Esse artigo pretende aproximar-se do fenômeno da técnica, a partir de uma discussão do texto “A questão da técnica”, de Martin Heidegger. Após uma breve introdução que apresenta diversos momentos de concepções antropológicas da técnica, a discussão analisará passagens centrais da proposta heideggeriana em que a essência da técnica é compreendida como um acontecimento da verdade. Finalmente, o artigo tecerá algumas reflexões, inspiradas em um trabalho de Alfred Nordmann, sobre os limites que o pensamento de Heidegger nos impõe quando pretendemos (...) pensar outras possibilidades de uma filosofia da técnica. (shrink)

The following paper puts the history of race and colonialism in conversation with the history of the concept of energy. The objective is to understand what a critical decolonial perspective can teach us about the central role that energy plays in western culture, materially and epistemologically. I am interested in how this approach to political, epistemological, and ontological questions demands that we reconceptualize energy to account for the historical particularity of the concept and the phenomena of history and intersubjectivity, which (...) are eschewed in a purely materialistic and quantitative conception of energy. We will see how energy has been complicit in the racialization of black and indigenous bodies, and how the privileged place that the concept of energy has occupied in the canon of western physics has served to obscure the theological, metaphysical, and cultural assumptions that constitute it. (shrink)

Special issue: "Henri Bergson. Creative Evolution and Philosophy of Life." -/- I read the genealogy of the concept of energy through Bergson's Creative Evolution to argue that, historically, energy and its proto-concepts are grounded in spatialized notions of time. Bergson's work not only demands that we rethink energy and its relation to time, it also allows us to see that the concept of energy as we know it depicts time and materiality as a numerical multiplicity, which effaces the differences in (...) kind which are characteristic of energy transformations and real duration. To make this case, I first provide an analysis of Bergson’s concept of the cinematographical mechanism of thought, which splits duration into a composition of distinct states strung together by the idea of an impersonal becoming. Bergson claimed that this is the epistemological model for both ancient philosophy and modern science, meaning that it is also the epistemological ground within which energy concepts in western philosophy and science have been theorized. I then show how Bergson offers a way to overcome this model of theorizing through his method of intuition, and how these conclusions might be extended to future energy concepts. Thus, I argue that 1) Bergson’s work on duration allow us to interpret the genealogy of energy as the history of attempts to provide an account of change in terms of spatialized notions of time; 2) that his work offers a way of incorporating historicity into our understanding of energy; and 3) that thinking energy in the context of duration offers the possibility of conceptualizing energy as change. (shrink)

Querer investigar, num curto ensaio, as diversas facetas das situações-limite, bem como suas consequências para a existência humana, revelaria uma pretensão descabida. O que intencionamos aqui é simplesmente explorar, a partir de indicações fornecidas por Karl Jaspers, alguns momentos que as constituem. Optamos por nos aproximar do tema a partir de cinco perspectivas: o limite, o sentido, o nada, o sofrimento e a finitude. Em o sofrimento, empreenderemos uma breve crítica textual de passagens de duas obras centrais de Karl Jaspers: (...) Psychologie der Weltanschauungen, de 1919, e Philosophie, de 1932. Perceberemos aí uma modificação no modo como o sofrimento é apresentado. Embora sutil, essa alteração leva-nos não somente a precisar o papel das situações-limite na filosofia da existência jaspersiana, mas também a vislumbrar uma tensão entre situações-limite e experiências com situações-limite. (shrink)

This compact essay aims at promoting an approaching of some core aspects related to the Idea of communication of existence philosophy of Karl Jaspers and some extracts of the exposition of the philia that Aristotle presents in his Nicomachean Ethics. It does not convey an accurate and detailed exegesis, but a daring attempt of conceiving a possible dialog between mentioned philosophers comprising various facets of this phenomenon: friendship.

Discourses of social justice offer the sense of a progressive and developing narrative within the arts sector. Cultural democracy, cultural equity and cultural diversity address broad policy issues related to production, consumption and representation. This article questions whether these approaches have failed in their challenge to the long-established power dynamics of the cultural sector. We take this position of failure as a starting point for a self-reflexive account of the lack of progressive change in the sector. We argue that reflexivity (...) is needed to avoid the elision of the progressive impulse through the inauthentic and rhetorical promotion of ‘fakequity’. As scholars from divergent yet mutually Anglo-centric traditions, our aim is to better understand how a self-reflexive approach might counter the (non)performative behaviour of the cultural sector. Without such an approach, initiatives supposedly designed to be culturally democratic risk enforcing structures of exclusion and facilitating a ‘non-performative woke democratisation of culture’. (shrink)

