In this article I address a puzzle about one of Francis Hutcheson’s objections to psychological egoism. The puzzle concerns his premise that God receives no benefit from rewarding the virtuous. Why, in the early editions of his Inquiry Concerning Virtue (1725, 1726), does Hutcheson leave this premise undefended? And why, in the later editions (1729, 1738), does he continue to do so, knowing that in 1726 John Clarke of Hull had subjected the premise to plausible criticism, geared to (...) the very audience (mainly Christian) for whom Hutcheson’s objection to egoism was written? This puzzle is not negligible. Some might claim that Hutcheson ruins his objection by ignoring Clarke’s criticism. To answer the puzzle we must consider not only Hutcheson’s philosophy but also some theological assumptions of Hutcheson’s time. (shrink)

Among the most animating debates in eighteenth-century British ethics was the debate over psychological egoism, the view that our most basic desires are self-interested. An important episode in that debate, less well known than it should be, was the exchange between Francis Hutcheson and John Clarke of Hull. In the early editions of his Inquiry into Virtue, Hutcheson argued ingeniously against psychological egoism; in his Foundation of Morality, Clarke argued ingeniously against Hutcheson’s arguments. Later, Hutcheson attempted new arguments (...) against psychological egoism, designed to overcome Clarke’s objections. This article examines the exchange between these philosophers. Its conclusion, influenced partly by Clarke, is that psychological egoism withstands Hutcheson’s arguments. This is not to belittle those arguments—indeed, they are among the most resourceful and plausible of their kind. The fact that egoism withstands them is thus not a mere negative result, but a stimulus to consider carefully the ways in which progress in this area may be possible. (shrink)

Getting a graduate education is one of the most important parts of a professional in a field. It allows them to climb higher in the professional rankings or even get higher pay for their academic work. All graduate students are adults and self-directed due to their past experiences in work or practice. However, when the pandemic hit the world, these self-directed learners were not spared from shutting of schools. In the Philippines, most graduate schools deliver their lessons through the traditional (...) mode or face-to-face until the pandemic that they shifted in the emerging online learning modality. Using the mixed method of quantitative and qualitative type of study the researchers were able to gather 419 graduate students from various regions of the archipelago to take part in the study. The researchers found out that upon experiencing the benefits of online learning, graduate students want to continue this modality even in the future. More than a third of the respondents also claimed that they want the blended or hybrid type of graduate studies as opposed to going back to the more traditional face-to-face classes. The reasons for these can vary on each learner’s situation. (shrink)

John Clarke of Hull, one of the eighteenth century's staunchest proponents of psychological egoism, defended that theory in his Foundation of Morality in Theory and Practice. He did so mainly by opposing the objections to egoism in the first two editions of Francis Hutcheson's Inquiry into Virtue. But Clarke also produced a challenging, direct argument for egoism which, regrettably, has received virtually no scholarly attention. In this paper I give it some of the attention it merits. In addition (...) to reconstructing it and addressing interpretive issues about it, I show that it withstands a tempting objection. I also show that although Clarke's argument ultimately fails, to study it is instructive. It illuminates, for example, Hutcheson's likely intentions in a passage relevant to egoism. (shrink)

Francis Bacon was the youngest son of Nicholas Bacon, lord keeper of the great seal under Elizabeth I. He left Cambridge in 1575, studied law, and entered Parliament in 1581. Though roughly contemporary with Kepler, Galileo, and Harvey, Bacon’s grand schemes for the advancement of knowledge were not driven by their discoveries: he resisted the Copernican hypothesis, and did not give mathematics a central place in his vision of natural philosophy. His active public life, under both Elizabeth and James (...) I, was taken up with political business and legal reform. Bacon achieved high office as Lord Chancellor in 1618, until disgraced by corruption charges. His final years saw a furious spate of writing on natural philosophy, politics, and history. (shrink)

In this well-structured monograph, Stephen A. McKnight seeks to correct the view that Francis Bacon’s use of religious motifs and tropes is “manipulative,” “cynical,” and “disingenuous,” a view McKnight considers the “prevailing” one. To accomplish his goal, McKnight subjects several of Bacon’s works to a close reading. He concludes that the “pervasiveness of religious motifs, scriptural references, and biblical doctrines” in Bacon’s writings “establish the central role religion plays in Bacon’s thought”. McKnight holds that Bacon’s religiosity is not disingenuous, (...) but sincere. . . . . In documenting religious motifs in several of Bacon’s writings, this book is a valuable success. In characterizing Bacon’s religious beliefs and how they influenced the rest of his thought, it is much less convincing. (shrink)

A revisionist account of how philosophical induction was conceived in the ancient world and how that conception was transmitted, altered, and then rediscovered. I show how philosophers of late antiquity and then the medieval period came step-by-step to seriously misunderstand Aristotle’s view of induction and how that mistake was reversed by humanists in the Renaissance and then especially by Francis Bacon. I show, naturally enough then, that in early modern science, Baconians were Aristotelians and Aristotelians were Baconians.

This paper challenges Francis Hutcheson's and John Clarke of Hull's alleged demonstrations that William Wollaston's moral theory is inconsistent. It also present a form of the inconsistency objection that fares better than theirs, namely, that of Thomas Bott (1688-1754). Ultimately, the paper shows that Wollaston's moral standard is not what some have thought it to be; that consequently, his philosophy withstands the best-known efforts to expose it as inconsistent; and further, that one of the least-known British moralists is (...) more important than hitherto thought, in that he uncovers the inconsistency Clarke and Hutcheson try in vain to elicit. (shrink)

This work intentionally joins Stephen A. McKnight’s The Religious Foundations of Francis Bacon’s Thought in arguing that Sir Francis Bacon was more deeply religious than he is conventionally thought to have been. Though the book is full of interesting suggestions, a lack of breadth, rigor, and precision will leave many readers unconvinced. . . . Those who know the corpus and secondary literature enough to read critically will find here provocative suggestions and intriguing leads. Others will need to (...) be cautious about the book’s arguments and conclusions. (shrink)

Le Christ est la Voie qui n'exclut pas pour autant les autres voies. C'est tout le sens de la proposition Cobbienne.

In a well-known footnote in Book 3 of his Treatise of Human Nature, Hume calls William Wollaston's moral theory a "whimsical system" and purports to destroy it with a few brief objections. The first of those objections, although fatally flawed, has hitherto gone unrefuted. To my knowledge, its chief error has escaped attention. In this paper I expose that error; I also show that it has relevance beyond the present subject. It can occur with regard to any moral theory which, (...) like Wollaston's, locates the wrongness of an act in a property that can reside in non-actions no less than in actions. (shrink)

How induction was understood took a substantial turn during the Renaissance. At the beginning, induction was understood as it had been throughout the medieval period, as a kind of propositional inference that is stronger the more it approximates deduction. During the Renaissance, an older understanding, one prevalent in antiquity, was rediscovered and adopted. By this understanding, induction identifies defining characteristics using a process of comparing and contrasting. Important participants in the change were Jean Buridan, humanists such as Lorenzo Valla and (...) Rudolph Agricola, Paduan Aristotelians such as Agostino Nifo, Jacopo Zabarella, and members of the medical faculty, writers on philosophy of mind such as the Englishman John Case, writers of reasoning handbooks, and Francis Bacon. (shrink)

Aristotle said that induction (epagōgē) is a proceeding from particulars to a universal, and the definition has been conventional ever since. But there is an ambiguity here. Induction in the Scholastic and the (so-called) Humean tradition has presumed that Aristotle meant going from particular statements to universal statements. But the alternate view, namely that Aristotle meant going from particular things to universal ideas, prevailed all through antiquity and then again from the time of Francis Bacon until the mid-nineteenth century. (...) Recent scholarship is so steeped in the first-mentioned tradition that we have virtually forgotten the other. In this essay McCaskey seeks to recover that alternate tradition, a tradition whose leading theoreticians were William Whewell, Francis Bacon, Socrates, and in fact Aristotle himself. The examination is both historical and philosophical. The first part of the essay fills out the history. The latter part examines the most mature of the philosophies in the Socratic tradition, specifically Bacon’s and Whewell’s. After tracing out this tradition, McCaskey shows how this alternate view of induction is indeed employed in science, as exemplified by several instances taken from actual scientific practice. In this manner, McCaskey proposes to us that the Humean problem of induction is merely an artifact of a bad conception of induction and that a return to the Socratic conception might be warranted. (shrink)

A book Review of Artificial Knowing Gender and the Thinking Machine, by Alison Adam, Routledge: Taylor and Francis, 1998.

