This article focuses on some aspects of the prophetic veneration through a very specific sub-genre of ḥadīth literature, the so-called ḥadīth musalsal or chained prophetic transmission. Musalsal is the name given to the ḥadīth that in each of the links in the chain of transmission repeat identical expressions or sayings. Often, these expressions refer to a certain ritual or gesture that goes together with the delivery of the saying to the prophet. This article therefore deals with a ritualized transmission (...) in which the fundamental point is how that ḥadīth is transmitted and who transmits it. The chronological framework I have chosen is that of the Naṣrid Kingdom of Granada, even though this study must be a continuation of other works on prophetic veneration during the Almoravid and Almohad periods, the time of the introduction and consolidation of this genre in the Iberian Peninsula and the North Africa. I have collected the authors and transmitters of musalsalāt in al-Andalus from the end of the 7th/ 13th century until the conquest of Granada, and I have shown that their interest in these ḥadīth-s is related to a general interest in the literature of prophetic veneration and the jihād literature. Finally, I have shown that this ritualization process becomes an identity question among the pious Andalusian ulama, which contributes to increasing their pre stige and integrating them into a privileged group of experts. (shrink)

Resumo: Por intermédio da análise dos gêneros carta e conto escritos por Machado de Assis, procuramos oferecer uma resposta à questão do horizonte ético e moral que opera nos textos do autor. Trabalhamos numa perspectiva interdisciplinar, pois dialogamos com filósofos, historiadores e críticos literários procurando, num primeiro momento, demonstrar que a noção de cuidado de si se mostra na correspondência machadiana a partir da perspectiva de cura de si, isto é, um tipo de sabedoria dos antigos gregos e romanos que (...) o autor lança mão para realizar e organizar o pensamento literário, seu e de seus pares, na direção das publicações e conquistas no âmbito da literatura. Num segundo momento, demonstramos que o cuidado de si terá outro sentido nos textos de ficção, pois se volta para um cuidado da alma no sentido do desenvolvimento do pensamento crítico do sujeito em relação ao eu e ao outro, ao indivíduo e ao mundo social. Palavras-chave: Machado de Assis; Cuidado de Si; Cartas; Literatura. The care of the self as an ethical perspective in Machado de Assis Abstract : Through the analysis of the genres letter and short story written by Machado de Assis, we try to offer an answer to the question of the ethical and moral horizon that operates in the author's texts. We work in an interdisciplinary perspective, as we dialogue with philosophers, historians and literary critics, trying, in a first moment, to demonstrate that the notion of self-care is shown in Machado's correspondence from the perspective of self-cure, that is, a kind of wisdom from the ancient Greeks and Romans that the author uses to accomplish and organize the literary thought, his own and his peers', in the direction of publications and achievements in the field of literature. In a second moment, we demonstrate that the care of the self will have another meaning in fiction texts, since it turns to a care of the soul in the sense of the development of the subject's critical thought in relation to the self and to the other, to the individual and to the social world. Keywords: Machado De Assis; Self-Care; Letters; Literature. Le souci de soi comme perspective éthique chez Machado de Assis Résumé : A travers l'analyse des genres lettre et nouvelle écrits par Machado de Assis, nous essayons d'offrir une réponse à la question de l'horizon éthique et moral qui opère dans les textes de l'auteur. Nous travaillons dans une perspective interdisciplinaire, car nous dialoguons avec des philosophes, des historiens et des critiques littéraires en essayant, dans un premier temps, de démontrer que la notion d'auto-soin apparaît dans la correspondance de Machado dans la perspective de l'auto-cure, c'est-à-dire une sorte de sagesse des anciens Grecs et Romains que l'auteur utilise pour accomplir et organiser la pensée littéraire, la sienne et celle de ses pairs, vers des publications et des conquêtes dans le domaine de la littérature. Dans un deuxième temps, nous démontrons que le souci de soi aura un autre sens dans les textes de fiction, car il se transforme en soin de l'âme au sens du développement de la pensée critique du sujet par rapport au moi et à l'autre, à l'individu et au monde social. Mots-Clés: Machado De Assis; Soins Personnels; Letres; Littérature. Data de registro: 22/11/2022 Data de aceite: 24/04/2023. (shrink)

Reality TV is immensely popular, and various shows in this media genre involve a storyline of infertility and infertility treatment. Feminists argue that normative and constructed realities about infertility and infertility treatment, like those in reality TV, are central to the emancipation of women. Such realities are able to steer viewers' perceptions of the world. This article examines the emancipatory significance of representations of women on 'infertility reality TV shows'. While the women in these shows all have 'abnormal' qualities, (...) we consider their portrayal as figurations of monstrosity. In the literature, monstrosity is understood as a way to challenge nonemancipatory norms by offering an alternative identity. Through a content analysis of seven reality TV shows, we identified four types of in/fertile monsters: the cyborg, the freak, the abject, and the childless. We show that these monsters are predominantly non-emancipatory as they all involve mechanisms of altering, excluding, or condemning infertility in relation to what is considered normal and acceptable womanhood. Therefore, at the end of this article, we make a plea for more diverse and emancipatory representations of infertile women in popular culture. (shrink)

