In this article I analyse the texts in which Joseph Ratzinger deals with the topic of evolution, particularly in the context of the compatibility between faith in creation and acceptance of the theory of evolution. I have grouped his writings into three periods that reflect the changes in his ideas on this topic. His early writings, until 1979, contain the most elaborate and deepest theological insights, with a defence of the compatibility between faith in creation and the theory of evolution (...) when each one is kept within the boundaries of its own explanatory framework. There is a clear change of attitude at the beginning of the 1980s, when he becomes aware of the attempts by some atheist scientists to portray evolution as a “first philosophy”. This triggers a critical response against some technical aspects of the theory of evolution, a position that was reinforced by his contacts with anti-evolution German intellectuals during this period. The conflict reached its climax in the 1999 lecture at the Sorbonne University and the 2006 meeting of the Schulerkreis in Castel Gandolfo. After 2006 his references to this topic were few, and he seemed to return to the original ideas expressed in his early writings, stressing the intrinsic rationality and inner logic of the cosmos. (shrink)

Adolescent-to-Parent Violence or Child-to-Parent Violence is a specific form of violence that has remained inconspicuous until recently, but is becoming a mounting social issue and is increasingly the focus of scientific research. Of the variables related to APV, the study assessed the characteristics of the family system and its relationship to the psychosocial adjustment of adolescents, an aspect scarcely examined in the literature. Thus, a field study was performed on a community sample of 210 adolescents aged 12–17 years who were (...) assessed on measurements of APV, parenting, victimization, and psychological adjustment. The results revealed higher rates of psychological APV, and no gender effects in violence exercised against either parent. The adolescents involved in APV exhibited a greater psychological maladjustment in the different areas under analysis. Moreover, adolescents engaging in psychological APV reported a parental socialization style characterized by severe strictness and supervision in comparison to non-aggressors not implicated in psychological APV. Finally, adolescents exercising APV who were victimized by their parents showed more psychological, personal, and school maladjustment. These results have implications for needs analysis and the planning of community prevention strategies. (shrink)

A tradução de textos filosóficos constitui um elemento central, embora geralmente negligenciado, da constituição do campo filosófico em cada época e dentro de uma determinada tradição lingüística. As traduções, antes de tudo, contribuem para a formação e a renovação do corpo de conceitos sem os quais não há pensamento articulado, nem especulação, nem a emergência do novo. A Idade Média, especialmente com as traduções arabo-latinas e greco-latinas dos séculos XII-XIII, fornece-nos uma poderosa ilustração do contributo das traduções para. a (...) formação do léxico filosófico e sobretudo para a renovação literária e científica da filosofia. Nesses séculos não assistimos apenas à recepção de uma biblioteca até aí desconhecida em latim, mas sobretudo à constituição de uma rica e dinâmica reserva de conceitos. É sob o impulso das traduções que se abre e se constitui no final da Idade Média outra tradição filosófica, no interior da qual germinarão, também por via de tradução para as novas línguas latinas e anglo-saxónicas, as múltiplas linhagens filosóficas modernas e contemporâneas. (shrink)

This study examined individual, task, and environmental constraints that influence the career progression of youth Brazilian elite basketball players and the probability of reaching Novo Basquete Brasil and to determine if the association of the relative age effect is a key factor in the career progression. The sample consisted of 4,692 male players who were registered to participate in at least one U15, U17, or U22 youth Brazilian basketball championship between 2004 and 2018. Athletes who reached a high-performance level (...) were coded like NBB players. The birthdates, height, body mass, playing position, geographic region, club, competition category, and team performance were retrieved from the official data archive of the Brazilian Basketball Confederation and the National Basketball League. The maturity status was estimated using the predicted age at peak height velocity. A binary logistic regression examined the influence of each characteristic on the probability of a youth Brazilian basketball player to reach the NBB. The receiver operating characteristic curves and the associated area under the curve were used to assess the discriminant ability of the model. The taller and younger players not selected early into national teams, without specialization by playing position, who participated in U22 national championship, migrated to the southeast region, and remained in the formation process over time have a greater chance to reach the NBB. The ROC curve demonstrated an AUC of 93%. A combination of individual, task, and environmental characteristics influences the sport career of a young Brazilian basketball player in reaching the NBB. Further, early-maturing athletes have a greater chance to reach higher performances. RAE influences lower-level categories, but not a “NBB player's” career progression. The coaches, stakeholders, and practitioners should perform a holistic evaluation of sport talent in terms of a constraint-based theoretical model with the aim of avoiding bias produced by the maturational status and RAE in the youth Brazilian elite basketball. (shrink)

