The Thirteen Pragmatisms and Other Essays

Originally published in 1963. The essays in this volume are critical and, with one exception, directed against the philosophic movement of pragmatism. "The Thirteen Pragmatisms" is an exercise in logical analysis and is a challenge to a group of philosophers who have taken on a collective name to show how their apparent diversities are to be reconciled. Few philosophers would call themselves orthodox followers of this train of thought, so these essays can be studied without a sense of personal injury that deadens the critical faculty and obscures insight. In The Thirteen Pragmatisms and Other Essays, logical technique is on display: the author's keenness in spotting double meanings and his ability to rephrase them in univalent form. This collection of essays should afford students of philosophy a set of cases in which they need not take sides but which give them an analytical method they can practice themselves on contemporary issues. The fact that these essays are on the whole critical gives them a heuristic value that dogmatic or expository essays would not have

Essays in the History of Ideas

Originally published in 1948. In the first essay of this collection, Lovejoy reflects on the nature, methods, and difficulties of the historiography of ideas. He maps out recurring phenomena in the history of ideas, which the essays illustrate. One phenomenon is the presence and influence of the same presuppositions or other operative "ideas" in very diverse provinces of thought and in different periods. Another is the role of semantic transitions and confusions, of shifts and of ambiguities in the meanings of terms, in the history of thought and taste. A third phenomenon is the internal tensions or waverings in the mind of almost every individual writer—sometimes discernible even in a single writing or on a single page—arising from conflicting ideas or incongruous propensities of feeling or taste to which the writer is susceptible. These essays do not contribute to metaphysical and epistemological questions; they are primarily historical

Reflections on Human Nature

Originally published in 1961. Arthur O. Lovejoy, beginning with his book The Great Chain of Being, helped usher in the discipline of the History of Ideas in America. In Reflections on Human Nature, Lovejoy devotes particular attention to influential figures such as Hobbes, Locke, Bishop Butler, and Mandeville, tracing developments and changes in the concept of human nature through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He also discusses the theory of human nature held by the founders of the American Constitution, giving special attention to James Madison and the "Federalist Papers.

Lovejoy, A. O. Schopenhauer as an Evolutionist

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A Study of the Problems of Cost Analysis in the Petroleum Industry

The significance of the subject of the present study-the cost of finding, developing and producing petroleum-can be better understood by placing it against a summary view of the supply situation in the postwar world. The most striking fact is the appearance of vast new reserves of oil in various parts of the world. Earlier concern over conservation was aroused by the fear of depletion of the available supply. Taking a long view, this possibility is not to be dismissed. But in recent years the practical problems of the industry, and of public policy toward it, are of a different sort. The capacity of the industry to produce in the countries of the free world greatly exceeds the current rates of consumption. From the sellers\u27 point of view, at least, it seems self-evident that too much oil exists today

Can the palatability of healthy, satiety-promoting foods increase with repeated exposure during weight loss?

Repeated exposure to sugary, fatty, and salty foods often enhances their appeal. However, it is unknown if exposure influences learned palatability of foods typically promoted as part of a healthy diet. We tested whether the palatability of pulse containing foods provided during a weight loss intervention which were particularly high in fiber and low in energy density would increase with repeated exposure. At weeks 0, 3, and 6, participants (n = 42; body mass index (BMI) 31.2 ± 4.3 kg/m²) were given a test battery of 28 foods, approximately half which had been provided as part of the intervention, while the remaining half were not foods provided as part of the intervention. In addition, about half of each of the foods (provided as part or not provided as part of the intervention) contained pulses. Participants rated the taste, appearance, odor, and texture pleasantness of each food, and an overall flavor pleasantness score was calculated as the mean of these four scores. Linear mixed model analyses showed an exposure type by week interaction effect for taste, texture and overall flavor pleasantness indicating statistically significant increases in ratings of provided foods in taste and texture from weeks 0 to 3 and 0 to 6, and overall flavor from weeks 0 to 6. Repeated exposure to these foods, whether they contained pulses or not, resulted in a ~4% increase in pleasantness ratings. The long-term clinical relevance of this small increase requires further study.T32 AT000815 - NCCIH NIH HH

Time trends and persistence in European temperature anomalies.

