We propose an approach reconciling the ultimate-level explanations proposed by Savage et al. and Mehr et al. as to why music evolved. We also question the current adaptationist view of culture, which too often fails to disentangle distinct fitness benefits.

In the popular imagination, the relevance of Turing's theoretical ideas to people producing actual machines was significant and appreciated by everybody involved in computing from the moment he published his 1936 paper ‘On Computable Numbers’. Careful historians are aware that this popular conception is deeply misleading. We know from previous work by Campbell-Kelly, Aspray, Akera, Olley, Priestley, Daylight, Mounier-Kuhn, Haigh, and others that several computing pioneers, including Aiken, Eckert, Mauchly, and Zuse, did not depend on Turing's 1936 universal-machine concept. Furthermore, (...) it is not clear whether any substance in von Neumann's celebrated 1945 ‘First Draft Report on the EDVAC’ is influenced in any identifiable way by Turing's work. This raises the questions: When does Turing enter the field? Why did the Association for Computing Machinery honor Turing by associating his name to ACM's most prestigious award, the Turing Award? Previous authors have.. (shrink)

In this article, we analyze both M. J. Wainwright and E. M. Reingold's view of the process dissociation measurement models presented by A. Buchner, E. Erdfelder, and B. Vaterrodt-Plunnecke and their suggestions on that topic. This analysis reveals a number of problems in Wainwright and Reingold's approach. Some of these problems are more subtle than others, but they are nevertheless consequential. Thus, researchers working with the process dissociation procedure should be aware of these problems.

This paper aims to introduce, in the context of Latin America, the theoretical epistemic discussion regarding the theme of the ‘common’ as a political principle which substantiates instituting and autonomous processes of government, control and community regulation. The work seeks to relate a democratic scenario of the ‘common’ with the discourses of pluralist and decolonial normativity, in a way that would guarantee not only horizontal communal self-management, but also a legitimate ordering of forms of life, founded on common interest, social (...) relations and interconnected structures. For this purpose the instrument of critical-socio-legal analysis is applied at the intersections with the ‘participative-communitary’ type of legal pluralism. Our proposal is to combine the contemporary meaning of the ‘common’, its relation to the Latin American principles of ‘buen vivir’ (living well) and ‘interculturalidade’ (interculturality), as well as the instituting practice of the ‘common’, that engenders a normativity built ‘from below’, which is in opposition to the traditional positivist and state legal system imposed through colonization in Latin America. Such achievements that, although formalized, are not being successful against institutional ruptures, have ‘cloistered’ the practices of the ‘common’ and made the existence of legal pluralism invisible. (shrink)

This paper aims to answer the question: what does the realism of laws of nature consist of? To achieve this, in the first part, three philosophical accounts of laws of nature are presented and examined: the universalist, the dispositionalist and the counter-factualist. The presentation and examination focuses on the answer given by each of these accounts to the question: what is a law of nature? Later, in the second part, convergences and divergences between these three accounts are shown. Finally, in (...) the third section, the points of agreement between them are put together to advance the fundamental thesis that encompasses each of these accounts as realist accounts of laws of nature. This thesis, I argue, is at the end the core of the general realist stance on laws of nature that I name “Realism of Laws of Nature”. (shrink)

El presente artículo reflexiona sobre los orígenes del pragmatismo atendiendo puntos importantes para implicaciones epistemológicas que buscan servir luego de clave para una perspectiva para el pensamiento del sur del continente. Hay una exposición de aspectos centrales que sobre el pragmatismo expuso Charles Pierce, específicamente sobre las creencias, el signo como mediación cognitiva, así como una consideración de las ciencias para comprender el papel tanto del razonamiento como de la percepción y el instinto. Igualmente, se exponen elementos claves de la (...) teoría del conocimiento de John Dewey, quien ante el rechazo declarado al racionalismo cartesiano y sin limitarse a la experiencia como punto de referencia para la clarificación conceptual, se encamina más a unas vivencias y contactos con un mundo observado comprometiendo así la realidad sentida la propia mente. El pragmatismo implica atención a lo que nos rodea sin generar separaciones entre sensibilidad y razón o entre pensamiento y emoción, lo cual hace que los asuntos de la ciencia y del conocimiento no se den ajenos a las acciones democráticas entre los individuos activos y sus colectivos. (shrink)

Philosophy as a discipline is typically characterized through the use of rigorous argument and analysis, and the clarification of the meaning of concepts. Philosophical problems are thus resolved, not through the appeal to empirical evidence, but by identifying inconsistent and confusing patterns of thought and reflection. This paper will clarify the nature of a philosophical methodology by explicating the relationship between the philosophy of sport and the core traditional areas of philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, axiology and logic.

