Tendo, pois, como pano de fundo o horizonte de uma fenomenologia da natureza, o texto, a seguir, explora uma proposição emblemática enunciada por Gabriel Marcel: a ideia da “natureza como espírito nascente”. Para tanto, a fim de melhor compreender o sentido e alcance dessa tese, a exposição se divide em duas partes correlatas: a primeira, retrospectivamente negativa, reconstitui a crítica marceliana ao naturalismo e ao idealismo vistos como dois gestos concêntricos à medida que não atribuem qualquer estatuto ou significação à (...) natureza. A segunda, mais positiva ou propositiva, restitui, numa direção heurística, a experiência matricial da natureza como espírito nascente, ou seja, confere pleno reconhecimento a uma acepção originariamente espiritual da natureza como fenômeno co-nascente. (shrink)

O texto parte de um diagnóstico fenomenológico: o de que toda emergência pandêmica (como a da covid, por exemplo) é o sintoma fatídico de um estado de crise motivado nas entranhas mesmas ontológicas da racionalidade tal qual toma forma em nossa cultura no Ocidente. A tarefa do pensamento não consiste em destruir a razão, mas salvaguardá-la ante o perigo, sempre iminente, do irracionalismo. Assim, toda forma de obscurantismo emerge como uma figura decadente tendo como pano de fundo sintomático a crise (...) da própria razão; crise essa instalada pela distinção de princípio entre cultura e natureza tão bem prefigurada por Marx e aprofundada por Merleau-Ponty. O texto examina esse ponto nevrálgico e termina realçando o caráter essencial e, portanto, inalienavelmente político desse fenômeno. (shrink)

Tanto desde el punto de vista teórico como desde una perspectiva práctica, el fenómeno de la "estetización" no parece ser portador de buenos augurios. En el ámbito teórico, la estetización ha sido vinculada con la crisis de los discursos orientados en términos de verdad, mientras que en el terreno práctico, ella ha sido asociada a ciertos procesos culturales que conducirían a la debacle de los principios normativos. Dejando de lado la problemática teórica, el presente trabajo se concentra en el debate (...) en torno al fenómeno práctico de la estetización de la política. En primer lugar, nos remontamos a la historia de la condena filosófica de la estetización de la esfera política para ocuparnos luego, en un segundo momento, de algunas posiciones esteticistas y antiesteticistas de finales del siglo XX. Posteriormente, procuramos avanzar en una redescripción de esta problemática que nos permita rescatar un sentido productivo de lo estético para el pensamiento político. Para esto último, nuestro trabajo se apoya en las reflexiones de la actual coeditora de la Neue Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, Juliane Rebentisch. Tomando como parámetro algunos de los supuestos de sus investigaciones, aquí intentaremos demostrar hasta qué punto la estetización de la vida política puede contribuir al desarrollo de una concepción renovada de esta última. Both from a theoretical and from a practical perspective, the phenomenon of "aestheticization" does not seem to anticipate anything particularly good. On a theoretical level, it has been linked to the crisis of discourse-oriented in terms of truth, while in the practical, has been associated with certain cultural processes that lead to the the collapse of the normative principles. Leaving aside the theoretical issues, this paper focuses on the debate on the phenomenon of the aestheticization of the political culture. First, it goes back to the history of philosophical condemnation of the aestheticization of the political sphere. In a second time, he deals with some conceptions of the late twentieth century. Subsequently, the paper seeks to advance a redescription of this problem that allows rescue a productive sense of aesthetics for political thought. For the latter, our article is based on the reflections of Juliane Rebentisch and attempts to show how the aestheticization of political life can help to develop a new concept of the same. (shrink)

O conceito de existencialismo acirra, na cena contemporânea, uma controvérsia sui generis ao demarcar uma linhagem cultural que planta suas raízes filosóficas no dito movimento fenomenológico-existencial, particularmente, na Alemanha e na França e que tem, na figura de Sartre, uma referência, sem dúvida, icônica. Talvez ninguém mais que Gabriel Marcel tenha, recorrentemente, se insurgido contra tal filiação conceitual, atribuída, ora por intelectuais marxistas e cristãos, ora, pela própria mídia sensacionalista; estereótipo que, num primeiro momento, seria, aliás, consentido pelo próprio Sartre, (...) a despeito, sobretudo, da célebre conferência O Existencialismo é um Humanismo. Marcel, tão logo, toma partido nesse debate, vindo a configurar a sua obra filosófico-dramatúrgica como “existencial” e não, propriamente, “existencialista”. O artigo examina, precisamente, esse ponto de inflexão trazendo à tona alguns de seus desdobramentos mais decisivos. (shrink)

