L’histoire de l’obstétrique est un champ d’étude prolixe ; les méthodes d’anesthésie et d’analgésie occupent une place centrale dans ses objets d’analyse. Les premières formes d’anesthésie, à l’aide de divers gaz (éther, chloroforme, protoxyde d’azote) utilisés à partir de la seconde moitié du xixe siècle, ont la part belle des récits historiques. Toutefois, les méthodes d’analgésie du xxe siècle commencent à retenir l’attention historienne. L’« Accouchement Sans Douleur par psychoprophylaxie...

Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology, yet only recently have the two disciplines developed greater interaction. Recent experiments in psychology that test the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning have found a great deal of variation, across individuals and (...) cultures, in categorization behaviour. Meanwhile, philosophers of language and mind have investigated the semantic properties of concepts, and how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. A key motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared across individuals and cultures. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. -/- This volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers to advance the interdisciplinary debate on the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, the relationship between concepts and linguistic meaning and communication, the challenges conceptual variation poses to communication, and the social and political effects of conceptual change. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta como questão norteadora: Qual a base de conhecimentos para a formação de professores de Educação Física? O objetivo visa analisar que conhecimentos são reconhecidos como importantes para a formação de professores de Educação Física, sob a perspectiva dos professores envolvidosno currículo. Foram entrevistados 11 professores de diferentes disciplinas e de diferentes centros de estudos da instituição que atuaram na primeira série do curso . Os resultados demonstram ênfase nos conhecimentos de conteúdo específico como necessários para a formação (...) do professor de Educação Física, além de carência teórica sobre o que vem a ser essa base de conhecimentos para o ensino. L'article présente comme question principale: Lequel la base de connaissances pour la formation d'enseignants d'Éducation Physique? L'objectif vise à analyser que des connaissances sont reconnues comme importants pour la formation d'enseignants d'Éducation Physique, sous la perspective des enseignants impliqués dans le curriculum . Ont été interviewés 11 enseignants de différentes disciplines et de différents centres d'études de l'institution qui ont agi dans première série du cours . Les résultats démontrent accent dans les connaissances de contenu spécifique comme nécessaires pour la formation de l'enseignant d'Éducation Physique, outre manque théorique sur lequel vient à être cette base de connaissances pour l'enseignement. (shrink)

Intuitions about retractions have been used to motivate truth relativism about certain types of claims. Among these figure epistemic modals, knowledge attributions, or personal taste claims. On MacFarlane’s prominent relativist proposal, sentences like “the ice cream might be in the freezer” or “Pocoyo is funny” are only assigned a truth-value relative to contexts of utterance and contexts of assessment. Retractions play a crucial role in the argument for assessment-relativism. A retraction of a past assertion is supposed to be mandatory whenever (...) the asserted sentence is not true at the context of use and the context of assessment. If retractions were not obligatory in these conditions, there would be no normative difference between assessment-relativism and contextualism. The main goal of this paper is to undermine the claim that retractions reveal this normative difference. To this effect, the paper offers a review of three important objections to the obligatoriness of retractions. Taken together, these objections make a strong case against the alleged support that retractions give to assessment-relativism. The objections are moreover supported by recent experimental results that are also discussed. This will satisfy a further goal, which is to undermine the idea that there is a constitutive retraction rule. The paper also discusses two ways to understand what such a rule would be constitutive of, and concludes with a discussion of how to describe what retractions are. (shrink)

The ageing population has become one of the major issues, with manifold consequences upon the economic welfare and elderly living standards satisfaction. This paper grasps an in-depth assessment framework of the ageing phenomenon in connection with the labor market, with significant implications upon economic welfare, across the European Union. We configure our research on four distinctive groups of the EU–27 countries based on the Active Ageing Index mapping, during 1995–2018, by acknowledging the different intensities of ageing implications on economic well-being (...) from one group of countries to another. The methodological endeavor is based on Structural Equation Modelling. Empirical results highlight that the ageing dimensions and labor market productivity notably shape the socioeconomic development of EU countries, visibly distinguished across the four panels. The economic development induced remarkable positive spillover effects on the welfare of older people, under the influence of the ageing credentials and dynamic shaping factors. Our research advances the literature underpinnings on this multifaceted topic by investigation made on specific groups of the EU countries and distinctive strategies proposed for each group of countries, as effective results for improving the well-being of older people. Constant policy rethinking and adequate strategies should be a top priority for each specific group of EU countries, to further sustain the ageing phenomenon, with positive implications mostly on elderly welfare. (shrink)

