The aim of this work is to present the thesis “On the Ontogenetic Evolution of the Human Embryo in its Relations with Phylogenesis,” by Affonso Regulo de Oliveira Fausto, published in Brazil in 1890. To our knowledge, it was one of the first Brazilian academic works focused specifically on evolution. It was also the first doctoral thesis that addressed the topic of recapitulation in order to analyze what was then called the progressive evolution of the human species in tandem with (...) the embryological development of the individuals that would constitute the Brazilian “type.” In the present work, we analyze the author’s thesis in relation to its sources, concepts, as well as the country’s political context at the time of its publication. Fausto’s text, in which he explicitly recognized the influence of Ernst Haeckel’s recapitulation theory, represents a window to understand better a concept of nation based on science and on the idea of inexorable progress that was accepted in Brazil at the end of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

Despite the unquestionable importance of technological progress in twenty-first-century society, the decision by many political leaders worldwide to treat natural sciences as an almost exclusive priority betrays a terrible misconception of the complexity of the contemporary world. As the Renaissance cannot be reduced to Copernicus’s or Galileo’s brilliant contributions, or Enlightenment to the works of such giants as Newton and Cavendish, contemporary society will hardly be remembered as just a series of amazing software and gadget updates. There are three categories (...) of questions today that only humanities are prone to answer. The first one, exploring the relations between subject and object mediated by the meaning of “property”, ultimately concerns the discussion between legality and legitimacy. Not long ago, teenagers were still being sued by the giants of the Entertainment Industry for downloading songs, and the practice of mash-ups or remixing even now arouses huge polemics. The second one, focused on the self-representations of the subject, concerns the changing meanings (and representations) of identity and cultural borders in a globalizing world. Finally, the inter-subjective interactions are the centre of the political tensions between democracy and demagogy, two opposed categories that have often been presented as hardly distinguishable from each other. (shrink)

While the failure of the so-called classical theory of concepts - according to which definitions are the proper way to characterize concepts - is a consensus, metaphysical philosophy of religion still deals with the concept of God in a predominantly definitional way. It thus seems fair to ask: Does this failure imply that a definitional characterization of the concept of God is equally untenable? The first purpose of this paper is to answer this question. I focus on the representational side (...) of the matter. My goal is to analyze the extent to which the most important problems raised against the classical view of concepts affect a definitional-representational approach to the concept of God. The second purpose of the paper is to deepen into these issues, arguing for a pluralistic view of concepts and outlining a hybrid special theory of concepts, called the theory of ideal concepts. The theory is special because it deals with a special sort of concepts that I call ideal concepts; it is hybrid because, in addition to definitions, it uses another structure in the characterization of concepts: ideals. My goal is to argue that when applied to the concept of God and added to a pluralistic view of concepts, this theory can function as a tenable representational theory of the concept of God. (shrink)

Lewis Gordon presents the first detailed existential phenomenological investigation of antiblack racism as a form of Sartrean bad faith. Bad faith, the attitude in which human beings attempt to evade freedom and responsibility, is treated as a constant possibility of human existence. Antiblack racism, the attitude and practice that involve the construction of black people as fundamentally inferior and subhuman, is examined as an effort to evade the responsibilities of a human and humane world. Gordon argues that the concept of (...) bad faith militates against any human science that is built upon a theory of human nature and as such offers an analysis of antiblack racism that stands as a challenge to our ordinary assumptions of what it means to be human. (shrink)

We respond in this paper to various counter arguments advanced against our stance on conscientious objection accommodation. Contra Maclure and Dumont, we show that it is impossible to develop reliable tests for conscientious objectors' claims with regard to the reasonableness of the ideological basis of their convictions, and, indeed, with regard to whether they actually hold they views they claim to hold. We demonstrate furthermore that, within the Canadian legal context, the refusal to accommodate conscientious objectors would not constitute undue (...) hardship for such objectors. We reject concerns that refusing to accommodate conscientious objectors would limit the equality of opportunity for budding professionals holding particular ideological positions. We also clarify various misrepresentations of our views by respondents Symons, Glick and Jotkowitz, and Lyus. (shrink)

