Ibn al-Bann1321) is the author of one of the four extant of the unfinished zq (fl. Tunis and Marrakesh ca. 1193j accessible for the computation of planetary longitudes. The present paper studies some modifications of the structure of the tables the purpose of which is to make calculations easier. The tables of the planetary and lunar equations of the centre are ' appears as a clever adapter, who displays a clear ingenuity allowing him to introduce formal modifications which give his (...) work an appearance of novelty which does not correspond to reality. (shrink)

This book is the culmination of the COST Action CA15212 Citizen Science to Promote Creativity, Scientific Literacy, and Innovation throughout Europe. It represents the final stage of a shared journey taken over the last 4 years. During this relatively short period, our citizen science practices and perspectives have rapidly evolved. In this chapter we discuss what we have learnt about the recent past of citizen science and what we expect and hope for the future.

Durante décadas, los filósofos han concebido los derechos humanos como una clase de derechos naturales de los que gozamos por el mero hecho de ser seres humanos. Sin embargo, esta interpretación ha sido severamente cuestionada en los últimos años. Toda una familia de autores, identificados con una concepción “práctico-dependiente”, asevera que los derechos humanos constituyen una práctica sui generis completamente ajena a la tradición del derecho natural. En contra de esta postura, este artículo argumenta que el discurso de los derechos (...) naturales es parte constitutiva de la doctrina actual de los derechos humanos y que puede hacer un aporte crucial a la adecuada justificación y comprensión de sus funciones, su contenido y su alcance normativo. Más concretamente, mi tesis será que si bien los derechos humanos no pueden reducirse a derechos naturales, bien podrían derivar de derechos naturales previos. (shrink)

Inauguration speech at chair number 18 of the Brasilian Academy of Philosophy.

This study integrates corpus-assisted text analysis with frame semantics to study a social problem. Taking a cognitive-linguistic approach to critical discourse studies, in this article I examine the linguistic construction of minors in a corpus of 489 articles from the Uruguayan newspaper El País in the context of the so-called ‘Criminal Imputability Referendum’. Throughout, I focus on the construal operation of framing and identify a host of discursive patterns via which minors and adolescents are recurrently placed within the semantic frame (...) CRIME, and within this, they profile the frame elements of perpetrators of violent crimes rather than victims. I argue that, in the context of the referendum, these discursive strategies run the risk of facilitating the consolidation of a strong conceptual link whereby youth become readily associated with criminality, and are subservient to the political views of groups supporting a lower cut-off age for criminal responsibility and more stringent punishments. The observations arrived at in this instance set the foundations for a future experimental study testing whether the discursive patterns unearthed here have an effect on how readers conceptualize minors outside the texts. (shrink)

Does the fact that my actions cause someone to lack access to the objects of her human rights make me a human rights violator? Is behaving in such a way that we deprive someone of access to the objects of her human rights even when we could have avoided behaving in such a way, sufficient to maintain that we have violated her human rights? When an affluent country pursues domestic policies that will foreseeably cause massive deprivation abroad in order to (...) improve its already prosperous economy, has this country violated the human rights of the very poor just by doing so? If international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization pursue policies that lead to an increase in the global poverty rate, are such organizations human rights violators? Can an individual undertaking certain actions in the market place that render insecure the access of the worst-off to the objects of their human rights be blamed for violating their rights?In this article I discuss the thesis that claims that whenever we cause, or contribute to the cause of, someone else's lack of access to the objects of her human rights, we are human rights violators. I contend that this thesis, which seems to underpin the arguments of many cosmopolitan authors taking part of the global justice debate, is mistaken. In order to achieve this end, I analyze several alternative formulations of the causal thesis. My conclusion is that before it can be said that an agent has violated someone else's human rights, it has to be proven that this agent has caused, or contributed to the cause of, a state of affairs where someone lacks access to the object of some of her human rights, by infringing a duty not to do so. Furthermore, I maintain that this must be a perfect, as opposed to an imperfect, duty. (shrink)

