We prove strong completeness of the □-version and the ◊-version of a Gödel modal logic based on Kripke models where propositions at each world and the accessibility relation are both infinitely valued in the standard Gödel algebra [0,1]. Some asymmetries are revealed: validity in the first logic is reducible to the class of frames having two-valued accessibility relation and this logic does not enjoy the finite model property, while validity in the second logic requires truly fuzzy accessibility relations and this (...) logic has the finite model property. Analogues of the classical modal systems D, T, S4 and S5 are considered also, and the completeness results are extended to languages enriched with a discrete well ordered set of truth constants. (shrink)
An extensions by new axioms and rules of an algebraizable logic in the sense of Blok and Pigozzi is not necessarily algebraizable if it involves new connective symbols, or it may be algebraizable in an essentially different way than the original logic. However, extension whose axioms and rules define implicitly the new connectives are algebraizable, via the same equivalence formulas and defining equations of the original logic, by enriched algebras of its equivalente quasivariety semantics. For certain strongly algebraizable logics, all (...) connectives defined implicitly by axiomatic extensions of the logic are explicitly definable. (shrink)
It is shown that axiomatic extensions of intuitionistic propositional calculus defining univocally new connectives, including those proposed by Gabbay, are strongly complete with respect to valuations in Heyting algebras with additional operations. In all cases, the double negation of such a connective is equivalent to a formula of intuitionistic calculus. Thus, under the excluded third law it collapses to a classical formula, showing that this condition in Gabbay's definition is redundant. Moreover, such connectives can not be interpreted in all Heyting (...) algebras, unless they are already equivalent to a formula of intuitionistic calculus. These facts relativize to connectives over intermediate logics. In particular, the intermediate logic with values in the chain of length n may be "completed" conservatively by adding a single unary connective, so that the expanded system does not allow further axiomatic extensions by new connectives. (shrink)
It is shown that Friedman's problem, whether there exists a proper extension of first order logic satisfying the compactness and interpolation theorems, has extremely simple positive solutions if one considers extensions by generalized (finitary) propositional connectives. This does not solve, however, the problem of whether such extensions exist which are also closed under relativization of formulas.
Este trabajo se encuadra dentro de una nueva visión de la lógica de Leibniz, la cual pretende mostrar que sus escritos fueron ricos no solamente en proyectos ambiciosos (Característica Universal, Combinatoria, Mathesis) sino también en desarrollos lógico-matematicos concretos. Se demuestra que su “Caracteristica Numerica” que asigna pares de números a las proposiciones categóricas es una semántiea para la cual la silogística aristotélica es correcta y completa, y que el sistema algebraico presentado en Fundamentos de un Cálculo Lógico es una lógica (...) algebraica similar a la de Boole.This work is a contribution to a new view of Leibniz’s logic, pretending to show that his writings were not only rich in projects (Characteristica, Combinatoria, Mathesis), but also in concrete logico-mathematical developments. We prove that his “Numerical Characteristic” assigning pairs of numbers to terms of categorical propositions, is a complete and correct semantics for aristotelian syllogistic, and the algebraic system presented in Fundamentals of Logical Calculus is essentially a complete version of boolean algebraic logic. (shrink)
In this article, Albert Ferrer culminates a long series of articles published in the Catalan review Ars Brevis , edited by the Blanquerna Foundation of the Ramon Llull University, Barcelona. In his previous exposition, Prof. Ferrer outlined the development of holistic and spirituallybased education in India and Europe until the advent of the materialistic pedagogy of the modern school system. In this paper, Prof. Ferrer delves further into a philosophical understanding of this integral kind of education on (...) spiritual grounds, focusing on the teachings of the greatest spiritual master of contemporary India, Sathya Sai Baba, who recently passed away after 86 years of service to humanity. In particular, Prof. Ferrer elucidates the transition from the modern utilitarian approach to values and ethics to the new paradigm emerging from the dialogue between quantum/ new physics and mystical philosophy. Through this fascinating dialogue, ethics reveals its mystical roots and the ethical or axiological perspective turns into ontology and metaphysics. From the liberal vision of moral choice and tolerance, we evolve towards an exploration of Reality, a holistic and multidimensional Man and Cosmos in interdependence. Integral education in human values becomes the natural pedagogy of this new paradigm, the merger between science and spirituality. (shrink)
In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual and hypothetical conditionals that can exhibit different “degrees of contingency”. We use this idea to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, this structure explains why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful in scientific practice. For illustrative (...) purposes, we provide an example from population genetics, the Wright-Fisher Model. (shrink)
The contributors to this volume argue that we can, and they offer a new way: the "participatory turn," which proposes that individuals and communities have an ...
