The Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes: Monist, Materialist and Mechanist

This essay will present Hobbes as the most consistent philosopher of the 17th century, and show that in all areas his endeavors have cogency that is unrivalled, in many ways even to this day. The second section will outline Hobbes’ conception of philosophy and his causal materialism. Section 3 will deal briefly with Hobbes’ discussion of sensation and then present his views on the nature and function of language and how reason depends upon language. Section 4 portrays his views about the material world; Section 5 deals with nature of man; and the 6th section with the artificial body of the commonwealth and the means of its creation

Perceiving and Knowing as Activities

According to the tradition of most empiricists, perception is the basis for all our knowledge (at least of the world). The tradition also assumes that perception by humans is a passive activity resulting in some static states pertaining perception and belief, which are then, in some versions, modified by the mind before being passed onto memory and knowledge. Following the work of J. J. Gibson, we argue that perceiving involves many activities and actions. This is true of both visual as well as olfactory-taste perception. The main moral of this paper is that perceiving and knowing are best thought of not as involving static states, but rather as ongoing temporal activities involving change. This presumably means giving up a frozen ontology of states and moving towards something like a dynamic ontology as a basis

Mechanistic Information and Causal Continuity

Some biological processes (our examples are DNA expression and a reflex response in the leech) move from step to step in a way that cannot be completely understood solely in terms of causes and correlations. This paper develops a notion of mechanistic information that can be used to explain the continuities of such processes. We compare them to processes (including the Krebs cycle) that do not involve information. We compare our conception of mechanistic information to some familiar notions including Crick’s idea of genetic information, Shannon-Weaver information, and Millikan’s biosemantic information

Session 5: Development, Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psychology

Proceedings of the Pittsburgh Workshop in History and Philosophy of Biology, Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, March 23-24 2001 Session 5: Development, Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psycholog

OPTIMIZING THE PERIODICITY OF PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE INSPECTIONS BASED ON HISTORICAL RELIABILITY DATA

Condensers are critical to the operation of naval vessels that utilize the Rankine cycle for propulsion. Eddy current analysis is a nondestructive evaluation of the integrity of seawater tubes in condensers. Defects significant enough to be expected to allow seawater to leak into the steam side of the condenser prior to the next inspection are identified and plugged. In this paper, the interval between eddy current inspections is determined with a known probability of a tube leak occurring prior to the next inspection based on the results of past inspections. Ship maintainers will be able to optimize the inspection periodicity, thus reducing life-cycle maintenance costs within an acceptable risk. Condenser tube degradation is modeled along with eddy current inspection accuracy to determine the probability of a defect growing to a leak. A case study is presented that evaluates the impacts of inspection frequency and tube-plugging limit on the probability of a leak.Outstanding ThesisCivilian, Department of the NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Along the Red Road: Tribally Controlled Colleges and Student Development

American Indian tnibally controlled colleges were created to provide higher education in a familiar cultural setting to a population that is severely underrepresented in American higher education. Since little is known regarding student development at tribal colleges, the purpose of this study was to assess retention, talent development, satisfaction, racial discrimination, and cultural knowledge/identity at tribal colleges using American Indians who attended non-Indian institutions as a comparison sample. In early 1999, survey data were collected from students who entered fourteen tribal colleges and two Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) colleges and from American Indian students who entered non-Indian. institutions in 1993 (n = 496). Results indicate that the American. Indian populations enrolling at tribal/BIA colleges and non-Indian colleges are very different in a number of important respects. Although tribal college student bodies differ from each other on tribally linked variables (blood quantum, being raised on a reservation, speaking a Native language, and tribal membership), they are remarkably similar on variables considered to be traditional predictors of retention (income, parental education, and degree aspirations). The fact that tribal and BIA college students, compared to American Indians who attend non-Indian institutions. score much higher on tribally linked variables and much lower on traditional predictors of retention suggests that these colleges can indeed be regarded as a unique “system” of institutions. The multivariate analyses investigated the influence of institutional type (tribal, BIA, low selectivity non-Indian, and high selectivity non-Indian) on the following outcomes: retention (AA/Vocational, bachelor’s degree), talent development, satisfaction with the college experience, experiencing racial discrimination (from students and faculty), and cultural knowledge/identity. Attending a BIA college slightly reduces the student\u27s chances of completing a bachelor’s degree, while attending a tribal college slightly reduces a student\u27s self reported growth in cognitive development. Otherwise, most of the outcome differences between tribal/BIA and non-Indian institutions can be attributed to the differential input characteristics of their students

Movement in the Classroom: Contingent Factors Underlying Teacher Change

Background: Teachers\u27 use of classroom physical activity (PA) has been found to significantly impact students PA participation, time on task, and academic performance. However, teachers have continued to identify barriers affecting delivery related to professional development opportunities, learning environment, and experiences in practice. An understanding of the connection between these experiences and their impact on teacher change is needed. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ perceptions of specific factors that have influenced their continued implementation of classroom PA. This study provides insight into the teacher perceptions, and aims to identify connections among orientation to learning and learning change that have supported this practice. Design & Methodology: This research employed two rounds of data collection and used Opfer et al.\u27s (2011) model of teacher change as a guiding theoretical framework. First, a questionnaire was administered to teachers (n=26) who had experience integrating movement into the academic classroom. Next, semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants (n=6) who have experienced success in continued delivery for three or more years, had implemented three or more days a week, and used both PA breaks and content-rich/standards-based PA. Round One data analysis included frequency and measure of central tendency. Round Two data analysis included transcription, an inductive coding approach, jotting and memoing, and member checking. Results: Survey results indicated that professional development, student reactions, and beliefs and attitudes of classroom PA had the greatest influence on teachers’ continued use of classroom PA. Five main areas of influence were identified: (a) social and environmental influences, (b) professional development, (c) integration practices, (d) student reactions, and (e) teacher beliefs and attitudes. Conclusion: Results of this study provide insights into the connections of influential factors on teachers’ implementation of classroom PA and sustained use. This study provides a framework for further investigation in order to support teachers’ continued use of classroom PA

Descartes, corpuscles and reductionism : mechanism and systems in Descartes' physiology

I argue that Descartes explains physiology in terms of whole systems, and not in terms of the size, shape and motion of tiny corpuscles (corpuscular mechanics). It is a standard, entrenched view that Descartes’s proper means of explanation in the natural world is through strict reduction to corpuscular mechanics. This view is bolstered by a handful of corpuscular-mechanical explanations in Descartes’s physics, which have been taken to be representative of his treatment of all natural phenomena. However, Descartes’s explanations of the ‘principal parts’ of physiology do not follow the corpuscular–mechanical pattern. Des Chene (2001) has identified systems in Descartes’s account of physiology, but takes them ultimately to reduce down to the corpuscle level. I argue that they do not. Rather, Descartes maintains entire systems, with components selected from multiple levels of organisation, in order to construct more complete explanations than corpuscular mechanics alone would allow

AS-787-14 Resolution on Sustainability

That the Academic Senate Sustainability Committee be directed to develop a list of classes based on a revised Senate accepted assessment process that meet the Sustainability Learning Objectives and, by extension, the relevant portion of the University Learning Objectives

Energy in Motion

In a gym or exercise facility, the kinetic energy produced can be is often not utilized. This study seeks to harness this wasted motion by using energy generating exercise bikes and/or elliptical machines in the new athletic facility at WPI. Energy generating exercise machines can be beneficial, by reducing the energy footprint of the new facility by power light fixtures, as well as educating the WPI community on energy generation.https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/gps-posters/1297/thumbnail.jp