El artículo presenta algunos resultados del estudio de la participación de Karol Wojtyła, obispo auxiliar y, sucesivamente, arzobispo de Cracovia, en el Concilio Vaticano II, así como de la recepción del mismo durante su ministerio pastoral en la archidiócesis polaca y al servicio de la Iglesia universal antes de su elección como sucesor de Pedro. Es posible hablar del “estilo conciliar” de Wojtyła: lo que la Iglesia ha enseñado sobre la gloria de Dios en el Vaticano II y sobre el (...) modo en el que dicha gloria debe acontecer en la vida de los fieles de nuestro tiempo encuentra en Wojtyła una concreta e iluminadora expresión histórica. (shrink)

In this paper we argue the need to reimagine research ethics frameworks to include notions of environmental sustainability. While there have long been calls for healthcareethics frameworks and decision-making to include aspects of sustainability, less attention has focused on howresearchethics frameworks could address this. To do this, we first describe the traditional approach to research ethics, which often relies on individualised notions of risk. We argue that we need to broaden this notion of individual risk to consider issues associated with (...) environmental sustainability. This is because research is associated with carbon emissions and other environmental impacts, both of which cause climate change health hazards. We introduce how bioethics frameworks have considered notions of environmental sustainability and draw on these to help develop a framework suitable for researchers. We provide a case study of data-driven health research to apply our framework. (shrink)

This chapter takes a close look at the thought that mereological relations on material objects mirror, and are mirrored by, parallel mereological relations on their exact locations. This hypothesis is made more precise by means of a battery of principles from which more substantive consequences are derived. Mereological harmony turns out to entail, for example, that atomistic space is an inhospitable environment for material gunk or that Whiteheadian space is not a hospitable environment for unextended material atoms.

This paper looks at philosophical questions that arise in the context of AI alignment. It defends three propositions. First, normative and technical aspects of the AI alignment problem are interrelated, creating space for productive engagement between people working in both domains. Second, it is important to be clear about the goal of alignment. There are significant differences between AI that aligns with instructions, intentions, revealed preferences, ideal preferences, interests and values. A principle-based approach to AI alignment, which combines these elements (...) in a systematic way, has considerable advantages in this context. Third, the central challenge for theorists is not to identify ‘true’ moral principles for AI; rather, it is to identify fair principles for alignment that receive reflective endorsement despite widespread variation in people’s moral beliefs. The final part of the paper explores three ways in which fair principles for AI alignment could potentially be identified. (shrink)

Those who wish to claim that all facts about grounding are themselves grounded (“the meta-grounding thesis”) must defend against the charge that such a claim leads to infinite regress and violates the well-foundedness of ground. In this paper, we defend. First, we explore three distinct but related notions of “well-founded”, which are often conflated, and three corresponding notions of infinite regress. We explore the entailment relations between these notions. We conclude that the meta-grounding thesis need not lead to tension with (...) any of the three notions of “well-founded”. Finally, we explore the details of and motivations for further conditions on ground that one might add to generate a conflict between the meta-grounding thesis and a well-founded constraint. We explore these topics by developing and utilizing a formal framework based on the notion of a grounding structure. (shrink)

Si bien en la filosofía de las ciencias ya se han explorado algunos ejemplos provenientes de la bioquímica como casos de estudio, la filosofía de la bioquímica es una subdisciplina naciente. En este artículo estudiaremos dos problemas filosóficos de relevancia contemporánea en esta ciencia. Por un lado, examinaremos las bases epistemológicas del problema del plegamiento de proteínas. En particular lo relacionado con la predicción de la estructura tridimensional de las proteínas a partir de su secuencia, asunto que ha dado mucho (...) que hablar debido a los nuevos avances utilizando deep learning. Por otro lado, exploraremos el problema in-vitro/in-vivo y, más generalmente, el problema de la extrapolación en las ciencias biológicas. Finalmente, a partir de las consecuencias de ambos temas consideraremos algunas reflexiones filosóficas generales acerca del reduccionismo, el pluralismo y el lugar de la bioquímica en las ciencias biológicas. Palabras clave: Bioquímica, Plegamiento de proteínas, In-vitro/in-vivo, Pluralismo, Reduccionismo. (shrink)

