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Associated with German post-expressionism, new objectivity, French surrealism and dadaism, magic realism is regarded as an ontological scandal, a violation of the logic of identity through the invention of a third level of reality. The name was coined by a German critic and art historian, Franz Roh, in his book “Nach-Expressionismus. Magischer Realismus. Probleme der neuesten europäischen Malerei”, published in 1925, and employed again in Foto-Auge, a book on the new phtography jointly published by Roph with Jan Tschichold which served as a catalogue for the avant-garde “Film und Foto” exhibition (FiFo) held in Stuttgart between May and June 1929. By then, however, Roh’s essay had already been translated into Italian and Spanish and promoted by prominent thinkers of the day, such as Jose Ortega y Gasset, who published it in the influential “Revista de Occidente” in Madrid in 1927, and by Massimo Bonterupelli, who translated it for the Italian journal, “900” ['Novecento']. The prompt and resonant international echo generated by Roh’s new art can hardly be understood otherwise than on the assumption that it was striking a familiar ring in the rapidly changing and polyphonous score of European modernism. Reputed for its international and heterogeneous character, modernism is thus revealed to have been crossed by some common currents of poetic matter and energy. The present essay sets out to dig up the roots of a hybrid, literary and plastic artistic mode in the earlier half of the last century, and to identify legacies in the aftermath of Roh’s celebrated manifesto.

In literature, magical realism is characterized by the presentation of an apparently real universe, in which events and characters may be plausible and credible from a psychological or social perspective, but where supernatural or fantastical elements intervene in the unfolding of the action, thus crafting a reality that includes elements of a nature different from the everyday. Specific to this modern literary genre, fantastical and fabulous events are integrated into a narrative that maintains a credible tone and an objective presentation of reality, aiming to reflect a tendency of the modern novel to transcend the limits of realism by mobilizing elements from fable, folklore, and mythology. The action in works of this genre takes place within an ordinary, everyday spatial framework, and even at the heart of this normalcy, strange things occur that alter the mundane; nevertheless, supernatural events lack a realistic explanation. Space and time always exhibit a lack of uniformity, where real, ordinary occurrences follow a thread of inner consciousness, alternating premonitions and memories, drawing the attention of the narrator, characters, and readers. In Lostrița, Vasile Voiculescu perfectly illustrates how the traits of magical realism, such as the distortion of space and time, as well as the multiplication of identity, are blended, adding the motif of the double to introduce fantastical elements into the reality, thereby giving them an apparent state of normality. By presenting fantastical events or characters as a credible part of reality, the author maintains the impression of the narrative’s veracity.

L.N. Tolstoy’s works, having been introduced to the English-reading audience, immediately became an issue of active critical discussions. British and American readers got acquainted with them differently than Russian ones —publications didn’t follow the chronological order, his fictional and philosophical books appeared simultaneously; the process of cultural transfer inevitably fragmented his work, took it out of context, and the readers in Britain and the USA perceived Tolstoy’s works in accordance with his image formed at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. Besides the linguistic cultural barriers (it was necessary to work with Russian realities, facts of Russian life, make them clearer for foreign readers), translators and critics faced with other challenges — for example, they were to bring Tolstoy’s work into the circle of topics and subjects familiar to the English — reading public. Tolstoy entered the English speaking culture as a symbol of realism, which however didn’t mean hard naturalism, but rather ethical and psychological realistic writing, especially taking into account the ongoing discussion on Zola’s novels. Tolstoy’s realism was treated as a universal one, based on the well-known cultural and spiritual values and therefore especially significant in spite of the exotic subject matter of his works. The didactic nature of his work, its powerful moral appeal was obvious and strongly sought for in the period of heated argument about the social system, the problems of the industrial society, gender relations, etc., — despite the fact that some episodes were incompatible with Victorian or Puritan attitudes and tastes of his English-speaking readers.

Resumen: Introducción: la medición del realismo en la simulación clínica es un desafío complejo debido a su naturaleza subjetiva y multidimensional. ProRealSim es una herramienta de medición de realismo desarrollada por investigadores de la Universidad Europea de Madrid, basada en un marco teórico que categorizó el realismo en 3 dimensiones: participante simulado, escenografía y simulador. Material y métodos: el objetivo de este estudio fue conocer la percepción que tiene un equipo de expertos clínicos sobre la herramienta ProRealSim. Para ello, se realizó una entrevista semiestructurada a un grupo focal, compuesto por 4 expertos en el campo de la reanimación cardiopulmonar (RCP). Resultados: Los resultados del estudio mostraron una percepción positiva por parte de los expertos hacia la herramienta ProRealSim, resaltando su intuitivo diseño y la claridad de los indicadores presentados. No obstante, también se identificaron áreas susceptibles de mejora, siendo la adaptación para dispositivos móviles una de las principales sugerencias. En lo referente al contenido del medidor, los especialistas evaluaron los indicadores como pertinentes y de fácil comprensión. No obstante, se señaló la necesidad de revisar la relevancia de ciertos indicadores que podrían no aplicar en todas las simulaciones, así como la subjetividad inherente en la evaluación, proponiendo la participación de múltiples tasadores para garantizar una evaluación más objetiva. Conclusión: en general, los hallazgos del estudio ofrecieron una valiosa perspectiva para la realización de evaluaciones utilizando la herramienta ProRealSim. Ante la complejidad de evaluar el realismo en simulaciones clínicas, se sugieren estrategias tales como capacitación previa y consenso entre los tasadores para mejorar la efectividad y objetividad de las mediciones. Abstract: Introduction: Measuring realism in clinical simulation poses a complex challenge due to its subjective and multidimensional nature. ProRealSim, a realism measurement tool developed by researchers from Universidad Europea de Madrid, is based on a theoretical framework that categorizes realism into three dimensions: simulated participant, scenography, and simulator. Materials and methods: The study aimed to comprehend the perception of clinical experts regarding the ProRealSim tool. A focus group, comprising four clinical experts (three nurses and one doctor) with extensive experience in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) simulations, was conducted through a semi-structured interview. Results: The study revealed that the experts held a positive view of the ProRealSim website, emphasizing its user-friendliness and the clarity of the indicators. However, they also identified potential improvements, such as optimizing the version for mobile devices. Regarding the tool's content, experts found the indicators suitable and easily understandable. Nevertheless, they highlighted certain aspects for improvement, including the relevance of certain indicators that may not apply to all simulations and the inherent subjectivity of the evaluation, recommending the involvement of more than one evaluator in the assessment. Conclusions: Overall, the study results provide valuable insights for conducting assessments with the ProRealSim tool. The inherent complexity in assessing realism in simulations was highlighted, and strategies such as pre-training, identifying relevant variables for each simulation, and objectivity in such assessments were suggested.

