This paper presents a logical Style painting classifier based on evaluated Horn clauses, qualitative colour descriptors and Explanations. Three versions of $\ell $-SHE are defined, using rational Pavelka logic, and expansions of Gödel logic and product logic with rational constants: RPL, $G$ and $\sqcap $, respectively. We introduce a fuzzy representation of the more representative colour traits for the Baroque, the Impressionism and the Post-Impressionism art styles. The $\ell $-SHE algorithm has been implemented in Swi-Prolog and tested on 90 paintings (...) of the QArt-Dataset and on 247 paintings of the Paintings-91-PIB dataset. The percentages of accuracy obtained in the QArt-Dataset for each $\ell $-SHE version are 73.3%, 65.6% $) and 68.9% $). Regarding the Paintings-91-PIB dataset, the percentages of accuracy obtained for each $\ell $-SHE version are 60.2%, 48.2% $) and 57.0% $). Our logic definition for the Baroque style has obtained the highest accuracy in both datasets, for all the $\ell $-SHE versions. An important feature of the classifier is that it provides reasons regarding why a painting belongs to a certain style. The classifier also provides reasons about why outliers of one art style may belong to another art style, giving a second classification option depending on its membership degrees to these styles. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to graded model theory, in the context of mathematical fuzzy logic. We study characterizations of classes of graded structures in terms of the syntactic form of their first-order axiomatization. We focus on classes given by universal and universal-existential sentences. In particular, we prove two amalgamation results using the technique of diagrams in the setting of structures valued on a finite MTL-algebra, from which analogues of the Łoś–Tarski and the Chang–Łoś–Suszko preservation theorems follow.

This work focuses on the virtual museum, understood as the digital transformation of the traditional museum. First, the main conceptualizations of the virtual museum in the specialized literature are reviewed, and based on them, we propose a basic definition. Furthermore, we argue in favor of the insufficiency of the dataist perspective in the study of epistemic injustice associated with the virtual museum. Finally, the exclusion related to the participation and interaction between a museum’s visitors and the institution is analyzed. Este (...) trabajo se centra en el museo virtual entendido como la transformación digital del museo tradicional. En primer lugar, se revisan las principales conceptualizaciones del museo virtual en la literatura especializada y, a partir de las mismas, se propone una definición básica. Asimismo, se presentan argumentos que muestran la insuficiencia de la perspectiva dataísta en el estudio de la injusticia epistémica relativa al museo virtual. Finalmente, se analiza la exclusión relativa a la participación y la interacción entre las visitantes de un museo (tanto virtual como físico) y la propia institución. (shrink)

There is a significant range of ongoing challenges in artificial intelligence dealing with reasoning, planning, learning, perception and cognition, among others. In this scenario, many-valued logics emerge as one of the topics in many of the solutions to some of those AI problems. This special issue presents a brief introduction to the relation between logics and AI and collects recent research works on logic-based approaches in AI.

ENTREVISTA COM PROFESSORAS (ES) DE FILOSOFIA DO ENSINO SUPERIOR DO CEARÁ – BLOCO ICom: Ada Beatriz Gallicchio Kroef, Vicente Thiago Freire Brazil, Roberta Liana Damasceno Costa, Elizabeth Bezerra FurtadoPor: Antônio Alex Pereira de Sousa, Paulo Willame Araújo de Lima.

Burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion and caused by exposure to excessive and prolonged stress related to job conditions. Moreover, burnout is highly prevalent among health care professionals. The aim of this study is, first, to examine the mediating role of social support over the effect of burnout in health care professionals and, second, to explore potential gender differences. A convenience sample of 1,035 health professionals from Ecuador, including 608 physicians and 427 nurses, was surveyed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, (...) Social Support Survey, and General Health Questionnaire as measures of burnout, social support, and general health, respectively. Social support was found to mediate the negative effects of burnout on health regardless of gender. Differences across the three dimensions of burnout and health are further discussed, along with their implications for designing effective burnout interventions for health care professionals in Ecuador. (shrink)

