A D Wilson
Biographic Data
| ID | 990752 |
|---|---|
| NAME | A D Wilson |
| GIVEN NAMES | A D |
| FAMILY NAME | Wilson |
| SIGNATURE | WILSON A D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Leeds Beckett University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0459-0728 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 85 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1939 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Affordances Constrain Motor Abundance
God bless the South, Brother
Open Arms and Keen Minds
The Great Instauration of the Eighteenth Century
This paper argues that there took place in the eighteenth century a specific, distinctive and essential phase in the emergence of modern science, a phase which can be characterised as “the Great Instauration” in that it witnessed the large-scale realisation of Francis Bacon’s earlier vision—albeit not, for the most part, through the specific means which Bacon had proposed. That claim is exemplified in three fields—the “physico-mathematical scienc…
Ecological Mechanistic Research and Modelling
A recent philosophical literature has developed a taxonomy of scientific explanations, models, and the two basic research programmes that produce them. The first programme takes some capacity of a system and maps out how it works by breaking it down into various sub-capacities, each with their own distinct characteristics. The end goal is a functional model, a ‘how-possibly’ box-and-arrow type map of the functional organisation of the capacity. T…
Interface Theory vs Gibson
Interface theory is the hypothesis that inferential, representational theories of perception entail that fitness, not truth, dictates the evolution of perceptual systems. They show, with simulations, that “veridical” perceptual mappings (ones that preserve at least some of the structure of the world) are routinely out-competed by “non-veridical” interfaces (ones that make no attempt to preserve that structure). They therefore take particular aim …
Perceptual information supports transfer of learning in coordinated rhythmic movement
In this paper, we trained people to produce 90° mean relative phase using task-appropriate feedback and investigated whether and how that learning transfers to other coordinations. Past work has failed to find transfer of learning to other relative phases, only to symmetry partners (identical coordinations with reversed lead–lag relationships) and to other effector combinations. However, that research has all trained people using transformed visu…
Ecological Representations
Representations feature heavily in cognitive science theories about our behavioral repertoire. Their critical feature is its ability to designate (stand in for) spatially or temporally distant properties, so that organizing our behavior with respect to mental/neural representations means organizing our behavior with respect to the otherwise unavailable property they designate. Representations are a powerful tool, but serious problems (grounding, …
Response to Comments on “Science’s Imagined Pasts”
The four generous responses to “Science’s Imagined Pasts” here commented on fruitfully extend its argument. In particular, all of them resonate with—even though only one of them explicitly addresses—its concluding theme of the “second scientific revolution.”
Science's Imagined Pasts
Science entails history writing: scientists are continuously engaged in creating "imagined pasts" for their own specialisms, both on the small scale of the ubiquitous literature review and on a much broader scale. This aspect of science has been considered in very different ways in decades-old, yet largely neglected, contributions by Thomas S. Kuhn, Augustine Brannigan, and Simon Schaffer. Inspired by these pieces and by the missing dialogue betw…
The Reflexive Test of Hayden White's Metahistory
This paper assesses Hayden White's Metahistory through the test of reflexivity; that is, it asks whether the book's "general theory of the structure of that mode of thought which is called 'historical"' applies, as it should, to its own history of nineteenth-century "historical consciousness." Most components of the theoretical apparatus-the various concepts invoked in the "theory of the historical work" and in the "theory of tropes"-fail the ref…
Hayden White’s “Theory of the Historical Work”
Hayden White’s Metahistory is best known for its “theory of tropes”; but Metahistory also put forward a distinct “theory of the historical work”, which has received rather less attention, and indeed has tended to be swallowed up by White’s tropology. This is a symptom of a wider problem, that the theory has been apprehended in paraphrase and synopsis rather than in the terms in which it was actually articulated. This paper seeks to redress these …
Linking stakeholder research needs and the Federal Data Quality Act
Foucault on the "Question of the Author"
his analysis of Foucault's 'What is an Author?' produces three main findings. First, Foucault was arguing--subtly yet powerfully--against Barthes's 'The Death of the Author'. Second, 'What is an author?' systematically mystified the figure of the text, even as it clarified the figure of the author by revealing that figure to be an interpretative construct. Third, Foucault's achievement was vitiated by the terms in which it was cast, for his conce…
Foucault on the "Question of the Author"
