According to the ancient commentaries, Iliad 21.195 was omitted by some sources, thereby making Acheloios, instead of Ocean, the origin of all waters, including the sea: the reasons for and the date of such a version of the text have been debated. In this paper 1 argue that the version without line 195 actually represents the earlier textual stage. This role of Acheloios is paralleled in the poem interpreted in the Derveni papyrus, and some features of Acheloios' cosmological function, as (...) well as his iconography, find interesting parallels in the Near East. As a 'cosmic' figure, Acheloios was in competition with Ocean, and is only rarely so represented in later preserved texts. His function as the origin of all fresh water and the source of all springs was more persistent, probably due also to his cultic role in Dodona: this, too, is probably reflected in another ancient variant for the text of Il. 16.234. (shrink)

Dealing with fragmentary texts is an unavoidable task for anyone working on the Greco-Roman world with the awareness that only a tiny portion of the texts produced in antiquity has survived the perilous process of transmission. Since the Renaissance, generations of scholars have painstakingly collected and sifted quotations, paraphrases and allusions in later authors and grammatical sources, laying the foundation for our knowledge of large parts of that lost world. More recently a spectacular increase was made possible by the papyrological (...) discoveries. Even so, after centuries of explorations in this field, the evidence provided by the indirect sources and, in particular, by the still partly unpublished troves of medieval lexicographical excerpts and compilations is far from having been exhaustively exploited. (shrink)

Existe uma tensão entre Teoria e História: “[...] a poesia é mais filosófica e de caráter mais elevado que a história, porque a poesia permanece no universal e a história estuda apenas o particular” (Aristóteles, 2007, 43). Esta afirmação de Aristóteles talvez tenha sido a primeira indicação da referida tensão entre as duas formas de conhecimento: a histórica e a teórica. Na citação acima, a filosofia é a referência de um pensamento hierarquicamente superior, sendo que sua legitimação enquanto tal passa (...) pela universalidade de suas verdades. É importante salientar que a poesia nesta reflexão aristotélica é uma forma de conhecimento, embora difira da história no que concerne à matéria do conhecido: na primeira, o fato poderia ter acontecido; na segunda, aconteceu. Porque aconteceu, o fato é singular, e que poderia ter acontecido cai no âmbito do universal. Neste sentido, a chave para a compreensão da tensão entre história e teoria é a universalidade ou singularidade do conhecimento adquirido: “[...] é evidente que não compete ao poeta narrar exatamente o que aconteceu; mas sim o que poderia ter acontecido, o possível, segundo a verossimilhança ou a necessidade. O historiador e o poeta não se distinguem um do outro, pelo fato de o primeiro escrever em prosa e o segundo em verso [...]. Diferem entre si porque um escreveu o que aconteceu e o outro o que poderia ter acontecido” (Aristóteles, 2007, 43). Ao situar a história em nível menos elevado que a poesia, Aristóteles parece ter suscitado em pensadores contemporâneos a ideia da distinção entre conhecimento histórico e conhecimento teórico. O presente estudo versa sobre a natureza do conhecimento histórico e seus impasses metodológicos no uso dos referenciais teóricos necessários às suas indagações fundamentais. (shrink)

O objetivo deste trabalho é estudar a relação que se estabelece entre as características da fenomenologia filosófica, a natureza do conhecimento que dela deriva e o modo como interfere sobre a produção do conhecimento em comunicação. Em primeiro lugar, observa-se a concepção de comunicação como processo transmissivo desenvolvida pelos clássicos estudos de mídia ou pelos processos de comunicação de massa. Em seguida, aproximam-se comunicação e semiótica como campos epistemológicos que, embora desenvolvam mútuas influências científicas, são, não raro, considerados áreas científicas (...) distintas atualmente, observa-se a emergência de outras bases de reflexão que podem aproximar a comunicação e a semiótica, enquanto áreas científicas. (shrink)

