In the 1920s, Ludwig von Mises argued correctly that the problem of making economic calculations without market‐generated prices would be an insuperable difficulty for socialist systems of production. Bryan Caplan is right to argue that there is no theoretical way to infer the magnitude of this difficulty, but he is wrong to insist that the history of poor economic performance displayed by real‐world socialism should be attributed not to the “socialist calculation problem,” but to inadequate work incentives. A state that (...) had solved the calculation problem would have well within its means the solution to the incentives problem, too. (shrink)

Disconcerting findings from nascent sociological research suggest that Western youth are developing subjectivities that reflect neoliberal discursive formations of self-interest, competitiveness, and materialism. However, propositions about: (1) the cognitive-affective mechanisms that explain how youth acquire and reproduce neoliberal ideology, or (2) the dispositions and behaviours that typify a neoliberal subject, remain vague. Therefore, this article provides a novel conceptualization of these two psychosocial facets that can help advance understandings and investigations of the emerging modes and societal consequences of neoliberal subjectification, (...) Specifically, it reviews major theoretical tenets from the respective literatures on neurocognitive development, social cognition, neoliberalism, and neoliberal hegemony. It then synthesizes these tenets within a modified habitus formulation to sketch a testable cognitive-sociological model to explain and explore some of the distinct dispositional values, attitudes, and practices that youth raised in societies with institutionally and culturally prevalent neoliberal norms and discourses potentially may develop and enact. (shrink)

The mortality rate of patients affected with oral squamous cell carcinoma has been stable in recent decades due to several factors, especially diagnostic delay, which is often associated with a late stage diagnosis and poor prognosis. The aims of this paper were to: analyze diagnostic delay in OSCC and to discuss the various psychological factors of patients with OSCC, with particular attention to the patient’s fear of receiving news regarding their health; and the professional dynamics related to the decision-making processes (...) in cases of suspected OSCC. A preliminary review of literature focusing on OSCC diagnostic delay was performed. Seven articles were included with the diagnostic delay ranging from 45 days to approximately 6 months. Patients’ fears and, to a lesser degree, the concerns of dentists, were found to be still poorly investigated. On the basis of the authors’ professional experience, the development of oral lesions of unknown origin may generate different behaviors in the decision-making processes by patients and clinicians, and fear may play a key role in the distinct steps of this process. It is crucial to increase awareness and inform patients about the onset of OSCC, and contemporaneously encourage experimental studies on patients’ fear and professional behaviors with respect to communication regarding OSCC. (shrink)

The idea of a probabilistic logic of inductive inference based on some form of the principle of indifference has always retained a powerful appeal. However, up to now all modifications of the principle failed. In this paper, a new formulation of such a principle is provided that avoids generating paradoxes and inconsistencies. Because of these results, the thesis that probabilities cannot be logical quantities, determined in an objective way through some form of the principle of indifference, is no longer supportable. (...) Later, the paper investigates some implications of the new principle of indifference. To conclude, a re-examination of the foundations of the so-called objective Bayesian inference is called for. (shrink)

There is growing worldwide concern that the rampant spread of digital fake news via new media technologies is detrimentally impacting Democratic elections. However, the actual influence of this recent Internet phenomenon on electoral decisions has not been directly examined. Accordingly, this study tested the effects of attention to DFN on readers’ Presidential candidate preferences via an experimental web-survey administered to a cross-sectional American sample. Results showed no main effect of exposure to DFN on participants’ candidate evaluations or vote choice. However, (...) the perceived believability of DFN about the Democratic candidate negatively mediated evaluations of that candidate—especially amongst far-right ideologues. These results suggest that DFN may at worst reinforce the partisan dispositions of mostly politically conservative Internet users, but does not cause or induce conversions in these dispositions. Overall, this study contributes novel experimental evidence, indicating that the potential electoral impact of DFN, although concerning, is strongly conditional on a reciprocal interaction between message receptibility and a pre-existing right-wing ideological orientation. The said impact is, therefore, likely narrow in scope. (shrink)