Microtubules are protein cylinders with functions in cell motility, signal sensing, cell organization, intracellular transport, and chromosome segregation. One of the key properties of microtubules is their dynamic architecture, allowing them to grow and shrink in length by adding or removing copies of their basic subunit, the heterodimer αβ‐tubulin. In higher eukaryotes, de novo assembly of microtubules from αβ‐tubulin is initiated by a 2 MDa multi‐subunit complex, the gamma‐tubulin ring complex (γ‐TuRC). For many years, the structure of the γ‐TuRC (...) and the function of its subunits remained enigmatic, although structural data from the much simpler yeast counterpart, the γ‐tubulin small complex (γ‐TuSC), were available. Two recent breakthroughs in the field, high‐resolution structural analysis and recombinant reconstitution of the complex, have revolutionized our knowledge about the architecture and function of the γ‐TuRC and will form the basis for addressing outstanding questions about biogenesis and regulation of this essential microtubule organizer. (shrink)

Several well-known researchers participated in that debate, amongst whom Richard Rorty, Meinrad Hebga, Harris Memel-Fot?, and more than seventy philosophers, historians, anthropologists, literary critics, and psychoanalysts from various countries. Paulin J. Hountondji is a Professor of Philosophy at the National University of Benin Republic, joint-laureate of Mohamed El Fasi 2004 prize. He is the Director of the African Centre of Higher Education in Porto-Novo. The American version of his book? philosophie africaine? : critique de l'ethnophilosophie was awarded the Herskovits (...) Prize in 1984. The book is part of the 100 best African books of the 20th century selected in Accra in the year 2000. (shrink)

O texto visa tratar de uma problemática da Teoria do Conhecimento em correspondência com a Educação. Os problemas que surgem da relação entre o indivíduo pensante e o objeto de seu pensamento (como o solipsismo, a reflexão monológica e o dogmatismo) marcam as bases da produção filosófica tratada a partir de Kant em sua obra "Crítica da Razão Pura" (1787). A prova sobre os juízos sintéticos a priori leva Kant a formular um sistema filosófico, cujo método transcendental se apoia na (...) sensibilidade e no entendimento do sujeito sobre os conceitos. A fenomenologia de Husserl se fortaleceu a partir da filosofia de Kant, e sobre seu prisma existencial-hermenêutico, tratou do problema da dialética do conhecimento a partir do conceito de mundo da vida. O apriorismo subjetivista de Kant e o idealismo transcendental da fenomenologia de Husserl são criticados, atualmente, pelo filósofo Jürgen Habermas. Pela teoria da competência comunicativa, Habermas instaura novas bases para a relação sujeito-objeto e para a construção do conhecimento. O ser humano é um sujeito de potencialidade comunicativa, que desenvolve um novo conceito de emancipação, pela razão comunicativa pela qual a linguagem é considerada na sua dimensão de práxis social. A perspectiva habermasiana é bastante relevante para a educação escolar e para o desenvolvimento humano. (shrink)