Neste artigo, submetendo a breve análise a digressáo sobre a maiêutica “socrática”, tentamos demonstrar em que medida a escolha dos personagens do Teeteto de Platáo determina a natureza do debate desenvolvido ali. Inspirados pelo critério hermenêutico da escola de Tübingen-Miláo , julgamos que a recomposiçáo dos perfis dramático-biográficos daqueles personagens, em plena harmonia com a teoria do escrito-jogo de Platáo apresentada na parte conclusiva do Fedro e completada, em seu aspecto dramático-compositivo pelo livro III da República , seja elemento central (...) para um correto ajuste de perspectiva a partir da qual deve-se ler o diálogo. Nesta sede, recorremos também a alguns passos do tratado matemático exposto no VII livro da República de Platáo, texto fundamental para a reconstruçáo dramática dos personagens do Teeteto e, por via de consequência, para uma correta justificaçáo da leitura que propomos. (shrink)
In the absence of Woodin cardinals, fine structural inner models for mild large cardinal hypotheses admit forcing extensions where bounded forcing axioms hold and yet the reals are projectively well-ordered.
Transpersonal psychology first emerged as an academic discipline in the 1960s and has subsequently broadened into a range of transpersonal studies. Jorge Ferrer (2002) has called for a 'revisioning' of transpersonal theory, dethroning inner experience from its dominant role in defining and validating spiritual reality. In the current paradigm he detects a lingering Cartesianism, which subtly entrenches the very subject-object divide that transpersonalists seek to overcome. This paper outlines the development and current shape of the transpersonal movement, compares (...) class='Hi'>Ferrer's epistemology with the heterophenomenology of Daniel Dennett, and speculates on the integration of the latter into transpersonal theory. (shrink)
Le sous-titre de l'ouvrage est explicite : Essai sur le ménage à domicile et le retour de la domesticité et l'introduction annonce la couleur : « le ménage est un jeu de pouvoir qui renvoie aux rapports de genre, à la définition et à la division du travail, bref à une véritable économie politique » (p. 7). Plus précisément, l'analyse des tâches ménagères pose, selon les auteurs, plusieurs questions : celle de l'inégalité entre les hommes et les femmes certes, mais (...) aussi celles de l'articulat.. (shrink)
The father of guerrilla warfare in Northern Spain during the Napoleonic Wars, Mina astounded his enemies and won the respect and love of his own people.
EL PRINCIPIO ANTROPOLÓGICO DE LA ÉTICA responde a la necesidad de ofrecer una base antropológica a la Ética, que permita orientarse en la variedad de conceptos con alcance moral (deber, obligación, felicidad, libertad, persona, bien…). A este respecto, el autor encontró que el tratamiento zubiriano del «hecho moral» no atiende tanto a las teorías éticas cuanto al arraigo antropológico del mismo, por lo que decidió adoptarlo como guía. Pero como toda la obra de Zubiri forma un conjunto compacto, se vio (...) en la necesidad de hacer no pocas incursiones en cuestiones colindantes, solo a primera vista ajenas al tema de este estudio, como la temporalidad, la aplicación de los sistemas al viviente o la religación. Al fin, Urbano Ferrer logra ofrecer al lector, de un lado, una visión sintética de los cimientos antropológicos de la moralidad, destacando las innegables aportaciones de Zubiri en diálogo con los pensadores clásicos y, de otro lado, se inician vías para despejar algunos flancos que esa visión deja abiertos, tales como la teleología en los actos humanos, los hábitos morales, la prevalencia del futuro o la libertad trascendental de la persona. (shrink)
