Este artículo investiga, en cuanto hilo conductor, las transformaciones de la noción de éschaton en la apocalíptica judía y cristiana desde el punto de la vista de la teología de la técnica, además de su tránsito a la filosofía de la tecnología de Günther Anders. El propósito de ello es mostrar cómo, con excepciones y variaciones, la relación entre escatología y apocalipsis se desactiva doblemente, tanto en el cristianismo como en la modernidad tecnológica, para continuar como un hiato que hereda (...) de manera compleja y utópica, y ya por completo secularizado, el programa transhumanista del mejoramiento tecnológico de la biología humana. (shrink)

This annotated bibliography comprehensively covers the entire range of international English-language philosophy serials. Over 300 citations represent serials that are especially instrumental in philosophical research and development. The entries are arranged alphabetically by title for rapid use and are fully annotated. Each entry includes detailed information about publishers, prices, circulation, manuscript selection, indexes and abstracts, target audiences, and acceptance rates. In addition, the annotations evaluate critically the strengths and weaknesses of the serial as it substantially impacts philosophy and its related (...) disciplines. The Guide also includes an extensive subject index and a geographical index. (shrink)

Among the very many questions we might wish to ask of any particular science, two of them concern the nature of the objects of the science and the character of the laws which describe the behaviour of those objects. What I wish to do is to raise those two questions about historical materialism. That is, I want to ask what it is that one studies in Capital for example, and in what ways of behaving does the nomic or lawlike behaviour (...) of those objects consist. Both are ontological questions of a sort, and, in particular, questions about what I call social ontology, although it is usual to restrict the term ‘ontological’ to the former question alone. The first question asks about the objects to whose existence historical materialism is committed; the second asks about the characteristic ways of behaving of those objects. (shrink)

Among the very many questions we might wish to ask of any particular science, two of them concern the nature of the objects of the science and the character of the laws which describe the behaviour of those objects. What I wish to do is to raise those two questions about historical materialism. That is, I want to ask what it is that one studies in Capital for example, and in what ways of behaving does the nomic or lawlike behaviour (...) of those objects consist. Both are ontological questions of a sort, and, in particular, questions about what I call social ontology, although it is usual to restrict the term ‘ontological’ to the former question alone. The first question asks about the objects to whose existence historical materialism is committed; the second asks about the characteristic ways of behaving of those objects. (shrink)

Anuran amphibian metamorphosis is an immunologically interesting period. For the investigator, it provides an unusual opportunity for analyzing both humoral regulation of the immune response and the development and maintenance of self‐tolerance. Some of the questions one can ask are: Why don't immunocompetent larvae destroy antigenically disparate adult cells as they differentiate within them during metamorphosis? Do the dramatic hormonal changes occurring during this period regulate immunological function? How do animals in metamophorsis protect themselves from their immunologically hostile environment?

The idea of sociability - a person’s disposition and ability to communicate and live in the community - goes through the whole history of philosophy. Due to the peculiarity of translations, this term and the whole tradition related to it have been lost to the Russian reader. The article discusses some tendencies in comprehending the idea of sociability in early modern moral philosophy. The key to this consideration is F. Hutcheson’s essay On the Natural Sociability of Mankind, the title of (...) which contains the very term “sociability” and which presents the main essential points in a discussion of the issue in the first third of the 18 th century. One can distinguish two main approaches to the problem. According to one of them, sociability determined by various human natural needs is the basis of social relations, and a person becomes a moral agent as a social being (H. Grotius, T. Hobbes, S. Pufen-dorf, B. Mandeville). According to another approach, sociability is a manifestation of a person’s natural tendency to care for the good of others, and its consistent implementation leads to the formation of community and supports its stability (Cambridge Platonists, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, J. Butler, D. Hume, A. Smith). Representatives of both approaches recognized contradiction in manifestations of sociability or in its nature. I. Kant theoretically overcame the confrontation between these approaches and conceptualized the contradiction and associated it with the human nature. According to Kant, the “unsociable sociability” is given in the fact that a person has a tendency to sociability but also a tendency to self-assertion at the expense of others. However, despite the presence of asocial features (evil principle), Kant considered the person’s inherent sociability (good principle) as a prerequisite for culture and as one of the most important conditions of possibility of morality. (shrink)

A review of Berent Enc's How We Act: Causes, Reasons, and Intentions.

The article argues that the famous debate on natural and positive law between Lon Fuller and HLA Hart rests on a dispute about whether or not that something is a law provides on its own a prima facie reason for doing something.

What constitutes numerically one and the same tradition diachronically, at different times? This question is the focus of often violent dispute in societies. Is it capable of a rational resolution? Many accounts attempt that resolution with a diagnosis of ambiguity of the disputed concept-Islam, Marxism, or democracy for example. The diagnosis offered is in terms of vagueness, namely the vague criteria for sameness or similarity of central beliefs and practices.

With the growing fragmentation of western societies and disillusionment with the political process, the question of legitimacy has become one of the key issues ...

A discussion of three central ideas in action theory; trying to act, doing or acting, one's action causing further consequences.

Drawing on historical and contemporary evidence from Great Britain and Italy, this article examines actions that fall under official definitions of corruption and actions that are not illegal but are widely regarded as morally corrupt. As a social anthropologist, I argue that when dealing with the complexity of corruption and abuses of power, we need to identify what aspects of the system encourage or generate illicit practices (illegal and legal) and what aspects could instead generate real change. It is imperative (...) to assess the precise identity of the dividing line between the legitimate and the illegitimate and between the legal and the moral, and to address both the exact relationship of the protagonists in public life to formal law and its production and their perceived legitimacy in the broader society. Empirical evidence suggests that the production of the law must take into account the moralities which inform the definition of legitimacy at the grassroots, for legislation that enjoys such legitimacy is authoritative-therefore effective-legislation, and thus is governance that benefits from and abides by such legislation. (shrink)

Pintar, escribir, pensar... ¿cabe hallar la medida común de esas tres tareas? ¿Compensar la radical incompatibilidad de lo Visto, lo Escrito, lo Pensado?

