Esse artigo é uma breve análise sobre o problema do mérito como critério para a reciprocidade proporcional segundo Aristóteles.

Relating Narratives is a major new work by the philosopher and feminist thinker Adriana Cavarero. First published in Italian to widespread acclaim, Relating Narratives is a fascinating and challenging new account of the relationship between selfhood and narration. Drawing a diverse array of thinkers from both the philosophical and the literary tradition, from Sophocles and Homer to Hannah Arendt, Karen Blixen, Walter Benjamin and Borges, Adriana Cadarero's theory of the `narratable self' shows how narrative models in philosophy and (...) literature can open new ways of thinking about formation of human identities. By showing how each human being has a unique story that can be told about them, Adriana Cavarero inaugurates an important shift in thinking about subjectivity and identity which relies not upon categorical or discursive norms, but rather seeks to account for `who' each one of us uniquely is. (shrink)

What does a truly democratic experience of political action look like today? In this provocative new work, Adriana Cavarero weighs in on contemporary debates about the relationship between democracy, happiness, and dissent. Drawing upon Arendt's understanding of politics as a participatory experience, but also discussing texts by Émile Zola, Elias Canetti, Boris Pasternak, and Roland Barthes, along with engaging Judith Butler, Cavarero proposes a new view of democracy, based not on violence, but rather on the spontaneous experience of a (...) plurality of bodies coming together in public. Expanding upon the themes explored in previous works, Cavarero offers a timely intervention into current thinking about the nature of democracy, suggesting that its emergence thrives on the nonviolent creativity of a widespread, participatory, and relational power that is shared horizontally rather than vertically. From digital democracy to selfies to contemporary protest movements, Cavarero argues that we need to rethink our focus on individual happiness and turn toward rediscovering the joyful emotions of birth through plural interaction. Yes, let us be happy, she urges, but let us do so publicly, politically, together. (shrink)

This paper presents a series of 4 single subject experiments aimed to investigate whether children with autism show more social engagement when interacting with the Nao robot, compared to a human partner in a motor imitation task. The Nao robot imitates gross arm movements of the child in real-time. Different behavioral criteria (i.e. eye gaze, gaze shifting, free initiations and prompted initiations of arm movements, and smile/laughter) were analyzed based on the video data of the interaction. The results are mixed (...) and suggest a high variability in reactions to the Nao robot. The results are as follows: For Child2 and Child3, the results indicate no effect of the Nao robot in any of the target variables. Child1 and Child4 showed more eye gaze and smile/laughter in the interaction with the Nao robot compared to the human partner and Child1 showed a higher frequency of motor initiations in the interaction with the Nao robot compared to the baselines, but not with respect to the human-interaction. The robot proved to be a better facilitator of shared attention only for Child1. Keywords: human-robot interaction; assistive robotics; autism. (shrink)

Words like "terrorism" and "war" no longer encompass the scope of contemporary violence. With this explosive book, Adriana Cavarero, one of the world's most provocative feminist theorists and political philosophers, effectively renders such terms obsolete. She introduces a new word—"horrorism"—to capture the experience of violence. Unlike terror, horrorism is a form of violation grounded in the offense of disfiguration and massacre. Numerous outbursts of violence fall within Cavarero's category of horrorism, especially when the phenomenology of violence is considered from (...) the perspective of the victim rather than that of the warrior. Cavarero locates horrorism in the philosophical, political, literary, and artistic representations of defenseless and vulnerable victims. She considers both terror and horror on the battlefields of the _Iliad_, in the decapitation of Medusa, and in the murder of Medea's children. In the modern arena, she forges a link between horror, extermination, and massacre, especially the Nazi death camps, and revisits the work of Primo Levi, Hannah Arendt's thesis on totalitarianism, and Arendt's debate with Georges Bataille on the estheticization of violence and cruelty. In applying the horroristic paradigm to the current phenomena of suicide bombers, torturers, and hypertechnological warfare, Cavarero integrates Susan Sontag's views on photography and the eroticization of horror, as well as ideas on violence and the state advanced by Thomas Hobbes and Carl Schmitt. Through her searing analysis, Caverero proves that violence against the helpless claims a specific vocabulary, one that has been known for millennia, and not just to the Western tradition. Where common language fails to form a picture of atrocity, horrorism paints a brilliant portrait of its vivid reality. (shrink)

