This volume critically discusses the relationship between democracy and constitutionalism. It does so with a view to respond to objections raised by legal and political philosophers who are sceptical of judicial review based on the assumption that judicial review is an undemocratic institution. The book builds on earlier literature on the moral justification of the authority of constitutional courts, and on the current attempts to develop a system on "weak judicial review". Although different in their approach, the chapters all focus (...) on devising institutions, procedures and, in a more abstract way, normative conceptions to democratize constitutional law. These democratizing strategies may vary from a radical objection to the institution of judicial review, to a more modest proposal to justify the authority of constitutional courts in their "deliberative performance" or to create constitutional juries that may be more aware of a community's constitutional morality than constitutional courts are. The book connects abstract theoretical discussions about the moral justification of constitutionalism with concrete problems, such as the relation between constitutional adjudication and deliberative democracy, the legitimacy of judicial review in international institutions, the need to create new institutions to democratize constitutionalism, the connections between philosophical conceptions and constitutional practices, the judicial review of constitutional amendments, and the criticism on strong judicial review. (shrink)

Several alternatives vie today for recognition as the most plausible ontology, from physicalism to panpsychism. By and large, these ontologies entail that physical structures circumscribe consciousness by bearing phenomenal properties within their physical boundaries. The ontology of idealism, on the other hand, entails that all physical structures are circumscribed by consciousness in that they exist solely as phenomenality in the first place. Unlike the other alternatives, however, idealism is often considered implausible today, particularly by analytic philosophers. A reason for this (...) is the strong intuition that an objective world transcending phenomenality is a self-evident fact. Other arguments—such as the dependency of phenomenal experience on brain function, the evidence for the existence of the universe before the origin of conscious life, etc.—are also often cited. In this essay, I will argue that these objections against the plausibility of idealism are false. As such, this essay seeks to show that idealism is an entirely plausible ontology. (shrink)

In 2005, an essay was published in Nature asserting that the universe is mental and that we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things. Since then, experiments have confirmed that — as predicted by quantum mechanics — reality is contextual, which contradicts at least intuitive formulations of realism and corroborates the hypothesis of a mental universe. Yet, to give this hypothesis a coherent rendering, one must explain how a mental universe can — at least in principle — accommodate (...) (a) our experience of ourselves as distinct individual minds sharing a world beyond the control of our volition; and (b) the empirical fact that this world is contextual despite being seemingly shared. By combining a modern formulation of the ontology of idealism with the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, the present paper attempts to provide a viable explanatory framework for both points. In the process of doing so, the paper also addresses key philosophical qualms of the relational interpretation. (shrink)

I argue for an idealist ontology consistent with empirical observations, which seeks to explain the facts of nature more parsimoniously than physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism. This ontology also attempts to offer more explanatory power than both physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism, in that it does not fall prey to either the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ or the ‘subject combination problem’, respectively. It can be summarized as follows: spatially unbound consciousness is posited to be nature’s sole ontological primitive. We, as well as (...) all other living organisms, are dissociated alters of this unbound consciousness. The universe we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of phenomenality surrounding—but dissociated from—our alter. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other dissociated alters. As such, the challenge to artificially create individualized consciousness becomes synonymous with the challenge to artificially induce abiogenesis. (shrink)

The present framing of the cultural debate in terms of materialism versus religion has allowed materialism to go unchallenged as the only rationally-viable metaphysics. This book seeks to change this. It uncovers the absurd implications of materialism and then, uniquely, presents a hard-nosed non-materialist metaphysics substantiated by skepticism, hard empirical evidence, and clear logical argumentation. It lays out a coherent framework upon which one can interpret and make sense of every natural phenomenon and physical law, as well as the modalities (...) of human consciousness, without materialist assumptions. According to this framework, the brain is merely the image of a self-localization process of mind, analogously to how a whirlpool is the image of a self-localization process of water. The brain doesn’t generate mind in the same way that a whirlpool doesn’t generate water. It is the brain that is in mind, not mind in the brain. Physical death is merely a de-clenching of awareness. The book closes with a series of educated speculations regarding the afterlife, psychic phenomena, and other related subjects. (shrink)

