Zygmunt Bauman e Richard Rorty, dois luminares contemporâneos do pensamento político, cada um a seu modo, descrevem a sociedade, fazem diagnósticos e apontam caminhos. Ambos estão preocupados com aspectos relevantes da vida social, como a sensibilidade moral, a inclusão, a solidariedade, a democracia e a justiça. Seus caminhos se distanciam e se cruzam ao longo de suas carreiras. Utilizam taxonomias diferentes, como contingência e liquidez, para descrever, muitas vezes, fenômenos semelhantes e construir argumentos completares. Este texto não pretende esmiuçar o (...) pensamento do sociólogo polonês nem do filósofo estadunidense, esgotando os conceitos fundamentais de cada um, mas tão somente fazer um recorte de aspectos relevantes no diálogo que entre eles se estabelece. Por último, as retóricas de Bauman e Rorty são encaradas como ferramentas disponíveis – e sobremaneira eficientes – na observação das sociedades atuais e no vislumbre daquelas que podemos construir para o futuro. (shrink)

As utopias nascem do profundo desejo humano de que o mundo seja diferente, seja melhor. As distopias, por sua vez, nascem do reconhecimento-pavor de que esse mundo possa ser pior. De todo modo, utopia e distopia, partem do que se tem, do mundo como aí está, das “coisas como elas são”, em direção a uma possibilidade. A Literatura e a Filosofia – especialmente a Filosofia Política –, andam sempre juntas no caminho que perpassa as utopias e distopias, descrevendo e redescrevendo (...) a condição humana, construindo e desconstruindo a ideia de homem e de boa vida. Grandes nomes da história do pensamento, desde Platão a Thomas Morus, Campanella, Francis Bacon, Aldous Huxley e George Orwell dedicaram-se à tarefa imaginativa de pensar o mundo que temos em face daquele que poderíamos ter – para o bem ou para o mal. Mas ainda haveria espaço para utopias e distopias no pensamento político contemporâneo? Ainda faz sentido autilização de tais vocabulários no âmbito da reflexão política? O filósofo estadunidense Richard Rorty (1931-2007) desenvolveu, no século XX e início do XXI, uma concepção de utopia cosmopolita social democrática e liberal. Reconhecidamente etnocêntrico, Rorty vislumbrava a construção de uma ampla sociedade democrática a partir da reforma das instituições consolidadas nas sociedades democráticas reais, rumo ao objetivo da extinção da crueldade e da humilhação dos homens por outros homens e da contínua substituição da força pelo diálogo. Por outro lado, em defesa do pessimismo, e denunciando os perigos da falsa esperança, o filósofo e literato inglês Roger Scruton (1944-2020) apresenta-se como uma voz crítica face às utopias, incluindo aquilo que denomina “falácia utópica” em seu rol de sofismas correntes na contemporaneidade que contribuem para uma leitura inapropriada do nosso tempo. Apresentamos neste artigo um passeio pelos sentimentos de utopia e distopia, assinalando os escritos fundamentais de Huxley, Rorty e Scruton e traçando um paralelo entre suas retóricas, destacando algumas controvérsias que entre elas se pode verificar. (shrink)

Richard Rorty stood out as a relevant thinker of contemporary political life, in addition to building a framework of ideas of language, culture, freedom and solidarity. One of his most recurrent banners was the primacy of literature over philosophy and freedom over truth. For the purposes of this article, we start with excerpts from Rorty's interview by Helmut Mayer and Wolfgang Ulrich, compiled in the text It's good to persuade, in Take care of freedom that the truth will take care (...) of itself. In addition to this text, we also use Philosophy and social hope, and, in particular, Education as socialization and individualization, a text in which the author, moving away from the enchantment of traditional philosophy and defending the adoption of a philosophizing, primacy of freedom the edifying truth, by dogmatic, over a markedly essentialist and anti-foundationist posture. (shrink)

The purpose of the present study is to examine the attitudes of Portuguese chartered accountants with respect to questions of ethical nature that can arise in their professional activity. Respondents were asked to respond to the Ethics Position Questionnaire developed by Forsyth (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39(1), 175–184, 1980), in order to determine their idealism and relativism levels. Subsequently, they answered questions about five scenarios related to accounting practices, with the objective of measuring their ethical judgments. Based on (...) the idealism and relativism levels of our respondents, they were classified into one of four groups, representing different ethical ideologies (absolutism, exceptionism, subjectivism, and situationism). The results indicated that age was the major determinant of relativism. Contrary to previous research, older respondents revealed themselves significantly more relativistic than younger ones. Gender seems to be the most important determinant of ethical judgments; against expectations, men evidenced significantly stricter judgments than women in two of the five scenarios. Findings also indicated that respondents’ ethical judgments did not differ significantly based on their ethical ideology, supporting the idea that ethical ideology is not an important determinant of ethical judgments. (shrink)