Bayard's book appeared in 2007. Word of mouth about it probably reached me at the time, but it did not catch my attention until the day (in 2012, if I am not mistaken) that a young professor, on the verge of burnout, told me how reading it had functioned for him as a kind of therapy. Though a voracious reader, he found himself confronted by ever more recommendations for reading, some from reviewers whose suggestions were felt as obligations and sounded (...) almost like insults. The line between a reading recommendation and an insult is very thin (the interlocutor may feel infantilized). The young professor was particularly irritated by recurrent advice to read Derrida. Must I read De la grammatologie, he asked, because it is vaguely related to the topic I am working on? Why must I quote him? And if I have not read him, must I pretend that I have?In the academic quotation economy, we very often find ourselves lying to the public, pretending we have read authors whom we have not. For a decade, the title of Bayard's book worked for me as a motto I could repeat internally whenever faced with a reading recommendation, especially when it was broad and general (I have often been advised to read Marx or Lacan, for instance, with no further indication of passages that might interest me). Inversely, when I make a recommendation, I add a little comment on Bayard's book, though until recently I have specified that I have not read it myself. I have hoped my comment would reduce the risk of my recommendations being interpreted as obligations or insults.As is the case with many books, Bayard's became important to me well before I decided to read it (in 2022). An interlocutor, reacting to my recommendation of the book without having read it, told me that the book (he had read it) was more than an antidote for academic name-dropping. It was foremost, he added, an investigation into various modes of nonreading. Apart from pure ignorance (when one does not even know that it exists), one can be familiar with a book just by learning bibliographical details and information about its genre and tradition. One can know a book by hearsay (one can speak extensively about it on the basis of remarks that one has heard). One can consult the table of contents furtively or read some pages randomly.Each mode of nonreading enables us to talk differently about a book, and in each we fill the parts of which we are ignorant with peripheral knowledge and imagination. Therefore, nonreading—active nonreading at least—can be more demanding, Bayard argues, than reading itself. Still, what happens when we talk about books that we have not read happens also when we speak about books that we have read, since we never speak of a book as such without adding what we imagine the book to be. Based on this similarity of reading and nonreading, Bayard comes to a paradoxical conclusion typical of French thinkers: each reading, he contends, from the most inattentive to the most intense, is also a form of nonreading. He misses, however, that by the same argument the inverse proposition could also be defended: what he calls nonreading is already a form of reading.During the decade between beginning to think about Bayard's book and actually reading it, I constructed what he calls a “screen book” (livre-écran)—a work of my imagination. But the book I invented was enriched by my eventually reading it. I discovered that it delivered not simply a criticism of our quoting practices but also a celebration of some forms of active nonreading. In Bayard's enthusiasm, however, I believe that he goes too far when he concludes, with Oscar Wilde among others, that it is better not to read the books we review. Often, as was my case with How to Talk about Books You Haven't Read, they turn out to be more original than our fancy is capable of imagining. Hence I have set forth in this review a reason not mentioned by Bayard in favor of discussing books one has not read: doing so may function as a self-reminder. By dint of speaking about a book, one sometimes ends up reading it. (shrink)

This paper is a research study of an interdisciplinary and exploratory kind drawing on a case study undertaken in elementary classrooms in socio-economically disadvantaged areas of Santiago de Chile. Having combined Linguistics for Education Studies and Corpus Linguistics approaches, the analysis of pragmalinguistic choices (i.e. personal pronouns, other lexical choices marking in-group relations) used in the introductory parts in a corpus of 50 lessons recorded in an elementary school setting there comes to be a key strategy for teachers' and (...) learners' involvement in classroom interaction The pragmalinguistic strategies evidenced in teachers' and learners' output have come to confirm the role of communicative strategies to promote participants' engagement in the teaching/learning process. In other words, teachers create an in-group relation, a solid sense of belonging and empathy among the participants in the teaching-learning context from the opening communicative stances in use to overcome less advantaged home and community cultural settings. The research findings also point to further studies to devise pedagogic tools addressing the specific contexts under scrutiny. Thus, a Teacher-Learner rapport is conveyed primarily through teachers' language choice, which is seen as the main force for learners' engagement in disadvantaged settings. (shrink)

Offers a philosophical perspective on the nature and value of writing a memoir. Artful Truths offers a concise guide to the fundamental philosophical questions that arise when writing a literary work about your own life. Bringing a philosopher’s perspective to a general audience, Helena de Bres addresses what a memoir is, how the genre relates to fiction, memoirists’ responsibilities to their readers and subjects, and the question of why to write a memoir at all. Along the way, she delves (...) into a wide range of philosophical issues, including the nature of the self, the limits of knowledge, the idea of truth, the obligations of friendship, the relationship between morality and art, and the question of what makes a life meaningful. Written in a clear and conversational style, it offers a resource for those who write, teach, and study memoirs, as well as those who love to read them. With a combination of literary and philosophical knowledge, de Bres takes the many challenges directed at memoirists seriously, while ultimately standing in defense of a genre that, for all its perplexities—and maybe partly because of them—continually proves to be both beloved and valuable. (shrink)

RESUMO Este artigo tem como objetivo discutir a presença do gênero meme em materiais didáticos, seja como objeto de ensino, seja como prática de linguagem. Para tanto, partindo dos documentos oficiais, que norteiam as práticas de ensino/aprendizagem brasileiras, o artigo apresenta reflexão sobre estudos discursivos acerca do trabalho com gêneros do discurso no campo escolar. Por fim, apresenta uma análise da presença do referido gênero em um livro que circula na rede particular de ensino, destinado ao 9° ano, em atividades (...) de produção de textos. A perspectiva teórico-metodológica é a dos estudos bakhtinianos do discurso, da qual destacamos os conceitos de enunciado concreto, gêneros do discurso e campo de atividade. ABSTRACT This article aims to discuss the presence of the genre meme in teaching materials, either as a teaching object or as language practice. To do so, starting from official documents, which guide the Brazilian practices of teaching and learning, the article presents a reflection on discourse studies related to the work with speech genres in a school context. Finally, it presents an analysis of the presence of such genre in text production activities from a 9th-grade coursebook used in private schools. The Bakhtinian studies on discourse provides the theoretical-methodological perspective of the article, from which we highlight the concepts of concrete utterance, speech genres and activity field. (shrink)

