I argue that from a very weak recombination principle and plausible assumptions about the nature of parthood and location it follows that it's possible that the mereological structure of the material world and that of spacetime fail to correspond to one another in very radical ways. I defend, moreover, that rejecting the possibility of such failures of correspondence leaves us with a choice of equally radical alternatives. I also discuss a few ways in which their possibility is relevant to various (...) debates in metaphysics. (shrink)
Four-dimensionalists claim that their take on the temporal versions of the puzzles of coincidence favors their view over three-dimensionalism. In this paper I argue otherwise. In particular, I argue that the four-dimensionalist’s treatment of such puzzles doesn’t give her an edge over so-called `standard theorists’, i.e. three-dimensionalists according to whom there are distinct material objects that coincide at some time. I look at two ways in which the dispute between four-dimensionalists and standard theorists might be construed. First, as an issue (...) about commitment to distinct coincident material objects: the purported advantage of the four-dimensionalist’s approach is supposed to lie in its being compatible with there being no such things. Second, as an issue about explanation of such objects: the alleged superiority of the four-dimensionalist’s view is supposed to lie in its being able to provide a better account of how distinct material things manage to share their parts and exact location at some time. I argue that four-dimensionalism falls short of expectations in either case: the existence of distinct overlapping worms requires the existence of distinct coincident material objects, and temporal parts do not afford any better an explanation of such things than is available to the standard theorist. (shrink)
Raul Orayen's book _Lógica, significado y ontología_ is a deep study into a range of issues in the philosophy of logic, taking Quine as the main interlocutor. It goes into subjects such as Truth-bearerss, Logical Truth, Validity, Propositions, Quine's Extensionalism, Relevant Logic and disjunctive syllogism, and Castañeda's ontology of Guises.
Fifty years ago, the Argentinean economist Raúl Prebisch published a paper called Estúdio Económico de América Latina. The Estúdio was one of the first texts that set up what was later termed the ?Prebisch-Singer thesis? or, more widely, the Latin American School of Economics. According to this document, Latin American countries should undergo an industrialization program under the direct supervision of the national state. The rationale for this thesis was the deterioration of the terms of trade for countries exporting primary (...) commodities and importing manufactured goods. The focus here is on the argumentative structure of the document, which targets two different audiences, a lay and a specialized one. Relying on a center-periphery metaphor, Prebisch stresses the shortcomings of conventional economic theory when applied to distinct historical circumstances, i.e., to the peculiar conditions experienced by peripheral countries. A rhetorical approach to the Estúdio also shows that it represents a deliberate effort to assemble a large volume of empirical data about Latin America and its foreign trade. This was not a widespread procedure at the time. As is usually the case in well-built argumentative discourses, both inclusion and omission of certain sets of data look strategically contrived. (shrink)
Resenha do livro de: LANDIM FILHO, Raul. Questões disputadas de metafísica e de crítica do conhecimento . Sáo Paulo: Discurso Editorial, 2009, Coleçáo Philosophia, 475 p.
"One of Frege's main semantic principles, is however, missing in Dummett's book, [Frege: philosophy of language] and it is has been ignored by most Frege scholars. That principle is the thesis concerning the ambiguity of the word 'is'. Angelelli come close to attending to it when he makes some remarks on identity and predication, and Matthias Schirn puts special emphasis on the role of the thesis in Frege's work. However, the great majority of Frege scholars have neglected the ambiguity doctrine, (...) even when they have commented on each of the allegedly different meanings of 'is' separately. This is strange in view of the fact that it was Frege and Russell who proposed the thesis and established it as one of the basic ingredients of modern logic. They have in fact been followed by most philosophers. For instance, in the Tractatus Ludwig Wittgenstein emphasizes the ambiguity of the verb 'to be' and stresses the.. (shrink)
Language and Ontology: Linguistic Relativism (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis) vs. Universal Grammar Universal Ontology vs. Ontological Relativity Semiotics and Ontology: Annotated Bibliography of John Deely. First part: 1965-1998 Annotated Bibliography of John Deely. Second part: 1999-2010 The Rediscovery of John Poinsot (John of St. Thomas).
Endorsing the idea of group knowledge seems to entail the possibility of group belief as well, because it is usually held that knowledge entails belief. It is here studied whether it would be possible to grant that groups can have knowledge without being committed to the controversial view that groups can have beliefs. The answer is positive on the assumption that knowledge can be based on acceptance as well as belief. The distinction between belief and acceptance can be seen as (...) a refinement of the ordinary language concept of belief, and it may be useful in understanding the nature of epistemic justification and classifying various types of epistemic subjects. (shrink)
"Husserl's work include lengthy treatment of universals, categories, meanings, numbers, manifolds, etc. from an ontological perspective. Here, however, we shall concentrate almost exclusively on the Logical Investigations, which contain in a clear form the ontological ideas which provided the terminological and theoretical basis both for much of the detailed phenomenological description and for many of the metaphysical theses presented in Husserl's later works.
"The Tractatus comprises four parts, which correspond to stages of its rocky development: the theory of logic (1912-14), the picture theory (1914), the discussion of science and mathematics (1915-17), and the discussion of the mystical (1916-17). The structure of the book is as follows.