Conceptual congruency effects are biases induced by an irrelevant conceptual dimension of a task (e.g., location in vertical space) on the processing of another, relevant dimension (e.g., judging words’ emotional evaluation). Such effects are a central empirical pillar for recent views about how the mind/brain represents concepts. In the present paper, we show how attentional cueing (both exogenous and endogenous) to each conceptual dimension succeeds in modifying both the manifestation and the symmetry of the effect. The theoretical implications of this (...) finding are discussed. (shrink)

An Andalusian tradition of zījes seems to have been predominant in the Maghrib due to the popularity of the zīj of Ibn Is[hdotu]āq al-Tūnisī and derived texts compiled in the fourteenth century. This tradition computed sidereal planetary longitudes and allowed the calculation of tropical longitudes by using trepidation tables based on models designed in al-Andalus by Abū Is[hdotu]āq ibn al-Zarqālluh. This tradition also used Ibn al-Zarqālluh's model to calculate the obliquity of the ecliptic, which implied that this angle had a (...) cyclical period of oscillation between a maximum of 23;53° and a minimum of 23;33°: after reaching this minimum value the obliquity of the ecliptic was bound to increase. This paper argues that some new Maghribi sources give information on observations made in the Maghrib in the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries that imply that precession had increased beyond the limits allowed by the Zarqāllian trepidation theory, while the obliquity of the ecliptic had diminished below the level accepted by astronomers who followed Ibn al-Zarqālluh. This explains the introduction in the Maghrib of Eastern zījes, which computed directly tropical longitudes and did not accept the cyclical variation of the obliquity. Information about observations of dawn and twilight made both in Egypt and in the Maghrib in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is also presented. (shrink)

En el trabajo reconstruimos la trayectoria seguida en España por los agentes económicos extranjeros a lo largo del período 1936-1959. El primer estudio fue de Muñoz, Roldán y Serrano en 1978. En nuestros días hay más aportaciones, pues el tema es crucial para cualquier país. Analizamos los problemas con los nuevos "arreglos" legales y el liderazgo final de los Estados Unidos. Los datos de EE.UU. muestran una buena evidencia y por tanto una muy buena prueba del gran impacto de la (...) inversión directa extranjera en España durante este periodo. Por otro lado, cuestionamos la percepción convencional sobre la escasez de inversión extranjera en el país entre 1936 y 1959. Eso fue debido a dos aspectos claves, uno la necesidad y por el otro lado, la red de inversiones antes de 1936 que lo hicieron posible. (shrink)

Despite several positive features, such as extensive theoretical and empirical scope, aspects of Levelt, Roelofs & Meyer 's theory can be challenged on theoretical grounds and empirical grounds.

X. Zubiri, uno de los pensadores espanoles mas sobresalientes en el presente siglo, nos ha hecho ver que el mal se entiende como condicion de la realidad en respectividad ante el hombre, o sea, en la interaccion del hombre con las cosas reales o consigo mismo en cuanto realidad. En este sentido, el mal se entiende desde la realidad condicionada. Como se entiende que el mal surja desde la realidad? Cual es la consistencia del mal en cuanto condicion? En que (...) supera Zubiri la vision del mal como privacion del bien? El presente estudio pretende dar respuesta a tales cuestiones, considerando el planteamiento del mal segun Zubiri desde el contexto de su pensamiento filosofico. Julio Martin Castillo nacio en 1960 en las Yayas, La Vega (Rep. Dominicana). Ordenado sacerdote en 1986. Ha terminado su doctorado en Filosofia en la Pontificia Universidad Gregoriana (Roma). (shrink)

