Inauguration speech at chair number 18 of the Brasilian Academy of Philosophy.

In line with its institutional commitments and in order to strengthen the relevance of its business education program in addressing the persistent social challenges facing the Philippines, Mission University revised its Master of Business Administration curriculum in 2012. A core change in the curriculum was the incorporation of action research training and the requirement for graduation of implementing and defending an action research project. The introduction of action research, which is based on critical realist philosophy of science, was intended to (...) enable the university’s MBA graduates to become reflexive and humanistic agents of change in their work contexts through the application of observation, critical reflection, collaborative analysis and action and scholarly skills. The implementation of the action research requirement is beginning to yield positive results based on the types of projects implemented by the students and their resulting sense of efficacy in the workplace. Challenges in implementation include the need to further hone student skills in pursuing more emancipatory projects and the need to further orient faculty in the critical realist philosophy underlying action research, as distinct from traditional positivism. (shrink)

This paper investigates some classical oppositional categories, like synthetic vs. analytic, posterior vs. prior, imagination vs. grammar, metaphor vs. hermeneutics, metaphysics vs. observation, innovation vs. routine, and image vs. sound, and the role they play in epistemology and philosophy of science. The epistemological framework of objective cognitive constructivism is of special interest in these investigations. Oppositional relations are formally represented using algebraic lattice structures like the cube and the hexagon of opposition, with applications in the contexts of modern color theory, (...) Kantian philosophy, Jungian psychology, and linguistics. (shrink)

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

1. Modern science in historical perspective -- On the origins of modern science -- The post-Renaissance revolution : the New Science -- Frank Sherwood Taylor : the man who was converted by Galileo -- The limits of science -- Proofs and demonstrations -- On the intelligibility of Quantum Mechanics -- Uncertainty, incompleteness, chance, and design -- A Finite, Open and Contingent Universe -- 2. On the origin and development of life -- A brief history of evolutionary thought -- Life's intelligible (...) design -- What are the contributions of Genetics to the understanding of life? -- On the Human Genome in contrast to the Great Apes Genome -- On The Evolution Controversy -- Scientific critiques of Darwinism -- 3. Beyond nature and history -- The religion of Darwinism -- On the riddle of man's origin -- On science, history and free will -- Science and Faith -- Concluding remarks. (shrink)

O gás sarin no metrô de Tóquio, as 'balas perdidas' no Rio de Janeiro e os ataques terroristas às torres gêmeas em Nova York ou ao transporte coletivo em Madri e Londres revelam que nossa sociedade interdependente é muito vulnerável.

Conceptual congruency effects are biases induced by an irrelevant conceptual dimension of a task (e.g., location in vertical space) on the processing of another, relevant dimension (e.g., judging words’ emotional evaluation). Such effects are a central empirical pillar for recent views about how the mind/brain represents concepts. In the present paper, we show how attentional cueing (both exogenous and endogenous) to each conceptual dimension succeeds in modifying both the manifestation and the symmetry of the effect. The theoretical implications of this (...) finding are discussed. (shrink)

Descartes se dedica a la ciencia con un fin práctico y no teórico, lo que permite verlo como un filósofo de la moral antes que como filósofo especulativo o de la ciencia. Su filosofía moral es una sola; pero siendo su moral perfectible, la expresa en el Discurso del método como pertrecho o aprovisionamiento del que viaja por la vida. En el Tratado de las pasiones, cuando se ha conquistado la conciencia de la libertad y es firme la resolución de (...) usarla siempre y nunca perderla, toma la forma de moral de la generosidad y no ya de aprovisionamiento. La distinción que introduce entre “certeza moral” y “certeza más que moral” se refiere a la garantía de la verdad y no a verdades tenues y firmes para emplear en lo práctico y en lo teórico respectivamente. (shrink)

De la materia del sueño nace de un esfuerzo de síntesis entre dos orientaciones vitales. Por un lado, en el plano poético, la poesía y los medios por los que esta logra extenderse en la vida cotidiana a partir de la experiencia de lo maravilloso; por otro, en el plano político, las potencialidades de la Utopía como medio de reactivación del imaginario revolucionario. Es ahí, y no en otra parte, donde debe enmarcarse este ensayo. Si no fuera porque ellos nunca (...) hablaron previamente, podríamos decir que en este libro está basada la última película de Jan Švankmajer, Sobreviviendo a la vida (Teoría y práctica). (shrink)

En este trabajo pretendo mostrar el modo como la simpatía humeana sirve para convertir las pasiones barrocas en sentimientos morales con los que el interés puede establecerse como algo admisible en un comportamiento virtuoso. Ello supone la admisión de que no hay moralidad sino en un contexto social desde el cual se afinan los sentimientos de un modo reflexivo, aunque no únicamente racional siguiendo el mismo modelo que se usa para afinar el sentido del gusto.

A INTERFERÊNCIA DO PODER EXECUTIVO NOS ORÇAMENTOS DO PODER JUDICIÁRIO E DO MINISTÉRIO PÚBLICO: SEPARAÇÃO DOS PODERES E IMPACTOS NO EXERCÍCIO DE SUAS FUNÇÕES INSTITUCIONAIS.