Daniel Arelli, poeta e filósofo de Belo Horizonte, tem se destacado no cenário daliteratura brasileira contemporânea. Em entrevista concedida aos pesquisadores do projeto“Notícia da atual literatura brasileira: entrevistas”, que consiste em mapeamento da literaturabrasileira do início do século XXI a partir da perspectiva dos próprios escritores, o autordiscorre sobre seu processo de escrita criativa, comenta a relação entre filosofia e poesia, debateo problema da filosofia brasileira, avalia a recepção de sua obra e reflete sobre outras questõeséticas e estéticas.

In this paper, I examine recent arguments for the widespread existence of simultaneous causation from Huemer & Kovitz and Mumford & Anjum, and conclude that they are mistaken. I argue that these arguments overlook two pictures of causation which are commonly assumed, which I call the Standard Modern Picture and the Contiguous Extended Picture.

Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar um aspecto da filosofia política de Xenofonte comumente negligenciado pelos interprétes: a organização militar, isto é, a hierarquia e a cadeia de comando, como o elemento que oferece a estrutura econômica e política do império Persa descrito na _Ciropédia_. A transposição desse modelo militar hierárquico confere à estrutura do Estado persa um caráter racional que visa, do ponto de vista econômico, a eficiência na produção de recursos e o equilíbrio fiscal; e, do ponto de (...) vista político, a eliminação de conflitos internos e da anarquia, bem como a rapidez na transmissão das ordens e a eficácia na execução de tarefas burocráticas, na medida em que cada um conhece o seu lugar e as suas funções nesse sistema hierárquico, que se mantém através do poder do soberano disseminado em todas as instâncias do governo. (shrink)

ResumoNo presente artigo procura-se oferecer uma análise e avaliação críticas da posição de João Duns Scotus (ca. 1265 – 1308) a respeito do problema dos universais. Para tanto, é levada a cabo primeiramente uma breve exposição dos argumentos e conceitos centrais dos quais ele se utiliza para defender seu realismo. Em seguida, algumas críticas à posição de Scotus, em especial o cerne da que devemos a Guilherme de Ockham (ca. 1287 – 1347), são apresentadas em detalhes e então respondidas.Palavras-chave: Scotus, (...) Ockham, escolástica, universais, realismo, nominalismo.AbstractThe current paper aims to offer an analysis and evaluation of John Duns Scotus’ (ca. 1265 – 1308) position regarding the problem of universals. In order to do so, a brief exposition of the central arguments and concepts he employs to defend his realism is first carried out. Some criticisms of Scotus’ position, especially the core of the one we owe to William of Ockham (ca. 1287 – 1347), are then presented in detail and answered. (shrink)

This paper focuses on problems for time travel that specifically concern continuous time-travel to the past, problems to do with potential collisions with past obstacles such as former time-slices of the time traveler herself. These problems have not been discussed nearly as much as other questions about time travel, such as the Grandfather Paradox. Here I focus on discussions by Bernstein, Dowe, Grey and Le Poidevin. After examination, I conclude that only the problems of turning around in time have any (...) merit and present a new proposal of my own for turning around in time without collisions. I assume a Lewisian framework throughout. (shrink)

Named entity recognition (NER) is a very relevant task for text information retrieval in natural language processing (NLP) problems. Most recent state-of-the-art NER methods require humans to annotate and provide useful data for model training. However, using human power to identify, circumscribe and label entities manually can be very expensive in terms of time, money, and effort. This paper investigates the use of prompt-based language models (OpenAI’s GPT-3) and weak supervision in the legal domain. We apply both strategies as alternative (...) approaches to the traditional human-based annotation method, relying on computer power instead human effort for labeling, and subsequently compare model performance between computer and human-generated data. We also introduce combinations of all three mentioned methods (prompt-based, weak supervision, and human annotation), aiming to find ways to maintain high model efficiency and low annotation costs. We showed that, despite human labeling still maintaining better overall performance results, the alternative strategies and their combinations presented themselves as valid options, displaying positive results and similar model scores at lower costs. Final results demonstrate preservation of human-trained models scores averaging 74.0% for GPT-3, 95.6% for weak supervision, 90.7% for GPT + weak supervision combination, and 83.9% for GPT + 30% human-labeling combination. (shrink)