When faced with the charge that a given concept of God is contradictory, the standard move among philosophers and theologians has been to try to explain away the contradiction and show that the concept of God in question is consistent. This has to do, of course, with the Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC). Another option, which has recently generated interest among logicians and analytic philosophers of religion, is to reject such a move as unnecessary and defend what might be called the (...) contradictory God thesis. To be sure, something close to that can be found in philosophers such as Pseudo-Dionysius, Thomas Aquinas and Nicolaus de Cusa. However, it is only recently that this approach has gained momentum, certainly driven by the contemporary advance of dialetheism and glut theoretic approaches in general, and paraconsistent logic. Needless to say, a standard move among defenders of the contradictory God thesis is to challenge the LNC. The argumentation, however, is seldomly framed in conceptual terms. Instead, it is mostly framed in ontological terms, as God being a contradictory entity. From this perspective, the contradictory God thesis is the thesis that God is a contradictory object. My goal in this paper is to provide a conceptual assessment of the discussion surrounding the contradictory God thesis. To achieve this, I make use of a general and hopefully non-controversial meta-theory of concepts and adopt a semantic approach rather than a metaphysical one. Within this framework, I address the following questions: What are the different ways we can understand the contradictory God thesis? What grounds are there for rejecting a contradictory concept of God? What standard moves are available to defend oneself from such criticisms and how do they relate to the LNC? What challenges do they present? As a secondary goal, the paper introduces a novel defense of the contradictory God thesis, drawing on a specific interpretation of the theology of the 16th-century Indian thinker Jīva Gosvāmī, which avoids the need to challenge the LNC. I term this approach ‘non-dialetheic mystical contradictory theism.’. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the modal logic with both $$\Box $$ and $$\Diamond $$ arising from Kripke models with a crisp accessibility and whose propositions are valued over the standard Gödel algebra $$[0,1]_G$$. We provide an axiomatic system extending the one from Caicedo and Rodriguez (J Logic Comput 25(1):37–55, 2015) for models with a valued accessibility with Dunn axiom from positive modal logics, and show it is strongly complete with respect to the intended semantics. The axiomatizations of the most (...) usual frame restrictions are given too. We also prove that in the studied logic it is not possible to get $$\Diamond $$ as an abbreviation of $$\Box $$, nor vice-versa, showing that indeed the axiomatic system we present does not coincide with any of the mono-modal fragments previously axiomatized in the literature. (shrink)

Beltrami's first allegedly true interpretation of lobachevsky's geometry can be conceived as (i) pursuing a kantian program insofar as it shows that all the geometrical lobachevskian concepts are constructible in the euclidean space of our human representation, And (ii) proving, Even to kant, That a non-Euclidean geometry is not only logically possible (something that kant never denied) but also mathematically acceptable from a kantian point of view (something that kant would have accepted only after beltrami's interpretation).

This paper focuses on two prominent arguments claiming that physicalism entails reductionism. One is Kim’s causal exclusion argument (CEA), and the other is Papineau’s causal argument. The paper argues that Kim’s CEA is not logically valid and that it is driven by two implausible justifications. One is “Edward’s dictum”, which is alien to non-reductive physicalism and should be rejected. The other is by endorsement of Papineau’s conception of the physical, immanent in Papineau’s causal argument. This argument only arrives at the (...) physical property-property identities by using a conception of the physical that licenses anything to be reductively physical, including putative core anti-physical entities; thus, leaving Papineau’s causal argument and Kim’s CEA without a reductive physicalist conclusion of philosophical interest. (shrink)

