Este texto investiga o problema da decisão majoritária numa democracia a partir de três passos paradigmáticos dos historiadores mencionados no título, examinando suas implicações para a forja de lideranças, para a promoção de crises e, principalmente, para a identificação de diferentes modos de igualdade. A partir do exame de passos de Heródoto (6.109.5 e 8.79.3) e Tucídides (3.35-50), são elaborados paralelos que, partindo de problemas antigos, talvez lancem luz sobre seus análogos contemporâneos.

The Scottish Enlightenment shaped a new conception of history as a gradual and universal progress from savagery to civil society. Whereas women emancipated themselves from the yoke of male-masters, men in turn acquired polite manners and became civilized. Such a conception, however, presents problematic questions: why were the Americans still savage? Why was it that the Europeans only had completed all the stages of the historic process? Could modern societies escape the destiny of earlier empires and avoid decadence? Was there (...) a limit beyond which women's influence might result in dehumanization? The Scottish Enlightenment's legacy for modernity emerges here as a two-faced Janus, an unresolved tension between universalism and hierarchy, progress and the limits of progress. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to engage with C. Thi Nguyen’s characterization of the echo chamber and to propose two things. First, I argue that a proper reading of his concept of echo chamber should make use of the notion of ignorance in the form of a structural epistemic insensitivity. My main contention is that ignorance as a substantive structural practice accounts for the epistemically deleterious effects of echo chambers. Second, I propose that from the talk of ignorance we (...) should be able to see echo chambers in terms of their more harmful impacts in our daily lives. To do that, I argue that we should think of echo chambers as tools to promote hermeneutical domination. If my representation of Nguyen’s concept is accurate, I believe we can see some important theoretical consequences stemming from the way Nguyen understands it. (shrink)

Hax-Breno_On-identifying-and-identification.

La felice libertà -- La morte di un maestro.

according to aristotle's posterior analytics, scientific expertise is composed of two different cognitive dispositions. Some propositions in the domain can be scientifically explained, which means that they are known by "demonstration", a deductive argument in which the premises are explanatory of the conclusion. Thus, the kind of cognition that apprehends those propositions is called "demonstrative knowledge".1 However, not all propositions in a scientific domain are demonstrable. Demonstrations are ultimately based on indemonstrable principles, whose knowledge is called "comprehension".2 If the knowledge (...) of all scientific propositions were... (shrink)

The skin can be described as a niche structured by semiotic artefacts (tattoos) that work as symbolic–indexical devices (dicisigns). New biocompatible technologies responsive to organic and environmental variations change the role of the skin as a semiotic niche. New devices are transforming the skin into a niche of interactive interfaces. In this article we introduce a variety of techno-scientific artefacts, which are readily available, and their main characteristics. We are interested in the recent proliferation of devices based on biotechnologies that (...) can be coupled to the body, especially epithelial (superficial or invasive), and how they change what we know as ‘embodied communication’. (shrink)

O processo de desenvolvimento da história (e demais ciências) das religiões, com objeto e metodologia próprios, pode ser analisado por meio das discussões que aprofundaram as relações entre a defesa do caráter racionalista do homem ocidental e a persistência de formas religiosas de expressão no transcorrer dos séculos XIX e XX (bem como neste início de século XXI). Por meio do estudo da história da teologia e das religiões, são estabelecidos critérios para o julgamento das convergências entre movimentos religiosos, também (...) de suas especificidades, aqui discutidos à luz de pressupostos subjacentes em obras de Émile Durkheim (1858-1917), Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) e Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). A escolha dos autores se justifica pelo fato de representarem, cada qual a seu modo, estágios teórico-analíticos no desenvolvimento das ciências das religiões que abarcam o conflito entre racionalismo ocidental e formas religiosas. Pelo que guardam de semelhança ou contradição, especialmente pela presença do sagrado em sua argumentação, os três autores vêm a confirmar uma suspeita (do religioso) ou hipótese (do cientista): a religião persiste. Palavras-chave: Ciências da Religião. Teologia. Émile Durkheim. Rudolf Otto. Mircea Eliade.The process of the development of History (and other sciences) of Religions, with its object and methodology, can be analyzed by the discussions that deepened the relations between the defense of the rationalist character of the western man and the persistence of religious forms of expression in the 19th and 20th centuries (as well as in the beginning of the 21th century). Studying the History of Theology and of Religions, the criteria for the judgment of the convergences within religious movements can be established, as well their specificities, discussed here under the subjacent ideas found in Émile Durkheim (1858-1917), Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) and Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). The selection of these authors can be justified by the fact that they represent each one on his own way, the theoretical analytical stages in the development of the Sciences of Religions that enclose the conflict between western rationalism and religious forms. Considering what they have in common and in contradiction, especially for the presence of the holy in their argumentation, the three authors confirm a suspicion (of the religious man) or a hypothesis (of the scientist): the religion persists. Keywords: Sciences of Religion. Theology. Émile Durkheim. Rudolf Otto. Mircea Eliade. (shrink)

