In this essay Ernst Cassirer addresses two currents of the philosophical reflection about man and culture that emerged at the end of the 18th century. Th e naturalistic one, conceives of man and culture as an outcome of the processes that takes place beyond the reach of human will and consciousness. Among such naturalistically oriented philosophies Cassirer includes Hegel’s idealism, Taine’s positivism and Spengler’s psychologism. All of them imply a characteristic kind of historical fatalism. In opposition to such (...) a deterministic vision of human development stands a philosophy that emphasizes the importance of individual decision and responsibility for the course of history. Cassirer names it “humanistic” as it places man in the very middle of its research. The initiators of this tradition were Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt, foremost representatives of the German romantic movement. The philosopher who took up their humanistic thought and elevated it to the importance of a distinct knowledge was Wilhelm Dilthey. While bearing in mind who is the real creator of culture all these thinkers pay special attention to the question of man’s responsibility for culture as well as for himself. The problem of human responsibility that totally escaped the attention of naturalistically oriented philosophers is somehow a distinguishing characteristic of all humanistic philosophies of culture. (shrink)

Il seguente lavoro si concentra su un confronto tra la filosofia di Peirce e quella di Cassirer, con particolare attenzione alla loro trattazione del problema della semiotica e della sua rilevanza in relazione alla teoria della conoscenza.

In his book Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos, Peter E. Gordon attempts to reconstruct the historical circumstances which shaped Martin Heidegger’s and Ernst Cassirer’s debate at Davos in 1929, as well as outline the key points of contention in their arguments. Gordon argues that the primary source of disagreement between Heidegger and Cassirer lies in their different concepts of what it means to be human. In this review essay, I argue that rather than a “conceptual” or “thematic” (...) divide, the divergence between them is primarily methodological, and, in Heidegger’s case, unfolds on two fronts: first, by shifting the focus of philosophy away from the modern concern for “man” in favor of the question of being, and, secondly, by pioneering a new strategy for reading the history of philosophy that emphasizes the “historical [geschichtlich]” as the recovery of the past in terms of its relevance for the future, versus providing a “historically [historisch]” accurate record of what has been. (shrink)

Analysing Cassirer's positions in the Nachruf dedicated to Natorp (1925) and in the third volume of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1929), I will try in this short paper to outline the core, merits, and limitations of Natorp's psychology in Cassirer's interpretation. In doing so, I will emphasise three elements: 1. the cornerstones of Natorpian psychology, which for Cassirer represent Natorp's main contribution to the history of ideas; 2. the thematic unity of Natorp's philosophical production; 3. the (...) fundamental continuity between Natorp's research and that of Cassirer. These three aspects are interwoven and belong in some way to the inner development of Marburg Neo-Kantianism. (shrink)

Detendo-se na questão do simbólico, que, precedendo e excedendo a razão, se impõe como fundamento da condição de uma existência que não tende a dialogar senão com a possibilidade, o artigo em questão investiga a sua emergência através das formas que se inter-relacionam na constitutividade da realidade (a saber, a linguagem, o mito, a religião), recorrendo à noção do sistema proposto pela leitura de Ernst Cassirer, que instaura um processo que do pertencimento à espécie animal à fala, do mythos (...) ao lógos, acena com a experiência da autoconstrução humana, convergindo para possibilitar, em suma, antes do que o conhecimento do Ser, a sua criação. (shrink)

Questo saggio mette in discussione l'interpretazione predominante sull'ultimo Scheler e basata sulla tesi di un dualismo sostanziale fra Geist e Leben riconducibile a quello cartesiano. Questa interpretazione non tiene conto che Scheler in Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos critica espressamente il dualismo cartesiano. In secondo luogo, attraverso una precisa analisi dei testi, si mette in luce come dopo il 1924, il termine Geist assuma nel testo scheleriano un significato molto diverso da quello del periodo intermedio, e venga caratterizzato come (...) un attributo completamente impotente. Il problema delle interpretazioni dualistiche è quello di sovrapporre questi due concetti di Geist e in particolare di continuare ad applicare al concetto di Geist sviluppato dopo il 1924 le stesse caratteristiche che Scheler attribuiva al Geist nel periodo intermedio, quando lo identificava ancora con la persona, cioè con un centro dotato di forza. A causa di questa indistinzione le interpretazioni dualistiche non riescono a rispondere alla domanda fondamentale: con quali forze uno spirito originariamente impotente e senza forze potrebbe contrapporsi dualisticamente alla vita? Scheler stesso anticipa possibili obiezioni in questo senso e afferma che «non lo spirito, ma solo l'intelletto ipersublimato, che Klages confonde con lo spirito, è in un certo senso ostile alla vita» (Max Scheler, GW IX, 150). In realtà il vero punto debole della relazione fra Geist e Drang non è il dualismo, tanto che Scheler stesso interpreta il rapporto nel senso di una compenetrazione (Durchdringung), un termine ripreso da Schelling, ma piuttosto il fatto che questa compenetrazione sfocia in una metafisica astratta che non ha più il suo fulcro nel concetto di persona ma in quello di Geist. (shrink)