Ground offers the hope of vindicating and illuminating an classic philosophical idea: the layered conception, according to which reality is structured by relations of dependence, with physical phenomena on the bottom, upon which chemistry, then biology, and psychology reside. However, ground can only make good on this promise if it is appropriately formally behaved. The paradigm of good formal behavior can be found in the currently dominant grounding orthodoxy, which holds that ground is transitive, antisymmetric, irreflexive, and foundational. However, heretics (...) have recently challenged the orthodoxy. In this paper, I examine ground’s ability to vindicate the layered conception upon various relaxations of the orthodox assumptions. I argue that highly unorthodox views of ground can still vindicate the layered conception and that, in some ways, the heretical views enable ground to better serve as a guide to reality’s layering than do orthodox views of ground. (shrink)

It is common to distinguish two great families of representation. Symbolic representations include logical and mathematical symbols, words, and complex linguistic expressions. Iconic representations include dials, diagrams, maps, pictures, 3-dimensional models, and depictive gestures. This essay describes and motivates a new way of distinguishing iconic from symbolic representation. It locates the difference not in the signs themselves, nor in the contents they express, but in the semantic rules by which signs are associated with contents. The two kinds of rule have (...) divergent forms, occupying opposite poles on a spectrum of naturalness. Symbolic rules are composed entirely of primitive juxtapositions of sign types with contents, while iconic rules determine contents entirely by uniform natural relations with sign types. This distinction is marked explicitly in the formal semantics of familiar sign systems, both for atomic first-order representations, like words, pixel colors, and dials, and for complex second-order representations, like sentences, diagrams, and pictures. (shrink)

Concepts of decision, choice, decision-maker, and decision-making are common practical tools in both social science and natural science, on which scientific knowledge, policy implications, and moral recommendations are based. In this article I address three questions. First, I look into how present-day social scientists and natural scientists use decision/choice concepts. What are they used for? Second, scientists may differ in the application of decision/choice to X, and they may explicitly disagree about the applicability of decision/choice to X. Where exactly do (...) these disagreements lie? Third, I ask how scientists should use decision/choice concepts. What are they correctly and incorrectly used for? I argue that scientists must responsibly attend to a methodological demand: you have to have a principled, non-ad hoc, well-argued-for way of telling where decision/choice applicability ends. Thus, I aim to minimize the risk of conceptual stretching and foster responsible conceptual practices in a large body of scientific work. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell offered an influential paradox of propositions in Appendix B of The Principles of Mathematics, but there is little agreement as to what to conclude from it. We suggest that Russell's paradox is best regarded as a limitative result on propositional granularity. Some propositions are, on pain of contradiction, unable to discriminate between classes with different members: whatever they predicate of one, they predicate of the other. When accepted, this remarkable fact should cast some doubt upon some of the (...) uses to which modern descendente of Russell's paradox of propositions have been put in recent literature. (shrink)

Effective altruism is a philosophy and a social movement that aims to revolutionise the way we do philanthropy. It encourages individuals to do as much good as possible, typically by contributing money to the best-performing aid and development organisations. Surprisingly, this approach has met with considerable resistance among activists and aid providers who argue that effective altruism is insensitive to justice insofar as it overlooks the value of equality, urgency and rights. They also hold that the movement suffers from methodological (...) bias, reaching mistaken conclusions about how best to act for that reason. Finally, concerns have been raised about the ability of effective altruism to achieve systemic change. This article weighs the force of each objection in turn, and looks at responses to the challenge they pose. (shrink)

A semantics of pictorial representation should provide an account of how pictorial signs are associated with the contents they express. Unlike the familiar semantics of spoken languages, this problem has a distinctively spatial cast for depiction. Pictures themselves are two-dimensional artifacts, and their contents take the form of pictorial spaces, perspectival arrangements of objects and properties in three dimensions. A basic challenge is to explain how pictures are associated with the particular pictorial spaces they express. Inspiration here comes from recent (...) proposals that analyze depiction in terms of geometrical projection. In this essay, I will argue that, for a central class of pictures, the projection-based theory of depiction provides the best explanation for how pictures express pictorial spaces, while rival perceptual and resemblance theories fall short. Since the composition of pictorial space is itself the basis for all other aspects of pictorial content, the proposal provides a natural foundation for further pictorial semantics. (shrink)

I make a contribution to the sociology of epistemologies by examining the neuroscience literature on love from 2000 to 2016. I find that researchers make consequential assumptions concerning the production or generation of love, its temporality, its individual character, and appropriate control conditions. Next, I consider how to account for these assumptions’ being common in the literature. More generally, I’m interested in the ways in which epistemic communities construe, conceive of, and publicly represent and work with their objects of inquiry—and (...) what’s thereby assumed about them and about the world. I argue that these implicit or explicit assumptions are a distinct type of explanandum, whose distinctiveness sociology hasn’t adequately appreciated and taken advantage of. I think it should and I hope it will. (shrink)

