Quando assisti pela primeira vez a “Sociedade dos Poetas Mortos”, em 1989 (ano de lançamento no cinema), a história protagonizada pelo saudoso Robin Williams me comoveu profundamente. Naquela época eu caminhava rumo aos meus 20 anos, quando a vida ainda parece uma areia movediça e o futuro, uma eternidade. Eu ainda estava na Faculdade de Filosofia da UFBA, em Salvador, preparando-me para ser professor.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Jesus Becoming Jesus, Volume 2, A Theological Interpretation of the Gospel of John: Prologue and the Book of Signs by Thomas G. WeinandyDaniel A. KeatingJesus Becoming Jesus, Volume 2, A Theological Interpretation of the Gospel of John: Prologue and the Book of Signs by Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M. Cap. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2021), xviii + 484 pp.This is an unusual biblical commentary. (...) By his own account, Fr. Weinandy had set out to write a fully orbed systematic theology. While in the process of giving a "respectful nod to Scripture" as a prelude to his systematic study, he found himself caught up and engrossed in the biblical text—and never managed to extricate himself. Changing course, he decided to write "a theological or doctrinal interpretation of the New Testament." Volume 1 of this effort covers the Synoptic Gospels (2018). In this second volume, Weinandy turns his attention to the Fourth Gospel, his aim being "to discern the theological and doctrinal content of John's Gospel" (x).Perhaps the most unusual quality of this study is the complete absence of any secondary literature. Though the author has read commentaries on the Gospels, both ancient and modern, he chose not to consult any other scholars (or ecclesiastical writers) in composing this doctrinal commentary. Given his focused aim—a theological and doctrinal study of the Gospels—he wanted to avoid getting caught up in contemporary scholarly exegetical debates. And so there are no footnotes to secondary sources (a thing probably welcome to many readers).Weinandy alerts the reader at the start concerning his particular approach to this study of the Gospels. Fascinated throughout his career as a systematic theologian with the notion of "act" (and especially with God as "pure act"), he approaches the Gospel narratives primarily from the perspective of Jesus's actions. Specifically, he intends to explore how Jesus "enacts" [End Page 738] his name, "YHWH-Saves," through the saving mysteries revealed in the narrative of the Gospels. Thus the title of his multi-volume work, "Jesus Becoming Jesus," serves as the overarching theological theme of the entire effort. This is how he explains his methodology of "act" and "enactment" in his first volume: "Jesus more and more becomes Jesus in act through his saving acts; he becomes more and more the Savior. He definitively becomes Jesus-in-act with the actions of his saving death and resurrection, which will find completion when Jesus comes in glory at the end of time" (xix). With such attention given to Jesus's actions, Weinandy admits that Jesus's teaching does not receive the same attention. It is not that he ignores Jesus's words, but they function primarily as pointers to Jesus's acts.And yet in another sense, the endpoint of this commentary is to show the Trinity-in-act. "The Father is fatherhood fully in act; the Son is sonship fully in act; and the Holy Spirit is love fully in act. This threefold perichoretic act is the one God fully in act" (xiv). As Jesus progressively enacts his name and identity, so too are the Father and the Spirit revealed according to the "acts" that reflect their hypostatic identities. A consistent feature of this commentary is the sustained attention given to how the Father and the Spirit are involved in the saving actions of Jesus, the Word made flesh. Congruent with this view of the Trinity's perichoretic act, Weinandy often adopts what might be called a "perichoretic syntax," whereby he presents a single reality from the distinct perspectives of the divine persons, restating the same truth in mutually enhancing ways. This grammatical-syntactical style of the commentary is admirably suited to its theme.If we are looking for parallels to this theological-doctrinal approach in the Christian tradition, the commentaries on the Gospel of John by Cyril of Alexandria and Thomas Aquinas come to mind. Like Weinandy, they each work through the Gospel text passage by passage, explaining the meaning of each section, but they are characterized by an overarching doctrinal concern: to present the entirety of the Christian faith through the words of John's Gospel and to... (shrink)

