El presente trabajo indaga la concepción de despotismo de Tocqueville, con la finalidad de mostrar sus repercusiones en la intersubjetividad y no en la lógica social de la democracia. Para demostrar esta premisa, reconstruye los fundamentos empíricos de su psicología moral, a los fines de “polemizar” con interpretaciones ilustradas que yuxtaponen diferentes tipologías de despotismo para fundamentar una congruencia exclusivamente racionalistas de sus efectos. Teniendo presente esta dicotomía, explora la metodología comparada del autor francés, con el objetivo de presentar argumentos (...) en favor de una versión hegemónica de los efectos del despotismo, destinada a reproducirse en el comportamiento individual bajo formas “asentidas” de dominación. (shrink)

Este artículo explora la concepción de secularización reconstruida por Alexis de Tocqueville en la democracia de América. Además, tiene la finalidad de mostrar cómo sus aportes contrastan con las características de la secularización en Europa, al develar una nueva devaluación de la filosofía en la modernidad que se produce por el destronamiento de su función directriz de la crítica y por causa del empoderamiento de la opinión pública en una sociedad democrática. De este modo, se argumenta cómo los aportes del (...) pensador francés se muestran extemporáneos con respecto a lo postulado en las versiones seculares eurocéntricas, en la medida en que estas reducen la crisis de la filosofía a los parámetros históricos de la Ilustración, con lo que se descuida notablemente cómo su desapercibimiento es una cuestión dependiente del futuro. (shrink)

Se analiza la situación paradójica que presenta la secularización en América reconstruida por Tocqueville. Teniendo presente este postulado, mostraremos la ruptura que se establece con respecto a la Ilustración en el tema de la secularización, en aras de descubrir una nueva variante de la crisis de la filosofía que permaneces vinculada con la nueva estructura organizacional de las sociedades democráticas modernas. Asimismo, mostraremos cómo el perfil liberal de Tocqueville se muestra superador de las versiones eurocéntricas en el tema de la (...) crisis de la filosofía, en la medida de que su devaluación no procede únicamente de anomalías metodológicas, sino del cambio de autoridad intelectual operado por la secularización para empoderar a la opinión pública. Por esta razón, procederemos finalmente a mostrar en qué medida la novedad de la paradoja de la secularización en América reconstruida por Tocqueville, define la crisis de la filosofía como asunto del futuro en virtud de la serie de problemas inéditos que demanda satisfacer. (shrink)

El presente trabajo reconstruye la influencia de Aristóteles en Tocqueville para revitalizar el valor empírico e histórico de su psicología de la democracia, y “polemizar” con interpretaciones racionalistas. De este modo, introduce correctivos en interpretaciones exclusivamente racionalistas y cognoscitivas que yuxtaponen los diferentes modelos de despotismo concebidos por Tocqueville para reconstruir resultados equivalentes de sus efectos. En función de estas premisas, subraya la originalidad del autor francés en el tema del despotismo, argumentando una versión hegemónica de sus efectos destinada a (...) reproducirse en el comportamiento individual bajo formas “asentidas” de dominación. (shrink)

AbstractIn many cultures, interactions between humans and plants are rooted in what is called “relational values”—values that derive from relationships and entail reciprocity. In Mexico, biocultural diversity is mirrored in the knowledge and use of some 6500 plant species and the domestication of over 250 Mesoamerican native crop species. This research explores how different sets of values are attributed to plants and how these influence management strategies to maintain plant resources in wild and anthropogenic environments. We ran workshops in two (...) communities in a highly biodiverse region in western Mexico, to ascertain the values and management activities related to important plant resources. The relationship between values attributed to plants and management activities was examined through redundancy analysis. A total of 180 plant resources were mentioned during the workshops, with a broad spectrum of values attributed to them, including material, non-material, and regulatory dimensions. We divided plant management strategies into three general categories of increasing intensity and complexity. We found that participants in the Indigenous community value and manage more wild plant resources than people in the non-Indigenous community. We also identified relationships between plant resource values and the type of management performed; for example, more intensive forms of management, such as sowing seeds, were used for seasonal plants that had a food value. By valuing and managing different sets of plant resources from forest, agricultural plots, and home gardens, people enabled multi-functional landscapes to form, illustrating a key feature of relational values in agroecosystems, which promotes both conservation and domestication of plants. (shrink)

Itinerario.--Redescubrimiento de la Piedra Nietzsche.--Carta de la Sra. Cati Knaus.--Carta de la Fundación "Casa Nietzsche en Sils-Maria."--Carta del director del "Archivo Goethe-Schiller," en Weimar.--Wiederentdeckung des "Nietzsche-Steins."--En el Monte de los Olivas.--Un vino llamado "Nicolaus Machiavellus."--Carta de la Società vinicola dei conti Serristori.--Un vino chiamato "Nicolaus Machiavellus.".

Se ha discutido en muchas ocasiones si la “leyenda negra” es algo real o un conjunto de opiniones a las que se concede un relieve injustificado. Se han dado también diferentes fechas para su origen y se ha indicado que está más guiada por una finalidad política que por un afán investigador. Más allá de su existencia, origen y valoración, lo que no varía son los presupuestos metodológicos e ideológicos con los que se construye el relato de su historia. Esta (...) práctica comenzó a inicios del siglo XX y continúa en nuestros días. Este artículo muestra que mucho antes de esa fecha, los rasgos característicos de la misma ya estaban presentes en _La falsa filosofía_, el escrito más citado del fraile reaccionario Fernando de Ceballos. (shrink)

Intentamos mostrar las líneas genealógicas de la estructura político-legislativa de nuestro mundo a través del juego dinámico entre el Derecho natural y el Derecho positivo. El Derecho positivo de los grupos sociales implica una pseudo especialización cultural social a partir de la cual se justifica la guerra. Por otro lado, la guerra nunca puede ser justificada a través del derecho natural. En este trabajo vamos a tratar los siguientes aspectos: I) La Historia del Derecho Natural; II) El inicio de los (...) valores sociales de la época moderna en el lusnaturalismo clásico español: Fr. Suárez, Fr. de Vitoria y Fr. Bartolomé de las Casas; III) Valores como la libertad, la igualdad y la solidaridad (propiedad común). (shrink)

Los procesos educativos deben asumir de modo expreso, reflexiva y críticamente nuestros ethos originarios (histórica, filosófica y antropológicamente hablando), las condiciones de marginalidad y exclusión de la mayoría de la población mundial, y la de nuestro país dentro de la planificación del desarrollo global. Y deben, desde esta reflexión, asumir el progreso científico y tecnológico que se transfiere y realiza, en los diferentes países como en las universidades, teniendo como fin la satisfacción de nuestras necesidades integrales, y no la inserción (...) de la dominación cultural y la explotación económica. En este libro, el método analéctico está tomado, no como receta mágica, sino como instrumento de análisis, intervención y transformación de la subjetividad y de la realidad. No está abordado como una esencia que pueda totalizarse, de allí la mayor inquietud de desplegarlo en las demás dimensiones teórico-prácticas, ya que en ese mismo despliegue se hace posible la articulación transformadora con la realidad socio-histórica en sus distintas facetas. Carlos Francisco Bauer es Profesor de Filosofía, Profesor de Historia, Licenciado en Filosofía y Doctor en Filosofía por la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. También es Profesor en la Universidad Federal de Integración Latinoamericana, en Brasil. Allí, aborda las materias Ética y Ciencia e Introducción al Pensamiento Científico desde la perspectiva descolonizadora. En 2011, obtuvo el Primer Premio en el VIII Concurso Internacional de Ensayo "Pensar a Contracorriente", La Habana 2011. En 2012, en el marco de la Jornada de trabajo por la Paz y el medio ambiente de La Habana, convocada por Fidel Castro, el Profesor Bauer participó del conversatorio que dio origen al libro Fidel Castro con los intelectuales, que fue publicado ese mismo año por la Editorial José Martí y presentado desde Casa de las Américas en simultáneo para varias capitales del mundo. PROMETEO LIBROS ARGENTINA Este libro contiene el desarrollo de los siguientes temas, entre otros: - Punto de partida: desmitificación, afirmación del nosotros y vosotros - Crítica a la modernidad como totalidad subjetiva desde la meta-física de la alteridad - Levinas o el "otro" para una exterioridad - Hacia una analogía arquitectónica - Deconstrucción del sistema hegemónico - Hacia un proyecto de liberación cultural - Camino hacia una política latinoamericana - El giro o viraje marxista. ¡Marx a la vista! - Retomando el planteo inicial camino hacia la política - Eurocentrismo: ¿un artificio sin límite? - Primer Manifiesto de la Filosofía de la Liberación Con este libro usted tendrá un interesante análisis. ¡Adquiera ya este libro y aproveche esta interesante lectura! TAGS: filosofía, colonización, Latinoamérica, política, Sudamerica, eurocentrismo, soberanía. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se estudia la historia de vida de una mujer que perteneció a la llamada guerrilla urbana de los “Lacandones” que operó principalmente en la Ciudad de México. Como problema-eje propongo la pregunta ¿cuáles fueron las subjetividades sociales y mandatos de género implicados en la decisión de revelarse y levantarse en armas? Se explorará el proceso de empoderamiento y el significado que para ella tuvo su participación política en la Liga Comunista Espartaco y su paso por el (...) movimiento estudiantil de 1968, situando como eje de mi problematización las dificultades que enfrentó como hija, hermana, madre-esposa y cómo las relaciones de parentesco pesaron en su práctica política como militante revolucionaria. Se hará un análisis de la masacre ocurrida el 2 de octubre de 1968 en la plaza de las Tres Culturas de Tlatelolco articulando la violencia política con la masculinidad hegemónica. (shrink)

