This is one more edition of Voltaire's "Candide", meant to highlight the wealth of philosophical and theological discussions hidden behind the apparently innocent veil of the most renowned fable of modernity. The rather extended apparatus accordingly consists of a series of short chapters by Filippo Bruni on the Enlightenment and Metaphysics, and in more detail, on theology, Free choice, the problem of evil, and happiness in an imperfect world and another by Sergio Cremaschi on the Enlightenment and morality, and (...) in more detail on moral universalism, religion without metaphysics, toleration, and pacifism. -/- Table of contents I. Before the text A trick for priests A scandalous book Garden with view -/- II. Text Candide or optimism -/- III. Context Biography 1. The seven years war 2. Calvinists and Socinians 3. Jiansenists and Gesuits 4. Marranos and inquisitors 5. Conquistadores and slave-traders 6. Paraguay under the Jesuits -/- IV. Co-text 1. Enlightenment and Metaphysics 1.1. Theology 1.2. Free choice 1.3. The problem of evil 1.4. Being happy in an imperfect world -/- 2. Enlightenment and morality 2.1. Universal morality 2.2. Religion without Metaphysics 2.3. Toleration 2.4. Pacifism -/- 3. Enlightenment and the images of other places 3.1. The image of Eldorado 3.2. The image of Paraguay 3.3 The image of the Islamic world 3.4. The image of the Jew -/- 4. The conte philosophique -/- Bibliography Lexicon Index of names and concepts -/- V. Reader’s guide. (shrink)

Scientists have always attempted to explain the world in terms of a few unifying principles. In the fifth century B.C. Democritus boldly claimed that reality is simply a collection of indivisible and eternal parts or atoms. Over the centuries his doctrine has remained a landmark, and much progress in physics is due to its distinction between subjective perception and objective reality. This book discusses theory reduction in physics, which states that the whole is nothing more than the sum of its (...) parts: the properties of things are directly determined by their constituent parts. Reductionism deals with the relation between different theories that address different levels of reality, and uses extrapolations to apply that relation in different sciences. Reality shows a complex structure of connections, and the dream of a unified interpretation of all phenomena in several simple laws continues to attract anyone with genuine philosophical and scientific interests. If the most radical reductionist point of view is correct, the relationship between disciplines is strictly inclusive: chemistry becomes physics, biology becomes chemistry, and so on. Eventually, only one science, indeed just a single theory, would survive, with all others merging in the Theory of Everything. Is the current coexistence of different sciences a mere historical venture which will end when the Theory of Everything has been established? Can there be a unified description of nature? Rather than an analysis of full reductionism, this book focuses on aspects of theory reduction in physics and stimulates reflection on related questions: is there any evidence of actual reduction? Are the examples used in the philosophy of science too simplistic? What has been endangered by the search for (the) ultimate truth? Has the dream of reductionist reason created any monsters? Is big science one such monster? What is the point of embedding science Y within science X, if predictions cannot be made on that basis? (shrink)

Panel data from the German SOEP is used to test for risk vulnerability in the wider population. Two different survey responses are analysed: the response to the question about willingness-to-take risk in general and the chosen investment in a hypothetical lottery. A convenient indicator of background risk is the VDAX index, an established measure of volatility in the German stock market. This is used as an explanatory variable in conjunction with HDAX, the stock market index, which proxies wealth. The impacts (...) of these measures on risk attitude are identifiable by exploiting the time dimension of the panel and matching survey months with corresponding observations from these time-varying factors. Both of the survey responses allow us to test for decreasing absolute risk aversion ; in one case, we find strong evidence of DARA, while in the other, we do not. Both survey responses also allow us to test for RV, and in both cases we find strong evidence. In the case of the hypothetical lottery response, we are also able to estimate a “coefficient of risk vulnerability”. This is defined as the absolute amount by which absolute risk aversion rises in response to a doubling of background risk. We estimate CRV to be between 1.03 and 1.27. (shrink)

En 1895 Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) escribe Las Reglas del Método Sociológico (RMS). No se trataría ya de metafísica social o de filosofía social sino de una sobria práctica epistemológica asentada en la Universidad y legitimada social y políticamente. Descartes y Durkheim pueden ser considerados..

