“There’s no need for DNA tests to prove that One Hundred Years of Solitude is Don Quixote’s heir.” G. Rabassa This paper is a personal attempt to relate the concept of language games as portrayed by the Austrian Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein with the literary magic of Gabriel García Márquez. The topic came up to me after reading an essay of the Colombian writer Carlos Patiño Roselli. His exposition on the language games in Wittgenstein triggered a series ofassociations in me that (...) made me see spoken language as the actor that plays the leading role in both authors. In order to address this topic I will first summarize Wittgenstein’s notion of language-games, on one hand, and then I will remind us of what we commonly understand under “magical realism” in GGM; then, I will propose a free interpretation of §103 in PhU relating it to Melquiades’ return from death to live in a story he tells in some papyrus. And now, “Back to the rough ground!”. (shrink)

Emotional processing and episodic memory are closely related throughout childhood development. With respect to emotional episodic memory, available evidence shows that the consolidation of information is accompanied by an arousal that generates longer duration and persistence of the memory representations. In the case of early stages of development (i.e., first 5 years), it is less clear how these associations emerge and are modulated by individual and environmental factors. In this study, 116 4- to 5-years old Argentinean children from different socio-environmental (...) contexts (i.e., favorable or unfavorable living conditions at home), performed a task of visual emotional memory in which they observed a set of 15 images with variable emotional valences (negative, neutral, and positive). The child’s task was to appraise each image using one of the following three possible valences: (a) drawings of faces with smiles (positive valence), (b) drawings of faces with tears and round mouth with edges down (negative valence), or (c) drawings of faces with horizontal mouth (neutral valence). Five years-old children exhibited greater accuracy appraisal. Individual differences in emotional accuracy appraisal allowed us to observe different performances in free recall of negative visual images. Accuracy appraisal did not vary between children with respect to gender, living conditions at home, or language ability. Seven to ten days after the emotional appraisal children were asked to tell the experimenter all the images they remembered (variables of interest: free recall of negative, positive, or neutral images). Results showed individual (age) differences. Specifically, 5-years-old children evoked more images than 4-years-old children. These findings contribute to the understanding of emotional memory in early developmental stages and raise the need to include emotional appraisal in the assessment of episodic memory. (shrink)

En las últimas décadas, se ha consolidado un campo de estudios alrededor de la expertise que articula enfoques y programas de investigación heterogéneos, según los modos de conceptualizar la relación entre ciencia y política, saber y poder, de fijar sus conexiones y de determinar el nivel del análisis para su abordaje. El corpus foucaulteano contiene herramientas analíticas fructíferas para el tratamiento sustantivo de la politicidad inherente a los saberes, al cuestionar las lecturas instrumentales de aquella relación e inscribir la actividad (...) especializada en estrategias de gobierno y en formas de resistencia hacia ellas. Sin embargo, las conceptualizaciones del saber experto desde una matriz foucaulteana registran cierta dispersión y, pese al avance de los estudios sobre gubernamentalidad en este aspecto, la ausencia de una reflexión sobre la categoría de expertise introduce el riesgo de que en estos análisis se establezca una cuestionable relación de coherencia y correspondencia entre saberes y racionalidades de gobierno. En este artículo, nos proponemos revisar el corpus foucaulteano y sistematizar otras claves de lectura sobre los saberes y su condición política, a fin de aportar con ello al campo de estudios sobre expertise. Examinamos la “hipótesis de la guerra”, mostramos su pulso en el ejercicio de saber y ponemos en juego estas coordenadas analíticas en un pequeño trabajo de archivo sobre una serie documental de textos de Hayek, a propósito de la articulación de la racionalidad neoliberal de gobierno. La conformación del corpus y el análisis de los textos se valieron, metodológicamente, de una traducción instrumental de tales coordenadas mediada por una perspectiva materialista del discurso. (shrink)

