Este artigo discute a relação entre a mentira, a verdade factual e a tecnologia. O processo da chamada “mentira organizada”, iniciado no século XX, atualmente assume hoje proporções apocalípticas e foi abordado por Gunther Anders, Paul Virilio e Hannah Arendt, autores cujas reflexões sobre o tema são aqui retomadas e atualizadas em relação ao cenário contemporâneo. São discutidos a relação entre verdade factual e mentira e os efeitos que sobre ela têm a velocidade e o excesso de informações, de imagens (...) e de dados, assim como a visão apocalíptica que Anders, Arendt e Virilio construíram acerca desse processo. (shrink)

Evolutionary debunking arguments start with a premise about the influence of evolutionary forces on our evaluative beliefs, and conclude that we are not justified in those beliefs. The value realist holds that there are attitude-independent evaluative truths. But the debunker argues that we have no reason to think that the evolutionary forces that shaped human evaluative attitudes would track those truths. Worse yet, we seem to have a good reason to think that they wouldn’t: evolution selects for characteristics that increase (...) genetic fitness—not ones that correlate with the evaluative truth. Plausibly, the attitudes and judgments that increase a creature’s fitness come apart from the true evaluative beliefs. My aim in this paper is to show that no plausible evolutionary debunking argument can both have force against the value realist and not collapse into a more general skeptical argument. I conclude that there is little hope for evolutionary debunking arguments. This is bad news for the debunker who hoped that the cold, hard scientific facts about our origins would debunk our evaluative beliefs. And it is good news for the realist. (shrink)

Evolutionary debunking arguments move from a premise about the influence of evolutionary forces on our moral beliefs to a skeptical conclusion about those beliefs. My primary aim is to clarify this empirically grounded epistemological challenge. I begin by distinguishing among importantly different sorts of epistemological attacks. I then demonstrate that instances of each appear in the literature under the ‘evolutionary debunking’ title. Distinguishing them clears up some confusions and helps us better understand the structure and potential of evolutionary debunking arguments.

We often hear such casual accusations: you just believe that because you are a liberal, a Christian, an American, a woman… When such charges are made they are meant to sting—not just emotionally, but epistemically. But should they? It can be disturbing to learn that one's beliefs reflect the influence of such irrelevant factors. The pervasiveness of such influence has led some to worry that we are not justified in many of our beliefs. That same pervasiveness has led others to (...) doubt whether there is any worry here at all. I argue that evidence of irrelevant belief influence is sometimes, but not always, undermining. My proposal picks out ordinary, non-skeptical cases in which we get evidence of error. It says that, in those cases, evidence of irrelevant influence is epistemically significant. It shows how respecting evidence of error is compatible with the epistemic lives we see ourselves living. We are fallible creatures, yes, but we are also capable and intelligent ones. We can recognize and correct for our own error so as to improve our imperfect, yet nevertheless robust, epistemic lives. (shrink)

The fact of moral disagreement when conjoined with Conciliationism, an independently attractive view about the epistemic significance disagreement, seems to entail moral skepticism. This worries those who like Conciliationism, the independently attractive view, but dislike moral skepticism. Others, equally inclined against moral skepticism, think this is a reductio of Conciliationism. I argue that they are both wrong. There is no reductio and nothing to worry about.

We are fallible creatures, prone to making all sorts of mistakes. So, we should be open to evidence of error. But what constitutes such evidence? And what is it to rationally accommodate it? I approach these questions by considering an evolutionary debunking argument according to which (a) we have good, scientific, reason to think our moral beliefs are mistaken, and (b) rationally accommodating this requires revising our confidence in, or altogether abandoning the suspect beliefs. I present a dilemma for such (...) debunkers, which shows that either we have no reason to worry about our moral beliefs, or we do but we can self-correct. Either way, moral skepticism doesn’t follow. That the evolutionary debunking argument fails is important; also important, however, is what its failure reveals about rational belief revision. Specifically, it suggests that getting evidence of error is a non-trivial endeavor and that we cannot learn that we are likely to be mistaken about some matter from a neutral stance on that matter. (shrink)

