A partir da questão da existência de filosofias adjectiva ou substantivamente nacionais, pretende traçãr-se o panorama do pensamento filosófico brasileiro contemporâneo. Oriunda do tronco comum portugues. a filosofia brasileira adquiriu, desde o início de oitocentos. com Silvestre Pinheiro Ferreira e Diogo António Feijó, individualidade própria. Hoje distribui-se por quatro grandes tradiçóes: a tradição metafisica. tomista e neotomista, a positivista e naturalista, a hermenêutica, incluindo várias tendéncias. da fenomenologia e existencialismo ao culturalismo, e uma quarta vinculada ao dominio da (...) práxis. Na tendência hermenêutica se inscreve designadamente a Escola de São Paulo, polarizada nos dois grandes focos do pensamento brasileiro contemporâneo: Vicente Ferreira da Silva e Miguel Reale. /// Starting from the question of the existence of national philosophies, be it in an adjetive or in a substantive sense, we intend to trace the contemporary situation of the brasilian philosophical thought. Growing out of a common, Portuguese heritage, the brasilian philosophy acquired from the XVIIIth century onwards its own characteristics, especially through the work of both Silvestre Pinheiro Ferreira and Diogo António Feijó. Nowadays, it is composed by four great traditions: the metaphysical one, tomist and neo-tomist; the positivist and naturalist; the hermeneutical, which includes various tendencies, such as phenomenology, existencialism and culturalism; and a fourth tradition related to the domain of praxis. St. Paul School belongs to the hermeneutical tradition, where the two main authors of contemporary brasilian thought are to be considered: Vicente ferreira da Silva and Miguel Reale. (shrink)

o presente artigo objetiva abordar acerca da crítica consistente ao autoritarismo violento, degradante, racista e desumano dos “anos de chumbo” da ditadura militar no Brasil, constante na literatura afro-brasileira dramática negro-brasileira a partir, sobretudo, de três teatros peculiares, a saber: o Teatro Experimental Negro, o Teatro Profissional do Negro e o Grupo Teatro Palmares Iñaron. Metodologicamente, esclarece-se que esta escrita emprega uma abordagem qualitativa de natureza básica e é de cunho teórico exploratório quanto ao objetivo principal, pois se debruça ao (...) debate, visando aprimorar teorias, conceitos e ideias a partir do bojo de fontes secundárias que tratam da temática principal. Neste sentido, empregou-se o método procedimental bibliográfico utilizando-se da hermenêutica com a técnica de leituras pertinentes à temática proposta. Cabe salientar que, apesar da tentativa histórica do cânone da literatura autoritária e eurocentrada, não foi e nem tem sido capaz de silenciar os ecos objetivos e/ou subjetivos expressos na literatura afro-brasileira, nem mesmo durante o período mais duro e racista da ditadura militar no Brasil. (shrink)

The recent pandemic and consequent lockdown had a substantial impact on mental health and optimism regarding the future. Previous research showed that levels of depression, anxiety, and stress had increased throughout the pandemic. Nonetheless, how individuals cope when faced with adversity may be associated with positive expectations regarding the future. A sample of 274 Portuguese workers with a mean age of 40.86 and work experience of 19.68 years met inclusion criteria and agreed to participate in the proposed study. They represented (...) a variety of working classes. We investigated the associations between depression, stress, anxiety, adaptive and maladaptive coping, and optimism while controlling for working experience, gender, and work type. We found that depression was related to lower levels of optimism. However, for participants scoring high on adaptive coping and anxiety, higher scores of optimism were reported. Gender, work type, and experience did not significantly influence the results. These results provide evidence through which positive mental health can be promoted after the pandemic. (shrink)

