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Charts the historical development of induction and challenges contemporary understandings of the concept and its foundations.

The problem of induction continues to vex and beguile. How can we reliably draw universal conclusions from limited observations? In Induction, John P. McCaskey steps back and rethinks long-held assumptions, tracing the ideas of Socrates and Aristotle in ancient Greece to those of Karl Popper in the twentieth century.

This comprehensive account does not look at how people of the past answered the questions we ask today. Instead, it asks: How did they understand the very meaning of the words epagōgē in Greek, inductio in Latin, istiqrāʾ in Arabic, Induktion in German, and induction in English? McCaskey’s careful treatment of texts in their context dispels many long-standing myths, and importantly, he introduces us to a now-unfamiliar way to think about what induction is—a way in which there simply is no “problem of induction.” McCaskey reveals that the problem was one of our own making and that an accurate history may help us recover old ways—and thereby introduce new ways—to think about the whole idea. A must-read for philosophers, historians of ideas, and anyone interested in the scientific method.

An original history of music in the lives of American soldiers.
 
Since the Civil War, music has coursed through the United States military. Soldiers have sung while marching, listened to records and armed forces radio, and packed the seats at large-scale USO shows. The bugle call “reveille” has roused soldiers in the morning, and “taps” has marked the end of a long day. Whether the sounds come from brass instruments, weary and homesick singers, or a pair of heavily used earbuds, where there has been war, there has been music, too.
 
Instrument of War is a first-of-its-kind study of music in the lives of American soldiers. Although musical activity has been part of war since time immemorial, the significance of the U.S. military as a musical institution has generally gone unnoticed. Historian David Suisman traces how the U.S. military has used—and continues to use—music to train soldiers and regulate military life, and how soldiers themselves have turned to music to cope with war’s emotional and psychological realities. Opening our ears to these practices, Suisman reveals how music has enabled more than a century and a half of American war-making. Instrument of War unsettles assumptions about music as a force of uplift and beauty, demonstrating how it has also been entangled in large-scale state violence.
 
From chanting “Sound off!” in basic training to switching on a phonograph or radio or cueing up an iPod playlist during a patrol, the sound of music has long resonated in soldiers’ wartime experiences. Now we all can finally hear it.
 

Original and expert, Instrumental Lives brings a new understanding of how musical instruments interact with their environments and societies. Contributors: Supeena Insee Adler, Marie-Pierre Lissoir, Terauchi Naoko, Jennifer C. Post, Helen Rees, Xiao Mei, Tyler Yamin, and Bell Yung

From medieval to modern, exploring instrumental attitudes toward physical gadgets, diagrams, concepts, methods, and disciplines

Opening up the instrumental condition of the human for critical reflection and renewal, Instrumentality illuminates key moments in the intellectual history of the European Middle Ages. J. Allan Mitchell reveals how, in the predigital past, we can recognize many of the operative technics, analytics, and metaphorics that continue to shape human sense and cognition today.

Exploring the diverse modalities of medieval instruments, Mitchell’s case studies encompass techniques as seemingly distinct as time-keeping mechanisms, mathematical diagrams, logical syllogisms, and the literary devices of Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower. A cultural and intellectual history, Mitchell’s work leads readers from three-dimensional objects (physical mechanisms) to two-dimensional inscriptions (maps and diagrams) and onward to overarching disciplinary norms in the early liberal and mechanical arts. Prying loose the subtle, adaptable, and generative concept of technical objects from limiting contemporary frameworks, he shows how these instruments are indispensable to the past—and the future—of the arts and culture at large.