Search results for "pessimistic"
showing 4 items of 4 documents
Closed Theories, Falsificationism and Non-Cumulative Progress
2020
It is argued that scientific progress occurs not with the cumulative growth of knowledge or when theories get closer to the truth but with discovering new domains and new theories that fit these domains. This horizontal view on the direction of scientific progress (in contrast to vertical, when we aim to get from here to the abstract and ephemeral truth) allows avoiding traditional objections posed by the incommensurability thesis and pessimistic induction, namely, that radical theory changes leave no room for progress. According to this perspective, the discovery of quantum mechanics as a new field of inquiry is a progress in itself, since this discovery had opened up a new distinctive dom…
Short telomeres drive pessimistic judgement bias in zebrafish.
2021
The role of telomerase reverse transcriptase has been widely investigated in the contexts of ageing and age-related diseases. Interestingly, decreased telomerase activities (and accelerated telomere shortening) have also been reported in patients with emotion-related disorders, opening the possibility for subjective appraisal of stressful stimuli playing a key role in stress-driven telomere shortening. In fact, patients showing a pessimistic judgement bias have shorter telomeres. However, in humans the evidence for this is correlational and the causal directionality between pessimism and telomere shortening has not been established experimentally yet. We have developed and validated a judg…
La crise des intellectuels et ses avatars dans "Les Mandarins" de Simone de Beauvoir
2022
In the novel The Mandarins, Simone de Beauvoir shows the crisis of French intellectuals, namely writers facing ideological and political dilemmas after World War Two. Reflecting on the usefulness of their works, the main protagonists ask the fundamental question, namely why / for what to write and act. In the writer’s optics, two solutions are possible. On the one hand, the commitment, and the need for being aware of situations and actions. On the other hand, the idea of the autonomy of literature. This opposition seems to cause a failure of common expectations and hopes, conformism, collapse of values as well as love failures. The history of “broken illusions” of a known milieu allows the …
Rewolucje i ich konsekwencje dla dystopijnych i antyutopijnych powieściowych światów. Przykłady z polskiej i czeskiej literatury
2016
Powieści o charakterze antyutopijnym i dystopijnym opisują świat po pewnej zmianie. Zmiana ta często przybierała formę rewolucji, gwałtownego zaprzeczenia, odwrócenia znanego porządku. W swoim artykule chciałabym przyjrzeć się literackim kreacjom takich przemian - które w utopijnych wariacjach prowadzą do zniewolenia - nie do wyzwolenia. W omawianych utworach rewolucja jest wynikiem działań postaci reprezentujących odmienne światopoglądy, jednak jej skutek często bywa taki sam niszczy, nie tworzy. Obawy twórców literackich odzwierciedlają znaną im rzeczywistość.