Abstract In 2022 the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) released the National Interest Framework, formally setting out what South Africa’s national interest is. According to DIRCO this aimed at providing an understanding of, and predictability in South Africa’s international relations. As the latest document in guiding foreign policy the framework reflects a continuation in the rhetoric of foreign policy principles; yet for all its effort in identifying the country’s foreign policy priorities, questions remain concerning the interests it reflects. Indeed, although there has been centralisation of decision-making, this has not translated into presenting a singular foreign policy or national interest position. Rather, South Africa’s national interest reflects a negotiated outcome of different positions among the political elites in government and the ruling party (African National Congress). Using Wight’s national interest taxonomy, the article highlights the presence of multiple positions evident in South Africa’s national interest framework before considering what the implications are for the implementation of foreign policy. This draws on a critical review of foreign policy documents, supported by semi-structured interviews with practitioners, academics, think tanks, and NGOs. The article argues that the national interest framework is not a reflection of one, but an amalgamation of what Wight identifies as realist, revolutionist, and rationalist doctrines. This has left the framework a broad document without specific aims in achieving the national interest. It also goes some way towards accounting for the limited application to date of the national interest framework in facilitating an understanding of South Africa’s international relations.

In a sequence dedicated to the London World’s Fair in his collage film The Power of Emotion (1983), Alexander Kluge talks about how the suppression of prudent proletarian emotion by the aesthetic staging and emotionalisation of exchange value corrupted the departure of industrial modernity into happiness and affluence. Correspondent to the mode of the opera, which originated concurrently with the "parliament of objects" as the "power plant of emotions", the fairytale-like beginning of the collage with the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 is followed by the Crystal Palace fire in 1937, with which the Reichstag fire of 1935 is associated. What is crucial is the portrayal of the workers Kluge’s montages feature as the 'real' builders of the Crystal Palace and of societal prosperity. The artisanal sensitivity with which bolt and nut are connected in such a way that the construction is stable represents a social utopia, which in view of its loss requires a response at the artistic level that is appropriate to the wartime destruction. The technological construction of aesthetic semblance has to be laid bare, the artistic form has to become iconoclastic.

Abstract The article discusses Mearsheimer’s interpretation of Russia’s use of force against Ukraine based on concepts and categories of Offensive Realism. It is argued that external balancing lost its place during unipolarity. However, Russian internal balancing is one of the factors that enabled the current conflict, and Russia’s rapprochement with China diminishes the prospects for conflict in Asia, allowing Russian military efforts to be concentrated in the European theater. Additionally, the decision to use force will be analyzed in its strategic dimension. It is concluded that Russia’s activities against Ukraine are entirely consistent with Offensive Realism, despite of Mearsheimer’s allegations contrarywise.

There is a longstanding alliance between rationalism and realism concerning universals. Spinoza does not disrupt that alliance. The nature of a Spinozistic substance, after all, is a universal. That is what I argue here. My central point is that a realist conception of universals is a key presumption behind Spinoza’s case for substance monism, a view historically recognized as a natural outgrowth of realism’s toleration of strict identity in diversity. After defending my central point (and, in addition, the secondary point that Spinoza is likely cognizant of this presumption), I respond to two concerns. First, I explain how the nature of a Spinozistic substance is a universal even though there can be only one instance of that nature. Second, I explain how Spinoza’s infamous rejection of universals does not contradict the fact that the nature of a substance is a universal.

La traducción es una forma artística cuyo objetivo es analizar cómo se pasa de una lengua a otra. La traducción es una forma de escritura artística semejante a la poesía más que a cualquier otra deriva secundaria de la literatura. La historia de esas formas artísticas no puede ser separada de los desarrollos técnicos de su época. Nos concentraremos en dos lecturas de Walter Benjamin y de su entorno, las de Julio Fingerit y Héctor A. Murena. Abstract Translation is an art form whose unique concern is what happens when one language passes into another. Translation is form of artistic writing alongside poetry rather than a secondary derivative of literary art. The history of those art forms cannot be separated from the technical standards of each time. We will focus two readings of Walter Benjamin and Benjamin´s milieu, those from Julio Fingerit and Héctor A. Murena.

The impressionist painting arrives to Spain in the late 19th century. Although its consolidation is more complex thain in other neighboring countries in Europe, it will be completely achieved with Aureliano de Beruete and Darío de Regoyos. The mainly worked genre is landscaping, the main character in the spanish impresionism painting and which origin goes back to an esthetic evolution that starts in romanticism, when it gets a real importance and it is already a major genre, going through a realist phase until culminating in impressionism.

