O presente artigo analisa a compatibilidade das leis de iniciativa parlamentar que instituem isenções tributárias em face da Constituição da República de 1988 e da Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal, no contexto de crise econômica. Em conclusão, observou-se o risco de consequências prejudiciais ao Estado se não for enfrentado o problema da legalidade das leis tributárias de iniciativa parlamentar. O método de abordagem utilizado na pesquisa foi o dialético jurídico, notadamente à confrontação dos modelos econômicos de John Maynard Keynes e Friedrich (...) Hayek em relação ao Estado brasileiro, paralelamente ao método de pesquisa bibliográfico. (shrink)

The roles companion animals have played in our lives has dramatically changed over the last few decades. At the same time, the terms we use to describe both the people and animals in these human-animal relationships have also changed. One example includes the use of the terms ‘owner’ or ‘guardian’ to refer to the human caretaker. While preferences by society appear to indicate increased interest in referring to companion animal caretakers as ‘guardians’, others have cautioned against its use or attempted (...) to restrict it. Additionally, the use of animal welfare terminology has direct implications for how we conduct both welfare research and practice. Our paper examines the use of ‘owner’ and ‘guardian’ with respect to (1) the implications for changing terminology on the function, clarity and uniformity of their use, and (2) the ethical and welfare impact that coincides with each term’s use. Our goal is to propose terminological considerations that could influence future welfare research, as well as help guide our interactions with companion animals. (shrink)

Purpose: Performance measurement systems (PMS) in Nonprofit Organizations (NPOs) are more complex than in for-profit organizations. NPOs have an orientation towards social mission and values, and they consider not only organizational efficiency and viability, but also the social impact of the organization. This research provides a comprehensive synthesis of PMSs in NPOs. Design/methodology/approach: Using a literature review, supported by bibliometric and network analyses. A paper set of 240 articles related to this research field is examined. Topics that are the most (...) prevalent in this research area and their interrelationships are identified, presenting an outline of current efforts. Findings: Despite the descriptive analyses for the paper set, a framework is proposed for organizing the design-implementation factors of PMSs in nonprofit organizations, identifying the main requirements for their successful development. Originality/value: Investigation on performance measurement in nonprofit organizations is still in its early stages of development with many opportunities to further develop the field. Conceptual frameworks and models, as well as specific theories, are being generated for this field of research, and the process of adapting models from the general field of performance measurement is taking place. The meta-framework that organizes the main research topics of PMS in nonprofit organizations and the framework that consolidates factors that influence the design-implementation of PMSs in nonprofit organizations developed represents this paper contribution. (shrink)

Mezcla de ensayo, comentario y memoria, recoge trabajos orgánicamente ensamblados sobre la acción de profesores franceses en la enseñanza de la filosofía en São Paulo durante la década de los años 60. Se destaca la obra de autores brasileños como Bento Padro Jr., Oswaldo Porchat, José Arthur Giannotti y Ruy Fausto. Un capítulo se dedica al historiador de la filosofía en Brasil, Joao Cruz Costa"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

Para Robert Nozick, é preciso entender se o Estado é necessário e o modo como ele pode ser compreendido sem ofender direitos. O presente trabalho tem por objetivo explorar conceitos elementares da teoria de Robert Nozick para a conformação de uma teoria política razoável. Inicialmente, foi apresentado um panorama da concepção libertária desenvolvida por Nozick, baseado na primeira parte da obra Anarquia, Estado e Utopia, tendo em vista que é um autor de bases teóricas distintas e pouco estudado pela academia. (...) Posteriormente, foram analisados alguns aspectos de sua ideia de sociedade política e de seus integrantes, confrontando com conceitos teóricos do pensador contemporâneo John Rawls. Por fim, algumas características de tese de Nozick foram examinados para entender se seria uma doutrina abrangente e como poderia ser caracterizada como racional e razoável frente a pluralidade de concepções da boa vida. (shrink)

