The political legacy of classical German philosophy can contribute in a crucial way to the most recent developments of contemporary political thought, thereby also making sense of the contradictions underlying the social practices and institutional values of our societies. What justifies this perspective is, in the first place, the complexity of contemporaneity, which holds within itself a doubleness that can be understood in the light of the conceptual tools of classical German philosophy. On the one hand, contemporary societies seem to (...) be facing relentless crises in the modern idea of democracy, the political subject of the nation-state, and capitalist economic structures. On the other hand, there is an ever-increasing demand for rights and new forms of recognition, not to mention the emergence of grassroots movements that strive for greater political participation and generate new collective subjectivities. By radically questioning traditional philosophical categories, Kant, Fichte and Hegel provide a new and insightful understanding of the crucial challenges of modernity. They outline a conception of practical rationality and its multiple manifestations that is irreplaceable for philosophically understanding our contemporary world. (shrink)

In theory, a human rights framework should protect and guarantee the equal provision of care and rights of all people. In practice, however, the universality that underlies human rights is enacted through citizenship rights, which rely on the individual politically ‘belonging’ to a nation-state.

Este trabalho busca discutir, a partir de dados obtidos em trabalho de campo etnográfico coletivo multissituado, elementos de uma cultura comunicacional dos torcedores no Brasil. Tradicionalmente tratados como coletivo, massa, povo ou multidão pelos meios de comunicação tradicionais, a abordagem proposta evidencia, nas falas dos próprios torcedores, uma compreensão sofisticada do universo afetivo, familiar, econômico e político que envolve o torcer por uma equipe de futebol no Brasil contemporâneo.

In this paper we compare the strategies applied by two successful biological components of the ecosystem, the viruses and the human beings, to interact with the environment. Viruses have had and still exert deep and vast actions on the ecosystem especially at the genome level of most of its biotic components. We discuss on the importance of the human being as contraptions maker in particular of robots, hence of machines capable of automatically carrying out complex series of actions. Beside the (...) relevance of designing and assembling these contraptions, it is of basic importance the goal for which they are assembled and future scenarios of their possible impact on the ecosystem. We can’t procrastinate the development and implementation of a highly inspired and stringent “ethical code” for human beings and humanoid robots because it will be a crucial aspect for the wellbeing of the mankind and of the entire ecosystem. (shrink)

For decades, nursing as a discipline has tried to establish itself within the socio‐professional and the socio‐political arenas. To date, several theorists have attempted to thoroughly define the essence (ontology) of nursing while others have proposed means (syntax) to achieve this ‘collective’ objective. Considering that this preoccupation, rooted in essentialism, is pervasive in the nursing literature, our claim is that these quests should be criticized because they impede innovative and transdisciplinary approaches to nursing theory. Our criticism includes the perspective supported (...) by the so‐called ‘postmodern nursing theorists’. We argue that the oeuvre of some nursing postmodern scholars is as prescriptive and linear as the ones they critique. Like it was done before, the discourse of these thinkers perpetuates the status quo by excluding alternative forms of knowledge that cross the boundaries of the discipline of nursing. Using the work of Deleuze and Guattari, this paper proposes an alternative way to conceive the development of nursing knowledge, which, we think, could represent an alternative way to explore the discipline of nursing. (shrink)

This study focuses on change strategies generated through a dialogical–reflexive–participatory process designed to improve the care of families of critically ill patients in an intensive care unit (ICU) using a participatory action research in a tertiary hospital in the Balearic Islands (Spain). Eleven professionals (representatives) participated in 11 discussion groups and five in‐depth interviews. They represented the opinions of 49 colleagues (participants). Four main change strategies were created: (i) Institutionally supported practices were confronted to make a shift from professional‐centered work (...) to a more inclusive, patient‐centered approach; (ii) traditional power relations were challenged to decrease the hierarchical power differences between physicians and nurses; (iii) consensus was built about the need to move from an individual to a collective position in relation to change; and (iv) consensus was built about the need to develop a critical attitude toward the conservative nature of the unit. The strategies proposed were both transgressive and conservative; however, when compared with the initial situation, they enhanced the care offered to patients' relatives and patient safety. Transforming conservative settings requires capacity to negotiate positions and potential outcomes. However, when individual critical capacities are articulated with a new approach to micropolitics, transformative proposals can be implemented and sustained. (shrink)

Although many studies have previously examined medicalisation, we add a new dimension to the concept as we explore how contemporary oncological medicine shapes the dying self as predominantly medical. Through an analysis of multiple case studies collected within a comprehensive cancer centre in Ontario, Canada, we examine how people with late‐stage cancer and their healthcare providers enacted the process of medicalisation through engaging in the search for oncological treatments, such as experimental drug trials, despite the incurability of their disease. The (...) seven cases included 20 interviews with patients, family, physicians and nurses, the analysis of 30 documents and 5 hr of field observation. A poststructural perspective informed our study. We propose that searching for life extension enacts medicalisation by shaping the dying person afflicted with terminal cancer into new medical subjectivities that are knowledgeable, active, entrepreneurial and curative. Participants initially took up medical thinking from the formal oncology system, but then began to apply and internalise medical rationalities to alter their personhood, thereby generating new curative possibilities for themselves. For people seeking life extension, the embodied and day‐to‐day experiences of suffering and being close to death became expressed and moderated in fundamentally medicalised terms. (shrink)