The magnitude of public concerns about agricultural innovations has often been underestimated, as past examples, such as pesticides, nanotechnology, and cloning, demonstrate. Indeed, studies have proven that the agricultural sector presents an area of tension and often attracts skepticism concerning new technologies. Digital technologies have become increasingly popular in agriculture. Yet there are almost no investigations on the public acceptance of digitalization in agriculture so far. Our online survey provides initial insights to reduce this knowledge gap. The sample represents the (...) German population in terms of gender, age, education and size of place of residence. Results showed that if the potential of digital farming technologies regarding animal welfare and environmental protection was described, respondents reacted positively. Thus, the general attitudes of respondents toward the benefits of DFT were mostly positive. The approval to increasing adoption rates of particular DFT by providing subsidies was also high. Linear regression models showed that the dominant positive influences on respondents’ attitudes toward the benefits of DFT were a generally positive attitude toward farming and a strong trust in farmers in Germany. Confronting respondents with pictures showing DFT resulted in many spontaneous negative associations and general criticism of agricultural production. The latter holds true for DFT in animal husbandry in particular. However, as agriculture as a whole is criticized by many groups in Germany, it is unlikely that benefits from digitalization will significantly increase the public acceptance of agriculture as a whole. (shrink)

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Crutchfield and Redinger argue that consciousness-altering chemical restraints are less “liberty-intrusive” (or as we will sometimes put it, just less “intrusive”) than physical restraints. Physica...

Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 88-90.

Several philosophers have argued recently that semantic properties do play a causal role. 1 It is our view that none of these arguments are satisfactory. Our aim is to reveal some of the deficiencies of these arguments, and to reassess the question in our own way. In section 1, we shall explain in more detail what is involved in the pretheoretical idea of a causally efficacious property and so provide a fuller sense of the issue. In section 2 we shall (...) discuss Fodor's and Kim's arguments that the semantic properties of mental events are causally efficacious. Their tactic is to articulate sufficient conditions for the causal efficacy of a property, and then apply these conditions to the psychological properties under consideration. We shall show that both formulations are inadequate. However, each account can remedy some of the defects of the other. We shall argue that by putting the two together, and modifying this combined account in certain ways, we can arrive at something that might just pass as a general sufficient condition for causal efficacy. We believe that the question of causal efficacy of content is best approached as a question in the philosophy of science. If one wants to know whether a given species of property is efficacious, the most productive strategy is to find a science that investigates the properties and examine the role they are assigned. In keeping with this attitude we shall restrict our discussion to the notion of content deployed within cognitive science. In section 3 we examine the role of content in cognitive science and discuss whether this role suits content to the conditions on efficacy articulated in section two. Our conclusion will be conditional and hedged: on certain views of cognitive science, content will meet the sufficient condition for efficacy. If other views are correct, the question remains open. (shrink)

O presente artigo aborda o problema do fracasso da cristianização da Escandinávia nos séculos iniciais da missão, especialmente entre a segunda metade do século IX e início do século X, a partir da narrativa apresentada por Adam de Bremen. O trabalho parte de uma abordagem ligada à Vorstellungsgeschichte, uma proposta originada no contexto historiográfico alemão no intuito de incorporar as contribuições da reflexão antropológica nas análises históricas referentes ao troisième niveau. Nesse sentido, a narrativa de Adam é analisada primeiramente enquanto (...) testemunho da visão de mundo de seu autor, sendo o conteúdo narrado entendido como plataforma para a expressão das ideias do cônego bremense. Destacam-se as estratégias utilizadas pelo historiógrafo medieval para lidar com acontecimentos delicados na história da diocese e seus catedráticos enaltecidos na obra de Adam. A forma como ele trabalha os fracassos e retrocessos, assim como opõe a esses os sucessos da empresa missionária refletem principalmente os problemas enfrentados por Hamburgo-Bremen no século XI. A visão retrospectiva apresenta-se como potencial-legitimadora das ações contemporâneas à composição da obra. (shrink)

