Special issue: "Henri Bergson. Creative Evolution and Philosophy of Life." -/- I read the genealogy of the concept of energy through Bergson's Creative Evolution to argue that, historically, energy and its proto-concepts are grounded in spatialized notions of time. Bergson's work not only demands that we rethink energy and its relation to time, it also allows us to see that the concept of energy as we know it depicts time and materiality as a numerical multiplicity, which effaces the differences in (...) kind which are characteristic of energy transformations and real duration. To make this case, I first provide an analysis of Bergson’s concept of the cinematographical mechanism of thought, which splits duration into a composition of distinct states strung together by the idea of an impersonal becoming. Bergson claimed that this is the epistemological model for both ancient philosophy and modern science, meaning that it is also the epistemological ground within which energy concepts in western philosophy and science have been theorized. I then show how Bergson offers a way to overcome this model of theorizing through his method of intuition, and how these conclusions might be extended to future energy concepts. Thus, I argue that 1) Bergson’s work on duration allow us to interpret the genealogy of energy as the history of attempts to provide an account of change in terms of spatialized notions of time; 2) that his work offers a way of incorporating historicity into our understanding of energy; and 3) that thinking energy in the context of duration offers the possibility of conceptualizing energy as change. (shrink)

Defensores do princípio da precaução propõem com frequência mudanças nas práticas científicas, para que elas facilitem o mesmo objetivo do princípio: evitar ameaças incertas ao ambiente ou à saúde humana. A ciência deveria ser uma ciência precautória. Apesar da importância prática da ciência precautória e da sua proximidade com os debates sobre ciência e valores, ela ainda não foi sistematicamente examinada. Neste artigo, pretende-se contribuir para a literatura sobre a ciência precautória de dois modos: sistematizando sua literatura prévia e propondo (...) uma definição de um de seus elementos principais, a precaução epistêmica, como uma orientação específica para a gestão de riscos indutivos. Conclui-se com algumas objeções que tal definição levanta, bem como caminhos de pesquisas futuras para abordá-las. (shrink)

Spanish has a series of evidential discourse markers that combine the lexical semantics of visual perception with reference to inference or hearsay, for example, evidentemente ‘evidently’, por lo visto ‘visibly, seemingly’, al parecer ‘seemingly’ and se ve ‘one sees that, apparently’. The main aim of this article is to examine the grammatical, semantic and interactional properties of these four evidential discourse markers in informal and formal spoken Spanish. From a semantic point of view, we study the evidential values expressed by (...) these markers and discuss the correlations between them. From a functional point of view, we analyse the evidential markers on the basis of discourse-interactional criteria such as illocutionary force, position in the turn and kind of turn. From a grammatical point of view, we address the preferences in terms of person and Tense/aspect/modality experienced by these evidential markers in discourse. The main result of our analysis is that, as far as the semantic and discourse properties are concerned, evidentemente differs from por lo visto, al parecer and se ve que. The former seems to refer primarily to shared thoughts, developing a reading that goes beyond any of the traditionally distinguished evidential values. The three other markers, by contrast, refer to indirect evidence, often combining the evidential values of reported knowledge and inference. In talk-in-interaction, the two types of markers behave differently: evidentemente does not enhance turn-taking, whereas the other markers leave room for the co-participant to give his or her view of the state of affairs. (shrink)

The methodological differences of understanding, versus explaining, have been at the centre of a century-long methodenstreit debate (and disagreement) among philosophers and scientists. Karl Jaspers managed to import this discussion to the realm of psychiatry and psychopathology in a significant, but unresolved, manner. Side-tracked by the advent of various changes in psychiatry during the 20th century, phenomenology and philosophy of psychiatry have made a comeback in the last decades and, since then, developed new contributions to this subject. Quite similarly, the (...) study of time experience, standing on the shoulders of notorious philosophers, has too witnessed a similar renaissance, with groundbreaking developments across several conditions, including depression. The present essay is essentially exploratory, but during its development, after addressing the concepts of the methodenstreit debate, and tackling both meaningful and causal connections behind time dysperception in depression, I argue that understanding, at least in this context and at present time, is not entirely reducible to causal explanations, for some things are only gained in understanding, such as the feeling of being understood and the implications it carries for a therapeutic relationship and the treatment plan. (shrink)