Should learning we disagree about p lead you to reduce confidence in p? Some who think so want to except beliefs in which you are rationally highly confident. I argue that this is wrong; we should reject accounts that rely on this intuitive thought. I then show that quite the opposite holds: factors that justify low confidence in p also make disagreement about p less significant. I examine two such factors: your antecedent expectations about your peers’ opinions and the difficulty (...) of evaluating your evidence. I close by proposing a different way of thinking about disagreement. (shrink)

It’s intuitive to think that (a) the more sure you are of something, the harder it’ll be to change your mind about it, and (b) you can’t be open-minded about something if you’re very sure about it. If these thoughts are right, then, with minimal assumptions, it follows that you can’t be in a good position to both escape echo chambers and be rationally resistant to fake news: the former requires open-mindedness, but the latter is inimical to it. I argue (...) that neither thought is true and that believing them will get us all mixed up. I show that you can be open-minded and have confidently held beliefs, and that beliefs in which you are less sure are not, thereby, more fragile. I close with some reflections on the nature of rational belief change and open-mindedness and a brief sketch about what might actually help us in the fight against misinformation and belief polarization …. [please read below the rest of the article]. (shrink)

In this article, I show why it is necessary to abolish the use of predictive algorithms in the US criminal justice system at sentencing. After presenting the functioning of these algorithms in their context of emergence, I offer three arguments to demonstrate why their abolition is imperative. First, I show that sentencing based on predictive algorithms induces a process of rewriting the temporality of the judged individual, flattening their life into a present inescapably doomed by its past. Second, I demonstrate (...) that recursive processes, comprising predictive algorithms and the decisions based on their predictions, systematically suppress outliers and progressively transform reality to match predictions. In my third and final argument, I show that decisions made on the basis of predictive algorithms actively perform a biopolitical understanding of justice as management and modulation of risks. In such a framework, justice becomes a means to maintain a perverse social homeostasis that systematically exposes disenfranchised Black and Brown populations to risk. (shrink)

This article discusses the importance of metaemotions (emotions about emotions), showing their undeniable existence and how they are a critical and essential part of emotion life. The article begins by placing reflexivity of emotions within the general reflexivity of human beings. Then, the article presents the literature on metaemotion, showing some of the problems that surround them, which ultimately will lead to ask if the concept of metaemotion is really necessary. The second part of the article argues for the usefulness (...) of the concept, pointing out its role in establishing distinctions among emotional states as well as further clarifying the nature of emotion, and concludes on pointing out some of the directions for future research on metaemotions. (shrink)

Can citizens impact the broader discourse about an organization and its legitimacy? While social media have empowered citizens to publicly question firms through large volumes of online evaluations, the high heterogeneity of their evaluations dilutes their impact. Our empirical study applying a threshold vector autoregressive model (TVAR) analysis of 2.5 million tweets and 1,786 news media articles tests the condition by which the heterogeneity of online evaluations converges and influences the broader media discourse. Although social media evaluations do not initially (...) influence media legitimacy, they become influential after reaching a tipping point of refracted attention, which is created by high volume and convergence of individual evaluations around few aggregative frames. Thus, social media storms may influence the broader discourse about an organization when this discourse converges and reaches a tipping point, rather than merely through the massive participation of citizens. (shrink)

This paper follows a Deweyan suggestion and proposes a structure for emotional activity – pattern of sentiment –as a way to grasp emotional experience in its live occurrence by building upon Dewey’s crucial notion of situation. The first part outlines Dewey’s criticisms of James’s idea of emotion, and verifies the ways in which the recent developments of neuroscience overcome Dewey’s criticisms of James. Given that Dewey’s work is a propitious ground for continuing to renew the discourse about the activities of (...) mind (Mendonça 2003), the second part of the paper outlines a pattern for emotional activity, setting up the first steps for a situational approach of Deweyan inspiration to the nature of emotion. I conclude by pointing out how such a pattern may be a unifying tool for the different emotion theories briefly describing some of the rich directions it provides for future research on philosophy of emotion. (shrink)

