In How to Bake Pi, math professor Eugenia Cheng provides an accessible introduction to the logic and beauty of mathematics, powered, unexpectedly, by insights from the kitchen: we learn, for example, how the béchamel in a lasagna can be a lot like the number 5, and why making a good custard proves that math is easy but life is hard.

Where does math come from? From a textbook? From rules? From deduction? From logic? Not really, Eugenia Cheng writes in Is Math Real?: it comes from curiosity, from instinctive human curiosity, "from people not being satisfied with answers and always wanting to understand more." And most importantly, she says, "it comes from questions": not from answering them, but from posing them. Nothing could seem more at odds from the way most of us were taught math: a rigid and (...) autocratic model which taught us to follow specific steps to reach specific answers. Instead of encouraging a child who asks why 1+1 is 2, our methods of education force them to accept it. Instead of exploring why we multiply before we add, a textbook says, just to get on with the order of operations. Indeed, the point is usually just about getting the right answer, and those that are good at that, become "good at math" while those who question, are not. And that's terrible: These very same questions, as Cheng shows, aren't simply annoying questions coming from people who just don't "get it" and so can't do math. Rather, they are what drives mathematical research and push the boundaries in our understanding of all things. Legitimizing those questions, she invites everyone in, whether they think they are good at math or not. And by highlighting the development of mathematics outside Europe, Cheng shows that-western chauvinism notwithstanding--that math can be for anyone who wishes to do it, and how much we gain when anyone can. (shrink)

A mathematician and scientist in residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago helps readers explore the concept of infinity through unique concepts including chessboards, a chicken-sandwich sandwich and the creation of infinite cookies from an infinite dough ball.

X and Y are desperate to bake infinite pie! With the help of quirky and uber-smart Aunt Z, X and Y will use math concepts to bake their way to success!

本书以欧洲的社会政治、经济历史为背景,以技术史为基础,以欧洲哲学史的历史脉络为主线,研究从古希腊到19世纪中叶哲学的技术思想,揭示出技术哲学由萌芽到产生的历史过程。.

In this paper we ask whether the two-factor theory of delusions is compatible with two claims, that delusions are pathological and that delusions are adaptive. We concentrate on two recent and influential models of the two-factor theory: the one proposed by Max Coltheart, Peter Menzies and John Sutton (2010) and the one developed by Ryan McKay (2012). The models converge on the nature of Factor 1 but diverge about the nature of Factor 2. The differences between the two models are (...) reflected in different accounts of the pathological and adaptive nature of delusions. We will explore such differences, considering naturalist and normativist accounts of the pathological and focusing on judgements of adaptiveness that are informed by the shear-pin hypothesis (McKay and Dennett 2009). After reaching our conclusions about the two models, we draw more general implications for the status of delusions within two-factor theories. Are there good grounds to claim that delusions are pathological? Are delusions ever adaptive? Can delusions be at the same time pathological and adaptive? (shrink)

El debate como método para mejorar la expresión y comprensión oral en Educación Primaria se está viendo reforzado por las últimas legislaciones educativas, como la LOMLOE, que da muchísima importancia al desarrollo de competencias y habilidades. En este proyecto de intervención educativa se pretende despertar el interés de los alumnos por nuevos temas de debate, incrementando su capacidad de razonamiento y análisis, habituándolos a recibir críticas y desarrollando aptitudes comunicativas. Se realizará a lo largo de un curso escolar, dividiendo tres (...) fases (acercamiento, profundización y liga de debates), que ayudará al profesorado a mejorar la competencia comunicativa de sus alumnos. (shrink)

Gustave Le Gray was one of the most technically accomplished and aesthetically enlightened of the early "artist-photographers." Trained as a painter of portraits and landscapes, Le Gray was attracted in the 1840s to the artistic potential of photographic processes. As a photographer he evolved and refined much of photography's primary aesthetic theory. By 1855 he had influenced, if not taught, every important photographer in France. Drawing on entirely new material Eugenia Parry Janis fully analyzes the life and work of (...) Le Gray and demonstrates the originality of his artistic achievement in the context of discoveries about his personal and professional history. Janis, approaching the photographs of Le Gray with the methods and sensibilities of an art historian, reveals telling connections between Le Gray's choices of subject matter and formal means of presentation and the existing pictorial practice of other media such as painting. This same approach makes her sensitive to Le Gray's departures from such traditional practice, and she skillfully illustrates how he evolved from student painter into master photographer. In doing so she gives us a glimpse of the way in which Le Gray's manipulation of the photographic process was always informed by his pictorial needs and by his developing style. (shrink)

