El presente estudio ofrece, desde una perspectiva teórica, una breve visión de conjunto de la concepción tomista sobre las emociones, su encaje en el ciclo de la vida consciente, su génesis, su clasificación, su encadenamiento y su dinamismo. Desarrolla consideraciones sobre las contribuciones que este referencial teórico puede aportar al estudio de las emociones y deduce algunos de sus principales corolarios éticos.

Memory trace was originally a philosophical term used to explain the phenomenon of remembering. Once debated by Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno of Citium, the notion seems more recently to have become the exclusive province of cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists. Nonetheless, this modern appropriation should not deter philosophers from thinking carefully about the nature of memory traces. On the contrary, scientific research on the nature of memory traces can rekindle philosopher's interest on this notion. With that general aim in mind, the (...) present paper has three specific goals. First, it attempts to chart the most relevant philosophical views on the nature of memory traces from both a thematic and historical perspective. Second, it reviews critical findings in the psychology and the neuroscience of memory traces. Finally, it explains how such results lend support to or discredit specific philosophical positions on the nature of memory traces. This paper also touches upon the issues raised by recent empirical research that theories of memory traces need to accommodate in order to succeed. (shrink)

Current theories of the division of cognitive labor are confined to the “context of justification,” assuming exogenous theories. But new theories are made from the same labor that is used for developing existing theories, and if none of this labor is ever allocated to create new alternatives, then scientific progress is impossible. A unified model is proposed in which theories are no longer given but a function of the division of labor in the model itself. The interactions of individuals balancing (...) the exploitation of existing theories and the exploration of new theories results in a robust cyclical pattern. (shrink)

Recently, some have proposed moral bioenhancement as a solution to the serious moral evils that humans face. Seemingly disillusioned with traditional methods of moral education, proponents of bioenhancement believe that we should pursue and apply biotechnological means to morally enhance human beings. Such proposal has generated a lively debate about the permissibility of moral bioenhancement. We argue here that such debate is specious. The claim that moral bioenhancement is a solution - whether permissible or not - to the serious moral (...) problems that affect human beings is based on several problematic framing assumptions. We evaluate here three of such assumptions: the first rests on a contested understanding of morality, the second consist in a mistaken conception of human moral problems, and the third relates to problematic presuppositions grounding the interpretation of existent scientific evidence presented to defend moral bioenhancement. Once these framing assumptions are identified and critically evaluated, it becomes clear that the moral bioenhancement debate is misguided. (shrink)

(2014). Cross-world luck at the time of decision is a problem for compatibilists as well. Philosophical Explorations: Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 112-125. doi: 10.1080/13869795.2014.912673.

A growing number of jurisdictions hold that gamete donors must be identifiable to the children born with their eggs or sperm, on grounds that being able to know about one's genetic origins is a fundamental moral right. But the argument for that belief has not yet been adequately made.

This paper provides an exploratory comparative assessment of the institutional pressures influencing corporate social responsibility in a developed country, UK, vs. a developing country, Brazil, based on a survey of different actors. Information on sustainability concerns, organizational strategies and mechanisms of pressure was collected through interviews with environmental regulatory agencies, financial institutions, media and non-governmental organizations. Our results confirm that the more advanced awareness and CSR responsiveness in the UK is a consequence of a predominance of coercive and normative forces (...) on the organizational field. The institutional forces tend to build a Brazilian organizational field that is relational based and risk intensive. The findings lend support to the view that CSR responses are unlikely to be easily transformed into uniform standardized practices across the globe. This paper contributes to a collective understanding of the organizational field and a common template for CSR in the context of developed and developing countries. (shrink)

DIREITO À INFORMAÇÃO NAS RELAÇÕES DE CONSUMO DE PRODUTOS ALIMENTÍCIOS NO ATACADO E NO VAREJO: PARTICULARIDADES SOBRE COMPOSIÇÃO, CARACTERÍSTICAS, PREÇO E QUANTIDADE DO PRODUTO.

