Dans un contrepoint polémique au livre de A. Damásio, L'Erreur de Descartes, nous soutenons: que la thèse de l a «séparation» de l’âme et du corps permet, dans les écrits physiologiques de Descartes tels que le Traité de l'Homme, une réduction des fonctions végétative et sensitive aux processus mécaniques et naturels du corps humain; que l'in troduction d'une âme dans le corps se justifie, chez Descartes, par l'impossibilité de rendre raison de la rationalité du comportement humain et de la conscience (...) par les simples mécanismes physiologiques et la seule «disposition des organes». On montre, donc, que Descartes est, d'un côté, un des père s de la moderne approche neurologique qui est à l a base du livre de M. Damásio et, de l'autre, qu'il a vu d'avance une des limites d'une explication exclusivement neurologique de la complexité du comportement humain. (shrink)

SummaryIn 1905 the Campos Rodrigues Observatory was founded in Lourenço Marques, the capital of Mozambique, by then part of the Portuguese overseas empire. In this paper the inception and early history of the CRO are analysed in the broader context of the interwoven history of the Portuguese and British empires in Africa, and specifically with respect to the scientific relations between Mozambique and South Africa. The equipment, personnel, practices and networks involved in the inception and early development of the CRO (...) are brought into focus in order to illustrate the problems and strategies that shaped the establishment and functioning of this observatory, which was conceived essentially as a symbol of imperial stamina and colonial prowess. It is suggested that by providing a focal point for the development of scientific relations between Mozambique and South Africa, the CRO served both Portuguese ambitions for recognition as an imperial power and the emergence of South African nationalism. (shrink)

The chapter has two parts. In the first part, I introduce a more fine-grained analysis of evaluative sentences. I distinguish between evaluations proper and directions for action with several degrees of constraint: commands, pieces of advice, suggestions, and so on. I call the latter “ductive-statements.” Thus, I affirm that the realm of morals has two branches: one relative to evaluations, which are is-sentences ranging from the several degrees between good and bad to the indifferent ; the other relative to sentences (...) having a “ductive” force that impose, with different degrees of coercion, a course of action. In the second part of the chapter, I address Searle’s famous argument concerning the derivation of ought-sentences from is-sentences. Relying on my previous distinctions, I argue that Searle’s derivation is flawed in two main points, which I present and discuss at length. (shrink)

In dieser Arbeit werden die Thesen S. J. Becks über den kantischen Begriff von Ding-an-sich geprüft. Es sollen weder die zwei Doktrinen verglichen werden, noch die Punkte, in denen sie übereinstimmen, noch die Punkte, in denen sie sich voneinander entfernen. Basis-Voraussetzung ist mehr die Idee, dass es eine kantische Lehre des Ding-an-sich nicht gibt, sondern, dass es vielfältige divergente Tendenzen gibt in der Art, wie Kant das Problem bearbeitet. Die Auffassung Becks wird als ein Dialog mit denjenigen divergenten Tendenzen dargestellt, (...) die in Kants Gedanken koexistieren, und dadurch eine Reflexion, die an die eigene innere Entwicklung der kritischen Philosophie gebunden ist. Die Originalität von Becks Auffassung liegt in seiner Entscheidung eine eng idealistische Interpretation der transzendentale Philosophie zu privilegieren und - infolgedessen - die theoretischen Nichtigkeit des Begriffs des Ding-an-sich zu behaupten, wenn die systematische Darstellung der kritischen Philosophie nach seinem einzigen, voraussichtlichen Prinzip unternommen wird: das Prinzip der ursprünglichen synthetischen Einheit der Apperzeption. Diese Arbeit wird in drei Teile geteilt. Im ersten Teil wird Becks These geprüft, ob in der Kritik des vorliegenden Begriffs des Ding-an-sich eine Bewilligung Kants an dem Dogmatismus liegt, die durch didaktische und pädagogische Gründe determiniert ist. Im zweiten Teil werden die Übe rprüfungen, die von der systematischen Darstellung der kritischen Philosophie bei den Doktrinen der transzendentalen ästhetik, der transzendentalen Analytik und dem Schematismus gemacht werden müssen, gezeigt, so wie die nachfolgenden änderungen vom Sinn der Affektion, Synthese und Subsumption. Letztlich, im dritten Teil wird dargelegt, dass die Entscheidung Becks für den Idealismus mit einigen Punkten von Kants Denken nicht übereinstimmt und deswegen von ihm abgelehnt werden müsste. (shrink)

