Odysseus benefits from his stay on the island of Scheria in two crucial ways. The Phaeacians’ willingness to escort him home secures his physical return to Ithaca. Furthermore, a song performed by the bard Demodocus featuring Odysseus’ quarrel with Achilles helps him regain his identity as one of the foremost Achaean heroes. The second song, the hilarious tale of Ares and Aphrodite, in which the gods erupt in the famous Homeric laughter, then reawakens his emotional capacity for joy and (...) cheerfulness. Since this key function of the song does not appear to have been recognized up to now, it is at the center of the present article. Finally, the third song, in which Odysseus expects Demodocus to highlight his role as mastermind of the capture of Troy, instead draws attention to the horrible suffering of the Trojans and elicits uncontrollable tears on his part, thereby reconnecting him with the fundamental human emotions of compassion and pity. Taken as a whole, the narrative of Odysseus’ development during his stay among the Phaeacians appears to reflect an elaborate therapeutic concept, which is outlined in this article. (shrink)

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo explicar os mecanismos básicos da linguagem no século XVI, a partir da arqueologia de Michel Foucault. Para tanto, o itinerário a ser percorrido parte de uma breve introdução ao pensamento do autor e do panorama geral do livro, de sua autoria, “As palavras e as coisas: uma arqueologia das ciências humanas”, bem como de suas questões fundamentais. Após, analisar-se-á o capítulo que trata sobre a filosofia do Renascimento, intitulado “A prosa do mundo”, de modo (...) a elucidar a visão que os renascentistas tinham acerca da linguagem e o que a caracterizava. Também é premente verificar qual a relevância de tal período para Foucault em sua pesquisa sobre a linguagem, a concepção desta como autônoma, independente, dissociada das ideias. Por fim, é feita uma retomada crítica dos pontos abordados neste trabalho. A pesquisa foi bibliográfica e teve como principal referência o livro “As palavras e as coisas” (2000), do mesmo autor. (shrink)

Neste artigo vamos caraterizar a governação pública da área autárquica, traçando uma perspetiva da sua evolução em Portugal.A Corporate governance tem merecido uma crescente atenção desde há uns anos a esta parte, incorporando um conjunto de regras e procedimentos que têm como objetivo otimizar o desempenho de uma organização, com observância de princípios como a transparência e a responsabilização.As políticas públicas e a administração pública em geral são cada vez mais influenciadas por princípios e procedimentos próprios do setor privado, sendo (...) a new governance uma administração mais próxima do mercado.Conclui-se que a governação do setor público tende, atualmente, a substituir abordagens hierárquicas e burocráticas por uma administração mais transparente. (shrink)

Da Costa and French explore the consequences of adopting a 'pragmatic' notion of truth in the philosophy of science. Their framework sheds new light on issues to do with belief, theory acceptance, and the realism-antirealism debate, as well as the nature of scientific models and their heuristic development.

This volume is by no means out of place for a reader in the twenty first century as resemblances between the age of the machine and our own digital age are surprisingly numerous, particularly with reference to the patterns of intellectual response to unprecedented stimuli. The worrisome parallelisms and analogues are purposefully kept off stage for the imaginative audience to complement the plot of the real drama of the Industrial Revolution as it was witnessed by such imaginative medievalist 'knights' as (...) Carlyle, Cobbett, Southey, Pugin, Ruskin and Morris, intelligent thinkers who performed the universal 'type' rather than the subjective or egocentric in so far as their intellectual responses to the discrepancy between two dissimilar epochs was concerned. The reader is, therefore, expected to be engaged with the arguments of the 'neo-feudal', the 'moral-aesthetic' and the utopian 'social-aesthetic' arguments at the core of the book both imaginatively and intellectually. On the first level, he is requested to shuttle between two centuries separated by the length of a different century. On the second, however, he is expected not only to appreciate the artistically excellent literary works of prominent belletrists, but also to examine the clever polemics they developed as methods of treatment and persuasion aiming at a solution of the social and psychological problems that arose from the incongruity between the present and the past, with specific references to such significant concepts as those of time, history, progress and authority which are examined against the superheated touchstones of democratization, liberty, laissez-faire ethics, mechanization, poverty and social protest in the industrial city. (shrink)