Understanding ownership rights is necessary for socially appropriate behavior. We provide evidence that preschoolers' and adults' judgments of ownership rights are related to their judgments of bodily rights. Four-year-olds and adults evaluated the acceptability of harmless actions targeting owned property and body parts. At both ages, evaluations did not vary for owned property or body parts. Instead, evaluations were influenced by two other manipulations—whether the target belonged to the agent or another person, and whether that other person approved of the (...) action. Moreover, these manipulations influenced judgments for owned objects and body parts in the same way: When the other person approved of the action, participants' judgments were positive regardless of who the target belonged to. In contrast, when that person disapproved, judgments depended on who the target belonged to. These findings show that young children grasp the importance of approval or consent for ownership rights and bodily rights, and likewise suggest that people's notions of ownership rights are related to their appreciation of bodily rights. (shrink)

Moral philosophy has traditionally aimed for correct or appropriate moral judgments. Consequently, when asked for moral advice, the moral philosopher first tries to develop a moral judgment and then informs the advisee. The focus is on what the advisee should do, not on whether any advice should be given. There may, however, be various kinds of reasons not to morally judge, to be ‘morally modest’. In the first part of this article, I give some reasons to be morally modest when (...) moral advice is asked for. Second, I show how Wittgenstein radicalizes these reasons to such an extent that the very possibility of giving moral advice seems threatened. Third, I argue that taking Wittgenstein and the need for moral modesty seriously does not make moral advice impossible, but rather asks for a notion of moral advice in which moral advice is not necessarily linked to the ideal of a moral judgment. Fourth, I highlight some advantages of a Wittgensteinian notion of moral advice over traditional notions. (shrink)

In this paper, we will defend a particular version of the timeless solution to the problem of divine foreknowledge and human freedom. Our strategy is grounded on a particular temporal framework, which models the flow of time and a libertarian understanding of freedom. The propositions describing a certain act by an agent have an indeterminate truth value until the agent makes her choice; therefore, they become true or false when a decision is made. In order to account for this change (...) of truth value, a multiple frame structure is introduced in which every frame presents a privileged time, with its past and the possible alternative futures, which are still open. God atemporally knows all the frames and the truth values of propositions with respect to each one. Since divine knowledge of what an agent decides in a certain temporal frame depends on the agent’s act itself, divine knowledge does not conflict with the agent’s free will. (shrink)

Empirical research in the psychology of nature appreciation suggests that humans across cultures tend to evaluate nature in positive aesthetic terms, including a sense of beauty and awe. They also frequently engage in joint attention with other persons, whereby they are jointly aware of sharing attention to the same event or object. This paper examines how, from a natural theological perspective, delight in natural beauty can be conceptualized as a way of joining attention to creation. Drawing on an analogy between (...) art and creation, we propose that aesthetic appreciation of nature may provide theists with a unique phenomenological insight into God's creative intentions, which are embodied in the physical beauty of creation. We suggest two directions in which this way of looking at the natural world can be fleshed out: in a spontaneous way, that does not take into account background information, and with the help of science. (shrink)

In this essay Elizabeth de Freitas follows Tim Ingold's groundbreaking anthropological work on lines and their cultural and material significance to argue that the line is the engine of theory, be it the drawn line of inscription or mathematical measure, the exclusionary line of delineation, or the undulating generative line of flight. De Freitas focuses on contemporary theories of perception that deploy the line — and mobilize the force of theory — so as to encode and reconfigure the student's body. (...) She draws on the work of Gilles Deleuze to develop a topological approach to the line, and argues that such an approach aligns with current philosophical approaches to social interaction that might be termed “topo-philosophy.”. (shrink)

While Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason maintains that things in themselves cannot be known, he also seems to assert that they affect our senses and produce representations. Following Jacobi, many commentators have considered these claims to be contradictory. Instead of adding another artificial solution to the existing literature on this subject, I maintain that Kant’s use of terms such as thing-in-itself, noumenon, and transcendental object becomes perfectly consistent if we take them to acquire a different meaning in the (...) various parts of the work. Challenging the opposed interpretations of Allison and Langton, I argue that Kant’s account of things in themselves is primarily relevant to the second-order reflection on the possibility and limits of a scientific metaphysics that the Critique undertakes. (shrink)

