Neville Maxwell
Biographic Data
| ID | 272195 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Neville Maxwell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Neville |
| FAMILY NAME | Maxwell |
| SIGNATURE | MAXWELL N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2575-5990 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 62 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 95 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 62 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1966 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Improve Popper and Procure a Perfect Simulacrum of Verification Indistinguishable from the Real Thing
How Universities Can Best Respond to the Climate Crisis and Other Global Problems
The world is in a state of crisis [...]
The key to the solution of the world crisis we face
Humanity faces two fundamental problems of learning: learning about the universe, and learning to become civilized. We have solved the first problem, but not the second one, and that puts us in a situation of great danger. Almost all of our global problems have arisen as a result. It has become a matter of extreme urgency to solve the second problem. The key to this is to learn from our solution to the first problem how to solve the second one. T…
We need progress in ideas about how to achieve progress: Steven Pinker: Enlightenment NOW: the case for reason, science, humanism and progress. UK: Allen Lane, 2018, 556pp, £25
Can universities save us from disaster
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to spell out the urgent need to correct structural rationality defects in academia as it exists at present, so that it may become actively and effectively engaged in helping us solve the grave global problems that confront us. Design/methodology/approach The paper spells out an argument for the urgent need to bring about a revolution in academic inquiry so that the basic aim becomes social wisdom and not just …
How can our human world exist and best flourish embedded in the physical universe? An outline of a problem-based liberal-studies course
Purpose – In this paper the author aims to sketch a liberal-studies course designed to explore our fundamental problem of thought and life: How can our human world exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe? The fundamental character of this problem provides one with the opportunity to explore a wide range of issues. Design/methodology/approach – The paper addresses the following questions: what does physics tell us about …
Liberal education in crisis? Rejoinder by Maxwell
Looking for ultimate explanations in the wrong place: Michael Heller: Ultimate explanations of the cosmos. Heidelberg: Springer, 2009, xii+216pp, €49, 95 PB
Why the Sino–Indian Border Dispute is Still Unresolved after 50 Years: A Recapitulation
In its dying days the British Empire in India launched an aggressive annexation of what it recognised to be legally Chinese territory. The government of independent India inherited that border dispute and intensified it, completing the annexation and ignoring China’s protests. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) government, acquiescing in the loss of territory, offered diplomatic legalisation of the new boundary India had imposed in its North-Ea…
From knowledge to wisdom: The Need for an Academic Revolution
At present the basic intellectual aim of academic inquiry is to improve knowledge. Much of the structure, the whole character, of academic inquiry, in universities all over the world, is shaped by the adoption of this as the basic intellectual aim. But, judged from the standpoint of making a contribution to human welfare, academic inquiry of this type is irrational. Three of four of the most elementary rules of rational problem-solving are violat…
Domestic Politics, International Bargaining and China's Territorial Disputes . Chien-peng Chung The India-China Relationship: What the United States Needs to Know . Francine R. Frankel , Harry Harding
Is Science Neurotic?
Neurosis can be interpreted as a methodological condition from which any aim‐pursuing entity can suffer. If such an entity pursues a problematic aim B but represents to itself that it is pursuing a different aim C and, as a result, fails to solve the problems associated with B which, if solved, would lead to the pursuit of aim A, then the entity may be said to be “rationalistically neurotic.” Natural science is neurotic in this sense insofar as i…
The Comprehensibility of the Universe: A New Conception of Science
During the last century or so, natural science has met with astonishing success in increasing our knowledge and understanding of the natural world.Science has, it seems, made progress at an ever-accelerating rate.The question arises: What has been responsible for this progressive success of science?Before the birth of modern science, with the work of Galileo, Kepler and others in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, knowledge grew in a rather…
Cost of Public Goods Affects Willingness to Pay for Them
We provided information about costs and benefits of public goods, mostly forms of risk reduction. Judgments of willingness to pay (WTP) for the goods was affected by cost as well as benefit, even when subjects judged the benefit to be unaffected by cost. Cost information affected WTP when it took the form of estimated cost or when it was simply implied by past expenditures or by descriptions of how a good would be provided. Cost affected WTP both…
Does Orthodox Quantum Theory Undermine, or Support, Scientific Realism
It is usually taken for granted that orthodox quantum theory poses a serious problem for scientific realism, in that the theory is empirically extraordinarily successful, and yet has instrumentalism built into it. This paper stand this view on its head. I argue that orthodox quantum theory suffers from a number of serious (if not always noticed) defects precisely because of its inbuilt instrumentalism. This defective character of orthdoox quantum…
Induction and Scientific Realism: Einstein Versus van Fraassen Part Three: Einstein, Aim-oriented Empiricism and the Discovery of Special and General Relativity
In this paper I show that Einstein made essential use of aim-oriented empiricism in scientific practice in developing special and general relativity. I conclude by considering to what extent Einstein came explicitly to advocate aim-oriented empiricism in his later years.
