In this text we present reflections on the challenges of school education, especially Environmental Education, for students in the current basic school in view of the impasses that persist in the teaching profession and the construction of scientific knowledge. The assumptions we make are based on the perspective of historical-cultural psychology developed by Vigotsky and scholars in this field of knowledge. We go through the situation that has marked the Brazilian educational context, and in the end we present the suggestion (...) of insertion of socioenvironmental training in school work as one of the possibilities for the transformation and emancipation of the educational and social practices. We understand that environmental education based on critical aspects such as presented by Marxist psychology favors the increase in teaching work, through the insertion of dilemmas and emerging issues, usually unrelated or superficially worked, in curricula and in current school practices. (shrink)

Providing a novel multi-disciplinary theorization of memory politics, this insightful Handbook brings varied literatures into a focused dialogue on the ways in which the past is remembered and how these influence transnational, interstate, and global politics in the present. With case studies from Africa, East and Southeast Asia, Europe, South America, and the United States, the Handbook focuses on the political features of historical memory in international relations. Chapters examine key concepts of memory politics, including accountability, commemoration and memorialization, the (...) Europeanization of memory, and the politics of trauma and victimhood, as well as analyzing different sites of memory, from the human body and memorial sites to media, film, and television. It also answers essential questions such as who and what determines the relevance of the past in the present; how does memory become a political question; and what are the political effects and ethical implications of its mobilization? Exploring the links between the politics of memory, international ethics, law, and diplomacy, this stimulating Handbook will be essential reading for students and scholars of politics and international relations, cultural studies, history, and transitional justice. Its discussion of notable agents and practices of memory politics will also be beneficial for practitioners working in human rights, politics, and public policy. (shrink)

In this Chapter, Maria Kronfeldner discusses whether psychological essentialism is a necessary part of dehumanization. This involves different elements of essentialism, and a narrow and a broad way of conceptualizing psychological essentialism, the first akin to natural kind thinking, the second based on entitativity. She first presents authors that have connected essentialism with dehumanization. She then introduces the error theory of psychological essentialism regarding the category of the human, and distinguishes different elements of psychological essentialism. On that basis, Kronfeldner (...) connects historical, socio-psychological, and philosophical insights in order to show that although essentialism can act as a catalyst for dehumanization, it is not necessary for it. Examples relate to dehumanization in the context of colonialism and evolutionary thinking, to the history of dehumanizing women from Aristotle to 19th-century craniology, and to contemporary self-dehumanization and ‘lesser mind’ attribution. (shrink)

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo relacionar o novo papel do Estado com o paradigma da regulação, frente aos desafios da sustentabilidade. A regulação no setor da eletricidade surgiu com a finalidade de promover uma gestão de mercado mais produtiva, contudo, no novo paradigma da sustentabilidade esta não poderia olvidar os aspectos assegurados pelas normas ambientais já existentes. Por isso, busca-se a análise da atuação das Agências Reguladoras da Energia para a concretização do desenvolvimento sustentável, fazendo uma análise comparada entre (...) Brasil e Portugal, objetivando obter resultados das políticas destas agências com relação à promoção de políticas de eficiência energética. (shrink)

Elaboramos, a partir da obra de Merleau-Ponty, uma discussão que, baseada na expressividade do esquema corporal e em seu poder de constituir hábitos sensório-motores, problematiza a potência de transformação da percepção. Orientamo-nos pelo propósito de investigar o delineamento de um ethos dos sentidos fundado na transformação dos esquemas perceptivos. Ao longo do texto, analisamos as dimensões práxicas e intencionais atreladas ao esquema corporal; abordamos o desenvolvimento constante do esquema corporal mediante a aquisição de hábitos sensório-motores; sugerimos o conceito de nível, (...) adotado por Merleau-Ponty a partir da tradição gestaltista, como ferramenta para a compreensão do processo corpóreo de constituição de novos limiares de percepção e de ação no mundo; e, ao final, apresentamos apontamentos para a exploração dos desdobramentos críticos e sociais das investigações merleau-pontianas da percepção calcadas na plasticidade expressiva do esquema corporal. (shrink)

