Gauge field theories may quite generally be defined as describing the coupling of a matter-field to an interaction-field, and they are suitably represented in the mathematical framework of fiber bundles. Their underlying principle is the socalled gauge principle, which is based on the idea of deriving the coupling structure of the fields by satisfying a postulate of local gauge covariance. The ...

The article by Hund-Georgiadis et al on crossed nonaphasia in a "dextral" with left hemispheric lesion deserves attention because of the light it and similar cases throw on the subject of laterality and hemispheric dominance in humans. However, this requires abandoning certain conventionalism, which is the cause of the puzzlement they expressed as to the laterality of the results they obtained,...

The present paper attempts to show that a 1915 article by Erich Kretschmann must be credited not only for being the source of Einstein’s point-coincidence remark, but also for having anticipated the main lines of the logical-empiricist interpretation of general relativity. Whereas Kretschmann was inspired by the work of Mach and Poincaré, Einstein inserted Kretschmann’s point-coincidence parlan...

Abstract How should we understand the Confucian doctrine of rectification names (zhengming): what does it mean that an object’s name must be in accordance with its reality, and why matter? The aim this paper is to answer question by advocating a novel interpretation later Confucian, Xunzi’s account doctrine. Xunzi claims sage-kings ascribe values objects convention, since they are sages, know t...

In the early thirties of twentieth century Wittgenstein advanced his new conception language based on idea rule following. It is less known that at same time (and as far I can tell, independently) Ajdukijewicz developed himself an meaning related to following activity, which he used in defence radical conventionalism. Tadeusz Czarnecki analyses papers two philosophers both published 1934, and o...

Debates between realists and idealists in contemporary political theory have been confused by a tendency to conflate several distinct methodological theses. This article distinguishes four dimensions of realism shows how novel reading Hume’s politics can help us make sense the importance these theses relationships them. More specifically, we argue that call normative conventionalism be distille...

Since Einstein’s 1916 development of gravitation it is considered a necessity that a theoretically consistent and experimentally accurate theory of gravitation requires the intrinsic curvature of Riemannian geometry [1, 2]: concomitantly the ontology of space and time becomes entangled with gravitation, and ‘reality’, as the observer invariant present, is obliterated. Standard geometrodynamic r...

instrumentalism (in the science) refers to a view that considers scientific theories as nothing more than instruments for prediction. sometimes the traces of this attitude have been searched in the writings of plato and aristotle; but mostly the pioneers of the theory have been thought to be the priests who regarded the scientific propositions as mere hypothesis, in order to defend religious do...

Some scholars have presented models of the United States as a set “nations” with distinct settlement histories and contemporary cultures. We examined personality differences in one such model, that Colin Woodard, using data from over 75,000 respondents. Four nations were particularly distinct: The Deep South, Left Coast, New Netherland, Spanish Carib...