As this article shows, the closeness between the work of the French Beguine and the late sermons in German by Meister Eckhart is perceptible. It is evident mainly through the analysis that both authors made of spiritual poverty. Nevertheless, the present work also reveals the fundamental differences that exist between the two mystics. Finally, it indicates the philosophical relevance of these two paradigmatic forms of mystical discourse.

Este artículo es una breve introducción al opúsculo De veritate propositionis de Roberto Grosseteste , acompañada por una traducción inédita de dicho opúsculo, la primera que por primera vez puede ser leído en español. En él Grosseteste comenta el problema de los futuros contingentes tal y como fue expuesto por Aristóteles en Sobre la interpretación, capítulo IX. Las soluciones de Aristóteles y Grosseteste son similares, aunque la idea de necesidad en Grosseteste está más vinculada a la eternidad que a la (...) temporalidad. (shrink)

This study examines the event- related brain potential of 25 Mexican monolingual Spanish-speakers when reading Spanish sentences with single entity anaphora or complex anaphora. Complex anaphora is an expression that refer to propositions, states, facts or events while, a single entity anaphora is an expression that refers back to a concrete object. Here we compare the cognitive cost in processing a single entity anaphora [éstafeminine; La renuncia ] from a complex anaphora [estoneuter; La renuncia fue aceptada ]. Ésta elicited a (...) larger positive peak at 200 ms, and esto elicited a larger frontal negativity around 400 ms. The positivity resembles the P200 component, and its amplitude is thought to represent an interaction between predictive qualities in sentence processing. Unlike parietal negativities, frontal negativities are thought to represent the ease by which pronouns are linked with its antecedent, and how easy the information is recovered from short-term memory. Thus, the complex anaphora recruited more cognitive resources than the single entity anaphora. We also included an ungrammatical control sentence [éstemasculine; La renuncia ] to better understand the unique processes behind complex anaphoric resolution, as opposed to just general difficulty in sentence processing. In this case, event-related potentials elicited by éstemasculine and éstafeminine were compared. Again, ésta elicited a larger P200. However, different from the experimental condition, a left anterior negativity effect was observed for éste; the ungrammatical condition. Altogether, the present research provides electrophysiological evidence indicating that demonstrative pronouns with different morphosyntactic features and discourse parameters interact during the first stage of anaphoric processing of anaphora. This stage initiated as early as 200 milliseconds after the pronoun onset and probably ends around 400 ms. (shrink)

Fear to contamination is an easy-to-provoke, intense, hard-to-control, and extraordinarily persistent fear. A worsening of preexisting psychiatric disorders was observed during the COVID-19 outbreak, and several studies suggest that those with obsessive–compulsive disorder may be more affected than any other group of people. In the face of worsening OCD symptoms, there is a need for mental health professionals to provide the support needed not only to treat patients who still report symptoms, but also to improve relapse prevention. In this line, (...) it is recommended to improve alternative strategies such as online consultations and digital psychiatry. The aim of this study is to develop augmented reality stimuli that are clinically relevant for patients with cleaning OCD and assess their efficiency to obtain emotionally significant responses. Four AR stimuli were developed: a plastic bag full of garbage, a piece of bread with mold, a dirty sports shoe, and a piece of rotten meat. All stimuli were shown to a clinical group and a control group. Relevant results were the design of the AR stimuli. These stimuli were validated with the statistical difference in perceived anxiety in the meat stimuli between the clinical and control groups. Nevertheless, when looking at effect sizes, all stimuli present effect sizes from small to large, with both shoe and bread between small and medium effect sizes. These results are a valuable support for the clinical use of these AR stimuli in the treatment of cleaning OCD. (shrink)

The dual career allows elite athletes to attain their maximum competitive and academic performance, but the COVID-19 pandemic hindered their development and changed their perception of the importance given to the sporting and educational environment. For this reason, the aim of the present study was to determine the differences in the motivations and perceived barriers, the importance given to academic qualifications, and the perception of the dual career from a multifactorial perspective, of elite athletes according to sex, type of sport (...) practiced, job performance, time of sports career, type of athlete, and type of scholarship received. A total of 100 student-athletes participated in the research study by completing the “Perceptions of dual career student-athletes” questionnaire. The results showed that athletes from individual modalities and those who did not receive any scholarships described more barriers. In addition, women studied more because they enjoyed it ; athletes from individual modalities studied to work later ; athletes who do not work perceived a greater influence between study and sports performance ; at the beginning and at the best stage of their sports career, a greater influence of academics on performance was perceived ; and athletes who considered themselves professionals, and athletes who did not receive any scholarships, reported that the conciliation between sports and academic life was difficult. The results obtained point to the importance of dual career scholarships for student-athletes, as well as the need for the programs implemented for these athletes to consider sex, sport modality or type of scholarship granted. (shrink)

