Do all questions have answers? How much can we know about the world? Is there such a thing as an ultimate truth? To be human is to want to know, to understand our origins and the meaning of our lives. In The Island of Knowledge, physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing, he reaches a (...) provocative conclusion: science, the main tool we use to find answers, is fundamentally limited. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we are often faced with the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know. Limits to our knowledge of the world arise both from our tools of exploration and from the nature of physical reality: the speed of light, the uncertainty principle, the second law of thermodynamics, the incompleteness theorem, and our own limitations as an intelligent species. Our view of physical reality depends fundamentally on who we are and on how we interact with the cosmos. (shrink)

Novo livro do autor do best-seller A simples beleza do inesperado, vencedor do Jabuti. O caldeirão é onde se misturam ingredientes visando sua transmutação. É o laboratório onde buscamos alguma forma de transcendência, o portal que nos transporta a uma nova realidade. Em O caldeirão azul, Marcelo Gleiser reúne ensaios provenientes de sua reflexão sobre as questões que considera mais relevantes para o momento atual: nossa relação com o planeta e suas criaturas, com os membros da sociedade em que (...) vivemos, e com a tecnologia, que está transformando quem somos e como nos relacionamos. O tema que conecta todos os textos é a visão da ciência como produto da nossa capacidade de nos maravilhar com o mundo toda vez que nos engajamos com o mistério da criação. Na sua essência, encontramos o mesmo ímpeto que move o espírito religioso: como lidar com nossas questões existenciais mais profundas, nossa origem, nossa vida, nossa morte. Nesta obra, Gleiser nos lembra que a ciência, aliada à nossa busca por respostas e nosso fascínio pelo mistério que nos cerca, pode ser usada tanto como ponte para um mundo melhor, como para construir a pior distopia imaginável. E nos convida a refletir – e decidir – sobre o futuro que queremos para nós, respeitando as diferenças de cada um e estando abertos para aprender com os que pensam de outras formas. (shrink)

Gianni Vattimo associates “mystic” and metaphysics. The “forgetting of the being” would be coextensive to the abandonment (Gelassenheit) or to the mystic “losing oneself” (Versenkung) in the absolute. Based on this, the article analyzes the relevance and the possibility of the vattimiana hermeneutics referring to (Verwindung) “the mystic” to surpass it. The perspective of the hermeneutic ethics of Vattimo defends that the history of modernity, in its nihilism and secularization, keeps traces of the history of the salvation inaugurated by the (...) Jewish-Christian perspective. The “mystical losing oneself” contradicts the Pauline experience of the preparation of parusía. Based on Heidegger, the Italian philosopher defends that, considering the imminent parusía, the authenticity of the temporal experience to the Pauline Christian, meant going through, with faith, the present tribulation in the caducity of the historical contingency, hindering the mystical Versenkung and its respective evasion in the daily efforts. In favor of this persistence/effort, it is glimpsed cáritas, inaugurated by the kénosis in the East, as the optimum authenticity criterion for a contemporary spirituality; because cáritas would imply, in its opposition to the implicit violence of the absolute fundamentals, the recognition of the bond between the spiritual and the nihilist and secularized East. (shrink)

O artigo preconiza a relevância pedagógica da filosofia da não-significação de Albert Camus, especialmente em O Mito de Sísifo. O eixo argumentativo segue a última frase deste livro: “É preciso imaginar Sísifo feliz”. A certeza da existência e a estranheza de se inserir num cenário de catástrofe, sem esperança, suscita em estudantes, especialmente da rede pública, um “sentimento da absurdidade”, mas esse estado não há de ser visto como maldição. A liberdade paradoxalmente advém quando se assume o absurdo como meio (...) de se afirmar a vida, contra os suicídios físico e filosófico, tornando Sísifo o “herói absurdo”. Camus atribui ao pensamento de Søren Kierkegaard a proposta do suicídio filosófico como sacrifício do intelecto pelo salto kiekegaardiano da fé porque ele entende a felicidade encontrada na vida eterna como uma superação e cura da doença mortal do desespero. O esforço dialético de autorreflexão da consciência entre o finito e o infinito faz da resignação infinita uma preparação para o salto da fé. Para nosso autor, porém, o pior mal é não ter sofrido desespero, pois é a partir dele que imaginativamente o absurdo, como potência existencial, transfigura-se numa “revolta metafísica” — uma posição a ser desenvolvida no processo de ensino-aprendizagem em Filosofia. Palavras-chave: Albert Camus. Absurdo. Imaginação. Ensino de Filosofia. (shrink)