La poesía de Bonnefoy se sitúa, no contra la filosofía, sino contra el entramado eidético entretejido por Platón. Bonnefoy trata de evitar a toda costa las ideas platónicas y se separa de cualquier inclinación trascendente: la existencia concreta, el objeto sensible, la descripción de este mundo que se le presenta de manera fragmentaria y, por ello, esencial, es lo decisivo para el poeta. Así, frente a la existencia de una realidad metafísica, lo que para Bonnefoy se impone como decisivo (...) es un saber negativo con el que llegar a alcanzar la verdad a través de la palabra y, en cierto modo, la libertad. Es en el ámbito de lo sensible donde, según Yves Bonnefoy, uno toca la profunda unidad de todo. Y es precisamente en esa unidad en la que Bonnefoy, siguiendo en esto a Plotino y desviándose de la senda abierta por Platón, considera que puede encontrarse la libertad. (shrink)

There is an ongoing debate about the meaning of lexical words, i.e., words that contribute with content to the meaning of sentences. This debate has coincided with a renewal in the study of polysemy, which has taken place in the psycholinguistics camp mainly. There is already a fruitful interbreeding between two lines of research: the theoretical study of lexical word meaning, on the one hand, and the models of polysemy psycholinguists present, on the other. In this paper I aim at (...) deepening on this ongoing interbreeding, examine what is said about polysemy, particularly in the psycholinguistics literature, and then show how what we seem to know about the representation and storage of polysemous senses affects the models that we have about lexical word meaning. (shrink)

According to a model defended by some authors, dispositional concepts can be legitimately used in causal explanations, although such a use is not necessary. I argue, however, that there is a kind of use of dispositions in explanations that does not fall within this model: we will miss some explanations if we forsake dispositional concepts and explanations.

Following some of the main arguments Derrida develops in ‘White Mythology’, in this article I propose an unexplored dialogue between Derrida and Althusser considering the use and the place that each of them gives to metaphor in their philosophical strategies. I give special attention to some rather isolated passages of ‘Elements of Self-Criticism’ and ‘Lenin and Philosophy’, where Althusser, against all evidence, seems to be quite aware of the importance of metaphor and mataphorization in every philosophical practice. As Balibar has (...) argued, contrary to the metaphysical tradition, metaphor would not be the opposite but what anticipates the concept. In this sense, it is possible to observe how Althusser’s work has continuously put into practice – as the singular signature of his theoretical practice – something that I call the ‘detour of metaphor’ as a necessary ‘deviation’ for the production of new concepts. Without any evidence that Althusser may have known Derrida’s essay, I show how Althusser’s own theoretical work, one in which ‘metaphor’ as a philosophical theme appears to be rather anecdotic, is unexpectedly close to Derrida’s own positions concerning the margins of philosophy and its ‘outside’, the relation to the metaphysical tradition, and the importance of strategy in philosophy. (shrink)

Human rights have become an important ideal in current times, yet our age has witnessed more violations of human rights than any previous less enlightened one. This book explores the historical and theoretical dimensions of this paradox. Divided into two parts, the first section offers an alternative history of natural law, in which natural rights are represented as the eternal human struggle to resist opression and to fight for a society in which people are no longer degraded or despised. At (...) the time of their birth in the 18th Century and again in the popular uprisings of the last decade, human rights became the dominant critique of law and society. The radical rhetoric of rights and its apparently endless expansive potential has led to its adoption by governments and individuals alike seeking to justify their actions on moral grounds and has undermined its radical edge. Part Two examines the philosophical logic of rights. The classical critiques of Kant, Burke, Hegel and Marx illuminate traditional aproaches to the concept of human rights. The work of Heidegger, Sartre and psychoanalysis is used to deconstruct the metaphisical essentialism of bothe universalists and cultural relativists. Finally, through a consideration of the ethics of otherness, and with reference to recent human rights violations, it is argued that the end of human rights is to judge law and politics from a moral stand point which both transcends the present and is historically relevant. (shrink)

The renewed interest in concepts and their role in psychological theorizing is partially motivated by Machery’s claim that concepts are so heterogeneous that they have no explanatory role. Against this, pluralism argues that there is multiplicity of different concepts for any given category, while hybridism argues that a concept is constituted by a rich common representation. This article aims to advance the understanding of the hybrid view of concepts. First, we examine the main arguments against hybrid concepts and conclude that, (...) even if not successful, they challenge hybridism to find a robust criterion for concept individuation and to show an explanatory advantage for hybrid concepts. Then we propose such a criterion of individuation, which we will call ‘functional stable coactivation’. Finally, we examine the prospects of hybridism to understand what is involved in recent approaches to categorization and meaning extraction. 1 The Heterogeneity of Conceptual Representations2 Two Challenges for Hybrid Concepts: Individuation and Explanation2.1 The coordination criterion2.2 Concepts as constituents of thoughts3 Individuating Hybrids: Functional Stable Coactivation4 The Explanatory Power of Hybrid Concepts4.1 Categorization4.2 Meaning extraction4.2.1 Linguistic comprehension and rich lexical entries4.2.2 Polysemy and hybrid concepts5 Conclusion. (shrink)

Erudite and timely, this book is a key contribution to the renewal of radical theory and politics.

