Na era das tecnologias digitais, entender vieses algorítmicos por meio das teorias da verdade ajuda a fazer perguntas cujas respostas facilitam a filtragem da informação de forma mais eficaz. O ganho é a compreensão aprofundada da realidade.

This article asks the question “Why did Plato not write the ‘unwritten doctrine’?” and answers it by citing a combination of two obstacles. The first derives from the limitations of the episteme available to an embodied soul about the essence of the good. Even if the dialectician has access to some kind of knowledge, the mismatch between the unchanging essence of the good and the precarious logoi which aim to identify it (and allow others some measure of access to it) (...) can never fully be overcome. At best, Socrates (or Plato) can lead souls to an incomplete account of it: It is possible that even the most expert dialectician can only have a claim to knowledge, but no absolute certainty. Another obstacle lies in the audience or readership itself: No shortcut to understanding is possible, and yet a mere written presentation, which is all they have, is just such a shortcut, and so represents an empty promise. In memory of Charles H. Kahn (1928–2023), a letter of his from September 5, 1989, concerning the question “Why did Plato not write the ‘unwritten doctrine’?” is published, along with some comments. (shrink)

*Winner of the American Philosophical Association's 2020 Essay Prize in Latin American Thought* This essay offers a novel account of the secularity of Latin American liberation philosophy. It challenges the accepted notion that liberation philosophy applies the methods and approaches of Latin American liberation theology to the philosophical arena, thus putting liberation theology on secular grounds. While this formulation is true insofar as liberation philosophy is not bound by the hermeneutics of any particular religious tradition, this formulation could be misconstrued (...) given that liberation philosophy does not premise such secularization in an undialectical understanding of secularity as secularism that disavows religion. Rather, liberation philosophy’s secularity is dialectical in that it requires constant engagement with re-ligion, not in the hermeneutics of any specific tradition but with “the traditional question of the Absolute.” Due to this often-misunderstood element of liberation philosophy, it has frequently been “ghettoized and relegated to the ‘safe’ area of theological studies,” as Eduardo Mendieta argues. However, I contend that liberation philosophy’s secular grounds offer an original contribution to philosophy as a decolonial and postsecularist liberation philosophy, one that conceives of secularism as an aspect of coloniality to be overcome, an obstacle rather than a benefit for Latin American philosophers seeking to gain a better understanding of our historical conditions. (shrink)

Autonomy has been central to moral and political philosophy for millenia, and has been positioned as a critical aspect of both justice and wellbeing. Research in psychology supports this position, providing empirical evidence that autonomy is critical to motivation, personal growth and psychological wellness. Responsible AI will require an understanding of, and ability to effectively design for, human autonomy (rather than just machine autonomy) if it is to genuinely benefit humanity. Yet the effects on human autonomy of digital experiences are (...) neither straightforward nor consistent, and are complicated by commercial interests and tensions around compulsive overuse. This multi-layered reality requires an analysis that is itself multidimensional and that takes into account human experience at various levels of resolution. We borrow from HCI and psychological research to apply a model (“METUX”) that identifies six distinct spheres of technology experience. We demonstrate the value of the model for understanding human autonomy in a technology ethics context at multiple levels by applying it to the real-world case study of an AI-enhanced video recommender system. In the process we argue for the following three claims: 1) There are autonomy-related consequences to algorithms representing the interests of third parties, and they are not impartial and rational extensions of the self, as is often perceived; 2) Designing for autonomy is an ethical imperative critical to the future design of responsible AI; and 3) Autonomy-support must be analysed from at least six spheres of experience in order to approriately capture contradictory and downstream effects. (shrink)

"Paraconsistent Belief Revision Based on a Formal Consistency Operator" delves into Belief Revision—a significant area of research in Formal Philosophy that uses logic to model the ways in which human and artificial agents modify their beliefs in response to new information and examines how these changes can be considered rational. -/- Originally authored as a PhD thesis (previously published in Portuguese), this work provides a novel epistemic interpretation of Paraconsistency through Paraconsistent Belief Revision systems. It explores the concept of paraconsistency (...) from the standpoint of epistemic attitudes of acceptance and rejection. -/- This work challenges the traditional notion that accepting a new belief requires retracting its negation from the current epistemic state. The author contends that such reflexive retraction goes against the principle of informational economy, which is a crucial aspect of rationality in the context of belief change. Consequently, the phenomenon of paraconsistency is further examined from this fresh perspective of belief change, shedding light on the complexities of the Logics of Formal Inconsistency (LFIs). These LFIs provide the foundational logic, offering a comprehensive framework for understanding and implementing paraconsistent principles within belief revision systems. -/- This thesis was supervised by Marcelo Esteban Coniglio and co-supervised by Márcio Moretto Ribeiro, as part of Rafael Rodrigues Testa's doctoral studies at the University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil. (shrink)