The term „Lublin Philosophical School” refers to the mode of philosophizing devised in the 1950’s at the Catholic University of Lublin. After a brief history, the paper first discusses some methodological features of this mode and the social role of philosophy as a self-awareness of culture. Employing the School’s philosophy, the paper then considers the issue of post-truth and that of the value-ladenness of science. The post-truth approach replaces evidence with emotions, and in consequence, argumentation is replaced with power. This in turn threatens the human person, her rationality and freedom. Admitting that science is value-laden and values are subjective leads to denying the cognitive status of science. Lublin philosophy offers such a concept of value and scientific knowledge which allows one to solve the problem created by the value-ladenness of science. Thus, the paper shows that the Lublin School’s philosophy can provide answers to contemporary problems and evaluate intellectual developments of culture.

Along with the goals and targets set up by the United Nations in the 2030 Agenda, the concept of Sustainable Development has a great significance in the discipline of International Relations, since the beginning of the new century. In fact, contents studied and analyzed by International Relations are very linked to practically all the issues addressed in the Sustainable Development Goals (hereinafter, SDGs). First, this paper aims at showing and analyzing the gradual incorporation of Sustainable Development into the theory of International Relations. Second, it raises a need for a mainstream that contributes, on the one hand, to the theoretical development of the discipline and, on the other, to the progress towards sustainability and that of the planet through the attainment of the SDGs. The mentioned mainstream could be called «Sustainable Development Paradigm».

ABSTRACT In this paper, I argue that Hume’s commitment to mind-independent objects is based on two types of realism or system of realities: (a) a naïve realism based on an unjustified vulgar belief which identifies perceptions and objects, and (b) a representational realism or philosophical system of double-existence. Firstly, I emphasize that the philosophical question “Whether there be body or not” cannot be considered a full case of unmitigated skepticism, because Hume accepts a mitigated skepticism compatible with both vulgar and representational realism. Furthermore, I argue that, while the vulgar belief in bodies is based on an unjustified assent, the double-existence theory is based on both an unjustified assent and a rationally justified assent (that corrects the former). Considering all these points, I conclude that Hume’s mitigated skepticism allows and requires a belief in or supposition of continued and distinct existences, and that this must, as a practical matter, take vulgar and philosophical forms at different times.

Socialist literature and art are constructed on the basis of Marxist philosophy. The “people character” of socialist literature and art is based on the fact that Marxist philosophy abandons individualism and focuses on a wider population’s freedom and happiness. Therefore, socialist literature and art take people rather than individuals as the subject of expression. Realism, the basic principle of socialist literary and artistic creation, is based on the materialism of Marxist philosophy. The “typical environment and typical characters” proposed by Marxist classic writers for socialist literary and artistic creation are the method and principle formed by applying the philosophical concepts of the organic combination of the objective world and human subjectivity, and the organic combination of nature and social history to the concrete literary and artistic creation in Marxist theory. Marxist philosophy regards sensibility and aesthetics as important elements for literature and art to play a practical role. It believes that sensibility and aesthetics are not limited to the subjective world of people, but have the possibility of connecting with the external objective world. Therefore, socialist literature and art must pay attention to aesthetics.

In conversation with Mechthild KIEGELMANN, Joseph MAXWELL talked about his academic pathway. MAXWELL mentioned biographical phases such as being lost in the field as a young scholar of anthropology, working as a researcher in medical education, teaching at Harvard or getting tenure at George Mason University where he worked for 20 years. He introduced key milestones of his work: his design model, realist approach or validity in qualitative research and generalization. MAXWELL talked about important colleagues and commented on overcome divides between quantitative and qualitative positions. Readers get a glance of his passion about philosophy. His humility and commitment to teaching shone through.

The present paper is aimed at studying the artistic mind of the modern English writer John Fowles as the creator of the original worldview in its postmodern style. It has been specified that British artistic culture does not demonstrate neither the extremes, peculiar to the art of “transition” or “frontier” nor sharp denial of everything that seemed inviolable. Inclining towards realistic forms of the English classics, a lot of postmodern authors, including Fowles, prefer a synthesis of the old with the new. This applies both to postmodernism and all avant-garde and neo-avant-garde movements, aimed at fundamental changing of the general ideas about the beauty and ugliness. “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”, written by John Fowles, proposes such a postmodern synthesis in the context of the “playing with the past” thesis. In his novel, the author presents a special type of “new reality”, corresponding to the period of the profound changes inside the movement during the period starting from the end of the 19th century till the end of the 20th century. Instead of the typical for English literature “hero in search”, the novel under consideration demonstrates an existential type of a man. The above-mentioned hero, who is embodied in the images of Charles and Sarah, seeks his individual freedom and “corrects” his own destiny. It should be emphasized that gaining true freedom is possible only through overcoming various life and social obstacles associated with breaking class and social ties, as well as with great internal suffering. Fowles’s peculiar style of narration helps to reveal the main theme of the novel. The author uses postmodern irony, which is meta-irony, and pastiche. The method of “overlapping epochs” forms an original intertext whereby the semantic field of the novel increases. The literary significance of the outlined method is multifaceted: an elitist reader perceives text-subtext-intertext; a “mass” reader gets acquainted with the work at the level of an entertaining storyline. The author of the article also analyses a mythological component of the novel “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”. A mention should also be made that Fowles in the analysed work acts both as a creator and a destroyer of the socio-ethical and literary myth of the Victorian era. Of primary interest to the writer was the literary myth of the time of Queen Victoria, which in the minds of readers has long been romanticized and become a legend. Therefore, the article shows the connection of everything that happens according to the tradition of English romantic narration and the principles of reformation of characters and situations that no longer correspond to the romantic worldview. The ironic understanding of the gentleman’s code of honor and the object of his passion, the reduction of love conflicts and places of romantic meetings are illustrated by specific examples from the text of the novel. The present paper has also devoted considerable attention to the psychology of the protagonists as well as the problem of the plot and compositional unity of the novel “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”. It is proved that the development of the storyline of the novel is a polystructural and polysemantic phenomenon. If Sarah’s character combines the traditional features of both “woman with a secret” and “infernal woman”, then respect for Charles’s traditional aristocracy is being called into question: it is repeatedly mentioned that he did not receive a Cambridge diploma, that he is an amateur paleontologist, that he considers the possibility of getting married for money, and that there is a very strong element of carnal passion in his romantic relationship with Sarah. The article offers the author’s commentary on the compositional completion of the novel. It is argued that the trinity of the epilogue, first of all, explains the “world-chaos” antithesis. The formula of the dissipating world, according to the author of the article, was supposed to become the basis of the postmodernist text in the original version of the novel “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”.