This paper outlines a theory and computer implementation of causal meanings and reasoning. The meanings depend on possibilities, and there are four weak causal relations: A causes B, A prevents B, A allows B, and A allows not‐B, and two stronger relations of cause and prevention. Thus, A causes B corresponds to three possibilities: A and B, not‐A and B, and not‐A and not‐B, with the temporal constraint that B does not precede A; and the stronger relation conveys only the (...) first and last of these possibilities. Individuals represent these relations in mental models of what is true in the various possibilities. The theory predicts a number of phenomena, and, contrary to many accounts, it implies that the meaning of causation is not probabilistic, differs from the meaning of enabling conditions, and does not depend on causal powers or mechanisms. The theory also implies that causal deductions do not depend on schemas or rules. (shrink)

Delusions are usually considered as harmful and dysfunctional beliefs, one of the primary symptoms of a psychiatric illness and the mark of madness in popular culture. However, in recent times a much more positive role has been advocated for delusions. More specifically, it has been argued that delusions might be an answer to a problem rather than problems in themselves. By delivering psychological and epistemic benefits, delusions would allow people who face severe biological or psychological difficulties to survive in their (...) environment - although this has obvious epistemic costs, as the delusion is fixed and irresponsive to compelling counterevidence. In other words, it has been argued that delusions are biologically adaptive. The adaptiveness of delusions has been compared by Ryan McKay and Daniel Dennett to a shear pin, a mechanism installed in the drive engine of some machines which is designed to shear whenever the machine is about to break down. By breaking, shear pins prevent the machine from collapsing and allow it to keep functioning, although in an impaired manner. Similarly, when delusions form, they would allow a cognitive or psychological system which is about to collapse to continue its functioning, although in an impaired manner. However, this optimistic picture of delusions risks being undermined by both theoretical and empirical considerations. Using Sarah Fineberg and Philip Corlett’s recent predictive coding account as a paradigmatic model of the biological adaptiveness of delusions, I develop two objections to it: principles of parsimony and simplicity suggest that maladaptive models of delusions have an upper hand over adaptive models; and the available empirical evidence suggests that at least some delusions stand good chances of being psychologically adaptive, but it is unlikely that they also qualify as biologically adaptive. (shrink)

Abstract. The article is devoted to the possibilities of the formation and development of engineering thinking. The paper considers the features of engineering thinking, compares various concepts that characterize engineering activities. The authors compare the concepts of technical, economic, research thinking, identifying the principles of engineering thinking. The need for a humanitarian component in engineering thinking is noted. Consistency and multidimensionality are considered by the authors as the most important concepts for the formation of engineering thinking. In conclusion, the authors (...) point out that engineering thinking universally orients the employee when solving different types of tasks and contributes to greater variability in making standard and non-standard decisions in the production process. -/- . (shrink)

According to the universality thesis, the epistemic properties referred to by the English epistemic verb “know” contained in the expressions of the form “S knows that p” or “S knows how to φ‎” are shared by the translations of the epistemic verb in all other languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and so on. Some doubt that there is reason to think the universality thesis is true because little or nothing is shown about the meanings and uses of the (...) epistemic terms in languages other than English. Critics of the universality thesis find counterevidence to the thesis; that is, the evidence demonstrates that translations of the epistemic verb “know” are used differently in some languages from the way “know” is used in English. In this chapter, the authors examine the effectiveness of such counterevidence. (shrink)

