Diss. Stockholm : Stockholms universitet, 2005.

Thesis advisor: Richard Cobb-Stevens / Thesis advisor: Jean-Luc Solere / This dissertation attempts to locate the origins of Descartes' concept of mind in his early, unfinished treatise on scientific method, the <italic>Regulae ad directionem ingenii</italic>. It claims that one can see, in this early work, Descartes' commitment to substance dualism for methodological reasons. In order to begin an analysis of the <italic>Regulae</italic>, one must first attempt to resolve textual disputes concerning its integrity and one must understand the text as a historical work, dialectically situated in the tradition of late sixteenth and early seventeenth century thought. The dissertation provides this historical backdrop and textual sensitivity throughout, but it focuses on three main themes. First, the concept of <italic>mathesis universalis</italic> is taken to be the organizing principle of the work. This methodological principle defines a workable technique for solving mathematical problems, a means for applying mathematics to natural philosophical explanations, and a claim concerning the nature of mathematical truth. In each case, the <italic>mathesis universalis</italic> is designed to fit the innate capacities of the mind and the objects studied by <italic>mathesis</italic> are set apart from the mind as purely mechanical and geometrically representable objects. Second, Descartes' account of perceptual cognition, the principles of which are found in the <italic>Regulae</italic>, is examined. In this account, Descartes describes perception as a mechanical process up to the moment of conscious awareness. This point of awareness and the corresponding actions of the mind are, he claims, independent from mechanical principles; they are incorporeal and cannot be explained reductively. Finally, when Descartes outlines the explanatory bases of his natural science, he identifies certain "simple natures." These are the undetermined categories according to which actual things can be known. Descartes makes an explicit distinction between material simples and intellectual simples. It is argued that this distinction suggests a difference in kind between the sciences of the material world and the science or pure knowledge of the intellectual world. Though the <italic>Regulae</italic> is focused on physical or material explanations, there is a clear commitment to distinguishing this type of explanation from the explanation of mental content and mental acts. Hence, the <italic>Regulae</italic> demonstrates Descartes' early, methodological commitment to substance dualism. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

102f. / Submitted by Suelen Reis (suziy.ellen@gmail.com) on 2013-04-16T18:23:27Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Jose Ramosseg.pdf: 1260926 bytes, checksum: 53097fbd14c8bf40917c40b05a859d3d (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rodrigo Meirelles(rodrigomei@ufba.br) on 2013-05-29T14:47:30Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Jose Ramosseg.pdf: 1260926 bytes, checksum: 53097fbd14c8bf40917c40b05a859d3d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-05-29T14:47:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Jose Ramosseg.pdf: 1260926 bytes, checksum: 53097fbd14c8bf40917c40b05a859d3d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / A presente dissertação tem por objetivo explicar a estruturação da ciência cartesiana proposta nas obras do Discurso do método e na Geometrie. O caminho percorrido para chegar ao objetivo proposto foi estudar a possibilidade da caracterização da noção metódica de inteligibilidade através da filosofia matemática de Descartes. A noção metódica de inteligibilidade é o procedimento analítico que estabelece o conhecimento verdadeiro sobre o campo restrito do entendimento. Esta noção metódica possibilita, em última instância, a construção cientifica através de parâmetros claros e distintos, os quais têm como ponto de partida o pensamento analítico, a concepção de perfeição em Deus e a regularidade do método nos pressupostos matemáticos da mathesis universalis. / Salvador

La thèse vise à expliquer dans son contexte historique les Règles pour la direction de l'esprit par rapport au concept de l'esprit cartésien. J'argue que les Règles montrent une tendance vers un concept dualiste de l'esprit. Les raisons pour cette position, je pense, sont la plupart méthodologiques. Dans les Règles, Descartes a développé les fondements philosophiques de la méthode cartésienne qui a pour objet la résolution de tous les plus célèbres problèmes de l'époque dans la science de la nature et la mathématique. Cette méthode s'est fondée sur l'idée que tous les phénomènes naturels puissent être expliqués par les modèles géométriques. Alors, pour Descartes la méthode de la science de la nature est réductive, basé sur les modèles mathématiques. En conséquence, Descartes a évidement cru que les modèles qui expliquent la nature physique ne sont pas les mêmes qui puissent expliquer la nature de l'esprit. En plus, chez les Règles, l'esprit paraît comme le véhicule de la compréhension du monde physique, et par la physiologie du cerveau et par déterminer les paramètres scientifiques de l'explication et la représentation du monde physique. Donc l'esprit est bien séparée du monde physique dans les deux sens : il ne se réduit pas aux principes physique et il organise et soutiens les principes physiques. Nous validerons cette thèse en insistant sur quatre points spécifiques: (1) l'importance historique du texte des Règles pour la pensée cartésienne, (2) la nature et l'histoire de la mathesis universalis, (3) la physiologie de la cognition, et (4) les natures simples. / The dissertation aims to contextualize and understand the Regulae ad directionem ingenii as embodying theses central to the development of Descartes' mature metaphysical concept of mind. I argue that the Regulae demonstrates a tendancy toward a dualistic concept of mind. The reasons for this, I believe, are largely methodoligical. In the Regulae, Descartes develops the philosophical foundations for a scientific method that, he thought, would allow him to solve some of the most puzzling phenomena in nature and mathematics. This method is basically predicated on the idea that all natural phenomena, i.e., physical entities, can be understood by reducing those entities to geometrical models. These geometrical models could understood and explained either mechanically or algebraically. In either case, for Descartes the scientific method is essentially reductive. As a consequence,, he clearly believes that the models that explain the physical world are not the same as those that explain the nature of the mind. Furthermore, in the Regulae, the mind appears to be a vehicle for understanding the physical world, through the physiology of the brain and by determining the scientific parameters for any representation or explanation of the physical world. Thus, the mind is truly separated from the physical world in two senses: it cannot be reduced to physical principles and it organizes and found those physical principles. We will see how this is the case by focusing on four issues: (1) the historical significance of the text in the development of Descartes' thought (2) the mathesis universalis (3) the physiology of cognition and (4) the simple natures.

