In 1876, Brazilian physical anthropologists De Lacerda and Peixoto published findings of detailed anatomical and osteometric investigation of the new human skull collection of Rio de Janeiro’s Museu Nacional. They argued not only that the Indigenous ‘Botocudo’ in Brazil might be autochthonous to the New World, but also that they shared analogic proximity to other geographically very distant human groups – the New Caledonians and Australians – equally attributed limited cranial capacity and resultant inferior intellect. Described by Blumenbach and (...) Morton, ‘Botocudo’ skulls were highly valued scientific specimens in 19th-century physical anthropology. A recent genomic study has again related ‘the Botocudo’ to Indigenous populations from the other side of the world by identifying ‘Polynesian ancestry’ in two of 14 Botocudo skulls held at the Museu Nacional. This article places the production of scientific knowledge in multidisciplinary, multiregional historical perspectives. We contextualize modern narratives in the biological sciences relating ‘Botocudo’ skulls and other cranial material from lowland South America to Polynesia, Melanesia, and Australia. With disturbing irony, such studies often unthinkingly reinscribe essentialized historic racial categories such as ‘the Botocudos’, ‘the Polynesians’, and ‘the Australo-Melanesians’. We conclude that the fertile alliance of intersecting sciences that is revolutionizing understandings of deep human pasts must be informed by sensitivity to the deep histories of terms, classification schemes, and the disciplines themselves. (shrink)

In this two-parts paper we present paranormal modal logic: a modal logic which is both paraconsistent and paracomplete. Besides using a general framework in which a wide range of logics  including normal modal logics, paranormal modal logics and classical logic can be defined and proving some key theorems about paranormal modal logic (including that it is inferentially equivalent to classical normal modal logic), we also provide a philosophical justification for the view that paranormal modal logic is a formalization of (...) the notions of skeptical and credulous plausibility. (shrink)

A sociedade brasileira no que diz respeito a sua estrutura de relações sociais como conhecemos, tem início no Brasil colônia a qual a instituição de maior força era a escravagista. Nesse sentido, as formações e interações de classes da sociedade brasileira foram arregimentadas pelo racismo, sendo ele escancarado no passado, com leis e naturalização das práticas de disciminação racial, e mantendo grande influência atualmente com a utilização de “máscaras” que encontram para legitimar sua atuação na sociedade contemporânea. Nesse contexto, nos (...) últimos anos tem-se observado a atuação irregular de ações policiais no país, principalmente nas comunidades periféricas, sendo utilizada a brutalidade e a violência física e moral dos sujeitos, violando direitos humanos e fundamentais, e colocando em perigo a vida de crianças e adolescentes que residem nesses ambientes, sobretudo, as negras, reconhecendo assim a existência do racismo estrutural. Considerando que o país é democrático, e reconhecendo que os atores sociais possuem a capacidade de influenciar nas mudanças e construções de políticas capazes de discutir os fundamentos da vida pública e social, esta proposta de pesquisa tem por objetivo refletir como a brutalidade policial afeta a confiança de crianças negras no Estado democrático por meio de instituições de segurança e proteção. Trata-se de uma pesquisa de revisão bibliográfica, qualitativa e descritiva. (shrink)

A evolução dos meios de comunicação propiciou um massivo fluxo informacional, trazendo consigo alguns entraves. O fenômeno das fake news é produto dessa mudança na sociedade, afetando de diversas formas a vida das pessoas e inclusive a possibilidade de uma escolha plena e livre de influências, sua liberdade de expressão, pensamento e informação. Nesse contexto, este evento se torna gravoso para o nosso Estado Democrático, na medida que influencia o comportamento, as escolhas políticas, a conduta social e a solidez da (...) própria democracia. Diante do exposto, o objetivo do presente trabalho é refletir como as fake news interferem no Estado Democrático de Direito no Brasil e o deformam. Trata-se de uma revisão bibliográfica, documental e qualitativa. Propõe-se, por meio desse estudo, explicitar o que é esse fenômeno tão complexo das fake news e compreender as diversas formas de como ele pode afetar nosso sistema democrático, baseando-se nas ideias discursivas de Habermas. (shrink)

