The extended evolutionary synthesis intends to offer a new framework for understanding evolution based mainly on empirical and theoretical findings of current studies, including heredity and evolutionary developmental biology. In this essay, we present and develop the following objections about the terminology associated with the EES literature: despite using the term "extension," EES protagonists claim new evolutionary processes, reformulate conceptual networks, and modify central assumptions of the evolutionary synthesis. Therefore, the difference between ES and EES should not be described in (...) terms of a set-subset relationship ; despite using the term "synthesis," the EES leads, at least in the short term, to a pluralism of approaches in evolutionary biology. Thus, we argue that the EES should not be described as a synthesis, but as a broad and plural interpretative framework encompassing different approaches. These objections are not directed to the proposed changes, but to the interpretation of these changes as a mere expansion of the previous evolutionary framework, as well as to the interpretation of the EES as a synthesis. Based on these objections, we seek to present some explanations for the use of the term "extended synthesis" among its protagonists. (shrink)

RésuméIntroductionLa motivation est. un thème crucial et répandu en médecine. Que. ce soit pour un scénario clinique ou chirurgical, l’acceptation de prendre une pilule ou de se rendre à une consultation est. essentielle au succès du traitement médical. La “décennie du cerveau” a fourni aux praticiens des données neuroscientifiques substantielles sur le comportement humain, a aidé à expliquer pourquoi les gens font ce qu’ils font et a créé le concept de “cerveau motivé”. Les résultats de la psychologie empirique ont stratifié (...) la motivation en étapes de changement, qui sont devenues plus complexes au fil des décennies. Cette recherche vise à améliorer la compréhension de la façon dont les gens prennent des décisions concernant leur santé et comment mieux comprendre les stratégies et les techniques pour les aider à résoudre les problèmes d’ambivalence de manière efficace et ciblée.MéthodesNous établissons un dialogue avec la phénoménologie de la volonté de Ricoeur afin de comprendre le sens de ces découvertes scientifiques. À partir de la phénoménologie husserlienne, Paul Ricoeur a développé sa pensée en s’éloignant de l’idéalisme transcendantal en émancipant les structures intentionnelles de la volonté du domaine de la perception. Résultats: En introduisant les concepts de volontaire et d’involontaire, Ricoeur s’est. écarté du dualisme cartésien, qui fait du corps un corps d’objet, cible de vicissitudes naturelles. Le nouveau dualisme entre volontaire et involontaire est. traité par référence à ce que Ricoeur a appelé le mystère central de l’existence incarnée, qui considère l’homme “double dans l’humanité, simple dans lavitalité”. Cette dualité permet de considérer le cerveau comme l’organe naturel du comportement dans le corps humain et d’utiliser la psychologie empirique comme moyen d’échapper aux subjectivations superficielles des concepts.ConclusionLa simplicité (ou unité) d’existence invite la médecine à repenser certaines de ses hypothèses philosophiques, de telle sorte que les patients puissent être considérés comme des sujets autonomes avec des projets de vie d’auteur. L’anthropologie ricourienne a un impact éthique profond sur la manière dont la médecine devrait utiliser la technologie, ce qui découle de résultats de psychologie empirique. L’utilisation de ces nouvelles connaissances doit également faire l’objet d’une inspection minutieuse, car elle modifie le rôle social de la science médicale. (shrink)

o presente artigo pretende discutir a proposta de se trabalhar o cinema como componente do ensino de filosofia, a partir das idéias de Gilles Deleuze acerca da arte cinematográfica e de desdobramentos de sua filosofia direcionados a questões pedagógicas.

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and political (...) philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

Apresentação do Dossiê temático 'Bem-estar / Mal-estar do alunado e do professorado: saúde do corpo e da mente no ambiente formativo' - Parte 1: Discentes. Editorial do número 30, v. 1, Ano XVII, Jul-Dez, 2023. Artigos fluxo contínuo.

