Od tri velika ideala modernog demokratskog doba, bratstvo je vrlo brzo zasjenjeno drugim dvjema vrijednostima, slobodom i jednakošću. Suvremena politička teorija je skoro jednoglasno zamijenila i sam pojam bratstva pojmom solidarnosti ili društvene pravednosti: u svojoj Teoriji pravednosti, John Rawls izričito izjednačuje bratstvo s »načelom razlike« koje legitimira mehanizme distributivne pravednosti. Ipak, pogrešno prevodeći francusko fraternité kao community, neke angloamerički autori uvode treći republikanski ideal u okoštalu debatu liberala i komunitarijanaca: tamo gdje fraternité shvaćena kao solidarnost omogućuje suopstojnost slobode i (...) jednakosti, fraternité shvaćena kao zajednica postavlja granice izgradnji dobro uređenog demokratskog društva.De trois grands idéaux de l’âge démocratique moderne, la fraternité a été très tôt éclipsée par les deux autres valeurs que sont la liberté et l’égalité. La théorie politique contemporaine a quasi unanimement supplanté la notion même de fraternité par celle de solidarité ou de justice sociale : dans sa Théorie de la justice, John Rawls assimile explicitement la fraternité au « principe de différence » légitimant les dispositifs de justice distributive. Toutefois, par une traduction abusive, certains courants de la pensée politique anglo-saxonne interprètent fraternité comme communauté, en l’introduisant de la sorte dans le débat sclérosé entre libéraux et communautariens : là où la fraternité/solidarité rend compossibles liberté et égalité, fraternité/ communauté pose des limites à la construction d’une société démocratique bien ordonnée. (shrink)

The Other's War is an intervention into a set of contemporary moral, political and legal debates over the legitimacy of war and terrorism within the context of the so-called global War on Terror. Tarik Kochi considers how, despite the variety of its approaches âe" just war theory, classical realist, post-Kantian, poststructuralist âe" contemporary ethical, political and legal philosophy still struggles to produce a convincing account of war. Focusing on the philosophical problem of the rightness of war, The Other's War (...) responds to this lack. Through a discussion of a number of key Western intellectual traditions, Kochi demonstrates how often conflicting and contradictory conceptions of warâe(tm)s rightness have developed in modernity. He shows how a process of ordering violence around different notions of right has constantly redrawn the boundaries of what constitutes âe~legitimateâe(tm) violence. Such a process has consequences for anyone who claims to be fighting a âe~just warâe(tm). Building upon this account and drawing upon the philosophical heritage of G.W.F. Hegel and Ernst Bloch, The Otherâe(tm)s War proposes a new understanding of war, not just as a social condition characterised by violent conflict and struggles for power, but as the attempt of individuals and groups to realise their normative claims through violence. Kochi argues that both of these aspects of war are an expression of the metaphysics of human subjectivity. War begins with, and is the radical exaggeration of, a fundamental activity of human subjectivity, in which the subject constitutes its normative and material identity; realising and positing itself through acts that involve negation and violence. By drawing consideration of the problem of war back to the level of a philosophical examination of the metaphysics of human subjectivity, The Other's War develops a novel theory of war that helps us to better understand the nature of contemporary conflict as a process of recognition. From this perspective, judgment, it is concluded, needs to be constantly guided by the effort to recognise the ethics of the other's war. (shrink)