The doctrine that whatever could exist does exist leads to a proliferation of possibly concrete objects given certain principles of recombination. If, for example, there could have been a large infinite number of concrete objects, then there is at least the same number of possibly concrete objects in existence. And further cardinality considerations point to a tension between the preceding doctrine and the Cantorian conception of the absolutely infinite. This paper develops a parallel problem for a variety of possible worlds (...) accounts of modality which eschew the commitment to a plethora of possibly concrete objects. Moreover, the difficulty is importantly different from more familiar threats of paradox exemplified by certain descendants of Russell's paradox of propositions and Kaplan's paradox. (shrink)

Named entity recognition (NER) is a very relevant task for text information retrieval in natural language processing (NLP) problems. Most recent state-of-the-art NER methods require humans to annotate and provide useful data for model training. However, using human power to identify, circumscribe and label entities manually can be very expensive in terms of time, money, and effort. This paper investigates the use of prompt-based language models (OpenAI’s GPT-3) and weak supervision in the legal domain. We apply both strategies as alternative (...) approaches to the traditional human-based annotation method, relying on computer power instead human effort for labeling, and subsequently compare model performance between computer and human-generated data. We also introduce combinations of all three mentioned methods (prompt-based, weak supervision, and human annotation), aiming to find ways to maintain high model efficiency and low annotation costs. We showed that, despite human labeling still maintaining better overall performance results, the alternative strategies and their combinations presented themselves as valid options, displaying positive results and similar model scores at lower costs. Final results demonstrate preservation of human-trained models scores averaging 74.0% for GPT-3, 95.6% for weak supervision, 90.7% for GPT + weak supervision combination, and 83.9% for GPT + 30% human-labeling combination. (shrink)

Whilst agreeing with Robert Pippin that Hegel undertakes his philosophical enterprise in light of Kant's insights into the failings of pre-critical metaphysics, this paper outlines the shortcomings of Pippin's Hegel interpretation by contrasting what I call 'apperceptive idealism' on the one hand with 'transcendental ontology' on the other. By privileging subject over substance, Pippin commits Hegel to an ontologically modest form of Kantianism that, in missing how reality as a whole is the main topic of Hegel’s philosophy, leaves no room (...) for a crucial Hegelian task, namely accounting for the presence of self-conscious thinking in nature. Appreciating the nature of Hegel's true ambitions whilst remaining aware of how his Logic maps a 'realm of shadows', opens up the possibility of understanding his philosophy as forging a middle path: Hegel is neither the subjective idealist of Pippin's interpretation nor the advocate of a revival of first-order metaphysical theorising depicted by so many of Pippin's critics. (shrink)

Resumen El análisis del poema Caperucita Roja resulta atractivo por sí mismo, ya que su factura corrobora las cualidades inigualables de la poeta Gabriela Mistral. Sin embargo, el hecho de que sea reescritura de un cuento que remonta sus orígenes al folklore europeo y que sea mundialmente conocido por medio de sus versiones modernas desde un punto de vista infantil: Perrault y los hermanos Grimm, vuelve la obra una curiosidad. El propósito del análisis es describir la dimensión erótica del sistema (...) de recursos lingüístico-discursivos usados por Mistral para recrear la historia y refundar el sentido del texto original, quizá recuperando la lectura del crimen, la inocencia ultrajada y el dolor que aquel ofrecía. Abstract The analysis of Gabriela Mistral´s poem Little Red Riding Hood is appealing since its composition confirms the insuperable quality of the author´s poetic work. However, the fact that the story finds its origins in the European folklore and that it became known worldwide due to its modern versions (Perrault and the Brothers Grimm), turn the poem into a curiosity. The purpose of the analysis is to describe of the erotic dimension of the linguistic discursive resources used by Mistral to recreate the story and restore the meaning of the original text, probably recovering its reading as crime, shattered innocence, and the pain that it conveyed. (shrink)

ResumenEl objetivo de este trabajo es sistematizar los ejes principales de reflexión sobre el tema de las autodescripciones. Las autodescripciones no conforman una teoría específica al interior de la teoría de la sociedad, sino que están articuladas alrededor una serie de postulados provenientes de diferentes fragmentos teóricos. El principal es la teoría del observador, en cuanto fundamento teórico sobre el cual se apoyan los desarrollos autodescriptivos. La hipótesis más general respecto de las autodescripciones es que la sociedad moderna ha reaccionado (...) a la pérdida del monopolio de la representación, con una abstracción del problema de la identidad, al tiempo que crece la necesidad de reflexión. El trabajo identifica las principales implicancias cognoscitivas que acarrean las autodescripciones, su relación con la temporalidad y su proliferación en la modernidad. Además, respecto de las autodescripciones dentro de los sistemas funcionalmente diferenciados, se analiza el rol preponderante de las teorías de la reflexión.Palabras clave: autodescripciones; teorías de la reflexión; teorema de la posterioridad; irresoluble indeterminación; intransparencia. (shrink)