Este artigo é uma reflexão sobre o processo de formação identitária do espiritismo a partir da análise de seu discurso fundador presente na obra de Allan Kardec (1804-1869). Para cumprir este objetivo, trabalhar-se-á com a hipótese de que tal processo acontece a partir de uma peculiar interação do espiritismo com três instâncias de conhecimento: a ciência, a filosofia e a religião. Através da análise do exemplo específico de como o espiritismo interpreta elementos da tradição cristã-católica, dando-lhes um significado renovado, pretende-se (...) demonstrar que neste jogo, o conceito de espiritismo se configura como um conceito híbrido, de caráter polissêmico, o qual aponta para o fato de que a nova doutrina e o movimento articulado em seu entorno nascem sob o signo da mediação. Tais reflexões indicariam que, ao fazerem referência à obra de Kardec como núcleo imaginário de identificação doutrinária, grupos das diversas tendências dentro do espiritismo contemporâneo podem encontrar relativas zonas de conforto para seu progressivo desenvolvimento. Palavras-chave: Espiritismo; Ciência; Filosofia; Religião; Fronteiras.This paper is a reflection about the identity formation process of spiritism from analysis of its founding speech present in Allan Kardec's work (1804-1869). To fulfill this aim, one will work with the hypothesis of that such process happens from a peculiar interaction of the spiritism with three instances of knowledge: the science, the philosophy and the religion. Through the analysis of the specific example of as the spiritism interprets elements of the Christian-catholic tradition, giving to them one renewed meaning, is intended to demonstrate that in this game, the spiritism concept if configures as a hybrid concept, of polissemic character, which points with respect to the fact of that the new doctrine and the movement articulated in its around are born under the sign of the mediation. Such reflections would indicate that, when making reference to the Kardec's work as imaginary nucleus of doctrinal identification, groups of the diverse trends inside of the contemporary spiritism can find relative zones of comfort for its gradual development Key words: Spiritism; Science; Philosophy; Religion; Boundaries. (shrink)

To investigate the effects of two different modes of physical activity on body composition, physical fitness, cardiometabolic risk, and psychological responses in female adolescents participating in a multi-disciplinary program. The 12-week randomized intervention included 25-adolescents with overweight divided into two groups: sports practice-SPG and functional training-FTG. The SPG intervention was divided into three sports: basketball, handball, and futsal. SPG participants performed one sport 3-times/week, over the course of 1 month. The FTG performed concurrent exercises 3-times/week. This study was registered in (...) Clinical Trials Registry Platform under number: RBR-45ywtg and registered in Local Ethics Committee number: 2,505.200/2018. The intensity of physical exercises-PE was matched between groups by the rating of perceived exertion. The primary outcome was body composition, and secondary outcomes were physical fitness, cardiometabolic risk, and psychological responses. There was a significant time-effect for body mass, body mass index, and low-density lipoprotein, all being reduced. There were increases over time for musculoskeletal mass, aerobic fitness, and high-density lipoprotein. There was a group time interaction with body fat percentage being lower post-intervention in the SPG. No significant differences were observed for the other variables. Both physical activity models were effective in improving a subset of obesity-related health parameters. The findings should be extended by further investigation using more sophisticated measures of energy expenditure.Clinical Trial Registration:https://ensaiosclinicos.gov.br/, identifier: RBR-45ywtg. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the limits of the mainstream individualistic notion of resilience and, in light of these limits, it advances a new, relational notion of the concept of resilience that contributes to the individuals’ well-being and takes into consideration the role of systemic inequality. The first half of the paper argues that the individualistic notion is flawed in two ways: i) it can foster ill-being because it is cognitively taxing, and ii) it discounts systemic (...) inequality because it transfers the responsibility of any achievement and failure onto the single individual without regard for conditions of oppression. The second half of the paper reconceptualizes the concept of resilience as a relational notion that takes into account structural support as well as conditions of oppression and marginalization. According to this latter notion of resilience, the chapter argues that oppression, lack of material conditions, or lack of structural support are elements that can impact the appropriateness of calls to be resilient. A relational notion of resilience fosters well-being because it puts the collective community at the center (instead of the individual) and it takes into consideration material conditions and structural injustices. (shrink)

Several countries maintain universal health coverage, which implies responsibility to organize delivery formats of healthcare services and products for citizens. In Brazil, the health system has a principle of universal access for more than 30 years, but many deficiencies remain and the country observes a day practice for those seeking judicial decisions to determine provision of healthcare.

