This article explores a promising theoretical approach for reassessing the relationship between inequality and economic growth. The article draws some insights from the influential inverted U-curve hypothesis originally advanced by Simon Kuznets, but drastically recasts the original arguments by shifting two fundamental premises. First, retaining Kuznets’s emphasis on the importance of economic growth in generating demographic transitions between existing and new distributional arrays, we argue that a “constant drive toward inequality” results after replacing a Schumpeterian notion of “creative destruction” for (...) the dualistic assumptions in Kuznets’s model. Second, while Kuznets devoted considerable attention to the impact of institutions on distributional outcomes, we argue that institutions should be understood as relational and global mechanisms of regulation, operating within countries while simultaneously shaping interactions and flows between nations. The article argues that economic growth, unfolding through institutions embedded in time and space, produces a constant drive towards inequality that results in a multiple and overlapping matrix of distributional arrays, an overall income distribution (e.g., within and between countries) that is both systemic and historical. (shrink)

The article studies the tradicional locus of madhouse present in 2666 by Roberto Bolaño, but taking into consideration also the desert and the church as spaces where the enunciation of madness is expands: the madman’s truth. To this end, three aspects that configure the heuristic notion of lettered madhouse are analyzed: the digressive diagrams, the phobic philology, and enlightened hospice. In short, it shows how Bolaño elaborates in his novel a critical and ironic vision of Latin American literary intelligentsia (...) or the remnants of The lettered City of Angel Rama. (shrink)

This paper argues that some of the misunderstandings surrounding the meaning and function of the concept of human dignity in bioethics arise from a lack of distinction between two different roles that this notion plays: one as an overarching policy principle, and the other as a moral standard of patient care. While the former is a very general concept which fulfils a foundational and a guiding role of the normative framework governing biomedical issues, the latter reflects a much more concrete (...) and context-specific understanding of the patient as a “person”. The importance of dignity as a policy principle will be described by appealing to the distinction between principles and rules as developed by some legal philosophers. The value of dignity as a standard of patient care will be illustrated with the help of concrete examples and by drawing on the taxonomies of dignity proposed by Jonathan Mann and other scholars. The overall scope of the article is to highlight this double and complementary role of human dignity in bioethics. (shrink)

Management of different types of partnerships plays a decisive role in company performance. Complex business ventures, such as those created to serve low-income populations, usually include both cross- and same-sector partnerships. However, the initial diversity featured in these alliance portfolios diminishes as companies take their ventures up to scale. This article develops theoretical propositions about the evolution and configuration patterns of portfolios that include both cross- and same-sector partnerships. Two longitudinal case studies serve to illustrate the theoretical framework developed for (...) alliance portfolios that include both types of partnerships. Companies that create such portfolios adopt partnership strategies that follow paths also identified in the evolution of portfolios only made up of partnerships with other private firms: i.e., an evolution from adapting to shaping and exploiting strategies. (shrink)

The article deals with the lines along which manifold senses of horizonedness emerge and their reference to potentiality as a starting-point. The first section examines Gurwitsch's analyses of field-potentialities and margin-potentialities in the light of distinctions drawn by Husserl in terms of latency and patency. It is contended that Husserl's concept of latency encompasses both modes of potentiality. The second section shows how the world- horizon functions as a background- horizon and alternation- horizon conceived of as the two fundamental modes (...) of non-thematic consciousness. In this respect, an attempt is made to link this theme with Gurwitsch's description of the acquisition of the character of positional index as a worldly existent. The third section is concerned with how potentiality develops into an all-encompassing domain that can be anticipated as an ideal totality and into a pregiven ground, and outlines an approach to the complementarity of this threefold characterization. This development falls out of Gurwitsch's framework for the analysis of horizonedness. The article concludes with a characterization of the encasement-of-one-in-another of horizons. Reasons are suggested for the application of some ideas of Gurwitsch on thematic transformation to this sequence of levels. (shrink)

This is Dr. Roberto Assagioli's second book on the psychological system he formulated known as Psychosynthesis. It continues where his first book left off and delves into the important process of willing as a psychological function based on a higher self rather on guilt or determination as in the Victorian concept of the will.