Some of the most forceful objections to William Wollaston's moral theory come from his early critics, namely, Thomas Bott (1688-1754), Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), and John Clarke of Hull (1687-1734). These objections are little known, while the inferior objections of Hume, Bentham, and later prominent critics are familiar. This fact is regrettable. For instance, it impedes a robust understanding of eighteenth-century British ethics; also, it fosters a questionable view as to why Wollaston's theory, although at first well received, soon (...) faded in esteem among philosophers. This paper gives Wollaston's early critics some of the attention they deserve. It reconstructs some of their objections to Wollaston's philosophy, addresses replies to those objections, and shows that despite some minor flaws, the objections succeed. A fact that becomes clear is that Wollaston's philosophy had suffered devastating criticism years before Hume wrote anything against it. (shrink)

One of the most oft-cited parts of Francis Hutcheson’s Illustrations upon the Moral Sense (1728) is his discussion of “exciting reasons.” In this paper I address the question: What is the function of that discussion? In particular, what is its relation to Hutcheson’s attempt to show that the rationalists’ normative thesis ultimately implies, contrary to their moral epistemology, that moral ideas spring from a sense? Despite first appearances, Hutcheson’s discussion of exciting reasons is not part of that attempt. Mainly, (...) it is part of Hutcheson’s comeback to Gilbert Burnet’s objections to Hutcheson’s Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725). (shrink)

Francis Hutcheson's objections to psychological egoism usually appeal to experience or introspection. However, at least one of them is theological: It includes premises of a religious kind, such as that God rewards the virtuous. This objection invites interpretive and philosophical questions, some of which may seem to highlight errors or shortcomings on Hutcheson's part. Also, to answer the questions is to point out important features of Hutcheson's objection and its intellectual context. And nowhere in the scholarship on Hutcheson do (...) we find these questions addressed. This paper addresses them. A fact that emerges is that the apparent errors or shortcomings the questions may highlight are just that – apparent errors or shortcomings; in reality they are nothing of the kind. (shrink)

Ideas about soul and body – about thinking or remembering, mind and life, brain and self – remain both diverse and controversial in our neurocentric age. The history of these ideas is significant both in its own right and to aid our understanding of the complex sources and nature of our concepts of mind, cognition, and psychology, which are all terms with puzzling, difficult histories. These topics are not the domain of specialists alone, and studies of emotion, perception, or reasoning (...) have never been isolated theoretical endeavours. As Francis Bacon described human philosophy or ‘the knowledge of ourselves’, within which he located the study of body, soul, and mind, it ‘deserveth the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly’ (1605/ 2000: 93). The history of ideas in these domains is particularly challenging given the practical dimensions and implications of theories of mind. Because theories of human nature and debates about body and mind do ‘touch us’ so ‘nearly’, they attract and can thus reveal, in specific historical contexts, interconnected discourses or associations which may be quite unlike our own. So there are no neat boundaries around a historical category of ‘seventeenth-century British philosophy of the soul’. The central topic of this chapter can be thought of either as pneumatology, the doctrine or science of spirits and souls, or as continuous with the ‘psychologia’ or psychology of Aristotelian traditions (Park and Kessler 1988; Hatfield 1995: 184-6). In neither case, however, should we expect any deep unity to be provided by history, geography, discipline, or subject-matter. (shrink)

This study posits ecological communion as the integration of facilitative learning through community engagements leading to an ecological conversion. Employing the interpretive phenomenological method, it examined how educational institutions in the CICM Philippine Schools’ Network (CICM-PSN) integrate the ecological principles of Pope Francis’ Laudato Si in terms of religious instruction, community engagement, and campus ministry program. Through a semi-structured interview with the participants, the study revealed three themes that illustrate the CICM educational institutions' efforts in bringing the Laudato Si’ (...) teachings to the level of practice and reflection. First, pedagogical integration denotes the challenge of integrating integral ecology in instruction. Second, community engagement shows the effort of the academic community to practice ecological principles through extension programs. Third, ecological conversion aims to internalize the ecological values taught through instruction and practiced through community service. Taken as a unified whole, the three themes mentioned form the Transformative Interpretative Pedagogical Model to consolidate the framework for the CICM-Philippine Schools Network. Furthermore, this model may guide the concrete articulation and application of ecological communion in their religious instruction, community extension and social action programs, and campus ministry activities. (shrink)

Pope Francis argues for a shift to a new economic model that is in the service of the human life and is "more attentive to ethical principles" (LS 189). He does not endorse a specific model except that he provides conditions, principles, and frameworks by which its ethos must be grounded against. As part of his pastoral approach and his vision of a synodal Church, he invites everyone to participate and contribute to this discussion because "not all discussions of (...) doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium" (AL 3). It is within this papal invitation of discoursing this new economic model where this paper aims to contribute particularly on the centrality of the anthropological criterion. The first section explores the meaning of his articulation on economics; situating it within the economic discourse of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. The second section focuses on the anthropological criterion as problematized by the identification of the homo economicus as self-interested. The third section draws a theoretical framework from substantivist economics in forwarding the desired economic ethos while the fourth section provides praxeological inputs and argues that homo economicus can be prosocial when the culture that is embedded in a particular economic model is put together to nurture such ethos. (shrink)

The first part of this paper will provide a reconstruction of Francis Bacon’s interpretation of Academic scepticism, Pyrrhonism, and Dogmatism, and its sources throughout his large corpus. It shall also analyze Bacon’s approach against the background of his intellectual milieu, looking particularly at Renaissance readings of scepticism as developed by Guillaume Salluste du Bartas, Pierre de la Primaudaye, Fulke Greville, and John Davies. It shall show that although Bacon made more references to Academic than to Pyrrhonian Scepticism, like (...) most of his contemporaries, he often misrepresented and mixed the doctrinal components of both currents. The second part of the paper shall offer a complete chronological survey of Bacon’s assessment of scepticism throughout his writings. Following the lead of previous studies by other scholars, I shall support the view that, while he approved of the state of doubt and the suspension of judgment as a provisional necessary stage in the pursuit of knowledge, he rejected the notion of acatalepsia. To this received reading, I shall add the suggestion that Bacon’s criticism of acatalepsia ultimately depends on his view of the historical conditions that surround human nature. I deal with this last point in the third part of the paper, where I shall argue that Bacon’s evaluation of scepticism relied on his adoption of a Protestant and Augustinian view of human nature that informed his overall interpretation of the history of humanity and nature, including the sceptical schools. (shrink)

