scholarly journals Leopardi and the ancient Greek mathematics

2002 ◽  
Vol 01 (02) ◽  
pp. A01
Author(s):  
Annalisa Reggi

"I consider Leopardi's poetry and pessimism to be the best expression of what a scientist's credo should be". This quotation is from Bertrand Russell, no less. With these very emblematic words, the greatest man of letters, the supreme icon of the Italian Parnasse, the author of such collections of poems as Canti (Poems) and Operette Morali (The Moral Essays) and philosophical thoughts as Zibaldone (Miscellany) has been associated to the world of science. This relationship, very intense and to a certain extent new, was greatly emphasised on the occasion of the poet's birth bicentenary. During the celebration in 1996, an exhibition with the name of Giacomo and Science was organized in his birthplace to underline the close connection between the poet and the scientific culture of his epoch. This point has also been stressed recently.

Author(s):  
Leemon B. McHenry

What kinds of things are events? Battles, explosions, accidents, crashes, rock concerts would be typical examples of events and these would be reinforced in the way we speak about the world. Events or actions function linguistically as verbs and adverbs. Philosophers following Aristotle have claimed that events are dependent on substances such as physical objects and persons. But with the advances of modern physics, some philosophers and physicists have argued that events are the basic entities of reality and what we perceive as physical bodies are just very long events spread out in space-time. In other words, everything turns out to be events. This view, no doubt, radically revises our ordinary common sense view of reality, but as our event theorists argue common sense is out of touch with advancing science. In The Event Universe: The Revisionary Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, Leemon McHenry argues that Whitehead's metaphysics provides a more adequate basis for achieving a unification of physical theory than a traditional substance metaphysics. He investigates the influence of Maxwell's electromagnetic field, Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum mechanics on the development of the ontology of events and compares Whitehead’s theory to his contemporaries, C. D. Broad and Bertrand Russell, as well as another key proponent of this theory, W. V. Quine. In this manner, McHenry defends the naturalized and speculative approach to metaphysics as opposed to analytical and linguistic methods that arose in the 20th century.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 32-54
Author(s):  
Silvia Spitta

Sandra Ramos (b. 1969) is one of the few artists to reflect critically on both sides of the Cuban di-lemma, fully embodying the etymological origins of the word in ancient Greek: di-, meaning twice, and lemma, denoting a form of argument involving a choice between equally unfavorable alternatives. Throughout her works she shines a light on the dilemmas faced by Cubans whether in Cuba or the United States, underlining the bad personal and political choices people face in both countries. During the hard 1990s, while still in Havana, the artist focused on the traumatic one-way journey into exile by thousands, as well as the experience of profound abandonment experienced by those who were left behind on the island. Today she lives in Miami and operates a studio there as well as one in Havana. Her initial disorientation in the USA has morphed into an acerbic representation and critique of the current administration and a deep concern with the environmental collapse we face. A buffoonlike Trumpito has joined el Bobo de Abela and Liborio in her gallery of comic characters derived from the rich Cuban graphic arts tradition where she was formed. While Cuba is now represented as a rotten cake with menacing flies hovering over it ready to pounce, a bombastic Trumpito marches across the world stage, trampling everything underfoot, a dollar sign for a face.


2020 ◽  
pp. 85-104
Author(s):  
Борис Тимофеев

Современная научная богословская мысль склонна к унификации терминов и явлений в сфере своих компетенций. Эта тенденция в современных исследованиях в некоторых случаях распространяется и на древние христианские памятники. Так, например, слово θεωρία многие учёные определяют как мистический метод духовного толкования Священного Писания. Это определение нередко применяется в качестве универсального технического определения при анализе экзегетических произведений древних авторов. При этом игнорируется узус самих экзегетов, которые употребляют это слово в иных значениях. В рамках данной статьи предпринимается попытка выявить и показать основные значения слова θεωρία в древней греческой экзегетической литературе. The article deals with the theology, composition and literary form of the narrations which constitute the prologue part of the book of Genesis (1, 1-11, 26). During the second half of the 19th and at the turn of the 20th cent., following the emergence of the Documentary hypothesis as well as the comparison of the Holy Scripture with the newly-discovered literary monuments of Ancient Near East, the greater part of the narrations that constitute the Prologue were labeled myths and ancient Hebrew folklore (J. Wellhausen, H. Gunkel, J. Frazer). In addition to the then detected Near Eastern parallels, this new attitude towards the narrations of the Prologue was fostered by its lack of a clearly expressed historical dedication and the symbolic form of their exposition. Defending the traditional view of the Prologue as sacred history and prophetic revelation, bishop Kassian (Bezobrazov) proposed to consider all the biblical narrations that contain theophanies as metahistorical. Archpriest Sergey Bulgakov, A. F. Losev and B. P. Vysheslavtsev, who analyzed the phenomenon of myth-making, called the Biblical narration of the origins of the world a myth, but in a sense different from that proposed by Gunkel and Frazer. They have founded a new and positive conception according to which a myth is not fi but rather a kind of reality based upon mystical experience. The author of the article analyzes each of the terms enumerated - «history», «myth», «metahistory» - in their use relating them to the Prologue; he also examines the possibility of their harmonizing with the traditional ecclesiastical view of this part of the book of Genesis.


