A Síndrome de Kabuki é um distúrbio bastante raro, com múltiplas anomalias congênitas. O objetivo do estudo foi descrever características comportamentais, cognitivas e sociais de uma criança com seis anos de idade com Síndrome de Kabuki, e suas implicações no processo escolar. Como resultados, verif..

O artigo pretende contribuir com as discussões sobre o ensino de filosofia, partilhando achados de uma pesquisa realizada com duas turmas de estudantes universitários na disciplina de Estética (Curso de Música -Licenciatura). As inovações metodológicas aplicadas nas turmas buscaram valorizar o ensino de filosofia em diálogo permanente com as vivências cotidianas e artísticas dos estudantes através de atividades em sala sistematicamente vinculadas aos temas previstos no programa da disciplina. Os resultados dos dados apontaram que as estratégias metodológicas de ensino utilizadas (...) na disciplina tiveram impacto positivo para o engajamento dos discentes, atuando desenvolvimento de sua criticidade e criatividade. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Partindo do dito popular “manda quem pode, obedece quem tem juízo” o presente artigo tem como objetivo defender a tese de que o Estado hobbesiano sustenta-se tanto pela força quanto pela razáo. Dentro desta perspectiva, será analisada a noçáo de desobediência e, ao final, mostrar-se-á que o adágio referido só pode ser tido como verdadeiro de acordo com a filosofia política de Thomas Hobbes após feitas certas ressalvas.

O artigo relaciona os elementos curriculares propostos por Hobbes no capítulo XXX do Leviatã com as leis naturais descritas nos capítulos XIV e XV. Metodologicamente, o trabalho conduz-se em 4 etapas: 1) listar os conteúdos educacionais explicitados no capítulo XXX; 2) buscar potenciais equivalentes de cada um dos conteúdos listados com aspectos das leis naturais presentes nos capítulos XIV e XV; 3) comparar os argumentos e questões teóricas pertinentes a essas equivalências potenciais; 4) destacar possíveis ampliações interpretativas oriundas da análise (...) comparativa realizada. Dada essa escolha metodológica, justifica-se a ausência de outras referências bibliográficas que não o Leviatã. Dentre os achados, sublinha-se que todos elementos curriculares presentes no capítulo XXX puderam ser articulados com, pelo menos, uma lei natural, merecendo destaque a maior ocorrência de vinculações com a terceira lei de natureza. (shrink)

Las autoras debaten que las políticas de producción de agrocombustibles estén destinadas a implementarse efectivamente sobre tierras “marginales”, pues que en realidad son tierras vitales para campesinos o bien comunitarias. Recuerda que la tierra marginal para algunos es vital para otros, que como siempre verán restringidas tierras y fuentes de vida, que pasarán a manos de los grandes empresarios de agrocombustibles. Advierte que esto traerá también consecuencias medioambientales negativas. Concluye cuestionando algunos mitos sobre sus efectos sobre la producción y el (...) empleo, y anexa cuatro estudios de caso. (shrink)

Introduction: Ethical conflict is a phenomenon that has been under study over the last three decades, especially the types moral dilemma and moral distress in the field of nursing care. However, ethical problems and their idiosyncrasies need to be further explored. Aim: The objectives of this study were, first, to obtain a transcultural Portuguese-language adaptation and validation of the Ethical Conflict Nursing Questionnaire–Critical Care Version and, second, to analyse Portuguese critical care nurses’ level of exposure to ethical conflict and its (...) characteristics. Methods: A cross-cultural validation and descriptive, prospective and correlational study. The sample was made for 184 critical care nurses in 2016. Ethical Considerations: The study was authorised by Bioethics Commission of the University of Barcelona, the Associaçâo de Apoio ao Serviço de Cuidados Intensivos do Centro Hospitalar do Porto and the Sociedade Portuguesa de Enfermagem de Saúde Mental. Findings: The Portuguese version of the Ethical Conflict Nursing Questionnaire–Critical Care Version was a valid and reliable instrument to measure exposure to conflict. Moral outrage was the most common type of conflict. The most problematic situations were the ineffectiveness of analgesic treatments, the administration of treatments considered futile and the mismanagement of resources. (shrink)

