-
61Self-reference: reflections on reflexivity (edited book)Springer. 1987.From the Editor’s Introduction: THE INTERNAL LIMITATIONS OF HUMAN UNDERSTANDING We carry, unavoidably, the limits of our understanding with us. We are perpetually confined within the horizons of our conceptual structure. When this structure grows or expands, the breadth of our comprehensions enlarges, but we are forever barred from the wished-for glimpse beyond its boundaries, no matter how hard we try, no matter how much credence we invest in the substance of our learning and mist of speculatio…Read more
-
238The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Nine New OpinionsRoutledge. 1998._The Case of the Speluncean Explorers, _written in 1949 by Lon Fuller, is the most famous fictitious legal case of all time. Describing a case of trapped travellers who are forcd to cannibalize one of their team, it is used on courses in philosophy of law and Jurisprudence to show how their trial upon rescue touches on key concepts in philosophy and legal theory such as utilitarianism and naturalism. _The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Nine New opinions_ includes a reprint of Fuller's classic…Read more
-
Kierkegaard's Concept of Irony Especially in Relation to Freedom, Personality and DialecticDissertation, Northwestern University. 1978.
-
55Legal reasoning is not the same as the reasoning in mathematics or the physical sciences. It is like them. Specifying the likeness in more detail, and deciding whether there is more likeness than unlikeness, are the kinds of tasks that legal reasoning is better adapted to do than mathematical or scientific reasoning.
-
13Dyson's book is an argument disguised as an intellectual history. The argument is that all intelligence is collective, in the way that human intelligence emerges from the collection of unintelligent neurons, and that a global collective intelligence is now emerging from the growing interconnections among human beings and their machines. The history traces the rise of computation and thinking about machine intelligence from Hobbes to the present. The history is fascinating and detailed. The thesi…Read more
-
1in Neil Jacobs (ed.), Open Access: Key strategic, technical and economic aspects, Chandos Publishing, 2006
-
28Suber: Leader of a Leaderless RevolutionInformation Today, July/August 2011. 2011.Interview with Peter Suber by Richard Poynder, on open access to research.
-
7If the fundamental law, or constitution, of a nation cannot be changed by legal means, then it cannot adapt to changing circumstances; as the disparity with circumstances widens, the risk of revolution increases. But if it can be changed too easily, then the fundamental principles and institutions it establishes are at risk of being swept away by a majority momentarily enraptured with a new idea. An amendment clause permits fundamental change, courting the latter risk, but it makes that change d…Read more
-
14The Problem Background Some Political History, Pre-1790 Federalist and Republican Principles Some Demographic History, 1790-1980 To What Extent Have the Possible Dangers Become Actual? The Discriminatory Impact and Prospects for Future Amendments Remedies Conclusion Appendix Table 1. The Possibility of Federalist Minority Amendment: Decade by Decade Table 2. The Possibility of Federalist Minority Amendment: Amendment by Amendment Table 3. Discriminatory Impact of Population Changes Table 4. Rela…Read more
-
16Consider the following exchanges: 1. Gerda: So you believe that all belief is the product of custom and circumstance (or: childhood buffets, class struggle...). Isn't that position self-limiting? Mustn't you see yourself as reflecting only a single complex of circumstances? Grobian: Your objection is inapplicable, for it is merely the product of blind forces. Moreover, your childhood buffets were pernicious and regrettable, for they have set you against this truth.
-
98Civil disobedience is a form of protest in which protestors deliberately violate a law. Classically, they violate the law they are protesting, such as segregation or draft laws, but sometimes they violate other laws which they find unobjectionable, such as trespass or traffic laws. Most activists who perform civil disobedience are scrupulously nonviolent, and willingly accept legal penalties. The purpose of civil disobedience can be to publicize an unjust law or a just cause; to appeal to the co…Read more
-
9If law-making is a game, then it is a game in which changing the rules is a move. Lawmaking is more than changing the rules of law-making, of course, and more than a game. But a real game may model the self-amending character of the legal system and leave the rest out. While self-amendment appears to be an esoteric feature of law, capturing it in a game creates a remarkably complete microcosm of a functional legal system.
-
15in Giandomenico Sica (ed.), Open Access, Open Problems, Milan: Polimetrica, October 20, 2006, pp. 43-58
-
18Before Jonathan Wren's study came out BMJ, April 12, 2005 ) we knew that open-access (OA) copies of scientific journal articles published in non-OA journals were a fairly small subset of the overall journal literature. Wren studied just which subset it was, and found that papers from high-impact journals were more likely to have free online copies at other locations around the web than papers from low-impact journals.
-
34Some say that physics is nearing its end because it will soon answer all its questions; I am not that optimistic. Others claim that philosophy is already at an end because its questions will never be answered and, perhaps, should never have been asked; I am not that pessimistic. I bring the non-news that, as usual, neither our successes nor our failures are at an end.
-
11Most philosophers use Philosopher's Index; many use it online. Few know that the online version is only one of roughly 400 databases available from Dialog Information Services. There are other databases useful for philosophers (notably Francis from Questel Inc.), but I've had a good reason recently to focus on those available from Dialog: I've had free connect-time for over a year.
-
6Cyberinfrastructure Technology Watch (CTWatch), in a special issue on The Coming Revolution in Scholarly Communications & Cyberinfrastructure, Vol. 3, No. 3, Fall 2007
-
Promuovere l'"open access" nelle scienze umaneBollettino Telematico di Filosofia Politica. forthcoming.
-
19These critiques and the ways of thinking made possible in their wake tend to be called post-modern, a term which is vague and even a little irritating. It would be more precise and descriptive to speak instead of post- Enlightenment critiques of reason. Hume is arguably the first post-Enlightenment thinker, and after Hume these critiques of reason developed further in Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, and were then taken up by many lesser, 20th century thinkers. If the Enlightenment was t…Read more
-
27A set of routine academic controversies has recently been fanned into a cause célèbre. I call the controversies 'routine' because they concern the design of curricula and syllabi, the regulation of campus life, and the recruitment of faculty and students. These are important but ordinary affairs for a college or university. They call for choices that arise from fundamental convictions on the purpose of education, the nature of knowledge, the firmness of standards, the value of community, and the…Read more
-
25I call these six hitches "exploding" knots because they untie easily and completely with one tug of the ripcord. Unlike slipped knots that untie with a ripcord, these knots leave absolutely no tangle. Yet they give up nothing in strength or ease of tying. To learn to tie them, jump to the illustrations and skip the commentary. In each illustration, the line labelled "R" is the ripcord ("running part"). The line labelled "S" is to be attached to the load ("standing part"). Tighten the knot with t…Read more
-
213This is an introduction to open access (OA) for those who are new to the concept. I hope it's short enough to read, long enough to be useful, and organized to let you skip around and dive into detail only where you want detail. It doesn't cover every nuance or answer every objection. But for those who read it, it should cover enough territory to prevent the misunderstandings that delayed progress in our early days.