O presente trabalho analisa o itinerário do ensino de filosofia no Brasil, analisando o percurso da ausência desta disciplina nos currículos escolares, até a recente obrigatoriedade legal, que fundamenta a criação de propostas tais como a do Programa Institucional de Bolsas de Iniciação à Docência (PIBID). Abordamos os objetivos e os resultados do programa desenvolvido na Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), contextualizando as ações empreendidas na escola pública, desde 2010, tendo como enfoque o projeto Filosofia na Cozinha.

Some postulates are introduced to go from the classical Hamilton-Jacobi theory to the quantum one. We develop two approaches in order to calculate propagators, establishing the connection between them and showing the equivalence of this picture with more known ones such as the Schrödinger's and the Feynman's formalisms. Applications of the above-mentioned approaches to both the standard case of the harmonic oscillator and to the harmonic oscillator with time-dependent parameters are made.

RESUMO O presente artigo parte de várias considerações de Bakhtin a respeito do discurso romanesco a fim de compreender alguns aspectos discursivos do Dom Quixote, de Miguel de Cervantes. Procede-se, então, a uma comparação com o discurso de outra obra que reproduz parcialmente o Dom Quixote: o conto Pierre Menard, autor do Quixote, de Jorge Luis Borges. Por fim, discute-se brevemente o problema da quase ausência do Dom Quixote nas discussões de Bakhtin sobre o romance, apresentando-se a hipótese de Walter (...) Reed de que, tal como no conto de Borges, a própria teoria bakhtiniana também reproduz parcialmente o peculiar pensamento do Quixote. ABSTRACT This article discusses several of Bakhtin’s concepts regarding discourse in the novel genre as a way to understand some discursive aspects of Miguel de Cervantes’ Dom Quixote. We then proceed to a comparison with the discourse in another literary work that partially reproduces Dom Quixote: the short story “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” by Jorge Luis Borges. Finally, we briefly discuss the problem of Dom Quixote’s almost absence in Bakhtin’s work about the novel genre, while presenting the hypothesis by Walter Reed that, as in Borges’ short story, Bakhtin’s theory itself also partially reproduces the Quixote’s particular way of thinking. (shrink)

Este artigo visa analisar indícios verbo-visuais de episódios de mal-estar enunciados por alunos que integram turmas da modalidade Educação de Jovens Adultos (EJA) em uma escola do interior baiano. Dedicamo-nos, especialmente, a compreender como os sujeitos semiotizam situações de embaraço social vivenciadas em salas de aula e(m) seus (d)efeitos. Como referencial teórico, partimos de pressupostos da Análise Dialógica do Discurso, da Clínica da Atividade e de outras categorias discursivas para lermos, a partir de uma dimensão axiológica, o corpus que é (...) composto por duas biograficzines. A análise dos dados registra que os (res)sentimentos dos discentes, que se deixam materializar em termos verbo-visuais, deflagram situações que ilustram a complexidade de dinâmicas que perfazem interações didáticas no ambiente escolar. Trabalhos como o nosso contribuem para tensionar a realidade escolar-profissional possibilitando a exploração de outros ângulos de nossas atividades como sujeitos sociais. (shrink)

Este artigo visa analisar modos de axiologizar o bem-estar na escola em enunciados produzidos por alunos do 9º ano do ensino fundamental de uma escola municipal do interior baiano. Interessa-nos, especialmente, compreender como os sujeitos semiotizam, em seus enunciados, o que consideram o evento mais marcante de suas experiências ao longo dos anos finais do ensino fundamental e o que isso nos informa sobre os valores ali mobilizados relativos ao papel social e institucional da escola e(m) suas modalidades de convivência (...) intersubjetiva. As análises destacam que as memórias verbo-visualmente materializadas não se limitam a registros, abrigados na consciência, mas são repositórios de experiências afetivas de e em diversos cronotopos. O fato de as memórias apresentadas recobrirem diferentes eventos interacionais oferecem-nos uma visão crítica dos estudantes de como percebem e matizam complexidades das interações por eles rememoradas e enunciadas. Trabalhos, como o nosso, que se interessam pelos afetamentos de alunos, contribuem, localmente, para que o contexto escolar seja (re)(des)coberto, tensionando como percepções sociais são semiotizadas em horizontes apreciativos de experiências. (shrink)

