Online research in philosophy

This paper clarifies the nature of genetic screening and morally evaluates using it to deny people employment. Four sets of variables determine screening’s ability to forecast disorder. The first two concern epistemological limitations: whether the gene itself has been located; whether knowledge of other family members is necessary. The latter two refer to genetic causality: whether other genes are needed; whether the gene causes the disorder or just a susceptibility to it.Considerations of privacy and justice warrant restricting screening to job-specific (...) disorders, without prejudice to the worker. Screening is more of an invasion of privacy than most “searches” because our very selves are disclosed; serious stigmatizing can result. It is unjust to penalize someone for a susceptibility to a disorder. It is also unjust to use the genetic knowledge and technology, developed with public monies allocated for public good, against members of the public. (shrink)

: Soulez's work focuses on the ethical dimension of philosophy manifested in the way in which thought engages and transforms an acting subject on a formal level, beyond what is "said" as such, including any explicitly ethical statements. Wittgenstein's injunction to "silence" on certain ethical matters does not, for Soulez, prevent his being a thinker of the ethical stakes of philosophy, contrary to more orthodox readings of the analytical tradition.

I introduce the reader to the character and complexity of lying, in terms of how the lie should be defined as a particular type of intentionally deceptive utterance, whether or not the deceiver succeeded in that aim, and examine how we might usefully avoid prejudging the justifiability of the lying utterance when compared to alternative forms of intentional deception and the overall outcome sought.

Vignettes of early modern Epicureanism Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9566-9 Authors Antonia LoLordo, Department of Philosophy, 122 Cocke Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

Antonia Lolordo presents an original interpretation of John Locke's metaphysics of moral agency, in which to be a moral agent is simply to be free, rational, and a person.

Any contextualist approach to knowledge has to provide a plausible definition of the concept of context and spell out the mechanisms of context changes. Since it is the dynamics of context change that carry the main weight of the contextualist position, not every mechanism will be capable of filling that role. In particular, I argue that one class of mechanisms that is most popularly held to account for context changes, namely those that arise out of shifts of conversational parameters in (...) discourses involving knowledge claims, are not suited to the job because they cannot account for the genuinely epistemic nature of the context shift. A form of epistemic contextualism that defines the context through the structure of our epistemic projects is suggested. Context changes in this account are linked to changes in the background assumptions operative in our epistemic projects and the methods used to carry out our inquiries. (shrink)