Induction and Scientific Realism: Einstein Versus van Fraassen Part One: How to Solve the Problem of Induction
Aim-oriented Empiricism Required to solve Problem of Induction I INTRODUCTION In this three-part paper, my concern is to expound and defend a conception of science, close to Einstein's, which I shall call aim-oriented empiricism.I shall argue that aim-oriented empiricism has the following virtues.(i) It solves the problem of induction; (ii) it provides decisive reasons for rejecting van Fraassen's brilliantly defended but intuitively implausible …
Part Two: Aim-oriented Empiricism and Scientific Essentialism
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What Kind of Inquiry Can Best Help Us Create a Good World
In order to create a good world, we need to learn how to do it-how to resolve our appalling problems and conflicts in more cooperative ways than at present. And in order to do this, we need traditions and institutions of learning rationally devoted to this end. When viewed from this standpoint, what we have at present-academic inquiry devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how-is an intellectual and human disaster. We urgently…
The battle of the Himalayan books
India and the China Crisis, Steven A. Hoffmann, University of California Press, 1990, pages 270 (324 pp including notes etc). Tibet, China and India 1914—1950: A History of Imperial Diplomacy, Alastair Lamb, Roxford Books, Hertingfordbury, Hertfordshire, 1989, pages 594 including notes etc
Are Probabilism and Special Relativity Compatible
Are probabilism and special relativity compatible? Dieks argues that they are. But the possible universe he specifies, designed to exemplify both probabilism and special relativity, either incorporates a universal “now” (and is thus incompatible with special relativity), or amounts to a many world universe (which I have discussed, and rejected as too ad hoc to be taken seriously), or fails to have any one definite overall Minkowskian-type space-t…
Quantum Propensiton Theory: A Testable Resolution of the Wave/Particle Dilemma
In this paper I put forward a new micro realistic, fundamentally probabilistic, propensiton version of quantum theory. According to this theory, the entities of the quantum domain - electrons, photons, atoms - are neither particles nor fields, but a new kind of fundamentally probabilistic entity, the propensiton - entities which interact with one another probabilistically. This version of quantum theory leaves the Schroedinger equation unchanged,…
India's internal siege—Review article
India: The Siege Within, M. J. Akbar, Penguin Books, England, 1985. The Punjab Story, Amarjit Kaur, Arun Shourie, LT Gen J. S. Aurora, Khushwant Singh, M. V. Kamath, Shekhar Gupta, Subhash Kirpekar, Sunil Sethi, Tavleen Singh, Roli Books International, New Delhi, 1984, revised edition 1985. The Asssassination and After, Arun Shourie, Prannay Roy, Rahul Bedi, Shekhar Gupta, Roli International, New Delhi, 1985. The Tragedy of Punjab, Khushwant Sing…
China's Changed Road to Development
Are Probabilism and Special Relativity Incompatible
In this paper I expound an argument which seems to establish that probabilism and special relativity are incompatible. I examine the argument critically, and consider its implications for interpretative problems of quantum theory, and for theoretical physics as a whole
Are Probabilism and Special Relativity Incompatible
In this paper I expound an argument which seems to establish that probabilism and special relativity are incompatible. I examine the argument critically, and consider its implications for interpretative problems of quantum theory, and for theoretical physics as a whole
The Rationality of Scientific Discovery Part I: The Traditional Rationality Problem
The basic task of the essay is to exhibit science as a rational enterprise. I argue that in order to do this we need to change quite fundamentally our whole conception of science. Today it is rather generally taken for granted that a precondition for science to be rational is that in science we do not make substantial assumptions about the world, or about the phenomena we are investigating, which are held permanently immune from empirical apprais…
Can there be Necessary Connections between Successive Events
A Critique of Popper's Views on Scientific Method
This paper considers objections to Popper's views on scientific method. It is argued that criticism of Popper's views, developed by Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Lakatos, are not too damaging, although they do require that Popper's views be modified somewhat. It is argued that a much more serious criticism is that Popper has failed to provide us with any reason for holding that the methodological rules he advocates give us a better hope of realizing the …
India ́s China War
Law and Politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America" analyses legal and constitutional developments in all states or regions outside of Europe as well as their regional and international integration. Founded in 1968 and inspired by decolonization and the idea of a cooperative new beginning, the Journal also promotes a special interest in contributions on 'Law and development'. The journal aims to provide a forum for a variety of perspectives on th…