Este artigo analisa a importância do papel desempenhado pelo diplomata George Frost Kennan na elaboração da política externa dos Estados Unidos durante a Guerra Fria. Ao final da Segunda Guerra Mundial, no contexto marcado pelas apreensões relativas às rivalidades globais entre os EUA e a URSS, Kennan recomendou uma estratégia com a intenção de conter as potenciais tendências expansionistas da União Soviética. Em sua consideração, a principal ameaça posta pela União Soviética não era militar, mas sua capacidade de influência ideológica, (...) veiculada pelos partidos comunistas e seus seguidores no interior das sociedades democráticas ocidentais. Desta hipótese precedente, Kennan arquitetou a Doutrina de Contenção, uma estratégia crucial da política externa dos Estados Unidos durante a Guerra Fria. Como um diplomata de carreira e grande autoridade nos estudos relacionados à sociedade Soviética, Kennan escreveu durante a sua vida uma extraordinária obra relacionada à diplomacia dos EUA e aos seus desafios colossais no ambiente do conflito global. No entanto, desde o início da segunda Administração Truman, Kennan observou que a estratégia estadunidense em relação à Guerra Fria havia se tornado mais militarista e intensificado a corrida armamentista. Ao assumir uma posição crítica em relação a essas diretrizes, que, de acordo com a sua perspectiva, levava à distorção da sua concepção original da teoria da Contenção, Kennan foi marginalizado pelo novo Secretário de Estado, Dean Acheson e deslocado do núcleo de elaboração política do governo. Posteriormente, ele questionou a adopção da Doutrina Truman, a criação da OTAN e o envolvimento dos Estados Unidos nas guerras da Coréia e do Vietnam.George Frost Kennan and the architecture of U.S. Foreign Policy in the genesis of the Cold War This article analyzes the major role performed by diplomat George Frost Kennan in the United States Foreign Policy during the Cold War. By the end of World War II, amidst apprehensions concerning the U.S. and the USSR global rivalries, Kennan recommended a strategy intending to contain the potential expansionist tendencies of the Soviet Union. In his consideration, the core threat upraised by Soviet Union was not military, but its ideological influence conveyed by Communist parties and fellow travelers inside the western democratic societies. From this preceding hypothesis, Kennan designed the doctrine of containment, a crucial strategy of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. As a career diplomat and major authority on Soviet society, Kennan wrote during his lifetime an remarkable work related to U.S. diplomacy and its colossal challenges in the environment of that global conflict. Nonetheless, since the inauguration of the second Truman administration, Kennan observed that U.S. Cold War strategy had become more militaristic and that it had strengthened the arms race. For assuming a critical position towards this path, which, according to his perspective, was a distortion of his original containment theory, Kennan was marginalized by the new Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, and displaced from core government power. Subsequently, he stood up against the adoption of the Truman Doctrine, the creation of NATO and the commitment of the United States in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Resumen George Frost Kennan y la arquitectura de la política externa de los EUA en el origen de la Guerra Fría Este artículo analiza la importancia del papel desempeñado por el diplomático George Frost Kennan en la elaboración de la política externa de los Estados Unidos durante la Guerra Fría. Al finalizar la Segunda Guerra Mundial, en el contexto marcado por las aprehensiones vinculadas a las rivalidades globales entre los EUA y la URSS, Kennan recomendó una estrategia con la intención de contener las potenciales tendencias expansionistas de la Unión Soviética. En su entendimiento, la principal amenaza de la Unión Soviética no era militar, y sí su capacidad de influencia ideológica, vehiculada por los partidos comunistas y sus seguidores en el interior de las sociedades democráticas occidentales. Partiendo de esta hipótesis, Kennan ideó la Doctrina de Contención, una estrategia crucial de la política externa de los EEUU durante la Guerra Fría. Como diplomático de carrera y una autoridad en estudios relacionados a la Unión Soviética, Kennan escribió durante su vida una extraordinaria obra relacionada a la diplomacia estadounidense y sus desafíos colosales en el ambiente del conflicto global. Sin embargo, desde el inicio de la segunda administración Truman, Kennan observó que la estrategia de los EUA en relación a la Guerra Fría se había tornado más militarista, intensificándose la carrera armamentista. Al asumir una posición crítica en relación a estas directrices que, de acuerdo a su perspectiva, conducía a la distorsión de su original teoría de la Contención, Kennan fue marginado por el nuevo Secretario de Estado, Dean Acheson, y desplazado del núcleo de elaboración política del gobierno. Posteriormente, él cuestionó la adopción de la Doctrina Truman, la creación de la OTAN y la participación de Estados Unidos en las guerras de Corea y de Vietnam. (shrink)

