O percurso acadêmico da Profa. Dra. Maria das Graças de Souza é aqui apresentado sob duas formulações que se entrelaçam: uma discussão sobre seus textos teóricos e a apresentação de suas atividades, no decorrer da carreira acadêmica. A primeira parte, intitulada: “O percurso intelectual: a articulação entre História, Política e ação política”, escrita por Jacira de Freitas, discute as ideias essenciais da produção teórica da filósofa, e defende a hipótese de que nela se reflete um pensamento que articula (...) a História, a Política e a ação política, evidenciando a preocupação em conciliar a teoria e a prática, algo que reaparece em sua atuação como professora, mas se exprime sobretudo no âmbito de seus estudos. A segunda parte do texto, intitulada “A trajetória de uma professora”, escrita por Patrícia Aranovich, debruça-se sobre as atividades desenvolvidas como professora do Departamento de Filosofia da USP, e em suas interações com os Grupos de Estudo e Grupos de Pesquisa em todo o país, assim como com seus orientandos, alunos, amigos e colegas. (shrink)

A discussão desenvolvida no presente texto diz respeito à função conceitual adquirida pela Antiguidade na elaboração do ideal de cidade (cité), no pensamento político de Rousseau. A hipótese a ser demonstrada é que o mito da Antiguidade se transmuta num mecanismo de geração de conceitos que dão sustentação à formulação do seu ideal de corpo político, cristalizado no conceito de cité. Procura-se delinear de que maneira a noção mítica da Antiguidade grega se insere na visão de mundo do jovem Rousseau (...) e, posteriormente, no âmbito de seu pensamento político para elucidar os mecanismos pelos quais interfere na elaboração conceitual do ideal político rousseauniano.sentes no seu pensamento. (shrink)

As análises de Rousseaus indicam que o ingresso no universo simbólico traz consigo a possibilidade da perda da unidade do indivíduo e, com ela, a possibilidade de ruptura do vínculo social. Partindo da demonstração de que a mediaão dos signos representativos se dá em três instâncias distintas, procurou-se detectar se a mesma lógica que comanda o sistema como um todo subjaz às suas teorias musicais. Demonstra-se aqui a ideia de que uma sequência hierarquizada de valores, que vão do mínimo ao (...) máximo de inserção de signos representativos, também se exprime nas concepções musicais de Rousseau. Desse modo, tais concepções se integram perfeitamente ao conjunto da obra do autor por estarem em conformidade com os princípios que fundamentam suas doutrinas. (shrink)

O texto aqui apresentado se constrói na intersecção de duas vertentes de interpretação da filosofia de Rousseau: por um lado, aquelas que privilegiam o aspecto moral do pensamento do genebrino; e, por outro lado, as leituras concentradas nos aspectos autobiográficos de sua obra.

A growing body of research has examined how people judge the persistence of identity over time—that is, how they decide that a particular individual is the same entity from one time to the next. While a great deal of progress has been made in understanding the types of features that people typically consider when making such judgments, to date, existing work has not explored how these judgments may be shaped by normative considerations. The present studies demonstrate that normative beliefs do (...) appear to play an important role in people's beliefs about persistence. Specifically, people are more likely to judge that the identity of a given entity remains the same when its features improve than when its features deteriorate. Study 1 provides a basic demonstration of this effect. Study 2 shows that this effect is moderated by individual differences in normative beliefs. Study 3 examines the underlying mechanism, which is the belief that, in general, various entities are essentially good. Study 4 directly manipulates beliefs about essence to show that the positivity bias regarding essences is causally responsible for the effect. (shrink)

People sometimes explain behavior by appealing to an essentialist concept of the self, often referred to as the true self. Existing studies suggest that people tend to believe that the true self is morally virtuous; that is deep inside, every person is motivated to behave in morally good ways. Is this belief particular to individuals with optimistic beliefs or people from Western cultures, or does it reflect a widely held cognitive bias in how people understand the self? To address this (...) question, we tested the good true self theory against two potential boundary conditions that are known to elicit different beliefs about the self as a whole. Study 1 tested whether individual differences in misanthropy—the tendency to view humans negatively—predict beliefs about the good true self in an American sample. The results indicate a consistent belief in a good true self, even among individuals who have an explicitly pessimistic view of others. Study 2 compared true self-attributions across cultural groups, by comparing samples from an independent country and a diverse set of interdependent countries. Results indicated that the direction and magnitude of the effect are comparable across all groups we tested. The belief in a good true self appears robust across groups varying in cultural orientation or misanthropy, suggesting a consistent psychological tendency to view the true self as morally good. (shrink)