A geographically stratified cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2002 to investigate household-level factors associated with use of mosquito control measures and self-reported malaria in Malindi, Kenya. A total of 629 households were surveyed. Logistic regressions were used to analyse the data. Half of all households (51%) reported all occupants using an insecticide-treated bed net and at least one additional mosquito control measure such as insecticides or removal of standing water. Forty-nine per cent reported a history of malaria in the household. (...) Of the thirteen household factors analysed, low (OR=0·23, CI 0·11, 0·48) and medium (OR=0·50, CI 0·29, 0·86) education, mudcoral (OR=0·0·39, CI 0·24, 0·66) and mud block–plaster (OR=0·47, CI 0·25, 0·87) wall types, farming (OR=1·38, CI 1·01, 1·90) and travel to rural areas (OR=0·48, CI 0·26, 0·91) were significantly associated with the use of mosquito control, while controlling for other covariates in the model. History of reported malaria was not associated with the use of mosquito control (OR=1·22, CI 0·79, 1·88). Of the thirteen covariates analysed in the second model, only two household factors were associated with history of malaria: being located in the well-drained stratum (OR=0·49, CI 0·26, 0·96) and being bitten while in the house (OR=1·22, CI 0·19, 0·49). These results suggest that high socioeconomic status is associated with increased household-level mosquito control use, although household-level control may not be enough, as many people are exposed to biting mosquitoes while away from the house and in areas that are more likely to harbour mosquitoes. (shrink)

According to the seventh-century C.E. philosopher Kumārila Bhat.t.a, epistemic agents are warranted in taking their world-presenting experiences as veridical, if they lack defeaters. For him, these experiences are defeasibly sources of knowledge without the agent reflecting on their content or investigating their causal origins. This position is known as svatah prāmāṇya in Sanskrit (henceforth the SP principle). -/- As explicated by the eleventh-century commentator, Pārthasārathi Misŕa, this position entails that epistemic agents know things without simultaneously knowing that they know them, (...) or being in a position to know that they know. In contrast, some contemporary Anglo-analytic philosophers argue for the “knows-knows principle” (KK principle), in which if someone knows that p, then that person also knows that they know that p, or that person is in a position to know that they know p. Despite some apparent similarities, the SP principle is not a version of the KK principle, nor would Pārthasārathi’s Kumārila have held the KK principle. -/- Recently, Daniel Immerman (2018) has argued that the SP principle is a position-to-know version of the “knows-knows principle” (KK-pos principle). By examining Kumārila’s response to his Buddhist opponent, who challenges the veracity of Vedic testimony, we will see that Kumārila understands higher-order knowing as involving an independent check on one’s epistemic processes, through an epistemic instrument known as postulation (arthāpatti). This precludes him from holding the KK-pos principle. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Catholic Postliberalism in the Ruins of "the Catholic Moment"James F. KeatingA historically conversant reader interested in the current state of discourse regarding Catholicism and American politics will find a good amount of familiar discord. He will discover, for example, that the life issues continue to bedevil. Can a Catholic vote in good conscience for an abortion-rights candidate over a pro-life competitor if that candidate is more supportive of other (...) policies in line with Catholic Social Teaching? This issue has, of course, been with the American Church for some time now, even if it has taken on renewed urgency given the coincidence of the overturning of Roe v. Wade with the presidency of Joseph Biden, the second Roman Catholic to hold that office and a recent convert to pro-choice stridency. The action of the Supreme Court and the battles within the various states will ensure that abortion remains at the political heart of American Catholicism for years to come. One can say something similar about other issues, such as immigration, gun control, and economic justice. None of this will be found to be particularly surprising. The same cannot be said, however, of the return of a more fundamental question, one thought to have been settled since the mid-1960s. That question is whether Roman Catholicism and American liberal democracy are incompatible to the extent that Catholics ought to seek, if possible, another constitutional arrangement, one more friendly to the Catholic cause.Our reader would be familiar with the standard narrative that, while the existence of a medieval Church in a modern polity that upholds religious freedom had been a matter of concern since the dawn of the Republic, it [End Page 991] became serious only in the first half of the twentieth century as the number of Catholics and their influence grew. Until that time, American bishops, such as Archbishop John Ireland (1815–1918), made a special point of speaking publicly on the benefits of American freedom for the Church, just as they made clear that Catholics could be as patriotic as any other citizen. If there were tensions, they came primarily from anti-Catholic bigotry and governmental overreach. Things changed, however, when the point at issue was no longer primarily a religious one of Catholic believers infecting their Protestant neighbors with erroneous doctrine, but rather the threat so many Catholics posed to the fate of American freedom itself. In a postwar America concerned with the spread of Soviet communism, Paul Blanshard found a ready audience for his scholarly anti-Catholic diatribes, American Freedom and Catholic Power (1949) and Communism, Democracy, and Catholic Power (1951).1 Without much difficultly, he pointed to various statements of Gregory XVI and Pius IX condemning the separation of Church and state, the freedom of religious conscience, and democracy as the best governmental form. To top things off, he had Leo XIII's Testem Benevolentiae, an 1899 letter to the Cardinal Archbishop James Gibbons of Baltimore, warning him and his fellow bishops not to speak of the constitutional arrangement of the United States as a political ideal. While Leo had positive things to say about the American system, his admonition followed the traditional line: while constitutional protections of religious freedom are necessary when Catholics are in the minority, the ideal situation is a state that officially confesses and supports the Catholic religion. Of more recent vintage, Blanshard could quote the response of America's best-known Catholic theologian, Monsignor John A. Ryan, to the question of whether non-Catholics would be permitted to practice their religion in this ideal state:If these are carried on within the family, or in such inconspicuous manner as to be an occasion neither of scandal nor of perversion to the faithful, they may be properly tolerated by the State,... Quite distinct from the performance of false religious worship and preaching to the members of the erring sects, is the propagation of the false doctrine among Catholics. This could become a source of injury, a positive menace, to the religious welfare of true believers. Against such an evil they have a right of protection by the Catholic State... If there is only one true religion, and... (shrink)

