This classic work in the philosophy of physical science is an incisive and readable account of the scientific method. Pierre Duhem was one of the great figures in French science, a devoted teacher, and a distinguished scholar of the history and philosophy of science. This book represents his most mature thought on a wide range of topics.

The present paper examines the relationship between explicit and implicit memory and ultimate attainment in the native language. Two groups of native speakers of English with different levels of academic attainment (i.e., high vs. low) took part in three language tasks which assessed grammar, vocabulary and collocational knowledge, as well as phonological short-term memory (assessed using a forward digit-span task), explicit associative memory (assessed using a paired-associates task) and implicit memory (assessed using a deterministic serial reaction time task). Results revealed (...) strong relationships between phonological short-term memory and explicit associative memory on the one hand and the three language tasks on the other hand, and no relation between linguistic performance and implicit memory. Taken together, these results cast doubts on the common assumption that L1 grammar learning depends almost entirely on implicit memory and align with the claims of usage-based models of language acquisition that grammatical and lexical knowledge depend on the same cognitive mechanisms. (shrink)

This essay focuses on two philosophical assumptions.According to the first one, biological normativity is not an irreducible property of the living, but rather the living is the historical result of its normative activity. There is therefore a logic of life at work in every living organism that makes it a subject and an agent. It is not the fact that it is already a subject that explains the presence of this logic. It is therefore not impossible to naturalise biological normativity, (...) even if this concept proposed by Georges Canguilhem makes us bifurcate from a world of facts to a world of values.According to the second, we need to extend Varela’s concept of operational closure in order to naturalise biological normativity. We propose a new way of writing it that takes into account the fact that architectural constraints (ϕ1ϕ2) are always at stake in a biological system. By such constraints, we can predict the presence of specific propulsive and repulsive devices in every organism, by which its organisation can be constantly rebuilt, and through which biological disruption can also be amplified. (shrink)

Comment devient-on philosophe? Par quel sursaut un Aristoclès se fait-il Platon, jusqu'à s'imposer dans la liste des " auteurs philo " Il faut enquêter, non pas sur la vie privée, mais sur la vie intime : rumination intellectuelle, ton sur lequel on parle, motivations amoureuses... Ce qui fait un philosophe, c'est un immense travail sur soi, et la rencontre d'autres philosophes, vivants, de leurs problématiques. Mémoire sémantique + obsession métaphysique, voilà le code génétique du philosophe. Il débute par un attentat (...) religieux, puisqu'il commence sa carrière en niant tel ou tel sacré. Bien sûr, il vaut mieux être mâle, communiquer par les livres adopter la langue dominante, écrire quand on est célibataire. Comment gagner sa vie? Pas forcément en étant enseignant, comme c'est le cas aujourd'hui. Le profil du philosophe nous le révèle orphelin, vivant à l'étranger, souvent laid, jamais fou, et serial thinker, prêt à changer de philosophie pourvu qu'il reste, lui, à menacer le monde donnera ou donnera pas du sens à notre vie? Le philosophe est l'être inquiet qui pense inquiéter l'Être par deux trois mots bien aiguisés. (shrink)

This article explores links between the modern theory of rational choice and ethics. Ethics allows us to answer an unsolved question in modern decision theory: the structuring problem in decisions. Such a problem cannot be solved coming from the principle of expected utility. This principle can solve the problem of ‚choosing’ among given alternatives, but does not establish which alternatives should be taken into account in decision. In order to understand the structuring problem, the act of ‚choosing’ has to be (...) completed with three human acts: operating, predicting and evaluating. At the same time, the subjective criteria of rational choice – probability and utility – have to be completed with three objective criteria: efficiency, truth and goodness. Utility is a subjective value of an alternative considered in relation to another. Efficiency, truth and goodness are objective qualities of the joint alternatives in relation to the reality: the real operating possibilities of the agent, the real possibilities of his environment and the true good produced. So, the rule that guarantees a decision to be optimal would be: “do that which most certainly maximises our preferences, according to real operative resources, true knowledge and the right will”. However, this rule cannot be applied without the development of virtues, which could be seen as the main moral competences in decision-making. (shrink)

