Il est urgent de réinvestir l'humanisme, ce mouvement d'émancipation culturelle, né à la Renaissance et fondé sur l’élan de l’esprit critique, sur le retour aux sources antiques et sur le développement des universités – notion qui paraît à certains désuète, voire politiquement «récupérée». Des chercheurs et des enseignants disent ici en quoi la formation universitaire, au-delà des sept arts libéraux qui assurent la maîtrise des chiffres et des lettres, ne peut qu’être humaniste, aujourd’hui comme hier: son objectif est de forger (...) des citoyennes et des citoyens qui mettent leurs talents et leurs compétences au service des autres et chez qui l’intelligence va de pair avec la conscience éthique. La bulle d’institution de l’Université de Louvain, en 1425, exprimait déjà en des termes étonnamment simples et actuels les principes fondateurs d’une université, sa vocation, son enracinement dans la cité et les liens privilégiés qui unissent ses étudiants, ses docteurs et ses professeurs. On trouve dans le présent petit livre une traduction française inédite de ce document essentiel de la fin du Moyen Âge, due à Lambert Isebaert. Cet ouvrage est une boussole pour l’esprit, de ceux qu’on garde à portée de main pour tenir le cap. (shrink)

This edited collection testifies to the fact that the animal liberation movement is now entering its political phase, after a period dominated by ethical approaches that undermined the paradigm of human supremacy and demanded justice for nonhuman beings. The contributors of this book collectively confront and take on questions of social transformation, guided by the idea that philosophy has an important role to play even at such a new level. They start from such diverse perspectives as critical theory, left liberalism, (...) and biopolitical thought. The result is an articulated picture in which, beyond any principled divergence, it is possible to detect the emergence of a relevant set of shared political preoccupations. This exploration of those offers fresh theoretical insights and suggestions for praxis. (shrink)

How much do animals matter--morally? Can we keep considering them as second class beings, to be used merely for our benefit? Or, should we offer them some form of moral egalitarianism? Inserting itself into the passionate debate over animal rights, this fascinating, provocative work by renowned scholar Paola Cavalieri advances a radical proposal: that we extend basic human rights to the nonhuman animals we currently treat as "things." Cavalieri first goes back in time, tracing the roots of the (...) debate from the 1970s, then explores not only the ethical but also the scientific viewpoints, examining the debate's precedents in mainstream Western philosophy. She considers the main proposals of reform that recently have been advanced within the framework of today's prevailing ethical perspectives. Are these proposals satisfying? Cavalieri says no, claiming that it is necessary to go beyond the traditional opposition between utilitarianism and Kantianism and focus on the question of fundamental moral protection. In the case of human beings, such protection is granted within the widely shared moral doctrine of universal human rights' theory. Cavalieri argues that if we examine closely this theory, we will discover that its very logic extends to nonhuman animals as beings who are owed basic moral and legal rights and that, as a result, human rights are not human after all. (shrink)

" From the divergences between analytical and continental approaches to the relevance of posthumanist thinking in contemporary ethics, the psychology of speciesism, and the practical consequences of an antiperfectionist stance, The Death of ...

In this important study D. M. Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesises but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and (...) rigorously this-worldly account of the most general features of reality, argued from a distinctive philosophical perspective, and it will appeal to a wide readership in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

Há longo tempo considerado um dos sentidos menores e mais fracos nos animais humanos, o olfato na realidade assume na nossa modalidade de existência uma função bem menos marginal, antes central, nos comportamentos socio-emocionais, na evocação das memórias e na comunicação não verbal, e não último na nossa vida quotidiana, especialmente pelo seu papel na percepção do sabor dos alimentos. Graças aos progressos que a pesquisa alcançou nas últimas décadas, a ponto de justificar entre outras coisas o nascimento de uma (...) nova área científica chamada neurogastronomia, o olfato, e especialmente o olfato retronasal, se configura como uma das nossas habilidades mais espécie-específicas, à qual devemos, inclusive, uma das maiores alegrias da vida: o prazer consciente de saborear e de apreciar alimentos e bebidas. Partindo deste tema, o objetivo deste ensaio è, portanto, mostrar em que medida uma experiência radicada no corpo, como a percepção do sabor, remonte às características espécie-específicas desenvolvidas pelo olfato humano no curso da evolução, configurando-se como uma forma complexa de cognição encarnada, cujas possibilidades dependem tanto da estrutura biológica, quanto do uso efetivo que fazemos deste extraordinário dispositivo corpóreo. _Palavras-chave:_ odores, olfato retronasal, percep;ção do sabor, gosto, neurogastronomia, anosmia, ageusia. (shrink)

