Playing fields are “spaces where the communitas suspends its everyday life and structures” and “The internal logic of sporting games is connected to values from the social context”, Playing fields: Power, practice, and passion in sport, 127–144. Reno: University of Nevada Press). But what about the space in between? What kind of semiotics organisation can be detected in the membrane between player and liminal space where spectators are not allowed yet specific characters needed to carry out an event? We can (...) therefore identify a liminality that can be connected either to the controlled or the wild playing field and depending on which of the two is the case can be analysed according to the degree of regulated system of signs which they produce. This implies different pathways and rituals: as matches are played, a variety of bodily activities may be taking place concurrently. Furthermore, it is inevitable that these activities attract the attention of the audience or alternately lead a player to interact with a non-player. In this article, I will first try to identify certain semiotics features, especially connected to Eco’s Peircian concept of Encyclopedia, that characterize the status of liminal space around the playing field. Then I will focus on liminality in soccer, investigating what kinds of interaction exist outside the playing area. (shrink)

To which ontological category do quantum systems belong? Although we usually speak of particles, it is well known that these peculiar items defy several traditional metaphysical principles. In the present chapter these challenges will be discussed in the light of certain distinctions usually not taken into account in the debate about the ontological nature of quantum systems. On this basis, it will be argued that an ontology of properties without individuals, framed in the algebraic formalism of quantum mechanics, provides adequate (...) answers to the ontological challenges raised by the theory.What kind of item is a quantum system? In the practice of physics it is common to speak of quantum particles, as if they were items of a similar nature to classical items, but obeying different laws of motion. However, as is well known, quantum systems have such peculiar features that they challenge certain ontological principles and categories as understood in traditional metaphysics. In general, these features are analyzed in the context of the so-called problem of indistinguishability, which is a consequence of the particular statistical behavior of quantum systems. But the fact that certain items are “indistinguishable” is not the only difficulty to be overcome in order to elucidate the ontological category of quantum systems. (shrink)

Paul W. Taylor has defended a life-centered ethics that considers the inherent worth of all living things to be the same. l examine reasons for ascribing inherent worth to all living beings, but argue that there can be various levels of inherent worth. Differences in capacities among types of life are used to justify such levels. I argue that once levels of inherent worth are distinguished, it becomes reasonable torestrict rights to human beings.

In the literature on the interpretation of quantum mechanics, not many works attempt to adopt a proactive perspective aimed at seeing how different interpretations can enrich each other through a productive dialogue. In particular, few proposals have been devised to show that different approaches can be clarified by comparing them, and can even complement each other, improving or leading to a more fertile overall approach. The purpose of this paper is framed within this perspective of complementation and mutual enrichment. In (...) particular, the Relational Quantum Mechanics and the Modal-Hamiltonian Interpretation are compared, highlighting their differences and points of contact. The final purpose is to show that, in spite of their disagreements, they are not contradictory but, on the contrary, they can be made compatible from an overarching perspective and can even complement each other in a fruitful way. (shrink)

El siguiente artículo busca presentar una visión fenomenológica de la identidad personal en tanto fenómeno complejo y multidimensional, tomando como punto de partida el pensamiento del filósofo danés Dan Zahavi. Mientras que Zahavi presenta la dimensión experiencial del yo como fundamento y núcleo del yo, y por ende de la identidad, cabe preguntarse si este yo experiencial no puede ser complementado con una noción de yo más fuerte, que yo llamo núcleo personal. En primer lugar, se presentará la visión de (...) identidad personal de acuerdo con el pensamiento de Zahavi. En segundo lugar, se propondrá que tal núcleo personal se da como un hecho fenomenológico, es decir, revelado por la experiencia misma del yo. Finalmente, se sostendrá que dicho núcleo personal, que es el fundamento de las otras dimensiones del yo y de la identidad personal, se puede complementar con las otras dos dimensiones del yo desarrolladas por Zahavi. (shrink)

Esta carta abierta es el resultado del intenso intercambio epistolar que he mantenido con el Prof. Torretti durante muchos años, y a través del cual me he enriquecido ampliamente en el pensar filosófico. Aquí señalo nuestros acuerdos en la adopción de una perspectiva de inspiración kantiana, y en el reconocimiento del papel que juega la dimensión pragmática en la ciencia. No obstante, nos distanciamos en cuanto al peso que le adjudicamos al realismo en nuestras posturas. Estas discusiones con el Prof. (...) Torretti me permitieron explicitar mi modo de vivir la filosofía como praxis filosófica, dirigida a enfrentarme con ciertos aspectos del modo en que actualmente se hace ciencia. (shrink)

De spatio, ac tempore -- De spatio, et tempore, ut a nobis cognoscuntur -- De motu absoluto, an possit a relativo distingui -- De vi inertiae.

