Assumindo que o “tornar-se cristão” é o eixo que sustenta toda a produção literária de Søren Kierkegaard, o escopo deste ensaio é tentar delinear o conceito de paixão apresentado em Temor e Tremor como uma condição necessária para a efetivação dos movimentos dialéticos que possibilitam o desenvolvimento da fé. Efetivamente, é através do pseudônimo Johannes de Silentio que Kierkegaard apresenta sua ode à fé. Neste sentido, é sobre o esteio da narrativa apresentada em Temor e Tremor acerca da fé demonstrada (...) por Abraão (quando Deus solicitou-lhe a vida de Isaac em sacrifício) que destacaremos a importância que o mencionado pseudônimo atribui à paixão como fundamento que precede e, substancialmente, compõe a fé última: aquela que só emerge ante ao absurdo, mas que, uma vez conquistada, assoma como possibilidade para a fuga do desespero da existência e para a construção de sentido para a vida humana. (shrink)

Unexpected discoveries in nonequilibrium physics and nonlinear dynamics are changing our understanding of complex phenomena. Recent research has revealed fundamental new properties of matter in far-from-equilibrium conditions, and the prevalence of instability-where small changes in initial conditions may lead to amplified effects.

That Jehovah’s Witnesses may refuse lifesaving blood transfusions is a morally accepted feature of contemporary medical practice. The principle of respect for autonomy supports this, and there is seldom reason to interfere with this choice because it rarely harms another individual. Advances in surgical technique have made it possible for transplant surgeons to perform bloodless organ transplant, enabling Jehovah’s Witnesses to benefit from this treatment. When the transplant organ is a directed donation from a family member or friend, no ethical (...) dilemma arises. However, when a Jehovah’s Witness cannot identify a living donor and wishes to be listed for organ transplant, the transplant team may face an ethical dilemma. On the one hand, it wishes to provide care to the patient that is compatible with her or his preferences. On the other hand, the team may wonder if it is fair to other patients who need an organ and will accept blood transfusion to include the Jehovah’s Witness patient on a waiting list for a donated organ. If the Jehovah’s Witness patient is listed and receives an organ, then a patient who also needs an organ, and who is willing to accept all care to optimize the success of the transplant, may be denied an organ.To frame the ethical dilemma outlined above we present an anonymized case of a Jehovah’s Witness woman in urgent need of a kidney, who was referred to one of the authors’ institution’s transplant center. We review the evolution of the Jehovah’s Witness position on blood transfusion and the medical community’s efforts to provide care that accommodates this religious commitment. If Witnesses are to be denied transplant in the name of justice, there must be an ethically sound reason. We identify two rationales in the literature: (1) this allocation is unacceptable because it will cost lives; (2) resources should be allocated to patients who comply with the standard of care. We argue that neither apply to this dilemma. We also emphasize the importance of examining the data on outcomes of transplant with and without transfusion. Our interpretation of the published data on transplant without transfusion is that the outcomes are similar. We conclude that, in the absence of data that resources are risked, it is not ethical to refuse to include a Jehovah’s Witness patient on a waiting list for an organ. Finally, we reflect on the heterogeneity in transplant institutes’ polices for accepting Jehovah’s Witness patients. (shrink)

A new assessment of baron d’Holbach (1723-1789), his works, his circle and his legacy, gathering together generations of d’Holbach scholars to analyse multiple aspects of his diverse intellectual commitment from fresh perspectives.

A Second level Master in “Clinical Bioethics Consultation” has been organized in Italy to offer an opportunity to offer an adequate training to carry out an ethics consultation in different health fields. The master has been promoted and realized by different institutions: Catholic University of Sacred Hearth in Rome, Insubria University in Varese, “Federico II” University in Naples, Lanza Foundation in Padua and the Local Health and Social Care Unit n.7 in Veneto Region. The aim of the master is train (...) ethics consultants to offer help regarding a correct decision, which will take by others. The choice must be as much as possible shared between patient, family and health care team. Ethics consultation can be primarily request by the physicians, nurses and health care staff such as support about a choice that wants to be the most appropriate and to clarify a dilemma between different options. Secondly an ethics consultation can be demand by the patient and the family members to find a clarification about their dilemmas and future choices. Also the administrative staff could ask the consultation, when it need to better explain ad example about a specific clinical case or a question concerned the health policy. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyze an Intensive Care Unit case that required ethics consultation at a University Hospital in Northern Italy. After the case was resolved, a retrospective ethical analysis was performed by four clinical ethicists who work in different healthcare contexts. Each ethicist used a different method to analyze the case; the four general approaches provide insight into how these ethicists conduct ethics consultations at their respective hospitals. Concluding remarks examine the similarities and differences among the (...) various approaches and offer a reflection concerning the possibility of a shared resolution to the case. The authors’ efforts to come to a tentative consensus may serve as an example for professionals working in medical contexts that reflect an increasing pluralism of values. This article aims to respond to some of these concerns by illustrating how different methods in clinical ethics would be used when considering a real case. The goal is not to establish the best model on a theoretical level, but to learn from actual practice in order to see if there are common elements in the different methods, and to validate their pertinence to clinical ethics consultation. (shrink)