Ao reatar o elo mais profundo entre a psicologia e a filosofia, Merleau-Ponty revisita a obra clínica de Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965), reavivando, em especial, seu contributo fenomenológico. As noções de "estrutura" (Gestalt) e "sentido" são, aqui, agenciadas quanto a uma compreensão mais integral do comportamento, da vida e da linguagem; alcance que Goldstein obtém, ao estudar os diferentes distúrbios linguísticos, na contramão das teorias intelectualistas e empiristas, essencialmente causais. Ao retomar esse inventário crítico, Merleau-Ponty atenta para o caráter original, dinâmico (...) e, sobretudo, ontológico dessa proposta. (shrink)

Entre outubro e novembro de 2022, um trabalho de tamanho fôlego sai do prelo na cena cultural e intelectual mexicana. Trata-se de El nihilismo mexicano: una reflexión filosófica de autoria de Mario Teodoro Ramírez vindo a lume pela Bonilla Artigas [...].

O texto visa, contextualmente, situar Nietzsche como um precursor da fenomenologia compreendida por Merleau-Ponty menos a título de uma “doutrina” e mais como um “movimento” incoativo e inacabado. É sob esse prisma que a obra nietzschiana projeta viva audiência a alguns temas caros àquele movimento, entre eles, a interrogação acerca do mundo como mistério. Esse agenciamento encontra na ideia de profundidade um fio condutor decisivo a fim de ressignificar, em termos husserlianos, uma arqueologia da Lebenswelt enquanto regresso a uma Terra (...) originária, algo que, ao que tudo indica, possui importantes ressonâncias não só de matrizes nietzschianas, mas cezannianas. Trata-se, enfim, de examinar em que medida a filosofia de Nietzsche e a pintura de Cézanne perfazem um rico experimento capaz de fulgurar um sentido arquétipo da natureza como abismo ou, no dizer de Merleau-Ponty, o mundo como enigma primordial ou deflagração de um Ser das profundidades. (shrink)

Em Le Philosophe et son Ombre, Merleau-Ponty agencia uma lapidar metáfora no intuito de circunscrever certo domínio de experiência, em rigor, pré-reflexiva, que estaria presente, particularmente, nos últimos trabalhos de Husserl: a sombra. Afinal, o que, mais propriamente, teria permanecido à “sombra” do filósofo? Ora, o pathos corolário do saber ocidental: “a tradição como esquecimento das origens”. Husserl então entrevê outra tarefa cara à fenomenologia, aquém e além de seu idealismo transcendentalmente professo: o retorno à Lebenswelt como horizonte pré-teorético. Trata-se, (...) arqueologicamente, de escavar uma camada de evidência originária, isto é, um mundo bruto, em estado barroco ou selvagem como ainda não pensado. É essa zona de sombra como emblema concreto do Eu puro que não pode mais ser “posta entre parênteses”. (shrink)

Alianças seminais: Merleau-Ponty e Bento Prado Júnior.

O que é a catástrofe? O que a leva, a cada reedição, manter a sua essência última? De que forma, de tempos em tempos, ela se reinventa a ponto de impor uma agenda da qual o filósofo não pode deixar de pautar como um ponto interrogativo acerca do seu real sentido e alcance? Essas entre outras questões se colocam na emergência aqui do debate que procuraremos balizar à luz da obra fenomenológico-existencial de Gabriel Marcel. Trata-se de revisitar, a partir, sobretudo, (...) de Les Hommes Contre l’Humaine, um de seus escritos mais marcantes quanto ao tema, a maneira própria como o filósofo faz um balanço da tragédia de nossa época. Se advoga então a tese de que o fenômeno catastrófico se liga essencialmente a uma atitude sintomática de nossa cultura metafísica que tomou asas no Ocidente: o espírito de abstração. Como contraofensiva a essa escalada espiritual, o texto termina por conclamar uma tomada de consciência mais exigente: a reconquista do concreto. (shrink)

O fio condutor que perpassa o presente ensaio alinha o peculiar estatuto da problemática transcendental no horizonte aberto pela obra de Merleau-Ponty. Nessa direção, demarcaremos as linhas mestras desse novo discurso transcendental, isto é, sua inflexão ontologicamente decisiva enquanto crítica revisional das condições de todo conhecimento agenciada sob o enigma de nossa conaturalidade carnal e, portanto, corporal com o mundo e com o outro.