Words change meaning, usually in unpredictable ways. But some words’ meanings are revised intentionally. Revisionary projects are normally put forward in the service of some purpose – some serve specific goals of inquiry, and others serve ethical, political or social aims. Revisionist projects can ameliorate meanings, but they can also pervert. In this paper, I want to draw attention to the dangers of meaning perversions, and argue that the self-declared goodness of a revisionist project doesn’t suffice to avoid meaning perversions. (...) The road to Hell, or to horrors on Earth, is paved with good intentions. Finally and more importantly, I want to demarcate what meaning perversions are. This, I hope, can help us assess the moral and political legitimacy of revisionary projects. (shrink)

The ArgumentEugenics is generally regarded as evil; but what was its sin? Racism, class bias, and violation of reproductive freedom, which tainted objectionable eugenic interventions, are not part of the core notion of eugenics. A number of candidates have been suggested as the wrong inherent in eugenics, ranging from statism to the impossibility of consensus on the ideal human being. It is most plausible to view eugenics as sharing moral dilemmas with much of public health, and the critical issues as (...) those of distributive justice. (shrink)

This paper presents reasons against semantic relativism. Semantic relativism is motivated by intuitions that are presumed to raise problems for traditional or contextualist semantics in contested domains of discourse. Intuition-based arguments are those based on competent speakers’ putative intuitions about seeming faultless disagreement, eavesdropper, and retraction cases. I will organize the discussion in three parts. First, I shall provide a brief introduction to the intuition-based arguments offered in favor of semantic relativism. Second, I shall indicate that there are ways for (...) contextualism to explain the (appearance of) intuitions that support semantic relativism. Third, I shall review some experimental results and independent arguments that put into question the appeal of semantic relativism. (shrink)

This paper argues for contextualism about predicates of personal taste and evaluative predicates in general, and offers a proposal of how apparently resilient disagreements are to be explained. The present proposal is complementary to others that have been made in the recent literature. Several authors, for instance (López de Sa, 2008; Sundell, 2011; Huvenes, 2012; Marques and García-Carpintero, 2014; Marques, 2014a), have recently defended semantic contextualism for those kinds of predicates from the accusation that it faces the problem (...) of lost disagreement. These authors have proposed that a proper account of the resilient disagreement in the cases studied is to be achieved by an appeal to pragmatic processes, and to conflicting non-doxastic attitudes. It is argued here that the existing contextualist solutions are incomplete as they stand, and are subject to objections because of this. A supplementation of contextualism is offered, together with an explanation of why failed presuppositions of commonality (López de Sa), disputes over the appropriateness of a contextually salient standard (Sundell), and differences in non-doxastic attitudes (Sundell, Huvenes, Marques, and García-Carpintero) give rise to conflicts. This paper claims that conflicts of attitudes are the reason why people still have impressions of disagreement in spite of failed commonality presuppositions, that those conflicts drive metalinguistic disputes over the selection of appropriate standards, and hence conflicting non-doxastic attitudes demand an explanation that is independent of those context dependent pragmatic processes. The paper further argues that the missing explanation is 2-fold: first, disagreement prevails where the properties expressed by taste and value predicates are response-dependent properties, and, secondly, it prevails where those response-dependent properties are involved in evolved systems of coordination that respond to evolutionarily recurrent situations. (shrink)

The objective of the present review on the evolution of Green Chemistry, since its emergence until 2016, aimed an integrated vision of its progress along the three phases of its development: emergence, divulgation and consolidation. The methodology involved the analysis of a selection of bibliography on the evolution of GC collected from issues of the ACS symposia series; editorials in specialized GC journals; and commemorative birthday papers/editorials of these journals and of the GC itself. The analysis allowed to identify and (...) discuss the characteristics and conceptions of GC agents about fundamental concepts and procedures, in order to visualize and better understand the state of knowledge and the subject areas that make up the field. The main alterations identified in the evolution of GC were: it acquired a better defined identity, with more participation of academy and increased scope; was progressively framed in sustainability; has been aspiring to a holistic frame and to a change on the nature of the innovation for its implementation, from incremental to transformative. The analysis suggests that for supporting expansion and consolidation of GC the following aspects deserve attention: full validation of chemical greenness by metrics; better characterization of the frontiers of GC research areas/themes; increased integration between academy and industry; and penetration in chemistry curricula. Its basic philosophy being the practice of a chemistry more focused on the environment preservation, GC means a new stage in nature and in the history of Chemistry. (shrink)

