continent. 1.1 (2011): 22-25. The Author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento do Ensino Superior), Brazil. From the multifarious subdivisions of semiotics, be they naturalistic or culturalistic, the realm of semiotics of value is a ?eld that is getting more and more attention these days. Our entire political and economic systems are based upon structures of symbolic representation that many times seem not only to embody monetary value but also to determine it. The connection between monetary (...) and linguistic exchanges is self-evident: the former requires the latter and develops in direct relation to it. Creative experimentation and design of digital systems of value exchange are blossoming on the web. Dr. Gilson Schwartz, an economist turned media theorist and professor at the University of São Paulo, adopted the concept of Iconomics, originally created by Michael Kaplan, an author concerned with the linguistics of economic value. Empowering local communities and unlocking new levels of value creation and representation via digital technologies are the main goals of Dr. Schwartz’s projects, aiming at the re-designing of our relationship to the economic value of imagination and the social control of property. Schwartz is Assistant Professor at the School of Communication and Arts of the University of São Paulo, a former Chief Economist at BankBoston, Brazil and Advisor to the President of the National Social and Economic Development Bank (BNDES). FURTHER READING: Kaplan, Michael. “Iconomics: The Rhetoric of Speculation.” Public Culture . 15.3 (2003): 477-493. Renata Lemos-Morais: You have recently produced and directed a short documentary about Creative Currencies in Latin America. Could you tell us a bit about its process and its findings? Gilson Schwartz: The “Creative Currencies” project is a work-in-progress platform which unfolds as an action research agenda connected both to the production of audiovisual content and the development of social currency software. The initiative dates back to 2003 when I led an experimental project supported by the Presidency of Brazil. At that time, we issued paper currency in a small, touristic village in the Northeast Region which stimulated local cultural projects. But it was only in 2009 that the Central Bank of Brazil acknowledged “social currencies” as a legitimate economic agenda, calling for more debate at the I Financial Inclusion Forum. This year, the monetary authorities organized a second forum that also opened the room to discussions on mobile payment systems and new perspectives on poverty alleviation via State subsidies. The Ministry of Culture funded the “Creative Currencies” project in 2009-2010 and our next stage in this discovery process is to be supported by the National Social and Economic Development Bank (BNDES). In short, there is genuine interest among public officials in different areas and public funding for social currencies is on the rise in Brazil. However, after all these years we are still at a very early stage of research and practice. Some of the most successful initiatives (such as Banco Palmas) actually evolved out of local monetary creation to become correspondent banking operations for commercial banks and other financial groups. After eight years of price stability and social inclusion, Brazil stands out as a major opportunity for social experimentation, even the Grameen Bank is now entering the Brazilian market and many NGOs are geared towards different forms of entrepreneurialism in the base of the pyramid, riding solidarity economic models, microfinance and microcredit for local development. It is yet to be seen, however, whether these developments are just one more stage of “bankarization”, that is to say, an extension of regular banking services or actually a new form of social and symbolic self-determination at the local level. So far, the Central Bank of Brazil is open to new forms of credit and local finance as long as they are strictly territorial and very close to barter among the poor. In other words, whether the process of monetary creation could be made to fit an open source paradigm is yet to be seen. Community banking and social currencies might as well end up as just another channel for access to and use of banking services. The “Creative Currencies” project aims at promoting the discussion of more fundamental issues, such as the limits of central banking, the prospects for local financial development and the possibility of creating and managing financial icons as cultural assets. The purpose of this project is to produce short documentaries that will bear testimony to this evolving regulatory framework while inducing more discussion about the fundamental iconomic issues concealed in the process of money and wealth creation. RLM: What new potential is there in applying digital technologies to currency creation? GS: Globalization is a result of the virtualization of money, that is, the overcoming of illusions such as the “gold standard”. Money is an icon created by institutions, not on supposedly natural or material foundations but out of political and financial interests. The “dollar standard” is an outstanding evidence of this phenomenon and Kaplan´s paper, the first to use the expression “iconomics”, insists on the rhetoric and semiotic effects associated to a supposedly scientific model of money creation and management. This is a fundamental change that was perceived and discussed much before the digitalization of the world by unorthodox economists such as John Maynard Keynes since the early 20th century. The digitalization of global financial flows accelerated this immateriality and the creation of the Euro was yet another evidence of the political foundations of currencies. The banking establishment, however, is keen on the idea that scientific formulae hold the key to sound money creation. Keynesianism has been repeatedly associated to “inflationism” while the supposedly sound monetary policies of the Orthodoxy serve well the political and financial interests of a technocratic elite. Corporate media also serve this fictitious depiction of the monetary process despite the cyclical bust of monetary rules and financial regulations. The internet, however, has created numerous opportunities for the disintermediation in industries such as film, music and commodities. There is no reason to doubt that the financial industry can also be transformed by Peer-to-Peer (P2P) infrastructures. Money is media as well. Credit is but confidence. Once people realize that the distributed computing power of networks can also be the platform to weave new monetary and credit operations, there is room for grassroots emancipation out of the established owners of monetary institutions. So far, however, there has been a privatization of monetary management and there is not a clear path or model for the emergent (P2P) property democratization that is inherent to the internet. Digital assets, however, clearly have an inherent potential to escape central control and proprietary regulatory frameworks. RLM: How are social networks transforming the ways in which we exchange value? Do you believe that online influence and reputation might be translated into a new kind of currency? GS: The foundation for social currencies as envisaged by solidarity economics is the territory. Authorities are willing to concede local monetary creation as long as it is restricted to poor neighborhoods, as a proxy to barter. In this relevant but limited context, reputation, personal knowledge and informal ties form the matrix of local or “proximity” finance which are expected to keep credit and leverage to a sustainable level. Anything beyond that should and would lead to an integration of local finance into the established banking system. However, inasmuch as the internet promotes virtual territories and reputation is now subject to all sorts of digital manipulation and stardom becomes an everyday cultural process among teenagers and elders alike, the territorial “foundation” is substituted for more complex patterns of solidarity, cooperation and exchange that reach beyond the physical territory and even the “human.” Digital assets embody knowledge, technology, cultural and educational values that are exchanged at a global scale beyond the control of democratic States (Chinese-like intervention is the exception, not the rule). Hacktivism is unstoppable and so is monetary hacktivism. Especially in the Third World, mobile communications fast became conveyors of money transfers and other appropriation strategies. Banking and telecom sectors already battle for the control of these emerging markets and, as a matter of fact, have so far contributed to the containment of these processes. Governments serve these moguls and have usually adopted a wait-and-see attitude. If open source hardware and grassroots social movements combine to challenge these proprietary battles, then social networks may evolve into new forms of social capital and thus form the ground on which to design and implement social currencies. The global financial crisis, as well as the dollar demise, are an event of such a proportion that social networks may open the path for emancipator subjects to seize the opportunity. RLM: What are some of the social experiments that you think are revolutionizing the way in which value is exchanged? GS: There is a broad evolution of economic systems towards the valuation of intangible assets such as knowledge, reputation and sustainability. There are many examples of local as well as global events that call the traditional systems of exchange into question, from carbon credits to educational bonuses, digital barter frameworks and locally based solidarity and fair trade networks. These emerging examples, no matter how different in nature or scale, represent a challenge to the traditional value creation schemes and theories which are based on use and exchange value, supply and demand. This is not to say that utility and labour or scarcity are to be totally dismissed, but there is now an emerging perception that value is also a function of behavioral codes, symbolic patterns and the energy of institutional frameworks. The plasticity of digital platforms is relevant insofar as intellectual property becomes the central source of value creation. But when you discuss the property rights of public goods such as the environment or basic social rights (of minorities or localities), then a new paradigm seems to emerge. RLM: Are gaming and online