Nesse artigo propomos a análise de um dos eventos presentes no Sutra de Kṣitigarbha, que narra sobre uma das vidas do contínuo do desperto na qual suas aspirações iniciais de beneficiar todos os seres a superarem os renascimentos miseráveis são fortalecidas. Essa análise ocorrerá sob a perspectiva do desenvolvimento da compaixão como explicado por Tsongkhapa no Grande Tratado do Caminho Gradual da Iluminação. Buscaremos assim entender como esse sutra devocional busca estimular o desenvolvimento dessa virtude através de uma narrativa alegórica (...) sobre ações aflitivas, seus resultados nos renascimentos dos seres e práticas que visam beneficiar aqueles que faleceram. Com isso, refletiremos sobre como esse estímulo ao cultivo da compaixão pode auxiliar o praticante a lidar com o luto. (shrink)

Resumen En este trabajo intentaré comparar dos momentos en la producción teórica de Nancy Fraser: sus análisis contemporáneos del capitalismo como orden institucional y su marco categorial previo, basado en dualismo de redistribución y reconocimiento. Destacaré tres grandes rupturas en su evolución intelectual: en el diagnóstico del presente, en la comprensión del capitalismo como tal y en la propuesta política.In this paper I will try to compare two periods in Nancy Fraser's theoretical evolution: her analysis of contemporary capitalism as an (...) institutional social order and her previous categorial framework, based on the dualims of redistribution and recognition. I will highlight three major ruptures in her intellectual development: in the diagnosis of present times, in the understanding of capitalism as such and in political proposal. (shrink)

The contemporary state is not only the main force behind environmental change, but the reactions to environmental problems have played a crucial role in the modernisation of the state apparatus, especially because of its mediatory role. The Political Ecology of the State is the first book to critically assess the philosophical basis of environmental statehood and regulation, addressing the emergence and evolution of environmental regulation from the early 20th Century to the more recent phase of ecological modernisation and the neoliberalisation (...) of nature. The state is understood as the result of permanent socionatural interactions and multiple forms of contestation, from a critical politico-ecological approach. This book examines the tension between pro- and anti-commons tendencies that have permeated the organisation and failures of the environmental responses put forward by the state. It provides a reinterpretation of the achievements and failures of mainstream environmental policies and regulation and offers a review of the mains philosophical influences behind different periods of environmental statehood and regulation. It sets out an agenda for going beyond conventional state regulation and grassroots dealings with the state, and as such redefines the environmental apparatus of the state. (shrink)

O presente artigo discute a teoria hegeliana da sociedade civil dentro de um quadro atual, tendo em vista principalmente a tensão entre paixões e interesses encontrada no modelo econômico-político do capitalismo. Esse argumento será desenvolvido em dois momentos. Primeiramente, apresento a contribuição teórica de Hegel a esse debate a partir da concepção de que as paixões se ligam a um conteúdo “particular”, que somente são concebidas como “racionais” através de um processo de formação específico. Eu procuro mostrar que Hegel liga (...) essa expressão individual de preferências e o preenchimento de interesses pessoais através de uma formação da vontade institucionalmente mediada, através da qual os padrões de ação e de fins individuais são compreendidos enquanto formas inclusivas. Em um segundo momento, proponho que um quadro institucional deve promover as garantias de uma satisfação recíproca de interesses individuais, que, ao mesmo tempo, não sejam concebidos externamente aos participantes no mercado e no trabalho, mas que sejam fundamentadas a partir de uma legítimo sentimento de pertencimento social. Concluo com a proposta de uma “solidariedade institucionalizada”, que deve ser complementar à contingência do sentimento individual: essas esferas só são legitimadas normativamente quando elas – segundo o padrão da vontade livre – expressa, por um lado, o reconhecimento recíproco e a satisfação de preferências individuais, e, por outro, interesses descentrados em vista das relações sociais. (shrink)

