The study of metaphor is now firmly established as a central topic within cognitive science and the humanities. We marvel at the creative dexterity of gifted speakers and writers for their special talents in both thinking about certain ideas in new ways, and communicating these thoughts in vivid, poetic forms. Yet metaphors may not only be special communicative devices, but a fundamental part of everyday cognition in the form of 'conceptual metaphors'. An enormous body of empirical evidence from cognitive linguistics (...) and related disciplines has emerged detailing how conceptual metaphors underlie significant aspects of language, thought, cultural and expressive action. Despite its influence and popularity, there have been major criticisms of conceptual metaphor. This book offers an evaluation of the arguments and empirical evidence for and against conceptual metaphors, much of which scholars on both sides of the wars fail to properly acknowledge. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper develops a framework for examining decision making about ethical issues and tests the applicability of a social contract perspective. Using two separate samples of students and salespeople, we determine that community members (salespeople) tend to judge a potentially unethical act to constitute a violation of an implicit social contract and non-community members (students) do not. Also, consistent with the emphasis on context specificity of integrative social contracts theory, situational variables influence perceptions of ethicality for the community members, but (...) do not affect the perceptions of individuals outside the community. The study finds considerable support for the use of a social contractarian perspective in the study of decision-making processes about ethical issues. (shrink)

A refutation of the doomsday argument is offered. Through a simple thought experiment analysed in Bayesian terms the fallacy is shown to be the assumption that a currently living person represents a random sample from the population of all persons who will ever have existed. A more general version of the counter argument is then given. Previous arguments that purport to answer this concern are also addressed. One result is determining criteria for the applicability of time sampling arguments, i.e., under (...) what conditions can a specific instant in time be regarded as a random sample from a time span. Given this new understanding, the incredible consequences of the doomsday and related arguments evaporate. (shrink)

Foucault no curso Segurança, Território e População, proferido entre janeiro e abril de 1978, dedica boa parte de suas aulas a fazer um exame do que identifica como poder pastoral. Em qual contexto surge esta problematização? De que maneira o poder pastoral se implicaria a estratégias de governamentalidade direcionadas por proposições econômicas? E, ampliando o horizonte de questionamento, cabe-nos examinar quais os vestígios do poder pastoral que poderíamos encontrar nas relações entre credores e devedores, em relações vinculadas à constituição de (...) “sujeitos de necessidades”. A partir dessas questões, pretendemos examinar, dentre os múltiplos modos da biopolítica se infiltrar em nossas vidas, a preeminência de um poder pastoral comprometido com uma lógica de endividamento da existência. (shrink)

What kind of persons could engage in political torture? Not only the morally impaired who lack empathy or compassion, or even the merely obedient, but also the righteous who struggle with conscience, and the realists who set morality aside.

The article attempts to settle a controversy between d f pears and j o urmson over the nature of russell's early theory of memory. it is shown that contrary to what pears claims in his "bertrand russell and the british tradition in philosophy," russell had explicitly abandoned a realist account of memory by 1915. the article sides with urmson as against pears, but apparently both have overlooked two of russell's little noticed 1915 papers in the "monist.".

Este trabalho analisa idéias e atividades de Karl Popper referentes à controvérsia sobre interpretações e fundamentos da mecânica quântica. Atenção especial será dedicada às relações entre Popper e o físico italiano Franco Selleri, ao longo da década de 1980. A interpretação proposta por Popper para os enunciados probabilísticos como propensões, bem como seu ponto de vista realista, contribuíram para estabelecer uma ponte entre suas investigações filosóficas e a pesquisa física em mecânica quântica, ainda que sua idéia sobre as propensões tenha (...) tido uma pequena repercussão entre físicos, matemáticos e filósofos. Argumentaremos neste trabalho que a influência de Popper na física foi possível devido à legitimação, a partir de 1970, da controvérsia sobre os fundamentos da teoria quântica como uma genuína controvérsia científica com implicações filosóficas. Popper foi beneficiado por essa legitimação, mas ele também contribuiu para fazer aquela controvérsia chegar a um público mais amplo que aquele dos físicos envolvidos na própria controvérsia.I intend to present in this paper Karl Popper’s ideas and activities concerning the controversy about the interpretations and foundations of quantum mechanics. I will pay special attention to Popper’s relationship with the Italian physicist Franco Selleri, during the 1980s. Popper’s ideas of propensity and realism contributed to build a bridge between his philosophy and physical research in quantum mechanics, even if his idea of propensity has had a weak reception among physicists, mathematicians and philosophers. I will argue that Popper’s contributions to physics were possible due to the legitimization in the 1970s of the controversy about the foundations of quantum mechanics, a process which permitted a trading zone between physics and philosophy. Popper was benefited by that process, but he also contributed to give to that controversy a larger audience thanthat of the physicists involved in that controversy. (shrink)

