Em 18 de setembro de 1789, referindo-se ao alcance do poder constituinte da Assembleia Nacional, Mirabeau afirmou que era preciso, nessas horas de mudança, “evitar a subitaneidade do trânsito”. Em um luminoso ensaio de 1927, consagrado ao “Orador do Povo”, José Ortega y Gasset ensina que, na ocasião, “a política de Mirabeau, como toda política autêntica, postula a unidade dos contrários. É pre-ciso, ao mesmo tempo, um impulso e um freio, uma força de acele-ração, de mudança social, e uma força (...) de contenção que impeça a vertiginosidade”. Esta definição de Ortega, que equipara a construção de um novo regime com o método da política, não só é singularmente útil para analisar as situações em que os processos de mudança não são descontínuos, onde a ruptura é de alguma maneira negociada, mas torna a nosso autor um autêntico teórico da reforma social e, por esta via, da moderação política (e da virtude, na tradição aristotélica). Não se esgota aqui, porém, o veio da moderação em Ortega. Em outra obra contemporânea da anterior, o filósofo espanhol evoca uma dimensão não menos importante dela: o tema da convivência e da conciliação. E se vale de um autor do século XIV, Ibn Khaldun, para lembrar-nos o ilusório da table rase, para que advirtamos que ainda em nossos dias toda mudança duradoura deve valer-se sempre de uma tradição longa contra uma tradição curta, que é através do retorno que se faz o novo. Parafraseando, pois, o título deste segundo ensaio, Ortega y Gasset nos revela o segredo: as chaves da mudança social em liberdade. (shrink)

This chapter argues that from a particularly weak recombination principle and plausible assumptions about the nature of parthood and location, it follows that it is possible that the mereological structure of the material world and that of space-time fail to correspond to one another in very radical ways. The chapter suggests, moreover, that rejecting the possibility of such failures of correspondence leaves us with a choice of no less unappealing alternatives. It also discusses a few ways in which their possibility (...) is relevant to various important debates in metaphysics. (shrink)

This reading companion and commentary on Lacan Seminar XXIII provides detailed analyses of Lacan's seminar while maintaining an overall continuity and consistency. This book does not purport to provide an exhaustive and systematic line-by-line reading of a very complex and varied seminar. Rather it selects key themes of Lacanian theory that are found present throughout his work. In addition, the book does not try to simplify Lacan's ambiguous style, leaving the text open to different interpretations, while providing theory, commentary, and (...) lines of analysis into some of Lacan's important insights. Finally, this book is not about Joyce the writer, but more about the use that Lacan makes of Joyce. Its purpose is not to apply psychoanalysis to a literary subject, but rather to use the literary text to illustrate and develop psychoanalytic theory, and Lacanian theory in particular. It is an analysis of topology and language, or a linguisterie, as Lacan called it, for clinicians. The references to neurosis and psychosis are always there. However, a Lacanian clinic can also be of service to those interested in literary theory and/or social studies to develop theory within their own respective fields of studies. (shrink)

En el texto se presenta a la sofística como precursora de la filosofía práctica, y se la reconoce como anticipadora del pensamiento aristotélico. La vía por la que se muestra dicha relación es el reconocimiento del papel primordial que esta concede al lenguaje y en especial al que adquiere la forma de discursos que buscan persuadir, a la retórica como piedra angular de la formación ciudadana en cuanto preparación para la vida pública. De esta manera se reconoce la importancia que (...) la retórica tuvo para la filosofía en sus orígenes, y cómo perfilaba otra manera de entender la racionalidad, no como teórica sino como práctica. Después se pasa a mostrar cómo según Chaïm Perelman, a partir de una reinterpretación de cierta parte de la obra de Aristóteles, es plausible postular a la retórica como un modelo más adecuado para entender la filosofía. (shrink)

Musonius problématise la politique stoïcienne de manière originale. Sous la direction du maître, l'individu assimile les principes de la vertu et renoue, dans l'ascèse, avec l'impulsion fondamentale de l'oikeiôsis. Le mariage, modèle de toute relation, fonde la petite comme la grande cité qu'il préfigure.

The year 1992 is a year for reflection, because whether or not the quincentenary celebration of the arrival of the Europeans to this continent seems justified, one cannot escape thinking about the impact of this event on our land.As archeology is my area of study, my reflections are directed toward the changes that came about in the relationship between man and animals after 1492, specifically toward what occurred in Mexico once the Spaniards established themselves in this territory.

