Internal misconduct is a universal problem in prisons and affects the maintenance of social order. Consequently, correctional institutions often develop rehabilitation programs to reduce the likelihood of inmates committing internal offenses and criminal recidivism after release. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the profile of each offender, both for the appropriate indication of a rehabilitation program and the level of internal security to which he must be submitted. In this context, this work aims to discover the most significant characteristics in (...) predicting inmate misconduct from ML methods and the SHAP approach. A database produced in 2004 through the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities in the United States of America was used, which provides nationally representative data on prisoners from state and federal facilities. The predictive model based on Random Forest performed the best, thus, we applied the SHAP to it. Overall, the results showed that features related to victimization, type of crime committed, age and age at first arrest, history of association with criminal groups, education, and drug and alcohol use are most relevant in predicting internal misconduct. Thus, it is expected to contribute to the prior classification of an inmate on time, to use programs and practices that aim to improve the lives of offenders, their reintegration into society, and consequently, the reduction of criminal recidivism. (shrink)

O objetivo de nosso artigo é desnaturalizar as construções epistemológicas e axiológicas do pensamento colonial produzido pelo ocidente, abrindo possibilidade para a construção de novas categorias de pensamento em relação ao processo de reconhecimento sobre nós mesmos e sobre os outros. Os conceitos de raça e racismo, vistos por uma perspectiva que denuncia o caráter estrutural dos dispositivos de colonialidade na construção da civilização ocidental, são historicizados por uma crítica que localiza as condições de possibilidade para o surgimento desse pensamento (...) na filosofia liberal europeia, no século XVIII. Assim, queremos produzir uma discussão acerca dos dispositivos coloniais de poder e a violência operada por eles na construção das subjetividades, propagando discursos assimilacionistas e outrificadores em relação às diferenças culturais, naturalizando e imputando, via discursos racistas, determinadas características de cunho ontológico. Com isso, visamos enunciar que é possível a elaboração de uma prática decolonial libertária, pautada na construção de categorias éticas e políticas permeadas pela luta antiracista. (shrink)

Trata-se de uma pesquisa exploratória e documental sobre ética na organização do conhecimento que utiliza como escopo empírico um conjunto de termos considerados fronteiriços em relação a gênero e sexualidade. Para tanto, o objetivo foi categorizar termos considerados fronteiriços na questão de gênero e sexualidade, no intuito de formar uma base léxica para averiguar suas condições de organização do conhecimento, particularmente por ser uma reflexão ética. Dessa forma, os corpora investigativos foram 35 termos fronteiriços em relação a gênero e sexualidade (...) encontrados nos artigos científicos publicados na Journal of Homosexuality, Sexualities e Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, entre os anos de 2010 a 2019. Esses termos fronteiriços foram classificados utilizando o PMEST e o metafiltro. Os resultados demonstraram que o percurso metodológico foi promissor para classificação ética de termos considerados fronteiriços, promovendo um adequado resultado a partir dos aspectos epistêmicos de seus conceitos. (shrink)

No mês de Novembro de 2017, em ocasião do Dia Mundial da Filosofia da UNESCO, a Cátedra UNESCO Archai, do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Metafísica da Universidade de Brasilia, organizou um hangout Unesco sobre o tema Filosofia, gênero e feminismo, do qual participaram diversxs colegas brasileirxs, especialistas do tema, acima assinadxs. A gravação integral do hangout está disponível aqui: https://youtu.be/LH5LwTegGG4. Segue abaixo uma transcrição, revista e adaptada pelxs autorxs.

