The view that short-term memory should be conceived of as being a process based on the activation of long-term memory is inconsistent with neuropsychological evidence. Data from brain-damaged patients, showing specific patterns of impairment, are compatible with a vision of memory as a multiple-component system, whose different aspects, in neurologically unimpaired subjects, show a high degree of interaction.

Computing, today more than ever before, is a multi-faceted discipline which collates several methodologies, areas of interest, and approaches: mathematics, engineering, programming, and applications. Given its enormous impact on everyday life, it is essential that its debated origins are understood, and that its different foundations are explained. On the Foundations of Computing offers a comprehensive and critical overview of the birth and evolution of computing, and it presents some of the most important technical results and philosophical problems of the discipline, (...) combining both historical and systematic analyses. -/- The debates this text surveys are among the latest and most urgent ones: the crisis of foundations in mathematics and the birth of the decision problem, the nature of algorithms, the debates on computational artefacts and malfunctioning, and the analysis of computational experiments. By covering these topics, On the Foundations of Computing provides a much-needed resource to contextualize these foundational issues. -/- For practitioners, researchers, and students alike, a historical and philosophical approach such as what this volume offers becomes essential to understand the past of the discipline and to figure out the challenges of its future. (shrink)

This volume offers eleven case studies of contemporary movements from around the world where religious, secular and spiritual dynamics interplay in the postmodern condition of the 21st century, as traditional and contemporary sources are combined in new and dynamic ways.

This paper presents a systematic discussion, mainly for non-economists, on economic approaches to the concept of sustainable development. As a first step, the concept of sustainability is extensively discussed. As a second step, the argument that it is not possible to consider sustainability only from an economic or ecological point of view is defended; issues such as economic-ecological integration, inter-generational and intra-generational equity are considered of fundamental importance. Two different economic approaches to environmental issues, i.e. neo-classical environmental economics and ecological (...) economics, are compared. Some key differences such as weak versus strong sustainability, commensurability versus incommensurability and ethical neutrality versus different values acceptance are pointed out. (shrink)

This paper introduces a multi-modal polymorphic type theory to model epistemic processes characterized by trust, defined as a second-order relation affecting the communication process between sources and a receiver. In this language, a set of senders is expressed by a modal prioritized context, whereas the receiver is formulated in terms of a contextually derived modal judgement. Introduction and elimination rules for modalities are based on the polymorphism of terms in the language. This leads to a multi-modal non-homogeneous version of a (...) type theory, in which we show the embedding of the modal operators into standard group knowledge operators. (shrink)

This paper proposes a critical analysis of that interpretation of the Nāgārjunian doctrine of the two truths as summarized—by both Mark Siderits and Jay L. Garfield—in the formula: “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth”. This ‘semantic reading’ of Nāgārjuna’s theory, despite its importance as a criticism of the ‘metaphysical interpretations’, would in itself be defective and improbable. Indeed, firstly, semantic interpretation presents a formal defect: it fails to clearly and explicitly express that which it contains logically; (...) the previously mentioned formula must necessarily be completed by: “the conventional truth is that nothing is conventional truth”. Secondly, after having recognized what Siderits’ and Garfield’s analyses contain implicitly, other logical and philological defects in their position emerge: the existence of the ‘conventional’ would appear—despite the efforts of semantic interpreters to demonstrate quite the contrary—definitively inconceivable without the presupposition of something ‘real’; moreover, the number of verses in Nāgārjuna that are in opposition to the semantic interpretation (even if we grant semantic interpreters that these verses do not justify a metaphysical reconstruction of Nagarjuna’s doctrine) would seem too great and significant to be ignored. (shrink)

On the philosophical dimensions of researches by Benoy Kumar Sarkar, 1887-1949, former professor of economics, University of Calcutta.

In this article the author reflects on some of the most recent instances of the hybridization of identities, brought about by movements of migration in the more general context of globalization. New situations triggered by the epoch-making historical developments of the world we live in require us to modify our notion of individual identity, which is no longer seen as a fundamental and self-referential essence of the individual, but rather as the product of a number of relational variables, many of (...) which arise from processes of ethnic amalgamation and cultural blending. In this new historical condition, one that old styles of thought are no longer able to grasp, the notion of memory is paramount. Memory, as Said has indicated, is connected to Vico’s concept of “invention” as “finding again,” that is, as an incessant process of the remembrance and the discovery of stories that are lived, leading to a “re-creation” and reconfiguration of one’s roots. This article, however, does not simply formulate, articulate and discuss the problem, but also raises the question of its genealogy, locating this in Vico’s distinction between the topical and the critical, that is connected with the triad of memory-imagination-ingenuity, and in certain philosophical positions – such as that of Dilthey, which is specifically acknowledged here – that involve an instance of hybridism, interpreted as a relationship between biological-natural and psychological subjectivity on one hand and historical-cultural identity on the other. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Band diskutiert die Geschichts- und Sprachphilosophie Giambattista Vicos, primär in Bezug auf die Rechtslehre. Dabei wird Vico sowohl als Denker seines Zeitalters als auch in der Auseinandersetzung mit Autoren wie Suárez, Bacon, Descartes etc. gelesen und es ergeben sich immer wieder Bezüge zu aktuellen Debatten.

L'Autore ritiene che la critica vichiana delle borie non si riferisca solo a nazioni, culture e teorie filosofico-teologiche concentrate a discutere sull'origine oscura e favolosa dei tempi e sulla relazione tra storia sacra e storie profane. Ma è anche un dispositivo etico-filosofico che invita l'umanità, ormai al culmine del processo di incivilimento, a guardarsi da ogni forma di boria delle nazioni , così come da ogni manifestazione boriosa da parte dei dotti . The author argues that Vico's critique of conceit (...) does not refer only to nations and cultures, and to philosophical-theological theories focused on origins in ancient and mythical times and on the relationship between sacred and profane history. Vico's critique is also an ethical-philosophical device that invites humanity, now at the height of the civilizing process, to guard against any form of conceit by nations , as well as any self-important manifestations by intellectuals. (shrink)

Se trata de un intento de exponer el significado que la “meditación” tiene en Ortega. Para ello se parte del sentido de la palabra, no sólo en su primer libro Meditaciones del Quijote, sino a lo largo de su obra, pues la meditación como estilo filosófico recorre toda la obra de Ortega, lo que se ve ya en las veces en que encabeza trabajos orteguiano. Por otro lado, en la meditación nos cruzamos con temas nucleares de la filosofía de Ortega, (...) tales como la relación de la teoría con la praxis; la relación hombre/animal; incluso el posicionamiento de Ortega en el campo de la historia de la filosofía al hacer depender la teoría de la circunstancia y acción. Al final se explora en qué medida esa meditación se expresa en el estilo del ensayo.The author starts from the sense of the word “meditation” not only in Ortega’s first book Meditations on Quixote, but throughout his work, for meditation as philosophical style runs throughout Ortega’s work along his life, what already can be seen in the times Ortega headed his texts by this word. Furthermore, in meditation we encounter nuclear issues of Ortega’s philosophy, such as the relationships of theory and praxis and human being and animal; Ortega’s positioning even in the field of history of philosophy by making the theory depending on the circumstances and action. In the end it explores the extent that meditation is expressed in the style of the essays. (shrink)