Sarebbe troppo facile dire che sullo scrittoio di Bruno non c’erano né testi buddistici né scritti di Lao tse. Resta il fatto che queste assonanze ci sono, e non solo sul punto della metasomatosi, che è il più ovvio. Esistono sintonie più profonde che riguardano anzitutto il concetto del divino e quel caposaldo teorico che è il concetto bruniano di materia. Sono sintonie e assonanze che pongono complessi problemi di ordine teorico, con i quali si sono misurati pensatori come (...) class='Hi'>Cassirer e Aby Warburg che, come è noto, amava Bruno. Pongono anzitutto il problema di quelle che si potrebbero definire strutture “trascendentali” del pensiero umano, dalle quali sgorgano sintonie e assonanze di ordine filosofico o religioso che prescindono dalle “fonti” tradizionalmente considerate, ma non sono per questo meno importanti e significative. Nel suo lavoro Guido del Giudice ha precisamente questo doppio merito: 1. aprire gli studi bruniani verso prospettive non ancora e non sempre considerate in modo adeguato; 2. sollecitare il lettore a confrontarsi con delicati problemi teorici, che riguardano la struttura complessiva - universale, si potrebbe dire - del pensiero umano. (Dalla Presentazione di Michele Ciliberto) . (shrink)

Nella storia della metafisica è stato un grande problema come chiarire l’idea della coincidentia oppositorum (la coincidenza degli opposti) di Cusano, il quale è riconosciuto comunque da Cassirer come il primo epistemologo del pensiero moderno, in particolare come colui che ha saputo conquistare l’infinito alla mente umana. Dopo alcuni secoli, ha avuto una grande importanza una idea simile a quella di Cusano, la dialettica di Hegel, la quale aggiunge una negazione ad una prima frase negata per ottenere una sintesi (...) in termini generali. Ma poi queste idee sono state sempre meno seguite, eccetto che nel XX secolo da un filosofo non accademico, Lanza del Vasto che ha criticato Hegel e si è ricondotto a Cusano. Nello scritto esamino questa tematica mediante gli strumenti recentemente forniti dalla logica matematica, già verificati sugli scritti di altri scienziati; essi sono capaci di distinguere con precisione che cosa, negli scritti di uno studioso, è un passaggio logico formale e che cosa è una semplice illazione, derivata dalla conoscenza comune o dalla sua creatività; e se è un passaggio logico, decidere di che tipo di logica è. Per mezzo di questo metodo formale, i) presento alcune caratteristiche del ragionare di Cusano; ii) critico il metodo di Hegel; il risultato si accorda con la analisi critica di Hegel che Lanza del Vasto ha compiuto in maniera intuitva; iii) dimostro che la relazione tra Cusano e Lanza del Vasto è più forte di quanto dichiara quest’ultimo; iv) suggerisco una spiegazione della coincidentia oppositorum, chiarendo che la novità di ragionare in logica non classica è stata così innovativa che il tentativo di Cusano di precisarne il metodo è risultato in una scorciatoia, non errata ma valida solo in alcune situazioni; mentre è stato deviante il tentativo di Hegel; Lanza del Vasto, che ha portato un contributo al metodo di Cusano, si è comunque reso conto che occorreva arrivare a formalizzare un nuovo tipo di logica, che oggi risulta essere quella non classica. In definitiva, occorre attribuire a Cusano il merito di aver suggerito una nuova maniera di razionalità logica, quella capace di ragionare in logica non classica e di averne dato, sia pure in maniera imprecisa ed oscura, una prima formalizzazione. (shrink)

In the present book, the starting line is defined by a morphogenetic perspective on human communication and culture. The focus is on visual communication, music, religion (myth), and language, i.e., on the “symbolic forms” at the heart of human cultures (Ernst Cassirer). The term “morphogenesis” has more precisely the meaning given by René Thom (1923-2002) in his book “Morphogenesis and Structural Stability” (1972) and the notions of “self-organization” and cooperation of subsystems in the “Synergetics” of Hermann Haken (1927- ). (...) The naturalization of communication and cultural phenomena is the favored strategy, but the major results of the involved disciplines (art history, music theory, religious science, and linguistics) are respected. Visual art from the Paleolithic to modernity stands for visual communication. The present book focuses on studies of classical painting and sculpture (e.g., Leonardo da Vinci, William Turner, and Henry Moore) and modern art (e.g., Jackson Pollock and Joseph Beuys). Musical morphogenesis embraces classical music (from J. S. Bach to Arnold Schönberg) and political songwriting (Bob Dylan, Leonhard Cohen). The myths of pre-literary societies show the effects of self-organization in the re-assembly (bricolage) of traditions. Classical polytheistic and monotheistic religions demonstrate the unfolding of basic germs (religious attractors) and their reduction in periods of crisis, the self-organization of complex religious networks, and rationalized macro-structures (in theologies). Significant tendencies are analyzed in the case of Buddhism and Christianism. Eventually, a holistic view of symbolic communication and human culture emerges based on state-of-the-art in evolutionary biology, cognitive science, linguistics, and semiotics (philosophy of symbolic forms). (shrink)

