No tratado 10 (V 1), 8, ao examinar a questão da constituição das hipóstases inteligíveis, Plotino observa que tais teses não são novas, mas há muito enunciadas pelos filósofos anteriores e notadamente por Platão. De tal modo, sua investigação acerta de tais temas constitui-se como uma exegese dos antigos e dos diálogos platônicos. No início da interrogação acerca da eternidade e do tempo no tratado 45 (III 7), Plotino observa a necessidade de examinar o que os antigos filósofos disseram acerca (...) da temática investigada, propondo um exame doxográfico a fim de que se possa obter “por si mesmo” uma compreensão adequada sobre o tempo a partir de seu paradigma, a eternidade. Nesse sentido, nossa proposta é de elaborar uma breve investigação acerca da possibilidade de articulação desses dois textos plotinianos por meio de alguns elementos presentes no tratado 20 (I 3), Sobre a dialética. De tal modo, pretende-se obter uma aproximação de alguns procedimentos metodológicos do pensamento de Plotino. Palavras-chave: Exegese, Dialética, Método Filosófico, Leitura dos Antigos, Plotino. (shrink)

This study aimed to adapt the Flourishing Scale to a Chilean high school context and provide evidence of its validity. Data were collected from 1,348 students from three different Chilean schools. The results of confirmatory factor analysis supported a one–factor solution, multiple–group CFA supported gender invariance, and structural equation model indicated that the FS is related to positive and negative academic feelings. Overall, the evidence indicates that the Flourishing Scale adapted to the high school context is an instrument that produces (...) valid and reliable scores in our high school Chilean sample. (shrink)

The tree-based data structure of -tree for propositional formulas is introduced in an improved and optimised form. The -trees allow a compact representation for negation normal forms as well as for a number of reduction strategies in order to consider only those occurrences of literals which are relevant for the satisfiability of the input formula. These reduction strategies are divided into two subsets (meaning- and satisfiability-preserving transformations) and can be used to decrease the size of a negation normal form A (...) at (at most) quadratic cost. The reduction strategies are aimed at decreasing the number of required branchings and, therefore, these strategies allow to limit the size of the search space for the SAT problem. (shrink)

Este artículo explora la gestualidad multisensorial, háptica y motriz como forma de habitar las atmósferas. Contribuye al desarrollo de epistemologías relacionales sobre la dimensión corporal, al abordar la experiencia corporeizada vivida con entornos aéreos, materiales, ecológicos y sociales, en lugar de centrarse en el significado conceptual y semántico para su explicación. El marco conceptual, se basa en la teoría de las affordances, las ciencias cognitivas enactivas y la fenomenología, que ofrecen una vía para configurar la interacción piel-atmósfera. Consideramos la unidad (...) organismo-entorno y lo que en la literatura se identifica con el concepto de atmósfera sonora. Se introduce la noción de affordances multisensoriales y hápticas como encuentro sensual y atencional de la presencia, para argumentar que tanto el enfoque contemporáneo del cuerpo háptico y gestual con posibilidades afectivas y de movimiento, como la perspectiva estética y ecológico-social de la performatividad -aunque conceptualmente útiles-, pasan por alto la existencia de una fenomenología háptica del reino sensual de las atmósferas. Así, se describe el entrelazamiento de las experiencias sensibles y estéticas con territorios sonoros habitados desde la experiencia táctil. Se discute cómo lo sonoro y la materialidad se utilizan para vivir experiencias particulares del espacio dentro de uno específico: la instalación arpa de fricción. Finalmente, con base en la distinción entre la sensibilidad y la consciencia, se orienta hacia una pedagogía de experiencias háptico-sonoras durante procesos de aprendizaje, útil en contextos de educación corporeizada, estética y crítica. Y se ofrece un lugar para imaginar y escenificar este tipo de entornos de aprendizaje de una manera deliberada, con cualidades permeables, inmersivas, afectivas y colectivas, para acompañar en la co-creación de mundos alternativos. (shrink)

