X and Y are desperate to bake infinite pie! With the help of quirky and uber-smart Aunt Z, X and Y will use math concepts to bake their way to success!

Where does math come from? From a textbook? From rules? From deduction? From logic? Not really, Eugenia Cheng writes in Is Math Real?: it comes from curiosity, from instinctive human curiosity, "from people not being satisfied with answers and always wanting to understand more." And most importantly, she says, "it comes from questions": not from answering them, but from posing them. Nothing could seem more at odds from the way most of us were taught math: a rigid and autocratic (...) model which taught us to follow specific steps to reach specific answers. Instead of encouraging a child who asks why 1+1 is 2, our methods of education force them to accept it. Instead of exploring why we multiply before we add, a textbook says, just to get on with the order of operations. Indeed, the point is usually just about getting the right answer, and those that are good at that, become "good at math" while those who question, are not. And that's terrible: These very same questions, as Cheng shows, aren't simply annoying questions coming from people who just don't "get it" and so can't do math. Rather, they are what drives mathematical research and push the boundaries in our understanding of all things. Legitimizing those questions, she invites everyone in, whether they think they are good at math or not. And by highlighting the development of mathematics outside Europe, Cheng shows that-western chauvinism notwithstanding--that math can be for anyone who wishes to do it, and how much we gain when anyone can. (shrink)

We have questioned the assumption that SV (agent-action) structures are basic and primary and have shown that thetic VS unaccusative structures, involving an event+theme unit, are better candidates for simple, primary proto-syntactic “fossils.” We have shown that thetic unaccusative structures are simpler syntactically, prosodically, semantically and informationally, and have suggested that this is due to the fact that syntactic evolution progressed from a stage with thetic statements (with no arguments, such as It is cold, or with only one argument, typically (...) unaccusative, such as Spanish Ha llegado Juan (has arrived Juan) or Serbian Pao sneg (fallen.PP snow)), to more complex categorical assertions, involving agents and a syntactic and intonational separation between the subject and the predicate. Obviously, this raises many questions. How did thetic statements intergrade into categorical statements, and what were the evolutionary factors that facilitated this transition? Did both of the informational dichotomies (Topic-Comment and Focus-Background) develop from thetic statements or are F-B structures simpler than T-C? We leave these questions for future research. (shrink)

In this paper we ask whether the two-factor theory of delusions is compatible with two claims, that delusions are pathological and that delusions are adaptive. We concentrate on two recent and influential models of the two-factor theory: the one proposed by Max Coltheart, Peter Menzies and John Sutton (2010) and the one developed by Ryan McKay (2012). The models converge on the nature of Factor 1 but diverge about the nature of Factor 2. The differences between the two models are (...) reflected in different accounts of the pathological and adaptive nature of delusions. We will explore such differences, considering naturalist and normativist accounts of the pathological and focusing on judgements of adaptiveness that are informed by the shear-pin hypothesis (McKay and Dennett 2009). After reaching our conclusions about the two models, we draw more general implications for the status of delusions within two-factor theories. Are there good grounds to claim that delusions are pathological? Are delusions ever adaptive? Can delusions be at the same time pathological and adaptive? (shrink)

In Rita Charon's account of narrative medicine, empathy seems to be an essential element of the clinical relationship. However, empathy has not received much attention, which I believe is problematic. First, I show that not only is there no clear definition of what empathy is, but that this conceptual gap creates ambiguity about its role in the practice of narrative medicine. Second, I argue that certain passages in Charon's work seem to implicitly characterize empathy as a combination of cognitive empathy, (...) affective empathy, and sympathy, and that its inclusion in the practice of narrative medicine can be problematic. Third, following Dan Zahavi, I argue that a phenomenological account of empathy not only seems most compatible with the practices, values, and theoretical framework of narrative medicine, but is also capable of resolving the problems posed by alternative definitions of empathy and the ambiguity about the role of empathy in narrative medicine. (shrink)

El debate como método para mejorar la expresión y comprensión oral en Educación Primaria se está viendo reforzado por las últimas legislaciones educativas, como la LOMLOE, que da muchísima importancia al desarrollo de competencias y habilidades. En este proyecto de intervención educativa se pretende despertar el interés de los alumnos por nuevos temas de debate, incrementando su capacidad de razonamiento y análisis, habituándolos a recibir críticas y desarrollando aptitudes comunicativas. Se realizará a lo largo de un curso escolar, dividiendo tres (...) fases (acercamiento, profundización y liga de debates), que ayudará al profesorado a mejorar la competencia comunicativa de sus alumnos. (shrink)

In How to Bake Pi, math professor Eugenia Cheng provides an accessible introduction to the logic and beauty of mathematics, powered, unexpectedly, by insights from the kitchen: we learn, for example, how the béchamel in a lasagna can be a lot like the number 5, and why making a good custard proves that math is easy but life is hard.