In this paper I try to show how transcendental logic can be interpreted in light of the distinction between apophantics and formal ontology. Despite the non-Kantian origin of these concepts, my contention is that they can reveal the scope of Kant’s argument regarding the distinction between formal and transcendental logic and the thesis that transcendental logic has a pure a priori content. While common approaches interpret this a priori content of transcendental logic as the content pure forms of aesthetics give, (...) we stress that this content is the a priori concepts of object which are embedded in the logical form of judgments. (shrink)

In this paper, I start with the opposition between the husserlian project of a phenomenology of the experience of time, started in 1905, and the mathematical and physical theory of time, as it comes out from the special theory of relativity, by Einstein, in the same year. Although the contrast between the two approaches is apparent, my aim is to show that the original program of Husserl’s time theory is the constitution of an objective time and a time of the (...) world, starting from the intuitive giveness of time, i.e., from time as it appears. To show this, I stress the structural similarity between the original question of time, by Husserl, and the problem of a phenomenology of the space constitution, as it was first developed in the husserlian manuscripts of the XIX century, in which we find the threefold question of the origin of our space representation, of the geometrization of intuitive space and the constitution of transcendent world space. Finally, I reconsider some of Husserl’s main theses about the phenomenological constitution of objective time in the light of the main results of special relativity time-theory, introducing several corrections to central assumptions that underlie Husserl’s theory of time. (shrink)

Este artículo examina, de manera breve y panorámica, algunas contribuciones desarrolladas por el grupo de pensadores bolivianos y mexicanos Comuna dentro de la concepción de revolución del marxismo inicial de los pensadores Karl Marx y Federico Engels. Entre las contribuciones que se destacan se cuenta la producción de un marxismo situado que permite ver algunas complejidades no tomadas en cuenta por lo que Perry Anderson (2005) ha llamado “marxismo occidental”. Estos autores se sitúan desde el comunismo como identidad política de (...) una memoria espectral y desde allí desplazan la noción de una clase preexistente que contenga en sí las condiciones de emancipación universal. Estos autores señalan que el sujeto de la transformación social se construye en las condiciones de la lucha social y la lucha política frente a sus adversarios de clases en la disputa por el sentido común desde el Estado y más allá de este y el capital. Con ello estos autores generan una ruptura respecto del enlace entre sujeto universal y revolución desarrollado por Marx en el siglo XIX. (shrink)

Berkeley’s general tenet about immaterialism is presented and discussed. I examined apart the several theses that concur to the immaterialist theory. After that, the general argument is presented and discussed. In particular, I stress Berkeley’s assumption that a world without matter and a world with matter would be indistinguishable from the point of view of the content of perceptions, natural science. I stress that this assumption depends on a relative account of circular motion, generating the centrifugal forces, as Newton shows (...) in his bucket experiment. In spite of the efforts by Leibniz and Huygens, such a relative account of rotational motion was never presented. So the thesis about the scientific and perceptual identity between worlds with and without matter remains a simple case of wishful thinking in need for a justification. (shrink)

En este artículo, examino algunas características importantes de las teorías de conciencia y autoconciencia de Brentano y Rosenthal. En particular, analizo la distinción entre estados mentales y estados conscientes, y la cuestión relacionada con de determinar si todos los estados mentales pueden convertirse en estados conscientes. Interpreto la teoría de Brentano como una teoría de la mente de un nivel que está de acuerdo con la fusión cartesiana entre los estados mentales y la conciencia. Argumento que los problemas que surgen (...) de la posición de Brentano son, hasta cierto punto, superados por una teoría de orden superior, de modo que la posición de Rosenthal es más precisa. Sin embargo, estoy en desacuerdo con ambos en la interpretación de la consciencia de un estado mental como autoconciencia. Desarrollo los fundamentos de una teoría basada en la primacía del organismo y su mundo vital, y de la experiencia consciente como la forma superior de la vida mental, que tiene, sin embargo, sus raíces en la compleja red de estados mentales que son no estados conscientes.In this paper, I examine some important features of Brentano’s and Rosenthal’s theories of consciousness and self-consciousness. In particular, I discuss the distinction between mental states and conscious states, and the related question of determining whether all mental states can become conscious states. I interpret Brentano’s theory as a one-level theory of mind which is in keeping with the Cartesian conflation between mental states and conscious-ness. I argue that the problems arising from Brentano’s position are to a certain extent surpassed by a higher-order theory, so that Rosenthal’s position is more accurate. Nevertheless, I disagree with both in the construal of the consciousness of a mental state as self-consciousness. I develop then the fundamentals for a theory based on the primacy of the organism and its vital world, and of conscious experience as the higher form of mental life, which has, however, its roots in the complex net of mental states which are not conscious states. (shrink)

