Indagando a possibilidade e o sentido de uma poética do eu, será nosso objetivo clarificar, a partir do contributo incontornável do filósofo francês Paul Ricœur, de que forma o texto poéticose assume como uma mediação fundamental da compreensãodo si, bem como da sua configuração e refiguração enquanto um si mesmo. Neste sentido, atentaremos especialmente nas obras Temps et Récit (1983‑85) e Soi-Même Comme un Autre (1990), fulcrais para entendermos a relação que o filósofo tece entre narrativa, tempo e identidade, mais (...) especificamente a importância da mediação narrativa para a superação das apo‑rias ligadas às experiências humanas da temporalidade e da construção identitária. Gravitaremos, neste contexto, em torno da noção seminal de identidade narrativa –enquanto ponto de mediação entre uma identidade idem e uma identidade ipse. (shrink)

How to be being to be being/ next to the united and firm/ and trembling/ mouth of the poem?”, “How to say what is clearer than clarity [...]?” or “How to unite a light design and an obscure gesture?” These questions, as well as many others that emerge from the poetic and essay writing of António Ramos Rosa (1924-2013), represent different modulations of the same angular question: that of the relation between poem and reality, or, more radically, between poem and (...) being. And if such a question spreads into so many formulations it is because, in António Ramos Rosa, its scope is total, simultaneously aesthetic and ontological, metaphysical and spiritual. It is, therefore, this question that we will try to answer by looking into one of its possible faces: how can poetic creation be at the same time the most intimate gesture and the one that touches most deeply the undomesticated matter of the real, that absolute and unapprehensible Other? (shrink)

A partir de la tesis del filósofo español Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936), según la cual el extremo occidental — Portugal — y el extremo oriental — India — se dieron las manos espirituales por vía de la comprensión de la vanidad del mundo (vanitas), presentada en su obra Por tierras de Portugal y España (1911), nos proponemos poner en diálogo las visiones del mundo barroco occidental y del mundo budista oriental sobre la vanidad y la muerte. En este sentido, nuestra (...) reflexión se centrará en el pensamiento del P. António Vieira, como ejemplo capital del pensamiento barroco portugués, y en el Sermón de Benares, como texto fundador del budismo. (shrink)

This work tries to show that the metapoetic meditation developed by Ramos Rosa throughout his very extensive poetic work not only did not condemn his poetry to a cold cloister in the textual plane, but also contributed decisively to the opening to the real, to the effect of evidence and to the sense of communion that would become increasingly sensitive in his writing. To this end, we propose to clarify the thread that, under the aegis of the poetic lucidity consecrated (...) by the author, leads us from his metapoetic meditation to a poetic meditation of an ontophenomenological and sapiential nature, that is, from his metapoetry to a poetry whose wisdom provides a set of intuitions with a sapiential and philosophical accent. It is our intention to contribute, in this way, to the understanding of the (cognitive and ontological) demand and scope of Rosa’s poetic path, as well as, collaterally, to the debate around topics such as poetic (self-)reference, the ontological status of the poetic text or the philosophy-literature relationship. (shrink)

This study aims at assessing the meaning and the extent of the possible relationship between philosophy and literature in and from two significant contemporary thinkers, Maurice Blanchot and Paul Ricoeur. -/- Based on the assumption that both represent the human effort of touching and configuring an essential bottom which seems to escape an immediate seizure – although it is generally considered that philosophy does it through the conceptual/critical discourse and literature through the metaphorical/poetic discourse – the key problem we wish (...) to answer is to know, in that attempt, whether the mentioned activities can or must come close, especially the first in relation to the second. Such problem inevitably disseminates itself in a set of questions which we propose ourselves to think by having the mentioned authors as a starting point: can literature, in its specificity, open new possibilities of expression or mediation of a being or a neuter which precedes us and, therefore, assume itself as a privileged locus for (the calling for) philosophical reflection? Is it philosophically desirable, or even inevitable, a proximity to literature? Or, more radically, is the defense of a clear separation between philosophy and literature sustainable? In that sense, the essay is divided in three moments: in the first, we clarify the conceptions of the language, of the written text and of the relation author-work-reader from which the authors go from; in the second, we intend to think about how the poetic text opens new possibilities of expression or mediation due to its own world and devices; lastly, we will assess more thoruoghly the meaning and the extent that the relation philosophy-literature acquires in each of the proposals. -/- Although they share a few assumptions, our authors’ perspectives will display different concerns or impulses – one we shall call retrospective and another we shall call prospective – which will lead us to different answers. (shrink)

In this chapter, I put forward and sustain an articulation of the notion of bodily skill based on ecological psychology, and I show how it is relevant for the debate between Dreyfus and McDowell about skillful coping and also for the debate about whether know-how is reducible or not to propositional knowledge. The right metaphor to understand bodily skills is not the computer metaphor but the radio metaphor. These skills result from a process of organism attunement to its environment.

