Esta pesquisa faz parte de um estudo que pretende investigar longitudinalmente a transição da conjugalidade para a parentalidade quanto ao ajustamento diádico e a satisfação conjugal de casais primíparos. O presente relato compreendeu os dados coletados na primeira medida e, portanto, se caracterizo..

O texto discute a reiterada e repetida demanda pela qualidade e excelência exigida pela sociedade frente à educação contemporânea. Considerando alguns aspectos da modernidade/pós-modernidade em que vivem tanto os herdeiros de Prometeu, como os de Dionísio, caracterizados pelo hedonismo, e os de Hermes, que valorizam a comunicação, a criação e a mediação, postula-se que a educação vive sua crise de finalidade, não encontrando referências ou modelos para atualizar-se. Seu impulso legitimador foi diluído quando o cânone moderno de padrões objetivos de (...) conhecimento e organização em que se baseava o mundo, foram desacreditados frente a um cenário pós-moderno. Neste contexto, são discutidas as necessidades de escolhas, de suturar os opostos, de práticas de ruptura e de alternativas existenciais para impasses contemporâneos. (shrink)

Este artigo discute a competência em informação frente ao plágio no meio acadêmico. Reflete sobre as causas do plágio, como o pouco incentivo para que estudantes produzam conteúdos autorais e a ausência de políticas institucionais que orientem tais produções. Como resposta a este contexto, o artigo sugere uma educação para a autoria a partir da competência em informação. A competência em informação, entre outros, promove uma relação saudável entre as pessoas e o universo informacional. Assim, o objetivo é discutir de (...) que forma a promoção da competência em informação contribui para o combate ao plágio acadêmico e a constituição da autoria. O método envolve levantamento bibliográfico em bases de dados da área de Ciência da Informação e construção argumentativa na qual os conceitos de plágio e competência em informação são relacionados. Os resultados incluem um guia demonstrativo de como a competência em informação pode ser empregada na produção de trabalhos acadêmicos e orientações para professores reconhecerem e evitarem o plágio. O trabalho conclui que as competências geradas no âmbito da relação entre indivíduos e informação podem beneficiar a construção de autoria e ser um elemento eficaz no combate ao plágio. (shrink)

A proposta deste ensaio é discorrer sobre a evolução do conceito subjacente à competência em informação sem a pretensão de abarcar todos os pontos de vista sob os quais o conceito tem sido concebido. Acredita-se que a interação propiciada pelas tecnologias de informação e comunicação pressionam o conceito no sentido da inclusão de aspectos como a relação de comunicação com o outro. Assim, defende-se a promoção de um modelo que procura acrescentar à competência em informação o aspecto comunicativo, levando à (...) proposta das competências infocomunicacionais. Enfatiza-se a necessidade de promover o desenvolvimento e aperfeiçoamento dessas competências a partir da conectividade e da meta-aprendizagem, aspectos defendidos pelo conectivismo e pela metaliteracy. As reflexões em torno da aproximação das competências infocomunicacionais a esses dois conceitos possibilitam avançar quanto às discussões a respeito da evolução do conceito de competência em informação para uma perspectiva metacognitiva, interativa e colaborativa. (shrink)

Ce travail compose un article de révision et il présente, dans son noyau, rachats historiques des vies de Jean Piaget et Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, imprégnés de convergences et similitudes, accords et désaccords entre ses expériences académiques, idées et oeuvres, et celles-ci, chevauchant avec ses contributions dans le zone de sicología de l'éducation. Ils se trouvent en règle tout au long du texte, les similitudes et différences entre les dimensions de l'approche historique-culturelle du psychisme et le constructivisme de Piaget, présents en (...) les recherches et des oeuvres de ces deux auteurs. Diverse approches de ses études sont disputées, en se soulignant les suppositions basiques de ces courants de pensée sur les questions d'apprentissage et le caractère social des procès de production de connaissance. (shrink)

Este texto apresenta uma investigação/formação em estágio inicial de recolha de informações, vinculada ao Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação da Universidade Estadual do Sudoeste da Bahia. Vincula-se à seguinte questão: Como as experiências vividas com a Matemática, nos percursos de formação, se expressam na professoralidade de pedagogos/professores? Tem como objetivos analisar experiências e percursos de formação de pedagogos/professores e as possibilidades destas terem resvalado para os modos de composição da professoralidade; compreender como se evidenciam, na professoralidade de pedagogos/professores, em denominados (...) movimentos de professoralização, em especial na lida com a Matemática. Alicerça-se em referenciais epistemológicos e metodológicos biográficos e dá indícios de estar a contribuir para a concepção da formação profissional como algo propiciador de dinâmicas de transformação. Com isso, viabiliza o tratamento da formação como autoformação, demonstrando que o ser humano, ao viver experiências de si, rearranja, continuamente, forças vitais criadoras de estados inéditos de ser. (shrink)

