Greeting words of Thomas Gullickson, the Archbishop and Apostolic Nuncio in Ukraine.

En este trabajo me propongo desarrollar un estudio crítico de la concepción mecanicista de la explicación científica. En primer lugar, argumento que la caracterización mecanicista de los modelos fenoménicos (no explicativos) es inadecuada, pues no ofrece un análisis aceptable de los conceptos de modelo científico y similitud, que son fundamentales para la propuesta. En segundo lugar, sostengo que la caracterización de los modelos mecanicistas (explicativos) es igualmente inadecuada, pues los análisis disponibles de la relación explicativa de relevancia constitutiva implican una (...) tesis metafísica que es rechazada por los mismos mecanicistas. Concluyo que el mecanicismo no ofrece todavía una elucidación aceptable de la explicación científica. In this paper, I offer a critical assessment of the mechanicist approach to scientific explanation. Firstly, I argue that the mechanicist characterization of (non explanatory) phenomenological models is inadequate, since it does not develop an explication of the concepts of scientific model and similarity, which are indispensable to the approach. Secondly, I claim that the mechanicist conception of (explanatory) mechanicist models is inadequate as well, since all the available analices of the explanatory relation of constitutive relevance imply a metaphysical thesis that is rejected by the mechanicists themselves. I conclude that mechanicism needs to be emended if it aims to be considered as a genuinely illuminating approach to scientific explanation. (shrink)

1. Overconfidence is usually understood as being more confident than reality justifies (Harvey, 1997; Moore & Healy, 2008; Pompian, 2006), which leads individuals to overestimate their performance...

While it represents a common form of gender-based violence, misogyny is an often-overlooked concept within academia and the queer community. Drawing on queer and feminist scholarship on gay male misogyny, this article presents a theoretical challenge to the myth that the oppressed cannot oppress, arguing that specific forms of gay male subjectivities can be proponents of misogyny in ways that are unrecognised because of their sexually marginalised status. The authors’ interest in the doing of misogyny, and its effects on specific (...) bodies and subjectivities, leads them to discuss the extent to which white gay male misogyny can function to reinforce a particular gender and racial hierarchy that continually confines queer femininities to the status of the abject other, for failing to exhibit their feminine credentials and for making gender trouble. The study also addresses how specific markers of femininity are depoliticised through the workings of this misogyny, exploring what femininity does when it is conceptualised outside a heteronormative framework. To address these ideas, the authors firstly propose a theoretical account of misogyny in order to understand its analytical status as a cultural mechanism within the psychic economy of patriarchy. Secondly, they use queer approaches to effeminacy and subject formation for making the case for gay male misogyny and its connections to femininity within white gay cultures, asking how misogyny might become an essential component of the performance of hegemonic masculinity. The article concludes with a discussion of the ways in which gay male misogyny reinforces white male dominance over women and queer femininities specifically, advocating for resistance to the reproduction of such patriarchal arrangements. (shrink)

O presente trabalho busca discutir três conceitos gadamerianos relacionados com a temática concernente à memória em comunidade. Tentaremos desenvolver uma aproximação dos conceitos de Bildung, de clássico e de razão social com problemas contemporâneos envolvendo a instrumentalização técnico-científica dos processos de comunicação social e de alienação da humanidade em relação aos sentidos historicamente compartilhados.

resumo: Este trabalho investiga os laços entre a técnica, a metafísica e o totalitarismo, com base nos pensamentos de Heidegger e Arendt. Além disso, propõe que tais análises sugerem que a filosofia e a história pertencem a um enredo trágico fundamental. Para tanto, de início pesquisamos em que medida o ambivalente sentido de esgotamento e salvação, presente em diversas abordagens da técnica, implica a produção de prognósticos e uma reflexão teleológica. Investigamos se estes são elementos que, no século XX, serviram (...) de artifício para a legitimação da barbárie em movimentos totalitários e se permanecem necessariamente intrínsecos a toda visão da técnica. A abordagem de Heidegger, em alternativa, volta-se às origens da metafísica, onde residem as decisões que teriam culminado na técnica moderna, e onde presumimos estar enraizada esta estrutura trágica. a bstract: This study investigates the links between art, metaphysics and totalitarianism, based on the thoughts of Heidegger and Arendt. It also proposes that such analyses suggest that philosophy and history belong to a fundamental tragic plot. To do so, we start researching how the ambivalent sense of exhaustion and salvation, present in many approaches of technique, involves the production of prognoses and teleological reflection. We investigate if these are elements which, in the twentieth century, served as a device for legitimizing barbarity in totalitarian movements and if it remains necessarily intrinsic to every view of technique. Heidegger's approach, instead, turns to the origins of metaphysics, where the decisions that would have culminated in modern technique lie, and where we presume this tragic structure is rooted. (shrink)