This is a report on the II Symposium Platonicum, which took place in Perugia, Italy, September 1-6, 1989, and on the founding of the International Plato Society, which took place in Bevagna, Province of Perugia, Umbria, Italy, September 3, 1989.

The debate over Plato’s “ so called unwritten doctrines”, which he communicated only to a small circle of trusted disciples, has caused a stir among philosophers in recent decades. Rafael Ferber assumes a differentiated position in this controversy. He is convinced that the unwritten doctrines did exist, but that Plato, for reasons inherent in the process of gaining knowledge, was unable to communicate these doctrines even to his closest disciples. In this book, Ferber outlines the discussion and summarizes the (...) standpoints of greatest interest. Ever since Aristotle, we have known that Plato did not put his most important teachings into writing, but instead communicated them only orally to the inner circle of his disciples. While the extant dialogues merely pass down Plato’s “exoteric” doctrines, his most important “esoteric” insights were not meant for the general public. In the meantime, the contents and the significance of Plato’s “unwritten doctrines” have become the subject of debate in philosophical circles. Fifteen years ago, at the height of the controversy over the “unwritten doctrines”, Rafael Ferber entered the fray with a small book. He proposed that Plato was also unable to communicate the “unwritten doctrines” because the highest principles (i.e. the subject of the unwritten doctrines) cannot be known through logical operations due to an epistemological paradox. Ferber’s differentiated position met with great respect and acceptance, although in individual cases it was also rejected. Ferber’s new book again presents the text of 1991, but significantly expands on it through new perspectives and an outline of the discussion it triggered. In this book, the reader learns what is meant by Plato’s unwritten doctrines and what the controversy is all about. (shrink)

In the whole Corpus Platonicum, we find in principle only one "direct argument" (Charles Kahn) for the existence of the ideas (Tim.51d3-51e6). The purpose of the article is to analyse this argument and to answer the question of why Plato in the Timaeus again defended the existence of the ideas despite the objections in the Parmenides. He defended it again because the latent presupposition of the apories in the Parmenides, the substantial view of sensibles, is removed through the introduction of (...) space as "substantialized extension". First (I) it is shown that Plato remained in dialogues, like the Sophist and Politicus, faithful to the "theory of ideas" despite his criticism in the Parmenides. The common theme in the trilogy of the Theaetetus, Sophist and Politicus is to refute relativism by showing that any relativism presupposes something absolute that is something like the "theory of ideas". The second part of the paper (II) examines closely the logical structure of the argument for the existence of ideas in the Timaeus (51d3-52a7). The third part (III) shows how this argument can avoid the criticism of ideas in the Parmenides. In the Parmenides, sensibles are treated as substantial entities. But, as the Timaeus shows, sensibles are not substantial entities but merely qualities, namely qualities of space, which is the only substance in the sensible world. A shortened English version of the paper appeared in Proceedings of the Fourth Symposium Platonicum, Granada, Selected papers, ed. by T. Calvo/L. Brisson, Academia Verlag, St. Augustin, 1997, 179-186. -/- But the only "direct argument" (Tim.51d3-51e6) seems to be interestingly flawed. Cf. Ferber, Rafael; Hiltbrunner, Thomas, (2005). (shrink)

This paper deals with the deuteros plous, literally ‘the second voyage’, proverbially ‘the next best way’, discussed in Plato’s Phaedo, the key passage being Phd. 99e4-100a3. I argue that (a) the ‘flight into the logoi’ can have two different interpretations, a standard one and a non-standard one. The issue is whether at 99e-100a Socrates means that both the student of erga and the student of logoi consider images (‘the standard interpretation’), or the student of logoi does not consider images but (...) that “consistency should suffice for truth” (‘the non-standard interpretation’); (b) the non-standard one implies the problem of the hypothesis, a problem analogous to the problem of the elenchus; (c) there is a structural analogy between Descartes’ ontological argument for the existence of God in his 5th Meditation and the final proof for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo. (shrink)