This paper reframes the issue of appropriation, extraction, and dispossession through AI—an assemblage of machine learning models trained on big data—in terms of enclosure and foreclosure. While enclosures are the product of a well-studied set of operations pertaining to both the constitution of the sovereign State and the primitive accumulation of capital, here, I want to recover an older form of the enclosure operation to then contrast it with foreclosure to better understand the effects of current algorithmic rationality. I argue (...) that the act of enclosing is to be understood as a set of fundamental operations that consist in producing structural distinctions between inside and outside, inclusion and exclusion—whether by drawing lines on a map, constructing border walls, or by algorithmically categorizing and (mis)recognizing people and things. Tracking the transformation of an enclosure-logic into one of foreclosure, I show how current AI perpetuates and at the same time expends forms of extraction, exclusion, and dispossession toward a totalizing horizon. For, while the outside is essential and constitutive to the logic of enclosure, foreclosure, by contrast, is characterized by the “totalizing desire” to not leave anything out of it. The totalizing desire to move beyond the logic of the enclosure forecloses that the enclosure has just gotten bigger and that the operations of exclusion have been masked and displaced, making them harder to contest. (shrink)

This paper reframes the issue of appropriation, extraction, and dispossession through AI—an assemblage of machine learning models trained on big data—in terms of enclosure and foreclosure. While enclosures are the product of a well-studied set of operations pertaining to both the constitution of the sovereign State and the primitive accumulation of capital, here, I want to recover an older form of the enclosure operation to then contrast it with foreclosure to better understand the effects of current algorithmic rationality. I argue (...) that the act of enclosing is to be understood as a set of fundamental operations that consist in producing structural distinctions between inside and outside, inclusion and exclusion—whether by drawing lines on a map, constructing border walls, or by algorithmically categorizing and (mis)recognizing people and things. Tracking the transformation of an enclosure-logic into one of foreclosure, I show how current AI perpetuates and at the same time expends forms of extraction, exclusion, and dispossession toward a totalizing horizon. For, while the outside is essential and constitutive to the logic of enclosure, foreclosure, by contrast, is characterized by the “totalizing desire” to not leave anything out of it. The totalizing desire to move beyond the logic of the enclosure forecloses that the enclosure has just gotten bigger and that the operations of exclusion have been masked and displaced, making them harder to contest. (shrink)

The article explores how a new dimension of emotion – depth – is crucially important for a better understanding of emotion and its connection to rationality. It begins by identifying that depth is trapped in a circularity in which deep emotions are important because they refer to deep and important aspects of people’s lives. Following Danto’s discussion of deep interpretation (1981), it suggests that it is the contrast between deep and superficial that grants emotional perspective and the ability to identify (...) levels of emotional depth. After arguing that the emotional perspective is grasped by the narrative structure of emotion, it raises several objections that provide the ground to establish a difference between deep and profound. Then the paper concludes that the meaning of emotional depth is only fully understood in the ongoing contrast with the superficial described before, and states how further research on depth of emotion may provide the key to understanding the ambivalent status of emotions regarding their link to rationality. (shrink)

Reasonableness is a core normative concept in Philosophy for Children (P4C), an inquiry model of education that bridges reasoning, feeling and acting within a community. The concept of reasonableness dates back to Aristotle’s ethical notion of phronesis (1141b), and extends to logical (Gewirth 1983), social and political concerns of major contemporary thinkers (Rawls 2001; Rorty 2001). The development of the concept of reasonableness in P4C was part of the reconceptualization of rationality toward the end of the twentieth century, since Lipman (...) and Sharp were among those thinkers who elucidated and advocated the social conception of rationality offered by the pragmatists. Accordingly, in P4C the conception of reasonableness was highlighted as a cornerstone for the understanding of the notion of a community of inquiry (Splitter & Sharp 1995:6; Lipman 2003:22). (shrink)