ObjectiveThis study aims to analyze sociohistorically how the normative patterns of hegemonic masculinity produced impacts on men’s health/mental health in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsA qualitative study from a socio-historical perspective was conducted with 50 men based on an online survey. A semistructured form was applied. The data were analyzed by the Collective Subject Discourse method, interpreted in the light of the context of epidemic disease and hegemonic masculinity.ResultsThe experience of the pandemic exposed the normative patterns of masculinities from (...) the consummation of acts representative of the pandemic context, which incited men to deny the existence of COVID-19 disease and to delay the understanding and adoption of measures to protect and control COVID-19. As a repercussion, men presented conflicts in the regulation of emotions; presented emotional suppression; were more reactive; felt threatened regarding the loss of the role of family provider, virility; and revealed a sense of invulnerability, added to the weakening of self-care.ConclusionThe discourse revealed that the men’s behaviors are consistent with the characteristics of hegemonic masculinity, but express signs of recognition that this behavior causes harm to themselves and their health. (shrink)

La fe como elevación del conocer personal. Con el método del abandono del límite mental, Polo descubrió el acceso a la realidad trans-inmanente o trans-operativa del ser humano, alcanzando así el entendimiento agente aristotélico o conocer personal como el conocimiento superior del ser humano. Dicho conocimiento no encuentra en sí su tema, lo cual lo abre para que trascendiéndose lo busque fuera de sí. El acto de fe debe consistir en la iluminación de dicho conocer por el cual percibe en (...) Cristo su tema o réplica, quien a su vez es réplica del Padre. (shrink)

Neste artigo propomos uma leitura do conto “La exportación de cérebros” (Movimiento perpetuo, 1972), do guatemalteco Augusto Monterroso à luz do conceito de cosmopolitismo do pobre, do ensaísta brasileiro Silviano Santiago. Para isso, é feita uma análise crítica e abrangente do texto, relacionando-o com a realidade dos nossos dias.

Este livro consiste na apresentação de todo um embasamento teórico so-bre a história e a conceituação da fraternidade no mundo ocidental, em duas vertentes: o legado do cristianismo e as concepções políticas do Iluminismo e da Revolução Francesa. Abrange ainda a análise do conto 'A hora e vez de Augusto Matraga', de Guimarães Rosa, e do romance Quarup, de Antônio Callado. Em relação ao conto rosiano, uma parte da análise dos pretos velhos que protagonizam a ação fraterna já se (...) encontra no ensaio 'A fraternidade como exceção', no livro Da ignomínia à pertença, publicado pela Editora Cajuína em 2021. Trata-se do enfoque de personagens secundários, porém muito importantes no destino do protagonista. O romance calladiano também demonstra ação decisiva de personagens marginais que salvam o herói da violência sofrida por um agente da ditadura militar. Nas duas narrativas, a ação da fraternidade é a negativa da representação de uma violência secular enraizada na vida brasileira. Assim, além da análise literária, o livro mostra o quanto as reflexões sobre a fraternidade, em avanço extraordinário nos últimos anos em vários campos do conhecimento, praticamente em nada têm tocado a teoria da literatura e a crítica. ISBN: 9786586270662 | Editora: Cajuína | Autor: Arturo Gouveia. (shrink)

