Positive thinking is often assumed to foster effort and success. Research has shown, however, that positive thinking in the form of fantasies about achieving an idealised future predicts less (not...

This article seeks to sketch the contours of a good society, distinguished by its gender justice and the plural recognition of egalitarian difference. I begin by reconstructing Nancy Fraser’s arguments highlighting the link between distributive justice and relations of recognition, in particular as it applies to gender justice. In a second step, I show that the debate on the politics of recognition has confirmed what empirical analyses already indicated, namely that Fraser’s status model takes too reductive a stance towards the (...) identity-constituting effects of relations of recognition. The simple demand that identities be recognized, however, glosses over the paradox of recognition, which arises out of the ambiguity between the demand for equal respect and the demand for the recognition of difference. This paradox cannot be resolved unless one takes into consideration the compensatory effect of value pluralism, that is, the inherent pluralism of recognition, well captured in the notion of ‘egalitarian difference’. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to analyze the association between physical activity and eating habits during the COVID-19 pandemic among Brazilian adults. A sample of 1,929 participants answered an online survey, however 1,874 were included in the analysis. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on eating habits was assessed inquiring about participants' intake of fruits, vegetables, fried foods, and sweets during the pandemic. Physical activity was assessed by asking participants about their weekly frequency, intensity and number of minutes/hours engaging (...) in structured physical activities per week. Participants were then stratified into categories based on moderate-to-vigorous intensity and into active or inactive. Increased sweets consumption was the most commonly reported change to eating habits, followed by an increase in the consumption of vegetables, fruits, and fried foods. Physical activity practice was related to lower consumption of fried foods and sweets. A cluster analysis revealed subjects with higher the level of physical activity was more likely to follow a healthy diet. Thus, physical activity was positively associated with healthier eating habits. Health authorities must recommend regular physical as a strategy to improve overall health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Future studies should address the physical activity interventions to improve health status during a pandemic. (shrink)

BackgroundThe outbreak of novel coronavirus disease 2019 has caused a global panic and public concern due to its mortality ratio and lack of treatments/vaccines. Reduced levels of physical activity have been reported during the outbreak, affecting the normal daily pattern.ObjectiveTo investigate the relationship of physical activity level with sleep quality and the effects of reduction physical activity levels on sleep quality.MethodsA Google form was used to address personal information, COVID-19 personal care, physical activity, and mental health of 1,907 adult volunteers. (...) Binary logistic regression was used to verify the association of physical activity parameters and sleep quality.ResultsInsufficient physical activity levels were a risk factor to have disturbed sleep pattern [OR: 1.28, 95% CI ]; however, when the BMI was added to the analysis, there was no more statistical difference [OR: 1.23, 95% CI ]. On the other hand, we found that the reduction of physical activity levels was associated with negative changes in sleep quality [OR: 1.73, 95% CI ], regardless all the confounders [OR: 1.30, 95% CI ], unless when feeling of depression was added in Model 6 [OR: 1.28, 95% CI ].ConclusionDisruption in daily physical activity routine, rather than physical activity level, negatively influences sleep quality during the COVID-19 quarantine. (shrink)

O presente ensaio tem como objetivo mostrar consequências teóricas de uma tensão latente entre a noção de tragédia no Nietzsche d’O nascimento da tragédia e a compreensão schopenhaueriana da música. Tal tensão se dá não apenas no âmbito de interpretações estéticas das referidas artes por parte dos filósofos mencionados, mas demonstra disparidades fundamentais no pensamento do jovem Nietzsche em relação à metafísica de O mundo como Vontade e Representação. A hipótese é que essas disparidades culminariam num ponto de cesura entre (...) as filosofias de Schopenhauer e Nietzsche, bem como no fenecimento da amizade deste com Richard Wagner. The following essay aims to show the theoretical consequences of a latent tension between the notion of tragedy in Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and the Schopenhauerian comprehension of music. This tension occurs not just within the aesthetics interpretations of the mentioned arts by the philosophers cited, but it demonstrates fundamental disparities in the young Nietzsche’s thought in respect to the metaphysics of The World as Will and Representation. The hypothesis is that these disparities would culminate in a caesura point between the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, as well in the decline of the friendship of this one with Richard Wagner. (shrink)

