The aim of this article is to show the peculiarities of modernity in a peripheral capitalist country like Brazil. To do this, our understanding of modernity and its relationship with capitalist progress will be explained. Subsequently, the particular character of capitalism in peripheral regions, with an emphasis on the Brazilian experience, will be analysed. More specifically, we shall explore the meaning of capitalist progress in Brazil in the last two decades, underlining Brazil’s role as an international platform for financial valorization (...) and the retrocession of the country’s industrial production in a context of monetary stability. These observations on a peripheral economy and its historical trajectory will allow us, in a third step, to analyse the particularity of Brazilian modernity today. Finally, we shall discuss the role of compensatory income programs and the rise of the so-called ‘new middle class’ in this scenario. (shrink)

Modernidae, Hegel e o princípio da subjetividade -- Princípio da subjetividade, Bentham e o utilitarismo -- Utilitarismo, mil e o homem econômico -- Homem econômico, Hayek e o individualismo -- Individualismo, neoliberalismo e pós-modernismo -- Pós-modernismo, McCloskey e a retórica da economia -- Retórica da economia, Marx e a crítica do discurso econômico.

O presente artigo busca estabelecer o local e a função do capital portador de juros em O Capital, visando com isso jogar luz sobre a estrutura eminentemente sistemática desta obra. Deste modo a obra máxima de Marx aparecerá muito próxima do idealismo alemão (particularmente de Fichte e Hegel), onde a questão da sistematicidade (da filosofia) foi sentida de maneira mais premente.

The coming to office of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil has brought to the fore the need to understand the rise of the far right and to come to terms with the conflicted legacies of more than a decade of rule under the Workers’ Party. This forum brings together six leading intellectuals from different traditions on the left and introduces their reflections on the contradictions and complexities of the Workers’ Party, the 2008 crisis, the June 2013 protests, the weakness of the (...) Brazilian left, corruption, and on how to characterise Bolsonaro’s regime. Their interventions offer crucial insights that are relevant today not just to Brazil, or even Latin America, but to the politics of the left worldwide. (shrink)

The coming to office of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil has brought to the fore the need to understand the rise of the far right and to come to terms with the conflicted legacies of more than a decade of rule under the Workers’ Party. This forum brings together six leading intellectuals from different traditions on the left and introduces their reflections on the contradictions and complexities of the Workers’ Party, the 2008 crisis, the June 2013 protests, the weakness of the (...) Brazilian left, corruption, and on how to characterise Bolsonaro’s regime. Their interventions offer crucial insights that are relevant today not just to Brazil, or even Latin America, but to the politics of the left worldwide. (shrink)

I argue that both language acquisition and cultural and social factors contribute to the formation of schemata that facilitate false belief reasoning. While the proposal for an active role of language acquisition in this sense has been partially advanced by several voices in the mentalizing debate, I argue that other accounts addressing this issue present some shortcomings. Specifically, I analyze the existing proposals distinguishing between “structure-oriented” views :1858–1878, 2007; de Villiers in Why language matters for theory of mind. Oxford University (...) Press, New York, pp 186–219, 2005), that stress the role of language as a set of rules providing syntactic input and providing a representational format, and “cultural/social-oriented views”, that stress the role of social interaction. Starting from the analysis of these views, I defend my own account of the role of language acquisition in aiding false belief reasoning. I argue that language acquisition plays a pivotal role in the formation of schemata used by pre-schoolers to pass the false belief task. I propose a specific learning mechanism for exploiting linguistic information that taps into specific cognitive abilities, thus making a very concrete suggestion about the role of linguistic input in specific cultural contexts for the development of false belief skills. (shrink)

Our ability to attribute mental states to others ("to mentalize") has been the subject of philosophical and psychological studies for a very long time, yet the role of language acquisition in the development of our mentalizing abilities has been largely understudied. This book addresses this gap in the philosophical literature. -/- The book presents an account of how false belief reasoning is impacted by language acquisition, and it does so by placing it in the larger context of the issue, how (...) language impacts cognition in general. The work provides the reader with detailed and critical literature reviews, and draws on them to argue that language acquisition helps false belief reasoning by boosting the ability to create schemata that facilitate processing of information in some social contexts. According to this framework, it is a combination of syntactic clues and cultural narratives that helps the child to solve the classic false belief task. -/- The book provides a novel, original account of how language helps false belief reasoning, while also giving the reader a broad, precise and well-documented picture of the debate around some of the most fundamental issues in social cognition. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss the role of labels and generics referring to social kinds in mindshaping practices, arguing that they promote generalizations that foster essentialist thinking and carry a normative force. We propose that their cognitive function consists in both contributing to the formation and reinforcement of schemata and scripts for social interaction and in activating these schemata in specific social situations. Moreover, we suggest that failure to meet the expectations engendered by these schemata and scripts leads to the (...) activation of “reactive attitudes” embedded in feedback loops of reactive exchange that are constitutive of our mindshaping practices. (shrink)