Por uma política de leitura aberta de mundos: o buraco negro e o fim do mundo como possibilidade de nascimentos crianceiros Resumo: Este artigo é resultado de conversas afiadas e tecidas nos inconformismos e rebeldias desde as margens dos buracos negros de vidas em dissidências. O texto busca tensionar os buracos fechados pela polícia do sistema sexo-gênero na manutenção de seus privilégios e que não nos permite, via políticas públicas, acessar histórias em gêneros e sexualidades diferentes das tradicionais narrativas feitas (...) para meninos e meninas de um certo tipo. Há subjetividades circulando entre nós nos espaços educativos que convocam os corpos, os gêneros e as sexualidades ao direito de nascerem, crescerem, florescerem e coabitarem o mundo, as escolas, as memórias e as narrativas hegemônicas das políticas curriculares na literatura infanto-juvenil. Exercitando perguntas que não se conformam com as histórias contadas, apresentadas e curricularizadas diariamente, o artigo faz problema sobre os modos de ler heterocêntricos que privilegiam o cérebro. Propõe, então, leituras buraco-negro. Estas apostas políticas, feitas de políticas anais e suas revoluções, buscam despreguear as relações de poder e as literaturas. Palavras-chave: Leitura como atividade. Gênero e sexualidade. Buracos negros. For an open world reading policy: the black hole and the end of the world as a possibility for births of childhoods: This article is the result of sharp conversations woven into nonconformities and rebellion from the margins of black holes in dissenting lives. The text seeks to tension the holes closed by the sex-gender police in maintaining their privileges and that does not allow us, through public policy, to access stories in genres and sexualities different from traditional narratives made for boys and girls of a certain type. There are subjectivities circulating among us in the educational spaces that call the bodies, genders and sexualities to the right to be born, grow, flourish and cohabit the hegemonic world, schools, memories and narratives of curriculum policies in children's literature. Exercising questions that do not conform to the stories told, presented and curricularized daily, the article questions the heterocentric ways of reading that privilege the brain. It then proposes black hole readings. These political bets, made up of anal politics and their revolutions, seek to unravel power relations and literatures. Keywords: Reading as an activity. Gender and sexuality. Black holes. Por una política de lectura de mundo abierto: el agujero negro y el fin del mundo como posibilidad para el nascimiento de las infâncias Resumen: Este artículo es el resultado de conversaciones agudas entretejidas en no conformidades y rebeliones desde los márgenes de los agujeros negros en vidas disidentes. El texto busca tensar los agujeros cerrados por la policía de género y sexo para mantener sus privilegios y eso no nos permite, a través de políticas públicas, acceder a historias de géneros y sexualidades diferentes a las narrativas tradicionales hechas para niños y niñas de cierto tipo. Hay subjetividades que circulan entre nosotros en los espacios educativos que llaman a los cuerpos, los géneros y las sexualidades al derecho a nacer, crecer, florecer y convivir con el mundo hegemónico, las escuelas, los recuerdos y las narrativas de las políticas curriculares en la literatura infantil. Ejercitando preguntas que no se ajustan a las historias contadas, presentadas y curriculadas diariamente, el artículo cuestiona las formas heterocéntricas de lectura que privilegian el cerebro. Luego propone lecturas de agujeros negros. Estas apuestas políticas, formadas por políticas anales y sus revoluciones, buscan desentrañar las relaciones de poder y la literatura. Palavras clave: Lectura como actividad. Género y sexualidad. Agujeros negros. Data de registro: 11/12/2019 Data de aceite: 26/08/2020. (shrink)

Constitution d’un grand corpus d’écrits émergents et novices : principes et méthodes Cette contribution propose une réflexion sur la construction d’un vaste corpus d’écrits qui permet d’approfondir notre compréhension des processus en jeu dans l’accès à la littératie dans sa diversité, au travers de la pluralité des genres et des types discursifs qui la constituent et chez des apprenants de profils divers : enfants/adultes, langue 1 / langue 2, entendants/sourds. La réflexion sur la mise en place de ce corpus s’inscrit (...) dans une perspective fonctionnaliste et énonciative et fait fond sur deux ensembles théoriques complémentaires. Du point de vue de l’acquisition des langues, nous souscrivons à la conception selon laquelle les productions d’apprenants ne constituent pas une déviance par rapport à la norme mais sont des manifestations (idiolectales) de systèmes linguistiques per se dont il s’agit de dégager les normes propres. Du point de vue de la littératie, nous nous inscrivons dans la tradition des travaux, d’inspiration bakhtinienne, qui considèrent l’hétérogénéité comme constitutive de toute production verbale. Ainsi, nous expliquons et justifions nos choix en matière de profils d’apprenants et de tâches rédactionnelles, en relation avec la perspective théorique adoptée, ainsi que les options retenues en matière d’outillage du corpus. (shrink)

Ever since the publication of Halliday and Hasan, cohesion analysis has received much attention in several branches of linguistics. Lexical cohesion in particular has been shown to contribute to the coherence of discourse in a number of ways, and specific patterns of lexical cohesion have emerged as relevant for the description of different registers and genres. In the present article I challenge existing models of lexical cohesion and offer a revised one which affords particular attention to what I call ‘associative (...) cohesion’. I go on to test the adequacy of the proposed framework in a corpus of 15 telephone conversations extracted from the International Corpus of English-Great Britain. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods the article analyses 3480 ties and demonstrates that telephone conversations are lexically cohesive mostly due to repetitions, associative cohesion and inclusive relations, which overwhelmingly occur across the turns and over remote-mediated spans. In addition, lexical patterns are shown to collaborate in topic management processes and to be sensitive to genre-specific factors, thereby demonstrating the descriptive potential and applicability of the framework. (shrink)

