CUPRINS CONTUR Re-Introducere sau: Dincolo de „teoria şi practica” informării şi documentării – Spre o hermeneutică posibilă şi necesară ......................................................... 11 Desfăşurătorul întâlnirilor Atelierului Hermeneutica Bibliohtecaria (Philobiblon) .................................................................................................... ......... 21 FOCUS Noul Program al revistei şi Politica ei Editorială: PHILOBIBLON – Transylvanian Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Humanities .............. 29 Raluca TRIFU, István KIRÁLY V., Consideraţii filosofice, epistemologice şi scientometrice legate de sensurile ştiinţei şi profesiei bibliotecare – Pentru situarea proiectului unei cercetări ............................................................ 31 Valeria SALÁNKI, Cultura organizaţională şi comunicarea în (...) bibliotecă - Studiu asupra culturii organizaţionale în Biblioteca Centrală Universitară „Lucian Blaga” din Cluj ........................................................................................ 44 Raluca TRIFU, István KIRÁLY V., Globalizare şi Individualizare, sau: Marketingul ca metaforă pentru reasumarea şi reconturarea sensurilor serviciilor de bibliotecă – O iniţiativă şi o experienţă românească .................114 Claudiu GAIU, Gabriel Naudé (1600-1653 ) – în slujba Puterii şi a Cărţii ..... 128 Alin Mihai GHERMAN, Timpul scrierii – Manuscrisele .................................... 140 Dana Maria MĂRCUŞ, Sărbătoarea cărţii. Percepţia societăţii româneşti interbelice asupra cărţii şi lecturii ...................................................................... 148 Orsolya ANTAL,Taine în jurul unei satire în spirit voltairian în limbă maghiară de la sfârşitul secolului al XVIII-lea .................................................................... 197 Kinga PAPP, Colligatul Ms 354 şi dramele pierdute ale lui József Mártonfi ....213 Gabriela RUS, Roxana BĂLĂUCĂ, Venceslav Melka în colecţia Bibliotecii Centrale Universitare „Lucian Blaga” Cluj-Napoca ........................................ 222 5 Hermeneutica Bibliothecaria – Antologie Philobiblon - Volumul V Nicolina HALGAŞ, Dimensiunea educativă a bibliotecii publice prin servicii de animaţie pentru copii ....................................................................................... 249 Tünde JANKÓ, Alina NEALCOŞ, Maria CRIŞAN, Mariana GROS, Carmen GOGA, Biblioteca Filială de Ştiinţe Economice - Tradiţional versus modern ................271 Adriana MAN SZÉKELY, Emil SALAMON, Colaborarea Bibliotecii Centrale Universitare „Lucian Blaga” din Cluj-Napoca cu Banca Mondială ............. 290 ORIZONTURI Aurel Teodor CODOBAN, Mass-media şi filosofia – Filosoful ca jurnalist, sau sinteza unei ideologii ostensive ............................................................................. 301 Marian PETCU, Şcoala de ziaristică de la Bucureşti (1951-1989) – Istorii recente .................................................................................................... .. 314 Marcel BODEA S., Timpul matematic în mecanica clasică – o perspectivă epistemologică...................................................................................... ................... 332 Florina ILIS, Fenomenul science fiction şi feţele timpului ................................ 354 Rodica FRENŢIU, Yasunari Kawabata şi nostalgia timpului fără timp ......... 373 Rodica TRANDAFIR, Timpul şi muzica .............................................................. 390 István KIRÁLY V., Întemeierea filosofiei şi ateismul la tânărul Heidegger - Prolegomene la o perspectivă existenţial-ontologică ......................................423 Elena CHIABURU, Consideraţii privitoare la vînzarea la Cochii Vechi şi mezat .................................................................................................... ............... 437 Vlad POPOVICI, Istoriografia medicală românească (1813-2008) .................463 Gheorghe VAIS, Remodelări urbane în Clujul perioadei dualiste (1867-1918)..... 481 Cristina VIDRUŢIU, Ciuma – profilul unei recurenţe istorice supusă unui transplant artistic .................................................................................................. 497 Anna Emese VINCZE, Iluziile pozitive din perspectiva psihologiei evoluţioniste .................................................................................................... 506 6 Hermeneutica Bibliothecaria – Antologie Philobiblon - Volumul V REFLEXII Florentina RĂCĂTĂIANU, Irina Petraş, Literatura română contemporană - O panoramă - Recenzie ...................................................................................... 527 Raluca TRIFU, Filosofia informaţiei si cibernetica – Recenzie ......................... 530 Iulia GRAD, Tematizări în eticile aplicate – perspective feministe (Mihaela Frunză) - Recenzie ................................................................................534 Adrian GRĂNESCU, Biblioteca lui Hitler, cărţile care i-au format personalitatea, de Timothy W. Ryback – Recenzie ............................................. 537 În colecţia BIBLIOTHECA BIBLIOLOGICA au apărut ..............................551 Revista PHILOBIBLON – Volumele apărute ......................................... 556. (shrink)