Mediante um breve recorte, presto, no que se segue, uma singela homenagem à recémfalecida professora doutora Creusa Capalbo (1934-2017), importante difusora intelectualquanto aos estudos fenomenológicos no Brasil. Para tanto, chamo a atenção para um dosconceitos-chave mais trabalhados em sua produção: a noção de historicidade.

Foucault inscreve a fenomenologia num movimento de desconstrução da racionalidade. Esse registro será arqueologicamente operado em As Palavras e as Coisas como signo de uma subversão radical vinda a lume pela “modernidade” em franca oposição à “idade clássica” da cultura no Ocidente, tendo como pano de fundo algo que se revela aquém do cogito: o “impensado”. O que emerge, aqui, é a dimensão mais profunda da razão e da epistémê, ou seja, a camada subterrânea pela qual o acontecimento e a (...) historicidade operam sob a superfície do saber. É essa nova figura que entra em cena, por exemplo, via diferentes discursos como a “alienação”, o “inconsciente” ou o “irrefletido”. No tocante à tradição fenomenológica, a admissão da Lebenswelt, do Dasein, do cogito pré-reflexivo ou da Carne, o “impensado” transfigura a região privilegiada pela qual o pensamento sempre retorna. Ora, se é patente que Foucault circunscreve essa operação como uma posição de princípio a ser superada, não deixa, contudo, de ser plausível o quanto ele parece selar uma espécie de “aliança à distância” com o espírito fenomenológico. O “retorno às coisas mesmas”, em termos foucaultianos, investe-se de outro estatuto, liberando a história de todo pressuposto teleológico, num regresso ao coração do presente. É esse agenciamento que permite, sob certos aspectos, situar a obra de Foucault próxima a de Merleau-Ponty, à maneira de uma reflexão marginal, “transgressora”, abrindo, pois, uma zona de sombra, “impensada”, em sua infraestrutura última. Tal é a “paragem” interpretativa a ser, aqui, perseguida. (shrink)

The work is composed of two mutually structuring moments. First, it briefly and critically reconstructs the broader spectrum of the health crisis surrounding Covid-19 that came to light in 2019 and which, in a distant or more recent period, received unique attention in the literary work of Shakespeare and Camus. Second, it provides an account of an experience in which the author, once a victim of the pandemic, retains memories that still have a therapeutic impact on the post-hospital period. Broadly (...) speaking, by looking at this double and mutual record, the text advocates the thesis that such memories are an invitation to permanent reflection without, however, losing sight of another way of life as a possible utopia, whether as a diagnosis or as an antidote to the crisis. From this perspective, Merleau-Ponty’s mature work becomes, in particular, an indispensable guide as a backdrop in this scenario by bringing to light the symptomatically dazzling aspect of the human condition and its ills. The ongoing project of a nouvelle ontologie, in the philosopher’s final itinerary, emblematically circumscribed as “ontological rehabilitation of the sensible,” embraces, in turn, this task and commitment. It is, in short, a philosophy thought from the deepest dimension of our carnality, an experience of thought archaeologically rooted as intertwined with life and, therefore, not indifferent to pain and suffering. It is to this extent that the reflection contains, as a final proposition, the premise that the marks left, in flesh and blood, in the light of the revived experience of the body, greatly prospect a horizon of meaning to be better understood and reconstructed. (shrink)

We propose to present the clinical case of a woman diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. The descriptive and comprehensive analysis of his biography and the psychotherapeutic relationship is carried out against the background of existential psychoanalysis and the progressive-regressive method formulated by Jean-Paul Sartre. The need for the psychotherapist to have a reflective and critical awareness of how the relationship with the client is established is the fundamental point, considering that it is a dialectical relationship and being under the same (...) aegis of the ambivalence reported by the philosopher to explain how human reality is, in phenomenological-hermeneutic terms, constructed. The detailing of the case promotes reflections, understanding, in practice, the existential and phenomenological project of being. Finally, the study leads us to reflect that the procedures with these psychopathological cases require much more than the professional role of a psychotherapist ordinarily fulfills, because it is only when one manages to be aware of their experience in the relationship, that one can hermeneutically situate how the client apprehends herself originally and existentially. (shrink)