O artigo em questão, detendo-se nos indí­cios do ideal da autoformação, para cujas fronteiras o contexto sociocultural da atualidade converge, recuperando a noção de Paidéia, legado grego, discorre sobre o processo pedagógico que, imbrincado em uma rede de relações que envolve as formas simbólicas mediante as quais o homem constrói o mundo, estruturalizando a realidade, segundo a perspectiva de Cassirer (1874-1945), se movimenta, no decorrer da história, oscilando entre a tendência que ora prioriza a formação individual, ora absolutiza o (...) aspecto social, objetos da investigação dos tópicos da reflexão, –Quem é, pois, o indiví­duo?- (Tópico I), e –O que é, pois, a sociedade?- (Tópico II). Longe, no entanto, de encerrar a pretensão de constituir um saber definitivo acerca da noção de indiví­duo e de sociedade, em cujos eixos estão os pressupostos da polarização que tende a envolver o processo formativo-educacional, a discussão propõe uma relação de convergência das nuances e matizes que emergem do pensamento humano trazendo aparentemente silhuetas antagônicas, mais pela ênfase de uma leitura unilateral (que onipotencializa um dos atalhos de expressão) do que propriamente pela impossibilidade de acolher uma –interseccionalidade conciliativa-. Neste sentido, se sob a referencialidade do indiví­duo o texto justapõe Durkheim (1858-1917) e Janet (1859-1947), perpassando pela perspectiva de Morin (1921), ao percurso de domí­nio da sociedade impõe uma conceituação histórica do conhecimento, inter-relacionando-o dialeticamente à produção da existência humana, que, afinal, reivindicando o governo da ciência, –autonomizada- desde a Revolução Cientí­fica (séc. XVII), engendra, em nome da razão instrumental, os valores arquetí­picos da sociedade moderna, que, constitutivos da Paidéia contemporãnea, são confrontados, através da abordagem moriniana, nos aspectos conclusivos do estudo, que denunciam, em suma, que a autoformação demanda uma relacionalidade que não pode escapar a uma correspondência dele (homem) consigo mesmo, cujo conteúdo, referencializado pela razão comunicativa, transpondo a polaridade da questão proposta, torna-se a única proposta à altura da atual conjuntura sociocultural. (shrink)

Preface/Introduction: The question under discussion is metaphysical and truly elemental. It emerges in two aspects — how did we come to be conscious of our own existence, and, as a deeper corollary, do existence and awareness necessitate each other? I am bold enough to explore these questions and I invite you to come along; I make no claim to have discovered absolute answers. However, I do believe I have created here a compelling interpretation. You’ll have to judge for yourself. -/- (...) What follows is the presentation of three essays I have worked on over the past several years seeing publication for the first time. “Hollows of Experience” was written first as an invited chapter for a collection on the ontology of consciousness. However, when cuts became necessary, my chapter got the knife. Its length has prohibited it from publication in any print journal. “Myth and Mind” was written next as a journal article, but as my involvement with it grew so did its length, so it has also idled on my websty awaiting its call. “From Panexperientialism to Conscious Experience” was written most recently, but it is the only one to have been available to the public elsewhere than my own website. Under the name, “The Continuum of Experience”, it was Target Article #95 on the recently closed Karl Jaspers Forum (for discussion purposes only). -/- I have put them in a different sequence here, for reasons of logical sense. Up first, “Panexperientialism” deals with an idea difficult for many to accept, namely that conscious experience is a particular mode of symbolically reflected experience that is largely unique to our species. However, I aver that experienced sensation in itself (as found, for example, in autonomic sensory response systems) goes “all the way down” into nature, and thus the title, panexperientialism. -/- Understanding this idea is helpful to dealing with the focus on language in Part I of “Hollows”, next, since here speech and general symbolic interaction in general are found to be the catalysts for the creation of our consciously experienced world (our “lived reality”). In Part II, however, I explore how experienced sensations must be coeval with existence, and, with even greater temerity, how all this sensational existence might have arisen within some literally inconceivable background of awareness-in-itself that yet has a dynamism that occasionally breaks into existence as experiential events and entities. (The latter may sound wacky, but physicists and cosmologists are themselves attempting to come to terms with that which seethes with vast potential energy in what they refer to as the quantum vacuum.) -/- “Myth and Mind” was put third since it deals with a major lacuna in “Hollows” — that presumed prehistoric period when members of our species made the painful crossing of the symbolic threshold into the beginnings of cultural consciousness. Speech plays a central role here, too, but I look more at narrative structures from the dawn of self-awareness when ritual and myth became vital to human survival. Why would fantastic stories and bizarre rituals be necessary? I speculate that growing foresight led to the unavoidable realization of certain mortality, from which, in turn, emerged the secondary realization that we were now alive. In contrast to our yet-to-come death, we have life here and now, and by ritually identifying with a symbolically expanded mythic, i.e., sacred, reality, we may continue to live on after bodily death, just as our ancestors and loved ones must also do. Language and mythmaking are necessary to avoid mortal despair and they remain at the core of human consciousness. -/- As Ernst Cassirer (1944) has noted, language and myth are “twin creatures”, both metaphoric webs over a reality we can never wholly comprehend. We live in the symbolic and construct our works of imagination and wars of conquest to make life meaningful, to feel immortal, and to sense that we ourselves participate in a reality greater than ourselves. No doubt we do, but this does not mean our culturally constructed self-identities survive the death of our bodies, and it does not imply that our symbolic concepts can ever indicate the ultimate truth. We simply must symbolize an extended reality that was sacred to our ancestors: “Is it not our way, as illusory as it may be, to force continuance on our world and our life in the face of their inevitable ending? Are we not compelled to extend those imaginary horizons as far as we can despite the terror and the sometime joy their extension incites? Is their closure not a form of death?” (Crapanzano, p. 210) -/- Of course, this leaves me in the uncomfortable position of being forced to admit that this venture of mine must inevitably be another attempt at meaningful mythmaking. But what else could it be? This is certainly not a scientific proof though it is indeed an academically rigorous exploration. (Just try to count the citations!) I hope the reader will judge my thesis on the basis of its coherence, the sense of meaning it evokes, my intellectual responsibility, and, finally, the engagement it inspires. If you have read my expositions and found yourself immersed in the timeless questions I here call forth, I would call these writings successful (even if you violently disagree with my answers). -/- I am very grateful to Huping Hu for granting me this special issue of JCER in which to present my ideas in some detail. He has patiently dealt with my exuberant approach and allowed the many changes I kept coming up with right until the final publication date. I also wish to thank the many potential commentators who politely replied to my invitation, and, even more, I thank those who made time to write actual commentaries. -/- References -/- Cassirer, E. (1944). An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture. New Haven/London: Yale UP. -/- Crapanzano, V. (2004). Imaginative Horizons: An Essay in Literary-Philosophical Anthropology. Chicago: U of Chicago Press. -/- Gregory M. Nixon University of Northern British Columbia Prince George, British Columbia, Canada Email: [email protected] Websty: http://members.shaw.ca/doknyx. (shrink)

