A growing volume of research from global data demonstrates that institutional care under conditions of deprivation is profoundly damaging to children, particularly during the critical early years of development. However, how these individuals develop over a life course remains unclear. This study uses data from a survey on the health and development of 420 children mostly under the age of three, placed in 12 infant care institutions between 1958 and 1961 in Zurich, Switzerland. The children exhibited significant delays in cognitive, (...) social, and motor development in the first years of life. Moreover, a follow-up of a subsample of 143 children about 10 years later revealed persistent difficulties, including depression, school related-problems, and stereotypies. Between 2019 and 2021, these formerly institutionalized study participants were located through the Swiss population registry and invited to participate once again in the research project. Now in their early sixties, they are studied for their health, further development, and life-course trajectories. A mixed-methods approach using questionnaires, neuropsychological assessments, and narrative biographical interviews was implemented by a multidisciplinary team. Combining prospective and retrospective data with standardized quantitative and biographical qualitative data allows a rich reconstruction of life histories. The availability of a community sample from the same geographic location, the 1954–1961 cohort of the Zurich Longitudinal Studies, described in detail in a paper in this issue, enables comparison with an unaffected cohort. This article describes the study design and study participants in detail and discusses the potential and limitations of a comparison with a community sample. It outlines a set of challenges and solutions encountered in the process of a lifespan longitudinal study from early childhood into the cusp of old age with a potentially vulnerable sample and summarizes the lessons learned along the way. (shrink)

The "theory of mind" framework has been the fastest growing body of empirical research in contemporary psychology. It has given rise to a range of positions on what it takes to relate to others as intentional beings. This book brings together disparate strands of ToM research, lays out historical roots of the idea, and indicates better alternatives.

The philosopher Jorge J. E. Gracia engages fifteen prominent scholars on race, ethnicity, nationality, and Hispanic/Latino identity in the United States. Their discussion joins two distinct traditions: the philosophy of race begun by African Americans in the nineteenth century, and the search for an understanding of identity initiated by Latin American philosophers in the sixteenth century. Participants include Linda M. Alcoff, K. Anthony Appiah, Richard J. Bernstein, Lawrence Blum, Robert Gooding-Williams, Eduardo Mendieta, and Lucius T. Outlaw Jr., and their dialogue (...) reflects the analytic, Aristotelian, Continental, literary, Marxist, and pragmatic schools of thought. These intellectuals start with the philosophy of Hispanics/Latinos in the United States and then move to the philosophy of African Americans and Anglo Americans in the United States and the philosophy of Latin Americans in Latin America. Gracia and his interlocutors debate the nature of race and ethnicity and their relation to nationality, linguistic rights, matters of identity, and Affirmative Action, binding the concepts of race and ethnicity together in ways that open new paths of inquiry. Gracia's Familial-Historical View of ethnic and Hispanic/Latino identity operates at the center of each of these discussions, providing vivid access to the philosopher's provocative arguments while adding unique depth to issues that each of us struggles to understand. (shrink)

This chapter tries to answer the following question: How should we conceive of the method of mathematics, if we take a naturalist stance? The problem arises since mathematical knowledge is regarded as the paradigm of certain knowledge, because mathematics is based on the axiomatic method. Moreover, natural science is deeply mathematized, and science is crucial for any naturalist perspective. But mathematics seems to provide a counterexample both to methodological and ontological naturalism. To face this problem, some authors tried to naturalize (...) mathematics by relying on evolutionism. But several difficulties arise when we try to do this. This chapter suggests that, in order to naturalize mathematics, it is better to take the method of mathematics to be the analytic method, rather than the axiomatic method, and thus conceive of mathematical knowledge as plausible knowledge. (shrink)

There are three main accounts of scientific progress: 1) the epistemic account, according to which an episode in science constitutes progress when there is an increase in knowledge; 2) the semantic account, according to which progress is made when the number of truths increases; 3) the problem-solving account, according to which progress is made when the number of problems that we are able to solve increases. Each of these accounts has received several criticisms in the last decades. Nevertheless, some authors (...) think that the epistemic account is to be preferred if one takes a realist stance. Recently, Dellsén proposed the noetic account, according to which an episode in science constitutes progress when scientists achieve increased understanding of a phenomenon. Dellsén claims that the noetic account is a more adequate realist account of scientific progress than the epistemic account. This paper aims precisely at assessing whether the noetic account is a more adequate realist account of progress than the epistemic account. (shrink)