As Heraclitus, Cioran conceives man as a being that possesses lógos and is ruled in his life by it in its multiple aspects. Man not only makes use of word; this word also shapes him and traverses him entirely. Word is the necessary and intrinsic expression of every human being, and, as a result, he cannot elude it. In many of his works, Cioran warns us about the dangers that lógos has for man: not to find his genuine expression in (...) the midst of so many words, and to fall into totalizing fictions that lead us to deception and indoctrination. For this reason, in the midst of this misfortune, Cioran even considers silence as the only possible way out. However, if man denies the mark of language by avoiding all forms of expression, the anguish that his own existence entails will end up destroying him. Paradoxically, Cioran finds that the expression of lógos is the only possible salvation for man from the clutches of death, and that is, why by expressing oneself through lógos, one's own unhappiness becomes a necessary condition of life. (shrink)

Este artigo é um recorte do projeto de pesquisa “Leitura de imagens no ensino de História: um estudo sobre mudanças e permanências nas prescrições, livro didático e representações culturais”. Ele apresenta uma análise, dentre as muitas possíveis, da condição leitora na obra Cuore, escrita por Edmondo De Amicis, traduzida para o português brasileiro com o título Coração. Centenário, o livro teve sua primeira edição publicada no ano de 1886, na Itália, e tornou-se um grande sucesso editorial, principalmente por ter sido (...) adotado nas escolas. Nesta investigação, foram analisados quatro exemplares publicados na metade do século XX no Brasil, com enfoque na materialidade da obra. Buscou-se identificar as relações entre as características de apresentação do livro, identificadas nas capas, nas ilustrações e na escolha da linguagem, com a prática de leitura. Esta investigação baseia-se nas considerações de Chartier sobre o livro escolar como objeto de circulação. Outros estudos fundamentais, que tratam da análise do projeto gráfico, da função da ilustração e da leitura enquanto prática social, são aqui apresentados e discutidos, respectivamente, a partir de Collaro, Camargo e Kleiman. Como método de análise, optou-se pelo estudo bibliográfico, pela busca e análise de diálogos informais sobre a experiência leitora da obra, e por pesquisa de campo em bibliotecas e hemerotecas. Em relação aos resultados, a presente investigação permitiu concluir que: o livro Coração circulou no Brasil, sobretudo na região nordeste do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul; a padronização dos exemplares no formato bolso do livro possibilitou acessar mais facilmente os seus destinatários, inclusive pelo valor de venda, possível graças ao investimento em altas tiragens para distribuição e circulação interna na Itália e também no exterior; o projeto editorial, no decorrer do tempo, reuniu aspectos visuais que dinamizam e promovem o estímulo à leitura; a prática de leitura do livro em voz alta, usada pelos professores na escola, foi força persuasiva à leitura e contribuiu à sensibilização dos alunos aos conteúdos dos contos presentes na obra. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo increase knowledge of how doctors perceive futile treatments and scarcity of resources at the end of life. In particular, their perceptions about whether and how resource limitations influence end-of-life decision making. This study builds on previous work that found some doctors include resource limitations in their understanding of the concept of futility.SettingThree tertiary hospitals in metropolitan Brisbane, Australia.DesignQualitative study using in-depth, semistructured, face-to-face interviews. Ninety-six doctors were interviewed in 11 medical specialties. Transcripts of the interviews were analysed using thematic (...) analysis.ResultsDoctors’ perceptions of whether resource limitations were relevant to their practice varied, and doctors were more comfortable with explicit rather than implicit rationing. Several doctors incorporated resource limitations into their definition of futility. For some, availability of resources was one factor of many in assessing futility, secondary to patient considerations, but a few doctors indicated that the concept of futility concealed rationing. Doctors experienced moral distress due to the resource implications of providing futile treatment and the lack of administrative supports for bedside rationing.ConclusionsDoctors’ ability to distinguish between futility and rationing would be enhanced through regulatory support for explicit rationing and strategies to support doctors’ role in rationing at the bedside. Medical policies should address the distinction between resource limitations and futility to promote legitimacy in end-of-life decision making. (shrink)

