Thomas S. Kuhn’s theory of normal science (NS), aside from being a provocative philosophical reconstruction of the relatively conservative phase of scientific research, contains useful ideas for systematic analysis of specific episodes in the history of science. Therefore, although the theory has been looked at from different angles since the first edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (TSSR) was published in 1962, its detailed exploration of the cumulative phase of research in mature science is of abiding relevance in the (...) philosophy of science. This is because NS provides a compelling account of how and why members of scientific communities succeed, largely, to produce reliable knowledge about an incompletely known phenomenal world. Again, the theory elucidates special features of scientific research that differentiate it from other creative enterprises. In that regard, this paper reconstructs Arthur Compton’s research into x-ray scattering as a good instantiation of NS. Discussion of Compton’s convincing demonstration of the particulate properties of electromagnetic radiation within the framework of NS showcases the elucidatory power of Kuhn’s theory with respect to selected episodes in science, and corroborates the notion that the bulk of scientific work is a conservative puzzle-solving activity with the potential for precipitating scientific revolutions. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that Compton’s groundbreaking work on x-ray scattering has been analysed within the framework of Kuhn’s philosophy of science. (shrink)

This paper examines the impact of the introduction of Western (European) technical civilization on regional cultures in Nigeria, using Igboland in South-EasternNigeria as a test case. It begins with a discussion of some general features of Western technical civilization whose evolution has been profoundly influenced by technological advances in Europe and her cultural colonies in North America and elsewhere. Consequences of the contact between Western technical civilization and traditional Igbo culture are also examined. The paper concludes by discussing the challenging (...) problem of Africa’s contribution to technical civilization. (shrink)

This article uses a close reading of Jacques Derrida’s short work Archive fever: A Freudian impression (1996), in order to show the structural impossibility for law and the wider legal system to protect itself from the destabilising effects of deconstruction. It shows law’s inability to stabilise/close the system and hence its inability to ‘assure order’.

This is the first book-length work to focus on the philosophical and anthropological contribution of Mabogo More, a prominent and influential black South African existentialist thinker.

Individuals, organizations, and institutions adopt prominent people as political symbols for a variety of reasons. They then produce conflicting memories and images of their chosen symbols. In this article we argue that multiple representations of celebrated public figures should not only be viewed in terms of a choice between "truths" and "lies." Using the case of Chief Albert Luthuli, the president of the African National Congress from 1952 to 1967, we show that secrets and silences about aspects of his political (...) life would make it difficult for anyone to establish the veracity of competing memories which have been produced around his name since his death in 1967. We argue that many "Luthulis" were produced for different purposes and at different times during this period. We therefore suggest that to understand the motives for the making of the various images of Luthuli we need to explore in some depth the contexts in which they were made. (shrink)

This article explores the manner in which politico-legal language makes use of metaphors of violence and destruction in order to describe state/legal functions and actions. It argues that although such use of a militaristic hyperbole is generally regarded as normal and appropriate, it is in fact harmful in the way that it presents complex and specific problems as being simple and abstract. From a semiotic point of view, and using the work of Roland Barthes, law is regarded as a system (...) of signs and ‘combative’ legal language can be seen as ideological manipulation through the technique of so-called second-level signification (myth). Although it is conceded that law, similar to all other interpretive systems, cannot avoid the use of metaphoric language, it is argued that we should resist regarding legal language as neutral and ‘natural’ and that we should rather retain the memory of legal concepts and categories as historical, man-made, and therefore always open to revision. (shrink)

En el artículo Los sistemas de investigación educativa en México se cuestiona la vigencia del sistema de investigación Hipotético Deductivo que se utiliza en nuestro país y que no sólo se presenta como método sino como el Método Científico. Se reconoce que, en nuestro país, los procesos de inve..

La présente étude cherche à montrer le croisement de deux manisfestations phénomélogiques dans le processus de l´inculturation de l´Evangile, celle de la réligiosité populaire et du sincrérisme. Primièrement, nous présentons la vision sociologique e historique de ces manifestations en appuiant sur des études cientifiques de certains théologiens e du Magistère de l´Eglise. Ensuite, nous cherchons à montrer que l´activité missionaire dans le contexte atuel ne peut pas les ignorer si elle veut véritablement être fidèle à la Tradition millénaire de l´Eglise. (...) En fin, nous faisons un essai de réflexion contextuelle levant en considération la réalité haitienne où nous registrons un parfait croisement entre la réligiosité populaire e le sincretismo dans la convivence entre la religion Vodu e le Cristianismo. (shrink)