I argue that from a very weak recombination principle and plausible assumptions about the nature of parthood and location it follows that it's possible that the mereological structure of the material world and that of spacetime fail to correspond to one another in very radical ways. I defend, moreover, that rejecting the possibility of such failures of correspondence leaves us with a choice of equally radical alternatives. I also discuss a few ways in which their possibility is relevant to various (...) debates in metaphysics. (shrink)

En base a una confrontación estrictamente racional con la tradición filosófica, Plotino establece un principio transcendente al ser y al pensamiento y que, sin embargo, funge como principio creador, constitutivo y diferenciador de todo lo existente: el Uno o la Unidad absolutamente simple. En sí mismo inaccesible, se manifiesta ya sea por revelación (la cual sólo es una hipótesis para Plotino) o por sus efectos. Por eso, el discurso filosófico sobre el Uno sólo es posible desde la perspectiva de la (...) multiplicidad y, por tanto, tiene un carácter aproximativo. La forma que este discurso asume es necesariamente la de las vías analogiae, eminentiae y negationis. De este modo, la razón misma nos remite por primera vez a un principio que le antecede y que, a la vez la funda, dándose así inicio a una segunda época en la historia de la filosofía. (shrink)

We study whether robots can satisfy the conditions of an agent fit to be held morally responsible, with a focus on autonomy and self-control. An analogy between robots and human groups enables us to modify arguments concerning collective responsibility for studying questions of robot responsibility. We employ Mele’s history-sensitive account of autonomy and responsibility to argue that even if robots were to have all the capacities required of moral agency, their history would deprive them from autonomy in a responsibility-undermining way. (...) We will also study whether humans and technological artifacts like robots can form hybrid collective agents that could be morally responsible for their actions and give an argument against such a possibility. (shrink)

Raúl Arrabales, Int. J. Mach. Conscious., 06, 1 (2014). DOI: 10.1142/S1793843014400010.

I give shape to a neglected debate in metaphysics, the debate over the ontological priority between individuality and collectivity. I distinguish the debate from more familiar ones in the recent literature and articulate what I call ontological collectivism, the view that collectivity is prior to individuality. I defend the in-principle intelligibility of the view from forceful general objections and argue that not only is it coherent but also of significant interest to the literature: it allows for overlooked alternatives on a (...) variety of central discussions. (shrink)

Page 1. Economics and Philosophy, 26 291--320 Copyright C Cambridge University Press doi: 10.1017 / S0266267110000386 TWO KINDS OF WE-REASONING RAUL HAKLI, KAARLO MILLER AND RAIMO TUOMELA University of Helsinki.

One of the key problems the field of Machine Consciousness is currently facing is the need to accurately assess the potential level of consciousness that an artificial agent might develop. This paper presents a novel artificial consciousness scale designed to provide a pragmatic and intuitive reference in the evaluation of MC implementations. The version of ConsScale described in this work provides a comprehensive evaluation mechanism which enables the estimation of the potential degree of consciousness of most of the existing artificial (...) implementations. This scale offers both well defined levels of artificial consciousness and a method to calculate an orientative numerical score . A set of architectural and cognitive criteria is considered for each level of the scale. This permits the definition of a cognitive framework in which MC implementations can be ranked according to their potential capability to reproduce functional synergies associated with consciousness. The probability of the implementations having any phenomenal states related to the assessed functional synergy is not specifically addressed in this paper; nevertheless, it could be thoughtfully discussed elsewhere. (shrink)

Various sources in the literature claim that the deduction theorem does not hold for normal modal or epistemic logic, whereas others present versions of the deduction theorem for several normal modal systems. It is shown here that the apparent problem arises from an objectionable notion of derivability from assumptions in an axiomatic system. When a traditional Hilbert-type system of axiomatic logic is generalized into a system for derivations from assumptions, the necessitation rule has to be modified in a way that (...) restricts its use to cases in which the premiss does not depend on assumptions. This restriction is entirely analogous to the restriction of the rule of universal generalization of first-order logic. A necessitation rule with this restriction permits a proof of the deduction theorem in its usual formulation. Other suggestions presented in the literature to deal with the problem are reviewed, and the present solution is argued to be preferable to the other alternatives. A contraction-and cut-free sequent calculus equivalent to the Hubert system for basic modal logic shows the standard failure argument untenable by proving the underivability of DA from A. (shrink)