storytelling digital practices that might have an impact on the way new currencies are created and developed? GS: “Play money” has been one of the early and most intriguing phenomena associated to the diffusion of virtual worlds. These virtual currencies have also been prone to “boom and bust” dynamics, speculation and pure theft (Second Life scams were common and led to “intervention” by the owners of the game). Storytelling is a major source of value, that is, the value of attention and the markets for audience. There are plenty of private monies created and managed by corporate entertainment groups, telecom operators (via mobile virtual network operators) and marketing frameworks. The casino economy, as already depicted by Keynes and other unorthodox economists, is always storytelling about future states of the world, confidence building and leverage of animal spirits. The novelty of current events is not the fictitious nature of any form of capital, but the potential for digital democratization of controls over the imaginary nature of value creation. But this is just a potential, a possibility, a figment that more often than not is appropriated by centralized and opaque private powers. The game industry is a testbed for new connections between storytelling and money creation. RLM: Monetary value was originally connected to the scarcity of precious metals, such as gold. Our entire monetary system seems therefore to function according to a logic of scarcity. Do you believe it is possible to reverse this logic into a logic of abundance? GS: The gold standard was a fiction itself, the “scarcity” is always produced by institutions that regulate confidence and access to credit. The key issue is not to fabricate abundance, but to question the institutions which produce scarcity out of any standard, gold or whatever. Central banks are at the service of private banks in the creation and management of scarcity. RLM: The promise that nanotechnology holds for our future is one of radical abundance (or so say transhumanists). The possibility of creating any kind of material substance through nanoengineering seems each day more feasible. What would this possibility entail in terms of systems of value exchange? GS: Nanotechnology, environmental concerns and grassroots appropriation of distributed knowledge are the frontiers of a new horizon of energy creation and management. Social groups in charge of managing scarcity for the sake of wealth and power concentration must be held accountable for the destruction of our future. Once this key political conundrum is accounted for, new systems of value exchange and even a non-mercantile society will come into existence. Revolutionary theorists such as Marx envisaged transformation via the extreme clash of contradictions between capital and labour. This approach has never led to a change in the systemic logic of scarcity for the sake of social control. We are once again facing the threshold of large scale societal change, but the outcome of the current crisis should come from our imagination, not from yet another paradox of abundance and scarcity. As long as we remain attached to the materiality of value, the illusion of freedom will but reinforce the massive manipulation of necessity. RLM: What do you think is the role of crowdfunding in this context? GS: Crowdsourcing as well as crowdfunding are examples of the peer to peer opportunities that come along with distributed computer power. However, the power structure behind wealth and scarcity creation may or may not be changed by crowd management. But it should not be taken at face value, so to speak. The stock market of course is an early form of crowdfunding without calling into question the proprietary framework of the companies offering their investment projects to the market. Any market is a form of crowdsourcing, that is to say, of distributed forms of supply and demand matchmaking. The wealth of networks, however, depends on the contractual ecosystem, the institutional framework, the channeling of social imagination, not on the purely quantitative distribution of bids and offers. I see economics as supply, demand and code. Once you have access to the code, once openness becomes part of the game, then there is a chance of crowd behavior becoming collective intelligence and sustainable imagination. RLM: Is the development of digital currencies headed towards a pluralistic ecology in which many micro currency systems co-exist, or is it penetrating the mainstream monetary system? If it is affecting the mainstream financial system, what would be its effect in the long-term? GS: The same issue is at stake both at local and global levels. The global system is, as a matter of fact, an unstable ecosystem of “micro currencies” whereas the dollar has so far exerted an overwhelming influence. Local currencies and private monies coexist with national currencies only to the extent that the Central Bank admits, for instance, that grassroots monetary emissions remain territorial and strictly connected to poverty. However, the question of how new developments in digital technologies and nanotechnologies might alter not only our current monetary systems but also our understanding of value in itself, is still an open question. (shrink)