Slippery slope arguments (SSAs) are used in a wide range of philosophical debates, but are often dismissed as empirically ill-founded and logically fallacious. In particular, leading authors put forward a meta-SSA which points to instances of empirically ill-founded and logically fallacious SSAs and to the alleged existence of a slippery slope leading to such SSAs to demonstrate that people should avoid using SSAs altogether. In this paper, I examine these prominent calls against using SSAs and argue that such calls do (...) not withstand scrutiny. I then identify several types of mechanisms leading to slippery slopes in real-life contexts to demonstrate that both the strength of SSAs and the justifiability of using SSAs are best assessed on a case-by-case basis. This result does not exempt the proponents of SSAs from the task of vindicating their use of SSAs. However, if correct, it undermines the often-made claim that people should avoid using SSAs altogether. (shrink)

Over the last decade, several European countries and the Council of Europe itself have strongly supported the use of advance directives as a means of protecting patients’ autonomy, and adopted specific norms to regulate this matter. However, it remains unclear under which conditions those regulations should apply to people who are placed in correctional settings. The issue is becoming more significant due to the increasing numbers of inmates of old age or at risk of suffering from mental disorders, all of (...) whom might benefit from using advance directives. At the same time, the closed nature of prisons and the disparate power relationships that characterise them mean that great caution must be exercised to prevent care being withdrawn or withheld from inmates who actually want to receive it. This paper explores the issue of prisoners’ advance directives in the European context, starting with the position enshrined in international and European law that prisoners retain all their human rights, except the right to liberty, and are therefore entitled to self-determination regarding health care decisions. (shrink)

I examine some accounts that articulate the content of perception that occurs by means of a mirror. The defended account entails that a right hand seen in the mirror does not "become" a left hand.

El artículo analiza el vínculo entre derecho y violencia en Walter Benjamin y Franz Rosenzweig. Primero, se estudia la relación entre Benjamin, Rosenzweig y Carl Schmitt, y, a continuación, la proximidad entre las concepciones benjaminiana y rosenzweiguiana de la historia y de la temporalidad mesiánica, así como la relación entre justicia, derecho y eternidad. Finalmente, se presenta la propuesta derridiana de una deconstrucción de la crítica benjaminiana de la violencia y su antecedente en _La estrella de la redención_.

The book addresses the question of the alleged Heracliteanism of the Sceptic philosopher Aenesidemus of Cnossus.

We investigate certain Brouwer-Zadeh lattices that serve as abstract counterparts of lattices of effects in Hilbert spaces under the spectral ordering. These algebras, called PBZ*-lattices, can also be seen as generalisations of orthomodular lattices and are remarkable for the collapse of three notions of “sharpness” that are distinct in general Brouwer-Zadeh lattices. We investigate the structure theory of PBZ*-lattices and their reducts; in particular, we prove some embedding results for PBZ*-lattices and provide an initial description of the lattice of PBZ*-varieties.

