Charity, as a social construct, is considered in various interpretative contexts, in a subjectively manner, social progress. The meta-narration about charity as Christian duty, by passing through the secular interpretive and atomizer context of postmodernity, becomes a narrative about social responsibility and equity in ethical dimension, and is translated into restorative community practices in social action plan. We will pursue the constructive interpretive contexts that generated the idea of social policies and social work practice as a contemporary deconstruction of charity. (...) The thesis of the article is that the process of deconstruction of charity, as a religious value which regulates in a Christian manner the reference to the other, is the foundation of restorative social policies and professionalized social work as a social action. We will analyze the deconstruction of Christian idea of charity from two perspectives, namely the secularization of charitable practices and constructive foundation of a particular meta-story of our times which we call secular society and/or knowledge society. (shrink)

In this article we aim to distinguish between the transhuman and posthuman condition, according to their anthropological, ontological, and ethical natures. We will show that the current historical moment can be considered the beginning of a transhuman civilisation, given that the characteristics of the transhuman are already present in today’s human being. We will show that a series of decisive limitations for belonging to the human condition are in the process of being transcended due to acquisition of attributes of divinity (...) that human beings do not currently possess: omnipotence, omnipresence , ex nihilo creation – starting from the divine creative ideation – and immortality. Humans are increasingly taking on the attributes of divinity in the process of human enhancements. We will discuss the ways in which technology allows the human to overcome these limitations, elevating humans past their current condition, in a process in which they gain technological transcendence. Excepting immortality, all other limitations, once exceeded, generate a transhuman condition. Immortality generates a posthuman condition, since it can only be obtained by modifying the human ontological status from that of a biological being to that of a resident being in informatics networks. In order to clarify this process, we will discuss the concepts of everlastingness and artificial life prolongation. (shrink)

Paul Grice’s theory of meaning has been widely adopted as a starting point for investigating the evolutionary and developmental emergence of linguistic communication. In this picture, reasoning about complexes of intentions is a prerequisite for communicating effectively at the prelinguistic level, as well as for acquiring a natural language. We argue that this broadly ‘Gricean’ picture rests on an equivocation between theories of communication and theories of cognition, and that it leads to paradoxical or implausible claims about human psychology. We (...) defend an alternative conception of prelinguistic communication, inspired by Bart Geurts and based on the notion of commitment. Adopting a commitment-first approach makes it possible to avoid the pernicious equivocation, and it provides a better systematization of the key empirical findings. We develop our argument with respect to infants’ sensitivity to ‘ostensive signals’; infants’ pointing; and infants’ endorsement of normative attitudes in joint activities. Finally, adopting a commitment-first approach makes it possible to argue that sophisticated forms of psychological reasoning are enabled by the mastery of a rich natural language, rather than being a prerequisite for acquiring one. (shrink)

Every now and then when watching a movie, we come across faces in which we recognize a significant value, because they represent some important cultural models we use to assign meaning to our experience of the world. By way of example, I will discuss the faces of the protagonists of two recent films, Abdellatif Kechiche’s La vie d’Adele. Chapitres 1 & 2 (2013; English title Blue Is the Warmest Colour) and Leonor Serraille’s Jeune femme (2017), comparing them with the faces (...) of the protagonists of some older movies, such as Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson’s Shrek (2001) and James Cameron’s Avatar (2009). I will argue that the way in which the faces are portrayed is similar to the narrative structure of the stories of the characters they belong to, and that the signs and narrative structures used to construct the discourses about the world in those films are at the same time similar to those of two important cultural models of what it means to be young men and women in our times. As these cultural models are different, yet interconnected, I will argue that the most meaningful faces in cinema change due to the transformation of the cultural models they derive from and that a sociosemiotic method based on a structuralist vision of culture can help identify the most culturally significant symbolic faces on screen, and elsewhere. (shrink)

Joint attention is typically conceptualized as a robust psychological phenomenon. In philosophy, this apparently innocuous assumption leads to the problem of accounting for the “openness” of joint attention. In psychology, it leads to the problem of justifying alternative operationalizations of joint attention, since there does not seem to be much which is psychologically uniform across different joint attentional engagements. Contrary to the received wisdom, I argue that joint attention is a social relationship which normatively regulates the attentional states of two (...) or more individuals. This social account of joint attention leans on Bart Geurts’ view of communication as commitment sharing. Its promises are: (i) to explain the role of joint attention in wider joint activities, including communicative interactions; (ii) to account for how playing this role requires individuals to deploy different psychological resources on different occasions; and (iii) to identify the rationale behind alternative operationalizations of joint attention. (shrink)