Gustave Le Gray was one of the most technically accomplished and aesthetically enlightened of the early "artist-photographers." Trained as a painter of portraits and landscapes, Le Gray was attracted in the 1840s to the artistic potential of photographic processes. As a photographer he evolved and refined much of photography's primary aesthetic theory. By 1855 he had influenced, if not taught, every important photographer in France. Drawing on entirely new material Eugenia Parry Janis fully analyzes the life and work of (...) Le Gray and demonstrates the originality of his artistic achievement in the context of discoveries about his personal and professional history. Janis, approaching the photographs of Le Gray with the methods and sensibilities of an art historian, reveals telling connections between Le Gray's choices of subject matter and formal means of presentation and the existing pictorial practice of other media such as painting. This same approach makes her sensitive to Le Gray's departures from such traditional practice, and she skillfully illustrates how he evolved from student painter into master photographer. In doing so she gives us a glimpse of the way in which Le Gray's manipulation of the photographic process was always informed by his pictorial needs and by his developing style. (shrink)

This paper outlines a theory and computer implementation of causal meanings and reasoning. The meanings depend on possibilities, and there are four weak causal relations: A causes B, A prevents B, A allows B, and A allows not‐B, and two stronger relations of cause and prevention. Thus, A causes B corresponds to three possibilities: A and B, not‐A and B, and not‐A and not‐B, with the temporal constraint that B does not precede A; and the stronger relation conveys only the (...) first and last of these possibilities. Individuals represent these relations in mental models of what is true in the various possibilities. The theory predicts a number of phenomena, and, contrary to many accounts, it implies that the meaning of causation is not probabilistic, differs from the meaning of enabling conditions, and does not depend on causal powers or mechanisms. The theory also implies that causal deductions do not depend on schemas or rules. (shrink)

A mathematician and scientist in residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago helps readers explore the concept of infinity through unique concepts including chessboards, a chicken-sandwich sandwich and the creation of infinite cookies from an infinite dough ball.

Delusions are usually considered as harmful and dysfunctional beliefs, one of the primary symptoms of a psychiatric illness and the mark of madness in popular culture. However, in recent times a much more positive role has been advocated for delusions. More specifically, it has been argued that delusions might be an answer to a problem rather than problems in themselves. By delivering psychological and epistemic benefits, delusions would allow people who face severe biological or psychological difficulties to survive in their (...) environment - although this has obvious epistemic costs, as the delusion is fixed and irresponsive to compelling counterevidence. In other words, it has been argued that delusions are biologically adaptive. The adaptiveness of delusions has been compared by Ryan McKay and Daniel Dennett to a shear pin, a mechanism installed in the drive engine of some machines which is designed to shear whenever the machine is about to break down. By breaking, shear pins prevent the machine from collapsing and allow it to keep functioning, although in an impaired manner. Similarly, when delusions form, they would allow a cognitive or psychological system which is about to collapse to continue its functioning, although in an impaired manner. However, this optimistic picture of delusions risks being undermined by both theoretical and empirical considerations. Using Sarah Fineberg and Philip Corlett’s recent predictive coding account as a paradigmatic model of the biological adaptiveness of delusions, I develop two objections to it: principles of parsimony and simplicity suggest that maladaptive models of delusions have an upper hand over adaptive models; and the available empirical evidence suggests that at least some delusions stand good chances of being psychologically adaptive, but it is unlikely that they also qualify as biologically adaptive. (shrink)

Delusions are symptoms of psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and dementia. By and large, delusions are characterized by their behavioral manifestations and defined as irrational beliefs that compromise good functioning. In this overview paper, we ask whether delusions can be adaptive notwithstanding their negative features. Can they be a response to a crisis rather than the source of the crisis? Can they be the beginning of a solution rather than the problem? Some of the psychological, psychiatric, and philosophical literature has (...) recently suggested that they can. We consider different types of delusions and different ways in which they can be considered as adaptive: psychologically (e.g., by increasing wellbeing, purpose in life, intrapsychic coherence, or good functioning) and biologically (e.g., by enhancing genetic fitness). Although further research is needed to map the costs and benefits of adopting and maintaining delusional beliefs, a more nuanced picture of the role of delusions in people's lives has started to emerge. (shrink)

