Este artigo investigou os discursos sobre masculinidades proferidos por homens cisgêneros e heterossexuais na plataforma _youtube_. Para tanto, realizou uma busca, a partir das palavras-chave “ser homem” e “masculinidade”, dos vídeos mais visualizados, sendo os achados organizados em quatro categorias: orientação religiosa, afirmação da masculinidade tradicional com base no darwinismo social, desconstrução da masculinidade tradicional e crítica cultural. Os dados apontam maior público em vídeos voltados ao padrão tradicional de masculinidade e uma relação entre tal conteúdo e instituições religiosas ou (...) de mercantilização de modelos de comportamento. Já vídeos sobre novos modelos de masculinidade aparecem mais ligados a produtos culturais. Todos os vídeos foram produzidos pela sociedade civil e alguns vídeos sobre masculinidade tradicional usam distorções relevantes de conhecimentos científicos. Conclui-se pelo impacto social dos discursos sobre masculinidade no contexto digital, sendo esse um campo de pesquisa relevante, bem como pela necessidade de se abordar relações de gênero em políticas públicas de campos como saúde, educação e justiça. (shrink)

Este artigo propõe uma crítica à epistemologia anti-sorte, tal como defendida por Duncan Pritchard. A teoria de Pritchard é uma das mais bem desenvolvidas explorações do conceito de sorte, e da sua significação epistêmica. Ele julga possível derivar uma condição que exclua a sorte epistêmica a partir de uma análise modal do conceito de sorte. A cláusula epistêmica resultante é uma condição denominada princípio de segurança. Após apresentar a teoria e algumas de suas motivações, argumento que ela não consegue responder (...) a uma objeção apresentada por Mark McEvoy, e que consiste em uma variação do exemplo da loteria. Por fim, alego que o princípio de segurança, tal como defendido por Pritchard, não captura corretamente nossas intuições sobre quando sorte está ausente ou presente. (shrink)

Emergency departments are challenging research settings, where truly informed consent can be difficult to obtain. A deeper understanding of emergency medical patients’ opinions about research is needed. We conducted a systematic review and meta-summary of quantitative and qualitative studies on which values, attitudes, or beliefs of emergent medical research participants influence research participation. We included studies of adults that investigated opinions toward emergency medicine research participation. We excluded studies focused on the association between demographics or consent document features and participation (...) and those focused on non-emergency research. In August 2011, we searched the following databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, Google Scholar, Scirus, PsycINFO, AgeLine and Global Health. Titles, abstracts and then full manuscripts were independently evaluated by two reviewers. Disagreements were resolved by consensus and adjudicated by a third author. Studies were evaluated for bias using standardised scores. We report themes associated with participation or refusal. Our initial search produced over 1800 articles. A total of 44 articles were extracted for full-manuscript analysis, and 14 were retained based on our eligibility criteria. Among factors favouring participation, altruism and personal health benefit had the highest frequency. Mistrust of researchers, feeling like a ‘guinea pig’ and risk were leading factors favouring refusal. Many studies noted limitations of informed consent processes in emergent conditions. We conclude that highlighting the benefits to the participant and society, mitigating risk and increasing public trust may increase research participation in emergency medical research. New methods for conducting informed consent in such studies are needed. (shrink)

