Improved non-perturbative renormalization without cNGIc_{NGI}

Recently, a method for O(a) improvement of composite operators has been proposed which uses the large momentum behavior of fixed gauge quark and gluon correlation functions (G. Martinelli et al., hep-lat/0106003). A practical problem with this method is that a particular improvement coefficient, $c_{NGI}$, which has a gauge non-covariant form, is difficult to determine. Here I work out the size of the errors made in improvement coefficients and physical quantities if one does not include the $c_{NGI}$ term.Comment: 3 pages. Lattice2001(improvement

Lattice computation of structure functions

Recent lattice calculations of hadron structure functions are described.Comment: Plenary talk presented at LATTICE96, LaTeX, 7 pages, 5 figures, espcrc2.sty and epsfig.sty include

Hermite Calculus

We develop a new method of umbral nature to treat blocks of Her mite and of Hermite like poly- nomials as independent algebraic quantities. The Calculus we propose allows the formulation of a number of ”practical rules” allowing significant simplific ations in computational problem

Stumpf on categories

Stumpf\u2019s doctrine of the categories is of great importance for our understanding of his philosophy. This theme had been widely discussed among German thinkers after Kant; Brentano himself had repeatedly dealt with it since his early works. However, Stumpf considerably diverges from Brentano on this crucial philosophical topic. Although a systematic discussion can be found only in Stumpf\u2019s posthumous Erkenntnislehre, his core ideas on the categories can be traced to his early work on space of 1873. In fact, Stumpf claims that the peculiar relationship between extension and color is analogous to the relationship that holds between substance and accidents. Thus, like any other category, substance empirically stems from perception. Sensory experience, for Stumpf, is made up of perceptual wholes, whose attributes are typically bound to each other, rather than separately given in bundles, as Hume and other associationists used to assume. Thus, the achievements of Stumpf\u2019s (and others\u2019) holist psychology effectively contributes a solution to this classic metaphysical problem

Zur\ufcck zu Fechner? Il neokantismo e le sfide della psicologia scientifica

This essay addresses the attitude of some leading Neo-Kantian philosophers toward scientific psychology and psychophysics. Early influential figures like Friedrich A. Lange counted Gustav T. Fechner\u2019s psychophysical law among their allies in the rehabilitation of the Kantian standpoint. Later on, however, Neo-Kantian philosophers firmly rejected psychological measurement as a whole (Eduard Zeller) and harshly criticized the methods adopted by several psychologists of their time. For example, the Marburg mathematician and philosopher August Stadler reduced the validity of Fechner\u2019s law to the mere physiological sphere, and Hermann Cohen conceived the application of mathematical integration to human sensations as an inane enterprise

Intentionality and God’s Mind. Stumpf on Spinoza

In his Spinozastudien Stumpf dismisses the commonplace interpretation of Spinoza’s parallelism in psychophysical terms. Rather, he suggests to read Ethics, II, Prop. 7, as the heritage of the scholastic doctrine of intentionality. Accordingly, things are the intentional objects of God’s ideas. On this basis, Stumpf also tries to make sense of the puzzling spinozian doctrine of the infinity of God’s attributes. In support of this exegesis, Stumpf offers an interesting reconstruction of the history of intentionality from Plato and Aristotle to the late Scholastics. Besides its intrinsic value, Stumpf’s confrontation with Spinoza is illuminating in explaining his own position concerning a crucial phenomenological question such as intentionality. Actually, Stumpf avoids defining the mental in terms of intentionality and maintains, rather, a moderate but professed dualistic position, thus deeply diverging from both Brentano and Husserl

Realism, ontology, and the concept of reality

This essay focuses on realism in ontology and on the problem of defining reality. According to the definition given by many realists, reality is independent of our thoughts, conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, etc. Yet, this merely negative definition of reality has some disadvantages: it implies a dualistic view, and it is incompatible with scientific realism. As an alternative, I introduce and discuss the traditional definition of reality as effectiveness, or capability of acting. I then attempt to determine to what extent this definition can be helpful in the debate concerning ontological realism

Melting musics, fusing sounds. Stumpf, Hornbostel and Comparative Musicology in Berlin

The ancient Greeks already used to give ethnic names to their different scales, and observations on differences in music of the various nations always raised the interest of musicians and philosophers. Yet, it was only in the late nineteenth century that “comparative musicology” became an institutional science. An important role in this process was played by Carl Stumpf, a former pupil of Brentano’s who pioneered these researches in Berlin. Stumpf founded the Phonogrammarchiv to collect recordings of folk and extra-European music and a dedicated journal, the Sammelbände für vergleichende Musikwissenschaft. Gifted in the field of science no less than in that of musicology, Stumpf developed an empirically-oriented approach to phenomenology, deeply divergent from Husserl’s and highly influential over the Berlin school of Gestalt psychology. A self-declared “outsider” among armchair philosophers, Stumpf experimentally investigated the perception of sounds and the origins of musical consonance. Developing the physiological studies of Ernst Weber on the sense of touch, Stumpf discovered that two sensations of tone, given at the same time, tend to mix in a certain degree. Musical consonance – he claimed – lays in this level of “tonal fusion”, not in the allegedly “natural” series of the harmonic partials of a vibrating chord, as suggested by the naturalists of all times from Pythagoras to Stumpf’s great contemporary Hermann Helmholtz. Accordingly, no musical system can claim for preponderance over the others: Stumpf’s researches in comparative musicology served to corroborate his theses on “tonal fusion” and the psychological foundations of consonance. Although Stumpf later revised and finally abandoned this theory, its permanent value lays in its opposition to dominant naturalistic approaches. The commitment for comparative musicology at the Berlin School is then no concession to a positivistic fashion for exoticism. The fundamentally Eurocentric stance of naturalistic theories of music is also fiercely contrasted by Stumpf’s pupil Erich Hornbostel, who suggests that music ought to be considered as culture, rather than as nature, and focuses attention on the eventually melting human cultures. The Berlin school flourished until the Nazis forced most of its exponents to emigration and, for tragically obvious reasons, heavily discouraged researches on these topics

Renormalization Constants using Quark States in Fixed Gauge

We present a status report on our calculation of the renormalization constants for the quark bilinears in quenched (O(a)) improved Wilson theory at (beta=6.4) using quark states in Landau gauge.Comment: 4 pages. Contribution to LATTICE00(Improvement), August, 2000, Bangalore Indi