Vítima, quer do contexto, quer da sua recepção, a obra de Eric Weil (1904-1977), editada entre os anos 50 e 70 do século passado, não tem obtido o devido acolhimento pela comunidade filosófica. Se as interpretações magistrais de Kant (Problèmes kantiens. Paris: Vrin, 1970) e de Hegel (Hegel et l’état. Paris; Vrin, 1950) constituem referências cada vez mais frequentes nos trabalhos da especialidade (os quais persistem, contudo, em ignorar os importantes artigos sobre a filosofia dos dois autor...

Este volume oferece o primeiro conjunto de artigos exclusivamente dedicados à noção de «retomada», tal como a entendeu Eric Weil (1904-1977), escritos por investigadores oriundos de Portugal, França, Brasil, Itália, Roménia, Burkina Faso e Chile. Nascido na Alemanha, Eric Weil foi discípulo de Ernst Cassirer que o orien­tou no estudo dos filósofos do Renascimento, como Pietro Pomponazzi e Marsílio Ficino. Naturalizado francês, após ter sido obrigado a abandonar o país de origem, contra o qual...

Le volume que nous présentons ici est le résultat d’un travail collectif entrepris pour la première fois exclusivement sur la notion de reprise, telle que l’a proposée Eric Weil (1904-1977), par des chercheurs venus du Portugal, de France, du Brésil, d’Italie, de Roumanie, du Burkina Faso et du Chili. Né en Allemagne, Eric Weil a étu­dié avec Ernst Cassirer qui l’a dirigé sur des recherches concernant les philosophes de la Renaissance, comme Pietro Pomponazzi et Marsile Ficin. Naturalisé fran...

O que é posto em comum depende, em grande parte, de processos textuais específi cos que funcionam como condições de possibilidade pragmático-narratológicas da partilha dos sentidos que circulam pelo meio da linguagem. Tal implica que o simples uso corrente da linguagem, ao contrário do que é usual supor, ainda que indispensável, não seja sufi ciente para gerar essa comunidade, pois que nem todos os dispositivos linguísticos estão vocacionados para favorecer a convergência. Neste artigo, pretendemos, por conseguinte, reflectir sobre uma dessas (...) condições, a de que uma nova enunciação, para se tornar comum, tenha sempre de retomar uma versão enunciativa, já consolidada, não apenas formalmente, mas, também, no que respeita a sequências textuais específicas. Para o efeito, estendemos o conceito de retomada que, na filosofia de Eric Weil, surge no âmbito da Lógica da Filosofia, à totalidade da comunicação com pretensão a fazer sentido. Trata-se, portanto, de pensar com Weil, para lá de Weil, num exercício de (in)fidelidade e distanciação que constitui, em si mesmo, uma forma de o retomar. (shrink)

I apply some of the lessons from quantum theory, in particular from Bell’s theorem, to a debate on the foundations of decision theory and causation. By tracing a formal analogy between the basic assumptions of causal decision theory (CDT)—which was developed partly in response to Newcomb’s problem— and those of a local hidden variable theory in the context of quantum mechanics, I show that an agent who acts according to CDT and gives any nonzero credence to some possible causal interpretations (...) underlying quantum phenomena should bet against quantum mechanics in some feasible game scenarios involving entangled systems, no matter what evidence they acquire. As a consequence, either the most accepted version of decision theory is wrong, or it provides a practical distinction, in terms of the prescribed behaviour of rational agents, between some metaphysical hypotheses regarding the causal structure underlying quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Mack critically surveys a range of arguments characteristic of Randian writings in ethics (including Craig Biddle's Loving Life). He focuses on "the Shuffle," a set of argumentative moves in which there is illicit shifting back and forth between causal and conceptual understandings and defenses of claims of the form: Man's survival requires man's behaving in manner X (e.g., being rational, being productive). Mack concludes that much Randian argumentation is deeply flawed and urges admirers to discriminate between Rand's genuine individualist ethical (...) crusade and her line-by-line argumentation, which includes a much too strict identification of man's good with man's survival. (shrink)

The notion of digital virus covers, in our view, two points: computer viruses that infect our computers and technological solutionism, the unreasonable passion that consists in considering that the solution to all social problems lies in the digital world. Yet the digital world is as vulnerable as the biological world. Moreover, it is dangerous because it pushes us into a digital bondage that undermines democracy. The solution to the crisis is not less democracy, but more democracy. More precisely, we will (...) argue that digital devices do not strengthen democratic communication, they promote a digital connection that hinders deliberation and threatens the very idea of democracy. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Thinking Clearly About Death. By Jay F. Rosenberg.

In continuation of [JOH04, OH07], we prove that existentially closed CSA-groups have the independence property. This is done by showing that there exist words having the independence property relative to the class of torsion-free hyperbolic groups.