Current models for regulation of parent‐specific gene expression in plants have been based on a small number of imprinted genes in Arabidopsis. These present repression as the default state, with expression requiring targeted activation. In general, repression is associated with maintenance methylation of cytosines, while no role has been found in Arabidopsis imprinting for de novo methylation—unlike the case in mammals. A recent paper1 both reinforces and challenges the model drawn from Arabidopsis. Methylation patterns of two imprinted loci in (...) maize were tracked from gametes to offspring, enabling an exploration of the timing of imprinting. For one gene, fie1, the results were as expected: parent‐specific methylation patterns were inherited from the three types of gamete: egg, central cell and sperm. The behaviour of fie2, however, was a surprise: no alleles were methylated in the gametes, although paternally contributed fie2 is methylated and silent in the endosperm, indicating that, in some cases, plant imprinting requires de novo DNA methylation. This work significantly broadens our understanding of plant imprinting and points to a greater diversity in imprinting mechanisms than has previously been appreciated. BioEssays 28: 1167–1171, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Para Lévinas, as formas do pensamento e os modos diversos de ser refletem o que há mais além do saber e do conhecimento: a relação fundamental que subjaz ao ser, e que parte do puro existir, do puro há, onde o ser ainda não é tematizado. A filosofia como sistematização é o prenúncio do ser-para-a-morte, que se compraz com chegar ao fim, não aberto ao infinito do totalmente outro. Lévinas procura trazer o que está por trás da filo-sofia, ou do (...) autêntico amor ao saber, desejo de relacionar-se com um outro totalmente diferente. A primeira consciência, consciência de, é consciência em relação. Não há subjetividade sem alteridade, e isto significa estar permanente aberto a novos aspectos do outro, aos quais devo responder renovadamente. O problema da fundação da cultura sobre a intuição ética original não é de simples solução. Não há outra maneira de se realizar no mundo uma intuição original senão através da cultura. O princípio regulador da ética na instituição da cultura parece que nunca poderá ser simplificadamente uma norma primeira, mas antes um movimento de retorno à vivência, ou experiência vital, original, do existir e da formação da própria subjetividade em meio e a partir do diferente, um movimento de crítica racional iluminada por uma experiência. (shrink)

DNA methylation can be considered a component of epigenetic memory with a critical role during embryo development, and which undergoes dramatic reprogramming after fertilization. Though it has been a focus of research for many years, the reprogramming mechanism is still not fully understood. Recent results suggest that absence of maintenance at DNA replication is a major factor, and that there is an unexpected role for TET3-mediated oxidation of 5mC to 5hmC in guarding against de novo methylation. Base-resolution and genome-wide (...) profiling methods are enabling more comprehensive assessments of the extent to which ART might impair DNA methylation reprogramming, and which sequence elements are most vulnerable. Indeed, as we also review here, studies showing the effect of culture media, ovarian stimulation or embryo transfer on the methylation pattern of embryos emphasize the need to face ART-associated defects and search for strategies to mitigate adverse effects on the health of ART-derived children. DNA methylation, critical for embryo development, suffers significant changes after fertilization, including demethylation, remethylation and TET3-mediated oxidation of 5 mC to 5 hmC. In addition to infertility and environmental insults, ART could impact DNA methylation and ART related consequences in the offspring have been reported. (shrink)

