Being portrayed as possessing inwardness, Pip, the lead character in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, thinks by himself and changes as an effect of this thinking. This characteristic makes him mature and achieve a full self at the end of the novel. Pip’s self, his personality, takes form in his acceptance of a need for pain, which is observed in his relationship with Estella, his childhood love. Estella does not love him back, but Pip, even without developing a sexual relationship with (...) her, as the ambiguous ending of the novel suggests, accepts the painful nature of love. In other words, he accepts being close to her even though their relationship is painful to him. My main claim, thus, is that the reconciliatory acceptance of his need for pain configures the comic aspect of Pip’s personality and the comic sense of the novel. (shrink)

The foundations of biology have been a topic of debate for the past few decades. The traditional perspective of the Modern Synthesis, which portrays organisms as passive entities with limited role in evolutionary theory, is giving way to a new paradigm where organisms are recognized as active agents, actively shaping their own phenotypic traits for adaptive purposes. Within this context, this article raises the question of whether contemporary biological theory is undergoing a cognitive revolution. This inquiry can be approached in (...) two ways: from a theoretical standpoint, exploring the centrality of the cognitive sciences in current theoretical biology; and from a historical perspective, examining the resemblance between the current state of theoretical biology and the Cognitive Revolution of the mid-20th century. Both inquiries yield affirmative answers, though important nuances will be emphasized. The cognitive sciences' explanatory framework is employed to elucidate the agentic characteristics of organisms, establishing a clear parallelism between the Cognitive Revolution and the present state of theoretical biology. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper argues that a central explanatory role for the concept of Umwelt in theoretical biology is to be found in developmental biology, in particular in the effort to understand development as a goal-directed and adaptive process that is controlled by the organism itself. I will reach this conclusion in two (interrelated) ways. The first is purely theoretical and relates to the current scenario in the philosophy of biology. Challenging neo-Darwinism requires a new understanding of the various components involved (...) in natural selection processes. An important prerequisite for the explanation is the ability to understand development in a teleological way. Here, the concept of Umwelt plays a crucial role: if organisms are responsible for generating adaptive variation in specific environments, we need a theory that explains the context-dependent nature of adaptively oriented processes. The Umwelt is thus a central element in determining the goal that an adaptive process pursues. The second path in my analysis also has a historical dimension. I will present Karl Ernst von Baer’s reflections on teleological development and his influence on von Uexküll's thinking. I will present various ideas developed by von Baer, such as the distinction between Ziel and Zweck and the use of musical metaphors, which can help to understand development teleologically and give von Uexküll’s theory a central place in this framework. (shrink)

Disputes about the causal structure of natural selection have implications for teleosemantics. Etiological, mainstream teleosemantics is based on a causalist view of natural selection. The core of its solution to Brentano’s Problem lies in the solution to Kant’s Puzzle provided by the Modern Synthesis concerning populational causation. In this paper, I suggest that if we adopt an alternative, statisticalist view on natural selection, the door is open for two reflections. First, it allows for setting different challenges to etiological teleosemantics that (...) arise if a statisticalist reading of natural selection is right. Second, by providing a different solution to Kant’s Puzzle based on individual causes of evolution, statisticalism promotes a different answer to Brentano’s Problem, what I label as Agential Teleosemantics. (shrink)

