Background: Patients undergoing invasive neurosurgical procedures offer researchers unique opportunities to study the brain. Deep brain stimulation patients, for example, may participate in research during the surgical implantation of the stimulator device. Although this research raises many ethical concerns, little attention has been paid to basic studies, which offer no therapeutic benefits, and the value of patient-participant perspectives.Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with fourteen individuals across two studies who participated in basic intraoperative research during their deep brain stimulator surgery. Interviews (...) explored interpretations of risks and benefits, enrollment motivations, and experiences of participating in awake brain research. Reflexive thematic analysis was conducted.Results: Seven themes were identified from participant narratives, including robust attitudes of trust, high valuations of basic science research, impacts of the surgical context, and mixed experiences of participation.Conclusion: We argue that these narratives raise the potential for a translational misconception and motivate intraoperative re-consent procedures. (shrink)

In the conclusion to The Imaginary Jean-Paul Sartre draws attention to the centrality of imagination in human life, describing it as a constitutive structure of consciousness. Imagination, according to him, is not a contingent feature of consciousness, but one of its essential features. This essay re-examines Sartre’s notion of imagination, arguing that current interpretations do not exhaust its meaning. Beginning with a consideration of dichotomies that dominate his theory of imagination—such as those between present, material objects and absent images, or (...) real entities and fictional creations, as well as interpretative responses to them—the essay moves on to explore the possibility of locating a different sense of imagination in his work, one which is irreducible to such oppositions. Focusing on Sartre’s example of the work of an impersonator, this essay advances the idea that the playful activity of impersonators and actors enables the spectators who are watching them to explore novel and often unfamiliar connections between objects in the world. Imagination, according to this interpretation, enriches and augments perception, rather than suspends or replaces it with mental images. This new interpretation of Sartre’s notion of imagination places him in proximity to Wittgenstein’s discussion of ‘aspect-seeing’ in Philosophical Investigations. However, whereas Wittgenstein’s discussion of ‘aspect-seeing’ can lead to the conclusion that it is impossible to draw a line between perceiving and imagining, the notion of imagination operative in Sartre’s example enables us to maintain and explain the differences between ordinary and ‘imaginative’ perception. (shrink)

Commenting on Jean-Paul Sartre's theory of imagination, Paul Ricoeur argues that Sartre fails to address the productive nature of imaginative acts. According to Ricoeur, Sartre's examples show that he thinks of imagination in mimetic terms, neglecting its innovative and creative dimensions. Imagination, Ricoeur continues, manifests itself most clearly in fiction, wherein new meaning is created. By using fiction as the paradigm of imaginative activity, Ricoeur is able to argue against Sartre that the essence of imagination lies not in its ability (...) to reproduce absent objects, but rather in the ability to transform reality through creative acts. Motivated by the intuition that Sartre the writer could not have forgotten to address such crucial dimensions of imagination, I examine Sartre's philosophical and literary work, showing that not only does he develop a notion of productive imagination, he also puts this notion to work by articulating the relationship between imagination, narrative, and identity formation, well before Ricoeur advanced his narrative-identity theory. I argue that Sartre, like Ricoeur and MacIntyre, another representative of narrative-theory whose criticism of Sartre I address in this essay, views imagination and narrativity as necessary conditions for the formation of a coherent and meaningful sense of self. (shrink)

Several lines of evidence suggest that children born via Cesarean section are at greater risk for adverse health outcomes including allergies, asthma and obesity. Vaginal seeding is a medical procedure in which infants born by C-section are swabbed immediately after birth with vaginal secretions from the mother. This procedure has been proposed as a way to transfer the mother's vaginal microbiome to the child, thereby restoring the natural exposure that occurs during vaginal birth that is interrupted in the case of (...) babies born via C-section. Preliminary evidence indicates partial restoration of microbes. However, there is insufficient evidence to determine the health benefits of the procedure. Several studies, including trial, are currently underway. At the same time, in the clinic setting, doctors are increasingly being asked to by expectant mothers to have their babies seeded. This article reports on the current research on this procedure and the issues it raises for regulators, researchers, physicians, and patients. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre’s early phenomenological texts reveal the complexity of his relationship to Edmund Husserl. Deeply indebted to phenomenology’s method as well as its substance, Sartre nonetheless confronted Husserl’s transcendental turn from Ideas onward. Although numerous studies have focused on Sartre’s points of contention with Husserl, drawing attention to his departure from Husserlian phenomenology, scholars have rarely examined the way in which Sartre engaged and responded to the early Husserl, particularly to his discussions of intentionality, consciousness, and self in Logical Investigations. (...) This essay focuses on Sartre’s critical response to Logical Investigations, arguing that Husserl’s understanding of these three notions shapes and informs Sartre’s own approach to them in The Transcendence of the Ego, “Intentionality: A Fundamental Idea of Husserl’s Phenomenology”, and Being and Nothingness. By carefully reading Sartre side by side with Husserl, this essay arti... (shrink)

The field of neurotechnology intervening on blindness is rapidly expanding with several visual neural prostheses currently in development (Lowery 2013; Niketeghad and Pouratian 2019; Ptito et al. 2...