"Ingarden held that philosophy divides into ontology and metaphysics. Ontology is an autonomous discipline in which we discover and establish the necessary connections between pure ideal qualities by intuitive analysis of the contents of ideas. This is an indispensable preparation for metaphysics, which aims to elucidate the necessary truths of factual existence. Each section of philosophy - theory of knowledge, philosophy of man, philosophy of nature and so on - has ontological and metaphysical aspects. Ingarden argues that every being is (...) a triple unity of matter (contents), form (of the.. (shrink)
"Lesniewski defined ontology, one of his three foundational systems, as 'a certain kind of modernized 'traditional logic' [On the foundations of mathematics (FM), p. 176]. In this respect it is worth bearing in mind that in the 1937-38 academic year Lesniewski taught a course called "Traditional 'formal logic' and traditional 'set theory' on the ground of ontology"; cf. Srzednicki and Stachniak, S. Lesniewski's Systems. Protothetic, 1988, p. 180. On this see Kotarbinski Gnosiology. The scientific approach to the theory of knowledge, (...) 1966, pp. 253-54 [the Polish original was published in 1929], which Lesniewski praised in [FM]: see in particular pp. 373 ff. Kotarbinski noted that Lesniewski "calls his system 'ontology' in harmony with certain terms used earlier (as in.. (shrink)
"Nowadays, a need for formal tools is strongly felt in the treatment of two special areas of ontological inquiry. One area is concerned with intentional objects, an area which seems to contain difficulties on the level of things, but also on the level of states of affairs, facts and other "propositional" entities. An intentional relation holds between either persons (more generally experiencing subjects) or acts of consciousness on the one hand, and the intentional objects on the other. The latter are (...) what people see, fear, expect, look for; and the problem, naturally, consists in the fact that – contrary to.. (shrink)
"The role of logic in the Middle Ages. Regarding the role of logic within the framework of arts and sciences during the Middle Ages, we have to distinguish two related aspects, one institutional and the other scientific. As to the first aspect, we have to remember that the medieval educational system was based on the seven liberal arts, which were divided into the trivium, i.e., three arts of language, and the quadrivium, i.e., four mathematical arts. The so-called trivial arts were (...) grammar, rhetoric, and logic, and during a period of several centuries virtually every educated person, at least every university graduate, received a training in these matters, especially in logic. Students in the medieval faculty of arts probably spent more time studying logic than any other discipline. This first -- institutional -- aspect concerning the role of logic is explained by the second -- scientific -- aspect. The trivial disciplines provided techniques of analysis and a technical vocabulary that permeate philosophical, scientific and theological writings. Logic, as mentioned before, was referred to and was generally regarded as the art of arts and the science of sciences. The increasing cultural dominance of the universities with their obligatory disputationes and their hierarchy of examinations on the one hand and the outstanding status of logic on the other were corresponding features of the educational world of the 13th century. The core of the logic curriculum from the 12th century onwards was provided by the logical works of Aristotle. These represented the material for the study of types of predication, the analysis of simple propositions or statements (2) and their relations of inference and equivalence, the analysis of modal propositions, of the structure and the types of the syllogism, dialectical topics, fallacies and scientific reasoning as based on the demonstrative syllogism. Medieval logicians, however, realized that there were other, non-Aristotelian, approaches to logical subjects, questions and methods that could be investigated.. (shrink)
"General Survey. The succession of thinkers and schools. The history of ancient philosophy covers about eleven centuries, from Thales who lived during the sixth century B.C. to Boethius and Simplicius who flourished at the beginning of the sixth A.D. From the point of view of the history of formal logic this long epoch may be divided into three periods. (1) The pre-Aristotelian period, from the beginnings to the time at which Aristotle..
"An ontology may be described as consisting of three kinds of statements: those that set the problems; those that list the kinds of entities that exist; those that show how the existents solve the problems. Ontologies may thus differ in different ways. The most decisive way concerns the kinds of entities deemed to exist. With respect to this way, there are but two types of ontology. One is lavish, cluttered; the other, frugal, sparse. The ontologies of Plato, Meinong, and Frege (...) are lavish; those of Hume, Brentano, and Wittgenstein are frugal. Gustav Bergmann has propounded both types of ontology in the course of his thirty years of philosophizing. The Bergmann of The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism (1954) and Meaning and Existence (1959) propounds a frugal ontology. The Bergmann of Logic and Reality (1964) and Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong (1967) propounds a lavish ontology. In a way of speaking that Bergmann himself has used, the world of the early Bergmann is a desert, the world of the later Bergmann a jungle. In a way of speaking that is suggestive, speculative, had the early Bergmann written Realism, he would have dedicated it to Brentano rather than to Meinong, as did the.. (shrink)
This page is dedicated to an analysis of the first section of Parmenides' Poem, the Way of Truth, with a selection of critical judgments by the most important commentators and critics. In the Annotated Bibliography I list the main critical editions (from the first printed edition of 1573 to present days) and the translations in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, with a selection of studies on Parmenides; in future, a section will be dedicated to an examination of some critical (...) variants of the Greek text, with particular attention to corrections to the Diels-Kranz (abbreviated DK) edition of the Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. The fragments of Parmenides' Poem are cited according to Diels-Kranz numbering system as adopted in the 6th edition, Berlin 1952; the Poem is divided into three parts: the Proem fr. I, 1-32; the Way of Truth (Alethéia) from fr. II to VIII, 49, and the Way of Mortal Opinion (Doxa) fr. VIII, 50 to XIX, 3. (shrink)
reasons for the disappreciation as well as for the rehabilitation of Stoic logic; it is found in I. M. Bochenski's Ancient Formal Logic (Amsterdam, 1951), and it clearly portrays the difference in attitude of the logicians of the twentieth century towards the Stoic logical system.
"With Abelard, the term 'copula' enters into western thought. In fact, although widely attested, the use of the term 'copula' in reference to Aristotle's work is totally anachronistic. (1) What led to this term? In his Dialectica, Abelard was mainly concerned with the way syllogisms can be construed. The interest of the copula was in fact derivative from this main concern. As Kneale and Kneale (The development of logic, 1962: 206) put it, 'it is clear that for his [Aristotle's] theory (...) of syllogism he assumes in every general proposition two terms of the same kind, that is to say, each capable of being a subject and each capable of being a predicate'. Thus, since the only linguistic entities that can play these two roles are nouns (in modern terms, noun phrases), it is easy to understand why the copula became central. Abelard pursued the Aristotelian theory by emphasizing the role of be as the element that can turn a noun into a predicate in a syllogism rather than as the element that provides the sentence with a time specification (see Dialectica: 161). It is this conceptual shift that underlies the invention of the term 'copula', which is cast on the Latin copulare meaning 'to link'. For example, in sentences like a man is a mammal and Socrates is a man the copula allows the noun phrase a man to play the role of the subject, in the first, and that of the predicate, in the second. Clearly, in such a framework the assumption that the copula can be interpreted as a predicate meaning 'existence'. (shrink)