Maria Kronfeldner’s Preface and Introduction to the Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization maps the landscape of dehumanization studies. She starts with a brief portrayal of the history of the field. The systematically minded sections that follow guide the reader through the resulting rugged landscape represented in the Handbook’s contributions. Different realizations, levels, forms, and ontological contrasts of dehumanization are distinguished, followed by remarks on the variety of targets of dehumanization. A discussion on valence and emotional aspects is added. Causes, functions, (...) and consequences of dehumanization, and the prospects for reducing or undoing it, are introduced. The systematic overview closes with a discussion of some important theoretical complexities that arise in studying dehumanization. After these systematic sections, the scholarly work on dehumanization gets situated in the broader intellectual landscape of debates about the ‘human’ in the humanities and social sciences. The Introduction ends with some notes on scope, limitations, and intended readership of the Handbook. (shrink)

"Dr. Montessori was par excellence the great interpreter of the child; and though she herself has passed on from the scene of her labours her work will still go on."-- Westminster Cathedral Chronicle One of the landmark books in the history of education--and one of the least expensive editions now available--this volume describes a new system for educating youngsters. Based on a radical concept of liberty for the pupil and highly formal training of separate sensory, motor, and mental capacities, the (...) system enabled youngsters to master reading, writing, and arithmetic rapidly and substantially. Included are discussions of scientific pedagogy; discipline; the importance of proper diet, gymnastics, and manual labor; and many other topics. Unabridged reprint of the classic 1912 edition. (shrink)

A paper about cross-cultural and cross-racial loving that emphasizes the need to understand and affirm the plurality in and among women as central to feminist ontology and epistemology. Love is seen not as fusion and erasure of difference but as incompatible with them. Love reveals plurality. Unity–not to be confused with solidarity–is understood as conceptually tied to domination.

Este artigo tem por objetivo apresentar aspectos relacionados ao papel do escravo em Curculio, de Plauto. Nesta peça, esse papel parece ser duplamente desempenhado: Palinuro e o personagem-título, Gorgulho, são os “escravos” da referida comédia. Nossa apresentação passará por uma breve contextualização da figura do escravo em Plauto. Em seguida, será feita uma análise do personagem Palinuro (o escravo propriamente dito), e de suas atitudes na história. Depois, serão apontadas, diante dos feitos do parasita (ou “parasito”) Gorgulho, certas características que (...) o tornam muito próximo dos feitos característicos de um escravo nas peças plautinas. (shrink)

O texto seleccionado e que se apresenta agora em tradução portuguesa pode ser considerado como uma síntese exemplar das ideias de Hegel relativamente ao ensino da filosofia a nível secundário. Sobre a exposição da filosofia em Ginásios é um texto redigido como resposta a Immanuel Niethammer, na altura Conselheiro escolar da Baviera, que solicitara a Hegel uma apreciação sobre a reforma geral do sistema de ensino cuja aplicação estava em curso nas escolas bávaras e que tinha a sua expressão legal (...) no documento de 3 de Novembro de 1808, Allgemeines Normativ der Einrichtung der öffentlichen Unterrichtsanstalten [Directiva geral para a organização dos estabelecimentos públicos de ensino]. (shrink)

Testimonio que recoge algunas experiencias y reflexiones de la artista visual costarricense María Rapela en Alemania y de cómo se involucró en la gestión cultural, coordinando el Fieber Festival, una plataforma colaborativa y auto-gestionada de mujeres artistas migrantes iberoamericanas en Berlín entre el 2011 y el 2017.

Food systems transformations require coherent policies and improved understandings of the drivers and institutional dynamics that shape (un)sustainable food systems outcomes. In this paper, we introduce the Chilean National Organic Agriculture Law as a case of a policy process seeking to institutionalize a recognized pathway towards more sustainable food systems. Drawing from institutional theory we make visible multiple, and at times competing, logics (i.e., values, assumptions and practices) of different actors implicated in organic agriculture in Chile. More specifically, our findings (...) identify five main institutional transformative logics underpinning the interests and actions of organic actors. However, we find that the Law was not motivated by these logics and did not advance them. Rather, the Law was designed to support a market niche targeted to elite consumers and to reinforce agricultural exports. As a result, the Law constrains rather than enables the practice of organic agriculture and access to organic food by consumers, especially at the domestic level. We note that attention to institutional logics in the analysis of food systems, and specifically food system transformation, is relevant to more comprehensive assessments of the transformational potential of food systems policies. We conclude that there is a need to further consider and make visible the way in which different drivers (i.e., laws) are constituted through and by diverse, and often competing, institutional logics. (shrink)

