In this paper art history and visual studies, the disciplines that study visual culture, are presented as a field whose conjectural paradigm can be used to understand the epistemic problems associated with abduction. In order to do so, significant statements, concepts and arguments from the work of several specialists in this field have been highlighted. Their analysis shows the fruitfulness and potential for understanding the study of visual culture as a field that is interwoven with the assumptions of abductive (...) cognition. (shrink)

The Second Sex can be read as a compelling philosophical exploration of masculinity. Beauvoir proposes to understand masculinity as a situation. It is an impasse as men are stuck in a position where they seek recognition from women, but they construct women in such a way that the recognition women can give them is incomplete and unsatisfying. This understanding of masculinity is crucial for Beauvoir’s emancipatory agenda and suggests that men have nonaltruistic reasons to take part in feminist movements.

This paper argues that the normative character of our unreflective situated behaviour is not factual. We highlight a problematic assumption shared by the two most influential trends in contemporary philosophy of cognitive science, reductionism and enactivism. Our intentional, normative explanations are referential, descriptive or factual. Underneath this assumption lies the idea that only facts can make true or false our attributions of cognitive, mental and agential abilities. We will argue against this view by describing the main features and problems of (...) reductionism and enactivism and then we will offer two arguments against this shared factualist assumption: (1) normative vocabulary is ineliminable if we want a complete explanation of our situated practices; and (2) the factualist assumption is a species of the is-ought fallacy. Finally, we will claim that a folk psychological explanation of our normative practices is fully compatible with ontological naturalism when such descriptivist or factualist assumption is rejected. (shrink)

Human behavior and thought often exhibit a familiar pattern of within group similarity and between group difference. Many of these patterns are attributed to cultural differences. For much of the history of its investigation into behavior and thought, however, cognitive science has been disproportionately focused on uncovering and explaining the more universal features of human minds—or the universal features of minds in general. -/- This entry charts out the ways in which this has changed over recent decades. It sketches (...) the motivation behind the cultural turn in cognitive science, and situates some of its central findings with respect to the questions that animate it and the debates that it has inspired. Woven throughout the entry are examples of how the cognitive science of culture, and especially its elevated concern with different forms of diversity and variation, continues to influence and be influenced by philosophers. -/- One cluster of philosophical work falls within the traditional subject matter of philosophy of science, in this case of the cognitive and social sciences. Philosophers have analyzed and assessed the methods and evidence central to the scientific study of cognition and culture, and have offered conceptual scrutiny, clarification, and synthesis. Research in a second vein sees philosophers themselves contributing more directly to cognitive scientific projects, (co)constructing theories, helping build computational models, even gathering empirical data. A third kind of work is naturalistic philosophy or philosophy of nature, wherein philosophers seek to use results from the cognitive science of culture to inform or transform debates over long-standing philosophical questions, including questions about the nature of philosophy and philosophical methodology itself. (shrink)

This paper addresses the relationship between logic and phenomenology at a historical moment that precedes the big divide between analytic philosophy and phenomenology. In analysing alternative derivations of phenomenological logic, the discussion focuses on the case of two notorious neo-Kantian Mexican philosophers from the first half of the XXth century: Adalberto García de Mendoza and Francisco Larroyo. It is argued that both García de Mendoza and Larroyo made an original contribution to the discussion on the relationship between phenomenology and logic. (...) Further, this paper attempts to present a charitable portrait of both García de Mendoza and Larroyo in contrast to underrating approaches to both Mexican philosophers. In so doing, this paper adopts a historical—though not strictly biographical— perspective. While it is true that neither García de Mendoza nor Larroyo could be considered “phenomenologists” or “Husserl scholars” according to contemporary standards it is worth noticing that they engage in the discussion of phenomenological logic. Both authors had the project of developing a grounding logic for science and, as the article argues, both attempts could be even linked. Their project, however, was unfinished. The plan of this paper is as follows. The first section addresses the problem of the relationship between logic and phenomenology. The second one focuses on García de Mendoza’s contributions. The third one elaborates on Larroyo’s Logic of Sciences. And, finally, the fourth section elaborates on these Mexican philosophers’ contributions to education, making as well further observations concerning the similarities and differences between both authors. (shrink)

El consumo de marihuana ha experimentado un incremento significativo en los últimos años tanto por motivos recreativos como medicinales. A medida que esta tendencia se expande, es esencial comprender los posibles efectos negativos que el consumo de marihuana puede tener en la salud oral. La enfermedad periodontal, el cáncer oral y la xerostomía, son afecciones inflamatorias crónicas que afectan los tejidos que rodean y soportan los dientes. La presente investigación propone el desarrollo de un método multicriterio neutrosófico para la evaluación (...) de patologías orales más comunes en pacientes con historial de consumo de marihuana. Los resultados esperados incluyen datos sobre la prevalencia de enfermedades periodontales, agrandamiento y pigmentación de las encías, recesión gingival y otros posibles efectos en la salud oral relacionados con el consumo de marihuana. Se determinó que las patologías orales más comunes en pacientes con historial de consumo de marihuana son problemas orales como lesiones, caries dental, enfermedad periodontal y en casos más graves cáncer oral, ello debido al descuido de la higiene oral y a los compuestos químicos potencialmente mutagénicos contenidos en la marihuana. (shrink)

In the last decade, the importance of Simone de Beauvoir’s contribution to 20th-century French philosophy has been beyond debate. However, it can be tempting to read her contributions as the dated beginnings of feminist philosophy, and to believe that her work is only interesting from the perspective of the history of philosophy. To the contrary, this article claims that contemporary philosophers can and should take Beauvoirian philosophy as a source of fruitful insights on contemporary issues in political and moral (...) philosophy by showing the limited scope of two classic critiques of Beauvoir and by defending the relevance of her work for thinking about female submission and the importance of erotic experience. (shrink)

[from the publisher's website] Questions about the existence and attributes of God form the subject matter of natural theology, which seeks to gain knowledge of the divine by relying on reason and experience of the world. Arguments in natural theology rely largely on intuitions and inferences that seem natural to us, occurring spontaneously—at the sight of a beautiful landscape, perhaps, or in wonderment at the complexity of the cosmos—even to a nonphilosopher. In this book, Helen De Cruz and Johan De (...) Smedt examine the cognitive origins of arguments in natural theology. They find that although natural theological arguments can be very sophisticated, they are rooted in everyday intuitions about purpose, causation, agency, and morality. Using evidence and theories from disciplines including the cognitive science of religion, evolutionary ethics, evolutionary aesthetics, and the cognitive science of testimony, they show that these intuitions emerge early in development and are a stable part of human cognition. -/- De Cruz and De Smedt analyze the cognitive underpinnings of five well-known arguments for the existence of God: the argument from design, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the argument from beauty, and the argument from miracles. Finally, they consider whether the cognitive origins of these natural theological arguments should affect their rationality. (shrink)