En partant des derniers paragraphes de la cinquième parti du Discours de la Méthode, on a reconstitué la formulation cartésienne de la perception d’un autre moi. Les critères de l’usage du langage et de la plasticité du comportement ont été analysés à la lumière de l’idée d’une machine universelle et du test de Turing. On conclut de la faiblesse de l’argument cartésien sur l’irréductibilité de la pensée à un dispositif machinal. En tant qu’issue de la difficulté, on propose une révision (...) de la façon cartésienne de caractérisation de la pensée à partir du concept d’expérience, tout en abandonnant le thème d’une perception interne incommunicable et intémoignable. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine some important features of Brentano’s and Rosenthal’s theories of consciousness and self-consciousness. In particular, I discuss the distinction between mental states and conscious states, and the related question of determining whether all mental states can become conscious states. I interpret Brentano’s theory as a one-level theory of mind which is in keeping with the Cartesian conflation between mental states and consciousness. I argue that the problems arising from Brentano’s position are to a certain extent surpassed (...) by a higher-order theory, so that Rosenthal’s position is more accurate. Nevertheless, I disagree with both in the construal of the consciousness of a mental state as self-consciousness. I develop then the fundamentals for a theory based on the primacy of the organism and its vital world, and of conscious experience as the higher form of mental life, which has, however, its roots in the complex net of mental states which are not conscious states. (shrink)

In this paper I address some philosophical questions regarding the impact quantum mechanics has in the classical conceptions about reality and knowledge. I stress that onto-gnosiological realism still is an option to the issues regarding the relationship between knowledge and reality. Rejecting some radical aspects of Copenhagen interpretation of quantum formalism, I emphasize the advantages of de Broglie’s realistic and causal model. To finish with, I discuss the limits of the Cartesian concept of matter and the split between matter and (...) mind. (shrink)

In the context of business, interactions between individuals generate social systems that emerge anywhere within a corporation or in its relations with external agents. These systems influence the behaviors of individuals and, as a result, the collective actions we usually attribute to corporations. Social systems thus make a difference in processes of action that are often morally evaluated by internal and external agents to the firm. Despite this relevance, social systems have not yet been the object of specific attention in (...) the literature on moral agency in business. To fill this gap, I construct a theoretical framework based on Luhmann’s ideas on social systems and morality. In particular, I argue that morality is a phenomenon that occurs in communication, and an agent can engage in morality in three different ways (as a _moral factor_, an _expressive moral agent_, or a _reflective moral agent_) depending on the functions it plays in communicative interactions. Based on this framework, I argue that social systems in business can be considered moral agents of those types. (shrink)

In this paper, I start with the opposition between the Husserlian project of a phenomenology of the experience of time, started in 1905, and the mathematical and physical theory of time as it comes out of Einstein’s special theory of relativity in the same year. Although the contrast between the two approaches is apparent, my aim is to show that the original program of Husserl’s time theory is the constitution of an objective time and a time of the world, starting (...) from the intuitive giveness of time, i.e., from time as it appears. To show this, I stress the structural similarity between Husserl’s original question of time and the problem of a phenomenology of space constitution as it was first developed in the his manuscripts from the nineteenth century, in which we find the threefold question of the origin of our representation of space, of the geometrization of intuitive space, and of the constitution of transcendent world space. Finally, I reconsider some of Husserl’s main theses about the phenomenological constitution of objective time in light of the main results of special relativity time-theory, introducing several corrections to central assumptions that underlie Husserl’s theory of time. (shrink)

In this article, I start with an analysis of Husserl’s description of the intentional structure of communicative intentions in the Logical Investigations, pointing to some obvious shortcomings of it. Then, I stress some important criticisms of Husserl’s approach, namely by Pfänder, and I endeavor to show that Husserl was very close to a full-fledged theory of communicative intentions in the years around 1910. I then turn to Reinach’s theory of social acts, without deciding whether Reinach’s approach was dependent or not (...) on Husserl’s new views concerning the intentionality of communicative acts. Regarding Reinach’s theory of the Vernehmung, I criticize a widespread trend to construe it as something like a perception, showing that it expresses what I call the “vocative element” of the communicative acts. Then, I point to some complements that Reinach’s description is in need, and I finish with an outline of a phenomenologically oriented concept of communication, based on Husserl’s and Reinach’s insights. (shrink)