In international law and the ethics of war, there are a variety of actions which are seen as particularly problematic and presumed to be always or inherently wrong, or in need of some overwhelmingly strong justification to override the presumption against them. One of these actions is assassination, in particular, assassination of heads of state. In this essay I argue that the presumption against assassination is incorrect. In particular, I argue that if in a given scenario war is justified, then (...) assassination of the enemy state's leader is also justified, and in fact ought to be pursued as a means short of war. I defend this position on both consequential and deontic grounds, arguing that assassination is both more discriminate than war and serves to harm only those most responsible for the situation which justifies war in the first place. I conclude by arguing that a norm of assassination, far from being a destabilizing force, as some have argued, would in fact serve to reinforce international norms of rights and respect for persons by making clear that tyrants and would-be oppressors cannot hide behind military forces or notions of sovereignty to protect themselves from judgment and retribution. (shrink)

Confirmation bias has been widely studied for its role in failures of reasoning. Individuals exhibiting confirmation bias fail to engage with information that contradicts their current beliefs, and, as a result, can fail to abandon inaccurate beliefs. But although most investigations of confirmation bias focus on individual learning, human knowledge is typically developed within a social structure. We use network models to show that moderate confirmation bias often improves group learning. However, a downside is that a stronger form of confirmation (...) bias can hurt the knowledge producing capacity of the community. (shrink)

In this paper we provide an introduction to a set of tools for syntactic analysis based on graph theory, and apply them to the study of some properties of English accusativus cum infinitivo constructions, more commonly known as raising to object or exceptional case marking structures. We focus on puzzling extraction asymmetries between base-generated objects and ‘raised’ objects and on the interaction between raising to object and Right Wrap. We argue that a lexicalised derivational grammar with grammatical functions as primitives (...) delivers empirically adequate analyses. (shrink)

Because humans cannot know one another’s minds directly, every form of communication is a solution to the same basic problem: how can privately held information be made publicly accessible through manipulations of the physical environment? Language is by far the best studied response to this challenge. But there are a diversity of non-linguistic strategies for representation with external signs as well, from facial expressions and fog horns to chronological graphs and architectural renderings. The general thesis of this dissertation is that (...) there is an impressively wide spectrum of conventional systems of representation, corresponding to the many ways that the problem of communication can be solved, and that these systems can be described and explained using the tools of contemporary mathematical semantics. As a partial corrective to the countervailing norm, this work concentrates on the class of systems arguably most different from language— those governing the interpretation of pictorial images. Such representations dominate practical communication: witness the proliferation of maps, road signs, newspaper photographs, scientific illustrations, television shows, engineering drawings, and even the fleeting imagery of manual gesture. I argue that systems of depiction and languages embody a parallel technologies of communication. Both are based on semantics: systematic and conventional mappings from signs to representational content. But I also provide evidence that these semantics are profoundly divergent. Whereas the semantics of languages are based on arbitrary associations of signs and denotations, the semantics of systems of depiction are based on rules of geometrical transformation. Drawing on recent research in computer graphics and computational vision, I go on to develop a precise theory of pictorial semantics. This in turn facilitates a detailed comparison of iconic, image-based representation, and symbolic, language-based representation. A consequence of these conclusions is that the traditional, language-centric conception of semantics must be overhauled to allow for a more general semantic theory, one which countenances the wide variety of interpretive mechanisms actually at work in human communication. (shrink)

Incest taboos are universal, but it is questionable whether consensual incest should continue to be illegal. The most common argument in favor of the illegalization of consensual incest appeals to genetic risks and the harm to potential offspring. In this article, we examine whether public health concern is a sufficient reason to illegalize consensual incest. We posit that indeed, incest represents a risk, but this is not reason enough to illegalize incest. For, other circumstances of sexual intercourse may lead to (...) similar risks, and yet, such practices are not illegal. While those practices may represent an added risk to public health, to forbid them as a way to improve the genetic pool would be akin to eugenic program, and that is morally objectionable. This does not imply that consensual incest ought to be legal, for there may be other good reasons to illegalize it. But they do not relate to public health and genetic risks, and consequently, medical practitioners and public health officials ought to avoid using their medical authority as a platform to make moral pronouncements. (shrink)