In this original new study, Grant Havers critically interprets Leo Strauss’s political philosophy from a conservative perspective. Most mainstream readers of Strauss have either condemned him from the Left as an extreme right-wing opponent of liberal democracy or celebrated him from the Right as a traditional defender of Western civilization. Rejecting both of these portrayals, Havers shifts the debate beyond the conventional parameters of our age. He persuasively shows that Strauss was neither a man of the Far Right nor a (...) conservative. He was in fact a secular Cold War liberal who taught his followers to uphold Anglo-American democracy as the one true universal regime that does not need a specifically Christian foundation. Strauss firmly rejects the traditional conservative view held by Edmund Burke that Anglo-American democracy needs the leavening influence of Christian morality. Havers maintains that Strauss’s refusal to recognize the role of Christianity in shaping Western civilization, though historically unjustified, is crucial to Strauss and the Straussian portrayal of Anglo-American democracy. In the Straussian view, the Anglo-American ideals of liberty, equality, and constitutional government owe more to the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle than to the Christian tradition. In the process, Havers argues, Straussians end up rewriting history by falsely idealizing the ancient Greeks as the forerunners of modern liberal democracy, despite the Greek toleration of practices such as slavery and infanticide. Straussians also misrepresent statesmen of the Anglo-American political tradition such as Abraham Lincoln and Sir Winston Churchill as heirs to the ancient Greek tradition of statecraft, despite their indebtedness to Christianity. Havers contends that the most troubling implication of Straussianism is that it provides an ideological rationale for the aggressive spread of democratic values on a global basis while ignoring the preconditions that make these values possible. Concepts such as the rule of law, constitutional government, Christian morality, and the separation of church and state are not easily transplanted beyond the historic confines of Anglo-American civilization, as recent wars to spread democracy in the Middle East and Central Asia have demonstrated. This excellent study will be of interest not only to longtime readers of Strauss but also philosophers, political scientists, historians, religious studies scholars, and theologians. (shrink)

What Shakespeare reveals in Macbeth is the all too human temptation to embrace tyranny. In exposing this temptation, however, Shakespeare also shows that the alleged inevitability of tyranny is a contradictory illusion that cannot survive the cycle of violence that it spawns. In comparable terms Abraham Lincoln exposed the tyranny of slavery as the hypocritical mockery of democracy which threatened the very survival of the American republic. Instead of teaching an illusory and despairing resignation to the tyrannies that plague human (...) history, however, both Shakespeare and Lincoln defend a biblical standard of hope and justice (for all human beings) that is the very opposite of tyrannical illusions. (shrink)

Jan-Werner Müller’s analysis of ‘authoritarian populism’ represents a highly limited approach to the issue that is typical of many mainstream approaches within populism studies and liberal-democratic constitutional theory. Through a critique of Müller, the article develops an account of the historical emergence of authoritarian populism as a ‘long counter-revolution of the radical right’ against the values and institutions of the social-democratic welfare state. Focussing on the USA and UK, the article shows how, rather than being a novel phenomenon emerging from (...) the fringes in the 1980s and 1990s, authoritarian populism emerges from the middle of the twentieth century as a highly successful form of hegemonic struggle over the Republican and Conservative parties and over American and British societies. The political success of a highly contradictory ideological framework of the radical right has helped to largely normalise a language, rhetoric and imaginary of authoritarian populism and place it at the centre of contemporary politics and culture. By largely ignoring such a development, and the highly contingent nature of North Atlantic ‘democracy’, theorists and commentators like Müller fail to grasp the depth of the current authoritarian populist threat and offer only liberal-democratic mythology in response to the ranting and chanting of ‘fake news’. (shrink)

The “new” conservatism which dominates American politics is fundamentally different from both liberalism and traditional conservatism. For the neoconservatives, who are influenced by the political philosopher Leo Strauss, fault liberalism for undermining the authority of absolute morality and natural inequality in favor of relativism and openness. Yet they also repudiate the old European conservatism for failing to defy the currents of modernity with anything more than an appeal to tradition. In fine, neoconservatism rejects, despite its own modern origins, modernity itself.

O artigo investiga a frequente alegação na literatura filosófica de que a concepção de Searle sobre a redução da consciência é incoerente. Após um exame das teses básicas de sua teoria da mente , é discutida sua posição a respeito da identidade entre a consciência e a atividade cerebral . Da adesão de Searle a uma tese da identidade de ocorrências deve-se concluir que não há contradição entre esta tese e a irredutibilidade ontológica que ele defende. Porém, é possível deduzir (...) de sua teoria asserções que contradizem esta mesma teoria , uma vez que essa irredutibilidade resulta em um dualismo de propriedades. (shrink)