O caráter comunitário da filosofia de Aristóteles resulta das diversas formas de análise da política que o filósofo apresenta na articulação dos seguintes aspectos: a tese de que o ser humano é um animal político; o modo como esta é realizada na comunidade política, na qual o logos se manifesta como atividade discursiva compartilhada; o cultivo de determinadas virtudes ético-políticas presentes na convivência humana, sobretudo, a amizade; a autossuficiência do cidadão e o seu vínculo com a autarquia da comunidade política. (...) A retomada de um moderno conceito de comunidade, na tentativa de reatualizar os princípios gerais do comunitarismo aristotélico, pode ser compatível com determinadas teses liberais, sobretudo a questão da liberdade (autonomia) individual e o fato do pluralismo ético e político nas sociedades modernas. The communal nature of Aristotle's philosophy results from the various forms of analysis of the politics the philosopher shows in the articulation of the following features: the thesis that man is a political animal; the way the political community is accomplished through this thesis, in which the logos itself manifests as a shared discoursive activity; the cultivation of certain ethical and political virtues present in the human companionship, above all, friendship; citizen self-sufficiency and its relationship with the autarchy of the political community. In an attempt to bring up to date the general principles of Aristotelian communitarianism, the resumption of a modern concept of community can be compatible with certain liberal theses, especially the issue of individual freedom (autonomy) and the fact of the ethical and political pluralism in the modern societies. (shrink)

In his native Italy Augusto Del Noce is regarded as one of the preeminent political thinkers and philosophers of the period after the Second World War. The Crisis of Modernity makes available for the first time in English a selection of Del Noce's essays and lectures on the cultural history of the twentieth century. Del Noce maintained that twentieth-century history must be understood specifically as a philosophical history, because Western culture was profoundly affected by the major philosophies of the (...) previous century such as idealism, Marxism, and positivism. Such philosophies became the secular, neo-gnostic surrogate of Christianity for the European educated classes after the French Revolution, and the next century put them to the practical test, bringing to light their ultimate and necessary consequences. One of the first thinkers to recognize the failure of Marxism, Del Noce posited that this failure set the stage for a new secular, technocratic society that had taken up Marx’s historical materialism and atheism while rejecting his revolutionary doctrine. Displaying Del Noce's rare ability to reconstruct intellectual genealogies and to expose the deep metaphysical premises of social and political movements, The Crisis of Modernity presents an original reading of secularization, scientism, the sexual revolution, and the history of modern Western culture. (shrink)

This work promotes the thesis that humans are naturally transhuman. In order to achieve this, we present in the first two sections some examples of technological devices assembled to human beings, and we critically review the assumptions and dichotomies on which the idea of human enhancement is based according to the ordinary transhumanist vision. Thirdly, we present the thesis of the Extended Mind to support our intuition. Fourthly, we dismantle the most relevant philosophical dichotomies that structure the transhumanist position. Finally, (...) we recapitulate the reasons why we should wake up from the transhumanist dream. (shrink)

El objetivo de este texto es mostrar la tensión que existe entre dos proyectos: el humanista y el transhumanista. Aquí se expondrá la tesis de que el proyecto transhumanista puede proponer una vida que vale la pena ser vivida desde la mejora tecnológica. Para lograr defender esta tesis se propondrá como itinerario examinar la tesis de la excepcionalidad humana y la propuesta transhumanista; las posturas bioconservadoras y bioliberales y la postulación del cyborg en el contexto del antropoceno como proyecto de (...) un transhumanismo moderado. (shrink)

Seekers know that they will search all their lives not only for what they have lost, but above all for what they do not yet know and that they are not even sure exists. Augusto Cavadi, to whom this book is dedicated on his 70th birthday, is an indomitable seeker. For this reason a group of friends and colleagues wrote these collected testimonies, reflections, ideas and suggestions inspired by his writings and his life as an anti-academic philosopher without a (...) tie--Translated from back cover. (shrink)

In this paper, using a multilevel approach, we defend the positive role of natural selection in the generation of organismal form. Despite the currently widespread opinion that natural selection only plays a negative role in the evolution of form, we argue, in contrast, that the Darwinian factor is a crucial (but not exclusive) factor in morphological organization. Analyzing some classic arguments, we propose incorporating the notion of ‘downward causation’ into the concept of ‘natural selection.’ In our opinion, this kind of (...) causation is fundamental to the operation of selection as a creative evolutionary process. (shrink)

