According to a growing trend in theoretical neuroscience, the human perceptual system is akin to a Bayesian machine. The aim of this article is to clearly articulate the claims that perception can be considered Bayesian inference and that the brain can be considered a Bayesian machine, some of the epistemological challenges to these claims; and some of the implications of these claims. We address two questions: (i) How are Bayesian models used in theoretical neuroscience? (ii) From the use of Bayesian (...) models in theoretical neuroscience, have we learned or can we hope to learn that perception is Bayesian inference or that the brain is a Bayesian machine? From actual practice in theoretical neuroscience, we argue for three claims. First, currently Bayesian models do not provide mechanistic explanations; instead they are useful devices for predicting and systematizing observational statements about people's performances in a variety of perceptual tasks. That is, currently we should have an instrumentalist attitude towards Bayesian models in neuroscience. Second, the inference typically drawn from Bayesian behavioural performance in a variety of perceptual tasks to underlying Bayesian mechanisms should be understood within the three-level framework laid out by David Marr ( [1982] ). Third, we can hope to learn that perception is Bayesian inference or that the brain is a Bayesian machine to the extent that Bayesian models will prove successful in yielding secure and informative predictions of both subjects' perceptual performance and features of the underlying neural mechanisms. (shrink)

Bazzocchi disposes the text of the Tractatus in a user-friendly manner, exactly as Wittgenstein's decimals advise. This discloses the logical form of the book by distinct reading units, linked into a fashioned hierarchical tree. The text becomes much clearer and every reader can enjoy, finally, its formal and literary qualities.

In this volume, a range of high-profile researchers in philosophy of mind, philosophy of cognitive science, and empirical cognitive science, critically engage with Clark's work across the themes of: Extended, Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, and Affective Minds; Natural Born Cyborgs; and Perception, Action, and Prediction. Daniel Dennett provides a foreword on the significance of Clark's work, and Clark replies to each section of the book, thus advancing current literature with original contributions that will form the basis for new discussions, debates and (...) directions in the discipline. (shrink)

O livro de Kant Antropologia de um ponto de vista pragmático, até nossos dias, ainda tem indefinido seu papel diante da filosofia transcedental. Por não haver, na obra de Kant, uma delimitação clara entre as várias antropologias, a saber, a empírica e a prática, e a devido a algumas afirmações não claras do próprio autor, percebe-se que aquele livro ainda é motivo de interpretações controvertidas por parte daqueles que o analisaram. Este texto representa um esforço no sentido de apreende o (...) papel e a posição que o livro em referência tem na totalidade da produção de Kant. (shrink)

This essay represents an attempt to bring prostitutes’ and clients’ voices into the philosophical discourse about prostitution. We wish to add the voices of individual prostitutes and clients in order to expand the contemporary philosophical understanding of prostitution as a complex and problematic ethical concern. The first section of this essay explains the concepts of subjectivity, sexuality, and violence that underpin our analysis of prostitution. The second section scrutinizes the prostitute’s and client’s motivating goals and the means they use to (...) accomplish them. The third, and final, section presents a phenomenological description of prostituted sex from the prostitute’s and client’s respective viewpoints. (shrink)

It is often claimed that the greatest value of the Bayesian framework in cognitive science consists in its unifying power. Several Bayesian cognitive scientists assume that unification is obviously linked to explanatory power. But this link is not obvious, as unification in science is a heterogeneous notion, which may have little to do with explanation. While a crucial feature of most adequate explanations in cognitive science is that they reveal aspects of the causal mechanism that produces the phenomenon to be (...) explained, the kind of unification afforded by the Bayesian framework to cognitive science does not necessarily reveal aspects of a mechanism. Bayesian unification, nonetheless, can place fruitful constraints on causal–mechanical explanation. 1 Introduction2 What a Great Many Phenomena Bayesian Decision Theory Can Model3 The Case of Information Integration4 How Do Bayesian Models Unify?5 Bayesian Unification: What Constraints Are There on Mechanistic Explanation?5.1 Unification constrains mechanism discovery5.2 Unification constrains the identification of relevant mechanistic factors5.3 Unification constrains confirmation of competitive mechanistic models6 ConclusionAppendix. (shrink)