Corruption involves greed, money, and risky decision-making. We explore the love of money, pay satisfaction, probability of risk, and dishonesty across cultures. Avaricious monetary aspiration breeds unethicality. Prospect theory frames decisions in the gains-losses domain and high-low probability. Pay dissatisfaction (in the losses domain) incites dishonesty in the name of justice at the individual level. The Corruption Perceptions Index, CPI, signals a high-low probability of getting caught for dishonesty at the country level. We theorize that decision-makers adopt avaricious love-of-money aspiration (...) as a lens and frame dishonesty in the gains-losses domain (pay satisfaction-dissatisfaction, Level 1) and high-low probability (CPI, Level 2) to maximize expected utility and ultimate serenity. We challenge the myth: Pay satisfaction mitigates dishonesty across nations consistently. Based on 6500 managers in 32 countries, our cross-level three-dimensional visualization offers the following discoveries. Under high aspiration conditions, pay dissatisfaction excites the highest- (third-highest) avaricious justice-seeking dishonesty in high (medium) CPI nations, supporting the certainty effect. However, pay satisfaction provokes the second-highest avaricious opportunity-seizing dishonesty in low CPI entities, sustaining the possibility effect—maximizing expected utility. Under low aspiration conditions, high pay satisfaction consistently leads to low dishonesty, demonstrating risk aversion—achieving ultimate serenity. We expand prospect theory from a micro and individual-level theory to a cross-level theory of monetary wisdom across 32 nations. We enhance the S-shaped Curve to three 3-D corruption surfaces across three levels of the global economic pyramid, providing novel insights into behavioral economics, business ethics, the environment, and responsibility. (shrink)

Resumen. El siguiente artículo muestra el estado actual de la Responsabilidad Empresarial enMéxico y su efecto en el Riesgo medido a través del Costo de Capital. Para ello, revisamos lasprincipales teorías que muestran que el uso de prácticas sociales en Estados Unidos provocandisminución del riesgo y por ende del Costo de Capital, Aras y Crowther, Richardson yWelker y Diamond y Verrechia. Con el fin de contrastar que las empresas SocialmenteResponsables tienen costos de capital menores consideramos como variable de desempeño social (...) eldistintivo que otorga el Centro Mexicano de Filantropía y por otra parte para calcular elriesgo consideramos el costo de capital a través de la metodología del Capital Asset Price Modelo. Encontramos que las empresas que son socialmente responsables tienen costos de capitalsuperiores que las que no son responsables y que el rendimiento de acciones es superior en lasempresas no responsables, por lo que el diferencial de riesgo vs rendimiento es superior en lasempresas no socialmente responsables. Lo anterior rechaza la hipótesis y contrasta con la realidadempírica de otros estudios.Palabras claves. Distintivo de ESR, CEMEFI, costo de capital, riesgo, rentabilidad de acciones,Bolsa de Valores. The following article shows the current status of the corporate responsibility inMexico and their effect on risk measured by the cost of capital. To do this, we review the maintheories that show that social practices in the United States leads to decrease risk and hence the costof Capital Aras and Crowther, Richardson and Welker and Diamond y Verrechia. In order to contrast that socially responsible companies have lower capital costs we considersocial performance variable the distinction conferred by the Mexican Center for Philanthropy and the cost of capital it estimate on the methodology of the Capital Asset Price model. We find that companies that are socially responsible have capital costs higher than thosethat are not responsible. It rejects the hypothesis and contrasts with the empirical reality of otherstudies.Keywords. CSR distintive, CEMEFI, cost of capital, risk, return in shares, Capital Market Securities. (shrink)

Existe gran consenso dentro de la academia en relación a la necesidad de tener en cuenta un gran número de variables para poder conceptualizar y medir la inclusión o, por ende, la exclusión social que viven ciertos colectivos. A través de un estudio en profundidad de la bibliografía, casos piloto y proyectos similares, se ha creado un sistema de indicadores con la finalidad de medir el impacto socioeconómico de una actividad sociodeportiva vinculada a la inclusión de personas con diversidad funcional. (...) El sistema resultante, se aplicarán en el caso piloto VARIED, un proyecto europeo realizado en cinco países de la propia Unión Europea. (shrink)

