BackgroundBased on an actual case in which a psychiatrist was called in to assess a patient’s capacity to refuse treatment, the aim of this study is to discuss how to manage this ethical and clinical issue and the dilemmas faced by the medical team.Case presentation: The case involved a 45-year-old female patient diagnosed with breast cancer who refused treatment. Since the mastology team had doubts about the patient’s mental state and given that she refused to consent to surgery, a forensic (...) psychiatric consult was requested.ConclusionThe forensic psychiatry team concluded that the patient’s decision-making capacity was preserved. The team suggested some actions to help the specialists deal with the ethical conflict. A reflection is proposed about the role of psychiatrists when an ethical dilemma involving decision-making capacity emerges in clinical situations, elucidating their work not only as physicians who determine diagnoses and conducts, but also as agents of transformation in the doctor–patient re... (shrink)

ECONOMIA CRIATIVA: CONCEITO E RELAÇÃO COM O DIREITO.

The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into (...) two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop. (shrink)

In this paper we study in details a system of two weakly coupled harmonic oscillators from the point of view of Bohm’s interpretation of quantum mechanics. This system may be viewed as a simple model for the interaction between a photon and a photodetector. We obtain exact solutions for the general case. We then compute approximate solutions for the case where one oscillator is initially in its first excited state (a single photon) reaching the other oscillator in its ground state (...) (the photodetector). The approximate solutions represent the state of both oscillators after the interaction, which is not an eigenstate of the individual hamiltonians for each oscillator, and therefore the energies for each oscillator do not exist in the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. We use the approximate solutions that we obtained to compute Bohmian trajectories and to study the energy transfer between the oscillators. We conclude that, even using the Bohmian view, the energy of each individual oscillator is not well defined, as the nonlocal quantum potential is not negligible even after the coupling is turned off. (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 28, Issue 4, Page 511-521, December 2021.

This paper is the result of reflections inspired by observing and participating in dancing sessions with children. Our experience of the latter led to the production of images that provoked a variety of questions, and invited us to think about the relationships between bodies, dance, and various forms of education. Among these questions were: what clues about the experience of human embodiment are given through observing children’s dance? What can children teach us through participating with them in this performative medium, (...) and what are its implications for education, most especially in light of our observations of children's inventiveness in this regard? Our impressions resonate and find expression in the oeuvre of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Michel Foucault, Jan Masschelein and Manoel de Barros. Placing ourselves under their influence, we mobilized our thinking and opened ourselves to the emergent character of their ideas, resulting in what might be called a form of “dancing-writing” in which those two forms of expression interact. This dancing-writing is informed by and imbued with children’s lived experience: step by step, we walked the paths that they opened, recording as best we could their multisensorial approach to the world—gaze, taste, smell, sound, touch, movement. Ours was an experience of research on movement, with movement, in movement. As such, we harbor no intention to present final answers, but rather offer the reader an invitation to think philosophically and childishly. Ours is an invitation to dance with and among the questions which that very dance inspired. (shrink)

In recent years, functional connectivity in the developmental science received increasing attention. Although it has been reported that the anatomical connectivity in the preterm brain develops dramatically during the last months of pregnancy, little is known about how functional and effective connectivity change with maturation. The present study investigated how effective connectivity in premature infants evolves. To assess it, we use EEG measurements and graph-theory methodologies. We recorded data from 25 preterm babies, who underwent long-EEG monitoring at least twice during (...) their stay in the NICU. The recordings took place from 27 weeks postmenstrual age until 42 weeks PMA. Results showed that the EEG-connectivity, assessed using graph-theory indices, moved from a small-world network to a random one, since the clustering coefficient increases and the path length decreases. This shift can be due to the development of the thalamocortical connections and long-range cortical connections. Based on the network indices, we developed different age-prediction models. The best result showed that it is possible to predict the age of the infant with a root mean-squared error equal to 2.11 weeks. These results are similar to the ones reported in the literature for age prediction in preterm babies. (shrink)