This article presents some overlooked evidence on the reception of John Locke’s writings at Christ Church, Oxford. It is intended to supplement a new article in the History of Universities on the surprisingly positive response to Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) at that bastion of late seventeenth-century high churchmanship. This evidence sheds new light on: the reception of Epicureanism at that college in the 1650s; Locke’s personal connections at Christ Church; book-holdings of Locke’s writings at the early eighteenth-century (...) college; some unnoticed uses of Locke’s writings by members of Christ Church; the European and North American reception of one Christ Church Lockean; and, the changing trajectory of the later eighteenth-century reception of Locke at that college. (shrink)

FRANCIS SUÁREZ’S VIEWS ON THE RELATION BETWEEN THE ABSOLUTE POWER OF GOD AND THE NATURAL LAW The article presents Francis Suárez’s views concerning the problem of the possibility of granting dispensation from the natural law by the absolute power of God. Suárez’s opinions on this matter were shown in his comprehensive work on the philosophy of law: De legibus ac Deo legislatore, in Book II De lege aeterna, naturali, et jure gentium, chapter XV entitled Utrum Deus dispensare possit (...) in lege naturali etiam de absoluta potestate. Analyzing the notion of natural law Suárez accepts the Thomistic formula, according to which, the created world is a collection of things with invariable natures. These natures require us to fulfil certain moral obligations and to act in a proper manner. And for this reason, natural law, included in the Decalogue, is invariable and even God is not able to grant its dispensation. The commandments involve an intrinsic principle of justice and obligation and for this reason they are not liable to dispensation. God cannot act contrary to His own nature and His being just, so He would not order people to do something intrinsically unjust. Doctor Eximius justifies moral norms expressed in the Decalogue axiologically, not in a voluntaristic way, by referring to God’s will alone. Suárez criticises both strong theological voluntarism, attributed to Ockham, as well as weak theological voluntarism, attributed to John Duns Scotus. Keywords: FRANCIS SUÁREZ, ABSOLUTE POWER OF GOD, NATURAL LAW. (shrink)

This chapter brings some much-needed conceptual clarity to the debate about Locke’s scientific methodology. Instead of having to choose between the method of hypothesis and that of natural history (as most interpreters have thought), he would resist prescribing a single method for natural sciences in general. Following Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle, Locke separates medicine and natural philosophy (physics), so that they call for completely different methods. While a natural philosopher relies on “speculative” (causal-theoretical) hypotheses together with natural-history making (...) to explicate phenomena, a medical practitioner must prioritize collecting data about what remedies tend to cure what diseases over hypothesizing about the causes of the latter. (shrink)

JOHN SEARLE is clear, challenging and profound, and his book The Mystery of Consciousness reflects its author. It offers an engaging debate between Searle and David Chalmers, Daniel Dennett, Roger Penrose and Israel Rosenfield. Searle also touches on the work of Gerald Edelman and Francis Crick. Yet Searle does not always hit the target. For example, he confuses giving an explanation with giving an ultimate explanation in criticising Edelman's reentry mapping.

This article analyzes a number of recently published autobiographies by leading participants in the Human Genome Project (HGP), in order to determine to what extent they may further our understanding of the history, scientific significance and societal impact of this major research endeavor. Notably, I will focus on three publications that fall under this heading, namely The common thread by John Sulston (2002/2003), The language of God (2006) by Francis Collins and A life decoded by Craig Venter (2007).1 (...) What may we learn from these autobiographical sources about the dynamics of scientific change? What is their added value in understanding science in general and the HGP in particular? These questions will be elaborated in three directions: on the level of knowledge (epistemology), power (politics) and the Self (ethics). On the epistemological level, genomics is often presented as a paradigm shift in the life sciences, a tremendous up-scaling of research, an “informatization” of life. Autobiographies may reveal how this shift – usually discussed in more general terms from a philosophy of science or science studies perspective – manifests itself on an individual scale, on a micro- epistemological level. On the political level, autobiographies may inform us about the micro-politics of scientific change. Finally, on the level of Self, autobiographies may allow us to analyze how researchers, through practices of Self, are actively engaged in constituting themselves as responsible subjects in the face of unpredictable dynamics and unforeseen dilemmas. (shrink)

În acest articol încerc să argumentez opinia că, așa cum este definită eugenia, este foarte dificil de făcut o diferențiere clară între știință (medicină, ingineria genetică) și eugenie. Și de stabilit o linie peste care ingineria genetică nu ar trebui să treacă, conform unor norme morale, juridice și religioase. Atâta timp cât acceptăm ajutorul geneticii în găsirea unor modalități de combatere a cancerului, diabetului sau HIV, acceptăm în mod implicit și eugenia pozitivă, conform definiției actuale. Și atâta timp cât acceptăm (...) screening-ul genetic, și intervenții asupra fătului nenăscut, sau avortul, acceptăm în mod implicit și eugenia negativă. În plus, la nivel de guverne, deși oficial eugenia este repudiată, ea a fost legalizată în foarte multe țări până de curând, și încă mai este acceptată și legalizată, chiar dacă în forme mai subtile, și în prezent. În Introducere definesc termenul și modurile de clasificare. Urmează Istoria eugeniei pornind din perioada antică, introducerea eugeniei de Francis Galton, practica eugeniei ca politică de stat în diverse țări, și eugenia actuală (eugenia liberală). Analizez apoi diverse probleme ridicate de Etica eugeniei liberale, și am dezvoltat o secțiune aparte pentru Viitorul eugeniei, cu accent pe proiectul genomului uman. În final, în secțiunea Concluzii expun opiniile personale cu privire la practica actuală a eugeniei. Am folosit ca surse principale de investigație articolele lui Kenneth M. Ludmerer, ”American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement: 1905-1935”, Kathy J. Cooke, ”Duty or Dream? Edwin G. Conklin's Critique of Eugenics and Support for American Individualism”, Jonathan Anomaly, ”Defending Eugenics”, John R. Harding Jr. ”Beyond Abortion: Human Genetics and the New Eugenics”, Michael Boulter, ”Bloomsbury Scientists”, Chapter Title: The rise of eugenics, 1901–14, Michael Ruse and Edward O. Wilson, ”Moral Philosophy as Applied Science” și Goering, Sara, "Eugenics". (shrink)

Today's academia is obsessed about writing and speaking gobbledygook. At least most of the time. It has little time in sitting still and actually reading fiction, poetry and say, Wittgenstein. One pretends to say fancy things about these authors but one does not actually read books anymore. COVID 19 Lockdown prompted this author to answer queries from students and peers about a reading list. So prepare a wide ranging list he did which covers everything from the version of Mahabharata one (...) ought to read to novels on celibacy. But then he chose to publish at Prabuddha Bharata over all other platforms because the Ramakrishna Mission has the finances to keep this list alive 200 years hence. This was written during COVID 19 Lockdown in India at the end of April, 2020. Nirad C Chaudhuri insisted on making a good bibliography in his magnum opus. This author follows Nirad C Chaudhuri in quietly speaking about how Harold Bloom plagiarised the Late Professor John Senior's reading list. The list also comments on Romanticism and the art of writing itself. The list on Hinduism is truly contrarian. One hopes that this list survives when GoodReads and other Listopias are no longer. -/- Today's academia is obsessed about writing and speaking gobbledygook. At least most of the time. It has little time in sitting still and actually reading fiction, poetry and say, Wittgenstein. One pretends to say fancy things about these authors but one does not actually read books anymore. COVID 19 Lockdown prompted this author to answer queries from students and peers about a reading list. So prepare a wide ranging list he did which covers everything from the version of Mahabharata one ought to read to novels on celibacy. But then he chose to publish at Prabuddha Bharata over all other platforms because the Ramakrishna Mission has the finances to keep this list alive 200 years hence. This was written during COVID 19 Lockdown in India at the end of April, 2020. Nirad C Chaudhuri insisted on making a good bibliography in his magnum opus. This author follows Nirad C Chaudhuri in quietly speaking about how Harold Bloom plagiarised the Late Professor John Senior's reading list. The list also comments on Romanticism and the art of writing itself. The list on Hinduism is truly contrarian. One hopes that this list survives when GoodReads and other Listopias are no longer. -/- These COVID 19 days, while the First world is mooning over syllabi for their kids and third and fourth world folks like me are tackling Umphan; I chose to prepare a new kind of syllabus. A syllabus which is not merely a list. In these days of incessant and meaningless webinars which my students can only spread memes about and only the poor and doctors will actually travel to white nations which are killing their own; here's a list which ends with Hindu classics which are contrarian. Nirad C Chaudhuri, a much maligned man in India and a forgotten polyglot in white privileged academia said we must first prepare a bibliography. So, Figure it out. I used some of the Hindu resources on recognition mentioned here and tried to work on Stephen King; a privileged white tenure track person from Trumpland just snowballed me. Now, this list is syllabi and also just a list of a bunch of books to read during Lockdowns which will be more common in the future because COVID 19, as Dr Fauci tells us; is here to stay. Even if one COVID 19 person is there; then along with Ebola, my white privileged tenure track fiends; off you go to gagaland. We in India already know these diseases. Go figure it out. (shrink)

