Neste artigo partimos da hipótese de que a afinidade que atrai evangélicos e conservadorismo está muito mais ligada às condições discursivas que engendram os sujeitos e suas subjetividades, do que as características intrínsecas à teologia cristã ou, especificamente, evangélica pentecostal. Com isso não queremos dizer que conformações teológicas específicas não ensejaram discursos religiosos regressivos, que a maioria de nós classificaria como conservador. Assim, chamamos a atenção, tanto para o caráter relacional, posicional das identidades evangélicas, que engendram o discurso conservador, quanto (...) para a base material deste discurso, ligando, portanto, sujeitos e formas de sujeição e subjetivação. Interessam-nos, as formas políticas em que se precipitarão os antagonismos articulados a partir dos grupos de identidade evangélica, bem como os deslocamentos na base material destes sujeitos, que possibilitam o engendramento de subjetividades atomizadas e refratárias a solidariedades coletivas exógenas a sua comunidade. Defenderemos que, embora evangélicos tenham ganhado relevo no espaço público por pautas reativas à ampliação de direitos de minorias, tais ações não se devem unicamente a aspectos intrínsecos à teologia pentecostal, ou ao seu caráter alienante ou irracional, mas, principalmente a forma como se posicionam no jogo político nacional, ou melhor, como se publicizaram, bem como a forma como o discurso de fundo conservador é acionado como estratégia de sobrevivência nas grandes cidades. (shrink)

A implementação de tecnologias móveis de informação e comunicação no suporte à Saúde Mental tem atraído a atenção das autoridades. Com a ascensão das Inteligências Artificiais, esse movimento pode ser impulsionado de maneira exponencial. Nesse cenário, esta revisão tem como objetivos verificar a aplicabilidade das Inteligências Artificiais (IAs) na Saúde Mental e analisar os aspectos que favorecem a relação entre IAs e usuários. Para tanto, realizou-se uma revisão sistemática nas bases de dados PubMed e Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde, no período (...) de 25 de maio a 23 de junho de 2023. Selecionamos os 100 primeiros artigos mais relevantes com as palavras-chave: “Inteligência Artificial”, “Saúde Mental”, “Chatbots”, “Psicoterapia”, “Psicologia” e suas equivalentes em inglês. Os critérios de inclusão foram: acesso aberto, publicação a partir de 2018, em português ou inglês e menção à atuação de IAs no âmbito da Saúde Mental. Para reduzir o risco de viés, excluímos os estudos que não mensuraram o impacto das intervenções por meio de métodos experimentais ou quase-experimentais. Para a síntese dos dados, delimitaram-se alguns pontos específicos de análise, como “Resultado da intervenção”, “Aspectos que favorecem a relação”, entre outros. Atenderam aos critérios de inclusão 24 estudos, dos quais 17 apresentaram resultados positivos em suas intervenções. O uso de IAs na Saúde Mental possui grande potencial de expansão e os resultados obtidos neste trabalho podem guiar a implementação dessas práticas e futuras pesquisas na área. (shrink)

Luc Brisson e Jean-François Pradeau. Plotin Traités 45-50. Paris: Éditions Flammarion, 2009, pp. 515.

The aim of this paper is to present a reflection on the idea of religiousness or religious sentiment in Benjamin Constant de Rebecque and the importance of this in free societies. For the author, the religious sentiment avoids the evils of selfishness and individualism and, at the same time, the dangers of political despotism and religious. In this sense, religion is seen as necessary to free societies. However, it must be separated from the priestly factions. Constant presents a strategy of (...) fusing a perspective of Enlightenment - with the concepts of progress and civilization - with aspects of the thought of Edmund Burke who advocated a more local interest. Thus, the "Greeks" - an "ideal type" avant la lettre - are presented with real people in history, which can help to think of our civilization. An "intermediate political principle", avoiding the excesses of philosophical abstraction. (shrink)

Resenha do livro “Raízes do Conservadorismo brasileiro: a abolição na imprensa e no imaginário social”, escrito por Juremir Machado da Silva e publicado pela Editora Civilização Brasileira em 2017.