Populist representation is the process by which a body or set of bodies become the signifier of a powerful act of political transgression of the social order. We call this specific type of representative linkage ‘synecdochal representation’. In it, the leader’s body performs three key functions: it mirrors certain popular traits that are characterized as ‘low’, it displays marks of exceptionality, and it appropriates symbols of institutional power. These tasks are performed through particular ways of acting, dressing, talking, eating, and (...) the like, in public. Social media has become a key locus for bodily self-presentation because it is used to create the appearance of intimacy and spontaneity through the distribution of ‘candid’ pictures and videos. This paper will analyze how the self-presentation of populist and non-populist leaders are established through Twitter, what images they choose to disseminate, and how they are re-signified by the audience. To do so, we will focus on the two Latin American politicians: Cristina Fernández (with a populist style) and Mauricio Macri (with a technocratic one). (shrink)

The idea of a probabilistic logic of inductive inference based on some form of the principle of indifference has always retained a powerful appeal. However, up to now all modifications of the principle failed. In this paper, a new formulation of such a principle is provided that avoids generating paradoxes and inconsistencies. Because of these results, the thesis that probabilities cannot be logical quantities, determined in an objective way through some form of the principle of indifference, is no longer supportable. (...) Later, the paper investigates some implications of the new principle of indifference. To conclude, a re-examination of the foundations of the so-called objective Bayesian inference is called for. (shrink)

En este trabajo realizo un examen crítico del reciente libro de Silvana Gabriela Di Camillo sobre la crítica de Aristóteles a la teoría platónica de las Ideas. El libro de Di Camillo es un trabajo muy serio cuya lectura recomiendo ampliamente. Sin embargo, considero que cuatro de las principales tesis que la autora defiende tienen varias dificultades y mi objetivo aquí es presentar argumentos detallados en contra de ellas: la interpretación de la distinción entre argumentos más y menos rigurosos del (...) tratado Sobre las Ideas; la tesis de que la separación es el blanco esencial de las críticas aristotélicas a las Ideas; la interpretación de las opciones que Platón tiene para responder al argumento del tercer hombre, y la tesis de que la separación de las Ideas debe entenderse como homonimia. In this paper I examine Silvana Gabriela Di Camillo's recent book on Aristotle's criticisms of Plato's theory of Ideas. Di Camillo's book is a very serious work that I highly recommend. Nevertheless, I consider that four of the main theses that the author defends face several difficulties and my aim here is to offer detailed arguments against them: the interpretation of the distinction between more and less accurate arguments of the treatise On Ideas; the thesis that separation is the essential target of Aristotle's criticisms against Plato's Ideas; the interpretation of the options available to Plato to reply to the third man argument; and the thesis that the separation of Ideas should be understood as homonymy. (shrink)

En el trabajo evaluamos el impacto que la crítica de Leibniz a los números infinitos tiene en el desarrollo de su metafísica de los cuerpos. Luego de exponer el vínculo que el filósofo alemán traza entre el cuerpo, la extensión y las cantidades infinitas en su período juvenil (1663-1672), analizamos sus reflexiones del período parisino sobre las paradojas de los números infinitos (1672-1676) y argumentamos que la defensa de la inconsistencia de tales números constituye un punto de inflexión en su (...) comprension de los cuerpos y, asimismo, marca el inicio de su ofensiva contra la res extensa.In this paper we study the impact of Leibniz’s critique of infinite numbers in his metaphysics of bodies. After presenting the relation that the German philosopher establishes in his youth between the notions of body, extension and infinite quantities (1672-1673), we analyze his thoughts on the paradoxes of the infinite numbers (1672-1676) and we claim that his defense of the inconsistency of such numbers is an inflexion point in his conception of body and mark the beginning of his offensive against the res extensa. (shrink)

Habermas ha elaborado una teoría jurídica a partir de su filosofía de acción comunicativa. Sin alejarse de los fundamentos tradicionales que sustentan al Estado democrático de derecho, ha innovado una posición de legitimación al derecho y a su ejercicio, incluso ofrece nuevas herramientas conceptuales para la función judicial, como es el caso de lo que podría llamarse la adecuación que sustituye a la conocida propuesta de la ponderación de los derechos. El presente artículo pretende servir de guía para adentrase en (...) el territorio de su propuesta. (shrink)

