A publicidade tem um papel fundamental na divulgação e legitimação da identidade brasileira. Ela se encarrega de mostrar e reforçar atributos que são facilmente identificáveis pela população e que essa se veja como possuidora de uma identidade única por causa da imensidão do país, das riquezas naturais e das várias culturas que aqui se hibridizam formando uma colcha de retalhos rica em costumes e tradições próprios de um país miscigenado. Neste trabalho, pretendemos analisar como a imagem da identidade brasileira é (...) percebida pela publicidade como um grande potencial gerador de significações que levam para a aquisição do produto. Através da produção de sentido buscaremos analisar as peças publicitárias que reúnam a brasilidade como um signo a ser consumido pelo público. (shrink)

Este artigo visa introduzir a noção de dramatização em Gilles Deleuze. Trata-se da subversão das clássicas perguntas metafísicas que justificam as essências e as idéias. Uma distribuição de diferenças determina a atualização das idéias. O método de dramatização envolve processos de diferenciação. Diferenças internas, relativas a blocos de espaço-tempo criam condições para os conceitos. Um campo intensivo e diferencial de forças faz emergir um teatro especial de virtualidades e uma expressividade das idéias. A realidade não é dada , mas dramatizada (...) por forças não individuais e subjetividades larvares. O método de dramatização está aquém do conhecimento e até mesmo de toda consolidação que a filosofia ganha com os conceitos. O artigo procurará ainda indicar os vínculos da dramatização com os mundos incompossíveis de Leibniz e com o cinema de David Lynch. (shrink)

A discussion of three central ideas in action theory; trying to act, doing or acting, one's action causing further consequences.

Propõe-se a discussão de alguns aspectos intrínsecos ao processo de produção de farinha modulado por tecnologias de organização social e produtiva, com destaque para os serviços ambientais originados durante essas atividades. Os serviços ambientais são maiores do que os consumidos e atribuem a esses povos um importante papel dentro do processo de sustentabilidade em um ecossistema frágil. Esta pesquisa possui abordagem qualitativa e quantitativa, e inclui incursões etnográficas feitas pelos pesquisadores. As análises indicam a importância do reconhecimento do Estado através (...) de políticas públicas estruturantes e não de ações de transformação social, que não validam os sistemas de produção tradicional. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta os principais temas de discussão que emergiram em um grupo de leitores de uma rede social. Discute o conceito de pedagogias da visibilidade, que no contexto atual, constituem materialidades simbólicas de uma nova maneira de se fazer existir frente a emergência das redes sociais. Foi utilizada a análise de conteúdo como técnica de pesquisa. Os resultados apontam que a discrição comedida e a introspecção como marca da personalidade leitora em tempos outros, o leitor das redes sociais clama (...) visibilidade e dela depende a sua sobrevivência nos espaços virtuais e estes, por sua vez, incitam-no a assumir um comportamento de auto celebrização, que é valorizado pela rede social enquanto comunidade de leitores. Apresenta uma matriz de tipificação das postagens que buscou agregar informações acerca das pedagogias da visibilidade das quais os leitores fizeram uso para serem vistos. As considerações finais apontam que nas redes sociais, ao se comportar como uma celebridade, o leitor sai dos silenciosos espaços introspectivos e solitários nos quais realizava suas leituras e tinha garantida a inviolabilidade dos seus gestos de leitor. (shrink)

Com base na visão crítica do filósofo sul-coreano, Byung-Chul Han, de que a ordem digital está descoisificando o mundo ao informatizá-lo, o artigo propõe uma reflexão sobre os riscos da migração humana para a infosfera ou para o mundo-das-não-coisas. Em tal universo, somente as informações digitais prevalecem, circulando ininterruptamente, surpreendendo, excitando, e, com isso, inaugurando uma nova forma de controle social. Pelas vias desse tipo de comunicação de massa, o virtual se impõe aos fatos, relativizando a relação com verdade e (...) verificação e, consequentemente, com democracia, memória e história. A psicopolítica, sistema de poder hegemônico atual, é a quem interessa essa manobra do psiquismo humano pela contínua positividade estimuladora, que visa transformar cidadãos em meros phono sapiens jogadores de uma ‘realidade’ gamificada. Por isso, o momento exige debate a respeito dos limites permitidos às tecnologias e à inteligência artificial, pois se passam a servir de sinônimo à anulação do mundo-das-coisas é porque nos ameaçam com a perda do mundo como tal. (shrink)

A comparison of disjunctive theories of action and perception. The development of a theory of action that warrants the name, a disjunctive theory. On this theory, there is an exclusive disjunction: either an action or an event (in one sense). It follows that in that sense basic actions do not have events intrinsic to them.