Ethical dilemmas raised by the use of nanotechnology in medical practice can be viewed from several perspectives: religious spiritualist perspective, the perspective of human dignity (nanotechnologies can be thought of as an affront to human dignity), the issue of controversial choice. The article aims to expose some bioethical dilemmas in using synthetic biology and nanotechnologies. Nowadays is often brought into discussion the fact it is possible to appear in the future new human species resulted not via natural selection and evolution, (...) but through the demiurgic effect of technology development in areas such as: synthetic biology, genetics, neurobiology and neurosciences, prosthesis technology and not least of artificial intelligence research. We will also refer into this paper at the possible raised challenges to ethicists who are oriented towards an ethics of species. Those challenges are raised right from the dawn of a consciousness of species, a social construction generated by changes of the meaning of belonging to humanity. During our article we argue that medical technology, especially genetics, medical assisted human reproduction and not least synthetic biology, require a rethinking ethical meanings of applying those technologies in everyday practices. (shrink)

Based on the distinction drawn by James Conant between Cartesian skepticism and Kantian skepticism, I intend to show that Wittgenstein’s remarks on dreaming should not be understood as a direct attack on the former, as commonly held, but as an indirect attack on it, for Wittgenstein approaches Descartes’ dreaming hypothesis by changing the very problematic at stake. Wittgenstein’s attack on skepticism takes one step back from a question about how to distinguish between dreaming that one is experiencing something and actually (...) experiencing it, for this attack focuses on the linguistic conditions of the possibility of something that the Cartesian problematic takes for granted, that is, the very possibility of saying “I am dreaming.” I also intend to show that Wittgenstein’s remarks on dreaming should be read in light of his claim that skepticism is nonsensical put forward in the Tractatus logico-philosophicus as well in his last writings. More specifically, I intend to show that the words “I am dreaming” are nonsensical in the same sense as the alleged proposition “There are physical objects” and the expression of doubt about the existence of physical objects or the external world. (shrink)

Admitiendo, con René Schérer, que la filosofía de Deleuze puede leerse como una teoría de la literatura y la escritura, y dado que tal filosofía constituye un punto cimero del pensamiento dedicado a combatir la representación, este ensayo quisiera aplicar dicha teoría al terreno de la imagen pictórica, articulando la lectura que de Bacon realiza el filósofo en torno a un desarraigo -o desterritorialización- del sentido básico, dominante en pintura: la vista, desplazándose así desde un principio la visión por el (...) tacto, lo visible por lo táctil (aquello que, más que resultar palpable, toca), lo óptico por lo háptico. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to elucidate Wittgenstein’s claim that the so-called dream argument is senseless. Unlike other interpreters, who understand the sentence “I am dreaming” as contradictory or self-defeating, I intend to elucidate in what sense one should understand it as senseless or, more precisely, as nonsensical. In this sense, I propose to understand the above-mentioned claim in light of Wittgenstein’s criticism of skepticism from the _Tractatus logico-philosophicus_ to his last writings. I intend to show that the words “I (...) am dreaming” are nonsensical in the same sense as the alleged proposition “There are physical objects” or the expression of doubt about the existence of external objects. (shrink)

Il materialismo storico e la filosofia di Benedetto Croce.

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} The constructionist approach of philosophy includes an epistemic dimension and a pragmatic emphasis on the interdependence between knowledge and action in the social areas. Appreciative approach to philosophy is based on the work of David Cooperrider on “Appreciative Inquiry”, which is a form of pragmatic discourse that substitutes the focus (...) on the problem with the focus on successful elements of previous experience of individuals, groups, organizations or communities. This experience can be integrated in the philosophical discourse starting from Plato's dialogues and maieutic method promoted by Socrates. Hermeneutic of the real seen as a philosophical reflection on the daily positive experiences falls into tradition of philosophical search of the ultimate meaning of reality. The appreciative speech starts from a postmodern view by a constructivist and constructionist approach, through which reality itself is a social construction generated by successive negotiations on accepted interpretations. Appreciative philosophy is centered on a semiotics grid that seeks positive qualities of existence and its strengths. Appreciative theology reveals a collaborative process between humanity and divine that catalyzes transformations in human being giving them life including eternal life. The communion human-Divinity is seen as a divine-human co-creation. (shrink)

