Why is gauge symmetry so important in modern physics, given that one must eliminate it when interpreting what the theory represents? In this paper we discuss the sense in which gauge symmetry can be fruitfully applied to constrain the space of possible dynamical models in such a way that forces and charges are appropriately coupled. We review the most well-known application of this kind, known as the 'gauge argument' or 'gauge principle', discuss its difficulties, and then reconstruct the gauge argument (...) as a valid theorem in quantum theory. We then present what we take to be a better and more general gauge argument, based on Noether's second theorem in classical Lagrangian field theory, and argue that this provides a more appropriate framework for understanding how gauge symmetry helps to constrain the dynamics of physical theories. (shrink)

Words change meaning, usually in unpredictable ways. But some words’ meanings are revised intentionally. Revisionary projects are normally put forward in the service of some purpose – some serve specific goals of inquiry, and others serve ethical, political or social aims. Revisionist projects can ameliorate meanings, but they can also pervert. In this paper, I want to draw attention to the dangers of meaning perversions, and argue that the self-declared goodness of a revisionist project doesn’t suffice to avoid meaning perversions. (...) The road to Hell, or to horrors on Earth, is paved with good intentions. Finally and more importantly, I want to demarcate what meaning perversions are. This, I hope, can help us assess the moral and political legitimacy of revisionary projects. (shrink)

Kaplan (1999) argued that a different dimension of expressive meaning (“use-conditional”, as opposed to truth-conditional) is required to characterize the meaning of pejoratives, including slurs and racial epithets. Elaborating on this, writers have argued that the expressive meaning of pejoratives and slurs is either a conventional implicature (Potts 2007) or a presupposition (Macià 2002 and 2014, Schlenker 2007, Cepollaro and Stojanovic 2016). We argue that an expressive presuppositional theory accounts well for the data, but that expressive presuppositions are not just (...) propositions to be added to a common ground. We hold that expressives, including pejoratives and slurs, make requirements on a contextual record governed by sui generis norms specific to affective attitudes and their expressions. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the case that has been made for origin essentialism and find it wanting. I focus on the arguments of Nathan Salmon and Graeme Forbes. Like most origin essentialists, Salmon and Forbes have been concerned to respect the intuition that slight variation in the origin of an artifact or organism is possible. But, I argue, both of their arguments fail to respect this intuition. Salmon's argument depends on a sufficiency principle for cross-world identity, which should be (...) rejected, if - as Salmon concedes - a given artifact might have been originally made from slightly different material. Similarly, Forbes's argument succeeds only if essentially the same argument can be used to establish a claim that - by his own admission - is too strong, namely that no variation, however slight, in an organism's origin is possible. (shrink)

Philosophers of language and metaethicists are concerned with persistent normative and evaluative disagreements – how can we explain persistent intelligible disagreements in spite of agreement over the described facts? Tim Sundell recently argued that evaluative aesthetic and personal taste disputes could be explained as metalinguistic negotiations – conversations where interlocutors negotiate how best to use a word relative to a context. I argue here that metalinguistic negotiations are neither necessary nor sufficient for genuine evaluative and normative disputes to occur. A (...) comprehensive account of value talk requires stronger metanormative commitments than metalinguistic negotiations afford. (shrink)

This article investigates the specific cultural and collaborative nature of China’s public spaces and how they are formed through performative appropriations. Collective cultural practices as political participation were encouraged during the Mao era when cultural activities played a key role in workers’ education and participation. Since the opening-up period, performance in public space has become widespread in China and creates alternative community spaces that constitute alternatives to capitalist spaces of consumption. Using Habermas’s theory of communicative action, we argue that cultural (...) practices performed in public space create a proletariat public sphere that plays a wider role in governance and China’s democratization. Further, the article examines performative practices in public space. It traces the popular activity of public square dancing through history and counters this research with a parallel study of a much younger skateboarding practice. The two practices are very differently rooted. Yet both practices appear to move through cycles of disruption and appropriation, followed by an affirmation of governmental rule. The studies reveal that western ideas of citizenship and individual leisure are less applicable. Public spaces are largely managed through collaborative practices, whereas contemporary scholarship reaffirms Fei Xiaotong’s description of Chinese society as individuals positioned within a complex network of concentric circles. (shrink)

