From the end of the Napoleonic wars through the First World War, London was made into a historic city that showcased it as the heart of a growing empire. Waves of urban reform produced public spaces, such as Waterloo Place, that were populated with statues of military and imperial heroes involved in Britain's territorial conquests. The result was that London came to be imagined as old, designed in

COVID-19 has increased awareness of the threat viruses can pose and drawn attention to the different areas of suffering one can be affected by. In this article, I use viruses as a case study to exp...

The idea of moral bioenhancement has been discussed in recent years by ethicists and philosophers. While such discussion covers many different issues on Earth, they have not yet been considered in ...

The earliest record of pineapple plants being grown around Sydney in the British colony of New South Wales was that of Governor King in 1803. However, the climate of a new northern settlement at Moreton Bay (later Brisbane) soon proved to be far more conducive to growing the fruit. Pineapples prospered for over 50?years around Brisbane until a mysterious disease appeared in the late 1890s. In April

Sugarcane is one of Australia’s major agricultural industries, with approximately 95% of the crop being grown in Queensland and the remainder in northern New South Wales. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, cane growers in northern New South Wales started to see a new disease that resulted not only in the death of plants but also in difficulties in the extraction of sugar. Theories about

Grain production in the early years of the British colonisation of Australia was characterised by a lack of expertise of farmers, a paucity of farm animals and equipment and the poor work ethics of convicts. In 1803, just when wheat production was increasing and becoming less risky, stem rust of wheat caused by the fungus Puccinia graminis f.sp. tritici was discovered by an exiled Irish rebel Joseph

Professor William (Bill) Budd was a founding figure in Australian glaciology, and the first glaciology program leader of the Australian Antarctic Division (Fig. 1). Bill worked on an enormous range of glaciological and meteorological problems covering numerical modelling of ice sheets and glaciers, including surging glaciers; ice mechanics; ice crystallography; ice core paleoclimatic studies; relationships

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A number of authors, including me, have argued that the output of our most complex climate models, that is, of global climate models and Earth system models, should be assessed possibilistically. Worries about the viability of doing so have also been expressed. I examine the assessment of the output of relatively simple climate models in the context of discovery and point out that this assessment is

According to Avicenna, the perfect (or complete) disposition (isti?dād kāmil/tāmm) turns prime matter, which is potentially receptive to every form (or power, or quality), into complected matter, which is endowed with uniform quality. The latter, i.e., complexion (mizā?) or complexional form (?ūra mizā?iyya), is suitable to receive some particular form (or power, or quality) and not another. The question

This article uses Galen’s De complexionibus and its reception as a thread to examine the part played by the sense of touch in the assessment of bodily mixtures. According to Galen, complexions were assessed by touching patients with the skin of the palm of the hand because it is “at the precise midpoint between all the extremes” and, thus, well-mixed. This article examines how this extraordinary claim

Avicenna, in Book I of the Canon, within the context of his general doctrine of complexion, presents the eight modes of equality (modi aequalitatis) that concern specific or individual complexions. There he states quite clearly that each individual within the human species possesses a complexion that belongs to that individual exclusively, and with which it is impossible to associate another individual

This article surveys the long story of complexio in physiognomic discourse, from Galen’s De complexionibus (De temperamentis) to the great physiognomic manuals of the fifteenth century by Rolandus Scriptoris and Michele Savonarola. We linger, along the way, on various physiognomic texts, most notably the contributions to learned physiognomic discourse of Michael Scotus, William of Aragon, and John

By focusing on the concept of ‘complexion’ in the major medieval Latin commentaries on Aristotle’s so-called De animalibus, this paper identifies and analyzes a case of the use of the concept of ‘complexion’ outside the medical context or, more precisely, at the intersection of natural philosophy and medicine. The preliminary survey undertaken in this paper suggests that ‘complexion’ was a key concept

According to the medical theory of the Middle Ages, every individual had a general complexion for its whole body, but at the same time each organ had a specific complexion, determined by its anatomy, its function, and, of course, the individual. The problem of the relationship between those two types of complexion was, therefore, crucial for the medical practitioner: could a shift in the complexion

