in the Rutherford passage are blended with allusions to relativity, the second component of new physics, and the text is placed in a cluster of other references to various elements of the subatomic world.


2004 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis T. Jaffe ◽  
Sam H. Lane

As a business family moves from the second to the third, fourth, and succeeding generations, and seeks to maintain shared family control of its often highly diversified financial and business assets, families around the world have created a complex web of structures, agreements, councils, and forms of accountability to manage their wealth. In working with such multigenerational dynasties around the world, we have begun to see that successful transmission of wealth, and sustaining of family connection, depends on a highly creative web of such structures. This article will focus on the structures and agreements that we have seen in such families. A family that owns a business, or substantial investments, is at the intersection of several complex systems and serves a multitude of masters, purposes, and constituencies. Facing continual change from the business environment, and from internal pressures as people develop, in order to thrive, the family must develop a clear infrastructure to manage the interrelationships of people, business, and investment. It must regulate and integrate the interests and concerns of the many people in many ways. As a family enters the third generation, it has become a complex structure with several family branches, diverse interests and stakeholders, and challenges to sustain collaboration and effectiveness. This article presents the key challenges that a family must face to create an effective dynasty over generations and illustrates models and best practices for how effective family dynasties develop a governance infrastructure as they grow into multigenerational family dynasties. It highlights the core structures that make up effective governance and the key agreements that allow a dynasty to work.


2006 ◽  
pp. 75-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Moiseev

The number of classical banks in the world has reduced. In the majority of countries the number of banks does not exceed 200. The uniqueness of the Russian banking sector is that in this respect it takes the third place in the world after the USA and Germany. The paper reviews the conclusions of the economic theory about the optimum structure of the banking market. The empirical analysis shows that the number of banks in a country is influenced by the size of its territory, population number and GDP per capita. Our econometric estimate is that the equilibrium number of banks in Russia should be in a range of 180-220 units.


2006 ◽  
pp. 126-134
Author(s):  
L. Evstigneeva ◽  
R. Evstigneev

“The Third Way” concept is still widespread all over the world. Growing socio-economic uncertainty makes the authors revise the concept. In the course of discussion with other authors they introduce a synergetic vision of the problem. That means in the first place changing a linear approach to the economic research for a non-linear one.


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