John MacFarlane defends a radical form of truth relativism that makes the truth of assertions relative not only to contexts of utterance but also to contexts of assessment, or perspectives. Making sense of assessment-sensitive truth is a matter of making sense of the normative commitments undertaken by speakers in using assessment sensitive sentences. This paper argues against the possibility of making sense of such a practice. Evans raised a challenge to the coherence of relative truth. A modification of the challenge (...) can be given against MacFarlane’s revised views on assertion. The main objection to the relativist is that rational and earnest speakers are not bound by assessment-relative standards of correctness. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that hate speech expresses hate, and answer some objections to expressivist views. First, I briefly comment on some limitations of pragmatic accounts of harmful speech. I then present an expressive-normative view of derogatory discourse according to which it is expressive of an affective state by presupposing it. A linguistic act expressive of an affective state inherits the normativity that is constitutive of that state, as directed to its intentional object. If the act is successful, it (...) updates the conversational context with the normative appraisal conditions of the affective state presupposed. I argue that this model can be applied to hate speech. I rely on current research on the psychology of hate to identify the appraisal conditions, action tendencies, and motivational goals characteristic of hate. The account supplements other pragmatic accounts of hate speech. (shrink)

An account of the development of temporal understanding is proposed which links such understanding with the development of episodic memory. We distinguish between different ways of representing time in terms of the kinds of temporal frameworks they involve. Distinctions are made between frameworks that are perspectival or nonperspectival and those that represent recurrent sequences or particular times. Even primitive temporal understanding integrates both perspectival and nonperspectival components. However, since early frameworks are event-based and localized, they are not yet sufficient for (...) episodic memory in that they do not enable the child to think of events as having occurred at particular points in time. We describe the emergence of new kinds of frameworks in terms of the development of temporal decentering. Two levels of temporal decentering are distinguished, with the higher level involving an appreciation of how event representations depend on one's temporal perspective. (shrink)

A new model of the development of temporal concepts is described that assumes that there are substantial changes in how children think about time in the early years. It is argued that there is a shift from understanding time in an event-dependent way to an event-independent understanding of time. Early in development, very young children are unable to think about locations in time independently of the events that occur at those locations. It is only with development that children begin to (...) have a proper grasp of the distinction between past, present, and future, and represent time as linear and unidirectional. The model assumes that although children aged 2 to 3 years may categorize events differently depending on whether they lie in the past or the future, they may not be able to understand that whether an event is in the past or future is something that changes as time passes and varies with temporal perspective. Around 4 to 5 years, children understand how causality operates in time, and can grasp the systematic relations that obtain between different locations in time, which provides the basis for acquiring the conventional clock and calendar system. (shrink)

This paper argues for contextualism about predicates of personal taste and evaluative predicates in general, and offers a proposal of how apparently resilient disagreements are to be explained. The present proposal is complementary to others that have been made in the recent literature. Several authors, for instance (López de Sa, 2008; Sundell, 2011; Huvenes, 2012; Marques and García-Carpintero, 2014; Marques, 2014a), have recently defended semantic contextualism for those kinds of predicates from the accusation that it faces the problem of lost (...) disagreement. These authors have proposed that a proper account of the resilient disagreement in the cases studied is to be achieved by an appeal to pragmatic processes, and to conflicting non-doxastic attitudes. It is argued here that the existing contextualist solutions are incomplete as they stand, and are subject to objections because of this. A supplementation of contextualism is offered, together with an explanation of why failed presuppositions of commonality (López de Sa), disputes over the appropriateness of a contextually salient standard (Sundell), and differences in non-doxastic attitudes (Sundell, Huvenes, Marques, and García-Carpintero) give rise to conflicts. This paper claims that conflicts of attitudes are the reason why people still have impressions of disagreement in spite of failed commonality presuppositions, that those conflicts drive metalinguistic disputes over the selection of appropriate standards, and hence conflicting non-doxastic attitudes demand an explanation that is independent of those context dependent pragmatic processes. The paper further argues that the missing explanation is 2-fold: first, disagreement prevails where the properties expressed by taste and value predicates are response-dependent properties, and, secondly, it prevails where those response-dependent properties are involved in evolved systems of coordination that respond to evolutionarily recurrent situations. (shrink)

A New Route to the Necessity of Origin’, Guy Rohrbaugh and Louis deRossett argue for the Necessity of Origin in a way that they believe avoids use of any kind of transworld constitutional sufficiency principle. In this discussion, we respond that either their arguments do imply a sufficiency principle, or else they entirely fail to establish the Necessity of Origin.