The concept of corporal image includes how own body, taking into account their constituent parts, as well as the feelings related the those characteristics. The entrance in academica life provokes alterations in the feeding behavior, and the exposition to the new social environment they can bring as consequence an increase in dissatisfaction. Objective: To investigate the satisfaction with the body image and eating behavior of academics at a university center. Methods: For data collection, the following instruments were used. The evaluation (...) was performed with anthropometric measurements, as size and weight measurements. In order to diagnose the nutritional status, the body mass index was used. In order to evaluate the study variables; we used the Body Checking questionnaires Questionnaire. Male Body Checking Questionnaire, Body Shape Questionnaire and EAT-26. Results: According to the Body Mass Index, the female gender had a higher rate of adequacy (70.4%), in relation to the masculine (58,9%). The EAT-26 questionnaire showed that 85% of male engineering students presented risk for Feeding Disorders, in relation to the female psychology (89.8%). Conclusion: In terms of feeding behavior, the women scored higher than men, which suggests a higher susceptibility to Feeding Disorders development in men. (shrink)

La autora argumenta sobre la necesidad de pensar en un desarrollo humano sostenible por las profundas transformaciones de la sociedad contemporánea a partir de la globalización de la economía, y la reestructuración productiva que ello genera. Sostiene que del presente concepto de desarrollo no podemos esperar alcanzar la calidad de vida como es concebida y esperada por cada sociedad, y presenta tres propuestas que sí reúnen las condiciones para responder de manera más adecuada a un desarrollo socialmente deseable. Ellas son (...) el Ecodesarrollo, el Desarrollo Sostenible y el Desarrollo Endógeno. Tras ello, postula la relevancia de generar investigación participativa para dirigirse al desarrollo deseado, y ejemplifica con varios proyectos de desarrollo local en el Brasil. (shrink)

O presente artigo pretende uma reflexão acerca da relação entre filosofia platônica e poesia no século V a.C.. Mesmo que Platão tenha como objetivo banir as manifestações poéticas da pólis utópica, cuja teoria descreve magistralmente na República, o filósofo ateniense sabe da força que este tipo de representação ainda possui na formação do homem grego. No diálogo Íon, objeto deste estudo, percebemos a tentativa estratégica de Platão de desqualificar a poesia em nome do conhecimento. Para o cidadão ateniense de então, (...) a Musa inspirada perde força diante da argumentação científica filosófica. (shrink)

People sometimes explain behavior by appealing to an essentialist concept of the self, often referred to as the true self. Existing studies suggest that people tend to believe that the true self is morally virtuous; that is deep inside, every person is motivated to behave in morally good ways. Is this belief particular to individuals with optimistic beliefs or people from Western cultures, or does it reflect a widely held cognitive bias in how people understand the self? To address this (...) question, we tested the good true self theory against two potential boundary conditions that are known to elicit different beliefs about the self as a whole. Study 1 tested whether individual differences in misanthropy—the tendency to view humans negatively—predict beliefs about the good true self in an American sample. The results indicate a consistent belief in a good true self, even among individuals who have an explicitly pessimistic view of others. Study 2 compared true self-attributions across cultural groups, by comparing samples from an independent country and a diverse set of interdependent countries. Results indicated that the direction and magnitude of the effect are comparable across all groups we tested. The belief in a good true self appears robust across groups varying in cultural orientation or misanthropy, suggesting a consistent psychological tendency to view the true self as morally good. (shrink)

Cuando en El coraje de la verdad se comienzan a trazar las primeras directrices para la realización de una transhistoria del cinismo, que implicaría un rastreo de las diferentes manifestaciones cínicas desde la era alejandrina hasta el presente, Foucault dice estar muy desprovisto de trabajos en los que haya sido planteado este proyecto, y que apenas tiene noticia de cuatro textos, todos de origen germánico y de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, que, al menos, abordan la relación entre el (...) cinismo clásico y un presunto cinismo moderno. De estos cuatro, el filósofo francés confiesa haber leído solo tres: El coraje de existir de Paul Tillich, Parmenides und Jona de Klaus Heinrich y Moral e hipermoral de Arnold Gehlen, obras que le hacen preguntarse sobre el especial interés de la filosofía alemana por el fenómeno cínico. En el presente ensayo, pretendemos adentrarnos en estos libros para esclarecer la forma en la que en ellos se entiende dicho fenómeno, y así dar cuenta de su influjo, por concordancia o confrontación, sobre la original concepción foucaultiana del cinismo. (shrink)