L'histoire de la réception littéraire de l'Utopie de Thomas More au Portugal a été une histoire d'omissions, de censures et de traductions différées qui met en évidence un défaut dans le système culturel portugais. En effet, il est quelque peu ironique qu'une œuvre aussi représentative de la littérature et de la pensée occidentale, historiquement associée à l'ouverture des horizons géographiques du monde, et qui attribue au personnage d'un marin lusitanien, Raphaël Hythlodée, la découverte d'un lieu idéal, n'a été traduite en (...) portugais que dans la seconde moitié du vingtième siècle. Cependant, la première décennie du vingt-et-unième siècle semble annoncer une fortune littéraire plus favorable à l'Utopie de More dans la langue portugaise: non seulement une édition du chef d'œuvre de More a finalement été traduite du latin, mais aussi deux romans ont été publiés en 2004, A lenda de Martim Regos, de Pedro Canais, et Rafael, de Manuel Alegre. Dans le cadre de leurs propres déroulements narratifs, les deux œuvres réaccentuent les traits complexes du personnage du marin portugais et découvreur de l'île idéale. La même réinvention du personnage de Raphaël avait déjà été tentée, en 1998, par José V. de Pina Martins dans son long récit dialogique Utopia III. Dans cet essai, je me concentrerai à la fois sur les sources documentaires liées à la culture portugaise qui sont à la base de l'Utopie de More et sur certains aspects pertinents de la réception du personnage de Raphaël Hythlodée dans les romans susmentionnés. (shrink)

Self-deception poses serious difficulties for belief attribution because the behavior of the self-deceived is deeply conflicted: some of it supports the attribution of a certain belief, while some of it supports the contrary attribution. Theorists have resorted either to attributing both beliefs to the self-deceived, or to postulating an unconscious belief coupled with another kind of cognitive attitude. On the other hand, deflationary accounts of self- deception have attempted a more parsimonious solution: attributing only one, false belief to the subject. (...) My aim in this paper is to critically examine this strategy and, subsequently, to suggest that its failure gives support to the neglected view that the self-deceived are not accurately describable as believing either of the relevant propositions. (shrink)

This Element introduces Afro-Brazilian religions and underscores the necessity for an expanded methodological framework to encompass these traditions in the philosophy of religion. It emphasizes the importance of incorporating overlooked sources like mythic narratives and ethnographies while acknowledging the pivotal role of material culture in cognitive processes. Furthermore, it advocates for adopting an embodiment paradigm to facilitate the development of a philosophy of religious practice. The Element illustrates this approach by examining phenomena often neglected in philosophical discussions on religion, such (...) as sacrifice and spirit possession, and delves into the ontological commitments and implications of these practices. It also stresses the significance of employing thick descriptions and embracing interdisciplinary dialogue to cultivate a globally inclusive philosophy of religion, capable of engaging with phenomena frequently sidelined within the mainstream. (shrink)

Este artigo traça um paralelo entre os eventos da Odisseia e a exploração dos jogos de azar. Para tanto, utilizando-se livremente de várias abordagens filosóficas, é defendido que o ser humano é naturalmente um jogador, com uma liberdade que é restrita a partir do surgimento do Estado. Este, tendo seus desdobramentos representados por Calipso, Cila e Caríbdis, terá que harmonizar essa natureza com seu poder soberano, regulamentando a exploração dos jogos de azar.