This paper presents a series of 4 single subject experiments aimed to investigate whether children with autism show more social engagement when interacting with the Nao robot, compared to a human partner in a motor imitation task. The Nao robot imitates gross arm movements of the child in real-time. Different behavioral criteria were analyzed based on the video data of the interaction. The results are mixed and suggest a high variability in reactions to the Nao robot. The results are as (...) follows: For Child2 and Child3, the results indicate no effect of the Nao robot in any of the target variables. Child1 and Child4 showed more eye gaze and smile/laughter in the interaction with the Nao robot compared to the human partner and Child1 showed a higher frequency of motor initiations in the interaction with the Nao robot compared to the baselines, but not with respect to the human-interaction. The robot proved to be a better facilitator of shared attention only for Child1. Keywords: human-robot interaction; assistive robotics; autism. (shrink)

The human voice does not deceive. The one who is speaking is inevitably revealed by the singular sound of her voice, no matter “what” she says. We take this fact for granted—for example, every time someone asks, over the telephone, “Who is speaking?” and receives as a reply the familiar utterance, “It’s me.” Starting from the given uniqueness of every voice, Cavarero rereads the history of philosophy through its peculiar evasion of this embodied uniqueness. She shows how this history—along with (...) the fields it comprehends, such as linguistics, musicology, political theory, and studies in orality—might be grasped as the “devocalization of Logos,” as the invariable privileging of semantike over phone, mind over body. Female figures—from the Sirens to the Muses, from Echo to opera singers—provide a crucial counterhistory, one in which the embodied voice triumphs over the immaterial semantic. Reconstructing this counterhistory, Cavarero proposes a “politics of the voice” wherein the ancient bond between Logos and politics is reconfigured, and wherein what matters is not the communicative content of a given discourse, but rather who is speaking. (shrink)

In this article, Adriana Cavarero and Nidesh Lawtoo resume a dialogue on mimetic inclinations in view of furthering a relational, embodied and affective conception of subjectivity that challenges homo erectus from the immanent perspective of homo mimeticus. If a dominant philosophical tradition tends to restrict mimesis to an illusory representation of reality, Plato was the first to know that mimesis also operates as an affective force, or pathos, that dispossesses the subject. While Plato tended to emphasize the pathological implications (...) of mimesis, Cavarero and Lawtoo agree that both mimesis and inclinations go beyond good and evil and can be put to both pathological and democratic use. Picking up a dialogue started during a walk in New York City, Cavarero and Lawtoo, take their shared interests in Joseph Conrad's relating narratives as an occasion to discuss good and bad mimetic inclinations in contemporary politics and ethics. Joined in conclusion by the Gendered Mimesis team (Willow Verkerk, Isabelle Dahms and Giulia Rignano), topics addressed include new fascism, surging democracy, ethical responsibility for vulnerable others, hypermaternity and public happiness in a precarious world. (shrink)

In his unpublished 1979 Lectures on the Philosophy of Mind, Saul Kripke offers a knowledge argument against materialism focusing on deaf people who lack knowledge of auditory experience. Kripke's argument is a precursor of Frank Jackson's better‐known knowledge argument against materialism (1982). The paper sets out Kripke's argument, brings out its interest and philosophical importance, and explores some similarities and differences between Kripke's knowledge argument and Jackson's.

This essay answers two questions that continue to drive debate in moral and legal philosophy; namely, ‘Is a risk of harm a wrong?’ and ‘Is a risk of harm a harm?’. The essay’s central claim is that to risk harm can be both to wrong and to harm. This stands in contrast to the respective positions of Heidi Hurd and Stephen Perry, whose views represent prominent extremes in this debate about risks. The essay shows that there is at least one (...) category of risks – intentional impositions of risk on unconsenting agents – which can be both wrongful and harmful. The wrongfulness of these risks can be established when, on the balance of reasons, one ought not to impose them. The harmfulness of these risks can be established when the risks are shown to set back legitimate interests. In those cases where risks constitute a denial of the moral status of agents, risks set back agents’ interest in dignity. In these ways, the essay shows that there are instances when a risk can constitute both a wrong and a harm. (shrink)