The political philosopher Leo Strauss is famous for contending that any synthesis of reason and revelation is impossible, since they are irreconcilable antagonists. Yet he is also famous for praising the secular regime of liberal democracy as the best regime for all human beings, even though he is well aware that modern philosophers such as Spinoza thought this regime must make use of biblical morality to promote good citizenship. Is democracy, then, both religious and secular? Strauss thought that Spinoza was (...) contradictory in teaching that reason and revelation should be separated from each other while also insisting that a secular democratic politics still requires the biblical morality of charity. The paradox that liberal democracy is both religious and secular, which is central to Spinoza, was dismissed by Strauss as a Machiavellian subterfuge or the cynical attempt to use religion for political purposes. In order to adhere to his dualistic separation of reason and revelation, Strauss turned to ancient Greek political philosophy, particularly the ideas of Plato and Aristotle, as the true ground of liberal democracy since this classical tradition was never exposed to biblical revelation. Yet, the illiberal and hierarchical implications of Greek political thought, which clash with Strauss’s modern views on human individuality and dignity, ultimately take him back to the biblically based philosophies of Spinoza and Kierkegaard, who teach the paradox that the Bible is the true foundation of human freedom. (shrink)

This essay presents an interpretation of the juridical thought of Cicero, Hugo Grotius and Adam Smith. Focussing upon questions of property, capital accumulation and violence, the essay traces a tension within their writings between a social ethic of human fellowship and compassion, and, a theory of the utility of ‘unsocial’ commercial self-interest. This tension forms a key problem for the tradition of liberal international law. For Grotius and Smith one response to this tension is to attempt to reign in capitalist (...) markets by asserting a range of moral duties to individuals and to the nation-state. The importance of stressing such an interpretation is to reject the flattening-out of the liberal political and juridical tradition by contemporary neoliberal thought, and to reclaim a number of ways of thinking about the global economy and international law in which moral action and political intervention are understood as playing a necessary and essential role. (shrink)

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2012v16n2p255 O artigo investiga se o naturalismo biológico (a solução de John Searle para o problema mente-corpo) pode ser considerado uma concepção fisicalista acerca da mente. Apesar de defender um fisicalismo a respeito dos particulares (seção 2), Searle adere ao argumento básico dos dualistas para a irredutibilidade das propriedades mentais (seção 3), e não consegue fundamentar sua alegação de que tal irredutibilidade é compatível com o fisicalismo (seção 4). Desse modo, sua teoria da mente se revela como um dualismo de (...) propriedades. (shrink)

O artigo investiga a concepçáo de reduçáo de Searle no que se refere à compatibilidade entre redutibilidade causal e simultânea irredutibilidade ontológica da consciência à atividade cerebral. A reduçáo causal da consciência – a explanabilidade causal de suas características por processos cerebrais e a identidade de suas capacidades causais (seçáo 2) – é incompatível com a irredutibilidade ontológica (seçáo 3), porque a diferença ontológica entre características subjetivas e objetivas torna a identidade das capacidades causais incompreensível (seçáo 4). O principal problema (...) é que a teoria de Searle afirma e nega simultaneamente a identidade entre consciência e processos cerebrais (seçáo 5). (shrink)

BackgroundIn Morocco, medical research ethics training was integrated into the medical curriculum during the 2015 reform. In the same year, a law on medical research ethics was enacted to protect individuals participating in medical research. These improvements, whether in the reform or in the enactment of the law, could positively impact the knowledge of these researchers and, consequently, their attitudes and practices regarding medical research ethics. The main objective of this work is to assess Moroccan physicians’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices (...) at the beginning of their careers (interns and residents) in medical research ethics.Patients and methodsThis is a multicenter cross-sectional study conducted in 2021 among Moroccan physicians. Three scores were created and validated to assess physicians’ level of knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding research ethics. A descriptive analysis was carried out, followed by a univariate analysis and a multivariate analysis using multivariate binary logistic regression to study the factors associated with the different calculated scores.ResultsA total of 924 physicians were included in the study, with an average age of 27.8 ± 2.2 years. 40.7% had a high medical research ethics knowledge score, and 68.8% had good attitudes. These two scores were positively associated with age and were statistically higher in residents and in physicians who had received training in medical research ethics during their medical curriculum. Only 29,9% of physicians who had participated in research studies had adequate practices with medical research ethics. This score was statistically higher in residents and in physicians who had heard about research ethics.ConclusionA genuine introduction to ethics in the medical curriculum is essential to enhance researchers’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices. This, in turn, can lead to an increase in both the quantity and quality of research conducted in Morocco. (shrink)