La publicación de Filosofía de la aritmética (1891) trajo consigo un notable avance en las investigaciones fenomenológicas de E. Husserl, a la vez que se abrió paso entre las indagaciones ya existentes sobre la fundamentación de las matemáticas. Fue precisamente dentro de esta constelación de publicaciones donde se originó una de las polémicas filosóficas más interesantes de las postrimerías del siglo XIX: la recensión de Filosofía de la aritmética hecha por Frege en 1894. Lo que ofreceré en este texto son (...) algunas claves de interpretación que permitirán hacer una revisión juiciosa de aquellos aspectos filosóficos no vistos por Frege en su crítica. Todo ello a través del intercambio epistolar entre ambos, de la exposición de la reseña de 1894 y de las recensiones de Filosofía de la aritmética que han permanecido desconocidas hasta ahora. PALABRAS CLAVE: Filosofía de la aritmética, Fenomenología, Filosofía analítica, Husserl, Frege. (shrink)

Dynamical systems theory (DST) is a branch of mathematics that assesses abstract or physical systems that change over time. It has a quantitative part (mathematical equations) and a related qualitative part (plotting equations in a state space). Nonlinear dynamical systems theory applies the same tools in research involving phenomena such as chaos and hysteresis. These approaches have provided different ways of investigating and understanding cognitive systems in cognitive science and neuroscience. The ‘dynamical hypothesis’ claims that cognition is and can be (...) understood as dynamical systems. Common consequences for such an approach include rejecting understanding cognition as information processing in nature, including eschewing explanatory roles for computation or representation. Contemporary applications of DST include mouse‐tracking studies in cognitive science and nonrepresentational perspectives on motor control in neuroscience. Such work has philosophical implications concerning the boundaries of cognition, explanation, and representations. DST offers powerful methodology and theories that raise many topics of philosophical significance. (shrink)

The Alperin-Goldschmidt Fusion Theorem [1, 5], when combined with pushing up [7], was a useful tool in the classification of the finite simple groups. Similar theorems are needed in the study of simple groups of finite Morley rank, in the even type case (that is, when the Sylow 2-subgroups are of bounded exponent, as in algebraic groups over fields of characteristic 2). In that context a body of results relating to fusion of 2-elements and the structure of 2-local subgroups is (...) needed: pushing up, and the classification of groups with strongly or weakly embedded subgroups, or have strongly closed abelian subgroups (c.f, [2]). Two theorems of Alperin-Goldschmidt type are proved here. Both are needed in applications.The following is an exact analog of the Alperin-Goldschmidt Fusion Theorem for groups of finite Morley rank, in the case of 2-elements:Theorem 1.1.Let G be a group of finite Morley rank, and P a Sylow2-subgroup of G.If A, B⊆P are conjugate in G, then there are subgroups Hi≤Pand elementsxi∈N(Hi)for1 ≤i≤n,and an elementy∈N(P),such that for all i:1.Hiis a tame intersection of two Sylow2-subgroups;2.CP(Hi) ≤Hi;3.N(Hi)/Hiis2-isolatedand(a)(b). (shrink)

In this article, we will make the case for an intercultural philosophy of religion with a special focus on interculturality between Chinese and African philosophies. We will provide an overview of the kind of intercultural philosophy that has already been undertaken between the East and the South and point out that a philosophy of religion has been left out. We will then make the case for a global philosophy of religion approach and why Chinese and African philosophies of religion should (...) engage in philosophical interchanges. We will then highlight some directions for carrying out such a philosophy and explain why the problem of evil may be better addressed from an intercultural perspective. (shrink)

Foundational ontologies, central constructs in ontological investigations and engineering alike, are based on ontological categories. Firstly proposed by Aristotle as the very ur- elements from which the whole of reality can be derived, they are not easy to identify, let alone partition and/or hierarchize; in particular, the question of their number poses serious challenges. The late medieval philosopher Dietrich of Freiberg wrote around 1286 a tutorial that can help us today with this exceedingly difficult task. In this paper, I discuss (...) ontological categories and their importance for foundational ontologies from both the contemporary perspective and the original Aristotelian viewpoint, I provide the translation from the Latin into English of Dietrich's De origine II with an introductory elaboration, and I extract a foundational ontology–that is in fact a single-category one–from this text rooted in Dietrich's specification of types of subjecthood and his conception of intentionality as causal operation. (shrink)