Populism is widely thought to be in tension with liberal democracy. This article clarifies what exactly is problematic about populism from a liberal–democratic point of view and goes on to develop normative standards that allow us to distinguish between more and less legitimate forms of populism. The point of this exercise is not to dismiss populism in toto; the article strives for a more subtle result, namely, to show that liberal democracy can accommodate populism provided that the latter conforms to (...) particular discursive norms. What the article calls a ‘liberal ethics of populism’ turns out to be closely bound up with a broader ethics of peoplehood, understood as a way of articulating who ‘the people’ are in a way that is compatible with liberal–democratic principles of political justification. Such an ethics, concludes the article, inevitably has a much wider audience than populist political actors: its addressees are all those who seek legitimately to exercise power in the name of the people. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Pruss proves the validity of the rule beta-2 relative to Lewis’s semantics for counterfactuals, which is a significant step forward in the debate about the consequence argument. Yet, we believe there remain intuitive counter-examples to beta-2 formulated with the actuality operator and rigidified descriptions. We offer a novel and two-dimensional formulation of the Lewisian semantics for counterfactuals and prove the validity of a new transfer rule according to which a new version of the consequence argument can (...) be formulated. This new transfer rule is immune to the counter-examples involving the actuality operator and rigidified descriptions. However, we show that counter-examples to this new rule can also be generated, demanding that the Lewisian semantics be generalized for higher dimensions where counter-examples can always be generated. (shrink)

Focused on city-scale automation, and using self-driving cars (SDCs) as a case study, this article reflects on the role of AI—and in particular, computer vision systems used for mapping and navigation—as a catalyst for urban transformation. Urban research commonly presents AI and cities as having a one-way cause-and-effect relationship, giving undue weight to AI’s impact on cities and overlooking the role of cities in shaping AI. Working at the intersection of data science and social research, this paper aims to counter (...) this trend by exploring the reverse perspective: how do cities affect the development, and expose the present limits, of SDCs? The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, by comparing urban and nonurban environments and thoroughly examining the relationship between computer vision and city-specific sociality and form, it defines machine autonomy/automation as a function of the sociotechnical milieu in which an AI system operates. Second, and related, the paper problematizes the notion of SDCs as autonomous technologies and the role it plays in envisioning contending policy arrangements and technical solutions for achieving full driving automation. Finally, the article offers insight into a materialist and spatialized understanding of AI—namely, not as an abstract quality susceptible to replication within discrete machines, but rather as a distributed property emerging through embodied interactions among a multiplicity of agents (human, non-human, and technological) within/with their environments. (shrink)

Popular sovereignty requires that citizens perceive themselves as being able to act and implement decisions, and that they are de facto causally connected to mechanisms of decision making. I argue that the two most common understandings of the exercise of popular sovereignty—which center on direct decision making by the people as a whole and the indirect exercise of democratic agency by elected representatives, respectively—are inadequate in this respect, and go on to suggest a complementary account that stresses the central role (...) of internally democratic and participatory political parties in actualising popular sovereignty, drawing on the democratic theory of Hans Kelsen. (shrink)

Populism is widely thought to be in tension with liberal democracy. This article clarifies what exactly is problematic about populism from a liberal–democratic point of view and goes on to develop...

Populist movements have become key players in European politics. These movements are readily criticized by journalists or political rivals, yet none of the common objections to populism seems to arrest their success. This article turns to normative political theory to cultivate sensitivity to problems arising from some existing arguments against populism, and to explore possible alternatives. It offers a critical reading of prototypical liberal and conservative arguments against populism, and proposes that the principles of solidarity and procedure provide good grounds (...) for a sustainable critique of populism. (shrink)

In a recent article, P. Roger Turner and Justin Capes argue that no one is, or ever was, even partly morally responsible for certain world-indexed truths. Here we present our reasons for thinking that their argument is unsound: It depends on the premise that possible worlds are maximally consistent states of affairs, which is, under plausible assumptions concerning states of affairs, demonstrably false. Our argument to show this is based on Bertrand Russell’s original ‘paradox of propositions’. We should then opt (...) for a different approach to explain world-indexed truths whose upshot is that we may be morally responsible for some of them. The result to the effect that there are no maximally consistent states of affairs is independently interesting though, since this notion motivates an account of the nature of possible worlds in the metaphysics of modality. We also register in this article, independently of our response to Turner and Capes, and in the spirit of Russell’s aforementioned paradox and many other versions thereof, a proof of the claim that there is no set of all true propositions one can render false. (shrink)

