Part I of Frege’s Grundgesetze is devoted to the “exposition [Darlegung]” of his formal system.

Effective altruism is a philosophy and a social movement that aims to revolutionise the way we do philanthropy. It encourages individuals to do as much good as possible, typically by contributing money to the best-performing aid and development organisations. Surprisingly, this approach has met with considerable resistance among activists and aid providers who argue that effective altruism is insensitive to justice insofar as it overlooks the value of equality, urgency and rights. They also hold that the movement suffers from methodological (...) bias, reaching mistaken conclusions about how best to act for that reason. Finally, concerns have been raised about the ability of effective altruism to achieve systemic change. This article weighs the force of each objection in turn, and looks at responses to the challenge they pose. (shrink)

This article seeks to contribute to a vision for leadership in business based on a recovery of virtue. The vision for leadership articulated here draws principally on the writings of the classical philosopher Aristotle and of the contemporary philosopher Josef Pieper. Without discounting the ever-increasing complexity of modern business, this essay will attempt to reconstruct Aristotle’s emphasis on virtue and moral character, and argues for the philosopher’s relevance to modern management and corporate leadership. The paper concludes that the message of (...) virtue is a message of hope and attempts to find plain language to articulate its value to those engaged in business or concerned with the formulation of government policy. (shrink)

Resenha de "O contrato racial" de Charles W. Mills.

Apologizing for Socrates places some of the Platonic and Xenophontic writings in the context of contemporary controversies over Socrates, providing a perspective in which many of the philosophic and literary features of the text can be explained. In addition, it sheds light on the apologetic techniques used by Plato and Xenophon.

Political scientists should put aside questions about whether voters are rational or irrational, informed or uninformed, and questions about how flawed democracy is. Although they are interesting, these questions are secondary. Answering them in no way helps people—it does not help them with their violent neighborhoods, their declining incomes, their flooded homes, or their dying crops. Instead, researchers should focus on the first-order question of how to improve democratic accountability.

This paper discusses citizenship in Finnish religious education in relation to human security. It traces the characteristics of human security that connect citizenship, religion, and education in Finnish policy documents. The article focuses on basic education. Its data were analyzed employing qualitative content analysis. The findings indicate that citizenship in Finnish RE entails personal security concerns dealing with psychological and human rights issues. These are found to be essentially human security as conceptualized by the United Nations. However, Finnish policy documents (...) sparingly utilize human security in explicit terms. Finland rather emphasizes the practical applications of human security. Incorporation of explicit global citizen and human rights issues into RE in the new Finnish curriculum seems to project critical global citizenship. This is found to promote human security. Following Finland’s bid for practical application of human security, we recommend that human security be explicitly integrated into the Finnish RE curriculum. (shrink)

En este artículo se presentan dos perspectivas sobre uno de los más antiguos problemas planteados en la filosofía de la religión: si Dios es bueno y omnipotente, ¿cómo puede existir el mal? El filósofo alemán del siglo XVII, Gottfried Leibniz, ofreció una respuesta a este problema en su obra cumbre, Teodicea, argumentando que vivimos en el mejor de los mundos posibles. Un siglo después, Voltaire protestó contra la respuesta ofrecida por Leibniz, y la ridiculizó en su famosa novela, Cándido. Al (...) final, las críticas de Voltaire han sido lo suficientemente contundentes como para que justifiquemos que, antes de preguntarnos por qué Dios permite el mal, nos preguntemos qué podemos hacer nosotros para aliviar el mal. (shrink)

Achille Mbembe’s book Critique of Black Reason has attracted scholarly interest and commentaries. In a conversation that took place between David Theo Goldberg and Mbembe, both men discuss some of the themes that are raised in the book. This paper examines that conversation and focuses on the idea of the archive and how the dehumanisation, damage, destruction and death that racism has visited on many black people can be resurrected, dusted down and repaired. I have used Mbembe’s idea of blackness (...) as a way into the archive to retrieve and retell a particular story and, in doing so, to repair the damage to the life of an African American man, as only writing can do. I revive the humanity and dignity of that life against the brutal racism that ultimately claimed it. This is a requiem for Mr Wilson. (shrink)

