Galen’s elemental mixture of fire, air, water and earth (and of the corresponding primary qualities, hot, cold, dry and wet) is primarily a physical process, in which primary elements mix and give rise to all compounded physical bodies, inanimate and animate. As such, the concrete, physical process of mixture is an essential basis for a thorough understanding of Galen’s physical system. In this article I pursued a twofold aim. First, I showed Galen’s syncretic approach while expounding his theory of mixture (...) (insofar as he attributes that theory equally to ‘Hippocrates’, Aristotle and the Stoics) and illustrated the reasons behind this approach. Second, and more importantly, I addressed Galen’s epistemological position concerning mixture’s constituents and answered the question of whether, according to Galen, are the qualities alone, conceived more Aristotelico as conceptually distinct from the body itself, to mix or if Galen viewed mixture, as the Stoics did, as a coextension of bodies. As we argue, Galen assigns the epistemological status of πιθανόν to the Aristotelian and Peripatetic doctrines. This indicates that, to a certain extent, he joins this historical debate and is more closely aligned with Aristotle and the Peripatetics than with the Stoics. By resorting to what is πιθανόν Galen obtains two results: (1) does not expose himself to accusations of dogmatism but, at the same time and in his method, enters the ongoing controversy about qualities and bodies without taking a definitive position, and (2) he preserves his syncretic theoretical structure which finds its linchpin in the defence of a medical-cum-philosophical continuism. (shrink)

Parole coupée, bouche bée, yeux grands ouverts, sourcils levés... Plutôt que langagière, l'expression de la surprise serait d'abord le fait du corps. On se propose dans cet ouvrage d'interroger de manière critique, voire de contrebalancer cette tendance habituelle à ranger l'expérience de la surprise du côté du silence et de l'indicible : au lieu de faire signe vers les éventuelles limites du langage et des différentes langues naturelles, la surprise ne fait-elle pas plutôt ressortir la richesse des ressources du langage (...) et la plasticité du fonctionnement des langues? Comment se dit donc la surprise? Dans quelle mesure son expression varie-t-elle d'une langue à l'autre? Le dire de la surprise est-il en lui-même un agir, à son tour producteur d'effets? Ces interrogations nous ont invités à réfléchir tant au lexique de la surprise qu'aux formes d'expression au moyen desquelles la surprise peut être non seulement exprimée mais aussi décrite, racontée, ou bien encore rationalisée, dans la langue courante, dans la logique comme dans la littérature. (shrink)

In this unique volume, some of today's most eminent political philosophers examine the thought of John Rawls, focusing in particular on his most recent work. These original essays explore diverse issues, including the problem of pluralism, the relationship between constitutive commitment and liberal institutions, just treatment of dissident minorities, the constitutional implications of liberalism, international relations, and the structure of international law. The first comprehensive study of Rawls's recent work, The Idea of Political Liberalism will be indispensable for political philosophers (...) and theorists interested in contemporary political thought. (shrink)

Statements such as “X is beautiful but I don’t like how it looks” or “I like how X looks but it is not beautiful” sound contradictory. How contradictory they sound might however depend on the object X and on the aesthetic adjective being used (“beautiful”, “elegant”, “dynamic”, etc.). In our study, the first sentence was estimated to be more contradictory than the latter: If we describe something as beautiful, we often intend to evaluate its appearance, whereas it is less counterintuitive (...) to appreciate an appearance without finding it beautiful. Furthermore, statements including “beautiful” appeared more contradictory than those including “elegant” and “dynamic”, pointing to its greater evaluative component. When related to artworks, sentences could appear less contradictory due to readers’ consideration of the divergence between conventional beauty and art-related sensory pleasures that can even include negative valence. Such ambivalence might be more frequent in art-objects than in other artefacts. Indeed, in our study, sentences referring to artworks were estimated to be less contradictory compared to sentences referring to other artefacts. Meanwhile, an additional small group of graphic design students showed a less clear difference between art-related and non-art-related sentences. We discuss the potential influence of art experience and interest as well as theoretical and methodological challenges like the conceptualization of beauty. (shrink)

