In his absorbing book Art as Performance, David Davies argues that artworks should be identified, not with artistic products such as paintings or novels, but instead with the artistic actions or processes that produced such items. Such a view had an earlier incarnation in Currie’s widely criticized “action type hypothesis”, but Davies argues that it is instead action tokens rather than types with which artworks should be identified. This rich and complex work repays the closest study in spite of some (...) basic objections to be raised concerning Davies’s central concept of an action token. (shrink)

Amazon Book Review Series of “Wild Wise Weird”.

I rarely write reviews, but this book gently nudged me to think deeper. As an older man, I appreciate its simple yet profound insights. The anecdotes and reflections are like wise words from a trusted friend—they make you smile and pause. It’s a modest read with genuine lessons that resonate, inviting you to see life’s quirks with fresh eyes.

"Wild Wise Weird: The Kingfisher Story Collection" by Quan-Hoang Vuong is a remarkable collection of fables that views the world through the perspective of a sharp-witted, sometimes arrogant kingfisher. The stories are humorous, satirical, and thought-provoking.

Reading these stories felt like stepping into a vibrant little universe where cheeky birds mirror our own quirks. The blend of Vietnamese folklore and modern humor made it both nostalgic and refreshingly new. Kingfisher’s wit struck me as a playful echo of Aesop’s timeless lessons, yet with a distinctly original twist. I loved how each brief tale entertained me on the surface while nudging me to ponder deeper truths. It’s a perfect pick for anyone seeking a gentle escape that still (...) packs a surprising dose of insight. (shrink)

I stumbled upon this little gem of a book and honestly wasn't sure what to expect at first. It turned out to be such a delightful surprise - like having a fascinating conversation with a wise friend over coffee. The way the author weaves together personal stories, scientific insights, and clever paradoxes really got me thinking. What I loved most was how peaceful it felt reading these bite-sized reflections. Sure, some parts were a bit scattered, but that's kind of the (...) charm. If you're looking for a thoughtful break from our noisy world, this one's worth picking up. (shrink)

"Wild Wise Weird: The Kingfisher Story Collection" by Quan-Hoang Vuong is an exceptional collection that blends wisdom, satire, and wit into 45 thought-provoking tales. Each story feels like a journey through a world where unconventional wisdom meets quirky humor, challenging readers to think critically while also offering moments of reflection.

This book is a look at the power of thinking, wrapped in an entertaining and clever story. The paradox with the king and the sage is both humorous and thought-provoking. It really makes you think about logic in a new way. While the book’s main ideas are interesting, it sometimes feels a bit more abstract than I'd have liked, but it's still an enjoyable read. The mix of humor and philosophy keeps things light, while still making you reflect on how (...) we think and reason. But it's worth checking out if you like stories that make you think. (shrink)

"Meandering Sobriety" by Quan-Hoang Vuong is a fascinating and intellectually rich book that blends philosophy, paradoxes, and scientific insights into a reflective journey on the nature of thinking. The author masterfully weaves anecdotes, scientific concepts, and personal reflections, creating a unique narrative that stimulates the mind while offering moments of tranquility in today’s chaotic “infosphere.”.

Supporting young researchers to peer-review and edit journal submissions will also accelerate their training, says Quan-Hoang Vuong. -/- *Citation: -/- Quan-Hoang Vuong. (2022, Sept. 11). Early career researchers can help fix peer review delays. Times Higher Education.

The purpose of the study. This study aims to identify the prevalence of participants in physical activities, the motivation needed by the students to engage in the activity, challenges encountered by the implementors, health benefits, and recommendations and suggestions needed for the improvement of the implementation. -/- Materials and methods. A systematic analysis of the data from different articles was conducted using Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) scoping review framework. -/- Results. It was found that the implementation of active recreational (...) activities offers different health benefits to the youth, physical literacy and orientation and motivation played a vital role in the implementation of the recreational activities. -/- Conclusions. Therefore, the implementation of active recreational activities must be strengthened in schools not just for the sake of participation but because they are motivated to. And engagement in these activities must not only be limited to school grounds but also engaged at home and in the community. (shrink)