Lexical alignment, a communication phenomenon where conversational partners adapt their word choices to become more similar, plays an important role in the development of language and social communication skills. While this has been studied extensively in the conversations of preschool‐aged children and their parents in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) communities, research in other pediatric populations is sparse. This study makes significant expansions on the existing literature by focusing on alignment in naturalistic conversations of school‐aged children from a (...) non‐WEIRD population across multiple conversational tasks and with different types of adult partners. Typically developing children aged 5 to 8 years (n = 45) engaged in four semi‐structured conversations that differed by task (problem‐solving vs. play‐based) and by partner (parent vs. university student), resulting in a corpus of 180 conversations. Lexical alignment scores were calculated and compared to sham conversations, representing alignment occurring at the level of chance. Both children and adults coordinated their conversational utterances by re‐using or aligning each other's word choices. This alignment behavior persisted across conversational tasks and partners, although the degree of alignment was moderated by the conversational context. These findings suggest that lexical alignment is a robust phenomenon in conversations between school‐age children and adults. Furthermore, this study extends lexical alignment findings to a non‐WEIRD culture, suggesting that alignment may be a coordination strategy employed by adults and children across diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. (shrink)

This pathbreaking work pursues two interwoven themes. Firstly, it engages in a deconstruction of Ancient philosopher's texts--mainly from Plato, but also from Homer and Parmenides--in order to free four Greek female figures from the patriarchal discourse which for centuries had imprisoned them in a particular role. Secondly, it attempts to construct a symbolic female order, reinterpreting these figures from a new perspective. Building on the theory of sexual difference, Cavarero shows that death is the central category on which the whole (...) edifice of traditional philosophy is based. By contrast, the category of birth provides the thread with which new concepts of feminist criticism can be woven together to establish a fresh way of thinking. Cavarero develops a philosophical narrative which, by re-interpreting each of the four figures of ancient thought, uncovers several images of the female desire for self-representation. Plato himself had not forseen that one day female subjectivity would assert its autonomy, plundering and throwing into confusion the patriarchal text in order to tell another story. (shrink)

Barnett Newman : Adam's line -- Kant and the newborn -- Virginia Woolf and the shadow of the "I" -- Plato erectus sed -- Men and trees -- We are not monkeys : on erect posture -- Hobbes and the macroanthropos -- Elias Canetti : upright before the dead -- Artemisia : the allegory of inclination -- Leonardo and maternal inclination -- Hannah Arendt : "a child has been born unto us" -- Schemata for a postural ethics -- Coda : (...) adieu to Lévinas. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“A Child Has Been Born unto Us”Arendt on BirthAdriana CavareroTranslated by Silvia Guslandi and Cosette BruhnsIn The Human Condition, at the end of the dense chapter on action, Hannah Arendt reiterates that action, that is, the political faculty for excellence, “is ontologically rooted” in the fact of natality, “like an ever-present reminder that men, though they must die, are not born in order to die but in order to (...) begin” (Arendt 1998, 246).1 To reinforce this argument, Arendt compares action to miracles, and makes an interesting and, as we will see, somewhat perplexing reference to the Bible:[The miracle] is, in other words, the birth of new men and the new beginning, the action they are capable of by virtue of being born. Only the full experience of this capacity can bestow upon human affairs faith and hope, those two essential characteristics of human existence which Greek antiquity ignored altogether.…It is this faith in and hope for the world that found perhaps its most glorious and most succinct expression in the few words with which the Gospels announced their “glad tidings”: “A child has been born unto us.”(HC, 247)The citation is suggestive, but incorrect. In the Gospels, which do announce with true joy the birth of the child, the phrase as it is quoted here does not exist. It appears instead in Isaiah (9:6), translated into English both as “For to us a child is borne,” and, in the version of the King James Bible from which Arendt is plausibly drawing, as “For unto us a child is born.” The error, if indeed it is an error, is thus twofold (see Young-Ah Gottlieb 2003, 136ff.), since [End Page 12] both the passage referenced and the words cited are incorrect. That Arendt frequently cites from memory, and that the citations tend to be bibliographically incorrect, is known to her interpreters, but in this case the error ends up being quite significant. As is well known, the prophetic text carries a strong Messianic burden, and such a burden would trouble significantly the thesis that Arendt is here illustrating; the Gospels’ message creates instead fewer obstacles to her strategy of framing the meaning of birth within the mundane horizon that in her vocabulary takes the names of “world” or “worldliness.” Since “‘to live’ and to ‘be among men’” mean the same thing (HC, 7), the child, every newborn, that is, every human being that makes its entrance in the world, is not, according to the Arendtian vision, born to us, coming from elsewhere, but appears among us here. The scenario of birth, like that of action, whatever be the holy text that mentions or exemplarily validates them, is, for Arendt, a radically mundane scenario that does not call into question any transcendence or religious instance of salvation.Jewish, secular, and classically trained in Greek and Latin, Arendt, who had little familiarity with the Jewish language and tradition, met Christian thought primarily through Saint Augustine, to whom she dedicated her doctoral thesis (Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin, published in Berlin in 1929 and then in English in 1996 as Love and Saint Augustine), and who remained a constant point of reference throughout her work. A phrase from Augustine—initium ut esset homo creatus est—present in the thesis, appears, in fact, in Arendt’s later texts, including The Human Condition, indeed with obsessive repetitiveness in reference to the category of birth.2 In her monumental work The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, a full seven years prior to The Human Condition, Arendt already writes: “Beginning, before it becomes a historical event, is the supreme capacity of man; politically, it is identical with man’s freedom. Initium ut esset homo creatus est, ‘that a beginning be made, man was created’, said Augustine. This beginning is guaranteed by each new birth; it is indeed every man” (Arendt 1973, 479). On the philosophically anomalous theme of birth, the contributions of the Christian tradition that Arendt does appreciate are predominantly two: the “glad tidings” that herald the coming of the child, and Augustine’s comments on the narrative of Creation.Natality, Birth, and the Human Condition of... (shrink)