A broad pattern of correlations between mechanisms of brain function impairment and self-transcendence is shown. The pattern includes such mechanisms as cerebral hypoxia, physiological stress, transcranial magnetic stimulation, trance-induced physiological effects, the action of psychoactive substances and even physical trauma to the brain. In all these cases, subjects report self-transcending experiences o en described as ‘mystical’ and ‘awareness-expanding,’ as well as self-transcending skills o en described as ‘savant.’ The idea that these correlations could be rather trivially accounted for on the (...) basis of disruptions to inhibitory neural processes is reviewed and shown to be implausible. Instead, this paper suggests that an as-of-yet unrecognized causal principle underlying the entire pattern might be at work, whose further elucidation through systematic research could hold great promise. (shrink)

Political theory is a field that finds nourishment in others. From economics, history, sociology, psychology, and political science, theorists have drawn a rich repertoire of schemas to parse the social world and make sense of it. With each of these encounters, new subjects are brought into focus as others recede into the background, ushering a change not only in how questions are tackled but also in what questions are thought worth asking.

Depth psychology finds empirical validation today in a variety of observations that suggest the presence of causally effective mental processes outside conscious experience. I submit that this is due to misinterpretation of the observations: the subset of consciousness called “meta-consciousness” in the literature is often mistaken for consciousness proper, thereby artificially creating space for an “unconscious.” The implied hypothesis is that all mental processes may in fact be conscious, the appearance of unconsciousness arising from our dependence on self-reflective introspection for (...) gauging awareness. After re-interpreting the empirical data according to a philosophically rigorous definition of consciousness, I show that two well-known phenomena corroborate this hypothesis: (a) experiences that, despite being conscious, aren’t re-represented during introspection; and (b) dissociated experiences inaccessible to the executive ego. If consciousness is inherent to all mentation, it may be fundamental in nature, as opposed to a product of particular types of brain function. (shrink)

This book is a multi-faceted exploration and critique of the human condition as it is presently manifested. It addresses science and philosophy, explores the underlying nature of reality, the state of our society and culture, the influence of the mainstream media, the nature of free will and a number of other topics. Each of these examinations contributes an angle to an emerging idea gestalt that challenges present mainstream views and behaviors and offers a sane alternative. The book is organized as (...) a series of short and self-contained essays, most of which can be read in under one hour. (shrink)

Although Hegel is increasingly recognized as an important figure in the history of political economy, his economic views are never strictly economic. In contrast to other modern thinkers, his primary concern is not the economic efficacy of different practices or institutions but the extent to which they enable and promote the development of human freedom. In this article, I argue that Hegel's pioneering critique of modern liberal economy plays out simultaneously at a more empirical level, corresponding to the properly economic (...) dimension of his analysis, and at a deeper, logical level, which grounds and guides his position. Moreover, I argue that the tendency to favour the first of these levels, found in most of the literature on Hegel's economic thought, reduces the Philosophy of Right's main argument to a more or less vigorous plea for economic interventionism. Against this kind of reading, I show that a renewed focus on the text's logical structure reveals a different and more radical philosophical proposition, which has yet to be fully acknowledged. In particular, I argue that Hegel's dialectical logic leads him beyond the liberalism‐interventionism debate, towards a qualitatively different conception of social and economic relations. (shrink)

Recent neuroimaging studies of the psychedelic state, which have commanded great media attention, are reviewed. They show that psychedelic trances are consistently accompanied by broad reductions in brain activity, despite their experiential richness. This result is at least counterintuitive from the perspective of mainstream physicalism, according to which subjective experience is entirely constituted by brain activity. In this brief analysis, the generic implications of physicalism regarding the relationship between the richness of experience and brain activity levels are rigorously examined from (...) an informational perspective, and then made explicit and unambiguous. These implications are then found to be non-trivial to reconcile with the results of said neuroimaging studies, which highlights the significance of such studies for the mind-body problem and philosophy of mind in general. (shrink)

In this article it is defended that the notion known as “The mark of the cognitive” is better characterized as a process that performs the function of generating intelligent behavior, in a flexible and adaptive way, capable of adapting to circumstances, given it is a context sensitive process. For that, some relevant definitions of cognition are examined. In the end, it is pointed out that the definition of the mark of cognition as a context-sensitive process takes into account several factors (...) that were added as constitutive parts of cognitive phenomena over the years, especially the 4E Cognition, which cannot be satisfactorily accommodated alongside the preceding notions of cognition. Accordingly, this essay shouldn’t be mistaken merely as an exercise in intellectual history, but as a brief and accessible attempt to advance the debate. (shrink)