The doxastic status of delusion is inconclusive. The arguments presented for and against it are not strong enough to clinch the issue and convince everyone of a single, general characterization. But that does not mean that we have not gained any clarity from discussing it. In the few decades since the issue became contentious, philosophers have made great strides, not only in accounting for the nature of delusion as a cognitive attitude, but also in developing theories of what kind of (...) cognitive attitude best exemplifies the functional role delusions play in one’s cognitive economy.As is often the case within philosophical debates, it takes a long time and a major collective effort for us to start to get clear on... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:From Methodological Naturalism to Interpretive Exclusivism About Religious PsychopathologyJosé Eduardo Porcher, PhDA particularly deep form of hermeneutical injustice arises when clinicians undermine a patient’s meaningful interpretation of their alleged psychotic symptoms within a religious framework. Cases like Femi’s (Rashed, 2010) illustrate how diagnosing and treating psychotic symptoms with religious content can perpetuate this injustice. Femi’s symptoms, which were very real, were interpreted solely as indicative of a psychotic (...) episode, without considering the possibility of a religious experience. Although hermeneutical injustice is often caused by negative stereotypes, lack of conceptual resources, implicit biases, practices of epistemic privileging, patronizing attitudes, and wrongful pathologization, I propose that interpretive exclusivism about religious psychopathology plays a pivotal role in causing hermeneutical injustice when attributing psychotic symptoms with religious content—that is, the view that an experience is either psychopathological or religious (Scrutton, 2023). Routinely, on attributing psychosis, the potential for the patient to have a genuine religious experience is disregarded and excluded from the therapeutic process and from the very realm of possibility. Why?In their thoughtful commentary, Rosa Ritunnano and Ian James Kidd do me the favor of not only giving careful attention to my argument, but also elucidating my position and providing avenues for further clarification. Although I have not gone much into what is behind interpretive exclusivism, they are right to point to unquestioning adherence to some form of naturalism. Contrary to what they intimate, however, I do not think we are speaking of different kinds of hermeneutical injustice. As I see it, we are speaking about the same kind of injustice, only at different levels of explanation. In my article, I rhetorically ask why [End Page 241] it is assumed that psychotic and religious experiences cannot coexist, and why it is assumed that the same experience cannot be both a genuine religious experience and an instance of psycho-pathology. Ritunnano and Kidd point in the right direction when they say, “Some interpretations of kinds of experience with religious content can be undermined if one is committed to a metaphysical naturalism” (2024, p. 235).Naturalism can be divided into two components: metaphysical and methodological (Papineau, 2020). The metaphysical component concerns the contents of reality, affirming the absence of “supernatural” or other metaphysically elusive entities. In contrast, the methodological component focuses on approaches to investigating reality and attributes a general authority to the scientific method. Therefore, metaphysical naturalism is the more comprehensive view, as it outright denies the existence of the supernatural. Meanwhile, methodological (or scientific) naturalism refers to a pragmatic approach within scientific inquiry, stating that the right methodology to investigate and research something (where this something might not be immediately obvious to be a scientific topic) is that of science, often particular of natural sciences.Although a commitment to metaphysical naturalism may at times be what lies behind interpretive exclusivism, we do not need to go that far, since a commitment to methodological naturalism is enough to breed unwarranted ontological exclusion in practice (Plantinga, 1997; Ratcliffe, 2003). This in turn leads to interpretive exclusivism which is, I argue, the main theoretical flaw behind the kind of hermeneutical injustice I am trying to flesh out. As Ritunnano and Kidd observe, either tacit or explicit adherence to such ontological exclusion causes individuals to struggle to view another person’s spiritual or religious interpretive framework as coherent or even intelligible. Note, however, that the opposite of interpretive exclusivism—that is, interpretive inclusivism—does not need to affirm that the experience is exclusively or even genuinely religious but rather keeps that question open while considering significant epistemic and meaning-making possibilities.Finally, in his commentary, Alasdair Coles (2024) proposes that I overlook the fact that some individuals undergo psychoses featuring deeply distressing and dark religious imagery, the dismissal of which can be therapeutically beneficial. He also contends that therapists often default to considering all religious content as inauthentic, contrasting this with my alleged stance, which he believes assumes the opposite extreme and may be equally or more harmful. In making these assertions, he misrepresents my argument on two counts. I took care to avoid implying that all religious experiences should be uncritically accepted and that all religious content is inherently... (shrink)

Clinical delusions are commonly thought of and characterized as beliefs, both by psychiatrists and by the general population. That fact is encoded in the definition of delusion in the Glossary of Technical Terms of the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders :A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly held despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary.Although almost (...) every aspect of this definition is debatable, describing delusion as a type of aberrant belief has engendered a specialized discussion in itself, engaging philosophers... (shrink)