Devemos olhar o mito como um grande quebra cabeça da história, cujas peças esparsas precisam ser unidas corretamente e, mesmo assim, não é certo que as peças unidas possam vir a formar um quadro de acontecimentos reais. É provável que a causa primeira da distorção de fatos e acontecimentos em mitos ou fábulas, estivesse na incompreensão da língua, assim como aconteceu, em grande medida, com a criação do romance cristão, contudo, superada essa incompreensão, julgou-se bom e necessário à ordem dos (...) acontecimentos, manter o mito fabuloso, da história. -/- Alina: ah! Sobre o Novo Testamento, tenho forte inclinação em crer naqueles que dizem que sua redação final tem muito pouco dos escritos primitivos, mas não acredito que isso se deva à incompreensão da língua, Lancio, como dizes, pode ter ocorrido com os mitos. -/- Lancio: eu entendo o que queres dizer. Você fala do Cristianismo de Constantino, quando o imperador romano deu status de religião de Estado à seita dos galileus e, nesse tempo e momento, toda redação do texto religioso não passa pela incompreensão do semítico e sim pelo interesse do Estado e da Igreja. Mas quando o movimento messiânico judaico, nos seus primeiros anos, passa a aceitar não judeus em suas sinagogas, sua literatura, até então restrita a um pequeno grupo de zelosos, passa a ser redigida indiscriminadamente, formando um sem números de evangelhos permeados de simbolismos que não poderiam ser compreendidos plenamente pelos não judeus e como era bom aos olhos e às intenções daqueles que estavam por trás desse movimento, muitas das incompreensões passaram a ser propositais (143). -/- Para uma visão do simbolismo nos textos religiosos, o Zohar é uma fonte brilhante. Um exemplo; com a palavra deserto: Em Samuel I, IV, 8, está escrito: "Estes são os Deuses que golpearam os egípcios com toda a sorte de pragas no deserto". DESERTO na expressão dos sábios judeus significa linguagem, fazer por meio das palavras, como em: “Quem é este que sobe do deserto?” (Cântico dos Cânticos, III, 6) , análogo à expressão “E tua linguagem é graciosa” (Cântico dos Cânticos, IV, 3), ou “A palavra se levantou da montanha” (Salmos LXXV,7). Similarmente “Voz que clama no deserto” (Isaias 40, 3). No Novo Testamento “A voz que clama no deserto” ( Marcos I,3, Lucas III,4, Mateus III,3), Portanto, como nunca existiu praga no Egito, a não ser pelos escritos de um povo que em determinada época, oprimido, os amaldiçoou, a História nunca evidenciou qualquer vestígio dessas pragas, apesar dos esforços. Percebemos que uma forma alegórica na redação de um texto pode custar muitos estudos e investigações mal sucedidas. -/- Também a redação do Novo Testamento se utiliza dessas alegorias, e com as figuras mais proeminentes do seu Corpo de Doutrina. (Sefer Ja Zohar, prologue,125 – 129). -/- A referência comparativa da incompreensão da língua extensiva ao romance cristão, diz respeito aos primeiros anos do messianismo judaico, quando a quarta filosofia (144) transpõe os portões de Jerusalém e ganha a mente e os corações dos gentios. -/- Alina: tens razão, a primeira lembrança que me veio foi o Concílio de Niceia, por isso minha descrença quando falou em incompreensão da língua. Mas o que estou percebendo é que a história cristã não foi gerada somente pelo simbolismo piedoso daquela gente, mas também pela utilização da incompreensibilidade do símbolo como fundamento da crença, ou estou pensando de forma errada? -/- Lancio: pensas corretamente, Alina. Houve a princípio a incompreensão do real significado das palavras, já que os nomes hebraicos, em sua maioria, eram sentenças abreviadas (145) e outras palavras que além de serem sentenças, eram tidas como códigos, próprias da astúcia dos escribas, o que hoje é facilmente identificável na literatura periférica judaica, como o Zohar, ou o “Livro do Esplendor”. -/- Alina: perdoe, Lancio, mas quando falas em quarta filosofia transpondo os portões de Jerusalém...? -/- Lancio: nos últimos séculos, Alina, os hebreus se dividiam em três partidos ou seitas ou, como denominou o historiador Flavio Josefo, em filosofias, que eram os Saduceus, os Fariseus e os Essênios. A quarta seita, partido ou filosofia, surge na Judeia por volta do ano 6 DC, fundada por Judas, O Galileu, um sofista cuja família ficaria em evidência por várias décadas e suas ações culminaram com dois registros históricos: o desaparecimento do reino judeu e o nascimento do Cristianismo. É uma longa e bela história, Alina. -/- . (shrink)