A growing body of research has examined how people judge the persistence of identity over time—that is, how they decide that a particular individual is the same entity from one time to the next. While a great deal of progress has been made in understanding the types of features that people typically consider when making such judgments, to date, existing work has not explored how these judgments may be shaped by normative considerations. The present studies demonstrate that normative beliefs do (...) appear to play an important role in people's beliefs about persistence. Specifically, people are more likely to judge that the identity of a given entity remains the same when its features improve than when its features deteriorate. Study 1 provides a basic demonstration of this effect. Study 2 shows that this effect is moderated by individual differences in normative beliefs. Study 3 examines the underlying mechanism, which is the belief that, in general, various entities are essentially good. Study 4 directly manipulates beliefs about essence to show that the positivity bias regarding essences is causally responsible for the effect. (shrink)

Recent scientific research has settled on a purely descriptive definition of happiness that is focused solely on agents’ psychological states (high positive affect, low negative affect, high life satisfaction). In contrast to this understanding, recent research has suggested that the ordinary concept of happiness is also sensitive to the moral value of agents’ lives. Five studies systematically investigate and explain the impact of morality on ordinary assessments of happiness. Study 1 demonstrates that moral judgments influence assessments of happiness not only (...) for untrained participants, but also for academic researchers and even in those who study happiness specifically. Studies 2 and 3 then respectively ask whether this effect may be explained by general motivational biases or beliefs in a just world. In both cases, we find evidence against these explanations. Study 4 shows that the impact of moral judgments cannot be explained by changes in the perception of descriptive psychological states. Finally, Study 5 compares the impact of moral and non-moral value, and provides evidence that unlike non-moral value, moral value is part of the criteria that govern the ordinary concept of happiness. Taken together, these studies provide a specific explanation of how and why the ordinary concept of happiness deviates from the definition used by researchers studying happiness. (shrink)

Não apenas uma vez Nietzsche escreve que o mundo, junto com tudo que nele há, é tão somente vontade de poder. Por meio dessa teoria ele pensa os diversos níveis da existência, indo desde elementos ínfimos e simples até estruturas complexas, com elevado grau de refinamento. Tudo não passa, segundo esse filósofo, do desenrolar de forças em jogo agonístico por um algo a mais de poder. Neste artigo nós analisamos alguns aspectos da teoria da vontade de poder para mostrar como (...) Nietzsche faz uso de um mesmo arranjo conceitual para qualificar toda a existência. Assim, tanto o microscópico quanto o macroscópico, tanto o orgânico quanto o inorgânico, são tomados como exemplos de entes que, não obstante suas diferenças, são todos vontades de poder. (shrink)

There has been a call for a potentially revolutionary change to our existing understanding of the psychological concept of personal identity. Apparently, people can psychologically represent people, including themselves, as multiple individuals at the same time. Here we ask whether the intransitive judgments found in these studies truly reflect the operation of an intransitive concept of personal identity. We manipulate several factors that arbitrate between transitivity and intransitivity and find most support for transitivity: in contrast to prior work, most participants (...) do not make intransitive judgments when there is any reason to favor one individual over another. People change which single individual they personally identify with, depending on which individual competes more strongly or weakly for identity, rather than identifying with both individuals. Even when two individuals are identical and therefore both entitled to be the same person, we find that people make more transitive judgments once they understand the practical commitments of their responses (Experiment 4), and report not being able to actually imagine two perspectives simultaneously when reasoning about the scenario (Experiment 5). In short, we suggest that while people may make intransitive judgments, these do not reflect that they psychologically represent identity in an intransitive manner. (shrink)