El trabajo somete a discusión algunos elementos y argumentos del ensayo "Anti-Nietzsche. La crueldad de lo político" de Jorge Polo Blanco. Analizo el libro de Polo considerando el problema de la diversidad de caracterizaciones parciales que obtiene la figura de Nietzsche en el pensamiento filosófico contemporáneo y el desafío que supone actualizar a Nietzsche a la luz de nuestras sensibilidades democráticas. Examino los capítulos del libro apuntando algunas de las incorrecciones y aspectos más dudosos de su argumentario “anti-nietzscheano” e incidiendo (...) en la importancia del estudio de fuentes (Quellenforschung) y de la historia de las ediciones de la obra de Nietzsche para una interpretación filosófica rigurosa. Palabras clave: Nietzsche, Política, Democracia, Crítica genética, Fuentes, Ediciones. -/- Abstract: This article discusses some elements and arguments of Jorge Polo Blanco’s book, Anti-Nietzsche. La crueldad de lo político. I analyze Polo’s book while considering the problem of the diversity of characterizations that Nietzsche receives in contemporary philosophical thought and the challenge of evaluating his philosophy in light of our democratic sensibilities. I examine the different chapters and identify some of the inaccuracies and most dubious aspects of Polo’s “anti-Nietzschean” argument. In doing so, I stress the importance of source research (Quellenforschung) and the history of the editions for rigorous philosophical analyses. Keywords: Nietzsche, Politics, Democracy, Genetic Criticism, Sources, Editions. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to advance the idea according to which the Cartesian Cogito, the ground of modern philosophy and the source of the notion of thinking subject, is tributary of a certain method whose legitimation is grounded in western history. According to this hypothesis, there is a certain tool that plays a fundamental role in the production of this new philosophical notion: the dream. The argument will be developed in four parts. We will first proceed to (...) (i) an analysis of the role of the hypothesis of the dream in the formulation of the notion of res cogitans, what will bring us to (ii) an exploration of the conception of private world supposed by such a hypothesis so as to (iii) clarify the specificity of the Cartesian notion of knowledge, a knowledge that must be acquirable in a dream; in conclusion (iv) we will indicate in a schematic way the historic-cultural anchor of the Cartesian dream where the subject is originated. (shrink)

In the following paper, I wish to examine a problem for the theist libertarian. On the one hand, libertarians insist that freedom requires possible alternatives open to the agent. On the other hand, God’s perfectly formed moral character implies that He always does the morally best. Give His moral character, then, it appears that there are no possible alternatives open to God. We thus get a dilemma for the theist libertarian: either a) God is not libertarian free – because His (...) moral character rules out possible alternatives; or b) God’s character is not perfectly formed – because libertarian freedom requires that it is possible for God to act out of character. In the present paper, I argue that Thomas Reid, a paradigmatic libertarian, has the theoretical tools to retain a robust account of libertarian freedom without compromising a robust account of perfectly formed characters. In sum, it is necessary that agents with fully formed characters always act in character (read de dicto), but it is possible that agents with fully formed characters act out of character (read de re). The former claim captures the robustness of perfectly formed moral characters and the latter claim captures the robustness of libertarian freedom. (shrink)

This collection addresses two different audiences: 1) historians and philosophers of the life sciences reflecting on collaborations across disciplines, especially as regards defining and addressing Grand Challenges; 2) researchers and other stakeholders involved in cross-disciplinary collaborations aimed at tackling Grand Challenges in the life and medical sciences. The essays collected here offer ideas and resources both for the study and for the practice of goal-driven cross-disciplinary research in the life and medical sciences. We organise this introduction in three sections. The (...) first section provides some background and context. The second motivates our take on this topic and then outlines the central ideas of each paper. The third section highlights the specificity and significance of this approach by considering: a) how this collection departs from existing literature on inter- and trans-disciplinarity, b) what is characteristic about this approach, and c) what role this suggests for the history and philosophy of the life sciences in addressing Grand Challenges. (shrink)

Developments in the realm of formal sciences and math foundations during the twentieth century were marked by important methodological advances. Such new approaches partialy owe their appearance to the abandonment of the previous paradigm. To identify how this transition occured, in this essay we observe some aspects regarding the works of Gödel and Tarski, who, under a certain interpretations, restructure epistemological bases of math's formalisms. It'll be argued that the theoretical variabilities produced in abstract sciences upon weakening previous viewpoints forced (...) to abandon some of the components of hegemonic programs. (shrink)

Hume was a cognitive scientist of religion avant la lettre. His Natural History of Religion (1757 [2007]) locates the origins of religion in human nature. This paper explores similarities between some of his ideas and the cognitive science of religion, the multidisciplinary study of the psychological origins of religious beliefs. It also considers Hume’s distinction between two questions about religion: its foundation in reason (the domain of natural theology and philosophy of religion) and its origin in human nature (the (...) domain of cognitive science of religion). (shrink)

Resumen: Este artículo trata del método y su relación con la investigación educativa. El objetivo es analizar la relevancia del método en ciencias humanas y sociales, en especial, en educación. Para ello, dividimos este artículo en tres secciones: 1. ¿Hay método? 2. ¿Hay uno o varios métodos? 3. La discusión sobre el método en la investigación educativa. A la primera pregunta, respondemos que hay método. Respondemos a la segunda señalando la necesidad de adoptar un pluralismo metodológico. La tercera sección defiende (...) que las discusiones sobre el método de investigación educativa implican dimensiones ontológicas, epistemológicas y éticas que se han tornado críticas, y se hace una revisión de cada una de ellas. En el apartado conclusivo, sugerimos algunas vías para desanudar esos asuntos críticos en la investigación educativa.: This article deals with method and its relation to educational research. The objective is to analyze the relevance of method in human and social sciences, especially in education. To this end, we divide this article into three sections: 1. Is there a method? 2. Is there one or more methods? 3. The discussion on method in educational research. To the first question, we answer that there is a method. We answer the second question by pointing out the need to adopt methodological pluralism. The third section argues that discussions on the method of educational research involve ontological, epistemological, and ethical dimensions that have become critical, and a review is made of each of them. In the concluding section, we suggest some ways to disentangle these critical issues in educational research. (shrink)

The paper uses two historical examples, public health (1840-1880) and town planning (1945-1975) in Britain, to analyse the challenges faced by goal-driven research, an increasingly important trend in science policy, as exemplified by the prominence of calls for addressing Grand Challenges. Two key points are argued. (1) Given that the aim of research addressing social or global problems is to contribute to improving things, this research should include all the steps necessary to bring science and technology to fruition. This need (...) is captured by the idea of practical integration, which brings this type of research under the umbrella of collective practical reason rather than under the aegis of science. Achieving practical integration is difficult for many reasons: the complexity of social needs, the plurality of values at stake, the limitation of our knowledge, the elusive nature of the skills needed to deal with uncertainty, incomplete information and asymmetries of power. Nevertheless, drawing from the lessons of the case studies, it is argued that (2) practical integration needs a proper balance between values, institutions and knowledge: i.e. a combination of mutual support and mutual limitation. Pursuing such a balance provides a flexible strategy for approximating practical integration. (shrink)

This article challenges the prevailing interpretations of Hegel's account of the concept "contradiction" in the Science of Logic by arguing that it is concerned with the principle of Hegel's method rather than with the classical law of non-contradiction. I first consider Hegel's Doctrine of Essence in view of Kant's discussion of the concepts of reflection in the first Critique. On this basis, I examine Hegel's account of the logical principles based on the concepts "identity," "opposition," and "contradiction." Finally, I point (...) out how the principle Hegel derives from the concept of contradiction actually informs his own method. (shrink)

Scholarly debates on the Critique of Pure Reason have largely been shaped by epistemological questions. Challenging this prevailing trend, Kant's Reform of Metaphysics is the first book-length study to interpret Kant's Critique in view of his efforts to turn Christian Wolff's highly influential metaphysics into a science. Karin de Boer situates Kant's pivotal work in the context of eighteenth-century German philosophy, traces the development of Kant's conception of critique, and offers fresh and in-depth analyses of key parts of the Critique (...) of Pure Reason, including the Transcendental Deduction, the Schematism Chapter, the Appendix to the Transcendental Analytic, and the Architectonic. The book not only brings out the coherence of Kant's project, but also reconstructs the outline of the 'system of pure reason' for which the Critique was to pave the way, but that never saw the light. (shrink)

