Benthic foraminifers from the Concepcion and Encanto strata of southeastern Mexico, Isthmus of Tehuantepec, are identified and illustrated (by scanning electron and light photomicrographs). The ranges of key planktic foraminifers and calcareous nannoplankton indicate that the Concepcion and Encanto strata of the study area range from Neogene Zones 19 and 20 Blow (1969) and are lower Pliocene in age The study is based on eighty-two samples from 38 localities within a 600 sq. km. area that is centered around the town of Acayucan, Veracruz, in the western Salina Basin. A total of 214 species and subspecies of benthic foraminifers are identified and described from the Encanto and Concepcion strata. These deposits, traditionally subdivided into upper and lower Concepcion Formations and Encanto Formation by Mexican geologists, are not formations but biostratigraphic units Three assemblage zones, based on key benthic foraminifers, are proposed to define these units. The Encanto strata, with a middle to upper bathyal paleobathymetry, is represented by the Melonis affinis - Uvigerina hispida Assemblage Zone. This unit is overlain by the lower Concepcion beds represented by the Marginulinopsis hispaniolanus - Anomalinoides nucleatus Assemblage Zone (upper bathyal to outer neritic). The youngest unit, the upper Concepcion deposit, is defined by the Bolivina imporcata - Saracenaria nuttalli Assemblage Zone (outer neritic to middle neritic) / acase@tulane.edu

Any liberal theory needs at least a strong prima facie case against hard paternalism, but the contours of the precise connection between liberalism and anti-paternalism, and the types of paternalism it forbids, have not been explored in sufficient depth. I argue that an ultimately preferable form of liberalism must also have principled anti-paternalistic implications. I defend the moral requirement of all agents to justify their interferences with one another. This argument proceeds from the fundamental premise that agents conceive of themselves and one another as moral beings with normative commitments violation of which naturally elicits a sense of wrongfulness. One implication of this conception of moral agency is that we ought to justify our interferences with one another. I argue that interferences with a person's actions are justifiable if and only if that person is rationally committed to accepting the premises backing the interferences I then defend the superiority of Gerald Gaus's justificatory liberalism over the political liberalism of John Rawls. I elaborate on several of the latter view's major problems, two of which are: (1) it only allows reasonable comprehensive doctrines (not contestable beliefs) to serve as defeaters of competing considerations in public justification, and (2) it limits the public justificatory burden only to laws and policies pertinent to constitutional essentials but not to matters of ordinary legislation. Given political liberalism's limitation of justificatory burdens to comprehensive doctrines, I argue that no such reasonable comprehensive doctrine can function in an argument that blocks support for legal paternalism. In particular, political liberalism is susceptible to neutral paternalism as a viable candidate for liberal support. Justificatory liberalism can defeat the appeal to neutral paternalism. Given the strong version of justification and the need only for reasonable beliefs or principles to serve as defeaters of neutral paternalism, a rational agent can acknowledge that performing his action A is irrational, without that acknowledgment entailing that he is committed to accepting neutral paternalism in light of performing A. This is because the agent can appeal to self-responsibility, rather than deference to the paternalist, as a corrective for any irrational actions he might perform / acase@tulane.edu

'Locke, Natural Kinds, And Essentialism' argues for a minimalist theory of natural kinds. I begin with a historical treatment of Locke's account of natural kinds, which was a conventionalist view. I then build a theory of natural kinds that recognizes a restricted class of natural kinds, while remaining conventionalist in important respects, in the spirit of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding In Chapter 1, I argue that Locke clearly denies the existence of natural kinds, and I explain how he defends this position. I will also show the connection between Locke's metaphysical position regarding natural kinds, and his descriptive account of the meaning of natural kind terms Chapter 2 consists of several attempts to build a realist account of natural kinds within a Lockean framework. They are all unsuccessful, but I hope the endeavor can show why a natural kind realist may be driven toward some form of essentialism in order to defend natural kind realism In Chapter 3, I develop my minimalist theory of natural kinds. I argue that natural kinds may be found among the fundamental entities of the world, if there are any, but nowhere else The project of Chapter 4 is to examine one of the major contemporary motivations for natural kind realism: the attempt to extend the theory of direct reference for proper names to natural kind terms. I argue that this cannot be done within a respectable and well-motivated metaphysics of natural kinds, such as the one I defend / acase@tulane.edu

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Mathematically rigorous versions of Thomas-Fermi Theory and its generalizations were developed in the 1970's and 1980's by Lieb, Simon, Benilan, Brezis, Gallouet, Morel and others. At issue is the electron density for an N electron quantum mechanical system in its ground state. The energy minimization problem is reduced to the solution of the Euler-Lagrange equation, which is reduced to the solution of a nonlinear elliptic equation in L('1) The theory which will be presented includes extensions of the existing theory to d ((GREATERTHEQ)3) dimensions and the introduction of weight functions into the kinetic energy term. Existence, nonexistence, and uniqueness results will be presented, as well as qualitative properties of the solutions / acase@tulane.edu

This study examines the Werturteilsstreit, an ongoing controversy about the relationship between empirical social research and judgements regarding the desirability or undesirability of social phenomena. Central to the study is the work of Max Weber, which remains the principal stimulus and recurring focal point of the controversy. Focusing on a crucial ambiguity in the contested idea of scientific 'value-freedom,' I first argue that the dispute about value-judgements is in fact most clearly treated as two closely related but distinct disputes--a 'methodological' dispute concerning the influence of shifting cultural-historical values on the social sciences, and a 'metanormative' dispute concerning whether and how social scientific knowledge can validate moral and political claims. By exploiting the generally unnoticed complexity of Weber's pivotal contribution to these controversies, I then proceed to develop an 'intermediary' position which problematizes the standard battlelines between proponents of 'value-free' and 'normative' social science Turning first to the methodological dispute, I argue that one can reject the broadly 'positivist' conception of value-freedom, which attempts to exclude extra-scientific value assumptions from the contexts of empirical analysis and validation, and that one can do so without endangering the idea of scientific objectivity. My argument here relies heavily on Weber's Wertbeziehung ('value-relevance') thesis, which I read in concert with developments in 'postempiricist' philosophy of science, and as providing the basis for a transcendental criticism of methodological value-freedom. In part II of the study, I then argue that this criticism does not entail a refutation of the more properly Weberian conception of Wertfreiheit as a metanormative principal--i.e., as a constraint upon scientifically informed social criticism. The primary interlocutor with the Weberian position here is the critical theory and discourse ethics of Jurgen Habermas. Contrary to prevailing views, I argue (1) that Weber's 'decisionist' model of practical deliberation need not be interpreted as a form of blatant ethical non-cognitivism; and (2) that Habermas's arguments for a critical social science do not suffice to dispense with the 'immanent' considerations that constitute the basis of the Weberian critical model / acase@tulane.edu

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