Aqui se conta uma história de alguns segredos, tão antigos quanto algo entre 240 e 350 mil anos, revelados por uma misteriosa caverna. É uma história que ganha vida como um palimpsesto, sobrepondo-se à outra, narrada no documentário Caverna de Ossos, da série Explorando o Desconhecido. Impossível não ficar impactado por esse relato, pois levanta várias questões intrigantes sobre a evolução humana e sobre a própria definição de humano. Essa narrativa, mais do que pela razão formal e analítica, é conduzida (...) pela poética do tempo arcaico, ou seja, é levada pela emoção de vislumbrar raízes da natureza humana, tão distantes – pré-históricas – e pelo fascínio de muitas das indagações interdisciplinares postas aqui em evidência. É, em última análise, uma breve história de devaneio acerca do significado de ser humano. (shrink)

Neuroscience has studied deductive reasoning over the last 20 years under the assumption that deductive inferences are not only de jure but also de facto distinct from other forms of inference. The objective of this research is to verify if logically valid deductions leave any cerebral electrical trait that is distinct from the trait left by non-valid deductions. 23 subjects with an average age of 20.35 years were registered with MEG and placed into a two conditions paradigm (100 trials for (...) each condition) which each presented the exact same relational complexity (same variables and content) but had distinct logical complexity. Both conditions show the same electromagnetic components (P3, N4) in the early temporal window (250–525 ms) and P6 in the late temporal window (500–775 ms). The significant activity in both valid and invalid conditions is found in sensors from medial prefrontal regions, probably corresponding to the ACC or to the medial prefrontal cortex. The amplitude and intensity of valid deductions is significantly lower in both temporal windows (p = 0.0003). The reaction time was 54.37% slower in the valid condition. Validity leaves a minimal but measurable hypoactive electrical trait in brain processing. The minor electrical demand is attributable to the recursive and automatable character of valid deductions, suggesting a physical indicator of computational deductive properties. It is hypothesized that all valid deductions are recursive and hypoactive. (shrink)

The starting-point of Plutarch's dialogue de communibus notitiis is a claim made by the Stoics that Providence sent Chrysippus to remove the confusion surrounding the ideas of ννοια and πρληψισ before the subtleties of Carneades were brought into play. Unfortunately our surviving information on the subject is so much less full than could be desired that it has again returned to an obscurity from which there are only two really detailed modern attempts to remove it. The one, by L. Stein (...) , is most unsatisfactory; the other, by A. Bonhöffer , though of the greatest value in many ways, is vitiated by the fact that it constructs a system from the use of the words by Epictetus and then attempts to attach this system to the old Stoa in the face of the evidence of the doxographers, which is emended or violently interpreted to suit Epictetus. Even if Epictetus were in general a good authority for the technicalities of Chrysippus—and in the opinion of H. von Arnim he is not— this would not be a sound method of procedure. The only safe way is to take first the statements which can be attached to the Old Stoa, and having obtained our results from these, to see whether Epictetus does in fact agree. (shrink)

Fundamental experiments on the dual nature of atomic entities (photons, electrons, neutrons, etc.) can be interpreted in terms of “empty” waves not carrying energy and momentum. Similar points of view were advanced in famous papers by Einstein, de Broglie, Bohr, and Born. Recent proposals could lead to experimental tests of this idea, using low intensity photon beams, thanks to modern experimental apparatuses.

The German philosophical culture of the Middle Ages is inextricable linked to the thought of Albert the Great. This volume brings together 14 papers, which deal with Albert's influence from the points of view of mysticism, philosophy, and the history of universities.

In prevention and health promotion interventions, screening methods and risk profile assessments are often used as tools for establishing the interventions’ effectiveness, for the selection and determination of the health status of participants. The role these instruments fulfil in the creation of effectiveness and the effects these instruments have themselves remain unexplored. In this paper, we have analysed the role screening methods and risk profile assessments fulfil as part of prevention and health promotion programmes in the selection, enrolment and participation (...) of participants. Our analysis showed, that screening methods and health risk assessments create effects as they objectify health risks and/or the health status of individuals, i.e., they select the individuals ‘at risk’ and indicate the lifestyle modifications these people are required to make in order to improve their health. Yet, these instruments also reduce the group of participants thereby decreasing the possible effect of interventions, as they provide the legitimisation for people to make choices to whether they enrol or not and what lifestyle changes they incorporate into their lives. In other words, they present a space of interaction, in which agency is distributed across the practice nurses, the participants and the instruments. Decisions were not just made upon the projection of the outcomes of these instruments; decisions that were made by both the patients and practice nurses were the resultant of their opinions on these outcomes that were formed in interaction with the instruments. (shrink)

