O debate em torno do futuro da Europa, e, em particular, sobre o controverso Tratado Constitucional da União Europeia tem suscitado a publicação recente de diversos artigos e livros sobre o tema. Esta diversidade confere, no entanto, a este ensaio, em nosso entender, uma originalidade acrescida, proporcionada, em larga medida, pelo recurso a uma reflexão crítica e assumidamente prospectiva com que o autor aborda um abrangente conjunto de matérias subjacentes ao processo de integração europeia...

This book symposium comprises a précis of Nuno Venturinha’s Description of Situations: An Essay in Contextualist Epistemology together with four critical commentaries on different aspects of the book by Marcelo Carvalho, João Vergílio Gallerani Cuter, Marcos Silva and Darlei Dall’Agnol, and the author’s replies.

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Boffa non-well-founded set theory allows for several distinct sets equal to their respective singletons, the so-called ‘Quine atoms’. Rieger contends that this theory cannot be a faithful description of set-theoretic reality. He argues that, even after granting that there are non-well-founded sets, ‘the extensional nature of sets’ precludes numerically distinct Quine atoms. In this paper we uncover important similarities between Rieger’s argument and how non-rigid structures are conceived within mathematical structuralism. This opens the way for an objection against Rieger, whilst (...) affording the theoretical resources for a defence of Boffa set theory as a faithful description of set-theoretic reality. (shrink)

The shooting bias hypothesis aims to explain the disproportionate number of minorities killed by police. We present the evidence mounting in support of the existence of shooting bias and then focus on two dissenting studies. We examine these studies in light of Biddle and Leuschner’s “inductive risk account of epistemically detrimental dissent” and conclude that, although they meet this account only partially, the studies are in fact epistemically and socially detrimental as they contribute to racism in society and to a (...) social atmosphere that is hostile to science as scholars working on issues of racism come under attack. We emphasize this final point via recourse to Kitcher’s “Millian argument against the freedom of research.”. (shrink)

This article provides a critical reexamination of Blaise Pascal’s fragment on the “eternal silence of infinite spaces”, challenging the conventional objections, notably those by Paul Valéry. It presents an analytical journey through the philosophical and existential dimensions of Pascal’s text, exploring the unique interplay between human solitude and cosmic silence. The discussion navigates the intricate relationship between individual perception and the overarching sense of existential dread evoked by the universe’s vastness. This exploration is enriched by contrasting Pascal’s insights with broader (...) philosophical contexts, including references to Kierkegaard and the concept of the ‘music of the spheres’. Ultimately, the paper offers a nuanced interpretation of Pascal’s work, emphasizing its enduring relevance in understanding the human condition within the unfathomable expanse of the universe. (shrink)

Robert Jervis's System Effects was published just as systems thinking began to decline among political scientists, who were adopting increasingly strict standards of causal identification, privileging experimental and large-N studies. Many politically consequential system effects are not amenable to research designs that meet these standards, yet they must nonetheless be studied if the most important questions of international politics are to be answered. For example, if nuclear weapons are considered in light of their effect on the international system as a (...) whole, it becomes clear that they have obviated the need for a global balance of power by allowing states to counterbalance threats by acquiring nuclear weapons rather than investing in massive conventional balancing efforts. Similarly, systems thinking should inform our understanding of the impact of a “unipolar power” such as the United States, which has enjoyed an overwhelming preponderance of conventional military power since the fall of the Berlin Wall. A unipolar power is likely to become involved in frequent conflicts because it is not restrained by the presence of a peer competitor. (shrink)

Inserido na colecção Temas de História de Portugal, cujo objectivo, balizado pelos seus coordenadores, Isabel Cluny e Nuno Gonçalo Monteiro, é “colocar à disposição dos leitores interessados textos sintéticos, mas actualizados, sobre grandes temas da História de Portugal”, A Cultura das Luzes em Portugal, Temas e Problemas é um ensaio-síntese da autoria de Ana Cristina Araújo e pretende gizar uma análise interpretativa da permeabilidade do espaço cultural português às novas correntes filosófi...