Como sabemos, a República de Platão tem como um dos pontos cardinais a busca pela Justiça. Os temas abordados ao longo do diálogo convergem para o desejo do ateniense de construir uma cidade calcada no modelo que ele considera justo. Platão encontra inspiração para seu conteúdo político na Cosntituição de Esparta, formulada pelo legendário legislador Licurgo no século IX a.C.. As semelhanças entre a obra platônica e o conjunto de leis espartanas tornam-se inevitáveis se cotejarmos ambos os textos. A reforma (...) militarista, estabelecida por Licurgo após uma consulta feita ao Oráculo de Delfos, e o pensamento revelado pelo filósofo de Atenas, quatro séculos mais tarde, guardam muitas analogias. (shrink)

Video data has now become the most common form of data for educational researchers studying classroom interaction and school culture. Software protocols for analysing vast archives of video data are deployed regularly, allowing researchers to annotate, code and sort images. These protocols are often applied by researchers without reflection or reference to the extensive philosophical work in film and media studies. Without exception, this research treats the video image as movement-image or picture, a recording of ‘raw data’, indexical of a (...) given time-space relationship. In this article I situate this kind of research within the history of scientific cinema, drawing on Deleuze's books on cinema, as well as his ideas on colour and figure from The Logic of Sensation, to propose an alternative way of analysing video data. One of the central claims of Deleuze in Cinema 2 is that the time-image reconfigures bodies as expressions of force – the body becomes a ‘shock of forces’. I argue that such an approach allows us to study the student body as less a phenomenological organism with built-in ‘I can’ cognitive and motor capacities, and more an indeterminate crystalline contraction and expansion of intensity. I present an example of how to study classroom video data as time-image, and explore the implications of such work for education research. (shrink)

Using the work of philosopher Henri Bergson to examine the nature of movement and memory, this article contributes to recent research on the role of the body in learning mathematics. Our aim in this paper is to introduce the ideas of Bergson and to show how these ideas shed light on mathematics classroom activity. Bergson’s monist philosophy provides a framework for understanding the materiality of both bodies and mathematical concepts. We discuss two case studies of classrooms to show how the (...) mathematical concepts of number and function are themselves mobile and full of potentiality, open to deformation and the remapping of the possible. Bergson helps us look differently at mathematical activity in the classroom, not as a closed set of distinct interacting bodies groping after abstract concepts, but as a dynamic relational assemblage. (shrink)

La autora argumenta sobre la necesidad de pensar en un desarrollo humano sostenible por las profundas transformaciones de la sociedad contemporánea a partir de la globalización de la economía, y la reestructuración productiva que ello genera. Sostiene que del presente concepto de desarrollo no podemos esperar alcanzar la calidad de vida como es concebida y esperada por cada sociedad, y presenta tres propuestas que sí reúnen las condiciones para responder de manera más adecuada a un desarrollo socialmente deseable. Ellas son (...) el Ecodesarrollo, el Desarrollo Sostenible y el Desarrollo Endógeno. Tras ello, postula la relevancia de generar investigación participativa para dirigirse al desarrollo deseado, y ejemplifica con varios proyectos de desarrollo local en el Brasil. (shrink)

In his struggle to constitute sociology as a natural science, Durkheim fought against finalism, Gabriel Tarde’s general project, efforts at theoretical synthesis unconnected to specific empirical problems, and ideological analysis. The article dwells on these four "epistemological battles," especially on Durkheim’s (unfortunately failed) effort toward purging the social sciences from ideological analysis.