The field of the philosophy of biology is flourishing in its aim to evaluate and rethink the view inherited from the previous century ---the Modern Synthesis. Different research areas and theories have come to the fore in the last decades in order to account for different biological phenomena that, in the first instance, fall beyond the explanatory scope of the Modern Synthesis. This thesis is anchored and motivated by this revolt in the philosophy of biology. -/- The central target in (...) this context is the possibility of naturalizing teleology, a classical nightmare for the history of biology itself. This requires, principally, understanding the causes of teleological explanations without assuming an unfashioned backward causation of sorts. As the riddles of teleological explanations are about their temporal dimension, I analyze different temporal scales of biological processes: evolutionary, developmental, and physiological. -/- The first one is the one defended in the context of the Modern Synthesis. As expected, one of the aims of this thesis is to evaluate the adequacy of an evolutionary account of teleological explanation. The scrutiny is negative. Evolutionary explanations in the context of the Modern Synthesis lack the necessary causal roots to naturalize teleology. Concerning the physiological scale, a long tradition pushed up by Kant and the organicist movement in the 20th century allows us to better understand how teleological explanations can be naturalized in physiological process. The key notions in this temporal scale are self-organization and the recursive, looped character of physiological process. While the physiological scale may be suitably accounted by contemporaries views, such as Autonomous Systems Theory, different central teleological phenomena remain unexplained from a purely physiological perspective. In particular, different issues concerning the (adaptive) construction of organism ---such as plasticity, robustness, variation, novelty, inheritance--- deserve an ontogenetic analysis. -/- The principal aim of this thesis is to provide a theory of teleological development that falls beyond the Modern Synthesis' framework and is prompted by different insights from the history of biology. I call it Agential Teleosemantics. It rests on two central pillars. First, that developmental processes, beyond any gene-centered stance, can be understood in informational terms; i.e. developmental processes are about the interaction of developmental resources conveying biological information. The second ingredient is agentivity, namely the idea that development is regulated by an agentive system according to the adaptiveness of the phenotypic outcomes produced. The role of agency in Agential Teleosemantic is equivalent to the role of genes in the Modern Synthesis: it is responsible for explaining the order and the adaptive complexity in the living realm. -/- The second target of this thesis regards the possibility of naturalizing intentional explanations in cognitive science. The central project involved in such an aim is known as teleosemantics. Classical teleosemantics however is etiological: it explains the teleofunctions of representational systems in terms of evolutionary processes. The different disputes in the contemporary philosophy of biology provide two insights to analyze teleosemantics in cognitive science. First, the challenges against the Modern Synthesis must be extended to the evolutionary approach of etiological teleosemantics. Second, as Agential Teleosemantics suggests an alternative source for teleofunctions ---ontogeny, I offer an attempt to integrate Agential Teleosemantics into cognitive science in order to provide an alternative teleosemantic project to understand intentional explanations in cognitive science. (shrink)

A common explanatory error in science concerns the conflation of the epistemological roles between two domains. Here we will address a specific case: when explanations of development replace evolutionary explanations or vice versa. Ernst Mayr famously distinguished between proximate and ultimate causal explanations in biology. His view was central to the Modern Synthesis’ exclusion of development from evolutionary theory. Nonetheless, the explanatory role of developmental processes in evolution is a central theme in current theoretical biology which has prompted several revisions (...) of Mayr’s distinction. Here we will review these reviewers to determine whether the integration of development and evolution is based on an appropriate reinterpretation of Mayr’s distinction. In many cases, revisionists suggest an interactionist alternative, in which proximate and ultimate causes interact to produce evolved traits. The most frequent interactionist account relies on the idea of reciprocal causation. We will argue that this perspective is still problematic and that the boundaries between explanatory domains are crossed. Instead, we should rethink Mayr’s distinction by adopting an alternative view of evolutionary causation, the so-called Statisticalist view, which maintains that the only level of causation is the individual level. By ruling out two different levels of causation, this framework is appropriate to avoid fallacious explanations and reconsider reciprocal causation entirely as a proximate phenomenon. We introduce the concept of “statistical reciprocity” to explain the statistical effects of reciprocal causality in populations and outline some ideas of “population ontogenetics” as a prominent framework for unifying development and evolution beyond interactionist positions. (shrink)

The use of evolutionary explanations to explain phenomena at the individual level has been described by various authors as an explanatory error, the so-called Phylogeny Fallacy. In this paper, this fallacy will be analyzed in the context of teleosemantics, a central project of the philosophy of mind whose main aim is to naturalize intentional systems by appealing to their biological teleofunctions. I will argue that those teleosemantics projects that invoke evolutionary functions generally commit the fallacy. First, I will point to (...) various arguments in the literature that point to this fallacy. However, a more general argument will also be made. To illustrate this puzzling scenario, I will present two desiderata that any teleosemantic project must fulfill. I will argue that naturalizing intentionality based on natural selection creates an explanatory gap between types and tokens. This gap prohibits an adequate explanation of the desiderata. To close the gap, teleosemantics invokes replicator biology, a view of inheritance that has already been identified to commit the fallacy. This leads teleosemantics into a complex situation: to close the gap, it must commit the fallacy. (shrink)

First English translation of two important works by the major revolutionary figure, Amilcar Cabral.

