Why take individual action against collectively caused evils such as climate change? Prima facie, one’s individual contribution may seem to make a negligible difference at best. Consequentialists as well as consequence-sensitive nonconsequentialists should be interested in whether a consequence-based justification for taking individual climate action can be found nonetheless. The author argues that even though individual agents are able to make a non-zero difference in expectation, the altruistic expected value may be so small as to be insufficiently worthwhile, given the (...) agents’ opportunity cost. In this case, altruistic agents may face a Prisoner’s Dilemma, i.e. an altruistic public goods problem. Hence, the consequence-based account of why to leave one’s car at home could be vindicated if the PD can be solved in a consequence-based way. The author offers tentative grounds for optimism about solving the PD in a consequence-based way, and for acting accordingly. (shrink)

Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of economic decision-making. Ethical decision-making has been comparatively neglected. Since ethical decisions often involve very high individual as well as collective stakes, analyzing how cognitive biases affect them can be expected to yield important results. In this theoretical article, we consider the ethical debate about cognitive enhancement and suggest a number of cognitive biases that are likely to affect moral intuitions and judgments about CE: status (...) quo bias, loss aversion, risk aversion, omission bias, scope insensitivity, nature bias, and optimistic bias. We find that there are more well-documented biases that are likely to cause irrational aversion to CE than biases in the opposite direction. This suggests that common attitudes about CE are predominantly negatively biased. Within this new perspective, we hope that subsequent research will be able to elaborate this hypothesis and develop effective de-biasing techniques that can help increase the rationality of the public CE debate and thus improve our ethical decision-making. (shrink)

In a recent paper, José Ángel Gascón extends the Frankfurtian notion of bullshit to the sphere of argumentation. On Frankfurt’s view, the hallmark of bullshit is a lack of concern for the truth of an utterance on the part of the bullshitter. Similarly, Gascón argues, the hallmark of argumentative bullshit should be viewed as a lack of concern for whether the reasons that are adduced for a claim genuinely support that claim. Gascón deserves credit for drawing attention to the idea (...) of argumentative bullshit. Nevertheless, we argue, his treatment leaves room for further refinement as he fails to clarify important points and misidentifies several features of argumentative bullshit. In particular, Gascón’s account fails to accommodate non-Frankfurtian forms of argumentative bullshit. This paper aims to amend and extend his proposal and proposes a general account that can encompass both Frankfurtian and non-Frankfurtian forms of argumentative bullshit. (shrink)

In a recent paper, José Ángel Gascón extends the Frankfurtian notion of bullshit to the sphere of argumentation. On Frankfurt’s view, the hallmark of bullshit is a lack of concern for the truth of an utterance on the part of the bullshitter. Similarly, Gascón argues, the hallmark of argumentative bullshit should be viewed as a lack of concern for whether the reasons that are adduced for a claim genuinely support that claim. Gascón deserves credit for drawing attention to the idea (...) of argumentative bullshit. Nevertheless, we argue, his treatment leaves room for further refinement as he fails to clarify important points and misidentifies several features of argumentative bullshit. In particular, Gascón’s account fails to accommodate non-Frankfurtian forms of argumentative bullshit. This paper aims to amend and extend his proposal and proposes a general account that can encompass both Frankfurtian and non-Frankfurtian forms of argumentative bullshit. (shrink)

Order ethicists favour incentives as a means for making moral progress but largely ignore an alternative method, namely, nudging, which has come to prominence through the work of behavioural scientists in recent years. In this paper, we suggest that this is a mistake. Order ethicists have no reason to ignore nudging as an alternative method. Arguments they might press against it include worries about paternalism, manipulation, autonomy, and unintended bad consequences. These are, we argue, largely unfounded insofar as they involve (...) misconceptions or affect incentives as well. In particular, we contend that only some, but not all, nudges are paternalistic, manipulative, and autonomy-reducing. The same is true of incentives. Also, both nudges and incentives can have unintended bad consequences. Therefore, order ethicists cannot endorse arguments against nudges without undermining their favourable view of incentives. In addition, there might be positive reasons to prefer nudges to incentives, for instance, when they are more freedom-preserving, more effective, cheaper, easier to implement, or less inequality-inducing than the latter. (shrink)

