. The uniform prior distribution is often seen as a mathematical description of noninformativeness. This paper uses the well-known Three Prisoners Paradox to examine the impossibility of maintaining noninformativeness throughout hierarchization. The Paradox has been solved by Bayesian conditioning over the choice made by the Warder when asked to name a prisoner who will be shot. We generalize the paradox to situations of N prisoners, k executions and m announcements made by the Warder. We then extend the consequences of hierarchically (...) placing uniform and symmetrical priors for the probability p of the Warder naming Prisoner B, say. We prove that breaks of indifference and neutrality caused by assignment of uniform and symmetrical priors in lieu of degenerate indifference probabilities hold in general. Speaking of unknown probabilities or of probability of a probability must be forbidden as meaningless. Bruno de Finetti, 1977 I regard the use of hierarchical chains as a technique helping you to sharpen your subjective probabilities. I. J. Good, 1981. (shrink)

O estudo das Cartas de Descartes a Elisabeth ocupou a literatura, ao passo que a fortuna da contribuição de Elisabeth foi soterrada pela historiografia. Essa negligência intelectual merece registro, visto que as cartas de Elisabeth foram descobertas no Século XIX e publicadas pela primeira vez em 1876 (Ebbersmeyer 2020, p. 4). O fato de que Elisabeth tenha sido ignorada pela historiografia explicita a precariedade a que o viés pode condenar uma narrativa, e torna o estudo sobre Elisabeth da Bohemia (...) difícil. Como se sabe, de 1876 para cá a história do racionalismo moderno levou muito a sério as Respostas de Descartes a Elisabeth, sobretudo quando foram estudados os problemas da interação entre mente e corpo, da união substancial e as concepções de movimento. Assim, uma relevante literatura resultou do estudo de respostas a questões ignoradas. -/- Somente a partir da década de noventa do Século XX, historiadoras da filosofia começaram a levar a sério que Descartes não estava em um solilóquio diante de Elisabeth. Em um período de intensa troca epistolar, no qual as cartas veicularam larga medida a nova filosofia (tanto do racionalismo como do empirismo), não era comum, estranhamente, a mudança de posições. Este não foi o caso do impacto que as questões de Elisabeth causaram em Descartes e, por isso, a literatura sobre as Respostas de Descartes à filósofa configura um caso paradigmático do viés misógino que contaminou a história da filosofia, desafiando a sua seriedade e rigor. Isto ficará demonstrado a seguir. (shrink)

This volume is third in a series, Monuments of Western Thought, which Cantor and Klein are editing at Colgate. The bulk of this book consists of excerpts from the work of Dante and Machiavelli. Of the Dante material, seventy-five pages is from the Divine Comedy, the rest from De Monarchia. Of the Machiavelli material, thirty pages are from The Prince, the rest excerpted from various works and arranged under such heads as "Warfare" and "Fortune." The text is introduced by a (...) sketch of the intellectual, social, and political context in which Dante and Machiavelli lived, and by brief intellectual biographies. The book closes with short critical selections, assessing and interpreting the source material. On Dante: E. Gilson deals with the ideological frame of the Divine Comedy, social order under divine Authority: J. A. Mazzeo with the hierarchy of light in the Paradiso; G. Santayana with Beatrice as woman and symbol. On Machiavelli: J. W. Allen argues that Machiavelli's originality lies in looking at men and affairs without concerning himself with what they ought to be and do; H. Butterfield that Machiavelli admired ancient Rome and advocated close imitation of her; F. Chabod argues that the theme of The Prince is that society is amorphous, waiting the impress of a dominant individual of supreme virtù; F. Meinecke that virtù, fortuna, and necessità are the basic themes of Machiavelli's thought. Each section is followed by a list of questions designed to challenge the student's understanding of what he has read and to send him back to the text.--L. G. (shrink)