El texto presenta un adelanto de un profundo “trayecto” de trabajo colectivo en curso impulsado por un grupo de jóvenes investigadores y docentes que integran el Programa “Problemáticas comunicacionales barriales, organizacionales y políticas. Experiencias de lucha y resistencia a comienzos de siglo XXI en la provincia de Córdoba” (Argentina), desde el año 2011. La sistematización de las distintas experiencias, que presenta el libro, permite poner en común las peculiaridades de los contradictorios escenarios de conflicto y resistencia analizados, organizada en tres (...) capítulos que repasan con cuidadosa “vigilancia epistemológica” los procesos realizados con los actores sociales que integran los proyectos a saber: habitantes de las ciudades-barrio, trabajadores de la economía solidaria y vecinos e instituciones que forman parte de instancias participativas en los gobiernos locales. (shrink)

Apology is arguably the central act of the reparative work required after wrongdoing. Claudia Card’s (1940-2015) analysis of complicity in collectively perpetrated evils moves one to ask whether apology ought to be requested of persons culpably complicit in institutional evils. To better appreciate the benefits of and barriers to apologies offered by culpably complicit wrongdoers, this article examines doctors’ complicity in a practice that meets Card’s definition of an evil, namely, the non-medically necessary, nonconsensual “normalizing” interventions performed on babies born (...) with intersex anatomies. It argues that in this instance, the complicity of doctors is culpable on Card’s terms, and that their culpable complicity grounds rightful demands for them to apologize. (shrink)

Background Victoria was the first Australian state to legalize voluntary assisted dying (elsewhere known as physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia). Some institutions indicated they would not participate in voluntary assisted dying. The Victorian government issued policy approaches for institutions to consider Objective To describe and analyse publicly available policy documents articulating an institutional objection to voluntary assisted dying in Victoria. Methods Policies were identified using a range of strategies, and those disclosing and discussing the nature of an institutional objection were thematically (...) analysed using the framework method. Results The study identified fifteen policies from nine policymakers and developed four themes: (1) extent of refusal to participate in VAD, (2) justification for refusal to provide VAD, (3) responding to requests for VAD, and (4) appeals to state-sanctioned regulatory mechanisms. While institutional objections were stated clearly, there was very little practical detail in most documents to enable patients to effectively navigate objections in practice. Conclusion This study demonstrates that despite having clear governance pathways developed by centralized bodies (namely, the Victorian government and Catholic Health Australia), many institutions’ public-facing policies do not reflect this guidance. Since VAD is contentious, laws governing institutional objection could provide greater clarity and regulatory force than policies alone to better balance the interests of patients and non-participating institutions. (shrink)

Partiendo de una serie de tesis respecto del significado de la negación lógica, se ofrece una reflexión acerca de la relación entre el pluralismo lógico y el estatus de ciertos principios lógicos fundamentales. El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar que el Problema de la Adopción, tal como se encuentra formulado por Kripke-Padró, no representa un conflicto para una visión antiexcepcionalista de la lógica. Las leyes lógicas no poseen un status privilegiado, independientemente de que existan algunas que no podemos adoptar, (...) porque sí podemos decidir abandonar principios lógicos y es abandonando reglas y no adoptándolas como se revisa una teoría lógica; en consecuencia es aceptable un tipo de pluralismo lógico que parta de considerar que más de un conjunto de principios capturan de manera adecuada el significado de la negación. (shrink)

Medications of choice, necessary supplies, and evidence-based health care now seem like luxuries. The contrast between my experience at a well-funded health unit and the Lev El Lev (“heart to heart”) African Refugee Clinic in Tel Aviv, Israel, is staggering. The complex personal, social, health, psychological, educational, and economic difficulties create a unique ethical environment for the health care provider.

