Summary Under the Iberian Union, the Portuguese discourse on empire had been both relatively muted and intertwined with Spanish debates. The Braganza Restoration presented a radical break from this tradition. A new network of preachers, theologians and jurists from the four corners of the Portuguese empire made the case for the recovery of independence. Instead of buttressing a common moral universe and the old pan-Iberian network of higher learning, the new network focused its energies on the establishment of (...) the particularity of the Portuguese imperial and missionary enterprises. The contribution explores the importance of networks in establishing intellectual independence and the strategies employed by the partisans of the newly independent Portugal. It was no longer good enough for Portugal to be the other Iberian empire; her very raison d'être was now to become the only Iberian empire. (shrink)

Arguments analogous to those found in the late medieval theory of the king’s two bodies, popularized by Ernst Kantorowicz, were resurrected in early nineteenth-century constitutional theories of the moderating powers of monarchy. Post-revolutionary French liberal thought, echoed by its Portuguese counterpart, rediscovered the virtues of the institution of royalty, notably the immaterial and immortal body of the king. This rediscovery was prompted by the uncertainties of different national political contexts which made many contemporaries believe it desirable to integrate restored monarchies (...) within modern constitutional models for state stability. This first occurred with the Bourbons’ return to post-Napoleonic France and the restoration of the monarchy in 1814, and then with the Braganza royal family’s return to Portugal in 1821 after thirteen years of rule from Brazil. Using arguments similar to those previously made in late medieval European political and legal thought, French and Portuguese liberals developed a theory of the king’s two powers, according to which the monarch at once exercised a moderating power, defined by the abstract institutional nature of the king’s person, and an executive power, embodied within his physical person. This conceptualization of royal duality was intended to make it possible to delegate executive power to ministers, leaving the king only the attributes of a largely symbolic power. Liberals thereby hoped to confine the monarch to his purely institutional body in a de-politicized constitutional role. (shrink)

Upon the restoration of the Society of Jesus in Portugal in 1858, the Jesuits founded two important colleges that made significant efforts in the promotion of hands-on experimental teaching of the natural sciences. At the Colégio de Campolide (Lisbon, 1858–1910) and the Colégio de São Fiel (Louriçal do Campo, 1863–1910) the Jesuits created modern chemistry and physics laboratories, organized significant botanical, zoological and geological collections, promoted scientific expeditions with their students to observe eclipses and to collect novel species (...) of animals and plants, and engaged in original research work in physics, botany, and zoology. The successful implementation of modern scientific practices gained these colleges public recognition as the most prominent secondary institutions in nineteenth-century Portugal, and this made a major contribution to countering the widespread and commonly accepted anti-Jesuit accusations of obscurantism and scientific backwardness. (shrink)

