Entre as modernas teorias em Metaética a Teoria do Erro de John Mackie é uma das mais influentes. Isso não é acidental. A teoria de Mackie é nova, é interessante e está apoiada em argumentos claros e desafiadores. A despeito de tudo isso, aqui uma crítica às principais teses de Mackie será apresentada. Em primeiro lugar se sustentará que se o seu principal argumento, o argumento do caráter estranho, é tomado como aceitável, o que se segue não é a falsidade (...) sistemática dos enunciados morais, como Mackie alega, mas algo diferente. Em segundo lugar, argumentar-se-á que o próprio argumento do caráter estranho não é aceitável. O resultado é uma rejeição dos pontos principais da teoria de Mackie. (shrink)

Objectivism and projectivism are standardly taken to be incompatible theories of color. Here we argue that this incompatibility is only apparent: objectivism and projectivism, properly articulated so as to deal with basic objections, are in fundamental agreement about the ontology of color and the phenomenology of color perception.

Prosopography is the collection of all known information about individuals within a given period. With the advent of computer technology it is now possible to gather and store such information in increasingly sophisticated and searchable databases, which can bring a new dimension to traditional historical research. The book surveys the transition in prosopographical research from more traditional methods to the new technology, and discusses the central role of the British Academy, as well as that of French, German and Austrian academic (...) institutions, in developing prosopographical research on the Later Roman Empire, Byzantium and now Anglo-Saxon and other periods. The book demonstrates mutual benefits and complementarity in such studies between the use of new technology and the highest standards of traditional scholarship, and in doing so it sets forth new perspectives and methodologies for future work. (shrink)

We argue that relationalism entails an unacceptable claim about the content of visual experience: that ordinary ‘red’ objects look like they look like they look like they’re red, etc.

This article inspects Peirce’s resonances on Deleuze’s semiotic. Whereas most of the literature agrees that Deleuze adapts Peirce’s semiotic to serve his Bergsonian-based theory of sign, this article claims that the relationship of Deleuze with Peirce’s writings is more foliated than it may appear at first. The development of this hypothesis invites to trace back Deleuze’s works before his very acquaintance with Peirce in the 1980s. Therefore, one of Peirce’s classical issues – the role that relations and habits play for (...) the triadic conception of sign – is considered with Deleuze’s early studies, in which he developed this same issue as to approach Hume and Proust. This background echoes years later in Deleuze’s incursion to Peirce’s semiotic in the 1980s ninety-two classes and two books on cinema. In fact, Deleuze’s own triadic conception of sign and his acknowledged pragmatist inclination prove to be closer to Peirce’s pragmatism than the scholarly literature tends to think or argue. The aim of this article is not, however, to build an overwhelming philosophical identity between Deleuze and Peirce, it sets up instead a steadier basis from where to understand their differences. Deleuze’s ignored five-year long lectures on cinema shows to be exegetically revealing with respect to his debts towards Peirce. (shrink)

The nature and legitimacy of commitments. Objectivity vs. commitment, by H. Smith. Institutional commitment: a social scientist's view, by H. R. Davis. The sectarian nature of liberal education, by L. J. Averill. The identity of the Christian college, by W. W. Jellema.--Commitments and the dimensions of learning. Discursive truth and evangelical truth, by A. C. Outler. Natural order and transcendent order, by W. G. Pollard. Limited cognition and ultimate cognition, by R. W. Friedrichs. Academic teaching and human experience, by M. (...) Novak. Academic excellence and moral value, by W. W. Jellema.--Norms and models of commitment. Biblical realism as a norm, by W. Herberg. Christian ethical community as a norm, by W. Beach. A pluralistic model, by W. B. Martin. A singular model, by L. J. Averill. (shrink)

Historically, philosophers, artists, and spiritual leaders have extolled the benefits of solitude; currently, advice on how to achieve solitude is the subject of many popular books and articles. Seldom, however, has solitude been studied by psychologists, who have focused instead on the negative experiences associated with being alone, particularly loneliness. Solitude, in contrast to loneliness, is often a positive state—one that may be sought rather than avoided. In this article, we examine some of the benefits that have been attributed to (...) solitude—namely, freedom, creativity, intimacy, and spirituality. In subsequent sections, we consider the environmental settings and personality characteristics conducive to solitude, how time spent alone is experienced differently across the life span, and the potential dangers related to the attractiveness of solitude. We conclude with a brief discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of solitude. (shrink)