Dada la intimidad en que a menudo vivían los esclavos y sus dueños, la amenaza servil estaba siempre latente y podía ser letal. Para mantener a los esclavos bajo control y conseguir que hicieran su trabajo, los historiadores creen que se estableció un doble sistema de premios y castigos -la zanahoria y el palo- en el que la esperanza de la manumisión ocupaba un lugar destacado. En este artículo, intentaremos mostrar que la manumisión no contribuyó de modo preferente a obtener (...) la obediencia de los esclavos, pues había otras recompensas más asequibles. Tan importantes como el doble sistema de premios y castigos fueron otros mecanismos que buscaban que el esclavo interiorizase su condición y la aceptase sin protestar. Given the intimacy in which slaves and their owners often lived, the servile threat was always latent and could be lethal. To keep the slaves under control and to get them to do their work, historians believe that a dual system of rewards and punishments -the carrot and the stick- was established in which the hope of manumission occupied a prominent place. In this article, we will try to show that manumission was not the main mechanism to obtain obedience from slaves, since there were other rewards at hand. As important as the double system of rewards and punishments were other mechanisms through which slaves assimilated their condition as natural and accepted it without protest. (shrink)

This article reconstructs Habermas hypothesis that in the sacral complexity the rite precedes the myth and that could explain the permanence of religion as archaic source of solidarity even in the context of the secular world. Mythical narratives, in confrontation with science, shall lose the capacity to explain the world while the religious rites are still able to produce social integration and to collaborate for the construction of identities, at least for those who manifest such sensibility. Confrontation is stablished with (...) Charles Taylor positions, not directly about the hypothesis mentioned above but about the assumptions, that inspires it. Taylor sees the religious experience as generated in the present, an opening to transcendence of the internal modern immanent order, capable to offer therapy to pathologies of a modernity that, even accomplished great advances, has the risk of self-encapsulation. (shrink)

The following paper puts the history of race and colonialism in conversation with the history of the concept of energy. The objective is to understand what a critical decolonial perspective can teach us about the central role that energy plays in western culture, materially and epistemologically. I am interested in how this approach to political, epistemological, and ontological questions demands that we reconceptualize energy to account for the historical particularity of the concept and the phenomena of history and intersubjectivity, which (...) are eschewed in a purely materialistic and quantitative conception of energy. We will see how energy has been complicit in the racialization of black and indigenous bodies, and how the privileged place that the concept of energy has occupied in the canon of western physics has served to obscure the theological, metaphysical, and cultural assumptions that constitute it. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to provide a diffractive reading of the concept of ressentiment through decolonial theory. I would like to see what sort of light this sheds on the psychological undercurrents that impose barriers on colonial and decolonial thought, as well as on the conceptual dynamism of ressentiment. This essay is split into two different experiments in thought. The first will be to diffract ressentiment through the works of Gloria Anzaldúa, Édouard Glissant, and Gilles Deleuze. To this (...) end, I will begin by providing an analysis of ressentiment as developed by Nietzsche in On the Genealogy of Morals and then supplement this with Deleuze’s analysis of ressentiment in Nietzsche & Philosophy. I will create a bridge with decolonial thought by interpreting Anzaldúa’s concept of the nopal de castilla and mestiza consciousness through the interpretive lens of ressentiment to show the affinity that exists between the work of Anzaldúa and Nietzsche. I will finish the first experiment by looking at ressentiment through some of the concepts Glissant offers us in the Poetics of Relation. In particular, I will argue that ressentiment resists the creolization of identity and culture, and that Glissant’s demand for the right to opacity for all is the sign of a thinking that has overcome ressentiment. The second experiment is to diffract ressentiment through Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s Cannibal Metaphysics, beginning with an analysis of the most relevant points of that text for our discussion then putting our diffracted version of ressentiment in conversation with Amerindian perspectivism. However, this does not mean that I am aiming at a synthesis of ressentiment with Amerindian perspectivism. Rather, in the spirit of the Brazilian author’s post-structural anthropology, this essay sees only a disjunctive synthesis of the two: a ressentiment becoming-Amerindian perspectivism and an Amerindian perspectivism-becoming-ressentiment (we will focus on developing the former). I hope that, by the end of this experiment, we may have a richer conceptual understanding of ressentiment by offering this concept an image of itself that only our decolonial thinkers and an Amerindian perspective can offer. (shrink)