This paper offers a novel interpretation of the 1890 British Ultimatum, by bringing to the front of the stage its techno-diplomatic dimension, often invisible in the canonical diplomatic and military narratives. Furthermore, we use an unconventional historical source to grasp the British–Portuguese imperial conflict over the African hinterland via the building of railways: the cartoons of the politically committed and polyvalent Portuguese artist and journalist Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (1846–1905), published in his journal Ponto nos iis, from the end of 1889 (...) and throughout 1890. We argue that the Ponto nos iis cartoons played a so far overlooked role in the unfolding of British–Portuguese affairs, as they shaped at a distance a diplomatic exchange with the British satirical journal Punch. Attacking and counterattacking his fellow cartoonists in Britain, Pinheiro surged into the role of informal diplomat. This cartoon visual and public diplomacy unfolded in the pages of both journals and was tied to the two countries’ colonial conquests in Africa, where the Portuguese and British empires were competing to dominate the African hinterland through large technological systems. Hence the cartoons made visible to wider audiences the otherwise hidden role that technologies played in the two countries’ affairs. In turn, the cartoons aimed at persuading the Portuguese public and ruling classes alike that only regime change, from monarchic to republican, would restore the wounded Portuguese national pride. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Just Revolution: A Christian Ethic of Political Resistance and Social Transformation by Anna Floerke ScheidRamon LuzarragaJust Revolution: A Christian Ethic of Political Resistance and Social Transformation Anna Floerke Scheid lanham, md: lexington books, 2015. 208 pp. $84.00Anna Floerke Scheid argues that the Christian just war and just peacemaking ethical traditions lack a comprehensive ethic for revolutionary nonviolent activity and warfare. She proposes to fill this lacuna through a (...) theological exploration of what constitutes a just revolution. While Scheid maintains a consistent [End Page 212] preference for nonviolent resistance against tyranny, she remains open to the possibility of revolutionary warfare.The author articulates four stages of a just revolution. The first stage is jus ante, nonviolent resistance against a tyrannical government. Here the opposition develops a democratic and revolutionary vision of society that respects human rights, models that vision within its organizations, and resists through nonviolent acts. Second is jus ad, the stage where a tyrannical government eliminates all avenues for negotiation and represses peaceful resistance. This forces the revolutionary opposition to consider armed resistance as a last resort. Here Scheid grapples with two limitations of traditional just war theory. The first reserves the authority to start a war with governments. She argues that the legitimacy for a just revolution comes from a revolutionary organization's ability to envision and model a just society. Because a tyrannical government's authority is illegitimate, a revolutionary movement's just vision and practices gain for it a de facto legitimate authority. This legitimacy is reinforced by a revolutionary movement's ultimate intention to effect reconciliation with their oppressors postwar. The second limitation is the reasonable hope of success. Scheid analyzes the history of this criterion and demonstrates how it supports defensive wars despite the uncertainty of success. Oppressed persons, as the subjects of their own hope of liberation, ought to decide what constitutes the probability for success in fighting tyranny. Throughout this stage, revolutionary warfare must be practiced in tandem with continuing nonviolent resistance.The third stage is jus in, the justice practiced during armed revolutionary resistance. Fighting is deemed necessary to force a tyrannical government to negotiations. Meanwhile, revolutionary military units would work to minimize violence and loss of life. The last stage is jus post, the reconciliation needed to prevent revolutionary warfare from spiraling into revenge. Here the exercise of restorative justice—where responsibility for past injustices is assumed by all sides and a just resolution developed for social reconciliation and the development of a new, democratic society that respects human rights—is all important. Throughout the book, Scheid uses the African National Congress's revolutionary struggle against the South African apartheid government as a successful example of her theory in practice.Scheid's well-argued proposal deserves careful consideration by ethicists. Students will profit from her excellent summary of just war theory, where she brilliantly recovers some of its forgotten features. On the other hand, her concluding chapter considering the Arab Spring's potential for just revolution would have been stronger if she extended beyond a comparison to South Africa to incorporate similar features found in other successful revolutions. The 1986 Philippine People Power Revolution, the 1989 collapse of Eastern European Communist regimes, and the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal come to mind. Moreover, important for South Africa's success was the durability of the [End Page 213] political institutions the British left behind. These institutions provided the framework that handled the transition of power from the pro-apartheid National Party to the post-apartheid African National Congress government. This feature could have been brought to light, as many recognize this structure as contributive to the peaceful transition of power in other countries that won independence through revolution, from the United States in the eighteenth century to India and the Caribbean in the twentieth.Ramon LuzarragaBenedictine University at MesaCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Many scientists routinely generalize from study samples to larger populations. It is commonly assumed that this cognitive process of scientific induction is a voluntary inference in which researchers assess the generalizability of their data and then draw conclusions accordingly. We challenge this view and argue for a novel account. The account describes scientific induction as involving by default a generalization bias that operates automatically and frequently leads researchers to unintentionally generalize their findings without sufficient evidence. The result is unwarranted, overgeneralized (...) conclusions. We support this account of scientific induction by integrating a range of disparate findings from across the cognitive sciences that have until now not been connected to research on the nature of scientific induction. The view that scientific induction involves by default a generalization bias calls for a revision of the current thinking about scientific induction and highlights an overlooked cause of the replication crisis in the sciences. Commonly proposed interventions to tackle scientific overgeneralizations that may feed into this crisis need to be supplemented with cognitive debiasing strategies against generalization bias to most effectively improve science. (shrink)

First, this article puts forth a political and cultural explanation for the fact that the work of Rawls and other American liberal analytic political philosophers was neglected in Portugal during the 1970s and 1980s. Second, the article describes Portuguese reactions to Rawls's ideas in the 1990s, focusing on commentaries by scholars and `public intellectuals'. Throughout this period, there was a gradual shift from glib partisan judgements to more careful responses. Third, the reception of Rawls in Portugal is compared (...) with the reception in Spain. This comparison shows that both broad social context and the nature of academia tended to be more hospitable to Rawls in Spain than in Portugal. However, the situation is changing. (shrink)