Recent years have featured a leap in academic and public interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities and related corporate reporting. Two main themes in this literature are the exploration of management incentives to engage in and disclose this information, and of the use and value of this information to market participants. We extend the second theme by examining the interest that specific investor classes have in the use of CSR information. We rely on feminist intersectionality, which suggests that gender (...) intersects with other identities to yield different values, experiences, and opportunities that can lead to gender-based preferences for CSR information. Based upon a survey of 750 US-based retail investors, we find that female retail investors have a greater interest in the use of CSR information, relative to male retail investors. Women express greater anticipated future demand for this information than do men. Further, the magnitude of the increase from current use to anticipated future demand is greater for women than men. Age is a significant modifying factor in that the discrepancy between women of any age and older men is greater than that between women and younger men. Finally, women also exhibit greater demand for streamlining of the information flow, consistent with pressures induced by time poverty. It appears that current disclosure practices provide a less than optimal match with the needs of the information consumers that are primarily interested in using this information. This mismatch may result in a systematic disenfranchisement of female investing classes which suggests an ethical need to level the playing field. (shrink)

Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors-...

We argue that the problem of ideographic codes stems from neither learnability nor standardization, but from a general issue of pragmatic interpretation. As ideographic codes increase in expressive power, in order to reduce ambiguity, they must become more detailed – such that production becomes more cumbersome, and requires greater artistry on the part of users, limiting their capacity for growth.

Classical notions of Common Ground have been criticized for being cognitively demanding given their appeal to complex meta-representations. The authors here propose a distinction between Immediate Common Ground, containing information specific to the communicative situation, and General Common Ground, containing information that is not situation-specific. This distinction builds on previous work by Horton and Gerrig [2016], extending the idea that common cognitive processes are part of the establishment and use of common ground. This is in line with the idea that (...) multiple cognitive resources are involved in dialogue and avoids appealing to special-purpose representations for Common Ground purposes. (shrink)

This paper examines six cross-sector partnerships in South Africa and Zambia. These partnerships were part of a research study undertaken between 2003 and 2005 and were selected because of their potential to contribute to poverty reduction in their respective countries. This paper examines the context in which the partnerships were established, their governance and accountability mechanisms and the engagement and participation of the partners and the intended beneficiaries in the partnerships. We argue that a partnership approach which has proven successful (...) in one context can be used as a valuable learning resource. However, a partnership's work, which includes all aspects of the partnership and its activities, cannot necessarily be transferred directly to another partnership without a thorough and locally informed analysis of the context in which it is implemented. In addition, we suggest that it is difficult to assess whether the good intentions behind partnerships were translated into real benefits for target groups as effective monitoring and evaluation procedures were not in place in the partnerships studied. Similarly, the absence of regularised governance and accountability systems in partnerships made it difficult to support partner and beneficiary participation and engagement. We conclude that there is a need to move beyond a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to partnerships and that partnership replication should focus more strongly on the transfer of learning about partnership processes instead of simply copying partnership activities. Moreover, the development of stronger mechanisms for assessing and ensuring accountability towards both partners and intended beneficiaries is required if partnerships are to meet their intended objectives. (shrink)

“Ought” cannot be derived from “is,” so why should facts about human nature be of interest to business ethicists? In this article, we discuss why the nature of human nature is relevant to anyone wishing to create a more just and humane workplace and society. We begin by presenting evolutionary psychology as a research framework, and then present three examples of research that illuminate various evolved cognitive programs. The first involves the cognitive foundations of trade, including a neurocognitive mechanism specialized (...) for a form of moral reasoning: cheater detection. The second involves the moral sentiments triggered by participating in collective actions, which are relevant to organizational behavior. The third involves the evolved programs whereby our minds socially construct groups, and how these can be harnessed to reduce racism and foster true diversity in the workplace. In each case, we discuss how what has been learned about these evolved programs might inform the study and practice of business ethics. (shrink)