In this paper, I defend an account of how perceptual experience can bear rational relation to our empirical thought. In the first part, I elaborate two claims that are central for the justificational role of perceptual experience, namely, the claim that perception and belief share the same kind of content, and the claim that perception is independent from belief. At first sight, these claims seem not to be compatible, since the first one seems to require the truth of content conceptualism, (...) while the second one seems to require its falsity. In the second part, based on Alva Noë's actionist theory of perception, I argue in favor of a less intellectualist interpretation of the first claim, uncommitted to content conceptualism, and then I show how it can be reconciled with the second claim. Finally, I explain how perception holds rational relationships with our empirical thought through the exercise of observational concepts. These concepts link what I propose to call 'space of actions' to the logical space of reasons. (shrink)

The initial problem which motivated the writing of this thesis arose from reading of Emile by Rousseau. In this work, it was possible to detect the influence of different theoretical approaches, such as rationalism and empiricism, inspiring the development of the educational plan designed by Rousseau for his imaginary student (Emile). The very core question of the present thesis regards to whether there was a theory of knowledge pertaining to Rousseau’s philosophical thinking and, if so, how it was related to (...) his theories of education. In the set of his oeuvre, Rousseau’s affiliation to authors like Descartes, Leibniz, Locke and Malebranche, as well as Condillac, Diderot, D’Holbach and Helvétius was discovered. As the reading of the great philosophical work of Rousseau progressed, an original knowledge theory was discovered, of the kind which accepts the coexistence of opposite thoughts. Pedagogy, in the context of (the work) Emile, arose out of the miscellany of such theories and also for the intense philosophical maturing process on the core of Rousseau’s thinking. This study intended, therefore, to understand the origin and development of Rousseau’s theory of knowledge, and also to figure out how the philosopher formulated his theories on Education, especially in Emile. The object of this research, materialized through the extensive bibliography of the Swiss philosopher, was intensively read and analyzed. The methodology used was that of comparative, descriptive and critical documentary research of the mentioned authors. This research is divided into three sections: the first one intends to investigate the philosophical influence from different authors on the foundations of Rousseau’s epistemology; the second section addresses Rousseau’s theories of Education; the third and final part investigates the link between theory of knowledge and Education within Rousseau’s philosophical thought. -/- . (shrink)

Many commentators have understood Philippians 3:2 as a clear warning against Judaizers. This verse, however, admits of other interpretations. And indeed, some commentators have suggested new readings for this passage. For example, one author suggested that the apostle might have had the Cynic philosophers in mind. Others thought that Paul distinguished between three kinds of people. This article aims to contribute to this debate by presenting the viewpoint of Norman DeWitt, who provides (indirect) evidence that the Epicureans were among the (...) main opponents of Paul and Christianity. And he assumes that after the evidence of certain symbols and elements in the language of the author of the letter, it can be seen that the infamous epithet in 3.2: "τοὺς κύνας" refers to the followers of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. In addition to Norman DeWitt, we sought to dialogue with other authors who deal with the subject and contribute to the reflection of this investigation. As methodology, a bibliographical study was carried out. As a result, it is emphasized that Philippians verse 3:2 is open to many identity possibilities. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted immense work on the investigation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Rapid, accurate, and consistent interpretation of generated data is thereby of fundamental concern. Ontologies––structured, controlled, vocabularies––are designed to support consistency of interpretation, and thereby to prevent the development of data silos. This paper describes how ontologies are serving this purpose in the COVID-19 research domain, by following principles of the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry and by reusing existing ontologies such as the Infectious Disease Ontology (...) (IDO) Core, which provides terminological content common to investigations of all infectious diseases. We report here on the development of an IDO extension, the Virus Infectious Disease Ontology (VIDO), a reference ontology covering viral infectious diseases. We motivate term and definition choices, showcase reuse of terms from existing OBO ontologies, illustrate how ontological decisions were motivated by relevant life science research, and connect VIDO to the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO). We next use terms from these ontologies to annotate selections from life science research on SARS-CoV-2, highlighting how ontologies employing a common upper-level vocabulary may be seamlessly interwoven. Finally, we outline future work, including bacteria and fungus infectious disease reference ontologies currently under development, then cite uses of VIDO and CIDO in host-pathogen data analytics, electronic health record annotation, and ontology conflict-resolution projects. (shrink)