This article is divided in three parts in order to investigate on the authorial and creative philosophical production in the Brazilian academic environment. In the first part, we show the challenge to authorial production in philosophy in Brazil, starting from the example of recent initiatives in the philosophy of religion. In the second part, by means of an analogy with music, we intend to argue that the plead for a greater promotion of authorial philosophy in Brazil does not mean to (...) devaluate the work with history of philosophy, which seems to be the predominant approach in academic philosophy in our country. The third part addresses the challenges to the formation of philosophical authorship, based on the triplet student-professor-knowledge, and acknowledging objective and subjective aspects of learning. (shrink)

Among various case studies addressing the reception of relativity, very few deal with Portugal at either the international or the national level. The national literature on the topic has mainly concentrated on the reactions to relativity of the Portuguese mathematical community. The absence of Portuguese astronomers alongside Eddington during the 1919 expedition to Principe, then a Portuguese island, has been implicitly equated with the astronomical community's lack of interest in the event. In reception studies dealing with general relativity, analysis (...) has tended to focus on the physics and mathematics communities, less on the astronomers. Given that relativity was born at the interface of physics, mathematics and astronomy, reactions of members of these scientific communities depended on differences in shared traditions, values, problems and expectations, as well as on individual practitioners' idiosyncrasies. This paper addresses the contributions of the overlooked Portuguese astronomical community, evaluates the actions and reactions of its members to the expedition and assesses their role in the process of appropriation of relativity. (shrink)

In this issue, Ahmadi1 reports on the practice of hymenoplasty—a surgical intervention meant to restore a presumed physical marker of virginity prior to a woman's marriage. As Mehri and Sills2 have stated, these women ‘want to ensure that blood is spilled on their wedding night sheets.’ Although Ahmadi's research was carried out in Iran specifically, this surgery is becoming increasingly popular in a number of Western countries as well, especially among Muslim populations.3 What are the ethics of hymen restoration?Consider (...) the role of the physician. Two of the doctors interviewed by Ahmadi reported being in ‘a perpetual state of guilt because of the surgery's inherent aim at deceiving the groom’ and noted their ‘personal conflict’ at being involved in this deception. Yet: "None of the doctors believed that the surgery was unethical, arguing that the girl could be ‘abused’ and ‘can even die’ if she is discovered not … ". (shrink)

In this article I expound some of the main criticisms by David Hume and Immanuel Kant against the legitimacy of natural theology, the philosophical activity of presenting arguments for or against the existence of God. The aim is not to contribute to the scholarship in history of philosophy, but as a starting point for describing the main lines of Richard Swinburne’s approach to natural theology in terms of inductive probabilistic arguments. His proposal has been part of a current philosophical movement (...) of re-establishing the argumentative debate on the existence and nature of God, an area that has been growing in quantity and quality since the 1970’s. (shrink)

If I were to review only the books written in Portuguese and published during 2016 and the first semester of 2017 in Portugal, this would no doubt be a very short article. In fact, the National Library of Portugal only displays thirteen entries from a search for utopia in the title, keyword, or subject; and once we exclude fiction, translations, reeditions, and books that, although they use utopia in the title, are not relevant to the field of utopian (...) studies, we are left with just four references.The situation is no doubt surprising given the fact that utopian studies is well established in the Portuguese academy and that a number of events were held across the country to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary... (shrink)

Weber-Fechner Law states that the perceived intensity is proportional to the logarithm of the stimulus. Recent experiments suggest that this law also holds true for perception of numerosity. Therefore, the use of a logarithmic scale for the quantification of the perceived intensity may also depend on how the cognitive apparatus processes information. If Weber-Fechner law is the result of natural selection, then the logarithmic scale should be better, in some sense, than other biologically feasible scales. We consider the minimization of (...) the relative error as the target of natural selection and we provide a formal proof that the logarithmic scale minimizes the maximal relative error. (shrink)