As experiências formativas realizadas ao longo do Itinerário Franciscano revelam que a reflexão sobre a Pedagogia Franciscana e o respectivo papel dos educadores nas instituições franciscanas, deve ser constante e em interlocução com a prática, visando ações que caracterizam a educação pautada em princípios, valores e atitudes. Logo, é preciso conhecer e aprofundar a vida de São Francisco de Assis além dos conhecimentos sobre o humanismo franciscano, de forma que os valores do mesmo estejam entrelaçados com os valores pessoais, tornando-se (...) alicerces para a prática pedagógica. (shrink)

Enquanto o relativismo cultural predominante na antropologia moderna compreendia a diversidade das culturas do mundo pela sua relação com uma única natureza de fundo, apresentando assim sua face etnocêntrica ao arrogar-se o acesso privilegiado à Natureza universal, o "relativismo natural" (Latour, 1994) considera a existência de naturezas tão diversas quanto as culturas que as constroem. Porém, a exemplo do que sabemos pela voz de Davi Kopenawa (Kopenawa & Albert, 2015), a catástrofe ambiental antropogênica eminente atinge não apenas a Natureza enquanto (...) construto da cosmologia ocidental, mas também incide sobre as naturezas de outros povos, outros coletivos com seus próprios arranjos cosmológicos. Este problema arrisca conduzir-nos a uma questão viciada, a de nos perguntarmos qual é a Natureza comum a todos os diferentes povos atingidos pela catástrofe ambiental. Identificamos, porém, esta questão como falsa quando reconhecemos que as categorias universalistas do pensamento ocidental entram em crise no Antropoceno. Compreendemos então que, no trato das questões antropológicas e filosóficas da crise ambiental, de modo a evitar o recurso a ideais etnocêntricos, precisamos suspender a procura por unívocos (Viveiros de Castro, 2004) e redirecionarmos a busca pelo espaço comum da catástrofe ao espaço virtual da equivocação enquanto dimensão das relações interculturais de modo a conservar as diferenças e potencializar a tradução antropológica. (shrink)

Através da presença de vestígios da cultura pop anglófila na ilha de Cuba, aciona-se pensar as contradições em torno dos fãs de música pop em Havana, que, a despeito de toda tradição revolucionária do regime de governo cubano, instaurado por Fidel Castro na Revolução Cubana, ostentam ícones da cultura norte-americana em seu cotidiano. A maneira com que os fãs de artistas como Madonna e Lady Gaga, por exemplo, adquirem produtos de seus ídolos, a lógica da pirataria como forma de (...) contato com o “exterior” e a maneira com que conectam os artistas a um certo imaginário de resistência, posiciona os fãs de música pop em Cuba num singular lugar de reflexão sobre a ampliação do conceito de Nação. (shrink)

Bringing allegory into the light from the neglect into which it fell means focusing on the wondrous heights of the human spirit in its significance for culture. Contemporary philosophies and literary theories, which give pre-eminence to primary linguistics forms (symbol and metaphor), seem to favor just that which makes intelligible communication possible. But they fall short in accounting for the deepest subliminal founts that prompt the mind to exalt in beauty, virtue, transcending aspiration. The present, rich collection shows how allegory, (...) incorporating the soaring of the spirit, offers highlights for culture, with its fluctuations and transformation. This collective effort, rich in ideas and intuitions and covering a vast range of cultural manifestations, is a pioneering work, retrieving the vision of the exalted human spirit, bringing together literature, theatre, music and painting in a variety of revealing perspectives. The authors include: M. Kronegger, Ch. Raffini, J. Smith, J.B. Williamson, H. Ross, M.F. Wagner, F. Divorne, L. Oppenheim, D.K. Heckerl, N. Campi de Castro, P. Saurez Pascual, M. Alfaro Amieiro, H. Fletcher Thompson, R.J. Wilson III, and A. Stensaas. For specialists, students and workers in philosophy, comparative literature, aesthetic phenomenologists and historians of art. (shrink)