Delusions are symptoms of psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and dementia. By and large, delusions are characterized by their behavioral manifestations and defined as irrational beliefs that compromise good functioning. In this overview paper, we ask whether delusions can be adaptive notwithstanding their negative features. Can they be a response to a crisis rather than the source of the crisis? Can they be the beginning of a solution rather than the problem? Some of the psychological, psychiatric, and philosophical literature has (...) recently suggested that they can. We consider different types of delusions and different ways in which they can be considered as adaptive: psychologically (e.g., by increasing wellbeing, purpose in life, intrapsychic coherence, or good functioning) and biologically (e.g., by enhancing genetic fitness). Although further research is needed to map the costs and benefits of adopting and maintaining delusional beliefs, a more nuanced picture of the role of delusions in people's lives has started to emerge. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a virtue-theoretic approach to semantics, according to which the study of linguistic competence in particular, and the study of meaning and language in general, should focus on a speaker's interpretative virtues, such as charity and interpretability, rather than the speaker's knowledge of rules. The first part of the paper proffers an argument for shifting to virtue semantics, and the second part outlines the nature of such virtue semantics.

In the present paper, we substantiate the theory according to which the ailments of imagination presented by Immanuel Kant, especially in his work Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, are sources of artistic creation. It is obvious that not anyone suffering from melancholia, nostalgia, hypochondria or any other ailment of the soul, which Immanuel Kant refers to, becomes a creator of culture. Genius is required for this, but instead of diminishing the creative power of the genius, it seems to (...) be enhanced by the ailments of imagination or generally, by the ailments of the soul. The hypertrophic imagination in the case of a genius plays a major role in the process of fixation in the individual and collective memory of what Immanuel Kant names. (shrink)

Among the meritorious attempts to unravel the enigma of artistic creation are the views of Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer. In the following, we want to emphasise an aspect that is less discussed in the specialised literature, namely the relation between memory and creation. We are talking about the authentic creation that Kant and Schopenhauer consider to be the one that carries in itself the Aesthetic Ideas. With minor differences, the concept, as well as the associated linguistic expression, come together (...) in the work of both German philosophers. An authentic work of art is the work of genius and it has the role of transmitting Ideas. Thus, we will be able to observe “the secret” of a work of art – the Aesthetic Idea. (shrink)

Sem pretender esgotar o tema, este trabalho visa refletir sobre o conceito de Modernidade aqui entendida como a construção de uma perspectiva ou projeto de futuro. O ponto de partida são as reflexões teóricas de Jurgen Habermas e nesse sentido pretende ser uma contribuição para a elaboração de uma noção emancipatória de Modernidade podendo também servir como contribuição para o debate entorno dos rumos de uma reconstrução do país também emancipadora.

O objetivo deste trabalho é o de examinar processos de exclusão e expulsão que vem se ampliando nos diversos aspectos da vida sob as condições atuais do neoliberalismo e como se manifesta na ocupação/desocupação do território, no papel da informação nesse processo e como as alterações das condições tanto da ocupação da terra quanto de produção e uso da informação impostas podem resultar na expulsão de moradores e na exclusão de usuários. Este trabalho também aponta possibilidades de surgimento de condições (...) alternativas por meio da construção de contraracionalidades na constituição de uma esfera pública política e democrática. Elaborei 7 Notas. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 5, Page 486-493, June 2022.

Although legal terms are conventionally considered to have self-referential, self-closed meaning independent of context, a legal term only acquires its meaning within a given context. As long as the context varies, the meaning of the same legal term as a signifier may change correspondingly. Based on case studies by applying semiotics, we argue that a legal term is just a sign within its sign system; a legal term as an individual sign does not have any inherent meaning, and its meaning (...) can only exist in the relationship with other signs or sign systems. In other words, a legal term only denotes in a particular temporal and spatial context. Through this study, we conclude four propositions about a legal term as a sign: first, the connection of a legal term with a legal concept is relatively arbitrary; second, the meaning of a legal term exists in a sign system; third, a legal term can be subject to multiple interpretations; fourth, the defining of a legal term may be affected by other sign systems. (shrink)

