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Mathematical modeling of the electrocrystallization processes and its applications has long been a subject dear to Martin Fleischmann. The study of nucleation is fundamental to the understanding of crystallization. In the context of electrocrystallization, the terms can be applied to phase formation at preferred sites on the electrode surface and phase formation at surfaces without such sites. Two models of nucleation are presented: a heterogeneous model (nucleation on an indent); and a spherical-cap model representing homogeneous nucleation. The transients are recorded by applying a two-step potential profile to the working electrode. This procedure ensures the reduction of the initial falling background/charging current, so that the magnitude of this initial current cannot mask the very early stages of electrocrystallization. Martin sought to establish an approach to nucleation based on quantum electrodynamics.

The belief amongst most electrochemists that the appropriate models, representing “homogeneous” and “heterogeneous” nucleation in the context of electrocrystallization, are spherical and spherical-cap shapes, respectively, is challenged. A proper foundation for modelling heterogeneous nucleation is introduced. The free energy required for the formation of a nucleus within an indent is derived and compared with that required for the formation of a nucleus onto a flat surface of an electrode. It is shown for the first time, using the classical theory of nucleation, that a much smaller free energy is required for nucleating within an indent on the surface of an electrode than nucleating onto a flat electrode surface. The applicability of the model, with the corresponding equations, to nucleation in the context of electrocrystallization is established. 

Descartes's concept of the mind, as distinct form the body with which forms a union, set the agenda for much of Western philosophy's subsequent reflection on human nature and thought. This is the first book to give an analysis of Descartes's pivotal concept that deals with all the function ofthe mind, cognitive as well as volitional, theoretical as well as practical and moral. Focusing on Descartes's view of the mind as intimately united to and intermingled withe the body, and focusing on the implications of its emodiement for his philosophy of mind and moral psychology, it argues that the epistemological and methodlogical consequences of this view have been largely misconstrued in the modern debate.

Informed by both French and recent Anglo-American research, the book combines historical-contextual analysis with a philosophical problem-oriented approach. It relates Descartes's views on mind and intentionality both to contemporary debates and to problems Descartes confronted in their historical context. By drawing out the historical antecedents and the intellectual evolution of Descartes's thinking about the mind - its actions and passions- the book shows how his emphasis on the embodiment of the mind has implications far more complexing and interesting than the usual dualist account suggests.

This paper reflects on the status of Descartes' notion of the mind-body union as an object of knowledge in the framework of his new philosophy of nature, and argues that it should be taken seriously as representing a third kind of real thing or reality—that of human nature. Because it does not meet the criteria of distinctness that the two natures composing it—those of thinking minds and extended bodies— meet, the phenomena referred to it, which are objects of psychology as traditionally understood, fall outside the scope of clear and distinct perception required for knowledge. The prospects for rationalist psychology are bleak, since because of the mind-body union so little of the contents of the human mind are accessible to rational inspection or introspection. Mechanistic natural philosophy on the other hand gives us knowledge only of the physiological and corporeal aspects of the phenomena Descartes classifies as mental. What pertains to the mind-body union can only be known through the senses, moreover, we learn to conceive the mind-body union only through daily experience (“usant seulement de la vie et des conversations ordinaries”, AT 3, 695). I discuss the nature of this experience, and the sense in which Cartesian psychology without being part of his philosophy of nature in the strict sense of the term, can still be seen as a naturalist undertaking in a more traditional sense of nature where life, sentience, reasoning and rational action are all seen as natural phenomena.

This paper explores Spinoza's therapy of passions and method of salvation through knowledge and love of God. His optimism about this method is perplexing: it is not even clear how his God, who is unlike any traditional notion of divinity, can be loved. Sorting out Spinoza's view involves distinguishing an ethics of bondage from another of freedom, and two corresponding notions of love of God. The paper argues that the highest kind of love-'pure intellectual love of God'-should not be understood as an affect at all, but instead as unimpeded intellectual activity. This suggestion requires reconsidering Spinoza's account of cognition, particularly his use of the Cartesian notions of objective and formal reality which are not only central to his theory of ideas but constitute the foundations of his salvation project.

This paper explores some strands of the new science of man proposed in Hume's Treatise, focusing on the role given to the passions in Hume's account of personal identity. How is the view of the self with regard to the passions examined in Book 2 supposed to complement, as Hume suggests, that with regard to thought and imagination discussed in Book 1 (T 1.4.6.19; SBN 261)? How should the nature and object of the account there proposed be understood? While it is clear that Hume rejects a metaphysical thesis of the mind as a unitary, simple thinking substance, it is less clear whether he also gives an alternative metaphysical theory of the mind as consisting in a mere succession of discrete impressions and ideas or more modestly offers a description of what we actually observe when inspecting our idea of self. I favor the latter view and argue that Hume's best and most interesting characterization of the mind is the political analogy of the self as a republic or commonwealth that Hume calls a "true idea of the human mind." The mind in this metaphor is compared to a dynamic political system of changing members driven by common or shared goals and interacting in determinate ways regulated by its constitution. This system of interconnected ideas already comes with all the elements that a broader, embodied and social self presupposes. It is thus because the idea of mind or self as sketched in the Section "Of Personal Identity" in Book 1 is grounded in the passions that the examination of their nature and mechanisms in Book 2 can be seen by Hume as actually "corroborating" it.