This article draws on Alasdair MacIntyre’s influential theory of practice and employs it as a framework to analyze community organizing, focusing on the organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky. As a practice in MacIntyre’s sense, it argues, community organizing constitutes a teleological form of social activity that is oriented toward distinctive kinds of “internal goods” and that functions to develop new capacities within its practitioners to recognize, desire, and attain those goods, relying on standards of excellence, characteristic institutions, and its own (...) “tradition” of practice. Such a MacIntyrean analysis of organizing foregrounds its ethical character as a practice and tradition of practice, informed by larger moral-cultural traditions. It also shows how organizing embodies, in practice, the core principles of the Catholic social tradition. Thus, it enables a clearer articulation of the conceptual and historical relationship between community organizing and the Catholic social tradition, and lays a theoretical foundation for further dialogue. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é, primeiro, apresentar e considerar as críticas de Paley com mais detalhes e, em seguida, discutir algumas das aplicações significativas da fenomenologia que muitas vezes foram negligenciadas pelos pesquisadores qualitativos. Como foi amplamente demonstrado ao longo dos anos, a fenomenologia pode não apenas fazer a diferença no manuseio, análise e interpretação dos dados disponíveis, mas também em como os dados são obtidos em primeiro lugar, por exemplo, através de técnicas especiais de entrevista. Consideraremos algumas figuras centrais (...) da psicologia fenomenológica clássica e da psiquiatria fenomenológica e apresentaremos alguns dos desenvolvimentos mais recentes na ciência cognitiva. Em seguida, discutiremos três casos concretos que demonstram como a fenomenologia foi aplicada no trabalho clínico com pacientes com esquizofrenia, paralisia cerebral e negligência hemispatial. (shrink)

The brain adapts to changes that take place in the body. Deprivation of input results in size reduction of cortical representations, whereas an increase in input results in an increase of representational space. Amputation forms one of the most dramatic disturbances of the integrity of the body. The brain adapts in many ways to this breakdown of the afferent–efferent equilibrium. However, almost all studies focus on the sensorimotor consequences. It is not known whether adaptation takes place also at other “levels” (...) in the system. The present study addresses the question whether amputees dream about their intact body, as before the amputation, or about the body after the amputation and whether the dream content was a function of time since the amputation and type of amputation. The results show that the majority of the dreamers reported dreams about their intact body although the mean time that elapsed since the amputation was twelve years. There is no clear relation with the type of amputation. The results give modest evidence for the existence of a basic neural representation of the body that is, at least, partly genetically determined and by this relatively insensitive for changes in the sensory input. (shrink)

Summary In the period between the two World Wars, the Portuguese Geological Survey (Serviços Geológicos de Portugal: PGS) was legally dependent on the General Directorate of Mines and Geological Survey (Direcção Geral de Minas e Serviços Geológicos: GDMGS). Portugal was then living through troubled times, and the PGS struggled with financial problems and a lack of technical personnel. This situation did not allow the PGS to work properly as a scientific institution, and achieve its main function: the making and publication (...) of geological maps and research papers. (shrink)

Este artigo reconstrói a análise genealógica de Foucault acerca do neoliberalismo alemão ou ordoliberalismo, para em seguida abordar o problema da relação entre neoliberalismo e sociedade judiciária na contemporaneidade. Na sociedade neoliberal, a promoção da concorrência entre as empresas, inevitavelmente, acarreta conflitos que, em muitos casos, convertem-se em demandas judiciais. Ocorre que a concepção de que os conflitos não devem ser erradicados, mas geridos, reconvertidos em relações de concorrência e devolvidos ao mercado, tem se generalizado entre os operadores do direito. (...) Foucault mostra que se estabelece um círculo vicioso aí: mais concorrência implica mais processos, que implicam mais concorrência, e assim por diante. A sociedade empresarial e a sociedade judiciária são os dois lados de uma mesma moeda. Daí a necessidade de se analisar tanto a judicialização da política quanto a politização do judiciário à luz da crítica genealógica ao neoliberalismo. (shrink)

