549 research outputs found
Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science:Materiality, Ecology and Quasi-Objects
No full textMassimiliano Simons provides the first systematic study of Serres's work in the context of 20th-century French philosophy of science. By proposing new readings of Serres's philosophy, Simons creates a synthesis between his predecessors, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem and Louis Althusser as well as contemporary Francophone philosophers of science such as Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers.Simons situates Serres's unique contribution through his notion of the quasi-object, a concept, he argues, organizes great parts of Serres's work into a promising philosophy of science as well as a challenge to the narrower field of French epistemology, to which it has often been limited. Simons highlights how the concept encompasses Serres's commitment to positive relations between science and culture and his rejection of pleas to purify the scientific self from imaginative and cultural elements. It helps to situate Serres between the distinct traditions of Bachelard and Latour as well as progressing the innovative aspects of Serres's philosophy for current debates in the philosophy, history and sociology of science.Showing how Serres's philosophy can serve as a normative approach to science and technology, Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science takes in themes of materiality, religiosity, modernity and ecology to advance a timely alternative to philosophy of science for contemporary life
Michel Serres and French philosophy of science : materiality, ecology and quasi-objects /
No full text"Massimiliano Simons provides the first systematic study of Serres's work in the context of twentieth-century French philosophy of science. By proposing new readings of Serres's philosophy, he creates a synthesis between his predecessors, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Louis Althusser as well as contemporary Francophone philosophers of science such as Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers. Simons situates Serres's unique contribution through his notion of the quasi-object, a concept, he argues, that organizes great parts of Serres's work into a promising philosophy of science as well as providing a challenge to the narrower field of French epistemology, to which it has often been limited. Showing how Serres's philosophy can serve as a normative approach to science and technology, 'Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science' takes in themes of materiality, religiosity, modernity and ecology to advance a timely alternative to philosophy of science for contemporary life."--Includes bibliographical references (pages 224-239) and index.(from table of contents) Introduction -- Surrationalism after Bachelard: Michel Serres and 'le nouveau nouvel esprit scientifique' -- Michel Serres and the epistemological break -- Purification as a practice of the self -- French object-oriented philosophy in the 1970s: Serres, Dagognet, Latour -- Brewers of time: Michel Serres and modernity -- Thanatocracy and the anthropology of science -- The secularization of science -- The parliament of things and the Anthropocene: How to listen to quasi-objects -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index."Massimiliano Simons provides the first systematic study of Serres's work in the context of twentieth-century French philosophy of science. By proposing new readings of Serres's philosophy, he creates a synthesis between his predecessors, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Louis Althusser as well as contemporary Francophone philosophers of science such as Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers. Simons situates Serres's unique contribution through his notion of the quasi-object, a concept, he argues, that organizes great parts of Serres's work into a promising philosophy of science as well as providing a challenge to the narrower field of French epistemology, to which it has often been limited. Showing how Serres's philosophy can serve as a normative approach to science and technology, 'Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science' takes in themes of materiality, religiosity, modernity and ecology to advance a timely alternative to philosophy of science for contemporary life."--Massimiliano Simons: postdoctoral researcher at the Sarton Centre for History of Science at Ghent University, Belgium
Tudor Translation in Theory and Practice
No full textFilling a gap in the study of early modern literature, Massimiliano Morini here exhaustively examines the aims, strategies, practice and theoretical ideas of the sixteenth-century translator. Morini analyzes early modern English translations of works by French and Italian essayists and poets, including Montaigne, Castiglione, Ariosto and Tasso, and of works by classical writers such as Virgil and Petrarch. In the process, he demonstrates how connected translation is with other cultural and literary issues: women as writers, literary relations between Italy and England, the nature of the author, and changes in the English language. Since English Tudor writers, unlike their Italian contemporaries, did not write theoretical treatises, the author works empirically to extrapolate the theory that informs the practice of Tudor translation - he deduces several cogent theoretical principles from the metaphors and figures of speech used by translators to describe translation. Employing a good blend of theory and practice, the author presents the Tudor period as a crucial transitional moment in the history of translation, from the medieval tradition (which in secular literature often entailed radical departure from the original) to the more subtle modern tradition (which prizes the invisibility of the translator and fluency of the translated text). Morini points out that this is also a period during which ideas about language and about the position of England on the political and cultural map of Europe undergo dramatic change, and he convincingly argues that the practice of translation changes as new humanistic methods are adapted to the needs of a country that is expanding its empire
Were experiments ever neglected? Ian Hacking and the history of the philosophy of experiments