This paper builds on previous work that investigated anticancer drugs as ‘informed materials’, i.e., substances that undergo an informational enrichment that situates them in a dense relational web of qualifications and measurements generated by clinical experiments and clinical trials. The paper analyzes the recent transformation of anticancer drugs from ‘informed’ to ‘informing material’. Briefly put: in the post-genomic era, anti-cancer drugs have become instruments for the production of new biological, pathological, and therapeutic insights into the underlying etiology and evolution of (...) cancer. Genomic platforms characterize individual patients’ tumors based on their mutational landscapes. As part of this new approach, drugs targeting specific mutations transcend informational enrichment to become tools for informing their targets, while also problematizing the very notion of a ‘target’. In other words, they have become tools for the exploration of cancer pathways and mechanisms. While several studies in the philosophy and history of biomedicine have called attention to the heuristic relevance and experimental use of drugs, few have investigated concrete instances of this role of drugs in clinical research. (shrink)

At several places in this paper we have made use of a well-known rhetorical device: an argument was made; a character —dubbed “fictional reader” — was then evoked who voiced some objections against that particular argument; and finally, we answered those objections, thus bringing to a close, at least temporarily, our argument. The use of this device raises a question: “How is the presence of the ‘fictional reader” to be understood?” Is it a “mere” rhetorical tool, or does this character (...) designate some particular target? For instance, depending on the context, it could be seen as aimed at different straw men: traditionally minded sociologists, Whiggish historians, well-intentioned philosophers of science. Actually, none of these characters is behind the “fictional reader”. Rather, it refers, potentially, to any of the scientific actors (Milstein, Schwaber, Koprowski, Cohn, and so on) who inhabit our set of narratives. In other words, the “fictional reader” is an icon for the “native” reader/writer who simultaneously produces and questions the products of that particular literary activity known as scientific texts, by explicitly and implicitly raising the issue of the distinction between fact and technique.By following actors in their disputes about the novelty of K & M's contribution, it became apparent that it is not exactly clear which of the different elements of “hybridoma technology” should be regarded as “novel.” Was it the use of the P3 myeloma line? Was it the theoretical framework related to the notion of allelic exclusion? Was it ...? In each and every case, arguments can be made for or against the existence of a certain continuity or discontinuity with previous work. And in each case, the determination of novelty, as translated through the continuity/discontinuity issue, appeared to be hanging on the previous attribution of an epistemological status to the object that had allegedly been discovered: was it a fact or a technique?If one focuses on the relatively narrow network of immunogenetics, it could be argued that within that particular evidential context a series of “facts” had been established which, when transferred to other fields, such as the virological research being pursued in Koprowski's institute, were translated into a technique. However, as we have seen, even from an immunogenetic point of view the production of monoclonal antibodies can be viewed as being simultaneously a fact and a technique to establish that fact. Not only, as he himself noted,139 was Milstein not seeking to develop a technique for the production of monoclonal antibodies when the original experiments were carried out, but the significance later imputed to those experiments was not immediately attributed to them. The paper was seen as one among other papers that used cell fusion techniques to dissect the genetic control of antibody diversity. Distinctions that now appear crucial (e.g.: were the fusion partners two myelomas or a myeloma and a spleen cell?) were easily overlooked. At some point, around 1977, the production of monoclonal antibodies became a goal in itself, no longer linked to the initial immunogenetic network. The transformation of [MILSTEIN 75] into the foundational event of “hybridoma technology” was thus achieved. This transformation did not flow naturally from the original experiments. Rather, it involved specific investments which mobilized the activity of a large number of other scientific and industrial actors.140A tentative generalization can be deduced from our case study. The dichotomy between fact and technique that underlines much of contemporary science studies seem to be fundamentally misconceived, insofar as the determination of what counts as a fact and what counts as a technique is not possible on a priori grounds. Historians and sociologists of science are confronted with a field of heterogeneous interventions where particular pieces of work are constituted as discrete entities and simultaneously attributed a technical or a factual identity. “Novelty” and “innovation” are precisely the result of such polymorphic attributional processes. (shrink)

