A proposta de refletir sobre a potência dos afetos na e para a educação emergiu da vivência experienciada em discussão interdisciplinar na disciplina “Ensino-aprendizagem: questões contemporâneas”, no Programa de Mestrado em Letras e Ciências Humanas da Universidade do Grande Rio. Destarte, o presente artigo apresenta, em sua estrutura, três objetivos interligados para dar razão à prática docente. Primeiramente, traçou-se a análise sobre a importância do conhecimento, consoante Spinoza, acerca de nossos afetos para sustentar o argumento de a educação ser um (...) processo de aprendizado com foco na liberdade e na autonomia. Para isso, discute-se a proposta desse filósofo com a finalidade de abstrair as ideias e os argumentos necessários à compreensão de como esses afetos agem sobre o corpo e a mente e, então, apontar a como os conceitos spinozianos do desejo tornam-se balizadores de práticas contemporâneas. Nesse tópico, são discutidos como os afetos oferecem subsídios para aumentar a capacidade de agir e de ser atuante em relação à própria vida. Posteriormente, são abordados os gêneros de conhecimento, conceito central desenvolvido por Spinoza, por meio do qual se torna possível o entendimento de como ocorre a passagem da passividade – submissão passional às causas externas – à ação ou à atividade, fortalecendo as paixões alegres e o desejo, que é a própria essência do homem. Finalmente, propõe-se articular a prática educacional à teoria dos afetos de Spinoza, a fim de pensar como um professor pode promover bons encontros com o conhecimento, possibilitando, assim, que os discentes possam ser afetados ao máximo pelas paixões alegres e possam reforçar sua potência de agir. Palavras-chave: Spinoza. Educação. Afetos. Conhecimento. Liberdade. (shrink)

Griefbots are chatbots designed to assist individuals in coping with the loss of a loved one by offering a digital replica of the departed. Navigating grief is a deeply transformative and vulnerable journey intricately tied to one's well-being. Do griefbots aid in the grieving process, or do they complicate it? To address these questions, this article blends insights from philosophy and neuroscience to explore the nature of grief as a means to clarify the ethical dimensions surrounding the use of griefbots.

Health care is ubiquitous in the industrialized world. Yet, every medical development, technique, and procedure impacts the environment. Green bioethics synthesizes environmental ethics and biomedical ethics, thus creating an interdisciplinary approach to sustainable health care. Notably, green bioethics addresses not the structure of environmental sustainability in health-care institutions but the sustainability of individual health-care offerings. It parallels traditional biomedical ethics by providing four principles for ethical guidance: distributive justice, resource conservation, simplicity, and ethical economics. Through these four principles, green bioethics (...) presents a coherent framework for evaluating the sustainability of medical developments, techniques, and procedures. The future of our world may very well depend on how effectively we halt ecological destruction and conserve our resources in all areas of life. The principles of green bioethics, outlined in this book, will advance sustainability in health care. (shrink)

Les études réunies et publiés dans ce volume sont d'abord concentrées sur les problèmes relatifs à la nature de l'âme en général, notamment par le biais d'une confrontation avec des penseurs antérieurs a Aristote ou qui leur sont contemporains - spécialement Platon et Xenocrate.

L.A. Paul calls “deep” the kind of essentialism according to which the essential properties of objects are determined independently of the context. Deep essentialism opposes “shallow essentialism”, of which David Lewis is said to be a prominent advocate. Paul argues that standard forms of deep essentialism face a range of issues (mainly based on an interpretation of Quinean skepticism) that shallow essentialism does not. However, Paul claims, shallow essentialism eliminates the very heart of what motivates essentialism, so it is better (...) to be deep than shallow. Accordingly, she proposes a very sharp novel account of essentialism, which, while attempting to preserve some of the advantages of shallow essentialism over the classical forms of deep essentialism, can be deemed to be deep. In this paper, I compare Paul’s proposal for a kind of deep essentialism with Lewis’s account, as it is presented by Paul. My aim is to show that the differences between the two approaches are not as significant as Paul takes them to be, and that Paul’s account can be taken to be deeper than Lewis’s only at the cost of sacrificing the very idea at the bottom of deep essentialism. This might be taken to suggest that, if Paul is correct in asserting that shallow essentialism is better equipped to address some skeptical challenges, but it is generally preferable to be deep than shallow, then Lewis’s account should be re-evaluated, since, as shallow as it can be, it might be deeper than it looks. (shrink)