A general consensus has been reached in health care organizations that the disclosure of medical errors can be a very powerful way to improve patients and physicians well-being and serves as a core component to high quality health care. This practice strongly encourages transparent communication with patients after medical errors or unanticipated outcomes. However, many countries, such as Brazil, do not have a culture of disclosing harmful errors to patients or standards emphasizing the importance of disclosing, taking responsibility, apologizing, and (...) discussing the prevention of recurrences. Medical error is not discussed or approached during medical school. The stigma of error has a strong connection with value judgments, and emotional support for physicians does not exist. This paper suggests that open communication with the patient is essential. Guidance about error disclosure from health care organizations would be helpful for quality and patient safety and for health care professionals in countries like Brazil. (shrink)

Based on a mixed-methods study involving triad tasks and ethnobiological models, we analyze local categories and knowledge of key ethnospecies of fish exploring partial overlaps between artisanal fishers’ and academic knowledge in a fishing community in northeast Brazil. We argue that fishers’ and academic knowledge overlaps may provide common ground for transdisciplinary collaboration, while their partiality requires reflection on epistemological and ontological differences. Here, we show how knowledge of artisanal fishers can complement academic knowledge and bring about tensions that need (...) to be addressed through intercultural dialogue. By integrating a general philosophical framework of partial overlaps with a mixed-methods study on fishers’ knowledge, we show how ethnobiology can contribute to reflective and empirically-grounded transdisciplinary practices. (shrink)

‘Epistemic structural realism’ (ESR) insists that all that we know of the world is its structure, and that the ‘nature’ of the underlying elements remains hidden. With structure represented via Ramsey sentences, the question arises as to how ‘hidden natures’ might also be represented. If the Ramsey sentence describes a class of realisers for the relevant theory, one way of answering this question is through the notion of multiple realisability. We explore this answer in the context of the work of (...) Carnap, Hintikka and Lewis. Both Carnap and Hintikka offer clear structuralist perspectives which, crucially, accommodate the openness inherent in theory change. Unfortunately there is little purchase for a viable form of realism in either case. Lewis’s approach, on the other hand, offers more scope for realism but, as we shall see, concerns arise as to whether a relevant form of structuralism can be maintained. In particular his thesis of Ramseyan humility undermines certain conceptions of scientific laws that the structural realist might naturally cleave to. Our overall conclusion is that the representational device of Ramsey sentence plus multiple realisability can accommodate either the structuralist or realist aspects of ESR but has difficulties capturing both. (shrink)

Multiple-conclusion Hilbert-style systems allow us to finitely axiomatize every logic defined by a finite matrix. Having obtained such axiomatizations for Paraconsistent Weak Kleene and Bochvar–Kleene logics, we modify them by replacing the multiple-conclusion rules with carefully selected single-conclusion ones. In this way we manage to introduce the first finite Hilbert-style single-conclusion axiomatizations for these logics.

Montaigne, no "De l'art de conferer", discute critérios que permitem distinguir os homens segundo suas capacidades (suffisances). A "maneira" de discursar ocupa o centro desta questão e entre suas qualidades se destaca a "ordem", que nos é apresentada, sobretudo, a partir dos desvios da "tolice" (sottise) e "obstinação" (opiniastreté), símbolos do dogmatismo e de uma errônea lide com os saberes que se apoiam na memória. Procura-se mostrar que a ordem se funda na assimilação e penetração do julgamento nas matérias que (...) garantem o nexo necessário para o desenvolvimento adequado da conversação (conference). Montaigne, in "De l'art de conferer", discusses the criteria to distinguish men according to their capabilities (suffisances). The "manner" of discussing is central to this issue and among its qualities "order" distinguishes itself. The "order" is presented to us by the exposition of its deviations: foolishness ("sottise") and obstinacy ("opiniastreté"). These inadequacies represent both dogmatism and an erroneous way of using knowledge based on memory. We intend to show how order is founded on a kind of judgment which assimilates and penetrates matters and subjects - being it the only way to assure the necessary connection to adequately develop the conversation ("conference"). (shrink)

