This paper deals with calibration in scientific practices which investigate relatively well-understood natural phenomena by means of already standardized instrumental devices. Calibration is a crucial topic, since it conditions the reliability of instrumental procedures in science. Yet although important, calibration is a relatively neglected topic. We think more attention should be devoted to calibration. The paper attempts to take a step in this direction. The aims are two-fold: (1) to characterize calibration in a relatively simple kind of scientific practices; (2) (...) to provide conceptual and taxonomic tools of broader scope that help to get a better understanding of calibration in more complex cases and other kinds of scientific practices. For this purpose, we first provide indications for why a conceptual framework is needed. Second, a bibliographic survey of works dealing with calibration is attempted. Third, we introduce different tools to enable a better understanding of calibration. Fourth, we turn to the elaboration of what we call a “simple exemplar” of calibration, illustrated through the case of the calibration of an equal-arm balance. Fifth, the tools previously introduced, and the framework of the simple exemplar, are applied to a more complex case of calibration: calibration procedures in X-ray experiments. This serves to show the work accomplished by the simple exemplar and to emphasize features of more complex cases of calibration. Eventually, we revisit and specify the nature, status, scope and value of the proposed framework. (shrink)

New concepts may prove necessary to profit from the avalanche of sequence data on the genome, transcriptome, proteome and interactome and to relate this information to cell physiology. Here, we focus on the concept of large activity-based structures, or hyperstructures, in which a variety of types of molecules are brought together to perform a function. We review the evidence for the existence of hyperstructures responsible for the initiation of DNA replication, the sequestration of newly replicated origins of replication, cell division (...) and for metabolism. The processes responsible for hyperstructure formation include changes in enzyme affinities due to metabolite-induction, lipid-protein affinities, elevated local concentrations of proteins and their binding sites on DNA and RNA, and transertion. Experimental techniques exist that can be used to study hyperstructures and we review some of the ones less familiar to biologists. Finally, we speculate on how a variety of in silico approaches involving cellular automata and multi-agent systems could be combined to develop new concepts in the form of an Integrated cell (I-cell) which would undergo selection for growth and survival in a world of artificial microbiology. (shrink)

Gperhard Heinzmann, Rédacteur en chef La philosophie est la mère des sciences. Il faut avoir une bonne mémoire pour se le rappeler. Quel bonheur lorsque ce rappel vient d’une collègue qui ne l’a pas appris, mais qui éprouve la nécessité de questionner sa pratique scientifique et actualise ainsi l’ancienne métaphore! C’était le cas de Catherine Dufour. On se connaissait vaguement depuis l’école maternelle des Trois Maisons que fréquentaient nos enfants. Je fus donc très heureux de découvrir,...

In the 1980s, philosophical, historical and social studies of science underwent a change which later evolved into a turn to practice. Analysts of science were asked to pay attention to scientific practices in meticulous detail and along multiple dimensions, including the material, social and psychological. Following this turn, the interest in scientific practices continued to increase and had an indelible influence in the various fields of science studies. No doubt, the practice turn changed our conceptions and approaches of science, but (...) what did it really teach us? What does it mean to study scientific practices? What are the general lessons, implications, and new challenges? This volume explores questions about the practice turn using both case studies and theoretical analysis. The case studies examine empirical and mathematical sciences, including the engineering sciences. The volume promotes interactions between acknowledged experts from different, often thought of as conflicting, orientations. It presents contributions in conjunction with critical commentaries that put the theses and assumptions of the former in perspective. Overall, the book offers a unique and diverse range of perspectives on the meanings, methods, lessons, and challenges associated with the practice turn. (shrink)

Introduction: Platonic dramatology -- The political and philosophical problems. Using pre-Socratic philosophy to support political reform: the Athenian stranger ; Plato's Parmenides: Parmenides' critique of Socrates and Plato's critique of Parmenides ; Becoming Socrates ; Socrates interrogates his contemporaries about the noble and good -- Paradigms of philosophy. Socrates' positive teaching ; Timaeus-Critias: completing or challenging Socratic political philosophy? ; Socratic practice -- The trial and death of Socrates. The limits of human intelligence ; The Eleatic challenge ; The trial (...) and death of Socrates -- Conclusion: Why Plato made Socrates his hero. (shrink)