Bewildering features of modern physics, such as relativistic space-time structure and the peculiarities of so-called quantum statistics, challenge traditional ways of conceiving of objects in space and time. Interpreting Bodies brings together essays by leading philosophers and scientists to provide a unique overview of the implications of such physical theories for questions about the nature of objects. The collection combines classic articles by Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, Hans Reichenbach, and Erwin Schrodinger with recent contributions, including several papers that have never (...) before been published. -/- The book focuses on the microphysical objects that are at the heart of quantum physics and addresses issues central to both the "foundational" and the philosophical debates about objects. Contributors explore three subjects in particular: how to identify a physical object as an individual, the notion of invariance with respect to determining what objects are or could be, and how to relate objective and measurable properties to a physical entity. The papers cover traditional philosophical topics, common-sense questions, and technical matters in a consistently clear and rigorous fashion, illuminating some of the most perplexing problems in modern physics and the philosophy of science. (shrink)

Since March 2020, many countries throughout the world have been in lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In Italy, the quarantine began on March 9, 2020, and containment measures were partially reduced only on May 4, 2020. The quarantine experience has a significant psychological impact at all ages but can have it above all on adolescents who cannot go to school, play sports, and meet friends. In this scenario, this study aimed to provide a general overview of the perceived (...) risk related to COVID-19 and the psychological experience of quarantine in a large sample of Italian adolescents. 978 adolescents (males = 339; females = 639) living in 13 Italian regions and attending upper secondary school (age range: 13–20, M = 16.57, SD = 1.20), responded to an internet-based questionnaire about perceived health risk related to COVID-19, knowledge and information on measures to control the pandemic, beliefs and opinions on stage two of the quarantine, and psychological experiences related to quarantine. 31.1% of the participants lived in "red zones," which are places where the government has imposed stricter measures of containment due to exponential and uncontrolled growth in contagion cases compared to other areas in Italy. According to our results, Italian adolescents had a low perception of risk of COVID-19. Perceived comparative susceptibility and perceived seriousness were also very low. However, they were aware of the restriction measures necessary to contain the spread of the virus, and they agreed with the limitations imposed by the government. Females and adolescents living in a “red zone” showed more significant psychological negative feelings about the quarantine experience. However, no significant differences were found about the regions where the teenagers of our sample live and the other variables related to the COVID-19 experience. This is very interesting data, leading us to hypothesize that the participants' negative feelings may be more related to the adolescent period than to the pandemic itself. (shrink)

In recent years, a ''change in attitude'' in particle physics has led to our understanding current quantum field theories as effective field theories (EFTs). The present paper is concerned with the significance of this EFT approach, especially from the viewpoint of the debate on reductionism in science. In particular, I shall show how EFTs provide a new and interesting case study in current philosophical discussion on reduction, emergence, and inter-level relationships in general.

Weak/strong duality is usually accompanied by what seems a puzzling ontological feature: the fact that under this kind of duality what is viewed as 'elementary' in one description gets mapped to what is viewed as 'composite' in the dual description. This paper investigates the meaning of this apparent 'particle democracy', as it has been called, by adopting an historical approach. The aim is to clarify the nature of the correspondence between 'dual particles' in the light of an historical analysis of (...) the developments of the idea of weak/strong duality, starting with Dirac's electric-magnetic duality and its successive generalizations in the context of field theory, to arrive at its first extension to string theory. This analysis is then used as evidential basis for discussing the 'elementary/composite' divide and, after taking another historical detour by analysing an instructive analogy case, drawing some conclusions on the particle-democracy issue. (shrink)