Silence is reserved for what cannot be verbally expressed. The well-known Wittgensteinian quote summarizes an established understanding of the relationship between language and silence: because language is not enough to account for reality and thinking, it must be transcended by other means of expression, like music or silence. But what if the opposite is the case and silence is not the extension but the precondition of language, the ultimate source of meaning? This paper explores how this is the phenomenological and (...) Derridean philosophical framework of Coetzee’s novels, a literary universe created from the will to signify and build singular meanings. (shrink)

A striking feature of atrocities, as seen in genocides, civil wars or violence against certain racial and ethnic groups, is the attempt to dehumanize – to deny and strip human beings of their humanity. Yet the very nature of dehumanization remains relatively poorly understood. The Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization is the first comprehensive and multidisciplinary reference source on the subject and an outstanding survey of the key concepts, issues and debates within dehumanization studies. Organized into four parts, the Handbook covers (...) the following key topics: (I) The history of dehumanization from Greek Antiquity to the Twentieth century, contextualizing the oscillating boundaries, dimensions, and hierarchies of humanity in the history of the ‘West’. (II) How dehumanization is contemporarily studied with respect to special contexts: as part of social psychology, as part of legal studies or literary studies, and how it connects to the idea of human rights, disability and eugenics, the question of animals, and the issue of moral standing. (III) How to tackle its complex facets, with respect to the perpetrator’s and the target’s perspective, metadehumanization and selfdehumanization, rehumanization, social death, status and interdependence, as well as the fear we show towards robots that become too human for us. (IV) Conceptual and epistemological questions on how to distinguish different forms of dehumanization and neighboring phenomena, on why dehumanization appears so paradoxical, and on its connection to hatred, essentialism, and perception. -- Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, history, psychology, and anthropology this Handbook will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as politics, international relations, criminology, legal studies, literary studies, gender studies, disability studies, or race and ethnic studies, as well as readers from social work, political activism, and public policy --- Table of Contents: Introduction. 1. Mapping dehumanization studies. – Maria Kronfeldner. Part I. Oscillating boundaries, dimensions, and hierarchies of humanity in historical contexts. 2. Dehumanization Before the Columbian exchange – Siep Stuurman. 3. 'Humanity' and its Limits in Early Modern European Thought – László Kontler. 4. Enlightenment Humanization and Dehumanization and the Orang-utan – Silvia Sebastiani. 5. Dehumanizing the Exotic in Living Human Exhibitions – Guido Abbattista. 6. Dehumanizing Strategies in Nazi Ideology and their Anthropological Context – Johannes Steizinger. 7. Theorizing the Inhumanity of Human Nature, 1955-1985 – Erika Lorraine Milam. Part II: Further special contexts of dehumanization. 8. The Social Psychology of Dehumanization – Nick Haslam. 9. Dehumanization and the Loss of Moral Standing – Edouard Machery. 10. Dehumanization and the Question of Animals – Alice Crary. 11. Dehumanization, Disability, and Eugenics – Robert A. Wilson. 12. Dehumanization and Human Rights – Marie-Luisa Frick. 13. Dehumanization by Law – Luigi Corrias. 14. Dehumanisation in Literature and the Figure of the Perpetrator – Andrea Timár. Part III: The complex facets of dehumanization. 15. Dehumanization and Social Death as Fundamentals of Racism – Wulf D. Hund. 16. How Status and Interdependence Explain Different Forms of Dehumanization – Susan T. Fiske. 17. Exploring Metadehumanization and Self-dehumanization from a Target Perspective – Stéphanie Demoulin, Pierre Maurage, Florence Stinglhamber. 18. The Dehumanization and Rehumanization of Refugees – Victoria M. Esses, Stelian Medianu, Alina Sutter. 19. Motivational and Cognitive Underpinnings of Fear of Social Robots that become ‘Too Human for Us’ – Maria Paola Paladino, Jeroen Vaes, Jolanda Jetten. Part IV: Conceptual and epistemological questions regarding dehumanization. 20. Objectification, Inferiorization and Projection in Phenomenological Research on Dehumanization – Sara Heinämaa and James Jardine. 21. Why Dehumanization is Distinct from Objectification – Mari Mikkola. 22. On Hatred and Dehumanization – Thomas Brudholm and Johannes Lang. 23. Dehumanization, the Problem of Humanity, and the Problem of Monstrosity – David Livingstone Smith. 24. Psychological Essentialism and Dehumanization – Maria Kronfeldner. 25. Could Dehumanization Be Perceptual? – Somogy Varga. (shrink)