The philosophy of literature, as developed by analytical philosophers, places the values of literature, implicitly or explicitly, at the centre of its core debates. Is literature an honorific (value-laden) concept or a descriptive one? What is literary interpretation if not primarily the uncovering of deeper significance and interest in works of literature? What about the pursuit of truth and knowledge? Is it not one of the most valued aspirations of literature? And can readers of novels not sharpen their moral sensibility, (...) their empathy, their understanding of human weakness, desires and follies, by engaging with the lives of fictional characters? Can the great works of fiction or poetry or drama not offer enduring psychological rewards, not just in the pleasures of literary artifice but in having the imagination stretched through immersion in worlds and possibilities well beyond the banalities of everyday life? These are some of the debates, even if no final resolution has emerged. Are there such distinctive literary values as implied in these debates? Is it possible to generalize across literary genres or are there only, at best, values of poetry, the novel, the short story, drama? And how are individual works to be evaluated? Are there objective values or only values relative to individual readers or "communities"? Is there a canon of great works, and if so, how is it constructed? How do moral values relate to literary values? Can great works be immoral? These are live issues for the philosopher of literature. (shrink)

A linguagem apofática é um gênero discursivo estreitamente relacionado à Teologia Negativa, cuja formulação mais acabada se encontra na obra do Pseudo-Dionísio (séc. V), místico que funda uma tradição negativa que se perpetuará durante toda a Idade Média e Moderna. Na contemporaneidade diversos autores (DERRIDA, 1995 e 1997; FRANKE, 2007; PONDÉ, 2003; VEGA, 2004 e 2009 e outros) têm destacado a retomada desse gênero discursivo nas artes, na literatura e nas ciências humanas de forma geral. A linguagem apofática é, portanto, (...) um discurso que visa à própria transcendência e se orienta para a denúncia de um vazio intrínseco à linguagem e ao mundo que dela se origina, de tal modo que o Deus que aí comparece desliza sob nossa linguagem sem se deixar prender em nossas teias discursivas. No presente texto a impossibilidade do nome de Deus torna-se metáfora para se refletir, a partir do exemplo da mística de Angelus Silesius, sobre as possibilidades de um pensamento negativo cujos fundamentos sejam o esvaziamento da linguagem, que se vê despojada de sua capacidade de dizer o mundo, e o aprendizado do não-saber. Palavras-chaves: Linguagem apofática; Linguagem; Angelus Silesius; não-saber.Apophatic language is a genre closely related to negative theology, whose the most accomplished formulation is found in the Pseudo-Dionysius work (fifth century), who founded a mystical tradition that perpetuated throughout the Middle and Modern Ages. Several authors in contemporary such as Derrida (1995 and 1997), (Franke, 2007), (Pounde, 2003), (Vega, 2004 and 2009), and others, have highlighted the resumption of that genre in the Arts, Literature and the Humanities in general. Apophatic is, thus, a discourse that seeks transcendence, and it orients itself to denounce the emptiness intrinsic to language as well as to world, so that the God that there appears slips under our language without being caught in our discursive webs. In this text the impossibility of God's name becomes a metaphor to reflect, from the example of the mystique of Silesius Angelus, on the possibility of a negative thought whose foundations are the emptiness of the language, which finds itself stripped of its ability to tell the world, and from the learning of the not-knowing. Keywords: Apophatic language; Failure of language; Angelus Silesius; not-to knowing. (shrink)

EEGs were analyzed to investigate the effect of experiences in listening to preferred music in dancers and non-dancers. Participants passively listened to instrumental music of their preferred genre for 2 min, alternate genres, and silence. Both groups showed increased activity for their preferred music compared to non-preferred music in the gamma, beta, and alpha frequency bands. The results suggest all participants' conscious recognition of and affective responses to their familiar music, appreciation of the tempo embedded in their preferred music (...) and emotional arousal, and enhanced attention mechanism for cognitive operations such as memory retrieval. The observed alpha activity is considered in the framework of the alpha functional inhibition hypothesis, in that years of experience listening to their favorite type of music may have honed the cerebral responses to achieve efficient cortical processes. Analyses of the electroencephalogram activity over 100s-long music pieces revealed a difference between dancers and non-dancers in the magnitude of an initial alpha event-related desynchronization and the later development of an alpha event-related synchronization for their preferred music. Dancers exhibited augmented alpha ERD, as well as augmented and uninterrupted alpha ERS over the remaining 80s. This augmentation in dancers is hypothesized to be derived from creative cognition or motor imagery operations developed through their dance experiences. (shrink)

Cet article étudie l’évolution des relations entre civils et militaires dans l’Allemagne contemporaine, en centrant l’attention sur le service militaire. Introduit en 1814 et maintenu depuis (après de courtes périodes d’interruption en 1919-1935 et en 1945-1956), il est considéré comme l’un des principaux éléments qui structure l’organisation du pouvoir militaire et la société civile. Tout en orientant la représentation de la citoyenneté qu’il légitime, il a un impact sur les relations de genre. Jouant un rôle d’intégration au (...) même titre que d’exclusion, son sens a évolué selon les valeurs que la société a accordé à la force militaire. (shrink)

