Despite the occasional upsurge of climate change scepticism amongst conservative politicians and journalists, there is a near-consensus amongst scientists that current levels of atmospheric greenhouse gas are sufficient to alter global weather patterns to possibly disastrous effect. Like the hole in the ozone layer as described by Bruno Latour, global warming is a ‘hybrid’ natural-social-discursive phenomenon. And science fiction (SF) seems to occupy a critical location within this nature/culture nexus. This paper takes as its subject matter what Daniel Bloom dubs (...) ‘cli-fi’. It seeks to describe how a genre defined in relation to science finds itself obliged to produce fictional responses to problems actually thrown up by contemporary scientific research. It argues against the view that ‘catastrophic’ SF is best understood as a variant of the kind of ‘apocalyptic’ fiction inspired by the Christian Book of Revelation, or Apokalypsis, on the grounds that this tends to downplay the historical novelty of SF as a genre defined primarily in relation to modern science and technology. And it examines the narrative strategies pursued in both print and audio-visual SF texts that deal with anthropogenic climate change. (shrink)

The philosophical implication that guides the issue addressed here is the following: how does the principle of the common constitute a frontal apophasis to the principle of property in contemporary democracies? I do not pretend to offer an exhaustive answer to this problem. However, I use the argumentative strategy of dividing this paper into three sections: (i) theoretically investigate the dialectical tension between the principle of the common and the principle of property; (ii) analytically observe the premise that the behavioral (...) practices of exacerbated individualism contribute as an act of aversion to the principle of the common and (iii) dwell on the articulation of the notion of the principle of the common as a factor that is present on the threshold between the philosophical vulgar and philosophical universal. Finally, I form some considerations that problematize the naturalized notion of the principle of property in current democracies, in view of the constituent power that the principle of the common holds in the perspective of achieving the well-being of human agents in contemporary community life. (shrink)

Contexto: Algumas experiências religiosas e/ou espirituais apresentam um caráter dissociativo. Há carência de estudos que indiquem critérios diferenciais entre a dissociação patológica e saudável em contexto religioso. Objetivo: Este estudo pretende observar as experiências dissociativas sob diferentes perspectivas: uma ligada à psicopatologia e a outra, à saúde. Método: Ensaio temático com a literatura disponível sobre o assunto. Bases de dados: Pubmed e PsychINFO. Também foi feita busca manual de artigos relacionados ao assunto. Resultados: 1. Historicamente, alguns autores se debruçaram sobre (...) as relações entre dissociação e fenômenos religiosos, mas os dados não são conclusivos; 2. A dissociação acontece em um continuum entre saúde e doença; 3. A psiquiatria transcultural oferece aporte para a compreensão de experiências dissociativas, como o transe de possessão, contextualizando-as culturalmente; 4. Há uma série de estudos feitos no Brasil, que exploram o diagnóstico diferencial entre experiências religiosas saudáveis e patológicas. Conclusões: Experiências religiosas/espirituais de caráter dissociativo, podem ser consideradas saudáveis se apresentarem ausência de sofrimento, controle, forem contextualizadas e trouxerem benefício para o indivíduo. Indivíduos sem Autodirecionamento e com experiências autocentradas mostram maior probabilidade de desenvolver patologia. Futuros estudos deverão explorar empírica e longitunalmente estas questões. (shrink)

Hartry Field has suggested that we should adopt at least a methodological deflationism: "[W]e should assume full-fledged deflationism as a working hypothesis. That way, if full-fledged deflationism should turn out to be inadequate, we will at least have a clearer sense than we now have of just where it is that inflationist assumptions... are needed". I argue here that we do not need to be methodological deflationists. More precisely, I argue that we have no need for a disquotational truth-predicate; that (...) the word 'true', in ordinary language, is not a disquotational truth-predicate; and that it is not at all clear that it is even possible to introduce a disquotational truth-predicate into ordinary language. If so, then we have no clear sense how it is even possible to be a methodological deflationist. My goal here is not to convince a committed deflationist to abandon his or her position. My goal, rather, is to argue, contrary to what many seem to think, that reflection on the apparently trivial character of T-sentences should not incline us to deflationism. (shrink)

Este artigo busca mostrar, por meio de uma análise da refutação kantiana do idealismo empírico, que Kant é ainda assim partidário de certo solo mentalista inaugurado por Descartes. Ao mesmo tempo, ele recusa as implicações solipsistas de qualquer idealismo material, seja o de Descartes, seja o de Berkeley.

Both the Athenian wrestler and the Florentine clerk, it turns out, demonstrate a persistent concern with the moral problematic--that is, the tendency of human beings to do what they want to do at the cost of that which they ought to do. Both thinkers see man's vulnerability to fortune as a symptom of this tendency, and they agree as to its ultimate cause: the inability of men to accurately weigh that which is present here and now against that which is (...) far removed in time and space. Machiavelli does not part company with Plato until it is time to suggest a remedy. Here he indeed accomplishes a radical innovation--perhaps as radical as was suggested above. Whereas Plato resolves the problematic by founding the soul on that which is, and which is better than and prior to man, Machiavelli supposes that man, starting from scratch, can construct his own foundations. Nonetheless, the Florentine walks a long way with the Athenian before he takes his leave; it may be best, then, to interpret Machiavelli's writing less as a monologue than as a dialogue, the dramatis personae of which include himself and Plato. (shrink)

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, with vocations to the Christian religious orders of the West in marked decline, an authentic Christian presence in health care is threatened. There are no longer large numbers of women willing to offer their life labors bound in vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, so as to provide a real preferential option for the poor through supporting an authentic Christian mission in health care. At the same time, the frequent earlier death of men (...) leaves a large number of widows, some in need of care and some able to provide care. Drawing on the role of widows sketched in I Timothy 2, one can envision Christian widows entering a life of prayer and service in health care settings. As female monastics, such widows could reintroduce a salient Christian presence in health care. How one ties this response to the message of I Timothy 2 will depend on one’s understanding of the status of Scripture, the significance of tradition, the nature of theological epistemology, the meaning of theology, the nature of the Church, and the ontology of gender. The position taken on these issues will define the character of a Christian bioethics of care. (shrink)

This chapter describes and illustrates ideals of appreciation and positive expressions of respect in personal relationships and then argues that these are distinct from beneficence, that they are aspects of a full recognition of human dignity, and that they have important general and special implications for relationships involving persons with disabilities. The chapter emphasizes that especially among family, friends, and caregivers, proper respect for persons calls for positive affirmations and being open to appreciate the good in others and their lives (...) and that appreciating them is more than respecting them and caring for their comfort and happiness. Respect and appreciation for and by us, as persons with disabilities, requires confronting and changing cultural stigmas that undermine these morally important attitudes. (shrink)

All this has been clearly revealed by our philosophies of experience, however muddled they may have been about the nature of "experience" itself. Philosophies of experience have taught most when they have tried to place the world stated and known in the context of the world experienced in other ways, in order to learn and state more. They have taught least when, professedly most empirical, and most positivistic, they have tried to stay as close as possible to the world immediately (...) "given." There is a certain irony about the long and never-ending search for the "given," for what we supposedly start with, that is hardly dispelled by the shouts of triumph each time a new "given" is discovered. To seek to know what the world is like when it is not known, is after all intelligible only as a contribution to making the world better known. Whatever else the world may be when it is not known, it is at least not known. (shrink)