An applicant to our graduate program in philosophy, accepted as well by one (but only one) other graduate program, wrestles with his decision. Finally he decides to attend the other program, but he thanks me for our offer, telling me, "I'm glad that at least I had a choice." I want to focus a bit on these two stories, for while the central conclusion in each -- something turning on the importance of choice -- is initially compelling, it is also, (...) on reflection, philosophically puzzling. It is compelling, because many of us in similar positions would share this response; phenomenologically, it feels right to us. We want to believe that the central facts of our lives -- whether or not we have children, where we are educated, what career we follow, with 1 whom we join as partners -- contain in them some fundamental element of our own selection and decision. We will be exploring below exactly what will turn out to be important here, and why, but for now, in our pre-reflective grasp of this phenomenon, we can say that it seems to have something to do with the value we place on autonomy, self-governance, self-authorship. We want, metaphorically speaking, to write the story of our own lives. But let me now begin to draw out why I find this insistence on the importance of choice, which so many of us would share, to be so puzzling. Both individuals, in both stories, want to be offered a certain additional option in order to have -- or at least to feel that they have? -- a choice about what they are going to do next. But, on the one hand, we could argue that, even with this added option, they still don't have a "real" choice -- they don't have the choice of doing what they most want to do; and on the other hand, one could argue that even without the added option, they always had some choice. Let me explain. In the first story, my friend certainly doesn't have open to her the option that would have been her first choice (and, in our society, what we might call the standard choice, the most frequently chosen option): to produce a biological child with her partner in a happy marriage.. (shrink)

This article explores the philosophically neglected topic of artistic integrity, situated within the literature on personal or moral integrity more generally. It argues that artists lack artistic integrity if, in the process of creation, they place some other—competing, distracting, or corrupting—value over the value of the artwork itself, in a way that violates their own artistic standards. It also argues, however, that artistic integrity does not require adamant refusal to acknowledge or act upon commitments to values other than single‐minded devotion (...) to one's art. Artists of integrity need not be inflexible fanatics. They can seek to earn a living through their art, alter their vision of a work to reach an audience, evolve their artistic standards as they grow as artists, and balance the energy devoted to their art against energy devoted to family, friends, and self‐care; they can honor the demands of morality. (shrink)

Within the context of increased global migration and mobility, education occupies a central role which is being transformed by new human movements and cultural diversity, flows, and networks. Studies under the umbrella terms of migration, mobility, and mobilities reveal the complexity of these concepts. The field of study ranges from global child mobility as a response to poverty, to the reconceptualising of notions of inclusion in relation to pastoralist lifestyles, to the ways in which new offshore institutions and transnational diasporas (...) shape the educational experiences of students, families, and teachers. At the heart of this new research is a need to explore how identity, integration, and social stratification play a role in the story of global migration between and within the Global North and South. This volume focuses on three major themes: poverty, migration, social mobility and social reproduction; networks of migration within and across national education systems; and higher education and international student mobility, and the concerns and opportunities that go along with this mobility. The international group of researchers who have contributed to this book demonstrate how educational institutions are part of a common global project characterised by fluidity, how the social fabric of educational institutions responds to demographic diversity, and how new social differentiations occur as a result of human movement. By bringing together these contributions, a number of important theoretical and empirical methodological dimensions are identified that need more attention within the growing field of migration and education studies. This volume shows how mobilities and transnational interconnectedness create multiple interactions that tie our different educational projects together. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. _. (shrink)

Nature experiences usually lead to restorative effects, such as positive affective states and reduced stress. Even watching nature compared to urban images, which are known to differ in several image properties that are processed at early stages, can lead to such effects. One potential pathway explaining how the visual input alone evokes restoration is that image properties processed at early stages in the visual system evoke positive associations. To study these automatic bottom-up processes and the role of lower-level visual processing (...) involved in the restoring effects of nature, we conducted two studies. First, we analyzed nature and urban stimuli for a comprehensive set of image properties. Second, we investigated implicit associations in a dichotomous set of nature and urban images in three domains, namely, valence, mood, and stress restoration. To examine the role of lower-level processing in these associations, we also used stimuli that lacked the spatial information but retained certain image properties of the original photographs. While original nature images were associated with “good,” “positive mood,” and “restoration,” urban images were associated with “bad” and “stress.” The results also showed that image properties differ between our nature and urban images and that they contribute to the implicit associations with valence, although spatial information and therefore recognition of the environment remained necessary for positive associations. Moreover, lower-level processed image properties seem to play no or only minor roles for associations with mood and stress restoration. (shrink)

