scholarly journals ‘I found this written in the other book’: Learning Astronomy in Late Medieval Monasteries

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 129-144
Author(s):  
Seb Falk

Recent histories have challenged narratives of a late medieval decline in monastic scholarship. This article extends that work to the natural sciences, showing how monks could learn astronomy and mathematics through their scholarly labour of reading, copying and glossing. Although the processes of learning are often poorly documented, and are often conflated with teaching, it is possible, through close reading of annotations and reconstruction of mathematical processes, to get a glimpse of an individual in the moment of acquiring scientific skills. Focusing on a piece of adaptive copying carried out by an English Benedictine monk c.1380, this article explores the devotional motivations underlying his work, and argues that it was through such copying and compilation that he acquired the expertise necessary to invent an astronomical instrument some years later.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-53
Author(s):  
Tomasz Nowak

The main problem that Tomasz Nowak discusses in this article concerns the boundaries of language and speech as set by both social sciences and the humanities and mathematics and natural sciences. His special focus is the fusion of semiotics and biology known as biosemiotics. Nowak argues that bio-communicative skills of human and non-human animals are divided by a gap which is both quantitative and qualitative. However, phylogenetic pre-adaptations and (pre)ontogenetic dispositions of human and non-human animals are, on the one hand, communicatively discreet, and, on the other, cognitively and behaviorally continual. The results of empirical studies cited and examined by Nowak support the idea that there are bio-communicative traits specific to humans.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-248
Author(s):  
MIROSLAV HANKE

AbstractThe seventeenth century can be viewed as an era of (closely related) innovation in the formal and natural sciences and of paradigmatic diversity in philosophy (due to the coexistence of at least the humanist, the late scholastic, and the early modern tradition). Within this environment, the present study focuses on scholastic logic and, in particular, syllogistic. In seventeenth-century scholastic logic two different approaches to logic can be identified, one represented by the Dominicans Báñez, Poinsot, and Comas del Brugar, the other represented by the Jesuits Hurtado, Arriaga, Oviedo, and Compton. These two groups of authors can be contrasted in three prominent features. First, in the role of the theory of validity, which is either a common basis for all particular theories (in this case, sentential logic and syllogistic), or a set of observations regarding a particular theory (in this case, syllogistic). Second, in the view of syllogistic, which is either an implication of a general theory of validity and a semantics of terms, or an algebra of structured objects. Third, in the role of the scholastic analysis of language in terms of suppositio, which either is a semantic underpinning of syllogistic, or it is replaced by a semantics of propositions.


Derrida Today ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Grant Farred

‘The Final “Thank You”’ uses the work of Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche to think the occasion of the 1995 rugby World Cup, hosted by the newly democratic South Africa. This paper deploys Nietzsche's Zarathustra to critique how a figure such as Nelson Mandela is understood as a ‘Superman’ or an ‘Overhuman’ in the moment of political transition. The philosophical focus of the paper, however, turns on the ‘thank yous’ exchanged by the white South African rugby captain, François Pienaar, and the black president at the event of the Springbok victory. It is the value, and the proximity and negation, of the ‘thank yous’ – the relation of one to the other – that constitutes the core of the article. 1


Paragraph ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-230
Author(s):  
Haun Saussy

‘Translation’ is one of our all-purpose metaphors for almost any kind of mediation or connection: we ask of a principle how it ‘translates’ into practice, we announce initiatives to ‘translate’ the genome into predictions, and so forth. But the metaphor of translation — of the discovery of equivalents and their mutual substitution — so attracts our attention that we forget the other kinds of inter-linguistic contact, such as transcription, mimicry, borrowing or calque. In a curious echo of the macaronic writings of the era of the dawn of print, the twentieth century's avant-garde, already foreseeing the end of print culture, experimented with hybrid languages. Their untranslatability under the usual definitions of ‘translation’ suggests a revival of this avant-garde practice, as the mainstream aesthetic of the moment invests in ‘convergence’ and the subsumption of all media into digital code.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ren Ellis Neyra

