You'd never know Athens was locked in a life-or-death struggle from the tranquil and leisurely philosophical discussion that unfolds through the pages of the Republic...Plato's masterpiece continues to inform our questions and our thinking when it comes to being, truth, beauty, goodness, justice, community, the soul, and more." -From Dr. Littlejohn's Introduction. On the way back from a festival, Socrates is waylaid by some friends who compel him to go home with them. There he and his companions engage in a (...) long discussion about whether it is worse to suffer evil or to commit it. Far from being dry or abstract, Plato's dialogue is full of practical questions about the nature of justice, education, power, and virtue, and it ends with two of the most vivid myths ever devised by man. This Canon Classic is translated clearly by Benjamin Jowett, and unlike all other works of philosophy, it's actually fun to read. The Canon Classics series presents the most definitive works of Western literature in a colorful, well-crafted, and affordable way. Unlike many other thrift editions, our classics are printed on thicker text stock and feature individualized designs that prioritize readability by means of proper margins, leading, characters per line, font, trim size, etc. Each book's materials and layout combine to make the classics a simple and striking addition to classrooms and homes, ideal for introducing the best of literary culture and human experience to the next generation. This Worldview Edition features an introduction divided into sections on The World Around, About the Author, What Other Notables Said, Setting, Characters, & Plot Summary, Worldview Analysis, 21 Significant Questions & Answers, and Further Discussion & Review. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the particular problems raised by observations of phenomena outside the common course of nature for their validation as knowledge. It examines to what extent the content of the reports and, in particular, their lack of intrinsic plausibility affected the methods used in their authentication and the assessment of testimony at the Royal Society in the first half of the eighteenth century. I show that literary strategies were usually necessary but not sufficient for the validation of (...) these kinds of observations. Next, I discuss why visual representations were especially useful in establishing the singularity of the observations, but I point out that their high costs and other restrictions meant that they were not so widespread. In contrast I show that, for a long period of time, testimony was used in the majority of the reports as the true stamp of authenticity. I note, however, that the Royal Society accepted reports by authors of varied social status, level of education and occupation, and I discuss some of the factors responsible for the complexity of the handling of testimony at the Society. I argue against Shapin that in the case of reports of extraordinary phenomena, the competence of the reporter and witnesses was often more important than their social status. The increasing role of expertise in the assessment of observations at the Society become especially apparent by the middle of the eighteenth century.Author Keywords: Authentication; Competence; Monstrous births; Singular; Testimony; Royal Society of London. (shrink)

This paper reviews the impact of Rasiowa's well-known book on the evolution of algebraic logic during the last thirty or forty years. It starts with some comments on the importance and influence of this book, highlighting some of the reasons for this influence, and some of its key points, mathematically speaking, concerning the general theory of algebraic logic, a theory nowadays called Abstract Algebraic Logic. Then, a consideration of the diverse ways in which these key points can be generalized allows (...) us to survey some issues in the development of the field in the last twenty to thirty years. The last part of the paper reviews some recent lines of research that in some way transcend Rasiowa's approach. I hope in this way to give the reader a general view of Rasiowa's key position in the evolution of Algebraic Logic during the twentieth century. (shrink)

At the end of I.3, 319a29ff, Aristotle asks a series of questions. This difficult and condensed passage, whose translation is controversial at some points, raises two questions: what is what is not without qualification? and is the matter of earth and fire the same or different? In this essay, I shall focus on the second question.