As pesquisas sobre biopoder e biopolítica, cada vez mais, emergem e sobrevoam altitudes nunca antes vistas. A ressignificação destes termos, por parte de Michel Foucault, denota campos de saberes mútuos, ou, no mínimo, se apresentam sob diversas discussões de níveis acadêmicos variados. Deste modo, o intuito deste artigo é utilizar o aparato conceitual foucaultiano a respeito do biopoder e da biopolítica para analisarmos alguns fatos que acontecem na cidade de Belém do Pará. Para isso, elucidaremos o termo da obra de (...) Foucault, respondendo a 3 questões básicas: 1ª- O que é o biopoder? 2ª- Por que pensar o biopoder hoje? 3ª- Como a reflexão teórica do biopoder pode nos proporcionar um entendimento ou análise de mundo? Esperamos que a discussão suscite novos debates a nível local, pelo Brasil. (shrink)

The work is composed of two mutually structuring moments. First, it briefly and critically reconstructs the broader spectrum of the health crisis surrounding Covid-19 that came to light in 2019 and which, in a distant or more recent period, received unique attention in the literary work of Shakespeare and Camus. Second, it provides an account of an experience in which the author, once a victim of the pandemic, retains memories that still have a therapeutic impact on the post-hospital period. Broadly (...) speaking, by looking at this double and mutual record, the text advocates the thesis that such memories are an invitation to permanent reflection without, however, losing sight of another way of life as a possible utopia, whether as a diagnosis or as an antidote to the crisis. From this perspective, Merleau-Ponty’s mature work becomes, in particular, an indispensable guide as a backdrop in this scenario by bringing to light the symptomatically dazzling aspect of the human condition and its ills. The ongoing project of a nouvelle ontologie, in the philosopher’s final itinerary, emblematically circumscribed as “ontological rehabilitation of the sensible,” embraces, in turn, this task and commitment. It is, in short, a philosophy thought from the deepest dimension of our carnality, an experience of thought archaeologically rooted as intertwined with life and, therefore, not indifferent to pain and suffering. It is to this extent that the reflection contains, as a final proposition, the premise that the marks left, in flesh and blood, in the light of the revived experience of the body, greatly prospect a horizon of meaning to be better understood and reconstructed. (shrink)

In this work, formulas are inclusions \ and non-inclusions \ between Boolean terms \ and \. We present a set of rules through which one can transform a term t in a diagram \ and, consequently, each inclusion \ ) in an inclusion \ ) between diagrams. Also, by applying the rules just to the diagrams we are able to solve the problem of verifying if a formula \ is consequence of a, possibly empty, set \ of formulas taken as (...) hypotheses. Our system has a diagrammatic language based on Venn diagrams that are read as sets, and not as statements about sets, as usual. We present syntax and semantics of the diagrammatic language, define a set of rules for proving consequence, and prove that our set of rules is strongly sound and complete in the following sense: given a set \ of formulas, \ is a consequence of \ iff there is a proof of this fact that is based only on the rules of the system and involves only diagrams associated to \ and to the members of \. (shrink)

Este estudo problematiza os castigos físicos usados nas escolas, investigando tanto as estratégias utilizadas pelas instâncias de poder, a fim de ordenar as práticas cotidianas, como as táticas utilizadas por professores, gestores e pais para lidarem com os preceitos impostos. Nese ínterim, são denunciadas as tensões existentes nessa relação, mergulhando em práticas, representações e argumentos utilizados nos séculos XIX e XX, tanto para corroborar quanto para proscrever os castigos físicos no espaço escolar. O texto é concluído através de uma reflexão (...) acerca dos castigos como parte da cultura escolar, fazendo referência, também, à distância existente entre as prescrições oficiais e as práticas ordinárias, bem como aos castigos como caminho para educar e civilizar sujeitos. (shrink)