O livro almeja ser representativo nos principais debates contemporâneos, oferecendo uma visão panorâmica sobre o campo na atualidade e permitindo-se aprofundar em algumas discussões selecionadas.O ambiente não pode ser reduzido ao “meio ambiente”, à natureza não humana. Ele não é meramente algo que “nos envolve”, um envoltório: o ambiente somos também nós, seres humanos, histórica e culturalmente situados. Quanto aos territórios, eles se estabelecem em íntima conexão com os ambientes em suas dimensões paisagística e material, quer sejam os processos geoecológicos, (...) quer sejam as formas e as dinâmicas socialmente produzidas. Analisar os territórios significa examinar como, a cada momento, os ambientes, seus recursos e significados são disputados e viram objeto de conflitos.O público-alvo principal são os estudantes dos últimos anos da graduação, além daqueles em nível de pós-graduação, de todas as áreas que lidam com problemas e conflitos ambientais. Afora os pesquisadores iniciantes e os jovens universitários em geral, porém, podemos presumir que profissionais experientes também poderão tirar proveito do material de diversos capítulos. É razoável, por fim, nutrir a expectativa de que muito do que este livro contém possa (retro)alimentar o ativismo ambiental crítico e a prática de combater as iniquidades e as distorções que se acumulam em nossas sociedades, principalmente as muitas situações de flagrante injustiça ambiental. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to implement Gilles Deleuze's theory of the series and the event, and the related function of the empty square (as formulated primarily in The Logic of Sense), in relation to the geopolitical regime comprising ‘Israel proper’ and the system of occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The purpose of this exercise is to help establish a practical access to Deleuze's philosophies, and to offer a clinical account of the Israeli occupation of the (...) Palestinian territories. (shrink)

Michel Foucault is one of the most preeminent theorists of power, yet the relationship between his militant activities and his analysis of power remains unclear. The book explores this relationship to explain the development of Foucault's thinking about power. Using newly translated and unpublished materials, it examines what led Foucault to take on the question of power in the early 1970s and subsequently refine his thinking, working through different models (war and government) and modalities (sovereign, disciplinary, biopolitical, pastoral and governmental). (...) Looking at Foucault's political trajectory, from his involvement with the prisoner support movement and Solidarity to his controversial engagement with the Iranian revolution, the book shows the militant underpinning of his interest in the question of power and its various shifts and mutations. This thorough account, which includes the first translation of a report edited by Foucault on prison conditions, will provide students in contemporary political theory with a better understanding of Foucault's thinking about power and of the interplay between political activities and theoretical productions. (shrink)

From Fall 2016 to Fall 2019 Marcelo Gleiser conducted a series of nine public dialogues between eminent scientists and humanists on challenging topics and ideas whose very definitions and meanings are disputed. Sponsored by the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement at Dartmouth College, founded by Gleiser, these events were held in theaters and universities across the US and immediately followed by workshops, open to the public, at which attendees could converse directly with participants. Great Minds Don't Think Alike collects edited (...) versions of these discussions, which set an example, in a time when public discourse is seriously threatened, of how people can engage in a fruitful exchange of ideas even when they strongly disagree. The cast of characters is stellar: David Chalmers and Antonio Damasio on consciousness, Sean Carroll and Alan Wallace on reality, Patricia Churchland and Jill Tarter on the future of intelligence, Rebecca Goldstein and Alan Lightman on faith, Jimena Canales and Paul Davies on time, Ed Boyden and Mark O'Connell on transhumanism, Elizabeth Kolbert and Siddhartha Mukherjee on immortality, and Jeremy DeSilva, David Grinspoon, and Tasneem Zehra Husain on being human. (shrink)

From Fall 2016 to Fall 2019 Marcelo Gleiser conducted a series of nine public dialogues between eminent scientists and humanists on challenging topics and ideas whose very definitions and meanings are disputed. Sponsored by the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement at Dartmouth College, founded by Gleiser, these events were held in theaters and universities across the US and immediately followed by workshops, open to the public, at which attendees could converse directly with participants. Great Minds Don't Think Alike collects edited (...) versions of these discussions, which set an example, in a time when public discourse is seriously threatened, of how people can engage in a fruitful exchange of ideas even when they strongly disagree. The cast of characters is stellar: David Chalmers and Antonio Damasio on consciousness, Sean Carroll and Alan Wallace on reality, Patricia Churchland and Jill Tarter on the future of intelligence, Rebecca Goldstein and Alan Lightman on faith, Jimena Canales and Paul Davies on time, Ed Boyden and Mark O'Connell on transhumanism, Elizabeth Kolbert and Siddhartha Mukherjee on immortality, and Jeremy DeSilva, David Grinspoon, and Tasneem Zehra Husain on being human. (shrink)