O estudo analisa a compatibilidade das relações especiais de sujeição com os direitos fundamentais, examinando, em especial, o alcance da restrição à liberdade de expressão dos agentes públicos militares prevista no artigo 166 do Código Penal Militar. Defender-se-á que tal limitação justifica-se apenas quando efetivamente prevalentes interesses institucionais ou públicos, reforçando, assim, o sistema hierárquico e disciplinar com vistas à salvaguarda da própria sociedade. Para tanto, invoca-se a necessidade de utilização das técnicas da proporcionalidade e ponderação na análise casuística. Utiliza-se, (...) como substrato, o método hipotético-dedutivo e como fontes precípuas a revisão bibliográfica e as normas jurídicas afetas ao tema. (shrink)

In the present article we aim to thematize the conception of personal identity from a historical articulation based on the notion of axial era. With this strategy, we want to pursue a double objective, namely: (i) to explain the concept of the axial age as an important historical axis for Western culture, focusing on the changes in the role of religion in society; and (ii) to trace a certain constitutive image of modern personal identity from such a historical perspective. In (...) this way, we argue that the personal identity of the modern subject is rooted in a certain reconfiguration of the ways in experiencing religion, resulting in a disembedding of the individual in his society and a growing need for self-realization. Then, we aim to offer an alternative opening for the understanding and assimilation of the original speeches in its contrast with the Western culture. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo abordar o problema das relações objetais primárias recorrendo a alguns conceitos formulados por Michael Balint. Para isto, parte-se da discussão sobre duas posições ou modos de investimento precoces, para em seguida situá-los no contexto da falha básica, compreendida como um mecanismo primitivo de constituição da subjetividade e uma das principais áreas do aparato psíquico. Com isso pretende-se oferecer um esboço da teoria balintiana sobre as origens da subjetivação, articulando-a com a chamada clínica de pacientes difíceis.This (...) article aims to investigate the problem of primary object relations appealing to some of the concepts formulated by Michael Balint. In this sense, it starts with the discussion of two positions or modes of precocious investment, which are then situated in the context of the basic fault, understood as a primitive mechanism in subjectivity's constitution and as one of the main areas of the psychic apparatus. In this way, it intends to offer a sketch of Balint's theory about the origins of subjectivity, articulated with the so-called clinic of difficult patients. (shrink)

O presente GT se constituiu a partir de convite recebido pelo atual coordenador do GT para participar de um Seminário do Grupo de Estudos e Pesquisas "História, Educação e Sociedade no Brasil" em setembro de 1991. Desde então, reuniu um grupo de professores, que vem trabalhando no levantamento e catalogação de fontes primárias e secundárias na região do Triângulo Mineiro e Alto Paranaíba de interesse para a história da educação brasileira. [...] Palavras-chave: educação; história; fontes histórico-educacionais.