Quantum Propensiton Theory: A Testable Resolution of the Wave/Particle Dilemma
In this paper I put forward a new micro realistic, fundamentally probabilistic, propensiton version of quantum theory. According to this theory, the entities of the quantum domain - electrons, photons, atoms - are neither particles nor fields, but a new kind of fundamentally probabilistic entity, the propensiton - entities which interact with one another probabilistically. This version of quantum theory leaves the Schroedinger equation unchanged,…
What Kind of Inquiry Can Best Help Us Create a Good World
In order to create a good world, we need to learn how to do it-how to resolve our appalling problems and conflicts in more cooperative ways than at present. And in order to do this, we need traditions and institutions of learning rationally devoted to this end. When viewed from this standpoint, what we have at present-academic inquiry devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how-is an intellectual and human disaster. We urgently…
From knowledge to wisdom: The Need for an Academic Revolution
At present the basic intellectual aim of academic inquiry is to improve knowledge. Much of the structure, the whole character, of academic inquiry, in universities all over the world, is shaped by the adoption of this as the basic intellectual aim. But, judged from the standpoint of making a contribution to human welfare, academic inquiry of this type is irrational. Three of four of the most elementary rules of rational problem-solving are violat…
Learning from Tachai
Are Probabilism and Special Relativity Compatible
Are probabilism and special relativity compatible? Dieks argues that they are. But the possible universe he specifies, designed to exemplify both probabilism and special relativity, either incorporates a universal “now” (and is thus incompatible with special relativity), or amounts to a many world universe (which I have discussed, and rejected as too ad hoc to be taken seriously), or fails to have any one definite overall Minkowskian-type space-t…
The fourth mobilization: New phase of the Tachai movement
Statesmanship and Scholarship
Policy] is like a play in many acts which unfolds inevitably once the curtain is raised. To declare then that the performance will not take place is an absurdity. The play will go on, either by means of the actors... or by means of the spectators who mount the stage.... Intelligent people never consider this the essence of the problem, however. For them it lies in the decision whether the curtain is to be raised at all, whether the spectators are…
The Threat from China’
Journal Article ‘The Threat from China’ Get access Neville Maxwell Neville Maxwell Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 47, Issue 1, January 1971, Pages 31–44, https://doi.org/10.2307/2614677 Published: 01 January 1971
Physics and Common Sense
In this paper I set out to solve the problem of how the world as we experience it, full of colours and other sensory qualities, and our inner experiences, can be reconciled with physics. I discuss and reject the views of J. J. C. Smart and Rom Harré. I argue that physics is concerned only to describe a selected aspect of all that there is – the causal aspect which determines how events evolve. Colours and other sensory qualities, lacking causal e…
Why the Sino–Indian Border Dispute is Still Unresolved after 50 Years: A Recapitulation
In its dying days the British Empire in India launched an aggressive annexation of what it recognised to be legally Chinese territory. The government of independent India inherited that border dispute and intensified it, completing the annexation and ignoring China’s protests. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) government, acquiescing in the loss of territory, offered diplomatic legalisation of the new boundary India had imposed in its North-Ea…
Does Orthodox Quantum Theory Undermine, or Support, Scientific Realism
It is usually taken for granted that orthodox quantum theory poses a serious problem for scientific realism, in that the theory is empirically extraordinarily successful, and yet has instrumentalism built into it. This paper stand this view on its head. I argue that orthodox quantum theory suffers from a number of serious (if not always noticed) defects precisely because of its inbuilt instrumentalism. This defective character of orthdoox quantum…
Induction and Scientific Realism: Einstein Versus van Fraassen Part Three: Einstein, Aim-oriented Empiricism and the Discovery of Special and General Relativity
In this paper I show that Einstein made essential use of aim-oriented empiricism in scientific practice in developing special and general relativity. I conclude by considering to what extent Einstein came explicitly to advocate aim-oriented empiricism in his later years.