La utilización de las nociones de “conservador” y “progresista” en las ciencias sociales (y en la opinión pública) ha llegado a configurar dos ideologías políticas. En este número se tratan, a partir de Kant, diversos sentidos de tales nociones en el contexto actual: la perspectiva de la Economía constitucional de Buchanan, la concepción de la sociedad abierta de Popper, la teoría de la justicia de Rawls y la concepción filosófica de la vida social y política de Ortega y Gasset.

Whether some condition is equivalent to a conjunction of some conditions has been a major issue in analytic philosophy. Examples include: knowledge, acting freely, causation, and justice. Philosophers have striven to offer analyses of these, and other concepts, by showing them equivalent to such a conjunction. Timothy Williamson offers a number of arguments for the idea that knowledge is ‘prime’, hence not equivalent to or composed by some such conjunction. I focus on one of his arguments: the requirement that such (...) conjuncts must be freely recombinable. Although there has been a great deal of discussion of Williamson's arguments, the flaw I describe has gone unnoticed. Williamson's argument is expressed in terms of conditions, and cases of the condition. Does the condition include specific information, or is the specific information only part of the case? His argument equivocates between more and less general specifications of the conditions. Once this distinction is clarified, his argument can be seen to be vitiated by this conflation. Neither option yields a sound argument for Williamson's desired conclusion. (shrink)

There appear to be multifunctional artefacts of a type such that none of their functions can be attributed only to some proper part of the artefact. I use two examples of allegedly multifunctional artefacts of this kind in what follows, one due to Lynne Rudder Baker (aspirin) and another of my own (a spork). The two examples are meant to make the same point. I discuss her aspirin example, since its discussion has entered the literature, but without its being dealt (...) with satisfactorily. My example is, I believe, more intuitive than that of aspirin, which Baker introduced in her response to a challenge to her views, and so I will mostly rely on my example of a spork, especially at the end of the paper, to make my case. -/- I argue that in at least those two cases, if the standard arguments for distinguishing between an object and what constitutes it are sound, an argument showing that what we might have taken to be a single multifunctional object is in fact a case of multiple single-function artefacts which collocate. Or almost. There is one further assumption needed for these cases, beyond what the constitution cases require, and I produce reasons for accepting that assumption. (shrink)

A comparison of disjunctive theories of action and perception. The development of a theory of action that warrants the name, a disjunctive theory. On this theory, there is an exclusive disjunction: either an action or an event (in one sense). It follows that in that sense basic actions do not have events intrinsic to them.

The authors of this volume discuss the relevance and influence of various Old and New Testament documents, and early Christian and Jewish texts in terms of their impact in shaping the moral character, identity, and behaviour of the specific communities in which they were produced as well as their ethical application throughout the centuries. Against a narrow understanding of ethics, the term "application" is not used to analyse the texts of the Bible as step-by-step manuals for moral conduct. Rather, the (...) contributors engage with biblical texts within the framework of a complex hermeneutical process of application of the relevance of these texts in contemporary ethical discourse. Contributors: Paul N. Anderson, Robert L. Brawley, Cilliers Breytenbach, Ulrich Busse, R. Alan Culpepper, Jan Willem van Henten, Rainer Hirsch-Luipold, Stephan Joubert, Craig R. Koester, Bart J. Koet, Michael Labahn, Tobias Nicklas, Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Udo Schnelle, Michael Theobald, D. Francois Tolmie, Joseph Verheyden, Ben Witherington, III, Ellen van Wolde, Michael Wolter, Mirjam Zimmermann, Ruben Zimmermann. (shrink)

O presente artigo discute o conceito de cidadania e sua relação com as questões educacionais, sobretudo, as relacionadas ao campo da Educação de Jovens e Adultos. Constitui-se como resultado de pesquisa intitulada “Cidadania e EJA: concepções e desafios que marcam a escola pública brasileira” no âmbito do Núcleo de Estudos sobre Trabalho e Educação da Faculdade de Educação da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora. O texto destaca como o conceito de cidadania se desenvolveu historicamente, buscando seus fundamentos ideológicos e (...) políticos no liberalismo, correlacionando-o com a perspectiva de Estado e de educação defendida por essa corrente. Demonstra que a concepção burguesa de cidadania se desdobra sobre o campo educacional, expondo sua relação com a acumulação flexível de cunho capitalista. A concepção marxista de educação rompe com essa unilateralidade, apresentando a universalização do trabalho e da educação como expressão do humano, da pluralidade cultural e das concepções de mundo que marcam as experiências coletivas e individuais. Nesse modelo, as exigências educacionais para jovens e adultos são direcionadas a tornar esses sujeitos capazes de enfrentar, mesmo que minimamente, o mercado globalizado e assumir projetos de vida pautados no mérito das ações econômicas – por meio de uma educação ao longo da vida, com o objetivo de se manterem na condição de empregáveis. Portanto, o texto que se segue visa contribuir com as reflexões de educadores que almejam a construção de uma educação socialista e democrática. Esse processo, que se estabelece nos âmbitos coletivo e social – possível apenas com o rompimento e a superação do modelo social de capital e com a instauração de uma sociedade com novas formas de sentir, pensar e agir no mundo. Palavras-chave: Cidadania. Liberalismo. Educação. Jovens. Adultos. (shrink)

an examination of both the causal theory of action and the agent causalist theory, and a proposal for a third alternative.