It has been assumed that the person represented on the Shroud of Turin is dead and the image corresponds to a person dead from crucifixion. We have conducted an analysis of the cadaveric data of a body and the presence of face life signs and we could think that the image could corresponds to a living person. Therefore, it might correspond to a man starting a getting up gesture. If we examine the Gospels, a remarkable symmetry is found between the (...) data obtained from the image and the events described in the Gospels, regarding the death and resurrection of Jesus. (shrink)

To make educated guesses about what happens to consciousness upon bodily death, one has to have some understanding of the relationship between body and consciousness during life. This relationship, of course, reflects an ontology. In this brief essay, the tenability of both the physicalist and dualist ontologies will be assessed in view of recent experimental results in physics. The alternative ontology of idealism will then be discussed, which not only can be reconciled with the available empirical evidence, but also overcomes (...) the lack of parsimony and limited explanatory power of physicalism and dualism. Idealism elegantly explains the basic facts of reality, such as (a) the fact that brain activity correlates with experience, (b) the fact that we all seem to share the same world, and (c) the fact that we can’t change the laws of nature at will. If idealism is correct, the implication is that, instead of disappearing, conscious inner life expands upon bodily death, a prediction that finds circumstantial but significant confirmation in reports of near-death experiences and psychedelic trances, both of which can be construed as glimpses into the early stages of the death process. (shrink)

This invited article is a response to the paper “Quantum Misuse in Psychic Literature,” by Jack A. Mroczkowski and Alexis P. Malozemoff, published in this issue of the Journal of Near-Death Studies. Whereas I sympathize with Mroczkowski’s and Malozemoff’s cause and goals, and I recognize the problem they attempted to tackle, I argue that their criticisms often overshot the mark and end up adding to the confusion. I address nine specific technical points that Mroczkowski and Malozemoff accused popular writers in (...) the fields of health care and parapsychology of misunderstanding and misrepresenting. I argue that, by and large—and contrary to Mroczkowski’s and Malozemoff’s claims—the statements made by these writers are often reasonable and generally consistent with the current state of play in foundations of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This book is a three-part journey into the rabbit hole we call the nature of reality. Its ultimate destination is a plausible, living validation of transcendence. Each of its three parts is like a turn of a spiral, exploring recurring ideas through the prisms of religious myth, truth and belief, respectively. With each turn, the book seeks to convey a more nuanced and complete understanding of the many facets of transcendence. Part I puts forward the controversial notion that many religious (...) myths are actually true; and not just allegorically so. Part II argues that our own inner storytelling plays a surprising role in creating the seeming concreteness of things and the tangibility of history. Part III suggests, in the form of a myth, how deeply ingrained belief systems create the world we live in. The three themes, myth, truth and belief, flow into and interpenetrate each other throughout the book. (shrink)

The contemporary cultural mindset posits that the world has no intrinsic semantic value. The meaning we see in it is supposedly projected onto the world by ourselves. Underpinning this view is the mainstream physicalist ontology, according to which mind is an emergent property or epiphenomenon of brains. As such, since the world beyond brains isn’t mental, it cannot a priori evoke anything beyond itself. But a consistent series of recent experimental results suggests strongly that the world may in fact be (...) mental in nature, a hypothesis openly discussed in the field of foundations of physics. In this essay, these experimental results are reviewed and their hermeneutic implications discussed. If the world is mental, it points to something beyond its face-value appearances and is amenable to interpretation, just as ordinary dreams. In this case, the project of a Hermeneutic of Everything is metaphysically justifiable. (shrink)

Pain is an unwanted mental state that is often considered a sufficient ground for moral status. However, current science and philosophy of mind suggest that pains, like other perceptual states, might be nonconscious. This raises the questions of whether the notion of nonconscious pain is coherent and what its moral significance might be. In this paper I argue that the existence of nonconscious pain is conceptually coherent; however as a matter of fact our brains might always represent pains consciously. I (...) then characterize the concept of suffering from a naturalistic perspective, distinguishing it from pain. I offer an account of suffering based on some current theories of consciousness, in which suffering consists in the global broadcasting of representations with overall net negative valence. I argue this can explain most of suffering’s properties, such as its wholeness, significance for welfare, and conscious character. Finally, I contend that suffering, but not pain, provides sufficient grounds for moral status. (shrink)

Em um dos vários encontros mundiais sobre a obra do filósofo tcheco-brasileiro Vilém Flusser, os autores deste livro decidem escrever juntos uma introdução a seu pensamento que ao mesmo tempo homenageie o pensador. Nasce daí 'Vilém Flusser - uma.