En este trabajo consideramos los discursos políticos y económicos actuales proponiendo el fenómeno start-up como el síntoma de un cambio profundo en la gubernamentalidad neoliberal y un nuevo episodio en la larga historia de las prácticas de organización de la fuerza de trabajo, de su gobierno y movilización. Nos basamos en los textos de Michel Foucault y en la literatura neomanagerial actual para analizar las recientes transformaciones de la racionalidad neoliberal. Con este punto de partida, proponemos que el emprendedor neoliberal (...) del yo, el empresario de sí mismo, tal y como lo concibió Foucault, se está transformando, además, en una especie de inversor de sí mismo administrando permanentemente sus activos personales y buscando constantemente la autoevaluación y la autovalorización en la lógica del rendimiento.In this paper we consider the political and economic discourses hyping the «start-up phenomenon» as the symptom of a deep change in neoliberal governmentality and a new episode in the long history of the practices of workforce government and mobilisation. After pointing out the recent transformations of neoliberal rationality of government, we concentrate on the forms of subjectification implied by what could be defined as the start-up subject: the typically neoliberal entrepreneur of the self is thus transforming into a sort of investor of the self permanently managing his personal assets and incessantly searching for self-evaluation and self-valorisation. (shrink)

The COVID-19 virus is severely testing the Italian healthcare system, as the requests for intensive treatment are greater than the real capacity of the system to receive patients. Given this emergency situation, it follows that citizens are limited in their freedom of movement in order to limit infection, and that in hospitals a significant number of critical situations must be faced. This brief contribution aims to offer a reflection on the public and clinical role of the bioethicist: a figure able (...) to promote dialogue between the world of medicine and the community, and to face ethical dilemmas even in emergent clinical settings. (shrink)

Compilation of Andrade's writings on musical esthetics. Part of a series of publications edited by Flávia Camargo Toni aimed at making Andrade's collection available for study (for other works edited by Toni, see HLAS 52:5119 and HLAS 54:5167). This book undoubtedly adds to our understanding of Andrade's ideas, revealing his reliance on works by German musicologists such as Hugo Riemann and E. Hanslick"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

Resumo: Este artigo busca compreender a situaçáo filosófica de alguns dos autores cujas vidas e cujos pensamentos estiveram entre Kant e Hegel. Romantismo alemáo foi como ficou conhecida esta época. Dentre seus primeiros autores, estiveram Friedrich Schlegel e Novalis, além de Hölderlin. Tais pensadores buscaram superar a crítica feita por Kant à pretensáo do conhecimento filosófico de alcançar a verdade absoluta, as coisas como sáo em si mesmas. Essa superaçáo, contudo, jamais conseguiu, para eles, completar-se – como aconteceria depois no (...) sistema de Hegel, para quem contradições só seriam aceitas como etapas do que chamou de dialética, cuja essência era, ao fim, solucioná-las na figura da síntese. Limitaçáo finita do homem diante do todo do ser, como firmara Kant, era o que ficava para trás com Hegel. Schlegel, Novalis e Hölderlin náo se contentam com a crítica de Kant, mas tampouco acreditam na síntese de Hegel. Parecem sugerir outro caminho para a modernidade ocidental, que náo se jogava na sanha hegeliana pelo saber absoluto sem despertá-la, toda vez, pela consciência crítica kantiana – e que náo se contentava com esta sem sonhar com aquela. Tal caminho é o que este artigo busca compreender. Palavras-chave: Hegel; Kant; Romantismo. (shrink)