After Husserl and Heidegger, phenomenology has attempted to push the reduction beyond the reference of objects to the performances effected by consciousness, or of beings to Being. First, a new level of the reduction comes forth in M. Henry's radical reduction of appearing to the appearing of appearing, and leads to the disclosure of a dimension in which no horizons are to be fulfilled because the superabundance of life holds sway. Secondly, according to H. Rombach, the phenomena decribed in the (...) first two levels are nothing but epiphenomena, and must be explained in terms of structures that emerge in a creative development. Reality brings forth something from itself, and we must take advantage of this contribution in order to obtain more than what is anticipated in our projects. Thirdly, J.-L. Marion advances a theory on saturated phenomena in order to account for phenomena that surpass the bounds outlined for them in the mere significational intentions because they show a surplus of intuition. The three trends lead respectively to an originary phenomenality, an outbreak of phenomena, and saturated phenomena. The article contends that they tend to come together because they link the third level of phenomenology to a reflection that turns on the duality between what appears and its appearing, and, in doing so, disclose a surplus with regard to three different aspects of the duality, i.e., appearing as such, the overall condition of what appears, or the appearing of some preeminent phenomena. Finally, some anticipations of these trends in Husserl's transcendental phenomenology are shown.Luego de Husserl y Heidegger, la fenomenología ha intentado llevar la reducción más allá de la referencia de los objetos a las operaciones efectuadas por la conciencia o de los entes al ser. En primer lugar, un nuevo nivel de reducción se manifiesta en la reducción radical propuesta por M. Henry para retroceder del aparecer al aparecer del aparecer, y conduce al descubrimiento de una dimensión en que no hay horizontes que puedan ser plenificados porque impera la sobreabundancia del la vida. En segundo lugar, según H. Rombach, los fenómenos descritos en los dos primeros niveles no son otra cosa que epifenómenos y tienen que ser explicados en términos de estructuras que emergen en un desarrollo creador. La realidad produce algo a partir de sí misma, y esta contribución debe ser aprovechada a fin de alcanzar más de lo anticipado en nuestros proyectos. En tercer lugar, J.-L. Marion presenta una teoría sobre los fenómenos saturados a fin de dar cuenta de aquellos casos que exceden los límites que les han sido delineados en las intenciones significativas vacías porque muestran una demasía de intuición. Las tres tendencias conducen respectivamente a una fenomenalidad originaria, a un estallido del fenómeno y a una saturación del fenómeno. El artículo sostiene que tienden a converger porque vinculan el tercer nivel de la fenomenología con una reflexión en torno de la dualidad entre lo que aparece y su aparecer, y que, al hacerlo, ponen de manifiesto una excedencia respecto de tres aspectos distintos de la dualidad, esto es, el aparecer en cuanto tal, la condición general de lo que aparece o la aparición de algunos fenómenos preeminentes. Finalmente, se indican algunas anticipaciones de estas tendencias en la fenomenología trascendental de Husserl. (shrink)

Most discussions of Rawls’s philosophy tend to neglect the strong communitarian strand of his theory: so much so that in the debate between liberals and communitarians Rawls’s account of community has been for the most part intriguingly absent. This article is an attempt to fill in the gap by offering a discussion of the Rawlsian understanding of community as it was presented in A Theory of Justice and its possible implications for a pluralist society. At the same time, I want (...) to take issue with one of the most influential critiques leveled against Rawls’s conception of the self: namely, Sandel’s critique of the ‘individuated subject’ that, in his view, underlies justice as fairness. Rawls’s constructions, so Sandel argues, rest on an unencumbered self that is individuated in advance and whose identity is fixed once and for all. (shrink)

Selected Contributed Papers of the Tenth International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Florence, August 1995.

The problem of future contingents is one of the most ancient and debated puzzles in Western philosophy, and Supervaluationism is, today, one of the most prominent solutions to the problem. Recently, John MacFarlane has carried a well-known criticism to Supervaluationism and put forward a new solution of the problem of future contingents, which is known as Double Time Reference Theory. Here, we compare DTRT with Supervaluationist semantics, and we show that the success of MacFarlane's criticism crucially depends on the expressivity (...) of the language adopted. Once a reasonable expressive power is granted, however, MacFarlane's criticism no longer applies. (shrink)

In this essay, the author tries to decipher the linguistics usages of gestaltic therapy, through a mixed analysis from both a perspective of the theory of talking acts (Searle) and the perspective of the phenomenological dimension of the project of Schutz.

This paper compares the conception of substantial change put forth by Peter of Mantua (d. 1399) in his De primo et ultimo instanti with the one developed by Albert of Saxony (ca. 1320–1390). According to Albert, (i) each substantial form, save for the intellective soul, is a spatially-extended entity with actual quantitative parts that are co-located with the parts of matter they inform, and (ii) these quantitative parts are generated and corrupted one after another over an extended interval of time. (...) From (i) and (ii), Albert deduces that (iii) the substantial change of material substances as individuals (save for human beings) is a temporally extended process. This is what I call the ‘piecemeal’ conception of substantial change. I show that Peter of Mantua is significantly indebted to this conception. Indeed, he endorses both (i) and (ii). Moreover, he even extends this approach to the process by which the intellective soul informs matter and is separated from it. Nevertheless, I argue that, thanks to his peculiar doctrine of numerical sameness over time, Peter rejects (iii) and maintains, instead, that the substantial change of any material substance as an individual is an instantaneous event. (shrink)