O modelo escolar moderno que foi universalizado durante o século XX, mostrou-se incapacitado de responder todas as demandas sociais que lhe foram impostas. Dessa forma, durante a segunda metade deste século a crise do sistema de ensino formal deu abertura a diversos debates sobre questões que permeiam a ação de educar, como os espaços, os atores e porque não sobre próprio conceito: o que é educar? Sendo assim, neste artigo trago reflexões sobre a educação formal, dentre outras formas, analisando o (...) contexto da educação no Brasil e em Cabo Verde, para compreender de que maneira determinados atores sociais, como os rappers, podem contribuir para a construção de uma educação emancipadora. (shrink)

In this article I argue against the arbitrariness of the concept of music and for an essentialist and naturalist framework, according to which music is a cross-cultural human phenomenon, defined by relational properties held together by uniform features of human nature. Building on Dickie’s classification of theories of art in natural kind theories and cultural-kind theories, I argue for an enhanced natural-kind theory (which explains the institutional element), and use some developments in social ontology to show the inadequacy of an (...) institutionalist approach to art and music. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a counterfactual approach to causation by absences from some recent criticisms due to Sartorio.

Our core hypothesis is that the emergence of human language arose very rapidly from the linking of two pre-adapted systems found elsewhere in the animal world—an expression system, found, for example, in birdsong, and a lexical system, suggestively found in non-human primate calls (Miyagawa et al., 2013, 2014 ). We challenge the view that language has undergone a series of gradual changes—or a single preliminary protolinguistic stage—before achieving its full character. We argue that a full-fledged combinatorial operation Merge triggered the (...) integration of these two pre-adapted systems, giving rise to a fully developed language. This goes against the gradualist view that there existed a structureless, protolinguistic stage, in which a rudimentary proto-Merge operation generated internally flat words. It is argued that compounds in present-day language are a fossilized form of this prior stage, a point which we will question. (shrink)

Abstract. I argue that pessimistic meta-induction (PMI) seems to point an ontological priority of the relations over the objects of the scientific theories of the kind suggested by French and Ladyman (French and Ladyman 2003). My strategy will involve a critical examination of epistemic structural realism (ESR) and historical case-study: the prediction of Zeeman’s effect in Lorentz’s theory of electron.

L’objectif de cet article est d’évaluer le sens et la portée de la locution autourgous tês philosophias, qui apparaît dans le Banquet I, 5. J’espère montrer que cette locution en dit plus qu’elle n’en a l’air prima facie. Je soutiendrai que l’ensemble du passage dépasse la simple opposition entre la ( philo ) sophia gratuite de Socrate et la sophia non gratuite des sophistes, d’une part, et la richesse de Callias et la pauvreté des socratiques, d’autre part. Mon point de (...) départ sera le prologue du Banquet, suivi d’une analyse des Mémorables I, 6, texte où l’on trouve une conception de philosophia en tant que diaita ; j’analyserai ensuite les textes du corpus xénophontien où figure le mot autourgos, lui aussi associé à la notion de diaita. Ce parcours analytique montrera qu’il y a deux visions de la philosophie en jeu dans le Banquet I, 5 : celle de Callias, qui croit que Socrate et les siens ont les âmes purifiées, mais qui, en même temps, ne comprend pas tout à fait leur pratique philosophique, et celle de Socrate qui, dans sa réplique à la provocation de Callias, lui présente de manière condensée sa vision de la philosophie. (shrink)