Peptidylprolyl‐isomerases (PPIases) comprise of the protein families of FK506 binding proteins (FKBPs), cyclophilins, and parvulins. Their common feature is their ability to expedite the transition of peptidylprolyl bonds between the cis and the trans conformation. Thus, it seemed highly plausible that PPIase enzymatic activity is crucial for protein folding. However, this has been difficult to prove over the decades since their discovery. In parallel, more and more studies have discovered scaffolding functions of PPIases. This essay discusses the hypothesis that PPIase (...) enzymatic activity might be the consequence of binding to peptidylprolyl protein motifs. The main focus of this paper is the large immunophilins FKBP51 and FKBP52, but other PPIases such as cyclophilin A and Pin1 are also described. From the hypothesis, it follows that the PPIase activity of these proteins might be less relevant, if at all, than the organization of protein complexes through versatile protein binding. Also see the video abstract here https://youtu.be/A33la0dx5LE. (shrink)

Theo C. Meyering, in “Mind Matters: Physicalism and the Autonomy of the Person,” takes yet a third approach to the issue of reduction. He states that “if (true, downward) mental causation implies nonreducibility [as Stoeger and Murphy argue] and physicalism implies the converse, it is hard to see how these two views could be compatible.” Meyering distinguishes three versions of reductionism: radical (industrial strength) physicalism; ideal (regular strength) physicalism, and mild or token physicalism. Radical physicalism asserts that all special (...) sciences are reducible to physics in the sense that their laws can be deduced via bridge laws from those of physics. Ideal physicalism asserts that while it is practically impossible to reduce the special sciences, such reduction would be possible were there an ideally complete physics" (Note: This distinction parallels Stoeger’s recognition that epistemological reducibility is relative to the meaning of “laws of nature). Token physicalism is ontologically reductionist: there are no events that are not “token-identical” with some physical event or other (Note: See above, sec. 3.3). However, there are no identities between higher-level and lower- level types of events; consequently some events described by the special sciences have no physical explanation at all. -/- All of these reductionist positions are to be contrasted with compositional (milder than mild) physicalism, which asserts that some higher-level events are not even token-identical with physical events because the higher-level event (say, a crash in the stock market) is constituted by innumerable physical particulars in all sorts of states and interactions. -/- Meyering then surveys some of the existing arguments for the nonreducibility of the special sciences. One of the most important is the argument from multiple realizability. The claim is that economics, for example, is not reducible to physics because economic concepts (for example, monetary exchange) are “wildly multiply realizable” (for example, using coins, strings of wampum, signing a check). Thus, there can be no bridge laws and no reduction. Such an argument, however, only cuts against radical physicalism, not the weaker (and a priori more plausible) ideal physicalism. -/- A stronger argument for the indispensability of special-science explanations is based on the role of functional explanations. For example, the functional description of aspirin as an analgesic is in some instances a more useful explanation of its causal role (relieving a headache) than is its description as the chemical level. -/- Meyering’s own contribution focuses neither on multiple realizability of supervenient properties nor on multiple “fillers” of functional roles, but on “multiple supervenience.” In particular, a single subvenient state of affairs (for example, a cloud of free electrons permeating the metal of which a ladder is constructed) may realize a variety of supervenient dispositional properties (in this case, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, opacity). An explanation (say, of the cause of a deadly accident) requires reference to the dispositional property (electrical conductivity), not merely to the subvenient property. Meyering argues that it is this possibility of multiple supervenience, not multiple realizability, that gives arguments against reduction based on functional properties their real force. Downward causation, then, can be understood in terms of selective activation of one of several dispositional properties of a lower-level state, and thus can be assigned a stable place in our picture of how the world is organized without upsetting our conception of physics as constituting a closed and complete system of physical events. (shrink)