Ontologies are some of the most central constructs in today's large plethora of knowledge technologies, namely in the context of the semantic web. As their coinage indicates, they are direct heirs to the ontological investigations in the long Western philosophical tradition, but it is not easy to make bridges between them. Contemporary ontological commitments often take causality as a central aspect for the ur-segregation of entities, especially in scientific upper ontologies; theories of causality and philosophical ontological investigations often go hand-in-hand, (...) and were essentially inseparable in medieval thought. This constitutes the foundation for a bridge, and this article analyzes the causality-based ontology of the late medieval philosopher Dietrich of Freiberg from the viewpoint of today's upper-ontology engineering. In this bridging attempt, it offers a translation into English of the first part of Dietrich's De origine (abbreviated title) that is a compromise between traditional scholarly translations of medieval Latin philosophical texts and contemporary ontology. (shrink)

The van Wijngaarden grammars are two-level grammars that present many interesting properties. In the present article I elaborate on six of these properties, to wit, (i) their being constituted by two grammars, (ii) their ability to generate (possibly infinitely many) strict languages and their own metalanguage, (iii) their context-sensitivity, (iv) their high descriptive power, (v) their productivity, or the ability to generate an infinite number of production rules, and (vi) their equivalence with the unrestricted, or Type-0, Chomsky grammars.

Sustainable development is often framed as a social issue to which corporations should pay attention because it offers both opportunities and challenges. Through the use of institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm, we shed some light on why, more than 20 years after sustainable development was first introduced, we see neither the adoption of this business model as dominant nor its converse, that is the total abandonment of the model as unworkable and unprofitable. We focus on multinational (...) corporations (MNCs) because they were among the organizations first called to take action. In order to illustrate the institutional pressures MNCs face and their strategic response to these pressures, we analysed four major oil and gas multinationals subject to similar sustainable development pressures – climate change, biodiversity, renewable energy development and social investment. We argue that normative and coercive isomorphism does not occur at the global level because sustainable development is largely a stakeholder-driven rather than a broad social pressure. That is, host country interpretation of sustainable development pressures varies across an MNC’s subsidiary network. Based on the analysis of the four major MNCs’ annual reports from 2000 to 2005, we argue that mimetic isomorphism may occur, but since it implies the use of complex and intangible resources, mimetic processes are slow, rare and discretionary. (shrink)

3rd ed, 2021. A circumscription of the classical theory of computation building up from the Chomsky hierarchy. With the usual topics in formal language and automata theory.

For millennia, knowledge has eluded a precise definition. The industrialization of knowledge (IoK) and the associated proliferation of the so-called knowledge communities in the last few decades caused this state of affairs to deteriorate, namely by creating a trio composed of data, knowledge, and information (DIK) that is not unlike the aporia of the trinity in philosophy. This calls for a general theory of knowledge (ToK) that can work as a foundation for a science of knowledge (SoK) and additionally distinguishes (...) knowledge from both data and information. In this paper, I attempt to sketch this generality via the establishing of both knowledge structures and knowledge systems that can then be adopted/adapted by the diverse communities for the respective knowledge technologies and practices. This is achieved by means of a formal–indeed, mathematical–approach to epistemological matters a.k.a. formal epistemology. The corresponding application focus is on knowledge systems implementable as computer programs. (shrink)

To most of us – believers and non-believers alike – the possibility of a perfect God co-existing with the kinds of evil that we see calls out for explanation. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the belief that God must have justifying reasons for allowing all the evil that we see has been a perennial feature of theistic thought. Recently, however, a growing number of authors have argued that the existence of a perfect God is compatible with the existence of gratuitous (...) evil. Given powerful, millenia-long sensibilities about power and love and justice, it isn’t hard to find that suggestion simply incredible. Nonetheless, in this paper I will argue that the most prominent theistic alternatives to what has seemed incredible to most of us throughout most of history are themselves patently unacceptable for the theist as well. On any of the most widely accepted accounts of how God could have justifying reasons for permitting some evils, God’s existence means that we have justifying reasons for perpetrating and allowing every evil that we see. That's hard to swallow too. If I’m right about all of this, then two competing outcomes seem to present themselves as a possible result. On the one hand, for the theist, the apparently outrageous suggestion that the existence of a perfect God is compatible with gratuitous evil no longer looks like it faces a formidable, hard-to-resist alternative. On the other hand, some like me might think that my arguments go no distance at all towards dispelling the incredibility of the gratuitous evil nouvelle vague. On this line, theism may seem now to be between the rock and the hard place: it seems hard to make sense of the existence of a perfect God whether or not He has justifying reasons for allowing all the evil that we see. (shrink)

