Quines són les causes del dèficit filosòfic que arrossega la cultura catalana contemporània? Aquest llibre ofereix un panorama bastant complet —i amarg— de les condicions acadèmiques i extraacadèmiques en què s’ha hagut de conrear als Països Catalans la filosofia, tota la filosofia, centrant-se, això sí, en les aventures personals i col·lectives dels qui han tingut la vel·leïtat de dedicar-se a la lògica. Hi són narrades amb amenitat i lucidesa l’estada de Bertrand Russell a Barcelona, la defenestració d’Eugeni d’Ors, les aberracions (...) docents de Josep Daurella i Rull, la breu i fulgurant trajectòria intel·lectual de Joan Crexells, les peripècies eclesiàstiques de David Garcia Bacca i Miquel Soy, l’exili de Josep Ferrater Mora i la gestació del seu voluminós Diccionario de filosofía, la marginació de Manuel Sacristan, els conflictes de la Facultat de Filosofia de València en els anys 70... El resultat és una història de la filosofia apartada en molts aspectes de la imatge «abstracta» i «idealitzada» que sol oferir la historiografia filosòfica a l’ús. (shrink)

‘Epistemic’ arguments for conservatism typically claim that given the limits of human reason, we are better off accepting some particular social practice or institution rather than trying to consciously improve it. I critically examine and defend here one such argument, claiming that there are some domains of social life in which, given the limits of our knowledge and the complexity of the social world, we ought to defer to those institutions that have robustly endured in a wide variety of circumstances (...) in the past while not being correlated with intolerable outcomes. These are domains of social life in which our ignorance of optimal institutions is radical, and there is uncertainty about the costs of error. This is an argument for the preservation of particular institutions, not particular policies or outcomes, and it specifically identifies these with the institutions that John Rawls called ‘the basic structure of society.’ The argument further implies that to the extent that there is any reason to change these institutions, changes should be calculated as far as possible to increase their ‘epistemic power.’. (shrink)

Many animals display a capacity to regenerate tissues or even a complete body. One of the main goals of regenerative biology is to identify the genes and genetic networks necessary for this process. Drosophila offers an ideal model system for such studies. The wide range of genetic and genomic approaches available for use in flies has helped in initiating the deciphering of the mechanisms underlying regeneration, and the results may be applicable to other organisms, including mammals. Moreover, most models of (...) regeneration require experimental manipulation, whereas in Drosophila discrete domains can be ablated by genetically induced methods. Here, we present a summary of current research into imaginal disc regeneration and discuss the power of this tissue as a tool for understanding the genetics of regeneration. (shrink)

PENSAMENT POSITIVISTA A CATALUNYA és un conjunt d'estudis sobre la recepció al nostre país de les idees culturals, socials, polítiques i científiques del corrent de categories formulades per August Comte i Émile Littré. L'objectiu de l'estudi que es presenta és mostrar el marc històric i institucional —la funció instructora d'ateneus com el Centre de Lectura reusenc— en què es produeix l'evolució de la concepció positivista de la realitat. La recerca se situa en el context contemporani que abocarà a la industrialització (...) i a l'emergència del moviment obrer i republicà. Pel que fa a l'àmbit del pensament econòmic, el volum estudia el programa de Pere Estasén —relació entre política econòmica i territori—, que duu a plantejar la irrupció del positivisme a Catalunya com una estratègia explicativa que vincula les idees generals a la situació de la vida nacional, tant políticament (catalanisme regeneracionista) com econòmicament (proteccionisme com a via de modernització de les estructures productives). En aquesta línia de coneixement sociològic també cal destacar, com es planteja al llibre, un cert gir humanista del cientisme en l'àmbit de la cultura fisiològica representat per les Monografies Mèdiques. Finalment, arran de la lectura del text, el lector es pot arribar a formular un doble interrogant: si existeix un pensament positivista autòcton o bé si a quest pensament sorgeix de la formalització i aplicació de la idea de progrés en un context determinat. (shrink)