"Any linguistic study of the Greek verb be is essentially conditioned, and perhaps ultimately motivated, by the philosophic career of this word. We know what an extraordinary career it has been. It seems fair to say, with Benveniste, that the systematic development of a concept of Being in Greek philosophy from Parmenides to Aristotle, and then in a more mechanical way from the Stoics to Plotinus, relies upon the pre-existing disposition of the language to make a very general and diversified (...) use of the verb einai. Furthermore, insofar as the notions expressed by on, einai, and ousia in Greek underlie the doctrines of Being, substance, essence, and existence in Latin, in Arabic, and in modern philosophy from Descartes to Heidegger and perhaps to Quine, we may say that the usage of the Greek verb be studied here forms the historical basis for the ontological tradition of the West, as the very term "ontology" suggests. At the same time it is generally recognized that this wide range of uses for the single verb eimi in Greek reflects a state of affairs which is "peculiar to Indo-European languages, and by no means a universal situation or a necessary condition." (1) The present monograph series on "the verb 'be' and its synonyms" shows just how far the languages of the earth may differ from one another in their expression for existence, for predication with nouns or with adjectives, for locative predication, and so forth. The topic of be can itself scarcely be defined except by reference to Indo-European verbs representing the root *es-. The question naturally arises whether an historical peculiarity of this kind can be of any fundamental importance for general linguistics and, even more pressing, whether a concept reflecting the Indo-European use of *es- can be of any general significance in philosophy.". (shrink)
"The central theme of the De interpretatione is the nature of contradiction between assertions. This is a crucially important theme for dialectic, whose regular tasks include that of establishing the contradictory of a proposed thesis, and that of replying to a dilemmatic question by choosing between the affirmation and the negation of a given thesis.(4) The inquiry into language as such, which occupies the first four chapters, is subordinated to this goal. One apparent obstacle to such a view of the (...) treatise is the (highly suspect). (shrink)
"The Sophist seems to be concerned with two things: being and nonbeing, on the one hand, and true and false speech, on the other. If speech is either true or false speech, it seems not even plausible for being to be either being or nonbeing, since we would then be compelled to say that nonbeing is as much being as false speech is speech. If nonbeing, however, is being, then nonbeing cannot be nonbeing, for otherwise the falseness of false speech (...) would not consist in its saying 'nonbeing.' And, in turn, if nonbeing is nonbeing, the falseness of' false speech again cannot consist in its saying 'nonbeing,' for it would then not be saying anything. If we then say that nonbeing is appearing, and appearing is not unqualified nonbeing, being is being and appearing, and we want to distinguish between the strict identity which belongs to being and the likeness of' nonbeing to the strict identity of being. We say, then, 'Here is Socrates himself' and 'Here is a likeness of Socrates.' Everything in the likeness of Socrates that is a likeness of' Socrates himself will generate a true speech of Socrates identical to another speech true of Socrates himself. Everything, how ever, in the likeness of Socrates that is not a likeness of Socrates himself yields a false speech of Socrates. Among the false speeches of Socrates would be, for example, the paint on Socrates' portrait but not the color of the paint that is true of Socrates himself. The paint, then, without the color (per impossibile), is not true of Socrates, but it certainly is not a likeness of Socrates either. The paint must be together with its color in order for it to be both a likeness of Socrates and nonbeing, but it seems to be utterly mysterious how by being together it can be that and by being apart it ceases to be anything of the sort. If every thing then is just what it is and nothing else, it is impossible for there to be any speech, either true or false, for speech is impossible unless something can be put together with something else.. (shrink)
Language and Ontology: Linguistic Relativism (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis) vs. Universal Grammar Universal Ontology vs. Ontological Relativity Semiotics and Ontology: Annotated Bibliography of John Deely. First part: 1965-1998 Annotated Bibliography of John Deely. Second part: 1999-2010 The Rediscovery of John Poinsot (John of St. Thomas).
"Philosophy meant Greek. Rome had nothing to offer except a stern traditional moralism exemplified by Cato, which found the rigid Semitic ethic of the Stoics congenial, and a reaction away from this, which expressed itself in a loose Epicureanism, such as Epicurus himself and his sincere exponents would have utterly disowned. 'And so it is not Epicurus who has driven them to debauchery. They have already given themselves over to immorality, and now try to hide their debauchery in the lap (...) of philosophy; they congregate in the place where they hope to hear the praise of pleasure' (1). The words date from the next century, but they are applicable to the age of Cicero. Cicero is at some pains to explain away the apparent Roman incapacity for philosophy. He suggests that there is no real inability : rather their energies have been diverted into other channels. Be that as it may, philosophy meant Greek, and Greek philosophy of the age of Cicero was represented predominantly by four schools. (shrink)
A great variety of medical conditions are subject to the placebo effect. Although there is mounting evidence to suggest that the placebo effect is related to the expectation of clinical benefit, little is still known about the biochemical bases underlying placebo responses. Positron emission tomography studies have recently shown that the placebo effect in Parkinson’s disease, pain, and depression is related to the activation of the limbic circuitry. The observation that placebo administration induces the release of dopamine in the ventral (...) striatum of patients with Parkinson’s disease suggests a link between the placebo effect and reward mechanisms. In addition to Parkinson’s disease, the placebo-reward model may also apply to other disorders. However, the relative contribution of the different neurotransmitters and neuropeptides that are known to be involved in modulating the activity of the limbic system may be disease-specific. Thus, while the placebo-induced clinical benefit observed in Parkinson’s disease would mostly reflect the release of dopamine in the dorsal striatum, the activation of opioid and serotonin pathways could be particularly implicated in mediating placebo responses encountered in pain and depression, respectively. (shrink)
"Philosophical discussion of the notion of existence, or being, has centered on two main problems which have not always been very clearly distinguished. First, there is the problem of what we are to say about the existence of fictitious objects, such as centaurs, dragons, and Pegasus; second, there is the problem of what we are t o say about the existence of abstract objects, such as qualities, relations, and numbers. Both problems have tempted philosophers to say that there are inferior (...) sorts of existence a s well as the ordinary straightforward sort, and they therefore often suggest that we use the word "being" to cover both kinds but restrict "existence" to "being" of the common, non-fictitious, non-abstract sort. (Sometimes the term "reality" is proposed for "existence" or for "being.") T he problems of fiction and abstraction are different, how ever, for there are both real and fictitious abstractions. For example, the integer between two and four is real, but the integer between two and three is fictitious. On the other hand, there are both concrete and abstract fictions; for example, the winged horse of Bellerophon and the integer between two and three. Accordingly, philosophers have often dealt with the two problems in quite different ways and perhaps ought to do so. While these are the two main problems, there are others, f or example, that of what we are to say of the being of objects which have not yet begun, or have now ceased, to exist. The history of this subject, moreover, has been tangled with theological issues, to which it will be necessary to refer at certain points.". (shrink)
"1. Philosophy, taken from the point of view of its problems and methods is the collection of distinct philosophical disciplines. In fact meta-philosophical analysis leads to rather troublesome questions: Are philosophical disciplines methodologically and/or essentially related and connected? Are particular philosophical disciplines scientific? And, if the answer is not definite, to what extent is this so? Do philosophic disciplines form a uniform and organized (at least in its depth) system?
