This chapter begins by drawing distinctions between indexical and allophonic variability and between episodic and abstractionist theories of lexical form. As it argues, evidence for episodic theories comes primarily—although not exclusively—from research on indexical variability, whereas research on allophonic variability suggests the operation of more abstract codes. It concludes by arguing for a mixed representational model in which differential effects of abstract and episodic codes are predictable based on the processing time considerations.

In this volume, five of Erasmus’s polemical texts are presented, on issues related to the Latin translation and Greek text of his New Testament and other theological issues.

The "West," the "Atlantic community," the "transatlantic alliance"--these were expressions used widely during the decades of east-west conflict, distinguishing the West from the negative image of the eastern bloc. The end of the old political order in Eastern Europe gave the Atlantic community the opportunity to redefine its self-image. In this book, high-ranking experts and politicians examine the question of whether and to what extent this chance was used. The highly endorsed values of this community are put to the test (...) here and the idea of a "civic society" discussed: is it the appropriate groundwork for a new bridge across the Atlantic? (shrink)

Data Safety and Monitoring Boards were introduced in the 1960s to monitor data in clinical trials to ensure subject safety. It was thought important that DSMB members be experts in the field of interest, but not otherwise involved in the study in order to maximize objectivity. Since then, the use of DSMBs has increased dramatically, and their scope has expanded to include scientific issues — in particular, to avoid bias that can result when trials are stopped early because of evidence (...) that one treatment has greater efficacy or causes greater harm than another; or that no treatment is likely to do better than any other. (shrink)

The use of quality of life (QOL) outcomes in clinical trials is increasing as a number of practical, ethical, methodological, and regulatory reasons for their use have become apparent. It is important, then, that QOL measurements and differences between QOL scores be readily interpretable. We study interpretation in two contexts: when determining QOL and when basing decisions on QOL differences. We consider both clinical situations involving individual patients and research contexts, e.g., randomized clinical trials, involving groups of patients. We note (...) the ethical importance of such understanding: proper interpretation and communication facilitate health care decision making. Communication that facilitates interpretation is of moral significance since better communication can attenuate ethical problems and inform choices. Much of what is communication worthy about QOL assessments is determined by the particular QOL instrument used in the assessment and how it is administered. In practice, these choices will be driven by the purpose of the assessment, but, it is argued, to maximize understanding, we should combine the information garnered from traditional standardized QOL instruments, from individualized QOL assessments, and from a recently proposed dialogic paradigm, where QOL is determined by shared conversation regarding the interpretation of texts. And, while some studies can surely succeed using abbreviated methods of administration (e.g., postal surveys may suffice for certain purposes), we will focus on methods of administration involving interviewer–respondent interaction. We suggest that during the QOL elicitation process, interviewer and respondent should engage in a two-way conversation in order to achieve a shared understanding of the “answers” to QOL “questions” and, finally, to reach a shared interpretation of the individual’s QOL. (shrink)

This collection of essays reflects the wide range of David Pingree's expertise in the scientific texts of Ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, India, Persia, and the medieval Arabic, Hebrew and Latin traditions. Both theoretical aspects and the practical applications of the exact sciences-in time keeping, prediction of the future, and the operation of magic-are dealt with. The book includes several critical editions and translations of hitherto unknown or understudied texts, and a particular emphasis is on the diffusion of scientific learning from one (...) culture to another, and through time. Above all, the essays show the variety and sophistication of the exact sciences in non-Western societies in pre-modern times. (shrink)

Wie lässt sich der Bereich des Privaten heute genau beschreiben? Welchen Wert besitzt Privatheit in digitalisierten Gesellschaften für den Einzelnen und die Gesellschaft als Ganzes? Welche Werte und Lebensformen werden durch Privatheit geschützt, welche eingeschränkt? Entstehen durch die Informationsasymmetrie zwischen Technologieunternehmen, staatlichen Verdatungsinstitutionen und Verbrauchern/Bürgern möglicherweise neue Machtstrukturen? Welche rechtlichen Implikationen ergeben sich hieraus? Dieser Band geht diesen und anderen Fragen, die sich im Hinblick auf die etablierte Gleichung von Freiheit und Privatheit stellen, nach und versucht Antworten zu finden.