Four studies are reported that employed an object location task to assess temporal–causal reasoning. In Experiments 1–3, successfully locating the object required a retrospective consideration of the order in which two events had occurred. In Experiment 1, 5- but not 4-year-olds were successful; 4-year-olds also failed to perform at above-chance levels in modified versions of the task in Experiments 2 and 3. However, in Experiment 4, 3-year-olds were successful when they were able to see the object being placed first in (...) one location and then in the other, rather than having to consider retrospectively the sequence in which two events had happened. The results suggest that reasoning about the causal significance of the temporal order of events may not be fully developed before 5 years. (shrink)

Four experiments examined children's ability to reason about the causal significance of the order in which 2 events occurred (the pressing of buttons on a mechanically operated box). In Study 1, 4-year-olds were unable to make the relevant inferences, whereas 5-year-olds were successful on one version of the task. In Study 2, 3-year-olds were successful on a simplified version of the task in which they were able to observe the events although not their consequences. Study 3 found that older children (...) had difficulties with the original task even when provided with cues to attend to order information. However, 5-year-olds performed successfully in Study 4, in which the causally relevant event was made more salient. (shrink)

Investigates the roles of temporal concepts and self-consciousness in the development of episodic memory. According to some theorists, types of long-term memory differ primarily in the degree to which they involve or are associated with self-consciousness (although there may be no substantial differences in the kind of event information that they deliver). However, a known difficulty with this view is that it is not obvious what motivates introducing self-consciousness as the decisive factor in distinguishing between types of memory and what (...) role it is supposed to play in remembering. The authors argue that distinctions between different kinds of memory should be made initially on the basis of the ways in which they represent events. In particular, it is proposed that the way in which remembered events are located in time provides an important criterion for distinguishing between different types of memory. According to this view, if there is a link between memory development and self-consciousness, it is because some temporal concepts emerge developmentally only once certain self-conscious abilities are in place. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo fornecer uma visão ampla acerca da complexidade do xenotransplante, técnica que consiste no uso de animais não-humanos como fornecedores de órgãos para seres humanos. Nesse sentido, pretende-se auxiliar na análise ética dos potenciais benefícios da técnica, à luz dos questionamentos inerentes à sua pesquisa e possível implementação. Por um lado, o xenotransplante apresenta o potencial de solucionar a escassez crônica de órgãos humanos para transplantes, reduzindo as mortes decorrentes da falta de órgãos e as filas (...) de espera. Por outro lado, levanta várias questões que devem ser amplamente analisadas e democraticamente debatidas pela sociedade, tais como: o risco de xenozoonoses, o uso de animais não-humanos, a limitação da privacidade dos receptores de órgãos de origem animal, os protocolos de captação do consentimento livre e informado e o uso de pacientes com morte cerebral em experimentos. Desse modo, conclui-se que, mesmo que no futuro sejam superados os obstáculos clínicos e seja possível realizar xenotransplantes de órgãos com sucesso, é imprescindível avaliar cuidadosamente os prós e contras antes de decidirmos sobre sua continuidade. (shrink)

No capítulo, o autor tem por objetivo apresentar a concepção de determinados ordenamentos metodológicos na teoria weberiana que impeçam a identificação dos fatos estudados com possíveis juízos de valor do pesquisador. Esse modo de construção de conceitos, formado como tipo ideal e aplicado como padrão de medida, será utilizado em seu cotejo com os dados para descobrir a natureza da variação na cadeia causal dos eventos analisados. Passando por textos centrais do pensamento teórico-metodológico weberiano, o autor procura relê-los a partir (...) de contribuições atuais, para avaliar em que medida eles podem iluminar a pesquisa científica nos dias de hoje. (shrink)

This paper aims to show how Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutics, namely in the specificity of the Conflict of interpretations category, is a fruitful resource in the constitution of Women's Studies as well as to legitimize the need for its full integration in the canons of humanistic knowledge. In general, they continue to ignore the immense body of knowledge and perspectives that Women's Studies have produced in recent decades. In this sense, it begins by presenting the general features of the hermeneutic problematic (...) and the theme of Conflict of Interpretations, and then showing its proven contribution to the development of Women's Studies and defending its possible contribution to enhancing their integration into canons. (shrink)