El objetivo marcado en este trabajo es establecer una línea de continuidad entre el pensamiento de Ortega y el de María Zambrano, situando a ambos en un contexto común de crítica a ciertos excesos de la Modernidad. Así, la propuesta se basa en un análisis de la racionalidad científico-matemática como ámbito excluyente de ciertos planos de la realidad, y en cómo ambos autores son conscientes de ello (aunque lo manifiesten desde distintos prismas y atendiendo a diferentes asuntos). De esta manera, (...) se pretende mostrar que la comprensión orteguiana del _concepto_ en tanto que instrumento de captación parcial de la realidad se vincula al modo en que Zambrano comprende la existencia, función y generación de los dioses, siendo tanto aquél (el _concepto_) como éstos (los dioses) formas de enmascarar la realidad para su humana interpretación. Asimismo, el trabajo pretende mostrar cómo, frente a la razón del racionalismo occidental, caben formas de conocimiento que trascienden el mero pensar conceptual, tales como el arte. (shrink)

We argue that it is fundamentally impossible to recover information about quantum superpositions when a quantum system has interacted with a sufficiently large number of degrees of freedom of the environment. This is due to the fact that gravity imposes fundamental limitations on how accurate measurements can be. This leads to the notion of undecidability: there is no way to tell, due to fundamental limitations, if a quantum system evolved unitarily or suffered wavefunction collapse. This in turn provides a solution (...) to the problem of outcomes in quantum measurement by providing a sharp criterion for defining when an event has taken place. We analyze in detail in examples two situations in which in principle one could recover information about quantum coherence: a) “revivals” of coherence in the interaction of a system with the measurement apparatus and the environment and b) the measurement of global observables of the system plus apparatus plus environment. We show in the examples that the fundamental limitations due to gravity and quantum mechanics in measurement prevent both revivals from occurring and the measurement of global observables. It can therefore be argued that the emerging picture provides a complete resolution to the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2008v12n2p193 In this paper I claim that the bias to pass from the acknowledgement of the explanatory virtues of a hypothesis to the belief that it is true or approximate to the truth is so strong that scientific realists can hardly elude that temptation. For that reason, some philosophers, like McMullin and Okasha, following Peirce and Hanson, participate of the conviction that the skill of founding scientific explanations bears the ability of founding true theories. But, this way, they pass the (...) limits that they themselves had fixed and their attempt to overcome objections like the one which was formulated by van Fraassen against the inference to the best explanation fails. (shrink)

In this paper I claim that the bias to pass from the acknowledgement of the explanatory virtues of a hypothesis to the belief that it is true or approximate to the truth is so strong that scientific realists can hardly elude that temptation. For that reason, some philosophers, like McMullin and Okasha, following Peirce and Hanson, participate of the conviction that the skill of founding scientific explanations bears the ability of founding true theories. But, this way, they pass the limits (...) that they themselves had fixed and their attempt to overcome objections like the one which was formulated by van Fraassen against the inference to the best explanation fails. (shrink)

Resumen En este trabajo evaluamos el impacto que la adopción de la relatividad del movimiento tiene en la metafísica de Leibniz. En particular argumentamos que el abandono de la comprensión absolutista del mismo anula su noción juvenil de sustancia corpórea. En primer lugar analizamos cómo entiende Leibniz las nociones de cuerpo y movimiento en el periodo juvenil y defendemos que la comprensión absolutista de este último constituye una piedra angular en su primera concepción de la sustancia corpórea. En segundo lugar (...) exponemos los argumentos leibnizianos a favor de la relatividad del movimiento durante el período parisino y mostramos su repercusión en el concepto juvenil de sustancia corpórea.In this paper we evaluate the impact of Leibniz's defense of relativity of motion on his metaphysics. We argue that the abandonment of the absolutist position makes void his first notion of corporeal substance. First, we analyze Leibniz's conception of body and movement in his youth and explain how the assumption of absolute motion during these years plays a role in his notion of corporeal substance. Second, we examine his arguments in favor of relativity of motion during the Parisian period and show the repercussion on his first conception of the corporeal substance. (shrink)

