German philosopher and social critic Theodor Adorno (1903--1969) is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers. A leading member of the Frankfurt School, Adorno advanced an unconventional type of Marxist analysis in books such as Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), Minima Moralia (1951), and Negative Dialectics (1966). Forced out of Nazi Germany because of his Jewish heritage, Adorno lived in exile in the United States for nearly fifteen years. In Adorno and Democracy, Shannon Mariotti explores how (...) this extended visit prompted a concern for and commitment to democracy that shaped the rest of his work. Mariotti analyzes the extensive and undervalued works Adorno composed in English for an American audience and traces the development of his political theory during the World War II era. Her unique study examines how Adorno changed his writing style while in the United States in order to directly address the public, which lay at the heart of his theoretical concerns. Despite his apparent contempt for popular culture, his work during this period clearly engages with a broader public in ways that reflect a deep desire to understand the problems and possibilities of democracy as enacted through the customs and habits of Americans. Ultimately, Adorno advances a theory of democratic leadership that works through pedagogy to cultivate a more robust and meaningful practice of citizenship. Mariotti incisively demonstrates how Adorno's unconventional and challenging interpretations of US culture can add conceptual rigor to political theory and remind Americans of the normative promise of democracy. Adorno and Democracy is an innovative contribution to critical debates about contemporary US politics. (shrink)

This essay explores the political significance of two largely unexplored texts on American radio that Adorno originally composed in English after emigrating to the United States: Current of Music: Elements of a Radio Theory and The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas’ Radio Addresses. Here, productively complicating the traditional image of him, Adorno translates his theory to a broader public in ways that reflect a desire to understand and inform democratic citizenship as enacted at the level of the everyday customs, (...) conventions, and habits of the people. Ultimately, Adorno’s writings on radio in the United States show how he tries to strengthen the substantive practice of democracy through a unique form of democratic leadership as democratic pedagogy that represents the practical enactment of an early version of negative dialectics. With this justification for Adorno’s complicated commitments to democracy in mind, we might begin to read him as a twentieth-century democratic theorist and productively turn to an unlikely thinker, not just to read a message in a bottle but to help us chart our current position and navigate our future course. (shrink)

In recent years, contemplative practices of meditation have become increasingly mainstream in American culture, part of a phenomenon that scholars call “Buddhist modernism.” Connecting the embodied practice of meditation with the embodied practice of democracy in everyday life, this essay puts the radical democratic theory of Jacques Rancière into conversation with the Zen writings of Shunryu Suzuki and Thomas Merton. I show how meditation can be understood as an aesthetic practice that cultivates modes of experience, perception, thinking, and feeling that (...) further radical democratic projects at the most fundamental level. Reading the landscape of Buddhist modernism to draw out democratic possibilities, we can understand contemplative practices like meditation as a form of political theorizing in a vernacular register. Buddhist modernism works as a practice of everyday life that ordinary users can employ to get through their days with more awareness and attentiveness, to reclaim and reauthorize their experience, and to generate more care and compassion in ways that enable, enact, and extend the project of democracy itself. (shrink)

Both Ralph Waldo Emerson's and W. E. B. Du Bois' firstborn sons tragically died at very young ages. Drawing from the essays where they write about their grief, I explore Du Bois' "subversion" and "revision" of Emerson's thought by contrasting their visual metaphors: Emerson's "focal distancing" and Du Bois' practice of "second sight" and seeing through "the Veil." I show how the disruptive particular event of the deaths of their sons causes both to challenge the idealist elements of their respective (...) gazes. I draw upon Theodor Adorno to explore the larger lessons of these reconsiderations. In recognizing the seductive dangers of the idealist gaze and the value of the disruptive particular, Adorno explicitly theorizes what Emerson and Du Bois also come to appreciate, in a less overt way, in their moments of loss. (shrink)

We study a principle of ‘Non-Interference’ in social welfare judgements. Non-Interference captures aspects of liberal approaches (particularly a Millian approach) to social decision making. In its full generality, Non-Interference produces an impossibility result: together with Weak Pareto Optimality, it implies that a social welfare ordering must be dictatorial. However, interesting restricted versions of Non-Interference are compatible with standard social welfare orderings.

