Zones of social abandonment are emerging everywhere in Brazil’s big cities—places like Vita, where the unwanted, the mentally ill, the sick, and the homeless are left to die. This haunting, unforgettable story centers on a young woman named Catarina, increasingly paralyzed and said to be mad, living out her time at Vita. Anthropologist João Biehl leads a detective-like journey to know Catarina; to unravel the cryptic, poetic words that are part of the “dictionary” she is compiling; and to trace the (...) complex network of family, medicine, state, and economy in which her abandonment and pathology took form. An instant classic, _Vita_ has been widely acclaimed for its bold fieldwork, theoretical innovation, and literary force. Reflecting on how Catarina’s life story continues, this updated edition offers the reader a powerful new afterword and gripping new photographs following Biehl and Eskerod’s return to Vita. Anthropology at its finest, _Vita_ is essential reading for anyone who is grappling with how to understand the conditions of life, thought, and ethics in the contemporary world. (shrink)

This innovative volume is an extended intellectual conversation about the ways personal lives are being undone and remade today. Examining the ethnography of the modern subject, this preeminent group of scholars probes the continuity and diversity of modes of personhood across a range of Western and non-Western societies. Contributors consider what happens to individual subjectivity when stable or imagined environments such as nations and communities are transformed or displaced by free trade economics, terrorism, and war; how new information and medical (...) technologies reshape the relation one has to oneself; and which forms of subjectivity and life possibilities are produced against a world in pieces. The transdisciplinary conversation includes anthropologists, historians of science, psychologists, a literary critic, a philosopher, physicians, and an economist. The authors touch on how we think and write about contingency, human agency, and ethics today. (shrink)

Zones of social abandonment are emerging everywhere in Brazil’s big cities—places like Vita, where the unwanted, the mentally ill, the sick, and the homeless are left to die. This haunting, unforgettable story centers on a young woman named Catarina, increasingly paralyzed and said to be mad, living out her time at Vita. Anthropologist João Biehl leads a detective-like journey to know Catarina; to unravel the cryptic, poetic words that are part of the “dictionary” she is compiling; and to trace the (...) complex network of family, medicine, state, and economy in which her abandonment and pathology took form. As Biehl painstakingly relates Catarina’s words to a vanished world and elucidates her condition, we learn of subjectivities unmade and remade under economic pressures, pharmaceuticals as moral technologies, a public common sense that lets the unsound and unproductive die, and anthropology’s unique power to work through these juxtaposed fields. _Vita’s_ methodological innovations, bold fieldwork, and rigorous social theory make it an essential reading for anyone who is grappling with how to understand the conditions of life, thought and ethics in the contemporary world. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This study focuses on the notions of ‘ruins’, ‘savage knowledge’, and ‘American race’ in the works of the German naturalist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868). A somewhat neglected figure in the history of anthropology and of natural history, Martius was regarded by scholars from Europe and the Americas as a leading figure in botany and ethnology in the nineteenth century. In this article, I discuss how Martius articulated: (1) the notion of American race, that is, a broad characterization (...) of the native peoples of the Americas rooted in a complex natural history which brought together seemingly disparate fields of knowledge, such as medicine, botany, theology, philology, and mythology; (2) having ruins as a guiding concept, which helped him to make sense of American natives; and (3) savage knowledge – a concept semantically aligned to that of ruins, and among whose principal modes of expression was shamanic practice. (shrink)

In 2002, Luciano Floridi published a paper called What is the Philosophy of Information?, where he argues for a new paradigm in philosophical research. To what extent should his proposal be accepted? Is the Philosophy of Information actually a new paradigm, in the Kuhninan sense, in Philosophy? Or is it only a new branch of Epistemology? In our discussion we will argue in defense of Floridi’s proposal. We believe that Philosophy of Information has the types of features had by other (...) areas already acknowledge as authentic in Philosophy. By way of an analogical argument we will argue that since Philosophy of Information has its own topics, method and problems it would be counter-intuitive not to accept it as a new philosophical area. To strengthen our position we present and discuss main topics of Philosophy of Information. (shrink)