This paper reports on action research that evaluated local perceptions and knowledge of indigenous tree planting and management in the Romwe catchment, Chivi District, southern Zimbabwe. The species tested were the overexploited Afzelia quanzensis, important for timber and carvings of sculptures and utensils; Sclerocarya birrea, the marula tree used for wood, bark, and fruit; and Brachystegia glaucescens, the dominant miombo tree species, used for firewood, fiber, and fodder. Participants volunteered to plant and manage the test seeds, while a research team (...) monitored their activities and results for 26 months. For Afzelia quanzensis, the germination rate was 81%, and 69% of the seedlings were still alive after one year. In the case of Sclerocarya birrea, the germination rate was 69%, and the one-year survival rate was 50%. For Brachystegia glaucescens, the germination rate was only 30%, and the survival rate was 31%. The main reasons for planting were to provide shade, to serve as a windbreak, and to conserve and gain individual control over dwindling natural resources, particularly Afzelia quanzensis. Women were generally more active and innovative than men. For instance, they searched for their own seeds or seedlings in the bush when there weren’t sufficient plants. Some participants tried out various indigenous methods of pest and disease control, water conservation, and moisture retention. Group feedback sessions and informal interactions provided the opportunity to share experiences. The participants learned that indigenous trees can be purposefully planted and were not simply a gift from God. Despite the droughts and political instability of recent years, a growing number of people became involved in tree planting during 2002–2003. As a result, there is now greater awareness among the local population of dwindling resources and their future potential. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

The present work aims at studying the myth of Gyges’ ring from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s work The Reveries of a solitary Walker. Gyges’ ring is a magic artefact, allowing its bearer to be visible or invisible according to his will. The ring’s myth is portraited for the first time in the Second Book of Plato’s Republic. Thusly, our article is divided in two parts: the first one presents an analysis of the Republic observing its challenge of justice and the relation it (...) holds with the art of ruling; the second part presents an investigation of Rousseau’s work to show how he had absorbed the ring’s myth. The main objective of our work is the comparison between Plato’s and Rousseau’s view of Gyges’ ring, and the investigation of the concept of nature as one of the pillars of the social contract theory. As results we present the way Rousseau answers to the challenge of justice from the concept of justice within the soul, whereas no harm could be done to others. In his reflexion on the ring, Rousseau seems to point at the existence of an interior justice according to its “natural inclination”, opposite to any obligation of the positive law among men. Therefore, one needs to observe that Rousseau is defending justice according to the natural rights holding that any contract established among men should be according to nature. This agrees with our thesis of a possible political ontology based on firstly, the concept of a universal justice, and secondly, on the art of ruling according to justice. (shrink)

Admirador da metafísica de Schopenhauer, Richard Wagner expressou em sua obra, de modo congenial ao filósofo, sua própria visão pessimista de mundo. O presente ensaio busca apontar - na obra O Anel dos Nibelungos - este parentesco e nele as diferenças essenciais que enlaçam de modo poderoso e fascinante os dois autores.

Este artigo aborda os antecedentes históricos e as possibilidades do método de Cálculo com Anéis de Polinômios (PRC), por meio do estudo de sua aplicabilidade a diversas lógicas e, em particular, sobre o possível desenvolvimento deste sistema algébrico de prova aplicado à Lógica de Primeira Ordem.

It will never be too much to remember that experience is one of the most important concepts on Benjamin’s thought. It underlies his analysis of the history and also supports his critical theory of literature and has many branches, above all in his texts after 1930. His text “The Image of Proust” develops the concept of involuntary memory, which explains the question of auratic image in the work of Proust, obtained by the process of rememoration and also explained by the (...) contribution of Freud’s studies about the traumatic shock and its consequences on the perception’s conditions of the contemporary man. These conceptions led Benjamin to a deep thought about the way how shock and rememoration can be articulated in order to create a new historical vision, individual and collective. We examine here, in the fields of the arts, literature and history, how this articulation can defines a new conception of experience and the possibility, or not, of the transmission of the culture, in a world where, as Kafka said, “the tradition became sick”. The question is: will rememoration, this Penelope’s web, be able to operate the rescue of the historical tradition? And which tradition are we speaking here about? What does rememoration mean? (shrink)