Quantum indistinguishability directly relates to the philosophical debate on the notions of identity and individuality. They are crucial for our understanding of multipartite quantum systems. Furthermore, the correct interpretation of this feature of quantum theory has implications that transcend fundamental science and philosophy, given that quantum indistinguishability is a resource in quantum information theory. Most of the conceptual analysis of quantum indistinguishability is restricted to studying the permutational invariance of quantum states, the concomitant quantum statistics and their entanglement. Here, we (...) analyse the role of indistinguishability and non-individuality in other areas of quantum theory. We start by analysing how a very peculiar use of indistinguishability underlies Feynman’s rules for summing amplitudes in interference phenomena. Next, we study how quantum indistinguishability is underestimated in several topics of debate in the quantum physics literature, such as the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen argument, Bell’s inequalities and the Bell–Kochen–Specker theorem. Finally, we argue that an ontology of truly indistinguishable entities can serve as a basis for a quantum ontology that can give interesting answers to the interpretational problems of quantum mechanics. We claim that, in addition to superposition, contextuality and entanglement, indistinguishability (understood in a robust ontological sense) is one of the central features of quantum physics. -/- . (shrink)

Le président Brésilien Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva a assis son pouvoir sur sa personnalité et des origines populaires qui rompent toute idée de compromission avec les élites. Mais si sa personnalité lui permet de ne pas être une émmanation de son parti , il n'en est pas moins dépendant, pour l'entretien de son image, de celui-ci et des luttes opaques qui s'y déroulent .Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has based its power on his personality and popular origins (...) that break any idea of ​​compromise with elites. But if his personality can not be a émmanation his party , it is no less dependent for the maintenance of its image, one opaque and struggles taking place. (shrink)

Problems arise when applying the current procedural conceptualization of decision-making capacity to paediatric healthcare: Its emphasis on content-neutrality and rational cognition as well as its implicit assumption that capacity is an ability that resides within a person jeopardizes children’s position in decision-making. The purpose of the paper is to challenge this dominant account of capacity and provide an alternative for how capacity should be understood in paediatric care. First, the influence of developmental psychologist Jean Piaget upon the notion of capacity (...) is discussed, followed by an examination of Vygostky’s contextualist view on children’s development, which emphasizes social interactions and learning for decision-making capacity. In drawing parallels between autonomy and capacity, substantive approaches to relational autonomy are presented that underline the importance of the content of a decision. The authors then provide a relational reconceptualization of capacity that leads the focus away from the individual to include important social others such as parents and physicians. Within this new approach, the outcome of adults’ decision-making processes is accepted as a guiding factor for a good decision for the child. If the child makes a choice that is not approved by adults, the new conceptualization emphasizes mutual exchange and engagement by both parties. (shrink)

RESUMO: O Pragmatismo, como proposto por Charles S. Peirce, deve ser considerado um método para a produção teórica de pensamento que visa à construção de conceitos, a qual assume a forma de uma máxima lógica orientadora da conduta científica. Se um conceito é uma relação sígnica e a sua compreensão, um processo sígnico, encontramos na semiótica peirceana uma estratégia para discriminar as etapas da compreensão conceitual e avaliar os significados de termos e conceitos abstratos. Assim, o objetivo deste trabalho é (...) explicar os princípios lógicos que governam os tipos de Signos que mais diretamente estão relacionados à construção de conceitos, a saber: o Símbolo-Remático, o Símbolo-Dicente e o Argumento. Tais signos correspondem à antiga divisão Termo, Proposição e Argumento, modificada de modo a ser aplicável aos signos em geral. ABSTRACT: Pragmatism, as proposed by Charles S. Peirce, should be considered a method for the theoretical production of thought that aims the construction of concepts, which takes the form of a logical maxim guiding scientific conduct. If a concept is a sign relationship and its understanding a sign process, we find in Peircean semiotics a strategy to discriminate the stages of conceptual understanding and to evaluate the meanings of abstract terms and concepts. Therefore, the aim of this work is to explain the logical principles that govern the types of Signs that more directly are related to the construction of concepts, namely: the Rhematic Symbol, the Dicent Symbol and the Argument. Such signs correspond to the old division between Term, Proposition and Argument, modified in order to be applicable to the signs in general. (shrink)

The connection between quantum physics and the mind has been debated for almost a hundred years. There are several proposals as to how quantum effects might be relevant to understanding consciousness, including von Neumann’s Consciousness Causes Collapse interpretation (CCC), Penrose’s Orchestrated objective reduction (Orch OR), Atmanspacher quantum emergence theory, or Vitiello’s field theory. In this paper, we examine the CCC, in particular Stapp’s theory of interaction of mind and matter, and discuss how this imposes constraints to possible brain structures. We (...) then argue that those constraints may allow us to identify a possible locus of the interaction between mind and matter, if CCC is true. (shrink)