L'œuvre de Michel Foucault est inclassable car elle traverse des domaines très variés (philosophie, sociologie, histoire, anthropologie, criminologie, médecine, psychologie, linguistique, droit, etc.). Foucault n'est pas un sociologue au sens classique du terme. Il existe une sociologie puissante et novatrice chez lui. Mais laquelle? À quoi peut-elle servir aujourd'hui? En quoi est-elle utile pour théoriser les problèmes sociaux? Quels sont ses avantages et ses inconvénients? Quel type de « raisonnement sociologique » se dégage de son œuvre et quelles sont ses (...) limites? Voilà les interrogations qui guident l'analyse de l'ensemble des travaux de Foucault dans cet ouvrage. En suivant l'évolution historique de ses recherches ainsi que les retournements stimulants de sa pensée, Foucault Sociologue s'organise en neuf chapitres qui suivent l'évolution théorique, méthodologique et chronologique des thématiques foucaldiennes. Marcelo Otero est professeur titulaire au Département de sociologie de l'Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), chercheur au Centre de recherche de Montréal sur les inégalités sociales, les discriminations et les pratiques alternatives de citoyenneté (CREMIS), au groupe sur le médicament comme objet social (MÉOS) et à l'Institut Santé et Société (ISS). Ses recherches portent sur les nouveaux problèmes de santé mentale et les problèmes sociaux complexes."--Quatrième de couverture. (shrink)

The subject of this book is the social and political meaning of constitutional texts to the detriment of their legal concretization. Focusing on the discrepancy between the hypertrophically symbolic function of constitutions and their insufficient legal concretization, it offers a critical counterpoint to constitutional theory that treats constitutional texts as a panacea to solving political, legal, and social problems. In contrast to the premises of Niklas Luhmann's systems theory regarding law and constitution in world's society, symbolic constitutionalization is approached here (...) in both a comprehensive and far-reaching perspective. Chapter 1 sets out the debate about symbolic legislation. Chapter 2 explains the notion of symbolic constitutionalization as a problem embracing the whole legal system. Chapter 3 approaches the issue in terms of allopoiesis of law, characterizing it primarily as a problem in peripheral modernity and referring to the Brazilian experience. The final chapter discusses the tendency to a symbolic constitutionalization of world society in the scope of a paradoxical peripheralization of the centre. (shrink)

No cinema brasileiro recente, o diálogo entre o documentário e a ficção tem merecido destaque, com produções de baixo orçamento e ideias originais. É o caso de Santiago (João Moreira Salles, 2007) e Viajo Porque Preciso, Volto Porque Te Amo (Marcelo Gomes, Karim Aïnouz, 2009), filmes que trabalham esse diálogo de forma sutil e diegética, ressignificando imagens de um arquivo próprio, pessoal.

Kant, los sábados por la tarde -- ¿Andaría en algo Sócrates? -- El álef de "El Aleph" -- La angustia ya no se lleva -- El tango de la muerte -- Los ilotas y la juventud maravillosa -- Los jóvenes en Flores -- El filósofo y la princesa.

Whilst he was writing De principatibus, was Machiavelli really as out of touch with the Florentine politico-institutional world as his letter of December 1513 claims? Who read Il principe prior to its publication, and how? Why did the philosopher Agostino Nifo, one of the major proponents of Renaissance Averroism, plagiarize it? To what extent is the Machiavellian "principato civile" comprehensible only by way of its Medicean and Florentine affiliation? Did the young Lorenzo de' Medici's political programme seek to eliminate the (...) Roman church? What politicocultural stance is hidden behind certain political terms from the humanist tradition that Machiavelli revisited in Il principe? To what extent was the Machiavellian relationship between animality and humanity, simulation and dissimulation, influenced by Leonardo da Vinci's ceuvre? And, finally, what are the questions that remain open in Il principe? This compilation offers some possible answers to these questions, thus providing new critical tools for the study of Niccolo Machiavelli's Il principe -- Back cover. (shrink)