This paper focuses on order-preserving logics defined from varieties of distributive lattices with negation, and in particular on the problem of whether these can be axiomatized by means Hilbert-style calculi that are finite. On the negative side, we provide a syntactic condition on the equational presentation of a variety that entails failure of finite axiomatizability for the corresponding logic. An application of this result is that the logic of all distributive lattices with negation is not finitely axiomatizable; we likewise establish (...) that the order-preserving logic of the variety of all Ockham algebras is also not finitely axiomatizable. On the positive side, we show that an arbitrary subvariety of semi-De Morgan algebras is axiomatized by a finite number of equations if and only if the corresponding order-preserving logic is axiomatized by a finite Hilbert-style calculus. This equivalence also holds for every subvariety of a Berman variety of Ockham algebras. We obtain, as a corollary, a new proof that the implication-free fragment of intuitionistic logic is finitely axiomatizable, as well as a new corresponding Hilbert-style calculus. Our proofs are constructive in that they allow us to effectively convert an equational presentation of a variety of algebras into a Hilbert-style calculus for the corresponding order-preserving logic, and vice versa. We also consider the assertional logics associated to the above-mentioned varieties, showing in particular that the assertional logics of finitely axiomatizable subvarieties of semi-De Morgan algebras are finitely axiomatizable as well. (shrink)

Introduction. The book is a study in Adam Smith's system of ideas; its aim is to reconstruct the peculiar framework that Adam Smith’s work provided for the shaping of a semi-autonomous new discipline, political economy; the approach adopted lies somewhere in-between the history of ideas and the history of economic analysis. My two claims are: i) The Wealth of Nations has a twofold structure, including a `natural history' of opulence and an `imaginary machine' of wealth. The imaginary machine is a (...) kind of Newtonian theory, whose connecting links are principles; provided either by `partial' characteristics of human nature or by analoga of physical mechanisms transferred to the social world; ii) a domain of the economic, understood as a self-standing social sub-system, was discovered first by Adam Smith. His `discovery' of the new continent of the economic was an `unintended result' of a deviation in his voyage to the never-found archipelago of natural jurisprudence. -/- 1. Imaginary machines and invisible chains: natural philosophy and method. The first chapter reconstructs Smith's views on the method in natural philosophy, presented primarily in the History of Astronomy (HA). The peculiar kind of semi-sceptical Newtonianism which permeates the essay is highlighted. Its reconstruction of the history of one natural science is shown to be based on the assumptions of Hume’s epistemology, and to lead to a self-aware deadlock. Smith's dilemma is between an essentialist realism and sceptical instrumentalism; the Cartesian presuppositions he shares with Hume and with the 18th century as a whole make it impossible for him to overcome his dilemma. The following chapters will show how, on the one hand, Smith's skeptical methodology encourages him in the enterprise to `carve off' a new self-contained discipline and how, on the other hand, his epistemological dilemma is reflected in the inner tensions of his moral and political theory as well as in a number of basic oscillations concerning the status of the new discipline. -/- 2. Chessboards and clocks: moral philosophy and method. -/- The second chapter reconstructs Smith's views on the method in the parallel field of moral philosophy, including the theory of moral sentiments and natural jurisprudence. I argue that The Theory of Moral Sentiments, when considered together with with the Lectures on Jurisprudence, where Smith's peculiar version of a `weaker' form of natural law is presented, wins special interest, not only for the history of ethics but even more for the history of political theory and the social sciences. The two most striking features of Smith's work in this area are highlighted. First, his effort at reformulating the `practical science' is a methodologically self-aware attempt at applying the Newtonian method to moral subjects. Secondly, this attempt ends in a stalemate as two distinguished kinds of normative order are introduced: one ultimate order of Reason, ultimately justifiable but inaccessible, and one weaker order of our `natural sentiments', to which we have empirical access, but which is so variable as to lack any ultimate value as a basis for grounding our normative claims. These two parallel conundrums may arguably account for the author's inability to publish during his lifetime both The History of Astronomy and the projected history and theory of law and government. -/- 3. Wheels, dams, and gravitation: the structure of scientific argument in The Wealth of Nations. -/- The third chapter provides the core of the book, dealing with the structure of the argument in WN. I argue that the main presupposition that makes the shift possible from a `natural history' to a `system' approach is the Newtonian contrast of `mathematical' with `physical' explanation; that is, Smith drops any discussion of the "original qualities" of human nature that could account for economic behaviour, while introducing, as `principles' for the system, a set of `hypothetical' statements of `observed' regularities in human behaviour and of `observed' super-individual self-regulating mechanisms. In bringing this presupposition to light, the coexistence of a teleological with a mechanistic approach is clarified; fresh light is shed on the notion of the invisible hand by a comparison of its occurrence in Smith with the occurrence of the same expression (until now overlooked) in the correspondence between Newton and Cotes. Finally, the peculiar semi-prescriptive and semi-descriptive character of political economy are highlighted, and the consistency of Smith's `impure' semi-prescriptive social science, when understood in his own terms, is defended against familiar charges with inconsistency and against even more familiar strained modernizations. -/- 4. Apples, deer, and frivolous trinkets: the construction of the economic. -/- The fourth chapter draws consequences from the third, examining how Smith's achievement in political economy, marking its transition to scientific status, carried a re-description of the phenomena, creating the comparatively independent and unified field of the economic. Smith's achievement is interpreted not as the `discovery' of an autonomous character already possessed by the economy out there, so much as a Gestalt-switch by which our perception of social phenomena is modified making us `see' the partial order of the economy as an isolated system. To sum up, the autonomy of the economic in social reality and the autonomy of the economic in social consciousness are shown to be two sides of one process. -/- 5. Concluding considerations: Political economy and the Enlightenment halved. -/- A few suggestions on the status of economic theory two centuries after The Wealth of Nations in its relationship to ‘practical philosophy’ are illustrated. (shrink)