Gli autori di Politica, morale e fortuna, volume che celebra il cinquantesimo anniversario della scrittura de Il principe di Machiavelli, propongono letture aggiornate di questo classico che ci permettono di rinnovare la prospettiva con cui lo affrontiamo. In questi articoli si instaurano dialoghi tra Machiavelli e altri autori di epoche diverse che consentono ancora una volta di ricostruire e problematizzare l'inesauribile opera del fiorentino, avvicinandola ai temi d'attualità. La novità che raccolgono le diverse prospettive è una lettura che riconosce (...) nel Principe il primo trattato filosofico-politico propriamente moderno. (shrink)

In this book, a dozen distinguished scholars in the field of the history of philosophy and science investigate aspects of the commentary tradition on Aristotle's De generatione et corruptione, one of the least studied among Aristotle's treatises in natural philosophy. Many famous thinkers such as Johannes Philoponus, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, John Buridan, Nicole Oresme, Francesco Piccolomini, Jacopo Zabarella, and Galileo Galilei wrote commentaries on it. The distinctive feature of the present book is that it approaches this commentary tradition (...) as a coherent whole, thereby ignoring the usual historiographical distinctions between the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the seventeenth century. Frans de Haas and Henk Kubbinga address the Greek commentary tradition on De generatione et corruptione. Simone van Riet's essay is devoted to the Latin version of Avicenna's third treatise of his Kitab al Shifa, which discusses Aristotle's De generatione et corruptione. James Otte traces the intricate history of the identification of the Latin translator of Aristotle's treatise as Burgundio of Pisa. The essay by John Murdoch explores the fortuna of atomistic arguments in the Latin commentary tradition. Jurgen Sarnowsky, Henk Braakhuis, and Stefano Caroti examine various themes in the commentaries that were produced by the so-called Buridan School, that is, John Buridan, Albert of Saxony, Nicholas Oresme, and Marsilius of Inghen. The article by Silvia Donati focuses on the influential commentary by the Expositor, Giles of Rome. The final essay, written by Anita Guerrini, tackles Robert Boyle's attitude in the Origin of Forms and Qualities toward such Aristotelian key concepts as forms, matter, qualities, and mixture. These essays are prefaced by a preliminary survey by Hans Thijssen of Aristotle's text, its Latin translations and its Greek, Arabic and Latin commentaries. (shrink)

This dissertation explores learned conceptions of uncertainty and risk during the period stretching approximately between 1560 and 1720. Previous historical overviews of the ideas about risk hold that pre-industrial societies viewed all worldly happenings as emanations of God's will or other forces lying beyond human control. This viewpoint is scrutinized and called into question in the dissertation through an examination of early modern Swedish sources. In order to show how earthly uncertainty was conceptualized documents dealing with actual calamities are analyzed. (...) Particular attention is paid to documents that portray man as being subjected to forces beyond his control. In early modern Sweden the questions of causality and responsibility were continuously debated according to the interests and perspectives of differing actors. The same type of occurrence could be given very different - even contradictory - interpretations. E.g. shipwrecks could be viewed as divine punishments, warnings, trials, miraculous deliverances, divine secrets, omens of coming events, or quite simply human errors. The concrete rhetorical situation determined which of them was put to use. In practical planning explanations based on God's intentions played no direct role. In a worldly perspective, fortuna was seen as a challenge that individuals were compelled to overcome by means of knowledge and virtue. Taken together, the texts serve to paint a portrait of a moral universe in which worldly events reflect the will of God, yet without relieving man of responsibility for his actions. (shrink)