InA Theory of Justice, Rawls claims that “to each according to his threat advantage is not a conception of justice.” Although it may indeed seem intuitively plausible that a principle based on “threat advantage” cannot count as a principle of justice, it is an altogether different matter to explain why this is so. The question is especially pressing if one bears in mind that such a principle of bargaining in fact underlies many institutionally regulated interactions. Moreover, to the extent that (...) morality is thought of as a mechanism for guaranteeing mutual advantage in the resolution of conflicts, it may indeed seem necessary that it reflect the bargaining power of the parties (in order to make sure that it is indeed advantageous for all of them). In fact, there is a prominent tradition of social-contract theories (from Hobbes to Gauthier) that work under this assumption and claim to provide an answer to what justice requires as much as Rawls's theory does. So seen, the burden of proof seems to fall rather on the shoulders of those committed to claim both that morality is a mechanism that works to the advantage of all and that it nevertheless requires neutralizing all differences in bargaining power. (shrink)

InA Theory of Justice, Rawls claims that “to each according to his threat advantage is not a conception of justice.” Although it may indeed seem intuitively plausible that a principle based on “threat advantage” cannot count as a principle of justice, it is an altogether different matter to explain why this is so. The question is especially pressing if one bears in mind that such a principle of bargaining in fact underlies many institutionally regulated interactions. Moreover, to the extent that (...) morality is thought of as a mechanism for guaranteeing mutual advantage in the resolution of conflicts, it may indeed seem necessary that it reflect the bargaining power of the parties (in order to make sure that it is indeed advantageous for all of them). In fact, there is a prominent tradition of social-contract theories (from Hobbes to Gauthier) that work under this assumption and claim to provide an answer to what justice requires as much as Rawls's theory does. So seen, the burden of proof seems to fall rather on the shoulders of those committed to claim both that morality is a mechanism that works to the advantage of all and that it nevertheless requires neutralizing all differences in bargaining power. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to contribute detailed ethnographic material to broaden the scope of what we mean by reproductive technology. Technology can be defined not only by a series of laboratory techniques (such as artificial insemination and embryo transfer) that are drafted into the daily management of the animal body, but also by a range of on-farm management strategies and working routines, as well as the cultural dispositions, social networks and tacit knowledge of the actors involved. RT is (...) communicated to lay operators and disseminated amongst semi-professional figures such as breed experts, herd inspectors and technical consultants. The practical contexts in which reproductive knowledge is popularized and applied provide ample scope for local negotiations, resistance and conflict. Professional knowledge about breed-improvement is personalised and appropriated by operators and plays a role in power relations and the exercise of personal charisma as well as being specific to context, in particular the nuances of pre-existing relationships of trust, friendship, kinship or hierarchy. No wonder then that many ambivalences and compromises coexist in the practice of applying ‘reproductive knowledge’ to breed selection. (shrink)

The Italian-born Lanfranc of Pavia and his more illustrious pupil and compatriot Anselm of Bec have long been considered pivotal figures in the theological and especially philosophical developments of the late eleventh century. Long ago dubbed the “father of Scholasticism” on account of his attempts to harmonize reason and faith, Anselm has occasioned increasing scrutiny in recent years as scholars have begun to target the cultural and pedagogical role of Anselm and his milieu in the early stages of the twelfth-century (...) renaissance. In a particularly stimulating interdisciplinary exploration of the cognitive relation between builders and their craft and masters and theirs, Charles M. Radding and William W. Clark have advanced an intriguing model suggesting that theologians and Romanesque builders of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were part of a larger transformative development in which thinkers and artisans developed new methods for solving new problems; these new methods, in turn, transformed practitioners of a craft into members of new and distinct disciplines. The verdict is still out on the precise nature of those important developments, but especially vexing is the question of the abbey of Bec's importance and influence under Lanfranc and Anselm during these changing times. As a leading scholar of Anselm has recently put it, “The character of the school of Bec emerges as a riddle to be solved. What was its focus, what did its teachers teach, and how long did it last?” Recent studies have modified Richard Southern's portrayal of the curriculum of Anselm's school at Bec as largely devoted to monastic ideals and demonstrated that history and law were also studied, that a good number of students went on to become able administrators, and that Anselm may have unwittingly contributed to the rise of courtly love. Much of the fog surrounding the authorial publication and dissemination of Anselm's writings has recently been cleared by Richard Sharpe's meticulous analysis in “Anselm as Author,” revealing a careful and more deliberate editorial planning on Anselm's part than previously recognized. However, even amidst the gathering attention directed toward these figures and their cultural context, it is the most basic and obvious feature of Lanfranc's and Anselm's written record that has been the most undeservedly neglected: their use of dialogue and its correlation to the early development of Scholastic disputation. To be sure, the revival of dialectic in the eleventh century and especially in the twelfth has long been known and rather well charted, particularly with regard to the growth of theology as an academic discipline. What follows is a somewhat more focused line of inquiry. Looking beyond the well-trodden ground of Anselm's philosophy and theology and instead examining his pedagogical innovations, this essay explores Anselm's contribution to the development of literary dialogue and to the origins of the Scholastic disputatio, both valuable tools indeed in his philosophical and theological endeavors. Anselm's influence as a prolific author of dialogues can especially be observed in a younger generation of writers and thinkers who studied with him or directly sought to imitate his style and whose oeuvres need also to be considered. By examining the circle of Lanfranc and Anselm, the methods embodied by their teachings, and the writings they produced, this essay aims to show that the Scholastic dialectical methods, later so prominent in medieval universities, have their origins within the general milieu of monastic learning. More specifically, these methods will be shown to have their origins in Lanfranc's and Anselm's engagement with dialogue and disputation at the school of Bec. (shrink)