Providing a novel multi-disciplinary theorization of memory politics, this insightful Handbook brings varied literatures into a focused dialogue on the ways in which the past is remembered and how these influence transnational, interstate, and global politics in the present. With case studies from Africa, East and Southeast Asia, Europe, South America, and the United States, the Handbook focuses on the political features of historical memory in international relations. Chapters examine key concepts of memory politics, including accountability, commemoration and memorialization, the (...) Europeanization of memory, and the politics of trauma and victimhood, as well as analyzing different sites of memory, from the human body and memorial sites to media, film, and television. It also answers essential questions such as who and what determines the relevance of the past in the present; how does memory become a political question; and what are the political effects and ethical implications of its mobilization? Exploring the links between the politics of memory, international ethics, law, and diplomacy, this stimulating Handbook will be essential reading for students and scholars of politics and international relations, cultural studies, history, and transitional justice. Its discussion of notable agents and practices of memory politics will also be beneficial for practitioners working in human rights, politics, and public policy. (shrink)

In this Chapter, Maria Kronfeldner discusses whether psychological essentialism is a necessary part of dehumanization. This involves different elements of essentialism, and a narrow and a broad way of conceptualizing psychological essentialism, the first akin to natural kind thinking, the second based on entitativity. She first presents authors that have connected essentialism with dehumanization. She then introduces the error theory of psychological essentialism regarding the category of the human, and distinguishes different elements of psychological essentialism. On that basis, Kronfeldner (...) connects historical, socio-psychological, and philosophical insights in order to show that although essentialism can act as a catalyst for dehumanization, it is not necessary for it. Examples relate to dehumanization in the context of colonialism and evolutionary thinking, to the history of dehumanizing women from Aristotle to 19th-century craniology, and to contemporary self-dehumanization and ‘lesser mind’ attribution. (shrink)

Na contemporaneidade, a leitura e a escrita ganham importância significativa na vida do indivíduo. Ambas proporcionam a inserção social através do acesso à informação, do desenvolvimento da criticidade, da criatividade e da ampliação de vocabulário. Esses aspectos contribuem para a ampliação da discussão sobre a importância da leitura na construção da identidade do indivíduo,além de elucidar a promoção do entendimento da realidade. Esta leitura tem como objetivo explicitar o conceito de alfabetização, ressaltando a formação do leitor e as funções da (...) leitura, bem como as contribuições para as práticas pedagógicas que envolvem o desenvolvimento da leitura e da escrita.Palavras-chave: Alfabetização. Letramento. Leitura. (shrink)

A tese aborda a concepção dos mundos visível e invisível dos indígenas Karipuna, tendo o pajé como líder e xamã que possui habilidade ancestral de comunicação com os seres sobrenaturais, manifestação cultural desse grupo étnico que faz parte dos povos indígenas do Oiapoque, investigados no período de 2016/2019. O viés particular da tese propõe foco nas ideias cosmológicas como substrato do ritual denominado Turé, dentro da perspectiva da história da ciência e da etnociência, buscando estabelecer uma interface da Cosmologia Indígena (...) e a História da Ciência no Brasil. Esta pesquisa justifica-se pela necessidade de descrever, do ponto vista cosmológico, a partir da observação do céu, por meio das Sete Estrelas e a Estrela D’Alva – estrelas sobrenaturais que caracterizam as crenças e rituais –, as narrativas míticas do xamanismo Karipuna. Os métodos utilizados incluem levantamento de fontes impressas secundárias, história oral, análise documental de fontes primárias e observação participante in loco. Espera-se, assim, contribuir para o conhecimento cosmológico dos indígenas brasileiros de um grupo étnico da Terra Indígena Uaçá, município do Oiapoque, no estado do Amapá. (shrink)