The idea that films can be philosophical, or in some sense 'do' philosophy, has recently found a number of prominent proponents. What is at stake here is generally more than the tepid claim that some documentaries about philosophy and related topics convey philosophically relevant content. Instead, the contention is that cinematic fictions, including popular movies such as The Matrix , make significant contributions to philosophy. Various more specific claims are linked to this basic idea. One, relatively weak, but pedagogically important (...) observation is that some films can be used to provide philosophy students with vivid and thought-provoking illustrations of philosophical issues. Film screenings stimulate discussion and may motivate renewed engagement with difficult philosophical texts. A stronger contention, however, seeks to link innovative and philosophically valuable thinking to 'the film itself' or to the 'specificity of the cinematic medium'. Such claims raise interesting questions, including questions about the status of the increasingly prevalent philosophically motivated interpretations of particular movies. Who is actually doing the philosophizing in such cases? Is it the audio-visual display, the film-maker, or the philosopher who devises an interpretation of the work? What is the role of specifically cinematic devices in the philosophical points made in such interpretations? Is there any tension between the goal of appreciating a film as a work of art and the goal of arguing that a film has significant implications for a position on a problem in philosophy? A course in the general area of cinema as philosophy can focus on issues related to the locus and status of cinematic philosophizing. It can also delve into specific films and film-makers and philosophically oriented interpretations of specific philosophical topics, such as personal identity. Issues pertaining to interpretation, meaning, and authorship can be usefully investigated in this connection, as can topics in meta-philosophy related to the very nature of philosophical insight or knowledge. Author Recommends Carroll, Noël and Jinhee Choi, eds. 2008. The Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: An Anthology , Part VIII: Film and Knowledge. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 381–405. Inclues a brief introduction by Carroll followed by papers by Bruce Russell, Karen Hanson, and Lester H. Hunt. Kania, Andrew, ed. 2009. Memento . London: Routledge. A number of philosophers elucidate philosophical themes in Memento and discuss more general issues pertaining to cinema's philosophical significance. Livingston, Paisley. 2009. Cinema, Philosophy, Bergman: On Film as Philosophy . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Part 1 surveys arguments surrounding the cinema as philosophy theme, providing detailed criticisms of some of the bold theses in this area. Part 2 discusses issues related to cinematic authorship and the status of philosophically motivated interpretations of works of fiction, arguing for a partial intentionalist account of a work's meanings. Part 3 illustrates the intentionalist principles in a discussion of Ingmar Bergman's philosophical sources, providing insight into themes of motivated irrationality, inauthenticity, and self-knowledge in some of Bergman's works. Livingston, Paisley and Carl Plantinga, eds. 2009. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film , Part IV: Film as Philosophy. London: Routledge. 547–659. Offers a succinct survey by Wartenberg as well as entries on Ingmar Bergman, Terrence Malick, and Andrei Tarkovsky, discussions of film and specific philosophical topics (morality, skepticism, personal identity, and practical wisdom), and examples of philosophically motivated interpretations of three specific films: The Five Obstructions , Gattaca , and Memento . Smith, Murray and Thomas E. Wartenberg, eds. 2006. Thinking Through Cinema: Film as Philosophy . Malden, MA: Blackwell. A collection of papers that combines essays devoted to general positions on the cinema as philosophy topic as well as specific interpretations of works in different genres. Turvey, Malcolm. 2008. Doubting Vision: Film and the Revelationist Tradition . Oxford: Oxford University Press. A probing critical investigation into the assumptions underlying influential philosophical claims about the epistemic value of cinema. Wartenberg, Thomas E. 2008. Thinking on Screen: Film as Philosophy . London: Routledge. Ably surveys and responds to arguments against the idea that films can 'do philosophy'. It defends a conditionalist form of intentionalism in response to the 'imposition objection' according to which it is only the commentator who reads philosophical themes 'into' the movie; illustrates the favored account of film as philosophy with interpretations of specific cinematic fictions. Online Materials Film-Philosophy http://www.film-philosophy.com/ > Founded in 1996, this peer-reviewed online journal is dedicated to philosophically oriented interpretations of films and cinema studies more generally. The e-mail salon encourages discussion of related topics. Includes essays, festival reports, calls for papers, conference and job information, and book reviews. The archive includes contributions from 1997 to the present. Wartenberg, Thomas E. 