Xavier Zubiri entiende que el tema del mundo, a pesar de tener una noble prosapia en la historia de la filosofía, ha sido desatendido por la mayor parte del pensamiento reciente. Posiblemente fue Descartes el último gran filósofo en escribir un tratado dedicado temáticamente al problema del mundo. Es como si la atención a las cosas que hay en el universo hubiera hecho que se perdiera de vista el problema del universo mismo. Por supuesto, no faltan filósofos contemporáneos que (...) hayan hablado del mundo. Pero Zubiri entiende que esos filósofos lo han hecho de una manera unilateral, atendiendo únicamente al diálogo con las ciencias humanas, y desarrollando de esta manera conceptos del mundo en los que no caben las aportaciones de las ciencias naturales. Ahora bien, ya en el año 1960 Zubiri señalaba que no sólo la historia humana, sino también los nuevos descubrimientos en ciencias tales como la astronomía o la biología exigían que la filosofía se volviera a enfrentar sistemáticamente con la cuestión filosófica del mundo. Esto es lo que Zubiri hizo en este curso, impartido en la Cámara de Comercio de Madrid, y que ahora presentamos a los lectores. Sin duda, el medio siglo transcurrido desde entonces haría necesaria una actualización de las informaciones científicas que Zubiri manejaba. Sin embargo, muchos de los conceptos desarrollados por él en aquellas lecciones, precisamente por su novedad, por su radicalidad, y por su apertura a una concepción abierta y dinámica de la ciencia, siguen siendo relevantes en el presente. No sólo eso. En una última y extensa lección Zubiri se planteó una cuestión crucial para la filosofía: la de un posible fundamento del mundo. También aquí su profundo conocimiento de la historia del pensamiento, su rigor y al mismo tiempo su originalidad filosófica, siguen siendo inspiradores para los lectores contemporáneos. (shrink)
These are integrated and synthesised bythe editors, both acknowledged experts in the field. The scope is truly international and spans theoretical perspectives, clinical practice, and consumer views.
In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual conditionals that can exhibit different degrees of contingency. We use the idea of possible worlds to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, it is this structure what helps explain why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful (...) in scientific practice. (shrink)
In jurisprudential literature, the adjective ‘defeasible’ appears as a predicate of many terms: concepts, laws, rules, reasoning, justification, proof, and so on. In this paper, we analyze the effects of some versions of the thesis of the defeasibility of legal norms on the reconstruction of the notion of legal validity. We analyze some possible justifications of this thesis considered as a claim concerning validity, and enquire into two possible sets of problems related to the defeasibility of the criteria of identification (...) of a legal system. We also provide a formalization of some options regarding defeasible criteria of identification, which can be used as a tool for meta-jurisprudential analysis. Finally, the thesis according to which defeasibility is better conceived of as a feature of legal application is examined and questioned. (shrink)
Anthony Freeman's article on transpersonal psychology cited Jorge Ferrer's criticism that while the field claims to be non-dualistic or 'post-Cartesian' (no subject -object or mind-body split), it is nevertheless hopelessly dualistic. . .Freeman proposes a way of salvation for transpersonal psychology by invoking Daniel Dennettapos;s concept of heterophenomenology, which is a third-person investigation of someone elseapos;s first-person experience (as reported). . .Freeman's proposal is a fine demonstration of lateral thinking, calling upon atheist Dennett in support of transpersonal and religious (...) inquiry. Unfortunately, it is a solution analogous to searching for lost keys under the lamppost where the light is better. (shrink)
Although irrationality always presupposes rationality, I think there are good arguments to claim that sometimes rationality presupposes irrationality.This paper tries to show how irrational action can support rationality in two ways: it can develop and preserve rationality. I also argue that sometimes the development and the conservation of rationality can only be realized by irrational action.
