Commentary vs. ’Hymen’?

The paper examines the intertextual structure of Christoph Ransmayr’s novel Die letzte Welt, focusing on the double strategy of integrating Ovid’s Metamorphoses into the novel’s textual and diegetic level. Borrowing Gérard Genette’s term, it argues that though Ransmayr evokes the structure of a metatextual relationship between his own and Ovid’s work, finally it undermines the distinction between commenting and commented texts. Following a brief survey of the early reception of Ransmayr’s novel and of the political issues raised by critical readings, the essay argues for applying a different textual model that does not presuppose the distinction between original or source and secondary texts, proposing instead the concept of an intrinsic difference as suggested by Jacques Derrida’s notion of “hymen”, that is, a difference working like a dividing and permeable membrane.

Room-Temperature Hydrogen-Sensing Capabilities of Pt-SnO2 and Pt-ZnO Composite Nanoceramics Occur via Two Different Mechanisms

Impressive room-temperature gas-sensing capabilities have been reported for nanomaterials of many metal oxides, including SnO2, ZnO, TiO2, WO3, and Fe2O3, while little attention has been paid to the intrinsic difference among them. Pt-SnO2 and Pt-ZnO composite nanoceramics have been prepared through convenient pressing and sintering. The former shows strong and stable responses to hydrogen in 20% O2-N2 (synthetic air) at room temperature, while the responses to hydrogen in N2 cannot be stabilized in limited times; the latter shows strong and stable responses to hydrogen in N2, while the responses to hydrogen in synthetic air are greatly depressed. Further analyses reveal that for Pt-ZnO, the responses result from the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen chemisorbed on ZnO; while for Pt-SnO2, the responses result from two reactions of hydrogen, one is that with oxygen chemisorbed on SnO2 and the other is hydrogen chemisorption on SnO2. These results reveal two different room-temperature hydrogen-sensing mechanisms among MOXs, which results in highly contrasting room-temperature hydrogen-sensing capabilities attractive for sensing hydrogen in oxygen-contained and oxygen-free environments, separately.

The influence of autonomous sensory meridian response on individual’s executive function

Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a special perceptual phenomenon in which some people can experience a tingling, static-like sensation in response to some certain auditory/visual stimulations. This study compared the performance of executive function (working memory, set shifting, and inhibitory control) between ASMR participants and control participants after three auditory treatment conditions, i.e., ASMR-triggering audio (Triggering), normal-speaking audio (Normal), and with no auditory treatment (Baseline). The results showed that the ASMR individuals did not differ in executive function with the control participants in either Normal or Baseline condition. However, the set shifting and inhibitory control of ASMR individuals slowed down after ASMR-triggering auditory treatment. In this study, ASMR individuals with ASMR-triggering auditory treatment reported that they all experienced three ASMR episodes before completing executive function tasks. These findings indicated that there was no intrinsic difference in executive function between ASMR and control individuals. But ASMR individuals’ executive function would be interfered when the ASMR was triggered.

Animate and Inanimate Things, Natural and Artificial Machines

According to Leibniz, the nested structure ad infinitum is the main intrinsic difference between a natural machine, which is God’s creation, and an artificial machine, which is a work of human art. The distinction turns on this: unlike an artificial machine, a natural machine remains a machine in the least of its parts. The author argues that Leibniz’s view of living beings turns on his peculiar usage of infinity in this context. He presents Leibniz’s response to Descartes’s attempt to use the distinction between artificial and natural machines in his reductive program and then develops both a structural and a functional reading of Leibniz’s notion of a natural machine. The author suggests that both readings (structural and functional) are not only compatible but also complementary, such that both illuminate Leibniz’s definition of a natural machine as a machine remaining a machine in the least of its parts.

On Armstrong’s Difficulties with Adequate Truthmaking Restrictions

D. M. Armstrong rejects various ontologies that posit truths without truthmakers. But, lest proponents of such questionable ontologies postulate suspicious truthmakers in a bid to regain ontological respectability, Armstrong requires a plausible restriction on truthmaking that eliminates such ontologies. I discuss three different candidate restrictions: categorical, natural, and intrinsic difference-making. While the categorical and natural restrictions eliminate the questionable ontologies, they also eliminate Armstrong’s own ontology. The intrinsic difference-making restriction, on the other hand, fails to eliminate any of them. Thus Armstrong lacks a principled reason for rejecting such ontologies.

Ramsey, Frank Plumpton (1903–30)

Before Ramsey died at the age of 26 he did an extraordinary amount of pioneering work, in economics and mathematics as well as in logic and philosophy. His major contributions to the latter are as follows. (1) He produced the definitive version of Bertrand Russell’s attempted reduction of mathematics to logic. (2) He produced the first quantitative theory of how we make decisions, for example about going to the station to catch a train. His theory shows how such decisions depend on the strengths of our beliefs (that the train will run) and desires (to catch it), and uses this dependence to define general measures of belief and desire. This theory also underpins his claim that what makes induction reasonable is its being a reliable way of forming true beliefs, and it underpins his equation of knowledge generally with reliably formed true beliefs. (3) He used the equivalence between believing a proposition and believing that it is true to define truth in terms of beliefs. These in turn he proposed to define by how they affect our actions and whether those actions fulfil our desires. (4) He produced two theories of laws of nature. On the first of these, laws are the generalizations that would be axioms and theorems in the simplest true theory of everything. On the second, they are generalizations that lack exceptions and would if known be used to support predictions (‘I’ll starve if I don’t eat’) and hence decisions (‘I’ll eat’). (5) He showed how established, for example optical, phenomena can be explained by theories using previously unknown terms, like ‘photon’, which they introduce. (6) He showed why no grammatical distinction between subjects like ‘Socrates’ and predicates like ‘is wise’ entails any intrinsic difference between particulars and universals.