In this paper we study the axiomatic system proposed by Bourbaki for the Theory of Sets in the Éléments de Mathématique. We begin by examining the role played by the sign \(\uptau \) in the framework of its formal logical theory and then we show that the system of axioms for set theory is equivalent to Zermelo–Fraenkel system with the axiom of choice but without the axiom of foundation. Moreover, we study Grothendieck’s proposal of adding to Bourbaki’s system the axiom (...) of universes for the purpose of considering the theory of categories. In this regard, we make some historical and epistemological remarks that could explain the conservative attitude of the Group. (shrink)

The so-called ‘hidden curriculum’ is often presented as a counterproductive element in education, and many scholars argue that it should be eliminated, by being made explicit, in education in general and specifically in higher education. The problem of the HC has not been solved by the transition from a teacher-centered education to a student-centered educational model that takes the student’s experience as the starting point of learning. In this article we turn to several philosophers of education to propose that HC (...) can be made explicit in HE when the teacher recognizes and lives his/her teaching as a personal issue, not merely a technical one; and that the students’ experience of the learning process is not merely individual but emerges through their interpersonal relationship with the teacher. We suggest ways in which this interpersonal relationship can be strengthened despite current challenges in HE. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The disparity in the venezuelan demographic transition is a fact known by experts. On this setting, there are four municipalities in Falcón State with a high elder population, one of them is Tocópero. This research had as general objectives to study the estimations of demographic risks and the social politics for elders, people who are 75 and more, from Tocópero Municipality, considering that specialists indicate that, once the demographic oldness has arrived, it is important to study thoroughly the elder (...) population in order to design relevant politics and programs, taking into consideration that it is a vulnerable group. It was an exploratory and descriptive study, with a field-no experimental-transectional design. The sample was intentional. Structured interviews and questionnaires were applied to elders and municipal officials. The data processing was carried out by using quantitative methods. The conclusions indicated that the elder population in Tocópero Municipality had a marked female tendency. In general terms, the adverse effects associated to the estimations of demographic risk were not present in the studied sample. There was no relation between the demographic reality of this municipality and the social politics and programs implemented. The programs concentrated the elder and suppressed the intergenerational contact; the centralism was the key element to understand the present politics of the Venezuelan state towards the oldness. The demographic oldness of this municipality was determined by the way in which the birth of the municipality was approved. (shrink)

Water saving irrigation is promoted as a strategy to mitigate future water stresses by the Chinese government and irrigation scientists. However, the dissemination of WSI in China has been slow and little is understood with respect to why farmers adopt WSI or how WSI interacts with the social and institutional contexts in which it is embedded. By analyzing qualitative data from 37 semi-structured and 56 unstructured interviews across 13 villages in northwest China, this paper examines smallholder farmers’ knowledge and perceptions (...) of WSI, and how WSI interacts with farmer livelihood decision-making and extant systems of land and water management. The results show that smallholders’ willingness to adopt and continuously use WSI was dampened by a lack of communal capital and measures for conflict resolution, a disconnect between the temporal demands of practicing WSI and the ways farmers prioritize different livelihood strategies, misconceptions about WSI systems and how they work, market risks, and landownership structure and economies of scale. These results suggest that programs for promoting WSI must be holistic in nature and address smallholders’ day-to-day problems. Understanding why WSI did not succeed in some places will help formulate policy interventions that avoid reproducing conflicts, risks, and technological malfunctions responsible for previous failure. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se sugiere la filosofía inductiva de la ciencia del filósofo victoriano William Whewell como un enfoque apropiado para formular una noción consiliente de la representación científica. Tras un breve recorrido por los antecedentes que hacen necesaria una noción de representación en el ámbito de la filosofía de la ciencia, se expone, en primer lugar, la descripción de lo que se ha denominado el problema de la representación científica. De seguido, se argumenta que la anterior es una (...) caracterización poco manejable del problema que requiere ser deflacionada en favor de un perfil más acotado, para finalmente proponer que la idiosincrática noción de inducción de William Whewell puede ser considerada para desarrollar una noción de representación científica que haga consiliente las cuentas semanticistas y pragmatistas de la representación en ciencia. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo expongo la propuesta falsacionista de Karl Popper como resultado de su solución al problema de la inducción. En este sentido, la analizo bajo sus dos aspectos, el lógico y el metodológico. La idea detrás de ello es mostrar, en primer lugar, que su solución lógica al problema de la inducción es totalmente independiente de los criterios metodológicos que propone para la elección entre teorías rivales, y en segundo lugar, que estos últimos constituyen una transgresión a su (...) pretendida exclusión de la inducción en la práctica científica. (shrink)