Truth is standardly considered a requirement on epistemic acceptability. But science and philosophy deploy models, idealizations and thought experiments that prescind from truth to achieve other cognitive ends. I argue that such felicitous falsehoods function as cognitively useful fictions. They are cognitively useful because they exemplify and afford epistemic access to features they share with the relevant facts. They are falsehoods in that they diverge from the facts. Nonetheless, they are true enough to serve their epistemic purposes. Theories that contain (...) them have testable consequences, hence are factually defeasible. (shrink)

No es nuestro propósito relatar el trabajo de Hegel en sus Lecciones de la Historia universal, por el contrario, queremos aprehender el concepto de desarrollo de la historia a partir de la acción (tat) del espíritu, en tanto la historia -dice Hegel- es “la sustancia del espíritu”. Y esta temática la desarrolla tanto en la Enciclopedia, como en la Fenomenología del espíritu, así como en las Lecciones de filosofía de la religión (especialmente en 1828) y en su Filosofía del derecho. (...) Si no se concibe la historia sino por la acción del espíritu que deviene movimiento y deviene libertad y racionalidad. De tal modo, que puede decirse que la razón dirige la historia. Pero si califica la historia de divina es porque en ella la razón se historiza y pierde su condición abstracta. Pues en la historia, dice Hegel, el espíritu se encuentra en casa. Debe entenderse ese proceso de movimiento, como sustancia espiritual y el fin absoluto en el mundo, de ahí que no pueda hablarse de fin de la historia. El saber absoluto no implica un cierre al proceso infinito de un despliegue a través de las determinaciones finitas. Debe subrayarse la importancia de la eticidad y de la Filosofía del derecho, pues el Estado en cuanto sustancia ética no anula los derechos de los sujetos que devienen a través de la historia. Pudiendo considerarse a los mismos sujetos y los estados formas de objetivación del espíritu en su movimiento. No puede por ello entenderse el saber absoluto siquiera como un cierre de la historia ni como una superación de las figuras que en su movimiento produce. Más bien es lo que Hegel sostiene como Teodicea de la historia. Y en ella, la religión ya manifiesta la asunción de la negatividad y la superación de la muerte de Dios por el espíritu en la comunidad. Ahora bien, la comunidad alcanza su máxima expresión en el Estado, no es la pretensión de Hegel la exaltación del estado, sino que tiene muy en cuenta que los ciudadanos son sujetos de derecho dentro del Estado. (shrink)

Psychologists and philosophers have argued that the capacity for perseverance or “grit” depends both on willpower and on a kind of epistemic resilience. But can a form of hopefulness in one’s future success also constitute a source of grit? I argue that substantial practical hopefulness, as a hope to bring about a desired outcome through exercises of one’s agency, can serve as a distinctive ground for the capacity for perseverance. Gritty agents’ “practical hope” centrally involves an attention-fuelled, risk-inclined weighting of (...) two competing concerns over action: when facing the decision of whether to persevere, hopeful gritty agents prioritize the aim of choosing a course of action which might go very well over that of choosing a course of action which is very likely to go fairly well. By relying on the notion of a “risk-inclined attentional pattern” as a dimension of gritty agents’ practical hope, we can explain that form of hope’s contribution to their motivation and practical rationality, especially on a risk-weighted expected utility framework. The upshot is a more pluralistic view of the sources of grit. (shrink)

Is it possible to apply a theoretical approach to ethics? The French philosopher Catherine Chalier addresses this question with an unusual combination of traditional ethics and continental philosophy. In a powerful argument for the necessity of moral reflection, Chalier counters the notion that morality can be derived from theoretical knowledge. Chalier analyzes the positions of two great moral philosophers, Kant and Levinas. While both are critical of an ethics founded on knowledge, their criticisms spring from distinctly different points of (...) view. Chalier reexamines their conclusions, pitting Levinas against (and with) Kant, to interrogate the very foundations of moral philosophy and moral imperatives. She provides a clear, systematic comparison of their positions on essential ideas such as free will, happiness, freedom, and evil. Although based on a close and elegant presentation of Kant and Levinas, Chalier's book serves as a context for the development of the author's own reflections on the question "What am I supposed to do?" and its continued importance for contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

