ABSTRACT By turning his focus to individuals – the profile of billionaires as the people they are – Peter Hägel offers in his book Billionaires in World Politics an interesting move towards agency, showing that their power, even if situated in a complex economic structure, also consists in bending, changing, or setting the rules of how the game is played. After having followed the move of the pendulum from structure to agency with Hägel, in this paper I suggest that moving (...) back to structural analyses could again provide new insights. I argue that in order to have a more complete picture of the billionaires-and-politics puzzle, it is required to not only look at agency as a kind of reflexive phenomenon, but also to provide a more historically informed genealogy of the conditions under which billionaires’ passions have been shaped. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Hegel's treatment of Amerindian peoples is rooted in an exclusionary perspective of Reason, which establishes a particular form of life as its defining standard-bearer. This stance results in a distinct form of epistemic misrecognition and injustice that disregards the potential contributions of Amerindian resources and worldviews to the lexicon stablished throughout the modernity. To present an alternative viewpoint, I examine the insights of Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa, whose pluriversal conception of reason and history challenges (...) one-sided portrayals of rationality. My aim is not to ‘fit’ Amerindian concepts into our familiar modern philosophical vocabulary. Instead, I wish to consider Hegel's philosophy through the lens of encounters and epistemic recognition with those who have been denied it. In particular, the application of an ‘ethnographic pact’ as a mode of translation constitutes a valuable contribution to ongoing decolonial discussions. I assert that this approach calls into question Hegel's notions of progress and universal reason, suggesting that his philosophy of history might have taken a divergent path if it had not been entangled in a self-centric epistemic framework. While these considerations remain subject to further development, they offer a fresh perspective for comprehending Hegel's argument beyond his own epistemic limitations. (shrink)

Over the last decades, different approaches linked to decolonial tradition have shifted the pendulum of critique from claims of universality towards individual accounts and experiences. However, in what we can call “narrative turn”, the moral justifications for first-person perspectives are not always evident. In this paper, I explore the boundaries of epistemic relevance regarding the role that subjective accounts and experiences play in the critique of injustice. For that, I start by inverting the question of objectivity in the critique considering (...) the particularity of different experiences. The issue, in this case, is the position from where philosophers speak in their attempts to describe experiences of suffering. With regards to first-person standpoint, the question that is at stake is whether philosophers are capable of describing others’ experiences. In these terms, how can we share experiences of injustice after all? Next, I argue that there ought to be, in the debate, a distinction between two dimensions of justice. According to usual distinctions of “first- and second-order” approaches, I insist that theoretical claims related to the narrative turn refer to demands of first-order justice: it is about moral recognition of individuals’ epistemic claims, opening to the possibility to confront defective notions of universality and blind spots in theories of justice. However, these claims do not have justification criteria themselves, requiring, thus, normative dependencies which are external to experiences - these are situated in second-order justice. I argue, then, that this model has the advantage of incorporating the insights of decolonial theories without neglecting the potential for the critique of injustice. (shrink)

This interview discusses whether the concept of love can be used not only when dealing with primary relations of recognition, as in the relations of family or friendship, but also regarding social relations in civil society. The issues refer to the categorical differences between the concept of love – as developed by Honneth in his theory of recognition – and that proposed by the concept of ‘agapic action’ as a specific comprehension of love that is not reducible to affective bonds, (...) but that could be helpful in interpreting actions beyond such intimate relations. Thus, the interview discusses in which sense the concept of ‘agapic action’ can contribute to a social theory, on the one hand, distinguishing between a strict sense of love as primary affective bonds and, on the other, the concept of solidarity as social bonds. (shrink)

