According to F. Adams [this journal, vol. 68, 2018] cognition cannot be realized in plants or bacteria. In his view, plants and bacteria respond to the here-and-now in a hardwired, inflexible manner, and are therefore incapable of cognitive activity. This article takes issue with the pursuit of plant cognition from the perspective of an empirically informed philosophy of plant neurobiology. As we argue, empirical evidence shows, contra Adams, that plant behavior is in many ways analogous to animal behavior. This renders (...) plants suitable to be described as cognitive agents in a non-metaphorical way. Sections two to four review the arguments offered by Adams in light of scientific evidence on plant adaptive behavior, decision-making, anticipation, as well as learning and memory. Section five introduces the ‘phyto-nervous’ system of plants. To conclude, section six resituates the quest for plant cognition into a broader approach in cognitive science, as represented by enactive and ecological schools of thought. Overall, we aim to motivate the idea that plants may be considered genuine cognitive agents. Our hope is to help propel public awareness and discussion of plant intelligence once appropriately stripped of anthropocentric preconceptions of the sort that Adams' position appears to exemplify. (shrink)

Explaining agency is a significant challenge for those who are interested in the sciences of the mind, and non-representationalists are no exception to this. Even though both ecological psychologists and enactivists agree that agency is to be explained by focusing on the relation between the organism and the environment, they have approached it by focusing on different aspects of the organism-environment relation. In this paper, I offer a suggestion for a radical embodied account of agency that combines ecological psychology with (...) recent trends in enactive cognitive science. According to this proposal, while enactivism focuses primarily on describing how our acquired sensorimotor schemes and habits mutually equilibrate, affecting our tendency to act upon some affordances instead of others, ecological psychology focuses on studying how perceptual information contributes to the actualization of the sensorimotor schemes and habits without mediating representations, inferences, and computations. The paper concludes by briefly exploring how this ecological-enactive theory of agency can account for how socio-cultural norms shape human agency. (shrink)

Ecological psychology is one of the most influential theories of perception in the embodied, anti-representational, and situated cognitive sciences. However, radical enactivists claim that Gibsonians tend to describe ecological information and its ‘pick up’ in ways that make ecological psychology close to representational theories of perception and cognition. Motivated by worries about the tenability of classical views of informational content and its processing, these authors claim that ecological psychology needs to be “RECtified” so as to explicitly resist representational readings. In (...) this paper, we argue against this call for RECtification. To do so, we offer a detailed analysis of the notion of perceptual information and other related notions such as specificity and meaning, as they are presented in the specialized ecological literature. We defend that these notions, if properly understood, remain free of any representational commitment. Ecological psychology, we conclude, does not need to be RECtified. (shrink)

RESUMO O objetivo deste artigo é discutir uma releitura do layout de argumentos proposto originalmente por Stephen Toulmin e desenvolvido posteriormente por Toulmin; Rieke; Janik no sentido de enquadrá-lo como: um instrumento útil para a análise da configuração funcional da argumentação epistêmica e, por conseguinte, para a avaliação da consistência da argumentação, o que está ligado à faceta justificatória de tal atividade; um instrumento válido para a análise do dissenso e do dialogismo, característicos da faceta comunicativa da argumentação, no que (...) diz respeito ao funcionamento da prova retórica do logos, um dos principais fatores envolvidos no processo de conquista da adesão. Nesse sentido, procedemos a uma reconceptualização dos componentes do layout de argumentos - Alegação, Dados, Garantia, Base, Qualificador e Refutação - e propomos uma noção de movimento argumentativo compatível com a nossa abordagem, que busca ser linguística, discursiva e cognitivamente coerente, respondendo a requisitos teóricos e analíticos ligados tanto à faceta justificatória quanto comunicativa da argumentação. ABSTRACT This paper aims to discuss a reframing of Toulmin’s layout of arguments, originally proposed in The Uses of Argument and further developed in An Introduction to Reasoning. In this approach, we conceive of the layout as: a useful instrument for analyzing the functional configuration of epistemic argumentation and, thus, for evaluating consistency, a dimension of analysis pertaining to the justificatory facet of argumentation; a valid instrument for analyzing dissension and dialogism, fundamental elements of the communicative facet of argumentation, in terms of the functioning of logos, one of the rhetorical proofs involved in the process of achieving adherence. Hence, we reconceptualize the components of the layout - Claim, Data, Warrant, Backing, Qualifier and Rebuttal - and propose a notion of argumentative move compatible with our approach, which aims at achieving linguistic, discursive and cognitive coherence and at responding to the theoretical and analytical requirements involved in the consideration of the justificatory and communicative facets of argumentation. (shrink)

NAVEGAR É PRECISO; VIVER NÃO É PRECISO: A LIBERDADE DE LOCOMOÇÃO NA INTERNET.

