The use of such concepts as randomness and probability is discussed and stochastic decisions occurring in the sacred texts are studied. In connection with probability, the measurements made in antiquity in order to comply with religious demands are also touched on. The cases where cause rather than randomness was recognized to be at work are indicated, and the statements contained in the Talmud and the thoughts of its later commentator, Maimonides, on hypotheses are linked with the appropriate opinions of Isaac (...) Newton and Jakob Bernoulli. (shrink)

The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.

We claim that scientists working with deep learning (DL) models exhibit a form of pragmatic understanding that is not reducible to or dependent on explanation. This pragmatic understanding comprises a set of learned methodological principles that underlie DL model design-choices and secure their reliability. We illustrate this action-oriented pragmatic understanding with a case study of AlphaFold2, highlighting the interplay between background knowledge of a problem and methodological choices involving techniques for constraining how a model learns from data. Building successful models (...) requires pragmatic understanding to apply modelling strategies that encourage the model to learn data patterns that will facilitate reliable generalisation. (shrink)

In The Enterprise of Knowledge, I proposed a general theory of rational choice which I intended as a characterization of a prescriptive theory of ideal rationality. A cardinal tenet of this theory is that assessments of expected value or expected utility in the Bayesian sense may not be representable by a numerical indicator or indeed induce an ordering of feasible options in a context of deliberation. My reasons for taking this position are related to my commitment to the inquiry-oriented approach (...) to human knowledge and valuation favored by the American pragmatists, Charles Peirce and John Dewey. A feature of any acceptable view of inquiry ought to be that during an inquiry points under dispute ought to be kept in suspense pending resolution through inquiry. (shrink)

Aside from the Principia and occasional appearances of the Opticks , Newton' writings have remained largely inaccessible to students of philosophy, science, and literature as well as to other readers. This book provides a remedy with wide representation of the interests, problems, and diverse philosophic issues that preoccupied the greatest scientific mind of the seventeenth century. Grouped in sections corresponding to methods, principles, and theological considerations, these selections feature explanatory notes and cross-references to related essays.

In this article, I pursue two related goals. First, I aim to put theory back into our picture of the development of the American human sciences during the Cold War. While historians have rightly highlighted the empiricist methodologies employed by postwar human scientists, I show how an influential group of social scientists, led by the sociologist Talcott Parsons, attempted to establish theorizing as the primary means of interdisciplinary inquiry. My second goal is to show that the “abstract” theory envisioned by (...) Parsons and his followers can and should be studied as a material practice. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: European Positivism Latin American Positivism Martí Rodó Vaz Ferreira Ingenieros References Further Reading.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Allegory and the Spaces of LoveOscar Martín (bio)Writing about Spanish sentimental fiction from 1450 to 1550 is not an easy task, as we are discussing a genre with a difficult theoretical configuration. The investigation of sentimental fiction, however, has been sorting out the classifications that applied to a hodgepodge of works previously labeled as “sentimental novel” (“novela sentimental”). This label, once attached uncritically to a bunch of heterogeneous texts (...) that shared such intangibles as “loving focus” or “prevalence of psychological description over narratives,” has been applied more consistently nowaday, thanks in part to the scholarly efforts started in the 1980s like those of Martínez Jiménez and Muñoz Marquina (1982), and Martínez Latre (1989).1 Using some of these research efforts, Alan Deyermond has codified the genre accurately:Brevity; focus on psychological interest over external action; a tragic vision of love; autobiography (first-person narration or a narrator as a character) and the insertion of letters or poems (or, often, both) into the narration.[77]2Within this scholarly categorization, Regula Rohland de Langbehn has been pivotal in offering—first in 1986, and more recently in 1999—a threefold scheme in the development of the genre she labels as “sentimental novel”: a first group chronologically of the genre would be represented by Siervo libre de amor and Sátira de felice e infelice vida, both works marked by the influence of cancionero poetry—specially in the allegorical structuring and in the characterization of love, and by other subjects being limited to an abstract and general analysis of emotions. Both works also present a debate over the moral value of love. A second group would gravitate around Triste deleytacion and the works of Diego de San Pedro and Juan de Flores, works that show a wider range of topics and the impact of a broader generic textuality like cancionero poetry and such chivalric novels as Tirant. Finally, she distinguishes a third group whose main characteristic is the imprint of Celestina’s influence on both the narrative surface and its thematic approach. In the same vein, Vicenta Blay Manzanera has taken up this threefold scheme, dividing the genre into “the creation of the paradigm” (“la creación del paradigma”) the climactic stage, and the downfall and disarticulation of the narrative sentimental system” (“la fase climática” and “el tercero la fase de declive o desintegración del paradigma”) [“La conciencia genérica” 221]. [End Page 132]Just as Rohland de Langbehn’s works had at least settled down the arguments about the existence of a sentimental novelistic genre, however, medieval Hispanic scholarship has been shaken by an entrenched debate over not only the identification of this genre (novel or fiction) but whether the genre even existed at all. It was Antonio Cortijo Ocaña who, while editing a critical cluster in La Corónica on sentimental fiction, opened the door to some scholars such as Weissberger who voiced their skepticism over the generic nature of sentimental prose, a skepticism already present in an innovative volume published by Gwara and Gerli in 1997. This skeptical position was also supported by Cortijo Ocaña himself, who in 2001 published a monumental work in which, although using the generic term as a departure point, he ended up suggesting the difficulty of defining it, therefore jettisoning it. This position in turn was contested by Rohland de Langbehn, who in 2002 defended the validity of both the existence of a genre and its name novela sentimental, a position that has sparked a new round of replies in a La Corónica forum in 2003.In this debate, I would join today’s minority position on the existence of a sentimental genre, because, as I explained in my 2001 review of Rohland de Langbehn’s book and as I find convincingly argued in her 2002 contribution, there are internal traits within sentimental fictional texts that do not appear together in other sentimental generic texts [139]. In addition, once we take into account the obvious intertextuality of those sentimental texts, as Blay Manzanera has shown [“La conciencia genérica”], and the overutilization of central motifs in the configuration of love’s debate, we... (shrink)

Classic, influential study of Greek tragedy.