This book offers a collection of reflective essays on current testimonial production by researchers and practitioners working in multifaceted fields such as art and film performance, public memorialization, scriptotherapy, and fictional and non-fictional testimony. 0The inter-disciplinary approach to the question of testimony offers a current account of testimony's diversity in the twenty-first century as well as its relevance within the fields of art, storytelling, trauma, and activism. The range of topics engage with questions of genre and modes of representation, ethical (...) and political concerns of testimony, and the flaws and limitations of testimonial production giving testament to some of the ethical concerns of our present age. (shrink)

The paper addresses the methodology used by the teacher-KEYWORDS: facilitator to plan P4C sessions. The classic method consists of identifying the guidelines of the dialogue from a provisional mapping of the text, but this can be supplemented or replaced by other tools‡. GrupIREF and the Filosofía Lúdica movement§ use an approach that focuses on thinking skills. The P4C session is planned from the choice of the thinking skills to be trained - or possibly the attitudes and ethical values that appear (...) in the stimulus used. This article proposes an alternative to the classical planning approach, examining the basis of the model considered and offering a practical example. ITA_Focus dell’articolo è la modalità di pianificazione delle sessioni di Philosophy for Children, P4C, da parte del docente-facilitatore. Il metodo classico consiste nell’individuazione di linee-guida del dialogo a partire da una mappatura orientativa del testo-pretesto, ma ciò può essere integrato, o sostituito da altre modalità*. Il GrupIREF e il movimento della Filosofía Lúdica† utilizzano un approccio che privilegia le abilità di pensiero. La sessione P4C viene pianificata a partire dalla scelta dell’abilità di pensiero da allenare – o eventualmente dell’atteggiamento etico e dei valori legati al pre-testo utilizzato. Il presente lavoro suggerisce un’alternativa alla progettazione classica, attraverso una disamina delle basi del modello considerato, e ne offre un esempio pratico. (shrink)