The Shannon information function (H) has been extensively used in ecology as a statistic of species diversity. Yet, the use of Shannon diversity index has also been criticized, mainly because of its ambiguous ecological interpretation and because of its relatively great sensitivity to the relative abundances of species in the community. In my opinion, the major shortcoming of the traditional perspective (on the possible relation of species diversity with information theory) is that species need for an external receiver (the scientist (...) or ecologist) to exist and transmit information. Because organisms are self-catalized replicating structures that can transmit genotypic information to offspring, it should be evident that any single species has two possible states or alternatives: to be or not to be. In other words, species have no need for an external receiver since they are their own receivers. Therefore, the amount of biological information (at the species scale) in a community with one only species would be species, and not bits as in the traditional perspective. Moreover, species diversity appears to be a monotonic increasing function of (or S) when all species are equally probable (S being species richness), and not a function of as in the traditional perspective. To avoid the noted shortcoming, we could use 2H (instead of H) for calculating species diversity and species evenness (= 2H/S). However, owing to the relatively great sensitivity of H to the relative abundances of species in the community, the value of species dominance (= 1 − 2H/S) is unreasonably high when differences between dominant and subordinate species are considerable, thereby lowering the value of species evenness and diversity. This unsatisfactory behaviour is even more evident for Simpson index and related algorithms. I propose the use of other statistics for a better analysis of community structure, their relationship being: species evenness + species dominance = 1; species diversity × species uniformity = 1; and species diversity = species richness × species evenness. (shrink)

Apresentar a sociologia e a filosofia frente a dimensão tomada pela informação, e seus usos na contemporaneidade, requer uma mirada sobre relações e interações em ambientes on-line chamados de virtuais ou digitais, como mídias e redes sociais. Com isso, ao pensar os estudos acerca do social e a dimensão de uma filosofia aplicada ao entendimento dessa mesma relação virtual/digital na internet, surgem indagações a ser exploradas de modo a se entender certas transformações pelas quais a sociedade atual tem passado. Dessa (...) forma, a partir de uma exposição de exemplos dessa interação, e transformação social, tornada digital, miro nos novos tipos de trabalhos (e trabalhadores), formas de argumentar acerca dos impactos dos usos dessas formas midiáticas digitalizadas de apropriação da realidade. (shrink)

The concept of non-arbitrage plays an essential role in finance theory. Under certain regularity conditions, the Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing states that, in non-arbitrage markets, prices of financial instruments are martingale processes. In this theoretical framework, the analysis of the statistical distributions of financial assets can assist in understanding how participants behave in the markets, and may or may not engender arbitrage conditions. Assuming an underlying Variance Gamma statistical model, this study aims to test, using the FBST - Full (...) Bayesian Significance Test, if there is a relevant price difference between essentially the same financial asset traded at two distinct locations. Specifically, we investigate and compare the behavior of call options on the BOVESPA Index traded at (a) the Equities Segment and (b) the Derivatives Segment of BM&FBovespa. Our results seem to point out significant statistical differences. To what extent this evidence is actually the expression of perennial arbitrage opportunities is still an open question. (shrink)

En nuestros días las teorías cosmopolitas han experimentado una revitalización significativa al albur de la intensificación de las relaciones humanas que ha propiciado el fenómeno de la globalización. En las últimas décadas, particularmente desde la caída del Muro de Berlín, se ha registrado un florecimiento de las tesis cosmopolitas que aspiran a ofrecer un modelo teórico desde el que comprender y transformar la realidad en esta era de apertura y de creciente interdependencia que inaugura la globalización. En este trabajo realizamos (...) una aproximación histórica y conceptual al cosmopolitismo, abundando en las causas de su actual auge y, tras analizar los elementos que conforman el fenómeno de la globalización, que determina un tránsito desde la primera a la segunda modernidad, se formula una propuesta humanista e ilustrada de un _cosmopolitismo gradual_, una concepción realista cosmopolita que permita trascender la estatalidad mediante la implementación de formas de gobernanza multinivel. (shrink)

Decoupling is a general principle that allows us to separate simple components in a complex system. In statistics, decoupling is often expressed as independence, no association, or zero covariance relations. These relations are sharp statistical hypotheses, that can be tested using the FBST - Full Bayesian Significance Test. Decoupling relations can also be introduced by some techniques of Design of Statistical Experiments, DSEs, like randomization. This article discusses the concepts of decoupling, randomization and sparsely connected statistical models in the epistemological (...) framework of cognitive constructivism. (shrink)

In this paper epistemological, ontological and sociological questions concerning the statistical significance of sharp hypotheses in scientific research are investigated within the framework provided by Cognitive Constructivism and the FBST (Full Bayesian Significance Test). The constructivist framework is contrasted with the traditional epistemological settings for orthodox Bayesian and frequentist statistics provided by Decision Theory and Falsificationism.