O propósito deste artigo é analisar sobre a maneira pela qual, na metodologia weberiana, o grau de evidência poderá ser construído por meio dos padrões teóricos de deliberação imputados idealmente à ação subjetivamente visada pelo agente. Para Max Weber, a evidência da interpretação é baseada em procedimentos lógico-metodológicos que permitem ao cientista conceber conexões de sentido na ação empírica do agente. Portanto, será mediante certa caracterização promovida pelo pesquisador, a partir dos dados da pesquisa, que se produzirá em pensamento a (...) evidência da interpretação. Assim, o grau de evidência, metodologicamente, é construído a partir de padrões teóricos de deliberação concebidos idealmente como meios auxiliares puramente lógicos, utilizados para o isolamento e ordenamento conceitual de um fragmento da complexidade do empírico. Em vista disso, examinaremos como, na metodologia weberiana, a interpretação da ação do agente torna-se possível, se for feita uma referência explícita ao sentido visado da ação. (shrink)

Entrevista concedida a partir da presença da filósofa em encontro realizado no dia 12 de dezembro de 2020 a convite do Grupo de Pesquisa, Ensino e Extensão em Ética Animal da Universidade Federal de Uberlândia para apresentação e discussão de sua obra “Galactolaria: mau deleite” (2012). Em nome da Revista Primordium, os discentes do curso de graduação e pós-graduação em Filosofia da UFU, Laís Oliveira Rios e Gustavo Henrique de Freitas Coelho, prepararam e conduziram a entrevista.

No capítulo, O conceito de possibilidade objetiva como uma operação científica para correção de erros na metodologia weberiana, examinamos a maneira pela qual, para Max Weber, o juízo de possibilidade objetiva permite avaliar a possibilidade de uma causa beneficiar ou não o surgimento de um fato real. Após essa análise, o argumento se concentra na explicação do propósito lógico-metodológico da conexão de sentido causal, construída a partir do conceito de possibilidade objetiva. Propomos que esse quadro teórico é utilizado por Weber (...) como um instrumento metodológico para a correção de erros do compreender interpretativamente. (shrink)

Para Max Weber, a sociedade não pode ser compreendida em sua totalidade. Max Weber tem como referência uma realidade infinita e complexa, analisada a partir de um determinado ponto de vista. O problema da seleção da realidade nas ciências histórico-sociais, abordado por Max Weber no início da segunda seção dos Estudos críticos sobre a lógica das ciências da cultura, é fundamental para a estrutura de sua metodologia científica. Este momento pré-científico da metodologia é que permitirá a construção de uma possível (...) constelação causal. É o investigador que, dotado de interesse, seleciona a realidade e dá sentido a ela. Demonstra, agindo desta maneira, o que merece ser para ele conhecido no fluxo infinito da realidade. Argumenta Max Weber que a “relação com os valores” permite ao cientista o recorte e ordenação do objeto, conferindo sentido a esta parte da realidade que detém significação geral para o pesquisador. Assim, o argumento principal aqui exposto estabelece a importância do interesse cognitivo para Max Weber, já que em sua metodologia o conhecimento seria sempre fruto de um recorte particular, da seleção de um conjunto específico de problemas. Essa seleção ou recorte particular seria, necessariamente, feito a partir das referências do cientista. (shrink)

This paper presents reasons against semantic relativism. Semantic relativism is motivated by intuitions that are presumed to raise problems for traditional or contextualist semantics in contested domains of discourse. Intuition-based arguments are those based on competent speakers’ putative intuitions about seeming faultless disagreement, eavesdropper, and retraction cases. I will organize the discussion in three parts. First, I shall provide a brief introduction to the intuition-based arguments offered in favor of semantic relativism. Second, I shall indicate that there are ways for (...) contextualism to explain the (appearance of) intuitions that support semantic relativism. Third, I shall review some experimental results and independent arguments that put into question the appeal of semantic relativism. (shrink)

This article reviews some recent research on the development of temporal cognition, with reference to Weist's (1989) account of the development of temporal understanding. Weist's distinction between two levels of temporal decentering is discussed, and empirical studies that may be interpreted as measuring temporal decentering are described. We argue that if temporal decentering is defined simply in terms of the coordination of the temporal locations of three events, it may fail to fully capture the properties of mature temporal understanding. Characterizing (...) the development of mature temporal cognition may require, in addition, distinguishing between event-dependent and event-independent thought about time. Experimental evidence relevant to such a distinction is described; these findings suggest that there may be important changes between 3 and 5 years in children's ability to think about points in time independently of the events that occur at those times. (shrink)