Explanatory Externalism states that the only adaptive force in evolution is natural selection. Explanatory Externalism is a central thesis of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis. The etiological theory of natural selected-effect functions also advocates Explanatory Externalism. According to this theory, natural selection is the process responsible for determining the proper natural functions of traits. However, I will point out several challenges to Explanatory Externalism that are proposed primarily by developmental biology and its various subfields. Based on these challenges, this paper will (...) argue why biological functions cannot be fully explained by the selected-effect theory, i.e., that a theory of biological functions must adopt some kind of Explanatory Internalism. At the end of this paper, I will discuss whether or not Explanatory Internalism entails a pluralistic view of biological functions, and how this discussion is related to the different explanations of fit and diversity found in evolutionary biology. (shrink)

The Green Revolution is often seen as epitomising the dawn of scientific and technological advancement and modernity in the agricultural sector across developing countries, a process that unfolded from the 1940s through to the 1980s. Despite the time that has elapsed, this episode of the past continues to resonate today, and still shapes the institutions and practices of agricultural science and technology. In Brazil, China, and India, narratives of science-led agricultural transformations portray that period in glorifying terms—entailing pressing national imperatives, (...) unprecedented achievements, and heroic individuals or organizations. These “epic narratives” draw on the past to produce meaning and empower the actors that deploy them. Epic narratives are reproduced over time and perpetuate a conviction about the heroic power of science and technology in agricultural development. By crafting history and cultivating a sense of scientific nationalism, exceptionalism, and heritage, these epic narratives sustain power-knowledge relations in agricultural science and technology, which are underpinned by a hegemonic modernization paradigm. Unravelling the processes of assemblage and reproduction of epic narratives helps us make sense of how science and technology actors draw on their subjective representations of the past to assert their position in the field at present. This includes making claims about their credentials to envision and deliver sustainable solutions for agriculture into the future. (shrink)

This paper argues that a central explanatory role for the concept of _Umwelt_ in theoretical biology is to be found in developmental biology, in particular in the effort to understand development as a goal-directed and adaptive process that is controlled by the organism itself. I will reach this conclusion in two (interrelated) ways. The first is purely theoretical and relates to the current scenario in the philosophy of biology. Challenging neo-Darwinism requires a new understanding of the various components involved in (...) natural selection processes. An important prerequisite is to understand developmental change in a teleological way. Here, the concept of _Umwelt_ plays a crucial role: if organisms are responsible for generating adaptive variation in specific environments, we need a theory that explains the context-dependent nature of adaptively oriented processes. The _Umwelt_ is thus a central element in determining the goal that an adaptive process pursues. The second path in my analysis also has a historical dimension. I will present Karl Ernst von Baer’s reflections on teleological development and his influence on Jacob von Uexküll’s thinking. I will present various ideas developed by Baer, such as the distinction between _Ziel_ and _Zweck_ and the use of musical metaphors, which can help to understand development teleologically and give Uexküll’s theory a central place in this framework. (shrink)

Phosphatidylinositol‐3‐kinases (PI3Ks) are lipid kinases that produce 3‐phosphorylated derivatives of phosphatidylinositol upon activation by various cues. These 3‐phosphorylated lipids bind to various protein effectors to control many cellular functions. Lipid phosphatases such as phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) terminate PI3K‐derived signals and are critical to ensure appropriate signaling outcomes. Many lines of evidence indicate that PI3Ks and PTEN, as well as some specific lipid effectors are highly compartmentalized, either in plasma membrane nanodomains or in endosomal compartments. We examine the evidence (...) for specific recruitment of PI3Ks, PTEN, and other related enzymes to membrane nanodomains and endocytic compartments. We then examine the hypothesis that scaffolding of the sources (PI3Ks), terminators (PTEN), and effectors of these lipid signals with a common plasma membrane nanodomain may achieve highly localized lipid signaling and ensure selective activation of specific effectors. This highlights the importance of spatial regulation of PI3K signaling in various physiological and disease contexts. (shrink)

Abstract: A common explanatory error concerns conflating epistemological roles between two domains. Here I deal with a special case: when explanations of development replace evolutionary explanations or vice versa. Ernst Mayr famously distinguished between proximate and ultimate causal explanations in biology. His view was central to keeping development outside the theory of evolution. Nevertheless, the explanatory role of developmental processes in evolution is a central theme in current theoretical biology, which has led to several revisions of Mayr’s distinction. In the (...) following, I will review these reviewers to determine whether the integration of development and evolution is based on an appropriate reinterpretation of Mayr’s distinction. The revisionists often propose an interactionist alternative in which proximate and ultimate causes interact to produce evolved traits. The most common interactionist account relies on the idea of reciprocal causation. I will argue that this perspective is still problematic and that the boundaries between explanatory domains are crossed. Instead, we should rethink Mayr’s distinction by adopting an alternative view of evolutionary causation, the so-called Statisticalist view on natural selection, which claims that the only level of causation is the proximate level. By excluding two different levels of causation, this framework is able to avoid fallacious explanations and fully consider reciprocal causation as a proximate phenomenon. I introduce the concept of “statistical reciprocity” to explain the statistical effects of (proximate) reciprocal causation in ultimate explanations and outline some ideas of “population ontogenetics” as a prominent framework for unifying development and evolution beyond interactionist positions. (shrink)

Over the past decade, many findings in cognitive about the contents of consciousness: we will not address neuroscience have resulted in the view that selective what might be called the ‘enabling factors’ for conscious- attention, working memory and cognitive control ness (e.g. appropriate neuromodulation from the brain- stem, etc.). involve competition between widely distributed rep-.