As more objections have been raised against grant peer-review for being costly and time-consuming, the legitimate question arises whether machine learning algorithms could help assess the epistemic efficiency of the proposed projects. As a case study, we investigated whether project efficiency in high energy physics can be algorithmically predicted based on the data from the proposal. To analyze the potential of algorithmic prediction in HEP, we conducted a study on data about the structure and outcomes of HEP experiments with (...) the goal of predicting their efficiency. In the first step, we assessed the project efficiency using Data Envelopment Analysis of 67 experiments conducted in the HEP laboratory Fermilab. In the second step, we employed predictive algorithms to detect which team structures maximize the epistemic performance of an expert group. For this purpose, we used the efficiency scores obtained by DEA and applied predictive algorithms – lasso and ridge linear regression, neural network, and gradient boosted trees – on them. The results of the predictive analyses show moderately high accuracy, indicating that they can be beneficial as one of the steps in grant review. Still, their applicability in practice should be approached with caution. Some of the limitations of the algorithmic approach are the unreliability of citation patterns, unobservable variables that influence scientific success, and the potential predictability of the model. (shrink)

Editors van Ditmarsch, Hendriks and Verbrugge of this special issue of topiCS on lying describe some recent trends in research on lying from a multidisciplinary perspective, including logic, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence. Furthermore, they outline the seven contributions to this special issue.

Editors van Ditmarsch, Hendriks and Verbrugge of this special issue of topiCS on lying describe some recent trends in research on lying from a multidisciplinary perspective, including logic, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence. Furthermore, they outline the seven contributions to this special issue.

In Philip K. Dick’s Counter-Clock World the direction of time flips in 1986, putting the Earth into what its inhabitants call the ‘Hogarth Phase’. Named after the scientist who predicted that ‘time’s arrow' would change direction, the Hogarth Phase is a period in which entropy decreases instead of increases. During this time the dead call from their graves to be excavated, people clean their lungs by ‘smoking’ stubs that grow into mature cigarettes, coffee separates from cream, and so on. Although (...) such reversals may be familiar from works of fiction, we are utterly unfamiliar with them in experience. The processes of nature behave in a temporally asymmetric manner. Once the cream mixes with the coffee, it stays that way, never to return to its original separated state. Neither cigarettes nor people ever fully reconstitute themselves. This kind of asymmetric behaviour is ubiquitous in thermodynamic, radiative, and quantum mechanical phenomena. But we also find our common-sense impression ofthe world painted with temporally asymmetric concepts. Time feels like it is ‘f|owing’ forward and causation appears to be an asymmetric relation. These phenomena and impressions stand in sharp contrast with the world as perceived through eyes tutored by modem science. Spacetime, rather than.. (shrink)

A Mathematical Review by John Corcoran, SUNY/Buffalo -/- Macbeth, Danielle Diagrammatic reasoning in Frege's Begriffsschrift. Synthese 186 (2012), no. 1, 289–314. ABSTRACT This review begins with two quotations from the paper: its abstract and the first paragraph of the conclusion. The point of the quotations is to make clear by the “give-them-enough-rope” strategy how murky, incompetent, and badly written the paper is. I know I am asking a lot, but I have to ask you to read the quoted (...) passages—aloud if possible. Don’t miss the silly attempt to recycle Kant’s quip “Concepts without intuitions are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind”. What the paper was aiming at includes the absurdity: “Proofs without definitions are empty; definitions without proofs are, if not blind, then dumb.” But the author even bollixed this. The editor didn’t even notice. The copy-editor missed it. And the author’s proof-reading did not catch it. In order not to torment you I will quote the sentence as it appears: “In a slogan: proofs without definitions are empty, merely the aimless manipulation of signs according to rules; and definitions without proofs are, if no blind, then dumb.”[sic] The rest of my review discusses the paper’s astounding misattribution to contemporary logicians of the information-theoretic approach. This approach was cruelly trashed by Quine in his 1970 Philosophy of Logic, and thereafter ignored by every text I know of. The paper under review attributes generally to modern philosophers and logicians views that were never espoused by any of the prominent logicians—such as Hilbert, Gödel, Tarski, Church, and Quine—apparently in an attempt to distance them from Frege: the focus of the article. On page 310 we find the following paragraph. “In our logics it is assumed that inference potential is given by truth-conditions. Hence, we think, deduction can be nothing more than a matter of making explicit information that is already contained in one’s premises. If the deduction is valid then the information contained in the conclusion must be contained already in the premises; if that information is not contained already in the premises […], then the argument cannot be valid.” Although the paper is meticulous in citing supporting literature for less questionable points, no references are given for this. In fact, the view that deduction is the making explicit of information that is only implicit in premises has not been espoused by any standard symbolic logic books. It has only recently been articulated by a small number of philosophical logicians from a younger generation, for example, in the prize-winning essay by J. Sagüillo, Methodological practice and complementary concepts of logical consequence: Tarski’s model-theoretic consequence and Corcoran’s information-theoretic consequence, History and Philosophy of Logic, 30 (2009), pp. 21–48. The paper omits definitions of key terms including ‘ampliative’, ‘explicatory’, ‘inference potential’, ‘truth-condition’, and ‘information’. The definition of prime number on page 292 is as follows: “To say that a number is prime is to say that it is not divisible without remainder by another number”. This would make one be the only prime number. The paper being reviewed had the benefit of two anonymous referees who contributed “very helpful comments on an earlier draft”. Could these anonymous referees have read the paper? -/- J. Corcoran, U of Buffalo, SUNY -/- PS By the way, if anyone has a paper that has been turned down by other journals, any journal that would publish something like this might be worth trying. (shrink)