The type III secretion system (T3SS) is a specialized nanomachine that enables bacteria to secrete proteins in a specific order and directly deliver a specific set of them, collectively known as effectors, into eukaryotic organisms. The core structure of the T3SS is a syringe‐like apparatus composed of multiple building blocks, including both membrane‐associated and soluble proteins. The cytosolic components organize together in a chamber‐like structure known as the sorting platform (SP), responsible for recruiting, sorting, and initiating the substrates destined to (...) engage this secretion pathway. In this article, we provide an overview of recent findings on the SP's structure and function, with a particular focus on its assembly pathway. Furthermore, we discuss the molecular mechanisms behind the recruitment and hierarchical sorting of substrates by this cytosolic complex. Overall, the T3SS is a highly specialized and complex system that requires precise coordination to function properly. A deeper understanding of how the SP orchestrates T3S could enhance our comprehension of this complex nanomachine, which is central to the host‐pathogen interface, and could aid in the development of novel strategies to fight bacterial infections. (shrink)

(2000). The eternal present of Utopianism. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 3, The Philosophy of Utopia, pp. 44-55.

O que se buscará com o seguinte artigo é recriar, e analisar, o trajeto filosófico que tem sua origem no conceito kantiano de Aufklärung, e cuja evolução nos levará até o conceito foucaultiano de “ontologia crítica”. Em 1784, Kant diria num artigo do jornal alemão Berlinische Monatsschrift que a Aufklärung seria uma saída da minoridade do homem, e por minoridade podemos entender o fato do homem não ser capaz de fazer uso do seu próprio entendimento, ficando assim dependente da razão (...) de tutores. A partir disto, Foucault, em 1984, diria que a originalidade desta resposta de Kant está exatamente em não propor um método ou uma doutrina, mas antes, em incitar uma ação: propriamente a ação de saída [Ausgang]. Assim, Foucault nos apresentaria sua “ontologia crítica”; que diferentemente da ontologia tradicional que busca capturar os acontecimentos numa doutrina, o papel da ontologia foucaultiana seria exatamente o de tornar o sujeito incapturável por qualquer doutrina que apreende os acontecimentos num SER exclusivo. O que Foucault faria, desta forma, seria levar o conceito de Kant mais além, propondo mesmo um trabalho infinito, não apenas mais para sair, mas para igualmente permanecer fora do estado de minoridade. (shrink)

The article intends to discuss processes of political subjectivation of children and young people based on excerpts from a research carried out within the scope of a master's degree in education, presenting a cartography of the political participation of children and young people living in vulnerable territories of the municipality of São Vicente, on the south coast from São Paulo, members of collectives and educational actions of the Instituto Camará Calunga. The concepts of mobilization and subjectivation are presented as important (...) elements of politicization processes, portraying the way in which children and young people engage politically in different ways, coordinated or supported by adults, representing themselves or supporting adults in their demands, opposing the notion that children do not act politically or that the ideal way for children and young people to participate would be to produce consensus and there would be no room for contestation. The research took place in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, essentially in a virtual way, but it traces a continuity with the Institute's participation practices in the pre-pandemic period. The research made use of the cartographic method, in a virtual and face-to-face way, in the context of live work, of daily living with children, young people and educators from Camará, through semi-structured interviews and field diaries. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to consider the question ‘Why is belief in God not a delusion?’. In the first half of the paper, I distinguish two kinds of religious belief: institutional and personal religious belief. I then review how cognitive science accounts for cultural processes in the acquisition and transmission of institutional religious beliefs. In the second half of the paper, I present the clinical definition of delusion and underline the fact that it exempts cultural beliefs from clinical (...) diagnosis. Finally, I review cognitive models of the intuitive attribution of mental disorders and how they support cultural exemption. Through the comparison of the models of cultural acquisition of religious beliefs and of cultural exemption in the attribution of delusion I intend to make it clear that we can provide an answer to our motivating question: even though some institutional religious beliefs may seem as strange as the most florid delusions, humans can readily recognize that they are not the product of mental dysfunction due to the fact that their acquisition and transmission is embedded within a cultural context. (shrink)