A country‘s development is bound to be influenced by external occurrences. This article analyses two astronomical examples in which Portuguese nationals used high visibility events in the international scientific community to press their own scientific interests upon the government, whether these interests were, or were not, directly linked to the events themselves.During the 1840s and 1850s the parallax, i.e. the distance, of Groombridge’s star 1830 was hotly debated. The astronomer Hervé Faye‘s suggestion at the Académie des Sciences de Paris that (...) observations be made in Lisbon due to its privileged location and the inadequacy of the Lisbon Navy Observatory to perform them rekindled the efforts to improve the Portuguese Navy observatory.In the 1850s and 1860s other Portuguese higher education institutions also wanted to upgrade their facilities or build new ones. Following accepted traditions, scientific field trips were considered a useful part of the acquisition planning for larger instruments, and therefore an important part of regeneration and renewal projects. The Portuguese scientists were, however, limited in their travels by government imposed budget constraints. The total solar eclipse of 18 July 1860 provided an extra argument to send Portuguese scientists abroad. The government support of the eclipse expedition led to an opportunity to travel through other countries and view their observatories and equipment.In the end, neither the Navy astronomers nor those from the Coimbra Astronomical observatory, the other significant site of Portuguese astronomical research, managed to fulfil their objectives, but the contacts initiated by some of the Portuguese travellers were important for the development of the Portuguese national Meteorological and Magnetic Observatories. (shrink)

Desde os anos 1960, muitos educadores populares atuaram no Brasil com “objetivos políticos”, buscando construir uma hegemonia popular alcançada “antes de conquistar o poder governamental”. Pretende-se pesquisar a contribuição dessa síntese fecunda entre educação e política nos movimentos populares para o declínio do regime autoritário e para o fortalecimento de um projeto popular de democracia, que disputou a hegemonia política nos anos 1978-1989, bem como analisar os desdobramentos, limites e possibilidades atuais desse projeto, através da consulta a documentos e fontes (...) bibliográficas, além de entrevistas. (shrink)

DNA and RNA are the only known natural genetic materials. Systematic modification of each of their chemical building blocks (nucleobase, sugar, and phosphate) has enabled the study of the key properties that make those nucleic acids genetic materials. All three moieties contribute to replication and, significantly, all three moieties can be replaced by synthetic analogs without loss of function. Synthetic nucleic acid polymers capable of storing and propagating information not only expand the central dogma, but also highlight that DNA and (...) RNA are not unique chemical solutions for genetic information storage. By considering replication as a question of information transfer, we propose that any polymer that can be replicated could serve as a genetic material.Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays Xenobiology: A new form of life as the ultimate biosafety tool Abstract. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss which semantic theory moral subjectivists should adopt. Moral subjectivism is understood broadly to include all theories according to which moral sentences are truth-apt, at least sometimes true, and made true by the mental attitudes of certain relevant agent or set of agents. Due to the breadth of this definition, an initial concern is whether a unified semantic approach is able to accommodate all varieties of subjectivism. I argue that it is. I then proceed to analyse (...) the main semantic theories for moral sentences as they apply to the standard issue of moral disagreements. I conclude in favour of so-called Non-Indexical Contextualism. (shrink)

Dispositionalist accounts of scientific laws are currently at the forefront of discussions in the metaphysics of science. However, Mumford has presented such accounts with the following dilemma: if laws are to have a governing role, then they cannot be grounded in the relevant dispositions; if on the other hand, they are so grounded, then they cannot perform such a role. Mumford’s solution is drastic: to do away with laws as metaphysically substantive entities altogether. Dispositionalist accounts are also deficient in that (...) they either make no mention of the significant role of symmetries in science, or attempt to inappropriately eliminate this role. Here we shall attempt to motivate a structuralist view of laws by showing how it evades Mumford’s dilemma and accommodates the role of symmetry principles. In addition we shall consider how this view deals with a number of issues that dispositionalism finds problematic and indicate how the supposed necessity of laws and the explanation of relevant counterfactuals look from this structuralist perspective. (shrink)

Pascal, with his famous wager, argued in favour of religious practice and faith by appeal to expected payoffs. Here I discuss an asymmetry in similar pragmatic arguments for decisions about God. I begin with the observation that apostates pay costs not shared by those who never adopt a religion in the first place. Noticing this asymmetry shows these arguments from a new perspective and may also contribute to an explanation of the endurance of religion.