Maria Kronfeldner’s Preface and Introduction to the Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization maps the landscape of dehumanization studies. She starts with a brief portrayal of the history of the field. The systematically minded sections that follow guide the reader through the resulting rugged landscape represented in the Handbook’s contributions. Different realizations, levels, forms, and ontological contrasts of dehumanization are distinguished, followed by remarks on the variety of targets of dehumanization. A discussion on valence and emotional aspects is added. Causes, functions, (...) and consequences of dehumanization, and the prospects for reducing or undoing it, are introduced. The systematic overview closes with a discussion of some important theoretical complexities that arise in studying dehumanization. After these systematic sections, the scholarly work on dehumanization gets situated in the broader intellectual landscape of debates about the ‘human’ in the humanities and social sciences. The Introduction ends with some notes on scope, limitations, and intended readership of the Handbook. (shrink)

Bayesian reasoning has been applied formally to statistical inference, machine learning and analysing scientific method. Here I apply it informally to more common forms of inference, namely natural language arguments. I analyse a variety of traditional fallacies, deductive, inductive and causal, and find more merit in them than is generally acknowledged. Bayesian principles provide a framework for understanding ordinary arguments which is well worth developing.

Bayesian reasoning has been applied formally to statistical inference, machine learning and analysing scientific method. Here I apply it informally to more common forms of inference, namely natural language arguments. I analyse a variety of traditional fallacies, deductive, inductive and causal, and find more merit in them than is generally acknowledged. Bayesian principles provide a framework for understanding ordinary arguments which is well worth developing.

An accessible introduction to the many intersections between the work of David Foster Wallace and the world of philosophical inquiry.

A paper about cross-cultural and cross-racial loving that emphasizes the need to understand and affirm the plurality in and among women as central to feminist ontology and epistemology. Love is seen not as fusion and erasure of difference but as incompatible with them. Love reveals plurality. Unity–not to be confused with solidarity–is understood as conceptually tied to domination.

"Dr. Montessori was par excellence the great interpreter of the child; and though she herself has passed on from the scene of her labours her work will still go on."-- Westminster Cathedral Chronicle One of the landmark books in the history of education--and one of the least expensive editions now available--this volume describes a new system for educating youngsters. Based on a radical concept of liberty for the pupil and highly formal training of separate sensory, motor, and mental capacities, the (...) system enabled youngsters to master reading, writing, and arithmetic rapidly and substantially. Included are discussions of scientific pedagogy; discipline; the importance of proper diet, gymnastics, and manual labor; and many other topics. Unabridged reprint of the classic 1912 edition. (shrink)

We present a probabilistic extension to active path analyses of token causation (Halpern & Pearl 2001, forthcoming; Hitchcock 2001). The extension uses the generalized notion of intervention presented in (Korb et al. 2004): we allow an intervention to set any probability distribution over the intervention variables, not just a single value. The resulting account can handle a wide range of examples. We do not claim the account is complete --- only that it fills an obvious gap in previous active-path approaches. (...) It still succumbs to recent counterexamples by Hiddleston (2005), because it does not explicitly consider causal processes. We claim three benefits: a detailed comparison of three active-path approaches, a probabilistic extension for each, and an algorithmic formulation. (shrink)

Traz os resultados das investigações levadas a efeito em função de alguns problemas centrais no campo da Bioética e Biodireito: clonagem, patenteamento genético, eutanásia, reprodução assistida e disposição do próprio corpo.

Resumo: Palavras-chave : Learning mathematics in school is being faced with a world of concepts that involves reading and understanding of the natural language and mathematical language. Often, the curriculum components, Portuguese language and the Mathematic don’t talk to each other. The resolution of the problems seems to be a critical point in mathematics education. This article seeks to bring these components together to identify strategies for an effective learning. Keywords : Mathematical language.Natural language. Problems. : Linguagem matemática. Linguagem natural. (...) Problemas. Aprender Matemática na escola é deparar-se com um mundo de conceitos que envolvem leitura e compreensão, tanto da linguagem natural como da linguagem matemática. Muitas vezes, os componentes curriculares, a Língua Portuguesa e a Matemática não dialogam. A resolução de problemas parece ser um dos pontos críticos na Matemática escolar. Este artigo aproxima esses componentes de forma a buscar estratégias para uma aprendizagem efetiva. (shrink)

Testimonio que recoge algunas experiencias y reflexiones de la artista visual costarricense María Rapela en Alemania y de cómo se involucró en la gestión cultural, coordinando el Fieber Festival, una plataforma colaborativa y auto-gestionada de mujeres artistas migrantes iberoamericanas en Berlín entre el 2011 y el 2017.