Recently, there has been much discussion of ‘fair machine learning’: fairness in data-driven decision-making systems (which are often, though not always, made with assistance from machine learning systems). Notorious impossibility results show that we cannot have everything we want here. Such problems call for careful thinking about the foundations of fair machine learning. Sune Holm has identified one promising way forward, which involves applying John Broome's theory of fairness to the puzzles of fair machine learning. Unfortunately, his application of Broome's (...) theory appears to be fatally flawed. This article attempts to rescue Holm's central insight – namely, that Broome's theory can be useful to the study of fair machine learning – by giving an alternative application of Broome's theory, which involves thinking about fair machine learning in counterfactual (as opposed to merely statistical) terms. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss the role played by Plato in The Birth of Tragedy and the extent to which Nietzsche's position in this work would have an echo in his Lectures on Plato, presented from 1871 to 1876 at the University of Basel. It analyzes Plato's image as someone who, being both a philosopher and an artist, allows us to bring into question the assumed boundaries between art and philosophy, while also making us think whether the (...) arising philosophy in Greece could be thought of as a form of art that denies itself from within. (shrink)

The demands of fair machine learning are often expressed in probabilistic terms. Yet, most of the systems of concern are deterministic in the sense that whether a given subject will receive a given score on the basis of their traits is, for all intents and purposes, either zero or one. What, then, can justify this probabilistic talk? We argue that the statistical reference classes used in fairness measures can be understood as defining the probability that hypothetical persons, who are representative (...) of social roles, will receive certain goods. We call these hypothetical persons “representative individuals.” We claim that what we owe to actual, concrete individuals—whose individual chances of receiving the good in the system might be extreme (i.e., either zero or one)—is that their representative individual has an appropriate probability of receiving the good in question. While less immediately intuitive than other approaches, we argue that the representative individual approach has important advantages over other ways of making sense of this probabilistic talk in the context of fair machine learning. (shrink)

The empirical relationship between a firm’s social performance and its financial performance is still not well established in the literature. Despite more than 30 years of research and more than 100 empirical studies on the issue, the results are still mixed. We argue that the heterogeneous results found in previous studies are not due exclusively to problems related with the measurement instruments or the samples used. Instead, we posit that a more fundamental problem related with the endogeneity of social strategic (...) decisions could be driving most of the empirical findings. We show that, using a panel data of 658 firms from 1991 to 2005, how some of the results found in previous research change, and some are even reversed when endogeneity is properly taken into account. (shrink)

The týpos of alternative poetry that Plato starts to delineate in the last part of Republic II can be reduced to two general norms (nómoi) that aim to regulate the treatment of religious aspects in poetic narrations and at the same time establish the bases of a non-anthropomorphic theology that inst..

This paper aims to present an approach to Frege and Husserl’s theories of meaning in order to integrate meaning in the broader context of intentionality. Intentionality and reference are two notions with affinities, despite their pertaining to different but not separated areas... When comparing Frege and Husserl’s theories of meaning and intentionality we may provide a fruitful and enriching perspective: some problems and concepts of Husserl’s thought may be elucidated if confronted with those of Frege. On the other hand, Husserl’s (...) theories of meaning and intentionality provide a broader and far-reaching scope to Frege’s ideas on meaning.. Husserl’s concept of intentionality provides a new perspective which allows to overcome some of the impasses of Frege’s theory of meaning. (shrink)