This paper is a preliminary investigation into the application of the formal-logical theory of normative positions to the characterisation of normative-informational positions, pertaining to rules that are meant to regulate the supply of information. First, we present the proposed framework. Next, we identify the kinds of nuances and distinctions that can be articulated in such a logical framework. Finally, we show how such nuances can arise in specific regulations. Reference is made to Data Protection Law and Contract Law, among others. (...) The proposed approach is articulated around two essential steps. The first involves identifying the set of possible interpretations that can be given to a particular norm. This is done by using formal methods. The second involves picking out one of these interpretations as the most likely one. This second step can be resolved only by using further information (e.g., the context or other parts of the regulation). (shrink)

Replying to Samuel Knafo and Benno Teschke, this article shows how Political Marxism offers powerful conceptual tools to understand modes of production that structure historical processes as fundamentally constituted by exploitative social and political relations. I explain how structure, or rules of reproduction, should be understood as alienated social relations, which are inherent to all class societies. Understanding structure this way leaves ample space for – and makes inevitable – the consideration of agency.

RESUMO Este texto discute alguns problemas metodológicos e históricos concernentes à fenomenologia da consciência de imagem elaborada por Edmund Husserl e algumas de suas repercussões teóricas. Primeiramente será tematizado o escopo mais amplo em que a abordagem filosófica das imagens auferiu relevância no século XX, a saber, a assim chamada “virada icônica” ou “pictórica”, conforme as respectivas formulações de Gottfried Boehm e William Mitchell. Será situada nesse contexto a fenomenologia da imagem e, mais especificamente, a fenomenologia da consciência de imagem (...) elaborada por Husserl, considerando-se, em especial, os eixos norteadores dos três direcionamentos que sobressaem nas teorias contemporâneas da imagem, a saber: as abordagens antropológica, semiótica e perceptiva. A partir da retomada de nuances semióticas remanescentes na fenomenologia da consciência de imagem, serão apresentados alguns pontos críticos acerca da classificação das análises de Husserl no escopo do direcionamento perceptivo e, finalmente, apontadas implicações do copertencimento à apresentação intuitiva da imagem daquilo que se denominará “circunstancialidade indicativa”. ABSTRACT This text addresses some methodological and historical problems concerning the phenomenology of image consciousness elaborated by Edmund Husserl as well as some of its theoretical repercussions. At first, I examine the broader scope in which the philosophical approach to images became relevant in the 20th century, the so-called “iconic turn” or “pictorial turn”, according to the respective terms proposed by Gottfried Boehm and William Mitchell. In this context I situate the phenomenology of image and, more specifically, the phenomenology of image consciousness elaborated by Husserl, considering, in particular, the guiding axes of three directions that stand out in contemporary theories of image, namely: the anthropological, the semiotic and the perceptual approach. By the resumption of semiotic nuances remaining in the phenomenology of image consciousness I present some critical points about the classification of Husserl’s analyses in the scope of perceptual approach. Finally, I point out some implications of the co-belonging to the intuitive image presentation of what can be called “indicative circumstantiality”. (shrink)

Features of threatening cues and the associated context influence the perceived imminence of threat and the defensive responses evoked. To provide additional knowledge about how the directionality of a threat (i.e. directed-towards or away from the viewer) might impact defensive responses in humans, participants were shown pictures of a man carrying a gun (threat) or nonlethal object (neutral) directed-away from or towards the participant. Cardiac and electrodermal responses were collected. Compared to neutral images, threatening images depicting a gun directed-towards the (...) participant induced sustained bradycardia and an increased electrodermal response, interpreted as immobility under attack. This defensive immobility reaction is evoked by high perceived threat and inescapable situations and indicates intense action preparation. Pictures of guns directed-away from the participant induced shorter bradycardia and no significant modulation of the electrodermal response compared to neutral pictures, which might be consistent with the perception of a less threatening situation. The results show that the directionality of threat stimuli is a key factor that prompts different patterns of defensive responses. (shrink)