Embora o Teeteto nos coloque num cenário interpretativo completamente à parte da teoria das Formas, não nos é permitido admitir seu total esquecimento. Conceitos como ‘racionalidade’ contraposto à percepção sensível, e a ‘imprescindibilidade do logos’ enquanto discurso que perfaz o conhecimento verdadeiro, são extremamente caros ao Teeteto. Desconsiderar a pertinência e a similaridade do significado destes conceitos desde a maturidade até à velhice, colocar-nos-ia em situação de grande dificuldade explicativa acerca do conhecimento. Assim, é importante destacar que optamos por uma (...) perspectiva intermediária, que por um lado reconhece a ausência de uma argumentação calcada na clássica teoria das Ideias, mas que compreende a obra platônica sob a tutela de uma interpretação sistemática e holística, segundo a qual Platão não abandona os pressupostos metafísicos das Formas inteligíveis. Longe de uma ruptura com o que foi dito anteriormente na maturidade, o Teeteto serve como complementação teórica acerca da ontologia e da epistemologia, embora no Teeteto não haja uma menção direta às noções presentes nos diálogos anteriores e boa parte do tema se apresente por meio de estilo de escrita e vocabulário inusitados. Por fim, mas não menos importante, será feita uma breve análise de alguns trechos dos momentos finais do Sofista com o objetivo de compreender em que medida o aspecto epistemológico, proposto por Platão no Teeteto, pode ser lido à luz de questões relacionadas ao Ser e ao Não-ser, já que a pergunta pelo ‘o que é conhecimento’ nos remete também a uma discussão ontológica. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta reflexões teóricas sobre a atividade de ensino que se torna práxis bem-sucedida. Essa discussão gira em torno de duas categorias teóricas: atividade e afetação. A atividade, categoria teórica de base marxista, é discutida a partir dos aportes da psicologia sócio-histórica. A categoria afetação é aqui analisada com base na filosofia de Baruc de Espinosa. Realizamos este estudo a partir de pesquisa bibliográfica que tem como objetivo refletir sobre o que contribui para que o professor consiga realizar um (...) ensino capaz de afetar com alegria seus alunos levando ao desenvolvimento de uma práxis bem-sucedida. A pesquisa bibliográfica é realizada a partir dos teóricos da psicologia sócio-histórica, sobretudo Vygotsky e Leontiev. Da filosofia de Espinosa pesquisamos a obra Ética. Os resultados revelam que professores e alunos são sujeitos que se constituem historicamente, a partir de múltiplas mediações. Significados, sentidos e afetações são parte das mediações que constituem professores e alunos envolvidos em atividades de ensino consideradas exitosas. O estudo aprofundado acerca dessas categorias poderá contribuir de forma determinante para que o ensino, como atividade social que se realiza entre pessoas, possa tornar-se um encontro alegre, gerador de afetos que potencializem desejos e aumentem a potência de agir e pensar de professores e alunos, fato que contribui para a emancipação humana. Palavras-chave: Atividade de ensinar. Sentido e significado. Encontros alegres. Afetação. (shrink)

Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology, yet only recently have the two disciplines developed greater interaction. Recent experiments in psychology that test the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning have found a great deal of variation, across individuals and (...) cultures, in categorization behaviour. Meanwhile, philosophers of language and mind have investigated the semantic properties of concepts, and how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. A key motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared across individuals and cultures. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. -/- This volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers to advance the interdisciplinary debate on the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, the relationship between concepts and linguistic meaning and communication, the challenges conceptual variation poses to communication, and the social and political effects of conceptual change. (shrink)

