This paper takes as its point of departure recent research into the possibility that human beings can perceive single photons. In order to appreciate what quantum perception may entail, we first explore several of the leading interpretations of quantum mechanics, then consider an alternative view based on the ontological phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger. Next, the philosophical analysis is brought into sharper focus by employing a perceptual model, the Necker cube, augmented by the topology of the Klein (...) bottle. This paves the way for addressing in greater depth the paper’s central question: Just what would it take to observe the quantum reality of the photon? In formulating an answer, we examine the nature of scientific objectivity itself, along with the paradoxical properties of light. The conclusion reached is that quantum perception requires a new kind of observation, one in which the observer of the photon adopts a concretely self-reflexive observational posture that brings her into close ontological relationship with the observed. (shrink)

The paper deals with Gerold Prauss’s critique of cognition taken as reflection of the surrounding reality in the consciousness of the agent. The results of his critique are similar to the standpoint presented earlier by Neo-Kantians. Prauss’s original contribution to the debate on theory of reflection consists in distinction between materialistic and non-materialistic theories of reflection, as well as in his argumentation basing on the notion of clarity.

A questão “por quê ser moral”, que foi formulada expressamente no contexto do debate filosófico acadêmico por Francis Herbert Bradley, divide os leitores quando buscam sua resposta em Kant. Uns acham, como Gerold Prauss, que Kant negue a possibilidade de tal resposta e diga que a moral precisa ser aceita como um fato simplesmente dado, o “fato da razão”. Contudo, como tal imediatismo ou “decisionismo transcendental” parece insatisfatório, um outro grupo defende a assim chamada “interpretação do agente racional”, onde (...) este último apresenta o valor supremo, absoluto, que fundamenta a moral e, com isso, apresenta a razão em virtude da qual devemos agir moralmente. Mas tal valor absoluto ou já é moral, mas então a resposta dada à questão “por quê ser moral” entra num círculo vicioso. Ou tal valor faz a moral depender de algo fora da moral o que, conforme Kant, destruiria toda moral. A solução do problema é a seguinte: Kant não deriva a moral de um pressuposto extramoral nem pressupõe a própria moral como simplesmente dada, mas explica o originar da moral. Ela origina da razão prática pela volta dessa razão sobre si mesma que constitui sua autonomia. Por este seu originar, a moral não é uma mera derivação de algo pressuposto, mas algo radicalmente novo, original, autónomo. Pelo outro lado, existe, sim, uma fundamentação da moral, i.e., um processo compreensível de sua constituição. Com isso, Kant evita o imediatismo: a moral não precisa ser simplesmente aceita como um fato puro, mas pode ser compreendida pela razão. (shrink)

The Question of Truth in Kant’s Transcendental Logic [English] In the third section of the “Introduction” to transcendental logic, Kant dedicates a couple of paragraphs to the subject of truth (KrV B82-83). Based on this passage, Kant’s com¬mentators have justified various and sometimes contradictory interpretations of the Kantian notion of truth. However, few have analyzed the passage in its own context, that is, as part of the strategy to introduce the idea of transcendental logic. In this work, I intend to (...) take a position in this regard. I will try to show that this passage does not subscribe to the distinction between general and transcendental logic, but between analytic and dialectic logic. [Español] En la tercera sección de la “Introducción” a la lógica trascendental, Kant dedica un par de párrafos al tema de la verdad (KrV B82-83). Basándose en este pasaje, los comentaristas de Kant han justificado diversas y a veces contradictorias interpretaciones de la noción kantiana de verdad. Sin embargo, pocos han analizado el pasaje en su propio contexto, es decir, como parte de la estrategia para introducir la idea de una lógica trascendental. En este trabajo se pretende tomar postura a este respecto. Se intentará mostrar que este pasaje no abona a la distinción entre lógica general y lógica trascendental, sino entre analítica y dialéctica. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a syncretistic theory of depiction, which combines the merits of the main paradigms which have hitherto faced themselves on this issue, namely the perceptualist and semioticist approaches. The syncretistic theory indeed takes from the former its stress on experiential factors and from the latter its stress on conventional factors. But the theory is even more syncretistic than this, for the way it accounts for the experiential factor vindicates several claims defended by different perceptualist theories. (...) In a nutshell, according to the syncretistic theory a picture depicts its subject iff i) it is transformed into an entity-cum-meaning and ii) one has the twofold experience of seeing that subject in the picture qua noninterpreted entity, the image, just in case one consciously misrecognizes it in consciously seeing that image, for that subject resembles the image in some grouping properties (originally labelled Gestalt-qualities in psychology). By appealing to objective resemblance in grouping properties, the theory can vindicate what are nowadays taken to be the most neglected doctrines in the perceptualist camp: objective resemblance theories. By appealing, moreover, to conscious misrecognition, the theory not only squares with both the seeing-in and the recognition theories of depiction, but it also shows the grain of truth in illusion theories of depiction, since conscious misrecognition is a kind of perceptual illusion. (shrink)