This article analyses the role of sacred and religious art in Amazonia in the context of the catholic renovation movement of the 19th century, known as Catholic Reform. For that, it takes the order of the main altar of Our Lady of Belém by Pará’s Bishop Antônio de Macedo Costa to Italian architect Luca Carimini as its study object. This piece, along with others made throughout the period of Pio IX’s pontificate, constitutes an iconological programme as well as an artistic (...) and sacred narrative body, which testify to the pedagogical and political debates on the history of Roman Catholicism in Brazil in the 19th century. Besides that, it moves artists that acted under the patronage of Pope Pius IX in Latin American cities such as Santiago, in Chile, and Belém do Pará, in Brazil, putting in evidence the artistic, intellectual and religious connections between the Vatican and South America, as part of an international renewal movement of Catholicism. (shrink)

O presente artigo busca fazer uma análise do diálogo inter-religioso entre o judaísmo e o cristianismo, duas religiões monoteístas, com origens semelhantes, mas separadas por questões históricas e algumas divergências doutrinárias. Inicialmente se propõe relatar a importância do diálogo entre as duas religiões, baseando-se nos trabalhos de Alberto Milkewitz, Edwin Arteaga Tobon, e Frederico Laufer. Após isso, procurou-se identificar os aspectos divergentes e convergentes entre o cristianismo e o judaísmo, para verificar a viabilidade do diálogo. Consultou-se para este momento (...) os trabalhos de Josh McDowel e do Instituto Cristão de Pesquisas. Como conclusão do artigo, apresentou-se uma breve síntese visando a aplicabilidade do diálogo inter-religioso para a Igreja Cristã atual. (shrink)

Translation of Aristotle's Physics I-II into Portuguese, with commentaries. Tradução para o português dos livros I e II da Física de Aristóteles, com comentários.

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 3, March 2022.

I review recent work on Phenomenal Conservatism, the position introduced by Michael Huemer according to which if it seems that P to a subject S, in the absence of defeaters S has thereby some degree of justification for believing P.

In Posterior Analytics 71b9 12, we find Aristotle’s definition of scientific knowledge. The definiens is taken to have only two informative parts: scientific knowledge must be knowledge of the cause and its object must be necessary. However, there is also a contrast between the definiendum and a sophistic way of knowing, which is marked by the expression “kata sumbebekos”. Not much attention has been paid to this contrast. In this paper, I discuss Aristotle’s definition paying due attention to this contrast (...) and to the way it interacts with the two conditions presented in the definiens. I claim that the “necessity” condition ammounts to explanatory appropriateness of the cause. (shrink)

This project uses machine learning and computer vision techniques and a novel interactive visualization tool to provide street-level characterization of urban spaces such as safety and maintenance in urban neighborhoods. This is achieved by collecting and annotating street-view images, extracting objective metrics through computer vision techniques, and using crowdsourcing to statistically model the perception of subjective metrics such as safety and maintenance. For modeling human perception and scaling it up with a predictive algorithm, we evaluate perception predictions across two points (...) in time separated by economic changes in the urban core of Raleigh, North Carolina, in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession. We hypothesize specific socioeconomic processes can be substantially reflected in the built environment of cities and, thus, render themselves visible at the street level. This paper describes the process of incorporating subjective visual ratings across two datasets of temporally separated street-view images, an algorithm, and a visualization tool. This work serves as a case study for utilizing AI and visualization techniques in a richer characterization of urban spaces that includes both objective metrics such as income (that operates at a broader scale) and subjective metrics such as perception of individuals (that operates at a narrower scale at specific locations). We outline an interdisciplinary methodology to test this hypothesis in streetscape data from Raleigh, NC, from 2008 to 2020. We describe the results of training algorithms that utilized image features with crowdsourced human perception ratings. We provide a comparison of the results with income data. The analysis and interpretation of this comparison provide insight into the challenges and opportunities for using AI technology in characterizing changes in urban environments. One challenge is the ability of human domain experts to interpret the output of algorithms through manipulation and to integrate these results into their workflow. This is addressed with a novel interface designed for interactive analysis and visualization. We conclude with a discussion of some of the benefits and limitations of integrating AI models in the human expert’s decision-making process in the presence of both subjective and objective metrics. (shrink)