O artigo em questão, detendo-se nos indícios do ideal da autoformação, para cujas fronteiras o contexto sociocultural da atualidade converge, recuperando a noção de Paideia, legado grego, discorre sobre o processo pedagógico que, imbrincado em uma rede de relações que envolve as formas simbólicas mediante as quais o homem constrói o mundo, estruturalizando a realidade, segundo a perspectiva de Cassirer (1874-1945), se movimenta, no decorrer da história, oscilando entre a tendência que ora prioriza a formação individual, ora absolutiza o (...) aspecto social, objetos da investigação dos tópicos da reflexão, “Quem é, pois, o indivíduo?” (Tópico I), e “O que é, pois, a sociedade?” (Tópico II). Longe, no entanto, de encerrar a pretensão de constituir um saber definitivo acerca da noção de indivíduo e de sociedade, em cujos eixos estão os pressupostos da polarização que tende a envolver o processo formativo-educacional, a discussão propõe uma relação de convergência das nuances e matizes que emergem do pensamento humano trazendo aparentemente silhuetas antagônicas, mais pela ênfase de uma leitura unilateral (que onipotencializa um dos atalhos de expressão) do que propriamente pela impossibilidade de acolher uma “interseccionalidade conciliativa”. Neste sentido, se sob a referencialidade do indivíduo o texto justapõe Durkheim (1858-1917) e Janet (1859-1947), perpassando pela perspectiva de Morin (1921-), ao percurso de domínio da sociedade impõe uma conceituação histórica do conhecimento, inter-relacionando-o dialeticamente à produção da existência humana, que, afinal, reivindicando o governo da ciência, “autonomizada” desde a Revolução Científica (séc. XVII), engendra, em nome da razão instrumental, os valores arquetípicos da sociedade moderna, que, constitutivos da Paideia contemporânea, são confrontados, através da abordagem moriniana, nos aspectos conclusivos do estudo, que denunciam, em suma, que a autoformação demanda uma relacionalidade que não pode escapar a uma correspondência dele (homem) consigo mesmo, cujo conteúdo, referencializado pela razão comunicativa, transpondo a polaridade da questão proposta, torna-se a única proposta à altura da atual conjuntura sociocultural. (shrink)

The concept of philosophy as a philosophical problem.--Critical idealism as a philosophy of culture.--Descartes, Leibniz, and Vico.--Hegel's theory of the State.--The philosophy of history.--Language and art I.--Language and art II.--The educational value of art.--Philosophy and politics.--Judaism and the modern political myths.--The technique of our modern political myths.--Reflections on the concept of group and the theory of perception.

(2005). Hermann Cohen and the Renewal of Kantian philosophy2. Angelaki: Vol. 10, continental philosophy and the sciences the german traditionissue editor: damian veal, pp. 95-108.

Wittgenstein’s concepts shed light on the phenomenon of schizophrenia in at least three different ways: with a view to empathy, scientific explanation, or philosophical clarification. I consider two different “positive” wittgensteinian accounts―Campbell’s idea that delusions involve a mechanism of which different framework propositions are parts, Sass’ proposal that the schizophrenic patient can be described as a solipsist, and a Rhodes’ and Gipp’s account, where epistemic aspects of schizophrenia are explained as failures in the ordinary background of certainties. I argue that (...) none of them amounts to empathic-phenomenological understanding, but they provide examples of how philosophical concepts can contribute to scientific explanation, and to philosophical clarification respectively. (shrink)

