What is Conceptual Engineering and What Should it Be?

Conceptual engineering is the design, implementation, and evaluation of concepts. Conceptual engineering includes or should include de novo conceptual engineering (designing a new concept) as well as conceptual re-engineering (fixing an old concept). It should also include heteronymous (different-word) as well as homonymous (same-word) conceptual engineering. I discuss the importance and the difficulty of these sorts of conceptual engineering in philosophy and elsewhere

Structuralism as a Response to Skepticism

Cartesian arguments for global skepticism about the external world start from the premise that we cannot know that we are not in a Cartesian scenario such as an evil-demon scenario, and infer that because most of our empirical beliefs are false in such a scenario, these beliefs do not constitute knowledge. Veridicalist responses to global skepticism respond that arguments fail because in Cartesian scenarios, many or most of our empirical beliefs are true. Some veridicalist responses have been motivated using verificationism, externalism, and coherentism. I argue that a more powerful veridicalist response to global skepticism can be motivated by structuralism, on which physical entities are understood as those that play a certain structural role. I develop the structuralist response and address objections

The Ku Klux Klan in the Sunshine State: The 1920\u27s

The guiding maxim in Florida politics has long been said to be “Every Man For Himself’ and the same principle of anarchic localism seems to have prevailed in Klan affairs. The story of the Florida Ku Klux Klan in the 1920’s was not one of a large statewide organization but rather that of a myriad of growing, active individual Klaverns

Perception and the Fall from Eden

In the Garden of Eden, we had unmediated contact with the world. We were directly acquainted with objects in the world and with their properties. Objects were presented to us without causal mediation, and properties were revealed to us in their true intrinsic glory. When an apple in Eden looked red to us, the apple was gloriously, perfectly, and primitively red. There was no need for a long causal chain from the microphysics of the surface through air and brain to a contingently connected visual experience. Rather, the perfect redness of the apple was simply revealed to us. The qualitative redness in our experience derived entirely from the presentation of perfect redness in the world. Eden was a world of perfect color. But then there was a Fall. First, we ate from the Tree of Illusion. After this, objects sometimes seemed to have different colors and shapes at different times, even though there was reason to believe that the object itself had not changed. So the connection between visual experience and the world became contingent: we could no longer accept that visual experience always revealed the world exactly as it is. Second, we ate from the Tree of Science. After this, we found that when we see a

The problem of consciousness

Este artículo ofrece una visión no técnica de los problemas de la consciencia y mi tratamiento de ellos. Distingo entre los problemas fáciles y el problema fuerte de la consciencia, y argumento que el problema fuerte elude  los métodos de explicación convencionales. Sostengo que se requiere una nueva forma de explicación no  reductiva y planteo algunos movimientos hacia una teoría detallada no reductiva.This paper gives a nontechnical overview of the problems of consciousness and my approach to them. In it I  distinguish between the easy problems and the hard problem of consciousness, and argue that the hard  problem eludes conventional methods of explanation. I argue that we need a new form of nonreductive  explanation, and make some moves toward a detailed nonreductive theory

On Cardiovascular Affection in Pulmonary Tuberculosis

The subject of the functional and pathological changes, to which the cardiovascular system is exposed in pulmonary tuberculosis, has attracted the interest of observers for many years. The very lack, however, of uniformity of findings and conclusions, denotes that herein lies a field worthy of further investigation. Such investigation is, moreover, justifiable in view of its possible importance in relation to modern therapeutics, and in light of the more recent knowledge of the mechanism of the cardiovascular system, and of the technique of its examination.To the clinician all information regarding the effect of pulmonary tuberculosis on other systems must be of assistance in his estimation of the patient. To the thoracic surgeon, who is daily becoming a more essential link in the therapeutic chain in pulmonary disease generally, a more precise knowledge of the significance of cardiovascular phenomena is of prime importance. The actual relationship between pathological findings in the cardiovascular system, and thoracic surgery, will be outwith the scope of this thesis; but the study has been made, quite apart from its interest as a purely academic problem, with a desire to crystalise the present knowledge of those factors which do affect the heart in pulmonary tuberculosis, A complete study must eventually embrace all intrathoracic disease in this relationship, but it has been necessary to limit the field of investigation in the first instance, in order to render the problem and its solution more clear

Study of some problems arising from spontaneous fluctuations of electricity

In this thesis we have studied a number of problems of electrical fluctuations whose common initial origin lay in the fundamental significance of "shot" and "thermal" fluctuations. First, a theoretical and historical study was presented of the space - charge reduction of fluctuations in thermionic valves leading to a unification of the concepts of shot and thermal noise therein. In particular we observed that the common origin becomes most obvious when retarding field conditions obtain; a theoretical and experimental study of the retarding field region was therefore then undertaken. This included measurements to investigate and confirm the valve characteristics in that region and experimental observation of the fluctuations under true retarding conditions. The criteria relevant to entry into the region were also examined. As a by-product of the 'experimental fluctuation measurements, work was also undertaken on photo-electric cells and an interesting field of investigation is indicated by the results obtained. Finally, detailed statistical examination was presented of fluctuation records with relevant derived theory in which satisfactory agreement was obtained; this provided also experimental confirmation of previously known theoretical results. A possible indication of discrimination was observed between noise generated by a valve working under saturation conditions and that generated by thermal agitation in a tuned circuit such that it might possibly be accounted for by a certain degree of interaction between the primary events in the latter case. We should emphasise however, particularly in view of Chapter 2, that we are convinced that all these phenomena should be classed as thermal agitation, the terms "shot noise" and "thermal noise" being employed solely as a convenient classification indicating the electrical element wherein the fundamental phenomenon is manifeste

Fertilizing Texas Lawns: 10-Point Checklist for Warm-Season Grasses

4 pp., 3 tables, 2 figuresUse this checklist on fertilization to make your lawn healthy and attractive while minimizing the costs and damage to the environment