The standard approach for abstractive text summarization is to use an encoder-decoder architecture. The encoder is responsible for capturing the general meaning from the source text, and the decoder is in charge of generating the final text summary. While this approach can compose summaries that resemble human writing, some may contain unrelated or unfaithful information. This problem is called “hallucination” and it represents a serious issue in legal texts as legal practitioners rely on these summaries when looking for precedents, used (...) to support legal arguments. Another concern is that legal documents tend to be very long and may not be fed entirely to the encoder. We propose our method called LegalSumm for addressing these issues by creating different “views” over the source text, training summarization models to generate independent versions of summaries, and applying entailment module to judge how faithful these candidate summaries are with respect to the source text. We show that the proposed approach can select candidate summaries that improve ROUGE scores in all metrics evaluated. (shrink)

A long history of extractive industries and activities have shaped the societies of northern Mozambique, and the Cabo Delgado province in particular. For centuries, the growing international demand on local resources had a great impact on the northern micro-societies. The demand for cheap labour and natural resources, ranging from ivory and cotton, to timber, rubies, land, gas and more, involved thousands of local actors in its extraction, reproducing systems of local power. The persistence of poverty, inequality and conflicts, as well (...) as simmering and sometimes grand-scale violence, fits into a long-term trend of extractivism. Through a historical approach and field observations, we focus on the political economy of extracting natural resources. We point out the persisting basic patterns of extractivism that accompanied Mozambique's integration into global markets, and continued or even deepened, in the post-independence period. These activities are oriented towards foreign markets. They are instigated by foreign investment, but invariably carried out in collaboration with a chain of national gatekeepers. In a clientelist system, local elites resort to their proximity to the state to reproduce their power, often at the expense of state expropriation. Weak state institutions have the functional effect of reproducing the elites, also serving the interests of extractivist capital. It is, however, a system with many and profound contradictions, producing conflict and violence, which also recurrently put those interests at risk. (shrink)

Este trabalho discute os resultados de uma pesquisa de mestrado cujo objetivo foi propor um modo de trabalhar a sociologia no ensino médio através de uma de suas vertentes contemporâneas: a de Zygmunt Bauman. Tal perspectiva foi escolhida devido à complexidade apresentada pelo atual estágio da modernidade, que impacta fortemente as sociedades contemporâneas. A maneira como Bauman revisa a contemporaneidade pode ser um caminho profícuo para que os estudantes compreendam melhor os seus próprios dilemas na medida em que possam relacionar (...) o conteúdo das ciências sociais com o seu cotidiano. Partindo do pressuposto que o conteúdo ministrado nas aulas de Sociologia no ensino médio deve estar em sintonia com as demandas atuais das ciências sociais, a pesquisa buscou compreender quais os sentidos em que tem se baseado a disciplina. Para tanto, procura-se mostrar que a relação entre disciplina escolar, demandas das ciências sociais e contexto social esteve presente nos diversos períodos em que a Sociologia foi lecionada. A partir do exposto, sugere-se a adaptação de temas e conceitos pertencentes à sociologia contemporânea, sobretudo baseando-se em Bauman, para ensinar ciências sociais aos adolescentes, visando que esses possam melhor compreender o mundo, a si e às relações sociais que os cercam. (shrink)