This analysis of Foucault's ‘What is an Author?’ produces three main findings. First, Foucault was arguing—subtly yet powerfully—against Barthes's ‘The Death of the Author’. Second, ‘What is an author?’ systematically mystified the figure of the text, even as it clarified the figure of the author by revealing that figure to be an interpretative construct. Third, Foucault's achievement was vitiated by the terms in which it was cast, for his concep…
On the History of Disease-Concepts
INTRODUCTION \n \nIt is, I believe, uncontentious to suggest that concepts of disease — both in general and with respect to particular ailments — have changed and developed historically in the long history of the Western medical tradition. And it is obvious, too, that diseases (taking that term in its widest sense, to embrace illnesses at large) were-and-are precisely the distinctive concern of medicine. On principle, therefore, we might expect t…
Rethinking Social History
A critical portrait of social history, Adrian Wilson the enclosure of English social history, Keith Wrightson living on the stage of the world - the concept of privacy among the elite of early modern England, Linda Pollock from Colyton to Waterloo - mortality, politics and economics in historical demography, John Landers a social history of plausibility - country, city and calculation in Augustan Britain, Simon Schaffer towards a post-Marxist soc…
Comparison of diet history interview and self completed questionnaire in assessment of diet in an elderly population
STUDY OBJECTIVE--The aim of the study was to determine the reliability of a diet history interview with a short self completed questionnaire of a basic design used in other studies in the United Kingdom. DESIGN--The study used a cohort of elderly people randomly divided into two groups after stratification for sex. Members of one group completed the questionnaire first and were interviewed later; the procedure was reversed for the other group. SE…
Illegitimacy and its implications in mid-eighteenth-century London
Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Herkunft der Londoner Findelkinder im Zeitraum 1749–60. Auf der Grundlage der Aktenbestände des ‘Foundling Hospital’, ergänzt durch Material der wöchentlichen ‘Bills of Mortality’ wird nachgewiesen, daß die Findelkinder tatsächlich uneheliche Kinder waren, wie bereits von den Zeitgenossen vermutet. Dagegen waren der Verlust der Eltern oder deren materielle Verarmung kein Grund dafür, daß Kinder ins ‘Hospital’ geschic…
Present-Centred History and the Problem of Historical Knowledge
In a previous article, we examined Herbert Butterfield's identification of a certain pattern of anachronism in historical writing, in his classic book The whig interpretation of history (1931). In the decades since that book was originally published, Butterfield's designation has been extended far beyond its original domain of political and religious history. The terms ‘whig history’ and ‘whiggish history’ have passed into the common parlance of …
Whig History and Present-centred History
Of the many books written by the late Herbert Butterfield, the most influential by far was The whig interpretation of history . The importance of that essay is not just that it attained the status of a classic in Butterfield's own lifetime, and has continued to be reprinted for over fifty years. Its main significance is that the historical profession in Britain came to accept its polemical terminology. The phrase ‘whig history’ has long been used…
Inferring attitudes from behavior
The Infancy of the History of Childhood
Few works have exerted a greater influence upon British and American social historians than Philippe Aries's L'Enfant et la vie familiale sous l'ancien regime. Sensitive and encompassing,2 of undisputed importance,3 erudite, imaginative, and inventive, this book has, in Lawrence Stone's words, had a dazzling success and has been for more than a decade primum mobile of the study of family history.4 Known mainly in its English translation, Centurie…
Some New Beethoven Letters
Whig History and Present-centred History
Of the many books written by the late Herbert Butterfield, the most influential by far was The whig interpretation of history . The importance of that essay is not just that it attained the status of a classic in Butterfield's own lifetime, and has continued to be reprinted for over fifty years. Its main significance is that the historical profession in Britain came to accept its polemical terminology. The phrase ‘whig history’ has long been used…
Present-Centred History and the Problem of Historical Knowledge
In a previous article, we examined Herbert Butterfield's identification of a certain pattern of anachronism in historical writing, in his classic book The whig interpretation of history (1931). In the decades since that book was originally published, Butterfield's designation has been extended far beyond its original domain of political and religious history. The terms ‘whig history’ and ‘whiggish history’ have passed into the common parlance of …
Science's Imagined Pasts
Science entails history writing: scientists are continuously engaged in creating "imagined pasts" for their own specialisms, both on the small scale of the ubiquitous literature review and on a much broader scale. This aspect of science has been considered in very different ways in decades-old, yet largely neglected, contributions by Thomas S. Kuhn, Augustine Brannigan, and Simon Schaffer. Inspired by these pieces and by the missing dialogue betw…
The Infancy of the History of Childhood