In dieser Arbeit wird die Selbstdarstellung der Phänomenologie als Wissenschaft der Weltkonstituierende transzendentale n Subjektivität, nach einer Erklärung über das, was wir die «Grundfrage» der Phänomenologie nennen, betrachtet. Diese Grundfrage ist die thematisierung des unerklärt Voraussetzung aller philosophischer und wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis: die Vorgegebenheit einer Welt als Horizont für alle aktuelle oder mögliche Forschung. Die phänomenologischen Begriffe von «Reduktion», «Intentionalität» und «transzendentaler Subjektivität» sind dargestellt als Strecken für die Begrenzung des Feldes, in dem die Frage über die Welt nachfolgend bearbeitet und (...) systematisch beantwortet sein könnte. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine phenomenologically the structure of the normative noema, which I call the “nomothetic noema.” I distinguish the meaning content, its normative characters, which I call “ductive forces”, and its modes of givenness. Next, I introduce the traditional difference between modalities de re and de dicto. I argue that the current tendency, in deontic logic, to treat deontic expressions as operators over sentences induces, at least on the syntactic surface, a de dicto reading. I then discuss some (...) of the theoretical decisions that underlie deontic logic, starting from two basic asymmetries between modal alethic logic and deontic logic. The decisive point is to recover a strong sense of permission that I equate with the factor of free agency, which is difficult to formalize. Finally, I return to the analysis of the nomothetic noema and try to show how a de re reading is better suited to account for normative intentionality. I simultaneously introduce the concept of status-imposing norms, which must be formulated with a normative use of the copulas “is” and “has.” I conclude that the treatment of normative expressions is more appropriate when they are understood as complex copulas, irreducible to assertive sentences, rather than as operators over whole sentences. I emphasize on this occasion that, from a phenomenological point of view and within the framework of genetic analysis, the primitive basic datum is the freedom of agency, on which the normative domain of assigning statuses to agents, obligations, and prohibitions is built. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the possible relations between Fritz London’s account of the status of the observer in quantum physics and transcendental phenomenology. Firstly, I discuss Steven French’s interpretation of London’s thesis as a phenomenological account of the status of the observer, along with the objections Otávio Bueno has brought forward. Secondly, refusing in part both French’s and Bueno’s theses for several reasons, I propose another way of reading London’s thesis in the framework of transcendental phenomenology. Namely, I put (...) London’s account of the observer against the backdrop of Husserl’s analyses of the objectifying acts and objectual constitution. Finally, I end this article with some criticisms of what seems to me the ontological indigency of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, to whose “spirit” London also belongs. (shrink)

In this paper, I present the main traits of the phenomenological thinking of Abranches de Soveral. I start with the work of his master Miranda Barbosa explaining the criticisms he address to the Husserlian phenomenology. I show Soveral’s approach to phenomenology is framed by the conceptions of Barbosa and the problems that, for him, phenomenology cannot answer in an accurate way. In this context, I present the fundamental tenets of Soveral’s rejoinder to his master, showing how phenomenology can be rearranged (...) in order to formulate and to answer “the fundamental problem of knowledge”. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss Berkeley’s theories about vision, perception of distance, and the foundations of Geometry. I start with Locke’s answer to Molineaux’s problem and the criticisms Berkeley addressed to it. I explain the fundamentais of Berkeley’s theory about our cognitive shaping of the visual field and the type of connections that visual data establishes with data from the haptic field. I show how interesting are Berkeley’s conceptions for a phenomenology of perception, and, eventually, I carried some phenomenological evidence (...) against Berkeley’s too much strict location of the idea of distance in the haptic field alone. (shrink)

I intend to understand from a phenomenological point of view the relationship between figurative consciousnesses (Bildbewusstsein) and other non-original presentations (Vergegenwiirtigungen) such as expectations, recollections or fantasies. I centre my analyses in the difference between figurative consciousness, on the one hand, and a modality of fantasy I cal! “daydream consciousness”, on the other. I stress that figurative consciousness implies apure observational ego, whereas day-dream consciousness is a free construction of the ego’s own personal story. The freedom of”day dream consciousness” has, (...) nevertheless, some important constraints. I emphasize the constraints that come from the passive and affective life of the ego. Finally, I propose new criteria for the phenomenological differentiation between the several kinds of acts of non-original presentation. (shrink)

