The important and influential mathematician Felix Hausdorff was also the author of several remarkable philosophical books and essays. About his unusual biography between philosophy and topology we have only little knowledge. We know only few personal documents and letters. Among Hausdorff’s letters that have been preserved (about 130), the letters and postcards to the librarian, translator and artist Franz Meyer in Jena (10) give an important insight into Hausdorff’s biography and his philosophical development. They also inform (...) about his way from a philosopher, who liked to play with Nietzsche’s thoughts, to a pure mathematician. (shrink)

The article attempts to reconsider the relationship between Leibniz’s and Kant’s philosophy of geometry on the one hand and the nineteenth century debate on the foundation of geometry on the other. The author argues that the examples used by Leibniz and Kant to explain the peculiarity of the geometrical way of thinking are actually special cases of what the Jewish-German mathematician Felix Hausdorff called “transformation principle”, the very same principle that thinkers such as Helmholtz or Poincaré applied in (...) a more general form in their celebrated philosophical writings about geometry. The first two parts of the article try to show that Leibniz’s and Kant’s philosophies of geometry, despite their differences, appear to be preoccupied with the common problem of the impossibility to grasp conceptually the intuitive difference between two figures (such as a figure and its scaled, displaced or mirrored copy). In the third part, it is argued that from the perspective of Hausdorff’s philosophical-geometrical reflections, this very same problem seems to find a more radical application in Helmholtz’s or Poincaré’s thought experiments on the impossibility of distinguishing distorted copies of our universe from the original one. I draw the conclusion that in Hausdorff’s philosophical work, which has received scholarly attention only recently, one can find not only an original attempt to frame these classical arguments from a set-theoretical point of view, but also the possibility of considering the history of philosophy of geometry from an uncommon perspective, where especially the significance of Kant’s infamous appeal to “intuition” can be judged by more appropriate standards. (shrink)

What gave rise to Ernst Zermelo's axiomatization of set theory in 1908? According to the usual interpretation, Zermelo was motivated by the set-theoretic paradoxes. This paper argues that Zermelo was primarily motivated, not by the paradoxes, but by the controversy surrounding his 1904 proof that every set can be wellordered, and especially by a desire to preserve his Axiom of Choice from its numerous critics. Here Zermelo's concern for the foundations of mathematics diverged from Bertrand Russell's on the one hand (...) and from Felix Hausdorff's on the other. (shrink)

In this, his latest book, Wolfram Hogrebe continues to unfold his project of an informal epistemology with an analysis of ties ("ligatures") to be found below the level of theoretically discussed norms, laws, and institutional regulations and nevertheless indispensable for a humane coexistence. Risks associated with such often hidden constellations of knowledge are also discussed. Master thinkers such as Schelling, Hegel, Heidegger, but also more marginal figures such as Felix Hausdorff alias Paul Mongré or artists such as Beuys (...) are discussed. In his inimitable style of concise yet succinct sketches, Hogrebe thus causes thinking to confront the often subtle nuances of being in a state of wonderment"--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Rreview of Maughn Rollins Gregory and Megan Jane Laverty, eds.. In Community of Inquiry with Ann Margaret Sharp: Childhood, Philosophy, and Education. Routledge, 2018, Pp. 264.

As donor trust legitimises research, trust is vital for research in the fields of biomedicine, genetics, translational medicine and personalised medicine. For parts of the donor community, the consent signature is a sign of trust in research. Many consent processes in biomedical research ask donors to provide their data for an unspecified future use, which introduces uncertainty of the unknown. This uncertainty can jeopardise donor trust or demand blind trust. But which donor wants to trust blindly? To reduce this uncertainty, (...) we explore first, which future-proof actors donors could trust when signing a consent form. Second, we discuss the question Can we know if donor trust expires? and what prevents donor trust from expiring. Finally, we present possible measures that can help to nurture trust in the far future. In this article, we draw on our previous research on trust in biomedical research, on trust in the broader healthcare system and Niklas Luhmann’s and Anthony Giddens’ trust theories. Our findings suggest that, in the far future, researchers will need to consider donor autonomy, as well as societal norms and values of the time period in which the data were donated. They will need to find mechanisms where possible to publicly announce the use of old data sets. However, foremost researchers will need to treat the data respectfully. It remains vital that professionals and the society continue to elaborate on the norms and values that shape the common understanding of what is morally right and wrong when researching data. (shrink)