What is science? What is the distinction between scientific knowledge and living science, science of experience. Peirce's pragmatism. The scientific dimension of Peirce's categories: deduction, abduction, induction. Induction as a connection between the abductive hypothesis, that is only probable and the generation of a deductive and indispensable law that characterises behavior habits.Que é ciência? A distinção entre conhecimento científico e ciência como coisa viva, ciência da experiência. A dimensão científica das categorias de Peirce: dedução, abdução, indução. Pragmatismo peirceano. A indução (...) como elemento de ligação entre a hipótese explicativa abdutiva apenas provável e a geração de uma lei dedutiva, necessária porque normativa para hábitos de conduta. (shrink)

Conventional quantitative methods for the measurement of organizational legitimacy consider mainly three sources that make judgments about organizations visible: news media, accreditation bodies, and surveys. Over the last decade, however, social media have enabled ordinary citizens to bypass the gatekeeping function of these institutional evaluators and autonomously make individual judgments public. This inclusion of voices beyond functional and formally organized stakeholder groups potentially pluralizes the ongoing discussions about organizations. The individual judgments in blogs, tweets, and Facebook posts give indication about (...) the broader fit between an organization’s perceived behavior and heterogeneous social norms and therefore constitute an indicator of organizational legitimacy that can be accessed and measured. We propose the use of social media data and sentiment analysis to study the affect-based responses to organizational actions by citizens. We critically discuss and compare the method with existing quantitative methods for legitimacy measurement and apply them to a recent case in the banking industry. We discuss the value of the method for studying the process of legitimacy construction as the expression and negotiation of normative judgments about organizations by various evaluators. (shrink)

This article studies the underinvestigated but fascinating issue of the sociological determinants of accounting misbehavior while focusing on an allegedly illicit accounting practice (i.e., restatement) in family- vs. nonfamily-controlled corporations. Under the framework of institutional anomie theory, we examined whether sociological structures (i.e., legal forces and cultural values) influence accounting errors inducing restatements. By applying a multivariate regression analysis to a sample of restating firms listed in 23 countries during the 2006 to 2014 period, we found that legal forces and (...) cultural values significantly moderate the severity of accounting errors. The results of this study suggest that investors, managers, and policymakers should more fully consider the sociological structures of societies when debating the feasibility of corporate misbehaviors, as combining firm-level and country-level analyses could help to predict a firm’s accounting misbehaviors, such as more severe accounting errors. (shrink)

Menéndez y Pelayo. -- Juan Maragall. -- Juan Luis Vives. -- San Juan de la Cruz. -- Ricardo León.

Over the past decade, research has revealed biomolecular condensates' relevance in diverse cellular functions. Through a phase separation process, they concentrate macromolecules in subcompartments shaping the cellular organization and physiology. In the nucleus, biomolecular condensates assemble relevant biomolecules that orchestrate gene expression. We here hypothesize that chromatin condensates can also modulate the nongenetic functions of the genome, including the nuclear mechanical properties. The importance of chromatin condensates is supported by the genetic evidence indicating that mutations in their members are causative (...) of a group of rare Mendelian diseases named chromatinopathies (CPs). Despite a broad spectrum of clinical features and the perturbations of the epigenetic machinery characterizing the CPs, recent findings highlighted negligible changes in gene expression. These data argue in favor of possible noncanonical functions of chromatin condensates in regulating the genome's spatial organization and, consequently, the nuclear mechanics. In this review, we discuss how condensates may impact nuclear mechanical properties, thus affecting the cellular response to mechanical cues and, eventually, cell fate and identity.Chromatin condensates organize macromolecules in the nucleus orchestrating the transcription regulation and mutations in their members are responsible for rare diseases named chromatinopathies. We argue that chromatin condensates, in concert with the nuclear lamina, may also govern the nuclear mechanical properties affecting the cellular response to external cues. (shrink)

