A. C. Mukerji on the Problem of Skepticism and Its Resolution in Neo-Vedānta

This paper examines the work of the unsung modern Indian Philosopher A. C. Mukerji, in his major works Self, Thought and Reality (1933) and The Nature of Self (1938). Mukerji constructs a skeptical challenge that emerges from the union of ideas drawn from early modern Europe, neo-Hegelian philosophy, and classical Buddhism and Vedānta. Mukerji’s worries about skepticism are important in part because they illustrate many of the creative tensions within the modern, synthetic period of Indian philosophy, and in part because they are truly profound, anticipating in interesting ways the worries that Feyerabend was to raise a few decades later. Arguing that Humean, Kantian, neo-Hegelian, and Buddhist philosophy each fail to provide an adequate account of self-knowledge, Mukerji leverages this finding to further argue that these systems fail to offer a proper account of knowledge more generally. His solution to skepticism centers on a distinctively modern interpretation of Śaṅkara’s Vedānta.

John Erskine z Carnock (1695–1768) — adwokat, profesor Uniwersytetu w Edynburgu, pisarz instytucjonalny

John Erskine of Carnock (1695–1768) — jurist, professor at the University of Edinburgh, institutional writer The article is an attempt to describe John Erskine — a Scottish advocate, the second person to hold the chair of Scottish law at the University of Edinburgh, and an institutional writer. The author of An Institute and Principles largely abandoned the comparative approach of his predecessors in favour of a systematic interpretation of Scottish law enriched with scholarly reflection on its nature, whilst taking into proper account the current state of Scottish case law. Erskine’s works have not only provided a foundation for the education of many generations of Scottish jurists, but having found recognition in the eyes of Scottish jurisprudence, they have secured for themselves the status of a subsidiary source of law, and for their author, a great deal of respectability. John Erskine von Carnock (1695–1768) — Rechtsanwalt, Professor an der Universität Edinburgh, institutioneller Schreiber Gegenstand des Beitrags ist der Versuch die Gestalt von John Erskine zu schildern. Er war schottischer Rechtsanwalt, zweite Person, die den Posten des Professors für schottisches Recht an der Universität Edinburgh bekleidete und zugleich ein institutioneller Schreiber. Der Verfasser von Institutionen und Grundsätzen verzichtete überwiegend auf die komparatistische Auffassung seiner Vorgänger zugunsten des systematischen Vortrages des schottischen Rechts, bereichert um wissenschaftliche Reflexion seinen Charakter betreffend, unter gleichzeitiger Berücksichtigung des aktuellen Standes der schottischen Rechtsprechung. Die Werke von Erskine stellten nicht nur ein Fundament der Edukation vieler Generationen schottischer Juristen dar, aber nachdem sie durch die schottische Jurisprudenz anerkannt wurden, sicherten sie sich auch den Status einer subsidiären Rechtsquelle, und dem Autor dieser Werke — großen Respekt.

What is refugee history, now?

Refugee history at present lacks a conceptual framework, notwithstanding the proliferation of recent contributions that contribute to enlarging the field. Our article seeks to advance refugee history by drawing upon extensive research into historical case studies and proposing the framework of refugeedom. Refugeedom takes proper account of the states and other actors that defined the ‘refugee’ as a category and sought to manage refugees as figures of concern, but it also insists upon the need to consider refugees as an active and assertive historical presence in situations of crisis and constraint. It offers a promising approach for analysing episodes and sites of mass population displacement from the perspectives of governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. Crucially, refugeedom incorporates the experiences of refugees and how they narrated displacement. Finally, the article outlines a direction for global history by drawing attention to past episodes of displacement in ways that capture not only its global scale, but also the multiple relationships and practices of refugeedom.

Disintegration through Law

The existence of an unconditional right of withdrawal is antithetical to the idea of European integration, which is predicated on an ‘ever closer union’, and the expectation that Union rights become part of the ‘legal heritage’ of individuals. Article 50 TEU fails to take proper account of the Union’s interests, or those of Member States, individuals, and companies, and undermines the stability of treaties which international law seeks to preserve. Article 50 should be amended at the first opportunity. Leaving the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice was identified by the UK government as one of its Brexit objectives. The Court was nonetheless called upon to clarify a number of matters Article 50 left open, notably the right to revoke a withdrawal notification. While the 2020 Withdrawal Agreement preserves the Court’s material jurisdiction to interpret provisions of Union law incorporated into the Agreement, including in the context of dispute settlement procedure, individual access to the Court will be limited after the transition period.

Democracy’s critical infrastructure: Rethinking intermediary powers

Ever since the 19th century, political parties and free media were widely deemed indispensable for the proper functioning of representative democracy. They constituted what one might call the critical infrastructure of democracy, an infrastructure which enabled citizens to use their basic rights effectively and also to reach each other (and be reached). Both intermediary institutions are undergoing major structural transformations today (or might disappear altogether, if processes of ‘disintermediation’ continue). It has proven difficult to judge these changes, partly because we lack a proper account of the distinctive normative roles of intermediary institutions beyond standard claims of ‘connecting citizens to the political system’. The essay argues that intermediary powers remain indispensable in staging political conflict, in providing external and internal pluralism and in properly structuring political time.

