I analyze the theoretical tenets of early ethology and the criticisms leveled against it from comparative psychology. Early ethology had a clear research object, the study of behavioral adaptedness. Adaptedness was explained by the functional rules and programs that underlie the relation between a given organism and its natural environment (the function cycle). This research object was lost during the redefinition of ethology that took place after the Second World War, a redefinition that led to an emphasis on physiological and (...) evolutionary explanations instead of functional ones. This loss happened because early ethologists did not make their aims sufficiently clear and because of fundamental epistemological and semantic misunderstandings between ethologists and comparative psychologists. I argue that the behavioral explanation of adaptedness is different from both physiological and ecological research and that it needs functional concepts similar to the ones of early ethology. I defend the idea of function cycles and causal centers defined in terms of perceptual selection and behavioral response tendencies and I try to show that these functional concepts may be fruitfully combined with learning theories. I suggest calling this line of research Comparative Behavioral Ethology. (shrink)

Trata-se de uma análise das afinidades da filosofia de Schopenhauer (1788-1860) no pensamento de Emil Cioran (1911-1995). Autor influente na Romênia desde o século XIX, Schopenhauer é considerado uma das principais referências de Cioran. As fichas de leituras, cartas, expressões e os temas abordados por Cioran constituem uma gama de argumentos para aproximação do filósofo romeno ao filósofo do pessimismo.

De 1964 a 1985 o Brasil viveu sob um regime de governo ditatorial que de acordo com a historiografia mais recente foi sustentado, em grande parte, pela própria sociedade civil (MELO, 2012; COMISSÃO, 2014). Mais recentemente, a partir dos anos 1980, cresce o movimento de criação de espaços de memória corporativos com o objetivo de tornar pública a trajetória histórica das empresas (COSTA; SARAIVA, 2011). Dentre estes espaços, adquire relevância os Centros de Memória e documentação como lugares de armazenamento (...) e lembrança de memória organizacional, que ajudam a construir simbolicamente a imagem organizacional e a fornecer um senso de coerência e trajetória linear (RIBEIRO; BARBOSA, 2007). Neste contexto, e com base na documentação disponibilizada pela Comissão Nacional da Verdade, a presente pesquisa tem por objetivo identificar como o Museu Histórico da Fundação Bradesco retrata (ou deixa de retratar) o relacionamento da empresa Bradesco com o governo brasileiro no período da ditadura civil-militar. FIRMS, BRAZILIAN CIVIL-MILITARE DICTATORSHIP, AND MEMORY AND CORPORATIVE DOCUMENTATION CENTERS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY From 1964 to 1985, Brazil lived under a dictatorial system of government that according to the latest historiography was sustained largely by civil society (MELO, 2012; COMISSÃO, 2014). More recently, since the 1980s, it is possible to be noticed the growing movement of creation of corporate memory spaces in order to make public the historical trajectory of the companies (COSTA and SARAIVA, 2011). Among these spaces, acquires relevance the Corporate Documentation and Memory Centers, which help to symbolically build the organizational image and to provide a sense of consistency and linear trajectory (RIBEIRO and BARBOSA, 2007). In this context, and based on documentation provided by the National Commission of Truth, this research aims to identify how the History Museum of Bradesco Foundation portrays (or does not portray) the relationship between Bradesco company and the Brazilian government in the period of civil-military dictatorship. (shrink)

Uma exegese filosófica da problemática do niilismo na obra de Cioran, partindo de uma análise lexicográfica dos usos discursivos deste conceito, mas sem se limitar a ele (que está longe de ter um estatuto privilegiado no discurso cioraniano). Levando em conta a reviravolta que marca uma cisão no âmago da obra de Cioran, na transição entre seus escritos romenos e franceses, e combinando à lexicografia um procedimento propriamente hermenêutico do tema do niilismo, conclui-se com uma reflexão sobre o nexo entre (...) niilismo e humor na obra francesa de Cioran, notadamente em Silogismos da amargura (1952), em contraste com o niilismo da “seriedade infinita” (sinônimo de desespero) que caracteriza a sua obra romena. (shrink)