Como área interdisciplinar, as Ciências Cognitivas começam a se desenvolver em meados da década de 1950 a partir de uma concepção compartilhada sobre a mente, hoje chamada de cognitivista. Esses pesquisadores concebiam a mente com uma natureza representacional que opera por meio de computações simbólicas. Atualmente, há uma multiplicidade de abordagens e teorias sobre a mente. Nesse espectro de posições, há desde abordagens tradicionais, que concebem a mente como representacional, até abordagens bastante radicais, que negam qualquer natureza representacional para a (...) mente. Após introduzir este tema, apresentamos as críticas de William Ramsey à representação enquanto definidora das Ciências Cognitivas ou, em outros termos, à representação enquanto critério de demarcação do cognitivo. Desenvolveremos uma hipótese interpretativa para a crítica de Ramsey mobilizando o conceito de estratégia de pesquisa, de Hugh Lacey. Apresentaremos a distinção de Lacey entre adoção de uma estratégia e aceitação de uma teoria, discutindo a suposta independência avaliativa entre estratégia e teoria. Finalizaremos com a defesa de um pluralismo de estratégias nas Ciências Cognitivas. Diferente de concepções que buscam reduzir prematuramente as Ciências Cognitivas a uma única estratégia, o pluralismo que defendemos equilibra a eficiência na resolução de problemas com outros valores considerados importantes, como a abrangência empírica e a neutralidade no sentido de inclusividade e equitatividade de valores. No atual momento das ciências cognitivas, o pluralismo de estratégias constitui o caminho mais promissor. (shrink)

Mindreading (or folk psychology, Theory of Mind, mentalizing) is the capacity to represent and reason about others’ mental states. The Simulation Theory (ST) is one of the main approaches to mindreading. ST draws on the common-sense idea that we represent and reason about others’ mental states by putting ourselves in their shoes. More precisely, we typically arrive at representing others’ mental states by simulating their mental states in our own mind. This entry offers a detailed analysis of ST, considers theoretical (...) arguments and empirical data in favour of and against it, discusses its philosophical implications, and illustrates some alternatives to it. (shrink)

n the first part of the paper I will present Pritchard’s approach to Wittgenstein’s notion of hinge commitments, which is essential to his solution to the closure-based sceptical arguments. And, in the second par of the paper, I will raise some concerns that I have regarding Pritchard’s non-belief reading of the hinge commitments. In the third and final part, I make some concluding remarks regarding Pritchard’s overall strategy to solve the closure-based sceptical paradox.

In this paper we focus on transmission and failure of transmission of warrant. We identify three individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for transmission of warrant, and we show that their satisfaction grounds a number of interesting epistemic phenomena that have not been sufficiently appreciated in the literature. We then scrutinise Wright’s analysis of transmission failure and improve on extant readings of it. Nonetheless, we present a Bayesian counterexample that shows that Wright’s analysis is partially incoherent with our analysis of (...) warrant transmission and prima facie defective. We conclude exploring three alternative lines of reply: developing a more satisfactory account of transmission failure, which we outline; dismissing the Bayesian counterexample by rejecting some of its assumptions; reinterpreting Wright’s analysis to make it immune to the counterexample. (shrink)

Translation of Aristotle's Parts of Animals Book I into Portuguese, with full commentaries.