1. La concepción materialista de la historia.

Although it is a common claim in the ecological psychology literature that our perception of the environment’s affordances is influenced by socio-cultural norms, an explanation of how this is possible remains to be offered. In this paper, I outline an account of this phenomenon by focusing on the ecological theory of perceptual learning. Two main theses are defended. First, I argue that to account for how socio-cultural norms can influence perception, we must pay attention not only to the education of (...) attention but to the education of intention too. Consequently, I offer some ideas about how intention can be socio-normatively educated. Secondly, I hold that the education of intention occurs via the acquisition of habit-based preferences for particular actions. I claim that once we understand how these habit-based preferences relate to socio-cultural norms, the hypothesis that norms must be represented in the individual’s mind for them to influence affordance perception is no longer needed. If this hypothesis is on the right track, we can have an explanation for how perception can be normatively shaped and direct (non-mediated by internal representations and inferences) at the same time. (shrink)

In the last years, we have attended to different attempts to extend the notion of affordance to include mental or cognitive actions. In short, the idea is that our capacity to perform some cognitive functions such as counting, imagining, mathematical reasoning, and so on, is preceded by our awareness of cognitive or mental affordances. In this paper, we analyze two of these attempts, Mental Affordance Hypothesis, and cognitive horizons, and conclude that they fail to deliver their promise. Our argument is (...) two-fold. First, we show that both proposals lack an explanation for how these affordances can be perceived or experienced by the individuals. Second, we argue, focusing on the examples provided by the authors, that the introduction of cognitive affordances is not justified on explanatory grounds. In other words, neither of these proposals offers a compelling justification for thinking that performing said “mental acts” requires the perception of mental or cognitive affordances. Hence, the existence of mental or cognitive affordances remains both scientifically mysterious and explanatorily unjustified. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende apresentar o conceito de percepção assim como o interpreta o filósofo francês Renaud Barbaras. Ele parte da recolocação do problema da percepção entre imanência e transcendência para indicar os traços fundamentais que caracterizam este fenômeno segundo seu próprio ponto de vista: o sujeito da percepção como sujeito vivo e a essência da vida como desejo. Não se trata, para ele, de aproximar-se da percepção através daquilo que ela não é. Para compreender verdadeiramente a percepção é preciso (...) nos deixar formar junto à própria experiência perceptiva, ou antes, é preciso pensar segundo a própria percepção. (shrink)

According to ecological psychology, agency is a crucial feature of living organisms: therefore many ecological psychologists maintain that explaining agency is one of the core aims of the discipline. This paper aims to contribute to this goal by arguing that an ecological understanding of agency requires an account of intention. So far, intentions have not played a dominant role in ecological accounts of agency. The reluctance to integrate a notion of intention seems to be motivated by the widespread assumption that (...) intentions should be understood as internal states with representational content. This assumption goes against two main tenets of ecological psychology: its anti-representationalist stance and its claim that perception is direct (in the sense of not being mediated by inferential processes). Ecological psychology thus needs a different answer to the question what intentions are. In this paper, we aim to show that Elizabeth Anscombe’s theory of intention can be fruitfully brought to bear on an ecological theory of agency. We will argue that Anscombe’s account can meet the two challenges of bringing intentions into the framework of ecological psychology: firstly it can explain what intentions are, if not representational states; and, secondly, it can show how our perception of affordances is guided by intention without undermining the idea of direct perception. (shrink)