QUESTIONS DE METHODE I. Au contraire de Sartre qui, a partir de quelques elements cueillis dans les ecrits de HusserI concernant la conscience ima geante, a bllti sa propre doctrine de!'imagination, nous nous proposons de reconstituer, a partir de ces m~mes elements, ce qu'on pourrait appeler la theort:e husserlienne de l'imagination, c'est-a-dire la theorie que HusserI eut lui-m~me construite, s'il avait reuni en une synthese les elements qu'il a laisses epars. Une entreprise de ce genre est toujours delicate et souleve (...) des prob!emes difficiles - a commencer par celui de sa legitimite. N ous ecartons d'emblee l'objection d'ordre general qui contesterait Ie droit de systematiser dans l'reuvre d'un auteur ce que lui-m~me a laisse disperse et eventuellement inacheve. Par un tel scrupule, on sacrifie sans doute a la rigueur historique mais on est beaucoup moins soucieux de penetrer une pensee dans son dynamisme in terne et profond et, en derniere analyse, on protege les droits de l'archeologie mais non pas ceux de la culture et de son progreso Nous pensons a une difficulte beaucoup plus serieuse; de sa so lution depend l'attitude a adopter en face des textes dont nous devons nous servir dans notre etude. Nous utilisons des ouvrages qui couvrent la totalite de la car riere philosophique de HusserIl. (shrink)

L'omniprésence des images dans la société mass-médiatique est corrélative de leur évanescence et du constant renouvellement qui conditionne le processus de leur consommation. Leur omnipotence se réduit ainsi à celle de stimuli destinés à induire des comportements. Or, il convient d'autant plus de revenir d'une telle exténuation de l'image que cette dernière constitue l'une des dimensions essentielles du déploiement de la vie humaine. L'image est traditionnellement rapportée à l'activité imaginante d'un sujet. Mais, s'il est vrai que l'étoffe des hommes et (...) des choses qui se donnent à voir dans le paraître sensible d'une image n'existe pas coupée d'un tel paraître, l'esthétique relève aussi de l'ontologie et sa tâche est de nous ré-apprendre à contempler les images. Au regard de la clarté et de la distinction conférées par la théorie à notre appréhension des choses, la détermination positive des images ne tient-elle pas en effet au fait que c'est dans leur dimension qu'il nous est donné de faire l'expérience vive du paraître de ces choses, jusqu'à l'extrême de l'horreur, du merveilleux et du sacré? (shrink)

« Qui nous sauve d’une réification de la conscience est le sauveur de la philosophie, voire son créateur ». Un phénoménologue ne peut que souscrire à une telle affirmation, dont la paternité revient à Husserl et dont la clairvoyance est tout à fait frappante. Renaud Barbaras rappelle souvent cette formule et il lui est même arrivé d’écrire qu’elle constitue « en quelque sorte [sa] boussole théorique ». Puisque boussole il y a, je vais suivre son cap pour tenter de ressaisir (...) ce qu’il en est de... (shrink)

Ce recueil vise à interroger un versant moins connu, mais essentiel, de la pensée de Gadamer, sa méditation des philosophes grecs, des Présocratiques à Plotin, qui occupe un tiers de ses œuvres complètes.