“Aristotle's successor as director of the Lyceum was Theophrastus, his friend and disciple; Eudemus, another of the Stagirite's important disciples should also be mentioned. Other philosophers belonging to the Peripatetic school were: Aristoxenus, Dikaiarchos, Phanias, Straton, Duris, Chamaeleon, Lycon, Hieronymus, Ariston, Critolaus, Phormio, Sotion, Hermippus, Satyrus and others. Straton even succeeded Theophrastus as director of the Lyceum but his name and those of the other Peripatetics of Aristotle's old school should not be considered in a history of logic as they (...) were mainly concerned with history and the natural sciences. Theophrastus rejoiced in an enormous prestige at this time and for long afterwards. Diogenes Laertius attributes a tremendous number of works to him. Of them a significant proportion are writings on logic: Analytica Priora (3 books); Analytica Posteriora (7 books); Analysis of Syllogisms (1 book); Summary of the Analytic s (1 book); Polemic on the Theory of Euristic Arguments. On Definition (1 book); The First Premises (18 books); The Sophisms (2 books); On the Solution of Syllogisms (1 book); Topics (2 books); On Artless Demonstrations (1 book); On Negation (1 book); On Intellect (1 book); Classifications (2 books); On Entymemes (1 book); On the Appreciation of Syllogism (1 book); On Lies and Truth (1 book); Argumentations (2 books); Theses (3 books); On Definition (2 books); On the Data of Problems (1 book); On the Liar (3 books); Preface to the Topics (1 book); On Arguments proper (1 book); Specifications on The Texts of Syllogisms (1 book). Eudemus also wrote some treatises on logic, concerning which some information has come down to us; Ammonius, in his Commentary On Aristotle's Categories attributes to him a writing on The Analytics -- 'Analitika', and another On Expressions -- Peri lexeos, in which he deals with the grammatical and logical functions of the sentence. The commentator David in Prolegomena to Isagoge by Porphiry also mentions these works.. (shrink)
"On the June 16th, 1996, Richard Sylvan died of a sudden and unexpected heart attack. His death, at the relatively young age of 60, robbed Australasia of one of its greatest philosophers, arguably the most original that it has ever produced. Richard was born Francis Richard Routley at Levin, New Zealand, on 13 December, 1935. He changed his name to Sylvan -- much to the confusion of a number of people -- when he remarried in 1983. After studying at the (...) Victoria University of Wellington, he took a job at the University of Sydney, in Australia, where he lived for the rest of his life. He had several other jobs in Australia, including one at the University of New.. (shrink)
"At the end of the fourteenth century there were roughly three categories of work available to those studying logic. The first category is that of commentaries on Aristotle's 'Organon'. The most comprehensive of these focussed either on the books of the Logica Vetus, which included Porphyry's Isagoge along with the Categories and De Interpretatione; or on the books of the Logica Nova, the remaining works of the 'Organon' which had become known to the West only during the twelfth century. In (...) addition there were, of course, numerous commentaries on individual books of the.. (shrink)
Table of Formal and Descriptivists Ontologists (PDF - from Bernard Bolzano to present time) Ontologists of the 19th and 20th Centuries (a selection of critical judgments about some of the greatest philosophers of the recent past) Living Ontologists (a list of authors with an interest in ontology, with synthetic bibliographies).
"The difficulty of piercing the screen, sometimes very opaque, which is the Aristotelianism of so many centuries, based substantially on the thinking of a thousand and one more or less faithful "disciples," is doubled by a difficulty probably unique in its kind: the impossibility of always being able to determine exactly the sort of things the writings of the authentic Aristotelian Corpus are. For we suspect that scholars often have to deal with texts whose definitive form owes something to the (...) work of Aristotle's disciples. We remain, on the other hand, powerless to determine always with precision the extent to which the products of their work continue to conform to the master's thinking or proceed, on the contrary, from a new idea. At least I can state very generally that the organization of the Corpus Aristotelicum, such as scholars after Andronicus of Rhodes have understood it, depends for them on the firmer and firmer conviction that Aristotle elaborated a philosophical system whose constituent parts are reflected in the arrangement of the different preserved treatises, as if their author had effectively "programmed" them from the perspective of systematic expression. Now, this is the one intention that we may hardly attribute to our philosopher. The project of expounding a genuine system is in fact, as I. During has written,(4) "typically Hellenistic but very un- Aristotelian." Such a claim will perhaps seem today the unavoidable result of Jaeger's explicit attempt to combat "scholastic idolatry,"(5) which regarded the work of the "master of those who know" as a genuine "summa," firmly articulated. But, independently of Jaeger, K. Praechter, for example, assures us that "a secure division of the philosophical disciplines according to a determinate principle does not occur in Aristotle"! (6) And it is obvious that Aristotle was not as concerned as his disciples were to propose a rigid system of sciences and to organize his writings systematically according to it. This indeterminateness is obviously quite irksome for the interpreter who asks about the occasion for the project of Aristotle to which the texts catalogued under the titles Ethics and Politics correspond, and who finds himself dealing with a Corpus established by people who indeed thought that they could abolish such indeterminateness by recourse to the hypothesis that the philosopher conceived his project as formally expounding a genuine system. Moreover -- and this is a prime consideration whose significance I shall examine at great length -- the originality of Aristotle's project risks being masked by the interpretation or the importance given since antiquity to certain interpretive categories (human philosophy, practical science, ethics, etc.) in accounting for the approach of a series of texts integrated in the Corpus, itself conceived as a philosophical summa.. (shrink)
The concept of disease is deeply rooted in medical practice, and one can hardly conceive of caring for patients without this tool. Nevertheless, under this seemingly uncontroversial idea there are some highly polemical axioms that we usually take for granted, even though they often lead us to some uncomfortable inconsistencies and contradictions. Some of the conceptual issues derived from our traditional view of disease, which condition the way we conceive and practice medicine, include:We conceive of disease as a real entity (...) that affects a previously healthy person, thus making him ill. The purpose of medicine is to identify and fight this entity. If it succeeds, the patient is cured; otherwise, the patient will .. (shrink)
"With the philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann we once again enter a world of sober, objective and impartial inquiry, which presses beyond man's self and seeks to grasp the universe of being so far as it is revealed to our limited capacity to know. The basic mood of Existence philosophy, as might be expected, is altogether missing from this universal way of viewing matters. (...). The true concern of his philosophy is to discover the structural laws of the real world, of (...) the world of being, not of some 'world of mere appearances' set out in front of the real world. Traditional philosophy, according to Hartmann, has sinned a great deal in this connection and in a double manner. First, it has always believed that it faced two basic alternatives - to accept an absolute knowledge of being, or else to assume the total unknowability of the 'things in themselves'. The latter course means rejecting the possibility altogether of objective knowledge of being, the former results in closed.. (shrink)
L. M. de Rijk, born at Hilversum (Nederland) November, 6 1924, is Professor Emeritus of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at the University of Leiden, and Honorary Professor at the University of Maastricht. A complete bibliography of his writings up to 1999 is available in: Maria Kardaun and Joke Spruyt (eds.) - The winged chariot. Collected essays on Plato and Platonism in honour of L. M. de Rijk - Leiden, Brill, 2000. pp. XV-XXVI. I made some corrections, updated the bibliography and (...) omitted the publications in Dutch. (shrink)
Language and Ontology: Linguistic Relativism (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis) vs. Universal Grammar Universal Ontology vs. Ontological Relativity Semiotics and Ontology: The Rediscovery of John Poinsot (John of St. Thomas) Annotated Bibliography of John Deely. First part: 1965-1998 Annotated Bibliography of John Deely. Second part: 1999-2010..