Harmful but culturally cherished practices often endure in spite of the damages they cause. Meat consumption is increasingly becoming one of such cases and may provide an opportunity from which to observe these phenomena. Growing evidence indicates that current and projected production and consumption patterns are important contributors to significant environmental problems, public health degradation, and animal suffering. Our aim is to contribute to a further understanding of the psychological factors that may hinder or promote personal disposition to change food (...) habits to benefit each of these domains. Drawing from previous evidence, this study explores the proposition that some consumers are motivated to resort to moral disengagement strategies when called upon to consider the impacts of their food habits. Data were collected from six semi-structured focus groups with a sample of 40 participants. Although affirming personal duties towards preserving the environment, promoting public health, and safeguarding animal welfare, participants did not show personal disposition to change their meat consumption habits. Several patterns of response that resonate with the principles of moral disengagement theory were observed while discussing impacts and the possibility of change. Results seem to support the proposition that the process of moral disengagement may play a role in hindering openness to change food habits for the benefit of the environment, public health, and animals, and point towards the relevance of further exploring this approach. (shrink)

This paper discusses how to define logics as deductive limits of sequences of other logics. The case of da Costa's hierarchy of increasingly weaker paraconsistent calculi, known as $ \mathcal {C}$n, 1 $ \leq$ n $ \leq$ $ \omega$, is carefully studied. The calculus $ \mathcal {C}$$\scriptstyle \omega$, in particular, constitutes no more than a lower deductive bound to this hierarchy and differs considerably from its companions. A long standing problem in the literature (open for more than 35 years) is (...) to define the deductive limit to this hierarchy, that is, its greatest lower deductive bound. The calculus $ \mathcal {C}$min, stronger than $ \mathcal {C}$$\scriptstyle \omega$, is first presented as a step toward this limit. As an alternative to the bivaluation semantics of $ \mathcal {C}$min presented thereupon, possible-translations semantics are then introduced and suggested as the standard technique both to give this calculus a more reasonable semantics and to derive some interesting properties about it. Possible-translations semantics are then used to provide both a semantics and a decision procedure for $ \mathcal {C}$Lim, the real deductive limit of da Costa's hierarchy. Possible-translations semantics also make it possible to characterize a precise sense of duality: as an example, $ \mathcal {D}$min is proposed as the dual to $ \mathcal {C}$min. (shrink)

In many real-life applications of logic it is useful to interpret a particular sentence as true together with its negation. If we are talking about classical logic, this situation would force all other sentences to be equally interpreted as true. Paraconsistent logics are exactly those logics that escape this explosive effect of the presence of inconsistencies and allow for sensible reasoning still to take effect. To provide reasonably intuitive semantics for paraconsistent logics has traditionally proven to be a challenge. Possible-translations (...) semantics can meet that challenge by allowing for each interpretation to be composed of multiple scenarios. Using that idea, a logic with a complex semantic behavior can be understood as an appropriate combination of ingredient logics with simpler semantic behaviors into which the original logic is given a collection of translations preserving its soundness. Completeness is then achieved through the judicious choice of the admissible translating mappings. The present note provides interpretation by way of possible-translations semantics for a group of fundamental paraconsistent logics extending the positive fragment of classical propositional logic. The logics PI, Cmin, mbC, bC, mCi and Ci, among others, are all initially presented through their non-truth-functional bivaluation semantics and sequent versions and then split by way of possible-translations semantics based on 3-valued ingredients. (shrink)

We analyze axioms and postulates as speech acts. After a brief historical appraisal of the concept of axiom in Euclid, Frege, and Hilbert, we evaluate contemporary axiomatics from a linguistic perspective. Our reading is inspired by Hilbert and is meant to account for the assertive, directive, and declarative components of modern axiomatics. We will do this by describing the constitutive and regulative roles that axioms possess with respect to the linguistic practice of mathematics.