Resumo: A filosofia ocupa um espaço praticamente inalterado nas várias licenciaturas, geralmente, compreendida como fundamentos da educação ou pressupostos necessários à reflexão filosófica da educação. Nesse movimento, o papel da filosofia é visto como instrumentalização para a cientificidade da prática pedagógica escolar. Mas será que a contribuição da filosofia na formação do educador deve constituir-se apenas e tão somente na fundamentação dos problemas filosófico-pedagógicos? Este texto é resultado das inspirações teóricas, metodológicas e da experiência do dispositivo de formação Ateliê Filosófico, (...) que, entre outros objetivos, desenvolve oficinas filosóficas que levaram à criação de um design cognitivo voltado para formação inicial de professores. Além disso, ao criar um ambiente de aprendizagem filosófica, utilizando práticas meditativas fundamentadas no educar transdisciplinar polilógico, o dispositivo fomenta reflexões sobre o ser-sendo educador e sua práxis no contexto contemporâneo. Palavras-chave: Ensino de Filosofia; Formação Inicial de Professores; Educar Transdisciplinar; Ateliê Filosófico; Design Cognitivo. What can philosophy contribute to teacher education? Abstract: Philosophy occupies a largely unchanged space in various teacher training programs, typically understood as the foundations of education or prerequisites for philosophical reflection on education. In this framework, the role of philosophy is seen as a tool for the scientific approach to pedagogical practice. However, should the contribution of philosophy to teacher education be limited to underpinning philosophical-pedagogical issues? This text results from the theoretical, methodological, and experiential inspirations of the Ateliê Filosófico training device, which, among other goals, develops philosophical workshops culminating in the creation of a cognitive design for engaging with philosophy in initial teacher training. Ultimately, by creating a philosophical learning environment through meditative practices grounded in a transdisciplinary polilogical approach, the device fosters reflections on the being-becoming of educators in the context of contemporary society. Keywords: Philosophy Teaching; Initial Teacher Training; Transdisciplinary Education; Philosophical Workshop; Cognitive Design. ¿Qué puede aportar la filosofía en la formación de educadores? Resumen: La filosofía ocupa un espacio en gran medida inalterado en varios programas de formación docente, entendida típicamente como los fundamentos de la educación o los requisitos previos para la reflexión filosófica sobre la educación. En este marco, el papel de la filosofía se ve como una herramienta para el enfoque científico de la práctica pedagógica. Sin embargo, ¿debería la contribución de la filosofía a la formación de maestros limitarse a fundamentar cuestiones filosófico-pedagógicas? Este texto resulta de las inspiraciones teóricas, metodológicas y experienciales del dispositivo de formación Ateliê Filosófico, que, entre otros objetivos, desarrolla talleres filosóficos que culminan en la creación de un diseño cognitivo para abordar la filosofía en la formación inicial de docentes. En última instancia, al crear un entorno de aprendizaje filosófico a través de prácticas meditativas fundamentadas en un enfoque transdisciplinario polilógico, el dispositivo fomenta reflexiones sobre el ser-estar de los educadores en el contexto de la sociedad contemporánea. Palabras clave: Enseñanza de Filosofia; Formación Inicial de Docentes; Educación Transdisciplinaria; Taller Filosófico; Diseño Cognitivo. Data de registro: 08/03/2024 Data de aceite: 28/08/2024. (shrink)

This paper explores some alternative accounts of doxastic disagreement, and shows what problems each faces. It offers an account of doxastic disagreement that results from the incompatibility of the content of doxastic attitudes, even when that content’s truth is relativized. On the best definition possible, it is argued, neither non-indexical contextualism nor assessment-relativism have an advantage over contextualism. The conclusion is that conflicts that arise from the incompatibility (at the same world) of the content of given doxastic attitudes cannot be (...) accommodated by theoretical positions that allow for the compatibility (at the same world) of the content of different doxastic attitudes. (shrink)

Historical studies on the relationship between science and diplomacy tend to focus on events since World War II and on initiatives for the maintenance of peace or to achieve cooperation over contentious matters. This article presents the case of José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823–1907), a Portuguese zoologist who had formal diplomatic responsibilities in a context of competition for the colonization of Africa in the nineteenth century. He used his knowledge in African geography to implement colonial and diplomatic strategies that (...) aimed at outcompeting rival powers. The development of a network of actors with scientific, colonial, and diplomatic expertise was crucial for the negotiations that involved the partition of the Congo basin, which resulted in victories for Portugal that surpassed the country's marginal political relevance at the international level and had long‐lasting consequences. (shrink)