Two systems of belief change based on paraconsistent logics are introduced in this article by means of AGM-like postulates. The first one, AGMp, is defined over any paraconsistent logic which extends classical logic such that the law of excluded middle holds w.r.t. the paraconsistent negation. The second one, AGMo , is specifically designed for paraconsistent logics known as Logics of Formal Inconsistency (LFIs), which have a formal consistency operator that allows to recover all the classical inferences. Besides the three usual (...) operations over belief sets, namely expansion, contraction and revision (which is obtained from contraction by the Levi identity), the underlying paraconsistent logic allows us to define additional operations involving (non-explosive) contradictions. Thus, it is defined external revision (which is obtained from contraction by the reverse Levi identity), consolidation and semi-revision, all of them over belief sets. It is worth noting that the latter operations, introduced by S. Hansson, involve the temporary acceptance of contradictory beliefs, and so they were originally defined only for belief bases. Unlike to previous proposals in the literature, only defined for specific paraconsistent logics, the present approach can be applied to a general class of paraconsistent logics which are supraclassical, thus preserving the spirit of AGM. Moreover, representation theorems w.r.t. constructions based on selection functions are obtained for all the operations. (shrink)

Reasons for action is a widely employed methodology in practical philosophy, and especially in moral philosophy. Reasons are facts that explain and justify actions. But, conceptually, if reasons were causes, incontinent actions would be impossible. When an agent ranks an evaluation about what to do as his best judgement, it entails that he has a reason for acting as that judgement prescribes. But when an agent acts incontinently, he acts in accordance to an intention that is not aligned with his (...) best evaluative judgement. Yet, if the agent’s best evaluative judgement provides him a reason for action, this reason should also be his strongest reason, and therefore, the strongest cause. How then can it be possible that an agent incontinently acts according to a reason of inferior causal strength? In this paper, I analyze how Davidson’s argument for the possibility of incontinent actions interacts with his causal theory of actions. I argue that Davidson’s proposal does not fully respect the two principles of intentional rationality, that he himself claims to be compelling. Lastly, I sketch some initial steps that might be helpful to drawing more precise conceptual distinctions in terms of the rationality of incontinent actions. (shrink)

In this paper two systems of AGM-like Paraconsistent Belief Revision are overviewed, both defined over Logics of Formal Inconsistency (LFIs) due to the possibility of defining a formal consistency operator within these logics. The AGM° system is strongly based on this operator and internalize the notion of formal consistency in the explicit constructions and postulates. Alternatively, the AGMp system uses the AGM-compliance of LFIs and thus assumes a wider notion of paraconsistency - not necessarily related to the notion of formal (...) consistency. (shrink)

The first part of the paper (p. 10-21) tries to answer the first question of the title and describes a set of seven “knowledge-claims” made by Socrates: 1. There is a distinction between right opinion and knowledge. 2. Virtue is knowledge. 3. Nobody willingly does wrong. 4. To do injustice is the greatest evil for the wrongdoer himself. 5. An even greater evil is if the wrongdoer is not punished. 6. The just person is happy; the unjust person is unhappy. (...) 7. The pleasant is not the good. These claims seem to be the “few” (oliga) (Men. 98 b3) but “very important” (kallista) (Grg. 472 c8) things that Socrates claims to know. The second part (p. 22-39) tries to answer the second question and defends the thesis that the supposed “knowledge” of Socrates is dianoetic, but not noetic. The main new idea of this paperis the comparison of the Socratic knowledge-claims with the upper states of the mind symbolized in theDivided Line, noesis and dianoia (cf. R. 511 d7-e1). Posted. (shrink)

The article examines the Socratic principle that (1) virtue is knowledge and its corollary that (2) nobody errs voluntarily (nemo sua sponte peccat). It tries to show (I) that both principles are paradoxa, i.e. from a phenomenological point of view, they seem to be false; (II) that nevertheless the platonic Socrates accepts both principles as true; and finally (III) that these principles are analytical truths a priori which can only be understood if a person (soul) finds them in him- or (...) herself. (shrink)

Book review of: Donald R. Morrison (Hg.), The Cambridge Companion to Socrates, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010.