In order to show how formal analogies between different physical systems play an important conceptual work in physics, this paper analyzes the evolution of Einstein’s thoughts on the structure of radiation from the point of view of the formal analogies he used as “lenses” to “see” through the “black box” of Planck’s blackbody radiation law. A comparison is also made with his 1925 paper on the quantum gas where he used the same formal methods. Changes of formal points of view (...) are most of the time taken for granted or passed over in silence in studies on the mathematization of physics as if they had no special significance. Revisiting Einstein’s classic papers on the nature of light and matter from the angle of the various theoretical tools he used, namely entropy and energy fluctuation calculations, helps explain why he was in a unique position to make visible the particle structure of radiation and the dual nature of light and matter. Finally, this case study calls attention to the more general question of the surprising creative power of formal analogies and their frequent use in theoretical physics. This aspect of intellectual creation can be useful in the teaching of physics. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo revelar el verdadero nombre de Finlay y la trascendencia de su firma a fin de salvaguardar cómo llega hasta hoy la autenticidad denominativa del científico. Para ello fue necesaria la revisión bibliográfica de diversas fuentes documentales. Destacan las Obras Completas del médico, artículos científicos de revistas indexadas de la nación y el exterior: Educación Médica Superior, Cuadernos de Historia de la Salud Pública, Biomédica, Acimed, Asclepio, entre otras; periódicos, así como entrevistas a especialistas de la (...) Casa Natal de Carlos J. Finlay. This work aims to real the true name of Finlay and the significance of his signature in order to safeguard its authenticity in present times. To this end, the bibliographic revision of several documentary sources was necessary. Revisions were made of his Complete Works, scientific articles indexed in national and foreign scientific journals, newspaper articles and interviews with specialists from the Carlos J. Finlay Birth House Museum. (shrink)

O presente artigo é fruto de uma pesquisa realizada no Programa de Pós-Graduação – Mestrado em Educação e de uma demanda da Escola Agrícola Municipal Carlos Heins Funke, que temos atuado em projetos de extensão desde 2014. A referida Escola tem se preocupado em ressignificar seu Projeto Político Pedagógico – PPP, tentando articular aspectos culturais locais ao currículo, sobretudo, em suas práticas. Desta forma, a pesquisa centrou seus estudos e ações educativas/investigativas nas seguintes indagações: como realizar ações a partir das (...) questões culturais locais? Em que sentido essas questões contribuem para um ensino e aprendizado significativos? Como construir um PPP, que articule essas questões e que tenha realmente a participação de todos os seguimentos - gestão, professores, alunos, comunidade e pesquisador? Portanto, o objetivo da pesquisa foi ressignificar e implementar o PPP da Escola Agrícola “Carlos Heins Funke”, em Joinville/SC, juntamente com seus protagonistas, a fim de analisar as contribuições de um projeto que articula experiências culturais as questões técnicas e conceituais. Para nos ajudar no desenvolvimento da pesquisa, alguns autores foram fundamentais, a exemplo: Saviani ;Veiga ; Gadotti ; Freire ; Arroyo ; Caldart, entre outros. Pensando em uma pesquisa, com abordagem qualitativa, que levasse em conta a participação de todos e que fosse de forma interativa, a metodologia utilizada foi a ‘Pesquisa Ação’ fundamentada em Thiollent e o instrumento ‘Grupo Focal’ baseado nos preceitos de Dias e Gatti. Foram desenvolvidos dois grupos focais para preservar as características e similaridades dos participantes, o primeiro grupo com professores e gestores e o segundo com pais, associação de pais e professores e estudantes. Os dados coletados foram transcritos, organizados e analisados utilizando a Análise de Conteúdo à luz de Bardin. Os resultados demonstram que as demandas da comunidade acadêmica, tais como: interdisciplinaridade, eventos culturais locais, uniforme dos estudantes, transporte dos alunos e as características diferenciadas da escola devem estar presentes no Projeto Político-Pedagógico, pois assim, tais peculiaridades serão oficializadas e valorizadas no documento e perpetuadas na memória e na identidade de toda a região. Palavras-chave: Práticas educativas. Educação do campo. Projeto Político- Pedagógico. Cultura. Grupo Focal. (shrink)