Apesar da declaração, por parte do próprio Schopenhauer, de que a sua noção de Ideia deve ser entendida no mesmo sentido da Ideia platônica, estas não são idênticas, e apesar da declarada pretensão de filiação filosófica, é preciso ter em mente as divergências entre essas concepções para bem compreender a noção schopenhaueriana de filosofia como metafísica. Do mesmo modo que Schopenhauer se pretende kantiano mas transforma radicalmente a filosofia transcendental de Kant, o mesmo ocorre com a Ideia platônica na composição (...) da metafísica da Vontade. Dentre as várias influências, as filosofias de Platão e de Kant, são o principal material a partir do qual Schopenhauer constrói sua filosofia metafísica. O objetivo do presente artigo, portanto, é mostrar como Schopenhauer, por meio da fusão de certos aspectos das filosofias de Platão e Kant, pensa solucionar as contradições inerentes à teoria platônica das Ideias como identidades puras e, deste modo, manter a noção de Ideia dos diálogos metafísicos enquanto identidades que sustentam a possibilidade de uma epistemologia no sentido do discurso racional científico-filosófico e das consequências que daí advém. (shrink)

Nosso texto pretende mostrar que está presente no pensamento schopenhaueriano, para além da sua definição “canônica”, uma outra concepção de filosofia que torna possível pensarmos uma filosofia prática de uma perspectiva propriamente empírica. Schopenhauer frequentemente define a filosofia como teoria metafísica de caráter contemplativo que abdica de toda normatividade. Contudo, encontramos uma outra noção menos elevada e mais próxima da dimensão prática da vida, orientada por uma perspectiva mais empírica e de caráter eudemonológico. Essa outra noção de filosofia torna possível (...) pensar uma ética não descritiva, que permanece alheia à normatividade moral, mas considera máximas que servem como recurso estratégico para uma vida mais suportável. (shrink)

The current challenging organizational context demands that organizations adapt quickly and continuously in order to survive and maintain their competitive advantage. Considering this need, one of the responses given by companies has been the valorization of work teams and their capacity for innovation, as well as fostering positive skills and emergent states in employees, such as emotional carrying capacity and affective commitment, respectively. The aim of this research is thus to study the relationship between emotional carrying capacity and group innovation, (...) considering affective commitment as the mediating variable. To test these relationships, an empirical cross-sectional study was conducted including 138 Portuguese work teams belonging to different sectors of activity, composed of 625 members and their respective leaders. The results were analyzed through structural equation modeling and showed positive relationships between emotional carrying capacity and affective commitment, as well as between affective commitment and group innovation. In addition, the mediating role of affective commitment in the relationship between emotional carrying capacity and group innovation was also supported. Therefore, the results suggest that a work context in which members openly express their emotions contributes to reinforcing their affective attachment to the group, making them feel more involved and available to test and implement new ideas and procedures. The findings reinforce the benefits of promoting the expression of emotions and the development of healthy bonds between team members. (shrink)

an examination of both the causal theory of action and the agent causalist theory, and a proposal for a third alternative.

Book synopsis: What is the relationship between philosophy, social theory and empirical research? In what ways can we claim to 'know' the social world? What properties does the social world possess and what are their implications? This ground-breaking and multi-disciplinary book brings together a distinguished team of leading thinkers to discuss issues surrounding and informing questions such as: what is the 'social', in what ways can we 'know' it, and how can our findings be validated? These issues are discussed in (...) an accessible way, including the relationship of philosophical and research issues to each other, the nature of social reality, properties that may be ascribed to the social, research accounts and rhetorical 'persuasion', and the relations between 'gender and knowing'. The overall concern of the book is to clarify how and in what ways we can claim to know the social world and what implications and consequences this may have for social scientific practice. For too long philosophers, social theorists and methodologists have talked past each other, often unaware of the mutually beneficial insights that each offers the other. This book is intended to contribute to a more constructive encounter and dialogue in order to advance understanding of the problems and possibilities surrounding the quest to know the social world. With this overall aim in mind, it will be essential reading for advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students in the social sciences, as well as philosophers, social theorists, methodologists and social researchers in general. (shrink)