O foco deste trabalho é a compreensão da felicidade como fruto de práticas virtuosas, tal como sugere Sêneca. Aqui, são empregados pensamentos dispostos em quatro obras do pensador romano. O primeiro aparece em Sobre a clemência, escrita com a finalidade de tornar Nero um bom imperador. A beatitude verdadeira deveria consistir em proporcionar uma vida feliz a muitos. Desse modo, a felicidade de um governante só poderia ser a partir da felicidade do povo. A segunda ideia aparece em Sobre a (...) ira, onde a máxima regente é evitar a decepção por meio da ataraxia – a conformidade com a natureza. Aqui, a felicidade se encontra na redução das expectativas e no preparo/espera para as adversidades. A terceira concepção de felicidade aparece na sua Consolação à mãe Hélvia, escrita no exílio, para lembrar sua mãe de todas as infelicidades que já teve, pois, a infelicidade constante teria esta característica positiva: endurecer aqueles a quem incansavelmente persegue. Por fim, o conselho é afastar-se do caminho das multidões e entregar-se à filosofia, que é prática, e buscar o equilíbrio, fugindo dos prazeres frívolos, negando as voluptuosidades e exaltando a moral, típica do estoicismo romano. (shrink)

Este artigo tenta mostrar como a concepção hobbesiana de corpo, longe de ser uma mera metáfora ou o efeito de uma redução fisicalista, constitui antes uma significação primeira para toda ciência possível. A partir dela, é possível pensar o que é o corpo político sem cair em ilusões substancialistas ou totalizantes.

A widely shared assumption in the literature about skilled motor behavior is that any action that is not blindly automatic and mechanical must be the product of computational processes upon mental representations. To counter this assumption, in this paper we offer a radical embodied (non-representational) account of skilled action that combines ecological psychology and the Deweyan theory of habits. According to our proposal, skilful performance can be understood as composed of sequences of mutually coherent, task-specific perceptual-motor habits. Such habits play (...) a crucial role in simplifying both our exploration of the perceptual environment and our decision-making. However, we argue that what keeps habits situated, precluding them from becoming rote and automatic, are not mental representations but the agent's conscious attention to the affordances of the environment. It is because the agent is not acting on autopilot but constantly searching for new information for affordances that she can control her behavior, adapting previously learned habits to the current circumstances. We defend that our account provides the resources needed to understand how skilled action can be intelligent (flexible, adaptive, context-sensitive) without having any representational cognitive processes built into them. (shrink)

The organizational climate is the work environment conceived by emotions and motivation of an organization and, an optimal way of increasing participation is with working groups in the dependencies to improve: objectives, processes, conflicts, leadership. Thus the objective was to determine the characterization of variables. The method incorporates the quantitative approach, non -experimental design, descriptive level, applied and transversal type, analysis and deductive methods. The results show, there is a high organizational climate level, due to the contribution of three dimensions (...) or aspects that are: economic conditions, management values and organizational policies. (shrink)

Non-representational approaches to cognition have struggled to provide accounts of long-term planning that forgo the use of representations. An explanation comes easier for cognitivist accounts, which hold that we concoct and use contentful mental representations as guides to coordinate a series of actions towards an end state. One non-representational approach, ecological-enactivism, has recently seen several proposals that account for “high-level” or “representation-hungry” capacities, including long-term planning and action coordination. In this paper, we demonstrate the explanatory gap in these accounts that (...) stems from avoiding the incorporation of long-term intentions, as they play an important role both in action coordination and perception on the ecological account. Using recent enactive accounts of language, we argue for a non-representational conception of intentions, their formation, and their role in coordinating pre-reflective action. We provide an account for the coordination of our present actions towards a distant goal, a skill we call distal engagement. Rather than positing intentions as an actual cognitive entity in need of explanation, we argue that we take them up in this way as a practice due to linguistically scaffolded attitudes towards language use. (shrink)

Resumen: Este ensayo analiza los desafíos que plantea el desarrollo de la competencia comunicativa intercultural en el marco de la formación de profesores en el contexto poscolonial chileno. A partir de una revisión de antecedentes bibliográficos se reconoce que la preparación de los nuevos educadores no ha logrado implementar de manera transversal el enfoque educativo intercultural. Esto ha permitido conservar la hegemonía de la monoculturalidad eurocéntrica, generando que los profesores en formación mantengan una comprensión insuficiente de las culturas presentes en (...) la sala de clases. Con el propósito de aportar a la discusión crítica, se reflexiona acerca de las posibilidades que entrega la CCI en la búsqueda de nuevas formas de conocer y comunicar que confronten la educación monocultural, para avanzar en la construcción de procesos educativos interculturales, ya sea en territorios indígenas o en los nuevos contextos que surgen por la inmigración.: This paper explores the challenges posed by the development of intercultural communicative competence in relation to teacher training in the postcolonial Chilean context. Through a review of bibliographic sources it is recognized that the preparation of new teachers has failed to transversely implement an intercultural educational approach. This has allowed Chile to keep the hegemony of eurocentric monoculturality, resulting in these teachers’ insufficient understanding of the cultures present in the classroom. In order to contribute to this critical discussion in the field, this paper reflects on the possibilities that ICC provides when seeking new ways of knowing and of communicating that confront monocultural education and develop intercultural educational processes, either in indigenous territories or in the new immigration contexts. (shrink)