'Philosophy of Film.' The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ; http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/film/ > A brief survey of a range of issues in the philosophy of cinema including a few paragraphs on the film as philosophy topic. Philosophical Films http://www.philfilms.utm.edu/2/filmlist.htm > A briefly annotated list of philosophical films grouped in rubrics such as 'The Meaning of Life' and 'Environmental Ethics'. Sample Syllabus What follows is a 4-week 'start-up module' followed by samples of optional units that focus on particular topics and cinematic examples. Introductory Module Week I: Introduction & Overview Livingston, Paisley. 'Recent Work on Cinema as Philosophy.' Philosophy Compass 3 (2008): 1–14, 20 (DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00158.x ). Wartenberg, Thomas E. 2009. 'Film as Philosophy.' The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film . Ed. Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga. London: Routledge. 549–59. Russell, Bruce. 2008. 'The Philosophical Limits of Film.' The Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: An Anthology . Ed. Noël Carroll and Jinhee Choi. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 387–390. Week II: The Bold Thesis on Film as Philosophy Reading: Livingston, Paisley, 'Theses on Cinema as Philosophy.' Cinema, Philosophy, Bergman, Chapter One. 11–38. Screening: October (dir. Sergei Eisenstein 1928). Week III: Debating the Bold Thesis: The Case of October Carroll, Noël. 1998. 'For God and Country.' Interpreting the Moving Image . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 80–91. Smuts, Aaron. 2009. 'Film as Philosophy: In Defense of a Bold Thesis.' Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , 67:4: 409–20. Week IV: Cinema as Philosophy: Objections and Replies Livingston, Paisley. 2009. 'Arguing over Cinema as Philosophy.' Cinema, Philosophy, Bergman, Chapter Two. 39–59. Additional Optional Units Depending on the instructor's areas of interest and expertise, any of the following units could be added (and in some cases, easily expanded into longer segments). The Case of Ingmar Bergman Livingston, Paisley. 2009. 'Ingmar Bergman.' The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film . Eds. Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga. London: Routledge. 560–568. Screening(s): Wild Strawberries (dir. Ingmar Bergman 1957), or The Seventh Seal (dir. Ingmar Bergman 1957), or Persona (dir. Ingmar Bergman 1966). Skepticism Fumerton, Richard. 2009. 'Skepticism.' In The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film . Eds. Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga. London: Routledge. 601–10. Screening: The Matrix (dir. Andy and Larry Wachowski 1999) or Total Recall (dir. Paul Verhoeven 1990). Ethics Kupfer, Joseph. 1999. Visions of Virtue in Popular Film . Boulder, CO: Westview. 35–60. Falzon, Chris. 2009. 'Why be Moral?' The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film . Eds. Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga. London: Routledge. 591–599. Screening: Groundhog Day (dir. <span class='Hi'>Harold</span> Ramis 1993), or Crimes and Misdemeanors (dir. Woody Allen 1989), or Hollow Man (dir. Paul Verhoeven 2000). Personal Identity Knight, Deborah. 2009. 'Personal Identity.' The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film . Eds. Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga. London: Routledge. 611–619. Hanley, Richard. 2009. ' Memento and Personal Identity: Are We Getting it Backwards?' Memento . Ed. Andrew Kania. London: Routledge. 107–126. Martin, Raymond. 2009. 'The Value of Memory: Reflections on Memento. ' Memento . Ed. Andrew Kania. London: Routledge. 87–106. Screening: Memento (dir. Christopher Nolan 2000). Freedom and (Genetic) Determinism Sesardic, Neven. 2009. 'Gattaca.' The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film . Eds. Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga. London: Routledge. 641–649. Screening: Gattaca (dir. Andrew Niccol 1997). Focus Questions • Is there anything special about the experience of fiction films that is especially well suited to the stimulation of worthwhile philosophical reflection? • Have any novel and philosophically significant ideas found their first expression in a cinematic work? • Under what circumstances can the film medium be used as an expression of a cinematic author's views? • What sort of background knowledge has to be in place for a film to be interpreted as articulating reasonably precise philosophical theses and arguments? • Does the goal of spelling out a film's philosophical meaning sometimes conflict with the goal of appreciating its value as a work of art? (shrink)