Resumen Según el diagnóstico sobre la academia contemporánea del pensador italiano Piero Coda, la teología, disciplina escindida de la filósofa desde la modernidad, se ha reducido a una mera apologética de la fe. En este marco, la Trinidad se vacía de contenido ontológico, dejando de ser principio de interpretación de la realidad. En el presente artículo analizaré las consecuencias antropológicas que posee el hecho de que la creación, específicamente del hombre, sea imago Trinitatis en el pensamiento de Edith Stein. En (...) la primera sección, presentaré brevemente cómo Stein aborda el misterio y las relaciones intra-trinitarias utilizando las imágenes del amor y de la vida. Luego, presentaré brevemente el desarrollo de la noción de persona y como ésta es resignificada a la luz del dogma trinitario para explicar en qué sentido Dios es persona. En la segunda sección, presentaré cómo se da la imagen del Dios Trino en la creación. Este será el primer paso, dado que para Stein el discurso cosmológico es solo la antesala del discurso antropológico. Finalmente, analizaré cómo se da la imagen del Dios trinitario en la persona humana y por ende cómo esta noción es resignificada y enriquecida.According to the diagnosis on the contemporary academy of the Italian thinker Piero Coda, theology, having been cut off from philosophy since modernity, has been reduced to mere apologetics. Within this framework, the doctrine of the Trinity is emptied of any ontological content, ceasing to be a principle of interpretation of reality. In this article I will analyse the anthropological consequences of the fact that creation, specifically of man, is imago Trinitatis in the thought of Edith Stein. In the first section, I will briefly present how Stein approaches mystery and intra-Trinitarian relationships using the images of love and life. Then, I will offer a quick description of the development of the notion of person and how it is re-signified in light of the Trinitarian dogma as to explain in what sense God is a person. In the second section, I will present how the image of the Triune God appears in Creation, a first step in cosmological discourse that will lead, for Stein, to the anthropological discourse. Finally, I will analyse how the image of the Trinitarian God is present to the human person and therefore how this notion is re-signified and enriched. (shrink)

The new edition of this manual brings together a decade's teaching in bioethics. It confronts new questions and monitors the latest far reaching experiments, whose results and publications need to be properly understood.

As far as we know, no notion of concrete fibration is available. We provide one such notion in adherence to the foundational attitude that characterizes the adoption of the fibrational perspective in approaching fundamental subjects in category theory and discuss it in connection with the notion of concrete category and the notions of locally small and small fibrations. We also discuss the appropriateness of our notion of concrete fibration for fibrations of small maps, which is relevant to algebraic set theory.

By splitting idempotent morphisms in the total and base categories of fibrations we provide an explicit elementary description of the Cauchy completion of objects in the categories Fib) of fibrations with a fixed base category \ and Fib of fibrations with any base category. Two universal constructions are at issue, corresponding to two fibered reflections involving the fibration of fibrations \.

Doors play a complex role in architecture. The very word, at least in Italian and French, illuminates the marking of the deliberate interruption of the act of foundation during the ceremony of the wall's enceinte tracing. The word porta indicates the action of portare. During the tracing of the furrow into the ground, the blade is lifted out of the ground in order to mark the place of the future entrance to the city. Another significant role is the marking of (...) the “exit” from this world and it is loaded with intense significance in funereal architecture. But if we look at the semantic “Mirror, mirror on the wall,” it will be easy to discover the other, complementary, and necessary role of the porta. The reading of Aristophanes' Lysistrata shows the explicit “hidden” metaphor of the door, which has been very well christened as the “Origin of the World” in the famous Courbet painting. (shrink)

We present a reading of the traditional syllogistics in a fragment of the propositional intuitionistic multiplicative linear logic and prove that with respect to a diagrammatic logical calculus that we introduced in a previous paper, a syllogism is provable in such a fragment if and only if it is diagrammatically provable. We extend this result to syllogistics with complemented terms à la De Morgan, with respect to a suitable extension of the diagrammatic reasoning system for the traditional case and a (...) corresponding reading of such De Morgan style syllogistics in the previously referred to fragment of linear logic. (shrink)

A diagrammatic logical calculus for the syllogistic reasoning is introduced and discussed. We prove that a syllogism is valid if and only if it is provable in the calculus.