Cilj je ovog rada prikazati i vrednovati doprinos Josefa Seiferta promišljanju odnosa ćudorednosti i besmrtnosti, tj. filozofijskom utemeljenju besmrtnosti. Iako su racionalni razlozi za besmrtnost u okviru metafizike duše uvjerljivi, Seifert polazi od onog što je bliže, uvjerljivije za čovjeka, od antropološko-moralnih dokaza. U radu se nastoji odgovoriti na pitanje zašto Seifert klasične argumente za besmrtnost iz jednostavnosti duše ne smatra dostatnim, te zašto mu se čine dubljim argumenti iz smisla personalne egzistencije. U tu svrhu analiziraju se premise Seifertova dokaza (...) za besmrtnost: prva, prema kojoj ćudoredni život postavlja smislene zahtjeve za besmrtnošću, i druga, prema kojoj takvi zahtjevi moraju biti ispunjeni.Ziel und Zweck der vorliegenden Arbeit liegen in dem Versuch, den Beitrag Josef Seiferts zur Untersuchung der Beziehungen zwischen Sittlichkeit und Unsterblichkeit bzw. zur philosophischen Begründung der Unsterblichkeit aus dem Sinn des Sittlichen darzustellen. Dabei versucht man auf die Frage beantworten, warum Seifert das Argument aus der Einfachheit der Seele nicht als ein ausreichendes Argument für Unsterblichkeit findet und warum unserem Autor jene Argumente die auf dem spezifisch personalen Wesen des Menschen beruhen, bzw. moralische Argumente aus dem Sinn personaler Existenz tiefer scheinen. Um auf diese Frage zu beantworten werden zwei Prämissen Seieferts Unsterblichkeitsbeweises analysiert: erstens, die Prämisse, dass das menschliche sittliche Leben eine Sinnforderung auf Unsterblichkeit stellt, und zweitens, die Prämisse, dass solche ethische Sinnforderungen erfüllt werden müssen. (shrink)

Porto-Novo (Benin), 19-21 September 2002. A conference on ‘The encounter between rationalities’, jointly organized by the Centre Africain des Hautes Etudes, the UNESCO network ‘Paths of Thought’ and the International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies (ICPHS), took place there on the occasion of its 26th General Meeting. Seventy-two delegates from 33 countries. An ambitious academic programme, which, like all such programmes, we knew quite well we would never be able to cover, had been drawn up in four sections.

Centrosomes are the main microtubule organizing centers in animal cells. In particular during embryogenesis, they ensure faithful spindle formation and proper cell divisions. As metazoan centrosomes are eliminated during oogenesis, they have to be reassembled upon fertilization. Most metazoans use the sperm centrioles as templates for new centrosome biogenesis while the egg's cytoplasm re-prepares all components for on-going centrosome duplication in rapidly dividing embryonic cells. We discuss our knowledge and the experimental challenges to analyze zygotic centrosome reformation, which requires genetic (...) experiments to enable scrutinizing respective male and female contributions. Male and female knockout animals and mRNA injection to mimic maternal expression of centrosomal proteins could point a way to the systematic molecular dissection of the process. The most recent data suggest that timely expression of centrosome components in oocytes is the key to zygotic centrosome reformation that uses male sperm as coordinators for de novo centrosome production. Centrosome reformation at fertilization is essential for metazoan development. It requires a complicated interplay of sperm centrioles and the cytoplasm of the oocyte, which has eliminated its centrioles during oogenesis. The male centrioles launch centrosome duplication using female centrosome proteins for the first metazoan cell divisions. (shrink)

The retrotransposon Long Interspersed Element 1 (LINE‐1 or L1) has played a major role in shaping the sequence composition of the mammalian genome. In our recent publication, “Heritable L1 retrotransposition in the mouse primordial germline and early embryo,” we systematically assessed the rate and developmental timing of de novo, heritable endogenous L1 insertions in mice. Such heritable retrotransposition events allow L1 to exert an ongoing influence upon genome evolution. Here, we place our findings in the context of earlier studies, (...) and highlight how our results corroborate, and depart from, previous research based on human patient samples and transgenic mouse models harboring engineered L1 reporter genes. In parallel, we outline outstanding questions regarding the stage‐specificity, regulation, and functional impact of embryonic and germline L1 retrotransposition, and propose avenues for future research in this field. -/- . (shrink)

Apresentado no âmbito de um colóquio intitulado «Sobre as Diferenças: Filosofia, Cultura e Educação nas sociedades do século XXI», o texto deste artigo toma como incipit as sugestivas palavras de Margrethe Vestager – «Podemos ter novas tecnologias, mas não temos novos valores. […] A minha primeira prioridade será sempre o ser humano. A tecnologia deve servir-nos» – para, sem moralismo nem tecnofobia, se interrogar sobre o que deveria ser educar e ensinar para a vigília e a coragem solitária do pensamento, (...) bem como para a dignidade de uma humanidade in-formada e responsável, apresentando a responsabilidade (meta-)ética – como fonte e valor dos valores e como ethos e incondição de um humano finalmente digno do nome – não só como a única responsabilidade à altura dos desafios do nosso tempo, mas também como a única a, lucidamente, permitir sonhar com a promessa de uma cultura e de um amanhã de paz, de bem-estar e de justiça crescente. (shrink)