I defend the thesis that friendship can constitutively require epistemic irrationality against a recent, forceful challenge, raised by proponents of moral and pragmatic encroachment. Defenders of the “encroachment strategy” argue that exemplary friends who are especially slow to believe that their friends have acted wrongly are simply sensitive to the high prudential or moral costs of falsely believing in their friends’ guilt. Drawing on psychological work on epistemic motivation (and in particular on the notion of “need for closure”), I propose (...) a different picture of what friendship requires in the doxastic realm. I argue that contrary to what the encroachment strategy suggests, exemplary friends’ belief formation ought not be guided by a concern with accuracy or error avoidance, but instead by a need to avoid a “specific closure” – namely, a need to avoid concluding in their friends’ guilt. I propose that exemplary friendship often generates a defeasible, doxastic obligation to exemplify such a need, despite its inherent corrupting effects on exemplary friends’ epistemic faculties. (shrink)

Counterpath is a collaborative work by Catherine Malabou and Jacques Derrida that answers to the gamble inherent in the idea of “travelling with” the philosopher of deconstruction. Malabou's readerly text of quotations and commentary demonstrates how Derrida's work, while appearing to be anything but a travelogue, is nevertheless replete with references to geographical and topographical locations, and functions as a kind of counter-Odyssey through meaning, theorizing, and thematizing notions of arrival, drifting, derivation, and catastrophe. In fact, by going straight (...) to the heart of the Derridean idea of “spacing,” she finally makes it seem as though Derrida has never written about anything but travel. Malabou's text is punctuated by a series of postcards received by Derrida from destinations such as Istanbul and Porto, Laguna Beach and Athens, which are inspired by his reading of her evolving discussion. Writing in a familiar and unguarded manner, as if he were “on vacation” from his own writing, Derrida still remains totally faithful to that work and invites the reader to reflect on much of what haunts his texts as well as his daily life, questions of distance and death, the relation to the other, and exile. (shrink)

We propose a new approach to positive modal logics, hereby called anodic modal logics. Our treatment is completely positive since the language has neither negation nor any falsum or minimal particle. The elimination of the minimal particle of the language requires introducing the new concept of factual sets and factual deductions which permit us to talk about deductions in the actual world. We start from a positive fragment of the standard system K, denoted by K⊃, ∧, ◊, which is a (...) bimodal system with □ and ◊ as primitive. This system is then extended to a class of fragments of the Lemmon and Scott systems (cf. (Lemmon et al., 1977)), denoted by K⊃, ∧, ◊ + Gk;l;m;n + Gm;n;k;l. It is shown that such classes of systems are characterized with respect to the usual Kripke-style semantics. The proof is by way of a Henkin-style construction, with “possible worlds” being taken to be prime theories as introduced in the modal context by J. M. Dunn in (Dunn, 1995). We also obtain a surprising limiting result showing that the incompleteness phenomenon in modal logic is independent of negation. (shrink)

Bringing together two aspects of Thomas Aquinas's thought that have been studied separately: his theory of God's concurrence and his theory of instrumental causality, I show how he uses the latter (which I discuss first) to clarify the Proclusian principle that the first cause has a greater influence on an effect than the proximate causes. Thanks to this theory, Aquinas accounts for the fact that it is God who confers existence to every new being that is produced by natural processes, (...) without however negating the agency of secondary, created causes. (shrink)