Este texto vai explanar as diversas contribuições que as obras cinematográficas podem propiciar para a educação, ferramenta essa que pode ser uma grande aliada dos docentes em sala de aula, visto que os filmes chamam a atenção dos aprendentes, diante da transtextualidade e uso de recursos estéticos que dialogam com outras expressões artísticas, além das refrações histórico-sociais possíveis. Nessa perspectiva, compartilhamos algumas experiências didáticas oriundas do projeto “Cine-CAVN: Recepção crítica da indústria cultural na formação da leitura, da escrita e no (...) letramento midiático”, realizado na UFPB / Campus III. Tal demanda institucional surge da necessidade formativa do sujeito crítico e atuante, utilizando como mediação o cinema, arte integrante da cultura da mídia, que auxilia os participantes na produção de textos, visto que a escrita ainda é um grande desafio para a maioria dos discentes. O objetivo das ações é analisar as obras fílmicas e potencializar nos participantes um olhar problematizador, por meio de textos escritos e/ou audiovisuais, trazendo como impacto social um cidadão emancipado (FREIRE, 1986). Assim como o mundo está em constante transformação, a escola também deve se adequar a algumas necessidades dos alunos, e trazer para a sala de aula ferramentas tecnológicas do seu cotidiano, propiciando, desta forma, novos olhares para os temas sensíveis e componentes curriculares (ocultos ou não), de forma a estimular a(s) habilidades(s) crítica(s) dos aprendentes. (shrink)

O artigo tece considerações sobre a relação entre psicologia e gestão, apresentando a contribuição que a leitura sobre o cotidiano oferece para compreender o trabalho, os processos que o organizam e, conseqüentemente, a sua gestão. Ilustra suas considerações com a análise de um episódio ocorrido em ..

Este artigo é sobre a folksonomia como uma ferramenta que contribui para as atividades colaborativas de grupos de usuários na rede social acadêmica Passei Direto, com o objetivo de analisar a folksonomia como ferramenta de apoio em grupos colaborativos nessa rede social, por meio de estudo de caso holístico e exploratório, sendo realizada observação direta intensiva. A justificativa baseou-se na necessidade de compreender a potencialidade das atividades cooperativas e a solução das necessidades informacionais. Concluiu-se que a folksonomia é uma ferramenta (...) de apoio em grupos colaborativos no Passei Direto, onde os usuários, no uso de tags em práticas de indexação, visam a enriquecer e ampliar as possibilidades de acesso às informações. No entanto, apesar de representar uma ferramenta de forte cunho colaborativo, a folksonomia também deixa lacunas no tocante à recuperação da informação, dada a falta de padronização e controle dessa ferramenta, embora essas características façam parte da sua essência. (shrink)

Uma das questões mais interessantes do debate contemporâneo sobre a justiça, no âmbito da teoria política normativa, diz respeito sobre qual foco deveria ocupar a posição central de uma visão igualitarista: igualdade baseada em satisfação de necessidades básicas, bens primários como propõe Rawls, igualdade de recursos como defende Dworkin ou, como quer Amartya Sen, igualdade de capacidades? Com o que, afinal, os igualitaristas deveriam se preocupar? Este trabalho tem o objetivo de analisar criticamente essas três perspectivas.

Com este artigo, pretendeu-se problematizar a integração da hipermídia educacional, nas Atividades de Estudo a Distância (AEDs), como possibilidade de potencializar a interação mediada por computador. Dessa forma, foram apresentadas algumas estratégias que embasaram o planejamento, a organização e a implementação de uma AED mediada pelo Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle). Assim, observou-se que é essencial que as AEDs sejam planejadas e organizadas didaticamente pelo professor, que define quais propósitos pretende alcançar no contexto de ensino e aprendizagem mediado pelas (...) Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação (TICs), pois, elaborar uma AED hipermidiática e guiar seu desenvolvimento, tanto com relação à tecnologia quanto ao próprio conteúdo em questão, colabora na proposição de alternativas para resolvê-las e também possibilita uma maior interação entre os envolvidos (professor e alunos) na apropriação crítica do conhecimento escolar, o que contribui para a sustentabilidade do processo ensino e aprendizagem significativo e interativo para todos os envolvidos. (shrink)

