El artículo intenta abordar una evaluación del modelo normativo de relaciones internacionales bosquejado recientemente por John Rawls. Para ello subraya sus virtudes (la sensibilidad al acomodamiento, reconocimiento y respeto de la diversidad cultural) y sus defectos (el achatamiento de su horizonte normativo) mediante el contraste con la propuesta de otro teórico político contemporáneo que también bebe de las fuentes kantianas del ideal cosmopolita: Jürgen Habermas. El autor concluye con una propuesta en la que la diversidad cultural y los ideales normativos (...) cosmopolitas son integrados más allá de la completa aceptación de la facticidad y de la total abstracción uníversalista insensible al contexto. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

ABSTRACT We exist only because we inhabit a world in common, embedded within networks of associations between humans and nonhumans. This is endlessly disclosed by our experience of the world. And yet, despite its palpability, it is clear that we have failed to mobilize a notion of the common world into something capable of guiding our modes of thought and collective forms of activity—our attitudes, our affective lives, our politics. How have we arrived here? Bruno Latour's work suggests that an (...) answer can be found in the common world's status as information—its self-evidence works to exclude it from a world of values. What, then, should be done? In his recent work on the modes of existence Latour develops a pragmatic metaphysics inspired by the speculative method of Alfred North Whitehead. Metaphysical speculation becomes a tool for moving beyond the “bifurcation of nature” through the construction of abstractions with which to interpret the pluralism of experience. Rather than thinking of the common world as either a given fact or as a totalizing universal, Latour develops a notion of a common world out of the messiness of experience and, as such, hopes to transform us into beings who would be moved to actively pursue and care for such a notion. (shrink)

A review of Tomáš Pospiszyl’s Srovnávací studie.

The paper addresses recent developments in historical epistemology, traces the main inspirational sources that feed this approach, and suggests a possible agenda for closer approximation between historical epistemology and the human sciences in studying thought styles and thought collectives, conceptual and theoretical levels of knowledge and the material culture of science.

The article presents Martin Heidegger’s early conception of foundational questions of logic and science. It focuses on their treatment in the Introduction to Phenomenological Research. Presenting the conception of phenomenon, perception, language/speech, noun and verb, proposition and deceit, the article shows the fundamental idea of facticity of speaking as the ground of these questions. It uses ideas of existence, fact and time to a-chieve the result. The impact on the most famous early book by Martin Heidegger is also considered.

The article discusses the problems of development of women’s political rights in Lithuania in the legal historical aspect starting from the 16th century, when some property and individual rights were enshrined in the first codifications of the laws of the Great Duchy of Lithuania. The aim of the article is to show that women’s struggle for political equality and suffrage at the end of the 19th and at the turn of the 20th century correlates with the movement for re-establishment of (...) the independent State of Lithuania. As a result in Lithuania equal suffrage and political rights were ensured from the very beginning of independence. In 1905 the Great Seimas of Vilnius recognized the principles of equality of women and men and declared the principles of equal general election to the Seimas (parliament); women’s suffrage, as one of the elements of legal equality, became constitutionally entrenched already in the first temporary Constitution of the State of Lithuania in 1918. At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century women’s rights have been further developed, moreover, the first woman was elected as President of the Republic in the national elections in May 2009. (shrink)

This study was designed to survey the extent to which private companies in Sweden take structural measures within the field of business ethics: Codes of Ethics; Ethics Committees; Ethics Officers and Ethics Training. This was done in two steps. Through a nation-wide telephone survey, a population of "active" companies were identified. These companies received a questionnaire with detailed questions regarding the design, usage and effects of these measures. The percentage of active companies were found to be a high 46%. National (...) and industry characteristics are proposed as explanatory factors. (shrink)

A review of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten‘s Ästhetik. Latin-German edition. Trans., preface, notes, indexes by Dagmar Mirbach. 2 vols (vol. 1, pp. LXXX, 1--595; vol. 2, pp. IX, 596--1305). Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2007, ISBN 3787317732. This is the first complete German translation of the two volumes of Baumgarten’s Aesthetics from 1750 and 1758.