The phenomenon of cheating in higher education is of overwhelming importance in that the students engaging in these acts are unlikely to have the skills necessary for their future professional life. Despite its relevance, the empirical evaluation of cheating in universities has been almost exclusively focused on the US context. Little is known about cheating at the European level, let alone in Portugal. Even less is explored at the regional level. In this paper we present evidence on the perception (...) of cheating by Portuguese undergraduate students of economics/business degrees. We undertake a large-scale survey, involving 2675 students from all Portuguese mainland public universities. We found that copying-favourable environments are associated with a higher propensity to cheat. Moreover, in universities where ‘codes of honour’ exist, this propensity tends to be lower. Finally, the propensity to copy seems to be highly influenced by the cultural systems and socially-related factors of different regions. (shrink)

The fact that Oswald T. Avery (1877-1955) did not become a Nobel Laureate for his discovery of DNA as the genetic material has frequently been cited as a prime example of a mistake made in the awarding of the Nobel Prizes. The late Nobel Laureate Arne Tiselius explained the oversight away by saying that Avery "was an old man when he made his discovery" (Litell 1967)—although Avery was actually younger than several others who won the Nobel Prize around the same (...) time. Later, in somewhat of a contradiction, Tiselius said that Avery was the most deserving scientist not to have received the Nobel Prize for his work (Judson 2003).The opening of the Nobel archives 50 years after Avery's name was cited gives insights into .. (shrink)

This article intends to show that Plantinga’s criticism against Bayesianism as an account of what is involved in rationality does not apply to all forms of Bayesianism. Swinburne’s version, based on a logical theory of probability, is an example of Bayesianism not hit by Plantinga’s criticism. In addition, the article argues that the problem of dwindling probabilities – pointed out by Plantinga in Warranted Christian Belief (2000) – vanishes in a Bayesian approach. So, even if it is not a sufficient (...) account of rationality, Bayesianism helps to understand important elements of inductive reasoning, especially those relative to cumulative cases. (shrink)

The understanding of a wide array of practices related to fraud, bribery, corruption, and more widely, illicit practices have been capturing the attention of practitioners and management researchers worldwide. A substantial portion of the extant research has used university students to measure their actual or intended cheating behaviours and often studies have tested for variations across countries and cultures. We highlight some major concerns in this stream of inquiry and discuss both the definition and some inconclusive results in prior studies, (...) namely those deriving from differences in cheating behaviour across different cultural contexts. We suggest the need to examine intentionality, and further advance that intentionality may assume a reactive or a proactive essence. Depending on the social and formal contexts of different countries, both reactive and proactive intentions lead to distinct moral concerns, which we name in this work omorality (meaning ‘our morality’) or immorality (in the traditional sense). (shrink)

Using eelgrass restoration in the Narragansett Bay as the touchstone for discussion, this chapter clarifies some of the challenges faced in ecological restoration by analyzing those challenges under three distinct philosophical classifications: epistemological, axiological, and normative. Examining wide divergences among governmental, scientific, and popular articulations of estuarine matters, the chapter surveys how the fractured relationships governing reflection, value, and action has been addressed both within and beyond various principles governing restoration. It also recounts the efforts of the (...) Rhode Island advocacy group Save the Bay to implement a community restoration initiative for children and then to redesign the initiative when original expectations about its effect did not come to fruition. Finally, the chapter addresses broader ambiguities about the relationships between fact and value, and between value and action, as they emerge from the restoration issues discussed. While the chapter avoids the prescription of particular solutions to the challenges facing eelgrass and other estuarine restoration, it strives to delineate and illuminate the tangled sources of value that can drive everyday decisions—sources that, left unexamined, may contribute collectively to the demise of eelgrass populations. (shrink)

In 1918 Conway and Walters published a restoration of Livy 9.40.3. The passage in question describes how the Samnite army of 310 was composed of two differently equipped corps.

(1992). Cultural contingencies and economic behavior: Return migration in Portugal. World Futures: Vol. 33, Culture and Development: European Experiences and Challenges A Special Research Report of the European Culture Impact Research Consortium (EUROCIRCON), pp. 155-164.