Este artigo tem por objetivo investigar a filiação filosófica dos denominados direitos da natureza. A questão central deste texto é saber se é procedente afirmar que a concepção da natureza enquanto titular de direitos significa rompimento com a ética Antropocêntrica e, entre as correntes da ética Ambiental, qual delas está alinhada com tal perspectiva. Apesar de ser comum a tese de que os direitos da natureza denotam uma posição biocêntrica, este artigo conclui que a posição filosófica que realmente identifica esta (...) formulação é a da ética Ecocêntrica, o que não significa, a rigor, afastamento ou superação do antropocentrismo. investigam-se autores referenciais para a problemática, bem como a legislação constitucional do Equador e da Bolívia. indaga-se também a fundamentação que justificaria reconhecer direitos à natureza, mas não reconhecer direitos aos animais. A metodologia adotada implica análise da bibliografia basilar acerca do tema, que é basicamente de origem estrangeira: europeia, estadunidense e sul-americana. A importância do tema está no exame jusfilosófico da virada paradigmática proposta pela ética Ambiental, notadamente pela ética Animal. Atribuir direitos à natureza significa rever essencialmente os critérios tradicionalmente empregados pelo Direito para o reconhecimento de direitos subjetivos. (shrink)

Esta pesquisa discute a aplicação da tecnologia da informação nos processos de representação da informação de obras artístico-pictóricas e teve por objetivo geral apresentar uma relação possível entre os softwares de mineração de textos e a sistematização de termos nas práticas de representação da informação a partir da documentação gerada pela análise de obras artístico-pictóricas pelo viés da Ciência da Informação. Para isso, a pesquisa consistiu de estudo de caso, utilizando o software online Sobek para processar uma amostra da documentação (...) gerada pelas análises de obras artístico-pictóricas de Medeiros (2017), com a realização de três etapas: a) organização textual do conteúdo documental; b) inserção do conteúdo textual organizado no software Sobek e geração do grafo e; c) análise do grafo gerado pelo software Sobek. Os resultados indicaram que a utilização do Sobek demonstra indícios da viabilidade de uso da mineração de texto como auxílio aos processos de representação da informação de obras artístico-pictóricas, não obstante apontaram a necessidade de aprofundamento da questão para realização de futuras propostas metodológicas e de aperfeiçoamento do software a este fim documentário. (shrink)

Com este artigo, pretendeu-se problematizar a integração da hipermídia educacional, nas Atividades de Estudo a Distância (AEDs), como possibilidade de potencializar a interação mediada por computador. Dessa forma, foram apresentadas algumas estratégias que embasaram o planejamento, a organização e a implementação de uma AED mediada pelo Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle). Assim, observou-se que é essencial que as AEDs sejam planejadas e organizadas didaticamente pelo professor, que define quais propósitos pretende alcançar no contexto de ensino e aprendizagem mediado pelas (...) Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação (TICs), pois, elaborar uma AED hipermidiática e guiar seu desenvolvimento, tanto com relação à tecnologia quanto ao próprio conteúdo em questão, colabora na proposição de alternativas para resolvê-las e também possibilita uma maior interação entre os envolvidos (professor e alunos) na apropriação crítica do conhecimento escolar, o que contribui para a sustentabilidade do processo ensino e aprendizagem significativo e interativo para todos os envolvidos. (shrink)

This paper presents REAL, a Real-Valued Attribute Classification Tree Learning Algorithm. Several of the algorithm's unique features are explained by úe users' demands for a decision support tool to be used for evaluating financial operations strategies. Compared to competing algorithms, in our applications, REAL presents maj or advantages : (1) The REAL classification trees usually have smaller error rates. (2) A single conviction (or trust) measure at each leaf is more convenient than the traditional (probability, confidence-level) pair. (3) No need (...) for an external pruning criterion. (shrink)

Pulmonary rehabilitation has demonstrated patients’ physiological and psychosocial improvements, symptoms reduction and health-economic benefits whilst enhances the ability of the whole family to adjust to illness. However, PR remains highly inaccessible due to lack of awareness of its benefits, poor referral and availability mostly in hospitals. Novel models of PR delivery are needed to enhance its implementation while maintaining cost-efficiency. We aim to implement an innovative community-based PR programme and assess its cost-benefit. A 12-week community-based PR will be implemented in (...) primary healthcare centres where programmes are not available. Healthcare professionals will be trained. 73 patients with CRD and their caregivers will compose the experimental group. The control group will include dyads age- and disease-matched willing to collaborate in data collection but not in PR. Patients/family-centred outcomes will be dyspnoea, fatigue, cough and sputum, impact of the disease, emotional state, number of exacerbations, healthcare utilisation, health-related quality of life and family adaptability/cohesion. Other clinical outcomes will be peripheral and respiratory muscle strength, muscle thickness and cross sectional area, exercise capacity, balance and physical activity. Data will be collected at baseline, at 12 weeks, at 3- and 6-months post-PR. Changes in the outcome measures will be compared between groups, after multivariate adjustment for possible confounders, and effect sizes will be calculated. A cost-benefit analysis will be conducted. This study will enhance patients access to PR, by training healthcare professionals in the local primary healthcare centres to conduct such programmes and actively involving caregivers. The cost-benefit analysis of this intervention will provide an evidence-based insight into the economic benefit of community-based PR in chronic respiratory diseases. The trial was registered in the ClinicalTrials. gov U.S. National Library of Medicine, on 10th January, 2019. (shrink)