Pursuing difficult long-term goals typically involves encountering substantial evidence of possible future failure. If decisions to pursue such goals are serious only if one believes that one will act as one has decided, then some of our lives’ most important decisions seem to require belief against the evidence. This is the puzzle of difficult action, to which I offer a solution. I argue that serious decisions to φ do not have to give rise to a belief that one will φ, (...) but can instead be accompanied by a hope to φ. Hope can motivate and rationalize the various actions that we associate with serious commitment. It can also account for the existence of special pressures to adopt an agential stance toward one’s future. Because hope can be cognitively rational when belief is not, there is no problematic tension between the ideal of epistemic rationality and the phenomenon of difficult action. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay is concerned with the relationship between femininity and divinity in feminist speculative fiction. It equates becoming divine with becoming plant, and studies the transformations that attend women in this process in modernity, postmodernity and transmodernity. Taking as its point of departure Mark Taylor’s evolution of the concept of God through immanence, transcendence and immanent transcendence, and Rosa María Rodríguez Magda’s definition of transmodernity, it examines “The Sleep of Plants” by Anne Richter, “The Neglected Garden” by Kathe Koja, (...) and “The Bad Graft” by Karen Russell. It argues that by becoming plants these women locate themselves in opposition to the norms of divinity created by men, and proposes to delineate the contours of a new feminist paradigm in the present transmodern age through the study of botany. (shrink)

Nosso ensaio procura explorar as relações entre o cuidado de si e a experiência de uma ética originária no contexto da hermenêutica. Num primeiro momento apresentamos os desdobramentos do cuidado de si e os exercícios espirituais da filosofia antiga a partir das contribuições dos pensamentos de Foucault e Hadot. Esses dois intelectuais elaboram uma contextualização desse princípio como uma relação entre o cuidado de si e os exercícios espirituais compreendidos como um trabalho do sujeito sobre si mesmo no que se (...) refere à problemática a partir das correlações entre os processos de subjetivação e o acesso à verdade O segundo momento deste ensaio é dedicado a elaborar uma leitura sobre a hermenêutica compreendida como uma experiência de uma ética originária baseados nas contribuições de Gadamer, Heidegger e Schmidt. Nossas considerações finais são dedicadas a pensar um olhar sobre as relações entre o cuidado de si e a hermenêutica para explorarmos as nuances de uma retomada de uma ética originária a partir de uma analítica sobre o _ethos_ compreendido como a morado do Ser, desdobrada em novas formas ou processos de subjetivação. (shrink)

Comment la philosophie de Hegel pourrait-elle encore promettre quelque chose puisqu'elle est apparue, aux yeux des lecteurs contemporains, comme une entreprise d'annulation du temps? Le savoir absolu n'est-il pas le resultat du processus dialectique par lequel l'esprit releve toute temporalite et par la toute surprise, l'evenement se produisant toujours trop tard? D'une absence de pensee de l'avenir dans la philosophie de Hegel decoulerait une absence d'avenir de la philosophie hegelienne elle-meme. C'est contre une telle assertion que le present ouvrage s'inscrit (...) en faux; il se propose pour cela de travailler le concept de plasticite, montrant comment il forme en profondeur, a la fois comme sa structure et comme son rythme, le contenu speculatif. Est plastique ce qui est susceptible de recevoir comme de donner la forme, mais aussi de l'aneantir. Hegel degage ce concept de son sol natal, l'art, pour le rendre a sa veritable origine : le developpement de la subjectivite. Est dit plastique, en effet, le rapport que la subjectivite entretient avec l'accident, avec ce qui arrive. L'auto-determination apparait comme proces de temporalisation au sein duquel la subjectivite, dans l'attitude contrastee d'un voir venir, se donne et par la recoit sa propre forme, anticipant son avenir tout en renoncant a en maitriser l'irruption. La plasticite du concept hegelien de temps est le foyer de resistance clandestin ou se prepare la reponse a l'accusation de vulgarite portee par Heidegger a l'encontre de ce meme concept. (shrink)

A system is classified as multimodal if its language has more than one modal operator as primitive, and such operators are not interdefinable. We extend the anodic and cathodic modal systems, introduced in Bueno-Soler and Bueno-Soler , to a class of the so-called basilar multimodal systems generating, in this way, the classes of anodic and cathodic multimodal logics. The cathodic multimodal systems are defined as extensions of positive multimodal systems by adding degrees of negation plus consistency operators. In (...) this way, cathodic multimodal systems are logics of formal inconsistency [the paraconsistent LFIs, as treated in Carnielli et al. ] enriched with multimodal operators. We focus the attention on models for such classes of systems and discuss how modal possible-translation semantics, as well as possible-worlds , can be defined to interpret basilar cathodic multimodal systems. While anodic systems are modeled by Kripke models only, we introduce the modal possible-translation models for cathodic systems. Such models, given by combinations of three-valued modal logics, besides their own interest, explain the role of non-trivializing contradictions in multimodal environment. (shrink)

But in this book, Catherine Malabou proposes a more radical meaning for plasticity, one that not only adapts itself to existing circumstances, but forms a ...