Die Übernahme des KI-Unternehmens DeepMind durch Google für rund eine halbe Milliarde US-Dollar signalisierte vor einem Jahr, dass von der KI-Forschung vielversprechende Ergebnisse erwartet werden. Spätestens seit bekannte Wissenschaftler wie Stephen Hawking und Unternehmer wie Elon Musk oder Bill Gates davor warnen, dass künstliche Intelligenz eine Bedrohung für die Menschheit darstellt, schlägt das KI-Thema hohe Wellen. Die Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus (EAS, vormals GBS Schweiz) hat mit der Unterstützung von Experten/innen aus Informatik und KI ein umfassendes Diskussionspapier zu den Chancen (...) und Risiken der künstlichen Intelligenz verfasst und geht darin auf aktuelle, mittel- und langfristige Herausforderungen im Bereich der KI-Entwicklung ein. (shrink)

The time marked by the clock hands, the so-called “objective time,” is deeply different from the one perceived by the individual. Starting from this hypothesis, directly connected to the subjective modality of “living” the time and defined as time perspective, we will try to understand how much it affects the various domains of people's lives, attitudes, and experiences. Therefore, the research investigates whether all our decisions can be influenced by one or more time perspectives beyond our awareness. Last, but not (...) least, we will try to understand if some time perspectives in specific contexts are more functional and adaptive than others. (shrink)

For many years, psychological–clinical research has been aiming at studying the Mafia from different viewpoints: the man of honor's inner world, relational and psychopathological structures of his family matrices, connections between inner and social worlds, interiorized and social rules. Today, however, a complex phenomenon has come to light, which concerns the great connection between the Mafia and financial crime, and for us as researchers it is very interesting and complicated to analyze, because it involves the study of psychological peculiarities that (...) can be specifically found in the numerous illegalities. The crossbreeding of the various criminalities, which are always more interacting and merging and less isolated, makes this picture even more complex. (shrink)

The human being can be divided into body and mind, two inextricably linked aspects influencing each other. From birth, the body is the site of emotional experiences thanks to cellular memory. The t...

While the unprecedented lockdown measures were at the heart of the debate in the first year of the pandemic, the focus since then has shifted to vaccination issues. The reason, of course, is that vaccines and vaccinations have become available by now. All experts agree: If mankind had failed to develop vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, the death toll would have been much higher. This issue seeks to explore what could be described as a “generational approach to vaccinations”. The question “What can (...) we do to avoid future pandemics?” is related to different aspects of the failures and successes of humanity’s vaccination strategy against SARS-CoV-2. Pathogens are among the existential risks to humanity that could potentially kill a large part of it in a very short time. For all the tragedy and horror it has brought upon the world, the Corona virus has not been lethal on such a large, all-encompassing scale. But it could serve as a wake-up call for more and better prevention in the future, put differently: as a call to build a “preventive society”. When people look back to the year 2022 from the year 2200, will they think of the absence of mandatory vaccination as a dangerous anachronism? And will the unequal global distribution of vaccines be seen as an unbearable vice of our epoch? And will “human infection studies” still be dismissed as unethical if a dangerous new virus boards human bodies? If intergenerational justice means improving the life chances and living conditions of future generations to the largest possible extent, then its link to (the avoidance) of infectious diseases is obvious. We should protect future generations from foreseeable damage if we have the power to do so. “We” is humankind in its entirety. Politically, humanity is divided into many single nations. But biologically, as members of the same species, we share the same vulnerability regardless of ethnicity. The regular reader of this journal might wonder why this issue of IGJR has a different structure. An unprecedented pandemic calls for an unprecedented reaction and therefore IGJR 1/2021 and 2/2021 are special issues that deal with this disruptive event. We have invited several health experts, politicians and scholars alike to share their perspectives in short opinion pieces (instead of regular peer-reviewed articles). And we are exploring something new: the publication of a FRFG policy paper. This policy paper starts off with a historical overview on how pandemics have afflicted humanity in the past. It separates moral from legal duties and formulates “epidemiological imperatives” – the way of thinking of a responsible and solidary individual facing the task of preventing an outbreak of epidemics in a community. With the discovery of vaccines, and their availability, the catalogue of duties is increased by one more: to get the jabs as an act of solidarity with others, including future generations. This would prevent states from being forced to take disease control measures that bring about drastic collateral damage. During the first two years of the Corona pandemic, states have imposed lockdowns. The closure of schools has put a special burden on the youngest members of society. This could have been prevented during the second and the further waves. The policy paper also calls for more government funding for prophylactic vaccine research and for the designation of vaccines as “global public goods”. The issue then moves on to a section dedicated to opinion papers by various different authors. The first paper, written by Agnes Binagwaho and Kedest Mathewos (both from University of Global Health Equity, Rwanda), focuses on the issue of health inequity, a concern which has gained more and more traction during the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper examines how vaccine distribution during the pandemic was mainly focused on the global north and how such actions might affect future generations’ perception of what is just, fair and morally correct. The second paper, by Samantha Vanderslott (University of Oxford), focuses on the right and wrongdoings connected to pandemic preparedness and response. The third paper, authored by Rajeev Sadanandan (Health Systems Transformation Platform, India), talks about the lessons that can and should be drawn from child immunisations. The fourth paper, by Adriano Mannino (LMU and Parmenides Foundation, Munich), delves into the question how future generations will assess our actions and our response to the current pandemic. The fifth and final paper, written by Jörg Tremmel (FRFG and University Tübingen), is centered around the question whether human infection studies could have been implemented during the early stages of the pandemic to minimise deaths and severe infections. The issue concludes with two reviews on recent books by Alberto Giubilini and Katie Wright. In his review of Giubilini’s The Ethics of Vaccination, Marius Kunte notes that it contains a “thought-provoking plea” for individual, collective and institutional obligations to reach high vaccination rates. Judith Kausch-Zongo concludes her review of Wright’s Gender, Migration and the Intergenerational Transfer of Human Wellbeing with a special emphasis on the book’s empirical findings, and praises it in its entirety as “undoubtedly important”. Both books serve as poignant reminders of how sustainable societies can only emerge once the challenges revolving around its most vulnerable members have been properly addressed. (shrink)

