Analyzing Marx Miller, Richard W
2020, 1984, 2020-10-06
eBook
In this book Marx is revealed as a powerful contributor to the debates that now dominate philosophy and political theory. Using the techniques of analytic philosophy to unite Marx's general ...statements with his practice as historian and activist, Richard W. Miller derives important arguments about the rational basis of morality, the nature of power, and the logic of testing and explanation. The book also makes Marx's theory of change useful for current social science, by replacing economic determinist readings with a new interpretation in which systems of power relations are the basis of change. Part One discusses Marx's criticisms of the moral point of view as a basis for social choice. The outlook that emerges is humane but antimoral. Part Two argues that Marx's concept of the ruling class is a means, of measuring political power that is ignored yet urgently needed by present-day social science. Part Three bases Marx's theory of history on the dynamics of power, challenging both the standard, economic determinist readings of the theory and standard conceptions of science.
Fact and Method Miller, Richard W
2021, 1988, 2021-04-13
eBook
In this bold work, of broad scope and rich erudition, Richard Miller sets out to reorient the philosophy of science. By questioning both positivism and its leading critics, he develops new solutions ...to the most urgent problems about justification, explanation, and truth. Using a wealth of examples from both the natural and the social sciences, Fact and Method applies the new account of scientific reason to specific questions of method in virtually every field of inquiry, including biology, physics, history, sociology, anthropology, economics, psychology, and literary theory. Explicit and up-to-date analysis of leading alternative views and a wealth of examples make it an ideal introduction to the philosophy of science, as well as a powerful attempt to change the field. Like the works of Hempel, Reichenbach, and Nagel in an earlier generation, it will challenge, instruct, and help anyone with an interest in science and its limits. For the past quarter-century, the philosophy of science has been in a crisis brought on by the failure of the positivist project of resolving all basic methodological questions by applying absolutely general rules, valid for all fields at all times. Professor Miller presents a new view in which what counts as an explanation, a cause, a confirming test, or a compelling case for the existence of an unobservable is determined by frameworks of specific substantive principles, rationally adopted in the light of the actual history of inquiry. While the history of science has usually been the material for relativism, Professor Miller uses arguments of Darwin, Newton, Einstein, Galileo, and others both to undermine positivist conceptions of rationality and to support the positivists' optimism that important theoretical findings are often justifiable from all reasonable perspectives.
The claim that people in developed countries have vast, unmet obligations to help people in developing countries is usually based on duties of kindness or a global extrapolation of justice among ...compatriots. This book constructs a different basis, the need for responsible engagement in transnational interactions in which power is currently abused. After arguing for an undemanding principle of beneficence and deriving duties of justice among compatriots from their special relations, the book develops standards of responsible conduct in current global interactions that determine: what must be done to avoid exploitation in transnational manufacturing, what framework for world trade and investment would be fair, what response to the challenge of global warming is adequate and equitable, what responsibilities to help meet basic needs arise when foreign powers steer the course of development, and what obligations are created by uses of violence to sustain global power. Through detailed empirical inquiries, the book argues that there has been a massive failure to live up to these standards, creating demanding duties to avoid undue advantage and repair abuses of power, on the part of developed countries in general and especially the United States. The book describes policies that would meet these obligations, leading obstacles, and the role of social movements in reducing injustice, especially a global form of social democracy expressing the book's perspective
Moral differences Miller, Richard W
2014., 20140701, 2014, 1992, Letnik:
202
eBook
In a wide-ranging inquiry Richard W. Miller provides new resources for coping with the most troubling types of moral conflict: disagreements in moral conviction, conflicting interests, and the ...tension between conscience and desires. Drawing on most fields in philosophy and the social sciences, including his previous work in the philosophy of science, he presents an account of our access to moral truth, and, within this framework, develops a theory of justice and an assessment of the role of morality in rational choice. In Miller's view, we are often in a position to claim that our moral judgments are true descriptions of moral facts. But others, relying on contrary ways of moral learning, would reject truths that we are in a position to assert, in dissent that does not depend on irrationality or ignorance of relevant evidence or arguments. With this mixed verdict on "moral realism," Miller challenges many received views of rationality, scientific method, and the relation between moral belief and moral choice. In his discussion of justice, Miller defends the adequacy, for modern political choices, of a widely shared demand that institutions be freely and rationally acceptable to all. Drawing on social research and economic theories, he argues that this demand has dramatically egalitarian consequences, even though it is a premise of liberals and conservatives alike. In the final chapters, Miller investigates the role and limits of morality in the choice of conduct, arguing for new perspectives on reason and impartiality.
