Quantum mechanics describes a universe with physical properties that run completely contrary to everyday experience and intuition. These strange properties cause some people to seek equally strange philosophical theories to explain them. Talbot attempts to link the physical theories with some non-physical experimental results. The latter are, if true, disturbing and fascinating. Among the subjects explored are poltergeists, the possibility of instantaneous communication across great distances, and the nature of the mind and consciousness. This is an interesting combination of (...) physics, metaphysics, and parapsychology. Harold D. Shane, Mathematics Dept., Baruch Coll., CUNY. (shrink)

: This paper addresses the need to examine teaching practices from the observation that they are beyond what they should be. This task devolved to scientists of education is to learn about teaching practices in their relationship to student learning in order to build the database useful to teacher educators and reflexivity necessary for any teacher about their own practice. The concepts of competence, pattern and are useful instrument in this endeavor of explanation and understanding of the practices. The proposed (...) theoretical framework is illustrated by a perspective of teaching practices of teachers in schools and colleges. These differ in many aspects and this requires the testing of new hypotheses to explain -/- La présente contribution traite de la nécessité d’étudier les pratiques d’enseignement à partir du constat de ce qu’elles sont au delà de ce qu’elles devraient être. Cette tâche dévolue aux chercheurs en sciences de l’éducation vise à mieux connaître les pratiques d’enseignement dans leurs relations aux apprentissages des élèves afin de constituer la base de données utiles aux formateurs d’enseignants et nécessaire à toute réflexivité des enseignants à propos de leur propre pratique. Les notions de compétence, de schème et d’instrument sont utiles à cette entreprise d’explication et de compréhension des pratiques. La proposition de cadrage théorique est illustrée par une mise en perspective des pratiques d’enseignement de professeurs des écoles et de collèges. Celles-ci se distinguent sur bien des aspects ce qui réclame la mise à l’épreuve de nouvelles hypothèses explicatives. (shrink)

Les Theoremata d'esse et essentia (ca 1278-1285), qui, en depit d'une edition critique deja ancienne (Hocedez, 1930), n'avaient pas encore ete traduits integralement en francais a ce jour, apparaissent comme l'uvre majeure pour bien saisir la genese doctrinale et conceptuelle de la theorie de la distinction reelle. Peu de temps avant les Questions disputees sur l'etre et l'essence (1286-1287), qui sont au cur du debat entre Gilles de Rome (ca 1245-1316), partisan d'une distinction reelle entre l'etre et l'essence, et (...) Henri de Gand (ca 1217-1293), promoteur d'une theorie de la distinction " intentionnelle ", les Theoremes apparaissent comme un essai de synthese, dans lequel le maitre augustin donne un expose d'ensemble des arguments qui le conduisent a faire de l'etre une res (" chose " au sens de " realite ") a part entiere. Dans ces conditions, les disciples de Thomas d'Aquin (ca 1224-1274) n'ont pas manque de voir, en Gilles, l'un des partisans d'une these qu'ils revendiquaient comme un heritage de l'Aquinate. Les Theoremes revelent cependant une pensee incontestablement personnelle, et manifestent le caractere resolument original de Gilles de Rome, metaphysicien incontournable du XIIIe siecle finissant. (shrink)

Ancien fleuron de l’industrie horlogère, Lip est une manufacture bisontine connue pour les conflits sociaux retentissants dont elle fut le théâtre en 1973-1974 puis en 1976-1977, et se dota très vite d’une aura légendaire à laquelle participèrent de nombreuses productions culturelles et artistiques contemporaines des événements. Le temps passant, l’intervention fit place à la rétrospection : de nouvelles œuvres s’employèrent à revisiter cette histoire, tendues entre le mythe et ses angles morts, la commémoration et le souvenir. Publiée en 1998, Les (...) Yeux rouges de Dominique Féret est l’une des premières à s’inscrire dans cet après-coup. Composée de quatre entretiens avec d’anciens protagonistes des luttes de Lip, cette pièce en dit au moins tout autant sur le passé que sur le présent qui se tourne vers lui et traduit l’inflexion que connaît tout un pan du théâtre européen des années 2000, marqué par la résurgence de la question sociale mais aussi par des modulations pathétiques qui tendent à sa dépolitisation. (shrink)