RESUMO Hans Jonas na obra O Princípio Responsabilidade: ensaio de uma ética para a civilização tecnológica (2006 [1979]) apresenta o diagnóstico de uma civilização debilitada e perecível, constantemente ameaçada pelos poderes do homem tecnológico. De posse desta análise, constrói uma proposta no sentido de novas fundações para o edifício ético a partir de uma responsabilidade. Jonas constata o caráter antropocêntrico de uma ética que não abrangia as consequências dos impactos oriundas da ação humana sobre o homem e a vida na (...) biosfera. Em seu ideário filosófico sobre a civilização tecnológica, estende as atitudes dos homens para além do agir próximo, reconhecendo um direito próprio da natureza. A recolocação conceitual da natureza, dotada de finalidade própria, expressa que o poder tecnológico promove os desafios morais da contemporaneidade, visto que há a possibilidade certa (causas) e incerta (consequências) de os efeitos acumulativos desta mesma tecnologia pôr em perigo a continuidade futura da vida sobre o planeta. O imperativo da responsabilidade resulta do poder do homem contemporâneo sobre si e sobre o planeta. Caracteriza-se por ser uma responsabilidade perante a natureza e perante o próprio homem. A concepção de responsabilidade em Jonas está em conformidade com uma nova exigência axiológica. É uma responsabilidade que se firma com a preservação da vida em um futuro distante e com a continuidade da vida tal como conhecemos. O que justifica um pretenso biocentrismo no princípio responsabilidade é o fato de que a continuidade da existência gera uma obrigação com a vida, porque dizer sim a ela é ser. O grande objetivo de uma nova abordagem biocêntrica, como o imperativo de Jonas, é de manter a existência da humanidade futura, em um futuro que existam candidatos a um universo moral em um mundo concreto – o autêntico objetivo da responsabilidade.: Hans Jonas in the book The imperative of the responsibility: in search of an ethics for the technological age (2006 [1979]) presents a diagnosis of a civilization weakened and perish, constantly threatened by the powers of technological man. Armed with this analysis, a proposal to build new foundations for the building from an ethical responsibility. Jonas notes the character of an anthropocentric ethic that did not cover the consequences of impacts arising from human action on man and life in the biosphere. In his philosophical ideas on the technological civilization extends men's attitudes beyond the next act, recognizing an inherent right of nature. The replacement of the conceptual nature, with its own purpose, expressed that technological power promote the moral challenges of contemporary times, since there is a certain possibility (causes) and uncertain (consequences) of the cumulative effects of this same technology to jeopardize the continued future life on the planet. The imperative of responsibility results from the power of modern man about himself and the planet. It is characterized by being a responsibility to nature and to the man himself. The conception of responsibility in Jonas is in accordance with a new demand axiological. It is a responsibility that is established with the preservation of life in the distant future and the continuity of life as we know. What justifies a purported biocentrism the principle responsibility is the fact that the continued existence creates a bond with life, because she is saying yes to be. The ultimate goal of a new approach biocentric, as the imperative of Jonas, is to maintain the existence of mankind in the future, a future in which there are candidates for a moral universe in a concrete world - the real goal of the responsibility. Keywords : the imperative of responsibility, demand axiological, nature, biocentrism. (shrink)

Endorsing the idea of group knowledge seems to entail the possibility of group belief as well, because it is usually held that knowledge entails belief. It is here studied whether it would be possible to grant that groups can have knowledge without being committed to the controversial view that groups can have beliefs. The answer is positive on the assumption that knowledge can be based on acceptance as well as belief. The distinction between belief and acceptance can be seen as (...) a refinement of the ordinary language concept of belief, and it may be useful in understanding the nature of epistemic justification and classifying various types of epistemic subjects. (shrink)

This analysis comes from a philosophical glance at Aristophanic comedy, where the problem seems to move towards universality of poetry. The common manner to face this problem is getting close to the concepts of learning and inference, introduced in the field of a sort of action or a sort of character without consideration for the Aristotle’s horizon of the poetic research télos, érgon, oikeía hedone and katharsis, or the Greek theatrical-poetic representation as an autonomous form of universal mythos. The underestimation (...) of the comic genre has centered the research upon Aristophanes in the fields of politics, philology and history, but seldom philosophy. (shrink)