Originally published in 1992.
ThePrinceton Legacy Libraryuses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Background
Treadmills are often used in research, clinical practice, and training. Biomechanical investigations comparing treadmill and overground running report inconsistent findings.
Objective
This ...study aimed at comparing biomechanical outcomes between motorized treadmill and overground running.
Methods
Four databases were searched until June 2019. Crossover design studies comparing lower limb biomechanics during non-inclined, non-cushioned, quasi-constant-velocity motorized treadmill running with overground running in healthy humans (18–65 years) and written in English were included. Meta-analyses and meta-regressions were performed where possible.
Results
33 studies (
n
= 494 participants) were included. Most outcomes did not differ between running conditions. However, during treadmill running, sagittal foot–ground angle at footstrike (mean difference (MD) − 9.8° 95% confidence interval: − 13.1 to − 6.6; low GRADE evidence), knee flexion range of motion from footstrike to peak during stance (MD 6.3° 4.5 to 8.2; low), vertical displacement center of mass/pelvis (MD − 1.5 cm − 2.7 to − 0.8; low), and peak propulsive force (MD − 0.04 body weights − 0.06 to − 0.02; very low) were lower, while contact time (MD 5.0 ms 0.5 to 9.5; low), knee flexion at footstrike (MD − 2.3° − 3.6 to − 1.1; low), and ankle sagittal plane internal joint moment (MD − 0.4 Nm/kg − 0.7 to − 0.2; low) were longer/higher, when pooled across overground surfaces. Conflicting findings were reported for amplitude of muscle activity.
Conclusions
Spatiotemporal, kinematic, kinetic, muscle activity, and muscle–tendon outcome measures are largely comparable between motorized treadmill and overground running. Considerations should, however, particularly be given to sagittal plane kinematic differences at footstrike when extrapolating treadmill running biomechanics to overground running. Protocol registration CRD42018083906 (PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews).
Improved root water and nutrient acquisition can increase fertiliser use efficiency and is important for securing food production. Root nutrient acquisition includes proliferation, transporter ...function, exudation, symbioses, and the delivery of dissolved nutrients from the bulk soil to the root surface via mass flow and diffusion. The widespread adoption of simplified experimental systems has restricted consideration of the influence of soil symbiotic organisms and physical properties on root acquisition. The soil physical properties can directly influence root growth and explain some of the disparities obtained from different experimental systems. Turning this to an advantage, comparing results obtained with the same model plant Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) in different systems, we can tease apart the specific effects of soil physical properties.
Bio-optical and physical measurements were collected in the Mississippi Sound (Northern Gulf of Mexico) during the spring of 2018 as part of the Integrated Coastal Bio-Optical Dynamics project. The ...goal was to examine the impact of atmospheric and tidal fronts on fine-scale physical and bio-optical property distributions in a shallow, dynamic, coastal environment. During a 25-day experiment, eight moorings were deployed in the vicinity of a frontal zone. For a one-week period in the middle of the mooring deployment, focused ship sampling was conducted with aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicle overflights, acquiring hyperspectral optical and thermal data. The personnel in the aircraft located visible color fronts indicating the convergence of two water masses and directed the ship to the front. Dye releases were performed on opposite sides of a front, and coincident aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicle overflights were collected to facilitate visualization of advection/mixing/dispersion processes. Radiometric calibration of the optical hyperspectral sensor was performed. Empirical Line Calibration was also performed to atmospherically correct the aircraft imagery using in situ remote sensing reflectance measurements as calibration sources. Bio-optical properties were subsequently derived from the atmospherically corrected aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicle imagery using the Naval Research Laboratory Automated Processing System.