By exploring the cultural discrepancies in Chinese legal texts and their English versions and to what extent legal and cultural discrepancies influence and constrain legal translation, the study argues that it is useful to consider cultural discrepancies within a semiotic framework. Language is a phenomenon and factor that links different cultures; the use of language is crucial to any legal system. Law, as a cultural product, is attended by cultural discrepancies when switched into other languages for the purpose of achieving (...) equivalence. After a brief overview of cultural differences in translation, legal translation in particular, the study is set to examine the role of translation in crossing through different legal cultures and backgrounds and investigate barriers in the process of translation. Investigating cultural discrepancies in legal translation within a semiotic framework allows us to focus on certain interpretations by acknowledging that legal texts are composed with systems of systems and interacting with other cultural aspects in a wider context. (shrink)

Resumen: En el presente ensayo nos apoyaremos en algunos escritos fundamentales de Talcott Parsons, especialmente en lo referente a su disputa epistemológica contra el empirismo, para luego mostrar sus propias inconsistencias e ir más allá de él en la propuesta de una forma novedosa de trabajo teórico para las ciencias sociales: la teorización sistemática dinámico-estructuralista, como distinta a la teoría sistémica funcional-estructural. La idea principal es trascender las posturas representacionalistas y antiteoricistas en pos de miradas teóricas abiertas a la crítica (...) y la autocrítica. Así, frente a una mirada que confunde distintas dimensiones del continuo empírico-metafísico sin otorgarles su relativa autonomía analítica, que a nivel teórico-social y de modelos de la sociedad piensa en términos funcionales y sistémicos, que considera que cada uno de sus conceptos refiere de manera cabal a dicho mundo social y que cree que es factible la construcción de teorías acabadas, nuestra mirada busca distinguir dimensiones, complementar tradiciones plurales, y mantenerse siempre abierta a la crítica externa y la autocrítica.: In this essay we will rely on some of the key writings of Talcott Parsons, especially with regards to his epistemological dispute against empiricism, to show his own inconsistencies and go beyond him in proposing a new form of theoretical work for the social sciences: systematic and dynamic-structuralist theorizing, as distinct from functional-structural systemic theory. The main idea is to transcend the representationalist and anti-theoretical positions in favour of a view of theory open to criticism and self-criticism. In this way, and against those outlooks that confuse the different dimensions of the empirical-metaphysical continuum without giving them their relative analytic autonomy, that think in terms of functions and systems when talking about models of society, that consider each concept to be a representation of the social world, and that believe theories can be closed for good, our own outlook seeks to distinguish dimensions, complement plural traditions, and stay open to external critique and self-criticism. (shrink)

Delusions are usually depicted in one of two contrasting ways. They are either characterized as harmful and dysfunctional beliefs or as fostering engagement with the environment and sometimes even psychological wellbeing in the face of psychological or biological difficulties – something which, according to some accounts, would make them biologically adaptive. It is this “adaptive hypothesis” that I focus on in this paper, by empirically investigating the adaptiveness of delusions in a sample of people suffering from OCD. The paper shows (...) that delusions in OCD entertain complex and heterogeneous relationships with psychological wellbeing and engagement with the environment, highlighting some future directions that clinical and philosophical research on the topic should take. (shrink)

In Rita Charon's account of narrative medicine, empathy seems to be an essential element of the clinical relationship. However, empathy has not received much attention, which I believe is problematic. First, I show that not only is there no clear definition of what empathy is, but that this conceptual gap creates ambiguity about its role in the practice of narrative medicine. Second, I argue that certain passages in Charon's work seem to implicitly characterize empathy as a combination of cognitive empathy, (...) affective empathy, and sympathy, and that its inclusion in the practice of narrative medicine can be problematic. Third, following Dan Zahavi, I argue that a phenomenological account of empathy not only seems most compatible with the practices, values, and theoretical framework of narrative medicine, but is also capable of resolving the problems posed by alternative definitions of empathy and the ambiguity about the role of empathy in narrative medicine. (shrink)