Na tentativa de resolver problemas concretos para a ciência, Max Weber toma por objeto de estudo o trabalho histórico, em especial o de um renomado historiador, Eduard Meyer. Para demonstrar e fundamentar o trabalho histórico, Eduard Meyer torna-se um exemplo para Weber da confusão lógica em que se encontram as ciências especializadas. Partindo deste fato, este artigo pretende mostrar como Max Weber fundamenta os conceitos lógico metodológicos que o auxiliam na construção da objetividade das ciências histórico-sociais. Nosso objetivo é demonstrar (...) como, através das operações lógicas, a metodologia weberiana distingue a conexão entre aqueles elementos “essenciais” da cadeia causal e outros elementos “acidentais” que se situam entre os infinitos momentos que compõem a determinação de um evento. (shrink)

The authors examined cue competition effects in young children using the blicket detector paradigm, in which objects are placed either singly or in pairs on a novel machine and children must judge which objects have the causal power to make the machine work. Cue competition effects were found in a 5- to 6-year-old group but not in a 4-year-old group. Equivalent levels of forward and backward blocking were found in the former group. Children's counterfactual judgments were subsequently examined by asking (...) whether or not the machine would have gone off in the absence of I of 2 objects that had been placed on it as a pair. Cue competition effects were demonstrated only in 5- to 6-year-olds using this mode of assessing causal reasoning. (shrink)

Many authors agree that there is a dimension of conflict expressed through discourse that eludes purely semantic approaches. How and why do conative attitudes conflict? The latter question is the object of this paper. Conflicts of attitudes are typically modelled on one of two models. The first imposes a Subjective Rationality constraint on conflicting attitudes, and the second depends on the impossibility of Joint Satisfaction. This paper assesses whether either of the two conditions can account for conflicting attitudes. First, it (...) argues that Subjective Rationality cannot account for intersubjective conflicts. Second, it presents putative counterexamples to Joint Satisfaction. The counterexamples arise on the assumption that the attitudes are first personal. The paper then explores two alternatives: nihilism about attitudinal conflicts, and dropping the assumption that the relevant attitudes are first-personal states. Embracing nihilism would be devastating for expressivists and other non-cognitivists. But dropping the assumption on which the counterexamples to Satisfaction depend requires a new account of the conative attitudes expressed in value discourse. The paper concludes by pointing to an alternative. (shrink)

Esta dissertação investiga a fundamentação do conceito de possibilidade objetiva, elaborado por Max Weber em sua obra Estudos críticos sobre a lógica das ciências da cultura. Foi aqui examinado, particularmente, a segunda seção intitulada “Possibilidade objetiva e causação adequada na consideração causal da história”. Na primeira parte deste trabalho, procurou-se analisar a fundamentação do conceito de possibilidade objetiva na metodologia weberiana, que refere-se basicamente a um modo de imputação causal aplicado às ciências da ação. Desse modo, o propósito inicial deste (...) estudo é demonstrar que na metodologia weberiana a evidência produzida pelo pesquisador, mediante a construção de um tipo ideal, por mais que possa ser adequada quanto ao sentido, não reúne ainda as condições para ser objetivamente válida. Para a análise ser válida cientificamente, é preciso o controle da compreensão interpretativa do sentido, pois, além de ser adequada quanto ao sentido, a pesquisa terá que ser também causalmente adequada. Na segunda parte deste trabalho, investigou-se o juízo de possibilidade objetiva, como instrumento proposto por Max Weber para avaliar a probabilidade de uma causa favorecer ou não o surgimento de um fato real. Esta operação lógico-metodológica é um procedimento realizado em uma série de graus que se inserem entre dois casos limites: a causa “adequada” e a causa “acidental”. A partir da utilização desses conceitos, procurou-se demonstrar que o propósito lógico-metodológico da conexão de sentido causal, construída a partir do conceito de possibilidade objetiva, é o controle da interpretação compreensiva do sentido. (shrink)