The Lottery Paradox has been thought to provide a reductio argument against probabilistic accounts of inductive inference. As a result, much work in artificial intelligence has concentrated on qualitative methods of inference, including default logics, which are intended to model some varieties of inductive inference. It has recently been shown that the paradox can be generated within qualitative default logics. However, John Pollock's qualitative system of defeasible inference, does avoid the Lottery Paradox by incorporating a rule designed specifically for that (...) purpose. I shall argue that Pollock's system instead succumbs to a worse disease: it fails to allow for induction at all. (shrink)

Silence is reserved for what cannot be verbally expressed. The well-known Wittgensteinian quote summarizes an established understanding of the relationship between language and silence: because language is not enough to account for reality and thinking, it must be transcended by other means of expression, like music or silence. But what if the opposite is the case and silence is not the extension but the precondition of language, the ultimate source of meaning? This paper explores how this is the phenomenological and (...) Derridean philosophical framework of Coetzee’s novels, a literary universe created from the will to signify and build singular meanings. (shrink)

Food systems transformations require coherent policies and improved understandings of the drivers and institutional dynamics that shape (un)sustainable food systems outcomes. In this paper, we introduce the Chilean National Organic Agriculture Law as a case of a policy process seeking to institutionalize a recognized pathway towards more sustainable food systems. Drawing from institutional theory we make visible multiple, and at times competing, logics (i.e., values, assumptions and practices) of different actors implicated in organic agriculture in Chile. More specifically, our findings (...) identify five main institutional transformative logics underpinning the interests and actions of organic actors. However, we find that the Law was not motivated by these logics and did not advance them. Rather, the Law was designed to support a market niche targeted to elite consumers and to reinforce agricultural exports. As a result, the Law constrains rather than enables the practice of organic agriculture and access to organic food by consumers, especially at the domestic level. We note that attention to institutional logics in the analysis of food systems, and specifically food system transformation, is relevant to more comprehensive assessments of the transformational potential of food systems policies. We conclude that there is a need to further consider and make visible the way in which different drivers (i.e., laws) are constituted through and by diverse, and often competing, institutional logics. (shrink)

Carter and Leslie's Doomsday Argument maintains that reflection upon the number of humans born thus far, when that number is viewed as having been uniformly randomly selected from amongst all humans, past, present and future, leads to a dramatic rise in the probability of an early end to the human experiment. We examine the Bayesian structure of the Argument and find that the drama is largely due to its oversimplification.

The investigation of probabilistic causality has been plagued by a variety of misconceptions and misunderstandings. One has been the thought that the aim of the probabilistic account of causality is the reduction of causal claims to probabilistic claims. Nancy Cartwright (1979) has clearly rebutted that idea. Another ill-conceived idea continues to haunt the debate, namely the idea that contextual unanimity can do the work of objective homogeneity. It cannot. We argue that only objective homogeneity in combination with a causal interpretation (...) of Bayesian networks can provide the desired criterion of probabilistic causality. (shrink)

Conceptions of evil have changed dramatically over time, and though humans continue to commit acts of cruelty against one another, today we possess a clearer, more moral way of analyzing them. In _Narrating Evil_, María Pía Lara explores what has changed in our understanding of evil, why the transformation matters, and how we can learn from this specific historical development. Drawing on Immanuel Kant's and Hannah Arendt's ideas about reflective judgment, Lara argues that narrative plays a key role in helping (...) societies acknowledge their pasts. Particular stories haunt our consciousness and lead to a kind of examination and dialogue that shape notions of morality. A powerful description of a crime can act as a filter, helping us to draw conclusions about what constitutes a moral wrong, and public debates over these narratives allow us to construct a more accurate picture of historical truth, leading to a better understanding of why such actions are possible. In building her argument, Lara considers Greek tragedies, Shakespeare's depictions of evil, Joseph Conrad's literary metaphors, and movies that portray human cruelty. Turning to such philosophers and writers as Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin, Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben, and Ariel Dorfman, Lara defines a reflexive relationship between an event, the narrative of the event, and the public reception of the narrative, and she proves that the stories of perpetrators and sufferers are always intertwined. The process of disclosure, debate, and the public fashioning of collective judgment are vital methods through which we make sense not only of new forms of cruelty but of past crimes as well. _Narrating Evil_ describes the steps of this process and why they are a crucial part of our attempt to build a different, more just world. (shrink)

Razón, poesía, historia.--La cuestión del estoicismo español.--El querer.