Trata-se do capítulo “Overdetermined Oedipus: Mommy, Daddy, and Me as Desiring-Machine” in: BUCHANAN, Ian. (Org). A Deleuzian Century?. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999. (N.T.).

O presente artigo tem como tema a relação entre a ética, a teoria estética e a filosofia da arte de Schopenhauer. Analisaremos essa questão buscando explicar os elementos envolvidos no processo de aproximação e comunicação entre esses âmbitos, examinando a discussão sobre o tema nos principais teóricos e obras do filósofo. Daremos os seguintes passos: em primeiro lugar, evidenciaremos o papel preponderante da ética dentro do sistema filosófico de Schopenhauer, mostrando que ela é uma importante referência para as demais questões (...) tratadas por ele, inclusive para a discussão estética; em segundo lugar, mostraremos que a postura metodológica do filósofo se reflete na importância conferida por ele às artes e nas singularidades de sua estética, que, por sua vez, facilita a aproximação entre filosofia da arte e ética; finalmente, demonstraremos a presença de algumas questões morais na estética schopenhaueriana, revelando que ela pode ser compreendida como uma preparação para a ética. (shrink)

This book addresses some basic questions about intrinsic value: What is it? What has it? What justifies our beliefs about it? In the first six chapters the author defends the existence of a plurality of intrinsic goods, the thesis of organic unities, the view that some goods are 'higher' than others, and the view that intrinsic value can be explicated in terms of 'fitting' emotional attitudes. The final three chapters explore the justification of our beliefs about intrinsic value, including coherence (...) theories and the idea that some value beliefs are warranted on the basis of emotional experience. Professor Lemos defends the view that some value beliefs enjoy 'modest' a priori justification. The book is intended primarily for professional philosophers and their graduate students working in ethics, value theory and epistemology. (shrink)

In this 2004 book, Noah Lemos presents a strong defense of the common sense tradition, the view that we may take as data for philosophical inquiry many of the things we ordinarily think we know. He discusses the main features of that tradition as expounded by Thomas Reid, G. E. Moore and Roderick Chisholm. For a long time common sense philosophers have been subject to two main objections: that they fail to give any non-circular argument for the reliability of (...) memory and perception; and that they pick out instances of knowledge without knowing a criterion for knowledge. Lemos defends the appeal to what we ordinarily think we know in both epistemology and ethics and thus rejects the charge that common sense is dogmatic, unphilosophical or question-begging. Written in a clear and engaging style, this book will appeal to students and philosophers in epistemology and ethics. (shrink)

Epistemology or the theory of knowledge is one of the cornerstones of analytic philosophy, and this book provides a clear and accessible introduction to the subject. It discusses some of the main theories of justification, including foundationalism, coherentism, reliabilism, and virtue epistemology. Other topics include the Gettier problem, internalism and externalism, skepticism, the problem of epistemic circularity, the problem of the criterion, a priori knowledge, and naturalized epistemology. Intended primarily for students taking a first class in epistemology, this lucid and (...) well-written text would also provide an excellent introduction for anyone interested in knowing more about this important area of philosophy. (shrink)

Understanding the contributions and the implications of law and emotion scholarship requires an acknowledgement of the different approaches within it. A significant part of law and emotion scholarship is focused on arguing for the relevance of emotion and on identifying emotion in legal processes and actors. Other parts of it venture further to ask how law can affect the expression and content of emotions themselves. This scholarship challenges legal positivist foundations (law as rational and objective), as well as some other (...) established divisions in thinking, both in law, and more generally in the history of ideas (reason vs. emotion, the private vs. the public). The other important factor, which this article explores, is the methodology employed by law and emotion scholarship. (shrink)