Foucault inscreve a fenomenologia num movimento de desconstrução da racionalidade. Esse registro será arqueologicamente operado em As Palavras e as Coisas como signo de uma subversão radical vinda a lume pela “modernidade” em franca oposição à “idade clássica” da cultura no Ocidente, tendo como pano de fundo algo que se revela aquém do cogito: o “impensado”. O que emerge, aqui, é a dimensão mais profunda da razão e da epistémê, ou seja, a camada subterrânea pela qual o acontecimento e a (...) historicidade operam sob a superfície do saber. É essa nova figura que entra em cena, por exemplo, via diferentes discursos como a “alienação”, o “inconsciente” ou o “irrefletido”. No tocante à tradição fenomenológica, a admissão da Lebenswelt, do Dasein, do cogito pré-reflexivo ou da Carne, o “impensado” transfigura a região privilegiada pela qual o pensamento sempre retorna. Ora, se é patente que Foucault circunscreve essa operação como uma posição de princípio a ser superada, não deixa, contudo, de ser plausível o quanto ele parece selar uma espécie de “aliança à distância” com o espírito fenomenológico. O “retorno às coisas mesmas”, em termos foucaultianos, investe-se de outro estatuto, liberando a história de todo pressuposto teleológico, num regresso ao coração do presente. É esse agenciamento que permite, sob certos aspectos, situar a obra de Foucault próxima a de Merleau-Ponty, à maneira de uma reflexão marginal, “transgressora”, abrindo, pois, uma zona de sombra, “impensada”, em sua infraestrutura última. Tal é a “paragem” interpretativa a ser, aqui, perseguida. (shrink)

Cuando en El coraje de la verdad se comienzan a trazar las primeras directrices para la realización de una transhistoria del cinismo, que implicaría un rastreo de las diferentes manifestaciones cínicas desde la era alejandrina hasta el presente, Foucault dice estar muy desprovisto de trabajos en los que haya sido planteado este proyecto, y que apenas tiene noticia de cuatro textos, todos de origen germánico y de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, que, al menos, abordan la relación entre el (...) cinismo clásico y un presunto cinismo moderno. De estos cuatro, el filósofo francés confiesa haber leído solo tres: El coraje de existir de Paul Tillich, Parmenides und Jona de Klaus Heinrich y Moral e hipermoral de Arnold Gehlen, obras que le hacen preguntarse sobre el especial interés de la filosofía alemana por el fenómeno cínico. En el presente ensayo, pretendemos adentrarnos en estos libros para esclarecer la forma en la que en ellos se entiende dicho fenómeno, y así dar cuenta de su influjo, por concordancia o confrontación, sobre la original concepción foucaultiana del cinismo. (shrink)

Popper's thesis that the growth of knowledge lies in the emergence of problems out of criticism and takes place in an autonomous world of products of the human mind (his so-called world-3) raises two questions: (1) Why does criticism lead to new problems, and (2) Why can only a limited number of tentative solutions arise at a given time? I propose the following answer: Criticism entails an overlooked evolutionary world-3 mechanism, namely, the migration of piece meal conceptual schemes from one (...) research tradition to another. Popper by passed the questions above because he relied very heavily on the selective power of criticism. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta um estudo teórico sobre o pensamento de Gert Biesta, filósofo e educador holandês, internacionalmente reconhecido como referência no campo da Pedagogia Crítica. Tem como objetivo pôr em discussão o conceito learnification, criado pelo autor e posteriormente traduzido por aprenderismo, considerando ser esse uma importante referência para orientar estudos e práticas na perspectiva de problematizar o discurso educacional dominante. Como método, apresenta um procedimento complementar aos estudos bibliográficos, qual seja, a análise de vídeos referentes a palestras disponibilizadas pelo (...) autor no ambiente virtual YouTube. Com base na Análise Textual Discursiva, foram tomados como objeto de estudo três vídeos, a saber: “Good education in the age of measurement”; “Being home in the world” e “The beautiful risk of education”. Os vídeos correspondem, respectivamente, a palestras realizadas pelo autor, em diferentes eventos educacionais, entre os anos de 2013 e 2017, perfazendo um período de seis anos e contando com um intervalo de dois anos entre cada palestra selecionada. Resulta deste estudo uma compreensão ampliada do conceito, cuja complexidade buscamos expressar a partir de quatro palavras-chave: mensuração, qualificação, mercantilização e egocentrismo. Cada uma das referidas palavras-chave dá pistas para compreender o conceito, bem como para sugerir a continuidade de estudos sobre o pensamento do autor. Nesse sentido, as considerações finais apresentam questionamentos, com vistas ao aprofundamento de estudos, convidando ao diálogo. Como conclusão, reitera-se a importância do pensamento de Gert Biesta e a relevância da compreensão acerca do conceito learnification/aprenderismo, concebendo-o como significativa contribuição para orientar estudos e práticas no campo da Pedagogia Critica, na perspectiva de pensar/fazer uma boa Educação na era da mensuração. (shrink)