The present study aims to analyze the psychometric properties of the Goal orientation Scales in a sample of 2,170 Ecuadorian undergraduate students. The Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis supported the four-factor structure of the GOS, and the scale exhibited an adequate factorial invariance for gender. The multidimensional Rasch analysis revealed that one item showed misfit, and the distribution of items did not correspond well with the levels of achievement goals. The current research addresses a formal gap related to (...) the validation of the GOS in a Latin American country and provides advanced psychometric information to further improve the scale for its application to Spanish-speaking samples. (shrink)

In this paper, we evaluate the pragmatic turn towards embodied, enactive thinking in cognitive science, in the context of recent empirical research on the memory palace technique. The memory palace is a powerful method for remembering yet it faces two problems. First, cognitive scientists are currently unable to clarify its efficacy. Second, the technique faces significant practical challenges to its users. Virtual reality devices are sometimes presented as a way to solve these practical challenges, but currently fall short of delivering (...) on that promise. We address both issues in this paper. First, we argue that an embodied, enactive approach to memory can better help us understand the effectiveness of the memory palace. Second, we present design recommendations for a virtual memory palace. Our theoretical proposal and design recommendations contribute to solving both problems and provide reasons for preferring an embodied, enactive account over an information-processing treatment of the memory palace. (shrink)

El artículo tiene por objeto analizar la construcción del conocimiento mapuche según el discurso de kimches. Sostenemos que en la educación familiar existe un proceso de construcción de conocimientos propios como un sistema de saberes y contenidos educativos para la formación de personas. La metodología empleada es la investigación educativa. Los resultados parciales muestran una descripción acerca de la lógica de los conocimientos educativos propios, para contextualizar la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de las ciencias en el medio escolar, desde la (...) educación intercultural en contexto mapuche. The aim of this article is to analyze the construction of Mapuche knowledge based on the kimches speech. We argue that within family education, there exists a process of constructing their own knowledge, as a system of knowledge and educational contents for forming individuals. The research methodology applied corresponds to education research. Preliminary results describe the logic of individual educational knowledge from intercultural education in the Mapuche context, so as to contextualize the teaching and learning of Science in schools. (shrink)

Traditionally, self-control is conceptualized in terms of internal processes such as willpower or motivational mechanisms. These processes supposedly explain how agents manage to exercise self-control or, in other words, how they act on the basis of their best judgment in the face of conflicting motivation. Against the mainstream view that self-control is a mechanism or set of mechanisms realized in the brain, several authors have recently argued for the inclusion of situated factors in our understanding of self-control. In this paper, (...) we review such recent attempts from the perspective of situated accounts of cognition and argue that even though these accounts integrate situational features, they ultimately still rely on an orthodox, neurocentric view of self-control. Instead, we will argue that in order to develop a really situated account it is necessary to radically rethink what self-control is. Building on recent work on extended skill, we will develop an outline of a really situated account of self-control. (shrink)

We explore the nature of expert minds in skilled performance by examining classic Japanese dramatist Zeami’s account of skilled expertise in Noh drama. Zeami characterizes expert minds by the co-existence of mushin and riken no ken. Mushin is an empty state of mind devoid of mental contents. Riken no ken is a distinctive form of self-awareness, where the actor embodies a common perspective with the audience upon one’s own performance. Conventional accounts of riken no ken present it as a form (...) of imagination: expert actors deliver their performance by imagining what it looks like from an external point of view. These imagination-based accounts, however, do not square well with the claim that riken no ken co-exists with mushin. We propose an alternative perception-based account that better accounts for this co-existence, drawing on the concept of “situated normativity” from embodied-ecological theories of cognition. The situated normativity account characterizes riken no ken as a form of “direct affective perception” in which actors are aware of their performance’s quality of attunement with the performative situation. Expert Noh actors realise a common perspective with the audience not by imagining an external point of view, but by perceiving the situation that encompasses their own performance from an aesthetic perspective cultivated and shared within the Noh community. (shrink)

