Exploring gambling practices in work and educational environments

The question arises to what extent gambling techniques and theories can actually enhance the educational and transferable skills process as appropriately applied? Could a set of programmes be built into the process as a tacit preventative measure at the vulnerable stages of early life? At present, we do not really know the answer to these questions but it is certainly feasible. The question remains of whether it is desirable. This article therefore examines many of the alleged skills used in gambling situations and attempts to apply them to the workplace

Remembering Victor Petrovich Havin

These are reminiscences of V. P. Havin (1933--2015), founder of the modern St. Petersburg analysis school.Comment: 6 pages; to appear in the memorial volume "Tribute to Victor Havin: 50 years with Hardy spaces", Birkh\"auser Verlag, Base

The Limits of Eudaimonia in the Nicomachean Ethics

In Book I of his Nicomachean Ethics (NE), Aristotle defines happiness, or eudaimonia, in accordance with an argument he makes regarding the distinctive function of human beings. In this paper, I argue that, despite this argument, there are moments in the NE where Aristotle appeals to elements of happiness that don’t follow from the function argument itself. The place of these elements in Aristotle’s account of happiness should, therefore, be a matter of perplexity. For, how can Aristotle appeal to elements of happiness not entailed by his argument for what happiness involves? I will examine two instances that exemplify the sort of appeal to outside elements that I have in mind. The first deals with Aristotle’s reference, in NE, I, 8, to certain goods—ancestry, children, beauty—goods unrelated to man’s function or his fulfillment of it, but nevertheless required for his happiness. The second instance involves pleasure. Aristotle makes various arguments, both in Books I and X of the NE, that tie pleasure to the activity of the soul, and the function argument in turn. However, none of these arguments succeeds in demonstrating that pleasure would necessarily follow from this activity. Taken together then, these two examples demonstrate the extent to which Aristotle’s definition of happiness is more inclusive than his function argument permits

A Romantic Life Dedicated to Science: André-Marie Ampère’s Autobiography

This article explores André-Marie Ampère's autobiography in order to analyse the dynamics of science in early 19th century French institutions. According to recent works that have emphasised the value of biographies in the history of science, this study examines Ampère's public self-representation to show the cultural transformations of a life dedicated to science in post-revolutionary French society. With this aim, I have interpreted this manuscript as an outstanding example of the scientific rhetoric flourishing in early 19th century French Romanticism, which celebrated the life and works of men of science by means of biographies. Following this approach, Ampère's account has been analysed in relation to certain commonplaces shared with other autobiographies of that time, such as his traumatic experience linked to the French Revolution. Finally, this article discusses Ampère's autobiography as revealing an emerging model of scientific personae, i.e. a new collective way of thinking, feeling and perceiving, which announced the category of the modern scientist

A plea for a modal realist epistemology

David Lewis’s genuine modal realism postulates the existence of concrete possible worlds that are spatio-temporally discontinuous with the concrete world we inhabit. How, then, can we have modal knowledge? How can we know that there are possible worlds and how can we know the characters of those worlds

Legitimating and naturalizating binary oppositions in european-centric system: east and telling fortune by coffee grounds

[Abstract] System that living in is mostly constructed through binary oppositions which based on European centric knowledge. Within this system the East, which refers to the Islamic world, despite of resisting to be placed as secondary; normalized and naturalized this manipulated ‘reality’ within some of its cultural characteristics. Telling fortunes by coffee grounds can be the one of these characteristics. Coffee fit to the Eastern countries by the diffusion of the Islam. It is originally part of the Arabic countries, then adapted to the others such as Turkish culture by interaction with them and accepting Islam. During the present study ‘telling fortune by coffee grounds’ and the meanings of the signs with the meanings that they bear will be analysed. While doing this, interrelation between legitimating being secondary in the European centric knowledge and the signs that are given meaning to in this type of fortune-telling will be figured out. Giving meanings to those signs are closely related to feeling as secondary and legitimating this within themselves is going to be assumed during the presents study

Nicole Oresme’s treatises on cosmography and divination: a discussion of the Treatise of the Sphere

Nicole Oresme was part of the intellectual elite of Charles V, King of France. In the 1360s, Oresme was concerned about the interest that Charles was showing in astrology and was concerned that his tendency towards superstition might influence matters of State. At a time that the term 'astrology' was used interchangeably to mean the study of celestial bodies as well as a means of divination, Oresme wrote two treatises to explain the differences. The Treatise of the Sphere was his attempt to explain cosmography in lay term