The purpose of this paper is to analyse the limits of constitutional reform. Some constitutions, for example, the German (art. 79, sec. 3), the Italian (art. 139), the Portuguese (art. 288), the French (art. 89, sec. 5), and the Brazilian (art. 60, sec. 4), contain an “essential core” of rights, which is usually understood as being immune to change. The initial focus in the paper is on the discussion on whether and to what extent these “essential cores” are indeed immune (...) to change. A second focus is on Ross's paradox. Here I analyse and reject Ross's own solution to the paradox and I show, too, that the paradox admits no solution that does not imply a discontinuity in the legal system. (shrink)

Balancing implies a comparison among goods, values, principles and rights that cannot be ranked on a single scale of measurement, ie there is no unequivocal measuring unit applicable to all of them. In such situations, it is common to state that one has to compare incommensurable things. Indeed, this issue has been mentioned by several authors as a strong reason in favour of abandoning balancing (and proportionality) as a rational form of judicial argumentation and decision-making. My article aims at arguing (...) that this objection is based on fallacious assumptions concerning the relations among three concepts: incommensurability, incomparability and balancing. Initially, what is at stake is the analysis of the connection between comparing values (or principles) and commensurability. The results of this initial analysis were then used to provide greater analytical strength to the specific debate on balancing and comparing rights in order to show that incommensurability does not imply incomparability and that rational decisions are possible even when incommensurable values are at stake. Since balancing (and proportionality) implies comparisons, and since constitutional principles are doubtlessly incommensurable (for there is no common metric to measure them), arguing for the comparability of incommensurable principles is an unavoidable step if one aims at demonstrating that balancing may be a rational procedure after all. (shrink)

Introdução: A Educação Permanente (EP) tem relação entre ensino e as práticas de atenção, levando em consideração a gestão, o desenvolvimento institucional e o controle social. Objetivo: Identificar fatores envolvidos na adesão dos profissionais nos programas de formação oferecidos pelo Complexo Hospitalar do Estado de Minas Gerais. Metodologia: Questionário aplicado a colaboradores da saúde do Complexo Hospitalar, relacionado às características dos profissionais e ao programa de EP. Resultados: A maioria dos participantes não sabia o verdadeiro conceito de EP. Participam das (...) capacitações e da análise de eficácia e o cronograma das ações educativas é feito com a equipe. A prioridade foi por ações presenciais. Discussão: A presença de mais de um vínculo empregatício, filhos e carga horária extensa de trabalho contribuíram para a baixa adesão fora do ambiente de trabalho. Conclusão: Colaboradores desconhecem o significado real da EP. As ações educativas agregam no conhecimento e na melhoria da assistência. (shrink)

“Geronimo” foi o codinome atribuído a Osama Bin Laden pelas forças especiais americanas. Muito antes dos ataques de 11 de setembro de 2001, “Geronimo” já vinha sendo procurado mundo afora. O após 11 de setembro, a procura foi apenas intensificada. Com a chegada de Barack Obama, foram implantadas diversas estratégias – como ampliação das forças especiais e utilização ostensiva de drones – para efetivamente neutralizar “Geronimo” e seus seguidores. Em 2 de maio de 2011 “Geronimo” foi, enfim, eliminado. Logo em (...) seguida, o presidente Obama começou a anunciar que a decade of war is ending. O núcleo das preocupações americanas não existia mais. Com isso, os Estados Unidos poderiam retornar majoritariamente os seus esforços a suas questões tradicionais e a seus problemas fundamentais, como a crise financeira. Em seu mais importante discurso nesse início de segundo mandato, proferido em maio de 2013, na National Defense University, o presidente Obama apresentou a estratégia americana para superar esses problemas e reabilitar seu lugar de protagonista incontornável do sistema internacional. O presente artigo analisa os significados dessa estratégia e algumas de suas possíveis consequências. (shrink)