This 4-page review-essay—which is entirely reportorial and philosophically neutral as are my other contributions to MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS—starts with a short introduction to the philosophy known as mathematical structuralism. The history of structuralism traces back to George Boole (1815–1864). By reference to a recent article various feature of structuralism are discussed with special attention to ambiguity and other terminological issues. The review-essay includes a description of the recent article. The article’s 4-sentence summary is quoted in full and then analyzed. (...) The point of the quotation is to make clear how murky, incompetent, and badly written the paper is. There is no way to determine from the article whether the editor or referees suggests improvements. (shrink)

Counselling y cuidados paliativos es el título del libro escrito por la doctora Esperanza Santos y el profesor José Carlos Bermejo. En esta obra, de fácil lectura y con consejos muy prácticos y útiles, se presentan elementos fundamentales para brindar un acompañamiento de óptima calidad en el cuidado paliativo, así como la posibilidad de hacer un autoexamen de cómo los cuidadores de los pacientes prestan sus servicios e incluso para no caer en burnout. Este libro es de gran utilidad, tanto (...) para los profesionales de la salud que trabajan en las unidades de cuidados paliativos, como para personas que dedican gran parte de su tiempo al cuidado de familiares con enfermedades terminales, o que pasan por procesos prolongados de enfermedad. Con ejemplos de conversaciones de la vida real entre cuidadores y pacientes, la lectura del libro se hace, a la vez, agradable, divertida y profundamente reflexiva. (shrink)

Direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, and reputation are important interrelated topics in the evolution of sociality. This non-mathematical review is a summary of each. Direct reciprocity (the positive kind) has a straightforward structure (e.g., "A rewards B, then rewards A") but the allocation might differ from the process that enabled it (e.g., whether it is true reciprocity or some form of mutualism). Indirect reciprocity (the positive kind) occurs when person (B) is rewarded by a third party (A) after doing a (...) good deed towards somebody else (C) — with the structure "A observes B help C, therefore A helps B." Here too, the allocation differs from the process: if there is underlying cognition, then indirect reciprocity is based on some ability to keep track of the reputations of others (to remember that "B helped C"). Reputation is a kind of social impression based on typicality, derived from three channels of experience (direct encounters, bystander observation, and gossip). Although non-human animals cannot gossip verbally, they can eavesdrop on third parties and learn vicariously. This paper ends with a proposal to investigate the topic of social expertise as a model for understanding how animals understand and utilise observed information within their social groups. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, William Lycan’s work on the semantics of conditionals has been distinguished by his careful attention to the connection between syntax and semantics, and more generally by his impeccable methodology. Lycan takes compositionality seriously, so he requires that the meaning of compound expressions like ‘even if’ be a combination of the constituent expressions, here ‘even’ and ‘if’. After reading his work, it’s hard to take seriously work that does not share this methodology.

Gavagai! or the Future History of the Animal Language Controversy By DAVID PREMACK.

Review of Bob Hale's "Necessary Beings: An Essay on Ontology, Modality, and the Relations Between Them". Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013, ISBN 9780199669578.

The review is a concise summary of the main line of argument Leftow advances for his highly original, detailed theistic account of the metaphysical foundations of broadly logical necessity.

Review of the English translation of Bernard Montagnes' influential 1963 monograph on analogy in Aquinas. (Pre-publication copy -- please cite final version.).

Revelación y religiones es el título del libro editado por Xavier Morlans i Molina, publicado en el 2016 por la editorial Herder. De manera sencilla y sin recargar los capítulos de información sobre las religiones tratadas, los autores se abocan a la misión de buscaranalogías y diferencias de la idea de revelación en dichas tradiciones. El orden que tiene el libro es cronológico, es decir, según la aparición histórica de cada tradición religiosa.