Estudos sobre eficácia escolar, bem como o conceito de capital cultural de Pierre Bourdieu, evidenciam que o contexto socioeconômico e cultural – ou o background – exerce papel fundamental nas notas e resultados obtidos pelos estudantes em exames. Ou seja, segundo esta teoria, alunos com menor background tenderiam a apresentar desempenho inferior em comparação com alunos oriundos de um contexto socioeconômico e cultural mais privilegiado. Nesse sentido, considerando que os bolsistas do Programa Universidade para Todos devem possuir desvantagem de background (...) em relação aos seus colegas pagantes, tendencialmente o seu desempenho deveria ser inferior, afinal o programa, criado em 2004, busca viabilizar o acesso à educação superior por meio da concessão de bolsas de estudos integrais ou parciais de 50%, a estudantes com renda familiar per capita de zero a três salários mínimos que cursaram o ensino médio em escolas públicas ou em escolas privadas na condição de bolsistas. Entretanto, percepções subjetivas de docentes indicam que nem sempre é isso que ocorre, ou seja, bolsistas estariam obtendo, em diversas situações, melhores resultados que os colegas pagantes nas disciplinas que cursam em instituições privadas. Nesse contexto, com o objetivo de refletir sobre aspectos fundamentais da qualidade e da equidade do Prouni, o presente artigo problematiza a suposta superioridade de notas dos bolsistas em disciplinas e no Enade e, ao mesmo tempo, analisa hipóteses que explicariam o desempenho além do esperado desses estudantes provenientes de meios populares. Quanto ao desenvolvimento metodológico da pesquisa, são utilizadas duas fontes de dados. A primeira delas é composta por microdados das avaliações de disciplinas de uma universidade comunitária do Rio Grande do Sul entre os anos de 2009 e 2012. A segunda consiste nos dados do Enade referentes ao ano de 2006. Palavras-chave : Capital cultural. Background. Educação superior. Prouni. (shrink)

Book reviews: NOGUEIRA, Paulo Augusto de Souza. Religião e linguagem: abordagens teóricas interdisciplinares. São Paulo: Paulus, 2015. 446 p.. ISBN 978-85-349-4187-7.

Neste artigo, faço críticas às críticas tecidas por John Rawlscontra o utilitarismo, compreendido como teoria política, em seu livroA Theory of Justice. Esforçar-me-ei por mostrar que, ainda que outilitarismo considere a maximização da felicidade como o critério dedistinção das instituições políticas corretamente ordenadas, isso nãosignifica que ele seja indiferente a questões de justiça distributiva.Buscarei mostrar que o utilitarismo incorpora tais princípios de justiça,porque o modo como a felicidade é distribuída determina a proporçãoem que ela pode ser produzida. Além disso, como (...) veremos, as críticasfeitas por Rawls estão fundadas numa concepção extremamenteempobrecida do princípio da prudência racional, a qual ele injustamenteatribui ao seu opositor. Não obstante, também buscarei mostrar quedeterminadas críticas feitas por Rawls estão na direção correta, a saberaquelas que, em oposição ao utilitarismo, apresentam a liberdade, enão a felicidade, como constituidora do bem incondicional que deveser justamente distribuído.In this paper, I criticize the criticisms that John Rawls developsagainst the Utilitarianism, understood as a political theory, in his bookA Theory of Justice. I would like to show that, although theUtilitarianism takes the maximization of happiness as the criterion ofrightly ordered political institutions, it does not mean that it cannot bevery sensitive to questions of distributive justice. I will show that theUtilitarianism embeds such principles of justice, because the way happiness is distributed determines the proportion in which it can beproduced. Moreover, as we will see, Rawls criticisms are based on avery poorly conception of rational prudence that he then unfairlyattributes to his opponent. Nevertheless, I will also show that Rawlscriticism is in the right way, when he asserts, in opposition to theUtilitarianism, that freedom, instead of happiness, is the unconditionalgood that should be rightly distributed. (shrink)

