C. James

Examples of theory development in quantum field theory and in S-matrix theory are related to three questions of interest to the philosophy of science. The first is the central role of highly abstract, mathematical models in the creation of theories. Second, the process of creation and justification actually used make it plausible that a successful theory is equally well characterized as being stable against attack rather than as being objectively correct. Lastly, the issue of the reality of theoretical entities is discussed in light of this representation of theory generation and selection.

In the philosophy of science, we are to assess critically and on their intrinsic merits various proposals for a consistent interpretation of quantum mechanics, including resolutions of the measurement problem and accounts of the long-range Bell correlations. In this paper I suggest that the terms of debate may have been so severely and unduly constrained by the reigning orthodoxy that we labor unproductively with an unhelpful vocabulary and set of definitions and distinctions. I present an alternative conceptual framework, free of many of the standard conundrums.

Empathy is the combined ability to interpret the emotional states of others and experience resultant, related emotions. The relation between prefrontal electroencephalographic asymmetry and emotion in children is well known. The association between positive emotion (assessed via parent report), empathy (measured via observation), and second-by-second brain electrical activity (recorded during a pleasurable task) was investigated using a sample of one hundred twenty-eight 6- to 10-year-old children. Contentment related to increasing left frontopolar activation (p < .05). Empathic concern and positive empathy related to increasing right frontopolar activation (ps < .05). A second form of positive empathy related to increasing left dorsolateral activation (p < .05). This suggests that positive affect and (negative and positive) empathy both relate to changes in prefrontal activity during a pleasurable task.

More than fifty years have passed since Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca published Traité de l'argumentation: La nouvelle rhétorique, and over forty have slipped by since the work was translated into English as The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. The inversion of the title and subtitle in the French and English versions expresses well the chiasmic dynamic of the philosophy of rhetoric and the rhetoric of philosophy that defines the new rhetoric project. Its overall aim is essentially philosophical: "the justification of the possibility of a human community in the sphere of action when this justification cannot be grounded in a reality or an objective truth" (1969, 514). This project is..