Com este trabalho, pretendemos trazer à luz a poesia amorosa de um dos mais célebres poetas neolatinos. Nascido em Cerreto di Spoleto, na Úmbria e educado em Perúgia, Giovanni Pontano (1429-1503) trabalhou na chancelaria real da Casa de Aragão, vindo a se tornar primeiro ministro, durante o governo do rei Fernando I. Embora na tenha se dedicado apenas à poesia amorosa, é sobre esta, por ora, que nossos comentários versarão. Estes comentários se baseiam em poemas endereçados às suas três musas (...) inspiradoras: Fannia, Adriana e Stella. A primeira é o amor da juventude; a segunda, com quem se casou, o amor da fase madura e, a última, o amor de sua velhice. Seus versos são graciosos, fluentes e intensamente sensuais, cheios de paixão e afeto, principalmente aqueles dirigidos à sua esposa. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta uma pesquisa qualitativa que relata a organização espacial das fazendas aquícolas no litoral central de Santa Catarina, nas comunidades da Praia de Fora e Enseada de Brito, as quais se encontram no município de Palhoça, pertencentes ao Aglomerado Urbano de Florianópolis. As características de ocupação urbana nas localidades supracitadas remontam ao século XVIII, mantendo as atividades econômicas extrativistas e rurais até a segunda metade do século XX. A partir da década de 1960/1970 verificou-se acelerado processo de construção (...) de casas de veraneio, sobrepujado por uma intensa urbanização com moradores fixos por causa do calçamento da via principal em 2010. A legalização das fazendas marinhas ocorreu nesta mesma época, como parte do “Plano Nacional de Desenvolvimento da Maricultura”, nos estados litorâneos brasileiros com aptidão ao cultivo nas comunidades envolvidas, apesar dos conflitos socioambientais. O município de Palhoça detém a maior produção de mexilhões em Santa Catarina. O marisco é um alimento popular no litoral catarinense e também uma iguaria na gastronomia internacional. A maior ameaça ao setor são os efluentes urbanos e os seus impactos ambientais. A falta de uma associação de produtores, bem como de um planejamento voltado à ocupação territorial de modo controlado e racional, tomando como fim a preservação do ecossistema de interesse, afeta a continuidade e o desenvolvimento econômico da atividade. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta uma análise do Magistério do Papa Francisco em confronto com o pensamento decolonial latino-americano. Tendo como fundamento as bases epistemológicas que emergem do contexto latino-americanos por meio de pensadores como Educardo Restrepo, Axel Rojas, Erick Torrico Villanueva e Catherine Walsh, é realizada uma análise de duas encíclicas e duas exortações apostólicas de Papa Francisco. O objetivo da análise é identificar como e em que aspectos o pensamento de Papa Francisco é influenciado pelo pensamento (...) decolonial. A escolha pela figura de Papa Francisco deve-se ao fato, de que vindo da América do Sul, pela sua experiência de vida e pela formação recebida pode ser considerado uma voz ativa em nível mundial em favor das periferias do mundo. (shrink)

The modern populism has as one of its sources the political ideas of Francisco Suárez (1548-1617), who, as a teacher in outstanding european universities, such as Salamanca and Coimbra, have had widespread influence even up to our time. His political teachings has made a difference for notorious figures and political movements, such as Bartolomé de las Casas, the famous advocate of the Indians, and possibly, in more recent times, H. F. R. Lamennais and the Russian populists of the (...) Nineteenth Century. (shrink)

Anna Ribera Carbó es investigadora titular de tiempo completo en la Dirección de Estudios Históricos del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) desde 1992. Licenciada, Maestra y Doctora en Historia por la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Miembro del Sistema Nacional de Investigadores. Imparte clases de Historia de México e Historia de las Culturas en preparatoria desde 1987. Se ha especializado en la historia política y social mexicana de la primera mitad del siglo XX. Ha publicado artículos en revistas (...) nacionales y extranjeras, así como capítulos en libros colectivos. Editora de los apuntes personales del general Francisco J. Múgica, publicados en la colección “Memorias Mexicanas” del Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes y autora de los libros La patria ha podido ser flor. Francisco J. Múgica, una biografía política (1999) y La Casa del Obrero Mundial. Anarcosindicalismo y revolución en México (2010) publicados por el INAH. (shrink)

Las copias de los manuscritos de las Relecciones de Francisco de Vitoria se multiplicaron, y enseguida atravesaron el océano, para llegar muy pronto a manos de universitarios y misioneros. En España llegaron a la corte imperial, provocando una rápida censura, y al humanista J. Ginés de Sepúlveda, que asume el texto como favorable a su imperialismo. En ultramar el catedrático agustino Alonso de Veracruz aprueba y enriquece sus argumentos, y el dominico Bartolomé de Las Casas se queda sólo (...) con los condicionantes del propio Vitoria. Creo que esos condicionantes merecen ser conocidos en su entorno para su justa valoración. Lo dedico a los grandes vitoriólogos que honraron con sus estudios a esta revista.The manuscript copies of the Relecciones by Francisco de Vitoria multiplied and crossed the ocean to fall very soon in the hands of university students and missionaries . In Spain they reached the imperial court causing a rapid censorship and the humanist J. Ginés de Sepúlveda who takes the text as in favor of his imperialism. Overseas the Augustinian professor of university Alonso de Veracruz approves and enriches his arguments, the Dominican Bartolome de las Casas remains alone with the own Vitoria’s Condicionnantes. I think that those Condicionantes are worth being known in their context to value them appropriately. I devote it to Vitoria’s great friends who honored this journal with their studies. (shrink)

Sobre los pasajes concretos de la Historia authéntica, de Luis Francisco de Viana y Bustos y Joseph Juan de Laboraría, canónigos del Sacromonte de Granada, se evoca la condenación de la memoria que esta institución hace para la historia, del padre Ignacio de las Casas. Éste, jesuita granadino, morisco de nación, misionero con sus hermanos y trabajador social por donde pasó, campos en los que ganó merecido prestigio, se significó como acérrimo refutador de las invenciones de la Torre (...) Turpiana y Valparaíso de fines del siglo XVI. El arzobispo Pedro de Castro lo persiguió en vida y, luego, decidió para los siglos posteriores la estigmatización de su memoria, que implicaba el falseamiento y envilecimiento de su biografía. La Historia authéntica, defensorio escrito en 1756, es la mejor expresión del fanático cumplimiento de ese mandato del fundador carismático, siglo y medio después de los hallazgos. (shrink)