In this paper I offer a characterization of the intellectual virtue of social inquisitiveness, paying attention to its difference from the individual virtue of inquisitiveness. I defend that there is a significant distinction between individual and social epistemic virtues: individual epistemic virtues are attributed to individuals and assessed by the quality of their cognitive powers, while social epistemic virtues are attributed to epistemic communities and are assessed by the quality of the epistemic relations within the communities. I begin presenting Lani (...) Watson's characterization of the (individual) practice of questioning and its related intellectual virtue, inquisitiveness. While she does not employ normative language, I show that her description can be constructed through four norms. Then, based on an account of epistemic communities, I defend that, while epistemic virtues attributable to individuals have norms regulating cognitive powers, epistemic virtues attributable to epistemic communities have norms regulating social epistemic interactions and shared epistemic responsibility. I then present a robust characterization of the epistemic virtue of social inquisitiveness through its social epistemic norms: DISTRIBUTION, ACCESSIBILITY, SOCIAL SINCERITY, SOCIAL CONTEXT, and FREQUENCY. I respond to two possible objections to my account and conclude by offering suggestions to broaden the scope of the epistemology of questioning. (shrink)

According to Schroeder-Heister 2018, proof-theoretic semantics is ‘an alternative to truth-condition semantics. It is based on the fundamental assumption that the central notion in terms of which meanings are assigned to certain expressions of our language, in particular to logical constants, is that of proof rather than truth. In this sense proof-theoretic semantics is semantics in terms of proof. Proof-theoretic semantics also means the semantics of proofs, i.e. the semantics of entities which describe how we arrive at certain assertions given (...) certain assumptions.' This text advocates that proof-theoretic semantics, as described above, was an approach to semantical issues in logic that appeared in mainstream philosophical literature at least a couple of centuries before the tradition of general proof theory (cf. Prawitz 1971) came into being. This is done by means of an interpretive analysis of Kant’s 1762 essay Die falsche Spitzfindigkeit der vier syllogistischen Figuren, in which two theses are argued: first, that the issue of justifying the logical validity of inferences is approached by Kant in this text, in a strong sense, in terms of proofs; and second, that the purpose of his effort is to establish a point concerning the semantical equivalence between certain distinct valid inferences. (shrink)

RESUMO Neste artigo pretendo expor sinteticamente os problemas levantados contra uma das formas de realismo científico conhecida como realismo experimental, além de propor uma formulação mais aceitável do mesmo, resistente a tais críticas. Os problemas alegados pelos oponentes do realismo experimental variam desde a acusação de inadequação em relação à prática da comunidade científica, até a inconsistência ao admitir entidades e propriedades postuladas teoricamente recusando, entretanto, as teorias em que tais entidades e propriedades aparecem. Some-se a essas críticas a de (...) que o próprio critério do realismo de entidades seria implausível, seja porque falha na produção de crenças verdadeiras ou porque não fornece garantias melhores do que outras formas de realismo científico. Argumentarei que, adotando o realismo experimental exclusivamente como um critério epistêmico e aplicando tal critério às propriedades é possível contornar as críticas, reabilitando uma proposta realista que muitos consideravam já descartada. ABSTRACT In this paper, I will expose briefly the problems raised against one kind of scientific realism known by experimental realism and also will propose an acceptable formulation of that realism, resistant to those criticisms. The problems claimed by the experimental realism’s opponents range from the accusation of inadequacy with the scientific community’s practice to the claim that the admission of entities and proprieties without accepting the theories in which those proprieties and entities are supposed is incoherent. Besides, there is another criticism which states that the entities realism’s criterion is implausible, either because it fails to produce true beliefs or because there is no better warranty in adopting it than other kinds of scientific realism. I will argue that adopting experimental realism exclusively as an epistemic criterion and applying that criterion to proprieties it is possible to escape the criticisms, rehabilitating a realist propose that many people though already discarded. (shrink)