Ao longo das últimas duas décadas, a amplamente repercutida proposta teórica desenvolvida por Axel Honneth sugere um modelo de racionalidade que, contudo, permanece em larga medida ainda implícito. No presente artigo, proponho que a abordagem de Honneth sugere o que podemos entender como uma virada afetiva na teoria crítica. Para tanto, desdobro minha exposição em quatro passos. Primeiramente, apresento como a categoria do reconhecimento, a partir do sentido adotado por Honneth de uma “transcendência-imanência” da teoria social, mostra-se como uma crítica (...) aos padrões de racionalidade. Isto é, como este sentido constitui-se a partir dos limites de articulação comunicativas do sofrimento, em um particular entrecruzamento entre padrões de racionalidade e patologias sociais. Em um segundo passo, discuto como uma abordagem do vínculo entre afetos e teoria social é desdobrado em Luta por Reconhecimento, e, em seguida, como ela se distingue do sentido de conteúdos afetivos das práxis sociais em O Direito da liberdade. Se, em Luta por reconhecimento, uma concepção de afetos parece ser mais clara a partir do vínculo desenvolvido entre teoria social e teoria da subjetividade, procurarei mostrar que em O direito da liberdade esse conteúdo afetivo se apresenta de uma maneira mais plausível no âmbito de uma teoria das instituições, dissociada de fortes premissas antropológicas. Concluo mencionando de forma ainda programática como o potencial de crítica e conflito, presente nas intuições originais de Honneth, poderia se manter na análise do conteúdo afetivo da práxis social. Palavras-chave: Reconhecimento. Afetos. Instituições. Teoria crítica. Axel Honneth. (shrink)

O presente artigo discute a teoria hegeliana da sociedade civil dentro de um quadro atual, tendo em vista principalmente a tensão entre paixões e interesses encontrada no modelo econômico-político do capitalismo. Esse argumento será desenvolvido em dois momentos. Primeiramente, apresento a contribuição teórica de Hegel a esse debate a partir da concepção de que as paixões se ligam a um conteúdo “particular”, que somente são concebidas como “racionais” através de um processo de formação específico. Eu procuro mostrar que Hegel liga (...) essa expressão individual de preferências e o preenchimento de interesses pessoais através de uma formação da vontade institucionalmente mediada, através da qual os padrões de ação e de fins individuais são compreendidos enquanto formas inclusivas. Em um segundo momento, proponho que um quadro institucional deve promover as garantias de uma satisfação recíproca de interesses individuais, que, ao mesmo tempo, não sejam concebidos externamente aos participantes no mercado e no trabalho, mas que sejam fundamentadas a partir de uma legítimo sentimento de pertencimento social. Concluo com a proposta de uma “solidariedade institucionalizada”, que deve ser complementar à contingência do sentimento individual: essas esferas só são legitimadas normativamente quando elas – segundo o padrão da vontade livre – expressa, por um lado, o reconhecimento recíproco e a satisfação de preferências individuais, e, por outro, interesses descentrados em vista das relações sociais. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This is a response to the comments by Filipe Campello, Julian Culp, Klaus Dingwerth and Julian Eckl, Indira Latorre, and Uchenna Okeja within the present book symposium discussing my book Billionaires in World Politics. While disagreeing with some critiques, I welcome most of the comments as invitations for theoretical refinement and further research. I start with questions about conceptual delineations and the structural background, arguing that ‘political modernity’ is a concept that is too broad to capture the (...) specific context that allows billionaires to exercise power on the world stage. Then I address questions of agency, which are about the relationships between individual billionaires and collective actors, and the associated issue of legitimacy. The connection between billionaires and their corporations receives special attention, and is discussed in relation to legal innovations that establish individual accountability. I end with thoughts about neo-feudalism, a concept that I reject, because the political agency of billionaires remains wedded to capitalism. (shrink)

The use of teleological language in biology is burdened with many difficulties. Speakers in everyday and scientific discourse confuse functions with purposes and misunderstand functionality, finality, and intentionality. The paper is structured into three sections. In the first part the difference between Platonic supranatural and Aristotelian quasi-natural account of teleology will be explained, with examples from the history of philosophy of biology. The second part will present the Darwinian approach to etiology that constitutes a more sound alternative to the teleological (...) explanation. In the last section I will briefly introduce the teleological bias that is studied by developmental and cognitive psychologists. I believe that this psychological inclination is the real source of intuitive worldviews that are incompatible with contemporary science. (shrink)

In this paper I take a closer look at Sextus Empiricus’ arguments in his Outlines of Pyrrhonism I.25-30 and try to make sense of his account of Skepticism as a goal-directed philosophy. I argue that Sextus fails to mount a convincing case for the view that tranquility, rather than suspension of judgment, is the ultimate goal of his inquiries.