The occurrence of oscillatory behaviours in living cells can be viewed as a visible consequence of stable, regulatory homeostatic cycles. Therefore, they may be used as experimental windows on the underlying physiological mechanisms. Recent studies show that growing pollen tubes are an excellent biological model for these purposes. They unite experimental simplicity with clear oscillatory patterns of both structural and temporal features, most being measurable during real‐time in live cells. There is evidence that these cellular oscillators involve an integrated input (...) of plasma membrane ion fluxes, and a cytosolic choreography of protons, calcium and, most likely, potassium and chloride. In turn, these can create positive feedback regulation loops that are able to generate and self‐sustain a number of spatial and temporal patterns. Other features, including cell wall assembly and rheology, turgor, and the cytoskeleton, play important roles and are targets or modulators of ion dynamics. Many of these features have similarities with other cell types, notably with apical‐growing cells. Pollen tubes may thus serve as a powerful model for exploring the basis of cell growth and morphogenesis. BioEssays 23:86–94, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Vivemos nos desdobramentos daquilo que Manuel Castells (2005) nomeou de Sociedade em Rede, em cujo cerne estão as Tecnologias de Informação (TIs). Ele indicou as características-chave do novo cenário que diagnosticou, a saber, são tecnologias que agem sobre a própria informação e que também introduziram a lógica das redes; que promovem a convergência tecnológica e, por conseguinte, um sistema altamente integrado de aparatos técnicos; e que acentuadamente penetram pelos diferentes processos e âmbitos sociais. De lá para cá testemunhamos grandes e (...) rápidos saltos tecnológicos bem como o adensamento das transformações na dinâmica econômico-política organizacional e institucional e na construção das vidas humanas e não-humanas no planeta. Essas mudanças alcançaram não apenas modos informais de aprendizagem, mas também a educação formal. O objetivo desse artigo é discutir aspectos atuais da plataformização educacional presentes na educação básica brasileira, tendo como referência o ensino de Filosofia no Ensino Médio. Para tanto será desenvolvida reflexão sobre a plataformização educacional, fenômeno que diz respeito ao modelo de negócios presente na atual fase do capitalismo e que utiliza as plataformas sustentadas pela IA e também a constante extração de dados de quem transita pelas infovias do ciberespaço; sobre o que nomeamos como Escola do Cansaço, em diálogo com o conceito de Sociedade do Cansaço desenvolvido por Byung Chul Han; e sobre algumas implicações decorrentes que já se fazem presentes na administração do trabalho docente, na realização do trabalho docente e nas relações de ensino-aprendizagem. (shrink)

Book Description (Blurb): Cognitive Design for Artificial Minds explains the crucial role that human cognition research plays in the design and realization of artificial intelligence systems, illustrating the steps necessary for the design of artificial models of cognition. It bridges the gap between the theoretical, experimental and technological issues addressed in the context of AI of cognitive inspiration and computational cognitive science. -/- Beginning with an overview of the historical, methodological and technical issues in the field of Cognitively-Inspired Artificial Intelligence, (...) Lieto illustrates how the cognitive design approach has an important role to play in the development of intelligent AI technologies and plausible computational models of cognition. Introducing a unique perspective that draws upon Cybernetics and early AI principles, Lieto emphasizes the need for an equivalence between cognitive processes and implemented AI procedures, in order to realise biologically and cognitively inspired artificial minds. He also introduces the Minimal Cognitive Grid, a pragmatic method to rank the different degrees of biologically and cognitive accuracy of artificial systems in order project and predict their explanatory power with respect to the natural systems taken as source of inspiration. -/- Providing a comprehensive overview of cognitive design principles in constructing artificial minds, this text will be essential reading for students and researchers of artificial intelligence and cognitive science. (shrink)

The theory of the social responsibility of the firm oscillates between two extremes: one that reduces the firm's responsibility to the obtainment of (the greatest possible) profit for its shareholders, and another that extends the firm's responsibility to include a wide range of actors with an interest or "stake" in the firm. The stakeholder theory of the social responsibility of business is more appealing from an ethical point of view, and yet it lacks a solid foundation that would be acceptable (...) to a variety of schools of thought.In this paper I argue that the stakeholder theory could be founded on the concept of the common good. First, I explain the foundations of the theory of the common good, the concept itself, how it relates to the individual good, and its role in the firm. Following that, I explain how the theory of the common good could be applied to the stakeholder theory. Finally, I draw some conclusions. (shrink)