O artigo reflete sobre o atual contexto da Educação Superior e seus desafios na formação de novos perfis de docentes. Optamos por indagar fenomenologicamente a formação docente em uma instituição confessional a fim de perceber, na pulsão das vivências dos estudantes, o lugar que a formação humana e da consciência ocupa na trajetória acadêmica. Seguindo essa pista e dialogando com profissionais e estudantes percebemos a necessidade de um maior aprofundamento dos pressupostos antropológico-filosóficos da educação. A partir disso, fizemos um contraponto (...) entre o modelo reducionista e o complexo, fundamentando as concepções de conhecimento e educação no diálogo entre dois grandes pensadores: Edith Stein e Edgar Morin. Os resultados revelam a necessidade de um diálogo multi e transdisciplinar nos programas de formação docente, bem como a necessidade de pensar a formação humana a partir do paradigma da complexidade, interligando saberes que fomentem a reforma do pensamento. A formação humano-integral requer projetos que incluam todas as dimensões do ser humano. Desse modo, o ato educativo, ensino e aprendizagem, assume proporções que ultrapassam a experiência de sala de aula e perduram em sua formação. A reflexão realizada fez emergir com maior clareza os desafios de nosso tempo: um pensar rigoroso sobre o “humano” e sua formação em uma perspectiva onto-antropológica que tenha como base uma visão de mundo, de ser humano e de transcendência comprometidos com valores pautados na ideia de “casa comum”. (shrink)

The present work refers to the doctorship research that implemented the Free-Expression Painting Studio technique to assist university students who had suicidal ideations or attempts. This technique was developed in France by the psychologist Michel Ternoy, based on Minkowski’s structural-phenomenon analysis method. A group session will be presented and discussed from Michel Henry’s phenomenology of life. Psychology and phenomenology can create spaces for belonging and support, which allow the transformation of suffering from experiences in the community. The Painting Studio makes (...) it possible to experience the affection of the other as a potential of one’s own possibilities, mobilizing the affective dialectical relationship, through which one can go from unbearable suffering to original fruition. We seek to show that art can be part of the therapeutic process as an alternative to the passage to the act of suicide before it becomes unbearable. (shrink)

This article deals with Robert Grosseteste’s account of ‘spatial differences’, such as ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘right’, ‘left’, ‘before’, and ‘behind’. More specifically, attention is focused on Grosseteste’s De differentiis localibus, which is a concise scientific treatise arguing for the objectiveness of the differences of place pertaining to all living bodies, including heavenly ones. The article has a two-fold goal: to present the contents of such an understudied opuscule, and to check if there is some compelling reliance on any of the Latin (...) versions of Aristotle’s On the Heavens. Such an analysis reveals that Grosseteste’s reading of Aristotle’s On the Heavens is angled by Averroes’ Long Commentary on the Physics, on which Grosseteste relies as well to build his conception of mathematical and natural differences. (shrink)

This article deals with the first Latin reception of Pseudo-Aristotle’s On Indivisible Lines and its impact on the medieval debate about the continuum. Robert Grosseteste’s and Albert the Great’s references to this pseudo-Aristotelian text show that it could be regarded as a source for where to find information about the indivisibilist tenet, as well as an expansion of Aristotle’s anti-atomistic critiques scattered throughout his authentic works. The use of On Indivisible Lines made by Henry of Harclay and Adam of Wodeham (...) confirms this trend: the reading of this text could be twofold according to the tenet defended. While Henry argues against Pseudo-Aristotle to defend indivisibilism, Adam expands on pseudo-Aristotelian arguments to show the incongruities implied by indivisibilism. (shrink)

Computational approaches dominate contemporary cognitive science, promising a unified, scientific explanation of how the mind works. However, computational approaches raise major philosophical and scientific questions. In what sense is the mind computational? How do computational approaches explain perception, learning, and decision making? What kinds of challenges should computational approaches overcome to advance our understanding of mind, brain, and behaviour? The Routledge Handbook of the Computational Mind is an outstanding overview and exploration of these issues and the first philosophical collection of (...) its kind. Comprising thirty-five chapters by an international team of contributors from different disciplines, the Handbook is organised into four parts: History and future prospects of computational approaches Types of computational approach Foundations and challenges of computational approaches Applications to specific parts of psychology. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of science, The Routledge Handbook of the Computational Mind will also be of interest to those studying computational models in related subjects such as psychology, neuroscience, and computer science. (shrink)

