O texto parte da pergunta sobre como enfocar a problemática da cidadania e sua relação com a atuação dos movimentos sociais nas sociedades atuais. Frente à diversidade de definições de cidadania e a pluralidade morfológica dos movimentos, a proposição é mudar o enfoque, centrando-o em modelos de análise global da sociedade, no marco de propostas contratualistas. Reformas recentes no Brasil, com a descentralização ainda em curso, oferecem a oportunidade de visualizar o enfoque e mostrar por que ONGs e novas formas (...) de filantropia crescente entram em conflito com os movimentos sociais. (shrink)

During the last decades in Brazil, two societal projects strived for hegemony: a democratic and participatory project disputed against an alliance of the emerging bourgeoisie with traditional political forces. The PT-led government, driven by Lula da Silva (2003–2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011–2016), representative of the democratic and participatory line, implemented many innovative policies concerning notably social citizenship rights and industrialization. Perhaps, like many other Latin American countries during the first pink tide, it was unsuccessful in transforming the old economic, political, (...) and social frameworks to provide a suitable environment for new politics. The text examines this period, emphasizing improvements in political participation, inclusive social policies, and the relationship between the government and social movements, as well as some flaws that hastened its demise. (shrink)

Line 24 on page 218 in the July number of this volume of Philosophy should read as follows: naturally out of matter itself lifeless or that consciousness and intelli-.

In this autobiography, Fellmann’s personal experiences obtain in the light of philosophical themes a general significance. His connections to famous authors from the past and present situate his thought in a historical context. The focus of his Philosophy of Life is Eros; the Erosopher is the one who shares his wisdom of living. This book appeals to a broad public interested in the contemporary currents of philosophical reflection.

The issue of democracy is alive once more. There is a growing number of works debating the current state of democracy both in theory and practice.1 In particular a pragmatist conception of democracy has also been revived. Not only has a Deweyan version of a participatory democracy become the focus but the intricacies of a Rortian version have also come to the forefront, from both sympathetic as well as critical viewpoints.2 Thus the impression that the contemporary world is in quite (...) an exigent need of reconsidering—and perhaps even forming a novel conception of—democracy seems to be obvious, at least from a global point of view.3 Moreover, the fact that the idea or ideal of democracy still seems to be .. (shrink)

One of the major challenges facing agricultural and food systems today is the loss of agrobiodiversity. Considering the current impasse of preventing the worldwide loss of crop diversity, this paper highlights the possibility for a radical reorientation of current legal seed frameworks that could provide more space for alternative seed systems to evolve which centre on norms that support on-farm agrobiodiversity. Understanding the underlying norms that shape seed commons are important, since norms both delimit and contribute to what ultimately will (...) constitute the seeds and who will ultimately have access to the seeds and thus to the extent to which agrobiodiversity is upheld and supported. This paper applies a commoning approach to explore the underpinning norms of a Swedish seed commons initiative and discusses the potential for furthering agrobiodiversity in the context of wider legal and authoritative discourses on seed enclosure. The paper shows how the seed commoning system is shaped and protected by a particular set of farming norms, which allows for sharing seeds among those who adhere to the norms but excludes those who will not. The paper further illustrates how farmers have been able to navigate fragile legal and economic pathways to collectively organize around landrace seeds, which function as an epistemic farming community, that maintain landraces from the past and shape new landraces for the present, adapted to diverse agro-ecological environments for low-input agriculture. The paper reveals how the ascribed norms to the seed commons in combination with the current seed laws set a certain limit to the extent to which agrobiodiversity is upheld and supported and discusses why prescriptions of “getting institutions right” for seed governance are difficult at best, when considering the shifting socio-nature of seeds. To further increase agrobiodiversity, the paper suggests future seed laws are redirected to the sustenance of a proliferation of protected seed commoning systems that can supply locally adapted plant material for diverse groups of farmers and farming systems. (shrink)

In this paper, the philosopher of life, Ferdinand Fellmann, contrasts the European and Chinese feelings of life based on his own understanding. Both life feelings have their own cultural foundations. Based on this comparison, he argues that a certain balance can be sought between the two cultures in order to achieve common human values.

