20 papers · ranked by Valyu relevance
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In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. Ancient Greek philosophy Aristotle defined the first principle as “the first basis from which a thing is known.” First principles thinking (or reasoning from first…
K.H. Andersen, A.W. Visser
Here we review, synthesize, and analyse the size-based approach to model unicellular plankton cells and communities. We first review how cell size influences processes of the individual the cell: uptake of dissolved nutrients and dissolved organic carbon, phototrophy, phagotrophy, and metabolism. We parameterise…
C. Baumgarten
We acuminate the idea of a final theory of physics in order to analyze its logical implications and consequences. It is argued that the rationale of a final theory is the principle of sufficient reason. This implies that a final theory of physics, presumed such a theory is possible, does not allow to incorporate…
Stefano Bellucci, Fabio Cardone
In this paper we give a contribution to the taxonomy of physical theories. We provide here a thorough description of the axiomatic foundations of the most relevant physical theories, Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics. The corresponding interactions will be dealt with as well, i.e.…
Alexander Linsbichler
Current debates between behavioural and orthodox economists indicate that the role and epistemological status of first principles is a particularly pressing problem in economics. As an alleged paragon of extreme apriorism, the methodology of Austrian economics in Mises’ tradition is often dismissed as untenable in the…
Authors not listed
Atomic electrons exist under the central Coulomb potential of the nucleus, a constraint that mandates their wave functions be described by spherical harmonics. While standard quantum mechanics treats these functions as static geometric solutions, the empirical structure of the periodic table (2, 8, 8, 18, 18, ...)…
Eddy Keming Chen, Sheldon Goldstein
The Great Divide in metaphysical debates about laws of nature is between Humeans, who think that laws merely describe the distribution of matter, and non-Humeans, who think that laws govern it. The metaphysics can place demands on the proper formulations of physical theories. It is sometimes assumed that the governing…
Dana R. Carney, Mahzarin R. Banaji, Sarah Frances Brosnan
You walk into a room and first meet Maxine, then Max. In a grocery store, your eyes first notice Bosc pears, then Bartlett pears. Your stockbroker first tells you about a new stock option Bentametrix, then Mentametrix. In these examples, as in so much of life, information is experienced sequentially. What is the effect…
Eddy Keming Chen
Despite its apparent complexity, our world seems to be governed by simple laws of physics. This volume provides a philosophical introduction to such laws. I explain how they are connected to some of the central issues in philosophy, such as ontology, possibility, explanation, induction, counterfactuals, time…
Radin Dardashti, Enno Fischer, Robert Harlander
Scientific principles can undergo various developments. While philosophers of science have acknowledged that such changes occur, there is no systematic account of the development of scientific principles. Here we propose a template for analyzing the development of scientific principles called the 'life cycle' of…
Xubin Pan
Sampling is a fundamental tool in ecology and critical for biodiversity measurement. However, basic principles of biodiversity sampling have been overlooked for many years. In this paper, I proposed and explored five principles of sampling for a specific area and biodiversity study. The first principle of sampling…
Hsinmei Liao
Drawing connections between principles and worked examples is an approach to learning and instruction, but it is poorly understood. This study investigated the effects of principle and example complexity on learners’ ability to map principles and worked examples. The complexity of a principle or example was determined…
Matthew Vest
This essay asks what quality of moral guidance is offered via the language of principlism, the lingua franca of bioethics. In particular, I suggest three approaches to principlist language via Kant, Rawls, and Wittgenstein. A ‘top down’ Kantian view of language would seem to offer ‘pure’ or ‘crystalline’ moral guidance…
Adam J. Braus
Principlism appears to be the prevailing applied ethical framework in bioethics. Despite the view’s various strengths, critics point out that since the principles are ad hoc, conflicts indubitably emerge leading to inconsistency. There is debate around whether principlism can provide definitive action-guiding moral…
Yoshiharu Mukouyama, Kenya Tanaka, Shuji Nakanishi, Yoshihiro Nakato
The present work reveals that a prebiotic chemical system can generate self-organizing ability that leads to highly ordered structures and an active character such as free independent harmonious behavior. This result is the properties of natural things that have long been overlooked since Darwin’s theory of evolution…
Günther Eder
The aim of this article is to contribute to a better understanding of Frege’s views on semantics and metatheory by looking at his take on several themes in nineteenth century geometry that were significant for the development of modern model-theoretic semantics. I will focus on three issues in which a central semantic…
Marek A. Pedziwiatr, Elisabeth von dem Hagen, Christoph Teufel
Humans constantly move their eyes to explore the environment and obtain information. Competing theories of gaze guidance consider the factors driving eye movements within a dichotomy between low-level visual features and high-level object representations. However, recent developments in object perception indicate a…
Agustín Ostachuk
It is often thought that the primitive is simpler, and that the complex is generated from the simple by some process of self-assembly or self-organization, which ultimately consists of the spontaneous and fortuitous collision of elementary units. This idea is included in the Darwinian theory of evolution, to which is…
Umberto Lucia, Giulia Grisolia
Causality is the relationship between causes and effects. Following Relativity, any cause of an event must always be in the past light cone of the event itself, but causes and effect must always be related to some interactions. In this paper, causality is developed as a consequence of the analysis of the Einstein…
Alex S Baldwin, Madeleine Kenwood, Robert F Hess
Boundaries in the visual world can be defined by changes in luminance and texture in the input image. A “contour integration” process joins together local changes into percepts of lines or edges. A previous study tested the integration of contours defined by second-order contrast-modulation. Their contours were placed…