This paper argues that early modern experimental philosophy emerged as the dominant member of a pair of methods in natural philosophy, the speculative versus the experimental, and that this pairing derives from an overarching distinction between speculative and operative philosophy that can be ultimately traced back to Aristotle. The paper examines the traditional classification of natural philosophy as a speculative discipline from the Stagirite to the seventeenth century; medieval and early modern attempts to articulate a scientia experimentalis; and the tensions (...) in the classification of natural magic and mechanics that led to the introduction of an operative part of natural philosophy in the writings of Francis Bacon and John Johnston. The paper concludes with a summary of the salient discontinuities between the experimental/speculative distinction of the mid-seventeenth century and its predecessors and a statement of the developments that led to the ascendance of experimental philosophy from the 1660s. (shrink)

The paper presents Suárez’s view on the individuation of beings, which he developed in his Disputatio V, De unitate individuali eiusque principio. The aim, apart from simply presenting Doctor Eximius’s thought, is also to compare his views with his scholastic predecessors. When considering the question of individuation, Suárez remained under a considerable influence of the medieval tradition, which, however, he transformed in his writings according to his own convictions. He used the language of Duns Scotus when speaking of individuation and (...) determining it in terms of indivisibility, but rejected the idea of individuation by matter, classically attributed to the Thomistic School. Postulating the individuation principle, identified with the entity, and not with the act of existence nor the being of haecceitas, Suárez departed from non-classical interpretations of the thought of Thomas Aquinas as well as from the Scotistic solutions, and postulated a view that to some extent resembled that of Ockham and Bonaventure, although Suárez does not explicitly refer to the latter. (shrink)

The Formalist tradition in late-scholastic philosophy has gone unnoticed in standard historiography. This article’s overall objective is to add the Formalist tradition to what we know about Renaissance philosophy. I first show how the Formalist tradition was born out of some innovative considerations of hierarchies of distinctions in the wake of the Franciscan John Duns Scotus’s teaching on the formal distinction in the beginning of the fourteenth century (especially Francis of Meyronnes’s model of four distinctions and Petrus Thomae’s (...) more elaborate doctrine of seven kinds of distinctions). I then trace how Formalist literature developed from being an exclusively Franciscan affair to becoming a much more widespread phenomenon. Thus, from the decades up to 1500 and onwards, authors from various late-scholastic schools (Thomism, Lullism, Averroism, and others) produced Formalist literature, i.e., treatises on multiple kinds of distinctions. I highlight particularly how one Franciscan philosopher of the sixteenth century, Jean Du Douet, proposed to view the Formalist preoccupation with distinctions as a discipline in its own right, a proper scientia formalitatum. I finally argue that while this proposal met with dismissive reactions, Du Douet’s idea does in fact reflect the role Formalism played in the scholastic curriculum in the late sixteenth century, at least in Franciscan milieus. (shrink)

In the first part of this series it was argued that there is an inextricable bond between economic and cultural liberalism such that when Catholics identify the faith with the defence of neoliberal economics, even though they may oppose abortion, they end up promoting exactly that which they oppose. In this the second part this point is expanded upon and the argument made more explicit and that by reference to Pope Francis’ recent Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudium Evangelii. The Exhortation evidences (...) a view of matters economic that sits ill with capitalism, a point understood by Catholic commentators who champion Neoliberalism. This essay argues that Francis’ comments are nothing new, especially when compared to what John Paul II and Benedict XVI have written on the subject; indeed, that Francis’ Exhortation can be seen as a tempering of their critique of economic liberalism. The essay attempts to tease out what it is that informs the critique of the popes and shows that it has to do with what flows out from the rejection of metaphysics proper, a rejection that defines Modernity, and which ends in the deracination of all things such that even the very concept of ‘substance’ is dissolved and, thereby, all is made plastic and malleable, including human life. The important point the essay wishes to make is this: the popes are quite clear that the form a culture’s economy takes can both ground and exacerbate this anti-essentialist logic, what’s more the economy above all others that does this is the one they identify with neoliberal capitalism. As a consequence, Catholics who champion this form of economic theory must think seriously as to whether or not they or the popes are wrong on this matter. (shrink)

The dissertation traces the development of what I call “the problem of partiality” through the work of certain key figures in the British Moralist tradition: John Locke, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, Anthony Ashley Cooper (the Third Earl of Shaftesbury), Francis Hutcheson, John Gay, David Hume, Joseph Butler, and Adam Smith. On the one hand, we are committed to impartiality as a constitutive norm of moral judgment and conduct. On the other hand, we are committed to the idea that (...) it is permissible, or even obligatory, to expend disproportionate resources promoting the good of our loved ones over the good of strangers. However, these two commitments conflict with one another. This problem challenges us to provide an account of the scope and limits of reasonable partiality that does justice to both commitments. I argue that confronting this tension is a central project of early modern ethics. I offer a rereading of the British Moralist tradition, centered on debates about partiality, and thereby shift discussion of the tradition away from concerns about meta-ethics and moral epistemology, to issues of practical ethics. The topic of partiality remains central in contemporary ethics, as is evident in ongoing debates about the place of empathy in moral judgment, and the role of love in shaping our moral commitments. Though the aim of the dissertation is not to settle questions about the scope and limits of reasonable partiality, the focus here remains fixed on how the concept of partiality was problematized in our ethical thought, and how it informs our discussions in normative ethics and moral psychology. Alongside building a bridge between early modern scholarship and recent work in ethics, the dissertation casts light on two understudied figures in the British Moralist tradition – Cockburn and Gay – who contributed greatly to debates about partiality. By examining their contributions, I reconsider their place in the history of modern ethics and therefore provide a more contextualized account of philosophical thought in the period. (shrink)

This essay traces the development of the philosophical debates concerning active powers and human agency in eighteenth-century Scotland. I examine how and why Scottish philosophers such as Francis Hutcheson, George Turnbull, David Hume, and Henry Home, Lord Kames, depart from John Locke’s and other traditional conceptions of the will and how Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewart reinstate Locke’s distinction between volition and desire. Moreover, I examine what role desires, passions, and motives play in the writings of these and (...) other Scottish Enlightenment philosophers on human agency and draw attention to their underlying disputes concerning liberty and necessity. I end by reflecting on how classifications of principles of actions changed in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Scottish philosophy. (shrink)