Procuramos expor o pluralismo de leituras da obra freudiana mediante a exploração da hipótese de historicização da formação psíquica dos sujeitos, especialmente relativa ao complexo de Édipo e Supereu. Partindo da perspectiva de estudos feministas, verificamos no corpus teórico freudiano se há a possibilidade de que o avanço sócio-histórico seja um fator de modificação de concepções que, na leitura freudiana clássica, seriam lidas como imutáveis, fixas e rígidas cultural e historicamente. Madelon Sprengnether, Nancy Chodorow e Judith Butler serão retomadas para (...) criticar a leitura clássica e generalizante do complexo de Édipo enquanto “estrutural”, essencializado e substancializado. Sugerimos que, sendo uma lei hegemônica, a vivência edípica não pode ser completamente ultrapassada, mas pode ser performativamente atuada de formas desviantes de sua estrutura classicamente pensada por Freud. Nesse âmbito, a transmissão geracional é nosso enfoque primordial. Ela é debatida ao menos em três momentos complementares: na análise da filogênese, da herança arcaica e do Édipo social exposta em Totem e tabu, na herança narcísica de expectativas e ideais compreendida em Introdução ao narcisismo e na teoria da perpetuação de valores e tradições morais via identificações geracionais superegoicas que consta nas Novas Conferências sobre Psicanálise. (shrink)

We investigate some logics which use the concept of minimal models in their definition. Minimal objects are widely used in Logic and Computer Science. They are applied in the context of Inductive Definitions, Logic Programming and Artificial Intelligence. An example of logic which uses this concept is the MIN logic due to van Benthem [20]. He shows that MIN is equivalent to the Least Fixed Point logic in expressive power. In [6], we extended MIN to the MIN Logic and proved (...) it is equivalent to second-order logic in expressive power. Here, we exhibit a fragment of MIN, the MINΔ logic, which is more expressive than LFP, less expressive than MIN and closed under boolean connectives and first-order quantification. In order to do this, in the Section 2, we prove that the Downward Löwenheim-Skolem Theorem holds for arbitrary countable sets of LFP-formulas by showing that every infinite structure has a countable LFP-substructure. The method may be used to generalize this theorem to any set of LFP-formulas. We also analyse the expressive power of the Nested Abnormality Theories of Lifschitz, another formalism based on minimal models used in Artificial Intelligence, and we demonstrate that for each second-order theory Γ there is a NAT which is a conservative extension of Γ. We give a translation from second-order sentences into such NATs which is linear in the size of the sentence in prenex normal form. Finally, we establish a hierarchy of expressiveness of these logics that deal with the concept of minimal models. (shrink)

We investigate expressiveness and definability issues with respect to minimal models, particularly in the scope of Circumscription. First, we give a proof of the failure of the Löwenheim-Skolem Theorem for Circumscription. Then we show that, if the class of P; Z-minimal models of a first-order sentence is Δ-elementary, then it is elementary. That is, whenever the circumscription of a first-order sentence is equivalent to a first-order theory, then it is equivalent to a finitely axiomatizable one. This means that classes of (...) models of circumscribed theories are either elementary or not Δ-elementary. Finally, using the previous result, we prove that, whenever a relation Pi is defined in the class of P; Z-minimal models of a first-order sentence Φ and whenever such class of P; Z-minimal models is Δ-elementary, then there is an explicit definition ψ for Pi such that the class of P; Z-minimal models of Φ is the class of models of Φ ∧ ψ. In order words, the circumscription of P in Φ with Z varied can be replaced by Φ plus this explicit definition ψ for Pi. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é fazer uma releitura do Projeto para uma psicologia científica de Freud a partir não só do conceito de pulsão de morte, mas principalmente de pulsão de vida. Para tanto, iremos nos ater a uma interpretação do psicanalista Hans Loewald sobre a concepção de pulsão de vida, principalmente no que se refere à relação entre Eros, desenvolvimento cognitivo e ao papel da mãe na inserção do bebê na moralidade e na realidade no período pré-edípico. A pulsão (...) de vida seria concebida ainda como outro princípio do prazer possível, para além do de constância. Em última instância, a possibilidade de leitura que delineia a presença da pulsão de vida no Projeto vinculada à função materna segue em complemento à releitura feminista da psicanálise freudiana empreendida por Joel Whitebook em seus trabalhos mais recentes, também largamente baseados na teoria de Loewald. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This text intends to rethink the dispute of feminist epistemologies regarding the conception of gender discursive constructions from the background of Freud and Lacan’s thesis. Our basis is Butler’s critique of binary feminist theories regarding the substantialization of the sexual body: if the sexual body is constructed by discourse, it is also a subversive element of discourse, since it cannot be completely determined by cultural gender binarism. We use excerpts from the debate between Butler-Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis as a (...) “model case” where such epistemological questions could be analyzed: at first, psychoanalysis is one of the main critical targets of the feminist “second wave”; secondly, psychoanalysis would also have been mobilized in favor of the binary feminist cause; however, for Butler, such feminists would not have sufficiently criticized psychoanalysis, for not attacking the essentialized sexual bodily root that would sustain the binary division between sexes; finally, Butler emphasizes the critical potential that psychoanalysis holds, given the subversive and plastic resistance of the unconscious, drive, desire and body, central notions for non-binary feminist epistemology and remodeling of discursive constructivism. (shrink)

