This interview with Antonio A. Arantes, Brazilian anthropology professor and recognized specialist on the topics of intellectual property and traditional knowledge, addresses the 2008 request by Brazilian ayahuasca groups to be recognized as part of the immaterial cultural heritage of Brazil. In the first portion of the interview, Arantes reflects on the challenges of the new conceptions of the Brazilian national immaterial policy program. He discusses several examples of cultural goods recognized by the Brazilian state, such as (...) the candomblé and the samba, and analyzes the controversial issues involving authenticity and tradition in these and other similar cases. In the second portion, Arantes reflects on the specific case of ayahuasca, the relationship of this cultural heritage request to legal issues, the challenges to define exactly what aspects should be recognized, and speculates on the chances that these religious groups will come to be recognized as a national symbol of Brazil. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo consiste em expor as idéias, que o físico austríaco Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906) sobre o papel que a mecânica clássica desempenha na física. Ele as concebeu numa época em que a mecânica clássica começava a ser considerada como ultrapassada como fundamento para a física. Boltzmann jamais aceitou essa conclusão. Ele a rejeitou ao mesmo tempo em que desenvolvia um pensamento epistemológico sobre a natureza das teorias físicas. Segundo ele, as teorias científicas são apenas representações dos fenômenos naturais. (...) DOI:10.5007/1808-1711.2011v15n2p361. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to present the ideas that the Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann developed on the role of classical mechanics in physics. He had elaborated them at a time when classical mechanics began to be considered as not being any more the ground for all other physical theories. Boltzmann never accepted this conclusion. He rejected it, developing at the same time some ideas on the epistemological nature of scientific theories. According to him, scientific theories are representations of (...) natural phenomena. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Ahead of Print. The article deals with the ontological configuration and political appropriation of difference in modern, capitalist societies. Against fragmented accounts of difference, it is examined the evolution from situations of wide socio-spatial diversity to the gradual instrumentalisation and selective hierarchisation of those elements of difference that can be inserted in market-based relations, whilst the majority of differences are ignored and disregarded. The instrumentalisation of difference under capitalism – the reduction of extended socio-spatial difference to (...) the interests and priorities of the stronger segments of society who emphasise their distinctive features in the attempt to exert power and control over those considered inferior and subordinate – has more than just an impact on social or interpersonal relations but constitutes an active worldmaking force that operates, primarily, via the promotion of indifference. The analysis is informed by the Hegelian framework of consciousness and reason that is based on what the German philosopher calls the laws of experience accumulated through social interaction. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit can, therefore, move social theory forward to a critical interrogation of lived and contested differences. The instrumentalised metabolism of difference, following Hegelian metaphysics, is basically the result of self-estrangement and externalisation of the self, not because of self-serving interests but exactly because of its incompleteness and the need to be actualised in the other, who is also incomplete. Likewise, all particulars are moments actualised in the universal, which is also a changeable moment of itself. Thought the negation of otherness, followed by a negation of the negation, difference can be then embraced in its entirety, as it remains a central explanatory concept for social criticism. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Ahead of Print. The article deals with the ontological configuration and political appropriation of difference in modern, capitalist societies. Against fragmented accounts of difference, it is examined the evolution from situations of wide socio-spatial diversity to the gradual instrumentalisation and selective hierarchisation of those elements of difference that can be inserted in market-based relations, whilst the majority of differences are ignored and disregarded. The instrumentalisation of difference under capitalism – the reduction of extended socio-spatial difference to (...) the interests and priorities of the stronger segments of society who emphasise their distinctive features in the attempt to exert power and control over those considered inferior and subordinate – has more than just an impact on social or interpersonal relations but constitutes an active worldmaking force that operates, primarily, via the promotion of indifference. The analysis is informed by the Hegelian framework of consciousness and reason that is based on what the German philosopher calls the laws of experience accumulated through social interaction. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit can, therefore, move social theory forward to a critical interrogation of lived and contested differences. The instrumentalised metabolism of difference, following Hegelian metaphysics, is basically the result of self-estrangement and externalisation of the self, not because of self-serving interests but exactly because of its incompleteness and the need to be actualised in the other, who is also incomplete. Likewise, all particulars are moments actualised in the universal, which is also a changeable moment of itself. Thought the negation of otherness, followed by a negation of the negation, difference can be then embraced in its entirety, as it remains a central explanatory concept for social criticism. (shrink)

