Gianni Vattimo, a leading philosopher of the continental school, has always resisted autobiography. But in this intimate memoir, the voice of Vattimo as thinker, political activist, and human being finds its expression on the page. With Piergiorgio Paterlini, a noted Italian writer and journalist, Vattimo reflects on a lifetime of politics, sexual radicalism, and philosophical exuberance in postwar Italy. Turin, the city where he was born and one of the intellectual capitals of Europe (also the city in which Nietzsche (...) went mad), forms the core of his reminiscences, enhanced by fascinating vignettes of studying under Hans Georg Gadamer, teaching in the United States, serving as a public intellectual and interlocutor of Habermas and Derrida, and working within the European Parliament to unite Europe. Vattimo's status as a left-wing faculty president paradoxically made him a target of the Red Brigades in the 1970s, causing him to flee Turin for his life. Left-wing terrorism did not deter the philosopher from his quest for social progress, however, and in the 1980s, he introduced a daring formulation called "weak thought," which stripped metaphysics, science, religion, and all other absolute systems of their authority. Vattimo then became notorious both for his renewed commitment to the core values of Christianity (he was trained as a Catholic intellectual) and for the Vatican's denunciation of his views. Paterlini weaves his interviews with Vattimo into an utterly candid first-person portrait, creating a riveting text that is destined to become one of the most compelling accounts of homosexuality, history, politics, and philosophical invention in the twentieth century. (shrink)

Graphical AbstractNowadays, in the Internet databases era, certain knowledge is being progressively lost. This knowledge, which we feel is essential and should be acquired through education, is the understanding of how the pioneer researchers faced major questions in their field and made their discoveries.

Small GTPases in the Rho family act as major nodes with functions beyond cytoskeletal rearrangements shaping the Caenorhabditis elegans embryo during development. These small GTPases are key signal transducers that integrate diverse developmental signals to produce a coordinated response in the cell. In C. elegans, the best studied members of these highly conserved Rho family small GTPases, RHO‐1/RhoA, CED‐10/Rac, and CDC‐42, are crucial in several cellular processes dealing with cytoskeletal reorganization. In this review, we update the functions described for the (...) Rho family small GTPases in spindle orientation and cell division, engulfment, and cellular movements during C. elegans embryogenesis, focusing on the Rho subfamily Rac.Please also see the video abstract here. (shrink)

The present paper gives a topological solution to representability problems related to multi-utility, in the field of Decision Theory. Necessary and sufficient topologies for the existence of a semicontinuous and finite Richter–Peleg multi-utility for a preorder are studied. It is well known that, given a preorder on a topological space, if there is a lower semicontinuous Richter–Peleg multi-utility, then the topology of the space must be finer than the Upper topology. However, this condition fails to be sufficient. Instead of search (...) for properties that must be satisfied by the preorder, we study finer topologies which are necessary or/and sufficient for the existence of semicontinuous representations. We prove that Scott topology must be contained in the topology of the space in case there exists a finite lower semicontinuous Richter–Peleg multi-utility. However, the existence of this representation cannot be guaranteed. A sufficient condition is given by means of Alexandroff’s topology, for that, we prove that more order implies less Alexandroff’s topology, as well as the converse. Finally, the paper is implemented with a topological study of the maximal elements. (shrink)

En un libro de lógica de 1794, Salomon Maimon presentó una nueva tabla de categorías que debía sustituir la que Kant incluyó en su Crítica de la razón pura. Sostengo que esto es la última fase en la evolución de algunos aspectos fundamentales de su postura epistemológica. A partir de una comprensión general de su teoría, voy trazando el desarrollo de su pensamiento sobre las categorías desde su primera obra en alemán, la Filosofía trascendental de 1789, hasta su mencionada Lógica. (...) Lo divido en cuatro partes. En las dos primeras, describo la posición de Maimon como solidaria con el paradigma kantiano según el cual las categorías dependen de las formas lógicas del juicio. En la tercera, explico la inversión de este paradigma que Maimon acomete en su comentario a las Categorías de Aristóteles. En la última parte, expongo que la nueva tabla de categorías refleja una mejora general de su teoría del conocimiento. Por último, exhorto a ampliar la comprensión de alguna noción clave de su filosofía para propiciar una lectura más productiva. (shrink)

Como é difícil para você não apenas ouvir a verdade, mas ter de degluti-la, digeri-la e incorporá-la ao seu dia a dia. Não apenas a verdade do outro lhe incomoda, mas sua própria verdade, que costuma ficar oculta em locais obscuros da mente. [...].