Thought, Reference, and Experience is a collection of important new essays on topics at the intersection of philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and philosophical logic. The starting-point for the papers is the brilliant work of the British philosopher Gareth Evans before his untimely death in 1980 at the age of 34. Evans's work on reference and singular thought transformed the Fregean approach to the philosophy of thought and language, showing how seemingly technical issues in philosophical semantics are inextricably linked (...) to fundamental questions about the structure of our thinking about ourselves and about the world. The papers, all newly written for this volume, explore different aspects of Evans's philosophical legacy, showing its importance to central areas in contemporary analytic philosophy. The volume includes a substantial introduction that introduces the principal themes in Evans's thought and places the papers in context. (shrink)

El autor recorre los diversos mundos de la espiritualidad, desde sus manifestaciones en la vida cotidiana expresadas en las ideas fuerza de amor, de paz, de libertad, hasta su relación con lo trascendente; y nos propone una espiritualidad existencial y un cambio de mentalidad colectiva conducente a ecología del yo que se ancla en la necesidad humana de sentido. Postula finalmente una espiritualidad llevada en una militancia en la vida, que nos sitúa en la profundización interior y la integración, el (...) encuentro de lo individual y lo social, lo inmanente y lo trascendente, el misterio y el compromiso imperativo de cambiar la vida. (shrink)

Espirales que nos rondan: La llave de la confianzaVivimos con la sensación de estar perdiendo algo muy esencial. No alcanzamos a conversar en profundidad con la persona más significativa, llegamos tarde a los amaneceres y a los crepúsculos, cerramos rápido el periódico saturado de crímenes y de noticias de dolorosos enfrentamientos, nos sentimos secos, fantasmales, después de ver el programa frívolo de la televisión o el mensaje comercial que encontramos en el computador. Una vivencia de de..

***Al principio fue la poesía,Antes del caos,Antes de la palabra.Poesía de ser,Del nacer,Del compadecer.Poéticamente vive el sentidoEn el secreto del mar,En las galerías de miradas,En el asombroso afán por alcanzar al ser humano,En la certeza de no estar solos en el universo,En el coraje de confiar en el misterio.Poéticamente vive el sentidoVolando en el mensaje soñador de los pájaros,Atónito, abisal, en la llegada al otro,Atento a la lujuria del crepúsculoAbrazando sus estrellas al amanec..

El autor plantea la validez de interpelarse en estos tiempos como bolivarianos, afirmando que el Bolívar esencial no ha muerto; y recuerda un verso de Neruda en que Bolívar dice: “Despierto cada cien años...” . El sueño de Bolívar se llamaba integración; era el llamado a su identidad auténtica de formar una gran nación. A esto subyace una emoción, señala el autor, y postula que ellas sean el cimiento necesario para la gran utopía de fondo, la de la especie, la (...) humanitaria: una política de humanización. (shrink)

El libro y el autor(. Una obra ante nosotros y un autor fecundo, generoso, el cual todavía joven, ha hecho sorprendentes aportes. Hay textos, son los menos, que necesitan el conocimiento del autor. Otros en que el autor es más grande o más pequeño que su trabajo. Estamos ante un creador y un libro relativamente autónomos, los dos muy relevantes.Horacio, psiquiatra cultural, exiliado en Alemania, que alcanza allí estatus de docente e investigador, junto con proyectarse hacia América Latina co..

Ao evidenciar que as relações estabelecidas por homens e mulheres com o meio concreto engendram o real, a dialética torna exequível a revolução do status quo por possibilitar a compreensão de que o mundo é sempre resultado da práxis humana, seja ela marcada por relações de dominação que reificam e fetichizam a prática social, seja marcada por relações que operam a humanização dos homens e mulheres. Ao romper com os fetiches, ou seja, ao perceber que os objetos não devem sujeitá-los, (...) homens e mulheres avançam de encontro à reificação, alçando-se a possibilidade de revolucionar suas condições de existência. Assim, o rompimento da pseudoconcreticidade ocorre no momento em que se evidencia que a realidade social se concretiza por meio das condições de produção e reprodução da existência social das pessoas, que é em nossa sociedade marcada pela luta de classes. Este processo de rompimento exige um esforço construtor de uma interpretação do real que vá para além de uma representação caótica do todo, típico das vivências cotidianas. Este artigo postula que o método materialista histórico dialético pode auxiliar neste processo. Partindo desta constatação, elabora-se reflexão sobre este método de análise do real. By showing that the relationships established by men and women with the practical means to engender real, dialectic makes possible the revolution of the status quo by allowing the understanding that the world is always the result of human practice, it is marked by relations of domination that fetishize and reify the social practice or marked by relationships that operate at the humanization of men and women. By breaking with the fetishes, or to realize that objects should not expose them, men and women advance against reification, raising the possibility of revolutionizing his conditions of existence. Thus, disruption of pseudoconcreticity occurs at the moment is evident that social reality is concretized through the conditions of production and reproduction of social existence, which is in our society marked by class struggle. This process requires a breakout effort to construct an interpretation of reality that go beyond a representation of the whole chaotic, typical of everyday experiences. This article posits that the historical materialist dialectical method con help this process. Based on this observation, we undertake reflection on this method of analysis of the real. (shrink)

