Sovereignty and non-interference principles are trademarks of the Association of South-East Asian Nations regional approach. Starting from 1993, ASEAN has been developing a process aimed at creating a human rights system. This process reached its acme in August 2013 when the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration was formally launched. In the frame of the tension between sovereignty and human rights, the paper firstly analyzes the roots of the ASEAN path towards the creation of the regional human rights system grounded on the (...) Vienna World Conference debate. Next comes an analysis of the political commitments assumed by ASEAN in the last 20 years in the process of creating a human rights body in the region. Furthermore, the paper presents an in-depth analysis of the most problematic issues connected with the nature, functions, mandate, and purposes of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission. This is followed by an analysis of the AHRD. (shrink)

Chi è quel soggetto che nell’autobiografia dice “io”? Raccontarsi non è già diventare altro? L’autobiografia è un esercizio filosofico in cui l’identità si scopre tramata da altre vite e l’io emerge soltanto perché dislocato nei suoi segni. Sono forse proprio le condizioni di impossibilità di un’autopresentazione trasparente e definitiva che rendono possibile una soggettività autobiografica. Scrivere di sé infatti è già trascendenza: insinua il sospetto di un’alterità, di un’alterazione e turba la rigida identità, che si presume autonoma e precedente alle (...) sue iscrizioni. L’intreccio tra autós, bíos e graphein non è dunque una neutra auto-espressione, ma uno specchio in cui il proprio volto è riflesso e capovolto, il sé si racconta e si ascolta, recita e osserva. In che modo quindi l’autobiografia è un luogo di verità? «La verità può essere il cuore dell’autobiografia», afferma John M. Coetzee, «ma ciò non vuol dire che l’autobiografia abbia a cuore la verità». Ogni lettera scritta traccia l’aderenza di sé a sé e alle cose, nell’istante stesso in cui marca una separazione e una distanza. In questo paradosso si infrange ogni pretesa di obiettività o di adeguazione. Qui la trasparenza dell’io viene disdetta, come anche la sua sovranità del discorso. L’autobiografia è, allora, la scrittura impossibile come unica iscrizione possibile: il tentativo estremo di restituire il senso di una vita incompiuta, di dare una verità senza verità, di raccontare di sé da sé. È una messa in scena dell’identità e della propria distanza, un’autosospensione e una torsione tropica dell’io, che si racconta e si espone. Dietro ogni scrittura autobiografica c’è infatti un nome proprio, che sigilla l’autore, il narratore, il personaggio. Ma proprio in questa firma si custodisce, più che il diritto a una proprietà, la promessa di verità per sé e per gli altri: un corpo a corpo con la lingua e con la propria storia. (shrink)

Summary The treatment of the consonant ‘T’ in the names Tharsus and Thartarus and some temporal clauses shows that the Historia Apollonii regis Tyri was written by a Phoenician native speaker. Comparisons with both coins and laws issued under Caracalla suggest that this work has been written at Tarsus under this emperor. The author’s major aim was that of maintaining that both the Tyche of the city and its new founder were Tyrians. He wanted to argue against the contemporary ambition (...) of his fellow citizens to be Greek. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the conditions of second-order exchangeability and second-order partially exchangeability together with some applications.The first application concerns a general linear state-space model in which the noise process is assumed to be second-order partially exchangeable. Other applications of the second-order exchangeability condition regard statistical procedures in which imprecise prior probability assessments are employed.

This study considers Newman’s sermon—“On the Nature of the Future Promise”—which he preached on 4 September 1825 at St. Clement’s Church, Oxford—likely with his mother and sisters present in the congregation; in addition to treating Newman’s style of preaching and Evangelical theology, this sermon’s theological and pastoral dimensions are also examined.

This book presents a historical and scientific analysis as historical epistemology of the science of weights and mechanics in the sixteenth century, particularly as developed by Tartaglia in his Quesiti et inventioni diverse, Book VII and Book VIII (1546; 1554). -/- In the early 16th century mechanics was concerned mainly with what is now called statics and was referred to as the Scientia de ponderibus, generally pursued by two very different approaches. The first was usually referred to as Aristotelian, where (...) the equilibrium of bodies was set as a balance of opposite tendencies to motion. The second, usually referred to as Archimedean, identified statics with centrobarica, the theory of centres of gravity based on symmetry considerations. In between the two traditions the Italian scholar Niccolò Fontana, better known as Tartaglia (1500?–1557), wrote the treatise Quesiti et inventioni diverse (1546). -/- This volume consists of three main parts. In the first, a historical excursus regarding Tartaglia’s lifetime, his scientific production and the Scientia de ponderibus in the Arabic-Islamic culture, and from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, is presented. Secondly, all the propositions of Books VII and VIII, by relating them with the Problemata mechanica by the Aristotelian school and Iordani opvsculvm de ponderositate by Jordanus de Nemore are examined within the history and historical epistemology of science. The last part is relative to the original texts and critical transcriptions into Italian and Latin and an English translation. -/- This work gathers and re-evaluates the current thinking on this subject. It brings together contributions from two distinguished experts in the history and historical epistemology of science, within the fields of physics, mathematics and engineering. It also gives much-needed insight into the subject from historical and scientific points of view. The volume composition makes for absorbing reading for historians, epistemologists, philosophers and scientists. (shrink)