Is genre film comparable to a thought experiment?Revising concepts of determinism and agency in three film noirs The philosophical approach of film genres, first popularized by authors like Stanley Cavell, allows to consider genre films as narrative variations as pertinent to philosophical discourse as can be a traditional thought experiment, since every question on the essence of a genre and every discussion related to its inner functions, its mechanisms and its themes, generate naturally a philosophical discourse on (...) the way a director uses filmic and narrative tools to transform his intentions into a specific system of meaning. This study adopts formalist and philosophical approaches to connect the narratives of the movies to the discourses it is prone to generate. The corpus draws on the ‘primitive scene' in three films noirs, Out of the Past, The Lady from Shanghai et Criss Cross : the tragic meeting of an anti-hero with the woman who will be responsible of his fall. Indeed, the sequence showing this first meeting becomes an exercise in style where forerunning signs of the two protagonists' fall organize the writing and the mise-en-scene, and explicitly shows how questions of agency and determinism are intimately articulated to the narrative and formal frame of the movies. (shrink)

Cet article s’attache à deux films représentatifs de l’« esthétique des décombres », Les Assassins sont parmi nous et Entre hier et aujourd’hui, pour analyser, du point de vue du genre, la présentation des objets légués par le nazisme. Les objets à l’écran sont compris comme des « événements tangibles » qui témoignent du bouleversement de l’ordre des choses dans l’Allemagne d’après-guerre, y compris celui de l’héritage de la confiscation et de l’« aryanisation » de l’espace allemand. Dans ces (...) films, un parallèle est établi entre le sentiment de culpabilité éprouvé par les hommes par rapport aux objets arrachés à une femme, victime, et le problème de dépossession (ainsi que son corollaire, le meurtre collectif) qui vient se mêler aux défis des relations de genre dans l’après-guerre. L’activité même de nettoyage et de remise en ordre est représentée comme une forme féminine de travail ; ces interventions physiques de la part des femmes sont aussi chargées de résoudre le problème posé par l’embarrassante présence des restes matériels du Troisième Reich. (shrink)

Ce recueil offre à ses lecteurs diverses pistes d’interprétation. Elles se distinguent tant par le contenu de ses chapitres que par la question plus large de la place essentielle des études touchant à l’éducation. L’ouvrage, véritablement interdisciplinaire, remet en question la relation entre l’éducation et le genre grâce aux contributions d’historiens, de spécialistes en science de l’éducation, de sociologues, de psychologues et d’enseignants allant de la maternelle à l’université. Le livre...

Les ouvrages des premiers siècles du christianisme tournés explicitement vers l'extérieur (apologies antipaïennes, ouvrages adu. ludaeos ou traités hérésiologiques) ne sont pas dépourvus d'une visée interne et contribuent à forger l'identité de la communauté chrétienne. Pour cela, différentes approches étaient possibles, comme l'indique, sur un point particulier, la comparaison des manières dont deux contemporains, Clément d'Alexandrie et Tertullien, conçoivent la diversité de leurs adversaires. Chez le premier, la distinction est présentée explicitement, à travers des classifications bien formalisées : il semble (...) considérer ses adversaires comme les interlocuteurs d'une discussion ouverte. Tertullien, en revanche, ne recourt pas à ce genre de division : s'il est conscient de la diversité des adversaires et s'il sait les identifier, il répugne à les intégrer dans une typologie unique et universelle, et préfère s'en tenir à une division binaire fondée sur la distinction de la vérité et de l'erreur. Le fondement d'une telle divergence d'approche entre deux contemporains tient sans doute en partie à la façon dont ils conçoivent le temps et la perspective eschatologique. (shrink)

This paper examines explanations for human artistic behavior in two reductionist research programs, cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. Despite their different methodological outlooks, both approaches converge on an explanation of art production and appreciation as byproducts of normal perceptual and motivational cognitive skills that evolved in response to problems originally not related to art, such as the discrimination of salient visual stimuli and speech sounds. The explanatory power of this reductionist framework does not obviate the need for higher-level accounts of (...) art from the humanities, such as aesthetics, art history or anthropology of art. (shrink)

By giving the proper emphasis to both radical skepticism and naturalism as two independent standpoints in Hume, I wish to propose a more satisfactory account of some of the more puzzling Humean claims on causation. I place these claims alternatively in either the philosophical standpoint of the radical skeptic or in the standpoint of everyday and scientific beliefs. I characterize Hume’s radical skeptical standpoint in relation to Hume’s perceptual model of the traditional theory of ideas, and I argue that Hume‘s (...) radical skeptical argument concerning our causal inferences is inextricably linked to his skeptical argument concerning our idea of a necessary connection between cause and effect. I discuss Hume’s naturalistic account of the origin of our idea of necessity and offer a new reading of Hume’s two “definitions” of cause. I argue along the way against central aspects of two opposing styles of interpretation---Norman Kemp Smith’s and Annette Baier’s, on the one hand, and Robert Fogelin’s, on the other---that in my view do not appreciate the mutual autonomy of radical skepticism and naturalism in Hume. (shrink)

We consider some modal languages with a modal operator $D$ whose semantics is based on the relation of inequality. Basic logical properties such as definability, expressive power and completeness are studied. Also, some connections with a number of other recent proposals to extend the standard modal language are pointed at.