Debate a formação de educadores e de professores na sociedade contemporânea, com destaque para as políticas de formação de professores presentes na estrutura institucional do Estado e da sociedade brasileira. Analisa as condições históricas da produção das políticas de educação e, dentro delas, os aspectos de formação e de preparação de professores para as diversas etapas, graus e níveis da Educação Básica. Estuda as causas históricas e políticas do atraso cultural, institucional e político da organização da escola no Brasil e (...) debate as ressonâncias dessas contradições na vida cotidiana, na identidade subjetiva dos professores e em sua autoestima. Apresenta fundamentos filosóficos de uma formação docente para as relações humanas de igualdade e de alteridade, de dialeticidade e de elevação ética e estética. Apresenta a educação escolar como processo de formação humana e destaca a tarefa de educar como processo de desenvolvimento ou de formação humana. Apresenta as esperadas características de uma docência humanizadora e emancipatória. Enuncia processos humanistas e atitudes éticas de acolhimento voltados para as práticas de formação de professores, com destaque para os estágios e os percursos formativos. Destaca com esperanças as novas propostas de novas docências diante de novos sujeitos sociais e de novos desafios para a educação e a escola na sociedade tecnológica. (shrink)

Active white ignorance is accompanied by an epistemic and affective insensitivity that allows American white people to avoid the negative affect that might typically accompany harmdoing. Resisting active ignorance about racism and white supremacy, therefore, often gives rise to shame. Yet, thinkers have debated the value of shame for white people’s antiracism. This article asserts that shame is an appropriate response for white people recognizing our culpability for and complicity in racist injustices and violence. However, the article exposes problems with (...) philosophical accounts of white shame, and draws on recent psychological research to show that contextual factors actually determine whether shame can support white antiracism. The article proposes a role for shame in what José Medina calls an “ethics and epistemology of discomfort,” arguing that there are conditions under which shame may encourage the sustained self-interrogation, sensitivity, and humility required if white people are to contribute meaningfully to antiracist action. (shrink)

Much of the commentary in the wake of the Charlie Gard litigation was aimed at apparent shortcomings of the law. These include concerns about the perceived inability of the law to consider resourcing issues, the vagueness of the best interests test and the delays and costs of having disputes about potentially life-sustaining medical treatment resolved by the courts. These concerns are perennial ones that arise in response to difficult cases. Despite their persistence, we argue that many of these criticisms are (...) unfounded. The first part of this paper sets out the basic legal framework that operates when parents seek potentially life-sustaining treatment that doctors believe is against a child’s best interests, and describes the criticisms of that framework. The second part of the paper suggests an alternative approach that would give decision-making power to parents, and remove doctors’ ability to unilaterally withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment that they regard is futile. This proposal is grounded in several values that we argue should guide these regulatory choices. We also contend that the best interests test is justifiable and since the courts show no sign of departing from it, the focus should be on how to better elucidate the underlying values driving decisions. We discuss the advantages of our proposed approach and how it would address some of the criticisms aimed at the law. Finally, we defend the current role that the judiciary plays, as an independent state-sanctioned process with a precedent-setting function. (shrink)

Apology is arguably the central act of the reparative work required after wrongdoing. The analysis by Claudia Card of complicity in collectively perpetrated evils moves one to ask whether apology ought to be requested of persons culpably complicit in institutional evils. To better appreciate the benefits of and barriers to apologies offered by culpably complicit wrongdoers, this article examines doctors’ complicity in a practice that meets Card's definition of an evil, namely, the non-medically necessary, nonconsensual “normalizing” interventions performed on babies (...) born with intersex anatomies. It argues that in this instance the complicity of doctors is culpable on Card's terms, and that their culpable complicity grounds rightful demands for them to apologize. (shrink)

In the development of Roman Catholic social thought from the teachings of the scholastics to the modern social encyclicals, changes in normative economics reflect the transformation of an economic terrain from its feudal roots to the modern industrial economy. The preeminence accorded by the modern market to the allocative over the distributive function of price broke the convenient convergence of commutative and distributive justice in scholastic just price theory. Furthermore, the loss of custom, law, and usage in defining the boundaries (...) of economic behavior led to a depersonalization of economic relationships that had previously provided effective informal means of protecting individual well-being. Hence, recent economic ethics has had to look for nonprice, nonmarket mechanisms for distributive justice. This is reflected, for example, in the shift in attitude from the medieval antipathy toward unions to the contemporary defense of organized labor on moral grounds. (shrink)

