Polyphony of Anxiety. The Interview with Stefano Micali about His Book Phenomenology of Anxiety.

Artykuł omawia kategorię odosobnienia (Gelassenheit, Abgeschiedenheit) Mistrza Eckharta jako propozycję etyczną. W pierwszej części artykułu autorka omawia kwestie metodologiczne oraz translatorskie. Następnie przedstawiony zostaje kontekst teologii apofatycznej, w którym Eckhart wprowadza pojęcie odosobnienia. Trzecia i czwarta część została poświęcona ideałowi ubóstwa oraz teorii cnoty. Autorka pokazuje w jaki sposób pojęcie odosobnienia może być odczytywane jako przede wszystkim postulat z zakresu filozofii moralnej.

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)

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)

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)

Adriana Novoa and Alex Levine offer here a history and interpretation of the reception of Darwinism in Argentina, illuminating the ways culture shapes ...

In order to understand how the environment influences business owner/managers’ attitudes towards tax morale, we build a theoretical model based on a neo-institutionalist framework. Our model combines three complementary perspectives on institutions—normative, cultural–cognitive and regulatory–instrumental. This enables a broader understanding of factors that influence business owner–managers’ attitudes towards tax evasion. We test the resulting hypotheses using regression analysis on survey data on business owner/managers in Latvia—a transition country, which has undergone massive institutional changes since it was part of the Soviet (...) Union over 25 years ago. We find that legitimacy of the tax authorities and the government, feeling of belonging to the nation and perceptions of the risk and severity of punishment are all associated with higher tax morale for business owners and managers. (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.

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)

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)

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)

Se abordará el concepto de democracia como un derecho humano progresivo e interdependiente, que posee como fundamento y base al sufragio como una de las condiciones mínimas, en un Estado constitucional que se jacte de contar con una correcta división de poderes y derechos humanos. Así, en el presente trabajo se planteará y demostrará que el goce y disfrute del derecho humano a la democracia son indivisibles en un proyecto de vida y desarrollo pleno de la persona, más no exclusivo (...) del ciudadano, con lo cual se dignifica al ser humano a través de la dialéctica, la participación ciudadana y la deliberación en la solución de sus conflictos sociales, haciendo gala de su derecho a la igualdad y a la libertad. Lo propuesto se hará mediante el enfoque teórico-conceptual, que retoma los preceptos y elementos de la democracia, a través de la metodología de un análisis documental. Con esto, se concluirá que la democracia es un concepto abstraído netamente procedimental y exclusivo de la ciudadanía, más no de todas, todos y todes las personas, lo que impide una participación ciudadana responsable y consciente de su proyecto de vida. (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)

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)

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)

The main purpose of this study is the scientific practice of Edgard Roquette-Pinto at the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro during the 1910’s and 1920’s in the XXth Century. The article examines the relationship between laboratory science and nation building. Driven by Physicians-Anthropologists like Edgard Roquette-Pinto among others, the investigations performed at the Anthropology Laboratory there reveal the dynamic of the borders between Laboratory and Field Sciences, and the new biological parameters adopted at that time. The investigative agenda involved (...) plants, animals and human bodies, and it was related to the current Anthropology concept aligned with the debate of Nation construction. The physiological studies amplified the scientific exchange with different institutions, emphasizing cultural exchange between Brazil and Paraguay, and the role played by Edgard Roquette-Pinto there as he inaugurated the Physiological course at Faculty of Medicine at University of Asunción. (shrink)

This article makes an analysis on the role of Jornadinhas Nacionais de Literatura de Passo Fundo, with emphasis on representations of its 4th edition, built by children of 10 years, from the middle class of RS – Ijuí, students of a private school in same municipality. Testimonies of these children are examined at four different times in the light of the Aesthetics of Reception and the Sociology of Reading. The four stages are called placements, a methodology created by Judith Langer (...) and used in this analysis. Thus, this discussion seeks to understand how to make the experience of reading and living of the children mentioned in that moment, in the process of building the 4ª Jornadinha Nacional de Literatura, they intersect and provide representation for the target audience of this work.Este artigo faz uma análise do papel das Jornadinhas Nacionais de Literatura de Passo Fundo, com ênfase nas representações da sua 4ª edição, construídas por crianças de 10 anos de idade, provenientes da classe média de Ijuí – RS, estudantes de uma escola particular no mesmo município. São examinados depoimentos dessas crianças em quatro momentos diferentes, à luz da Estética da Recepção e da Sociologia da Leitura. Os quatro momentos são chamados posicionamentos, uma metodologia criada por Judith Langer e utilizada nesta análise. Assim, esta reflexão busca compreender como se dão as experiências de leitura e de vida das crianças mencionadas e em que momento, no processo de construção da 4ª Jornadinha Nacional de Literatura, elas se cruzam e propiciam representações para o público-alvo deste trabalho. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo estabelecer as relações entre as habilidades sociais e as vivências acadêmicas necessárias à adaptação ao contexto universitário. A pesquisa foi realizada com 200 estudantes do curso de Psicologia de instituições públicas e privadas. Os dois instrumentos utilizados (IHS-Del Prette, 2001 e QVA de Villar, 2003) foram aplicados em conjunto em consonância com as normas do QVA. Os resultados permitem aÞ rmar que os alunos de instituições públicas apresentam melhor adaptação acadêmica do que os de instituições (...) privadas. Foram encontradas correlações entre adaptação acadêmica e habilidades sociais. Para os alunos de instituições públicas as habilidades sociais se relacionam principalmente com as dimensões pessoal e contextual e para os de instituições particulares, com a dimensão de realização. (shrink)

Jerzy Stempowski and Lev Shestov — existentialism imbued with eastern melancholy. A short history of a friendship: The main objective of this article is to present the friendship between Jerzy Stempowski — Polish writer, essayist and Lev Shestov — Russian writer and philosopher. The article consist of three parts an and short conclusion. In the first part I focus on Stempowski’s predilections for Eastern Europe, and I also explore Stempowski’s complicated, though clearly evident, relation with existentialism. It is in this (...) context that I show both Stempowski’s close affinity with Shestov philosophy, and his evident antipathy to French existentialism. In the second part I attempt to answer the following question: why did Stempowski have such a strong aversion to Albert Camus’ work. In this part of my essay I briefly refer to a Serbian writer and dissident — Mihajlo Mihajlov. In the third part I explore Stempowski’s friendship with Shestov and I also sketch the ideological horizon they both shared. Moreover, I mention Shestov’s presentations at the philosophical conferences in Kraków and Berlin as well as his meeting with Edmund Husserl in Amsterdam. In the short conclusion to my article I suggest that Stempowski’s existentialism is an individual, original project even if his existentialism draws upon most of the major themes in philosophical treatises and literature of existentialism. His “existential project” is based on: 1. reason which rationally orders reality, 2. sympathy towards antirational and prophetic philosophy of Russian thinkers which he analyses from the positions of a professed atheist and 3. deeply-rooted humanistic values. (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)

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)