Este artigo tenta mostrar que o nascimento do empirismo como orientação filosófica se deu, não na modernidade, mas na filosofia helenística grega, no pirronismo dos médicos-filósofos dessa época. A combinação de empirismo e Metodismo médico ensejou ao velho pirronismo a possibilidade de formular uma postura epistemológica consistente com seu fenomenismo originário, ao mesmo tempo que integrava no seu iniverso filosófico as práticas "cognitivas" das tékhnai gregas.

Na Carta à d’Alembert sobre os espetáculos, Rousseau responde às questões que aparecem no verbete Genebra, publicado no volume VII da Enciclopédia. D’Alembert fazia uma defesa da comédia e dos comediantes, vistos como socialmente inferiores, ao mesmo tempo em que propunha montar uma companhia de teatro em Genebra, o que ajudaria a educar o gosto dos cidadãos. Retomava, assim, o papel do teatro a partir da opinião aristotélica de expurgação dos sentimentos de terror e piedade, adaptando-os da tragédia para (...) a comédia – papel que Rousseau irá recusar de forma veemente, pois o filósofo não era a favor da ideia de que os espetáculos expurgam os vícios dos homens e os educam para as virtudes. D’Alembert não apenas faz uma defesa da comédia e dos comediantes, que eram rebaixados socialmente e tidos com pouca estima na Europa, como também sugere montar uma companhia de teatro em Genebra, considerando que através de espetáculos decentes seria possível educar o gosto dos cidadãos dessa nação específica e quiçá influenciar toda a Europa numa possível reforma no que se refere à arte. Tal iniciativa despertaria as nações para uma delicadeza de sentimento que resultaria em bons costumes sociais. Contudo, para Rousseau o objetivo principal dos espetáculos teatrais é o de agradar e entreter, e, segundo o filósofo, o teatro em geral é um quadro das paixões humanas. Apesar de atestar que o homem é uno, Rousseau nos lembra que esse homem uno vai sendo modificado pelas religiões, pelos governos, pelos costumes, leis, preconceitos, climas, etc. E, entre si, os homens tendem a se tornar diferentes e a depender da época e do lugar em que vivem. Como, então, o mesmo espetáculo poderá agradar e entreter todas as civilizações? É a pergunta que Rousseau faz e que responde dizendo que à cada povo, as espécies de espetáculos vão se adequando conforme os gostos diversos das nações, os seus hábitos e costumes. É baseado nessa observação que o filósofo, diferentemente de d’Alembert, não atribui ao teatro o poder de modificar os sentimentos e costumes, mas antes de reproduzi-los e, com algum esforço, de enfeitá-los. Portanto, a crítica de Rousseau a essa arte de agradar tão perniciosa, execrada na figura do teatro francês da época, sustentava indiretamente o modelo político-aristocrático vigente. (shrink)

O Programa de Saúde da Família, implementado em 1994 no Brasil, representou uma estratégia de reorganização da atenção básica com vistas a resgatar os princípios de eqüidade, universalidade e integralidade do SUS e garantir o acesso da população de risco a ações em saúde. Neste contexto, a Psicologi..

In a recent opinion paper, it was argued that individuals with multiple retractions or a record of academic misconduct should not serve as editors, including as editors-in-chief, on the editorial boards of scholarly or academic journals. As a first step towards appreciating how such a policy could be applied in practice, the presence of 30 individuals listed on the Retraction Watch Leaderboard on editorial boards was screened. Six cases are highlighted to gain an appreciation of the potential reputational risks that (...) journals and publishers might incur by including individuals with a tainted academic record on editorial boards. Given the reputational, legal and other risks associated with this type of assessment and decision, more formal positioning and guidance are needed by global ethics policy-related bodies such as COPE, the ICMJE, and the CSE, even more so in journals that claim to follow these organizations’ ethical guidelines. (shrink)