O problema envolvendo o estatuto ontológico das entidades inobserváveis postuladas pelas teorias científicas é um dos mais centrais em filosofia da ciência. O objetivo deste pequeno artigo é o de oferecer um mapa dos posicionamentos mais recentes, sem a ambição de aprofundá-los. O enfoque será nos principais argumentos a favor e contra a capacidade de a ciência descrever corretamente a realidade natural inobservável. Mais especificamente, exporei o argumento do sucesso para o realismo e uma variação do mesmo, bem como as (...) críticas ao referido argumento, tais como a metaindução pessimista, a subdeterminação das teorias pela evidência e uma abordagem darwinista, que evita a ideia de sucesso. Concluirei apresentando como tais argumentos exigiram uma seletividade na abordagem realista, hoje concentrada em três ramos cujos nomes estão de acordo com os elementos sobre os quais cada filosofia recomenda ser realista: realismo explanacionista, realismo de entidades e realismo estrutural. Por uma questão de enfoque, darei apenas uma descrição resumida de cada ramo de realismo citado. (shrink)

No presente trabalho procurarei expor dois desafios antirrealistas ancorados na história da ciência, que Stanford apelidou respectivamente de ‘antiga’ e ‘nova indução pessimista’. Argumentarei que existe uma solução realista já disponível a ambos os desafios pessimistas: o realismo experimental, inicialmente proposto por Hacking e Cartwritght, segundo o qual é possível comprometer-se com entidades teóricas com as quais desenvolvemos interações causais e com as quais produzimos fenômenos controlados, sem que tal compromisso se estenda às teorias mesmas. Tomarei como parâmetro não propriamente (...) os argumentos de Hacking e Cartwright que sofrem inúmeras críticas, mas uma formulação sofisticada do realismo experimental proposta por Egg. (shrink)

The present paper aims to give an account of pessimistic meta-induction and reply to some representative realist authors who want to consider PMI a fallacy. Most of that accounts are misinterpretations of Laudant’s ideas and fails the target. This work intend that PMI is neither a induction nor a reductio, but a skeptic challenge. If this is right then PMI could not be a fallacy and the realism cannot escape from the task of explain why the success is a good (...) indication for the truthlikeness of the current theories. (shrink)

This essay considers insects’ place-making powers in history of science topics. Insects have co-shaped the geographies of knowledge production throughout history in three primary dimensions: through their size, density, and multiplane existence. Insects’ miniature worlds have helped humans to create trans-scale analogies. Their spatial transgression and swarming capacity have overwhelmed people, including field researchers, contributing to the making of the places where science is produced. Finally, insects’ “ontologically alien” ways of engaging with environments (e.g., flying and living underground) have offered (...) valuable material for humans’ imaginings of their own realities. By prioritizing insects’ own spatial characteristics, this tripartite typology of human/insect entanglements intends to spur new ways of writing histories of science that engage with space and place. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that contemporary biomedicine is shaped by two, seemingly incommensurable, organizational logics, the ‘regime of truth’ and the ‘regime of hope’. We articulate their features by drawing on debates sparked by the recent clinical trial of a new approach to the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease. We also argue that the ‘self’ is configured in the very same process whereby these two organizational logics interlock and become mutually dependent, so that the ‘self’ might be said to be (...) the effect of a ‘parasitic’ relationship between the regimes of ‘truth’ and ‘hope’. We then bring these two arguments to bear on the contrasting views of the relationship between embodiment and political subjectivity articulated by Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, on the one hand, and Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose, on the other hand. (shrink)

Abstract: The use of evolutionary explanations to account for proximate phenomena has been labeled by various authors as an explanatory error, the so-called phylogeny fallacy. In this paper, this fallacy will be analyzed in the context of teleosemantics. I will discuss whether teleosemantics projects that rely on the Selected-Effect Theory of Functions (i.e., mainstream teleosemantics) generally commit the fallacy. To frame the discussion, I will present two desiderata that, as argued here, every teleosemantic project must fulfill. The actuality desideratum, motivated (...) by Brentano’s problem, demands for a proximate analysis of the properties that make a system intentional. The historical desideratum, on the other hand, says that a teleological view of intentionality requires a historical dimension in order to understand the causal basis of teleological explanations. While I give some reasons why mainstream teleosemantics might be implicated in the phylogeny fallacy, my main argument aims to highlight an explanatory gap in mainstream teleosemantics: the population perspective on teleofunctions is inadequate to explain the proximate properties of intentional systems. In other words, the account of the historical desideratum in population-evolutionary terms prevents an adequate solution to the actuality desideratum. This is related to two central goals of teleosemantics: The goal of explaining content determination by recourse to natural selection processes makes it impossible to solve another goal of teleosemantics, the so-called problem of representational status. I analyze this situation and argue that inherited information (sometimes interpreted in a teleosemantic sense) plays the role of closing the gap. This leads teleosemantics into a complex situation: in order to close the gap, it must commit the fallacy. At the end of the article, I propose an alternative to fulfill both desiderata, motivated by an evo-devo perspective. I state that lineage explanations have the property of providing historical explanations based on proximate causes. (shrink)