As it is well known, mobile phones have become a basic gadget for any individual that usually stores sensitive information. This mainly motivates the increase in the number of attacks aimed at jeopardizing smartphones, being an extreme concern above all on Android OS, which is the most popular platform in the market. Consequently, a strong effort has been devoted for mitigating mentioned incidents in recent years, even though few researchers have addressed the application of visualization techniques for the analysis of (...) malware. Within this field, the present work proposes the extension of a new technique called Hybrid Unsupervised Exploratory Plots to visualize Android malware datasets. More precisely, the novel Beta-Hebbian Learning (BHL) method is applied for the first time and validated under the frame of Hybrid Unsupervised Exploratory Plots, in conjunction with clustering methods. The informative visualization achieved provides a picture of the structure of the malware families, allowing subsequent analysis of their organization. To validate the Hybrid Unsupervised Exploratory Plot extension and its tuning, the popular Android Malware Genome dataset has been used in the experimental setting. Promising results have been obtained, suggesting that BHL applied in combination with clustering techniques in Hybrid Unsupervised Exploratory Plots are a viable resource for the visualization of malware families. (shrink)

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Warming up prior to competition is a widely accepted strategy to increase players’ readiness and achieve high performances. However, pre-match routines are commonly based on empirical knowledge and strongly influenced by models emerging from elite team practices. The aim of the present study was to identify and analyze current pre-match warm-up practices in elite futsal. Forty-three elite players were analyzed during their pre-match warm-up routines during the Portuguese Futsal Cup Final 8. Warm-up tasks were classified according to duration, type of (...) activity, sequence, and structure. External load variables included the total distance covered, total distance covered per minute, running distance per minute, sprinting distance per minute, number of accelerations per minute, and number of decelerations per minute. Results highlighted that warm-up routines lasted for 27.5 ± 9.2 min and included nine major different tasks. Open-skill activities were prioritized by coaches; competitive and non-competitive futsal-specific tasks were included in 90% of the total warm-up routines, with higher focus on non-competitive tasks. The intensity progressively increased during warm-ups, mainly because of the higher number of accelerations and decelerations per minute. Pre-match warm-up routines strongly endorse futsal-specific and representative tasks in order to establish pre-match settings able to prepare players for the upcoming game. When designing pre-match warm-up routines, coaches should be aware that duration, sequence, and type of tasks may affect players’ acute performance and readiness. (shrink)

Criticisms of the “container” model of pregnancy picturing female and embryo as separate entities multiply in various philosophical and scientific contexts during the last decades. In this paper, we examine how this model underlies received views of pregnancy in evolutionary biology, in the characterization of the transition from oviparity to viviparity in mammals and in the selectionist explanations of pregnancy as an evolutionary strategy. In contrast, recent evo-devo studies on eutherian reproduction, including the role of inflammation and new maternal cell (...) types, gather evidence in favor of considering pregnancy as an evolved relational novelty. Our thesis is that from this perspective we can identify the emergence of a newhistoricalindividual in evolution. In evo-devo, historical units are conceptualized as evolved entities which fulfill two main criteria, their continuous persistence and their non-exchangeability. As pregnancy can be individuated in this way, we contend that pregnant females are historical individuals. We argue that historical individuality differs from, and coexists with, other views of biological individuality as applied to pregnancy (the physiological, the evolutionary and the ecological one), but brings forward an important new insight which might help dissolve misguided conceptions. (shrink)

A cidade nas práticas artísticas [The city in artistic practices] is the result of the work developed, of the presentations and the debates held within the cycle of seminars “The experience of the city between art and philosophy”, held between 3 March 2020 and 16 June 2021 (calendar dramatically compromised by the challenges of the COVID 19 pandemic), one of the main activities of the OBRA project — Fragmentation and Reconfiguration: experiencing the city between art and philosophy, based at IFILNOVA (...) — Philosophy Institute of NOVA, in Lisbon. The book is divided into five parts, relating to each of the artistic disciplines to which the seminars were dedicated – cinema, photography, sound arts, literature and architecture —, which are edited by the organizers responsible for each of them — respectively, Susana Viegas, Humberto Brito, Nuno Fonseca João Oliveira Duarte and Susana Ventura — and composed of the respective narrated accounts of each seminar and of short essays, some merely textual, others graphical or even photographic, which are either in-depth versions of the reflections and positions that were presented and debated by the participants and guests, or works that motivated and inspired the work of the seminars. The seminar cycle and the book now presented here intend to reflect on the role of artistic practices in the representation and reconfiguration of urban experience, trying to understand their different attempts to apprehend and express the fragmentation of aesthetic experience in modern and contemporary cities, as well as to evaluate their contribution to an eventual symbolic and imaginative reconfiguration of that experience. Each section tries, in its own way, to answer questions such as: How do these arts think and reinvent the city? What do they make us feel? And what is their social and political role? For reasons that are easy to understand, Lisbon was the starting point, but other cities were also part of the journey. (shrink)