Cet article se propose d'analyser les relations entre l'anthropologie et l'indigénisme au Brésil. Pour cela, il retrace le processus de migration des savoirs indigénistes depuis leur contexte d'origine au Mexique jusqu'au Brésil, et les transformations qu'ils connaissent au cours de leur trajectoire jusqu'à aujourd'hui, en s'appuyant sur la notion de « traditions de savoirs » pour la gestion des populations qui se sont développées à partir de l'époque coloniale. Cette approche participe d'une anthropologie du colonialisme, en ce qu'elle étudie (...) les conceptions de la diversité culturelle des populations dans les administrations publiques brésiliennes et les façons de gouverner celles-ci. (shrink)

Philosophers have constituted business ethics as a field by providing a systematic overview that interrelates its problems and concepts and that supplies the basis for building on attained results. Is there a properly theological task in business ethics? The religious/theological literature on business ethics falls into four classes: (1) the application of religious morality to business practices; (2) the use of encyclical teachings about capitalism; (3) the interpretation of business relations in agapa-istic terms; and (4) the critique of business (...) from a liberation theological point of view. Theologians have not adequately addressed the questions of whether there are particular theological tasks in the field as they define it, and whether, if they define it, the theological definition is different from the philosophical. (shrink)

Taxonomies of living things and the methods used to produce them changed little with the institutionalization of evolutionary thinking in biology. Instead, the relationships expressed in existing taxonomies were merely reinterpreted as the result of evolution, and evolutionary concepts were developed to justify existing methods. I argue that the delay of the Darwinian Revolution in biological taxonomy has resulted partly from a failure to distinguish between two fundamentally different ways of ordering identified by Griffiths : classification and systematization. Classification consists (...) of ordering entities into classes, groups defined by the attributes of their members; in contrast, systematization consists of ordering entities into systems, more inclusive entities whose existence depends on some natural process through which their parts are related. Evolutionary, or phylogenetic, systematics takes evolutionary descent to be the natural process of interest in biological taxonomy. I outline a general framework for a truly phylogenetic systematics and examine some of its consequences. (shrink)

Qui étions-nous? Pour répondre à cette question, Paul Jorion dresse l'inventaire de ce que nous, êtres humains, avons pu comprendre jusqu'ici de notre destin. Il convoque pour ce faire les phares de notre réflexion sur nous-mêmes, certains aux noms attendus : Confucius, Socrate, Aristote, Paul de Tarse, Hegel, Nietzsche et Freud, ou moins attendus, tels Machiavel, Shakespeare et Victor Hugo, voire inattendus, comme Mao Tse-toung et Jacob Taubes. Cette évaluation est réalisée en vue d'assurer notre salut, lequel est sérieusement compromis (...) aujourd'hui, dans un contexte de destruction accélérée de nos conditions de vie à la surface de la Terre. Le scénario le plus optimiste parmi les plus plausibles a cessé d'être celui de machines de plus en plus intelligentes à notre service, pour être celui de notre remplacement pur et simple par celles-ci. Si nous voulons survivre en tant qu'espèce, il nous faut sans plus tarder passer la vitesse supérieure. Il faut pour cela réunir l'équipe de ceux qui ne se résolvent pas à notre disparition, des femmes et des hommes qui soient précisément résolus, bâtissant sur les principaux acquis de l'humain, de la réciprocité au génie technologique. C'est l'appel lancé dans cette Défense et illustration du genre humain. (shrink)

This article discusses five propositions about managerial moral tractability -- that is, a morality that is amenable to the complexity of managers’ continual pressure to decide and act -- in their customer relations. The propositions come from the comparison of three case studies of different types of managers. To analyze the morality of managers, discursive practices of managers are studied. At the end of the article also some consideration is given to “information strategies” of managers, in relation to their (...) tractable morality. (shrink)

La doctrine philosophique préparée par la révolution copernicienne ne semble pas faire sa part au politique. En effet, le système de la philosophie se divise en liberté et nature, le politique ne pouvant être réduit ni à l'autre. Cependant, on peut dégager l'originalité du politique chez Kant précisément à partir de cette difficulté d'accommodation. On verra alors s'esquisser un rapprochement stylistique entre Kant et l'idéalisme allemand: dans les deux cas, l'intelligibilité du présent est rapportée à la médiation entre normativité et (...) expérience. It seems that there is no place to politics in the philosophical doctrine orchestrated by the Copernican revolution. Indeed, none of the two parts of the philosophical system — nature and freedom — can alone give a satisfactory account of politics. However, it is arguable that by reflecting on this topical difficulty one could detect the originality of Kant's approach to the political. By proceeding in this way one is also able to recognize a stylistic nearness between Kant and the philosophers of German Idealism: in both cases, the intelligibility of the present is related to the mediation between normativity and experience. (shrink)

For an arbitrary similarity type of Boolean Algebras with Operators we define a class ofSahlqvist identities. Sahlqvist identities have two important properties. First, a Sahlqvist identity is valid in a complex algebra if and only if the underlying relational atom structure satisfies a first-order condition which can be effectively read off from the syntactic form of the identity. Second, and as a consequence of the first property, Sahlqvist identities arecanonical, that is, their validity is preserved under taking canonical embedding algebras. (...) Taken together, these properties imply that results about a Sahlqvist variety V van be obtained by reasoning in the elementary class of canonical structures of algebras in V.We give an example of this strategy in the variety of Cylindric Algebras: we show that an important identity calledHenkin's equation is equivalent to a simpler identity that uses only one variable. We give a conceptually simple proof by showing that the first-order correspondents of these two equations are equivalent over the class of cylindric atom structures. (shrink)