An atmosfere of fear seems to surround western culture in the last two or three decades. From it stems a new kind of fear, imaginarially expressed in the fear of collapse event. In this paper, we chart some manifestations of the new fear of collapse in the sphere of cinema and of intelectual academic writings. In the first case, with the emergence of collapse and zombie movies in cultural industry productions; in the second one, in the emergence of civilizational collapse (...) as a theme for historians, systems and complexity cientists, ecologists, peak-oil theorists, economists, social scientists etc. Some possible explanatory hipothesis for the emergency of this fenomenon are conjectured. (shrink)

One question in moral psychology concerns the role of emotions to motivate moral action. This question has recently become more urgent, because it is now clearer that cognitive developmental theories cannot offer a complete explanation of moral functioning. This paper suggests that emotion, as is typically understood in psychology, cannot be seen as the basis for an acceptable explanation of moral behaviour and motivation. However, it is argued that it is possible to understand emotions as embedded in agentic processes, and (...) regulated by conscious concerns. So understood, emotions acquire an important role in the person's moral life. These conclusions are reached through an extensive review of psychological and philosophical conceptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Hablar de conflictos y negociación en medio de la guerra no es fácil. Los ánimos exacerbados nunca han sido buenos consejeros para la toma prudente de decisiones, de allí que el ejercicio por tratar de entender estos temas es de la mayor importancia en momentos de incertidumbre como los que vivimos actualmente los colombianos.

1a pt. Socrática. t. 1. Cármides ; Lisis ; Eutifron ; Apología; Critón ; Fedón ; Menón -- t. 5. Eutidemo ; Gorgias -- t. 7-8. República.

Este artículo trata sobre la postura práctica de Aquino ante dos grandes dificultades filosóficas actuales que se encuentran en la base del debate ético contemporáneo. Como son la Is-ought thesis de Hume y la síntesis radical de Moore, la Open question. La posible solución tomista se puede encontrar en la triple función del intelecto humano, teórico y práctico a la vez: a) Aprehender las nociones ontológicas e intelectas ens, verum y bonum; b) Formular los primeros principios teóricos y prácticos; c) (...) E imperar que se haga el bien ontológico e intelecto y se evite lo contrario. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationships between American phenomenology of music and conventional studies of musical analysis. The temporality of experience is a central topic in the phenomenology of music: recent research in USA has focused on musical time-consciousness (Schutz and Smith) or on analytical applications (Clifton, Lochhead, Ferrara). Many methods of musical analysis, like phenomenological methods, are concerned to study subjective temporal structures: Schenkerian and post-Schenkerian scholars (Salzer, Meyer, Narmour, Lewin) have elaborated specific systems for the explanation of musical form (...) on a experiential basis. Apart from any comparison with the different approaches, phenomenological analysis appears to be fundamental for the analytical interpretation of music. (shrink)

This article concerns Aquinas’s practical doctrine on two philosophical difficulties underlying much contemporary ethical debate. One is Hume’s Is-ought thesis and the other is its radical consequence, Moore’s Open-question argument. These ethical paradoxes appear to have their roots in epistemological scepticism and in a deficient anthropology. Possible response to them can be found in that Aquinas’s human intellect (essentially theoretical and practical at the same time) naturally performs three main operations: 1º) To apprehend the intellecta and universal notions ens, verum (...) and bonum. 2º) To formulate the first theoretical and practical principles. 3º) To order that the intellectum and universal good be done and the opposite avoided. Thomistic philosophical response to both predicaments will not be exclusively ethical, but will harmonically embrace ontology, anthropology and epistemology. (shrink)