The ageing society poses significant challenges to Europe’s economy and society. In coming to grips with these issues, we must be aware of their ethical dimensions. Values are the heart of the European Union, as Article 1a of the Lisbon Treaty makes clear: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity…”. The notion of Europe as a community of values has various important implications, including the development of inclusion policies. A special case of exclusion concerns the (...) gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it, the “digital divide”, which in Europe is chiefly age-related. Policies to overcome the digital divide and, more generally speaking, e-inclusion policies addressing the ageing population raise some ethical problems. Among younger senior citizens, say those between 65 and 80 years old, the main issues are likely to be universal access to ICT and e-participation. Among the older senior citizens, say those more than 80 years old, the main issues are mental and physical deterioration and assistive technology. An approach geared towards the protection of human rights could match the different needs of senior citizens and provide concrete guidance to evaluate information technologies for them. (shrink)

Persae et Magi omnes qui Persicae regionis incolunt fines ignem praeferunt et omnibus elementis ignem putant debere praeponi. The Persians and all the Magi who dwell in the confines of the Persian land give their preference to fire and think it ought to be ranked above all the other elements.Iulius Firmicus Maternus was a Latin writer who lived in the fourth centurya.d. In the 340s, following his conversion to Christianity, he wrote theDe errore profanarum religionum, which has been preserved only (...) in the tenth-century manuscript Vaticanus Palatinus Latinus 165. In this work he argues against the pagan cults, calling for the emperors to suppress them. The first sections are dedicated to the pagan worship of the natural elements: objects of a cult are water among the Egyptians, earth among the Phrygians, air among the Assyrians. The chapter we are dealing with, the fifth, is dedicated to fire, a central element of the Zoroastrian religion. Greek and Roman writers, pagans and Christians alike, were aware of this, and references to some sort of fire-cult among Persians are numerous in literature and are found as early as Herodotus. Just like Firmicus Maternus, some authors also state that the Magi worship fire as a god or divine element and that they conduct fire-related rituals. In Greek and Latin authors there is a view that the Magi, these specialists of the rituals of the Persian religion, were originally a Median tribe. As shown by the passages of Ammianus and Basil, such knowledge was also available to Firmicus Maternus’ contemporaries, and there do not appear to be particular differences in the way in which Greek and Latin authors viewed the Magi in Achaemenid and Sassanid times. Regrettably, one cannot know for certain which of these sources Firmicus Maternus knew. (shrink)

La controversia que han mantenido Sokal y algunos críticos de la ciencia sobre la práctica y cultura científicas constituye uno de los episodios más atractivos de la epistemología y la sociología del conocimiento científico actual2. Alan Sokal es un profesor de Física en la Universidad de Nueva York que, con el fin de denunciar la falta de rigor intelectual y la abundancia de discursos vaporosos de ciertos estudios sociales y culturales de la ciencia, decidió preguntarse qué respuesta editorial obtendría si (...) enviaba a una revista de prestigio un artículo lleno de absurdos, pero que sonara bien, estuviese en sintonía con los presupuestos ideológicos de los editores y figurase repleto de referencias bibliográficas actualizadas. La respuesta la tuvo en la primavera de 1996 cuando Social Text, una de las revistas norteamericanas más prestigiosas de estudios culturales, publicó3, en el número monográfico dedicado a las "Guerras de la ciencia"4 su artículo, "Transgrediendo fronteras: Aproximación a una hermeneútica transformadora de la gravedad cuántica". (shrink)

The ageing society poses significant challenges to Europe’s economy and society. In coming to grips with these issues, we must be aware of their ethical dimensions. Values are the heart of the European Union, as Article 1a of the Lisbon Treaty makes clear: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity…”. The notion of Europe as a community of values has various important implications, including the development of inclusion policies. A special case of exclusion concerns the (...) gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it, the “digital divide”, which in Europe is chiefly age-related. Policies to overcome the digital divide and, more generally speaking, e-inclusion policies addressing the ageing population raise some ethical problems. Among younger senior citizens, say those between 65 and 80 years old, the main issues are likely to be universal access to ICT and e-participation. Among the older senior citizens, say those more than 80 years old, the main issues are mental and physical deterioration and assistive technology. An approach geared towards the protection of human rights could match the different needs of senior citizens and provide concrete guidance to evaluate information technologies for them. (shrink)

Le livre refermé, le lecteur peut avoir l’impression d’avoir littéralement accompli une promenade à cheval dans la culture française du xixe siècle. Culture au sens large, qu’elle soit littéraire, philosophique, politique, scientifique ou visuelle, qu’elle touche aux loisirs ou à l’étude. Tout fait source : les idéologues, les écrivains, les peintres, la presse illustrée, la photographie (peut-être nénamoins sous-estimée), les affiches, le théâtre, le cirque, les rituels sociaux populaires ou...