O propósito deste trabalho é analisar a estrutura e discutir a aplicação da(s) lógica(s) deôntica(s) na representação de normas jurídicas. Após uma apresentação desta(s) lógic(s) e, em particular, do sistema de von Wright e da SDL (Standard Deontic Logic), veremos as dificuldades de se aplicar uma lógica à análise do direito positivo: as regras da lógica devem permitir realizar sobre as normas formalizadas somente os tipos de inferência e operaçôes lógicas intuitivamente feitas pelos juristas, ou seja, a reconstrução lógica do (...) direito positivo não se trata de uma tarefa de criação do direito, mas uma tarefa de representação daquilo que o conceito de direito usual reconhece como tal. Para ilustrar estas dificuldades, abordaremos as propostas de Carlos Alchourrón em artigo de 1975, “Condicionalidad y la representación de las normas jurídicas”. (shrink)

O presente artigo busca caracterizar a querela interna do Movimento Jovem-Hegeliano através da descrição e caracterização do conceito de massa/massificação dentro do pensamento de seus membros primeiros, a saber: Ludwig Feuerbach, David Strauss e Bruno Bauer.

The paper puts forward that the basic principle of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (4.0312) transforms the supreme principle of all synthetic judgments a priori in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (A158/B197) from a level of reason to the level of language. Both philosophers, Kant and Wittgenstein, put forward a transcendental principle and both hold a formal identity true, Kant an identity between the form of experience and the form of the object of experience, Wittgenstein an identity between the form of a sentence (...) and the form of a fact. (shrink)

In his Vermischte Bemerkungen 43, Wittgenstein notices that he was also influenced by Oswald Spengler. The paper deals with the question of in which way Spengler influenced Wittgenstein’s late works and if it really was influence or only a coincidence of ideas. It is put forward that Spengler’s rather unknown philosophy of language influenced Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, especially the concepts of family resemblance, antiessentialism, and language-game (Sprachspiel). A picture of the famous Neapolitan gesture of “negation” which motivated Wittgenstein to (...) give up the picture theory of language is also shown with an example taken from Andrea de Jorio, La mimica degli antichi investigala nel gestire napoletano, Napoli 1832. (shrink)

A Revisão de Crenças estuda como agentes racionais mudam suas crenças ao receberem novas informações. O sistema AGM, trabalho mais influente desta área apresentado por Alchourrón, Gärdenfos e Makinson, postula critérios de racionalidade para os diferentes tipos de mudança de crenças e oferece construções explícitas para tais - a equivalência entre os postulados e operações é chamado de teroema da representação. Trabalhos recentes mostram como o paradigma AGM pode ser compatível com diferentes lógicas não-clássicas, o que é chamado de AGM-compatibilidade (...) - este é o caso da família de lógicas paraconsistentes que analisamos, as Lógicas da Inconsistência Formal (LFIs, da sigla em inglês). A despeito da AGM-compatibilidade, ao se partir de uma nova lógica sua racionalidade subjacente deve ser entendida e sua linguagem deve ser efetivamente usada. Propomos assim novas construções que de fato capturam a intuição presente na LFIs - é o que chamamos de sistema AGMo. Com isso, possibilitamos a estas lógicas uma nova interpretação, na esteira da epistemologia formal. Em uma abordagem alternativa, ao se partir da AGM-compatibilidade os resultados AGM podem ser diretamente aplicados às LFIs - o que chamamos de sistema AGMp. Em ambas abordagens, provamos os respectivos teoremas da representação sempre que necessário. (shrink)

The paper proposes (1.) a non-standard interpretation of the proverbial expression “deuteros plous” by giving a fresh look to Phaedo, 99c9-d1. Then (2.) it proceeds to the philosophical problem raised in this passage according to this interpretation, that is, the problem of the “hypothesis” or the “unproved principle”. It indicates finally (3.) the kernel of truth contained in the standard Interpretation and it concludes with some remarks on the “weakness of the logoi”.