La photographie, dès sa naissance, entretint des relations tout à la fois difficiles et opaques avec l’art. En France notamment, et cela jusqu’à l’aube du xxe siècle, nombre d’écrivains et artistes se liguèrent pour affirmer qu’entre les deux, seuls prévalaient des rapports de subordination de la première au second. L’intérêt et la possible reconnaissance de la photographie en tant qu’art ne se manifesta donc qu’assez tardivement, une fois marginalisées les productions du premier « pictorialisme » visant à aligner l’esthétique du (...) nouveau médium sur celle de la peinture. Au cours de la première moitié du xxe siècle, en partie grâce au surréalisme, la photographie entra progressivement dans le champ de l’art avant qu’au cours des années 1970, un emballement se produise, autorisant des légitimations rétrospectives rehaussées de justifications théoriques et esthétiques. L’entrée en scène du numérique contribua à l’accélération de ce mouvement de fusion – absorption par l’art contemporain, dont il n’est pas inutile de se demander s’il n’est pas une autre manière de soumettre la photographie à une identité rétrécie et réductrice. (shrink)

This article examines humanist works written in the immediate aftermath of Stefano Porcari's failed conspiracy against Pope Nicholas V. While they were designed to flatter the pope and support papal claims to temporal power, these works use images and adopt rhetorical startegies that are republican and not, as one would expect, imperial in origin. The humanists were so devoted not only to classical form, but also to Roman republican ideals that they sometimes present Porcari positively, have heroes of the Roman (...) republic comment on the modern papacy, and construct a strained theory of papal liberty. (shrink)

This article traces the career path and personality of a chancery official or secretary in the service of the Gonzaga, the ruling dynasty of Mantua, in the middle years of the fifteenth century. It relates Giovanni Arrivabene to the contemporary social, political and cultural context of this secondary northern Italian power or signoria but touches the wider Italian world at many points, particularly the papal court, whether in Rome or other locations, where Giovanni’s talented younger brother served first as (...) the secretary of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga and later as an apostolic secretary. The comparison between the two brothers and their interdependence as property owners is a recurring theme. Giovanni emerges with evident limitations which hampered the succession to his father’s superior role in the chancery, where other privileged families also tended to prevail. Humanist educated and efficient, he seems to have been a bureaucrat of routine abilities, not quite astute enough to outpace certain departmental rivals or to avoid being tainted by association with some possibly corrupt practice which caused loss of favour. His later rehabilitation, first as a provincial magistrate concerned with criminal jurisdiction and later as an estate management official, illustrates that private relationships within the narrow world of a civic quasi despotic government were all important. (shrink)

At strategic moments in his very didactic letter to the church in Rome, Paul moves to poetic language and displays a sense of wonder at the heart of his doctrine of salvation.

In his Gallic War Caesar tells us that the Roman Senate had frequently recognized the Aedui as ‘brothers and kinsmen’. This statement, though prima facie rather odd, is fully supported by Caesar's contemporaries, Cicero and Diodorus Siculus, and a number of later authorities. Ihm was of the opinion that the Aedui were recognized as ‘fratres consanguineosque’ because they were the first tribe in Gallia Comata to enter into alliance with Rome. However, no ancient authority supports this view and it (...) is hardly sufficient to explain the notion of blood relationship implied by these titles. (shrink)