Few works have exerted a greater influence upon British and American social historians than Philippe Aries's L'Enfant et la vie familiale sous l'ancien regime. Sensitive and encompassing,2 of undisputed importance,3 erudite, imaginative, and inventive, this book has, in Lawrence Stone's words, had a dazzling success and has been for more than a decade primum mobile of the study of family history.4 Known mainly in its English translation, Centurie…
Illegitimacy and its implications in mid-eighteenth-century London
Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Herkunft der Londoner Findelkinder im Zeitraum 1749–60. Auf der Grundlage der Aktenbestände des ‘Foundling Hospital’, ergänzt durch Material der wöchentlichen ‘Bills of Mortality’ wird nachgewiesen, daß die Findelkinder tatsächlich uneheliche Kinder waren, wie bereits von den Zeitgenossen vermutet. Dagegen waren der Verlust der Eltern oder deren materielle Verarmung kein Grund dafür, daß Kinder ins ‘Hospital’ geschic…
Inferring attitudes from behavior
On the History of Disease-Concepts
INTRODUCTION \n \nIt is, I believe, uncontentious to suggest that concepts of disease — both in general and with respect to particular ailments — have changed and developed historically in the long history of the Western medical tradition. And it is obvious, too, that diseases (taking that term in its widest sense, to embrace illnesses at large) were-and-are precisely the distinctive concern of medicine. On principle, therefore, we might expect t…
The Reflexive Test of Hayden White's Metahistory
This paper assesses Hayden White's Metahistory through the test of reflexivity; that is, it asks whether the book's "general theory of the structure of that mode of thought which is called 'historical"' applies, as it should, to its own history of nineteenth-century "historical consciousness." Most components of the theoretical apparatus-the various concepts invoked in the "theory of the historical work" and in the "theory of tropes"-fail the ref…
Some New Beethoven Letters
The Infancy of the History of Childhood
Few works have exerted a greater influence upon British and American social historians than Philippe Aries's L'Enfant et la vie familiale sous l'ancien regime. Sensitive and encompassing,2 of undisputed importance,3 erudite, imaginative, and inventive, this book has, in Lawrence Stone's words, had a dazzling success and has been for more than a decade primum mobile of the study of family history.4 Known mainly in its English translation, Centurie…
Inferring attitudes from behavior
Present-Centred History and the Problem of Historical Knowledge
In a previous article, we examined Herbert Butterfield's identification of a certain pattern of anachronism in historical writing, in his classic book The whig interpretation of history (1931). In the decades since that book was originally published, Butterfield's designation has been extended far beyond its original domain of political and religious history. The terms ‘whig history’ and ‘whiggish history’ have passed into the common parlance of …
Whig History and Present-centred History
Of the many books written by the late Herbert Butterfield, the most influential by far was The whig interpretation of history . The importance of that essay is not just that it attained the status of a classic in Butterfield's own lifetime, and has continued to be reprinted for over fifty years. Its main significance is that the historical profession in Britain came to accept its polemical terminology. The phrase ‘whig history’ has long been used…
Illegitimacy and its implications in mid-eighteenth-century London
Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Herkunft der Londoner Findelkinder im Zeitraum 1749–60. Auf der Grundlage der Aktenbestände des ‘Foundling Hospital’, ergänzt durch Material der wöchentlichen ‘Bills of Mortality’ wird nachgewiesen, daß die Findelkinder tatsächlich uneheliche Kinder waren, wie bereits von den Zeitgenossen vermutet. Dagegen waren der Verlust der Eltern oder deren materielle Verarmung kein Grund dafür, daß Kinder ins ‘Hospital’ geschic…
Comparison of diet history interview and self completed questionnaire in assessment of diet in an elderly population
STUDY OBJECTIVE--The aim of the study was to determine the reliability of a diet history interview with a short self completed questionnaire of a basic design used in other studies in the United Kingdom. DESIGN--The study used a cohort of elderly people randomly divided into two groups after stratification for sex. Members of one group completed the questionnaire first and were interviewed later; the procedure was reversed for the other group. SE…
Rethinking Social History
A critical portrait of social history, Adrian Wilson the enclosure of English social history, Keith Wrightson living on the stage of the world - the concept of privacy among the elite of early modern England, Linda Pollock from Colyton to Waterloo - mortality, politics and economics in historical demography, John Landers a social history of plausibility - country, city and calculation in Augustan Britain, Simon Schaffer towards a post-Marxist soc…
On the History of Disease-Concepts
INTRODUCTION \n \nIt is, I believe, uncontentious to suggest that concepts of disease — both in general and with respect to particular ailments — have changed and developed historically in the long history of the Western medical tradition. And it is obvious, too, that diseases (taking that term in its widest sense, to embrace illnesses at large) were-and-are precisely the distinctive concern of medicine. On principle, therefore, we might expect t…
Foucault on the "Question of the Author"