Isaac Newton is best known as a mathematician and physicist. He invented the calculus, discovered universal gravitation and made significant advances in theoretical and experimental optics. His master-work on gravitation, the Principia, is often hailed as the crowning achievement of the scientific revolution. His significance for philosophers, however, extends beyond the philosophical implications of his scientific discoveries. Newton was an able and subtle philosopher, working at a time when science was not yet recognized as an activity distinct from philosophy. He (...) engaged with the work of Rene Descartes and G.W. Leibniz, and showed sensitivity to the work of John Locke, Francis Bacon, Pierre Gassendi and Henry More, to name just a few. In his time, Newton was not perceived as a scientific outsider, but as an active and knowledgeable participant in philosophical debates.... (shrink)

Persons and nations agree on the importance of justice but disagree on its requirements. In The End of History and the Last Man Francis Fukuyama argues that human history moves towards liberal democracy as the final ideal for all societies. It is conceivable that liberal democratic societies will converge to similar conceptions of justice and that global spread of liberal democracies will promote consensus. This paper tries to show that consensus on justice is, nevertheless, unlikely, due to reasonable disagreement. (...) Reason does not give a single rational or reasonable solution to conflicting demands of justice. This means that apart from reason, other factors play a role in what is regarded as just. Jurisdiction is influenced by tradition and zeitgeist. This explains why also liberal democracies, which may recognize similar principles of justice, still arrive at differing rankings of these principles and divergent results of jurisdiction in time and place. (shrink)

We are living through an era of increased robotisation. Some authors have already begun to explore the impact of this robotisation on legal rules and practice. In doing so, many highlight potential liability gaps that might arise through robot misbehaviour. Although these gaps are interesting and socially significant, they do not exhaust the possible gaps that might be created by increased robotisation. In this article, I make the case for one of those alternative gaps: the retribution gap. This gap arises (...) from a mismatch between the human desire for retribution and the absence of appropriate subjects of retributive blame. I argue for the potential existence of this gap in an era of increased robotisation; suggest that it is much harder to plug this gap than it is to plug those thus far explored in the literature; and then highlight three important social implications of this gap. (shrink)

Suppose we are about to enter an era of increasing technological unemployment. What implications does this have for society? Two distinct ethical/social issues would seem to arise. The first is one of distributive justice: how will the efficiency gains from automated labour be distributed through society? The second is one of personal fulfillment and meaning: if people no longer have to work, what will they do with their lives? In this article, I set aside the first issue and focus on (...) the second. In doing so, I make three arguments. First, I argue that there are good reasons to embrace non-work and that these reasons become more compelling in an era of technological unemployment. Second, I argue that the technological advances that make widespread technological unemployment possible could still threaten or undermine human flourishing and meaning, especially if they do not remain confined to the economic sphere. And third, I argue that this threat could be contained if we adopt an integrative approach to our relationship with technology. In advancing these arguments, I draw on three distinct literatures: the literature on technological unemployment and workplace automation; the antiwork critique—which I argue gives reasons to embrace technological unemployment; and the philosophical debate about the conditions for meaning in life—which I argue gives reasons for concern. (shrink)

From a moral point of view we think of ourselves as capable of responsible actions. From a scientific point of view we think of ourselves as animals whose behaviour, however highly evolved, conforms to natural scientific laws. Natural Agency argues that these different perspectives can be reconciled, despite the scepticism of many philosophers who have argued that 'free will' is impossible under 'scientific determinism'. This scepticism is best overcome, according to the author, by defending a causal theory of action, that (...) is by establishing that actions are constituted by behavourial events with the appropriate kind of mental causal history. He sets out a rich and subtle argument for such a theory and defends it against its critics. Thus the book demonstrates the importance of philosophical work in action theory for the central metaphysical task of understanding our place in nature. (shrink)

Do aesthetic reasons have normative authority over us? Could there be anything like an aesthetic ‘ought’ or an aesthetic obligation? I argue that there are no aesthetic obligations. We have reasons to act certain ways regarding various aesthetic objects – most notably, reasons to attend to and appreciate those objects. But, I argue, these reasons never amount to duties. This is because aesthetic reasons are merely evaluative, not deontic. They can only entice us or invite us – they can never (...) compel us. Beauty gives us goods without shoulds. (shrink)

Epistemic contextualism is one of the most hotly debated topics in contemporary epistemology. Contextualists claim that ‘know’ is a context-sensitive verb associated with different evidential standards in different contexts. Contextualists motivate their view based on a set of behavioural claims. In this paper, I show that several of these behavioural claims are false. I also show that contextualist test cases suffer from a critical confound, which derives from people's tendency to defer to speakers’ statements about their own mental states. My (...) evidence consists in results from several behavioural experiments. I conclude that contextualism is an idle hypothesis and I propose some general methodological lessons. (shrink)

Perceptual Confidence is the view that perceptual experiences assign degrees of confidence. After introducing, clarifying, and motivating Perceptual Confidence, I catalogue some of its more interesting consequences, such as the way it blurs the distinction between veridical and illusory experiences, a distinction that is sometimes said to carry a lot of metaphysical weight. I also explain how Perceptual Confidence fills a hole in our best scientific theories of perception and why it implies that experiences don't have objective accuracy conditions.

In this paper Sullins argues that in certain circumstances robots can be seen as real moral agents. A distinction is made between persons and moral agents such that, it is not necessary for a robot to have personhood in order to be a moral agent. I detail three requirements for a robot to be seen as a moral agent. The first is achieved when the robot is significantly autonomous from any programmers or operators of the machine. The second is when (...) one can analyze or explain the robot's behavior only by ascribing to it some predisposition or 'intention' to do good or harm. And finally, robot moral agency requires the robot to behave in a way that shows and understanding of responsibility to some other moral agent. Robots with all of these criteria will have moral rights as well as responsibilities regardless of their status as persons. (shrink)

Many policies and ethical guidelines recommend developing “trustworthy AI”. We argue that developing morally trustworthy AI is not only unethical, as it promotes trust in an entity that cannot be trustworthy, but it is also unnecessary for optimal calibration. Instead, we show that reliability, exclusive of moral trust, entails the appropriate normative constraints that enable optimal calibration and mitigate the vulnerability that arises in high-stakes hybrid decision-making environments, without also demanding, as moral trust would, the anthropomorphization of AI and thus (...) epistemically dubious behavior. The normative demands of reliability for inter-agential action are argued to be met by an analogue to procedural metacognitive competence (i.e., the ability to evaluate the quality of one’s own informational states to regulate subsequent action). Drawing on recent empirical findings that suggest providing reliability scores (e.g., F1-scores) to human decision-makers improves calibration in the AI system, we argue that reliability scores provide a good index of competence and enable humans to determine how much they wish to rely on the system. (shrink)

Researchers have debated whether knowledge or certainty is a better candidate for the norm of assertion. Should you make an assertion only if you know it's true? Or should you make an assertion only if you're certain it's true? If either knowledge or certainty is a better candidate, then this will likely have detectable behavioral consequences. I report an experiment that tests for relevant behavioral consequences. The results support the view that assertability is more closely linked to knowledge than to (...) certainty. In multiple scenarios, people were much more willing to allow assertability and certainty to come apart than to allow assertability and knowledge to come apart. (shrink)

Assertion is fundamental to our lives as social and cognitive beings. By asserting we share knowledge, coordinate behavior, and advance collective inquiry. Accordingly, assertion is of considerable interest to cognitive scientists, social scientists, and philosophers. This paper advances our understanding of the norm of assertion. Prior evidence suggests that knowledge is the norm of assertion, a view known as “the knowledge account.” In its strongest form, the knowledge account says that knowledge is both necessary and sufficient for assertability: you should (...) make an assertion if and only if you know that it is true. The knowledge account has been rejected on the grounds that it conflicts with our ordinary practice of evaluating assertions. This paper reports four experiments that address an important objection of this sort, which focuses on a class of examples known as “Gettier cases.” The results undermine the objection and, in the process, provide further evidence for the knowledge account. The findings also teach some important general lessons about intuitional methodology and the curation of genres of thought experiment. (shrink)