Neste artigo, no intuito de nos inscrevermos em uma reflexão mais abrangente acerca dos negacionismos contemporâneos, com foco no “negacionismo histórico”, que se sustenta por processos de falseamento e homogeneização da história e das memórias, buscamos seguir o seguinte roteiro de reflexão analítica: i) tratar da escrita da história, abordando a produção de memórias, as políticas de esquecimento e o falseamento discursivo da história; ii) traçar um panorama acerca da escrita da história e da produção de memórias da ditadura civil-militar (...) brasileira, observando, de um lado, a produção discursiva nos campos escolar, jornalístico e “de história”, como formas de manifestação e promoção da memória oficial do regime, e, de outro, a construção das políticas institucionais de memória, com foco nas comissões de verdade, como mecanismos de instituição de regimes de dizibilidade sustentados por memórias-outras; iii) como eixo analítico-conclusivo, traçar uma reflexão que vai da negação da história à formação do autoritarismo contemporâneo, tomando como exemplo a violência contra os povos originários. Inscrevemo-nos, para dar cabo a esta discussão, na perspectiva arqueogenealógica dos Estudos Discursivos Foucaultianos, a partir da mobilização de um arcabouço teórico-metodológico que permite a análise dos processos de formação dos enunciados e dos discursos e, fundamentalmente, uma crítica reflexiva do presente. (shrink)

According to the simple proposal about rigidity for predicates, a predicate is rigid (roughly) if it signifies the same property across the relevant worlds. Recent critics claim that this suffers from a trivialization problem: any predicate whatsoever would turn out to be trivially rigid, according to the proposal. In this paper a corresponding "problem" for ordinary singular terms is considered. A natural solution is provided by intuitions concerning the actual truth-value of identity statements involving them. The simple proposal for predicates (...) is then defended, by exploiting corresponding intuitions concerning statements involving their nominalizations, in an analogous manner. (shrink)

Consider a cat on a mat. On the one hand, there seems to be just one cat, but on the other there seem to be many things with as good a claim as anything in the vicinity to being a cat. Hence, the problem of the many. In his ‘Many, but Almost One,’ David Lewis offered two solutions. According to the first, only one of the many is indeed a cat, although it is indeterminate exactly which one. According to the (...) second, the many are all cats, but they are almost identical to each other, and hence they are almost one. For Lewis, the two solutions do not compete with each other but are mutually complementary, as each one can assist the other. This paper has two aims: to give some reasons against the first of these two solutions, but then to defend the second as a self-standing solution from Lewis’s considerations to the contrary. (shrink)

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (2006) argues against attempts to preserve the entailment principle (or a restriction of it) while avoiding the explosion of truthmakers for necessities and truthmaker triviality. In doing so, he both defends the disjunction thesis--if something makes true a disjunctive truth, then it makes true one of its disjuncts--, and rejects the conjunction thesis--if something makes tue a conjunctive truth, then it makes true each of its conjuncts. In my discussion, I provide plausible counterexamples to the disjunction thesis, and (...) contend that Rodriguez-Pereyra's general defence of it fails. Then I defend the conjunction thesis from Rodriguez-Pereyra's case against it. (shrink)

Reponse to Peter Milne (2005)'s argument agaist maximalism about truthmaking.

The 'Gettier Problem' has been central to epistemology since 1963, when Edmund Gettier presented a powerful challenge to the standard analysis of knowledge. Now twenty-six leading philosophers examine the issues that arise from Gettier's challenge, setting the agenda for future work on the central problem of epistemology.