Modern societies often claim to be democracies in order to enjoy greater legitimacy. Still, to understand the concept of democracy and how to justify it, the definition of it as self-determined is not sufficient. A complex understanding has to take into account ideas of rule of law as well as human rights. Sometimes these three concepts compete with each other - particularly in societies with a pluralistic approach to what "the good life" should be, such as societies which are made (...) up of distinct cultural backgrounds. This book presents a concept of democracy that encompasses at the same time the ideas of rule of law, human rights and self-determination. It contains the main lectures of the XXVI World Congress of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, hosted by the Internationale Vereinigung fur Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Brazil) in July 2013. (shrink)

The Joy of Not Knowing takes every aspect of the curriculum and of school life and transforms it into a personalised, meaningful and enjoyable experience for all. It offers readers an innovative, theoretical and practical guide to establish a values-based, enquiry-led and challenge-rich learning to learn approach to teaching and learning and to school leadership. This thought-provoking guide provides the reader with a wealth of whole-class, easy-to-implement, malleable, practical ideas and case studies that can be personalised to the vision of (...) each setting, age-group and curriculum. It brings together, as a whole-school framework, the strategies that have been shown to have the greatest impact on practitioner's professional fulfilment and on children's life chances, love of learning, intrinsic motivation and enthusiasm for wanting to know. The Joy of Not Knowing: enables schools to launch the academic year with a bespoke JONK Learning to Learn Week that enables every student to succeed; develops philosophical, creative and critical problem-solving and multi-lingual thinking skills; establishes collaborative cultures of thinking, learning and leadership; Informs practice through active action research; incorporates a values-led democratic approach to school life; nurtures school-pupil-family-community partnerships. Designed for school leaders and practitioners at all levels and across all ages, this practical guide shows how all students can thrive and develop the dispositions of successful lifelong learners and global citizens. (shrink)

The book provides an overview of how international law is today constructed through diverse macro and microprocesses that expand its traditional subjects and sources, with the attribution of sovereign capacity and power to the international plane (moving the international toward the national). Simultaneously, national laws approximate laws of other nations (moving among nations or moving the national toward the international), and new sources of legal norms emerge, independent of states and international organisations. This expansion occurs in many subject areas, with (...) specific structures: commercial, environmental, human rights, humanitarian, financial, criminal, and labor law contribute to the formation of postnational law with different modes of functioning, different actors, and different sources of law that should be understood as a new complexity of law. (shrink)

Derk Pereboom and Gregg Caruso argue that humans are never morally responsible for their actions and take that thesis as a starting point for a project whose ultimate goal is the reform of responsibility practices, which include expressions of praise, blame, and the institution of legal punishment. This paper shares the skeptical concern that current responsibility practices can be suboptimal and in need of change, but argues that a non-skeptical pursuit of those changes is viable and more promising. The main (...) lines of the argument are developed by assessing the prospects of implementing one of the changes favored within the skeptical project (namely, the reduction of punishment severity) in light of how human moral psychology works. An original vignette experiment (N = 180; participants from Facebook groups related to Brazilian universities) asked participants to recommend sentences for a fictitious criminal after considering alternatives to regular punishment that varied in their effectiveness to prevent reoffending. The results suggest that people can become less punitive even if they continue to believe in moral responsibility and free will. The paper further argues that reforming responsibility practices is more likely to occur without the endorsement of skepticism. (shrink)

Part two of an innovative trilogy on anarchist geography, this text examines how we can better understand the ways in which space has been used for resistance.

Suszko's Thesis maintains that many-valued logics do not exist at all. In order to support it, R. Suszko offered a method for providing any structural abstract logic with a complete set of bivaluations. G. Malinowski challenged Suszko's Thesis by constructing a new class of logics (called q-logics by him) for which Suszko's method fails. He argued that the key for logical two-valuedness was the "bivalent" partition of the Lindenbaum bundle associated with all structural abstract logics, while his q-logics were generated (...) by "trivalent" matrices. This paper will show that contrary to these intuitions, logical two-valuedness has more to do with the geometrical properties of the deduction relation of a logical structure than with the algebraic properties embedded on it. (shrink)