During the past few years significant progress has been made in our understanding of the structure and function of the proteins involved in eukaryotic DNA replication. Data from several laboratories suggest that, in contrast to prokaryotic DNA replication, two distinct DNA polymerases are required for eukaryotic DNA replication, i.e. DNA polymerase delta for the synthesis of the leading strand and DNA polymerase alpha for the lagging strand. Several accessory proteins analogous to prokaryotic replication factors have been identified and some of (...) these are specific for pol delta whereas others affect both DNA replicases. The replicases and their accessory proteins appear to be highly conserved in eukaryotes, as homologous proteins have been found in species ranging from humans to yeast. (shrink)

The collected essays and consensus statements of the second round of the National Evangelical-Catholic Dialogue, and the second book of the series on Evangelicals and Catholics in dialogue. The essays address the Christian ideal of life lived in pursuit of the good that is God, and the witness and imitation of God's action in Christ, as a pathway to fruitful dialogue between Catholics and Evangelicals.

This article summarizes a variety of current as well as previous research in support of a new theory of consciousness. Evidence has been steadily accumulating that information about a stimulus complex is distributed to many neuronal populations dispersed throughout the brain and is represented by the departure from randomness of the temporal pattern of neural discharges within these large ensembles. Zero phase lag synchronization occurs between discharges of neurons in different brain regions and is enhanced by presentation of stimuli. This (...) evidence further suggests that spatiotemporal patterns of coherence, which have been identified by spatial principal component analysis, may encode a multidimensional representation of a present or past event. How such distributed information is integrated into a holistic percept constitutes the binding problem. How a percept defined by a spatial distribution of nonrandomness can be subjectively experienced constitutes the problem of consciousness. Explanations based on a discrete connectionistic network cannot be reconciled with the relevant facts. Evidence is presented herein of invariant features of brain electrical activity found to change reversibly with loss and return of consciousness in a study of 176 patients anesthetized during surgical procedures. A review of relevant research areas, as well as the anesthesia data, leads to a postulation that consciousness is a property of quantumlike processes, within a brain field resonating within a core of structures, which may be the neural substrate of consciousness. This core includes regions of the prefrontal cortex, the frontal cortex, the pre- and paracentral cortex, thalamus, limbic system, and basal ganglia. (shrink)

This book, first published in 1990, takes a critical look at the major assumptions which support critical thinking programs and discovers many unresolved questions which threaten their viability. John McPeck argues that some of these assumptions are incoherent or run counter to common sense, while others are unsupported by the available empirical evidence. This title will be of interest to students of the philosophy of education.

This review of Martin Jay’s recent published collection of essays examines his ongoing rethinking, supplementation, and revision of central themes—the negative and positive dialectics of historical totalization, the varieties and uses of conceptions of experience, the nature of visual cultures and scopic regimes, and the ambiguities of truth-construction in the public realm—that have been the focus of his major works since the 1970s. It argues that his more recent work indicates a gradual shift toward an affirmation of the kinds of (...) paratactic and deconstructive thinking of Adorno and Derrida as models for producing appropriate forms of historical consciousness and historical critique in the present, and it raises the question of how the issues of historical truth-telling, consensual collective identity, ethical action, and the cultural role of the critical intellectual are reformulated in this process. (shrink)

_A new theory of how and why we cooperate, drawing from economics, political theory, and philosophy to challenge the conventional wisdom of game theory_ Game theory explains competitive behavior by working from the premise that people are self-interested. People don’t just compete, however; they also cooperate. John Roemer argues that attempts by orthodox game theorists to account for cooperation leave much to be desired. Unlike competing players, cooperating players take those actions that they would like others to take—which Roemer (...) calls “Kantian optimization.” Through rigorous reasoning and modeling, Roemer demonstrates a simpler theory of cooperative behavior than the standard model provides. (shrink)

Is morality too difficult for human beings? Kant said that it was, except with God's assistance. Contemporary moral philosophers have usually discussed the question without reference to Christian doctrine, and have either diminished the moral demand, exaggerated human moral capacity, or tried to find a substitute in nature for God's assistance. This book looks at these philosophers--from Kant and Kierkegaard to Swinburne, Russell, and R.M. Hare--and the alternative in Christianity.