This work offers a new democratic case for federalism, understood as a form of governance in which multiple entities in a country possess final decision-making authority (viz., can make decisions free from others substituting their decisions, issuing fines, etc.) over at least one subject (e.g., immigration, defense). It argues that leading solutions to the democratic boundary problem provide overlapping arguments for federalism. The underlying logic and many details of the most commonly cited solutions focused on those relevantly affected by and (...) subject to decisions each support three distinct arguments (focused on voteshares, other forms of democratic influence, and persistent minorities) for multiple demoi possessing authority in a polity. Federalism is the best available method for recognizing the distinct demoi. This not only supports federal governance as opposed to unitary governance and subsidiarity. It also suggests that democracy and federalism are importantly related and have several implications for institutional design. (shrink)

This article assesses the similarity and difference between the Western European style of doing bioethics and the Scandinavian one. First, it reviews the introductory article by the editor, C. Delkeskamp-Hayes in the first issue of Christian Bioethics (2008), devoted to the possibility of a specifically Christian bioethics in Europe. Second, it analyses bioethics debates in Scandinavian today. In light of Delkeskamp-Hayes' article, the main similarity is that both regions are facing secularization as a threat to basic Christian values, for example, (...) to the Christian view of the sanctity and dignity of the human life. But the Scandinavian tends to reduce Christian bioethics to Luther's concept of the worldly kingdom, supposed to foster a dialogue between Christians and non-Christians on controversial ethical issues. Despite the positive value of the dialogue, this strategy renders Christian ethics powerless. Third, from an evangelical theological standpoint, it proposes some strategies for enhancing the influence of Christian commitments on bioethical laws and policies. (shrink)

:The bulk of Mel Gibson's output as filmmaker consists of a trilogy on historical subjects: Braveheart, The Passion and Apocalypto. This article points to a degree of imaginative consistency underlying Gibson's work. It seeks to acknowledge a personal vision of the nature and significance of human events – a vision articulated through the choice of recurring cinematic techniques and visual-thematic motifs. All three films inculcate a sense of history as fundamentally dependent on acts of ritualization, at the centre of which (...) lies the sacrifice of the individual. They share an authorial vision which hinges upon the question of death and transcendence. Gibson's oeuvre foregrounds the conviction that human experience is patterned in accordance with archetypal narratives whose seemingly universal validity is suggested by the presentation of cross-cultural analogues in successive films. (shrink)

Bottom of the Pyramid organizations are the ones that develop a set of capabilities that contribute to create short- and long-term sustainability values inside and outside the boundaries of BoP ecosystems. Capabilities have an important role in BoP organizations’ strategies that aim to solve BoP issues. Notwithstanding its developments, BoP research still lacks theoretical contributions for the analysis of organizations. We suggest special attention to the need of advancing knowledge on capabilities of BoP organizations because this field is scattered and (...) fragmented, misinterpreted, and still underdeveloped in the literature. We oriented our research formulating and seeking answers to our main question on what are the capabilities needed to enable organizations to create sustainability values in BoP ecosystems? We conducted an integrative review of BoP research for the period from 1998 to 2019, and we found 22 key capabilities of BoP organizations. We organized the capabilities into four major categories including BoP Responsible Consumption, BoP Responsible Business Model, BoP Responsible Management, and BoP Responsible Innovation. We advanced propositions and discussions regarding the capabilities and major categories’ popularity, interdependence and combination, short- and long-term temporal functions, sustainability roles, and effectiveness to address BoP issues. Our article organizes the field of capabilities of BoP organizations; advances contributions and implications for management, organizations, and policymaking; and opens fruitful avenues for future research. (shrink)

This paper explores that the topic of ethics dumping, its causes and potential remedies. In ED, the weaknesses or gaps in ethics policies and systems of lower income countries are intentionally exploited for intellectual or financial gains through research and publishing by higher income countries with a more stringent or complex ethical infrastructure in which such research and publishing practices would not be permitted. Several examples are provided. Possible ED needs to be evaluated before research takes place, and detected prior (...) to publication as an academic paper, because it might lead to a collaborative effort between a wealthier country with restrictive ethical policies and a less wealthy country with more permissive policies. Consequently, if that collaboration ultimately results in an academic paper, there are ethical ramifications of ED to scholarly communication. Institutional review board approval is central to avoid ED-based collaborations. Blind trust and goodwill alone cannot eliminate the exploitation of indigenous or “vulnerable” populations’ intellect and resources. Combining community-based participatory research using clear codes of research conduct and a simple but robust verification system in academic publishing may reduce the risks of ED-based research from being published. (shrink)