Synthesizing forty years' work by France's leading sociologist, this book exemplifies Bourdieu's unique ability to link sociological theory, historical information, and philosophical thought. It makes explicit the presuppositions of a state of 'scholasticism', a certain leisure liberated from the urgencies of the world. Philosophers have brought these presuppositions into the order of discourse, more to legitimate than analyze them, and this is the primary systematic, epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic error that Bourdieu subjects to methodological critique. Pascalian because he, too, was (...) concerned with symbolic power, he refused the temptation of foundationalist thinking, attended to 'ordinary people', and was determined to seek the reason for seemingly illogical behavior rather than simply condemning it. Bourdieu charts a negative philosophy, whose intellectual debt to such other 'heretical' philosophers as Wittgenstein, Austin, Dewey, and Peirce, renews traditional questioning of concepts of violence, power, time, history, the universal, and the purpose and direction of existence. (shrink)

This article reports on ethnographic research into the practical and ethical consequences of the implementation and use of telecare devices for older people living at home in Spain and the United Kingdom. Telecare services are said to allow the maintenance of their users’ autonomy through connectedness, relieving the isolation from which many older people suffer amid rising demands for care. However, engaging with Science and Technology Studies literature on “user configuration” and implementation processes, we argue here that neither services nor (...) users preexist the installation of the service: they are better described as produced along with it. Moving beyond design and appropriation practices, our contribution stresses the importance of installations as specific moments where such emplacements take place. Using Etienne Souriau’s concept of instauration, we describe the ways in which, through installation work, telecare services “bring into existence” their very infrastructure of usership. Hence, both services and telecare users are effects of fulfilling the “felicity conditions” of an achieved installation. (shrink)

Freezers with biospecimen deposits became biobanks and later were networked at the pan-European level in 2013 under the Biobanking and BioMolecular Resources Research Infrastructure—European Research Infrastructure Consortium (BBMRI-ERIC). Drawing on document analysis about the BBMRI-ERIC and multi-sited fieldwork with biobankers in Spain from a science and technology studies approach, we explore what biobanks are expected to do and become under the BBMRI-ERIC framework, and how infrastructural transitions promote particular transformations in biobanking practices. The primary purpose of biobanks in Europe is (...) presented as being to become mediators in contemporary biomedical research (global sharing nodes) distribution, and distributed nodes of samples and their associated data. We argue that infrastructural transitions are complicated and heterogeneous, giving rise to unattended local concerns on adjusting their practices to fit into the BBMRI-ERIC framework, even for non-members, as the case of Spain illustrates, where “old practices” of collection and storage are questioned. In this article, we aim to encourage qualitative studies to explore the lags between pan-European policies and prospects, different contextual interpretations, and biobanking reconfigurations as an opportunity to explore what that lag is made of (e.g. tensions with “old practices,” unresolved conflicts with the national agendas, reservations on a possible centralization of the biobanking practices by regional biobanks, lack of funding, etc.). Such research could enrich not only policy guidance, but also the understanding of technoscientific infrastructures’ scalability. (shrink)

Exposición correspondiente al acto de defensa de la Tesis Doctoral del Dr. Bordas Prószynski, intitulada El pensamiento político de Josep Torras i Bages, en la que se recorre el marco histórico-cultural de la Cataluña de finales del siglo xix y de comienzos del xx, para apreciar la aportación de la persona y de la obra de Josep Torras i Bages, obispo de Vic durante los años 1899 a 1916. El resultado de la investigación ofrece una síntesis de su pensamiento político, (...) especialmente por lo que se refiere a su doctrina regionalista, vindicando la tradición cristiana de Cataluña. (shrink)

