ESTUDOS SOBRE O PENSAMENTO FILOSÓFICO DE ANTÓNIO JOSÉ DE BRITO Quem haja seguido com compreensiva e valorativa atenção o percurso da reflexão filosófica portuguesa no último quarto do século XX, não poderá ter deixado de reconhecer o destacado lugar que nele ocupa a obra de António José de Brito, Professor Catedrático jubilado da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, pelo exigente rigor, coerência sistemática e originalidade do seu pensamento de cariz dialéctico, desenvolvido a partir da noção principial de Insuperável, (...) bem como a inteligência e penetração hermenêuticas que sempre revelam os seus estudos e ensaios sobre diversos filósofos portugueses O presente Volume reúne não só os textos das comunicações no Colóquio de Homenagem ao ilustre filósofo e mestre portuense, como contém outros textos sobre o seu pensamento, de individualidades que, embora impossibilitadas de nele participar, quiseram associar-se a esta homenagem, como igualmente, na ula Gratulatória, uma série de outros nomes que a esta homenagem se quiseram igualmente associar. (shrink)

Author list: H. Frey; A. Willwoll; Georg Wunderle; E. Raitz V. Frentz; Q. Wihstutz; G. Wihstutz; R. Walter; A. Bolley; E. Steinwand; R.H. Thouleß; B. Vasady; A. Bolley.

The increasing digitalization in the field of psychological and educational testing opens up new opportunities to innovate assessments in many respects (e.g., new item formats, flexible test assembly, efficient data handling). In particular, computerized adaptive testing provides the opportunity to make tests more individualized and more efficient. The newly developed continuous calibration strategy (CCS) from Fink, Born, Spoden, and Frey (2018) makes it possible to construct computerized adaptive tests in application areas where separate calibration studies are not feasible. Due (...) to the goal of reporting on a common metric across test cycles, the equating is crucial for the CCS. The quality of the equating depends on the common items selected and the scale transformation method applied. Given the novelty of the CCS, the aim of the study was to evaluate different equating setups in the CCS and to derive practical recommendations. The impact of different equating setups on the precision of item parameter estimates and on the quality of the equating was examined in a Monte Carlo simulation, based on a fully crossed design with the factors common item difficulty distribution (bimodal, normal, uniform), scale transformation method (mean/mean, mean/sigma, Haebara, Stocking-Lord), and sample size per test cycle (50, 100, 300). The quality of the equating was operationalized by three criteria (proportion of feasible equatings, proportion of drifted items, and error of transformation constants). The precision of the item parameter estimates increased with increasing sample size per test cycle, but no substantial difference was found with respect to the common item difficulty distribution and the scale transformation method. With regard to the feasibility of the equatings, no differences were found for the different scale transformation methods. However, when using the moment methods (mean/mean, mean/sigma), quite extrem levels of error for the transformation constants A and B occurred. Among the characteristic curve method the performance of the Stocking-Lord method was slightly better than for the Haebara method. Thus, while no clear recommendation can be made with regard to the common item difficulty distribution, the characteristic curve methods turned out to be the most favorable scale transformation methods within the CCS. (shrink)

Para compreender a trajetória da elaboração heideggeriana do conceito de tempo é fundamental analisar a conferência O conceito de tempo (Der Begriff der Zeit). Entendemos que, embora o tempo seja tematizado em vários outros textos da juventude ou mesmo em obras heideggerianas mais tardias, é visível nesta conferência de 1924 a preocupação do pensador em conceber, de uma maneira tematicamente explícita, um novo conceito de tempo. Nossa proposta inicial restringe-se, por um lado, em avistar e evidenciar as ideias condutoras da (...) elaboração heideggeriana do conceito de tempo, razão pela qual muitos temas conexos não poderão ser especificamente abordados neste artigo; por outro lado, temos a preocupação de apontar para uma série de estudos voltados particularmente para este texto fundamental dos caminhos trilhados por Heidegger entre 1915 e 1930. (shrink)

Philosophers of action and perception have reached a consensus: the term ‘intentionality’ has significantly different senses in their respective fields. But Anscombe argues that these distinct senses are analogically united in such a way that one cannot understand the concept if one focuses exclusively on its use in one’s preferred philosophical sub-discipline. She highlights three salient points of analogy: (i) intentional objects are given by expressions that employ a “description under which;” (ii) intentional descriptions are typically vague and indeterminate; and (...) (iii) intentional descriptions may be false. I explore these three features as they apply to both perception and action and defend Anscombe’s view that the analogical concept of intentionality is a grammatical concept. That is, there are two distinctive linguistic/social practices that involve, respectively, a special sense of the question ‘Why?’ and a special sense of the question ‘What?’ To competently ask and answer the questions that constitute these practices not only reflects, but also conveys a grammatical understanding of intentionality’s basic, formal structure. (shrink)

The most common view of suicide today is that it is intentional self-killing. 1 Because of the self-killing component, suicide is often described as self-inflicted death or as dying by one's own hand, and the victim is in turn often described as having done himself to death or as having taken his own life. But must one's death be self-inflicted in order to be suicide? The answer, I want to suggest, is arguably no.