Le vif intérêt de Descartes porté constamment au concept de nature se manifeste dans son usage fréquent du terme avec toute sa complexité sémantique. La nature lui signifie d’abord la physique, à laquelle il travaille particulièrement dans les années 1630. Elle est ensuite l’essence et ce qui rend possible notre disposition essentielle en nous instituant, et cet usage se trouve fréquemment en Meditationes. Mais le concept cartésien de nature n’épuise pas toutes ses apparitions dans les usages du terme explicite, car il apparaît aussi implicitement dans un lien dyadique de la recherche du jeune Descartes. D’une part, celui-ci reconnaît dès le début de sa carrière l’existence intrinsèque des vérités dans notre esprit, dont les semences de vérités et les naturae simplices en tant qu’aboutissement de ce concept. D’autre part, le but principal du jeune philosophe est d’élucider les facultés naturelles de l’ingenium, avec la méthode épistémologique qui peut en être tirée naturellement. Le « naturel (-lement) » ne concerne pas seulement le mécanisme des connaissances, mais aussi la question de ce qui les rend naturelles, à savoir leurs fondements. Le concept de nature renvoie ainsi, pour Descartes jusqu’au Discours de la méthode, moins à l’essence qu’à la structure naturelle de connaître les vérités naturellement existantes dans l’esprit, et sa physique est une science appliquée de ces vérités sur les phénomènes naturels. Cette élucidation de la naturalité épistémique est une condition préalable à sa prochaine recherche sur la naturalité ontologique par la quête de raisons de certitude, à savoir la recherche en nature au sens d’essence qui s’effectuera en Meditationes. / The keen interest of Descartes constantly found in the concept of nature manifests itself in his frequent use of the term with all its semantic complexity. Nature means to him first of all the physics, on which he works particularly in the 1630s. Then, it is the essence and what makes possible our essential disposition by instituting us, and this use is frequently found in Meditationes. But the Cartesian concept of nature does not exhaust all its appearances in the uses of the explicit term, because it also appears implicitly in a dyadic link of the research of the young Descartes. On one hand, he recognizes from the beginning of his career the intrinsic existence of truths in our spirit, among which are found seeds of truths and naturae simplices as a culmination of this concept. On the other hand, the main purpose of the young philosopher is to elucidate natural faculties of ingenium with the epistemological method that can be drawn from it naturally. "Natural(-ly)" concerns not only the mechanism of knowledge, but also the question of what makes it natural, namely its foundations. The concept of nature refers thus, for Descartes until the Discourse on Method, less to the essence than to the natural structure to know the truths naturally existing in mind, and his physics is an applied science of these truths to the natural phenomena. This elucidation of the epistemic naturality is a prerequisite for his next research on the ontological naturality by the search of reasons of certainty, namely the research of nature in the sense of essence which will be carried out in Meditationes.

The purpose of this study is to explore the popular computer game Europa Universalis IV and how the use of history looks inside the game and its potential use during lessons.There is also a second purpose to this study and it is to shine some light on how students between the ages of thirteen and fifteen think about history-based videogames and their use in a classroom situation. In order to get the some answers from the students I created a survey that was sent out to two schools in Sweden. The survey contained, among other things, questions about the students’ own experiences with history-based games and if they had learned anything by playing them. Another thing the surveyasked about was their opinion on games being used during class and what advantages and disadvantages they bring forth. The result of both studies was really interesting in their own way. For the first part EU4 is a complicated game which uses history to a great extent, somtimes in a good and educational way, but also in a way to make money. Secondly, the survey that was sent out to the schools gave some inspired answers. They showed that our studnets today are aware of the different ways history can be used, as well as what the games can teach us. Finally, this survey also showed that our young students have wise thoughts about the pros and cons with computer games during class.