This volume explores how Catholicism began and continues to open its doors to the wider world and to other confessions in embracing ecumenism, thanks to the vision and legacy of the Second Vatican Council. It explores such themes as the twentieth century context preceding the council; parallels between Vatican II and previous councils; its distinctively pastoral character; the legacy of the council in relation to issues such as church-world dynamics, as well as to ethics, social justice, economic activity. Several chapters (...) discuss the role of women in the church before, during, and since the council. Others discern inculturation in relation to Vatican II. The book also contains a wide and original range of ecumenical considerations of the council, including by and in relation to Free Church, Reformed, Orthodox, and Anglican perspectives. Finally, it considers the Council’s ongoing promise and remaining challenges with regard to ecumenical issues, including a groundbreaking essay on the future of ecumenical dialogue by Cardinal Walter Kasper. (shrink)

This collection consists of lectures given at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. They were delivered under the provisions of the Jan Tin- bergen Chair, ...

Boards of directors affect corporate strategy and decision-making through monitoring of management and resource provision. Recently, an increasing number of studies have examined the relationships between board characteristics and corporate social responsibility (CSR). These studies have yielded inconsistent findings. This article therefore reports the results of a study applying meta-analytical techniques to a sample of 82 empirical studies to help clarify the relationships between board characteristics and CSR. Although prior research has tended to apply relatively simplistic models investigating the impact (...) of individual board characteristics independently and only directly, we adopt a more complex perspective to shed new light on the board characteristics–CSR nexus. Specifically, we use a meta-analytic path model that accounts for the potential interplay between board characteristics in determining CSR and tests whether the presence of a CSR committee plays a meditating role. Our findings suggest that board size, board independence, and female board representation are partially interrelated with each other and jointly influence CSR directly as well as indirectly via the presence of a CSR committee. In addition, we find that country-level institutional factors act as moderators and that the relationships differ with regard to the specific dimension of CSR (i.e., social, environmental, or aggregate). (shrink)

Cet article se donne pour tâche l’examen de la fécondité conceptuelle d’une réduction paradigmatique souvent effectuée par les études en phénoménologie contemporaines de la danse : la réduction du mouvement dansé aux _kinesthèses_ par lesquelles il devrait être immédiatement vécu. Nous entendrons montrer, au contraire, que les kinesthèses ne permettent pas de rendre compte du mouvement vécu parce qu’elles le transforment en un vécu de mouvement demeurant extérieur au sujet qui le vit. Cette critique nous amènera ensuite à repenser conjointement (...) le mouvement dansé comme véritable sujet de la danse et le corps dansant comme déposé par ce mouvement en lequel il est pris. (shrink)

This article contributes to the contemporary debate on land and water grabbing through a detailed, qualitative case study of horticultural agribusinesses which have settled in Tanzania, disrupting patterns of land and water use. In this paper we analyse how capitalist settler farms and their upstream and downstream peasant neighbours along the Nduruma river, Tanzania, expand and defend their water use. The paper is based on 3 months of qualitative field work in Tanzania. We use the echelons of rights analysis framework (...) combined with the concept of institutional bricolage to show how this contestation takes place over the full spectrum of actual abstractions, governance and discourses. We emphasise the role different (inter)national development narratives play in shaping day-to-day contestations over water shares and rule-making. Ultimately, we emphasise that water grabbing is not a one-time event, but rather an on-going struggle over different water resources. In addition, we show how a perceived beneficial development of agribusinesses switching to groundwater allows them to avoid peasant-controlled institutions, avoiding further negotiation between the different actors and improving their image among neighbouring communities. This development illustrates how complex and obscured processes of water re-allocation can be without becoming illegal per se. (shrink)