Resumo: O artigo desdobra algumas implicações decorrentes de uma análise ficcional em torno das artes neoliberais de governo. Nessa direção, articula os pressupostos das teorias biopolíticas da formação humana agenciadas pela entrada no Antropoceno, a fim de pensar a desabilitação do que Elizabeth Povinelli chama de imaginário do carbono e seus processos de marcação, distinção e desqualificação ontológica. Trata-se, portanto, de um ensaio especulativo produzido em torno do diagnóstico de um desmoronamento catastrófico da distinção fundamental da episteme moderna, a distinção (...) entre as ordens cosmológica e antropológica, sugerindo uma cartografia precária dos corpos ingovernáveis ancorada em uma sutil arte política: a arte de segurar o céu pelas diferenças. Essa arte almeja atravessar o abismo que historicamente separou um povo com filosofia em oposição aos povos com mito, construindo pontes que incitem a Filosofia da educação e seus praticantes a se situarem na equivocidade dos mundos e aí habitar. Palavras-chave: Antropoceno. Geontologia. Cartografias da diferença. Formação humana. Altered bodies, ungovernable bodies: ethical-aesthetic cartographies to hold the sky through diferences: The article unfolds some implications arising from a fictional analysis around the neoliberal arts of government. In this sense, it articulates the presuppositions of the biopolitical theories of human formation that were introduced by the entry into the Anthropocene, in order to think about the disabling of what Elizabeth Povinelli calls the carbon imaginary and its processes of marking, distinction and ontological disqualification. The argument is a speculative essay produced around the diagnosis of a catastrophic collapse of the fundamental distinction of modern episteme, suggesting a precarious cartography of ungovernable bodies anchored in a subtle political art: art of holding the sky through the differences. This art aims to bridge the chasm that has historically separated a people with philosophy as opposed to people with myth, building bridges that incite the Philosophy of education and its practitioners to lie in the equivocity of worlds and dwell there. Keywords: Anthropocene. Geontology. Cartographies of the difference. Human formation. Cuerpos alterados, cuerpos ingobernables: cartografías ético-estéticas para sostener el cielo a través de las diferencias Resumen: El artículo desarrolla un análisis sobre las artes neoliberales del gobierno. En este sentido, refleja las presuposiciones de las teorías biopolíticas de la formación humana frente a la entrada al Antropoceno, a fin de pensar la desactivación de lo que Elizabeth Povinelli llama el imaginario del carbono y sus procesos de distinción y descalificación ontológica. Es, por lo tanto, un ensayo especulativo producido en torno al diagnóstico de un colapso catastrófico de la distinción fundamental de la episteme moderna, sugiriendo una cartografía de cuerpos ingobernables anclados en un sutil arte político: la arte de sostener el cielo a través de las diferencias. Esta arte tiene como objetivo cerrar el abismo que ha dividido un pueblo con filosofía y un pubelo con mitos, construyendo puentes que inciten a la Filosofía de la educación y a sus practicantes a pararse en la ambigüedad de los mundos y habitar allí. Palabras clave: Antropoceno. Geontología. Cartografías de la diferencia. Formación humana. (shrink)

In his struggle to constitute sociology as a natural science, Durkheim fought against finalism, Gabriel Tarde’s general project, efforts at theoretical synthesis unconnected to specific empirical problems, and ideological analysis. The article dwells on these four "epistemological battles," especially on Durkheim’s (unfortunately failed) effort toward purging the social sciences from ideological analysis.

Past research has identified a number of asymmetries based on moral judgments. Beliefs about what a person values, whether a person is happy, whether a person has shown weakness of will, and whether a person deserves praise or blame seem to depend critically on whether participants themselves find the agent's behavior to be morally good or bad. To date, however, the origins of these asymmetries remain unknown. The present studies examine whether beliefs about an agent's “true self” explain these observed (...) asymmetries based on moral judgment. Using the identical materials from previous studies in this area, a series of five experiments indicate that people show a general tendency to conclude that deep inside every individual there is a “true self” calling him or her to behave in ways that are morally virtuous. In turn, this belief causes people to hold different intuitions about what the agent values, whether the agent is happy, whether he or she has shown weakness of will, and whether he or she deserves praise or blame. These results not only help to answer important questions about how people attribute various mental states to others; they also contribute to important theoretical debates regarding how moral values may shape our beliefs about phenomena that, on the surface, appear to be decidedly non-moral in nature. (shrink)