Este artigo busca, a partir da visão de Hannah Arendt e Giorgio Agamben, compreender os conceitos de modernidade e campo. Para tanto, partimos da interpretação agambeniana de que seria possível traçar uma distinção conceitual entre os termos gregos zoé e bíos, isto é, entre a vida natural e a vida política. Essa perspectiva teórica auxilia a fundamentar as compreensões da modernidade realizadas tanto por Arendt quanto por Agamben, posto que ambos percebem nesse período o advento de uma indistinção entre o (...) que é do âmbito público e do privado, subvertendo a diferença entre vida natural e vida política e, junto a isso, levando tanto a uma decadência da esfera pública quanto a uma reconfiguração da esfera privada. A confusão e esvaziamento destes dois âmbitos da existência proporcionará que governos totalitários se utilizem da vida nua, para Agamben, e da promoção do animal laborans, segundo Arendt, como forma de manutenção do seu próprio domínio na contemporaneidade. Seguindo a interpretação de Agamben, a esta estratégia se denomina biopolítica, isto é, uma política sobre a vida das populações. Este trabalho tem como objetivo definir o campo como condicionado pela modernidade europeia a partir do uso da vida nua como centro do poder soberano, fazendo uma relação com o conceito de animal laborans, de Hannah Arendt. Para isto, será realizada uma pesquisa bibliográfica a partir, principalmente, de duas obras: A condição humana, de Hannah Arendt, e O poder soberano e a vida nua I, de Giorgio Agamben. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer a version of the so-called conversational hypothesis of the ontogenetic connection between language and mindreading (Harris 1996, 2005; Van Cleave and Gauker 2010; Hughes et al. 2006). After arguing against a particular way of understanding the hypothesis (the communicative view), I will start from the justificatory view in philosophy of social cognition (Andrews 2012; Hutto 2004; Zawidzki 2013) to make the case for the idea that the primary function of belief and desire (...) attributions is to justify and normalize deviant patterns of behaviour. Following this framework, I elaborate upon the idea that development of folk psychological skills requires the subjects to engage in conversationally mediated joint and cooperative activities in order to acquire the conceptual capacity of ascribing propositional attitudes. After presenting the general version of the hypothesis, I present several testable sub-hypotheses and some psychological studies that give empirical plausibility to the hypothesis. (shrink)

The vast expansion of research in human-robot interactions (HRI) these last decades has been accompanied by the design of increasingly skilled robots for engaging in joint actions with humans. However, these advances have encountered significant challenges to ensure fluent interactions and sustain human motivation through the different steps of joint action. After exploring current literature on joint action in HRI, leading to a more precise definition of these challenges, the present article proposes some perspectives borrowed from psychology and philosophy showing (...) the key role of communication in human interactions. From mutual recognition between individuals to the expression of commitment and social expectations, we argue that communicative cues can facilitate coordination, prediction, and motivation in the context of joint action. The description of several notions thus suggests that some communicative capacities can be implemented in the context of joint action for HRI, leading to an integrated perspective of robotic communication. (shrink)