This paper presents the results of the first study part of the research project ‘Objectless sleep experiences’ aimed at exploring the phenomenological blueprints of conscious sleep states that lack a distinct object of awareness. A total of 573 responses were collected from an online survey that asked about the incidence, frequency, and phenomenology of a range of sleep phenomena. The survey’s results provide a better understanding of the variety of sleep experiences by yielding preliminary insights into the phenomenology of objectless (...) sleep experiences. Additionally, the results show that putative instances of objectless awareness during sleep are rare. From the thematic analysis, reports of objectless sleep experiences were characterised as a state of “void”, “emptiness”, or simply an awareness of the sleeping state. Moreover, two sorts of temporal dynamics of this sort of experience were distinguished from the reports: following the dissolution of a dream scene or arising spontaneously during sleep without recall of what preceded it. Furthermore, the results provide preliminary insights into the phenomenology of certain waking experiences that some have regarded as potentially related to instances of objectless sleep awareness. Such experiences include the phenomenon of white dreaming, the feeling of knowing, upon awakening, that one had a dream but was unable to recall its content. (shrink)

The article proposes to analyse whether the current configuration of national migration legislation from Arendt's perspective on the universalization of human rights and Agamben's reflections on bare life and the state of exception demonstrates its capacity to protect the human rights of people undergoing forced migration. To this end, a literature review of a bibliographical nature was used, using the historical procedure method. In order to interpret the effectiveness of the current configuration of the human rights of this vulnerable group, (...) an analysis of international and national legislation on migration was carried out, focusing mainly on the case of the New Brazilian Migration Law. To this end, a theoretical discussion was built to understand how human rights are framed considering the situation of migration and statelessness in the face of an increasingly prevalent state of exception. It was noted that the constitutive fragility of forced migrants is a perennial situation, aggravated by the political inaction of nation states. It has also been noted that there is a need for states and international organizations to adopt new practices to promote the human dignity of forced migrants. (shrink)

This work shows that two problems—the reference class and the mental state of the agent—undermine the plausibility of the ‘blameworthiness tracks risk thesis’ (BTRT), which states, prima facie, an agent is more blameworthy for imposing a greater rather than smaller risk. The article first outlines core concepts. It then shows how the two problems undermine BTRT; namely, (1) no blame attribution based on risk imposition is unequivocal; (2) when the materialization of risk is subject to chance, an agent’s decision can (...) ground an equal degree of blameworthiness regardless of whether the risk is greater or lesser. (shrink)

Adriana Ayers studies the evolution of kotex advertising, focusing specifically on the way in which African American women were figured into changing advertisers’ conceptions of womanhood. The article analyzes images featured in various women’s magazines to examine how ideas surrounding menstruation were packaged and sold to women.