Os chamados manuscritos C, recentemente publicados, têm um interesse especial para a clarificação da constituição do mundo na medida em que mostram como, a partir de um mundo primordial ou quasi-mundo correlato à pré-intencionalidade, se atinge o mundo plenamente intersubjetivo constituído por uma intencionalidade de interesses desde uma práxis comunicativa. Seguindo os manuscritos, este artigo tem um propósito quádruplo: 1) tentar discernir diferentes caracterizações do mundo como horizonte universal, representação-mundo, todo, forma, idéia e fundamento; mostra-se, assim, o papel da temporalidade (...) na raiz desses traços de mundanidade; 2) níveis de constituição do mundo são desvelados a fim de diferenciar um fundamento previamente dado de um fundamento que se desenvolve através dos estágios do mundo egóico, mundo da casa, mundo da vida e mundo-em-si; desvela-se aqui um encaixamento desses horizontes um no outro; 3) uma análise posterior dos níveis é dada através do questionamento retroativo na primalidade como um retrocesso que revela o desenvolvimento de um pré-mundo a um mundo genuíno; uma gênese permanente, antes de uma gênese do passado, é realçada; 4) finalmente, mostrar- se-á como antecipações da fenomenologia póshusserliana nos remetem a uma abertura originária do mundo em sua mundanidade, um âmbito que é anterior à manifestação de um mundo de objetos e uma ordem de manifestação diferente daquela do mundo. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Fenomenologia genética. Husserl. Manuscritos C. Mundo. Temporalidade. ABSTRACT The recently published C-manuscripts hold special interest for the clarification of the constitution of the world by showing how, starting from a primal or quasiworld correlated with preintentionality, it advances to the full intersubjective world constituted by an intentionality of interests within communicative praxis. Following the manuscripts, this paper has a fourfold purpose. First, it attempts to discern different characterizations of the world as universal horizon, world-representation, whole, form, idea, and ground. The role of temporality at the roots of these traits of worldliness is shown. Second, levels of constitution of the world are disclosed in order to differentiate a readymade ground from a ground that develops through the stages of egoical world, homeworld, lifeworld, and world-in-itself. An encasement of these horizons one-in another is displayed. Third, a further analysis of levels is given through the inquiry back into primality as a retrogression that reveals the development from a pre-world to a genuine world. A permanent genesis rather than a past genesis is brought out. Finally, anticipations will be shown of post-Husserlian phenomenological views regarding an originary openness of the world in its worldliness, a realm that is prior to the manifestation of a world of objects, and a different order of manifestation than that of the world. KEY WORDS – Genetic phenomenology. Husserl. C-manuscripts. World. Temporality. (shrink)

Along with a static and genetic egological inquiry, Husserl offers a nonegological analysis that advances through different levels or stages of history. Basic phenomenological themes—subjectivity, temporality, intersubjectivity, and worldliness—appear in varying figures with the progressive bringing-into-play of levels that concern conditions of possibility, actual development, and rational goals. In addition, post-Husserlian phenomenology discloses a surplus that brings us to a level outside the reach of history. This scheme confronts us both with the enduring issue of the stratification of reality and (...) with Maurice Merleau-Ponty's contention that philosophical problems are concentric. In order to shed light on these levels and figures, and thus to set in order the main themes of human experience, an attempt might be made to clarify the relationship between them in terms of the determinateness and indeterminateness of horizonality. As for every such level, there emerges a varying stage of rational legitimation; new advances could also be made with regard to the perennial problem of the unity of reason in the midst of its diversity. (shrink)

El primer apartado del trabajo considera cómo el pensar es privado de su carácter primario cuando la lógica originaria y el lenguaje de las señas son sustituidos por la lógica del enunciado y el lenguaje de los signos. En segundo lugar, se muestra que la elucidación de las señas del Ser conduce a un examen del peligro que enfrenta el pensar en presencia de la filosofía. El tercer apartado se ocupa del ulterior peligro que surge cuando se intenta derivar el (...) pensar a partir del poetizar. El pensador aguarda señas porque ya no cuenta con sistemas de pensamiento, y en este proceso ha de estar dispuesto para la verdad del ser. Mientras que el poeta instituye de una manera originaria el Ser en una comunidad, el pensador concibe y ensambla, y de ese modo abre por primera vez lo que ha sido desvelado por el poeta. Finalmente, se ofrece un análisis de la relación de la lógica originaria con la hermenéutica y la fenomenología. (shrink)