Luiz Henrique Lopes dos Santos, em seu texto sobre "Leibniz e a questão dos futuros contingentes”, argumenta em favor de seu diagnóstico segundo o qual, no fundo, a principal diferença entre as doutrinas de Espinosa e Leibniz reside no fato de que o primeiro, diferentemente do segundo, não sabia lógica. Este texto procura objetar à sua posição, respondendo às críticas do autor à posição de Espinosa quanto à liberdade divina. Procurarei mostrar que, sob o aspecto preciso da articulação aí estabelecida (...) entre a distinção vontade/entendimento e a questão dos possíveis jamais realizados, ela não poderia estar disponível para a metafísica de Espinosa, não por ele ter ignorado um princípio básico da lógica modal, como alega o autor, mas porque ele compreende diferentemente o estatuto ontológico da unidade das coisas individuais e, portanto, dos agentes humanos. (shrink)

O termo “cogito” designa de modo genérico e impreciso um argumento que Descartes propõe em diversos momentos de sua obra. De um modo geral, os comentadores, tal como o fizeram os interlocutores contemporâneos ao autor, consideram que a expressão “penso, logo existo” (cogito ergo sum), ausente das Meditações Metafísicas, resume adequadamente este argumento único e procuram esclarecê-lo ou criticá-lo, nem sempre levando em consideração as diferentes formulações que recebe e os diferentes contextos em que ocorre. Meu objetivo neste texto é (...) simplesmente analisar o quarto parágrafo da Segunda Meditação (AT VII, 24-25; IX-1,19), no qual ele supostamente apresenta este mesmo argumento sem empregar a famosa expressão. Das muitas, diversas e relevantes questões filosóficas que este argumento suscita, gostaria de me concentrar em investigar se ele pode ser reconstruído sem que seja necessário introduzir – como uma premissa não justificada – a concepção do pensamento como sendo essencialmente consciência de si e, portanto, como envolvendo - por definição, a auto-referência imediata e incorrigível do sujeito a si mesmo. Gostaria de poder mostrar que o argumento não apenas independe dessa concepção como, além disso, conduz a essa concepção; todavia, somente o primeiro passo em direção a esta interpretação será dado neste artigo. Quanto à expressão “penso, logo existo”, minha hipótese é que, embora ausente do texto, ela, de fato, resume o sentido geral da posição cartesiana. Sua ausência explica-se pelo fato de que Descartes pretende apresentar nas Meditações a versão mais completa de seu argumento e a passagem que será aqui analisada constitui, na realidade, apenas uma primeira etapa dessa versão. A análise e a reconstrução que serão propostas supõe que o argumento apresentado no parágrafo 4 deva ser compreendido, como propõe H. G. Frankfurt, como composto de quatro etapas, cujo sentido depende do contexto argumentativo mais amplo no qual estão inseridas, como observou Jean-Claude Pariente, em seu artigo sobre o cogito nas Meditações Metafísicas. Nesse sentido, a estrutura do presente artigo seguirá essas etapas. (shrink)

Um argumento esquecido em um verdadeiro arsenal de guerra que Espinosa se dedicou a reunir contra o que considerava um dos maiores, senão o maior, empecilho para que os homens alcançassem a verdadeira felicidade, a saber, o falso conceito que possuem da liberdade humana quando a tomam por uma liberdade de arbítrio, contrária a toda e qualquer necessidade. Argumento forjado, certamente, com boa dose de ironia e ânimo polemista contra um objetor que se diz defensor do cartesianismo, e, portanto, em (...) certa medida contra Descartes. Apresentar um argumento que envolva a referência a situações oníricas contra a concepção cartesiana de liberdade como poder dos contrários é, certamente, pretender fazer o feitiço virar contra o feiticeiro. No entanto, para além desse encanto particular e quase anedótico, creio que esse argumento contribui com um bom ponto à inesgotável discussão sobre a natureza da liberdade, debate caro às inquietações filosóficas do nosso querido amigo. Ponto para cuja elucidação espero poder contar com sua ajuda, pois, como se poderá ver na sequência, minha compreensão do argumento é ainda bastante preliminar. Duas traduções porque as cartas onde esse argumento muito provavelmente surgiu pela primeira vez não contam ainda, até onde eu saiba, com uma tradução para a língua portuguesa que permita um acesso mais fácil ao pensamento do filósofo. Legitima preocupação pedagógica, uma entre muitas que caracterizam o professo Boeira. (shrink)