A comunicação pretende sinalizar que o debate entre a “filosofia sem espelhos”, de Richard Rorty e a teoria do agir comunicativo, de Jürgen Habermas, pode ser entendido como exemplo ímpar de crítica e cooperação na busca da verdade filosófica. A estratégia de apresentação se configura em dois procedimentos distintos: Em um primeiro momento proceder-se-á à demarcação sumária da presença do pensamento de Habermas em textos característicos de Rorty e vice-versa. A seguir, será empreendida uma tentativa visando mostrar que a relação (...) entre o pensamento de Rorty e o de Habermas é dialética, isto é, ao mesmo tempo crítica e cooperativa. O objeto principal do debate entre ambos tem a ver, principalmente, com a correta interpretação da virada linguística efetuada na filosofia contemporânea: até que ponto ela implica o abandono puro e simples da teoria da modernidade e do conceito de racionalidade, de Kant, o que implicaria uma verdadeira autodemissão da filosofia? Qual deve ser o critério do novo discurso filosófico: a comensurabilidade científica ou a incomensurabilidade de um não-consenso edificante? (shrink)

A fenomenologia de Michel Henry e Jean-Luc Marion caracteriza-se por uma redefiniçāo da filosofia que nos introduz num universo de conceitos de interesse crescente para as ciências da saúde. A consignaçāo do ego ao corpo dotado de sentidos inverte a ordem lógica dos pnncípios da filosofia de Descartes - ciência; fundaçāo das ciências; metafísica; moral/moral; metafísica; fundaçāo da ciência; ciências - de tal modo que vemos substituídas, em Jean-Luc Marion, as Meditações Metafísicas pelas Meditaçōes Eróticas. É neste processo que Michel (...) Henry se torna, para Jean-Luc Marion, determinante: a declinaçāo do ego à fenomenologia do sentir abre-nos a um novo futuro fenomenològico. Nele a ética revela-se como a verdade da forma de vida daquele que vive num corpo dotado de sentidos. Michel Henry and Jean-Luc Manon's phenomenology has re-defined philosophy and has opened us to an universe of increasingly interest concepts of health sciences. The declination of the ego in a body endowed by senses has reversed the logical order of Descartes's philosophical principles - science, foundation of science, metaphysic, ethics/ethics, into metaphysic, foundation of science and sciences - in such a way that Jean-Luc Marion ended to replace the Metaphysics Meditations by the Erotic Meditations. It is why Michel Henry was so determinant to Jean-Luc Marion: the declination of the ego to the phenomenology of feelings is leading us to a new phenomenological future. In it, ethics reveals to be a real and true way of life of those who live in a body endowed by senses. (shrink)

A Filosofia francesa foi fortemente influenciada por Heidegger, o que não haveria de acontecer sem algumas polémicas. Uma obra recente de D. Janicaud, Heidegger en France, traça algumas das suas peripécias. O presente artigo debruça-se sobre um ponto particular desta influência. O pensamento está desde há bastante tempo associado em França com o sentido do existir das singularidades, sobretudo pessoais; disso o existencialismo é um sinal evidente. É sem dúvida esta mesma preocupação pela existência que deu lugar a investigações fenomenológicas (...) sobre a essência do evento, palavra que traduz mais ou menos fielmente a expressão heideggeriana Ereignis. O artigo expõe, pois, o modo como o tema do Ereignis evolui na obra de Emmanuel Levinas (o evento cria uma temporalidade irredutível às sistematizações da história; a palavra trocada, dita e escutada, traz consigo uma nova temporalidade), Jean-Luc Marion (o evento não se repete, excede todo o presente e abre possibilidades ao ser humano), e Claude Romano (o evento rompe o tempo linear e instaura um mundo em que o princípio é um começo sempre novo). O artigo apresenta-se, deste modo, como uma reflexão sobre a própria essência da fenomenologia, tal qual ela actualmente se desenvolve em França. O artigo propõe ainda uma crítica de uma visão demasiado estética sobre o evento e convida o pensamento a prosseguir a sua reflexão na direcção da história concreta das liberdades. /// French philosophy has been greatly influenced by Heidegger, but not without polemics. A recent book by Janicaud, Heidegger in France, has traced its itinerary. The present article focuses on a single aspect of its influence: the attention given especially to the sense of existence in terms of personal singularities. Existentialism is a case in point. Such a concern produced phenomenological researches on the essence of the event, a word that more or less translates Ereignis. The article demonstrates how the theme of Ereignis has developed in the work of Levinas as that which creates a temporality that is irreducible to systematized history: the exchanged word carries with it a new temporality. In J.-L. Marion's work, the event does not repeat itself and exceeds the present, opening up new possibilities for humankind. For Cl. Romano, the event disrupts linear time and inaugurates a new world. Thus, the article constitutes a reflection on the very essence of phenomenology as manifested currently in France. It also proposes a critique of the overly aesthetic perspective concerning the theme of event and invites thought to pursue its reflection in the direction of the concrete history of freedoms. (shrink)