O objetivo do presente texto é repensar a aporia pela qual o livro “Dialética do Esclarecimento” é anunciado, a saber, a autodestruição do esclarecimento ou a procura da liberdade pela racionalidade, mas que culmina em uma regressão. Nossa argumentação perfaz dois caminhos: primeiramente, apresentamos a relação existente na obra entre um tipo de antropologia com bases freudianas e uma leitura da sociologia de Marx. Concebemos a noção de uma estrutura psíquica permeável às condições sócio-históricas do ser humano ocidental. Tal condição (...) é imprescindível para a saída da aporia intimamente relacionada a uma antropologia psíquica ligada a um modo histórico da cultura e sociedade. Na sequência, propomos ainda um paralelo entre a possibilidade de um esclarecimento efetivo por meio do resíduo mítico presente na racionalidade técnica apresentada por Horkheimer e Adorno e a assunção da situação humana de desamparo na visão de mundo religiosa, modo freudiano para se alcançar uma posição mais “científica” em relação à realidade. Nesse contexto, utilizaremos rapidamente parte da teoria de Weber como meio para relacionarmos o esclarecimento à religião no que ambos têm em comum, isto é, a defesa contra o sofrimento, a angústia e o desamparo. Talvez seja por meio da assunção do desamparo na racionalidade situada na visão religiosa de mundo, ou ainda, a assunção do mito na racionalidade técnica do esclarecimento, que permitirá o futuro desenvolvimento de uma “antropologia dialética”, o que resultaria na saída da aporia enquanto condição histórica da racionalidade humana. (shrink)

O tema geral do presente artigo trata da antropologia histórica encontrada em “The Authoritarian Personality” e fundamentada em “Dialética do Esclarecimento”. Especificamente, abordaremos a conceituação que compreende as movimentações pulsionais enquanto natureza interna, fundamento da concepção da antropologia aqui debatida. Com isso, ao falarmos de antropologia e de natureza, não estamos nos referindo a concepções imutáveis e “biologizantes”, mas a noções históricas e contextuais. Para tanto, iremos nos voltar à “Ideia de história natural” adorniana, precisamente à dialética entre história e (...) natureza. No texto, Adorno trata de dois movimentos de tal dialética: uma concepção de Lukács, para quem elementos da história se tornam naturalizados enquanto segundo natureza, o que pode ser exemplificado com o esquematismo hollywoodiano promovido pela indústria cultural; o segundo movimento, sob influência de Walter Benjamin, trata da transitoriedade histórica da natureza, quando resquícios arcaicos reprimidos pelo sentido histórico dominante ressurgem, tornando-se possibilidade de outra orientação histórica. Este debate se mostra importante justamente porque se encontra no cerne da relação entre economia-política/sociologia e psicanálise, os domínios teóricos mais relevantes para a primeira geração da Teoria Crítica. Por mais que pensemos que há uma antropologia implícita para Horkheimer e Adorno – que enxergariam o ser humano enquanto naturalmente agressivo e destruidor –, o nosso intuito é mostrar que, se a antropologia e a natureza são históricas, o ser humano age a partir da pulsão de morte justamente porque o meio social que o forma é ele mesmo dominador, violento, reificado e alienante. (shrink)