O ensino de filosofia seguiu uma rota tortuosa desde a colônia até os tempos atuais. O breve histórico desse percurso tem o objetivo de reafirmar a necessidade dessa disciplina no currículo escolar, sobretudo porque sempre há aqueles que a consideram de pouca importância. No entanto, em um mundo cada vez mais pragmático, a formação exclusivamente técnica de nossos jovens dificulta o processo de conscientização crítica, além de desprezar a herança de uma sabedoria milenar. Os primeiros tempos No Brasil, desde o (...) século XVI, o ensino de filosofia fazia parte do chamado curso de artes oferecido pelos jesuítas aos filhos de colonos que concluíam o primeiro nível de letras humanas. É bem verdade que apenas alguns colégios dispunham desse curso, voltado exclusivamente para a elite colonial portuguesa. A base do ensino de filosofia era a tradição escolástica, e, mesmo durante os séculos seguintes, não houve interesse em abordar as conquistas das ciências modernas, já vigentes desde o século XVII, na perspectiva de Francis Bacon e das descobertas de Galileu Galilei. Do mesmo modo, não eram ensinadas as teorias de René Descartes e John Locke. Inspirado nos ideais da Contrarreforma, o ensino jesuítico reafirmava a autoridade da Igreja e dos clássicos, com o controle sobre as informações a que os alunos teriam acesso. No século XVIII, os fundamentos aristotélico-tomistas perduraram, com raras exceções, apesar de o marquês de Pombal ter expulsado os jesuítas. O próprio Pombal permitiu a divulgação de algumas dessas obras "esclarecidas", mas cuidou de elencar uma lista das proibidas. Contrariando o controle, as novas ideias circulavam no Brasil por meio de estudantes formados pela Universidade de Coimbra e também pela venda clandestina de panfletos e cópias manuscritas. Desse modo, nas aulas régias, instituídas por Pombal para substituir as escolas dos jesuítas, no geral foi mantida a educação elitista, livresca, desfocada da realidade brasileira durante o império e a república. Apesar do controle, havia exceções, nas poucas vezes em que intelectuais, professores e conhecedores de bibliografia atualizada ensinavam disciplinas como ciências modernas, filosofia e matemática. Algumas congregações religiosas, como a dos franciscanos, também se interessavam pelas contribuições científicas e filosóficas de seu tempo. Ensino de filosofia: entre facultativa e obrigatória A partir do século XIX, predominou um vaivém entre a filosofia como disciplina obrigatória ou facultativa. Com a criação de cursos jurídicos no Brasil, na década de 1820 - em São Paulo e Recife -, a filosofia tornou-se disciplina obrigatória do ensino médio, como pré- requisito para o ingresso ao curso superior, reforçando o caráter propedêutico daquele curso. Em 1915, uma reforma de ensino tornou a filosofia disciplina facultativa, mas o ministro Francisco Campos tentou reverter esse quadro em 1932, tornando-a novamente obrigatória. Conhecido pela atuação no movimento da Escola Nova, Campos aliou seus esforços aos de figuras importantes da pedagogia brasileira, como o sociólogo Fernando de Azevedo e o filósofo e educador Anísio Teixeira. A tendência escolanovista era renovadora e se fazia necessária diante da situação econômica do Brasil. Com o início da industrialização, surgia a necessidade de melhorar a escolarização, sobretudo para os segmentos urbanos. Francisco Campos introduziu as disciplinas de lógica, sociologia e história da filosofia no currículo escolar. Com a Reforma Capanema, em 19142, o ensino secundário dividiu-se em ginasial e colegial. Este último foi subdividido em científico, com ênfase no estudo de ciências, e clássico, que privilegiava a formação em humanidades. Nesse contexto, a filosofia se constituiu como disciplina obrigatória em um dos três anos do científico e em dois anos do curso clássico, com proposta de programa bastante extenso. No entanto, uma sequência de portarias reduziu gradativamente o número de horas-aula da disciplina, por fim, restrita ao último ano do colegial. Em 1961, foi promulgada a nossa primeira Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação (LDBJ, a Lei n. 4.024, ocasião em que o ensino de filosofia perdeu a obrigatoriedade. Período da ditadura militar Durante a ditadura militar no Brasil (1964-1985), as aulas de filosofia foram extintas pela Lei n. 5.692, de 1971. Essa lei reformou o então chamado ensino de 1º e 2º graus e introduziu o ensino profissionalizante, de acordo com a tendência tecnicista proposta pelos acordos entre militares e tecnocratas. Um dos objetivos era adequar a educação às exigências da sociedade industrial e tecnológica, com economia de tempo, esforços e custos. A educação tecnicista encontrava-se imbuída dos ideais de racionalidade, organização, objetividade, eficiência e produtividade, como se fosse uma empresa: esperava-se que, ao terminar cada um dos níveis, o aluno estivesse capacitado para ingressar no mercado como força de trabalho, caso necessário. Para implantar o projeto de educação proposto, o governo militar não revogou a LDB de 1961, mas introduziu alterações e fez atualizações. Enquanto a aprovação da LDB resultara de amplo debate na sociedade civil, o governo autoritário regulamentou as leis do ensino universitário (Lei n. 5.540/1968) e do ensino de 1º e 2º graus (Lei n. 5.692/1971) de maneira impositiva. Diversos acordos, conhecidos como MEC-Usaid (Ministério da Educação e Cultura e United States Agency for International Development), ofereceram assistência técnica e cooperação financeira para implantar a reforma. A habilitação profissional constituiu-se em um emaranhado de "ofertas" que chegavam a 130 habilitações profissionais distribuídas conforme os cursos e as regiões do país. Algumas disciplinas desapareceram, como a de filosofia, e outras foram aglutinadas. Por sua vez, a inclusão de Moral e Cívica no primeiro nível e de Organização Social e Política no segundo exerceu a clara intenção de doutrinamento político. Há controvérsias em torno da extinção da filosofia do currículo escolar. Para alguns, a extinção revelava a intenção explícita dos governos militares de evitarem o desenvolvimento do pensamento crítico. Outros analisam de modo diferente, alegando que, com raríssimas exceções, o ensino da filosofia reduzia-se à história da filosofia, com ênfase na memorização, não representando, portanto, nenhuma ameaça ao regime de exceção, por desempenhar papel submisso e nada subversivo. Além disso, de acordo com o viés tecnicista da reforma, havia necessidade de mais espaço para incluir disciplinas voltadas para a habilitação profissional. Já nas universidades, era possível notar o crescente desprestígio da filosofia, tendo ocorrido perseguição a professores, muitos deles exilados. Todavia, o propósito de formar profissionais, conforme propunha a nova lei, não se concretizou. A escola pública se fragilizou ainda mais, enquanto algumas boas escolas da rede particular encontraram meios de contornar a lei e oferecer um ensino de qualidade com os mesmos conteúdos que visavam desenvolver o espírito crítico e, portanto, a capacidade de seus alunos pensarem por si mesmos. Em 1982, no clima da abertura democrática, a Lei n. 7.01-114 permitiu a reinserção da filosofia no currículo como optativa, a critério do estabelecimento de ensino. Nada foi conseguido sem esforço, mas com trabalho intenso e pressão da sociedade civil. Associações especialmente criadas para esse fim aglutinaram professores de cursos secundários e superiores para promoverem encontros, movimentos de protesto e contatos com autoridades governamentais, no esforço conjunto para alcançar aquele objetivo. Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional (LDB) n. 9.394/1996 Após a aprovação da Constituição brasileira de 1988, restava elaborar a lei complementar para tratar das Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional. A primeira LDB, de 1961, levara muito tempo para ser aprovada e ofereceu no final um texto já envelhecido. Devido a esse fato, havia interesse em acelerar a regulamentação da nova LDB, o que ocorreu em dezembro de 1996, com a publicação da Lei n. 9.394. O primeiro projeto da nova LDB baseou-se em amplo debate, não só na Câmara, mas também na sociedade civil, além de várias entidades sindicais, científicas, estudantis e segmentos organizados da educação. O projeto original exigiu do relator Jorge Hage importante trabalho de finalização, já que a nova lei não resultaria de exclusiva iniciativa do Executivo, e sim do debate democrático da comunidade educacional. No entanto, com apoio do governo e do ministro da Educação, o senador Darcy Ribeiro apresentou outro projeto que começara a ser discutido paralelamente e que terminou por ser aprovado. Como ficou a situação do ensino de filosofia? Apesar do movimento consistente que continuava defendendo o retorno da filosofia ao ensino médio, foi grande a decepção. Vejamos por quê. Ao estabelecer as finalidades da educação básica e as diretrizes dos conteúdos curriculares, essa lei destacava a importância da formação para o exercício da cidadania, a difusão de valores fundamentais ao interesse social, aos direitos e deveres dos cidadãos e de respeito ao bem comum e à ordem democrática. Foi recomendado também o aprimoramento do educando como pessoa humana, por meio de formação ética e desenvolvimento da autonomia intelectual e do pensamento crítico. Conforme a LDB sob Lei 9.394/98: Art. 22. A educação básica tem por finalidades desenvolver o educando, assegurar-lhe a formação comum indispensável para o exercício da cidadania e fornecer-lhe meios para progredir no trabalho e em estudos posteriores. Art. 27. Os conteúdos curriculares da educação básica observarão, ainda, as seguintes diretrizes: I – a difusão de valores fundamentais ao interesse social, aos direitos e deveres dos cidadãos, de respeito ao bem comum e à ordem democrática; II – consideração das condições de escolaridade dos alunos em cada estabelecimento; III – orientação para o trabalho; IV – promoção do desporto educacional e apoio às práticas desportivas não- formais. Art. 35. O ensino médio, etapa final da educação básica, com duração mínima de três anos, terá como finalidades: I – a consolidação e o aprofundamento dos conhecimentos adquiridos no ensino fundamental, possibilitando o prosseguimento de estudos; II – a preparação básica para o trabalho e a cidadania do educando, para continuar aprendendo, de modo a ser capaz de se adaptar com flexibilidade a novas condições de ocupação ou aperfeiçoamento posteriores; III – o aprimoramento do educando como pessoa humana, incluindo a formação ética e o desenvolvimento da autonomia intelectual e do pensamento crítico; IV – a compreensão dos fundamentos científico-tecnológicos dos processos produtivos, relacionando a teoria com a prática, no ensino de cada disciplina. Por fim, ficou claro no artigo 36, parágrafo 1º, inciso III (revogado pela Lei n. 11.684, de 2008), que os conteúdos, as metodologias e as formas de avaliação deveriam ser organizados de tal maneira que ao final do ensino médio o educando demonstrasse "domínio dos conhecimentos de filosofia e de sociologia necessários ao exercício da cidadania". Embora a educação para a cidadania constituísse um objetivo visado por qualquer disciplina, com mais razão o professor de filosofia teria condições de abordá-la explicitamente, não só por tomá-la como um de seus conteúdos, mas principalmente pelo seu caráter problematizador e argumentativo, próprio da filosofia. Portanto, seria válido supor que o artigo 36 definisse a reinserção da filosofia no currículo, ministrada por profissional formado na área, o que de fato não se concretizou, e o ensino de filosofia permaneceu como não obrigatório. Posteriormente, conforme a Resolução CEB n. 3/1998, "as propostas pedagógicas das escolas deverão assegurar o tratamento interdisciplinar e contextualizado para os conhecimentos de filosofia e de sociologia necessários ao exercício da cidadania" (artigo 10, parágrafo 2º, alínea b]. Ou seja, professores de outras disciplinas seriam responsáveis por esses "temas transversais", orientação que prevaleceu nos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais. Um pouco antes, em 1997, dando continuidade a anseios de educadores, o deputado federal Padre Roque Zimmermann apresentara projeto de lei para tornar obrigatório o ensino de filosofia e sociologia no currículo do ensino médio. Após sua aprovação no Senado, em 2001, o projeto foi vetado pelo então presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Finalmente, em 2008, o artigo 36 da LDB sofreu alteração, tornando obrigatório o ensino de filosofia e de sociologia no currículo do ensino médio, por meio da Lei n. 11.684/2008. Na sequência da aprovação, continua em andamento a implantação desse projeto de ensino. Esperamos que o espaço conquistado não venha a sofrer mais tarde nova retração. REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS ARANHA, M. L. de A.; MARTINS, H. P. Filosofando: Introdução à Filosofia. 6ª ed. São Paulo: Moderna, 2016. BRASIL. Ministério de Educação e Cultura. Ciências humanas e suas tecnologias. In: Orientações Curriculares para o Ensino Médio. Brasília: Ministério da Educação; Secretaria de Educação Básica, 2006. ______________________________________. LDB - Lei nº 9394/96, de 20 de dezembro de 1996. Estabelece as diretrizes e bases da Educação Nacional. Brasília: MEC, 1996. Disponível em: Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional - Biblioteca do Senado. Acesso em: 11 Jun. 2019. ______________________________________. Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais. Ensino Médio: Bases Legais. Brasília: MEC, 1999. ______________________________________. Resolução CEB n° 3 de 1998. Institui as Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para o Ensino Médio. Brasília: MEC, 1998. Disponível em: Resolução CEB n° 3 de 1998. Acesso em: 11 Jun. 2019. KOHAN, W. O. (Org.). Políticas do ensino de filosofia. Rio de Janeiro: DP6A, 2014. (shrink)