Conceptions of evil have changed dramatically over time, and though humans continue to commit acts of cruelty against one another, today we possess a clearer, more moral way of analyzing them. In _Narrating Evil_, María Pía Lara explores what has changed in our understanding of evil, why the transformation matters, and how we can learn from this specific historical development. Drawing on Immanuel Kant's and Hannah Arendt's ideas about reflective judgment, Lara argues that narrative plays a key role in helping (...) societies acknowledge their pasts. Particular stories haunt our consciousness and lead to a kind of examination and dialogue that shape notions of morality. A powerful description of a crime can act as a filter, helping us to draw conclusions about what constitutes a moral wrong, and public debates over these narratives allow us to construct a more accurate picture of historical truth, leading to a better understanding of why such actions are possible. In building her argument, Lara considers Greek tragedies, Shakespeare's depictions of evil, Joseph Conrad's literary metaphors, and movies that portray human cruelty. Turning to such philosophers and writers as Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin, Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben, and Ariel Dorfman, Lara defines a reflexive relationship between an event, the narrative of the event, and the public reception of the narrative, and she proves that the stories of perpetrators and sufferers are always intertwined. The process of disclosure, debate, and the public fashioning of collective judgment are vital methods through which we make sense not only of new forms of cruelty but of past crimes as well. _Narrating Evil_ describes the steps of this process and why they are a crucial part of our attempt to build a different, more just world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 131-132 [Access article in PDF] Christia Mercer. Leibniz's Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xiii + 528. Cloth, $80.00. Christia Mercer's massive study is aimed at unearthing the hidden roots of Leibniz's metaphysics by placing the German philosopher back in the intellectual context within which his thought first took shape. In so doing she stresses (...) the fundamental importance of Leibniz's early years for the development of his philosophy. In particular she convincingly argues for the key role played by Leibniz's early exposure to the thought of eclectic thinkers (including his teachers) who were trying to build a new philosophical synthesis centered around the key tenets of Christian theology and combining elements of Aristotelianism, Platonism, and (in at least some cases) the new mechanical philosophy of nature.One of Mercer's central theses is that the methodological and metaphysical commitments that Leibniz developed during his youth formed the bedrock of his mature philosophy (23). More precisely, her bold claim is that Leibniz's core metaphysics (including the complete concept account of substance) was constructed in 1668-71, re-examined and slightly developed in 1672-79, and then used for the rest of his long philosophical career (18, 470). The key inspirational forces driving the development of Leibniz's philosophy, in her view, had even earlier origins. In the mid-1660s Leibniz did not yet have a fully formulated metaphysics; but he already possessed very definite philosophical objectives which were to guide the development of his metaphysics and form the unstated assumptions underlying his mature thought (40). Mercer identifies these unstated assumptions as a "Metaphysics of Method," a "Metaphysics of Substance," and a "Metaphysics of Divinity," all of which she finds fully developed in his early thought (468-9).According to Leibniz's "Metaphysics of Method" (examined in part I), there exists a truth beneath the prominent philosophical schools which can and ought to be discovered. This conciliatory methodology was Leibniz's answer to the political, religious, and philosophical chaos around him. He was deeply convinced that his brilliantly original eclectic metaphysics would provide the foundation of philosophical, theological, and even political peace. Leibniz's "Metaphysics of Substance," Mercer argues in part II, melded an Aristotelian approach to substance with a mechanical physics and originated at the very outset of his intellectual carrier in an attempt to solve specific theological problems (e.g., those of the incarnation and resurrection). Platonism in turn offered the material for Leibniz's "Metaphysics of Divinity" (explored in part III), that is, for his conception of the relationship between God and creatures. The fourth and final part of Mercer's book takes her analysis of Leibniz's writings up to 1679 and describes the laying of the foundations of his mature metaphysics. She concludes not only that Leibniz proposed the doctrine of pre-established harmony prior to his departure for Paris in March 1672, but also, more generally, that the other tenets of Leibniz's mature thought, including his theory of truth, grew naturally out of his early metaphysics (see, in particular, 2, 15-8, 47, 52, 169-70, 250-2, 300-1, 472).Throughout the book Mercer describes her interpretation as "startling," "unfamiliar," "dramatic," and "surprising," and fears that "readers may balk" at her conclusions since "so much of Leibniz's thought has escaped us for so long" (see, for instance, 1, 9, 471). Some readers may feel, on the contrary, that she has underestimated the extent to which several of her central theses—such as the importance of the earliest stages of Leibniz's philosophical development in general and of eclecticism, theological problems, and Platonism, as well as Aristotelianism within that development in particular—are already reflected in the [End Page 131] best recent traditions of international Leibniz scholarship. But her book undoubtedly breaks new ground and remains an important contribution to an exciting field which cannot and will not be ignored. While international Leibniz scholarship may not absorb some of this book's more... (shrink)