O par Fortuna-Virtù é discutido nas diversas análises críticas do pensamento de Machiavelli e, embora tais termos possuam origens e tradições bem determinadas ao longo do pensamento latino, principalmente específicas considerações antigas e medievais em algumas recepções durante o humanismo cívico, suas características elusivas ao longo das argumentações de Machiavelli são mantidas, possibilitando inúmeros debates acadêmicos. Diante da ambivalência e da ambiguidade da ideia de Virtù perante relevantes e variadas tradições, contínuas buscas por clarificação são feitas ao longo do (...) corpus do secretário florentino, associando o termo a outras importantes e centrais reflexões, e.g., desiderio, stato, forza. A instabilidade política, as forças além do controle humano, a imponderabilidade das ações civis são temas recorrentes nas concepções sobre a Fortuna em variadas argumentações desse autor. Em aberto diálogo com os humanistas cívicos que enfatizam maior participação política e social, mesclando embasamento racional, consideração moral e as discussões sobre as formas dos regimes políticos, esse escritor apresenta uma concepção historiográfica, a revigorar tradições do mundo antigo, na criação de uma ordem civil mediante a Virtù, a qual demanda comprometimento pessoal e público na exaltação das potencialidades e dos limites humanos. Reinserir a relevância da paridade entre Fortuna e Virtù em Machiavelli é um passo relevante no combate a leituras anacrônicas. Assim, analisar-se-ão os exemplos mais significativos dos fundadores e dos sustentadores da ordem civil destacados nos textos discursivos do florentino, e.g., Romulo, Numa, Moisés, Cesare Bórgia, Castruccio Castracani. Ao estudar as imagens da Fortuna, em face das concepções políticas e antropológicas do autor, discutir-se-á a centralidade da díade Virtù-Fortuna no desenvolvimento argumentativo de algumas ideias principais desse famoso pensador político. (shrink)

A chi si rivolge l’agile volumetto di Settis? Lungi dall’essere - solo - un saggio per addetti ai lavori, la questione teorica sviluppata in questo percorso di ricognizione di “vita e fortuna” del classico rivela l’intenzione di catturare l’attenzione di un pubblico ben più vasto e non per forza specialistico. In un periodo di riforma del «Codice dei Beni culturali e del paesaggio», recentemente uscito a firma dell’attuale Ministro dei Beni culturali, è bene interrogarsi sul ruolo che hanno g...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Volcanus: Recherches comparatistes sur les origines du culte de VulcainJ. LinderskiGérard Capdeville. Volcanus: Recherches comparatistes sur les origines du culte de Vulcain. Rome: Ecole Française de Rome, Palais Farnèse, 1995. viii 1 521 pp. Cloth, no price stated. (Bibliothèque des Ecoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, fasc. 288)In the last twenty years the French School has published every two years one book on Roman religion: monographs dealing with (...) Fortuna, Mercurius, Ops, Penates, Providentia Deorum, Fratres Arvales, l’Association Dionysiaque (cf. JRS 78 [1988] 207–8), the Bacchanalia, religious architecture (Aurea templa), La vie religieuse des matrones, Le délit religieux (cf. CP 79 [1984] 174–77). Now we have a book about Volcanus. First let us remark on what this book is not: it is not a study of the cult of Volcanus, an encyclopedia that would systematically list and discuss all the literary, iconographic, and epigraphical evidence in Rome, Italy, and the provinces. It would be very pleasing to have such a book; perhaps pedestrian, but useful. For information we still have to turn to Georg Wissowa, to his ageless Religion und Kultus der Römer (2d ed. Munich 1912, 229–32); also informative is W. Eisenhut, “Volcanus,” RE Suppl. 14 (1974) 948–62. A rather balanced account of the origines appears in G. Camassa, “Sull’origine [End Page 644] e le funzioni del culto di Volcanus a Roma,” RSI 96 (1984) 811–54. Capdeville’s book we have for speculations, a paradise for those eager to delve into murky origins, and those who are transposed by the dazzling and uncertain art of comparativistic pleading. If bibliography (fifty-one pages, 425–75) stands for learning, it is a learned monograph; it ranges from Rome through Etruria to Crete and Cyprus. Surprisingly we find no Hittites or Turks (the relevance of the latter the reader will see revealed at the end of this piece).The book opens with an evocation of Georges Dumézil. Where do his manes lead the author? They lead to the fish. The monograph “est né... d’une interrogation sur les pisciculi des Volcanalia” (1), a subject which intrigued Dumézil himself (REL 36 [1959] 121–30). At the feast of Volcanalia on 23 August (see the references in A. Degrassi, Fasti anni Numani et Iuliani (5 Inscr. It. XIII.2 [Rome 1963] 500–502), populus pro se in ignem animalia mittit (Varr. LL 6.20). On 7 June (cf. Degrassi 466) the Ludi Piscatorii were celebrated a praetore urbano pro piscatoribus Tiberinis, quorum quaestus non in macellum pervenit, sed fere in aream Volkani, quod id genus pisciculorum vivorum datur ei deo pro animis humanis (Festus 274–76 L); but at the Ludi Piscatorii the offering was not pro animis but rather pro quaestu piscantium (Festus 232 L); cf. J. Le Gall, Recherches sur le culte du Tibre (Paris 1953) 48–50; J. Linderski, Ktema 17 ([1992] 1996) 58. Agni, the Indian god of fire, hated water and fish; this explains the Roman ritual (so Dumézil). Most scholars tacitly assume that pisciculi vivi were offered also on the Volcanalia, but Varro speaks generally of animalia: if he wanted to say pisces he would have said so. Volcanus was a god of destructive fire (so Wissowa, Dumézil, and many other scholars); it makes sense that to propitiate him not only fish, a symbol of water, were burnt, but also other animals (perhaps as a substitute offering; cf., on that sort of sacrifices, G. Capdeville, MEFRA 83 [1971] 283–323). In the context of incendia arcenda an inscription of the Domitianic time (ILS 4914) records an offering on the Volcanalia of vitulus robeus and verres r(obeus). This calls to mind the sacrifice of the rutilae canes to protect the crops from the burning sun (Festus 358 L).Of all of this Capdeville, surprisingly, does not write at all: after their debut on page 1 the pisciculi and the Volcanalia feebly reappear at the very end of the book (420–23), only to be disregarded. Capdeville claims that Volcanus was not at all, and never, a god of “feu destructeur.” But Dumézil too... (shrink)