Charles Taylor is currently one the most renowned and influential contemporary philosophers. He is also widely quoted and discussed both in the social sciences and humanities. Taylor earns this attention through his remarkable capacity for presenting his conceptions in the broadest possible intellectual and cultural context. His philosophical intuition is fundamentally antinaturalistic, and tends toward developing broad syntheses without a trace of systematizing thinking, or any anarchic postmodernist methodology. His thought unites the past with the present, while culture is (...) treated as a broad mosaic of discourses. Religion, art, science, philosophy, politics and ethics are all fields through which the Canadian philosopher deftly moves about in his search for their hidden structures and deepest sense. Taylor's philosophical output is prodigious. Recently, as his monumental study A Secular Age (2007) indicates, he has been concentrating much of his attention on the problem of secularization.. The selection of contributions in the current volume proffer a penetrating cross section of Taylor's thought. They are derived from a conference held in October 2008 in Lublin, Poland Although some of the articles are focused on a reconstruction of the philosopher's concepts, most either engage in a polemic with elements of his thought or find inspiration in it for their own reflections. The contributions are grouped in four parts: 1) philosophy and the modern self; 2) the problem of secularization; 3) between liberalism and communitarianism; and 4) language, literature, and culture. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Rawls is not actually an ideal theorist (as it is commonly understood), that his political theory remains unconvincing nevertheless, and that we should understand justice as failure in order to unlearn our adherence to dysfunctional ideals. I demonstrate that Rawlsian ideals are not removed from actuality, as both ideal theorists and their critics seem to think. Instead, they are already actualized as something to aspire to in a given culture. They are actual ideals. Non-ideal (...) theorists, such as Charles Mills, who claim that instead of starting from ideals we should start from actual conditions thus miss the target. I then present an argument against theories of actual ideals: the original position requires optimal epistemological conditions in order to source actual ideals from public discourse. I offer Aamer Rahman’s “Reverse Racism” joke as a test for whether these conditions apply. I argue that in our world, they do not. Finally, I suggest justice as failure as a critical practice that may help us to unlearn our inherited dysfunctional actual ideals. (shrink)

What is logical relevance? Anderson and Belnap say that the “modern classical tradition [,] stemming from Frege and Whitehead-Russell, gave no consideration whatsoever to the classical notion of relevance.” But just what is this classical notion? I argue that the relevance tradition is implicitly most deeply concerned with the containment of truth-grounds, less deeply with the containment of classes, and least of all with variable sharing in the Anderson–Belnap manner. Thus modern classical logicians such as Peirce, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and (...) Quine are implicit relevantists on the deepest level. In showing this, I reunite two fields of logic which, strangely from the traditional point of view, have become basically separated from each other: relevance logic and diagram logic. I argue that there are two main concepts of relevance, intensional and extensional. The first is that of the relevantists, who overlook the presence of the second in modern classical logic. The second is the concept of truth-ground containment as following from in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. I show that this second concept belongs to the diagram tradition of showing that the premisses contain the conclusion by the fact that the conclusion is diagrammed in the very act of diagramming the premisses. I argue that the extensional concept is primary, with at least five usable modern classical filters or constraints and indefinitely many secondary intensional filters or constraints. For the extensional concept is the genus of deductive relevance, and the filters define species. Also following the Tractatus, deductive relevance, or full truth-ground containment, is the limit of inductive relevance, or partial truth-ground containment. Purely extensional inductive or partial relevance has its filters or species too. Thus extensional relevance is more properly a universal concept of relevance or summum genus with modern classical deductive logic, relevantist deductive logic, and inductive logic as its three main domains. (shrink)

Dans son livre Le corps, c’est l’écran. La philosophie du visuel de Merleau-Ponty, Anna Caterina Dalmasso met en évidence la présence de la pensée merleau-pontienne dans les réflexions contemporaines relevant des visual studies, de la médiologie et des études cinématographiques. Les analyses menées révèlent un Merleau-Ponty à l’origine d’un certain nombre de « tournants » majeurs dans le questionnement, touchant notamment à la conception de l’image et du médium. Enfin, l’une des ambitions – et l’une des réussites – de l’ouvrage (...) est de restituer l’apport significatif de Merleau-Ponty pour les film studies. A.C. Dalmasso jette des lumières nouvelles sur une interrogation en constante évolution, en s’appuyant à la fois sur les textes bien connus et les « inédits ».In her book Le corps, c’est l’écran. La philosophie du visuel de Merleau-Ponty, Anna Caterina Dalmasso brings to light the presence of Merleau-pontian thought in contemporary reflections relevant to visual studies, as well as film and media studies. The analyses she carried out reveal a Merleau-Ponty at the origin of a certain number of major “turns” in the inquiry, touching notably on the conception of the image and of the medium. Besides, one of the ambitions – and one of the successes – of the work is to demonstrate the significant contribution of Merleau-Ponty for film studies. A.C. Dalmasso throws new light on an interrogation in constant evolution, stressing both well-known texts and unpublished manuscripts.Nel volume Le corps, c’est l’écran. La philosophie du visuel de Merleau-Ponty, Anna Caterina Dalmasso mette in evidenza la presenza del pensiero merleau-pontyano nelle riflessioni contemporanee dei visual studies, della teoria del cinema e dei media. Le analisi che vi sono condotte rivelano un Merleau-Ponty all’origine di alcune importanti “svolte”, che riguardano in particolare la concezione dell’immagine e del medium. Inoltre, una delle ambizioni – e uno degli aspetti più originali – dell’opera è quella di restituire il significativo apporto di Merleau-Ponty per l’ambito dei film studies. A.C. Dalmasso fa luce in modo innovativo su un tema di ricerca in costante evoluzione, appoggiandosi ad un tempo su scritti più noti e su alcuni testi “inediti”. (shrink)