Patient-and-family-centered care (PFCC) is critical in end-of-life (EOL) settings. PFCC serves to develop and implement patient care plans within the context of unique family situations. Key components of PFCC include collaboration and communication among patients, family members and healthcare professionals (HCP). Ethical challenges arise when the burdens (e.g., economic, psychosocial, physical) of family members and significant others do not align with patients’ wishes. This study aims to describe the concept of vulnerability and the ethical challenges faced by HCPs in these (...) circumstances. Further, it assesses the contribution of clinical ethics consultation (CEC) in assisting HCPs to face these difficult ethical conundrums. Two clinical cases are analyzed using the Circle Method of CEC. The first regards the difficulty faced by the doctor in justifying treatments previously agreed upon between the patient and his/her friends. The second regards the patient’s concern about being a burden on their family. Family burdens in EOL settings challenge PFCC in that patient autonomy may be disregarded. This compromises shared decision-making between the patient, family and HCPs as a core component of PFCC. In their ability to promote a collaborative approach, CECs may assist in the successful implementation of PFCC. (shrink)

The Italian debate about the role of clinical ethics and ethics consultation has brought about the need to create a working group of Healthcare Ethics Consultation. The group began to take shape an...

This article studies the mathematical properties of two systems that model Aristotle's original syllogistic and the relationship obtaining between them. These systems are Corcoran's natural deduction syllogistic and ?ukasiewicz's axiomatization of the syllogistic. We show that by translating the former into a first-order theory, which we call T RD, we can establish a precise relationship between the two systems. We prove within the framework of first-order logic a number of logical properties about T RD that bear upon the same properties (...) of the natural deduction counterpart ? that is, Corcoran's system. Moreover, the first-order logic framework that we work with allows us to understand how complicated the semantics of the syllogistic is in providing us with examples of bizarre, unexpected interpretations of the syllogistic rules. Finally, we provide a first attempt at finding the structure of that semantics, reducing the search to the characterization of the class of models of T RD. (shrink)

Isometry hypotheses are propositions that assert the constancy of a specific physical magnitude of a system under prescribed conditions. This paper addresses the controversy concerning the conventionality of this type of hypotheses. It discusses several instances of isometry hypotheses and it is shown that experimental facts can be invoked to criticise (or "refute") isometry hypotheses, just as other types of hypotheses. This proves that isometry hypotheses, and the choices of measurement standards that are grounded in such hypotheses, are not merely (...) conventional. (shrink)

Projects of radical life extension have been discussed amongst scientists for years. Some bioethicists express reservations about this endeavor. A common objection appeals to demography: if the human lifespan is dramatically expanded, humanity would face an overpopulation problem. In this essay, the authors reply to this objection. They posit that radical life extension is unlikely to lead to overpopulation because overpopulation is determined more by fertility rates than by longevity, and as a result of the advanced phases of industrialization, fertility (...) rates are likely to be reduced, and therefore, population size would become stable. However, they argue that although overpopulation is not a concern for the foreseeable future, it is still important to acknowledge its potential harms. Finally, they argue that even if overpopulation becomes a problem caused by radical life extension, there are plausible ways to solve it. (shrink)

Joseph de Maistre is usually portrayed as Edmund Burke’s French counterpart, as they both wrote important treatises against the French Revolution. Although Maistre did share many of Burke’s conservative political views, he was much more than a political thinker. He was above all a religious thinker who interpreted political events through the prism of a particular retributionist theology. According to this theology, God punishes evil deeds, not only in the afterlife, but also in this terrestrial life; and sometimes, he may (...) even use human tyrants as instruments of his wrath. This interpretation especially evident in Maistre’s Considerations sur la France, an early work in his philosophical career. In that book, Maistre interprets the French Revolution as divine punishment, and in that regard, his views bear some similarities to the Deuteronomist historian in the Hebrew Bible, who interpreted the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian Exile, as divine punishment in retribution of Israel’s sins. (shrink)

A given but otherwise random environmental time series impinging on the input of a certain biological processor passes through with overwhelming probability practically undetected. A very small percentage of environmental stimuli, though, is ‘captured’ by the processor's nonlinear dissipative operator as initial conditions, and is ‘processed’ as solutions of its dynamics. The processor, then, is in such cases instrumental in compressing or abstracting those stimuli, thereby making the external world to collapse from a previous regime of a ‘pure state’ of (...) suspended animation into a set of stable complementary and mutually exclusive eigenfunctions or ‘categories'. The characteristics of this cognitive set depend on the operator involved and the hierarchical level where the abstraction takes place. Depending on the context, the transition from one state to another occurs in such a cognitive operator. The chaotic itinerancy may play a crucial role for this process. In this paper we model the dynamics which may underlie such a cognitive process and the role of the thalamo-cortical pacemaker of the brain. In order to model them, conceptualization by the notion of ‘attractor ruin’ in high-dimensional dynamical systems is necessary. (shrink)

The method of philosophy. Introduction to part I -- Thought experiments -- Reflective equilibrium -- What is philosophy? Introduction to Part II and Part III -- The nature of the philosophical enterprise -- The nature of intuitive judgements -- Experimental philosophy. Empirical inquiries versus armchair investigations -- Against experimental philosophy.