This paper focuses on an understudied aspect of Hobbes's natural philosophy: his approach to the domain of life. I concentrate on the role assigned by Hobbes to the heart, which occupies a central role in both his account of human physiology and of the origin of animal locomotion. With this, I have three goals in mind. First, I aim to offer a cross-section of Hobbes's effort to provide a mechanistic picture of human life. Second, I aim to contextualize Hobbes's views (...) in the seventeenth-century debates on human physiology and animal locomotion. In particular, I will compare Hobbes's views with the theories put forth by Harvey, Descartes, the Galenic, and Peripatetic traditions. Also, I will show that Hobbes was receptive to advances within contemporary English physiology and chemistry. Third, by means of a comparison with Descartes, I advance some hypothesis to explain why Hobbes indentified the heart, and not the brain (as was increasingly com... (shrink)

Neste artigo, pretendo analisar como o Filebo de Platão retoma alguns tópicos específicos da dialética platônica, empregando-os a fim de entender como a alma cognitiva pode ser afetada por prazeres falsos, por opiniões falsas e por imagens falsas. Este estudo visa a criticar certas leituras modernas do platonismo, especialmente a teoria esoterista, baseada na doutrina não escrita de Platão, cujo escopo central estipula um revisionismo da teoria platônica das Formas, defendendo a emergência de uma nova ontologia, explicada por dois princípios, (...) o Um e a Díada ilimitada do grande e do pequeno, concebidos, assim, como princípio formal e princípio material. (shrink)

CONTENIDO: Vestigios protodemocráticos en la Edad Media tardía: Marsilio de Papua, Nicolás de Cusa / Matthias Vollet / - La concepción normativa de la democracia: un aporte neokantiano / Rodolfo Arango / - El concepto de lo político y la razón pública en Schmit y Rawls / Miguel Vatter / - Democracia y liberación pública / Cristina Lafont / - La democracia desde la teoría de las emociones / Viviana Quintero / - Ontología y democracia en spinoza y Negri (...) / Amalia Rey / - Reconocimiento y redistribución: el rol de un teoría crítica de la democracia / Nicolás Espejo / - La contribución de Haberman a la crítica de la tecnocratización de la democracia / Luis Javier Orjuela / - Libertad, derecho y democracia: aspectos teóricos y pragmáticos, con énfasis en la competencia / Joachim Lege / - Democracia representativa y democracia deliberativa: reflexiones a partir de la situación peruana reciente / David Sobrevilla. (shrink)

En el presente artículo presentaremos dos posibles enfoques sobre la actividad analógica de la conciencia en L’imaginaire de Jean-Paul Sartre: el primero, centrado en la composición ontológica del analogon, distinguirá el “analogon psíquico” del “analogon físico” y deducirá a partir de allí las dificultades y limitaciones del planteo sartreano y planteará a su vez los medios para dar respuesta a tales problemas. El segundo intentará explicar la función analógica de la conciencia imaginante como el resultado de un proceso de emancipación (...) de la fenomenología de Husserl en la que la distinción material del analogon expresa el punto de partida de un desarrollo crítico que conducirá al abandono de la dimensión hylética del analogon a favor de la función analógica de la conciencia. Estas perspectivas nos brindarán un panorama de los límites legítimos de cada una, así como de la profundidad y el dinamismo del pensamiento sartreano.In this article we will present two possible approaches on the analogical activity of consciousness in L'imaginaire of Jean-Paul Sartre: the first one, focused on the ontological composition of the analogon, will distinguish the “psychological analogon” from “physical analogon” and will deduce the difficulties and limitations of Sartrean argument and the means to resolve them. The second one will try to explain the analogical function of imaginative consciousness as the result of a process of emancipation of Husserl's phenomenology in which the material distinction of the analogon expresses only the starting point of a critical development that will lead to the abandonment of the hyletic dimension of the analogon for the analogical function of consciousness. These perspectives will give us an overview of the legitimate limits of each one, as well as the depth and dynamism of Sartrean thought. (shrink)

En el presente artículo analizaremos cómo se produce un primer momento del giro subjetivo cartesiano a partir de la necesidad de dar una respuesta unitaria en el plano del conocimiento a una realidad ontológica irreductiblemente dualista, es decir, cómo se concibe un monismo gnoseológico a partir de un dualismo ontológico. A tal fin analizaremos cómo su mathesis universalis expresa el proyecto originario de las Regulae y establece las condiciones generales para su interpretación.nLuego, cómo esta mathesis, comprendida como exigencia epistémica, tiene (...) como correlato gnoseológico una psicología en la que la percepción y la facultad cognitiva conforman un mecanismo integral distinguible, ontológicamente, en cuerpo/mente. Finalmente analizaremos cómo este dualismo ontológico encubre un verdadero monismo gnoseológico en el que toda la realidad es reducida a una dimensión cognoscente en el que la corporalidad asume el papel de «corporalidad ideal». (shrink)