Paul Silva has recently argued that doxastic justification does not have a basing requirement. An important part of his argument depends on the assumption that doxastic and moral permissibility have a parallel structure. I here reply to Silva's argument by challenging this assumption. I claim that moral permissibility is an agential notion, while doxastic permissibility is not. I then briefly explore the nature of these notions and briefly consider their implications for praise and blame.

Es frecuente buscar en Freud a un crítico de la Ilustración y, en particular, del modo de pensar la moral heredero del planteamiento kantiano. Sin embargo, Freud se limita a descubrir en la naturaleza humana un importante obstáculo del que el proyecto ilustrado no se podrá ya desentender. Este obstáculo, que afecta de un modo decisivo al modo como entender el paso a la mayoría de edad, remite a la existencia de un determinado reino de la heteronomía cuyo rasgo más (...) característico es su capacidad para suplantar la voz de la autonomía moral: al igual que la ley moral en Kant, el superyóuna vez ha interiorizado en la infancia y asumido como propios determinados contenidos de cultura. (shrink)

En el planteamiento de Kant, el estado civil de derecho debe regirse exclusivamente por los mandatos de una legislación jurídica. La facultad de coaccionar (indisociable del derecho) no puede estar mezclada con nada ético. Sin embargo, en el presente artículo se trata de defender que, desde el propio planteamiento de Kant, la política en general (y, por lo tanto, también el desarrollo legislativo ordinario de cualquier sistema de derecho) resultan imposibles si no se supone cierta virtud cívica.

It is usual to read Freud as a critic of Enlightenment, specialy of the kantian way of thinking moral autonomy. However, all Freud did was discover in human nature a great difficulty that enlightenes philosophy just cannot ignore. This difficulty, which directly affects conceptions about the age of majority, refers to certain heteronomy mechanisms which main characteristic is the skill to supplant the voice of moral autonomy: exactly the same as moral law in Kant, super-ego -once internalized during childhood and (...) once culture imperatives have been assumed as one's own - orders without promising anythig or threatening anything . So, the political project of enthroning reason as the top authorithy depends on the existence of a republican organization that guarantees a pedagogical program for which "age of majoriry" does not mean any more naming "ego" to ancient customs internalized but the capacity of being ruled by one's own reason .Es frecuente buscar en Freud a un crítico de la Ilustración y, en particular, del modo de pensar la moral heredero del planteamiento kantiano. Sin embargo, Freud se limita a descubrir en la naturaleza humana un importante obstáculo del que el proyecto ilustrado no se podrá ya desentender. Este obstáculo, que afecta de un modo decisivo al modo como entender el paso a la mayoría de edad, remite a la existencia de un determinado reino de la heteronomía cuyo rasgo más característico es su capacidad para suplantar la voz de la autonomía moral: al igual que la ley moral en Kant, el superyó -una vez ha interiorizado en la infancia y asumido como propios determinados contenidos de cultura - también ordena poderosamente sin prometer nada ni amenazar con nada . En estas condiciones, el proyecto de investir a la razón como autoridad suprema depende de la existencia de una organización republicana que garantice un programa pedagógico para el que "mayoría de edad" no signifique llamar "yo" a la cristalización interior de las costumbres de los ancestros sino a la capacidad efectiva de guiarse por la propia razón. (shrink)

The “transformation problem” in Marx’s Capital (how to make compatible the labour theory of value from the first book with “prices of production” from the third book) has been one of the main reasons to refute the marxist theory and, at the same time, a privileged matter in order to analyze the method question. In this paper, we try to analyze the sense and foundation of the labobour theory of value discussing with any attempt of reading Marx Capital as the (...) development of a supposed “dialectic method”. Analyzing the manuscripts and drafts that Marx did not finish, we try to defend that, contrary to what Engels thought (because it had been anounced by Marx himself), it is not possible to find in the third book a trace of the so expected “dialectic solution” to the “transformation problem”. That demands, of course, a different interpretation to explain the sense of the “transformation” of value into “production prices”. (shrink)