O utopianismo científico de Neurath é a proposta para que as ciências sociais se envolvam na elaboração, desenvolvimento e comparação de cenários contrafactuais, as ‘utopias’. Tais cenários podem ser entendidos como peças centrais de experimentos de pensamento científicos, isto é, em exercícios da imaginação que não apenas promovem a revisão conceitual, mas também estimulam a criatividade para lidar com problemas vivenciados, já que utopias são esforços para imaginar como o futuro poderia ser. Ademais, experimentos de pensamento utópicos podem oferecer conhecimento (...) científico para informar debates e decisões políticas, contribuindo para formatar a sociedade. Este ensaio reconstrói um evento histórico como um exemplo da metodologia utopianista de Neurath. No final dos anos 1970 e início dos anos 1980, uma comissão científica e política designada pelo parlamento da Alemanha Ocidental inventou e comparou quatro cenários para políticas energético-econômicas futuras. Conclusões da comissão informaram decisões políticas que puseram a Alemanha Ocidental (e depois reunificada) em um caminho para se tornar uma potência industrial verde. Uma parte fundamental do trabalho da comissão envolveu um apelo à imaginação, permitindo a caracterização sob a metodologia de Neurath. (shrink)

¿Estuvo la cultura de autoría impresa fuera del alcance de las mujeres antes de 1887 en Costa Rica? El propósito principal de este artículo es ofrecer una primera respuesta a dicha pregunta con base en una revisión preliminar de periódicos y revistas que permiten considerar el problema planteado desde una perspectiva más amplia.En breve, el argumento central que se va a desarrollar es que la construcción de esa autoría pasó por tres etapas: en la primera, durante las décadas de 1840 (...) y 1850, tal proceso se basó en la redacción de anuncios comerciales; en la segunda, centrada en los decenios de 1860 y 1870, predominaron los discursos de alumnas y maestras relacionados con actividades de enseñanza; y en la tercera, ubicada a partir de 1885, se dieron dos tendencias paralelas. Por un lado, algunas docentes comenzaron a dar a conocer sus producciones literarias; y por el otro, el Estado, en vísperas de la reforma educativa de 1886, implementó una política para que las educadoras oraran informes de sus actividades escolares y los enviaran a una revista especializada para ser publicados. (shrink)

Purpose This study aims to explore whether face recognition technology – as it is intensely used by state and local police departments and law enforcement agencies – is racism free or, on the contrary, is affected by racial biases and/or racist prejudices, thus reinforcing overall racial discrimination. Design/methodology/approach The study investigates the causal pathways through which face recognition technology may reinforce the racial disproportion in enforcement; it also inquires whether it further discriminates black people by making them experience more racial (...) discrimination and self-identify more decisively as black – two conditions that are shown to be harmful in various respects. Findings This study shows that face recognition technology, as it is produced, implemented and used in Western societies, reinforces existing racial disparities in stop, investigation, arrest and incarceration rates because of racist prejudices and even contributes to strengthen the unhealthy effects of racism on historically disadvantaged racial groups, like black people. Practical implications The findings hope to make law enforcement agencies and software companies aware that they must take adequate action against the racially discriminative effects of the use of face recognition technology. Social implications This study highlights that no implementation of an allegedly racism-free biometric technology is safe from the risk of racially discriminating, simply because each implementation leans against our society, which is affected by racism in many persisting ways. Originality/value While the ethical survey of biometric technologies is traditionally framed in the discourse of universal rights, this study explores an issue that has not been deeply scrutinized so far, that is, how face recognition technology differently affects distinct racial groups and how it contributes to racial discrimination. (shrink)

It is a widely held principle that no one is able to do something that would require the past to have been different from how it actually is. This principle of the fixity of the past has been presented in numerous ways, playing a crucial role in arguments for logical and theological fatalism, and for the incompatibility of causal determinism and the ability to do otherwise. I will argue that, assuming bivalence, this principle is in conflict with standard views about (...) knowledge and the semantics for ‘actually’. I also consider many possible responses to the argument. (shrink)