Scholars have long debated whether leader's integrity affects managerial decision making with respect to social responsibility. In this paper, we propose a model in which transformational leadership mediates integrity and corporate social responsibility and examine the relationship between these concepts. A survey of 170 senior managers from 50 organizations was conducted. Results indicate that integrity is a predictor of transformational leadership behavior and that transformational leaders’ behaviors are linked to CSR practices. It was also found that leaders rated with higher (...) integrity are engaged in CSR because they exhibit more transformational leadership behaviors. These findings add to the extant literature by demonstrating that integrity is important as transformational leaders engage more actively on ‘responsible’ behaviors. Practical implications call for an understanding among corporate leaders of the benefits of integrity and how it relates to transformational leadership. Organizations can improve their selection and leadership development processes by focusing on these two dimensions. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first we outline a version of non-descriptivism, ‘minimal expressivism’, leaving aside certain long-standing problems associated with conventional expressivist views. Second, we examine the way in which familiar expressivist results can be accommodated within this framework, through a particular interpretation that the expressive realm lends to a theory of meaning. Expressivist theories of meaning address only a portion of the classical problems attributed to this position when they seek to explain why the expressions they (...) deal with have a given meaning. A position can nevertheless be termed ‘expressivist’ – in the minimal sense that we favor – based simply on the following key features of the meaning of these expressions: they can be used as functions of propositions, and they are not used to describe the way the world is. (shrink)

Postmodern political critiques speak of the death of ideology, the end of history, and the postsecular return of religious attitudes, yet radical conservative theorists such as Mark Lilla argue religion and politics are inextricably intertwined. Returning much-needed uncertainty to debates over the political while revitalizing the very terms in which they are defined, María Pía Lara explores the ambiguity of secularization and the theoretical potential of a structural break between politics and religion. For Lara, secularization means three things: the translation (...) of religious semantics into politics; a transformation of religious notions into political ideas; and the reoccupation of a space left void by changing political actors that gives rise to new conceptions of political interaction. Conceptual innovation redefines politics as a horizontal relationship between governments and the governed and better enables societies (and individual political actors) to articulate meaning through action--that is, through the emergence of new concepts. These actions, Lara proves, radically transform our understanding of politics and the role of political agents and are further enhanced by challenging the structural dependence of politics on religious phenomena. (shrink)

Philosophy in the 20th century witnessed a schism between so called ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ schools of philosophy. One of the aims of the IJPS from its inception was to provide a space for articles attempting to overcome, or at least foreshorten, that divide. This paper critically examines the various understandings of the divide and takes a quick glance at some of the attempts to bridge it.

Infants show impressive speech decoding abilities and detect acoustic regularities that highlight the syntactic relations of a language, often coded via non-adjacent dependencies. It has been claimed that infants learn NADs implicitly and associatively through passive listening and that there is a shift from effortless associative learning to a more controlled learning of NADs after the age of 2 years, potentially driven by the maturation of the prefrontal cortex. To investigate if older children are able to learn NADs, Lammertink et (...) al. recently developed a word-monitoring serial reaction time task and could show that 6–11-year-old children learned the NADs, as their reaction times increased then they were presented with violated NADs. In the current study we adapted their experimental paradigm and tested NAD learning in a younger group of 52 children between the age of 4–8 years in a remote, web-based, game-like setting. Children were exposed to Italian phrases containing NADs and had to monitor the occurrence of a target syllable, which was the second element of the NAD. After exposure, children did a “Stem Completion” task in which they were presented with the first element of the NAD and had to choose the second element of the NAD to complete the stimuli. Our findings show that, despite large variability in the data, children aged 4–8 years are sensitive to NADs; they show the expected differences in r RTs in the SRT task and could transfer the NAD-rule in the Stem Completion task. We discuss these results with respect to the development of NAD dependency learning in childhood and the practical impact and limitations of collecting these data in a web-based setting. (shrink)