There has been significant debate about whether the moral norms of medical practice arise from some feature or set of features internal to the discipline of medicine. In this article, I analyze Edmund Pellegrino’s conception of the internal morality of medicine, and situate it in the context of Alasdair MacIntyre’s influential account of “practice.” Building upon MacIntyre, Pellegrino argued that medicine is a social practice with its own unique goals—namely, the medical, human, and spiritual good of the patient—and that the (...) moral norms that govern medical practice are derived from these goals. After providing an overview of Pellegrino’s work, I discuss some forceful objections to his theory—specifically, that it is too rigid and incapable of entering into dialogue with contemporary values systems; that it is dependent on an external conception of human flourishing; and that it is incompatible with the rapidly changing nature of modern medicine. In the final section of this article, I consider how theorists working in the Hippocratic tradition might respond to these objections against ethical essentialism by drawing upon MacIntyre’s historico-cultural method as well as what he calls Aristotle’s “metaphysical biology.”. (shrink)

RESUMO: Este texto aborda alguns trabalhos contemporâneos em artes visuais que apresentam diferentes relações e disposições de um material dito natural: pedras. Ao retomar as distinções explicitadas por Heidegger, entre meras coisas, utensílio e obra de arte, bem como entre a pedra, o animal e o homem em relação ao mundo, serão discutidos deslocamentos acerca dessas distinções, com base em apontamentos da desconstrução. Pretende-se indicar alguns dos sentidos em que os enfoques desconstrutivos são frutíferos, para se pensar movimentos contemporâneos no (...) âmbito do que Derrida denomina artes do espaço. ABSTRACT: This text approaches some contemporary works in the visual arts which present different relations and dispositions of a material taken to be natural: stone. I intend to revisit the distinctions presented by Heidegger between mere things, utensils and works of art, as well as between stone, animal and man in connection with the world. Furthermore, I will discuss dislocations regarding such issues, based on indications from deconstruction. I aim to indicate some of the meanings under which deconstructive approaches are fruitful for thinking about contemporary movements within the scope of what Derrida calls "spatial arts". (shrink)

El nuevo milenio ha dejado atrás un siglo que ha visto renacer la filosofía del ser de Tomás de Aquino. Algunos de sus más destacados comentaristas, han desafiado la interpretación tradicional de la escuela tomista dominicana. En este artículo, se pretende confrontar una reciente contribución cuyo autor buscar justificar la posición tradicinoal del tomismo acerca de la noción de esse ut existentia. Frente a ella, se presentará otra que ponga de relieve el original estatus del esse ut actus essendi, a (...) la luz de lo que el Aquinate afirma en C.G. I, c. 28, n. 2. (shrink)

It is a widely-held thesis that the content of intentions can be characterized in terms of the truth of a proposition. In this paper I try to reject this idea. First, I argue that, at least for ordinary cases of intention, there cannot be any proposition such that the intention is fulfilled if, and only if, such a proposition is true. After that, I propose an alternative account for the content of intentions. I argue that this content must ultimately involve (...) a particular acting by the agent. (shrink)