In this article we defend the inferential view of scientific models and idealisation. Models are seen as “inferential prostheses” (instruments for surrogative reasoning) construed by means of an idealisation-concretisation process, which we essentially understand as a kind of counterfactual deformation procedure (also analysed in inferential terms). The value of scientific representation is understood in terms not only of the success of the inferential outcomes arrived at with its help, but also of the heuristic power of representation and their capacity to (...) correct and improve our models. This provides us with an argument against Sugden’s account of credible models: the likelihood or realisticness (their “credibility”) is not always a good measure of their acceptability. As opposed to “credibility” we propose the notion of “enlightening”, which is the capacity of giving us understanding in the sense of an inferential ability. (shrink)
The Harvard University Program in Ethics and Health, 651 Huntington Avenue, 6th floor c/o HSPH, François Xavier Bagnoud Building Boston, MA 02115, USA. Email: Nir_Eyal{at}hms.harvard.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> Abstract Access to medicines, vaccination and care in resource-poor settings is threatened by the emigration of physicians and other health workers. In entire regions of the developing world, low physician density exacerbates child and maternal mortality and hinders treatment of HIV/AIDS. This article invites philosophers (...) to help identify ethical and effective responses to medical brain drain. It reviews existing proposals and their limitations. It makes a case that, in resource-poor countries, ‘locally relevant medical training’—teaching primarily locally endemic diseases and practice in scarcity conditions, training in rural communities and admitting rural students preferentially—could help improve retention. Locally relevant training would arguably diminish medical brain drain in five ways. It would (i) make graduates less attractive for Western employers, (ii) align graduates’ expectations with actual practice, diminishing ‘burn-out’, (iii) enhance the professional prestige of local practice, (iv) hold rotations in, and recruit applicants from, rural areas, which is known to improve retention there, and (v) create local career development options that attract practitioners to stay. Such educational reform may raise worries about poor-quality care, breach of the freedom of education and occupation, breach of the freedom of movement, unequal distribution of opportunities among students, hypocrisy and resistance from influential actors. We address these worries. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)
A genealogical excavation of the pre transpersonal movement uncovers a hitherto unrecognized process of hybridity and syncretism occurring in the 1960s U.S. counter culture. The presence of hybridity in the movement's prehistory has serious repercussions for current maps in transpersonalism (and religious enactments in general). It is argued here that current transpersonal theories have built themselves on an unexamined foundation of magic, sorcery, and cosmological hybridization. Ken Wilber's neoperennialist cosmos will be construed as an assimilationist strain of hybridity. Jorge (...) class='Hi'>Ferrer's more culture-friendly postulate of an "Ocean with Many Shores" suggests a kind of cosmological multiculturalism. However, what appear to be fixities in his cosmology lend themselves to critical reevaluation of this aspect of his revision of transpersonal psychology. (shrink)
The Arabic tradition knew Alexander’s treatises On Fate and On Providence. Alexander criticizes the Stoic determinism with some peripatetic arguments. In those treatises we can find, at least, two positions: the peripatetic and “libertarian” position represented by Alexander, and Stoic determinism. A very similar discussion can be found in Islamic tradition. As S. Van den Bergh has insisted, Islamic theological schools had some Stoic influences. One of the issues in which we can find some common views is, precisely, the problem (...) of determinism and free will. The aim of this paper is to show that the kasb (acquisition)doctrine of the Islamic theologians Asharites is very similar to Stoic determinism in its compatibilist version: both, Stoics and Asharites, conceive a causal network established by the fate or the providence. From this point of view we have to discuss which is the true agent of the natural and human acts that happen in this world. If the providence guides every act, the natural causality and the free will should be denied. On the one hand, I will present some arguments from the most representative Asharite theologian, al-Ghazali, to support a kind of compatibilist determinism; from the other hand, I will evaluate Averroes peripatetic arguments against determinism. Is Averroes more consistent than Alexander or do we have to conclude that al-Ghazali and the Asharites have stronger arguments in order to support the kasb doctrine? (shrink)
**" CHAPTER * HUMAN NATURE In May, at the time when the French Civil Code was being drafted, one of the orators of the Tribunat, in seeking to justify the ...
The Harvard University Program in Ethics and Health, 651 Huntington Avenue, 6th floor c/o HSPH, François Xavier Bagnoud Building, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Tel.: +1 617 4327244; Email: andras_miklos{at}hms.harvard.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> Abstract When exercising their public health powers, states claim various rights against their subjects and aliens. The paper considers whether public health considerations can help justify some of these rights, and explores some constraints on the justificatory force of public health (...) considerations. I outline two arguments about the moral grounds for states’ rights with regard to public health. The principle of fairness emphasizes that those who benefit from public health measures ought to contribute their fair share in upholding them. Alternatively, states’ rights might be justified by a natural duty of justice to uphold and not to obstruct institutions implementing public health policies. I indicate some reasons for preferring the latter justification. I further argue that the assignment of some rights to states via public health-based justification is undermined on several counts. Domestic political institutions cannot effectively perform some of their functions in protecting public health. Furthermore, transborder public health threats pose collective action problems at the global level. Finally, concerns about human rights work against the assignment of some rights to states. I conclude by arguing that these concerns call for global coordination, and that some rights claimed by states ought instead to be assigned to global institutions. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)
After a brief comparison of Aliseda’s account with different approaches to abductive reasoning, I relate abduction, as studied by Aliseda, to idealization, a notion which also occupies a very important role in scientific change, as well as to different ways of dealing with the growth of scientific knowledge understood as a particular kind of non-monotonic process. A particularly interesting kind of abductive reasoning could be that of finding an appropriate concretization case for a theory, originally revealed as extraordinarily success-ful but (...) later discovered to be strictly false or only approximately or ideally true. I try to show this with the example of the Kepler-Newton relation. At the end of the paper, I give criteria in order to construe abduc-tive explanations in correspondence with a reasonable account of empirical progress. (shrink)
This is to coniirm that J oscph G. Brinkman transferred thc contents 0f thc Master Copy 0f thc Conference 011 thc Foundations 0f Quantum Mechanics, held at Xavier University during October 1-5, 1962, to a compact disc in the month of June 2002. This is thc 40th anniversary of thc conference and is thc first time that thc proceedings have been made available to thc general public.