The growing commercialization of scientific research has raised important concerns about industry bias. According to some evidence, so-called industry bias can affect the integrity of the science as well as the direction of the research agenda. I argue that conceptualizing industry’s influence in scientific research in terms of bias is unhelpful. Insofar as industry sponsorship negatively affects the integrity of the research, it does so through biasing mechanisms that can affect any research independently of the source of funding. Talk about (...) industry bias thus offers no insight into the particular epistemic shortcomings at stake. If the concern is with the negative effects that industry funding can have on the research agenda, conceptualizing this influence as bias obscures the ways in which such impact is problematic and limits our ability to offer solutions that can successfully address the concerns raised by the growing role of private funding in science. (shrink)

de Queiroz (1995), Griffiths (1999) and LaPorte (2004) offer a new version of essentialism called "historical essentialism". According to this version of essentialism, relations of common ancestry are essential features of biological taxa. The main type of argument for this essentialism proposed by Griffiths (1999) and LaPorte (2004) is that the dominant school of classification, cladism, defines biological taxa in terms of common ancestry. The goal of this paper is to show that this argument for historical essentialism is unsatisfactory: cladism (...) does not assume that relations of common ancestry are essential attributes of biological taxa. Therefore, historical essentialism is not justified by cladism. (shrink)

The second edition of the work of the Brazilian physicist Paulo C. Abrantes (2016), entitled Images of nature, images of science, is a good alternative for students of history and philosophy of science. The reason is Abrantes' thesis in this work: to defend that the development of scientific knowledge is dependent on the influence of different images of "nature" and "science" existing during the history of Western scientific-philosophical thought; and an advocate for the historian of science Studying as (...) reasons that allow the adoption of such images at a given time. Through the analysis of historical cases of scientific thought, Abrantes argues that the consolidation of research programs in different subareas of natural science - such as biology, physics and chemistry - was only possible due to the influence, in particular time, of images of nature and science. (shrink)

Sheep production is the most representative livestock activities in Brazil and in the world. However, the reproductive performance of these animals is determined by factors genetic, physical environment, management and, especially, nutritional. Thirty half-breed lambs from Dorper × Santa Inês were used, with initial weight and age of 31.87 ± 0.5 kg and 157 days, respectively. These animals were prepared on a diet with three food levels (ad libitum, 30% and 70%). Morphometric measurements were measured at intervals of 16 to (...) 20 days in 56 experimental days. The measurements performed were scrotal circumference (CE), chest circumference (CT), body condition score (ECC), withers height (AC) and scrotal bag thickness (EBE), body weight (CP) and semen collection. Interaction occurrence for biometric measurements between food levels and age (p <0.05). The TC and ECC values were higher in animals fed ad libitum (p <0.001). EBE had higher values in animals ad libitum and at 211 days of age (p <0.001). The CP was increasing for the animals ad libitum and (p <0.05) throughout the experiment, while the T30 was only in the initial period. T70 animals did not grow during the whole experiment. CE was influenced by diet (p <0.001) and age (p <0.001) independently. So that animals under food restriction had less development and was higher in older animals. The AC values were influenced only by age (p <0.001), demonstrating the effect of age growth. We conclude that it is not advantageous to submit lambs, it corrects food reproduction. Although it was not possible to assess whether initial malnutrition would bring future problems for the animal's seminal quality, it proved to be immensely negative for the onset of puberty and the development of reproductive structures. -/- REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS AKUMBUGU, F. E., et al. Correlation between Body and Testicular Biometric Characteristics of West African Dwarf Rams. Multidisciplinary Advances in Veterinary Science. 2.4, 2018 ALLAOUI, A. et al. Factors affecting scrotal measurements and weight of Ouled Djellal rams in Eastern and South-eastern Algeria. APCBEE procedia, v. 8, p. 260-265, 2014. ALVES, J. M. et al. Estação de nascimento e puberdade em cordeiros Santa Inês. Revista Brasileira de Zootecnia, v. 35, n. 3, p. 958-966, 2006. ALVES, K. S. et al. Níveis de energia em dietas para ovinos Santa Inês: características de carcaça e constituintes corporais. Revista Brasileira de Zootecnia, v. 32, n. 6, p. 1927-1936, 2003. BIELLI, A. et al. Low maternal nutrition during pregnancy reduces the number of Sertoli cells in the newborn lamb. Reproduction, Fertility and Development, v. 14, n. 6, p. 333-337, 2002. BROWN, D. C.; STIRLING, H. F.; KELNAR, C. J. H. Precocious puberty. Paediatrics and Child Health, v. 4, n. 3, p. 184-188, 1994. BUDAI, C. Performance and adaptability of the Dorper sheep breed under Hungarian and Romanian rearing conditions. Scientific Papers Animal Science and Biotechnologies, v. 46, n. 1, p. 344-349, 2013. CARNEIRO, P. L. S. et al. Desenvolvimento ponderal e diversidade fenotípica entre cruzamentos de ovinos Dorper com raças locais. Pesquisa Agropecuária Brasileira, v. 42, n. 7, p. 991-998, 2007. CARRIJO JUNIOR, O. A. et al. Morphological evaluation of the testicles of young santa Inês rams submitted to different regimes of protein supplementation and drenching. Ciência animal brasileira, Goiânia, v. 9, n. 2, p. 433-441, abr./jun. 2008. CASTRO, F.A.B. de et al. Desempenho de cordeiros Santa Inês do nascimento ao desmame filhos de ovelhas alimentadas com diferentes níveis de energia. Semina: Ciências Agrárias, v. 33, n. 6 supl 2, p. 3379-3388, 2012 CEZAR, M. F. et al. Avaliação de parâmetros fisiológicos de ovinos Dorper, Santa Inês e seus mestiços perante condições climáticas do trópico semi-árido nordestino. Ciência e Agrotecnologia, v. 28, n. 3, p. 614-620, 2004. CHACÓN, L. et al. Características de la pubertad en corderos de pelo y sus cruces en Colombia en condiciones de baja altitud. Revista MVZ Cordoba, v. 24, n. 1, p. 7099-7103, 2019. CHEMINEAU, P. et al. Training manual on artificial insemination in sheep and goats. Rome: FAO; 1991. DA SILVA, Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro. Comportamento Sexual dos Animais Domésticos. 2020. DA SILVA, Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro. Fisiologia do ciclo estral dos animais domésticos. Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva, 2021. Da Silva EIC. Formulação de ração para ovinos. 1ª ed. Belo Jardim, PE: IPA, 2021. DA SILVA, Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro. Puberdade e Estacionalidade Reprodutiva dos Animais. 2020. FAO. Animal Production and Health Paper, v. 83. ELMAZ, Ö. et al. Prediction of postpubertal reproductive potential according to prepubertal body weight, testicular size, and testosterone concentration using multiple regression analysis in Kıvırcık ram lambs. Turkish journal of veterinary and animal sciences, v. 32, n. 5, p. 335-343, 2008. JUCÁ, A. F. et al. Performance of the Santa Ines breed raised on pasture in semiarid tropical regions and factors that explain trait variation. Tropical animal health and production, v. 46, n. 7, p. 1249-1256, 2014. FOURIE, P. J. et al. Scrotal, testicular and semen characteristics of young Dorper rams managed under intensive and extensive conditions. Small Ruminant Research, v. 54, n. 1-2, p. 53-59, 2004. GUNN, R. G.; SIM, D. A.; HUNTER, E. A. Effects of nutrition in utero and in early life on the subsequent lifetime reproductive performance of Scottish Blackface ewes in two management systems. Animal Science, v. 60, n. 2, p. 223-230, 1995. HÖTZEL, M. J. et al. Morphometric and endocrine analyses of the effects of nutrition on the testis of mature Merino rams. Reproduction, v. 113, n. 2, p. 217-230, 1998. Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). Produção Pecuária municipal. Rio de Janeiro, v. 46, p.1-8, 2018. KENYON, P. R.; MALONEY, S. K.; BLACHE, D. Review of sheep body condition score in relation to production characteristics. New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, v. 57, n. 1, p. 38-64, 2014. KHERADMAND, A.; BABAEI, H.; ALI BATAVANI, R. Effect of improved diet on semen quality and scrotal circumference in the ram. Veterinarski arhiv, v. 76, n. 4, p. 333-341, 2006. KORKMAZ, M. K.; EMSEN, E. Growth and reproductive traits of purebred and crossbred Romanov lambs in Eastern Anatolia. Anim. Reprod., v. 13, n. 1, p. 3-6, 2016. KRIDLI, R. T. et al. Age at puberty and some biological parameters of Awassi and its first crosses with Charollais and Romanov rams. Italian journal of animal science, v. 5, n. 2, p. 193-202, 2006. LOUW, D. F. J.; JOUBERT, D. M. Puberty in the male Dorper sheep and Boer goat. S. Afr. J. Agric. Sci, v. 7, p. 509-520, 1964. MAIA, A. S. C.; SILVA, R. G.; ANDRADE, P. C. Efeitos da temperatura e da movimentação do ar sobre o isolamento térmico do velo de ovinos em câmara climática. Revista Brasileira de Zootecnia, v. 38, n. 1, p. 104-108, 2009. MARTINS, R. D. et al. Avaliação da sazonalidade reprodutiva de carneiros Santa Inês criados no Distrito Federal. R. Bras. Zootec., Viçosa, v. 32, n. 6, supl. 1, p. 1594-1603, Dec. 2003. MENDES, A. M. P. et al. Zoneamento bioclimático para a raça ovina Dorper no Estado de Pernambuco. Pesquisa Agropecuária Brasileira, v. 49, n. 12, p. 986-993, 2014. MOULLA, F. et al. Characterization of the onset of puberty in Tazegzawt lambs, an endangered Algerian sheep: Body weight, thoracic perimeter, testicular growth, and seminal parameters. Veterinary world, v. 11, n. 7, p. 889, 2018. NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL (NRC). Nutrient Requirements of Small Ruminants: Sheep, Goats, Cervids, and New World Camelids. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2007. NOTTER, D. R.; LUCAS, J. R.; MCCLAUGHERTY, F. S. Accuracy of estimation of testis weight from in situ testis measures in ram lambs. Theriogenology, v. 15, n. 2, p. 227-234, 1981. SEJIAN, V. et al. Effect of body condition score on the allometric measurements and reproductive performance of Garole X Malpura ewes under hot semi-arid environment. Journal of Dairy, Veterinary & Animal Research, v. 2, n. 6, p. 1-4, 2015. PACHECO, A.; MADELLA-OLIVEIRA, A. F.; QUIRINO, C. R. Biometria e formas dos testículos em cordeiros da raça Santa Inês explorados em regime de manejo intensivo. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Agrárias, v. 5, n. 1, p. 123-128, 2010. REGO NETO, A. A. et al. Population genetic structure of Santa Inês sheep in Brazil. Tropical animal health and production, v. 50, n. 3, p. 503-508, 2018. RHIND, S. M. Effects of maternal nutrition on fetal and neonatal reproductive development and function. Animal Reproduction Science, v. 82, p. 169-181, 2004. RIBEIRO, E. L. A.; GONZÁLEZ-GARCÍA, E. Indigenous sheep breeds in Brazil: potential role for contributing to the sustainability of production systems. Tropical animal health and production, v. 48, n. 7, p. 1305-1313, 2016. RIBEIRO, M. S. et al. Repeatability and effect of age on reproductive characteristics in Santa Ines rams. Archivos de zootecnia, v. 67, n. 257, p. 143-147, 2018. RUSSEL, A. J. F.; DONEY, J. M.; GUNN, R. G. Subjective assessment of body fat in live sheep. The Journal of Agricultural Science, v. 72, n. 3, p. 451-454, 1969. SILVA, N. V. et al. Medidas in vivo e da carcaça e constituintes não carcaça de ovinos alimentados com diferentes níveis do subproduto agroindustrial da goiaba. Revista Brasileira de Saúde e Produção Animal, v. 17, n. 1, p. 101-115, 2016. SILVA, P. et al. Influence of placentally mediated fetal growth restriction on the onset of puberty in male and female lambs. Reproduction, v. 122, n. 3, p. 375-383, 2001. SIQUEIRA FILHO, E. R. Influência dos níveis protéicos fornecidos na dieta sobre o sistema reprodutivo de carneiros. 2007. 75 f. Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual Paulista, Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia de Botucatu, 2007. SOUZA, J. S da et al. Biometric measurements of Santa Inês meat sheep reared on Brachiaria brizantha pastures in Northeast Brazil. Plos one, v. 14, n. 7, p. e0219343, 2019. (shrink)