In Portugal, research productivity is nowadays essential for the positive assessment of academics, research units and study programmes. Academic inbreeding has been highlighted in the literature as one of the factors influencing research productivity. This paper tests the hypothesis that inbreeding is detrimental for research productivity, measured through the number of publications listed in Scopus. The study resorts to a database provided by the national Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education, which comprises all academics teaching in all (...) Portuguese institutions in the academic year 2015/2016. The sample selected for the analysis contains all academics with a PhD in Sociology. The study uses a special regression model for the analysis: the negative binomial logit hurdle. This was necessary given the large amount of academics with no publications or citations in Scopus, which were the dependent variables to assess research performance. The analysis provides separate results for the probability of inbred academics of having no papers/citations, and for the probability of producing more papers/citations than the non-inbred. Findings suggest that academic inbreeding, defined at the institutional level, has no negative effect on research productivity, contrary to what was expected. However, when defined at the national level, academic inbreeding is detrimental for the recognition and the impact of research: academics with a foreign PhD are more likely to have citations compared to academics who obtained their PhD in Portugal. A tendency was also noted that inbreeding might be more detrimental to research productivity in faculties of Economics than in Social Sciences and Humanities. (shrink)

The philosophy of ecological restoration has focused primarily on three issues: the question of what to restore, whether and why restoration “fakes” nature, and how restoration shapes human-nature relationships. Using “M2W conversion sites” – former military lands recently redesignated as U.S. national wildlife refuges – as a case study, we examine how the restoration of these lands challenges existing philosophical frameworks for restoration. We argue that a contextual, case-based analysis best reveals the key ethical and (...) philosophical questions related to restoration at M2W sites, and that such an approach may be useful in developing more nuanced philosophical analyses of ecological restoration more generally. (shrink)

Shifting the focus from fear, guilt, and indignation related to deteriorating environmental quality, the authors hypothesized that people who see greater potential for restorative experiences in natural environments also do more to protect them by behaving ecologically, as with recycling or reduced driving. University students rated a familiar freshwater marsh in terms of being away, fascination, coherence, and compatibility, qualities of restorative person-environment transactions described in attention restoration theory. They also reported on their performance of various ecological behaviors. The (...) authors tested a structural equation model with data from a randomly drawn subset of participants and then confirmed it with the data from a second subset. For the combined subsets, perceptions of the restorative qualities predicted 23% of the variance in general ecological behavior. As the only direct predictor, fascination mediated the influences of coherence, being away, and compatibility. (shrink)

The phenomenon of cheating in higher education is of overwhelming importance in that the students engaging in these acts are unlikely to have the skills necessary for their future professional life. Despite its relevance, the empirical evaluation of cheating in universities has been almost exclusively focused on the US context. Little is known about cheating at the European level, let alone in Portugal. Even less is explored at the regional level. In this paper we present evidence on the perception (...) of cheating by Portuguese undergraduate students of economics/business degrees. We undertake a large-scale survey, involving 2675 students from all Portuguese mainland public universities (10). We found that copying-favourable environments are associated with a higher propensity to cheat. Moreover, in universities where ‘codes of honour’ exist, this propensity tends to be lower. Finally, the propensity to copy seems to be highly influenced by the cultural systems and socially-related factors of different regions. (shrink)

Entendendo “pensamento pós-metafísico” no sentido da crítica moderna e positivista à metafísica como forma de conhecimento, o artigo apresenta a filosofia analítica da religião como uma resposta à tese de que a linguagem religiosa não tem sentido porque não se refere a nenhum dado empiricamente verificável ou falseável. Em primeiro lugar, é apresentada a resposta não-realista ao desafio pós-metafísico, especialmente a de D. Z. Phillips, baseada nas ideias de Wittgenstein. Nessa proposta, o sentido da linguagem religiosa não está na referência (...) a uma realidade transcendente, mas ao uso que ela tem como guia existencial e ético. Em seguida, é exposta a resposta realista à crítica antimetafísica, usando-se elementos das ideias de alguns dos principais autores da filosofia analítica da religião: Alvin Plantinga, William Alston e Richard Swinburne. Além de sustentarem o significado referencial real da linguagem religiosa, eles argumentam que a metafísica é não só defensável cognitivamente, mas também condição importante para o raciocínio científico.Taking ‘post-metaphysical thought’ in the sense of the modern and positivistic criticism to metaphysics as a form of knowledge, the article presents analytic philosophy of religion as a response to the thesis that religious language has no meaning since it does not refer to any empirically verifiable or falsifiable data. Firstly, it is presented the non-realist reply to the post-metaphysical challenge. The main non-realist author introduced is D. Z. Phillips, who based his ideas on Wittgenstein’s philosophy. According to this proposal, the meaning of religious language is not given by reference to a transcendent reality, but to its use as an ethical and existential guide. Next, it is expounded the realist position to the antimetaphysical criticism, using ideas by some of the leading authors in the analytic philosophy of religion: Alvin Plantinga, William Alston and Richard Swinburne. Apart from holding that religious language has a real referential meaning, they argue that metaphysics is not only cognitively defensible, but also an important condition for scientific reasoning. (shrink)