We explore the intimate connection between spacetime geometry and electrodynamics. This link is already implicit in the constitutive relations between the field strengths and excitations, which are an essential part of the axiomatic structure of electromagnetism, clearly formulated via integration theory and differential forms. We review the foundations of classical electromagnetism based on charge and magnetic flux conservation, the Lorentz force and the constitutive relations. These relations introduce the conformal part of the metric and allow the study of electrodynamics for (...) specific spacetime geometries. At the foundational level, we discuss the possibility of generalizing the vacuum constitutive relations, by relaxing the fixed conditions of homogeneity and isotropy, and by assuming that the symmetry properties of the electro-vacuum follow the spacetime isometries. The implications of this extension are briefly discussed in the context of the intimate connection between electromagnetism and the geometry of spacetime. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer an Aristotelian critique of virtue epistemology, particularly of the way virtue epistemologists use the concept of intellectual virtue in their definitions of knowledge. I engage with David Bronstein’s thesis that virtue reliabilists, despite claims of being contemporary representatives of Aristotle’s epistemology, construct their key epistemic categories in ways that fundamentally deviate from Aristotle’s own virtue epistemology. In addition to Bronstein’s argument, I will argue that a similar critique applies to the other main branch of virtue (...) epistemology – namely, Zagzebski’s responsibilism. I intend to clarify both the gist of contemporary virtue epistemologists and the motivation behind their approaches, highlighting that, not only do they differ from Aristotle, but also that their theories run the risk of vicious circular reasoning. I conclude by proposing alternative options, within virtue epistemology, that may avoid the problems I identify in mainstream virtue reliabilism and responsibilism. (shrink)

In this article, I investigate the process of coordination between three ‘bodies’ of surgery: the patient-ensemble(s) constructed in pre-operative activities; the surgeon-body constructed with these ensembles in the operating room; and the body-world inhabited by the surgeon. This investigation is done through an ethnography of a neurosurgical clinic, with an analytical focus on the relationship between the spatial configuration of the body of the surgeon and the embodied practices of operating that this configuration demands. My argument is that coordination between (...) those three bodies is organized in the layered space into which the multiple ensembles of surgery are assembled. This relationship, I suggest, lies at the core of the power and technical expertise held by surgeons, and constitutes a challenge for explorations of other forms of articulation between subject body-worlds and the embodiment of power in subject-bodies. (shrink)

Political realism points out that politics is to create and sustain a legitimate order in a context of persistent disagreement, with the possible surge of conflicts, and where political power inevitably uses coercion. Political realists contend that modus vivendi is a contingent political arrangement at the level of the political constitution that allows diverse groups of people to coexist peacefully. Proposals of modus vivendi do not say enough about how to manage disagreements and conflicts. In this paper, I argue that (...) proposals of agonistic democracy supply this lack. I contend that agonistic democracy proposals share the premises of political realism and contribute to the sustainment of a liberal modus vivendi. (shrink)

Em 25 de maio de 2020 um homem negro americano, chamado George Floyd, morreu após ser asfixiado por mais de oito minutos por um policial branco na cidade de Minneapolis, nos EUA. Violentos protestos se seguiram ao longo do país com cartazes contendo as últimas súplicas de Floyd: “I can’t breathe” (Eu não consigo respirar). Pouco tempo depois, ainda sob o calor dos horrores da hora, outro fato também vinculado ao acontecimento recém-referido roubou a cena e chamou a atenção dos (...) principais meios de comunicação ao redor do planeta: tratava-se de um casal branco americano de moradores de um bairro nobre, em frente ao jardim de sua mansão de dois andares, esbravejando contra um grupo de negros que se dirigia para um protesto e resolveu cortar caminho passando por entre os casarões do bairro onde se encontrava o referido casal. O “detalhe” marcante dessa demonstração gratuita de ódio por parte do casal branco é que, enquanto o homem portava um potente fuzil moderno e a mulher uma pistola automática, ambos apontavam as armas contra os transeuntes negros que tiveram a “audácia” de se deslocar por entre os casarões da elite americana. O mais absurdo da situação foi um momento de transtorno colérico do casal branco que em certa altura do descontrole chegou a apontar a arma um contra o outro, revelando o completo desvario em que ambos se encontravam [...]. (shrink)

In a novel interpretation of Plato’s Phaedrus, Tiago Lier argues that Socrates’ defense of rhetoric stems from a tension between the desires that motivate speech and the limited power of speech to realize those desires. This tension culminates in a philosophical ethic that Socrates and Plato cultivate through their respective forms of rhetoric.

