Consider a gas that is adiabatically isolated from its environment and confined to the left half of a container. Then remove the wall separating the two parts. The gas will immediately start spreading and soon be evenly distributed over the entire available space. The gas has approached equilibrium. Thermodynamics (TD) characterizes this process in terms of an increase of thermodynamic entropy, which attains its maximum value at equilibrium. The second law of thermodynamics captures the irreversibility of this process by positing (...) that in an isolated system such as the gas entropy cannot decrease. The aim of statistical mechanics (SM) is to explain the behavior of the gas and, in particular, its conformity with the second law in terms of the dynamical laws governing the individual molecules of which the gas is made up. In what follows these laws are assumed to be the ones of Hamiltonian classical mechanics. We should not, however, ask for an explanation of the second law literally construed. This law is a universal law and as such cannot be explained by a statistical theory. But this is not a problem because we.. (shrink)

Siempre se ha reconocido en Pirrón de Élide el inicio puntual del escepticismo griego. Sabemos ya hoy que esta información, sesgada, proviene más de la necesidad de Enesidemo de refundar el movimiento, que de la realidad filosófica. En este artículo demostramos que Pirrón, ni tuvo consciencia de ser un escéptico, ni, en rigor, inició ninguna nueva corriente. Su deslizamiento, y posterior reconocimiento, hacia el escepticismo, debe más bien encuadrarse en el natural desarrollo de la filosofía abderita, a través de Metrodoro (...) de Quíos, discípulo de Demócrito, Anaxarco maestro de Pirrón y Nausífanes su discípulo. Y todo debido al afán aventurero del personaje de Élide al enrolarse en el séquito de Alejandro Magno. (shrink)

The migration of artificial intelligence (AI) researchers from academia to industry has recently sparked concerns about its implications for scientific progress. Can academia retain enough talent to shape AI advancements and counterbalance the growing influence of corporate AI labs? Analyzing OpenAlex data, we find a significant transition of premier talent to industry roles over the past decade, particularly to major tech firms. Young, highly cited scholars from leading institutions are the most likely to make this move. Following the transition, their (...) research tends to show reduced novelty and impact. This industry-dominant shift in AI research highlights worries of an “AI brain drain”, the sidelining of exploratory science for commercial interests, and the potential misalignment with societal goals. (shrink)

Este artículo delimita las principales tendencias de la crítica literaria feminista en el periodo 1980-2023. Mediante la investigación bibliográfica y el análisis documental, se caracterizan y analizan cinco modalidades específicas del trabajo crítico, realizado en el marco de los estudios literarios centroamericanos contemporáneos, a saber: (a.) las biografías y los estudios históricos sobre escritoras centroamericanas, (b.) las antologías de literatura escrita por mujeres, (c.) las traducciones de literatura femenina (d.) los trabajos monográficos, comparativos y de análisis de casos concretos y (...) (e.) las entradas de diccionarios a propósito de autoras regionales. (shrink)

Le maintien des relations parent-enfant en prison représente un véritable défi au regard des différentes formes d’empêchement – véritable mise en suspens de la parentalité – auxquels se trouvent confrontés les parents détenus et les enfants ainsi que leurs accompagnants. Membre d’une recherche inter-disciplinaire (droit et psychologie), menée en France dans trois établissements pénitentiaires en appui sur des questionnaires et la conduite de focus-groups, l’auteur met en évidence, au travers d’une approche clinique psychodynamique, la tension qui s’exerce entre les attentes (...) exprimées par les parents détenus à l’égard de leurs enfants et la disqualification dont leur lien est l’objet, en raison du vécu des conditions de détention et d’accueil des enfants ainsi que de l’accès à la prison des personnes qui, de l’extérieur, sont en mesure de soutenir les relations parent-enfant (conjoint ou ex-conjoint, famille...). (shrink)

Philosophical skepticism is identified by several signs or names: Aporētikoí, Ephektikoí, Pyrrhōneioi, Skeptikoí and Zētētikoí, with significant all of them valid and some confusion in meaning. The objective of this work is threefold: first, to clarify why some of these names have been more successful than others, second, what are the reasons why one of them has been fixed as a name, in general for all belonging to this philosophical movement, and third to what is due that recognizing the tradition (...) a clear initiator, Pirrón de Elis, and being the name "Pirrónicos" one of the most popular and one of the most used by the writers who speak about this movement, has not been the most successful, as it has been traditional in most other doctrines. (shrink)

Parece que Platón enseñó en la Academia otras doctrinas diferentes de las expuestas por él en los diálogos. Además, parece también que voluntariamente se abstuvo de consignarlas por escrito al creer que la palabra, la enseñanza oral, era un medio más eficaz que la escritura para transmitir aquello que "tenía importancia". Dicho así, puede resultar una paradoja que el mejor prosista griego, sea un detractor, al menos en parte, de la prosa escrita. A partir de aquí, las interpretaciones novedosas que (...) han provocado las doctrinas no-escritas de Platón han generado debates a veces imposibles de resolver. Añadir unas breves notas a estas discusiones es la intención de este artículo. (shrink)