The belief in miracle, as a modality of spiritual/religious coping strategy in the face of stress and psychic suffering, has been discussed in psychological literature with regard to its positive or negative role on the health and well-being of patients and family members. In contemporary times, where pseudo-conflicts between religion and science should have been long overcome, there is still some tendency of interpreting belief in miracle – as the possibility of a cure granted by divine intervention, modifying the normal (...) course of events in a bleak medical diagnosis – as having unhealthy impacts in the care and treatment of health. This position seeks to find a base in the three characteristics of hoping in a miracle, frequently pointed out by psychological literature: it would imply a negation of reality instead of its confrontation; it would be a coping strategy focused on emotion instead of the problem; it would imply seeking to modify the supposed desire of God by extra-natural facts. In this study, we shall critically discuss this position and the dangers of its crystallization by the use of SRC scales in which the act of praying for a miracle is previously classified as a negative strategy. We revisit some tendencies in psychological literature about the subject, taking into consideration the various facets of miracle, sociocultural facts, elements of idiographic nature, and their profound outcomes in the lives of people especially in health contexts. We illustrate the dangers of a hasty generalization of the results of nomothetic studies about the role of belief in miracle with two examples of research in the Brazilian context: one carried out with pregnant women with fetal malformation and the other with family members caring for children and adolescents with cancer under chemotherapeutic treatment. In both studies, the results do not confirm the predominance of the negative aspects associated with the act of praying for a miracle, which we discuss and analyze in light of the phenomenological perspective. In this perspective, “pray for a miracle”, as experienced by patients and caregivers, can be recognized as an act of openness to life, bolstering hope, and the resignification of reality in the psyche. (shrink)

O discurso didático que a escola vem construindo ao longo da história da educação brasileira tem em seu bojo o centralismo epistemológico eurocêntrico institucionalizado. Sendo assim, entendemos ser necessário a constante problematização em torno desses discursos na ação docente. Neste artigo, temos como objetivo analisar a forma como são discursivizadas a História e Cultura Afro-Brasileiras, Africanas, e Indígenas no discurso didático do livro de Física do Ensino Médio Integrado ao Técnico em uso no IFBA, campus Eunápolis. Realizamos uma pesquisa bibliográfica (...) por meio da análise de um corpus constituído de materialidades advindas da coleção, Compreendendo a Física, Alberto Gaspar – 3. ed. – São Paulo: Ática, 2016. Para isso mobilizamos a análise do discurso de linha francesa, as teorias fundantes desta pesquisa de perspectiva multicultural e decolonial, bem como discussões acerca do Livro Didático, esse aparato didático tão presente nas salas de aula e tão pouco consensual. Os resultados apontam que o discurso didático da coleção analisada, não se movimenta para a efetivação de fato da legislação específica do Ensino de História e Cultura Afro-brasileira na rede regular de educação básica. Por isso podemos afirmar que há necessidade de ampliação no plano conceitual e epistemológico do que significa construir uma proposta didática sob a perspectiva racial, que considere para o ensino de Física, as epistemologias africanas e indígenas que potencializam a descolonização deste artefato cultural. Palavras-chave: Relações étnico-raciais. Livro didático. Descolonização. Discurso didático. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta a biografia e o percurso profissional de Pedro Ferreira, impressor activo em Lisboa no século XVIII, e descreve algumas das marcas tipográficas utilizadas nas suas impressões.

Resenha do livro "A Escola de Frankfurt" do autor Paul-Laurent Assoun, obra complememtar sobre a formação e estruturação teórica sobre a Escola de Frankfut, sua história e seus principais autores.

É muitas vezes aceite que certas categorias, tipicamente as de género, raça, orientação sexual ou doença mental, são construções sociais e não divisões naturais no mundo. A distinção entre categorias naturais e categorias sociais, como pretende ser a distinção entre o sexo e o género, tem servido no âmbito da crítica e ciência social para advogar a abolição de certas normas sociais, e para a implementação de políticas mais equitativas. Contudo, há aspectos centrais do construtivismo que são pouco claros. O (...) que é que se nega ao rejeitar que as categorias construídas socialmente são naturais? E o que significa dizer que essas categorias são construções sociais? E será de todo verdade que certas categorias, como o género, são sociais e não naturais? Não tenho a pretensão de responder a todas estas complexas questões neste artigo, mas espero pelo menos iluminar parte do debate contemporâneo sobre estes problemas. Por uma questão de espaço, concentrar-me-ei na noção de género. (shrink)