In this article we present an advanced version of Dual-PECCS, a cognitively-inspired knowledge representation and reasoning system aimed at extending the capabilities of artificial systems in conceptual categorization tasks. It combines different sorts of common-sense categorization (prototypical and exemplars-based categorization) with standard monotonic categorization procedures. These different types of inferential procedures are reconciled according to the tenets coming from the dual process theory of reasoning. On the other hand, from a representational perspective, the system relies on the hypothesis of conceptual (...) structures represented as heterogeneous proxytypes. Dual-PECCS has been experimentally assessed in a task of conceptual categorization where a target concept illustrated by a simple common-sense linguistic description had to be identified by resorting to a mix of categorization strategies, and its output has been compared to human responses. The obtained results suggest that our approach can be beneficial to improve the representational and reasoning conceptual capabilities of standard cognitive artificial systems, and –in addition– that it may be plausibly applied to different general computational models of cognition. The current version of the system, in fact, extends our previous work, in that Dual-PECCS is now integrated and tested into two cognitive architectures, ACT-R and CLARION, implementing different assumptions on the underlying invariant structures governing human cognition. Such integration allowed us to extend our previous evaluation. (shrink)

We propose a nonmonotonic Description Logic of typicality able to account for the phenomenon of the combination of prototypical concepts. The proposed logic relies on the logic of typicality ALC + TR, whose semantics is based on the notion of rational closure, as well as on the distributed semantics of probabilistic Description Logics, and is equipped with a cognitive heuristic used by humans for concept composition. We first extend the logic of typicality ALC + TR by typicality inclusions of the (...) form p :: T(C) v D, whose intuitive meaning is that “we believe with degree p about the fact that typical Cs are Ds”. As in the distributed semantics, we define different scenarios containing only some typicality inclusions, each one having a suitable probability. We then exploit such scenarios in order to ascribe typical properties to a concept C obtained as the combination of two prototypical concepts. We also show that reasoning in the proposed Description Logic is EXPTIME-complete as for the underlying standard Description Logic ALC. (shrink)

The paper discusses the possible implications of the relational framework of Pure Shape Dynamics for the metaphysics of time. The starting point of the analysis is an interpretation of shapes in ontic structural realist terms, which gives rise to the notion of self-subsisting structure. The relational version of a Newtonian-particle toy model is introduced and discussed as a concrete example.

In this paper we propose a computational framework aimed at extending the problem solving capabilities of cognitive artificial agents through the introduction of a novel, goal-directed, dynamic knowledge generation mechanism obtained via a non monotonic reasoning procedure. In particular, the proposed framework relies on the assumption that certain classes of problems cannot be solved by simply learning or injecting new external knowledge in the declarative memory of a cognitive artificial agent but, on the other hand, require a mechanism for the (...) automatic and creative re-framing, or re-formulation, of the available knowledge. We show how such mechanism can be obtained trough a framework of dynamic knowledge generation that is able to tackle the problem of commonsense concept combination. In addition, we show how such a framework can be employed in the field of cognitive architectures in order to overcome situations like the impasse in SOAR by extending the possible options of its subgoaling procedures. (shrink)

The paper discusses from a metaphysical standpoint the nature of the dependence relation underpinning the talk of mutual action between material and spatiotemporal structures in general relativity. It is shown that the standard analyses of dependence in terms of causation or grounding are ill-suited for the general relativistic context. Instead, a non-standard analytical framework in terms of structural equation modeling is exploited, which leads to the conclusion that the kind of dependence encoded in the Einstein field equations is a novel (...) one. (shrink)

We propose a nonmonotonic Description Logic of typicality able to account for the phenomenon of combining prototypical concepts, an open problem in the fields of AI and cognitive modelling. Our logic extends the logic of typicality ALC + TR, based on the notion of rational closure, by inclusions p :: T(C) v D (“we have probability p that typical Cs are Ds”), coming from the distributed semantics of probabilistic Description Logics. Additionally, it embeds a set of cognitive heuristics for concept (...) combination. We show that the complexity of reasoning in our logic is EXPTIME-complete as in ALC. (shrink)

We present a list of open questions in reverse mathematics, including some relevant background information for each question. We also mention some of the areas of reverse mathematics that are starting to be developed and where interesting open question may be found.