El presente artículo aborda los temas de la misericordia, el amor a los pobres y la colaboración en la construcción del mundo que nos rodea, o “casa común”, a la luz de las enseñanzas del Papa Francisco, concretamente en su Carta encíclica Laudato si’ y otros documentos como Lumen fidei. Dos imágenes suyas sirven de punto de partida: plantar un árbol y abrir una puerta. La opción preferencial por los pobres es el denominador común, en este caso en relación (...) con la ecología y la protección del medio ambiente. La contaminación, el cambio climático y la “cultura del descarte” afectan en primer lugar a los más necesitados. El Papa profundiza en las raíces del problema y propone algunos principios pedagógicos, a la luz del “Evangelio de la creación”, que se discuten en detalle en este artículo. Se concluye con la llamada a la “conversión ecológica”. (shrink)

El artículo nos muestra cómo a partir de las experiencias compartidas con el maestro Daniel Herrera, la fenomenología no dista de ser un trabajo en el cual el filósofo detalla el mundo de la vida como si se tratara de un texto encriptado que exige la reflexión fenomenomenológica, como si este fuera una lupa en manos de un riguroso lector. El texto rememora las visitas del profesor Juan Cepeda a la casa del maestro Daniel Herrera, y cómo éste respondía a (...) sus inquietudes haciendo uso de una lupa para asistir su lectura. (shrink)

El artículo presenta la teoría del hombre de Bartolomé de las Casas sustraída principalmente de la tradición aristotélica, Tomas de Aquino, Francisco de Vitoria, del cristianismo y de su experiencia como colono y clérigo, complemento práctico que le permitieron entender al hombre americano desde una perspectiva filosófico-antropológica, con atributos particulares emanados de la misma naturaleza humana y de los contextos geográficos en los que vive. El siguiente trabajo constará de las fuentes teóricas de la cual toma Bartolomé de (...) las Casas su filosofía sobre el hombre: Aristóteles, Tomás de Aquino; y la Biblia, para concluir con el concepto de hombre Lascasiano sustraído de la combinación de hace de las teorías leídas como de la experiencia en el territorio americano. (shrink)

Este artículo es una reflexión acerca del capítulo quinto de la encíclica Laudato si’ del Papa Francisco. En primer lugar se argumenta la legitimidad del Papa para hacer propuestas políticas, sociales y económicas. A continuación se analizan cuatro principios básicos para estas propuestas: el tiempo es superior al espacio, la unidad es superior al conflicto, la realidad es superior a la idea, y el todo es superior a la parte, tomando también como referencia las encíclicas Lumen fidei y Evangelii (...) gaudium. El grueso del artículo se centra en las propuestas para la política internacional, nacional y local, con citas y referencias del propio Papa y de otros documentos. Otras cuestiones que son objeto de análisis son los procesos de intervención específicos, la relación entre política y economía, y el diálogo religiónciencia. Se concluye con la necesidad de que el Papa se pronuncie sobre estas cuestiones de cara a una ecología integral y el cuidado de la casa común –el mundo– a la luz del Evangelio. (shrink)

En este trabajo me voy a centrar en los antecedentes intelectuales y en los programas educativos que la Casa del Obrero Mundial desplegados durante su existencia; de ahi que sea imprescindible analizar la influencia crucial que Francisco Ferreri Guardia y su «Escuela Moderna» tuvieron en la formación de la clase obrera mexicana. Tambien veremos algunas de las redes internacionales que se crearon entre los anarquistas de diferentes países y, en definitiva, de qué modo ciertas ideas cruzaron el Atlántico.

There are numerous studies that, from different perspectives, have dealt with the debate held in the Spanish Empire during the 16th century on the slavery of the American Indians, starring –among others– by Francisco de Vitoria and his disciples from the School of Salamanca, and also –outside the academic sphere– by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. The purpose of this work is to study whether this debate made its mark in Spanish society. For (...) this, it is analyzed three theatrical pieces from the Golden Age signed by playwrights of the stature of Tirso de Molina, Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderón de Barca, who –given their enormous popularity– had the capacity to reach the wide audience that congregated in the corrals of comedies. Were these three writers influenced by the controversy over the Indians carried out, among other authors, by Vitoria, Las Casas and Sepúlveda? Did they fully grasp in their works the subtle debate that Vitoria, Las Casas and Sepúlveda maintained when they interpreted Aristotelian arguments on slavery and the consequences that derived from them in terms of the possibility of enslaving or not the Indians? (shrink)

Authors from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries defended recognizable principles of toleration. Some scholars have objected that ideas of tolerance originating during the European Middle Ages are irrelevant to modern theories of toleration. The present paper, building upon Michael Sandel’s concept of “judgmental toleration,” demonstrates the applicability of medieval tolerance in modern contexts. The essay initially surveys examples of the deployment of “judgmental toleration” during the Middle Ages in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, Nicole Oresme, St. Augustine, Christine (...) de Pizan, Francisco Suárez, and Bartolomé de Las Casas. Thereafter, the paper considers how “judgmental toleration” may prove useful in solving problems that arise in modern theories of tolerance, as reflected in the classical liberalism of John Stuart Mill and in deliberative democratic thought. Thus, medieval defenses of tolerance afford lessons from the past that are salient in the present. (shrink)

En noviembre de 1698, la Congregación de San Felipe Neri fue instituida canónicamente en Sevilla por el Padre Francisco Navascués Pérez. Se celebra, por tanto, su tercer centenario. Por este motivo, este trabajo se concibe como punto de partida de un futuro libro, para el que se está realizando una investigación. El trabajo muestra el proceso de desarrollo de la Congregación del Oratorio de Sevilla desde 1698, año de su fundación, hasta 1893, cuando el Papa León XIII le concede (...) la propiedad de la Iglesia de San Alberto, actual sede del Oratorio. Encontramos aquí la fundación, el desarrollo del Oratorio en el siglo XVIII, la creación de la Real Casa de Ejercicios, las diversas extinciones y reinstalaciones de la Congregación durante el siglo XIX, y todos sus prefectos. Por último, ofrecemos información sobre la situación actual de la Congregación del Oratorio de San Felipe de Sevilla. (shrink)

Algo que impacta o meio ambiente impacta a todos. O desmatamento da Amazônia, um problema atual que afeta e destrói os ecossistemas e consequentemente ameaça à humanidade, cresceu drasticamente nos últimos anos. Esta pesquisa analisa os motivos e as consequências do crescimento do desmatamento da Amazônia. Aborda as estruturas e articulações brasileiras e internacionais e a posição e a contribuição da Igreja Católica, a partir da espiritualidade cristã, propondo uma ecologia integral, do cuidado da “Casa Comum”. Baseada em pesquisa bibliográfica (...) e exploratória sobre o desmatamento da Amazônia, primeiramente busca identificar os motivos do crescimento e as consequências das derrubadas e queimadas na Amazônia para depois avaliar as decisões tomadas em âmbito nacional e internacional, para diminuir o desmatamento ou neutralizar os seus efeitos. Por fim, considerar-se-ão a importância dos apelos e a seriedade dos compromissos, acordos e metas e os caminhos apontados para a proteção das florestas; em especial o posicionamento do Papa Francisco para a preservação da Amazônia e da vida no planeta. Os “gritos da terra” desafiam o cristianismo a contribuir para o desenvolvimento e a sustentabilidade ecológica integral e oportunizam o resgate de espiritualidades mais coerentes com o Deus da Vida. (shrink)

