Karl Popper always claimed himself to be a realist. However, his constant denial to give definitions to the philosophical concepts, makes it difficult to understand what exactly he means by realism. This article focuses the attention on three meanings of Popper’s realism: a metaphysical, an epistemological and a sensible realism. The later sense can be rooted in the new studies on the ethical roots of all Popper’s philosophy.

ArgumentThe discovery of electron diffraction by George Paget Thomson in Aberdeen and Clinton J. Davisson and Lester H. Germer at the Bell Labs has often been portrayed as an example of independent discovery. Neither team was particularly interested in the developments of the nascent quantum theory but they both ended up demonstrating one of the most striking experimental consequences of the new physics. This paper traces the aftermath of this discovery and the way electron diffraction immediately turned from empirical evidence (...) of a highly novel theory into a technique for applied and technological research. Thomson was the first to design an “electron diffraction camera,” an instrument that soon found its place in laboratories around the world. I discuss the role played by Davisson and Germer, and by Thomson in the development of electron diffraction as a “research technology,” taking into account their specific institutional settings and research cultures. While Davisson and Germer remained in the industry-oriented Bell Labs, Thomson moved to Imperial College in 1930 where collaboration first, and competition later with George I. Finch was also relevant for the consolidation of an instrument that eventually became widely known as the “Finch Camera.”. (shrink)

This article delves into the reception of John W. Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science in Spain. With two translations into Spanish appearing almost simultaneously in 1876, the conflict became a weapon in a long political dispute. The tensions between conservatives and liberals, between monarchists and republicans had the university and pedagogical reforms as one of the main battlefields. One of the chief reformist movements was informed by “Krausism,” an ideology that had academic freedom as one if (...) its central tenets. The similarities between the educational agenda of Draper and that of Krausists explain why the former's book resonated among members of the latter group. The article argues that in order to understand the reception of Draper in Spain, one should pay attention to the disputes about national identity and educational reforms, so as to place the so‐called conflict thesis in the context of opposing Spanish patriotisms. (shrink)

Historical accounts of the work of J. J. Thomson find a contradiction in his work. On the one hand, he is presented as a Maxwellian theoretical physicist dealing with a typically Victorian entity, the ether. On the other hand, the analysis of his experimental work at the Cavendish seems to have little connection with his mathematical work. In this paper, I discuss the metaphysical views of J. J. Thomson, and argue that his deep belief in the ultimate continuity of matter (...) can be seen to give a framework to both his theoretical and his experimental work. His metaphysical beliefs were not in the least shaken by the discovery of discrete phenomena and entities, not even by his suggestion of the existence of corpuscles later known as electrons. His formation in Cambridge, together with some ideas that he acquired in his youth at Owens College, Manchester, are the key to understanding his metaphysics and the role it plays in his scientific work. (shrink)

ArgumentIn this paper I follow the demise of the ether in the first half of the twentieth century to show how the first obituaries of the ether were instrumental in creating an object with specific and largely simplified properties related to, but different from, nineteenth-century ethers. I suggest that writing the history of dead objects (or objects an author wants to be dead) is not epistemologically neutral but, on the contrary, it involves a reformulation of the object itself. I show (...) that this was indeed the case with the ether: those arguing for its demise in the early twentieth century tended to overlook as irrelevant one of the ether’s most important properties, namely being the seat for the transmission of electromagnetic waves. Instead, they emphasized the contradictions between other properties of previous ether(s), so as to advocate for its disappearance. (shrink)