Get PDFIan Hacking’s Representing and Intervening is often credited as being one of the first works to focus on the role of experimentation in philosophy of science, catalyzing a movement which is sometimes called the “philosophy of experiment” or “new experimentalism”. In the 1980s, a number of other movements and scholars also began focusing on the role of experimentation and instruments in science. Philosophical study of experimentation has thus seemed to be an invention of the 1980s whose central figure is Hacking. This article aims to assess this historical claim, made by Hacking himself as well as others. It does so first by highlighting how a broader perspective on the history of philosophy reveals this invention narrative to be incorrect, since experimentation was a topic of interest for earlier philosophers. Secondly, the article evaluates a revision of this historical claim also made by some philosophers of experiment: the rediscovery narrative, which frames Hacking and others as having rediscovered the work of these earlier authors. This second narratives faces problems as well. Therefore we develop a third narrative which we call the contextualist narrative. Rather than considering experimentation in an essentialist manner as a fixed research object that is either present or not in the work of specific authors, experimentation should be addressed through a narrative that asks in what way it becomes a philosophical problem for certain authors and for what purpose. Such contextualization enables a repositioning of Hacking’s philosophy of experiment in relation to the specific debates in which he intervened, such as the realism-antirealism debate, the Science Wars and the debate on incommensurability.sponsorship: Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoekstatus: Publishe
On the Function of Identity Criteria
No full textIn this paper we shall try to answer the following questions: is there a function played by criteria of identity? And, if there is one, which one? An answer is to say that identity criteria are used to confer respectability on some entities. In other words, an entity is ontologically acceptable iff we have a clear determination of its identity criterion. This is, in non-quinian terms, the quinian answer. Many attempts have been made to honour such demand for entities such as properties, events, abstract and material objects. M. Jubien in his paper The Myth of Identity Conditions (Jubien 1996) questioned the legitimacy of the demand for criteria of identity with respect to any sort of entity. His goal was to argue that such demand is ill conceived. The notion of identity criterion is, in his opinion, a philosophical “myth”. Criteria of identity have no function at all. Even if we agree with Jubien’s pars destruens concerning identity criteria, we think that the last word on identity criteria has not been said yet. In particular, one has still to analyse if there is a connection and, if there is one, how to characterise it, between identity criteria and essential properties.
The paper consists of four sections. In (I) we introduce two functions usually ascribed to identity criteria: the epistemological and the metaphysical function; in (II) we argue against the epistemological function of identity criteria; in (III), after a distinction of the metaphysical function in an analytical and an ontological view, we consider some problems connected with the metaphysical view in general. In particular, a criticism to this view, circularity, applies in a similar vein if we use a criterion of identity for the fs as a definition of ‘x=y’, when applied to fs, where ‘x’ and ‘y’ are individual variables and ‘f’ is replaced by a sortal predicate. We ask if it is possible to avoid the criticism of circularity for identity criteria. We isolate two metaphysical alternatives connected with such a problem, one that seems to avoid circularity, one not. In (IV) we introduce another specification of the metaphysical view concerning the function played by identity criteria in the distinction between essential and accidental properties and we list some difficulties and open problems connected with such a function of identity criteria
The Faunæ Ligusticæ Fragmenta of Massimiliano Spinola (1805).
Get PDFDie Faunæ Ligusticæ Fragmenta, Decas Prima, 1805, waren der erste und einzige gedruckte Teil eines geplanten Werkes über die Insekten Liguriens. Er wurde auf Kosten seines Autors Massimiliano Spinola gedruckt. Soweit bekannt ist, blieb nur eine Kopie erhalten, da sein Autor kurzerhand und mit beinahe vollem Erfolg versuchte, ihn zu unterdrücken. Ob die Faunæ damit als valid publiziert gelten müssen oder nicht, wird diskutiert. Hier wird begründet, daß die Faunæ im strengen Sinne der Internationalen Regeln für die Zoologische Nomenklatur nicht gültig veröffentlicht worden sind und daß die wenigen Taxa, alle Hymenoptera, die darin beschrieben sind, mit den Namen bezeichnet werden sollten, einige etwas verändert, unter denen sie in den Insectorum Liguriæ, Bd. I, 1806, des gleichen Autors erstmals gültig publiziert wurden.StichwörterBibliography, Italy, Insecta, Hymenoptera.The Faunæ Ligusticæ Fragmenta, Decas Prima, 1805, was the first and only part to be printed of a projected work on the insects of Liguria. It was printed at the expense of its author, Massimiliano Spinola, and, so far as is known, only one copy survives, this primarily for the reason that its author shortly, and almost entirely successfully, sought to suppress it. Whether the Faunæ was or was not validly published has been disputed. It is argued here that the Faunæ was not validly published within a strict reading of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, and that the few taxa, all Hymenoptera, described in it should be known by the names, some altered, under which they were first validly published in the same author\u27s Insectorum Liguriæ, volume I, 1806.KeywordsBibliography, Italy, Insecta, Hymenoptera
Igor Stravinsky's 'The Flood' in Between Theatre and Television
No full textThe essay deals with the television production of The Flood (1962) one of the most significant compositions of Igor Stravinsky’s late output. The process that led from the original plans of Robert Craft, Stravinsky and George Balanchine to the final television production is read in the light of the remediation and mediatization processes, and of a dialectic between different kinds of visual-gestural representation, based on theatrical conventions. The author applies a multimedia approach. The musical component is examined with regard to both its connection to the visual aspects and its serial construction. The author shows how Stravinsky creates a musical equivalent of the opposite kinds of visual/gestural representation by diversified vocal characterizations of the roles and by a particular use of the diatonicism-chromaticism opposition