This article discusses the polarization of information and knowledge, a phenomenon that is increasingly relevant in different spheres of the contemporary socioeconomic dynamics. According to this notion, founded mainly on the works of Karl Marx, information and knowledge are central elements in the contradictions between capital and labour, as well as in the internal contradictions of the working class. The idea of polarization of information and knowledge offers a critical point of view against the authors who, while trying to grasp (...) the socioeconomic dynamics of our times, are captured by the enchantment of the techno-scientific progress. The article also adopts the Marxian concepts of universal labour and general intellect to argue that information, knowledge, and science are social constructions built collectively and should be treated as common goods. However, currently, the emancipatory perspective of the general intellect envisioned by Marx has been replaced by an opposite tendency: the private appropriation of the general intellect. (shrink)

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

In recent years, David Plunkett and Tim Sundell have published a series of interesting articles that made an original use of resources from linguistics and philosophy of language to reply to arguments for legal antipositivism, the thesis according to which moral or value facts are part of what determines what the law is in a given jurisdiction at a given time. Plunkett and Sundell’s strategy for resisting antipositivism appeals to the notion of a metalinguistic negotiation, which incorporates the notion of (...) a metalinguistic or context disagreement. Sundell 2011 had argued that metalinguistic disagreements are a possible component of disputes about evaluative matters. A further notion deployed is that of conceptual ethics, an essential component of metalinguistic negotiations. This paper approaches a crucial concern about the deployment of both notions against disagreement-based arguments for legal antipositivism. Metalinguistic negotiations displace disagreements from the semantic to the metalinguistic level, but do not eliminate the appeal to moral or other normative reasons from legal disagreements. Conceptual ethics purports to be a normative activity, engaged with prescribing ways one ought to think and talk. On a broad understanding of legal reasoning and practice, metalinguistic negotiations and conceptual ethics are an integral part of it, and hence are consistent with evaluative and normative facts being essential to, and constitutive of, the law. Or so this paper argues. (shrink)

This paper explores how João de Andrade Corvo and José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage, two nineteenth-century Portuguese naturalists, were able to reach prominent political positions in their country by means of their work in, respectively, botany and agriculture, and zoology. The authority they derived from their scientific activities and the knowledge they acquired in the process, favored by their proximity to particular political quarters, elevated them to important governmental offices, in the context of which they implemented policies that reinforced Portugal’s (...) identity as an imperial nation. The colonial policies and agreements signed by Corvo and Bocage aimed at securing Portuguese colonial territories, which, aside from their economic relevance, constituted a symbol of power that reinforced the sovereignty of a small nation in a Europe dominated by the rule of increasingly vaster and stronger states. In spite of their different scientific careers and personal interests, both naturalists played key roles in Portuguese foreign affairs and colonial negotiations of the late nineteenth century, especially during the Scramble for Africa. (shrink)

Historical studies on the relationship between science and diplomacy tend to focus on events since World War II and on initiatives for the maintenance of peace or to achieve cooperation over contentious matters. This article presents the case of José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823–1907), a Portuguese zoologist who had formal diplomatic responsibilities in a context of competition for the colonization of Africa in the nineteenth century. He used his knowledge in African geography to implement colonial and diplomatic strategies that (...) aimed at outcompeting rival powers. The development of a network of actors with scientific, colonial, and diplomatic expertise was crucial for the negotiations that involved the partition of the Congo basin, which resulted in victories for Portugal that surpassed the country's marginal political relevance at the international level and had long‐lasting consequences. (shrink)

This paper discusses the life and scientific work of José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage, a nineteenth-century Portuguese naturalist who carved a new place for zoological research in Portugal and built up a prestigious scientific career by securing appropriate physical and institutional spaces to the discipline. Although he was appointed professor of zoology at the Lisbon Polytechnic School, an institution mainly devoted to the preparatory training of military officers and engineers, he succeeded in creating the conditions that allowed him to develop (...) consistent research in zoology at this institution. Taking advantage of the reconstruction and further improvement of the building of the Lisbon Polytechnic, following a violent fire in 1843, Bocage transferred a natural history museum formerly located at the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon to his institution, where he conquered a more prestigious place for zoology. Although successive governments were unwilling to meet Bocage’s ambitions for the Zoological Section of the newly created National Museum of Lisbon, the collaborators he found in different parts of the Portuguese continental territory and colonial empire supplied him the specimens he needed to make a career as a naturalist. Bocage ultimately became a renowned specialist in Southwestern African fauna thanks to José de Anchieta, his finest collaborator. Travels to foreign museums, and the establishment of links with the international community of zoologists, proved fundamental to build up Bocage’s national and international scientific reputation, as it will be exemplified by the discussion of his discovery of Hyalonema, a specimen with a controversial identity collected off the Portuguese coast. (shrink)