This study considers Newman’s sermon—“On the Nature of the Future Promise”—which he preached on 4 September 1825 at St. Clement’s Church, Oxford—likely with his mother and sisters present in the congregation; in addition to treating Newman’s style of preaching and Evangelical theology, this sermon’s theological and pastoral dimensions are also examined.

Con la obra de Poliziano se refuerza la idea de la existencia de un topos que, por su valencia de significado es adoptado por toda una serie de artistas que de alguna manera expresan en él su propia adhesión a la idea platónica de naturaleza, de lugar metafísico, ideal y abstracto. El "jardín", modelo instrumental y racionalizado, muestra el gusto de finales del siglo XV, que impregna todos los ámbitos de la creatividad, hasta el punto de que la Naturaleza termina (...) siendo una creación de la mente humana. El autor describe en este trabajo cómo el horizonte estético y filosófico trazado por Poliziano en sus Stanze, cuyos valores y gustos recrea, puede tomarse como clave para sondear la extrema complejidad del siglo XV. © Centro de Investigaciones sobre Vico. Cuadernos sobre Vico - Todos los derechos reservados. (shrink)

The author examines the intriguing link between magic and Gnosticism.

Dans beaucoup de textes magiques , on retrouve des triangles, des carrés et des cercles créés par des mots magiques arrangés selon ces for­mes. Une série de gemmes et de papyri avait recours à des héros de la mythologie grecque pour la guérison de certaines maladies. On s’adressait à Tantale, Lycurgue ou Persée pour contrôler des organes du corps humain, et les formules qui les nommaient étaient écrites en forme de triangles. On a l’habitude d’expliquer ces formations triangulaires de mots (...) comme une soustraction progressive de lettres qui faisait décroître la maladie et les autres maux. Cette explication est valable dans certains cas, mais non dans d’autres. Souvent des triangles du même type ajoutent chaque partie du mot au mot lui-même, comme dans le cas de noms de divinités, dont la force était multipliée par cette opération graphique. La Tetraktys pythagoricienne est le cas le plus ancien de ce type d’additions. Les formations carrées de mots multipliaient un mot par lui-même et représentaient d’autres formes d’exaltation d’un nom divin ou d’une formule magique. Ces spéculations se fondaient sur la pensée mathématique et géométrique des pythagoriciens. Les mots magiques palindromiques étaient souvent écrits sous forme circulaire, laquelle pouvait entourer et contrôler le nom d’une personne ou des symboles du mal.Geometric formations of words in the ancient magic arts. In many magical texts triangles, squares and circles often occur, which are created by magical words arranged in these forms. A series of gems and papyri look to the heroes of Greek mythology for the treatment of specific diseases. In fact, it is known that spells invoking Tantalos, Lycourgos or Perseus were created in order to control the organs of the human body and that triangular word formations were used to write these spells. The usual explanation of triangular word formations maintains that the progressive elimination of letters compels sickness and other evil to diminish. This is true, but this explanation cannot be applied to every triangle or wing formation. Similar triangles often add each part of the word to the others, as in the case of divine names, whose force is magnified by such a graphic operation. The pythagoric Tetraktys is the most ancient example of such sums. The square formations multiplied one word by itself and represented other ways of extolling a divine name or the might of a magical spell. These speculations were based on the mathematics and geometry of the Pythagoric tradition. Palindromic magical words were often written in circular formations, which could cluster round and control the name of a person or symbols of something evil. (shrink)

Pierre de Fermat is known as the inventor of modern number theory. He invented–improved many methods useful in this discipline. Fermat often claimed to have proved his most difficult theorems thanks to a method of his own invention: the infinite descent. He wrote of numerous applications of this procedure. Unfortunately, he left only one almost complete demonstration and an outline of another demonstration. The outline concerns the theorem that every prime number of the form 4n + 1 is the sum (...) of two squares. In this paper, we analyse a recent proof of this theorem. It is interesting because: it follows all the elements of which Fermat wrote in his outline; it represents a good introduction to all logical nuances and mathematical variants concerning this method of which Fermat spoke. The assertions by Fermat will also be framed inside their historical context. Therefore, the aims of this paper are related to the history of mathematics and to the logic of proof-methods. (shrink)