After rejecting Carruthers' conflation of levels of consciousness as implausible and conceptually muddled, and Carruthers' claim that nonhumans are automata as undermined by evolutionary and ethological considerations, we develop a general criticism of contemporary philosophical approaches which, though recognizing nonhuman consciousness, still see animals as mere receptacles of experiences. This is, we argue, due to the fact that, while in the case of humans we grant a self - something that has not only a descriptive but also a prescriptive side, (...) requiring at least non-interference - in the case of nonhumans we focus only on the descriptive aspects. Consequently, we treat humans as equals whatever their capacities, but we order nonhumans in a hierarchy based on their cognitive level. We conclude that such double standards are not only inconsistent but also self-serving. (shrink)

Though not as widely studied as the Research Article, the abstract has attracted increasing interest among researchers over last decades. A number of contrastive or comparative studies of abstracts in English and other languages have already been carried out considering mainly the hard sciences and some soft sciences such as linguistics and history, however no cross-cultural analyses have been conducted so far between RA abstracts in English and RA abstracts in French published in the legal field. This paper seeks to (...) investigate genre variation and changes in frame sequences comparatively in English and French RA abstracts from criminology journals. Using a genre analytical approach to qualitative and quantitative data, the paper reports on two comparable corpora, i.e. English and French, of electronically retrieved abstracts from Criminology Journals published in 2014. The two corpora are composed of three journals per language, namely Criminology, Journal of Criminal Justice, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology for the English corpus, and Champ Pénal, Criminologie, Revue Canadienne de Droit Pénal et Criminologie for the French corpus. The analysis will be carried out following two main steps, i.e. a macro-analysis and a micro-analysis. In the former step, the corpora are compared by the analysis and discussion of the basic IMRD rhetorical move structure for the RA often proposed in the literature and the additional five moves model postulated by Dos Santos with the aim of investigating the linguistic and rhetorical variation in the abstract genre from a cross-cultural perspective. In the latter, we look at frame sequences combining forms of self-mentions and frame markers, i.e. personal patterns, impersonal patterns and locational patterns. Provisional results show that the abstracts under investigation largely follow the international conventions based on the norms established by the English-speaking international academic community. However, variation across the two cultures emerged from the linguistic realizations of framework sequences. Cross-cultural implications are discussed at the close. (shrink)

Como é sabido, comida e eros são duas fontes de prazer, indissociavelmente ligadas. Não é uma coincidência que o termo ‘apetite’ denota tanto a sensação que acompanha a necessidade de se alimentar, como, em geral, a tendência natural para satisfazer os desejos físicos e especialmente sexuais. Os prazeres do paladar, bem como os sexuais, estão em grande parte relacionados com multissensorialidade que os perpassa. São, portanto, experiências totalizantes, prazeres difusos que satisfazem todos os nossos sentidos, contribuindo de modo nada trivial (...) à obtenção da vida feliz para a qual temos uma vocação inata. Os sentidos mais “carnais”, em especial o gosto – o sentido mais sinestésico – juntamente ao olfato, são os mais envolvidos na mesa assim como na cama. Funções essenciais para a sobrevivência dos indivíduos e para a preservação de todas as espécies animais, comer e se reproduzir foram transformadas pelo animal humano em duas atividades espécie-específicas: o erotismo e a gastronomia. E, portanto, em fontes de prazer longe de ser instintivo, no qual também a linguagem desempenha um papel considerável. As saborosas descrições de um prato são parte integrante da sua apreciação e do prazer que derivamos do seu consumo e da sua partilha, exatamente como o são as palavras sussurradas durante uma festa de amor. Cientes da dificuldade imposta por um tema sobre o qual se disse e se escreveu de tudo, neste artigo tentaremos descrever o papel dos sentidos “carnais”, e do gosto em particular, nas duas experiências mais sensuais e totalizantes que definem a “boa vida” para a qual estamos naturalmente inclinados. Palavras-chave: Gosto. Comida. Prazer. Eros. Multisensorialidade. (shrink)

Normal 0 14 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 SINTESI Un pregiudizo tramandato per secoli dalla cultura filosofico-scientifica dominante ha avvalorato una gerarchia dei sensi centrata sul primato cognitivo della vista e dell’udito, relegando il gusto al rango di senso ‘minore’, di senso carnale e distante dalla conoscenza. Ma portare qualcosa alla bocca e capirne il sapore è un’attività che per gli animali umani oltrepassa il bisogno fisiologico, configurandosi come un’esperienza multisensoriale ma anche cognitiva, emotiva, culturale, estetica e persino linguistica. Recuperare il (...) valore intellettuale e culturale del gusto vuol dire restituire dignità a una componente importante della nostra conoscenza sensibile, riconoscendo il contributo che ciascun dispositivo sensoriale sa apportare alla conoscenza della realtà con un accento suo proprio, pur entro un’ineliminabile ‘concertazione’ sinestetica. Espressione di un atto ‘estremo’ di conoscenza incarnata, il gusto è dopotutto l’unico senso a esigere l’introduzione di frammenti di mondo dentro di noi, l’unico che ci consente di assimilare totalmente l’oggetto esterno (la cosa gustata) fino a farlo diventare parte di noi. Un’esperienza così esclusiva e intima – in cui sia il soggetto gustante sia l’oggetto gustato risultano trasformati – non può pertanto non suscitare una riflessione sul gusto come intelligenza del corpo e come strumento per meglio comprendere quel complesso intreccio di mente e di corpo, di ragione e di passione, di vincoli biologici e di attrezzature culturali che è l’animale umano. Partendo da queste premesse proveremo a spiegare brevemente cosa vuol dire ‘saper gustare’ e in che senso quest’attività contribuisce a qualificare la nostra umanità. (shrink)