The tree-based data structure of △-tree for propositional formulas is introduced in an improved and optimised form. The △-trees allow a compact representation for negation normal forms as well as for a number of reduction strategies in order to consider only those occurrences of literals which are relevant for the satisfiability of the input formula. These reduction strategies are divided into two subsets (meaning- and satisfiability-preserving transformations) and can be used to decrease the size of a negation normal form A (...) at (at most) quadratic cost. The reduction strategies are aimed at decreasing the number of required branchings and, therefore, these strategies allow to limit the size of the search space for the SAT problem. (shrink)

I argue against theories that attempt to reduce scientific representation to similarity or isomorphism. These reductive theories aim to radically naturalize the notion of representation, since they treat scientist's purposes and intentions as non-essential to representation. I distinguish between the means and the constituents of representation, and I argue that similarity and isomorphism are common but not universal means of representation. I then present four other arguments to show that similarity and isomorphism are not the constituents of scientific representation. I (...) finish by looking at the prospects for weakened versions of these theories, and I argue that only those that abandon the aim to radically naturalize scientific representation are likely to be successful. (shrink)

Este estudio presenta los resultados de un análisis acústico-estadístico de las consonantes fricativas labiodentales e interdentales sonoras y áfonas del mapudungun hablado en Alto Biobío. El propósito de la presente investigación fue determinar si parámetros acústicos espectrales, parámetros de duración y parámetros de amplitud permiten distinguir el punto de articulación y la sonoridad de estos sonidos. Los resultados indicaron que los momentos espectrales, la duración, la amplitud absoluta y la amplitud normalizada permiten diferenciar entre las fricativas sonoras y áfonas; mientras (...) que la varianza, la duración y la amplitud normalizada permiten distinguir las consonantes labiodentales de las interdentales. Sin embargo, la capacidad que la varianza y la duración absoluta muestran para distinguir entre las consonantes sonoras y las áfonas se restringe a las consonantes labiodentales cuando se considera la interacción entre sonoridad con el punto de articulación y sexo del participante. Estos resultados son discutidos a la luz de la literatura sobre la utilidad de este tipo de mediciones acústicas para capturar contrastes de modo, punto y sonoridad, y en vista del estado del arte sobre las características del sistema fonético y fonológico de esta variedad del mapudungun. (shrink)

Peter Milne and Neal Grossman have argued against Popper's propensity interpretation of quantum mechanics, by appeal to the two-slit experiment and to the distinction between mixtures and superpositions, respectively. In this paper I show that a different propensity interpretation successfully meets their objections. According to this interpretation, the possession of a quantum propensity by a quantum system is independent of the experimental set-ups designed to test it, even though its manifestations are not.

This paper expands on, and provides a qualified defence of, Arthur Fine's selective interactions solution to the measurement problem. Fine's approach must be understood against the background of the insolubility proof of the quantum measurement. I first defend the proof as an appropriate formal representation of the quantum measurement problem. The nature of selective interactions, and more generally selections, is then clarified, and three arguments in their favour are offered. First, selections provide the only known solution to the measurement problem (...) that does not relinquish any of the explicit premises of the insolubility proofs. Second, unlike some no-collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics, selections suffer no difficulties with non-ideal measurements. Third, unlike most collapse interpretations, selections can be independently motivated by an appeal to quantum propensities. IntroductionThe problem of quantum measurement2.1 The ignorance interpretation of mixtures2.2 The eigenstate–eigenvalue link2.3 The quantum theory of measurementThe insolubility proof of the quantum measurement3.1 Some notation3.2 The transfer of probability condition (TPC)3.3 The occurrence of outcomes condition (OOC)A defence of the insolubility proof4.1 Stein's critique4.2 Ignorance is not required4.3 The problem of quantum measurement is an idealisationSelections5.1 Representing dispositional properties5.2 Selections solve the measurement problem5.3 Selections and ignoranceNon-ideal selections6.1 No-collapse interpretations and non-ideal measurements6.2 Exact and approximate measurements6.3 Selections for non-ideal interactions6.4 Approximate selections6.5 Implications for ignoranceSelective interactions test quantum propensities7.1 Equivalence classes as physical ‘aspects’: a critique7.2 Quantum dispositions7.3 Selections as a propensity modal interpretation7.4 A comparison with Popper's propensity interpretation. (shrink)