This chapter aims to establish a philosophical discussion about the epistemological conditions of “observation”, from the cybersemiotic transdisciplinary view of knowing. For this purpose, the discussion will be divided into three parts, each one of them with the intention of outlining a conceptual critique that later allows a pertinent justification of the observation from a transcendental semiotics. This work is based on a problem: it seeks to show that a the cybersemiotic point of view, to consider on a foundationalist stance, (...) fails to overcome the epistemological contradictions involved in the contemporary critique of modern philosophy. Hence, the objective on this work is to propose as an alternative the teleological and nominalist attitude of transcendental semiotics, and also as an epistemological principle that allows overcoming problems of the foundationalist. Then, in a first moment, we will seek to establish a critique of the phenomenology of observation from the pragmatic point of view, developed by N. R. Hanson and Richard Rorty. In this direction, the contradictions involved in the definition of knowledge will be shown from the phenomenological and phenomenological positions. In general terms, the epistemological problems found in the foundations of knowledge based on observation will be exposed: specifically, the problem of the empirical basis and perception and the question of the mind as an inner space. Then, in a second moment, a characterization of the “observation” and the “observable fact” will be made from the cybersemiotic point of view. In this sense, these concepts will be described from the peircean semiosis, starting from the theoretical link proposed by Søren Brier. Hence, when considering the observation within the sphere of significance, the approaches will show a non-phenomenological characterization of knowledge and, from there, the overcoming of pragmatic critiques towards phenomenology. The closing will allow circumscribing knowledge from a communicative, semiotic and autopoietic approach. Finally, and as a contribution to the state of the discussion, the present chapter will make a defense of the cybersemiotic phenomenology of observation but considering the pragmatic conditions of knowledge from a transcendental semiotics perspective. In this sense, the transcendental concepts of truth-consensus and fin-ideal will be used to develop a relevant theoretical field that allows a transcendental justification of the communicative-intersubjective nature of knowledge postulated by cybersemiotics. (shrink)

This paper introduces pragmatic hypotheses and relates this concept to the spiral of scientific evolution. Previous works determined a characterization of logically consistent statistical hypothesis tests and showed that the modal operators obtained from this test can be represented in the hexagon of oppositions. However, despite the importance of precise hypothesis in science, they cannot be accepted by logically consistent tests. Here, we show that this dilemma can be overcome by the use of pragmatic versions of precise hypotheses. These pragmatic (...) versions allow a level of imprecision in the hypothesis that is small relative to other experimental conditions. The introduction of pragmatic hypotheses allows the evolution of scientific theories based on statistical hypothesis testing to be interpreted using the narratological structure of hexagonal spirals, as defined by Pierre Gallais. (shrink)

This paper is a reply to PAULO MARGUTTI's paper "SENTIDO DA VIDA E VALOR DA VIDA: UMA DIFERENÇA CRUCIAL? (Discussão das idéias de Júlio Cabrera)" published in PHILÓSOPHOS , V. 9, Nº 1, 2004.

Heinz Von Forester characterizes the objects “known” by an autopoietic system as eigen-solutions, that is, as discrete, separable, stable and composable states of the interaction of the system with its environment. Previous articles have presented the FBST, Full Bayesian Significance Test, as a mathematical formalism specifically designed to access the support for sharp statistical hypotheses, and have shown that these hypotheses correspond, from a constructivist perspective, to systemic eigen-solutions in the practice of science. In this article several issues related to (...) the role played by language in the emergence of eigen-solutions are analyzed. The last sections also explore possible connections with the semiotic theory of Charles Sanders Peirce. (shrink)

Me irrita la asepsia que ostentan algunos estudiosos, derivada del temor a asumir riesgos intelectuales. Contra esta clase de mediocridad expongo el legado de una impregnación estético-vital, que, en mi modesta opinión, constituye el modo sincero de revelar la calidad de un espíritu. Se notará un efecto de vasos comunicantes. Por ello, dispuesto a tratar sobre la personalidad de don Pío Baroja, lo haré compartiendo su profunda emoción de ser, cota que excede el alcance de lo anecdótico, de lo chismográfico (...) y hasta de la mera erudición. (shrink)