O presente artigo tem como objetivo primordial articular as experiências de iniquidade e sofrimento a partir da operacionalização de alguns conceitos decisivos das obras de Hannah Arendt e Byung-Chul Han. Nesse sentido, pretendo mostrar que uma das formas hegemônicas de experiência do mal na contemporaneidade se revela na produção de vidas descartáveis em meio a sistemas político-culturais violentos, que se caracterizam por estar em constante devir e por reduzir os devires à própria descartabilidade humana. Isso se revela tanto no mal (...) radical presente nos campos de concentração nazistas, quanto na ditadora da positividade produtivista inerente a psicopolítica neo-liberal. (shrink)

No presente artigo, pretendo analisar uma das interpretações da distinção transcendental entre fenômenos e coisas em si mesmas, a tese dos dois aspectos [the two-aspect view]. Meu objetivo é indicar e esclarecer alguns pressupostos fundamentais dessa interpretação, nem sempre explicitados pelos seus defensores. Um dos maiores desafios dessa interpretação é explicar como é possível conciliá-la com a tese kantiana da não espacialidade das coisas em si mesmas. Pretendo mostrar que a conciliação pressupõe a satisfação das três seguintes condições: em primeiro (...) lugar, é necessário admitir que, para Kant, a relação cognitiva entre objeto e sujeito cognoscente é _constitutiva_ do objeto; em segundo lugar, é preciso conceber a identidade entre fenômeno e coisa em si mesma como uma _identidade relativa_, não absoluta; em terceiro lugar, é preciso admitir que certos enunciados sobre o objeto da cognição possuem uma estrutura lógica peculiar, a estrutura de um _juízo reduplicativo_. A análise desses pressupostos visa contribuir para a elucidação dos compromissos teóricos da tese kantiana do idealismo transcendental. (shrink)

A common tendency throughout the history of thought concerning the nature of music has been to attribute to it a peculiar power to represent the dynamic of the universe. The tradition has perhaps its most developed expression in the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. The strict formalism present in Eduard Hanslick’s treatise, On the Musically Beautiful, clearly stands in stark opposition to such ways of thinking. And yet the book’s final paragraph ends with a paragraph in which music is referred to (...) as the ‘sounding image of the great motions of the universe’.The present paper examines the extent to which this apparently Schopenhaurian moment in Hanslick can be reconciled with the formalism promoted by the rest of the book. I argue, in opposition to differing claims to the contrary made by Mark Evan Bonds, and by Christopher Landerer and Nick Zangwill, that the original concluding paragraph is inconsistent with the rest of Hanslick’s argument. At the same time, the paragraph cannot simply be written off as a slip of the pen. Rather, it seems to reflect an anxiety on Hanslick’s part about musical formalism failing to provide any account of why the art of music is valuable. (shrink)

This article has a double objective that aims to situate, theoretically and empirically, children's cartography as a research methodology. In a first movement, we will situate children's cartography in its epistemological and philosophical bases, having as inspiration the cartographic conceptions of the philosophy of Deleuze & Guattari and his commentators. The introduction of cartography with children shifts our research perspectives to include dimensions that were once imperceptible or relegated to a plane of lesser value: it maps, not just what children (...) see, but what they say, and chronicles the coexistence of children and the world in ways not previously available to adult-organized research vehicles. We illustrate by chronicling two cartographic experiences carried out with children and young people from Portugal and Brazil, and finish with a reflection on how researchers might configure mapping experiences that act to open the worlds of adults and children to each other. (shrink)

Neste capítulo demonstra-se a importância da educação cidadã para a vida de cada indivíduo que opta pela prática da autoinseminação, pois por meio das informações adquiridas, as pessoas teriam uma Competência Crítica em Informação, desenvolvendo dessa forma, certo entendimento de possíveis consequências e efeitos da técnica da Autoinseminação, fato que poderia levá-las à procura por técnicas mais seguras para satisfação do desejo de ter um filho. É exposto durante todo o embasamento que, quanto mais se conquista clareza e explicações através (...) da prática educativa, se torna perceptivo o instrumento privilegiado que se tem disponível - a educação, entretanto, observa-se também pouca exploração desse recurso. Portanto, durante a leitura deste capitulo, será possível visualizar a apresentação do papel contributivo que educação desempenha em relação à problemática que a autoinseminação estabelece atualmente a fim de evitar consequências à saúde da mulher, da criança e de toda a prole e eventuais efeitos jurídicos. (shrink)

