Describing and defining what 'Japan style' is, this book explores specific achievements in Japanese art and architecture, offering an analysis of the Japanese culture, its vision of the world and of humankind.

Professor Orsini’s book enters the controversy that has marked the changing response to Coleridge’s work during the past forty years, stimulated recently by the accessibility of Coleridge manuscripts and by the publication of hitherto unpublished works. Professor Orsini himself contributes to our new knowl­edge by publishing here for the first time texts from the note­books. His book is of importance and interest because it examines problems which are rooted in world-wide intellectual developments of recent times. Counterposing his argument against the (...) theory that Col­eridge had anticipated Kant and Schelling, Professor Orsini marshalls impressive evidence that shows that Coleridge was familiar with the works of the German idealists and that they greatly influenced his thinking, to the extent that he was for a time an expounder of transcendental idealism, and should be credited with bringing it to England. Professor Orsini’s new findings will lead inevitably to reassessment of Coleridge’s status as a philosopher, though he insists that his report is an interim one, that a final estimate must wait until all Coleridge’s writings have been published and assessed. (shrink)

Offers a glimpse into the world of science and technology between 1950 and 1990 as seen through the eyes of a mathematician, and debunks various myths of scientific philosophy. Portrays some of the great scientific personalities of the period, including Stanislav Ulam, who patented the hydrogen bomb, and Jack Schwartz, one of the founders of computer science. Also discusses phenomenology of mathematics, and philosophy and computer science. Includes book reviews. For students and academics. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, (...) OR. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce three methods to approach philosophical problems informationally: Minimalism, the Method of Abstraction and Constructionism. Minimalism considers the specifications of the starting problems and systems that are tractable for a philosophical analysis. The Method of Abstraction describes the process of making explicit the level of abstraction at which a system is observed and investigated. Constructionism provides a series of principles that the investigation of the problem must fulfil once it has been fully characterised by the previous (...) two methods. For each method, we also provide an application: the problem of visual perception, functionalism, and the Turing Test, respectively. (shrink)

It has been observed that whereas painters and musicians are likely to be embarrassed by references to the beauty in their work, mathematicians instead like to engage in discussions of the beauty of mathematics. Professional artists are more likely to stress the technical rather than the aesthetic aspects of their work. Mathematicians, instead, are fond of passing judgment on the beauty of their favored pieces of mathematics. Even a cursory observation shows that the characteristics of mathematical beauty are at variance (...) with those of artistic beauty. For example, courses in art appreciation are fairly common; it is however unthinkable to find any mathematical beauty appreciation courses taught anywhere. The purpose of the present paper is to try to uncover the sense of the term beauty as it is currently used by mathematicians. (shrink)

Some of the foundations of Heyes’ radical reasoning seem to be based on a fractional selection of available evidence. Using an ethological perspective, we argue against Heyes’ rapid dismissal of innate cognitive instincts. Heyes’ use of fMRI studies of literacy to claim that culture assembles pieces of mental technology seems an example of incorrect reverse inferences and overlap theories pervasive in cognitive neuroscience.

Essays on art, spectacle, and subjectivity in late capitalist society.

An application of Narrative Knowledge Representation Language (NKRL) techniques on (declassified) ‘terrorism in Southern Philippines’ documents has been carried out in the context of the IST Parmenides project. This paper describes some aspects of this work: it is our belief, in fact, that the Knowledge Representation techniques and the Intelligent Information Retrieval tools used in this experiment can be of some interest also in an ‘Ontological Modelling of Legal Events and Legal Reasoning’ context.

The note argues that Aen. 6, 893-896 should be read as a direct speech pronounced by Anchises. The proposal is put forward on the basis of a thorough new analysis of the context and of internal evidence from Vergil: a simple change in voice places many alleged inconsistencies in a different perspective and brings decisive new arguments in support of the MS tradition of some crucial passages.

The present PhD thesis is concerned with the question whether good reasoning requires that the subject has some cognitive grip on the relation between premises and conclusion. One consideration in favor of such a requirement goes as follows: In order for my belief-formation to be an instance of reasoning, and not merely a causally related sequence of beliefs, the process must be guided by my endorsement of a rule of reasoning. Therefore I must have justified beliefs about the relation between (...) my premises and my conclusion. -/- The rationality of a belief often depends on whether it is rightly connected to other beliefs, or more generally to other mental states —the states capable of providing a reason to holding the belief in question. For instance, some rational beliefs are connected to other beliefs by being inferred from them. It is often accepted that the connection implies that the subject in some sense ‘takes the mental states in question to be reason-providing’. But views on how exactly this is to be understood differ widely. They range from interpretations according to which ‘taking a mental state to be reason-providing’ imposes a mere causal sustaining relation between belief and reason-providing state to interpretations according to which one ‘takes a mental state to be reason-providing’ only if one believes that the state is reason-providing. The most common worry about the latter view is that it faces a vicious regress. In this thesis a different but in some respects similar interpretation of ‘taking something as reason-providing’ is given. It is argued to consist of a disposition to react in certain ways to information that challenges the reason-providing capacity of the allegedly reason-providing state. For instance, that one has inferred A from B partly consists in being disposed to suspend judgment about A if one obtains a reason to believe that B does not render A probable. The account is defended against regress-objections and the suspicion of explanatory circularity. (shrink)

Husserl’s Third Logical Investigation, ostensibly dealing with the phenomenology of whole and parts, is actually meant to introduce the notion of Fundierung. This term is frequently used in the phenomenological literature, although little has been written about Fundierung itself since Husserl introduced it. Husserl himself, although he used it extensively, never again felt the need to reopen the discussion.

ARE MATHEMATICAL IDEAS INVENTED OR DISCOVERED? This question has been repeatedly posed by philosophers through the ages, and will probably be with us forever. We shall not be concerned with the answer. What matters is that by asking the question, we acknowledge the fact that mathematics has been leading a double life.