In this article I outline some principal features of phenomenography as a foundation of research on teachers' teaching competence. This article discusses the relations between autoteaching and teachers' teaching, between teachers' teaching and the notion of phenomenographic conceptions, and between phenomenography and philosophy.The discussion aims toward a preliminary articulation of the concepts of the domain and to outlines of a general theory of educational research on teaching. The focus is primarily on teachers' “didaktik” as a concrete content-related field expressed as (...) qualitative and complex ideas and their meanings.The concepts illustrating the content of teachers' didaktik are treated in eight categories: pedagogic planning, didaktik intentionality, differentiation of methods, stepping out of the natural attitude, didaktik oneness, didaktik themes and didaktik patience, the invisible dimension of didaktik. (shrink)

A review of Ernst Stöckmann´s Anthropologische Ästhetik: Philosophie, Psychologie und ästhetische Theorie der Emotionen im Diskurs der Aufklärung (Hallesche Beiträge zur Europäischen Aufklärung 39. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2009, 298 S. 978-3-484-81039-6).

In this paper, I’ll look at the implications of Richard Foley’s epistemology for two different kinds of religious disagreement. First, there are those occasions onwhich a stranger testifies to me that she holds disagreeing religious beliefs. Typically, I’m dismissive of such religious disagreement, and I bet you are too. Richard Foley gives reasons to think that we need not be at all conciliatory in the face of stranger disagreement, but I’ll explain why his reasons are insufficient. After that, I’ll look (...) at those types of religious disagreement that occur between epistemic peers. Foley has argued for a conciliatory position. I worry that his position leads to what some in the literature have called “spinelessness.” I also worry that his view is self-defeating, and vulnerable to some apparent counterexamples. I’ll end the paper by sketching my own, non-Foleyan, solution to those problems. (shrink)

Este artigo propõe relacionar as filosofias da história de Kant e de Hegel às bases do pensamento de Foucault, em História da loucura na idade clássica. Buscamos reconhecer, não indícios de uma história cosmopolita ou universal, mas em que medida o pensamento crítico e a filosofia como ciência das essências puras comparecem na inteligibilidade histórica de Foucault. A reunião de uma diversidade de experiências sob o conceito de desatino , fio condutor da obra, sugere uma proximidade com a tradição. Por (...) outro lado, a falta de um critério intrínseco, o qual justifique a referência de tal multiplicidade à alcunha da loucura, faz com que o fio condutor se restrinja a um aspecto negativo e que, positivamente, Foucault estabeleça para seu trabalho um primado empírico, na forma de uma constelação de imagens. O procedimento de História da loucura, que, junto ao interesse pela desrazão, inaugura o privilégio dado pelo filósofo francês à análise das descontinuidades nos leva a reconhecer a razão com base nos casos que solapam aos seus limites, às essências por ela própria discernidas, e com base nas práticas por ela promovidas e justificadas. This article proposes to relate Kant's and Hegel's philosophy of history to the basis of Foucault's History of Madness in the Classical Age. We are not attempting to recognize the presence of a cosmopolitan or universal history, but trying to understand how critical thinking and philosophy as the science of pure essences appear in Foucault's historical intelligibility. The challenge of bringing together a diversity of experiences under the concept of unreason , which is the common thread of the book, suggests an attachment to tradition. However, the absence of an intrinsic criterion justifying the reference of that multiplicity to madness motivates a negative aspect to that concept and, positively, makes Foucault establish for his work an empirical primacy, in the form of a constellation of images. The procedure of the History of Madness that, with its interest in unreason, inaugurates the privilege given by the French philosopher to the analysis of discontinuities, leads us to recognize reason based on cases that escape its limits and the essences discerned by itself. (shrink)

Postdisciplinary Knowledge is the first book to articulate postdisciplinarity in philosophical, theoretical and methodological terms, helping to establish it as an important intellectual movement of the 21st century. It formulates what postdisciplinarity is, and how it can be implemented in research practice. The diverse chapters present a rich collection of highly creative thought-provoking essays and methodological insights. Written by a number of pioneering intellectuals with a range of backgrounds and research foci, these chapters cover a broad spectrum of areas demonstrating (...) alternative ways of producing knowledge. Essays are interspersed with dialogue, encouraging a comprehensive and engaging discussion on this emerging movement. Not limited to a specific field or discipline, this will be of great interest to upper level students and researchers in a wide range of subject areas, including: tourism, sociology, education, psychology, physiotherapy, fine arts, architecture and design, as well as those with a general interest in epistemology and methodology. (shrink)

Some philosophers believe that when epistemic peers disagree, each has an obligation to accord the other's assessment the same weight as her own. I first make the antecedent of this Equal-Weight View more precise, and then I motivate the View by describing cases in which it gives the intuitively correct verdict. Next I introduce some apparent counterexamples – cases of apparent peer disagreement in which, intuitively, one should not give equal weight to the other party's assessment. To defuse these apparent (...) counterexamples, an advocate of the View might try to explain how they are not genuine cases of peer disagreement. I examine David Christensen's and Adam Elga's explanations and find them wanting. I then offer a novel explanation, which turns on a distinction between knowledge from reports and knowledge from direct acquaintance. Finally, I extend my explanation to provide a handy and satisfying response to the charge of self-defeat. (shrink)

