Against Miracles as Law-Violations: A Neo-Aristotelian Approach

Miracles are commonly understood in the way David Hume defined them: as violations of the laws of nature. I argue, however, that the conjunction of Hume’s definition with a neo-Humean view of the laws of nature yields objectionable consequences. In particular, the two jointly imply that some miracles are logically impossible. A better way of thinking about miracles, I suggest, is on a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics. On that view, the laws of nature contain built-in ceteris paribus clauses that allow for the possibility of external influences in the natural world. Miracles, understood as instances of external, divine influence, would therefore neither violate the laws of nature nor be instances of those laws. In this respect, neo-Aristotelians have an advantage over neo-Humeans in providing a coherent account of miracles

Dynamical density functional theory: phase separation in a cavity and the influence of symmetry

Consider a fluid composed of two species of particles, where the interparticle pair potentials $u_{11} = u_{22} \neq u_{12}$. On confining an equal number of particles from each species in a cavity, one finds that the average one body density profiles of each species are constrained to be exactly the same due to the symmetry, when both external cavity potentials are the same. For a binary fluid of Brownian particles interacting via repulsive Gaussian pair potentials that exhibits phase separation, we study the dynamics of the fluid one body density profiles on breaking the symmetry of the external potentials, using the dynamical density functional theory of Marconi and Tarazona [{\it J. Chem. Phys.}, {\bf 110}, 8032 (1999)]. On breaking the symmetry we see that the fluid one body density profiles can then show the phase separation that is present.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for the proceedings of the Liquid Matter conference 2005, to be publication in J. Phys.: Condens. Matte

How to lead the Labour party: it’s not only about winning office, but about defining the political spectrum and reshaping British society

With Labour receiving just 29 per cent of the vote in the 2010 general election, Ed Miliband has a mountain to climb as the party’s new leader. Robin Archer argues that a purely centrist approach to his new job would be self-defeating and that he has an unusual opportunity to revive British social democracy

Becoming-interior : toward a nondual philosophy of design for dwelling-in-the-world : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Design at Massey University

Martin Heidegger suggests that dwelling is an act of inhabitation, which engenders a becoming-interior of the world. The site of this dwelling is not confined to architecture, but occurs in the space between earth and sky: the world. This work seeks to investigate the implications of this claim on the role of interior design. It proposes that, in order to formulate an approach to design that aims to facilitate a Heideggerian dwelling, the binary oppositions of inside and outside, nature and culture, self and world, must be re-examined. The connections between architectural minimalism and Eastern aesthetics that are hinted at in contemporary New Zealand lifestyle magazines such as urbis provide a gateway to an investigation of dwelling-design that moves beyond the conflicts of a world divided by Cartesian dualism. The space between East and West operates as the field of inquiry within which this work locates a comparative study of nondual philosophies pertaining to dwelling as an interrelation of self and world. Nondual concepts found in the writings of Elizabeth Grosz, and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, are subjected to a reading that suggests links with such Eastern philosophical concepts as ma (the space of the in-between), yin and yang as an analogy of correlativity and becoming-other, and dao and de (field and focus) as a conceptual model for the interrelation of the natural world and the self. Through the generation of a nondual core philosophy, the work suggests that the "nothingness" of minimalism may be reconceptualised as a betweenness, with the potential to act as an intermediary space between the inhabitant and nature. The nature of this mediation as the stimulation of resonance is explored in relation to the depiction of the natural world in art, and subsequently applied to the architectural threshold. Architecture is posited as an instrument of facilitation - the means by which the potential for dwelling may be manifested in a becoming-interior of the world

Dynamical density functional theory for molecular and colloidal fluids: a microscopic approach to fluid mechanics

In recent years, a number of dynamical density functional theories (DDFTs) have been developed for describing the dynamics of the one-body density of both colloidal and atomic fluids. In the colloidal case, the particles are assumed to have stochastic equations of motion and theories exist for both the case when the particle motion is over-damped and also in the regime where inertial effects are relevant. In this paper we extend the theory and explore the connections between the microscopic DDFT and the equations of motion from continuum fluid mechanics. In particular, starting from the Kramers equation which governs the dynamics of the phase space probability distribution function for the system, we show that one may obtain an approximate DDFT that is a generalisation of the Euler equation. This DDFT is capable of describing the dynamics of the fluid density profile down to the scale of the individual particles. As with previous DDFTs, the dynamical equations require as input the Helmholtz free energy functional from equilibrium density functional theory (DFT). For an equilibrium system, the theory predicts the same fluid one-body density profile as one would obtain from DFT. Making further approximations, we show that the theory may be used to obtain the mode coupling theory that is widely used for describing the transition from a liquid to a glassy state.Comment: 11 pages, accepted for publication in J. Chem. Phy

On Chaucer\u27s Source for Arveragus in the \u3cem\u3eFranklin\u27s Tale\u3c/em\u3e

Roll 154. Quadrangle Bookstore (students). Image 12 of 12. (20 September, 1954) [PHO 1.154.12]The Boleslaus Lukaszewski (Father Luke) Photographs contain more than 28,000 images of Saint Louis University people, activities, and events between 1951 and 1970. The photographs were taken by Boleslaus Lukaszewski (Father Luke), a Jesuit priest and member of the University's Philosophy Department faculty