The article is about the freedom in Rousseau splitting of two basic ideas. The first is that the freedom existed markedly in the natural man and the second is this man came to lose it along his history, when by far historical processes constituted in society. The text proposes a discussion – from the reading of two works of Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men and The Social Contract – of the possibility of a return (...) to freedom in civil society, where perceives the opportunity of this rescue. For Rousseau, the man in the state of nature lived happy and in peace, whereas in the state of society there is a predominance of the inequality between the men: the moral inequality. The social pact is guarantee of the life in society and of the convergence of interests of his members. A pact by the freedom of the individual and by the democratic society. (shrink)

In this paper, we set out to show that the relationships between individuals, including the intersubjectivity inherent to the body politic, are also affective relationships, so as to reconstruct Spinoza’s minimalist theory of tolerance. According to Spinoza’s concept of affectivity and bodily life, affection refers to a state of the affected body and implies the presence of the affecting body, while affect refers to the transition from one state to another, taking into account the correlative variation of affective bodies, that (...) is, the affect is always a passage or variation in the intensity of our power to exist and act—the increase or decrease, the favoring or the restraint of our power to exist and act. We argue that Spinoza’s geometry of affective relations decisively contributes to a political theory of democracy, insofar as it anticipates modern, liberal conceptions of tolerance. (shrink)

As part of a continuous process to explore the factors that might weaken or corrupt traditional peer review, in this paper, we query the ethics, fairness and validity of the request, by editors, of authors to suggest peer reviewers during the submission process. One of the reasons for the current crisis in science pertains to a loss in trust as a result of a flawed peer review which is by nature biased unless it is open peer review. As we indicate, (...) the fact that some editors and journals rely on authors’ suggestions in terms of who should peer review their paper already instills a potential way to abuse the trust of the submission and publishing system. An author-suggested peer reviewer choice might also tempt authors to seek reviewers who might be more receptive or sympathetic to the authors’ message or results, and thus favor the outcome of that paper. Authors should thus not be placed in such a potentially ethically compromising situation, especially as a mandatory condition for submission. However, the fact that they do not have an opt-out choice during the submission process—especially when using an online submission system that makes such a suggestion compulsory—may constitute a violation of authors’ rights. (shrink)

Retractions of COVID-19 literature in both preprints and the peer-reviewed literature serve as a reminder that there are still challenging issues underlying the integrity of the biomedical literature. The risks to academia become larger when such retractions take place in high-ranking biomedical journals. In some cases, retractions result from unreliable or nonexistent data, an issue that could easily be avoided by having open data policies, but there have also been retractions due to oversight in peer review and editorial verification. As (...) COVID-19 continues to affect academics and societies around the world, failures in peer review might also constitute a public health risk. The effectiveness by which COVID-19 literature is corrected, including through retractions, depends on the stringency of measures in place to detect errors and to correct erroneous literature. It also relies on the stringent implementation of open data policies. (shrink)

Este texto objetiva mostrar no contexto das mídias digitais em rede, a experiência de interação baseada no diálogo entre a Rádio Comunitária Cidadã FM e o programa Vaidapé na Rua que integra a programação semanal da emissora localizada na região Oeste do município de São Paulo. Partindo da compreensão das dinâmicas dialógicas e discursivas inerentes aos processos comunicacionais e estudadas pelo jornalista e teórico Vilém Flusser, o texto objetiva evidenciar as possibilidades que um ambiente comunicacional pode desencadear para uma prática (...) efetivamente comunitária. Para a compreensão sobre a rádio comunitária na conhecida “sociedade em rede”, o texto situa brevemente o surgimento e desenvolvimento do movimento das rádios comunitárias no Brasil, iniciado nas últimas duas décadas do século XX, quando motivadas pelas experiências das rádios livres, atuaram na luta contra a opressão dos poderes estatal e econômico e pela democratização do acesso aos meios de comunicação de massa. Além da pesquisa bibliográfica, o estudo recorre à pesquisa documental e de campo na realização de entrevistas qualitativas. Conclui-se que além da necessária desmitificação tecnológica e sua apropriação popular, a dinâmica dialógica em equilíbrio com a discursiva atua para o surgimento de ambientes comunicacionais propícios para o compartilhamento de conhecimentos e prática da cidadania. (shrink)