Xavier Landes | : Happiness has become a central theme in public debates. Happiness indicators illustrate this importance. This article offers a typology of the main challenges conveyed by the elaboration of happiness indicators, where happiness can be understood as hedonia, subjective well-being, or eudaimonia. The typology is structured around four questions: what to measure?—i.e., the difficulties linked to the choice of a particular understanding of happiness for building an indicator; whom to include?—i.e., the limits of the community monitored (...) by such an indicator; how to collect the data?—i.e., the difficulties stemming from objective and subjective reporting; what to do?—i.e., the concerns about the use of happiness indicators in public policy. The major points of normative contention are discussed for each of these dimensions. The purpose of this article is to contribute in a constructive manner to happiness research by offering an overview of some major philosophical and political challenges of building happiness indicators. The conclusion underlines the importance of the strategy of diversification- hybridization, which consists in setting a variety of indicators or composite indicators that articulate different understandings of happiness. It is stressed that happiness indicators raise democratic and institutional issues with which normative thinkers should deal. | : Le bonheur est devenu un thème central dans les débats publics. Les indicateurs de bonheur illustrent cette importance. Cet article offre une typologie des principaux enjeux contenus dans le travail d’élaboration d’indicateurs de bonheur quand ce dernier est compris comme hedonia, bien-être subjectif ou eudaimonia. La typologie est structurée autour de quatre questions : 1) que mesurer?, où sont en jeu les difficultés liées au choix d’une compréhension particulière du bonheur pour construire un indicateur; 2) qui inclure?, c’est-à-dire comment tracer les limites de la communauté morale qui est l’objet d’un tel indicateur; 3) comment collecter les données?, où on interroge les difficultés propres aux techniques subjectives et objectives de collecte de données; 4) que faire?, où on soulève l’enjeu des craintes quant à l’usage d’indicateurs de bonheur dans les politiques publiques. Les points majeurs de dispute normative sont discutés pour chaque dimension. Nous espérons ainsi contribuer de manière constructive à la recherche sur le bonheur en offrant un aperçu de quelques défis philosophiques et politiques majeurs relatifs à la construction d’indicateurs de bonheur. Nous concluons en soulignant l’importance de la stratégie de diversification-hybridation qui consiste à mettre en place des indicateurs variés ou composites articulant différentes compréhensions du bonheur. Ces indicateurs soulèvent des enjeux démocratiques et institutionnels que les penseurs normatifs doivent considérer. (shrink)

The topic of analogical relationship between hearing and meaning has strong repercussions in the history of musical understanding. The high-low couple, the ground of spatial dimension in music, turns in a lot of metaphorical meanings which show the way that draws from perceptual data to imaginative values. In this paper, I reconstruct a shirt history of the relationship between hearing and imagination starting from the metaphorical conception of musical hearing from Aristotelian environment to phenomenological perspective.

The past decade has seen a burgeoning of scholarly interest in conscientious objection in health care. Specifically, several commentators have discussed the implications that conscientious objection has for the delivery of timely, efficient, and nondiscriminatory medical care. In this paper, I discuss the main argument put forward by the most prominent critics of conscientious objection—what I call the Professional Duty Argument or PDA. According to proponents of PDA, doctors should place patients’ well-being and rights at the center of their professional (...) practice. Doctors should be prepared to set their personal moral or religious beliefs aside where these beliefs conflict with what is legal and considered good medical practice by relevant professional associations. Conscientious objection, on this account, should be heavily restricted, if even allowed at all. I discuss two powerful objections against PDA. The first objection, which I call the fallibility objection, notes that law and professional codes of conduct are fallible guides for ethical conduct and that conscientious objection has in the past and continues today to provide a check on aberrations in law and professional convention. The second, which I call the professional discretion objection, states that restrictions on conscientious objection undermine one of the cornerstones of good medical practice, namely, a practitioner’s right to independent professional judgment. I argue that these two objections give us reason to retain conscience clauses in professional codes of conduct. (shrink)