Os heróis japoneses estão cada vez mais presentes no cotidiano brasileiro, influenciando o público infanto-juvenil e pré-adolescente. O animê ganhou força na década de 60 através de Osamu Tezuka. Os personagens são orientais, mas a narrativa é construída a partir da cultura pop. Hoje a preocupação se volta para Bey Blade -desenho atuante no inconsciente, colocando a razão em último plano, prevalecendo a alienação e a exclusão social.

The article is an approach to the work of Colombian writer Manuel Mejía Vallejo having as starting point the recognition of the importance of memory for literary creation, especially the remembrance of childhood. It is evident in the work of Mejía Vallejo the intention of leaving proof of the time and space in which he lived, as well as a concern to work out the role of memory in the life of the human being. It is argued in the article (...) that the literary style of the author might be understood as a narrative of memory, where memory reaches the category of poetic. (shrink)

For a long while the dilemma between ‘not being’ and ‘being other’ has haunted the history of Brazil. The country's mixed-race condition lay at the heart of the dilemma which reached its apogee in the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. At that point in its history, that is, its emergence as a nation-state, the construction of a national identity became an imperative for the political and intellectual elites of Brazil. In this context, a (...) European, the German naturalist, Carl von Martius, made himself particularly notable for having been one of the first, after Independence, to point out the significance of miscegenation in the composition of Brazilian identity. (shrink)

The work of Gloria Anzaldúa has not typically been read in concert with utopian studies. Much of her writing, however, offers a rich resource for utopian critique. This is a significant omission given that much of Latin@ speculative fiction has been deemed inherently utopic. Latin@futurism is a field of inquiry by which to focus on the utopian as a broader category of visionary, speculative forms. Anzaldúa draws on techniques of defamiliarization to usher a change of consciousness in the reader, exemplified (...) by her theories of conocimiento, el cenote, and nepantla. This article discusses Anzaldúa's theory of el cenote as a powerful heterotopic space of renewal and transformation in Yuri Herrera's novel Signs Preceding the End of the World. Anzaldúa's theories of conocimiento and nepantla flesh out culminating aspects of borderlands dreaming in the novel that connect to a discourse of apocalypse and its relationship to historical renewal and social justice. (shrink)

O artigo examina o conceito de existência, o modo de ser fundamental do Dasein, presente em Ser e tempo, parte I, na medida em que este ocupa um papel central nesta obra. Heidegger empreende uma destruição do conceito tradicional de existência, porque a tradição ontológica trata o ser do Dasein a partir do horizonte interpretativo da ontologia da coisa, que compreende a existência como simplesmente subsistente. Palavras-chave.

In typical development, word learning goes from slow and laborious to fast and seemingly effortless. Typically developing 2-year-olds seem to intuit the whole range of things in a category from hearing a single instance named—they have word-learning biases. This is not the case for children with relatively small vocabularies. We present a computational model that accounts for the emergence of word-learning biases in children at both ends of the vocabulary spectrum based solely on vocabulary structure. The results of Experiment 1 (...) show that late-talkers' and early-talkers' noun vocabularies have different structures and that neural networks trained on the vocabularies of individual late talkers acquire different word-learning biases than those trained on early-talker vocabularies. These models make novel predictions about the word-learning biases in these two populations. Experiment 2 tests these predictions on late- and early-talking toddlers in a novel noun generalization task. (shrink)