O presente artigo constitui, antes de mais, uma exposição da tentativa feita por Maurice Merleau-Ponty de sistematização de um método psicológico convergente com algumas das principais metas estabelecidas pela Fenomenologia de inspiração husserliana. Constatando de que modo o autor da Fenomenologia da Percepção considera os diversos âmbitos da cultura, a começar pela arte e pela psicanálise, como indicadores da decadência do cartesianismo, o artigo analisa o estatuto da ciência justamente como uma das esferas culturais das quais é possível extrair categorias (...) que exprimam de forma mais precisa e rigorosa o real, mostrando-se de que modo as investigações científicas são indispensáveis para uma identificação dos temas a serem filosoficamente tratados, pois os dados obtidos por tais pesquisas são imprescindíveis para o trabalho filosófico enquanto tal Neste sentido, o autor propõe uma relação entre Filosofia e Ciência que não é mais uma relação de hierarquização, tal como defendia Husserl, mas sim uma de complementaridade, tal como defendia Bergson. Com efeito, postulando-se a não necessidade de fragmentar o real para que se legitime um tal acordo, ou seja, dado que a cisão entre o espiritual e o material não pode mais ser mantida, o artigo sublinha a absoluta necessidade de que Filosofia e Ciência se encontrem. Por outras palavras, a integração entre ambas não depende de que uma e outra se refiram à mesma, e justa, metade da realidade, mas tão-somente que cada uma delas remeta para a mesma camada fenomenal, seja para descrever cientificamente os organismos em seu contacto com o meio seja para expor filosoficamente a nova ontologia ali contida. Em suma, o artigo mostra até que ponto, apesar de realizar a intenção bergsoniana de integrar explicação quantitativa e descrição qualitativa e assimilar a crítica de Husserl ao objectivismo, o método fenomenoló-gico não esgota a tarefa ontológica da filosofia. /// The present article analyzes de attempt made by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in order to systematize a psychological method convergent with some of the main goals established by the phenomenological movement issued from HusserL Taking into account the way in which the author of the Phenomenology of Perception considers the different realms of the cultural sphere, beginning with art and psychoanalysis, as special indicators of cartesianisms decadence, the article analyses the statute of science inasmuch as it is one of the cultural spheres from which it is possible to extract the categories that express in a more precise and rigorous way the real, whereby it is shown in what way scientific research is indispensable for an identification of the themes to be treated philosophically. In this sense, the author proposes a relation between Philosophy and Science that is no more one of hierarchysation, as defended by Husserl, but one of complementarity, such as defended by Bergson. By postulating that there is no longer a necessity for a fragmentation of the real so that such an accord between Philosophy and Science could be reached, and this precisely since there is no longer a way of maintaining a division between the spiritual and the material, the article underlines the necessity that Philosophy and Science must come together. In other words, the integration between the Wo no longer depends of the fact that one and the other refer to the same portion of the real, but only of the capacity that each one of them has of referring to the same set of phenomena, being that in order to achieve a scientific description of organisms in contact with the environment or being that in order to advance a philosophical exploration of the new ontology in it contained. Above all, the article shows the measure in which, regardless of the fact that the methodological approach of phenomenology realizes the bergsonian intention of an integration of quantitative explanation and qualitative description, it. cannot properly be said that such method exhausts the ontological task of Philosophy. (shrink)

Este artículo aborda la acción educativa mapuche kimeltuwün como aporte a la solución del problema que implica la contextualización de los contenidos que se enseñan en la escuela a niños y niñas de origen mapuche que inician su proceso de escolarización. Se trata de saberes vernáculos que se centran principalmente en contenidos actitudinales relacionados con la memoria social mapuche. Se revelan conceptos y métodos educativos que utilizan los kimches (sabios portadores del conocimiento social y cultural) para formar a niños, niñas (...) y jóvenes en el contexto de la familia y comunidad. Para ello, los sabios recurren a la lógica sociocultural sobre la cual se fundamentan sus saberes educativos. Los resultados muestran la vigencia de categorías de conocimientos educativos mapuches para la formación de las personas. (shrink)