During the last decades, many cognitive architectures (CAs) have been realized adopting different assumptions about the organization and the representation of their knowledge level. Some of them (e.g. SOAR [35]) adopt a classical symbolic approach, some (e.g. LEABRA[ 48]) are based on a purely connectionist model, while others (e.g. CLARION [59]) adopt a hybrid approach combining connectionist and symbolic representational levels. Additionally, some attempts (e.g. biSOAR) trying to extend the representational capacities of CAs by integrating diagrammatical representations and reasoning are (...) also available [34]. In this paper we propose a reflection on the role that Conceptual Spaces, a framework developed by Peter G¨ardenfors [24] more than fifteen years ago, can play in the current development of the Knowledge Level in Cognitive Systems and Architectures. In particular, we claim that Conceptual Spaces offer a lingua franca that allows to unify and generalize many aspects of the symbolic, sub-symbolic and diagrammatic approaches (by overcoming some of their typical problems) and to integrate them on a common ground. In doing so we extend and detail some of the arguments explored by G¨ardenfors [23] for defending the need of a conceptual, intermediate, representation level between the symbolic and the sub-symbolic one. In particular we focus on the advantages offered by Conceptual Spaces (w.r.t. symbolic and sub-symbolic approaches) in dealing with the problem of compositionality of representations based on typicality traits. Additionally, we argue that Conceptual Spaces could offer a unifying framework for interpreting many kinds of diagrammatic and analogical representations. As a consequence, their adoption could also favor the integration of diagrammatical representation and reasoning in CAs. (shrink)

The cases of corruption reported by the media tend almost always to involve a private party (a citizen or a corporation) that pays, or promises to pay, money to a public party (a politician or a public official, for example) in order to obtain an advantage or avoid a disadvantage. Because of the harm it does to economic efficiency and growth, and because of its social, political and ethical consequences, private-to-public corruption has been widely studied. Private-to-private corruption, by contrast, has (...) been relatively neglected and only recently has started to receive the attention it deserves. The purpose of this paper is to offer some thoughts on the nature and importance of private-to-private corruption; the legal treatment it receives in some of the world''s leading countries; and the measures that companies can take to combat it, with special consideration of its ethical aspects. (shrink)

We start by problematizing the way in which philosophical practice is generally conceived in our academic environment. In this article, we address an understanding of Philosophy as a process of serious and sincere investigation of existential questions and creation of theory. With this, we intend to question some of the most common diagnoses and solutions for the underdevelopment of philosophical practice in Brazil, as well as provide our contribution to the propagation of a philosophical practice that risks the leap from (...) commentary to creation. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the artificial components of hybrid bionic systems do not play a direct explanatory role, i.e., in simulative terms, in the overall context of the systems in which they are embedded in. More precisely, I claim that the internal procedures determining the output of such artificial devices, replacing biological tissues and connected to other biological tissues, cannot be used to directly explain the corresponding mechanisms of the biological component(s) they substitute (and therefore cannot be used (...) to explain the local mechanisms determining an overall biological or cognitive function replicated by such bionic models). I ground this analysis on the use of the Minimal Cognitive Grid (MCG), a novel framework proposed in Lieto (Cognitive design for artificial minds, 2021) to rank the epistemological and explanatory status of biologically and cognitively inspired artificial systems. Despite the lack of such a direct mechanistic explanation from the artificial component, however, I also argue that the hybrid bionic systems can have an indirect explanatory role similar to the one played by some AI systems built by using an overall structural design approach (but including the partial adoption of functional components). In particular, the artificial replacement of part(s) of a biological system can provide i) a local functional account of that part(s) in the context of the overall functioning of the hybrid biological–artificial system and ii) global insights about the structural mechanisms of the biological elements connected to such artificial devices. (shrink)

Today, values hold a prominent place both in business ethics and in organization theory. However, there persists considerable confusion about what these values are and what role they play in these theories and, therefore, how they can be developed both within the individual and within the organization. Therefore, this paper seeks to define a conception of values based on a theory of human action that can provide a basis for an organization theory, and to propose a series of ideas about (...) how personal and organizational values can be fostered. (shrink)

In this short chapter I propose some possible research directions ad- dressing the problem of how cognitive, formal and computational models of trust (i.e. one of the main areas of Rino Falcone’s contribu- tions) can play a major role in the development of cognitive modeling and AI research community in the context of what Allen Newell called the rational and social bands.

