A arquitetura fenomenológica não possui talvez a solidez e a homogeneidade de uma escola ou de um movimento em sentido estrito, mas representa, no entanto, um vetor notável do pensamento arquitetônico contemporâneo. Juntamente com as obras de Heidegger, as obras de Merleau-Ponty são utilizadas com frequência por aqueles que se reconhecem como representantes de uma arquitetura de inspiração fenomenológica. Neste artigo será analisado o papel que o pensamento de Merleau-Ponty desenrola nas obras e no pensamento de Juhani Pallasmaa e Steven (...) Holl, autores que se destacam pela força de seus trabalhos e pela determinação de suas posições teóricas. Particular atenção se prestará à dupla oposição que caracteriza a arquitetura fenomenológica, que se distancia com igual firmeza tanto do modernismo como do pós-modernismo. Estes autores, na reivindicação da primazia do corpo vivido e da experiência perceptiva, consideram ter encontrado um “antídoto” à ossificação produzida pela racionalidade moderna, com seus espaços funcionais e inabitáveis, como também à celebração da autorreferencialidade de um certo pós-modernismo, com seus edifícios destinados essencialmente a serem contemplados pelos apreciadores. A partir dessa dupla oposição, a arquitetura fenomenológica parece procurar um plano mais sólido numa forte acentuação da positividade da experiência corpórea e perceptiva, quando Merleau-Ponty parece empenhado, pelo contrário, em uma progressiva revisão destes aspetos. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to connect the notion of the Anthropocene with Merleau-Pontyan thought by drawing on two aspects of the author’s ontological reflection. First, I consider “the event of the Anthropocene” as an event that is part of an instituting dynamic, in reference to the ontological dimension of “Institution” that Merleau-Ponty borrows from Husserl and develops in an original way in his 1954-1955 lectures at the Collège de France. I then underline the difficulties that arise when multiple (...) names are employed to designate our “current geological era” in debates on the Anthropocene, a complex global event with political, ethical, and social dimensions. To conclude, I show that this multiplication of names is constitutive of the event of the Anthropocene. The Merleau-Pontyan idea of “a theme that constitutes itself through its variations,” introduced by Mauro Carbone in his work on sensible ideas and the “arche-screen” and closely linked to the element of “Institution,” can help us find philosophical advancements at the heart of this contemporary naming debate. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to connect the notion of the Anthropocene with Merleau-Pontyan thought by drawing on two aspects of the author’s ontological reflection. First, I consider “the event of the Anthropocene” as an event that is part of an instituting dynamic, in reference to the ontological dimension of “Institution” that Merleau-Ponty borrows from Husserl and develops in an original way in his 1954-1955 lectures at the Collège de France. I then underline the difficulties that arise when multiple (...) names are employed to designate our “current geological era” in debates on the Anthropocene, a complex global event with political, ethical, and social dimensions. To conclude, I show that this multiplication of names is constitutive of the event of the Anthropocene. The Merleau-Pontyan idea of “a theme that constitutes itself through its variations,” introduced by Mauro Carbone in his work on sensible ideas and the “arche-screen” and closely linked to the element of “Institution,” can help us find philosophical advancements at the heart of this contemporary naming debate. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to connect the notion of the Anthropocene with Merleau-Pontyan thought by drawing on two aspects of the author’s ontological reflection. First, I consider “the event of the Anthropocene” as an event that is part of an instituting dynamic, in reference to the ontological dimension of “Institution” that Merleau-Ponty borrows from Husserl and develops in an original way in his 1954-1955 lectures at the Collège de France. I then underline the difficulties that arise when multiple (...) names are employed to designate our “current geological era” in debates on the Anthropocene, a complex global event with political, ethical, and social dimensions. To conclude, I show that this multiplication of names is constitutive of the event of the Anthropocene. The Merleau-Pontyan idea of “a theme that constitutes itself through its variations,” introduced by Mauro Carbone in his work on sensible ideas and the “arche-screen” and closely linked to the element of “Institution,” can help us find philosophical advancements at the heart of this contemporary naming debate. (shrink)

What are the philosophical views of professional philosophers, and how do these views change over time? The 2020 PhilPapers Survey surveyed around 2000 philosophers on 100 philosophical questions. The results provide a snapshot of the state of some central debates in philosophy, reveal correlations and demographic effects involving philosophers' views, and reveal some changes in philosophers' views over the last decade.

A leading political theorist’s groundbreaking defense of ideal conceptions of justice in political philosophy Throughout the history of political philosophy and politics, there has been continual debate about the roles of idealism versus realism. For contemporary political philosophy, this debate manifests in notions of ideal theory versus nonideal theory. Nonideal thinkers shift their focus from theorizing about full social justice, asking instead which feasible institutional and political changes would make a society more just. Ideal thinkers, on the other hand, question (...) whether full justice is a standard that any society is likely ever to satisfy. And, if social justice is unrealistic, are attempts to understand it without value or importance, and merely utopian? Utopophobia argues against thinking that justice must be realistic, or that understanding justice is only valuable if it can be realized. David Estlund does not offer a particular theory of justice, nor does he assert that justice is indeed unrealizable—only that it could be, and this possibility upsets common ways of proceeding in political thought. Estlund engages critically with important strands in traditional and contemporary political philosophy that assume a sound theory of justice has the overriding, defining task of contributing practical guidance toward greater social justice. Along the way, he counters several tempting perspectives, including the view that inquiry in political philosophy could have significant value only as a guide to practical political action, and that understanding true justice would necessarily have practical value, at least as an ideal arrangement to be approximated. Demonstrating that unrealistic standards of justice can be both sound and valuable to understand, Utopophobia stands as a trenchant defense of ideal theory in political philosophy. (shrink)