At Aen. 6.562–627 the Sibyl gives Aeneas a description of the criminals in Tartarus and the punishments to which they are condemned. The criminals are presented to us in several groups. The first consists of mythical figures, the Titans , the sons of Aloeus , Salmoneus , Tityos and Ixion and Pirithous . Next Virgil turns away from mythical figures to particular categories of criminal. He mentions those who hated their brothers, who assaulted a parent, who cheated a cliens, who (...) gloated over wealth they had acquired without setting aside a part for their family, who were put to death for adultery, and those who, breaking their masters' trust, made war on their country . The reference to the contemporary scene is unmistakable. The mention of a cliens indicates that we have moved from Greece to Rome. Moreover, ‘quique ob adulterium caesi’ brings to mind Augustus' concern over moral standards, the subject of legislation in 28 B.c., 18 B.c. and A.d. 9; the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis gave to fathers of adulteresses the right to put to death both guilty parties. Thirdly, ‘arma...impia’ is an obvious reference to civil war , which as Servius argues is more narrowly defined by ‘nee veriti dominorum fallere dextras’ so as to exclude Caesar and Octavian: undoubtedly the allusion is to the war against Sextus Pompeius, which Augustan propaganda chose to represent as a war against runaway slaves. Virgil continues by sketching the penalties paid in Tartarus by such men . While doing so, however, he retreats once again into the realm of mythology: the punishments he describes are those more normally associated with Sisyphus and Ixion . This reversion is completed at 617–20 where, confusingly, Virgil denies that he has been alluding to events of contemporary significance by naming two mythical personages, Theseus and Phlegyas . Virgil therefore implies, but then denies, contemporary relevance. It is this kind of protean elusiveness which makes the contemporary allusions in Virgil so difficult to pin down. (shrink)

In his Gallic War Caesar tells us that the Roman Senate had frequently recognized the Aedui as ‘brothers and kinsmen’. This statement, though prima facie rather odd, is fully supported by Caesar's contemporaries, Cicero and Diodorus Siculus, and a number of later authorities. Ihm was of the opinion that the Aedui were recognized as ‘fratres consanguineosque’ because they were the first tribe in Gallia Comata to enter into alliance with Rome. However, no ancient authority supports this view and it (...) is hardly sufficient to explain the notion of blood relationship implied by these titles. (shrink)

Is there a circular relationship between trust and ethics? Is it possible to alter their relationship, changing the perception that social actors have of them? How has trust changed in the transition from modernity to post-modernity and how does it change in times of crisis? Starting from the epistemological assumption that progress in the social sciences is determined by the change in the theoretical horizon produced by “a reformulation of metaphysical assumptions” [1] and combining this path with the relational perspective, (...) according to which “not the facts, but the relationship between the facts is what requires analysis” [2], we will examine definitions, meanings, functions and relationships between trust and ethics. Following the theoretical logical method, we will understand that trust and ethical behaviour are particular forms of gift [3] that co-own each other. As such, they are ambivalent in nature and their circle can also produce dysfunctional outcomes that depend on the ability of social systems to modify collective perceptions through forms of communication, in the awareness that distrust constitutes an ineliminable and, paradoxically, preparatory element for the restoration of the trust circle. The relational circle between gift, trust, collective ethics and personal morality does not end with distrust, but changes in a contingent way, determining perverse effects: correct behaviour could produce, unintentionally, a disaster; incorrect actions could generate unforeseen positive effects.The perverse effects cannot be defined as exceptional - as is believed in the theory of rational choice - but recurrent because daily practices are marked by an intuitive, emotional and moralistic trust circle that prevails over logical reasoning, as ascertained by both relational theory and behavioural economics. Functionalist paradigms cannot engineer and optimise the performance of trust. [1] See J. Alexander's strong programme in S. Segre, Le teorie sociologiche contemporanee, Carocci, Rome, 2019, p. 12. It is not enough to observe reality, it is necessary to interpret it, taking into account theories and traditions whose foundations have a metaphysical character. [2] F. Ferrarotti, La sociologia come analisi critica della società, in R. Cipriani, Nuovo Manuale di Sociologia, Maggioli, Sant’Arcangelo di Romagna, 2018 p. 24. [3] The classical meaning in M. Mauss, Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l'échange dans les sociétés archaïques, 1ª ed. 1925, revisited by G. Satta, L’ambiguità del dono. Note su dono, violenza e potere nell’ Essai di Mauss, in V. Rasini, Aggressività. Un’indagine polifonica, Mimesis, Milano 2011. (shrink)

Two recent studies by A. R. Giumlia-Mair and P. T. Craddock have been devoted to a form of bronze having a blackish tint.1, 2 The authors there describe examples ancient and modern, from as far apart as Mycenean Greece, Egypt, Rome, China and Japan. In Japan such bronze is prominently represented in decorative art and known as Shakudo.