The scientific community has debated the importance of “return” activities after ethnobiological studies. This issue has provoked debate because it touches on the ethics of research and the relationships with the people involved in these studies. This case study aimed to investigate community perception of an ethnobotany research project that was carried out in the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil. Furthermore, we reported how the residents of this rural community felt about participating in the activities of “return” that arose from (...) the projects. Our findings demonstrate that “return” activities should be planned from the design phase of the research until its closure as a lifelong process that allows the communities involved to gradually take ownership of the information and actions that are being generated. Similarly, we argue that such activities must be negotiated with the people of the community so that they have decision-making power and autonomy to decide what is most relevant to their lives. (shrink)

Queen pheromones, which signal the presence of a fertile queen and induce daughter workers to remain sterile, are considered to play a key role in regulating the reproductive division of labor of insect societies. Although queen pheromones were long thought to be highly taxon‐specific, recent studies have shown that structurally related long‐chain hydrocarbons act as conserved queen signals across several independently evolved lineages of social insects. These results imply that social insect queen pheromones are very ancient and likely derived from (...) an ancestral signalling system that was already present in their common solitary ancestors. Based on these new insights, we here review the literature and speculate on what signal precursors social insect queen pheromones may have evolved from. Furthermore, we provide compelling evidence that these pheromones should best be seen as honest signals of fertility as opposed to suppressive agents that chemically sterilize the workers against their own best interests. (shrink)

The scientific community has debated the importance of “return” activities after ethnobiological studies. This issue has provoked debate because it touches on the ethics of research and the relationships with the people involved in these studies. This case study aimed to investigate community perception of an ethnobotany research project that was carried out in the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil. Furthermore, we reported how the residents of this rural community felt about participating in the activities of “return” that arose from (...) the projects. Our findings demonstrate that “return” activities should be planned from the design phase of the research until its closure as a lifelong process that allows the communities involved to gradually take ownership of the information and actions that are being generated. Similarly, we argue that such activities must be negotiated with the people of the community so that they have decision-making power and autonomy to decide what is most relevant to their lives. (shrink)

Das Buch untersucht die Bedeutung des Begriffs rationalitas bei Hildegard von Bingen. Zunachst wird die Herkunft des Begriffs von der griechischen Logoslehre uber die fruhchristliche Trinitatsspekulation bis hin zur ratio-Rezeption des Fruhmittelalters beleuchtet. Auf diesem Hintergrund entfaltet der zweite Teil die anthropologisch-theologische Bedeutung von rationalitas fur das Weltbild Hildegards.

Figurative experience, as a codified system of images, emerges in Europe about 40.000 years ago. Together with the development of a figurative system, Homo sapiens acquired his modern cognitive architecture: an entirely articulated language, as well-developed as our current phonological system is, and others cognitive capacities such as basic drawing skills, self-consciousness and group cohesiveness. “Making sign”, as a complex nonverbal symbolism, is a crucial stage in human evolution: a stage of complex symbolism by means of a non-verbal language. Its (...) value is both eidetic, when it aims at producing metaphoric and shared images, and individual, when it is involved in individual performances, that do not imply spectators. (shrink)