No vastíssimo campo de estudos da obra de Platão, constatamos que os (as) especialistas mais respeitados (as) têm posições por vezes completamente divergentes. Em parte, por um lado, isso decorre da riqueza e da complexidade dessa obra; em boa medida, por outro lado, também decorre de diferentes métodos ou formas de abordar os Diálogos que os (as) intérpretes adotam. Diante disso, surge naturalmente a questão de como deveríamos ler essas obras. No entanto, analisando as diferentes abordagens usadas, pode-se notar que (...) as respostas a uma questão anterior frequentemente acabam determinando, não raro de modo tácito, as respotas a como ler os Diálogos e a abordagem adotada na prática. Essa questão anterior é a de qual seria a função precípua dos Diálogos, que tende a se confundir com a questão de o que no fundo seriam os Diálogos. Por exemplo, os (as) estudiosos (as) que na sua interpretação tendem a focar nas teses e nos argumentos (em detrimento dos elementos dramáticos e literários) supõem em geral que estão lidando com obras "filosóficas" e que devem cumprir, portanto, funções "filosóficas", como (segundo determinada concepção em geral pressuposta de filosofia) definir um conceito, responder uma questão teórica com argumentos racionais, fundamentar (ou questionar) a possibilidade de uma ciência do mundo e coisas desse jaez. Por outro lado, estudiosos (as) que focam nos aspectos dramáticos e literários consideram que estão interpretando obras literárias e que, portanto, não necessariamente cumpririam funções ou atividades filosóficas, mas antes fariam aquilo que seria próprio de obras literárias. Diante disso, eu gostaria de abordar uma dessas hipóteses frequentemente utilizadas, de forma explícita ou não, acerca da função dos Diálogos, qual seja, a de que essas obras ou pelo menos algumas delas fariam a defesa de Sócrates da acusação pela qual foi condenado à morte. Comparando a acusação com passagens dos Diálogos, pretendo mostrar que deveríamos descartar essa hipótese ao lê-los. Os ganhos exegéticos disso seriam consideráveis; um deles seria pararmos de tentar tornar corretos a todo custo, e muitas vezes em detrimento do próprio texto, os argumentos de Sócrates e passarmos, em vez disso, a analisá-los de forma mais crítica. (shrink)

El presente trabajo plantea la necesidad de volver a la clásica distinción de conocimiento teórico y conocimiento práctico y repensar el lugar de la voluntad y la libertad humanas en el proceso cognoscitivo en general. Desde la consideración de la noción de conciencia, del valor dado a la dimensión cognoscitiva en el ámbito moral, la índole del conocer como relación con lo real y la idea de verdad, llegamos a la conclusión de que el planteamiento racionalista que excluye a la (...) fe como ajena al conocimiento lo hace por el mismo motivo por el que excluye a la voluntad: para evitar la necesidad de tener que decidir. (shrink)