The current study verified the association between cognitive process such as attention, executive functioning, and legal capacity in patients with bipolar disorder. The sample consisted of 72 participants, assorted to episodic patients, euthymic patients, and healthy controls. We used the following neuropsychological measures: subtests of the Wechsler Abbreviated Intelligence Scale : vocabulary and matrix reasoning; Continuous Performance Test ; Five Digit Test ; and Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure. Euthymic patients expressed slower processing speed compared to HC. They tended to make more (...) errors with slightly worse discrimination, suggesting more impulsiveness. On the contrary, episodic patients showed worse discrimination, committed more omissions, were more inconsistent with regard to response speed, showed more difficulties in organizing their actions, and were more rigid. The results suggest that bipolar patients in episode express more cognitive impairments that can compromise the quality of legal capacity. These results highlight the need for more protective support for episodic BD patients regarding legal capacity. (shrink)

The outline of modern macroeconomics took shape in Britain in the early nineteenth century thanks, in part, to David Ricardo, one of the most influential economists of the time. Britain was challenged by monetary inflation, industrial unemployment and the loss of jobs abroad. Ricardo pointed the way forward. As a financier and Member of Parliament, he was well versed in politics and commercial affairs. His expertise is shown by the practicality of his proposals, including the resumption of the (...) gold standard, which was essential given the destabilizing policy of the Bank of England. Ricardo's expertise appears also in his debate with T. R. Malthus about whether an industrial economy can suffer a prolonged depression. Say's Law of Markets and the Quantity Theory of Money figure prominently in his works, but not in an extreme form. He was instead a subtle theorist, recognizing the non-neutrality of money, trade depressions and unemployment. (shrink)

This book is a collection of articles on different aspects of university education in China since the late nineteenth century, addressing how far the ideal of modern university education, which has gradually been developed in the West since the age of European Enlightenment, was adopted or transformed by Chinese universities.

Schanuel's Conjecture is the statement: if x 1 ,…,x n ∈ C are linearly independent over Q , then the transcendence degree of Q ,…, exp ) over Q is at least n . Here we prove that this is true if instead we take infinitesimal elements from any ultrapower of C , and in fact from any nonarchimedean model of the theory of the expansion of the field of real numbers by restricted analytic functions.

The interest of scholars in the Anonymous of Iamblichus has been oriented in two main ways: it focuses either on the problem of its dating and authorship, or on one or other of the many themes which seem to have been on the agenda of the investigation of its author. My interest is in this second way and I propose to examine the author’s conception of time on the horizon of human nature. What makes man truly man (ἀνὴρ ἀληθῶς ἀγαθός (...) – DK 89, 4)? I intend to point the importance of the notion of time in the context of the human experience for who aspires to be an agathos, an enkratestaton. First, I will examine the lexical and semantic field of time employed to characterize the human condition and justify the prerogatives of author regarding human behaviour and action. Second, I will discuss the different aspects and contexts considered by the author to develop his argument. Among these aspects we have: (i) the distinction between what is innate in us (φῦναι), and what must be acquired through effort (φιλοπονία) and perseverance over time (πολὺν χρόνον); (ii) the opinion that anyone who wants to guide theirlife in view of what is beautiful and good (καλόν καὶ ἀγαθόν) must to be initiated very early (πρωιαίτατα), or should start “immediately and increasing to the end” (αὐτίκα τε ἀρξάμενον καὶ συναυξηθὲν είς τέλος); (iii) the need for him to use his own resources “always and not occasionally” (DK 89, 1–2). We will examine in our paper the passages in which a concept of time appears, in order to show that this is one of the centrepieces of the author’s argument and the way par excellence to understand the underlying concept of human nature at the thought of its author. (shrink)