A novel thermodynamic perspective on natural selection is presented. In the case that life continuity is optimized in an ideal system, where relatively constant and homogeneous selective pressures favour a given competing species, natural selection leads that system to a stationary state of maximum genotypic uniformity of life and maximum sustainable consumption of available energy by life (competitive equilibrium). Structurally and functionally, this optimizing tendency towards competitive equilibrium looks similar to the optimizing tendency towards thermodynamic equilibrium of classical thermodynamics (maximum (...) energetic uniformity and maximum degradation of available energy). The principle of competitive exclusion may thus be conceptually viewed as an ecological manifestation of the second law of (classical) thermodynamics. On the other hand, the novel thermodynamic perspective on natural selection is discussed with regard to the open and nonequilibrium system of nature, where selective pressures vary in space and time. In this case, natural selection can induce diversity instead of uniformity, though an optimizing tendendcy towards maximum sustainable consumption of resources (optimization of life continuity) always remains. Overall, it is concluded that the action of natural selection favours the maximization of the sustainable consumption of energy at the level of individual organism. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty utiliza com freqüência em seus textos a figura da metáfora. À primeira vista, esse recurso teria papel funcional, ou seja, serviria para dizer de outra maneira, por meio de imagens, o mesmo referente. No entanto, estando ausente o ideal de representação e, portanto, ausente a referência objetiva, a figura da metáfora deverá ser compreendida, em Merleau-Ponty, não como ilustração acessória, mas como um uso da linguagem que modifica seu estatuto referencial. Ao conceber metaforicamente a linguagem da filosofia, Merleau-Ponty incorpora (...) um procedimento próprio à narrativa literária, o que faz ver de que maneira estão relacionadas em sua obra filosofia e literatura, tanto no que diz respeito ao seu arranjo textual, quanto no diz respeito ao tema filosófico da linguagem. (shrink)

This stimulating new international study of the state of democracy today contributes towards improving and deepening our understanding of the democratic process, both in new and old democracies. It brings together a leading group of international experts in the fields of politics, economics, sociology, journalism, anthropology and law. It covers key themes that have a bearing on the quality and sustainability of democratic practices and relates them to policies in specific countries or regions. A special concern of the book is (...) to identify and evaluate policies aimed at securing improvements in democratic practices. Most countries in the world today have embraced democracy. The rise of democracy has strengthened support for human rights and is making possible the resolution of many conflicts through political and legal means. In many countries, however, the state of democracy is a cause of concern. Countries that have recently become democratic are often unable to satisfy elementary social and economic aspirations of their citizens and many continue to restrict basic civil and political freedoms. Voters’ apathy, distrust of politicians, media manipulation and corruption are issues that also trouble citizens in old established democracies. This book was previously published as a special issue of _Democratization._. (shrink)

Human rights and conflict resolution have been traditionally perceived as two separate fields, with contradictory principles and conflicting approaches toward achieving peace. This essay aims to understand these two fields in a more integrative way, showing how a human rights perspective can enrich the theory and practice of conflict resolution. It clarifies the main characteristics of a human rights approach to conflict resolution and identifies a set of human rights standards guiding its implementation: a normative legal framework; structural conditions for (...) peace; participation and inclusion; and accountability and redress. The essay also briefly applies a human rights approach to the Colombian peace process and to the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The conclusion addresses one of the main criticisms of this approach and its principal challenges. (shrink)

O intuito deste artigo é responder: qual a religião de Voltaire? O filósofo teria um modelo de religião a propor? Como sabemos que a resposta é positiva, trabalhamos com as principais obras de Voltaire para entender quais são os fundamentos mais importantes de sua religião, quais são as questões que mais aparecem nas obras do filósofo e como elas são respondidas. Para isso, apresentaremos a relação das ideias de Voltaire com o cristianismo vigente em sua época, e a posição do (...) filósofo a respeito de Deus, da alma e do livre-arbítrio, bem como o modelo de religião proposto pelo autor do Cândido. (shrink)

This article aims at giving an account of the emergence of new epistemological proposals of social sciences in Latin America. Particularly, it reflects the progress of the prospect of complexity in social research in our continent. It also discusses the nature of the social knowledge that has been b..