Leibniz's repeated interventions in the Trinitarian polemics widespread throughout Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries cannot merely be read as scholastic exercises or concessions to the conventions of his time. On the contrary, they involved reflection on issues fundamental to Leibniz's philosophical doctrines: issues such as the relationship between faith and reason, the limitations of the human intellect and the various grades of human knowledge, and the significance of the ' analogia Trinitatis' reconsidered in light of the concept of (...) harmony. This paper concentrates on the writings of the young Leibniz before his visit to Paris and aims to examine the role played by contemporary discussions concerning the Trinity and the Incarnation in the formation of Leibniz's thought. (shrink)

IN THE LAST PART of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith puts his theory in a class with those of his contemporaries Francis Hutcheson and David Hume, namely, the systems that make sentiments the principle of approbation. Despite recognizing important differences with both of them, he thinks that since he has placed the origin of moral sentiments in sympathy, and in particular the fact that we are able to enter into the motives of the agent and get pleasure from (...) finding them appropriate to their cause, sentiments are the foundation of his theory of morals. Many of Smith’s commentators, in fact almost all of the most important studies over the last few years, reaffirm the author’s self-description. However, my aim in this paper is to challenge this view by showing that Smith’s system can also be plausibly seen as a theory of practical reasoning, and in some important aspects very similar to Aristotelian ethics. Surprisingly few scholars have seen this parallel. Laurence Berns, Samuel Fleischacker, Charles Griswold, and Gloria Vivenza are the latest exceptions, identifying several points of coincidence between Adam Smith and Aristotle’s ethics. None of them, however, has tied all these similarities under a unified interpretation, such as the one I propose here: The basic analogy between these theories, and the source of those particular coincidences, is the operation of practical reason. Moreover, and besides the common elements with Aristotle’s ethics, Smith’s reconstruction of practical reason simultaneously announces some of the main features of modern accounts of ethics, such as impartiality and universality as preconditions of moral judgment. The integration of these ancient and modern elements in a single coherent theory allows Smith’s TMS to overcome the insufficiencies and paradoxes of both these traditions, and it constitutes one of the most interesting and challenging proposals of modern ethics. (shrink)

En un momento de tensión y polémica por la situación que tiene la enseñanza de la filosofía dentro de la l. o. g. s. e., es útil hacer una reflexión comparativa con el modo en el que se esta dando respuesta a la didáctica de la filosofía en otro país europeo, en Italia.

This Teacher Education Project is an intervention research aimed at creating new school roles for educating students as readers and writers as well as citizens. The methodological framework was based on Vygotsky’s discussions of method as praxis, as well as on both the Marxist practical–materialistic–revolutionary activity and Engeström’s extensions of Cultural Historical Activity Theory. The work at school was motivated by students’ limited awareness of reading and writing. The goal was to involve the school as a community in understanding and (...) transforming the ways in which reading and writing were addressed in classrooms. The methodology used for organizing and carrying out the project was devised so as to allow for three activity systems that partially interact with their objects – that is, reading and writing as tools for teaching-learning in different areas in order to constitute students as citizens. However, for this paper, we will focus solely on the Teacher Education Activity System, which we termed Teacher Support Team. Three episodes are discussed in this paper: Two video sessions with the Teacher Support Team, the first of which took place in 2010, and the second in 2011; and a classroom reading class session that was videotaped in 2011 as part of the Teacher Support Team work. The theoretical and practical work developed was targeted at creating a mutual Zone of Proximal Development that supported teachers, coordinators, and the principal, through the appropriation of reading and writing as processes. The results show that the organization of the project as interrelated activity systems enhanced the entire school’s prospects of appropriating the reading and writing teaching-learning processes, by focusing on the same object, in the diverse systems that framed the project. (shrink)

The Ashgate Research Companion to Cosmopolitanism pursues distinct theoretical orientations and empirical analyses, bringing together mainstream discussions ...

FIM ÚLTIMO DA VIDA DO INDIVÍDUO E NÃO DA ESPÉCIE, A MORTE NÃO SIGNIFICA PARA SCHOPENHAUER O FIM DA VONTADE ENQUANTO ESSÊNCIA, ISTO É, DO QUERER-VIVER INDESTRUTÍVEL. A VISÃO DA MORTE COMO “MUSA DA FILOSOFIA” E DA FILOSOFIA COMO “PREPARAÇÃO PARA A MORTE” LIGA-SE À IMPORTÂNCIA DO ORGANISMO E DE SEU CICLO VITAL NO PENSAMENTO DO FILÓSOFO. ESSE SERÁ O PONTO DE PARTIDA PARA MOSTRAR A INTERDEPENDÊNCIA DE SUAS REFLEXÕES SOBRE A ÉTICA E, ACIMA DE TUDO, DA SUA CONDENAÇÃO DO (...) SUICÍDIO, EM RELAÇÃO À SUA METAFÍSICA IMANENTE DA VONTADE COMO QUERER-VIVER, INCONTROLÁVEL PELO ARBÍTRIO INDIVIDUAL. DESSE MODO, UMA TAL “FILOSOFIA DA NATUREZA” MOSTRA O SEU PRESSUPOSTO: A IMPOSSIBILIDADE DE CONTROLE, POR QUALQUER INSTÂNCIA EXTERIOR, DESSE IMPULSO PRIMORDIAL. EM CONTRAPARTIDA, PÕE-SE A DIFERENÇA ABISSAL ENTRE A MORTE DO INDIVÍDUO E A NEGAÇÃO DA ATIVIDADE DA VONTADE. (shrink)