Abordaremos a crítica marxiana à noção hegeliana de "ser" , mostrando que a historicidade e a objetividade, em verdade, são determinações desta . Deste modo, intentamos mostrar que analogias entre a lógica hegeliana e a teoria marxiana podem eclipsar aspectos centrais à abordagem materialista proposta pelo autor de "O capital". Apontando a inversão hegeliana entre sujeito e predicado, Marx trata da apreensão do real que, muito embora seja traçada em diálogo com a dialética hegeliana, é também sua antítese direta . (...) We will deal with the Marxian criticism to the Hegelian notion of "being". It will be shown that historicity and objectivity are determinations of this category . So, the analogy between the Hegelian logic and the Marxian theory may, sometimes, hide essential aspects of the materialist comprehension of history. Here, we intend to prove that, by questioning the treatment dispensed to the matter of being by Hegel, Marx criticizes the Hegelian inversion between subject and predicate in a way that, although dialoguing with Hegel, his conception is the exact opposite at the same time. (shrink)

A leitura da obra de Sexto Empírico que Porchat nos legou apresenta uma inovadora interpretação do conceito cético de phainómenon. Tal interpretação explicitou, ao contrário do que comumente é feito, o enorme alcance e largo escopo de tal conceito, sem, contudo, subtrair do pirronismo boa parte do radicalismo típico de uma filosofia sem crenças. O fenômeno, ou “aquilo que aparece”, é o critério de ação do ceticismo, após a conhecida suspensão do juízo sobre tudo. Ele desempenha também, não obstante, um (...) curioso papel no conflito de ideias que levava o pirrônico grego à equipolência e à consequente retenção do assentimento, ao contribuir frequentemente, segundo o próprio Sexto Empírico, para um dos lados de algumas das disputas mais essenciais da História da Filosofia, como a da querela com o imobilismo. Tal aspecto da noção de phainómenon pode apontar para um lado curioso e um tanto anacrônico da filosofia sextiana que, não notado por Porchat, nos apresenta uma figura do cético bastante diferente da do neopirrônico contemporâneo: alguém profundamente impactado filosoficamente tanto pela metafísica quanto por aquilo que aparece. (shrink)

Trata-se de um breve e parcial recenseamento do paradigma naturalista em desenvolvimentos clássicos e recentes da filosofia fenomenológica. Em um primeiro momento, tentar-se-á estabelecer elementos mínimos acerca do que pode ser considerado um “paradigma filosófico”. Em seguida, será mostrada uma presença improvável e discreta da física enquanto imaginário privilegiado na ontologia fenomenológica de Jean-Paul Sartre. Também será explorada a resistência de Paul Ricoeur ao reducionismo neurobiológico, bem como uma improvável presença de um enquadramento naturalista na base de sua antropologia filosófica. (...) Por fim, serão apresentados indícios, na literatura recente, da possibilidade de uma relação fecunda e amigável entre a fenomenologia hermenêutica de Heidegger e as ciências naturais. Palavras-chave: Fenomenologia. Hermenêutica. Naturalismo. Paradigma. (shrink)

A general consensus has been reached in health care organizations that the disclosure of medical errors can be a very powerful way to improve patients and physicians well-being and serves as a core component to high quality health care. This practice strongly encourages transparent communication with patients after medical errors or unanticipated outcomes. However, many countries, such as Brazil, do not have a culture of disclosing harmful errors to patients or standards emphasizing the importance of disclosing, taking responsibility, apologizing, and (...) discussing the prevention of recurrences. Medical error is not discussed or approached during medical school. The stigma of error has a strong connection with value judgments, and emotional support for physicians does not exist. This paper suggests that open communication with the patient is essential. Guidance about error disclosure from health care organizations would be helpful for quality and patient safety and for health care professionals in countries like Brazil. (shrink)