O campo interdisciplinar dos novos estudos sociais das infâncias parte de uma ruptura epistemológica com as abordagens clássicas das ciências que adotam visões biologizantes, essencialistas e universais da criança e encontra na etnografia uma possibilidade de conceituação de criança enquanto sujeito ativo e de infância enquanto categoria social geracional. O reconhecimento desses conceitos de criança e de infância pela etnografia na pesquisa com crianças implica voltar-se para a criança como o outro, o diferente, o estrangeiro. A proposta de ruptura teórico-conceitual (...) na investigação das infâncias exige a implementação de metodologias que focalizem as experiências, os pontos de vista e as vozes das crianças, compreendendo-as enquanto processo, em outras palavras, constante construção. Portanto, para essa perspectiva, a criança não é o objeto do estudo, mas é sujeito que interage com o pesquisador na construção dos sentidos e significados da pesquisa. O texto está organizado em três partes que abordam os aspectos epistemológicos, teórico-conceituais e metodológicos do debate proposto. Ao final, procura-se uma articulação entre os diferentes aspectos da discussão, propondo uma reflexão sobre a ética e a alteridade, reconhecendo que a diferença atravessa as relações humanas e, portanto, é o diferente, o incomum, o incompreensível, o oposto, o desigual, o inalcançável que marca e define a pesquisa com criança. (shrink)

An overcomplete logic is a logic that ‘ceases to make the difference’: According to such a logic, all inferences hold independently of the nature of the statements involved. A negation-inconsistent logic is a logic having at least one model that satisfies both some statement and its negation. A negation-incomplete logic has at least one model according to which neither some statement nor its negation are satisfied. Paraconsistent logics are negation-inconsistent yet non-overcomplete; paracomplete logics are negation-incomplete yet non-overcomplete. A paranormal logic (...) is simply a logic that is both paraconsistent and paracomplete. -/- Despite being perfectly consistent and complete with respect to classical negation, nearly every normal modal logic, in its ordinary language and interpretation, admits to some latent paranormality: It is paracomplete with respect to a negation defined as an impossibility operator, and paraconsistent with respect to a negation defined as non-necessity. In fact, as it will be shown here, even in languages without a primitive classical negation, normal modal logics can often be alternatively characterized directly by way of their paranormal negations and related operators. So, instead of talking about ‘necessity’, ‘possibility’, and so on, modal logics could be seen just as devices tailored for the study of (modal) negation. This paper shows how and to what extent this alternative characterization of modal logics can be realized. (shrink)

This paper explores the intricate relationship between the concept of “savage knowledge,” its significance during the ninteenth and twentieth centuries, and the emerging field of ethnoscience. It specifically focuses on the Amazon region as a pivotal area in the development of ethnoscience, examining the contributions of renowned naturalists Carl von Martius, Richard Spruce, and Richard Schultes, who each conducted scientific expeditions to the Amazon during this era. Their works are crucial in reevaluating the dynamic interplay between the Western perception of (...) the “savage,” the scientific principles that underpin it, and the geopolitics of knowledge exchange between countries in the global north and south. I argue that the contextual conditions which made possible the emergence of ethnoscience, including imperial assimilation, extraction, and coloniality, continue to exert influence on twentieth century political discourses concerning the integration of indigenous cultures into global politics. This influence is evident through the analysis of a UNESCO document in the second part of the paper. The study concludes that the incorporation of indigenous knowledge, systematised by ethnoscience, has often served as a pretext for controlling geographical areas historically regarded as “natural resources,” ultimately transforming them into reservoirs of indigenous epistemologies. (shrink)

What is the fundamental insight behind truth-functionality ? When is a logic interpretable by way of a truth-functional semantics? To address such questions in a satisfactory way, a formal definition of truth-functionality from the point of view of abstract logics is clearly called for. As a matter of fact, such a definition has been available at least since the 70s, though to this day it still remains not very widely well-known. A clear distinction can be drawn between logics characterizable through: (...) (1) genuinely finite-valued truth-tabular semantics; (2) no finite-valued but only an infinite-valued truthtabular semantics; (3) no truth-tabular semantics at all. Any of those logics, however, can in principle be characterized through non-truth-functional valuation semantics, at least as soon as their associated consequence relations respect the usual tarskian postulates. So, paradoxical as that might seem at first, it turns out that truth-functional logics may be adequately characterized by non-truth-functional semantics . Now, what feature of a given logic would guarantee it to dwell in class (1) or in class (2), irrespective of its circumstantial semantic characterization? (shrink)