If one is an egalitarian, what should one want to equalize? Opportunities or outcomes? Resources or welfare? These positions are usually conceived to be very different. I argue in this paper that the distinction is misconceived: the only coherent conception of resource equality implies welfare equality, in an appropriately abstract description of the problem. In this section, I motivate the program which the rest of the paper carries out.

Introduction Marxism is a set of ideas from which sprang particular approaches to economics, sociology, anthropology, political theory, literature, art, ...

In the first comprehensive biography of Ferdinand de Saussure, John E. Joseph restores the full character and history of a man who is considered the founder of modern linguistics and whose ideas have influenced literary theory, philosophy, cultural studies, and virtually every other branch of humanities and the social sciences.

The evolution of life on Earth has produced an organism that is beginning to model and understand its own evolution and the possible future evolution of life in the universe. These models and associated evidence show that evolution on Earth has a trajectory. The scale over which living processes are organized cooperatively has increased progressively, as has its evolvability. Recent theoretical advances raise the possibility that this trajectory is itself part of a wider developmental process. According to these theories, the (...) developmental process has been shaped by a yet larger evolutionary dynamic that involves the reproduction of universes. This evolutionary dynamic has tuned the key parameters of the universe to increase the likelihood that life will emerge and produce outcomes that are successful in the larger process (e.g. a key outcome may be to produce life and intelligence that intentionally reproduces the universe and tunes the parameters of ‘offspring’ universes). Theory suggests that when life emerges on a planet, it moves along this trajectory of its own accord. However, at a particular point evolution will continue to advance only if organisms emerge that decide to advance the developmental process intentionally. The organisms must be prepared to make this commitment even though the ultimate nature and destination of the process is uncertain, and may forever remain unknown. Organisms that complete this transition to intentional evolution will drive the further development of life and intelligence in the universe. Humanity’s increasing understanding of the evolution of life in the universe is rapidly bringing it to the threshold of this major evolutionary transition. (shrink)

In these previously uncollected essays, Smith argues that American philosophers like Peirce, James, Royce, and Dewey have forged a unique philosophical tradition—one that is rich and complex enough to represent a genuine alternative to the analytic, phenomenological, and hermeneutical traditions which have originated in Britain or Europe. "In my judgment, John Smith has no equal today in combining two scholarly qualities: the analysis of philosophical texts with penetration and rigor, and the discernment of what it is in these texts (...) that matters. These qualities are in evidence throughout the essays in _America's Philosophical Vision._ Whether he is evaluating Rorty's view of Dewey; the pragmatic theory of experience and truth; theories of freedom, creativity, and the self; Royce's conception of community; or synoptic philosophic visions, Smith always succeeds in uniting a comprehensive understanding of philosophic writings with a sure grasp of their import for human culture and aspiration. It is a great benefit to students of American thought that these papers have now been collected into one volume."—James Gouinlock, Emory University. (shrink)

This work is an exploration of divine command theory, which is the theory that what makes something morally obligatory is that God commands it.

Let it be clear at the outset that in reappraising Dewey's thought we have to do with no minute philosopher. In breadth of interest and range of thought he belongs with the great comprehensive thinkers of the past. And in contrast to many thinkers both in his own time and since, he had a constructive program. Philosophy for him meant more than analysis, even though analysis is an important part of the philosophic enterprise. Dewey's constructive philosophy has too often been (...) lost in polemic discussion. I subscribe to the confession made some years ago by Ernest Hocking in which he said that he began to understand Dewey when he started reading him for enjoyment and not for the purpose of showing that he was all wrong! As Dewey's work shapes up in historical perspective, it assumes a great substantiality. One may disagree and one may correct, but in comparison with philosophy of a wholly technical and professional sort, Dewey's large-minded approach to genuinely philosophic questions places him among philosophers of stature. (shrink)

What can we learn from reading Levinas alongside postcolonial theories of difference? With that question in view, Drabinski undertakes readings of Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Edouard Glissant, and Subcommandante Marcos in order to rethink ideas of difference, language, subjectivity, ethics, and politics. Through these philosophical readings, he gives a new perspective on the work of these important postcolonial theorists and helps make Levinas relevant to other disciplines concerned with postcolonialism and ethics.