A striking feature of atrocities, as seen in genocides, civil wars or violence against certain racial and ethnic groups, is the attempt to dehumanize – to deny and strip human beings of their humanity. Yet the very nature of dehumanization remains relatively poorly understood. The Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization is the first comprehensive and multidisciplinary reference source on the subject and an outstanding survey of the key concepts, issues and debates within dehumanization studies. Organized into four parts, the Handbook covers (...) the following key topics: (I) The history of dehumanization from Greek Antiquity to the Twentieth century, contextualizing the oscillating boundaries, dimensions, and hierarchies of humanity in the history of the ‘West’. (II) How dehumanization is contemporarily studied with respect to special contexts: as part of social psychology, as part of legal studies or literary studies, and how it connects to the idea of human rights, disability and eugenics, the question of animals, and the issue of moral standing. (III) How to tackle its complex facets, with respect to the perpetrator’s and the target’s perspective, metadehumanization and selfdehumanization, rehumanization, social death, status and interdependence, as well as the fear we show towards robots that become too human for us. (IV) Conceptual and epistemological questions on how to distinguish different forms of dehumanization and neighboring phenomena, on why dehumanization appears so paradoxical, and on its connection to hatred, essentialism, and perception. -- Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, history, psychology, and anthropology this Handbook will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as politics, international relations, criminology, legal studies, literary studies, gender studies, disability studies, or race and ethnic studies, as well as readers from social work, political activism, and public policy --- Table of Contents: Introduction. 1. Mapping dehumanization studies. – Maria Kronfeldner. Part I. Oscillating boundaries, dimensions, and hierarchies of humanity in historical contexts. 2. Dehumanization Before the Columbian exchange – Siep Stuurman. 3. 'Humanity' and its Limits in Early Modern European Thought – László Kontler. 4. Enlightenment Humanization and Dehumanization and the Orang-utan – Silvia Sebastiani. 5. Dehumanizing the Exotic in Living Human Exhibitions – Guido Abbattista. 6. Dehumanizing Strategies in Nazi Ideology and their Anthropological Context – Johannes Steizinger. 7. Theorizing the Inhumanity of Human Nature, 1955-1985 – Erika Lorraine Milam. Part II: Further special contexts of dehumanization. 8. The Social Psychology of Dehumanization – Nick Haslam. 9. Dehumanization and the Loss of Moral Standing – Edouard Machery. 10. Dehumanization and the Question of Animals – Alice Crary. 11. Dehumanization, Disability, and Eugenics – Robert A. Wilson. 12. Dehumanization and Human Rights – Marie-Luisa Frick. 13. Dehumanization by Law – Luigi Corrias. 14. Dehumanisation in Literature and the Figure of the Perpetrator – Andrea Timár. Part III: The complex facets of dehumanization. 15. Dehumanization and Social Death as Fundamentals of Racism – Wulf D. Hund. 16. How Status and Interdependence Explain Different Forms of Dehumanization – Susan T. Fiske. 17. Exploring Metadehumanization and Self-dehumanization from a Target Perspective – Stéphanie Demoulin, Pierre Maurage, Florence Stinglhamber. 18. The Dehumanization and Rehumanization of Refugees – Victoria M. Esses, Stelian Medianu, Alina Sutter. 19. Motivational and Cognitive Underpinnings of Fear of Social Robots that become ‘Too Human for Us’ – Maria Paola Paladino, Jeroen Vaes, Jolanda Jetten. Part IV: Conceptual and epistemological questions regarding dehumanization. 20. Objectification, Inferiorization and Projection in Phenomenological Research on Dehumanization – Sara Heinämaa and James Jardine. 21. Why Dehumanization is Distinct from Objectification – Mari Mikkola. 22. On Hatred and Dehumanization – Thomas Brudholm and Johannes Lang. 23. Dehumanization, the Problem of Humanity, and the Problem of Monstrosity – David Livingstone Smith. 24. Psychological Essentialism and Dehumanization – Maria Kronfeldner. 25. Could Dehumanization Be Perceptual? – Somogy Varga. (shrink)

I consider three aspects in which machine learning and philosophy of science can illuminate each other: methodology, inductive simplicity and theoretical terms. I examine the relations between the two subjects and conclude by claiming these relations to be very close.