Este artigo reconhece que nunca se falou tanto em fundamentalismo em nosso país como agora; e que o uso ampliado do conceito poucas vezes vem associado ao espectro do protestantismo definido pela hermenêutica literal das Escrituras, como nos primórdios do movimento fundamentalista. No Brasil contemporâneo, grosso modo, fundamentalista qualifica o evangélico conservador ou reacionário, quase sempre pentecostal, e com inserção na mídia e na política. Assim, é urgente que a ação de evangélicos fundamentalistas no espaço público-político brasileiro seja compreendida pelas (...) Ciências da Religião, uma vez que coloca em questão a democracia ao transformar interesses religiosos particulares em questões de Estado e ações de governo. O objetivo deste artigo, portanto, é avaliar como o qualificativo fundamentalista associado ao nome evangélico contribui para a compreensão da eleição de Jair Bolsonaro à presidência da República em 2018, adotando como recorte o caso da promessa de mudança da embaixada brasileira em Israel de Tel Aviv para Jerusalém. As conclusões alcançadas acerca das imbricações do assim chamado sionismo cristão com a eleição de Bolsonaro resultam de pesquisa bibliográfica e documental, cujos dados empíricos foram retirados do jornal Folha de S. Paulo. (shrink)

To what extent did the debate on the orangutan contribute to the global Enlightenment? This article focuses on the first 150 years of the introduction, dissection, and public exposition of the so-called ‘orangutan’ in Europe, between the 1630s, when the first specimens arrived in the Netherlands, and the 1770s, when the British debate about slavery and abolitionism reframed the boundaries between the human and animal kingdoms. Physicians, natural historians, antiquarians, philosophers, geographers, lawyers, and merchants all contributed to the knowledge of (...) the orangutan, while also reshaping the boundaries of humanity: when the human/animal divide narrowed, the divide between ‘savage’ and ‘civilized’ peoples crystallized, becoming wider than in any previous period. (shrink)

In this paper, Charles Mills discusses what he calls “white ignorance”, developing one of the main themes of his 1997 book, The Racial Contract. His discussion is concerned with the idea of a cognitive disadvantage based on membership in a social group, which is not strange to the radical philosophical tradition, and that has been explored with more vigor in the recent Social Epistemology, in debates about epistemic injustices, silencing, willful ignorance, cognitive biases, epistemological standpoints, etc. Mills argues for an (...) “Epistemology of the white ignorance”, a racially and socially situated epistemology, which contraposes itself, in a great extent, to the individualistic tendencies of the traditional epistemological work, while conserving the interests in objectivity and truth of this work. (shrink)

Scottish Enlightenment political thought shows permanent tensions between commerce and liberty, passions and interests, wealth and virtue, as a now classical literature has shown. The Scottish literati share the conception that civil society is a product of history, in contrast with barbarism, while giving diverse roles and meanings to passions and virtues. On the one hand, by his criticism of modern commercial politics, Adam Ferguson stood for the classic virtue of antiquity. On the other, David Hume, Adam Smith and John (...) Millar, who conceived selfish passions as the driving forces of history and progress, emphasised politeness and sociability, considered as the new, and pacific, characteristics of commercial modernity. This article highlights their contrasting views and points out the huge debate within the Scottish. (shrink)