El propósito del presente artículo es evaluar en qué sentido y bajo qué condiciones la ergodicidad es relevante para explicar el éxito de la mecánica estadística. Se objeta la positión de quienes sostienen que la ergodicidad es irrelevante para tal explicatión, y se señala que las propiedades ergódicas desempeñan diferentes papeles en la mecánica estadística del equilibrio y en la descriptión de la evolución hacia el equilibrio: es posible prescindir de la ergodicidad en el primer caso pero no en el (...) segundo. Sobre esta base, se reformularán las definiciones de ergodicidad y mezcla, relativizándolas a la macrovariable particular cuya evolución irreversible se desea describir. Finalmente, se enfatiza la importancia de tomar en cuenta la elaboratión de modelos para evaluar la utilizatión de los métodos de Gibbs. /// The aim of this paper is to consider in what sense and under what conditions ergodicity is relevant for explaining the success of Statistical Mechanics. We argue against those who claim that ergodicity is irrelevant to this explanation, by noting that ergodic properties play different roles in equilibrium Statistical Mechanics and in the description of the approach to equilibrium: it is possible to do without it in the first case but not in the second one. On this basis, we reformulate the definitions of ergodicity and mixing, relativizing them to the particular macrovariable whose irreversible evolution is to be described. Finally, we stress the relevance of taking into account model-construction for evaluating the use of Gibbs' methods. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to introduce a new member of the family of the modal interpretations of quantum mechanics. In this modal-Hamiltonian interpretation, the Hamiltonian of the quantum system plays a decisive role in the property-ascription rule that selects the definite-valued observables whose possible values become actual. We show that this interpretation is effective for solving the measurement problem, both in its ideal and its non-ideal versions, and we argue for the physical relevance of the property-ascription rule by (...) applying it to well-known physical situations. Moreover, we explain how this interpretation supplies a description of the elemental categories of the ontology referred to by the theory, where quantum systems turn out to be bundles of possible properties. (shrink)

El presente artículo parte de la idea de que para superar la crisis ecológica que estamos viviendo no basta con desarrollar más tecnología y más ciencia, sino que también es necesario repensar y modificar nuestra relación con la naturaleza. Como sostiene la eco-filosofía, es necesario superar una ontología mecanicista centrada en un antropocentrismo fuerte que contrapone dualísticamente al hombre con la naturaleza, viéndola como mera propiedad al servicio del ser humano. Ahora bien, mientras que las eco-filosofías suelen apoyarse en una (...) ontología relacional, la hipótesis que se sostendrá a lo largo de este artículo es que no solo esta ontología puede funcionar de base para repensar y modificar nuestra relación con la naturaleza, sino que también la clásica doctrina metafísica de los grados del ser puede servir como base para un nuevo paradigma ecológico. (shrink)

In this work we will deal only with the concept of information in the communicational context, in which information is primarily something that has to be transmitted for communication purposes. The aim of the paper is to consider some arguments traditionally put forward to support the idea that quantum information is qualitatively different than classical information. On the basis of the analysis of those arguments, we will conclude that there are no reasons to admit the existence of quantum information as (...) qualitatively different from classical information: there is only one kind of information, physically neutral, which can be encoded by means of classical or of quantum states. (shrink)

A comprehensive and scholarly study Fr. Rosini has, perhaps for the first time, provided a complete, well-balanced exposition of Scotus on Our Lady, with all the many inter-connections between the mystery of Mary and the whole of theology, ...

Climate change, rising energy costs, and other dilemmas raise the prospect for major change in energy-ecology-society relations. Two prominent proposals for change include: a nuclear power renaissance; and mega-scale renewable energy development. Both suggest that modern society will receive a rising stream of less CO2-rich kilowatt-hours, so that increased energy consumption and economic growth can continue. The article doubts these CO2 claims and finds both options lead to deepening unsustainability and environmental injustice. A third approach is proposed. A new institutional (...) and community strategy called a Sustainability Energy Utility. The SEU looks to reduce energy use and seeks to support remaining energy needs by community-scale renewables. To accomplish deep energy change, the authors show how an SEU can move society from an energy commodity to energy commons regime. Commonwealth economy and community trusts are key means to significant change: a future commons is offered as the more appropriate strategy. (shrink)

We identify new, rather serious, physical and mathematical inconsistencies of the current formulation of noncanonical or nonunitary string theories due to the lack of invariant units necessary for consistent measurements, lack of preservation in time of Hermiticity-observability, and other shortcomings. We propose three novel reformulations of string theories for matter of progressively increasing complexity via the novel iso-, geno-, and hyper-mathematics of hadronic mechanics, which resolve the current inconsistencies, while offering new intriguing possibilities, such as: an axiomatically consistent and invariant (...) inclusion of gravity, the reduction of macroscopic irreversibility to the most primitive level of vibrations of the universal substratum (ether), or the treatment of multi-valued, irreducible, biological structures. We then identify three corresponding classical formulations of string theories for antimatter via the novel anti-isomorphic isodual mathematics. We finally outline the intriguing features of the emerging new cosmologies (including biological structures, as it should be for all cosmologies), such as: universal invariance (rather than covariance) under a symmetry isomorphic to the Poincaré group and its isodual; equal distributions of matter and antimatter in the universe (as a limit case); continuous creation; no need for the missing mass; significantly reduced dimensions; possibility of experimental identification of antimatter in the universe; identically null total characteristics of time, energy, linear and angular momentum, charge, etc.; and other intriguing features. (shrink)