The definition of the technique as the mediation between man and nature raises some philosophical problems. Such mediation was established based on imperatives, among which we can highlight efficiency and domination, both exercised over nature. In order to expand the possibilities for improving the human condition, the notion of technical progress has become an emerging need for the consolidation of ancient and modern civilizations. However, it is necessary to establish the criteria for a critique of the limits of unrestrained progress (...) in order to be able to highlight the ambiguity of this process. The development of reality goes through a series of increasingly sophisticated domains without which the objective achievements that structure human life would not be possible. As it oscillates more and more rapidly between production and destruction, technology - understood as the applied discourse of technique - accuses its own limit when submitted to the imperative of efficiency and domination. The purpose of this paper is to show that the ambiguous consequences of technical progress work as an instinctive mechanism for both the welfare state and the state of war. The methodology used to address these issues will be the clash of ideas present in the studies of thinkers who reflected the theme of the technique. Our conclusion, in addition to pointing to a reflection on the limits of technique in human life, intends to rethink the unfolding of the imperatives of a civilization guided by the notion of technical progress and its inevitable contradiction with the notion of human progress. (shrink)

Em A utilidade do inútil do filósofo italiano Nuccio Ordine retoma um tema tradicional e inesgotável: o valor da educação e sua relação com a cultura. Ordine identifica que vivemos uma profunda crise cultural, que assola a Escola e a Universidade. Ambas padecem diante do avanço de uma mentalidade utilitarista, praticista e produtivista, motivada pela lógica implacável do lucro. Tais espaços, que deveriam ser de formação intelectual e humanística, se convertem em empresas capitalistas em formar não cidadãos críticos e livres (...) pensadores, mas mão de obra especializada para o mercado de trabalho e consumo. (shrink)

Le conflit d’interprétation, associé aux aspects de la santé, de la contamination radioactive et des indemnisations, est toujours d’actualité dans le monde. Dans cette analyse, l’auteure avance que les expériences subjectives apportées par les récits construits par les survivants du désastre de Goiânia, au Brésil, défient les identités et les frontières définies par la biomédecine pour encadrer cette catastrophe.

In this paper, I intend to explore the 16th century Italian work entitled Divisione della filosofia (1895) by the writer Benedetto Varchi, by reflecting on concepts raised and discussed throughout the history of philosophy, such as art and science, while making a thorough analysis of the text and the conceptions exposed by the historian. From a historical-philosophical point of view, I intend to investigate a varchian corpus from the Renaissance period, thus, I examine the statements and inferences of the Florentine (...) writer, in order to make explicit his vision concerning the division and hierarchization of the areas of theoretical and practical knowledge of Philosophy. I then conclude how the classification that summarizes more than two thousand years of notions coming from Greek, medieval and renaissance philosophies could help in the formulation of the functions of knowledge and how they relate to the practical life of individuals in the Renaissance period. (shrink)

