For a North American seeking to know the Mexican mind, and especially the sciences today and in their recent development, a great light of genius is to be found in Mexico City in the late 17th century. Tbe genius is that of one who surely may be counted as the first Mexican philosopher of nature, a nun of the Order of Saint Jerome: Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. Sor Juana must speak for herself, from her penetrating exercise of an independent mind within a political and religious formation which denigrated women and circumscribed reason itself. To understand this world of ours, to join in an enlightenment which would be both natural and inspired, Sor Juana clearly understood the requirements of leaming, observing, logic and reasoning. In darkness foundering Words fail the troubled mind. For who, I ask, can light me When Reason is blind? Even now, after the great steps toward liberation of women, and the substantial scientific contributions toward sheer empirical awareness of both the multiple orders ofNature and the subtle aesthetics ofindividual art and social harmony, we too in the earthly world of the 20th century must affirm what she affirmed.

Inhalt

Preface; R.S. Cohen. Introduction; S. Ramirez. A: Mexican Studies. 1. Logic in Mexico with a Postscript: Eli de Gortari; W. Beller. 2. Contributions of Santiago Ramírez to the History of the Colegio de Minería; J. Ruiz de Esparza. 3. Gabino Barreda and the Introduction of Darwinism in Mexico: Positivism and Evolution; R. Ruiz Gutierrez. B: Social Studies. 4. Psychoanalysis and Marxism; S. Ramirez Ruiz. 5. Functional Explanations in History; C. Pereyra. 6. The History of Science: Internal or External? C. Yturbe. C: Natural Sciences. 7. Genetic Mutation: the Development of the Concept and its Evolutionary Implications; A. Barahona Echeverria. Galileo's Revolution: the Use of Idealized Laws in Physics; E.N. Bravo. 9. Among Men, Closest to God; R. Martinez E. D: Mathematics. 10. The Philosophy and the Program of Hilbert; C. Torres. 11. Some Logical Remarks Concerning the Continuum Problem; C. Alvarez Jimenez. 12. On the Relation of Hilbert's Second and Tenth Problems; M. Fernandez de Castro. 13. Three Metaphysical Theses on Mathematical Philosophy; S. Ramirez Castañeda. 14. The Principles of Mathematics of Bertrand Russell; A. Garciadiego. 15. Wittgenstein, On Mathematical Proof; G. Zambrana Castañeda. 16. To Show and to Prove; C. Torres, J.O. Falcon Vega. 18. A Return to Vienna; S. Ramirez Castañeda. Index.