Resumo: A crise na União Europeia e os programas de austeridade subsequentes fizeram emergir uma miríade de movimentos sociais, diversos na sua natureza e nos seus propósitos. O que se pretende aferir neste artigo é a relação e a conexão existentes entre o Estado, o poder económico, a sociedade civil e os movimentos sociais neste contexto específico de crise. Procuraremos, nesta breve abordagem, explanar alguns elementos de originalidade intrínsecos aos movimentos sociais hodiernos, patentes na sua forma de participação e organização, (...) assim como aplicar estas questões teóricas relevantes ao contexto português. A parte empírica, dada a escassez de estudos de caso existentes, será apoiada no último inquérito do European Social Survey, de 2012. Analisando um conjunto de perguntas aí explícitas, podemos compreender, de forma indirecta, algumas das dinâmicas que caracterizam estes movimentos. Abstract: The crisis in the European Union and the subsequent austerity programs have unleashed a myriad of social movements, diverse in its nature and purpose. The purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship and connection between the State, economic power, civil society and social movements in this specific context of crisis. We will try, in this brief approach, to explain some elements of originality intrinsic to modern social movements, evident in their form of participation and organization, as well as to apply these theoretical questions relevant to the Portuguese context. The empirical part, given the paucity of existing case studies, will be supported in the last survey of the European Social Survey of 2012. By analyzing a set of questions explicit there, we can, indirectly, understand some of the dynamics that characterize these movements. (shrink)

The article investigates the main characteristics of the financial stability of Ukrainian banks, their risk profile, structure of assets, liabilities, income, expenses based on the monthly reporting data for 2004-2020 (number of observations – 3 813). The Kohonen self-organizing map (SOM) toolkit is used to form homogeneous groups of banks based on a large number of financial indicators. The selected toolkit provides a convenient visualization of the results. Each bank occupies a specific place on the SOM. The close location of (...) banks on the map indicates that these banks have many common characteristics. This study is called the method of structural and functional groups of banks. The study formed stable groups of banks with the same characteristics of business models and risk profile. The formation of consecutive maps for each reporting period allows to obtain the characteristics of each bank separately and the banking system as a whole. The trajectory of an individual bank’s activity during the observation period characterizes the development of its business strategy. The migration of a large number of banks between groups reflects the objective changes in the conditions of banking. Increasing groups of high-risk banks indicate systemic problems. The results show that after a significant reduction in the banking system of Ukraine in 2014-2016, the business models of banks have changed significantly. The resource base relies on unstable sources of current funds with no set term of use. In the assets of banks, a significant portion is invested in government securities – government bonds. Bank loan portfolios have declined and have a higher proportion of non-performing assets (NPL). Many banks have increased currency risk. Concerns are raised about the state of large state-owned banks that hold a separate high-risk group. Thus, the conducted research allows to distinguish groups of banks with specific characteristics of business models and to observe changes of risk profile inherent to these groups. For each structural-functional group, changes in the values of financial indicators are investigated and migration between groups is studied. The proposed methodology is useful for studying both macro and macro levels. (shrink)

Shedding light on the political power and oppressive potential of language, theories of illocutionary silencing and discursive injustice show how gender, class and race can shape the pragmatics of speech, limiting in some circumstances the speaker’s ability to do things with her words. This article takes a close look at discursive injustice in trials for gender-based violence in connection with the phenomenon of misogyny. It argues that in the courtroom the testimony of the complainant is sometimes silenced by a sexist (...) ideology used in service of misogynistic ends. In particular, it argues that sexist social meanings can sometimes be enacted by the judge and accommodated by prosecutors, figuring as a component of the score in the language game of the trial and thus 1) determining what counts as sexual violence and 2) preventing complainants from making the moves they intend to make. (shrink)

When we perceive an object, we perceive the object from a perspective. As a consequence of the perspectival nature of perception, when we perceive, say, a circular coin from different angles, there is a respect in which the coin looks circular throughout, but also a respect in which the coin's appearance changes. More generally, perception of shape and size properties has both a constant aspect—an aspect that remains stable across changes in perspective—and a perspectival aspect—an aspect that changes depending on (...) one's perspective on the object. How should we account for the perspectival aspect of spatial perception? We present a framework within which to discuss the perspectival aspect of perception and put forward three desiderata that any account of the perspectival aspect of perception should satisfy. We discuss views on which the perspectival aspect of perception is analyzed in terms of constitutively mind-dependent appearance properties as well as views on which the perspectival aspect of perception is analyzed in terms of representations of mind-independent perspectival properties. (shrink)

This article develops a view of shape representation both in visual experience and in subpersonal visual processing. The view is that, in both cases, shape is represented in a ‘layered’ manner: an object is represented as having multiple shape properties, and these properties have varying degrees of abstraction. I argue that this view is supported both by the facts about visual phenomenology and by a large collection of evidence in perceptual psychology. Such evidence is provided by studies of shape discriminability, (...) apparent motion, multiple-object tracking, and structure-from-motion. Recent neuroscientific work has also corroborated this psychophysical evidence. Finally, I draw out implications of the layered view for processes of concept acquisition. 1 Introduction2 Metric Properties andShape Properties3 Metric Views4 Against Metric Views of Visual Shape Experience5 The Visual System Uses Abstract Shape Properties6 Against Metric Views of Visual Shape Representation7 Neural Underpinnings of Abstract Shape Perception8 Implications. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the moral dimensions of gender affirmation. I argue that the moral value of gender affirmation is rooted in what Iris Murdoch called loving attention. Loving attention is central to the moral value of gender affirmation because such affirmation is otherwise too fragile or insincere to have such value. Moral reasons to engage in acts that gender affirm derive from the commitment to give and express loving attention to trans people as a way of challenging their (...) marginalization. In the latter part of the paper, I will discuss how my arguments bear on recent arguments by Robin Dembroff and Daniel Wodak (2018) on the use of gender-neutral language. They argue that we have a duty not to use gender-specific pronouns for anyone. Their conclusion turns, in part, on a rejection of gender affirmation as a moral duty. The value of gender affirmation, rooted in our moral perception of trans people, should make us skeptical of this conclusion, in favor of a more nuanced and pluralistic approach to the ethics of gendering. (shrink)