he general theme of this paper is the issue of formalization in philosophy; in a more specific way, it deals with the issue of formalization of arguments in analytic philosophy of religion. One argument in particular – Anselm’s Proslogion II ontological argument – and one specific attempt to formalize it – Robert Adams’ formalization found in his paper “The Logical Structure of Anselm’s Arguments”, published in The Philosophical Review in 1971 – are taken as study cases. The purpose of the (...) paper is to critically analyze Adams’ formalization with the intent to shed some light on the following questions: What are the virtues of formally analyzing arguments and the contributions, if any, of such an enterprise to the debate on Anselm’s argument? Which lessons can Adam’s work teach us about the dangers and limitations of formalization? Do these virtues and dangers teach us something about analysis of arguments in general? (shrink)

Cette étude défend l’idée que, contrairement à l’opinion de Latour sur la nécessité de laisser de côté l’épistémologie pour traiter de tout ce qui a de la valeur pour la science, Mario Bunge a systématiquement construit une épistémologie détaillée et approfondie. La stratégie argumentative consistera à montrer (a) qu’il est faux que nous n’avons jamais été modernes (b) que l’épistémologie est là pour de bon et (c) que Mario Bunge soutient un réalisme scientifique fort, une version du matérialisme, du systémisme (...) et de l’émergentisme, comportant une dimension morale (il existe des valeurs objectives comme la vérité, la paix et la justice qui méritent d’être étudiées). Ensuite, le réalisme de Bunge rejette la neutralité axiologique rendant les scientifiques responsables de leurs actions. Bunge a toujours été moderne et continue à enrichir ses propres positions. (shrink)

This paper examines physics and mathematics textbooks published in France at the end of the 1950s and at the beginning of the 1960s for children aged 11–15 years old. It argues that at this “middle school” level, textbooks contributed to shape cultural representations of both disciplines and their mutual boundaries through their contents and their material aspect. Further, this paper argues that far from presenting clearly delimited subjects, late 1950s textbooks offered possible connections between mathematics and physics. It highlights that (...) such connections depended upon the type of schools the textbooks aimed at, at a time when educational organization still differentiated pupils of this age. It thus stresses how the audience and its projected aptitudes and needs, as well as the cultural teaching traditions of the teachers in charge, were inseparable from the diverse conceptions of mathematics and physics and their relationships promoted through textbooks of the time. (shrink)

Texto de la presentación del libro de Marc Richir La contingencia del déspota (Madrid, Brumaria) en la librería La Central de Callao, en Madrid, el día 7 de febrero de 2014.

The terms “model” and “model-building” have been used to characterize the field of formal philosophy, to evaluate philosophy’s and philosophical logic’s progress and to define philosophical logic itself. A model is an idealization, in the sense of being a deliberate simplification of something relatively complex in which several important aspects are left aside, but also in the sense of being a view too perfect or excellent, not found in reality, of this thing. Paraconsistent logic is a branch of philosophical logic. (...) It is however not clear how paraconsistent logic can be seen as model-building. What exactly is modeled? In this paper I adopt the perspective of looking at a particular instance of paraconsistent logic—paranormal modal logic—which might be seen as a model of a specific kind of agent: inductive agents. After ntroducing what I call the highlevel and low-level models of inductive agents, I analyze the extent to which the above-mentioned idealizing features of model-building appear in paranormal modal logic and how they affect its philosophical significance. (shrink)

This paper aims at examining the issue of the role of supreme being theology in non-Abrahamic traditions. According to the dominant view in contemporary philosophy of religion, the philo-sophical project of inferring divine properties from the concept of God as a maximally perfect being, usually called supreme being theology, is an exclusivity of the Abrahamic traditions. In attempting to question this view, I investigate the developments of two key-concepts of Vedāntatradition –the concepts of Brahman (literally, the greatest) and Bhagavān (literally, (...) the possessor of all excellences) –in thethought of three famous vedantins: Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja and Jīva. (shrink)