This paper is a comparative study of Alfred Schutz and Jose Ortega y Gasset, with special attention to their respective characterization of social reality. For this purpose, the author draws on the explicit references Schutz and Ortega directed towards one another and develops a critical comparison of their theoretical systems. In addition to the reciprocal references which appear in their published works, valuable documentary evidence is provided by Schutz's letters and, first and foremost, by his marginal notes preserved in his (...) own copy of Ortega y Gasset's Man and People. As far as the critical comparison of Schutz's and Ortega's theories is concerned, the weight of the discussion falls on Ortega's Man and People. A careful reading of this essay allows us to successively invoke the key components of Schutz's phenomenological characterization of the structures of the life-world. According to this strategy, and after some preliminary sections devoted to contextual, biographical, and sociocultural matters, the following topics are comparatively discussed: (1) the philosophical foundations of sociology, with particular attention to Ortega's doctrine of the Other as potential danger; (2) the taken-for-granted dimensions of the social world; (3) the multiple spheres of reality, and their structuration around the fundamental core of the radical reality of the I (for Ortega) or the paramount reality of everyday life, as the intersubjective world of culture (for Schutz); (4) the influence of pragmatism on their theoretical systems; (5) their strikingly similar characterization of the perspectivist stratification of the social world; (6) the inexhaustible complexity of the problem of intersubjectivity. Obviously, the common influence of Husserl, Weber, Scheler, and Bergson casts light upon the comparative consideration of any of these issues. (shrink)

After justifying its centrality in the Schützian project of founding interpretive sociology, I present the theory of relevance as the cornerstone of Schütz’s constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude, conceived of as the investigation of the meaningful construction and the structures of the lifeworld. Through what I call the life-plans approach, I contend that the essence of every sociocultural world has to be found in a thick network of intersubjective and hierarchized relevance structures upon which personal life-projects are built. This (...) proposal is based on Schütz’s subordination of the theory of action to the theory of relevance, which challenges every atomistic view of social action. The interplay of relevance structures in the field of consciousness and especially the focus on imposed relevances encourage us to reflect on the scope of human freedom. Lastly, I examine the everlasting tension in Schütz’s thought between the anti-rationalistic potential of the theory of relevance and the methodological rationalism inherited from Weber and the Austrian marginalists. (shrink)

Multialgebras have been much studied in mathematics and in computer science. In 2016 Carnielli and Coniglio introduced a class of multialgebras called swap structures, as a semantic framework for dealing with several Logics of Formal Inconsistency that cannot be semantically characterized by a single finite matrix. In particular, these LFIs are not algebraizable by the standard tools of abstract algebraic logic. In this paper, the first steps towards a theory of non-deterministic algebraization of logics by swap structures are given. Specifically, (...) a formal study of swap structures for LFIs is developed, by adapting concepts of universal algebra to multialgebras in a suitable way. A decomposition theorem similar to Birkhoff’s representation theorem is obtained for each class of swap structures. Moreover, when applied to the 3-valued algebraizable logics J3 and Ciore, their classes of algebraic models are retrieved, and the swap structures semantics become twist structures semantics. This fact, together with the existence of a functor from the category of Boolean algebras to the category of swap structures for each LFI, suggests that swap structures can be seen as non-deterministic twist structures. This opens new avenues for dealing with non-algebraizable logics by the more general methodology of multialgebraic semantics. (shrink)

In this paper the propositional logic LTop is introduced, as an extension of classical propositional logic by adding a paraconsistent negation. This logic has a very natural interpretation in terms of topological models. The logic LTop is nothing more than an alternative presentation of modal logic S4, but in the language of a paraconsistent logic. Moreover, LTop is a logic of formal inconsistency in which the consistency and inconsistency operators have a nice topological interpretation. This constitutes a new proof of (...) S4 as being "the logic of topological spaces", but now under the perspective of paraconsistency. (shrink)

Este ensayo parte de una experiencia disruptiva en un aula de bachillerato de un instituto español. En el transcurso de una clase ordinaria de filosofía, un incidente inesperado rompe la definición de la situación, haciendo añicos el consenso de trabajo entre los alumnos y el profesor. Para reconstruir su trasfondo de expectativas, los alumnos se ven forzados a emplear estrategias de acomodación y normalización. En el análisis de esta experiencia disruptiva convergen la fenomenología del mundo social de Alfred Schütz, la (...) etnometodología de Harold Garfinkel y el interaccionismo simbólico de Erving Goffman.This essay starts from a disruptive experience in a Spanish high school classroom. In the course of an ordinary philosophy lesson, an unexpected incident breaks the definition of the situation, smashing the working consensus among students and teacher to smithereens. In order to rebuild their background expectancies, the pupils are forced to resort to accommodation and normalization strategies. The analysis of this disruptive experience is based upon the convergence of Alfred Schütz’s phenomenology of the social world, Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, and Erving Goffman’s symbolic interactionism. (shrink)