Climate change, pollution, and deforestation have a negative impact on global mental health. There is an environmental justice dimension to this challenge as wealthy people and high-income countries are major contributors to climate change and pollution, while poor people and low-income countries are heavily affected by the consequences. Using state-of-the art data mining, we analyzed and visualized the global research landscape on mental health, climate change, pollution and deforestation over a 15-year period. Metadata of papers were exported from PubMed®, and (...) both relevance and relatedness of terms in different time frames were computed using VOSviewer. Co-occurrence graphs were used to visualize results. The development of exemplary terms over time was plotted separately. The number of research papers on mental health and environmental challenges is growing in a linear fashion. Major topics are climate change, chemical pollution, including psychiatric medication in wastewater, and neurobiological effects. Research on specific psychiatric syndromes and diseases, particularly on their ethical and social aspects is less prominent. There is a growing body of research literature on links between mental health, climate change, pollution, and deforestation. This research provides a graphic overview to mental healthcare professionals and political stakeholders. Social and ethical aspects of the climate change-mental health link have been neglected, and more research is needed. (shrink)

Karl Marx claims that alienation inheres in all wage labor. I raise questions about the applicability of this claim to subjects of patriarchy. In the first section, I discuss industrial wage labor and its allure for women who were trying to escape the norms of familial patriarchy. In the second section, I extend this criticism of Marx’s claim by considering the racially enslaved subjects of the Antebellum American South, for whom economicallyrecognized wage labor was still a bloody political battle. Finally, (...) I turn to the identification of working class women and sexuality, in order to show how wage labor offered liberation from narrow bourgeois sexual strictures. I conclude by reassessing the viability of Marx’s critique of alienation, taking into account the standpoints from which wage labor itself was a considerable political achievement. (shrink)

Abstract: Alienation and slavery from Precious or what we don't want to see. It is our purpose to establish, in a parallel reading, these two films (highly rewarded), namely The Fence and Precious, that apparently being so different, are an illustration of the reality of life and the modern democratic world: the social uprooting and slavery. If in the movie of Phillip Noyce and Christone Olsen The Fence, is told a story of three young Aboriginal girls who are forcibly taken (...) to be transformed into domestic slaves, in the movie of Lee Daniels Precious, the young woman is already a servant in her own home and seeks the transformation of her life. Uniting these two stories, we find fundamental elements: illiteracy, ill-treatment, the idea of a migration (real or metaphysical), among others, but whose fundamental notion is the journey. If the film The Fence, the fence itself is used to conduct the three young Aboriginal to a real reunion with the family, in Precious, the metaphorical ‘fence’ is the limit of her world. From this interpretation, we will undertake our reflection about what we consider to be the alienation of the modern world and the silence we produce about them. (shrink)

Consider the claims that representations of physical laws are intersubjective, and that they ultimately provide the foundation for all other intersubjective knowledge. Those claims, as well as the deeper philosophical commitments that justify them, constitute rare points of agreement between the Marburg School neo-Kantians Paul Natorp and Ernst Cassirer and their positivist rival, Ernst Mach. This is surprising, since Natorp and Cassirer are both often at pains to distinguish their theories of natural scientific knowledge from positivist views like (...) Mach’s, and often from Mach’s views in particular. Thus the very fact of this agreement between the Marburg School neo-Kantians and their positivist stalking horse points to a deep current of ideas that runs beneath the whole of the post-Kantian intellectual context they shared. (shrink)

Recently, the concept of "gender identity" has enjoyed a great deal of attention in gender metaphysics. This seems to be motivated by the goal of creating trans-inclusive theory, by explaining trans people's genders. In this paper, we aim to unmotivate this project. Notions of "gender identity" serve important pragmatic purposes for trans people, such as satisfying the curiosity of non-trans people, and, relatedly, securing our access to important goods like legal rights and medical care. However, we argue that this does (...) not mean that "gender identity" is a metaphysically substantial thing that deserves extensive theoretical attention. There are reasons to be skeptical of such a concept. We trace the history of "gender identity," primarily to identify its roots in trans-antagonistic medical theory and its connections to the problematic "wrong-body" model--a legacy that has pathologized and flattened trans experience. Moreover, we argue that trans people primarily use "gender identity" to explain ourselves to non-trans people, rather than to discuss ourselves among ourselves. Thus, we urge theorists to resist the urge to substantiate gender identity. Instead, we encourage the development of new and better concepts, ones that attend to the lived realities of trans community and the flourishing gender terms and practices that are constructed there. If these lived realities are taken seriously, there is no need to “explain” trans people’s genders; we can simply see them as they are. (shrink)