“Toda la literatura consiste en un esfuerzo para hacer real la vida. Como todos saben, incluso cuando actúan sin saber, la vida es absolutamente irreal, en su realidad directa; los campos, la ciudades, las ideas, son cosas absolutamente ficticias, hijas de nuestra compleja sensación de nosotros mismos. Son intrasmisibles todas las impresiones salvo si las hacemos literarias”. La luz de originalidad de este fragmento de Bernardo Soares, heterónimo de Fernando Pessoa, suscita una intuición que permite descubrir y considerar que cuando (...) escribimos literatura lo hacemos para que todo aquello que vivimos sea real. Porque la realidad suele ser, a veces, tan atribulada que es necesario ponerle la ilusión de la literatura. Esta advertencia del poeta de los heterónimos sugiere que para poder comunicar nuestras impresiones y sentimientos, tenemos que traducirlos a literatura; que, en gran medida, la transmisión de sentimientos es, en el fondo, un acontecer de modelos literarios que se toman de la literatura para llevarlos a la vida real y no al contrario. (shrink)

A Série Investigação Filosófica é uma série de livros de traduções de verbetes da Enciclopédia de Filosofia da Stanford (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) e de outras plataformas internacionalmente reconhecidas, que intenciona servir tanto como material didático para os professores das diferentes sub-áreas e níveis da Filosofia quanto como material de estudo para a pesquisa e para concursos da área. Nós, professores, sabemos o quão difícil é encontrar bom material em português para indicarmos. E há uma certa deficiência na graduação brasileira (...) de filosofia, principalmente em localizações menos favorecidas, com relação ao conhecimento de outras línguas, como o inglês e o francês. Tentamos, então, suprir essa deficiência, ao introduzirmos essas traduções ao público de língua portuguesa, sem nenhuma finalidade comercial e meramente pela glória da filosofia. (shrink)

Resumo Neste estudo o autor procura analisar a compreensão da natureza humana que está subjacente às palavras de Aquiles, na Ilíada, IX,318-320 e na Odisseia, XI,489-491. Segundo o autor, Aquiles é portador de uma interpretação da condição humana que traduz uma determinada compreensão do que significa ser humano. De modo a deixar ver a compreensão da natureza humana presente nas palavras de Aquiles, o autor recorre a indícios encontrados noutros pontos das obras homéricas referidas, relacionando as concepções presentes nos (...) dois textos alvo. Identifica-se ainda a descrição da natureza humana que é possível fazer a partir das situações que envolvem os versos em análise. Assim, por um lado procura-se identificar que compreensão da natureza humana está presente no discurso de Aquiles e, por outro, que natureza humana emerge das alterações que o seu discurso sofre. Na Ilíada o autor encontra indícios de uma compreensão afetada pela ira, envolvendo o mundo humano numa aura de melancolia, na qual predomina o reconhecimento da injustiça por toda a parte. Da Odisseia obtém-se uma avaliação da vida que considera qualquer forma de existência humana preferível a qualquer forma de morte. Finalmente, o artigo explora o modo como a sua interpretação acerca da vida é modulada pelas mudanças que de cada vez se abatem sobre ele. Palavras-chave : Aquiles, compreensão, disposições afetivas, existência, natureza humana, vida e morteThe author analyses the understanding of human nature that underlies the words of Achilles in the Iliad, IX,318-320 and Odyssey, XI,489-491. According to the author, Achilles bears an interpretation of the human condition that reflects a certain understanding of what it means to be human. In order to bring to light the understanding of human nature present in the words of Achilles, the verses listed are analysed, using evidences found elsewhere in the Homeric works mentioned, and relating the concepts present in the two target texts. A diagnosis is made in order to identify the description of human nature that is presented by the situations involving the poetic subject. In short, the author seeks to identify which understanding of human nature is present in the speech of Achilles, and what is the concept of human nature that emerges from the changes happening through the verses. Thus, in the Iliad the author finds evidences of an understanding affected by anger, involving the human world in a wave of melancholy in which the recognition of injustice predominates. And in Odyssey the article finds an evaluation of life that sustains that any form of human existence is preferable when compared with death – compared with death, life is better. The article explores in particular the idea that Achilles’ interpretation of life is modulated by the changes he suffers in his life. Keywords: Achilles, existence, human nature, life and death, moods, understanding. (shrink)