This paper presents a blueprint for an ecological cognitive architecture. Ecological psychology, I contend, must be complemented with a story about the role of the CNS in perception, action, and cognition. To arrive at such a story while staying true to the tenets of ecological psychology, it will be necessary to flesh out the central metaphor according to which the animal perceives its environment by ‘resonating’ to information in energy patterns: what is needed is a theory of resonance. I offer (...) here the two main elements of such a theory: a framework and a methodology. (shrink)

In this paper we address the question of what determines the content of our conscious episodes of thinking, considering recent claims that phenomenal character individuates thought contents. We present one prominent way for defenders of phenomenal intentionality to develop that view and then examine ‘sensory inner speech views’, which provide an alternative way of accounting for thought-content determinacy. We argue that such views fare well with inner speech thinking but have problems accounting for unsymbolized thinking. Within this dialectic, we present (...) an account of the nature of unsymbolized thinking that accords with and can be seen as a continuation of the activity of inner speech, while offering a way of explaining thought-content determinacy in terms of linguistic structures and representations. (shrink)

One big challenge faced by cognitive science is the development of a unified theory that integrates disparate scales of analysis of cognitive phenomena. In this paper, I offer a unified framework that provides a way to integrate neural and behavioral scales of analysis of cognitive phenomena—typically addressed by neuroscience and experimental psychology, respectively. The framework is based on the concept of resonance originated in ecological psychology and aims to be the foundation for a unified theory for radical embodiment; that is, (...) a unified theory for that dissident part of cognitive science that shares a methodological commitment to dynamic systems theory and remains skeptical about the adequacy of mechanism and representationalism as the guiding ideas in the field. In the course of my presentation, I analyze different issues regarding the requirements and constraints unification poses to radical embodiment. (shrink)

Jurisprudence is the prudence of jus, law's consciousness and conscience. Throughout history, when thinkers wanted to contemplate the organisation of society or the relationship between authority and the subject, they turned to law. All great philosophers, from Plato to Hobbes, Kant, Hegel, Marx and Weber had either studied the law or had a deep understanding of legal operations. But jurisprudence is also the conscience of law, the exploration of law's justice and of an ideal law or equity at the bar (...) of which state law is always judged. Jurisprudence brings together 'is' and 'ought', the positive and the normative, law and justice. But after a long process of decay, legal theory is today characterised by cognitive and moral poverty. Jurisprudence has become restricted and academically peripheral, a guidebook to technocratic legalism and a legitimation of the existent. Critical jurisprudence returns to the classical tradition of a general philosophy of law and adopts a much wider concept of legality. It is concerned both with posited law and with the law of the law. All legal aspects of the economic, political, emotional and physical modes of production and reproduction of society are part of critical jurisprudence. This widening of scope allows a radical rethinking of the nature of rights, justice, sovereignty and judgement. A political philosophy of justice today must examine the political economy of law; transitions from Empire to nation; ideological and imaginary constructions through which we understand ourselves and relate to others; ways in which gender, race or sexuality create forms of identity that both discipline bodies and offer sites of resistance. Law's complicity with political oppression, violence and racism has to be faced before it is possible to speak of a new beginning for legal thought, which in turn is the necessary precondition for a theory of justice. Critical Jurisprudence offers an ethics of law against the nihilism of power and an aesthetics of existence for the melancholic lawyer. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss a phenomenon we call perspectival plurality, which has gone largely unnoticed in the current debate between relativism and contextualism about predicates of personal taste. According to perspectival plurality, the truth value of a sentence containing more than one PPT may depend on more than one perspective. Prima facie, the phenomenon engenders a problem for relativism and can be shaped into an argument in favor of contextualism. We explore the consequences of perspectival plurality in depth and (...) assess several possible responses on behalf of advocates of relativism. (shrink)