This work represents the turn in philosophical anthropology to intersubjectivity. In our day, when society threatens to disintegrate into elementary particles, the question becomes acute, What holds individuals together? Fellmann’s answer: the couple as anthropological radical liberates individual humans from isolation. Even outside of marriage and family institutions, erotic love is the communicative medium that cannot be replaced with discourse alone. Thus, the human finds justification through love: a way of living in no way inferior to Christian justification through (...) belief. (shrink)

Positive ignorance is the putting in to question of, and sometimes moving on from, the knowledge we think we have, and asking where it might be just or helpful to do so. Drawing primarily on the work of Barbara Johnson, this article shows how the notion of positive ignorance might be offered as a tool in the context of education and educational research. Partly a critical development of Richard Smith's argument in ‘The Virtues of Unknowing’, I attempt to understand ‘unknowing’ (...) as an active rather than passive form of ‘not knowing’, in a manner that challenges some aspects of ‘the virtues of unknowing’ and its concomitant epistemological and ethical positions, not least those tied to Smith's advocacy for what he calls the ‘well-stocked mind’. Unknowing, in my reading, is not a dispositional acceptance of the desirability of nonknowledge, instead, unknowing is a means of epistemological resistance, especially against that which, often with very real social and political consequences, is presented as self-evident. (shrink)

This book is about the couple, which I consider to be both the origin and the foundation of a strong social self. Despite increasing self-realisation, the individual is always in need of justification through an intimate relationship in which both partners accept one another as they are. In view of the process of global urbanization, empathy and reliability are the royal road to overcoming existential loneliness.

This article is about Eroticism as a key-concept in the psychological understanding of the human mind. The meaning of the term can be defined as follows: Eroticism is the way humans experience sexuality as a self-sufficient mental activity. Sexuality underlies different social rules in varying cultural contexts and may lead to different ways of thinking, but there is no evidence that cultural diversity actually leads to fundamentally different ways of feeling. The constant disposition for recreational rather than procreational sex makes (...) eroticism a medium of human creativity. In this sense, eroticism is considered a central factor in the process of hominisation. The crucial cognitive competence which makes for the uniqueness of our species is due to the transformation of sexuality into eroticism and its disposition for social learning. In the animal kingdom, sex contributes to the welfare of the horde, while in human society eroticism contributes to individual self-recognition and paves the way to moral awareness. Methodologically, I plead for a cooperation of psychological and anthropological research, each utilizing and combining the complementary aspects of both approaches. (shrink)

The vital status of patients who are a part of controlled donation after circulatory death (cDCD) is widely debated in bioethical literature. Opponents to currently applied cDCD protocols argue that they violate the dead donor rule, while proponents of the protocols advocate compatibility. In this article, we argue that both parties often misinterpret the moral implications of the dead donor rule. The rule as such does not require an assessment of a donor’s vital status, we contend, but rather an assessment (...) of whether procurement of organs in cDCD cause the death of the donor or not. We then argue that commonly practiced cDCD protocols do not violate the dead donor rule, since the donation does not trigger or cause the death of the donors. (shrink)

The exclusive relationship, either as a pair or even as a married pair, has regained its attraction. Obviously, the traditional roles, the economically dependent woman who stands by the side of the ‘strong man’, no longer represent the pair bond.

The ›zoological turn‹ currently proclaimed by animal ethicians suggests a complete reversal of our view on animal life. As welcome as the overcoming of an anthropocentric outlook may be, one cannot ignore the ideological bias of animal ethics. What looks like a modest surrender of our customary arrogance turns out to be a subtle way of reinforcing human supremacy. In order to debunk this kind of self-deception, the article reconstructs how ethics and biology consistently came together in the 19th century. (...) Accordingly, the question arises which kind of ethics best suits current anthropology. My answer is: a concrete ethics of the art of living that takes into account the ambivalent nature of the relationship between humans and animals. (shrink)

In times of social upheaval, self-understanding has become shaky. Against this background, Fellmann asks the anthropological question anew: He does not inquire into human essence, but, in reference to Thomas Nagel’s question, “What is it like to be a bat?”, into subjective experience. The key concept that Fellmann rediscovers and focuses on is “life feelings”. He connects both sides of life experience, the subjective and the objective. In nine concise chapters, life feeling is viewed from diverse perspectives: from (...) basic instincts and moral sensibility to postmodern attitudes in the global and digital world. (shrink)

Emile Durkheim's "Antis?mitisme et crise sociale," written in 1899 during the Dreyfus Affair in France, is introduced. The introduction summarizes the principal contributions that "Antis?mitisme et crise sociale" makes to the sociology of anti-Semitism, relates those contributions to Durkheim's broader theoretical assumptions and concerns, situates his analysis of anti-Semitism in its social and historical context, contrasts it to other analyses of anti-Semitism (Marxist and Zionist) that were prominent in Durkheim's time, indicates some of the revisions and additions that a fuller (...) and more complete Durkheimian theory of anti-Semitism would entail, and highlights the significance of Durkheim's ideas for the contemporary study of ethnic and racial antagonism. While noting the limitations of Durkheim's analysis, the introduction concludes that "Antis?mitisme et crise sociale" has sadly regained its relevance in the light of a revival of anti-Semitism at the turn of the millennium. (shrink)

A historical study of the fourteenth century theologist and philosopher Nicole Oresme, the precursor of Copernicus.