David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding is the definitive statement of the greatest philosopher in the English language. His arguments in support of reasoning from experience, and against the "sophistry and illusion"of religiously inspired philosophical fantasies, caused controversy in the eighteenth century and are strikingly relevant today, when faith and science continue to clash. The Enquiry considers the origin and processes of human thought, reaching the stark conclusion that we can have no ultimate understanding of the physical world, or indeed (...) our own minds. In either sphere we must depend on instinctive learning from experience, recognizing our animal nature and the limits of reason. Hume's calm and open-minded skepticism thus aims to provide a new basis for science, liberating us from the "superstition" of false metaphysics and religion. His Enquiry remains one of the best introductions to the study of philosophy, and his edition places it in its historical and philosophical context. (shrink)

The zetetic turn in epistemology raises three questions about epistemic and zetetic norms. First, there is the relationship question: what is the relationship between epistemic and zetetic norms? Are some epistemic norms zetetic norms, or are epistemic and zetetic norms distinct? Second, there is the tension question: are traditional epistemic norms in tension with plausible zetetic norms? Third, there is the reaction question: how should theorists react to a tension between epistemic and zetetic norms? Drawing on an analogy to practical (...) philosophy, I develop a focal point view to resolve these motivating questions. On the focal point view, traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms answer different types of normative questions. There is nevertheless a familiar type of evaluative tension between traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms, but this tension is an unavoidable feature of the normative landscape and not a sign that traditional epistemic norms need revision. But if traditional epistemic norms are not zetetic norms, then in what sense is zetetic epistemology a project for epistemologists? I conclude by articulating a sense in which some nontraditional epistemic norms are zetetic norms, and in which zetetic epistemology is an important part of the study of theoretical rationality. (shrink)

By means of an example, shows the possibility of beliefs that are separately rational whilst together inconsistent.

One of the enduring concerns of moral philosophy is deciding who or what is deserving of ethical consideration. Much recent attention has been devoted to the "animal question" -- consideration of the moral status of nonhuman animals. In this book, David Gunkel takes up the "machine question": whether and to what extent intelligent and autonomous machines of our own making can be considered to have legitimate moral responsibilities and any legitimate claim to moral consideration. The machine question poses a fundamental (...) challenge to moral thinking, questioning the traditional philosophical conceptualization of technology as a tool or instrument to be used by human agents. Gunkel begins by addressing the question of machine moral agency: whether a machine might be considered a legitimate moral agent that could be held responsible for decisions and actions. He then approaches the machine question from the other side, considering whether a machine might be a moral patient due legitimate moral consideration. Finally, Gunkel considers some recent innovations in moral philosophy and critical theory that complicate the machine question, deconstructing the binary agent--patient opposition itself. Technological advances may prompt us to wonder if the science fiction of computers and robots whose actions affect their human companions could become science fact. Gunkel's argument promises to influence future considerations of ethics, ourselves, and the other entities who inhabit this world. (shrink)

This book is an attempt to get to the bottom of an acute and perennial tension between our best scientific pictures of the fundamental physical structure of the world and our everyday empirical experience of it. The trouble is about the direction of time. The situation (very briefly) is that it is a consequence of almost every one of those fundamental scientific pictures--and that it is at the same time radically at odds with our common sense--that whatever can happen can (...) just as naturally happen backwards. Albert provides an unprecedentedly clear, lively, and systematic new account--in the context of a Newtonian-Mechanical picture of the world--of the ultimate origins of the statistical regularities we see around us, of the temporal irreversibility of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, of the asymmetries in our epistemic access to the past and the future, and of our conviction that by acting now we can affect the future but not the past. Then, in the final section of the book, he generalizes the Newtonian picture to the quantum-mechanical case and (most interestingly) suggests a very deep potential connection between the problem of the direction of time and the quantum-mechanical measurement problem. The book aims to be both an original contribution to the present scientific and philosophical understanding of these matters at the most advanced level, and something in the nature of an elementary textbook on the subject accessible to interested high-school students. Table of Contents: Preface 1. Time-Reversal Invariance 2. Thermodynamics 3. Statistical Mechanics 4. The Reversibility Objections and the Past-Hypothesis 5. The Scope of Thermodynamics 6. The Asymmetries of Knowledge and Intervention 7. Quantum Mechanics Appendix: Gedankenexperiments with Heat Engines Index Reviews of this book: The foundations of statistical mechanisms are often presented in physics textbooks in a rather obscure and confused way. By challenging common ways of thinking about this subject, Time and Chance can do quite a lot to improve this situation. --Jean Bricmont, Science Albert is perfecting a style of foundational analysis that is uniquely his own...It has a surgical precision...and it is ruthless with pretensions. The foundations of thermodynamics is a topic that has accumulated a good deal of dead wood; this is a fire that will burn and burn. --Simon W. Saunders, Oxford University As usual with Albert's work, the exposition is brisk and to the point, and exceptionally clear...The book will be an extremely valuable contribution to the literature on the subject of philosophical issues in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, a literature which has been thin on the ground but is now growing as it deserves to. --Lawrence Sklar, University of Michigan. (shrink)

How should one react when one has a belief, but knows that other people—who have roughly the same evidence as one has, and seem roughly as likely to react to it correctly—disagree? This paper argues that the disagreement of other competent inquirers often requires one to be much less confident in one’s opinions than one would otherwise be.