Theo Verbeek provides the first book-length examination of the initial reception of Descartes’s written works. Drawing on his research of primary materials written in Dutch and Latin and found in libraries all over Europe, even including the Soviet Union, Theo Verbeek opens a period of Descartes’s life and of the development of Cartesian philosophy that has been virtually closed since Descartes’s death. Verbeek’s aim is to provide as complete a picture as possible of the discussions that accompanied the (...) introduction of Descartes’s philosophy into Dutch universities, especially those in Utrecht and Leiden, and to analyze some of the major problems that philosophy raised in the eyes of Aristotelian philosophers and orthodox theologians. The period covered extends from 1637, the year in which Descartes published his _Discours de la Méthode, _until his death in 1650. Verbeek demonstrates how Cartesian philosophy moved successfully into the schools and universities of Holland and how this resulted in a real evolution of Descartes’s thought beyond the somewhat dogmatic position of Descartes himself. Verbeek further argues that this progression was an essential step in the universal propagation of Cartesian philosophy throughout Europe during the second half of the seventeenth century. As he details the disputes between Cartesians and anti-Cartesians in Holland, Verbeek shows how the questions raised were related on the one hand to religious conflicts between the Remonstrants and the Orthodox Calvinists and on the other hand to political conflicts between more liberal factions fighting for the union of church and state to enhance religious control of society in general. Contending that Descartes and Cartesian philosophy were central to the development of the modern Dutch state, Verbeek illuminates the role they played in Dutch political, religious, and intellectual life. (shrink)

Physicalism ? or roughly the view that the stuff that physics talks about is all the stuff there is ? has had a popular press in philosophical circles during the twentieth century. And yet, at the same time, it has become quite fashionable lately to believe that the mind matters in this world after all and that psychology is an autonomous science irreducible to physics. However, if (true, downward) mental causation implies non-reducibility and Physicalism implies the converse, it is hard (...) to see how these two views could be compatible. This paper reviews some classical arguments purportedly showing how the autonomy of the special sciences can be upheld without violating the laws of physics or the principle that physics constitutes a complete and closed system. These arguments are presented in order of increasing strength, indicating how the more popular arguments in fact fall short of establishing anti-reductionism of the intended kind. New arguments are added which claim to demonstrate quite effectively how downward causation is possible compatibly with the reign of physics. The paper begins with a section which distinguishes various kinds of reductionism. (shrink)

"Philosophical Foundations of India" is a 1945 work by Theos Bernard. Within it, he attempts to outline the fundamental principles of the six classic systems of Hindu philosophy, namely: Nyaya, Vaisesika, Samkhya, Yoga, and Vedanta. Presented in a clear, easy-to-understand form, this volume is highly recommended for those looking for an introduction to Indian philosophy and related subjects. Contents: "Preface," "Introduction," "Nyaya," "Vaisesika," "Semkhya," "Yoga," "Mimamsa," "Vedanta," "Kasmir Saivism," "Bibliography," "Glossary." Theos Casimir Bernard (1908-194) was an author and explorer most (...) famous for his work on yoga and religious studies, especially Tibetan Buddhism. Other notable works by this author include: "Heaven Lies Within Us" (1939), and "Penthouse of the Gods" (1939). Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author. (shrink)

"When a country legalizes active euthanasia, it puts itself on a slippery slope from where it may well go further downward." If true, this is a forceful argument in the battle of those who try to prevent euthanasia from becoming legal. The force of any slippery slope argument, however, is by definition limited by its reference to future developments which cannot empirically be sustained. Experience in the Netherlands—where a law regulating active euthanasia was accepted in April 2001—may shed light on (...) the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the slippery slope argument in the context of the euthanasia debate. This paper consists of three parts. First, it clarifies the Dutch legislation on euthanasia and explains the cultural context in which it originated. Second, it looks at the argument of the slippery slope. A logical and an empirical version are distinguished, and the latter, though philosophically less interesting, proves to be most relevant in the discussion on euthanasia. Thirdly, it addresses the question whether Dutch experiences in the process of legalizing euthanasia justify the fear of a slippery slope. The conclusion is that Dutch experiences justify some caution. (shrink)

Este trabalho tem por objetivo apresentar algumas considerações sobre a noção da experiência no âmbito da filosofia da educação. Na transposição dos ideais formativos iluminista e romântico para os sistemas escolares ocorre a marginalização da experiência, a centralidade das noções modelares hegemônicas (a cientifica-especializada e a crítica-reflexiva) e o problema da redução da experiência ao empírico. Na contemporaneidade, indicamos caminhos alternativos para a retomada da experiência no campo de estudos da filosofia da educação.