Este artigo aborda o debate realismo vs. instrumentalismo (ou antirrealismo) sobre teorias científicas, com foco no debate desdobrado no contexto da Análise do Comportamento (AC). Axiologias realistas são caracterizadas como aquelas segundo as quais (i) as teorias científicas devem buscar identificar e descrever processos, entidades, propriedades e/ou relações extrateóricos de suas esferas de estudo, e (ii) estamos justificados em considerar que elas, quando empiricamente adequadas (ou maduras), são bem-sucedidas nisso. Axiologias instrumentalistas (ou antirrealistas, termos tomados aqui intercambiavelmente), por outro lado, (...) negam (ii), e em alguns casos também (i). No contexto de discussões metateóricas em AC, tanto a partir de sua matriz de pesquisa predominante (comportamentalista radical) quanto de algumas de suas propostas alternativas de fundamentação (como o comportamentalismo molar), formas de instrumentalismo têm sido dominantes. O presente trabalho oferece uma reconstituição lógico-conceitual e um exame do debate recente em AC, problematizando argumentos instrumentalistas frequentes nesse contexto e esboçando a defesa de uma forma atenuada de realismo, próxima da proposta articulada por F. Suppe. (shrink)

In Liberating Oedipus?: Psychoanalysis as Critical Theory, Dr. Filip Kovacevic demonstrates how psychoanalytic theory can join political theory in designing alternative political norms and values. Kovacevic proves that political practice without an emancipatory psychology to guide it is potentially dangerous.

This paper presents a gamified motor imagery brain-computer interface (MI-BCI) training in immersive virtual reality. Aim of the proposed training method is to increase engagement, attention, and motivation in co-adaptive event-driven MI-BCI training. This was achieved using gamification, progressive increase of the training pace, and virtual reality design reinforcing the body ownership transfer (embodiment) into the avatar. From the 20 healthy participants performing 6 runs of 2-class MI-BCI training (left/right hand), 19 were trained for a basic level of MI-BCI operation, (...) with average peak accuracy in the session equal to 75.84\%. This confirms the proposed training method succeeded in improvement of the MI-BCI skills; moreover, participants were leaving the session in high positive affect. Although the performance was not directly correlated to the degree of embodiment, subjective magnitude of the body ownership transfer illusion correlated with the abilities to modulate the sensorimotor rhythm. (shrink)

The nature of unconscious information processing is a heavily debated issue in cognitive science , and neuroscience . Traditionally, it has been thought that unconscious cognitive processing is restricted to knowledge that is strongly prepared by conscious processes . In three experiments, we show that the task that is performed consciously can also be applied unconsciously to items outside the current task set. We found that a same–different judgment of two target stimuli was also performed on two subliminally presented prime (...) stimuli. This was true for target and prime stimuli from entirely different categories, as well as for prime and target stimuli at different levels of abstraction. These results reveal that unconscious processing can generalize more widely than previously accepted. (shrink)

In welchem Verhaltnis steht die Seelenlehre zur Kosmologie in Platons Phaidon?

The so-called ‘redintegration experiment’ is traditionally at the center of the comments on the supposed Boyle/Spinoza controversy. A. Clericuzio influentially argued in his publications that, in De nitro, Boyle accounted for the ‘redintegration’ of saltpeter on the grounds of the chemical properties of corpuscles and “did not make any attempt to deduce them from mechanical principles”. By way of contrast, this paper argues that with his De nitro Boyle wanted to illustrate and promote his new corpuscular or mechanical philosophy, and (...) that he made significant attempts to explain the phenomena in terms of mechanical qualities. Boyle had borrowed the ‘redintegration experiment’ from R. Glauber and used it in an attempt to demonstrate that his philosophy was superior to the Peripatetic and Paracelsian theory. Consequently, Clericuzio’s characterization of the Boyle/Spinoza controversy as a discussion between a strict mechanical philosopher and a chemist is problematic and a wider view of Spinoza’s interpretation and its context gives a fairer picture. (shrink)