The collective works edited by Emmanuel Alloa and Adnen Jdey, Du sensible à l’oeuvre, and by Mauro Carbone, L’empreinte du visuel, meet the dual requirementimposed by reading the work of Merleau-Ponty today: on one hand, they extend the philosopher’s thought and highlight its obvious necessity in reading the mostcontemporary art; and, on the other hand, by not allowing themselves to be lulled by the gentle seduction of the writing, they emphasize the coherence of his thought andthe rigor of certain of (...) his key concepts such as style, resumption, flesh or individuation, which are the object of precise and unpublished studies. (shrink)

Este trabalho é uma análise do perfil da ONU, no que diz respeito à sua defesa de uma ética universal. A ONU deve representar a comunidade internacional como um todo, na sua multiplicidade de civilizações e culturas, no entanto, toda a sua existência está permeada por crises, cujo estopim é a sua ocidentalização, pois na interacção entre as múltiplas soberanias, a anarquia dos significados é frequentemente equacionada com base no que os mais fortes pensam. Complementando tal quadro, o artigo salienta (...) ainda o facto de o desenvolvimento de uma ética centrada na tolerância e na razão parecer esbarrar na transnacionalização e preponderância das forças económicas sobre as forças sociais e políticas no interior da ONU. Procura-se, com isso, resposta à questão: quais os limites de uma instituição como a ONU de dar rumo à correcção dos desequilíbrios mais graves no mundo decorrentes do predominio das forças económicas sobre os princípios éticos? A autora do artigo defende ser função da ONU assegurar, disseminar e criar mecanismos para a manutenção em cada Estado-Nação de uma ética universalista, a qual deve ser reconhecida pelos Estados como base para regimes fundados no respeito ao ser humano em sua dignidade e singularidade e aos direitos humanos em geral. /// This article constitutes an analysis of UN'S defense of Universal Ethics. The UN must represent the international community as a whole, in its multiplicity of civilizations and cultures. However, it has undergone many periods of crisis caused by its occidentalization, then in the interaction of multiple nations, the conflit caused by so many divergent meanings is often solved on the basis of the positions defended by the strongest ones'. Complementing this picture, the author of the article also takes into account the fact that the development of an ethical attitude based on tolerance and reason finds an obstacle in transnationalization and in the preponderance of economic forces over the social and political ones within the UN. It is thus aim of the article to search for answers to the following question: which are the limitations of an institution such as the UN in finding a solution for the problem of the social imbalances that exist in this world, which are due to the predominance of economic forces over the ethical principles? The author takes for granted that the function of the UN is to ensure, to disseminate and to create devices for the maintenance of a universalist ethics within each State-Nation, which must be recognized by all of them as a basis for a regime that is grounded on respect for human dignity and individuality and for human rights in general. (shrink)

The finding that intuitions about the reference of proper names vary cross-culturally was one of the early milestones in experimental philosophy. Many follow-up studies investigated the scope and magnitude of such cross-cultural effects, but our paper provides the first systematic meta-analysis of studies replicating. In the light of our results, we assess the existence and significance of cross-cultural effects for intuitions about the reference of proper names.