La investigación sobre el bromear es central en el estudio de la relación entre lenguaje y humor. Se examina, en primer lugar, cómo el bromear puede analizarse usando las herramientas que proporciona la teoría de los actos de habla, en particular las empleadas por versiones neoaustinianas de la teoría. En segundo lugar, se aplican los resultados de la primera parte para formular una hipótesis acerca de la relatividad lingüística del humor, según la cual los hábitos de bromeo propios de una (...) sociedad o de un grupo influyen de modo no trivial en el uso privado o individual del humor. (shrink)

An ethnographic field study about the informed consent process in investigational drug trials for seriously ill persons with hepatitis C suggests that nurses and physicians referred to these trials as giving treatment, even though they involved placebos. Interview data and informed consent documents contained frequent references to the term `treatment trial' or `treatment'. Although these findings were unexpected and not the original focus of our study, we consider them in the light of an extensive literature on the `therapeutic misconception' that (...) has been described among physicians and patients with AIDS and other serious illnesses. We also suggest that certain organizational and professional characteristics of nursing and medicine reinforce this tendency to refer to the trials as treatment. Implications for further research are provided. (shrink)

O objetivo deste texto é analisar o argumento da economia que justificaria a tolerância como um dos maiores fatores para o desenvolvimento dos povos, no século XVII, segundo a interpretação de Locke. Expressando de outro modo, este texto pretende responder a seguinte questão: qual o lugar da dimensão econômica na teoria lockiana sobre a tolerância?

The volume brings together a series of theoretical analysis and field studies in applied ethics. The philosophical perspectives concerned are the social-constructionist and the appreciative one (derived from appreciative inquiry). Are addressed themes of ethics, as autonomy and its social construction, contractualist ethics, and feminist ethics of care. The volume also examines some contemporary challenges that rise in front of ethics: transumanism and artificial improvement of species, protection of dignity of the human species, etc. Are also addressed both ethical counseling (...) and supervision of ethics, presenting an unique approach. In the volume we propose a model of ethics as appreciative ethics of care, which proposes a synthesis between feminist ethics of care and appreciative inquiry, as a priority of the author. (shrink)

Denomino externismo ilocucionario (EI) al enfoque para el estudio de la fuerza ilocucionaria que defiendo. El EI está inspirado en las ideas seminales de Austin acerca de los realizativos y los actos de habla. De acuerdo con el EI, en el análisis de una fuerza ilocucionaria típica debemos mencionar esencialmente algunos aspectos del ambiente social, natural y discursivo que no pueden ser reducidos a los estados mentales (de dicto) de los hablantes, comoquiera que individualicemos esos estados. Un problema difícil para (...) el EI se deriva de la posibilidad de ser más o menos explícitos en relación con la fuerza de nuestras emisiones, ya que ese hecho nos invita a centrar nuestra atención en el emisor (el “explicitador”) y en sus estados mentales (intenciones ilocucionarias), y a defender por ello un enfoque mentalista en el estudio de las fuerzas. En este artículo intento demostrar la compatibilidad del EI con el fenómeno de la explicitabilidad de la fuerza ilocucionaria. (shrink)

I call illocutionary externalism (IE) the approach to the study of illocutionary force that I favor. IE is inspired by Austin's seminal ideas on performatives and speech acts. According to IE, in the analysis of a paradigmatic illocutionary force we must essentially mention some aspects of the social and natural environment that cannot be reduced to the (de dicto) speakers' mental states, no matter how these are individuated. A difficult problem for IE derives from the possibility of making explicit the (...) force of an utterance. This fact invites us to focus our attention on the utterer (the person who makes the force explicit) and his mental states (illocutionary intentions), and to support a mentalist approach in the study of forces. In this article I shall argue for the compatibility of IE with the phenomenon of the explicitability of illocutionary force. (shrink)