The article deals with the ontological configuration and political appropriation of difference in modern, capitalist societies. Against fragmented accounts of difference, it is examined the evolution from situations of wide socio-spatial diversity to the gradual instrumentalisation and selective hierarchisation of those elements of difference that can be inserted in market-based relations, whilst the majority of differences are ignored and disregarded. The instrumentalisation of difference under capitalism – the reduction of extended socio-spatial difference to the interests and priorities of the stronger (...) segments of society who emphasise their distinctive features in the attempt to exert power and control over those considered inferior and subordinate – has more than just an impact on social or interpersonal relations but constitutes an active worldmaking force that operates, primarily, via the promotion of indifference. The analysis is informed by the Hegelian framework of consciousness and reason that is based on what the German philosopher calls the laws of experience accumulated through social interaction. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit can, therefore, move social theory forward to a critical interrogation of lived and contested differences. The instrumentalised metabolism of difference, following Hegelian metaphysics, is basically the result of self-estrangement and externalisation of the self, not because of self-serving interests but exactly because of its incompleteness and the need to be actualised in the other, who is also incomplete. Likewise, all particulars are moments actualised in the universal, which is also a changeable moment of itself. Thought the negation of otherness, followed by a negation of the negation, difference can be then embraced in its entirety, as it remains a central explanatory concept for social criticism. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Ahead of Print. The article deals with the ontological configuration and political appropriation of difference in modern, capitalist societies. Against fragmented accounts of difference, it is examined the evolution from situations of wide socio-spatial diversity to the gradual instrumentalisation and selective hierarchisation of those elements of difference that can be inserted in market-based relations, whilst the majority of differences are ignored and disregarded. The instrumentalisation of difference under capitalism – the reduction of extended socio-spatial difference to (...) the interests and priorities of the stronger segments of society who emphasise their distinctive features in the attempt to exert power and control over those considered inferior and subordinate – has more than just an impact on social or interpersonal relations but constitutes an active worldmaking force that operates, primarily, via the promotion of indifference. The analysis is informed by the Hegelian framework of consciousness and reason that is based on what the German philosopher calls the laws of experience accumulated through social interaction. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit can, therefore, move social theory forward to a critical interrogation of lived and contested differences. The instrumentalised metabolism of difference, following Hegelian metaphysics, is basically the result of self-estrangement and externalisation of the self, not because of self-serving interests but exactly because of its incompleteness and the need to be actualised in the other, who is also incomplete. Likewise, all particulars are moments actualised in the universal, which is also a changeable moment of itself. Thought the negation of otherness, followed by a negation of the negation, difference can be then embraced in its entirety, as it remains a central explanatory concept for social criticism. (shrink)

Water values serve as an entry point into the intricacies of public policies and management approaches. Values are contingent assessments that emerge out of socio-ecological relations and reflect particular demands, legacies and opportunities. The concept of value positionality is introduced as the synthesis of multiple expressions of worthiness cherished by a social group. Positionality is a metaphor that connects the phenomenological understanding of water value with the politics of everyday life and the broader politico-institutional framework. It entails a cluster of (...) meanings expressed through territorialised interactions across time, locations and scales. Positionalities converge or depart according to value praxis, that is, the clash of competing valuation approaches seeking legitimisation. (shrink)