How can we disagree with a bald-faced liar? Can we actively disagree if it is common ground that the speaker has no intent to deceive? And why do we disapprove of bald-faced liars so strongly? Bald-faced lies pose problems for accounts of lying and of assertion. Recent proposals try to defuse those problems by arguing that bald-faced lies are not really assertions, but rather performances of fiction-like scripts, or different types of language games. In this paper, I raise two objections (...) to the fictionalist view, and then offer an analysis of how we disagree with bald-faced liars. I conclude that bald-faced lies are assertions, and that in pronouncing a bald-faced lie, the speaker tries to make it common ground that the assertion was in good standing qua assertion. (shrink)

Este breve ensaio é uma reacção a perguntas de Bernardino Orió de Miguel. As per­guntas que fecham Leibniz, Crítica de la razón simbólica são: “porque há analogias de ana­logias in infinitum?” e, para o filósofo da harmonia pré-estabelecida, “a expressão, que liga todos os níveis, terá sido apenas um compromisso socialmente correcto que oculta a noção do símbolo?”. Examino algumas das suas implicações para a noção actual de organismo, sob a forma de documentação preliminar ao estudo de mónadas, forças, fibras, (...) ictos e suas expressões. Dados os constrangimentos de espaço, concentro-me em duas questões: que significou o mecanismo, na sua diversidade, para Leibniz e alguns médicos do séculos XVII e XVIII; que significou a invenção do conceito de organismo pelo autor da Monadologia, na perspectiva das relações entre corpo, espírito e alma? Interessado no mergulho do infi nito no finito, concluo com um apontamento acerca da teoria da doença mental na proto­-modernidade. (shrink)

O III Colóquio Kant de Marília, realizado em setembro de 2008 a partir do tema “A ‘Crítica da Faculdade de Julgar Teleológica’”, contou com doze conferencistas, três deles provindos do exterior, dois dos quais, ao lado de outros três colegas, têm suas exposições ora publicadas pela Trans/Form/Ação.

This text is a narrative that shows the fluid border between religion and culture, from my own observation at the Islamic community in Portugal. Despite the differences and complexities found in the group of Muslims in Portugal, due to its origins, to Islamic movements and strands, the Guinean Muslims will be the protagonists in this article, especially because it is a case of continuing migration in that country, which results in increase of that population in Portugal. In a way, this (...) finding helps illustrate the fluidity of relationships religion / culture, by the very practices from their particular cultures. In addition, as a Muslim majority, which comes from the same geographical region, reproducing ethnic traits, undergo a process of segregation, not only by the wider host society but also by the Islamic religious group based in Portugal, which is generating a conflict situation. (shrink)

Neste trabalho abordo a hipótese apresentada por Fernando Gil no Tratado da Evidência, da hegemonia de mecanismos alucinatórios nos processos evidenciários. Para avançar no seu estudo, mobilizo condutas elementares e fenómenos complexos, da sucção à vinculação e ao membro-fantasma. Estes fenómenos justificam uma leitura da alucinação a partir de um momentum ou “fase” que designo por evidência perimórfica; com maior brevidade, a propósito do processo de crença e do sistema percepção-linguagem, abordo a alucinação colectiva e o estado perifrástico da evidência. (...) Tentativa e incipientemente, submeto estas ideias ao crivo de realia e rebus da história da medicina e da ciência e de modelos da imaginação. Faço minha uma interrogação do grande filósofo português acerca da mutação da evidência em lei, para terminar evocando o campo moral e a repugnância natural pelo sentimento do falso. (shrink)

Este trabajo es una reconstrucción hipotética de la desaparecida iglesia románica medieval de Samper de Calanda, que se basa en las fuentes documentales conservadas y en los materiales procedentes de su fábrica, reutilizados en la iglesia barroca actual. Destacan sendos dinteles de puerta insertos en las paredes norte y sur, cuyo diseño se debe al arquitecto Giacomo de Vignola, que fechamos en el siglo xvii. Palabras clave: iglesias románicas, iglesias barrocas, Giacomo Vignola, arquitectura renacentista, siglo XVII This work is a (...) hypothetical rebuilding of the missing medieval Romanesque church of Samper de Calanda, wich is based on preserved sources of information and material from its masonry, which have been reused in the existent church, which was built during the Baroque period. We must speak about two separate lintels in north and south walls, designed by architect Giacomo de Vignola, dated in the 17thcentury. Key words: Romanesque churches, Baroque churches, Giacomo Vignola, Renaissance architecture. (shrink)

