In this paper I shall venture into an area with which I am not very familiar and in which I feel far from confident; namely into phenomenology. My main motive is not to get away from standard, boring, methodological questions like those of induction and demarcation; but the conviction that a phenomenological account of the empirical basis forms a necessary complement to Popper's falsificationism. According to the latter, a scientific theory is a synthetic and universal, hence unverifiable proposition. In fact, (...) in order to be technologically useful, a scientific hypothesis must refer to future states-of-affairs; it ought therefore to remain unverified. But in order to be empirical, a theory must bear some kind of relation to factual statements. According to Popper, such a relation can only be one of potential conflict. Thus a theory T will be termed scientific if and only if T is logically incompatible with a so-called basic statement b, where b is both empirically verifiable and empirically falsifiable. In other words: T is scientific if it entails ¬b; where b, hence also ¬b, is an empirically decidable proposition. (shrink)

Este trabajo, hasta hoy inédito. fue leído en inglés durante el Coloquio Wittgenstein realizado en la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú en julio de 1989 con la participación de la autora. Cora Diamond, Juan Bautista Ferro, Peter Geach, Mario Montalbetti y Jorge Secada. La versión original que se publica ahora acompañada de mi traducción al castellano incorpora algunos agregados y correcciones que la profesoraAnscombe hizo en el manuscrito durante y después de la lectura del trabajo. Los únicos cambios que he (...) introducido yo en el texto inglés son unas mínimas alteraciones y correcciones gráficas y una corrección ortográfica evidente.Las menciones a términos del original inglés que he incluido en el texto en castellanovan entre corchetes angulares. Salvo las notas, éstas son las únicasinterpolaciones que he hecho en el cuerpo del artículo. (shrink)

Classification learning is a preeminent human ability within the animal kingdom but the key mechanisms of brain networks regulating learning remain mostly elusive. Recent neuroimaging advancements have depicted human brain as a complex graph machinery where brain regions are nodes and coherent activities among them represent the functional connections. While long-term motor memories have been found to alter functional connectivity in the resting human brain, a graph topological investigation of the short-time effects of learning are still not widely investigated. For (...) instance, classification learning is known to orchestrate rapid modulation of diverse memory systems like short-term and visual working memories but how the brain functional connectome accommodates such modulations is unclear. We used publicly available repositories (openfmri.org) selecting three experiments, two focused on short-term classification learning along two consecutive runs where learning was promoted by trial-by-trial feedback errors, while a further experiment was used as supplementary control. We analyzed the functional connectivity extracted from BOLD fMRI signals, and estimated the graph information processing in the cerebral networks. The information processing capability, characterized by complex network statistics, significantly improved over runs, together with the subject classification accuracy. Instead, null-learning experiments, where feedbacks came with poor consistency, did not provoke any significant change in the functional connectivity over runs. We propose that learning induces fast modifications in the overall brain network dynamics, definitely ameliorating the short-term potential of the brain to process and integrate information, a dynamic consistently orchestrated by modulations of the functional connections among specific brain regions. (shrink)

Zettel is a collection of fragments which Wittgenstein cut from various of his typescripts and preserved for future use. More than half of the fragments were written in the years 1946-1948, after the completion of Part I and before the composition of Part II of the Philosophical Investigations. This collection may therefore be regarded as a companion volume to the Investigations, adding to both the scope and the Unity of Wittgenstein′s chef d′oeuvre. The fragments were kept in a box and (...) were not strictly ordered. Many have marks showing changes and improvements made after they were cut from the typescripts; some have remarks added in handwriting. Editing the collection for publication was thus a task of considerable difficulty. Since Zettel was first published, further research has been carried out on the fragments and minute comparisons have been made with their typescript and manuscript sources, revealing certain inaccuracies and misinterpretations in the first editing of the work. The second edition corrects these shortcomings and includes new explanatory footnotes; a detailed index, compiled by Stephen Amdur, has also been added. (shrink)

I prefix to this paper for convenience of reference the three extant chapters of the law: K.L. III. Quae colonia hac lege deducta quodue municipium praefectura forum conciliabulum constitutum erit, qui ager intra fines eorum erit, qui termini in eo agro statuti erunt, quo in loco terminus non stabit, in eo loco is, cuius is ager erit, terminum restituendum curato, uti quod recte factum esse uolet: idque magistratus, qui in ea colonia municipio praefectura foro conciliabulo iure dicundo praeerit, facito ut (...) fiat. (shrink)

Using a recent result of Busch and Gudder, we reconsider a theorem of Ludwig which allows one to identify a class of effect automorphisms as the symmetry transformations in quantum mechanics.