La tribu de los nativos del poblado de Ses Paysses reacciona con odio y violencia ante la presencia de los extraños griegos. Nuredduna descubre en la finura de espíritu del rapsoda Melesigeno que existe un nuevo mundo que enriquece su condición humana. La gran estatua de Nuredduna, de Remigia Caubet, en el Paseo Marítimo de Palma, muestra a Nuredduna mirando al mar con la mano extendida como esperando la llegada del extranjero que la abrirá a un nuevo mundo de harmonía, (...) más universal, mucho más enriquecedor que la mirada corta que se cree dueña de lo inmediato. Este precioso mensaje del poema de Miquel Costa i Llobera tiene una evidente actualidad para Mallorca, para España, para Europa y para el mundo. Todos se ven atormentados por los nacionalismos, por las fuertes corrientes migratorias e inmigratorias, por el turismo, y, al mismo tiempo, estimulados por la llamada filosófica del hombre universal de Hegel y por la llamada cristiana a la hermandad universal. El poema de Costa es una hermosa y poética llamada a saber dejarnos llevar por la dinámica de la historia que nos mueve a superar la singularidad y abrirnos a la universalidad. (shrink)

El presente artículo defiende que en _ Gorgias _ 521d Sócrates se atribuye a sí mismo una forma genuina de saber político. Para ello, se abordan los problemas planteados por la crítica reciente en lo que respecta a la aparente incompatibilidad de dicha atribución con (1) el reconocimiento explícito en _ Gorgias _ de no poseer un saber referido a lo justo, y (2) la aparente invalidez de la actividad desarrollada por Sócrates para contar, bajo los criterios que él mismo (...) establece en el _ Gorgias _, como efectivamente política. El trabajo responde a estas dificultades realizando un análisis del tipo de naturaleza que Sócrates atribuye a su propio saber en esta obra, así como de los efectos que su actividad dialógica demuestra ser capaz de producir sobre Calicles. De este modo, el artículo permite aclarar en qué sentido Sócrates es presentado en el _ Gorgias _ como el verdadero político. El presente artículo defiende que en _ Gorgias _ 521d Sócrates se atribuye a sí mismo una forma genuina de saber político. Para ello, se abordan los problemas planteados por la crítica reciente en lo que respecta a la aparente incompatibilidad de dicha atribución con (1) el reconocimiento explícito en _ Gorgias _ de no poseer un saber referido a lo justo, y (2) la aparente invalidez de la actividad desarrollada por Sócrates para contar, bajo los criterios que él mismo establece en el _ Gorgias _, como efectivamente política. El trabajo responde a estas dificultades realizando un análisis del tipo de naturaleza que Sócrates atribuye a su propio saber en esta obra, así como de los efectos que su actividad dialógica demuestra ser capaz de producir sobre Calicles. De este modo, el artículo permite aclarar en qué sentido Sócrates es presentado en el _ Gorgias _ como el verdadero político. (shrink)

Over the last four decades, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu produced one of the most imaginative and subtle bodies of social theory of the postwar era. When he died two years ago, he was considered to be a thinker on a par with Foucault, Barthes, and Lacan--a public intellectual as influential to his generation as Sartre was to his. Science of Science and Reflexivity will be welcomed as a companion volume to Bourdieu's now seminal An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (...) . In this posthumous work, Bourdieu declares that science is in danger of becoming a handmaiden to biotechnology, medicine, genetic engineering, and military research--that it risks falling under the control of industrial corporations that seek to exploit it for monopolies and profit. Science thus endangered can become detrimental to mankind. The line between pure and applied science, therefore, must be subjected to intense theoretical scrutiny. Bourdieu's goals in Science of Science and Reflexivity are to identify the social conditions in which science develops in order to reclaim its objectivity and to rescue it from relativism and the forces that might exploit it. In the grand tradition of scientific reflections on science, Bourdieu provides a sociological analysis of the discipline as something capable of producing transhistorical truths he presents an incisive critique of the main currents in the study of science throughout the past half century and he offers a spirited defense of science against encroaching political and economic forces. A masterful summation of the principles underlying Bourdieu's oeuvre and a memoir of his own scientific journey, Science of Science and Reflexivity is a capstone to one of the most important and prodigious careers in the field of sociology. (shrink)