This thesis studies the formation of rules of experience in Weberian methodology and its adequacy to scientific validation criteria. It was sought to investigate, in the first part of the work, a proposal of justification for the so-called eligibility criteria. It was also tried to explain the meaning used in this research of the term “reason”, which is based on the theoretical conception of the operative reason exposed by Newton da Costa. Again, with the help of the writings of the (...) same author, we have examined those, so named by him, pragmatic principles of scientific reason. The second section of this study presented the three eligibility criteria, namely: i) the difference between to be (sein) and to ought to be (sollen); ii) the possibility of subsumption of individual action; iii) the construction of concepts as ideal types. In the third part of this work, rationally correct action was justified as an anticipated conjecture for a reflexive operation. However, it was supported that there is a significant difference in relation to the rules of experience when applied for the construction of the agent’s actions and in their use for validating the imputation of causal links between social phenomena. In order to validate the results of the research, the rules of experience must be cleverly designed to be general propositions of the experiment, and for this, the characterization of these rules was based in the so-called “Fermi solution”. Subsequent to this methodological proposal, we pondered how the scientist conducts a thought experiment in the empirical sciences of action and the judgment of objective possibility as a counterfactual proposition was logically structured. Thus, we tried to demonstrate the logical structure of the validation mode of knowledge produced in the empirical sciences of action from Weberian pattern. (shrink)

In this chapter, I try to answer the above question, and another question that it presupposes: can philosophy of language help us navigate the political news cycle? A reader can be sceptical of a positive answer to the latter question; after all, citizens, political theorists, and journalists seem to be capable of following current politics and its coverage in the news, and there is no reason to think that philosophy of language in particular should be capable of helping people make (...) sense and respond to the news. I will illustrate the application of philosophy of language to three contrasting strategies of political propaganda: dogwhistles, meaning perversions, and bald-faced lies. I hope that these help us see that philosophy of language can be a good tool in diagnosing demagoguery, and in resisting it. (shrink)

This chapter begins with a discussion of the significance of studies of aspects of tool use in understanding causal cognition. It argues that tool use studies reveal the most basic type or causal understanding being put to use, in a way that studies that focus on learning statistical relationships between cause and effect or studies of perceptual causation do not. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

A partir de dados brasileiros e espanhóis, este artigo aborda aspectos relevantes da doação e transplantes de órgãos, como a relação entre oferta e demanda, legislação vigente, custos e possíveis estratégias para aumentar taxas de doação e melhorar de forma geral o processo de transplantes. O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar dados empíricos atuais que incrementem o conhecimento relevante para a avaliação bioética. Os dois países se destacam: o Brasil por ter o maior sistema público de transplantes de órgãos do (...) mundo, e a Espanha por manter há décadas o maior índice de doadores efetivos por milhão de pessoas. Análise inicial dos dados sugere a necessidade de lidar mais abertamente com os interesses dos afetados e a opinião pública, criando articulação sistêmica entre legislação, políticas públicas baseadas em evidências e pesquisa. (shrink)

Recent years have seen an upsurge of inflammatory speech around the world. Understanding the mechanisms that correlate speech with violence is a necessary step to explore the most effective forms of counterspeech. This paper starts with a review of the features of dangerous speech and ideology, as formulated by Jonathan Maynard and Susan Benesch. It then offers a conceptual framework to analyze some of the underlying linguistic mechanisms at play: derogatory language, code words, figleaves, and meaning perversions. It gives a (...) hypothesis for assessing the moral responsibility of interlocutors in dangerous speech situations. The last section applies this framework to a case of demagogic discourse. The framework offered explains how public discourse has harmed social relations and institutions, and is an obstacle to rational resolutions to the political situation. (shrink)

Este trabalho pretende defender a necessidade de se trabalhar conteúdos relacionados a ética animal nos ambientes escolares, visando descontruir a visão antropocêntrica predominante nas sociedades ocidentais. Assim como evoluímos no combate ao racismo e ao sexismo, é necessário avançarmos para a superação do especismo. Por isso, considerando o papel da escola na formação de práticas e costumes em nossa sociedade, temos a responsabilidade de conduzir nossas crianças e jovens a uma compreensão mais justa e inclusiva de sociedade. Se faz necessário, (...) assim, uma reestruturação das práticas curriculares vigentes, elevando o ensino a um novo paradigma de educação integral, justa, inclusiva e igualitária, possível apenas por meio de uma educação não-especista. Começamos apresentando alguns conceitos importantes sobre ética animal, seguidos de uma argumentação a favor da superação do especismo. Por fim, discutimos as possibilidades de um conteúdo programático crítico, que propague a ética animal de modo transversal e interdisciplinar. (shrink)

Abstract David Sobel (2001) objects to Bernard Williams's internalism, the view that an agent has a reason to perform an action only if she has some motive that will be served by performing that action. Sobel is an unusual challenger in that he endorses neo-Humean subjectivism, ?the view that it is the agent's subjective motivational set that makes it the case that an agent does or does not have a reason to φ? (219). Sobel's objection in fact arises from this (...) very commitment. Internalism, he says, is incompatible with the best subjectivist accounts of reasons for action?accounts that suggest that there are what he calls fragile reasons and perhaps also superfragile ones, both of which allegedly provide for counterexamples to internalism. I argue that such reasons do not in fact threaten internalism. I then briefly explore whether internalism is vulnerable to a related charge?that it commits the conditional fallacy. (shrink)