Ao mesmo tempo que o malogro da assim chamada teoria clássica dos conceitos - de acordo com a qual definições são a maneira apropriada de caracterizar conceitos - é um consenso, a filosofia metafísica da religião parece ainda lidar com o conceito de Deus de forma predominantemente definicional. Podemos então nos perguntar: Seria esse malogro suficiente para inviabilizar uma caracterização definicional do conceito de Deus? Meu propósito central neste artigo é responder essa pergunta. Adoto uma ênfase representacional. Em outras palavras, (...) desejo analisar até que ponto os problemas mais importantes levantados contra a teoria clássica dos conceitos afetam uma abordagem definicional-representacional do conceito de Deus. Como resultado desse esforço, mostro que as críticas à teoria clássica que ameaçam tal abordagem dependem da pluralidade característica ao contexto inter-religioso, que por si só cria outros problemas. (shrink)

Neste trabalho, é apresentada uma investigação do que poderia ser chamado de formalização lógica do processo de mudança de teorias devido a anomalias. Por anomalia entende-se um fato observado que faz parte do escopo explanatório de uma teoria, mas que vai de encontro à previsão da mesma. Uma abordagem clássica para restaurar o poder explicativo de uma teoria ameaçada por uma anomalia é a postulação de hipóteses novas e provisórias que, em conjunto com as demais hipóteses auxiliares originais, sejam capazes (...) de resolver a anomalia. Após chegar à algumas conclusões sobre a estrutura de tal processo, propomos um framework lógico multimodal e não-monotônico capaz de representar alguns aspectos-chave dessa faceta importante da dinâmica de teorias científicas. Devido à necessidade de acomodar hipóteses provisórias incompatíveis, esse framework incorpora uma forma fraca de paraconsistência. Como um estudo de caso, analisamos o comportamento anômalo do planeta Urano que ameaçou a mecânica celeste Newtoniana por mais de meio século e ensejou a descoberta do planeta Netuno. -/- In this work, an investigation of what could be called the logical formalization of the theory change process due to anomalies is presented. An anomaly is understood as an observed fact that is part of the explanatory scope of a theory, but that goes against its prediction. A classic approach to restoring the explanatory power of a theory threatened by an anomaly is to postulate new and provisional hypotheses that, together with the other original auxiliary hypotheses, are capable of resolving the anomaly. After reaching some conclusions about the structure of such a process, we propose a multimodal and non-monotonic logical framework capable of representing some key aspects of this important facet of the dynamics of scientific theories. Due to the need to accommodate incompatible provisional hypotheses, this framework incorporates a weak form of paraconsistency. As a case study, we analyze the anomalous behavior of the planet Uranus that threatened Newtonian celestial mechanics for more than half a century and prompted the discovery of the planet Neptune. (shrink)

My purpose in this chapter is to take seriously the idea that problem of evil is an incompatibility between the proposition that the world was created and is ruled by an omnipotent, omniscient and unlimitedly good being and one that says that there is evil and suffering in our world. Besides being in accordance with much of the literature on the problem of evil, this idea takes the problem at face value, that is to say, it sees it as a (...) logical and incompatibility problem. More important than that, it allows for a comprehensive and elegant account of the key concepts involved in the debate: despite contrary appearances, the concept of problem of evil itself, the concept of argument from evil, the concepts of logical and evidential problems of evil and the concepts of theodicy and defense can be seen and defined from the standpoint of the same general idea about the problem of evil. (shrink)

We define and study abstract valuation semantics for logics, an algebraically well-behaved version of valuation semantics. Then, in the context of the behavioral approach to the algebraization of logics, we show, by means of meaningful bridge theorems and application examples, that abstract valuations are suited to play a role similar to the one played by logical matrices in the traditional approach to algebraization.

Resenha do livro COLLECTED PAPERS OF HERBERT MARCUSE PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOANALYSIS AND EMANCIPATION –VOL. 5.

