The research was to examine the issue of environmental determinism. It was an ideology that was prevalent throughout the early decades of the 20th century that held that the natural environment was responsible for virtually all human development. It helped bring the study of geography into the venue of postsecondary education, where it was viewed as a tool for study of human activities. It was a new science inspired by Darwinism that viewed human adaptation to the natural environment as critical to socialization. Relying on historical sources, the purpose of the study was to reveal how environmental determinism became a controversial extension of an ancient belief system. It played a role in religious thought, philosophy, and the rise of the social sciences. It likely dates back to the Neolithic epoch in which cultures explained the mysteries of the natural world in terms of fearsome anthropomorphisized elements. Today, the gods and goddesses have fallen by the wayside, while environmental determinism has not. Eventually, the ideology lost its major supporter and then became a topic of disapproval. However, it was never entirely disproven, but it did fall from grace. And, it is a belief that has persisted for centuries. It was central to Calvinism and some versions of Protestantism that were relocated to North America where it took root. In view of the evidence, it is proposed that environmental determinism be reopened for reassessment and debate. It is manifest that future generations be apprised of the potential problems that it may inspire. To paraphrase Ellen Churchill Semple, the study of humans without consideration of the earth, would be like studying cactus without consideration of the desert.

Yes / The essay revisits the puzzle of the ‘passage’ of time in relation to EPR-type measurements and asks what philosophical consequences can be drawn from them. Some argue that the lack of invariance of temporal order in the measurement of a space-like related EPR pair, under relativistic motion, casts serious doubts on the ‘reality’ of the lapse of time. Others argue that certain features of quantum mechanics establish a tensed theory of time – understood here as Possibilism or the growing block universe. The paper analyzes the employment of frame-invariant entropic clocks in a relativistic setting and argues that tenselessness does not imply timelessness. But this conclusion does not support a tensed theory of time, which requires a preferred foliation. It is argued that the only reliable inference from the EPR example and the use of entropic clocks is an inference not just to a Leibnizian order of the succession of events but a frame-invariant order according to some selected clocks.

Uma análise histórica dos primeiros estudos geográficos demonstra que a associação entre a Geografia e a Medicina ocorre desde tempos remotos, abrangendo a interface entre os elementos como saúde, meio ambiente e espaço. Este estudo procurou demonstrar as influências que os geógrafos Vidal de La Blache e Maximilien Sorre exerceram sobre a obra de Josué de Castro. Estas influências podem ser constatadas desde as primeiras obras de Castro relacionadas à espacialização da saúde, ainda muito impregnadas pelo possibilismo vidalino e pela utilização de conceitos próprios desta escola geográfica, até o lançamento dos livros Geografia da Fome e Geopolítica da Fome, em que a visão ecológica de Sorre e o contato com outras ciências humanas ampliaram o horizonte crítico das obras castrinas. / A historical analysis of the first geographic knowledge shows that the association between Geography and Medicine occurs since ancient times comprising the interface among subjects as health, environment and space. This essay is an attempt to demonstrate the influences which geographers Vidal de la Blanche and Maximilien Sorre carried out on the Josué de Castros work. These influences can be verified since the initial Castros works concerned with the spacialization of health, works that are still very impregnated with the Vidals possibilism and with this geographic school own concepts, until the edition of the books The geography of Hunger and the Geopolitics of Hunger, in which Sorres ecological perspective and contact with other human sciences amplify the critical horizon of Castros works.