Because corporate social responsibility can be beneficial to both companies and its stakeholders, interest in factors that support CSR performance has grown in recent years. A thorough integration of CSR in core business processes is particularly important for achieving effective long-term CSR practices. Here, we explored the individual CSR-related competencies that support CSR implementation in a corporate context. First, a systematic literature review was performed in which relevant scientific articles were identified and analyzed. Next, 28 CSR directors and managers were (...) interviewed. The literature review complemented with interview data resulted in the following eight distinct CSR-related competencies: Anticipating CSR challenges; Understanding CSR-relevant systems and subsystems; Understanding CSR-relevant standards; CSR management competencies, including Leading CSR programs, Managing CSR programs, and Identifying and realizing CSR-related business opportunities; Realizing CSR-supportive interpersonal processes; Employing CSR-supportive personal characteristics and attitudes; Personal value-driven competencies, including Ethical normative competencies, Balancing personal ethical values and business objectives, and Realizing self-regulated CSR-related behaviors and active involvement; and Reflecting on personal CSR views and experiences. Based on these results, implications for further research on this topic, as well as implications for practitioners, are discussed. (shrink)

Essay Review of New Waves in the Philosophy of Technology (Olsen/Selinger). Treats issue of difference of technology in Marx and Heidegger at some length.

The role of imagination in Descartes. The critic of Sartre to the concept of image in Descartes.

Animal ethicists have recently debated the ethical questions raised by disenhancing animals to improve their welfare. Here, we focus on the particular case of breeding hens for commercial egg-laying systems to become blind, in order to benefit their welfare. Many people find breeding blind hens intuitively repellent, yet ‘welfare-only’ positions appear to be committed to endorsing this possibility if it produces welfare gains. We call this the ‘Blind Hens’ Challenge’. In this paper, we argue that there are both empirical and (...) theoretical reasons why even those adopting ‘welfare-only’ views should be concerned about breeding blind hens. But we also argue that alternative views, which (for example) claim that it is important to respect the telos or rights of an animal, do not offer a more convincing solution to questions raised by the possibility of disenhancing animals for their own benefit. (shrink)

Obiettivo di questo articolo sarà presentare l’analisi fenomenologica e teoretica che Sartre propone del concetto di malafede, a partire dal romanzo La Nausea fino all’opera L’essere e il nulla. Ricostruendo il procedimento sartriano, che dall’atteggiamento interrogativo dell’uomo di fronte all’essere porta alla posizione del non-essere, giungeremo alla libertà e all’angoscia, quali caratteri costitutivi dell’essenza umana. Il tentativo di fuggire dalla libertà, a cui per Sartre siamo condannati, e dall’angoscia che da essa deriva, condurrà l’uomo sartriano all’autoinganno, ad una vita inautentica… (...) alla malafede. (shrink)

The thought that empathy plays an important role in moral motivation is almost a platitude of contemporary folk psychology. Parallel themes were mooted in German moral philosophy and aesthetics in the 1700s, and versions of the empathy construct remained prominent in continental accounts of moral motivation through the nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries. This chapter elucidates the Empathic Motivation Hypothesis (EMH) and sets out some of the conceptual and empirical challenges it faces. It distinguishes empathic concern from other dimensions (...) of empathy (e.g., resonance, attunement, distress, and non-empathic concern) and examines the merits of EMH as a developmental thesis, focusing on evidence from psychopathology and attachment theory. (shrink)

To what extent can Nietzsche's idea of the Overman be used in connection with transhumanist notions of highly advanced humans and even posthumans?

O presente trabalho visa apresentar a solução dada por Santo Agostinho ao problema do mal, aliado à aparente contraditoriedade entre a presciência de Deus e a liberdade humana. Para isto, será útil como bibliografia principal do filósofo sua obra De libero arbitrio, um livro em forma de diálogo onde o pensador esclarece suas posições acerca do livre-arbítrio e da presciência divina.

The received view about rationalizing explanations divides our psychological status into two kinds: beliefs and desires. In *The Retrieval of Ethics*, Talbot Brewer makes a case against this view. In this paper, I examine our experience as readers of *The Castle* by Franz Kafka to support Brewer's critical program, that is, his challenge to the received view. I will argue, however, that a proper analysis of this experience poses a serious problem to Brewer's alternative approach, that is, to his attempt (...) to retrieve our agency thanks to a proper understanding of the role of the good in rationalizing explanations. (shrink)

Sustainability assessments bring together different perspectives that pertain to sustainability in order to produce overall assessments and a wealth of approaches and tools have been developed in the past decades. But two major problematics remain. The problem of integration concerns the surplus of possibilities for integration; different tools produce different assessments. The problem of implementation concerns the barrier between assessment and transformation; assessments do not lead to the expected changes in practice. This paper aims to analyze issues of complementarity in (...) sustainability assessment and transformation as a key to better handling the problems of integration and implementation. Based on a generalization of Niels Bohr’s complementarity from quantum mechanics, we have identified two forms of complementarity in sustainability assessment, observer stance complementarity and value complementarity. Unlike many other problems of sustainability assessment, complementarity is of a fundamental character connected to the very conditions for observation. Therefore complementarity cannot be overcome methodologically; only handled better or worse. Science is essential to the societal goal of sustainability, but these issues of complementarity impede the constructive role of science in the transition to more sustainable structures and practices in food systems. The agencies of sustainability assessment and transformation need to be acutely aware of the importance of different perspectives and values and the complementarities that may be connected to these differences. An improved understanding of complementarity can help to better recognize and handle issues of complementarity. These deliberations have relevance not only for sustainability assessment, but more generally for transdisciplinary research on wicked problems. (shrink)

Paul Boghossian (1997) has argued that there is much to be said on behalf of the notion of analyticity so long as we distinguish epistemic analyticity and metaphysical analyticity. In particular, (1) epistemic analyticity isn’t undermined by Quine’s critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction, (2) it can explain the a prioricity of logic, and (3) epistemic analyticity can’t be rejected short of embracing semantic irrealism. In this paper, we argue that all three of these claims are mistaken.