The usual way for new cells to come into being is by division of old cells. So the zygote, which is a—new—single cell formed from two, the sperm and ovum, is an exception. Textbooks of human genetics usually say that this new cell is beginning of a new human individual. What this indicates is that they suddenly forget about identical twins.

2011 Reprint of 1943 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "St. Thomas Aquinas" is enriched by the author's unique ability to see the world through the saint's eyes, a fresh and animated view that shows us Aquinas as no other biography has. Acclaimed as the best book ever written on Aquinas by such outstanding Thomists as Jacques Maritain, Etienne Gilson, and Anton Pegis, this brilliant biography will completely capture the reader and leave him (...) desirous of reading Aquinas' own monumental work. (shrink)

The social aspects of causality in medicine and healthcare have been emphasized in recent debates in the philosophy of science as crucial factors that need to be considered to enable, among others, appropriate interventions in public health. Therefore, it seems central to recognize the bearing of social causes (broadly understood, e.g., social inequalities and socio-economic status) in bringing about certain concrete pathologies. Being aware of the relevance of social causes in medicine and healthcare is particularly important in the face of (...) the role that artificial intelligence-based systems (such as machine learning algorithms) are increasingly playing in these high-stakes fields. In fact, these systems bear the dangerous potential of concealing relevant social causes. This is highly problematic not only because it reinforces issues of distributive injustice but also because it can pave the way for issues of epistemic injustice. The central aim of this chapter is to make a first effort to point out possible connections between the importance of recognizing social causes in medicine and healthcare and forms of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

This article focuses mainly on (1) the policy of Delft University of Technology since 1992 as regards the university-wide introduction of a compulsory course on ethics and engineering, and (2) the ideal structure of such a course, including the educational goals of the course.

Предназначено для представителей науки и образования, политических партий, общественных и религиозных организаций, органов государственного управления.