Philosophers and educators come together to address contemporary issues in education.

The March 2002 symposium Human Dignity and Reproductive Technology brought together philosophers, theologians, scientists, lawyers, and scholars from across the United States. The essays of this book are the contributions of the symposium's participants.

Feminism has long grappled with its own demarcation problem—exactly what is it to be a woman?—and the rise of trans-inclusive feminism has made this problem more urgent. I will first consider Sally Haslanger’s “social and hierarchical” account of woman, resulting from “Ameliorative Inquiry”: she balances ordinary use of the term against the instrumental value of novel definitions in advancing the cause of feminism. Then, I will turn to Katharine Jenkins’ charge that Haslanger’s view suffers from an “Inclusion Problem”: it fails (...) to class many trans women as women. Jenkins offers a novel norm-relevancy account of woman to avoid the Inclusion Problem. Unfortunately, Jenkins’ account has serious internal problems, i.e. problems by Jenkins’ own lights: it is unintelligible, or it suffers from an Inclusion Problem of its own. After that, I will develop novel arguments for the conclusion that the project of Ameliorative Inquiry is both incoherent and also impossible to complete—at least, impossible to complete in a trans-inclusive way. Trans-inclusive feminism, therefore, would do well to move beyond Ameliorative Inquiry. Insofar as that’s not possible, trans-inclusive feminism inherits the incoherence of Ameliorative Inquiry. (shrink)

Em 1911, Henri Bergson proferiu na Universidade de Oxford conferências em que associa sua visão das ciências ao pensamento grego. Com base nessa comparação, trata-se de reconstituir sua análise das ciências e da metafísica desde os cursos que ele ofereceu na juventude sobre a filosofia grega. Consideramos que eles explicitam tanto seu vínculo com a tradição filosófica quanto a radicalidade do seu pensamento, sobretudo nas conclusões metafísicas de A evolução criadora. Nesse percurso, pretendemos distinguir a física e a matemática da (...) psicologia e da biologia; reconstituir as diferenças que ele identifica entre escolas gregas; cotejar postulados do pensamento antigo com os do pensamento moderno; e demonstrar com quais aspectos dessas referências a filosofia bergsoniana possui maiores afinidades. Não se trata de reduzir seu pensamento à filosofia dos antigos, mas demonstrar como essa interlocução é especialmente profícua em sua análise das ciências e da metafísica. (shrink)

E. Dussel builds an ethics involved in the liberation of the victims of a world-system increasingly global. In this paper the contributions that this ethics of liberation does to the necessary project of an intercultural dialogue are studied. This dialogue must begin with a critic of modern reason, which is eurocentric and violent, and it has to be based on a «transmodern» rationality, whose starting point is the afirmation and the recognition of the reason of the Other (the excluded human (...) being). (shrink)

Generalising Hrushovski's fusion technique we construct the free fusion of two strongly minimal theories T₁, T₂ intersecting in a totally categorical sub-theory T₀. We show that if, e.g., T₀ is the theory of infinite vector spaces over a finite field then the fusion theory Tω exists, is complete and ω-stable of rank ω. We give a detailed geometrical analysis of Tω, proving that if both T₁, T₂ are 1-based then, Tω can be collapsed into a strongly minimal theory, if some (...) additional technical conditions hold—all trivially satisfied if T₀ is the theory of infinite vector spaces over a finite field Fq. (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)