This article addresses the question whether Whiteheadians should be vegetarians in two ways. First, I question whether Whitehead should have been a vegetarian to be consistent, arguing that his omnivorous diet was inconsistent with his own philosophy. Second, I evaluate the works of three distinguished Whiteheadian philosophers on the ethics of vegetarianism. I argue that Charles Birch, John Cobb, and Jay McDaniel have prioritized animals justifiably over other organisms, yet that Birch and Cobb fail to do justice to the (...) lives of other animals, and that the account provided by McDaniel fails to provide a convincing argument for minimal moral vegetarianism. (shrink)

This engaging book examines the origins and first effects of the concept ‘legal semiotics’, focusing on the inventor of the term, Roberta Kevelson. It highlights the importance of her ideas and works which have contributed to legal theory, legal interpretation and philosophy of language. Kevelson’s work is particularly relevant today, in our world of global electronic communication networks which rely so much on language, signs, signals and shortcuts. Kevelson could not have foreseen the 21st century, yet the story of her (...) work and influence deserves more attention as it is key to our understanding of modern legal discourse and why law fascinates and is accepted in modern society. The authors draw on Kevelson’s hitherto unknown Office Papers and Notes, and a biographical examination points to key influences in her work such as the early feminist movements of the US East Coast, the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce and the semiotics of Thomas Sebeok. This forms the basis for a more encompassing research of Kevelson’s position, work and philosophical background, which the authors call for. A quick and enlightening read, this book interests a wide range of readers with an interest in legal history and the fields which Kevelson both drew on and influenced, including lawyers, students and scholars. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have found inspiration in the writings of Alfred Whitehead to develop their ideas on environmental and animal ethics. I explore the writings of Charles Hartshorne and Daniel Dombrowski to address the question of whether Whiteheadians should be vegetarians. I conclude that there is a morally relevant distinction between plants and animals, based on the Whiteheadian view that animals have higher grades of experience, and that this distinction grounds a moral duty to adopt minimal moral veganism.

An argument that Pamela Sue Anderson’s critique of Irigaray commits her to a version of the Ideal Observer Theory, a theory Anderson rejects. This paper was delivered in the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God.