Focused on city-scale automation, and using self-driving cars (SDCs) as a case study, this article reflects on the role of AI—and in particular, computer vision systems used for mapping and navigation—as a catalyst for urban transformation. Urban research commonly presents AI and cities as having a one-way cause-and-effect relationship, giving undue weight to AI’s impact on cities and overlooking the role of cities in shaping AI. Working at the intersection of data science and social research, this paper aims to counter (...) this trend by exploring the reverse perspective: how do cities affect the development, and expose the present limits, of SDCs? The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, by comparing urban and nonurban environments and thoroughly examining the relationship between computer vision and city-specific sociality and form, it defines machine autonomy/automation as a function of the sociotechnical milieu in which an AI system operates. Second, and related, the paper problematizes the notion of SDCs as autonomous technologies and the role it plays in envisioning contending policy arrangements and technical solutions for achieving full driving automation. Finally, the article offers insight into a materialist and spatialized understanding of AI—namely, not as an abstract quality susceptible to replication within discrete machines, but rather as a distributed property emerging through embodied interactions among a multiplicity of agents (human, non-human, and technological) within/with their environments. (shrink)

Sacred Landscape and Visual Culture. The Paintings of the Lower Church of the Sacro Speco at Subiaco - The purpose of this article is to investigate the emergence of landscape in visual discourses. The subject of this research is the territory of Subiaco and - more specifically - the monastery of the Sacro Speco, built on the site of St Benedict’s hermitage. It is here, in the vast decorative cycle directed by Magister Conxolus at the end of the thirteenth century, (...) that the “sacred landscape” of Subiaco is bent by the monastic community to claim its possession. Benedict is always portrayed inside his Grotto - which becomes a veritable “attribute” of the saint - and the same discourse also includes the portrayal of Chelidonia, a Benedictine hermit nun who lived between the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Through the experiences of the two saints, the landscape becomes sacralised and acquires an identity value for the Benedictine community which lives there. In this context, the figures of Benedict and Chelidonia create a visual bridge to Francis and Clare, and the frescoes becomes a Benedictine response to the “Franciscan challenge”. (shrink)

Solidarity can be conceived in multiple ways. This article probes possible underlying ontological and normative assumptions of solidarity. In order to conceptually clarify the notion of solidarity, we distinguish between five types of solidarity. We suggest that solidarity is either grounded in the Enlightenment ideas of liberty, or a category of loyalty and allegiance. If the former is the case, solidarity can be justified on rational grounds. If the latter is the case, it is contingent on narratives of historical continuity (...) and a non-rational sense of belonging. Moreover, we show that different types of solidarity can be derived from Anglo-Saxon and continental thought, which hints at different conceptions of community. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Pruss proves the validity of the rule beta-2 relative to Lewis’s semantics for counterfactuals, which is a significant step forward in the debate about the consequence argument. Yet, we believe there remain intuitive counter-examples to beta-2 formulated with the actuality operator and rigidified descriptions. We offer a novel and two-dimensional formulation of the Lewisian semantics for counterfactuals and prove the validity of a new transfer rule according to which a new version of the consequence argument can (...) be formulated. This new transfer rule is immune to the counter-examples involving the actuality operator and rigidified descriptions. However, we show that counter-examples to this new rule can also be generated, demanding that the Lewisian semantics be generalized for higher dimensions where counter-examples can always be generated. (shrink)

Populism is widely thought to be in tension with liberal democracy. This article clarifies what exactly is problematic about populism from a liberal–democratic point of view and goes on to develop normative standards that allow us to distinguish between more and less legitimate forms of populism. The point of this exercise is not to dismiss populism in toto; the article strives for a more subtle result, namely, to show that liberal democracy can accommodate populism provided that the latter conforms to (...) particular discursive norms. What the article calls a ‘liberal ethics of populism’ turns out to be closely bound up with a broader ethics of peoplehood, understood as a way of articulating who ‘the people’ are in a way that is compatible with liberal–democratic principles of political justification. Such an ethics, concludes the article, inevitably has a much wider audience than populist political actors: its addressees are all those who seek legitimately to exercise power in the name of the people. (shrink)