RESUMENLa filosofía del derecho de Fichte supone una importante anomalía dentro del Idealismo Alemán, en especial por su problemático posicionamiento en relación con la filosofía del derecho de Kant y su reelaboración del derecho natural. Fichte publica el Fundamento del Derecho Natural según los principios de la Doctrina de la Ciencia en 1796, es decir, un año después de la publicación de Hacia la paz perpetua y un año antes de la publicación de los «Principios metafísicos de la doctrina del (...) derecho» de la Metafísica de las Costumbres. La formulación y fundamentación que lleva a cabo Fichte en esta obra del derecho natural es enteramente original y a la vez internamente problemática debido a la tensión que en ella se da entre la validez normativa de los principios del derecho y la realización positiva de los mismos. Ejemplo paradigmático de esta tensión lo ofrece la noción de «derecho originario» (Urrecht) que Fichte elabora a lo largo de su trabajo de 1796. Nuestra investigación se va a centrar en analizar esta noción de «derecho originario» en la doctrina del derecho de Fichte para desplegar una interpretación iusnaturalista de la misma con vistas a relativizar o por lo menos matizar las lecturas preeminentemente positivistasde la filosofía del derecho de Fichte.PALABRAS CLAVESIDEALISMO ALEMÁN, DERECHO NATURAL, PRINCIPIOS DEL DERECHOY DERECHO ORIGINARIOABSTRACTFichte's philosophy of right constitutes an anomaly within German Idealism, particularly due to its problematic positioning in relation to Kant's philosophy of right and his reworking of natural right. Fichte published Foundations of Natural Right in Accordance with the Principles of the Doctrine of Science in 1796, that is, a year after the publication of Towards Perpetual Peace and a year before the publication of «Metaphysical Principles of the Doctrine of Right», in Metaphysics of Morals. Fichte's formulation and substantiation in this work on natural right is entirely original and, at the same time, internally problematic due to the tension created between the regulatory validity of the principles of right and their positive realisation. A paradigmatic example of this tension can be seen in the notion of «primordial right» (Urrecht) developed by Fichte throughout his 1796 work. Our research will centre on analysing the notion of «primordial right» in Fichte's Doctrine of Right to present a natural law-based interpretation of this right with a view to qualifying or at least placing into perspective the pre-eminently positivist readings of Fichte's philosophy of right.KEYWORDSGERMAN IDEALISM, NATURAL RIGHT, PRINCIPLES OF RIGHT,PRIMORDIAL RIGHT. (shrink)

En la teoría de la justicia política de Otfried Höffe se encuentra una de las reformulaciones actuales más originales acerca del proyecto kantiano de una paz internacional entre los estados. Höffe comparte con Kant la tesis de que la paz internacional no ha de entenderse como el resultado provisional de un equilibro de fuerzas entre distintas potencias ni como la ausencia empírica de hostilidades, sino como una paz jurídica basada en las pautas del derecho internacional. Como garante de dicho ordenamiento (...) jurídico internacional, Höffe aboga por el establecimiento de un estado mundial federal y subsidiario. (shrink)

The Outer Limits of Capitalism in Marx's «Critique of Political Economy». On César Ruiz Sanjuán's Interpretation of the Articulation of History and System in Marx. Resumen: Se ha publicado recientemente en castellano una investigación rigurosa y pionera acerca de la compleja articulación que mantienen la historia y la exposición del sistema capitalista en el proyecto de una «crítica de la economía política» de Marx. Este trabajo pretende exponer y discutir las aportaciones interpretativas abiertas por el libro deCésar Ruiz Sanjuán: Historia (...) y sistema en Marx. Hacia una teoría crítica del capitalismo, publicado en 2019 en la editorial Siglo XXI España. Al final de nuestra exposición profundizamos en esta articulación entre historia y sistema con vistas a presentar el proyecto político del Marx maduro como un desarrollo consecuente de su «crítica de la economía política». Palabras clave: Historia, sistema y crítica de la economía política.: A groundbreaking and rigorous research has recently been published in Spanish on the complex articulation between history and the exposure of capitalist system in Marx's project of a «Critique of Political Economy». This work aims to present and discuss the interpretative contributions opened by César Ruiz Sanjuán's book Historia y sistema en Marx. Hacia una teoría crítica del capitalismo, published in 2019 by Siglo XXI España. At the conclusion of this paper, we delve into this articulation between history and system in order to present Marx's mature political project as a consequent development of his «Critique of Political Economy». Keywords: History, system and critique of political economy. (shrink)

To one side of the wide third-floor hallway of Victoria College, just outside the offices of the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, lies the massive carcass of a 1960s-era electron microscope. Its burnished steel carapace has lost its gleam, but the instrument is still impressive for its bulk and spare design: binocular viewing glasses, beam control panel, specimen tray, and a broad work surface. Edges are worn, desiccated tape still feebly holds instructive reminders near control (...) dials; this was once a workhorse in some lab. But it exists now out of time and place; like many of the scientific instruments we study, it has not been touched by knowing hands in decades. (shrink)