This book approaches classic epistemological problems from a contextualist perspective. The author takes as his point of departure the fact that we are situated beings, more specifically that every single moment in our lives is already given within the framework of a specific context in the midst of which we understand ourselves and what surrounds us. In the process of his investigation, the author explores, in a fresh way, the works of key thinkers in epistemology. These include Bernard Bolzano, René (...) Descartes, Gottlob Frege, Edmund Husserl, Immanuel Kant and Ludwig Wittgenstein, but also contemporary authors such as Stewart Cohen, Keith DeRose, David Lewis, Duncan Pritchard, Ernest Sosa and Charles Travis. Some of the topics covered are attributions of knowledge, the correspondence theory of truth, objectivity and subjectivity, possible worlds, primary and secondary evidence, scepticism, transcendentalism and relativism. The book also introduces a new contextualist thought-experiment for dealing with moral questions. Contextualism has received a great deal of attention in contemporary epistemology. It has the potential to resolve a number of issues that traditional epistemological approaches cannot address. In particular, a contextualist view opens the way to an understanding of those cognitive processes that require situational information to be fully grasped. However, contextualism poses serious difficulties in regard to epistemic invariance. This book offers readers an innovative approach to some fundamental questions in this field. (shrink)

Entre os muitos textos em que Leibniz introduz e apresenta o princípio de razão suficiente está, como se sabe, o do parágrafo 7 dos Princípios da Natureza e da Graça. O texto diz: "Jusqu'icy nous n'avons parlé qu'en simples Physiciens : maintenant il faut s'elever à la Metaphysique, en nous servant du Grand Principe, peu employé communement, qui porte que rien ne se fait sans raison suffisante, c'est à dire que rien n'arrive, sans qu'il soit possible à celuy qui connoitroit (...) assés les choses, de rendre une Raison qui suffise pour determiner, pourquoy il en est ainsi, et non pas autrement. Ce principe posé, la premiere question qu'on a droit de faire, sera, Pourquoy il y a plustôt quelque chose que rien? Car le rien est plus simple et plus facile que quelque chose. De plus, supposé que des choses doivent exister, il faut qu'on puisse rendre raison, pourquoy elles doivent exister ainsi, et non autrement". O texto é evidentemente muito denso e inclui uma enorme multiplicidade de aspectos que deveriam ser analisados, por exemplo, o pouco uso que se faz de um princípio que, todavia, está sempre presente em tudo o que pensamos e fazemos; o facto de ter de haver uma razão para haver algo e para haver o que há; o facto de o nada ser mais fácil do que o ente; que se entende, afinal, por razão, que é que queremos dizer quando dizemos que há razão para qualquer coisa; que é que a noção de suficiência acrescenta à noção de razão, etc. O problema é, aliás, bem actual. D. Parfit, em On What Matters, escreve logo na primeira página do primeiro capítulo: "It is hard to explain the concept of reason, or what the phrase 'a reason' means. Facts give us reasons, we might say, when they count in favour of our having some attitude, or our acting in some way. But 'counts in favour of' means roughly 'gives a reason for'. Like some other fundamental concepts, the concept of a reason is indefinable in the sense that it cannot be helpfully explained merely by using words". Ou seja, não é claro a que é que corresponde a noção de razão, e apesar de Parfit ignorar tranquilamente o que a tradição pensou sobre o assunto, pode valer a pena regressar a Leibniz, também porque Leibniz se vangloria com frequência de dizer que o princípio de razão suficiente é o seu princípio. (shrink)

A actual igreja paroquial de Santa Catarina, do antigo convento da congregação de São Paulo da Serra d’Ossa, é sem dúvida uma das mais ricas de Lisboa, e essa opulência, para além do seu recheio decorativo, passa também pela riqueza do seu programa iconográfico. Sendo originalmente igreja conventual de uma congregação eremítica, dedicada ao Santíssimo Sacramento, esta circunstância reflecte-se naturalmente no seu programa decorativo. Assim, é precisamente esta dupla vertente (a eucarística e a eremítica) que marca o seu complexo programa (...) iconográfico, que mantém, ainda hoje, a sua grandeza e plena integridade. (shrink)