Tem-se a necessidade de conhecer, compreender e refletir sobre o que se denomina de epistemologias contemporâneas ou novas epistemologias. Nas ciências sociais essas epistemologias recentes ajudam a pensar e repensar as novas formas do fazer científico em ir além das epistemologias ditas clássicas que conhecemos, tais como o marxismo, historicismo, funcionalismo, hermenêutica e outras que já são consideradas hegemônicas e que partem do conhecimento europeu e norte americano. Contrariamente, as novas epistemologias são em sua maioria elaboradas fora desses núcleos de (...) conhecimento, interrompendo assim a hegemonia de conhecimento, possibilitando pensar o hoje de outras formas. O germe de novas epistemologias no âmbito das ciências sociais gera a necessidade de entendimento do conteúdo que as formam. Dessa forma, a reflexão, ação complexa e necessária, deve ser feita para a compreensão dessa problemática. Além disso, permite mergulhar na busca do sentido que essas epistemologias possuem dentro do quadro das ciências sociais. Por isso, o objetivo deste trabalho é colocar em discussão e elucidar algumas das proposições epistemológicas de autoras e autores que não figuram no rol hegemônico do conhecimento produzido dentro das ciências sociais. Dito de outro modo, aqueles silenciados e apagados, mas que, recentemente, são buscados, tratados e entendidos. Pensar em novas epistemologias é pensar em estudos do outro. Mas que outros são esses? Quem são os sujeitos desse conhecimento? São outros no sentido de afastamento, de fuga da lógica estabelecida pelo conhecimento eurocêntrico. Raciocínios construídos por sujeitos distanciados geograficamente do local hegemônico de produção de conhecimento aceito como único e verdadeiro: Ocidente. Segundo argumenta Mignolo (2021, p. 25-26): "Como sabemos: o primeiro mundo tem conhecimento, o terceiro mundo têm cultura; os nativos americanos têm sabedoria, os anglo-americanos têm ciência", logo, nota-se a visão construída e que viaja por todos os cantos do globo. Assim, portanto, os fazedores dessas novas epistemologias são silenciados e apagados historicamente. Além disso, a partir da apresentação das características centrais dessas novas epistemologias e demonstração da contribuição que elas incrementam no universo das ciências sociais, este trabalho busca relacionar, também, as ideias produzidas por essas epistemologias contemporâneas com o contexto brasileiro, especialmente com contexto amazônico, sendo este ambiente de morada de inúmeros povos tradicionais, tais como: indígenas, quilombolas, ribeirinhos, entre outros. Englobam-se, nesse sentido, dentro dos estudos culturais, pós-coloniais, pensamento decolonial, epistemologia feminista, pensamento afrodiaspórico, filosofia indígena e dentre outras novas maneiras. Temas esses tratados por autores e autoras que muitas das vezes nunca ouvimos falar dentro do campo acadêmico tradicional como Valentin Y. Mudimbe, Frantz Fanon, Stuart Hall, Ailton Krenak, Oyèrónké Oyewùmí e Henrique Cunha Jr. E é a partir disso que trataremos sobre alguns aspectos dessas epistemologias desses autores mencionados acima para compreender a importância e a necessidade de estudar essas epistemologias contemporâneas, além da contribuição que trazem para as ciências sociais. (shrink)

Chronic migraine is a difficult disease to diagnose, and its pathophysiology remains undefined. Its symptoms affect the quality of life and daily living tasks of the affected person, leading to momentary disability. This is a pilot, randomized, controlled, double-blind clinical trial study with female patients between 18 and 65 years old with chronic migraine. The patients underwent twelve mindfulness sessions paired with anodal transcranial direct-current stimulation over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, with current intensity of 2 mA applied for 20 (...) min, three times a week for 4 weeks. In addition, 20 min of mindfulness home practices were performed by guided meditation audio files. A total of 30 participants were evaluated after the treatment, and these were subdivided into two groups—active tDCS and sham tDCS, both set to mindfulness practice. The FFMQ-BR, MIDAS, and HIT-6 questionnaires were used to evaluate the outcomes. After the treatment, the active mindfulness and tDCS group showed better results in all outcomes. The sham group also showed improvements, but with smaller effect sizes compared to the active group. The only significant difference in the intergroup analysis was the outcome evaluated by HIT-6 in the post treatment result. Our results provide the first therapeutic evidence of mindfulness practices associated with left DLPFC anodal tDCS with a consequent increase in the level of full attention and analgesic benefits in the clinical symptoms of patients with chronic migraine. (shrink)

Aim: To analyze the empathizing and systemizing profiles of Brazilian and Portuguese nursing undergraduates. Background: Empathy is a fundamental skill for nursing practice and should be analyzed during the student’s education. Methods: Descriptive study with cross-sectional design. Participants were 968 undergraduate students, including 215 (22.2%) Brazilians from a university in the state of São Paulo and 753 (77.8%) Portuguese students from a higher education institution in central Portugal. The Portuguese and Brazilian versions of the Empathizing/Systemizing Quotient have good internal consistency (...) and reliability. Ethical considerations: In Brazil, approval for the study was obtained from the Research Ethics Committee of the University of São Paulo at Ribeirão Preto College of Nursing (protocol 191/2016) and in Portugal, from the Ethics Committee of the Health Sciences Research Unit: Nursing, Coimbra Higher School of Nursing (protocol P362-09/2016). Results: Most (86%) participants were female and aged between 20 and 24 years. In the general profile analysis between both groups, the domains “Social Skills,” “Contents,” and “Processes” scored higher. Gender differences exist for the feeling of empathy and systemizing, as women scored better on the short version of the Empathy Quotient and men on the Systemizing Quotient. Conclusion: As demonstrated in the domain scores for “Social Skills,” “Contents,” and “Processes,” the undergraduate nursing students analyzed have the ability to deal intuitively and spontaneously with social situations; they are also characterized as methodical people, who like to follow rules, and experience practice better than theory, and the women have a higher empathetic level than men, who in turn are more systemizing. (shrink)

