The following paper puts the history of race and colonialism in conversation with the history of the concept of energy. The objective is to understand what a critical decolonial perspective can teach us about the central role that energy plays in western culture, materially and epistemologically. I am interested in how this approach to political, epistemological, and ontological questions demands that we reconceptualize energy to account for the historical particularity of the concept and the phenomena of history and intersubjectivity, which (...) are eschewed in a purely materialistic and quantitative conception of energy. We will see how energy has been complicit in the racialization of black and indigenous bodies, and how the privileged place that the concept of energy has occupied in the canon of western physics has served to obscure the theological, metaphysical, and cultural assumptions that constitute it. (shrink)

Special issue: "Henri Bergson. Creative Evolution and Philosophy of Life." -/- I read the genealogy of the concept of energy through Bergson's Creative Evolution to argue that, historically, energy and its proto-concepts are grounded in spatialized notions of time. Bergson's work not only demands that we rethink energy and its relation to time, it also allows us to see that the concept of energy as we know it depicts time and materiality as a numerical multiplicity, which effaces the differences in (...) kind which are characteristic of energy transformations and real duration. To make this case, I first provide an analysis of Bergson’s concept of the cinematographical mechanism of thought, which splits duration into a composition of distinct states strung together by the idea of an impersonal becoming. Bergson claimed that this is the epistemological model for both ancient philosophy and modern science, meaning that it is also the epistemological ground within which energy concepts in western philosophy and science have been theorized. I then show how Bergson offers a way to overcome this model of theorizing through his method of intuition, and how these conclusions might be extended to future energy concepts. Thus, I argue that 1) Bergson’s work on duration allow us to interpret the genealogy of energy as the history of attempts to provide an account of change in terms of spatialized notions of time; 2) that his work offers a way of incorporating historicity into our understanding of energy; and 3) that thinking energy in the context of duration offers the possibility of conceptualizing energy as change. (shrink)

This paper examines and evaluates the models and the most important methods for solving clinical cases; namely, 1) principlism, 2) deontologism, 3) consequentialism, 4) casuistry, 5) virtue ethics and 6) ethics centered on the person. The strengths and weaknesses of each are weighed and an instrument is proposed to facilitate this type of analysis. As a group, the preference is for a methodology that articulates three models: the virtue approach, the person-centered approach, and these two in harmony with an ethics (...) centered on principles. The reasons for this comprehensive option are based primarily on recognition of the primacy of the dignity of the human person and on acknowledgement that complex clinical situations require a comprehensive view of both the person and clinical practice. The latter requires virtues, ethical principles and recognition of the human person as being endowed with inherent dignity and, in turn, as the foundation of ethics and clinical practice. DOI: 10.5294/pebi.2016.20.1.2. (shrink)

Análisis y revisión historiográfica actualizada de los distintos periodos constructivos de la Giralda: islámico, medieval, renacentista, barroco y de los siglos XIX y XX. En todos ellos se insiste en las personalidades y mentalidades que influyeron en su fisonomía. Se concluye con una revisión de las diferentes artes plásticas: Arquitectura, Escultura, Pintura, Mobiliario, Orfebrería. Bordados, Estampación, Arte Popular, y recreaciones e interpretaciones de la torre en las que se ejemplifican los distintos tipos y usos del monumento sevillano.

MORCILLO, MARTA GARCÍA. LAS VENTAS POR SUBASTA EN EL MUNDO ROMANO: LA ESFERA PRIVADA. Barcelona, Universidad de Barcelona, 2005, 372 pp.

Michel Fattal, da Sociedade Platônica Internacional, é professor na Universidade de Grenoble, França, autor de uma dezena de livros sobre o tema do logos, tanto na Filosofia grega, como na sua recepção medieval. Neste novo livro, propõe-se a refletir sobre as diferentes formas de racionalidade, entre a Antiguidade e a Idade Média, com estudos sobre Luciano de Samósata, Parmênides, Platão, Plotino e Santo Anselmo.

O renomado poeta, escritor, teatrólogo e estudioso dos autores clássicos, Angelo Tonelli apresenta uma coletânea, no original, traduzida e comentada, dos fragmentos de Heráclito, o pensador de Éfeso (ca. 540-475 a.C.). A grande novidade da obra de Tonelli consiste na recuperação, em termos hermenêuticos, do contexto oriental do pensamento de Heráclito. Já na introdução, Tonelli retoma as dicotomias Oriente/Ocidente, mistérios órficos-dionisíacos/espírito apolíneo, contemplação/ação, para mostrar como o pensador de Éfeso procurou superar tais oposições. Começa seu estudo com as tabuinhas encontradas (...) em Ólbia, cuja datação é incerta, mas que propõe serem anteriores a Heráclito e que, portanto, sugerem uma origem nos mistérios para a sabedoria de Heráclito. (shrink)

Education plays a very special role in Dewey’s System of thought. And according to Dewey, science, being knowledge at its best, has an unsurpassable educational value which every genuine democracy must take seriously. Here I try to show how and why Dewey developed this point of view. I start by considering how, in Dewey’s System, education is seen as a form of experience deeply significant to philosophy. Then I try to stress the most inte resting points concerning Dewey’s view of (...) education as a social process. This leds me to explain why Dewey thought that the best kind of education should occur in a democratic environment and what does he mean by that. At this point it becomes possible to effectively understand where Dewey saw the educational value of scientific knowledge and how, according to him, should that value be promoted. Since the superiority of scientific knowledge lies in its method, Dewey argued, science becomes deprived of all its educational value whenever is taught, as ususal, as a mere ready-made subject-matter. (shrink)

Relying mostly on his Agony Argument, Derek Parfit argued against all the theories that take reasons for acting as based on the agent’s attitudes. I use R. M. Hare’s so-called “Conditional Reflection Principle” –here relabeled as “Mirror Principle” – to challenge Parfit’s contention that subjectivists about reasons cannot consistently endorse the view that “we all have a reason to want to avoid, and to try to avoid, all future agony.” Several objections to the Mirror Principle are examined and shown to (...) result from incorrect interpretations of its content. (shrink)

I argue that David Boonin has failed in his attempt to undermine Donald Marquis's future-like-ours argument against abortion. I show that the ethical principle advanced by Boonin in his critique to that argument is unable, contrary to what he claims, to account for the wrongness of infanticide. Then I argue that Boonin's critique misrepresents Marquis's argument. Although there is a way to restate his critique in order to avoid the misrepresentation, the success of such restatement is precluded by the wrongness (...) of infanticide. (shrink)

This paper aims at discussing some contributions, limitations and opportunities that efficiency and equity studies could make to form a better understanding of ethical issues involved in health technology assessment (HTA). Prenatal detection of Down syndrome is used as a case study for further discussions regarding efficiency and equity, as well as other ethical principles including beneficence, non-maleficence and autonomy. The development and use of adequate methods and the need for context appraisal are two imperative issues in this field of (...) knowledge. The analysis of ethical implications in HTA should account for both. Economic evaluation methodologies have great potential in the assessment of some key ethical principles such as efficiency and equity but are of limited use concerning other fundamental principles. Social and individual values play a prominent role in this respect. (shrink)