John Holloway, the well-known sociologist who revolutionized the academic environment and political de bates with his book Change the World with out Taking Power, visited Argentina again in September, 2006, to give seminars. This dialogue took place in the city Mar del Plata. In it, notions of cr..

The paper discusses Ricardo's relationship to Mill and Bentham. It discusses first the origins of the myth of Ricardo's dependence from Bentham through Mill, and Halévy's contribution to the freezing of such a myth. The paper reconstructs what were their shared political commitments and activities and the kind of specific political views and agenda that may be ascribed to Ricardo himself. The paper discusses then the question of Ricardo's adhesion to Benthamite ethics. It examines fragments in Ricardo's correspondence with Maria (...) Edgeworth and Francis Place, and adds fresh light on the issue by highlighting the partial overlapping between Bentham's ethics and the kind of intuitionism with theological consequentialism that Ricardo had learned from the Unitarian minister Thomas Belsham. (shrink)

The occasion for this dialogue on Elisabeth Anscombe’s legacy for twenty-first-century ethics came with the publication in Italian of the collection of her ethical writings (G. E. M. Anscombe, Scritti di etica con un saggio di Peter Geach, a cura di S. Cremaschi, Morcelliana, Brescia 2022). In addition to making Anscombe’s ethical writings accessible to the Italian public, the book brings together her contribution to practical philosophy to its full extent for the first time. Vaccarezza's essay discusses Anscombe’s critique of (...) the modern law-based view of ethics. Magri’s contribution focuses on Anscombe’s anti-anti-naturalism, aiming to unearth the twofold agenda in her project of meta-critique of modern moral philosophy. De Anna's paper sets out to examine the role of Wittgensteinian ways of thinking in Anscombe’s proposed restructuring of modern ethics. (shrink)

Reunindo pesquisadores e intelectuais do Brasil, da França, da Bélgica e do Canadá nesse “Dossiê Cornelius Castoriadis”, a Revista Dissertatio celebra o centenário de nascimento desse que continua um pensador a ser descoberto e redescoberto pelo público brasileiro.