The paper aims at giving a general exposition of John Searle’s solution of the mind-body problem – biological naturalism – and examines its fundamental theses, and some of its consequences. The exam of such theses – which delineates the characteristics of Searle's theory – shows that the theory has three main difficulties, since it holds some assertions which at first sight seem to be incompatible.

O artigo examina a concepção de Searle sobre a redução da consciência (em especial a sua teoria acerca de seus poderes causais), que se mostra obscura e incoerente. Porém, essa incoerência não é inevitável, pois o naturalismo biológico possui elementos que permitiriam a articulação de uma teoria mais clara a respeito das capacidades causais. O exame da teoria de Pereboom e Kornblith possibilita entender por que a afirmação de identidade das capacidades causais leva a um reducionismo. Essa teoria aponta um (...) caminho promissor para que se possa aprimorar o naturalismo biológico. (shrink)

This paper contains an analysis of a famous criticism from John Searle on materialist tradition. This tradition uses to ignore or even refuse the subjectivity of mental phenomena. This paper examines Searle’s strategy to defend this subjectivity, refusing the essential character of behavior to the mental aspect (section II), distinguishing subjective and objective in epistemic and ontological senses (section III) and showing his solution to the problem of other minds (section IV). However, his attempt to obtain an indirect access to (...) subjective mental phenomena through causal explanations (section V) of these phenomena by brain processes is not enough to integrate the ontological subjectivity in our scientific worldview, once that this supposed ontological irreducibility from subjective to objective phenomena seems to result in the conclusion that mental phenomena are something beyond natural reality. (shrink)

The relation between the individual and history is as central to the thought of Kierkegaard as it is to political philosophy as a whole. In the present age, does the individual create history or does history create the individual? These questions are also central to Theodor Adorno, who took aim at Kierkegaard for ignoring the historical and social constraints that inhibit the freedom of the individual. Adorno’s Kierkegaard offers only dogmatic faith and abstract individualism without providing any rational, liberating challenge (...) to oppression. Yet Adorno’s interpretation of Kierkegaard is undermined by his uncritical embrace of the dualism of reason and faith as well as his celebration of Socrates as the true individual critic of power. Adorno ironically ignores Kierkegaard’s own exposure of Socratic rationalism as the fatal pathway towards accepting oppression, just as he fails to comprehend Kierkegaard’s idea of the “religious” individual as the true opponent of both religious and secular tyranny. (shrink)

In understanding the meaning of the West, twentieth‐century political philosophers Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss called for a return to “Athens” (classical political philosophy) in order to address the “crisis of the West,” a loss of a sense of legitimate and stable political authority which, in their view, constitutes a nihilistic threat to Western democracy. The only way for the West to escape this nihilistic crisis is to return to Plato and Aristotle. Implicit in this critique is the belief that (...) the other tradition of the West, “Jerusalem” (the Bible) has contributed to this nihilism, by undermining the authority of the Greeks. Is Jerusalem, then, the fatal “Other” for the West? Which tradition—Athens or Jerusalem—is best prepared to alleviate the crisis of the West, especially the survival of democracy? As I address these questions, I shall contend that it is Jerusalem, not Athens, which is the true source of Western democracy. (shrink)

A tese defendida no presente artigo é que a autoconsciência, na visão de Searle é uma caraterística do campo unificado de consciência. Após uma discussão de três distinções a respeito da consciência propostas por Rosenthal, é discutido o conceito de consciência de Searle – como um fenômeno qualitativo, subjetivo e unificado – e o caráter holístico desse conceito. A discussão que Searle faz dos conceitos de autoconsciência e de introspecção mostra que ele acredita que uma autoconsciência implícita é uma característica (...) constitutiva do campo unificado de consciência. (shrink)