Adorno’s conception of ideology was denounced by Habermas as incompatible with a viable form of social critique. By conflating ideology and the ‘identity principle’ inherent to modern Western reason, he argues, Adorno offered an overly negative characterisation of modernity and failed to recognise its rational potential. This paper questions this line of criticism by revisiting Adorno’s position. While he does sometimes associate ideology with identity-thinking, this association does not exhaust his views on the subject. For Adorno, ideology is just as (...) much a matter of Identität as a matter of Schein, or illusion, and its practical effects. Moreover, he views ideology as an intrinsically dynamic concept, whose definition has changed throughout human history. Drawing on his late sociological writings, I distinguish three major stages in the development of the concept of ideology, namely (a) ideology as simple illusion, a definition associated with the Enlightenment and expanded by the so-called sociology of knowledge; (b) ideology as necessary illusion, invoked by Marx to capture the structural logic of capitalism; and (c) ideology as disillusionment, related to the positivism of late capitalist society. Finally, I reflect on what this survey reveals about the relationship between illusion and identity in Adorno’s theory of ideology. (shrink)

Edouard Machery has argued that the notion of concept should be eliminated from scientific theorising about cognition on the grounds that what psychologists call concepts do not form a natural kind and that keeping this notion would encumber scientific progress. His view is that the class of concepts really divides into three distinct yet co-referential kinds of bodies of knowledge typically used in distinct cognitive processes. The main purpose of this paper is to challenge Machery’s eliminativist conclusion on the grounds (...) that his alternative to concepts fails to be combined with any prominent account of content determination. As a case of philosophical scrutiny of a psychological proposal, the paper also intends to show how philosophical and psychological interests in concepts can be brought together. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a general taxonomy of different forms of eliminativism. In order to do so, I begin by exploring eliminativism from a broad perspective, providing a comparative picture of eliminativist projects in different domains. This exploration shows that eliminativism is a label used for a family of related types of eliminativist arguments and claims. The proposed taxonomy is an attempt to systematise those arguments and claims.

Les seules preuves philosophiques de l’existence des substances séparées qui répondent aux exigences épistémologiques de Thomas sont des arguments aristotéliciens dont les conclusions, basées sur des prémisses d’une astronomie et une physique obsolètes, sont inacceptables. Thomas prit des distances à leur égard et, laissé sans alternative philosophique, proposa une série d’arguments théologiques dont la cohérence et valeur logique sont mis en question. Puisqu’il n’y a pas de preuve philosophique de l’existence des substances séparées, leur notion devrait être exclue du discours (...) philosophique. (shrink)

Questions about the nature of reality and consciousness remain unresolved in philosophy today, but not for lack of hypotheses. Ontologies as varied as physicalism, microexperientialism and cosmopsychism enrich the philosophical menu. Each of these ontologies faces a seemingly fundamental problem: under physicalism, for instance, we have the ‘hard problem of consciousness,’ whereas under microexperientialism we have the ‘subject combination problem.’ I argue that these problems are thought artifacts, having no grounding in empirical reality. In a manner akin to semantic paradoxes, (...) they exist only in the internal logico-conceptual structure of their respective ontologies. (shrink)