This article takes a conceptual approach to an issue of pedagogical relevance—the presence of teaching and learning moments within educational environments. We suggest sources of philosophical confusions that design patterns for the classification and creation of typologies of classroom events. We identify three foundational assumptions with the way in which classroom events are analyzed: Describing a classroom event ; Devising a procedure for co-classifying events ; Repurposing decontextualized events to fit a preferred analytic model. Hitherto these assumptions have obscured the (...) phenomenal integrity of the learning environment; since the topic sought is based on critical incidents according to analysts’ interests, but not on the actual identifying details of the setting as made available by the participants. While teaching and learning moments are generic issues, in methodological terms these matters have to be explored in their details. In our article, we align ourselves with particular research approaches, namely ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, that facilitate close analysis of ‘perspicuous settings’, such as classroom interactions, through which phenomena such as teaching and learning moments are made visible as collaborative accomplishments. (shrink)

Este artículo busca pensar los orígenes de la Técnica moderna en la vida y obra del científico pisano Galileo Galilei a la luz de dos ideas fundamentales, por una parte, lo acontecido en la propia época de Galileo y, por otra parte, en la categoría fundamental de «experimentación» como «probación física de la realidad» que aparece en la obra Inteligencia y razón de Xavier Zubiri. Desde esta categoría de análisis podremos ver la riqueza de la inicial investigación científico-técnica de Galileo (...) y cómo ésta ha sido decisiva en el desarrollo ulterior de la investigación humana a lo largo de la Historia. (shrink)

La COVID-19 generó grandes estragos en materia de economía ocasionando que, desde el inicio de la pandemia, los microempresarios sortearan grandes desafíos. Así las cosas, el presente articulo busca reflexionar sobre las dimensiones gerenciales aplicables por los microempresarios de la ciudad de montería durante la Covid 19, a través de una investigación con enfoque mixto de carácter exploratorio, en donde se aplicó como instrumento una entrevista semiestructurada donde se ahondó la problemática con los empresarios, arrojando como resultado las habilidades que (...) consideran esenciales para este tipo de desafíos, partiendo del efecto que tuvo la Covid 19 en sus empresas. (shrink)

A novel algebraic structure of the genetic code is proposed. Here, the principal partitions of the genetic code table were obtained as equivalent classes of quotient spaces of the genetic code vector space over the Galois field of the four DNA bases. The new algebraic structure shows strong connections among algebraic relationships, codon assignment and physicochemical properties of amino acids. Moreover, a distance function defined between the codon binary representations in the vector space was demonstrated to have a linear behavior (...) respect to physical variables such as the mean of amino acids interaction energies in proteins. It was also noticed that the distance between wild type and mutant codons approach to smaller values in mutational variants of four genes, i.e., human phenylalanine hydroxylase, human β-globin, HIV-1 protease and HIV-1 reverse transcriptase. These results strongly suggest that deterministic rules must be involved in the genetic code origin. (shrink)

The use of new paradigms of false belief tasks (FBT) allowed to reduce the age of children who pass the test from the previous 4 years in the standard version to only 15 months or even a striking 6 months in the nonverbal modification. These results are often taken as evidence that infants already possess an—at least implicit—theory of mind (ToM). We criticize this inferential leap on the grounds that inferring a ToM from the predictive success on a false belief (...) task requires to assume as premise that a belief reasoning is a necessary condition for correct action prediction. It is argued that the FBT does not satisfactorily constrain the predictive means, leaving room for the use of belief-independent inferences (that can rely on the attribution of non-representational mental states or the consideration of behavioral patterns that dispense any reference to other minds). These heuristics, when applied to the FBT, can achieve the same predictive success of a belief-based inference because information provided by the test stimulus allows the recognition of particular situations that can be subsumed by their ‘laws’. Instead of solving this issue by designing a single experimentum crucis that would render unfeasible the use of non-representational inferences, we suggest the application of a set of tests in which, although individually they can support inferences dissociated from a ToM, only an inference that makes use of false beliefs is able to correctly predict all the outcomes. (shrink)