This volume articulates and develops new research questions and original insights regarding the philosophical dialogue between Hegel’s philosophy, his heritage, and contemporary phenomenology, including, among others, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Ricoeur. The collection discusses methodological questions concerning the relevance of Hegel’s philosophy for contemporary phenomenology, addressing core issues revolving around the key concepts of history, being, science, subjectivity, and dialectic. The volume fills a gap in historiography, expanding the knowledge of the impact of Hegel's philosophy on contemporary philosophy and raising (...) new questions on the transformation of transcendental philosophy in post-Kantian philosophy. The contributions gathered in this volume shed new light on issues related to the problem of scientific method in philosophy, on the philosophy of history, as well as on the dimension of subjectivity. By providing critical insights into Hegel’s philosophy and contemporary phenomenology, the book opens up new research perspectives recommended to philosophers and scholars of different traditions, especially classical German philosophy, phenomenology, and history of Western philosophy. (shrink)

This book is a highly original and provocative contribution to democratic theory.

This paper is an attempt to explicate Jürgen Habermas’s discourse on education vis-à-vis his political project of a democratized society. Arguably, Habermas sees in the structures and processes inherent in the universities an ideal place for self-reflection and communicative action. Thus, his idea of a university is tied up with the potentials of establishing an emancipated, enlightened society. The agencies of selfreflection hinge with democratic practices and processes, and the facility of communicative action even in a differentiated and specialized learning (...) practices and processes in a bundled lifeworld in the universities boost the prospect of a democratized society. Together with other institutions that promote, enhance, and safeguard avenues of discourses free from domination, university education contributes to the realization of the democratization project. (shrink)

What were the mechanisms through which fascism triumphed in Europe during the interwar period? According to Robert O. Paxton, this is the question one must ask in order to understand the real nature of Mussolini's and Hitler's political regimes. In fact, with “fascism,” Paxton adopts a category from political science that includes characteristics shared by both Italian Fascism and German National Socialism. Paxton aims at constructing this category on the basis of a descriptive study of the world in which the (...) Mussolinian and Hitlerian movements concretely established themselves in their respective societies. Particularly, according to Paxton, we must examine fascism…. (shrink)

Este artigo contempla reflexões sobre o mal-estar e o sofrimento docente na contemporaneidade, a partir de experiências de escuta no âmbito da pesquisa e extensão universitárias. Apresentamos duas pesquisas, onde propusemos espaços de escuta por meio de entrevistas e escritas da experiência, ambas com docentes de instituições educacionais públicas. O método que embasa o texto é a pesquisa-intervenção de orientação clínica e a discussão pauta-se na análise clínica do discurso, que possibilitou recolher das pesquisas significantes que se entrelaçam, dando nomes (...) ao mal-estar e ao sofrimento docente, tais como: silenciamento, desamparo, esgotamento, burocratização e produtividade. Diante destas manifestações, compreendemos que o mal-estar e o sofrimento docente são também produzidos e geridos pelo Estado e sustentados pela racionalidade neoliberal, a este intrínseca. Insistimos na constituição de experiências produtoras de espaços-tempo, de fala e de cuidado compartilhado, sem recuarmos frente à falta de alternativas que parece se impor. Assim, nos somamos aos esforços de construção de testemunhos de como essa racionalidade e suas violências se expressam na sociedade brasileira e nas instituições de ensino, sendo que nossas intervenções fazem coro com a constituição de acolhimento, cuidado com a saúde mental e suporte psicossocial no campo da educação, ensejando políticas de resistência. (shrink)

Terry Horgan (with D. Henderson and G. Graham) defends a new general metaphilosophical position called postanalytic metaphilosophy (PAM). I raise some critical points connected with the application of PAM to the problem of freedom. I question the distinction between opulent and austere construals of philosophical concepts. According to Horgan compatibilism comports better overall with the relevant data than does incompatibilism. I raise some objections. At the end I argue that contextualism is an inadequate explanation of incompatibilistic intuitions.

The consequence argument of van Inwagen is widely regarded as the best argument for incompatibilism. Lewis’s response is praised by van Inwagen as the best compatibilist’s strategy but Lewis himself acknowledges that his strategy resembles that of Lehrer. A comparison will show that one can speak about Lehrer-Lewis strategy, although I think that Lewis’s variation is dialectically slightly stronger. The paper provides a response to some standard objections of incompatibilists to the Lehrer-Lewis reply.