« La mesure est le plus grand des biens » et « rien de trop » apparaissent dans les sentences attribuées aux Sept Sages de l’Antiquité Grecque. Elles font état d’une sagesse qui blâme l’excès et invite à la modération. Les échos de ces propos résonnent dans différentes périodes de l’Antiquité et chez des auteurs appartenant aux traditions les plus variées, parmi lesquels se trouve notamment Démocrite. Nombreux sont en effet les fragments qui attestent de sa condamnation des excès, de (...) sa réflexion critique sur les richesses et de son éloge de la modération et de l’équilibre entendus comme conditions du bien-être et de l’action bonne. « La juste proportion est belle en toutes choses » (DK 68 B 102), proclame le philosophe. Cette juste proportion est érigée en condition pour atteindre la « bonne humeur » ( euthymiê ) et le « bien-être » ( euestô ). La réflexion de Démocrite se fonde sur une sorte de principe économique qui s’exprime par la notion de « mesure » ( metriotês ). La capacité à être modéré est aussi le signe distinctif de l’être humain bien accompli (DK 68 B 70), et s’oppose aux différentes formes de l’avidité. Lorsque l’on examine les fragments qui traitent de ce sujet, l’on constate que le philosophe a dressé un inventaire qui prend en compte les domaines les plus divers de la vie. Il est en effet question de la mesure aussi bien dans le cadre des affections comme le plaisir et le désir, que dans celui de la satisfaction de nos besoins élémentaires. Il en est également question pour ce qui est de notre attitude à l’égard des biens matériels et des richesses. Dans cet article nous avons choisi de faire porter l’attention sur la réflexion du philosophe sur les richesses et les biens matériels, en prenant tout particulièrement en compte sa mise en cause du désir dans l’économie de la vie humaine. Classification JEL : B1. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to illuminate today’s economic science with the light of Aristotle’s philosophy of economics. The author first describes Aristotle’s thoughts about the economy. Then, he distinguishes and discusses three Aristotelian principles: (a) economics should be a classical practical or moral science, (b) economics should not look for an unlimited wealth, but for the wealth necessary for the good life, and (c) economics should be aimed at the common good.

In this paper I develop a semantic theory of vagueness that is immune to worries regarding the use of precise mathematical tools. I call this view semantic quietism. This view has the advantage of being clearly compatible with the phenomenon of vagueness. The cost is that it cannot capture every robust semantic fact.

This article looks at the complexity of the thought processes that lead Seneca's Oedipus to choose the mors longa of blindness as punishment for his crime. It offers an analysis of the consolation of this existence on the threshold between life and death, notably with reference to the end of the Oedipus, but also of the sorrow of this liminal existence. The latter is described in Seneca's Phoenissae, which suggests an escape, by death stricto sensu, from the threshold represented by (...) blindness, by which Oedipus now feels trapped.By examining these three topics, the article shows how the threshold between life and death which Oedipus chooses at the end of Seneca's Oedipus and experiences in the Phoenissae mirrors the ambivalence and the errors of his life before he blinded himself. Ultimately, it also illustrates Oedipus’ continuing failure to achieve self-knowledge. (shrink)

This collection of new essays by an international group of scholars closely examine the works of Aristotle's Organon. The Organon is the general title given to the collection of Aristotle's logical works: Categories, De Interpretatione, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics and Sophistical Refutations. This extremely influential collection gave Aristotle the reputation of being the founder of logic, and has helped shaped the development of logic for over two millennia. The chapters in this volume cover topics pertaining to each of the (...) six works traditionally included in the Organon as well as its manuscript tradition. In addition, a comprehensive introduction by the editors discusses Aristotle and logic, the composition and order of the Organon, and the authenticity, title, and chronology of the treatises that make up these works New Essays on Aristotle's Organon offers a valuable insight into this collection for students and scholars working on Aristotle, the works of the Organon, or the philosophy of logic more broadly. (shrink)

When an English translation of Being and Event appeared in 2005, Alain Badiou took the opportunity to reminisce about the initial French publication some twenty years before: “at that moment I was quite aware of having written a ‘great’ book of philosophy.” He located that greatness in four “affirmations” and one “radical thesis.”.

Este artigo discute a concepção de crítica da ideologia articulada nos estudos críticos da linguagem, mais especialmente na Análise de Discurso Crítica. O objetivo é problematizar a apreensão da categoria, a fim de repensar a natureza da ideologia e a prática de análise discursiva, a partir de uma perspectiva radical de crítica da linguagem. Em vista dessa pauta, organiza-se a investigação em quatro momentos. Inicialmente, reconstitui-se o percurso histórico de constituição da concepção negativa de ideologia na filosofia, em virtude do (...) qual a ADC dispôs seu quadro de pressupostos para a apropriação do conceito. Adiante, examinam-se as propriedades da categoria mobilizada no quadro teórico e metodológico da disciplina: definição, localização nos fatos da linguagem, natureza semiótica e tratamento analítico. Depois, discute-se o contorno da investidura do conceito, seus limites e contradições, com foco sobre três questões: a manifestação da ideologia em formas simbólicas, a relação entre processos ideológicos e lutas de poder e a prática de análise de discurso como crítica da ideologia. Ao fim, delineia-se uma leitura possível de crítica radical da linguagem, à luz das discussões de S. Žižek, para compreender a performance ideológica do signo linguístico na realidade social. (shrink)