The dynamics and fusion of multiple media into one space has been thoroughly studied by Frederick J. Kiesler. His investigations into a multi-dimensional, space are in fact the beginnings of what would become a radically new concept of form and content appropriately called ‘Endless Space’. In the 1930s entitled the ‘Correalist Theory’ believes that the essence of reality is not in the ‘thing’ itself, but in the way it correlates and orders itself to its environment, to its spatial dynamics and (...) to its atmosphere. Kiesler also deemed that it was essential to disregard the boundaries that separate the different arts and media. These boundaries needed to be dissolved and proclaimed that painters, sculptors and designers, driven away by functionalism, would return from exile to be welcomed by architecture. Since his death in 1965, his notion of Endless Space and his studies ‘On correalism and biotechnique’ in particular, have resurfaced in recent art discourse. New technologies have emerged that are now provoking different questions regarding the techno-ethics of integrated biotech and post-digital tectonic potentials that withhold the concept of an ubiquitous and synaesthetic space. (shrink)

Igwebuike is a traditional knowledge system undergirded by the metaphysical assumption that the world is a totality of interconnected and interrelated entities.1–4 African scholars in West Africa often invoke igwebuike to make sense of African ethical, social and political perspectives that are grounded in the theory of Afro-communitarianism. Afro-communitarianism is primarily a socioethical theory that is concerned with the articulation of the moral relationship between the individual and the community. The term igwebuike is derived from the Igbo root words igwe (...) (number), bu (is) and ike (strength). Thus, the term igwebuike translates as ‘number is strength’.3 4 As an ethical theory, igwebuike espouses the ontological relatedness of the variety of entities in the world and the moral relatedness of all humans by virtue of their common possession of life, with the accompanying human capacity for feeling and thinking. Resultantly, it prescribes solidarity, companionship and identification with others as virtues that promote human flourishing. The reverence for life and humanness explicitly forbids actions that diminish this superlative and irreplaceable quality.5 This concept can be helpful in offering a conceptual framework for making healthcare more …. (shrink)

Phenomenal conservatism (PC) is the internalist view that non-inferential justification rests on appearances. PC’s advocates have recently argued that seemings are also required to explain inferential justification. The most general and developed view to this effect is Huemer (2016)’s theory of inferential seemings (ToIS). Moretti (2018) has shown that PC is affected by the problem of reflective awareness, which makes PC open to sceptical challenges. In this paper I argue that ToIS is afflicted by a version of the same problem (...) and it is thus hostage to inferential scepticism. I also suggest a possible response on behalf of ToIS’s advocates. (shrink)

Argumentos evolutivos debunking (AEDs), de maneira geral, têm o objetivo de danificar o status epistêmico de um domínio de crenças ao se apelar para suas origens evolutivas. No horizonte da metaética, AEDs normalmente são direcionados a teses realistas da moralidade e consistem essencialmente em afirmar que se nossas crenças morais sofreram influência significativa de pressões seletivas durante nossa história evolutiva, então se segue algum tipo de ceticismo moral. Um dos argumentos paradigmáticos articulados nessa direção é o Dilema Darwiniano de Sharon (...) Street. Nossa proposta no artigo presente é colocarmos o argumento evolutivo contra o naturalismo (AECN) de Alvin Plantinga – um AED oriundo da filosofia analítica da religião – como possível resposta ao problema do ceticismo moral proposto por Street. Dessa forma, Plantinga pontua que considerações evolutivas tomadas dentro do framework do naturalismo ontológico acarretam em um conflito epistêmico para o sujeito que deseja manter em seu sistema doxástico tanto a crença na teoria contemporânea da evolução, quanto a crença no naturalismo ontológico. Argumentamos, a partir dessa questão, que o Dilema Darwiniano sofre de um problema estrutural por causa do seu comprometimento com a ontologia naturalista, o que faz com que o dilema se generalize em seu escopo e afete, de maneira nociva, crenças não-morais, se tornando autorreferencialmente incoerente. Palavras-chave: realismo moral. Naturalismo. Crenças. (shrink)