En su obra Historia natural de la religión, David Hume narra la historia de las religiones intentando encontrar sus causas psicológicas y sociales. El presente escrito intenta aplicar esta metodología humeana a su propia teoría política, señalando su significado político y cultural. El resultado es considerar a Hume un pensador realista que combina la historia y la filosofía con el objetivo de moderar las pasiones frente a la superstición y el entusiasmo, de forma que la organización de la sociedad sea (...) de acuerdo al principio de utilidad. En suma, podemos ver en él un profeta de un nuevo mundo feliz: el protocapitalista y burgués. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to determine the applicability of Buddhist practices in today’s workplaces. The findings were supported by interviews with Buddhist masters and Buddhist business practitioners, as well as literature review, through phenomenological analysis. As a means of presenting the main reasons why Buddhist practices should be considered in contemporary workplaces, a SWOT analysis is presented. In this analysis, a number of strengths for using Buddhist practices in workplaces are listed such as pro-scientific, greater personal responsibility, and (...) healthy detachment, while potential weaknesses such as non-harming, equanimity, and no competition are also reviewed. Both the strengths and the weaknesses could be listed in reverse if applied to a different extent. Among the opportunities were issues such as re-educating the world of business, enhancing personal ownership and a healthier society, while the threats comprised issues such as creating different imbalances, disinterest, and stationary development. (shrink)

Hom and May (2015) argue that pejoratives mean negative prescriptive properties that externally depend on social ideologies, and that this entails a form of fictionalism: pejoratives have null extensions. There are relevant uses of fictional terms that are necessary to describe the content of fictions, and to make true statements about the world, that do not convey that speakers are committed to the fiction. This paper shows that the same constructions with pejoratives typically convey that the speaker is committed to (...) racist ideologies, in contrast with fictional discourse that typically does not. The disanalogy undermines the plausibility of fictionalism about pejoratives. Moreover, the exceptions—uncommitted uses in embedded constructions—display features that conflict with Hom and May's explanation of committed uses as conversational implicatures. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo aclarar algunos conceptos sobre desarrollo local a escala humana, a través una revisión bibliográfica. Para este propósito el trabajo está conformado de dos partes: conceptos sobre desarrollo local, y desarrollo local y su semántica. En la primera parte se aborda el desarrollo local en sentido etimológico, semántico, de espacio, de territorio, de comunidad, lugar y paisaje. En la segunda parte se presentan los supuestos y datos históricos, variaciones semánticas, factores endógenos y exógenos y el (...) sentido de sustentabilidad. El estudio sobre escala humana está sometido a las demás partes. (shrink)

El presente artículo es una propuesta de una nueva lectura del capítulo quinto del libro tercero del De anima de Aristóteles. Por lectura se entiende no una interpretación, sino una cuidadosa atención al momento filológico: qué dice literalmente el texto, antes de las interpretaciones filosóficas. Para esto, se atiende minuciosamente a la semántica de los términos, al modo de adjetivación de la lengua griega, y al contexto general, gramatical y semántico de este capítulo quinto. El resultado de este análisis filológico (...) es una es una nueva comprensión del texto, que permite una nueva traducción, que se ofrece al final. (shrink)

Leadership has become a more popular term than management, even though it is understood that both phenomena represent important organizational behaviors. This paper focuses on empathy in leadership, and presents the findings of a study conducted among business students over the course of 3 years. Finding that empathy consistently ranked lowest in the ratings, the researchers set out to discover the driving motives behind this invariable trend, and conducted a second study to obtain opinions about possible underlying factors. The paper (...) presents the findings of both studies, as well as literature reviews on the differences between management and leadership, a historical overview of leadership, a reflection of 21st century leadership, the ongoing debate on the effects of corporate psychopaths on ethical performance, and scholars’ perception on empathy in corporate leadership. The findings indicate the need for a paradigm shift in corporations as well as business schools in regards to leaders’ required skills, and suggest a proactive approach from business faculty to change the current paradigm. (shrink)