This collection of essays by scholars from Europe, Asia, North America, and Latin America offers new perspectives of the phenomenological investigation of experiential life on the basis of Husserl’s phenomenology. Not only well-known works of Husserl are interpreted from new angles, but also the latest volumes of the Husserliana are closely examined. In a variety of ways, the contributors explore the emergence of reason in experience that is disclosed in the very regions that are traditionally considered to be “irrational” or (...) “pre-rational.” The leading idea of such explorations is Husserl’s view that perception, affectivity, and volition are regarded as the three aspects of reason. Without affectivity, which is supposedly irrational, no rationality can be established in the spheres of representation and volition, whereas volitional and representational acts consistently structure the process of affective experience. In such a framework, it is also shown that theoretical and practical reason are inseparably intertwined. Thus, the papers collected here can be regarded as a collaborative phenomenological investigation into the entanglement and mutual dependency of the supposedly “rational” and the “irrational” as well as that of the “practical” and the “theoretical.”. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with a logical system, called Brouwer-Zadeh logic, arising from the BZ poset of all effects of a Hilbert space. In particular, we prove a representation theorem for Brouwer-Zadeh lattices, and we show that Brouwer-Zadeh logic is not characterized by the MacNeille completions of all BZ posets of effects.

Any living organism interacts with and responds specifically to environmental molecules by expressing specific olfactory receptors. In this paper, this specificity will be first examined in causal terms with particular emphasis on the mechanisms controlling olfactory gene expression, cell-to-cell interactions and odor-decoding processes. However, this type of explanation does not entirely justify the role olfactory receptors have played during evolution, since they are also expressed ectopically in different organs and/or tissues. Homologous olfactory genes have in fact been found in such (...) diverse cells and/or organs as spermatozoa, testis and kidney where they are assumed to act as chemotactic sensors or renin modulators. To justify their functional diversity, homologous olfactory receptors are assumed to share the same basic role: that of conferring a self-identity to cells or tissues under varying environmental conditions. By adopting this standpoint, the functional attribution as olfactory or chemotactic sensors to these receptors should not be seen either as a cause conditioning receptor gene expression, or as a final effect resulting from genetically predetermined programs, but as a direct consequence of the environmental conditions olfactory receptor genes have explored during evolution. The association of odorant patterns with specific environmental or contextual situations makes their relationship semiotically triadic, due to the emergence of an interpretant capable of perceiving odorants as meaningful signs out of a noisy background. This perspective highlights the importance of odorant-receptor relationships as respect to the properties of the interacting partners. It is our contention that only when taken together can these different explanatory strategies provide a realistic account of how olfactory receptor genes have been structurally and functionally modified during evolution. (shrink)

El trabajo tiene como hilo conductor la diferenciación efectuada por P. Ricoeur respecto del lenguaje entre la lengua, el discurso oral, la escritura y la lectura. Cada uno de estos modos de lenguaje puede ser examinado según los fenómenos de la temporalidad, la subjetividad, el mundo y la intersubjetividad. Siguiendo a M. Presas, este esquema se aplica al arte y a su función de dejar que las cosas se manifiesten en su plena presencia. Se destaca su énfasis en la liberación (...) efectuada por el arte respecto de la limitación fáctica de nuestra situación finita. Esto se logra mediante la apertura a la verdad de una existencia posible que no se identifica con una evasión de la realidad. Los análisis de Presas se centran en P. Klee y F. Marc, y destacan los rasgos distintivos relacionados con los mencionados fenómenos. En el intento de ofrecer un complemento a este examen, se mencionan las interpretaciones de Merleau-Ponty sobre P. Cézanne, de M. Henry sobre V. Kandinsky y de J.-C. Marion sobre G. Courbet. Se muestra que en ellas también se encuentran explicitaciones de lo que Presas ha afirmado sobre la discordia, el ser insular y la ausencia de apremio. (shrink)

O ensaio busca problematizar o Símbolo como o elemento que estabelece o cortejoentre o sagrado e o secular, tanto na escritura quanto na leitura da Bíblia, ao tensionar a suaprevalecente dimensão sagrada com o seu irrecusável aspecto humanístico e literário. Afundamentação teórica recai sobre a trajetória de pesquisa do pensador francês Gilbert Durand(1921-2012) sobre o símbolo e o imaginário, bem como a denúncia que ele efetua ao que elechama de esvaziamento simbólico do pensamento ocidental; e sobre os estudos dos críticosliterários (...) John B. Gabel, Charles B. Wheeler, Northrop Frye (1912-1991), Robert Alter e FrankKermode (1919-2010) da relação entre a Bíblia e a literatura. (shrink)

Semen est sanguis Christianorum!—‘the blood of Christians is seed’—writes Tertullian at the end of his Apologeticum. This summing-up has justly become a cornerstone of Christian the...