L'article avance l'hypothèse selon laquelle la distinction entre les conceptions cartésienne et spinoziste des rapports esprit/corps se situe dans le niveau plus profond des différents diagnostiques que ces doctrines supposent concernant les conditions d'emergence du problème éthique por l'être humain.

A presentation of Spinoza's theory of affections and concept of conatus aimed at a psychoanalyst audience.

In 1995, the publication of Marleen Rozemond’s paper, Descartes’s Case for Dualism, triggered the revival of the discussion on his argument in favor of the real distinction between body and soul among the Anglo-Saxon scholars. In particular, the discussion then resumed on the necessity of introducing a hidden premise (the so-called attribute premise) in order to regain its probatory character. This debate has reflected on the Cartesian studies in Brazil, and my objective in this text is to bring to the (...) debate two texts still unexplored in relation to this interpretative problem. My hypothesis is that the attempts to justify the thesis that the substance has exactly one principal attribute have not yet succeeded because they underestimated the contribution brought about by the transformation of the notion of nature entailed by the introduction of the concept of principal attribute. Understanding the Cartesian proof of substantial dualism, and more particularly the "attribute premise", would involve, I suggest, the thesis according to which the concept of principal attribute, insofar as it expresses the essence of the substance, is not, and cannot be, according to Descartes, an abstract universal, but rather one of a particular nature. (shrink)

Este artigo prolonga a análise do argumento apresentado por Descartes em favor da primeira certeza no início da Segunda Meditação, iniciada em um artigo anterior. É examinada a passagem subsequente ao referido argumento com vistas a estabelecer que sua compreensão aponta para um debate velado entre Descartes e seus leitores versa- dos na doutrina escolástica, mais particularmente nas concepções da definição como estruturada pela composição do gênero e da diferença e de específica e de conceito universal abstrato. Procuro mostrar que (...) as razões que Des- cartes dispõe para recusar essas concepções podem ser extraídas de certa interpretação do argumento em favor da certeza da proposição eu existo e que essa recusa é imprescindível para a compreensão adequada do penso, logo existo e, portanto, de seu argumento em favor do dualismo. -/- RESUMÉE: Cet article prolonge l´analyse, publiée dans un article précédent, sur l'argumentation cartésienne qui le conduit à la première certitude au début de la Seconde Méditation. Je propose une interprétation du passage, qui vient juste après cet argument, où Descartes décline la réponse « animal rational » à la question sur sa nature. Ce passage, comme j'essaierai de le montrer, cache un dialogue masqué entre l'auteur et ses lecteurs ayant une formation scolastique. Plus particulièrement, il s'agit de montrer que la critique de Descartes vise de façon plus générale la conception de la définition par genre et différence spécifique, ainsi que la notion de concept en tant qu’universal abstrait. Les raisons qui peuvent justifier cette critique et la rendre plus qu’un simple préjugé de la part de Descartes sont ici puisées dans l'interprétation de l'argumentation cartésienne en faveur de la première certitude, proposée auparavant. On verra alors que la compréhension correcte de ce qui est en question dans ce texte révèle une condition capitale et pour l' acceptation du je pense, donc j'existe et donc pour son raisonnement en faveur du dualisme. (shrink)

Among philosophers, Simone de Beauvoir is unique in treating childhood as a philosophical phenomenon. In both The Ethics of Ambiguity and The Second Sex, she examines the relationship between childhood and human freedom and considers its role in the development of subjectivity. Despite this, few sustained analyses of her treatment of the phenomenon exist. I argue that Beauvoir's conception of childhood is not uniform, but changes from The Ethics of Ambiguity to The Second Sex. Whereas the former presents children as (...) lacking moral freedom, as not fully sovereign individuals, the latter suggests that children are just as free as adults. When children do not fully possess or exercise freedom, it is not because they are not in a position to do so, but rather because various social institutions hinder them. I find this position useful for developing a phenomenological account of childhood as a site for freedom. Hence, Beauvoir becomes a source for thinking of issues in philosophical anthropology concerning the temporality of human existence and the nature of human agency over a lifespan. (shrink)