In his influential work, A social history of truth, Steven Shapin has argued for the central role of social status in the assessment of experimental knowledge. In his view, in seventeenth-century England, gentlemen were considered the right kind of persons to trust because of their freedom of action, codes of virtue and honour. These characteristics ensured credibility and, hence, compelled assent. However, Shapin does not put sufficient emphasis on the relevance of the testifier’s competence in the validation of knowledge. When (...) and in which circumstances did expertise become more important than social status in the accreditation of natural knowledge? [...] I argue in this paper that it is in the realm of interpretation of unusual and ambiguous anatomies that medical and, in particular, anatomical expertise assumed its most crucial role. Moreover, the medical understanding of the hermaphroditic body in the eighteenth century can be considered one of the most illustrative cases of the construction and display of anatomical expertise. In fact, several of the academic memoirs and dissertations published on hermaphrodites in the eighteenth century attempted precisely to fulfil this purpose. (shrink)

Despite decades of study, mimicry continues to inspire and challenge evolutionary biologists. This essay aims to assess recent conceptual frameworks for the study of mimicry and to examine the links between mimicry and related phenomena. Mimicry is defined here as similarity in appearance and/or behavior between a mimic and a model that provides a selective advantage to the mimic because it affects the behavior of a receiver causing it to misidentify the mimic, and that evolved (or is maintained by selection) (...) because of those effects. Mimics copy cues or signals that are already in use as part of a stable communication system, but offer misleading information to receivers. Mimicry overlaps, both conceptually and evolutionarily, with camouflage and perceptual exploitation but the overlap is only partial, which may create some confusion. Certain types of camouflage (e.g. masquerade) conform to the definition of mimicry, while others (e.g. background matching) are not considered mimicry because they prevent detection rather than recognition of the camouflaged animal. Mimicry, on the other hand, works by exploiting peculiarities of the receiver at higher stages of sensory processing involving recognition and classification of stimuli. Perceptual exploitation models of trait evolution are also closely related to mimicry, and sensory traps in particular may act as a precursor for true mimicry to evolve. The common thread through these diverse phenomena is deception of a receiver by a mimic. Thus receiver deception (i.e. perceptual error) emerges as a key characteristic of mimicry shared with some types of camouflage and perceptual exploitation. (shrink)

Ce travail pretend faire reflechir à propos de la question de l'impunite des autorites de L'Etat face aux violations des droits de l'homme. On abordera cet egard: a) le role de I'amnistie b)le complicite des autoritesadministratives c) la lenteur des procedures judicieuse. L'analyse de cette question montre qui L'impunite des responsables des violations des droits de l'homme fait peser une menace sur I'ensemble du systeme de protection universelle des droits de l'homme. On peut on conduire qu 'aucune societe que aspire (...) à la democratie et a la justice ne peut se construire sur I'amoralite des crimes impunis et I'amnesie officielle. (shrink)

Durante todo o século XVIII, existiu um grande fascínio por seres humanos hermafroditas. Este interesse encontra-se patenteado nas suas inúmeras exibiçōes públicas e nas vánas dissertaçōes académicas sobre o tema. Neste período, e em contraste com o anterior, a existência de seres humanos hermafroditas passou a ser questionada por membros da comunidade médica da época incluindo James Parsons, para o qual a figura do hermafrodita deveria ser erradicada do entendimento anatómico da diferença sexual. Albrecht von Haller nāo ficou indiferente à (...) controvérsia sobre a existência de hermafroditas humanos. Este artigo tem como objectivo apresentar e debater a sua visāo sobre esta temática, primeiramente apresentada na sua dissertaçāo sobre hermafroditas datada de 1752 e depois num artigo da Encyclopédie de 1777. De que modo a sua abordagem do problema foi distinta da dos seus contemporâneos? Qual foi o seu contúbuto para o entendimento da ambiguidade sexual? Haller pnvilegiou o estudo de homens com deformaçōes genitais habitualmente descrítos como hermafroditas mas que, no seu entender, deveriam ser considerados verdadeiros homens com plenos direitos legais e sociais. Mais ainda, Haller não tinha uma visāo redutora sobre o problema da ambiguidade sexual. No seu entender, os seres humanos hermafroditas, embora raros, poderíam existir. Afinal, o estudo da natureza mostrava o quāo ela era fértil na produçãāo de novas figuras e formas. Throughout the eighteenth century, there was a great fascination with human hermaphrodites. This interest is evident in their frequent public exhibitions and in the numerous academic dissertations published on the subject. In contrast with the previous period where men, women and hermaphrodites where thought to exist, the very existence of the latter was called into question by some members of the medical community including James Parsons for whom the the category of hermaphrodite should be eradicated from the understanding of sexual diference. Albrecht von Haller was not indifferent to the controversy on the existence of human hermaphrodites. This article is concerned with his views on the issue first presented in his dissertation on hermaphrodites and later in the French Encyclopédie . To what extent were his views on the subject different from the ones argued by other anatomists of the period? What was his contribute to the understanding of sexual ambiguity? In this paper, I will argue that Haller was especially concerned with men with genital deformations who, in his view, should not be described as hermaphrodites and should have the same social rights as other men. Moreover, Haller had an open view on the issue of the existence of human hermaphrodites. Although he considered the possibility of their existence rare, he did not deny the vast potential of nature in producing new shapes and forms. (shrink)