Hegel insists that the category ‘nature’, expressed in relation to the ideal of aesthetic beauty, is not nature as such but a supplementary deviation coloured by the subjective position from which this ‘nature’ is posited. We cannot distinguish nature ‘in itself’ from the ideological-artistic conditions of the distorted ‘use’ of nature. Nature exists to us only by reference to what is subjectively treated as non-natural. A similar relation is posited by Lacan in his famous assertion that ‘there is no sexual (...) relation’. For Freud and Lacan, the ‘all too human’ sexual drive derives from a deviated/distorted enjoyment of the initial failure to enjoy a purely natural sexual relation: an inevitably castrated enjoyment, where ‘natural’ sexuality is revealed as impossible. In other words, sexuality is for Lacan and Freud its own distortion of the category of ‘natural’. Sexuality is a perpetually distorted and abnormal form of enjoyment, for which the alternative is not ‘normal/natural enjoyment’, but rather the negative state of a fundamental lack of any relation. Through Hegel and sexuality, this paper argues that the unavoidable misuse of nature is not caused by improper application/categorisation, but instead reflects an internal incompleteness or indeterminacy in nature as a category. (shrink)

Este artigo explora o uso de metodologias lúdicas, como gamificação e narrativas, para tornar o ensino de Lógica mais dinâmico e acessível no Ensino Médio. Através de enigmas como os do tipo Cavaleiros e Patifes, abordam-se tanto a lógica proposicional clássica quanto as não-clássicas (notadamente, as lógicas paraconsistentes e modal),proporcionando um aprendizado ativo e colaborativo. O artigo oferece ferramentas práticas para educadores, com ênfase no desenvolvimento de competências críticas e na criação de um ambiente inclusivo, acessível a todos os alunos.

The article first gives an exegesis of the famous passage in the "Republic", 505d11-506a2. Attention is drawn to the fact that the principle that every soul does everything for the Good can be translated in two ways: Every soul does everything for the sake of the Good, or goes to all lengths for the sake of the Good. Depending on the different translations, we have a different picture of the platonic Socrates in the Republic, an intellectualistic Socrates for whom irrational (...) desires do not exist, or a Socrates who also accepts irrational desires. The article favours the first one. Then it attempts to show that we can elucidate some dark points in the Socratic thesis that the Good is what every soul pursues and for which every soul does everything, with the help of Aquinas’s distinction between it actio hominis and actio humana. Finally, the article outlines three substantive answers to the question “What is the Good?” – the henological, the perfectionist and the structuralist. Instead of advancing a new answer, the article suggests an uncontroversial formal starting point for an answer to this question. (shrink)

O objetivo desse paper é mostrar como que se opera a temática da exclusão social dentro da esfera espectacularizadora da mídia. Usando o conceito, retirado do Direito Romano por Giorgio Agamben, de Homo sacer, mostraremos como esses indíviduos que estão às margens dos direitos estatais aparecem em temáticas que “esquecem” do seu problema fundamental. Relembrando os jornais romanos conhecidos como acta populi e o termo, difundido filosoficamente por Roland Barthes, de fait divers, podemos ver como que os excluídos (cuja existência, (...) segundo Herbert Marcuse, é perigosa para o status quo) se tornam figuras dóceis na esfera pública. (shrink)

By Belief Revision it is understood a system that logically explains the rational process of changing beliefs by taking into account a new piece of information. The most influential approach in this field of study, the AGM system, proposed by Alchourrón, Gärdenfors, and Makinson, postulates rationality criteria for different types of belief change. In this paper I shall assess the relationship between those criteria and argue for an opposition between the principles of Information Economy and Consistency. Furthermore, I shall argue (...) that Paraconsistent Belief Revision manages to minimise this friction in the best possible way. (shrink)

Under semantic monism I understand the thesis “The Good is said in one way” and under semantic pluralism the antithesis “The Good is said in many ways”. Plato’s Socrates seems to defend a “semantic monism”. As only one sun exists, so the “Good” has for Socrates and Plato only one reference. Nevertheless, Socrates defends in the Philebus a semantic pluralism, more exactly trialism, of “beauty, symmetry and truth” . Therefore, metaphorically speaking, there seem to exist not only one sun, but (...) three suns. If the platonic Socrates defends a semantic monism on the one hand and pluralism on the other, how can we unite his pluralism with his monism? My thesis is that the three references are “qualities” of the one single reference, or again, speaking metaphorically, “side suns” of the single sun. In the following, I propose first an exegesis of Plato’s last written word on the Good in Phil. 65 A 1-5 by dividing it into five sentences. Second, I ask a philosophical question on this monism and the corresponding hierarchy of values. (shrink)