Se constructions designate a set of polysemous constructions along a transitivity continuum marked by the clitic se that perform various functions: reflexive/reciprocal, middle, anticausative, passive, and impersonal. A counterpart of these constructions without the clitic – the null se construction – is also attested. Based on an extensive usage-feature and profile-based analysis, and using multivariate statistical methods, we analyze, considering Cognitive Grammar, the conceptual, structural, and lectal factors that determine the choice between overt and null se constructions. The results of (...) the study show that the null constructions are far more frequent in Brazilian (BP) than in European Portuguese (EP). In BP, the focus on the moment of change is a crucial factor for the overt/null variation in reflexive/reciprocal, middle, anticausative, and impersonal constructions. If the moment of the change of state is profiled, the overt se construction is usually produced. If the moment of change is not profiled, the null se construction is preferred. External factors also play a role in the variation. Register is an important predictor for the observed variation of the anticausative construction, and the only predictor for the overt/null variation in the case of the passive construction. In EP, the null se variant is mainly limited to anticausative constructions. In all cases of null constructions, there is a shift to an absolute construal, which has an impact on the way that the transitivity continuum is conceptualized. (shrink)

O texto apresenta a apropriação feita pela extrema-direita brasileira ao redor da obra de George Orweel, em especial, de '1984' e 'Animal Farm'. Argumentamos que a adjudicação 'conservadora' é inadequada para tal apropriação. Os intelectuais e editoriais implicados na circulação atual de Orwell nas redes bolsonaristas permite ver como clássicos do pensamento conservador ocidental são aqui canonizados em chave, mais que conservadora, reacionária. Além disso, o duelo de distopias empunhados pelos ideólogos da extrema-direita dá também acesso a uma indústria cultural, (...) na qual um sem-fim de produtos culturais são vendidos para forjar e cativar uma plateia potencial reacionária. (shrink)

Many journals and publishers employ online submission systems to process manuscripts. In some cases, one “template” format exists, but it is then molded slightly to suit the specific needs of each journal, a decision made by the editor-in-chief or editors. In the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of cases in which OSSs have been abused, mostly by the authorship, either through the creation of fake identities or the use of false e-mail accounts. Although the (...) abusive or fraudulent authors are at fault in such cases, the fact that such cases remained undetected for so long is of concern. Moreover, the current OSSs are imperfect, have security issues and may not be able to detect false information, except through post-submission verification. Sting operations, which involve the submission of false manuscripts with false identities and false affiliations, are no less unethical, and those who abuse the publishing protocol deserve to be as reprimanded as those who abuse OSSs. Finally, I question the ethics of editors or publishers creating OSS accounts on behalf of reviewers prior to obtaining their explicit permission. doi: 10.5294/pebi.2016.20.2.3. (shrink)

In this paper I study the variants of the notion of completeness Husserl pre-sented in “Ideen I” and two lectures he gave in Göttingen in 1901. Introduced primarily in connection with the problem of imaginary numbers, this notion found eventually a place in the answer Husserl provided for the philosophically more im-portant problem of the logico-epistemological foundation of formal knowledge in sci-ence. I also try to explain why Husserl said that there was an evident correlation between his and Hilbert’s notion (...) of completeness introduced in connection with the axiomatisation of geometry and the theory of real numbers when, as many commen-tators have already observed, these two notions are independent. I show in this paper that if a system of axioms is complete in Husserl’s sense, then its formal domain, the manifold of formal objects it determines, does not admit any extension. This is precisely the idea behind Hilbert’s notion of completeness in question. Therefore, the correlation Husserl noted indeed exists. But, in order to see it, we must consider the formal domain determined by a formal theory, not its models. (shrink)

Without peer reviewers, the entire scholarly publishing system as we currently know it would collapse. However, as it currently stands, publishing is an extremely exploitative system, relative to o...