RESUMO Não há Estado sem os indivíduos. Para Rousseau a construção do Estado requer a participação direta dos cidadãos. A participação ativa dos cidadãos resultará na expressão da vontade geral. É a vontade geral que, via pacto social, dará vida e união ao Estado. O Estado é um projeto de corpo político. A participação ativa dos cidadãos com vistas a impedir a corrupção e a dissolução da sociedade remete à concepção da soberania popular. Nessa modalidade de soberania, os cidadãos seriam (...) capazes de construir e manter os fundamentos da sociedade civil. Rousseau, como um contratualista, pensa a sua época e as soluções políticas para os problemas reais de seu tempo. Portanto, é desse cenário entre a teoria e a prática que Rousseau partirá para configurar a distinção e a relação desse importante tripé: soberano, Legislador e príncipe. ABSTRACT There is no State without subjects. For Rousseau, statebuilding requires the direct participation of citizens. The active participation of citizens will result in the expression of the general will. It is the general will that via social pact, will give life and unity to the state. The state is a political body design. The active participation of citizens in order to prevent corruption and dissolution of the society refers to the conception of popular sovereignty. In this mode of sovereignty, citizens would be able to build and maintain the foundations of civil society. Rousseau, as a contractualist, thinks his time and political solutions for the real issues of his time. So it is this scenario between theory and practice, which Rousseau will start to set up the distinction and the relationship of this important tripod: Sovereign, Legislator and Prince. (shrink)

The following article proposes an empirical study to explore communication strategies in the Cosa Nostra. Psychological studies on the characteristics of the language within the criminal organization are undoubtedly recent, but crucial to thoroughly understand the characteristics of implicit and explicit communication it adopts in the various contexts it works, as well as the power and value they assume. The data we have obtained from some videos concerning interviews and police interrogations to men of honor have been analyzed through a (...) method that refers to the grounds of qualitative research in clinical psychology, the Grounded Theory by Glaser and Strauss. The analysis we have carried out and its relevant data show us a world of the Mafia where the care for linguistic choices, for both form and contents, is characterized as a crucial activity, even when words are replaced by silence or gestures. (shrink)

La sección de literatura de esta edición N.° 31, nos brinda un paisaje poético dibujado por el escritor Adriano (de San Martín) Corrales Arias, oriundo de Costa Rica, territorio cuyo relieve y herencia mesoamericana recorre a través de palabras sinuosas, vertidas en los poemas 12, 29 y 34 de su libro Vanitas, publicado en la capital costarricense por la Editorial Arlekín, en 2021.