Neste artigo, mapeio o terreno da discussão em torno das teorias da conspiração, destacando o problema de como defini-las, os fatores que levam à crença nas teorias da conspiração, os seus potenciais prejuízos e como devemos reagir a elas. Defendo que devemos avaliar as consequências da crença em uma teoria da conspiração para determinar se ela deve ser levada a serio ou não. Em bloco, as teorias da conspiração ameaçam a capacidade coletiva de produção de conhecimento e devemos nos preocupar (...) com a sua difusão. (shrink)

In this paper I claim that perceptual discriminatory skills rely on a suitable type of environment as an enabling condition for their exercise. This is because of the constitutive connection between environment and perceptual discriminatory skills, inasmuch as such connection is construed from an ecological approach. The exercise of a discriminatory skill yields knowledge of affordances of objects, properties, or events in the surrounding environment. This is practical knowledge in the first-person perspective. An organism learns to perceive an object by (...) becoming sensitized to its affordances. I call this position ecological disjunctivism. A corollary of this position is that a case of perception and its corresponding case of hallucination—which is similar to the former only in some respects—are different in nature. I show then how the distinguishability problem is addressed by ecological disjunctivism. (shrink)

In The Deep History of Ourselves, Joseph LeDoux distinguishes between behavioral and physiological responses caused by the activation of defense circuits, and the emotion of fear. Although the former is found in nearly all bilateral animals, the latter is supposedly a unique human adaptation that requires language, reflective self-awareness, among other cognitive capacities. In this picture, fear is an autonoetic conscious experience that happens when defense circuit activation is integrated into self-awareness and the experience labeled with the “fear” concept. In (...) this commentary I will propose a different view, in which fear is a skillful activity that we coordinate with others as our social interactions unfold in time. If this is true, two important conclusions will follow. Firstly, the relevant brain circuits we should be looking for in our theory of emotions are those involved in affective social learning, social cognition, embodied intersubjectivity, and so on. Secondly, emotions may not be uniquely human, and may be present in any creature with the right kinds of social skills required for affective enactments. Therefore, although LeDoux is right to hold that emotions are not as deep as defense circuits, they are not as shallow as other cognitively sophisticated human capacities. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that hinge propositions are ways of acting that constitute abilities or skills. My starting point is Moyal-Sharrock's account of hinge propositions. However, Moyal-Sharrock's account leaves gaps to be filled, as it does not offer a unified explanation of the origin of our ungrounded grounds. Her account also lacks resources to respond to the issue of demarcation, since it does not provide a criterion for distinguishing ways of acting that can legitimately fulfill the role of ungrounded (...) grounds from those that cannot. Without an answer to this issue, the relativistic threat is serious. I then propose that by narrowing the ways of acting to those that are constitutive of abilities, we can deal with the relativistic threat. I provide an ecological approach to abilities through which I explain why abilities are reality-soaked and therefore why the ways of acting that constitute them are legitimate ungrounded grounds. Based on that approach, I provide an answer to the issue of demarcation that defuses the relativistic threat. (shrink)

In this paper, we defend that demonstratives are expressions of joint attention. Though this idea is not exactly new in the philosophical or linguistic literature, we argue here that their proponents have not yet shown how to incorporate these observations into more traditional theories of demonstratives. Our purpose is then to attempt to fill this gap. We argue that coordinated attentional activities are better integrated into a full account of demonstratives as meta-pragmatic information. Our claim is twofold. First, we claim (...) that pragmatically presupposing salience is a fundamental aspect of using demonstratives. Secondly, we hold that the pragmatics of demonstrating can only be properly understood in relation to meta-pragmatic conditions that have to do with joint attention. We use tests of truth-value gap as evidence for our claim. Our proposal provides us with a complete view of what speakers do and presuppose when engaging in acts of demonstrative reference through language. (shrink)