This edited volume examines aspects of the mind/consciousness that are relevant to the interpretations of quantum mechanics. In it, an international group of contributors focus on the possible connections between quantum mechanics and consciousness. They look at how consciousness can help us with quantum mechanics as well as how quantum mechanics can contribute to our understanding of consciousness. For example, what do different interpretations aimed at solving the measurement problem in quantum mechanics tell us about the nature of consciousness, such (...) as von Neumann's interpretation? Each interpretation has, associated to it, a corresponding metaphysical framework that helps us think about possible “models” of consciousness. Alternatively, what does the nature of consciousness tell us about the role of the observer and time reversibility in the measurement process? The book features 20 papers on contemporary approaches to quanta and mind. It brings together the work of scholars from different disciplines with diverse views on the connections between quanta and mind, ranging from those who are supportive of a link between consciousness and quantum physics to those who are very skeptical of such link. Coverage includes such topics as free will in a quantum world, contextuality and causality, mind and matter interaction, quantum panpsychism, the quantum and quantum-like brain, and the role of time in brain-mind dynamics. (shrink)

No livro IV, de O mundo como vontade e representação, Arthur Schopenhauer afirma que as ações humanas podem acontecer por motivos e quietivos. As ações que levam em consideração uma cadeia de motivações são sempre auto-dirigidas, tendo em mente que os indivíduos agem pra satisfação dos seus quereres particulares. Tais ações são classificadas pelo autor de egoístas por não levarem em consideração o outro, mas os desejos que preenchem a consciência humana no ato de agir. Nesse primeiro momento a leitura (...) schopenhaueriana da “natureza humana” corrobora com o egoísmo psicológico, pois os indivíduos procuram afirmar a sua vontade de vida por entenderem intuitivamente que a impossibilidade de efetivação dessa pulsão vital denominada vontade promove carência, sofrimento. Porém, Schopenhauer reconhece que existem ações, embora raras, desinteressadas. Nesse momento o egoísmo é suprimido e o agente moral é tomado por uma compreensão metafísica do mundo que o faz agir por compaixão. Nossa pretensão é clarificar como se dá essa passagem do egoísmo psicológico à compaixão metafísica, segundo a visão de mundo schopenhaueriana, recolocando o autor no debate metaético contemporâneo.: In Book IV of The World as Will and Representation, Arthur Schopenhauer asserts that human actions can happen for reasons and quietivos. The actions that take into account a chain of motives are always self-addressed, bearing in mind that individuals act to the satisfaction of his wants private. Such actions are classified by the author as selfish by not taking into consideration the other, but the desires that fill the human consciousness in the act of acting. In that first moment reading Schopenhauer's "human nature" corroborates psychological egoism, since individuals seek to assert their will to live because they understand intuitively that the impossibility of effecting this vital instinct called deficiency promotes ease suffering. But Schopenhauer recognizes that there are actions, although rare, disinterested. At that moment the selfishness and deleted and moral agent is taken by a metaphysical understanding of the world that makes him act out of compassion. Our intention is to clarify how is this passage from psychological egoism to compassion metaphysics, according to Schopenhauer's worldview, placing the author in contemporary meta-ethical debate. Keywords : Will. Representation. Selfishness. Compassion. (shrink)

In this work, we discuss a formal way of dealing with the properties of contextual systems. Our approach is to assume that properties describing the same physical quantity, but belonging to different measurement contexts, are indistinguishable in a strong sense. To construct the formal theoretical structure, we develop a description using quasi-set theory, which is a set-theoretical framework built to describe collections of elements that violate Leibnitz's principle of identity of indiscernibles. This framework allows us to consider a new ontology (...) in order to study the properties of quantum systems. (shrink)