Abstract: It is often assumed without argument that fictionalism in the philosophy of science contradicts scientific realism. This paper is a critical analysis of this assumption. The kind of fictionalism that is at present discussed in philosophy of science is characterised, and distinguished from fictionalism in other areas. A distinction is then drawn between forms of fictional representation, and two competing accounts of fiction in science are discussed. I then outline explicitly what I take to be the argument for the (...) incompatibility of scientific realism with fictionalism. I argue that some of its premises are unwarranted, and are moreover questionable from a fictionalist perspective. The conclusion is that fictionalism is neutral in the realism-antirealism debate, pulling neither in favour nor against scientific realism. (shrink)

There has been an intense discussion, albeit largely an implicit one, concerning the inference of causal hypotheses from statistical correlations in quantum mechanics ever since John Bell’s first statement of his notorious theorem in 1966. As is well known, its focus has mainly been the so-called Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (“EPR”) thought experiment, and the ensuing observed correlations in real EPR like experiments. But although implicitly the discussion goes as far back as Bell’s work, it is only in the last two decades that (...) it has become recognizably and explicitly a debate about causal inference in the quantum realm. The bulk of this paper is devoted to a review of three influential arguments in the philosophical literature that aim to show that causal models for the EPR correlations are impossible, due to Bas Van Fraassen, Daniel Hausman and Huw Price. I contend that all these arguments are inconclusive since they contain premises or presuppositions that are false, unwarranted, or at least controversial. Five different common cause models are outlined that seem perfectly viable for the EPR correlations. These models are then employed to illustrate various difficulties with the premises and presuppositions underlying Van Fraassen’s, Hausman’s and Price’s arguments. In all these cases it is argued that the difficulties cut deep against these authors’ own theories of causation and causal inference. My conclusions are that causal models for the EPR correlations remain viable, that philosophical work is still required to assess their relative virtues, and that in any case the mere theoretical conceivability and empirical possibility of these models sheds doubts over Van Fraassen’s, Hausman’s and (important elements in) Price’s theories of causation and causal inference. (shrink)

Table of Contents: Preface.- 1. Introduction; Mauricio Suárez.- PART I: PROBABILITIES.- 2. Probability and time symmetry in classical Markov processes; Guido Bacciagaluppi.- 3. Probability assignments and the principle of indifference: An examination of two eliminative strategies; Sorin Bangu.- 4. Why typicality does not explain the approach to equilibrium; Roman Frigg; PART II: CAUSES.- 5. From metaphysics to physics and back: The example of causation; Federico Laudisa.- 6. On explanation in retro-causal interpretations of quantum mechanics; Joseph Berkovitz.- 7. Causal completeness (...) in general probability theories; Balasz Gyenis, Miklós Rédei.- 8. Causal Markov, robustness and the quantum correlations; Mauricio Suárez, Iñaki San Pedro.- PART III: PROPENSITIES.- 9. Do dispositions and propensities have a role in the ontology of quantum mechanics? Some critical remarks; Mauro Dorato.- 10. Is the quantum world composed of propensitons?; Nicholas Maxwell.- 11. Derivative dispositions and multiple derivative levels; Ian Thompson. (shrink)

I argue against an account of scientific representation suggested by the semantic, or structuralist, conception of scientific theories. Proponents of this conception often employ the term “model” to refer to bare “structures”, which naturally leads them to attempt to characterize the relation between models and reality as a purely structural one. I argue instead that scientific models are typically “representations”, in the pragmatist sense of the term: they are inherently intended for specific phenomena. Therefore in general scientific models are not (...) (merely) structures. I then explore some consequences of this pragmatist account of representation, and argue that it sheds light upon the distinction between theories and models. I finish by briefly addressing some critical comments due to Bas Van Fraassen. (shrink)

In an influential article published in 1982, Bas Van Fraassen developed an argument against causal realism on the basis of an analysis of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations of quantum mechanics. Several philosophers of science and experts in causal inference -including some causal realists like Wesley Salmon- have accepted Van Fraassen’s argument, interpreting it as a proof that the quantum correlations cannot be given any causal model. In this paper I argue that Van Fraassen’s article can also be interpreted as a good (...) guide to the different causal models available for the EPR correlations, and their relative virtues. These models in turn give us insight into some of the unusual features that quantum propensicies might have. (shrink)