Throughout the 20th century, market capitalism was defended on parallel grounds. First, it promotes freedom by enabling individuals to exploit their own property and labor-power; second, it facilitates an efficient allocation and use of resources. Recently, however, both defenses have begun to unravel—as capitalism has moved into its “platform” phase. Today, the pursuit of allocative efficiency, bolstered by pervasive data surveillance, often undermines individual freedom rather than promoting it. And more fundamentally, the very idea that markets are necessary to achieve (...) allocative efficiency has come under strain. Even supposing, for argument’s sake, that the claim was true in the early 20th century when von Mises and Hayek pioneered it, advances in computing have rekindled the old “socialist calculation” debate. And this time around, markets—as information technology—are unlikely to have the upper hand. -/- All of this, we argue, raises an important set of governance questions regarding the political economy of the future. We focus on two: How much should our economic system prioritize freedom, and to what extent should it rely on markets? The arc of platform capitalism bends, increasingly, toward a system that neither prioritizes freedom nor relies on markets. And the dominant critical response, exemplified by Shoshana Zuboff’s work, has been to call for a restoration of market capitalism. Longer term, however, we believe it would be more productive to think about how “postmarket” economic arrangements might promote freedom—or better yet, autonomy—even more effectively than markets, and to determine the practical steps necessary to realize that possibility. (shrink)

BackgroundThis paper investigates the content of Australian policies that address withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment to analyse the guidance they provide to doctors about the allocation of resources.MethodsAll publicly available non-institutional policies on withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment were identified, including codes of conduct and government and professional organization guidelines. The policies that referred to resource allocation were isolated and analysed using qualitative thematic analysis. Eight Australian policies addressed both withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment and resource allocation.ResultsFour resource-related themes were (...) identified: doctors’ ethical duties to consider resource allocation; balancing ethical obligations to patient and society; fair process and transparent resource allocation; and legal guidance on distributive justice as a rationale to limit life-sustaining treatment.ConclusionOf the policies that addressed resource allocation, this review found broad agreement about the existence of doctors’ duties to consider the stewardship of scarce resources in decision-making. However, there was disparity in the guidance about how to reconcile competing duties to patient and society. There is a need to better address the difficult and confronting issue of the role of scarce resources in decisions about life-sustaining treatment. (shrink)

This case study is a sociocultural analysis of how Kareem, a young Black man, both constructed a historical narrative and rearticulated two of his racialized identities. Kareem carried out two mediated actions. In the first, he incorporated cultural tools from the classroom—the schematic narrative template of racial progress and the specific narrative of the Movement—to support his thesis that NBA legend Bill Russell advanced the Civil Rights Movement. In the second, he positioned Bill Russell as a model Black man, drawing (...) on cultural tools forged from his self-identification, his awareness of the racialization of Black men, and his desire to articulate a positive image of them. Data include field notes, audio-recorded conversation, written work, and an interview. The paper concludes with implications of this study for K-12 educators, teacher educators, and researchers: (1) that students’ racialized identities and experiences are cultural tools that can intersect with disciplinary learning; (2) that racialization includes non-racial identities and practices; and (3) that history/social studies curriculum and instruction can facilitate students’ analyses of how narratives function in the learning of the past. (shrink)

Human identity is a complex process linked to the subject and his environment, both constantly evolving. Personality is developed and changed throughout lifetime, but it has a core that remains constant. Thus a person can secure his continuity; he recognizes himself and is recognized by the others as time goes by. In fact, we are all the same, even after experiencing changes and years later. The constitution of the other and the self are – from the phenomenological point of view (...) – two components of the same process, which is the origin of the subjectivity of self and the objectivity of me. These are conditions for the identity’s construction, a continuous process that takes place throughout time. Human tendency to the community emerges with priority from the above definition. That deep desire of being part of a social group interprets others as constituent of the identity of the self. “Having an identity” actually means not only a set of characteristics noticed by ourselves after actions done or the “image” of us, but also to be recognized by the rest of society. Therefore, community turns out in the ultimate horizon that responds to an individual’s recognition need. The recognition of self by me is linked to the issue of the recognition of self through the other until mutual recognition as reciprocal act is reached. Hence, “gift” becomes an emblem of mutual recognition, highlighting the relational and inter-subjective structure of the person. The identity development goes through the mutual recognition experience and gift. Somebody who gives himself recognizes the others and simultaneously, participates in his constitution and his self-understanding. (shrink)