Recently, Matt King and Peter Carruthers have argued that the Real Self accounts of moral responsibility or autonomy are under pressure because they rely on a questionable conception of self-knowledge of propositional attitudes, such as beliefs and desires. In fact, they defend, as a plausible assumption, the claim that transparent self-knowledge of propositional attitudes is incompatible with mounting evidence in the cognitive sciences. In this chapter, we respond to this line of argument. We describe the types of self-knowledge that might (...) plausibly be involved, as psychological prerequisites, in the processes of identification and integration that lead to the constitution of the real self of an agent. We argue that these forms of self- knowledge do not require the type of transparent knowledge of propositional attitudes that, according to King and Carruthers, is incompatible with the results of contemporary cognitive science. (shrink)

In zijn jongste boek, Kritiek van de interpreterende rede, bekijkt Filip Buekens de centrale thema's in de taalfilosofie van Davidson. Vertrekkend vanuit de stelling dat spreken en verstaan een vorm van rationeel handelen is, wordt onderzocht hoe een theorie voor een taal (in de vorm van een Tarskiaanse waarheidstheorie) wordt geconstrueerd vanuit het standpunt van een 'radicale interpretator' die inzicht wil krijgen in het talig handelen van personen. In een uitgebreide vergelijking met de filosofie van Michael Dummett en W.V. Quine (...) worden de specifieke uitgangspunten van Davidson verhelderd. Daarbij gaat vooral aandacht naar de constitutieve principes die het verstaan van anderen en het begrijpelijk zijn voor anderen mogelijk maken. Davidson verbindt aan dit project belangrijke metafysische conclusies. Deze worden uitgebreid toegelicht. Zo bespreekt de auteur de anti-sceptische argumenten van Davidson, het probleem van de onbepaaldheid van de referentie-relatie en Davidson's afwijzing van het relativisme. In een laatste hoofdstuk wordt de filosofie van Davidson getoetst aan belangrijke taalfilosofische discussies die de jongste jaren gevoerd werden: essentialisme, het volgen van regels, het probleem van de lingu. (shrink)

I propose a theory aimed at advancing scholarly research in social entrepreneurship. By highlighting the key trade-off between value creation and value capture and explaining when situations of simultaneous market and government failure may arise, I suggest that social entrepreneurship is the pursuit of sustainable solutions to neglected problems with positive externalities. I further discuss the situations in which problems with externalities are likely to be neglected and derive the central goal and logic of action of social entrepreneurs, in contrast (...) to commercial entrepreneurs. Overall, this article provides a conceptual framework that allows understanding the growing phenomena of social entrepreneurship and its role in the functioning of modern society. (shrink)

Resumo Ainda que de modo introdutório, dizemos que existe um sujeito, o perverso, no interior da filosofia de Deleuze. Mais, que é tornando-se esse sujeito, fazendo do perverso um filósofo, que Deleuze dá início à sua filosofia, em Diferença e repetição e na Lógica do sentido. Ou seja, que existindo um devir-perverso do próprio Deleuze, esse devir condiciona uma abordagem à relação do seu pensamento com o tema da perversão, e isto por ser justamente a criação desse heterónimo, o perverso, (...) que está na origem da sua filosofia.Even if only schematically, we say there is a subject, the pervert, in Deleuze’s philosophy. More, that it is by becoming this subject, making the pervert a philosopher, that Deleuze brings about the beginning of his own philosophy in Difference and Repetition and The Logic of Sense. In other words, that there is such a thing as Deleuze’s very own becoming-pervert, being this becoming which conditions an understanding of the relation of his thinking with the question of perversion precisely because it is this heteronym, the pervert, who stands at the origin of his philosophy. (shrink)