Our present moral traits are unable to provide the level of large-scale co-operation necessary to deal with risks such as nuclear proliferation, drastic climate change and pandemics. In order to survive in an environment with powerful and easily available technologies, some authors claim that we need to improve our moral traits with moral enhancement. But this is prone to produce paradoxical effects, be self-reinforcing and harm personal identity. The risks of moral enhancement require the use of a safety framework; such (...) a framework should guarantee practical robustness to moral uncertainty, empirical adequacy, correct balance between dispositions, preservation of identity, and be sensitive to practical considerations such as emergent social effects. A virtue theory can meet all these desiderata. Possible frameworks incorporate them to variable degrees. The social value orientations framework is one of the most promising candidates. (shrink)

We say that things happen accidentally when they do indeed happen, but only by chance. In the opposite situation, an essential happening is inescapable, its inevitability being the sine qua non for its very occurrence. This paper will investigate modal logics on a language tailored to talk about essential and accidental statements. Completeness of some among the weakest and the strongest such systems is attained. The weak expressibility of the classical propositional language enriched with the non-normal modal operators of essence (...) and accident is highlighted and illustrated, both with respect to the definability of the more usual modal operators as well as with respect to the characterizability of classes of frames. Several interesting problems and directions are left open for exploration. (shrink)

O artigo tenta reconstruir alguns elementos acerca da passagem da Lógica da essência para a Lógica do conceito, da necessidade para a liberdade, na Ciência da Lógica hegeliana. No contexto da publicação dos duzentos anos dessa obra filosófica, a explicitação dessa passagem é referencial para a compreensão da Ciência da Lógica e de todo o pensamento hegeliano. O artigo procura sustentar que o binômio necessidade/contingência, um dos pares categoriais da Lógica da essência, não é adequado para a articulação da filosofia (...) hegeliana. Como Hegel afirma reiteradas vezes, é preciso superar a dura necessidade para dar lugar à lógica da liberdade. Para a discussão da problemática, a confrontação entre algumas categorias da essência, tais como substancialidade, necessidade, contingência e causalidade, e algumas categorias do conceito, tais como universalidade, particularidade e singularidade é o foco da exposição. Dessa discussão brota a noção hegeliana de liberdade e a sua relação com o sistema. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate the rules that should underlie a computer program that is capable of revising its beliefs or opinions. Such a program maintains a model of its environment, which is updated to reflect perceived changes in the environment. This model is stored in a knowledge base, and the program draws logical inferences from the information in the knowledge base. All the inferences drawn are added to the knowledge base. Among the propositions in the knowledge base, there are (...) some in which the program believes, and there may be others in which the program does not believe. Inputs from the outside world or reasoning carried out by the program may lead to the detection of contradictions, in which case the program has to revise its beliefs in order to get rid of the contradiction and to accommodate the new information. (shrink)

Karl R. Popper: The open society and its enemies -- Ralf Dahrendorf: Liberty and civil society -- Raymond Plant: Social welfare without class warfare -- Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving Kristol: The moral imagination -- Raymond Aron: The opium of the intellectuals -- Friedrich A. Hayek: The constitution of liberty -- Isaiah Berlin: Liberty and pluralism -- Michael J. Oakeshott: The conservative disposition -- Leo Strauss: Relativism and the crisis of modernity -- Edmund Burke: Liberty and duty -- James Madison vs. (...) Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Two views of self-government -- Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America -- Winston S. Churchill: The English-Speaking Peoples and the Free World -- Limited and accountable Government -- Two kinds of rationalism -- Liberty as conversation. (shrink)

O jornal Tribuna Criciumense foi o único impresso publicado na cidade de Criciúma no período deste escrito. Fundado em 1955, ele passou por três fases. Na primeira, produziu um discurso anticomunista, mas de maneira um pouco tímida. Na segunda fase, com curta duração, o impresso passou a valorizar a ideologia comunista e, ao mesmo tempo, a defesa do presidente João Goulart. A última fase foi marcada por ataques violentos contra o comunismo, em defesa do golpe civil-militar e da ditadura implantada. (...) Analisar essas fases e como os discursos anticomunista e pró-comunismo reverberaram no jornal se configura no objetivo deste escrito. (shrink)