Se expone la relación entre el signo en tanto gnoseológica y semánticamente subordinado a la imaginación y el uso del lenguaje como medio para expresar las verdades filosóficas por parte de Spinoza. Al respecto, se revisan tres posturas: (i) la de David Savan, quien sostiene la inadecuación del lenguaje para expresar verdades filosóficas debido a la vinculación spinoziana entre las palabras y la imaginación; (ii) la de G.H.R. Parkinson, quien afirma que el uso del lenguaje no es inconsistente con la (...) expresión de las proposiciones filosóficas por parte de Spinoza, sino que, la mayor parte de lo propuesto en la Ética pertenece al conocimiento de razón y las nociones comunes y; (iii) la de Mogens Laerke, quien defiende la posibilidad de atribuir coherencia al uso del lenguaje, por un lado, y a la filosofía spinoziana, por el otro, a partir del recurso matemático de la demostración geométrica. Finalmente, se argumenta una interpretación propia con base en el análisis semiótico del signo en Spinoza, a partir de la cual (i) es posible atribuirle al signo una función dentro del entendimiento, sin detrimento de su capacidad gnoseológica y semántica para alcanzar verdades filosóficas y, por consiguiente, (ii) validar el uso del lenguaje como medio para expresar su filosofía. (shrink)

This research shows how business students’ disciplinary specializations can affect their sense of personal responsibility by providing rationalizations for moral disengagement. It thereby conceptualizes business students’ disciplinary specializations as a key dimension of the business school responsibility learning environment. Students use four main rationalizations to displace responsibility variously away from their own disciplinary specializations, to claim responsibility as the prerogative of their specialization, and to shiftirresponsibility onto disciplinary out-groups. Yet despite their disciplinary identifications, students largely rationalized that their sense of (...) responsibility was an individual matter that was unlikely to be affected by contextual influences, and they attributedirresponsible behavior to incorrigible ‘bad apples.’ A theoretical model is offered which illustrates these dynamics by combining Bandura’s social cognitive theory with social identity theory. The research is based on secondary data, specifically focus-group interviews conducted with undergraduate students at a major Scandinavian business school in connection with the implementation of the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) initiative. The implications for management education include the need to strengthen students’ ‘disciplinary reflexivity,’ and to explicitly address the tension between students’ disciplinary solidarities and their faith in their own individual moral infallibility. (shrink)

El presente artículo parte de la necesidad de reflexionar sobre la experiencia de lo nuevo en la historia humana y encuentra en el pensar heideggeriano sobre el comienzo y sobre el otro comienzo, en particular, un camino reflexivo que permite sincerar dicha experiencia. A partir del análisis de la relación íntima entre el otro comienzo y el primer comienzo, se mostrará una especie de “identidad” entre el acabar y el comenzar, lo que nos confrontará con el concepto de la contradicción, (...) desde la historia pensada por Heidegger. En función de la crítica y de la finalización de la metafísica, se pensará en el lugar de la contradicción en la historia del ser y se subrayará la tensión entre el pensar lógico y la mostración de este. Ello nos conducirá, finalmente, a destacar a la historia como un comenzar permanente, antes que como un proceso atravesado por la innovación y el progreso. (shrink)

Preposed negation yes/no (yn)-questions like Doesn''t Johndrink? necessarily carry the implicature that the speaker thinks Johndrinks, whereas non-preposed negation yn-questions like DoesJohn not drink? do not necessarily trigger this implicature. Furthermore,preposed negation yn-questions have a reading ``double-checking'''' pand a reading ``double-checking'''' p, as in Isn''t Jane comingtoo? and in Isn''t Jane coming either? respectively. We present otheryn-questions that raise parallel implicatures and argue that, in allthe cases, the presence of an epistemic conversational operator VERUMderives the existence and content of the (...) implicature as well as thep/ p-ambiguity. (shrink)

This article seeks to highlight two dimensions of ethics. Understood as aconcept that refers, initially, to a mode of being, and also alludes to an “ought to be”. Starting from this, the aim is to establish some basis to discuss the problems deriving from this double dimension of ethics, stemming from certain ancient Greek philosoph- ical ideas, in particular from Aristotle’s ethics and certain statements from modern philosophy, emphasizing some relevant concepts of Kant’s moral theory. Using said arguments, the final (...) purpose is to call attention to the dilemma in ethics. (shrink)