While nudging has garnered plenty of interdisciplinary attention, the ethics of applying it to climate policy has been little discussed. However, not all ethical considerations surrounding nudging are straightforward to apply to climate nudges. In this article, we overview the state of the debate on the ethics of nudging and highlight themes that are either specific to or particularly important for climate nudges. These include: the justification of nudges that are not self-regarding; how to account for climate change denialists; transparency; (...) knowing the right or best behaviours; justice concerns; and whether the efficacy of nudges is sufficient for nudges to be justified as a response to the climate crisis. We conclude that climate nudges raise distinct ethical questions that ought to be considered in developing climate nudges. (shrink)

Intuitions about retractions have been used to motivate truth relativism about certain types of claims. Among these figure epistemic modals, knowledge attributions, or personal taste claims. On MacFarlane’s prominent relativist proposal, sentences like “the ice cream might be in the freezer” or “Pocoyo is funny” are only assigned a truth-value relative to contexts of utterance and contexts of assessment. Retractions play a crucial role in the argument for assessment-relativism. A retraction of a past assertion is supposed to be mandatory whenever (...) the asserted sentence is not true at the context of use and the context of assessment. If retractions were not obligatory in these conditions, there would be no normative difference between assessment-relativism and contextualism. The main goal of this paper is to undermine the claim that retractions reveal this normative difference. To this effect, the paper offers a review of three important objections to the obligatoriness of retractions. Taken together, these objections make a strong case against the alleged support that retractions give to assessment-relativism. The objections are moreover supported by recent experimental results that are also discussed. This will satisfy a further goal, which is to undermine the idea that there is a constitutive retraction rule. The paper also discusses two ways to understand what such a rule would be constitutive of, and concludes with a discussion of how to describe what retractions are. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that hate speech expresses hate, and answer some objections to expressivist views. First, I briefly comment on some limitations of pragmatic accounts of harmful speech. I then present an expressive-normative view of derogatory discourse according to which it is expressive of an affective state by presupposing it. A linguistic act expressive of an affective state inherits the normativity that is constitutive of that state, as directed to its intentional object. If the act is successful, it (...) updates the conversational context with the normative appraisal conditions of the affective state presupposed. I argue that this model can be applied to hate speech. I rely on current research on the psychology of hate to identify the appraisal conditions, action tendencies, and motivational goals characteristic of hate. The account supplements other pragmatic accounts of hate speech. (shrink)

CADERNOS DE FILOSOFIA EXTRAVAGANTE - ANTÓNIO TELMO Vários Autores Um dos sinais do Quinto Império é que ainda há andorinhas O provérbio diz que uma andorinha não faz a Primavera Mas eu acho que faz Enquanto houver um homem onde resida a espiritualidade há sempre um princípio do Quinto Império António Telmo Este terceiro volume dos Cadernos de Filosofia Extravagante é o primeiro que se publica após a partida de António Telmo, que os imaginou, concebeu e fundou Constitui por isso, (...) na íntegra, um preito de homenagem ao autor da História Secreta de Portugal, nele se inserindo, bem a propósito, as actas do Colóquio A Obra e o Pensamento de António Telmo, realizado em 14 e 15 de Fevereiro de 2011, no Palácio da Independência, em Lisboa, por iniciativa do Instituto de Filosofia Luso-Brasileira, documento a que acrescem alguns testemunhos de amigos que, por uma ou outra razão, não puderam participar naquela comemoração, e duas entrevistas, uma das quais se encontrava por publicar, pelo filósofo concedidas na última década Por outro lado, nestas páginas o leitor poderá ainda encontrar dois escritos do autor de O Bateleur – um poema e um conto – nunca antes dados ao papel em letra de forma E, o que talvez seja mais, uma série significativa de correspondência epistolar até agora mantida inédita, tendo o filósofo por destinatário São missivas de Álvaro Ribeiro, José Marinho, Agostinho da Silva, Dalila Pereira da Costa e António Quadros, definindo um arco temporal que vai da publicação de Arte Poética, em 1963, à de Filosofia e Kabbalah, em 1990 Quase trinta anos de uma vida filosófica singular em que, a cada passo, são bem notórias a admiração e a amizade que mestres e condiscípulos lhe dedicam Autores- António Telmo, Pedro Martins, Renato Epifânio, Américo Rodrigues, Helena Estriga, António Braz Teixeira, Joaquim Domingues, Abel de Lacerda Botelho, Roque N Brás de Oliveira, M N Vieira, Luís Paixão, António Carlos Carvalho, Cynthia Guimarães Taveira, Rui Lopo, António Quadros Ferro, Carlos Aurélio, António Cândido Franco, Rodrigo Sobral Cunha, Carlos Vargas, Manuel Ferreira Patrício, Pedro Sinde, Paulo Santos, Pedro Paquim Ribeiro, Maurícia Teles da Silva, J Pinharanda Gomes, António Quadros, Avelino de Sousa, Elísio Gala, José Paulo Ribeiro Albuquerque, Helder Cortes, Eduardo Aroso, Isabel Xavier, Jesus Carlos, Álvaro Ribeiro, José Marinho, Agostinho da Silva, Dalila Pereira da Costa. (shrink)