As considerações de Schopenhauer acerca das diversas expressões artísticas afirmam a superioridade da música instrumental. Conforme a arte abstrata ganha destaque na cena contemporânea, alguns intérpretes do filósofo propuseram a relação entre a pintura abstrata e a música, uma vez que ambas operam de forma não-figurativa. Este artigo procura encontrar uma interseção entre a música instrumental (e, consequentemente, segundo esses intérpretes, também a pintura abstrata) e outras formas de arte, com a inclusão do figurativismo, segundo a própria metafísica do belo (...) e a teoria de Thomas Weiskel acerca do conceito de sublime. (shrink)

O artigo se propõe a esclarecer a hesitante relação de Foucault com a teoria estruturalista da década de 1960 a partir da recondução histórica e política dessa questão ao debate intelectual que procurou, com maior ou menor sucesso, no modelo linguístico de Saussure, uma nova grade de inteligibilidade para as ciências humanas ciências humanas. A descrição das transformações que ocorreram no interior deste debate e o modo como elas levaram Foucault a repensar sua participação nele nos ajudam a esclarecer como (...) a simpatia explícita pelo estruturalismo do início dos anos 1960 cede lugar a uma recusa insistente de filiar-se a ele no final dessa década. This paper intends to elucidate the hesitating relation between Foucault and structuralist theory at the 1960s by recasting it, in a historical and political way, within the intellectual debate that tried to build, more or less successfully, a new grid of comprehensibleness to humanities from the linguistic model of Ferdinand de Saussure. The descritption of transformations that took place within this debate and the way they compelled Foucault to rethink his participation in it could help us to understand how explicit affinities towards structuralism in the beginning of the 1960s gives place to an insistent refusal of affiliation at the end of this decade. (shrink)

Nichols and Bruno claim that the folk judge that psychological continuity is necessary for personal identity. In this article, we evaluate this claim. First, we argue that it is likely that in thinking about hypothetical cases of transformations, the folk do not use a unitary concept of personal identity, but instead rely on different concepts of ‘person’, ‘identity’, and ‘individual’. Identity can be ascribed even when post-transformation individuals are no longer categorized as persons. Second, we provide new empirical evidence suggesting (...) that the folk do not consider psychological continuity to be necessary for an individual to be categorized as a person or for ascribing identity over time and through transformations. In this, we assume, along with Nichols and Bruno, that folk judgments about identity can be read off the use of proper names. Furthermore, we raise some doubts about the ability of current experimental designs to adequately distinguish between qualitative and numerical identity jud.. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

Robert Kane has for many years claimed that in our underivatively free actions, what he calls “self-forming acts”, we actually try to do both of the two acts we are contemplating doing and then we ultimately end up doing only one of them. This idea of dual willings/efforts was put forward in an attempt to solve luck problems, but Randolph Clarke and Alfred Mele argue that for this to work agents must, then, freely engage in the dual efforts leading up (...) to their SFAs. In response, Kane has said they do so freely by meeting compatibilist criteria of freedom. In Free Will and Luck , Mele argues that this move is deeply problematic. In this essay, I defend Kane's position. In doing so, I clarify important differences between the SFAs of adults and those of young children, making more clear the connections between SFAs, character, and responsibility. (shrink)

It has been argued that belief in free will is socially consequential and psychologically universal. In this paper we look at the folk concept of free will and its critical assessment in the context of recent psychological research. Is there a widespread consensus about the conceptual content of free will? We compared English “free will” with its lexical equivalents in Lithuanian, Hindi, Chinese and Mongolian languages and found that unlike Lithuanian, Chinese, Hindi and Mongolian lexical expressions of “free will” do (...) not refer to the same concept free will. What kind people have been studied so far? A review of papers indicate that, overall, 91% of participants in studies on belief in free will were WEIRD. Thus, given that free will has no cross-culturally universal conceptual content and that most of the reviewed studies were based on WEIRD samples, belief in free will is not a psychological universal. (shrink)