La distinción entre normas y formulaciones normativas lleva a los teóricos del derecho a tratar las normas jurídicas como entidades. En este artículo la autora explora el recorrido transitado por algunos filósofos analíticos del lenguaje, que va desde una noción de significado hasta la necesidad de entidades. Después, presenta un conjunto de problemas producidos al considerar las normas entidades. Sea cual sea el tipo de entidad que consideremos tiene que ofrecerse una distinción clara entre criterios de identificación y de individualización. (...) En el supuesto caso de las entidades abstractas la distinción se disuelve. A través de una sustitución de las nociones de intensión y extensión de las palabras, por las nociones de aspectos intensionales y extensionales de aquello de lo que hablamos, la autora bosqueja un programa metodológico para el derecho y la Teoría Jurídica. El programa se basa en un proceso dinámico de identificación de normatividad. (shrink)

Razlika med normami in ubeseditvami norm zavezuje pravoslovce k obravnavanju pravnih norm kot danosti. Avtorica najprej osvetli pot, ki so jo tlakovali nekateri analitični filozofi jezika in ki vodi od pomena do danosti. Nato predstavi sklop problemov, ki nastanejo zaradi obravnavanja norm kot danosti. Ne glede na to, s katero vrsto danosti imamo opraviti, moramo razlikovati med merili prepoznave in primeri poposameznjenja tovrstnih danosti. V predstavljenem primeru abstraktnih danosti pa to razlikovanje pade. S tem, da avtorica zamenja pojma pomenske vsebine (...) in pomenskega obsega besed za vsebinski in obsežnostni vidik tega, o čemer govorimo, očrta tudi predlog metodološkega načrta za pravo in pravno teorijo. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with Noun Phrases (NPs, henceforth) occurring in two constructions: concealed question NPs and NP subjects of specificational sentences. The first type of NP is illustrated in (1). The underlined NPs in (1) have been called ‘concealed questions’ because sentences that embed them typically have the same truth-conditional meaning as the corresponding versions with a full-fledged embedded interrogative clause, as illustrated in (2) (Heim 1979).

Besides their cardinal and proportional readings, many and few have been argued to allow for a ‘reverse’ proportional reading that defies the conservativity universal. Recently, an analysis has been developed that derives the correct truth conditions for this reading while preserving conservativity. The present paper investigates two predictions of this analysis, based on two key ingredients. First, many is decomposed into a determiner stem many and the degree operator POS. This predicts that other elements may scopally intervene between the two (...) parts. Second, non-reverse and reverse readings arise from the versatile association possibilities of POS, as independently witnessed in the grammar. In languages in which the same versatile association profile is granted to the superlative degree operator -est, reverse readings are expected to arise for most as well. Both predictions are borne out. (shrink)

In (1b), for the most part induces a so-called Quantificational Variability Effect (QVE) on the NP the linguists from the East Coast, yielding roughly the interpretation ‘most of the linguists from the East Coast came to NELS’. We claim that the two constructions above differ in the domain where they apply, producing similar but not identical quantificational interpretations over the NP. In particular, we argue that most of the NPs applies to the nominal domain, while for the most part applies (...) to the verbal domain. Our claim is based on two sets of novel semantic data. First, we show that the distribution of most of the NPs is parallel to that of all the NPs in terms of its selective compatibility with collective predicates. To account for this data, we extend Brisson’s (1998, 2003) analysis of all the NPs to most of the NPs, concluding that most is an ∃-quantifier introducing a group of a certain proportion. Second, we show that, when for the most part gives rise to a QVE on a definite NP, the collective interpretation is not available. We develop a semantic analysis of for the most part as a verbal modifier that explains the lack of collective readings and that extends to interpretations other than QVE. The structure of the paper is as follows: in section 2, we introduce some general background on events and distributivity that are relevant to the current paper. In section 3, we propose the analysis of most of the NPs, followed by the analysis of for the most part in section 4. Section 5 concludes the paper and discusses further issues. (shrink)

The field of psychology, including cognitive science, is vexed by a crisis of confidence. Although the causes and solutions are varied, we focus here on a common logical problem in inference. The default mode of inference is significance testing, which has a free lunch property where researchers need not make detailed assumptions about the alternative to test the null hypothesis. We present the argument that there is no free lunch; that is, valid testing requires that researchers test the null against (...) a well-specified alternative. We show how this requirement follows from the basic tenets of conventional and Bayesian probability. Moreover, we show in both the conventional and Bayesian framework that not specifying the alternative may lead to rejections of the null hypothesis with scant evidence. We review both frequentist and Bayesian approaches to specifying alternatives, and we show how such specifications improve inference. The field of cognitive science will benefit because consideration of reasonable alternatives will undoubtedly sharpen the intellectual underpinnings of research. (shrink)

This volume represents the state of the art in research on the controversial Muslim legal scholar, theologian and man of letters Ibn azm of Cordoba (d. 456/1064), who is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant minds of Islamic Spain.

