The ArgumentBetween 1550 and 1650, the intellectual elite of Ashkenazic (German-and Yiddish-speaking) Jews, including rabbis such as Yom Tov Lipmann Heller (1578–1654), showed a marked interest in astronomy, and to a lesser degree in the natural sciences generally. This is one aspect of the assimilation of medieval Jewish rationalism by that group. Passages from Heller‘s writings show his familiarity with medieval and early modern Hebrew astronomical texts, and his belief that astronomy should be studied by all Jewish schoolboys. Heller‘s astronomical (...) views were then influenced by the discoveries and debates of his period. Between 1614 and the 1630‘s, Heller moved from an Aristotelian to a Tychonic view of the nature of the celestial bodies. Inspired, furthermore, by the notion of a natural order subject to change, and basing himself on the exegesis of ancient rabbinic texts, Heller offered what we have termed” midrashic natural histories”: namely, a hypothesis concerning the development of a certain type of animal, and another concerning the dimming of the moon and its movement into a lower orbit. (shrink)

Theatrical improvisation is a joyful, creative, and playful activity of discovery and a spontaneous process. It seems to be the opposite of teaching, which requires proper planning and advance thinking and seems a very “serious business” that deals with values and knowledge. Improvisation is shaped by flexibility and by transformative and equal relations among the participants. In contrast, there is in education usually a very clear hierarchy of teacher and pupils, and the relationships are mostly managed in a one-way direction. (...) This seemingly reasonable comparison of opposites can be continued and developed. If we look beyond these superficial, stereotypical, and binary images of improvisation and teaching.. (shrink)

This collection of essays examines interplays of knowledge and religion in early modern thought. Spanning from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, it considers varied formations of knowledge and religion, knowledge about religion and irreligious knowledge in early modern Europe.

A scholar of Hellenistic and Prussian history, Droysen developed a historical theory that at the time was unprecedented in range and depth, and which remains to the present day a valuable key for understanding history as both an idea and a professional practice. Arthur Alfaix Assis interprets Droysen’s theoretical project as an attempt to redefine the function of historiography within the context of a rising criticism of exemplar theories of history, and focuses on Droysen’s claim that the goal underlying (...) historical writing and reading should be the development of the subjective capacity to think historically. In addition, Assis examines the connections and disconnections between Droysen’s theory of historical thinking, his practice of historical thought, and his political activism. Ultimately, Assis not only shows how Droysen helped reinvent the relationship between historical knowledge and human agency, but also traces some of the contradictions and limitations inherent to that project. (shrink)

Retrospective subjective well-being (SWB) refers to self-reported satisfaction and emotional experience over the past few weeks or months. Two studies investigated the mechanisms linking daily experiences to retrospective SWB. Participants reported events each day for 21 days (Study 1) or twice a week for two months (Study 2). The emotional intensity of each event was rated: (1) when it had recently occurred (proximal intensity); and (2) at the end of the event-reporting period (distal intensity). Both sets of ratings were then (...) aggregated across events and used to predict retrospective SWB at the end of the study. Path analyses showed that proximal intensity predicted retrospective SWB whereas distal intensity did not. The effect remained even after controlling for trait happiness and neuroticism. These results suggest that daily experiences influence retrospective SWB primarily through abstract representations of the past few weeks or months (as measured by aggregated proximal intensity ratings) rather than the explicit recollection of individual events during the same period (as measured by aggregated distal intensity ratings). Retrospective SWB, in turn, mediated the effect of daily experiences on global SWB (i.e., self-reported satisfaction and emotional experiences in general). (shrink)

This volume is the first in the series to present a long Greek text. The version in the scroll represents an early revision of the Septuagint towards a closer correspondence with the Hebrew text of the Bible - the revision given the name kaige by D. Barthélemy. After an extensive introduction the volume contains an edition of the text, both with and without reconstructions, notes on the palaeography and reconstructions, an extensive commentary on the translation technique, orthographic peculiarities and textual (...) relations, and is supplemented by an index of all words, as well as twenty plates. (shrink)

In this book, the late Prof. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov argues that the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process so far has been mainly the result of the inability of both sides to reach an agreed formula for linking justice to peace. The issues of justice and injustice are focused mainly on the outcomes of the 1947-1949 first Arab-Israeli War and specifically in the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. The conflicting historical narratives of the two sides regarding the question of responsibility (...) for the injustice done to the Palestinians turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a classic case of linking the issues of justice and peace. Given that the two sides often define the conflict in terms of injustice and unfairness, these issues have particular relevance for the peace process, and this is what makes dealing with them as barriers to the resolution of the conflict so problematic. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov argues that the link between justice and peace is an important issue requiring both sides' attention, but, given the wide and currently unbridgeable gap separating the two sides, it should be postponed to the phase of reconciliation rather than being included in the process of conflict resolution. The two-state solution is endorsed as the best and practical solution and as a first step for a "just peace" in this conflict, to be followed by reconciliation. Highly topical, this book is essential reading for scholars and researchers of International Relations, Peace Studies and the Arab-Israeli conflict. (shrink)