Lazare Carnot was the unique example in the history of science of someone who inadvertently owed the scientific recognition he eventually achieved to earlier political prominence. He and his son Sadi produced work that derived from their training as engineers and went largely unnoticed by physicists for a generation or more, even though their respective work introduced concepts that proved fundamental when taken up later by other hands. There was, moreover, a filial as well as substantive relation between the work (...) of father and son. Sadi applied to the functioning of heat engines the analysis that his father had developed in his study of the operation of ordinary machines. Specifically, Sadi's idea of a reversible process originated in the use his father made of geometric motions in the analysis of machines in general. (shrink)

In this paper we present the relations between mathematics and mathematics education in Italy between the 12th and the 16th century. Since the subject is extremely wide, we will focus on two case-studies to point out some relevant aspects of this phenomenon: 1) Fibonacci’s studies (12th-13th century); 2) Abacus schools. More particularly, Fibonacci, probably the greatest European mathematician of the Middle Ages, made the calculations with Hindu-Arabic digits widely spread in Europe; Abacus schools were also based on the teaching of (...) the calculation with Hindu-Arabic digits. These case-studies are significant for understanding the connections between science, science education and the development of science within Western civilization. We think that the knowledge of such significant relations can be useful for the scholars who are nowadays engaged in mathematics education and in the research field of science-society relations. Finally, we attempt to outline the interaction between mathematics education and advanced mathematics in that period, focusing on the figure of Leonardo Pisano (c. 1170-c.1250), called Fibonacci, who played an influential role both in mathematics education and in advanced mathematics. (shrink)

Based on our research regarding the relationship between physics and mathematics in HPS, and recently on Geneva Edition of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1739–42) by Thomas Le Seur (1703–70) and François Jacquier (1711–88), in this paper we present some aspects of such Edition: a combination of editorial features and scientific aims. The proof of Proposition XLIII is presented and commented as a case study.

One may discuss the role played by mechanical science in the history of scientific ideas, particularly in physics, focusing on the significance of the relationship between physics and mathematics in describing mathematical laws in the context of a scientific theory. In the second Newtonian law of motion, space and time are crucial physical magnitudes in mechanics, but they are also mathematical magnitudes as involved in derivative operations. Above all, if we fail to acknowledge their mathematical meaning, we fail to comprehend (...) the whole Newtonian mechanical apparatus. For instance, let us think about velocity and acceleration. In this case, the approach to conceive and define foundational mechanical objects and their mathematical interpretations changes. Generally speaking, one could prioritize mathematical solutions for Lagrange’s equations, rather than the crucial role played by collisions and geometric motion in Lazare Carnot’s operative mechanics, or Faraday’s experimental science with respect to Ampère’s mechanical approach in the electric current domain, or physico-mathematical choices in Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory. In this paper, we will focus on the historical emergence of mechanical science from a physico-mathematical standpoint and emphasize significant similarities and/or differences in mathematical approaches by some key authors of the 18th century. Attention is paid to the role of mathematical interpretation for physical objects. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce qui relie, dans les tréfonds de notre être-au-monde, les entreprises créatives de la musique et des mathématiques? Qu'est-ce qui fait des mathématiques une musique des nombres et de la musique une mathématique des sons? Cet ouvrage essaye de répondre à ces questions. Prenant son départ dans la phénoménologie de l'acte créatif, l'analyse atteint la région où la phénoménologie touche la dimension du symbolique. C'est la volonté de rester dans ce no man's land, là où les dimensions du phénoménologique et (...) du symbolique s'entrecroisent et se mélangent, qui permet d'apercevoir la place où chaque homme impliqué dans l'activité créatrice trouve ses moyens et ses limites. La constitution d'un espace-temps qui est, en même temps, mathématique et musical, est le centre de cette entreprise. Le milieu où le musical et le mathématique se transforment et se confondent l'un dans l'autre devient alors le lieu où l'analyse peut étudier des objets qui ne sont pas complètement donnés, des objets qui demeurent in fieri. Ces constitutions partielles, toujours sur le point de se condenser en produits de la langue logique ou de disparaître dans une sorte de babillage créatif, assurent la tenue et la possibilité des institutions symboliques des mathématiques et de la musique. Mais surtout ces objets assurent l'étrange capacité de ces deux institutions symboliques : la capacité de se nourrir et de proliférer mystérieusement de et sur elles-mêmes, en y trouvant les raisons de leur futur. (shrink)