A very important event took place on January 15, 2017. On that day, the Jeffrey Beall blog was silently, and suddenly, shut down by Beall himself. A profoundly divisive and controversial site, the Beall blog represented an existential threat to those journals and publishers that were listed there. On the other hand, the Beall blog was a ray of hope to critics of bad publishing practices that a culture of public shaming was perhaps the only way to rout out those (...) journals—and their editors—and publishers who did not respect basic publishing ethical principles and intrinsic academic values. While members of the former group vilified Beall and his blog, members of the latter camp tried to elevate it to the level of policy. Split by extreme polar forces, for reasons still unknown to the public, Beall deliberately shut down his blog, causing some academic chaos among global scholars, including to the open access movement. (shrink)

I discuss here the pragmatic problem in the philosophy of mathematics, that is, the applicability of mathematics, particularly in empirical science, in its many variants. My point of depart is that all sciences are formal, descriptions of formal-structural properties instantiated in their domain of interest regardless of their material specificity. It is, then, possible and methodologically justified as far as science is concerned to substitute scientific domains proper by whatever domains —mathematical domains in particular— whose formal structures bear relevant formal (...) similarities with them. I also discuss the consequences to the ontology of mathematics and empirical science of this structuralist approach. (shrink)

Este trabalho propõe analisar a presença da religião em alguns espaços públicos educacionais. Por meio da metodologia da observação participante identificamos dois momentos que se articulam entre si: a influência da Escola sem Partido ao longo dos estágios docentes do curso de Ciências Sociais Licenciatura em Campos dos Goytacazes; e a presença de movimentos missionário cristãos, originários dos EUA, que visam influenciar a juventude estudantil evangélica a uma transformação social, nacional e mundial, no espaço universitário. Tais descrições nos traz questionamentos (...) sobre os desafios e perspectivas da formação docente nos voltando, novamente, para a discussão entre ciência, religião e política. Sendo assim, o presente trabalho nos traz muitas interrogações sobre algumas questões que perpassam a questão religiosa e são pertinentes ao debate educacional. Diante da organização e expressões de fé demarcados por discursos e ações de estudantes visamos trazer breves reflexões sobre o ensino de Sociologia no cotidiano escolar e despertar atenção para a presença de movimentos religiosos no espaço universitário. (shrink)

A retraction of a scientific paper is made, most often due to errors or lack of publishing ethics on the part of authors, or, on occasion, duplicate publication by a publisher in error. The retraction notice that accompanies the retraction is an extremely important document, because it is the only information that provides a background to the public regarding the reason why the manuscript was retracted. In most cases, if the retraction notice is truly transparent, it will contain a few (...) sentences that indicate the reason, and possibly also the authors’ responsible, among other facts. According to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), retraction notices should be free to view, i.e. open access. This opinion piece exposes how several publishers are selling access to retraction notices, including COPE members, despite, in some cases, being paying COPE members. The business and academic ethics of such an action is thus called into question.Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2015 Vol.6 (1):27-39. (shrink)

In this paper, the need of increasing transdisciplinarity research is advocated. After having set out some peculiarity of transdisciplinarity compared with related concepts such as multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, four evolutionary stages of scientific disciplines, based on a model recently proposed are presented. This model is then applied to the case of Plant Physiology in order to attempt an evaluation of the potential for transdisciplinary engagement of the discipline, and each of the four stages of the discipline is evaluated. In conclusion, (...) some future perspectives of Plant Physiology are sketched with reference to its transdisciplinary potential. (shrink)

O impacto do ciberespaço com as novas formas de produção, circulação e consumo de informação tem sido tão grande a ponto de reconfigurar a vida e o pensamento como tais? Educação, cultura, toda construção dos espaços antropológicos e até a maneira de se comunicar com o sagrado se vêem afetadas por essa interrogação que nasce do confronto do humano com a internet. O artigo vem examinar criticamente a resposta de Pierre Levy; um dos primeiros intelectuais a responder a essa complexa (...) interrogação, confrontando-se em poucas páginas a sua posição e a de outros críticos teóricos, definindo o espaço da produção do virtual como um novo plano de realidade a partir do qual se devem discutir os parâmetros de uma nova maneira de se comunicar com o sagrado. Não há respostas, mas sim, muitas perguntas. (shrink)