The issue of intentionality is one of the pivotal points in the theory of knowledge. Depending on how intentionality is understood, one can be a realist, a nominalist, or an idealist. For that reason, modern Thomists widely discuss this theme. The four different positions in this debate are: the first three, which are considered reductive views are: “identity view of representationalism,” “direct realism,” and “similarity theory.” The fourth is considered a non-reductive view and can be called primitive intentionality theory. The paper concludes that the most adequate way to understand intentionality is a non-reductive view, not exactly the same as the “primitive intentionality theory,” but rather a view that considers esse intentionale as a metaphysical mode of being which solves the question of the existence of known objects.

This paper aims to analyse the notion of familiarity in Dewey’s pragmatism in order to show its important role as a tool for human beings to interpret the reality, manage it, and act within it. Starting from an examination of Deweyan transactional realism, the discourse focuses on familiarity and its related terms (such as “familiar,” “to familiarize,” but also opposites such as “unknown” or “strange”) in Dewey’s thought, to finally come to highlight its fundamental hermeneutic role. This might be useful to account for a subject of Deweyan thought not so deeply highlighted by scholarship and, at the same time, to show pragmatism’s closeness to hermeneutics regarding the relation between the human being and the real.

In the early 1930s, when the project of scientific modernization was in full swing in Chinese Buddhist circles, Dharma Master Taixu wrote a series of essays on “Realism” (Xianshi zhuyi 現實主義, 1928–1931). These represent one of the profoundest series of writings documenting his understanding of the link between science and Buddhist epistemology/ontology, and consequently also on the role of his notion of scientific Buddhism for modern times. Aside from his meditations on the relationship between science and Buddhism, in this important series of essays Taixu also provided his more or less critical accounts on modern philosophical currents in contemporary China, including Russell’s “New Realism” and materialism. This paper aims to provide a concise reading of the above-mentioned writings by Taixu, in order to cast some new light on the understanding of Western modern philosophy in Chinese Buddhist modernism of the Republican Era, on the one hand, and to highlight the main theoretical features of Taixu’s notion of scientific Buddhism, on the other. Aside from that, I also aim to present some new insights into the otherwise overlooked aspects of the broader intellectual sphere of Chinese Buddhism of the Republican Era. As regards the broader historical and intellectual context of Taixu’s writings, the analysis provided in this article will be regarded within the framework constructed in my forthcoming article on Taixu’s philosophy in the journal Buddhist Studies Review.

Ordinary proper names can be taken to be referring expressions in non-fictional contexts. But what happens when such names occur in literary works? Within the realist stance, there are two approaches to the issue. Some say that ordinary proper names retain their real world referents in literary fiction. Others argue for the view that ordinary proper names are related there to surrogate referents. It can be pointed out, however, that both approaches create a conceptual tension within the realist doctrine. Fiction-internal contexts are incompatible with any reference-based interpretation of names. The proposal of this paper is, therefore, a shift in perspective: instead of sticking to the notion of reference, the behaviour of ordinary names should be described in terms of representation.

The author discusses the problem of separation as the base method of metaphysical cognition as approached by the Lublin Philosophical School representatives. He begins by showing the sources of the method, seeing them in St. Thomas Aquinas’s intuitions which were discovered only in the 20th century by those who developed the existential interpretation of Aquinas’s metaphysics (J. Maritain, É. Gilson, M. A. Krąpiec). In this context, the author draws attention to the achievements of the creators and co-creators of the Lublin Philosophical School. They made an exceptional contribution to high-lighting the very bases of the separation method and its significance for the entire metaphysical cognition. From the perspective of metaphysics, the foremost and crucial is the application of separation for identifying the object of metaphysical cognition. At stake here is the determination of the first cognitive apprehension—that is, the grasp of what the intellect cognizes as the first (primum cognitum) and what was called in the tradition “being as being” or “the concept of being.” The separation method allows, first of all, to consider the existential aspect of being in cognitive apprehensions, which is accomplished in the three stages that start with and are based on the analysis of existential judgments. Next, the author describes the application of the separation method in other domains of existential cognition, showing how indispensable the method is in preserving such inherent features of this type of cognition as transcendentalness, directness, realism, and analogicalness.

Jacques Maritain criticized Husserl’s phenomenological method—the ἔποχή—as being incompatible with the realism of St. Thomas Aquinas. Maritain equated phenomenology with idealism, holding that it universally negates the existence of known objects as things in the world. Not surprisingly, then, a tendency has arisen in the thought of Thomists commenting on Karol Wojtyła’s phenomenological-Thomism to distance Wojtyła’s method from that of Husserl. However, since Wojtyła himself saw fit to appropriate the phenomenological method, Thomists will do well to reevaluate Husserl’s ἔποχή. This study shows that Husserl’s phenomenology is formulated as an Aristotelian science, consciously presupposing the existence of its subject matter and not universally negating the existence of known objects as things in the world. The ἔποχή, thus, is compatible with the realism of the Angelic Doctor, and the phenomenological-Thomism of Karol Wojtyła stands on firm realist ground.