Induction and Scientific Realism: Einstein Versus van Fraassen Part One: How to Solve the Problem of Induction
Aim-oriented Empiricism Required to solve Problem of Induction I INTRODUCTION In this three-part paper, my concern is to expound and defend a conception of science, close to Einstein's, which I shall call aim-oriented empiricism.I shall argue that aim-oriented empiricism has the following virtues.(i) It solves the problem of induction; (ii) it provides decisive reasons for rejecting van Fraassen's brilliantly defended but intuitively implausible …
The battle of the Himalayan books
India and the China Crisis, Steven A. Hoffmann, University of California Press, 1990, pages 270 (324 pp including notes etc). Tibet, China and India 1914—1950: A History of Imperial Diplomacy, Alastair Lamb, Roxford Books, Hertingfordbury, Hertfordshire, 1989, pages 594 including notes etc
Woman on a white horse: India 1975
A Note on the Amur/Ussuri Sector of the Sino-Soviet Boundaries
Henceforth the eastern frontier between the two Empires, starting from the confluence of the Rivers Shilka and Argun, will follow the course of the Amur River to the confluence of the Ussuri River with the Amur. The lands situated on the left bank (to the north) of the Amur River belong to the Empire of Russia, and the lands situated on the right bank (to the south), to the confluence with the Ussuri River, belong to the Empire of China. From the…
The Rationality of Scientific Discovery Part II: An Aim Oriented Theory of Scientific Discovery
In Part I ( Philosophy of Science , Vol. 41 No. 2, June, 1974) it was argued that in order to rebut Humean sceptical arguments, and thus show that it is possible for pure science to be rational, we need to reject standard empiricism and adopt in its stead aim oriented empiricism. Part II seeks to articulate in more detail a theory of rational scientific discovery within the general framework of aim oriented empiricism. It is argued that this theo…
Jawaharlal Nehru: Of Pride and Principle
India and World Politics: Krishna Menon's View of the World
Physics and Common Sense
In this paper I set out to solve the problem of how the world as we experience it, full of colours and other sensory qualities, and our inner experiences, can be reconciled with physics. I discuss and reject the views of J. J. C. Smart and Rom Harré. I argue that physics is concerned only to describe a selected aspect of all that there is – the causal aspect which determines how events evolve. Colours and other sensory qualities, lacking causal e…
Can there be Necessary Connections between Successive Events
India and Ceylon: Unity and Diversity, a Symposium
Abstracts from the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
The aim of this paper is to show that it is possible, as far as can be known for certain, that there exist logically necessary connections between successive events. It is argued that two events, 1 and 2, may be said to be necessarily connected if and only if at least a part of what exists at the time of occurrence of 1 is such that any propositions, Ph which completely describe this part, logically imply propositions, P2, which state that 2 occu…
India and World Politics: Krishna Menon's View of the World
Himalayan Blunder: The Curtain-raiser to the Sino-Indian War of 1962, The Guilty Men of 1962, Chinese Invasion of Nefa, The India-China Border: A Reappraisal and India's Defence Problem
Journal Article Himalayan Blunder: The Curtain-raiser to the Sino-Indian War of 1962, The Guilty Men of 1962, Chinese Invasion of NEFA, The India-China Border: A Reappraisal and India's Defence Problem Get access Himalayan Blunder: The Curtain-raiser to the Sino-Indian War of 1962. By J. P. Dalvi. Bombay: Thacker. 1969. 497 pp. Index. 45s.The Guilty Men of 1962. By D. R. Mankekar. Bombay: Tulsi Shah Enterprises. 1968. 184 pp. Rs. 17.50.Chinese In…
Chinese-Russian Border Dispute
The development of the Sino-Russian boundary dispute ominously continues to parallel the course of events that took China and India into a border war in 1962. Both Moscow and Peking, it now appears, are prepared to resume the discussions on the border issue which broke down in 1964. The differences between the two sides have never been as wide as their abusive diplomatic-cum-propaganda exchanges suggest, and have really concerned the method of se…
Government and Politics in Pakistan and The Nation of Pakistan
Journal Article Government and Politics in Pakistan and The Nation of Pakistan Get access Government and Politics in Pakistan. By Muzaffer Ahmed Chaudhuri. Dacca: Puthighar. 1968. 414 pp. Bibliog. Index. Rs. 15.The Nation of Pakistan. By Rafiuishan Kureishi. Oxford, London, Edin burgh, New York, Toronto, Sydney, Paris, Braunschweig: Pergamon Press. 1969. 109 pp. Index. (The Commonwealth and International Library, Commonwealth Affairs Division. Ge…
The Secret History of the 1962 War
India's China War
China Shakes the World, A Century of Chinese Revolution 1851–1949, Revolution and Chinese Foreign Policy: Peking's Support for Wars of National Liberation, Communist Chinese Air Power and Mao Papers: …