O presente artigo propõe-se mostrar até que ponto o pensamento de Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) antecipa a tendência geral da filosofia contemporânea para ultrapassar o antropocentrismo e colocar no fundamento da realidade a correlaçāo originária entre Homem e Natureza. Numa parte inicial são sucessivamente abordados aspectos da filosofia da natureza e da ontologia da sensibilidade, conducentes à autonomia, ao valor intrínseco e à plenitude do real. Em seguida, considera-se a existência humana do ponto de vista concreto na diversidade de relações que (...) estabelece com o mundo natural. Finalmente, são analisados os principios da ética feuerbachiana da natureza, que conjuga a ética objectiva - do valor intrínseco e dos direitos de todos os seres, incluindo os animais - e a ética subjectiva, no apelo a uma atitude de responsabilidade e a uma contenção do agir por parte do ser humano. /// The present article wishes to show to what degree the thought of Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) anticipates the general tendency in contemporary philosophy to overcome anthropocentrism and to place at the very foundation of reality the original correlation binding humankind with nature. In the initial part, aspects of the philosophy of nature and the ontology of affections (or feeling), leading to the notions of the autonomous, intrinsic, and fullness of the real are treated. In a second moment, human existence is considered in regard to the diversity of its relations with the natural world. Finally, the principles of Feuerbachian ethics of nature are dealt with. It will be seen that it conjugates the objective ethics of intrinsic value and the rights of all beings, including animals, with a subjective ethics with its call to responsibility and restraint on the part of human beings. (shrink)

What is it about relativism that justifies, or at least explains, its continued appeal in the face of relentless attacks through the history of philosophy? This paper explores a new answer to this old question, casting the response in metaphilosophical terms. § i introduces the problem. § ii argues that one part of the answer is that some of the well-known defences of relativism take it to be a philosophical stance—that is, a broad perspective or orientation with normative consequences—rather than (...) a doctrine or a thesis. § iii draws attention to an assumption, not always explicitly stated by its proponents, that the relativist stance leads to the cultivation of some key intellectual virtues. Open-mindedness, tolerance, intellectual humility, and curiosity are examples of the intellectual virtues that relativism can foster. § iv argues that the defence of relativism on the basis of the virtues that are assumed to follow from it, at best, is only partially successful. Moreover, there is a range of epistemic vices, resulting from the stance, that undercuts the virtue-based defence presented in § iii. (shrink)

Faced with current urgent calls for more trust in experts, especially in high impact and politically sensitive domains, such as climate science and COVID-19, the complex and problematic nature of public trust in experts and the need for a more critical approach to the topic are easy to overlook. Scepticism – at least in its Humean mitigated form that encourages independent, questioning attitudes – can prove valuable to democratic governance, but stands in opposition to the cognitive dependency entailed by epistemic (...) trust. In this paper, we investigate the tension between the value of mitigated scepticism – understood as the exercise of reason-based doubt in a particular domain – and the need for trust in experts. We offer four arguments in favour of mitigated scepticism: the argument from loss of intellectual autonomy; the argument from democratic deficit; the argument from the normative failures of science; and the argument from past and current injustices. These arguments highlight the tension between the requirements for trust and justified scepticism about the role of experts. One solution, which we reject, is the idea that reliance, rather than trust, is sufficient for the purposes of accommodating experts in policy matters. The solution we endorse is to create a ‘climate of trust’, where questioning experts and expertise is welcomed, but the epistemic trust necessary for action upon information which the public cannot obtain first-hand is enabled and encouraged through structural, institutional, and justice-based measures. (shrink)

Abstract This paper discusses some recent work on the notion of possibility in Wittgenstein's Tractatus assessed by means of an interpretation of the notion put forward in Cerezo 2005. It argues that the proper way to understand the notion of possibility in the Tractatus must pay equal attention both to the picture theory and the truth-functions theory. From this perspective, through an examination of Peach's proposal (2007) it shows that the role played by the notion of logical space in the (...) determination of sense needs to be emphasized. In addition, the paper considers some consequences of the Tractarian notion of possibility, namely, the strong contingency of the world that it involves, which is revealed by the thinkability of logical space as empty envisaged by Wittgenstein in T 2.013, and also discusses the recent debate between Reinhardt (2005) and Geach (2006) on this issue. (shrink)

As it emerged from philosophical analyses and cognitive research, most concepts exhibit typicality effects, and resist to the efforts of defining them in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. This holds also in the case of many medical concepts. This is a problem for the design of computer science ontologies, since knowledge representation formalisms commonly adopted in this field do not allow for the representation of concepts in terms of typical traits. However, the need of representing concepts in terms of (...) typical traits concerns almost every domain of real world knowledge, including medical domains. In particular, in this article we take into account the domain of mental disorders, starting from the DSM-5 descriptions of some specific mental disorders. On this respect, we favor a hybrid approach to the representation of psychiatric concepts, in which ontology oriented formalisms are combined to a geometric representation of knowledge based on conceptual spaces. (shrink)

Razón, poesía, historia.--La cuestión del estoicismo español.--El querer.

