The study area was a small lowland river valley (the Łęg river) located in the south-east of Poland. The object of investigation was the macrophytes of 10 river lakes with corresponding active river channel stretches of the same length as the cut-offs. The aim was to check the difference in species diversity between cut-off and active river channels. The second aim was to test the following hypothesis: vegetation of river lake has been shaped under the influence of contiguous river stretch (...) which has left a measurable mark in species abundance and composition. To test this, we checked whether a cut-off channel’s flora is more similar to flora of the contiguous river stretch, than to flora of a farther river stretch. During the course of the study it was found that the average species richness was approximately two times higher in the cut-off channels than in the river stretches. The number of the species exclusive for the river lakes was nine times higher in comparison with the river’s exclusives (not found in the cut-offs). The Shannon diversity index definitely spoke in favor of the river lakes. These results clearly show the significance of river lakes in maintaining biodiversity of aquatic ecosystems in a small river valley. We did not confirm our hypothesis concerning floristic relation between an active channel and its cut-offs. The floristic similarity between a given cut-off channel and the contiguous active river channel stretch is not stronger than the similarity between this lake and more distant river stretches. The cause of such a state of affairs may be high natural dynamics of investigated habitats and anthropogenic transformation of the river valley. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of testimonia and fragments of the Presocratics designed to introduce the Italian high school student to an understanding of what philosophy is. This purpose is so praiseworthy that it should deter the specialist from raising his eyebrows at the volume's shortcomings. Curi has selected only fragments of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and the Eleatics. Empedocles, Anaxagoras and the Atomists are excluded from the selections, presumably because the editor holds, with many Italian scholars, the questionable (...) theory that by "Presocratics" is understood only those thinkers who lived before the birth of Socrates. The translation of texts from the sixth edition of Diels and Kranz is accurate and readable, and the selections of testimonia are more comprehensive than the ones found in the textbooks of Burnet, Nahm, and Robinson. It is pedagogically interesting to ask what the very young may learn from this volume. The answer lies in its short introduction and in the critical footnotes attached to each fragment. Unlike the aforementioned English and American authors, Curi avoids textual exegesis and analysis of the mythopoeic background of Homer and Hesiod to which the early philosophic views may be related. He centers his own comments on the intricate issues of ancient and modern historiography. He analyzes the history of ancient historiography from Aristotle to Mondolfo and concludes that Wilamowitz, Stenzel, and Jaeger are the only historiographers who have been able to capture the complexity of Presocratic philosophy. Curi's method of teaching philosophy and his own philosophical views goes beyond the scope of this notice, however we can not help but remark how much Croce's spirit still pervades the Italian class-room.--L. M. P. (shrink)

A reading is given of Curie''s Principle that the symmetry of a cause is always preserved its effects. The truth of the principle is demonstrated and its importance, under the proposed reading, is defended.As far as I see, all a priori statements in physics have their origin in symmetry. (Weyl, Symmetry, p. 126).

Both Confucius and Xúnzǐ take for granted that contempt, in certain situations, is an appropriate and justified response for a person of virtuous character. But Xúnzǐ departs from his predecessor in his insistence on drawing clear boundaries around contempt so as to diminish its destructive and destabilizing potential. This article argues that Xúnzǐ's efforts to circumscribe contempt reflect a shift in the vision of the ritual community from one based on affective ties to one based on an impersonal, universalist state. (...) It also traces the implications of this connection for how we might confront the problem of toxic contempt that has pervaded our political landscape today. (shrink)

Research on the meanings of self and others’ perceptions, beliefs, values, and attitudes in intracultural and intercultural relations is of significant social relevance. A micro-analysis of its development as a whole process differentiated by the single substrates from an endophilosophical and ontological viewpoint will allow the implementation of a new definition of the self, being, and other according to the principles of dynamics and interculturality. This new sense of defining being will not only produce a good conception of the impact (...) of culture on identity but also depict how the opposite, or pathogenic identity, should be considered, especially in times of existential crisis and change. Healthy or pathogenic patterns themselves organize situations where the basic needs of interaction with space are constructed and the equilibrium of everyone is maintained. Therefore, depending on the received information, professionals can formulate an objective analysis of the conscious self. (shrink)

On the collection of points of a formal space.