Many dubious disciplines have been removed from academic institutions, but theology is not one of them, as it is still taught in respectable universities. This article argues that theology does not deserve that special treatment. Theology has long pretended to be a science, but it can never be, because ultimately, theology is grounded on faith and authority, two tenets that run counter to the scientific method. Natural theology appeals to evidence and reason, but it also fails in its endeavor. More (...) recent theologians admit that their discipline is not science per se, but still consider it legitimate in its quest for meaning. There are also reasons to doubt this claim, as there is no need to appeal to the supernatural to find meaning. (shrink)

Shaming is defended by some as a necessary measure of social control. But shaming is unjust to the extent that it is disproportionate, and largely counterproductive. While much progress has been made, people with disabilities are still frequently at the receiving end of shaming. This is manifest in disregard for accommodation requests, condescending attitudes and overall lack of empathy towards people with disabilities. These trends are also manifest in clinical settings. Medical staff and healthcare workers need to seriously consider this (...) state of affairs and embrace attitudinal changes and policies that contribute to a more welcoming atmosphere towards the disabled, and consequently curb the shaming to which they have been traditionally exposed. (shrink)

The affective turn -- Violence against women: perspectives and strategies -- Notes -- References -- PART III: Togetherness and its forms -- 7. Feminist visions and socio-political meanings of non-monogamous love -- Contemporary bonding, plurality of love -- Consensual plurality and sustainability of bonding -- Notes -- References -- 8. The invisible ties We share: A relational analysis of the contemporary loving couple -- The semantics of love and the We -- Love in situation: the WeLR in motion -- Enminded (...) bodies in the WeLR -- Final remarks: the bonds the WeLR creates -- Notes -- References -- 9. Silent love: On Irigaray's suggestion of cultivating sexual difference -- A culture of two subjects -- Listening -- The meaning of the word 'silence' -- Silence as a condition of love -- Cultivating silence -- Silent love -- Notes -- References -- 10. Love, feminism and dialectics: Repairing splits in theory and practice -- Dialectical critical realism -- Benjamin: from existential tension to oppressive contradiction -- Dialectics, necessity and redemptive critique -- The reparative turn and the issue of transformation -- In the pulse of now -- Closing words -- Notes -- References -- Index. (shrink)

This paper studies the history of teleological thought in Antiquity, after Aristotle, analyzing three relevant episodes: the contribution of Theophrastus – a companion and successor of Aristotle; Stoicism, as described by Cicero in his work On the nature of gods; and Galen’s anatomical and physiological works, especially his book On the utility of the parts of the human body. This analysis exhibits the broad diversity of views concerning final causes in Antiquity, all of them widely different from Aristotle’s one, and (...) the strong influence of theological concerns in some of those philosophers – such as the Stoics and Galen. (shrink)

Julio A Andrade African Journal of Business Ethics 2013 7(1):40-42.

Compilation of Andrade's writings on musical esthetics. Part of a series of publications edited by Flávia Camargo Toni aimed at making Andrade's collection available for study (for other works edited by Toni, see HLAS 52:5119 and HLAS 54:5167). This book undoubtedly adds to our understanding of Andrade's ideas, revealing his reliance on works by German musicologists such as Hugo Riemann and E. Hanslick"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

Tomar a Regra IV como a junção ? sem o aval de Descartes ? de dois textos distintos passou a ser um lugar comum na literatura sobre aquele texto. Seria necessário explicar a distinção entre os textos recorrendo à outra importante distinção: entre mathesis universalis e método. Com efeito, nosso artigo tenta pôr em questão essa interpretação clássica na medida em que pretende mostrar que a revisão que se opera no seio da matemática torna-a menos uma ciência das grandezas abstratas (...) que um método que constrange as ciências a instituir a ordem e a medida em seus estudos. Em outras palavras, pode-se pensar que a discussão sobre a matemática em que se ocupa a Regra IV tem como objetivo uma universalização das operações de ordem e medida, em detrimento de uma compreensão da matemática como ciência das grandezas abstratas. Assim, defenderemos que a Regra IV ocupa-se de um único problema: a instituição de um método universal. Devemos considerá-la então como um único texto. (shrink)

Resenha do livro de: ALVES NETO, Rodrigo Ribeiro. Alienações do mundo: uma interpretaçáo da obra de Hannah Arendt . Rio de Janeiro/Sáo Paulo: Editora PUC-Rio/Edições Loyola, 2009, 216 p.