The fascination of Velasquez's painting Las Meninas stems largely from the ambiguous relationship between the painting as a whole, viewed by a single perceiver, and the variety of different perceptual viewpoints it invites. This situation resonates strongly with a central puzzle in the study of consciousness: the apparent unity of perceptual experience despite multiple sense modalities. Understanding more of this latter might help to explain the way we respond to the painting.

La fascinante vida intelectual y espiritual de Gastón Soublette Asmussen lo ha vuelto un renombrado filósofo en Chile, quien fue galardonado recientemente con el Premio Nacional de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales año 2023. Hoy, con sus 97 años, este musicólogo, esteta y experto en filosofía oriental y teología cristiana es uno de los referentes más importantes en el acontecer intelectual chileno. En esta entrevista se exploraron las diversas facetas de su vida, desde el inicio de su actividad docente y académica, (...) hasta las motivaciones existenciales que lo llevaron a explorar los temas de su investigación –como la cultura tradicional indígena, el folclore, la música, la teología y las espiritualidades orientales–. Con más de una docena de libros publicados, Soublette ha dejado una profunda huella en centenares de alumnos y alumnas. En esta ocasión, Soublette compartió sus experiencias y aprendizajes a lo largo de los años, y destacó la importancia de la cultura tradicional indígena y su valor para la sociedad contemporánea. Nos explicó cómo estas culturas ancestrales pueden ofrecer una visión profunda y significativa de la existencia humana, alentando un mayor respeto por la naturaleza y una conexión más profunda con nuestra diversidad espiritual humana. El papel de la espiritualidad ocupó un lugar destacado en la conversación, y Soublette resaltó la importancia de preservar estas expresiones espirituales como una forma de mantener viva la identidad y la historia de un pueblo. Además, señaló cómo la búsqueda espiritual puede ser una herramienta poderosa para la transformación personal y el despertar de saberes, más allá del academicismo dominante. En cuanto a la filosofía oriental, Soublette compartió su profundo conocimiento sobre estas tradiciones. Habló sobre conceptos como el zen, el taoísmo y el budismo, y cómo pueden brindar una perspectiva única sobre la existencia humana y el propósito de la vida. En resumen, la entrevista con Gastón Soublette fue un viaje fascinante a través de su vida y su amplio conocimiento sobre filosofía oriental, cultura tradicional indígena, folclore, música, teología cristiana y espiritualidades orientales. Sus palabras ofrecieron una valiosa perspectiva sobre la importancia de estas disciplinas y cómo pueden enriquecer nuestras vidas, fomentando una conexión más profunda con nosotros mismos, los demás y el mundo que nos rodea. (shrink)

In this paper I intend to examine the notion of intermediate in Plato´s dialogues, especially Theaetetus and Symposium. In the first section, I investigate previously in Theaetetus the notion of to metaxy as the result of mixture between percipient and perceived, by which the realm of phenomenon can be explained by the third genre, identified as to metaxy, born from a certain kind of dynamis. In the second section, I examine the mentioned notion s Symposium, expressed by Diotima of Mantineia (...) on her encomium of Eros as daimon. My purpose in this last section is to demonstrate that the apprehension of Form of Beauty itself requires a new hermeneutic approach, which I call cultual hermeneutic, by which Plato conceives an inherent link between mythical and rational conceptions of Ideas. (shrink)

This study situates Henry Havelock Ellis’s sexological research within the nineteenth-century evolutionary debates, especially the discussion over sexual selection’s applicability to humanity. For example, Ellis’s monograph on sexual behavior, _Sexual Inversion_ (1897), treated inborn homosexuality as a natural variation of evolutionary mechanisms. This book was situated within a longer study of human sexuality in relation to evolutionary selection. His later works dealt even more directly with Charles Darwin’s concept of selection, such as _Sexual Selection in Man_ (1905). Through _Sexual Selection (...) in Man_, Ellis asserted that sexual attraction stemmed from a physical cause rather than an innate aesthetic sense. I argue that Ellis’s best-known historical publications, including his work on sexual inversion, were intended to intervene in the contemporary evolutionary debates. This analysis also identifies a specific point where evolutionary theory informed the foundation of sexology as a scientific discipline. (shrink)

We pay attention to the concept of univocal connective. Considering the corresponding definition in the context of the sequent calculus a problem arises in a paper by Belnap. We provide an explanation by Belnap and finally give some examples and non-examples of univocal connectives.