Multiple authorship is the universal solution to multi-tasking in the sciences. Without a team, each with their own set of expertise, and each involved mostly in complementary ways, a research project will likely not advance quickly, or effectively. Consequently, there is a risk that research goals will not be met within a desired timeframe. Research teams that strictly scrutinize their modus operandi select and include a set of authors that have participated substantially in the physical undertaking of the research, in (...) its planning, or who have contributed intellectually to the ideas or the development of the manuscript. Authorship is not an issue that is taken lightly, and save for dishonest authors, it is an issue that is decided collectively by the authors, usually in sync with codes of conduct established by their research institutes or national ministries of education. Science, technology and medicine publishers have, through independent, or sometimes coordinated efforts, also established their own sets of guidelines regarding what constitutes valid authorship. However, these are, for the greater part, merely guidelines. A previous and recent analysis of authorship definitions indicates that the definitions in place regarding authorship and its validity by many leading STM publishers is neither uniform, nor standard, despite several of them claiming to follow the guidelines as set forward by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors or ICMJE. This disparity extends itself to ghost and guest authorship, two key authorship-related issues that are examined in this paper to assess the extent of discrepancies among the same set of STM publishers and what possible influence they might have on publishing ethics. (shrink)

The development of educational technologies is enhancing a distinctive feature of learning environments: the learner’s personalized environment. However, the current literature in e-learning seems to neglect an important discussion: will individuals and organizations face an enhancement concerning ethical dilemmas due to this evolution? To promote this discussion, this paper builds on a consideration of e-learning definition and its ethical dilemmas, and human-centred learning concept and its dimensions, to examine the implications of integrating social and cultural contexts. By examining the evolution (...) of e-learning management systems the argument progresses to a discussion of the relationships between pedagogy and ethics. By framing evidence at different scales, the authors critically reflect on the ethical dilemmas embedded in e-learning systems. The discussion concludes with advocating the adoption of an extension of “three P” mode of pedagogy to become the “P3E” model: personalization, participation, productivity, lecturer’s ethics, learner’s ethics, and organizational ethics. (shrink)

Este trabalho pretende apresentar alguns pontos do pensamento filosófico de Gumbrecht sobre a presença, especialmente, com relação às possibilidades da linguagem. A partir desse logos propõe-se uma crítica introdutória aos conceitos de coisa, de sujeito/objeto, de visão cartesiana do mundo, demonstrando, a partir do autor analisado, as possibilidades de tangibilidade por meio da linguagem e o que isso representa em face dos paradigmas vigentes das ciências instituídas. Através de pesquisa bibliográfica, viu-se que a teoria da linguagem de Gumbrecht é subsídio (...) importante para a reflexão transdisciplinar, etnometodológica e etnoecológica; pode contribuir para um aprofundamento conceitual da “visão dionisíaca de mundo” de Nietzsche e Maffesoli; da “Geografia Humana” e do etnoconceito de “lugar” de Yi-Fu Tuan; dos conceitos de “abertura”, “lida”, “práxis”, “linguagem”, “Dasein”, “Ser-no-mundo” de Heidegger; de “adaptabilidade” de Moran e de “autopoiesis” e da fenomenologia biológica de Maturana. (shrink)

O presente estudo encontra-se inserido mais diretamente nas linhas de pesquisa de História da Filosofia Moderna e do Pensamento Ético-Político, temos alguns estudos filosóficos sobre o pacifismo erasmiano na “Queixa da Paz” como aqueles realizados por Meulen (1990), Hoffmann (2000), Kinsella e Carr (2007), Martín e Chornet (2007), Dungen (2008) e Christi (2009).

À la croisée de la philosophie et de l’histoire de l’art, Bernard Teyssèdre a ouvert des champs de recherche très divers, ce qui a suscité l’enthousiasme de ses étudiants, mais aussi déconcerté ceux qui restaient attachés à leur pré carré disciplinaire. Présenter aujourd’hui son parcours intellectuel revient à faire redécouvrir certains de ses travaux oubliés en esthétique afin de montrer leur singularité et leur cohérence profondément hégélienne, bien que ses recherches aient pris des formes très différentes et abordés avec érudition (...) des domaines très éloignés les uns des autres. Sans oublier de situer philosophiquement des aspects moins connus de ses activités, littéraires, artistiques et aussi institutionnelles avec sa contribution déterminante au développement de la discipline esthétique et à l’introduction des arts plastiques à l’université. Ce panorama n’aurait pas été complet si n’était pas signalée la place de ses recherches en paléontologie restées longtemps secrètes et a priori fort éloignées de l’esthétique. Alors que Bernard Teyssèdre avait publié en 2007 une nouvelle édition de son Roman de l’Origine revue et augmentée (et que Thierry Savatier était sur le point de publier une nouvelle édition de L’Origine du monde, Histoire d’un tableau de Gustave Courbet ), Jean Da Silva lui apprit qu’une photographie du tableau exposé au musée d’Orsay avait circulé en France pendant une vingtaine d’années avant d’être publiée en 1953 dans des revues oubliées ; ce qui bouleversait l’idée que l’on avait encore en 2009 de la connaissance de ce tableau. S’ensuivit ensuite un jeu de piste à deux, sur le blog, par courriels et au téléphone. (shrink)