Adrian Vlot used a lot of information when he wrote his article. I do not intend this brief presentation to give additional information or remarks on the topic. My aim is to support his ideas. I am a mathematician, physicist and theologian. I interpret science as a human activity describing and understanding the phenomena of the created universe based on observation, explaining the relationships in the universe afterwards and, in addition, discovering further areas via human intellectual abilities. In my interpretation (...) technology is something through which man makes use of the experience, knowledge, discovered relationships and laws in practice to create new tools or new materials which facilitate further research. That is how science and technology are related. In historical chronology, technology preceded science but later science also achieved results preceding their application in practice. Among others, the chronological intertwining is represented by Faraday and Maxwell’s activities. (shrink)

El presente libro constituye una interesante propuesta para enfrentar el estudio del pasado de una manera distinta a la historiografía tradicional, a la cual se la ha criticado muchas veces por su escritura compleja y por la escasa empatía que las investigaciones generan con el lector que no es especialista en este tipo de conocimientos. Es por esto que, y al igual que lo realizado en XIX Historias del siglo diecinueve chileno, los autores del texto presentan una serie de artículos (...) en los que.. (shrink)

A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time is a concise and accessible survey of the history of philosophical and scientific developments in understanding time and our experience of time. It discusses prominent ideas about the nature of time, plus many subsidiary puzzles about time, from the classical period through the present.

El presente artículo se propone analizar, de acuerdo con Heidegger, el problema del conocimiento y la relación y modo de ser entre sujeto y objeto que subyace en éste, esbozando, para ello, un lineamiento general de las tesis constitutivas y presupuestos básicos que han operado en su tematización a lo largo de la tradición metafísica filosófica. Se tomará por referencia la etapa del primer Heidegger y la analítica-existencial del Dasein como base desde la cual observamos el fenómeno del conocer. _Palabras (...) Clave_: Heidegger – Fenomenología – Conocimiento – Sujeto. (shrink)

Raimo Tuomela, late Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Philosophy of Social Sciences (TINT), University of Helsinki, is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers of our time. He published extensively on various topics within social philosophy; particularly, on social action, cooperation, group belief, group responsibility, group reasoning, social practices, and institutions. To celebrate his legacy, this volume engages with and delves deeply into his philosophy of sociality. By gathering original essays from a world-class line-up of social ontologists, (...) social action theorists, and social philosophers, this collection provides the first comprehensive and critical treatment of Tuomela's outstanding contribution to social ontology and collective intentionality. (shrink)

The general concept of a trope – that of a non-shareable character-grounder – admits of a distinction between modifier tropes and module tropes. Roughly, a module trope is self-exemplifying whereas a modifier trope is not. This distinction has wide-ranging implications. Modifier tropes are uniquely eligible to be powers and fundamental determinables, whereas module tropes are uniquely eligible to play a direct role in perception and causation. Moreover, each type of trope theory faces unique challenges concerning character- grounding. Modifier trope theory (...) faces challenges concerning the inscrutability of predication and the incompatibility with bundle theory, whereas module trope theory faces challenges concerning character overdetermination and a collapse into austere nominalism. These differences indicate that the modifier/module distinction divides the advantages of general trope theory and thus presents the trope theorist with a pivotal choice. (shrink)

In this paper I explore Michael Loux’s important distinction between “tropes” and “tropers”. First, I argue that the distinction throws into relief an ambiguity and discrepancy in the literature, revealing two fundamentally different versions of trope theory. Second, I argue that the distinction brings into focus unique challenges facing each of the resulting trope theories, thus calling into question an alleged advantage of trope theory—that by uniquely occupying the middle ground between its rivals, trope theory is able to recover and (...) preserve the insights of these views. Ultimately, the distinction suggests that trope theory is a divided house. (shrink)