Aristotle's Definition of a Science of Being qua Being Selected Bibliography on the Meanings of Being in Aristotle The Place of Metaphysics in the Ancient Divisions of Philosophy The Peripatos after Aristotle's and the Origin of the Corpus Aristotelicum Bibliography on the Ancient Catalogues of Aristotle and the Corpus Aristotelicum Ancient Catalogues of Aristotle's Works: English studies Diogenes Laërtius, Lives, V 22-27 Hesychius of Miletus and Ptolemy al-Garib Listes Anciennes des Ouvrages d'Aristote: études en français Diogène Laërce, Vies V, 22-27 (...) Hésychius de Milet et Ptolémée el-Garib The Oblivion of Being After Aristotle: Theophrastus' Metaphysics.. (shrink)
especially Aristotle, and contented that philosophy proceeds in cycles of advance and decline. He is best known for reintroducing the scholastic concept of intentionality into philosophy and proclaiming it as the characteristic mark of the mental. His teachings, especially those on what he called descriptive psychology, influenced the phenomenological movement in the twentieth century, but because of his concern for precise statement and his sensitivity to the dangers of the undisciplined use of philosophical language, his work also bears affinities to (...) analytic philosophy.". (shrink)
"Heidegger's way of understanding the originary phenomenon of truth is to "make clear the mode of being of the cognition itself." His starting point is a proposition that is not based on intuition. Someone says with his or her back to the wall: this picture hangs askew. The proposition embodies the claim to have discovered the picture (as a being) in the "how" (the mode) of its being. The proposition displays this "how" of being in language. In the attempt to (...) verify the proposition by sensuous experience, the recognition, according to Heidegger, is directed only to the intended being (the picture) and not to the proposition. It is directed to the being itself (which is to be verified by perception) in its mode of uncoveredness (Entdeckt-heir), i.e., in its showing-itself. Confirmation (Bewährung) means this showing-itself of the being in the same way in which it is intended in the proposition. A true proposition shows the being in its mode of uncoveredness. The phenomenon of "originary truth" does not have the character of correspondence. It is the ground of the concept of truth in the sense of correspondence and propositional truth. By unfolding the meaning of alétheia Heidegger shows us a more originary sense of truth as unconcealment (Unverborgenheit). He wants to show that this concept coincides with the first and originary concept of truth in Greek thinking. In this primary sense only the discovering human Dasein can be "true" while it is Being-discovering (Entdeckend-Sein). On the other hand, beings (Seiendes) that we can find in the world can only "be" in a secondary mode, i.e., as being-discovered (Entdecktsein). They can only make a claim to uncoveredness. Their fundament is the Being-discovering of the human Dasein. The being-true of a discovered being is only possible as being discovered by human Dasein as being-in-the-world. The authentic Being of Dasein, the being-in-the truth, presupposes disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the world in states-of-mind (Befindlichkeiten), understanding, and discourse, i.e., the constitution of the being (Seinsverfassung) of human Dasein as thrownness (Geworfenheit) and project (Entwurf).. (shrink)
"However that may be, Aristotelian syllogistic concerned itself exclusively with monadic predicates. Hence it could not begin to investigate multiple quantification. And that is why it never got very far. None the less, the underlying grammar of Aristotle's logic did not in itself..
"In this essay, I wish to question the view that the distinction between medieval and early modern philosophy is primarily one of method. I shall argue that what has come to be known as the modern method in fact owes much to the natural philosophy of John Buridan (ca. 1295-1361), a secular arts master who taught at the University of Paris some three centuries before Descartes. Surrounded by conflicts over institutional governance and curricular disputes, Buridan emerged as a forceful voice (...) for the independence and autonomy of teachers in the faculty of arts, arguing that philosophy as properly practiced belonged to them, the "artists artistae", not to those who taught in the so-called 'higher' faculties of theology, law, and medicine. Now such voices had been heard before at Paris, most notably from Averroist arts masters in the late 13th and early 14th-centuries.(*) Buridan is different, however, because unlike Boethius of Dacia and John of Jandun, he knew how to make the case for artistic autonomy without denigrating the theology and thereby inviting official condemnation. His trick was not to argue that there are 'two truths', one acquired and the other revealed, which might well come into conflict with each other, or that propositions whose truth has been revealed in scripture in no way qualify as scientia. It was rather to recognize the profoundly different methods of theology and philosophy, without losing sight of the fact that what counts as evidence in a proof in natural philosophy does not work in a theological argument, even if both have the same conclusion, such as that the human soul is immortal. Buridan seems to think that if only people would respect the differences between the rules of philosophical and theological inquiry, no conflicts would arise. He is not so naive as to claim this could ever happen, of course. But it does explain why he almost always diagnoses such conflicts in terms of some logical or linguistic confusion on the part of the people who propose them. Buridan is also different because in him the secularizing sentiment already present in the Latin Averroists begins to take shape as a way of doing philosophy, i.e., as a philosophical grammar.. (shrink)
"1. A science or study of being: specifically, a branch of metaphysics relating to the nature and relations of being; a particular system according to which problems of the nature of being are investigated; first philosophy. 2. a theory concerning the kinds of entities and specifically the kinds of abstract entities that are to be admitted to a language system.".