La theorie physique? Ce titre, qui fut au debut de notre siecle celui d'un ouvrage controverse, suggere bien une question, celle de savoir si en matiere de science la theorie doit se qualifier en fonction d'un domaine plus particulier d'application. L'auteur, Pierre Duhem, n'aurait pas hesite, semble-t-il, a repondre par l'affirmative en ce qui concerne le vaste champ de la recherche que l'on peut signifier sous le nom de physique. Son ouvrage est en fait construit comme une preparation rigoureuse (...) a une telle reponse et bien que les annees aient modifie considerablement le contexte du champ sus-dit, les analyses proposees ont ete jugees suggestives par de nombreux epistemologues d'aujourd'hui. (shrink)

Establishing phonologically robust lexical representations in a second language is challenging, and even more so for words containing phones in phonological contrasts that are not part of the native language. This study presents a series of additional analyses of lexical decision data assessing the phonolexical encoding of English /ε/ and /æ/ by German learners of English in order to examine the influence of lexical frequency, phonological neighborhood density and the acoustics of the particular vowels on learners’ ability to reject nonwords (...) differing from real words in the confusable L2 phones only. Results showed that both the lexical properties of the target items and the acoustics of the critical vowels affected nonword rejection, albeit differently for items with /æ/ → [ε] and /ε/ → [æ] mispronunciations: For the former, lower lexical frequencies and higher neighborhood densities led to more accurate performance. For the latter, it was only the acoustics of the vowel that had a significant impact on learners’ accuracy. This suggests that the encoding of /ε/ and /æ/ may not only be asymmetric in that /ε/ is generally more robustly represented in the lexicon than /æ/, as previously reported, but also in the way in which this encoding takes place. Mainly, the encoding of /æ/ appears to be more dependent on the characteristics of the L2 vocabulary and on one’s experience with the L2 than that of its more dominant counterpart. (shrink)

This article is a conceptual contribution on how to make human habitat more sustainable. Taking Heidegger’s conception of “dwelling” as a starting point, a new form of understanding the organization of the city as a human habitat is proposed. It is argued that human habitat is today in crisis and that such crisis has its roots in a spatial understanding of human dwelling, disregarding its temporal-historical dimension. For long time, the city has been considered as a physical “place” and its (...) organization—the urban planning—has been addressed in terms of “locating”. Many of the challenges in organizing habitat are the result of reducing the organization of the city to the organization of physical space. One of these is the conflict between preservation and development, a central issue in approaching sustainability. The aim of this article is to propose a new perspective on the organization of human dwelling, which overcomes the spatial-based conception of habitat and involves its temporal dimension. The meaning of human “habitat” as a historical process for developing “habits” will be recovered, and the implications for organization of the city considered. Human habitat is above all an ethical space, constituted in a spatial–temporal process of developing learning and capabilities. This habitat can be shared and developed infinitely so that a pathway is opened for overcoming the logic of competition and the conflict between sustainability and development. Finally, three forms of the human habitat as an “ethical space” are proposed. (shrink)

The aim of being able to reason about quantities, time or space has been the main objective of the many efforts on the integration of propositional planning with extensions to handle different theories. Planning modulo theories are an approximation inspired by satisfiability modulo theories that generalize the integration of arbitrary theories with propositional planning. Parallel plans are crucial to reduce plan lengths and hence the time needed to reach a feasible plan in many approaches. Parallelization of actions relies on the (...) notion of interference, which is usually determined syntactically at compile time. In this paper we define a semantic notion of interference between actions in PMT. Apart from being strictly stronger than any syntactic notion of interference, we show how semantic interference can be easily and efficiently checked by calling an off-the-shelf SMT solver at compile time, constituting a technique orthogonal to the solving method. (shrink)