In 1769, the English bishop and theologian Edmund Law published a Defence of Mr. Locke's Opinion concerning Personal Identity.1 In this work, Law attempted to 'explain and vindicate Mr. Locke's hypothesis' (301) by offering a new account of Lockean persons. Law's account centers around three key claims. First, persons are modes — very roughly, properties — rather than substances. Second, the relevant properties are those that make moral evaluation appropriate, thus taking seriously Locke's insistence that 'person' is a forensic term. (...) And third, the fact that persons are modes is what makes a demonstrative science of morality possible.I am not convinced that Law's interpretation actually vindicates Locke, though it .. (shrink)

Debates in Modern Philosophy: Essential Readings and Contemporary Responses provides an in-depth, engaging introduction to important issues in modern philosophy. It presents 13 key interpretive debates to students, and ranges in coverage from Descartes' Meditations to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. -/- Debates include: -/- Did Descartes have a developed and consistent view about how the mind interacts with the body? Was Leibniz an idealist, or did he believe in corporeal substances? What is Locke's theory of personal identity? Could there (...) be a Berkeleian metaphysics without God? Did Hume believe in causal powers? What is Kant's transcendental idealism? -/- Each of the thirteen debates consists of a well known article or book chapter from a living philosopher, followed by a new response from a different scholar, specially commissioned for this volume. Every debate is prefaced by an introduction written for those coming upon the debates for the first time and followed by an annotated list for further reading. The volume starts with an introduction that explains the importance and relevance of the modern period and its key debates to philosophy and ends with a glossary that covers terms from both the modern period and the study of the history of philosophy in general. -/- Debates in Modern Philosophy will help students evaluate different interpretations of key texts from modern philosophy, and provide a model for constructing their own positions in these debates. (shrink)

: Malebranche famously objects to Descartes' argument that the nature of the mind is better known than the nature of body as follows: if we had an idea of the mind's nature we would know the possible range of modes of the mind, including the sensory modes, but we do not know those modes and thus can't have an idea of the mind's nature. I argue that Malebranche's objections are readily answerable from within the Cartesian system. This argument involves examining (...) the status of sensations in Descartes, innate ideas, and Malebranche's occasionalism. (shrink)

P F Strawson advocates a descriptive metaphysics. Contrary to Kant, he believes that metaphysics should be ‘content to describe the actual structure of thought about the world’, there is no need of postulating a world that lies beyond our grasp. We neither need to refute nor accept scepticism since we can ignore it with good reasons. Yet this paper argues that Strawson fails to provide us with good reasons. He fails to realise that one cannot do metaphysics by construing its (...) claims as being merely descriptive of a conceptual scheme we find ourselves to possess without even purporting to establish the legitimacy of that scheme. The paper shows that it is possible to overcome this impasse if we endorse Kant's transcendental idealist position. The significance of Kant' position is that it not only allows us to describe our conceptual scheme but moreover that it acknowledges that the world may be (radically) otherwise without however instantiating the truth of scepticism (Published Online October 13 2005) Footnotes1 I am grateful to Steven Kupfer for his helpful comments and should like to thank the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences for providing me with a year's fellowship which has made this study possible. (shrink)

According to Antonia Barkes version of contextualism, epistemic contextualism, a context is defined by a method and its associated assumptions. The subject has to make the assumption that the method is adequate or reliable and that good working conditions hold in order to arrive at knowledge by employing the method. I will criticize Barkes claim that epistemic contextualism can provide a more satisfactory explanation or motivation for context shifts than conversational contextualism (in particular, David Lewiss contextualism). Two more points (...) of criticizm will be presented, which are meant to show that epistemic contextualism presupposes epistemic internalism, and that (epistemic) contextualism leads to an implausible view about which parameters the special achievement that is constitutive of knowledge depends on. I suggest that, contra (epistemic) contextualism, knowledge is a more robust phenomenon that does not depend on whether anyone calls into question any assumptions or raises skeptical doubts in conversation or in his or her mind (as, for example, Fred Dretskes account says). I indicate how this can be reconciled with the phenomenon that knowledge attributions are somewhat unstable and seemingly context-dependent. (shrink)

It is often suggested that certain forms of early modern philosophy are naturalistic. Although I have some sympathy with this description, I argue that applying the category of naturalism to early modern philosophy is not useful. There is another category that does most of the work we want the category of naturalism to do ? one that, unlike naturalism, was actually used by early moderns.

Offered here is the first comprehensive treatment in English of the philosophical system of the seventeenth century philosopher Pierre Gassendi. Gassendi's importance is widely recognized and is essential for understanding early modern philosophers and scientists such as Locke, Leibniz and Newton. Offering a systematic overview of his contributions, LoLordo situates Gassendi's views within the context of sixteenth and early seventeenth century natural philosophy as represented by a variety of intellectual traditions, including scholastic Aristotelianism, Renaissance Neo-Platonism, and the emerging mechanical philosophy. (...) LoLordo's work will be essential reading for historians of early modern philosophy and science. (shrink)

Gassendi holds both that we only have ideas of material things and that we know – by faith and, at least in later works, by reason as well – that the mind is immaterial. I examine the account of the mind provided in Gassendi’s Objections to the Meditations and show how Gassendi’s two theses can be rendered compatible. Indeed, the two theses, taken together, exemplify Gassendi’s account of the scope and limits of human understanding.