We critically analyse the point of view for which laws of nature are just a mean to compress data. Discussing some basic notions of dynamical systems and information theory, we show that the idea that the analysis of large amount of data by means of an algorithm of compression is equivalent to the knowledge one can have from scientific laws, is rather naive. In particular we discuss the subtle conceptual topic of the initial conditions of phenomena which are generally incompressible. (...) Starting from this point, we argue that laws of nature represent more than a pure compression of data, and that the availability of large amount of data, in general, is not particularly useful to understand the behaviour of complex phenomena. (shrink)

The editor's introduction discusses Clarence I. Lewis's conceptual pragmatism when compared with post-empiricist epistemology and argues that several Cartesian assumptions play a major role in the work, not unlike those of Logical Positivism. The suggestion is made that the Cartesian legacy still hidden in Logical Positivism turns out to be a rather heavy ballast for Lewis’s project of restructuring epistemology in a pragmatist key. More in detail, the sore point is the nature of inter-subjectivity. For Lewis, no less than for (...) the Logical Positivists at the time of the Protocols Controversy and Husserl in the Cartesian Meditations, this is a problem without a solution. The reason is that all these philosophers are apparently unable to realize that the existence of a plurality of knowing subjects cannot be treated at once both as a speculative problem and a methodological one. Lewis, thanks to his pragmatist approach both comes closer to the right answer and offers an even more naïve unsatisfactory solution to the pseudo-problem under discussion. The fact that he has clear in mind that inter-subjectivity means not only a plurality of linguistic utterances but also a co-existence of different kinds of practical behaviour. Eventually, the very idea of mind, the key-idea in the book, suffers from the above mentioned tension. In fact, if inter-subjective communication and action is considered at a methodological level, the very idea of mind would not need an analysis, and no kind of ‘reflexive’ analysis. Methodology might be limited to a ‘naïve’ level where the existence of the world and a plurality of subjects be taken as a bedrock of uncritically accepted evidence. Philosophical reflection on ultimate evidence, instead, would take a different approach, maybe the one Wittgenstein was putting into practice in the same years when Mind and the world order was written, namely it would be bound to question the very meaning of the idea of ‘mind’ as an undue fiction – the same carried out by Descartes – when he assumed the Cogito to be at once a body of self-evident truths and a thing or substance, the familiar Platonic idea of psyche or soul. (shrink)

A discussion of the correspondence between Malthus and Ricardo and its bearing on their published works.

I argue the existence of two tensions in Smith's system of ideas: the first is that between the postulate of an invisible noumenal order of the universe and the imaginary principles by means of which we connect the phenomena; the second is a tension between the noumenal order of the world where 'is' and 'ought' converge, and the various partial orders that may be reconstructed in social phenomena that leave room for irrationality and injustice. My first claim is that these (...) tensions are dialectical tensions in a unitary, albeit rhapsodically presented in writing. My second claim is that, the system’s unanswered question in the moral domain is a ‘metaphysical’ and ‘theological’ question, namely the problem of evil; by implication, I contend also that Smith was no secularist, but instead a post-skeptical fideist or agnostic, who took Bayle's question: "why are men wicked and unhappy?" quite seriously. His private ethics of prudence, justice, benevolence and his public ethics of liberty, justice, equality were modest proposals for coping with the problem of social evil in our imperfect world. (shrink)

Neste artigo refletimos sobre a oralidade no Batuque Gaúcho. Nessa direção, o principal objetivo é o de problematizar a oralidade nos processos de instituição de poder hierárquico nessas organizações/terreiros. Para isso, empreendermos revisão bibliográfica e acionamos dados de pesquisa empírica realizada por [ocultado para avaliação cega], que consistiu na realização de entrevistas com sete pais/mães de santo. Os dados empíricos foram interpretados à luz da análise de conteúdo (BARDIN, 2016). Como principais resultados inferimos que a oralidade é, em si, materialização (...) de poder hierárquico (o poder de fala outorgado e legitimado), exige escuta e atenção (submete os sujeitos que não têm o poder de falar a observação), bem como gera disputas e reordenamento na estrutura de poder (hierarquia). (shrink)