In what follows, I intend to address an issue which is at the boundaries of the phenomenological method of reflective explication, and that, in this sense, points to some limitations of the phenomenological approach to consciousness and mind. I am referring to an aporetic situation that is at the heart of the phenomenological analysis of passivity. On the one hand, phenomenology shows, at least indirectly, a passive life that is beyond the first steps of the activity of the ego in (...) the receptive, affective life. This is something that is beyond the rising of an ego, and from which a phenomenology of the ego-form of subjective life could be addressed. On the other hand, the analytic and conceptual tools of the phenomenological method have no grips on this basic realm of subjective life. As a result, Husserl’s analysis of passivity starts with the evidence of a pre-affective, pre-egoic realm, from which a phenomenology of the ego could be developed. However, Husserl’s analyses end up with the denegation of this dimension, as if it was invisible for the phenomenological method. As a consequence, the starting point of the analysis is not passivity proper, but rather the primitive forms of receptivity, which is already a first layer of the activity of the ego. Instead of an analysis of the ego-polarization (the “birth” of the ego), the egoic layer of conscious life is simply presupposed. A phenomenology of the ego-form is, thus, at the same time promised and denied. This aporetic situation is visible in the alteration of the concept of a passive pre-givenness in Husserl’s Analysis Concerning Passive Synthesis. (shrink)

Gustavo de Fraga was one of the most influential Portuguese phenomenologists. He had a deep understanding of the Husserlian as well as of the Heideggerian phenomenology. One of his major concerns was the connection between these thinkers, and the resettlement of metaphysical questions some step beyond the works of both. In so doing, Gustavo de Fraga took an original stance in the field of Phenomenology, combining conceptual and poetic experiences of thought.

I discuss, from a phenomenological point of view, the distinction between judgments and norms. I stress the limits of the husserlian canonical analysis in order to rightly account for the sense and content of normative intentionality. Based on some Kelsian insights, I draw a clear distinction between judgments and norms, criticizing some classical trends coming from Husserl himself that consider norms as a kind of intentionality founded upon objectifying acts. However, taking distance from Kelsen, Kaufmann, and Cossio, I stress that (...) the ought-proposition (Sollsatz) cannot be a good rendering of the sense-content of norms, based on the phenomenological distinction between the intentional matter and the quality of intentional acts. Finally, I propose my own account based on the concept of ‘ductive force’. I stress that the ductive force of norms cannot be identified witb simple coercion. [ show that there is, even inside the juridical sphere, a variety of ductive forces, going from sheer coercion to council and recommendation. To end, I stress the centrality of the concept of “ductive force” for a phenomenology of the social world. (shrink)

While not a phenomenologist, Fernando Gil was highly interested in some aspects of Husserl’s work. One of these aspects was Husserl’s theory of evidence. ln a notable book entitled Traité de l’évidence, he developed a throughout theory of evidence, paying close attention to the most important insights Husserl exposed his works. Gil’s theory of evidence is at the same time rooted in Phenomenology and extended beyond it in as much as he locates the first dimension of evidence ma primitive stratum (...) hallucinating aesthesia from desire. Accounting for evidence as threefold process, going from aesthesia to presence, and then to the intellectual grasping of an individual object, the most interesting feature of his theory is the of evidence as a hallucinating process, encompassing all strata of sensitive, perceptive, and conceptual life. (shrink)

What, if any, are the limits of the Husserlian concept of Gegebenheit? Is there a limit beyond which nothing can be seen by the phenomenologist? In asking these questions, we allude to a distinction typical of Kantian criticism: “Grenze” or “Schranke”, limit or boundary? These same questions are reformulated in a famous review of Ideen I by Paul Natorp, a Marburg neo-Kantian who directly attacks the unlimited scope Husserl gives to the phenomenological principle of intuition. From a phenomenological point of (...) view, however, the Achilles’ heel of the critical method lies in the impossibility of accessing by intuition, beyond phenomena, the thing-in-itself. A major consequence is that the phenomenological dissolution of the “Grenze” prescribes a limitless opening to the horizon of phenomena. But if we can speak of a limitless openness, it is because in a certain way everything gives itself to be seen. What kind of vision is this? And what kind of Gegebenheit is at work here? The Husserlian answer lies in the recovery of a concept, the “idea in the Kantian sense”, without its counterpart, the “limit”, whereas for Kant as well as for Natorp it is precisely the concept of “limit” that characterizes the gnoseological status of the “idea”. (shrink)