Past research has identified a number of asymmetries based on moral judgments. Beliefs about what a person values, whether a person is happy, whether a person has shown weakness of will, and whether a person deserves praise or blame seem to depend critically on whether participants themselves find the agent's behavior to be morally good or bad. To date, however, the origins of these asymmetries remain unknown. The present studies examine whether beliefs about an agent's “true self” explain these observed (...) asymmetries based on moral judgment. Using the identical materials from previous studies in this area, a series of five experiments indicate that people show a general tendency to conclude that deep inside every individual there is a “true self” calling him or her to behave in ways that are morally virtuous. In turn, this belief causes people to hold different intuitions about what the agent values, whether the agent is happy, whether he or she has shown weakness of will, and whether he or she deserves praise or blame. These results not only help to answer important questions about how people attribute various mental states to others; they also contribute to important theoretical debates regarding how moral values may shape our beliefs about phenomena that, on the surface, appear to be decidedly non-moral in nature. (shrink)

O amor é um tema presente nas mais diversas obras platônicas, das quais constitui grande referência: Fedro, Lísis, República e, o mais importante e especialmente dedicado ao tema, Banquete. Para Platão, o amor é a base da educação. O mesmo dirá Rubem Alves na contemporaneidade. Interessa-nos, então, entender esse amor platônico que leva o nome de Eros - a partir, sobretudo, das obras Banquete e Fedro - e apontar, seguindo o caminho da pedagogia rubemsiana, sua importância como instrumento e base (...) para a educação contemporânea. (shrink)

A lo largo de su producción intelectual, Nietzsche no dejó de abordar, aunque de forma más o menos satelital, el tema del cinismo, primero en su manifestación literaria grecorromana, sobre todo representada en la literatura menipea, y luego en tanto fenómeno ético y epistemológico. En este segundo momento el cinismo empezó a ser relacionado con una de las nociones fundamentales del corpus nietzscheano: la crítica fisiológica. El esclarecimiento de este vínculo es el objetivo principal del presente artículo.

Resumo: O artigo desdobra algumas implicações decorrentes de uma análise ficcional em torno das artes neoliberais de governo. Nessa direção, articula os pressupostos das teorias biopolíticas da formação humana agenciadas pela entrada no Antropoceno, a fim de pensar a desabilitação do que Elizabeth Povinelli chama de imaginário do carbono e seus processos de marcação, distinção e desqualificação ontológica. Trata-se, portanto, de um ensaio especulativo produzido em torno do diagnóstico de um desmoronamento catastrófico da distinção fundamental da episteme moderna, a distinção (...) entre as ordens cosmológica e antropológica, sugerindo uma cartografia precária dos corpos ingovernáveis ancorada em uma sutil arte política: a arte de segurar o céu pelas diferenças. Essa arte almeja atravessar o abismo que historicamente separou um povo com filosofia em oposição aos povos com mito, construindo pontes que incitem a Filosofia da educação e seus praticantes a se situarem na equivocidade dos mundos e aí habitar. Palavras-chave: Antropoceno. Geontologia. Cartografias da diferença. Formação humana. Altered bodies, ungovernable bodies: ethical-aesthetic cartographies to hold the sky through diferences: The article unfolds some implications arising from a fictional analysis around the neoliberal arts of government. In this sense, it articulates the presuppositions of the biopolitical theories of human formation that were introduced by the entry into the Anthropocene, in order to think about the disabling of what Elizabeth Povinelli calls the carbon imaginary and its processes of marking, distinction and ontological disqualification. The argument is a speculative essay produced around the diagnosis of a catastrophic collapse of the fundamental distinction of modern episteme, suggesting a precarious cartography of ungovernable bodies anchored in a subtle political art: art of holding the sky through the differences. This art aims to bridge the chasm that has historically separated a people with philosophy as opposed to people with myth, building bridges that incite the Philosophy of education and its practitioners to lie in the equivocity of worlds and dwell there. Keywords: Anthropocene. Geontology. Cartographies of the difference. Human formation. Cuerpos alterados, cuerpos ingobernables: cartografías ético-estéticas para sostener el cielo a través de las diferencias Resumen: El artículo desarrolla un análisis sobre las artes neoliberales del gobierno. En este sentido, refleja las presuposiciones de las teorías biopolíticas de la formación humana frente a la entrada al Antropoceno, a fin de pensar la desactivación de lo que Elizabeth Povinelli llama el imaginario del carbono y sus procesos de distinción y descalificación ontológica. Es, por lo tanto, un ensayo especulativo producido en torno al diagnóstico de un colapso catastrófico de la distinción fundamental de la episteme moderna, sugiriendo una cartografía de cuerpos ingobernables anclados en un sutil arte político: la arte de sostener el cielo a través de las diferencias. Esta arte tiene como objetivo cerrar el abismo que ha dividido un pueblo con filosofía y un pubelo con mitos, construyendo puentes que inciten a la Filosofía de la educación y a sus practicantes a pararse en la ambigüedad de los mundos y habitar allí. Palabras clave: Antropoceno. Geontología. Cartografías de la diferencia. Formación humana. (shrink)

