This paper explores both differences and points of contact between selected contemporary theories of public ethics in the West and China. China is in a greater state of flux in this connection, with new, eclectic approaches to ethical justification for moral agency gaining prominence. There are thematic parallels between East and West in their distinct strains of institutionalism . However, there are recent Chinese theoretical proposals – many incorporating Western sources – that address this quandary, namely the institutional overdetermination of (...) moral agency. These proposals are joined to contributions from feminist and liberation ethics in a critical reconsideration of overridingness in formal ethics. Contemporary Chinese ethics connect moral claims to kin, community, and reciprocity networks, particularly as traditional philosophy is recovered in new theoretical syntheses. The grounding of Confucian ethics i.. (shrink)

The author examines Heidegger's conception of the history of Philosophy as “the history of Being.” An authentic philosopher does not look at the history of philosophy as a more or less accurate description of philosophers' thoughts, chronologically ordered. The thoughts of the great philosophers are not “products” in a process of thinking; in fact, what is most original in each of the great philosopher's thinking is Being's “property.” Philosophers or, rather, “thinkers,” ask questions in order to open the way for (...) questioning. They do not think many thoughts, but just one which is constantly “repeated.” Repetition is here “recollection” and “re-sumption” of the ways in which Being has made itself patent. Heidegger's original plan for the “destruction of the history of ontology” has been carried on in his later works by means of a recollection of what had been forgotten. A softening of the crust of the history of philosophy in order to discover Being “within” characterizes Heidegger's “dialogue” with the great thinkers of the past. Thus, the history of philosophy is to be interpreted in the light of the experience of the oblivion of Being. Thinkers, as well as poets, are concerned with Being in their attempt to fathom the original essence of speech, but whereas the former are trying to find the unique word to speak about Being, the latter lay down Being in their poetic words. Yet, in the last resort, thinking is the same as “proto-poetizing”; thought precedes poetry in so far as through the “poetizing essence of thinking” the thinker becomes the custodian of the truth of Being. (shrink)

Until the advent of behavioral and neuroeconomics, economics has generally tended to undervalue, on average, the importance of fear. Fear has traditionally been regarded as pertaining to an alternative domain with respect to rationality: it has thus been considered as triggering mechanism of anomalous, even irrational behavior. Conversely, the article speculates on the complexity of the concept of fear and of the social effects it is thought to produce. While discussing the eventual desirability of a freed-from-fear world and Western obsession (...) with risk management and safety from the economic problem and other pressures, the paper provides a general introduction to the relevance of the relatively unexplored issue of fear to economics as discipline as well as to applied economics in public policy. (shrink)

Attention is biased towards threat-related stimuli. In three experiments, we investigated the mechanisms, processes, and time course of this processing bias. An emotional flanker task simultaneously presented affective or neutral pictures from the international affective picture system database either as central response-relevant stimuli or surrounding response-uninformative flankers. Participants’ response times to central stimuli was measured. The attentional bias was observed when stimuli were presented either for 1500 ms or 500 ms. The threat-related attentional bias held regardless of the stimuli competing (...) for attention even when presentation time was further reduced to 200 ms. The results indicate that automatic and controlled mechanisms may interact to modulate the orientation of attention to threat. The data presented here shed new light on the mechanisms, processes, and time course of this long investigated by still largely unknown processing bias. (shrink)

O conceito de significado em Aristóteles -- O conceito de intencionalidade em Tomás de Aquino -- Sobre o Platonismo de G. Frege -- O nominalismo utilitarista de J.L. Austin -- Da definição ostensiva -- Competência e desempenho em N. Chomsky -- Das semelhanças -- Da mentira como ato da fala -- Dos limites do sentido.

Ernst Haeckel was convinced that the origin of language was the keyto understand human evolution. The distinguished slavist AugustSchleicher was his original inspiration on that matter but hiscousin Wilhelm Bleek was the deciisive source for his views of human language. Bleek lived in Southern Africa, studied Xhosa andZulu, and had the rare opportunity to learn the bushman languagewhich, with its characteristic clicks, suggested the form of theoriginal human language in its evolution from ape-like sounds.Haeckel's view of anthropology based on cultural (...) elements ratherthan physical characters alone was shared by other scholars includingthe Vienna-based Friedrich Mueller who applied Haeckel's approachin his studies during the voyage of the Habsburg ship ``Novara.'' Haeckel's anthropological views were heavily entangled with contemporaryconceps of race so that he and Mueller related different languages todifferent human groups both from a cultural and racial angle. Suchracialist attitude presented obvious political implications which allauthors mentioned denied vehemently. (shrink)