The article proposes a novel approach to mental agency that is inspired by Victoria McGeer’s work on self-regulation. The basic idea is that certain mental acts leave further work to be done for an agent to be considered an authoritative self-ascriber of corresponding dispositional mental states. First, we discuss Richard Moran’s account of avowals, which grounds first-person authority in deliberative, self-directed agency. Although this view is promising, we argue that it ultimately fails to confront the empirical gap between occurrent judgments (...) and dispositional beliefs. Second, we show how Victoria McGeer's account of self-regulation allows us to bridge this gap by emphasizing that avowals are only reliable and authoritative insofar as we take certain steps to live up to the commitments inherent in our self-ascriptions. Third, we address the question whether and to what extent self-regulation can be seen as a form of mental agency. Unlike the ‘pure’ deliberative form of mental agency advocated by Moran, which is direct, conscious and intra-personal, we follow McGeer and argue for a notion of mental agency as an indirect, unconscious and inter-personal process of self-regulation. (shrink)

This paper will argue that the order and the unity of St. Thomas Aquinas’s five ways can be elucidated through a consideration of St. Thomas’s appropriation of an Avicennian insight that he used to order and unify the wisdom of the Aristotelian and Abrahamic philosophical traditions towards the existence of God. I will begin with a central aporia from Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Aristotle says that the science of first philosophy has three different theoretical vectors: ontology, aitiology, and theology. But how can (...) all three be united into a single Aristotelian science? In his Metaphysics of the Healing, Avicenna resolved the impasse by taking the ontological vector as the subject of metaphysics. He then integrated the question of the four first causes into the penultimate stage of his demonstration for the existence of God, thereby placing aitiological and theological questions among the ultimate concerns of a unified Aristotelian metaphysics. In the five ways, St. Thomas integrated Avicenna’s Aristotelian search for the first four causes into the last four of his five ways, by showing that each of the four aitiological orders terminate in an ultimate first cause that we call God. Finally, by appending the proof from the Physics to the beginning of the five ways, St. Thomas was able to show that the ultimate aim of both natural philosophy and metaphysics is the divine first principle, which is the beginning and subject of sacra doctrina. (shrink)

This volume sets out to address the question as to whether and how the critical conception of objectivity could still be relevant in contemporary philosophy. This means reflecting on the validity of the ascription of certaindefects to the Kantian system, as well as on their very description as defects. In order to do so, the volume brings together presentations that treat Kantian objectivity from many different angles. Some are more traditionally exegetical in nature, and discuss the interpretation of concepts within (...) or traits of Kant’s philosophy. Others trace the fate of the Kantian legacy in later philosophical and scientific thought. Still others reflect on the potential of transcendental perspectives for con-temporary philosophy and science. It is this variety in focus that makes the engagement with critical objectivity in this volume of interest not only to professional historians of philosophy and science, but to researchers engaged with the philosophical aspects of objectivity in their fields in general. (shrink)

We present the methodological principles underlying the scientific activities of the DHST Commission on the History and Philosophy of Computing. This volume collects refereed selected papers from the First International Conference organized by the Commission.

We review the history of the philosophy of fondue since Aristotle so as to arrive at the formulation of the paradox of Swiss fondue. Either the wine and the cheese cease to exist (Buridan), but then the fondue is not really a mixture of wine and cheese. Or the wine and the cheese continue to exist. If they do, then either they continue to exist in different places (the chemists), but then a fondue can never be perfectly homogenous (it is (...) a French fondue). Or the wine and the cheese continue to exist in the same place (the Stoïcs), but then wine and cheese have to be, oddly, penetrable and spatially expansible. Aristote attempted to solve this paradox by arguing that the cheese and wine continue to exist, but only potentially in the fondue. We sketch an alternative answer. The wine and the cheese continue to exist, but only non-spatially in the fondue. Wine and cheese, once mixed, become non-spatial constituents of the fondue, a bit like character traits are non-spatial constituents of persons. The wine and the cheese are in the fondue, but only the fondue is there in the fondue pot. (shrink)

The cosmological argument has enjoyed and still enjoys substantial popularity in various traditions of natural theology. We propose that its enduring appeal is due at least in part to its concurrence with human cognitive predispositions, in particular intuitions about causality and agency. These intuitions seem to be a stable part of human cognition. We will consider implications for the justification of the cosmological argument from externalise and internalise perspectives.