This article first examines a number of different definitions of lying, from Aldert Vrij, Warren Shibles, Sissela Bok, the Oxford English Dictionary, Linda Coleman and Paul Kay, and Joseph Kupfer. It considers objections to all of them, and then defends Kupfer’s definition, as well as a modified version of his definition, as the best of those so far considered. Next, it examines five other definitions of lying, from Harry G. Frankfurt, Roderick M. Chisholm and Thomas D. Feehan, David (...) Simpson, Thomas Carson, and Don Fallis. It finds reason to reject these definitions, in favor of the two definitions of lying previously defended, namely:(i) To lie (to another person) = df. to make a believed-false statement (to another person) with the intention that that statement be believed to be true (by the other person).(ii) To lie (to another person) = df. to make a believed-false statement (to another person), either with the intention that that statement be believed to be true (by the other person), or with the intention that it be believed (by the other person) that that statement is believed to be true (by the person making the statement), or with both intentions. (shrink)

: Wittgenstein raises the notion of "conversion" in philosophy through his claims that philosophical understanding is a matter of the will rather than the intellect. Soulez examines this notion in Wittgenstein's philosophy through a series of reflections on the aims and methodology of his philosophical "grammar," in relation to comparable models among Wittgenstein's contemporaries (Freud, James) and from the history of philosophy (Saint Augustine, Descartes).

This book explores the core categories of communism and capital in conjunction with a wealth of contemporary and historical political concepts and movements - from the lumpenproletariat and anarchism, to Italian autonomia and Antonia Negri, immaterial labour and the refusal of work. Drawing on literary figures such as Kafka and Beckett, Deleuze, Marx and Politics develops a politics that breaks with the dominant frameworks of post-Marxism and one-dimensional models of resistance toward a concern with the inventions, styles and knowledges (...) that emerge through minority engagement with social flows and networks. (shrink)

Name does matter. During exploration of knowledge, name provides dignity of existence. Isolating a quid from a whole, name gives that quid a status (i.e., helps it to gain a space, time, and fact). Biohistory had its own name in August 1992, when finally my mind isolated the historical quantum as the promotor of life. Shape follows name; Biohistory began to take shape in 1993, when it ran into Edgar Morin's ideas. For about a year, Biohistory had been a game (...) I toyed with, using it to show my pupils the explosion of events in spaces. I even gave it a poetic dress, in the form of nursery-rhymes (Spazioliberina; Colamonico, 1993). In 1993 I also read Morin's Introduction to Complex Thought (1993), in which it is assumed that a new science and a new doctrine would manage to read the one-whole. It was then that I understood that this theory would have been the body-mind-eye of my joyful child. So I adopted Morin as the father of my Biohistory. (shrink)

If you started delving into Stoic literature, you might find some of the advice repugnant, even shocking. In Epictetus, for instance, you would find this exhortation: “If you kiss your child, or your wife, say to yourself that it is a human being that you are kissing; and then you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.” So is Stoicism a life-affirming philosophy that can truly help us to live better lives in the modern world or a fiercely (...) radical perspective, intriguing but too remote and demanding to have any real relevance to our daily conduct? (shrink)

