Search

Copyright of Revista de Filosofía (0034-8244) is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Anales del Seminario de Historia de la Filosofía is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The research is focused on the use of film pieces to detect preconceptions about science. Some scenes containing useful concepts for Physics and Chemistry have been specifically selected. Two situations were proposed: the projection of a film where the student could infer the specific content itself and the second option consisting in watching a film accompanied by some questions about the specific content included in the images. From the results, the proposed detector provides a intuitive and useful visual to the student's preconceptions, as well as being a motivator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de la Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales is the property of Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Katharsis is the property of Institucion Universitaria de Envigado and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay focuses on the brief but significant passage of Physics IV 13, 222a28-b7, where Aristotle provides two arguments in favor of the extensive infinitude of time. The first one, Vigo argues, presents its extensive infinitude as depending on infinitude of movement. By contrast, the second argument proceeds immanently out of the consideration of the properties the 'now' possesses as being a limit that accounts for both the possibility of limitation (divisibility) and the continuity of time. The paper also explores some systematic consequences of this last argument and attempts to figure out some puzzles it involves from the methodological point of view. Such difficulties underline some structural limits of Aristotle's attempt to perform a re(con)ductive treatment of the properties of time regarded as a way of continuum dependent of other two more basic domains: movement and spatially extensive magnitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with Aristotle's concept of chance, such as it is presented in Physics II 4-6. The central section of the article concentrates on an analysis of Aristotle's definition of chance and its essential peculiarities: the fact of being an incidental (efficient) cause and the fact of existing in the domain of what is for the sake of an end. According to Rossi, both characteristics would correspond to a causal aspect (in an incidental sense) and to a non causal aspect (or just apparently causal) of chance. Finally, the author also tries to show the structural connection between the aforementioned aspects, taking as a key point the thesis of coincidence among the formal, final, and efficient causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay attempts to offer a reconstruction of Aristotle's arguments in favor of the use of teleological explanations in Physics II 8. In his exposition of the selected passages Ross makes some emphasis upon the dialogical character of discourse in order to make a modest contribution to the solution of two puzzles: one exegetical in character and the other systematic. This reading allows the author to introduce a new element in the discussion concerning what the scopes and limits of teleological explanations are in Aristotle's Physics. In Ross' view, this strategy is helpful for advancing in the understanding of which is the type of arguments that can be offered when what is under consideration is whether teleology or mechanism are the most proper explicative scheme to account for the natural phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to compare two distinct interpretations of the relation between a capacity and its corresponding actuality in Physics III. The author focuses on the legitimacy of a distinction between "capacity of being" and "capacities of becoming". This distinction is applied to the interpretation of Aristotle's definition of movement. Mittelmann discusses the circularity that appears to turn out from an appeal to "dynamic capacities"; then he intends to show that the alternative way to construct Aristotle's position by referring to the incomplete actualization of "capacities of being" yields some counter-intuitive consequences. The paper finishes by pointing out that both strategies lead to an alternative: either Aristotle's definition of movement must be accepted without objections (running the risk of making such a definition inapplicable to a set of phenomena it is supposed to account for) or it must be corrected in the sense suggested by W. D. Ross, but taking the chance of making the definition circular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to examine Aristotle's conception of the 'now', such as it is presented in Physics IV 10-14. The author argues that in the two main issues Aristotle tackles there (that is, whether time exists and what time is) the now is understood as being an inner limit of time, an understanding where the main emphasis is upon the condition of indivisibility of such a limit or, in other words, upon the fact that the now is not part of time. Baño concentrates on the analogy between 'now' and moving body, presented by Aristotle in order to account for the difficult thesis that the 'now' is always the same and, at once, always different. The issue the author is particularly concerned with is the fact that the moving body does not appear to be the same to movement as the 'now' is to time, since the moving body is not an inner limit of movement. Consequently, the analogy cannot be based on the punctual condition of the 'now', and rather it seems to be based on the fact that the 'now' is a principle of time cognition, such as the moving body is a principle of cognition of movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present the results of an exploratory research oriented to know the pupils' ideas of Secondary School (14-16 years-old) about the aims of Physics and its influence in the Technology. The investigation has been made in the occasion of the world year of Physics 2005. The obtained results suggest the necessity to give a greater importance to Physics teaching, with the intention of improve the basic formation of citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to show that we have at least two different arguments that prove the First Motor existence. Even though there are coincidences between Physics VII 1 and VIII 5, their arguments are not identical. Physics VII argue the impossibility of an infinite movement in a finite time and VIII 5 the necessity of a "principal" cause. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]