The present paper is about the author’s current research on children’s education in urban contexts. It departs from the rising offer of programmes for school children in out-of-school contexts (e.g. museums, libraries, science centres). It asks what makes these practices educational (and not just interesting, entertaining and/or audience building). Based on Biesta ( 2006a , 2010 ) theory of education, the author frames and analyses the educational characteristics of, and possibilities of articulating, in and out-of-school educational practices. This paper aims (...) at understanding if the occasional outing from primary school premises promotes interruptions in the humanist foundations of school. In order to analyse relations between different institutions and professionals (to be) engaged in educational activities and programmes, Nóvoa ( 2002 , 2009 ) essays will be brought to the discussion, namely his conception of the ‘Public Space of Education’—as a space where culture, education, arts, sports and leisure are shared responsibilities, and where diverse institutions are networked aiming towards societal pluralism. I argue for the possibility of using cities’ public spaces as contexts with a worldly quality to complexify children’s education. Nevertheless, I draw attention to the unbearable educational lightness that these practices may carry if they do not go beyond the praise of chance; as well as to their unsustainable weight if they perpetually repeat school’s normal orders and add up rational discourses. (shrink)
Anthony Freeman (2006) proposes that Dennett's heterophenomenology (HP) be fully integrated into transpersonal studies as a solution to the 'subtle Cartesianism' that Jorge Ferrer (2002) detects within the field. Methods virtually indistinguishable from HP are already in use within transpersonal research, so the issue of comparison lies deeper. On close analysis, Ferrer's approach cannot be situated within Dennett's (2003) data levels at all, for participatory transpersonalism conceives a profoundly different relationship between conscious subject and the world: a relational (...) matrix of interacting subjects participating in the co- creation of the cosmos. HP, while valuable, is not adequate for a comprehensive study of consciousness. Its shortcomings can be illustrated by imagining an analogical discipline in the natural sciences: heterobotany. Limiting transpersonal inquiry to HP would represent a step backwards in the ongoing process of pioneering effective methods of consciousness research. (shrink)
This paper is a preliminary investigation into the application of the formal-logical theory of normative positions to the characterisation of normative-informational positions, pertaining to rules that are meant to regulate the supply of information. First, we present the proposed framework. Next, we identify the kinds of nuances and distinctions that can be articulated in such a logical framework. Finally, we show how such nuances can arise in specific regulations. Reference is made to Data Protection Law and Contract Law, among others. (...) The proposed approach is articulated around two essential steps. The first involves identifying the set of possible interpretations that can be given to a particular norm. This is done by using formal methods. The second involves picking out one of these interpretations as the most likely one. This second step can be resolved only by using further information (e.g., the context or other parts of the regulation). (shrink)
Humphreys & Forde concentrate on the living/nonliving dissociation. However, further dissociations have been reported, including selective loss or preservation in recognizing body parts and numbers. This commentary outlines the relevance of the number category for understanding the organising principles of semantic memory.
