The essay presents a concise historical overview of the utopian tradition, focused on its relation with political realism. This has always been a complex and shifting relation, both for the conceptual richness and for the variety of literary works that it has produced, especially as far as the long history of the utopian genre – from classical antiquity to the XXth century – is considered. Since the publication of More’s work, «utopia» serves several purposes: in addition to the original task (...) of designing the optimal form of state, it conveys eschatological hope, disseminates the products of modern scientific and philosophical investigation, plans reformist and revolutionary projects, drafts practical experiments of building an ideal community. (shrink)

When phylogenetic trees constructed from morphological and molecular evidence disagree (i.e. are incongruent) it has been suggested that the differences are spurious or that the molecular results should be preferred a priori. Comparing trees can increase confidence (congruence), or demonstrate that at least one tree is incorrect (incongruence). Statistical analyses of 181 molecular and 49 morphological trees shows that incongruence is greater between than within the morphological and molecular partitions, and this difference is significant for the molecular partition. Because the (...) level of incongruence between a pair of trees gives a minimum bound on how much error is present in the two trees, our results indicate that the level of error may be underestimated by congruence within partitions. Thus comparisons between morphological and molecular trees are particularly useful for detecting this incongruence (spurious or otherwise). Molecular trees have higher average congruence than morphological trees, but the difference is not significant, and both within- and between-partition incongruence is much lower than expected by chance alone. Our results suggest that both molecular and morphological trees are, in general, useful approximations of a common underlying phylogeny and thus, when molecules and morphology clash, molecular phylogenies should not be considered more reliable a priori. (shrink)

In the present article is given an important idea prescribed by Marcuse in the second part of his Eros and Civilization. A Philosophical inquiry into Freud. - the non-repressive transformation of the instincts in a transformed society. The utopia developed in this book is based in the reinterpretation of some of his main conceptions of the freudian theory and characterize the singularity of his ideas and of his general thinking.Neste artigo apresentaremos uma importante idéia formulada por Marcuse na segunda parte (...) do livro Eros e Civilização: uma interpretação filosófica do pensamento de Freud - a hipótese da transformação não repressiva das pulsões em uma sociedade transformada. Marcuse preocupa-se com a "transformação subjetiva" necessária à passagem do capitalismo para o "comunismo", rompendo assim com um determinado "marxismo ortodoxo". A "utopia" desenvolvida neste livro baseia-se na reinterpretação de algumas das principais concepções da teoria freudiana e caracteriza a originalidade de seu pensamento. (shrink)

Par le biais d'un glossaire "de nos fiertés et de nos insatisfactions", Edgard Pisani fait l'inventaire des causes que sa génération a défendues, des combats qu'elle a menés, mais aussi des innombrables questions laissées sans réponse par imprévoyance, insuffisance, repli sur soi, hésitation. A un impossible récit chronologique, Edgard Pisani a préféré l'énumération alphabétique "des idées que nous avons taquinées". Trois générations, à qui tout semblait possible et dont les survivants d'aujourd'hui craignent les lendemains, se succèdent dans cet (...) ouvrage. Une sorte de testament politique qui redonne confiance. (shrink)