Words change meaning, usually in unpredictable ways. But some words’ meanings are revised intentionally. Revisionary projects are normally put forward in the service of some purpose – some serve specific goals of inquiry, and others serve ethical, political or social aims. Revisionist projects can ameliorate meanings, but they can also pervert. In this paper, I want to draw attention to the dangers of meaning perversions, and argue that the self-declared goodness of a revisionist project doesn’t suffice to avoid meaning perversions. (...) The road to Hell, or to horrors on Earth, is paved with good intentions. Finally and more importantly, I want to demarcate what meaning perversions are. This, I hope, can help us assess the moral and political legitimacy of revisionary projects. (shrink)

Kaplan (1999) argued that a different dimension of expressive meaning (“use-conditional”, as opposed to truth-conditional) is required to characterize the meaning of pejoratives, including slurs and racial epithets. Elaborating on this, writers have argued that the expressive meaning of pejoratives and slurs is either a conventional implicature (Potts 2007) or a presupposition (Macià 2002 and 2014, Schlenker 2007, Cepollaro and Stojanovic 2016). We argue that an expressive presuppositional theory accounts well for the data, but that expressive presuppositions are not just (...) propositions to be added to a common ground. We hold that expressives, including pejoratives and slurs, make requirements on a contextual record governed by sui generis norms specific to affective attitudes and their expressions. (shrink)

Philosophers of language and metaethicists are concerned with persistent normative and evaluative disagreements – how can we explain persistent intelligible disagreements in spite of agreement over the described facts? Tim Sundell recently argued that evaluative aesthetic and personal taste disputes could be explained as metalinguistic negotiations – conversations where interlocutors negotiate how best to use a word relative to a context. I argue here that metalinguistic negotiations are neither necessary nor sufficient for genuine evaluative and normative disputes to occur. A (...) comprehensive account of value talk requires stronger metanormative commitments than metalinguistic negotiations afford. (shrink)

Using a prototype approach, we assessed people’s lay conceptions of intuition and analysis. Open-ended descriptions of intuition and analysis were generated by participants (Study 1) and resulting exemplars were sorted into features subsequently rated in centrality by independent participants (Study 2). Feature centrality was validated by showing that participants were quicker and more accurate in classifying central (as compared to peripheral) features (Study 3). Centrality ratings suggested a single-factor structure describing analysis but revealed that participants held lay conceptions of intuition (...) as involving two different types of processes: (1) as an automatic, affective, and non-logical processing, and (2) as a holistic processing that can assist in problem-solving. Additional analyses showed that the centrality ratings of intuition’s facets were predicted by participants’ self-reported intuitive style, suggesting intuition is differently perceived by intuitive and non-intuitive people. We discuss the implications of these results for the study of intuition and analysis. (shrink)

Hom and May (2015) argue that pejoratives mean negative prescriptive properties that externally depend on social ideologies, and that this entails a form of fictionalism: pejoratives have null extensions. There are relevant uses of fictional terms that are necessary to describe the content of fictions, and to make true statements about the world, that do not convey that speakers are committed to the fiction. This paper shows that the same constructions with pejoratives typically convey that the speaker is committed to (...) racist ideologies, in contrast with fictional discourse that typically does not. The disanalogy undermines the plausibility of fictionalism about pejoratives. Moreover, the exceptions—uncommitted uses in embedded constructions—display features that conflict with Hom and May's explanation of committed uses as conversational implicatures. (shrink)