John Dewey desenvolve uma filosofia da educação fortemente marcada pelo mé-todo experimental de investigação e pela adoção da atitude naturalista em filosofia. Neste sentido, sua concepção do ser humano e da sociedade tem suas bases na noção mais ampla de transmissão da vida, em um ambiente social, por meio da comunicação de hábitos, crenças e valores. O caso mais específico deste processo da vida é a educação, pela qual a experiência de um indivíduo ou cultura se renovam e se modificam. (...) Argumenta-se que um dos fatores fundamentais na educação é a necessidade de adaptação do indivíduo ao ambiente. A fim de que se possa incrementar e ampliar o sucesso de processos educativos, seja por procedimentos informais ou formais, é preciso ter em conta o tipo de experiência envolvida, e os efeitos desta experiência na adaptação do sujeito da educação ao seu ambiente. Sem o que, a educação não realizaria o efeito para o qual é designada. John Dewey has developed a philosophy of education strongly marked by the use of experimental methods and the adoption of the naturalized philosophical attitude. In this sense, his conception of the human being and society bears in the wide notion of life as transmission, in a social environment, by means of communication of habits, beliefs and values. The most specific case of this living process is education, by wich experience of an individual or culture renew and modifies itself. It is argued that one of the fundamental aspects in education is the need of fitness of the individual to this environment. In a way that makes possible to increase and enlarge the success of educational processes, either by informal or formal procedures, we need to have in mind the kind of experience involved, and the effects of this experience in adaptation of the subject of education, to his or her environment. Without this, education should not make the effect by wich it is designed. (shrink)

O autor apresenta aborda, primeiramente, a relação entre poder e razão no pensamento político de Maquiavel. Num segundo momento, apresenta, no pensamento de Hobbes, a trajetória que se estende da razão impotente do estado de natureza até à razão poderosa do Estado, dispensador de segurança. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Maquiavel. Hobbes. Poder. Razão. ABSTRACT The author analyses in a first moment the relationship between power and reason in the political thought of Machiavelli. In a second moment, he exposes, according to Hobbes’s (...) political philosophy, the path to be gone through from the powerless reason of the state of nature towards the powerful reason of the State, which grants security. KEY WORDS – Machiavelli. Hobbes. Power. Reason. (shrink)

Ensayo biogr fico alrededor de la figura del c lebre escritor de la generaci n del 98 que rescata Para los j venes de hoy todo el valor de la vida y la obra del espa ol. Revisa con acuciosidad y cari o la literatura, la filosof a y el sentir de un hombre comprometido con su tiempo.

This paper motivates taking seriously the possibility that brains are basically protean: that they make use of neural structures in inventive, on-the-fly improvisations to suit circumstance and context. Accordingly, we should not always expect cognition to divide into functionally stable neural parts and pieces. We begin by reviewing recent work in cognitive ontology that highlights the inadequacy of traditional neuroscientific approaches when it comes to divining the function and structure of cognition. Cathy J. Price and Karl J. Friston, and Colin (...) Klein identify the limitations of relying on forward and reverse inferences to cast light on the relation between cognitive functions and neural structures. There is reason to prefer Klein’s approach to that of Price and Friston’s. But Klein’s approach is neurocentric - it assumes that we ought to look solely at neural contexts to fix cognitive ontology. Using recent work on mindreading as a case study, we motivate adopting a radically different approach to cognitive ontology. Promoting the Protean Brain Hypothesis, we posit the possibility that we may need to look beyond the brain when deciding which functions are being performed in acts of cognition and in understanding how the brain contributes to such acts by adapting to circumstance. (shrink)

O termo Ecosofia evoca a necessidade de se pensar uma nova relação entre o homem e o meio ambiente a partir de um paradigma pós-cartesiano, uma vez que sob a égide do cartesianismo subscreveu-se uma forma de dominação sobre a natureza onde a última se apresenta como “serva” do homem. Tal expressão remonta ao pensamento do ambientalista norueguês Arne Naess, fundador do movimento conhecido como Deep Ecology, o qual, entre outras características, estabelece que o problema da ecologia está além de (...) um único campo de estudos, envolvendo o esforço coletivo de diferentes áreas, uma vez que se trata de um tema de responsabilidade de todos. Diversos pensadores podem ser incluídos no desenvolvimento daquele conceito, indo de Rousseau a Félix Guattari, a sociólogos como Michel Maffesoli e físicos como Fritjof Capra. Compreendemos, com base nos trabalhos de alguns dos seus principais teóricos, que a Ecosofia abrange uma dimensão metafísica que está além das formas consensuais de combate ao desequilíbrio ambiental, os quais se instrumentalizam através de acordos e metas estabelecidas através de instituições políticas, mas que se promove como uma cosmovisão que tem como princípio transformar a consciência humana para que se acomode aos termos de um novo convívio entre si e com a natureza. Daqui emergem duas tarefas a serem plenamente consolidadas: o reconhecimento da interdependência dos seres vivos entre si, em relação ao meio ambiente e à natureza tomada como origem comum de todos. Este último ponto exprime um conflito com a tradição espiritual do Ocidente de matriz judaico-cristã. (shrink)