Some contemporary philosophers maintain we lack the kind of free will that makes us morally responsible for our actions. Some of these philosophers, such as Derk Pereboom, Gregg Caruso, and Bruce Waller, also argue that such a view supports the case for significant reform of the penal system. Pereboom and Caruso explicitly endorse a quarantine model for dealing with dangerous criminals, arguing that while not responsible for their crimes such criminals should be detained in non-harsh conditions and offered the opportunity (...) for rehabilitation. Waller does not explicitly endorse the quarantine model, but his view is similar in significant respects. I argue that such views can too easily lead to the endorsement of legal policies which would result in more frequent punishment of innocent persons for crimes they have not committed. Thus, we should have deep moral reservations about such views. (shrink)

Tradução do artigo originalmente publicado em The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XLV, 2007, pp. 565-582, intitulado Schopenhauer on the Values of Aesthetic Experience.

Le statut juridique des femmes et de leurs biens introduit des différences par rapport à celui des hommes, différences qui sont tantôt défendues tantôt dénoncées par les femmes elles-mêmes, selon qu’elles visent à mettre leurs biens à l’abri des prétentions des créanciers ou, au contraire, qu’elles manifestent leur volonté de tester le plus librement possible. Mais, en préalable à la différence entre hommes et femmes, se trouve le problème de la définition du droit de propriété en tant que tel. De (...) nombreux témoignages montrent en effet que celui-ci est souvent déduit d’un état de fait, plutôt que de la production d’un titre légitime. Et, à la différence de la propriété, la possession ne se décline pas selon le genre. (shrink)

One of the motivations for the researches leaded by the members of Vienna Circle with regard to the foundations of scientific language is found on Wittgenstein’s “Tractatus Logico-Philophicus”. Even though there are divergences about the legitimacy of this influence, thebook was, in effect, taken as a theoretical motivation for the structuring of scientific language, developed by logical empiricists. This paper will present the theories developed by members of Vienna Circle emphasizing the elements presents in Tractatusthat were taken, largely, as influence (...) over the “criterion of meaning” of a philosophical proposition adopted by logical empiricists in an attempt to set a foundation for knowledge. (shrink)

One of the motivations for the researches leaded by the members of Vienna Circle with regard to the foundations of scientific language is found on Wittgenstein’s “ Tractatus Logico-Philophicus ”. Even though there are divergences about the legitimacy of this influence, thebook was, in effect, taken as a theoretical motivation for the structuring of scientific language, developed by logical empiricists. This paper will present the theories developed by members of Vienna Circle emphasizing the elements presents in Tractatus that were taken, (...) largely, as influence over the “criterion of meaning” of a philosophical proposition adopted by logical empiricists in an attempt to set a foundation for knowledge. (shrink)

Un texto no siempre puede ser traducido sin traicionar el sentido del original. Una novela juvenil concebida con el propósito de transmitir conocimientos contendrá a menudo informaciones que un público coetáneo que vive en otro país no necesitará, y, al revés, puede haber que añadir en la traducción informaciones específicas para el público destinatario ausentes en la novela original. La reflexión en torno a la resolución de las dificultades encontradas en la traducción de cuatro textos, las distintas tipologías traductivas utilizadas (...) y su generalización aportan al eterno dilema traducción – adaptación las observaciones realizadas desde la novela juvenil con contenido científico. (shrink)

Undoubtedly Romantic love has come to saturate our culture and is often considered to be a, or even the, major existential goal of our lives, capable of providing us with both our sense of worth and way of being in the world. The Radicalism of Romantic Love interrogates the purported radicalism of Romantic love from philosophical, cultural and psychoanalytic perspectives, exploring whether it is a subversive force capable of breaking down entrenched social, political and cultural norms and structures, or whether, (...) in spite of its role in the fight against certain barriers, it is in fact a highly conservative impulse. Exploring both the grounds for the central place of Romantic love in contemporary lives and the meaning, extent and nature of its supposed radicalism, this volume considers love from a variety of theoretical perspectives, with attention to matters of gender, sexuality, class and ethnicity. With authors examining a range of questions, including the role of love in the same-sex marriage debate, polyamory and the notion of love as a political force, The Radicalism of Romantic Love illuminates a fundamental but perplexing aspect of our contemporary lives and will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities with interests in the emotions and love as a social and political phenomenon. (shrink)