Ruben Berrios Queen’s University Belfast Anti-realism and Aesthetic Cognition Abstract At the core of the debate between scientific realism and anti-realism is the question of the relation between scientific theory and the world. The realist possesses a mimetic conception of the relation between theory and reality. For the realist, scientific theories represent reality. The anti-realist, in contrast, seeks to understand the relations between theory and world in non-mimetic terms. We will examine Cartwright’s simulacrum account of explanation in order to illuminate (...) the anti-realist position. Science consists of phenomenological and theoretical laws. The former are concerned with appearances, or those phenomena that can be directly observed; the latter involve the unobservable reality that is alleged to underlie appearances, and are capable only of indirect confirmation. Phenomenological laws are said to be descriptive, whilst theoretical laws are understood as explanatory. Cartwright is concerned with the theoretical. She claims that the standard realist account of the explanatory efficacy of theoretical laws is faulty. The explanatory power of theoretical laws consists in their ability to provide an explanation of physical phenomena. According to Cartwright, the realist claims that laws explain phenomena by providing an abstract description of them, in terms of their micro-structural features, that is alleged to be true. On this view, explanatory power is entirely dependent on descriptive adequacy. As phenomenological laws describe appearances, so theoretical laws describe the fundamental reality that governs appearances. Cartwright rejects the preceding view and in its place proposes a simulacrum account of explanation. According to Cartwright, the explanatory power of theoretical laws is related not to descriptive adequacy, but rather to the construction of adequate models. To explain a phenomenon is to construct a model which best or most adequately accommodates the phenomenon to a theory. The model will consist of various posited objects that serve to explain the phenomena in terms that are consistent with a set of theoretical laws. Cartwright claims that theoretical laws are true of, or describe, the objects of the model. The objects of the model, however, are not descriptive of reality. They are simulacra. They have, that is, the form or appearance of things, without possessing their substance or proper qualities. In light of the foregoing account we can summarise the distinction between scientific realism and anti-realism as follows. The realist claims that theoretical laws literally represent real objects. The anti-realist claims that laws represent objects of a model that are simulacra of reality. Anti-realism has an aesthetic dimension. The movement from realism to anti-realism is also the movement from the mimetic conception of the scientist as holding a mirror to nature to the constructionist view of the scientist as engaging with nature through invention. There is a lot of the artist in the anti-realist’s view of the scientist. This is true for Cartwright as well as, for example, Van Fraassen in his doctrine of constructive empiricism. It would appear, then, that the philosophy of science has absorbed some concepts that are ordinarily housed in aesthetics. And it has done so profitably. The aim of this paper is to reverse the direction of disciplinary influence. Can art, in relation to its status as a cognitive enterprise, be illuminated by scientific anti-realism? I will argue that it can. In an unexpected reference to the Nicomachean Ethics, Cartwright draws a suggestive parallel between theoretical laws and general moral principles, on the one hand, and physical phenomena and everyday moral conduct, on the other hand. If we add to this the claim that a central component of art’s value is cognitive, then we have the basic materials with which to flesh out a broadly anti-realist view of art. In the production of art, artists can construct models that mediate between everyday ethical phenomena and general ethical tendencies. These models reveal the ways in which there are implicit consistencies or inconsistencies, conflicts or congruences and so forth, between the phenomena and the tendencies. On this basis art can contribute to the reflective understanding of ethical life. This constitutes to a large degree art’s status as a cognitive enterprise. To apprehend art cognitively as artist or critic is to engage in aesthetic cognition. (shrink)

What constitutes numerically one and the same tradition diachronically, at different times? This question is the focus of often violent dispute in societies. Is it capable of a rational resolution? Many accounts attempt that resolution with a diagnosis of ambiguity of the disputed concept-Islam, Marxism, or democracy for example. The diagnosis offered is in terms of vagueness, namely the vague criteria for sameness or similarity of central beliefs and practices.

This paper argues that Spinoza held substances other than God to be inconceivable. It uses this claim to develop a novel response to the Problem of Other Substances, the problem of explaining why some of Spinoza’s proofs for God’s existence cannot be used to prove the existence of a non-divine substance instead.