Brazil is among the approximately 100 countries that recognize a constitutional right to health that includes access to medicines. All over Brazil, patients are turning to courts to access prescribed medicines. Although lawsuits secure access for thousands of people, at least temporarily, this judicialization of the right to health generates intensely complex sociomedical realities and significant administrative and fiscal challenges that, officials argue, have the potential to widen inequalities in health-care delivery. In this article, we explore how right-to-health litigation became (...) an alternative pathway for Brazilians to access health care, now understood as access to medicines that are either on government lists for pharmaceutical distribution or are only available through the market. Is the judicial system an effective venue to implement socioeconomic rights? Which practices of citizenship and governance are crystallized in these struggles over drug access and administrative accountability? (shrink)

This article is currently available as a free download on Ingenta Connect.

O texto é uma resenha da Doutrina do Conceito hegeliana recém editada e publicada em português. O terceiro livro da Ciência da Lógica é estruturado em subjetividade, objetividade e ideia, com cada uma destas partes também desenvolvida numa estrutura tripartite. Nesta exposição, merece destaque o movimento contraditório de autodeterminação do conceito, no qual a universalidade se autodiferencia imanentemente em particularidade e o conceito retorna a si mesmo na forma da universalidade concreta. O conceito passa pelas diferentes formas de mediação na (...) teoria do silogismo, especialmente com a mediação da universalidade, quando o conceito se transforma em objetividade. Esta começa com a relação externa do mecanismo, avança para a relação interna do quimismo e conclui na teleologia, onde a liberdade é mais elevada que a necessidade. A Ideia, última parte da Doutrina do Conceito, é a unidade sintética entre conceito e objetividade, com destaque no capítulo da Ideia absoluta na qual Hegel formula uma noção de método como estrutura e movimento do conteúdo e da racionalidade. (shrink)

Resenha de: Hegel, G. W. F. Ciência da lógica: 1. A doutrina do ser. Tradução deChristian Iber, Marloren L. de Miranda, Federico Orsini e Agemir Bavaresco. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes; Bragança Paulista, SP: Ed.Universitária São Francisco, 2016. 464 p. ISBN 9788532653086.************************************************************************************** ************************************ Com a tradução, os falantes da língua portuguesa têm em mãos uma obra filosófica estruturante do pensamento moderno e uma das mais importantes da História da Filosofia. Temos agora e nossas mãos, em língua portuguesa, uma obra de difícil acesso do (...) pensamento hegeliano e que um filósofo de língua portuguesa leria com muita dificuldade. A tradução, ora disponibilizada, tenta conciliar a difícil linguagem hegeliana escrita em alemão com a fluência típica do nosso português, permitindo uma compreensão mais ou menos fácil por parte do falante da língua portuguesa. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objeto de investigação os principais níveis de fundamentação enquanto momentos estruturantes do sistema filosófico hegeliano. No contexto filosófico da comemoração dos duzentos anos de publicação da Enciclopédia das Ciências Filosóficas, o objeto do trabalho é a reconstrução dos momentos estruturantes da passagem da Ciência da Lógica para a Filosofia da Natureza, da Filosofia da Natureza para a Filosofia do Espírito e dessas para a esfera do Espírito Absoluto. O artigo não tem como meta a discussão de (...) tópicos intrínsecos à Ciência da Lógica ou à Filosofia do Espírito, mas visa à exposição de círculos da passagem dialética de uma esfera para a outra como um autodesenvolvimento sistemático qualitativo. Mesmo de caráter genérico, não aponta para a possível substantividade de uma parte do sistema, mas para as relações fundamentais entre os círculos. O texto é perpassado por uma chave interpretativa da filosofia hegeliana no sentido de que não é formado por partes fixas e estanques, mas é articulado na perspectiva de relações fundamentais caracterizadoras das interfaces entre as esferas. (shrink)