La percepción del estrés, el bienestar y la calidad del ambiente laboral son interdependientes y están influenciadas por factores individuales, económicos y culturales. En este estudio, el objetivo fue analizar comparativamente la percepción del estrés, el bienestar y el clima laboral en las regiones Norte y Sureste de Brasil. Participaron 235 trabajadores, 65,5% mujeres y 34,5% hombres, sin hijos (59,1%), con estudios superiores (43%), trabajando en servicios (42,1%) en régimen CLT (60,4%). Se utilizaron tres instrumentos para evaluar la percepción de (...) estrés, bienestar e incivilidad en el trabajo, en línea. Los análisis se realizaron mediante la prueba t para muestras independientes. No se observaron diferencias significativas en la percepción del estrés, el bienestar y el clima laboral entre regiones. Sin embargo, la región Sureste presentó promedios más altos en la percepción de estrés (Sureste = 1,39; Norte = 1,27) e incivismo en el trabajo (Sureste = 0,89; Norte = 0,67) y una menor percepción de buen estar (3,49) en comparación con la región Norte (3,64). En algunos ítems específicos, el Sureste tuvo medias significativamente superiores a las del Norte (p ≤ 0,05). Los datos sugieren que el ritmo de vida, las oportunidades laborales y de ingresos, el mayor riesgo de desempleo y otros factores socioeconómicos que difieren en estas regiones pueden estar afectando la percepción y la salud mental de estos trabajadores. (shrink)

Background: The present study compared the effects of a traditional resistance training and resistance training combined with cognitive task on body composition, physical performance, cognitive function, and plasma brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels in older adults. Methods: Thirty community-dwelling older adults were randomized into TRT and RT+CT. Exercise groups performed a similar resistance training program, twice a week over 16 weeks. Cognitive Training involved performing verbal fluency simultaneously with RT. Exercise sessions were performed 2-3 sets, 8-15 repetitions at 60-70% of 1-repetition (...) maximum. Body composition, physical function, cognitive performance, and BDNF levels were assessed before and after intervention period. Results: The physical performance was similarly improved in response to both TRT and RT+CT. However, exclusive improvements on cognitive function and BDNF levels were observed only after RT+CT. Conclusion: The RT program associated with a cognitive task, improved physical and cognitive performance in healthy older adults. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Violent Conflict, the Struggle for Identity, and the Contagion of Mimetic Desire in the Prison EnvironmentCarlos GarciaMy name is Carlos Garcia. I am 56 years old and a junior class member of the Hope College–Western Theological Seminary Prison Education Program. I have lived my entire life in the state of Michigan. Unfortunately, more than forty of those years have been spent in juvenile detention centers, county jails, rehabilitation (...) centers, reformatories, and prisons. I have been accused, tried, and convicted legitimately, and wrongfully, for just about every crime less than murder. Needless to say, I know a thing or two about violence. As a result, I have embarked on a journey to understand and make use of those things I have learned in the field of mimetic desire to challenge the current system of prison politics. This writing is what I hope will be the first of many steps toward comprehensible prison reform and lasting rehabilitative programing within the Michigan Department of Corrections and beyond.What is it that makes the prison environment such a volatile place? Could it be the nature or character of the kind of men and women that fill its beds? What, then, does this say about the societies from which they came? Societies may have, in fact, played the greatest role in creating who they have come to be. [End Page 95] Could it be that their communities shaped their natures and made them into the kinds of people that many now fear and look at with curious fascination? Who we think we are might surprise us. Furthermore, who we think we "might" be may surprise us even more.This essay attempts to address and answer the question, "What role does mimetic desire play in the prison environment, and what effect might it have on the violence therein?" It also addresses how inmate identity might be shaped. Does the intentional limitation of material, intellectual, social, and spiritual resources that one may have also restrict individuality in a way that creates an environment of sameness? I suggest the answer is a resounding "yes." As such, mimetic desire becomes the driving force behind the violence therein.It is, I argue, this environment of sameness and the disintegration of differences—not the differences, in and of themselves—that ultimately leads to mimetic desire, competition, and rivalry. Often, and to the point, this environment is where winning the rivalry replaces the initial desire for the material, intellectual, or social object as the desired goal.As I unpack and answer the question and argument just offered, it is important that we first understand the premise upon which they have been formulated. Mimesis, mimetic desire, and mimetic theory are rooted in the idea of imitation. Mimesis, in and of itself, is nothing new. It is simply defined as "imitation or mimicry."1 In context of this essay, however, I address mimetic desire more specifically, as it has been theorized by its founder, French professor of history and literature René Girard. Luke Burgis, the author of Wanting: Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life, defines mimesis as "A sophisticated form of imitation that in adults is usually hidden. In mimetic theory, mimesis has a negative connotation because it usually leads to rivalry and conflict."2 Mimetic desire is defined as "Desire generated and formed through the imitation of what someone else has already desired."3 This means that what we want or desire is what the other—someone we might consider to be a model or mediator—wants, or desires, not necessarily because of the intrinsic value of the object, but because of the value we perceive the other's desire has placed on it. Again, it is mimetic desire sitting at the center of most conflicts and of the struggle for identity (i.e., autonomy) that I believe makes the prison environments volatile.We, as a species, struggle to find our place in the world. Each of us is trying to create our own identities, individually, culturally, collectively, even nationally. In very few places is the struggle more real, or its potentially violent consequences more severe, than in the prison environment. The identities of most inmates have been lost or stripped... (shrink)