In the field of cybernetic systems and more specifically in robotics, one of the fundamental objectives is the detection of anomalies in order to minimize loss of time. Following this idea, this paper proposes the implementation of a Hybrid Intelligent System in four steps to impute the missing values, by combining clustering and regression techniques, followed by balancing and classification tasks. This system applies regression models to each one of the clusters built on the instances of data set. Subsequently, a (...) variety of balancing techniques are applied to improve the classifier’s ability to discern whether it is in an error or a normal state. These techniques support to obtain better classification ratios in which a robot is close to error and allow us to bring the behavior back to a normal state. The experimentation is performed using a modern and public data set, which has been extracted from a component-based robotic system, in which different anomalies are induced by software in their components. (shrink)

Theistic modal realism argues for an extension of Lewis's modal realism capable of accommodating a theistic God. By affording elegant solutions to many atheistic challenges, the view is of great theoretical utility for the theist. However, it has been objected that within a Lewisian framework God cannot be causally efficacious on pain of collapsing intuitively distinct modal notions. In this article I explain why these worries are ill-founded and show how God's existence and causal power over the pluriverse can be (...) consistently understood. If successful, the proposal offers a congenial theistic way to adopt modal realism and address the atheological problems. (shrink)

This text consists of replies to commentaries by Michael Williams, Duncan Pritchard and Javier González de Prado on my book Description of Situations: An Essay in Contextualist Epistemology.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Individual in the Period Prior to the Theory of the Will to Power The Individual and Individuality in the Theory of the Will to Power Conclusion.

In this article I address the question of whether corporations should be considered as part of the basic structure of society as defined in Rawls’s Theory of Justice. To do so, it becomes necessary to understand which institutions are crucial for defining Rawls’s basic structure of society. I will argue that a social ontology aimed at understanding how human institutions influence various aspects presupposed in Rawls’s basic structure of society can help addressing this topic. To do so, I shall draw (...) upon the social ontology elaborated by Searle, who follows an approach that is particularly suitable for showing how Rawls’s basic structure of society already contains an institutional setting that must take corporations into account in its very formulation, due to the implications of the activities of the corporation for distributive justice. (shrink)

This text brings together replies to three commentaries on my Description of Situations: An Essay in Contextualist Epistemology (Springer, 2018) written by Modesto Gómez-Alonso, Anna Boncompagni and Marcin Lewiński.

The connections between Adam Smith and Catholic Social Teaching raise several questions. The principle of subsidiarity adopted in CST, according to which higher associations should not replace subordinate organizations on what the latter can do, seems to be in line with the idea that governmental intervention in the market sphere should be restricted to the minimum required, in line with what is typically seen as Smith’s view. But the principle of the common good would also recommend intervention from political authorities (...) in order to ensure that the common good is achieved. Here I shall argue that this question must be addressed taking into account another principle of CST, the principle of solidarity, and also the basic principle of CST, regarding human dignity. To do so, it is necessary to understand how the various principles of CST spring from the notion of imago Dei in CST, which is behind the notion of human dignity. This leads to a relational conception of human beings which can be fruitfully articulated with Smith’s moral philosophy and political economy. (shrink)

Wittgenstein: Lectures, Cambridge 1930–1933. From the Notes of G. E. Moore. Edited by Stern David G., Rogers Brian, Citron Gabriel.

While the notion of chance has been central in discussions over the probabilistic nature of natural selection and genetic drift, its role in the production of variants on which populational sampling takes place has received much less philosophical attention. This article discusses the concept of chance in evolution in the light of contemporary work in evo-devo. We distinguish different levels at which randomness and chance can be defined in this context, and argue that recent research on variability and evolvability demands (...) a causal understanding of variational probabilities under which development acquires a creative, rather than a constraining role in evolution. We then provide a propensity interpretation of variational probabilities that solves a conceptual confusion between causal properties, variational probabilities and extant variation present in the literature, and explore some metaphysical consequences that follow from our interpretation, specifically with regards to the nature of developmental types. 2.1Mutational randomness 2.2Morphological randomness 2.3Adaptive randomness3Variability and Phenotypic Probabilities 3.1The RNA model as a model for evo-devo4Evolvability and the Probability of Evolving5Variational Propensities in Evo-Devo 5.1Individuating variational propensities 5.2Developmental types6Conclusion. (shrink)