From the Archive is a special section of Compendium dedicated to republishing texts from the Centre for Comparative Studies’ two-decade history of academic publishing in book form, giving them a new visibility and easier international outreach online. The choice of book chapters and articles to include in this section is based on the way they directly or indirectly communicate with the Issue, thus reconnecting previous and present debates on a common topic. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s “Flaubert’s Landscapes” was originally published in Helena Carvalhão Buescu, João Ferreira Duarte and Fátima Fernandes da Silva, eds. (2004). Corpo e Paisagem Românticos. Lisbon: Centre for Comparative Studies/Colibri, pp. 55-70.

Abstract Even though it is obvious that mathematics involves social activities, this rather trivial fact is rarely considered as important for its subject matter, mostly due to its undesired ontological consequences. An attempted solution for this tension was developed by Julian Cole’s institutional account of mathematics, named Practice- Dependent Realism. In the present paper, Cole’s account is evaluated, and its lights and shadows assessed concerning the ontological problem that he seeks to solve. I argue that his institutional account, although failing in delivering a sufficient ontological account of mathematics, still opens an important linguistic route for explaining its practice.

With the Odes Modernas (1865; 2.nd ed., revised and enlarged, 1875) by Antero de Quental and the Visão dos Tempos (1864) and Tempestades Sonoras (1864) by Teófilo Braga, the so-called Portuguese realist school was inaugurated. This was, in other words, the third period of Romanticism (of the social type, in the style of Hugo and Michelet), whose concept of poetry continued the enterprise of the first generation of Portuguese romantics. This concept involves the attribution to literature of a superior ethical, instructive and progressive function, and of a social, ideological, political and philosophical commitment. In this article I show how satirical poetry, or poetry with satirical tones, from some of the most important Portuguese poets of the mid-nineteenth century, pursues this goal of moralizing customs. I approach authors whose works, although well or reasonably well known, have been little studied in terms of satire, namely Antero de Quental, Guilherme de Azevedo, Bulhão Pato and João de Deus.

In this article the author discusses Dennis F. Polis’ defense of the compatibility of biological evolution and Thomistic metaphysics. Some of Polis’ methodological and metaphysical arguments are examined and it is explained why they are unfaithful to the Thomistic tradition of metaphysics. There is a discussion of why metaphysics can, within certain parameters, critique the science of evolutionary biology, as well as a discussion of the role of metaphysics in the hierarchy of the sciences. The relationship between biological species to the notion of species in philosophy, including related metaphysical topics, such as essences and Divine ideas in God, is discussed. It is determined that Polis’ view suffers from a kind of relativism and nominalism that is incompatible with the moderate realism of Aquinas. Some of Aquinas’ key existential insights in metaphysics are discussed in this context as well. In addition to being corrective, this essay helps point the way to a better defense of the compatibility of biological evolution and Thomistic metaphysics.

Objective/Context: the article investigates the links between groups of plastic artists and communist parties in the Southern Cone in the 1930s. The visits of David Alfaro Siqueiros to Montevideo and Buenos Aires in 1933 are taken as a gateway to address an ‘intense moment’ of the intersection between art and politics. The research adopts intellectual history as its main framework. On the one hand, it aims to study artists qua intellectuals because they formulated aesthetic-political postulates both through their works and writings that reflected on the social function of art. On the other hand, the framework of ideas, contexts, dynamics, and tensions typical of artistic-intellectual groups is analyzed. Methodology: the analysis and interpretation of primary sources is highlighted, both of visual works and writings on art, and there is a dialogue with secondary bibliography on the history of art, the history of communism, and cultural history. Originality: the article places communist groups in a ‘zone’ of the cultural fields of the Southern Cone. Thus, it captures the articulations between party membership and insertion in artistic circuits and formulates a new look at the link between communism and art in regions where communism was not a ruling party. Conclusions: Siqueiros’ visits to the Rio de la Plata metropolises generated a scenario in which a singular convergence between art and politics took place, which, unlike that which occurred in the 1960s and 1970s in the region, did not deny or break the modes of operation of the artistic field, but fought a battle to transform it from within.

This essay investigates Walter Pater’s reception of Dante. From his juvenile production to his later writings, Pater’s oeuvre is interspersed with references, quotations, or allusions to Dante, and often directly discusses important aspects of the poet and his works. Pater strongly sensualises Dante’s idea of love, which he sees as functional to his own exploration of sensoriality. In this sense, his reading of Dante emphasises the features of Dante’s realism (and symbolism) that are closer to his own poetics, interpreting them as emblematic of his artistic ideal of the fusion of matter and spirit. Moreover, Pater views Dante as instrumental in some of the cultural-historical phenomena – the Renaissance, Romanticism, modernity – which are pivotal for his aestheticist conception of history.

The present paper deals with the inner dynamism within the order of the fictional world, focusing on the tranformation of realistic writing (Flaubert, Tolstoy, Fontane) towards modernism. The displayed dynamism is exemplified on Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain taking into account the issue of autobiography and author’s essays (the Bildungsroman genre and the European realistic tradition).