The general topic of this paper is the ontological commitment to so-called "fictitious objects", that is, things and characters of fictional stories, like Sherlock Holmes and Pegasus. Discourse about fiction seems to entail an ontological commitment to fictitious entities, a commitment that is often deemed inconsistent with empirical facts. For instance, "Pegasus is a flying horse" seems to entail "There are flying horses" as well as "Pegasus exists" (according to some widely accepted logical principles). I discuss two solutions that have (...) been proposed in the literature. The first one amounts to rejecting sentences like "Pegasus is a flying horse" as false, at least if they are taken at face value. This solution is called the "story operator strategy". It consists in paraphrasing sentences like "Pegasus is a flying horse" by means of the expression "according to a story" such that they are interpreted as an elliptic formulation of, e.g., "According to a story, Pegasus is a flying horse". I spell out the difficulties of the story operator strategy and opt for a realist ontology of fiction. A novel interpretation of the story operator "according to a story" is given, which is not only consistent with but even sheds new light on such a realist ontology. In particular, it is shown how the story operator can be used as a tool to introduce the so-called "modes of predication distinction" (which is an essential ingredient of many realist ontologies of fiction) in a commonsensical way. (shrink)

Position and Criticism of the Symbolic Functionin the First Works of Merleau-PontyIn this article, we propose to address the question of the symbolic function in Merleau-Ponty’s first works. More specifically, we shall be interested in the place thathe grants to this question in The Structure of Behavior, and to the way he critically takes it up in the Phenomenology of Perception. Although Merleau-Ponty hardly clarifies this himself, Merleau-Ponty’s commentators also have rarely made this problematic an object of debate. In his (...) first work, by appropriating the semantics of the symbolic emerging from neuropsychology, Merleau-Ponty characterizes the level of organization of human corporality by means of its capacity to overcome the immediate character of lived situations. In this work, the categorical attitude appears as a new signification of organic structuration that, among the different forms of behavior, characterizes human activity. Moreover, in the chapters of the Phenomenology of Perception where Merleau-Ponty evokes the spatiality, the motility, and the expressivity of one’s own body, he abandons causal explanations of pathological phenomena which are used as if they are arguments, just as he gives up explanations copied off the symbolic function which are then associated with intellectualist analyses. These analyses delimit the notion of intentionality that Merleau-Ponty aims at developing. The notion is established on the foundation of the synergetic unity of one’s own body. Whence the importance that another theoretico-anthropological device acquires throughout the Phenomenology of Perception: the notion of the “corporeal schema”.Posizione e critica della funzione simbolicanei primi lavori di Merleau-PontyIn questo articolo ci proponiamo di affrontare la questione della funzione simbolica nei primi lavori di Merleau-Ponty. Ci interesseremo più specificamente al posto che è accordato a tale questione ne La struttura del comportamento e alla sua ripresa critica nella Fenomenologia della percezione. Poco esplicitata dal filosofo, questa problematica è altresì poco dibattuta presso i commentatori. Nel suo primo lavoro, Merleau-Ponty, appropriandosi della semantica del simbolo sorta dalla neuropsichiatria, caratterizza il livello d’organizzazione della corporeità umana mediante la sua capacità di superare il carattere immediato delle situazioni vissute. In quest’opera, l’attitudine categoriale appare come un nuovo signifi cato della ristrutturazione organica che, fra le differenti forme di comportamento, caratterizza l’attività umana. D’altronde, nei capitoli della Fenomenologia della percezione in cui Merleau-Ponty evoca la spazialità, la motricitàe l’espressività del corpo proprio, l’autore rinuncia alle spiegazioni causali dei fenomeni patologici utilizzati alla stregua di argomentazioni, così come rinuncia alla spiegazioni ricavate dalla funzione simbolica, ormai ricondotte a delle analisi di ordine intellettualistico. Tali analisi delimitano la nozione d’intenzionalità che il filosofo mira a sviluppare, e che si stabilisce in base al fondamento dell’unità simbolica del corpo proprio. Da qui l’importanza che acquista un altro dispositivo teorico-antropologico lungo tutta la Fenomenologia della percezione: la nozione di “schema corporeo”. (shrink)