This chapter is particularly concerned with the status of history, dance history especially, within Dance Studies. It asks what has befallen the more recent status of history, once an epistemological support at a critical stage in Dance Studies’s early development, now that Dance Studies is better established, relatively speaking, within the academy. Is history so much scaffolding which, having fulfilled its purpose in enabling the disciplinary plant to take root, is to be dismantled and, if not actually discarded, at least (...) demoted? Three factors will be identified and proposed as having particular significance in this connection, imbuing this chapter with a tri-partite structure. The first concerns the already noted strong imprint of Cultural Studies on Dance Studies and the possible bearing of this imprint on dance history’s status within Dance Studies. For the particular manner in which Dance Studies has construed Cultural Studies may, this chapter will suggest, have impacted upon dance history’s standing within communities of dance scholarship. The second factor has to do with the implications, for dance history, of a particular critique based in a branch of dance scholarship, that perceives phenomenology, which it deems a good fit for dance inquiry, as inherently antithetical to history. In particular, this critique takes the work of Michel Foucault - which it identifies closely with, and as, historical practice - as incompatible with dance enquiry. Incompatibility is staked on the twin grounds of Foucault’s break with, and supposed resulting and enduring antipathy towards, phenomenology; and his perceived embrace of history which is, itself, also understood to result from such a break. In effect, then, this critique questions the very suitability, for dance research, of approaches based in history-focussed inquiry. The ability to call this critique into question, in the ways that the present discussion, in seeking to rehabilitate Foucault, and so history, needs to demonstrate, constitutes the third factor. This final factor makes two particular, further demands of this chapter. Namely that the interrelated questions of Foucault, phenomenology, and dance; and of the position which phenomenology has itself adopted in relation to history, be re-visited and re-evaluated to the extent that space reasonably allows. Fortunately, these interrelated questions are ones which have - relatively recently - preoccupied scholarship on Foucault, and on phenomenology, respectively. This preoccupation may in and of itself be one possible indicator that there is indeed more at stake, and so to consider, regarding both questions, than the lines drawn by the aforementioned critique might suggest. (shrink)

In this paper, I will focus on the nature of the Situationist concept of everyday life, in order to highlight not only its objective content but also its ambiguity. Moreover, I will demonstrate that there is, from the perspective of a poetics of everyday life, and in spite of the diversity of development stages of the Situationist International, an undeniable unity of its revolutionary program.

Niche construction theory highlights the active role of organisms in modifying their environment. A subset of these modifications is the developmental niche, which concerns ecological, epistemic, social and symbolic legacies inherited by organisms as resources that scaffold their developmental processes. Since in this theory development is a situated process that takes place in a culturally structured environment, we may reasonably ask if implicit cultural biases may, in some cases, be responsible for maladaptive developmental niches. In this paper we wish to (...) argue for an affirmative answer. In order to do so, we first propose to conceptualize implicit bias as embodied perceptual habits, and then proceed to show that these habits are at least partially responsible for maladaptive developmental niches of children with Down syndrome and autism. With this framework we thus hope to bring together two fields of research that haven’t been explicitly connected: implicit bias and niche construction theory. Linking these two theories may bring benefits both to implicit bias researchers, who can extend this concept to characterize other sets of processes as biased, as well as to niche construction theorists, who will have a useful theoretical tool to diagnose maladaptive features of niches brought about by sociocultural biases. (shrink)

Today a change is imperative in approaching global problems: what is needed is not arm-twisting and power politics, but searching for ways of co-evolution in the complex social and geopolitical systems of the world. The modern theory of self-organization of complex systems provides us with an understanding of the possible forms of coexistence of heterogeneous social and geopolitical structures at different stages of development regarding the different paths of their sustainable co-evolutionary development. The theory argues that the evolutionary channel to (...) the observed increasing complexity is extremely narrow and only certain discrete spectra of relatively stable self-maintained structures are feasible in complex systems. There exists a restricted set of ways of assembling a complex evolutionary whole from diverse parts. The law of nonlinear synthesis of complex structures reads: the integration of structures in more complex ones occurs due to the establishment of a common tempo of their evolution. On the basis of the theory, we can see not only desirable but also attainable futures. (shrink)

Satisfying the demand of questioning the contemporary condition implies, first of all, a criticism of present times. From this point of view, it becomes clear that art and revolution whilst practices of creative disruption are undoubtedly in crisis. Hence, it is imperative to re-read Guy Debord, who not only refused the aestheticization of politics, but also the politicization of aesthetics. For the hermeneutics of contemporary, his work is, of course, essential. Proving it is, in short, the purpose of this paper.

Main principles of the complex nonlinear thinking which are based on the notions of the modern theory of evolution and self-organization of complex systems called also synergetics are under discussion in this article. The principles are transdisciplinary, holistic, and oriented to a human being. The notions of system complexity, nonlinearity of evolution, creative chaos, space-time definiteness of structure-attractors of evolution, resonant influences, nonlinear and soft management are here of great importance. In this connection, a prominent contribution made to system analysis (...) and to a necessary reform of education and thinking by Edgar Morin is considered. (shrink)

While nudging has garnered plenty of interdisciplinary attention, the ethics of applying it to climate policy has been little discussed. However, not all ethical considerations surrounding nudging are straightforward to apply to climate nudges. In this article, we overview the state of the debate on the ethics of nudging and highlight themes that are either specific to or particularly important for climate nudges. These include: the justification of nudges that are not self-regarding; how to account for climate change denialists; transparency; (...) knowing the right or best behaviours; justice concerns; and whether the efficacy of nudges is sufficient for nudges to be justified as a response to the climate crisis. We conclude that climate nudges raise distinct ethical questions that ought to be considered in developing climate nudges. (shrink)