This essay shows how salsa stimulates unruly audition. It responds to that stimulation by performing multi-sensorial poetic listening with the excessive, tender, and queer audio-visual sabores [tastes], gestures, and details of two live performances by the musicians and singers contracted to Fania in the 1970s, one in Yankee Stadium in the Bronx in 1973 and the other in 1974 at Zaire ‘74 in Kinshasa, a music festival of Afro-Latinx, brown, and black sonic solidarity headlining the Ali-Foreman Rumble in the Jungle fight. A riot of audience ended the All-Stars’ set at the 1973 Bronx concert. Their insurgent pleasure compels us to think unruliness with salsa’s listeners, and re-imagine Latinx as a riotous movement of brown and black swerving aesthetic convergences. The essay enacts a deviant and sonically oriented close reading of Héctor Lavoe’s vocals in the song “Mi Gente” [My People], in part, for their attunement precisely to audience and playful dynamics with the band. In this song, Lavoe cries out to “anormales” [abnormals], a sign re-imagined here as an off-kilter feeling for salsa and a multi-sensorial opening for more errant ruptures.


2019 ◽  
Vol 188 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-146
Author(s):  
Martin Bohatý ◽  
Dalibor Velebil

Adalbert Wraný (*1836, †1902) was a doctor of medicine, with his primary specialization in pediatric pathology, and was also one of the founders of microscopic and chemical diagnostics. He was interested in natural sciences, chemistry, botany, paleontology and above all mineralogy. He wrote two books, one on the development of mineralogical research in Bohemia (1896), and the other on the history of industrial chemistry in Bohemia (1902). Wraný also assembled several natural science collections. During his lifetime, he gave to the National Museum large collections of rocks, a collection of cut precious stones and his library. He donated a collection of fossils to the Geological Institute of the Czech University (now Charles University). He was an inspector of the mineralogical collection of the National Museum. After his death, he bequeathed to the National Museum his collection of minerals and the rest of the gemstone collection. He donated paintings to the Prague City Museum, and other property to the Klar Institute of the Blind in Prague. The National Museum’s collection currently contains 4 325 samples of minerals, as well as 21 meteorites and several hundred cut precious stones from Wraný’s collection.


Author(s):  
Dmitry A. Neganov ◽  
◽  
Victor M. Varshitsky ◽  
Andrey A. Belkin ◽  
◽  
...  

The article contains the comparative results of the experimental and calculated research of the strength of a pipeline with such defects as “metal loss” and “dent with groove”. Two coils with diameter of 820 mm and the thickness of 9 mm of 19G steel were used for full-scale pipe sample production. One of the coils was intentionally damaged by machining, which resulted in “metal loss” defect, the other one was dented (by press machine) and got groove mark (by chisel). The testing of pipe samples was performed by applying static internal pressure to the moment of collapse. The calculation of deterioration pressure was carried out with the use of national and foreign methodical approaches. The calculated values of collapsing pressure for the pipe with loss of metal mainly coincided with the calculation experiment results based on Russian method and ASME B31G. In case of pipe with dent and groove the calculated value of collapsing pressure demonstrated greater coincidence with Russian method and to a lesser extent with API 579/ASME FFS-1. In whole, all calculation methods demonstrate sufficient stability of results, which provides reliable operation of pipelines with defects.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
A. C. R. Trevisan ◽  
E. P. Trevisan

In the article we seek to address questions regarding the interest of graduates of a degree course in Natural Sciences and Mathematics in relation to the teaching career in basic education. The course enables its graduates to work in the subjects Science and Mathematics in the final years of elementary school and Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry in high school. Our intention is to identify and reflect on the perceptions of these graduates about teaching, highlighting with this inherent aspects to the exercise of this profession in basic education. From the application of questionnaires to graduates of this course, we produced data regarding their performance in basic education, which enabled us to reflect on the national scenario in relation to the exercise of this profession. We could observe that the majority of the students participating in the research are not working in basic education and that the current scenario of devaluation of the teaching career exerts a significant influence in the decision making process of choosing or not the teacher profession for professional performance after graduation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 330-334
Author(s):  
Octavio A. Chon Torres

AbstractThere is a record of the positive effects of astrobiological research for the natural sciences and eventually for their technological use on Earth. However, on the philosophical effects, this is not as visible as the other sciences, which is why it can be assumed that it is a waste of time speculating on astrobioethics or also on the philosophy of astrobiology. This is the reason why this work seeks to identify and sustain the philosophical utility of astrobioethics. To achieve this, this article focuses on three essential aspects: teloempathy, education and astrotheology. Russell's argument about the value of philosophy will be used as a fundamental basis for the usefulness of astrobioethics.


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