The fundamental task of Filosofía de la realidad histórica (Philosophy of Historical Reality) is to put forth historical reality as the ultimate manifestation of reality, as the proper object of philosophy. Ellacuría develops the concept of historical reality as the synthesis of the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic and Xavier Zubiri’s radicalization of Scholastic realism. Historical reality is physical, not conceptual; material, not ideal; concrete, not abstract. Historical reality encompassesthe material, biological, individual, and social moments of reality. And when it is considered (...) in its totality, as a dynamic and differentiated structure of its moments, functions, and relations, historical reality forms a transcendental system—intramundane metaphysics. (shrink)
Goodman’s style may be elusive sometimes, so that it may result difficult to interpret what he really has in mind. This is a consequence of his masterful use of irony and metaphorical language. This difficulty of interpretation affects important parts of his philosophical thoughts and had led to misunderstandings. In the present article, I discuss the significance of Goodman’s pluralism, one of his most relevant theses. I try to show that Goodman’s pluralism does not lead to skepticism or the relativism (...) of “anything goes”. One of the most common arguments directed against Goodman’s pluralism is that his attempt to provide a genuine standard of “rightness” fails, leaving us without a conception of truth or an appropriate substitute. I will argue that the conclusion of this argument is false, trying to show that Goodman’s aim of defending an irrealist pluralism is perfectly coherent and defensible against the common interpretation of his critics. (shrink)
We prove some results about the limitations of the expressive power of quantifiers on finite structures. We define the concept of a bounded quantifier and prove that every relativizing quantifier which is bounded is already first-order definable (Theorem 3.8). We weaken the concept of congruence closed (see [6]) to weakly congruence closed by restricting to congruence relations where all classes have the same size. Adapting the concept of a thin quantifier (Caicedo [1]) to the framework of finite structures, we (...) define the concept of a meager quantifier. We show that no proper extension of first-order logic by means of meager quantifiers is weakly congruence closed (Theorem 4.9). We prove the failure of the full congruence closure property for logics which extend first-order logic by means of meager quantifiers, arbitrary monadic quantifiers, and the Härtig quantifier (Theorem 6.1). (shrink)
Increasing interest has been paid to applications of fluorescence measurements to analyze physiological mechanisms in living cells. However, few studies have taken advantage of DNA quantification by fluorometry for dynamic assessment of chromatin organization as well as cell motion during the cell cycle. This approach involves both optimal conditions for DNA staining and cell tracking methods. In this context, this report describes a stoichiometric method for nuclear DNA specific staining, using the bisbenzimidazole dye Hoechst 33342 associated with verapamil, a calcium (...) membrane channel blocker. This method makes it possible to correlate variations of nuclear DNA content with cell motion in cells that are maintained alive. Motion measurement is the second goal of this paper and it explains the snake-spline method, and the associated cell following method. (shrink)
The focus of this paper is employee ownership, specifically the role of employee ownership in value creation. Based on a sample of 163 French companies, we have measured the impact of employee share ownership on value creation for both shareholders and stakeholders. Only companies with a sustained employee ownership policy over a 5-year period (from 2001 to 2005), as defined by the French Federation of Employee and Former Employee Shareholders (FAS), have been considered. The results indicate that employee share ownership (...) plans have no effect on shareholders’ or stakeholders’ value creation. (shrink)
In this article we defend the inferential view of scientific models and idealisation. Models are seen as "inferential prostheses" (instruments for surrogative reasoning) construed by means of an idealisation-concretisation process, which we essentially understand as a kind of counterfactual deformation procedure (also analysed in inferential terms). The value of scientific representation is understood in terms not only of the success of the inferential outcomes arrived at with its help, but also of the heuristic power of representation and their capacity to (...) correct and improve our models. This provides us with an argument against Sugden's account of credible models: the likelihood or realisticness (their "credibility") is not always a good measure of their acceptability. As opposed to "credibility" we propose the notion of "enlightening", which is the capacity of giving us understanding in the sense of an inferential ability. (shrink)
This study investigated the effect of stroking vs. simple human presence on later reactions of dairy cows to routine veterinary handling. While in two groups of cows the experimenter stroked the ventral part of the neck (Neck, N = 14) or the withers (Withers, N = 15) for three consecutive weeks, the third group was exposed to close visual presence (Control, N = 14). After the treatment period the cows were subjected to rectal palpation. The three groups differed significantly in (...) stepping during rectal palpation, which occurred less often in Neck- and Withers-animals than in control animals. Heart rate increase was significantly higher in the control group than in the two stroking groups. Previous stroking led to fewer stress reactions during the rectal palpation, possibly due to a combined effect of improved relationship towards and thus perception of humans and lasting anti-stress effects of tactile stimulation. (shrink)
This reflection on two chapters of Xavier Tilliette’s La Mémoire et l’Invisible points out that Newman’s Sicilian sojourn was not only an historical turning point in his life, but the memory of his “illness in Sicily” had a life–long influence.