The books of the Old Testament contain elements of oral communication as well as the characteristic features of written elaboration. S. Niditch attempts to determine the probable oral-literate processes leading to the formation of the biblical message but does not answer the question concerning the history of the creation of any of the books. Biblical scholars examine the process of the shaping of the books as redaction criticism. This shaping, however, progressed according to different standards as evidenced by the literary (...) characteristics of the text and literary “deficiencies” as well explicit elements of oral communication. The use of the term “editing” in relation to the process evokes inadequate ideas drawn from contemporary literary culture.Attempts to discover the essential elements of the processes shaping the biblical books, based on the, to some extent, recreated history of The Gilgamesh Epic, leads us to a new concept of what such a book is. The discovered specificity of the biblical books can consequently propose a new, more adequate perspective of interpretation—the interpretation which has the characteristics of a discourse. (shrink)

The Yugoslav socialist framework enabled major advances in what concerns the legal, economic and social equality of women, advances which radically changed their traditionally subordinated family and social position. In spite of the postwar period of revolutionary enthusiasm, female political activism and the access of women intellectuals to the male-dominated spheres of journalism, diplomacy, administration and governmental offices did not exist for long. Taking into account memoirs and oral histories of five distinguished women, the article reveals the reasons for the (...) Party’s antifeminist attitudes: a) the political fear of ambitious female “quality staff ”; b) the ideological fear of the women guardians of the traditional and religious foundations of collective identity; c) a cultural mistrust toward the mobile woman who easily transcends family, social and ethnic boundaries. These biographical sources reveal that any attempt at free thought and autonomous action outside of the party line was severely punished. (shrink)

The Classical art of memory is analyzed as a form of mental writing. The ancient authors of works on the art of memory often likened their art to a sort of writing, and a careful analysis of the methods of formation ofagent images— the signs of the art of memory — shows that it very closely parallels the methods of sign formation in logophonetic writing systems (such as ancient Egyptian or Chinese). Thus the Classical art of memory can be viewed (...) as an immaterial (and personalized) writing system. (shrink)

I distinguish between two theses, DPJ and DGP. DPJ asserts that one’s justification for accepting particular epistemic propositions positively depends on one’s being justified in believing general epistemic principles. DGP claims that one’s justification in believing general epistemic propositions positively depends on one’s being justified in believing particular epistemic propositions. I claim that methodism accepts DPJ and rejects DGP and particularism accepts DGP and rejects DPJ. I argue that we should reject DGP and methodism roughly because these views imply that (...) many of us do not know epistemic propositions that we do know. This point is made by Roderick Chisholm in The Problem of the Criterion and challenged by Robert Amico. I consider Chisholm’s arguments and Amico’s objections. Finally, I argue that even if we reject DPJ and methodism, we need not embrace particularism, since we could reject both DPJ and DGP. (shrink)

Artykuł analizuje pojęcie sztuki żydowskiej w zapisach krytyki dwudziestolecia międzywojennego w Polsce. Rozważania o sztuce żydowskiej, dyskusje o znaczeniu sztuk pięknych dla społeczności żydowskiej w diasporze oraz roli, jaka przypadła im w budowaniu nowego narodowego uniwersum wizualnego Żydów europejskich rozpoczęły się w przededniu I wojny światowej. W niepodległej Polsce kontynuowano dyskusje o kierunkach rozwoju narodowej kultury, zarówno w kontekście niezależnego, autonomicznego życia żydowskiego, jak i relacji między kulturą polską, kulturą dominująca a peryferyjną w kontekście państwa kulturą żydowską. Na przykładzie otwartego (...) 20 maja 1928 roku Salonu Wiosennego Żydowskiego Towarzystwa Krzewienia Sztuk Pięknych widzimy, że polska krytyka artystyczna nie tylko dopiero w połowie lat dwudziestych XX wielu. dostrzegła istnienie sztuki żydowskiej, ale i nie zdawała sobie sprawy ze znaczenia ideowego konstruktu sztuki żydowskiej dla żydowskiej społeczności. Równie niewielu krytyków zdawało sobie sprawę z doniosłości istnienia odrębnej, żydowskiej instytucji artystycznej, jaką było ŻTKSP i roli Towarzystwa w rozwoju żydowskiego życia artystycznego. (shrink)