Th e simple proposal about rigidity for predicates can be stated thus: a predicate is rigid if its canonical nominalization signifi es the same property across the different possible worlds. I have tried elsewhere to defend such a proposal from the trivialization problem, according to which any predicate whatsoever would turn out to be rigid. Benjamin Schnieder (2005) aims fi rst to rebut my argument that some canonical nominalizations can be fl exible, then to provide fi ve arguments to the (...) eff ect that they are all rigid, and fi nally to propose a general explanation of why they are all rigid. I show fi rst why my argument has not been rebutted, then why Schnieder’s fi ve arguments for their rigidity all fail, and fi nally why the alleged “explanation” cannot be such, as the facts alluded to are neutral with respect to the rigidity or fl exibility of the nominalizations. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson famously offered an argument from these Tarskian principles in favor of bivalence. I show, dwelling on (Andjelkovic & Williamson, 2000), that the argument depends on a contentious formulation of the Tarskian principles about truth (and falsity), which the supervaluationist can reject without jeopardizing the Tarskian insight. In the mentioned paper, Adjelkovic and Williamson argue that, even if the appropriate formulation seems to make room for failure of bivalence in borderline cases, this appearance is illusory, once one grants an (...) independent further principle involving biconditionals. I finally argue that the formulation of this is, however, contentious in a similar manner. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo abordar o tratamento dado por Foucault ao tema da produção dos sujeitos e objetos do conhecimento. A partir de conceitos fundamentais de Foucault como saber, poder, prática e discurso, procuro ressaltar a influência que os textos de Nietzsche dedicados ao conhecimento tiveram sobre a abordagem genealógica foucaultiana. Passando por alguns textos de teor metodológico de Foucault, pretendo mostrar como a sua genealogia é marcada por uma crítica do conhecimento em que se questiona, a partir de (...) uma perspectiva nietzschiana, o estatuto da relação entre sujeito e objeto e os modos de constituição da verdade são questionados. (shrink)

Os heróis japoneses estão cada vez mais presentes no cotidiano brasileiro, influenciando o público infanto-juvenil e pré-adolescente. O animê ganhou força na década de 60 através de Osamu Tezuka. Os personagens são orientais, mas a narrativa é construída a partir da cultura pop. Hoje a preocupação se volta para Bey Blade -desenho atuante no inconsciente, colocando a razão em último plano, prevalecendo a alienação e a exclusão social.

Es conocido que Kripke argumentó que la ilusión de contingencia en el caso de la conciencia no puede explicarse del modo en que se explica en el resto de casos familiares de enunciados necesarios a posteriori. En un artículo reciente, Pérez Otero (2002) argumenta que hay una explicación alternativa, en términos de mera aposterioridad. Argumento en contra de la corrección exegética y de la verdad de esta tesis.Kripke famously argued that the illusion of contingency cannot be explained away, in the (...) case of consciousness, in the way it is explained away in the rest of familiar cases of necessary aposteriori statements. In a recent paper, Pérez Otero (2002) argues that there is an alternative way of explaining it a way, in terms of mere aposteriority. I argue against the exegetical accuracy and the truth of this contention. (shrink)

This article proposes an exposition and analysis of perceptions intrinsic to rituals carried out with the use of the jurema plant, especially when mixed with Syrian rue (juremahuasca) in contexts of contemporary esoteric re-actualizations in Brazil. These rituals are conducted by people who look at jurema as a spiritual path, once acquainted with its psychedelic properties. We highlight the mystical attributes and the cultural bricolage elaborated by these individuals, who conduct ceremonies in ritual spaces in which participants experience altered states (...) of perception and consciousness. Considered as an entheogen, jurema leads to states of mystical transformation in people. Such personal changes are often considered by users as the rhetoric of healing. Life stories and ethnographic contexts form the background of the article, which seeks to advance understandings about jurema based on speculations around the intertwining of the themes of consciousness, mysticism, and healing. (shrink)

According to relativism, these appearances of faultless disagreement are to be endorsed. According to moderate relativism, this can be done within the general Kaplan-Lewis-Stalnaker two-dimensional framework, in which the basic semantic notion is that of a sentence s being true at a context c at the index i: it may in effect be the case that s is true at c but false at c∗. According to indexical relativism, this is so in virtue of the content of sentence s at (...) c being different from that of s at c∗. (shrink)