In this article we aim to distinguish between the transhuman and posthuman condition, according to their anthropological, ontological, and ethical natures. We will show that the current historical moment can be considered the beginning of a transhuman civilisation, given that the characteristics of the transhuman are already present in today’s human being. We will show that a series of decisive limitations for belonging to the human condition are in the process of being transcended due to acquisition of attributes of divinity (...) that human beings do not currently possess: omnipotence, omnipresence , ex nihilo creation – starting from the divine creative ideation – and immortality. Humans are increasingly taking on the attributes of divinity in the process of human enhancements. We will discuss the ways in which technology allows the human to overcome these limitations, elevating humans past their current condition, in a process in which they gain technological transcendence. Excepting immortality, all other limitations, once exceeded, generate a transhuman condition. Immortality generates a posthuman condition, since it can only be obtained by modifying the human ontological status from that of a biological being to that of a resident being in informatics networks. In order to clarify this process, we will discuss the concepts of everlastingness and artificial life prolongation. (shrink)

The main goals of this study were, to test the motivational determinants of athletes perceived effort in football considering the four-stage motivational sequence at the contextual level proposed by Hierarchical Model of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: task-involving, basic psychological needs, self-determined motivation and perceived effort. The multi-group analysis across different age-groups (U15, U17, U19, U21 years) and mediation role of basic psychological needs and self-determined motivation on the task-involving climate and the perceived effort were also analysed. Two independent samples of (...) male football athletes (N= 403, N= 403), aged 13-20 were enrolled in this study. The results demonstrated that structural model provided a good fit to data for all samples under analysis, and was invariant across U17, U19, and U21. However, it was not invariant across U15 and U17, U19 and U21. Additionally, in the results from the mediation analysis, there were significant indirect effects in all samples, supporting theoretical by self-determination theory assumptions, reinforcing the importance of basic psychological needs satisfaction and behavioral regulation in the relation in analysis. The results allow concluding that when coaches promote a task-involving climate, the basic psychological needs satisfaction of athletes improves. This climate will facilitate the regulation of their behaviors towards more autonomous forms of motivation, with positive results in the perceived effort of the athletes. (shrink)

§1. Introduction. A linear ordering embedsinto another linear ordering if it is isomorphic to a subset of it. Two linear orderings are said to beequimorphicif they can be embedded in each other. This is an equivalence relation, and we call the equivalence classesequimorphism types. We analyze the structure of equimorphism types of linear orderings, which is partially ordered by the embeddability relation. Our analysis is mainly fromthe viewpoints of Computability Theory and Reverse Mathematics. But we also obtain results, as the (...) definition of equimorphism invariants for linear orderings, which provide a better understanding of the shape of this structure in general.This study of linear orderings started by analyzing the proof-theoretic strength of a theorem due to Jullien [Jul69]. As is often the case in Reverse Mathematics, to solve this problem it was necessary to develop a deeper understanding of the objects involved. This led to a variety of results on the structure of linear orderings and the embeddability relation on them. These results can be divided into three groups. (shrink)

The dynamics of general relativity is encoded in a set of ten differential equations, the so-called Einstein field equations. It is usually believed that Einstein's equations represent a physical law describing the coupling of spacetime with material fields. However, just six of these equations actually describe the coupling mechanism: the remaining four represent a set of differential relations known as Bianchi identities. The paper discusses the physical role that the Bianchi identities play in general relativity, and investigates whether these identities (...) --qua part of a physical law-- highlight some kind of a posteriori necessity in a Kripkean sense. The inquiry shows that general relativistic physics has an interesting bearing on the debate about the metaphysics of the laws of nature. (shrink)

San Isidoro de Sevilla destaca por poseer un saber universal. Esta universalidad de su saber también es expresada en su reflexión sobre el ministerio sacerdotal. A través de una triple aproximación «teológica», «pastoral» y «espiritual», invita a los obispos y presbíteros a vivir su ministerio de una forma «eclesial», «virtuosa» y «santa».