RESUMEN Las tensiones y los vínculos posibles entre razón y violencia son un problema mayor para la filosofía. La obra de Eric Weil se consagra precisamente al análisis de las figuras históricas de dicha tensión, y su obra mayor, Logique de la Philosophie, desarrolla lo fundamental de dicho propósito. Se analiza la manera como Weil, desde la categoría de la acción -última categoría concreta de la filosofía-, en vínculo con las categorías precedentes (absoluto, obra, finito) y con las categorías formales (...) (sentido y sabiduría), enfrenta este desafío siempre nuevo para la filosofía. ABSTRACT The tensions and potential links between reason and violence are a significant philosophical problem. Eric Weil's systematic work, as well as his numerous articles and lectures, is dedicated to the analysis of the historical figures of such tensions. His major work, Logique de la Philosophie, develops that objective. The article analyzes how Weil faces this always new challenge for philosophy, on the basis of the category of action -the last concrete category of his philosophy-, together with the preceding categories (absolute, unmediated particular, finite) and the formal categories (meaning and wisdom). RESUMO As tensões e os vínculos possíveis entre razão e violência são um problema maior para a filosofia. A obra de Eric Weil se consagra precisamente à análise das figuras históricas dessa tensão, e sua obra maior, Logique de la Philosophie, desenvolve o fundamental desse propósito. Analisa-se a maneira como Weil, a partir da categoria da ação -última categoria concreta da filosofia-, em vínculo com as categorias precedentes (absoluto, obra, finito) e com as categorias formais (sentido e sabedoria), enfrenta esse desafio sempre novo para a filosofia. (shrink)

At this time when the development of synthetic biology and artificial intelligence are changing the world around us, philosophers and scientists, first of all, must converge to analyze the present and predict the ethical-social consequences and biological dangers associated with new “living entities” that are not the result of the natural evolutionary process. As synthetic/artificial life forms (xenobots, robots, transgenic organisms, etc.) become more and more abundant and sophisticated, it seems first of all necessary to bring some order to all (...) this new biodiversity, establishing what is alive and what is not, and analyzing the consequences of this incessant creative activity. Here I intend to organize all these human-made entities and clarify their status as living beings or artificial elements, leaving the door open to an uncertain future in which we will be able to see how “the artificial” and “the natural” could merge to originate something different from everything known. Accordingly, I propose the creation of a new domain, Lithbea, which includes all synthetic and artificial entities within a new kingdom called Humade (derived from human-made). I have also included viruses in a new realm, the Viral kingdom, because they were excluded from the classical three-domain tree of life despite playing a fundamental role in the evolution of biodiversity on Earth. Finally, I make a brief comment on the unpredictability of the unknown, the implications of this new landscape of biodiversity, and the uncertain future of all these advances. (shrink)

Television commercials are often thought of as bothersome multimedia artefacts that by their very existence spoil our viewing pleasure at regular intervals. Not only that, but they seem to have the habit of ordering us around. This aspect of TV ads has often been commented on by experts and laypersons alike. Therefore, we decided to tackle this issue and look at the prototypical expression of directives, that is, imperatives in voice-overs in television commercials. To this end we have carried out (...) an empirical analysis of imperatives in voice-overs in the MATVA corpus which contains transcriptions of nearly 800 voice-overs in British TV ads recorded on six days during 2009, 2010 and 2011. We provide an exhaustive quantitative and qualitative profile of imperatives in contemporary TV advertising. This includes information on the distribution of imperatives, the most common verbs in imperative clauses, and their discourse function. We are also able to show conclusively that the directive force of imperatives in TV ads is more akin to advice or recommendation than commands, and explain from a discourse-pragmatic perspective why this is so. (shrink)

Assuming that linguistic representation has been studied only by linguists using grammaticality judgments, Branigan & Pickering present structural priming as a novel alternative. We show that their assumptions are incorrect for cognitive-functional linguistics, exposing converging perspectives on form/meaning pairings between generativists and cognitive-functional linguists that we hope will spark the cross-disciplinary discussion necessary to produce a cognitively plausible model of linguistic representation.