ExcerptThere is a long tradition of suspicion toward the power of “elites” in the history of American politics. Since the days of the Revolution, Americans have often worried about the rise of small and unaccountable powers that threaten the democratic will and adulterate the traditions of the republic. What Richard Hofstadter pejoratively termed the “paranoid style” of postwar conservative politics has deep roots across the political spectrum in American history. On both the Left and the Right, Americans have opposed the (...) centralization of authority in the hands of a privileged few who enjoy disproportionate access to wealth and control of…. (shrink)

O artigo defende a tese de que a irredutibilidade ontológica que Searle atribui à consciência envolve o naturalismo biológico (proposto por ele como uma solução para a parte conceitual do problema mente-corpo) em diversas incoerências, especialmente no que diz respeito ao tema da causação mental. Após uma apresentação das teses básicas da teoria (seção 2), são discutidos os problemas que a tese da irredutibilidade ontológica gera para a visão de Searle sobre a causação mental (seção 3), e as incoerências decorrentes (...) dessa tese (seção 4). A conclusão é que o modo como Searle concebe a irredutibilidade ontológica da consciência é uma fonte de problemas para o naturalismo biológico. (shrink)

Substance use disorders (SUDs) constitute a growing global health crisis, yet many limitations and challenges exist in SUD treatment research, including the lack of objective brain-based markers for tracking treatment outcomes. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a neurophysiological technique for measuring brain activity, and although much is known about EEG activity in acute and chronic substance use, knowledge regarding EEG in relation to abstinence and treatment outcomes is sparse. We performed a scoping review of longitudinal and pre-post treatment EEG studies that explored (...) putative changes in brain function associated with abstinence and/or treatment in individuals with SUD. Following PRISMA guidelines, we identified studies published between January 2000 and March 2022 from online databases. Search keywords included EEG, addictive substances (e.g., alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamine), and treatment related terms (e.g., abstinence, relapse). Selected studies used EEG at least at one time point as a predictor of abstinence or other treatment-related outcomes; or examined pre- vs. post-SUD intervention (brain stimulation, pharmacological, behavioral) EEG effects. Studies were also rated on the risk of bias and quality using validated instruments. Forty-four studies met the inclusion criteria. More consistent findings included lower oddball P3 and higher resting beta at baseline predicting negative outcomes, and abstinence-mediated longitudinal decrease in cue-elicited P3 amplitude and resting beta power. Other findings included abstinence or treatment-related changes in late positive potential (LPP) and N2 amplitudes, as well as in delta and theta power. Existing studies were heterogeneous and limited in terms of specific substances of interest, brief times for follow-ups, and inconsistent or sparse results. Encouragingly, in this limited but maturing literature, many studies demonstrated partial associations of EEG markers with abstinence, treatment outcomes, or pre-post treatment-effects. Studies were generally of good quality in terms of risk of bias. More EEG studies are warranted to better understand abstinence- or treatment-mediated neural changes or to predict SUD treatment outcomes. Future research can benefit from prospective large-sample cohorts and the use of standardized methods such as task batteries. EEG markers elucidating the temporal dynamics of changes in brain function related to abstinence and/or treatment may enable evidence-based planning for more effective and targeted treatments, potentially pre-empting relapse or minimizing negative lifespan effects of SUD. (shrink)

O artigo examina a teoria de David Armstrong sobre a consciência e sua concepção do inconsciente. Após uma discussão do caráter anti-cartesiano dessa teoria, são discutidas as noções de consciência mínima e consciência perceptiva, bem como o conceito de consciência introspectiva, que é o mais importante para Armstrong. A conclusão é que, apesar do valor explicativo dos seus conceitos de consciência, Armstrong defende uma perspectiva insatisfatória a respeito do inconsciente, pois essa perspectiva não dá conta da real influência do inconsciente (...) em nossa vida mental. (shrink)