Man unterscheidet in der Organisation verschiedener Tiere folgende Kategorien von Parallelismen: 1) die Homologien, welche auf einen gemeinsamen Ursprung der betreffenden Organe hinweisen, 2) die Analogien, die als eine Folge von ähnlichen Funktionen oder der äusseren Wirkungen sekundär enstehen, 3) die Homomorphien, wodurch ich diejenigen Übereinstimmungen im Körperbau von verschiedenen Tieren bezeichne, welche auf Grund der allgemeinen Gesetze der Morphogenese zustande kommen. Das Studium der Homologien ist historischer Art, dasjenige der Homomorphien und Analogien typologischer Art.Man kann weiter unterscheiden: eine allgemeine (...) Homomorphie, welche sich im Tierreiche überall, wo dazu günstige Bedingungen vorhanden sind, offenbart , und eine spezielle Homomorphie, welche als eine der Möglichkeiten bei einer begrenzten Anzahl von Tierformen hervortritt . Die Grenze zwischen diesen beiden Kategorien ist natürlich nicht sehr deutlich, ebenso wie manchmal die Grenze zwischen Homologien, Homomorphien und Analogien. Alle diese Erscheinungen beruhen letzten Endes auf morphogenetischen Gesetzen, können also als Homomorphien im weitesten Sinne des Wortes bezeichnet werden.Dans l'organisation des divers animaux on peut distinguer les parallélismes suivants: 1) les homologies qui dénotent la descendance des porteurs des organes similaires d'un seul et même ancêtre, 2) les analogies qui se forment sous l'influence d'une fonction analogue ou des mêmes conditions extérieures, et 3) les homomorphies qui représentent la manifestation des propriétés fondamentales de la substance animée. Les homologies sont les phénomènes de l'ordre historique, tandis que les homomorphies et les analogies doivent être étudiées d'après une méthode typologique.Si une similitude homomorphique des formes se manifeste partout dans le règne animal ou au moins dans tous les cas où se trouvent des conditions favorables, il faut parler d'une homomorphie générale . Si au contraire on observe le parallélisme seulement dans les cas isolés, comme p. ex. les yeux composés chez les Arthropodes, les Vers et les Mollusques, il faut parler de l'homomorphie spéciale. La limite entre ces deux catégories des phénomènes n'est pas très précise. De même il est difficile parfois de définir strictement si nous avons à faire à une homologie, à une analogie ou à une homomorphie. Tous ces phénomènes-là dépendent finalement des lois morphogénètiques. C'est pourquoi qu'on peut les indiquer comme des homomorphies dans le sens le plus étendu de ce mot. (shrink)

Our lives are commonly involved with fictionality, an activity that adults share with children. After providing a brief reconstruction of the most important cognitive theories on pretence, we will argue that pretence has to do with metarepresentations, albeit in a rather weakened sense. In our view, pretending entails being aware that a certain representation does not fit in the very same representational model as another representation. This is a minimal metarepresentationalism, for normally metarepresentationalism on pretense claims that pretending is or (...) entails representing a representation qua representation, i.e. as conceptualised as a representation, in its very content. In the final section we will try to draw some consequences of our view as to the debate in cognitive science on mindreading. Given this minimal metarepresentationalism, the two main positions on mindreading, the ‘theory theory’ and the ‘simulation theory’, turn out to be closer than one would have originally supposed. (shrink)

In Norms in the Wild, distinguished philosopher Cristina Bicchieri argues that when it comes to human behavior, social scientists place too much stress on rational deliberation. In fact, she says, many choices occur without much deliberation at all. Two people passing in a corridor automatically negotiate their shared space; cars at an intersection obey traffic signals; we choose clothing based on our instincts for what is considered appropriate. Bicchieri's theory of social norms accounts for these automatic components of coordination, (...) where individuals react automatically to cues that focus their attention on what the norm is in that situation. Social norms thus act as rules for making choices in a social world where people expect others -- often unconsciously -- to follow the same rule. Some norms enable seamless social co-operation, while others are less beneficial to human flourishing.Bicchieri is famous for her interdisciplinary work on game theory and most recently her work on social norms, and Norms in the Wild represents her latest challenge to many of the fundamental assumptions of the social sciences. Bicchieri's work has broad implications not only for understanding human behavior, but for changing it for better outcomes. People have a strongly conditioned preference for following social norms, but that also means that manipulating their expectations can cause major behavioral changes. Bicchieri has been working recently with UNICEF and other NGO's to explore the applicability of her views to issues of human rights around the world. Is it possible to change social expectations around forced marriage, genital mutilations, and public health practices like vaccinations and sanitation? If so, how? What tools might we use? This short book explores how social norms work, and how changing them - changing preferences, beliefs, and especially social expectations - can potentially improve lives all around the world. It will appeal to an unusually broad range of readers including philosophers, psychologists and others in behavioral sciences, and anyone involved in public policy or at NGOs. (shrink)

In The Grammar of Society, first published in 2006, Cristina Bicchieri examines social norms, such as fairness, cooperation, and reciprocity, in an effort to understand their nature and dynamics, the expectations that they generate, and how they evolve and change. Drawing on several intellectual traditions and methods, including those of social psychology, experimental economics and evolutionary game theory, Bicchieri provides an integrated account of how social norms emerge, why and when we follow them, and the situations where we are (...) most likely to focus on relevant norms. Examining the existence and survival of inefficient norms, she demonstrates how norms evolve in ways that depend upon the psychological dispositions of the individual and how such dispositions may impair social efficiency. By contrast, she also shows how certain psychological propensities may naturally lead individuals to evolve fairness norms that closely resemble those we follow in most modern societies. (shrink)