In recent times, representation theory has become one of the most productive and interesting sub-fields in democratic theory. Arguably, the most important theoretical innovation are the so-called ‘constructivist’ approaches to political representation. These approaches play a central role in Creating Political Presence: The New Politics of Democratic Representation and The Constructivist Turn in Political Representation, two impressive volumes that take stock of the state of the art in representation theory. I discuss the two volumes by focusing on three broader and (...) interconnected themes: the problem that constructivism is meant to respond to, the tendency of representation theorists to expand the possibilities of representation as broadly as possible, and the normative aspects of political representation and how constructivists deal with them. (shrink)

In recent times, representation theory has become one of the most productive and interesting sub-fields in democratic theory. Arguably, the most important theoretical innovation are the so-called ‘constructivist’ approaches to political representation. These approaches play a central role in Creating Political Presence: The New Politics of Democratic Representation and The Constructivist Turn in Political Representation, two impressive volumes that take stock of the state of the art in representation theory. I discuss the two volumes by focusing on three broader and (...) interconnected themes: the problem that constructivism is meant to respond to, the tendency of representation theorists to expand the possibilities of representation as broadly as possible, and the normative aspects of political representation and how constructivists deal with them. (shrink)

ARAGÃO, Ivan Rêgo. “ Vinde todas as pessoas, e vede a minha dor ”: A Festa/Procissão ao Nosso Senhor dos Passos como Atrativo Potencial Turístico em São Cristóvão-Sergipe-Brasil. 2012. 198f. Dissertação (Mestrado) Cultura e Turismo – Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz (UESC), Ilhéus-BA. Palavras-chave: Turismo Cultural-Religioso Católico. Religiosidade Popular. Festa do Senhor dos Passos. Keywords: Catholic Religious-Cultural Tourism. Popular Religiosity. Party of Lord of the Steps.

Resumen En este artículo se reflexiona sobre la relación entre literatura y enfermedad, concentrando la atención en la perspectiva de Kierkegaard y de Kafka. Después de analizar la postura kierkegaardiana se pasa a la kafkiana y, finalmente, se comparan los resultados obtenidos. De este modo, se pueden apreciar las diferencias entre los dos planteamientos y, sucesivamente, utilizar los elementos en común para esbozar unas características interesantes sobre la relación entre literatura y enfermedad en los siglos XIX y XX en el (...) contexto de influencia alemana. Esto nos lleva a reflexionar sobre las conexiones causales entre la enfermedad y la literatura, y sobre el contexto social o íntimo en el cual estas se desarrollan.I analyze the topic of sickness in relation to 19th and 20th Century Literature in the Germanophile area. In particular, I examine Kierkegaard's and Kafka's perspectives. In the case of Kierkegaard, he principally wrote about sickness in his diaries, and in two important books: The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death. However, Kafka wrote about the same theme in all his diaries. Therefore, in this study, I will compare the different perspectives of these two authors in relation to both sickness and literature. Through this, I will attempt to extract any key aspects that can be used for identifying a more general relation between sickness and literature in the 19th and 20th Centuries. To achieve this aim, I will firstly scrutinize Kierkegaard's posture, and then Kafka's posture. Following this, I will compare the findings to draw general conclusions. (shrink)

La complessità dei rapporti tra oggetto mentale, realtà storica e rappresentazione storiografica appare evidente, quando taluni film di fantascienza ripropongono discussioni teoriche, alcune delle quali dal forte sapore medievale, in atmosfere medievali collocate nel futuro.

