The question of the holistic structure of an organism is a recurring theme in the philosophy of biology and has been increasingly discussed again in recent years. Organisms have recently been described as complex systems that autonomously create, maintain and reproduce themselves while constantly interacting with their environment. Key focal points include their autopoiesis, autonomy, agency and teleological structure. This perspective marks a significant advancement from the 20th-century viewpoint, which predominantly saw organisms as genetically programmed, randomly generated and blindly selected (...) survival-machines. However, crucial questions about the shape and development of organisms still lack answers. Shape and development are deeply interconnected and seem to require a holistic approach. Here, I will briefly outline a phenomenological perspective which could provide a framework for seeking answers to these fundamental questions. In particular, I propose a common four-fold phenomenal structure of the developing organism and the cognising consciousness, which makes it possible to observe the agential and teleological structure of the organism "from within". This fourfold structure also describes the molecular level and thus provides a general organismic concept. It furthermore corresponds to the four Aristotelian "causes" (conditions). (shrink)

Kant’s concept of the highest good proportionately unites virtue and happiness—the supreme goods of, respectively, the systems of freedom and of nature. A middle path between theological and secular interpretations of Kant’s highest good is possible if we disentangle two distinct roles played by God: a causal role in promoting the real unity of the highest good, i.e., its actualization; and a conceptual role in modeling its conceptual unity. The highest good is theological in the first case, but neutral—neither directly (...) theological nor secular—in the second. Reconstructing how Kant envisioned the conceptual unity of the highest good requires taking seriously his repeated reference to God as the highest original good, and to the best world as the highest derived good. If, as Kant thought, a moral God forms a triadic unity comprised of holiness, goodness, and divine justice, perhaps he assumed that the conceptual unity of the derived good is likewise triadic, comprised of virtue, happiness, and a form of justice that is not directly divine but “systemic,” designating the unity of the systems of nature and of freedom. Divine justice, in contrast, constitutes the real unity of the highest good. (shrink)

Um posicionamento muito comum entre teóricos do campo de pesquisa em Inteligência Artificial é aquele no qual definimos “Inteligência” como uma capacidade intrinsecamente relacionada à perseguição de metas e objetivos, algo que podemos chamar de uma “definição teleológica” para o fenômeno de inteligência. Contudo, uma possível crítica contra esta definição pode ser levantada devido a sua aparente vagueza. Como qualquer comportamento pode ser descrito como um objetivo a ser cumprido, e funções de utilidade pertencem a uma vasta família de funções, (...) podemos dizer que “qualquer comportamento”, desde que esse possa ser descrito como um objetivo sendo perseguido (uma função de utilidade sendo maximizada), serve como evidência de agência inteligente. Neste estudo, gostaria de propor uma definição alternativa para o conceito de Inteligência. Uma definição metafísica, i.e., a Hipótese da Permissibilidade. Para defender tal proposta, irei apresentar um paralelo entre: (1) teoria da otimização; (2) nosso entendimento contemporâneo sobre fenômenos físicos; e (3) aquilo que chamamos de Aprendizagem de Máquina. No fim, proponho que “Inteligência” deve ser compreendida como uma propriedade física permissível de nossa realidade. Uma propriedade a que todos os sistemas físicos têm acesso. (shrink)

This paper aims at presenting a reconstruction of the main theses of Lambert’s thought and their role in the establishment of Kant’s theoretical philosophy. In order to do so, the paper is divided into three sections. Initially, a consideration of Lambert’s attempt to assure illusion within the domain of phenomenology and to institute the domain of metaphysical truth is carried out. Secondly, Kant’s first step away from Lambert’s proposal, which is presented in the Inaugural Dissertation’s thesis that the sensible and (...) intellectual domains of knowledge are grounded upon two distinct and intransmutable faculties, is taken into account. Finally, Kant’s definitive step away from Lambert’s proposal, i.e., the justification of appearances in the Duisburg Nachlaβ in an objective and non-illusory domain, due to the determination of the faculty of understanding, is pointed out. (shrink)