This paper testifies the crucial importance of Philosophy for Children for Emotional Growth. It begins by establishing the open ended character of emotional processes, showing how feminist philosophers have criticized the fixed conception of negative valence of certain emotions, and how, ultimately, the normative structure of emotions is open to modification. Then, it shows how talking about emotional processes and emotional situations can foster emotional growth once we understand that the acquisition of language and emotional vocabulary is one way to (...) best capture the openended character of emotions. Finally, attention is turned to Philosophy for Children. Taking as an illustration the emotion of hope and its importance to inquiry, the paper concludes by examining in what way P4C both benefits and reinforces the previous insights about emotion theory. (shrink)

The paper aims to better identify the relationship between moods and emotions showing their link to the overall environment. Adopting a Situated Approach to Emotions, 209–227, 2012; Stephan Emotion Review, 4, 157–162, 2012; Stephen et al. Philosophical Psychology, 27, 65–81 2014) enables showing that the link to emotions to the environment is best understood using the term situation, while moods’ link to the environment is best captured by the notion of context. Exploring the difference points out that what is selected (...) as the situation versus the context in a given environment may explain the relationship between emotions and moods, and clarify why, for instance, certain emotions can alter a mood while others do not. The paper begins putting forward the general take on emotions from a Situated Approach to Emotions in line with contemporary discussions of the Situated Approach to Mind. Then, following John Dewey’s conception of situation, the paper distinguishes situation from context, and reviews the hypothesis of equating them with emotions and moods respectively. The analysis is then connected to previous research done on the difference between emotions and moods and, given the insightful outcomes of connecting moods and emotions to other theoretical aspects of the mind, it shows how the link to the environment is a crucial trait to understand emotions and moods dynamics. (shrink)

Zhuangzi purports to follow a particular method of viewing human emotion and suggests freeing oneself from worldly emotions—this is called “doctrine of non-emotion” (wuqing shuo 無情說). This article attempts to show that the idea of non-emotion in Zhuangzi does not in any way conflict with the expression of emotion in poetry, and moreover, it provides a foundation for the poet to express his emotions naturally and freely. We will use the Chinese poetry of the Wei-Jin Period—a period that is strongly (...) influenced by the philosophy of Zhuangzi, yet at the same time emphasizes the expression of the poet's emotion in poetry—as an example to show how fruitful it indeed is when Zhuangzi's philosophy becomes applied to Chinese poetry. (shrink)

There is a broad debate in contemporary philosophy of logic on the informativeness of proofs. In this context, informative proofs are demonstrations whose premises do not include the content of the conclusion. D’Agostino and Floridi (Synthese 167(2):271–315, 2009) claimed that proofs are informative if they use _virtual information_. In their terminology, this is the data carried by _dischargeable hypotheses_, assumptions entertained during proof and eliminated before concluding. Although these authors capture several cases of informative demonstrations, they do not explain the (...) nature of virtual information. Why does the use of dischargeable hypotheses increase the informativeness of a demonstration? Following a Kantian inspiration, D’Agostino and Floridi claim that virtual information adds a synthetic feature to our proofs. However, this appeal to Kantianism is misleading: for Kant, mathematics is synthetic because it requires the construction of concepts in pure intuition. On the other hand, the entertainment of provisional hypotheses does not seem to involve the construction of figures in (transcendental) imagination. Exploring a _dialogical_ characterization of logic, I suggest that virtual information results from the dynamics between a reasoner and her audience. When a reasoner provisionally assumes _P_, she enacts potential interlocutors who commit to _P_. Thus, “virtual information” denotes the content of some assumptions of the possible audience of a demonstration. This process of departing from one’s original premises to embrace the suppositions of other people is informative, but it is not synthetic: in this way, the reasoner does not entertain intuitions but only needs to reason through the conceptual content of other people’s premises. (shrink)