This is the first of two papers concerned with the philosophical significance of dualities as applied in recent fundamental physics. The general idea is that, for its peculiarity, this ‘new’ ingredient in theory construction can open unexpected perspectives in the current philosophical reflection on contemporary physics. In particular, today’s physical dualities represent an unusual type of intertheory relation, the meaning of which deserves to be investigated. The aim is to show how discussing this point brings into play, at the same (...) time, what is intended by a 'theory’ and in which sense dualities are to be considered 'symmetries'. This paper is introductory and focusses on the first form of duality explicitly applied in twentieth century physics, that is electromagnetic duality as discussed in Dirac’s theory of magnetic poles. The extension of electromagnetic duality in the context of quantum field theory and string theory is explored in a forthcoming companion paper. (shrink)

Slurs have become a big topic of discussion both in philosophy and in linguistics. Slurs are usually characterised as pejorative terms, co-extensional with other, neutral, terms referring to ethnic or social groups. However, slurs are not the only ethnic/social words with pejorative senses. Our aim in this paper is to introduce a different kind of pejoratives, which we will call “ethnic/social terms used as insults”, as exemplified in Spanish, though present in many other languages and mostly absent in English. These (...) are ethnic terms like gitano, ‘Romani’, which can have an extensional and neutral use, but also a pejorative meaning building on a negative stereotypical representation of the Romani community. (shrink)

This comment considers the Italian Law 194 on abortion forty years after its approval in 1978 and it focuses on how its meaning has emerged as a result of its interpretation and application over that forty-year period.

This open access book features essays written by philosophers, biologists, ecologists and conservation scientists facing the current biodiversity crisis. Despite increasing communication, accelerating policy and management responses, and notwithstanding improving ecosystem assessment and endangered species knowledge, conserving biodiversity continues to be more a concern than an accomplished task. Why is it so?The overexploitation of natural resources by our species is a frequently recognised factor, while the short-term economic interests of governments and stakeholders typically clash with the burdens that implementing conservation (...) actions imply. But this is not the whole story. This book develops a different perspective on the problem by exploring the conceptual challenges and practical defiance posed by conserving biodiversity, namely: on the one hand, the difficulties in defining what biodiversity is and characterizing that “thing” to which the word ‘biodiversity’ refers to; on the other hand, the reasons why assessing biodiversity and putting in place effective conservation actions is arduous. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question as to whether the methodology followed in building/assessing string theory can be considered scientific in the same sense, say, that the methodology followed in building/assessing the Standard Model of particle physics is scientific, by focussing on the "founding" period of the theory. More precisely, its aim is to argue for a positive answer to the above question – there is no real change of scientific status in the way of proceeding and reasoning in fundamental physical (...) research – in the light of a historical analysis of the early developments of the string theoretical framework. (shrink)

Is there more that one "Curie's principle"? How far are different formulations legitimate? What are the aspects that make it so scientifically fruitful, independently of how it is formulated? The paper is devoted to exploring these questions. We start with illustrating Curie's original 1894 article and his focus. Then, we consider the way that the discussion of the principle took shape from early commentators to its modern form. We say why we think that the modern focus on the inter-state version (...) of the principle loses sight of some of the most interesting significant applications of the principle. Finally, we address criticism of the principle put forward by Norton and purported counterexamples due to Roberts. (shrink)

The relevance of symmetry to today's physics is a widely acknowledged fact. A significant part of recent physical inquiry – especially the physics concerned with investigating the fundamentalbuilding blocks of nature – is grounded on symmetry principles andtheir many and far-reaching consequences. But where these symmetries come from and what their real meaning is are open questions, at the center of a developing debate among physicists and philosophers of science. To tackle the problems arising in considering the symmetry issue is (...) the main purpose of this paper. Starting with briefly recalling the bases for the discussion – how symmetry enters and operates in physics, its special effectiveness in the quantum domain and the many relevant functions it performs (Sections 1–3), the paper then focus on the general interpretative questions that arise and the sorts of answers that have been given (Section 4). (shrink)