Coral reefs have been challenged by the current rate and severity of environmental change that might outpace their ability to adapt and survive. Current research focuses on understanding how microbial communities and epigenetic changes separately affect phenotypes and gene expression of corals. Here, we provide the hypothesis that coral‐associated microorganisms may directly or indirectly affect the coral's phenotypic response through the modulation of its epigenome. Homologs of ankyrin‐repeat protein A and internalin B, which indirectly cause histone modifications in humans, as (...) well as Rv1988 histone methyltransferase, and the DNA methyltransferases Rv2966c, Mhy1, Mhy2, and Mhy3 found in coral‐associated bacteria indicate that there are potential host epigenome‐modifying proteins in the coral microbiome. With the ideas presented here, we suggest that microbiome manipulation may be a means to alter a coral's epigenome, which could aid the current efforts to protect coral reefs. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/CW9GbChjKM4. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to present the thesis “On the Ontogenetic Evolution of the Human Embryo in its Relations with Phylogenesis,” by Affonso Regulo de Oliveira Fausto, published in Brazil in 1890. To our knowledge, it was one of the first Brazilian academic works focused specifically on evolution. It was also the first doctoral thesis that addressed the topic of recapitulation in order to analyze what was then called the progressive evolution of the human species in tandem with (...) the embryological development of the individuals that would constitute the Brazilian “type.” In the present work, we analyze the author’s thesis in relation to its sources, concepts, as well as the country’s political context at the time of its publication. Fausto’s text, in which he explicitly recognized the influence of Ernst Haeckel’s recapitulation theory, represents a window to understand better a concept of nation based on science and on the idea of inexorable progress that was accepted in Brazil at the end of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

s book, Hermeneutic Dialogue and Social Science: A critique of Gadamer and Habermas, intends to present an account of debates on objectivity in the social sciences, in stressing the political and epistemological responsibility, in public spheres, to those who want to create a fairer understanding of societies and history, without demonizing natural enterprises or leaving social studies out of acute critical questioning. Key Words: dialogue • hermeneutic • social sciences • natural sciences • method.

After introducing Fitch’s paradox of knowability and the knower paradox, the paper critically discusses the dialetheist unified solution to both problems that Beall and Priest have proposed. It is first argued that the dialetheist approach to the knower paradox can withstand the main objections against it, these being that the approach entails an understanding of negation that is intolerably weak and that it commits dialetheists to jointly accept and reject the same thing. The lesson of the knower paradox, according to (...) dialetheism, is that human knowledge is inconsistent. The paper also argues that this inconsistency has not been shown by dialetheists to be wide enough in its scope to justify their approach to Fitch’s problem. The connection between the two problems is superficial and therefore the proposed unified solution fails. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to discuss "Darwinism: its past, its present, its future", a lecture given in 1875 by Miranda Azevedo as one of the "Popular Lectures of the Gloria Neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro". In this lecture Azevedo elaborates the concepts of evolution, human evolution, progress and the idea of man as the pinnacle of evolution and the master of the selective laws governing nature. We will analyze the article, published in 1876, that contains the full text of (...) Azevedo's lecture. Of particular importance is his affiliation to Haeckel, something already commented on in Brazilian historiography. But, unlike other studies devoted to the theme, I will examine in detail Azevedo's text, attempting to show how he relates hereditary and selective evolutionary processes to thinking about how future Brazilian generations could progress. (shrink)

John Searle believes that computational properties are purely formal and that consequently, computational properties are not intrinsic, empirically discoverable, nor causal; and therefore, that an entity’s having certain computational properties could not be sufficient for its having certain mental properties. To make his case, Searle’s employs an argument that had been used before him by Max Newman, against Russell’s structuralism; one that Russell himself considered fatal to his own position. This paper formulates a not-so-explored version of Searle’s problem with computational (...) cognitive science, and refutes it by suggesting how our understanding of computation is far from implying the structuralism Searle vitally attributes to it. On the way, I formulate and argue for a thesis that strengthens Newman’s case against Russell’s structuralism, and thus raises the apparent risk for computational cognitive science too. (shrink)