There are three types of solutions to the problems deriving from companies' ethical, social and environmental responsibilities: those based on regulation by an authority or agency; those deigned to create market incentives; and those that rely on self-regulation by companies themselves. In the specific field we are concerned with here, regulation has significant costs and drawbacks that make it particularly desirable that companies should set up their own ethical, social and environmental management systems or programmes. The purpose of this article (...) is twofold. On the one hand, it explains how implementing voluntary ethical, social and environmental management systems or programmes may help to develop and sustain ethical behaviour in organizations, overcoming the conflict between compulsory regulation and occasional ethical practices. On the other hand, it shows that conditions must be met for an ethical management programme to be effective. (shrink)

We overview the main historical and technological elements characterising the rise, the fall and the recent renaissance of the cognitive approaches to Artificial Intelligence and provide some insights and suggestions about the future directions and challenges that, in our opinion, this discipline needs to face in the next years.

Given the need to explore the factors that can account for a better understanding of the intention-behavior gap in exercise practice in health club settings, and considering the emergence of hedonic assumptions related to exercise adherence, this cross-sectional study aimed to test the moderation effect of the intensity traits agreement/disagreement in three relevant outcomes of exercise enjoyment: exercise habit, intention to continue exercising, and exercise frequency. A sample consisted of 273 exercisers (male = 127; Mage = 36.21; SD = 11.29) (...) enrolled in nine health clubs who voluntarily fulfilled a battery of questionnaires. All analyses were performed using SPSS v. 23.0/PROCESS v. 3.5. The results of the study presented a moderation effect of exercise intensity traits agreement on three relevant enjoyment outcomes: exercise habit, intention to continue exercising, and exercise frequency. No relevant results emerged from intensity traits disagreement. The results suggest that assessing and tailoring exercise prescription and supervision in order to customize exercise intensity may influence future exercise participation. (shrink)

Resumo: O objetivo deste estudo é analisar a noção do Ubuntu como contribuição para pensar a democracia, especialmente a crise que esta enfrenta, no Brasil, da atual realidade histórica de intolerância, discriminação racial, exclusão social e desumanização. Para isso, levanta-se a seguinte questão: pode a África contribuir para o pensamento da democracia, pela sua filosofia de vida expressa em Ubuntu? A primeira parte do texto analisa o conceito de Ubuntu, destacando seu caráter filosófico. A segunda parte desenvolve duas características estruturais (...) do Ubuntu: a comunidade e a tolerância. A metodologia de pesquisa se caracteriza como um trabalho bibliográfico, cujo aporte é a análise filosófica da expressão Ubuntu, fundamentada no modo de vida africano, a partir das obras de Ramose: African Philosophy Through Ubuntu ; de Gyekye: Person and Community in African Thought. Entende-se que compreender Ubuntu como um modo de vida africano, baseado na interdependência, interconstituição, interconexão e inter-humanização é cooperar para pensar a democracia como modo de vida ético, social e político, o qual reconhece e considera o outro como sujeito de diferenças que possibilitam a humanização.: This study aims at analysing the notion of Ubuntu as a contribution to think about democracy, especially the crisis it faces in Brazil, before the current historical reality of intolerance, racial discrimination, social exclusion, and dehumanization. For this reason, we raise the following question: can Africa contribute to think about democracy through her life’s philosophy expressed in Ubuntu? The first part of the text analyses the concept of Ubuntu, highlighting its philosophical character. The second part develops two structural characteristics of Ubuntu: community and tolerance. The research methodology is characterised as a bibliographical work, whose contribution is a philosophical analysis of the expression Ubuntu, based on the African way of life, from the works of Ramose: African Philosophy Through Ubuntu ; of Gyekye: Person and community in African thought. We defend that understanding Ubuntu as an African way of life, based on interdependence, inter-constitution, interconnection and inter-humanisation is to contribute to think about democracy as an ethical, social and political way of life that recognises and considers the other as individual of differences that make humanisation possible. (shrink)