Nesse primeiro momento da análise do problema da liberdade em Espinosa, gostaria de mostrar que, embora Espinosa trate o conceito de contingência como relacionado à finitude do entendimento humano, o que sugere uma abordagem meramente negativa, ele, na verdade, desenvolve uma abordagem positiva, a saber : a contingência, assim como o tempo , é uma forma necessária do pensamento humano que tem um fundamento na realidade das coisa s às quais ele se aplica, embora não possa ser considerado uma propriedade (...) das coisas. Mostrar que a contingência , assim como o conceito de tempo, é uma forma necessária do pensamento humano significa mostrar não apenas que existem condições objetivas que autorizam a aplicação desse conceito, mas que a imperfeição na qual se funda o conceito de contingência é necessária e intransponível para o entendimento humano. -/- O primeiro passo será estabelecido a partir da prova de que a categorização temporal, da qual a contingência é uma das formas , tem por fundamento o estatuto ontológico peculiar das coisas sobre as quais ela incide, a saber, sobre o estatuto modal (não-substancial) das coisas singulares, unicamente no qual é possível distinguir entre a essência e a existência. O segundo passo consistirá em mostrar que a categorização temporal é uma forma necessária do conhecimento que o homem tem do mundo na medida em que ela é uma das atividades constitutiva s da unidade numérica da alma humana, ou seja, uma das atividades pelas quais a alma humana existe em ato na duração. (shrink)

Ce texte propose une justification de la critique que Spinoza adresse à Descartes, par l’intermédiaire de Louis Meyer, dans la Préface des Principes de la Philosophie de Descartes ; plus particulièrement, il s’agit de reconstruire ses raisons pour affirmer qu’il n’a pas été prouvé, dans la Seconde Méditation, que la chose qui est désignée par le terme ‘je’ puisse être une substance. L’argument qui doit soutenir cette affirma- tion peut être schématisé de la façon suivante : Descartes ne peut introduire (...) un indice temporel dans la certitude de la proposition Je suis, j’existe que s’il accepte que la compréhension de cette proposition enveloppe la possibilité de l’existence d’autres choses pensantes finies, ce qui contredit l’unes des conditions de la conception d’une chose comme substance, telles que lui-même les a définies dans l’article 60 de la première partie des Principes de la Philosophie. (shrink)

Le but de ce texte est de mettre en évidence les équi­valences entre la façon dont le concept de conatus résout, dans l'Éthique, le problème de l'unité modale complexe. en rendant consis­tant le concept de chose singulière en tant que celle-ci doit être consi­dérée comme un légitime sujet d'attribution d'états, et la façon dont ce même concept dessine le rapport cognitif de l'esprit avec lui-même, rapport par lequel l'esprit se saisit comme sujet de ses états et qui ca­ractérise la notion (...) moderne de subjectivité. Ainsi, en éclairant cet as­pect du concept spinoziste de chose singulière. on comprendra aussi, de façon indirecte, l'une des conditions par lesquelles les choses peuvent, dans la doctrine spinoziste, devenir des objets ou des signes pour la connaissance humaine. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta a maneira pela qual atualmente compreendo um dos pontos mais controverso: da doutrina cartesiana, a saber, sua concepção de liberdade. Meu interesse nas concepções cartesianas de vontade e de liberdade é exclusivamente epistêmico, e não prático; ou melhor, trata-se de pensar esses conceitos, bem como sua relação a partir do ponto de vista estrito do problema do conhecimento, embora - aparentemente - o próprio Descartes não acreditasse que tal separação fosse possível. Através da análise das relações entre (...) entendimento, vontade e liberdade, procuro mostrar que a razão que leva Descartes a enfatizar a distinção entre antes e durante o momento da decisão da vontade na carta de 9 de fevereiro de 1645 ao Padre Mesland reside precisamente na consideração de que a concepção da liberdade humana deve associar às condições de aplicação do conceito formal de liberdade as condições específicas de seu exercício no caso do espírito humano, enquanto substância finita criada inserida na temporalidade. A análise das condições do exercício da liberdade humana, por sua vez, pode explicar a introdução de um tipo peculiar de necessidade epistêmica associada à percepção de conteúdos fictícios e que gera o problema do qual trata a Quinta Meditação, e cujo exame conduziu-me a investigar concepção cartesiana de liberdade. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta uma concepção do fluxo de consciência a partir de um modelo de naturalização da consciência de base metafísica não-materialista, inspirado na filosofia de Espinosa. Procura-se responder à questão colocada por Arthur Prior, em seu artigo ?Thank Goodness That?s Over? , acerca do caráter problemático do significado de um certo tipo de proposições indexadas temporalmente no quadro de teorias que recusam a realidade do tempo. Para tanto, defende-se a hipótese de que essas proposições são irredutíveis a proposições não (...) temporalizadas, seu sentido sendo determinado pelo caráter adverbial dos indexadores temporais e pela função de expressar estados subjetivos referencialmente opacos . Essa função, por sua vez, seria determinante para a constituição do mental enquanto tal e para a realidade do domínio prático. // The article proposes a conception of the flow of consciousness based on a non-materialistic metaphysical model of naturalization of consciousness, inspired in Spinoza's philosophy. I will try to answer Arthur Prior’s question (Thank Goodness That's Over, 1959) concerning the problematic character of the meaning of a certain type of propositions containing temporal indexes for the theories that refuse the reality of time. My hypothesis is that those propositions cannot be reduced to tenseless ones since their meaning is determined by the adverbial character of the temporal indexes and since they express subjective referentially opaque states (that are taken to be close to the Spinozistic concept of affection). I will also show that their function is crucial for the constitution of the mental and for the reality of the practical domain. (shrink)