The book reconstructs the history of Western ethics. The approach chosen focuses the endless dialectic of moral codes, or different kinds of ethos, moral doctrines that are preached in order to bring about a reform of existing ethos, and ethical theories that have taken shape in the context of controversies about the ethos and moral doctrines as means of justifying or reforming moral doctrines. Such dialectic is what is meant here by the phrase ‘moral traditions’, taken as a name for (...) threads of moral discourse, made in turn of other interwoven threads, including transmission of shared codes, appeals to reform of prevailing custom, rational argument about the justification of some precept on the basis of some shared general teaching or principle, and rational argument about the ultimate basis for principles and justification of authoritative teaching. That is, the approach adopted to the reading of ethical texts depends on a firm belief in the fact that philosophers hardly created any ethical doctrine out of nothing. The main point this book tries to highlight is how different philosophical theories emerged and followed each other as a result of attempts at accounting for what was going on in the world of moral traditions. Changes were propelled by controversies between different schools, and highly abstract arguments were the unintended effects of moves made by controversialists forced to transform (and occasionally to turn upside down) their own doctrines in order to face the challenge posed by other arguments. This is the reason why the book examines not only texts that already enjoy pride of place in the history of philosophy (Aristotle, Kant, Hegel), but also other texts usually treated in the histories of religions (the Bible, the Talmud, the Quran), and others considered to be much less philosophical (Plutarchus, Pufendorf). -/- 1. Plato and a response to ethical scepticism. Two different traditions of morality in VI-V century Greece are described. The birth of philosophical questioning of traditional morality and temporal and spatial variation of custom is described within the context of the v century crisis, the demise of traditional aristocratic and tyrannical rule and the birth of democracy. Two conflicting answers to the challenge are reconstructed, namely conventionalist or immoralist theories formulated by the Sophists and the eudemonist and intellectualist Socratic theory. Plato’s own reformulation of Socrates answer to the Sophists is reconstructed. His psychological views, his classification of the four cardinal virtues and his political theory are described as parts of a unitary system, culminating in an extremely realist moral ontology identifying the idea of the good with the essence of the (moral and extra-moral) world itself. -/- 2. Aristotle and the invention of practical philosophy. Aristotle’s invention of practical philosophy as a field separated from first philosophy is shown to be an implication of his break with Plato moral ultra-realism. Aristotle’s agenda in his moral works is arguably dependent on a polemical intention, namely dismantling Socratic intellectualism. The semi-inductive or virtuously circular method of practical philosophy is illustrated, starting with the received opinions of the better and wiser individuals and trying dialectically to sift what is left of mistake and inconsistence in such opinions, finally trying to correct mistakes and make the overall practical science more consistent. The chapter illustrates then the relationship of individual ethics, or ‘monastics’, with the art and the science of the pater familias, or ‘economics’, and the science of the ruler and citizen, or politics. The nature of virtues, or better, excellences of character, is discussed, highlighting the basic role of hexis, or ‘disposition’. Prudence, or better practical wisdom, is the focus of the chapter. Its relationship with bouleusis or deliberation is examined, and its autonomous status vis-à-vis theoretical knowledge is stressed. -/- 3. Diogenes and philosophy as a way of life. The chapter provides an overview of Hellenistic ethics, which almost amounts to Hellenistic schools of philosophy, in so far as ‘philosophy’ became in these centuries primarily the name for a way of life. The typical character of the Cynical movement is highlighted, that of a school of life, not a school aimed at providing any kind of intellectual training was to be provided. -/- 4. Epicurus and ethics as self-care. The peculiar character of the Epicurean school is described, a combination of a science of well-being aiming, more than at pleasure as in the popular view, at reduction of useless suffering, of unnecessary needs, and at a balanced selection of pleasures of the best and most durable kind. -/- 5. Epictetus and ethics as therapy of the passions. The various phases of Stoicism are described, and the shifting place given to ethics in the Stoic system of idea, culminating in the paradoxical view of ethics, its impossibility in principle notwithstanding, as the only truly significant and necessary part of philosophy. Cicero is treated, showing how his own synthesis of various Hellenistic trends is as a truly philosophical enterprise, deserving serious consideration after one or two centuries when he was confined to the role of literate. Epictetus is chosen as the best example of what the Stoic tradition could yield, an art of living based on sophisticated introspection, in turn aimed at making a kind of cognitive therapy possible, dismantling obnoxious passions at their root by systematically correcting false representations. -/- 6. Philo and the reconciliation of Torah and Platonism. A reconstruction of basic ideas from a few books of the Hebrew Bible is provided, starting with the Prophetic tradition and the focus on God’s mercy as the source of motivation and standard for human behaviour. Then a comparative analysis is undertaken of a parallel tradition, namely the three codifications of the Torā (Law or, better, Instruction), highlighting how a core of moral ideas may be recognized as a basis and preamble of codification of civil law, cultural practice, and regulation of ritual purity. The importance of Leviticus is stressed as the turning point when emphasis mercy, typical of the Prophetic tradition, is combined with the legal tradition, yielding the change in sensibility of the Second Temple time. Philo of Alexandria is described as one of the three leading figures – together with Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Yeshua – at the apex the emergence of the mentioned new sensibility, gradually including mercy as an essential part of justice and establishing the starting point of both the Rabbinic and the Christian tradition. This consists precisely in the precept of one’s neighbour’s love or of the golden rule, two eventually identical precepts whose meaning is arguably more sober and sensible than the long-lasting Christian tradition deriving from John and Augustine has made us believe and no novelty vis-à-vis so-called Ancient-Testament teachings. -/- 7. Augustine and Christianity as Neo-Platonism. The first section examines the moral doctrines of so-called 'ethical Treaties' from the Talmud, a group of treaties, among which the best known is Pirqé Avot, that were left out of the six "orders" of the canon as they did not fit in any of the six groups of issues ritual or legal on which the division was based. According to Maimonides, their peculiar theme is provided by the Deòt, 'opinions', i.e., mental dispositions, that is, the translation of the Greek term hexeis and Arab akhlak (in turn providing in this language the name for ethics as such). The three topics I reconstruct are: i) the notion of Torah: The Torah is understood as the world order itself, or as the ‘Wisdom’ that existed even before creation and was ‘the tool by which the world was built’; however, the Torah is an earthly and human entity, as it was "received" by humans, and from that very moment belongs to them; ii) the relationship between love of God and love of neighbour; the treaties require us to study and practice the Torah ‘for its own sake’, that is, require us to act out of love, not out of fear or hope of reward; iii) the idea of sanctification of daily life: having disappeared with the destruction of the Temple the possibility of any conflict between liturgical service and everyday life, the latter is assumed to be in itself divine service: to give food to the poor has the same value as sacrifices in the Temple, and as an implication, the insistence become recurrent on the goodness of created things in themselves along with a polemic against ascetic currents. The conclusions drawn are: i) the moral teachings of the Talmud and those of Yeshua are, rather than similar, virtually identical; one may safely say that the precept of love and the golden rule are central ones for all Talmudic rabbis, that mercy plays an indispensable role alongside with justice, and the latter is not a different thing from one’s neighbour’s love; ii) a peculiarity of Talmud rabbis facing Yeshua is the idea of study as worship, and knowledge as a source of justice; but this is an idea of Judaism after the Temple's destruction that cannot be attributed to the Pharisees of Yeshua’s time; iii) the relation of study and practice in the Talmud parallels that between faith and deeds in Paul's epistles, that is, respectively faith or learning are a necessary and sufficient condition to be recognized as righteous , but deeds are the inevitable effect of either faith or learning. The sayings ascribed to Yeshua are examined first, yielding the conclusion that a close equivalent may be found for every saying in Talmudic literature and yet the whole is ascribed to one rabbi, with rather consistent stress on God’s mercy and unconditional forgiving as the mark of true imitation of God. Thus, Yeshua’s teaching is pure Judaism. The third section describes briefly the galaxy of Gnostic currents and Manichaeism, trying to sketch the profile of moral teachings resulting from an encounter of Asian spiritual traditions, Hellenistic lore and sparks of teachings from apocalyptic Jewish currents. The last section summarizes the turbulent history of several encounters between Christian currents and Hellenistic philosophical schools. The first one was with late Cynicism. Recent, rather controversial, literature discovered the jargon and a few topics from the Stoic-Cynical popular philosophy in a few books from the New Testament itself. This, far from proving that Rabbi Yeshua had been influenced by cynic preachers, is a proof of the necessity felt by Christian preachers to translate the original ‘Christian’ teaching into a Greek lexicon deeply impregnated with cynic terminology. The second was with Platonism, yielding the mild and temperate moral teaching of Clemens of Alexandria, teaching the sanctity of nature and the human body, the joy of moderate fruition of ‘natural’ kinds of pleasures, and the beauty of the marital life – in short, the opposite of the standard picture of Medieval Christianity. Ambrose of Milan brings about a different kind of synthesis, namely with Middle Platonism, where Stoic themes prevail. The most shocking case is Augustine, where an early Manichean education is overcome in a former phase by a synthesis of Plotinian Neo-Platonism and Christian preaching, yielding a sustained polemic with the Manicheans and rather optimistic views on life and Creation, the body and sexuality, and Hebrew-Judaic tradition not far from Clemens of Alexandria. In a later phase, occasioned by controversy on the opposite front, with such Christian currents as the Pelagians and Donatists, Augustine comes back to heavily anti-Judaic and world-denying ascetic attitudes where is earlier Manichean upbringing seems to emerge again. The tragedy of medieval Christianity will be the later Augustine’s overwhelming influence. A final section is dedicated to the monastic tradition where a curious mixture of world-denying asceticism with an astonishingly penetrating ‘science’ of introspection emerges. -/- 8. Al Farabi and the reconciliation of Islam and Platonism. The Qurān and the qadit, that is, collections of sayings ascribed to the prophet Muhammad contain a wealth of precepts and catalogues of virtues mirroring moral contents from the Jewish and the Christian traditions, among them the basic notion of imitation of the Deity, where mercy is assumed to be its basic trait. An important tradition within Islam, namely Sufism, stressed to the utmost degree the role of mercy, turning Islam into a mystic doctrine centred on retreat from the world, abandonment to God’s will, and a peaceful and fraternal attitude to our fellow-beings. A secular literary tradition originating in the Sassanid Empire, the literature of advice to the Prince had for a time a widespread influence in the newly constituted Arabic-Islamic commonwealth. In a later phase, the legacy of Hellenic philosophy made its way into the intellectual elite of the Islamic world. The first important legacy was Platonic, and the Republic became the main text for Islamic Platonism. Al-Farabi wrote an enjoyable remake of the Platonic Republic, arguing that the citizen’s virtues were the basis on which the political building needs to rest. The secular lawgiver is enlightened by the light of reason in his everyday practice of governance, but room is made for the Prophet as the voice of revealed truth that confirms and completes the rational truth that philosophy may afford. In a second phase also Aristotelian and Stoic influence were assimilated. Miskawayh’s treatise was the masterwork at the time Arabic philosophy reached its Zenith. It is a treatment of the soul’s diseases and their remedies, combining the Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean with the Stoic doctrine of the