Resumen: En la actualidad, la medicina incorpora diferentes recursos y estrategias para mejorar la educación que brinda a los estudiantes, entre ellas las actividades de aprendizaje por simulación. La simulación trae consigo varios beneficios, pero para ello es necesario saber implementarla y contar con los recursos necesarios, y además, tener claros los objetivos de aprendizaje que se plantearán en esta y valorar qué tan útil resulta para el participante.Retomando lo anterior, se realizó un estudio descriptivo en el que participaron estudiantes de primer año de la licenciatura de médico cirujano de la Facultad de Medicina de la UNAM, quienes, a través de la simulación, tuvieron un acercamiento introductorio a la importancia de la relación médico-paciente y aprendieron la técnica de exploración ginecológica en una actividad dividida en 3 fases, utilizando pacientes estandarizados y simuladores de baja fidelidad. Al término de la actividad, esta fue evaluada por los participantes mediante una lista de cotejo clasificada en 4 rubros para conocer su perspectiva, que ayudará a mejorar la calidad de la simulación planteada y a saber si el estudiante considera que ha adquirido habilidades propias del médico. Abstract: Medicine currently incorporates different resources and strategies to improve the education it provides to students, including simulation-based activities. Simulation brings several benefits, but for this it is necessary to know how to implement it and have the necessary resources, as well as having clear learning objectives that will be raised in it and assess how useful it is for the participant.With this objective, a descriptive study was conducted in which first year medical students of the UNAM's Faculty of Medicine participated. Using the simulation, they had an introductory approach to the importance of the doctor-patient relationship, and learned the technique of gynaecological examination in an activity that was divided into 3 phases, using standardised patients and low fidelity simulation models. At the end, this was evaluated by the participants through a checklist classified into 4 areas in order to determine their perspective. This would help improve the quality of the simulation and to determine if the students consider that they have acquired their doctor skills.

In the past few decades, the Malaysian government has seen a serious securitization of migration related to the “threat” posed by illegal immigrants. This perception arose due to a flood of illegal immigrants in Malaysia have begun to show a negative impact, given the fact that many of the illegal immigrants are involved in crime and there is a strong perception of threat to Malaysia's national security. This policy is considered effective and it has been proven that the issue of foreign migrants has become a serious discourse in the Malaysian community and government. In this wake, this article explores how the Malaysian government behaves related to securitization in the context of the narrative of the law. This kind of study is still rarely done, although it is critical, since it is basically the real attitude of a country in fighting for its national interests. The article tries to explore of policies implemented by the Malaysian government, especially during Najib Razak administration, in securitizing the issue of illegal immigrants. And it tries to answer the fundamental questions posed by the theory of securitization regarding who the securitization actors are, why, for whom, and what the results are.

The Roman asàrotos òikos (“Unswept Floor/Room”) mosaics, which were discovered in Italy and in Tunisia, and date from the end of the first to the sixth century AD, showcase a seemingly popular theme: scraps of food that had fallen (or were thrown) under the table during the banquet, colourfully displayed, appealing and appetising to the eyes. These mosaics are, in fact, Roman variations on a famous prototype created by Sosus in Hellenistic Pergamon, which was never discovered. The Roman mosaics reveal a unique tension between the display of impersonal, mundane reality in an illusory manner and the use of irony and disguised symbolism. The depiction of everyday life and elements that carry various symbolic meanings in trompe-l’œil prompts an interpretive reading of the artwork. The use of visual deception not only forms the ground for contemplative thought, but also enriches the reading by adding more layers of veiled meanings that need to be recognised and decoded by the viewers. This particular combination of aesthetics and iconography forms complex allegorical content. This article focuses on the asàrotos òikos mosaics which were discovered in Italy, and their particular combination of a popular theme, symbolism and illusionism.

Jacques Réda is a french flâneur who explores the city of Paris since the 1970’s. In this article, we would like to show that, somehow, we can compare his poetic works to a geographical study, understanding this expression in a disciplinary way. Wherever poetry is initially far from being compatible with any scientific purpose, researchers have promoted these last years the encounter between literary studies and geography. Réda’s works can illustrate this trend as his writings contain a important spatial dimension. His poetry is indeed strongly realistic, and borrows its realism from a cartographic imaginary. Furthermore, we can compare the area he walks to the « terrain » of a scientist who would make some « relevés topographiques », as Réda says. Finally, the inspiration of the poet come from a geographical conception of the art of writing, placing geography at the heart the artistic process.

The article explores the most common disagreements and misunderstandings concerning truth, in philosophical as well as extra-philosophical debates, then reflects on the notion of “post-truth era”, reverting the diagnosis, and suggesting that in the recent history of the concept of truth we may find some positive opportunities that deserve to be taken into account.

En este artículo se analizará la manera en que Arguedas, en su novela El Sexto (1961), señala una ausencia en el campo político peruano: no existe una propuesta de raigambre indígena concreta, que logre separarse de las propuestas del apra y del Partido Comunista. Lo hace destacando cómo la sensibilidad indígena se diferencia de las lógicas políticas de los militantes apristas y comunistas que Gabriel —protagonista de la novela— discute con ellos. La experiencia de cercanía con la realidad que tienen los personajes de lengua materna quechua será el elemento principal de tal sensibilidad. This article will analyze the way Arguedas, in his novel El Sexto (1961), points an absence in the Peruvian political field: there is no concrete indigenous political proposal that could disengage itself from the apra and the Communist Party. He highlights the form the indigenous sensibility is different from the political logics of the apra and communist militants, that are discussed by Gabriel—the protagonist of the novel—with them. The experience of intimacy with the reality that the characters with quechua as mother tongue has is the principal element of that sensibility.