Tato studie recenzuje knihu: Charles CAMIC - Neil GROSS - Michèle LAMONT, Social Knowledge in the Making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011, a zasazuje ji do kontextu současných úvah o proměnách výzkumné praxe sociálních věd, akademické kultury, stylů myšlení a psaní. Pokouší se analyzovat v knize ohlašovaný „obrat k praxi" a ukazuje, nakolik samotné výzkumné praktiky v sociálních vědách ovlivňuje neexistence „standardních" forem, způsobů či stylů bádání. Detailně jsou představeny rovněž výchozí myšlenky takzvané „nové" sociologie idejí, jež stojí (...) v pozadí celého projektu analýzy sociálních praktik projevujících se v procesech „produkce, evaluace a aplikace" sociálního vědění. Jako klíčová se ukazuje potřeba nově promyslet samotnou koncepci „profesionalizované" sociální vědy, jež byla v dřívějším vývoji odmítnuta jako morálně i prakticky neudržitelná, neboť s demokratizací výzkumného procesu a proměnou vztahu mezi sociálními vědami a jejich publikem se stále zřetelněji projevuje, že s odklo- nem od konceptu profesionální sociální vědy se veřejná irelevance sociálního vědění spíše stále více prohlubuje. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Treatise of the Three Impostors and the Problem of Enlightenment: A New Translation of the Traité des trois Imposteurs by Abraham AndersonJan W. WojcikAbraham Anderson. The Treatise of the Three Impostors and the Problem of Enlightenment: A New Translation of the Traité des trois Imposteurs. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1997. Pp. xiv + 165. Cloth, $52.50. Paper, $21.95.This work results from a seminar, organized by (...) Richard H. Popkin, sponsored by the Foundation for Intellectual History, and held in Leiden in 1990, in which various [End Page 368] aspects of the history and significance of the Traité de trois Imposteurs were studied. As the title of the work indicates, it contains an English translation of the Traité. It also contains three short essays of commentary (the second of which is a modified version of Anderson’s contribution to the volume of essays which resulted from the Leiden seminar, Heterodoxy, Spinozism and Free Thought in Early Eighteenth Century Europe: Studies on the Traité des trois Imposteurs, edited by S. Berti, F. Charles-Daubert, and R. H. Popkin). There is a select bibliography, but no index.The Treatise consists of a critique of revelation (which is exposed as a fiction of the imagination), along with a discussion of the ways in which claims to revelation made by crafty politicians have enslaved humankind. It also includes scurrilous stories about three of the main alleged impostors: Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, as well as a more philosophical discussion of God, the soul, and demons.The translation is of Pierre Rétat’s 1973 edition of the 1777 edition of the Traité. This edition was chosen out of a number of virtually identical editions because it is accompanied by three very brief documents related to the Treatise (“Sentiments Concerning the Treatise of the Three Impostors: Extract of a Letter or Dissertation of Mr. de La Monnoye on this Subject,” a “Response to the Dissertation of Mr. de La Monnoye,” and a “Copy of Article IX of the Second Part of the First Volume of the Mémoires de Littérature”). Anderson’s reasons for selecting this edition are sound. The accompanying documents are of interest in their own right; in addition, they are the focus of Anderson’s essays of commentary and are (as he claims) necessary for a proper understanding of the significance of the Treatise. Although earlier English translations exist (1844, reprinted 1846, reprinted 1904) they are either not readily available or are not reliable in that the manuscript original is not readily identifiable. Hence Anderson’s translation is a welcome addition to the literature for those (both specialists and nonspecialists) whose circumstances do not permit a study of the 1777 French edition.The first two essays of commentary concern political issues, as indicated by their inclusion in “Part I: The Politics of the Traité des trois Imposteurs.” In the first, entitled “On a Section of Prosper Marchand’s Private Catalogue,” Anderson refutes the claim made by Margaret C. Jacob in The Radical Enlightenment that a section of Prosper Marchand’s library catalogue shows that Marchand considered the Traité to be in the tradition of Protestant radicalism and republicanism. After a careful analysis of the works listed in this section of the catalogue, Anderson concludes that (with one exception) the books in this section constitute a bibliography of works that “either exemplify the uses of literary study for the defense of orthodoxy or belong to a literary tradition of the cynical study of those uses, or consist in a parody and public exposure of that cynical study” (81). In the second essay, “Sallengre, La Monnoye, and the Traité des trois Imposteurs,” Anderson argues that rather than being a work of radical propaganda, the Traité was part of a satirical campaign against the “conformist libertine intelligentia” (x) of Louis XIV—those who believed that the fact of imposture ought not become public knowledge because they believed that religion ought to serve to enforce the rights of monarchy.“Part 2: Philosophy in the Traité des trois Imposteurs” consists of a single essay, “Descartes the Impostor, Bayle, and the Hidden Origins of Enlightenment.” Here, Anderson explores puzzling aspects of the... (shrink)