The chapter shows how the recognition of reflexivity of emotions is crucial for understanding the role of emotions in reasoning because it highlights the regulatory role of emotion in emotional experience. The chapter begins by showing that to attain a conception of rationality that incorporates feelings, emotions, and sentiments as parts of the reasoning processes requires capturing the emotional landscape in all its complexity, and that integrating the role of meta-emotions is a contribution in that direction. Then introducing the notion (...) of meta-emotions and showing how emotional reflexivity modifies the nature of our emotional world, it is shown how emotions also have a regulatory mechanism that can either be maladaptive or at the center of emotional health. In addition, because meta-emotions provide a test for the more general assumptions of theories of emotions, the chapter ends by showing how adopting a Situated Approach to Emotions is well-suited for explaining the refinement and complexity of emotion regulation. The final reflection of the chapter explains why adopting such theoretical frame of work makes it possible to use the term situation in a technical manner, which then reveals that emotions sometimes are described as causes while other times as reasons in connection to their regulative mechanisms. (shrink)

Alan Hájek launches a formidable attack on the idea that deliberation crowds out prediction – that when we are deliberating about what to do, we cannot rationally accommodate evidence about what we are likely to do. Although Hájek rightly diagnoses the problems with some of the arguments for the view, his treatment falls short in crucial ways. In particular, he fails to consider the most plausible version of the view, the best argument for it, and why anyone would ever believe (...) it in the first place. In doing so, he misses a deep puzzle about deliberation and prediction – a puzzle which all of us, as agents, face, and which we may be able to resolve by recognizing the complicated relationship between deliberation and prediction. (shrink)

Based on the analysis of Zhuangzi, this paper attempts to illustrate the positive aspects of Zhuangzi’s idea concerning contented acceptance of fate, whi...

Nesse artigo, eu procuro mostrar que a leitura tradicional que atribui um procedimento dialético à abordagem aristotélica da acrasia, em Ética Nicomaquéia VII 1-3 provoca um sério problema interpretativo ao tentar compatibilizar a posição socrática acerca da acrasia e os phanomena. Primeiramente, tento mostrar, baseando-me numa análise de Tópicos I 1-2, que o procedimento metodológico, em EN VII 1 1145b2-7, não se caracteriza como dialético. Em segundo lugar, proponho uma leitura em que Aristóteles, passo a passo refuta a tese socrática (...) que nega a existência da acrasia, uma vez que esse tese não é contada entre os phainomena que se quer preservar. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyse EE I 6, where Aristotle presented a famous methodological digression. Many interpreters have taken this chapter as advocating a dialectical procedure of enquiry. My claim is that Aristotle does not keep a dialectical attitude towards endoxa or phainomena in this chapter. In order to accomplish my goal, I shall show that EE I 6 does not provide enough evidence for the dialectical construal of it, and that this construal, in turn, hangs on some assumptions brought (...) out from other Aristotelian works (EN and Top.), which do not provide good evidence as well. By the analysis of these assumptions, I intend to show that Aristotle is not carrying out any sort of dialectic, especially dialectic conceived as conceptual analysis seeking the salvage of phainomena or endoxa. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Axel Honneth deploys the categories of normal and pathological to explain contemporary society in organic terms. This article concerns itself with how these medical references function in Honneth's work to explain the social world, and what their political implications are. For Honneth, social normality is a normative resource, even if it is only accessible through the study of pathology. Socially accepted norms are taken to reflect legitimate principles, with the early Honneth taking pathology as an individual psychic suffering that (...) results from injustice, and the later Honneth taking pathology as an overextension of the logic of one social sphere into the terrain of another. The implications of Honneth's organic account of society are explored through the lens of a competing “French” account of the norm offered by Canguilhem and Foucault. These French thinkers view socially accepted norms not as reflecting legitimate principles, but as standardizing processes of normalization that stifle normativities that do not conform. It is suggested that Honneth's account of normativity must be articulated with Canguilhem's and Foucault's account of normalization. That said, through the course of the analysis, several unexpected continuities are discovered between these two different traditions. (shrink)

