PLURALISM ABOUT TRUTH IN EARLY CHINESE PHILOSOPHY: A REFLECTION ON WANG CHONGS APPROACH

The debate concerning truth in Classical Chinese philosophy has for the most part avoided the possibility that pluralist theories of truth were part of the classical philosophical framework. I argue that the Eastern Han philosopher Wang Chong (c. 25-100 CE) can be profitably read as endorsing a kind of pluralism about truth grounded in the concept of shi 實, or actuality . In my exploration of this view, I explain how it offers a different account of the truth of moral and non-moral statements, while still retaining the univocality of the concept of truth (that is, that the concept amounts to more than the expression of a disjunction of various truth properties), by connecting shi with normative and descriptive facts about how humans appraise statements. In addition to providing insight into pluralist views of truth in early China, the unique pluralist view implicit in Wang\u27 work can help solve problems with contemporary pluralist theories of truth

More "normal" than normal: scaling distributions and complex systems

One feature of many naturally occurring or engineered complex systems is tremendous variability in event sizes. To account for it, the behavior of these systems is often described using power law relationships or scaling distributions, which tend to be viewed as "exotic" because of their unusual properties (e.g., infinite moments). An alternate view is based on mathematical, statistical, and data-analytic arguments and suggests that scaling distributions should be viewed as "more normal than normal". In support of this latter view that has been advocated by Mandelbrot for the last 40 years, we review in this paper some relevant results from probability theory and illustrate a powerful statistical approach for deciding whether the variability associated with observed event sizes is consistent with an underlying Gaussian-type (finite variance) or scaling-type (infinite variance) distribution. We contrast this approach with traditional model fitting techniques and discuss its implications for future modeling of complex systems

Judicial Review and Judicial Duty: The Original Understanding. Book Review Of: Law and Judicial Duty. by Philip Hamburger

Book review: Law and Judicial Duty. By Philip Hamburger. Harvard University Press, 2008. Pp. xviii + 658. Reviewed by: Nelson Lun

Preliminary estimate of the impact of support structures on the aerodynamic performance of very large wind farms

An extended theoretical model, which is based on a two-scale coupled momentum conservation argument, is proposed to estimate aerodynamic effects of support structures on the performance of ideal very large wind farms. A key implication of this extended model is that the parameter (As /A) bold dot ${C}_{D}^{* }$ where A and As are the rotor swept area and support-structure frontal projected area, respectively, and ${C}_{D}^{* }$ is an effective support-structure drag coefficient, plays an important role in the design of very large wind farms. In particular, the optimal farm density tends to decrease as the normalised support-structure drag increases. To validate this extended model, Wall-Modelled Large-Eddy Simulations (WMLES) of a periodic array of actuator discs with and without support structures are conducted; results agree qualitatively with the model

Comment on "Time Step Sensitivity of Nonlinear Atmospheric Models: Numerical Convergence, Truncation Error Growth, and Ensemble Design" Teixeira et al. (2007)

Comment on "Time Step Sensitivity of Nonlinear Atmospheric Models: Numerical Convergence, Truncation Error Growth, and Ensemble Design" Teixeira et al.Comment: 3 page