There is widespread recognition at universities that a proper understanding of science is needed for all undergraduates. Good jobs are increasingly found in fields related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine, and science now enters almost all aspects of our daily lives. For these reasons, scientific literacy and an understanding of scientific methodology are a foundational part of any undergraduate education. Recipes for Science provides an accessible introduction to the main concepts and methods of scientific reasoning. With the help of (...) an array of contemporary and historical examples, definitions, visual aids, and exercises for active learning, the textbook helps to increase students’ scientific literacy. The first part of the book covers the definitive features of science: naturalism, experimentation, modeling, and the merits and shortcomings of both activities. The second part covers the main forms of inference in science: deductive, inductive, abductive, probabilistic, statistical, and causal. The book concludes with a discussion of explanation, theorizing and theory-change, and the relationship between science and society. The textbook is designed to be adaptable to a wide variety of different kinds of courses. In any of these different uses, the book helps students better navigate our scientific, 21st-century world, and it lays the foundation for more advanced undergraduate coursework in a wide variety of liberal arts and science courses. Selling Points Helps students develop scientific literacy—an essential aspect of _any_ undergraduate education in the 21 st century, including a broad understanding of scientific reasoning, methods, and concepts Written for all beginning college students: preparing science majors for more focused work in particular science; introducing the humanities’ investigations of science; and helping non-science majors become more sophisticated consumers of scientific information Provides an abundance of both contemporary and historical examples Covers reasoning strategies and norms applicable in all fields of physical, life, and social sciences, _as well as_ strategies and norms distinctive of specific sciences Includes visual aids to clarify and illustrate ideas Provides text boxes with related topics and helpful definitions of key terms, and includes a final Glossary with all key terms Includes Exercises for Active Learning at the end of each chapter, which will ensure full student engagement and mastery of the information include earlier in the chapter Provides annotated ‘For Further Reading’ sections at the end of each chapter, guiding students to the best primary and secondary sources available Offers a Companion Website, with: For Students: direct links to many of the primary sources discussed in the text, student self-check assessments, a bank of exam questions, and ideas for extended out-of-class projects For Instructors: a password-protected Teacher’s Manual, which provides student exam questions with answers, extensive lecture notes, classroom-ready Power Point presentations, and sample syllabi Extensive Curricular Development materials, helping any instructor who needs to create a Scientific Reasoning Course, ex nihilo. (shrink)

Scientific literacy is an essential aspect of an undergraduate education. Recipes for Science responds to this need by providing an accessible introduction to the nature of science and scientific methods appropriate for any beginning college student. The book is adaptable to a wide variety of different courses, such as introductions to scientific reasoning, methods courses in scientific disciplines, science education, and philosophy of science. -/- Recipes for Science ​​was first published in 2018, and a thoroughly revised second edition was published (...) in 2024. Special features include contemporary and historical case studies from many fields of physical, life, and social sciences; visual aids to clarify and illustrate ideas; text boxes to explore related topics; plenty of exercises to support student recall and application of concepts; suggestions for further readings at the end of each chapter; a glossary with helpful definitions of key terms; and a companion website with course syllabi, PowerPoint presentations, additional exercises, and original short videos on key topics. (shrink)

This paper employs the methodological framework of linguistic analytic philosophy to explore the conceptual issues arising from a study of the different models of disorder implicit in five groups of stakeholders concerned in the community care of people with a diagnosis of long-term schizophrenia. Linguistic analysis, gives a precise fix on the nature of the practical difficulties presented by such models, suggests a powerful heuristic for displaying and comparing models, is the basis of a methodology which is neutral as between (...) users and providers of services, provides an intuitively powerful way of understanding the results of work of this kind, and facilitates the translation of research into practice. (shrink)

Data produced by humans and machines is more and more heterogeneous, visual, and location based. This availability inspired in the last years a number of reactions from researchers, designers, and artists that, using different visual manipulations techniques, have attempted at repurposing this material to add meaning and design new perspectives with specific intentions. Three different approaches are described here: the design of interfaces for exploring satellite footage in novel ways, the analysis of urban esthetics through the visual manipulation of collections (...) of user-generated contents, and the enrichment of geo-based datasets with the selection and rearrangement of web imagery. (shrink)

This paper deals with the recent policies introduced in Brazil in order to foster a public interest towards science. Persuasive messages and strategies aiming at increasing a public awareness of the importance of scientific literacy for the development of the country are introduced at different levels and targeting different kinds of publics. These policies are analysed in view of classical models of social influence and persuasion.

This article is dedicated to a reconstruction of some events and achievements, both personal and scientific, in the life of the Neapolitan mathematician Pasquale del Pezzo, Duke of Caianello.