Teksty są co najmniej w dwójnasób transcendentne. Z jednej strony poprzez język, tworzywo tekstu, który konstytuując się w diachronii i funkcjonując w synchronii, transcenduje – żeby użyć sformułowania Karla Jaspersa – przeszłą rzeczywistość w postaci powstałych wtedy znaków i ich znaczeń w nieznaną z tamtej perspektywy przyszłość, a więc i w naszą teraźniejszość. Z drugiej zaś istniejące już teksty wchodzą z sobą w interakcję, co powoduje, że tworzą się niejako hiperteksty w czasie i w przestrzeni. Jest jeszcze i trzeci wymiar (...) – to autor tekstu i czytelnik, którym tekst pozwala – jak mówi Gerhard Kurz – wyjść „poza siebie”, bo tylko wtedy odczuwamy potrzebę powrotu do „własnego ja”, odrzucając po drodze kolejną maskę. W artykule pokazano to na przykładzie tekstów Franza Kafki. Spośród wielu poruszonych tam wątków ograniczmy się tutaj jedynie do toposu syren, które zniewalały żeglarzy swym śpiewem. U Kafki syreny już definitywnie nie śpiewają, wobec czego Odyseusz niepotrzebnie kazał zatykać sobie uszy woskiem. Kafka stawia tylko kropkę nad i, bo już i we wcześniejszej literaturze niemieckiej ten śpiew cichł coraz bardziej. I tak w znanej pieśni Heinego Loreley poeta już nie jest pewny skuteczności śpiewu syren – on jedynie chce w to wierzyć: „Wierzę, że fale w końcu pochłoną i żeglarza i łódź”. Bo w czasach nihilizmu śpiew – i sztuka w ogóle – traci swą moc. W balladzie Rybak Goethego syrena wprawdzie jeszcze tryumfuje, ale to nie za sprawą śpiewu. Śpiew bowiem dominuje w drugiej zwrotce, natomiast rybak pogrąża się w odmętach morza dopiero w czwartej zwrotce, gdzie dominuje perswazja słowna. Ta inwersja – notabene brak jej w polskim tłumaczeniu Hanny Januszewskiej w Dziełach wybranych J. W. Goethego – nie mogła być u Goethego przypadkowa: symbolizuje ona typową dla lustrzanego odbicia odwróconą proporcję – rybak tak naprawdę ujrzał własne odbicie w wodzie, biorąc je za postać syreny. Śmierć w odmętach morza była ceną za brak samowiedzy. Nie darmo zatem napis na świątyni Apollina w Delfach głosił: „Γνῶθι σεαυτόν – Poznaj samego siebie”. (shrink)

By the end of his life Plato had rearranged the theory of ideas into his teaching about ideal numbers, but no written records have been left. The Ideal mathematics of Plato is present in all his dialogues. It can be clearly grasped in relation to the effective use of mathematical modelling. Many problems of mathematical modelling were laid in the foundation of the method by cutting the three-level idealism of Plato to the single-level “ideism” of Aristotle. For a long time, (...) the real, ideal numbers of Plato’s Ideal mathematics eliminates many mathematical problems, extends the capabilities of modelling, and improves mathematics. (shrink)

Among the main theorems obtained in mathematical logic in this century are the so called limitation theorems, i.e., the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem on the cardinality of models of first-order theories, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and Tarski’s theorem on the undefinability of truth. Problems connected with the latter are the subject of this paper. In Section 1 we shall consider Tarski’s theorem. In particular the original formulation of it as well as some specifications will be provided. Next various meanings of the notion of (...) a satisfaction predicate will be studied. In Section 2 the problem of definability of the notion of truth, in particular of the notion of truth for the language of Peano arithmetic PA, will be discussed. It will be explicitly shown that the notion of satisfaction for the language of PA can be defined in a certain weak fragment of the second order arithmetic. Finally the axiomatic characterization of satisfaction and truth as well and its mathematical and philosophical meaning will be discussed. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present and discuss the philosophical views concerning mathematics of the founders of the so called Warsaw Mathematical School, i.e., Wacław Sierpiński, Zygmunt Janiszewski and Stefan Mazurkiewicz. Their interest in the philosophy of mathematics and their philosophical papers will be considered. We shall try to answer the question whether their philosophical views influenced their proper mathematical investigations. Their views towards set theory and its rôle in mathematics will be emphasized.