At the very beginning of the history of philosophy, with Plato, we are told the strange story of some men dwelling in a cave and looking at shadows. Immobilized by chains since childhood for all their lives, they are forced to sit on the cave's floor and are impeded from standing up. Hence, whoever they are and whatever they do, the label Homo erectus as a general category denoting the vertical posture of the human animal is decidedly unfit for their (...) position. The strange story, however, goes on and recounts how one of them, by managing to get rid of the chains, for the first time rises to his feet. The familiar feature of Homo erectus, intended not as an extinct hominid species but as the postural human standard .. (shrink)

In 1942, American Nobel Prize-winning physicist Arthur Compton pointed out that, “Because in this field of cosmic ray studies certain unique advantages are given by their geographical position, this field of physics has been especially emphasized in South America.” This paper seeks to interrogate the making of Latin America's uniqueness with respect to cosmic-ray research through an analysis that considers Compton's geographical argument, but also goes beyond it, referring to the interactions of nature, knowledge, practices, scientific communities, and diplomacy. To (...) begin with, it highlights the place-based strategies and practices associated with cosmic-ray research. Once research in the field at different altitudes demonstrated that cosmic rays traveled from outer space to the Earth surface, their nature was scrutinized by expeditions that covered broad vertical and horizontal expanses. The study of cosmic rays in Latin America displayed the mobilization of that strategy, which reinforced the reliability of certain sites located at high altitudes and close to the geomagnetic equator in projected investigations. Moreover, such analysis of cosmic rays involved research practices in the field, the emergence of (local, regional, or international) research traditions, and the creation of spaces of knowledge at different scales. By centering on the interaction of knowledge and place, this paper shows that an exploration of the “up-and-down journeys” of cosmic-ray research in Latin America expands our understanding of the geographies and practices of 20th-century physics. (shrink)

It appears at least intuitively appropriate to claim that we owe it to victims to punish those who have wronged them. It also seems plausible to state that we owe it to society to punish those who have violated its norms. However, do we also owe punishment to perpetrators themselves? In other words, do those who commit crimes have a moral right to be punished? This work examines the sustainability of the right to be punished from the standpoint of the (...) two main theories of rights—the will and the interest conceptions. The right to be punished is shown to be largely indefensible on both accounts: on the will theory, the right to be punished conflicts with autonomy, and it can neither be claimed nor waived by a perpetrator; on the interest theory, a perpetrator’s interest in punishment, inasmuch as it exists, is not sufficient to ground a duty on the part of the state. (shrink)

Several contemporary philosophical theories of introspection have been offered, yet each faces a number of difficulties in providing an explanation of the exact nature of introspection. I contrast the inner-sense view that argues for a causal awareness with the acquaintance view that argues for a non-causal or direct awareness. After critically examining the inner-sense and the acquaintance views, I claim that these two views are complementary and not mutually exclusive, and that both perspectives, conceived of as modes of introspective access, (...) actually broaden the notion of introspection. I then propose a useful distinction between stimuli-induced introspection—i.e., a receptive process whereby some specific mental states induce introspection—and self-triggered introspection—i.e., a selective process whereby the individual’s own interest and volition initiates introspection. I argue that that distinction may eliminate the false dichotomy which claims that only one of those types of awareness, either the causal one or the direct one, is conducive to introspection or is defined as introspection. (shrink)

In On Nature and Language Noam Chomsky develops his thinking on the relation between language, mind and brain, integrating current research in linguistics into the burgeoning field of neuroscience. This 2002 volume begins with a lucid introduction by the editors Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi. This is followed by some of Chomsky's writings on these themes, together with a penetrating interview in which Chomsky provides the clearest and most elegant introduction to current theory available. It should make his Minimalist (...) Program accessible to all. The volume concludes with an essay on the role of intellectuals in society and government. Nature and Language is a significant landmark in the development of linguistic theory. It will be welcomed by students and researchers in theoretical linguistics, neurolinguistics, cognitive science and politics, as well as anyone interested in the development of Chomsky's thought. (shrink)