Thinking with Spinoza about education involves thinking with and beyond his authored texts, situating his work within the tradition of Western thought, and exploring his contribution to the philoso...

We discuss the question of inclusions between positive relational terms and some of its aspects, using the form of a dialogue. Two possible approaches to the problem are emphasized: natural deduction and graph manipulations. Both provide sound and complete calculi for proving the valid inclusions, supporting nice strategies to obtain proofs in normal form, but the latter appears to present several advantages, which are discussed.

A long-debated question in the philosophy of health, and contingent disciplines, is the extent to which wise clinical practice (“clinical wisdom”) is, or could be, compatible with empirically validated medicine (“evidence-based medicine”—EBM). Here we respond to Baum-Baicker and Sisti, who not only suggest that these two types of knowledge are divided due to their differing sources, but also that EBM can sometimes even hurt wise clinical practice. We argue that the distinction between EBM and clinical wisdom is poorly defined, unsupported (...) by the methodology employed, and ultimately incorrect; crucial differences exist, we argue, not in the source of a particular piece of clinical knowledge, but in its dependability. In light of this subtle but fundamental revision, we explain how clinical wisdom and EBM are—by necessity—complementary, rather than in conflict. We elaborate on how recognizing this relationship can have far-reaching implications for the domains of clinical practice, medical education, and health policy. (shrink)

O texto visa, contextualmente, situar Nietzsche como um precursor da fenomenologia compreendida por Merleau-Ponty menos a título de uma “doutrina” e mais como um “movimento” incoativo e inacabado. É sob esse prisma que a obra nietzschiana projeta viva audiência a alguns temas caros àquele movimento, entre eles, a interrogação acerca do mundo como mistério. Esse agenciamento encontra na ideia de profundidade um fio condutor decisivo a fim de ressignificar, em termos husserlianos, uma arqueologia da Lebenswelt enquanto regresso a uma Terra (...) originária, algo que, ao que tudo indica, possui importantes ressonâncias não só de matrizes nietzschianas, mas cezannianas. Trata-se, enfim, de examinar em que medida a filosofia de Nietzsche e a pintura de Cézanne perfazem um rico experimento capaz de fulgurar um sentido arquétipo da natureza como abismo ou, no dizer de Merleau-Ponty, o mundo como enigma primordial ou deflagração de um Ser das profundidades. (shrink)

There has been a call for a potentially revolutionary change to our existing understanding of the psychological concept of personal identity. Apparently, people can psychologically represent people, including themselves, as multiple individuals at the same time. Here we ask whether the intransitive judgments found in these studies truly reflect the operation of an intransitive concept of personal identity. We manipulate several factors that arbitrate between transitivity and intransitivity and find most support for transitivity: in contrast to prior work, most participants (...) do not make intransitive judgments when there is any reason to favor one individual over another. People change which single individual they personally identify with, depending on which individual competes more strongly or weakly for identity, rather than identifying with both individuals. Even when two individuals are identical and therefore both entitled to be the same person, we find that people make more transitive judgments once they understand the practical commitments of their responses (Experiment 4), and report not being able to actually imagine two perspectives simultaneously when reasoning about the scenario (Experiment 5). In short, we suggest that while people may make intransitive judgments, these do not reflect that they psychologically represent identity in an intransitive manner. (shrink)