By transcendental aesthetic, Kant means “the science of all principles of a priori sensibility” (A 21/B 35). These, he argues, are the laws that properly direct our judgments of taste (B 35 – 36 fn.), i.e. our aesthetic judgments as we ordinarily understand that notion in the context of contemporary art. Thus the first part of the Critique of Pure Reason, entitled the Transcendental Aesthetic, enumerates the necessary presuppositions of, among other things, our ability to make empirical judgments about particular (...) works of art. These presuppositions are sensible rather than intellectual because on Kant’s view, all intellection that considers objects of any kind, whether abstract or concrete, must at base connect to actual, material objects with which we come into direct contact; and this we can do only through sensibility (A 19/B 33). Thus the following discussion explores what Kant claims must be true of us in order to make the sorts of aesthetic judgments we make, rather than any particular class or quality of aesthetic judgments itself. On Kant’s view, what must be true of us in order to make aesthetic judgments is not different from what must be true of us in order to make any other kind of judgment about empirical objects. (shrink)

‘Social auditing’ is everywhere. An increasing number of companies – and also public and voluntary sector organisations – are trying to assess their social performance systematically. Shell, BP and General Motors are among them. How are they doing it? What impact do NGOs and civil society organisations have on this process? Do they have a privileged place in social audits? This article looks at these questions, and sets out a framework for understanding social audits and civil society. Examples are drawn (...) particularly from the recent Camelot social audit (‘Camelot and Social Responsibility’, Social Report 1999). Camelot plc is the operator of the UK national lottery. (shrink)

By transcendental aesthetic, Kant means “the science of all principles of a priori sensibility” (A 21/B 35). These, he argues, are the laws that properly direct our judgments of taste (B 35 – 36 fn.), i.e. our aesthetic judgments as we ordinarily understand that notion in the context of contemporary art. Thus the first part of the Critique of Pure Reason, entitled the Transcendental Aesthetic, enumerates the necessary presuppositions of, among other things, our ability to make empirical judgments about particular (...) works of art. These presuppositions are sensible rather than intellectual because on Kant's view, all intellection that considers objects of any kind, whether abstract or concrete, must at base connect to actual, material objects with which we come into direct contact; and this we can do only through sensibility (A 19/B 33). Thus the following discussion explores what Kant claims must be true of us in order to make the sorts of aesthetic judgments we make, rather than any particular class or quality of aesthetic judgments itself. On Kant's view, what must be true of us in order to make aesthetic judgments is not different from what must be true of us in order to make any other kind of judgment about empirical objects. This last point is worth emphasizing, in order to correct an interpretation of Kant's account of aesthetic judgment in the Critique of Judgment that wrongly reads Kant as claiming that aesthetic judgments do not have to satisfy the same basic requirements of judgment that any other kind of judgment also must satisfy, such as the synthetic subsumption of such objects under certain necessary and hard-wired concepts of understanding, the internal coherence of such judgments with other, non-aesthetic ones of a more abstract and comprehensive character, the unified consciousness within which such judgments are intelligibly made, and the like. Of course Kant recognizes the special character of aesthetic judgments and unpacks it in the... (shrink)

Hacemos una lectura del “Tratado sobre los principios de la teología” de Guillermo de Occam, y echamos un vistazo a la Escolástica tardía que esta obra representa tan bien, revisando diferentes referencias bibliográficas, que me han permitido conocer y analizar diferentes conceptos y enfoques acerca de este singular tema. De hecho, se trata de una obra mayor, de gran calibre, pero de autor incierto, generalmente atribuida a Occam, aunque la autoría real está en disputa. Lo cierto es que se trata (...) de un momento culminante de una época de la historia del pensamiento occidental; una en la que su autor, con briosa arquitectura, levanta un edificio que perenniza el pensar occamista, comentándolo, glosándolo y dándole forma enciclopédica, minuciosa, como la que uno esperaría encontrar en un diccionario o un manual del Nominalismo naciente. (shrink)

Inspired by the writings of J. M. Hinton (1967a, 1967b, 1973), but ushered into the mainstream by Paul Snowdon (1980–1, 1990–1), John McDowell (1982, 1986), and M. G. F. Martin (2002, 2004, 2006), disjunctivism is currently discussed, advocated, and opposed in the philosophy of perception, the theory of knowledge, the theory of practical reason, and the philosophy of action. But what is disjunctivism?