his analysis of Foucault's 'What is an Author?' produces three main findings. First, Foucault was arguing--subtly yet powerfully--against Barthes's 'The Death of the Author'. Second, 'What is an author?' systematically mystified the figure of the text, even as it clarified the figure of the author by revealing that figure to be an interpretative construct. Third, Foucault's achievement was vitiated by the terms in which it was cast, for his conce…
Foucault on the "Question of the Author"
This analysis of Foucault's ‘What is an Author?’ produces three main findings. First, Foucault was arguing—subtly yet powerfully—against Barthes's ‘The Death of the Author’. Second, ‘What is an author?’ systematically mystified the figure of the text, even as it clarified the figure of the author by revealing that figure to be an interpretative construct. Third, Foucault's achievement was vitiated by the terms in which it was cast, for his concep…
Linking stakeholder research needs and the Federal Data Quality Act
Hayden White’s “Theory of the Historical Work”
Hayden White’s Metahistory is best known for its “theory of tropes”; but Metahistory also put forward a distinct “theory of the historical work”, which has received rather less attention, and indeed has tended to be swallowed up by White’s tropology. This is a symptom of a wider problem, that the theory has been apprehended in paraphrase and synopsis rather than in the terms in which it was actually articulated. This paper seeks to redress these …
The Reflexive Test of Hayden White's Metahistory
This paper assesses Hayden White's Metahistory through the test of reflexivity; that is, it asks whether the book's "general theory of the structure of that mode of thought which is called 'historical"' applies, as it should, to its own history of nineteenth-century "historical consciousness." Most components of the theoretical apparatus-the various concepts invoked in the "theory of the historical work" and in the "theory of tropes"-fail the ref…
Response to Comments on “Science’s Imagined Pasts”
The four generous responses to “Science’s Imagined Pasts” here commented on fruitfully extend its argument. In particular, all of them resonate with—even though only one of them explicitly addresses—its concluding theme of the “second scientific revolution.”
Science's Imagined Pasts
Science entails history writing: scientists are continuously engaged in creating "imagined pasts" for their own specialisms, both on the small scale of the ubiquitous literature review and on a much broader scale. This aspect of science has been considered in very different ways in decades-old, yet largely neglected, contributions by Thomas S. Kuhn, Augustine Brannigan, and Simon Schaffer. Inspired by these pieces and by the missing dialogue betw…
Ecological Representations
Representations feature heavily in cognitive science theories about our behavioral repertoire. Their critical feature is its ability to designate (stand in for) spatially or temporally distant properties, so that organizing our behavior with respect to mental/neural representations means organizing our behavior with respect to the otherwise unavailable property they designate. Representations are a powerful tool, but serious problems (grounding, …
Interface Theory vs Gibson
Interface theory is the hypothesis that inferential, representational theories of perception entail that fitness, not truth, dictates the evolution of perceptual systems. They show, with simulations, that “veridical” perceptual mappings (ones that preserve at least some of the structure of the world) are routinely out-competed by “non-veridical” interfaces (ones that make no attempt to preserve that structure). They therefore take particular aim …
Perceptual information supports transfer of learning in coordinated rhythmic movement
In this paper, we trained people to produce 90° mean relative phase using task-appropriate feedback and investigated whether and how that learning transfers to other coordinations. Past work has failed to find transfer of learning to other relative phases, only to symmetry partners (identical coordinations with reversed lead–lag relationships) and to other effector combinations. However, that research has all trained people using transformed visu…
Ecological Mechanistic Research and Modelling
A recent philosophical literature has developed a taxonomy of scientific explanations, models, and the two basic research programmes that produce them. The first programme takes some capacity of a system and maps out how it works by breaking it down into various sub-capacities, each with their own distinct characteristics. The end goal is a functional model, a ‘how-possibly’ box-and-arrow type map of the functional organisation of the capacity. T…
The Great Instauration of the Eighteenth Century
This paper argues that there took place in the eighteenth century a specific, distinctive and essential phase in the emergence of modern science, a phase which can be characterised as “the Great Instauration” in that it witnessed the large-scale realisation of Francis Bacon’s earlier vision—albeit not, for the most part, through the specific means which Bacon had proposed. That claim is exemplified in three fields—the “physico-mathematical scienc…
Open Arms and Keen Minds
Affordances Constrain Motor Abundance
God bless the South, Brother
Philosophy (15 works) · Epistemology (12 works) · Art (8 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · History (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Linguistics (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Literature (5 works)