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.”.

Long-term ecological research (LTER), addressing problems that encompass decadal or longer time frames, began as a formal term and program in the United States in 1980. While long-term ecological studies and observation began as early as the 1400s and 1800s in Asia and Europe, respectively, the long-term approach was not formalized until the establishment of the U.S. long-term ecological research programs. These programs permitted ecosystem-level experiments and cross-site comparisons that led to insights into the biosphere’s structure and function. The holistic (...) ecosystem approach of this initiative also allowed the incorporation of the human-dimension of ecology and recently has given rise to a new concept of long-term socio-ecological research (LTSER). Today, long-term ecological research programs exist in at least thirty-two countries (i.e., members of the International Long-Term Ecological Research Network, ILTER). However, consolidation of the international network within the long-term socio-ecological research paradigm still requires: (1) inclusion of certain remote regions of the world, such as southwestern South America, that are still poorly represented; (2) modifications of the type of research conducted, such as integrating social and natural sciences with the humanities and ethics; and (3) the incorporation of findings and results into broader social and political processes. In this context, a nascent long-term socio-ecological research network in Chile, which extends over the longest latitudinal range of temperate forest in the Southern Hemisphere, adds a new remote region to international long-term ecological research previously overlooked. In addition, collaboration with the University of North Texas and other international partners helps to further develop an interdisciplinary approach for the integration of the ecological sciences and environmental philosophy together with traditional ecological knowledge, informal and formal education, policy, the humanities, socio-political processes, and biocultural conservation. (shrink)

Roads to Reference offers a highly valuable contribution to the theory of reference. The arguments in this book are quite convincing and the overall picture presented in it is quite attractive. In what follows I would like to present some critical comments regarding the first chapter of the book, Demonstratives and Conflicting Intentions.

El objetivo de este trabajo es, por una parte, ofrecer una nueva interpretación de la teoría estoica de los universales a la luz del debate entre nominalismo, conceptualismo y realismo, y, por otra, desentrañar un paralelismo entre el análisis propuesto por los estoicos de enunciados cuyo sujeto gramatical son términos genéricos, y el análisis propuesto por Russell de enunciados como "El actual rey de Francia es calvo". Al final del trabajo se estudian las bases metafísicas de la teoría estoica de (...) los universales y se señala una posible tensión en su interior. The aim of this paper is to offer a new interpretation of the Stoic theory of universals in the light of the debate between nominalism, conceptualism and realism, and to bring out a parallel between the analysis proposed by the Stoic Chrysippus of statements whose grammatical subject is a generic term, and the analysis developed by Russell of statements such as "The current King of France is bald". At the end of the paper, the metaphysical basis of the Stoic theory of universals is examined and a possible contradiction in it is brought out. (shrink)

Our purpose in this paper is to contribute to the project of meta-theodicy, understood here as the elucidation of the concept of theodicy through the analysis of its adequacy. In our case, the analysis shall be made inside a framework including a taxonomical view of the theodical adequacy conditions which allows for a rigorously acceptable description of them as well as for a natural appraisal of the role, importance and intra-logical relations holding between them. The result of the analysis shall (...) be used to introduce definitions minimally precise of the notions of theodicy, satisfactory theodicy, plausible theodicy, ideal theodicy, and the like. (shrink)

Este trabajo discute la interpretación de Marcelo Boeri sobre el compatibilismo estoico; esto es, la tesis de que es compatible con el determinismo que rige al mundo natural el que podamos ser genuinamente responsables de nuestras acciones. Según Boeri, los estoicos intentaron conciliar las dos cosas abriendo un margen de indeterminación gracias al cual nuestras acciones no están sujetas a la necesidad que domina los demás fenómenos naturales. La discusión que se ofrece aquí se basa en un análisis del concepto (...) antiguo de lo que depende de nosotros y de los conceptos estoicos de determinismo y modalidad. /// This paper discusses Marcelo Boeri's interpretation of Stoic compatibilism, the thesis that natural determinism does not rule out that we can genuinely be responsible for our actions. According to Boeri, the Stoic hold that this is so because our actions are to a great extent free from determination. The discussion of this interpretation is based on an analysis of the ancient concept of what depends on us and of Stoic concepts of determinism and modality. (shrink)

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, South America hosts the world’s greatest di­versity of plants and most animal groups, as well as a variety of environmental movements, involving urban and rural communities. South American academic philosophy, however, has given little consideration to this rich biocultural context. To nourish an emergent regional environmental philosophy three main sources can be identified. First, a variety of ancient and contemporary ecological worldviews and practices offer a rich biocultural array of South American environmental thought (...) that can be disclosed and valued through the work of cultural anthropology, liberation philosophy, liberation pedagogy, liberation theology, ecofeminism, and biocultural conservation. Second, some recent academic environmental philosophy research and teaching teams have been formed in South American universities with the support of the interdisciplinary United Nations Environmental Programme or based on the individual interests of some scattered scholars. Third, social movements have increasingly demanded the incorporation of environmental values into regional policies and decision-making processes. These three sources can foster intercultural, international, and transdisciplinary dialogues to further develop a South American environmental philosophy grounded in its precious biocultural diversity. (shrink)

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.