This debate or “Critical Exchange” section from Contemporary Political Theory includes the following four articles discussing the book, the Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow: “We make our own history, but in circumstances of other people’s choosing: intercultural materialism in The Dawn of Everything” by Enzo Rossi, “Questions about The Dawn of Everything” by Karl Widerquist and Grant McCall, “Freedom and the bureaucratic state” by Annelien de Dijn, and “On historical materialism and The Dawn of Everything” (...) by David Wengrow. (shrink)

The paper introduces Vailati’s life and works, investigating Vailati’s education, the relation to Peano and his school, and the interest for pragmatism and modernism. A detailed analysis of Vailati’s scientific and didactic activities, shows that he held, like Peano, a a strong interest for the history of science and a pluralist, anti-dogmatic and anti-foundationalist conception of definitions in mathematics, logic and philosophy of language. Vailati’s understanding of mathematical logic as a form of pragmatism is not a faithful interpretation of (...) Peano’s conception, but it is essential to understand the relations of Peano’s logic with other philosophical traditions and some epistemological aspects of Peano’s perspective, such as the search for a universal language. (shrink)

It is still common to find the traditionalist and rationalist conception that scientific knowledge is the most accurate way of describing natural data, as if, therefore, the notion of knowledge were identical to the notion of natural science. In this article, this conception is problematized, based on some concrete cases of the history of science that seem to show that the beliefs of natural science can also be explained on the basis of non-scientific beliefs, such as the beliefs of (...) sociology, psychology, history and philosophy. That is, the main purpose of this paper is to argue that the assessment one can have of scientific clarity can not be constructed only through explanations provided by the procedures of natural science, but also through explanations provided by the procedures of other distinct areas. This argument runs counter to traditionalist rationalism and will be used in this article to criticize the conception that knowledge, in order to be valid, will necessarily have to be scientific and rational. (shrink)

We propose a novel interpretation of consciousness and an enlarged definition of locality, which provide a solution to the problem of the consistency of measurements in quantum mechanics: consciousness is a characteristics of the Universe as a whole. Besides its physical consequences, this interpretation has also moral implications: individuality comes out naturally to be just an accident functional to evolution which shaped past and present history through competition, and realizing this fact should enforce cooperation.