Epistemic externalists offer many arguments against skepticism. They modify the skeptic’s concept of knowledge, justification and meaning and point out which of his presuppositions we need not accept. Dretske claims that a skeptic wrongly presupposes that we cannot know if we do not know that we know. But knowledge need not be self-conscious . According to Nozick a skeptic wrongly presupposes the Principle of Closure . He says that although we do not know that we are not brains in a (...) vat, a skeptic does not have the right to use this principle to argue that we do not know things that are obvious. According to Putnam the skeptical hypothesis that we are brains in a vat is incoherent when we use the external theory of meaning. If the meaning of our words depends on a causal relation with our environment, the sentence “I am a brain in a vat” is false or meaningless. Similarly, Davidson says that the external theory of perceptual beliefs excludes global skepticism. According to Williams skepticism simply presupposes a stance opposite to externalism, namely internalism . When we reject internalism, no skeptical argument can be formulated. (shrink)

Luca Castagnoli, Ancient Self-Refutation. The Logic and History of the Self- Refutation Argument from Democritus to Augustine, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010, pp. XX+394. Hardback, ISBN 9780521896313. -/- L. Castagnoli in his book Ancient Self-Refutation rightly observes that self-refutation is not falsification; it overturns the act of assertion but does not prove that the content of the act is false. He argues against the widely spread belief that Sextus Empiricus accepted the self-refutation of his own expressions. Castagnoli also claims that (...) Sextus was effective in answering to the self-refutation charge. The achievement of the book is discovery that in passages where Sextus seems to embrace the self-refutation of his expressions (PH 1.14-15), he does not use the term peritropé , technical for self-refutation, but term perigrafé , which means self-bracketing. Self-bracketing is weakening one’s own thesis but not overturning it. Castagnoli claims that Sextus embraces the self-bracketing of his expressions but never accepts their self-refutation. However, Castagnoli is not right that self-refutation is shameful mistake for everybody. The mature skeptic cannot even think that self-refutation is wrong, because it would be a dogmatic view. Sextus seems accept the self-refutation at the end of Against Logicians where he presents the argument against proof and the metaphor of the ladder (M 8.480-1). Regardless of Sextus declarations, we have reasons to think that he does not avoid self-refutation in pragmatic sense. Self-bracketing of his position is not a consistent dialectical strategy, as Castagnoli writes, but the end of rational discussion. Sextus avoids absolute self-refutation (we cannot falsify what he suggests) but he is unable to avoid pragmatic self-refutation (there is no way to assert his position without contradiction). It is the case, even if Sextus refuses asserting his position. (shrink)

A Pragmatic Approach to Libertarian Free Will argues that the kind of free will required for moral responsibility and just desert is libertarian free will. It is a source of great controversy whether such a libertarian view is coherent and whether we should believe that we have such free will. This book explains and defends Robert Kane¿s conception of libertarian free will while departing from it in certain key respects. It is argued that a suitably modified Kanean model of free (...) will can be shown to be conceptually coherent. In addition, it is argued that while we lack sufficient epistemic grounds supporting belief in the existence of libertarian free will, we may still be justified in believing in it for moral reasons. As such, the book engages critically with the works of a growing number of philosophers who argue that we should jettison belief in the existence of desert-grounding free will and the practices of praise and blame and reward and punishment which it supports. (shrink)