L’article présente les résultats d’une enquête qualitative réalisée pendant le premier confinement au Chili en 2020, dans laquelle 26 personnes de différentes caractéristiques sociales ont été interrogées à trois moments différents de la période, pour un total de plus de 70 entretiens. L’analyse de ce corpus oppose la rationalité techno-expérimentale sur laquelle se fonde la stratégie de confinement et qui réduit les temporalités à un temps objectif, standard et mesurable, aux expériences singularisées du temps social éprouvées par les individus au (...) Chili. Ces expériences du temps confiné ont été façonnées par les propriétés sociales des individus et de leur environnement. Ainsi, trois conditions sociales ont été identifiées – position sociale, activités et étapes du cycle de vie –, dont l’interaction a donné lieu à trois modalités de temporalisation : l’expérience du temps suspendu, l’expérience du temps exigé et l’expérience du temps réinvesti. Si chaque expérience peut fournir une représentation fixe des temporalités sociales pendant le confinement, l’article propose l’idée d’une transition des individus entre ces différentes expériences, en fonction de l’évolution de l’enfermement et des conditions sociales. (shrink)

This article aims to provide a brief overview of mental causation problem and its current proposed solutions. Indeed, mental causation turns out as one of the most difficult philosophical conundrums in contemporary philosophy of mind. In the first two sections, we offer an outline of the problem and the philosophical debate about it, and show that mental causation problem is pivotal within the contemporary philosophy of mind. In the third section, we focus on the most popular models of mental causation, (...) namely Kim's and Davidson's accounts, also discussing the objections raised against them. In the final section, we take into consideration some recent proposals poised to solve the mental causation problem, including powerism. Given the logical and metaphysical plausibility of almost all these different options, our conclusion is that mental causation is still an open problem and it is far from being resolved. (shrink)

In the original formulation of quantum mechanics the existence of a precise border between a microscopic world, governed by quantum mechanics, and a macroscopic world, described by classical mechanics was assumed. Modern theoretical and experimental physics has moved that border several times, carefully investigating its definition and making available to observation larger and larger quantum systems. The present book examines a paradigmatic case of the transition from quantum to classical behavior: A quantum particle is revealed in a tracking chamber as (...) a trajectory obeying the laws of classical mechanics. The authors provide here a purely quantum-mechanical description of this behavior, thus helping to illuminate the nature of the border between the quantum and the classical. (shrink)

Interval Temporal Logic is a finite-time linear temporal logic with applications in hardware verification, temporal logic programming and specification of multimedia documents. Due to the logic's non-elementary complexity, efficient ITL-based verification tools have been difficult to develop, even for propositional subsets. MONA is an efficient implementation of an automata-based decision procedure for the logic WS1S. Despite the non-elementary complexity of WS1S, MONA has been successfully applied in problems such as hardware synthesis, protocol verification and theorem proving. Here we consider a (...) rich propositional subset of ITL, PITL, whose expressive power is equivalent to that of WS1S, and in turn to that of regular languages. PITL not only includes operators such as chop, star and projection, but also past operators such as previous, chop in the past and since. We provide an interpretation of PITL formulas in WS1S, which led us to a direct translation from PITL formulas to MONA specifications. We present the tool PITL2MONA as an implementation of such translation. With PITL2MONA acting as a front-end, MONA is used as a decision procedure for PITL. To our knowledge, this is one of the few implementations of a decision procedure for PITL, the first one based on automata, and the only one which handles both projection and past operators. We have tested our implementation on a number of examples; we show in this paper the application of PITL and its MONA-based decision procedure in solutions to the dining-philosophers and a multimedia synchronisation problem, together with some experimental results on these and some other examples. (shrink)