Analysing both mainstream and underground computer-related press sources from 1982 to 1991, a discursive core is displayed revolving around contamination and sexually transmissible diseases. The 'computer virus' metaphor, popularized in that period, came to resonate with mounting moral panic over the HIV/AIDS epidemic. These anxieties about the body are then conceptualized (and historically contextualized) along two dimensions : 1) the political proximity between HIV/AIDS activists and computer hackers during the FDA clinical trials controversy of 1987-88 ; 2) the ideological reinforcement (...) provided by academic progressive elements to these political actions. (shrink)

This paper sheds light on the role of digital platform labour in the development of today’s artificial intelligence, predicated on data-intensive machine learning algorithms. Focus is on the specific ways in which outsourcing of data tasks to myriad ‘micro-workers’, recruited and managed through specialized platforms, powers virtual assistants, self-driving vehicles and connected objects. Using qualitative data from multiple sources, we show that micro-work performs a variety of functions, between three poles that we label, respectively, ‘artificial intelligence preparation’, ‘artificial intelligence verification’ (...) and ‘artificial intelligence impersonation’. Because of the wide scope of application of micro-work, it is a structural component of contemporary artificial intelligence production processes – not an ephemeral form of support that may vanish once the technology reaches maturity stage. Through the lens of micro-work, we prefigure the policy implications of a future in which data technologies do not replace human workforce but imply its marginalization and precariousness. (shrink)

Between the two horns of Jørgensen's dilemma, the authors opt for that according to which logic deals not only with truth and falsity but also with those concepts not possessing this semantic reference. Notwithstanding the “descriptive” prejudice, deontic logic has gained validity among modal logics. The technical foundation proposed consists in an abstract characterization of logical consequence. By identifying in the abstract notion of consequence the primitive from which to begin, it is possible to define the connectives - even those (...) of obligation - by means of the rules of introduction or elimination in a context of derivation. (shrink)

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion.

1. EI dilema de Jørgensen. 2. La salución propuesta. 3. Breve historia de un prejudicio filosófico. 4. Normas sin lógica. 4.1. Imperativos sin lógica. 4.2. Normas y proposicienesnormativas. 4.3. Proposiciones normativas y normas verdaderas. 4.4. Mundos posibles. 4.5. Validez e invalidez. 4.6. La racionalidad del legislador. 5. La noción abstracta, sintáctica y semántica de consecuencia. 5.1. La noción abstracta de consecuencia. 5.2. La noción sintáctica de consecuencia. 5.3. La noción semántica de consecuencia. 5.4. EI sentido dado por las reglas de (...) uso en un contexto. 5.5. Qué operadores para la lógica. 5.6. Solo en un contexto la parte cobra sentido. 6. La lógica deóntica. 7. De donde la solución del dilema interesa a toda la lógica. 8. Consecuendas para la informática. (shrink)

An ontology of Leibnizian relationalism, consisting in distance relations among sparse matter points and their change only, is well recognized as a serious option in the context of classical mechanics. In this paper, we investigate how this ontology fares when it comes to general relativistic physics. Using a Humean strategy, we regard the gravitational field as a means to represent the overall change in the distance relations among point particles in a way that achieves the best combination of being simple (...) and being informative. (shrink)

The goal of this essay is twofold. First, it provides a quick look at the foundations of modern relational mechanics by tracing its development from Julian Barbour and Bruno Bertotti's original ideas until present-day's pure shape dynamics. Secondly, it discusses the most appropriate metaphysics for pure shape dynamics, showing that relationalism is more of a nuanced thesis rather than an elusive one. The chapter ends with a brief assessment of the prospects of pure shape dynamics in light of quantum physics.

San Isidoro de Sevilla destaca por poseer un saber universal. Esta universalidad de su saber también es expresada en su reflexión sobre el ministerio sacerdotal. A través de una triple aproximación «teológica», «pastoral» y «espiritual», invita a los obispos y presbíteros a vivir su ministerio de una forma «eclesial», «virtuosa» y «santa».