Lavoisier defined an element as a chemicalsubstance that cannot be decomposed usingcurrent analytical methods. Mendeleev saw anelement as a substance composed of atoms of thesame atomic weight. These `definitions' doquite different things: Lavoisier'sdistinguishes the elements from the compounds,so that the elements may form the basis of acompositional nomenclature; Mendeleev's offersa criterion of sameness and difference forelemental substances, while Lavoisier's doesnot. In this paper I explore the historical andtheoretical background to each proposal.Lavoisier's and Mendeleev's explicitconceptions of elementhood differed from eachother, and (...) from the official IUPAC definitionof `element' of the 1920s. However, Lavoisierand Mendeleev both subscribed to – andemployed – a deeper notion of a chemicalelement as the component of compound substancesthat (i) can survive chemical change, and (ii)explains the chemical behaviour of itscompounds. (shrink)

In the following paper I attempt to show how in Locke''s liberalthought the individual is subject to a complex operation involvingliberation and subjugation. In A Letter on Toleration (1685),Locke argues that the individual''s inward beliefs should be freed fromthe coercion of Church and State. To ensure liberty of conscience, theindividual''s soul should be constituted in practice – notstructured by violence but negotiated by rational persuasion. However,as I suggest, the authority of reason is not established without anelement of violence. In his (...) writings on education, Locke maintains thatthe right to care for one''s soul should be enjoyed only after rigorousmoral training. Thus, the individual''s conscience is to be freed fromoutward violence of ecclesiastic and civil powers only after first, inyouth, being subject to the moral discipline of esteem, disgrace, andshame, the inward violence of which discloses limits in Locke''sdiscourse on toleration. (shrink)

Chapter 9 analyzes the political discourse and performance of the Greek populist radical left party SYRIZA in government since 2015. To this purpose, it examines its leader Alexis Tsipras’ discursive construction of antagonisms, his articulation of social demands and political style, as well as SYRIZA’s policies while in government. The analysis shows that in office Tsipras continued to use people-centred populist appeals to create and maintain a political antagonism between the Greek people on the one hand and the traditional political (...) establishment and neoliberalism on the other, while at the same time the government enacted the austerity measures prescribed by the EU, ECB, and IMF “troika” Memorandum that SYRIZA had rejected while in opposition. The chapter also examines how SYRIZA set up an alliance with the radical right party ANEL based on a shared national-popular antagonism against the Memorandum and how this alliance unravelled regarding the issue of Macedonia that evidenced two different conceptions of “the people”: a nationalist-nativist one by ANEL and an inclusionary and heterogeneous one by SYRIZA. (shrink)

Procuro analisar neste artigo a relação entre o pensamento de Platão e Rousseau quanto à concepção e condições que tornem possível a justiça. O recurso à dissimulação, largamente tratado por Rousseau em suas obras, permite a aparência da justiça ao injusto, o que torna a injustiça mais vantajosa do que a justiça. Esse tema é levantado a partir da passagem sobre o anel de Giges na República de Platão e retomado por Rousseau, que vê no hipotético uso desse anel a (...) possibilidade de conhecer o íntimo das pessoas e, assim, julgá-las de forma justa. Dessa maneira, o “coração dos homens” é o lugar privilegiado ao qual Rousseau desejaria ter acesso para curar a sociedade. Ao pensar as formas saudáveis e prósperas de sociedade, uma preocupação central em Rousseau é o íntimo dos cidadãos. Influenciado pelas repetidas leituras da República de Platão e pela grande admiração que sente por essa obra, Rousseau defende uma educação que atinja o interior dos indivíduos – tal como o pensador grego – como única forma de se instaurar uma sociedade justa. (shrink)

The global economic crisis, the popular discontent against traditional parties and post-democratic forms of governance, as well as the sharp increase in migrant and refugee arrivals have led to the resurgence of populist parties around the world. Left-wing parties usually express an inclusionary populist discourse with patriotic features, while right-wing parties utilize an exclusionary populism with strong nationalist and xenophobic characteristics. In Greece in recent years, the radical left party of SYRIZA rose to power through a left-wing populist and anti-imperialist (...) discourse. Alexis Tsipras formed a paradox coalition government with the radical right party of ANEL to reach an agreement that would lessen the effects of austerity policies. However, once in office, SYRIZA transformed some features of its political style and began to follow a type of "pragmatic populism". This paper examines the relationship between populism and anti-imperialism, while analyzing SYRIZA's discourse in opposition and in power. The questions that it attempts to answer are: does Tsipras express an anti-imperialist discourse both in opposition and in power? What forces are considered imperialist by SYRIZA? Can the notion of "crypto-colonialism" explain the rise of left-wing populism in Greece? (shrink)