The contribution of recent theories of sound and audition has been extremely significant for the development of a philosophy of auditory perception; however, none tackle the question of how our consciousness of auditory states arises. My goal is to show how consciousness about our auditory experience gets triggered. I examine a range of auditory mental phenomena to show how we are able to capture qualitative distinctions of auditory sensations. I argue that our consciousness of auditory states consists in having thoughts (...) that organize our experience. Although my proposals could be adapted to fit with other theories of consciousness, here I expand David Rosenthal’s high-order-thought theory and his quality-space theory, and show their usefulness for analyzing our auditory experience. I use quality-space to account for pitch, timbre, loudness, and sound location. I further show that our high-order-thoughts capture qualitative aspects of our auditory sensations. I conclude by demonstrating how a hypothetical listener in possession of a refined vocabulary describes and reports her high-order-thoughts about her musical experience. (shrink)

This essay criticizes Joseph Raz’s service conception of authority on the basis of its knowability condition. The condition states that for agents to be justified in following authoritative directives, they must be able to know (i.e., form reliable beliefs) that the authority issuing the directives is in fact legitimate. Three grounds for concern are identified. The first is that the satisfaction of the normal justification thesis (NJT), which states that the legitimacy of authorities hinges on whether their directives enable subjects (...) to better conform to reason, only provides agents with reasons to believe that it is justified to act as if an authority were legitimate (i.e., on the assumption that it is). Based on the belief/acceptance distinction, the NJT allows for a gap between what is actually the case and what agents are willing to go along with in order to improve the likelihood of conforming to right reason. The independence condition (IC), which states that for those matters where the NJT obtains it must be better for a subject to improve such conformity than to decide for herself, must be satisfied in conjunction with the NJT, but suffers from its own particular problems. Thus, the second problem identified is that of incommensurable values, which appears when agents are not able to decide between the value of improving right reason—NJT—and the value of deciding for themselves—IC. Finally, the third problem is that of vagueness about right reason, where agents attempting to determine whether an authority meets the two conditions are not able to settle whether reason is improved. Together, these three problem areas of knowability serve to challenge Raz’s position. (shrink)

This work employs Elizabeth Cripps’ collectivist account of responsibility for climate change in order to ground an individual duty to reduce one’s GHG emissions. This is significant not only as a critique of Cripps, but also as an indication that even on some collectivist footings, individuals can be assigned primary duties to reduce their emissions. Following Cripps, this work holds the unstructured group of GHG emitters weakly collectively responsible for climate change harms. However, it argues against Cripps that what follows (...) from this is a corresponding collective duty to act qua group to bring about an end to the harm and a derivative duty for each emitter to promote the required organization of a group capable of this. Instead, this work argues that acts of GHG emission, to the extent that they are avoidable and performed with requisite knowledge, make one into a member of a group that is morally responsible for climate-related harms. Thus, individual emitters who can do otherwise should recognize themselves as members of a group that collectively harms. Subsequently, they should take all possible steps in order to renounce their membership (e.g. by reducing their GHG emissions). (shrink)

We reconstruct “the classical transformational theory” of Chomsky, and fit it into the structuralist theory of science. We describe both the formal and the empirical features of this classical account, so that one basic hypothesis of this theory – where central notions are used – can be formulated, and in which Chomsky’s “classical” distinction between surface structure and deep structure is clarified. In the empirical claim of this theory are words, sentences and high-structured entities in an inseparable way intertwined. We (...) claim that the formal structure of a natural language is not approximately the same as that of an empirical theory in general. We clarify two special points which affect the structure of the notion of an empirical theory, namely: the delineation of intended applications and the fit between data and models. We hold that the concept of the empirical claim for a linguistic theory should be generalized in comparison with the “standard” structuralist approach. (shrink)

This article discusses three major dilemmas embedded in women's labor migration by focusing on undocumented Latina migrants in Israel. The first is that to break the cycle of blocked mobility in their homelands, migrant women must take jobs that they would have never taken in their countries of origin, despite uncertainty about possible economic outcomes. The second dilemma is that the search for economic betterment leads Latina migrants to risk living and working illegally in the host country, forcing them to (...) remain on the margins of society. The third dilemma relates to the role of mothers who, to secure a better future for their children, are forced to leave them behind, thus subverting the traditional definition of motherhood. The absence of an egalitarian notion and the practice of citizenship for non-Jews leave undocumented labor migrants in Israel without prospects for incorporation into the society. (shrink)

