1. Dalle origini al piccolo veicolo -- 2. Il Grande Veicolo al Nāgārjuna -- 3. Le varie forme di idealismo buddhista.

Written at an undergraduate mathematical level, this book provides the essential theoretical tools and foundations required to develop basic models to explain collective phase transitions for a wide variety of ecosystems.

We argue that the common attribution to Zhuangzi of both perspectivalism or relativism on the one hand, and scepticism on the other is fundamentally mistaken. While granting that it is reasonable to construe Zhuangzi as offering a perspectiva! position on judgement, we argue that Zhuangzi's perspectivalism does not commit him to a relativist position on truth or to scepticism about human knowledge. Rather, we maintain that Zhuangzi's attacks on the concepts of truth and knowledge are better seen as his articulation (...) of a species of epistemological nihilism which rejects, as ultimately meaningless, the concepts of truth, reality, and knowledge. (shrink)

Englert et al. claim that, in certain circumstances, the Bohmian trajectory of a test particle does not match the reports of which-path detectors, concluding that the Bohmian trajectories are not real, but “surrealistic.” However, Hiley and Callaghan argue that, if Bohm’s interpretation is correctly applied, no such mismatch is ever sanctioned. Unfortunately, the debate was never settled since nobody showed where the source of disagreement resided. In this paper, I reassess the debate over such “surrealistic” trajectories and I derive both (...) a necessary and a sufficient condition for there to be a mismatch between the Bohmian trajectories and the reports of which-path detectors. I conclude that the mismatch is possible as a matter of principle, but can be ruled out in practice. I explore in depth the philosophical consequences of such mismatch arguing that it does not render realism about the Bohmian trajectories untenable. In addition, I show that the opposing conclusion of Hiley and Callaghan is due to the fact that they assume a set of trajectories that are incompatible with the postulates of Bohmian mechanics. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically assess different interpretations of Bohmian mechanics that are not committed to an ontology based on the wave function being an actual physical object that inhabits configuration space. More specifically, my aim is to explore the connection between the denial of configuration space realism and another interpretive debate that is specific to Bohmian mechanics: the quantum potential versus guidance approaches. Whereas defenders of the quantum potential approach to the theory claim that Bohmian mechanics is better formulated (...) as quasi-Newtonian, via the postulation of forces proportional to acceleration; advocates of the guidance approach defend the notion that the theory is essentially first-order and incorporates some concepts akin to those of Aristotelian physics. Here I analyze whether the desideratum of an interpretation of Bohmian mechanics that is both explanatorily adequate and not committed to configuration space realism favors one of these two approaches to the theory over the other. Contrary to some recent claims in the literature, I argue that the quasi-Newtonian approach based on the idea of a quantum potential does not come out the winner. (shrink)

In the mid-nineteenth century, Karl Marx issued several critiques of political economy writings stressing the exclusive duality of states and the national economies. He argued that capitalism had characteristic features quite apart from those shaped by the idiosyncrasies of national economies. In the first part of this article, we critique the contemporary state-centered explanations for the industrialization of East Asia on same grounds. We claim that most political economists misinterpret or entirely ignore the significance of export-led industrialization, which is a (...) characteristic feature of East Asian capitalism. In the second part of the article, we demonstrate the importance of the retail revolution in the US and Europe on Asian industrialization. In particular, we show that the development of the sequential ordering system that is an inherent feature of Western-based contract manufacturing differentially shaped the industrial organization of East Asian economies. The resulting path-dependent trajectories of development, in turn, encouraged government policy-makers to ‘buy into’ trends of global capitalism in different ways. The trajectories also led business people to privilege and adapt some social institutions and cultural patterns over other ones. (shrink)

A Meditator's Diary. A Western woman's unique experience in Thailand monasteries. Jane Hamilton-Merritt. Unwin Paperbacks, George Allen & Unwin, London 1986. 157 pp. £3.95.

This paper includes historical studies to introduce the subject of the conference Women in the Middle Ages (the female condition from a christian perspective), which was held at the University of Navarra in 1993. It contains general and specialized works concerning queens, nobles, nuns, begui-nes, cenobites, citizens and countrywomen, crusaders and pilgrims of medieval times.

Este artigo tem como propósito apresentar um estudo sobre o uso de narrativas no ensino de História, procurando destacar as potencialidades deste recurso pedagógico no processo de construção do conhecimento histórico e averiguar como este recurso potencia o desenvolvimento do pensamento histórico em alunos portugueses do 2.º ano de escolaridade. As narrativas produzidas pelos alunos foram submetidas a uma análise de conteúdo indutiva e categorizadas por níveis de progressão de ideias. Os resultados demonstraram que este tipo de recurso pode influenciar (...) a estruturação do pensamento histórico dos alunos, bem como potenciar a sua imaginação. (shrink)

Sitting. A Guide to Good Meditation Posture. Kamalashila. Windhorse Publications, Glasgow 1988. 28 pp. £1.95.

Transforming the Mind, Healing the World. Joseph Goldstein. Paulist Press, New York and Mahwah, NJ., 1994. 51 pp. No price given.

En este artículo analizo el contenido del libro _Freiheti_, publicado anónimo en 1791 y recientemente atribuido a la escritora Elise Reimarus (1735-1803). Se trata de una obra fundamental del periodo de la ilustración que, sin embargo, no ha recibido todavía suficiente atención por parte de los especialistas. Además de ofrecer una presentación del texto, examinar el estado de la cuestión y ofrecer un análisis del contenido del libro, incluyo la primera traducción al español del texto. Mi objetivo es mostrar que (...) al cumplir con su objetivo de definir qué es la libertad, Reimarus transmite un doble mensaje. Por un lado, la filósofa elogia la constitución de Hamburgo y llama a sus conciudadanos a obedecer las leyes que hacen posible la auténtica libertad. Por otro lado, se dirige a los príncipes de Europa para exhortarlos a introducir reformas en sus estructuras políticas que garanticen los derechos humanos, la igualdad y la justicia, además de defender la legitimidad de la revolución política, la necesidad de adoptar una forma democrática de gobierno y la libertad de pensamiento y expresión. Por todo ello, y teniendo en cuenta la manera en que los especialistas la definen, sostengo que Elise Reimarus puede ser considerada como una exponente de lo que se conoce como la Ilustración radical. (shrink)