Cette étude met M. Henry en confrontation avec Freud, sur la question de l’inconscient et du refoulement. M. Henry dénonce la tentation idéologique des lectures de la théorie freudienne qui viendraient cacher précisément l’originalité de la pensée de Freud – tentation qui est elle-même liée aux présupposés scientistes de ce dernier –, mais il ne cesse d’affirmer que la psychanalyse « propose une nouvelle conception de la phénoménologie », en ceci qu’elle prône le caractère subjectif et immanent de la vie (...) à l’encontre de l’extériorité du monde. Nuno Miguel Proença situe ainsi d’emblée le lecteur dans ce rapport complexe de M. Henry à Freud. (shrink)

The focus of social simulation on representing the social world calls for an investigation of whether its implementations are inherently value-laden. In this article, I investigate what kind of thing implementation is in social simulation and consider the extent to which it has moral significance. When the purpose of a computational artefact is simulating human institutions, designers with different value judgements may have rational reasons for developing different implementations. I provide three arguments to show that different implementations amount to taking (...) moral stands via the artefact. First, the meaning of a social simulation is not homogeneous among its users, which indicates that simulations have high interpretive malleability. I place malleability as the condition of simulation to be a metaphorical vehicle for representing the social world, allowing for different value judgements about the institutional world that the artefact is expected to simulate. Second, simulating the social world involves distinguishing between malfunction of the artefact and representation gaps, which reflect the role of meaning in simulating the social world and how meaning may or not remain coherent among the models that constitute a single implementation. Third, social simulations are akin to Kroes’ techno-symbolic artefacts, in which the artefact’s effectiveness relative to a purpose hinges not only on the functional effectiveness of the artefact’s structure, but also on the artefact’s meaning. Meaning, not just technical function, makes implementations morally appraisable relative to a purpose. I investigate Schelling’s model of ethnic residential segregation as an example, in which different implementations amount to taking different moral stands via the artefact. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 21 A historical sequence is said to be hyperfactual whenever it contains facts that have been proved to exist twice, that is, they exist under two alternative courses of events: the factual and the counterfactual. In such cases, we may verify whether multiple courses of action lead to the same outcome. Drawing upon an idea from Nelson Goodman, each section of this article highlights a different type of hyperfactual sequence: those resulting from the turbulence of historical (...) turning points; those resulting from long term historical sequences; and those resulting from competing courses of action. The final section conveys how hyperfactuals represent the resistance of the multiple layers of history to the formalism of subjunctive conditionals. (shrink)

Psychodrama is an effective psychotherapeutic model but interventions with adolescents require age-tailored techniques that maximize engagement and facilitate communication processes. This study describes a novel adaptation of a therapeutic mask technique to psychodrama with adolescents. Over the course of eight group sessions of psychodrama, five adolescents created their own mask and explored its therapeutic use. Their experiences were captured at the end of each session with the Helpful Aspects of Therapy form, and at the end of the study with the (...) Clinical Change Interview. Awareness/insight/self-understanding, empowerment and relief were the most significant aspects experienced by the adolescents, along with perceived increase of calmness and world connection, satisfaction in interpersonal communication and better emotional expression and regulation. The mask technique was experienced as a playful and engaging task that facilitated insight and interpersonal communication. Findings provide preliminary evidence on the clinical utility of mask-based psychodrama with adolescents. (shrink)

The notion of fitness is usually equated to reproductive success. However, this actualist approach presents some difficulties, mainly the explanatory circularity problem, which have lead philosophers of biology to offer alternative definitions in which fitness and reproductive success are distinguished. In this paper, we argue that none of these alternatives is satisfactory and, inspired by Mumford and Anjum’s dispositional theory of causation, we offer a definition of fitness as a causal dispositional property. We argue that, under this framework, the distinctiveness (...) that biologists usually attribute to fitness—namely, the fact that fitness is something different from both the physical traits of an organism and the number of offspring it leaves—can be explained, and the main problems associated with the concept of fitness can be solved. Firstly, we introduce Mumford and Anjum's dispositional theory of causation and present our definition of fitness as a causal disposition. We explain in detail each of the elements involved in our definition, namely: the relationship between fitness and the functional dispositions that compose it, the emergent character of fitness, and the context-sensitivity of fitness. Finally, we explain how fitness and realized fitness, as well as expected and realized fitness are distinguished in our approach to fitness as a causal disposition. (shrink)