This collection of 21 essays explores the creative interaction among the cognitive neurosciences, philosophy, and theology. It is the result of an international research conference co-sponsored by the Vatican Observatory, Rome, and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Berkeley.

O que aqui se pretende é analisar a forma voltairiana de relacionar arte e política presente em sua obra, apontando seus alcances e limites a partir da noção da relação entre arte e política em Jacques Rancière. Para tal, este trabalho se divide em três momentos: no primeiro, expor a proposta voltairiana de relacionar arte e política; em seguida, entender como essa relação se dá a partir de categorias de Rancière – “partilha do sensível”, “estética da política”, “política”, “polícia”, “dissenso” (...) etc – e, por fim, aplicar essas categorias à proposta de Voltaire de relacionar arte e política com o fim de verificar se sua obra efetiva a relação almejada. (shrink)

En este artículo me propongo discutir si la propiedad de la recursión supone una buena explicación de la especificidad humana. Para ello, analizaré dos aproximaciones al estudio del lenguaje humano: las concepciones computacional y antropológica. La principal conclusión de este trabajo es doble. Por un lado, la recursión no es una buena explicación de la esencia humana. Por otro, lo que sí es específicamente humano es la construcción de una mitología, análoga a la metafísica, revestida en este caso con el (...) lenguaje de la ciencia. (shrink)

O mito das Danaides é registrado com variações em diversos textos poéticos e não poéticos da Antiguidade Clássica. Neste artigo são recolhidos e traduzidos os principais textos que colaboram para construir a recepção do mito em suas tentativas de se construir uma saga para figuras femininas e suas ambivalências.

Fueled by ever-growing amounts of (digital) data and advances in artificial intelligence, decision-making in contemporary societies is increasingly delegated to automated processes. Drawing from social science theories and from the emerging body of research about algorithmic appreciation and algorithmic perceptions, the current study explores the extent to which personal characteristics can be linked to perceptions of automated decision-making by AI, and the boundary conditions of these perceptions, namely the extent to which such perceptions differ across media, (public) health, and judicial (...) contexts. Data from a scenario-based survey experiment with a national sample (N = 958) show that people are by and large concerned about risks and have mixed opinions about fairness and usefulness of automated decision-making at a societal level, with general attitudes influenced by individual characteristics. Interestingly, decisions taken automatically by AI were often evaluated on par or even better than human experts for specific decisions. Theoretical and societal implications about these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Introduction and Overview Content Type Journal Article Category Introduction Pages 151-163 DOI 10.1007/s10670-011-9288-9 Authors Theo Kuipers, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands Gerhard Schurz, Department of Philosophy, University of Duesseldorf, Universitaetsstrasse 1, Geb. 23.21, 40225 Duesseldorf, Germany Journal Erkenntnis Online ISSN 1572-8420 Print ISSN 0165-0106 Journal Volume Volume 75 Journal Issue Volume 75, Number 2.

This monograph presents new ideas in nomic truth approximation. It features original and revised papers from a philosopher of science who has studied the concept for more than 35 years. Over the course of time, the author's initial ideas evolved. He discovered a way to generalize his first theory of nomic truth approximation, viz. by dropping an unnecessarily strong assumption. In particular, he first believed to have to assume that theories were maximally specific in the sense that they did not (...) only exclude certain conceptual possibilities, but also that all non-excluded possibilities were in fact claimed to be nomically possible. Now, he argues that the exclusion claim alone, or for that matter the inclusion claim alone, is sufficient to motivate the formal definition of being closer to the nomic truth. The papers collected here detail this generalized view of nomic truthlikeness or verisimilitude. Besides this, the book presents, in adapted form, the relation with several other topics, such as, domain revision, aesthetic progress, abduction, inference to the best explanation, pragmatic aspects, probabilistic methods, belief revision and epistemological positions, notably constructive realism. Overall, the volume presents profound insight into nomic truth approximation. This idea seeks to determine how one theory can be closer to, or more similar to, the truth about what is nomically, e.g. physically, chemically, biologically, possible than another theory. As a result, it represents the ultimate goal of theory oriented empirical science. Theo Kuipers is the author of Studies in Inductive Probability and Rational Expectation, From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism and Structures in Science. He is the volume-editor of the Handbook on General Philosophy of Science. In 2005 there appeared two volumes of Essays in Debate with Theo Kuipers, entitled Confirmation, Empirical Progress, and Truth Approximation and Cognitive Structures in Scientific Inquiry. (shrink)