Considering the most recent advances in artificial intelligence and biomechanics, a hypothetical future of physicalism is explored. It is concluded that a rational and sensible extrapolation of present and expected future advances in those two areas will have vast consequences in the physicalist view. In particular, it is also argued that consciousness cannot be defined in a simple general manner, but only understood through the observable and behavioural actions of humans or sufficiently advanced robots, which may be, at some future (...) time, indistinct. This last result is established by applying what we call Plato’s trap, and our main conclusion is a defence of physicalism. It is argued that human beings are robots which soon will be indistinguishable from suitable advanced man-made robots, which will in turn render many philosophical questions and objections to physicalism irrelevant and, in fact, quite similar in sense and importance to some philosophical medieval questions about God, the soul and immortality. (shrink)

Using the method of Descriptive Experience Sampling, some subjects report experiences of thinking that do not involve words or any other symbols [Hurlburt, R. T., and C. L. Heavey. 2006. Exploring Inner Experience. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; Hurlburt, R. T., and S. A. Akhter. 2008. “Unsymbolized Thinking.” Consciousness and Cognition 17 : 1364–1374]. Even though the possibility of this unsymbolized thinking has consequences for the debate on the phenomenological status of cognitive states, the phenomenon is still insufficiently examined. This paper analyzes (...) the main properties of unsymbolized thinking and advances an explanation of its origin. According to our analysis, unsymbolized thoughts appear as propositional states, that is, they are experienced as compositional conceptual phenomena, with semantic and syntactic features analogous to those of the contents of utterances. Based on this characterization, we hypothesize that UT is continuous with the activity of inner speech, in particular, it i... (shrink)

Desde el retorno de la democracia en Chile, la alianza política que alcanzó el gobierno consolidó sus posiciones de poder e influencia sin conocer por 20 años alternancia o grandes cambios en sus formas de gestión. Aunque el control del gobierno cambió a una coalición diferente en 2010, la agrupación previa continúa existiendo y posee una significativa representación en el parlamento. ¿Qué expresa tal estabilidad? El argumento principal en este artículo es que un origen social similar de los parlamentarios unido (...) a una interacción social frecuente reduce el dramatismo de las diferencias ideológicas haciendo así más probable las transformaciones políticas o el cambio del grupo en el poder. El análisis considera datos sociodemográficos de los parlamentarios, así como datos de redes sociales de una muestra 37 parlamentarios en ejercicio y 20 que lo hicieron entre 1990 y 2004. El origen social de los parlamentarios corresponde en forma creciente a un medio social similar, caracterizado por escolarización en establecimientos privados y universidades, alcanzando un status socioeconómico relativamente alto. El mapa de sus redes sociales muestra que el clivaje ideológico entre dictadura y democracia alcanzó también las relaciones sociales, estableciendo gran distancia social entre los políticos que hoy dominan la escena. El mapa permite apreciar también un nuevo campo político socialmente más diverso, en el cual tienen relevancia políticos más jóvenes, líderes regionales y la universidad como espacio de encuentro entre políticos e intelectuales. (shrink)

La figura de Walter Benjamin ha venido adquiriendo en los últimos años una inesperada actualidad. Su contribución al pensamiento de nuestro siglo aparece hoy como una intervención singular e irrepetible, producto de una encrucijada cultural patentemente determinada por la conciencia de crisis generalizada por la modernidad. En este contexto, la presente investigación trata de ofrecer una aproximación informativa y ajustada al conjunto de la obra de Benjamin, en una lectura efectuada desde el punto de vista de la Estética. En consecuencia, (...) el libro recorre puntualmente la sinuosa trayectoria de Benjamin desde sus tempranos escritos juveniles, pasando por su maduración crítica en sus trabajos en torno al universo romántico y el barroco, hasta su conversión al materialismo histórico y su explosiva dispersión en la obra de los Pasajes. (shrink)

O projeto emancipatório moderno estabelece uma concepção otimista de desenvolvimento científico e social. Os filósofos Immanuel Kant e Karl Marx, de modo distinto, levam ao ápice tal projeto emancipatório, o primeiro, ancorado numa concepção de sujeito transcendental capaz de estabelecer verdade e validade universal, o segundo, ancorado na categoria de trabalho desenvolvida em sua doutrina do materialismo histórico. A partir do século XIX, filósofos como Nietzsche, Heidegger e Adorno/Horkheimer põem sob suspeita tal projeto ao demonstrar seus fundamentos não metafísicos. Tais (...) críticas expurgam as pretensões totalitárias do projeto emancipatório moderno, e nos remetem à sua revisão. O filósofo alemão Jurgen Habermas, considerando as críticas elaboradas pelos filósofos da suspeita, vai buscar reconstruir o projeto emancipatório moderno a partir de bases pós-metafísicas. A raiz de tal reconstrução está em Trabalho e Interação. Notas sobre a filosofia do espírito de Hegel em Jena, na qual Habermas promove o confronto da filosofia hegeliana com o pensamento de Kant e Marx, possibilitando a revisão destes. Nessa revisão Habermas desenvolve os conceitos de trabalho e interação, que ao mesmo tempo fundamentam sua crítica à tecnocracia e lançam os pilares para a posterior elaboração da Teoria da Ação Comunicativa. (shrink)