We study a modal language for negative operators—an intuitionistic-like negation and its paraconsistent dual—added to (bounded) distributive lattices. For each non-classical negation an extra operator is hereby adjoined in order to allow for standard logical inferences to be opportunely restored. We present abstract characterizations and exhibit the main properties of each kind of negative modality, as well as of the associated connectives that express consistency and determinedness at the object-language level. Appropriate sequent-style proof systems and adequate kripke semantics are also (...) introduced, characterizing the minimal normal logic and a few other basic logics containing such negative modalities and their companions. (shrink)

This article reflects on a survey carried out at a non-profit organization that deals with health care for oncological terminally ill in order to find out for those who are involved in this project each worker's time projection and well-being class. The survey has pointed out each single team member's time perspective and well-being class and allowed building a pedagogical path for work orientation that has involved the same team members.

The physical activity and sport are key elements for a healthy lifestyle. However, a little-investigated element is the presence of a possible relationship between school or academic performance an...

A base de todas as discussões políticas de John Locke é o conceito de direito natural; e o desenvolvimento das suas ideias políticas é acompanhado pelas interpretações que ele nos deu deste conceito, em especial daquelas que norteiam as suas concepções de liberdade e propriedade. Locke argumenta que não é a força nem a tradição, mas somente o “consentimento” expresso dos governados que se constitui como a única fonte de um poder político que se quer legítimo. Tal consentimento deriva-se da (...) liberdade que existe no estado de natureza e fundamentará os alicerces da sociedade civil. (shrink)

I seek to show in this paper how, in addressing the concept of “I” and the question of self-knowledge in the Critique of Pure Reason, one encounters a paradox, which is essentially a consequence of the doctrine of transcendental idealism. I point to Kant's concept of “I” and its three co-constitutive perspectives. The importance of the concept of subject and its intertwining with the concept of reason is pointed out, as also how these two concepts appear in the text of (...) the Critique of Pure Reason as presuppositions. Subsequently, I deal with some basic questions of transcendental idealism. Finally, I briefly present the three perspectives of the "I": as a phenomenon, as a transcendental structure, and as a noumenon. I conclude by bringing back what Kant himself conceives as a paradox, which is the subject’s self-affection, and the relation between the subject as noumenon and as inner sense. (shrink)

A partir dos anos 1950, no auge do processo de descolonização afro-asiática, Portugal sofreu diversas pressões internacionais devido à sua política colonial. Marcado historicamente por sua debilidade econômica, o país havia implementado um modelo colonialista baseado na abertura de seus domínios ultramarinos à atuação do capital internacional, em um modelo de colonialismo dependente. Este fato, aliado aos interesses estratégicos dos EUA e da OTAN, no contexto da Guerra Fria, fez com que as grandes potências acabassem esvaziando as pressões contrárias ao (...) colonialismo português. Assim, apesar da política isolacionista implementada pelo regime salazarista e da condenação da opinião pública internacional, os interesses econômicos e financeiros das grandes potências e as determinações político-estratégicas da conjuntura internacional acabaram por garantir alguma sobrevida ao Império Colonial Luso até meados da década de 1970.The crisis of the last empire: the Cold War and the final decades of Portuguese colonialism From the 1950s onwards, at the height of the process of Afro-Asian decolonization, Portugal underwent various international pressures due to its colonial policy. Historically marked by its economic weakness, the country had implemented a dependent colonialist model based on the opening of its overseas domains to the international capital. In addition, the strategic interests of the United States and NATO within the context of the Cold War resulted in a deflation of the pressures against Portuguese colonialism by the great powers. Hence, despite the isolationist policy implemented by the Salazar regime and the condemnation of colonialism by international public opinion, the economic and financial interests of the great powers, as well the political and strategic constraints of the international conjuncture, granted the survival to the Portuguese Colonial Empire until the mid-1970s. Resumen La crisis del último imperio: la Guerra Fría y las últimas décadas del colonialismo portugués Desde la década de 1950, en el apogeo del proceso de descolonización africano-asiática, Portugal sufrió varias presiones internacionales debido a su política colonial. Marcado históricamente por su debilidad económica, el país había implementado un modelo colonialista basado en la apertura de sus dominios de ultramar a la actuación del capital internacional, en un modelo de colonialismo dependiente. Este hecho, junto con los intereses estratégicos de los EE.UU. y la OTAN en el contexto de la Guerra Fría, hizo que las grandes potencias acabaran por vaciar las presiones contra el colonialismo portugués. Así, a pesar de la política aislacionista implementada por el régimen salazarista y la condena por la opinión pública internacional, los intereses económicos y financieros de las grandes potencias y las determinaciones político-estratégicas de la coyuntura internacional acabaron por garantizar alguna sobrevida al Imperio Colonial Luso hasta mediados de la década de 1970. (shrink)