El Tratado de metodología de las Ciencias Sociales de Narciso Pizarro ofrece una visión coherente del campo de las ciencias sociales contemporáneas, cuya división en disciplinas, especialidades y subespecialidades hace difícil al estudioso de cualquiera de ellas el entender las conexiones existentes entre todas. Porque la lógica propia del desarrollo de las ciencias sociales en el mundo académico impulsa diferencias terminológicas que ocultan la homogeneidad conceptual, pero que sirven para establecer las lindes de cotos privados del saber. Sobrepasar esas (...) diferencias implica analizar los conceptos fundamentales de las ciencias sociales, tanto desde el punto de vista de la coherencia o sistematicidad del conjunto como desde el de la evolución histórica de los esquemas conceptuales. Por ello, la exposición del conjunto es inseparable de una crítica -en el sentido epistemológico del término- de los fundamentos de cada una de las disciplinas, desarrollada a lo largo de veinticinco años de trabajo. (shrink)

What has been the fate of Christianity since Nietzsche's famous announcement of the "death of God"? What is the possibility of religion, specifically Christianity, thriving in our postmodern era? In this provocative new book, Gianni Vattimo, leading Italian philosopher, politician, and framer of the European constitution, addresses these critical questions. When Vattimo was asked by a former teacher if he still believed in God, his reply was, "Well, I believe that I believe." This paradoxical declaration of faith serves as (...) the foundation for a brilliant exposition on Christianity in the new millennium--an age characterized by a deep uncertainty of opinion--and a personal account of how Vattimo himself recovered his faith through Nietzsche and Heidegger. He first argues that secularization is in fact the fulfillment of the central Christian message, and prepares us for a new mode of Christianity. He then explains that Nietzsche's thesis concerns only the "moral god" and leaves room for the emergence of "new gods." Third, Vattimo claims that the postmodern condition of fragmentation, anti-Eurocentrism, and postcolonialism can be usefully understood in light of Joachim of Fiore's thesis concerning the "Spiritual Age" of history. Finally, Vattimo argues for the idea of "weak thought." Because philosophy in the postmetaphysical age can only acknowledge that "all is interpretation," that the "real" is always relative and not the hard and fast "truth" we once thought it to be, contemporary thought must recognize itself and its claims as "weak" as opposed to "strong" foundationalist claims of the metaphysical past. Vattimo concludes that these factors make it possible for religion and God to become a serious topic for philosophy again, and that philosophy should now formally engage religion. (shrink)

In spite of the fact that the Z.F. universe is not well-ordered, it behaves in some respects like the ordinals. It is possible to define on it the usual operations of addition, multiplication and exponentiation, which enjoy similar properties to those on the ordinals. Further when restricted to the ordinals, the operations coincide, so that ordinal arithmetic can be regarded as a restriction of the universe arithmetic. But more than that, rank which retracts the universe of sets onto the ordinals (...) is a homomorphism between the universe arithmetical structure 〈V,+,·,exp〉 and the ordinal arithmetical structure 〈Ord, +, ·,exp〉. (shrink)

Elizabeth Taylor: The Queen and I is a remarkable collection of Gianni Bozzacchi’s photographs of Elizabeth Taylor, most of them previously unpublished, capturing her as a film star, a woman, and a personal friend.

This article offers a detailed analysis of Ilyenkov’s conception of the relationship between the logical and the historical. It posits that Ilyenkov, by overcoming the theoretical impasses of mainstream Soviet Marxism, was the first thinker to recognize the centrality of this relationship in dialectics. Through a brief overview of the official conception of Diamat, I explain that the latter broadly understood the relation of the logical and the historical in a rather superficial way. I then argue that Ilyenkov’s approach to (...) dialectics as the ascent from the abstract to the concrete, combined with his research orientation towards the method of Marx’s Capital and his reevaluation of Hegel’s philosophy led him to a much deeper understanding of the inner unity of the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete and the relation of the logical and the historical. In reconstructing Ilyenkov’s analysis on this matter, I explain how the unfolding of the categories throughout the ascent from the abstract to the concrete is inextricably intertwined with the relation of the logical and the historical. Therefore, the article concludes by arguing that Ilyenkov’s analysis marks a significant advance in the understanding of dialectics in the history of Marxism, and a core aspect of this deeper understanding is his systematic approach to the relationship of the logical and the historical. (shrink)