Resumo O objetivo deste artigo é sintetizar os principais elementos do confronto entre o pensamento do teólogo reformado Karl Barth e o do filósofo alemão Ludwig Feuerbach com relação aos temas da religião, teologia e antropologia, que na abordagem de ambos apresentam conexão direta. Para tanto, este estudo inicia-se com uma panorâmica apresentação feuerbachiana da interpretação antropológica da teologia e religião, particularmente a partir de sua obra mais famosa “A Essência do Cristianismo”, que conduz às suas conclusões de ataque à (...) teologia e re-significação da função da religião. A seguir, a reação de Barth às idéias de Feuerbach são contempladas, a partir de sua visão teológica teocêntrica. Nesse sentido, há a exposição de duas fases da reação barthiana ao pensamento de Feuerbach. Na primeira delas Barth apresenta certos elementos de concordância e aproveitamento das noções feuerbachinas, ao passo que na segunda fase a discordância é total. Em suas conclusões o artigo aponta que o debate entre Barth e Feuerbach gira em torno da idéia de reducionismo teológico ou religioso, tão presente nos debates epistemológicos dos estudos em Ciências da Religião. Palavras-chave : Barth; Feuerbach; teologia; religião; antropologia.This article aims to summarize the main elements of the confrontation between the reformed theologian Karl Barth’s conception and the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach’s thought concerning religion, theology and anthropology, which maintain straight connection in both approaches. For so much, this study begins with a feuerbachian panoramic presentation of the anthropological interpretation of theology and religion, particularly from his most famous work “The Essence of the Christianity”, which leads to his conclusions of attack upon theology and a re-signification of the function of religion. Thereafter, Barth’s reaction to Feuerbach’s ideas is discussed from his theocentric theological perspective. In this sense, there is an exposure of two phases of barthian reaction to Feuerbach. Firstly Barth presents topics of agreement with feuerbachian notions, while in the second phase the disagreement is total. Among the article’s conclusions there is an indication that the Barth-Feuerbach debate deals with religious or theological reductionism, usually present in epistemological discussions on Religious Studies. Key words : Barth; Feuerbach; theology; religion; anthropology. (shrink)

A widespread view in philosophy claims that inner speech is closely tied to human metacognitive capacities. This so-called format view of inner speech considers that talking to oneself allows humans to gain access to their own mental states by forming metarepresentation states through the rehearsal of inner utterances (section 2). The aim of this paper is to present two problems to this view (section 3) and offer an alternative view to the connection between inner speech and metacognition (section 4). According (...) to this alternative, inner speech (meta)cognitive functions derivate from the set of commitments we mobilize in our communicative exchanges. After presenting this commitment-based approach, I address two possible objections (section 5). (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore the role commitments may play in shaping our sense of joint agency. First, we propose that commitments may contribute to the generation of the sense of joint agency by stabilizing expectations and improving predictability. Second, we argue that commitments have a normative element that may bolster an agent's sense of control over the joint action and help counterbalance the potentially disruptive effects of asymmetries among agents. Finally, we discuss how commitments may contribute (...) to make acting jointly emotionally rewarding, both by improving coordination and by inducing or reinforcing the circumstances under which shared emotions emerge among co-agents. (shrink)

Starting from Proust’s distinction between the self-attributive and self-evaluative views on metacognition, this paper presents a third view: self-mindshaping. Based on the notion of mindshaping as the core of social cognition, the self-mindshaping view contends that mindshaping abilities can be turned on one’s own mind. Against the self-attributive view, metacognition is not a matter of accessing representations to metarepresent them but of giving shape to those representations themselves. Against the self-evaluative view, metacognition is not blind to content but relies heavily (...) on it. We characterize our view in terms of four issues that, according to Proust, distinguish the previous approaches, namely, whether metacognitive mechanisms are the same as those employed to access other minds, whether metacognitive control requires conceptual representation, whether metacognition is propositional, and whether metacognitive access is linked to mental action. After describing some of the mechanisms for self-mindshaping, we show how this view regards metacognition as grounded on social interaction mechanisms, conceptually driven, possibly, but not necessarily, propositional, and engaged in the practical regulation of mental states. Finally, we examine the prospects for the primacy of self-mindshaping as the primary metacognitive function. We argue that self-attributive processes typically subserve the practical goals emphasized by the mindshaping view, and that the evaluative role played by procedural metacognition can be grounded on social cues rather than on experiential feelings. Even if this is not enough to claim the primacy of self-mindshaping, it still appears as a third kind of metacognition, not reducible to the other two. (shrink)

Senhor Director da Faculdade, Senhora Professora, Senhores Professores, caro Dr. Alfredo Caldeira, minhas Senhoras e meus Senhores, meus caros Amigos: Para a Fundação Mário Soares, é realmente um grande gosto, um estímulo e extremamente importante ter uma ligação como esta com a Universidade Nova. Nós temos vindo a colaborar com a Universidade Nova, estamos a fazer cursos de história contemporânea sucessivos – acabámos o último há poucas semanas – e temos vindo a publicar os livros, embora co...