I suggest that the main aim Recanati proposes to achieve in Perspectival Though—that a moderate relativist should adopt a Kaplanian framework with three levels of content, rather than a Lewisian framework with only two— seems insufficiently motivated, and the arguments offered do not settle the issue. I suggest furthermore that the claim that subjects’ mental states and cognitive situations can determine parameters or indices in circumstances of evaluation is an original and very interesting contribution. It is also an important one, (...) since it sets further apart the radical from the moderate relativist, and it is relevant in the current relativism debate, where truth is deemed to be relative to parameters other than worlds, times, places and individuals. I also offer a few objections to some of the reasons Recanati puts forward in support of this latter claim; I object in particular to those that depend on some considerations about psychological modes. (shrink)

A partir da obra Teogonia, poema atribuído a Hesíodo, analisaremos neste artigo como os processos de geração e reprodução dos deuses, assim como os casos de incesto e parricídio entre eles, influenciaram a disputa pelo poder que instaurou três gerações divinas. Para tanto, após breve consideração a respeito da constituição da poesia mítica em Hesíodo, acompanharemos a narrativa principal do mito a partir da união amorosa entre as divindades Terra e Céu, e a subsequente sucessão no poder cósmico: Céu, Crono, (...) Zeus. (shrink)

The author- following his own research on the subject- argues that Wittgenstein ignores argumentation theory and in general, the problems of rhetoric and argumentation. From this point of view, he frames Stephen Toulmin’s reading of Wittgenstein, arguing that the British philosopher- who was a student of the Austrian- advocates precisely the same thesis. He explains that this happens in a very peculiar (rhetorical) context on Toulmin’s part; a context in which, in essence, Wittgenstein’s philosophy is being rehabilitated.

This article aims to make public part of the research on the concept of ‘light’ in the theological and, above all, liturgical tradition of the Greek Orthodox Church, based on its representation of the concept of ‘hypostasis’. Taking as a point of departure the interpretation of the expression ‘light of light’ [φῶς ἐκ φωτός (phôs ek phōtos)] of the text of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Symbol, the article presents a proposal for the interpretation of the concept of ‘representation’ for this specific case, (...) based on the idea of apomímesis, and applies this concept to a reading of the place of ‘light’ in the Holy Scripture, in the Patrology and in the Greek Eastern Liturgies. (shrink)

Dworkin’s famous argument from legal disagreements poses a problem for legal positivism by undermining the idea that the law can be (just) the result of the practice and attitudes of norm-applying officials. In recent work, the chapter author argued that a hybrid contextualist theory paired with a dispositional theory of value—a hybrid dispositionalism, for short—offers the resources to respond to similar disagreement- based arguments in other evaluative and normative domains. This chapter claims that the theory the author advocates can extend (...) to legal statements and disputes, and shares some important features with Toh’s (2011) idea that legal statements express shared acceptance of norms. The chapter proposes that a contextualist semantics for legal statements paired with the pragmatic communication of implicatures that express shared acceptances of norms, achieves the same goal that Toh aims at. (shrink)

Argumento que as tentativas que têm sido feitas para tornar a suposição da existência de contra-exemplos ao princípio de bivalência compatível com os esquemas deflacionistas para a verdade fracassam.

In psycho-clinical research the notion of spirituality acquires a semantic plurality. This equivocal and ambiguous connotation that characterizes this term represents an obstacle to the epistemic and methodological validity of research designs, recognized as the threat to construct validity. In order to overcome this difficulty, we introduce, from Dietrich von Hildebrand's phenomenology, the notions of intentionality and transcendence insofar as these are capable of accounting for the specific element of the spiritual-religious phenomenon and discriminating it from the other phenomena or (...) variables that may be included under the notion of spirituality. This conceptual elucidation task allows evaluating the legitimacy of the variable selection process and establishing why they are or are not representatives of the phenomenon of spiritual-religious experience. (shrink)

This article has one aim, to reject the claim that negation is semantically ambiguous. The first section presents the putative incompatibility between truth-value gaps and the truth-schema; the second section presents the motivation for the ambiguity thesis; the third section summarizes arguments against the claim that natural language negation is semantically ambiguous; and the fourth section indicates the problems of an introduction of two distinct negation operators in natural language.