The central idea of the paper is that human thinking consists in a movement through which a person socially interacts with herself. Consequently, thinking does not offer the experience of a private refuge in the intimacy of the individual thinker's self-knowing, but a field where multiple points of view interact by contesting, distancing, approaching, agreeing or disagreeing, one to another. Classical (Isocrates, 1929/1968) and contemporary (Billig, 1987) rhetorical approaches to thinking stress that both “inner” and “social” discourse are addressed to (...) someone else, are determined by the anticipation of this audience, and both are interested in persuading it. In doing so, the discursive, rhetoric, and dialogic aspects of thinking become tied to argumentation. The paper tries to show, following the dialogical notion of discourse of Bakhtin (1986) and Vološinov (1929/1986) that, since every act of thinking consists in the raising of a point of view addressing another one and oriented by a particular interest, every stream of thought involves a rhetorical activity. A distinction between rhetoric and argumentation is proposed. On this basis, the rhetorical nature of thinking is discussed beyond argumentative discourse. Overall, this discussion contributes to a rhetorical approach to dialogism. (shrink)

Los estudios de géneros discursivos han prestado poca atención a las tesis o seminarios producidos para la obtención del grado de licenciatura. En este artículo se describe, desde el enfoque del genre analysis (Swales, 1990), la organización retórica del marco referencial de un conjunto de 30 tesis de pregrado elaboradas por estudiantes de la carrera de Trabajo Social de la UCSC. Se identifican cuatro movidas retóricas: teórico, conceptual, empírico y normativo. Se observa que cada una tiene propósitos diferentes sobre cuestiones (...) teóricas, prácticas y legales relacionadas con el problema social que aborda cada tesis. Se advierte la presencia de algunos pasos retóricos recursivo y, al mismo tiempo, un fuerte compromiso de la investigación con la resolución de un problema social real. Studies of discourse genre have paid little attention to graduation theses produced by undergraduate students. This article describes, from a genre analysis approach (Swales, 1990), the rhetorical organization of the reference framework of a set of 30 undergraduate theses prepared by social work students at the UCSC. The study identifies four rhetorical moves: theoretical, conceptual, empirical, and normative. It is observed that each move has different purposes on theoretical, practical, and legal issues related to the social problem addressed by each thesis. The presence of recursive rhetorical steps is apparent, along with a strong commitment to solving real social problems through research. (shrink)

We show that basic hybridization (adding nominals and @ operators) makes it possible to give straightforward Henkin-style completeness proofs even when the modal logic being hybridized is higher-order. The key ideas are to add nominals as expressions of type t , and to extend to arbitrary types the way we interpret $@_i$ in propositional and first-order hybrid logic. This means: interpret $@_i\alpha _a$ , where $\alpha _a$ is an expression of any type $a$ , as an expression of type $a$ (...) that rigidly returns the value that $\alpha_a$ receives at the i -world. The axiomatization and completeness proofs are generalizations of those found in propositional and first-order hybrid logic, and (as is usual inhybrid logic) we automatically obtain a wide range of completeness results for stronger logics and languages. Our approach is deliberately low-tech. We don’t, for example, make use of Montague’s intensional type s , or Fitting-style intensional models; we build, as simply as we can, hybrid logicover Henkin’s logic. (shrink)

Edgar Morin is one of the most important contemporary European philosophers. His name has recently also become well known on the American continent, especially in South America, where his works have given rise to several interesting cultural initiatives. The analysis of his pedagogical proposal can be a stimulating adventure for educators and teachers alike. Morin's proposal to link methodologically what is disjoined suggests re-establishing the connection between thought and action, in order to re-establish on rational and critical bases the ethical (...) principles of solidarity and responsibility and enable us to face the challenges of our times. (shrink)

There is a Wittgensteinian use of "phenomenology" which is the grammar of the apriori possibility of facts, in contradistinction to an hermeneutical conception of language in the spirit of German phenomenology. Not only does Wittgenstein refer, as early as 1929, to such a "language" as opposed to a Husserlian "doctrine" of intuiting the phenomenal apriori, but he keeps using the term in a positive manner which does not allow us to declare that from the Tractatus to the early thirties Wittgenstein (...) shifted from a kind of ineffabilist phenomenalism to physicalism. Rather the author of the Philosophical Remarks aims at freeing "phenomenology" from the earlier assumption of an atomistic basis providing a "primary language". Yet, Wittgenstein says in the same period that there is and there is not any confrontation with the given. Two ways of speaking about the connection between language and reality according to what is to be understood by "verifying" a sentence make Wittgenstein remain the same from one conception to the other. (shrink)