In most European countries, the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the imposition of physical distancing rules, resulting in a drastic and sudden reduction of real-life social interactions. Even people not directly affected by the virus itself were impacted in their physical and/or mental health, as well as in their financial security, by governmental lockdown measures. We investigated whether the combination of these events had changed people's appraisal of social scenes by testing 241 participants recruited mainly in Italy, (...) Austria, and Germany in an online, preregistered study conducted about 50 days after the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in Europe. Images depicting individuals alone, in small groups, and in large groups were rated in terms of valence, arousal, and perceived physical distance. Pre-pandemic normative ratings were obtained from a validated database. Several self-report measures were also taken, and condensed into four factors through factor analysis. All images were rated as more arousing compared to the pre-pandemic period, and the greater the decrease in real-life physical interactions reported by participants, the higher the ratings of arousal. As expected, only images depicting large gatherings of people were rated less positively during, compared to before, the pandemic. These ratings of valence were, however, moderated by a factor that included participants' number of days in isolation, relationship closeness, and perceived COVID-19 threat. Higher scores on this factor were associated with more positive ratings of images of individuals alone and in small groups, suggesting an increased appreciation of safer social situations, such as intimate and small-group contacts. The same factor was inversely related to the perceived physical distance between individuals in images of small and large groups, suggesting an impact of lockdown measures and contagion-related worries on the representation of interpersonal space. These findings point to rapid and compelling psychological and social consequences of the lockdown measures imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic on the perception of social groups. Further studies should assess the long-term impact of such events as typical everyday life is restored. (shrink)

Este artículo examina las analogías entre las “visiones” del mundo de Vico y de Jung, las cuales tratan de reflexionar sobre el sentido de los orígenes en los mitos y en los lenguajes de la historia humana. Los arquetipos del inconsciente colectivo junguianos, así como los universales fantásticos de Vico utilizan símbolos que entrañan en sí mismos una concepción cósmica y antropológica; cada símbolo ha formado el mundo, cristalizándolo en una imagen, eternizándolo en una expresión “estética”, proyectando en este todo (...) el sentir del hombre. (shrink)

Analogies, contaminations and assonances between certain aspects of the thought of Aby Warburg and Walter Benjamin are still at the center of the contemporary theoretical debate. In the absence of tangible and documented exchanges, the similarities between the two scholars can be found in the structure of their most original and significant works, the Atlas of Memory and the Passagen-Werk, and in the adoption of the fragment as a conceptual language. Of particular interest is the reflection on baroque which, for (...) both scholars, involves the relation with the ancient tragedy and the modern drama. (shrink)

Many physiotherapists are reluctant to treat a client with bone metastases, as treatment indications are not clearly defined. The paradigmatic case presented here, and a review of the literature, allow us to highlight some ethical and clinical issues in physiotherapy care at the end of life, particularly for patients with bone metastases. The objective of this article is not to create an ethical decision making model but rather to serve as additional guidance to existing decision models in rehabilitation. This guidance (...) is based on principlism and is specific to the oncology clients in palliative care. The proposed principles, without being exhaustive, are beneficence, non-maleficence, respect for autonomy and justice. With a review of clinical indications and precautions, the article also helps to clarify both the theoretical and the evidence-based risks. These principles provide avenues for reflection to guide the management of these patients. The physiotherapist will then be able to conduct a critical analysis, in collaboration with the interdisciplinary team, whose goal is to respect the client’s right to appropriate care at the right time and that is based on clinical need. (shrink)

Book reviews RIBEIRO, Claudio de Oliveira. Religião, Democracia e Direitos Humanos : Presença pública inter-religiosa no fortalecimento da democracia e na defesa dos direitos humanos no Brasil. São Paulo: Reflexão, 2016. 159p. ISBN 978.85.8088.194-3.