The few passages in Spinoza’s work in which he focuses on the concept of human law have not received as much scholarly attention as passages focused on other themes, but they have still been very well examined. It is true that most of these studies do not directly aim to determine whether Spinoza adopts a normative conception of human law in the political-legal field or, if he does adopt such a conception, what the conditions under which he could do so (...) could be, given the logical-causal necessitarianism and naturalism of his metaphysics, explicitly reaffirmed in paragraph 3 of Chapter IV of the TTP. However, this problem is unavoidable, and it is precisely to this matter that I would like to contribute, in a rather modest way, by examining the answer that Spinoza himself offers in the passage just cited. My purpose is to demonstrate that these four paragraphs clarify how and why Spinoza can introduce a source of regulation of our actions (which is referred to by the expression “ab placito humanum”) that is different from the principles that necessarily follow from our nature without violating the basic tenets of his metaphysics. (shrink)

The discovery that loans for the payment of slave abolition compensation had not been repaid by British taxpayers until 2015 took many by surprise. But it is the financial contribution of British A...

This chapter argues that the Ethics includes versions of the views about sensation and its role in the production of knowledge that are present in the TIE and the KV. ‘Idea of an affection’ replaces the earlier terms for sensation. A sensation is a modification of the mind closely associated with a modification of body and explained in terms of the mind-body relation. In the KV, Spinoza continues to treat sensation as the immediate perception of corporeal modification and continues to (...) take the inference from sensation to the union of mind and body as a valid one. The KV is the earliest source of Spinoza's view that the idea-object model accounts for the mind-body relation. The only occurrence of sensatio in the CM might seem to tell against an account of sensation as something different from imagination. Accounts of reason and imagination in the Ethics considerably advance Spinoza's theory of knowledge. (shrink)

The article advances an interpretation of the self as an imaginary object. Focusing on the relationship between selfhood and memory in Sartre's The Transcendence of the Ego , I argue that Sartre offers useful resources for thinking about the self in terms of narratives. Against interpretations that hold that the ego misrepresents consciousness or distorts it, I argue that the constitution of the ego marks a radical transformation of the conscious field. To prove this point, I turn to the role (...) of reflection and memory in the creation of the self. Reflection and memory weave past, present and future into a consistent and meaningful life story. This story is no other than the self. I propose to understand the self as a fictional or imaginary entity, albeit one that has real presence in human life. (shrink)

L'article vise à placer les rapports entre affectio et affectus au centre de l ’unité architectonique de l'Éthique. La définition d’affectus permet de connaître la vraie nature de l'affection, montrant que ce concept ne peut pas signifier un état mais doit désigner une disposition, ou une variation de la puissance. Ainsi le couple affectio/affectus articule toutes les parties de l'Éthique, en régissant non seulement la construction du problème éthique, mais aussi sa solution chez Spinoza.