This chapter connects the phenomenon of double bookkeeping to two critical debates in the philosophy of delusion: one from the analytic tradition and one from the phenomenological tradition. First, I will show how the failure of action guidance on the part of some delusions suggests an argument to the standard view that delusions are beliefs (doxasticism about delusion) and how its proponents have countered it by ascribing behavioral inertia to avolition, emotional disturbances, or a failure of the surrounding environment in (...) supporting the agent’s motivation to act. Second, I will show how the mismatch between the experience of double bookkeeping and that of having the usual propositional attitudes of folk psychology suggests another, more recalcitrant argument not only against doxasticism but against the very attempt to fit delusion into folk psychology. Third, I will show how phenomenologically inspired theories of delusion, such as the multiple realities hypothesis, bypass the debates above and focus on describing and understanding the disturbances in the structure of experience undergone by patients. I conclude that the philosophical discussions ensuing from an appreciation of double bookkeeping show some of the limitations of the analytic philosophical approach to delusion. (shrink)

Although delusion is one of the central concepts of psychopathology, it stills eludes precise conceptualization. In this paper, I present certain basic issues concerning the classification and definition of delusion, as well as its ontological status. By examining these issues, I aim to shed light on the ambiguity of the clinical term ‘delusion’ and its extension, as well as provide clues as to why philosophers are increasingly joining the ranks of psychiatrists, psychologists, and neuroscientists in the effort to come to (...) a comprehensive understanding of delusion. (shrink)

Clinical delusions are widely characterized as being pathological beliefs in both the clinical literature and in common sense. Recently, a philosophical debate has emerged between defenders of the commonsense position (doxasticists) and their opponents, who have the burden of pointing toward alternative characterizations (anti-doxasticists). In this chapter, I argue that both doxasticism and anti- doxasticism fail to characterize the functional role of delusions while at the same time being unable to play a role in the explanation of these phenomena. I (...) also argue that though a more nuanced view of belief in which mental states are more or less belief-like instills a healthy skepticism towards the precision of folk-psychological concepts, such a stance fails to be of use in building a theory of delusion that will be able to bridge different levels of explanation, such as the phenomenology and neurobiology of delusion. Thus, I advocate moving past the question ‘Are delusions beliefs?’ and their description as propositional attitudes toward the description of the processes that generate delusion, with a view toward explaining, rather than explaining away, the personal-level aspects of the phenomenon that have been made inscrutable by investing in doxastic terminology. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that a special kind of hermeneutical injustice occurs when someone is not permitted to interpret their experiences in a meaning-making way. I suggest that this occurs in certain cases where the possibility that the patient has a genuine religious experience is excluded by a medical diagnosis. In such cases, it is not that an experience is incomprehensible because of the absence of a valid interpretation. Instead, one perspective is not only dominant but exclusive, so the (...) ensuing power imbalance is absolute. I begin by introducing the notion of hermeneutical injustice and subsequent refinements that have been instrumental in applying it to psychiatry. Then I show how even though voice-hearers are liable to be victims of such injustices, the literature has neglected the specific harm done to someone whose interpretation of their own experience is obliterated because of the dominance of exclusive medical views. To illustrate this, I point to a case that evinces the harms perpetrated toward patients diagnosed with psychotic symptoms with religious content and argue that depriving persons of meaning-making interpretations of their own experiences constitutes a profound and willful form of hermeneutical injustice. I then gesture toward studies on the religious reframing of anomalous experiences through contact with a normalizing framework. Finally, I pry from a successful case a general directive toward the virtue of hermeneutical justice through the attitudes of respect to first-person authority and the hermeneutical flexibility it embodies. (shrink)