Le phénoménologue tchèque Jan Patočka, auteur d’une phénoménologie asubjective défendant la thèse d’un procès asubjectif de l’apparaître (d’une autonomie du phénomène par rapport à l’ego), a accordé au problème des relations nécessaires et difficiles que la philosophie entretient en son sein même avec la littérature une attention particulière qui l’a conduit à poser les fondements d’une phénoménologie de la littérature centrée autour de l’idée d’un asubjectivisme de l’écrivain. Nous suivrons ici deux axes de réflexion connexes: premièrement, nous montrerons pourquoi et (...) comment Patočka restaure le vocabulaire et la vision de l’homme propres au mythe et reprend ce qu’il aperçoit comme le fondement de la tragédie pour élaborer une nouvelle compréhension du phénomène de l’existence comme mouvement. Deuxièmement, nous décrirons le rôle que joue l’écrivain moderne à une époque marquée par la fragmentation de la vie. Car l’écrivain qui édifie une “littérature métaphysique” a le privilège, selon Patočka, d’être “l’administrateur propre et originel de l’intégralité de la vie et de la totalité universelle”, il est ainsi une sorte de “quasi-phénoménologue” dont la philosophie ne peut se passer si elle veut saisir ces phénomènes qui, sans être purement et simplement subjectifs, ne peuvent néanmoins être réduits à l’objectivité du concept. (shrink)

Este artigo estabelece a relação entre apercepção transcendental e identidade, existência e percepção, e procura com isso mostrar que, embora esteja na base da estrutura cognitiva humana, a autoconsciência não elabora conhecimento.

O texto é dividido em duas etapas. Na primeira, constituída de três partes, são considerados os principais conceitos da Doutrina do direito de Kant, numa abordagem abrangente relativa: ao problema das relações entre o direito natural e o direito positivo, problema estreitamente conectado com o das relações entre estado de natureza e estado civil, direito privado e direito público; à doutrina da propriedade e sua conexão com o direito político. Ao tratar do direito nos seus diversos tipos tenciona-se indicar a (...) razão prática como pano de fundo da Doutrina. Numa segunda etapa, concernente à última parte, a consideração da presença da razão prática no direito é colocada perante algumas especificidades da filosofia da história de Kant, com o intento de estabelecer a possível relação entre a Rechtslehre e aquela filosofia. (shrink)

O texto é dividido em duas etapas. Na primeira, constituída de três partes, são considerados os principais conceitos da Doutrina do direito de Kant, numa abordagem abrangente relativa: ao problema das relações entre o direito natural e o direito positivo, problema estreitamente conectado com o das relações entre estado de natureza e estado civil, direito privado e direito público; à doutrina da propriedade e sua conexão com o direito político. Ao tratar do direito nos seus diversos tipos tenciona-se indicar a (...) razão prática como pano de fundo da Doutrina. Numa segunda etapa, concernente à última parte, a consideração da presença da razão prática no direito é colocada perante algumas especificidades da filosofia da história de Kant, com o intento de estabelecer a possível relação entre a Rechtslehre e aquela filosofia. (shrink)

Resumo: O texto é uma análise sobre a corrente crítica à relação entre direitos humanos e soberania popular no século XX, uma interpretação segundo a qual direitos humanos significam cada vez mais intervenção estatal e, em concomitância, seguem uma proceduralização da democracia. Ao contrário dessa posição, constatamos que direitos humanos, no momento atual, são impensáveis sem planejamento estatal, sem experts e funcionários estatais para efeito de sua implementação. Isso, se compromete a idéia clássica de soberania popular que supõe legislação política (...) por parte do povo, não a anula deveras: desde que não se pretenda manter a pureza clássica desse conceito, não parece ser incoerente pensar os direitos humanos, quando garantidos pelo Estado, como um meio, provavelmente o mais importante, de consolidação da vida democrática de um povo. Logo, se a concretização dos direitos humanos não admite ou não é acompanhada pela legislação do povo, é inegável, contudo, que é uma potencializadora de sua expressão, com o que, em decorrência, a relação entre Estado e sociedade civil não se manterá estática, podendo sofrer influências dos portadores de direitos.Palavras-chave: direitos humanos - soberania popular - Estado - sociedade civil - democracia.: The text is an analysis on the critical chain to the relation between human rights and popular sovereignty in century XX, an interpretation according to which human rights mean each time more state intervention and, in concurrence, follow a processing of the democracy. In contrast of this position, we evidence that if it cannot think about human rights without state planning, experts and state employees for effect of implementation of them. This, if compromises the classic idea of popular sovereignty that assumes legislation politics on the part of the people, does not annul it indeed: since that if it does not intend to keep the classic pureness of this concept, does not seem to be incoherent to think the human rights, when guaranteed for the State, as the way, probably most important, of consolidation of the democratic life of a people. Soon, if the concretion of the human rights does not admit or it is not followed by the legislation of the people, is undeniable, however, that it is an enabling to one of its expression, with what, in result, the relation between State and civil society will not remain static, being able to suffer influences from the carriers of rights. (shrink)