Some philosophers seem to think that borderline cases provide further cases of apparent faultless disagreement. My aim here is to argue against such a suggestion. I claim that with respect to borderline cases, people typically do not respond by taking a view—unlike what is the case in genuine cases of apparent faultless disagreement. I argue that my claim is indeed respected and actually accounted for by paradigm cases of semantic and epistemic views on the nature of vagueness. And I also (...) argue that my claim turns out to be, initial appearances notwithstanding, compatible with other claims in the literature—to the effect that, in appropriate circumstances, there are indeed, or there might well be, “macho,” admissible, forced, and hesitant responses to borderline cases. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to critically review several interpretations of Kantian sensible intuition. The first interpretation is the recent construal of Kantian sensible intuition as a mental analogue of a direct referential term. The second is the old, widespread assumption that Kantian intuitions do not refer to mind-independent entities, such as bodies and their physical properties, unless they are brought under categories. The third is the assumption that, by referring to mind-independent entities, sensible intuitions represent objectively in the (...) sense that they represent in a relative, perspective-independent manner. The fourth is the construal of Kantian sensible intuitions as non-conceptual content. In this paper, I support the alternative view that Kantian sensible representation is to be seen as iconic de re presentation of objects without representational content. (shrink)

Donald Smith (2006) argues that if ‘I’ is indeed vague, and the view of vagueness as semantic indecision correct after all, then ‘I’ cannot refer to a composite material object. But his considerations would, if sound, also establish that ‘Tibbles,’ ‘Everest,’ or ‘Toronto,’ do not refer to composite material objects either—nor hence, presumably, to cats, mountains, or cities. And they can be resisted, anyway. Or so I argue.

Este breve ensaio é uma interpretação da epígrafe escolhida por Nietzsche para seu livro gaia ciência.Através dela se pretende demonstrar em que medida a noção de 'gaia ciência', erigida a partir da compreensão do mundo como fenômeno essencialmente poético,nos leva a uma reflexão sobre o sentido e a articulação fundamental entre arte, sabedoria,conhecimento,ciêcia, filosofia,ética e educação. .

According to the view that Peacocke elaborates in A Study of Concepts (1992), a concept can be individuated by providing the conditions a thinker must satisfy in order to possess that concept. Hence possessions conditions for concepts should be specifiable in a way that respects a non-circularity constraint. In a more recent paper “Implicit Conceptions, Understanding and Rationality” (1998a) Peacocke argues against his former view, in the light of the phenomenon of rationally accepting principles which do not follow from what (...) the thinker antecedently accepts. In this paper I defend the view of the book from his more recent criticisms, claiming that the noncircularity constraint should be respected, and that Peacocke's more recent insights could be accommodated in the framework of his former theory of concepts. (shrink)

In the recent literature on contextualism and relativism, one often finds disputes as to which kind of consideration would be relevant for positing a feature of a context as a parameter in the ‘‘circumstance of evaluation’: via the presence of an operator in the language which shifts that feature (Stanley) or by being a feature of a context with respect to which the truth of ‘‘propositions’’ expressed in the context is relative (McFarlane). This kind of dispute arises from two different (...) independent roles that elements in ‘‘circumstances of evaluation’’ are sometimes assumed to have. I distinguish indices from points of evaluation, and motivate its significance in the debate. (shrink)

Many domains, notably the one involving predicates of personal taste, present the phenomenon of apparent faultless disagreement. Contextualism is a characteristically moderate implementation of the relativistic attempt to endorse such appearances. According to an often-voiced objection, although it straightforwardly accounts for the faultlessness, contextualism fails to respect “facts about disagreement.” With many other recent contributors to the debate, I contend that the notion of disagreement—“genuine,” “real,” “substantive,” “robust” disagreement—is indeed very flexible, and in particular can be constituted by contrasting attitudes. (...) As such, contextualism is clearly straightforwardly compatible with facts about the existence of disagreement. There is, however, a genuine prima facie worry for contextualism involving facts about the expression of disagreement in ordinary conversations. Elaborating on a suggestion by Lewis :113–138, 1989), I argue that the presupposition of commonality approach in López de Sa shows that there are versions of contextualism that are in good standing vis-à-vis such facts about the expression of disagreement. (shrink)

Tesis doctoral presentada en el departament de Lògica Història i Filosofia de la Ciencia de la Universitat de Barcelona per optar al títol de Doctor en Filosofia.