Disagreement remains about whether particular human socio-cognitive traits arose primarily as a result of biological adaptations, or because of changing cultural practices. Heyes argues that uniquely human traits, including imitation and theory of mind, are the product of cultural learning. In contrast, Tomasello argues that they are, in key respects, part of a suite of adaptations for ‘shared intentionality’. We consider how such disagreements might be resolved. We show that the kinds of consideration often used to adjudicate questions about trait (...) origins are insufficient to settle origin questions. Furthermore, humankind’s immersion in culture undermines the prospect that cross-cultural and developmental studies could resolve origin questions. Nonetheless we argue that, when cautiously interpreted, currently neglected studies of enculturated great apes (i.e. apes raised in human environments) can shed new light on trait origins, and inform mechanistic accounts of cognitive development. While acknowledging the shortcomings of enculturation research, we argue that it deserves renewed attention. (shrink)

Heintz & Scott-Phillips's account of human expression leaves a number of central issues unclear – not least, whether the lack of expression in nonhuman species is attributable to their lack of the relevant metarepresentational abilities, an absence of trust, or a consequence of other factors. In place of their view, we propose a gradualistic account of the origins of human expression.

Classical notions of Common Ground have been criticized for being cognitively demanding given their appeal to complex meta-representations. The authors here propose a distinction between Immediate Common Ground, containing information specific to the communicative situation, and General Common Ground, containing information that is not situation-specific. This distinction builds on previous work by ], extending the idea that common cognitive processes are part of the establishment and use of common ground. This is in line with the idea that multiple cognitive resources (...) are involved in dialogue and avoids appealing to special-purpose representations for Common Ground purposes. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende discutir a avalição em larga escala, tema atual e polêmico, pois é um procedimento considerado preocupante para educadores e estudiosos da educação brasileira, em todas as suas modalidades, desde a educação básica até ao ensino superior. Abordaremos aqui a avaliação em larga escala já em processo no ensino fundamental, principalmente por tratar-se de fase crucial do ensino, a educação básica. No caso específico deste artigo, discutiremos a Prova Brasil, instrumento da avaliação em larga escala no Ensino Fundamental (...) I. Apresentamos resultados de uma pesquisa realizada junto a professores de uma escola da Rede Municipal do interior do Estado de São Paulo. Os resultados mostram a insatisfação dos professores frente à avaliação externa, principalmente focando a perda de autonomia deles próprios no desenvolvimento da Matriz Curricular. Teoricamente os resultados da prova Brasil deveriam dirigir possíveis ações mantendo ou reformulando, seja a Matriz Curricular em si, seja a ação dos professores e gestores escolares, mas não é o que ocorre. A pesquisa na qual nos baseamos mostra que o ápice atingido pela avaliação externa foi moldar a ação dos professores às questões da Prova Brasil. Os autores que nos apoiaram na análise dos dados foram: Saviani ; Sacristán ; Teixeira e Werle. (shrink)

In P. Carruthers, S. Laurence, & S. Stich (Eds.). The innate mind: Structure and content. (pp. 305-337). New York: Oxford University Press.

Review of Lee Braver's 2012 book, Groundless Grounds: A Study of Wittgenstein and Heidegger.

Memory evolved to supply useful, timely information to the organism’s decision-making systems. Therefore, decision rules, multiple memory systems, and the search engines that link them should have coevolved to mesh in a coadapted, functionally interlocking way. This adaptationist perspective suggested the scope hypothesis: When a generalization is retrieved from semantic memory, episodic memories that are inconsistent with it should be retrieved in tandem to place boundary conditions on the scope of the generalization. Using a priming paradigm and a decision task (...) involving person memory, the authors tested and confirmed this hypothesis. The results support the view that priming is an evolved adaptation. They further show that dissociations between memory systems are not—and should not be—absolute: Independence exists for some tasks but not others. (shrink)

Participants scoring high and low on a measure of repressive coping style (Mendolia, 2002) first learned a series of related word pairs (cue–target). Half of the cues were homographs. In the subsequent think/no-think phase (Anderson & Green, 2001), they responded with targets on some trials and suppressed thoughts of targets on others. Suppressed targets were always emotionally negative, as were targets associated with baseline cues reserved for the final test. Some participants were provided with emotionally benign or positive substitutes to (...) help them suppress, and these substitutes were related to different meanings of the homographic cues, compared to those established by the targets. On the final test, all cues were presented for target recall. Only the repressors significantly benefited from the provision of positive substitutes to aid forgetting of the negative targets, regardless of the nature of the cues. (shrink)

For two decades, the integrated causal model of evolutionary psychology (EP) has constituted an interdisciplinary nucleus around which a single unified theoretical and empirical behavioral science has been crystallizing – while progressively resolving problems (such as defective logical and statistical reasoning) that bedevil Gintis's beliefs, preferences, and constraints (BPC) framework. Although both frameworks are similar, EP is empirically better supported, theoretically richer, and offers deeper unification. (Published Online April 27 2007).