La preocupación ecológica es hoy uno de los signos de los tiempos. Es también un desafío a la responsabilidad humana, a las políticas sociales y al compromiso cristiano. El autor nos presenta en este estudio un decálogo en el que subraya los fundamentos de una ética del medio ambiente. Y resume también los puntos fundamentales de una Ecoética cristiana, en los que se evoca la seriedad de la fe, el dinamismo de la esperanza y la generosidad del amor.

Consider the claim: Our actions are free if and only if we could have done otherwise; or the claim, We are essentially mental substances because we can exist without our bodies. Both of these claims, along with countless others, employ a notion of possibility. If this notion is to have a place in philosophy, we must be able to justify our modal claims. We need an epistemology of possibility. It is often assumed that the imagination is the key here. The (...) assumption is this; if I can imagine that a proposition is the case, then p is possible. Suppose I am wondering whether Kant Critique could float above my desk; if I can imagine this book floating, then it is possible. But is the imagination a guide to the modal status of propositions? ;To answer this question we must first consider what it is to imagine a proposition. We can distinguish five main methods of imagining: to imagine is to form a mental image, to evoke experiences, to suppose, to pretend, or it is to tell a story. Can any of these methods provide us with a guide to possibility? I contend that only the last two methods are up to this task insofar as they provide us with evidence of p's modal status. Moreover, how good that evidence is depends on our ability to satisfy the requirements of completeness, coherence, and accuracy. Finally, I argue that we will have the best evidence for the possibility of p, if we combine these two methods. For by combining our evoked experiences with a story, we will generate experiences of p, the best possible explanation of a world in which p is true, and an account of p's truth that complements this explanation. Thus, given explanationist standards, we will have what we need to be justified in concluding that p is possible. (shrink)

Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) are widely believed to possess considerable socialization strengths. However, the findings on social cognition capabilities are controversial. In the present study, we investigated whether individuals with DS exhibit shortage in face tuning, one of the indispensable components of social cognition. For this purpose, we implemented a recently developed Face-n-Food paradigm with food-plate images composed of food ingredients such as fruits and vegetables. The key benefit of such ‘face like non-face’ images is that single elements do (...) not facilitate face processing. In a spontaneous recognition task, 25 children with DS aged 9 to 18 years were presented with a set of Face-n-Food images bordering on the Giuseppe Arcimboldo style. The set of images was administered in a predetermined order from the least to most resembling a face. In DS individuals, thresholds for recognition of the Face-n-Food images as a face were drastically higher as compared not only with typically developing controls, but also with individuals with autistic spectrum disorders and Williams-Beuren syndrome. This outcome represents a significant step towards better conceptualization of visual social world in DS and neurodevelopmental disorders in general. (shrink)

In 2004 Atserias, Kolaitis, and Vardi proposed $\text {OBDD}$ -based propositional proof systems that prove unsatisfiability of a CNF formula by deduction of an identically false $\text {OBDD}$ from $\text {OBDD}$ s representing clauses of the initial formula. All $\text {OBDD}$ s in such proofs have the same order of variables. We initiate the study of $\text {OBDD}$ based proof systems that additionally contain a rule that allows changing the order in $\text {OBDD}$ s. At first we consider a proof (...) system $\text {OBDD}$ that uses the conjunction rule and the rule that allows changing the order. We exponentially separate this proof system from $\text {OBDD}$ proof system that uses only the conjunction rule. We prove exponential lower bounds on the size of $\text {OBDD}$ refutations of Tseitin formulas and the pigeonhole principle. The first lower bound was previously unknown even for $\text {OBDD}$ proofs and the second one extends the result of Tveretina et al. from $\text {OBDD}$ to $\text {OBDD}$.In 2001 Aguirre and Vardi proposed an approach to the propositional satisfiability problem based on $\text {OBDD}$ s and symbolic quantifier elimination $ algorithms). We augment these algorithms with the operation of reordering of variables and call the new scheme $\text {OBDD}$ algorithms. We notice that there exists an $\text {OBDD}$ algorithm that solves satisfiable and unsatisfiable Tseitin formulas in polynomial time, but we show that there are formulas representing systems of linear equations over $\mathbb {F}_2$ that are hard for $\text {OBDD}$ algorithms. Our hard instances are satisfiable formulas representing systems of linear equations over $\mathbb {F}_2$ that correspond to checksum matrices of error correcting codes. (shrink)