Dividido entre a filosofia e a poesia, Hölderlin e seu drama incompleto A morte de Empédocles são hoje peças essenciais para se pensar o trágico na Modernidade. Ponte entre a nostalgia da Antiguidade e uma filosofia que nega o projeto metafísico do Idealismo Alemão – projeto que Hölderlin, ironicamente, ajudou a erigir – esta empreitada hölderliniana é uma singular investigação não somente da relação entre arte e pensamento, mas também coloca em questão a constituição da própria Modernidade.

The growing body of literature on the idea of the Anthropocene has opened up serious questions that go to the heart of the social and human sciences. There has been as yet no satisfactory theoretical framework for the analysis of the Anthropocene debate in the social and human sciences. The notion of the Anthropocene is not only a condition in which humans have become geologic agents, thus signalling a temporal shift in Earth history: it can be seen as a new (...) object of knowledge and an order of governance. A promising direction for theorizing in the social and human science is to approach the notion of the Anthropocene as exemplified in new knowledge practices that have implications for governance. It invokes new conceptions of time, agency, knowledge and governance. The Anthropocene has become a way in which the human world is re-imagined culturally and politically in terms of its relation with the Earth. It entails a cultural model, that is an interpretative category by which contemporary societies make sense of the world as embedded in the Earth, and articulate a new kind of historical self-understanding, by which an alternative order of governance is projected. This points in the direction of cosmopolitics – and thus of a ‘Cosmopolocene’ – rather than a geologization of the social or in the post-humanist philosophy, the end of the human condition as one marked by agency. (shrink)

Estudos indicam que o estresse altera o sistema imune e pode influir na etiologia, progressão e severidade de doenças. A resiliência pode ser definida como a capacidade que algumas pessoas desenvolvem e as ajudam a passar por situações adversas na vida, a superá-las, e ainda a saírem fortalecidas ou..

Partindo de dois modelos clássicos que fundamentaram a emergência do conceito do que entendemos hoje enquanto cidade, a polis e a civitas, este texto busca compreender e questionar a cidade contemporânea em sua condição metropolitana, marcada por políticas de imobilidade e sufocamento que demandam uma intensa produção de subjetividades. Trazendo pensadores dos campos da filosofia e da política como Giorgio Agamben, Massimo Cacciari e Vinícius NicastroHonesko, entre outros, nos propomos a pensar outras chaves de relações para o que denominamos cidade, (...) que sejam capazes de produzir modos de habitá-la para além da metrópole. Uma cidade outra, espaço de composição e transposição de mundos que não se encerre em si mesma; uma cidade ainda por vir.Palavras-chave: Cidade. Metrópole. Mundo. Política. Habitar. (shrink)

The biological body: The body as thing in a postphenomenological perspective In phenomenology the lived body (le corps vécu) is considered as the subject of reflection while the biological body (le corps objective) is destined for medical sciences. As an alternative I give a view on the basis of the philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner who thinks a person as a subject to have a lived body (Leib) and a biological body (Körper) from an eccentric or third perspective (excentric positionality). (...) A person experiences herself from that eccentric point of view as a lived body and at the same time as a biological and instrumental body. These two perceptions can only be characterized as a dual aspect (Doppelaspekt), and cannot be separated from each other. Plessner moreover considers the biological body as a thing among other things. I place this bodily thing in a postphenomenological perspective as worked out by Don Ihde and discuss the idea to consider it as a mediating thing between the person who has it and at the same time is it as a lived body in the world she lives in. I work out the effects on the person in case of organ transplantation or implantation of artefacts in the postphenomenological perspective of the embodiment and the hermeneutic relation. I conclude that from that perspective both relations appear to be too simple to elucidate what really takes place in a patient and suggest that in case of incorporation of organs or artefacts the postphenomenological mediating relations should be expanded to a triadic (semiotic) variant of mediating technologies that considers the biological body itself as mediating thing in order to encompass the whole of the human experiences including meaning. (shrink)