Dairy pastoralism is integral to contemporary and past lifeways on the eastern Eurasian steppe, facilitating survival in agriculturally challenging environments. While previous research has indicated ...that ruminant dairy pastoralism was practiced in the region by circa 1300 BC, the origin, extent and diversity of this custom remain poorly understood. Here, we analyse ancient proteins from human dental calculus recovered from geographically diverse locations across Mongolia and spanning 5,000 years. We present the earliest evidence for dairy consumption on the eastern Eurasian steppe by circa 3000 BC and the later emergence of horse milking at circa 1200 BC, concurrent with the first evidence for horse riding. We argue that ruminant dairying contributed to the demographic success of Bronze Age Mongolian populations and that the origins of traditional horse dairy products in eastern Eurasia are closely tied to the regional emergence of mounted herding societies during the late second millennium BC.
Roots naturally exert axial and radial pressures during growth, which alter the structural arrangement of soil at the root–soil interface. However, empirical models suggest soil densification, which ...can have negative impacts on water and nutrient uptake, occurs at the immediate root surface with decreasing distance from the root. Here, we spatially map structural gradients in the soil surrounding roots using non‐invasive imaging, to ascertain the role of root growth in early stage formation of soil structure. X‐ray computed tomography provided a means not only to visualize a root system in situ and in 3‐D but also to assess the precise root‐induced alterations to soil structure close to, and at selected distances away from the root–soil interface. We spatially quantified the changes in soil structure generated by three common but contrasting plant species (pea, tomato, and wheat) under different soil texture and compaction treatments. Across the three plant types, significant increases in porosity at the immediate root surface were found in both clay loam and loamy sand soils and not soil densification, the currently assumed norm. Densification of the soil was recorded, at some distance away from the root, dependent on soil texture and plant type. There was a significant soil texture × bulk density × plant species interaction for the root convex hull, a measure of the extent to which root systems explore the soil, which suggested pea and wheat grew better in the clay soil when at a high bulk density, compared with tomato, which preferred lower bulk density soils. These results, only revealed by high resolution non‐destructive imagery, show that although the root penetration mechanisms can lead to soil densification (which could have a negative impact on growth), the immediate root–soil interface is actually a zone of high porosity, which is very important for several key rhizosphere processes occurring at this scale including water and nutrient uptake and gaseous diffusion.
By high resolution imagery, we observed across the three plant types significant increases in porosity at the immediate root surface, irrespective of soil texture and bulk density, and not soil densification, the currently assumed norm. This has profound implication for several key rhizosphere processes occurring at this scale including water and nutrient uptake and gaseous diffusion that should be considered in plant breeding efforts.
In this book Marx is revealed as a powerful contributor to the
debates that now dominate philosophy and political theory. Using
the techniques of analytic philosophy to unite Marx's general
...statements with his practice as historian and activist, Richard W.
Miller derives important arguments about the rational basis of
morality, the nature of power, and the logic of testing and
explanation. The book also makes Marx's theory of change useful for
current social science, by replacing economic determinist readings
with a new interpretation in which systems of power relations are
the basis of change. Part One discusses Marx's criticisms of the
moral point of view as a basis for social choice. The outlook that
emerges is humane but antimoral. Part Two argues that Marx's
concept of the ruling class is a means, of measuring political
power that is ignored yet urgently needed by present-day social
science. Part Three bases Marx's theory of history on the dynamics
of power, challenging both the standard, economic determinist
readings of the theory and standard conceptions of science.
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