Information is a central notion for cognitive sciences and neurosciences, but there is no agreement on what it means for a cognitive system to acquire information about its surroundings. In this paper, we approximate three influential views on information: the one at play in ecological psychology, which is sometimes called information for action; the notion of information as covariance as developed by some enactivists, and the idea of information as minimization of uncertainty as presented by Shannon. Our main thesis is (...) that information for action can be construed as covariant information, and that learning to perceive covariant information is a matter of minimizing uncertainty through skilled performance. We argue that the agent’s cognitive system conveys information for acting in an environment by minimizing uncertainty about how to achieve her intended goals in that environment. We conclude by reviewing empirical findings that support our view and by showing how direct learning, seen as instance of ecological rationality at work, is how mere possibilities for action are turned into embodied know-how. Finally, we indicate the affinity between direct learning and sense-making activity. (shrink)

Resumo Neste artigo, procura-se analisar os fatores envolvidos na determinação da natureza substancial do organismo vivo, em Aristóteles. Tais fatores seriam, por um lado, a forte unidade e coesão interna composicional e, por outro, o elevado caráter de independência quanto às propriedades essenciais ou formais, relativamente às propriedades dos componentes materiais, por meio dos quais o organismo vivo vem a ser formado, ou com referência aos outros tipos de particularidades de seres. Com esta análise, pretende-se mostrar, ao mesmo tempo, que (...) a unidade do composto orgânico-animado, de um modo geral, é constituída por um complexo arranjo de camadas estratificadas, no qual as camadas ou os tipos de composições materiais apresentam, entre si, um forte grau de interdependência. Tal interdependência entre as partes materiais, que formam uma rede composicional complexa e bem-articulada, faz com que as propriedades essenciais ou formais do todo orgânico se diferenciem sobremaneira das propriedades essenciais dos tipos de componentes que integram esse todo, caracterizando, assim, o caráter substancial da composição orgânica.In this paper, I will try to analyze the factors involved in determining the substantial nature of the living organism in Aristotle. Such factors would be, on the one hand, the strong unity and compositional internal cohesion and, on the other hand, the high character of independence as regards the essential or formal properties, relative to the proper properties of the material components through which the living organism comes to be formed, or relative to other types of particularities of beings. With this analysis, it is intended at the same time to show that, in a general way, the unity of the organic-animate compound is constituted by a complex arrangement of stratified layers, in which the layers or types of material compositions have a strong degree of interdependence among themselves. Such interdependence between the material parts, which form a complex and well-articulated compositional network, makes the essential or formal properties of the organic whole very different from the essential properties of the types of components that make up the whole, thus characterizing the substantial character of organic composition. (shrink)

The philosophy of perception has been mostly focused on vision, to the detriment of other modalities like audition or olfaction. In this paper I focus on olfaction and olfactory experience, and raise the following questions: is olfaction a perceptual-representational modality? If so, what does it represent? My goal in the paper is, firstly, to provide an affirmative answer to the first question, and secondly, to argue that olfaction represents odors in the form of olfactory objects, to which olfactory qualities are (...) attributed. In order to do this I develop an empirically adequate notion of olfactory object that is sensitive to the peculiarities of olfaction, and defend it against various objections. (shrink)

A short entry on social affordance. Social affordances are possibilities for social interaction or possibilities for action that are shaped by social practices and norms.

The hope of finding new methods of predicting the course of historical processes could be connected with the recent developments of the theory of self-organisation, also called synergetics. It provides us with knowledge of constructive principles of co-evolution of complex social systems, co-evolution of countries and geopolitical regions being at different stages of development, integration of the East and the West, the North and the South. Due to the growth of population on the Earth in blow-up regime, the general and (...) local instability of development is increasing. The social world seems to go towards a unity, a sustainable commonwealth through pulsations rather than monotonously. It goes via alternation of disintegration, even if partial, and getting more powerful integrations of structures. There is a path of multiple reduction of temporal and material expenses, a path of a resonant excitation of desirable and — no less important — feasible in a given social system structure. In the case of the right topology of integration of geopolitical structures an arising whole organisation can accelerate its tempo of evolution. 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