The link between leadership and mental health at the workplace is well established by prior research. However, most of the studies have addressed this relationship from a single-source perspective. The aim of this study was to examine how supervisor and employee ratings of health-oriented leadership correspond to each other and which sources are predictive for employee mental health. We assessed data within 99 teams containing 713 employees in 11 different companies in Southern Germany. Supervisors and their staff completed questionnaires on (...) the supervisors’ health-oriented staff-care dimensions awareness, value of health and health behavior and current mental distress. Hierarchical linear models revealed that supervisors’ self-ratings were significantly related to their employees’ ratings only on the health behavior dimension, but not on the health awareness and value of health dimensions. Also, supervisors rated themselves significantly higher on HoL compared to their employees. Employee ratings of HoL significantly predicted their own level of mental distress, whereas supervisor ratings of HoL did not predict employees’ mental distress at the team level. Supervisors’ self-ratings of HoL did not influence the relationship between employee ratings of HoL and their mental distress on an individual level. These results highlight the complex relationship between multisource assessments of HoL and employee mental health, emphasizing the importance of subjective perception for mental health. Future studies should investigate under which conditions supervisor and employee ratings correspond to each other and are predictive for mental health at the workplace. (shrink)

Moral Constraints on War offers a principle-by-principle presentation of the transcultural roots of the ethics of war in an age defined by the increasingly international nature of military intervention.

