We consider a situation where an individual is facing an uncertain situation, but may costly alter his knowledge of the uncertainties. We study in this context how risk aversion may modify the individual search behavior. We consider a one-armed bandit problem (where one arm is safe and the other is risky) and study how the agent risk aversion can change the sequence of arms selected. The main result is that when the utility function is more concave, the agent has more (...) chances to select the safe arm. We also discuss how search is affected by risk aversion. (shrink)

This article reports results of an experiment designed to analyze the link between risky decisions made by couples and risky decisions made separately by each spouse. We estimate both the spouses and the couples’ degrees of risk aversion, we assess how the risk preferences of the two spouses aggregate when they make risky decisions, and we shed light on the dynamics of the decision process that takes place when couples make risky decisions. We find that, far from being fixed, the (...) balance of power within the household is malleable. In most couples, men have, initially, more decision-making power than women but women who ultimately implement the joint decisions gain more and more power over the course of decision making. (shrink)

Este artículo es un estudio crítico de dos operaciones fundamentales del Museo de Arte actual: su facultad de taxonomización de lo real y su complicidad con la categoría de Patrimonio. En la formulación contemporánea del Museo de Arte, este trabajo discute los alcances y efectos de la taxonomía como intento de producción de un régimen unitario y continuo de legibilidad e instalación de los objetos, así como la investidura de los objetos como Patrimonio, y en virtud de su posibilidad de (...) experiencia, al modo de “documento-archivo” o “simulacro”. (shrink)

The paper provides a reconstruction of the notion of material Apriori while exhibiting the anti-Kantian inspiration and factual grounding thereof. The attempt is made to show that a non-formal Apriori obtains because the sensuous has a normative character; further, that the difference between material and formal eidetic laws is rooted in the difference between sensuous contents, given in experience, and intellectual contents, originating in activities of judgement. The material Apriori is not independent of all experience, since it is grounded on (...) sensuous eidetic contents and thus depends on the latter’s givenness and characteristics. It is thanks precisely to this ,contingency‘ that it has an ontological significance. (shrink)

I deal with the relation between phenomenology and realism while examining Ingarden’s critique towards Husserl. I exhibit the empiricist nucleus of Husserl’s phenomenology, according to which the real is what can be sensuously experienced. On this basis, I argue that Husserl’s phenomenology is not idealistic, in opposition to the realistic phenomenology, according to which reality consists in entities which cannot be sensuously experienced and are thus ideal. Finally I attempt to show that the idealistic elements of Husserl’s thinking do not (...) originate from the transcendental turn, but from a remainder of psychologism that contradicts his empiricism. (shrink)

In view of the incompatibility between scientific and manifest image one can either consider the scientific world as true and the sensuous world as merely subjective or consider the latter as true and the former as a subjective construction. Sellars holds the first position, namely scientific realism. By relying on Husserl, who holds the second position, I try to show that the first position has absurd consequences and is idealistic. For the measure of all things is not science, but perception.

The paper provides a reconstruction of the notion of genetic phenomenology while trying to demonstrate that its elaboration leads Husserl to dismiss de facto the main motivation of his idealism—namely the idea that at the basis of constitution is an immanent and formless stuff shaped or animated by subjective acts. Indeed genetic analysis shows that the original stuff of constitution consists of sensuous contents structured according to a material lawfulness grounded on their peculiarity. By affecting the subject, such contents motivate (...) the performing of intentional acts and are the genuine motor of constitution. The genetic ground of apperceptions is thus material content. (shrink)

Der Aufsatz will nachweisen, dass Husserls Denken in der Tat eine Erledigung des Cartesianismus darstellt. Es wird gezeigt, dass Husserls Denken eine ganz andere Auffassung der Wahrnehmung und der Evidenz als Descartes zugrunde liegt. Denn – im Vorgriff auf eine Einsicht, die gegenwärtig in der analytischen Philosophie vertreten wird – meint Husserl, eine Wahrnehmung oder Evidenz könne nur aufgrund anderer Wahrnehmungen oder Evidenzen bezweifelt werden. Deshalb setzt jede solche Bezweifelung das Vertrauen in die Wahrnehmung oder Evidenz voraus und kann nicht (...) die Wahrnehmung oder Evidenz als solche betreffen, sondern lediglich ihre einzelnen Fälle. Demzufolge ist die phänomenologische Reduktion nicht eine Art methodischer Zweifel, und das Husserlsche cogito hat nicht dieselbe Bedeutung wie das Cartesianische cogito. All das beruht auf einer Auffassung der Wirklichkeit, deren Kern in der Identifikation von Wirklichkeit und Erfahrbarkeit liegt, die aber keine Reduktion der Dinge auf das Bewusstsein impliziert. (shrink)

I develop a phenomenological critique to Husserl’s metaphysics, by showing that – contrary to what the majority of critical literature claims – metaphysical questions are alien to phenomenology. Husserl engages with the discussion of these topics only because of ideological-existential motives, and, when he deals with that problems, he does not use the phenomenological method, but the regressive and constructive procedure, which he himself elsewhere criticizes. Konsequent zu sein, ist die größte Obliegenheit eines Philosophen, und wird doch am seltensten angetroffen. (...) Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. Die Vernunft ist immer beim Menschen die gehorsamste Dienerin des Herzens; was er wünscht, das stellt er sich als seiend vor und demonstriert er, wenn er einmal zu räsonieren anfängt, a priori aus der Vernunft als notwendig. Feuerbach, Die Unsterblichkeitsfrage vom Standpunkt der Anthropologie. It were better […] never to look beyond the present material world. By supposing it to contain the principle of its order within itself, we really assert it to be God; and the sooner we arrive at that Divine Being, so much the better. Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. (shrink)