The purpose of this research paper is to identify which types of corporate philanthropy (CP): cause-related marketing (CRM) or sponsorship, create higher moralcapital under two conditions: proactive or reactive (following a scandal). Results showed that CP created higher moral capital for a proactive company than for a reactive company. Both CRM and sponsorship were perceived as more sincere in the proactive company than the reactive company. However, CRM was seen as self-serving in the reactive company, but not the proactive company. (...) The study demonstrated that companies need to take into account the different types of CP, as it has an effect on their moral capital. Socially proactive firms should engage in both CRM and sponsorship philanthropy, as both types can generate high moral capital, which creates better company reputation. However, CP may not be the most effective or appropriate strategy for creating moral capital following negative publicity. (shrink)

A Reader in Early Franciscan Theology presents for the first time in English key passages from the Summa Halensis, one of the first major installments in the summa genre for which scholasticism became famous. This systematic work of philosophy and theology was collaboratively written mostly between 1236 and 1245 by the founding members of the Franciscan school, such as Alexander of Hales and John of La Rochelle, who worked at the recently founded University of Paris. Modern scholarship has often dismissed (...) this early Franciscan intellectual tradition as unoriginal, merely systematizing the Augustinian tradition in light of the rediscovery of Aristotle, paving the way for truly revolutionary figures like John Duns Scotus. But as the selections in this reader show, it was this earlier generation that initiated this break with precedent. The compilers of the Summa Halensis first articulated many positions that eventually become closely associated with the Franciscan tradition on issues like the nature of God, the proof for God’s existence, free will, the transcendentals, and Christology. This book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the ways in which medieval thinkers employed philosophical concepts in a theological context as well as the evolution of Franciscan thought and its legacy to modernity. A Reader in Early Franciscan Theology is available from the publisher on an open-access basis. (shrink)

I have argued that the central Christian doctrine of general resurrection (with particular reference to the Pauline corpus) can and should be understood in a scientifically and philosophically informed context, and have proposed a personalist-phenomenological model of general resurrection as a personally continuous transformative re-embodiment by the grace of God within an interpretative framework that respects the methods and findings of science while rejecting scientism and associated physicalist metaphysical claims. I have considered and rejected the re-assembly model of resurrection on (...) theological, philosophical and scientific grounds. (shrink)

Se presenta una reflexión acerca de la importancia de la labor docente ante los cambios curriculares y las demandas educativas contemporáneas. El profesor debe ser capaz de encaminar sus esfuerzos en el proceso de aprendizaje de sus estudiantes, tomando como base sus propias experiencias y movilizándolas hacia el desarrollo de la consciencia colectiva, que haga frente a los desafíos actuales. Palabras clave: educación, docencia, educación centrada en el estudiante, aprendizaje signfiicativo.

What I call ambiguities of system due to the sheer complexity of Whitehead’s metaphysics and his analysis of process in terms of concrescence and transition threaten its coherence in terms of what we know empirically of the quantum and classical dimensions of nature. Ambiguities of equivocation pertaining to Whitehead’s use of the terms “contemporary” and “objectification,” as the latter is employed in relation to prehension and satisfaction, also threaten its coherence. The article proposes ways to reduce these threats and uncertainty (...) about coherence by clarifying ambiguities and by attending to the way Whitehead’s terms are predicated on the quantum and classical dimensions. (shrink)

El objetivo del trabajo consiste en revisar dos versiones del argumento que concibe a la averiguación de la verdad como un factor que confi ere legitimidad al ejercicio de la función jurisdiccional penal: la de Ferrajoli y la de Laudan. Se sostiene que su estudio minucioso puede proporcionar bases racionales para decidir sobre la conveniencia de suscribir un garantismo extremo o uno de carácter más mesurado. Esta decisión cobra relevancia en el contexto de la discusión acerca de cuáles son las (...) características más apropiadas de los modelos teóricos del proceso penal. (shrink)

Storytelling is considered nowadays a proper strategy to encourage children to develop literary taste and reading and it is therefore being broadly practiced within educational spaces. Within this framework the present article deals with 140 reports on storytelling observation in schools for children’s education and first classes. These reports were carried out in different places in Porto Alegre and its surroundings. It was possible to observe that despite the joyful characteristic of the storytelling moment – that involves costumes, scenarios, puppets (...) – the way this activity has been conducted turned out to be very pedagogical in three dimensions. In the first place, the choice of many narratives and books reveals an explicit tendency to "civilize" the child or to form a certain kind of subject. In the second place, this pedagogical tendency becomes evident in the conversations carried out between storytellers and children after the storytelling. In this context certain "messages" of the narrative are frequently stressed. At last, in the interviews many storytellers explained their criteria to choose books and stories according to "the project that is being presently developed in the school" or according to "problems that are taking place in the classroom" and so on. In spite of this tendency, however, some reports allow to infer that many teachers are escaping the deliberate pedagogization the stories and are therefore siding with a discourse wherein pedagogical aspects are minimizedA contação de histórias é considerada, atualmente, uma estratégia adequada para iniciar as crianças no gosto pela leitura, sendo uma atividade generalizada nos espaços educativos. Dentro desse quadro, o artigo discute 140 relatos de observação de contação de histórias na Educação Infantil e anos iniciais, realizadas em espaços da região metropolitana de Porto Alegre . Assim, observou-se que, malgrado o caráter lúdico das horas do conto – com fantasias, cenários, fantoches –, há nelas uma evidente pedagogização, através de três dimensões: a primeira é a escolha de algumas histórias e/ ou livros que pretendem abertamente civilizar ou formar um determinado tipo de sujeito. Em segundo lugar, a pedagogização fica evidente nas conversas que a contadora de histórias realiza com crianças após a contação, uma vez que, frequentemente, se enfatizam as mensagens da história. Por fim, nas entrevistas realizadas com as contadoras, ao falarem dos critérios de escolha dos livros e das histórias, várias sinalizaram uma escolha de acordo com o "projeto que está sendo desenvolvido", com "problemas que estão ocorrendo na sala de aula", etc. Mesmo assim, algumas práticas observadas fugiram à pedagogização deliberada, mostrando que muitas professoras estão inseridas em outro discurso, em que a pedagogização é minimizada. (shrink)