Resumo O propósito deste texto é mostrar que os problemas enfrentados por Merleau-Ponty, ao longo de seu percurso de pensamento, decorrem dos pressupostos dicotômicos dos quais ele parte. Assim, procuramos trazer à tona outras consequências de se assumir tal pressuposto, o do primado de uma experiência perceptiva muda como solo natal de todas as outras modalidades da experiência. Para tanto, tomam-se em consideração tanto a primeira como a segunda fase do pensamento de Merleau-Ponty.Our purpose is to show that the problems (...) faced by Merleau-Ponty throughout his path of thought arise from the dichotomous assumptions from which he begins. Thus, we seek to shed light on the other consequences of assuming a presumption such as the primacy of a mute perceptual experience as the native soil of all other experience’s modes. Therefore, the first as well as the second phases of Merleau-Ponty’s thought are taken into account. (shrink)

This paper provides an ethical intepretation of the Nash choice rule. In a setting in which (cardinal) utilities are interpersonally comparable, this procedure is characterised by an impartiality requirement and by the assumption that choices are not responsive to the agents' relative ability to convert resources into utility.

Considerando retrospectivamente os desdobramentos da filosofia, é possível observar que, antes de reconhecer e reafirmar as singularidades de seu exercício, o discurso filosófico tem sua origem intimamente associada à poesia. Evidenciando alguns momentos de cisão e outros momentos de contato entre o discurso poético e o discurso filosófico, o presente ensaio visa abordar e refletir sobre o diálogo entre esses dois discursos ao longo do tempo. Nesse horizonte, consideraremos estrategicamente os trabalhos de autores como Homero, Platão, Goethe, F. Schlegel e (...) Schelling, a fim de evidenciar as oscilações e salientar alguns movimentos específicos dentro desse longo diálogo. (shrink)

Resumo: Palavras-chave : Learning mathematics in school is being faced with a world of concepts that involves reading and understanding of the natural language and mathematical language. Often, the curriculum components, Portuguese language and the Mathematic don’t talk to each other. The resolution of the problems seems to be a critical point in mathematics education. This article seeks to bring these components together to identify strategies for an effective learning. Keywords : Mathematical language.Natural language. Problems. : Linguagem matemática. Linguagem natural. (...) Problemas. Aprender Matemática na escola é deparar-se com um mundo de conceitos que envolvem leitura e compreensão, tanto da linguagem natural como da linguagem matemática. Muitas vezes, os componentes curriculares, a Língua Portuguesa e a Matemática não dialogam. A resolução de problemas parece ser um dos pontos críticos na Matemática escolar. Este artigo aproxima esses componentes de forma a buscar estratégias para uma aprendizagem efetiva. (shrink)

In the aphorism “The Health Unto Death,” in Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life, Adorno issues a provocation and a challenge: “If such a thing as a psycho-analysis of today's prototypical culture were possible,” it would need to “show the sickness proper to the time to consist precisely in normality.”1 Investigating this unique form of illness would require questioning the traditional markers of health: “unruffled calm,” an “unhampered capacity for happiness,” “exuberant vitality,” and even the “champagne jollity” of “the regular (...) guy” and the “popular girl” (MM 58, 63). Hence, Adorno identifies a need to explore “the inferno in which…. (shrink)

We propose a new principle of 'non-interference' applied to social welfare orderings. The principle, together with two other standard requirements, implies a strong egalitarian conclusion: the ordering must lexicographically maximize the welfare of the worst off.

Texto do professor Antônio Cândido a respeito da atividade filosófica.