'the oldest biography of Spinoza', La Vie de Mr. Spinosa, which in the manuscript copies is often followed by L'Esprit de M. Spinosa. Margaret Jacob, in her Radical Enlightenment, contended that the Traite was written by a radical group of Freemasons in The Hague in the early eighteenth century. Silvia Berti has offered evidence it was written by Jan Vroesen. Various discussions in the early eighteenth century consider many possi ble authors from the Renaissance onwards to whom the work might (...) be attributed. The Trois imposteurs has attracted quite a bit of recent attention as one of the most significant irreligious clandestine writings available in the Enlightenment, which is most important for understanding the develop ment of religious scepticism, radical deism, and even atheism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Scholars for the last couple of decades have been trying to assess when the work was actually written or compiled and by whom. In view of the widespread distribution of manu scripts of the work all over Europe, they have also been seeking to find out who was influenced by the work, and what it represented for its time. Hitherto unknown manuscripts are being turned up in public and private libraries all over Europe and the United States. (shrink)

This paper explores Luce Irigaray’s evaluation of Aristotle’s conception of place, and how it might connect to issues of ethnicity and race. The philosophy of Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas suggest that emphasis and focus on differences might in some ways lead to a destruction of the individual. In the end, it will be recognized that maintaining difference is a relevant issue in creating proper sense of identity, as well as provide a basis for constructing a more inclusive, diverse, (...) and egalitarian ethical theory. (shrink)

This collection presents some of the most vital and original recent writings on Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, the three greatest rationalists of the early modern period. Their work offered brilliant and distinct integrations of science, morals, metaphysics, and religion, which today remain at the center of philosophical discussion. The essays written especially for this volume explore how these three philosophical systems treated matter, substance, human freedom, natural necessity, knowledge, mind, and consciousness. The contributors include some of the most prominent writers (...) in the field, including Jonathan Bennett, Michael Della Rocca, Jan A. Cover, Catherine Wilson, Stephen Voss, Edwin Curley, Don Garrett, and Margaret D. Wilson. (shrink)

• Intelligent Tasks: Finding the Next Term of a Sequence • Difference Analysis of Polynomial Sequences • Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine • Finding the Form of the Sequence. • Gaussian Elimination. • Example Application: the Pie Cutting Sequence • What has this to do with Intelligence? • What has it all to do with Consciousness (if anything)?

Distinctive for its pungent and oftentimes rotten odor, the thorny fruit of durian (Durio spp.) is considered a delicacy throughout Asia. Despite its burgeoning global recognition, durian remains a fruit of contradiction—desirable to some yet repulsive to others. Although regarded commonly as immobile, mute, and insentient, plants such as durian communicate within their own bodies, between the same and different species, and between themselves and other life forms. As individuals and collectives, plants develop modes of language—or phytodialects—that are specific to (...) certain contexts. Focused on vegetal semiosis or sign processes, a phytosemiotic lens views plants as dynamic and expressive subjects positioned within lifeworlds. Absent from phytosemiotic theory, however, are the cultural sign processes that take place within and between plants—what I call cultural phytosemiotics. The framework I propose calls attention to the interlinked biological, ecological, and cultural dimensions of signification between plants and non-plants. From a phytosemiotic standpoint, this article examines historical, cinematographic, and literary narratives of durian. Reflecting the fruit’s divisive sensory effects, historical accounts of Durio by Niccolò de’ Conti, Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, Georg Eberhard Rumphius, and William Marsden alternate between praise and disdain. Moreover, films such as Fruit Chan’s Durian Durian (2000) and Anthony Chen’s Wet Season (2019) narrativize the polarities that similarly figure into historical depictions of the species. Literary narratives, including the poems “Durians” (2005) by Hsien Min Toh and “Hurling a Durian” (2013) by Sally Wen Mao, investigate the language of durian’s olfactory and gustatory sensations. Along a continuum between adoration to revulsion, durian embodies the otherness of vegetal being. In an era of rampant biodiversity loss, learning to embrace botanical difference should be a human imperative. (shrink)

In this paper, I evaluate Elizabeth Grosz's corporeal feminism and ontology of sexual difference(s) by moving through her Derridean and Irigarayian conceptual heritage.