Quest’articolo prova ad offrire una ricostruzione storica e un’analisi teorica di due concetti che hanno pervaso il dibattito politico contemporaneo: post-verità e complottismo. Nel farlo, il principale obiettivo di chi scrive è quello di smentire la presunta filiazione tra post-strutturalismo e post-truismo. Questo tentativo si fonda sull’ipotesi che il passaggio da una società del segreto ad una società della trasparenza abbia prodotto di fatto una invisibilizzazione del reale attraverso la sua sovra-esposizione documediale.

O trabalho de Kurt Goldstein ainda é pouco conhecido no Brasil. Sendo um dos fatores quedificultam o acesso aos seus escritos a ausência de traduções das suas obras para a línguaportuguesa. No entanto, sua influência está presente em diversas áreas do conhecimento, aexemplo da Neurologia, Neuropsicologia, Psicologia e Filosofia. Desse modo, com o intuitode resgatar os fundamentos de conhecimentos e práticas realizadas nos camposinfluenciados por ele, esse artigo apresenta uma introdução à sua obra. Foram utilizadoscomo base os escritos The Organism: (...) A holistic approach to biology derived frompathological data in man e Human Nature in the light of psychopathology. A partir daanálise dessas obras foram selecionados três grandes temas a serem explorados: a questãodo método para o autor, a teoria do organismo apresentada por ele e a noção de naturezahumana presente em seus trabalhos. Por meio dessa retomada da obra do autor, pretendeseapontar para sua “fenomenologia”, além de abrir caminho para novas discussões sobresua influência. (shrink)

This book discusses key ethical and deontological problems concerning the use of the most common information and communication devices. It focuses on the challenges of the new environments we now find ourselves in thanks to these technologies, and the issues arising from the newly established relationship between the virtual sphere and the real world. Each aspect is analysed by starting from a very specific example or a case study presenting a dilemma that can only be resolved by making a reasoned (...) ethical choice. Rather than thematically addressing only one of the many aspects mentioned above, the book presents a comprehensive introduction to, and a co-ordinated overview of, the various deontological and ethical issues regarding the spread of the most common information and communication technologies. (shrink)

One of the most critical challenges faced in science is that of categorization. Both at the inception of a new field and recurrently as it matures, its objects of interest must be classified according to their similarities, and the resulting kinds must be conceptualized in a way that mirrors the best of what is known or postulated about them—all in the hope that those kinds are either real or of practical significance. Transformations in the conceptual chart of any scientific discipline (...) are not only usual but a sign of and often a requirement for its development. Curiously enough, the most prominent definition of... (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine the objective side of subjectivity formation through music. I attempt to show how music is a way to configure subjectivity in its interiority, but in a way that it can be shared between other individual subjectivities. Music has an objective structure, but this structure is the temporal and sonorous interiority of subjectivity. It has as its objective manifestation and consequence the feelings and emotions. These feelings are subjective, and in the level of (...) subjective Geist they are related to intuition. Hegel believes that such intuition cannot be properly communicated, due to its exclusive access to the individual subject himself. Despite that, music is an art, and it takes part in the level of absolute Geist. That means that music is the connection between the objective and subjective sides of Geist, being a product of social relations, including the sharing, experience and recognition of subjective operations by the participants in society as something in common. Art is related to intuition but it is not intuition itself, nor it is reduced to the capacity of intuition. All three capacities of the subjective Geist in the theoretical Geist (namely intuition, representation and thinking) can be part of the relationship between art and the individual perspective.However, the link between art and intuition is an analogy between the subjective Geist and the absolute Geist, considering that art is a level of manifestation of social self-consciousness where the people and the social group have not yet become conscious of its content in its manifestation. The exposition of the ideal content of social relations is manifested through absolute Geist, beginning with its sensible manifestation. After this process, it is signified through a practice related to representation, and finally it is related to a conceptually and linguistically mediated practice, philosophy. These products cannot be a consequence of a mere subjective connections, but must be (as part of absolute Geist) a consequence of the objective relation between individuals in its subjective manifestations. Furthermore, subjective capacities are a condition without which the development of the absolute Geist is not possible. At the same time, it is not possible that subjective Geist’s capacities can be fully realized without social relations. Science is not a product of an individual-solipsistic relationship with the environment, but a product of a social relations, including language, shared experiences and shared ways of comprehension, such as the common way to feel and receive the environment in a subjective level discussed below. I divide this exposition into three parts: (1) music and subjectivity, where I deal with the relation between body vibration, time, sound and the formal interiority of the listener/musical subject, analyzing the form of music in its subjective side (the relation to the listener); (2) music and content, where I examine the content generated by music as being the process of formation itself (i.e. the process of given form to the interiority of subjectivity through sounds becomes its own content, namely, the feelings); and (3) music and words, where I scrutinize the relationship between music and words’ capacities to make reference and to have content, considering the connection between pure music and lyrics, and between music and poetry as singular forms of art. I conclude with the idea that music has a specific role in Hegel’s system, which is to bring to light and develop absolute Geist’s (understood as the objectivation and formation of a social and cultural subjectivity) internal aesthetic form. (shrink)