We model opportunities in society as ‘chances of success’, that is as they are commonly described by practitioners. We show that a classical liberal principle of justice together with a limited principle of social rationality imply that the social objective should be to maximise the chance that everybody in society succeeds. Technically, this means using a ‘Nash’ welfare criterion. A particular consequence is that the failure of even only one individual must be considered maximally detrimental. We also study a refinement (...) of this criterion and its extension to problems of intergenerational justice. (shrink)

We analyse the liberal ethics of noninterference in social choice. A liberal principle, capturing noninterfering views of society and inspired by John Stuart Mill's conception of liberty, is examined. The principle expresses the idea that society should not penalise individuals after changes in their situation that do not affect others. An impossibility for liberal approaches is highlighted: every social decision rule that satisfies unanimity and a general principle of noninterference must be dictatorial. This raises some important issues for liberal approaches (...) in social choice and political philosophy. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta um pouco dos estudos de Roger Bacon sobre Alquimia. Filósofo medieval, Bacon deu sequência à tradição de estudos herméticos. Como parte de uma das ciências especiais, assim como ele a compreendia, a Alquimia teve destaque como elemento importante no seu projeto filosófico-científico. A fim de apresentar um pouco o lugar da Alquimia no corpus baconiano, o texto parte de uma breve exposição da possível origem dessa arte entre os povos da antiguidade oriental e, posteriormente, sua chegada à (...) Europa medieval. Passa-se então a apresentar os ensinamentos alquímicos transmitidos por Bacon; sua compreensão de Alquimia não como magia, mas como ciência positiva, cujos métodos e resultados podiam ser corroborados pela Ciência Experimental; a elaboração de uma breve chave de leitura dos termos alquímicos enviados ao Papa Clemente IV, juntamente com a defesa de que a Alquimia é uma arte hermética e precisa ser preservada da ignorância do homem comum, sendo revelada a quem a mereça em corpo e alma. (shrink)

The early modern and modern cultural world in the West would be unthinkable without Petrarch and Boccaccio. Despite this fact, there is still no scholarly contribution entirely devoted to analysing their intellectual revolution. Internationally renowned scholars are invited to discuss and rethink the historical, intellectual, and literary roles of Petrarch and Boccaccio between the great model of Dante’s encyclopedia and the ideas of a double or multifaceted culture in the era of Italian Renaissance Humanism. In his lyrical poems and Latin (...) treatises, Petrarch created a cultural pattern that was both Christian and Classical, exercising immense influence on the Western World in the centuries to come. Boccaccio translated this pattern into his own vernacular narratives and erudite works, ultimately claiming as his own achievement the reconstructed unity of the Ancient Greek and Latin world in his contemporary age. The volume reconsiders Petrarch’s and Boccaccio’s heritages from different perspectives, and investigates how these heritages shaped the cultural transition between the end of the Middle Ages and the early modern era, as well as European identity. (shrink)

Blockchain is a pioneering technology that allows the creation of innovative information exchange ecosystems thanks to unique properties, such as immutability, distribution and transparency. By combining this technology with the emergent internet of things (IoT), many innovative business models can be created. The main objective of this work is to present the design and an initial implementation of a decentralized rental system that takes advantage of smart contracts developed on a public blockchain, combined with the potential of the IoT and (...) its intimate relationship with cyber-physical systems. The logic to be implemented in the blockchain is applied in this paper by using the Ethereum programming language, so that the developed application covers the entire car rental process offered in traditional web applications, but adding more autonomy, functionalities and ease of use for both lessees and lessors. Following Ethereum application development guidelines, all business logic is located in the smart contracts implemented in the network, where they can be used to control the car rental system. While this is a work in progress, the results obtained in the first proof of concept have been very promising. (shrink)