This comprehensive text shows how various notions of logic can be viewed as notions of universal algebra providing more advanced concepts for those who have an introductory knowledge of algebraic logic, as well as those wishing to delve into more theoretical aspects.

J. B. Schneewind's "The Invention of Autonomy" has been hailed as a major interpretation of modern moral thought. Schneewind's narrative, however, elides several serious interpretive issues, particularly in the transition from late medieval to early modern thought. This results in potentially distorted accounts of Thomas Aquinas, Hugo Grotius, and G. W. Leibniz. Since these thinkers play a crucial role in Schneewind's argument, uncertainty over their work calls into question at least some of Schneewind's larger agenda for the history of ethics.

Jurgen Habermas' construction of a critical social theory of society grounded in communicative reason is one of the very few real philosophical inventions of recent times that demands and repays extended engagement. In this elaborate and sympathetic study which places Habermas' project in the context of critical theory as a whole past and future, J. M. Bernstein argues that despite its undoubted achievements, it contributes to the very problems of ethical dislocation and meaninglessness it aims to diagnose and remedy. Bernstein (...) further argues that the precise character of the failures of Habermas' program demonstrate the necessity for a return to the first generation critical theory of Adorno. Reading across nearly the whole range of Habermas' corpus, Recovering Ethical Life traces the development of the theory of communicative reason from its inception in Knowledge and Human Interests through its elaboration in The Theory of Communicative Action and into its defense against postmodernism in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity . In separate chapters Habermas' readings of Freud, Durkheim amd Mead, Adorno and Foucault, Castoriadis and Taylor are critically examined. The focus of Bernstein's analyses, however, is always problem centered and thematic rather than textual psychoanalytic theory as an account of self knowledge, the competing claims of ethical identity and moral reason, the place of judgment in practical reason, and the debate between philosophies of language based communities versus those oriented towards world-disclosure. Critical theory is unique among current philosophies in engaging with the problems of social injustice and nihilism by siding with an abstract moral reason that forfeits the processes of intersubjective recognition it intended to salvage. Even in the fine grain of Habermas' account of performative contradictions and the theory of discourses of application, Bernstein perceives a squandering of the resources of an ethical life in need of transfiguration. (shrink)

Prologue: Toward a new Enlightenment -- From bounded to relational being -- Bounded being -- In the beginning is the relationship -- The relational self -- The body as relationship : emotion, pleasure and pain -- Relational being in everyday life -- Multi-being and the adventure of everyday life -- Bonds, barricades, and beyond -- Relational being in practice -- Knowledge as co-creation -- Education in a relational key -- Therapy as relational recovery -- Organizing : the precarious balance -- (...) From the moral to the sacred -- Beyond moral pluralism -- All our relations, approaching the sacred -- Epilogue: The coming of relational consciousness. (shrink)

J.L. Schellenberg offers a path to a new kind of religious outlook. Reflection on our early stage in the evolutionary process leads to skepticism about religion, but also offers a new answer to the problem of faith and reason, and the possibility of a new, evolutionary form of religion.