As the seminal essay, it gives title to the present volume, and is here translated into English for the first time. In this essay, which marked a change of direction in Wind's own development, he argues that two opposing styles of portraiture, exemplified in the art of Gainsborough and Reynolds, can be related to the different notions of humanity subscribed to by the philosophers David Hume and James Beattie. Other important studies, also reprinted here, make this volume an excellent resource (...) to Wind's tremendous contributions to art history. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical response to Fredrik Svenaeus’ use of the Heideggerian uncanny to analyse the experience of illness. It is argued that the uncanny is part of a culture of concepts through which the condition of modernity has been analysed by philosophers, social theorists, writers and artists. All centre upon the idea of alienation, and thus not being at home in the society that should be one’s home. This association will be exploited to offer a reinterpretation of Svenaeus’ (...) thesis as a sociological and political, rather than an ontological, one. By reviewing the work of Hegelian philosophers, Georg Simmel, and novelists, represented by Mann, Camus and McCullers, it will be argued that illness is bound up with social alienation, both as something that is caused by conditions of alienation and as an interpretative response to alienation. Seeing illness as a metaphor of the human condition in modernity allows the medical humanities to inform therapy, that would allow the patient to understand their illness, not as the ontological condition of Dasein, but rather as something mediated by modern social, economic and political conditions. (shrink)

El artículo revisa las aportaciones más trascendentes que Jordi Ferrer ha hecho a la tradición racionalista de la prueba jurídica y evalúa críticamente el limitado papel que, desde su óptica, le corresponde desempeñar a la epistemología en la discusión general sobre los estándares de prueba apropiados para las distintas ramas del derecho. Más específicamente, se analiza la irrelevancia que Ferrer parece atribuir a dicha disciplina –o el silencio que debe guardar–, respecto del establecimiento del estándar de prueba deseable en materia (...) penal. Se concede que, en efecto, le corresponde al pueblo tomar la decisión de qué estándar implementar. No obstante, se sostiene, ello no impide que la epistemología incida en el proceso de formación de dicha decisión mediante la realización de observaciones, el ofrecimiento de argumentos y la propuesta de metodologías adecuadas, con miras a que aquella se tome en un contexto mejor informado y sea lo más racional posible. Se ilustra esta posición haciendo referencia al proyecto de epistemología jurídica de Larry Laudan. (shrink)

La tesis principal que aquí se defiende es que, para Popper, la validez del conocimiento estuvo vinculada siempre a la dimensión pragmática del contexto de descubrimiento (e incluso dependía de ella). Constituye, pues, un error afirmar que, para él, 1) dicha validez estaba ligada a un "empirismo encubierto" (opuesto a la tesis sobre la carga teórica de toda observación), según lo ha planteado Ana Rosa Pérez Ransanz, y que 2) en sus ideas, los factores pragmáticos carecían de importancia epistemológica, como (...) lo ha afirmado Ambrosio Velasco. Para justificar esta tesis, se examinan tres argumentos expuestos en The Logic of Scientific Discovery, enfatizando el que se refiere al carácter disposicional de los términos con los que, para Popper, se formulan los enunciados descriptivos. The main thesis I assert here is that for Popper validity of knowledge was always linked to (and even supported by) the pragmatic dimension of the context of discovery. I hold it's wrong to claim that for this author 1) validity of knowledge was linked to a "hidden empiricism" (opposed to the theory-laden character of observation), such as Ana Rosa Pérez Ransanz had propounded, and 2) pragmatic issues were epistemologically irrelevant in his philosophy, such as Ambrosio Velasco has argued. To justify my thesis I examine three arguments exposed in The Logic of Scientific Discovery, emphasizing especially Popper's argument about the dispositional character of the concepts in which descriptive statements are formulated. (shrink)

Book publishers seem to have found a new niche judging by the number of review copies coming our way. This column just aims to give a line or two on some of them to help the reader decide whether to buy, borrow or leave it for now.