Nineteenth-century scientist Hermann von Helmholtz’s peculiar wavering between empiricism and transcendentalism in his philosophy of science in general, and in his theory of perception in particular, is a much debated and well-documented topic in the history and philosophy of science. This contribution aims at providing a fresh angle on this classical issue, by considering Helmholtz’s account of differential consciousness against the background of a centuries-old philosophical debate between the empiricist tradition and the tradition of transcendental idealism. By placing Helmholtz’s (...) psychology against the background of a historical narrative stretching from Hume to Fichte, one can gain insight into the possible merits of his empirico-transcendentalism with regard to the problem of differentiation. More particularly, it is argued that Helmholtz’s psychology tilted towards transcendentalism when met with the classical theoretical problems of strict empiricism in dealing with the foundation of consciousness, most notably circularity and infinite regress. Without claiming that Helmholtz’s theorizing presented a self-conscious attempt to overcome the latter issues, his well-known wavering between perspectives in general, and his appropriation of the a priori in particular, might have served him well in avoiding the deadlocks of empiricism. As noted at the end, however, Helmholtz’s account produced complex philosophical problems of its own. (shrink)

In the last few years, a remarkable convergence of interests and results has emerged between scholars interested in the arts and aesthetics from a variety of perspectives and cognitive scientists studying the mind and brain within the predictive processing (PP) framework. This convergence has so far proven fruitful for both sides: while PP is increasingly adopted as a framework for understanding aesthetic phenomena, the arts and aesthetics, examined under the lens of PP, are starting to be seen as important windows (...) into our mental functioning. The result is a vast and fast-growing research programme that promises to deliver important insights into our aesthetic encounters as well as a wide range of psychological phenomena of general interest. Here, we present this developing research programme, describing its grounds and highlighting its prospects. We start by clarifying how the study of the arts and aesthetics encounters the PP picture of mental functioning (§1). We then go on to outline the prospects of this encounter for the fields involved: philosophy and history of art (§2), psychology of aesthetics and neuroaesthetics (§3) and psychology and neuroscience more generally (§4). The upshot is an ambitious but well-defined framework within which aesthetics and cognitive science can partner up to illuminate crucial aspects of the human mind. -/- This article is part of the theme issue ‘Art, aesthetics and predictive processing: theoretical and empirical perspectives’. -/- . (shrink)

The principal objective of this study is to present and discuss the elements that emerge from Michel Foucault's archeological undertakings, which, in our view, configure the existence of a new rhetoric that deals with what the French philosopher called the rarefaction of the subject and rarefaction of discourse in his inaugural lecture at the Collège de France (Foucault, 1996). This new rhetoric would be in charge of reflecting and analyzing the phenomena that result from both the rarefaction of the subject (...) and the rarefaction of discourse, that is, such rhetoric invests in what is responsible for imposing on the speaking subject what to say and how to say it. Therefore, it turns to certain mechanisms of control of discourses that Foucault presented in The Discourse on Language, a work that completes five decades of its publication. This Foucauldian rhetoric also has as its main function to deal with the history of the present, that is, to reflect on what we do and think at this exact moment, which, in turn, would be in charge of contributing to the history of how we became subjects in a culture like ours, at this stage of high modernity and the Information Age. From this perspective, she would be interested in the processes of identification and subjectivation that result from the ways in which we become subjects. In short, it is a study that seeks to present elements that demonstrate the emergence of a new rhetoric that emerges from the work of Michel Foucault, who, according to Deleuze (1992), increasingly invested in a generalized pragmatics. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to a comparison between Ernst Mach's and Friedrich Nietzsche's anti-metaphysical approach to scientific and philosophical concepts. By making reference to Mach’s early essay on the conservation of energy (Die Geschichte und die Wurzel des Satzes von der Erhaltung der Arbeit, 1872), I argue that Nietzsche shares with him the idea that the concepts we adopt are only useful fictions developed during the history of humankind and its culture. This idea is fundamental for the development of (...) modern science, since Mach’s epistemology contributed to give up the mechanistic (Newtonian) view of physics. (shrink)

Resumo: O texto reconstrói as bases teleológico-morais para a constituição da moderna ciência da história. A chave dessa reconstrução é o escrutínio da idéia kantiana de plano da natureza, idéia que é investigada nas obras de Adam Smith, Hegel e Marx. Para criticar essa idéia, argui-se o pensamento de Fukuyama e defende-se que a ligação entre democracia e economia liberal é melhor explicada pela natural inclinação humana para a simetria do que pela noção de reconhecimento. O argumento é que o (...) projeto de Fukuyama não encontra amparo na seleção da espécie, ao passo que o desejo por simetria sim. A essa abordagem subjazem as teses de que feita a crítica à teleologia moral, a história tem de ser compatível com a evolução, e de que a naturalização da história implica numa naturalização da moral.Palavras-chave: teleologia - moral naturalizada - plano da natureza - teoria da história - evolucionismo.: The text reconstructs the teleological-moral foundations for the constitution of the modern science of history. The key to that reconstruction is a scrutiny of Kant's idea of "plan of nature", which is investigated in the works of Adam Smith, Hegel and Marx. In order to criticize this idea, the paper discusses the thinking of Fukuyama and argues that the connection between democracy and liberal economy is best explained by the natural human inclination towards symmetry, rather than by the notion of recognition. It also argues that Fukuyama's project finds no support in the selection of species, whereas the desire for symmetry does. The theses that underlie this approach are that, once the critique of moral teleology has been made, history must be compatible with evolution and that the naturalization of history implies a naturalization of morals. (shrink)

One thing about technical artefacts that needs to be explained is how their physical make-up, or structure, enables them to fulfil the behaviour associated with their function, or, more colloquially, how they work. In this paper I develop an account of such explanations based on the familiar notion of mechanistic explanation. To accomplish this, I outline two explanatory strategies that provide two different types of insight into an artefact’s functioning, and show how human action inevitably plays a role in artefact (...) explanation. I then use my own account to criticize other recent work on mechanistic explanation and conclude with some general implications for the philosophy of explanation.Keywords: Artefact; Technical function; Explanation; Levels of explanation; Mechanisms. (shrink)

This essay considers how scholarly approaches to the development of molecular biology have too often narrowed the historical aperture to genes, overlooking the ways in which other objects and processes contributed to the molecularization of life. From structural and dynamic studies of biomolecules to cellular membranes and organelles to metabolism and nutrition, new work by historians, philosophers, and STS scholars of the life sciences has revitalized older issues, such as the relationship of life to matter, or of physicochemical inquiries to (...) biology. This scholarship points to a novel molecular vista that opens up a pluralist view of molecularizations in the twentieth century and considers their relevance to current science. (shrink)

Epistemic peer disagreement raises interesting questions, both in epistemology and in philosophy of science. When is it reasonable to defer to the opinion of others, and when should we hold fast to our original beliefs? What can we learn from the fact that an epistemic peer disagrees with us? A question that has received relatively little attention in these debates is the value of epistemic peer disagreement—can it help us to further epistemic goals, and, if so, how? We investigate this (...) through a recent case in paleoanthropology: the debate on the taxonomic status of Homo floresiensis remains unresolved, with some authors arguing the fossils represent a novel hominin species, and others claiming that they are Homo sapiens with congenital growth disorders. Our examination of this case in the recent history of science provides insights into the value of peer disagreement, indicating that it is especially valuable if one does not straightaway defer to a peer’s conclusions, but nevertheless remains open to a peer’s evidence and arguments. (shrink)

An overview of the influence of Lucretius poem On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura) on the renaissance and scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, and an examination of its continuing influence over physical atomism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Grace A. de Laguna was an American philosopher of exceptional originality. Many of the arguments and positions she developed during the early decades of the twentieth century later came to be central to analytic philosophy. These arguments and positions included, even before 1930, a critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction, a private language argument, a critique of type physicalism, a functionalist theory of mind, a critique of scientific reductionism, a methodology of research programs in science and more. Nevertheless, de Laguna identified (...) herself as a defender of the speculative vision of philosophy, a vision which, in her words, “analytic philosophy condemns.” I outline her speculative vision of philosophy as well as what is, in effect, an argument she offers against analytic philosophy. This is an argument against the view that key parts of established opinion, e.g., our best theoretical physics or most certain common sense, should be assumed to be true in order to answer philosophical questions. I go on to bring out the implications of her argument for the approaches to philosophy of Bertrand Russell, Willard V. Quine and David Lewis, and I also compare the argument to recent, related arguments against analytic philosophy. I will suggest that de Laguna offers a viable critique of analytic philosophy and an alternative approach to philosophy that meets this critique. (shrink)