Recent policy developments in the area of livestock husbandry have suggested that, from the perspective of optimizing animal welfare, new animal husbandry systems should be developed that provide opportunities for livestock animals to be raised in environments where they are permitted to engage in “natural behavior.” It is not known whether consumers regard animal husbandry issues as important, and whether they differentiate between animal husbandry and other animal welfare issues. The responsibility for the development of such systems is allocated jointly (...) between farmers, regulators, different actors in the food chain, and consumers. This research focuses on understanding consumer attitudes and preferences regarding the development and introduction of such systems, to ensure that they are acceptable to consumers as well as producers, regulators, and scientists. Consumer perceptions of animal welfare and animal husbandry practices were evaluated using quantitative consumer survey, which focused on two animal husbandry issues – farmed pigs and farmed fish. Following pilot work, 1000 representative Dutch consumers were sampled about their attitudes to either pig or fish husbandry. The results indicated that consumers think about animal welfare in terms of two broad categories related to their health and living environment, but do not think about welfare issues at a more detailed level. Greater concern was expressed about the welfare of pigs compared to fish. Consumer trust in labeling also emerged as an important issue, since consumers need to trust different food chain actors with responsibility for promoting animal welfare, and are reluctant to consider the details of animal husbandry systems. As a consequence, a transparent, enforceable, and traceable monitoring system for animal welfare friendly products is likely to be important for consumers. (shrink)

Davidson's anomalous monism, his argument for the identity between mental and physical event tokens, has been frequently attacked, usually demanding a higher degree of physicalist commitment. My objection runs in the opposite direction: the identities inferred by Davidson from mental causation, the nomological character of causality and the anomaly of the mental are philosophically problematic and, more dramatically, incompatible with his famous argument against the third dogma of empiricism, the separation of content from conceptual scheme. Given the anomaly of the (...) mental and the absence of psychophysical laws, there are no conceptual resources to relate mental and physical predicates. We fall in the third dogma if we claim that the very same token event is mental and physical. One of the premises must be rejected: I will claim that we do not need a law to subsume cause and effect to be entitled to speak of causation. Davidson has never offered an argument to back this premise. Against such a dogma I will sketch some ideas pointing towards a different conception of causality, singularist and undetachable from explanatory practices. (shrink)

Recent policy developments in the area of livestock husbandry have suggested that, from the perspective of optimizing animal welfare, new animal husbandry systems should be developed that provide opportunities for livestock animals to be raised in environments where they are permitted to engage in “natural behavior.” It is not known whether consumers regard animal husbandry issues as important, and whether they differentiate between animal husbandry and other animal welfare issues. The responsibility for the development of such systems is allocated jointly (...) between farmers, regulators, different actors in the food chain, and consumers. This research focuses on understanding consumer attitudes and preferences regarding the development and introduction of such systems, to ensure that they are acceptable to consumers as well as producers, regulators, and scientists. Consumer perceptions of animal welfare and animal husbandry practices were evaluated using quantitative consumer survey, which focused on two animal husbandry issues – farmed pigs and farmed fish. Following pilot work, 1000 representative Dutch consumers were sampled about their attitudes to either pig or fish husbandry. The results indicated that consumers think about animal welfare in terms of two broad categories related to their health and living environment, but do not think about welfare issues at a more detailed level. Greater concern was expressed about the welfare of pigs compared to fish. Consumer trust in labeling also emerged as an important issue, since consumers need to trust different food chain actors with responsibility for promoting animal welfare, and are reluctant to consider the details of animal husbandry systems. As a consequence, a transparent, enforceable, and traceable monitoring system for animal welfare friendly products is likely to be important for consumers. (shrink)

In October 2018, Slavoj Žižek published a two-part contribution titled ‘Should the Left’s answer to rightist populism be really a ‘‘me too’’?’. In this text, Žižek reproduced his diachronic skepticism on populism as a fruitful strategy for the Left. In a critical vein, we believe that Žižek’s latest interventions join - unconsciously or not - an avalanche of anti-populist discourses that usually emanate from elitist politicians and journalists, and reproduce a moralist, alarmist stance against populism. As a consequence, anti-populist elitism (...) blurs the concept of populism even more thereby hampering our possibilities to capture the changing politico-historic reality in the age of collapsing neoliberalism. (shrink)