In this extraordinary contribution to Nietzsche studies, Robert Alejandro offers an original interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy viewed as a complete whole. Alejandro painstakingly traces the different ways in which Nietzsche reconfigured and shifted his analyses of morality and of the human condition, until he was content with the final result: nothing was dispensable; everything was necessary. This is a philosophy of reconciliation--hardly nihilism--and it is a perspective that is not adequately addressed elsewhere in the literature on Nietzsche. Alejandro traces (...) the evolution of Nietzsche's thought by identifying the different layers of his philosophy, expressed in a complex array of stories and historical narratives. Alejandro analyzes the different stories of Nietzsche, places those stories within a tradition of genealogical theorizing, and interprets both the stories and the genealogy in terms of one of Nietzsche's unique features, his use of "historiobiography." According to Alejandro, historiobiography blends the idea of an attunement with all history and one's awareness of this attunement. As a mode of philosophizing, historiobiography allows Nietzsche to view all human history as if it runs through his own life and thoughts. Alejandro argues that Nietzsche deployed three strategies to find relief from his sense of the meaninglessness of life: his magnified concept of what he himself represented in human history, his doctrine of the eternal recurrence, and his philosophy of reconciliation. "I am confident that this book will be considered essential reading for any scholar doing serious research into Nietzsche's thought and its implications.... The author carefully traces the shifts and turns and occasionally the contradictions and dead-ends in the development of Nietzsche's major themes. I have never read an account of Nietzsche's thought as fully and convincingly supported by textual reference as this book. Others will disagree with the author's readings of Nietzsche, that is the nature of scholarship, but I cannot see how they could be ignored." --_Edward Portis, Texas A & M University_ "This is a major work on Nietzsche. Robert Alejandro offers us a reading of Nietzsche's Herculean efforts that Nietzsche scholars and scholars who write about modernity and postmodernity will be unable to ignore. This wide ranging and deep book addresses major issues in cultural history, psychoanalysis, cultural anthropology, and the vast literature on modernity and secularization. I expect this to be a book that generates debate and discussion for years to come." --_Robert Hollinger, Iowa State University_ "Robert Alejandro delivers a rich, lively account of Nietzsche's quest for meaning. By focusing on the theme of _historiobiography_, Alejandro illuminates Nietzsche's bold attempt to place himself at the center of a comprehensive account of the rise and fall of Western civilization. A thoughtful, well-crafted book, written very much in the spirit of Nietzsche himself." --_Daniel Conway, Texas A & M University_. (shrink)

Este artigo constitui-se num exercício de refiguração de uma noção filosófica e literária clássica no âmbito da estética contemporânea, cuja referência é a tragédia Persas, de Ésquilo, a saber, o conceito de hýbris. Este, na figura de Xerxes, manifesta-se em sua soberba ao tentar derrotar os gregos, comandando numeroso exército na batalha de Salamina. Punido pelos deuses por tal desmedida, no êxodo da obra, surge como um imperador derrotado, trajando esfarrapadas vestes reais. Num diálogo com a arte na contemporaneidade, a (...) discussão empreendida pelo artigo é a de refigurar o mencionado conceito como presença potente na manifestação performática criada por Hélio Oiticica: os parangolés. Com esse intuito, este texto está dividido em três movimentos fundamentais: a) a apresentação dos fundamentos clássicos da hýbris, b) a problematização da presença deste conceito na tragédia Persas, de Ésquilo e, finalmente, c) a transmutação por que passa o conceito de hýbris, da perspectiva negativa clássica, presente na tragédia grega, para a estética positiva contemporânea, ostentada nos parangolés de Oiticica. (shrink)