Edmund T. Whittaker’s second edition of his A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity is famous for his treatment of Einstein as an almost irrelevant character in the emergence of what he called “the relativity theory of Poincaré and Lorentz.” Historians of science have given a number of explanations, which include Whittaker’s scientific conservatism as an old classical physicist, his commitment to the ether, the pre-eminent role he attributed to mathematics over physics, and foundational philosophical disagreements, to name (...) a few. And in the background, often more implicit than forthright, the accusation of antisemitism looms over Whittaker. In this paper I intend to shed new light on this controversy by taking into consideration the abundant correspondence between Whittaker and his son preserved in the archives of the Fisher Library, University of Toronto. With it, we will get a more complex and personal view of the context in which his attempt at dethroning Einstein took place. Together with the abovementioned reasons, this correspondence shows that the problematic status quo of general relativity in the early 1950s, a period that has been described as the low-mark of general relativity, was very influential in the historical treatment he gave to Einstein. This is an aspect hardly mentioned in the historical work on this controversy and, from this correspondence, it appears to be central to understanding Whittaker at the time of drafting the new History. His possible antisemitic bias will also be addressed, though with the insufficient information on this subject the matter cannot be settled. (shrink)

This is an introduction to the thematic section on “The Historiography of Science and Religion in Europe,” which resulted from a symposium held at the eighth Conference of the European Society for the History of Science, University College London, UK, from September 14–17, 2018. The introduction provides a brief argument for the decentering of science and religion from the Anglo‐American discourse. It concludes by previewing the contributions of the section's essays.

Karl Popper always claimed himself to be a realist. However, his constant denial to give definitions to the philosophical concepts, makes it difficult to understand what exactly he means by realism. This article focuses the attention on three meanings of Popper's realism: a metaphysical, an epistemological and a sensible realism. The later sense can be rooted in the new studies on the ethical roots of all Popper's philosophy.

Research suggests that the ability to understand one’s own and others’ minds, or mentalizing, is a key factor for mental health. Most studies have focused the attention on the association between global measures of mentalizing and specific disorders. In contrast, very few studies have analyzed the association between specific mentalizing polarities and global measures of mental health. This study aimed to evaluate whether self and other polarities of mentalizing are associated with a multidimensional notion of mental health, which considers symptoms, (...) functioning, and well-being. Additionally, the level or depth of mentalizing within each polarity was also analyzed. A sample of 214 adolescents was evaluated on measures of self- and other- mentalizing, multi-informed measures of psychopathology and functioning based on Achenbach’s system, and measures of psychological well-being. Results revealed no association between mentalizing polarities and higher-order symptom factors. Self-mentalizing was associated with self-esteem and motivation to life goals, and other-mentalizing was associated to general, social and role functioning. This association between aspects of self-other mentalizing and self-other function has important implications for treatment and prevention. Deeper mentalizing within each polarity revealed stronger associations with functioning and well-being. Because mentalizing polarities are associated with functioning and well-being but not with symptoms, a new hypothesis is developed: mentalizing does not contribute to resiliency by preventing symptoms, but by helping to deal with them, thus improving functioning and well-being independently of psychopathology. These findings support that promoting mentalizing across development may improve mental health, even in non-clinical population. (shrink)

Obra epistologràfica / introducció de J. Estellés -- Obra filològica / introducció de J. Pérez Durà -- Obra filosòfica / introducció de C. Mínguez -- Obra jurídica / introducció d'I. Roca -- Obra religiosa / introducció d'I. Roca -- Sobre ciència i medicina / introducció de J. Ll. Barona i V. Navarro -- Sobre la dona / introducció de N. Campillo -- Obra pedagògica / introducció d'A. Mayordomo -- Obra psicològica / introducció de F. Tortosa.