The New Evil Demon Problem presents a serious challenge to externalist theories of epistemic justification. In recent years, externalists have developed a number of strategies for responding to the problem. A popular line of response involves distinguishing between a belief’s being epistemically justified and a subject’s being epistemically blameless for holding it. The apparently problematic intuitions the New Evil Demon Problem elicits, proponents of this response claim, track the fact that the deceived subject is epistemically blameless for believing as she (...) does, not that she is justified for so believing. This general strategy—which I call the “unjustified-but-blameless maneuver”—is motivated, in part, by the assumption that the distinction between epistemic justification and blamelessness is merely an extension of the familiar distinction between moral justification and blamelessness. In this paper, I consider three ways of drawing the distinction between justification and blamelessness familiar from the moral domain: the first in terms of a connection with reactive attitudes, the second in terms of the distinction between wrongness and wronging, and the third in terms of reasons-responsiveness. All three ways of drawing the distinction, I argue, make it difficult to see how an analogous distinction in the epistemic domain could help externalists explain away the intuitions which underwrite the New Evil Demon Problem. Motivating the unjustified-but-blameless maneuver, I conclude, is a much less straightforward task than its proponents tend to assume. (shrink)

The unity of the Philebus: metaphysical assumptions of the good human life -- The placement of pleasure and knowledge in the fourfold articulation of reality -- Hybrid varieties of pleasure: true mixed pleasures and false pure pleasures -- The nature of pleasure: absolute standards of filling or replenishment and due measure -- Pleasures of learning and the role of due measure in experiencing them -- Plato's conception of pleasure confronting three Aristotelian critiques -- The Philebus' implicit response to the aporiai (...) of participation from the Parmenides. (shrink)

We report the results of an experiment designed to determine the effects of psychological proximity—proxied by awareness of pain and friendship—on moral reasoning. Our study tests the hypotheses that a moral agent’s emphasis on justice decreases with proximity, while his/her emphasis on care increases. Our study further examines how personality, gender, and managerial status affect the importance of care and justice in moral reasoning. We find support for the main hypotheses. We also find that care should be split into two (...) components, one related to protection and the other to the preservation of relationships. Although gender does not affect moral reasoning directly, we find that it does so indirectly via personality, controlling for age, professional status, and professional background. We do not find a significant effect of managerial status on ethics of justice, but do find that holding a managerial position has a negative impact on ethics of care. Regarding personality, we detect significant positive effects of conscientiousness on ethics of justice and of neuroticism on ethics of care. (shrink)

This book articulates a participatory conception of deliberative democracy that takes the democratic ideal of self-government seriously. It aims to improve citizens' democratic control and vindicate the value of citizens' participation against conceptions that threaten to undermine it. The book critically analyzes deep pluralist, epistocratic, and lottocratic conceptions of democracy. Their defenders propose various institutional ''shortcuts'' to help solve problems of democratic governance such as overcoming disagreements, citizens' political ignorance, or poor-quality deliberation. However, all these shortcut proposals require citizens to (...) blindly defer to actors over whose decisions they cannot exercise control. Implementing such proposals would therefore undermine democracy. Moreover, it seems naive to assume that a community can reach better outcomes 'faster' if it bypasses the beliefs and attitudes of its citizens. Unfortunately, there are no 'shortcuts' to make a community better than its members. The only road to better outcomes is the long, participatory road that is taken when citizens forge a collective will by changing one another's hearts and minds. However difficult the process of justifying political decisions to one another may be, skipping it cannot get us any closer to the democratic ideal. Starting from this conviction, the book defends a conception of democracy ''without shortcuts''. This conception sheds new light on long-standing debates about the proper scope of public reason, the role of religion in politics, and the democratic legitimacy of judicial review. It also proposes new ways to unleash the democratic potential of institutional innovations such as deliberative minipublics. (shrink)