Em um artigo influente publicado em meados dos anos 80, Jacques Brunschwig defendeu a ideia de que o debate dialético, para Aristóteles, não resultaria em vencedores e derrotados. Sua defesa é baseada no debate dialético como sendo um trabalho comum entre questionador e respondedor (cláusula koinon ergon [cf. Tópicos VIII.11 161a20-21]) e como um tipo de teste de consistência de uma dada proposição (cláusula dia tēn thesis [cf. Tópicos VIII.4 159a20]). Apesar dos muitos méritos do artigo, penso que o argumento (...) de Brunschwig não considera adequadamente aspectos importantes do debate dialético no que concerne à performance dos debatedores, especialmente acerca dos recursos que o questionador deve usar. Ao não considerarmos esses aspectos, temos dificuldades para interpretar passagens em que Aristóteles recomenda o uso de táticas para enganar o respondedor. Meu objetivo nesse artigo será oferecer uma explicação diferente das cláusulas dia tēn thesis e koinon ergon, de modo que isso implicará uma conclusão segundo a qual o debate dialético honesto pode envolver vencedores e derrotados e manter a observância das duas cláusulas. Palavras-chave: Dialética; Aristóteles; Debate. Winners and losers in Aristotle’s dialectical debate. Abstract: In the mid-eighties Jacques Brunschwig published an influential paper of whose main claim consists in a defence of the Aristotelian conception of dialectical debate as a game without winners and losers. His claim is based on the dialectical debate as being a common work between answerer and questioner (koinon ergon clause [cf. Topics VIII.11 161a20-21]) and as a kind of test of the consistency of a given proposition (dia tēn thesis clause [cf. Topics VIII.4 159a20]). Despite its many merits, I think Brunschwig’s argument overlooks important aspects of the dialectical debate concerning the debaters’ performance, especially the resources that should be used by the questioner. By overlooking these aspects, we end up with several troubles to interpret passages in which Aristotle recommends deceptive tactics in the debate. My objective in this paper is to give a different account the dia tēn thesis and the koinon ergon clauses, which will imply a conclusion by which fair dialectical debates can still have winners and losers and observe both clauses. Key-words: Dialectics; Aristotle; Debate. Ganadores y perdedores en el debate dialéctico según Aristóteles. Resumen: En un influyente artículo publicado a mediados de los años 1980, Jacques Brunschwig defendió la idea de que el debate dialéctico, para Aristóteles, no resultaría en ganadores y perdedores. Su defensa se basa en el debate dialéctico como trabajo común entre el que pregunta y el que responde (cláusula koinon ergon [cf. Tópicos VIII.11 161a20-21]) y como una especie de prueba de la consistencia de una proposición dada (cláusula dia tēn thesis [cf. Tópicos VIII.4 159a20]). A pesar de los muchos méritos del artículo, creo que el argumento de Brunschwig no considera adecuadamente aspectos importantes del debate dialéctico con respecto a la actuación de los debatientes, especialmente con respecto a los recursos que debe utilizar el interrogador. Al no considerar estos aspectos, nos resulta difícil interpretar pasajes en los que Aristóteles recomienda el uso de tácticas para engañar al que responde. Mi objetivo en este artículo será ofrecer una explicación diferente de las cláusulas dia tēn thesis y koinon ergon, de modo que esto implique una conclusión de que el debate dialéctico honesto puede involucrar a ganadores y perdedores y mantener la observancia de las dos cláusulas. Palabras-clave: Dialéctica; Aristóteles; Debate. 1 Pesquisa desenvolvida no âmbito do Edital Universal Nº28/2018 financiada pelo CNPq sob o número 433825/2018-9. Data de registro: 01/08/2023 Data de aceite: 24/04/2024. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is an attempt to delimitate what the dialectical syllogism looks like in Aristotle’s Topics. Aristotle never gave an example of a dialectical syllogism, but we have some clues spread over books I and VIII of the Topics which make it possible to understand at least what within a dialectical debate is a dialectical syllogism. The interpretation advanced here distinguishes the logical order of the dialectical argumentation from the order of the debate. This distinction enables us (...) to have a better understand of what is and how the dialectical syllogism is identified in the debate. In addition, we can solve some interpretative difficulties other interpretations could not solve, and have a more solid grasp of how endoxa are used in a dialectical debate. (shrink)