Plato scholars such as Matthias Baltes (1940-2003) and Luc Brisson have defended the thesis that Plato‘s Idea of the Good is on the one hand beyond being (epekeina tês ousias) in dignity and power, but is nevertheless not transcendent over being. The article gives first (I.), an introduction into the status questionis. Second (II.), it delivers the most important arguments for the thesis of Baltes and Brisson. Third (III.), it gives two counterarguments against the thesis. Fourth (IV), it deals with (...) the translation of L. Brisson "Apollon, quelle merveilleuse emphase" of 509c1-2. Fifth (V.), it concludes with some general questions concerning the deflationist interpetation of Plato‘s Republic, 509b9-10. (shrink)

The paper deals with the beginning and the main properties of the science of nature (he peri physeos historiê). According to Themistius (DK 12 A 7), the founder of this kind of Ionic philosophy is Anaximander of Miletus because he was the first who wrote about nature (especially a cosmography and a cosmogony) and developed three main principles of nature: 1. Nature has a mathematical structure (Arist. De coelo I3 295b10-14.32); 2. nature has a physical structure (DK 12 A 10-11); (...) and 3. nature follows natural laws (DK 12 A 9). The origin of this introduction lies in the prolongation of primitive expectations of constancy. It is especially argued that the shift from mythos to logos is characterized by the depersonalization of nature and the introduction of theoretical terms. In fact, the "apeiron" of Anaximander seems to be something similar to a theoretical term, because Anaximander seems to have realized that the explanans of nature cannot be one of its explananda like water (Thales) or air (Anaximenes). (shrink)

Despite the fact that Aristotle and Frege/Russell differ in how to understand the ambiguity in the meaning of the word “is”, their theories share a common feature: “is” does not have a normative meaning. This paper, however, (I) shows (a) that there is a normative meaning of “is” (and correspondingly a constative meaning of the word “ought”) and (b) that the ambiguity of “is” is itself ambiguous. Furthermore, it proposes (c) a performative criterion for making a distinction between constative and (...) normative “is”. Thereby, (II) a new interpretation of Kant’s critique of the ontological argument (CPR A 598/B626) makes sense: The difference between being as a real predicate and being as a position depends on the difference between “is” as a descriptive and “is” as a normative predicate. (III) The criterion also makes possible a new answer to Leibniz’s and Schelling’s question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”: The “is” in “there is something” is normative and the question means “Why shall there be something rather than nothing?”. As “there shall be nothing” is self-refuting, the question evokes an ultimate foundation in a practical sense. (shrink)

Resumo -/- A partir da experiência de produção de uma videoaula de Lógica em Libras (Testa, Moraes, Bizio e Caló, 2021) para o IFSP FILOLIBRAS, inserida no contexto do projeto ‘O Ensino de Filosofia para Surdos: elaboração de material didático em uma perspectiva de inclusão escolar’ (Moraes e Bizio, 2021), levantamos algumas questões relativas ao arcabouço teórico do projeto. Após introduzirmos as motivações do projeto, explicamos como sua metodologia foi tratada no contexto da aula de Lógica, expondo as principais dificuldades (...) e soluções encontradas. Através da análise desta experiência, pretendemos levantar subsídios teóricos para pesquisas futuras no tema, incluindo a produção de um curso inteiramente voltado para o ensino de Lógica em Libras, não apenas enquanto área da Filosofia, mas também enquanto área de estudo multi e transdisciplinar, propedêutica ao fomento do Pensamento Crítico. -/- Palavras-chave: Ensino de Lógica, Educação Especial, Pedagogia Bilíngue, Libras. -/- Abstract -/- Based on the experience of producing a video lesson on Logic in Libras (Testa, Moraes, Bizio and Caló, 2021) to the IFSP FILOLIBRAS, inserted in the context of the project ‘O Ensino de Filosofia para Surdos: elaboração de material didático em uma perspectiva de inclusão escolar’ (‘Teaching Philosophy for Deaf students: elaboration of didactic material in a perspective of inclusive education’, in a free translation) (Moraes and Bizio, 2021), we raise some questions regarding the theoretical framework of the project. After introducing the motivations of the project, we explain how the chosen methodology was considered in the context of the Logic class, exposing the main difficulties and solutions found. Through the analysis of this experience, we intend to raise theoretical subsidies for future research on the subject, including the production of a course entirely focused on the teaching of Logic in Libras, not only as an area of Philosophy but also as a multi and transdisciplinary area of study, propaedeutic to fostering Critical Thinking. -/- Keywords: Teaching Logic, Special Education, Bilingual Pedagogy, Libras. (shrink)