Este artigo investiga a concepção de Thomas Kuhn acerca do desenvolvimento científico como base para uma teoria social da investigação. Nesse sentido, o autor procura explicar o papel desempenhado pelas comunidades científicas na constituição da prática científica. Esta consiste na investigação dirigida por padrões compartilhados, tais como valores e modelos, que também dirigem e dão forma ao comportamento individual dos cientistas. Desse ponto de vista, o comportamento na investigação das comunidades científicas precede e é mais fundamental do que o dos (...) indivíduos. Na verdade, a investigação de um cientista em particular dá-se sempre, e apenas, dentro do quadro intelectual fornecido pela comunidade científica. /// This paper aims to depict Thomas Kuhn's view of scientific development as the basis for a social theory of scientific investigation. The role played by scientific communities in the constitution of scientific practice is accounted for. Scientific practice consists in inquiry governed by shared standards such as values and models, which also govern and shape the behavior of individual scientists. From this point of view the investigative behavior of scientific communities is prior to and more fundamental than individual scientific behavior. An individual scientists inquiry takes place only within the intellectual setting provided by the scientific community. (shrink)

Realiza-se aqui uma análise da obra literária A Paixão Segundo G.H. (1964), de Clarice Lispector, a partir do viés filosófico existencialista, desenvolvido por Jean-Paul Sartre em sua obra O Ser e o Nada: Ensaio de Ontologia Fenomenológico (1943). Assim sendo, a obra que será objeto de estudo acompanha a jornada existencial da personagem G.H. em busca de sua própria identidade. Nesse sentido, utiliza-se aqui a teoria existencialista ateísta de Sartre, assim como o estudo realizado pelo filósofo paraense, Benedito Nunes, (...) que buscou averiguar toda a filosofia metafísica no conjunto da obra de Clarice Lispector, em seu livro Leitura de Clarice Lispector (1973) e o Drama da Linguagem: uma leitura de Clarice Lispector (1989). Por fim, o presente texto tem como objetivo averiguar as atitudes de má-fé executadas pela personagem, analisar a Angústia que intercala com sua Náusea existencial, expressados pela linguagem única de Lispector. (shrink)

Para Aristóteles, a amizade é o acto de necessário mútuo amor que constitui, com seus três níveis, o cimento da «polis», a comunidade política, a «cidade». Pode ser estudada de acordo com as próprias categorias aristotélicas e a teoria da matéria e forma, potência e acto. Este trabalho, depois de analisar o que a amizade é como acto de amor, aplica tais teorias aristotélicas à compreensão da amizade.

Embasado em pesquisa bibliográfica, no presente artigo, busca-se compreender a definição de desespero presente, de maneira original e pungente, na filosofia de André Comte-Sponville, e relacioná-la com a construção da felicidade. Segundo Sponville, o desespero é condição necessária e indispensável para compreender a natureza e ou matéria como fundamento de si mesma. Todos os males da humanidade são debitados, segundo o pensador em estudo, da virtude teologal da esperança. Sponville se apressa em apresentar sua própria virtude pessoal: o (...) desespero, remédio contra o veneno da esperança. A felicidade, por sua vez, é o resultado de todo desespero. Quem nada espera, realiza mais facilmente todos os seus desejos e se rejubila com a vida tal como ela é. Nesse sentido, a felicidade é verdadeira e possível. Se verá, portanto, que a sabedoria do desespero abri caminhos para a construção de uma felicidade desesperada. (shrink)

At the beginning of the first book of Posterior Analytics, Aristotle‟s feature of demonstrative knowledge involves a certain concept of “necessity”. The traditional interpretation tends to associate this concept with modal necessity, which is found in the Prior Analytics and De interpretatione. The present article aims to show in which way the sixth chapter of book A of Posterior Analytics presupposes a set of essentialist theses that claims to base the necessity of scientific knowledge on predicative relations of essential character. (...) To acknowledge this essentialist background and simultaneously support a modal interpretation of scientific necessity urges us to attribute serious drawbacks to Aristotle‟s theory of demonstration, forcing us to reassess this interpretative tendency. (shrink)