This short contribution is written on the occasion of the book discussion of Sophie Loidolt’s Phenomenology of Plurality: Hannah Arendt on Political Intersubjectivity at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory. It presents an attempt to read the two key notions Loidolt elaborates in her book – spaces of meaning and spaces of the public and private – from a critical perspective offered by Judith Butler’s taking up of Arendt’s work. Offering Butler’s conception of social ontology through several major points (...) of contestation with Arendt, I argue against an all too simple reduction of her understanding of the political and normativity to poststructuralist ones. (shrink)

In this article, caring, remembering and sharing memory are presented as moral responses, the case study being Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Memory connects memories and images, while care connects individuals, which is an ethical issue. When a person’s memory is lost, the care of others becomes the only thread connecting them to the world. AD deprives a person of memories, body control, makes it impossible to remember, communicate, move, recognize the environment, and disrupts consciousness. Caring for a patient with a neurodegenerative (...) brain disease requires constant reminding and reiteration; the presence of a caring person reminds of what the patient themselves can no longer remember. Lost memories do not mean that life or relational values have also lost their meaning. The description of the memory movement emphasizes the importance of repetition in the moral act. Highlighting the matter of care, also in scientific work, is the aim of this text. To care is to remember, on behalf of the AD patient, about the patient’s life. Within bioethical research, moral responses are an important point for projects which seek to improve the condition of patients—not only the condition of health but also the comfort of life. This improvement will not be possible without attentive, committed caregivers and their responsible attitude in the face of the phenomenon of memory loss. (shrink)

Maksymilian Del Mar’s Artefacts of Legal Inquiry. Some reflections This contribution explores Maksymilian Del Mar’s Artefacts of Legal Inquiry by posing several questions and an objection. First, I celebrate the role that Del Mar awards for hesitation and experimentation in adjudication, but I question, at the same time, whether it can backfire regarding the accountability to which judges and legislators are subjected. Next, I wonder about the author’s position with regards to the dangers of affective participation in the law, as (...) well as regarding the obstacles to true listening in adjudication. Then, I address Del Mar’s proposal to use of ‘figures’ in legal inquiry, and ask whether that can somehow imply that we, in turn, approach the defendants’ character in problematic ways. Finally, this contribution ends with an objection to Del Mar’s approach to the cognitive theory of language, and specifically with respect to metaphors, in legal studies. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to offer a reading of Judith Butler’s understanding of the precarious, the notion which gives rise to her particular understanding of precarity. The first part of the article discusses the transition from the theory of performativity to the theory of precarity and claims that the body provides the link between a performative act and a precarious life. The second part scrutinizes the idea of the precarious as it appears in conjunction with life. Precariousness and (...) precarity are related to dispossessability and dispossession, and to a politically induced inequality. The article concludes with a claim that the notion of the precarious offers itself as a possible point of departure for an entirely different conceptualization of equality, and as a strong basis for coalitional action or collective struggle. The specific positioning of the body and the political desire for radical equality in Butler’s thought makes theories of performativity and precarity interrelated. (shrink)

This paper analyses how the Cold War influenced the discourses on basic research and on Science and Technology Policies of some leaders of the Argentine research community. It explores two key intersections to study the Cold War: the first between politics and policies; the second between the global and the regional/national. The basic assumption is that, just as there was no one Cold War, specific regional and national traits lent specific meanings to basic research. In dialogue with the literature on (...) Latin American history of STPs, on Cold War and on the conceptual history of science, the paper identifies three discursive configurations around S&T: the first refers to the semi-peripheral scientific context; the second is associated with the ‘democracy-totalitarianism’ dichotomy, and the third is linked to the ‘development-dependence’ dichotomy. Finally, the paper also traces some connections between these discourses and the institutional models proposed by different key actors of the research community to implement STPs. (shrink)

For Porphyry, the human being is a compound of soul, its divine and immortal part, which represents the essence of man, and body, its perishable part, that is only the image of the soul, its headquarters and sensitive instrument. Man can achieve happiness only by a spiritual life, according to its nature, a life free of physical needs as much as it is possible. The methods used in this sense imply the weakening of the link between mind and body. In (...) this way the soul of man returns to the sky, meaning the sphere of God, which is its native country. (shrink)