passions and elements of Galenic medicine. Towards the eleventh-twelve centuries a war raged among theologians and philosophers, finally won by the former with disappearance of philosophy as such. The newly established mainstream, yet, was no kind of intolerant fanaticism. It drew from the work of mystic theologian Al-Ghazālī, the best heir of Sufism, teaching a tolerant and peaceful attitude to our fellow-beings and a passive attitude to destiny as an expression of the Divine will. -/- 9. Moshe ben Maimon and the reconciliation of Torah and Aristotelian ethics. The encounter between the Talmudic tradition and Hellenic philosophy had taken place a first time in Alexandria at the time of Philo but the two traditions had parted way again. In fact, the kind of Platonic Judaism founded by Philo survived only within Christianity, in the fourth Gospel and then in writings by Clemens of Alexandria. The Talmudic literature had absorbed just less striking traits from the Hellenic Philosophy, namely an idea of ethics as care of the self and a role for the education of character as propaedeutic to theoretical knowledge. In the Arabic-Islamic world, a second round started when Jewish authors writing in Arabic undertook the task to prove the full compatibility of the tradition deriving from Torah and Platonic philosophy. The culmination of this attempt is provided by Moshe ben Maimon who tried to use Aristotelian ethics as a language into which the teaching from the Pirké Avot could be translated. -/- 10. Thomas Aquinas and the reconciliation of Christian morality and Aristotelian ethics. In the first section the fresh start is described of philosophical ethics in Latin Europe at the turn of the Millennium. In a first phase, Anselm and Peter Abelard built on a Platonic and Augustinian legacy. In this phase. remarkable innovations are introduced, including Abelard’s claim of the obliging character of erring consciousness. In a second phase, the rediscovery of Nicomachean Ethics thanks to Latin translation of Arabic versions gives birth to a new wave of ethical studies, recovering the very idea of Aristotelian practical philosophy, with the potential implication of full legitimization of natural morality, i.e. ethics without Revelation. Aquinas’s ethics is a theological ethics out of which it would be vain to try to extract a self-contained philosophical ethics. His treatment of topics in philosophical ethics, yet, does not boil down to repetition of Aristotelian arguments but is rather a creative reshaping of such arguments. For example, he introduces also in the practical philosophy a first principle parallel to the principle of non-contradiction; and he also carries out a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and neo-Platonism. Even though it is essentially moral theology, Aquinas’s doctrine - unlike Augustine – grants full citizenship to "natural" morality, firstly by rejecting the claim that the corruption of human nature due to the original sin is so radical as to leave "pure nature" incapable of moral goodness. The doctrine is presented in a more sophisticated formulation in a few of the Quaestiones, such as De Malo and De Veritate, in the Summa contra Gentes and in the commentaries to Aristotle than in the famous Summa Theologica, but the latter work includes the only or the largest exposition of some decisive part of the theory. Thus, the Summa Theologica should be read for what it is more than criticized for not being what it was not meant to be. It was not meant to be the brilliant synthesis of all that Reason he had been able to produce with what Revelation had added about which the Neo-Thomists used to dream, but rather a manual for the training of preachers and confessors, where theoretical claims are not too demanding and a few serious tensions are left. Besides a jump between the Prima Secundae and the Secunda Secundae, being the former an essay in virtue theory and the latter a handbook for confessors, the most serious tension is perhaps the one between the ethics of right reason presented in most of Ia-IIae and the eudemonistic ethics developed in quaestiones 1-5 of the same part; the alternative ethical theory which also may be found in Augustine, the Stoic view of a cosmic reason eventually coincident with the moral law, was believed by Anselm (followed by John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham) to be incompatible with eudemonism. It is questionable whether Thomas could reduce the tension proving that it is just an apparent tension, in so far as the right reason and bliss derived from knowledge of God tend to coincide, but this is just a conjecture. Thomas’s ethics is a virtue ethic, not a law-based one, and moral judgment focuses on the virtues, particularly charity, not on the commandments and even less on absolute prohibitions; Thomas, however, would not have considered a drastic alternative between law and the virtues such as the one which has been advanced in late twentieth-century philosophy to be justified. Nonetheless, when it discusses ‘special’ virtues, it ceases to be an ethics of virtue and becomes a disappointing and often contradictory discussion of legal and illegal acts. Such a discussion takes most of the time ‘reasonable’ middle positions on controversial issues but not the alternative approach that Aristotelianism would have made possible; even when some occasional Aristotelian claim shows up, such as money’s barrenness as a reason against usury, this seems to be made by an author who apparently ignores the Aristotelian Thomas of the Prima Secundae. It is an ethic of human autonomy which recognizes the binding character of the individual conscience and, potentially, even a duty to disobey unjust laws. It is true that what Thomas writes in his discussion of death penalty and persecution of heretics is simply disgusting, and yet we should blame Thomas the man, not Thomist ethical theory. Finally, Thomas’s ethics is not ethical ‘absolutism’, as both traditionalist Catholic theologians and secularist enemies of dogmatic morality tend to believe. It is instead an ethic of prudential judgment. Exceptions to this approach – or better results of logical fallacies – are such claims as the absolute character of negative precepts and of the existence of "intrinsically evil acts", claims that simply cease to make sense in the light of Thomas’s own distinction between human act and natural act, carrying consequences Thomas did not live long enough to draw or was not consistent enough to dare to draw. -/- 11. Francisco de Vitoria and casuistry. The first topic illustrated is the discussion about the notion of pura natura, namely the human condition after the original sin and before divine revelation. The core notion was already there in Aquinas but was later developed by Caietanus (Thomas de Vio) with a number of interesting implications: firstly a view of human nature as such much more positive than Augustine’s and his followers’ view, including both Calvinists and Jansenists; secondly, the implication that the philosopher’s morality, as opposed to the Christian’s morality, is a quite respectable kind of morality; thirdly, that theocracy and prosecution of the unfaithful lacked justification, with more far-fetching consequences than Aquinas himself had dared to draw. The second topic is casuistry, a new name for a comparatively older way of thinking, which was already there in late Stoicism and Cicero as well as in the Talmudic literature. This is an approach aimed at yielding probable enough solutions for doubtful cases even in absence of completely safe staring points. The genre developed from medieval reference books for confessors and became by the sixteenth-century a sophisticated tool-box for dealing with various fields of applied ethics. Francisco Vitoria, the main authority of Baroque Scholasticism, was a controversial figure, among the proponents of the new discipline of casuistry and a consistent proponent of more separation between the religious and the civil authority, stricter limits to the legitimacy of war, innate rights of non-Christian nations in the New World based on the notion of pura natura, providing a standard of ‘natural’ goodness, previous to revelation, on which the Indian nations were judged to live in a naturally good condition, provided with the institutions of family, justice, and religion had accordingly a right to full respect by Christian sovereigns. Bartolomé de Las Casas, arguing along similar lines, was the leader of a historical battle in defence of the rights of the Indios. -/- 12. Michel de Montaigne and the art of living. A short description of one of the Renaissance Phyrronism, one of the classical philosophies revived in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Montaigne combines the sceptical epistemology with an understanding of ethics – indeed of philosophy as a whole – in terms of an art of living inspired by two basic ideas, sagesse, that is, practical wisdom as the only kind of rationality available after theology, science, and tradition have declared bankrupt, and an aesthetic ideal of self-transformation through the art of writing and introspection. -/- 13. Pierre Nicole and neo-Augustinianism. The chapter illustrates first the vicissitudes of Augustinianism newly born after the late medieval triumph of Thomist Aristotelianism in the alternative Protestant and Catholic versions processed by the Calvinists and the Jansenists. Then it illustrates the doctrines of Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal’s best disciple, on the impossibility of introspection, on the ubiquity of self-deception, on the incurably evil character of the passion of love, and on the two moralities, the one of the man of the world, the morality of honesty which is indispensable for granting peace and order but devoid of any true value for eternal salvation, since the same external behaviour may be prompted by opposite motivations, and the morality of charity, the only true one but also useless to society. The third topic is Pierre Malebranche’s view of self-deception as a ubiquitous phenomenon accounting for human action and responsibility and his reformulated theory of self-love, no less ubiquitous than for Nicole and yet not as incurably evil, given the distinction between morally indifferent and even necessary amour de soi and vicious amour proper, a distinction on which the whole of Rousseau’s moral and political theory rests. -/- 14. Samuel von Pufendorf and the new science of morality. The chapter is dedicated to the discovery of the idea of a ‘new moral science’. Hugo Grotius is discussed first highlighting the real character of his project, much closer to the Thomist idea of a natural law accessible to non-corrupted human reason when human beings are living in a state of pura natura. Then Hobbes’s combination of scepticism, voluntarism, and conventionalism is described and both the continuity with Grotius’s new science, in the search for non-revealed rational morality, and the break with him, in the adoption of voluntarism and refusal of an intellectualist view of natural law, are illustrated. Pufendorf’s work is illustrated as a synthesis of the two previous attempts and the – up to Schneewind underestimated – paradigmatic example of the new science of morality. -/- 15. Richard Cumberland and consequentialist voluntarism. The chapter gives an overview of eighteenth-century Anglican ethics, noticing how the Cambridge tradition gave special weight to natural theology as opposed to positive or revealed theology – and how two Cambridge fellows, John Gay and Thomas Brown, elaborated on Cumberland’s (and Malebranche’s, as well as Leibniz’s) strategy for finding a third way between intellectualist view and voluntarist view of the laws of nature. The result of their elaboration was a kind of a rational-choice account of the origins of natural laws, where a law-giver God chooses among a number possible sets of laws on a maximizing criterion, and God’s maximandum is happiness for his creatures. The chapter notices also how such a solution aimed at solving at once the problem of evil and that of the foundation of moral obligation by proving how God’s choice was justified as far as it was the one minimising the amount of suffering in the world. 16. Richard Price and intuitionism. The chapter describes first the doctrines of the Cambridge Platonists, an example of hyper-rationalist reaction to Calvinism. Secondly it describes the sophisticated and universally ignored – from Sidgwick to Anscombe –version of what was later labelled ‘ethical intuitionism’ – showing how it escapes familiar objections and misrepresentations of intuitionism – from Mill to Rawls – in grounding its argument on transcendental arguments while carefully avoiding recourse to introspection and psychological evidence, which has been taken as a too easy target by critics of intuitionism. Thirdly, the chapter discusses Whewell’s ‘philosophy of morality’, as opposed to ‘systematic morality’, not unlike Kant’s distinction between a pure and an empirical moral philosophy. Whewell worked out a systematization of traditional normative ethics as a first step before its rational justification; he believed that the point in the philosophy of morality is justifying a few rational truths about the structure of morality such as to rule hedonism, eudemonism, and consequentialism; yet a system of positive morality cannot be derived solely from such rational truths but requires consideration of the ongoing dialectics between idea and fact in historically given moralities. Whewell’s intuitionism turns out closer to Kantian ethics than commentators have made us believe until now, and quite different from what Sidgwick meant by intuitionism. -/- 17. Adam Smith and the morality of role-switch. The chapter describes first, Hutcheson’s attempt at basing the ‘new science’ of natural law on different bedrock than Pufendorf and the English Platonists, namely a moral sense, a faculty whose existence is assumed to be proved on an empirical basis. The second step is a reconstruction of Hume’s rejoinder in terms of a new science of man including morality on an ‘experimental’ basis, that is, a ‘Newtonian’ hypothetical-deductive approach, distinguished from Hutcheson’s allegedly uncritical descriptive approach to human nature. The third step is a reconstruction of Adam Smith theory of morality understood as emerging from a spontaneous interplay of exchanges of situations (the most basic meaning of the word ‘sympathy’ as construed by this author). -/- 18. Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism. The bulk of the chapter is dedicated to the doctrines of Jeremy Bentham. The Enlightenment spirit that suggested the idea of a new morality, free from religion, is illustrated. The notion of utility is illustrated as well as the subsequent formulations of the principle of utility. The idea of felicific calculus is discussed, showing how its inner difficulties prompted several reformulations of the principle of utility in order to avoid undesirable implications of proposed formulations. The role of the thesis of spontaneous convergence between interest and duty is discussed, showing how it left numberless questions open, and the distinction between the virtues of prudence, justice and beneficence is described as a way out of the deadlocks of classical utilitarianism. After Bentham, Mill’s reformed utilitarianism is reconstructed, showing how it is a kind of mixed system – as closer to common sense as it gives up Bentham’s claims to consistency and simplicity – resulting as unintended consequences from the controversies in which Mill was too keen to engage. The hidden agenda of the controversy between Utilitarianism and Intuitionism, going beyond the image of the battle between Prejudice and Reason, is described, showing how both competing philosophical outlooks turn out to be more research programs than self-contained doctrinal bodies, and such programs appear to be implemented, and indeed radically transformed while in progress thanks to their enemies no less than to their supporters. -/- 19. Immanuel Kant, practical reason and judgment. The chapter argues that Kant took from Moses Mendelssohn the idea of a distinction between geometry of morals and a practical ethic. He was drastically misunderstood by his followers precisely on this point. He had learned from the sceptics and the Jansenists the lesson that men are prompted to act by deceptive ends, and he was aware that human actions are also empirical phenomena, where laws like the laws of Nature may be detected. His practical ethics made room for judgment as a holistic procedure for assessing the saliency of relevant moral qualities in one given situation; this procedure yields the same results as the geometry of morals does for abstract cases but does so immediately and without balancing conflicting duties with each other, since what makes for the salient quality of a situation is perceived from the very beginning. Kant's practical philosophy is richer than the received image, making room for an ‘empirical moral philosophy’ or moral anthropology including treatment of commerce, needs, value and price, happiness and well-being; the overall social theory and philosophy of history is less different from Adam Smith's than the received image makes believe; the paradox of happiness is central to Kant's philosophy; a distinction between happiness and well-being is clearly drawn; the distinction plays a basic role in establishing a link between the economic and the moral life. -/- 20. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the critique of abstract universalism. The chapter describes first the Romantic movement and the implications some of its concerns, rescuing passions, community, tradition, the individual as the bearer of a unique destiny, and the longing for organic unity between the individual, mankind and nature. Hegel’s contribution is discussed then, highlighting how, on the one hand, he shared a number of these concerns and on the other he had more rationalist leanings. The notion of morality is the pivotal point of the reconstruction, highlighting how Hegel construes this notion as a key to his own diagnosis of the malaise of modernity – the separation of individual and Gemeinschaft – and how his attack on Kant turns around this very idea. -/- 21. Friedrich Nietzsche against Christianity and the Enlightenment. The chapter illustrates first the idea of deconstruction of the back-world of values. Nietzsche claims to be legitimate heir of the French moralists, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, in so far as he allegedly carries out to its deepest implications their discovery of what lies behind traditional naïve belief in the existence of an objective realm of values just waiting for description by the philosopher. The two exemplars form which genealogy draws inspiration are the classical philologist’s historical reconstructions of lost meanings and the chemist’s decomposition of elements. Then the genealogy of the notions of good and evil carried out in the first dissertation of Genealogy of morals is illustrated with its paradoxical conclusion that will to power is in fact the only ‘genuine’ kind of goodness. The third point illustrated is the dialectic of ascetism and self-realization with its ambiguous outcome. The suggested interpretation of such outcome is that Nietzsche’s normative ethics is a kind of virtue ethics taking an aesthetic ideal as a normative standard -/- 22. George Edward Moore and ideal utilitarianism. The chapter discusses the ideas of common sense and common-sense morality in Sidgwick. I argue that, far from aiming at overcoming common-sense morality, Sidgwick aimed purposely at grounding a consist code of morality by methods allegedly taken from the natural sciences to reach, also in ethics, the same kind of “mature” knowledge as in the natural sciences. His whole polemics with intuitionism was vitiated by the a priori assumption that the widespread ethos of the educated part of humankind, not the theories of the intuitionist philosophers, was what was worth considering as the expression of intuitionist ethics. In spite of a naïve positivist starting-point, Sidgwick was encouraged by his own approach in exploring the fruitfulness of coherentist methods for normative ethics. Thus, Sidgwick left an ambivalent legacy to twentieth-century ethics: the dogmatic idea of a “new” morality of a consequentialist kind, and the fruitful idea that we can argue rationally in normative ethics albeit without shared foundations. Then it reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore’s early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. I stress the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. I argue that PE is more a patchwork of rather diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. I add a comparison with Rashdall’s almost contemporary ethical work, suggesting that the latter defends the same general claims in a different way, one that manages to pave decisive objections in a more plausible way. I end by suggesting that the emergence of Analytic Ethics was a more ambiguous phenomenon than the received view would make us believe, and that the wheat (or some other gluten-free grain) of this tradition, that is, what logic can do for philosophy, should be separated from the chaff, that is, the confused and mutually incompatible legacies of Utilitarianism and Idealism. -/- 23. Edmund Husserl and the a-priori of action. The chapter illustrates first the idea of phenomenology and the Husserl’s project of a phenomenological ethic as illustrated in his 1908-1914 lectures. The key idea is dismissing psychology and trying to ground a new science of the a priori of action, within which a more restricted field of inquiry will be the science of right actions. Then the chapter illustrates the criticism of modern moral philosophy carried out in the 1920 lectures, where the main target is naturalism, understood in the Kantian meaning of primacy of common sense. The third point illustrate is Adolph Reinach’s theory of social acts as a key the grounding of norms, a view that basically sketches the very ideas ‘discovered’ later by Clarence I. Lewis, John Searle, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. A final section is dedicated to Nicolai Hartman, who always refused to define himself a phenomenologist and yet developed a more articulated and detailed theory of ‘values’ – with surprising affinities with George E. Moore - than philosophers such as Max Scheler who claimed to Husserl’s legitimate heirs. -/- 24. Bertrand Russell and non-cognitivism. The chapter reconstructs first the discussion after Moore. The naturalistic-fallacy argument was widely accepted but twisted to prove instead that the intuitive character of the definition of ‘good’, its non-cognitive meaning, in a first phase identified with ‘emotive’ meaning. Alfred Julius Ayer is indicated as a typical proponent of such non-cognitivist meta-ethics. More detailed discussion is dedicated to Bertrand Russell’s ethics, a more nuanced and sophisticated doctrine, arguing that non-cognitivism does not condemn morality to arbitrariness and that the project of a rational normative ethics is still possible, heading finally to the justification of a kind of non-hedonist utilitarianism. Stevenson’s theory, another moderate version of emotivism is discussed at some length, showing how the author comes close to the discovery of the role of a pragmatic dimension of language as a basis for ethical argument. Last of all, the discussion from the Forties about Hume’s law is described, mentioning Karl Popper’s argument and Richard Hare’s early non-cognitivist but non-emotivist doctrine named prescriptivism. -/- 25. Elizabeth Anscombe and the revival of virtue ethics. The chapter discusses the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. I argue that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy, and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes and that she seems strangely accept it; d) the difficulty of identifying the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favour of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is a response to the difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action. A short look at further developments in the neo-naturalist current is given trough a reconstruction of Philippa Foot’s and Peter Geach’s critiques to the naturalist-fallacy argument and Alasdair MacIntyre’s grand reconstruction of the origins and allegedly unavoidable failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethic. -/- 26. Richard Hare and neo-Utilitarianism. The chapter addresses the issue of the complex process of self-transformation Utilitarianism underwent after Sidgwick’s and Moore’s fatal criticism and the unexpected Phoenix-like process of rebirth of a doctrine definitely refuted. A glimpse at this uproarious process is given through two examples. The first is Roy Harrod Wittgensteinian transformation of Utilitarianism in pure normative ethics depurated from hedonism as well as from whatsoever theory of the good. This results in preference utilitarianism combined with a ‘Kantian’ version of rule utilitarianism. The second is Richard Hare’s two-level preference utilitarianism where act utilitarianism plays the function of eventual rational justification of moral judgments and rule-utilitarianism that of action-guiding practical device. -/- 27. Hans-Georg Gadamer and rehabilitation of practical philosophy. The post-war rediscovery of ethics by many German thinkers and its culmination in the Sixties in the movement named ‘Rehabilitation of practical philosophy’ is described. Among the actors of such rehabilitation there were a few of Heidegger’s most brilliant disciples, and Hans-Georg Gadamer is chosen as a paradigmatic example. His reading of Aristotle’s lesson I reconstructed, starting with Heidegger’s lesson but then subtly subverting its outcome thanks to the recovery of the central role of the notion of phronesis. -/- 28. Karl-Otto Apel and the revival of Kantian ethics. Parallel to the neo-Aristotelian trend, there was in the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy a Kantian current. This started, instead than the rehabilitation of prudence, with the discovery of the pragmatic dimension of language carried out by Charles Peirce and the Oxford linguistic philosophy. On this basis, Karl-Otto Apel singled out as the decisive proponent of the linguistic and Kantian turn in German-speaking ethics, worked out the performative-contradiction argument while claiming that this was able to provide a new rational and universal basis for normative ethics. An examination of his argument is some detail is offered, followed by a more cursory reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas’s elaboration on Apel’s theory. -/- 29. John Rawls and public ethics as applied ethics. Rawls’s distinction between a “political” and a “metaphysical” approach to one central part of ethical theory, namely the theory of justice, is interpreted as a formulation of the same basic idea at the root of both the principles approach and neo-casuistry, both discussed in the following chapter, namely that it is possible to reach an agreement concerning positive moral judgments even though the discussion is still open – and in Rawls’ view never will be close – on the basic criteria for judgment. -/- 30. Beauchamp and Childress and bioethics as applied ethics. The chapter presents the revolution of applied ethics while stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach and then by Jonsen and Toulmin’s new casuistry. -/- . (shrink)