Criticism of post-modernizm and post-colonializm caused to question the mission of anthropology in terms of understanding different societies. Materialist, secular and anthropocentric anthropological approaches based on enlightenment and modern assumptions have faced criticism by many disciplines from philosophy and critical theory to science and quantum theory. Anthropology of religion which is a branch of cultural anthropology is also effected by changes within the broader field of anthropology. The aim of this project is to shed light on the potential of the (...) critical approach, which emerged in anthropology of religion recently and underlined the ontology, to understand religious experiences and practices of different societies. This approach is called ontological turn. In this article, first I point out the historical process in anthropology which led to the turn to ontology. Social structuralism and representationalism which played an important role for the formation of anthropology impacted significantly the ways in which anthropology understands nature and human being. According to these assumptions commonly used in anthropology, while human beings try to understand universal and static natural law principles, they create representations about nature. But, for there is only one nature, there must be only one true representation. This attempt to understand nature through representations created the base for the concepts of belief, knowledge, and mind of Edward Tylor who was the pioneer of cultural anthropology. While the mind refers to rational capacity of human being, belief is an area of irrational representations that human beings pragmatically need. Religious assumptions and practices are listed under incorrect representations. The concept of belief has been frequently used after Tylor as well to understand societies which are located outside of modernity. What ontological turn aims with criticism of conceptual framework is to prevent the domination of Western based reality. Therefore, one of the most emphasized arguments is the multiplicity of reality. This approach of ontological turn is called as taking everything serious. New definitions which are made in a way including the experiences of ethnographic objects mean taking them serious. Acceptance of the concepts by anthropologist in the ethnographic field means acceptance of difference in reality. The act of definition and conceptualizing is the act of creating different realities. In many ethnographic researches, ethnographers choses their concepts before entering to the field. This means that trying to fit differences within existing concepts and confirming the existing thoughts from different perspectives. Understanding ethnographic materials with its own terms or analyzing, explaining or interpreting ethnographic phenomenon by eliminating presumptions was always a concern for anthropology. These questions are asked so commonly that they can be seen as banal questions. The difference of ontological turn is not to ask these questions, but to ask ontological questions as an epistemological approach. The base of this ontological approach is the thought that what forms anthropologists’ perspective are not social or cultural but ontological assumptions. Thus, the question to be asked is how anthropologists’ assumptions about what the world is can be eliminated. To sum up, the idea of taking everything serious in ontological turn aims to eliminate the hierarchy between the subject and object of ethnography. Instead of seeing ethnography as an object of anthropology through modern categories, ontological turn suggests seeing ethnography as a real source to create new concepts and analytical tools. (shrink)

Countries with federal institutions often face demands for more political autonomy from their member states. To answer these demands, some have proposed recognizing a right to internal self-determination, constrained in multiple ways. Although interesting, this proposition — defended by theorists of multinational federalism — might be insufficient in resolving the existing inequalities between peoples living in the same federation. This is the thesis for which I will argue in this paper. I will argue that Will Kymlicka's concept of internal self-determination (...) remains indeterminate and opens the door to stronger interpretations of the concept than he intends. (shrink)

In this book the author explains only that in which he feels permanently under his skin, to speak unashamedly of his embarassments, candidly about his manias and passions, to bind together lies and truths until they are made inextricable. "I only write", says the author, "when the sensations or ideas become intimate demons that I attempt to expel with literature".

Thomas Riisfeldt’s essay1 is a valuable contribution to the literature on palliative sedation, appropriately titrated administration of opioids and euthanasia. In this response, I will not deal with the author’s empirical claim about the relationship between opioid use, palliative sedation and survival time. Rather, I will briefly critique the author’s discussion of doctrine of double effect and its application to palliative sedation and opioid use at the end of life. That is, I will focus on the ethical claims made by (...) the author. Riisfeldt argues that DDE is incompatible with both Kantian deontology and Millian consequentialism. Yet, I will argue that the DDE is coherent and defensible when interpreted from the perspective of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the theorist who first proposed the doctrine. I will also argue that Riisfeldt mischaracterises ATAOs and palliative sedation as procedures that hasten death as a means to relieve pain. While death may indeed be hastened by ATAOs and palliative sedation, it is not at all clear that clinicians intend to hasten death as a means to relieve pain. Indeed, clinical guidelines explicitly prohibit the intentional hastening of death. Riisfeldt provides a brief summary of the DDE. He describes DDE as a ‘strange hybrid of four principles’. He lists the four criteria that must be met for an act with a good and a bad effect to be permissible. These criteria are the ‘intention and means criteria’ and the ‘intrinsic and proportionality criteria’. The author uses Kant and Mill as lens through which to highlight a tension between the intrinsic and proportionality criteria of DDE. The author claims that ‘the intrinsic criterion is derived from deontology, the predominant form of which is championed by Kant’, and that ‘the proportionality criterion is derived from consequentialism, the predominant form of …. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to strengthen the point made by Horty about the relationship between reason holism and moral particularism. In the literature prima facie obligations have been considered as the only source of reason holism. I strengthen Horty’s point in two ways. First, I show that contrary-to-duties provide another independent support for reason holism. Next I outline a formal theory that is able to capture these two sources of holism. While in simple settings the proposed account coincides (...) with Horty’s one, this is not true in more complicated or “realistic” settings in which more than two norms collide. My chosen formalism is so-called input/output logic. A bottom-line example is introduced. It raises the issue of whether the conventional wisdom is right in assuming that normative reasons run parallel to epistemic ones. (shrink)