The traditional conception of self-deception takes it for an intrapersonal form of interpersonal deception. However, since the same subject is at the same time deceiver and deceived, this means attributing the agent a pair of contradictory beliefs. In the course of defending a deflationary conception of self-deception, Mele [1997] has challenged traditionalists to present convincing evidence that there are cases of self-deception in which what he calls the dual belief-requirement is satisfied. Levy [2009] has responded to this challenge affirming that (...) there is at least one real cases of self-deception that meets this requirement, namely, that of anosognosia. In this family of conditions, the patient apparently believes that there is nothing wrong with her while, at the same time, providing behavioral cues that indicate that the patient is somehow aware of his disease. If Levy is right, then traditionalism about self-deception could be vindicated, after having been widely abandoned due to its need to postulate exotic mental processes in order to make sense of the attribution of contradictory beliefs. In this paper, I assess whether Levy’s response to Mele’s challenge is successful by analyzing his interpretation of the empirical evidence to which he appeals. Finally, I attack the cogency of the underlying commitments about the nature of folk psychology to which one is required to defer in order to draw from conflicting evidence the attribution of contradictory beliefs. (shrink)

Clinical delusions have traditionally been characterized as beliefs in psychiatry. However, philosophers have recently engaged with the empirical literature and produced a number of objections to the so-called doxastic status of delusion, stemming mainly from the mismatch between the functional role of delusions and that expected of beliefs. In response to this, an appeal to dispositionalism about the nature of belief has been proposed to vindicate the doxastic status of delusion. In this paper, I first present the objections to attributing (...) beliefs to delusional patients and the application of dispositionalism in the attempt to vindicate doxasticism. I then assess this application and some responses to the objections to the doxastic characterization. Finally, I offer some conclusions about the limits of folk-psychological concepts in the characterization and explanation of complex psychological phenomena such as delusions. (shrink)

Examino a controvérsia sobre como melhor definir o delírio—um sintoma central de patologias como a esquizofrenia e a demência—e apresentarei algumas das principais dificuldades envolvidas em sua caracterização como crenças. A partir disso, tiro conclusões sobre os limites do vocabulário mentalista da dita psicologia do senso comum e sobre a forma como delírios e outros fenômenos elusivos devem ser propriamente caracterizados pela psiquiatria para que uma explicação integrativa destes seja alcançada.

I assess Tamar Gendler's (2007) account of self-deception according to which its characteristic state is not belief, but imaginative pretense. After giving an overview of the literature and presenting the conceptual puzzles engendered by the notion of self-deception, I introduce Gendler's account, which emerges as a rival to practically all extant accounts of self-deception. I object to it by first arguing that her argument for abandoning belief as the characteristic state of self-deception conflates the state of belief and the process (...) of belief-formation when interpreting David Velleman's (2000) thesis that belief is an essentially truth-directed attitude. I then call attention to the fact that Velleman's argument for the identity of motivational role between belief and imagining, on which Gendler's argument for self-deception as pretense depends, conflates two senses of 'motivational role'-a stronger but implausible sense and a weaker but explanatorily irrelevant sense. Finally, I introduce Neil Van Leeuwen's (2009) argument to the effect that belief is the practical ground of all non-belief cognitive attitudes in circumstances wherein the latter prompt action. I apply this framework to Gendler's account to ultimately show that imaginative pretense fails to explain the existence of voluntary actions which result from self-deception. (shrink)

O texto apresenta a apropriação feita pela extrema-direita brasileira ao redor da obra de George Orweel, em especial, de '1984' e 'Animal Farm'. Argumentamos que a adjudicação 'conservadora' é inadequada para tal apropriação. Os intelectuais e editoriais implicados na circulação atual de Orwell nas redes bolsonaristas permite ver como clássicos do pensamento conservador ocidental são aqui canonizados em chave, mais que conservadora, reacionária. Além disso, o duelo de distopias empunhados pelos ideólogos da extrema-direita dá também acesso a uma indústria cultural, (...) na qual um sem-fim de produtos culturais são vendidos para forjar e cativar uma plateia potencial reacionária. (shrink)