Este artículo estudia la relación entre bien y conocimiento en la República de Platón, en diálogo con la recepción de esta temática en la obra del filósofo Leonardo Polo. Para ello, se ofrece, en primer lugar, una reconstrucción de la lectura del bien platónico en la obra poliana a lo largo de los años 80 y 90. A continuación, y a partir de un análisis de los textos relevantes de la República, se discute la interpretación de Polo en lo que (...) respecta al acceso al bien y al tipo de causalidad del bien en relación con el conocimiento. El presente artículo propone una lectura alternativa que cuestiona la tesis poliana según la cual la doctrina aristotélica sobre el conocimiento como acto es radicalmente incompatible con la epistemología platónica. (shrink)

En primer lugar, la presente comunicación describe brevemente un suceso un tanto insólito: el que una página web haya puesto en jaque al considerado gobierno nacional más poderoso del mundo. En segundo lugar, se ofrece una posible perspectiva teórica para interpretar tal acontecimiento: la teoría de la opinión pública, principalmente desde su articulación en el seno de la Teoría Crítica de Jürgen Habermas. En tercer lugar, se evalúan someramente las luces y las sombras tanto de WikiLeaks como de Habermas mediante (...) la comparación crítica. En general, este trabajo se propone iniciar el análisis de las potencialidades de internet como herramienta y espacio en favor de la democracia y la emancipación de una ciudadanía participativa y no encerrada en sus clásicos límites estatales. (shrink)

Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo es realizar un repaso de las teorías de las emociones más importantes de las últimas décadas y valorar en qué medida tales teorías ofrecen una buena caracterización del fenómeno en cuestión. Para alcanzar una comprensión adecuada de las diferentes teorías, así como del rumbo que ha tomado el debate actual sobre las emociones, es importante que prestemos especial atención a algunos de los compromisos filosóficos involucrados en la formulación de estas teorías. La revisión cuidadosa (...) de algunos de estos compromisos nos llevará a plantearnos si algunas de las dificultades a las que se enfrentan varias de las teorías de las emociones actuales podrían tener origen en tales compromisos filosóficos y no, como suele pensarse, en la complejidad de las emociones.: The aim of this paper is to review the most important theories of emotions in recent decades and to assess the extent to which these theories provide a good characterisation of the phenomenon in question. In order to achieve an appropriate understanding of the different theories, as well as of the direction that the current debate on emotions has taken, it is important that we pay special attention to some of the philosophical commitments involved in the formulation of these theories. Careful examination of some of these commitments will lead us to consider whether some of the difficulties faced by several of the current theories of emotions might stem from such philosophical commitments rather than, as is often thought, from the complexity of emotions. Palabras clave: episodios, intencionalidad, fenomenología, propiedades evaluativas. Keywords: episodes, intentionality, phenomenology, evaluative properties. (shrink)

La genealogia de la moral de Nietzsche, resulta extremadament pertinent per una epistemologia del bé relativa a les incisions institucionals sobre part de la població del Raval. Primer, sobre Raval s�haurien dut a terme tot tipus d�abusos, com destruccions d�habitatges i de trama urbana, així com persecucions o expulsions de població, pel bé del barri o de la ciutat. Si això és així, es pot afirmar que les convergències institucionals en aquest punt es sustenten en una epistemologia interessada. Segon, el (...) pathos de la distància definit per Nietzsche, així com l�assumpció per part de les noves ideologies urbanístiques del primitiu paper de la �casta sacerdotal�, permetrien actualitzar la crítica envers �el civisme�, entès aquest, com l�expressió més recent i efectiva de les cultures de control. I tercer, aquesta epistemologia interessada, permetria reclamar la noció marxiana de lluita de classes per interpretar un crònic i generalitzat menyspreu sobre una part important de la població més irredempta d�un dels barris més convulsos d�Europa. (shrink)