This paper takes the view that compensated donation and altruism are not incompatible. In particular, it holds that the arguments against giving compensation stand on weak rational grounds: the charge that compensation fosters “commodification” has neither been specific enough to account for different types of monetary transactions nor sufficiently grounded in reality to be rationally convincing; although altruism is commendable, organ donors should not be compelled to act purely on the basis of altruistic motivations, especially if there are good reasons (...) to believe that significantly more lives can be saved and enhanced if incentives are put in place, and offering compensation for organs does not necessarily lead to exploitation—on the contrary, it may be regarded as a necessity in efforts to minimise the level of exploitation that already exists in current organ procurement systems. (shrink)

The article assumes that the expression “comparative relativism”—the title of the Common Knowledge symposium in which the essay appears—is neither tautological nor oxymoronic. Rather, the author construes the term as an apt synthetic characterization of anthropology and illustrates that idea by means of four quotations, taken from authors as different as Richard Rorty and David Schneider, Marcel Mauss and Henri Michaux. The quotations can be said to “exemplify” anthropology in terms that are interestingly (and diversely) restrictive: some of them amount (...) to extrinsic negations of anthropology that would paralyze it; others suggest intrinsic negativities that would propel it. All of the passages chosen evoke the idea of belief, which is profoundly implicated, in all possible senses (and especially the worse ones), in the majority of arguments that connect the themes of anthropology, comparison, and relativism. (shrink)

No debate teórico sobre a empatia, há uma recente renovação do interesse pelo modelo husserliano. Após uma análise prévia sobre o lugar da empatia na fenomenologia transcendental, propõe-se uma investigação sobre como Husserl desenvolveu sua perspectiva, a partir de dois textos, em especial, nas Ideias II (Hua 4) e na Fenomenologia da Intersubjetividade (Hua 13, 14 e 15). Avalia-se inicialmente, nas Ideias II, qual é o papel da empatia, na constituição da realidade anímica. Em seguida, propõe-se, a partir da Fenomenologia (...) da Intersubjetividade, uma análise sobre como Husserl desenvolveu os argumentos da apercepção analógica e do emparelhamento originário. A noção de emparelhamento surge por volta de 1927, em conexão com os estudos de Husserl sobre a síntese passiva e o aprofundamento sobre a fenomenologia genética. A fenomenologia da empatia torna-se, para Husserl, o fundamento de uma monadologia “com janelas”. (shrink)

Norms play a crucial role in governing human societies. From an early age, humans possess an innate understanding of norms, recognizing certain behaviours, contexts, and roles as being governed by them. The evolution of normativity has been linked to its contribution to the promotion of cooperation in large groups and is intertwined with the development of joint intentionality. However, there is no evolutionary consensus on what normatively differentiated our hominin ancestors from the phylogenetic lineage leading to chimpanzees and bonobos. Here (...) we propose that the development of teaching through a process of evaluative feedback between parent and offspring functioned as a prerequisite for the later development of normativity. Parents approve or disapprove of offspring’s behaviours based on their own learned knowledge of what is appropriate or inappropriate. We argue our proposition using a simple model of cultural transmission, which shows the adaptive advantage offered by these elementary forms of teaching. We show that an important part of this adaptive advantage can arise from the benefits derived from guidance about which behaviours to adopt or reject. We propose that this type of guidance has fundamental elements that characterise the normative world. We complete our argument by reviewing several studies that examine the emergence of normativity in young children without prior exposure to a normative framework with respect to the behaviours under analysis. We suggest that this normativity is best interpreted as manifestations of teaching among young children rather than as norm recognition among early normative children. (shrink)

