The Emergence of Analytic Philosophy and a Controversy at the Aristotelian Society: 1900-1916

For this year’s Virtual Issue, our guest editor, Omar W. Nasim, has collected together papers from the Aristotelian Society archives that represent a substantial part of a dispute that contributed to the emergence of analytic philosophy in Britain at the turn of the 20th Century. The dispute was primarily concerned with the problem of the external world – the nature of the sensible objects of perception, and how they relate to physical things and the perceiving subject. The participants in this controversy contested the nature of the appearance-reality distinction, whether it is it is possible for a thing to instantiate contrary sensible qualities at the same place and time, the distinction between presentation and representation, the nature of knowledge by acquaintance, and the nature of sense-data – e.g., whether sense-data are psychical or physical, whether they persist unperceived, and how they give rise to knowledge of the external world. G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell were significant contributors to these debates, but so too were several philosophers whose names are now less well known: G. F. Stout, G. Dawes Hicks, Abraham Wolf, T. Percy Nunn, and S. Alexander. This Virtual Issue collects together, for the first time, the important contributions made to these debates by all of these figures. In doing so it provides a fascinating insight into the ways in which Russell’s earliest attempts to construct the external world from sense-data were influenced by the ideas and arguments of his immediate contemporaries. Omar W. Nasim’s specially commissioned introduction to the Virtual Issue sets out the historical context of these disputes about the external world, and details the prominent role played by the Aristotelian Society in making them possible

Observation, working images and procedure: the ‘Great Spiral' in Lord Rosse's astronomical record books and beyond

This paper examines the interrelations between astronomical images of nebulae and their observation. In particular, using the case of the ‘Great Spiral' (M51), we follow this nebula beginning with its discovery and first sketch made by the third Earl of Rosse in 1845, to giving an account, using archival sources, of exactly how other images of the same object were produced over the years and stabilized within the record books of the Rosse project. It will be found that a particular ‘procedure' was employed using ‘working images' that interacted with descriptions, other images and the telescopic object itself. This stabilized not only some set of standard images of the object, but also a very potent conception of spirality as well, i.e. as a ‘normal form'. Finally, two cases will be contrasted, one being George Bond's application of this spiral conception to the nebula in Orion, and the other Wilhelm Tempel's rejection of the spiral form in M5

Secure Software Development: A Developer Level Analysis

Developing secure software is still an important issue in the computing world. Big software firms spend huge sums of money to offer secure software and systems. However, security incidents due to insecure software results in loss of revenue and reputational damages to user firms. Incorporating security requirements early in the development process is the most effective and cheapest method to build secure software. We chose a behavioral lens in order to understand antecedents to secure software development. We explicate the effects of personality, training, education and organizational culture on the development of secure software

Bioplausible multiscale filtering in retino-cortical processing as a mechanism in perceptual grouping

Why does our visual system fail to reconstruct reality, when we look at certain patterns? Where do Geometrical illusions start to emerge in the visual pathway? How far should we take computational models of vision with the same visual ability to detect illusions as we do? This study addresses these questions, by focusing on a specific underlying neural mechanism involved in our visual experiences that affects our final perception. Among many types of visual illusion, Geometrical and, in particular, Tilt Illusions are rather important, being characterized by misperception of geometric patterns involving lines and tiles in combination with contrasting orientation, size or position. Over the last decade, many new neurophysiological experiments have led to new insights as to how, when and where retinal processing takes place, and the encoding nature of the retinal representation that is sent to the cortex for further processing. Based on these neurobiological discoveries, we provide computer simulation evidence from modelling retinal ganglion cells responses to some complex Tilt Illusions, suggesting that the emergence of tilt in these illusions is partially related to the interaction of multiscale visual processing performed in the retina. The output of our low-level filtering model is presented for several types of Tilt Illusion, predicting that the final tilt percept arises from multiple-scale processing of the Differences of Gaussians and the perceptual interaction of foreground and background elements. Our results suggest that this model has a high potential in revealing the underlying mechanism connecting low-level filtering approaches to mid- and high-level explanations such as Anchoring theory and Perceptual grouping.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures, Brain Informatics journal: Full text access: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40708-017-0072-

Sharia Compliance Implementation In Saving With Rewards

The background of this study is based on the phenomenon of the problem that there are still differences of views among scholars regarding of saving with reward by Islamic financial institutions, one of which is the tabungan berhadiah product at Bank Syariah X. This study aims to measure customer perceptions of sharia compliance with tabungan berhadiah product at Bank Syariah X. The data from this study were obtained from the tabungan berhadiah customers at Bank Syariah X, which totaled 50 respondents. The research method used in this study is descriptive quantitative with data analysis techniques using descriptive statistics. While the dimensions used in this study are DSN MUI No.2 year 2000 concerning the saving, DSN MUI No.86 year 2012 concerning rewards in Islamic financial institutions. The results of this study show that the sharia compliance of rewards in Islamic financial institutions is in accordance with the fatwa of the MUI DSN. The dimensions of the DSN MUI No.2 year 2000 concerning the saving, DSN MUI No.86 year 2012 concerning rewards in Islamic financial institutions, including in very good criteria. The impact of discussion about this product on icreasing literacy about sharia compliance on product in Islamic financial institutions especially tabungan berhadiah in bank syariah X. &nbsp