Do the facts of evolution generate an epistemic challenge to moral realism? Some think so, and many “evolutionary debunking arguments” have been discussed in the recent literature. But they are all murky right where it counts most: exactly which epistemic principle is meant to take us from evolutionary considerations to the skeptical conclusion? Here, I will identify several distinct species of evolutionary debunking argument in the literature, each one of which relies on a distinct epistemic principle. Drawing on recent work (...) in epistemology, I will show that most of these initially plausible principles are false, spoiling the arguments that rely on them. And we will see that each argument threatens only one popular view of moral psychology: a “Representationalist” view on which our moral judgments rely crucially on a mental intermediary—e.g. a sentiment, gut reaction, or affect-laden intuition—delivered by our evolved moral faculty. In the end, only one evolutionary debunking argument remains a menace: an “ Argument from Symmetry ” that I will introduce to the literature. But we will see that it should worry only all naturalists, pressuring them into a trilemma: give up moral realism, accept a rationalism that is incongruous with naturalism, or give up naturalism. Non-naturalists are free and clear. (shrink)

Drawing out literal and metaphorical meanings of 'foreignness' this wide-ranging volume offers much to scholars of postcolonial, gender, and cultural studies seeking new approaches to the study of alterity.

Although he did not lengthily critique St. Thomas's philosophy, Richard Rorty tagged him along with Plato as a foundationalist thinker, i.e., someone who is preoccupied with underlying principles or ultimate standards of truth. It is unfortunate, however, that Rorty's sweeping critique is obviously based on superficial and inadequate reading of the Dominican saint. Marie- Dominique Chenu, a less known yet very serious Thomist scholar, has shown that the mode of argumentation in the thought of St. Thomas has an underlying conversational (...) goal. In other words, St. Thomas's method of rational inquiry is not divisive but collaborative which is highlighted by the effort to reconcile initially opposing views by means of the intellectual tool of distinction, a tool which Rorty himself employed in dealing with criticisms hurled against his apparently nihilistic neopragmatic thought. St. Thomas consistently employed the tool of distinction in disputatio, or argumentation with the goal of pursuing collaboration with different thinkers whether they are Christians or Muslims, pagans or believers, in the pursuit of truth. (shrink)

Diez años desde la entrada en vigor de la Ley Orgánica 5/2000, de 12 de enero, de la Responsabilidad Penal de los Menores han servido para mucho. Desde que se optó por legislar los ilícitos penales cometidos por aquellos menores con edades comprendidas entre los 14 y los 18 años, muchas y variadas son las certezas e incertidumbres que, al respecto de un tema tan complejo y tortuoso, han visto la luz en nuestro entramado social.

We argue that prediction success maximization is a basic objective of cognition and cortex, that it is compatible with but distinct from prediction error minimization, that neither objective requires subtractive coding, that there is clear neurobiological evidence for the amplification of predicted signals, and that we are unconvinced by evidence proposed in support of subtractive coding. We outline recent discoveries showing that pyramidal cells on which our cognitive capabilities depend usually transmit information about input to their basal dendrites and amplify (...) that transmission when input to their distal apical dendrites provides a context that agrees with the feedforward basal input in that both are depolarizing, i.e., both are excitatory rather than inhibitory. Though these intracellular discoveries require a level of technical expertise that is beyond the current abilities of most neuroscience labs, they are not controversial and acclaimed as groundbreaking. We note that this cellular cooperative context-sensitivity greatly enhances the cognitive capabilities of the mammalian neocortex, and that much remains to be discovered concerning its evolution, development, and pathology. (shrink)

La Universidad de París en la Europa de finales del siglo XIII fue centro de acaloradas discusiones acerca del alma del hombre. La cuestión del alma es el punto doctrinal central y se muestra decisivo porque en la resolución de este único punto puede verse el trasfondo antropológico y metafísico de toda una cosmovisión filosófica e incluso teológica del universo. Una de las más problemáticas cuestiones que se plantearon acerca del alma es el problema de la unidad del intelecto para (...) todos los hombres. Parecería contradictorio pensar que todos los hombres piensan con un único intelecto, pero a su vez suena absurdo afirmar que un principio espiritual, inmaterial, se una a un cuerpo por un tiempo determinado para luego separarse. Ambas posiciones surgen de la consideración de nuevos textos llegados a las manos de los pensadores parisinos a través de autores árabes: los textos del De anima de Aristóteles. (shrink)