This paper endeavors to explore and expand the communicative potential of silence from non-Western cultural spaces, of Asian-indigenous worldviews as hermeneutical key to critical and cosmic consciousness. Specifically, it speaks of the llokano cosmic Nakem (cosmic self or cosmic sense of being). At the core of the llokano Nakem is a cosmic impulse that situates this indigenous culture's resilience within the dissipating ecological integrity. Just like in other Asian classical texts, e.g., Taoism where it speaks of a heavenly Dao which (...) is the origin and the law that sustains everything in the world, the Ilokano cosmic self lays at core of cultural belief-an ontology that is deeply founded on the tradition of silence. By seeking out a decisive break from dominant frameworks, this paper argues for the possibility of articulating alternative cultural and linguistic experiences as a political imperative towards a democratized world. (shrink)

OLIVEIRA, R. R. (2013). Pólis e Nómos: o problema da lei no pensamento grego. São Paulo: Editora Loyola.

Il libro scava nel profondo dell' umanitā per mostrare la pericolositā della paura, i notevoli rischi e le sofferenze che la paura individuale e la paura collettiva comportano, senza dimenticare il rapporto fra potere e paura.

I raise some questions about differentiations between methods, checking methods, and appropriate methods in terms of their modal profiles. Melchior argues that there can be sensitive checking methods which are not safe. I try to show that such methods are epistemically deficient. I introduce restricted sensitivity (RS) and investigate its checking profile. RS with respect to a proposition _p_ requires that we consider more non-p worlds (not just the closest ones) but not those which are irrelevant (outside a sphere of (...) seriously possible worlds). Restrictedly sensitive methods (vacuously sensitive and strongly safe) based on the appropriate type of Bayesian reasoning might be sufficient for some kind of “modest” checking. Melchior defends a uniform account of checking based on insensitivity even in the case of necessary true propositions and he introduces the apparatus of impossible worlds. I argue that an unsatisfactory method for checking a necessary true proposition is a way of reaching a belief in the target proposition (different from the original one) which might easily not have delivered a true one. I also indicate some limitations of the idea that checking (and knowing) is essentially modal in character. (shrink)

Some general, programmatic points about informal logic are addressed. The informal approach to argument analysis faces serious foundational problems which have been recognized by its practitioners – but informal logic has yet to come together as a clearly defined discipline. Another problem is the dilemma of the dialectician (Sextus Empiricus): informal logic is either trivial or powerless on its own (field expertise is needed). According to Johnson and Blair the central notion in theory of argument is cogency which replaces soundness. (...) An argument is cogent if and only if (i) its premises are rationally acceptable, (ii) its premises are relevant to its conclusion and (iii) its premises provide sufficient reason to accept the conclusion. I propose to understand cogency as a broader notion that includes deductively valid inferences. The criteria of cogency are simply the basic ideals of scientific methodology which requires a respect for available evidence and “reasonable” inference, an awareness of alternatives and a willingness to modify or reject those beliefs that fail to conform to the evidence. Informal logic in the sense of elementary scientific methodology is concerned with proper reasoning and not with proper dialogue. Informal logic involves non-trivial argumentativeskills and abilities applied to the subject area and accessible to every normally intelligent and educated person. (shrink)

Analyzing different works and in particular Habermas' reflection on Kant, the author reconstructs, first, his approach to international law and his political and legal cosmopolitanism. Second, he presents some critical observations on Habermas' cosmopolitanism in the context of his more general discursive theory of law and state. In this perspective, he discusses the problems of peace and of the role of the United Nations, the strategy of protection of human rights, and the question of world citizenship. He argues that Habermas' (...) cosmopolitanism is a radicalization of Kantian tradition based on a centralization of international power and a cosmopolitan law. Finally, he develops realist arguments in favour of a non‐globalistic conception of international law. (shrink)

According to the thesis of modal supervenience it is impossible that two objects be alike in their actual properties but differ in their modal properties. Some have argued that the concept of supervenience is inapplicable to the modal-actual case. Some have argued that the thesis of modal supervenience is trivially true. These arguments are refuted; a thesis of the supervenience of the modal on the actual is meaningful and nontrivial. The significance of the thesis is nevertheless limited by the problem (...) of finding a nonmodal specification for the purported subvenient properties. (shrink)

Semifactuals and Epiphenomenalism -/- Mental properties are said to be epiphenomenal because they do not pass the counterfactual test of causal relevance. Jacob (1996) adopts the defence of causal efficacy of mental properties developed by LePore and Loewer (1987). They claim that those who argue for the epiphenomenalism of the mental place too strong a requirement on causal relevance, which excludes causally efficacious properties. Given a proper analysis of causal relevance, the causal efficacy of mental properties is saved. I defend (...) the counterfactual test and epiphenomenalism of the mental against this critique. In causal counterfactuals we hold everything the same, take out the causal property and see if the effect property occurs. We do not replace the causal property with a barely different property as presupposed by LePore and Loewer. But I recognize some general problems in making counterfactual claims about mental events, which raise doubts about the usefulness of the counterfactual test in general. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the primacy that, following Sellars, Robert Brandom ascribes to the intersubjective and discursive space of reasons over all other processes in which the human mind is involved. I will compare Brandom’s perspective with that of the situated approach to the study of mind. At first, my aim is to show that the origin of intentionality has to be found in the sphere of sentience and the living body. Second, by comparing the enactivist account of language (...) that derives from the naturalization of Husserl’s phenomenology with the neo-pragmatist approach to the linguistic turn, I argue for a heuristic primacy owing to the linguistic practice of giving and asking for reasons. This allows me to reflect with a meta-philosophical approach on to what extent two families of views such as pragmatism and phenomenology, with their different variants, interact in the attempt to blend things together, i.e., nature and culture; mind and world; and what happens inside the human body and what happens outside it. (shrink)