As far as the relationship between The Society of the Spectacle (1967) and Commentaries on the Society of the Spectacle (1988) is concerned, one either acknowledges Guy Debord's self interpretation, according to which these books complement each other, or one is forced to concede, on the contrary, the existence of an "epistemological cut", undermining, therefore, the revolutionary unity of Debord’s work. According to the first hypothesis, Machiavelli and Marx will eventually be linked up in a Situationist project to overthrow spectacular (...) society. However, the second hypothesis involves dismissing political economy analysis, whose field is apparently occupied by police logic. Because Debord’s interpretation seems to us to be more plausible, even though its defence is not an easy task, we will endorse his point of view. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the ecological approach to perception provides resources to overcome the causal argument against disjunctivism. According to the causal argument, since the brain states that proximally cause the perceptual experience and the corresponding hallucinatory one can be of the same type, there would be no good reason to reject that the perceptual experience and the corresponding hallucinatory experience have fundamentally the same nature. Disjunctivism concerning the nature of the experience would then be false. I identify (...) three assumptions that support the causal argument: the indistinguishability assumption, the linearity assumption, and the duplication assumption. According to the ecological approach to disjunctivism, these assumptions should be rejected, opening up room for a version of disjunctivism that I call 'Ecological Disjunctivism'. Perceptual episodes are extended over time and are supervenient to the organism-environment system. They can be distinguished from the 'corresponding' hallucinations because the former results from a controlled process of attunement to the environment, whereas hallucinations are passive and insensible to the exploratory activities of the perceptual system. Finally, ecological disjunctivism, since it is immune to the causal argument, is more advantageous than negative and positive disjunctivism. (shrink)

The heuristic value of synergetic models of evolving and self-organizing complex systems as well as their application to epistemological problems is shown in this paper. Nonlinear synergetic models turn out to be fruitful in comprehending epistemological problems such as the nature of human creativity, the functioning of human intuition and imagination, the historical development of science and culture. In the light of synergetics creative thinking can be viewed as a selforganization and self-completion of images and thoughts, filling up gaps in (...) the nets of knowledge. Insight, fast and sudden solutions of scientific problems, instabilities when “an idea is in the air” are considered as examples of blow-up regimes in the cognitive field. (shrink)

The extended mind thesis claims that at least some cognitive processes extend beyond the organism’s brain in that they are constituted by the organism’s actions on its surrounding environment. A more radical move would be to claim that social actions performed by the organism could at least constitute some of its mental processes. This can be called the socially extended mind thesis. Based on the notion of affordance as developed in the ecological psychology tradition, I defend the position that perception (...) extends to the environment. Then I will expand the notion of affordance to encompass social affordances. Thus, perception can in some situations also be socially extended. (shrink)

A ideia de que a ciência — ou ao menos as atividades científicas que são consideradas as mais essenciais para a ciência — deve ser livre de valores é bastante difundida. Neste capítulo, vou discutir essa tese, normalmente entendida como um ideal de ciência. Na primeira seção, introduzo alguns conceitos e distinções que são importantes para entender essa tese, como a diferença entre valores cognitivos e não-cognitivos. Na segunda seção, discuto o papel dos valores na seleção de problemas e na (...) metodologia científica. Na terceira seção, apresento dois argumentos canônicos contra o ideal da ciência como livre de valores: o argumento da lacuna explicativa, de Helen Longino (1990), e o argumento do risco indutivo, de Heather Douglas (2009). Na quarta seção, discuto algumas respostas a esses argumentos. Por fim, na última seção, a partir da abordagem ecológica, exploro e sustendo a ideia de que a reconcepção da ciência como uma atividade social situada e adaptativa supera a dicotomia entre fato e valor que subjaz a discussão. Essa nova concepção de ciência nos permite acomodar melhor os resultados dos argumentos apresentados na terceira seção. (shrink)

Tradução de um artigo do discípulo de Husserl, Paul Landsberg, publicado em 1939, onde o autor tece algumas considerações sobre a ideia que Husserl tinha da filosofia.

If global distributive justice or injustice is to exist, there must be something that is just or unjust: something to which the moral assessments at issue attach. I argue in this paper against one popular candidate for that role: the “global basic structure.” I argue that principles of distributive justice that target the global basic structure fail to satisfy a crucial “action guidance” desideratum and that this problem points to an alternative target that philosophers of global justice have yet to (...) widely acknowledge. We ought to exclusively direct our principles at subspheres of global politics: disaggregating global justice for a disaggregated world. (shrink)

Goodman sustentou que o ajuste mútuo entre inferências indutivas particulares e princípios indutivos constitui a única justificação necessária para ambos. Porém, a sua caracterização desse ajuste, posteriormente denominado de “equilíbrio reflexivo”, foi superficial. Isso levantou dúvida sobre a sua adequação. Neste artigo, argumento que o equilíbrio reflexivo, corretamente caracterizado, fornece a única justificação necessária e a melhor que podemos dar para a prática indutiva.