It is rarely, if at all, thought that Socrates committed suicide; but such was the case, or so I want to suggest. My suggestion turns not upon any new interpretation of ancient sources but rather upon seeking a determination of the concept of suicide itself.

Glover suggests that representational systems for planning versus control are mapped exclusively to the inferior (IPL) versus superior (SPL) parietal lobules respectively. Yet, there is ample evidence that the IPL and SPL both contribute to action planning and control. Alternatively, I distinguish between the parietal-frontal systems involved in the representation of acquired manual skills versus nonskilled actions.

Distortions in memory impose important bounds on rationality but have been largely disregarded in economics. While it is possible to learn, it is more difficult, and sometimes impossible, to unlearn. This retention effect lowers individual utility directly or via reduced productivity, and adds costs to principal-agent relationships. The engraving effect states that the more one tries to forget a piece of information the more vivid it stays in memory, leading to a paradoxical outcome. The effects are based on, and are (...) supported by, psychological experiments, and it is shown that they are relevant in many economic situations and beyond. (shrink)

The article examines Kant's notion of conceptual extension in order to determine a conception of predication that could integrate, in a coherent fashion, basic theoretical commitments of general logic as he conceived it and the central tenets of his transcendental logic. After a brief overview of the several characterizations of thatnotion in the Kantian corpus, I distinguish three interpretative models concerning it in the literature. Such models are criticized and their prospects of integrating Kant's commitments in a fully satisfactory way (...) are rejected. Finally, I sketch an alternative account of Kant's notion of conceptual extension, which respects the criteria of adequacy that guided the examination of the former models. It points, on its turn, to a revaluation of Kant's notion of conceptual content. (shrink)

O objetivo deste trabalho é duplo: primeiramente, tecer alguns comentários sobre o uso feito pelo filósofo da ocorrência de fenômenos da natureza como fatores explicativos para mudanças profundas ocorridas no comportamento humano, um recurso argumentativo presente nas duas narrativas hipotéticas; em seguida, abordar as razões que Rousseau fornece para que esses acontecimentos deixem de ser simples fatos naturais e se tornem verdadeiras catástrofes para o ser humano, as quais podem ser encontradas, por exemplo, na Carta a Voltaire sobre a Providência.

Resumo: O artigo pretende realizar uma análise do uso instrumental da religião feito por Rousseau no Contrato social, tendo como referência as reflexões de Montesquieu sobre política e religião expostas em O espírito das leis.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the citizenship proposed by Rousseau in light of certain delimitations placed by the philosopher to the exercise of this right, which configure a kind of political participation that would be appropriate to the regime described in the Social Contract. So, I intend to show that popular sovereignty has, for the Genevan writer, a key role in defending the legislation, and that it is up to the Lawgiver and to the magistrates guide citizens (...) in approving the good laws necessary for the State. This thesis is consistent with Rousseau’s republicanism, since it shows that these citizens, members of the social compact, are responsible for protecting and preserving their own freedom throughout the existence of the political body. (shrink)

I present in this note an alternative answer to the princesses' earring problem, found in the first chapter of Cezar Augusto Mortari's book "Introdução à Lógica”.

Philosophical problems about the part-whole relation have been discussed throughout the history of philosophy, at least since Plato and Aristotle. In contemporary philosophy, the understanding of these issues has benefited from the formal tools of Classical Extensional Mereology. This paper aims is to defend mereological restrictivism against some constraints imposed by the vagueness argument. To achieve this, the paper is divided into three parts. In the first, I introduce the special composition question (hereafter SCQ) as formulated by [Van Inwagen, 1990] (...) and briefly present the three sets of theories that proffer answers to it. In the second part, I focus on the vagueness argument, that was presented by [Lewis, 1986, ] and [Sider, 2007, ] to defend mereological universalism. In the third section, I introduce the theory of natural properties by David Lewis. From this theory, I propose a new mereological operation labeled as natural fusion. The purpose of this operation is to falsify one of the premises of the vagueness argument. Then, I discuss some examples and counter-examples to natural fusion. (shrink)