In 2022, the Brazilian Armed Forces reaffirmed an old interventionist ideology that marked the history of the Republic of Brazil. The text seeks to show that such military ideology does not find a pretext in the history of modern political ideas. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), at first, and then Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), two ideologists who shaped today's understanding of the State, understand representative institutions in disagreement with any non-submission of the FFAA to Political Power. In this way, the ideology of military (...) intervention is, according to the history of ideas, incompatible with the modern conception of the State. (shrink)

In Chile, the contemporary form of academic life is irreducible to neoliberalism. There are past experiences and discourses that continue to disrupt the daily routine, dynamics, intensity, and rhythm of academics. They manifest as various epistemological, ethical, institutional, technical, and political mechanisms that produce innumerable images, meanings, and practices. These experiences conflict with the affects and material realities of the neoliberalism. The entanglement of these experiences from the past and present is conflicting, as they attempt to ignore or repress each (...) other. In this respect, this paper addresses the following question: what is the model of academic behaviour that was established during the post-independence period in the Chilean university system? To answer this question, I explore Andres Bello's texts concerning university and academic life. The conclusion is that Bello established a specific model of academic behaviour that, with some later modifications, reconfigurations, and contradictions, returns to the present. Bello's influence today can be seen through spectres that enable and limit new possibilities for expanding academic critique within and across scholarly settings. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is analyzing to which extent the multiverse hypothesis provides a real explanation of the peculiarities of the laws and constants in our universe. First we argue in favor of the thesis that all multiverses except Tegmark’s “mathematical multiverse” are too small to explain the fine tuning, so that they merely shift the problem up one level. But the “mathematical multiverse" is surely too large. To prove this assessment, we have performed a number of experiments with (...) cellular automata of complex behavior, which can be considered as universes in the mathematical multiverse. The analogy between what happens in some automata (in particular Conway’s “Game of Life") and the real world is very strong. But if the results of our experiments can be extrapolated to our universe, we should expect to inhabit—in the context of the multiverse—a world in which at least some of the laws and constants of nature should show a certain time dependence. Actually, the probability of our existence in a world such as ours would be mathematically equal to zero. In consequence, the results presented in this paper can be considered as an inkling that the hypothesis of the multiverse, whatever its type, does not offer an adequate explanation for the peculiarities of the physical laws in our world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Conquest and English Legal Identity in Renaissance IrelandBrian LockeyLike the Spanish administrators of the American territories, English administrators of Ireland attempted to impose their own native legal system on the Irish inhabitants. Nonetheless, important differences existed between the two kingdoms' legal approaches to their respective colonial contexts. Because Spanish jurisprudence was allied with universalist Catholic doctrine and was officially based on Justinian's Corpus Iuris Civilis (the ancient Roman legal (...) code which had close affinities to natural law discourse), Spanish administrators expected New World inhabitants to accept what they considered to be the "universal values" that were inherent in Spanish law.1 In contrast English common law had its roots not in natural law but in the peculiar customs of the English people. Thus, while the Spanish were able to claim that they were replacing unnatural Indian customs with a legal system rooted in universal natural law, the English were attempting to reform what they considered to be the unnatural practices of the Irish by imposing a legal system defined by its insularity and its peculiar affinity with English institutions.2 In this essay I show that Renaissance ethnographies on Ireland by such English administrators of Ireland as Edmund Spenser, Sir John Davies, and Fynes Moryson are fractured by a conflict between a commitment to natural-law theory, which had its origin in continental writings, and a corresponding commitment to the native English tradition of common law. I examine how works by Spenser, Davies, and Moryson dealt with this conflict within their collective project of articulating a legal justification and strategy for the pacification of Ireland. [End Page 543]Despite reports throughout Europe of Spanish-perpetrated cruelty throughout the Americas, the idea that war or conquest could be just or even charitable when prosecuted against oppression originated within the Catholic tradition of scholastic just-war theory.3 Many of the sixteenth-century writers who were writing about war and conquest in legal or ethical terms were Spanish or continental theologians who had attempted to evaluate Spanish imperial policy in the New World. On the one side were such figures as the Scottish theologian John Major and Spanish historian Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, both of whom had justified Spanish conquest and treatment of the Indians using arguments based on the foundation of natural law.4 On the other side were those who had, on similar terms, voiced criticisms of the cruelties which Spanish forces were inflicting on the Indians. Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de las Casas were certainly the most notable Spanish writers who favored more ethical treatment of New World inhabitants.5 Other prominent defenders of Indian rights were Domingo de Soto and Melchor Cano.6 Whether directly or through intermediaries, the ideas of many of these writers permeated the ideological fabric of England.Sir Fulke Greville's famous statement about Sir Philip Sidney's goal of fostering alliances with New World inhabitants in order to overthrow the Spanish authorities included an awareness of the "inhuman cruelties" of the Spanish forces, an awareness that probably originated in the English translation of Las Casas's Brevissima relación de la destrucyión de las Indias (1552).7 Beyond [End Page 544] this significant text, however, there were others. One important book that captured the ideas of the early Spanish debates on the ethics and justice of the New World conquests was Antonio de Guevara's Relox de príncipes (1529), a work twice translated into English during the sixteenth century.8 The third book of the Relox de príncipes, which treats the princely virtues of justice, peace, and magnificence, contains several sections that together constitute a polemic against violent imperialism and unjust conquest. In one notable episode Guevara employs the example of ancient Roman imperialism to produce a veiled critique of the injustices which Spain had committed against New World polities. A "villain of Danuby" from a German province newly conquered by Rome makes a speech to the Roman senate in which he criticizes the injustice of his Roman oppressors. The German villain characterizes the conquest of Germany in the following terms: "For I let you know, if you do not know it, that when... (shrink)