Salvador, antiga capital colonial e contemporaneamente terceira maior metrópole brasileira, é a mais emblemática cidade do processo histórico brasileiro por sua densidade demográfica e cultural negras. Neste artigo fazemos uma análise teórica e empírica sobre as desigualdades socioeconômicas, sociorraciais por cor/raça e sexo para compreender as relações raciais e de gênero nos espaços concretos e simbólicos que marcaram nossa forma de organização do espaço. Os dados estatísticos e cartográficos foram baseados no Censo do IBGE 2000 e analisados socioespacialmente. Na pesquisa (...) qualitativa, utilizamos entrevistas com diversos sujeitos sociais da cidade para analisar a percepção das pessoas sobre a dinâmica social-urbana, sobre racismo, sexismo, discriminação, etc. Assim, articulamos classe, gênero, raça e espaço como categorias centrais de análise nas suas interseccionalidades para compreender como o sexismo, racismo e classismo, ao hierarquizar os indivíduos segundo atributos físicos em superiores e inferiores, são determinantes na formação sócio-histórica no Brasil. Busca-se compreender esses fenômenos como estruturantes das desigualdades socioeconômicas e sociorraciais e culturais como se expressam no espaço urbano, particularmente as territorialidades negras e femininas e seus múltiplos significados, para pensar os processos coletivos, os processos libertários, o Direito à Cidade nas perspectivas feminista, anti-racista e anti-classista. (shrink)

Wittgenstein hérite de Frege l'idée d'une égalité de statut entre affirmation et négation, mais au lieu d'en tirer la thèse d'une absence de force de la négation, il en restaure au contraire la force alors même qu'il ne lui correspond aucune objectivité. D'où vient cette force ? Cette force serait d'expression. Dans cet article, je montre que Wittgenstein n'est finalement pas intéressé par la question sémantique de la négation, mas plutôt par cette attitude propre au philosophe consistant à ne pas (...) faire cas de son symbolisme opératoire, ce qui l'entraîne indûment à s'interroger sur son essence cachée.S'agissant du cas de la négation, Wittgenstein montre comment s'attaquer à la source de notre errement plutôt qu ' à la source de la signification justifiant son usage. Il « traite » ainsi ce qu'il appelle dans une de ses Dictées le « problème de Socrate » . L'impasse sur le symbolisme de la négation est un symptôme d'aveuglement au symbolisme. Reste donc à saisir l'articulation du signe avec le symptôme, soit entre deux espèces de traits que Wittgenstein tient pour hétérogènes. Pourtant, dans son combat contre les préjugés grammaticaux, Wittgenstein entend bien redonnera l'expression du signe une importance qui permet de comprendre en même temps son action sur le symptôme (sa disparition).Dans la « résolution » , une certaine concomitance freudienne entre les deux est donc présupposée. Nous examinons ce point de rencontre avec Freud tout en distinguant leurs conceptions respectives du grammatical. Wittgenstein inherits Frege's conception of equality of status of negative and positive assertions. Yet, far from concluding with Frege that the negation is weak, he restores its strength while at the same time he thinks it is devoid of objectivity since negative facts do not exist. Where does this strength come from ? The answer is : from its sole expressivity. My contention is therefore to show that Wittgenstein is less interested in the semantics of negation than in the philosopher's attitude which consists in neglecting the symbolic operation of negating, hence his questioning the essence of negation.Against this « symptom » Wittgenstein calls « Socrates ' problem » , the right thing to do is to cure it by tracing back the wot of our being misled by grammatical prejudices rather than to look for the source of meaning. What is to be treated is our blindness to symbolism. However we are left with a question concerning the connection between the sign of negation and the « symptom » resulting from omitting the latter. The difficulty arises from the fact that for Wittgenstein they belong to two different realms, while at the same time he seems to assume that the sole strength of expressing negation as a symbol could effect the desappearing of the symptom e.g. the « solution » of the « problem » . It is impossible to appraise this meeting-point between Wittgenstein and Freud without taking into account their respective conceptions of « the grammatical ». (shrink)