Xavier Landes | : In this article, consensus, defined as the consent of all citizens, is argued to be the first best for part of the liberal tradition on political legitimacy. Consensus would be the foundation of the liberal society that, when out of reach, needs to be approximated through, for instance, voting. I build on the timid attempts in political theory at using the theorem of the second best as a tool to settle difficult decision making in applied (...) political theory. More precisely, I defend the view that consensus would be the first best for part of the liberal tradition on political legitimacy. Furthermore, I illustrate how moral, factual, disagreements may create second-best problems, especially in terms of stability. Finally, I spell out some reasons why such problems directly affect a liberal order, on pragmatic grounds. The final purpose is to contribute to the literatures on legitimacy and on the application of the theorem of the second best outside economics. The key idea is to stress that much more work has to be done for “importing” the theorem of the second best into political theory. | : Dans cet article, le consensus, défini comme le consentement de tous les citoyens, est présenté comme remplissant la fonction d’optimum de premier rang [first best] pour une partie de la tradition libérale quant à la légitimité politique. Le consensus fonderait la société libérale qui, lorsque hors d’atteinte, nécessiterait d’être approximer au travers, par exemple, du vote. Je m’appuie sur les timides tentatives en théorie politique d’utiliser le théorème de l’optimum de second rang [second best] comme outil pour résoudre des prises de décision difficiles en théorie politique appliquée. Plus précisément, je défends l’idée que le consensus serait l’optimum de premier rang pour une partie de la tradition libérale quant à la légitimité politique. De plus, j’illustre comment les désaccords moraux, factuels peuvent créer des problèmes d’optimum de second rang, en particulier en termes de stabilité. Enfin, j’expose quelques raisons pour lesquelles de tels problèmes affectent directement un ordre libéral, d’un point de vue pragmatique. Le but final est de contribuer aux littératures sur la légitimité et sur l’application du théorème d’optimum de second rang à l’extérieur des sciences économiques. L’idée principale est de souligner qu’il reste beaucoup de travail afin d’« importer » le théorème d’optimum de second rang en théorie politique. (shrink)

Conscience is an idea that has significant currency in liberal democratic societies. Yet contemporary moral philosophical scholarship on conscience is surprisingly sparse. This paper seeks to offer a rigorous philosophical account of the role of conscience in moral life with a view to informing debates about the ethics of conscientious objection in medicine. I argue that conscience is concerned with a commitment to moral integrity and that restrictions on freedom of conscience prevent agents from living a moral life. In section (...) one I argue that conscience is a principle of moral awareness in rational agents, and that it yields an awareness of the personal nature of moral obligation. Conscience also monitors the coherence between an agent’s identity-conferring beliefs and intentions and their practical actions. In section two I consider how human beings are harmed when they are forced to violate their conscience. Restrictions on the exercise of conscience prevent people from living in accord with their own considered understanding of the requirements of morality and undermine one’s capacity for moral agency. This article concludes with a consideration of how a robust theory of conscience can inform our understanding of conscientious objection in medicine. I argue that it is in the interest of individual practitioners and the medical profession generally to foster moral agency among doctors. This provides a prima facie justification for permitting at least some kinds of conscientious objection. (shrink)

Giubiliniet aloffer some helpful reflections on the conscientious provision of medical care and whether and in what circumstances professional associations ought to support the conscientious provision of abortion in circumstances where abortion is banned or heavily restricted. I have several reservations, however, about the argument developed in the article. First, the essay makes questionable use of the case of Savita Halappanavar to justify its central argument about conscientious provision. Second, there is an apparent inconsistency between this article and the authors’ (...) statements elsewhere about the conscientious refusal of care. Third, there are risks that attend to professional associations supporting practitioners who break the law, and yet Giubiliniet aldo not give sufficient attention to this. This response will briefly discuss these three concerns. (shrink)