According to a very common view, the main tenet of empiricism is the conviction that all human knowledge derives from sensory experience. But classic philosophers representing empiricism hold that mathematical knowledge is a priori. Mill intended to demonstrate that the laws of arithmetic and geometry have inductive origins. But Frege and others authors showed that Mill’s arguments were wrong. Benacerraf held that, since mathematical objects are abstract entities, they could not have any causal relationship with human beings, so they cannot (...) be known by us. On the other hand, biology and psychology show that in animals and human creatures we can find innate behaviours, in accordance with the theory on natural selection. Experiments performed by Wynn and by other psychologists strongly support that very young babies can determine the results of simple arithmetical operations without any previous learning. We conclude that there are convincing reasons to accept the rationalist thesis about the a priori character of mathematical knowledge. (shrink)

Originally published in Mexico in 1970, _Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América _is the first book by the Argentine philosopher Rodolfo Kusch to be translated into English. At its core is a binary created by colonization and the devaluation of indigenous practices and cosmologies: an opposition between the technologies and rationalities of European modernity and the popular mode of thinking, which is deeply tied to Indian ways of knowing and being. Arguing that this binary cuts through América, Kusch seeks (...) to identify and recover the indigenous and popular way of thinking, which he contends is dismissed or misunderstood by many urban Argentines, including leftist intellectuals. _Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América_ is a record of Kusch's attempt to immerse himself in the indigenous ways of knowing and being. At first glance, his methodology resembles ethnography. He speaks with and observes indigenous people and mestizos in Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. He questions them about their agricultural practices and economic decisions; he observes rituals; he asks women in the market the meaning of indigenous talismans; he interviews shamans; he describes the spatial arrangement and the contents of shrines, altars, and temples; and he reproduces diagrams of archaeological sites, which he then interprets at length. Yet he does not present a "them" to a putative "us." Instead, he offers an inroad to a way of thinking and being that does not follow the logic or fit into the categories of Western social science and philosophy. In his introduction, Walter D. Mignolo discusses Kusch's work and its relation to that of other twentieth-century intellectuals, Argentine history, and contemporary scholarship on the subaltern and decoloniality. (shrink)

El autor trata en este artículo la problemática de la integración de la enseñanzadel conocimiento científico-tecnológico en la educación. Se analiza la forma de responder a las demandas por una “alfabetización científico- tecnológica”, que incluya la tecnología en los currículos educativos. El estudio propone fundamentar el diseño de los programas de estudio en base a un marco general para analizar la tecnología, sintetizado mediante los conceptos: práctica social, conocimiento y artefacto, enfoque que permite comprender el “fenómeno tecnológico” y el significado (...) del concepto moderno de tecnología. Esto daría las herramientas analíticas para una organización curricular que integre ciencia y tecnología ordenada desde dos perspectivas: la estructura lógico-epistemológica propia de los distintos campos: saber científico, científico-tecnológico, tecnológico-científico y de las formas en que opera la inteligencia del alumno que aprende, lo cual permitiría en la enseñanza, conjugar las distintas posibilidadesde desarrollar mecanismos de articulación de los conocimientos. The author treats in this problematic article of the teaching integra0tion of the technologic-scientific knowledge in education. The way of answering to the demands for an “alphabetization technologic-scientific” is analyzed, in which includes the technology in the educative curriculums. The survey proposes to establish the design of the study programs based to a general setting to analyzethe technology, synthesized by way of these concepts: social practice knowledge and device, approach which allows the understanding of the “technological phenomenon” and the meaning of the modern concept of the technology. Thiswould give the analytical instruments for a curricular organization, in which includes science and technology, ordered from two perspectives: the logic-epistemology structure typical of the different fields: scientific knowledge, scientific-technologic, technologic-scientific and the ways in which the intelligence of the pupil who learns operates, in which case would permit in teaching, conjugate the different possibilities to develop mechanisms of articulation of the knowledge. (shrink)