O presente artigo busca fazer uma análise do diálogo inter-religioso entre o judaísmo e o cristianismo, duas religiões monoteístas, com origens semelhantes, mas separadas por questões históricas e algumas divergências doutrinárias. Inicialmente se propõe relatar a importância do diálogo entre as duas religiões, baseando-se nos trabalhos de Alberto Milkewitz, Edwin Arteaga Tobon, e Frederico Laufer. Após isso, procurou-se identificar os aspectos divergentes e convergentes entre o cristianismo e o judaísmo, para verificar a viabilidade do diálogo. Consultou-se para este momento os (...) trabalhos de Josh McDowel e do Instituto Cristão de Pesquisas. Como conclusão do artigo, apresentou-se uma breve síntese visando a aplicabilidade do diálogo inter-religioso para a Igreja Cristã atual. (shrink)

A educação em direitos humanos é essencial para o desenvolvimento pleno da personalidade, para a consolidação da cidadania e para promover a cultura da solidariedade, constituindo um dos principais desafios contemporâneos. Aqui reside o papel fundamental das instituições públicas e privadas, na medida em que as mesmas são desafiadas a criar, promover e fortalecer a cultura dos direitos humanos nos seus espaços de convivência. O texto adota como metodologia a análise de bibliografia especializada. Nessa direção, investiga-se os principais instrumentos normativos (...) e diretivos da sociedade brasileira, tais como a Constituição Federal, a Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação, a Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos e outros documentos que tratam da educação e dos direitos humanos, com o objetivo de extrair algumas implicações para a práxis religiosa. O percurso inicia analisando o texto constitucional que estabelece a educação como direito de todos, bem como seus respectivos objetivos; na sequência, a partir da Declaração Universal de 1948, faz-se uma reflexão sobre a educação em direitos humanos e sua importância para a consolidação da cidadania; ao concluir, o autor apresenta as implicações da educação em direitos humanos no contexto religioso brasileiro: a educação em direitos humanos promove a liberdade e a igualdade; promove uma educação comprometida com o desenvolvimento humano e com a cultura da solidariedade; e promove a amizade entre as diferentes religiões. (shrink)

In this paper, I present some concepts of Hegel’s philosophy of art, aiming to interpret a cultural-political situation, namely, Bolsonarism in contemporary Brazil. I present the ideas in the following order: (a) the modes of comprehension, mainly through the distinction between the poetic and the prosaicmodes; (b) the conception of “Action [Handlung]” as a category of art, by means of its three levels: State of the World [Weltzustand], Situation [Situation], and Action itself [Handlung als solche]; (c) an evaluation of the (...) anachronism of the ideas of myth and hero in contemporary times, through a reflection mediated by the categories of sublation [Aufhebung] and history. (shrink)

Language does not fossilize but this does not mean that the language's evolutionary timeline is lost forever. Great apes provide a window back in time on our last prelinguistic ancestor's communication and cognition. Phylogeny and cladistics implicitly conjure Pan (chimpanzees, bonobos) as a superior (often the only) model for language evolution compared with earlier diverging lineages, Gorilla and Pongo (orangutans). Here, in reviewing the literature, it is shown that Pan do not surpass other great apes along genetic, cognitive, ecologic, or (...) vocal traits that are putatively paramount for language onset and evolution. Instead, revived herein is the idea that only by abandoning single‐species models and learning about the variation among great apes, there might be a chance to retrieve lost fragments of the evolutionary timeline of language. (shrink)