This article examines the possible basis for legal liability of researchers who use the Internet in the collection of research data. In particular, it examines the potential legal issues associated with the protocols of ethnographers who use listserv, discussion board, blog, chat room and other sorts of web or Internet-based postings as the source of their data. The author assumes that the forum for participation is legitimate, in that the list, board, blog, chat, etc. is not created or otherwise concocted (...) by the researcher, but involves situations akin to off-line practices where a researcher would be listening to the conversation or watching the behavior of subjects in a public place. Since these practices do not involve direct interview or interaction with or treatment of "human subjects", much of the precedent involving negligence, informed consent, and related issues is not relevant; however, it is reviewed initially for guidance in suggesting the applicable, legal standards of conduct. This article does not discuss the use of the Internet as a collection device, e.g., in online surveys. Issues of legal harm arising from claims in negligence, privacy, and defamation for subsequent disseimination of such postings are evaluated. Although it is concluded that the likelihood for a success of such claims is small, analysis will include steps that researchers can take to ensure that such risk remains negligible. (shrink)

Článek připomíná 110. výročí narození švýcarského katolického teologa a filosofa (metafyzika) Hanse Urse von Balthasara (1905 Luzern–1988 Basilej). Po studiích germanistiky ve Vídni, Berlíně a Curychu pokračoval ve studiu filosofie a teologie u jezuitů (E. Przywara, H. de Lubac). Před nadějnou akademickou dráhou dal přednost pastorační službě u studentů. V Basileji navázal úzké kontakty s K. Rahnerem a K. Barthem. S lékařkou a mystičkou Adriennou von Speyr založil sekulární institut Johannesgemeinschaft (1944) a nakladatelství, ve kterém vydával její díla. Roku 1950 (...) jezuitský řád opouští. Před druhým vatikánským koncilem vystupoval jako katolický progresivista, po něm jako kritik katolického modernismu, v němž viděl ohrožení biblických tradic. S Henri de Lubacem a Josephem Ratzingerem roku 1972 spoluzakládal mezinárodní katolickou revui Communio. Svou rozsáhlou a rozmanitou publikační činnost završil trilogií Herrlichkeit–Theodramatik–Theologik (1961–1987), v níž uvažuje o Bohu v estetických souvislostech, v kategoriích transcendentálií pravdy, dobra a jejich ztělesnění – krásy.The article recalls the 110th anniversary of the birth of the Swiss Catholic theologian and philosopher (metaphysician) Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905 Luzern–1988 Basel). He studied German in Vienna, Berlin and Zurich and after that he continued his studies in philosophy and theology at the Jesuits (E. Przywara, H. de Lubac). He preferred pastoral ministry among students to a promising academic career. In Basel he established close contacts with K. Rahner and K. Barth. Together with the doctor and mystic Adrienne von Speyr he founded the secular institute Johannesgemeinschaft (1944) and a publishing house, in which he published her work. In 1950 he left the Jesuit order. Before the Second Vatican Council he acted as a progressive Catholic, afterwards as a critic of Catholic modernism, in which he saw the threat of biblical traditions. With Henri de Lubac and Joseph Ratzinger in 1972 he co-founded the International Catholic review Communio. His extensive and diverse publications he completed with trilogy The Glory of the Lord–Theo-Drama–Theo-Logic (1961–1987), in which he contemplates God within aesthetic contexts, within categories of transcendentals truth, goodness and their embodiment – beauty. (shrink)

The present paper was written as a contribution to ongoing methodological debates within the NCC project. We focus on the neural correlates of conscious perceptual episodes. Our claim is that the NCC notion, as applied to conscious perceptual episodes, needs to be reconceptualized. It mixes together the processing related to the perceived contents and the neural substrate of consciousness proper, i.e. mechanisms making the perceptual contents conscious. We thus propose that the perceptual NCC be divided into two constitutive subnotions. The (...) main theoretical idea that emerges as a consequence of this reconceptualization is that the neural correlate of a perceptual episode is formed in the neural interaction between content-processing and consciousness-conferring mechanisms. The paper elaborates this distinction, marshals some initial arguments in its favour, and tests it against some of the most debated theories of consciousness. (shrink)