The Periodic Table of Elements is one of the greatest achievements of the human intellect but is far from a finished work. Generations of chemists and physicists have improved on it, in light of the discovery of new elements and advancements in the domain of Quantum Mechanics. Specially, the role of the four quantum numbers that dictates the distribution of the elements throughout the Table has been clarified. However, as the Table grew older and venerable, a tradition developed that froze (...) its overall shape, obfuscating somewhat the comprehension of its underlying principles. Proposals of reforming it has been made but face the opposition of scientists, professionals and educators who are comfortable with the Table as it has been for several decades. Here, the author advocates for possible alternatives, discuss potential advantages and answer to some criticisms on them. (shrink)

In an entry of Papirer, located between the years 1842-1843 (IV C 100), entitled "On the concepts of Esse and Inter-Esse," Kierkegaard makes a fundamental methodological assertion: the various sciences should be ordered and built through the accent put on being (Vaeren - Esse). Thus, the ontology and mathematics, because they develop from a ground of elemental unity between thought and being, are a particular kind of science with epistemological well-defined characteristics. However, as Kierkegaard shows in Postscript, the same plea (...) can not be relied on what is named Inter-Esse. Thus, this paper aims to outline the general features of the concept of Inter-Esse as well as their connections with what, in that same entry, Kierkegaard calls "Existential Science" (Existentiel-videnskab). (shrink)

Em uma entrada dos Papirer, situada entre os anos de 1842-1843, cujo título é “Sobre os conceitos de Esse e de Inter-esse ”, Kierkegaard faz uma consideração metodológica fundamental: as diversas ciências deveriam ser ordenadas e constituídas a partir do acento que colocam sobre o ser. Assim, a ontologia e a matemática, por se desenvolverem a partir de um solo de fundamental unidade entre o pensamento e o ser, constituem um determinado tipo de ciência com características epistemológicas bem delimitadas. Contudo, (...) como Kierkegaard mostra no Pós-escrito, o mesmo fundamento não pode ser invocado acerca daquilo que aí é nomeado Inter-Esse. Assim, este trabalho pretende delimitar os traços gerais do conceito de Inter-Esse bem como suas conexões com o que, naquela mesma nota, Kierkegaard chama de “Ciência existencial”.: In an entry of Papirer, located between the years 1842-1843, entitled "On the concepts of Esse and Inter-Esse," Kierkegaard makes a fundamental methodological assertion: the various sciences should be ordered and built through the accent put on being. Thus, the ontology and mathematics, because they develop from a ground of elemental unity between thought and being, are a particular kind of science with epistemological well-defined characteristics. However, as Kierkegaard shows in Postscript, the same plea can not be relied on what is named Inter-Esse. Thus, this paper aims to outline the general features of the concept of Inter-Esse as well as their connections with what, in that same entry, Kierkegaard calls "Existential Science". Keywords: Kierkegaard; Existence; Ontology; Epistemology. (shrink)

In 2019, Christia Mercer has published a paper in which she does a reassessment of the 2015 debate between Garber and Della Rocca on what would be the correct interpretation of Spinoza. Following Mercer, the two philosophers instantiated two main positions regarding the concept and the methodology of doing history of philosophy, namely, contextualism and appropriationism. As Mercer puts it, it is pivoted around the acceptance or rejection of one single principle, i.e. the “Getting Things Right Constraint” (GTRC), which can (...) be rendered as the clause that forbids the attribution of claims or ideas to historical figures without concern for whether or not they are ones the figures would recognize as their own. However, rather than be an undoubtful principle, it conceals a great number of tough questions about the very meaning of what one should understand by “getting things right”. Following what Mulligan names the “Austrian approach” to the history of philosophy, this paper aims to unfold some aspects of Brentano’s “philosophy of history of philosophy” to look for his contributions to a problem that was already present at the origins of contemporary philosophy. Keywords: Brentano. Contextualism. Appropriationism. History of Philosophy. (shrink)

The platonic ontology as known through the Phaedo and Republic is centered on the hypothesis of the intelligible Forms, that is, the platonic Socrates' belief that there are ontologically independent entities such as "the beautiful itself", "the good itself", "the equal itself" etc., of which all empirical things participate thereby receiving the properties they exhibit. Clearly, the main philosophical influences on this doctrine are pre-Socratic philosophy, the sophistic and Socrates' thought. The aim of this paper is to present which ideas (...) or philosophical questions led Plato to postulate the Forms. (shrink)