Firms engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) because they consider that some kind of competitive advantage accrues to them. We contend that resource-based perspectives (RBP) are useful to understand why firms engage in CSR activities and disclosure. From a resource-based perspective CSR is seen as providing internal or external benefits, or both. Investments in socially responsible activities may have internal benefits by helping a firm to develop new resources and capabilities which are related namely to know-how and corporate culture. In (...) effect, investing in social responsibility activities and disclosure has important consequences on the creation or depletion of fundamental intangible resources, namely those associated with employees. The external benefits of CSR are related to its effect on corporate reputation. Corporate reputation can be understood as a fundamental intangible resource which can be created or depleted as a consequence of the decisions to engage or not in social responsibility activities and disclosure. Firms with good social responsibility reputation may improve relations with external actors. They may also attract better employees or increase current employees’ motivation, morale, commitment and loyalty to the firm. This article contributes to the understanding of why CSR may be seen as having strategic value for firms and how RBP can be used in such endeavour. (shrink)

This is an introductory handbook for some of the main themes around the notion of predication in Aristotle. It does not aim at being exhaustive, but only sketches some important lines about the subject; it contains an introductory essay, besides the translation (into Portuguese) and commentary of basic texts (such as Posterior Analytics I-22, Categories 1-5, Interpretation 1-6 etc.).

Sets are central to mathematics and its foundations, but what are they? In this book Luca Incurvati provides a detailed examination of all the major conceptions of set and discusses their virtues and shortcomings, as well as introducing the fundamentals of the alternative set theories with which these conceptions are associated. He shows that the conceptual landscape includes not only the naïve and iterative conceptions but also the limitation of size conception, the definite conception, the stratified conception and the graph (...) conception. In addition, he presents a novel, minimalist account of the iterative conception which does not require the existence of a relation of metaphysical dependence between a set and its members. His book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in logic and the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

In 1939, the influential psychophysicist S. S. Stevens proposed definitional distinctions between the terms ‘number,’ ‘numerosity,’ and ‘numerousness.’ Although the definitions he proposed were adopted by syeveral psychophysicists and experimental psychologists in the 1940s and 1950s, they were almost forgotten in the subsequent decades, making room for what has been described as a “terminological chaos” in the field of numerical cognition. In this paper, I review Stevens’s distinctions to help bring order to this alleged chaos and to shed light on (...) two closely related questions: whether it is adequate to speak of a number sense and how philosophers can make sense of the claim by cognitive scientists that numbers are perceptual entities. Moreover, I offer further support to Stevens’s distinction between numerosity and numerousness by showing that they are relational properties that emerge through different relationships between agents and their environments. The final conclusion is that, by adopting Stevens’s distinctions, numbers do not need to be seen as perceptual entities, since the so-called number sense is better described as a sense of numerousness. (shrink)

This book discusses Aristotle’s notions of essence and substance as they are developed in Metaphysics ZH. I examine Aristotle's argument at length and defends an unorthodox interpretation according to which his motivation is to provide an answer against a conflation between criteria for existential priority (delivering substances as primary beings) and criteria for explanatory priority (delivering essences as primary principles).

Wie gelangen wir in einen Zustand des Strafrechts, den viele Spezialisten mit guten Grunden fur unmoglich halten? Das Buch <I>Zur Moglichkeit des unmoglichen Strafrechts beschaftigt sich mit dieser Frage und versucht auf sie anhand einer vergleichenden Analyse eine Antwort zu geben: Die Krisis des Strafrechts aus der Perspektive der sogenannten Frankfurter Schule des Strafrechts steht dabei der Kritischen Theorie gegenuber. Ausgewahlte Beispiele aus der deutschen sowie der brasilianischen Geschichte, wie Sklaverei, Diktatur, Imperialismus und Nationalsozialismus, sprechen dafur, dass Wissenschaft und Barbarei (...) oft Hand in Hand gehen konnen. Die ublichen Erklarungen uber diesen Zustand verdeutlichen die Notwendigkeit einer radikalen Selbstkritik.". (shrink)