According to an increasing number of authors, the best, if not the only, argument in favour of physicalism is the so-called 'overdetermination argument'. This argument, if sound, establishes that all the entities that enter into causal interactions with the physical world are physical. One key premise in the overdetermination argument is the principle of the causal closure of the physical world, said to be supported by contemporary physics. In this paper, I examine various ways in which physics may support the (...) principle, either as a methodological guide or as depending on some other laws and principles of physics. (shrink)

Teaching mathematics and improving mathematics competence are pending subjects within our educational system. The PEIM (Programa Evolutivo Instruccional para Matemáticas), a constructivist intervention program for the improvement of mathematical performance, affects the different agents involved in math learning, guaranteeing a significant improvement in students’ performance. The program is based on the following pillars: (a) students become the main agents of their learning by constructing their own knowledge; (b) the teacher must be the guide to facilitate and guarantee such a construction (...) by being a great connoisseur of the fundamental aspects of the development of the child’s mathematical thinking; (c) the mathematical contents must be sequenced in terms of the complexity and significance for the student as well as contextualized at all times; and (d) the classroom must have a constructivist climate highlighting cooperative work among students. The implementation of PEIM along with the empirical evaluation conducted in several centers in Madrid and Zaragoza (Spain) confirm how students improve their mathematical competence. Both first- and second-grade students in elementary education were far more effective in solving problems, highlighting the use of more advanced strategies in their resolution and a lower incidence of conceptual errors. Moreover, it was possible to verify how the students proving greater difficulty, experienced an evolution in learning similarly to those who did not present it. The program provides customized education to allow the teacher to know at all times how he should be more influential on the students’ learning through mathematical profiles. Both teaching practice and teachers were observed, being that of the experimental group more prone to analyzing processes and allowing the construction of knowledge by students, due to their psycho-developmental training. As a result, we found several improvements through the implementation of the program that may serve, for upcoming years, as a basis for the necessary changes in the teaching of mathematics. (shrink)

The concept of fitness, central to population genetics and to the synthetic theory of evolution, is discussed. After a historical introduction on the origin of this concept, the current meaning of it in population genetics is examined: a cause of the selective process and its quantification. Several difficulties arise for its exact definition. Three adequacy criteria for such a definition are formulated. It is shown that it is impossible to formulate an adequate definition of fitness respecting these criteria. The propensity (...) definition of fitness is presented and rejected. Finally it is argued that fitness is a conceptual device, a useful tool, only for descriptive purposes of selective processes, changing from case to case, and thus devoid of any substantial physical counterpart. Any attempt to its reification is an apport to the metaphysical load evolutionary theory has inherited from Natural Theology. (shrink)

The current crisis is one outcome of the financialisation of contemporary capitalism. It arose in the USA because of the enormous expansion of mortgage-lending, including to the poorest layers of the working class. It became general because of the trading of debt by financial institutions. These phenomena are integral to financialisation. During the last three decades, large enterprises have turned to open markets to obtain finance, forcing banks to seek alternative sources of profit. One avenue has been provision of financial (...) services to individual workers. This trend has been facilitated by the retreat of public provision from housing, pensions, education, and so on. A further avenue has been to adopt investment-banking practices in open financial markets. The extraction of financial profits directly out of personal income constitutes financial expropriation. Combined with investment-banking, it has catalysed the current gigantic crisis. More broadly, financialisation has sustained the emergence of new layers of rentiers, defined primarily through their relation to the financial system rather than ownership of loanable capital. Finally, financialisation has posed important questions regarding finance-capital and imperialism. (shrink)