Having a “normal” professional job and doing research impose different social and personal connotations. These differences materialize at least in two clear ways. First, it is common that researchers in the making find it very difficult to communicate to their closest social network (e.g., family and old close friends) the content and the importance of their work, as they lose known sources of social comparison. Meanwhile, professional job titles (e.g., brand manager, auditor, lawyer) are self-explanatory, and they provide for the (...) owner an immediate social contextualization and recognition. Second, students normally receive delayed and ambiguous feedback and reinforcement while doing a PhD, contrasting with the continuous flow of assessment that companies give to their employees. In this article, I analyze how young researchers may develop a feeling of social isolation as the communication bridges with family, old friends, and undergraduate colleagues become narrower than before, making it difficult to receive external reinforcement on their social position and comparative achievement. This feeling, combined with the ambiguous feedback during the early stages of a research career, challenges the self-esteem of PhD students, forcing them to develop a self-contained personal security in order to cope with those two social contexts. Some young researchers might even withdraw from PhD programs should they fail to develop such psychological strength. I approach the issue through my own experience, first as a junior consultant in a multinational firm and then as a PhD candidate in economics. Second, I explore the behavioral phenomena that occur beneath those feelings in order to understand how to build such psychological strength. My goal is, through the exploration of my personal experience of becoming a researcher, to offer young researchers a useful narrative to help face the potentially negative feelings that may emerge when learning to balance these conflicting social roles. (shrink)

The paper presents the history of Italian scholars and research centres that contributed to the emergence of the analytic philosophy of language in Italy in the second half of the twentieth century. After a brief description of the work completed in the fifties, I describe the formation of a network of people interested in those contents and methods, trace the origins to the influence of different centres of research in the US and Europe and shortly describe the main events, seminars, (...) conferences and meetings linked to different universities and research groups. These early efforts created a background from which students and junior scholars could evolve and develop original research in that area. The central idea is that the work on the philosophy of language we made in Italy is part of a wider attempt at reconnecting networks of interactions among philosophers in Europe that were alive before the Nazi period. (shrink)

Escritos por onze renomados filósofos os ensaios pretendem, de forma acessível e didática, explicitar as principais tendências e perspectivas da reflexão ética contemporânea. Indicado a estudantes e docentes de filosofia ética, teologia, sociologia e interessados em geral. -/- Prefàcio 1.Tendencias neoaristotelicas na etica atual - Sergio Cremaschi 2. Alasdair MacIntyre e o retorno as tradicoes morais de pesquisa racional - Helder Buenos Aires de Carvalho 3. Etica da finitude - Zeljko Loparic 4. Por uma etica ilustrada e progressista: uma defesa (...) do utilitarismo - Maria Cecilia Maringoni de Carvalho 5. A relacao da filosofia analitica com a teologia moral - Terence Kennedy 6. Rawls: uma teoria etico-politica da justica - Sonia T. Felipe 7. Etica do discurso - F. Javier Herrero 8. Hans Jonas: o principio responsabilidade - Oswaldo Giacoia Junior 9. Etica de coerencia dialetica - Carlos Cirne-Lima 10. Etica intencionalista-teleologica em vittorio hosle - Manfredo Araujo de Oliveira. (shrink)