"The Concept of Number", by Ernst Cassirer, is the second chapter of his first systematic work, the "Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff: Untersuchungen über die Grundfragen der Erkenntniskritik", originally published in German in 1910. The translation to English, in 1953, by Marie Collins Swabeyand William Curtis Swabey, under the title "Substance and Function and Einstein's Theory of Relativity", despite its importance for having widely disseminated the work, loses in its title the work's essence: the opposition between "concept-substance" and "concept-function", or rather, between (...) "substantial-concept" and "functional-concept". Cassirer possesses along with a "theory of symbolical forms" a "theory of culture". These theories are "theories of conceptual formation" and they are in charge of various case studies developed by Cassirer in “Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff”. Chapter 2, now translated, is a reading of the historical development of the concept of number under the view of a general theory of the concept that he presents in the second chapter of the book “Zur Theorie der Begriffsbildung” (On the theory of the conceptual formation). (shrink)

Cet article considère les concepts de la confession et de la parrêsia dans l’oeuvre de Michel Foucault et les applique à l’analyse de la construction du sujet femme. Il montre comment dans une perspective confessionnelle, la femme entretiendrait un rapport à ellemême et aux autres qui tend à un auto-assujettissement selon des catégories normatives essentialistes. À ce dire-vrai confessionnel, j’oppose le dire-vrai parrèsiastique, en m’interrogeant sur la possibilité d’attribuer un rôle émancipateur à l’identité « femme ». La parrêsia devient alors (...) le modèle d’un discours critique, qui se rapproche de la critique sociale caractérisant le féminisme. Je retrouve ainsi dans l’histoire du féminisme des témoignages de ce que Foucault redécouvre chez le Grecs comme parrêsia politique, éthique et cynique. (shrink)

Cet article considère les concepts de la confession et de la parrêsia dans l’oeuvre de Michel Foucault et les applique à l’analyse de la construction du sujet femme. Il montre comment dans une perspective confessionnelle, la femme entretiendrait un rapport à ellemême et aux autres qui tend à un auto-assujettissement selon des catégories normatives essentialistes. À ce dire-vrai confessionnel, j’oppose le dire-vrai parrèsiastique, en m’interrogeant sur la possibilité d’attribuer un rôle émancipateur à l’identité « femme ». La parrêsia devient alors (...) le modèle d’un discours critique, qui se rapproche de la critique sociale caractérisant le féminisme. Je retrouve ainsi dans l’histoire du féminisme des témoignages de ce que Foucault redécouvre chez le Grecs comme parrêsia politique, éthique et cynique. (shrink)

Epistemic justification of non-summative group beliefs is studied in this paper. Such group beliefs are understood to be voluntary acceptances, the justification of which differs from that of involuntary beliefs. It is argued that whereas epistemic evaluation of involuntary beliefs can be seen not to require reasons, justification of voluntary acceptance of a proposition as true requires that the agent, a group or an individual, can provide reasons for the accepted view. This basic idea is studied in relation to theories (...) of dialectical justification in which justification is taken to require ability to justify. Since the reasons offered can in principle always be challenged, there is no ultimate end to the dialectical chain of justification. This makes justification of acceptance, and thus group belief, social and, in a way, contextual, but this does not seem to entail strong forms of epistemic relativism. (shrink)

Pt. 1. Les nouvelles passions de l'âme -- Des passions libérées -- L'amour -- La sexualité -- Des passions récemment apparues -- La consommation -- Le travail -- Le sortilège de la finance -- Des passions qui disparaissent ici, s'affirment là, ou se transmutent -- Le sentiment religieux -- L'attachement à la nation -- L'honneur -- L'humilité -- Des états dont le sens nous reste caché le plus souvent -- Le déni -- L'ennui -- La présence -- Pt. 2. Le (...) problème du corps et de l'esprit aujourd'hui -- L'erreur de Damasio -- L'autre erreur des neurosciences -- Le mirage d'une science prédictive de la pensée -- La question de la diversité des humains -- La descendance de Darwin -- Savoir vieux et savoir neuf -- La redécouverte de l'esprit -- Pt. 3. Règles pour la direction de la vie -- Règle 1 -- Règle 2 -- Règle 3 -- Règle 4 -- Règle 5. (shrink)