La conception malebranchiste de la liberté est originale. Malebranche ne croit pas en une liberté d’indifférence absolue, c'est-à-dire en une capacité d’opérer un choix indépendamment de toute motivation. Il ne croit pas non plus que nous puissions indifféremment choisir entre deux motivations de force inégale : au moment où on se détermine, le bien le plus grand (du moins selon l’apparence) l’emporte. La liberté réside seulement dans le fait que l’on n’est pas obligé de se déterminer : nous pouvons toujours (...) suspendre notre consentement. Cette conception est exposée à des objections que Pierre Bayle a formulées et qui tentent de la mettre en contradiction avec d’autres thèses de Malebranche : son occasionalisme, sa théorie de la création continuée, l’obscurité de l’âme à elle-même, sa théologie des voies de l’action divine. Nous discuterons ces objections et verrons si Malebranche est en mesure de leur résister. (shrink)

An important step in In Pierre Bayle’s defense of religious tolerance is to refute St Augustine’s claim that heretics who refuse to convert to the true faith do so out of ill will. This claim legitimizes, for Augustine and his followers, the application of temporal sanctions to those heretics, in order to offset their wicked inclination and restore their free will. To counter this view, Bayle uses the theological notions of invincible ignorance and dutiful erroneous conscience, elaborated during the Middle (...) Ages. However, these notions had a very restricted scope, which needed to be extended to so-called heretical beliefs. I show how two early modern scholastics, the Jesuits Gabriel Vázquez and Rodrigo Arriaga, have prepared this evolution and have paved the way for Bayle's denunciation any form of coercion in religious matters. (shrink)

After defining plasticity in terms of its active embodiments, Malabou applies the notion to the work of Hegel, Heidegger, Levinas, Levi-Strauss, Freud, and ...

In this paper we extend the anodic systems introduced in Bueno-Soler (J Appl Non Class Logics 19(3):291–310, 2009) by adding certain paraconsistent axioms based on the so called logics of formal inconsistency , introduced in Carnielli et al. (Handbook of philosophical logic, Springer, Amsterdam, 2007), and define the classes of systems that we call cathodic . These classes consist of modal paraconsistent systems, an approach which permits us to treat with certain kinds of conflicting situations. Our interest in this (...) paper is to show that such systems can be semantically characterized in two different ways: by Kripke-style semantics and by modal possible-translations semantics . Such results are inspired in some universal constructions in logic, in the sense that cathodic systems can be seen as a kind of fusion (a particular case of fibring) between modal logics and non-modal logics, as discussed in Carnielli et al. (Analysis and synthesis of logics, Springer, Amsterdam, 2007). The outcome is inherently within the spirit of universal logic, as our systems semantically intermingles modal logics, paraconsistent logics and many-valued logics, defining new blends of logics whose relevance we intend to show. (shrink)

The paper introduces precise definitions of the inevitabilist and contingentist positions. On this basis, it reveals the analytical structure and some inherent difficulties of the contingentist/inevitabilist issue. It then discusses some of these difficulties, relying on the thought-experiment of a ‘divided physics’. Along the way, it investigates the kinds of differences that two alternative physics should present, if they are to give rise to non-benign forms of contingentism.Keywords: Contingency; Inevitabilism; Incommensurability; Theory-comparison; Scientific realism; Constructivism.