En los más disímiles contextos universitarios, se generan hoy programas para mejorar los desempeños de los docentes en el proceso formativo; pero, infortunadamente estos no siempre resultan en un mejoramiento de la práctica cotidiana de las universidades, sobre todo en la calidad de la formación de los profesionales. De este hecho, el propósito del presente artículo está dado en realizar una valoración de las principales influencias epistemológicas en lo relativo a la profesionalización del docente universitario y develar aquellos desempeños idóneos (...) esenciales que deben poseer en este nivel de educación como expresión de las competencias que deben desarrollar. Today, in most diverse university contexts, programs are developed to improve the performance of professors in the educational process; but unfortunately, they do not always result in improving the daily practice of universities, especially in the quality of professionals training. Of this fact, the purpose of the present article is to carry out a valuation of the main epistemological influences related to the professionalization of universities` professors; and to determine the main essential suitable performances these professionals should have as an expression of the competences they must develop. (shrink)

The present article focuses on the idea that divine nature is prior to being. This idea was first articulated in John of Scythopolis’s commentary on Pseudo-Dionysius. It was adopted by Maximus Confessor and re-used in Meister Eckhart’s first Quaestio Parisiensis. The main tenet of this idea is that, if God is the origin of being, he must be more fundamental than being. Thus, being cannot be identical to divine nature. The conclusion that can be drawn from the discussion of this (...) idea is that the importance that has been traditionally attached to the "Exodusmetaphysik" must be reconsidered, and that the pro-ontological conception of divine nature constitutes an autonomous tradition in Christian thought. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Über den Stand der indischen Philosophie zur Zeit Mahaviras und Buddhas" verfügbar.

The first study of Plutarch's prose-rhythm was made by Dr. A. W. de Groot, whose results were published in certain preliminary articles and in his Handbook of Greek Prose Rhythm, a work which is one of the landmarks in the history of its subject. In it he insisted that to discover which forms of clausula were favoured or avoided by any author it was not sufficient to make a count and discover which were frequent, which infrequent; for a form may (...) be frequent not because an author feels it suitable for the end of a sentence, but because he likes it at any point in his sentence, or even because we should find it frequent if we picked out words by chance from the dictionary. To discover which rhythms are specially sought or avoided at the end of a sentence we must compare the ends with the sentence as a whole. This Dr. de Groot did for a number of texts, included in which were selections from Plutarch's Lives. (shrink)

Of the platonic theory that four qualities make up the whole of virtue. I show that aristotle's repudiation of this scheme is more apparent than real.

This article focuses on the interaction between recipes unearthed from tombs datable to the Han dynasty and the early history of the materia medica. We observed that the two medicographic media, i.e. the materia medica and the recipes, share the following logical structure: [Substance] A [produces] → [effect] B Our arrow indicates a variety of relations, which the present article tries to categorize.

A passage in Copernicus's De Revolutionibus regarding the rotation of the Earth provides evidence that he was aware, whether directly or indirectly, of an Islamic tradition dealing with this problem that goes back to Na[sdotu]īr al-Dīn al-[Tdotu]ūsī. The most striking similarity is the use of comets by both astronomers to discredit Ptolemy's “proofs” in the Almagest that depended upon observational evidence. The manner in which this question was dealt with by Copernicus, as an astronomical rather than natural philosophical matter, also (...) argues for his being within the tradition of late medieval Islamic astronomy, more so than that of medieval Latin scholasticism. This of course is bolstered by his use of non-Ptolemaic models, such as the [Tdotu]ūsī couple, that have a long history in Islam but virtually none in medieval Europe. Finally, al-Qūshjī, who was in Istanbul just before Copernicus was born, entertained the possibility of the Earth's rotation; this also opens up the possibility of non-textual transmission. (shrink)