Context: The emergency situation caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected different facets of society. Although much of the attention is focused on the health sector, other sectors such as education have also experienced profound transformations and impacts. This sector is usually highly affected by psychosocial risks, and this could be aggravated during the current health emergency. Psychosocial risks may cause health problems, lack of motivation, and a decrease of effectiveness at work, which in turn affect the quality of (...) teaching. Despite their importance, there are hardly any studies that analyze psychosocial risks of non-university teachers during a health emergency such as that caused by COVID-19. Objectives The aim of this study was to analyze the perception of COVID-19 and the psychosocial risks of non-university teachers comparing Spain and Mexico during the state of alarm caused by COVID-19. Methods Data were collected from 421 non-university teachers (80.2% women; 56.3% from Mexico, 43.7% from Spain) aged 24–60 ( M = 39.32, SD = 10.21) via a self-completed questionnaire during the pandemic from March to April 2020. Results Data analysis suggests that inequity is the most important risk, followed by work overload. Teachers appear to be moderately satisfied with the information on COVID-19 and the measures taken, while their satisfaction with the available resources is lower. When comparing the two countries, significant differences can be observed in every risk considered except for social support, with lower levels in Mexican teachers compared to Spanish ones. In the case of the perception of COVID-19 and its impact, the perception in general of levels of information, measures, and resources is better among Mexican teachers than among Spanish ones, who present higher scores of the impact of the health emergency. Conclusion The results underline the importance of the professional’s perception of resources during a health emergency, which could prevent to some extent burnout and possible alterations associated with it. The measures taken by the responsible entities and the provision of information do affect teachers not only directly but also indirectly by making them more vulnerable to psychosocial risks that could affect their health and professional performance, thus affecting students as well. (shrink)

In this article, we illustrate experimentally an important consequence of the stochastic component in choice behaviour which has not been acknowledged so far. Namely, its potential to produce ‘regression to the mean’ (RTM) effects. We employ a novel approach to individual choice under risk, based on repeated multiple-lottery choices (i.e. choices among many lotteries), to show how the high degree of stochastic variability present in individual decisions can distort crucially certain results through RTM effects. We demonstrate the point in the (...) context of a social comparison experiment. (shrink)

Everyday reasoning requires more evidence than raw data alone can provide. We explore the idea that people can go beyond this data by reasoning about how the data was sampled. This idea is investigated through an examination of premise non-monotonicity, in which adding premises to a category-based argument weakens rather than strengthens it. Relevance theories explain this phenomenon in terms of people's sensitivity to the relationships among premise items. We show that a Bayesian model of category-based induction taking premise sampling (...) assumptions and category similarity into account complements such theories and yields two important predictions: First, that sensitivity to premise relationships can be violated by inducing a weak sampling assumption; and second, that premise monotonicity should be restored as a result. We test these predictions with an experiment that manipulates people's assumptions in this regard, showing that people draw qualitatively different conclusions in each case. (shrink)

We report the identification of a recurrent, 520-kb 16p12.1 microdeletion associated with childhood developmental delay. The microdeletion was detected in 20 of 11,873 cases compared with 2 of 8,540 controls and replicated in a second series of 22 of 9,254 cases compared with 6 of 6,299 controls. Most deletions were inherited, with carrier parents likely to manifest neuropsychiatric phenotypes compared to non-carrier parents. Probands were more likely to carry an additional large copy-number variant when compared to matched controls. The clinical (...) features of individuals with two mutations were distinct from and/or more severe than those of individuals carrying only the co-occurring mutation. Our data support a two-hit model in which the 16p12.1 microdeletion both predisposes to neuropsychiatric phenotypes as a single event and exacerbates neurodevelopmental phenotypes in association with other large deletions or duplications. Analysis of other microdeletions with variable expressivity indicates that this two-hit model might be more generally applicable to neuropsychiatric disease. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

The Cerdanya valley in the eastern Pyrenees has a physical unity into which a political frontier has been imposed to divide it. The social and cultural repercussions of this Franco-Spanish border have created obstacles to marriage which are not due to topography. Choice of month of marriage is under cultural control and the study of seasonality in marriages recorded in the registers of all the Cerdan parishes on both sides of the border demonstrated differences over time and between French and (...) Spanish sectors. It is suggested that these changes demonstrate the process of distancing of the two populations. Cluster and correspondence analysis showed progressive differentiation of the seasonality patterns of the French and Spanish Cerdans despite the geographic unity of the valley. Sociocultural factors are presumed responsible. (shrink)