One of the challenges of the Kantian research is to deal with the different meanings of the term critique, as well as to ask about the author’s possible motivation in choosing this term to title his main works. Through the emphasis on the fecundity of meaning of the term critique, we will show in this article that its connection with the establishment of limits to metaphysics was a sinuous process, which is capable of encompassing interests of heterogeneous natures. For this (...) purpose, we will first problematize, in particular, the appearance of the concept of critique in NEV of 1765 and, later, based on the Reflections (1765-1770), we will identify how its equivocality, more than an obstacle, favored the construction of its protagonist role in the Kantian corpus. Thus, the critical thinking for Kant, instead of a position facing only the problem of metaphysics, is explained as a position facing the most diverse problems of the modern subject. (shrink)

Aspectos básicos da leitura heideggeriana de Nietzsche. As possibilidades e as possíveis distorções operadas por tal interpretação em alguns conceitos fundamentais do pensamento nietzschiano. Num primeiro momento, explicitam-se as duas atitudes de Heidegger diante da história da filosofia e de seus principais pensadores, em momentos diferentes de seu pensamento. Em seguida, analisa-se, com um certo distanciamento crítico, em que sentido, conforme Heidegger, ocorre a consumação da metafísica do sujeito pensante [Descartes] na metafísica da vontade de potência e na ideia de (...) além do homem, em Nietzsche. This article presents the basic aspects of Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche and the possibilities and possible distortions of this interpretation with regard to some basic concepts of Nietzschean thought. First, we make explicit two different attitudes of Heidegger toward the history of philosophy and its leading thinkers, as found in different periods of Heidegger's thought. Secondly we analyze, with a certain critical distance, in what sense, according to Heidegger, metaphysics is the consummation of the thinking subject (Descartes) in the metaphysics of the will to power and the idea of beyond man in Nietzsche. (shrink)

Our decision to bracket “race” was designed to call attention to the fact that “races,” put simply, do not exist, and that to claim that they do, for whatever misguided reason, is to stand on dangerous ground. Fromm understands this all too well, it seems, judging from the satirical tone of his response. Were there not countries in which the belief in racial essences dictates social and political policy, perhaps I would have found Fromm’s essay amusing and our gesture merely (...) one more token of the academic’s tendency to create distinctions which common sense alone renders unnecessary. The joke, rather, is on Fromm: one’s task is most certainly not to remain “permanently quiet”; rather, our task is to utilize language more precisely, to rid ourselves of the dangers of careless usages of problematic terms which are drawn upon to delimit and predetermine the lives and choices of human beings who are not “white.” Fromm’s response only reinforces Todorov’s worry about not bracketing “race” every time it occurs in our texts, because “race” simply does not exist. (shrink)

In this study the authors follow with extreme clarity what could be understood as the political ideology and the philosophy of language of Richard Rorty, from the perspective of the understanding assumed by this North American philosopher as to public democratic practices. His philosophy is es..

Now language is very important for philosophizing, and, as we shall see, especially important for metaphysics. Metaphysics is reflection on the world as intellectually experienced, and this means, on the world as known and formulated and expressed in language or discourse. As Frederick Woodbridge puts it, "Telling the truth about man's intellectual experience of the world, and trying to discover what that truth implies, is the business of philosophy." Naturally, this attempt leads beyond that intellectual experience of the world, that (...) formulation in discourse, to the world itself. It leads to the context in which the world is experienced reflectively, to the "immediately" or "directly" experienced world—to the world encountered in our many other ways of experiencing it than reflective, intellectual, or linguistic. For "intellectual experience" is a way of experiencing the world, and "linguistic formulation" is a way of expressing and articulating subject-matter encountered and experienced in many other ways. (shrink)

Research with nonhuman primates is essential to medical progress and will still be necessary for the foreseeable future. Almost all research scientists agree that animal research is critical to understanding basic biology, discovering new treatments for human (and animal) diseases, and maximizing the safety of new medicines while minimizing their harm to humans. All but two of the Nobel prizes in medicine awarded over the last one hundred years have depended on animal research, and the list of modern medicines, vaccines, (...) and other treatments, as well as basic science discoveries, is so extensive that it could not be adequately covered in even a huge volume. Increases in average life span in the last century are the result of improved public health measures, and many diseases may be related to lifestyle choices. But animal research has contributed to understanding these factors and to the development of vaccines and lifesaving treatments. The philosophical debate regarding the benefits and moral costs of animal research has also filled many volumes by ethicists and philosophers. The major arguments against the use of animals in medical research have been explicitly refuted by a few brave scientists, as well as implicitly by the vast majority of the working biomedical science community. My contribution to this discussion is to provide a personal perspective on my decision if, when, and how to use monkeys in research experiments on Parkinson disease. As a physician researcher, I have been working for many years to understand and cure Parkinson disease. (shrink)