O presente resumo expandido refere-se ao trabalho de pesquisa que buscou utilizar as caraterísticas do jazz, enquanto manifestação cultural musical, como referência para elaboração de questões no campo da Ciência da Informação. Para tanto, coloca-se o jazz como expressão que, dentro do mundo globalizado, consagrou dinâmicas de produção que, mesmo que absorvidas pela hegemonia, são antagonistas às formas do pensamento ocidental. Para os fins do presente trabalho, interessa-nos a característica, no jazz, da irreprodutibilidade como valor intrínseco de sua existência. Esse (...) esforço de construção textual tem o objetivo de analisar a irreprodutibilidade como dinâmica partindo do contexto do jazz e suas implicações para o campo da Ciência da Informação. Nesse sentido, com base na teoria de pensadores como Walter Benjamin e outros como Eric J. Hobsbaw e Kevin McGarry, apresentamos uma pesquisa na forma de ensaio teórico, de caráter bibliográfico. A metodologia é composta pela leitura e interpretação de conceitos, com reflexões encadeadas e expostas no formato de texto ordenado, referenciando as leituras e autores de modo construir um caminho lógico e válido, buscando construir as características da irreprodutibilidade a partir do jazz, entendendo como a irreprodutibilidade implica outros modos perpetuação no tempo e propor questões a serem movimentadas no campo da Ciência da Informação a partir dos resultados das questões anteriores. O resultado das reflexões desenvolvidas é de que a compreensão de dinâmicas não hegemônicas de manutenção de memória, como a irreprodutibilidade, são fundamentais para o entendimento do valor de culturas que estão à margem das tecnologias e das culturas consagradas e já adequadas ao discurso científico. Entendemos que a criação do campo de estudo da Ciência da Informação é fruto direto do desenvolvimento tecnológico e das necessidades de gestão operacional dos dados decorrentes da tecnologia de comunicação. Esse caminho, pela perspectiva das possibilidades de reprodução, vai ao encontro da análise da sociedade capitalista proposta por Walter Benjamin ao tratar da reprodutibilidade técnica. Mesmo não tratando, no caso dos estudos informacionais, da obra de arte, a afirmação do filósofo alemão conversa perfeitamente com a noção de um desenvolvimento técnico permanente em torno das possibilidades de reprodução. A própria razão de ser da Ciência da Informação é baseada na lógica, colocada também por Benjamin em relação à obra de arte, da democratização do objeto por meio do seu acesso imediato: a recuperação da informação e o contato com seu usuário. Esse propósito, inclusive, se inicia, tecnologicamente, na invenção da imprensa e suas possibilidades de difusão pela reprodução. (shrink)

Sociologists often ask why particular groups of people have the moral views that they do. I argue that sociology’s empirical research on morality relies, implicitly or explicitly, on unsophisticated and even obsolete ethical theories, and thus is based on inadequate conceptions of the ontology, epistemology, and semantics of morality. In this article I address the two main problems in the sociology of morality: (1) the problem of moral truth, and (2) the problem of value freedom. I identify two ideal–typical approaches. (...) While the Weberian paradigm rejects the concept of moral truth, the Durkheimian paradigm accepts it. By contrast, I argue that sociology should be metaphysically agnostic, yet in practice it should proceed as though there were no moral truths. The Weberians claim that the sociology of morality can and should be value free; the Durkheimians claim that it cannot and it should not. My argument is that, while it is true that factual statements presuppose value judgments, it does not follow that sociologists are moral philosophers in disguise. Finally, I contend that in order for sociology to improve its understanding of morality, better conceptual, epistemological, and methodological foundations are needed. (shrink)

This paper tries to link Ethology to Biosemiotics by analysing the similarities between some triadic relationships like biosemiotics’ Object—Representamen—Interpretant and the one established in Ethology between Sign-stimuli— Innate Releasing Mechanism—Modal Action Pattern, or the one potentially established in communication networks comprising Sender—Receiver—Eavesdropper. I argue here that a collaborative relationship is supported by the fact that the observational method used by Ethology is based on the triadic relationship Sender—Receiver—Eavesdropper. This method, by introducing the human observer at the Interpreter/Eavesdropper place, is not (...) only applicable to the direct study of animal communication, but also to the interpretation of all other animal behaviour by assuming that behaviour is a sign/signal system on its own, for us to interpret and decode. (shrink)