That space and time should be integrated into a single entity, spacetime, is the great insight of Einstein's special theory of relativity, and leads us to regard spacetime as a fundamental context in which to make sense of the world around us. But it is not the only one. Causality is equally important and at least as far as the special theory goes, it cannot be subsumed under a fundamentally geometrical form of explanation. In fact, the agent of propagation of (...) causal influence is electromagnetic radiation. In this examination, the authors find support for a rationalist approach to physics, never neglecting experimentation, but rejecting a simple empiricist or positivist view of science. (shrink)

A pergunta fundamental na filosofia do humor é: o que nos faz rir? Neste artigo, defenderemos a chamada teoria da incongruência, segundo a qual o riso é provocado pela apresentação de aspectos inconsistentes em um proferimento. Para isso, analisaremos como a pragmática da linguagem fornece maneiras de apresentar incongruências em piadas escritas e faladas e, consequentemente, de provocar a diversão cômica em uma audiência. Nosso foco será em implicaturas conversacionais, atos de fala e pressuposições, e como eles são usados em (...) piadas. Esta não é uma análise exaustiva de todas as formas como incongruências são geradas em proferimentos cômicos; claro, há outros modos de apresentar desarmonias, tais como por meio aspectos semânticos. Por fim, discutiremos se piadas deveriam ser consideradas um tipo distinto de ato de fala, ao invés de só um uso parasitário da linguagem. (shrink)

This book takes on two main tasks. The first is to argue that anti-hedonism lies at the center of Plato's critical project in both ethics and politics. Plato sees pleasure and pain as our sole sources of empirical evidence about good and bad. But as sources of evidence they are highly fallible; contrast effects with pain intensify certain pleasures, including most pleasures related to the body and social standing. This leads us to believe that the causes of such pleasures (e.g. (...) food, drink, sex, status) are greater goods than they are, and greater goods than other, more important goods (e.g. virtue, knowledge). As a result, hedonic error produces the belief that vice, including injustice, can be prudent. Hedonic error leads to other misconceptions of virtue as well, such as that wisdom is weak and can be ruled by the passions. These cognitive distortions can only be corrected by reference to some non-hedonic standard, so hedonists reliably fall prey to them. This entire system of attitudes—hedonism and its associated misconceptions of virtue—is widely held and constitutes popular morality. Popular morality's basic source is hedonic error, but it is also transmitted and sustained in society through shame and fear of punishment. However, avoiding shame and punishment requires a sort of double-think: adherents of popular morality must accept certain views that they cannot acknowledge too clearly or too publicly. For example, they must hold that injustice can be prudent and must be willing to wrong out-groups (e.g. another city), but openly acknowledging this same view threatens in-groups (one's own city) by implying willingness to wrong some in the city to benefit a closer in-group (e.g. one's class, clique, or family). // -/- The book's second task is to tackle a seeming outlier to Plato's anti-hedonism: the _Protagoras_, where Socrates appears to defend hedonism. I argue that the _Protagoras_ actually perfectly illustrates Plato's anti-hedonism, as explained above. Protagoras and other sophists think they shape public opinion, but in fact they have internalized popular morality through shame and fear. As a result, Protagoras accepts but refuses to openly endorse three parts of popular morality: that injustice can be prudent (333c), that pleasure is the good (351c-d), and that wisdom is weak and can be ruled by the passions (352c-d). Each time, his concealed view is (aptly!) attributed to "the many". So, when Socrates appears to endorse hedonism in the _Protagoras_, he actually introduces and develops the view as part of his examination of Protagoras' covert ethical commitments. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the question of quantitativeness – of identifying the feature that makes quantitative properties quantitative. The chapter begins with two traditional attempts at capturing what makes a property quantitative – being numerical and being determinable – and argues that neither is satisfactory. The chapter then turns to influential recent proposals which, inspired by the Representational Theory of Measurement, attempt to identify particular relations as characteristic of quantitative properties. These attempts fare better than the traditional ones, but have (...) their own limitations. It concludes with a discussion of a new recent criterion for quantitativeness, which builds on a more abstract understanding of the representational theory of measurement. (shrink)