A proof-theoretical treatment of collectively accepted group beliefs is presented through a multi-agent sequent system for an axiomatization of the logic of acceptance. The system is based on a labelled sequent calculus for propositional multi-agent epistemic logic with labels that correspond to possible worlds and a notation for internalized accessibility relations between worlds. The system is contraction- and cut-free. Extensions of the basic system are considered, in particular with rules that allow the possibility of operative members or legislators. Completeness with (...) respect to the underlying Kripke semantics follows from a general direct and uniform argument for labelled sequent calculi extended with mathematical rules for frame properties. As an example of the use of the calculus we present an analysis of the discursive dilemma. (shrink)
volumes of his work, in his discussions of what underlay a Wissenschaftslehre or theory of science in the sense of his conception; he did so with such purity and scientific strictness, and with such a rich store of original, scientifically confirmed and fruitful thoughts, that we must count him as one of the greatest logicians of all time. He must be placed historically in fairly close proximity to Leibniz, with whom he shares important thoughts and fundamental conceptions, and to whom (...) he is also philosophically akin in other respects.". (shrink)
Now we should have to answer the question: when were the questions on Perihermeneias written? Little is known about the chronology of Buridan's works. Even a relative date is difficult to establish. However, some remarks can be made. First, there is the fact that the questions on Perihermeneias are quoted several times in Tractatus I of the Summule (4), in a way that makes it highly probable that the Summule were written after the Questiones on Perihermeneias (5). Now, according to (...) professor Pinborg the first lectura of the Summule may be dated as early as the late 1320es (6), that is at the very beginning of Buridan's career as a teacher of philosophy at the university of Paris. This may be an indication for an early date of the Questiones on Perihermeneias, possibly as early as 1325. There are two other reasons for assuming that the commentary on Perihermeneias is one of Buridan's first works. The first clue is given by the places where Buridan refers to one of his own works: once he refers to his commentary on Porphyry's Isagoge (7), twice to his commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics (8), and six times to his commentary on the Physics (9). The way in which he refers to these tracts seems also to be significant: the reference to his commentary on Porphyry's Isagoge shows that this work is of an earlier date than the present work. As to the other two works, he only refers to the number of the book in which he is going to treat a particular subject, not to the number of the question. A (cross)reference to the Summule is not given, although, as Pinborg remarks, there is a general doctrinal concordance between the two works. The questions on Metaphysics do not contain a (cross)-reference to the questions on Perihermeneias, at least not on the places where one would expect them. I am not certain about possible references occurring in the commentary on Physics. However, we should be very careful to draw conclusions from the occurrence of references, since it is always possible that we are dealing with a second or third lectura of the text.. (shrink)
Table of Formal and Descriptivists Ontologists (PDF - from Bernard Bolzano to present time) Ontologists of the 19th and 20th Centuries (a selection of critical judgments about some of the greatest philosophers of the recent past) Living Ontologists (a list of authors with an interest in ontology, with synthetic bibliographies).
"I. Roman Suszko (9.11.1919, Podobora – 3.06.1979, Warsaw) was one of the most fascinating personalities in Polish academic community after the Second World War and one of the most outstanding logicians of the time. He was above all a scientist but he also participated in academic life. He was Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at Warsaw University for two terms of office. He studied abstract problems of logic, but also played a part in the satirical film Rejs [The Cruise] (...) directed by M. Piwowski. Suszko was involved in various scientific problems, for example: logical syntax of natural language, liar antynomy, logical probability; but two of his achievements have the greatest value for philosophy of science, i.e., diachronic logic and non-Fregean logic. Like Ferdinand de Saussure, who, in his monograph Cours de Linguistique Générale.. (shrink)
"Reinach's importance for the development of early phenomenology is particularly remarkable considering the brief life span of 34 years granted him for the development of his ideas and his influence. It was his death in action in 1917 rather than Husserl's going to Freiburg which cut short not only his own promise but that of the Gottingen phenomenological Circle. It is therefore not surprising that Reinach never found the time to formulate a comprehensive plan of a philosophy in which the (...) place of phenomenology was clearly defined." One can only extrapolate such a plan from his essays and fragments - for he never published a book. His conception would have.. (shrink)
We show that if identical members first decide on the sharing technology (stage I) taking into account their subsequent effort supply (stage II) decisions, the resulting contractarian sharing technology (constitution) channels individual self-seeking towards team (Pareto) optimum. Voting with one's feet and open entry can ensure symmetry and majoritarian decision making in the real world teams. The model helps explain the differential performance of the Israeli Kibbutz and the Russian Kolkhoz.