Cet article reconstruit la réception d’un paradoxe zénonien formulé « à partir de la dichotomie » dans la Physique et dans la Métaphysique d’Aristote. Dans la Physique, Aristote remarque que ce paradoxe a conduit certains philosophes à poser l’existence de grandeurs indivisibles ( Physique I, 3) et découvre le présupposé erroné qui produit l’absurdité (VIII, 8). Après avoir montré que ce groupe de philosophes inclut Platon, l’article démontre que, dans la Métaphysique, Aristote invoque explicitement le raisonnement à la base du (...) paradoxe dans le cadre de sa critique de la conception platonicienne et pythagoricienne de l’unité comme substance ( Métaphysique III, 4). Plus précisément, Aristote retourne contre Platon un « axiome de Zénon » qu’il extrait du paradoxe « à partir de la dichotomie ». (shrink)

Des influences égyptiennes dans la Descriptio orbis de Denys d’Alexandrie ? L’examen attentif des composantes laudatives et du contenu du proème de la Descriptio orbis de Denys le Périégète prouve que le poète originaire d’Alexandrie a été influencé dans son œuvre même par la religion égyptienne. En particulier, derrière l’éloge de l’Océan paraît se cacher un hymne à la louange du Nun primordial.Egyptian Influences in the Descriptio orbis by Dionysius of Alexandria? The thorough analysis of the laudatory components and contents (...) of the proem by Dionysius Periegetes’ Descriptio orbis shows that the Alexandrian poet was also influenced in his own poem by the Egyptian religion. In particular, behind the encomium of the Ocean, it looks as if the poet is hiding a hymn to the primeval Nun. (shrink)

Il saggio ha come oggetto di riflessione quella struttura portante della vita, dell'esperienza umana che č la speranza. Come l'angoscia e l'attesa, essa vive nel futuro e qui viene esplorata nel campo delle relazioni umane, d'aiuto, di cura, in psichiatria, con connotazioni tipiche che si aggiungono a quelle filosofiche e teologiche sull'argomento. Quando la speranza rinasce dalle secche del mal di vivere, quando il medico stesso si č confrontato con le debolezze proprie e attraverso l'empatia si č messo anche in (...) ascolto del silenzio del paziente, del dialogare in silenzio, allora la speranza č come un ponte che ci fa uscire dalla nostra solitudine e diventa speranza creatrice. (shrink)