Existing social disparities in the United States are inconsistent with the promise of democracy; therefore, there was a need for critical conceptualization of the first principles that undergird American democracy and the genesis of democratic social change in America. This constructivist grounded theory study aimed to construct a grounded theory that provides an understanding of the process of American democratic social change as it emerged from the nation’s founding documents. A post hoc polytheoretical framework including Foucault’s, Bourdieu’s, and Marx and (...) Engels’s theories of power was used to understand power dynamics. The research question focused on understanding the process of democratic social change in America. The sample comprised the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, and the U.S. Constitution. The documents were retrieved from the National Archives and Library of Congress. The data analysis plan incorporated successive comparison, situational and dramaturgical analysis, deconstruction, and perspective taking as strategies. The result was the construction of a democratic social change process theory preceded by five grounded theories: (a) first principles of democracy, (b) first principles of democracy conceptual framework, (c) socio-ethical principles of democracy, (d) demoralizing process, and (e) either-or approach to democracy. Positive social change implications include applying a democratic social change process to future social change endeavors across domains and levels of analysis, a normative framework for a republican form of government, and a tool to analyze and minimize the latent consequences of social justice policies. (shrink)

In some languages every statement must contain a specification of the type of evidence on which it is based: for example, whether the speaker saw it, or heard it, or inferred it from indirect evidence, or learnt it from someone else. This grammatical reference to information source is called 'evidentiality', and is one of the least described grammatical categories. Evidentiality systems differ in how complex they are: some distinguish just two terms (eyewitness and noneyewitness, or reported and everything else), while (...) others have six or even more terms. Evidentiality is a category in its own right, and not a subcategory of epistemic or some other modality, nor of tense-aspect. Every language has some way of referring to the source of information, but not every language has grammatical evidentiality. In English expressions such as I guess, they say, I hear that, the alleged are not obligatory and do not constitute a grammatical system. Similar expressions in other languages may provide historical sources for evidentials. True evidentials, by contrast, form a grammatical system. In the North Arawak language Tariana an expression such as "the dog bit the man" must be augmented by a grammatical suffix indicating whether the event was seen, or heard, or assumed, or reported. This book provides the first exhaustive cross-linguistic typological study of how languages deal with the marking of information source. Examples are drawn from over 500 languages from all over the world, several of them based on the author's original fieldwork. Professor Aikhenvald also considers the role evidentiality plays in human cognition, and the ways in which evidentiality influences human perception of the world.. This is an important book on an intriguing subject. It will interest anthropologists, cognitive psychologists and philosophers, as well as linguists. (shrink)

In recent years attention to the philosophical and literary production of P. A. Florenskii has become commonplace. The thinker's intellectual legacy is very great. In September 1919, Florenskii wrote a prospectus for a collection of his own writings, which would have amounted to nineteen volumes. The collection was not published, for a number of reasons; nonetheless, many of the philosopher's works did come out during his lifetime. Florenskii's writing, published in small editions and scattered among various journals, are still quite (...) inaccessible to readers. (shrink)