Maas hat einfach den von Heinrich Kirn im Jahr 1880 edierten Text („Theodor von Mopsuestia und Junilius Africanus als Exegeten. Nebst einer kritischen Textausgabe von des letzteren Instituta regularia divinae legis“, Freiburg i. B.) ohne jede eigene Bearbeitung und weitere Aufbereitung abgedruckt (S. 118–234; S. 266–269 Kirns Zitatenregister übernommen; doch keine Berücksichtigung des Textes im Sach-und Autorenregister S. 275–280). Selbst die seit 1947 bekannten zusätzlichen neun Handschriften (M. L. W. Laistner: Harv. Theol. Rev. 40, 1947, 19–31), hat Maas nicht (...) auf ihre Qualität und Bedeutung geprüft, sondern sie S. 116f. nur aufgezählt. Nützlich ist die beigefügte englische Übersetzung, doch hatte bereits J. F. Collins im Jahr 1998 eine solche Übersetzung im Internet zugängig gemacht (ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/texts/junillus.trans.html). Rückverweise vom Text auf die Einleitung oder erläuternde Sachanmerkungen zu Text und Übersetzung finden sich nicht. Und auch die Bezüge der Einleitung auf den Text sind nicht präzis. Der Schwerpunkt der vorliegenden Untersuchung liegt also nicht auf Text und Übersetzung der Instituta, sondern auf der Einleitung zum Text (S. 1–115), was ja schon die Titelgestaltung des Buches vermuten läßt. (shrink)

I argue that it is possible and useful for moral philosophy to provide surveyable representations of moral vocabulary. I proceed in four steps. First, I present two dominant interpretations of the concept “surveyable representation”. Second, I use these interpretations as a background against which I present my own interpretation. Third, I use my interpretation to support the claim that Wittgenstein’s “Lecture on Ethics” counts as an example of a surveyable representation. I conclude that, since the lecture qualifies as a surveyable (...) representation, it is possible to provide surveyable representations of moral vocabulary. Fourth, I argue that it is useful for contemporary moral philosophy to provide surveyable representations, because it may help to dissolve problems in current debates. I provide an example of such a debate, namely, the debate between cognitivists and non-cognivitists. (shrink)

Carroll William Westfall has claimed that building types can serve as natural symbols of (the purposes served by) activities such as venerating, celebrating, trading, and dwelling. The aim of this paper is to interpret Westfall’s claim in a way that makes it non-trivial and yet worthy of further investigation. In particular, an attempt is made to explain the connection between building types and what they symbolize without appealing to convention. The question is also answered whether a non-conventional connection is compatible (...) with one and the same building type having a different significance in different cultures. (shrink)

Past research has identified a number of asymmetries based on moral judgments. Beliefs about what a person values, whether a person is happy, whether a person has shown weakness of will, and whether a person deserves praise or blame seem to depend critically on whether participants themselves find the agent's behavior to be morally good or bad. To date, however, the origins of these asymmetries remain unknown. The present studies examine whether beliefs about an agent's “true self” explain these observed (...) asymmetries based on moral judgment. Using the identical materials from previous studies in this area, a series of five experiments indicate that people show a general tendency to conclude that deep inside every individual there is a “true self” calling him or her to behave in ways that are morally virtuous. In turn, this belief causes people to hold different intuitions about what the agent values, whether the agent is happy, whether he or she has shown weakness of will, and whether he or she deserves praise or blame. These results not only help to answer important questions about how people attribute various mental states to others; they also contribute to important theoretical debates regarding how moral values may shape our beliefs about phenomena that, on the surface, appear to be decidedly non-moral in nature. (shrink)

Jesse Prinz develops a naturalistic metaethical theory with which he purports to sidestep ‘Hume's law’ by demonstrating how, on his theory, in describing what our moral beliefs commit us to we can determine what our moral obligations are. I aim to show that Prinz does not deliver on his prescriptive promise – he does not bridge the is–ought gap in any meaningful way. Given that Prinz goes on to argue that (1) his moral psychology highlights fundamental shortcomings in ‘traditional’ normative (...) ethical theories, (2) that moral progress is possible, despite the relativistic implications of his own position, and (3) that this undermining of the is–ought gap should hold true on any naturalistic metaethical theory, the extent to which his project succeeds becomes significant. (shrink)