By reference to the Aristotelian meditation, this essay undertakes to articulate an understanding of phronesis and sophia, praxis and theoria, in their belonging together. In so doing, it strives to overcome the traditional opposition of these terms, an opposition preserved even by those thinkers, such as Gadamer and Arendt, who have emphasized the practical over against the theoretical simply by inverting the order of the hierarchy.What is at stake, ultimately, is thinking ethics as first philosophy, i.e., seeing the philosophical articulation (...) of scientific knowledge, even of ontology, as resting on (belonging in) living-in-action, as phenomenologically, phenomenally, sensibly grounded. Of course, “ethics as first philosophy” here can mean neither a normative-prescriptive compilation nor a self-founding, autonomous discourse. Rather, the phrase names the comprehensiveness of ethics vis-à-vis all mannerof human endeavor and the openness of ethics vis-à-vis that which exceeds it, that which is irreducible to discourse and in which the ethical discourse belongs. (shrink)

From the viewpoint of Political Theory, digital technology presents both risks and opportunities for the democratic public sphere. Public discourse is now more complex and fragmented than ever before. Against this background, this paper uses the metaphor of a “communicative universe” to analyze the latest structural change of the public sphere. It emphasizes the significance of achieving a balance between different actors and powers in contemporary political discourse. Patterns in media communication can not only be identified but also influenced and (...) constructed in ways that support the democratic functionality of political discourses. (shrink)

Most of us spend much of our time trying to get other people to act as we would like them to act, trying to influence them in some way to further our purposes or advance our ends. In this enterprise, we make use of a wide array of motivational levers; we take advantage of various sources of others’ susceptibility to influence. Much of this, I submit, is morally unproblematic. There is no moral reason why we should eschew all attempts at (...) influence and pursue our projects unassisted or why we should in turn resent others’ efforts to shape our own beliefs, desires, and ends. To maintain otherwise is to insist on a peculiar kind of individualistic isolationism. Nonetheless, the details of exactly how we influence others matter morally— what motivational levers we pull and the ways in which we pull them. I maintain—although I cannot defend this claim here—that it is difficult to offer general guidelines for assessing various motivational strategies, beyond saying, of course, that one should try to motivate others toward good ends and in ways that are not proscribed by our other moral rules. For the rest, we shall need to look at each kind of motivational strategy individually, with close attention to the details of its own particularity, to appraise whether it can survive moral scrutiny. (shrink)

The essay articulates a rhapsodic reflection on the place of images, their surfacing, and the invisible that sustains them. By way of introduction, it focuses on (1) the initial scenes of Pasolini’s Medea (1969). Following this spellbinding sequence, it addresses (2) the abiding philosophical attraction to the phenomenon of dreams and visions. This will lead to (3) the story of a momentous flight from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Western coast of Italy, sometime during the VI century BCE. One of (...) the outcomes of this event was the founding of Velia, Elea in Attic Greek. These meanderings take us to the periphery of the region “we” call “the West.” More precisely, they point to the periphery of a certain received way of thinking and may contribute to unsettle it. For what begins to emerge from this rhapsody is an unusual profile of the most celebrated pre-classical thinker: Parmenides. (shrink)

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In this paper, I discuss three personal examples of contemporary Austrians' defensive reactions when confronted with the book The Political of Repressed Guilt: The Tragedy of Austrian Silence (Leeb, 2018). The defensive reactions underline that Austrians evaded confronting themselves with their repressed guilt about their violent National Socialist past and failed at working through their past. It also explains the centrality of "embodied reflective spaces" and the idea of the "subject-in-outline" to counter the continuation of the cycle of violence engendered (...) through repressed guilt and to assist a nation's successful working through its past. (shrink)

The central topic of this essay consists into establishing a relation between two dimensions of formation: the conceptual process of creating philo- sophical toys - that is of reelaborating existing philosophical concepts, mainly deriving from the thought of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, in terms of their potential as ‘operative constructs' - and their parallel redeployment towards the specific problem of analyz- ing a recent transdisciplinary artwork. By means of this strategical shift, theory looses its character of explanation and illustration. (...) Philosophy as toy becomes rather the matter of evaluating the com- plexity of a specific artistic composition in terms of its aesthetic potential. It contributes towards developing meta- stable conditions of mutual resonance between heterogeneous modalities of creation. (shrink)

O presente texto procura refletir sobre as atuais propostas de reforma educacional elaboradas para a educação brasileira. Na tentativa de (re)pensar a educação, tanto do ponto de vista teórico quanto prático, aborda questões que abrangem este processo de elaboração. Busca enfatizar a influência exercida pelos órgãos internacionais e as conseqüências que os mesmos podem refletir na estrutura da sociedade brasileira.