We argue that dualities offer new possibilities for relating fundamentality, levels, and emergence. Namely, dualities often relate two theories whose hierarchies of levels are inverted relative to each other, and so allow for new fundamentality relations, as well as for epistemic emergence. We find that the direction of emergence typically found in these cases is opposite to the direction of emergence followed in the standard accounts. Namely, the standard emergence direction is that of decreasing fundamentality: there is emergence of less (...) fundamental, high-level entities, out of more fundamental, low-level entities. But in cases of duality, a more fundamental entity can emerge out of a less fundamental one. This possibility can be traced back to the existence of different classical limits in quantum field theories and string theories. (shrink)

After having reconstructed a minimal biological characterisation of species, we endorse an “empirical approach” based on the idea that it is the peculiar evolutionary history of the species at issue—its peculiar origination process, its peculiar metapopulation structure and the peculiar mixture and strength of homeostatic processes vis à vis heterostatic ones—that determines species’ identity at a time and through time. We then explore the consequences of the acceptance of the empirical approach in settling the individuals versus kinds dispute. In particular, (...) while conceptual arguments have been proposed to show that species can be equally treated as individuals and kinds because mereology’s and set-theory’s languages are inter-translatable, we advance instead a causal argument to sustain the claim that each species is both a kind and an individual. (shrink)

This is an anthology. Each contributor discusses an aspect of Wittgenstein's philosophy considered still relevant in the context of current philosophy.

Language used to describe measles in the press has altered significantly over the last sixty years, a shift that reflects changing perceptions of the disease within the medical community as well as broader changes in public health discourse. California, one of the most populous U.S. states and seat of the 2015 measles outbreak originating at Disneyland, presents an opportunity for observing these changes. This article offers a longitudinal case study of five decades of measles news coverage by the Los Angeles (...) Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, which represented two of the largest news markets in California when the measles vaccine was released, in 1963, and during the 2015 outbreak. Measles reporting during this period displays patterns pointing to an active role for journalists in shaping public understanding of health and medical matters, especially as they recede from public memory, through the employment of available and circulating political and cultural frames. Moreover, journalistic frames in this period of reporting incorporated presentist descriptions of the disease, which imposed present values on the medical past, and which were constructed of decontextualized historical references that supported prevailing contemporary notions of the disease. Framing and the tendency toward presentism, in the context of shifting public health discourse, had the effect of communicating an increasingly severe sounding disease over time, and of shifting blame for that disease’s spread from nature to government to individuals. Journalistic framing and causal stories have much power to shape public understanding of medical matters as they recede from public memory. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the problem of the validity of Leibniz's principle of the identity of indiscernibles in physics. After briefly surveying how the question is currently discussed in recent literature and which is the actual meaning of the principle for what concerns physics, we address the question of the physical validity of Leibniz's principle in terms of the existence of a sufficient number of naming predicates in the formal language of physics. This approach allows us to obtain in (...) a formal way the result that a principle of the identity of indiscernibles can be justified in the domain of classical physics, while this is not the case in the domain of quantum physics. (shrink)

Nella ricerca antropologica, la distinzione “natura/cultura” è considerata una delle dicotomie di base che soggiacciono – nel corso della storia – ai diversi modelli del mondo. Nei termini di questa distinzione ci orientiamo nell’ambiente che ci circonda, tracciamo distinzioni metafisiche, formuliamo giudizi di valore. Eppure, tanto questa opposizione è intuitiva e di immediata comprensione, tanto diventa sfuggente non appena si tenti di individuare dove sia il confine che la definisce, e di...

The concept of nature in Western thought has been informed by the assumption of a categorical distinction between natural and artificial entities, which goes back to John Stuart Mill or even Aristotle. Such a way of articulating the natural/artificial distinction has proven unfit for conservation purposes mainly because of the extent and the pervasiveness of human activities that would leave no nature left to be conserved, and alternative views have been advanced. In this contribution, after arguing for the importance of (...) the concept of naturalness as a guide for conservation, I will try to provide an account of the natural/artificial distinction suited to contemporary conservation framing. Focusing on a particular kind of objects that I suggest to name “environmental objects”, I propose and defend the view of “naturalness as independence” according to which the more or less an environmental object's identity conditions and survival depend on human intervention, the more or less that object is artificial or natural, respectively. According to this view, conserving environmental objects will equate to maintaining or improving their naturalness or even originating artificial objects that may become new natural objects. This view has the advantage, on the one hand, of providing a rationale for a distinction which is not only part of how people think, but also pervasive in conservation practices and policies and, on the other hand, of accounting for the global pervasiveness of human intervention in the so-called natural world. (shrink)