We often forget that art and science are not dissociated, nor indeed antagonistic, but rather allow a creative interplay to emerge from which arises the generation of new forms of knowledge. According to Parkinson, “the analogy between the new painting and the new physics consists in that elements formerly held as cognitive or conceptual a-prioris enter as constitutive factors in the very structure of the edifices of art and science”. How exactly does it work? If for us nowadays it’s relatively (...) easy to think of the mimetic moment of art as a prelude to geometry, it is not so trivial to claim how higher-order representational symbolic epistemic structures arise from the lifeworld, or simply how both interact together. The aim of this paper is to stake out the complexity of processes going from the lifeworld and, before that, from the life of pictorial language, to h.o.r.s.e.s., in order to apply this model to further enquiries. In the first part, we will reactivate the Kantian interdependence between aesthetics and epistemology via the intersubjective dimension, in order to understand how the shaping of forms and the figuring-out patterns remain an essential component of any epistemic structure as such. In the second part, moving from Hacking, Husserl and Foucault, we will look into the way in which the evidence of symbolic structures can be maintained even alongside a genetic conception of science. Art plays an essential role in such a conception, in that it opens new horizons of figurativity in which new shapes can arise and new kinds of objectivities can be accepted as belonging to our epistemic experience of the world. (shrink)

V najnovejšem zborniku spisov o sodobni globalni krizi, Against the Double Blackmail, Slavoj Žižek trdi, da potrebujemo Wiederholung Evrope. Tako, denimo, zapiše: »na podlagi kritičnega soočanja s celotno evropsko tradicijo moramo ponoviti vprašanje 'kaj je Evropa?' ali, raje, 'kaj za nas pomeni biti evropejci?' in na tej podlagi zgraditi novo vizijo«. V danem prispevku raziskujem, kako se takšno ponovno prisvajanje »Evrope« skozi ponavljanje že dogaja, kot to nakazuje niz potez, znamenj in drugih sledi, izdolbenih s stopinjami beguncev in prosilcev za (...) azil med njihovo potjo od juga proti severu. Če je v Žižkovi knjigi »evropska tradicija« sinekdohalno predstavljena kot dvojna figura Edgarja Allana Poeja in Mary Shelley, je to zato, ker sta pisatelja z vnaprejšnjo izključitvijo vseh možnosti izhoda, uprizorila izvirno fantazmo severa, na podlagi katere se današnji begunci sklicujejo svoje pravice. Izkazalo se je, da je bila »sanjska dežela« ali Ultima Thule, od samega začetka logika vpisa. Iz te perspektive bi bilo dejanje iskanja zatočišča način »mišljenja s stopali«, kot je nekoč škandalozno zatrdil Lacan, pri čemer bi bilo besedilo, stkano kot »Evropa«, nezavedno te misli. (shrink)

What does it mean to be an aesthetic beholder? Is it different than simply being a perceiver? Most theories of aesthetic perception focus on 1) features of the perceived object and its presentation or 2) on psychological evaluative or emotional responses and intentions of perceiver and artist. In this chapter I propose that we need to look at the process of engaged perception itself, and further that this temporal process of be- coming a beholder must be understood in its embodied, (...) contextual and dynamic speci- ficity. Through both phenomenological and neuroscientific explorations I analyze what is characteristic about a more “aesthetic stance” and argue that there is a certain asym- metry between beholder and beheld, which has to do with a disengagement of goal- directed action, and which allows for other kinds of perceptual involvement than in a more “practical stance”. It is a multi-disciplinary project integrating a sensorimotor no- tion of aesthetic affordances, 18th century philosophy, and large-scale brain network findings. What ensues is a new dynamic framework for future empirical and theoretical research on aesthetic perception. (shrink)

O presente artigo traz um estudo comparativo das obras de Herder e de Kant, no qual se pretende mostrar como cada um deles compreendia as relações entre o discurso próprio da ciência e o discurso próprio da filosofia. A fim de elucidar as especificidades de cada um desses dois tipos de discurso nas obras de ambos os autores, assumiremos, como ponto de partida de nossa análise, a diferenciação entre "explicar" e "interpretar" feita por Gerard Lebrun, em uma passagem de seu (...) livro Kant e o fim da metafísica. Veremos, por um lado, de que modo Kant procura demarcar os limites entre o discurso "explicativo" próprio do conhecimento científico e o discurso "interpretativo" próprio do saber filosófico; e, por outro, como Herder dissolve essa distinção entre os dois tipos de discurso ao afirmar a existência de uma continuidade entre as faculdades da mente humana. (shrink)