Models based on possible worlds have proved to be very useful in the interpretation of modal expressions. However, there is a difference in the way that mathematicians and philosophers may use such models. The mathematician constructs them to serve his own purposes and thereby determines their properties. The philosopher, on the other hand, does not have so much freedom. His objective, which is to achieve a better understanding of language, puts limits on this. Not everything can be stipulated. This fact (...) is sometimes forgotten. An example of this is the almost unrestricted use of the notion of transworld identidy in philosophical explanations and discussions. The first objective of the article is to show that this unrestricted use is illegitimate. On the other hand, it would be important to maintain the possibility of using the notion. The second objective of the article is precisely to show how this can be achieved. The kind of structure which appears to be most appropriate to account for how modalities are applied to particulars is then made explicit, formal applications of the proposed model are briefly presented, and the conditions for the application of the notion of transworld identity in the interpretation of natural language are considered. (shrink)

According to Peirce one of the most important philosophical problems is continuity. Consequently, he set forth an innovative and peculiar approach in order to elucidate at once its mathematical and metaphysical challenges through proper non-classical logical reasoning. I will restrain my argument to the definition of the different types of discrete collections according to Peirce, with a special regard to the phenomenon called ?premonition of continuity? (Peirce, 1976, Vol. 3, p. 87, c. 1897).

Neste trabalho são apresentados dados e reflexões sobre a proposta pedagógica de Ensino Médio Politécnico, implantada desde 2012 nas escolas públicas estaduais do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. Tendo como pano de fundo as concepções do Educar pela Pesquisa e da Interdisciplinaridade - eixos norteadores da parte diversificada denominada Seminário Integrado -, a investigação teve cunho qualitativo, apresentando inferências sobre as compreensões acerca do conceito de pesquisa alcançadas pelos estudantes. As intervenções pedagógicas da investigação foram desenvolvidas em quatro turmas de (...) uma escola em Porto Alegre, capital do Rio Grande do Sul, encaminhadas no início do ano letivo de 2015. Por meio da análise qualitativa das falas dos alunos, da identificação da ampliação da complexidade dos seus respectivos mapas conceituais, confeccionados no software CmapTools, assim como da avaliação quanto à profundidade dos projetos encaminhados, pôde-se evidenciar ampla evolução nas compreensões dos alunos quanto ao conceito de pesquisa, percebendo-se assim que a metodologia aplicada nessa investigação foi profícua. (shrink)

When we watch movies, or are tricked by a trompe-l’oeil painting, we seem to be visually representing possible worlds; often non-actual possible worlds. This suggests that we really can visually represent possible worlds. The suggested claim is refined and developed here into a theory of visual experience that holds that all visual experiences, both veridical and non-veridical, represent possible worlds, many of which are non-actual.

Chapters 3 and 4 of Book 80 of Dio Cassius, dealing with the founding of the new Sassanid dynasty in Persia, have to be reconstructed from Xiphilinus on the one hand and the Excerpta Valesiana on the other. Zonaras 12. 15 in turn excerpts Xiphilinus; but Zonaras 12. 15, p. 572. 7–10 B. is not to be found in either of the excerptors of Dio. The words are as follows.

Perceptual experience is often said to be transparent; that is, when we have a perceptual experience we seem to be aware of properties of the objects around us, and never seem to be aware of properties of the experience itself. This is a introspective fact. It is also often said that we can infer a metaphysical fact from this introspective fact, e.g. a fact about the nature of perceptual experience. A transparency theory fills in the details for these two facts, (...) and bridges the gap between them. We have three aims: to scrutinize Michael Tye’s transparency theory :137–151, 2002; Consciousness revisited: materialism without phenomenal concepts, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2009; Philos Stud 170:39–57, 2014a), introduce a new transparency theory, and advance a meta-theoretical hypothesis about the interest, and import, of transparency theories. (shrink)

Deleuze (1925–1995), in the early 1980s, adopts Peirce’s (1839–1914) semiotics in order to classify the signs that the images of the cinema display. Aiming at insufflating the Peircean principles with the movement that animates the images of cinema, he provides Peirce’s triadic logic with a new category – Zeroness – which stands for the semiotic movement of cinematic images. Deleuze’s new category has impacts on the main domains of Peirce’s philosophy. Accordingly, our inquiry will focus on the irradiation of Zeroness (...) over the (a) system of categories, the (b) Peircean phenomenology (phaneroscopy), the (c) generative categorial role, the (d) semiotic effectiveness, the (e) doctrine of continuity, and the (f) logic of relatives. This article will show that for Deleuze nearly like more recent Peircean scholarship: (a) zeroth state holds a categorial status, (b) some phenomenon instantiates zeroth state, (c) zeroth state plays a generative role regarding Peirce's categories, (d) zeroth state as a phenomenological category is semiotically effective, (e) zeroth state and the doctrine of continuity, and (f) zeroth state is a “medad.” In order to assess these topics, we recover Deleuze’s advances on Peirce’s philosophy and confront them with the Peircean studies on the zeroth state. Finally, we will see that Deleuze, far from being a Peircean scholar, developed the importance of the zeroth state for Peirce’s semiotics in advance to the subsequent Peircean scholarship. Reciprocally, most of Deleuzian scholars understimate the importance of Peirce for Deleuze’s semiotics. (shrink)