A filosofia da linguagem dedica-se ao estudo da linguagem natural. Não se dedica ao estudo de línguas particulares, tal como o português, o castelhano ou o inglês, mas sim ao estudo filosófico de características gerais da linguagem e da nossa capacidade e proficiência linguística enquanto seres humanos. A investigação do desenvolvimento da linguagem é uma tarefa a ser desenvolvida pela ciência – a paleontologia, a neurologia, etc. Mas a ciência ocupa-se de algo de que temos um conhecimento intuitivo prévio – (...) a linguagem natural. Ora, a filosofia da linguagem dedica-se em parte a tornar explícito o nosso conhecimento implícito da linguagem. Como tal, a filosofia da linguagem é uma disciplina central na filosofia. Este capítulo é uma introdução selectiva à filosofia da linguagem. A alternativa que se nos deparava era fazer uma breve apresentação de teorias do significado, da referência e da verdade, e ainda de alguns tópicos de pragmática, ou escolher um tópico em particular que é, tradicionalmente, o elegido nos cursos introdutórios à filosofia da linguagem. Este capítulo oferece assim uma introdução a alguns dos temas centrais e clássicos da filosofia da linguagem contemporânea. A maior parte do capítulo dedicar-se-á a teorias da referência, a de Frege e de Russell, e à sua crítica subsequente por filósofos como Saul Kripke. Isto poderia levar-nos a pensar que a filosofia da linguagem contemporânea continua, como era tradicional, focada simplificada da relação entre linguagem, mente e mundo. Nada podia estar mais longe da verdade, como se tornará claro. A grande alteração na perspectiva sobre o estudo da linguagem, que se deve a pessoas como Frege ou Russell, é que graças ao seu trabalho os filósofos passaram a reflectir sobre a contribuição semântica sistematicamente feita por diferentes categorias sintácticas nas diferentes construções frásicas em que possam ocorrer, por exemplo a de termos referenciais como os nomes próprios. A relação linguagem-mente-mundo continua a ser uma preocupação dos filósofos contemporâneos, mas de uma forma muito mais sofisticada, rigorosa e sistemática. Os filósofos preocupam-se agora, por exemplo, com as condições de verdade correctas de usos particulares de frases, com os estados de coisas reais ou possíveis que confeririam verdade ou falsidade às frases usadas, e com o valor cognitivo de distintos tipos de frases. Como indicaremos na última secção do capítulo, outros desenvolvimentos da filosofia da linguagem contemporânea dizem respeito àquilo que nós, enquanto seres humanos, conseguimos fazer por meio da linguagem, aos diferentes actos de fala possíveis, e aos diferentes níveis de significado que podemos comunicar por meio do uso de frases com um significado convencionalmente estabelecido. (shrink)

This paper discusses and criticizes Segal’s 1989 argument against singular object-dependent thoughts. His argument aims at showing that object-dependent thoughts are explanatorily redundant. My criticism of Segal’s argument has two parts. First, I appeal to common anti-individualist arguments to the effect that Segal’s type of argument only succeeds in establishing that object-dependent thoughts are explanatorily redundant for those aspects of subjects’ behaviour that do not require reference to external objects. Secondly, Segal’s view on singular thoughts is at odds with his (...) view on the semantics of proper names, which favours the singularity and object-dependency of the truth-conditions of sentences in which they occur. In particular, his views are at odds with a position he holds, that truth-conditional semantics can adequately account for all aspects of speakers’ linguistic competence in the use of proper names. (shrink)

A ideia de que certas categorias, propriedades, eventos, ou factos, são construídos socialmente tem sido defendida nas ciências sociais e humanidades desde meados do século xx. Nas últimas décadas, vários filósofos da tradição analítica começaram a dedicar mais atenção à possibilidade de que haja tipos de coisas construídas socialmente. A ideia complementa outra ideia relativamente consensual hoje em dia: a de que existem tipos naturais, mas que nem tudo o que existe constitui um tipo natural. São particularmente interessantes os tipos (...) de coisas que parecem naturais, mas que se argumenta serem na realidade construídos socialmente. Nesta entrada, identifico o papel que as teses construtivistas têm no progresso social e político, distingo entre várias formas de construtivismo teoricamente interessantes – causal e constitutivo, e discuto três objecções à ideia do construtivismo factual. (shrink)