One of the most disputed questions among economists is that of "the role" and "size" that the public sector should have in a rich and developed country like France. -/- The importance of this question is understandable, because the history of nations is filled with examples of a sector (or a branch) of the economy becoming too large, or remaining too small, hampering growth or making the economy more vulnerable. A recent case is that of the "Financial Corporations Sector", which (...) doubled in size in several countries during the two decades leading up to the 2008 economic collapse [1]. -/- It is therefore legitimate to ask whether this is not also the case, in France, with "General Government" or "the Public Sector". -/- We explain why the argument most often used by those who hold this opinion (that the ratio "public expenditure/GDP" is a good measure of the size of the public sector and that in France it is too high) is not a serious one. -/- . (shrink)

The division between theory and practice is one of the consequences of Rousseau's heritage. In Educational Knowledge, it falls into the notion of finality, which is conceived mentally from the perspective of the result's principle. Thus, the oposition is reduplicated, confronting finality and freedom. Dilemma can be surpassed with a Polo's freedom enlargement in his trascendental anthropology, setting up as well the posibility of human unrestricted improvement.

Jerry Fodor and Ernest Lepore have launched a powerful attack against Paul Churchland's connectionist theory of semantics—aka State Space Semantics. In one part of their overall attack, they exploit the potentially orthogonal histories of different individuals to introduce what they labeled ‘the collateral information problem’. Aarre Laakso and Gary Cottrell have recently put forward a mathematical technique for measuring conceptual similarity across neural networks. Churchland uses Laakso and Cottrell's tecnique to defend State Space Semantics. In this paper I shall highlight (...) a potential problem for Laakso and Cottrell's technique, and for Churchland's subsequent defence of connectionist semantics that has been ignored in the connectionist literature. I shall argue that a connectionist sympathiser of Churchland could not make use of Laakso and Cottrell's neurosimulations to address Fodor and Lepore's collateral information challenge. (shrink)

El artículo examina, en primer lugar, el concepto de racionalidad práctica, el concepto de persona y el diagnóstico de la modernidad, propuestos por Charles Taylor en su libro Las fuentes del yo. La construcción de la identidad moderna. En segundo lugar, a partir de la presentación de la concepción comunicativa de racionalidad práctica de Habermas, el autor hace algunas consideraciones críticas a la posición de Taylor, con el fin de mostrar los problemas que resultan de definir la racionalidad práctica desde (...) una perspectiva ética. (shrink)

Plato’s Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception, eds. James Lesher, Debra Nails, and Frisbee Sheffield ; Frisbee C. C. Sheffield, Plato’s Symposium: The Ethics of Desire ; Kevin Corrigan and Elena Glazov-Corrigan, Plato’s Dialectic at Play: Structure, Argument and Myth in Plato’s Symposium.

The Colombian conflict seems a typical instantiation of a “greedy war”and exhibits very strong links between criminal economic activities and rebel organizations. On the contrary, the author suggests that not even in Colombia does the “criminal rebels” thesis hold. On the other hand, the Colombian case shows that criminality and war mix in ways that escape a strictly economic interpretation of war.