The article elaborates an exegetical study of the figure of “Hell” present in the work of the martinican psychiatrist Frantz Fanon. This trope is thought of as a core element of the narrative of Black Skin, White Masks that is linked to reflections on racist alienation, the epidermis, the gaze, and the zone of non-being. Exploring the different modulations of “Hell”, the article makes a displacement that seeks to argue how the infernal of Fanon’s story, more than a metaphor, accounts (...) for the “real-lived” of the colonial world. Consequently, the racialized body and its lived experience offer a reading about “Hell” in an anaphoric and existential key that strains the modern-hegemonic grammars about the identities. From this starting point, the work discusses the problem of temporality linked to the critical tenor that at various moments in Black Skin... assumes the infernal architecture of colonialism narrated by Fanon. (shrink)

Between the two horns of Jørgensen's dilemma, the authors opt for that according to which logic deals not only with truth and falsity but also with those concepts not possessing this semantic reference. Notwithstanding the “descriptive” prejudice, deontic logic has gained validity among modal logics. The technical foundation proposed consists in an abstract characterization of logical consequence. By identifying in the abstract notion of consequence the primitive from which to begin, it is possible to define the connectives - even those (...) of obligation - by means of the rules of introduction or elimination in a context of derivation. (shrink)

Trata-se de uma investigação sobre a teoria dos primeiros princípios da razão prática na obra de Tomás de Aquino. No centro dessa teoria está o termo “sindérese”, cujo conteúdo foi elaborado nas discussões da filosofia e da teologia medievais, a partir de sua menção na Glosa de Jerônimo a Ezequiel. Tal termo designa um conceito que apresenta um caráter inovador dentro da teoria da ação moral em comparação com a ética aristotélica. Afinal, Tomás de Aquino o entende como o hábito (...) dos primeiros princípios da moral, equivalente ao hábito dos primeiros princípios teóricos de Aristóteles. Dessa forma, o interesse é compreender como o conceito de sindérese é recebido e desenvolvido na filosofia moral de Tomás de Aquino através da análise das três questões tradicionais: de sua natureza, de sua infalibilidade e de sua extinção. (shrink)