In many logics dealing with information one needs to make statements not only about cognitive states, but also about transitions between them. In this paper we analyze a dynamic modal logic that has been designed with this purpose in mind. On top of an abstract information ordering on states it has instructions to move forward or backward along this ordering, to states where a certain assertion holds or fails, while it also allows combinations of such instructions by means of operations (...) from relation algebra. In addition, the logic has devices for expressing whether in a given state a certain instruction can be carried out, and whether that state can be arrived at by carrying out a certain instruction. This paper deals mainly with technical aspects of our dynamic modal logic. It gives an exact description of the expressive power of this language; it also contains results on decidability for the language with 'arbitrary' structures and for the special case with a restricted class of admissible structures. In addition, a complete axiomatization is given. The paper concludes with a remark about the modal algebras appropriate for our dynamic modal logic, and some questions for further work. The paper only contains some sketchy examples showing how the logic can be used to capture situations of dynamic interest, far more detailed applications are given in a companion to this paper (De Rijke [33]). (shrink)

In many logics dealing with information one needs to make statements not only about cognitive states, but also about transitions between them. In this paper we analyze a dynamic modal logic that has been designed with this purpose in mind. On top of an abstract information ordering on states it has instructions to move forward or backward along this ordering, to states where a certain assertion holds or fails, while it also allows combinations of such instructions by means of operations (...) from relation algebra. In addition, the logic has devices for expressing whether in a given state a certain instruction can be carried out, and whether that state can be arrived at by carrying out a certain instruction.This paper deals mainly with technical aspects of our dynamic modal logic. It gives an exact description of the expressive power of this language; it also contains results on decidability for the language with arbitrary structures and for the special case with a restricted class of admissible structures. In addition, a complete axiomatization is given. The paper concludes with a remark about the modal algebras appropriate for our dynamic modal logic, and some questions for further work. (shrink)

This paper addresses the two interpretations that a combination ofnegative indefinites can get in concord languages like French:a concord reading, which amounts to a single negation, and a doublenegation reading. We develop an analysis within a polyadic framework,where a sequence of negative indefinites can be interpreted as aniteration of quantifiers or via resumption. The first option leadsto a scopal relation, interpreted as double negation. The secondoption leads to the construction of a polyadic negative quantifiercorresponding to the concord reading. Given that (...) sentential negationparticipates in negative concord, we develop an extension of thepolyadic approach which can deal with non-variable binding operators,treating the contribution of negation in a concord context assemantically empty. Our semantic analysis, incorporated into agrammatical analysis formulated in HPSG, crucially relies on theassumption that quantifiers can be combined in more than one wayupon retrieval from the quantifier store. We also considercross-linguistic variation regarding the participation ofsentential negation in negative concord. (shrink)

Peirce algebras combine sets, relations and various operations linking the two in a unifying setting. This paper offers a modal perspective on Peirce algebras. Using modal logic a characterization of the full Peirce algebras is given, as well as a finite axiomatization of their equational theory that uses so-called unorthodox derivation rules. In addition, the expressive power of Peirce algebras is analyzed through their connection with first-order logic, and the fragment of first-order logic corresponding to Peirce algebras is described (...) in terms of bisimulations. (shrink)

It is generally accepted that liberal states should fund public schools for compulsory education. But whether states should also finance denominational schools is controversial. Does such funding not compromise the principle of liberal neutrality? In this article we evaluate two opposing views on this question. Both views give different interpretations of liberal neutrality and both have contrasting views on the relation between education and conceptions of the good. Arguing that neither view is convincing, we defend an alternative view, which holds (...) that the liberal state under certain conditions should fund denominational schools. (shrink)

In this paper I discern two concepts of meaning: meaning O - which is assigned by us on the basis of our commonsense conception in order to constitute our own daily reality - and meaning I, which we assign when we interpret reality scientifically. Authors who contend that the commonsense conception is nothing but a kind of scientific theory, do not see that the two fields of life have their own concept of meaning. Commonsense and science are not separate from (...) each other, however: though both have their own practices, the way we interpret reality scientifically presupposes our commonsense conception. (shrink)

Davidson’s anomalous monism, his argument for the identity between mental and physical event tokens, has been frequently attacked, usually demanding a higher degree of physicalist commitment. My objection runs in the opposite direction: the identities inferred by Davidson from mental causation, the nomological character of causality and the anomaly of the mental are philosophically problematic and, more dramatically, incompatible with his famous argument against the third dogma of empiricism, the separation of content from conceptual scheme. Given the anomaly of the (...) mental and the absence of psychophysical laws, there are no conceptual resources to relate mental and physical predicates. We fall in the third dogma if we claim that the very same token event is mental and physical. One of the premises must be rejected: I will claim that we do not need a law to subsume cause and effect to be entitled to speak of causation. Davidson has never offered an argument to back this premise. Against such a dogma I will sketch some ideas pointing towards a different conception of causality, singularist and undetachable from explanatory practices. (shrink)

Kant’s dualism in anthropology and morality is said to be bridged only by means of a teleology that seems to betray the historical constitution of its subjectivity. And yet the Kantianarticulation of problems of theoretical and practical reason can be explored only insofar as they help us understand the correlated issues of the unity of reason, the relation of aesthetics and ethics in the light of the three Critiques, and the teleological conception of history. In this paper, I argue for (...) a teleological reading of the systematic architectonic so as to make sense of the concept of purposiveness as the a priori principle of judgment in its logical, aesthetic, and teleological reflection and of the unifying, a priori principles of each faculty–namely, conformity to law, final purpose, and conformity to purpose or purposiveness – respectively dealt with in the three Critiques. (shrink)