In the context of astrophysical modeling at the solar system scale, we investigate the modalities implied by taking into account different levels of detail at which phenomena can be considered. In particular, by framing the analysis in terms of the how-possibly/how-actually distinction, we address the debated question as to whether the degree of plausibility is tightly linked to the degree of detail. On the grounds of concrete examples, we argue that, also in the astrophysical context examined, this is not necessarily (...) the case. (shrink)

¿Qué significa "fracasar" para un naturalista metodológico? ¿Está éste abocado al escepticismo, y es este un fracaso? Para responder a estas preguntas, realizaré (1) un análisis de lo que se considera "naturalismo" en Hume, desde el que analizaré (2) la crisis escéptica narrada en la conclusión del Libro I del Tratado. Allí defenderé que la metafórica utilizada, engarzada con el concepto de fracaso, permite dos lecturas: una que une necesariamente naturalismo metodológico y escepticismo mitigado, y otra que no. No obstante, (...) concluiré que en ambos casos se dibuja una misma experiencia de límite que permite construir ciencia y filosofía no-excepcionalistas. (shrink)

This is the final draft of Chapter 4 of the Volume 'The Birth of String Theory' edited by A. Cappelli, E. Castellani, F. Colomo, and P. Di Vecchia, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

Se leggiamo tra le righe del suo lavoro, possiamo scoprire che Varzi prende i mostri molto sul serio. Troviamo, per esempio, mostri mereologici frutto della composizione non ristretta, come l’entità costituita dalla metà sinistra di questa mela e dal bracciolo di quella poltrona.10 Oppure mostri topologici dai quali una teoria mereotopologica delle nicche deve rifuggire, come le curve riempispazio di Peano e Hilbert.11 O, ancora, mostri ontologici come l’antimateria;12 le entità “inesistenti” che, come si sa, non possono esistere, dato che (...) non ci sono cose che non esistono; e le entità “negative”: buchi, mancanze e omissioni, conferenze non date.13 In questo contributo, seguendo il suggerimento di Varzi, parlerò, appunto, di mostri, prendendo l’avvio da alcune creature che popolano il regno della finzione, per poi passare a trattare dei mostri che popolano il nostro mondo. Essendo poco lo spazio e molti i mostri, procederò dapprima proponendone una tassonomia – punto di partenza per ogni generalizzazione che si rispetti – e in seguito cercando di illustrare perché i mostri vadano presi sul serio in metafisica. È d’obbligo precisare che si tratterà di una tassonomia parziale e provvisoria, ma lo è altrettanto ricordare che le tassonomie, quelle biologiche in particolare, lo sono sempre, per due ragioni. In parte, perché la vita è in costante evoluzione, in parte perché le nostre conoscenze e decisioni condizionano la struttura e i contenuti dei nostri sistemi di categorie: basti pensare che la prima edizione del Systema naturae di Linneo contava undici pagine, mentre la tredicesima ben tremila, ripartite in sei volumi. Quando un tassonomo scopre un organismo che ritiene – dopo accurati esami comparativi – essere appartenente a una specie fino ad allora sconosciuta, ne deposita nella letteratura scientifica, insieme al nome binomiale (cioè il nome specifico, composto dall’indicazione del genere e della specie, come Homo sapiens), una descrizione in termini di caratteri fenetici. Quel token è chiamato tipo nomenclaturale, o esemplare-tipo, ed è il portatore del nome della specie di cui viene considerato tipo. Sulla falsariga della procedura appena descritta, riporterò la descrizione di alcuni tipi nomenclaturali per una tassonomia mostruosa che si baserà su tre criteri principali: (1) l’origine, (2) la costituzione genetica, (3) l’aspetto fenotipico. Prima di procedere, vorrei però sottolineare tre rispetti sotto i quali classificare mostri mitologici differisce dal classificare individui “ordinari”. Innanzitutto, nel caso dei mostri mitologici non è possibile, a causa del frequente intervento divino, ricorrere al criterio dell’interfecondità per stabilire se due mostri appartengono alla medesima specie. Ma d’altro canto, tale criterio, benché sia abbastanza affidabile per gli animali, non lo è affatto, per ragioni diverse dai mostri, per molte piante, alghe e funghi. Un’altra peculiarità da segnalare – di cui però non avremo modo di occuparci oltre – è che le entità mitologiche sono frequentemente soggette a trasformazioni sostanziali, mentre la nostra biologia sembra, aristotelicamente, escluderne la possibilità: una tigre non può trasformarsi in un canguro, pena la sua uscita dall’esistenza. Meno paradossalmente, una larva di mosca e la mosca adulta saranno considerate appartenenti alla medesima sorta – la mosca, appunto – benché dall’una all’altra non vi sia praticamente alcuna continuità materiale (nella metamorfosi la larva viene distrutta quasi completamente e l’adulto si genera a partire da pochi aggregati cellulari indifferenziati). Infine, nel caso dei mostri mitologici, parlerò più genericamente di “gruppo tassonomico” anziché di “specie” (e dunque il nome dei tipi nomenclaturali non sarà un nome binomiale) dal momento che, come diverrà chiaro nel corso della lettura, è proprio il concetto di “specie” come diverrà chiaro nel corso della lettura, è proprio il concetto di “specie” come articolazione naturale non oltrepassabile che i mostri che andiamo a classificare ci chiedono di mettere in discussione. (shrink)