A strange dialectical reversal characterizes the oppositions which psychoanalysis posits against philosophy and neuroscience: what psychoanalysis intervenes with as a unique and missing quality of these subjects, reveals itself upon enquiry as already having been a feature of said subjects. This article first discusses the failed intervention of psychoanalysis within the perceived totalities and absolutes of German idealism. Psychoanalysis, founded on an ontological division and internal inconsistency with a retroactive logic, finds this internal contradiction already reflected within the supposed totalities (...) of Schelling and Hegel. Schelling’s “blind act,” a decision with no prior foundation that grounds an abstract identity-in-itself, appears as the counterpart to what Badiou calls the strictly “analytic act.” Hegel’s Science of Logic, in which the inconclusive interpenetration of being and nothing presupposes its own conclusion in the transitions to essence, and in which an internal incompleteness and contradiction are retroactively constitutive of the concept, similarly nullifies the intervention of psychoanalysis. Finally, precisely such a reversal is presented in neuroscience, where the constitutive contradiction of contingently functional neuronal formations in the adaptive “multiple demand” model of executive functioning repeats the contingent and self-contradicting psychoanalytic subject as being its own deference within linguistic, discursive formations. (shrink)

The paper puts forward a new interpretation of the image of the Cave, that is the image on human paideia (education) and apaideusia (lack of education). The cause of the apaideusia (R.514a) is identified as a separation from the origin. (1) First, the relation between the Cave, the analogy of the Linie and the Sun is shown not to be a strict parallelism, but a resemblance, which implies sameness and difference between Sun, Line and Cave. (2) Second, the author argues (...) that the idea of the Good is the necessary condition for the possibility of being, truth and thought. It is the highest principle and the ultimate foundation of Plato’s ethics. (3) Third, the author describes Plato’s paideia (education) as holistic, that is: it involves the spiritive and appetitive part of the soul. (shrink)

Revision operation is the consistent expansion of a theory by a new belief-representing sentence. We consider that in a paraconsistent setting this desideratum can be accomplished in at least three distinct ways: the output of a revision operation should be either non-trivial or non-contradictory (in general or relative to the new belief). In this paper those distinctions will be explored in the constructive level by showing how the remainder sets could be refined, capturing the key concepts of paraconsistency in a (...) dynamical scenario. These are preliminaries results of a wider project on Paraconsistent Belief Change conduced by the authors. (shrink)

The article is the revised version of an inaugural lecture given at the University of Lucerne on 8 November 2001. In part (I), I give an interpretation of the first sentence of the Aristotelian Metaphysics: ‘All men desire by nature to know’. In part (II), I show how, for Aristotle, this desire to know constitutes a continuum from knowledge given by sense perception to knowledge of the first principles. In part (III), I compare this Aristotelian conception to Plato’s more ‘existentialist’ (...) approach which implies the turning of a ‘whole soul’ rather than a continuum. Preferring the latter concep- tion, I conclude with some hints of what I plan to do in the next years and give a short overview of the history of universities in Europe and Switzerland, ending with the University of Lucerne. (shrink)

The paper deals with the "deuteros plous", literally ‘the second voyage’, proverbially ‘the next best way’, discussed in Plato’s "Phaedo", the key passage being Phd. 99e4–100a3. The second voyage refers to what Plato’s Socrates calls his “flight into the logoi”. Elaborating on the subject, the author first (I) provides a non-standard interpretation of the passage in question, and then (II) outlines the philosophical problem that it seems to imply, and, finally, (III) tries to apply this philosophical problem to the "ultimate (...) final proof" of immortality and to draw an analogy with the ontological argument for the existence of God, as proposed by Descartes in his 5th "Meditation". The main points are as follows: (a) the “flight into the logoi” can have two different interpretations, a common one and an astonishing one, and (b) there is a structural analogy between Descartes’s ontological argument for the existence of God in his 5th "Meditation" and the "ultimate final proof" for the immortality of the soul in the "Phaedo". (shrink)

This is an obituary notice in memoriam Martina Stemich.

This is a review of: Wilhelm Vossenkuhl. Die Möglichkeit des Guten. Ethik im 21. Jahrhundert, München. C. H. Beck 2006.