There are compelling reasons to believe that musical works are abstract. However, this hypothesis conflicts with the platitude that musical works are appreciated by means of audition: the things that enter our ear canals and make our eardrums vibrate must be concrete, so how can musical works be listened to if they are abstract? This question constitutes the audibility problem. In this paper, I assess Julian Dodd’s elaborate attempt to solve it, and contend that Dodd’s attempt is unsuccessful. Then I (...) discuss what I take to be the ideal response to the audibility problem, and show that it ultimately fails. I contend, consequently, that the project of construing musical works as audible is disheartening. Accordingly, in my last section, I will argue the audibility problem may be satisfactorily resolved without ascribing audibility to musical works. (shrink)

On a purely epistemic understanding of experimental realism, manipulation affords a particularly robust kind of causal warrant, which is – like any other warrant – defeasible. I defend a version of Nancy Cartwright’s inference to the most likely cause, and I conclude that this minimally epistemic version of experimental realism is a coherent, adequate and plausible epistemology for science.

I argue that the Causal Markov Condition (CMC) is in principle applicable to the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) correlations. This is in line with my defence in the past of the applicability of the Principle of Common Cause to quantum mechanics. I first review a contrary claim by Dan Hausman and Jim Woodward, who endeavour to preserve the CMC against a possible counterexample by asserting that the conditions for the application of the CMC are not met in the EPR experiment. In their (...) view the CMC is inapplicable to the EPR correlations—i.e. it neither obtains nor fails. The view is grounded upon the non-separability of the quantum state, and the consequent unavailability of interventions. I urge that whether interventions are available in EPR—and why—is a complex and contextual question that does not have a unique or uniform answer. Instead, I argue that different combinations of causal hypotheses under test and interpretations of quantum mechanics yield different answers to the question. (shrink)

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societal-level analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective (...) autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach’s α statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and within-society agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research. (shrink)

Resumen: El objetivo del presente escrito es analizar una confusión epistemológica recurrente en algunas corrientes filosóficas contemporáneas: el sociologismo, que consiste en establecer juicios acerca de la justificación de la ciencia a partir de sus orígenes históricos. En particular, me interesa revisar sus variantes relativistas, que, en sus formas más radicales, llegan a identificar la pretensión de racionalidad y objetividad de la ciencia con los mecanismos de poder. Mediante el análisis argumentativo, mostraré los errores en los que incurren estas vertientes.: (...) This article analyzes a recurrent epistemological confusion in some contemporary philosophical trends, namely, sociologism, which consists on the establishment of judgements on the justification of science based on its historical origins. Specifi cally, I am interested in reviewing its relativistic variants, which, in its most radical forms, get to identify the pretension of rationality and objectivity of science with power mechanisms. By means of an argumentative analysis, I will show the errors these proposals commit. (shrink)

This paper is a response to Haze’s brief argument for the falsity of the theory that instantial terms refer arbitrarily, proposed by Breckenridge and Magidor in 2012. In this paper, I characterise instantial terms and outline the theory of arbitrary reference; then I reconstruct Haze’s argument and contend that it fails in its purpose. Haze’s argument is supposed to be a _reductio ad absurdum:_ according to Haze, it proves that a contradiction follows from the most basic tenets of the theory (...) of arbitrary reference. I will argue, however, that the contradiction in question follows not from these tenets, but from the surreptitious use that Haze makes of a self-referential expression. I conclude, consequently, that Haze’s argument is nothing more than an illustration of the well-known fact that self-referential expressions produce paradoxical results. (shrink)

I offer an alternative interpretation of Van Fraassen's influential arguments against causal realism in quantum mechanics. These arguments provide in fact a good guide to the different causal models available for the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations, which in turn shed light on the nature of quantum propensities.