In this paper we address a frontier topic in the humanities, namely how the cultural and natural construction that we call landscape affects well-being and health. Following an updated review of evidence-based literature in the fields of medicine, psychology, and architecture, we propose a new theoretical framework called “processual landscape,” which is able to explain both the health-landscape and the medical agency-structure binomial pairs. We provide a twofold analysis of landscape, from both the cultural and naturalist points of view: in (...) order to take into account its relationship with health, the definition of landscape as a cultural product needs to be broadened through naturalization, grounding it in the scientific domain. Landscape cannot be distinguished from the ecological environment. For this reason, we naturalize the idea of landscape through the notion of affordance and Gibson’s ecological psychology. In doing so, we stress the role of agency in the theory of perception and the health-landscape relationship. Since it is the result of continuous and co-creational interaction between the cultural agent, the biological agent and the affordances offered to the landscape perceiver, the processual landscape is, in our opinion, the most comprehensive framework for explaining the health-landscape relationship. The consequences of our framework are not only theoretical, but ethical also: insofar as health is greatly affected by landscape, this construction represents something more than just part of our heritage or a place to be preserved for the aesthetic pleasure it provides. Rather, we can talk about the right to landscape as something intrinsically linked to the well-being of present and future generations. (shrink)

Study on materialism in Indic philosophy.

A fenomenologia encontra-se em um momento crítico, enquanto investigadores reinterpretam textos canônicos e reverenciados de Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger e Maurice Merleau-Ponty para tentar demonstrar sua importância política e ética. Mais especificamente, os fenomenólogos desejam demonstrar a relevância da fenomenologia para as análises críticas das diversas identidades sociais. Devido aos compromissos metodológicos com o método transcendental, uma predileção por evidências apodíticas, o apelo para a suspensão da atitude natural e a busca por categorias ontológicas gerais, os investigadores contemporâneos não reconheceram (...) imediatamente a fenomenologia como uma fonte provável para teorizar as estruturas históricas e contingentes. Talvez o problema seja que a própria Filosofia em si, como observa Helen Ngo (2019), tem “uma tendência bem conhecida em direção à abstração e à conceitualização que pode dificultar o reconhecimento da natureza profundamente histórica e da especificidade situada do racismo” (p. 207; grifo nosso). De fato, a descrição de Ngo sobre o “acerto de contas” da raça pela Filosofia é muito apropriada; a Filosofia precisa confrontar suas práticas de omissão e supressão ou, em resumo, seu racismo. Certamente, uma filosofia como a fenomenologia, que leva a sério a experiência vivida e o mundo da vida, precisa teorizar a raça como uma característica fundamental da experiência vivida e da criação de sentidos. Não fazer isso indicaria um profundo fracasso em se envolver com o famoso “problema da linha de cor” que W. E. B. Du Bois (1989) entendeu tão agudamente como o principal problema do século XX, mas que claramente continua a nos assombrar. (shrink)

A equipe da Enfermagem é privilegiada, pois, é o cuidador que permanece vinte e quatro horas na assistência direta do paciente, podendo ter uma visão ampliada da pessoa no processo do adoecimento, tendo a oportunidade de incorporar e desenvolver os princípios dos Cuidados Paliativos (CP). Na perspectiva holística da saúde a religião/religiosidade/espiritualidade é uma das possibilidades de cuidado e manejo, porém ainda muito negligenciada pelos profissionais da saúde, seja por desconhecimento ou preconceitos e tabus, mas que se torna essencial no (...) cuidado de pacientes em CP. Por meio deste relato de experiência, objetiva-se ressaltar a importância da religião/religiosidade/espiritualidade, no cuidado e manejo de pacientes em CP, a partir da experiência de uma profissional da enfermagem, sua prática em cuidados e docência, supervisionando alunos com pacientes em contexto dos CP. Anos acompanhando alunos na prática, demonstraram que os profissionais da enfermagem têm dificuldade de identificar o Sofrimento Espiritual (SE) dos pacientes, e quando identificavam, não sabiam o que fazer com esta demanda, delegando a outros profissionais da equipe, que também tinham dificuldades, causando um (des)cuidado na Dimensão Espiritual (DE) do paciente em CP, trazendo-o mais sofrimento e desconforto com sua finitude. Como resultado dessas reflexões, está sendo desenvolvida uma pesquisa de pós-doutorado, destinada a identificar a DE, construção de roteiro de educação permanente. Em síntese, esses profissionais tendo a capacitação para identificar o SE, explorar e cuidar da DE, poderão promover a proteção da saúde mental, tanto do paciente em CP quanto sua, e tornarem-se profissionais mais sensíveis na finitude. (shrink)

