In describing the flawless regularity of developmental processes and the correlation between changes at certain genetic loci and changes in morphology, biologists frequently employ two metaphors: that genes ‘control’ development, and that genomes embody ‘programs’ for development. Although these metaphors have an admirable sharpness and punch, they lead, when taken literally, to highly distorted pictures of developmental processes. A more balanced, and useful, view of the role of genes in development is that they act as suppliers of the material needs (...) of development and, in some instances, as context‐dependent catalysts of cellular changes, rather than as ‘controllers’ of developmental progress and direction. The consequences of adopting this alternative view of development are discussed. (shrink)

Purpose: Understanding the place of Ernst von Glasersfeld's Radical Constructivism (RC), and some of its implications, in the development of epistemology. Design: Characterization of two main options for the content of "knowledge" (without and with belief in mind-independent structures), sketch of their history in occidental thought; comparison of their properties concerning subjectivity, objectivity, second-order cybernetics, reliability of mental tools, and the needs and mechanisms for certainty and overall structures. Findings: Awareness that we structure mental working tools can, as RC suggests, (...) replace belief in mind-independent reality, and this change dissolves the conceptual problem of metaphysics-ontology, but also eliminates the certainty expected from it, which raises the possibility of relativism. Working-concepts cannot be deconstructed because they imply no ontological claims. Subject(s) are necessarily included in all knowledge (which does not mean solipsism): because subjective experience encompasses all mental tools, including those of objectivity and mathematics, while in contrast the subject itself cannot become an objective system. Practical reliability of mental tools differs from subjective certainty, which requires an ontological leap of faith to positive beliefs: for specific tools including automata, and for positive holistic structures. However, in agreement with the constructivist view, holistic views can instead have an unstructured center, with reliability = viability, which prevents relativism. In sum, belief in mid-independent reality is needed for certainty if desired; for all other purposes constructivism is more helpful. Implications: The change in view suggested by von Glasersfeld's work is of relevance for a number of fields of study with conceptual problems (such as the mind-brain relation). However, due to their generality, the implications will need evaluation in specific instances. The question of certainty needs attention for practical reasons. (shrink)

Professor A. D. Ritchie's remarks cannot go without some reply, since otherwise they would only have the effect of increasing the already considerable confusion on the subject of Cybernetics.

This volume presents, in a critical edition, the last part (Books VII-X) of the compilation of Greek commentaries on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics together with the corresponding text of the ethics itself, in the Latin translation of Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln (+1253), the first part of which (Books I-VI) appeared in 1973. Thanks to this translation the composite Commentary had a great impact on the scholastic interpretation of the Ethics, as is witnessed by the works of Albert the Great and (...) John Buridan. The Latin text also contributes to an improvement of the Greek text of the Commentary, for it offers a more complete and a less corrupted version than the Greek manuscripts. (shrink)

Raciolinguistics reveals the central role that language plays in shaping our ideas about race and vice versa. The book brings together a team of leading scholars-working both within and beyond the United States-to share powerful, much-needed research that helps us understand the increasingly vexed relationships between race, ethnicity, and language in our rapidly changing world. Combining the innovative, cutting-edge approaches of race and ethnic studies with fine-grained linguistic analyses, authors cover a wide range of topics including the struggle over the (...) very term "African American," the racialized language education debates within the increasing number of "majority-minority" immigrant communities in the U.S., the dangers of multicultural education in a Europe that is struggling to meet the needs of new migrants, and the sociopolitical and cultural meanings of linguistic styles used in Brazilian favelas, South African townships, Mexican and Puerto Rican barrios in Chicago, and Korean American "cram schools" in New York City, among other sites. Taking into account rapidly changing demographics in the U.S and shifting cultural and media trends across the globe--from Hip Hop cultures, to transnational Mexican popular and street cultures, to Israeli reality TV, to new immigration trends across Africa and Europe--Raciolinguistics shapes the future of scholarship on race, ethnicity, and language. By taking a comparative look across a diverse range of language and literacy contexts, the volume seeks not only to set the research agenda in this burgeoning area of study, but also to help resolve pressing educational and political problems in some of the most contested raciolinguistic contexts in the world. (shrink)

Mark, G. La crisis de la física clásica por obra del experimento.--Thirring, J. La transformación del sistema conceptual de la física.--Hahn, J. La crisis de la intuición.--Nöbeling, J. La cuarta dimensión y el espacio curvo.--Menger, C. La nueva lógica.

This book is intended for the use of the candid student, devised as a monitory preparation for deeper study of the philosophy of Spinoza. By its means it is hoped that the student may avoid the chief pitfalls of Spinoza-interpretation, and be carried past many of the difficulties encountered by the modern mind in the study of his writings. To this end perhaps the greatest hindrance to be met by the beginner is the ‘popular' exposition that attempts to expound the (...) thought of one age in terms of the favoured categories of another. By providing the necessary safeguards against misinterpretations arising from such causes, the author has sought to awaken interest in the closely knit fabric of Spinoza's doctrine of man and nature and God, and its practical import - and thus to revivify a specimen too long deprived of its native air. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the target article “Arguments Opposing the Radicalism of Radical Constructivism” by Gernot Saalmann. First paragraph: My remarks are basedon the view that mind-and-world structures of subject-inclusive experience are created by individual and collective subjects, and are not derived from pre-existing subject-exclusive structures structuring; see my papers in CF and the Karl Jaspers Forum). I will comment on two points.