The Kohlberg Gilligan Controversy has received intermittent but inconclusive attention for many years, perhaps reflecting the difficulty of bridging the two positions. This article explores the published evidence for Gilligan's claims of gender difference, gender identity difference, and role of caring in people's ethics. It seems that the evidence for pronounced gender differences in ethical attitudes within business is weak, even if gender identity is used instead of physical gender. The main propositions of Care Theory and recent advances in its (...) thinking are discussed. Special focus emerges on the notion of Attachment which seems to be the Care Theory ingredient both most able to survive critical scrutiny and most promising for bridging the divide between the Kohlberg and Gilligan paradigms. The Social Bonding Model and other possible bridge building conceptual structures are introduced. Finally, Max Weber's division between ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility provides an overarching perspective both of the gap still to be bridged and the need to keep trying to bridge it. (shrink)

Tagging is the phenomenon in which regions of a picture, map, or diagram are annotated with words or other symbols, to provide descriptive information about a depicted object. The interpretive principles that govern tagged images are not well understood, due in part to the difficulty of integrating pictorial and linguistic semantic rules. Rather than directly combining these rules, I propose to use the framework of perspectival feature maps as an intermediary representation of content, in which the outputs of pictorial and (...) linguistic interpretation may be assimilated. The result is a simple and compositional semantics for tagged images. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to assess the relative merits of two accounts of the semantics of proper names. The enterprise is of particular interest because the theories are very similar in fundamental respects. In particular, they can agree on three major features of names: names are rigid designators; different co-extensive names can have different cognitive significance; empty proper names can be meaningful. Neither theory by itself offers complete explanations of all three features. But each theory is consistent with (...) them and goes some way towards explaining them. (shrink)

To achieve impact, academics need to create personal impact development plans, focused on what and on whom to have an impact and the necessary competencies to do so. Profession and university leaders play a critical role in the successful implementation of such plans.

The standard model of precedential constraint holds that a court is equally free to modify a precedent of its own and a precedent of a superior court—overruling aside, it does not differentiate horizontal and vertical precedents. This paper shows that no model can capture the U.S. doctrine of precedent without making that distinction. A precise model is then developed that does just that. This requires situating precedent cases in a formal representation of a hierarchical legal structure, and adjusting the constraint (...) that a precedent imposes based on the relationship of the precedent court and the instant court. The paper closes with suggestions for further improvements of the model. (shrink)

O último livro escrito por Nietzsche, Ecce homo: como alguém se torna o que se é, é uma de suas obras mais controversas, tendo sido tomada como sinal de prepotência, como autoexposição egocêntrica e como prenúncio do colapso que interrompeu sua trajetória intelectual em janeiro de 1889. As controvérsias foram alimentadas, em parte, pela peculiar narrativa encontrada no livro – ele conta a si sua vida e obra em tom elogioso e hiperbólico –, em parte, pelo fato de que a (...) tardia publicação de Ecce homo, ocorrida apenas em 1908, favoreceu o contraste com o apócrifo A vontade de poder – reunião de anotações publicada em 1901 como ‘obra principal’ de Nietzsche. Nosso propósito neste artigo é refletir sobre as possíveis contribuições do teor ‘autobiográfico’ e ‘autocrítico’ de Ecce homo para o caminho de pensamento do filósofo alemão. Nossa hipótese é que a narrativa experimentada no livro possui uma íntima relação com temas precedentes da obra nietzschiana e com a tarefa da transvaloração de todos os valores. Por meio de uma autoencenação, da colocação de um certo ‘Nietzsche’ em cena, o filósofo avança em sua crítica à metafísica – e à sua versão popular, a moral cristã – enquanto realça a mundanidade de sua perspectiva, seu caráter contingente e seu condicionamento pelas “pequenas coisas”, decisão que nos parece carregar uma relevante dimensão filosófica: Nietzsche assume a parcialidade e explicita o interesse envolvido em sua tomada de posição no seio da cultura. (shrink)

This article tries to draw the polemical genealogy of the term and concept of “libertinism”. Its sense, as it is forged in early Modernity, in the works of Calvin, and in the backgroud of the first Protestant Reformation, is merely contemptuous and, above all, it is due to a clearly critical strategy: the construction of a fictional enemy in confrontation with which it is possible to reinforce the basis of modern Christianism.