Consistindo em um processo ético-jurídico de deliberação coletiva, o que se impõe à manifestação da Vontade Geral como um fenômeno histórico-cultural é a condição de imanência que a caracteriza em um movimento dinâmico-dialético que demanda uma formação econômico-social que possibilite a emergência de valores e práticas, condutas e comportamentos, necessidades e objetivos que, tendo como fundamento o interesse comum, se lhe correspondam, convergindo para uma forma de autodeterminação que guarda possibilidade de promover a superação da alienação das capacidades humanas no (...) contexto das relações socioprodutivas, a saber, a autogestão. Tal experiência social de autodeterminação coletiva, conforme assinala o artigo, envolve tanto a esfera política quanto o âmbito econômico e encerra a noção que implica desde a igualdade substancial até a efetiva participação política, sobrepondo-se ao viés mercadológico da organização econômico-social vigente e à estrutura burocrática corporificada pelo Estado no sistema capitalista. (shrink)

Within current political, social, and ethical debates – both in academia and society – activism and how individuals should approach issues facing nonhuman animals, have become increasingly important, ‘hot’ issues. Individuals, groups, advocacy agencies, and governments have all espoused competing ideas for how we should approach nonhuman use and exploitation. Ought we proceed through liberation? Abolition? Segregation? Integration? As nonhuman liberation, welfare, and rights’ groups increasingly interconnect and identify with other ‘social justice movements’, resolutions to these questions have become increasingly (...) entangled with questions of what justice and our ethical commitments demand on this issue, and the topic has become increasingly significant and divisive. -/- The book considers how this question, and contemporary issues facing nonhumans (such as experimentation, hunting, and factory farming) should be answered by drawing on both theory and practice in order to provide grounded, yet actionable, ways forward. -/- Indicatively, the book covers topics such as: • The intersection between interspecies ethics and the ethics of war and self-defence • Nonhuman animals as political subjects and acting agents • Whether we should intervene for nonhuman animals in cases of natural disaster • Various explorations of why the nonhuman movement may not be succeeding as well as it could be • Comparisons between the nonhuman movement and other social movement • Arguments for and against intervening to help or save nonhumans, and how far we may go • What intervention could ultimately mean for nonhumans -/- The book is therefore intended not only to provide new and interesting insight into the area and important contemporary discussions, but also to constructively aid the nonhuman movement and unite theory and practice on the crucial issues. With the nonhuman movement and its past approaches currently being questioned as a success, more nonhumans than ever being harmed and exploited, and a growing gulf between activists and scholars, this book will not only be a timely addition to the literature, but an attempt to bridge these gaps and move both theory and practice – and thus the movement and field – forward. (shrink)

Ao pesquisar onde poderia achar a referida obra, travei contato com dezenas das mais tradicionais e maiores bibliotecas do Brasil. Infelizmente, não encontrei ao menos um exemplar. E também, nenhum indício de que a mesma possuísse qualquer edição em língua portuguesa. A encontrei-a em língua espanhola, numa edição de 1988, e fui buscá-la na Biblioteca Nacional da República Argentina, em Buenos Aires, de onde trouxe cópia em língua espanhola. Vejo, portanto, como preciosa, para mim, e, sobretudo para a comunidade acadêmica (...) local, toda possibilidade de divulgar o conteúdo da fonte em questão. São raras as citações desta obra, mesmo do interesse de Schrödinger pelo pensamento védico, em língua portuguesa. No livro Schrödinger e Heisenberg, a Física além do senso comum de Antônio F. R. de Toledo Piza, doutor em Física Nuclear pelo MIT, professor de Física da USP, constatamos as palavras do próprio Schrödinger acerca de tal questão. (shrink)

Em A utilidade do inútil do filósofo italiano Nuccio Ordine retoma um tema tradicional e inesgotável: o valor da educação e sua relação com a cultura. Ordine identifica que vivemos uma profunda crise cultural, que assola a Escola e a Universidade. Ambas padecem diante do avanço de uma mentalidade utilitarista, praticista e produtivista, motivada pela lógica implacável do lucro. Tais espaços, que deveriam ser de formação intelectual e humanística, se convertem em empresas capitalistas em formar não cidadãos críticos e livres (...) pensadores, mas mão de obra especializada para o mercado de trabalho e consumo. (shrink)

Mead and Modernity is one of the most detailed and ambitiously conceived studies of G. H. Mead's work to appear in years. Filipe Carreira da Silva addresses the basic questions 'How should we read Mead?' and 'Why should we read Mead today?' by showing that the history of ideas and theory-building are closely related endeavors. Mead and Modernity is a methodological innovation with sweeping theoretical implications.