In the present paper, we substantiate the theory according to which the ailments of imagination presented by Immanuel Kant, especially in his work Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, are sources of artistic creation. It is obvious that not anyone suffering from melancholia, nostalgia, hypochondria or any other ailment of the soul, which Immanuel Kant refers to, becomes a creator of culture. Genius is required for this, but instead of diminishing the creative power of the genius, it seems to (...) be enhanced by the ailments of imagination or generally, by the ailments of the soul. The hypertrophic imagination in the case of a genius plays a major role in the process of fixation in the individual and collective memory of what Immanuel Kant names. (shrink)

Among the meritorious attempts to unravel the enigma of artistic creation are the views of Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer. In the following, we want to emphasise an aspect that is less discussed in the specialised literature, namely the relation between memory and creation. We are talking about the authentic creation that Kant and Schopenhauer consider to be the one that carries in itself the Aesthetic Ideas. With minor differences, the concept, as well as the associated linguistic expression, come together (...) in the work of both German philosophers. An authentic work of art is the work of genius and it has the role of transmitting Ideas. Thus, we will be able to observe “the secret” of a work of art – the Aesthetic Idea. (shrink)

Sem pretender esgotar o tema, este trabalho visa refletir sobre o conceito de Modernidade aqui entendida como a construção de uma perspectiva ou projeto de futuro. O ponto de partida são as reflexões teóricas de Jurgen Habermas e nesse sentido pretende ser uma contribuição para a elaboração de uma noção emancipatória de Modernidade podendo também servir como contribuição para o debate entorno dos rumos de uma reconstrução do país também emancipadora.

O objetivo deste trabalho é o de examinar processos de exclusão e expulsão que vem se ampliando nos diversos aspectos da vida sob as condições atuais do neoliberalismo e como se manifesta na ocupação/desocupação do território, no papel da informação nesse processo e como as alterações das condições tanto da ocupação da terra quanto de produção e uso da informação impostas podem resultar na expulsão de moradores e na exclusão de usuários. Este trabalho também aponta possibilidades de surgimento de condições (...) alternativas por meio da construção de contraracionalidades na constituição de uma esfera pública política e democrática. Elaborei 7 Notas. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 5, Page 486-493, June 2022.

For millennia it has been discussed whether literature appropriately can or should be used in education for a moral purpose. Taking as a premise that it can actually be educative and not merely moralising, we tackle the case made against such use, based on the claim that it would be perverting the aesthetic nature of literature as a form of art, as it would be instrumentalised. Given that this claim is based on a dichotomy between an aesthetically educative approach and (...) a morally educative approach to literature, we examine how warranted such a formulation of this dichotomy is. We argue that, at least on some occasions, those two educative approaches to literature—the aesthetic and the moral—can actually be mutually reinforcing in such a way that aesthetic appreciation will suffer if the moral is not deeply examined with both mind and heart, and vice versa. This does not mean, however, that this relation of mutual contribution will always obtain in a neat way. It may actually be the case that just in a few cases, and only if carried out in a pedagogically appropriate manner, it will be correct to use literature with a morally educative purpose. (shrink)

Resumen: En el presente ensayo nos apoyaremos en algunos escritos fundamentales de Talcott Parsons, especialmente en lo referente a su disputa epistemológica contra el empirismo, para luego mostrar sus propias inconsistencias e ir más allá de él en la propuesta de una forma novedosa de trabajo teórico para las ciencias sociales: la teorización sistemática dinámico-estructuralista, como distinta a la teoría sistémica funcional-estructural. La idea principal es trascender las posturas representacionalistas y antiteoricistas en pos de miradas teóricas abiertas a la crítica (...) y la autocrítica. Así, frente a una mirada que confunde distintas dimensiones del continuo empírico-metafísico sin otorgarles su relativa autonomía analítica, que a nivel teórico-social y de modelos de la sociedad piensa en términos funcionales y sistémicos, que considera que cada uno de sus conceptos refiere de manera cabal a dicho mundo social y que cree que es factible la construcción de teorías acabadas, nuestra mirada busca distinguir dimensiones, complementar tradiciones plurales, y mantenerse siempre abierta a la crítica externa y la autocrítica.: In this essay we will rely on some of the key writings of Talcott Parsons, especially with regards to his epistemological dispute against empiricism, to show his own inconsistencies and go beyond him in proposing a new form of theoretical work for the social sciences: systematic and dynamic-structuralist theorizing, as distinct from functional-structural systemic theory. The main idea is to transcend the representationalist and anti-theoretical positions in favour of a view of theory open to criticism and self-criticism. In this way, and against those outlooks that confuse the different dimensions of the empirical-metaphysical continuum without giving them their relative analytic autonomy, that think in terms of functions and systems when talking about models of society, that consider each concept to be a representation of the social world, and that believe theories can be closed for good, our own outlook seeks to distinguish dimensions, complement plural traditions, and stay open to external critique and self-criticism. (shrink)