Resumen Las interfaces cerebro-computadora (ICCs) son tecnologías que proveen herramientas para la comunicación entre el ser humano y las computadoras. Dado que las nuevas técnicas asociadas a ICCs podrían influir en la autorregulación emocional, la memoria autobiográfica, el sentido del yo, la identidad, la autonomía, la autenticidad y las atribuciones de responsabilidad presentan importantes objeciones éticas. Entender las consecuencias a largo plazo de estas nuevas tecnologías puede ser difícil. Por lo tanto, los aspectos éticos vinculados a las ICCs necesitan ser (...) continuamente revisados a la par de los avances técnicos en el área. El personalismo ontológicamente fundado se ha formalizado como un camino de reflexión que tiene como referencia una antropología que defiende el valor de la vida física corpórea, la relación libertad-responsabilidad y la adecuada interacción individuo y sociedad y brinda pautas éticas que permitan formular normas de conducta acordes con la dignidad de la persona humana. Por lo tanto, en este artículo se aplican los principios de la bioética personalista al ámbito de las ICCs, de modo tal de dar directrices generales para la acción que puedan contribuir a elaborar un juicio ético acerca del desarrollo y uso de estas neurotecnologías. Abstract Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are technologies that provide tools for communication between humans and computers. Since the new techniques associated with BCIs could influence emotional self-regulation, autobiographical memory, sense of self, identity, autonomy, authenticity, and attributions of responsibility present important ethical objections. Understanding the long-term consequences of these innovative technologies can be difficult. Therefore, the ethical aspects linked to BCIs need to be continuously reviewed in line with technical advances in the area. Ontologically grounded personalism has been formalized as a path of reflection that has as its reference an anthropology that defends the value of corporeal physical life, the relationship between freedom and responsibility, and the appropriate interaction between the individual and society. This approach provides ethical guidelines for the formulation of norms of conduct in accordance with the dignity of the human person. Therefore, in this article, the principles of personalist bioethics are applied to the field of BCIs, in order to provide general guidelines for action that can contribute to the elaboration of an ethical judgment about the development and use of these neurotechnologies. (shrink)

A volume in Advances in Cultural Psychology Series Editor: Jaan Valsiner, Aalborg University This book is long awaited within the contemporarily creative field of cultural psychologies. It is a theoretical synthesis that is at the level of innovations that Sigmund Freud, James Mark Baldwin, William Stern, Kurt Lewin, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky and Jan Smedslund have brought into psychology over the past century (...).Here we can observe a creative solution to integrating cultural psychology with the rich traditions of psychodynamic perspectives, (...) without repeating the conceptual impasses in which many psychoanalytic perspectives have become caught. (Jaan Valsiner). (shrink)

The paper reconstructs Beauvoir's interpretation of the Marxist and the Freudian contributions to our understanding of the feminine condition. A number of epistemological assumptions derived from Sartre's philosophy are pointed out. Beauvoir's reading of Marx, Engels, and Freud is discussed claiming that her reading is biased by humanistic and historicist assumptions.

I reconstruct the discussion originated with publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971. I argue that criticism and counter-criticism has modified in a remarkable way the original points of view with which both alignments joined the discussion.

The well-known Kantian passage on misology in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals starts making fuller sense when located within the framework of Kant writings on philosophy of history where he contrasts civilization with moralization as two different phases in the growth of humankind. In this context, the growth of commerce and manufactures plays a distinctive role, namely that of means of fostering civilization, while pursuing a deceptive goal, namely happiness. Deception plays a basic role in the growth of (...) mankind, in so far as it allows for a hidden twofold teleology in human action. Men, while following the dictates of self-love, are systematically mistaken about the results they actually contribute in bringing about. Commerce brings different peoples into mutual relationship and thus paves the way to a cosmopolitan society. The growth of the arts and sciences provides preconditions for the growth of learned institutions, a free press, and a public opinion that are the basis on which reason may start being used in its critical capacities. This, that is Enlightenment, is a preliminary step to moralization, that is the jump of individuals from a state of minority to a state where they are masters of themselves. The twofold teleology of human action makes room for a system of "pragmatic" ends, and of laws connected to the former, that may be studied rationally in themselves and yet are connected to the higher ends established by reason in its "practical" capacities. (shrink)