According to some authors, Popper’s realism is blatantly incoherent mainly because of his commitment with the correspondence theory of truth and due to the fact that in his theory of cience is granted that, though the general aim of science is the search for truth, it might happen that a specific theory reaches that aim without us being able of knowing it. In this paper, I explain, briefly, the particularities of Popper’s realism, his views on truth as a regulative ideal (...) for science, and I show that, regardless the impossibility of establishing in a efinitive way that truth has been reached, there is no incoherence that endangers his project. In this way, I answer Cardenas and others’ criticisms against Popper’s realism and his views on the general aim of science, and I identify the sources from which this kind of misunderstanding springs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Inner Life of Catholic Reform: From the Council of Trent to the Enlightenment by Ulrich LehnerCarlos M. N. EireThe Inner Life of Catholic Reform: From the Council of Trent to the Enlightenment. By Ulrich Lehner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. ix + 294. $37.99 (hardcover). ISBN: 978-0-19-762060-1.This marvelous book encapsulates the seismic shift in perspective that has taken place in the study of early modern Catholicism (...) in the past four decades, and, at the same time, it sharpens the historiographical cutting edge of this new approach. Instead of focusing on the Council of Trent, the papacy, the Inquisition, religious orders, institutional reforms, political issues, theological wrangling, heroic saintly figures, or any of the many other external features of reform that previously dominated scholarship on Catholic reform, Lehner dives deeply into sources that shed light on what many scholars have taken to calling “lived religion,” that is, on the myriad ways in which the lives of the Catholic faithful were transformed. As he puts it, his book focuses on “spiritual resources” and rediscovers “neglected perspectives by shedding light on the forms and methods early modern Catholics used to ‘reform’ themselves and achieve spiritual progress” (ix, 1).This is a detail-oriented book, a brilliant interweaving of cultural, intellectual, and social history reminiscent of the best histoire total produced by the Annales school. It is based on the premise that all assertions must be firmly grounded on evidence, a methodological principle to which Lehner adheres in exemplary fashion. Relying on a vast array of texts, he seeks to prove that the early modern Catholic concept of “church reform” was firmly centered on spiritual values, and that the chief aim behind every proposed or implemented change was “the conversion and sanctification of the sinful self” (2). [End Page 697]By focusing on the inner dimensions of Catholic reform, rather than the outward structural dimensions that have traditionally attracted attention, Lehner does not dismiss the significance of structural reforms. His approach to “lived religion” is reminiscent of Thomas Aquinas’s take on the role played by divine grace in the transformation of human beings: “grace does not destroy nature,” said St. Thomas, “but rather perfects it.” Lehner turns this theological dictum into a historiographical one. As he puts it: “Writing the history of transformative spiritual methods and actions of early modern Catholics does not deny these [other] dimensions and does not seek to replace them, but rather complements and elucidates them” (3).Lehner’s fact-driven examination of the myriad ways in which the inner transformation of individuals effected positive changes in the Church and society focuses on nine specific aspects of daily life. Beginning with an analysis of the general dynamics of reform, he proceeds to dissect reforms in nine key components of Catholic culture: the priesthood, sermons, catechesis, family life, lay associations, the sacraments of the Eucharist and confession, prayer, symbols and images, and devotion to Saints Mary and Joseph.Arguing that the spiritual side of reform, or “inner reform,” as he calls it, “represents core ideas and values of early modern Catholic identity, individually and collectively,” Lehner strives to show the ultimate value of his approach through a wealth of details, perhaps with potential critics in mind who might accuse him for valuing subjectivity over objectivity. But he vanquishes any such critics. Ultimately, his thousands of details support his claim that previous interpretations of early modern Catholic reforms that focused primarily on structural issues are not necessarily more “objective,” but actually perpetuate “a chimerical picture of a religion emptied of everything precious to contemporary believers” (158).Much of what Lehner highlights in this book relates to the emotions in one way or another, that is, to reforming impulses that affected the heart as much as the intellect, but he avoids reductionism, positing that much of the inner reform of Catholicism struck a careful yet tenuous balance between opposing dialectical poles. The Church, he insists, aimed at people’s hearts as much as their minds, and instilled fear of hell and purgatory as much as it stressed mercy and salvation. Sermons, he says, leaned toward preaching fear, but the... (shrink)

Este trabajo aborda las diferentes modalidades de la referencia a la teología en la teoría de Hans Kelsen, distinguiendo tres grandes formas: la descripción, el argumento y el problema. Se detiene particularmente en la modalidad denominada aquí “argumento teológico” y su función en el marco de la construcción de la epistemología kelseniana. Busca describir también las razones de su evolución sobre su utilidad, ligada a la relación entre epistemología y política tal como evoluciona en el marco de la guerra fría.

Il pensiero economico di Rosmini costituisce una sintesi originale tra diverse correnti di pensiero che egli riunisce per superare l’influenza della prospettiva utilitaristica. Basandosi sulla sua visione personalistica dell’essere umano, modifica la concezione dell’agire economico e, sulla base di essa, numerosi aspetti pratici delle politiche pubbliche. Al di là del suo interesse storico, il pensiero economico di Rosmini costituisce un contributo all’acquisizione di una prospettiva filosofica su molte delle scoperte attuali della ricerca teorica ed empirica in economia.

: One of the most compelling problems in science consists in understanding how living systems process information. After all, the way they process information defines their capacities to learning and adaptation. There is an increasing consensus in that living systems are not machines in any sense. Biological hypercomputation is the concept coined that expresses that living beings process information non-algorithmically. This paper aims at proving a positive understanding of “non-algorithmic” processes. Many arguments are brought that support the claim. This foster, (...) it is argued, a brand-new understanding of information processing among living beings. (shrink)