En la visión del autor, la modernidad lleva en su interior la diferencia, y es por esto, que su articulación es un proceso conflictivo. Señala que el paso del discurso del cuerpo social de la modernidad al cuerpo fragmentado de la época actual no produce consensos, y que el paso del discurso unitario de lo social a la fragmentación de los discursos no implica el fin de los conflictos, sólo instaura una nueva época para los mismos. En este planteamiento, recorre (...) los problemas del presente y los desafíos del futuro, y reseña una cartografía de características que dé cuenta del discurso fragmentario. (shrink)

La Filosofía Latinoamericana nació con el conflicto acerca de lo propio y lo ajeno, es decir una filosofía que hizo de su propio estatuto de posibilidad el contenido a desarrollar. Por tanto, un pensamiento que alejado de los cánones metafísicos y epistemológicos propios del occidente europeo, se ha jugado desde sus comienzos por contestar las dos preguntas fundamentales para nuestra región ¿Qué somos? y ¿Qué podemos ser en el orden mundial? Con toda la carga política e identitaria que estas preguntas (...) llevan tras de sí. El presente artículo pretende dar cuenta de ese ideario desde los emancipadores y los positivistas de fines del siglo XIX hasta la filosofía revolucionarista de los años sesenta. (shrink)

El autor postula que la necesidad creciente de seguridad hunde sus raíces en un cambio general en la manera de percibir la realidad, a partir de una crisis de sentido producto de las múltiples muertes de proyectos y concepciones. Por otro lado, el crecimiento económico sin equidad se ha convertido en fuente de inseguridad. Con todo, se afirma que existe una construcción cultural del miedo, el que luego se administra desde dispositivos de seguridad. Se explica finalmente el tránsito de la (...) seguridad nacional a la seguridad ciudadana. (shrink)

Jane Arden’s debut feature film The Other Side of the Underneath is an adaptation of the radical feminist play A New Communion for Freaks, Prophets and Witches. In both the play and the later film, the all-female cast re-enact personal and archetypal situations using autobiographical material, which was collectively gathered from group therapy sessions led by the director. Psychedelic drugs were also consumed during the group therapy sessions. In this article, I will situate Arden’s distinct approach to performance in the (...) film within the framework of psychodrama, focusing specifically on the role that psychedelic drugs play in unleashing performers’ repressed feelings of trauma, rage, and desire; these emotions are harnessed into a dynamic mode of performance that amplifies the cathartic possibilities of women’s speech. The film’s heady brew of radical feminist politics, group therapy, and countercultural self-actualisation is both challenging and contentious. I argue that Arden’s pursuit of consciousness liberation through psychodrama and psychedelics—in other words, through ‘raising’ and ‘expanding’ consciousness—is best understood as a concerted attempt to align countercultural and radical feminist tactics for unravelling repressive forms of social conditioning. (shrink)

There remains no consensus among social scientists as to how to measure and understand forms of information deprivation such as misinformation. Machine learning and statistical analyses of information deprivation typically contain problematic operationalizations which are too often biased towards epistemic elites' conceptions that can undermine their empirical adequacy. A mature science of information deprivation should include considerable citizen involvement that is sensitive to the value-ladenness of information quality and that doing so may improve the predictive and explanatory power of extant (...) models. (shrink)

I critically discuss two claims which Hannah Ginsborg makes on behalf of her account of meaning in terms of ‘primitive normativity’: first, that it avoids the sceptical regress articulated by Kripke's Wittgenstein; second, that it makes sense of the thought—central to Kripke's Wittgenstein—that ‘meaning is normative’, in a way which shows this thought not only to be immune from recent criticisms but also to undermine reductively naturalistic theories of content. In the course of the discussion, I consider and attempt to (...) shed light on a number of issues: the structure of the sceptical regress; the content of the thought that ‘meaning is normative’, and its force against reductive theories; the connection between meaning and justification; and the notion of ‘primitive normativity’. (shrink)

Microbial ecology is flourishing, and in the process, is making contributions to how the ecology and biology of large organisms is understood. Ongoing advances in sequencing technology and computational methods have enabled the collection and analysis of vast amounts of molecular data from diverse biological communities. While early studies focused on cataloguing microbial biodiversity in environments ranging from simple marine ecosystems to complex soil ecologies, more recent research is concerned with community functions and their dynamics over time. Models and concepts (...) from traditional ecology have been used to generate new insight into microbial communities, and novel system-level models developed to explain and predict microbial interactions. The process of moving from molecular inventories to functional understanding is complex and challenging, and never more so than when many thousands of dynamic interactions are the phenomena of interest. We outline the process of how epistemic transitions are made from producing catalogues of molecules to achieving functional and predictive insight, and show how those insights not only revolutionize what is known about biological systems but also about how to do biology itself. Examples will be drawn primarily from analyses of different human microbiota, which are the microbial consortia found in and on areas of the human body, and their associated microbiomes (the genes of those communities). Molecular knowledge of these microbiomes is transforming microbiological knowledge, as well as broader aspects of human biology, health and disease. (shrink)

Defends a version of the Davidsonian Demonstrative Theory of quotation against proponents of the Fregean Identity Theory.