This is a theological response to two programmatic essays, “Science and the Future of Theology: Critical Issues,” by Arthur Peacocke and “What Game is Being Played? The Need for Clarity about theRelationship between Scientific and Theological Understanding,” by David A. Pailin. It argues that the two authors, well informed by the recent developments in science, are reduplicating some methodological and epistemological trends common to nineteenth‐century theology. The feasibility of their project should, therefore, be examined on whether they succeed in answering (...) the questions posed to the liberal project that dominated theological and philosophical scholarship in the last century. They are found to be wanting in their inadequate response to three considerations: (1) the persistence of particular manifestations of religion and theology's enduring refusal to accept thoroughly scientific “enlightened” criteria, (2) the epistemological implications of the eschatological character of the Christianmessage, and (3) the trinitarian paradigm for Christian theology and the life of faith. (shrink)

. Modern science is one form of knowledge, demarcated by its time (modernity) and by other “knowledges.” There is a fair amount of clarity as to what does not count as scientific, but there is a twilight zone of knowledges whose scientific status is ambivalent. In this zone the encounter between science and religion takes place. The particular contribution of religion and theology in this encounter is to call for an ethics of knowledge in the epistemological endeavors of science.

This paper reexamines the case for a proportionality constraint on causation. The general idea behind the proportionality constraint is that causes need the right amount of detail. The cause needs to be detailed enough to be sufficient for the effect yet general enough to be fully relevant to the effect. The case for the proportionality constraint mainly rests on some examples. Suppose we are searching for the cause of an injury: “being hit by a red bus” is too detailed, “being (...) hit” isn't detailed enough, but “being hit by a bus” is about right. This sort of example has undeniable intuitive appeal. However, this intuitive appeal needs to be examined with more care before jumping to conclusions about the metaphysics of causation and the mereology of causal relata. Here, I reexamine the case for a proportionality constraint on causation and compare several pragmatic explanations of our intuitions about Yablo’s examples, in particular a pragmatic explanation that notices the loose use in our naming of causal relata and a pragmatic explanation that appeals to a contrastivist account of causation. (shrink)

Trata-se de um estudo comparativo entre as ideias do filósofo Paul Ricoeur (1913 – 2005) e do romancista Milan Kundera (1929-) sobre as experiências do tempo e da memória. Parte-se de uma comparação inicial das ideias de ambos os pensadores acerca dos temas da ipseidade, da História e da experiência do tempo. Em um segundo momento, o pensamento de ambos os autores é colocado em confrontação crítica, em especial no que concerne aos seus respectivos entendimentos sobre a natureza da experiência (...) humana do tempo e os limites da memória. Em seguida, passa-se ao exame das ideias e hipóteses de Kundera sob a luz da hermenêutica filosófica de Ricoeur, com o intento de mostrar que essa é onde essa hermenêutica é mais intensamente desafiada que melhor mostra suas valências filosóficas. Em um último momento, pretende-se mostrar que dessa confrontação crítica resultam interessantes convergências por meio das quais ambos os pensadores oferecem perspectivas similares e complementares para fins do cultivo de uma memória feliz e de uma experiência viva do tempo. (shrink)

Trata-se de traçar uma aproximação comparativa entre dois autores oriundos de campos distintos do saber e da cultura e visualizar a mútua contribuição decorrente dessa aproximação, a saber, entre a filosofia de Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) e o romance de Milan Kundera (1929-). Na medida em que tanto a filosofia de Ricoeur quanto a prosa ficcional de Kundera refletem sobre a constituição da subjetividade na modernidade, a presente contribuição visa estabelecer paralelos entre suas concepções de subjetividade e suas reflexões sobre os (...) destinos da prática da narração ficcional na virada do século. Tendo isso em vista, pretendo realizar uma interpretação comparativa entre as teses de Ricoeur, especialmente apresentadas em Tempo e narrativa e O si-mesmo como outro e as de Kundera, expostas tanto em seus ensaios quanto apresentadas de forma esparsa em digressões reflexivas que permeiam sua prosa romanesca. Meu intuito será mostrar como se diferenciam de forma discreta mas se sintonizam de forma robusta no que concerne a relação entre a constituição da subjetividade, o papel do romance na existência e a imersão desta em enredos historicamente considerados. (shrink)