An account of the development of temporal understanding is proposed which links such understanding with the development of episodic memory. We distinguish between different ways of representing time in terms of the kinds of temporal frameworks they involve. Distinctions are made between frameworks that are perspectival or nonperspectival and those that represent recurrent sequences or particular times. Even primitive temporal understanding integrates both perspectival and nonperspectival components. However, since early frameworks are event-based and localized, they are not yet sufficient for (...) episodic memory in that they do not enable the child to think of events as having occurred at particular points in time. We describe the emergence of new kinds of frameworks in terms of the development of temporal decentering. Two levels of temporal decentering are distinguished, with the higher level involving an appreciation of how event representations depend on one's temporal perspective. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the case that has been made for origin essentialism and find it wanting. I focus on the arguments of Nathan Salmon and Graeme Forbes. Like most origin essentialists, Salmon and Forbes have been concerned to respect the intuition that slight variation in the origin of an artifact or organism is possible. But, I argue, both of their arguments fail to respect this intuition. Salmon's argument depends on a sufficiency principle for cross-world identity, which should be (...) rejected, if - as Salmon concedes - a given artifact might have been originally made from slightly different material. Similarly, Forbes's argument succeeds only if essentially the same argument can be used to establish a claim that - by his own admission - is too strong, namely that no variation, however slight, in an organism's origin is possible. (shrink)

Social constructionist claims are surprising and interesting when they entail that presumably natural kinds are in fact socially constructed. The claims are interesting because of their theoretical and political importance. Authors like Díaz-León argue that constitutive social construction is more relevant for achieving social justice than causal social construction. This paper challenges this claim. Assuming there are socially salient groups that are discriminated against, the paper presents a dilemma: if there were no constitutively constructed social kinds, the causes of the (...) discrimination of existing social groups would have to be addressed, and understanding causal social construction would be relevant to achieve social justice. On the other hand, not all possible constitutively socially constructed kinds are actual social kinds. If an existing social group is constitutively constructed as a social kind K, the fact that it actually exists as a K has social causes. Again, causal social construction is relevant. The paper argues that (i) for any actual social kind X, if X is constitutively socially constructed as K, then it is also causally socially constructed; and (ii) causal social construction is at least as relevant as constitutive social construction for concerns of social justice. For illustration, I draw upon two phenomena that are presumed to contribute towards the discrimination of women: (i) the poor performance effects of stereotype threat, and (ii) the silencing effects of gendered language use. (shrink)

A new model of the development of temporal concepts is described that assumes that there are substantial changes in how children think about time in the early years. It is argued that there is a shift from understanding time in an event-dependent way to an event-independent understanding of time. Early in development, very young children are unable to think about locations in time independently of the events that occur at those locations. It is only with development that children begin to (...) have a proper grasp of the distinction between past, present, and future, and represent time as linear and unidirectional. The model assumes that although children aged 2 to 3 years may categorize events differently depending on whether they lie in the past or the future, they may not be able to understand that whether an event is in the past or future is something that changes as time passes and varies with temporal perspective. Around 4 to 5 years, children understand how causality operates in time, and can grasp the systematic relations that obtain between different locations in time, which provides the basis for acquiring the conventional clock and calendar system. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Most existing literature on the ethics of full ectogenesis has proceeded under the presupposition that science will at some point produce sophisticated technologies for full‐term gestation (from embryo to infant) outside the human womb, delivering neonate health outcomes comparable with (or even superior to) biological gestation. However, the development of this technology—as opposed to the support systems currently being advanced—would require human subject experiments in embryo‐onwards development using ectogenic prototypes. Literature on ectogenic research ethics has so far focused on (...) ‘backwards’ development of partial ectogenesis: incubation and ectogestation technologies that would allow the support of earlier and earlier neonates and foetuses. However, little has been said about the ethics of ‘forwards’ development of (partial or full) ectogenesis, involving the development of embryos and foetuses in prototype environments. Such a prototype might allow us to produce a gestateling or live neonate from a human embryo, but with poorer expected development and health outcomes than from biological gestation; it might also produce only gestatelings (healthy or otherwise) before the technology was developed to a stage where full‐term gestation was achievable. This paper explicates some of the ethical issues that this raises for the development of ‘full’ ectogenesis, and presents prima facie reasons to consider this research problematic and therefore to require extensive further argument in its defence. (shrink)