The main topic of this paper is the distinction between attributive and referential uses of definite descriptions. The first influential account of what is the logical form of a proposition expressed by a sentence 'The f is y' was proposed by Russell. Donellan noticed later that Russellian account does not apply to all such sentences and drew the distinction in question. First, we have to consider which language units are to be explored -- said Donnellan. Speaking of types involves unwelcome (...) generality while speaking of tokens overlooks the role of speaker's intentions. The finest approach then is speaking of uses (according to the characteristics given by Jerzy Pelc). Specific feature which distinguish descriptions used referentially (in a sentence of the form 'The f is y') from those used attributively is that the descriptive aspect of the former is not essential (in contradiction to that of the latter), i.e. the description used referentially can be exchanged for another one (such that it is literally false about the object referred to), and the extension as well as the proposition expressed by the sentence will not change. To explain this effect (which is only described in Donellan's paper) we can adopt and extend Kaplan's view on propositions (originally designed for sentences with demonstratives) to sentences with descriptions used referentially and say that a proposition expressed by such a sentence consists of sense of the description used attributively in predicate and the object itself as a physical thing. This solution does not decide however, whether the distinction is semantic or pragmatic. To give the answer we would need to have precisely marked border between two mentioned disciplines. (shrink)

This article focuses on the social structure of domestic cat colonies, and on the various ways these are represented in ethological literature. Our analysis begins with detailed accounts of different forms of cat societies from the works of Leyhausen, Tabor, and Alger and Alger, and then puts these descriptions into a broader epistemological perspective. The analysis is inspired by the bi-constructivist approach to ethological studies formulated by Lestel, which highlights the position of the ethologist in the constitution of particular animal (...) activities. We propose a third layer should be added to post hoc analyses of ethological enterprises: i.e., the ontological commitments shaping the conceptual framework of a given research. It is through these commitments we find a hierarchical structure in a caged colony of cats, different territorial patterns in the case of urban cats, and egalitarian friendly bonds within the society of a cat shelter. Our critical tri-constructivist approach can be utilized for contemporary biosemiotics as it is centered on a multi-level process of interpretation. (shrink)

This book is the first anthology to provide a wide-ranging picture of how phenomenology relates to language.

Sextus Empiricus portrays the Pyrrhonian sceptics in two radically different ways. On the one hand, he describes them as inquirers or examiners, and insists that what distinguishes them from all the other philosophical schools is their persistent engagement in inquiry. On the other hand, he insists that the main feature of Pyrrhonian attitude is suspension of judgement about everything. Many have argued that a consistent account of Sextan scepticism as both investigative and suspensive is not possible. The main obstacle to (...) characterizing Pyrrhonism as both investigative and suspensive is the fact that it seems that the mature sceptics, after they have suspended judgement and thus reached tranquillity, have no motivation for further inquiry. Any inquiry they seem to be interested in after they have suspended judgement is the refutation of beliefs needed for maintaining tranquillity. I try to show that the mature sceptics' removal of distress does not ipso facto mean removal of the desire for knowledge. This is because distress is not just a matter of unsatisfied desire, but of belief that one of the opposed appearances must be true, or, more generally, of belief that the truth is the only worthwhile epistemic goal. Having abandoned this belief, the sceptics can still engage in philosophical inquiries. This is because Sextus does not assume that philosophy is the search for truth: it is so only for the dogmatists. In a more general sense, applicable to the sceptics as well, philosophy is just an inquiry into certain things, and for the sceptics, its epistemic goal is still open. (shrink)

Among other virtues, Mental Files Theory provides a straightforward explanation of de jure coreference, i.e. identity of referent guaranteed by meaning alone: de jure coreference holds between terms when these are associated with the same mental file from which they inherit their reference. In this paper, I discuss an objection that Angel Pinillos raises against Mental Files Theory and other similar theories: the theory predicts that de jure coreference should be transitive, just like identity. Yet there are cases, involving ‘slash-terms’, (...) in which transitivity fails, or so it seems. In his book Mental Files, Recanati replies that the mental files theorist can accommodate Pinillos’ exceptions by offering a refined model of merging files, the ‘partial merging’ model. While agreeing with Recanati on the need for such a model, I contend that, pace Recanati and Pinillos, de jure coreference is transitive even in the presence of slash-terms. I will first show that paradoxical consequences ensue if slash-terms are said to de jure corefer with several basic terms at once. Then, building on two different accounts Recanati gives of referential confusion, I will show that on both views, de jure coreference cannot hold because of the behaviour of confused slash-terms. I will conclude that, in Mental Files Theory, a slash-term can, at most, de jure corefer with only one basic term per context. (shrink)