In disagreement with Claudia Baracchi’s controversial thesis that there is a “simultaneity and indissolubility” if not an “identity” of intelligence (nous) and perception (aisthēsis) at the core of Aristotle’s philosophy, I will argue that Aristotle maintains a fundamental distinction between these cognitive faculties. My goal in this paper is to examine specific parts of two central and complex passages, VI.8, 1142a12-30 and VI.11, 1143a33-b15, from the Nicomachean Ethics to show that Baracchi’s view is unpersuasive. I will show that Aristotle considers (...) nous to be a different capacity than mere perception and one through which particulars and indemonstrable principles become intelligible. Moreover, I will show that Aristotle considers that the objects of nous differ in kind from those that sensation (our senses) and perception (inference from our senses) grasp. After examining critically Baracchi’s thesis in light of a close reading of those two relevant passages, I will conclude the paper by showing the significance of Aristotle’s claim that a state is defined in terms of its objects of apprehension for understanding the distinction between nous and aisthēsis. (shrink)

The article scrutinizes Foucault’s articulations of resistance, arguing against the entrenched understanding that resistance in Foucault is necessarily negative, or impossible. We concentrate on a specific period of his work, situated between the disciplinary phase and the beginning of the 1980s when Foucault began to develop the idea of the aesthetic of existence. We argue that in this period Foucault developed the notion of resistance as agentic, lived and possible, through three interrelated concepts. These are reverse discourse, counter-conduct and the (...) critical attitude, elaborated in The History of Sexuality Vol. 1, the course Security, Territory, Population and the lecture ‘What is Critique?’. The link between these concepts is provided by the effect they produce, captured by Foucault’s understanding of desubjectivation. Our claim is that Foucault reorients his work towards studying subjectivity through articulating resistance as desubjectivation. The main claim of the article is that Foucault not only allows for the possibility of resistance, but that his attempts to calibrate what it may mean to resist led him to fine-tune his understanding of power. Foucault arrived at power as subjection through the gradual development of resistance as desubjectivation. (shrink)

Higher-order theories of consciousness typically account for introspection in terms of one's higher-order thoughts being conscious, which would require a third-order thought — i.e.a thought about a thought about a mental state. In this work, we offer an alternative account of introspection that builds on the recent HigherOrder Representation of a Representation (HOROR) theory of phenomenal consciousness. According to HOROR theory, phenomenal consciousness consists in having the right kind of higher-order representation. We claim that this theory can be extended to (...) introspection by recognizing that there is a distinctive kind of consciousness — i.e. introspective consciousness — which can be accounted for as the theory does for phenomenal consciousness generally. We call this novel view: Higher-Order Representation Intentionally For Introspective Consciousness (HORIFIC). We argue that there are independent reasons for thinking that introspective consciousness can be either 'stimuli-induced' or 'self-triggered' and that one of the benefits of the view we develop is that it can embrace a pluralist approach. Our view also accounts for what specific mental state is represented by a particular higher-order representation, and for the way in which we are aware of changes, transitions, and boundaries between mental states in specific cases of introspective consciousness. (shrink)

Little is known about the views of mothers when their children are invited to participate in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) investigating medicines and/or invasive procedures. Our goal was to understand mothers’ perceptions of the processes of informed consent and randomization in a RCT that divided uncooperative children into three intervention groups (physical restraint, sedation, and general anesthesia) for dental rehabilitation.

Volvemos sobre la tesis salazariana según la cual la cultura peruana y latinoamericana puede ser caracterizada como "cultura de la dominación", con el propósito de ponerla en relación con desarrollos, que el mismo autor realiza en textos posteriores a la publicación del polémico libro titulado ¿Existe una filosofía de nuestra América?. Desarrollos a través de los cuales será posible despejar la pregunta por la función social de la filosofía, seguir de cerca su caracterización de la "cultura de la dominación" y (...) comprender las categorías dicotómicas "dominación / liberación" en el marco de una peculiar tensión dialéctica. Todos estos elementos convergen en su formulación de un humanismo emergente. We turn back on the salazarian thesis according to which the Peruvian and Latin-American culture can be characterized as "culture of domination", for the purpose of positioning it in relation with developments, which the same author carries out in texts after the publication of the controversial book entitled ¿Existe una filosofía de nuestra América?. Developments across which it will be possible to clear the question for the social function of philosophy, to closely follow his characterization of the "culture of domination" and to understand the dichotomous categories "domination/liberation" in the context of a peculiar dialectic tension. All these elements converge on his formulation of an emerging humanism. (shrink)