Searle defende a perspectiva – historicamente associada a Descartes – segundo a qual a consciência é a essência da mente. Isso gera complicações para que ele possa explicar a existência de fenômenos mentais inconscientes – existência que o próprio Searle aceita. Sua estratégia para conciliar a essencialidade da consciência com a existência de fenômenos mentais inconscientes é recorrer a uma teoria disposicional: estados inconscientes existem na forma de disposições para a causação de estados conscientes. O presente artigo se concentra em (...) uma dificuldade enfrentada por essa teoria, dificuldade decorrente da eficácia causal que o próprio Searle atribui aos fenômenos mentais inconscientes. Se um fenômeno inconsciente causa uma determinada ação, então ele o faz em virtude de suas propriedades mentais aspecto qualitativo de sensações, ou o conteúdo representativo de desejos), mas se estas propriedades mentais desempenham um papel essencial na causação, então elas existem efetivamente, o que significa que o fenômeno inconsciente possui uma existência mental independente da consciência, o que contradiz a visão cartesiana da consciência como a essência do mental. (shrink)

Resumo: John R. Searle articulou uma filosofia da mente de acordo com a qual a consciência é o mais importante dos fenômenos mentais, sendo essencialmente caracterizada por uma subjetividade de seu modo de existência. O problema é que a existência de fenômenos mentais inconscientes coloca essa concepção em dificuldades, pois fenômenos inconscientes existem sem serem vivenciados, ou seja, existem de forma objetiva. Para escapar desse problema, Searle propõe uma teoria disposicional do inconsciente, mas a tese do presente trabalho é que, (...) ao aceitar a possibilidade de causação mental inconsciente, Searle está comprometido com a existência de propriedades mentais genuínas, mas independentes da consciência, de modo que sua tese da subjetividade ontológica da mente desmorona. (shrink)

John Searle claims that consciousness is ontologically subjective, since conscious mental phenomena only exist as long as they are experienced. Therefore, mental phenomena are essentially conscious, insofar as their mental character depends on their connection with consciousness. However, to align the acceptance of unconscious mental phenomena with his Cartesian view of consciousness, Searle defends adispositional account of the unconscious. The problem is that some cases of unconscious mental causation require that certain decisive mental properties exist in an occurrent way, and (...) not merely as dispositions. By accepting unconscious mental causation, Searle commits himself to a mental existence that isindependent from consciousness. Such unconscious existence implies that certain mental phenomena are ontologically objective, and not subjective as he claims, because they exist without being experienced.Keywords: Ontological subjectivity, unconscious, disposition, mental causation, objectivity. (shrink)

_Ontology of Production_ presents three essays by the influential Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō, translated for the first time into English by William Haver. While previous translations of his writings have framed Nishida within Asian or Oriental philosophical traditions, Haver's introduction and approach to the texts rightly situate the work within Nishida's own commitment to Western philosophy. In particular, Haver focuses on Nishida's sustained and rigorous engagement with Marx's conception of production. Agreeing with Marx that ontology is production and production is (...) ontology, Nishida in these three essays—"Expressive Activity", "The Standpoint of Active Intuition", and "Human Being" —addresses sense and reason, language and thought, intuition and appropriation, ultimately arguing that in this concept of production, ideality and materiality are neither mutually exclusive nor oppositional but, rather, coimmanent. Nishida's forceful articulation of the radical nature of Marx's theory of production is, Haver contends, particularly timely in today's speculation-driven global economy. Nishida's reading of Marx, which points to the inseparability of immaterial intellectual labor and material manual labor, provokes a reconsideration of Marxism's utility for making sense of—and resisting—the logic of contemporary capitalism. (shrink)

This book examines key twentieth-century philosophers, theologians, and social scientists who began their careers with commitments to the political left only later to reappraise or reject those commitments due to changes in the culture, economics, and politics.

Spinoza once remarked in a letter to his friend Hugo Boxel: “To me the authority of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates is not worth much.”1 The clarity of this statement has not deterred even experienc...

(2013). The Final Volley in the Strauss Wars? The European Legacy: Vol. 18, Reflections on the Future University, pp. 78-82. doi: 10.1080/10848770.2012.722526.

The rejection of liberal universalism originally arose from the political right. Edmund Burke, Joseph de Maistre and other conservatives poured their scorn on the “Rights of Man” that the Enlighten...

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 5, Page 696-697, August 2012.