Author(s):  
Armando Martínez Ríos

ABSTRACTMexico lacks a scientific culture. Investigations and reports show that only has a record of 38 thousand scientific and 0.5% global of registered patents in the world. Communications and electronics engineering (ICE) is one of the three formations in the school of mechanical engineering and electrical (ESIME) unit Zacatenco from the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) Mexico. Among the objectives of this mentioned formation on its web site, is the form professionals with scientific and technological foundations; However, the curriculum includes only two subjects with these characteristics. Less than 1% of the graduates also choose to devote himself to scientific work. This paper shows the results obtained by means of a survey on the perception that students have about scientists in order to propose actions that foster a greater interest in them by the science and technology into their professional formation.RESUMENMéxico carece de una cultura científica ya que algunas encuestas muestran que solo se tiene un registro de 38 mil científicos y el 0.5% del total mundial de patentes registradas. Ingeniería en Comunicaciones y Electrónica (ICE) es una de las tres carreras de la Escuela Superior de Ingeniería Mecánica y Eléctrica (ESIME) unidad Zacatenco del Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) México. Entre los objetivos de esta carrera mencionado en su sitio web, es el de formar profesionistas con fundamentos científicos y tecnológicos; sin embargo, el currículo, contempla solo dos asignaturas con estas características. Asimismo, menos del 1% de los egresados elige dedicarse a una labor científica. Este trabajo muestra los resultados obtenidos por medio de una encuesta sobre la percepción que los estudiantes tienen sobre los científicos con el fin de proponer acciones que fomenten un mayor interés en ellos por la ciencia y la tecnología dentro de su formación.


Philosophies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Said Mikki

The goal of this article is to bring into wider attention the often neglected important work by Bertrand Russell on the philosophy of nature and the foundations of physics, published in the year 1927. It is suggested that the idea of what could be named Russell space, introduced in Part III of that book, may be viewed as more fundamental than many other types of spaces since the highly abstract nature of the topological ordinal space proposed by Russell there would incorporate into its very fabric the emergent nature of spacetime by deploying event assemblages, but not spacetime or particles, as the fundamental building blocks of the world. We also point out the curious historical fact that the book The Analysis of Matter can be chronologically considered the earliest book-length generic attempt to reflect on the relation between quantum mechanics, just emerging by that time, and general relativity.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-45
Author(s):  
Artur Rodziewicz

The paper concerns some crucial issues of theology and cosmogony of the Yezidis, which have distinct parallels in the writings of the ancient Greeks. A startling coincidence of certain topics and the manner of approach can lead to the conclusion that the Yezidi theology and mythology seem to have a distant genetic relationship with the Greek theology, or―which is also possible―we are dealing with distinct independent inscriptions of the same ideas, meaning here the highest factors governing the world. The paper also contains references to similar topics in the literature of Early Christianity and Gnosticism.


Antiquity ◽  
1941 ◽  
Vol 15 (60) ◽  
pp. 360-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. V. Grinsell

In many parts of the world and at many periods the practice has prevailed of depositing boats, or models or other representations of them, with the dead, either as a means of facilitating his supposed voyage to another world, or as a symbol of his maritime activities during his lifetime.That the former is generally the correct explanation of the custom there can be no doubt. This is shown by the evidence of the belief in a voyage to a future world, and the customs to which it has given rise, among living primitive peoples in the Pacific Islands and elsewhere, so well collected and presented by the late Sir J. G. Frazer. It is shown also by traditions such as that of our own king Arthur's journey by barge to ‘the island valley of Avilion, where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow’ It is shown also by the ancient Greek and Roman custom of placing a coin in the mouth of the dead to pay Charon's fee for ferrying him across the Styx.


2021 ◽  
pp. 24-28
Author(s):  
Dimítri De Araújo Costa ◽  
Nuno Gomes ◽  
Harold Cantallo ◽  
Carlos Antunes

Society in general is distant from scientific culture, it is required to bring scientific knowledge closer to the population. In this context, an effective and attractive way for scientific dissemination is the establishment of natural history museums, which are institutions of knowledge, displaying the past. Natural history museums have the natural world as their object of study; and their collections may contain the most diverse types of materials (local and/or from various parts of the world), such as zoological, botanical, geological, archaeological, among others. Scientific collections are the largest and most important source of authoritative biodiversity data, contributing to studies of biodiversity composition, evolutionary (morphological and genetic), biogeographical, phenological, as well as geological. The materials present in these collections may serve for temporal comparison, being useful to produce predictive models. Likewise, they have a fundamental role in safeguarding type specimens, i.e. the first organisms identified to describe and name a new species. In addition, there is the component available to visitors in general, in order to raise public awareness on the preservation of the local fauna and flora and of other places in the world. In this way, the museums serve both the academic-scientific public and visitors who come to these sites for recreational purposes. It is intended to promote, in Vila Nova de Cerveira, the Natural History Museum of the Iberian Peninsula - NatMIP (“Museu de História Natural da Península Ibérica”), which intends to collect materials for scientific purposes, mainly Iberian.


Author(s):  
Jian Liang ◽  

Ritual is one of the most classic research topics in the field of Anthropology, and rituals have close connection with medial practice. However, the research on this topic from the experience of Traditional Chinese Medicine is limited. This paper presents the whole story that a patient suffering from infertility got cured got cured by a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) and finally became a mother. With the detailed description of each medical practice, including pulse-taking, traditional Chinese herb therapy, and postpartum confinement, this paper analyzes the ritualized elements in the whole process, interprets how ritual play a role in the practice of TCM, and points out ritual’s essential significance in contributing to human’s well being and adjusting the relationships between individual and the world.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document