En El ser y la nada, Sartre desarrolla una noción de libertad negativa que se expresa en la acción nihilizadora del ser en-sí. Sin embargo, en su obra de posguerra Verdad y existencia, la dimensión de la materialidad adquiere un renovado énfasis y como consecuencia, la libertad se expresa en un movimiento afirmativo de desvelamiento del Ser. Estos dos sentidos que adquiere la noción de libertad constituyen distintas manifestaciones del mismo fenómeno y son el resultado de la diversidad de formas (...) en que el propio Sartre articula la relación paradójica entre libertad y facticidad, subjetividad y objetividad. (shrink)

Connectivity, found in a number of constructions involving typically a trace of movement or gap, is the effect by which a constituent behaves grammatically as if it occupied not its surface position but the position of the gap. The phenomenon is central to the debate between defendants of Direct Compositionality –where the semantics is read off the ‘visible’, surface syntax– and the defendants of the so-called Logical Form (LF) –according to which semantics is computed on an abstract syntactic representation, LF, (...) obtained after applying some transformations to the surface syntax. The present paper is concerned with connectivity in specificational copular sentences. A simple specificational copular sentence is given in (1), where the post-copular constituent Smith identifies the actual value of the subject N(oun) P(hrase) the murderer. More complex examples reveal connectivity effects, as shown in (2)-(4) (Akmajian 1970, Higgins 1973, Halvorsen 1978, among others). (shrink)

To appear in Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory XVI. Ithaca, NY: CLC.

This paper develops a framework for TAG (Tree Adjoining Grammar) semantics that brings together ideas from different recent approaches. Then, within this framework, an analysis of scope is proposed that accounts for the different scopal properties of quantifiers, adverbs, raising verbs and attitude verbs. Finally, including situation variables in the semantics, different situation binding possibilities are derived for different types of quantificational elements.

Certain information-seeking yes/no (yn)-questions –e.g. Did Jorge really bring a present? and Doesn’t John drink?– convey an epistemic bias of the speaker. Two main approaches to biased yn-questions are compared: the VERUM approach and the Decision Theory approach. It is argued that, while Decision Theory can formally characterize the notion of “intent” of a question, VERUM is needed to derive the data.

Miembro de la generaci n de el Viejo Topo, Morey se ha formado en el rigor de la filosof a, de la que es catedr tico en la Universidad de Barcelona. el presente libro es una novela de corte experimental acerca de la errancia y el peregrinaje sin destino a que nos somete la paradoja de vivir o ser vividos.

This paper describes a novel pedagogical software program that can be seen as an online companion to one of the standard textbooks of formal natural language semantics, Heim and Kratzer (1998). The Penn Lambda Calculator is a multifunctional application designed for use in standard graduate and undergraduate introductions to formal semantics: Teachers can use the application to demonstrate complex semantic derivations in the classroom and modify them interactively, and students can use it to work on problem sets provided by the (...) teacher. The program supports demonstrations and exercises in two main areas: (1) performing beta reduction in the simply typed lambda calculus; (2) application of the bottom-up algorithm for computing the compositional semantics of natural language syntax trees. The program is able to represent the full range of phenomena covered in the Heim and Kratzer textbook by function application, predicate modification, and lambda abstraction. This includes phenomena such as intersective adjectives, relative clauses and quantifier raising. In the student use case, emphasis has been placed on providing “live” feedback for incorrect answers. Heuristics are used to detect the most frequent student errors and to return specific, interactive suggestions. (shrink)

Montague’s analysis of the well-known temperature paradox poses a problem for Gupta’s syllogism, whose surface syntax differs from the temperature syllogism in the addition of the intensional adverb necessarily. Lasersohn (2005) argues that the puzzle arising from these syllogisms can be solved if one adopts the Fregean presuppositional treatment of definite descriptions, and concludes that the temperature-Gupta puzzle provides an argument in favor of such treatment. This paper shows that the analysis of definite descriptions is in fact orthogonal to the (...) puzzle. Instead, it will be shown that the differences between the two syllogisms stem from the temporal interpretation of their premises. (shrink)