Le Foss ou logiciel libre, est un mouvement de fond qui valorise le partage de l'effort collectif dans la production logicielle et lutte ainsi contre l'appropriation intellectuelle de toute création humaine que les grandes industries de l'information cherchent à imposer. Le gouvernement brésilien a choisit de favoriser le Foss dans toute la société brésilienne.The Foss , or free software, is a fundamental movement that promotes the sharing of effort in software production and fight against and intellectual ownership of any human (...) creation that major information industries seek to impose. The Brazilian government has chosen to promote the Foss throughout Brazilian society. (shrink)

Este artículo examina cómo la tragedia griega, especialmente Antígona de Sófocles recupera y amplia el mito. En efecto, el mito encuentra en la tragedia un despliegue tal que en muchas ocasiones llega a competir con el canon mítico. Es también nuestra intención analizar de qué modo opera el mito en la dinámica dramática; esto es, en qué medida le es funcional a la representación trágica. This article examines how the Greek tragedy, especially Sophocles' Antigone recuperates and expands the myth. Indeed, (...) the tragedy displays the myth in a way that it can compete with the mythic canon in many occasions. It is also our intention to examine how the myth operates in the dramatic dynamics, that is, to what extent it is functional to the tragic representation. (shrink)

RESUMEN A pesar de que la reducción de R. Descartes de los animales a meras máquinas puede explicarse como una consecuencia lógica de su punto de partida metafísico y gnoseológico, se puede argüir que esta reducción parece muy difícil de defender, puesto que se nos antoja contradictoria con nuestra experiencia cotidiana. Por otra parte, uno de los propósitos de la filosofía de Descartes es la “conservación de la salud”, que puede conseguirse mediante el establecimiento de una medicina “fundada en demostraciones (...) infalibles”. De cara a conseguir tal medicina el primer paso es alcanzar el conocimiento más preciso posible del cuerpo humano a fin de tener éxito en la práctica de la cirugía. De ahí que sea bastante plausible afirmar que la metafísica y la teoría del conocimiento de Descartes no serían sus principales intereses teóricos, sino solamente una explicación y justificación ingeniosas de lo que la ciencia de su tiempo llevaba haciendo no menos de cien años antes de él, así como una inteligente manera de obviar los escrúpulos cuando se anatomizaban cadáveres humanos y animales. En consecuencia, en este artículo mantendremos que el mecanicismo y dualismo cartesianos son una verdadera filosofía de la ciencia, desde el momento en que ambos estaban dedicados a explicar y justificar lo que la ciencia estaba haciendo en la práctica. ABSTRACT Despite of the fact that R. Descartes’s reduction of animals to mere machines can be explained as a logical consequence of his metaphysical and gnoseological starting point, one can argue that this reduction seems to be very difficult to defend, since it appears to be contradictory to our everyday experience. On the other hand, one of the explicitly confessed purposes of Descartes’s philosophy is the “conservation of health”, which can be achieved by establishing a medicine “founded in infallible demonstrations”. The first step in order to get such medicine is to acquire the most accurate as possible knowledge of the human body in order to be successful in practicing surgery. That is why it is fairly plausible to state that Descartes’s metaphysics and theory of knowledge were not his main theoretical concerns, but only a witty explanation and justification of what the science of his time was doing for no less than one century before him, as well as a clever manner to avoid scruples when anatomising both human corpses and animals. Consequently, in this paper we will claim that Cartesian mechanicism and dualism are actual philosophies of science, given the fact that both were devoted to explain and justify what science was in practice doing. (shrink)

Este trabalho visa mostrar a forma em que o filósofo Kant percebe o conceito de ciência e interage com ele na escrita da Crítica da Razão Pura, por essa razão, é necessário recorrermos a textos do período pré-crítico onde poderemos perceber como foi construído o conceito de ciência em Kant a partir daquilo que ele vivia no século XVIII. Assim, esse texto possui seis alíneas descritivas, quais sejam: a primeira norteia o leitor a entender o ponto de onde partimos e (...) o caminho a ser percorrido, seguido pela descrição do problema que envolve a ciência em suas nuances. A terceira alínea descreve a formação Kantiana, em sua historicidade, desde o que se estudava na Alemanha, seguido pela forma em que Kant apresenta o conceito de ciência como condição de possibilidade e a última aponta uma possibilidade de reflexão à luz daquilo que Kant entende sobre ciência. (shrink)