Abstract. The article is devoted to the possibilities of the formation and development of engineering thinking. The paper considers the features of engineering thinking, compares various concepts that characterize engineering activities. The authors compare the concepts of technical, economic, research thinking, identifying the principles of engineering thinking. The need for a humanitarian component in engineering thinking is noted. Consistency and multidimensionality are considered by the authors as the most important concepts for the formation of engineering thinking. In conclusion, the authors (...) point out that engineering thinking universally orients the employee when solving different types of tasks and contributes to greater variability in making standard and non-standard decisions in the production process. -/- . (shrink)

This paper focuses on the years preceding Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity in Chile (1970-1973) and, more precisely, on the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR). Since 1969, this Marxist revolutionary group had actively participated in the class struggle in Chile. However its political and social activism was not oriented towards the working class, but instead towards marginalized social sectors (inhabitants of informal settlements and landless rural workers). The paper thus seeks to elucidate the process which led the MIR to invest social (...) sectors that should have been considered as “unorthodox,” from a Marxist organization’s point of view. More generally, the analysis of a political experience taking place in a country where the working class was not as coherent or as massive as it was in 20th Century Western Europe and the United States aims at “deprovincializing” history and at using the concepts of “class” and “class struggle” in a manner which distances them from their potentially economicist and sociologizing implications. (shrink)

Este artículo se focaliza en el Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) y la problemática de la violencia política, que fue central en su historia. Abarcaremos el período 1965-1970 y estudiaremos el discurso que tuvo el MIR sobre este punto, construido tanto en los escritos teóricos como en los discursos de sus dirigentes, el lugar y el rol que ocupó la violencia en la práctica política del MIR, y por último la articulación entre prácticas políticas y representaciones. El artículo está estructurado (...) en torno a los siguientes ejes: el contexto político, ideológico e intelectual que provee al MIR argumentos permitiéndole legitimar el recurso a la violencia (ante los militantes y la sociedad); el debate en torno a la violencia en tanto regulador de las tensiones y divisiones internas; y por último, la interacción entre el uso de la fuerza por el MIR y el espacio público (la violencia y su efecto mediático, las respuestas del Estado). (shrink)

The sociocultural landscape of contemporaneity can be represented as a porous inhomogeneous space consisting of border zones. These zones, understood by P. Galison as “local coordination of beliefs and actions,” can be deployed due to already existing conditions, for example, a project may arise at a university. However, such zones do not create sustainable social configurations and infrastructures associated with new areas of knowledge. In this article, we expand the concept of trading zones and call them zones requiring local ontologies (...) that arise on the border between different knowledge and imagination systems and, in turn, require their own infrastructure. This approach supports the view on humanities not as “pre-packaged” knowledge, but as special “technique” forming local ontologies. For a humanities-as-technique to emerge, it is necessary that two or more systems of knowledge coincide in time and form an intermediate zone, on the basis of which some local ontology can unfold. Thus, for example, when combining contemporary philosophy and contemporary mathematics, new images of knowledge emerge. Humanities-as-technique are considered as the basis for the establishment of trading zones, which are understood as local ontologies. We also propose a system of concepts that can be used to describe and construct these trading zones on the territory of the humanities in a techno-oriented cultural environment. (shrink)

I argue that work in medical ethics which attempts to humanize medicine without examining hidden assumptions (about medicine's ontology, explanations, goals, relationships) has the dehumanizing effect of legitimating practices which treat persons as abstractions. After illustrating the need to reexamine the field of medical ethics and the doctor-patient relationship in particular, I use Foucault's work to provide a social, historical framework for discussion. This background begins to demonstrate that doctor-patient relationships cannot be made satisfactory by new hospital policies or interpersonal (...) skills, but have deep-rooted problems due to medicine's place in social history. Real progress requires social or structural change. (shrink)

Delusions are usually depicted in one of two contrasting ways. They are either characterized as harmful and dysfunctional beliefs or as fostering engagement with the environment and sometimes even psychological wellbeing in the face of psychological or biological difficulties – something which, according to some accounts, would make them biologically adaptive. It is this “adaptive hypothesis” that I focus on in this paper, by empirically investigating the adaptiveness of delusions in a sample of people suffering from OCD. The paper shows (...) that delusions in OCD entertain complex and heterogeneous relationships with psychological wellbeing and engagement with the environment, highlighting some future directions that clinical and philosophical research on the topic should take. (shrink)