O objetivo deste ensaio é refletir sobre o significado da expressão “arte do paladar”, enfocando os aspectos da nossa história evolutiva – uma história contemporaneamente biológica e cultural – os quais fizeram de nós os únicos “macacos” capazes de cozinhar o alimento, de produzi-lo de modo sistemático, de escolhê-lo em meio a uma vasta gama de alimentos, com base em diferentes critérios, de atribuir-lhe um valor simbólico e de celebrálo através da linguagem; razões pelas quais o homem pode reivindicar plenamente (...) a invenção dos sabores. Resultado de um longo processo de elaboração da natureza, a arte do paladar é, portanto, o resultado de todos os processos pelos quais transformamos um dos atos mais naturais, isto é, o ato de comer, em um artificial, cultural e intelectual, aplicando um conhecimento, um saber prático, para conceber, imaginar e elaborar novos objetos alimentares, novas sensações para o paladar, novas possibilidades de interação social. Palavras-chave: Arte de alimentos. Sabor. Cozinhar. Culinária. Linguagem. (shrink)

Tra il gusto, il cibo e il piacere esiste un legame complesso che oltrepassa le necessità legate alla sopravvivenza, contribuendo al raggiungimento di quella felicità che è il fine ultimo cui tende l’uomo. Fonte di nutrimento, per il corpo come per la mente, e nel contempo di godimento, l’atto di gustare il cibo soddisfa tutti i sensi, accende la nostra vita emotiva, stimola la nostra mente, promuove la socialità, gratifica il nostro senso estetico e sinestetico, sollecita la conversazione, crea talvolta (...) godibili dipendenze, arricchendosi di significati diversi. Partendo da queste premesse, questo saggio, attingendo da fonti diverse, si propone di restituire al poliedrico piacere di gustare il suo vero valore, esplorandone le molteplici declinazioni, gli innumerevoli modi che ci siamo inventati per prolungare questo piacere, alla ricerca di gratificazioni del palato alternative a quelle offerte dalla natura. Un tema filosoficamente e antropologicamente interessante, specialmente per chi intende praticare una filosofia incarnata, fondata cioè sul corpo vivente e sensiente. Parole chiave: Piacere del gusto. Passione. Gustare. Emozioni. Avanguardia culinaria. Spettacolarizzazione del cibo. Food porn. (shrink)

In recent decades, neurosciences have reached considerable goals in understanding mental processes and human behavior, overcoming the classic separations between mind and body, reason and passion, penetrating the maze of our cognitive and emotional life to explain their rootedness in the body and the their interactions with the environment. And if until not many years ago psychological and neuroscientific research neglected the study of emotional life to focus only on cognitive functions tout court, today there is even a dedicated sector (...) called affective Neuroscience. By broadly reconstructing the general panorama of neuroscience, and of the affective ones in particular, this essay focuses on the contribution that research on mirror neurons has made to understanding the mechanisms of intersubjectivity and above all that component of social cognition that is empathy. The goal is to understand how we recognize the emotions of others and to explain what the human ability to interpret the actions and intentions of others as if they were ours, to know better how we work and how we relate to others. Research on mirror neurons, within an embodied perspective, shows how the brain is an organ linked to a body that acts, moves and feels in its unceasing interaction with the world. Keywords: Neuroscience. Affective Neurosciences. Emotions. Empathy. Mirror neurons. Embodied cognition. (shrink)