Los estudios de géneros discursivos han prestado poca atención a las tesis o seminarios producidos para la obtención del grado de licenciatura. En este artículo se describe, desde el enfoque del genre analysis (Swales, 1990), la organización retórica del marco referencial de un conjunto de 30 tesis de pregrado elaboradas por estudiantes de la carrera de Trabajo Social de la UCSC. Se identifican cuatro movidas retóricas: teórico, conceptual, empírico y normativo. Se observa que cada una tiene propósitos diferentes sobre cuestiones (...) teóricas, prácticas y legales relacionadas con el problema social que aborda cada tesis. Se advierte la presencia de algunos pasos retóricos recursivo y, al mismo tiempo, un fuerte compromiso de la investigación con la resolución de un problema social real. Studies of discourse genre have paid little attention to graduation theses produced by undergraduate students. This article describes, from a genre analysis approach (Swales, 1990), the rhetorical organization of the reference framework of a set of 30 undergraduate theses prepared by social work students at the UCSC. The study identifies four rhetorical moves: theoretical, conceptual, empirical, and normative. It is observed that each move has different purposes on theoretical, practical, and legal issues related to the social problem addressed by each thesis. The presence of recursive rhetorical steps is apparent, along with a strong commitment to solving real social problems through research. (shrink)
Mental contents - Intentional contexts - The behavioristic approach 104; 5. Intentionality. Possible particulars - Possible states of affairs - The intentional nexus 144; 6. Realism. Direct and indirect knowledge - Perceptual and phenomenal objects - Delusive perceptual situations 180; Index 238-248. "This book avoids a number of traditional problems from the philosophy of mind. Emotions and volitions are hardly mentioned; and very little is said about imagination and memory. I am concerned in the main with only one topic: the (...) realism-Idealism controversy. This concern explains why I limited the discussion to thought and perception. It also explains why at times I had to go rather deeply into the problems of general ontology; for if my analysis is correct, the realismidealism controversy arises from certain disagreements in general ontology. Nor does this book deal with a number of currently fashionable topics. I say nothing on whether or not mental states are after all nothing but brain states. I do not discuss this point because I am convinced that there is nothing to be discussed. The correct answer to the question seems to me so obvious that I simply took it for granted in writing this book. The problem of our knowledge of other minds is of quite a different sort: it is, philosophically speaking, interesting and difficult. Since I do not discuss the problem, I may mention here that I consider all solutions in terms of so-called criteria for the application of expressions unsatisfactory. The one fashionable topic which I do discuss, though not under a separate heading and not in the movement's jargon, is the so-called private language argument. I am sure that the attentive reader can construct my position on this matter from the first chapter." (from the Preface). (shrink)
"I reached the chair of philosophy via logic. Teaching logic became the field of my activity as a university professor of philosophy, a member of other humanistic faculties. Emphasis is here placed on the words 'teaching' and 'humanistic'. For my lectures and classes were conceived as an organon in the classical sense of the term, for philosophers as well as for those who, having completed their course of study, would espouse the cause of disseminating humanistic knowledge and thinking, particularly future (...) secondary school teachers. Somewhat later my activity embraced also law students. My linguistic equipment proved to, be very helpful in this respect. For it seems especially important when the problems of an organon of this kind are.. (shrink)
"Abelard composed four works on logic: (1) Introductiones Parvulorum, which consists of short glosses on Porphyry Eisagoge and Aristotle Categories and De Interpretatione; (2) Logica Ingredientibus (so called because ingredientibus is the first word of its text), which consists of longer glosses on the texts covered by the previous work together with Boethius' De Differentiis Topicis and was probably written while Abelard was teaching in Paris before 1120; (3) Logica Nostrorum Petitioni (so called because nostrorum petitioni are the first words (...) of its text), which consists of longer glosses on the Eisagoge and may date from the time of his teaching at the hermitage of the Paraclete; (4) Dialectica, which has the form of an independent work about the subjects covered by Boethius' logical writings and Victorinus' treatise De Definitionibus and seems to contain materials from different periods of Abelard's life but probably did not reach its final form until a late date, perhaps the time of his stay at Cluny shortly before his death. Of these the second and the fourth are the most valuable. The Dialectica indeed, though based, like that of Garland, chiefly on the works of Boethius and written with the prolixity which was all too common among medieval authors, is an original composition of great importance for the development of logic. Abelard's mind was the keenest (though not in all respects the most admirable) that had been devoted to the subject for more than a thousand years, and he approached his task with the belief that it was still possible to make discoveries: 'Non enim tanta fuit antiquorum scriptorum perfectio ut non et nostro doctrina indigeat studio, nec tantum in nobis mortalibus scientia potest crescere ut non ultra possit augmentum recipere.' (1) The Dialectica survives in a single manuscript which lacks the opening sections. Excerpts from it were published by Victor Cousin in 1836 in his Ouvrages inédits d' Abelard. But unfortunately the text was not printed in full until 1956, and before that date it was therefore not possible to appreciate the magnitude of Abelard's contribution to the doctrines we regard as characteristically medieval.. (shrink)
This paper focuses on the philosophical analysis of interculturality. Globalization involves the problem of the universal and its relation to the particular in cultures. In some interpretations, universality is sharply opposed to particularity (Arjun Appadurai's theory of "break" in culture). In contrast to this, there are authors who allow for both particular and universal, focusing on their interrelation. Roland Robertson shows that diversity and multiculturality do not exclude forms of cultural unity. The analysis involves the current debate regarding the term (...) "intercultural philosophy" (Ram Adhar Mall, Franz Wimmer). Intercultural philosophy raises questions about philosophy itself, and involves the revision of the whole concept of philosophy. It brings to the forefront the problem of the interrelations between the cultural-specific and the universal in philosophy. For some philosophers, the notion intercultural seems to be incompatible with philosophy as universal knowledge. However, the adherents of interculturality develop a broader and more pluralistic concept of philosophy, viewed as embedded in certain cultural and philosophical traditions while dealing with perennial questions and aiming to give universally valid answers. Two main paradigms of interculturality are distinguished: one is Raimundo Panikkar's "intercultural-interreligious paradigm"; the other is the "intercultural-liberation paradigm" developed by Raul Fornet-Betancourt. At the heart of this analysis is Fornet- Betancourt's concept of the intercultural transformation of philosophy. It is related to interculturality, or the dialogue of cultures. It challenges the Eurocentric philosophical historiography and claims the necessity of the reconstruction of the history of ideas in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, thus creating a new view of the history of philosophy. The concept of intercultural dialogue is also considered as a "regulative idea" in creating an alternative to current globalization. (shrink)
Raúl Orayen's Lógica, significado y ontología Foot note is a profound book, a thorough inquiry into several important issues in the philosophy of logic. Raúl Orayen is one of the outstanding analytical philosophers in the Spanish speaking world. As in his other publications, he displays a masterly reasoning power. No patched up solutions in this book. Orayen is not going to let what he takes to be unsatisfactory treatments off the hook with vague considerations of their being able to cope (...) «somehow or other» with such difficulties as beset them. (shrink)
We first show that the Generalized Sharing mechanism which is exhaustive, allows a team of identical members voluntarily supplying the observable effort to attain Pareto efficient production under increasing returns provided team size is allowed to vary. We then show that where true effort is imperfectly observable (moral hazard) Pareto efficient production under nonconstant returns to scale is still attainable by varying team size.