This text goes as a reflection on the uses of the concept of mimesis as the core of Adorno’s thought. It starts with the proposals of the Dialectic of the Enlightenment, and then refers them to the way in which they reappear in the Aesthetic Theory, distinguishing the role of mimesis in he process of the production of the work and in that of its reception, both in art as in mass culture. Finally, it points to the possibility of enriching (...) the concept by connecting it with Benjamin. Adorno, mimesis, reception, culture industry, Benjamin. Resumen El texto se presenta como una reflexión en torno a los usos del concepto de mímesis como núcleo del pensamiento de Adorno. Se parte de los planteamientos de la Dialéctica de la Ilustración, para luego remitirlos a la manera en que reaparecen en la Teoría estética, distinguiendo el papel de la mímesis en el proceso de la producción de la obra y en el de su recepción, tanto en el arte como en la cultura de masas. Finalmente, se apunta a la posibilidad de enriquecer el concepto conectándolo con Benjamin. (shrink)

Charles Travis has been forcefully arguing that meaning does not determine truth-conditions for more than two decades now. To this end, he has devised ingenious examples whereby different utterances of the same prima facie non-ambiguous and non-indexical expression type have different truth-conditions depending on the occasion on which they are delivered. However, Travis does not argue that meaning varies with circumstances; only that truth-conditions do. He assumes that meaning is a stable feature of both words and sentences. After surveying some (...) of the explanations that semanticists and pragmaticians have produced in order to account for Travis cases, I propose a view which differs substantially from all of them. I argue that the variability in the truth-conditions that an utterance type can have is due to meaning facts alone. To support my argument, I suggest that we think about the meanings of words (in particular, the meanings of nouns) as rich conceptual structures; so rich that the way in which a property concept applies to an object concept is not determined. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to present a reading of Plato's utopianism, as expressed mainly through the 'big letters' of the Republic, which will lead us beyond Karl Popper's and Leo Strauss' modernist understandings of Plato and of his world. The author argues that, despite the 'transcendent' aspects of Platonic utopianism, the ideal city should be understood neither as a blueprint to be realized through some totalitarian political project nor as a mere fiction that cannot by definition give rise (...) to a viable existential prospect. The power of Platonic utopianism lies in its articulation to a value-laden cosmological continuum, which may be understood in terms of the self-instituting (through political persuasion and story-telling activites, among others) capacities of ancient Greek city. The utopian perspective is marked by shareability of political reason and by mutuality between participants in a common discursive venture rather than by individualist authoritarian projections or by harmless (that is, non-political in it orientation and ideological in its repercussions) day-dreaming. Even if Plato's philosophical project aspires to transcend the boundaries of ancient Greek cosmos, Platonic politics cannot be separated from its historical context, that is, the circumstances that gave rise to philosophy as a silent perhaps, but revolutionary, in it intentions political act. (shrink)

Recently, many philosophers and psychologists have claimed that the explanation that grounds both passivity phenomena in the cognitive domain and passivity phenomena that occur with respect to overt actions is, along broad lines, the same. Furthermore, they claim that the best account we have of such phenomena in both scenarios is the “comparator” account. However, there are reasons to doubt whether the comparator model can be exported from the realm of overt actions to the cognitive domain in general. There is (...) a lingering worry concerning such explanations of thought insertion: the "What is compared to what?" problem. Here I examine two ways to tackle this problem. First: thought insertion consists of the misattribution of strings of inner speech which are not attenuated (thought insertion is thus another name for auditory verbal hallucinations). Second: thought insertion is misattributed inner speech which exhibits the same phenomenological characteristics as normal inner speech. After explaining the types of problem that each of these potential solutions faces, I conclude with a set of open questions that the comparator theorist has to tackle. (shrink)

This volume of essays traces the history of jurisprudence from classical times, and examines various interpretations of written laws.

Responding to Alain Badiou’s ‘communist hypothesis’, the leading political philosophers of the Left convened in London in 2009 to take part in a landmark conference to discuss the perpetual, persistent notion that, in a truly emancipated society, all things should be owned in common. This volume brings together their discussions on the philosophical and political import of the communist idea, highlighting both its continuing significance and the need to reconfigure the concept within a world marked by havoc and crisis.

In this article, an epistemological and ontological view of Statistical Mechanics is presented. The author believes that this is a clear-cut example that can prove to be useful as a resource material for teachers, and also, a clear pedagogical material for science students when taking courses of Philosophy of Science. Statistical Mechanics is a regular course on most science and engineering programs, we believe that this fact facilitate the understanding of the philosophical discussion here presented.