Van Inwagen's General Composition Question (GCQ) asks what conditions on an object and its constituents make the object a whole that these constituents compose, as opposed to an object linked to the constituents by a relation other than composition. The answer is traditionally expected to cite no mereological terms, to hold of metaphysical necessity and to be such that no defeating scenarios can be conceived (e.g., a scenario in which the conditions are met but the constituents fail to genuinely compose (...) the object). While not all writers agree on setting these high expectations on the principles that constitute answers to the GCQ (Hawley 2006), there is a yet unsettled issue concerning the principles’ naturalistic accreditation: Could putative principles be constrained and informed by advanced physical knowledge? Arguing positively, we outline two styles of principles worthy of naturalistic authority. In an explorative spirit, we notice that each style incurs certain costs. First, the principle in question may fail some of the above expectations set in an aprioristic context. Second, it may require a specific meta-theoretic understanding of what it takes to achieve naturalistic accreditation. Finally, it may address the GCQ “piecemeal” and fail to generalize to objects of all physical sorts.1. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The article deals with the early career of the literary critic Alberto Asor Rosa, one of the founders of the operaismo movement, a Marxist tendency advocating the management of factories by workers through bottom-up councils. It outlines the role he assigned to literature and culture, investigating his criticism first against the non-revolutionary cultural politics of the Italian Communist Party, notoriously through his book Scrittori e popolo and his writings for the periodical classe operaia, then identifying a transition from a (...) destructive approach against any culture based on values to the use of cultural disciplines purely as techniques. The article posits that this instrumental understanding of culture depended on Asor Rosa’s political choice to take the perspective of the working class, in order to use culture itself for social analysis. In the second half of the decade, contributing to the periodicals Angelus novus and Contropiano, he still considered culture ineffective as a way towards revolution, but he began to value the great works of ʻbourgeois’ literature for their ability to penetrate the middle-class spirit and undermine capitalist society. The article concludes that, despite his changing idea of culture, Asor Rosa’s opinions on the intellectual’s task fit the traditional concept of it. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on the question of whether nanotechnology is giving rise to new ethical problems rather than merely to new instances of old ethical problems. Firstly, I demonstrate how important it is to make a general distinction between new ethical problems and new instances of old problems. Secondly, I propose one possible way of interpreting the distinction and offer a definition of a “new ethical problem”. Thirdly, I examine whether there is good reason to claim that nanotechnology (...) is giving or will give rise to new ethical problems. My conclusion is that there are no new ethical problems in nanotechnology but merely new occurrences of certain well-known types of ethical problems. Fourthly, I consider three arguments by van de Poel (NanoEthics 2:25–28, 2008) which contradict my conclusion. I argue that my negative conclusion is consistent with the claim that certain ethical issues arising in nanotechnology may require new normative standards or new analytical tools. I conclude that it is likely that a number of ethical issues arising in nanotechnology will have a considerable impact on our ethical theories and values – and that ethical reflection on nanotechnology will be one of the mother lodes of future ethical research – in spite of the fact that no ethical problem in nanoethics will actually be “new”. (shrink)

Plutarch’s account of Lucullus unsuccessfully begging his soldiers to follow him further, shortly before being forced to leave his command, is commonly read as the apex of his failure as a military leader. A close reading, however, reveals two hitherto overlooked aspects. Firstly, the story offers valuable information on late Republican military history, regarding the duration of military service before Augustus’ reform and the existence of clearly defined subgroups within the army. Secondly, the conflict between Lucullus and his soldiers allows (...) us to get a glimpse of the political debate of the time, characterised by the competing claims to Sulla’s heritage, the shift of military loyalty towards specific individuals, and above all the question of who really represented the interests of the res publica. (shrink)

Given this bewildering abundance, how we can speak of a single thing called "music"? This book argues that we can.

¿Estuvo la cultura de autoría impresa fuera del alcance de las mujeres antes de 1887 en Costa Rica? El propósito principal de este artículo es ofrecer una primera respuesta a dicha pregunta con base en una revisión preliminar de periódicos y revistas quepermiten considerar el problema planteado desde una perspectiva más amplia. En breve, el argumento central que se va a desarrollar es que la construcción de esa autoría pasó por tres etapas: en la primera, durante las décadas de 1840 (...) y 1850, tal proceso se basó en la redacción de anuncios comerciales; en la segunda, centradaen los decenios de 1860 y 1870, predominaron los discursos de alumnas y maestras relacionados con actividades de enseñanza; y en la tercera, ubicada a partir de 1885, se dieron dos tendencias paralelas. Por un lado, algunas docentes comenzaron a dar a conocer sus producciones literarias; y por el otro, el Estado, en vísperas de la reforma educativa de 1886, implementó una política para que las educadoras elaboraran informes de sus actividades escolares y los enviaran a una revista especializada para ser publicados. (shrink)