Resumo Houve, durante o século XX, uma persistente recorrência do tema da síntese ou integração das artes, em especial no campo da arquitetura: desde as vanguardas dos anos de 1920 até a ressurgência do tema, no imediato Pós-II Guerra, com Le Corbusier, Sigfried Giedion e Fernand Léger. No Brasil, nos anos de 1950, o entusiasmo de Mário Pedrosa com a construção da nova capital seguiu o lema Brasília, a cidade nova, síntese das artes. A literatura correspondente menciona com frequência os (...) nomes do arquiteto Gottfried Semper, um teórico oitocentista do estilo, e sua cooperação com o compositor Richard Wagner. O interesse contemporâneo pelo tema da síntese ou integração das artes e suas relações com arte e arquitetura aponta para os trabalhos desses dois autores como a proposição inicial, no âmbito da Gesamtkunstwerk ou a obra de arte total. Neste estudo, examina-se a feição especulativa com que Wagner sustentou a Gesamtkunstwerk, como passo estratégico para os estudos sobre o tema.There had been througout the 20th century a persistent recurrence of the theme of the synthesis or integration of arts, in the field of architecture at least. It was present amongst the early twentieth century vanguards but had a bounce back in the early postwar period with Le Corbusier, Sigfried Giedion and Fernand Léger. In Brazil in the 1950s, art critic Mário Pedrosa under the mote Brasilia enthusiastically hailed the construction of Brasília the New City, Synthesis of Arts. The corresponding literature points out to architect and historian Gottfried Semper, a nineteenth century theorist of style, who cooperated closely with composer and operist Richard Wagner as the authors who put forth the original conceptions of the Gesamtkunstwerk or total artwork. In this study, we examine the speculative guise with which Wagner held up the Gesamtkunstwerk, as a strategic step for the studies on the theme. (shrink)

The paper addresses the nature of seemings in light of their role in inquiry. Seemings are mental states or events with propositional content that have a specific phenomenology often referred to as “felt truth”. In epistemology, seemings are mainly discussed as possible (non-inferential) justifications for belief. Yet, epistemology has recently taken a zetetic turn, that is, a turn toward the study of inquiry. I will argue that the role of seemings in epistemology should be re-assessed from the perspective of inquiry (...) and deliberation. Seemings may fall short of justifying beliefs, but there is an important role for seemings in the zetetic realm, which may also explain why seemings lack direct justificatory force for beliefs. Seemings, so I will suggest, can provide normative reasons for performing certain zetetic tasks, but they cannot provide normative reasons for making up one’s mind about the inquired question. In this sense, the zetetic role of seemings can be described as guiding rational inquiry. I will suggest that a modified version of the so-called Taking Evidence View about the nature of seemings is best fitted to accommodate their zetetic role. Yet, contra existing versions of the Taking Evidence View, my modified account acknowledges that seemings are genuine experiences (of one’s evidential standing during inquiry) that are accompanied by the characteristic phenomenology of what is called a “feeling of truth”. By doing so, my modified version of the Taking Evidence View incorporates the (as I take it) most important feature of the rival Experience View of seemings. (shrink)

Barion, J. Was es heisst, ein Philosoph zu sein.--Flach, W. Die Objektivität der Erkenntnis.--Schmidt, G. Die Transzendentalität des Seingedankens.--Winterhager, E. Das Sich-Haben des Subjekts.--Hartmann, K. Analytische und kategoriale Transzendentalphilosophie.--Marx, W. Systemidee und die Problematik ihrer Begründung.--Röd, W. Transzendentalphilosophie und deskriptive Philosophie als wissenschaftliche Theorien.--Vuillemin, J. Caractères et fonctions des signes.--Ritzel, W. Zur Theorie praktischer Wissenschaft.--Hufnagel, E. Relationen--zum Streit um die pädagogische Anthropologie.--Derbolav, J. Politik und Moral.--Wolandt, G. Standpunkte der Kunstphilosophie.