Philosophizing at Russian theological academies is a complex and ramified cultural-historical formation that developed within the Orthodox confession and goes back to the earliest stages of Russian religious-philosophical culture. The formal content of this concept consists of the philosophy courses taught at the Russian theological academies, established on the basis of the 1809 Charter of Theological Academies, and of the philosophical works of the professors and lecturers at these academies, mostly the philosophical articles in the theological journals published by the (...) academies. (shrink)

Russian Romanticism, which first acquired recognizable contours in the 1820s, was a substantively significant phenomenon in Russian culture. Russian Romanticism assumed the unique forms of a sociophilosophical and literaryesthetic current that did not take shape within the confines of a purely literary movement. Romanticism was an important element in the culturalhistorical development of mankind; it was a special type of philosophicalhistorical interpretation of the world and a special type of esthetic awareness and literary-artistic conduct.

La riscoperta del pensiero di Franz Brentano, in Italia e all’estero, stimola a verificare la centralità e la vitalità della sua presenza in una sempre più vasta cerchia di lettori e di discepoli. In quest’ottica rientra il confronto con l’insigne medievista, archivista e studioso di Lutero, Henrich-Suso Denifle. Tuttavia, ad eccezione di sporadici accenni, il problema del rapporto Denifle – Brentano è stato relegato nel dimenticatoio, anche se lo stesso Brentano a suo tempo aveva pubblicamente annoverato Denifle tra i suoi (...) discepoli. Qui si utilizza per la prima un carteggio inedito intercorso tra i due autori per chiarire questo rapporto. Esso, dunque, costituisce una fonte documentaria, finora mai utilizzata, di fondamentale importanza per poter comprendere le posizioni iniziali di Denifle e nello stesso tempo poter integrare la conoscenza, finora non del tutto chiara, della produzione di Brentano fino al 1870. Si tratta di uno scambio epistolare che comprende l’arco di tempo racchiuso tra il 22 novembre 1867 e il 7 agosto del 1871. Le lettere sono tutte di argomento filosofico. (shrink)

Boettke and Butkevich argue that a vibrant society is an entrepreneurial society. Entrepreneur- ial effectiveness is a function of the free movement of economic actions – their alertness to opportunities for mutual gain, and their sense of when and where to enter and exit a market. Boettke and Butkevich focus not so much on the behavior of entrepreneurship, but the institutional conditions within which entrepreneurship takes place. They argue that policies which hinder the above ground legitimate expression of entrepreneurial discovery (...) must be eliminated for the further development of the Russian economy towards a market system and away from the current “virtual economy”. Institutions of governance must be established which reduce political uncertainty and encourage individuals to be willing to bet on their ideas and find the financing to bring those bets to life.Boettke et Butkevich suggèrent que l’activité entrepreneuriale est la force motrice d’une société. L’efficacité de l’activité entrepreneuriale dépend de la libre circulation des acteurs économiques – leur vigilance à l’égard des opportunités de gains mutuels, et leur jugement concernant les moment et lieu opportuns pour entrer sur un marché ou en sortir. Les auteurs mettent l’accent, pas tant sur le comportement des entrepreneurs, que sur les aménagements institutionnels à l’intérieur desquels l’activité entrepreneuriale a lieu. Ils considèrent que les politiques qui font obstacle aux manifestations légitimes de découverte entrepreneuriale doivent être éliminées pour accompagner le développement de l’économie russe vers une économie de marché, distincte de l’actuelle “économie virtuelle”. Des institutions de gouvernance qui réduisent l’incertitude politique doivent être établies. Ces institutions devraient aussi encourager les individus à parier sur leurs idées et à trouver des sources de financement pour instaurer ces idées. (shrink)

In an article “Countering a Counter-intuitive Probability” [4], Lynn E. Rose discusses a question in conditional probability, claiming that the following problem posed by Copi [1] is usually incorrectly solved:Remove all cards except aces and kings from a deck, so that only eight cards remain, of which four are aces and four are kings. From this abbreviated deck, deal two cards to a friend. If he looks at his cards and announces that his hand contains an ace, what is the (...) probability that both his cards are aces? If he announces instead that one of his cards is the ace of spades, what is the probability then that both his cards are aces? (shrink)