Em seu exame da teoria da verdade cartesiana, Raul Landim (1993, 2009) enuncia as três questões que toda teoria da verdade deve responder: (a) o sentido de ‘verdade’; (b) a possibilidade de conhecimentos verdadeiros e (c) a possibilidade do reconhecimento de conhecimentos verdadeiros. Os argumentos a serem apresentados dizem respeito sobretudo à terceira questão, mas consideram a necessidade de ser assegurar uma resposta adequada à segunda questão. Para tanto, retomarei (I) brevemente alguns pontos de um artigo anterior sobre o tema (...) (2017) para, em seguida, dar prosseguimento ao estudo ali iniciado, que ainda deverá ser completado em um terceiro texto, sobre atenção, representação e intecionalidade. Com efeito, três contextos argumentativos são relevantes para o exame da noção de atenção: (i) o tratamento psicofísico da atenção; (ii) as condições para a busca da verdade, no qual a atenção designa, prima facie, uma modulação do pensar, que é relevante para o método; (iii) a explicação do caráter intencional do pensar humano, no qual a atenção é um aspecto do pensar concernente à seleção do conteúdo pensado no tempo presente (presença). Somente o segundo será considerado aqui. Após a retomada dos resultados anteriores, apresentarei indícios da relação entre a atenção e o conceito de intenção na história da filosofia que precede Descartes e, em seguida, farei uma breve análise das ocorrências do texto na obra cartesiana (II). Por fim, na seção (III), passarei à análise daquelas ocorrências ligadas ao método do filósofo, tanto no que se refere à sua intervenção na determinação do critério de reconhecimento da verdade (a regra geral da verdade, ou regra do claro e do distinto), quanto no esclarecimento da via analítica do método de demonstração geométrico. (shrink)

This essay concerns Simone de Beauvoir's analysis of blame and punishment in “Œil pour œil” and the irreconcilable tensions that haunt it. I study these tensions—between the desire to blame and punish and the inability to provide moral justification for these practices—and locate their source in Beauvoir's conception of ethics in Pour une morale de l'ambiguïté. According to my reading, her ethics implies that violence violates freedom, the grounding principle of ethical life. Retaliatory and retributive judgments and the punishment they (...) uphold, regardless of whether they are exerted by individuals or by official state powers, are forms of violence and are therefore unjustifiable. The aporias of blame and punishment in “Œil pour œil” suggest that Beauvoir's ideal of ethics necessitates an abolitionist position regarding punishment. The essay ends with a reflection on the affinity between the position constructed from Beauvoir's work and feminist abolitionist theories that seek to undermine the legal, social, and political institutions that perpetuate, rather than resolve, economic, racial, gender, sex, and class inequality. (shrink)

Este artigo prolonga a análise do argumento apresentado por Descartes em favor da primeira certeza no início da Segunda Meditação, iniciada em um artigo anterior (Ainda o Cogito). É examinada a passagem subsequente ao referido argumento com vistas a estabelecer que sua compreensão aponta para um debate velado entre Descartes e seus leitores versa- dos na doutrina escolástica, mais particularmente nas concepções da definição como estruturada pela composição do gênero e da diferença e de específica e de conceito universal abstrato. (...) Procuro mostrar que as razões que Des- cartes dispõe para recusar essas concepções podem ser extraídas de certa interpretação do argumento em favor da certeza da proposição eu existo e que essa recusa é imprescindível para a compreensão adequada do penso, logo existo e, portanto, de seu argumento em favor do dualismo. (shrink)

In this paper I assess the sense of the odd expression that occurs in the explanation of the definition of desire, at the end of the third part of the Ethics: causa conscientiae, the cause of consciousness. I intend to show that the sense and the limits of the conception of consciousness that can be inferred from the analysis of this definition and its explanation can shed a new light on the reasons why Spinoza refuses the Cartesian thesis on the (...) right order of Philosophy: self-consciousness shall not be the point of departure of philosophy, not because it would be dependent on knowledge of the external world, but because it is a derivative concept in the sense that the qualification of thinking things as conscious beings supposes some ontological conditions that are not always met: finitude and duration. To establish that I will claim that the aim of the text where the expression arises is to elucidate the conditions under which the concept of consciousness applies, and not to express differently the same thesis of E2P23 and E3P9sc. We will see that Spinoza's point there is not that the human mind – or the human body – must be determined by an external cause in order to be conscious of itself, but that it has to be determined by any affection, regardless of its origin. Therefore, the inside-outside approach must be replaced by the consideration of the duplication of the determination. This twofold structure is the conceptual element that must be added to the definition of appetite in order to account for the cause of consciousness, and its analysis will show that for Spinoza only finite modes of thought that exists in the duration can be conceived as conscious beings. (shrink)

Aristotle, Master Eckhart, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant are among the authors exegetically challenged in this collection of fifteen investigations on classical philosophical themes (rational justification, theory of judgment, analysis of duty and moral principles, doctrine of the subject, freedom, substance and property, necessity and contingency, existence and causality). The choice of the logical geography of these themes relies on the conviction that philosophical understanding and historical inquiry are intrinsically connected.