O par Fortuna-Virtù é discutido nas diversas análises críticas do pensamento de Machiavelli e, embora tais termos possuam origens e tradições bem determinadas ao longo do pensamento latino, principalmente específicas considerações antigas e medievais em algumas recepções durante o humanismo cívico, suas características elusivas ao longo das argumentações de Machiavelli são mantidas, possibilitando inúmeros debates acadêmicos. Diante da ambivalência e da ambiguidade da ideia de Virtù perante relevantes e variadas tradições, contínuas buscas por clarificação são feitas ao longo do corpus (...) do secretário florentino, associando o termo a outras importantes e centrais reflexões, e.g., desiderio, stato, forza. A instabilidade política, as forças além do controle humano, a imponderabilidade das ações civis são temas recorrentes nas concepções sobre a Fortuna em variadas argumentações desse autor. Em aberto diálogo com os humanistas cívicos que enfatizam maior participação política e social, mesclando embasamento racional, consideração moral e as discussões sobre as formas dos regimes políticos, esse escritor apresenta uma concepção historiográfica, a revigorar tradições do mundo antigo, na criação de uma ordem civil mediante a Virtù, a qual demanda comprometimento pessoal e público na exaltação das potencialidades e dos limites humanos. Reinserir a relevância da paridade entre Fortuna e Virtù em Machiavelli é um passo relevante no combate a leituras anacrônicas. Assim, analisar-se-ão os exemplos mais significativos dos fundadores e dos sustentadores da ordem civil destacados nos textos discursivos do florentino, e.g., Romulo, Numa, Moisés, Cesare Bórgia, Castruccio Castracani. Ao estudar as imagens da Fortuna, em face das concepções políticas e antropológicas do autor, discutir-se-á a centralidade da díade Virtù-Fortuna no desenvolvimento argumentativo de algumas ideias principais desse famoso pensador político. (shrink)

A temática propaganda eleitoral na internet traz consigo uma extensa gama de questionamentos. Enquanto, por um lado, proporciona uma maior aproximação do eleitor com as informações sobre o processo político, por outro, potencializa a disseminação de notícias falsas, responsáveis, em grande parte, por manipular a intenção de votos de uma nação. Essa problemática vai além da discussão sobre desinformação, não é apenas sobre notícias falsas versus verdadeiras. Com o objetivo de analisar a relação entre o acesso à informação e os (...) aspectos éticos da informação, a presente pesquisa, exploratória e qualitativa, tem como foco a constituição de um estudo bibliográfico que vai se consolidando em torno das campanhas eleitorais no meio digital. Trata-se de refletir criticamente sobre as formas de legitimação da desinformação capazes de influenciar a sociedade, em uma realidade em que uma mentira contada várias vezes pode tornar-se uma verdade para quem a escuta, e é neste ponto que se enxerga um risco real ao processo democrático. (shrink)

A adequação dinâmica dos bons exemplos, conformando-os às necessidades impostas pelas circunstâncias, insere Maquiavel nos variados usos da _imitatio_ antiga e renascentista. A _imitação_ deve reavivar as práticas civis e as atitudes de _Virtù_, fornecendo ânimo para a realização das ações políticas e das práticas pedagógicas, conforme a atuação como secretário de Florença e seus escritos políticos, históricos e literários salientam. Desse modo, ao revisar a noção de _imitatio_, especificamente na antiguidade e na renascença, contextualizam-se os argumentos de Maquiavel sobre (...) a possibilidade dos humanos alcançarem a _Virtù_ pela imitação das ações adequadas nos _Discorsi_, no _Príncipe_, nas _Histórias Florentinas_ e na _Arte da Guerra_. Ao propor investigações e análises do passado que produzam utilidade e deleite, realçando _o sabor das ações humanas_, os escritos Maquiavelianos realçam a impossibilidade de uma definição pré-determinada sobre quais opções devam ser usadas e sustentam a possibilidade de duas perspectivas, aparentemente antagônicas, serem escolhidas simultaneamente. (shrink)