In two often neglected passages of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant submits that the Critique is a 'treatise' or a 'doctrine of method'. These passages are puzzling because the Critique is only cursorily concerned with identifying adequate procedures of argument for philosophy. In this book, Gabriele Gava argues that these passages point out that the Critique is the doctrine of method of metaphysics. Doctrines of method have the task of showing that a given science is indeed a science (...) because it possesses 'architectonic unity' – which happens when it realizes the 'idea' of a science. According to Gava's novel approach, the Critique establishes that metaphysics is capable of this unity, and his reading of the Critique from this perspective not only illuminates the central role of the Transcendental Doctrine of Method within it, but also clarifies the relationship between the different parts of the work. (shrink)

The history of Pythagoreanism is littered with different and incompatible interpretations. This observation directs this book towards a fundamentally historiographical rather than philological approach, setting out to reconstruct the way in which the tradition established Pythagoreanism s image.".

The central theme of this important book is that we are paying the price of an arrogance that refuses to recognize mystery. The author invites the reader to enter into the argument that he holds with himself on a great number of problems. Written in the early 1950s, Marcel's discussion of these topics are remarkably contemporary, e.g.: * Our crisis is a metaphysical, not merely social, one. * What a man is depends partly on what he thinks he is, and (...) a materialistic philosophy turns men into things. * Can a man be free except in a free country? * Stoicism is no longer a workable philosophy because today pressure can be put on the mind as well as on the body. * Technical progress is not evil in itself, but a technique is a means that, regarded as an end, can become either an idol or an excuse for self-idolatry. State control of scientific research, leading to a concentration on new means of destruction, is a calamity. * Fanaticism is an opinion that refuses to argue, and so the fanatic is an enemy of truth. * The kind of unification that science is bringing about today is really an ironing out of differences, but the only valuable kind of unity is one that implies a respect for differences. * We must beware of thinking in terms of great numbers and so blinding ourselves to the reality of individual suffering. Our philosophical approach to being is made possible only by our practical approach to our neighbor. * We must encourage the spirit of fraternity and distrust the kind of egalitarianism that is based on envy and resentment. * No man however humble should feel that he cannot spread the light among his friends. No easy solution is offered, but the author conveys his own faith that ultimately love and intelligence will triumph. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to analyse the mathematical practices leading to Rafael Bombelli’s L’algebra (1572). The context for the analysis is the Italian algebra practiced by abbacus masters and Renaissance mathematicians of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. We will focus here on the semiotic aspects of algebraic practices and on the organisation of knowledge. Our purpose is to show how symbols that stand for underdetermined meanings combine with shifting principles of organisation to change the character of algebra.

This comprehensive Research Handbook explores the wide variety of work conducted in legal semiotics, providing a thorough understanding of how the law works through signs and symbols. Demonstrating that the law is a strategical system of fluctuating signs, contributors critically analyse the ever-evolving conceptualisations of law and legal discourse. Bringing together leading international experts, this Research Handbook focuses on the material, everyday forms of law comprised by non-verbal legal semiotics. Contributors conduct culturally nuanced semiotic analyses of the modern world, covering (...) topics from COVID-19, religion, and human rights, to comic books and music. Chapters consider the foundations of semiotics, as well as the philosophy of law, identifying the cross-cultural similarities in how legal semiotics and visual legal semiotics intersect. Ultimately, the Research Handbook demonstrates that the law is in a state of perpetual flux, with many unique dimensions only made visible by semiotic analysis. The Research Handbook on Legal Semiotics will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of law, jurisprudence, legal culture, linguistics, and semiotics. It will also be an important guide for legal practitioners seeking to better understand the nuances of the legal system. (shrink)