During the last two decades, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has become a dominant force in cultural activity ranging from taste in music and art to choices in food and lifestyles. _The Field of Cultural Production_ brings together Bourdieu's major essays on art and literature and provides the first introduction to Bourdieu's writings and theory of a cultural field that situates artistic works within the social conditions of their production, circulation, and consumption. Bourdieu develops a highly original approach to the study (...) of literary and artistic works, addressing many of the key issues that have preoccupied literary art and cultural criticism in the last twentieth century: aesthetic value and canonicity, intertextuality, the institutional frameworks of cultural practice, the social role of intellectuals and artists, and structures of literary and artistic authority. Bourdieu elaborates a theory of the cultural field which situates artistic works within the social conditions of their production, circulation, and consumption. He examines the individuals and institutions involved in making cultural products what they are: not only the writers and artists, but also the publishers, critics, dealers, galleries, and academies. He analyzes the structure of the cultural field itself as well as its position within the broader social structures of power. The essays in his volume examine such diverse topics as Flaubert's point of view, Manet's aesthetic revolution, the historical creation of the pure gaze, and the relationship between art and power. The Field of Cultural Porduction will be of interest to students and scholars from a wide range of disciplines: sociology and social theory, literature, art, and cultural studies. (shrink)

El presente artículo se centra en el estudio de la interpretación del Sofista, de Platón, desarrollada por Heidegger en las lecciones del semestre de invierno de 1924/25 en la Universidad de Marburgo. En particular, en él se ofrece una reconstrucción de la lectura heideggeriana a este diálogo desde la perspectiva que abre la consideración de la filosofía como un modo de existencia. Con este objetivo, se analizan dos claves centrales del comentario de Heidegger: la contraposición de la filosofía con la (...) sofística y la contraposición de la filosofía con la adhesión dogmática a unos principios de escuela. En la parte final del artículo se desarrollan también algunas implicaciones del análisis anterior para la interpretación de la función del interlocutor principal de este diálogo, el Extranjero de Elea, así como de la naturaleza de la investigación filosófica tal y como es presentada por Platón en el Sofista. (shrink)

Written with verve and intensity (and a good bit of wordplay), this is the long-awaited study of Flaubert and the modern literary field that constitutes the ...

Examining in detail the work of consecration carried out by elite education systems, Bourdieu analyzes the distinctive forms of power—political, intellectual, bureaucratic, and economic—by means of which contemporary societies are governed.

In Visión Deleytable, after explaining the absurdities and contradictions contained in several opinions on providence, Sabieza declares that it will be revealed the one she considers true, but then she argues that all they are partly true. Our aim in this paper is to prove that, in the study of the contradictions found in the Prologue of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, as well as in the various conceptions of God that coexist in this work, and even in Rabbinical Literature, (...) is traceable in nuce a Kabbalistic doctrine that could foreshadow Alfonso de la Torre’s conception of providence, namely, that truth is in multiplicity merely ‘from the perspective of the recipients’. (shrink)

Replete with madwomen, murderers, musicians, and mystics, "Lonely Woman" dramatically interweaves the lives of five women. It remains Takako Takahashi's most sustained and multifaceted fictional realization of her concept of "loneliness.".

Tied to the apron strings of the church -- Researcher, teacher, philosopher -- Philosophical discourse -- Interpretation, objectivity and nonsense -- Unitary experience and philosophical life -- Philosophical discourse as spiritual exercise -- Philosophy as life and as a quest for wisdom -- From Socrates to Foucault : a long tradition -- Inacceptable? -- The present alone is our happiness.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Biologists and philosophers often use the language of determination in order to describe the nature of developmental phenomena. Accounts in terms of determination have often been reductionist. One common idea is that DNA is supposed to play a special explanatory role in developmental explanations, namely, that DNA is a developmental determinant. In this article we try to make sense of determination claims in developmental biology. Adopting a manipulationist approach, we shall first argue that the notion of developmental determinant is causal. (...) We suggest that two different theses concerning developmental determination can be articulated: determination of occurrence and structural determination. We shall argue that, while the first thesis is problematic, the second, opportunely qualified, is feasible. Finally, we shall argue that an analysis of biological causation in terms of determination cannot account for entangled dynamics. Characterising causal entanglement as a particular kind of interactive causation whereby difference-making causes ascribable to different levels of biological organisation influence a particular ontogenetic outcome, we shall, via two illustrative examples, diagnose some potential limits of a reductionist, molecular and intra-level understanding of biological causation. (shrink)