This paper looks at the level of persistence in the temperature anomalies series of 114 European cities. Once this level of persistence has been identified, the time trend coefficients are estimated and the results indicate that most of the series examined display positive trends, supporting thus climate warming. Moreover, the results obtained confirm the hypothesis that long-memory behaviour cannot be neglected in the study of temperature time series, changing, therefore, the estimated effect of global warming.pre-print825 K

Aerosol nucleation over oceans and the role of galactic cosmic rays

International audienceWe investigate formation of sulfate aerosol in the marine troposphere from neutral and charged nucleation of H2SO4 and H2O. A box model of neutral and charged aerosol processes is run on a grid covering the oceans. Input data are taken from a model of galactic cosmic rays in the atmosphere, and from global chemistry and transport models. We find a weak aerosol production over the tropical oceans in the lower and middle troposphere, and a stronger production at higher latitudes, most notably downwind of industrial regions. The highest aerosol production, however, occurs in the upper troposphere, in particular in the tropics. This finding supports the proposition by which non-sea salt marine boundary layer aerosol in tropical regions does not form in situ, but nucleates in the upper troposphere from convectively lifted and cloud processed boundary layer air rich in aerosol precursor gases, from where it descends in subsiding air masses compensating convection. Convection of boundary layer air also appears to drive the formation of condensation nuclei in the tropical upper troposphere which maintains the stratospheric aerosol layer in the absence of volcanic activity. Neutral nucleation contributes only marginally to aerosol production in our simulations. This highlights the importance of charged binary and of ternary nucleation involving ammonia for aerosol formation. In clean marine regions however, ammonia concentrations seem too low to support ternary nucleation, making binary nucleation from ions a likely pathway for sulfate aerosol formation. On the other hand, our analysis indicates that the variation of ionization by galactic cosmic rays over the decadal solar cycle does not entail a response in aerosol production and cloud cover via the second indirect aerosol effect that would explain observed variations in global cloud cover. We estimate that the variation in radiative forcing resulting from a response of clouds to the change in galactic cosmic ray ionization and subsequent aerosol production over the decadal solar cycle is smaller than the concurrent variation of total solar irradiance

Effects of a regenerating matrix on the survival of birds in tropical forest fragments

Background Vast areas of lowland neotropical forest have regenerated after initially being cleared for agricultural purposes. The ecological value of regenerating second growth to forest-dwelling birds may largely depend on the age of the forest, associated vegetative structure, and when it is capable of sustaining avian demographics similar to those found in pristine forest. Methods To determine the influence of second growth age on bird demography, we estimated the annual survival of six central Amazonian bird species residing in pristine forest, a single 100 and a single 10 ha forest fragment, taking into consideration age of the surrounding matrix (i.e. regenerating forest adjacent to each fragment) as an explanatory variable. Results Study species exhibited three responses: arboreal, flocking and ant-following insectivores (Willisornis poecilinotus, Thamnomanes ardesiacus and Pithys albifrons) showed declines in survival associated with fragmentation followed by an increase in survival after 5 years of matrix regeneration. Conversely, Percnostola rufifrons, a gap-specialist, showed elevated survival in response to fragmentation followed by a decline after 5 years of regeneration. Lastly, facultative flocking and frugivore species (Glyphorynchus spirurus and Dixiphia pipra, respectively) showed no response to adjacent clearing and subsequent regeneration. Conclusions Our results in association with previous studies confirm that the value of regenerating forest surrounding habitat patches is dependent on two factors: ecological guild of the species in question and second growth age. Given the rapid increase in survival following succession, we suggest that the ecological value of young tropical forest should not be based solely on a contemporary snapshot, but rather, on the future value of mature second growth as well