In this chapter, I focus on the experience of torture and, more specifically, on Jean Améry's account of it in his book *At the Mind's Limits*. There he claims that the loss of confidence in the world is the most devastating effect he experienced as a victim of torture. I thus explore what cosmopolitan aspiration may be revealed by this loss and also discuss whether it is to be discredited as an irrational reaction on the victim's side or instead as (...) proportional to the facts and, consequently, as relevant to the conditions under which a certain cosmopolitan aspiration could be achieved or, at least, favored. (shrink)

at seek to identify the necessary and sufficient conditions for a work to count as fiction. She argues that this goal cannot really be achieved; instead, she appeals to the notion of genre to distinguish between fiction and nonfiction. This notion is significantly more flex- ible, since it invites us to identify standard—but not necessary—and counter-standard features of works of fiction in light of our classificatory practices. More specifically, Friend argues that the genre of fiction has the genre of nonfiction—and (...) only that genre—as its con- trast class. I will refer to the particular way in which Friend elaborates this claim as the contrast view. I have, nevertheless, the impression that this view unnecessarily narrows down the array of perspectives and attitudes from which we can approach works of fiction. I will thus develop a line of reasoning to the effect that the contrast view should rather be construed as picking out a particular way of relating to works of fiction that lies at the end of a continuum defined by different degrees of reflectivity and estrangement. This implies that the contrast view is false as a general claim about how we experience works of fiction, even though this view may appropriately de- pict a specific way of approaching such works. (shrink)

Este ensaio estabelece uma comparação estética e fenomenológica entre os pensamentos de Yves-Klein e Merleau-Ponty. Se o pintor materializou as suas reflexões e concepções em obra pictórica, o fenomenólogo francês dissertou na escrita filosófica o resultado da sua reflexão. Da análise conjunta entre um e outro resulta esta fenomenologia e estética comparativa que apresenta alguns conceitos fundamentais que alimentaram essas reflexões, tais como a visibilidade, o corpo, o mundo. Assim, para além dessa comparação, este ensaio viabiliza o diálogo entre ambos. (...) Palavras-chave: Corpo. Mundo. Visibilidade. Merleau-Ponty. Yves Klein -/- Abstract:This essay establishes an aesthetic and phenomenological comparison between the thoughts of Yves-Klein and Merleau-Ponty. If the painter materialized his reflections and concepts in pictorial work, the French phenomenologist disserted in the philosophical writing the result of his reflection. From the joint analysis between one and the other, this phenomenology and comparative aesthetics results, which presents some fundamental concepts that fed these reflections such as visibility, the body, the world. Thus, in addition to this comparison, this essay enables the dialogue between both. Keywords: Body. World. Visibility. Merleau-Ponty. Yves Klein. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é apontar cinco aspectos do pensamento nietzschiano que podem ser relevantes para os debates da filosofia da ciência em torno da natureza e representação do conhecimento científico. Para tanto, é realizada uma revisão de literatura com o objetivo de selecionar trechos de obras nietzschianas como O nascimento da tragédia, Genealogia da moral, A gaia ciência e outras que permitam interpretar Nietzsche como um filósofo da ciência preocupado com a construção do conhecimento cientifico sobre a realidade física. (...) Como resultado é possível identificar uma proposta epistemológica na perspectiva nietzschiana, cuja representação objetiva do mundo deve apontar para uma estética da vida. -/- The purpose of this article is to point out five aspects of Nietzschean thought that may be relevant to debates in the philosophy of science around the nature and representation of scientific knowledge. To this end, a literature review is carried out with the aim of selecting excerpts from Nietzschean works such as The Birth of Tragedy, Genealogy of Morals, The Gay Science and others that allow us to interpret Nietzsche as a philosopher of science concerned with the construction of scientific knowledge about the physical reality. As a result, it is possible to identify an epistemological proposal in the Nietzschean perspective, whose objective representation of the world should point to an aesthetics of life. (shrink)

Shortages of new therapeutics to treat coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have forced clinicians, public health officials, and health systems to grapple with difficult questions about how to fairly allocate potentially life-saving treatments when there are not enough for all patients in need (1). Shortages have occurred with remdesivir, tocilizumab, monoclonal antibodies, and the oral antiviral Paxlovid (2) -/- Ensuring equitable allocation is especially important in light of the disproportionate burden experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic by disadvantaged groups, including Black, Hispanic/Latino and (...) Indigenous communities, individuals with certain disabilities, and low-income persons. However, many health systems have resorted to first-come, first-served approaches to allocation, which tend to disadvantage individuals with barriers in access to care (3). There is mounting evidence of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in access to medications for COVID-19 (4, 5). -/- One potential method to promote equitable allocation is to use a weighted lottery, which is an allocation strategy that gives all eligible patients a chance to receive the scarce treatment while also allowing the assignment of higher or lower chances according to other ethical considerations (6). We sought to assess the feasibility of implementing a weighted lottery to allocate scarce COVID-19 medications in a large U.S. health system and to determine whether the weighted lottery promotes equitable allocation. (shrink)