In this work I intend to explore the textual and conceptual roots of the moral view in the Early Modern Rationalism of Cartesian spectrum as detected by Elisabeth of Bohemia. To this intent, I will drive my analysis, first, to the remark Descartes adds to his own provisional morality of the Discourse in the Letter of August 4th, 1645 to Elisabeth. Second, I will approach the two aspects of her reply to Descartes, both in her Letter of September 13th 1645, (...) which I call a) the contextual aspect – with which she excludes the hypotheses of an infinite science at the service of assessing the good and b) the self-related aspect, with which the philosopher of Bohemia address the moral objectiveness as an intrinsic practical value, obtained by the passions that may lead to reasonable actions. The upshot is a practical and affective moral view, in which the normative trait of some passions of the soul can be taken as the explanation of an intentional infrastructure of the mind, without, however, a theory of ideas as such playing an explicit role. Instead of a representational endeavor, Elisabeth of Bohemia claims a kind of self-awareness from the discovery of a passionate function as an expression of the adequate measure between happiness and morality of actions. That kind of awareness, I shall demonstrate, is what objectiveness consists in. (shrink)

Beltrami's first allegedly true interpretation of lobachevsky's geometry can be conceived as (i) pursuing a kantian program insofar as it shows that all the geometrical lobachevskian concepts are constructible in the euclidean space of our human representation, And (ii) proving, Even to kant, That a non-Euclidean geometry is not only logically possible (something that kant never denied) but also mathematically acceptable from a kantian point of view (something that kant would have accepted only after beltrami's interpretation).

John Searle believes that computational properties are purely formal and that consequently, computational properties are not intrinsic, empirically discoverable, nor causal; and therefore, that an entity’s having certain computational properties could not be sufficient for its having certain mental properties. To make his case, Searle employs an argument that had been used before him by Max Newman, against Russell’s structuralism; one that Russell himself considered fatal to his own position. This paper formulates a not-so-explored version of Searle’s problem with computational (...) cognitive science, and refutes it by suggesting how our understanding of computation is far from implying the structuralism Searle vitally attributes to it. On the way, I formulate and argue for a thesis that strengthens Newman’s case against Russell’s structuralism, and thus raises the apparent risk for computational cognitive science too. (shrink)

Since the advent of a post-structuralist ethos, the assertion of a notion of truth, conceived as an infallible point d’appui from which a given social order could be evaluated as ideological or non-ideological, seems no longer possible. As Rorty has pointed out ‘[we can now] see ourselves as never encountering reality except under a chosen description as…making worlds rather than finding them’. However, we could still legitimately ask whether or not an inevitable condition of the ‘post-modern world’, that is, a (...) world deprived of a manifest intrinsic meaning, is the renouncement of the assumption of a certain notion of an objective truth for a critique of ideology. I will suggest in this essay that a way to respond to this question is by revisiting Habermas's theory of communicative action, viewed through the lens of the theory of ideology formulated by Slavok Žižek. Furthermore, the main thesis of this work is that by using the notion of the Real or ‘primordial repressed’ taken from a Žižekian reading of Lacan, it would allow the production of a critique of ideology in which the truth — the unmasking of the extra-ideological place — becomes possible as a hypothetical objective category. (shrink)

We can communicate linguistic information by asserting sentences that are not explicitly about linguistic matters. Stalnaker offers a pragmatic account of this phenomenon. It is not clear that such an account is correct. In this article I offer an alternative account that does not rely on pragmatic mechanisms and which captures many of the insights in Stalnaker's theory of linguistic communication. The view is inspired by Barker's semantics of vague adjectives.

This book, together with Marx's Economic and Walras' Economics, completes a sequence of titles by Professor Morishima on the first generation of scientific economists. The author's assessment of Ricardo differs substantially from the established views adopted by economists and historians of economic thought. While economists such as Pasinetti, Caravale and Samuelson have concentrated on macroeconomic interpretations of Ricardo, and historians of economic thought have emphasised his labour theory of value, Morishima takes a different course. In this book the (...) author concentrates on Ricardo's main work, The Principles, and shows that his economics is the prototype of mathematical economies without the symbols and formulae. Morishima then translates Ricardo's economics into mathematical language to find a general equilibrium system concealed within. The analysis also contradicts the conventional view that marginalism emerged in opposition to classical economics, showing instead that Ricardian analysis is firmly based on marginalist principles, using prices, wages and profits rather than labour values. The book ends with a discussion of the historical character of economic theory and an attempt to specify the epoch of Ricardian economics. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue about the impossibility of constructing a complete formal theory or a complete Turing machines' algorithm that represent the human capacity of recognizing mathematical truths. More specifically, based on a direct argument from Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem, we discuss the impossibility of constructing a complete formal theory or a complete Turing machines' algorithm to the human capacity of recognition of first-order arithmetical truths and so of mathematical truths in general.