Does the concept of “subject” still have any logical-scientific consistency that could give it some relevance in the contemporary demands of rationality? Or is it rather a kind of fossil of metaphysical speculation that should be completely ruled out? Judging from the course of the history of philosophy, which for nearly 400 years has been devoted to the criticism of the subject’s conception directly deriving from the Cartesian cogito, it is amazing the stimulant power of this phantom that has so (...) productively haunted our thinking throughout the centuries.From a critical and deconstructive perspective of subjectivity and selfhood, neurosciences could be seen as the definitive blow to the “I,” conceived in Cartesian... (shrink)

In this paper, we take our cue from Kevin Schilbrack’s admonishment that the philosophy of religion needs to take religious practices seriously as an object of investigation. We do so by offering Afro-Brazilian traditions as an example of the methodological poverty of current philosophical engagement with religions that are not text-based, belief-focused, and institutionalized. Anthropologists have studied these primarily orally transmitted traditions for nearly a century. Still, they involve practices, such as offering and sacrifice as well as spirit possession and (...) mediumship, that have yet to receive attention from philosophers. We argue that this is not an accident: philosophers have had a highly restricted diet of examples, have not looked at ethnography as source material, and thus still need to put together a methodology to tackle such practices. After elucidating Schilbrack’s suggestions to adopt an embodiment paradigm and apply conceptual metaphor theory and the extended mind thesis to consider religious practices as thoughtful, we offer criticism of the specifics of his threefold solution. First, it assumes language is linear; second, it takes a problematic view of the body; and third, it abides by a misleading view of the “levels” of cognition. We conclude that the philosophy of religion should adopt enactivism to understand religious practices as cognitive enterprises. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss an abductive argument for the existence of God from the experience of awe at natural beauty. If God's creative work is a viable explanation for why we experience awe at natural beauty, and there is no satisfactory naturalistic explanation for the origins of such experiences, then we have defeasible evidence that God exists. To evaluate the argument's tenability, we assess the merits of the two main theocentric frameworks that can be marshaled to answer the question (...) of why human beings experience awe at natural beauty: (1) taking the experience of natural beauty as resulting from God's design intentions and (2) conceiving experiences of natural beauty as religious experiences in themselves. We argue that the presence of phenomenological content the fine-grainedness of which exceeds our descriptive and conceptual capacities is better accounted for by the latter hypothesis: experiencing natural beauty amounts to experiencing divine attributes. We conclude that the argument's theological premise is tenable and, having previously argued for the empirical premise (Porcher & De Luca-Noronha, 2021), we conclude that awe at natural beauty is best explained by the existence of God. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the scientific respectability of delusion as a psychiatric category. First, I present the essentialist objection to the natural kindhood of psychiatric categories, as well as non-essentialism about natural kinds as a response to that objection. Second, I present a nuanced classification of kinds of kinds. Third, drawing on the claim that the attribution of delusion relies on a folk psychological underpinning, I present the mind-dependence objection to the natural kind status of delusion. Finally, I argue (...) that even if delusion as a generic kind stands little chance of being vindicated as a non-essentialist natural kind, we stand to gain from a natural kind methodology regarding subtypes of delusion for which there is evidence of genuine causal signatures and mechanisms. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the mythic narratives of the Yoruba-derived tradition of Candomblé Nagô to discern the attributes of its Supreme Being. I introduce Candomblé, offering an overview of its central beliefs and practices, and then present theological perspectives on the Supreme Being in African Traditional Religion as a basis for comparison with the myths I will examine. I consider the primary creation myths of Candomblé, emphasizing references to the tradition's Supreme Being and, analysing these myths, I argue that (...) Candomblé's Supreme Being, as depicted in these narratives, amounts to a limited god. This portrayal accounts for the absence of a problem of evil within the tradition. It suggests the moral ambivalence of Candomblé's Supreme Being and other high deities, as well as the world itself. This exploration sheds light on a lesser-explored tradition and its unique approach to philosophical dilemmas, distinct from the predominantly theistic framework of most philosophy of religion, and evinces that philosophizing through immersion in myths should involve appreciating the complexities and richness inherent in these forms of life, free from the imposition of external assumptions or biases. (shrink)