Introducción a los escritos de san Juan. Evangelio, Cartas y Apocalipsis es el título del libro editado por Juan Chapa, profesor de la Facultad de Teología de la Universidad de Navarra, publicado en el 2011 por la editorial EUNSA. En este texto, el editor nos presenta una revisión sobre el estado de la investigación sobre los escritos de san Juan, apoyándose en la misma Sagrada Escritura, así como en los datos de la Tradición de la Iglesia Católica.

Terapéutica de las enfermedades espirituales es el título del libro escrito por Jean Claude Larchet, publicado en el 2014 por Ediciones Sígueme, traducido del original francés: Thérapeutique des maladies spirituelles, Les Éditions du Cerf; del año 2000. En este texto el autor nos presenta la vida espiritual como una dimensión real del ser humano, que así como en su dimensión física trabaja por su salud, lo debe hacer también en el ámbito de su vida espiritual; no hacerlo, lo conduce a (...) enfermarse, leve o gravemente. El libro plantea la descripción de esas enfermedades espirituales que aquejan al ser humano y cuál es su terapéutica. (shrink)

Resilience Tutors is the title of the book written by Gema Puig Esteve and JoséLuis Rubio Raval, published in 2015 by the Gedisa publishing house in Barcelona, Spain. In a novel way, the book, divided into two, expresses in the first part, in a fictional way, through experiential, emotional and direct language, the reality surrounding the resilience tutor; In the second part, it gives us concrete theoretical elements that allow us to delve deeper into the foundations of resilience, the contexts (...) in which it develops and the characteristics of resilience tutors. We could summarize the theme of the book in a poetic way with a few words from Espinosa (Cited in Rubio and Puig, 2015): “Every year of my life I have searched for twelve pearls. Twelve people that I did not know, but who appeared to me and marked my world in such a way that my self changed (...) Over time some pearls become diamonds (...) a diamond, so that you understand me, is one of those people who become so basic and so important in your life that they seem created solely for you” (p. 49). -/- Tutores de Resiliencia es el título del libro escrito por Gema Puig Esteve y JoséLuis Rubio Raval, publicado en el 2015 por la editorial Gedisa en Barcelona,España. De manera novedosa el libro, dividido en dos, expresa en la primera parte,de manera novelada, a través de un lenguaje vivencial, emotivo y directo, la realidad entorno al tutor de resiliencia; en la segunda parte, nos da elementos teóricos concretos que permiten profundizar en los fundamentos de la resiliencia, los contextos en los que se desarrolla y las características de los tutores de resiliencia. Podríamos resumir la temática del libro de manera poética con unas palabras de Espinosa (Citado en Rubio y Puig, 2015): “Cada año de mi vida he buscado doce perlas. Doce personas que noconociera, pero que se me aparecieran y marcaran mi mundo de tal maneraque mi yo virara (...) Con el tiempo algunas perlas pasan a ser diamantes(...) un diamante, para que me entiendas, es una de esas personas que sehace tan básica y tan importante en tu vida que parece creada únicamente para ti” (p. 49). (shrink)

The Porn Factor. Pornography and child sexual abuse es un libro que ha surgido fruto de la experiencia de la autora de darse cuenta de que después de 38 años de matrimonio con su esposo, durante 13 años él había abusado de menores de edad. La respuesta está en que los perpetradores son manipuladores tan altamente calificados, que pueden engañar incluso a la pareja con quien viven y convencer al menor que mantener el secreto en la oscuridad es críticamente importante (...) para ambos. Los perpetradores son usualmente adictos a la pornografía y esto es lo que busca la autora de este libro: que entendamos que nuestra sociedad se está “pornificando”, que vivimos en una “cultura pornificada” y que esta droga (la pornografía), es tan adictiva como la cocaína y está siendo uno de los principales factores causantes del abuso sexual de niños, niñas y adolescentes. (shrink)

No es usual leer un libro de un gran teólogo y a la vez de un gran artista. Ubicándonos en el siglo XXI, es fácil reconocer al personaje del cual estamos hablando: Marko I. Rupnik. La sensibilidad artística, unida a la profundidad teológica y a su ascendencia espiritual católica oriental, hacen de los escritos del padre Rupnik grandes novedades para la teología occidental actual. En su libro According to the Spirit, el padre Rupnik propone, siguiendo los lineamientos del papa Francisco, (...) que será una teología espiri-tual que exprese la renovación de la vida eclesial, la que podrá afrontar el periodo épico de transición en el cual nos encontramos. La Iglesia Católica necesita una nueva mentalidad que corresponde a una vida nueva, pero basada en una vida según el Espíritu, una vida espiritual que le haga espacio interior al Espíritu, recibiéndolo como un don, que nos libere del apego a nosotros mismos. Las aproximaciones exis-tenciales, así como la profundidad teológica y los matices fruto de la sensibilidad espiritual del padre Rupnik, hacen del libro una aguda, dura y muy acertada crítica a la situación actual de la Iglesia Católica, en sus métodos teológicos, evangelización y respuesta a las necesidades del mundo de hoy. (shrink)