The era of AI-based decision-making fast approaches, and anxiety is mounting about when, and why, we should keep “humans in the loop” (“HITL”). Thus far, commentary has focused primarily on two questions: whether, and when, keeping humans involved will improve the results of decision-making (making them safer or more accurate), and whether, and when, non-accuracy-related values—legitimacy, dignity, and so forth—are vindicated by the inclusion of humans in decision-making. Here, we take up a related but distinct question, which has eluded the (...) scholarship thus far: does it matter if humans appear to be in the loop of decision-making, independent from whether they actually are? In other words, what is stake in the disjunction between whether humans in fact have ultimate authority over decision-making versus whether humans merely seem, from the outside, to have such authority? Our argument proceeds in four parts. First, we build our formal model, enriching the HITL question to include not only whether humans are actually in the loop of decision-making, but also whether they appear to be so. Second, we describe situations in which the actuality and appearance of HITL align: those that seem to involve human judgment and actually do, and those that seem automated and actually are. Third, we explore instances of misalignment: situations in which systems that seem to involve human judgment actually do not, and situations in which systems that hold themselves out as automated actually rely on humans operating “behind the curtain.” Fourth, we examine the normative issues that result from HITL misalignment, arguing that it challenges individual decision-making about automated systems and complicates collective governance of automation. (shrink)

This article aims to improve the knowledge on Generation Z as employees within workforce and in the workplace, as well as on the main thematic trends that drive the research on the topic. To this end, and using bibliometric techniques, a sample of 102 publications on this subject from Web of Science between 2009 and 2020 is analyzed. Research discusses the most published and most cited authors and journals to have a broad view of the context of the subject. Later, (...) through a longitudinal view, the study mainly focuses on analyzing the evolution of thematic clusters, to assess the progress of the themes, as well as the network around the principal motor cluster of each period. The obtained results suggest a hardly developed topic, which started to draw attention in 2018, while still having a wide margin for growth. The core of research on the topic has evolved around “Generation-Z” “generations,” “workplace,” “management” and “attitudes,” “leadership,” “career,” or “learning-teaching-education,” although a low keyword stability among periods was noted. There is a need for further development on a variety of aspects regarding this generation and the labor market, as the study shows a clear orientation toward management and generational diversity within the workplace. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta reflexões teóricas sobre a atividade de ensino que se torna práxis bem-sucedida. Essa discussão gira em torno de duas categorias teóricas: atividade e afetação. A atividade, categoria teórica de base marxista, é discutida a partir dos aportes da psicologia sócio-histórica. A categoria afetação é aqui analisada com base na filosofia de Baruc de Espinosa. Realizamos este estudo a partir de pesquisa bibliográfica que tem como objetivo refletir sobre o que contribui para que o professor consiga realizar um (...) ensino capaz de afetar com alegria seus alunos levando ao desenvolvimento de uma práxis bem-sucedida. A pesquisa bibliográfica é realizada a partir dos teóricos da psicologia sócio-histórica, sobretudo Vygotsky e Leontiev. Da filosofia de Espinosa pesquisamos a obra Ética. Os resultados revelam que professores e alunos são sujeitos que se constituem historicamente, a partir de múltiplas mediações. Significados, sentidos e afetações são parte das mediações que constituem professores e alunos envolvidos em atividades de ensino consideradas exitosas. O estudo aprofundado acerca dessas categorias poderá contribuir de forma determinante para que o ensino, como atividade social que se realiza entre pessoas, possa tornar-se um encontro alegre, gerador de afetos que potencializem desejos e aumentem a potência de agir e pensar de professores e alunos, fato que contribui para a emancipação humana. Palavras-chave: Atividade de ensinar. Sentido e significado. Encontros alegres. Afetação. (shrink)

Nowadays global inequalities in access to vaccines seem to be a growing problem. Intellectual Property Rights have been playing an important role both in causing and worsening them. Firstly,...