Neste texto, apresento e examino as principais ideias que animam a abordagem ecológica da percepção. Primeiro, na Seção 2, apresento a visão instantânea da percepção, contra a qual Gibson articula e propõe a abordagem ecológica. Em seguida, na Seção 3, apresento e discuto a noção de informação ecológica. Nas seções 4 e 5 articulo a teoria das affordances e discuto a aprendizagem perceptiva. Por fim, na Seção 6, exponho e discuto a possibilidade de estender a teoria das affordances para explicar (...) a cognição social. (shrink)

What is it like to perceive a feared object? According to a popular neo-Gibsonian theory in psychology, fear biases our perceptions of objects so as to encourage particular kinds of actions: when we are afraid, spiders may be perceived as physically closer than they are in order to promote fleeing. Firestone mounted severe criticisms against this view, arguing that these cases are better explained by non-perceptual biases that operate on accurate perceptions of the external environment. In this paper I will (...) argue that fear might indeed distort our perceptions of the world, but not in the way neo-Gibsonians suppose. In the view I favor, perceptual distortions occur as by-products of fearful attention, a special mode of attention that is part of an orchestrated defensive response that prepares the organism to deal effectively with a threat. To argue for this view I will rely on empirical evidence that fearful attention narrows down the focus of attention and favors processing of local rather than global features of stimuli, which may jointly explain why perceptual distortions might occur in fearful object seeing. This view has consequences not only for empirical investigations in fearful perceptual distortions, but also for an explanation of the intentionality of fear and the phenomenal integration of bodily and intentional elements in fear episodes. (shrink)

Neste artigo propomos uma reconceitualização do amor como um modo de engajamento intersubjetivo normativamente guiado pela busca constante do equilíbrio entre a sub- e a sobredeterminação de seu objeto, que se efetiva em relações deconfiança marcadas pelo cuidado com o(a) outro(a). Esta reconceitualização permite que o amor participe da epistemologia como uma virtude intelectual responsabilista, que nos torna membros mais confiáveis de nossas comunidades epistêmicas e nos aproxima de descrições verdadeiras sobre o mundo, ao deixar que diversos pontos de vista (...) sobre esses objetos sejam reconhecidos e valorizados. (shrink)

In this paper we put forward the thesis that qualia are tropes (or qualitons), and not (universal) properties. Further, we maintain that Wittgenstein hints in this direction. We also find in Wittgenstein elements of an account of language acquisition that takes the presence of qualia as an enabling condition. We conclude by pointing out some difficulties of this view.

The first case of comprehensive Jesuit philosophical textbook, the Cursus Conimbricensis stands as a hallmark of the Jesuit way of teaching philosophy during the second half of the Sixteenth century. After having placed the Cursus conimbricensis in the European philosophical scenario, this paper aims to show how Manuel de Gois, as well as the other contributors, felt to be bound to Aristotle, the major authority according to the Ratio studiorum, in dealing with questions and issues.

Com este artigo, pretendo examinar a maneira pela qual ocorreria a necessidade natural, em seus diversos aspectos, nos distintos processos gerativos composicionais em Aristóteles. Em um caso, a necessidade natural se daria de um modo "sem mais", ou de um modo absoluto, por meio da qual se geram os agregados. Em outro, a necessidade natural se realizaria a partir de um princípio anterior regulativo ou determinante, que Aristóteles denomina de necessidade ex hupoteseos, com relação aos processos envolvidos na constituição dos (...) corpos homogêneos inanimados e, dos organismos vivos. No entanto, haveria uma diferença essencial relativamente ao acabamento composicional associado, por um lado, aos corpos homogêneos inanimados e, por outro, aos organismos vivos. Enquanto que o acabamento constituinte das composições homogêneas inanimadas se restringiria apenas ao todo composicional e suas propriedades características, o acabamento dos organismos vivos corresponderia ao todo composicional e as suas propriedades características, bem como este acabamento em vista da realização das atividades orgânico-funcionais, ou vitais. (shrink)

Kant clearly endorses some version of the ‘old formula of the schools’, according to which all volition is sub ratione boni. There has been a debate whether he holds this only for morally good actions. I argue that a closer look at the distinction between the good and the agreeable does not support this conclusion. Considering Kant’s account of the detrimental and the correct use of this thesis, I argue that rational beings always will sub ratione boni, even when they (...) act immorally, because they act on principles. I argue that Kant’s accounts of self-love and self-conceit support this view. (shrink)