In this paper, we present an abductive argument for the existence of God from the experience of awe at natural beauty. If God’s creative work is a viable explanation for why we experience awe at natural beauty, and there is no satisfactory naturalistic explanation for the origins of such experiences, then we have defeasible evidence that God exists. To evaluate the argument's tenability, we assess the merits of the two main naturalistic frameworks that can be marshaled to answer the question (...) of why human beings experience awe at natural beauty, Wilson's biophilia hypothesis, and Keltner and Haidt's prototype approach to awe. We show shortcomings of both accounts in explaining the relevant experiences and argue that the reliance of these accounts on an adaptationist reading of our aesthetic appreciation of nature entails a commitment to questionable hidden premises: that affordances themselves can figure in the subject's perceptual experience, and that experiences of awe have adaptive value. We maintain that the argument's “empirical” premise is tenable and conclude with directions for future research regarding the argument's “theological” premise. (shrink)

In this paper, I draw on phenomenological analyses of religious voice-hearing and related experiences to elucidate the role of phenomenology in discerning benign from pathological religious experience. First, I present phenomenological discontinuities between cases of benign and pathological voice-hearing by drawing on a study of first-person accounts of voice-hearers within the Pentecostal movement which evinces that voice-hearing is not inherently pathological. Second, I introduce the epidemiological continuity of psychotic-like phenomena by drawing on a study of the contextual and responsive differences (...) between clinical and non-clinical voice-hearers which point to the contexts wherein voice-hearing does not lead to pathology. Third, I present a successful case where the meaning of the anomalous experiences is validated and normalized by drawing on studies of mediumistic experience which illuminate its therapeutic benefits. Finally, I argue that failing to take the voice-hearer’s lived experience into account in the diagnostic moment can result in the pathologization of benign experiences. (shrink)

Este artigo discute as transformações na indústria fonográfica desde os anos 90 provocadas pelo formato mp3, que, em uma primeira abordagem, é apontado como responsável pelo encolhimento da venda de discos e por promover a pirataria fonográfica em escala mundial. Neste recorte, conceitos como autoria, direito autoral e outros tem de ser repensados à luz desta tecnologia ao mesmo tempo em que se discute seu potencial criativo e sua capacidade de democratizar a produção sonora.

The question of how psychiatric classifications are made up and to what they refer has attracted the attention of philosophers in recent years. In this paper, I review the claims of authors who discuss psychiatric classification in terms referring both to the philosophical tradition of natural kinds and to the sociological tradition of social constructionism — especially those of Ian Hacking and his critics. I examine both the ontological and the social aspects of what it means for something to be (...) a mental disorder, and how the ontological status of these disorders hinges on social causation. Finally, I conclude by suggesting a way in which the biological and the social may be reconciled in an integrative model of variation in psychiatric disorder. (shrink)

The central aim of this paper is to explain how protocol sentences establish a specific space for scientific discussion at the level of observation in the social sciences. In this space, the four levels of the theory of protocol sentences work as a coordinate system that allows to specify the degree of quality of data production. To do so, we elaborate upon Jean-Claude Passeron’s epistemology by combining it with Otto Neurath’s theory of protocol sentences. We start by discussing Passeron’s interpretation (...) of Neurath’s work in Le raissonnement sociologique and then present Neurath’s theory, following Thomas Uebel’s interpretation, with the purpose of developing the potential of Passeron’s epistemology in this regard. (shrink)

A comunicação apresenta a síntese de alguns verbetes do Dicionário da Escravidão e Liberdade, lançado em 2018 pela editora Companhia das Letras com a intenção de dar a conhecer um pouco do seu rico conteúdo. Duas atitudes são exigidas diante de uma obra deste nível: a coragem de conhecê-la e a disposição de difundi-la.