Review: Bernstein, Richard J. The Pragmatic Turn. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012.

Given a locale L and any set-indexed family of continuous mappings , fi:L→Li with compact and completely regular co-domain, a compactification η:L→Lγ of L is constructed enjoying the following extension property: for every a unique continuous mapping exists such that . Considered in ordinary set theory, this compactification also enjoys certain convenient weight limitations.Stone–Čech compactification is obtained as a particular case of this construction in those settings in which the class of [0,1]-valued continuous mappings is a set for all L. (...) This will follow by the proof that–also in the point-free context–a compactification that allows for the extension of [0,1]-valued mappings suffices for deriving the full reflection.A constructive proof that the class is a set whenever L is locally compact and L′ is set-presented and regular is also obtained; together with the described compactification, this makes it possible to characterize the class of locales for which Stone–Čech compactification can be defined constructively. (shrink)

This paper presents several independence results concerning the topos-valid and the intuitionistic predicative theory of locales. In particular, certain consequences of the consistency of a general form of Troelstra's uniformity principle with constructive set theory and type theory are examined.

In intuitionistic generalized predicative systems as constructive set theory, or constructive type theory, two categories have been proposed to play the role of the category of locales: the category FSp of formal spaces, and its full subcategory FSpi of inductively generated formal spaces. Considered in impredicative systems as the intuitionistic set theory IZF, FSp and FSpi are both equivalent to the category of locales. However, in the mentioned predicative systems, FSp fails to be closed under basic constructions such as that (...) of finite products, while FSpi is complete , but does not contain some naturally occurring classes of formal spaces. Moreover, completeness of FSpi only holds under the assumption of strong principles for the existence of inductively defined sets.In this paper, working in the context of constructive set theory, the category ImLoc of imaginary locales is introduced. ImLoc is complete already over weak formulations of constructive set theory, contains FSp and FSpi as full subcategories, and, as FSp and FSpi, is equivalent to the category of locales in IZF.Applications of the concept of imaginary locale to a proof of a point-free version of Tychonoff embedding theorem, and to set-representation theorems, are then presented. (shrink)

Now in a third edition, Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings is a highly acclaimed, topically organized collection that covers five major areas of philosophy--theory of knowledge, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, freedom and determinism, and moral philosophy. Editor Louis P. Pojman enhances the text's topical organization by arranging the selections into a pro/con format to help students better understand opposing arguments. He also includes accessible introductions to each chapter, subsection, and individual reading, a unique feature for an (...) anthology of this depth. While the book focuses on a compelling sampling of classical material--including selections from Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant--it also incorporates some of philosophy's best twentieth-century and contemporary work, featuring articles by Bertrand Russell, Richard Taylor, John Searle, Thomas Nagel, and others. This third edition contains an expanded glossary, more extensive section introductions, and twelve new selections: Karl Popper: "Epistemology without a Knowing Subject" Richard Rorty: "Dismantling Truth: Solidarity Versus Objectivity" Daniel Dennett: "Postmodernism and Truth" Bruce Russell: "The Problem of Evil: Too Much Suffering" David Chalmers: "Against Materialism: Can Consciousness Be Reductively Explained?" Baron Paul Henri d'Holbach: "A Defense of Determinism" Michael Levin: "A Compatibilist Defense of Moral Responsibility" Plato: Socratic Morality: "Crito" Herodotus: "Custom Is King" J. L. Mackie: "The Subjectivity of Values" Louis P. Pojman: "A Critique of Mackie's Theory of Moral Subjectivism" Thomas Nagel: "Moral Luck". (shrink)