We know that our gas-guzzling cars are warming the planet, the pesticides and fertilizers from farms are turning rivers toxic, and the earth has run out of space for the mountains of unrecycled waste our daily consumption has left in its wake. We’ve heard copious accounts of our impact—as humans, as a society—on the natural world. But this is not a one-sided relationship. Lost in these dire and scolding accounts has been the impact on us and our well-being. You sense (...) it while walking on a sandy beach, or in a wild, woody forest, or when you catch sight of wildlife, or even while gardening in your backyard. Could it be that the natural environment is an essential part of our happiness? Yes, says Eric Lambin emphatically in _An Ecology of Happiness_. Using a very different strategy in addressing environmental concerns, he asks us to consider that there may be no better reason to value and protect the health of the planet than for our own personal well-being. In this clever and wide-ranging work, Lambin draws on new scientific evidence in the fields of geography, political ecology, environmental psychology, urban studies, and disease ecology, among others, to answer such questions as: To what extent do we need nature for our well-being? How does environmental degradation affect our happiness? What can be done to protect the environment and increase our well-being at the same time? Drawing on case studies from Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America, Lambin makes a persuasive case for the strong link between healthy ecosystems and happy humans. Unique in its scope and evenhanded synthesis of research from many fields, _An Ecology of Happiness _offers a compelling human-centered argument that is impossible to overlook when we marvel at murmurations of starlings or seek out the most brilliant fall foliage: nature makes our steps a little lighter and our eyes a little brighter. What better reason to protect an ecosystem or save a species than for our own pleasure? (shrink)

French philosopher and literary theorist Roland Barthes was one of the leading influences on the post-structuralist movement in twentieth-century literary thought, and some of his best-known works, like _S/Z_, speak directly to the essential and individual relationship between a reader and a literary text. In _Incidents_, readers have the privilege of going inside the life and thought of Barthes, through a book that is a testament to Barthes’ belief that a literary work should invite the full, active participation of the (...) reader. The essays collected in _Incidents_, originally published in French shortly after Barthes’ death, provide unique insight into the author’s life, his personal struggles, and his delights. Though Barthes questioned the act of keeping a journal with the aim of having it published, he decided to undertake a diary-like experiment in four parts. The first, which gives the collection its title, is a revealing personal account of his time living in Morocco. The second, “The Light of the Southwest,” is an ode to Barthes’ favorite region in France, while in “At Le Palace Tonight,” Barthes describes a vibrant Paris night spot. Finally, the journal entries of “Evenings in Paris” reveal Barthes as an older gay man, struggling with his desire for young lovers. Rendered here in a lyrical new translation alongside the striking photographs of Bishan Samaddar, _Incidents _will delight fans of Barthes’ other works, as well as anyone curious for a look inside the mind of one of the twentieth century’s foremost intellectuals. (shrink)

In the spring of 2003, Jacques Derrida sat down for a public debate in Paris with Algerian intellectual Mustapha Chérif. The eminent philosopher arrived at the event directly from the hospital where he had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the illness that would take his life just over a year later. That he still participated in the exchange testifies to the magnitude of the subject at hand: the increasingly distressed relationship between Islam and the West, and the questions of (...) freedom, justice, and democracy that surround it. As Chérif relates in this account of their dialogue, the topic of Islam held special resonance for Derrida—perhaps it is to be expected that near the end of his life his thoughts would return to Algeria, the country where he was born in 1930. Indeed, these roots served as the impetus for their conversation, which first centers on the ways in which Derrida’s Algerian-Jewish identity has shaped his thinking. From there, the two men move to broader questions of secularism and democracy; to politics and religion and how the former manipulates the latter; and to the parallels between xenophobia in the West and fanaticism among Islamists. Ultimately, the discussion is an attempt to tear down the notion that Islam and the West are two civilizations locked in a bitter struggle for supremacy and to reconsider them as the two shores of the Mediterranean—two halves of the same geographical, religious, and cultural sphere. _Islam and the West_ is a crucial opportunity to further our understanding of Derrida’s views on the key political and religious divisions of our time and an often moving testament to the power of friendship and solidarity to surmount them. (shrink)

Four experiments examined children's ability to reason about the causal significance of the order in which 2 events occurred (the pressing of buttons on a mechanically operated box). In Study 1, 4-year-olds were unable to make the relevant inferences, whereas 5-year-olds were successful on one version of the task. In Study 2, 3-year-olds were successful on a simplified version of the task in which they were able to observe the events although not their consequences. Study 3 found that older children (...) had difficulties with the original task even when provided with cues to attend to order information. However, 5-year-olds performed successfully in Study 4, in which the causally relevant event was made more salient. (shrink)