The author emphasizes the fact that the largest part of Plato’s Timaeus deals with human nature and offers a detailed account of the constitution of the human body. He then lists the parallels and the differences between the constitution of the world body and the human body. The central part of the paper deals with Plato’s explanation of the persistence of the human body within a bodily environment which causes its dissolution. The author pays a special attention to Plato’s theory (...) of the apparatus which keeps running the processes of respiration, digestion and blood circulation. In the concluding section, the author raises thequestion of the relationship between human body and human soul. He shows that, in Plato’s Timaeus, the human body functions to a large extent independently from human soul. One possible reason for this theory is Plato’s conception of the immortal soul. While the human body exists in order to harbour the immortal soul, the latter does not produce and preserve it nor does it cause its dissolution. It only exercises cognitive and ruling functions in it as long as the body is able to hold together and to detain the soul. (shrink)

This paper briefly presents an account, partially based upon Ryle’s approach, of the functions of intentional psychological terms as they are used in ordinary language. According to this account, intentional psychological terms describe known patterns of behavior that are determined by selective mechanisms of causation. That is, these terms describe relations between certain responses, selected on the basis of the consequences they produce in the environment, and contexts of their occurrence, to which they become associated. Intentional psychological terms do not (...) point to inner causes of a given behavior, but can explain it only in the sense of stating that it could be expected to occur, if we can identify its behavior pattern and the context in which it occurs. We proceed then to examine three main objections that have been raised against Ryle’s position, namely: (a) Davidson’s challenge to the non-causal accounts of reason-explanations; (b) Armstrong’s worries about “leaving the counterfactuals hanging in the air”; and (c) the holistic objection to the (wrongly) presumed Ryle’s atomism. We aim at showing that none of these objections pose serious problems to the proposed account. (shrink)

In this article, I shall explore the social dimension of Friedrich Nietzsche's views on self-fashioning, focusing on the interpretation offered by Alexander Nehamas. First, I shall briefly present Nehamas's understanding of Nietzsche's views on self-fashioning and the overall significance of their social aspects. Then I shall investigate the necessity of the audience to assess one's attempt at self-fashioning. Furthermore, I shall explore how one's pursuit of self-fashioning is influenced by and influences other similar efforts. Finally, the article will reveal the (...) role of contest in the phenomenon of influence. (shrink)

This article argues against Catton and Dunlap’s claims that the natural environment has been ignored or downplayed in American sociology before the emergence of environmental sociology in the 1970s. By reviewing a collection of 86 sociology textbooks between 1894 and 1980, the article provides quantitative evidence regarding the scope and types of references to the natural environment in mainstream sociology. The bulk of the article is based on an interpretive-historical analysis of the different representations of the environment in the textbook (...) literature. This analysis is carried out from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, whereby sociological ideas about nature are interpreted in terms of their intellectual milieu and social context. The main finding is that the ‘natural environment’ has been interpreted in different ways and has been put to a variety of epistemological and ideological uses — particularly positivism and functionalism — throughout the history of the discipline. (shrink)

Until a decade ago, a comprehensive contestation of the so-called?transitional? paradigm was largely missing in the post-socialist era. This reality changed in the last ten years, especially in the region of former Yugoslavia. Some social movements in this region have started questioning the very essence of the economic and social misconceptions of the post-socialist condition. This paper first provides an elaboration of the very conceptual edifice of the ruling paradigm, as well as a theoretical and methodological framework. It goes on (...) to map out the epistemic discursive content of the respective social movements in Belgrade, Zagreb and Sarajevo, thereby assessing the conceptual content of their critique of the post-socialist transitional paradigm. Finally, given the similarities between Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the paper seeks to explain variations in the critique by how the structural and contextual features impact the perspective from which it is constructed. (shrink)

In the paper, I discuss the possible gap between the transhumanist perspective of controlling and perfecting human evolution through scientific means and the Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theory of biological evolution. I argue that, due to such gap, the transhumanist programme is flawed and requires a new and better understanding of biological mechanisms in order to attain its goals.