Contemporary studies in unconscious cognition are essentially founded on dissociation, i.e., on how it dissociates with respect to conscious mental processes and representations. This is claimed to be in so many and diverse ways that one is often lost in dissociation. In order to reduce this state of confusion we here carry out two major tasks: based on the central distinction between cognitive processes and representations, we identify and isolate the main dissociation paradigms; we then critically analyze their key tenets (...) and reported findings. (shrink)

One question in moral psychology concerns the role of emotions to motivate moral action. This question has recently become more urgent, because it is now clearer that cognitive developmental theories cannot offer a complete explanation of moral functioning. This paper suggests that emotion, as is typically understood in psychology, cannot be seen as the basis for an acceptable explanation of moral behaviour and motivation. However, it is argued that it is possible to understand emotions as embedded in agentic processes, and (...) regulated by conscious concerns. So understood, emotions acquire an important role in the person's moral life. These conclusions are reached through an extensive review of psychological and philosophical conceptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

With the rise of state sponsored standardized testing and curriculum alignment, it is important to consider the impact such practices may have on educational aims. In this paper, I argue that critical thinking ought to be the principle aim in every educational pursuit, and that practices such as “teaching to the test” may be detrimental to its development. I maintain these claims with a discussion of the philosophical works of Harvey Siegel, Israel Scheffler, and John Dewey. Operating from their definitions (...) of critical thinking, rationality, and education respectively, I offer support for my conclusion based on one’s ability to challenge the soundness of claims, and the revisional quality of true belief. The issue of critical thinking as general or subject specific is also addressed. Using Siegel’s notion of a critical spirit, I propose that a universal quality of critical thinking lies in its normative as opposed to technical aspects. (shrink)

En una conocida carta redactada en 1671, Leibniz formula un esquema argumental que intenta resolver el problema de la existencia del mal, pero que sorprende por una conclusión necesitarista, según la cual toda la cadena de eventos existentes es la óptima, y por tanto es necesaria. El presente trabajo propone una reconstrucción detallada del argumento y un análisis de su significación modal. Este análisis revela que la necesidad atribuida por Leibniz al mundo actual expresa la fuerza modal que adquiere lo (...) óptimo en su filosofía, ya en 1671, como principio que rige indefectiblemente la acción de Dios. (shrink)

En esta primera parte de la entrevista, Mignolo ubica las coordenadas intelectuales en las que surge su primera obra (1995) junto con la necesidad del desarrollo del concepto de semiosis colonial, y la recepción de sus tesis en aquel momento. Describe también las posibilidades (o imposibilidades) de diálogo de la perspectiva decolonial con otras como la posmoderna y la poscolonial, refiriéndose a las diferentes inscripciones teóricas debidas, fundamentalmente, a diferencias geopolíticas. Por ello, plantea una alternativa pluri-versal al universalismo moderno occidental, (...) que intenta hacer pasar su provincialismo, cristiano primero, luego liberal y ahora neoliberal, por la verdad misma (eurocentrismo o atlanticismo). Finalmente, sitúa su “conformación cosmo-cultural” en relación con la reconstitución de conceptos que la civilización occidental fue destituyendo en su proceso de constitución del vocabulario y las subjetividades moderno-coloniales. Grupo de estudio Las nociones de transmodernidad y pluriversidad en la Filosofía de la Liberación y el giro decolonial. (shrink)

Much ado – and increased complexity – is generally the case when it comes to checking formally the (intended) meaning of programs, as formal semantics for programs are typically extrinsic to both them and the formal grammars that generate the programming languages in which they are written. The van Wijngaarden grammars, on the contrary, have an intrinsic semantics in the sense that their rules contain or express the (intended) meaning of the terminal strings generated by them. This intrinsicness allows for (...) preservation of meaning both in syntactic change and context-sensitive conditions. In order better to show the intrinsicness of the semantics of the van Wijngaarden grammars I contrast them with the attribute grammars, a frequent choice when the semantic analysis of programming languages is called for (e.g., in compilation). (shrink)