Authors endure considerable hardship carrying out biomedical research, from generating ideas to completing their manuscripts and submitting their findings and data (as is increasingly required) to a journal. When researchers submit to journals, they entrust their findings and ideas to editors and peer reviewers who are expected to respect the confidentiality of peer review. Inherent trust in peer review is built on the ethical conduct of authors, editors and reviewers, and on the respect of this confidentiality. If such confidentiality is (...) breached by unethical reviewers who might steal or plagiarize the authors’ ideas, researchers will lose trust in peer review and may resist submitting their findings to that journal. Science loses as a result, scientific and medical advances slow down, knowledge may become scarce, and it is unlikely that increasing bias in the literature will be detected or eliminated. In such a climate, society will ultimately be deprived from scientific and medical advances. Despite a rise in documented cases of abused peer review, there is still a relative lack of qualitative and quantitative studies on reviewer-related misconduct, most likely because evidence is difficult to come by. Our paper presents an assessment of editors’ and reviewers’ responsibilities in preserving the confidentiality of manuscripts during the peer review process, in response to a 2016 case of intellectual property theft by a reviewer. Our main objectives are to propose additional measures that would offer protection of authors’ intellectual ideas from predatory reviewers, and increase researchers’ awareness of the responsible reviewing of journal articles and reporting of biomedical research. (shrink)

A mecânica quântica empreendeu a substituição do materialismo científico, por uma visão cada vez mais “formal” da natureza, dentro da qual a própria matéria seria uma conseqüência física de um outro estado natural que precede o nível das partículas subatômicas, constituído por relações de simetrias, forças e processos, para além das possibilidades observacionais, e ao alcance, tão somente, da reflexão racional pura. Além disto, a Física Contemporânea trabalha com conceitos e problemas filosóficos de extrema importância, como “Causalidade”, “Origem da Matéria”, (...) “Constituição do Cosmos”, “Limites e Possibilidades do Conhecimento”, “Objetividade”, e “Determinismo”, de modo que uma investigação filosófica deste campo científico tão marcado pela Filosofia faz-se muito relevante para compreendermos a atual visão que a ciência tem da natureza e qual a filosofia subjacente à física contemporânea. (shrink)

It is rare that we have Arthur Schopenhauer and Thomas Hobbes in the same publication, and when this occurs, it is usually aimed at exploring their dissenting political views. However, this study is based on the belief that both philosophers have significant similarities in their theories about the creation of the individual as a human being. Schopenhauer and Hobbes have, in their constructions, the pessimistic view of human nature and, furthermore, there are prominent similarities in the construction of the human (...) machinery, similarities that at times appear to merge. The goals that Hobbes and Schopenhauer had when they wrote their works were different, however, what we show in this study is that pessimism is a prolific path for philosophical theory. (shrink)

This monograph offers a fresh perspective on the applicability of mathematics in science. It explores what mathematics must be so that its applications to the empirical world do not constitute a mystery. In the process, readers are presented with a new version of mathematical structuralism. The author details a philosophy of mathematics in which the problem of its applicability, particularly in physics, in all its forms can be explained and justified. Chapters cover: mathematics as a formal science, mathematical ontology: what (...) does it mean to exist, mathematical structures: what are they and how do we know them, how different layers of mathematical structuring relate to each other and to perceptual structures, and how to use mathematics to find out how the world is. The book simultaneously develops along two lines, both inspired and enlightened by Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy. One line leads to the establishment of a particular version of mathematical structuralism, free of “naturalist” and empiricist bias. The other leads to a logical-epistemological explanation and justification of the applicability of mathematics carried out within a unique structuralist perspective. This second line points to the “unreasonable” effectiveness of mathematics in physics as a means of representation, a tool, and a source of not always logically justified but useful and effective heuristic strategies. (shrink)