This is an Italian translation of the chapter O conceito cartesiano de atributo principal. In: ROCHA, E and LEVY, L. (org). Estudos de Filosofia Moderna. Porto Alegre: Linus Editora, 2011. p. 69-80. -/- In 1995, the publication of Marleen Rozemond’s paper, Descartes’s Case for Dualism, triggered the revival of the discussion on his argument in favor of the real distinction between body and soul among the Anglo-Saxon scholars. In particular, the discussion then resumed on the necessity of introducing a hidden (...) premise (the so-called attribute premise) in order to regain its probatory character. This debate has reflected on the Cartesian studies in Brazil, and my objective in this text is to bring to the debate two texts still unexplored in relation to this interpretative problem. My hypothesis is that the attempts to justify the thesis that the substance has exactly one principal attribute have not yet succeeded because they underestimated the contribution brought about by the transformation of the notion of nature entailed by the introduction of the concept of principal attribute. Understanding the Cartesian proof of substantial dualism, and more particularly the "attribute premise", would involve, I suggest, the thesis according to which the concept of principal attribute, insofar as it expresses the essence of the substance, is not, and cannot be, according to Descartes, an abstract universal, but rather one of a particular nature. -/- . (shrink)

Imagination is crucial to Joseph Margolis’ philosophy: he addresses its significance for the experience of works of art and, more importantly, he portrays it as constitutive of human reality itself. I explicate these claims and define Margolis’ notion of imagination vis-à-vis Jean-Paul Sartre’s, whose own conception of imagination Margolis rejects. Studying Margolis and Sartre in relation to each other illuminates crucial differences between their positions and highlights the different commitments that underlie their philosophical anthropology as a whole. In the conclusion (...) of this paper, I argue that there are in fact certain affinities between their positions and suggest that we think of the problem of imagination meta-philosophically, as a problem that guides philosophical thought in its various attempts to define the human. (shrink)

According to the majority of interpreters of Spinozist philosophy, his doctrine is independent of the modern notion of subjectivity. This study, however, shows that the theory of human knowledge presented in the Ethics can not be rightly understood without adding a certain concept of self-consciousness, and so must contain a theory of subjectivity. Moreover, this theory is reconstructed from Spinozist concepts: self-awareness is, for man, the manifestation of his conatus as a finite thinking unity existing in duration . This reconstruction (...) reveals that the doctrine of Spinoza provides a rather original modern notion of subjectivity, which is a modern alternative to the Cartesian one. (shrink)

Dans le domaine juridique, son commentaire de la Mishnah (1168), et le Mishnah Torah, " Répétition de la loi " (1180), classification et interprétation des traditions orale et écrite juives, font autorité. Maïmonide philosophe aborde, dans le Guide des égarés, " Moré Nébukhim ", de nombreux sujets - allégories bibliques ou talmudiques, doctrines philosophiques, prophétie, métaphysique... - et tente, parce qu'il ne saurait envisager une théologie non fondée sur une prémisse philosophique valide, de concilier les enseignements de la Torah et (...) de ses commentaires avec la pensée aristotélicienne. Enfin c'est en psychosomaticien qu'il rédige ses aphorismes sur tous les aspects de la médecine : symptomatologie, diagnostic, traitement. (shrink)

O artigo busca evidenciar as vantagens exegéticas de um estudo mais amplo sobre o conceito de atenção na filosofia de Descartes e avançar preliminarmente algumas hipóteses sobre seu sentido e função. Mais precisamente, sugere-se uma aproximação dos conceitos de atenção e tempo, de modo que a primeira se definiria - não como uma experiência subjetiva incomunicável, ou como uma qualidade dessa experiência-, mas em relação ao conceito cartesiano de duração, tanto em sua conexão com a mente humana quanto independentemente dessa (...) conexão. A atenção não designaria primariamente um estado psicológico disposicional (que disporia a mente ao conhecimento). Ao contrário, o conceito de atenção poderia assumir esse sentido derivado apenas na medida em que é concebido como uma certa configuração da existência da alma, a qual é propriamente uma duração temporal. (shrink)