Although the use of the term “sentience” in philosophy dates to the 17th century, its use expanded particularly in the second half of the 20th century, with the emergence of non-anthropocentric ethics. A search for sentience in the animal kingdom began, which required the identification of a set of evidential sources. The difficulty in establishing, beyond any reasonable doubt, the existence of sentience in animals more distantly related to humans, and the consequences that the matter has for the legislation on (...) animal protection, led to the proposal to apply the precautionary principle in animal welfare policy. This principle establishes that the fulfilment of minimum criteria is enough for the existence of sentience to be admitted. This led to the attribution of sentience to invertebrates, namely molluscs, insects, and crustaceans. As a result, the possibility of including decapod crustaceans into animal legislation is currently discussed. In this article, we will perform the comparative exercise of applying a framework of minimum criteria of sentience, previously applied to crustaceans of the order Decapoda, to vascular plants. The framework is composed of eight independent criteria and the likelihood of plants meeting each of them will be assessed and discussed in the light of the existing empirical evidence. (shrink)

The understanding of a wide array of practices related to fraud, bribery, corruption, and more widely, illicit practices have been capturing the attention of practitioners and management researchers worldwide. A substantial portion of the extant research has used university students to measure their actual or intended cheating behaviours and often studies have tested for variations across countries and cultures. We highlight some major concerns in this stream of inquiry and discuss both the definition and some inconclusive results in prior studies, (...) namely those deriving from differences in cheating behaviour across different cultural contexts. We suggest the need to examine intentionality, and further advance that intentionality may assume a reactive or a proactive essence. Depending on the social and formal contexts of different countries, both reactive and proactive intentions lead to distinct moral concerns, which we name in this work omorality (meaning ‘our morality’) or immorality (in the traditional sense). (shrink)

Neste ensaio observamos que a biodiversidade é a multiplicidade de recursos existentes no contexto da vida da natureza do planeta Terra. Ela implica também a presença do elemento humano e sua condição étnica que é também, no mundo globalizado, étnico racial. A vida humana a partir das ancestralidades étnicas nos indicam que o caminho para um futuro sustentável sempre foi protagonizado por populações indígenas, povos das florestas, tradicionais e quilombolas. Estas civilizações humanas, indígenas, ribeirinhos, população do campo e da floresta, (...) negros e quilombolas fornecem tecnologias milenares capazes de salvaguardar o planeta e possibilitar a permanência da vida e da espécie humana na Terra. A despeito disto, o argumento tecnológico e sustentável dos gestores públicos e empresariado capitalista é reducionista. Em sua demanda, a agenda 2030 para implementação dos 17 objetivos do desenvolvimento sustentável (ODS) estão atrelados ao desenvolvimento econômico e social. Em nossa compreensão, isto visa encapsular a todos na lógica das cidades, territórios do consumo e das trocas econômicas. Valores éticos opostos a existência do indígena, do negro e das populações do campo e da floresta. Neste sentido, a ancestralidade indígena e negra em sua ontologia, produz uma ética humana inalienável e insubmissa. (shrink)

This paper gives experimental evidence against the claim that speakers’ intuitions support semantic relativism about assertions of epistemic modal sentences and uses this evidence as part of a broader argument against assessment relativism. It follows other papers that reach similar conclusions, such as that of Knobe and Yalcin (Semant Pragmat 7:1–21, 2014). Its results were achieved simultaneously and independently of the more recent work of Kneer (Perspectives on taste. Aesthetics, language, metaphysics, and experimental philosophy. Routledge, 2022). The experimental data in (...) this paper supports two claims. The first is that, as Knobe and Yalcin (Semant Pragmat 7:1–21, 2014) also found, speakers diverge in their judgments about the truth-values and about the appropriate retraction of epistemic modal claims. The second is that speakers diverge in their judgments about when a retraction is appropriate and when it is required. This divergence was not tested by Knobe and Yalcin (Semant Pragmat 7:1–21, 2014) but aligns with the results independently reached by Kneer ((Kneer, Synthese 199(3–4): 6455–6471; Perspectives on taste. Aesthetics, language, metaphysics, and experimental philosophy. Routledge, 2022), and supports the arguments previously developed by Marques (Synthese 199(3–4): 6455–6471). The present studies tested the intuitions of both North American English speakers and of peninsular Spanish speakers, whose judgements on the topic had never been tested. The broader argument involves the relation between required retractions and falsity. (shrink)