Habermas entende os direitos humanos como produtos do mundo da vida; e é no interior do debate público, com a participação efetiva dos cidadãos, que deve ocorrer a produção deles como normas e princípios. A questão central abordada inicialmente no texto concerne ao status dessas normas e ao seu modo de instituição, dependente das relações de reciprocidade entre os sujeitos. Uma vez que, em sociedades complexas, apenas idealmente parece ser possível sustentar a participação de todos os sujeitos no processo de (...) elaboração de normas, o texto procura analisar a viabilidade da concepção de Habermas. Ao considerar os elementos conceituais que orbitam essa questão, processa-se no curso do texto um deslocamento para outra, a saber, a relativa ao quanto o modo de sustentação da normatividade jurídica de um ordenamento social o determina como democrático ou não. Este é o ponto decisivo ao tratamento das normas relativas aos direitos humanos: a análise de Habermas é ideal, mas o pêndulo entre moral e empiria se mantém sempre, de modo que, pelo escopo conceitual, se não há como confirmar a identificação entre legitimidade dos direitos humanos e direitos humanos produzidos democraticamente, torna-se impossível querer negá-la. Habermas understands human rights as products of the lifeworld, and it is within the public debate, with the effective participation of citizens, that their production must occur as norms and principles. The initial focus of the text concerns the status of these norms and how they are instituted, which depends on the reciprocal relationships between subjects. Given that in complex societies it seems to be only ideally possible to sustain the participation of all those involved in the elaboration of norms, this article seeks to analyze the feasibility of Habermas' conception. In considering the conceptual elements related to this issue, there takes place in the course of the text a shift to another issue, namely, that of how the mode of support of the juridical normativity of a legal order determines it as being democratic or not. This is the turning point in the treatment of norms relative to human rights: Habermas' analysis is ideal, but the oscillation between the moral and the empirical is always remains, such that, within the conceptual scope, if there is no way to confirm the legitimacy of the identification of human rights with democratically produced human rights, this oscillation becomes impossible deny. (shrink)

Habermas entende os direitos humanos como produtos do mundo da vida; e é no interiordo debate público, com a participação efetiva dos cidadãos, que deve ocorrer a produção deles como normas e princípios. A questão central abordada inicialmente no texto concerne ao status dessas normas e ao seu modo de instituição, dependente das relações de reciprocidade entre os sujeitos. Uma vez que, em sociedades complexas, apenas idealmente parece ser possível sustentar a participaçãode todos os sujeitos no processo de elaboração de (...) normas, o texto procura analisar a viabilidade daconcepção de Habermas. Ao considerar os elementos conceituais que orbitam essa questão, processa-seno curso do texto um deslocamento para outra, a saber, a relativa ao quanto o modo de sustentaçãoda normatividade jurídica de um ordenamento social o determina como democrático ou não. Este éo ponto decisivo ao tratamento das normas relativas aos direitos humanos: a análise de Habermas é ideal, mas o pêndulo entre moral e empiria se mantém sempre, de modo que, pelo escopo conceitual,se não há como confirmar a identificação entre legitimidade dos direitos humanos e direitos humanos produzidos democraticamente, torna-se impossível querer negá-la. (shrink)

Porque Kant não definiu explicitamente o papel dos diversos sujeitos ligados entre si, pode-se verificar, como atual consequência, que alguns autores concebem o sujeito transcendental como um mediador entre mundo sensível e mundo inteligível, pelo que deixam de considerar que a ponte entre ambos mundos é estabelecida pelo juízo reflexionante. Com este texto é exposto que a lacuna deixada por Kant – o fato de ele não ter acentuado a ligação do homem em sua totalidade, ligação pela qual ele pode (...) ser compreendido entre ambos os mundos – tem por consequência interpretações atuais de sua teoria do sujeito que mantém ainda esta lacuna. (shrink)