Technoscientific developments, especially those which operate on/with human beings, are contributing to their reconfiguration in some new, unprecedented ways. Ethics too is revising radically its own field, probing its own foundations. Sensitive to both movements, bioethics is at a difficult crossroads when much is demanded of it. This paper proposes to contribute to the elucidation of the role of philosophical ethics in the area of bioethics through a critical reading of three of our major contemporary philosophers who have been attempting (...) to meet the challenges of (post)modernity. (shrink)

G. W. F. Hegel sees Oedipus as an epitome of the philosophical quest for self-knowledge. In Hegel's readings of Oedipus, the latter becomes a distant reflection of the modern and mature Hegelian self, who consciously takes on this quest. Yet unlike Oedipus, whose search for the truth about his past is characterized by both metaphorical and literal blindness, the modern self knows itself, precisely because it understands its past and can thus appropriate and situate itself in relation to the present. (...) For Hegel, self-understanding entails grasping the proper relationship between past and present, which in turn necessitates acknowledging his own relationship to Oedipus. This essay examines Henrik Ibsen's turn to the Hegelian engagement with the past, by focusing on one of the most enigmatic scenes in his 1866 drama, Peer Gynt, where the Norwegian protagonist is cast as Oedipus. The scene examines the drama's own past—through an engagement with a dramatic ancestor—and focuses on the influence of the past on fashioning modern European identity. Moreover, it offers a critique of how the past is utilized in the creation and consolidation of that identity. With this, Ibsen offers an implicit critique of Hegel's understanding of Oedipus, and his encounter with the Sphinx in particular. Revisiting Oedipus through its modern reception, Ibsen questions the act by which the past is revealed as such and is put to work in the service of a particular present. (shrink)

The Cartesian notion of idea is the focal point of this paper, which aims to determine whether this concept entails (a) the proposition that ideas are the immediate objects of perception, or (b) the proposition that ideas are the immediate perception of objects, or (c) both. Merely examining the Cartesian texts raises this question, as there are passages that seem to support all these positions. This discussion is not original, as it delves into one of the key questions that Cartesian (...) philosophy posed to the philosophical discourse on the problem of knowledge in the seventeenth century and beyond, an inquiry that continues to reverberate in contemporary commentaries and studies on these theories. The hypothesis that I propose to defend is as follows: once the foundational principle of clarity and distinctness is established, it is necessary to affirm that the subject perceives the objects represented in the ideas that serve as the basis for true judgments, without excluding the proposition that the subject also perceives the ideas themselves. In other words, it is essential to consider that the Cartesian concept of idea encompasses both the object immediately perceived and, in certain cases, the immediate perception of the object. (shrink)

A coletânea apresenta, sob a forma de artigos, problemas e soluções associados ao conceito e substância ao longo da história da filosofia. Sem pretender exaurir esse percurso, a coletânea contém 29 artigos redigidos por diversos especialistas brasileiros em Filosofia. Sua proposta é oferecer uma visão clara, acessível, precisa e atualizada desse recorte da história do conceito de filosofia, na expectativa de contribuir para o aperfeiçoamento do ensino e debate de filosofia no país. -/- The anthology presents, through a series of (...) articles, the intricacies of problems and solutions intertwined with the concept of substance across the annals of philosophical history. While not seeking to comprehensively cover this vast terrain, the collection comprises 29 articles penned by a diverse array of Brazilian specialists in Philosophy. Its overarching aim is to furnish a lucid, accessible, precise, and contemporaneous perspective on this facet of philosophical inquiry, with the aspiration of enriching the landscape of philosophical education and discourse in Brazil. (shrink)

This article charts a relational history of Palestinian and Israeli temporalities. Probing the interplay of political and cultural discourses, I show how while literature and film are indices of the temporal views that inform political action, they also work to expand those views. What are the key temporal concepts of Zionism and Palestinian thought, and how have they been negotiated in literary and cinematic works from the 1940s to the present? How have major political developments influenced temporal attitudes and cultural (...) discourse? What emergent temporalities are at play in the current political climate? To address these questions, I bring insights from the social sciences into dialogue with close readings of Hebrew and Arabic works. After delineating what I call the syntagmatic model of Israeli and Palestinian temporalities, I discuss the fluid and nonlinear temporalities that are increasingly salient in Palestinian cultural production. (shrink)

Coletânea de artigos em homenagem a Guido Antonio de Almeida e Raul Ferreira Landim Filho.

Les Objections et les Réponses ne sont pas les protocoles d'un débat qui se serait déroulé après publication des Méditations et comme à l'extérieur d'elles. Dès le début, l'oeuvre maîtresse de la métaphysique moderne s'est voulue tripartite. « Copyright Electre ».