This article aims to provide a semiotic analysis of environmental law and youth protests. More precisely, drawing on speech act theory this article regards both as types of communication and teases out the inherent voice and message, specifically with regard to the interests of future generations. The argument unfolds in three steps. First, the article looks into speaker and speech of environmental law and argues that it speaks, as legislation does, in the first-person plural voice of a ‘we’. Second, the (...) article examines a speech of Greta Thunberg through the lens of Stanley Cavell’s theory of passionate utterances. This interpretation will unlock the political stakes of Thunberg’s speech as she claims standing with those responsible for enacting environmental law. Finally, the consequences of this reading will be analysed by relating message and voice of environmental law. As youth protests question ordinary forms of political representation, new ways of safeguarding the interests of future generations are called upon. (shrink)

Society and contemporary culture unquestionably assign much importance to the search for quality. So can this kind of research include the mind? In his analysis, Luigi Longhin examines the causes of mental illness and psychic-mental suffering, the notions of individuality, social violence, and utopia; and he suggests a collaboration between the neurosciences and psychoanalysis, within a correct epistemological approach. The relationship between epistemology and psychoanalysis is examined. The objectivistic and relativistic shift in contemporary epistemology, and the problem of the (...) responsibility of the techno-scientific system are emphasized. Why such a privileged connection with philosophy? The contribution of philosophy is primarily epistemological. However, both epistemology and psychoanalysis run a risk; whilst epistemology runs the risk of being a knowledge which does not know, psychoanalysts run the risk of pursuing scientific knowledge without knowing its foundations. Hence there is a need for collaboration between the two forms of knowledge: the philosophical-epistemological and the scientific-psychoanalytic. Psychoanalysis works in two directions: on the one hand, it tries to eliminate the negative components of the mind, on the other hand, it tries to develop the trusting and creative parts of the self. (shrink)

There are those who would argue that, recently, the profession of nursing has made a radical shift, while others believe that a schism has been created among both scholars and clinicians as a result of the emerging dominance of the evidence‐based nursing movement. This paper offers a philosophical critique of this movement using Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concept of schizoanalysis. As a conclusion, the authors posit that nursing professionals maintain a stance of academic freedom of thought and scientific integrity (...) through the acceptance of multiplicity, diversity, and polyvocality, and by challenging with politically charged concepts the totalizing perspectives that often spread through the profession/discipline of nursing. (shrink)

En jetant la sonde de l’interrogation philosophique au lieu de soi, Jean-Luc Marion nous donne une approche organique et originale à la pensée d’Augustin, en entrecroisant entre eux deux plans herméneutiques : sur le premier, l’on poursuit un itinéraire de rapprochement au cœur de la confessio augustinienne permettant de réduire le vaste univers sémantique d’Augustin à un noyau génétique unifiant; sur le second plan, le parcours philosophique de l’auteur se développe ultérieurement, tendant à désarticuler un bloc théorique d’ontologie et métaphysique (...) et atteignant ainsi par une voie phénoménologique une idée de philosophie finalement affranchie de la présupposition du caractère central de la question de l’étant et du fondement. En tout cas, même si l’on ne veut pas donner trop d’éclat à la critique anti-ontologique et antimétaphysique caractérisant l’approche à la pensée augustinienne proposée dans cet ouvrage, l’acquis spéculatif de celle-ci ne semble pas diminuer. Un parmi les mérites principaux de ce livre est d’avoir restitué à la confessio sa dignité théorique, en y apercevant un lieu phénoménologique originaire où la relation entre moi et Dieu se noue; une relation dont le caractère paradoxal, autrement insoutenable, est résolu par le primat du don et de l’amour. Ce sont tous ces traits originaux qui nous mènent à dire qu’Au lieu de soi n’est pas seulement un livre sur Augustin, car il est plus qu’un livre sur Augustin. (shrink)

This article analyses the use of the term “‘political oeconomy” in the Wealth of Nations, considered by many the founding text of the discipline of Political Economy. It shows that Adam Smith could not accept the use of the term “political oeconomy” that had been made by other authors to indicate the subject matter of his scientific inquiry, devoted to the nature and causes of the wealth of nations; he used the term “political oeconomy” as a synonym for economic policy, (...) especially in the fourth book of the Wealth of Nations. In order to understand this statement, it is necessary to keep in mind the methodological and epistemological perspective developed by Smith; in his view, the inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations would have to discover the almost unchangeable rules that presided over the choices of the legislators in the field of public economy and in the management of public resources. By contrast, the term “political oeconomy” was used by Smith exactly to indicate the policies really adopted in these fields, policies which frequently altered the system of natural liberty. (shrink)

Because of a strong similarity between two passages in Philo Judaeus, Cher. 37 and Her. 206, and the verb ejpikhrukeuvomai which is used in both loci is almost always completed by a dative. The Author proposes to read bivw/ instead of bivou at Cher. 37.