We live in a world of breaking news, where at almost any moment our everyday routine can be interrupted by a faraway event. Events are central to the way that individuals and societies experience life. Even life’s inevitable moments—birth, death, love, and war—are almost always a surprise. Inspired by the cataclysmic events of September 11, Robin Wagner-Pacifici presents here a tour de force, an analysis of how events erupt and take off from the ground of ongoing, everyday life, and (...) how they then move across time and landscape. What Is an Event? ranges across several disciplines, systematically analyzing the ways that events emerge, take shape, gain momentum, flow, and even get bogged down. As an exploration of how events are constructed out of ruptures, it provides a mechanism for understanding eventful forms and flows, from the micro-level of individual life events to the macro-level of historical revolutions, contemporary terrorist attacks, and financial crises. Wagner-Pacifici takes a close look at a number of cases, both real and imagined, through the reports, personal narratives, paintings, iconic images, political posters, sculptures, and novels they generate and through which they live on. What is ultimately at stake for individuals and societies in events, Wagner-Pacifici argues, are identities, loyalties, social relationships, and our very experiences of time and space. What Is an Event? provides a way for us all—as social and political beings living through events, and as analysts reflecting upon them—to better understand what is at stake in the formations and flows of the events that mark and shape our lives. (shrink)

The purpose of the conference "On Pythagoreanism", held in Brasilia in 2011, was to bring together leading scholars from all over the world to define the status quaestionis for the ever-increasing interest and research on Pythagoreanism in the 21st century. The papers included in this volume exemplify the variety of topics and approaches now being used to understand the polyhedral image of one of the most fascinating and long-lasting intellectual phenomena in Western history. Cornelli's paper opens the volume by charting (...) the course of Pythagorean studies over the past two centuries. The remaining contributions range chronologically from Pythagoras and the early Pythagoreans of the archaic period (6th-5th centuries BCE) through the classical, hellenistic and late antique periods, to the eighteenth century. Thematically they treat the connections of Pythagoreanism with Orphism and religion, with mathematics, metaphysics and epistemology and with politics and the Pythagorean way of life. (shrink)

The article compares the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change in terms of natural characteristics of the crisis triggers as well as of socio-political responses.

Max Weber ist ein Klassiker der Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften. Sein Werk gehört weltweit zum Kernbestand von Forschung und Lehre, und dies gilt besonders für seine methodologischen Schriften, denen auch 100 Jahre nach ihrer Publikation nachhaltige Aufmerksamkeit beschieden ist. Allerdings gibt es immer noch kein einvernehmliches Verständnis von Webers Position. Der Grund dafür liegt in der mangelnden Aufarbeitung der Quellen. Viele wichtige Autoren, deren Werke Weber rezipierte, sind in Vergessenheit geraten. Sie in Erinnerung zu rufen, ist dringend notwendig, um seine Wissenschaftslehre (...) in ihrer ganzen Komplexität zu verstehen. 0Das vorliegende Sammelwerk leistet einen Beitrag zur Schließung dieser Forschungslücke. Es rekonstruiert den Denkraum des späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts, in dem sich Weber bewegte, und zeigt anhand von Studien zu ausgewählten Autoren, wie umfassend und interdisziplinär sein Denken tatsächlich war. Dabei werden nicht nur Autoren aus den Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften berücksichtigt, sondern auch solche aus den Naturwissenschaften, denn Weber war mit dem Fortschritt dieser Disziplinen ebenfalls vertraut. (shrink)