Athanasius Kircher’s Musurgia universalis (1650) was one of the largest and most widely circulated works of music theory in the seventeenth century. Although his reputation has waned over the centuries, Kircher was a leading intellectual figure of his day, authoring dozens of treatises on a multitude of topics and corresponding with scholars from around the world. Kircher’s central place within the world of learning resulted in a unique perspective on music theory and musical practice within the seventeenth century. The present study investigates a number of topics from Kircher’s music treatise and provides context from within the intellectual discourse of the time. The first chapter explores the seventeenth-century conception of encyclopedias, as well as the possible meanings associated with an encyclopedia musica, a novel term Kircher uses in his preface to describe Musurgia. Kircher’s attempt to describe all that was known about music, from highly speculative theories to the most utilitarian compositional tools, results in a complex blend of philosophical and practical elements. The middle chapters disentangle a few strands from this web of ideas, tracing the development of Pythagorean traditions and speculative music theory, as well as changing attitudes regarding empirical and occult methodologies in the early modern period. The final chapter concerns Kircher’s central goal for Musurgia, an algorithmic method based on the ars combinatoria and the emerging mathematical field of combinatorics that would allow anyone to compose musical settings, including the setting of texts in any poetic meter and in any language. Kircher’s arca musurgica—a device that contained tables to generate music—was in effect a distillation of the rules of harmony and counterpoint in the seventeenth century. Its underlying syntax of standard four-part progressions stands at the juncture between old and new ideologies of music theory and composition. / Music

The aim of this study is to examine knowledge processes in online spaces. It focuses on threeparticular cases: the Bonfireside Chat podcast, the community around the computer game Europa Universalis 4, and the Supernatural fandom. By applying the frameworks of Wenger’s (1998) communities of practice and Hall’s (1980) modes of reading, it examines how these spaces and their communities engage with their respective media artifacts. It concludes thatthese processes display high levels of complexity and literacy, and that a deeper understanding of such processes is useful in developing future educational efforts, online as well as offline.

In 1619, Johannes Kepler published his magnum opus Harmonices mundi in which the astronomer derived distinct pitches and scales for each known planet in the solar system from calculations of various aspects of their orbital motions. This was the first theoretical realization of the ancient tradition of musica universalis (also called musica mundana), or music of the celestial bodies. It was not until the Estonian composer Urmas Sisask (b. 1960) began his compositional career by deriving his own “planetary scale,” however, that the theoretical musica universalis came into audible existence. Sisask’s work represents a distinctive musical voice among today’s choral composers, and although he is steadily gaining attention for his unique compositional style, only limited information exists about the specifics of his background, his interest in astronomy and shamanism, and the subsequent influence these interests have had on his choral music. At once traditional and modern, he bridges the gap between ancient Estonian folk song and the present. Through an application of exotic techniques including extreme repetition, ritualistically driving rhythms and sudden changes in timbre and texture; coupled with his own peculiarly crafted “planetary scale,” Urmas Sisask has created a completely unique body of work which is examined in this study by looking at representative works from his choral oeuvre including Gloria Patri…24 hymns for mixed choir, Magnificat, Ave Sol, and Benedictio.