The first chapter, "Der Hintergrund von Gadamers 'Phänomenologischen Interpretationen' in Sein und Zeit" traces the origins of Gadamer’s interpretation of the Philebus in Sein und Zeit. Especially important is that Dasein is, thanks to speech , already outside of itself in the world. The second chapter "Gadamers Dialektische Ethik" gives a short summary of the main points of Gadamer's interpretation of the Philebus. The third chapter "Davidsons reinterpretation of von Gadamer's Dialektischer Ethik" 222-231), points especially to the fact that Davidson (...) sees the "Socrates post Vlastos" in the interpretation of Gadamer at work: Because every man is already in possession of some basic truths, coherence is enough to lead to substantive truths. Davidson concludes that only in “interpersonal communication” "can be thought, a grasping of the fact of an objective, that is, a shared world". Thus, Davidson sees in Gadamer's interpretation of the Philebus his own theory of triangulation anticipated. (shrink)

This article considers the historical tension in conceptualising Marx's materialism (dialectical and historical) as either a break from, or a fidelity to, Hegelian dialectics, and the methods by which this tension is itself subsumed under an insistence on vindicating the radical irreducibility of Marxist thought. Ultimately, however, it is argued that the question of whether Marx should or should not be framed alongside Hegel is the wrong question. It is not a question of 'Marx by himself' or 'Marx and... [Hegel]', (...) but rather of 'Marx without himself': as with any radical event in the history of ideas, it is a benefit to Marx's innovativeness that he can be retrospectively articulated according to historical traditions whilst simultaneously breaking from them. -/- . (shrink)

The article first (i) gives an exegesis of the famous passage in the Republic, 505d11-506a2. Attention is drawn to the fact that the principle that every soul does everything for the Good (panta prattei) can be translated in two ways: Every soul does everything for the sake of the Good, or goes to all lengths for the sake of the Good. Depending on the different translations, we have a different picture of the platonic Socrates in the Republic, an intellectualistic Socrates (...) for whom pure irrational desires do not exist, or a Socrates who also accepts irrational desires. The article favours the first picture. Then it (ii) attempts to show that we can elucidate two dark points in the Socratic thesis that the Good is what every soul pursues and for which every soul does everything, with the help of Aquinas. Finally, the article (iii) outlines three substantive answers to the question ``What is the Good?'' - the henological, the perfectionist and the structuralist - and shows that these three answers lead into a trilemma. Instead of advancing a new answer, the article suggests an uncontroversial formal starting point for an answer to this question. (shrink)

This article proposes a general strategy to overcome normative conflicts, namely, paradoxes represented in Standard Deontic Logic. This solution is based on preference relations between norms that circumvent situations of conflict. Pragmatic justifications of the proposed method are also given.

This is an obituary notice on Henri Lauener (1933-2002).

Although logical consistency is desirable in scientific research, standard statistical hypothesis tests are typically logically inconsistent. To address this issue, previous work introduced agnostic hypothesis tests and proved that they can be logically consistent while retaining statistical optimality properties. This article characterizes the credal modalities in agnostic hypothesis tests and uses the hexagon of oppositions to explain the logical relations between these modalities. Geometric solids that are composed of hexagons of oppositions illustrate the conditions for these modalities to be logically (...) consistent. Prisms composed of hexagons of oppositions show how the credal modalities obtained from two agnostic tests vary according to their threshold values. Nested hexagons of oppositions summarize logical relations between the credal modalities in these tests and prove new relations. (shrink)

This is a short overview of Plato’s “greatest thing to be learned” or the “greatest lesson” (megiston mathêma) – the Idea of the Good.

La questione sulla verità del cristianesimo è fondamentale e ineludibile. In essa si trova uno dei filoni fondamentali del pensiero di Joseph Ratzinger – Benedetto XVI. In fondo si trovano coinvolti una serie di argomenti che si possono riassumere nel rapporto tra fede e ragione, tra il Dio della fede e il Dio dei filosofi. Nella visione cristiana ambedue non si contrappongono, ma s’incontrano. La “distinzione mosaica” s’incontra con la “distinzione socratica” . La pretesa di verità del cristianesimo conduce a (...) delle conseguenze sia nell’ambito della religione, sia in quello della filosofia e della morale. Per superare la crisi del cristianesimo abbiamo bisogno di recuperare la fiducia nela ragione e tornare alla ricerca della verità. (shrink)