The article deals with sport as a factor of creativity. The theses have been developed as follows. 1. Management of sport is an extreme case, on the base of which we can proof creativity of management and managers. 2. We face the contradiction of cultures not because of their difference but because of their uniformity and anaemia, i. e. morbidity when colourful details conflict after their contents assimilate. 3. A good piece of work threatens to overstep the limits of the (...) rational (cultural) region and to stay not understandable; these characteristics follow from its ungovernable nature and are the components of a good piece of art. 4. As a limit of culture, nature allows for a creator loosing a touch with his (her) creative whole that is to be overstepped constantly; sport is appealing to the nature. 5. Adventures, ventures, long distant tours and extreme sport disturb work and distract a creator by threatening not as much with physical dangers as with unrealized ideas; creation is donkeywork by distancing from external disturbs. 6. The body in sport and the creation are inseparable. 7. Being sport fans, we not only simulate creativity but also create our identity, life style and life art; beside this, we touch the creativity nourished in a social way through our identity and social capital. (shrink)

The article investigates the problem of the truth as the purpose of the criminal procedure, the problem of its cognition. Individuals carrying out criminal procedure activities (including the court) are servants of the procedural form and, at the same time, its hostages, therefore they are unable to approach the objective, absolute truth and should be content with the formal (legal) truth. This position falls under criticism. Attempts to artificial segmentation of the truth to its separate categories or forms are nothing, (...) but justification of the procedural erosion of a certain form. The article offers the opinion that the classical criminal procedure shall establish absolute, not formal (legal) truth. The truth is not only an aspiration of the criminal procedure, but, at the same time, a derivative, regulatory principle, the idea that works only in classical criminal procedure. This principle does not work in quasi-processes, i. e. in those criminal procedure forms that are organically separated from the classical procedure form. (shrink)

Autor připomíná 300. výročí narození Davida Huma tím, že české odborné i studentské veřejnosti předkládá text Humova Dopisu lékaři, opatřený poznámkami zpřístupňujícími jeho obsah. Tento dopis představuje významné svědectví o počátcích Humovy filosofie a je místem, kde můžeme identifikovat "bod obratu" na cestu směřující k Traktátu. Zároveň je nepostradatelným dokumentem pro výklad Huma z pozice "kontextualistického přístupu" k ranně-novověké filosofii, jak jej uplatňují zejména Alexander Stewart a John P. Wright.

Faz uma digressão acerca de alguns aspectos do 'Tratado de direito natural', sem esgotar suas possibilidades analíticas. Pretende, ao inserir a obra em seu contexto de produção, discutir a relação entre o direito natural tal como foi expresso por Tomás Antonio Gonzaga e as possibilidades de interpretação abertas pelo direito português de então.

The paper deals with an issue of philosophical methodology, taking into account Wittgenstein’s critical remark that philosophy (metaphysics), in its modus operandi, imitates science. The thesis of the paper is that such approach is wrong because the peculiarity of philosophical thinking cannot be adequately conceptualized in terms of formal logic. This is shown by the analysis of three cases (Plato, Aristotle and Descartes), i. e. three classical metaphysical projects dedicated to the discovery of “the first principles”.

This article discusses the problematic aspects relating to the employee privacy in his workplace and its limits reacting to employer‘s interests. It contains analysis of National, European and transatlantic legislation of privacy in the workplace and concentrates on the electronic privacy (e-mails, communications, etc.). The article is based on legal acts and judgements of the Supreme court of Lithuania, European Court of Human Rights and other countries courts judgements in order to provide the legislative execution practice as well as reveal (...) the problems in this field of labour law. (shrink)

This is an annotated translation of the first four chapters of the second book of Aristotle’s Prior Analytics. I aim to offer Portuguese-speaking readers a clear text with complementary materials to elucidate and contextualize Aristotle’s work, fulfilling a significant gap in the Lusophone bibliographical universe. To do this, I have taken Ross’s edition of the Aristotelian text as a basis – in which I have made some small changes – and compared my work with a series of existing translations and (...) commentaries on the text. (shrink)