Resumo Plotino é um pensador estranho para o filósofo contemporâneo: nas suas Enéadas, ele discute experiência mística e prática filosófica como se fosse uma mesma coisa. De fato, no pensamento plotiniano, o ápice da vida filosófica é a contemplação mística: não pensamento irracional, mas uma forma supra-racional de consciência que é alcançada pela prática ascética e pelo procedimento dialético. Este artigo tenta entender o que é a experiência mística em Plotino. Na verdade, uma leitura atenta dos textos das Enéadas que (...) tratam do assunto mostram que não existe apenas um, mas dois tipos de contemplação mística supra-racional: a experiência da alma humana unida ao Intelecto divino e a experiência da alma humana unida ao Um, o princípio supremo da realidade de acordo com a filosofia plotiniana. Ambos são tipos de intuição intelectual interior, mas, se a experiência mística do Intelecto é a contemplação da totalidade do mundo inteligível, a contemplação do Um é a intuição da identidade pura, além de toda a diferença. Palavras-chave: Plotino; Neoplatonismo; Mística.Plotinus is a strange scholar to the contemporary philosopher: in his Enneads, he discusses mystical experience and philosophical practice as if they were the same thing. Indeed, according to his thoughts, the summit of philosophical life is mystical contemplation: not irrational thinking, but a supra-rational form of consciousness achieved through ascetic practice and dialectical procedure. This paper attempts to understand the mystical experience in Plotinus. In fact, a close reading of the texts of the Enneads on the subject demonstrates that there are not only one, but two kinds of supra-rational mystical contemplation: the experience of the human soul united to the divine Intellect and the experience of the human soul united to the One, the supreme principle of reality according to Plotinus's philosophy. Both are kinds of interior intellectual intuition, but if the mystical experience of the Intellect is the contemplation of the whole of the intelligible world, the contemplation of the One is the intuition of pure identity, beyond all difference. Key words: Plotinus; Neo-Platonism; Mysticism. (shrink)

The physicalist worldview is often portrayed as a dispassionate interpretation of reality motivated purely by observable facts. In this article, ideas of both depth and social psychology are used to show that this portrayal may not be accurate. Physicalism—whether it ultimately turns out to be philosophically correct or not—is hypothesized to be partly motivated by the neurotic endeavor to project onto the world attributes that help one avoid confronting unacknowledged aspects of one’s own inner life. Moreover, contrary to what most (...) people assume, physicalism creates an opportunity for the intellectual elites who develop and promote it to maintain a sense of meaning in their own lives through fluid compensation. However, because this compensatory strategy does not apply to a large segment of society, it creates a schism—with corresponding tensions—that may help explain the contemporary conflict between neo-atheism and religious belief. (shrink)

Our article deals with Aristotle’s account of the sphere of temperance in the Nicomachean Ethics. The goal is to provide a detailed analysis of NE III.10 in order to identify the difficulties this chapter presents us with and to introduce and discuss the interpretations set forth by the secondary literature. Of special interest to us are Aristotle’s intense dialogue with Plato; the difficulty in understanding touch as the most common of the senses and Aristotle’s severe judgment of the pleasures of (...) the sphere of temperance. In short, Aristotle seems to set out from platonic thesis and notions only to distance himself from them by introducing his own, associating temperance with the most common of the senses, namely, the sense of touch. This association is not based, as it could seem primafacie, on a merely empirical observation but on the assumption that touch is the most fundamental and necessary sense for humans and animals alike. Temperance, therefore, as the excellence in the relation with the most fundamental and necessary of the senses, seems to be a pre-condition for rational action. From this Aristotle derives the etymology of the term, as the one who preserves practical reason. This hypothesis would explain why Aristotle seems to engage in apotreptic language to characterize the lack of temperance, that is, the vice of intemperance – something we do not find the in the account of any other virtue and vice. (shrink)