That Ammianus Marcellinus was a pagan is agreed on all sides. He was no Eunapius to vilify and slander the Christians, and no Macrobius to pretend that they did not exist; nevertheless, while not hostile to the new religion, he still adhered to the old. It is, however, customary to quote as an illustration of his attitude to Christianity the numerous passages where he refers to things Christian in a curiously roundabout fashion, as if unfamiliar with the words he was (...) using. Instances such as ‘Christiani ritus presbyter ’, ‘coetus in unum quaesitus eiusdem legis cultorum ’, ‘inductus est diaconus’, would seem at first sight to justify the conclusion of P. de Jonge that ‘Ammianus speaks of Christianity as an alien religion which is not professed by him’. (shrink)

It is easy to envision marked progress in biological and physiological approaches to emotion, due to technological advances in imaging and other recording techniques. The future of social-constructionism appears more hazy: Progress will likely depend as much on new ideas as on new empirical discoveries. The most fruitful breeding ground for new ideas is where disciplines meet. Hence, the contributors to this special section represent diverse disciplines: biology, computer science, and the arts, as well as areas more traditionally associated with (...) the social construction of emotion, for example, interpersonal relations, cultural influence, and individual development. (shrink)

When an object looks red to an observer, the visual experience of the observer has two important features. The experience visually represents the object as having a property—being red. And the experience has a phenomenological character; that is, there is something that it is like to have an experience of seeing an object as red. Let qualia be the properties that give our sensory and perceptual experiences their phenomenological character. This essay takes up two related problem for a nonreductive account (...) of qualia. Some have argued that on such an account there is no room in a physicalist ontology for qualia. Section 1 shows how qualia might fit into a physicalist ontology. The second problem begins with the observation that there is a gap in scientific accounts of color experience; there is no explanation of why the features of the brain that determine our color experiences give those experiences their phenomenological character. Building on the results of Sect. 1, Sect. 2 develops an account of color perception that bridges this gap and shows how qualia give color perception its phenomenological character. To get a grip on the issues involved the paper begins by considering some aspects of a physicalist account of color. (shrink)

To identify the set of reflectances that constitute redness, the authors must first determine which surfaces are red. They do this by relying on widespread agreement among us. However, arguments based on the possible ways in which humans would perceive colors show that mere widespread agreement among us is not a satisfactory way to determine which surfaces are red.

Eusebius' Life of Constantine is the most important single record of Constantine, the emperor who turned the Roman Empire from prosecuting the Church to supporting it, with huge and lasting consequences for Europe and Christianity. The only English version previously available is based on a seventeenth-century Greek edition, but two new critical editions produced this century make a new English version necessary. The authors of this edition present the results of the recent scholarly debate, as well as their own researches (...) so as to clarify the significance of Eusebius' work and introduce the student to the text and its interpretation, thus opening up the contentious issues. At face value much of what Eusebius wrote is false. This book shows how, once his partisan interpretations and rhetoric are properly understood, both Eusebius' text and the documents it contains give vital historical insights. (shrink)

It has frequently been remarked by critics of Petronius that the entry of the monumental mason, Habinnas, in the Cena Trimalchionis is modelled on that of Alcibiades in Plato's Symposium. Yet surprisingly enough the parallel has not found its way into the commentaries, nor has it ever been analysed in detail. In fact it can stand as an interesting illustration of the use of literary allusion in the Satyricon.

P. Veyne has developed "événement" as a concept for the epistemological domain of history. In fact, he came to enlarge its meaning by mixing this concept with the foucaultian notion of "pratique" . We see that this conceptual link would be more clearly bounded if drawn up from the epistemological domain it has been early defined and if argued by Deleuze's own concept of "événement" , along with its ontological and ethical ressonances.O conceito de "acontecimento" foi desenvolvido para o domínio (...) epistemológico da história por P. Veyne, no intuito de ativar determinados problemas foucaultianos que indicavam a estrita ligação entre o trabalho historiográfico e o trabalho filosófico. A definição deste conceito poderia ser aprofundada se fosse extraído do domínio epistemológico para o qual fora elaborado e levado a uma dimensão mais abrangente. Vislumbra-se tal possibilidade a partir da articulação do referido conceito a determinadas injunções do pensamento de Deleuze, particularmente tendo em vista o conceito deleuzeano de "acontecimento", em suas implicações ontológicas e éticas. (shrink)