La filosofía moderna se ha caracterizado por un interés especial hacia el método científico. Su propuesta se ha constituido como un novum organum contra el vetus organon de Aristóteles. Sin embargo, tras cuatro siglos de esfuerzos, sólo hallamos anarquía o ineficacia en los métodos propuestos; por eso, se ha intentado una rehabilitación del método aristotélico.En el presente texto se investiga, en primer lugar, si los procedimientos cognitivos, propuestos en los Analytica, son el método de la filosofía o si, más bien, (...) describen procedimientos propios de otras ciencias; y entonces el auténtico método de la filosofía —y de la episteme en general— habría que buscarlo en los Tópicos: «El fin de este tratado es encontrar un méthodos, que nos permita argumentar […] sobre cualquier problema propuesto» (Topica, A 1, 100 a 18-21). En segundo lugar, se expone en qué consiste y cómo procede la dialéctica aristotélica como método de la filosofía, «aplicada a las ciencias filosóficas» (Topica, A 2, 101 a 26-27). (shrink)

El presente texto se articula en tres partes. En la primera, se reseña que la metafísica en el siglo XX ha sufrido una crisis que ha llevado a considerarla una disciplina muerta, una quimera. La crítica realizada por la filosofía analítica –concretada aquí en Quine– y por Heidegger ha concluido en que la metafísica es imposible, un absurdo. En la segunda parte, se analiza qué metafísica o, mejor, cuál es la idea de metafísica que Quine y Heidegger tenían y contra (...) la que dirigían sus críticas. Se concluye que la tarea de ambos pensadores es eficaz, puesto que la metafísica objetivista –criticada por Quine– y la ontoteología –criticada por Heidegger– son efectivamente imposibles. Sin embargo, no con eso se termina el juicio sobre la metafísica, puesto que, en la tercera parte de este escrito, se indaga por una nueva forma posible de metafísica, una forma que apenas ha sido explorada. Se muestra que un saber en el que la fusión de gnoseología y ontología sea total es la única posibilidad de construir una filosofía primera. Se trata no de la consideración de la ontología y la gnoseología como dos partes o secciones de la metafísica, sino como dos dimensiones presentes en cada tema, en cada una de las proposiciones de la metafísica. Esta propuesta conecta con la visión que Aristóteles ofrece de su próte filosofía a través de la segunda aporía de Metafísica B, que implica la lectura simultánea del Órganon y la Metafísica , y que quizás nunca ha sido investigada como la autentica concepción de la filosofía primera. (shrink)

Este trabajo es una reconstrucción hipotética de la desaparecida iglesia románica medieval de Samper de Calanda, que se basa en las fuentes documentales conservadas y en los materiales procedentes de su fábrica, reutilizados en la iglesia barroca actual. Destacan sendos dinteles de puerta insertos en las paredes norte y sur, cuyo diseño se debe al arquitecto Giacomo de Vignola, que fechamos en el siglo xvii. Palabras clave: iglesias románicas, iglesias barrocas, Giacomo Vignola, arquitectura renacentista, siglo XVII This work is a (...) hypothetical rebuilding of the missing medieval Romanesque church of Samper de Calanda, wich is based on preserved sources of information and material from its masonry, which have been reused in the existent church, which was built during the Baroque period. We must speak about two separate lintels in north and south walls, designed by architect Giacomo de Vignola, dated in the 17thcentury. Key words: Romanesque churches, Baroque churches, Giacomo Vignola, Renaissance architecture. (shrink)

Este texto realiza uma revisão de literatura em torno dos principais aspectos que envolvem a construção da cena dissensual em Jacques Rancière, evidenciando como a potência fabulativa da racionalidade ficcional produz momentos quaisquer que perturbam os encadeamentos consensuais de ações, gestos, existências e experiências. A partir da produção de intervalos e liminaridades, é possível reconfigurar temporalidades e espacialidades a fim de desestabilizar e desierarquizar as relações de dominação e propor outros imaginários. O momento qualquer suspende a ordem corriqueira do tempo, (...) redispõe o visível, as ações e as formas como as coisas e os seres aparecem, a maneira habitual de ocupar um espaço, a forma de identificar-se como indivíduo e de inscrever-se nas relações. Assim, a cena de dissenso, tomada como singularidade e como operação a partir da qual se pode produzir momentos de rêverie (devaneio fabulador) que fraturam imaginários consensuais, altera o modo como lemos, vemos e ouvimos o outro e o mundo a nosso redor. Argumentamos que a cena realiza uma desmontagem das explicações previsíveis, deslocando consensos e oferecendo um imaginário antihierárquico e no qual coexistem múltiplos tempos, espaços e existências. (shrink)