On June 13, 323 BCE, Alexander the Great, king of the Greeks, died at Babylon at the age of thirty-three. He had conquered a large part of the known world—the oikoumenē of the Greeks—and he had pushed back the eastern limits of the universe by advancing into India as far as the basin of the Ganges. He had also done everything in his power to give birth to a myth around his person, a myth that endures to this day. Alexander (...) came to power in 336 BCE, at the age of twenty, after his father, Philip II, king of Macedon, had been assassinated. He was the cherished pupil of Aristotle, who followed him in his ventures and dedicated a treatise to him entitled Rhetoric to Alexander. He went to war in Asia against the .. (shrink)

This book presents a course in General Psychology which offers, in a synthetic form, a general vision of contemporary Psychology, added by contributions that the Thomistic Psychology provides. Develops the basic concepts of psychological science, its study methodology, its historical evolution, the role of biological, psychological and social components that influence the behavior, beyond the study of psychopathology and therapy, comparing them always with the Thomistic approach.

Aesthetic Capitalism offers an innovative analysis of contemporary capitalism and its use of image, symbolism, creativity and other aesthetic elements to produce economic value.

Hegel and Lonergan both make important contributions to the contemporary task of developing philosophical considerations of God within the context of a philosophy of religion. Hegel maintains that philosophy must both present knowledge of God as God is in godself, and present an account of God’s involvement with the human community. One accomplishes this two-sided task, Hegel believes, through the philosophical appropriation of the religious representation. If this appropriation is rightly understood, there is little in it to which Longern should (...) object, and a great deal that he might endorse, given his own views about the relation between philosophy of religion and philosophy of God. At the same time, Lonergan would rightly object to what at times seems at least to be Hegel’s annulment of religious mystery, and the claim Hegel sometimes seems to make that the cognitive achievements of philosophy result in a sublation of the existential concerns of religion. Lonergan argues for positions that make possible important corrections of these problems. (shrink)

Despite the proliferation of articles and edited volumes on EvoDevo (evolutionary developmental biology), only a couple of monographs dealing systematically with the conceptual challenges posed by the reintroduction of development into the structure of evolutionary theory are available (Gould 2002; Amundson 2005). In Requiem for the Centaurus: An Epistemological Approach to Evolutionary Developmental Biology, Footnote1 Gustavo Caponi reorganizes the pieces of work he has been publishing in recent years on different historical and conceptual aspects of evolutionary biology into a long, (...) coherent, elegant, and thought-provoking argument that deserves to be read from beginning to end. (shrink)

Family firms are ubiquitous and play a crucial role across all world economies, but how they differ in the disclosure of social and environmental actions from non-family firms has been largely overlooked in the literature. Advancing the discourse on corporate social responsibility reporting, we examine how family influence on a business organization affects CSR reporting. The arguments developed here draw on institutional theory, using a rich body of empirical evidence gathered through a content analysis of the CSR reports of 98 (...) large- and medium-sized Italian firms. The grounded theory analysis informs and contextualizes several differences in the type and content of corporate social responsibility reports of family and non-family firms. Our findings show that in comparison to non-family firms, family firms disseminate a greater variety of CSR reports, are less compliant with CSR standards and place emphasis on different CSR topics. We, thus, contribute to the family business and corporate social responsibility reporting literatures in several ways, offering implications for practice and outlining promising avenues for future research. (shrink)

Definida como beleza lógica e forma do paradoxo, a ironia romântica de Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) assimila a antiga ironia socrática e a reinterpreta, inserindo-a como elemento central de sua teorização crítico-literária. O presente artigo analisa a ironia romântica, buscando situar sua alteração e abrangência no final do século XVIII, quando o conceito passa a significar metacrítica, reflexão filosófica, ruptura ficcional, distância estética e forma de exposição da arte literária. Defined as logical beauty and form of paradox, Friedrich Schlegel's (1772-1829) romantic (...) irony incorporates ancient Socratic irony and reinterprets it, inserting it as a nuclear element of his theorization on literary criticism. The current paper analyses the concept of romantic irony seeking to situate its alterations at the end of 18th century, when it changed its meaning for metacritics, philosophical reflexion, fictional rupture, aesthetical distance and form of art exposition. (shrink)