This paper tries to show that Husserl’s phenomenology can be considered as a form of radical empiricism in the sense of James, since it holds—like traditionalempiricism—that sensuous experience is the foundation and the source of justifi cation of knowledge, but—in contrast with traditional empiricism—it holds that there are relations, which are given in the sensuous experience just as well contents. Reality is sensuous and the structure of reality is equally sensuous. By an analysis of the concepts of the sensuous relation, (...) of the material a priori, and of association, it is showed that Husserl—in contrast with transcendentalism—confers a normative role to the peculiarity of sensuous contents, which determines their objective connections and also the structure of the world before the intellectual activities of the subject. At the same time, it is pointed out that Husserl has never entirely gotten over the Cartesian psychologism of Brentano and of traditional empiricism, that leads him to consider only the immanent as properly present. Finally, the paper discusses Husserl’s concept of the life-world, which originates from Avenarius’ idea of the natural concept of the world, and his position regarding the relation between experience and science. (shrink)

ARENDT REDEFINE O SENTIDO DA ÉTICA E DA POLÍTICA NUMA CHAVE PÓS-METAFÍSICA, ROMPENDO AS AMARRAS TELEOLÓGICAS E PRESCRITIVAS QUE NORTEARAM O PENSAMENTO FILOSÓFICO SOBRE A AÇÃO POLÍTICA E O COMPORTAMENTO ÉTICO. NESTE PROJETO, ARENDT ENFATIZA O MODO DE SER DA EXEMPLARIDADE SUBVERSIVA COMO CAPACIDADE DE APARECER PUBLICAMENTE E RESISTIR À VIOLÊNCIA, MESMO QUE TAL APARIÇÃO SEJA SILENCIOSA E PASSIVA. PARA DEMONSTRAR O POTENCIAL ÉTICO-POLÍTICO PÓS-METAFÍSICO DA EXEMPLARIDADE SUBVERSIVA, RECORREMOS À ANÁLISE DE TEXTOS NOS QUAIS SE ESBOÇA O PROJETO DE UMA (...) ÉTICA NEGATIVA E REFLEXIONANTE, QUE NÃO DETERMINA COMO AGIR, MAS O QUE NÃO FAZER OU QUANDO INTERROMPER O CURSO DA AÇÃO. (shrink)

This paper analyses the question of animals in the framework of the phenomenological problem of the common world. First, it underlines the contrast between Husserl’s idea of animals as subjects acting in accordance with a motivation, and the views of Descartes, Heidegger and Sellars, who consider animal behaviour as mechanical or instinctive. After an account of the phenomenological approach to the question of the common world and of Husserl’s position concerning animals, it is showed that the results of scientific research (...) on animal behaviour mainly confirm that position. (shrink)

In this article a comparison is made between the way the conditions of possibility of experience are conceived by Husserl and by Kantian and post-Kantian idealism. I show that — contrary to the latter — Husserl claims that the conditions of possibility of experience lie in the factually given sensuous contents, because sensuous syntheses, which are at the basis of the objectual constitution, depend just on the peculiarity and the course of sensuous contents. Because of a conception of the relation (...) between experience and thought that is antithetical to the idealistic one, Husserl holds that only experienceable forms can produce connections, which are not merely thought, but given in experience. What determines the structure of the world is therefore not the thinking or the understanding, but the sensuous given, which is independent from the subjective thought-activity and factual or contingent, since it cannot be traced back to a priori principles. The world-constitution is consequently an irrational fact, namely something that can be described, but not rationally explained. (shrink)

The paper analyses Husserl’s critique of Kant’s regressive transcendental method while trying to show that at the basis of it is an opposite conception of the conditions of possibility of experience: whereas for Kant experience is structured by the subject through intellectual forms, for Husserl it has a structure before the intervention of the subject. Therefore–contrary to Iso Kern’s opinion–the contrast between Kant and Husserl cannot be traced back to mere methodical divergences.

Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar a teoria dialética de Karl Marx, evidenciando suas contribuições para a filosofia. Por meio de uma revisão bibliográfica, que visa descrever as principais teorias sobre o assunto, será apresentado ao leitor que o ponto de partida para o pensamento de Marx é uma crítica a toda filosofia hegeliana, sendo a partir do confronto de ideias com o Filosofo Hegel e da esquerda hegeliana, que Marx vai construir as bases para o seu pensamento filosófico. Sua (...) teoria que posteriormente seria chamada de materialismo histórico dialético pelos seus interpretes, seria uma síntese da dialética hegeliana e do materialismo de Feuerbach, sendo concebida como um conjunto de leis que explicam a evolução da natureza como uma relação determinada por elementos da economia, sociedade e história. Essa idéia utópica compartilhada por Marx, Engels e seus sucessores foi refutada por desenvolvimentos subsequentes da filosofia. De fato, a filosofia, por sua própria natureza, é pluralista e interminável. (shrink)