In this chapter, I investigate a problem for Kant’s claim that metaphysics can reach the status of science. The problem arises when one considers Kant’s account of the “architectonic unity” of metaphysics in the Architectonic of Pure Reason. Attaining architectonic unity is a condition for becoming a science for any body of cognitions that purports to be such. This is achieved when the cognitions belonging to a science are systematically organized according to the “idea of reason” which lies at the (...) basis of that science. However, Kant suggests that nobody can ever legitimately claim to have matched the idea of the philosopher, where this appears to imply that nobody can justifiably claim that she has fully grasped the idea of metaphysics. This generates a problem. I suggest that when Kant claims that the idea of the philosopher must remain an ideal or an archetype, he has a particular conception of philosophy in mind, that is, philosophy as a doctrine of wisdom. According to this understanding, philosophy must provide an example of how one can become virtuous. However, this is only a partial solution to our problem, for reasons that will be illustrated. (shrink)

Obwohl Claude Lefort auaerhalb Frankreichs nur Eingeweihten bekannt sein durfte, war er einer der einflussreichsten politischen Theoretiker fur den franzosischen Diskurs seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Nach dem Krieg hatte er in diversen Projekten an der Etablierung einer franzosischen kritischen Linken pragend mitgewirkt, die sich gegen die partei- und Sowjetunionstreue Linie Sartres durchzusetzen hatte. So entwickelte er ein Verstandnis des kommunistischen Totalitarismus, das dann gleichsam eine Kontrastfolie fur seine Demokratie- und Menschenrechtstheorie abgeben konnte. In allen diesen Aspekten lassen sich wesentliche Entwicklungen (...) auch der internationalen politiktheoretischen Debatten auf seine Diskussionsbeitrage zuruckfuhren. Am bekanntesten ist sicherlich seine These von der Verortung des Kerns der Demokratie in einer streitbaren Zivilgesellschaft, welche sich der staatlichen Kontrolle ebenso entzieht, wie sie die Besetzung des "leeren Ortes der Macht" durch die politischen Akteure verhindert. Der Band rekonstruiert die Demokratie- und Politiktheorie Leforts und bettet jene bekannte These in vielfaltige und sehr viel weiter reichende theoretische Kontexte ein. In der Arbeit mit den Ideen Leforts konnen die Beitrager daruber hinaus zeigen, dass Leforts Theorie auch fur aktuelle Phanomene und Debatten (wie z.B. die Occupy!-Bewegung, die Debatte um den Populismus und diejenige um die Konstitutionalisierung des Volkerrechts) nach wie vor von groaer Originalitat und ungeminderter Bedeutung ist. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to provide an account of the role played by logic in the context of what Husserl names the “crisis of European sciences.” Presupposing the analyses offered in the Krisis, I look at Formale und Transzendentale Logik to demonstrate that the crisis of logic stems from the deviation of its original meaning as a “theory of science” and from its restriction to a mere “theoretical technique.” Through a comparison between Aristotelian syllogistic and modern logic, I (...) show why the modern discovery of the purely formal dimension of knowledge which makes possible such a mathematical technization is a positive achievement that hinders at the same time the disclosure of the truly philosophical nature of logic. The correct appraisal of this ambiguous phenomenon will explain why the rise of modern logic represents a decisive challenge for the success of Husserl’s late phenomenological project. (shrink)

This paper 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.

Five hundred years after his death, Niccolò Machiavelli still draws an astonishing range of contradictory characterizations. Was he a friend of tyrants? An ardent republican loyal to Florence’s free institutions? The father of political realism? A revolutionary populist? A calculating rationalist? A Renaissance humanist? A prophet of Italian unification? A theorist of mixed government? A forerunner to authoritarianism? The master of the dark arts of intrigue? This book provides a vivid and engaging introduction to Machiavelli’s life and works that sheds (...) new light on his originality and relevance. Gabriele Pedullà—a leading Italian expert and acclaimed writer—offers fresh readings of the Florentine thinker’s most famous writings, The Prince and the Discourses on Livy, as well as lesser-known texts. A new and often surprising Machiavelli emerges: one closer to his time but also better suited to inform our own. Pedullà’s portrait of Machiavelli highlights his close attention to social and emotional bonds, staunch opposition to oligarchy, keen awareness of the economic side of power dynamics, and strong preference for history over philosophy as a guide for leaders. This book recovers the excitement Machiavelli roused in his first readers for a twenty-first-century audience, capturing his capacity to provoke, both then and now, with unconventional ideas and startling insights. (shrink)