O estudo da iconografia do livro impresso em Portugal entre os séculos XV e XVIII não prescinde do levantamento, tão extenso quanto possível, de marcas de água e contramarcas identificadoras do papel em que as obras foram estampadas. Este levantamento sistemático é tanto mais indispensável quanto são raros e avulsos os estudos portugueses neste campo da investigação histórica. O conjunto de marcas a reunir, algumas centenas de unidades, permitirá uma visão cronológica e panorâmica dos motivos iconográficos das filigranas utilizadas (...) na produção do papel das obras impressas no nosso país, revelando a sua origem e contribuindo para a investigação no âmbito histórico, artístico e económico. (shrink)

Background:Evidence indicates that the processing of facial stimuli may be influenced by incidental factors, and these influences are particularly powerful when facial expressions are ambiguous, such as neutral faces. However, limited research investigated whether emotional contextual information presented in a preceding and unrelated experiment could be pervasively carried over to another experiment to modulate neutral face processing.Objective:The present study aims to investigate whether an emotional text presented in a first experiment could generate negative emotion toward neutral faces in a second (...) experiment unrelated to the previous experiment.Methods:Ninety-nine students (all women) were randomly assigned to read and evaluate a negative text (negative context) or a neutral text (neutral text) in the first experiment. In the subsequent second experiment, the participants performed the following two tasks: (1) an attentional task in which neutral faces were presented as distractors and (2) a task involving the emotional judgment of neutral faces.Results:The results show that compared to the neutral context, in the negative context, the participants rated more faces as negative. No significant result was found in the attentional task.Conclusion:Our study demonstrates that incidental emotional information available in a previous experiment can increase participants’ propensity to interpret neutral faces as more negative when emotional information is directly evaluated. Therefore, the present study adds important evidence to the literature suggesting that our behavior and actions are modulated by previous information in an incidental or low perceived way similar to what occurs in everyday life, thereby modulating our judgments and emotions. (shrink)

This article provides a comparative analysis of the contents of two parliamentary hearings on BSE carried out in Portugal in 1993 and 1996 as instances of interaction between science and politics. One question to be addressed is the extent to which relationships between science and politics in Portugal as a so-called “semiperipheral society” differ from those of more advanced states, and how one can possibly explain those differences. Another issue to be considered is whether the Europeanization of BSE (...) crisis after March 1996 has played a role and, if so, what role in the evolution of the attitudes and behavior of Portuguese policy makers toward science and toward risk. The question is whether political and administrative culture is changing in Portugal under the effect of both the Europeanization of regulatory processes and the emergence of a “risk society.”. (shrink)

O artigo aborda a produção historiográfica sobre a presença de escravos em Portugal. Começa por destacar o facto de os primeiros trabalhos realizados sobre este tema, contemporâneos do movimento abolicionista do século XIX, terem sido motivados pela preocupação de demonstrar a universalidade da escravatura, defendendo o país da acusação de ter iniciado a escravidão moderna. Refere-se também à renovação, operada já nas últimas décadas de Novecentos, dos estudos sobre os escravos, que acompanhou a própria actualização da historiografia portuguesa sob (...) a influência científica de outros países, mas que foi também favorecida pela sua libertação da necessidade de justificar o comportamento luso, após a implantação do regime democrático e o fim do império colonial. Procura igualmente sintetizar a historiografia mais recente sobre esta matéria. (shrink)