A patient’s age serves as a very useful guide to physicians in deciding what disease manifestations to anticipate, what treatment to offer for certain conditions, and how to prepare for possible emergencies. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, determining treatment options on the basis of a patient’s chronological age can easily give rise to unjustified discrimination. This is of particular significance in situations where the allocation of scarce critical care resources could have a direct impact on who will live (...) and who will die. This paper examines the fairness of recommendations contained in resource allocation guidelines in the Philippines that have implications for the way elderly patients could be treated or excluded from some forms of critical care treatment in the context of the ongoing Corona virus emergency. (shrink)

To advance the task of designing robots capable of performing collective tasks with humans, studies in human–robot interaction often turn to psychology, philosophy of mind and neuroscience for inspiration. In the same vein, this chapter explores how the notion of recognition and commitment can help confront some of the current problems in addressing robot-human interaction in joint tasks. First, we argue that joint actions require mutual recognition, which cannot be established without the attribution and maintenance of commitments. Second, we argue (...) that commitments require affective states such as social motivations or shared emotions. Finally, we conclude by assessing three possible proposals for how social robotics could implement an architecture of commitments by taking such an affective components into consideration. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present a challenge to the received view in folk psychology. According to this challenge, the semantic assumption behind the received view, which considers that propositional attitude ascriptions are descriptions of the internal causally efficacious states underlying behavior, cannot account for the main function of reasons in terms of mental states.

This paper assesses two different approaches to inner speech that can be found in the literature. One of them regards inner speech as a vehicle of conscious thought. The other holds that inner speech is better characterised as an activity derived from social uses of its outer counterpart. In this paper I focus on the explanatory power of each approach to account for the control of attention and behaviour in the context of executive tasks. I will argue that the vehicle (...) view cannot capture some central cases of inner speech in executive tasks because they cannot be described as cases of bringing thought into consciousness. Then I will offer a revised version of the activity view and I will apply it to some examples so as to show that it is better posited to account for them. I end by considering two objections to the activity view and a possible way to address them. (shrink)

I criticize the widely accepted “practical” interpretation of the universality test contained in Kant’s first formula of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals – the formula of the universal law of nature. I argue that this interpretation does not work for contradictions in conception because it wrongly takes contradictions in the will as the model for them and, as a consequence, cannot establish a clear distinction between the two kinds of contradiction. This interpretation also assumes (...) an understanding of universality that departs from Kant’s own and, cannot, for this reason, capture the kind of contradiction that he explicitly claims to establish. I provide an alternative interpretation, which I call revised logical interpretation, that allows us to account for contradictions in conception, including those examples that the practical interpretation cannot handle, as well as to establish a clear distinction between the two kinds of contradiction. (shrink)

Is there an Asian Bioethics? Some people might consider it blasphemous even to ask this question. But this paper asks it not so much to seek an answer as to clarify what it could actually mean. The idea is to sort out the presuppositions and possible implications of asserting the existence of an Asian bioethics. In the end, this paper makes the following points: (1) In the attempt to assert an Asian identity, one must be careful not to commit the (...) mistake of universalizing (among Asians) a single Asian perspective; and (2) In the face of pluralism and multi‐culturalism, there is some room for a kind of universalist ethics that is founded on a collage of culturally inspired perspectives rather than on a single standard of morality. (shrink)

This article aims to establish a line of continuity between John Dewey’s democratic and educational ideals and the practice of action research, to justify that the latter affords an adequate means to enact Dewey’s ideals against the destructive challenges that neoliberalism poses to democracy today. This aim involves three ideas that will be developed in three corresponding sections. After the Introduction, the first section analyzes at length the main tenets of Dewey’s thoughts about democracy by emphasizing the role of the (...) educational dimension. The article then approaches neoliberalism by focusing on one of its variants, New Public Management, and explains why the latter implies a direct erasure of Dewey’s ideals concerning democracy, individual growth, education, and social advancement. Finally, the third section turns to action research and its potential to encourage our societies to move closer to Dewey’s democratic ideals, and suggests that action research can begin to fill the gap that Dewey’s work left concerning the institutional dimension of democracy. (shrink)