São cento e cinquenta os códices que António Ribeiro dos Santos legou à Real Biblioteca Pública da Corte. O cuidado posto na sua organização, a exaustividade com que o trabalho foi executado, a sucessão de originais, cópias e borrões fazem deste núcleo documental uma peça indispensável para compreender a intervenção pública e profissional de Ribeiro dos Santos, sobretudo no que se relaciona com a Real Biblioteca Pública, mas também o carácter e as opções filosóficas do autor. Os códices foram organizados (...) tendo em vista preservar a memória de uma vida. Corporizam um manancial informativo que em duzentos anos despertou pouca atenção, constatação que proporcionou espaço para reflectir sobre a obra de Ribeiro dos Santos, escalpelizando o conteúdo e a organização dos códices. (shrink)

Através da distinção entre atitude natural e atitude transcendental, Husserl parece fundamentar várias de suas teses, como a diferença do agir propriamente filosófico frente o científico, a necessidade do método fenomenológico na investigação do âmbito subjetivo, etc. Com a exposição e problematização da noção fenomenológica de atitude (Einstellung) neste artigo, se pretende trazer luz à crítica desenvolvida pelo fenomenólogo ao objetivismo presente nas ciências particulares, principalmente a partir do período moderno. Tais discussões, permitem a compreensão de que as reflexões husserlianas (...) trouxeram grandes contribuições tanto ao procedimento científico, quanto à tradição fenomenológica de investigação. (shrink)

Nosso objetivo, no presente artigo, é propor uma articulação entre a teoria da individuação de Gilbert Simondon e a teoria da investigação de John Dewey. Em relação à primeira, serão enfatizados os aspectos “biológico” e “psíquico” de individuação; quanto à segunda, ressaltaremos seus principais elementos naturalistas e epistemológicos, assim como os conceitos mais gerais de “experiência” e de “natureza” de Dewey. Defenderemos que o processo de individuação tem estreita relação com a capacidade, possuída por todo indivíduo vivo, de solucionar problemas (...) ou situações de conflito resultantes de sua constante interação com o ambiente. Proporemos, mais precisamente, uma conexão teórica entre o princípio ou conceito de individuação e a ideia de que existe no organismo vivente uma aptidão investigativa que não apenas restaura seu equilíbrio “metaestável”, como também, e ao mesmo tempo, lhe proporciona sempre uma nova individualidade, tanto biológica como psíquica. Esperamos obter, como resultado deste processo de síntese envolvendo as ideias de Simondon e de Dewey, uma compreensão ampliada das respectivas teorias da individuação e da investigação. (shrink)

This article departs from the consideration that global communication is not only a reality but also a challenge. This is because most of our communication does not involve dialogue but remains mere communication without achieving the creativity implied in true conversation. Departing from Gordon Pask’s warning, in 1980, that too much togetherness would be hazardous in future information environments, this article proposes a playful displacement of images – from network to lacework. The aim is to help us refine our gaze (...) into the interconnectedness of the world, or at least, into the intricacies of our contemporary culture and its global communication. The idea is that by using lace as an inspirational image we may go beyond the hazards of uniformity and triviality of our excessive togetherness. By doing so, we would allow space for a variety of local patterns of dialogues, articulated around unspoken tensions and thus, allowing the emergency of genuine conversation. (shrink)

The complex relations between Christianity and science seem to present a critical point in evolutionary theory, especially for the challenges it poses to the doctrine of original sin. I investigate the precise senses in which evolution threatens the Augustinian/Reformed formulation of original sin, analyzing each of the six tenets of the doctrine vis a vis nine evolutionary claims, as well as the supposed clash between the narratives of evolution and Christianity. I show that the threat is less impressive than it (...) is usually assumed, and I highlight where the conflict really lies. I defend that it is possible to remain faithful to the core of the doctrine of original sin and to accept the reliability of evolution as a scientific theory. I present three scenarios for “Adam and Eve” and interpret them using two different models. I favor the understanding of Adam and Eve as the whole initial human bottleneck viewed through the lens of a multilevel model. (shrink)

The internationalization strategies are analyzed in this article in order to understand the power of the Brazilian media. The study is based on bibliographic and documental research, interviews and case studies. It comes to the following findings: Brazilian media groups need a better understanding of their performance in the local and the international scenario; they must know and respect all legislation, as well as their local insertion, and the public targeted to validate their necessities.