This study focuses on a 12-year-old girl diagnosed with a pragmatic disorder caused by Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Following an initial evaluation, a pragmatic rehabilitation program was implemented using a combined approach in 15 therapeutic sessions over a 4-month period. The program consisted of structured formats organized into modules to train the verbal, paralinguistic, and nonverbal aspects of communication. The results of the re-evaluation demonstrated the program’s effectiveness, with improvements in communicative intention, proxemic skills, prosodic variations, physical contact with the (...) interlocutor, and verbal fluency in oral messages. Consequently, the implementation of the intervention program significantly enhanced the patients’ pragmatic communication skills in therapeutic, familial, and social contexts. (shrink)

The paper proposes a way to understand moral emotions in ethics building upon Bernard Williams' claim that feelings, emotions and sentiments are an integral part of rationality. Based upon Bernard Williams' analysis of shame we argue that the richness and thickness that it is attached to some emotions is the key to understand why some emotions have a distinct ethical resonance. The first part takes up Bernard Williams' philosophical assessment of the concept of shame establishing a general framework to show (...) how recent developments in philosophy of emotions are in line with the far-reaching consequences of Bernard Williams' insights. Then we highlight the way in which there is both an historical relativity to emotions and an intemporal understanding of their ethical role, and use the concept of meta-emotion to reinforce the idea that what makes some emotions moral requires employing Williams' distinction between thick and thin concepts. (shrink)

A general consensus has been reached in health care organizations that the disclosure of medical errors can be a very powerful way to improve patients and physicians well-being and serves as a core component to high quality health care. This practice strongly encourages transparent communication with patients after medical errors or unanticipated outcomes. However, many countries, such as Brazil, do not have a culture of disclosing harmful errors to patients or standards emphasizing the importance of disclosing, taking responsibility, apologizing, and (...) discussing the prevention of recurrences. Medical error is not discussed or approached during medical school. The stigma of error has a strong connection with value judgments, and emotional support for physicians does not exist. This paper suggests that open communication with the patient is essential. Guidance about error disclosure from health care organizations would be helpful for quality and patient safety and for health care professionals in countries like Brazil. (shrink)

Foucault repère une transformation du pouvoir lorsque la vie entre dans ses préoccupations à partir du XVIIIe siècle. Il appelle « bio-pouvoir » les techniques spécifiques du pouvoir s’exerçant sur les corps individuels et les populations, hétérogènes aux mécanismes juridico-politiques du pouvoir souverain. Agamben, dans Homo sacer, reprend l’hypothèse foucaldienne et la fait fonctionner précisément sur le terrain délaissé par Foucault, celui de la souveraineté. La souveraineté ne porte pas à ses yeux sur des sujets de droits, mais de manière (...) cachée sur une « vie nue », ex-ceptée par le pouvoir qui l’expose à sa violence et à sa décision souveraine. On peut alors interroger le déplacement de l’hypothèse foucaldienne opéré par Agamben et les rapports problématiques entre pouvoir souverain et bio-pouvoir, afin d’évaluer la pertinence et la fécondité de la notion de bio-pouvoir. (shrink)