The purpose of this study was to analyze the attitude of a group of cardiologists on the ethical conducts they would accept or adopt when encountered with different hypothetical situations of medical practice. Between August and September of 2011, 700 Argentine cardiologists were surveyed in situations which posed ethical dilemmas in the patient-physician relationship, among colleagues or involving financial agreements with employers or the pharmaceutical industry. Ethical conflicts were evidenced in a series of inappropriate conducts such as differential fees, trips (...) and meals sponsored by laboratories, splitting fees, overbilling, self-referral, charging for patient referral, financial compensation for ordering medical procedures, and various situations derived from the relationship with employers. In general, financial compensation from the pharmaceutical industry was more accepted than the conflictive situations which directly involved patients, colleagues or employers. The rejection of these conducts, the physicians' deontological education and the improvement of financial and organizational conditions in medical practice will help to encourage better medical professionalism and avoid unseemly behaviors. (shrink)
The transformation of the text from the pre-information technology and Gutenberg modes to the model marked by information or digital technology is such that it substantially changes not only the concept of the text but also the nature of philology itself. This paper presents and discusses the problems encountered in producing a digital edition of the Zibaldone Laurenziano, Giovanni Boccaccio’s handwritten manuscript conserved in the Laurenziana Library in Florence (Pluteo XXIX, 8). The Medieval text in general, and even more with (...) the case of a zibaldone-type text, has intrinsic characteristics that clash with the immobility and definitive nature typical of the print text. The digital edition has been defined by Lebrave as the “critical edition of the 21st century.” It can be based on hypertextuality and hypermediality, using the internet as a resource, and is perfectly able to render textual movement, restoring the text to its specific mobility. Il passaggio del testo dalla modalità pre-informatica e gutemberghiana, a quella segnata dall’informatica o digitale è tale da cambiare sostanzialmente non solo il concetto di testo ma anche la natura stessa della filologia. Il saggio presenta e discute i problemi incontrati nel lavoro volto a stabilire un’edizione critica informatizzata dello Zibaldone Laurenziano, manoscritto autografo di Giovanni Boccaccio, conservato alla Biblioteca Laurenziana di Firenze (Pluteo XXIX, 8). Il testo medievale (e ancor più un testo del tipo-zibaldone) presenta delle caratteristiche intrinseche che entrano in contraddizione con l’immobilità e la natura definitiva tipiche del testo a stampa. L’edizione informatizzata, quella che si può basare sull’ipertestualità, sull’ipermedialità e sul ricorso alla rete, quella che Jean-Louis Lebrave ha definito come “l’édition critique au XXI.e siècle” (Lebrave 127), è perfettamente in grado di rendere il movimento testuale, restituendo al testo la sua rigorosa mobilità. (shrink)
No Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, o sinal de identidade é excluído de qualquer uso significativo na linguagem porque expressões como “a = a” e “a = b” não podem ser proposições elementares e proposições necessárias ao mesmo tempo. Por isso, a identidade é usada como uma operação. Esse uso não tem pretensões significativas, mas apenas indica o caráter intersubstituível dos sinais envolvidos.
Wittgenstein entwickelt im § 201 dQX Philosophischen Untersuchungen ein skeptisches Paradox über das Folgen von Regeln. Entgegen der einflußreiche Deutung Kripkes, der für das Paradox eine „skeptische Lösung" vorschlägt, wird eine Deutung vorgezogen, die davon ausgeht, daß Wittgenstein das Paradox nicht löst, sondern es ausräumt. Diese Deutung hat den Vorzug, daß sie Wittgenstein grundwie dies implizit Kripke un andere tun, sondern trägt Wittgensteins „therapeutischen Zielen“ Rechnung, wo es vornehmlich darum geht, philosophische Mißverständnisse und Verwirrungen auszuräumen, anstatt traditionell philosophische Probleme aufzuwerfen (...) und sie dann durch Erklärungen oder Theorien zu lösen. (shrink)
The plank of the dependency theory is that unless there is a transition to socialism and a complete break with the metropolitan countries, the peripheral status of the dependent countries would continue. After the Second World War with the emergence of many new nations, as a consequence of decolonization, the question of development assumed paramount importance for these countries. Raul Prebisch (1950) understood the nineteenth century paradigm of free trade as inoperative and disadvantageous to the raw materials exporting countries. (...) The spectacular success of the Newly Industrialized countries‐ Hong Kong,Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan by integrating with the developed nations, have achieved a higher standard of living and negated the basic assumptions of the dependency theory. (shrink)
La Paradoja de Orayen es dos cosas en una. Primeramente, es un homenaje al filósofo argentino Raúl Orayen (1942–2003). Pocos filósofos hispanoamericanos han gozado de la solidez intelectual y agudeza filosófica de Orayen, y pocos han sido tan queridos. Se trata, pues, de un homenaje bien merecido y que mucho agradecemos los que tuvimos la fortuna de interactuar con Raúl y aprender de él. En segundo lugar, el libro es una contribución a la filosofía hispanoamericana. Alberto Moretti y Guillermo Hurtado (...) tuvieron el acierto de reconocer el valor de un proyecto que la prematura muerte de Orayen dejó inconcluso, y apreciar su potencial para generar discusión filosófica de alto nivel. El resultado es un volumen que recompensará la atención de sus lectores, y dará al trabajo de Orayen justa prominencia en el mundo hispanoamericano. (shrink)
This article examines the challenges surrounding the application of multicultural, outcomes-based curricula for teaching media ethics and communication ethics classes within a small journalism program. The main question to be answered here is: From the perspective of students, does it make a difference to employ a teaching model that is embedded in multicultural values, and rewards personal transformation and "measurable results"? An additional question is: From the perspective of instructors, how can we best assess student learning and personal growth in (...) fields as "subjective" and intangible as communication ethics and media ethics? (shrink)
Em 18 de setembro de 1789, referindo-se ao alcance do poder constituinte da Assembleia Nacional, Mirabeau afirmou que era preciso, nessas horas de mudança, “evitar a subitaneidade do trânsito”. Em um luminoso ensaio de 1927, consagrado ao “Orador do Povo”, José Ortega y Gasset ensina que, na ocasião, “a política de Mirabeau, como toda política autêntica, postula a unidade dos contrários. É pre-ciso, ao mesmo tempo, um impulso e um freio, uma força de acele-ração, de mudança social, e uma força (...) de contenção que impeça a vertiginosidade”. Esta definição de Ortega, que equipara a construção de um novo regime com o método da política, não só é singularmente útil para analisar as situações em que os processos de mudança não são descontínuos, onde a ruptura é de alguma maneira negociada, mas torna a nosso autor um autêntico teórico da reforma social e, por esta via, da moderação política (e da virtude, na tradição aristotélica). Não se esgota aqui, porém, o veio da moderação em Ortega. Em outra obra contemporânea da anterior, o filósofo espanhol evoca uma dimensão não menos importante dela: o tema da convivência e da conciliação. E se vale de um autor do século XIV, Ibn Khaldun, para lembrar-nos o ilusório da table rase, para que advirtamos que ainda em nossos dias toda mudança duradoura deve valer-se sempre de uma tradição longa contra uma tradição curta, que é através do retorno que se faz o novo. Parafraseando, pois, o título deste segundo ensaio, Ortega y Gasset nos revela o segredo: as chaves da mudança social em liberdade. (shrink)
Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)