Introduction Conatus is a specific concept within Descartes’s physics. In particular, it assumes a crucial importance in the purely mechanistic description of the nature of light – an issue that Des- cartes considered one of the most crucial challenges, and major achievements, of his natural phil- osophy. According to Descartes’s cosmology, the universe – understood as a material continuum in which there is no vacuum – is composed of a number of separate yet interconnected vortices. Each of these vortices consists (...) in a set of bands rotating around their centres. The bands are com- posed of corpuscles of the three elements, each distinguished on the basis of their different shapes and sizes. The small globules of the second element, although impeded by the other parts of heaven, strive to move away from the centre of the vortex around which they revolve, thus exerting a certain force against the surrounding bodies. This striving or conatus, though a mere force rather than a genuine motion, is transmitted instan- taneously and along straight lines from body to body. According to Descartes, then, the nature of light consists in this striving alone. This account must be understood as strictly connected to the fundamental laws that regulate the Cartesian world. It is particularly important to recall that for Descartes the centrifugal force exerted by a rotating body is understood to be a consequence of the intrinsic rectilinearity of every motion. As the second of the three Laws of Nature set forth in Book II of the Principles of Philosophy establishes, “all motion is in itself rectilinear; and hence any body moving in a circle tends to move away from the centre of the circle which it describes as proved by the fact that a stone rotating in a sling tends to move centrifugally along the tangent of each point described by a circle.1 Similarly, each of the globules of the second element “strives to recede with a great force from the centre of the vortex in which it rotates; it is in fact prevented by the other globules placed all around, not differently than a stone in a sling”. Within this framework, as I show later, conatus occurs when a body’s intrinsic tendency to rectilinear motion is impeded by an external constraint. As Stephen Gaukroger notes, the use of the term conatus in the Principles – like “vis” and “ action ” – shows that Descartes “cannot avoid dynamic terminology”, despite his declared intent “to construe motion in a purely kinematic way”. Indeed, Gaukroger observes that the notions of force action and striving are systematically employed in the Principles – appearing 290, 59 and 8 times, respectively. Also noteworthy, conatus was – together with the more familiar concepts of actio and vis – a significant element of the conceptual apparatus of Scholastic natural philosophy. As will be seen later – and this is the first goal of this paper – here the concept of conatus had a very specific function. Indeed, it was a central part of the Aristotelian- Scholastic account of gravitation. Conatus was used to refer to the striving of a body to move towards its natural place – especially in cases where its natural motion was hindered or impeded by an external mover. This specific use of the concept of conatus can be found in texts on natural philosophy from the end of the sixteenth through the late seventeenth century. Notably, it occurs in some of the late -Scho- lastic texts which held special significance for Descartes’s thought. Therefore, Descartes introduces conatus in a context in which this concept already had a very specific meaning, and one of which he was very probably aware. The possible relations between these two apparently very different con- cepts have therefore to be scrutinized. I thereby propose to undertake a comparison between the Scho- lastic and the Cartesian conceptions of conatus. I hope to show that certain traits of the former are indeed echoed by the latter, although adapted to the much changed physical paradigm of Cartesian physics. In fact, Descartes’s conatus, though sharing some important similarities with the old one, underwent significant transformations in terms of both its meaning and its application. However, I hope to show that these concepts are both used to describe the behaviour of bodies in relation to their intrinsic motive tendency, and in particular when this tendency is impeded or prevented. Such a reconstruction offers two main areas of interest. On an immediate level, it furthers the general efforts of scholars over the past decades to reconstruct the full extent of the relations between Descartes’s thought and Scholastic philosophy. However, there is another significant reason for taking an interest in the ties between the Scholastic and the Cartesian conceptions of conatus. Indeed, the Cartesian conatus must be seen as crucial to a proper understanding of the broader, diverse conceptualization that this idea enjoyed in the thought of many of the most important philosophers of the early modern period, namely Spinoza, Hobbes and Leibniz. In particular, Spinoza, were directly influenced by Descartes in their unique formulations of conatus. Thus a reconstruction of the context in which Descartes formulated his conatus and of its relations to a pre-existing Scholastic conception will enable us to better reconstruct the history of this idea in the early modern period. The paper is structured as follows: in the first part, I provide a thorough review of the Scho- lastic employment of the concept conatus – both its meaning and the extent of its usage. I then show that it occurs in some of the most prominent Cartesian sources. Finally, I shall provide an account of Descartes’s theory of circular motion and conatus with the specific aim of empha- sizing the elements of both continuity and discontinuity that justify the claim that Descartes’s con- ception of conatus is reminiscent of the Scholastic one. (shrink)