This article presents Jean Bodin’s critic to the juridic approach of the laws and the idea of justice in his time. Firstly, it presents Bodin’s opposition to the glossators of the Roman Law. Secondly, it defends that Bodin considers the method as a tool that could make it possible to achieve an exact knowledge of the principles of the law. Finally, it deals with Bodin’s approach to the knowledge of the law as scientific knowledge. In this sense, the article try (...) to answer the question of what is the importance of the philosophy in this work? (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE In this paper we examine the consequences of von Neumann's interpretation of quantum mechanics in the context of an insect conditioning experiment. We argue that either the insect has a mind, therefore collapsing the wave function, or it does not, therefore reacting to superpositions in a different way. Thus, a device to condition insects could be used to test von Neumann's interpretation, if insects are not conscious. If, on the other hand, insects (...) possess a mind, such experiment would open up the possibility of using insect experiments to test Stapp's theory of mind-matter interaction. (shrink)

This forum contribution addresses two major themes in de Goede’s original essay on ‘Financial security’: (1) the relationship between stable markets and the proverbial ‘security dilemma’; and (2) the development of new decision-technologies to address risk in the post-World War II period. Its argument is that the confluence of these two themes through rational choice theory represents a fundamental re-evaluation of the security dilemma and its relationship to the rule of law governing market relations, ushering in an era of perpetual (...) physical and financial insecurity. (shrink)

This article presents the results of an experiment that completely measures the utility function and probability weighting function for different positive and negative monetary outcomes, using a representative sample of N = 1,935 from the general public. The results confirm earlier findings in the lab, suggesting that utility is less pronounced than what is found in classical measurements where expected utility is assumed. Utility for losses is found to be convex, consistent with diminishing sensitivity, and the obtained loss-aversion coefficient of (...) 1.6 is moderate but in agreement with contemporary evidence. The estimated probability weighting functions have an inverse-S shape and they imply pessimism in both domains. These results show that probability weighting is also an important phenomenon in the general population. Women and lower educated individuals are found to be more risk averse, in agreement with common findings. In contrast to previous studies that ascribed gender differences in risk attitudes solely to differences in the degree utility curvature, however, our results show that this finding is primarily driven by loss aversion and, for women, also by a more pessimistic psychological response toward the probability of obtaining the best possible outcome. (shrink)

This article proposes to analyse some aspects of the appropriation of New School thinking in Brazil, particularly Deweyan pragmatism, in the 1950s and 1960s. The analysis is based on the assumption that the developmentalist ideology that punctuated the debate on the economic, political and social restructuring of the country in these two decades constituted fertile ground for the return and expansion of pragmatist thinking amongst Brazilian educators, articulating itself, sometimes in contradictory ways, with this ideology. The focus of the analysis (...) will be on the writings of the group of educators which circulated around the figure of Anísio Teixeira, at the time director of the National Institute for Pedagogic Studies, an organ linked to the Ministry of Education and Culture, which set itself the task of producing research that would support public policy in the field of education, as well as constituting itself as a center for teacher education and the stimulus and development of innovative experiences in the public school system. The appropriation of Deweyan pragmatism, in this context, had a triple perspective: pragmatism as scientific method, implying a specific conception of science, particularly the social sciences, with emphasis on the application of scientific knowledge in the solution of practical problems; as a way of democratic life; and as a synonym for experimentalism, in the sphere of schooling. (shrink)