La Histoire de Charles XII, roi de Suède es un texto a menudo desvalorizado por los especialistas en los trabajos históricos e historiográficos de Voltaire, en la medida en que ven en él una obra menor, que se encontraría más cerca de la Henriade, el poema épico que el filósofo había publicado en 1728 en honor a Enrique IV, que de sus grandes trabajos históricos, el Siècle de Louis XIV y el Essai sur les mœurs et l’esprit des nations. (...) El objetivo de este trabajo es demostrar que la Histoire de Charles XII anticipa, a pesar de ser uno de los primeros escritos históricos de Voltaire, el método que utilizaría a partir de los años 40 en sus obras mayores. Además, el texto pone de relieve la existencia de cierta distancia entre el programa que el filósofo se propone ejecutar en el escrito y su materialización. Por otra parte, el artículo arroja algunas luces sobre el papel de los “grandes hombres” en la filosofía de la historia de Voltaire. (shrink)

Analizaremos en este artículo cómo Charles de Saint-Évremond (1613-1703), sin renunciar a la religiosidad, propone una ética que no reniega del mundo terrenal, como preconizaba la Iglesia en la Francia de finales del siglo XVII. El filósofo no sólo rehabilita los placeres mundanos, sino que restablece como rasgo antropológico del hombre el carácter de zoon politikón que ya subrayó Aristóteles e influenciaría a Epicuro. Del Estagirita toma también su fórmula del término medio en una ética cotidiana: no caer en (...) el ascetismo, pero tampoco entregarse en exceso a los placeres mundanos, no moverse demasiado pero tampoco permanecer quieto. El ser humano puede que sea egoísta, pero el concurso con los demás, de un modo razonado y bien calculado, además de motor económico y social, nos sitúa en el mundo y nos reencuentra con Dios. Entendemos que es un filósofo fundamental, como otros «menores» de finales del siglo XVII para explicar el despegue del Siglo de las Luces. (shrink)

This volume offers to the English-speaking world a collection of important works by the eminent twentieth century logician, Jan Lukasiewicz, many of which are here translated into English for the first time. This edition differs significantly from the Polish edition which appeared in 1961—containing ten logic papers not appearing there and omitting articles primarily of interest to the Polish reader. In addition to writing in Polish, Lukasiewicz also published works in French, English, and notably in German, and sometimes translated his (...) own works from one language to another. One of the most valuable works on the history of logic is Lukasiewicz’ paper, "On the History of the Logic of Propositions". Lukasiewicz points out the difference between the two basic areas of formal logic, the logic of propositions and the logic of terms, undifferentiated before the development of modern mathematical logic. The understanding of this distinction leads Lukasiewicz to trace the history of propositional logic back to its original development by the Stoics, its further development by the medieval Scholastics, and its axiomatization by Gottlob Frege. The status of mathematical logic is discussed in various works. The most basic system is propositional logic, upon which depend the other logical disciplines and also mathematics. Mathematical logic, also called logistic, is independent of philosophy and espouses no philosophical viewpoint. Early in his career, Lukasiewicz refers to mathematical logic as the logic of algebra and uses mathematical symbolism to represent logical propositions. Later he introduces what we now call "Polish notation," in particular, "Cpq" for "if p, then q" and "Np" for "it is not the case that p" for the primitive functions, eliminating the need for punctuation. He adopts the symbols Π and Σ for quantification from Charles S. Peirce, and also brings to light the almost unknown fact that it was Peirce who invented the matrix method in 1885. The paper, "Investigations into the Sentential Calculus", written by Lukasiewicz and Tarski embodies the results of a decade of research on the sentential calculus initiated by Lukasiewicz at the University of Warsaw systematically compiling the contributions of five logicians: Lindenbaum, Sobocinski, Wajsberg, Tarski, and Lukasiewicz. The approach is metalogical and depends heavily upon set theoretic concepts; it covers both the matrix and axiomatic methods. One of the problems that preoccupied Lukasiewicz was that of determinism, which led to his development of three-valued logic. A proposition such as "I shall be in Warsaw at noon on 21 December of next year" is neither true nor false; a third truth value is needed, one which Lukasiewicz calls "the possible." Another area to which Lukasiewicz contributed is modal logic, proving that modal logic cannot be two-valued. Lukasiewicz’ analysis and axiomatization of Aristotle’s syllogistic is not included in the present volume since an English edition by Lukasiewicz on this topic is available. We have here briefly touched upon a few of Lukasiewicz’ numerous achievements in logic; the best means of appreciating them is to read his works.—T. G. N. (shrink)