Some of Corrado Alvaro's works, especially those regarding Calabria, are often evaluated not only for their literary value, but also for their documentary value. The article summarizes some points of the post-modern debate on ethnographic writing and moves in that area of compatibility which anthropologists and literary critics converse. The different contrasts that seem to constantly characterize Alvaro's works - country/world, metahistory/history, magical realism/realism - once composed and read in their entirety, reveal a specific structure which is implied in most of his literature. The landscape, in particular, is the element that makes everything coherent, and allows us to understand some specific dynamics of Alvaro's memory.

This paper is a review of the book: Paul Robinson, The Realist Guide to Religion and Science (Leominster, Herefordshire, UK: Gracewing, 2018). According to the author, what makes the book both accessible and sensible is Robinson’s illustration of Thomist philosophy’s coherence, starting from a basis in philosophy of being. Robinson presents the philosophy of being as being appropriate to cooperate with science. This helps readers comprehend modern science’s wrong turns and possible corrections. This also makes Robinson’s book a work of apologetics, as it addresses why the Catholic faith provides the most logical belief system, and why seemingly sophisticated attacks on the Church and its beliefs by seemingly rational philosophers and scientists are not only erroneous, but actually irrational.

Victorian novels of finance have garnered much critical attention in recent years. Yet Lever’s Davenport Dunn (1859) has been largely overlooked. This essay investigates Lever’s imaginative engagement with finance capitalism, casting new light on his unique take on the appeal of speculation in an Irish context. Set both on the Continent and in Ireland, Davenport Dunn deviates significantly from the standardised tales of financial felony that circulated widely in Victorian print culture. Attending closely to the novel’s formal features and narrative strategies, this essay argues that the logic of financial speculation is internalised on the formal level. The novel accords a degree of legitimacy to financial speculation by multiplying lines of divisions between gambling and speculation and by shifting attention to the role of a female character, who stands to win from her commitment to speculative schemes. Notable for its realistic particularity, Lever’s representation of the Irish speculator and his entourage probes the limits of moralistic understandings of finance in ways that have hitherto been unacknowledged.

This paper is a review of the book: Paul Robinson, The Realist Guide to Religion and Science (Leominster, Herefordshire, UK: Gracewing, 2018). According to the author, Robinson’s book is a double-hearted adventure. On the one hand, Robinson patiently and methodically rebuilds the reader’s capacity for knowing and loving truth by returning to Aristotelian and Thomistic principles and insights, showing how realism is the approach needed for the human mind to look for, know, and delight in what is objectively true. On the other hand, The Realist Guide is a ruthless dismantling of the various false edifices and untenable ideologies that thicket the modern academy.

Despite playing a pivotal role in the development of Irish theatre, especially through his association with the Abbey Theatre (as writer, manager, director, and member of the Board of Directors), Lennox Robinson (1886-1958), is a largely forgotten figure, both within the public domain and within Irish scholarship. As the title, “Recalled to Life”, implies, this article constitutes a reminder of the contributions this intriguing and innovative playwright made to the Irish stage. When Robinson is sporadically name-checked by scholars, he is primarily remembered for the realist plays of his early career, perpetuating a reputation that disregards the dramatist’s later, experimental and unorthodox endeavours. Focusing on the 1918 play, The Lost Leader (in which the central character, may, or may not be, the “resurrected” Charles Stewart Parnell), the article explores Robinson’s subversion of dramatic protocols, highlighting the playwright’s use of techniques, primarily associated with postmodernism (intertextuality, an open form, self-reflexivity, metatheatre). In this way, Robinson self-consciously invites comparisons between the construction and function of the play-text, and the synthesis and propagation of ideological constructs, thereby, providing a much-needed intervention in an era of political upheavals.

La influencia de las ideas religiosas en la Teoría de Relaciones Internacionales ha sido un tema poco explorado por la deriva secularista y cientificista de la disciplina. Sin embargo, bajo el giro postsecular, varios teóricos han empezado a problematizar los efectos político-normativos del paradigma de la secularización y a releer críticamente los orígenes y desarrollos de la teoría de Relaciones Internacionales. En este marco, el artículo estudia la influencia de san Agustín en los orígenes de la escuela realista. Analiza cuándo y cómo la obra agustiniana llegó al realismo clásico, a través de una relectura de los conceptos de naturaleza humana, historia y orden, formulados por el Obispo de Hipona en clave dialéctica. Asimismo, el artículo demuestra la influencia de estos conceptos agustinianos en la formulación del realismo esperanzado de Reinhold Niebuhr, reconocido como el padre de los realistas en Relaciones Internacionales.

At first glance, T. S. Eliot and Sherwood Anderson do not seem to have much in common when their works are considered. Eliot is known primarily for his poetry and Anderson for his short stories. The former is often considered an English author and the latter an American one. The first is one of the most recognizable names of Modernism, and the second is often considered a realist. Eliot is known for the complexity and inaccessibility of his poetry and Anderson’s works appear much simpler in comparison. Eliot is famous for his urban imagery and Anderson for his rural setting. However, there is one theme they have in common: the exploration of an individual’s inability of self-expression in his surroundings, where the expression is affected by materialistic, artistic, sexual or other issues with accompanying repressions. This desire for self-expression or self-realization contrasts with the mores of one’s society and their failed attempts to express themselves bring along depression, frustration, repression and alienation, something that both Eliot and Anderson knew well, because they also struggled with some of the issues of their protagonists. An important notion here is that the exploration of this inability seems to suggest its universality or ubiquity, regardless if the individual is living in a big city or a small rural community. Upon closer analysis of these themes, the differences start to fade and other connections appear, such as Eliot’s use of the caricature or grotesque to heighten certain states of mind, something that Anderson also does; indeed, the first story in his work Winesburg, Ohio is called Book of the Grotesque, but with a more sympathetic and less ironic flavour. Evening and night are very important times for both authors, as that is when an individual’s introspection, mostly unconscious, is intensified. Social critique is very prominent and the compatibility of public and private lives is also explored.