Este artigo canta uma canção — uma canção criada ao unir o trabalho de quatro grandes nomes na história da lógica: Hans Reichenbach, Arthur Prior, Richard Montague, e Leon Henkin. Embora a obra dos primeiros três desses autores tenha sido previamente combinada, acrescentar as ideias de Leon Henkin é o acréscimo requerido para fazer com que essa combinação funcione no nível lógico. Mas o presente trabalho não se concentra nas tecnicalidades subjacentes (que podem ser encontradas em Areces, Blackburn, Huertas, e (...) Manzano [no prelo]), e sim nos instrumentos subjacentes e no modo como trabalham em conjunto. Esperamos que o leitor fique tentado a cantar junto. DOI:10.5007/1808-1711.2011v15n2p225. (shrink)

In this paper we describe a test for Nijhout's (1978, 1980a) hypothesis that the eyespot patterns on butterfly wings are the result of a threshold reaction of the epidermal cells to a concentration gradient of a diffusing degradable morphogen produced by focal cells at the centre of the future eyespot. The wings of the nymphalid butterfly, Bicyclus anynana, have a series of eyespots, each composed of a white pupil, a black disc and a gold outer ring. In earlier extirpation (...) and transplantation experiments (Nijhout 1980a; French and Brakefield, 1995) it has been established that these eyespots are indeed organised around groups of signalling cells active during the first hours of pupal development. If these cells were to supply the positional information for eyespot formation in accordance with Nijhout's diffusion-degradation gradient model, then, when two foci are close together, the signals should sum, and this effect should be apparent in the detailed shape of the resulting pigment pattern. We give an equation for the form of the contours that would be obtained in this manner. We use this to test the morphogen gradient hypothesis on measurements of the outlines of fused eyespots obtained either by grafting focal cells close together, or by using a mutation (Spotty) that produces adjacent fused eyespots. The contours of the fused patterns were found to satisfy our equation, thus corroborating Nijhout's hypothesis to the extent possible with this particular type of experiment. (shrink)

La acción de los medios de prensa de construir y representar realidades socioculturales genera --en reiteradas ocasiones-- relaciones desiguales, promoviendo e institucionalizando unas identidades en desmedro de otras. La situación se complejiza cuando se trata de países vecinos, con sus respectivas tradiciones socio-histórico-culturales, pasados comunes y límites bisagra. Bajo este escenario se analizaron las producciones noticiosas de cobertura nacional publicadas en los periódicos de mayor tirada de dos países limítrofes: “El Mercurio” de Chile y “El Comercio” de Perú. De este (...) modo, y por medio de una herramienta metodológica ligada al Análisis Crítico y Complejo del Discurso, esta investigación busca comprender los procesos de construcciones noticiosas y representaciones que los medios de prensa chilenos y peruanos hacen en torno a los “discursos de la diferencia” que se institucionalizan en la relación entre ambas naciones. The action of the press media of constructing and representing socio-cultural realities generates --on numerous occasions-- unequal relationships, which promote and institutionalize certain identities in detriment of others. The situation becomes more complex when it deals with neighboring countries and their corresponding socio-historical-cultural traditions, shared pasts, and “hinge-like” borders. Under this scenario, the production of national news by two nationwide press media of the neighboring countries will be analyzed: “El Mercurio” of Chile and “El Comercio” of Perú. In this manner, and using a methodological tool based on the Critical and Complex Analysis of the Discourse, the main objective of this research is to understand processes of construction of news and representations that the Chilean and Peruvian press make linked to the “discourse of the differences” which have been institutionalized in the relationship between them both. (shrink)