Trata-se de uma tentativa de atualização das premissas da teoria da identidade narrativa de Paul Ricoeur diante do desafio lançado pelo presentismo tal como concebido por François Hartog. Nessa direção, em um primeiro momento serão apresentados elementos que enfatizam a presença da influência da teoria agostiniana do tríplice presente na noção ricoeuriana de experiência viva bem como na teoria da história de Reinhart Koselleck e no existencialismo sartreano. Em um segundo momento, será avaliada a possibilidade de equacionar a experiência viva (...) do tríplice presente e a teoria da identidade narrativa. No terceiro momento, serão apresentadas algumas pistas para um novo modelo de identidade narrativa em sintonia com os desafios lançados pelo presentismo. (shrink)

“Ex nihilo nihil fit” é uma máxima da metafísica e da teologia medievais que, digamos, tinha como finalidade ajudar na organização do inventário de uma herança cultural cujas bases não eram compatíveis com aquelas do pensamento cristão no qual o universo é Criação de um Criador. A ideia de que “do nada, nada vem” pode ser talvez identificada como a ideia central do novo livro do professor Ronai Rocha, da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, intitulado Escola partida: ética e política (...) na sala de aula. (shrink)

A linguagem de comunicabilidade da imagética barroca expressa-se com inesperado ênfase no caso de uma desconhecida tela que representa Jesus Cristo perante Caifás e a negação de S. Pedro, num altar do Convento dos frades eremitas paulistas da vila de Portel. Pintada cerca de 1660, essa tela, que se inspira numa estampa nórdica de Schelte a Bolswert segundo modelo caravagesco de Gerard Seghers, leva a colocar a questão do papel assumido pela gravura italo­flamenga (a estampa solta e a estampa de (...) livro) na construção de uma imagética contra-reformista ao serviço da militância católica e do convencimento das populações em larga escala. A peça, que é devida, segundo se crê, a um secundário pintor proto-barroco de nome João da Cunha, morador em Beja, reforça a ideia do interesse da nossa pintura regional por cânones de influência caravagesca, uma tendência quase ignorada na arte portuguesa do século XVII. A pintura de Portel mostra uma narração para serviço do convencimento e revela-se um qualifi­cado painel de devoção, inspirado em modelo tenebrista de Seghers, com o seu dinâmico grupo de figuras a la candela que assiste ao trecho bíblico. Testemunha-se um caso de encomenda religiosa periférica que, apesar do seu grau aparente de vulgaridade, assume, através da utiliza­ção de uma estampa de sinal erudito, a experiência da inovação possível e as possibilidades da reconversão imagética do modelo, a fim de melhor servir o rigorismo do seu impacto visual. (shrink)

According to a tradition going back to Socrates, one should thoroughly examine the grounds of one’s judgments before settling on what one has reason to do or believe. According to contemporary metaethical constructivism, assumed in this essay, reflective scrutiny is also central to assessing a judgment’s claim to justification. This essay argues against the injunctions to thoroughly examine oneself and seek ultimate reasons for one’s normative judgments. In other words, the essay argues against the ideal of the philosophical way of (...) life. It shows that in most cases one does not have reason to question the practical conclusion of one’s initial deliberation. It is only under very limited conditions, specified in the essay, that one is justified in engaging in further reflection. Furthermore, the essay argues that if one does go for full self‐examination, the consequences are most likely to be bad for oneself, given one’s practical interests. (shrink)