The article examines the question of whether business ethics courses ought to have an impact. Despite the still common attitude among students and some business professionals that ethical considerations are less pressing in business, I argue that moral obligations are just as important there as elsewhere. The emphasis on profits in business is related to other realms (e.g., hobbies and seeking and education) in which, though private goals are dominant, moral limits remain in force. Business ethics courses can play a (...) crucial role in emphasizing the necessity of ethical analysis in business. (shrink)

The many-faced relationship between chemistry and physics is one of the most discussed topics in the philosophy of chemistry. In his recent book Reducing Chemistry to Physics. Limits, Models, Consequences, Hinne Hettema conceives this relationship as a reduction link, and devotes his work to defend this position on the basis of a “naturalized” concept of reduction. In the present paper I critically review three kinds of issues stemming from Hettema’s argumentation: philosophical, scientific and methodological.

Los criterios de identidad propuestos por la metafísica tradicional debieron ser sometidos a una profunda revisión cuando entró en escena la mecánica cuántica con sus característicos sistemas indistinguibles. En este trabajo aplicamos el modelo de espacios controversiales de Oscar Nudler para analizar la controversia sobre la identidad en el ámbito de la mecánica cuántica y proponer la introducción en el debate de una ontología cuántica de propiedades sin objetos.

In his 1994 paper, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet affirmed that he found a way to test the interaction between the mind and the brain. He believed that this procedure would also test the reality of a non-physical mind, emerging from neural activity. In 2000 John Searle objected to Libet’s evident dualism, affirming that the mind is not a hypothesis to test but a datum to be explained. According to Searle, Libet’s problem arose from accepting the Cartesian distinction of ‘mind’ and ‘body’, (...) obsolete categories from an old philosophy. Searle’s solution implied the rejection both of dualism and reductive materialism, suggesting a non-reductive materialism. This first-person ontology, as Searle calls it, aims at preserving, against reductive materialism, the essential features of consciousness, i.e. subjective, qualitative and unified. Searle argued, however, that the nature of consciousness remained biological. Dan Zahavi’s thesis is that a phenomenological approach to the self and consciousness can offer a complementing alternative to the contemporary comprehension of the nature of consciousness. Engaged in an open dialogue with neuroscience and cognitive science in his dealings with consciousness, Zahavi holds, nonetheless, that this notion cannot be completely understood without reference to the notion of the self. Thus, this paper will analyse Zahavi’s ideas about the self and consciousness in Subjectivity and Selfhood as to evaluate whether his phenomenological approach is able to overcome the materialist tones of Searle’s philosophy of mind, opening the possibility of a non-reductive comprehension of human beings. (shrink)

Christopher Timpson proposes a deflationary view about information, according to which the term ‘information’ is an abstract noun and, as a consequence, information is not part of the material contents of the world. The main purpose of the present article consists in supplying a critical analysis of this proposal, which will lead us to conclude that information is an item even more abstract than what Timpson claims. From this view, we embrace a pluralist stance that recognizes the legitimacy of different (...) interpretations of the concept of information. (shrink)

We propose a new quantum ontology, in which properties are the fundamental building blocks. In this property ontology physical systems are defined as bundles of type-properties. Not all elements of such bundles are associated with definite case-properties, and this accommodates the Kochen and Specker theorem and contextuality. Moreover, we do not attribute an identity to the type-properties, which gives rise to a novel form of the bundle theory. There are no “particles” in the sense of classical individuals in this ontology, (...) although the behavior of such individuals is mimicked in some circumstances. This picture leads in a natural way to the symmetrization postulates for systems of many “identical particles”. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that the formalisms for decoherence originally devised to deal just with closed or open systems can be subsumed under a general conceptual framework, in such a way that they cooperate in the understanding of the same physical phenomenon. This new perspective dissolves certain conceptual difficulties of the einselection program but, at the same time, shows that the openness of the quantum system is not the essential ingredient for decoherence. †To contact the authors, please write to: (...) Mario Castagnino, CONICET-IAFE, Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Casilla de Correos 67, Sucursal 28, 1428 Buenos Aires, Argentina; Roberto Laura, IFIR-Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Av. Pellegrini 250, 2000 Rosario, Argentina; Olimpia Lombardi, CONICET-Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, C. Larralde 3440, 6°D, 1430, Buenos Aires; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)