The Interview, la película de Harun Farocki, se centra en el ámbito del trabajo, particularmente en la entrevista laboral, como un espacio fundamental para examinar la sociedad neoliberal. De la mano de teóricos sociales como Goffman o Foucault, veremos algunas estrategias empleadas para pensar lo político desde la imagen. En un segundo punto, adoptando la perspectiva feminista de Rose-Marie Lagrave, profundizaremos en la noción de «realismo», un realismo cinematográfico mediante el cual desafía la realidad patriarcal en la que vivimos. Y, finalmente, estudiamos uno de los principales mecanismos expresivos del filme, que, cercano a la idea de «extrañamiento» de Bertolt Brecht, establece la base estructural del filme en torno a la confrontación de dos tipologías de la imagen, una de las cuales alude directamente a los ejercicios de disciplina y autoanálisis llevados a cabo por los instructores protagonistas del filme.

Interfaces have a history of realism as attempts to map, represent and interact with reality. However, recent changes in the interface, including both the way we understand, use, design and build interfaces, merits a new discussion of its realism. The contemporary interface is both omnipresent and invisible, at once integrated into everyday objects and characterised by hidden exchanges of information between objects. With the current spread of mobile devices, embedded sensors, cloud services, and data capture, a new interface paradigm, the metainterface, arises where data and software disappear from our devices and into the global cloud. The metainterface indicates that the interface has become more abstract, generalised, but also spatialised in the sense of being ubiquitous, mobile, urban and related to the things of our environment. The metainterface as a concept, industry and art/design practice calls for a new kind of realism which combines what you see (e.g. the data, tools, operations, transactions) with how you see it (the metainterface and its software, networks and executions), including how it sees you (how the user/users are captured, datafied, profiled, computed and ‘executed’). In other ways we need a ‘way of seeing’ that goes beyond the visual and integrates the metainterface and its effects. Currently these effects can be seen as two ways of hiding: 1) Minimalist hiding, e.g. the hiding of the datafication, monitoring and profiling going on in cloud computing infrastructures behind its immediate, minimalist user-interface. 2) Environmental hiding, including hiding its mode of control as smart for example. These dimensions are often combined but can be investigated in workshops for metainterface realism. This article will discuss these options by looking at art that explores and produces alternatives to this seeming disappearance by the artists Ben Grosser, Joana Moll, James Bridle, EL Putnam and workshops by Joana Moll and the authors et al.

Presentazione della sezione sull’antropologia del personaggio letterario contemporaneo

The essay will focus on Degas as ‘cruel’ painter, draftsman and sculptor of ballet dancers. In this essay, the Degas’s poetics, philosophy, aesthetic of dance are dealt with as a specific stage of European thought on art and poetry. In particular, they are analysed in the light of the theories developed in Europe in the second half of 19th century and in the first half of 20th century in relation with the art criticism, philosophy, literary criticism, visual thought. Degas was not a painter alone, but a sculptor, photographer, and poet. Late in his career, Degas turned to poetry as a new language for his artistic expression. Degas valued a multi-faceted form of art, as expression of the doctrine of Synaesthesia, which has been carefully examined and characterised from several vantage points. The creative efforts of the artist were the result of a conscious effort to search for means to revolutionise the philosophical-literary, the figurative thinking that dominated about classical dance. The essay deals with this specific aspect of Degas’s thought about dance, which can be also considered as medium of communication with social and political implications.

Beyond its oft-praised "realism", The Wire (HBO, 2002-2008) – precisely because of its closeness to non-fiction – explores the modalities and functionalities of fiction and investigates what fiction is and what fiction can do. The series above all reflects on the ethical stakes of fiction-making. In the game it establishes with its non-fiction antecedents, and in its meta-narrative story arc in season 5, the show reflects on the fictional process and on the different media which filter reality to try and represent it. This article analyzes how The Wire explores the moral implications of fiction-making and the different meanings of the term, from fiction as counter-fact, or counter-truth, to fiction as experimentation. Through the case study of the final season, we see how the series plays out its ambivalence toward fictional codes and advocates a mode of critical fictional representation as an alternative to the current, devious modes of safety policy and journalism. This article demonstrates how, by delegating fiction-making to characters as it does, more particularly in season 5, The Wire inscribes itself in what Jacques Rancière calls "fictional democracy".

The article aims at presenting the life and work of Étienne Gilson (1884–1978)—a historian of philosophy, medievalist, renewer of the scholastic tradition, proponent of a return to the original doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas, and philosopher. It is focused on selected areas of Gilson’s philosophical interest, such as: medieval philosophy, the history of philosophy, existential Thomism, atheism, literature and art. In the final analysis, Gilson appears as a firm advocate of philosophical realism which makes it possible to find a way out of contradictory explanations of the world, and allows man to live in openness to the voice of God’s revelation that constantly flows from reality.

This article introduces the life and work of Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec (1921-2008)—a Polish philosopher, theologian, humanist, co-founder of the Lublin Philosophical School, rector of the Catholic University of Lublin, initiator and chairman of the scientific committee of The Universal Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Krąpiec created a coherent philosophical system that, by a metaphysical explanation, encompassed the whole of reality that is accessible to human cognition. According to the author, Krąpiec’s philosophy is the greatest achievement in classical philosophy in Poland and in the world in the twentieth century, both with respect to its comprehensive scope and its meritorious importance; for the vision of the world that it reveals shows not only the human person’s unity and harmony with the reality that surrounds him, but also his openness to a connection with the transcendent Absolute.