The formal and empirical-generative perspectives of computation are demonstrated to be inadequate to secure the goals of simulation in the social sciences. Simulation does not resemble formal demonstrations or generative mechanisms that deductively explain how certain models are sufficient to generate emergent macrostructures of interest. The description of scientific practice implies additional epistemic conceptions of scientific knowledge. Three kinds of knowledge that account for a comprehensive description of the discipline were identified: formal, empirical and intentional knowledge. The use of formal (...) conceptions of computation for describing simulation is refuted; the roles of programming languages according to intentional accounts of computation are identified; and the roles of iconographic programming languages and aesthetic machines in simulation are characterized. The roles that simulation and intentional decision making may be able to play in a participative information society are also discussed. (shrink)

Mainstream game theory explains cooperation as the outcome of the interaction of agents who permanently pursue their individual goals. Amartya Sen argues instead that cooperation can only be understood by positing a type of rule-following behaviour that can be out of phase with the pursuit of individual goals, due to the existence of a collective identity. However, Sen does not clarify the ontological preconditions for the type of social behaviour he describes. I will argue that Sen's account of collective identity (...) can be best interpreted in the light of John Searle's notion of collective intentionality, while Sen's explanation of rule-following behavior and agency is best understood using the critical realist transformational model of social activity. (shrink)

Background: Psychedelics are known for their powerful mental effects due to the activation of 5HT-2A receptors in the brain. During the 1950s and 1960s, research was conducted on these molecules until their criminalization. However, their clinical investigation as therapeutic tools for psychiatric disorders has revived the deontological ethics surrounding this subject. Questions arise as research on their therapeutic outcome becomes a reality. We aim to explore deontological ethics to understand the implications of psychedelics for the clinician, patient, and society. Results: (...) A total of 42 articles were considered for this review. Methods: A methodological search of psychedelic studies from 2017 to 2022 was conducted in PubMed, Scopus, EBSCOhost, and ScienceDirect to address the deontological ethics of clinical psychedelic use. Conclusion: Psychedelics need to be culturally contextualized, epistemic harm minimized and represented to ensure informed consent. Open data and commissions are needed to ensure safe and equal distribution. (shrink)

In this article, we describe how Louis-Joseph Lebret’s work, propelled by his human-centred spirituality, contributed to the development of an approach aimed at the transformation of social and eco...

The purpose of this paper is to uncover some of the limitations that critical contextual empiricism, and in particular Longino's contextualism, faces when trying to provide a normative account of scientific knowledge that is relevant to current scientific research. After presenting the four norms of effective criticism, I show how the norms have limited scope when dealing with cases of current scientific practices. I then present some historical evidence for the claim that the organization of science has changed in recent (...) decades, and I argue that the uncovered limitations emerge from this larger phenomenon. Finally, I conclude by suggesting two ways to overcome the previously uncovered limitations. (shrink)

This précis articulates the main themes of my book Description of Situations: An Essay in Contextualist Epistemology.

This paper explores the epistemological problem of holding something to be true while building on Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. I claim that it was Frege’s criticism of psychologism in logic that gave a boost to Wittgenstein’s reflections on this issue, an issue that already occupies a central place in Kant’s theory of knowledge. I shall endeavour to show that Wittgenstein’s considerations on rule-following and the systematic character of belief not only make evident the shortcomings of Frege’s explanation of how the mind (...) works but also take a step forward in overcoming the flaws of Kantian epistemology. The later Wittgenstein, I argue, goes further than Kant in the recognition that truth cannot attain more objectivity than the expression of our holding for true, but this does not mean endorsing any subjectivism. (shrink)

Sixty years after its first edition, there is an increasing consensus among scholars that the work posthumously published as _Philosophical Investigations _represents something that is far from a complete picture of Wittgenstein’s second book project. G.H. von Wright’s seminal research on the _Nachlass_ was an important contribution in this direction, showing that the Wittgenstein papers can reveal much more than the source of specific remarks. This book specifically explores Wittgenstein’s _Philosophical_ _Investigations_ from the different angles of its originary conceptions, including (...) the mathematical texts, shedding new light on fundamental issues in twentieth century and contemporary philosophy. Leading authorities in the field focus on newly published or hitherto unpublished sources for the interpretation of Wittgenstein’s later work and a Wittgenstein typescript, translated for the first time into English, is included as an appendix. (shrink)