Individual and collective ethical stances regarding ethical consumption and related outcomes are usually seen as both a form of concern about extant market offerings and as opportunities to develop new offerings. In this sense, demand and supply are traditionally portrayed as interacting dialectically on the basis of extant business models. In general, this perspective implicitly assumes the juxtaposition of demand side ethical stances and supply side corporate initiatives. The Eataly story describes, however, a different approach to market transformation; in this (...) case a company and a social movement (Slow Food) have negotiated and collaborated prior to initiating a new business model. This collaboration process and its outcomes are described, focusing specifically on ordinary Eataly customers’ and Slow Food members’ reactions. Given that Eataly can be regarded as a case of mainstreaming, ordinary customers seem satisfied with the new offering and the Slow Food support for the initiative; the more purist members of the Slow Food movement had critical concerns, however, as happened in similar conditions, according to literature, with regard to Fair Trade. The Slow Food endorsement of the new venture has also been observed from the attitude–behaviour gap perspective, as it contributed to addressing the factors affecting the gap between attitudes and actual behaviours. Extensive qualitative data were collected and analysed over a 3-year period. The main study implications refer to the ways in which companies and social movements could interact to co-design new business models, as well as outlining consumers’ attitudes and behaviours towards such new offerings. (shrink)

This article discusses immediate premises in Aristotle’s epistemology. The traditional interpretation identifies immediacy with indemonstrability: immediate truths are the indemonstrable principles of science from which the theorems are derived by demonstration. Against this common reading, I argue that Aristotle’s recognition of two kinds of epistemic priority (priority by nature and priority to us) commits him to the existence of two types of immediacy, only one of which is equivalent to indemonstrability. As a result, my interpretation offers a better understanding of (...) a puzzling passage (APo. 1.13, 78a22–b4) that seems to contradict the standard view. (shrink)

This article offers a reconstruction of an argument against infinite regress formulated by Aristotle in Posterior Analytics I 22. I argue against the traditional interpretation of the chapter, according to which singular terms and summa genera, in virtue of having restrict logical roles, provide limits for predicative chains, preventing them from proceeding ad infinitum. As I intend to show, this traditional reading is at odds with some important aspects of Aristotle’s theory of demonstration. More importantly, it fails to explain how (...) his proof is connected to a defence of the existence of ultimate explanations, a connection that must be the case if I 19-22 is advancing a foundationalist way-out to a sceptical challenge raised in I 3. (shrink)

For Aristotle, demonstrative knowledge is the result of what he calls ‘intellectual learning’, a process in which the knowledge of a conclusion depends on previous knowledge of the premises. Since demonstrations are ultimately based on indemonstrable principles (the knowledge of which is called ‘νοῦς’), Aristotle is often described as advancing a foundationalist doctrine. Without disputing the nomenclature, I shall attempt to show that Aristotle’s ‘foundationalism’ should not be taken as a rationalist theory of epistemic justification, as if the first principles (...) of science could be known as such independently of their explanatory connections to demonstrable propositions. I shall argue that knowing first principles as such involves knowing them as explanatory of other scientific propositions. I shall then explain in which way noetic and demonstrative knowledge are in a sense interdependent cognitive states – even though νοῦς remains distinct from (and, in Aristotle’s words, more ‘accurate’ than) demonstrative knowledge. (shrink)

This is an Editorial Note for the special volume of the journal Manuscrito (42: 4) devoted to Aristotle's theory of demonstration and its logical and metaphysical entanglements, which has been organized by me and Breno Zuppolini (as Guest Editors), with papers authored by Benjamin Morison, Owen Goldin, David Bronstein, Michail Peramatzis, Andrea Falcon, Laura Castelli, Paolo Fait, Joseph Karbowski, Adam Crager, Klaus Corcilius, Robert J. Hankinson, Raphael Zillig and Pieter Sjoerd Hasper.