What effect has finding the Archimedean point in ourselves had on how we look at ethics? The modern era of philosophy began with Descartes finding within himself an unshakable point from which to pursue knowledge of the world and himself. This intellectual alienation from the world into the universal mathematical structures of the human mind has led to a reversal where, henceforth, production, rather than contemplation, of knowledge became epistemologically superior. Guided by Hannah Arendt’s discussion of the Archimedean point and (...) Earth alienation in the Human Condition, I will argue that this scientific form of thinking made its way into ethical investigation in the age of modern philosophy. Furthermore, I will provide an analysis of Kant’s categorical imperative and John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism to show that despite modern science’s success in elucidating universal laws of nature, a scientific approach to ethics has not universalized our judgments of good and evil. (shrink)

Reunindo o contributo de autores oriundos de múltiplas áreas, incidindo sobre a filosofia, as tradições religiosas e sapienciais, a história, a literatura, a linguística, a literatura oral, a obra que agora se publica, sob a égide do Centro de Estudos Clássicos e do Centro de Estudos Comparatistas da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, constitui uma visão plural sobre a sabedoria, sobre o lugar da memória na compreensão sábia da realidade, enfim, sobre o modo como a sabedoria e a (...) memória se cruzam. (shrink)

Being at Home stimulates careful conversation about some of the most pressing issues facing higher education institutions in South Africa today - race, transformation, and institutional culture. While there are many reasons to be despondent about the current state of affairs in the South African tertiary sector, this book is an invitation for the reader to see these problems as opportunities for rethinking the very idea of what it is to be a university in contemporary South Africa. It is also, (...) more generally, an invitation to think about what it is that the intellectual project should ultimately be about, and to question certain prevalent trends that affect - or, perhaps, infect - the current global academic system. The volume will be of interest to all those who are concerned about the state of the contemporary university, both in South Africa and beyond. [Subject: African Studies, Higher Education]. (shrink)

Tanto la explicación de sentido de la modernidad como el lenguaje de la posmodernidad han rechazado la noción de presente intemporal conocida otrora por la filosofía. Aquí se quiere mostrar en qué sentido y por qué razón el novísimo pensamiento logotectónico permite recuperar aquella noción merced a una nueva distinción del presente.

I develop a genealogy of the concept of ‘energy’ in western philosophy and science, focusing on how energy concepts (e.g., energeia, vis viva, kinetic/potential energy) have been theorized in relation to time. Looking especially to the ideas of Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger, I argue that the thread that connects energy concepts through time is the epistemological tendency to derive conceptual accounts of change from a prior ontological sameness or essence. I then attempt to lay the (...) groundwork for a process metaphysics that harmonizes with contemporary findings in the physical sciences, while also extending the concept of energy to account for the presence of subjectivity in nature. (shrink)

SummaryIn 1905 the Campos Rodrigues Observatory was founded in Lourenço Marques, the capital of Mozambique, by then part of the Portuguese overseas empire. In this paper the inception and early history of the CRO are analysed in the broader context of the interwoven history of the Portuguese and British empires in Africa, and specifically with respect to the scientific relations between Mozambique and South Africa. The equipment, personnel, practices and networks involved in the inception and early development of the CRO (...) are brought into focus in order to illustrate the problems and strategies that shaped the establishment and functioning of this observatory, which was conceived essentially as a symbol of imperial stamina and colonial prowess. It is suggested that by providing a focal point for the development of scientific relations between Mozambique and South Africa, the CRO served both Portuguese ambitions for recognition as an imperial power and the emergence of South African nationalism. (shrink)