In the decade following hepatitis B vaccine’s 1981 approval, U.S. health officials issued evolving guidelines on who should receive the vaccine: first, gay men, injection drug users, and healthcare workers; later, hepatitis B-positive women’s children; and later still, all newborns. States laws that mandated the vaccine for all children were quietly accepted in the 1990s; in the 2000s, however, popular anti-vaccine sentiment targeted the shot as an emblem of immunization policy excesses. Shifting attitudes toward the vaccine in this period were (...) informed by hepatitis B’s changing popular image, legible in textual and visual representations of the infection from the 1980s through the 1990s. Notably, the outbreak of AIDS, the advent of genetically engineered pharmaceuticals, and a Democratic push for health reform shaped and reshaped hepatitis B’s public image. Hepatitis B thus became, in turn, an AIDS-like scourge; proof of a new era of pharmaceuticals; a threat from which all American children had a right to be protected; and a cancer-causing infection spread by teenage lifestyles. The metamorphosis of the infection’s image was reflected in evolving policy recommendations regarding who should receive the vaccine in the 1980s, and was key to securing broad uptake of the vaccine in the 1990s. (shrink)

Nel 2009, prendendo le mosse da articoli e libri pubblicati negli anni precedenti, Maurizio Ferraris proponeva la “documentalità”, una ontologia sociale che, a differenza della received view basata sull’intenzionalità collettiva, individuava il fondamento degli oggetti sociali negli atti iscritti. Prendendo come spunto due oggetti sociali tipicamente torinesi – il capoluogo piemontese è il luogo di nascita del filosofo – e cioè la casa automobilistica Fiat e l’Università di Torino, in questo breve saggio si discutono alcune tra le tesi che caratterizzano (...) una ontologia sociale siffatta. Particolare attenzione viene data alla tesi secondo cui l’identità di un oggetto sociale e la sua permanenza attraverso il tempo dipenderebbero dall’iscrizione che ne è alla base anziché, come per esempio nella posizione searliana, dall’oggetto fisico sottostante. Questa tesi, si sostiene, acquisisce particolare pregnanza nell’epoca del web, quell’acceleratore della documentalità, per dirla con le parole del filosofo, che ha la caratteristica di mostrare nella sua evidenza la struttura stessa della realtà sociale e, in tal modo, di diventare uno strumento per il cambiamento. Mettendo in luce la linea concettuale che unisce Documentalità (2009) con uno dei lavori più recenti di Ferraris, Mobilitazione totale (2015), si articola e si sostiene l’idea secondo cui il web svolge una duplice funzione. Da un lato, rivelare l’emergere della società dalla natura, riproducendo in tempi osservabili e in un ambiente monitorabile, quello di cui non è possibile essere spettatori diretti. Dall’altro, renderne evidente la struttura ultima che, appunto, è una struttura documentale. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to examining the relevance of Dirac's view on the use of transformation theory and invariants in modern physics --- as it emerges from his 1930 book on quantum mechanics as well as from his later work on singular theories and constraints --- to current reflections on the meaning of physical symmetries, especially gauge symmetries.