Conforme Lévinas, a filosofia críticakantiana ainda é insuficiente para estabeleceruma autêntica relação com outrem, à altura dohumano. Isso ocorre apesar de Kant determinaros limites, o alcance e o valor da razão, concluindopela redução do campo do conhecimento racionalaos objetos de experiência possível, o que significoua negação da possibilidade de cognoscibilidadedos objetos da metafisica e da religião. Tal insuficiênciaconsiste essencialmente na concepção dasubjetividade como atividade espontànea. Nessesentido, Lévinas propõe uma destituição do euautônomo do seu poder de legislar os princípiosque regem a (...) lei moral. Ele substitui o principio daautonomia pelo princípio da heteronomia, propondoque a heteronomia é a condição de possibilidadepara chegar à autonomia. (shrink)

The paper investigates the type of realism that best suits the framework of decoherence taken at face value without postulating a plurality of worlds, or additional hidden variables, or non-unitary dynamical mechanisms. It is argued that this reading of decoherence leads to an extremely radical type of perspectival realism, especially when cosmological decoherence is considered.

Gerda Walther identifies the possibility of we-communities that are non-intentional and have no intentional object. What is expressed, shared, communicated, and understood between lovers need not necessarily manifest itself in an objective, social, or communal form, as is the case, for example, in a political party. I argue that this non-intentional we can be experienced at the level of habit or affect, a level that is lived but which is not fully grasped in terms of the consciousness of meaning and (...) the relation between meaning fulfillment and meaning intention. (shrink)

A ideia central deste texto é de discutir as condições de compreensáo da bioetica, a partir da hipotese de um quadro referendal que residiria no proprio entendimento do conceito. Assim, o texto inicia por uma analise da compreens áo do conceito, para depois apontar para um quadro referendal derivado do mesmo, e, finalmente, apresentar a ideia de uma metabioetica, enquanto uma perspectiva de compreens áo da bioetica que pode ser estruturada a partir do principio da complexidade, aplicado as Ciencias Humanas (...) (Morin), e fundamentado na concepç áo do pensamento transversal (Deleuze/Guattari). (shrink)

Antônio de Castro Alves was born on 1 March 1847 on the Fazenda das Cabaceiras (Cabaceiras Farm) in the state of Bahia, and died in July 1871 in Salvador, the state capital. For this short twenty-four year span of his life he represented, as no one else in Brazil did, the myth of the Romantic poet and hero.His literary vocation became clear very early on. Coming from a well-to-do family, he studied law in Recife (the capital of Pernambuco), Salvador and (...) São Paulo. He fell in love with a Portuguese actress, Eugênia Câmara, ten years older than himself, and had the deep experience of a love affair with her that shocked the moral provincialism of contemporary Catholic monarchist Brazil. Like many writers of the period he wrote plays, and had great success with the drama Gonzaga, or the Minas Revolution, about the (abortive) attempt to free Brazil from the Portuguese yoke, which had been made in Minas Gerais in the eighteenth century. But it was in poetry – Espumas flutuantes (‘Floating Foam’, 1870) as well as the posthumous A cachoeira de Paulo Alfonso (‘Paulo Alfonso's Waterfall’, 1876) and Os escravos (‘The Slaves’, 1883) – that Castro Alves stood out on the country's literary scene. (shrink)

En este libro se sostiene que lo que suele llamarse verdad y justicia consisten en cierta forma de ocultar o descontar todo aquello que se resiste al ajuste, persuadiendo de que no ha habido ocultamiento ni descuento. Quien actúa en el teatro del mundo finge siempre una adecuación consigo mismo tan irónicamente como la de quien secunda a la clac o mira de reojo al apuntador.