Liberalism is often under attack because of its alleged excessive "formalism". In the words of one of its main contemporary defenders, "the defining feature of liberalism is that it ascribes certain fundamental freedoms to each individual. In particular, it grants people a very wide freedom of choice in terms of how they lead their lives".1 In more continental language, this core idea has been summarized in the statement that what liberalism is all about is "the handling and organization of the (...) conditions in which freedom can be realized".2 For liberals, individuals must be recognized as the ultimate arbiters of what gives value to their own existences, and the liberal principle of legitimacy is not satified whenever the state seeks to impose any particular comprehensive doctrine about the good life.From many sides, however, it is said that an acceptable society in which to live needs a more substantial conception of the good, without which individuals are uprooted and anonymous.3 Somewhat along the lines of the traditional criticism of the Kantian doctrine, turning upon its focus on procedure and universalism to the detriment of content and particularism, contemporary liberalism is sometimes seen as an empty morality that, abstracting as it does from experience, is not able to provide the ethical resources necessary to ground acceptable pragmatic policies.4 I want to argue instead that, at least from one point of view, liberalism in all its versions is not formal enough. There is, I will claim, a specific problem with respect to which an important substantive aspect is surreptitiously introduced into the theory: the problem of moral status. As my argument unfolds, I shall deal with three different senses of "formal": formal as procedural, formal as neutral, and formal as analytic. (shrink)

" -- Africa Today "The excellence of this book lies in the wealth of perspectives that it brings to the discussion on what constitutes philosophy, rationality, ...

Authors philosophical notes on life, conduct of life from the perspective of a life.

A comprehensive introduction to the ways in which meaning is conveyed in language. Alan Cruse covers semantic matters, but also deals with topics that are usually considered to fall under pragmatics. A major aim is to highlight the richness and subtlety of meaning phenomena, rather than to expound any particular theory. Rich in examples and exercises, Meaning in Language provides an invaluable descriptive approach to this area of linguistics for undergraduates and postgraduates alike.

This paper focuses on the development of witness examination as an argumentative dialogue between legal professionals and lay-people, considering in particular the case of Public Inquiries in Great Britain. This paper discusses the retention of traces of the adversarial system, typical of Common Law trials, in this type of inquisitorial proceedings, stressing on how counsels exploit some linguistic features to control both the form and the ideational content of the exchange as well as the power relationship with the witness. The (...) analysis is carried out on a corpus of 15 days of witness examination transcripts (507,346 words) collected from three different Public Inquiries, namely Bloody Sunday Inquiry (Northern Ireland), Shipman Inquiry (England), and Cullen Inquiry (Scotland), to achieve a wider perspective on Common Law administrative justice. The study is based on a discourse and genre analytic approach for the macro-analysis of Public Inquiries in the context of courtroom discourse and of witness examination as a genre that develops within this discourse framework. Subsequently, a micro-analysis of the linguistic features used by counsel in questions to argumentatively shape the content and the form of the exchange is provided. We also take into consideration the role of metadiscourse (textual and interpersonal), repetitions and reformulations. Preliminary results show that these linguistic features provide valuable evidence for the hypothesis that the adversarial side of the argumentative dialogue between legal professionals and lay-people during the witness examination of Public Inquiries is retained. (shrink)

This book: * assumes no mathematical background and keeps the technicalities to a minimum * explains the most important applications of probability theory to ...

Philologus, founded in 1846, is one of the oldest and most respected periodicals in the field of Classics. It publishes articles on Greek and Latin literature, historiography, philosophy, history of religion, linguistics, reception, and the history of scholarship. The journal aims to contribute to our understanding of Greco-Roman culture and its lasting influence on European civilization. The journal Philologus, conceived as a forum for discussion among different methodological approaches to the study of ancient texts and their reception, publishes original scholarly (...) contributions with a strong international focus. Publications languages are: German, English, Italian, French. As of 2014 the publication of supplementary volumes will be resumed. The series Philologus. Supplemente / Philologus. Supplementary Volumes will publish monographs and edited volumes pertaining to all aspects of the study of ancient literature and its reception, with a special focus on topics concerning literary theory, philosophy and the history of scholarship from an interdisciplinary perspective. (shrink)

In this entry we provide a critical review of recent work on the nature and ethics of blame, including issues of moral standing.

Strangers to Nature brings together many of the leading scholars who are working to redefine and expand the discourse on animal ethics. This volume will engage both scholars and lay-people by revealing the breadth of theorizing about the human/non-human animal relationship that is currently taking place.

A record of the words and teachings of Confucius, _The Analects_ is considered the most reliable expression of Confucian thought. However, the original meaning of Confucius's teachings have been filtered and interpreted by the commentaries of Confucianists of later ages, particularly the Neo-Confucianists of the Song dynasty, not altogether without distortion.In this monumental translation by Professor D. C. Lau, an attempt has been made to interpret the sayings as they stand. The corpus of the sayings is taken as an organic (...) whole and the final test of the interpretation rests on the internal consistency it exhibits. In other words, _The Analects_ is read in the light of _The Analects._This results in a truer understanding of Confucius' thought than the traditional interpretation and paves the way for a re-assessment of its importance in the history of Chinese thought and its relevance to the present day world.This volume also contains an introduction to the life and teachings of Confucius, and three appendices on the events in the life of Confucius, on his disciples, and on the composition of _The Analects._. (shrink)