INTRODUÇÃO Para compreender como a Sociologia nasceu e se desenvolveu, é essencial analisar as transformações que ocorreram a partir do século XIV, na Europa ocidental, marcando a passagem da sociedade feudal para a sociedade capitalista, ou a passagem da sociedade medieval para a sociedade moderna. Para isso, é necessário realizar uma pequena viagem histórica, já que, para entender as ideias de um autor e de determinada época, é fundamental contextualizá-las historicamente. Em cada sociedade, em todos os tempos, os seres humanos (...) elaboraram explicações religiosas, míticas, culturais, étnicas etc. para as situações em que vivem. No século XIX, a busca por outro tipo de explicação para os fenômenos da sociedade – a explicação científica – deu origem à Sociologia. Para demonstrar como o pensamento social organizou-se historicamente e como a Sociologia estruturou o saber sobre a sociedade humana, este trabalho terá como objetivo estudar alguns autores que se sobressaíram no processo de desenvolvimento dessa ciência. PREMISSA A Sociologia surgiu como um corpo de ideias a respeito do processo de constituição, consolidação e desenvolvimento da sociedade moderna. É fruto da Revolução Industrial e, nesse sentido, é denominada “ciência da crise”, porque, com base nela, procurou-se dar respostas às questões sociais desencadeadas pelo processo revolucionário que, num primeiro momento, alterou a sociedade europeia e, depois, a maior parte do mundo. Como todas as ciências, a Sociologia não despontou de repente ou da reflexão de algum autor iluminado. Constituiu-se com base em conhecimentos sobre a natureza e a sociedade que se desenvolveram a partir do século XIV, acompanhando as mudanças que marcaram a transformação da sociedade feudal e a constituição da sociedade capitalista. Entre essas mudanças, a expansão marítima europeia e a ampliação do comércio ultramarino, a Reforma protestante e o desenvolvimento científico e tecnológico podem destacados. São o pano de fundo do movimento intelectual que alterou profundamente as formas de explicar a natureza e a sociedade. Essas mudanças estão todas vinculadas e não podem ser entendidas como eventos isolados. 1 A EXPANSÃO MARÍTIMA Com a circum-navegação da África e o descobrimento da rota para as Índias e para a América, a concepção de mundo dos europeus foi consideravelmente ampliada. A definição de um mundo territorialmente bem mais vasto, com outros povos, outras culturas e outros modos de explicar as coisas, requereu a reformulação da maneira de ver e de pensar dos europeus. Assim, ao mesmo tempo que conheciam novos povos e novas culturas, os europeus instalavam colônias na África, na Ásia e na América. Em razão disso, expandiu-se o comércio de mercadorias (sedas, especiarias e produtos tropicais, como açúcar, milho, tabaco e café) entre as metrópoles e as colônias, bem como entre os países europeus. Surgiu a possibilidade de um mercado muito mais amplo e com características mundiais. Este seria o primeiro grande movimento de globalização. A exploração de metais preciosos, principalmente na América, e o tráfico de escravos para suprir a mão de obra nas colônias deram grande impulso ao comércio, que não mais ficou restrito aos mercadores das cidades-repúblicas (Veneza, Florença ou Flandres), passando também para as mãos de grandes comerciantes e de soberanos dos Estados nacionais em formação na Europa. Toda essa expansão territorial e comercial acelerou o desenvolvimento da economia monetária, com a acumulação de capitais pela burguesia comercial, que, mais tarde, teve importância decisiva na gestação do processo de industrialização da Europa. 2 A REFORMA PROTESTANTE No século XVI, assistiu-se também ao movimento que ficaria conhecido como Reforma protestante. Os reformistas questionavam as condutas do clero, a estrutura da Igreja católica e a autoridade do Papa. Os líderes do movimento promoviam a valorização do indivíduo ao pregar a livre leitura das Escrituras Sagradas e dispensar a intermediação dos ministros da Igreja nas práticas religiosas e nos assuntos relativos à fé. A Reforma contribuiu, assim, para alimentar um movimento de resistência à autoridade e à tradição que desembocaria na Ilustração. Entre seus principais líderes figuram Martinho Lutero (1483-1546) e João Calvino (1509-1564). 3 O DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO A nova maneira de se relacionar com as coisas sagradas foi acompanhada de uma nova forma de analisar o universo e a vida em sociedade. A razão passou a ser considerada essencial para conhecer o mundo; com base nela, as pessoas se consideraram livres para julgar, avaliar, pensar e emitir opiniões sem se submeter a nenhuma autoridade transcendente ou divina. A análise do universo e da vida em sociedade com base no conhecimento racional, fundado na observação e na experimentação, difundiu-se de maneira lenta, entre os séculos XV e XVII. Os pensadores que adotaram essa forma de análise enfrentaram o dogmatismo e a autoridade da Igreja. Por meio do Concílio de Trento (1545-1563) e dos processos da Inquisição, por exemplo, os membros do clero procuraram impedir toda e qualquer manifestação que pudesse pôr em dúvida a autoridade eclesiástica, fosse no campo da fé, fosse no das explicações que se propunham para a sociedade e a natureza. Os principais representantes do pensamento racional nos séculos XV a XVII foram Nicolau Maquiavel (1469-1527), Erasmo de Roterdã (1466-1536), Nicolau Copérnico (1473- 1543), Galileu Galilei (1564 -1642), Thomas Hobbes (1588 -1679), Francis Bacon (1561- 1626), René Descartes (1596 -1650) e Baruch Spinoza (1632 -1677). Os conhecimentos desses precursores alimentaram outros pensadores, como John Locke (1632-1704), Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) e Isaac Newton (1643-1727), que propuseram novos princípios para a compreensão da sociedade e da natureza. Vale salientar, por fim, que os pensadores europeus dos séculos XV a XVII buscaram compreender os fenômenos da natureza e da sociedade por meio da observação e da experimentação. 4 AS TRANSFORMAÇÕES NO SÉCULO XVIII No final do século XVIII, na maioria dos países europeus, a burguesia comercial, formada basicamente por comerciantes e banqueiros, constituía uma classe poderosa, em razão, na maior parte das vezes, das ligações econômicas que mantinha com as monarquias. Além de sustentar o comércio entre os países europeus, a burguesia europeia lançava seus tentáculos a vários pontos do mundo, até onde pudesse chegar, comprando e vendendo mercadorias. O capital mercantil estendia-se também a outro ramo de atividade: gradativamente se organizava a produção manufatureira. A compra de matérias-primas e a organização da produção, por meio do trabalho domiciliar ou do trabalho em oficinas, levavam ao desenvolvimento de um novo processo produtivo em contraposição ao das corporações de ofício. Os organizadores das manufaturas passaram a se interessar cada vez mais pelo aperfeiçoamento das técnicas de produção, a fim de produzir mais com menos gente e aumentar significativamente seus lucros. Para tanto, procuraram financiar a invenção de máquinas que pudessem ser utilizadas no processo produtivo. Com a invenção das máquinas de tecer e de descaroçar algodão, e a aplicação industrial da máquina a vapor e de outros tantos inventos destinados a aumentar a produtividade do trabalho, desenvolveu-se o fenômeno que veio a ser chamado de maquinofatura. O trabalho que as pessoas faziam com as mãos ou com ferramentas passava, a partir de então, a ser realizado por máquinas, elevando muito o volume da produção de mercadorias. A utilização da máquina a vapor, que podia mover outras tantas, impulsionou a indústria construtora de máquinas e, consequentemente, a indústria voltada para a produção de ferro e, posteriormente, de aço. Nesse contexto de profundas alterações no processo produtivo, no qual a utilização do trabalho mecânico era cada vez mais frequente, o trabalho artesanal continuou a existir. A maquinofatura se completou com o trabalho assalariado, no qual eram utilizadas, numa escala crescente, a mão de obra feminina e a infantil. Longe da Europa, explorava-se ouro no Brasil, prata no México e algodão nos Estados Unidos da América e na Índia. A maioria dessas atividades era realizada com a utilização do trabalho escravo ou servil. Esses elementos, conjugados, asseguraram as bases do processo de acumulação necessária para a expansão da indústria na Europa. Essas mudanças, somadas à herança cultural e intelectual do século XVII, definiram o século XVIII como explosivo. Se no século anterior a Revolução Inglesa determinou novas formas de organização política, no século XVIII a Revolução Americana e a Francesa alteraram o quadro político ocidental e serviram de exemplo e parâmetro para as revoluções políticas posteriores. As transformações na esfera da produção, a emergência de novas formas de organização política e a exigência da representação popular conferiram características muito específicas a esse século, em que pensadores como Charles de Montesquieu (1689 -1755), Voltaire (1694 - 1778), Denis Diderot (1713 -1784), Jean le Rond d’Alembert (1717 -1783), David Hume (1711 -1776), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 -1778), Adam Smith (1723 -1790) e Immanuel Kant (1724 -1804) procuraram, por caminhos às vezes divergentes, refletir sobre a realidade, na tentativa de explicá-la. (shrink)