This chapter offers an indirect defence of the Evansian conception of egocentric space, by showing how it resolves a puzzle concerning the unity of egocentric spatial perception. The chapter outlines several common assumptions about egocentric perspectival structure and argues that a subject’s experience, both within and across her sensory modalities, may involve multiple structures of this kind. This raises the question of how perspectival unity is achieved, such that these perspectival structures form a complex whole, rather than merely disunified set (...) of individually, distinctively structured experiences. The shortcomings of variety of accounts are considered: switch accounts ; sensory accounts; transformation accounts; and ultimate accounts. These shortcomings are addressed by a further kind of account provided by the Evansian conception – an agentive account – according to which egocentrically structured experiences present the world in relation to parts of a single thing, the body as a dynamic unity. (shrink)

Does the existence of body representations undermine the explanatory role of the body? Or do certain types of representation depend so closely upon the body that their involvement in a cognitive task implicates the body itself? In the introduction of this special issue we explore lines of tension and complement that might hold between the notions of embodiment and body representations, which remain too often neglected or obscure. To do so, we distinguish two conceptions of embodiment that either put weight (...) on the explanatory role of the body itself or body representations. We further analyse how and to what extent body representations can be said to be embodied. Finally, we give an overview of the full volume articulated around foundational issues (How should we define the notion of embodiment? To what extent and in what sense is embodiment compatible with representationalism? To what extent and in what sense are sensorimotor approaches similar to behaviourism?) and their applications in several cognitive domains (perception, concepts, selfhood, social cognition). (shrink)

This paper defends a version of Davidson’s demonstrative theory of quotation and against against the Fregean identity theory (IT henceforth) as articulated and defended by Corey Washington (1992). On the Fregean view, when an expression is referred to by means of quotation the quoted material itself is a linguistic referring expression. Quotation-marks are not needed; when they are used, they serve to make clearer the shift in syntactic and semantic properties effected on the quoted material by its occupying that linguistic (...) context: whatever its usual syntactic function, the quoted material functions as a singular term; whatever its usual semantic function, in that linguistic environment the quoted material refers to itself. On DT, in contrast, quotation-marks themselves are the linguistic bearers of reference, functioning like a demonstrative; the quoted material merely plays the role of a demonstratum. In the version I argue for the referent is obtained through some contextually suggested relation; in the default case the relation will be: … instantiates the linguistic type __, but there are other possibilities. In this way, the view can deal with the fact that we do not merely refer with quotations to expression-types, but also to other entities related in some way to the relevant token we use: features exhibited by the token distinct from those constituting its linguistic type, features exhibited by other tokens of the same type but not by the one actually used (as when, by using a graphic token, we refer to its phonetic type), or even other related tokens. (shrink)

An original account of social justice using Neo-Aristotelian value theory to fully explore the concept of human good. The book concentrates on developing a pluralist egalitarian theory of social justice in conjunction with a distinctive account of human good.

This volume will be an essential resource for anyone working in the central areas of philosophy, and the starting point for future research in this fascinating ...

Mathematics, as Eugene Wigner noted, is unreasonably effective in physics. The argument of this paper is that the disproportionate attention that philosophers have paid to discrete structures such as the natural numbers, for which a nominalist construction may be possible, has deprived us of the best argument for Platonism, which lies in continuous structures—in fields and their derived algebras, such as Clifford algebras. The argument that Wigner was making is best made with respect to such structures—in a loose sense, with (...) respect to geometry rather than arithmetic. The purpose of the present paper is to make this connection between mathematical realism and geometrical entities. It thus constitutes an argument against formalism, for which mathematics is merely a game with humanly set rules; and nominalism, in which whatever mathematics is used is eliminable in the final analysis, by often insufficiently specified means. The hope is that light may be cast on the stubborn mysteries of the nature of quantum mechanics and its mathematical formulation, with particular reference to spinor representations—as they have been developed by Andrej Trautman. Thus, according to our argument, quantum mechanics (QM) may appear more natural, as we have better reasons to take spinor structures as irreducibly real, a view consonant with the work of Trautman and Penrose in particular. (shrink)