Natural Goodness, PHILIPPA FOOT. Clarendon Press, 2002, 125 pages. Philippa Foot begins her short but intriguingly rewarding book on Natural Goodness by recounting a story about Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein interrupted a speaker who had realized that he was about to say something that, although it seemed compelling, was clearly ridiculous, and was trying (as we all do in such circumstances) to say something sensible instead. “No,” said Wittgenstein. “Say what you want to say. Be crude and then we shall get on.” (...) (p. 1) So it is no surprise that Natural Goodness itself is full of bold sayings which, although elegantly cast, will shock many readers' philosophical sensibilities. In this discussion of Foot's book I will complete compliance with Wittgenstein's advice by way of a crude attempt to interpret Foot's bold sayings. (shrink)

S’il y a bien une urgence à prendre en charge la crise écologique, comme le reconnaît Arne Naess, on ne voit cependant pas bien de prime abord dans quelle mesure le traitement de cette urgence supposerait une réforme ontologique, une nouvelle philosophie de la nature, et encore moins pourquoi, si l’on se tourne vers le versant éthique de la pensée de Naess, il faudrait s’en remettre, en dernier ressort, à un principe de réalisation de soi. Les réformes pratiques, la modification (...) de nos condui... (shrink)

Two articles on the reduction of chemistry are examined. The first, by McLaughlin (1992), claims that chemistry is reduced to physics and that there is no evidence for emergence or for downward causation between the chemical and the physical level. In a more recent article, Le Poidevin (2005) maintains that his combinatorial approach provides grounding for the ontological reduction of chemistry, which also circumvents some limitations in the physicalist program. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Chemistry and (...) Biochemistry, UCLA, 607 Charles E. Young Drive East, Box 951569, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Colleges and universities already contribute significantly to the fight against climate change, but the UN has recently called upon them to do even more. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that institutions of higher education play a unique role in combatting climate change and other structural injustices, not only by conducting research and disseminating knowledge, but also by fostering a form of collective political responsibility. A philosophical analysis of different forms of collective responsibility, with specific attention to the (...) Fossil Free divestment movement, reveals how social position facilitates this contribution more so in colleges than in other institutions. (shrink)

We investigate whether age profiles of ethnobiological knowledge development are consistent with predictions derived from life history theory about the timing of productivity and reproduction. Life history models predict complementary knowledge profiles developing across the lifespan for women and men as they experience changes in embodied capital and the needs of dependent offspring. We evaluate these predictions using an ethnobiological knowledge assessment tool developed for an off-grid pastoralist population known as Choyeros, from Baja California Sur, Mexico. Our results indicate that (...) while individuals acquire knowledge of most dangerous items and edible resources by early adulthood, knowledge of plants and animals relevant to the age and sex divided labor domains and ecologies (e.g., women’s house gardens, men’s herding activities in the wilderness) continues to develop into middle adulthood but to different degrees and at different rates for men and women. As the demands of offspring on parents accumulate with age, reproductive-aged adults continue to develop their knowledge to meet their children’s needs. After controlling for vision, our analysis indicates that many post-reproductive adults show the greatest ethnobiological knowledge. These findings extend our understanding of the evolved human life history by illustrating how changes in embodied capital and the needs of dependent offspring predict the development of men’s and women’s ethnobiological knowledge across the lifespan. (shrink)

I argue that there are some causal relata for which it is indeterminate whether one caused the other. Positing indeterminacy in causation helps us defend contested principles in the logic of causation and makes possible new ways of thinking about the theoretical impact of symmetric causal overdetermination. I close by discussing amendments of current theories of causation that would help explain causal indeterminacy.

We define the notion of a completely determined Borel code in reverse mathematics, and consider the principle $CD - PB$, which states that every completely determined Borel set has the property of Baire. We show that this principle is strictly weaker than $AT{R_0}$. Any ω-model of $CD - PB$ must be closed under hyperarithmetic reduction, but $CD - PB$ is not a theory of hyperarithmetic analysis. We show that whenever $M \subseteq {2^\omega }$ is the second-order part of an ω-model (...) of $CD - PB$, then for every $Z \in M$, there is a $G \in M$ such that G is ${\rm{\Delta }}_1^1$-generic relative to Z. (shrink)

Questions about the role of luck in attributions of moral responsibility have troubled theorists for some time. In this paper I will explicate a position that acknowledges luck as a contributing factor to most, if not all, outcomes and consequences while denying luck the exculpatory role that some theorists contend it plays. I begin by going through the characterization of two perspectives on luck offered by Susan Wolf. From there I outline two necessary conditions for the legitimate attribution of praise (...) or blame. The first condition is that of Control. The second condition is the agent's creation of "undue risk". I revisit Wolfs two perspectives and break down the relationship between the necessary conditions and each perspective. I contend that a legitimate theory of moral responsibility must allow for factors outside of an agent's control when attempting to attribute praise or blame. Luck can be seen as one of these factors and it should not be seen as playing an exculpatory role. (shrink)

The Nature of Suffering underscores the change that is taking place in medicine from a basic concern with disease to a greater focus on the sick person. Cassell centers his discussion on the problem of suffering because, he says, its recognition and relief are a test of the adequacy of any system of medicine. He describes what suffering is and its relationship to the sick person: bodies do not suffer, people do. An exclusive concern with scientific knowledge of the body (...) and disease, therefore, impedes an understanding of suffering and diminishes the care of the suffering patient. The growing criticism that medicine is not sufficiently humanistic does not go deep enough to provide a basis for a new understanding of medicine. New concepts in medicine must have their basis in its history and in the development of ideas about disease and treatment. Cassell uses many stories about patients to demonstrate that, despite the current dominance of science and technology, there can be no diagnosis, search for the cause of the patient's disease, prognostication, or treatment without consideration of the individual sick person. Recent trends in medicine and society, Cassell believes, show that it is time for the sick person to be not merely an important concern for physicians but the central focus of medicine. He addresses the exciting problems involved in such a shift. In this new medicine, doctors would have to know the person as well as they know the disease. What are persons, however, and how are doctors to comprehend them? The kinds of knowledge involved are varied, including values and aesthetics as well as science. In the process of knowing the experience of patient and doctor move to center stage. He believes that the exploration of the person will engage medicine in the 21st century just as understanding the body has occupied the last hundred years. (shrink)