This short piece discusses Hélène Landemore’s proposal of an ‘open democracy’, as outlined in her recent book _Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century_. Acknowledging the value of Landemore’s radical and ambitious proposals, I draw attention to a number of shortcomings and blind spots that have to do with how the case for an ‘open democracy’ is made: through an unduly brief and dismissive treatment of political parties; a methodological insensitivity to empirical variations of democratic performance and citizens’ (...) evaluations of the latter; a failure to distinguish between higher and ordinary law-making in the discussion of the central Icelandic case; and, finally, a surprising concession that realising an open democracy is all but infeasible in established constitutional democracies. If open democracy is to be an attractive ideal, these issues must arguably be addressed. (shrink)

that wilfrid sellars was a more subtle and sophisticated philosopher than his father, Roy Wood Sellars, is, I believe, a rather uncontroversial assessment, one which, with fatherly pride, Roy1 would most probably have endorsed. Even considering the radical shift in philosophical methods and attitude which took place in the United States in the decades of Wilfrid's philosophically formative years, Wilfrid's unrelenting philosophical acumen and imagination, his unflinching resolve to doggedly pursue a problem on a variety of fronts at once (arguably (...) the cause of his... (shrink)

We present a sound and complete Fitch-style natural deduction system for an S5 modal logic containing an actuality operator, a diagonal necessity operator, and a diagonal possibility operator. The logic is two-dimensional, where we evaluate sentences with respect to both an actual world (first dimension) and a world of evaluation (second dimension). The diagonal necessity operator behaves as a quantifier over every point on the diagonal between actual worlds and worlds of evaluation, while the diagonal possibility quantifies over some point (...) on the diagonal. Thus, they are just like the epistemic operators for apriority and its dual. We take this extension of Fitch’s familiar derivation system to be a very natural one, since the new rules and labeled lines hereby introduced preserve the structure of Fitch’s own rules for the modal case. (shrink)

In a recent article, P. Roger Turner and Justin Capes argue that no one is, or ever was, even partly morally responsible for certain world-indexed truths. Here we present our reasons for thinking that their argument is unsound: It depends on the premise that possible worlds are maximally consistent states of affairs, which is, under plausible assumptions concerning states of affairs, demonstrably false. Our argument to show this is based on Bertrand Russell’s original ‘paradox of propositions’. We should then opt (...) for a different approach to explain world-indexed truths whose upshot is that we may be morally responsible for some of them. The result to the effect that there are no maximally consistent states of affairs is independently interesting though, since this notion motivates an account of the nature of possible worlds in the metaphysics of modality. We also register in this article, independently of our response to Turner and Capes, and in the spirit of Russell’s aforementioned paradox and many other versions thereof, a proof of the claim that there is no set of all true propositions one can render false. (shrink)

Populist movements have become key players in European politics. These movements are readily criticized by journalists or political rivals, yet none of the common objections to populism seems to arrest their success. This article turns to normative political theory to cultivate sensitivity to problems arising from some existing arguments against populism, and to explore possible alternatives. It offers a critical reading of prototypical liberal and conservative arguments against populism, and proposes that the principles of solidarity and procedure provide good grounds (...) for a sustainable critique of populism. (shrink)

Popular sovereignty requires that citizens perceive themselves as being able to act and implement decisions, and that they are de facto causally connected to mechanisms of decision making. I argue that the two most common understandings of the exercise of popular sovereignty—which center on direct decision making by the people as a whole and the indirect exercise of democratic agency by elected representatives, respectively—are inadequate in this respect, and go on to suggest a complementary account that stresses the central role (...) of internally democratic and participatory political parties in actualising popular sovereignty, drawing on the democratic theory of Hans Kelsen. (shrink)

Populism is widely thought to be in tension with liberal democracy. This article clarifies what exactly is problematic about populism from a liberal–democratic point of view and goes on to develop...

In recent times, it has become increasingly common that elected parties and leaders systematically undermine democracy and the rule of law. This phenomenon is often framed with the term democratic backsliding or democratic regression. This article deals with the relatively little-studied topic of resistance to democratic regressions. Chief amongst the things it discusses is the rather central ethical issue of whether resisters may themselves, in their attempts to prevent a further erosion of democracy, transgress democratic norms. But the argument advanced (...) in the article is not merely about the ethics of resistance. It begins, perhaps unconventionally, by addressing the affective dimension of resistance to democratic regressions, looking in particular at the powerful feelings of anger and despair that pro-democratic citizens living under a regressive government are likely to experience. As the article argues, these feelings have not only motivational but also epistemic potential, which must be adequately theorized in order to understand how resisters can respond to the ethical challenges facing them. (shrink)