RESUMEN: El propósito del presente escrito es preguntarnos por el campo complejo que se abre en la confluencia de las trayectorias de Alexander Kluge y Theodor W. Adorno. Desarrollaremos, en primer lugar, algunos hitos históricos que permitan situarnos en el contexto de ese acercamiento. Luego, tomando como punto de partida el problema clave de la referencialidad de la imagen que, tanto para Kluge como para Adorno es central en las reflexiones sobre una estética propia del cine, abordaremos cuatro temas que (...) consideramos nos permiten repensar las relaciones de los dos teóricos: palabra e imagen, la idea de montaje, imagen y experiencia subjetiva y la cuestión de la recepción. ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to explore the complex convergence between the trajectories of Alexander Kluge and Theodor W. Adorno. In the first place, we develop some historical milestones that allow us to describe the context of this closeness. Then, taking as a starting point the key problem of the image referential -which for Kluge and Adorno is the main concern in the reflections on a particular aesthetics of film-, we will address four issues that let us rethink the relationship of the two of them: the idea of ​​montage, narrative and image, subjective experience and the matter of reception. (shrink)

The surviving pictorial hagiographical cycles of St Panteleimon were executed in the period between the 10th and 15th centuries. The most elaborate one is on a vita icon, consisting of sixteen scenes, at the monastery of St Catherine, Mt. Sinai and is at the centre of this research. The painter used the Passion of St Panteleimon by Symeon Metaphrastes as a main textual source for its creation. In addition, we may presume that the iconography of the images was influenced by (...) other existing pictorial cycles of the life of the saint. Also, the selection of the images, included in the saint's cycle, reflects the devotional needs and wishes of the unknown donor. (shrink)

Historians of medicine generally credit the hospital standardization movement of the early 20th century with establishing the record as a sign of hospital and staff quality. The medical record's role had already been the subject of intense interest at the New York Hospital several decades before, however. In the 1880s malpractice and insurance concerns caused the administration to attempt to supervise record creation, quality, and access, over the objections of physicians. Contemporary concerns about the uses of the medical record were (...) in play well before 1910. (shrink)

Medical records contain important clues about the history of medicine. These documents, which ostensibly describe the course of a patient's illness, are “unique constructions that allow us to observe the social and technical structure of contemporary healing.” As such, the 21st-century hospital medical record reflects the many components of inpatient care: medical interventions, billing, legal documentation, research, and education. It is comprised of a wide array of elements: professionals' notes; vital signs and other descriptive information; laboratory data and test results; (...) demographic information; orders, charges, diagnostic and treatment codes; and other utilization data. It is well understood that many people share and need this information. Current controversies over records involve not control, but computerization, security, and accessibility. Although health professionals offer input, decisions about hospital medical records have been considered largely an administrative responsibility. (shrink)

The rapid changes that syphilis underwent after the first major outbreak that occurred in Naples in the mid-1490s are believed to constitute the first well-documented example of a human disease. The new plague was of exceptional virulence, highly contagious and causing severe ulceration at the site of infection. According to medical and other historical sources, the ‘genius epidemics’ changed some years after this onset, and a slower-progressing form of syphilis seems to have replaced the initial severe form, as do many (...) virulent epidemic infectious diseases that appear in devastating forms in a previously uninfected population. But what exactly were the features of the disease at the moment of its appearance in Europe at the end of the fifteenth century? How many years did it take for the early, virulent form to be replaced and become endemic? What was the pace of these changes through the decades following the onset of the epidemic? In this essay, I review these issues through an analysis of a large number of chronologically-ordered primary historical sources. (shrink)

Several theologians have pointed to resonances between the Greek Patristic doctrine of deification or theosis and recent transhumanist narratives: both discourses indicate death as the final enemy of humankind and invest heavily in a hoped-for transcendence of life as we know it. These resonances will be investigated further by comparing the approach to human nature found in Maximus the Confessor and in the prominent transhumanists Nick Bostrom and John Harris. In addition to sharing with transhumanists a disavowal of death and (...) a trajectory towards transcendence, Maximus also shares a view of human nature that is more dynamic and open-ended than is commonly attributed to his Late Antique context. On the other hand, Maximus also insists on the persistence of this dynamic nature in its integrity even into the eschaton. He does so for a number of reasons that should give Christians pause about any rhetoric that calls for an abandonment of human nature: that theosis depends precisely on sharing a human nature with Christ; that our vocation as mediators in creation depends on our physical bodies as the locus of shared existence with the material world; and that corruption has a providential use in binding us together with our neighbors and in cultivating virtue as we strain for the incorruptible and supernatural gift of theosis. (shrink)