Partindo da Introdução geral à crítica da economia política de Marx, Deleuze e Guattari afirmam, em O anti-Édipo, que só há história universal das contingências. O que está em jogo nessa valorização do aspecto contingente da história universal segundo a leitura deleuzo-guattariana de Marx? Nossa hipótese é a de que uma boa via para compreender o sentido desta valorização da contingência é através de um exame de alguns comentários de Althusser e Balibar à obra de Marx, em que defendem que (...) os encontros contingentes são mais importantes do que a lógica da necessidade histórica no materialismo marxista. (shrink)

Crispin Wright maintains that the architecture of perceptual justification is such that we can acquire justification for our perceptual beliefs only if we have antecedent justification for ruling out any sceptical alternative. Wright contends that this principle doesn’t elicit scepticism, for we are non-evidentially entitled to accept the negation of any sceptical alternative. Sebastiano Moruzzi has challenged Wright’s contention by arguing that since our non-evidential entitlements don’t remove the epistemic risk of our perceptual beliefs, they don’t actually enable us to (...) acquire justification for these beliefs. In this paper I show that Wright’s responses to Moruzzi are ineffective and that Moruzzi’s argument is validated by probabilistic reasoning. I also suggest that Wright cannot answer Moruzzi’s challenge without weakening the support available for his conception of the architecture of perceptual justification. (shrink)

Translation of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics I into Portuguese, with a few notes, experimental glossary and introduction. The translation, which was made at 2003/4, was preliminary and its publication was intended to provide a didactic tool for courses as well as a provisional resource in research seminars. It needs some revision. I am currently working (slowly...) on the revision of the translation and a new revised one will surely appear at some point.

Crispin Wright’s entitlement theory holds that we have non-evidential justification for accepting propositions of a general type––which Wright calls “cornerstones”––that enables us to acquire justification for believing other propositions––those that we take to be true on the grounds of ordinary evidence. Entitlement theory is meant by Wright to deliver a forceful response to the sceptic who argues that we cannot justify ordinary beliefs. I initially focus on strategic entitlement, which is one of the types of entitlement that Wright has described (...) in more detail. I suggest that it is dubious that we are strategically entitled to accept cornerstones. After this, I focus on entitlement in general. I contend that, in important cases, non-evidential justification for accepting cornerstones cannot secure evidential justification for believing ordinary propositions. My argument rests on a probabilistic regimentation of the so-called “leaching problem”. (shrink)

Translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics IV and VI, with notes. The translation is preliminary and intended as a provisional teaching tool to be also used in seminars and discussions with peers in order to reach a more elaborated version.

In this chapter I shall address the question as to whether there exists a universal and atemporal justification for the claims made by a community that adopts a particular style of reasoning. I shall present a case study in which a claim made in the laboratory style of reasoning has no universal and atemporal justification. As I shall explain, Hacking justifies his belief that unobservable entities exist on the ground that they can be regularly manipulated by experimenters in order to (...) find out and produce various phenomena (experimental realism); he also maintains that no belief that our theories are true is required in order to be realist about unobservable entities. I shall argue that his justification is relative to the laboratory style of reasoning. Ultimately, from this case study I shall draw the important conclusion that the styles of reasoning project implies epistemic relativism. In the first part of this chapter, I shall analyse Hacking’s experimental realism in the light of the styles of reasoning project. I shall start by making these points: Hacking’s theory anti-realism denies the possibility of ranking styles of reasoning in terms of their capacity to explain phenomena; furthermore, Hacking is not successful in showing that his entity realism is justified for a community that does not adopt the laboratory style of reasoning. It will follow that the styles of reasoning project is in conflict with the claim that we know about unobservable entities. (shrink)

Translation of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics II into Portuguese, with a few notes, experimental glossary and introduction. The translation, which was made at 2002 (with a new printing in 2004), was preliminary and its publication was intended to provide a didactic tool for courses as well as a provisional resource in research seminars. It needs some revision. I am currently working (slowly...) on the revision of the translation and a new revised one will surely appear at some point.

Translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics I-III into Portuguese, with a few notes and introduction. The translation, which was made at 2007, is preliminary and its publication was intended to provide a didactic tool for courses as well as a provisional resource in research seminars. It needs some revision. I am currently working (slowly...) on the revision of the translation and a new revised one will surely appear at some point.

Jiren (畸人), literally translated as irregular (Ji) person (ren), is a critical concept in the classical Daoist text the Zhuangzi (5th–3rd century BC.).1 The concept refers to individuals with atypical body shapes. Some of them lack body parts of the standard human body, like a leg or toes. Some others have an atypical anatomy, like having a chin stuck down their navel; and some of them are, by social standards of the time, considered to be extremely ugly.1 These individuals are (...) described as incredibly virtuous. The description of Jiren individuals as virtuous does not simply aim to show there may be hidden virtues that social conventions blur. The point is not to show that we should also care for those with atypical bodies who have a hidden virtue. Rather, the point is to show that all human beings have an unconditional intrinsic value and moral worth. So, Jiren prescribes that an atypical body shape does not reflect inferiority. The variation of body anatomies should be understood as how the world is, not a value hierarchy. The concept of Jiren encourages, therefore, to consider one’s own and others’ value beyond their physical appearance. What’s more, Jiren encourages individuals to resist social pressures to fit a standard and to search inward for who they really are and accept it. This ethical groundwork set by the Jiren aims at freeing people from existing physical and mental boundaries to their well-being and helping them rethink …. (shrink)

Tradução dos livros Z e H da Metafísica de Aristóteles, com introdução e notas. Translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics Books VII and VIII into Portuguese, with Introduction and Notes.

Translation of passages of Aristotle's De Anima into Portuguese. The passages are these: I.1, I.4 (the 'Rylean passage'); II.1-6; III.1-8. The translation is preliminary.

I discuss what Aristotle means when he say that scientific demonstration must proceed from necessary principles. I argue that, for Aristotle, scientific demonstration should not be reduced to sound deduction with necessary premises. Scientific demonstration ultimately depends on the fully appropriate explanatory factor for a given explanandum. This explanatory factor is what makes the explanandum what it is. Consequently, this factor is also unique. When Aristotle says that demonstration must proceed from necessary principles, he means that each demonstration requires the (...) principle that is the necessary one for the fully appropriate explanation of its explanandum. This picture also provides a key to understand Aristotle's thesis that scientific explanation depends on essences: it is the essence of the attribute to be explained that should be stated as the fully appropriate explanatory factor. (shrink)

I discuss an important feature of the notion of cause in Post. An. 1. 13, 78b13–28, which has been either neglected or misunderstood. Some have treated it as if Aristotle were introducing a false principle about explanation; others have understood the point in terms of coextensiveness of cause and effect. However, none offers a full exegesis of Aristotle's tangled argument or accounts for all of the text's peculiarities. My aim is to disentangle Aristotle's steps to show that he is arguing (...) in favour of a logical requirement for a middle term's being the appropriate cause of its explanandum. Coextensiveness between the middle term and the attribute it explains is advanced as a sine qua non condition of a middle term's being an appropriate or primary cause. This condition is not restricted either to negative causes or to middle terms in second‐figure syllogisms, but ranges over all primary causes qua primary. (shrink)

These are commentaries to the translation into Portuguese of Nicomachean Ethics VI, found in the same volume of Dissertatio.

Tradução para o Português de Ethica Nicomachea VI.