Michel Onfray e André Comte-Sponville são os dois mais famosos representantes do ateísmo filosófico francês contemporâneo, que continua uma tradição iniciada no século XVIII de negação irreligiosa da noção monoteísta de Deus. Embora compartilhando várias ideias, como o naturalismo e, obviamente, a rejeição do monoteísmo, suas propostas têm diferenças importantes. Onfray imputa à religião a maioria dos males enfrentados pela humanidade, recusando-se a fazer qualquer concessão à tradição religiosa monoteísta, e propondo uma filosofia libertária de tipo hedonista e materialista. Comte-Sponville (...) vê aspectos positivos na religião no tocante à manutenção da unidade social e propõe uma espiritualidade mística ateia. O artigo faz uma breve apresentação de suas teses e formula críticas a ambas as propostas. Onfray está muito mais preocupado em convencer de uma proposta política do que em argumentar filosoficamente em favor de uma tese e Comte-Sponville não parece perceber as consequências auto-refutadoras do naturalismo, que também torna muito problemática a própria noção de moralidade. Palavras-chave: Michel Onfray; Comte-Sponville; ateísmo; neoateísmo; naturalismo.Michel Onfray and André Comte-Sponville are the most famous representatives of philosophical contemporary French atheism, which is a continuation of a tradition begun in the 18 th Century of irreligious denying of the monotheistic notion of God. Although sharing many ideas, like naturalism and, obviously, the rejection of the monotheistic conception of God, their proposals show important distinctions. Onfray blames on religion most of evils faced by humanity, refusing to make any concession to monotheism, and proposing a libertarian, hedonistic, materialistic philosophy. Comte-Sponville sees positive aspects in religion regarding the keeping of social unity, and puts forward an atheistic spirituality. The article makes a brief presentation of both theses and formulates criticisms to each of them. Onfray is much more concerned with convincing of a political proposal than with arguing in favour of his thesis philosophically, and Comte-Sponville does not seem to notice the self-defeating consequences of naturalism, which also makes very problematic the very notion of morality. Keywords: Michel Onfray; Comte-Sponville; atheism; neoatheism; naturalism. (shrink)

The Portuguese elections occurred this March, and the left’s decline has accompanied the far-right’s growth, as in previous elections. Explanations for such phenomena are often carried out using quantitative and qualitative methods. Philosophical conceptual analysis, in contrast, is frequently dismissed as a method for analysing political change. In this paper, I will show how, by using conceptual analysis, it is possible to assist in explaining voting behaviour from the left on the far-right party Chega in Portugal. This methodology resembles (...) philosophers and political theorists using concepts like ‘class’ and ‘authoritarianism’ to assist in explaining socio-political changes. I will use concepts, such as ‘complex ideology’ and ‘anti-power/anti-system politics’, which have helpful explanatory power to the phenomenon I address. Particularly, I argue that the right-wing party Chega can attract voters from the left because of its anti-system ideology, an ideological characteristic of left voters in Portugal. Thus, I argue that the rise of the far-right partly relates to the changing politics of some smaller left parties with parliamentary representation. These political changes within these parties create a space for specific anti-system ideologies that the far-right, in the case of Portugal, can fill. (shrink)

This exploratory study is focused on the perceptions of science communication practitioners about the activities of scientists and the audiences of the marine sciences outreach in Portugal. Using the qualitative method of thematic analysis and collecting data through semistructured interviews of 14 practitioners of diverse professions, backgrounds, ages, and stages of career, it was found that the role of marine scientists in this area is traditionally viewed as reduced, but with a slight improvement in the past 5 to 10 (...) years. Despite having a historical connection with and curiosity about the sea, audiences were considered to have a mostly utilitarian interest in the marine sciences. Most practitioners had a view of science communication connected to the knowledge deficit model, with a minority articulating a more dialogical model. Although there are signs of conflict between science communicators and scientists, the proliferation of training opportunities in science communication at the national level, the perceived increase of interest and participation of marine scientists in public communication in the past years, and the consolidation of science communicators as part of the scientific community offer positive prospects for the future of outreach of marine sciences in Portugal. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the views of healthcare professionals in Portugal about healthcare rationing, and compare them with the views of college students. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 60 healthcare professionals and 180 college students. Respondents faced a hypothetical rationing dilemma where they had to order four patients and justify their choices. Multinomial logistic regressions were used to test for differences in orderings, and content analysis to categorize (...) the written justifications. The findings suggest that both groups appeared to support three main rationing principles: health maximization, priority to the severely ill and priority to the young. However, professionals seemed to give less weight to the latter principle. In conclusion, professionals have similar views to students about healthcare rationing, though may be slightly less inclined to give priority to the young. (shrink)