Uma análise histórica dos primeiros estudos geográficos demonstra que a associação entre a Geografia e a Medicina ocorre desde tempos remotos, abrangendo a interface entre os elementos como saúde, meio ambiente e espaço. Este estudo procurou demonstrar as influências que os geógrafos Vidal de La Blache e Maximilien Sorre exerceram sobre a obra de Josué de Castro. Estas influências podem ser constatadas desde as primeiras obras de Castro relacionadas à espacialização da saúde, ainda muito impregnadas pelo possibilismo vidalino e pela utilização de conceitos próprios desta escola geográfica, até o lançamento dos livros Geografia da Fome e Geopolítica da Fome, em que a visão ecológica de Sorre e o contato com outras ciências humanas ampliaram o horizonte crítico das obras castrinas. / A historical analysis of the first geographic knowledge shows that the association between Geography and Medicine occurs since ancient times comprising the interface among subjects as health, environment and space. This essay is an attempt to demonstrate the influences which geographers Vidal de la Blanche and Maximilien Sorre carried out on the Josué de Castros work. These influences can be verified since the initial Castros works concerned with the spacialization of health, works that are still very impregnated with the Vidals possibilism and with this geographic school own concepts, until the edition of the books The geography of Hunger and the Geopolitics of Hunger, in which Sorres ecological perspective and contact with other human sciences amplify the critical horizon of Castros works.

Le problème de l'existence est réputé l´un de plus anciennes et de plus difficiles à résoudre de la philosophie: Que voulons-nous exprimer quand nous disons que quelque chose existe ou, pire encore, que quelque chose n´existe pas? Intuitivement, il semble que nous avons tous une prise ferme sur ce que nous voulons exprimer. Mais comment devrions-nous expliquer la différence – s´il y en a – entre les énoncés existentiels d´une coté et les plus communs énoncés prédicatifs de l´autre? Quelle est la différence entre dire que quelque chose existe et dire, par exemple, que quelque chose est rouge, lourde, moue, etc.? Dans cette étude nous allons nous pencher sur ces questions.Dans la première partie, cette étude porte sur les auteurs qui ont étés les plus persuasifs et les plus influents à creuser l´écart qui sépare les énoncés existentiels de plus communs énoncés prédicatifs. Notamment, il s´agirait ici de David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Franz Brentano et Gottlob Frege. Selon cette famille d'approches l'existence devient quelque chose de très différent d'une propriété des objets. Dans la deuxième partie, cette étude se penche sur des tentatives plus récentes qui ont pris la direction opposé et sont allez jusqu´à réduire l'existence à une propriété (plus ou moins) ordinaire des objets. Les philosophes qui seront discutés ici seront Alexius Meinong, Richard Routley, Terence Parsons, William Rapaport, Edward Zalta et Graham Priest.Finalement, la troisième partie de cette étude développe une approche selon laquelle la notion d'existence est étroitement liée à la notion de vérité: dire que telle ou telle chose existe est équivalent à dire qu'il est vrai que quelque chose est telle et telle. L'avantage de cette stratégie est, d´une coté, qu'elle ne réduit pas l´énoncé que quelque chose n´existe pas á une contradiction - un résultat fréquent ceci des approches discutées dans la première partie. De l´autre coté, cette stratégie évite les épicycles communs aux approches discutées dans la deuxième partie, lesquelles sont strictement liés à la réduction de l'existence à une propriété des objets. / The problem of existence is reputed to be one of the oldest and most intractable of philosophy: What do we mean when we say that something exists or, even more challengingly, that something does not exist? Intuitively, it seems that we all have a firm grip upon what we are saying. But how should we explain the difference – if there is any – between statements about existence and other, garden-variety predicative statements? What is the difference between saying that something exists and saying, for instance, that something is red, heavy, soft, etc.? These questions provide the focus for the present study.In the first part, this study addresses those authors that have been most effective and influential at widening the gap between statements about existence and garden-variety predicative statements. These are David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Franz Brentano, and Gottlob Frege. According to this family of approaches, existence becomes something very different from a property of objects. In the second part, this study turns to more recent attempts that have moved in the opposite direction by trying to reduce existence to a – more or less – plain property of objects. The philosophers that are going to be discussed here are Alexius Meinong, Richard Routley, Terence Parsons, William Rapaport, Edward Zalta, and Graham Priest. Eventually, the third part of this study develops an account according to which the notion of existence is strictly linked to the notion of truth: To say that such and such a thing exists is to say that it is true that something is such and such. The advantage of this strategy is that it does not make it contradictory to say that something does not exist – a frequent upshot of the approaches discussed in the first part. At the same time, this strategy avoids the epicycles common to the approaches discussed in the second part, which are strictly linked to the reduction of existence to a property of objects.

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