Form and Function in Aristotle

On the one hand, Aristotle claims that the matter of a material thing is not part of its form. On the other hand, he suggests that the proper account of a natural thing must include a specification of the kind of matter in which it is realized. There are three possible strategies for dealing with this apparent tension. First, there may be two kinds of definition, so that the definition of the form of a thing does not include any specification of its matter, whereas the definition of a compound does. Second, the definition of a substance may not include a specification of its matter at all, but still reveal in what kinds of matter its form can be realized. Third, there may be a special kind of matter, functional matter, which belongs to the form of certain things. I will show that the functional matter of a thing does not belong to its form (in a strict sense of “form”), but that an adequate account of natural substances and their functions must nonetheless involve a reference to their functional matter. This means that the function of a natural thing is not the same as its form and that its adequate account as a natural thing is not a definition (in a strict sense of “form” and “definition”).

A world-involving theory of agency: review of Sensorimotor Life: An Enactive Proposal by Ezequiel Di Paolo, Thomas Buhrmann, and Xabier Barandiaran. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017

Sensorimotor theory of perception has been criticized for its ambiguity about the need for internal representations and the lack of a proper account of agency and subjective experience. The book under review offers a compelling non-representational, world-involving interpretation, and operationalization of this theory, showing that alternatives to representationalism are viable. It also provides a thought-provoking theory of sensorimotor agency and the pre-reflective experience of action that builds on the enactive notions of autonomy and sense-making. The account provided in this book fits into a radically embodied, enactive, and extended cognitive science. However, the notion of the environment requires further conceptual clarification by the enactive camp.

Indeterminate Ends and the Puzzle of the Self-Torturer

Chapter 4 looks at Quinn’s puzzle of the rational self-torturer. The puzzle presents, in a clear way, a structure that pervades our pursuit of ends through time. The chapter argues that a proper solution for the puzzle, and thus a proper account of instrumental rationality that applies to extended action, must accept the non-supervenience thesis. We also need to understand how the agent’s extended perspective (the perspective of the pursuit of long-term ends) and the agent’s punctate perspective (the perspective of the pursuit of momentary actions) interact in realizing the agent’s indeterminate ends. This chapter presents ETR’s account of this interaction. Since extant theories of instrumental rationality cannot do justice to the non-supervenience thesis, and a fortiori, to the structure of agency illustrated in the puzzle of the rational self-torturer, this account represents an important argument in favour of ETR.

Synthetic line and continuum observations of simulated turbulent clouds: the apparent widths of filaments

ABSTRACT Filamentary structures are ubiquitous in observations of real molecular clouds and also in simulations of turbulent, self-gravitating gas. However, making comparisons between observations and simulations is complicated by the difficulty of estimating volume densities observationally. Here, we have post-processed hydrodynamical simulations of a turbulent isothermal molecular cloud, using a full time-dependent chemical network. We have then run radiative transfer models to obtain synthetic line and continuum intensities that can be compared directly with those observed. We find that filaments have a characteristic width of ${\sim }0.1 \, {\rm pc}$, both on maps of their true surface density and on maps of their $850\, {\rm \mu m}$ dust continuum emission in agreement with previous work. On maps of line emission from CO isotopologues, the apparent widths of filaments are typically several times larger because the line intensities are poorly correlated with the surface density. On maps of line emission from dense gas tracers such as N2H+ and HCN, the apparent widths of filaments are ${\la}0.1\, {\rm pc}$. Thus, current observations of molecular-line emission are compatible with the universal $0.1 \, {\rm pc}$ filament width inferred from Herschel observations, provided proper account is taken of abundance, optical depth, and excitation considerations. We find evidence for ${\sim}0.4 \, {\rm km \, s^{-1}}$ radial velocity differences across filaments. These radial velocity differences might be a useful indicator of the mechanism by which a filament has formed or is forming, for example the turbulent cloud scenario modelled here, as against other mechanisms such as cloud–cloud collisions.

Effect of Topological Defects on the Elasticity of Near-Ideal Polymer Networks

In recent years, new types of polymer gels have emerged, which have a well-controlled network structure and few topological defects. These so-called near-ideal polymer networks constitute a good model system to revisit the long-standing problem of structure–property relationships in polymer networks, as well as a promising platform for the development of polymer gels with outstanding mechanical properties. In this study, we investigate the relative contributions of network defects (dangling chains and second-order loops) on the stress–stretch response of near-ideal polymer networks using a computational discrete network model. We identify the average chain prestretch as a key parameter to capture the effect of network topology on the elastic modulus and maximum extensibility. Proper account of the chain prestretch further leads to scaling relations for the elastic properties in terms of topology parameters that differ from classical estimates of rubber elasticity theory. Stress–stretch curves calculated using the discrete network model are also compared to semi-analytical estimates.