In our everyday interactions we easily and effortlessly perceive emotions in others’ facial expressions and bodily behavior. How do we do that? Philosophers and psychologists have long argued about the fundamentals of emotion perception and the debate is far from settled. While some insist on the sufficiency of the morphological information contained in facial expressions, others construe the objects of emotion perception as more complex, comprising multimodal information such as touch, tone of voice, body postures, and so on. Others, in (...) turn, have gone so far as to deny that there is a pre-given object in emotion perception in the first place, so that processes of emotion perception must be conceptualized as emergent and co-constructed phenomena in contexts of social interaction. The purpose of this paper is to argue that John Dewey’s pragmatist theory of emotions can help us make significant theoretical advancements in the understanding of emotion perception, according to which emotions are coordinated modes of behavior that we enact with others in the contexts of social interactions. In this picture, perceiving emotions is a matter of participating in a joint activity of socio- affective coordination. This theory allows us to apprehend important insights about emotion perception that appear in these contemporary debates, while at the same time avoiding their pitfalls. (shrink)

This volume publishes the Proceedings of the 1st International Meeting "Thinking Baroque in Portugal" (26-28 June 2017), which dealt with the metaphysical, ethical and political thought of Francisco Suárez. Counting on the collaboration of some of the greatest international specialists in the work and thought of this famous professor of the University of Coimbra in the 17th century, this volume celebrates the 400th anniversary of his death and marks the productivity of his philosophical-theological legacy.

This research aims to contribute to the discussion on the subject of Abortion by analyzing the concepts of formed and unformed in the Septuagint in Exodus 21:22-23, and the opinions of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas on the social status of the fetus. The Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, which was translated in stages into Greek between the 3rd century BC and the 1st century BC, presents a different point of view than that found in the Hebrew text (...) of Exodus 21:22-23. It introduces the notions of formed and unformed fetus. In other words, he understood the fetus (embryo) in a perspective of developing reality. Augustine and Aquinas, two important names in Christian theology, seem to have reflected a tradition that granted protection to the unborn child according to the stages of its development. The discussion around the topic of abortion is complex, very sensitive, but it should not be avoided. Bibliographical research was used as methodology. As a result, it will be pointed out that the biblical presentation of human beings does not begin with an explanation of conception or the fetal period. It does not discuss the point at which the embryo attains the full moral status of a human person. Thus, for this research, the discussion about abortion must necessarily take into account issues such as risk to the pregnant woman's life; fetal malformation etc. But, above all, it must be centered on the personality of the pregnant woman. (shrink)

A tradução a seguir tem como pretensão demonstrar o modo como Gaston Berger (1896-1960) em seu texto Husserl et Hume, promove uma articulação entre a fenomenologia de Edmund Husserl e o empirismo de David Hume. No texto, o autor apresenta a maneira como a fenomenologia ao valorizar a experiência (tendo-a como imprescindível) se aproxima da filosofia de Hume, e ao tratá-la como insuficiente por si mesma, acaba por estabelecer uma estreita relação com o idealismo transcendental kantiano. O fato é que (...) por mais que Husserl acredite ter superado a imediaticidade dos fatos empíricos vindo a construir um novo sistema de idealismo transcendental, a sua fenomenologia jamais deixou de clara fazer referência a Hume. (shrink)

In the world of Philosophy for Children (P4C), the word “method” is found frequently in its literature and in its practitioner’s handbooks. This paper focuses on the idea of community of philosophical inquiry (CPI) as P4C’s methodological framework for educational purposes, and evaluates that framework and those purposes in light of the question, what does it mean to bring children and philosophy together, and what methodological framework, if any, is appropriate to that project? Our broader aim is to highlight a (...) problem with regards to the concept of method in P4C, and to question the consequences of that concept in the practice of philosophical dialogue with children. To better situate the concept of method within P4C (which, we think, will help to clarify some of the dialogues and debates within P4C as a philosophical field), we will identify two different historical understandings—represented by Rene Descartes and Hans Georg Gadamer—of the concept, and suggest new possibilities for understanding philosophical practice with children in light of their difference. (shrink)

Review of Mitchell, Melanie. Artificial Intelligence: A guide for thinking humans. New York: Macmillan, 2019.

Enactivism is a family of theories that construe action as constitutive of cognition and reject the need to postulate representations in order to explain all cognitive activities. Acknowledging a biologically basic, non-representational mode of cognition, however, raises the question of how to explain higher or more complex cognitive acts, what we call explanatory integration challenge. In this paper, we critically discuss some attempts to meet that challenge through scaling up basic cognition and through scaling down complex cognition within the enactivist (...) research program. (shrink)