Plausible retributivist justifications for punishment assert that the commission of a moral wrong creates a pro tanto reason to punish the person who committed it. Yet there are good case-based and theoretical reasons to believe that not all moral wrongs are the proper subjects of criminal law or that they are within the proper domain of the state. This article provides these reasons, which suggest that a plausible retributivist justification for punishment must make distinctions between state-relevant and non-state-relevant moral wrongs (...) and state-relevant and non-state-relevant desert. The article makes the case for Rawlsian public reason as a plausible method for making these distinctions. (shrink)

The article deals with race relations in Brazil, analyzing how adult and children’s literature in Brazil has worked to maintain and update the "complex prosperous." The article is guided by the hypothesis that the main challenge is to mover narratives, literature and textbooks which go beyond the homogeneity of a single story based on white as representative "natural" discourse of the human species that places the "other" as "deviant", from the hegemony of the white hierarchy for plural discourses. In Brazilian (...) racial hierarchies are profuse and profound. An analysis of "the Negro as an object" indicate the presence of some striking black characters as tending to be subordination and inferiority. The alternatives are linked to the "black literature" that demonstrates richness and strength but at the same time, this literature is maintained as "marginal." In children’s literature the process is very similar, observing continuous forms of hierarchy of whites as superior and blacks as inferior. I discuss the need for teacher training and the production of alternatives and other new literary discourse. (shrink)

This article presents the contributions of Paulo Freire to think about children's education. It breaks with a certain understanding that Freire would have been concerned only with the education of young people and adults. It is an essay that discusses the concept of child and childhood in Freire and the proposition of a pedagogy forged with children, a “girl” pedagogy.

The provocation defence, which militates against full legal responsibility for unjustified killings in several common law jurisdictions, has been the subject of considerable controversy during recent decades. Much of the criticism focused on substantive legal issues. This article examines the philosophical bases for the defence in hopes of establishing a theoretical groundwork for future debate on the legal defence. The defence originated on desert bases and continues to be understood on those grounds. This article thus examines it in light of (...) two dominant desert-based theories of punishment originating with Aristotle and Immanuel Kant respectively.Ultimately, the best theory of punishment and the best theory of defence are provided by different approaches. The more plausible and robust Kantian theory of punishment can nonetheless be supplemented by the Aristotelean theory of defence as a continent sociological morality to create a more nuanced account of defence that better explains both excuses in general and the provocation defence in particular. From a substantive legal perspective, this position justifies continued use of the provocation defence in our imperfect legal order, but the partial excuse of provocation will not exist in the ideal legal order. An ideal political order will sufficiently control its citizens’ emotions such that the defence cannot be justified. A partial excuse of provocation is only necessary in the interim. (shrink)

Resenha do livro de John Shelby Spong, Um novo cristianismo para um novo mundo.

This paper shows the relevance of an evolutionary model for the study of language change. We focus on a cognitive and usage-based approach to language change, namely the Theory of Utterance Selection developed by Croft (2000). Croft's evolutionary approach takes its inspiration from neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, particularly the Generalized Theory of Selection developed by Hull (1988), a philosopher of science. Language is viewed as a system of use governed by convention, and language change results from breaking with convention and propagating (...) this innovation through the linguistic community until it becomes a new convention. Crucially, altered replication can be equated with language innovation, and propagation of individual changes is the linguistic counterpart of the differential perpetuation or selection of replicators. We will argue within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics (Geeraerts & Cuyckens, 2007) for a more systematic integration of cognitive and social factors in the explanation of language change. The mechanisms for language innovation are cognitive, as the pnnciples of cognitive efficiency like prototypicality constitute the main motivations for language change and metaphor and metonymy the main cognitive mechanisms of semantic change. The mechanisms for propagation are essentially social, including processes such as accommodation, identity and prestige. All of these mechanisms occur in individual communicative acts and operate like an "invisible hand" (Keller, 1994). We illustrate the sociocognitive evolutionary model of language change with some case studies on semantic change in Portuguese. (shrink)