The modern concept of ideology was established by the liberal politician and philosopher Destutt de Tracy, with the objective of creating an all-embracing and general science of ideas, which followed the sensualist and empiricist trend initiated by Locke that culminated in the positivism of Comte. Natural selection and immunity are two key concepts in the history of biology that were strongly based on the Malthusian concept of struggle for existence. This concept wrongly assumed that population grew faster than the (...) means of existence. This “natural” law contained implicitly the idea that the poor and least gifted would not survive. This idea led to the progressive development of the concept of natural selection, whose definitive version was given by Darwin. Mechnikov took the concepts of struggle for existence and natural selection and conceived infectious diseases as a struggle between a host and its invader, the so-called phagocytosis theory. This theory created the necessity to possess mechanisms to discriminate between the own and the foreign, and led to the conception of the immune self. These concepts were not developed from ideas coming from perceptions or sensations, but from ideas coming from their values: individual interest, inevitable inequality, property, utility and profit. Values are ideals that constitute an ideological matrix which exerts a numinous activity and influence the development of our future actions. In consequence, science and its practice cannot avoid and ignore the values that drive them and impulse them towards certain directions. (shrink)

This is the report on the XVI BRAZILIAN LOGIC CONFERENCE (EBL 2011) held in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between May 9–13, 2011 published in The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic Volume 18, Number 1, March 2012. -/- The 16th Brazilian Logic Conference (EBL 2011) was held in Petro ́polis, from May 9th to 13th, 2011, at the Laboratório Nacional de Computação o Científica (LNCC). It was the sixteenth in a series of conferences that started in 1977 with the aim of (...) congregating logicians from Brazil and abroad, furthering interest in logic and its applications, stimulating cooperation, and contributing to the development of this branch of science. EBL 2011 included more than one-hundred and fifty participants, all of them belonging to prominent research institutes from Brazil and abroad, especially Latin America. The conference was sponsored by the Academia Brasileira de Ciências (ABC), the As- sociation for Symbolic Logic (ASL), Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Centre for Logic, Epistemology and the History of Sciences (CLE), Laboratório Nacional de Computação o Científica (LNCC), Pontif ́ıcia Universidade Cato ́lica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC- Rio), Sociedade Brasileira de Lógica (SBL), and Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF). Funding was provided by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient ́ıfico e Tecnolo ́ gico (CNPq), Fundac ̧a ̃o de Amparo `a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Fundação Euclides da Cunha (FEC), and Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF). The members of the Scientific Committee were: Mário Folhadela Benevides (COPPE- UFRJ), Fa ́bio Bertato (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Jean-Yves Béziau (UFRJ), Ricardo Bianconi (USP), Juliana Bueno-Soler (UFABC), Xavier Caicedo (Universidad de Los An- des), Walter Carnielli (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Oswaldo Chateaubriand Filho (PUC-Rio), Marcelo Esteban Coniglio (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Newton da Costa (UFSC, President), Antonio Carlos da Rocha Costa (UFRG), Alexandre Costa-Leite (UnB), I ́tala M. Loffredo D’Ottaviano (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Marcelo Finger (USP), Edward Hermann Haeusler (PUC-Rio), Décio Krause (UFSC), João Marcos (UFRN), Ana Teresa de Castro Martins (UFC), Maria da Paz Nunes de Medeiros (UFRN), Francisco Miraglia (USP), Luiz Car- los Pereira (PUC-Rio and UFRJ), Elaine Pimentel (UFMG), and Samuel Gomes da Silva (UFBA). The members of the Organizing Committee were: Anderson de Araujo (UNICAMP), Walter Carnielli (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Oswaldo Chateaubriand Filho (PUC-Rio, Co- chair), Marcelo Correa (UFF), Renata de Freitas (UFF), Edward Hermann Haeusler (PUC- RJ), Hugo Nobrega (COPPE-UFRJ), Luiz Carlos Pereira (PUC-Rio e IFCS/UFRJ), Leandro Suguitani (UNICAMP), Rafael Testa (UNICAMP), Leonardo Bruno Vana (UFF), and Petrucio Viana (UFF, Co-chair). (shrink)

Bien sûr, «la philosophie des sciences sans l’histoire des scien­ces est vide et l’histoire des sciences sans la philosophie des sciences est aveugle» (Lakatos), mais cette formule célèbre ne méconnaît-elle pas l’importance dissymétrique de cette relation de dépendance réci­proque ? En effet, ne pourrait-on pas soute­nir que les philoso­phes des sciences désireux d’arriver à une juste et saine philosophie des sciences ont besoin, pour ce faire, des travaux des historiens des sciences, bien plus que ces der­­niers n’ont besoin, pour leurs (...) recons­tructions historiques, des écrits des philosophes des sciences ? Telle est la thèse, quelque peu provocatrice, que l’auteur tente de défendre : un séminaire ne doit-il pas être un lieu de débat ? ––– Of course, «the philosophy of science is empty without the history of science and the history of science is blind without the philosophy of science» (Lakatos). But does not this famous formula fail to recognize the importance of the dyssymetry of this relationship of mutual dependence ? Could it not be main­tained that the philos­ophers of science, in their search for a correct and healthy philos­ophy of science, need the works of the historians of science far more than the latter need the works of the philosophers of science for their historical work ? This is the somewhat provocative thesis we shall attempt to defend : should not a seminar be a forum for debate ? (shrink)

The philosopher René Descartes wrote the Compendium musicæ in 1618. Even though he was not known for his music production, he maintained a long correspondence around the subject in dialogue with Marin Mersenne, Constantjin Huygens, Isaac Beeckman and Joan-Albert Ban. However, his musical propositions appear as a marginal subject in his intellectual journey. To understand whether the musical theme relates to the development of his ideas, first, the organization of his correspondence about music and the citations to it in his (...) works was necessary, either in smaller texts or in the works published by the author. We analyzed the hypotheses about the forgetfulness of music in studies about the development of Descartes´ ideas. With these materials, we analyzed and historically contextualized the trajectory of the author's musical conceptions with the development of his main themes. Thus, it is possible to verify Descartes' musical dialogues with his own work and with his historical context. (shrink)

McDowell’s minimal empiricism holds that experience, understood as providing conceptually articulated contents, plays a role in the justification of our beliefs. We question this idea by contrasting the role of perceptual experience in moral and non-moral judgments and conclude that experience per se is irrelevant in the former case and should also be so in the latter one: only with the help of adequate beliefs experience can provide a connection with the world. We conclude with some remarks concerning the importance (...) of experience. (shrink)

LEITE (Fábio Rodrigo) – STOFFEL (Jean-François), Introduction (pp. 3-6). BARRA (Eduardo Salles de O.) – SANTOS (Ricardo Batista dos), Duhem’s analysis of Newtonian method and the logical priority of physics over metaphysics (pp. 7-19). BORDONI (Stefano), The French roots of Duhem’s early historiography and epistemology (pp. 20-35). CHIAPPIN (José R. N.) – LARANJEIRAS (Cássio Costa), Duhem’s critical analysis of mecha­ni­cism and his defense of a formal conception of theoretical phy­sics (pp. 36-53). GUEGUEN (Marie) – PSILLOS (Stathis), Anti-­scepticism and epistemic humility (...) in Pierre Duhem’s philosophy of science (pp. 54-72). LISTON (Michael), Duhem : images of science, historical continuity, and the first crisis in physics (pp. 73-84). MAIOCCHI (Roberto), Duhem in pre-war Italian philos­ophy : the reasons of an absence (pp. 85-92). HERNÁNDEZ MÁRQUEZ (Víctor Manuel), Was Pierre Duhem an «esprit de finesse» ? (pp. 93-107). NEEDHAM (Paul), Was Duhem justified in not distinguishing between physical and chemical atomism ? (pp. 108-111). OLGUIN (Roberto Estrada), «Bon sens» and «noûs» (pp. 112-126). OLIVEIRA (Amelia J.), Duhem’s legacy for the change in the historiography of science : An analysis based on Kuhn’s writings (pp. 127-139). PRÍNCIPE (João), Poincaré and Duhem : Resonances in their first epistemological reflec­tions (pp. 140-156). MONDRAGON (Damián Islas), Book review of «Pierre Duhem : entre física y metafísica» (pp. 157-159). STOFFEL (Jean-François), Book review of P. Duhem : «La théorie physique : son objet, sa structure» / edit. by S. Roux (pp. 160-162). STOFFEL (Jean-François), Book review of St. Bordoni : «When historiography met epistemology» (pp. 163-165). (shrink)