continent. 1.1 (2011): 22-25. The Author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento do Ensino Superior), Brazil. From the multifarious subdivisions of semiotics, be they naturalistic or culturalistic, the realm of semiotics of value is a ?eld that is getting more and more attention these days. Our entire political and economic systems are based upon structures of symbolic representation that many times seem not only to embody monetary value but also to determine it. The connection between monetary (...) and linguistic exchanges is self-evident: the former requires the latter and develops in direct relation to it. Creative experimentation and design of digital systems of value exchange are blossoming on the web. Dr. Gilson Schwartz, an economist turned media theorist and professor at the University of São Paulo, adopted the concept of Iconomics, originally created by Michael Kaplan, an author concerned with the linguistics of economic value. Empowering local communities and unlocking new levels of value creation and representation via digital technologies are the main goals of Dr. Schwartz’s projects, aiming at the re-designing of our relationship to the economic value of imagination and the social control of property. Schwartz is Assistant Professor at the School of Communication and Arts of the University of São Paulo, a former Chief Economist at BankBoston, Brazil and Advisor to the President of the National Social and Economic Development Bank (BNDES). FURTHER READING: Kaplan, Michael. “Iconomics: The Rhetoric of Speculation.” Public Culture . 15.3 (2003): 477-493. Renata Lemos-Morais: You have recently produced and directed a short documentary about Creative Currencies in Latin America. Could you tell us a bit about its process and its findings? Gilson Schwartz: The “Creative Currencies” project is a work-in-progress platform which unfolds as an action research agenda connected both to the production of audiovisual content and the development of social currency software. The initiative dates back to 2003 when I led an experimental project supported by the Presidency of Brazil. At that time, we issued paper currency in a small, touristic village in the Northeast Region which stimulated local cultural projects. But it was only in 2009 that the Central Bank of Brazil acknowledged “social currencies” as a legitimate economic agenda, calling for more debate at the I Financial Inclusion Forum. This year, the monetary authorities organized a second forum that also opened the room to discussions on mobile payment systems and new perspectives on poverty alleviation via State subsidies. The Ministry of Culture funded the “Creative Currencies” project in 2009-2010 and our next stage in this discovery process is to be supported by the National Social and Economic Development Bank (BNDES). In short, there is genuine interest among public officials in different areas and public funding for social currencies is on the rise in Brazil. However, after all these years we are still at a very early stage of research and practice. Some of the most successful initiatives (such as Banco Palmas) actually evolved out of local monetary creation to become correspondent banking operations for commercial banks and other financial groups. After eight years of price stability and social inclusion, Brazil stands out as a major opportunity for social experimentation, even the Grameen Bank is now entering the Brazilian market and many NGOs are geared towards different forms of entrepreneurialism in the base of the pyramid, riding solidarity economic models, microfinance and microcredit for local development. It is yet to be seen, however, whether these developments are just one more stage of “bankarization”, that is to say, an extension of regular banking services or actually a new form of social and symbolic self-determination at the local level. So far, the Central Bank of Brazil is open to new forms of credit and local finance as long as they are strictly territorial and very close to barter among the poor. In other words, whether the process of monetary creation could be made to fit an open source paradigm is yet to be seen. Community banking and social currencies might as well end up as just another channel for access to and use of banking services. The “Creative Currencies” project aims at promoting the discussion of more fundamental issues, such as the limits of central banking, the prospects for local financial development and the possibility of creating and managing financial icons as cultural assets. The purpose of this project is to produce short documentaries that will bear testimony to this evolving regulatory framework while inducing more discussion about the fundamental iconomic issues concealed in the process of money and wealth creation. RLM: What new potential is there in applying digital technologies to currency creation? GS: Globalization is a result of the virtualization of money, that is, the overcoming of illusions such as the “gold standard”. Money is an icon created by institutions, not on supposedly natural or material foundations but out of political and financial interests. The “dollar standard” is an outstanding evidence of this phenomenon and Kaplan´s paper, the first to use the expression “iconomics”, insists on the rhetoric and semiotic effects associated to a supposedly scientific model of money creation and management. This is a fundamental change that was perceived and discussed much before the digitalization of the world by unorthodox economists such as John Maynard Keynes since the early 20th century. The digitalization of global financial flows accelerated this immateriality and the creation of the Euro was yet another evidence of the political foundations of currencies. The banking establishment, however, is keen on the idea that scientific formulae hold the key to sound money creation. Keynesianism has been repeatedly associated to “inflationism” while the supposedly sound monetary policies of the Orthodoxy serve well the political and financial interests of a technocratic elite. Corporate media also serve this fictitious depiction of the monetary process despite the cyclical bust of monetary rules and financial regulations. The internet, however, has created numerous opportunities for the disintermediation in industries such as film, music and commodities. There is no reason to doubt that the financial industry can also be transformed by Peer-to-Peer (P2P) infrastructures. Money is media as well. Credit is but confidence. Once people realize that the distributed computing power of networks can also be the platform to weave new monetary and credit operations, there is room for grassroots emancipation out of the established owners of monetary institutions. So far, however, there has been a privatization of monetary management and there is not a clear path or model for the emergent (P2P) property democratization that is inherent to the internet. Digital assets, however, clearly have an inherent potential to escape central control and proprietary regulatory frameworks. RLM: How are social networks transforming the ways in which we exchange value? Do you believe that online influence and reputation might be translated into a new kind of currency? GS: The foundation for social currencies as envisaged by solidarity economics is the territory. Authorities are willing to concede local monetary creation as long as it is restricted to poor neighborhoods, as a proxy to barter. In this relevant but limited context, reputation, personal knowledge and informal ties form the matrix of local or “proximity” finance which are expected to keep credit and leverage to a sustainable level. Anything beyond that should and would lead to an integration of local finance into the established banking system. However, inasmuch as the internet promotes virtual territories and reputation is now subject to all