Respects of Dependence and Symmetry

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-68
Author(s):  
Michele Paolini Paoletti ◽  

In this article I discuss several apparent counterexamples to the asymmetry of ontological dependence. These counterexamples were introduced in discussions about grounding, but they can affect every theory of ontological dependence. I show that, if one adopts metaontological pluralism (i.e., the view according to which there are many dependence relations), one has some advantages when it comes to defending the asymmetry of dependence. In Section 1, I introduce metaontological pluralism and my own version of it, which is based on Respect-of-Dependence Relations (rd-relations). I then single out five strategies to deal with apparent cases of symmetric dependence and show that two of them are only available to metaontological pluralists. In Sections 2, 3, and 4 I deal with cases of symmetric dependence by adopting these strategies. Finally, in Section 5, I anticipate and reply to three objections against my account.

Author(s):  
Elizabeth Barnes

Metaphysical orthodoxy maintains that the relation of ontological dependence is irreflexive, asymmetric, and transitive. The goal of this paper is to challenge that orthodoxy by arguing that ontological dependence should be understood as non-symmetric, rather than asymmetric. A series of cases across a wide range of ontological commitments are presented, and it is argued that each case should be understood as one in which the relation of dependence holds symmetrically. If these arguments work, however, they provide reasons to be skeptical of the way in which contemporary discussions typically lump dependence together with relations such as grounding and in virtue of, which arguably need to be understood as asymmetric. If the asymmetry of dependence is relinquished, interesting things follow for what can be said about metaphysical explanation—particularly for the prospects of explanatory holism.


Phronesis ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phil Corkum

AbstractAristotle holds that individual substances are ontologically independent from non-substances and universal substances but that non-substances and universal substances are ontologically dependent on substances. There is then an asymmetry between individual substances and other kinds of beings with respect to ontological dependence. Under what could plausibly be called the standard interpretation, the ontological independence ascribed to individual substances and denied of non-substances and universal substances is a capacity for independent existence. There is, however, a tension between this interpretation and the asymmetry between individual substances and the other kinds of entities with respect to ontological independence. I will propose an alternative interpretation: to weaken the relevant notion of ontological independence from a capacity for independent existence to the independent possession of a certain ontological status.


2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 3171-3183
Author(s):  
Gyula Vincze

Our objective is to generalize the Weaver-Astumian (WA) and Kaune (KA) models of thermal noise limit to the case ofcellular membrane resistivity asymmetry. The asymmetry of resistivity causes different effects in the two models. In the KAmodel, asymmetry decreases the characteristic field strength of the thermal limit over and increases it below the breakingfrequency (10  m), while asymmetry decreases the spectral field strength of the thermal noise limit at all frequencies.We show that asymmetry does not change the character of the models, showing the absence of thermal noise limit at highand low frequencies in WA and KA models, respectively.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Artiukhin ◽  
Patrick Eschenbach ◽  
Johannes Neugebauer

We present a computational analysis of the asymmetry in reaction center models of photosystem I, photosystem II, and bacteria from <i>Synechococcus elongatus</i>, <i>Thermococcus vulcanus</i>, and <i>Rhodobacter sphaeroides</i>, respectively. The recently developed FDE-diab methodology [J. Chem. Phys., 148 (2018), 214104] allowed us to effectively avoid the spin-density overdelocalization error characteristic for standard Kohn–Sham Density Functional Theory and to reliably calculate spin-density distributions and electronic couplings for a number of molecular systems ranging from dimeric models in vacuum to large protein including up to about 2000 atoms. The calculated spin densities showed a good agreement with available experimental results and were used to validate reaction center models reported in the literature. We demonstrated that the applied theoretical approach is very sensitive to changes in molecular structures and relative orientation of molecules. This makes FDE-diab a valuable tool for electronic structure calculations of large photosynthetic models effectively complementing the existing experimental techniques.


2018 ◽  
pp. 49-56
Author(s):  
V. Kuzminkov ◽  
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Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
O. I. Admakin ◽  
I. A. Solop ◽  
A. D. Oksentyuk

Relevance. The narrowing of the maxilla is one of the most common pathologies in orthodontics. Recent studies show that the narrowing is always asymmetric which is connected to the rotation of the maxilla. To choose the treatment correctly one need a calculation that reveals the asymmetry, which is impossible with using standard indexes.Purpose – to compare efficiency of indexes of Pont and Korkhause with the Kernott's method in patients with narrowing of the maxilla.Materials and methods. The study involved 35 children aged from 8 to 12 years old undergoing dental treatment in the University Children's Clinical Hospital of the First Moscow State Medical University with no comorbidities. For every patient a gypsum model was prepared and after that to carry out the biometrical calculation. In this study two indexes were used: Pont's index and Korkhause's; using this standard analysis the narrowing of the maxilla was revealed. After using Pont's Index and Korkhaus analysis all the models were calculated by the method of Kernott with Kernott's dynamic pentagon.Results. As a result of the analysis of the control diagnostic models a narrowing of the maxilla in 69% of cases (n = 24) was revealed in all cases, the deviation of the size of the dentition was asymmetric. Thus, 65% of the surveyed models showed a narrowing on the right. This narrowing was of a different severity and averaged 15 control models.Conclusions. This shows that for the biometrics of diagnostic models it is necessary to use methods that allow to estimate the width of the dentition rows on the left and on the right separately. To correct the asymmetric narrowing of the dentition, it is preferable to use non-classical expanding devices that act equally on the left and right sides separetly.


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