Parenthood is a highly valued life goal, independent of one’s sexual orientation. However, the majority of studies exploring young adults’ parenthood plans have relied exclusively on samples of heterosexual individuals. This study aimed (i) to explore differences in parenthood intentions as a function of sexual orientation, (ii) to investigate to what extent sociodemographic and psychological characteristics predict parenthood intentions of lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) and heterosexual individuals, (iii) to test the mediating effect of stigma between sexual orientation and parenthood intentions, (...) and (iv) to identify and characterize profiles of prospective parenthood (through cluster analysis). Data were gathered using an online survey from 375 self-identified LGB and heterosexual young adults without children in Portugal, with a mean age of 25.83 years old (SD = 4.49). Findings indicated that LGB individuals were less likely to intend to have children than heterosexual individuals; furthermore, among LGB individuals, lesbian women expressed stronger intentions to have children than did gay men. Similarities between heterosexual and LGB young adults were observed concerning the psychological determinants of parenthood intentions. Four distinctive profiles of prospective parenthood were identified: aspiring parents not anticipating stigma, aspiring parents anticipating stigma, childfree intent, and childfree ambivalent. Lesbian and bisexual women mostly populated the childfree ambivalent cluster, in contrast the aspiring parents anticipating stigma cluster contained an overrepresentation of men, including sexual minority men. Professionals may want to attend to communalities and specificities of prospective parenthood as a function of sexual orientation, in order to provide unbiased and culturally competent support to sexual minority individuals. (shrink)

Inhaltsverzeichnis/Table of Contents:IntroductionAntónio ZILHÃO: Folk-Psychology, Rationality and Human ActionJoão BRANQUINHO: The Problem of Cognitive DynamicsJ.P. MONTEIRO: Hume, Induction and Single ExperimentsMarco RUFFINO: The Primacy of Concepts and the Priority of Judgments in Frege's LogicJoão Vergílio Gallerani CUTER: Die unanwendbare Arithmetik des TractatusSílvio PINTO: Wittgenstein's Anti-PlatonismFernando FERREIRA: A Substitutional Framework for Arithmetical ValidityJ.R. CROCA & R.N. MOREIRA: Indeterminism Versus CausalismLuíz MONIZ PEREIRA: The Logical Impingement of Artifical Intelligence.

Homosexuality and homophobia in South Africa exist side by side. Homophobia is very common in communities and churches. Biblical texts, traditional cultures and politics partner to dismiss, discredit or disqualify homosexuality, but historians and anthropologists have evidence that homosexuality has been around within African cultures for many ages. Christians are divided into two camps. There are those who openly oppose gay rights with citations from biblical texts, claiming that homosexuality is forbidden by God. Others claim that this is poor biblical (...) scholarship and a cultural bias read into the Bible. To these, the Bible says nothing about homosexuality as an innate dimension of personality; as a sexual orientation, it was not understood in biblical times. Despite a progressive constitution and affirming legislation, sexual and gender minorities experience discrimination in South Africa. The church expresses homophobic tendencies by excluding homosexual people from the sacraments, liturgy and ordination. Theology is invited to embark on a journey of dialogue with communities and homosexual people in order for it to be meaningful and relevant and contribute towards social, political and economic empowerment. Through dialogue with the homophobic community, theology can journey out of the continuous hermeneutic circle spanning biblical text, dogmatic traditions and the present, ever-changing historical context. This journey is taken, applying the ethics of faith, hope and love.Contribution: The article invites further research on theological grounds for exclusion of same-sex orientation people from ecclesial rights such as ordinances, liturgy, confessions and ordination. (shrink)

This article examines the conditions of internet access and uses by children and young people from socially disadvantaged environments in Portugal. Adapting the EU Kids Online questionnaire, a sample of 279 participants in an intervention program on digital inclusion was interviewed in order to analyze their online experiences, bearing in mind the EU Kids Online results and the wider debate on digital inclusion. This issue was examined at two levels: access, and practices and uses. Although economic deprivation, parents’ low (...) educational attainment and children’s age and gender seem to matter in terms of access, reported uses were analogous to the average Portuguese and EU Kids Online data. However, with these children apparently being more oriented towards entertainment and having less informational skills, it is questionable if policies that merely assure access are entirely sufficient. Nevertheless, one cannot say straightforwardly that ‘social exclusion’ equates ‘digital exclusion’. (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)