This chapter maps out some of the views of Scottish thinkers concerning human progress. It briefly considers Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, who was the first to promote the language of republicanism in Scotland and to conceptualize the ‘militia issue’. It then examines Adam Ferguson’s debate with David Hume and Adam Smith. Whereas the former reasserted civic tradition and played a role in the cause of a Scottish national militia, Hume and Smith, by supporting commercial societies, pointed Scotland in a quite (...) different direction. The chapter moves on to the gender ambivalence of civilization in which women were seen as the vectors of the new values of modernity, but also as responsible for the loss of the ancient virtue of male citizens in arms. Finally, the chapter considers some of the historical alternatives to modernity, which found their models in the past: Stuart’s gothic feudalism, and the world of Ossian. (shrink)

ResumoNo início do século xviii, Isaac Newton publicou seu principal trabalho sobre óptica, o Opticks. Impregnado por uma perspectiva indutiva, o livro logo se tornou a principal referência para os estudos sobre a luz e as cores, sendo amplamente popularizado pelos seguidores de Newton. Neste artigo, analisamos como dois importantes livros contribuíram para essa popularização e também qual era a imagem de ciência que tencionavam propagar, o Élements de la philosophie de Newton de Voltaire e o Newtonianismo per le dame (...) de Algarotti. Será possível perceber que ambos os autores distorceram o conteúdo do livro de Newton, no intuito de propagar uma imagem idealizada das ideias newtonianas e da própria filosofia natural.In the beginning of 18th century, Newton published his main work about light and colors, the Opticks. Impregnated by an inductive perspective, the book became the major reference for the studies about light and colors, being widely popularized by Newton's followers. In this article, we analyze how two important works contributed to this process of popularization and also what image of science they intended to propagate: Voltaire's Elements of Newton's philosophie and Algarotti's Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy explain'd for the use of the ladies. We will be notice that both authors distorted the content of the Opticks, in order to propagate an idealized image of Newtonian ideas and natural philosophy itself. (shrink)

In this paper, I present two ways of conceiving a genealogical explanation of the concept of knowledge. The first one is through the epistemic state of nature hypothesis developed by Edward Craig, according to which knowledge is understood as a concept evolved from the concept of a good informant. After considering Craig’s project, I draw a parallel between this approach and Miranda Fricker’s value-laden account of the same concept. Then, I present and discuss Fricker’s social take on Craig’s genealogy, in (...) which she suggests that the notions of a good informant and of knowledge are necessarily dependent on the establishment of a credibility norm, and that this norm should be viewed as inherently political. Lastly, I defend an illustration, through Kristie Dotson’s work, of how both genealogical approaches could explain and offer solutions to failings in the normativity of our epistemic systems. (shrink)

[From SEP]: Contemporary virtue epistemology (hereafter ‘VE’) is a diverse collection of approaches to epistemology. At least two central tendencies are discernible among the approaches. First, they view epistemology as a normative discipline. Second, they view intellectual agents and communities as the primary focus of epistemic evaluation, with a focus on the intellectual virtues and vices embodied in and expressed by these agents and communities. This entry introduces many of the most important results of the contemporary VE research program. These (...) include novel attempts to resolve longstanding disputes, solve perennial problems, grapple with novel challenges, and expand epistemology’s horizons. In the process, it reveals the diversity within VE. Beyond sharing the two unifying commitments mentioned above, its practitioners diverge over the nature of intellectual virtues, which questions to ask, and which methods to use. It will be helpful to note some terminology before proceeding. First, we use ‘cognitive’, ‘epistemic’ and ‘intellectual’ synonymously. Second, we often use ‘normative’ broadly to include not only norms and rules, but also duties and values. Finally, ‘practitioners’ names contemporary virtue epistemologists. (shrink)