The common opinion has been that evolution results in the continuing development of more complex forms of life, generally understood as more complex organisms. The arguments supporting that opinion have recently come under scrutiny and been found wanting. Nevertheless, the appearance of increasing complexity remains. So, is there some sense in which evolution does grow complexity? Artificial life simulations have consistently failed to reproduce even the appearance of increasing complexity, which poses a challenge. Simulations, as much as scientific theories, are (...) obligated at least to save the appearances! We suggest a relation between these two problems, understanding biological complexity growth and the failure to model even its appearances. We present a different understanding of that complexity which evolution grows, one that genuinely runs counter to entropy and has thus far eluded proper analysis in information-theoretic terms. This complexity is reflected best in the increase in niches within the biosystem as a whole. Past and current artificial life simulations lack the resources with which to grow niches and so to reproduce evolution’s complexity. We propose a more suitable simulation design integrating environments and organisms, allowing old niches to change and new ones to emerge. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 131-132 [Access article in PDF] Christia Mercer. Leibniz's Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xiii + 528. Cloth, $80.00. Christia Mercer's massive study is aimed at unearthing the hidden roots of Leibniz's metaphysics by placing the German philosopher back in the intellectual context within which his thought first took shape. In so doing she stresses (...) the fundamental importance of Leibniz's early years for the development of his philosophy. In particular she convincingly argues for the key role played by Leibniz's early exposure to the thought of eclectic thinkers (including his teachers) who were trying to build a new philosophical synthesis centered around the key tenets of Christian theology and combining elements of Aristotelianism, Platonism, and (in at least some cases) the new mechanical philosophy of nature.One of Mercer's central theses is that the methodological and metaphysical commitments that Leibniz developed during his youth formed the bedrock of his mature philosophy (23). More precisely, her bold claim is that Leibniz's core metaphysics (including the complete concept account of substance) was constructed in 1668-71, re-examined and slightly developed in 1672-79, and then used for the rest of his long philosophical career (18, 470). The key inspirational forces driving the development of Leibniz's philosophy, in her view, had even earlier origins. In the mid-1660s Leibniz did not yet have a fully formulated metaphysics; but he already possessed very definite philosophical objectives which were to guide the development of his metaphysics and form the unstated assumptions underlying his mature thought (40). Mercer identifies these unstated assumptions as a "Metaphysics of Method," a "Metaphysics of Substance," and a "Metaphysics of Divinity," all of which she finds fully developed in his early thought (468-9).According to Leibniz's "Metaphysics of Method" (examined in part I), there exists a truth beneath the prominent philosophical schools which can and ought to be discovered. This conciliatory methodology was Leibniz's answer to the political, religious, and philosophical chaos around him. He was deeply convinced that his brilliantly original eclectic metaphysics would provide the foundation of philosophical, theological, and even political peace. Leibniz's "Metaphysics of Substance," Mercer argues in part II, melded an Aristotelian approach to substance with a mechanical physics and originated at the very outset of his intellectual carrier in an attempt to solve specific theological problems (e.g., those of the incarnation and resurrection). Platonism in turn offered the material for Leibniz's "Metaphysics of Divinity" (explored in part III), that is, for his conception of the relationship between God and creatures. The fourth and final part of Mercer's book takes her analysis of Leibniz's writings up to 1679 and describes the laying of the foundations of his mature metaphysics. She concludes not only that Leibniz proposed the doctrine of pre-established harmony prior to his departure for Paris in March 1672, but also, more generally, that the other tenets of Leibniz's mature thought, including his theory of truth, grew naturally out of his early metaphysics (see, in particular, 2, 15-8, 47, 52, 169-70, 250-2, 300-1, 472).Throughout the book Mercer describes her interpretation as "startling," "unfamiliar," "dramatic," and "surprising," and fears that "readers may balk" at her conclusions since "so much of Leibniz's thought has escaped us for so long" (see, for instance, 1, 9, 471). Some readers may feel, on the contrary, that she has underestimated the extent to which several of her central theses—such as the importance of the earliest stages of Leibniz's philosophical development in general and of eclecticism, theological problems, and Platonism, as well as Aristotelianism within that development in particular—are already reflected in the [End Page 131] best recent traditions of international Leibniz scholarship. But her book undoubtedly breaks new ground and remains an important contribution to an exciting field which cannot and will not be ignored. While international Leibniz scholarship may not absorb some of this book's more... (shrink)

We further develop the mathematical theory of causal interventions, extending earlier results of Korb, Twardy, Handfield, & Oppy, (2005) and Spirtes, Glymour, Scheines (2000). Some of the skepticism surrounding causal discovery has concerned the fact that using only observational data can radically underdetermine the best explanatory causal model, with the true causal model appearing inferior to a simpler, faithful model (cf. Cartwright, (2001). Our results show that experimental data, together with some plausible assumptions, can reduce the space of viable explanatory (...) causal models to one. (shrink)