What different relativist claims about a given domain are to be distinguished? Which of them is best placed to account for intuitive facts about disagreement in that domain? In a recent paper in this journal, ‘Indexical Relativism versus Genuine Relativism’ (2004), Max Kölbel distinguishes two forms of relativism, andargues that one of them, indexical relativism, faces problems in accounting for disagreement. In the first part of this discussion I present my own taxonomy of relativist positions in a given domain, which (...) is based on David Lewis’s 1980 essay, and I compare it with Kölbel’s and other recent suggestions. In the second part, I argue that the presuppositional defence of indexical relativism against related objections that I have elaborated elsewhere is also effective against Kölbel’s recent charges. (shrink)

The simple proposal for a characterization of general term rigidity is in terms of sameness of designation in very possible world. Critics like Schwartz (2002) and Soames (2002) have argued that such a proposal would trivialize rigidity for general terms. Martí (2004) claims that the objection rests on the failure to distinguish what is expressed by a general term and the property designated. I argue here against such a response by showing that the trivialization problem reappears even if one pays (...) attention to such a distinction. (shrink)

According to the simple proposal, a predicate is rigid iff it signifies the same property across the different possible worlds. The simple proposal has been claimed to suffer from an over-generalization problem. Assume that one can make sense of predicates signifying properties, and assume that trivialization concerns, to the effect that the notion would cover any predicate whatsoever, can be overcome. Still, the proposal would over-generalize, the worry has it, by covering predicates for artifactual, social, or evaluative properties, such as (...) 'is a knife,' 'is a bachelor,' or 'is funny.' In defense, it is argued that rigidity for predicates as characterized plays the appropriate theoretical role, and that the contention that "unnatural" properties are not to be rigidly signified is ungrounded. (shrink)

The Person and the Inpersonal: confronting Max Scheler’s phenomenological thought with Heidegger’s. This essay starts from a similarity between the thought of Max Scheler and Martin Heidegger in their correspondent approaches to the way the being of the human as non-substantial. Both Scheler’s notion of “Person” and Heidegger’s notion of “Dasein” are conceived of as acts, always already determined by their being-in-the-world, and not as substantial entities with a kind of identity previous to their “actuality”. Nonetheless, Scheler and Heidegger extract (...) from that originally common thought divergent pathways of thinking: whereas the first one addresses the mode of being of the Person, the second derives to the “impersonal” (das Man). This text aims at showing precisely the way of that divergence. (shrink)

The article considers the development of the concept of war in four stages. State Wars: wars between morally equal sovereign states. Democratic Wars of Peoples: defence and self-determination wars. Humanitarian Wars: “just wars” fought in the name of mankind and justice against an enemy considered as an unhuman criminal. Star Wars: the “war on terror” that tries to circumscribe the most extreme violence inside enemy territory, to be closed as if it would be a “star”.

This chapter defends a version of the indexical contextualist form of moderate relativism: the attempt to endorse appearances of faultless disagreement within the framework in which a sentence at a context at the index of the context determines its appropriate truth-value. Many object that any such an indexical proposal would fail to account for intuitions of (genuine) disagreement as revealed in ordinary disputes in the domain. The defence from this objection exploits presuppositions of commonality to the effect that the addressee (...) is relevantly like the speaker of the context. (shrink)

O objetivo deste trabalho é rever criticamente algumas interpretações contemporâneas da noção kantiana de intuição sensível. Defendo uma interpretação alternativa segundo a qual a intuição sensível em Kant deva ser entendida nos termos do que McDowell denomina sentido de re cuja principal característica é a dependênciado objeto. Nesse sentido, a função da intuição sensível é introduzir entidades no discurso para que essas possam ser conceituadas em juízos. Por essa razão,as intuições sensíveis devem ser vistas como o modo de se dar (...) dos objetos e seus atributos e relações que a eles se refere apenas na medida em que eles nos aparecem de forma dependente e relativa. (shrink)