In questo contributo di introduzione al volume “Biodiversity” (Rivista di Estetica n. 59, 2015), dopo aver sottolineato il legame tra la realizzazione degli inventari biologici (le tassonomie) e lo studio della biodiversità, e la difficoltà di definire la biodiversità, prendo in esame tre diversi modi di intendere il valore della biodiversità. Oltre al valore etico ed estetico, oggetto rispettivamente di discipline relativamente recenti come l’etica ambientale e l’estetica ambientale, la biodiversità ha un valore economico, presente soprattutto nel cosiddetto approccio dei (...) servizi ecosistemici, dove la biodiversità è principalmente intesa nei termini dei servizi che gli ecosistemi possono offrire agli esseri umani presenti e futuri. (shrink)

The relationship between smell and politics could appear obscure; and yet, when it comes to smell, questions about freedom and constriction, social and ontological mingling or distinctions, clearly arise. In this paper, I will especially focus on the domain of food as a clear example for describing some of the political ambivalences characterizing the sense of smell. The aim is to pave the way for a more detailed ‘sociopolitical aesthetics of smell’ to come. I will stress epistemological and social features (...) of odors in order to highlight their ambivalence in knowledge and community life. Perceivers and odors will emerge as mingled bodies, highlighting an ongoing process of material as well as emotional affection. Moreover, I will present some relevant examples of smell as social status symbols in relation to the aesthetic values linked to class hierarchy. Consumerism and scented goods will be lastly discussed in order to shade light on contemporary perceptual phenomena and their role in the socioeconomic dimension. (shrink)

An exchange of letters among proper names and natural-kind terms, dealing with various identity and individuation problems (rigid designation, use-mention ambiguities, translation) from their point of view.

The article analyzes the interdisciplinary methodology of city research within the philosophical and cultural approach. The authors argue that at present, besides sociological and economic approaches to the interpretation of the city, the cultural and philosophical examination of city is of special interest. It combines both theoretical issues and the practical aspects. The authors present the philosophical and cultural analysis of the city as well as the general concept of chronotopia. The concept of chronotope, proposed by M. M. Bakhtin and (...) his followers, is most often used as a tool for the analysis of fiction. According to the authors, the spatio-temporal diagnostics of the city also has significant theoretical and practical potential. The authors discuss various literary and philosophical texts analyzing the feautures and evolution of the “soul of the city” (written by Russians N.P. Antsiferov, I.M. Grevs, Y.M. Lotman, M.S. Kagan, I.I. Mitin as well as by foreign scholars Y. Slezkine, K. Schlogel, exploring the chronotope of Soviet cities). The article presents other modern Russian and foreign researchers who directly collaborated with the authors of this research in joint urban projects: M. Golovanivskaya (“syntax” of urban squares), “Ural matrix” (A. Ivanov, I. Lisovets, E. Trubina), chronotope of a small Israeli city (E. Rimon), Stanford chronotopes (J. Bender, D.E. Wellbery). Since the city, like any cultural phenomenon, manifests itself within a set of spatio-temporal coordinates, the chronotope can be considered as the basic tool for its philosophical and cultural interpretation. The article substantiates the practical aspects of applying chronotopia to the analysis of the city: chronotopes of the past and everyday life in cities of certain types, strategic opportunities and boundaries of the chronotopes of a given city. The authors concludes that the chro-notopia of city is a transdisciplinary field in the cultural and philosophical studies of the city. (shrink)

The article presents the definition of polylingual education, aсcepted in the scientific and expert community abroad. The positive practices of multilingual education in Europe are summarized on the basis of the analysis of the project of European centre for modern languages of the Council of Europe, allowing to assess adequately the significance of the transformation of the language policy of the Russian Federation, using the experience of European countries in the development of polylingual personality. Arguments are given regarding the prospects (...) for the development of multilingual education in Russia, and one of the possible models for its implementation in higher education is proposed. (shrink)