Neste artigo procuro determinar as contribuições positivas que Schopenhauer possa ter recebido do ensinamento de Fichte quando, como um jovem estudante, ele frequentou as aulas e estudou os textos de Fichte nos anos 1811-1813. Vou tentar mostrar que, embora a filosofia de Schopenhauer seja absolutamente original, algumas ideias fichteanas certamente o estimularam na busca de seu pensamento filosófico final.

In the first year of the twentieth century, in Gottingen, Husserl delivered two talks dealing with a problem that proved central in his philosophical development, that of imaginary elements in mathematics. In order to solve this problem Husserl introduced a logical notion, called “definiteness”, and variants of it, that are somehow related, he claimed, to Hilbert’s notions of completeness. Many different interpretations of what precisely Husserl meant by this notion, and its relations with Hilbert’s ones, have been proposed, but no (...) consensus has been reached. In this paper I approach this question afresh and thoroughly, taking into consideration not only the relevant texts and context, as others have also done before, but, more importantly, Husserl’s philosophy, his intuition-based epistemology in particular. Based on a system of clearly defined concepts that I here present, I reinforce an interpretation—definiteness as a form of syntactic completeness—that has, I believe, some advantages vis-à-vis alternative interpretations. It is in conformity with the available texts; it makes clear that Husserl’s notion of definiteness is indeed close to Hilbert’s notions of completeness; it solves the important problem of imaginaries for which it was created; and last, but not least, it fits naturally into Husserl’s system of concepts and ideas. (shrink)

In the first year of the twentieth century, in Gottingen, Husserl delivered two talks dealing with a problem that proved central in his philosophical development, that of imaginary elements in mathematics. In order to solve this problem Husserl introduced a logical notion, called “definiteness”, and variants of it, that are somehow related, he claimed, to Hilbert’s notions of completeness. Many different interpretations of what precisely Husserl meant by this notion, and its relations with Hilbert’s ones, have been proposed, but no (...) consensus has been reached. In this paper I approach this question afresh and thoroughly, taking into consideration not only the relevant texts and context, as others have also done before, but, more importantly, Husserl’s philosophy, his intuition-based epistemology in particular. Based on a system of clearly defined concepts that I here present, I reinforce an interpretation—definiteness as a form of syntactic completeness—that has, I believe, some advantages vis-à-vis alternative interpretations. It is in conformity with the available texts; it makes clear that Husserl’s notion of definiteness is indeed close to Hilbert’s notions of completeness; it solves the important problem of imaginaries for which it was created; and last, but not least, it fits naturally into Husserl’s system of concepts and ideas. (shrink)

The question “what is an interpretation?” is often intertwined with the perhaps even harder question “what is a scientific theory?”. Given this proximity, we try to clarify the first question to acquire some ground for the latter. The quarrel between the syntactic and semantic conceptions of scientific theories occupied a large part of the scenario of the philosophy of science in the 20th century. For many authors, one of the two currents needed to be victorious. We endorse that such debate, (...) at least in the terms commonly expressed, can be misleading. We argue that the traditional notion of “interpretation” within the syntax/semantic debate is not the same as that of the debate concerning the interpretation of quantum mechanics. As much as the term is the same, the term “interpretation” as employed in quantum mechanics has its meaning beyond (pure) logic. Our main focus here lies on the formal aspects of the solutions to the measurement problem. There are many versions of quantum theory, many of them incompatible with each other. In order to encompass a wider variety of approaches to quantum theory, we propose a different one with an emphasis on pure formalism. This perspective has the intent of elucidating the role of each so-called “interpretation” of quantum mechanics, as well as the precise origin of the need to interpret it. (shrink)