I analyse critically what I regard as the most accomplished empiricist account of propensities, namely the long run propensity theory developed by Donald Gillies . Empiricist accounts are distinguished by their commitment to the ‘identity thesis’: the identification of propensities and objective probabilities. These theories are intended, in the tradition of Karl Popper’s influential proposal, to provide an interpretation of probability that renders probability statements directly testable by experiment. I argue that the commitment to the identity thesis leaves empiricist theories, (...) including Gillies’ version, vulnerable to a variant of what is known as Humphreys’ paradox. I suggest that the tension may be resolved only by abandoning the identity thesis, and by adopting instead an understanding of propensities as explanatory properties of chancy objects. (shrink)

Resumen: En este artículo reviso la interpretación de Eduardo Nicol de la teoría de la propiedad de Francisco Suárez. Para ello, presento la posición de Suárez acerca de la propiedad y la propiedad privada atendiendo dos cuestiones fundamentales. La primera es si la propiedad y la propiedad privada son derechos; la segunda es si ambos pertenecen a la naturaleza humana o no. Al final, argumento que la lectura de Nicol es insostenible, pues difícilmente puede admitirse que Suárez defendió algún tipo (...) de comunismo.: In this paper I revisit Eduardo Nicol’s interpretation of Suarez’s theory of property. To this purpose, I present Suárez’s account of property and private property focusing on two main aspects. The first is whether property and private property are rights; the second is whether they belong to the human nature or not. Finally, I argue that Nicol’s reading of Suárez is untenable for it can hardly be accepted that Suárez defended some kind of communism. (shrink)

In most academic works laughter is praised because of its social, religious, and psychological benefits. However, when laughter’s morality has been historically discussed it usually has been condemned. To assign human responsibility to the act of laughing, it must be acknowledged as voluntary. However, studies indicate that laughter is not a voluntary action, but rather a neurophysiological reaction. If this is so, there is no basis on which to ground the moral relevance of laughter. In this article, I will put (...) forward an argument that can help to ground the ethics of spontaneous laughter at least. I claim that humans have the power to avoid laughing or suspend it because they can voluntarily prevent some of the circumstances that are necessary for it to happen. If humans fail to do so when they are expected to, laughter becomes relevant as a kind of negligent omission. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Extractivist OntologiesLithium Mining and Anthropocene Imaginaries in Chile's Atacama DesertMauricio F. Collao Quevedo (bio)The term energy transition generally refers to efforts to switch from one energy system to another. In light of the current climate crisis, energy transition projects have sought to move societies away from their reliance on fossil fuels and toward a renewables-based energy system. Yet such projects have not been easy to undertake. As Marie Forget (...) and Vincent Bos point out, an energy system based on renewables requires a transformation of energy "regulatory frameworks, technical and organizational structures, geographic forms and network practices" (1). More specifically, current energy transition models rely on the expansion of lithium production, accompanying systems of private property rights, and complex logistical and technical strategies. This article examines the interplay between lithium extraction, national development, and Anthropocene imaginaries in Chile's Atacama Desert, arguing that the green brand of extractivism that characterizes the industry relies on elaborate institutional arrangements aimed at expanding and protecting extractivist ontological and epistemological regimes in the politically contested region. As such, struggles over lithium in Chile's Atacama region demonstrate the extent to which efforts to decolonize the Anthropocene and make possible non-extractive futures of collective survival must unfold on ontological grounds, against the consolidation of the Age of Man.Mining, Water Rights, and Indigenous Communities in the Atacama DesertAmong today's most promising energy sources and materials are sodium, copper, sulfur, nickel, cobalt, rare earth metals, and lithium. These [End Page 78] have become central to energy transition strategies and states seeking to attract investors for development (Lunde Seefeldt). As a report by the World Bank points out, demand for transition minerals like lithium, cobalt, and graphite could increase by 500% by 2050 ("Climate-Smart Mining"), highlighting the extent to which global energy transition efforts are counting on greater extraction of transition minerals and the expansion of extractive frontiers to previously unexplored or unexploited regions (Moore, Capitalism; World Bank Group). Lithium is at the center of this economic and technological shift toward green economies.Global lithium demand is growing rapidly, with investment and production rates growing significantly in recent years (Narins) and catching the attention of states (e.g., China) and corporate tech giants (e.g., Tesla) that are already trying to secure greater shares of the global market. The light metal's popularity is largely due to its internal chemistry, which meets many of the technical and practical requirements associated with green energy transition. Lithium is light, conducive, and energy-dense, which in the context of batteries means faster recharge, lower costs, and charge-holding abilities that make lithium-ion batteries more efficient than a nickel-metal hybrid equivalent (Perotti and Coviello). Because of this, lithium is increasingly being considered as promising for human development and survival as its energy predecessors, inspiring labels such as "white gold," "white petroleum," "the new copper," "the 21st century's petroleum," or the "new gasoline" of sustainability (Acuña and Tironi; Lunde Seefeldt; Voskoboynik and Andreucci).But the industry is not without its downsides. The negative impacts of lithium extraction in Chile's Atacama Desert have been challenged by local communities for whom the metal does not exist as a discrete entity that can be easily extracted from its socioecological context. For many of these communities, lithium is more than a transition metal found in an appropriable and materially heterogenous underground brine: it is an ontologically contested, socioecological entity that sustains and participates in complex webs of life-supporting, place-based, and more-than-human relations. Such accounts of the brine are radically incompatible with "official" state accounts of it, which are maintained through an institutional architecture that allows the ontological basis of the brine to be manipulated for extractive purposes by both corporate and state actors.In the following pages, I examine the ways in which Chile's legal and institutional arrangements, informed by imaginaries of green modernization, [End Page 79] create conditions under which extralocal actors can manipulate along extractivist lines the ontological ambiguity and material heterogeneity of lithium-containing brines in the salt flats of the Atacama Desert. Through an analysis of the ways in which lithium industries in the... (shrink)