Essa pesquisa teve como proposta realizar um estudo acerca da angústia na obra do escritor Haruki Murakami (1949-), tendo como ponto de apoio secundário a teoria de Sigmund Freud (1858-1939) da angústia. Visamos, com esse estudo, lançar luz sobre a literatura como modelo de leitura da vida humana, em nosso caso, uma leitura das angústias humanas a partir da literatura. Para isso, iremos abordar o próprio gênero literário em que a obra de Murakami está circunscrita, os principais conceitos que dão (...) suporte a esse caráter angustiante, presentes no texto murakamiano, e a influência de concepções e ideias filosóficos em sua obra. Como por exemplo, a teoria da Vontade de Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) e a ideia do lugar do pensamento, postulado por Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) no quarto capítulo da obra “A vida do espírito". (shrink)

ABSTRACT Around 390 BC, Isocrates wrote a text dedicated to the mythical Helen, Encomium of Helen. According to the rhetorician, his objective was to praise that character, who was recognized in two of Homer’s main works, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Although the isocratic text has already been thoroughly studied, we believe that Discourse Analysis will provide a more in-depth view of the text and its argumentative strategies. Thus, our objective is to analyze how the argumentative construction of the Encomium (...) of Helen took place. From the analysis, it was possible to notice that discourses have different layers, that Isocrates uses Helen’s story as a foundation for his argumentation and that the rhetorician reproduces imaginaries of femininity and masculinity, although this was not an explicit objective. (shrink)

A Editora Contracorrente tem a satisfação de publicar o livro “A era do direito positivo: reflexões sobre política, Estado, Sociedade e Direito”, de autoria do ilustre João Antonio da Silva Filho, Conselheiro do Tribunal de Contas do Município de São Paulo. Nas palavras de Luís Fernando Massonetto, Professor de Direito Econômico da Universidade de São Paulo, esta obra se apresenta “como o esforço de reflexão de um militante político que forja sua consciência no processo de luta pelo direito e que (...) tenta expressar, em um momento mais maduro da sua vida, uma visão particular sobre o fenômeno jurídico a partir de uma leitura singular que ilumina os marcos do positivismo com reflexões sobre a política, a sociedade e o Estado”. (shrink)

This article presents the recent literature about the church Nossa Senhora da Consolação, considered through the prism of the study of sacred art. After a historical overview about the neighborhood and the ancient temple of Consolation, will be highlighted some most relevant artistic aspects of architecture and works of art gathered in the sacred building, designed by German engineer Maximilian Emil Hehl, whose inspiration reports to the formal and stylistic features of Romanesque architecture as well as the influences of eclecticism (...) with a predominance of Romanesque Revival architecture and Gothic Revival in São Paulo in the early twentieth century. (shrink)

S. Jaśkowski introduced the discussive propositional calculus D₂ as a basis for a logic which could be used as underlying logic of inconsistent but nontrivial theories. D₂ has afterwards been extended to a first-order predicate calculus and to a higher-order logic. In this paper we present a natural version of D₂, in the sense of Jaśkowski and Gentzen; as a consequence, we suggest a new formulation of the discussive predicate calculus. A semantics for the new calculus is also presented.

This article reflects on childhood times based on the words chrónos, kairós and aión, which the Greeks use to conceptualize time, in dialogue with different authors, such as Kohan, Pohlmann, Skliar, Kohan and Fernandes. In the pedagogical field, we explore how Pedagogy of Childhood has focused on the importance of childhood temporality and children’s agency, with contributions from Hoyuelos, Parrini, Aguilera et al., Barbosa, Oliveira-Formosinho e Araújo, Oliveira-Formosinho, Pinazza and Gobbi. We reflect on what forms of organizing time are possible (...) when we think about children and their childhoods. Would it be a continuous and chronological time, a time of opportunity for the instant or the timeless intensity of the aiónic? Would it be possible to open spaces in school for other temporalities, given its immersion in chronological time, and its extreme emphasis on routine? We seek a relationship between forms of temporality, philosophy, and early education in order to explore alternative possibilities in the relationship between child and the school context, and conclude that, since the child’s is the aiónic time of intense experience, it is in the heightened dynamic immediacy and the multiple symbolic languages of play that it may be possible to create pedagogical structures that provide a dwelling for childhood temporality. (shrink)

O presente texto tem por objetivo compreender a pintura de Wassily Kandinsky a partir da metafísica do belo de Arthur Schopenhauer, especialmente a partir da relação entre pintura e música estabelecida pelo pintor.