The paper revisits the rationality principle from the particular perspective of the unity of social sciences. It has been argued that the principle was the unique law of the social sciences and that accordingly there are no deep differences between them (Popper). It has also been argued that the rationality principle was specific to economics as opposed to the other social sciences, especially sociology (Pareto). The paper rejects these opposite views on the grounds that the rationality principle is strictly metaphysical (...) and does not have the logical force required to deliver interesting deductions. Explanation in the social sciences takes place at a level of specialization that is always higher than that of the principle itself. However, what is peculiar about economics is that it specializes the explanatory rational schemes to a degree unparalleled in history and sociology. As a consequence, there is a backward-and-forward move between specific and general formulations of rationality that takes place in economics and has no analogue in the other social sciences. (shrink)

Ideas will always resist single-statement definitions, but in a rough attempt at generalization one can say that they either play or are attributed a very special role in thinking and expressive processes, in perhaps all domains of human culture. People who specialize in creating, receiving, transforming, and disseminating them are usually called “intellectuals”—even if they do not monopolize those social practices. The constitution and circulation of ideas as structures of thinking and expression, the settings in which they originate and to (...) which they respond, the material supports in which they are conveyed as well as the intellectual agents specialized in dealing with them are studied by the history of ideas and its neighboring fields. These include intellectual history, history of concepts, histoire des mentalités, Geistesgeschichte, history of books, and even cultural history, sociology of knowledge, and the histories of science, philosophy, literature, and the humanities. As it is obvious, such labels do not support a clear-cut division of labor, nor can they be lined up in an organogram that would fix constant hierarchical relations between them. They show up with incommensurable frequency, displaying different connotations within different academic cultures. This explains why in some cases—as in Geistesgeschichte, Begriffsgeschichte, or histoire des mentalités—equivalent English terms are considered problematic or unnecessary. Having flourished, spread, and sometimes also decayed within different national, disciplinary, and generational contexts, the fields designated by them can only have intricate and overlapping limits. A good way to understand the traditions connected to the history of ideas is hence to look closely to their messy border zones. The closest and most intricate connections are those between “history of ideas” and “intellectual history,” which is reflected in the fact that these terms are often employed interchangeably—a use that will be noted also in the remainder of the present text. Even so, “intellectual history” clearly emerged as preferential designation in the English-speaking world in the final decades of the twentieth century. A reason for this is the spread of the suspicion that “ideas” are burdened by essentialist traits that would render us insensitive to historical discontinuity. The notion of ideas is also sometimes regarded as much too oblivious of the way language conditions thought, and accordingly some analysts suggest that it would be out of line with the best theoretical intelligence established since the so-called linguistic turn (see Kelley 2002a: 310–14). However, others claim that ideas should not be equaled to expressed words, as they refer to occurrences that are best described with psychological terms such as beliefs and attitudes, and, further, that there would be non-essentialist ways of addressing them . What seems more uncontroversial is that, in comparison to “history of ideas,” “intellectual history” opens up an enlarged space of ambivalence as regards the analytical focus, which can then toggle from intellectual products to intellectual producers, consumers, and the cultural frameworks in which they interact. There are also important crossroads between the history of ideas and conceptual history (or Begriffsgeschichte), as both terms signal to the historical study of basic structures of thought. Conceptual history, however, at least in its most well-known variety, which was very much inspired by social-historical approaches, tends to be less centered on biographical and psychological issues and to introduce concepts as more depersonalized linguistic entities. Such and other connections and disconnections between the various ways of attending to “the reflective communal life of human beings in the past” (Burrow) will be further discussed in the following from the perspective of a geographically multicentered historical synopsis. Hopefully, its many limitations will be compensated by the possibilty of bringing to the fore relations that otherwise would not become so salient. (shrink)

BĪRŪNĪ, ABŪ RAYḤĀN MOḤAMMAD b. Aḥmad (362/973- after 442/1050), scholar and polymath of the period of the late Samanids and early Ghaznavids and one of the two greatest intellectual figures of his time in the eastern lands of the Muslim world, the other being Ebn Sīnā.

In the latter half of the 19th century, economic thought in the Germanspeaking world was dominated, both intellectually and academically, by the so-called historical school, from Wilhelm Roscher to Gustav Schmoller and others. In 1871, the Austrian Carl Menger published his Grun&tze der Volkswirtschaftslehre (Menger, 1976 (1871)), customarily referred to as one of the three simultaneous discoveries of marginalist economics-the other two marginalist ‘revolutionaries’ being Jevons in England and Walras in France. Twelve years later, in 1883, Menger published a major (...) methodological treatise entitled Untersuchungen iiber die Methode der Socialwissenschaften und der Politischen Oekonomie insbesondere (Menger, 1963 (1883)). This book included criticisms of some of the historicist principles of doing economics. In the same year, Schmoller, leader of the German historicists, wrote a critical review of Menger’s book (Schmoller, 1883). Menger reacted forcefully with a more straightforwardly polemical small book, Die Irrthiimer des Historismus in der deutschen National6konomie (Menger, 1884). Commentaries by others appeared in later years, but this brief episode amounted to what has thereafter been called the Methodenstreit between Menger and Schmoller. It has been established as perhaps the most famous methodological controversy in the history of the social sciences. (shrink)

This paper delves into the character concept as applied to reproduction. Our argument is that the prevailing functional-adaptationist perspective falls short in explaining the evolution of reproductive traits, and we propose an alternative organismal-relational approach that incorporates the developmental and interactive aspects of reproduction. To begin, we define the functional individuation of reproductive traits as evolutionary strategies aimed at enhancing fitness, and we demonstrate how this perspective influences the classification of reproductive characters and modes, the comprehension of shared traits as (...) resulting from conflicts of evolutionary interest between individuals, and the explanation of reproductive diversity. After outlining the shortcomings of this framework, we introduce an organismal-relational approach grounded in evolutionary developmental studies of reproduction. This view provides a revised classification for reproductive characters and modes and offers a new understanding of interorganismal traits that takes into account their inherently relational nature. Lastly, we present the research agenda that emerges from this approach, which addresses the core explanatory gaps left by the adaptationist perspective, including the explanation of reproductive homologies and homoplasies, the developmental constraints associated with the evolution of reproductive modes, and the evolvability of reproductive characters. (shrink)

The paper studies the significance of Martin Heidegger's philosophy of history for two key thinkers of contemporary radical conservatism and the Identitarian movement, Alain de Benoist and Aleksandr Dugin. Heidegger's often-overlooked affinities with the German “conservative revolution” of the Weimar period have in recent years been emphasized by an emerging radical-conservative “right-Heideggerian” orientation. I first discuss the later Heidegger's “being-historical” narrative of the culmination and end of the metaphysical foundations of Western modernity in the contemporary Nietzschean era of nihilism (...) and of an emerging postmodern “other beginning” of Western thinking, focused on historical and cultural relativism and particularism. In Heidegger's work of the 1930s and 1940s, we find attempts to apply this historical narrative to interpreting contemporary geopolitical and ideological phenomena in ways that connect Heidegger to certain central ideas and concerns of the conservative revolutionaries, especially Carl Schmitt's geopolitical particularism. De Benoist, the key name of the French Nouvelle Droite and a founding figure of contemporary Identitarianism, is particularly inspired by Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche as the culmination of the “metaphysics of subjectivity” dominating Western modernity. For de Benoist, this modern metaphysics is the root of the “ideology of the Same” underlying the liberal universalism and individualism that he opposes in the name of a cultural ethnopluralism. De Benoist's Russian disciple Dugin bases the pluralistic geopolitics of his radical-conservative “fourth political theory” on the legacy of the conservative revolution, the key intellectual model of which Dugin discovers in Heidegger's notion of the “other beginning”. (shrink)