The dynamics of general relativity is encoded in a set of ten differential equations, the so-called Einstein field equations. It is usually believed that Einstein's equations represent a physical law describing the coupling of spacetime with material fields. However, just six of these equations actually describe the coupling mechanism: the remaining four represent a set of differential relations known as Bianchi identities. The paper discusses the physical role that the Bianchi identities play in general relativity, and investigates whether these identities (...) --qua part of a physical law-- highlight some kind of a posteriori necessity in a Kripkean sense. The inquiry shows that general relativistic physics has an interesting bearing on the debate about the metaphysics of the laws of nature. (shrink)

Economics and biology have long been overlapping and mutually enriching fields. We contribute to this cross-fertilization by spelling out the implications for economic theory of some recent insights from evolutionary neurobiology. We note that dynamic homeostasis, a core feature of life processes, has shaped social interactions at varied stages of evolution – from the patterns of competition and cooperation among early life forms to the complex process of human cultures. The resulting homeostatic perspective is not compatible with several leading economic (...) theories but does provide a biological footing for promising concepts such as ecological rationality, heuristics, heterogeneity of economic agents, and complex, self-organizing dynamics. (shrink)

A responsabilidade enquanto princípio ético, embora seja evocada pelos filósofos clássicos, desde a antiguidade ao existencialismo, assume novas perspectivas a partir do pensamento de Hans Jonas e Levinas. Ambos a colocam como centro da ética. Com Jonas a responsabilidade não é mais centrada no passado e no presente. A sua preocupação é com o futuro da humanidade, com as gerações futuras e com a sobrevivência das mesmas. Diferente de Platão, Jonas não está preocupado com a eternidade, mas com o tempo (...) vindouro, compatível com a era da ciência e da tecnologia, cuja responsabilidade passa a ser o alicerce, o princípio orientador para as decisões que possam interferir nas diferentes formas de vida. Levinas, por sua vez, também se afasta da tradição filosófica na medida em que não aceita mais a tese de que a responsabilidade é decorrente da liberdade. A responsabilidade não nasce de uma boa vontade, de um sujeito autônomo que quer livremente se comprometer com o outro ser. Ela nasce como resposta a um chamado. A responsabilidade é o fundamento primeiro e essencial da estrutura ética, a qual não aparece como suplemento de uma base existencial prévia. Aquém do ser se encontra uma subjetividade capaz de escutar a voz, sem palavras de um dizer original, e aponta para uma outra dimensão do eu. Prévio ao ato de consciência, anterior ao sujeito intencional, o eu já responde a um chamado. A responsabilidade pelo outro ser precede a representação conceitual ou a mediação de um mandamento ético. Ela é obediência a uma vocação, a uma eleição pelo bem além do ser. A responsabilidade determina a liberdade do eu, pois esta não consegue mais se justificar por ela mesma. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Ética. Liberdade. Jonas. Levinas. Responsabilidade. ABSTRACT Responsibility qua ethical principle, however evoked by classical philosophers from Antiquity through existentialism, assumes new perspectives since the contributions of Hans Jonas and Levinas. Both place it at the center of ethics. With Jonas, responsibility no longer focuses on past and present. His concern is rather with the future of humankind, with future generations and their survival. Contrary to Plato, Jonas is not concerned with eternity, but with the time to come, compatible with the era of science and technology, whose responsibility becomes the groundwork and guiding principle for decisions that might interfere in different life forms. As for Levinas, he also departs from the philosophical tradition insofar as he rejects the thesis that responsibility results from freedom. Responsibility does not stem from a good will, from an autonomous subject who freely wants to be engaged with another being. Responsibility rather emerges as response to a call, it is the first, essential ground of ethical structure, which cannot appear as a supplement of a previous existential basis. Even before Being, one finds a subjectivity capable of listening to a voice, without words, of an originary saying, and points to another dimension of the self. Previous to the act of consciousness, anterior to the intentional subject, the self already responds to the call. Responsibility towards the other being precedes the conceptual representation or the mediation of an ethical commandment. It is obedience to a vocation, to an election by the Good beyond Being. Responsibility determines the freedom of the self, since the lattercan no longer be justified by itself. KEY WORDS – Ethics, Freedom, Jonas, Levinas, Responsibility. (shrink)