Regenerating Nerve Fiber Innervation of Extraocular Muscles and Motor Functional Changes Following Oculomotor Nerve Injuries at Different Sites
No full textTitle: Regenerating nerve fiber innervation of extraocular muscles and motor functional changes following oculomotor nerve injuries at different sites
Author(s): Zhang Wenchuan; Visocchi Massimiliano; Fernandez Eduardo
NEURAL REGENERATION RESEARCH Volume: 6 Issue: 26 Pages: 2032-2036 DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1673-5374.2011.26.006 Published: SEP 15 2011
In the present study, the oculomotor nerves were sectioned at the proximal (subtentorial) and distal (superior orbital fissure) ends and repaired. After 24 weeks, vestibulo-ocular reflex evaluation confirmed that the regenerating nerve fibers following oculomotor nerve injury in the superior orbital fissure had a high level of specificity for innervating extraocular muscles. The level of functional recovery of extraocular muscles in rats in the superior orbital fissure injury group was remarkably superior over that in rats undergoing oculomotor nerve injuries at the proximal end (subtentorium). Horseradish peroxidase retrograde tracing through the right superior rectus muscle showed that the distribution of neurons in the nucleus of the oculomotor nerve was directly associated with the injury site, and that crude fibers were badly damaged. The closer the site of injury of the oculomotor nerve was to the extraocular muscle, the better the recovery of neurological function was. The mechanism may be associated with the aberrant number of regenerated nerve fibers passing through the injury site
Pooling-Based Data Interpolation and Backdating
No full textPooling forecasts obtained from different procedures typically reduces the mean square forecast error and more generally improve the quality of the forecast. In this paper, we evaluate whether pooling-interpolated or-backdated time series obtained from different procedures can also improve the quality of the generated data. Both simulation results and empirical analyses with macroeconomic time series indicate that pooling plays a positive and important role in this context also. Copyright 2007 The Author Journal compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Applied Machine Learning for Health Informatics: Human Motion Analysis and Affective Computing Application
No full textIl monitoraggio della qualità della vita e del benessere della persona rappresenta una sfida
aperta nello scenario sanitario. La necessità di risolvere questo task nella nuova era
dell'Intelligenza Artificiale porta all’applicazione di metodi dal campo del machine learning.
Gli obiettivi e i contributi di questa tesi riflettono le attività di ricerca svolte (i) nell’ambito
dell’analisi del movimento: valutazione e monitoraggio automatico del movimento umano
durante la riabilitazione fisica, e (ii) nell’ambito dell’affective computing: stima dello stato
affettivo del soggetto.
Nel primo tema il candidato presenta un algoritmo in grado di estrarre le caratteristiche di
movimento clinicamente rilevanti dalle traiettorie dello skeleton acquisite da un sensore RGBD,
e fornire un punteggio sulla prestazione del soggetto. L'approccio proposto si basa su
regole derivate da indicazioni cliniche e su un algoritmo di machine learning (i.e., Hidden
Semi-Markov Model). L'affidabilità dell'approccio proposto è studiata su un dataset
collezionato dal candidato rispetto ad un algoritmo gold standard e alla valutazione clinica. I
risultati sostengono l'uso della metodologia proposta per la valutazione quantitativa delle
prestazioni motorie durante la riabilitazione fisica.
Nel secondo topic il candidato propone l’applicazione del framework di Multiple Instance
Learning per l'apprendimento della risposta emotiva in presenza di label continui ed ambigui.
Questa varaibilità è spesso presente nella risposta affettiva ad uno stimolo esterno (e.g.,
interazione multimediale). L'affidabilità dell'approccio di Multiple Instance Learning è
indagata su un database di benchmark e un dataset più vicino alle problematiche del mondo
reale acquisito dal candidato. I risultati ottenuti evidenziano come la metodologia proposta è
consistente per la stima dello stato affettivo.The monitoring of the quality of life and the subject's well-being represent an open challenge
in the healthcare scenario. The emergence of solving this task in the new era of Artificial
Intelligence leads to the application of methods in the machine learning field.
The objectives and the contributions of this thesis reflect the research activities performed on
the topics of (i) human motion analysis: the automatic monitoring and assessment of human
movement during physical rehabilitation and (ii) affective computing: the inferring of the
affective state of the subject.
In the first topic, the author presents an algorithm able to extract clinically relevant motion
features from the RGB-D visual skeleton joints input and provide a related score about
subject’s performance. The proposed approach is respectively based on rules derived by
clinician suggestions and machine learning algorithm (i.e., Hidden Semi Markov Model). The
reliability of the proposed approach is tested over a dataset collected by the author and with
respect to a gold standard algorithm and with respect to the clinical assessment. The results
support the use of the proposed methodology for quantitatively assessing motor performance
during a physical rehabilitation.
In the second topic, the author proposes the application of a Multiple Instance Learning (MIL)
framework for learning emotional response in presence of continuous and ambiguous labels.
This is often the case with affective response to external stimuli (e.g., multimedia interaction).
The reliability of the MIL approach is investigated over a benchmark database and one dataset
closer to real-world problematic collected by the author. The obtained results point out how
the applied methodology is consistent for predicting the human affective response
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