For any choice of initial state and weak assumptions about the Hamiltonian, large isolated quantum systems undergoing Schrödinger evolution spend most of their time in macroscopic superposition states. The result follows from von Neumann’s 1929 Quantum Ergodic Theorem. As a specific example, we consider a box containing a solid ball and some gas molecules. Regardless of the initial state, the system will evolve into a quantum superposition of states with the ball in macroscopically different positions. Thus, despite their seeming fragility, (...) macroscopic superposition states are ubiquitous consequences of quantum evolution. We discuss the connection to many worlds quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Let us ask: do the objects we think that exist, really exist? Davidson concludes, from rejection of dualism of content and conceptual scheme, that most of them really exist (coherentialism). Unfortunately, his reasoning is wrong, because though the rejection makes it impossible to doubt our knowledge as a whole, it is still possible to doubt all its elements one after another. The two main points of Davidson's theory are the following: (1) disquotationism (semantic terms are used only to speak about (...) speaking) and (2) ostensivism (words refer to what they refer to independently of what it could be; their meanings are established as the result of the process of learning). (1) and (2) are the real reasons for Davidson's coherentialism. Ostensivism apparently allows to avoid the problem of induction, though it only transforms the problem into the question of ostension. Moreover, consistent ostensivism makes analytic sentences impossible. Yet it is claimed, that ostensivism is wrong in general, because besides ostensives there are also categorials (expressions, meanings of which belong to certain ontological categories) and without the latter logic and mathematics would be impossible. Davison's coherentialism is wrong because it is not true that one cannot have any believes without having any language. Hence, no theory of language is crucial as far as existence is concerned. It is shown considering ascription of believes to mute persons and learning languages by children. Coherentialism lets Davidson bring down the idea of a demon that could make us see the world completely different than it is and not know if it is true. (shrink)

The objection raised by Davidson against Kuhn in article "On the Very Idea of Conceptual Scheme" that the argument presented in "The Structure of Scientific Revolution" was inconsistent is incorrect. Kuhn's conception belongs to psychology and sociology and his work could be titled "An Outline of Psychology and Sociology of Scientific Research". Consequently he is interested only and only in psychologi-cal reasons that affect scientists' theoretical decisions. E.g. his considerations concerning neutral observational language are polemous against thesis that language like (...) that could be somehow useful for interpretation of what scientists do and also against thesis that it could be useful for scientists themselves. The difficulty of un-derstanding above paradigmata does not consist on conceptual schemata meant logically as Davidson reads it but on different cognitive attitude and different manual sets of concepts. To explain the controversy logical and psychological concepts of meaning are distinguished. Davidson means the proper, Kuhn does the latter. Psy-chological meaning concists on what associations and feelings are evocated by utterances in the recever's mind. When Kuhn says that after a revolution scientists live in another world he means only that the language with witch they describe the reality has different psychological meaning. And this is that kind of meaning that cannot be translated and is lost when you discuss above paradigmata. From Kuhn's point of view it is possible to translate logical meaning of scientific utterances from before a revolution, and he does it. The psychological meaning can be only described but not translated. (shrink)

Las investigaciones de la fenomenología de la imaginación esclarecen la distinción kantiana entre belleza libre y dependiente. La imaginación estética fluye libremente, el entendimiento fija en concep tos. El juego libre entre imaginación y entendimiento produce un equili brio inestable entre la inquietud de la imaginación y el reposo del enten dimiento. El sentido común permite que ese juego sea comunicado. Según nuestra hipótesis la belleza libre es libre también del sentido común. Su sede no es la esfera pública y (...) la comunicación, sino la esfera privada de la imaginación pura. En ella encontramos la auténtica autono mía estética. (shrink)

La importancia de Montserrat como santuario se puede medir no sólo por la extensión de su culto, sino también como centro irradiador de modelos narrativos. La leyenda de Garí fue elaborada en el medievo por los benedictinos y proviene de dos fuentes conocidas: el eremita tentado y la historia del hombre salvaje. En ella se aúnan legados de origen oriental y europeo. El hallazgo de la imagen se suma más tarde a esta narración, lo que pone de manifiesto cómo se (...) van hilvanando las leyendas, su proceso de elaboración: 1º una leyenda de fundación del monasterio santuario como la de Garí. En 2º lugar una leyenda de origen de culto a una imagen. La leyenda mariana de Montserrat forma parte de la cultura devocional dedicada a ciertos santos y a san Miguel, así como también al culto a las imágenes. (shrink)

Recent theoretical and empirical studies tend to highlight the prominent role that time plays in society, in a context of changing rhythms of work, the ageing of the European population and changing family structures. In this contribution I analyse the way time is used for leisure in Romania and situate it in the European context. I highlight the time use for creative and leisure activities in respect with gender, following the hypothesis that leisure is an important dimension of gender gap. (...) It was used factor analysis to observe the differences existing in time use for leisure in respect with occupational status, marital status and education. (shrink)

This article questions the reason behind ethics in caregiving services for people with serious intellectual disabilities, the reasons changes have taken place in medicine, in the kinds of illnesses, social changes and changes in how hospitality is envisioned, which lead us to reconsider the usual way of doing things, the traditional morals on which their treatment has been based. However, the traditional ways of dealing with those disabled individuals have also become obsolete and are ethically reproachable: based on charity and (...) beneficence, goodwill and paternalism, if not on ignorance and vulnerability. (shrink)