The Internet has been identified in human enhancement scholarship as a powerful cognitive enhancement technology. It offers instant access to almost any type of information, along with the ability to share that information with others. The aim of this paper is to critically assess the enhancement potential of the Internet. We argue that unconditional access to information does not lead to cognitive enhancement. The Internet is not a simple, uniform technology, either in its composition, or in its use. We will (...) look into why the Internet as an informational resource currently fails to enhance cognition. We analyze some of the phenomena that emerge from vast, continual fluxes of information–information overload, misinformation and persuasive design—and show how they could negatively impact users’ cognition. Methods for mitigating these negative impacts are then advanced: individual empowerment, better collaborative systems for sorting and categorizing information, and the use of artificial intelligence assistants that could guide users through the informational space of today’s Internet. (shrink)

This paper argues that hypocritical blame renders blame inappropriate. Someone should not express her blame if she is guilty of the same thing for which she is blaming others, in the absence of an admission of fault. In failing to blame herself for the same violations of norms she condemns in another, the hypocrite evinces important moral faults, which undermine her right to blame. The hypocrite refuses or culpably fails to admit her own mistakes, while at the same time demands (...) that others admit theirs. The paper argues that this lack of reciprocity—expecting others to take morality seriously by apologizing for their faults, without one doing the same in return—is what makes hypocritical blame unfair. (shrink)

Many hypotheses have been advanced to explain the collective irrationality of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, such as partisanship and ideology, exposure to misinformation and conspiracy theories or the effectiveness of public messaging. This paper presents a complementary explanation to epistemic accounts of collective irrationality, focusing on the moral reasons underlying people’s decisions regarding vaccination. We argue that the moralization of COVID-19 risk mitigation measures contributed to the polarization of groups along moral values, which ultimately led to the emergence of collective irrational (...) behaviors. Collective irrationality arises from groups explicitly or implicitly endorsing values that ultimately harm both themselves and those around. The role of social media platforms in amplifying this polarization and contributing to the emergence of collective irrationality is also examined. Finally, potential strategies for addressing the moral sources of collective irrationality are discussed. (shrink)

Providing people with information is considered an important first step in encouraging them to behave sustainably as it influences their consumption beliefs, attitudes and intentions. However, too much information can also complicate these processes and negatively affect behaviour. This is exacerbated when people have accepted the need to live a more sustainable lifestyle and attempt to enact its principles. Drawing on interview data with people committed to sustainability, we identify the contentious role of knowledge in further disrupting sustainable consumption ideals. (...) Here, knowledge is more than just information; it is familiarity and expertise or how information is acted upon. We find that more knowledge represents a source of dilemma, tension and paralysis. Our data reveal a dark side to people’s knowledge, leading to a ‘self-inflicted sustainable consumption paradox’ in their attempts to lead a sustainable consumption lifestyle. Implications for policy interventions are discussed. (shrink)

The functional role of mirror neurons has been assessed in many different ways. They have been regarded, inter alia, as the core mechanism of mind reading, the mechanism of language understanding, the mechanism of imitation. In this paper we will discuss the thesis according to which MNs are a conceptual mechanism. This hypothesis is attractive since it could accommodate in an apparently simple way all the above-mentioned interpretations. We shall take into consideration some reasons suggesting the conceptualist characterization of MNs, (...) as well as some possible replies. We shall figure out how an argument for the conceptualist hypothesis could be deployed, focusing on the notion of off-line processes, which turns out to be the crucial property necessary to ascribe concept possession. Our conclusion will be that, despite of there being some evidence for the conceptualist account, the issue cannot be definitely settled, because there are both experimental shortages and conceptual difficulties. In particular, there are three distinct senses in which MNs can be regarded as a conceptual mechanism, but we shall argue that only one of these interpretations can be defended. (shrink)

On the traditional view, a sense of selfhood appears relatively late in infancy, since to be, or to possess, a self is taken to require such capacities as language and metacognition. Recent research in psychology, however, shows that there are some rudimentary forms of self-consciousness already in the very first months of life. The exercise of these early abilities in interactional contexts with caretakers shapes gradually a sense of self, or a primitive form of what we also call “personal identity”, (...) following a psychological terminology. In this paper we shall argue that the hypothesis of a very precocious personal identity can accord an important role to the Other in the formation of the Self without being committed to some outdated versions of empiricism or relativism. In the first section we introduce a pair of views about selfhood that seem to lead to relativism. In the second section we present what we call the “precocious identity view”. In the third section we describe the role of the Other in the precocious identity view. Finally, we make some remarks concerning what kind of (self-)consciousness is actually involved in the precocious identity view. (shrink)