One of Descartes’ greatest contributions to modern thought lies in his dualistic conception of mind and body. While the physical body in Descartes assumes a passive role in the ontological structure of reality, subject to mechanistic laws, the mind in Descartes, on the other hand, assumes an active role, as an organizing axis and producer of values and ideas, exercising a rational dominion over reality. physical reality. This dualistic Cartesian conception would generate important effects on the problem of mind-body interaction, (...) becoming the central theme debated by contemporary philosophy of mind. Contemporary theories of philosophy of mind seek to overcome this dualism, through neuroscience and cognitive psychology. These theories attempt to apply the reductionist scientific model to human mental phenomena and processes, describing them in non-mental, physical, and empirical terms. However, the reductionist project of these contemporary theories has not yet proved successful in explaining unobservable phenomena of the mind, such as consciousness, will and human subjectivity. (shrink)

This book offers ethical and political approaches to issues that nonhuman animals face. The recent 'political turn' in interspecies ethics, from ethical to political approaches, has arisen due to the apparent lack of success of the nonhuman animal movement and dissatisfaction with traditional approaches. Current works largely present general positions rather than address specific issues and principally rely on mainstream approaches. This book offers alternative positions such as cosmopolitan, libertarian, and left humanist thought, as well as applying ethical and political (...) thought to specific issues, such as experimentation, factory farming, nonhuman political agency, and intervention. Presenting work by theorists and activists, insights are offered from both ethics and politics that impact theory and practice and offer essential considerations for those engaging in interspecies ethics within the political turn era. (shrink)

Not being satisfied with the interpretation offered by Sankara and his followers, or some other teachers the author has attempted in the following pages to present to the readers his own interpretation of the work as he has understood it. But in no way does he claim that his interpretation is the interpretation, i.e., the interpretation intended by Gaudapada himself. In the present volume the author has given a new edition of the text of the Agamasastra based on a number (...) of MSS and different editions, followed by an English translation. After this comes his annotation. At the end there are Appendixes including the text and English translation of the Mandukya Upanisad, VAriants of the MSS used for the edition of the text of the Agamasastra, and different indexes. (shrink)

O presente estudo analisa a Lei de Diretrizes e Bases, o Plano Nacional de Educação e o Programa Mais Educação São Paulo, especificamente as partes que tratam da política curricular da ampliação da jornada de aulas na rede pública de ensino de São Paulo, conhecida como escola integral. Metodologia: A análise se dá a partir da perspectiva arqueológica de Michel Foucault, sua terminologia e análise discursiva. Objetivo: O objetivo da pesquisa foi valer-se da contribuição do filósofo e de sua analítica (...) para a leitura crítica e ponderada de documentos educacionais oficiais. Os documentos foram analisados sob a luz dos pressupostos que alicerçam seus objetivos e concepções, mas principalmente sob a perspectiva da analítica arqueológica. A metodologia contemplou, portanto, a análise das regularidades, contradições, comparações e transformações dos três documentos fundantes da escola integral. Resultados: A leitura arqueológica de três documentos da escola integral revelou que a proposta é, de certa forma, totalizante, no sentido de que apresenta a escola integral como supostamente detentora de enorme poder de transformação social, política e educacional. Revelou, além disso, que a proposta tem características paliativas, no sentido de que a escola integral é apresentada como panaceia, quando, de fato, não parece funcionar efetivamente em todos os casos, circunstâncias e objetos, como os documentos presumem. Mostrou ainda que a proposta padece, entre outras coisas, de contradições intrínsecas, extrínsecas e derivadas. Finalmente, revelou que a proposta hierarquiza saberes, nem sempre tem aplicação prática e assume, às vezes, contornos demagógicos. O discurso da escola de tempo integral parece trair a ideia de que o tempo proporciona uma espécie de controle regimental sobre os outros. Fala-se de mais tempo na escola como se isto significasse automaticamente mais qualidade no ensino. Conclusão: Concluímos, portanto, que a proposta da escola em tempo integral esvazia a discussão de uma consideração mais atenta à qualidade das políticas educacionais como um todo, especialmente as curriculares. Palavras-chave : Foucault. Arqueologia do saber. Políticas públicas. Escola integral. (shrink)

