Why is the universe comprehensible? How is it that we can come to know its regularities well-enough to exploit them for our own gain? In this essay I argue that the nature of our comprehension lies in the mutually agreed upon methodology we use to attain it and on the basic stability of the universe. But I also argue that the very act of comprehension itself places constraints on what we can comprehend by forcing us to establish a context for our knowledge.

Recent work takes both philosophical and scientific progress to consist in acquiring factive epistemic states such as knowledge. However, much of this work leaves unclear what entity is the subject of these epistemic states. Furthermore, by focusing only on states like knowledge, we overlook progress in intermediate cases between ignorance and knowledge — for example, many now celebrated theories were initially so controversial that they were not known. This paper develops an improved framework for thinking about intellectual progress.

Esta obra recoge la minuciosa investigación que, según cuenta Gustavo Bueno Sánchez en un enjundioso prólogo, Iván Vélez ha realizado durante la última década. Una investigación consistente en la consulta de mil y un legajos, la visita a desperdigados archivos y la entrevista a los protagonistas aún vivos. Iván Vélez se remonta al inicio de la Guerra Fría Cultural, cuando las acciones auspiciadas por la CIA (y su predecesora, la OSS), destinadas a promocionar la ideología capitalista de la libertad frente al totalitarismo comunista, condujeron a la financiación –a través de las fundaciones Ford, Fairfield o Rockefeller– de un abanico de entidades culturales y, en especial, del Congreso por la Libertad de la Cultura (CLC), creado en 1950 y entre cuyos presidentes de honor se contaría el español Salvador de Madariaga (Bueno Sánchez: 2012).

Diego Bautista Urbaneja 01/11/2020. La construcción de la cultura electoral en Venezuela tiene una larga historia. Empieza su trayecto en el mismo siglo XIX. Pero es en el XX, en particular a partir de 1940, y más especialmente aún en las últimas cuatro décadas del siglo, cuando tiene lugar la etapa de su más intensa […]

Philosophers of science have long postulated how collective scientific knowledge grows. Empirical validation has been challenging due to limitations in collecting and systematizing large historical records. Here, we capitalize on the largest online encyclopedia to formulate knowledge as growing networks of articles and their hyperlinked inter-relations. We demonstrate that concept networks grow not by expanding from their core but rather by creating and filling knowledge gaps, a process which produces discoveries that are more frequently awarded Nobel prizes than others.

Ya ha corrido suficiente agua en los años que nos separan del 18 de octubre de 1945 como para seguir insistiendo en muchas de las viejas polémicas que siempre lo han acompañado. Con el voto universal, secreto y directo que la Junta Revolucionaria de Gobierno estableció en 1946, la estructura de la república venezolana experimentó su transformación más importante desde su fundación. Ni el federalismo, que nunca se vivió realmente; ni el triunfo de la “anti-república” durante la larga era de dominio caudillista (entre 1870 y 1935) representaron una mutación en las reglas de juego tan honda. Y no porque antes de 1946 no se lo ejerciera, sino que su peso político para definir la vida de la sociedad era, por decir lo menos, extremadamente restringido

For quite some time, I have been alarmed with the general lack of understanding on modern India among the readers and activists (Indians and foreigners alike). As soon as “India” word appears on the paper or computer screen, a section of the readers start imagining the philosophical and religious connotation of the word, they try to realise how great saints spent whole life to get insights of ‘life’, ‘death’, and ‘moksha’! Another section of the readers on hearing the word “India” get an adrenaline rush through their body, their mind gets full of apathy bordering on hatred about ‘uneducated’ people who would continue to get screwed by their master perpetually. A third kind of readers feel India is a land of religious fascists, so no point in thinking about it.

In Part I of this topic (See here), the inception of the Islamic Republic of Iran under the leadership of Imam Khomeini was referenced as a specific example of a system in governance based on Imamat and Wilayat as interpreted, implemented, and practiced in Shi’a Islam. Iran was a nation pegged and primed to become a model for a fully secularized, westernized, and liberalized society in a Muslim majority land. This was a nation endowed with lucrative material wealth and natural resources, several millennia of civilization, culture, and written history but headed by a darling pro-Western puppet regime brought about through series of costly overt and covert schemes and operations.

In ancient times, China made great contributions to world civilization and in particular to mathematics. However, modern sciences including mathematics came to China rather too late. The first Chinese university was founded in 1895. The first mathematics department in China was formally opened at the university only in 1913. At the beginning of the twentieth century, some Chinese went to Europe, the United States of America and Japan for higher education in modern mathematics and returned to China as the pioneer generation. They created mathematics departments at the Chinese universities and sowed the seeds of modern mathematics in China. In 1930s, when a dozen of Chinese universities already had mathematics departments, several leading mathematicians from Europe and USA visited China, including Wilhelm Blaschke, George D. Birkhoff, William F. Osgood, Norbert Wiener and Jacques Hadamard.

During the past two centuries, the United States has enjoyed a largely unchallenged geopolitical, economic, and social influence in Latin America. However, in an increasingly multipolar world, Russia and China—and Iran to a lesser extent—have emerged to fill the vacuum left by diminished U.S. engagement in the region. Each with different interests, these three foreign actors exploit a growing, widespread disillusionment towards the United States. This regional disillusionment coupled with endemic corruption, violence, and erosion of the rule of law marks the conditions under which the extra-regional actors are engaging Latin America. All three actors have made significant gains—and suffered important setbacks—as they move aggressively to position themselves as alternatives to traditional U.S. hegemony in Latin America. Their success has not been total, nor has it gone completely unchallenged. However, their efforts are a new constant in the Western Hemisphere, as the United States increasingly pursues an agenda that is sharply divorced from the once-shared interests of the majority of the region’s governments.