I review evidence from published and unpublished sources on Ricardo’s theological ideas. The main focuses of interest are the existence of a natural morality independent of religious confessions, morality as the essence of religion, useless of theological speculation, justification of toleration for everybody, including atheists, and the miscarriage of any attempt at a philosophical theodicy. The paper explores also the connection between Ricardo’s interest for theodicy and his views on the scope and method of political economy and suggests that his (...) opinion that political economy should be a secular and value-free science close to mathematics depends precisely on theological reasons. (shrink)

I argue that Malthus’s Essay on Population is more a treatise in applied ethics than the first treatise in demography. I argue also that, as an ethical work, it is a highly innovative one. The substitution of procreation for sex as the focus makes for a drastic change in the agenda. What had been basically lacking in the discussion up to Malthus’s time was a consideration of human beings’ own responsibility in the decision of procreating. This makes for a remarkable (...) change also in the approach, namely, the discussion becomes an examination of a well-identified issue, taking cause-effect relationships into account in order to assess possible lines of conduct in the light of some, widely shared and comparatively minimal, value judgements. This is more or less the approach of what is now called applied ethics, at least according to one of its accounts, or perhaps to the account shared by a vast majority of its practitioners. In a sense, both the subject matter, sexuality, was substituted with a more restricted issue, namely reproduction, and the traditional approach, moral doctrine, was substituted with a more modest approach, in Malthus’s own words, the ‘moral and political science’. Such a drastic transformation brought about a viable framework, for a discussion of ethical issues that were still unforeseen by Malthus, namely those having to do first with the technical feasibility of eugenics programs and secondly with the scientific discovery of genetics as a field of study but also of possible intervention. Malthus’s ethics had obviously enough nothing to say on those unforeseen issues in so far as it was meant to treat just the ‘quantitative’ dimension of procreation, that is, ‘how many’. Later discussions and controversies will arise around different dimensions, that is, not just ‘how many’ but also ‘how healthy, how strong, how far empowered’. Yet, what Malthus’s lesson can still teach to proponents of opposite views is that the mentioned questions can be construed in such a way as to avoid unending controversy. (shrink)

A discussion of Ricardo's sustained relationship with James Mill as well as of hypotheses by such commentators as Halévy and Hutchison on a decisive philosophical influenco by Mill (eithr Scottish or Benthamite) on Ricardo's eocnomic methodology.

A discussion of the life and work of David Ricardo's forgotten sister, Sarah, the author of a social novel for boys on poverty, work, self-reliance, emigration and the coexistence between different ethnic groups as well as essays on educational subjects.

A brief reconstruction of the birth, rise and ironical destiny of an almost universal expansion to other disciplines going with a dissolution within the original birthplace of the conception of an economic man, a male-only abstraction forgetful of its own abstract character.

The paper aims at finding a way out of deadlocks in Malthus scholarship concerning his relationship to utilitarianism. The main claim is that Malthus viewed his own population theory and political economy as Hifsdisziplinen to moral and political philosophy, that is, empirical enquiries required in order to be able to pronounce justified value judgments on such matters as the Poor Laws. On the other hand, Malthus’s population theory and political economy were no value-free science and his policy advice – far (...) from being “utilitarian” – resulted from his overall system of ideas and was explicitly based on a set of traditional moral assumptions. These in turn were justified by a peculiar meta-ethical theory, which has been named in a somewhat improper way “theological utilitarianism” and which I propose to name instead “consequentialist voluntarism”. The issue of poverty and its remedies is the one where Malthus’s peculiar approach, once applied to a real-world issue, displays it potentialities, yielding a kind of policy-advice that is softer and more flexible than the one that may be drawn from Benthamite utilitarianism. The reconstruction shows how, through subsequent approximations and under pressure of critics, Malthus yields finally a kind of Institutional approach to policies concerning poverty, making room for generalized basic education, free markets for labour and for corn, colonies, and private beneficence. Such a mix of policies should bring about for the lower classes of society “the means of being respectable, virtuous and happy”. -/- . (shrink)