A review of the chemical education research literature suggests that the term constructivism is used in two ways: experience-based constructivism and discipline-based constructivism. These two perspectives are examined as an epistemology in relation to the teaching and learning of the concept of idealization in chemistry. It is claimed that experience-based constructivism is powerless to inform the origin of such concepts in chemistry and while discipline-based constructivism can admit such theoretical concepts as idealization it does not offer any unique perspectives that (...) cannot be obtained from other models. Chemical education researchers do not consistently appeal to constructivism as an epistemology or as a teaching/learning perspective and it is shown that, while it draws attention to worthwhile teaching/learning strategies, it cannot be considered as foundational to chemical education research and tends to be used more as an educational label than as an undergirding theory. (shrink)

This paper addresses the two interpretations that a combination ofnegative indefinites can get in concord languages like French:a concord reading, which amounts to a single negation, and a doublenegation reading. We develop an analysis within a polyadic framework,where a sequence of negative indefinites can be interpreted as aniteration of quantifiers or via resumption. The first option leadsto a scopal relation, interpreted as double negation. The secondoption leads to the construction of a polyadic negative quantifiercorresponding to the concord reading. Given that (...) sentential negationparticipates in negative concord, we develop an extension of thepolyadic approach which can deal with non-variable binding operators,treating the contribution of negation in a concord context assemantically empty. Our semantic analysis, incorporated into agrammatical analysis formulated in HPSG, crucially relies on theassumption that quantifiers can be combined in more than one wayupon retrieval from the quantifier store. We also considercross-linguistic variation regarding the participation ofsentential negation in negative concord. (shrink)

There are deep connections between education and the question of life's meaning, which derive, ultimately, from the fact that, for human beings, how to live—and therefore, how to raise one's children—is not a given but a question. One might see the meaning of life as constitutive of the meaning of education, and answers to the question of life's meaning might be seen as justifying education. Our focus, however, lies on the contributory relation: our primary purpose is to investigate whether and (...) how education might contribute to children's ability to find meaning in life or at least deal with the question. This issue is not only theoretically interesting —it also has practical urgency. For people have a need for meaning that, if unfulfilled, leads to personal and potentially social crises—a need that often expresses itself first and strongly in adolescence; and there are reasons to have doubts about the contribution of today's traditional formal education system to the meaningfulness of children's lives. We argue for the importance of frameworks of values, as well as for a greater emphasis on the affective dimension of meaning, though we reject pure subjectivism. The underlying purpose of this article, however, is not to argue for a particular comprehensive position, but to persuade philosophers of education of the importance of the issue of life's meaning in thinking about education today. (shrink)

By giving the proper emphasis to both radical skepticism and naturalism as two independent standpoints in Hume, I wish to propose a more satisfactory account of some of the more puzzling Humean claims on causation. I place these claims alternatively in either the philosophical standpoint of the radical skeptic or in the standpoint of everyday and scientific beliefs. I characterize Hume’s radical skeptical standpoint in relation to Hume’s perceptual model of the traditional theory of ideas, and I argue that Hume‘s (...) radical skeptical argument concerning our causal inferences is inextricably linked to his skeptical argument concerning our idea of a necessary connection between cause and effect. I discuss Hume’s naturalistic account of the origin of our idea of necessity and offer a new reading of Hume’s two “definitions” of cause. I argue along the way against central aspects of two opposing styles of interpretation---Norman Kemp Smith’s and Annette Baier’s, on the one hand, and Robert Fogelin’s, on the other---that in my view do not appreciate the mutual autonomy of radical skepticism and naturalism in Hume. (shrink)

The aim of the study was to assess the effects of visual aesthetic perception on event-related potentials . Eight subjects assigned an aesthetic judgment and a 10-step beauty estimation to the target stimuli, consisting of famous artistic pictures and geometric shapes. In a further task, the subjects performed a motor response to the previously judged pictures and geometric shapes. ERPs were recorded through 54 scalp electrodes during both tasks. The P3b amplitude was increased during the categorization of the geometric shapes (...) compared to the artistic figures and during the vision of the beautiful targets preceding the motor response. The categorization of the aesthetic qualities of geometrical shapes seems to induce a higher level of attention, while a higher arousal variation was elicited by the recognition of beauty, in any form that was presented. (shrink)

Theories about the changes on the organisms, in the time scale, are know since the 18th century. However, the most famous, as well as the more debated, was the one by Charles Robert Darwin, in his great book On the origin of species. It is interesting to note that while this naturalist was born, in 1809, a book by the French naturalist Jean Baptiste Antoine Pierre de Monet, known as Lamarck, was published, Philosophie zoologique, where another theory of the transformations (...) of the organisms were also proposed. Darwin cited that theory quite enthusiastically, as he himself said in the On the origin; his first scientific work were, in fact, inspired in Lamarck, his theory of inheritance, in another of his books, Variation of animals and plants under domestication, was basically lamarckian, particularly related to the inheritance of acquired characters. And, “from so simple beginning”, as Darwin expressed in the last lines of The origin, the “theory of species transmutations”, as he called at first his theory, was changed in the following years, until achieving the hegemonic theory of the XXth century, called The Evolutionary Synthesis. Is this journey that will be presented here, culminating with a contemporary proposal, in 2010, called The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis which is still being confronted with the former theory. Keywords: Biological evolution. Processes of evolution. Genetics. History and philosophy of biology. (shrink)

The particle internal clock conjectured by de Broglie in 1924 was investigated in a channeling experiment using a beam of ∼80 MeV electrons aligned along the 〈110〉 direction of a 1 μm thick silicon crystal. Some of the electrons undergo a rosette motion, in which they interact with a single atomic row. When the electron energy is finely varied, the rate of electron transmission at 0° shows a 8% dip within 0.5% of the resonance energy, 80.874 MeV, for which the (...) frequency of atomic collisions matches the electron’s internal clock frequency. A model is presented to show the compatibility of our data with the de Broglie hypothesis. (shrink)