El artículo aborda la lógica a partir de la cual el correlato de la libertad como negatividad radical es el conflicto como dimensión originaria de la intersubjetividad en Alexandre Kojève y Jean Paul Sartre. Se examina la interpretación realizada por el pensador ruso del capítulo iv de la Fenomenología del espíritu y la importanciade la “dialéctica del amo y del esclavo” como clave del pensamiento hegeliano; así como la forma en que las premisas ontológicas expuestas en El ser y la (...) nada se presentan como elementos constitutivos de la comprensión de la intersubjetividad como dialéctica subjetivación-objetivación. (shrink)

Entrevista realizada a Fernando Bárcena Orbe, profesor de Filosofía de la Educación del Departamento de Teoría e Historia de la Educación de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (España), por Maximiliano Valerio López, profesor de la Universidad Federal Fluminense (Brasil). Rio de Janeiro, setiembre de 2009.

Las páginas que siguen constituyen un ejercicio de aproximación a lo que podríamos denominar una poética de la educación. No tienen otra pretensión que la de presentar algunos conceptos que podrían abrir el camino de una reflexión futura. Como se verá en el transcurso del trabajo, al hablar aquí de poética no se hace referencia a un género de la literatura, sino a una experiencia del lenguaje que puede iluminar de algún modo la forma en que concebimos el acto educativo.

In this article – and through a hermeneutical analysis of a textual nature – we will take a tour about a particular interpretatión of politics in Ludwig Feuerbach. The reading we make is that an idea of politics as self-limitation of man, implicitly overcoming criticism of Christianity, in the period 1839-1843. For its implementation, it is necessary – as we understanding it – to link politics and religión: understood as the passage of the critical gaze from the inside to the (...) outside. Through this link, man – by specifically claiming sensitivity – limits his political practice in space and time, thereby setting the stage for the effective exercise of praxis. Keywords: Self-limitation. Praxis. Christianity. Essence. State. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to the mathematical rationale of the Kapitsa's hypothesis about interference nature of the phenomenon known as “ball lightning.” It is shown that (i) there are exact solutions of the free Maxwell equations in vacuum describing closed spherical magnetic surfaces (with a tangential time dependent magnetic field, and without an electric field) and (ii) ring-like formations with tangential time-dependent electric field (and with a zero magnetic field everywhere on the ring). It is concluded that the form of (...) these spheres and rings does not suffer changes with time. (shrink)

Este artículo muestra que la preocupación filosófica sobre la violencia está presente en más de un momento en la obra de Jorge Millas y que su ensayo "Las máscaras filosóficas de la violencia" expresa una reflexión sobre este fenómeno que destaca por su hondura y penetración crítica. El análisis del declive ideológico que verifican algunas filosofías proporcionando argumentaciones teóricas que enmascaran o justifican la violencia con propósitos instrumentales, junto al privilegio de la perspectiva de las víctimas al momento de comprender (...) y valorar el hecho violento, son los ejes privilegiados en la presentación y ponderación de la postura de Millas. This article shows that the philosophical concern about violence is present more than once in Jorge Millas' work and that his essay Las máscaras filosóficas de la violencia expresses a reflection on this phenomenon that stands out for its depth and critical insight. The analysis of the ideological decline, verified by some philosophies that provide theoretical arguments which mask or justify violence with instrumental purposes, along with the privilege of the victims' perspective at the time of comprehending and assessing the violent act, are the privileged axes in the presentation and consideration of Millas' stance. (shrink)

Los museos ya son parte de nuestra vida cotidiana, en ellos uno puede llevar a su familia, a sus hijos, porque siempre encierran una forma de la realidad antes no contemplada. Lo que a lo largo de los años ha hecho del museo un lugar de entretenimiento y educación ha sido nuestra curiosidad, pero al margen de ella, existen factores económicos, sociales y políticos que vinculan al museo con la habilidad humana para hacer y rememorar la guerra o eventos inesperados (...) de un alto impacto para la sociedad (traumáticos) como ser desastres naturales. El museo, de alguna u otra parte,parece sublimar todas nuestras expectativas respecto a nuestra destructividad y a la presencia de la muerte. (shrink)