Taxa and homologues can in our view be construed both as kinds and as individuals. However, the conceptualization of taxa as natural kinds in the sense of homeostatic property cluster kinds has been criticized by some systematists, as it seems that even such kinds cannot evolve due to their being homeostatic. We reply by arguing that the treatment of transformational and taxic homologies, respectively, as dynamic and static aspects of the same homeostatic property cluster kind represents a good perspective for (...) supporting the conceptualization of taxa as kinds. The focus on a phenomenon of homology based on causal processes (e.g., connectivity, activity-function, genetics, inheritance, and modularity) and implying relationship with modification yields a notion of natural kinds conforming to the phylogenetic-evolutionary framework. Nevertheless, homeostatic property cluster kinds in taxonomic and evolutionary practice must be rooted in the primacy of epistemological classification (homology as observational properties) over metaphysical generalization (series of transformation and common ancestry as unobservational processes). The perspective of individuating characters exclusively by historical-transformational independence instead of their developmental, structural, and functional independence fails to yield a sufficient practical interplay between theory and observation. Purely ontological and ostensional perspectives in evolution and phylogeny (e.g., an ideographic character concept and PhyloCode’s ‘individualism’ of clades) may be pragmatically contested in the case of urgent issues in biodiversity research, conservation, and systematics. (shrink)

Cicero once stressed as the first law of history that “the historian must not dare to tell any falsehood.” This precept entails a minimal ethical requirement that remains unscathed by the whirlpools of epistemic relativism that have called many other aspects of professional historians’ practice into question in the last century or so. No commendable scholar seems willing to invalidate Cicero’s first law, and dependable scholarship—whether relying on objectivity-friendly or objectivity-hostile theoretical assumptions—follows shared standards of integrity and accuracy with which (...) someone from Cicero’s time, for instance, would never be able to comply. In this essay, I suggest that those two circumstances should dispose us more favorably toward a refreshed notion of historical objectivity pointing not only to epistemology but also to professional ethics. I address the condemnation of lying and, more generally, historians’ commitment to sincerity as a way to highlight the ethical dimension of history writing. By focusing on the deep but underexplored moral roots of objectivity, I argue that this concept is still very useful as both an analytical tool and a normative ideal. Objectivity, in the sense I underline here, does not stand in opposition to subjectivity—on the contrary, it is actually tied up with subjective dispositions, virtues, and skills that help shape responsible historiography. (shrink)

DIREITO À INFORMAÇÃO NAS RELAÇÕES DE CONSUMO DE PRODUTOS ALIMENTÍCIOS NO ATACADO E NO VAREJO: PARTICULARIDADES SOBRE COMPOSIÇÃO, CARACTERÍSTICAS, PREÇO E QUANTIDADE DO PRODUTO.

At the end of the 19th century, most professional historians – wherever they existed – deemed history to be a form of knowledge ruled by a method that bears no resemblance with those most commonly traceable in the natural sciences. The bulk of the historian’s task was then frequently regarded as being the application of procedures frequently referred to as ‘historical method’. In the context of such an emerging interest on historical methods and methodology, at least three textbooks stand out: (...) Johann Gustav Droysen’s Grundriss der Historik (Outline of the Theory of History), Ernst Bernheim’s Lehrbuch der historischen Methode (Handbook of Historical Method), and Charles Langlois and Charles Seignobos’s Introduction aux études historiques (Introduction to the Study of History). These books were quite influential in Germany, France, and elsewhere, and they very much helped promote a general idea of historical method that would become relatively consensual among historians of many nationalities by the early 20th century. Such a relative agreement on historical method sponsored both the communication and the development of a sense of disciplinary identity among historians trained within different and sometimes conflicting national traditions. It was then partially extended, partially challenged, and surely made more complex when, from the 1920s on, social and economic historians became a good part of the historiographical establishment in many countries. -/- The three books by Droysen, Bernheim, and Langlois and Seignobos were already pieced together by Rolf Torstendahl, who studied them as a group of texts that, despite their differences, contributed to shape the developments outlined above. However, Torstendahl’s primary aim was to show how Droysen, Bernheim, and Seignobos all resorted to ‘method’ as a way to circumvent skepticism against the possibility of historical knowledge, rather than investigate the internal interrelationships between the three texts. In this chapter I follow precisely this latter, not yet taken, road, focusing on crucial cross-references between the Grundriss, the Lehrbuch, and the Introduction. I intend to show that, at a general level, the schemes of historical method found in these texts are largely convergent, and that this convergence is due to Bernheim’s reading of Droysen and to Langlois and Seignobos’s reading of Bernheim. I will attempt to do it through a regressive approach that starts with an analysis of the Introduction. Aspects of the editorial history and circulation of the three texts will also be briefly addressed, as a way to illustrate their special importance within the framework of early 20th century historical theory. Because my argument calls for a focus on the most general lines of Droysen’s, Bernheim’s, and Langlois and Seignobos’s schemes of historical method, I will, for the sake of consistency, refrain from analysing in-depth the complex epistemological and ontological arguments in which those schemes are nested. (shrink)