In antiquity living beings are inextricably linked to the cosmos as a whole. Ancient biology and cosmology depend upon one another and therefore a complete understanding of one requires a full account of the other. This volume addresses many philosophical issues that arise from this double relation. Does the cosmos have a soul of its own? Why? Is either of these two disciplines more basic than the other, or are they at the same explanatory level? What is the relationship between (...) living things and the cosmos as a whole? If the cosmos is an animate intelligent being, what is the nature of its thoughts and actions? How do these relate to our own thoughts and actions? Do they pose a threat to our autonomy as subjects and agents? And what is the place of zoogony in cosmogony? A distinguished international team of contributors provides original essays discussing these questions. (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)

This paper aims to provide an adequate philosophical groundwork to normativity. More specifîcally, the author argues in favor of its axiological nature: from a philosophical point of view, normativity only becomes intelligible if values are taken into account. Therefore values arise as a necessary condition of normativity. Although not sufficient, values are the decisive condition in distinguishing norms from other relations of the same type. The thought of axiologists like Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann is discussed even though their theories (...) do not fully explain how norm and value interrelate. (shrink)

En este artículo se analizan las concomitancias entre las nociones de imaginario de Cornelius Castoriadis y de mundo interno de Hannah Arendt. Estas nociones amplían el horizonte de la política hacia una compresión más profunda del self del ciudadano. a partir de ellas, se advierte la hipertrofia de la lógica identitaria en el pensamiento occidental, debida al miedo al descontrol y la angustia ante la contingencia. El énfasis en la identidad ha dado como resultado una política idolátrica caracterizada por soluciones (...) omnipotentes. Castoriadis y Arendt descubren en su lugar una concepción más rica de la libertad al reconocer la importancia de la democracia in foro interno. Sus teorías políticas, en las que escuchamos ecos de la tradición retórica mediterránea, ponen en evidencia algunas de las ausencias y las deformaciones más graves del pensamiento occidental, perpetuadas por pensadores como Thomas Hobbes. (shrink)

Festschrift in honor of 60th birthday of Āgamānaṅdasvāmikaḷ, 1896-1961; collection of his speeches and writings on Vedanta and other aspects of Hindu philosophy.

This paper explores two persistent questions in the literature on presumptions: the place and the nature of presumptions in law and legal argumentation. These questions were originally raised by James Bradley Thayer, one of the masters of the Law of Evidence and the author of the classic chapter devoted this subject in A preliminary treatise on Evidence. Like Thayer, I believe that these questions deserve attention. First the paper shows that the connection between presumptions and argumentation is a constant feature (...) in the literature on presumptions, since its foundation in the Middle Ages to modern times. James Bradley Thayer was probably the last jurist who clearly saw that presumptions belong to argumentation. Second, the paper examines two sources of controversy in the language of presumptions. First, “presumption” is an ambiguous word in the legal discourse. As a result, it is almost impossible to provide a clear and succinct answer to the question “What is a presumption?”. Second, there are at least four reconstructions of the concept of presumption whose merits and shortcomings are relevant to explore. The analysis presented here may be of interest for legal and non-legal scholars and, hopefully, it may help to shed light on the possibilities and limits of an interdisciplinary dialogue about presumptions. (shrink)

Despite the ongoing consideration of the ethical nature of human resource management (HRM), little research has been conducted on how morality and ethics are represented in the discourse, activities and lived experiences of human resource (HR) professionals. In this paper, we connect the thinking and lived experiences of HR professionals to an alternative ethics, rooted in the work of Bauman (Modernity and the Holocaust, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1989; Theory, Culture and Society 7:5-38, 1990; Postmodern Ethics, Blackwell, Oxford, 1991; Approaches to (...) Social Enquiry, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1993; Life in Fragments, Blackwell, Oxford, 1995) and Levinas (Otherwise than Being, or, Beyond Essence, Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 1998). We argue that the study of HRM and ethics should be contextualized within the discourses used, the practices and activities of HR professionals. Through the analysis of interview data from 40 predominantly Canadian HR practitioners and managers we experiment with Bauman's notion of 'moral impulse' to help us understand how HRM is both a product and perpetuator of moral neutralization in organizations. We suggest that HRM as it is practiced is concerned with distancing, depersonalizing, and dissembling, and acts in support of the 'moral' requirements of business, not of people. However, we also recognize that HR practitioners and managers are often confronted with and conflicted by actions and decisions that they are required to take, therefore opening possibilities and hope for an alternative ethical HRM. (shrink)

O presente volume reune quase uma trintena de artigos com temas culturais, de consagrados autores portugueses e brasileiros, que assim pretenderam homenagear o Professor. oordenada por Joaquim Gonçalves, a obra é estruturada em 4 partes. As três primeiras agrupam as intervenções, consagrando-se a quarta à vida e obra do homenageado.