Cosmopolis A Review of Cosmopolitics -/- 2015/3-4 -/- Editorial Dominique de Courcelles & Paul Ghils -/- This issue addresses the general concept of “spirituality” as it appears in various cultural contexts and timeframes, through contrasting ideological views. Without necessarily going back to artistic and religious remains of primitive men, which unquestionably show pursuits beyond the biophysical dimension and illustrate practices seeking to unveil the hidden significance of life and death, the following papers deal with a number of interpretations covering a (...) wide field extending from belief to theory, from emotions to concepts, from the wisdom of personal experience to the most sophisticated doctrines. Spirit and spirituality are indeed many-faceted notions. They may refer to the intricate world of the interacting spirits which inhabit living beings in animistic traditions, without excluding a “grand force” linking human beings within a dynamic whole on which their very existence rely . They also bear upon more atomistic and either/or approaches of Western philosophy, which have become embodied in Cartesian dualism against a monotheist background, to the point of freezing the essence of individuals and culminating in the extreme individualism that characterizes our contemporaries. However, this equally refers to the opposite conception of materialism, across times and cultures, from ancient India and Greece (Cārvāka, originally known as Lokāyata, or some Buddhist doctrines for the former, Democritus or Lucretius for the latter) to more contemporary materialistic schools, whether modern or postmodern. -/- The following papers look at the contrasting forms of the philosophy and spirit of the human factor set into a whole, with no artificial disjoint between the psychical and the physical levels, as Wittgenstein put it: “And how can a body have a soul?”. This approach is not unrelated to the notion of anthropocene examined in a recent issue of Cosmopolis, with provides another comprehensive framework open to a spiritual life emerging from the very environment that generated it. -/- *** The first section of this issue was edited by Dominique de Courcelles, director at the National French Research Centre (CNRS), whom we wish to thank for collecting relevant studies relating to the religious and political questions, with a view to focusing on the war of ideas inevitably waged behind images, concepts and perceptions, taking an asymmetrical approach. To the extent that they are mindful of global/local interactions and include representations, opinions and beliefs, such disciplines as philosophy, philology, history and social sciences can provide useful studies accounting for new practices in geopolitics and a fair diplomacy. -/- In her introduction, Dominique de Courcelles first poses the question of how the religious and political spheres interrelate, with their corresponding religious demands and humanistic values. She then suggests that the right question today may be breaking with the philosophy of human rights concerned with the defense of human beings against the hazards of arbitrary politics or the instrumental use of religion, in favour of a fair philosophy of humankind, a new humanism. This would consist in recognizing a common loyalty of all towards one interhuman, not only interstate community, to protect it from both the autonomy demanded by individuals and the instrumental use of minorities. -/- Considering the fact of diversity, so important today in terms of both politics and religion, Abdelhai Azarkan looks at the conditions under which tolerance could obtain the double status of right and duty. He revisits to two philosophers, John Locke and Voltaire, who thought about it from the historical reality of religious wars. The former made tolerance into a right, basing his analysis on the political-legal level, while the latter saw tolerance as a duty, from an analysis based on ethical-political criteria. -/- Mathieu Guidère examines what he calls semantic denominationalism, a term which implies religious attributes and identities, whichever national loyalties or personal belonging they may have at the same time. Since the early 2000s, thie phenomenon has expanded tremendously, compounded by the “war on terror” and the over media-oriented terrorist actions. Denominational expressions act as formal names for ordinary and high-profile players in domestic and foreign policies of democratic states. These systems reveal a receding secularization, while the powerful comeback of religious identities signals the failure of nation-states and the weakening of the humanist spirit. -/- Barbara De Poli retraces the history of a contemporary jihadism claiming its Islamic essence and asserting the truth of genuine coranic principles via the war on infidels, with a view to restoring the Caliphate. After defining the term jihad, she shows that even if this contemporary jiadism is spreading in the Muslim world, it radically departs from Islamic law and the received use of the term jihad, in so far as it is rooted in the early radical thinking of Islamic ideologues in the 20th century, starting with with Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. This current has been fueled by by international conflicts since the outbreak of the war in Afghanistan, in which the so-called Western countries bear a major responsibility. -/- Abderrazak Sayadi starts from the Tunisian experience to ask the question of humanist values and democracy within the relationships between the religious and political spheres. As a historian of religion, he is brought to demystify certain islamic principles and to paying attention to the reform of law, seeing the separation of religion and politics as a precondition to a successful democratic gamble and the establishment of a renewed humanism. -/- Dominique de Courcelles reminds us that getting a better knowledge of narrations and words makes it possible to better understand how logical and rhetorical thinking works for those who wage an asymetriccal war, re-enchanting and mystifying the world to better take control. As soon as 1932, an exchange of letters between Einstein and Freud made it clear that, in order to free man from fatality and war, education understood as culture was fundamental. Such illustrations as the exécution of Oussama ben Laden and the Caliph’s speech in Mossoul show that a premiminary analysis of images and words is essential to a fair diplomacy conducted by people from civil society, whose culture and wisdom allow justice and force to speak together and better resist war. -/- Marcel Boisard thinks that on the day the guns fall silent, exhausted by war, we will not return to the state borders that have prevailed for a century as an outcome of the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. It is time to prepare the “day after”, which will be a huge challenge. To this end, a summit of Middle-East nations is urgently needed to globally decide the fate of those peoples. On the condition that we know who the enemy is and accept to name it, to understand the history of the countries, groups and alliances, and to question any false or self-interested sense of certainty. -/- *** In the second section, Paul Schafer provides the author’s experiences to explain how culture, from the artistic to the biological, has the power to to open the doors to spirituality, from the inner self to the global environment. He asks himself whether a relative permanence of spirituality can arise from the specific moments that characterize it. Laurent Ledoux synthesizes the conclusion of a symposium held on 22 January 2015 on the links between philosophy and management, on the basis of the spiritual dimension conceived as “natural” and the answers it may suggest to the issues that face the organizations in a “contemporaniversal” world. Jacques Rifflet makes that question in a secular perspective, based on the wellsprings of personal commitment before it can be caught by any religious creed or scientific theory. In this sense spirituality, in alliance with reason, both inspires human consciousness and illuminates its destiny. Sami Aldeeb asks himself whether Islam can be reconciled with human rights. Caught between the belief in an absolute and final Word descended from the sky, and evidence showing that any religion is the creation of a given culture and a society situated in time and space, the Makkan and … contexts et médinois call for differentiated, if not opposite answers and exegeses. Bernard Carmona provides the outline of a dialogical framework, which is known to be a feature of debates between the various philosophical schools of classical India, exemplified here by the transdisciplinary perspective of debates within a Buddhist context. *** The articles not focused on the previous topic include a study by Landry Signé on China’s strategy, competing with the United States to control African resources. The author deals with the specific case of China’s rapprochement with Southern Sudan since Sudan was broken up. In the last paper, Goran Fejić and Rada Iveković, return to the essential role that women should play, and comments upon the role of some international legal instruments related in particular to the elimination of all forms of discrimination. The perspective is transnational and transethnic and is based on secular criteria, as regards nation-building and more generally society-building. Considering the persistence of widespread violence, whether in times of armed conflict or in times of peace, the question remains whether it is possible to fully implement rights and justice instruments. (shrink)