The Love-Code is a continuation of The Couple to the family, whose image has changed dramatically. Sexual promiscuity, the social equality of male and female, the individual planning of biographies, all make traditional gender roles appear outdated. Whether these changes will make the living together of the sexes easier is doubtful. This book addresses the question, how can love even in the conditions of neo-liberalism keep its mysterious binding force: through the recognition of sexual identity as a way to knowing (...) the self and the other. (shrink)

Insurance coverage of abortion varies widely across the United States and is an extensively debated issue. Medicaid coverage of abortion is particularly relevant because the majority of abortion patients are poor or low‐income and are thus often covered by Medicaid. Since the Hyde Amendment was first passed in 1976, federal Medicaid funds have been banned from covering the costs of elective abortion. Although states are allowed to use their own funds to cover abortions for their Medicaid recipients, only 17 states (...) currently do so. Of these 17 states, only five cover abortion costs voluntarily; the others do so pursuant to court order. The medical literature includes few ethical analyses of the Hyde Amendment’s ban on Medicaid funding of elective abortions. To fill this gap, we perform an ethical analysis of federal policy to fund elective abortions using a consequentialist approach focused on consequences for pregnant women and their children. (shrink)

In his presentation of different life-philosophers, Fellmann shows that the discrediting of the Philosophy of Life as a dangerous irrationalism misses the main point. This lies in the discovery of emotional intelligence, which is found in modern forms of self-experience in opposition to the Cartesian Cogito. It is not about overcoming rationalism, but rather enriching it with the first-person perspective.

The primary purpose of this paper is to outline the conceptual means by which it is possible to be optimistic about education. To provide this outline I turn to Ian Hunter and David Blacker, after a brief introduction to Nietzsche’s conceptions of optimism and pessimism, to show why certain forms of optimism in education are either intellectually unhelpful or dispositionally helpless in the face of current educational issues. The alternative form of optimism—which I argue is both intellectually and practically helpful—is (...) drawn from a reading of Friedrich Nietzsche. This reading of Nietzsche is not a simple exercise representing his views. As Nietzsche never explicitly advocated for any form of optimism—and frequently advocated against many of its manifestations—drawing what I call ‘a new version of optimism’ from his writings is no straightforward task, and certainly not without risk. As such, I have extended my readings of Nietzsche across his entire oeuvre, including his writings unintended for publication from his Nachlass. At the core of my argument is the claim that when Nietzsche was sketching out what he called ‘a new version of pessimism’, it was actually quite close to what we might now call ‘a new version of optimism.’ This first claim precipitates a second, which is that this new version of optimism is not only especially suited to contemporary educational thought and practice but is itself a description of an educational experience and disposition. (shrink)

The introduction of normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) in controlled donation after circulatory determination of death (cDCDD) protocols is by some regarded as controversial and ethically troublesome. One of the main concerns that opponents have about introducing NRP in cDCDD protocols is that reestablishing circulation will negate the determination of death by circulatory criteria, potentially resuscitating the donor. In this article, I argue that this is not the case. If we take a closer look at the concept of death underlying the (...) circulatory criterion for determination of death, we find that the purpose of the criterion is to show whether the organism as a whole has died. I argue that this purpose is fulfilled by the circulatory criterion in cDCDD protocols, and that applying NRP does not negate the determination of death or resuscitate the donor. (shrink)

Emile Meyerson's writings on the philosophy of science are a rich source of ideas and information concerning many philosophical and historical aspects of the development of modem science. Meyerson's works are not widely read or cited today by philosophers or even philosophers of science, in part because they have long been out of print and are often not available even in research libraries. There are additional chevaux de!rise for all but the hardiest scholars: Meyerson's books are written in French (and (...) do not all exist in English versions) and deal with the subject matter of science - ideas or concepts, laws or principles, theories - and epis temological questions rather than today's more fashionable topics of the social matrix and external influences on science with the concomitant neglect of the intellectual content of science. Born in Lublin, Poland, in 1859, Meyerson received most of his education in Germany, where he studied from the age of 12 to 23, preparing himself for a career in chemistry.! He moved to Paris in 1882, where he began a career as an industrial chemist. Changing his profession, he then worked for a time as the foreign news editor of the HAVAS News Agency in Paris. In 1898 he joined the agency established by Edmond Rothschild that had as its purpose the settling of Jews in Palestine and became the Director of the Jewish Colonization Association for Europe and Asia Minor. These activities represent Meyerson's formal career. (shrink)