This anthology contains selected papers from the 'Science as Culture' conference held at Lake Como, and Pavia University Italy, 15-19 September 1999. The conference, attended by about 220 individuals from thirty countries, was a joint venture of the International History, Philosophy and Science Teaching Group (its fifth conference) and the History of Physics and Physics Teaching Division of the European Physical Society (its eighth conference). The magnificient Villa Olmo, on the lakeshore, provided a memorable location for the presentors of the (...) 160 papers and the audience that discussed them. The conference was part of local celebrations of the bicentenary of Alessandro Volta's creation of the battery in 1799. Volta was born in Como in 1745, and for forty years from 1778 he was professor of experimental physics at Pavia University. The conference was fortunate to have had the generous financial support of the Italian government's Volta Bicentenary Fund, Lombardy region, Pavia University, Italian Research Council, and Kluwer Academic Publishers. The papers included here, have or will be, published in the journal Science & Education, the inaugural volume (1992) of which was a landmark in the history of science education publication, because it was the first journal in the field devoted to contributions from historical, philosophical and sociological scholarship. Clearly these 'foundational' disciplines inform numerous theoretical, curricular and pedagogical debates in science education. Contemporary Concerns The reseach promoted by the International and European Groups, and by the journal, is central to science education programmes in most areas of the world. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Quaderni piacentini, set up in 1962 by Piergiorgio Bellocchio and Grazia Cherchi, was probably the most iconic leftist periodical in Italy before 1968. Its criticism against both the Italian Communist Party for its non-revolutionary policy and the reformist centre-left coalition, its uncompromising ethics, and its exploring into non-orthodox Marxist approaches made it representative of the intellectual New Left in Italy, against the background of advanced industrialization. This article explores the changing perception of the role of intellectuals in society from (...) classic forms of an elitist political involvement to the desired identification with the masses. It argues that between the two different ways to approach culture that intersected in Quaderni piacentini and characterized the debate around 1968, namely the one expressed by Franco Fortini – advocate of the function of intellectuals and of the use of literature for political purposes – and the one supported by Alberto Asor Rosa – convinced of the need for a self-destruction of traditional ʻbourgeois' disciplines – the periodical tended to side with the former, in order to keep culture a credible and legitimate tool for militancy. (shrink)

In our experience, we see more than what we see in a strict sense. We see things as identical through (and despite) multiple spatio‐temporal appearances; we recognize things as something. In this article, I address this issue by asking how temporality allows us to see more in the present than what the present actually contains. I argue that presence and absence are “available,” not just as they are perceived through our senses, but as they are encountered through time, and notably, (...) according to the relations that unify past, present, and future. To support this view, I refer to Heidegger's interpretation of Kant's notion of synthesis. Specifically, I consider Heidegger's reading of the so‐called A‐Deduction, where Kant describes our relation with objects as enabled by three syntheses (i.e., apprehension, reproduction, and recognition). I reconstruct Heidegger's holistic interpretation of the threefold synthesis as an interplay of past, present, and future. I show how in such interplay, temporal dimensions are unified by relations that do not rely on perception; these “time‐relations,” which Heidegger also calls “rules,” allow us to see what we see not just as it is literally perceived, but as part of an “image” of the manifold. (shrink)

Pixelism is the combination of three metaphysical thesis, namely a radical form of exdurantism, mereological nihilism and counterpart theory. Pixelism is a theory that evaluates all the metaphysical phenomena of persistence, composition and modality in a homogeneous and consistent manner. In a pixel world, there is no identity over time and over possible worlds and nothing persists over more than an instant or a world. Entities can be univocally identified by a five-coordinates system (the three spatial dimensions, the temporal one (...) and the possible worlds), and their relation is a counterpart relation both in different worlds and at different times or different regions of space. In this paper I will provide two models for pixelism: the first one takes pixels to be hypercubes, i. e. four-dimensional cubes, the acceptance of which is conditional on the acceptance of extended simples. The second one considers pixels as points in a four-dimensional space. (shrink)

Book 1 of Euclid's Elements opens with a set of unproved assumptions: definitions, postulates, and ‘common notions’. The common notions are general rules validating deductions that involve the relations of equality and congruence. The attested postulates are five in number, even if a part of the manuscript tradition adds a sixth, almost surely spurious, that in some manuscripts features as the ninth, and last, common notion. The postulates are called αἰτήματα both in the manuscripts of the Elements and in the (...) ancient exegetic tradition. It is not said, however, that this denomination is original, as it coincides with the nomen rei actae associated with the verbal form introducing the postulates themselves. Since antiquity it has been recognized that the postulates naturally split into two groups of quite different character: the first three are rules licensing basic constructions, the fourth and the fifth are assertions stating properties of particular geometric objects. I transcribe postulates 1–3 in the text established by Heiberg : ᾐτήσθω ἀπὸ παντὸς σημείου ἐπὶ πᾶν σημεῖον εὐθεῖαν γραμμὴν ἀγαγεῖνκαὶ πεπερασμένην εὐθεῖαν κατὰ τὸ συνεχὲς ἐπ᾽ εὐθείας ἐκβαλεῖνκαὶ παντὶ κέντρῳ καὶ διαστήματι κύκλον γράϕεσθαι. (shrink)