Em 24 de agosto de 1572, Paris viveu um fato sangrento em sua história: “O Massacre da Noite de São Bartolomeu”, como ficou historicamente conhecido o evento, remete ao assassinato de milhares de huguenotes, a mando da casa real francesa, nas ruas da cidade. Mais um episódio dos conflitos religiosos que dividiram a França do século XVI, o banho de sangue protestante a mando da realeza católica seria, no século seguinte, louvado pelos teóricos seiscentistas da razão de Estado. Seguindo essa (...) linha, Gabriel Naudé, na obra Considérations politiques sur les coups-d'état, elogia o golpe que motivou o massacre, defendendo-o das acusações de tirania e o glorificando como ação legítima e necessária por parte dos governantes franceses. Examinar a apologia de Naudé ao referido massacre, e nela buscar a influência da obra de Nicolau Maquiavel exercida sobre o autor, é o escopo de nosso artigo. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the rationality of law and legal decision making would be enhanced by a systematic attempt to recognize and respond to the implications of empirical uncertainty for policy making and decision making. Admission of uncertainty about the accuracy of facts and the validity of assumptions relied on to make inferences of fact is commonly avoided in law because it raises the spectre of paralysis of the capacity to decide issues authoritatively. The roots of this short-sighted (...) view are found in primitive mechanical models of relationships in the empirical and social world – those of objective causality and determinism. Insofar as it is believed that if we had sufficient data a clear and unequivocal answer would be available to each question, admission of uncertainty is seen as a sign of insufficiency, incompetence, impotence, and is avoided whenever a decision that must be seen to be based on valid reasons, cannot be avoided. Avoidance of some decisions, duplicity in others, is the result. -/- Decision-making must be restructured to recognize the provisional and context-bound validity and relevance of the models we use to conceptualize and order our understanding of phenomena, and to utilize this awareness as an instrument in the production of legal policies and decisions that will be authoritative precisely because they are honestly accurate and socially responsible. The paper makes a start on such a re-structuring of the legal process by exploring the implications of the observation that if law is to be “just”: 1) legal policy must be based on accurate information and rationally related to social goals; and 2) decisions applying policy to individual fact situations must be based on assumptions that are both relevant and accurate. -/- Reasons for determinations of fact must be given, otherwise the presumption that the trier of fact is “reasonable” is an unconditional licence to use private modes of logic and theories of social and natural science. What is not disclosed cannot be challenged on grounds of invalidity or irrelevance. -/- Use of “objective validity” as a standard to evaluate conclusions made by the trier of fact in contentious cases would only serve to beg all important questions by concealing: 1) fundamental normative conflict, and 2) the limited nature and applicability of many validity claims. -/- Our use of the phrases “undue risk,” “public interest,” “reasonable,” and “necessary,” reflects the weight we choose to give conflicting social values and goals when we must make decisions in relative ignorance of all the consequences. “Objective criteria” are of limited utility in legal decision-making because their social meaning is derivative. Policy generation in the absence of any coherent conceptual-normative framework, use of vague terminology in legislation stating policy, and the absence of rational means to distinguish between individual cases to which decision-makers are required by law to apply policy, make it inevitable that many legal “decisions” made in the guise of determinations of objective fact, are charades, an arbitrary, capricious, intuitive, subjective (and thus private) use of public decision-making power. -/- Law must alter its aspirations and recognize that rational decision-making is a process that can occur only within parameters set by present knowledge and societal preference structures. Only by working with the constraints imposed by these parameters is it possible to achieve “just” decisions. Where no rational basis for differentiating cases exists, “individualized justice” must be avoided and public policy articulated in law applied uniformly to all cases in a class. The terms “reasonable” and “necessary,” used to describe policy and its consequences for specific cases, must be understood to represent provisional societal assessments, attempts to implement societal preference structures in the face of limited knowledge. Heightened awareness of the limited nature of our knowledge can only result in legal policies that have a more explicit normative basis. -/- The volume is is published with an introduction by Michael D. Bayles. It is available in hardback, paperback, and as an ebook. (shrink)

«A genuine literary treatment of the soul» is what Eugenio Massa called the brief section of Egidio of Viterbo’s Sentences Commentary that he published in 1954. What Massa published is Egidio’s discussion of part of Peter Lombard’s third distinction in Book I, which bears the title «De imagine et similitudine Trinitatis in anima humana». The main topic at so early a place in the Sentences is not, strictly speaking, the human soul but the divine Trinity. The point of departure (...) is Lombard’s consideration of the soul as analogous to the Trinity; and behind that connection lies Augustine, who presented the soul as an image of the Trinity because he saw in the soul a unity and simplicity of substance but also Platonism’s tripartite divisions. These include, for example, the appetitive, emotional, and rational functions, from the Republic, and Augustine’s subdivision of the rational functions into memory, understanding, and will. This connection between Trinity and human soul, however, gave commentators excellent opportunities not only for theology, discourse about God, but also for psychology, the study of the soul. Descriptions of the human soul initially offered in the theological context became important in their own right. According to Massa, in light of the soul’s being created in God’s image, Egidio was able to make human dignity the major theme even at this early point in the commentary. (shrink)