sorts of digital manipulation and stardom becomes an everyday cultural process among teenagers and elders alike, the territorial “foundation” is substituted for more complex patterns of solidarity, cooperation and exchange that reach beyond the physical territory and even the “human.” Digital assets embody knowledge, technology, cultural and educational values that are exchanged at a global scale beyond the control of democratic States (Chinese-like intervention is the exception, not the rule). Hacktivism is unstoppable and so is monetary hacktivism. Especially in the Third World, mobile communications fast became conveyors of money transfers and other appropriation strategies. Banking and telecom sectors already battle for the control of these emerging markets and, as a matter of fact, have so far contributed to the containment of these processes. Governments serve these moguls and have usually adopted a wait-and-see attitude. If open source hardware and grassroots social movements combine to challenge these proprietary battles, then social networks may evolve into new forms of social capital and thus form the ground on which to design and implement social currencies. The global financial crisis, as well as the dollar demise, are an event of such a proportion that social networks may open the path for emancipator subjects to seize the opportunity. RLM: What are some of the social experiments that you think are revolutionizing the way in which value is exchanged? GS: There is a broad evolution of economic systems towards the valuation of intangible assets such as knowledge, reputation and sustainability. There are many examples of local as well as global events that call the traditional systems of exchange into question, from carbon credits to educational bonuses, digital barter frameworks and locally based solidarity and fair trade networks. These emerging examples, no matter how different in nature or scale, represent a challenge to the traditional value creation schemes and theories which are based on use and exchange value, supply and demand. This is not to say that utility and labour or scarcity are to be totally dismissed, but there is now an emerging perception that value is also a function of behavioral codes, symbolic patterns and the energy of institutional frameworks. The plasticity of digital platforms is relevant insofar as intellectual property becomes the central source of value creation. But when you discuss the property rights of public goods such as the environment or basic social rights (of minorities or localities), then a new paradigm seems to emerge. RLM: Are gaming and online storytelling digital practices that might have an impact on the way new currencies are created and developed? GS: “Play money” has been one of the early and most intriguing phenomena associated to the diffusion of virtual worlds. These virtual currencies have also been prone to “boom and bust” dynamics, speculation and pure theft (Second Life scams were common and led to “intervention” by the owners of the game). Storytelling is a major source of value, that is, the value of attention and the markets for audience. There are plenty of private monies created and managed by corporate entertainment groups, telecom operators (via mobile virtual network operators) and marketing frameworks. The casino economy, as already depicted by Keynes and other unorthodox economists, is always storytelling about future states of the world, confidence building and leverage of animal spirits. The novelty of current events is not the fictitious nature of any form of capital, but the potential for digital democratization of controls over the imaginary nature of value creation. But this is just a potential, a possibility, a figment that more often than not is appropriated by centralized and opaque private powers. The game industry is a testbed for new connections between storytelling and money creation. RLM: Monetary value was originally connected to the scarcity of precious metals, such as gold. Our entire monetary system seems therefore to function according to a logic of scarcity. Do you believe it is possible to reverse this logic into a logic of abundance? GS: The gold standard was a fiction itself, the “scarcity” is always produced by institutions that regulate confidence and access to credit. The key issue is not to fabricate abundance, but to question the institutions which produce scarcity out of any standard, gold or whatever. Central banks are at the service of private banks in the creation and management of scarcity. RLM: The promise that nanotechnology holds for our future is one of radical abundance (or so say transhumanists). The possibility of creating any kind of material substance through nanoengineering seems each day more feasible. What would this possibility entail in terms of systems of value exchange? GS: Nanotechnology, environmental concerns and grassroots appropriation of distributed knowledge are the frontiers of a new horizon of energy creation and management. Social groups in charge of managing scarcity for the sake of wealth and power concentration must be held accountable for the destruction of our future. Once this key political conundrum is accounted for, new systems of value exchange and even a non-mercantile society will come into existence. Revolutionary theorists such as Marx envisaged transformation via the extreme clash of contradictions between capital and labour. This approach has never led to a change in the systemic logic of scarcity for the sake of social control. We are once again facing the threshold of large scale societal change, but the outcome of the current crisis should come from our imagination, not from yet another paradox of abundance and scarcity. As long as we remain attached to the materiality of value, the illusion of freedom will but reinforce the massive manipulation of necessity. RLM: What do you think is the role of crowdfunding in this context? GS: Crowdsourcing as well as crowdfunding are examples of the peer to peer opportunities that come along with distributed computer power. However, the power structure behind wealth and scarcity creation may or may not be changed by crowd management. But it should not be taken at face value, so to speak. The stock market of course is an early form of crowdfunding without calling into question the proprietary framework of the companies offering their investment projects to the market. Any market is a form of crowdsourcing, that is to say, of distributed forms of supply and demand matchmaking. The wealth of networks, however, depends on the contractual ecosystem, the institutional framework, the channeling of social imagination, not on the purely quantitative distribution of bids and offers. I see economics as supply, demand and code. Once you have access to the code, once openness becomes part of the game, then there is a chance of crowd behavior becoming collective intelligence and sustainable imagination. RLM: Is the development of digital currencies headed towards a pluralistic ecology in which many micro currency systems co-exist, or is it penetrating the mainstream monetary system? If it is affecting the mainstream financial system, what would be its effect in the long-term? GS: The same issue is at stake both at local and global levels. The global system is, as a matter of fact, an unstable ecosystem of “micro currencies” whereas the dollar has so far exerted an overwhelming influence. Local currencies and private monies coexist with national currencies only to the extent that the Central Bank admits, for instance, that grassroots monetary emissions remain territorial and strictly connected to poverty. However, the question of how new developments in digital technologies and nanotechnologies might alter not only our current monetary systems but also our understanding of value in itself, is still an open question. (shrink)