This paper defends the relevance of philosophy in the contemporary study of concepts. With the advent of cognitive science, naturalistic and interdisciplinary theorizing about concepts has gained momentum. In this context, it has been recently argued that philosophers’ theories of concepts are not aimed at answering the issues that psychologists are interested in, thus dismissing the mentioned philosophical contribution as scientifically otiose. We present and discuss two cases in point suggesting otherwise, as an attempt to vindicate the crucial role of (...) philosophy in the development of empirical theories of concepts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Philosophies of America Reader: From the Popol Vuh to the Present ed. by Kim Díaz and Mathew A. FoustBernardo R. Vargas (bio)The Philosophies of America Reader: From the Popol Vuh to the Present. Edited by Kim Díaz and Mathew A. Foust. New York: Bloomsbury, 2021. Pp. 480. Paperback $46.75, isbn 978-1-4742-9626-7.Philosophy in the United States continues to be among the least diverse disciplines in the humanities, dominated (...) statistically by white males, with the next largest group being white female philosophers.1 This lack of diversity affects how we define philosophy and who counts as a philosopher. As the editors of The Philosophies of America Reader, Kim Díaz and Mathew A. Foust, put it, "Just as history has fashioned and popularized distorted accounts of the 'discovery' of America, it has done the same in its presentation of American Philosophy" (p. xv). This exemplary collection of essays from across the Americas allows the readers and instructors to reimagine what we construe as philosophy and who we imagine an American philosopher to be.The editors offer diverse essays covering an impressive timeframe, ranging from the Popol Vuh, whose oral tradition from Guatemala predates Spanish colonization and was recorded in the mid-1500s, to contemporary philosophers such as Gregory Pappas. The collection excels in offering texts that typical philosophy anthologies are unlikely to include, which the editors call "unusual suspects" that have been historically marginalized, while also maintaining more familiar or "classical" figures (pp. xv–xvi). These "unusual suspects" include women, Latinx, American Indigenous, Black, and Caribbean thinkers.The Philosophies of America Reader offers various resources to enhance the student and instructor's experience. The book is structured into four themes: (1) Selfhood and Identity, (2) Knowing and Learning, (3) Aesthetics and Spirituality, and (5) Violence and Peace. The editors design these themes to fit the traditionally understood areas of philosophy of metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology. Even if the instructor's course description does not specifically target American Philosophy, these thematic categories are valuable for th ose who wish to incorporate a more diverse reading list. For example, these essays could easily apply to courses such as Critical Philosophy of Race, Introduction to Philosophy, or Introduction to Ethics. Each thematic section also features a "For Further Reading" segment, which includes selected secondary sources to broaden research or substitute texts. In addition, the editors provide a detailed [End Page 1] syllabus example, including a Course Description and Outline of the Course for a bi-weekly class, which is neatly divided into a 16-week reading schedule. They also include instructive sections such as a Note to the Teacher to aid in thinking through how to interact with the unfamiliar texts and a Note to the Student to guide their disposition and readings.Moreover, the text presents introductory essays for each thematic section. These essays provide an overview of the content and delve into the author's positionality, such as their geography, context, motivations for writing, race, ethnicity, and native tongue. The introductions are philosophically robust yet accessible to new philosophy students and are not filled with unnecessary philosophical jargon.Due to its large scope of thinkers, this text offers a vibrant opportunity to dialogue with philosophers who share or differ in their perspectives across the major thematic categories. The editors emphasize that although this is not a history of thought, the texts present lineages of progression, elaboration, and disagreement intended to guide instructors in connecting the texts with their students (p. xx). Furthermore, this allows the reader and the instructor to avoid isolating their discourse to a particular time, geography, gender, or race and ethnicity. In addition to the biographical and contextual information given in the introductions, a small yet helpful detail is a timeline of the selections that further contextualizes the readings.I wish to underscore two key clusters of essays amidst the vast array of 50 readings related to Asian-American and Mexican-American discourse for the instructor's consideration, particularly those teaching in the United States. These two large population groups deserve consideration as enrollment rates for Asian Americans and Hispanics (of whom Mexicans are the largest population... (shrink)

This paper intends above all to highlight three fundamental interconnected questions: (1) without reifying it in a theoretical-systematic philosophy, to highlight Derrida’s Deconstruction as a “philosophical idiom” – that of différance or of the ab-solute otherness – endowed, therefore, with specific “theoretical” assumptions (khôra, messianic and trace); (2) to highlight and to clarify the meaning of the “Derridian exception” concerning the issue of the animal and animality within the context of the sacrificial philosophical-cultural Westernness; (3) to highlight the relevance of (...) the issue of the animal and animality in order to re-think, in new terms, the question of the human itself – still essentially structured in the light of a metaphysical subjectivity –, underlining the invaluable contribution of Deconstruction to rethink the exceptionality of the human among the living beings and to bring the war for compassion to a successful end, thus contributing to the emergence of new Lights for the promise of the “coming” [“à-venir”] of another humanity and, consequently, of another civilization. (shrink)

