This paper deals with Fichte’s The Characteristics of the Present Age, and in particular with his discussion of the “empty form of knowledge” he claims stands at the centre of the third – i.e. the present – age. Fichte speaks of a fundamental principle that forms the ‘common denominator’ between the third and fourth main epochs. This fundamental principle – the “maxim of comprehensibility” – makes knowledge and comprehension the measure of all that “counts as being valid and as really (...) existing”. But the question arises: How can one and the same principle act as the “unifying concept” for two different “main epochs of human life”? Does this not go directly against Fichte’s claim that two main epochs differ from each other in every respect, precisely because they arise from two entirely different “unifying principles”, and because everything in them must reflect the difference between their “unifying principles”? Fichte’s answer to this question is as follows: a) the fundamental maxim in question allows for two diametrically opposed interpretations, so that each of them provides the principle or the “unifying concept” from which the third and fourth main epochs arise, and b) the third main epoch only gives rise to the empty form of science, as opposed to “truly real science”: it stands for a careless and easy-going, shallow, conventional, trivializing and incorrect conception of the “fundamental maxim of comprehensibility” – so that it misses what is essential, does not do justice to the fundamental maxim, overlooks its implications, and indeed goes against its innermost meaning. Special attention is paid to the question of whether and how some major features of Fichte’s “empty form of knowledge” result from a misguided and superficial understanding of Kant’s “maxims of the self-preservation of reason” and can be reconstructed from this vantage point. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the basic features of Fichte’s doctrine of perception as laid down in his Thatsachen des Bewußtseyns aus dem ws 1811/12. Special attention is given to Fichte’s analysis of external perception and of the role played by extension as an essential component of it. In Fichte’s view, extension is characterized by, among other things, the fact that it presupposes some kind of freedom. This is closely related to Fichte’s view that freedom is not something whose representation is (...) just added to other representations. According to him, it is the reverse: freedom is already entailed in many other representations – it is a determining, if tacit factor that decisively shapes many other representations viz. their content.Dieser Beitrag befasst sich mit wesentlichen Aspekten der Wahrnehmungslehre Fichtes, wie sie in seinen Thatsachen des Bewußtseyns aus dem WS 1811/12 dargelegt wird. Das Hauptaugenmerk liegt auf Fichtes Erörterung der äußeren Wahrnehmung und insbesondere auf seiner Herausarbeitung der Ausdehnung als eines wesentlichen Bestandteils der äußeren Wahrnehmung. Fichte zufolge zeichnet sich die Ausdehnung unter anderem dadurch aus, dass sie eine Art Freiheit voraussetzt. Dies hängt mit seiner Grundthese zusammen, dass die Freiheit nicht etwas ist, dessen Vorstellung zu dem ‚Bestand‘ unserer anderen Vorstellungen hinzukommt, sondern vielmehr einen bedingenden Faktor anderer Vorstellungen bildet, welcher ihre Beschaffenheit und ihren ‚Inhalt‘ entscheidend mitprägt. (shrink)

Este estudo incide sobre o primeiro estásimo da Antígona de Sófocles e procura analisar o seu significado. A questão a que tenta responder é a seguinte: que imagem do ser humano se encontra expressa nesta ode coral? Tal questão encerra várias outras: 1) Em, que sentido se diz que o homem é algo δεινόν – e mesmo até o mais δεινόν de tudo? 2) Qual a relação entre esta característica e o ser auto-inventado ou auto-inventor de que falam as três (...) primeiras estâncias deste estásimo? 3) Que significa exactamente παντοπόρος? É este conceito decisivo para se entender o ser humano? 4) É o homem efectivamente παντοπόρος? 5) Por que razão os anciãos de Tebas sustentam que, ainda que o epíteto “assente como uma luva”, παντοπόρος está longe de ser a última palavra sobre o ser humano? (shrink)

Images are usually understood as something perceived: as something presented to us and different from us. But since Antiquity the concept has also been given a different meaning: it has been used to describe our own being, and indeed so much so that it also stands for our essential nature: we are ourselves an image ; and being an image is what is what really defines us. The experience of being oneself an image – or, as one might also say, (...) this basic understanding of oneself as being just an image – plays an important role inter alia in Pre-Platonic thought, in the corpus platonicum, in the Christian idea of the imago Dei and, not least, in Fichte’s late philosophy.This paper focuses on two ancient Greek forerunners of some aspects of Fichte’s understanding of image, namely pre-platonic and platonic views on our own being-just-an-image. (shrink)