Resumo Este artigo procura apresentar e discutir tentativas recentes em filosofia social de analisar e interpretar o capitalismo, a partir de uma perspectiva praxeológica. O practice turn em teoria social procurou superar o dualismo entre agência e estrutura, ou entre ação e sistema, por meio da noção de prática social. Seria possível então interpretar o capitalismo como um tipo especifico de prática social? Para tentar encaminhar essa questão, explicita-se brevemente, em um primeiro momento, em que consiste o practice turn em (...) teoria social. Num segundo momento, analisa-se e se discute a proposta de Rahel Jaeggi de conceber a economia como uma rede de práticas sociais. Em seguida, expõe-se e se avalia a tentativa de Christian Lotz em ver, no dinheiro, a chave para compreender aquilo que ele chama de esquema capitalista. Por fim, conclui-se, chamando a atenção para os potenciais e desafios ligados ao empreendimento de interpretar o capitalismo em função de uma teoria da prática, sugerindo que um aprofundamento na análise da imaginação especificamente capitalista, vinculando-a com a típica plasticidade e diversidade do capitalismo, possa ajudar a avançar nesse campo.This paper aims to present and discuss recent attempts in social philosophy to analyze and interpret capitalism from a praxeological perspective. The practice turn in social theory sought to overcome the dualism between agency and structure, or between action and system, through the notion of social practice. Is it then possible to interpret capitalism as a specific type of social practice? To try to address this question, I briefly introduce, in a first moment, the practice turn in social theory. In a second moment, I analyze and discuss Rahel Jaeggi’s proposal to conceive the economy as a network of social practices. I then explain and evaluate Christian Lotz’s attempt to see money as the key to understanding what he names as “the capitalist schema”. Finally, I conclude by drawing attention to the potentials and challenges of interpreting capitalism as a social practice, suggesting that a deeper analysis of specifically capitalist imagination, linking it with the typical plasticity and diversity of capitalism, may help to move forward in this field. (shrink)

La mia collaborazione con Massimo Campanini si è sviluppata su comuni interessi per i classici del pensiero islamico ma con competenze assai diverse, essendo io più orientato a studiare gli effetti e gli sviluppi che essi produssero sul pensiero occidentale medievale e moderno attraverso una pratica di traduzioni spesso creative per imprecisione – l’inverso dell’operazione che essi stessi avevano fatto rispetto a Platone e Aristotele. Averroè-Ibn Rushd è già un bell’esempio di deformazione del nome, ma proprio la formazione della sua (...) opera e i modi in cui è stata trasmessa al mondo ebraico e cristiano sono singolari testimonianze degli esiti ambigui del processo traduttivo. Cerchiamo infatti di mostrare come la lettura del _De substantia orbis_ abbia stimolato sia nel Medioevo che nel Rinascimento non solo il rifiuto del creazionismo ma anche posizioni panteistiche, mentre la famosa tesi dell’intelletto materiale unico contenuta nel _Commentarium Magnum_ al _De anima_ aristotelico ha stimolato molteplici varianti del monopsichismo, da Spinoza a Marx e alla più recente letteratura post-strutturalista. My collaboration with Massimo Campanini developed around our common interests in the classics of Islamic thought, but with very different approaches, since I am more oriented towards studying the effects and developments they produced on medieval and modern Western thought through a practice of translation that was often creative in terms of inaccuracy – so the opposite of what had been done with respect to Plato and Aristotle. The same Averroes-Ibn Rushd is a fine example of name distortion, and the very formation of his work and the ways in which it was transmitted to the Jewish and Christian world are singular testimonies to the ambiguous outcomes of this translation process. I try to show how the reading of _De substantia orbis_ in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance stimulated not only the rejection of creationism but also pantheistic beliefs, while the famous thesis on the material intellect exposed in the _Commentarium Magnum_ to Aristotle’s _De anima_ stimulated many variants of monopsychism, from Spinoza to Marx and the more recent post-structuralist literature. (shrink)

Cartography represents monsters at the borders of the known world. Those monsters are evoked by politics in order to denounce the dangers of revolution : the many-headed hydra which represents the nightmares of the dominant classes and that must be detroyed or subjugated. Heretics, sauvages, rebel slaves, the industrial proletariat and finally the precarious workers, whose anomaly is exploited to produce profit. But the ultimate cold monster, the Leviathan, is indeed the State….