The sociocultural landscape of contemporaneity can be represented as a porous inhomogeneous space consisting of border zones. These zones, understood by P. Galison as “local coordination of beliefs and actions,” can be deployed due to already existing conditions, for example, a project may arise at a university. However, such zones do not create sustainable social configurations and infrastructures associated with new areas of knowledge. In this article, we expand the concept of trading zones and call them zones requiring local ontologies (...) that arise on the border between different knowledge and imagination systems and, in turn, require their own infrastructure. This approach supports the view on humanities not as “pre-packaged” knowledge, but as special “technique” forming local ontologies. For a humanities-as-technique to emerge, it is necessary that two or more systems of knowledge coincide in time and form an intermediate zone, on the basis of which some local ontology can unfold. Thus, for example, when combining contemporary philosophy and contemporary mathematics, new images of knowledge emerge. Humanities-as-technique are considered as the basis for the establishment of trading zones, which are understood as local ontologies. We also propose a system of concepts that can be used to describe and construct these trading zones on the territory of the humanities in a techno-oriented cultural environment. (shrink)

En el contexto de cambios del proceso de globalización, la medicalización constituye una problemática central en la agenda de salud internacional. Durante la década de 1990, comenzó la expansión internacional del diagnóstico de trastorno por déficit de atención e hiperactividad (TDAH), entre otros factores, merced a la creciente relevancia de actores no médicos en el proceso y de legislaciones específicas para diferentes diagnósticos. El artículo busca contribuir a un análisis del espacio que le otorga la prensa escrita on line a (...) los procesos de medicalización del TDAH en Argentina en el siglo XXI, como aporte a una lectura panorámica de los procesos en la región y a nivel internacional, y como contribución a un área de vacancia en los estudios sociales. Para este artículo, analizamos 236 artículos on line de periódicos argentinos de alcance nacional y provincial entre 2001 y 2017. Para el relevamiento se diseñaron mecanismos de selección y filtro, con criterios y herramientas de búsqueda y procesamiento de noticias. Se efectuaron estimaciones de regularidad de tópicos emergentes y procesamientos parciales de información, incluyendo, entre otras dimensiones, año, jurisdicción, medio, fecha, sección, título, categoría, características de la nota, palabras clave, concepto o nombre del problema, fármaco/droga, tratamiento, actores sociales y recomendaciones. Con el artículo nos interesa engrosar los todavía escasos estudios que aportan a la comprensión de cómo el diagnóstico de TDAH está migrando a diferentes regiones del globo y, más específicamente, cómo está posicionándose como un problema de salud internacional. Los resultados muestran que, en los procesos de medicalización del TDAH en niños y niñas, la prensa escrita argentina (nacional y provincial) se constituye en un actor no médico relevante tanto en la institucionalización de la problemática como en la presentación de líneas terapéuticas a seguir y en acciones orientadas al impulso de legislaciones específicas. (shrink)

The article attempts to describe adonization, a specific tactic for exerting influence which employs physical attraction, as well as its determinants. The article presents a proprietary model of determinants and motivational mechanisms which constitute the basis of the attitude toward adonization. A cycle of 3 studies on individual determinants for the attitude toward adonization was described. Results of study 1 confirmed that male gender, psychological masculinity, narcissism, Machiavellianism and high self-monitoring were correlates of a positive attitude toward adonization. Study 2 (...) showed that extraversion was the predictor of a positive attitude toward adonization of men and women and that agreeableness was the predictor of a less positive attitude of women. In Study 3 it was established that there were no differences in the attitude toward adonization in young and middle-aged men. Comparison among young and middle-aged women proved that younger women had a more positive attitude toward adonization in the cognitive and in the affective components than older women. (shrink)

Resumen En el presente artículo se analiza la presencia de polaridades pasionales en El arte de la guerra de Nicolás Maquiavelo. Primero, se analiza de modo sucinto los frescos de Ambrogio Lorenzetti que se encuentran en el Palacio Comunal de Siena, poniendo particular atención en las presencias de la guerra y la paz para realizar posteriormente una comparación con el abordaje de Maquiavelo. Segundo, se analiza cómo la literatura especializada aborda este tratado militar de Maquiavelo. Tercero, se examinan las referencias (...) del amor en el juego de polaridades pasionales a lo largo del texto en torno a dos ejes: por un lado, las referencias explícitas al amor bajo su forma de amor a la patria y amor a la paz; por otro lado, cómo aparece la pasión del amor en el circuito pasional entre el capitán y su tropa. Por último, se explicitan las conclusiones que se desglosan del trabajo realizado. (shrink)