Se realiza un estudio de los principios básicos o tradicionales de la bioética y su influencia en la práctica de la limitación del esfuerzo terapéutico en las Unidades de Cuidados Intensivos, como condicionante que favorece su aplicación en los pacientes en estado terminal. Se aborda la necesidad de una bioética no importada de otros países, que se corresponda a las características de la realidad latinoamericana y a cada contexto sociocultural. El trabajo tiene como objetivo fundamental resaltar la importancia de estos (...) principios básicos en la discusión ético-clínica para la toma de decisiones, a partir de una bioética que se corresponda a la realidad de los sistemas imperantes. A study of basic or traditional principles of bioethics and its influence in the practice of the limits of the therapeutic effort in the intensive care units, as a requirement that favors its application in terminal ill patients was carried out. The need of having bioethics principles that match Latin-American reality and each sociocultural context, not imported ones from other countries, was stated. This paper main objective is to highlight the importance of these basic principles in ethic-clinic discussion for decision-making, taking as the starting point a bioethics that corresponds to the reality of the dominant system. (shrink)

CAVALCANTI NETO, Lamartine de Hollanda. Contributions of Thomistic Psychology to the study of the plasticity of the ethos. 2012. 571s. Thesis (Doctorate in Bioethics) – Centro Universitário São Camilo, São Paulo,2012. If Ethics is not a static science, it is because ethos — its basic object of study — is a mutable reality. For this reason, ethical themes, chiefly those of Bioethics, are directly related to the study of the plasticity of the ethos. Nevertheless, such investigation requires that the researcher (...) distance himself from concrete ethical questions, to apply himself to the theoretical examination of what enables the existence and development of such questions — that is, the aforementioned plasticity. However, bibliographical literature on this subject has revealed a scarcity of works focused specifically on the theme. This scarcity seems to indicate that the subject is still in a process of methodological definition. Therefore, we propose as a research question, to investigate at the theoretical level, if Thomistic Psychology can be considered a valid study tool for the plasticity of ethos. For this aim, we adopt a documental and bibliographical research methodology adapted to the aforesaid question, based on the presupposition that such validity can be gauged to the extent that Thomistic Psychology offers objective contributions to the study of the plasticity of the ethos. Backed by extensive literature, we present an overview of Thomistic Psychology, as well as of ethos and its plasticity. With the data obtained, we establish a discussion with a view to identifying these contributions. Based on the results, we close with a reply, while still open, to our research question, hoping to afford, in this way, a kind of platform on which new studies can be developed with greater facility. (shrink)

Neste texto, procuro encontrar as origens de um dos mais importantes conceitos de Gilles Deleuze, o conceito de Imagem-tempo. Este conceito remete-nos para os primeiros textos de Deleuze dedicados à filosofia de Espinosa e ao problema do autómato espiritual e relaciona-se directamente com o problema da passividade/actividade do espectador. Ou seja, o conceito crucial na sua filosofia do cinema, a Imagem-tempo, esconde uma importante reflexão sobre a Imagem cinematográfica como arte de massas, os (im)poderes do pensamento e o modo fascista (...) de se pensar. This text seeks to find the origins of one of the most important of Gilles Deleuze's concepts, the concept of Time-image. This concept leads us to his first texts regarding Spinoza's philosophy and the problem of the spiritual automaton, and concerns directly with the problem of passivity/activity of the film goer. That is to say that the crucial concept of his film philosophy, Time-image, hides a fundamental consideration on the cinematic image as a mass art, the (un)powers of thinking and the fascist way of thought. (shrink)

This paper analyses the role of foreign and local companies in shaping Brazilian positions on global sustainability. It deals with an empirical investigation of CSR practices of firms from the electronics, food, and personal care sectors in response to pressures of 'market' and 'non-market' stakeholders. The results demonstrate that CSR decisions by foreign and local firms are triggered by organisational considerations and anticipated economic gains. The degree of implementation of CSR activities by foreign firms is more advanced than that of (...) local firms. The survey also confirms the hypothesis that market stakeholders exert pressure on companies and positively influence CSR. Non-market stakeholders seem to have a minor effect on corporate social responsibility decisions. We conclude that the institutional environment is a critical determinant of the extent to which the dialogue between stakeholders and companies leads to the attainment of sustainable development. (shrink)