This critical notice argues for the existence of a new trend in bioethics, a complex and dynamic field of philosophical enquiry that goes beyond applied ethics and professional deontological codes. This trend supplements their traditionally “minimalist” ethics—and its concern with harm, rights or justice—with “inflationary” positions open to an integration of medicine with the humanities. By comparing and contrasting the views of two quite different philosophers, Diego Gracia and Alfred Tauber, and placing them within the theoretical background delineated by George (...) Khushf, I argue that the main contribution of this “inflationary bioethics” is an understanding of health and disease as intrinsically normative concepts, which in turn brings about a blurring of the distinction between facts and values. By refusing to construe the distinction as a dichotomy, a post-positivist philosophy of medicine must become more epistemological in order to help us clarify concepts in which the evaluative and the factual are impossible to separate. As a result, the “language of principles” in standard bioethics is being substituted by a more encompassing “language of values”; health and disease are increasingly understood as biopsychosocial phenomena; and the field is open to a process of moralization that challenges traditional models of patient autonomy and physician responsibility. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that a reconciliation between science and nature is possible by way of the role played by ecological sciences on the aesthetical and ethical appraisal of natural diversity. First, I show that the aim of science – namely natural sciences – is to dominate nature and contend that environmental ethics was founded to support nature’s protection from the perils of science. I then show that when environmental ethics is supported by environmental aesthetics, a different role may (...) be assigned to science. I start by building on Allen Carlson’s philosophical aesthetics to show that the aesthetical appraisal of nature requires a scientific understanding of the ecological processes. Finally, I refer to Holmes Rolston’s environmental ethics to show how nature’s ethical value may arise from Carlson’s peculiar aesthetic evaluation. (shrink)

In the present paper, i propose, first, to present some aspects of what we may call a type of "phenomenology" of the image contained in the Berlin lectures on transcendental logic – notably, in the second of these courses in Berlin. Second, i would like to return to the problem of the relationship between logic and philosophy, starting from these indications with regard to the "image", and, if possible, outline some parallel with certain theses on the same subject from the (...) Jena years. Finally, in what i consider a novelty concerning these lessons, i would like to conclude my exposition by raising the question of the foundational character of Fichte’s project. (shrink)

Carolina Maria de Jesus, Abdias Nascimento, and Lélia Gonzalez are presented in this essay as Afro-Brazilian existentialist thinkers, whose global significance lies in their outlining philosophical interpretations of Brazil that center racial relations in the formation of the nation. By combining accounts of the lives and intellectual contributions of these thinkers, one can understand the core of each of their projects, whether in philosophical literature, sociological study of ethnic-racial relations, or philosophical anthropology. Part of a line of thought in which (...) the terms “black” and “existence” are put together, Jesus, Nascimento, and Gonzalez exemplarily proposed practices of decolonial knowledge production based on the notion that it is possible with the struggle for freedom and justice to reverse power structures that hierarchize human beings. (shrink)

After mentioning the cogent connection between pure semantics and the particular set theoretical framework in which it is formulated, some issues regarding the conceptual status of semantics itself, as well as its relationship to logic, are concisely raised.

Is the dream of EU endangered? This book reviews classic and modern values and virtues, and uses them in order to rethink Europe's present politics and its future. The idea of the Republic was born with the political ethics of ancient Greece. The current international crisis obliges Europe to face the mirror of truth: What has become of the European Idea and how fares the European Constitution? It has been a long road from the Greek Politeia to the present lack (...) of values and financial monomania in Europe, who seems to have lost any harmony between the spirit, the soul and the body of her Constitution: the will and values of the people (material constitution), the text of the Lisbon Treaty (formal constitution) and its current political interpretation and action (real constitution), making Europe a two-tier or three-tier club, far from the dream of the founding fathers. Without republican values and virtues, and failing to uphold the European social model, the European Union would devolve into moral, social and democratic bankruptcy. (shrink)

Contrastivism is the view that knowledge is a ternary relation between an agent, a content proposition, and a contrast, and it explains that a binary knowledge ascription sentence appears to be context-sensitive because different contexts can implicitly fill the contrast with different values. This view is purportedly supported by certain linguistic evidence. An objective of this paper is to argue that contrastivism is not empirically adequate, as there are examples that favor its contextualist cousin. Thereafter, I shall develop a contextualist (...) account for the relevant linguistic data. The account consists of a contextualist semantics and some rules of pragmatics. The two parts combined show that contrastivism is neither sufficient nor necessary as a satisfactory theory of knowledge ascriptions. (shrink)