Most of the features of modern Russian business are transient, determined by the transitional character of the Russian economy and drastic changes in the social structure, ideology, and consciousness of Russian society in general. There are three main normative experiences in the traditions of Russian business: a) the experience of pre-Revolutionary business, specifically developed and practiced by the merchants of the old-believers extraction; b) the experience of socialist economy, which was more or less oriented to the public good and presupposed (...) selfless aspirations by the economic agents; c) the experience of legally and administratively constrained private business and illegal shadow business, which expected businessmen to be vigorous, industrious and enterprising. The process of privatization was developed under the aegis of state, specifically the state bureaucracy. The influence of changes in the social-economic system has been ambivalent for social morals. However, the reforms could stimulate their improvement. The recent development in the cultural environment of business testify to the emerging space of civilized business, which manifests that it is practically useful for businessmen to be ethical. (shrink)

Book synopsis: The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy is the most ambitious international philosophy project in many years. Edited by Edward Craig and assisted by thirty specialist subject editors, the REP consists of ten volumes of the world's most eminent philosophers writing for the needs of students and teachers of philosophy internationally. The REP is a project on an unparalleled scale.

Researchers have studied the athletes' dual careers with the aim of helping them to combine the sport and the academic–vocational sphere. Most of this research has addressed the study–sport combination, but there is a lack of studies on the work–sport combination. The main objective of this research was to explore the subjective perceptions of Spanish elite athletes when attempting to combine their careers as professional athletes with a second profession or trade. Further, this study aims to identify the access to (...) facilitating resources and the perception of obstacles and barriers to the development of a dual career. A qualitative approach was chosen to address these research questions. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was carried out on a sample of 18 elite athletes, and the data were collected using semi-structured interviews based on a set of superordinate and subordinate categories. The results showed that the athletes interviewed possessed valuable resources such as the transference of sports values to the work sphere. However, important barriers were highlighted such as the perception of sport institutions as absent entities in the work–sport combination. Thus, the study of this type of dual career seems to be one of the challenges facing the interested scientific community for the coming years. (shrink)

Book synopsis: This is the first volume of a two-volume introduction to and guide through philosophy. It is intended to orientate, assist, and stimulate the reader at every stage in the study of the subject. Eleven extended essays have been specially commissioned from leading philosophers; each surveys a major area of the subject and offers an accessible but sophisticated account of the main debates. An extended introduction maps out the philosophical terrain and explains how the different subjects relate to each (...) other. The first part of the book deals with the foundations of philosophical enquiry: epistemology; philosophical logic; methodology; metaphysics; and the philosophy of mind. The second part offers four historical chapters, two on ancient and two on modern philosophy, introducing great thinkers from the past, explaining and discussing their ideas, and showing the value of studying them today. The third part comprises two chapters devoted to questions of value, in ethics and aesthetics. Full annotated bibliographies are provided at the ends of chapters to serve as guides to further reading. This is real philosophy, not simplified philosophy; it will be accessible for the beginner but equally valuable for the third-year student. Deep and challenging questions are not shirked; the reader will be given a sense of involvement in the practice of philosophy today. (shrink)

The idea of sociability - a person’s disposition and ability to communicate and live in the community - goes through the whole history of philosophy. Due to the peculiarity of translations, this term and the whole tradition related to it have been lost to the Russian reader. The article discusses some tendencies in comprehending the idea of sociability in early modern moral philosophy. The key to this consideration is F. Hutcheson’s essay On the Natural Sociability of Mankind, the title of (...) which contains the very term “sociability” and which presents the main essential points in a discussion of the issue in the first third of the 18 th century. One can distinguish two main approaches to the problem. According to one of them, sociability determined by various human natural needs is the basis of social relations, and a person becomes a moral agent as a social being (H. Grotius, T. Hobbes, S. Pufen-dorf, B. Mandeville). According to another approach, sociability is a manifestation of a person’s natural tendency to care for the good of others, and its consistent implementation leads to the formation of community and supports its stability (Cambridge Platonists, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, J. Butler, D. Hume, A. Smith). Representatives of both approaches recognized contradiction in manifestations of sociability or in its nature. I. Kant theoretically overcame the confrontation between these approaches and conceptualized the contradiction and associated it with the human nature. According to Kant, the “unsociable sociability” is given in the fact that a person has a tendency to sociability but also a tendency to self-assertion at the expense of others. However, despite the presence of asocial features (evil principle), Kant considered the person’s inherent sociability (good principle) as a prerequisite for culture and as one of the most important conditions of possibility of morality. (shrink)

The U.S. government embraces the concepts of privatization and market competition, but the realm of contracting shows that it has not always been able to put its principles into practice. Although the contracting system is supposed to be open and competitive, in recent years the government has often awarded contracts with little or no competitive bidding, has chosen to award mostly cost-plus type contracts that force the government to assume more of the risk, and lacked efficiency in monitoring and overseeing (...) private contractors. While the number and value of contracts have increased, the workforce to oversee these contracts has been reduced, preventing the government from adequately enforcing compliance with the contractors, and the government has not made use of past performance evaluations in its contracting system. Private contractors that do business with the U.S. government are for the most part well-established firms with ample resources and inside contacts; many contracts are still being awarded on preferential treatment and to the larger and well-established contractors. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to understand the transition from a constitutionalism of the common – already proposed previously – to the field of cosmotechnical struggles, in the sense that it would no longer be possible to think and constitute a cosmopolitical project except from them. To this end, what is proposed, based on the limits and crises of State and the constitutionalism that accompanies it, seek the construction of cosmopolitical projects through the resizing of constitutionalism, proposing this in (...) the work from the perspective of the common and human rights, it is essential constitute the common beyond the limits of constitutionalism – state-based or not – since the constitution of the common today takes place in a field in dispute over techno-political practices through cosmotechnical struggles and processes of insurrection, against the backdrop of the impacts of globalization neoliberalism and the disruption of the digital age. (shrink)