James Prescott Joule’s (1818–1889) bicentenary took place in 2018 and commemorated by the IDTC with a Symposium—‘James Joule’s Bicentenary: Scientific and Pedagogical Issues Concerning Energy Conservation’—at the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS & BSHS), 14th–17th September, 2018, in London. This symposium had three main objectives: It aimed specifically to celebrate James Joule’s achievements considering the most recent historiographical works with a particular focus on the principle of conservation of energy; It served the purpose of discussing the scientific (...) and pedagogical issues related to heat, energy and work and how they are presented in textbooks and worked out in classrooms; It also provided discussions on the present situation of teaching and learning science through the use of History of Science, both in K-12 and college level with an emphasis on energy and related concepts. In the following, the Introduction of this Special Issue on Joule is presented. (shrink)

In the history of science, the birth of classical chemistry and thermodynamics produced an anomaly within Newtonian mechanical paradigm: force and acceleration were no longer citizens of new cited sciences. Scholars tried to reintroduce them within mechanistic approaches, as the case of the kinetic gas theory. Nevertheless, Thermodynamics, in general, and its Second Law, in particular, gradually affirmed their role of dominant not-reducible cognitive paradigms for various scientific disciplines: more than twenty formulations of Second Law—a sort of indisputable intellectual wealth—are (...) conceived after 1824 Sadi Carnot’s original statement and a multitude of entropy functions are proposed after 1865 Clausius’ former definition. Furthermore, at the end of nineteenth century, thermodynamics extended its cognitive domain to chemistry. Mainly thanks to Gibbs, a brand new discipline—chemical thermodynamics or physical chemistry—gradually affirmed its role inside the scientific community. This paper reports the former results of collaborative research program in the History and Epistemology of Science as well as Nature of Science Teaching aimed at retracing the foundations of the physical chemistry. Specifically, the research is structured in three parts: historical-epistemic reflections on fundamental thermodynamic concepts and principles—such as reversible process, heat, temperature, thermal equilibrium and Clausius’ Second Law—that play a structural role inside modern physical chemistry; panoramic overview on the entropy, whose polysemy makes it one of the most demanding concepts for scholars, teachers and students while approaching thermodynamics; conceptualization of chemical equilibrium as complex entity according to the dual epistemological approach offered by Gibbs’ thermodynamic model and the kinetic standpoint by Guldberg and Waage. In particular, the present work details an original reading of thermodynamic principles with the aim of setting forth a rationalized multidisciplinary substrate whereon the foundational concepts of reversible process and thermal equilibrium can be set. (shrink)

This paper has the aim to provide a general view of the so called Jesuit Edition (hereafter JE) of Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1739–1742). This edition was conceived to explain all Newton’s methods through an apparatus of notes and commentaries. Every Newton’s proposition is annotated. Because of this, the text – in four volumes – is one of the most important documents to understand Newton’s way of reasoning. This edition is well known, but systematic works on it are still (...) missing. We are going to fill this gap by means of a project exposed in the final remarks of this paper. In this paper we will: A) expound the way in which the notes and the additions to the JE were conceived by the commentators; B) provide some pieces of information about the commentators; C) summarize the most important of their notes; D) examine closely their notes as to a particularly important question: the so called "inverse problem of the central forces". (shrink)

In the history of science, the birth of classical chemistry and thermodynamics produced an anomaly within Newtonian mechanical paradigm: force and acceleration were no longer citizens of new cited sciences. Scholars tried to reintroduce them within mechanistic approaches, as the case of the kinetic gas theory. Nevertheless, Thermodynamics, in general, and its Second Law, in particular, gradually affirmed their role of dominant not-reducible cognitive paradigms for various scientific disciplines: more than twenty formulations of Second Law—a sort of indisputable intellectual wealth—are (...) conceived after 1824 Sadi Carnot’s original statement and a multitude of entropy functions are proposed after 1865 Clausius’ former definition. Furthermore, at the end of nineteenth century, thermodynamics extended its cognitive domain to chemistry. Mainly thanks to Gibbs, a brand new discipline—chemical thermodynamics or physical chemistry—gradually affirmed its role inside the scientific community. This paper reports the former results of collaborative research program in the History and Epistemology of Science as well as Nature of Science Teaching aimed at retracing the foundations of the physical chemistry. Specifically, the research is structured in three parts: historical-epistemic reflections on fundamental thermodynamic concepts and principles—such as reversible process, heat, temperature, thermal equilibrium and Clausius’ Second Law—that play a structural role inside modern physical chemistry; panoramic overview on the entropy, whose polysemy makes it one of the most demanding concepts for scholars, teachers and students while approaching thermodynamics; conceptualization of chemical equilibrium as complex entity according to the dual epistemological approach offered by Gibbs’ thermodynamic model and the kinetic standpoint by Guldberg and Waage. In particular, the present work details an original reading of thermodynamic principles with the aim of setting forth a rationalized multidisciplinary substrate whereon the foundational concepts of reversible process and thermal equilibrium can be set. (shrink)