Population control through discriminatory practices is found at all times in history. Never before, however, has use of the sciences been so close to achieving the creation of new mechanisms for generating human "subspecies". This study, which is based on a selected theoretical framework, deals with the biotechnological and bioethical challenges on the path to manipulation as concerns the development of potentially harmful practices in a pluralist context. Segregation or even the destruction of undesirable human beings is a frightening reflection (...) of an egocentric and largely prejudiced society. However, the future will not necessarily be obscure if Homo sapiens can act ethically and positively. (shrink)

As a continuation of the previous paper,Praying for a Miracle – Negative or Positive Impacts on Health Care, published in this research topic, this second paper aims at delving deeper into the same theme, but now from a simultaneously practical and conceptual approach. With that in mind, we revisit three theoretical models based on evidence, through which we can understand the role of a miracle in hospital settings and assess its impact in health contexts. For each of the models described, (...) we seek to illustrate the possible outcomes of belief in miracles as a modality of religious coping in situations of stress and suffering experienced by patients and caregivers in the face of gloomy diagnoses on coming across the limits of medicine to revert certain illnesses (e.g., child cancer) or biological conditions (e.g., fetal malformation). We posit that the judgment about how such a mechanism is healthy or not for each of the people involved (patient, caregiver, and/or health professional) depends on the modulation between the conception of the miracle adopted by the patient and/or caregiver and the concrete outcomes of the way of responding to the situations that accompany the gravity of the illness or condition. To better understand this process of psychological modulation that accompanies belief in miracles, we revisit the concepts of spirituality, religiosity, and religion, pointing out the connections and distinctions between them from a phenomenological perspective. We then present a conceptual model that takes these connections and distinctions into consideration to foster an understanding of miracles, their relations with the diversity of experiences of people who meet in hospital settings (patients, caregivers, and health professionals), and their respective impacts on healthcare. (shrink)

Responding to widespread interest within cultural studies and social inquiry, this book addresses the question 'what is a mathematical concept?' using a variety of vanguard theories in the humanities and posthumanities. Tapping historical, philosophical, sociological and psychological perspectives, each chapter explores the question of how mathematics comes to matter. Of interest to scholars across the usual disciplinary divides, this book tracks mathematics as a cultural activity, drawing connections with empirical practice. Unlike other books in this area, it is highly interdisciplinary, (...) devoted to exploring the ontology of mathematics as it plays out in different contexts. This book will appeal to scholars who are interested in particular mathematical habits - creative diagramming, structural mappings, material agency, interdisciplinary coverings - that shed light on both mathematics and other disciplines. Chapters are also relevant to social sciences and humanities scholars, as each offers philosophical insight into mathematics and how we might live mathematically. (shrink)

Recent scientific research has settled on a purely descriptive definition of happiness that is focused solely on agents’ psychological states (high positive affect, low negative affect, high life satisfaction). In contrast to this understanding, recent research has suggested that the ordinary concept of happiness is also sensitive to the moral value of agents’ lives. Five studies systematically investigate and explain the impact of morality on ordinary assessments of happiness. Study 1 demonstrates that moral judgments influence assessments of happiness not only (...) for untrained participants, but also for academic researchers and even in those who study happiness specifically. Studies 2 and 3 then respectively ask whether this effect may be explained by general motivational biases or beliefs in a just world. In both cases, we find evidence against these explanations. Study 4 shows that the impact of moral judgments cannot be explained by changes in the perception of descriptive psychological states. Finally, Study 5 compares the impact of moral and non-moral value, and provides evidence that unlike non-moral value, moral value is part of the criteria that govern the ordinary concept of happiness. Taken together, these studies provide a specific explanation of how and why the ordinary concept of happiness deviates from the definition used by researchers studying happiness. (shrink)