The present paper considers controversial utterances that were erroneously taken as derogatory. These examples are puzzling because, despite the audiences’ error, many speakers retract and even apologise for what they didn’t say and didn’t do. In recent years, intuitions about retractions have been used to test semantic theories. The cases discussed here test the predictive power of theories of derogatory language and help us better understand what is required to retract a slur. The paper seeks to answer three questions: are (...) the cases considered genuine retractions? If the speakers didn’t derogate by using a slur, how are the cases retractions of derogatory acts? Do these examples support expressive accounts of slurs? I argue that the examples provide evidence for an expressivist account of slurs: a slurring utterance (defeasibly) makes a derogatory speech act where the speaker expresses a commitment to a morally questionable appraisal state, such as disgust or contempt for a target group. A retraction of a derogatory speech act requires undoing the enactment of that commitment, which can be achieved with a genuine apology. This helps explain the conduct of audiences who misunderstand what the speaker says, and the speakers’ reactions. -/- . (shrink)

Libertarians assume that the sense of agency supports their belief in the agent’s ability to have done otherwise; however, they do not present arguments in favor of their assumption beyond introspection. Although agents may hold this belief, the mechanisms that give rise to the sense of agency—the comparator model and the perception of the relation between action and events in the environment—do not provide reasons to support it. Nonetheless, these mechanisms can help explain why agents hold the belief in the (...) first place, and the investigation makes clear that the workings of the mechanisms that give rise to the sense of agency are compatible with determinism. Here, I will defend that a compatibilist explanation can be given as to why the sense of agency may seem to support libertarian beliefs. Hence, the sense of agency does not support the libertarian position in the free will debate; it is merely the pre-reflective experience of action as self-caused, and it is associated with control mechanisms.Keywords: Sense of agency, Regulative control, Incompatibilism, Comparator model, Guidance control. (shrink)

Although they were not written by Kant himself, the transcripts of his lectures constitute an important source for philosophical research today. The contributions presented in this volume discuss the authenticity and significance of these transcripts.Theyshed light ondifferent philosophical questions related to Kant s philosophy and provide new insights that, if looking at Kant s published writings alone, we would not be able to gain.".

Corpus Paraensis Resumo: A condição de possibilidade primária para a existência de uma filosofia é que os seres humanos pensem e, pensando, transmitam suas memórias e reflexões em escritos, ou seja, que exista uma traditio philosophica – uma herança e uma transmissão – desse pensar. O que identifica, grosso modo, a experiência do pensamento é seu registro na palavra-texto (escrita) e não apenas na palavra-oral (discurso). A condição secundária, portanto, é a existência de textos ou escritos filosóficos e, neste caso, (...) a hipótese a se levantar refere-se aos escritos filosóficos coloniais do Pará, que nomeamos Corpus Paraensis. Provar a existência de uma filosofia colonial brasileira depende, por um lado, de reconhecermos o que resta daquela traditio philosophica colonial e, por outro, da análise desses escritos enquanto exercícios de pensar consignados em textos. Por isso, este artigo não só identificará alguns escritos filosóficos coloniais paraenses quanto exemplificaremos essa herança com a edição de dois inéditos: um texto de caso de consciência (ou filosofia moral) e um de filosofia transnatural ou teodiceia (metafísica teológica). Com isso, convencemo-nos de que existiu uma traditio philosophica colonial brasileira? Palavras-chave: Corpus Paraensis; segunda escolástica; filosofia moral; filosofia transnatural. Corpus Paraensis Abstract: The condition of primary possibility for the existence of a philosophy is that human beings think and, thinking, transmit their memories and reflections in writing, that is, that there is a traditio philosophica – an inheritance and a transmission – of this thinking. What roughly identifies the experience of thought is its registration in the text-word (written) and not just in the oral-word (discourse). The secondary condition, therefore, is the existence of philosophical texts or writings and, in this case, the hypothesis to be raised refers to the colonial philosophical writings of Pará, which we named Corpus Paraensis. Proving the existence of a Brazilian colonial philosophy depends, on the one hand, on recognizing what remains of that colonial traditio philosophica and, on the other, on analyzing these writings as exercises in thinking contained in texts. Therefore, this article will not only identify some colonial philosophical writings from Pará, but we will also exemplify this heritage with the edition of two unpublished papers: a text on a case of conscience (or moral philosophy) and one on transnatural philosophy or theodicy (theological metaphysics). With that, are we convinced that there was a Brazilian colonial traditio philosophica? Key words: Corpus Paraensis; second scholasticism; moral philosophy; transnatural philosophy. Corpus Paraensis Resumen: La condición de posibilidad primaria para la existencia de una filosofía es que el ser humano piense y, pensando, transmita sus recuerdos y reflexiones por escrito, es decir, que haya una traditio philosophica – una herencia y una transmisión – de este pensamiento. Lo que identifica a grandes rasgos la experiencia del pensamiento es su registro en la palabra-texto (escrita) y no solo en la palabra-oral (discurso). La condición secundaria, por tanto, es la existencia de textos o escritos filosóficos y, en este caso, la hipótesis a plantear se refiere a los escritos filosóficos coloniales de Pará, a los que denominamos Corpus Paraensis. Probar la existencia de una filosofía colonial brasileña depende, por un lado, de reconocer lo que queda de esa traditio philosophica colonial y, por otro, de analizar estos escritos como ejercicios de pensamiento contenidos en textos. Por tanto, este artículo no solo identificará algunos escritos filosóficos coloniales de Pará, sino que también ejemplificaremos esta herencia con la edición de dos artículos inéditos: un texto sobre un caso de conciencia (o filosofía moral) y otro sobre filosofía o teodicea transnatural (metafísica teológica). Con eso, ¿estamos convencidos de que hubo una tradicio philosophica colonial brasileña? Palavras clave: Corpus Paraensis; segunda escolasticismo; filosofía moral; filosofía transnatural. Data de registro: 16/09/2021 Data de aceite: 01/12/2021. (shrink)