Tomas Abraham inicia una pesquisa filosofica y no se detiene ante las impugnaciones que dictan el buen gusto y la conveniencia (la que esconde las contradicciones para simular seriedad y rigor intelectual). Nada lo detiene. Observa, analiza, compulsa. Sus preguntas no interrogan esas zonas del discurso para las cuales se han inventado ya benevolas excusas, sino las otras, las peligrosas.Desde 1989, reflexiona Abraham, el factor economico es la clave que permite descifrar los anhelos y las frustraciones de la sociedad. Por (...) que? Porque el factor economico no se reduce a la economia, no se limita a la produccion y a la distribucion de riquezas sino que acusa la visible emergencia de nuevas formas de vida. El factor economico revela el diagrama de las mutaciones culturales. En este ensayo filosofico en el que coexisten una cantidad asombrosa de estilos y tonos, el autor analiza y discute la empresa como nuevo monumento cultural, la demonizacion del estado, las batallas etico-politicas entre intelectuales y economistas culturales, la tarea de los expertos en calidad de vida y su funcion en una nueva sociedad terapeutica. De las historias de vida de los archimillonarios al encuadre historico de la ideologia empresarial, de la puesta en sorna (con el mayor respeto) de la literatura de autoayuda a la meditacion sobre la moral y el dolor en los campos de exterminio, La empresa de vivir, como los libros anteriores del autor, traza una linea osada y firme e incorpora al pensamiento argentino una nueva manera de hacer las cosas. Una nueva manera capaz de abrir discusiones aparentemente concluidas o censuradas, de expandir los efectos de un conflicto intelectual hacia areas desprestigiadas oignoradas, de inaugurar una pasion para abolir la ironia autoindulgente y los entredichos ufan. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Giving without the expectation of reward is difficult to understand in organizational contexts. In opposition to a logic based on self-interest or a sense of duty, a “logic of gift” has been proposed as a way to understand the phenomenon of free, unconditional giving. However, the rationale behind, and effects of, this logic have been under-explored. This paper responds by first clarifying the three logics of action—the logic of exchange, the logic of duty, and the logic of gift—and then explains (...) how their balanced integration promises to enhance organizational life and outcomes. Having explicated the unique character and contributions of the logic of gift, the paper further suggests practical implications for management. Encouraging the logic of gift fosters more humane relationships within organizations and to enable individuals to be generous in ways that inspire trust and promote creativity. (shrink)

The volume presents original contributions from the 2009 Knowledge, Value, Evolution conference, held in Prague in 2009. While the conference was held during the year of Darwin's double anniversary, its aims were not historical. Rather, we brought together researchers from many different countries who work on topics at the interface of philosophy, the humanities and evolutionary biology. Chapters included in this volume give a very comprehensive picture of the work on a Darwinian-inspired epistemology, philosophy of mind, ethics, social philosophy, as (...) well as a more empirical study of cognition and religion. (shrink)

This article considers Karl Heinrich Seibt’s plan for a course in aesthetics at Prague University. First, using archive materials, it presents an historical introduction to the establishment of the chair in 1763. Michael Wögerbauer then compares the linguistic ‘modernity’of the manuscript-draft of the syllabus with the printed version, and Tomáš Hlobil analyses the concept of the schöne Wissenschaften, which Seibt used in the two texts in four different ways.

Many philosophers believe that our ordinary English words man and woman are “gender terms,” and gender is distinct from biological sex. That is, they believe womanhood and manhood are not defined even partly by biological sex. This sex/gender distinction is one of the most influential ideas of the twentieth century on the broader culture, both popular and academic. Less well known are the reasons to think it’s true. My interest in this paper is to show that, upon investigation, the arguments (...) for the sex/gender distinction have feet of clay. In fact, they all fail. We will survey the literature and tour arguments in favor of the sex/gender distinction, and then we’ll critically evaluate those arguments. We’ll consider the argument from resisting biological determinism, the argument from biologically intersex people and vagueness, the argument from the normativity of gender, and some arguments from thought experiments. We’ll see that these arguments are not up to the task of supporting the sex/gender distinction; they simply don’t work. So, philosophers should either develop stronger arguments for the sex/gender distinction, or cultivate a variety of feminism that’s consistent with the traditional, biologically-based definitions of woman and man. (shrink)