The essay has two main purposes.The first consists of discussing some literary and philosophical thoughts on the epistemological value of science by one of the most famous and celebrated poets in Italian literature,Gi...The essay has two main purposes.The first consists of discussing some literary and philosophical thoughts on the epistemological value of science by one of the most famous and celebrated poets in Italian literature,Giacomo Leopardi.The poet firmly believes in the cognitive power of science,capable of revealing false beliefs with the light of reason.However,in his mature reflections,what will radically change will not be the value of scientific activity itself,always admirably accepted,but rather its true salvific force.Leopardi was not a scientist,but he used the scientific culture of his time to critically address the great existential themes of man concerning nature and the universe.He had amply demonstrated a scientific culture since his youthful'History of Astronomy',which would reappear in many of his other literary works.His deep and meditative reflections on the nature of finite and infinite space and time are a clear and fruitful testimony to this.However,Giacomo writes icastically,reason alone is not enough;it needs imagination.The second concerns a first reconstruction of the influence that the philosophy of Enlightenment had on Leopardi’s thought especially in relation to these topics:atheism,rejection of providentialism and anthropocentrism,the conception of nature,the question of the relationship between human and animal intelligence,the rejection of metaphysics,the importance of scientific knowledge.展开更多
In the second half of the last century the problem of categories became less and less prominent in philosophical debates. This twilight of categorial discourse did not go unnoticed, and some authors offered different ...In the second half of the last century the problem of categories became less and less prominent in philosophical debates. This twilight of categorial discourse did not go unnoticed, and some authors offered different solutions for the revival of categorial theorizing in contemporary philosophy＇s repertoire. One of these authors is the American philosopher Stephen Pepper. The purpose of the present discussion is to offer yet another explanation for the decline of categorial theory, and to explore Pepper＇s view and its role in the transformation of categorial discourse. The main thesis which I will argue for is that traditional categories did not disappear altogether, but they have been replaced, gradually, by key empirical concepts from natural science. Even if such concepts do not satisfy the traditional requirements categories in shaping our for a categorial scheme, they are, nonetheless, fulfilling the same role as traditional worldviews.展开更多
During the past 10 years, the Christian Science movement has discarded large expensive public relations efforts to concentrate on the writings of the founder, Mary Baker Eddy （1821-1910） and the central role of heal...During the past 10 years, the Christian Science movement has discarded large expensive public relations efforts to concentrate on the writings of the founder, Mary Baker Eddy （1821-1910） and the central role of healing. This paper examines this seismic shift, delves into the reasons for the change of strategy, and suggests a renewed interest in the movement＇s history and other forms of outreach to help revive a movement that has been in decline just after World War II. Resources for this study are the monthly Christian Science Journal, resources of the Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston, and the writer＇s own research and publications on the history of Christian Science.展开更多
The Victorian period experienced, among many other paradoxes, an ongoing tension between science and spirituality. Bearing the legacy of the ＂Enlightenment Rationalism＂ and the Cartesian division between ＂matter＂ ...The Victorian period experienced, among many other paradoxes, an ongoing tension between science and spirituality. Bearing the legacy of the ＂Enlightenment Rationalism＂ and the Cartesian division between ＂matter＂ and ＂mind＂ since the eighteenth century, the Victorian minds had to deal with a contemporary world rapidly unfolding new discoveries in geology, astronomy, biology, and medical sciences. However, these could not completely erase the spiritual belief from the human mind. Rather they sought to reshape their codes in terms of ＂alternative sciences＂ like occultism and metaphysical psychiatry （pre-Freudian）. This paper seeks to explore the characterisation of the ＂metaphysical＂ physician in two novels by Wilkie Collins and Marie Corelli, showing how these figures play a crucial role in negotiating the tensions between science and spiritualism.展开更多
The phenomenon described here has no scientific title, but occurs frequently in daily living, from science to philosophy, religion, and medicine. In every field of human endeavor, when a view is expressed, sharp and p...The phenomenon described here has no scientific title, but occurs frequently in daily living, from science to philosophy, religion, and medicine. In every field of human endeavor, when a view is expressed, sharp and profound differences of opinion ensue. Initially, we coin this phenomenon as ＂understanding blindness＂ or ＂mind＇s awareness.＂ Thereafter, we decide to refer to it as ＂mind blindness,＂ a concept introduced to science by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, who coins it for a cognitive disorder associated with autism, Asperger＇s syndrome, and schizophrenia. Baron-Cohen＇s usage has subsequently been extended to dementia, bi-polar disorders, antisocial personality disorders, and even normal aging. In our view, definition and identification of ＂mind blindness＂ in philosophy, religion, science, medicine, and at end-of-life care can help mankind to better understand mechanisms of human behavior, and the causes of conflicts, controversies, contradictions, and sharp differences of opinion in human life, and even to solve some of them.展开更多
With this work, we introduce a novel method for the unsupervised learning of conceptual hierarchies, or concept maps as they are sometimes called, which is aimed specifically for use with literary texts, as such disti...With this work, we introduce a novel method for the unsupervised learning of conceptual hierarchies, or concept maps as they are sometimes called, which is aimed specifically for use with literary texts, as such distinguishing itself from the majority of research literature on the topic which is primarily focused on building ontologies from a vast array of different types of data sources, both structured and unstructured, to support various forms of AI, in particular, the Semantic Web as envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee. We first elaborate on mutually informing disciplines of philosophy and computer science, or more specifically the relationship between metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, computing and AI, followed by a technically in-depth discussion of DEBRA, our dependency tree based concept hierarchy constructor, which as its name alludes to, constructs a conceptual map in the form of a directed graph which illustrates the concepts, their respective relations, and the implied ontological structure of the concepts as encoded in the text, decoded with standard Python NLP libraries such as spaCy and NLTK. With this work we hope to both augment the Knowledge Representation literature with opportunities for intellectual advancement in AI with more intuitive, less analytical, and well-known forms of knowledge representation from the cognitive science community, as well as open up new areas of research between Computer Science and the Humanities with respect to the application of the latest in NLP tools and techniques upon literature of cultural significance, shedding light on existing methods of computation with respect to documents in semantic space that effectively allows for, at the very least, the comparison and evolution of texts through time, using vector space math.展开更多
文摘The essay has two main purposes.The first consists of discussing some literary and philosophical thoughts on the epistemological value of science by one of the most famous and celebrated poets in Italian literature,Giacomo Leopardi.The poet firmly believes in the cognitive power of science,capable of revealing false beliefs with the light of reason.However,in his mature reflections,what will radically change will not be the value of scientific activity itself,always admirably accepted,but rather its true salvific force.Leopardi was not a scientist,but he used the scientific culture of his time to critically address the great existential themes of man concerning nature and the universe.He had amply demonstrated a scientific culture since his youthful'History of Astronomy',which would reappear in many of his other literary works.His deep and meditative reflections on the nature of finite and infinite space and time are a clear and fruitful testimony to this.However,Giacomo writes icastically,reason alone is not enough;it needs imagination.The second concerns a first reconstruction of the influence that the philosophy of Enlightenment had on Leopardi’s thought especially in relation to these topics:atheism,rejection of providentialism and anthropocentrism,the conception of nature,the question of the relationship between human and animal intelligence,the rejection of metaphysics,the importance of scientific knowledge.