Intuitions about retractions have been used to motivate truth relativism about certain types of claims. Among these figure epistemic modals, knowledge attributions, or personal taste claims. On MacFarlane’s prominent relativist proposal, sentences like “the ice cream might be in the freezer” or “Pocoyo is funny” are only assigned a truth-value relative to contexts of utterance and contexts of assessment. Retractions play a crucial role in the argument for assessment-relativism. A retraction of a past assertion is supposed to be mandatory whenever (...) the asserted sentence is not true at the context of use and the context of assessment. If retractions were not obligatory in these conditions, there would be no normative difference between assessment-relativism and contextualism. The main goal of this paper is to undermine the claim that retractions reveal this normative difference. To this effect, the paper offers a review of three important objections to the obligatoriness of retractions. Taken together, these objections make a strong case against the alleged support that retractions give to assessment-relativism. The objections are moreover supported by recent experimental results that are also discussed. This will satisfy a further goal, which is to undermine the idea that there is a constitutive retraction rule. The paper also discusses two ways to understand what such a rule would be constitutive of, and concludes with a discussion of how to describe what retractions are. (shrink)

This paper explores how João de Andrade Corvo and José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage, two nineteenth-century Portuguese naturalists, were able to reach prominent political positions in their country by means of their work in, respectively, botany and agriculture, and zoology. The authority they derived from their scientific activities and the knowledge they acquired in the process, favored by their proximity to particular political quarters, elevated them to important governmental offices, in the context of which they implemented policies that reinforced Portugal’s (...) identity as an imperial nation. The colonial policies and agreements signed by Corvo and Bocage aimed at securing Portuguese colonial territories, which, aside from their economic relevance, constituted a symbol of power that reinforced the sovereignty of a small nation in a Europe dominated by the rule of increasingly vaster and stronger states. In spite of their different scientific careers and personal interests, both naturalists played key roles in Portuguese foreign affairs and colonial negotiations of the late nineteenth century, especially during the Scramble for Africa. (shrink)

This paper discusses the life and scientific work of José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage, a nineteenth-century Portuguese naturalist who carved a new place for zoological research in Portugal and built up a prestigious scientific career by securing appropriate physical and institutional spaces to the discipline. Although he was appointed professor of zoology at the Lisbon Polytechnic School, an institution mainly devoted to the preparatory training of military officers and engineers, he succeeded in creating the conditions that allowed him to develop (...) consistent research in zoology at this institution. Taking advantage of the reconstruction and further improvement of the building of the Lisbon Polytechnic, following a violent fire in 1843, Bocage transferred a natural history museum formerly located at the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon to his institution, where he conquered a more prestigious place for zoology. Although successive governments were unwilling to meet Bocage’s ambitions for the Zoological Section of the newly created National Museum of Lisbon, the collaborators he found in different parts of the Portuguese continental territory and colonial empire supplied him the specimens he needed to make a career as a naturalist. Bocage ultimately became a renowned specialist in Southwestern African fauna thanks to José de Anchieta, his finest collaborator. Travels to foreign museums, and the establishment of links with the international community of zoologists, proved fundamental to build up Bocage’s national and international scientific reputation, as it will be exemplified by the discussion of his discovery of Hyalonema, a specimen with a controversial identity collected off the Portuguese coast. (shrink)

Resumo: Discuto, no presente artigo, a concepção leibniziana da mente, mostrando que as percepções e as sensações podem ser compreendidas como constituindo uma série contínua, mas que as apercepções forçosamente introduzem uma descontinuidade no sistema, o que torna essa concepção incompatível com o princípio da continuidade, igualmente assumido por Leibniz.Abstract: I discuss in this article the Leibnizian conception of the mind, showing that perceptions and sensations can be understood as constituting a continuous series, but that apperceptions forcibly introduce a discontinuity (...) into the system, which renders this conception incompatible with the principle of continuity, also assumed by Leibniz. (shrink)