The task of mapping the reception of mimetic theory in Latin America presents two challenges. On the one hand, rather than looking at just one country, this study has to take into account a mosaic of nations making up a continent, each with their own local diversities and particular complexities. Such circumstances impose specific rhythms onto the assimilation of Girardian thought, and being aware of these rhythms is vital to understanding the precise impact of mimetic theory. On the other hand, (...) such a study also has to cover two languages, Spanish and Portuguese, which means identifying the translations of his work and the impact of Girard’s ideas in both of the languages.And that is not all: such a mapping .. (shrink)

The Foundations of Cognitive Science is a set of thirteen new essays on key topics in this lively interdisciplinary field, by a stellar international line-up of authors. Philosophers, psychologists, and neurologists here come together to investigate such fascinating subjects as consciousness; vision; rationality; artificial life; the neural basis of language, cognition, and emotion; and the relations between mind and world, for instance our representation of numbers and space. The contributors are Ned Block, Margaret Boden, Susan Carey, Patricia Churchland, Paul Churchland, (...) Antonio Damasio, Hanna Damasio, Donald Davidson, Daniel Dennett, Ilya Farber, James Higginbotham, Christopher Peacocke, Will Peterman, Zenon Pylyshyn, John Searle. Anyone interested in the exploration of the human mind will enjoy this book. (shrink)

Este artigo tem por objetivo apresentar a ideia de que Schopenhauer reavalia a noção de extinção com o passar do tempo através do contato com pensamentos filosóficos e científicos contemporâneos a sua vida ligados a concepções evolucionistas. Em O mundo como vontade e representação não há espaço para a consideração da extinção das espécies animais, imutáveis e eternas; ao passo que em Parerga e Paralipomena e em Sobre a vontade na natureza é comum que o autor faça alusão a conceitos (...) como generatio aequivoca, ao surgimento de espécies animais por meio de generatio in utero heterogeneo e ao seu desaparecimento. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem por objetivo principal investigar e circunscrever a relação problemática entre intelecto e cérebro na obra de Arthur Schopenhauer, de acordo com a já conhecida formulação de Eduard Zeller. Desse modo, pode-se contemplar o lugar dos conceitos de intelecto e cérebro no âmbito da explicação metafísica da natureza, tendo-se sempre como noção diretora central a distinção entre os modos de consideração do mundo, apresentadas simultaneamente ainda no texto de O mundo como vontade e como representação e aperfeiçoada (...) e mencionada com mais cuidado nas obras posteriores. Se, por um lado, o mundo é objeto de investigação através da subjetividade e de suas formas de existência, por outro ele é investigado através de um modo de consideração objetivo, que, inicialmente, toma os objetos como existentes por si mesmos, independentemente de qualquer sujeito. Sem poder existir totalmente em separado, na medida em que cada objeto existe apenas para o sujeito, ambos os modos devem confluir para a explicação completa do mundo, como complementação um do outro: o intelecto deve ser também considerado do ponto de vista objetivo e o cérebro segundo a análise do modo de consideração subjetivo, integrando-o na explicação geral do mundo e da natureza. (shrink)

Em seu texto Por quê olhar os animais?, John Berger comenta como a metáfora animal foi um recurso indispensável para revelar uma proximidade entre as espécies, e que sem o exemplo de animais seria improvável, por exemplo, descrever eventos como aqueles narrados por Homero n’A Iíada. A correlação entre vidas semelhantes e heterogêneas permitiram aos seres humanos, inspirados pelos animais, darem respostas às primeiras perguntas. É razoável afirmar que a primeira metáfora tenha sido a do animal, como um modo de (...) partilhar o mundo que lhes era comum e diferente. Mas nossa relação com os animais não-humanos também contém contradições; a criação do zoológico representou a elevação de um monumento à impossibilidade de qualquer reencontro com a animalidade. Em vez de liberados, os animais foram capturados por outras categorias políticas. Para John Berger as ambiguidades permanecem “Eles são os objetos de nosso conhecimento sempre crescente. O que sabemos sobre eles é um índice de nosso poder, e assim é um índice do que nos separa deles. Quanto mais sabemos, mais distante eles ficam.”. (shrink)