Resumo: O artigo parte do problema apontado por Michel Foucault na primeira aula do curso A Hermenêutica do sujeito, datada de 6/01/1982, a saber: o que se passa com o ser do sujeito em sua relação com a verdade? Para desenvolver tal indagação, o filósofo analisa, entre outros aspectos, saberes e práticas característicos da espiritualidade no período de ouro do cuidado de si (séculos I e II). Além de acompanhá-lo em parte desse percurso, pretendemos, com nosso texto, pôr em cena (...) as inflexões que ele implica tanto para o campo da psicologia como para o da formação de professores. Em ambos, é comum que emerjam polêmicas quanto às teorias a adotar como base para uma intervenção mais eficaz ou, preferencialmente, mais crítica. A diferenciação clássica entre ciências naturais e ciências humanas jamais se ausenta desse debate. O presente artigo adota caminho distinto, pois buscamos um modo de arrancar de nossas entranhas o momento cartesiano, arriscando-nos a adotar posturas antipsicologistas e eventualmente antiepistemológicas. Melhor dizendo, indagamos: como, na psicologia e na educação, a constituição de si por si mesmo pode se transformar em uma ética metodológica (ou metodologia ética) de trabalho? Palavras-chave: cuidado de si; espiritualidade; momento cartesiano; psicologia; educação Refusing the Cartesian model: How to equip oneself in psychology and education? Abstract: The present article starts from the problem pointed out by Michel Foucault in the first class of the course The Hermeneutics of the subjetict, dated 6/01/1982, namely: what happens to the being of the subject in its relation to truth? In order to develop this question, the philosopher analyzes, among other aspects, knowledge and practices characteristic of spirituality in the golden period of the care of the self (1st and 2nd centuries). Besides accompanying him in part, we intend, with our text, to put into scene the inflections that implies both for the field of psychology and for the field of teacher’s training. In both fields, it is common for polemics to emerge regarding the theories to be adopted as a basis for a more effective or, preferably, more critical intervention. The differentiation classic between natural sciences and human sciences is never absent from this debate. The present article adopts a different path, for seek a way to pull the Cartesian moment out of our guts, risking to adopt anti-psychological and eventually anti-epistemological postures. Better saying, we inquire how, in psychology and education, the constitution of the self for its own sake can become a methodological ethics (or ethical methodology) of work? Key-words: self-care; spirituality; Cartesian moment; psychology; education Rechazar el modelo cartesiano: ¿Cómo equiparse en psicología y educación? Resúmen: El artículo parte del problema señalado por Michel Foucault en la primera clase do curso La Hermenéutica del sujeto, realizada el 6/01/1982, a saber: ¿qué sucede con el ser del sujeto en su relación con la verdad? Para desarrollar esta cuestión, el filósofo analiza, entre otros aspectos, los conocimientos y las prácticas propias de la espiritualidad en el período de oro del cuidado del yo (siglos I y II). Además de acompañarlo en parte em el camino, nuestro texto pretende destacar las inflexiones que él implica tanto para el campo de la psicología como para el de la formación de maestros. En ambos, es común que surjan controversias en cuanto a las teorías que deben adoptarse como base para una intervención más eficaz o, preferiblemente, más crítica. La diferenciación clásica entre ciencias naturales y ciencias humanas nunca está ausente de este debate. El presente artículo adopta un camino diferente, ya que buscamos una forma de arrancar de dentro, el momento cartesiano, arriesgándonos a adoptar posturas antipsicológicas y, eventualmente antiepistemológicas. Mejor dicho, indagamos ¿cómo, en psicología y educación, la constitución del yo por sí mismo puede convertirse en una ética metodológica (o metodología ética) del trabajo? Palabras clave: cuidado de si; espiritualidad; momento cartesiano; psicología; educación Data de registro: 11/07/2022 Data de aceite: 26/10/2022. (shrink)

Description: This scholarly work of Dr S.M.S. Chari's deals with the critical review of seventeen philosophical systems as presented in an important philosophical treatise of the thirteenth century titled Paramata-bhanga contributed by Vedanta Desika, an illustrious successor to Ramanuja, who is the chief exponent of Visistadvaita Vedanta. The main objective of Paramata-bhanga is to establish that Visistadvaita is a sound system of philosophy as compared to the several other Non-Vedic as well as Vedic schools and also Vedanta schools developed by (...) Samkara, Yadavaprakasa, Bhaskara, and other exponents of the post-Ramanuja period. The original text written in Manipravala (a mixture of Tamil and Sanskrit) language contains, besides a brief account of the fundamental doctrines of Visistadvaita. The schools covered are Carvaka, Buddhism, Jainism, Sankhya, Yoga, Vaisesika, Nyaya, Purvamimamsa, Pasupata, Sabdabrahma-vivartavada, and Advaita Vedanta. Among the extant philosophical classics, Paramata-bhanga is a unique work. Realizing the importance of the Paramata-bhanga for the comparative study of Indian philosophy, late Dr Chari tried to give a lucid exposition of this treatise in English. This volume, which is the first of its kind, would be invaluable for students of Indian philosophy in general and Visistadvaita in particular. (shrink)

Costa de Beauregard here offers a compact exposition of his views concerning the statistical nature of temporal phenomena, views complementary to those included in the companion volume, La Notion de Temps. The "science of time," according to Costa de Beauregard, can be subsumed under two important principles: the first trading on the Aristotelian equivalence between time and motion, the second based on those "irreversible" phenomena which define an "arrow of time." This book deals expressly with this second principle, touching interestingly (...) on the related problems of cybernetics, entropy and information theory.—G. S. M. (shrink)