Personal positions and voices of a patient diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and the therapist during long-term psychotherapy were studied aiming to find differences in the patterns formed in these aspects of subjectivity according to the level of elaboration of the change episodes achieved by the patient. This case study considered a stage of qualitative analysis where change episodes of the patient were traced through the Change Episodes Model. Later, through the Model of Analysis of Discursive Positioning in Psychotherapy, the (...) voices and personal positions of the patient and her therapist were identified in each of the change episodes. In the stage of quantitative analysis, dynamic patterns in the voices and personal positions were established, accounting for hypothetical attractors using the Space State Grid technique in each of the three different levels of subjective elaboration that constitute the change episodes. The results established differentiated dynamic patterns in the change episodes, coherent with the patient’s change process, and formation of propositive/reflective specific patterns as the patient evolved in the three different levels of subjective elaboration. The above suggests that a subjective transformation process is displayed, and this is manifested in the different voices and personal positions that emerged as the change episodes evolve. The identified dynamic patterns can be considered nonlinear and emergent subjective exchanges between the patient and the therapist throughout the psychotherapy. (shrink)

Organization figures centrally in the understanding of biological systems advanced by both new mechanists and proponents of the autonomy framework. The new mechanists focus on how components of mechanisms are organized to produce a phenomenon and emphasize productive continuity between these components. The autonomy framework focuses on how the components of a biological system are organized in such a way that they contribute to the maintenance of the organisms that produce them. In this paper we analyze and compare these two (...) accounts of organization and argue that understanding biological organisms as cohesively integrated systems benefits from insights from both. To bring together the two accounts, we focus on the notions of control and regulation as bridge concepts. We start from a characterization of biological mechanisms in terms of constraints and focus on a specific type of mechanism, control mechanisms, that operate on other mechanisms on the basis of measurements of variables in the system and its environment. Control mechanisms are characterized by their own set of constraints that enable them to sense conditions, convey signals, and effect changes on constraints in the controlled mechanism. They thereby allow living organisms to adapt to internal and external variations and to coordinate their parts in such a manner as to maintain viability. Because living organisms contain a vast number of control mechanisms, a central challenge is to understand how they are themselves organized. With the support of examples from both unicellular and multicellular systems we argue that control mechanisms are organized heterarchically, and we discuss how this type of control architecture can, without invoking top-down and centralized forms of organizations, succeed in coordinating internal activities of organisms. (shrink)

Living organisms act as integrated wholes to maintain themselves. Individual actions can each be explained by characterizing the mechanisms that perform the activity. But these alone do not explain how various activities are coordinated and performed versatilely. We argue that this depends on a specific type of mechanism, a control mechanism. We develop an account of control by examining several extensively studied control mechanisms operative in the bacterium E. coli. On our analysis, what distinguishes a control mechanism from other mechanisms (...) is that it relies on measuring one or more variables, which results in setting constraints in the control mechanism that determine its action on flexible constraints in other mechanisms. In the most basic arrangement, the measurement process directly determines the action of the control mechanism, but in more complex arrangements signals mediate between measurements and effectors. This opens the possibility of multiple responses to the same measurement and responses based on multiple measurements. It also allows crosstalk, resulting in networks of control mechanisms. Such networks integrate the behaviors of the organism but also present a challenge in tailoring responses to particular measurements. We discuss how integrated activity can still result in differential, versatile, responses. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper aims at examining the way in which Rahel Jaeggi’s conception of forms of life as inert bundles of practices is connected to the problem of the possibility of an immanent critique of life forms, that is, of a kind of analysis that is both internal and transformative. In the first part, my contention will be that understanding practices in terms of conventions makes it difficult to admit of internal criticisms of them. Jaeggi’s account of immanent critique, as (...) argued in the second part, tries to differentiate practices from social conventions by maintaining that transformations of life forms can be seen as the result of episodes of crises ignited by the inability to cope with “second order” problems. I maintain that, unless one is willing to postulate something like an absolute telos dictating the historical sequence that forms of life must follow, the way in which forms of life solve second order problems displays some conventional features preventing any quick assimilation to the paradigm of immanent critique. This circumstance, as argued in the third section of my presentation, poses an obstacle to Jaeggi’s project of an immanent critique of life forms. (shrink)