The construction of theoretical models in biology, situated at the cross-roads of biology, mathematics and computer science, often leads to a tool as final product. Its genesis can be named Infogenesis. The procedure of the resolution of theoretical problems is analyzed on examples of practical purposes taken from plant biology.The first example deals with mineral plant nutrition, explaining a way to go from theoretical ionic balances to the experimental realization of nutritional solutions with macro-element components.

SOME years ago Giangrande acutely suggested1 that we should read at the beginning of this line έσтààθη δ’ φθοολλος in place of Buttmann' proposal έσàκη δ’ θολλος accepted by Pfeiffer. Giangrande' emendation received upport from Meillier, who wrote:2 ‘Giangrande … a trouvé de bonnes raisons pour conserver έσтààθη … et propose έσтààθη δ’ φθοολλος.’ No one seems to have realized that there is a metrical difficulty involved in Buttmann' emendation—an ironic fact, as his original intention was, of course, to restore (...) the metre of the line. According to Buttmann' text, the first five feet of the line, in terms of dactyls and spondees, emerge as S S D S D. Callimachus does not seem to use this formation either in the elegiac metre of this hymn or in his Epigrams.3 The figures given by Beneke, based on Schneider' text, need correction in that there is only one example of an S S D S D line in the Epigrams of Callimachus, not two.That such hexameters occur in the Aitia6 is of no consequence. Callimachus clearly regarded the distichs of the Aitia as bound by less strict metrical rules than the distichs of the Epigrams and Hymn 5, as his employment of σπονδєιàζονтєς indicates. From all the above it follows that Giangrande' restoration is the more convincing as it is the first to be metrically acceptable.7. (shrink)

It is common to assume that if Locke is to be regarded as a consistent epistemologist he must be read as holding that either ideas are the objects of perception or that (physical) objects are. He must either be a direct realist or a representationalist. But perhaps, paradoxical as it at first sounds, there is no reason to suppose that he could not hold both to be true. We see physical objects and when we do so we have ideas. We (...) see or hear birds and bells but we also have visual and auditory ideas of birds and bells. This suggestion is explored through examination of what Locke says about perception in his Elements of Natural Philosophy and the accounts offered both by Locke in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding and by some of Locke's successors. (shrink)

This paper forms an introduction to this issue, the contents of which arose directly or indirectly from a conference in May 2001 on Corruption of scientific integrity? — The commercialisation of academic science. The introduction, in recent decades, of business culture and values into universities and research institutions is incompatible with the openness which scientific and all academic pursuit traditionally require. It has given rise to a web of problems over intellectual property and conflict of interest which has even led (...) to corporate sponsors’ suppressing unfavourable results of clinical trials, to the detriment of patients’ health. Although there are those who see the norms of science developing to recognise the importance of instrumental science aiming at specific goals and of knowledge judged by its value in a context of application, none justifies the covert manipulation of results by vested interest. Public awareness of these problems is growing and creating a climate of opinion where they may be addressed. We suggest a way forward by the introduction of nationally and internationally-accepted guidelines for industrial collaboration which contain proper protections of the core purposes of universities and of the independence of their research. Some codes suggested for this purpose are discussed. We note that some universities are moving to adopt such codes of conduct, but argue the need for strong support from the government through its funding bodies. (shrink)

This paper introduces a generalization of Reiter’s notion of “extension” for default logic. The main difference from the original version mainly lies in the way conflicts among defaults are handled: in particular, this notion of “general extension” allows defaults not explicitly triggered to pre-empt other defaults. A consequence of the adoption of such a notion of extension is that the collection of all the general extensions of a default theory turns out to have a nontrivial algebraic structure. This fact has (...) two major technical fall-outs: first, it turns out that every default theory has a general extension; second, general extensions allow one to define a well-behaved, skeptical relation of defeasible consequence for default theories, satisfying the principles of Reflexivity, Cut, and Cautious Monotonicity formulated by D. Gabbay. (shrink)