I review five explicit attempts throughout the history of quantum mechanics to invoke dispositional notions in order to solve the quantum paradoxes, namely: Margenau’s latencies, Heisenberg’s potentialities, Popper’s propensity interpretation of probability, Nick Maxwell’s propensitons, and the recent selective propensities interpretation of quantum mechanics. I raise difficulties and challenges for all of them, but conclude that the selective propensities approach nicely encompasses the virtues of its predecessors. I elaborate on some of the properties of the type of propensities that I (...) claim to be successful for quantum mechanics, and finish by briefly sketching out ways in which similar notions can be read into some of the other well-known interpretations of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

: This paper outlines a genuinely pragmatist conception of propensity, and defends it against common objections to the propensity interpretation of probability, prominently Humphreys’ paradox. The paper reviews the paradox and identifies one of its key assumptions, the identity thesis, according to which propensities are probabilities. The identity thesis is also involved in empiricist propensity interpretations deriving from Popper’s influential original proposal, and makes such interpretations untenable. As an alternative, I urge a return to Charles Peirce’s original insights on probabilistic (...) dispositions, and offer a reconstructed version of his pragmatist conception, which rejects the identity thesis. – Correspondence to: [email protected]. (shrink)

In this paper I will compare two conceptions of basic elements or units of living organisms from the second half of the nineteenth century: Goodsir’s cellular centers and Bütschli’s protoplam. The comparison will be made from the proposition of a nucleoplasmic form, and the referred conceptions are historical expressions of this general form. The nutrition center is a form that combines the functions of nutrition, germination and reproduction, responsible for the production of tissues, organs, tumors and the whole organism from (...) the fertilized egg. Microscopic foams produce organic differentiation through dynamic stabilization of the surface tension between the alveoli. I will conclude critically by discussing the relationship of these two expressions in terms of their continuity or exhaustion as scientific achievements of the biology of the period cited. (shrink)

In this paper I will compare two conceptions of basic elements or units of living organisms from the second half of the nineteenth century: Goodsir’s cellular centers and Bütschli’s protoplam. The comparison will be made from the proposition of a nucleoplasmic form, and the referred conceptions are historical expressions of this general form. The nutrition center is a form that combines the functions of nutrition, germination and reproduction, responsible for the production of tissues, organs, tumors and the whole organism from (...) the fertilized egg. Microscopic foams produce organic differentiation through dynamic stabilization of the surface tension between the alveoli. I will conclude critically by discussing the relationship of these two expressions in terms of their continuity or exhaustion as scientific achievements of the biology of the period cited. (shrink)