The work of Arnout Geulincx (1624?1669), a Flemish Cartesian that developed a highly curious ?parallelistic? view on the universe, shows striking prima facie resemblances to Stoicism. Should we label Geulincx a reinventor of Stoic tenets, albeit within a strict Cartesian theoretical framework? To answer this question, my contribution begins by discussing relevant aspects of Stoicism and by introducing the ?existential? philosophy of Geulincx, whose metaphysical views on man brought him to adopt an ethics based upon absolute obedience and humility. It (...) will discuss Geulincx's own views on the Stoics and, finally, compare Geulincx's philosophy with the Stoic world view. The main argument will be that, despite a deep affinity and many parallels, one crucial difference remains, as the dualism any true Cartesian metaphysics implies has important consequences for Geulincx's ethics in general and for his view on man in particular. As we will see, man plays a very peculiar role in the cosmic drama that we call the ?universe? (shrink)

Free will, before being an object of beliefs or theories susceptible of verification, is the omnipresent supposition of our conscious life. This paper claims that this omnipresence, even though it is not enough to validate theoretically free will, entails two significant consequences. First, that free will is the essential presumption of our actions, without which they would become incomprehensible. Second, that all denial of this – a rational action in itself – presupposes that which is denied.

Gemins 2–8 and Unr‐interacting protein (UNRIP) are intimate partners of the survival motor neuron (SMN) protein, which is the determining factor for the neuromuscular disorder spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). The most documented role of SMN, Gemins and UNRIP occurs within the large macromolecular SMN complex and involves the cytoplasmic assembly of spliceosomal uridine‐rich small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (UsnRNPs), a housekeeping process critical in all cells. Several reports detailing alternative functions for SMN in either motor neurons or skeletal muscles may, however, hold (...) the answer to the extreme neuromuscular tissue specificity observed in SMA. Recent discoveries indicate that collaboration between SMN and Gemins also extends to these non‐canonical functions, hence raising the possibility that mutations in Gemin genes may be the cause of unlinked neuromuscular hereditary syndromes. This review evaluates the functions of Gemins and UNRIP inside the SMN complex and discusses whether these less notorious SMN complex members are capable of acting independently of SMN. (shrink)

This book is about some topical philosophical and methodological prob lems that arise in the study of behavior and mind, as well as in the treatment of behavioral and mental disorders. It deals with such questions as 'What is behavior a manifestation of?', 'What is mind, and how is it related to matter?', 'Which are the positive legacies, if any, of the major psychological schools?', 'How can behavior and mind best be studied?', and 'Which are the most effective ways of (...) modifying behavioral and mental processes?' These questions and their kin cannot be avoided in the long run because they fuel the daily search for better hypotheses, experimental designs, techniques, and treatments. They also occur in the critical examination of data and theories, as well as methods for the treatment of behavioral and mental disorders. All students of human or animal, normal or abnormal behavior and mind, whether their main concern is basic or applied, theoretical or em pirical, admit more or less tacitly to a large number of general philosophi cal and methodological principles. (shrink)

review of Philosophy of Economics by C. Dyke.

O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar a caracterização que Hannah Arendt e Hans Jonas fazem da técnica moderna em suas visões da dimensão do homo faber, bem como suas críticas ao mundo da técnica no horizonte da modernidade, mostrando suas convergências e diferenças quanto a isso. A partir dessas críticas arendtianas e jonasianas, procuramos mostrar como ambos podem contribuir para uma ética e uma política baseada na ideia de responsabilidade pelas futuras gerações.

In the context of his advanced theory of ethics Aristotle like later Kant seems considering the Golden Rule as trivial and not bound to be articulated. It is possible that Aristotle did not feel necessity to mention the Golden Rule, because the very Golden Rule was spread out in his ethics. Though he did not use the formula ofthe Golden Rule in his texts, he often expressed his understanding of virtuous character and virtuous relations using intellective constructions evidently relevant to (...) the Golden Rule. The analysis of Aristotle’s reasoning on shame, social intercourse and, mainly, friendship shows that his ethics is saturated with the content andspirit of the Golden Rule, including such features agent’s initiative, activity, commitment and thus her/his responsibility for establishing relations, their potential reversibility, mutuality, and universalizability. (shrink)