Nossos estudos na área da Educação e Diversidade no/do Grupo de Pesquisa Núcleo de Estudos e Pesquisas em Educação e Diversidade, da Faculdade de Educação da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, têm sido direcionados à compreensão das diferenças, tanto no que se referem aos fundamentos históricos, filosóficos, sociológicos que implicam a atualidade de outra forma de homens e mulheres serem, estarem e se relacionarem no e com o mundo, como também nos reflexos de toda essa mudança na e para (...) a educação. Uma das linhas de pesquisa do Núcleo – Cotidiano Escolar e Diversidade – tem como pano de fundo o deslocamento do dado do universal da modernidade para o do múltiplo da atualidade, através da análise das categorias conhecimento, tempo, espaço e sujeito. Particularmente no Grupo Tempos, focamos nossos estudos/pesquisas na temática tempo. Neste texto, apresentamos um recorte do projeto Temporalidades no/do cotidiano escolar, em que é narrada uma roda de conversa ocorrida em 21 de março de 2013 com as professoras de uma escola municipal acerca das narrativas da linha do tempo da vida de cada uma registradas nos Cadernos de narrativas. No desenvolvimento, explicitamos o lugar da pesquisa em nossos estudos, o uso da pesquisa no/ do/com o cotidiano como processo metodológico e a concepção de tempo complexo na perspectiva de Edgar Morin. Chegamos, assim, à narrativa da vida de professoras nessa roda de conversa e às conversações sobre as temporalidades em sua vida. A imobilidade da educação se pauta num saudosismo de um passado, e transformá-la implica reconstruí-la a partir do presente, considerando a complexidade dos acontecimentos. Palavras-chave: Temporalidades. Professores. Complexidade. (shrink)

John MacFarlane defends a radical form of truth relativism that makes the truth of assertions relative not only to contexts of utterance but also to contexts of assessment, or perspectives. Making sense of assessment-sensitive truth is a matter of making sense of the normative commitments undertaken by speakers in using assessment sensitive sentences. This paper argues against the possibility of making sense of such a practice. Evans raised a challenge to the coherence of relative truth. A modification of the challenge (...) can be given against MacFarlane’s revised views on assertion. The main objection to the relativist is that rational and earnest speakers are not bound by assessment-relative standards of correctness. (shrink)

This paper explores the possibility of developing a hybrid version of dispositional theories of aesthetic values. On such a theory, uses of aesthetic predicates express relational second-order dispositional properties. If the theory is not absolutist, it allows for the relativity of aesthetic values. But it may be objected to on the grounds that it fails to explain disagreement among subjects who are not disposed alike. This paper explores the possibility of adapting recent proposals of hybrid expressivist theories for moral predicates (...) to the case of aesthetic predicates. Hybrid expressivist theories make no explicit commitment about the kind of property expressed by the predicate, but make explicit commitments to implicated (or presupposed)expressive content. It is argued that dispositionalism about the properties expressed by aesthetic predicates, combined with expressive implicatures (or presuppositions), can account for aesthetic disagreements even in cases where subjects are not relevantly alike. (shrink)

This thesis is concerned with the challenge truth-value gaps pose to the principle of bivalence. The central question addressed is: are truth-value gaps counterexamples to bivalence and is the supposition of counterexamples coherent? My aim is to examine putative cases of truth-value gaps against an argument by Timothy Williamson, which shows that the supposition of counterexamples to bivalence is contradictory. The upshot of his argument is that either problematic utterances say nothing, or they cannot be neither true nor false. I (...) start by identifying truth-bearers: an utterance, for instance, is a truth-bearer if it says that something is the case. Truth-bearers are evaluable items, with truth- and falsity-conditions statable in corresponding instances of schemas for truth and falsehood. A genuine case of a truth-value gap should be an utterance that is neither true nor false but says something to be the case. But it is inconsistent to accept the schemas for truth and falsehood and the existence of genuine cases of truth-value gaps. Secondly, I expound Williamson’s argument, which explores this inconsistency, and I identify two kinds of strategy to disarm his argument: those that preserve the schemas for truth and falsehood, and those that do not. Neither strategy is found to be persuasive. Thirdly, I argue that cases of reference failure causing truth-value gaps illustrate the upshot of Williamson’s argument. Fourthly, I examine Scott Soames’s account of liar sentences as counterexamples to bivalence. Soames adopts a strategy of the first kind to avoid contradictions. I argue that his solution allows some contradictions to be true, and that he fails to show that liar sentences are truth-bearers. Finally, I examine Charles Travis’s case for isostheneia: an equal balancing of reasons to evaluate a statement as true or as false, in which case a statement is neither. Travis avoids contradictions by adopting a strategy of the second kind. I argue that the schemas for truth and falsehood are immune to Travis’s objections, and that isostheneia fails to identify evaluable items. The cases examined confirm that utterances that are neither true nor false say nothing. My claim is thus that truth-value gaps are not counterexamples to bivalence. (shrink)