Fábio Alves dos Santos (1954-2013) cursou Pedagogia, Ciências Sociais e Teologia, era Especialista em Filosofia da Religião (PUC Minas), Advogado (PUC Minas) e Mestre em Direito Constitucional (UFMG). Lecionou na PUC Minas como professor de Cultura Religiosa e depois como professor no Curso de Direito, atuando principalmente no Serviço de Assistência Judiciária – SAJ, especialmente cuidado de causas populares como as da ASMARE (Associação dos Catadores de Papel, Papelão e Material Reaproveitável de Belo Horizonte), da Pastoral de Rua, da (...) Pastoral Carcerária, de movimentos de “Sem Casa”, de ocupações e tantos outros grupos. Fábio sofria de grave problema de visão há mais de 15 anos. Quase ficou cego depois de diversas cirurgias de miopia. Isso, porém, não o impedia de seguir seu constante compromisso com as lutas populares. Na última entrevista que concedeu, menos de um mês antes de sua morte (19 de outubro de 2013), depois de duro sofrimento de quase dois anos, no tratamento de um câncer no pâncreas, conta um pouco de sua vida, sua luta e sua percepção de várias realidades, especialmente da Igreja e da pastoral. Militante formado na Teologia da Libertação, de profunda espiritualidade, marcada por traços da religiosidade popular nordestina e comprometida com a libertação, Fábio Alves também buscou em sua vida abrir-se à teologia do pluralismo religioso, especialmente com o Santo Daime, em cuja tradição religiosa chegou a ser “fardado”, mantendo uma profunda atitude espiritual aberta ao diálogo inter-religioso. Sua primeira publicação foi “Começo de mundo novo: sofrimento, luta e vitória dos posseiros de Santana dos Frades”, Sergipe, numa versão popular em 1981 e outra pela Editora Vozes (1990). Fruto de sua dissertação de mestrado, publicou o livro “Direito Agrário: política fundiária no Brasil (1995). Em 2001 saiu seu último livro, uma coletânea de artigos publicados em diversos jornais: “Em defesa da vida”. Num artigo em Horizonte (2004), juntamente com o advogado, amigo e colega Prof. Cristiano de Melo Bastos, discutiu “A prática jurídica na missão da PUC Minas”. Palavras-chave : Teologia da Libertação. Militância. Igreja Católica. Pastoral. Lutas populares. (shrink)

Beings of reason or non-existent objects have always been a source of mind-boggling paradoxes that have vexed philosophers and thinkers in the past and present. Consider Bertrand Russell’s paradox: “if A and B are not different, then the difference between A and B does not subsist. But how can a non-entity be the subject of a proposition?” Or Meinong’s paradox: “There are objects of which it is true that there are no such objects.” At the root of these troubling conundrums (...) are two basic questions: What are beings of reason? What kind of existence do they have? Francisco Suárez was well aware that a solution to the metaphysical questions concerning the essential character of beings of reason and their ontological status would serve as the key to solving the puzzles and paradoxes just described. A solution to these metaphysical questions would also bring about an understanding of how we talk about beings of reason and other problems that they give rise to in the philosophy of language. In this paper, I present Suárez’s view on the nature andontological status of beings of reason and clarify some of the following questions: What kind of beings (entia) are beings of reason? What kind of being (esse) do beings of reason have? This latter concern is related to the following metaphysical issues: What are real beings? What is the nature and ontological status of possible beings? What is the distinction between real beings, actual beings, and possible beings? (shrink)

Analizamos las relaciones no siempre presentes entre deportes, barrios y políticas públicas en Chile en el marco de las vinculaciones entre Estado y sociedad civil en la que el barrio y los clubes deportivos, pese a su gran presencia y aporte a la sociabilidad, han estado ausentes. Hasta antes del golpe de Estado de 1973, la sociedad civil tenía una gran fortaleza, y muchas de sus instituciones, como los clubes deportivos, gozaban de buena salud institucional y sobre todo de autonomía. (...) El colapso institucional del año 1973 quebró las confianzas y tras un proceso muy largo, las instituciones deportivas volvieron a reconfigurarse. Las políticas neoliberales también alcanzaron al mundo del deporte. El Estado subsidiario, a través de proyectos concursables, presta ayuda al desarrollo de estas instituciones de base. (shrink)

Este breve ensaio tenta enunciar as razões teórico-filosóficas pelas quais a ambiguidade é também o timbre da justiça no âmbito do pensamento e da obra de Emmanuel Lévinas, enunciando igualmente as implicações de uma tal ambiguidade no campo do instituído. Palavras-chave: Lévinas, Justiça, Ética, Outro, Terceiro.