Foundational ontologies, central constructs in ontological investigations and engineering alike, are based on ontological categories. Firstly proposed by Aristotle as the very ur- elements from which the whole of reality can be derived, they are not easy to identify, let alone partition and/or hierarchize; in particular, the question of their number poses serious challenges. The late medieval philosopher Dietrich of Freiberg wrote around 1286 a tutorial that can help us today with this exceedingly difficult task. In this paper, I discuss (...) ontological categories and their importance for foundational ontologies from both the contemporary perspective and the original Aristotelian viewpoint, I provide the translation from the Latin into English of Dietrich's De origine II with an introductory elaboration, and I extract a foundational ontology–that is in fact a single-category one–from this text rooted in Dietrich's specification of types of subjecthood and his conception of intentionality as causal operation. (shrink)

… our faults do not allow our qualities to show themselves to best effect. That is why, at the moment, Brazilians are a people of intermittent qualities and permanent faults.Mário de Andrade, Essai sur la musique brésilienne, 1928This paper sets out to discuss the use and power of music in representing social identities, concentrating on the more specific case of the Brazilian nation, which has made itself a complex and all-embracing socio-political unit in spite of the great diversity and the (...) great inequalities to be found within its borders. It is well known that what appears to be its most uniform feature, the use of a dominant language, is actually quite fragmented, due to the influence of various co-existing systems of production, cultural models and social hierarchies, which change on a daily basis. Although this diversity seems to be underwritten by daily practice and independent of debate and official encouragement, the same cannot be said of the search for national unity. It is obvious in the case of most of the action undertaken with this end in mind, that questions such as exclusion and the imbalance and arbitrariness of power have been eliminated. Besides, certain alert individuals are wary of this insistence on the construction of a nation, since the role of the old national states throughout the world seems to be disintegrating in the face of the proliferation and growing importance of social, economic and cultural relations at a supranational level. It is therefore hardly surprising that the twentieth century is considered to be a milestone in both the rise and fall of efforts to achieve Brazilian national unity. Amongst these efforts, music has played a prominent role, as I shall endeavour to show. (shrink)

Ontologies are some of the most central constructs in today's large plethora of knowledge technologies, namely in the context of the semantic web. As their coinage indicates, they are direct heirs to the ontological investigations in the long Western philosophical tradition, but it is not easy to make bridges between them. Contemporary ontological commitments often take causality as a central aspect for the ur-segregation of entities, especially in scientific upper ontologies; theories of causality and philosophical ontological investigations often go hand-in-hand, (...) and were essentially inseparable in medieval thought. This constitutes the foundation for a bridge, and this article analyzes the causality-based ontology of the late medieval philosopher Dietrich of Freiberg from the viewpoint of today's upper-ontology engineering. In this bridging attempt, it offers a translation into English of the first part of Dietrich's De origine (abbreviated title) that is a compromise between traditional scholarly translations of medieval Latin philosophical texts and contemporary ontology. (shrink)

Biological regulation is what allows an organism to handle the effects of a perturbation, modulating its own constitutive dynamics in response to particular changes in internal and external conditions. With the central focus of analysis on the case of minimal living systems, we argue that regulation consists in a specific form of second-order control, exerted over the core regime of production and maintenance of the components that actually put together the organism. The main argument is that regulation requires a distinctive (...) architecture of functional relationships, and specifically the action of a dedicated subsystem whose activity is dynamically decoupled from that of the constitutive regime. We distinguish between two major ways in which control mechanisms contribute to the maintenance of a biological organisation in response to internal and external perturbations: dynamic stability and regulation. Based on this distinction an explicit definition and a set of organisational requirements for regulation are provided, and thoroughly illustrated through the examples of bacterial chemotaxis and the lac-operon. The analysis enables us to mark out the differences between regulation and closely related concepts such as feedback, robustness and homeostasis. (shrink)