In this paper the use of mathematics in economics will be discussed, by comparing two approaches to mathematics, a Cartesian approach, and a Newtonian approach. I will argue that while mainstream economics is underpinned by a Cartesian approach which led to a divorce between mathematics and reality, the contributions of key authors of the Cambridge tradition, like Marshall, Keynes and Sraffa, are characterised by a Newtonian approach to mathematics, where mathematics is aimed at a study of reality. Marshall was influenced (...) by the Newtonian approach that still characterised many aspects of the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos, where the emphasis was on geometrical and mechanical examples rather than on symbolic (Cartesian) mathematics. Keynes, who criticised (Cartesian) symbolic mathematics, was indeed an admirer of Newton and of his method. Sraffa's mathematical constructions are also in line with the Newtonian approach where arithmetic and geometry were strictly separated, since Sraffa's mathematical constructions typically use arithmetic without engaging in the mixture between geometry and arithmetic that occurs in the Cartesian approach. View the Open Peer Discussion of this paper ». (shrink)

In this article I draw upon the social ontologies developed by John Searle, Roy Bhaskar, Margaret Archer and Tony Lawson in order to distinguish between power and leadership. To do so, I distinguish the different organizing principles behind natural phenomena, collective phenomena and institutional phenomena, and argue that an understanding of those different organizing principles is essential to a clearer conceptualization of power and leadership. Natural power and cultural power, as I argue, depend upon the organizing principles of natural phenomena, (...) and differ depending on whether those organizing principles have been transformed by humans, in which case it becomes cultural power, or not, in which case it simply is natural power. Leadership emerges with the ability of making other humans share mental states through collective intentionality. Institutional power, in contrast, is connected to the creation of a deontology of rights and obligations that provide what Searle calls desire-independent reasons for action. (shrink)

Entre os muitos textos em que Leibniz introduz e apresenta o princípio de razão suficiente está, como se sabe, o do parágrafo 7 dos Princípios da Natureza e da Graça. O texto diz: "Jusqu'icy nous n'avons parlé qu'en simples Physiciens: maintenant il faut s'elever à la Metaphysique, en nous servant du Grand Principe, peu employé communement, qui porte que rien ne se fait sans raison suffisante, c'est à dire que rien n'arrive, sans qu'il soit possible à celuy qui connoitroit assés (...) les choses, de rendre une Raison qui suffise pour determiner, pourquoy il en est ainsi, et non pas autrement. Ce principe posé, la premiere question qu'on a droit de faire, sera, Pourquoy il y a plustôt quelque chose que rien? Car le rien est plus simple et plus facile que quelque chose. De plus, supposé que des choses doivent exister, il faut qu'on puisse rendre raison, pourquoy elles doivent exister ainsi, et non autrement" (LEIBNIZ, 1978a, 602). O texto é evidentemente muito denso e inclui uma enorme multiplicidade de aspectos que deveriam ser analisados, por exemplo, o pouco uso que se faz de um princípio que, todavia, está sempre presente em tudo o que pensamos e fazemos; o facto de ter de haver uma razão para haver algo e para haver o que há; o facto de o nada ser mais fácil do que o ente; que se entende, afinal, por razão, que é que queremos dizer quando dizemos que há razão para qualquer coisa; que é que a noção de suficiência acrescenta (ou não acrescenta) à noção de razão (isto é, uma razão insuficiente é, nalgum sentido do termo, ainda uma razão?), etc. O problema é, aliás, bem actual. D. Parfit, em On What Matters, escreve logo na primeira página do primeiro capítulo: "It is hard to explain the concept of reason, or what the phrase 'a reason' means. Facts give us reasons, we might say, when they count in favour of our having some attitude, or our acting in some way. But 'counts in favour of' means roughly 'gives a reason for'. Like some other fundamental concepts (…), the concept of a reason is indefinable in the sense that it cannot be helpfully explained merely by using words"(PARFIT, 2011, p. 31). Ou seja, não é claro a que é que corresponde a noção de razão, e apesar de Parfit ignorar tranquilamente o que a tradição pensou sobre o assunto, pode valer a pena regressar a Leibniz, também porque Leibniz se vangloria com frequência de dizer que o princípio de razão suficiente é o seu princípio. (shrink)