The text delivers a twofold analysis of negationism. On the one hand, it is taken as an ideological phenomenon characterized by a critique of modernity construed from the outside of its customary assumptions. On the other hand, an objective sort of negationism is found in the historical unfolding of the intrinsic limitations of modern socialization. These are brought forward by attention to the class content of the class character of the institutions regularly evoked by the apologetics of modernity – civil (...) society, science, the State. Progressivism, we suggest, the main target of negationism, is the tradition occupied with that apologetics, either promoting an intellectual critique of, or simply overlooking, the afore-mentioned class character, which, however, becomes historically undeniable to the common people, consistently victimized by it throughout modern history. In this sense, the modern social process is characterized as civil war. (shrink)

It is a widely held principle that no one is able to do something that would require the past to have been different from how it actually is. This principle of the fixity of the past has been presented in numerous ways, playing a crucial role in arguments for logical and theological fatalism, and for the incompatibility of causal determinism and the ability to do otherwise. I will argue that, assuming bivalence, this principle is in conflict with standard views about (...) knowledge and the semantics for ‘actually’. I also consider many possible responses to the argument. (shrink)

Hans Kelsen was one of the most important legal thinkers of the 20th century, and he is known for mounting an elaborate defense of liberal party democracy at a time when the latter was hardly the most popular form of regime. This article examines how Kelsen responded to two major political movements he experienced in his intellectual prime: political Catholicism, which he was confronted with in interwar Austria, and Christian Democracy, which became a hegemonic political force in Western Europe after (...) World War II, when Kelsen was already in exile. The article reconstructs Kelsen's complex critique of these two religious movements and ends by reflecting on what we can learn from his arguments about current attempts to revive Christian political thought. (shrink)

O presente texto investiga recentes modificações na prática da crítica filosófica. Em sua parte inicial, delineia rapidamente as principais determinações do conceito de crítica, bem como estabelece a ligação entre crítica e crise. Isto é seguido por uma descrição da prática crítica de T.W. Adorno, na qual são apontadas: a) a valorização da leitura micrológica em um contexto de precarização do conceito de totalidade; b) a problematização de uma linearidade temporal por meio da imbricação entre história e natureza; c) a (...) crescente opacidade da linguagem filosófica diante da proximidade de seu objeto. A última parte do texto volta-se para desenvolvimentos recentes da crítica que acentuam as transformações introduzidas por Adorno. Em Derrida, há autonomização do detalhe; em Slavoj Zizek perde-se a diferenciação entre objeto e instrumento de análise; em Deleuze e Guattari, ocorre a dissipação da distância hermenêutica. (shrink)

Voting is often said to be irrational because of the incredibly small likelihood that an individual voter’s ballot will be pivotal in favour of her preferred candidate or party. A persuasive respon...

In recent times, representation theory has become one of the most productive and interesting sub-fields in democratic theory. Arguably, the most important theoretical innovation are the so-called ‘constructivist’ approaches to political representation. These approaches play a central role in Creating Political Presence: The New Politics of Democratic Representation and The Constructivist Turn in Political Representation, two impressive volumes that take stock of the state of the art in representation theory. I discuss the two volumes by focusing on three broader and (...) interconnected themes: the problem that constructivism is meant to respond to, the tendency of representation theorists to expand the possibilities of representation as broadly as possible, and the normative aspects of political representation and how constructivists deal with them. (shrink)

In recent times, representation theory has become one of the most productive and interesting sub-fields in democratic theory. Arguably, the most important theoretical innovation are the so-called ‘constructivist’ approaches to political representation. These approaches play a central role in Creating Political Presence: The New Politics of Democratic Representation and The Constructivist Turn in Political Representation, two impressive volumes that take stock of the state of the art in representation theory. I discuss the two volumes by focusing on three broader and (...) interconnected themes: the problem that constructivism is meant to respond to, the tendency of representation theorists to expand the possibilities of representation as broadly as possible, and the normative aspects of political representation and how constructivists deal with them. (shrink)