ExcerptPost-Communist Trends in Italy, 1968–1989 According to Paul Berman, the events of 1989 were a consequence and, in some ways, an “achievement” of the protest movement of 1968; or they at least expressed the most deeply felt aspirations of a generation of “utopians.”1 It is not my intention here to examine and discuss Berman's thesis in detail, but rather to highlight its originality and look for any possible historical or conceptual connections between the events of 1968 and those of 1989. (...) The Italian case seems to lend itself particularly well to such a comparison. From the beginning…. (shrink)

The phenomenological attitude allows us to grasp something that happens before the distinction between subject and object. The application to groups of human beings in a clinical and therapeutic context of the phenomenological setting allows us, in spite of its descriptive-contemplative aura, the extreme richness of potentialities, applicative and transformative, of one of the greatest intuitions of modern thought: the disappearance of the fracture between the subject, the others and the world-of-life, in the evidence of meaning that the mutual experience (...) of one's own presence or being-there opens up. The Mitsein doesn’t represent the only existential structure that makes the Dasein able to exist with others, but the relationship between the ‘originary temporality’ of the Dasein and the other as ‘you’. Dasein is that entity that is structurally “with” others. And it is in this relationship dynamic that unfolds the theme of the care. Care becomes for Heidegger the existential of the existentials, fundamental ontological structure, indicating the original opening of being. Being-with-in-loving could consist in the atmosphere, a kind of well-being which these flow-experiences, relatively rare in everyday life, are immersed in. (shrink)

The article deals with the inflexion that occurred in the studies of modernity from the 1960s onwards. New ruptures were proposed within modernity itself, giving rise to narratives on postmodernity, hyper-modernity, new modernity, late or advanced modernity, second modernity or multiple modernities. Modernity was supposed to draw a more or less indelible border between past and present; the others and the Westerners; tradition and modernity; community and society; holism and individualism. Modernity was a caesura: the ultimate base of all “Grands (...) Partages”. What we have witnessed in the the last fifty years is the duplication at the very heart of modernity of this baptismal caesura. All the critical movements of the last decades share this same conviction: the caesura of modernity ceases to be one and definitive, to become, on the contrary, pluralistic and always on work. In this perspective, contemporary modernity –the new question of modernity– is inseparable from the generalization of a critical appraise of its great dogmas, assumptions or experiences. (shrink)

“¿Bajo qué presupuestos pueden tener legitimidad las metáforas en el lenguaje filosófico?” Así planteó Hans Blumenberg la problemática acerca de la relación entre metáfora y filosofía y ese planteamiento guía el presente trabajo. Frente a las concepciones acerca de la metáfora que la entienden como un mero tropo retórico exterior a la pureza del sentido propio o un resto histórico en el camino que va del mito y la figuratividad al logos y la lógica, el presente ensayo busca iluminar caminos (...) para comprender la metaforicidad como esencial al lenguaje, y por lo tanto a la filosofía y a su historia. (shrink)

El autor parte del reconocimiento del miedo como elemento constante en la historia del hombre, para ilustrar los mecanismos que para su reducción ha creado el ser humano. Entre ellos, el sistema político —y en particular el Estado moderno— se ha mostrado como el instrumento más eficaz en la reducción del miedo y de garantía de la seguridad. En este sentido, el Estado social ha significado el nivel más alto alcanzado en Occidente por un sistema político en el intento de (...) regular y reducir el miedo, al reducir los riesgos para el ser humano provenientes del funcionamiento de la economía de mercado. Sin embargo, el artículo muestra como la crisis del Estado social en el contexto de la globalización ha provocado, entre otras cosas, un drástico paso desde una concepción de la seguridad entendida como reconocimiento de la identidad de las personas y de su participación en la vida social, a una concepción de la seguridad entendida simplemente como defensa de los individuos de los posibles actos de agresión y como represión y castigo severo de los comportamientos desviados, es decir, el paso del Estado social al Estado penal. Finalmente, el autor defiende la necesidad, especialmente para el pensamiento de la izquierda, de recuperar el sentido positivo tanto de la seguridad como de la libertad, asumiendo que la seguridad y la libertad no pueden sobrevivir fuera de estructuras políticas que no se sostengan al mismo tiempo tanto en la autonomía individual como en la solidaridad social. (shrink)