Una aproximación a dos reflexiones filosóficas contemporáneas. En primer lugar, abordamos las últimas aportaciones de Michel Foucault sobre la ética, en el marco de la noción de “cuidado de sí”. En segundo lugar, nos ocupamos de la ética de Emmanuel Levinas, centrada en la idea del prójimo. El mismo marco de una ética del otro permite un enlace con algunas ideas de Simone Weil. Sin pretenderlas congruentes, estas dos filosofías conllevan una importante crítica de la noción de sujeto y de (...) una ética basada en el reconocimiento. Con ello, nos dan elementos para plantear posibles posicionamientos para la filosofía en la actualidad. (shrink)

La historia de la Cirugía Pediátrica cubana está pendiente de ser documentada científicamente. Se estableció como objetivo definir las etapas de desarrollo de la especialidad en Cuba, para lo cual se hizo un análisis histórico y se identificó cuatro períodos fundamentales. Este artículo tiene una significación práctica puesto que permite conocer en qué momento se encuentra la especialidad para modelar el futuro de la misma. The history of Cuban pediatric surgery is pending of being scientifically documented. It was established as (...) an objective to define the stages of the development of the specialty in Cuba. For this purpose a historical analysis was carried out and four main periods were identified. This study has a practical importance because it allows knowing the stage in which the specialty is to model its future. (shrink)

This paper introduces the logic of evidence and truth \ as an extension of the Belnap–Dunn four-valued logic \. \ is a slightly modified version of the logic \, presented in Carnielli and Rodrigues. While \ is equipped only with a classicality operator \, \ is equipped with a non-classicality operator \ as well, dual to \. Both \ and \ are logics of formal inconsistency and undeterminedness in which the operator \ recovers classical logic for propositions in its scope. (...) Evidence is a notion weaker than truth in the sense that there may be evidence for a proposition \ even if \ is not true. As well as \, \ is able to express preservation of evidence and preservation of truth. The primary aim of this paper is to propose a probabilistic semantics for \ where statements \\) and \\) express, respectively, the amount of evidence available for \ and the degree to which the evidence for \ is expected to behave classically—or non-classically for \ \). A probabilistic scenario is paracomplete when \ + P 1\), and in both cases, \ < 1\). If \ = 1\), or \ = 0\), classical probability is recovered for \. The proposition \, a theorem of \, partitions what we call the information space, and thus allows us to obtain some new versions of known results of standard probability theory. (shrink)

In November 1996, Catherine Clément and Julia Kristeva began a correspondence exploring the subject of the sacred. In this collection of those letters Catherine Clément approaches the topic from an anthropologist's point of view while Julia Kristeva responds from a psychoanalytic perspective. Their correspondence leads them to a controversial and fundamental question: is there anything sacred that can at the same time be considered strictly feminine? The two voices of the book work in tandem, fleshing out ideas and (...) blending together into a melody of experience. The result is a dialogue that delves into the mysteries of belief -- the relationship between faith and sexuality, the body and the senses -- which, Clément and Kristeva argue, women feel with special intensity. Although their discourse is not necessarily about theology, the authors consider the role of women and femininity in the religions of the world, from Christianity and Judaism to Confucianism and African animism. They are the first to admit that what they have undertaken is "as impossible to accomplish as it is fascinating." Nevertheless, their wide-ranging and exhilarating dialogue succeeds in raising questions that are perhaps more important to ask than to answer. (shrink)

Ethics for Health Care, 2E takes a novel approach to learning about and understanding ethics. It draws on practical experiences and contemporary issues in its exploration of the ethical choices made in health care. The common theme followed in the book is that health care ethics are not only about setting acceptable standards, they are also about reflecting on what health care professionals should aim towards. It is about reflecting on optimal standards, and pursuing those standards. In focusing on the (...) interaction between the health provider and his or her client, the book skillfully incorporates individual and group exercises to help the reader think about particular issues or standards, or particular styles of ethical reflection. Tutorial-type triggers and case studies are also included. Over fifty of these exercises, twenty-four of them new to this edition, assist in developing familiarity with the key ways of identifying, and working to resolve, ethical issues in health care. In this framework, the philosophical aspect of ethics become a tool that every potential and current health care worker can use to reflect on ethics as it applies to their profession. (shrink)

This paper shows that some classes of multimodal paraconsistent logics endowed with weak forms of negation are incompletable with respect to Kripke semantics. The reach of such incompleteness is discussed, and we argue that this shortcoming, more than just a logical predicament, may be relevant for attempts to characterize quantum logics and to handle quantum information and quantum computation.