Antonio da Parma (d. 1327) was a philosopher and physician, active in Bologna in the early fourteenth century, and associated with so-called “Bolognese Averroism.” His philosophical works are increasingly better documented. While his medical works are much less studied, his commentary – written between 1310 and 1323 – on the first book of Avicenna’s Canon, had a considerable influence on later commentators

The constitution of air served as a key concept for investigations into epidemic disease in sixteenth-century Italy. Its roots stem from the Hippocratic Corpus and Galen’s interpretation of it. In these ancient works, the constitution of air was directly tied to the temperaments of the seasons and winds. Renaissance physicians, such as Giambattista Da Monte and Girolamo Mercuriale, used these texts

A number of ancient philosophers showed a keen interest in understanding whether moral development and the acquisition of virtue is in any way affected by the material constitution of human bodies. Moral education and socialisation were conceived of as having a significant impact on the resulting behaviours, while individual natures, thanks to their special physiological characteristics, were frequently

This article focuses on the use of the theory of complexions made by medieval commentators to explain the pathologies or dysfunctions of memory as outlined by Aristotle in his treatise on Memory and Reminiscence. More particularly, it focuses on the Aristotelian issues of the young and the old, the slow- and quick-witted, condensed in the Latin commentaries into an aporia that we will call the “aporia

According to the medical tradition, the temperament of bodies came from the balance of their primary qualities – hot, cold, dry, and moist. However, physicians associated additional sensory properties with temperament in the field of pharmacology. These sensations included taste, color, and odor, which allow an appraisal of the constitution and active powers of drugs. The present paper examines this

In medieval natural philosophy and medicine, magnetic attraction was the most commonly invoked example for the effects of so-called ‘occult qualities’ or ‘occult powers.’ According to this conception – which dates back to Galen, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Avicenna – magnetism was caused by an insensible quality and not, therefore, by one of the four primary qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry). Already

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Current methods of operationalizing concepts of misinformation in machine learning are often problematic given idiosyncrasies in their success conditions compared to other models employed in the natural and social sciences. The intrinsic value-ladenness of misinformation and the dynamic relationship between citizens’ and social scientists’ concepts of misinformation jointly suggest that both the construct

Lawrence et al.?have presented an argument purporting to show that “relative facts do not exist” and, consequently, “Relational Quantum Mechanics is incompatible with quantum mechanics”. The argument is based on a GHZ-like contradiction between constraints satisfied by measurement outcomes in an extended Wigner’s friend scenario. Here we present a strengthened version of the argument, and show why

While a systematic comparison of the similarities and differences between Jewish and Muslim approaches to evolution is beyond the scope of this study, it is possible to note some of the most striki...

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In a scenario characterized by unpredictable developments, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic, epidemiological models have played a leading part, having been especially widely deployed for forecasting purposes. In this paper, two real-world examples of modeling are examined in support of the proposition that science can convey inconsistent as well as genuinely perspectival representations of the

I criticize the widely-defended view that the quantum measurement problem is an example of underdetermination of theory by evidence: more specifically, the view that the unmodified, unitary quantum formalism (interpreted following Everett) is empirically indistinguishable from Bohmian Mechanics and from dynamical-collapse theories like the GRW or CSL theories. I argue that there as yet no empirically

To believe that logic has no history might at first seem peculiar today. But since the early 20th century, this position has been repeatedly conflated with logical monism of Kantian provenance. This logical monism asserts that only one logic is authoritative, thereby rendering all other research in the field marginal and negating the possibility of acknowledging a history of logic. In this paper, I

I offer a variant of Putnam’s “permutation argument,” originally an argument against metaphysical realism. This variant is called the “natural permutation argument.” I explain how the natural permutation argument generates a form of referential inscrutability which is not resolvable by consideration of “natural properties” in the sense of Lewis’s response to Putnam. However, unlike the classical permutation

Brouwer’s view on induction has relatively recently been characterised as one on which it is not only intuitive (as expected) but functional, by van Dalen. He claims that Brouwer’s ‘Ur-intuition’ also yields the recursor. Appealing to Husserl’s phenomenology, I offer an analysis of Brouwer’s view that supports this characterisation and claim, even if assigning the primary role to the iterator instead