The volume deals with the history of logic, the question of the nature of logic, the relation of logic and mathematics, modal or alternative logics (many-valued, relevant, paraconsistent logics) and their relations, including translatability, to classical logic in the Fregean and Russellian sense, and, more generally, the aim or aims of philosophy of logic and mathematics. Also explored are several problems concerning the concept of definition, non-designating terms, the interdependence of quantifiers, and the idea of an assertion sign. The contributions (...) concerned with Wittgenstein's investigations into the philosophy of logic and mathematics pursue issues relating to logical necessity, the undeniability of the law of the excluded middle, and the source of self-evidence, often characterized in the literature as the "rule-following considerations". Additionally, they examine Wittgenstein's attitudes towards the very idea of set-theory as a possible foundation for arithmetic. The volume also includes a number of contributions on specific issues concerning Wittgenstein's views on moral and religious judgements. (shrink)

Carnap’s seminal ‘Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology’ makes important use of the notion of a framework and the related distinction between internal and external questions. But what exactly is a framework? And what role does the internal/external distinction play in Carnap’s metaontology? In an influential series of papers, Matti Eklund has recently defended a bracingly straightforward interpretation: A Carnapian framework, Eklund says, is just a natural language. To ask an internal question, then, is just to ask a question in, say, English. (...) To try to ask an external question is to try, absurdly, to ask a question in no language at all. Finding that so trivial an I/e distinction can’t help to explain Carnap’s deflationary metaontology, Eklund is led to attribute to Carnap a view he calls ontological pluralism. In this paper, I show that Eklund misreads Carnap, and I argue that this misreading obscures fundamental features of Carnap’s philosophy. I then defend an account of frameworks as what Carnap called semantical systems, and I place this account in the context of Carnap’s philosophical program of explication. Finally, I discuss the role that frameworks and the I/e distinction play in ESO, showing that ESO provides no reason to attribute the doctrine of ontological pluralism to Carnap. (shrink)

Johannes von Kries (1853-1928) left a fascinating work: As a physiologist, he had a lasting influence on research into colour perception. As a philosopher, he formulated a theory of probability which was received not only in philosophy (Hans Reichenbach, Ludwig Wittgenstein), but also in physics (Ludwig Boltzmann, Max Planck), jurisprudence (Gustav Radbruch), sociology (Alfred Schütz, Max Weber), economics (John Maynard Keynes), and belles-lettres (Robert Musil). This anthology reconstructs some central lines of reception. It contexts Kries' work in the history of (...) ideas and examines its topicality. --Page 4 cover. (shrink)

Taking an innovative look at the origins of economics, this forward-thinking book relocates economics from a materialistic general theory of rational action into an idealistic theory of social organization and individual action. Adding new insightful analytical methods such as complexity theory, graph theory and computational modelling to the original insights of the Scottish Enlightenment, Richard Wagner explores economics in an ever-changing society, looking at the key civilizing processes and the important social questions. Rethinking Economics as Social Theory moves away (...) from the traditional review of analytical exercises and associated data and illustrates an enlightening scheme of thought where human societies are heterogeneous and not homogeneous and where change is continually in motion. Furthermore, Wagner theorises that economizing is a universal form of human action that plays out in numerous substantive directions and shows cooperation and conflict to have a yin-and-yang relationship. This illuminating book will prove an excellent resource for economists interested in working outside of comparative statics as well as social scientists looking for a broader vision of economics. Philosophers and those working in the field of biological sciences will also find this an informative read. (shrink)