Während die Bedeutung Freges für die Philosophie der Gegenwart, soweit sich diese der analytischen Philosophie verpflichtet fühlt, allgemeine Anerkennung gefunden hat, ist seine Stellung innerhalb der eigenen Zeit noch weitgehend unaufgeklärt geblieben. So herrscht die Auffassung vor, Frege habe seine Ideen ganz aus sich selbst oder geradezu im Gegensatz zur deutschen philosophischen Tradition seiner Zeit gewonnen. Bei genauerer Textanalyse weisen Freges Schriften dagegen vielfältige Beziehungen zur zeitgenössischen Logik, Erkenntnistheorie, Sprachphilosophie und Philosophie der Mathematik auf, so dass bei ihm von einem (...) Bruch mit der kontinentalen Philosophie nicht die Rede sein kann. Weil die historischen Voraussetzungen unberücksichtigt geblieben sind, ist ein unzutreffendes Bild von Freges Einsichten entstanden. Dieses Bild wird durch die Entfaltung des historischen Kontextes korrigiert. Bestimmend ist dabei ein problemorientierter Zugang, der sich systematischer Bewertungen und Weiterführungen nicht enthält. (shrink)

In this article I ask what recent moral psychology and neuroscience can and can’t claim to have discovered about morality. I argue that the object of study of much recent work is not morality but a particular kind of individual moral judgment. But this is a small and peculiar sample of morality. There are many things that are moral yet not moral judgments. There are also many things that are moral judgments yet not of that particular kind. If moral things (...) are various and diverse, then empirical research about one kind of individual moral judgment doesn’t warrant theoretical conclusions about morality in general. If that kind of individual moral judgment is a peculiar and rare thing, then it is not obvious what it tells us about other moral things. What is more, it is not obvious what its theoretical importance is to begin with—that is, why we should care about it at all. In light of these arguments, I call for a pluralism of methods and objects of inquiry in the scientific investigation of morality, so that it transcends its problematic overemphasis on a particular kind of individual moral judgment. (shrink)

Neste artigo buscamos investigar o papel da arte no pensamento e obra de Albert Camus. Para isso, avançamos em seus principais ensaios: O mito de Sísifo e O homem revoltado, na tentativa de sintetizar suas ideias acerca da criação absurda e da arte revoltada. Consideramos que a criação absurda, pensada n’O mito... sofrerá uma expansão explosiva no segundo ensaio do autor. Se, inicialmente, a arte para Camus devia expressar a fratura do homem e seu mundo, a consciência de nossa própria (...) absurdidade, a arte revoltada revela o movimento inicial de todas as subjetividades humanas: a estilização de um mundo sem sentido. Dessa forma, a criação artística deixa de ser unicamente uma escola de paciência, lucidez e multiplicação diante de uma experiência humana que carece de unidade e sentido, tornando-se a expressão mais proeminente dessa própria condição. O revoltado e o artista compartilham as mesmas exigências, éticas e estéticas, afinal, a própria revolta é, em parte, uma exigência estética. Desse modo, buscamos expor e elucidar os conceitos camusianos em torno da arte, absurda ou revoltada, e seus desdobramentos para uma ética estilizada. (shrink)

Fix a weakly minimal (i.e. superstable U-rank 1) structure M. Let M∗ be an expansion by constants for an elementary substructure, and let A be an arbitrary subset of the universe M. We show that all formulas in the expansion (M∗,A) are equivalent to bounded formulas, and so (M,A) is stable (or NIP) if and only if the M-induced structure AM on A is stable (or NIP). We then restrict to the case that M is a pure abelian group with (...) a weakly minimal theory, and AM is mutually algebraic (equivalently, weakly minimal with trivial forking). This setting encompasses most of the recent research on stable expansions of (Z,+). Using various characterizations of mutual algebraicity, we give new examples of stable structures of the form (M,A). Most notably, we show that if (G,+) is a weakly minimal additive subgroup of the algebraic numbers, A⊆G is enumerated by a homogeneous linear recurrence relation with algebraic coefficients, and no repeated root of the characteristic polynomial of A is a root of unity, then (G,+,B) is superstable for any B⊆A. (shrink)