Plagiarism among university students is an important issue that affects their preparation and undermines the universities’ efforts to prepare skilled graduates. Universities try to fight this problem back with strict ethics policies, but they require the proper plagiarism detection tools, at affordable costs, to implement these policies. In this paper, we present PlagZap, a cost-efficient, high-volume and high-speed plagiarism detection system built using open-source software and designed to be used on textual student assignments. We discuss the advantages of this design, (...) plagiarism obfuscation methods and empirical results from using PlagZap. (shrink)

Visuo-motor adaptation to optical prisms displacing the visual scene (prism adaptation, PA) is a method used for investigating visuomotor plasticity in healthy individuals and, in clinical settings, for the rehabilitation of unilateral spatial neglect. In the standard paradigm, the adaptation phase involves repeated pointings to visual targets, while wearing optical prisms displacing the visual scene laterally. Here we explored differences in PA, and its aftereffects (AEs), as related to the sensory modality of the target. Visual, auditory, and multisensory - audio-visual (...) - targets in the adaptation phase were used, while participants wore prisms displacing the visual field rightwards by 10◦. Proprioceptive, visual, visual-proprioceptive, auditory-proprioceptive straight-ahead shifts were measured. Pointing to auditory and to audio-visual targets in the adaptation phase produces proprioceptive, visual-proprioceptive, and auditory-proprioceptive AEs, as the typical visual targets did. This finding reveals that cross-modal plasticity effects involve both the auditory and the visual modality, and their interactions (Experiment 1). Even a shortened PA phase, requiring only 24 pointings to visual and audio-visual targets (Experiment 2), is sufficient to bring about AEs, as compared to the standard 92-pointings procedure. Finally, pointings to auditory targets cause AEs, although PA with a reduced number of pointings (24) to auditory targets brings about smaller AEs, as compared to the 92-pointings procedure (Experiment 3). Together, results from the three experiments extend to the auditory modality the sensorimotor plasticity underlying the typical AEs produced by PA to visual targets. Importantly, PA to auditory targets appears characterized by less accurate pointings and error correction, suggesting that the auditory component of the PA process may be less central to the building up of the AEs, than the sensorimotor pointing activity per se. These findings highlight both the effectiveness of a reduced number of pointings for bringing about AEs, and the possibility of inducing PA with auditory targets, which may be used as a compensatory route in patients with visual deficits. (shrink)

RESUMENInvorme bibliográfico sobre Baltasar gracián que incluye las referencias de los años 1996-1998. Revisa y actualiza repertorios y bibliografías anteriores publicadas por la misma autora.GRACIÁN-FILOSOFÍA ESPAÑOLA-BARROCOABSTRACTBibliographical report on Baltasar Gracian that includes the references from 1996 to 1998. it revises and updates previous bibliographies published by the same author.KEYWORDSGRACIAN-SPANISH PHILOSOPHY.BARROQUE.

The essay focuses on the Italian evolutionist Tito Vignoli, whose work is the result of a fruitful contamination between philosophy, history of religion, linguistics, ethnography, anthropology, psychology, zoology and physiology. His most regarded book, Mito e scienza (1879), and some of his minor writings deal with the theory of myth, art and aesthetics in the new framework of Darwin's ideas.

Resumen Hay imágenes poderosas y hay imágenes potentes. Todavía más, hay imágenes potentes que hacen resistencia al poder, que son acto y gesto de resistencia en sí mismas. Entre marzo y agosto del año 2017 la sociedad venezolana vivió uno de los períodos más sensibles de la ya prolongada crisis institucional del país, caracterizada visiblemente por cotidianas protestas de calle duramente reprimidas por las fuerzas de seguridad del Estado, fenómeno que fue nombrado por los medios de comunicación internacionales como la (...) Primavera venezolana o la Rebelión de Abril. En un contexto hipermediatizado por las imágenes recirculadas por las redes sociales digitales y la prensa internacional, principalmente, destacan para mí los trabajos realizados por tres fotógrafos venezolanos: Gabriel Osorio, Vladimir Marcano Sifontes y Gabriel Méndez, cuyas fotografías testimonian experiencias traumáticas colectivas de resistencia al poder político en su propio «aquí y ahora» contingente, y articulan sus reflexiones desde el diálogo con ese otro sin nombre (el venezolano común, anónimo) en imágenes potentes que se tornan gestos de resistencia y migración. (shrink)