Human life in contemporary society is extremely complex and there are various external factors that directly affect the realization in the individual ends. In this work I analyze the effects of the global market economy, manifested by a mode of production and distribution of goods and services in the form of a global network of economic relations, which involve people, transnational corporations and political and social institutions in moral sphere of people, affecting their choices and the realization of these choices. (...) Individual freedom can be understand as a freedom to realize our choices in the environment of a global economic market, but it is still problematic in the sense that the choices of goods and services available in this market do not reflect individual choices, but a set of preferences standardized according to the market itself. In this paper I will reflect about the individual freedom in economic globalization pointing from the debate between Pettit and Berlin that social freedom advocated by Republican Petit can be satisfactory for a start. (shrink)

This article critiques Oritsegbubemi Anthony Oyowe’s “Ontology, Realism and the Persistence of Ancestral Persons” response to Katrina Flikschuh’s “The Arc of Personhood” argument on the theoretical grounding of ancestors in Ifeanyi Menkiti’s work. Flikschuh argues that ancestors are uncertain and redundant such that one can only account for them practically. Contrastingly, Oyowe defends Menkiti’s concept of ancestors as social kinds in his innovative attempt to theoretically ground them. The article argues that the dialogue between these thinkers reflects an exogenous reading (...) of African experiential reality, effectively lending itself to epistemic erasure. In the end, the existence of ancestors is ambiguous at best in both their accounts. The article first questions Flikschuh’s view and suggests that it is paradigmatic of white solipsism. Thereafter, the article contends that while Oyowe’s social ontology injunction challenges Western realism, he fails to account for mind-independent ancestral persons. In the end, he only partially captures African experiential reality, thereby reflecting Western ways of being. (shrink)

“History, forgetfulness and remembrance in Hegel and Nietzsche”. Albeit the evident distance between Hegel´s and Nietzsche´s philosophical projects, there is a shared terrain from which both authors respond to the excesses of modern illustration, which reacted against history and tradition, in the name of a subjective conscious understood as the unconditioned nucleus of reality. This paper wants to contribute to show how close to each other are this so called antagonists, showing that in their doctrines there is an intuition about (...) the fundamental temporality that lies in human existence and experience. From this common point of view, articulated in both cases with the notions of “remembrance” and “forgetfulness”, it is the purpose to generate a living dialogue, however full of tensions, between Hegel and Nietzsche, as critics of Modernity. (shrink)

Com este trabalho pretende dar-se um panorama do que foi a actividade científica, no domínio da Matemática e das ciências que lhe andavam ligadas (Geografia, Astronomia, Mecânica), no grande centro cultural que foi o Museu e a Biblioteca de Alexandria, nos tempos áureos e até ao declínio definitivo da ciência nesse espaço. Pretende-se igualmente sublinhar as descobertas e progressos que abriram caminho para posteriores estádios de desenvolvimento da Matemática, assim como dar conta do cruzamento de saberes e da grande mobilidade (...) de cientistas matemáticos e relações entre si, alguns provenientes de muitos espaços e sediados em Alexandria, outros formados em Alexandria e regressados ao seu espaço de origem. (shrink)

Este artigo é parte do estudo de doutorado que investigou a concepção de currículo na obra de Dermeval Saviani. O levantamento da produção do autor permitiu-nos identificar que a mesma se concentra, prioritariamente, em quatro grandes áreas: estrutura e política educacional; filosofia da educação; história da educação e teoria pedagógica. Tomamos para análise, neste artigo, as contribuições no campo da filosofia da educação. Concluímos que o autor articula pressupostos ontológicos, gnosiológicos, axiológicos e teleológicos, sustentando uma concepção histórico-crítica de currículo a (...) partir de uma sólida concepção filosófica. (shrink)

La philosophie herméneutique est présentée en général comme une phénoménologie de la compréhension et une ontologie de l’existence et du langage humains. En cela, son potentiel analytique et critique de la réalité sociale et politique est limité. Néanmoins, certains des textes tardifs de Hans-Georg Gadamer tentent de traduire ces approches ontologiques en réflexions concrètes sur la praxis humaine dans nos sociétés contemporaines. Ils construisent alors les bases d’une véritable philosophie sociale et politique à vocation éminemment critique. À travers les notions (...) d’amitié et de solidarité que l’auteur développe dans ses dernières années, cet article examine ce tournant politique de l’herméneutique. (shrink)