Journal Article China Shakes the World, A Century of Chinese Revolution 1851–1949, Revolution and Chinese Foreign Policy: Peking's Support for Wars of National Liberation, Communist Chinese Air Power and Mao Papers: Anthology and Bibliography Get access China Shakes the World. By Jack Beiden. Introduction by Owen Lattimore. New York, London: Monthly Review Press. 1970. 524 pp. Index. $8.50. £3.90.A Century of Chinese Revolution 1851–1949. 2nd ed.…
The Threat from China’
Journal Article ‘The Threat from China’ Get access Neville Maxwell Neville Maxwell Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 47, Issue 1, January 1971, Pages 31–44, https://doi.org/10.2307/2614677 Published: 01 January 1971
Chinese Invasion of Ladakh and The Theory of Force and Organisation of Defence in Indian Constitutional History: From Earliest Times to 1947
Journal Article Chinese Invasion of Ladakh and The Theory of Force and Organisation of Defence in Indian Constitutional History: From Earliest Times to 1947 Get access Chinese Invasion of Ladakh. By Sita Ram Johri. Lucknow: Himalaya Publications. 1969. 221 pp. 35s. Rs. 20.The Theory of Force and Organisation of Defence in Indian Constitutional History: From Earliest Times to 1947. By Nagendra Singh. Foreword by Sir Eric Fletcher. London: Asia Pub…
India ́s China War
Law and Politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America" analyses legal and constitutional developments in all states or regions outside of Europe as well as their regional and international integration. Founded in 1968 and inspired by decolonization and the idea of a cooperative new beginning, the Journal also promotes a special interest in contributions on 'Law and development'. The journal aims to provide a forum for a variety of perspectives on th…
India's China War
A Critique of Popper's Views on Scientific Method
This paper considers objections to Popper's views on scientific method. It is argued that criticism of Popper's views, developed by Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Lakatos, are not too damaging, although they do require that Popper's views be modified somewhat. It is argued that a much more serious criticism is that Popper has failed to provide us with any reason for holding that the methodological rules he advocates give us a better hope of realizing the …
Neville Maxwell's reply to Gopal
(1972). 2. Neville Maxwell's reply to Gopal. The Round Table: Vol. 62, No. 246, pp. 265-266
The Sino-Soviet boundary deadlock
India's China War
The Rationality of Scientific Discovery Part I: The Traditional Rationality Problem
The basic task of the essay is to exhibit science as a rational enterprise. I argue that in order to do this we need to change quite fundamentally our whole conception of science. Today it is rather generally taken for granted that a precondition for science to be rational is that in science we do not make substantial assumptions about the world, or about the phenomena we are investigating, which are held permanently immune from empirical apprais…
The Rationality of Scientific Discovery Part II: An Aim Oriented Theory of Scientific Discovery
In Part I ( Philosophy of Science , Vol. 41 No. 2, June, 1974) it was argued that in order to rebut Humean sceptical arguments, and thus show that it is possible for pure science to be rational, we need to reject standard empiricism and adopt in its stead aim oriented empiricism. Part II seeks to articulate in more detail a theory of rational scientific discovery within the general framework of aim oriented empiricism. It is argued that this theo…
Jawaharlal Nehru: Of Pride and Principle
The Sino-Soviet boundary question
The problem of the boundaries between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union was very nearly solved by a single decision of the new Chinese government, taken soon after it assumed power in 1949. The Communists' predecessors, Nationalist and imperial, had made clear their determination, no less implacable for its being fruitless, to regain the territory that had been taken from China during the long prostration that followed the Opium…
Statesmanship and Scholarship
Policy] is like a play in many acts which unfolds inevitably once the curtain is raised. To declare then that the performance will not take place is an absurdity. The play will go on, either by means of the actors... or by means of the spectators who mount the stage.... Intelligent people never consider this the essence of the problem, however. For them it lies in the decision whether the curtain is to be raised at all, whether the spectators are…
Short Notices
Journal Article Short Notices Get access NEVILLE MAXWELL NEVILLE MAXWELL Institute of Commonwealth StudiesOxford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume XC, Issue CCCLVII, October 1975, Pages 932–933, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/XC.CCCLVII.932 Published: 01 October 1975
Political science (36 works) · Law (27 works) · Philosophy (26 works) · Epistemology (24 works) · History (23 works) · China (22 works) · Law (22 works) · Sociology (19 works) · History (17 works) · Computer Science (15 works)