In this article, we reassess two of Mises’ core methodological claims. The first claim is that action is necessarily rational. The second claim is that all human minds share a logical structure. Neither claim can be unreservedly accepted but, we argue, both contain truth: Mises’ reflections remain important contributions to our understanding of action and the mind, hence to economics.

Ethical dilemmas raised by the use of nanotechnology in medical practice can be viewed from several perspectives: religious spiritualist perspective, the perspective of human dignity (nanotechnologies can be thought of as an affront to human dignity), the issue of controversial choice. The article aims to expose some bioethical dilemmas in using synthetic biology and nanotechnologies. Nowadays is often brought into discussion the fact it is possible to appear in the future new human species resulted not via natural selection and evolution, (...) but through the demiurgic effect of technology development in areas such as: synthetic biology, genetics, neurobiology and neurosciences, prosthesis technology and not least of artificial intelligence research. We will also refer into this paper at the possible raised challenges to ethicists who are oriented towards an ethics of species. Those challenges are raised right from the dawn of a consciousness of species, a social construction generated by changes of the meaning of belonging to humanity. During our article we argue that medical technology, especially genetics, medical assisted human reproduction and not least synthetic biology, require a rethinking ethical meanings of applying those technologies in everyday practices. (shrink)

Investigation on the ethical implications of the principle of identity and of the principle of reason. The logical principle of identity (A=A), along with the principle of non­contradiction and the principle of the third middle costitute the basis of ocidental logic. However, its dominance is not restricted to logic. As the dominance of the principle of reason is not restricted to epistemology and ontology. This principles constitute a whole worldvew with serious ethical implications. We’ll try, at the end of the (...) article, to indicate contemporary alternatives to this principles – alternatives which bring with themselves different ethical implications. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} The constructionist approach of philosophy includes an epistemic dimension and a pragmatic emphasis on the interdependence between knowledge and action in the social areas. Appreciative approach to philosophy is based on the work of David Cooperrider on “Appreciative Inquiry”, which is a form of pragmatic discourse that substitutes the focus (...) on the problem with the focus on successful elements of previous experience of individuals, groups, organizations or communities. This experience can be integrated in the philosophical discourse starting from Plato's dialogues and maieutic method promoted by Socrates. Hermeneutic of the real seen as a philosophical reflection on the daily positive experiences falls into tradition of philosophical search of the ultimate meaning of reality. The appreciative speech starts from a postmodern view by a constructivist and constructionist approach, through which reality itself is a social construction generated by successive negotiations on accepted interpretations. Appreciative philosophy is centered on a semiotics grid that seeks positive qualities of existence and its strengths. Appreciative theology reveals a collaborative process between humanity and divine that catalyzes transformations in human being giving them life including eternal life. The communion human-Divinity is seen as a divine-human co-creation. (shrink)

One of the most interesting aspects of Leibniz's philosophy is the distinction between "art" and "nature"; the core of this matter is the possibility (or even the impossibility) of distinguishing as clearly as possible between two ontological domains: on one hand the products of technique (such as "artificial machines"), on the other hand all the beings that can be defined as natural ("natural machines"). The question raised in this paper is if it is possibile to build ontological criteria which can (...) be clear enough to distinguish between the products of nature and those of technique in the field of the "res" that they are. (shrink)