TS. Đào Văn Dương – Trưởng Khoa Công nghệ Sinh học, Hóa học và Kỹ thuật Môi trường là nhà khoa học của Trường Đại học Phenikaa vừa vinh dự nhận giải thưởng Global Peer Review Awards 2019. Đây là giải thưởng vinh danh những nhà bình duyệt, biên tập viên có những thành tựu và đóng góp không mệt mỏi cho bình duyệt khoa học trong năm 2019.

Review of the book by mathematician and science writer Amir Aczel, Why Science does not Disprove God, recently reissued in paperback, with a focus on the chapters on mathematics and God, and criticisms from the standpoint of the epistemology of the science and religion dialogue.

La rivelazione della persona, dall’individuo alla comunione es un libro que, exponiendo la temática desde la fe cristiana con un acento en la teología ortodoxa griega, atrae la atención de quien quiere comprenderse mejor así mismo como persona, identificando lo nocivo que puede llegar a entenderse simplemente como individuo y, a su vez, profundizando en lo que significa la comunión en el ser persona. El lenguaje claro, conciso y ordenado del profesor Ware se combina con una holgura y flexibilidad en (...) la exposición de sus planteamientos, enriquecidos por el lenguaje teológico que incluye varios Padres de la Iglesia y teólogos contemporáneos junto con autores más propios de otros ámbitos, como el literario. De esta manera, el profesor Ware logra destacar los elementos claves para comprender lo que implica que Dios se haya revelado. (shrink)

Katy Deepwell calls for a vital and visible "new" feminist criticism in 1997 amidst a pessimistic overview of the state of feminist art and criticism in Britain, Canada, and the U.S. As an update to this review, I note that Deepwell took decisive and effective action on her pessimism and for the past twenty years (as of this writing in July 2017) created an online feminist journal--n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal--that has published over 550 articles by 400 writers and (...) artists from more than 80 countries. After 40 issues, the journal has come to an end. What a success story! (shrink)

This book is a new attempt to clarify what is at issue in the contemporary realism debates and to suggest which form the controversies ought to take. Wright has contributed to the-se debates for quite some time and essentially taken the anti-realist side (witness the papers collected in Realism, Meaning and Truth, 1987, 21993, and the forthcoming Realism, Rules and Objectivity, both Oxford: Basil Blackwell). In Truth and Objectivity however, he takes a step back and sketches a neutral ground upon (...) which both sides could agree in or-der to define their oppositions clearly, thus enabling fruitful discussions. His methodolog-ical suggestion for a realism debate in a given assertoric discourse is that both sides should agree on a “minimal” concept of truth for that discourse and then see whether ascent to a more metaphysically substantial concept of truth is warranted, which would constitute a realism for the discourse in question. If Wright had managed to set the agenda in a way that does justice to both sides, this book would have constituted a major contribution to contemporary epistemology and metaphysics. (shrink)

Alfred Tarski (1901--1983) is widely regarded as one of the two giants of twentieth-century logic and also as one of the four greatest logicians of all time (Aristotle, Frege and Gödel being the other three). Of the four, Tarski was the most prolific as a logician. The four volumes of his collected papers, which exclude most of his 19 monographs, span over 2500 pages. Aristotle's writings are comparable in volume, but most of the Aristotelian corpus is not about logic, whereas (...) virtually everything written by Tarski concerns logic more or less directly. There is no doubt that Tarski wrote more on logic than any other author; he started publishing on logic in 1921 at the age of 20 and continued until his death at the age of 82. Two of his works appeared posthumously [Hist. Philos. Logic 7 (1986), no. 2, 143--154; MR0868748 (88b:03010); Tarski and Givant, A formalization of set theory without variables, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 1987; MR0920815 (89g:03012)]. Tarski's voluminous writings were widely scattered in numerous journals, some quite rare. It has been extremely difficult to study the development of Tarski's thought and to trace the interconnections and interdependence of his various papers. Thanks to the present collection all this has changed, and it is likely that the increased accessibility of Tarski's papers will have the effect of increasing Tarski's already enormous influence. (shrink)