This study presents original evidence that abstract and concrete concepts are organized and represented differently in the mind, based on analyses of thousands of concepts in publicly available data sets and computational resources. First, we show that abstract and concrete concepts have differing patterns of association with other concepts. Second, we test recent hypotheses that abstract concepts are organized according to association, whereas concrete concepts are organized according to (semantic) similarity. Third, we present evidence suggesting that concrete representations are more (...) strongly feature-based than abstract concepts. We argue that degree of feature-based structure may fundamentally determine concreteness, and we discuss implications for cognitive and computational models of meaning. (shrink)

O presente artigo se debruça sobre a temática da Psicologia e a Educação. O recorte do tema reflete a necessidade da ação da psicologia no ambiente escolar. O estudo se constitui uma breve análise quanto aos enfrentamentos à saúde mental dos estudantes na etapa da infância. De cunho qualitativo e de natureza básica, este é excerto de pesquisa bibliográfica, utilizando-se de referências que conversam com a temática abordada. Busca-se entender: De que modo o psicólogo escolar pode auxiliar as crianças que (...) se encontram em depressão? Como identificar a depressão infantil no contexto escolar? Nesse sentido, busca-se compreender as ações do psicólogo escolar, em confronto com os problemas da depressão infantil. Do estudo foi possível perceber que: existe a depressão infantil e esta forma as lacunas nas aprendizagens das crianças; torna-se evidente a necessidade de manter o diálogo entre a escola e a família buscando sanar os efeitos da depressão infantil; a presença e a ação do psicólogo escolar, no ambiente da Educação, poderá se constituir uma medida preventiva que promova uma infância sadia e mais cidadã; o psicólogo escolar nos processos de intervenção precisa ressaltar a reflexão crítica, democrática e humanizadora dos sujeitos. (shrink)

The Romans identified East Africa as Azania. The Chinese as Zezan. The metropolis of Rhapta was indicated to be the capital of Azania. In recent times a controversy emerged as to the location of Azania and Rhapta. A discussion has also occurred regarding the kind of people who settled in Azania. Whereas some scholars agree that the core of Azania was in East Africa modern, the geographical extent of Azania is in question. Archaeological, historical, and linguistic data have been used (...) to suggest Azania extended from the coast of East Africa to the Great Lakes region, central Africa and South Africa. It is also argued that the people of Azania were Bantu speakers who were farming and smelting iron. It is therefore justifiable for the people of the larger region of South Africa to East Africa to name themselves Azanians. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialtheorie und Philosophie Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 2 Seiten: 239-263.

This short document, appearing for the first time in English translation, concerns the prospects of a made-for-television cultural mini-series inspired by select episodes in Kafka's works. A window is opened onto Guattari's curatorial ambitions, cinematic projects, and theory of minor cinema, bringing into focus how he translated theoretical preoccupations into the cultural sector with reference to diverse semiotic media.

« The vertigo of an alternative Japanese path: Tokyo renounces its role as Eastern capital of occidental capitalism and becomes instead, the Northern capital of the emancipation of the Third World. ».

This dialogue took place at the beginning of the process through which Lula became president of Brazil. It analyses the empowerment capacity of the Workers’ Party: it is made of collective discussion and free speech, working class embedding, openness to the whole society, welcome to minorities, respect and distance front other parties, sense of uniqueness. The French socialist party lacks those qualities, which one could, find also in Solidarnosc.