文摘In the second half of the last century the problem of categories became less and less prominent in philosophical debates. This twilight of categorial discourse did not go unnoticed, and some authors offered different solutions for the revival of categorial theorizing in contemporary philosophy＇s repertoire. One of these authors is the American philosopher Stephen Pepper. The purpose of the present discussion is to offer yet another explanation for the decline of categorial theory, and to explore Pepper＇s view and its role in the transformation of categorial discourse. The main thesis which I will argue for is that traditional categories did not disappear altogether, but they have been replaced, gradually, by key empirical concepts from natural science. Even if such concepts do not satisfy the traditional requirements categories in shaping our for a categorial scheme, they are, nonetheless, fulfilling the same role as traditional worldviews.
文摘During the past 10 years, the Christian Science movement has discarded large expensive public relations efforts to concentrate on the writings of the founder, Mary Baker Eddy （1821-1910） and the central role of healing. This paper examines this seismic shift, delves into the reasons for the change of strategy, and suggests a renewed interest in the movement＇s history and other forms of outreach to help revive a movement that has been in decline just after World War II. Resources for this study are the monthly Christian Science Journal, resources of the Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston, and the writer＇s own research and publications on the history of Christian Science.
文摘The Victorian period experienced, among many other paradoxes, an ongoing tension between science and spirituality. Bearing the legacy of the ＂Enlightenment Rationalism＂ and the Cartesian division between ＂matter＂ and ＂mind＂ since the eighteenth century, the Victorian minds had to deal with a contemporary world rapidly unfolding new discoveries in geology, astronomy, biology, and medical sciences. However, these could not completely erase the spiritual belief from the human mind. Rather they sought to reshape their codes in terms of ＂alternative sciences＂ like occultism and metaphysical psychiatry （pre-Freudian）. This paper seeks to explore the characterisation of the ＂metaphysical＂ physician in two novels by Wilkie Collins and Marie Corelli, showing how these figures play a crucial role in negotiating the tensions between science and spiritualism.
文摘The phenomenon described here has no scientific title, but occurs frequently in daily living, from science to philosophy, religion, and medicine. In every field of human endeavor, when a view is expressed, sharp and profound differences of opinion ensue. Initially, we coin this phenomenon as ＂understanding blindness＂ or ＂mind＇s awareness.＂ Thereafter, we decide to refer to it as ＂mind blindness,＂ a concept introduced to science by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, who coins it for a cognitive disorder associated with autism, Asperger＇s syndrome, and schizophrenia. Baron-Cohen＇s usage has subsequently been extended to dementia, bi-polar disorders, antisocial personality disorders, and even normal aging. In our view, definition and identification of ＂mind blindness＂ in philosophy, religion, science, medicine, and at end-of-life care can help mankind to better understand mechanisms of human behavior, and the causes of conflicts, controversies, contradictions, and sharp differences of opinion in human life, and even to solve some of them.
文摘With this work, we introduce a novel method for the unsupervised learning of conceptual hierarchies, or concept maps as they are sometimes called, which is aimed specifically for use with literary texts, as such distinguishing itself from the majority of research literature on the topic which is primarily focused on building ontologies from a vast array of different types of data sources, both structured and unstructured, to support various forms of AI, in particular, the Semantic Web as envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee. We first elaborate on mutually informing disciplines of philosophy and computer science, or more specifically the relationship between metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, computing and AI, followed by a technically in-depth discussion of DEBRA, our dependency tree based concept hierarchy constructor, which as its name alludes to, constructs a conceptual map in the form of a directed graph which illustrates the concepts, their respective relations, and the implied ontological structure of the concepts as encoded in the text, decoded with standard Python NLP libraries such as spaCy and NLTK. With this work we hope to both augment the Knowledge Representation literature with opportunities for intellectual advancement in AI with more intuitive, less analytical, and well-known forms of knowledge representation from the cognitive science community, as well as open up new areas of research between Computer Science and the Humanities with respect to the application of the latest in NLP tools and techniques upon literature of cultural significance, shedding light on existing methods of computation with respect to documents in semantic space that effectively allows for, at the very least, the comparison and evolution of texts through time, using vector space math.