Position and Criticism of the Symbolic Functionin the First Works of Merleau-PontyIn this article, we propose to address the question of the symbolic function in Merleau-Ponty’s first works. More specifically, we shall be interested in the place thathe grants to this question in The Structure of Behavior, and to the way he critically takes it up in the Phenomenology of Perception. Although Merleau-Ponty hardly clarifies this himself, Merleau-Ponty’s commentators also have rarely made this problematic an object of debate. In his (...) first work, by appropriating the semantics of the symbolic emerging from neuropsychology, Merleau-Ponty characterizes the level of organization of human corporality by means of its capacity to overcome the immediate character of lived situations. In this work, the categorical attitude appears as a new signification of organic structuration that, among the different forms of behavior, characterizes human activity. Moreover, in the chapters of the Phenomenology of Perception where Merleau-Ponty evokes the spatiality, the motility, and the expressivity of one’s own body, he abandons causal explanations of pathological phenomena which are used as if they are arguments, just as he gives up explanations copied off the symbolic function which are then associated with intellectualist analyses. These analyses delimit the notion of intentionality that Merleau-Ponty aims at developing. The notion is established on the foundation of the synergetic unity of one’s own body. Whence the importance that another theoretico-anthropological device acquires throughout the Phenomenology of Perception: the notion of the “corporeal schema”.Posizione e critica della funzione simbolicanei primi lavori di Merleau-PontyIn questo articolo ci proponiamo di affrontare la questione della funzione simbolica nei primi lavori di Merleau-Ponty. Ci interesseremo più specificamente al posto che è accordato a tale questione ne La struttura del comportamento e alla sua ripresa critica nella Fenomenologia della percezione. Poco esplicitata dal filosofo, questa problematica è altresì poco dibattuta presso i commentatori. Nel suo primo lavoro, Merleau-Ponty, appropriandosi della semantica del simbolo sorta dalla neuropsichiatria, caratterizza il livello d’organizzazione della corporeità umana mediante la sua capacità di superare il carattere immediato delle situazioni vissute. In quest’opera, l’attitudine categoriale appare come un nuovo signifi cato della ristrutturazione organica che, fra le differenti forme di comportamento, caratterizza l’attività umana. D’altronde, nei capitoli della Fenomenologia della percezione in cui Merleau-Ponty evoca la spazialità, la motricitàe l’espressività del corpo proprio, l’autore rinuncia alle spiegazioni causali dei fenomeni patologici utilizzati alla stregua di argomentazioni, così come rinuncia alla spiegazioni ricavate dalla funzione simbolica, ormai ricondotte a delle analisi di ordine intellettualistico. Tali analisi delimitano la nozione d’intenzionalità che il filosofo mira a sviluppare, e che si stabilisce in base al fondamento dell’unità simbolica del corpo proprio. Da qui l’importanza che acquista un altro dispositivo teorico-antropologico lungo tutta la Fenomenologia della percezione: la nozione di “schema corporeo”. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous nous proposons d?établir une analyse comparative entre l?approche de la notion de schéma corporel dans la Phénoménologie de la perception 1 et dans les Cours de Sorbonne , réalisés entre 1949 et 1952, et dédiés, surtout, à la psychologie de l?enfant. Dans la Phénoménologie de la perception , Merleau-Ponty critique le caractère associationiste qui a marqué l?émergence de la notion de schéma corporel dans la neuropsychiatrie au passage du xix e au xx e siècle. Pour le (...) philosophe, le sens vraiment fructueux de ce dispositif repose dans son caractère intentionnel. Merleau-Ponty opère une désubstantialisation de la notion concernée. De représentation ou de no­yau cognitif organisateur de notre expérience corporelle, elle passe à fonction pré-cognitive, expression de la perméabilité des parties de notre corps les unes en relation aux autres, et, également, de la perméabilité du corps au monde et à autrui. Après la Phénoménologie de la perception , cette perméa­bilité sera pensée de plus en plus dans les termes d?une « proximité vertigi­neuse » entre nous et les objets, entre nous et autrui. Le passage, que réalise Merleau-Ponty, de l?idée d?incarnation à la conception de chair commence à être conçu dans la période entre 1945 et 1952, et se nourrit de discussions concernant la corporéité à l?intérieur, principalement, de la psychologie de l?enfant et de la psychanalyse, ainsi. (shrink)