La Lectura Ordinaria super sacram scripturam attribuée à Henri de Gand fut conservée dans un seul manuscrit qui date de la fin du 13e ou du début du 14e siècle . Sa description et son histoire ont été faites par le dr. Raymond Macken en 1972, qui est aussi l'éditeur de l'ouvrage. L'édition critique du texte nous a permis de constater l'existence de certaines ressemblances entre son contenu et les autres œuvres d'Henri de Gand, sûrement authentiques. Déjà avant l’édition de (...) R. Macken, et etant donnée l'importance considérable de Platon et d'Avicenne dans les pages de la Lectura, Beryl Smalley parlait de l'attribution de l'ouvrage à Henri «as a working hypothesis». Cependant, nous devons d'abord à R. Macken, et après à Gordon A. Wilson, les examens les plus complets du problème de l'attribution résultant de la comparaison du texte avec les Quodlibeta et la Summa. (shrink)

O estudo faz o ponto relativamente à existência de uma eventual “escola de Coimbra” (séculos XVI-XVIII), de âmbito filosófico, para o que começa por incidir nas produções teóricas – a história – que podem contribuir para o esclarecimento da questão, enumera algumas das linhas dessas produções e da eventual escola – tendências – e enuncia alguns problemas que criam dificuldades à identidade discutida.

Depois de J. Gómez Caffarena, de C.Bérubé e de R. Macken, sobretudo, terem insistidonuma leitura augustinista da antropologiahenriquina, a nossa contribuição pretende antes retirar asconsequências da correcção do augustinismoque, por meio do avicenismo, Henrique de Gandlevou a cabo. Propomos uma leitura da natureza na sua especificidade metafísica, deanterioridade em relação ao universal e ao singular,tendo como efeito uma antropoteologia que éuma verdadeira mudança de rumo do augustinismocomo uma quota-parte para a Modernidade.Ilustraremos a nossa tese insistindo: nasituação histórica de Henrique, no (...) seu programametafísico-crítico, na doutrina da relação e na daindividuação. Os textos abordados serão daSumma, dos Quodlibet e da Lectura ordinaria.Finalmente, apontaremos para um horizontecontemporâneo em que a antropologia deve serrefeita na relação com a natureza. Por outraspalavras: a natureza do homem não pode passarsem aquilo que faz o homem um ser de natureza.Foi precisamente isto que Henrique de Gandesqueceu devido ao seu avicenismo, mas nãomenos ao seu augustinismo de que é fundamentalnele. (shrink)

Se expone una visión panorámica de algunos de los principales filósofos portugueses (o que trabajaron en el reino de Portugal) durante la Edad Media. Se ofrece también una hipótesis de interpretación de las líneas más fundamentales de la contribución filosófico-teológica lusitana medieval.

Sem querer ser uma aproximação histórica e cultural ao tema indicado no título, este artigo visa discutir o seu quadro metafísico a fim de, em diálogo com uma interpretação de Miguel B. Pereira, fazer repercutir tal quadro mais na linhagem futura da análise leibniziana e menos na do apriori kantiano.

Benet Perera was not the first Jesuit to comment Aristotle’s De Anima. In Portugal there was already the tradition of doing it, and the so-called Coimbra Course may be seen as the culmination of such a tradition. Moreover, its approach to philosophy is also different from Perera’s. This paper first of all focuses on the place of scientia de anima, the importance physics has in such a science, and the division of metaphysics or its unity. Secondly, it is stated that (...) if Perera could have taken sides with a theological anthropology, Góis took a different approach. Lastly, when discussing the immortality of the soul Perera and Álvares differ over the weight of human capacities in duly evidencing immortality. (shrink)

The so-called New Music in Europe after the Second World War was based on the idea of progress, similar to technological progress and related to it, and aimed at a complete rationalization of composing. The ideal of music as autopoiesis, which appeared in the 1950s, became inherent to this development. It supposed a kind of communication on music as a reified object, which opposed music making and listening as communication between partners. Separated from the life-world and conceived as a self-referential (...) system, New Music should represent not only the logical achievement of the historical development of European music, but also the superiority of Western musical thought in the more developed countries over the music cultures of the world. Therefore, the integral serialism, which should rule the musical composition, became a form of symbolic power within the musical field, in correspondence with similar forms of domination within the economic, political and technological fields. However, some European composers rejected this trend and tried to find an alternative to aestheticism by means of political engagement. For instance, the Italian composer Luigi Nono explores the dialectic between subject and object, technological development and critique of technology, avant-garde and critique of progress, globalization and anti-imperialistic resistance. In his strategy, in which Gramsci's and Walter Benjamin's thought played an important role, aesthetics became inseparable from politics. His search for identity as a composer transforms the tragedy of listening into an allegory of human condition. (shrink)