O debate teológico presente no Stift de Tübingen é campo de recepção da filosofia kantiana por meio de uma questão específica: aquela da existência de Deus e de Sua revelação aos homens. Reconstruindo-o tangencialmente, pode-se sublinhar qual a posição que a filosofia kantiana ocupa nele, salientando-a frente àquela de Storr e Flatt. Também, apontar para a apropriação dela no seio daquele debate. Assim, quando se volta para a posição de Hegel, nota-se que ele se contrapõe à apropriação teológica de Kant, (...) posicionando-se de modo similar ao kantiano. Tem-se aqui um liame entre Kant e aquilo que se chama, incipientemente, de filosofia hegeliana. (shrink)

The purpose of this text is to analyze the debate between Berkeley’s Alciphron and Mandeville’s The fable of the bees and Letter to Dion, focusing on the questions indirectly raised by Berkeley to his opponent: Would there be a place for religion in Mandeville’s society or in his social, political and economic system? If so, what role would it play? Without religion, on what foundations would morality in social life be based? Key words: Berkeley, Mandeville, morality.

O objetivo deste artigo é pensar a imagem do ateu nos verbetes “Ateu” e “Ateísmo” da Enciclopédia e neles traçar a possibilidade de entendermos as marcas do pensamento lockiano. Esses traços são fundamentais para compreendermos a forma pela qual houve uma mudança na imagem do ateu entre os séculos XVII na Inglaterra e o XVIII na França e como essa alteração vai contribuir positivamente para uma melhor acolhida do não crente no ceio da sociedade moderna. Para fornecer maior inteireza ao (...) texto, ele está dividido em duas partes: na primeira, investigaremos o perfil dos autores dos verbetes “Ateu” e “Ateísmo”; na segunda, examinaremos propriamente os dois verbetes da Enciclopédia e neles buscaremos detectar os ecos do pensamento político de Locke. (shrink)

The aim of this text is to investigate a little-known aspect of John Locke’s work: the relationship between philosophy and his medical practice. This theme is justified because his philosophical conception is widely known, but his studies in the field of medicine are practically ignored in Brazil. To accomplish this task, the article is divided into threeparts: in the first, we will address the debate on English medical practice in the seventeenth century; in the second, Locke’s penchant for medicine and, (...) finally, in the third, Locke’s medical practice. We hope that this text can contribute to the advancement of research on John Locke in Brazil,especially on his relationship with medicine. (shrink)

O ateu no século XVII inglês é caracterizado por uma polifonia de sentidos. Mas, como precisar o seria o ateu neste período? Qual a imagem do ateu? Qual o critério para especificar o modus operandi do ateu? Como atribuir o estatuto jurídico de alguém que é acusado de ateísmo daquele acusado de bruxaria, por exemplo? Essas são algumas questões que este texto pretende responder, tendo por objetivo mapear os vários significados de o que se entende por ateu no século XVII (...) inglês, na tentativa de extrair um conceito. (shrink)

O objetivo deste texto é analisar o conceito de diversidade em Montesquieu e demonstrar como ele faz parte de seu tema da tolerância. Para atingir esse intento a noção de diversidade será abordada a partir de três campos de investigação específicos: o físico; o social; e o político, que, juntos, marcam o conceito de tolerância. Assim, espera-se contribuir para uma melhor compreensão desse conceito em Montesquieu.

Este artigo discute, de forma interdisciplinar, como é possível, em um Estado Democrático de Direito, existir formas de vida expostas às mais diversas possibilidades de violações de direitos e garantias fundamentais, como as das pessoas em situação de rua no Brasil. O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar como se deu o início do problema das pessoas em situação de rua no país e como o Estado brasileiro enxerga a questão, e a partir disso refletir como o acesso a direitos impede (...) que estes indivíduos detenham participação na sociedade. Assim, se tratará a hipótese de que as pessoas em situação de rua, do ponto de vista do Estado, por não habitarem o contexto político, econômico e social de forma efetiva não são tratados como seres sujeitos de direitos na ordem pública, o que legitima tomada de decisões que são, em parte, danosas a esta classe e cobertas por um véu falacioso de cuidado com este contingente populacional. Para sustentar e desenvolver este artigo foi utilizada uma metodologia de pesquisa que analisa como se deu a formação da questão no contexto sócio político brasileiro, bem como uma abordagem crítica das bases normativas instituídas em torno da problemática. Ainda, se utilizou das contribuições bibliográficas de autores que escrevem sobre: politização da vida, poder estatal e relações sociais, tais como Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben e Achille Mbembe. (shrink)