Econophysics is a branch of economics that applies concepts and methods from physics to the financial markets. This article focuses on the approaches to quantum finance developed by Kirill Ilinski and Belal E. Baaquie to deal with the uncertainty characterizing financial time series. Allegedly, their models rest on a formal analogy between quantum mechanics and finance. In order to evaluate them, we raise the question what is really quantum in quantum econophysics. We then argue that the supposed analogy breaks in (...) an important manner, which is relevant to explain the empirical success of the proposed models. (shrink)

The aim of this critical note is to discuss Heraclitus' use of analogy as a pattern of thought not only with argumentative value but also ontological and epistemological status. Heraclitus' analogy is of two kinds and is expressed in the use of the adverbs ὥσπερ ("as") and ὅκωσπερ ("just as"). The first is used as an explanatory device, while the second denotes the ontological homogeneity of logos. Analogy reveals not only the inherent opposition of logos in each single thing, but (...) also the interdependent common interrelation between things. (shrink)

A primeira fotografia conhecida foi capturada na França em 1826, por Joseph Nicéphore Niépce em chapas da Kodak. Fotografar é imprimir imagens numa face sensível, sob efeito da luz. A formalidade e a sisudez eram tradição no momento do retrato, assim, a língua de fora na foto icônica de Albert Einstein, feita aos 72 anos em 14 de abril de 1951, mostra como tudo foi mudando em relação a essa arte.

A internet nos joga imagens que chegam de mau jeito. No Facebook, pode-se deparar com um carro vermelho, parecendo esportivo, e olhando melhor, vê-se que é um carro sem capota, rasgado num desastre, com cinco passageiros decapitados. Mas boas coisas também chegam de forma inesperada. Achei uma relíquia, um filme de 1936/37, sem áudio, com duração de 14 minutos, gravado por Benjamin Abrahão, retratando Lampião, o Rei do Cangaço em carne e osso. Hoje é Cult, mas naquela época os cangaceiros (...) barbarizaram por todo o nordeste, exceto Piauí e Maranhão. Ver a sua rotina, de há 84 anos, foi despir um mito. (shrink)

Quando alguém está se comportando de maneira inadequada, usando drogas, cometendo crimes, a família explica o fato, garantindo não ser defeito de caráter, mas o resultado da convivência com más companhias, estas sim, causadoras do mal. Muitos defenderão o lado bom do transgressor. E não será apenas sua mãe. Claro que a boa influência existe forte e algumas pessoas dirão que se decidiram estudar ou seguir determinada profissão por incentivo de alguém. Muitos começaram a fumar para copiar personagens de filmes (...) ou de novelas, sem contar que a televisão tinha pelo menos um comercial de cigarro em cada intervalo. (shrink)

In this paper we use the framework of generalized probabilistic theories to present two sets of basic assumptions, called axioms, for which we show that they lead to the Hilbert space formulation of quantum mechanics. The key results in this derivation are the co-ordinatization of generalized geometries and a theorem of Solér which characterizes Hilbert spaces among the orthomodular spaces. A generalized Wigner theorem is applied to reduce some of the assumptions of Solér’s theorem to the theory of symmetry in (...) quantum mechanics. Since this reduction is only partial we also point out the remaining open questions. (shrink)

It is well known that interval orders are particularly interesting in decision theory, since they are reflexive, complete and nontransitive binary relations which may be fully represented by means of two real-valued functions. In this paper, we discuss the existence of a pair of nonnegative, positively homogeneous and semicontinuous real-valued functionals representing an interval order on a real cone in a topological vector space. We recover as a particular case a result concerning the existence of a nonnegative, positively homogeneous and (...) continuous utility functional for a complete preorder on a real cone in a topological vector space. (shrink)

The first book-length philosophical study on the Presocratic influences in Plotinus’ Enneads.