In this paper I intend to thoroughly analyse Karl Popper’s relation to metaphysics. I start with his first writings, where he states the differences between science, pseudoscience and metaphysics. I then describe how his thoughts on the subject evolved to culminate in his reflection on metaphysical research programmes and the need for a revival of natural philosophy. A major concern is Popper’s famous testability criterion to set apart science from non-science. I point at the problems of the conception of metaphysics (...) as non-testable theories and, in order to avoid these problems, I propose to retain nothing but the traditional conception of metaphysics as the general theories about the nature of the world. This leads me to the conclusion that science is not only an empirical task but also, and in a very important sense, a speculative one. (shrink)

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Livro: DAWSON, Christopher. A divisão da cristandade : Da reforma protestante à era do iluminismo. São Paulo: É Realizações Editora, 2014.

The Colombian Civil Code regulates the theory of risk in the contractual relationships that arise from the sale. The buyer is not the owner and bears the fortuitous loss of the thing, having to execute the payment provision knowing that the debtor will not meet theirs, in a situation that threatens the contractual balance of act. The theory is taken from French law, George Ripert (n. d) and adopted by the Colombian law. It is proposed that the cause of the (...) contract, element of formation, and execution of the act is accepted in order to restrict the threat that puts the legal stability of the act at risk. (shrink)

The Heart and Flower task is used worldwide to measure age-dependent and individual differences in executive functions and/or cognitive control. The task reliably maps age and individual differences and these have consistently been found to be predictive for different aspects of school readiness and academic achievement. The idea has been put forward that there is a developmental shift in how children approach such a task. While 6-year-olds’ tend to adapt their task strategy ad hoc and reactively, older children increasingly engage (...) in proactive cognitive control. Proactive cognitive control entails finding the right response speed without risking errors, always dependent on the cognitive conflict. The main goal of the present contribution was to examine children’s adjustments of response speed as a function of age and cognitive conflict by addressing RTs surrounding errors (i.e., errors and post-error trials). Data from a large sample with three age groups was used (N = 106 6-year-olds’ with a mean age of 6 years; 3 months; N = 108 7-year-olds’ with a mean age of 7 years; 4 months; N = 78 8-year-olds’ with a mean age of 8 years; 1 month). Response speed adjustments and the development thereof were targeted both across the Flower and Mixed block, respectively, and within these blocks focusing on errors and post-error slowing. Results revealed evidence for a developmental shift toward more efficient proactive cognitive control between 6 and 8 years of age, with the older but not the younger children strategically slowing down in the Mixed block and smoother post-error slowing. At the same time, we found that even the youngest age group has emerging proactive cognitive control skills at their disposal when addressing post-error slowing in the Flower block. The present study thus tracks the early roots of later efficient executive functions and cognitive control, contributes to a better understanding of how developmental progression in cognitive control is achieved, and highlights new avenues for research in this domain. (shrink)

Because of the rushed statement that writing is a testament that concentrates the intention of someone who is absent, the idea of the immutability of text has been generalized. The latter is associated with a criterion of coherence in which the realization of the idea flows with no obstacles. Regarding this issue, which limits the dialectic nature of language, this article offers a conceptual alternative that aims at questioning the criterion of linguistic objectivation because it separates the word of its (...) reflective nature, which is in tune with the reference to the entity that drives its meanings. The dynamic reach of writing makes possible for reading to become an appendix of observation, which not only prepares cognitively for the analysis of the set of graphemes, but that also must appropriate sensorially the image that expresses its attributes and alterations as a necessary link in every act of enunciation. Thus, the Marxist conceptual route is linked to a critical philosophical standpoint in which the dialogical relation between text and reader takes effect within a movement of looking towards the heart of the purpose. The latter is done with the aim of making more pedagogical the meeting with the text through a critical hermeneutical approach. To sum up, the resignification of writing implies considering it as a permeable and dynamic texture due to the questions that foster new and surprising findings in the endeavor of knowing. This also means that word, both oral and written, should be linked to new challenges for questioning, which makes of knowing an experience in constant change. (shrink)