Raramente um texto filosófico desperta uma polêmica como a que envolveu as Regras para o parque humano, do filósofo alemão Peter Sloterdijk. Neste artigo, examino esse texto, buscando identificar as razões para sua conturbada recepção, e proponho que, mais do que às conseqüências éticas da aplicação da genética à seleção e determinação das características da espécie, a polêmica se relaciona a um movimento mais profundo de distensão das férreas diretrizes político-intelectuais que governam, desde o pós-guerra, a interpretação da história alemã (...) recente.Seldom does a philosophical text raise such a controversy as the book Regeln für den Menschenpark by the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk. This paper examines Sloterdijk's book and tries to identify the reasons for the explosive reaction it produced. I suggest that the controversy owes more to an intellectual weakening of the stringent guidelines that have dictated the interpretation of postwar German history than to fears of the ethical consequences of the application of genetics to select and determine the characteristics of the human species. (shrink)

Philosophical issues such as free will and the role of consciousness in human action have become a topic of interest to neuroscience. While this contribution is of great value to extend our knowledge on these issues, the lack of clarity about the concepts being investigated may interfere with the interpretation of the relevant results. An interesting experiment (Bode et al., 2011) that investigates whether decisions are generated consciously or unconsciously suggests a conclusion about whether human beings decide freely. These issues (...) are considered relevant philosophical issues, but the experiment lacks conceptual precision, and this weighs on the interpretations of data and results. I argue that further conceptual analysis of decisions shows that the experiment investigates one kind of decision, while it unwarrantedly draws conclusions about human decisions in general. A better understanding of what is considered to be a decision helps clarify to which extent the results show that decisions are generated unconsciously. This shows that conceptual precision is crucial for research on the area as well as methodological rigor. (shrink)

This paper addresses recent calls to study the role of the state in private regulation. Integrating current scholarship on the state as a catalyst of private regulatory regimes with prior literature on regulatory failure and self-regulation, it identifies and problematizes unsettled assumptions used as a starting point by this growing body of research. The case study traces the evolution of public debates and the interaction of different regulatory initiatives dealing with corporate social responsibility issues in Canada’s mining industry. Findings reveal (...) the conditions under which the state is more likely to encourage firm-level, fragmented initiatives than facilitate and promote industry-wide regulatory strengthening and consolidation. I discuss the need for greater analytical precision regarding the variation in regulatory policy preferences across time and branches of government and the interaction between public and private regulatory initiatives. The conclusion outlines suggested areas for future research as well as the likely outcome of Canada’s current CSR policy framework. (shrink)