Dyspraxia affects up to five percent of the population, but its history and its historical geographies have gone unexplored. This article offers the first historical geography of dyspraxia, conceptualising its emergence in the transatlantic world through a ‘constellation of mobility’. It explores the major episodes in dyspraxia's early history (1866–1948) – from the Victorian science of apraxia in

We provide a philosophical reconstruction and analysis of the debate on the scientific status of cosmic inflation that has played out in recent years. In a series of critical papers, Ijjas, Steinhardt, and Loeb have questioned the scientificality of current views on cosmic inflation. Proponents of cosmic inflation, such as Guth and Linde, have in turn defended the scientific credentials of their approach

I show how Sir William Rowan Hamilton’s philosophical commitments led him to a causal interpretation of classical mechanics. I argue that Hamilton’s metaphysics of causation was injected into his dynamics by way of a causal interpretation of force. I then detail how forces are indispensable to both Hamilton’s formulation of classical mechanics and what we now call Hamiltonian mechanics (i.e., the modern

Perhaps the most influential historian of science of the last century, Alexandre Koyré, famously argued that the icon of modern science, Galileo Galilei, was a Platonist who had hardly performed experiments. Koyré has been followed by other historians and philosophers of science. In addition, it is not difficult to find examples of Platonists in contemporary science, in particular in the physical sciences

Before the birth of modern infrastructures, towns in Europe kept experiencing difficulties in providing water and a healthy environment for their inhabitants. Freshwater was not only essential for basic hygiene and drinking but water resources, especially urban streams played a key role in local economies. The article addresses the pressure the increasingly diverse utilization of water put on such

By the end of the Second World War, the Svalbard barnacle goose population had dwindled to a couple of hundred birds. Flying in from the Arctic to spend the winters on the Solway Firth (the estuary that separates England from Scotland), they were a favourite target of wildfowlers in the area. Since then, a ban on shooting and the Solway goose management scheme that pays farmers to maintain a goose

Between 1936 and 1969, around 1600 kneelers were produced for the new Anglican cathedral at Guildford in Surrey, southern England. This was a major collective devotional artwork, involving hundreds of embroiderers, mostly local women. The project was a distinctive form of community and collective artwork, that complicates established understandings of embroidery, craftwork, femininity and politics

I outline a Jewish response to theological problems emerging from Darwinian biology and contemporary cosmology. This response is rooted in an argument from genre, regarding the relationship between...

Wave function realism is an interpretative framework for quantum theories which recommends taking the central ontology of these theories to consist of the quantum wave function, understood as a field on a high-dimensional space. This paper presents and evaluates three standard arguments for wave function realism, and clarifies the sort of ontological framework these arguments support.

This book symposium begins with a concise historical overview of the emerging dialogue of Islam and Science. Against this, we trace the historical developments and pertinent discussion of Islam and...

In this article, I respond to my interlocutors, who have raised various points while engaging my book, Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghazālī and the Modern Evolutionary Paradigm. In addressing their argu...

The potential of place-based, historically-informed approaches to drive climate action has not yet been adequately interrogated. Recent scholarly work has focussed on climate communication and the role of arts and humanities-led storytelling in engaging people in climate narratives. Far less has been said about mobilising arts and creativity to build anticipatory climate action. Nor have archival material

By justification we understand what makes a belief epistemologically viable: generally this is considered knowledge that is true. The problem is defining this with a higher degree of precision because this is where different conflicting conceptions appear. On the one hand, we can understand justification as what makes it reasonable to acquire or maintain a belief; on the other, it is what increases

The value-free ideal in science has been criticised as both unattainable and undesirable. We argue that it can be defended as a practical principle guiding scientific research even if the unattainability and undesirability of a value-free end-state are granted. If a goal is unattainable, then one can separate the desirability of accomplishing the goal from the desirability of pursuing it. We articulate

Published in Theology and Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)

Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghazālī and the Modern Evolutionary Paradigm by Shoaib Ahmed Malik is a significant contribution to religious studies, likely to shape scientific dialogues with Islam for so...

In response to Shoaib Malik's Islam and Evolution, this paper compares Christian and Muslim views on six oft perceived conflicts between neo-Darwinian evolution and religion. These concern (1) holy...