Leitura da 1ª questão do capítulo 1 do Comentário ao ‘De Coelo’ dos Jesuítas de Coimbra , “Se o Universo é ou não perfeito”. Pleiteiase por um interpretação que deixe falar o texto nos nossos dias, a saber, enquanto interrogação sobre o lugar que o cosmo ocupa no coração do Homem.Não se podendo pensar o Homem independentemente do “magnus mundus”,o cosmo tem no Homem a condição da sua legalidade.The article deals with question 1st of the Coimbra Jesuit Commentary on the (...) Aristotelian ‘De Coelo’ , “Whether the Universeis perfect”. The Author aims at reading anew the Portuguese question, pointingto the place the Universe has in man’s heart by underlining that the cosmosmust have in man its conditions of legality. (shrink)

Sob o tema da filosofia do Espírito em Mestre Eckhart, o presente artigo revitaliza alguns escritos anteriores do autor sobre aquele filósofo, agora atendendo sobretudo ao Sermão do Homem Nobre e no contexto epocal de um intelectualismo ético enquanto pretexto de discussão de conflitos epistémicos. Alguns textos inseríveis nessa corrente são apresentados e confrontados, de seguida, com a expressão tomista com que dialogaram, mas da qual se distinguiram. Sob a dominante matricial da "vida segundo o espírito", de Pseudo-Dionísio a Eckhart, (...) convidar-se-á à superação de uma metafísica do espírito por uma filosofia da liberdade. Em termos disciplinares tradicionais, embora na esteira pensante de Eckhart, isto equivale, contra Feuerbach, justamente, a dizer que o verdadeiro sentido da antropologia é a teologia. /// 'Living in accordance with the spirit' is the theoretical underlying motive of this paper. It resumes previous articles of the author on Eckhart, now stressing the theme of the Noble Man focused on the following historical horizon: the ethical intellectualism of Siger, Boethius and Peter of Auvergne is confronted with the anthropology of beatitude of Thomas Aquinas and mainly with the anthropology of the Portuguese Jesuits of the 16th Century, being the reason for this Duns Scotus' criticism of the former while the latter tried to respond to that criticism. The above-mentioned historical and hermeneutical horizon invites to surpass a permanent metaphysics of the spirit by a philosophy of freedom, thus allowing one to defend that the true meaning of anthropology lies in theology. (shrink)

In this book, authors from a wide interdisciplinary spectrum discuss the issue of care. The book covers both philosophical and therapeutic studies and contains a three-pronged approach to discussing the concepts of care: vulnerability, otherness, and therapy. Above all, it is a matter of combining, in a plural form, a path with multiple theoretical and conceptual bifurcations, but which always point to an observation of society from the perspective of human vulnerability.

Bergson concebeu sua teoria do conhecimento fundamentada numa teoria da vida: com base nos dados da experiência, defende que a vida desenvolve potenciais de consciência, liberdade, inteligência e intuição que culminam no ser humano. Neste artigo, após contextualizarmos sua vida e obra, buscamos mostrar como, a partir de sua teoria do conhecimento, delineia-se uma forma inovadora de se compreender a subjetividade e a educação.

Como é que três eminentes Jesuítas comentadores de Aristóteles poderiam ler o método concebido por Inácio de Loyola nos Exercícios Espirituais, denominado “aplicação dos sentidos” externos? A resposta a esta hipotética questão, absolutamente inédita, será dada em três passos. Começando com a doutrina dos sentidos e tocando na passagem da ontologia para a semiótica, atender-‑se-‑á ao aparecimento do mundo – mediante uma segunda passagem, da psicologia para a cosmologia – em que o lugar do ser humano, entendido no espaço de (...) uma antropologia criatural, nos conduz a uma nova perceção das relações entre imaginação e espiritualidade mundana, na aceção de “incarnada”. (shrink)