The desire for a meaningful life is ubiquitous, yet the ordinary concept of a meaningful life is poorly understood. Across six experiments (total N = 2,539), we investigated whether third-person attributions of meaning depend on the psychological states an agent experiences (feelings of interest, engagement, and fulfillment), or on the objective conditions of their life (e.g., their effects on others). Studies 1a–b found that laypeople think subjective and objective factors contribute independently to the meaningfulness of a person’s life. Studies 2a–b (...) found that positive mental states are thought to make a life more meaningful, even if derived from senseless activities (e.g., hand-copying the dictionary). Studies 3a–b found that agents engaged in morally bad activities are not thought to have meaningful lives, even if they feel fulfilled. In short, both an agents’ subjective mental states and objective impact on the world affect how meaningful their lives appear. (shrink)

This book expands the landscape of research in mathematics education by analyzing how the body influences mathematical thinking.

In this essay Elizabeth de Freitas follows Tim Ingold's groundbreaking anthropological work on lines and their cultural and material significance to argue that the line is the engine of theory, be it the drawn line of inscription or mathematical measure, the exclusionary line of delineation, or the undulating generative line of flight. De Freitas focuses on contemporary theories of perception that deploy the line — and mobilize the force of theory — so as to encode and reconfigure the (...) student's body. She draws on the work of Gilles Deleuze to develop a topological approach to the line, and argues that such an approach aligns with current philosophical approaches to social interaction that might be termed “topo-philosophy.”. (shrink)

Video data has now become the most common form of data for educational researchers studying classroom interaction and school culture. Software protocols for analysing vast archives of video data are deployed regularly, allowing researchers to annotate, code and sort images. These protocols are often applied by researchers without reflection or reference to the extensive philosophical work in film and media studies. Without exception, this research treats the video image as movement-image or picture, a recording of ‘raw data’, indexical of a (...) given time-space relationship. In this article I situate this kind of research within the history of scientific cinema, drawing on Deleuze's books on cinema, as well as his ideas on colour and figure from The Logic of Sensation, to propose an alternative way of analysing video data. One of the central claims of Deleuze in Cinema 2 is that the time-image reconfigures bodies as expressions of force – the body becomes a ‘shock of forces’. I argue that such an approach allows us to study the student body as less a phenomenological organism with built-in ‘I can’ cognitive and motor capacities, and more an indeterminate crystalline contraction and expansion of intensity. I present an example of how to study classroom video data as time-image, and explore the implications of such work for education research. (shrink)

Thinking with Spinoza about education involves thinking with and beyond his authored texts, situating his work within the tradition of Western thought, and exploring his contribution to the philoso...

The primary aim of this article is to bring the work of Deleuze and Guattari to bear on the question ofcommunication in the classroom. I focus on the mathematics classroom, where agency and subjectivity are highly regulated by the rituals of the discipline, and where neoliberal psychological frameworks continue to dominate theories of teaching and learning. Moreover, the nature ofcommunication in mathematics classrooms remains highlyelusive and problematic, due in part to the distinct relationship the discipline has with verbal language and (...) thought. I first discuss current attempts to better address the embodied nature ofcommunication in mathematics classrooms, and argue that these remain overly logo-centric and language-centric in their conception of thinking. I then show how the work of Deleuze and Guattari on thought as a radical disruptive event can be used effectively to critique current pedagogical practices that privilege a narrow conception of communication in the classroom. I examine a set of exemplary classroom videos used in mathematics teacher education to argue that the current approach fails to honor the highly creative and disruptive nature ofthinking. (shrink)

Population control through discriminatory practices is found at all times in history. Never before, however, has use of the sciences been so close to achieving the creation of new mechanisms for generating human "subspecies". This study, which is based on a selected theoretical framework, deals with the biotechnological and bioethical challenges on the path to manipulation as concerns the development of potentially harmful practices in a pluralist context. Segregation or even the destruction of undesirable human beings is a frightening reflection (...) of an egocentric and largely prejudiced society. However, the future will not necessarily be obscure if Homo sapiens can act ethically and positively. (shrink)

A lo largo de su producción intelectual, Nietzsche no dejó de abordar, aunque de forma más o menos satelital, el tema del cinismo, primero en su manifestación literaria grecorromana, sobre todo representada en la literatura menipea, y luego en tanto fenómeno ético y epistemológico. En este segundo momento el cinismo empezó a ser relacionado con una de las nociones fundamentales del corpus nietzscheano: la crítica fisiológica. El esclarecimiento de este vínculo es el objetivo principal del presente artículo.