Resumen La renta básica proporciona a la ciudadanía una autonomía económica que se traduce en una libertad real para conducir sus vidas. Sin embargo, en este artículo defiendo que la renta básica no sería efectiva en situaciones de pobreza donde se generan preferencias adaptativas en las personas. Para mostrarlo analizaré las bases psicológicas del comportamiento de personas con preferencias adaptativas. A continuación, abordaré qué estrategias son las indicadas para revertir la situación de preferencias adaptativas. Implementar estas políticas permitirá que la (...) renta básica pueda empoderar también a los más pobres.Basic income provides citizenship an economic autonomy which is translated in a real liberty to drive their lives. However, in this article I aim to analyze why basic income would not be effective in situations of poverty in which people have “adaptive preferences”. I will analyze the psychological bases of the behavior of persons with adaptive preferences. Then, I will study which strategies are more proper to reverse that situation. This would allow understanding how basic income could empower to the poorest too. (shrink)

El artículo trata de describir un plan que tiene como objetivo favorecer la inserción laboral de los titulados mediante la realización de una estancia formativa en una empresa, estando acompañado en el proceso de desarrollo de esa estancia, a través de una serie de refuerzos formativos y una tutoría adecuada, a la vez que impulsar su capacidad emprendedora.

Catalan anarchist Salvador Puig Antich was part of the military branch of a small revolutionary organization called the Movimento Ibérico de Liberación/Grupos autónomos de combate (Iberian Liberation Movement/Autonomous Combat Groups) (MIL/GAC). He participated in bank robberies (“expropriations”) meant to finance clandestine propaganda and support striking workers. After a series of such robberies, in September 1973 Puig Antich and comrade Xavier Garriga were ambushed by police; in the melee, Puig Antich was injured and deputy inspector Francisco Anguas Barragán was shot to (...) death. There are still different explanations of what happened at that time; independent researchers suggest the policeman died from shots fired both by his own colleagues and by Puig Antich. Before the tribunal took place, however, the prime minister was assassinated by Basque ETA (Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna) separatists, and subsequent desire for revenge on the part of the authorities, together with a summary military trial, full of irregularities, produced two death sentences. Despite an international solidarity movement against Puig Antich's death penalty, he was executed by garrote on March 2, 1974, setting off protests and strikes in Barcelona, foreshadowing the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975. (shrink)

Resenha do livro "Chauvinismo e extrema-direita: Crítica aos herdeiros do sigma", de Jefferson Rodrigues Barbosa.

Ce texte a été présenté lors de la « 1° Jornadas Internationales sobre El Ritmo en las Artes » – Buenos Aires – 28 et 29 août 2015. Nous remercions Aníbal Zorrilla de nous l'avoir transmis et Teodoro Cromberg d'en avoir accepté la reproduction. El ritmo cósmico Quizás la idea más extrema en lo referente al ritmo que se haya concebido sea la del eterno retorno de Friedrich Nietzsche. Como se sabe, el filósofo de Zaratustra postulaba que, por muy exorbitante (...) que fuera la cantidad de posibilidades que el - Musique et Musicologie – GALERIE – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Over the course of the 19th century, several campaigns in African territories led by white European or North-American scientists, explorers, entrepreneurs, or military officials have been transposed into travelogues where different stages of imperialism and colonialist presences are portrayed. While most of the approaches to these writings tend to favor a post-colonial framework for the interpretation of the interactions depicted there, it is also possible to employ a critical apparatus modeled after the recent developments in the field of the environmental (...) humanities. In this essay, I discuss how Slavoj Žižek’s contributions to the debates around the ideas of nature, ecology, and global capitalism have the potential to deepen our understanding of colonial regimes of oppression, serving as a powerful tool to explore processes of world-making involved in the imperial projects developing over the course of the 19th century. To do so, I propose a close reading of several instances of the travel book Angola and the River Congo, by Joachim John Monteiro, focusing on the entanglements between the human and non-human agencies, vegetable landscapes and extractive transnational economies, and the articulation of racism and scientific projects in the Angolan territory. (shrink)