A Bibliografia é mapa e índice da literatura, da ciência e da cultura enquanto atividade que se funda e se exprime por meio dos testemunhos documentários (SERRAI, 2001). Enquanto disciplina, a Bibliografia não se reduz às propostas técnicas de enumeração documentária, embora estas técnicas sejam a matriz para o desenvolvimento de modelos práticos e conceituais para organização e mediação de documentos ao longo de distintos contextos histórico-culturais. Portanto, para além do aspecto enumerativo dos documentos, a Bibliografia é o esquema da realidade destes. É aquilo que o bibliógrafo italiano Alfredo Serrai (2001) chama de evidência ordenada das referências relativas a tudo que já foi escrito e, eventualmente, publicado ou reproduzido. Constituída por interfaces teóricas, práticas e discursivas, a Bibliografia fundamenta o tratamento documental do ponto de vista de sua descrição, classificação, indexação, circulação e mediação. A Bibliografia possui uma longa história, cuja eminência está nas contribuições do cientista, erudito e bibliógrafo suíço, Conrad Gesner (1516-1565), e no seu maior projeto bibliográfico: Bibliotheca Universalis (1545) e as Pandectae (1548, 1549). Neste sentido, a presente pesquisa está balizada pela busca do método bibliográfico de Conrad Gesner, tendo por norte as seguintes indagações: qual é a estrutura documentária de Bibliotheca Universalis e das Pandectae? Qual a natureza, dimensão e princípio das obras? Em que consiste o método bibliográfico gesneriano? Qual é a relação entre o método bibliográfico gesneriano e os fundamentos e ecos da Bibliografia enquanto disciplina? Nesta perspectiva nossos objetivos são: 1) mapear a estrutura documentária de Bibliotheca Universalis e das Pandectae, 2) caracterizar a natureza, dimensão e princípio das obras; 3) identificar, apresentar e discutir o método bibliográfico gesneriano; 4) posicionar, de forma preliminar, a relação entre o método bibliográfico gesneriano e os fundamentos e ecos da Bibliografia enquanto disciplina. Para tanto, a investigação percorre o campo bibliográfico e documental, tendo como aporte bibliográfico notadamente a literatura científica italiana no contexto dos estudos bibliográficos e a análise histórico-documental da edição original de Bibliotheca Universalis (1545) e das Pandectae (1548, 1549). Portanto, tais edições são tanto fonte quanto objeto da pesquisa. Conrad Gesner delineou as práticas bibliográficas da Europa Moderna e, neste sentido, é considerado o pai da Bibliografia e fundador da disciplina bibliográfica. O método bibliográfico gesneriano é um método de ordenação bibliográfica e de organização do conhecimento, de bases teóricas e aplicadas, que configura-se pela dupla dimensionalidade: 1) a primeira, de caráter descritivo-repertorial, está fundamentada na seleção bibliográfica e na ordenação alfabético-nominal; 2) a segunda, de caráter taxonômico, indicial e semântico, está fundamentada na organização multinível do conhecimento em hierarquias universais e particulares: da classe mais geral (as Partições) até os loci communes - que representam o núcleo semântico mais fino, específico e intimamente coligado aos argumentos e aos conceitos que compõem os documentos. Conclui que dimensão histórico-interpretativa da informação e do documento, que perpassa pelo gesto e método bibliográfico gesneriano, não pode ser negligenciada para uma compreensão retrospectiva, crítica e ao mesmo tempo atual do campo informacional e documentário. / Bibliography is a map and index of literature, science and culture as an activity that is founded and expressed through documentary testimonies (SERRAI, 2001). As a discipline, the Bibliography is not limited to the technical proposals of documentary enumeration, although these techniques are the matrix for the development of practical and conceptual models for organization and mediation of documents along different historical-cultural contexts. Therefore, in addition to the enumerative aspect of the documents, Bibliography is the scheme of their reality. It is what the Italian bibliographer Alfredo Serrai (2001) calls an ordered evidence of references to everything that has already been written and eventually published or reproduced. Constituted by theoretical, practical and discursive interfaces, the Bibliography bases the documentary treatment from the point of view of its description, classification, indexation, circulation and mediation. The Bibliography has a long history, whose eminence lies in the contributions of Swiss scientist, scholar and bibliographer, Conrad Gesner (1516-1565), and his major bibliographical project: Bibliotheca Universalis (1545) and the Pandectae (1548, 1549). In this sense, the present research is marked by the search of the bibliographical method of Conrad Gesner, having for the north the following questions: What is the documentary structure of Bibliotheca Universalis and Pandectae? What is the nature, dimension and principle of works? What is the gesnerian bibliographical method? What is the relationship between Gesner\'s bibliographical method and the foundations and echoes of Bibliography as a discipline? In this perspective our objectives are: 1) to map the documentary structure of Bibliotheca Universalis and Pandectae; 2) to characterize the nature, dimention and principle of the works; 3) identify, present and discuss the gesnerian bibliographical method; 4) to position, in a preliminary way, the relation between the gesnerian bibliographical method and the foundations and echoes of Bibliography as a discipline. In order to do so, the research goes through the bibliographical and documentary field, having as bibliographical contribution notably the Italian scientific literature in the context of bibliographical studies and the historical-documentary analysis of the original edition of Bibliotheca Universalis (1545) and Pandectae (1548, 1549). Therefore, such editions are both the source and object of the research. Conrad Gesner delineated the bibliographical practices of Modern Europe and, in this sense, he is considered the father of the Bibliography and founder of the bibliographical discipline. The gesnerian bibliographical method is a method of bibliographical ordering and organization of knowledge, of theoretical and applied bases, that is configured by the double dimensionality: 1) the first, of a descriptive-repertoiral character, is based on bibliographical selection and alphabetic-nominal ordering; 2) the second, of a taxonomical, indicial and semantical character, is based on the multilevel organization of knowledge in universal and particular hierarchies: from the more general class (the Partitions) to the loci communes - which represent the finer, specific and closely related semantic nucleus arguments and the concepts that make up the documents. It concludes that the historical-interpretative dimension of information and of the document, which permeates the gesnerian gesture and bibliographical method, cannot be neglected for a retrospective, critical and at the same time current understanding of the informational and documentary field.