Since the word "History" has its origins in the domain of inquiry, I call myself an historian to the extent to which I have tried to study voyages of discovery in a manner as personal as possible, and I have presented the results of my work in a number of books and articles. The short study which follows is not an attempt to recapitulate what has already been published. Rather, I have tried here to present a brief synthesis of my (...) reflections on one of the themes which I have undertaken to outline. (shrink)

There are important cases where properties not referred to by expressions from the languages of physics are enabled in certain times and circumstances to get causal control over some kinds of physical events. I will argue that in those cases we would have to transfer to those properties the causal sufficiency to bring about these events. This would offer a principle of causal inheritance in sharp contrast with the inheritance principle for the causal sufficiency of second order properties defended by (...) Jaegwon Kim in his recent discussion of the causal exclusion problem concerning mental properties. The two principles would be very different. Their domains of application would be distinct. Kim's principle would transfer causal sufficiency to the more "concrete" physical properties able to realize mental properties understood as second order properties. Our principle would transfer causal sufficiency to the more "general" properties able to cause the relevant physical effects in the times and circumstances in question. That way, it would be possible to give a quite simple answer to the problem of causal exclusion posed by Kim in relation to mental properties. Our approach also would have very important consequences in relation to ordinary macrophysical causation. (shrink)

The spinozian critical fortune records that, starting withproposition 27 of Ethics Part iii, something completely original appearsin the examination of affective life: the imitation of affections. Spinoza’snovelty, in comparison with his contemporaries, is to describe theproduction of affections no longer from an external object, but from theconduct of “something”, or “someone”, on an object - considering thatthis production is rooted in the fact that we imagine that this “someone”or that “something” is similar to us. The proposition links a longdeductive sequence (...) that runs through the rest of Part iii, supports thecrucial Part iv propositions on politics and law and reaches the PoliticalTreaty [i, v]. Our intention is to evaluate the meanings of this propositionin Spinoza’s political thought, based on a review of this problemin critical fortune - taking into account some passages in the works ofPrimo Levi. In particular the “Chemistry Test”, chapter ofthis book If This Is a Man? [Se questo è un uomo?]. (shrink)

It is widely accepted in contemporary philosophy of science that the domain of application of a theory is typically larger than its explanatory covering power: theories can be applied to phenomena that they do not explain. I argue for an analogous thesis regarding the notion of empirical adequacy. A theory’s domain of application is typically larger than its domain of empirical adequacy: theories are often applied to phenomena from which they receive no empirical confirmation.

By simply watching news channels, visiting the internet, even watching diverse films, my observations led me to conclude that in today’s globalized world, different forms of subjective violence – or a kind of violence that has a clear and identifiable agent – are what commonly occupies our attention. However, it is crucial to note that in every form subjective violence, there is an objective background that invisibly sustains and overdetermines it. This objective frame, often imperceptible, contains a systemic and more (...) perilous violence, for it is, in fact, a violence that prolongs and generates the very subjective violence that we are fighting and responding against. Accordingly, I would argue that a reinvention of how we view a truly ethical act should necessitate itself in today’s globalized world. My claim is that the challenge for a truly globalized ethics is that it is not enough to simply respond to these different forms of subjective violence. Instead, what is more gripping to consider is to shamelessly question the objective violence upon which these different forms of subjective violence are inherent, reacting against, and being sustained in the first place – i.e. the inherent violence produced by the predominance of global capitalism. (shrink)

The propensity nature of evolutionary fitness has long been appreciated and is nowadays amply discussed. The discussion has, however, on occasion followed long standing conflations in the philosophy of probability literature between propensities, probabilities, and frequencies. In this paper, I apply a more recent conception of propensities in modelling practice to some of the key issues, regarding the mathematical representation of fitness and how it may be regarded as explanatory. The ensuing complex nexus of fitness emphasises the distinction between biological (...) propensities and the probability distributions over offspring numbers that they give rise to; and how critical it is to distinguish the possession conditions of the underlying dispositional properties from those of their probabilistic manifestations. (shrink)