Dispositional mindfulness and emotion regulation are two psychological constructs closely interrelated, and both appear to improve with the long-term practice of mindfulness meditation. These constructs appear to be related to subcortical, prefrontal, and posterior brain areas involved in emotional processing, cognitive control, self-awareness, and mind wandering. However, no studies have yet discerned the neural basis of dispositional mindfulness that are minimally associated with emotion regulation. In the present study, we use a novel brain structural network analysis approach to study the (...) relationship between structural networks and dispositional mindfulness, measured with two different and widely used instruments [Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale and Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire ], taking into account the effect of emotion regulation difficulties. We observed a number of different brain regions associated with the different scales and dimensions. The total score of FFMQ and MAAS overlap with the bilateral parahippocampal and fusiform gyri. Additionally, MAAS scores were related to the bilateral hippocampus and the FFMQ total score to the right insula and bilateral amygdala. These results indicate that, depending on the instrument used, the characteristics measured could differ and could also involve different brain systems. However, it seems that brain areas related to emotional reactivity and semantic processing are generally related to Dispositional or trait mindfulness, regardless of the instrument used. (shrink)

O artigo aborda os efeitos da Inteligência Artificial (IA) na educação, enfatizando a necessidade de repensar as estratégias pedagógicas nas universidades. Explora as transformações trazidas pela IA incluindo a automação e o potencial de personalização do ensino. Argumenta que as universidades devem se adaptar para formar profissionais capazes de trabalhar com a IA valorizando habilidades como criatividade, pensamento crítico e competências éticas. O texto também discute o papel dos professores na era da IA sugerindo que devem se concentrar mais no (...) desenvolvimento de habilidades interpessoais e críticas dos alunos. Propõe uma reflexão sobre a direção ética e moral da educação em um mundo cada vez mais dominado pela IA. (shrink)

This essay explores Adorno's neglected writings on democracy in the United States, composed in English and directed toward an American audience, to illuminate a democratic theory and practice oriented around the concepts of “democratic leadership,” “democratic pedagogy,” and “democratic enlightenment.” Bridging disciplinary divides, this essay brings the lens of artistic modernism to bear on Adorno's writings on democracy in America to illuminate the distinctive contributions of a political theory that might only appear partial and preliminary when analyzed through the lens (...) of conventional politics. Adorno's understanding of “democratic enlightenment” resonates with the modernist concept of epiphany and represents a translation of artistic modernism to the political realm. Reworking traditional readings of Adorno's politics and his relationship with the United States, this essay reads him as a democratic modernist whose lessons on the meaningful practice of democracy still speak powerfully and practically to Americans today. (shrink)

In this paper we deal with the extension of Nash bargaining theory to nonconvex problems. By focussing on the Social Welfare Ordering associated with a bargaining solution, we characterize the symmetric Nash Bargaining Solution (NBS). Moreover, we obtain a unified method of proof of recent characterization results for the asymmetric single-valued NBS and the symmetric multivalued NBS, as well as their extensions to different domains.

A partir de 1922, Siegfried Kracauer escreveu uma série de textos que comporiam o livro O romance policial: um tratado filosófico, mas que só seriam publicados em 1971, no primeiro volume de seus Escritos póstumos. O presente artigo tem como objetivo reconstituir a teoria do romance policial formulada por Kracauer, buscando analisar como essa teoria foi fundamentada e quais eram suas principais definições. Inicialmente, o intuito é localizar essa teoria dentro do pensamento mais geral do autor, relacionando-a a sua produção (...) anterior e, principalmente, posterior. Em um segundo momento, tentaremos dimensionar a interlocução estabelecida entre Kracauer e autores do chamado marxismo ocidental, como György Lukács, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno entre outros. (shrink)

Entrevue avec Michel MaffesoliEntrevista com Michel Maffesoli.

The article aims to identify as the main passions that run through the Hobbesian theoretical corpus. To this end, the exhibition will begin by analyzing the mechanism of the passions founded by the author. Next, it will be highlighted how unbridled passions make peaceful coexistence between individuals unfeasible, establishing a scenario in which conflicts are inevitable. Two passions will be analyzed in more detail: vainglory and fear. After emphasizing that the Hobbesian man tends naturally to his own benefit, to competition (...) and to domination, representing a threat to the other, it will be pointed out how the State asserts itself as the necessary that aims to discipline like passions. This part of the argument will analyze as desirable passions for the maintenance of civil life, with emphasis on hope, the desire for comfort and delight, the desire for knowledge and the arts, as well as for fear and vainglory itself. (shrink)