Political philosophy, ethnology, and time: a study of the notion of historical handicap

This article starts by identifying the crucial importance of the notion of historical handicap for the present-day social sciences of Latin America. Such notion is not an original invention made by Latinamericanists. On the contrary, I demonstrate that the genealogy of the notion of historical handicap must be sought in the tradition of Western political philosophy. Such genealogy must take into account the way it was integrated into ethnological descriptions. When and how did the Other become the backward, the primitive? While this relation was secondary for ancient Greek thought, theories of historical development became the main source of ethnological categories in the modern era. Interestingly enough, this modern synthesis suited the practical purpose of justifying two successive waves of European imperialistic: the era of discoveries, and 19th century colonialism. The article concludes by raising questions about the present role and application of the social sciences.

Cypsela or achene? Refining terminology by considering anatomical and historical factors

The worry about the indiscriminate use of the terms cypsela and achene for the fruits of Asteraceae has been frequently detached by specialists in this family. The present work was developed aiming to verify the existence of arguments to justify the adoption of a term against the other. After historical and anatomical analysis, we concluded that there is technical basis to consider cypsela and achene as different types of fruits. For Asteraceae, the correct is to call cypsela; achenes are only derived from superior ovaries, as in Plumbaginaceae.

k-Casein gene frequencies support subdivision and historical origin of Argentine Creole cattle

Gene frequencies at the k-casein locus were estimated in six different herds (N = 180) of Argentinean Creole cattle. The results showed a strong influence of subdivision and independent evolution on the divergence of the observed gene frequencies. These results suggest that the population structure of these herds favor the maintenance of polymorphism, which is of crucial importance for the long-time survival of populations.

Historical origins of Brazilian relative backwardness

This paper relies on some data to identify the 19th century as the major period in which Brazil economy lagged behind some chosen benchmarking countries, as the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and some European periphery countries. To identify the reasons for this an exercise using immigration data was used to make a decomposition of the sources of growth of the proportion of the USA per capita GDP to the Brazilian one. The results indicate that the imported human capital was responsible for 59% to 88% of this total growth between 1820 and 1900.

The developmental state in Brazil: comparative and historical perspectives

The record of successful developmental states in East Asia and the partial successes of developmental states in Latin America suggest several common preconditions for effective state intervention including a Weberian bureaucracy, monitoring of implementation, reciprocity (subsidies in exchange for performance), and collaborative relations between government and business. Although Brazil failed to develop the high technology manufacturing industry and exports that have fueled sustained growth in East Asia, its developmental state had a number of important, and often neglected, successes, especially in steel, automobiles, mining, ethanol, and aircraft manufacturing. Where Brazil's developmental state was less successful was in promoting sectors like information technology and nuclear energy, as well as overall social and regional equality. In addition, some isolated initiatives by state governments were also effective in promoting particular local segments of industry and agriculture. Comparisons with East Asia, highlight the central role of state enterprises in Brazil that in effect internalized monitoring and reciprocity and bypassed collaboration between business and government (that was overall rarer in Brazil).

Kant and zeno of elea: historical precedents of the "sceptical method"

For Kant's interpretation of Zeno in KrV A502-507/B530-535, scholars have usually referred to Plato's Phaedrus (261d); in reality the sources Kant uses are, on one hand, Brucker (who depends in turn on the pseudo-Aristotelian De Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgia, 977 b 2-21), and, on the other, Plato's Parmenides (135e6-136b1) and Proclus' commentary on it, as quoted by Gassendi in a popular textbook he wrote on the history of logic.