Most interpretations of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics believe that the term ‘ameson’ is used to describe the principles or foundations of a given system of justification or explanation as epistemically prior to or more fundamental than the other propositions in the system. Epistemic readings (as I shall call them) arguably constitute a majority in the secondary literature. This predominant view has been challenged by Robin Smith (1986) and Michael Ferejohn (1994; 2013), who propose interpretations that should be classified as non-epistemic according (...) to the definition above. My aim in this article is purely negative. I intend to show that these non-epistemic interpretations are liable to serious objections and are in conflict with some important features of Aristotle’s theory of demonstration. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivism is a philosophical theory that has received special attention in the recent years. Particularly because it has been seen by many as a way of renewing discussions that range from the nature of justification of our daily beliefs to the possibility of unveiling the structure of the problem of radical skepticism and of responding to it. Duncan Pritchard is one of the authors who have offered a particular view of disjunctivism and ways of conceiving of disjunctivist treatments to (...) such questions. His work has as its main source of inspiration the seminal work of John McDowell. In this paper, I present a way of understanding the problem ofradicalskepticism and the mannerin which epistemological disjunctivism aimsto offer solutionsto it. In orderto do that, I present McDowell’s general proposal and discuss in which way his account differs from Pritchard’s own disjunctivism. At the end, I try to show how Pritchard’s approach tries to respond to radical skepticism not only by appealing to a disjunctivist reading of our epistemic position, but also by offering a revision of our structure of reasons. (shrink)

In the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle imposes some requirements on the formulation of scientific propositions: their terms must be able to perform the role of subject as well as of predicate; their terms should be universal; every demonstration must involve “primary” subjects denoted by terms that “cannot be said of another underlying subject”. Several interpreters, inspired by theses from the Categories, believed that this third requirement refers to names and descriptions of particular substances as basic subjects of predicative statements, since they (...) cannot perform the logical role of predicate. However, such reading puts the third requirement in conflict with the other two. I shall argue that this interpretation is wrong and that the third requirement does not assign to singular terms the function of basic subjects of scientific discourse, but rather acknowledges that substantial predicates have a certain prerogative to occur in denoting phrases. Consequently, Aristotle’s three demands turn out to be compatible with one another. (shrink)

Que l’on soit d’accord ou non avec l’idée qu’il existe un « tournant animaliste » dans les sciences sociales, l’histoire des animaux et avec les animaux s’est considérablement développée durant ces dernières années. C’est le cas non seulement en Grande-Bretagne et aux États-Unis, où les Animal Studies sont depuis longtemps un champ de recherche important et légitime, mais aussi en France. Le défi que ce numéro de Clio cherche à relever pourrait se résumer comme suit : que peuvent apporter les...

ABSTRACT The erudite James Burnet, Lord Monboddo (1714–1799), member of the Select Society and judge of the Court of Session in Edinburgh, wrote many pages about the existence of ‘men with tails’ and orang-utans’ humanity. For this reason, he has been labelled as ‘credulous’, ‘bizarre’ and ‘eccentric’ both by his contemporaries and by modern scholars. In this paper, I shall try to take his argument seriously and to show that throughout his work Monboddo searched for evidence. If his belief in (...) mermaids, giants, blemmyes, daemons and oracles was far from reflecting the general attitude of the age of Enlightenment and empiricism, Monboddo contributed to place the ‘science of man’ at the centre of the map of knowledge, where Nicholas Phillipson had also located it. He did this by emphasising the variety and historicity of humankind and stressing how mind and body changed over time and space. This article is also an attempt to connect Monboddo’s erudite production with his position as a lawyer and a judge. I shall argue that Monboddo founded his ‘science of man’ on an epistemology of legal evidence, employing the same inquisitive approach that he practiced at the bar and in the court. (shrink)

In this study we evaluated heart rate variability changes in a pianist, playing in a laboratory, to investigate whether HRV changes are guided by music temporal features or by technical difficulty and/or subjective factors. The pianist was equipped with a wearable telemetry device for ECG recording during the execution of 4 classical and 5 jazz pieces. From ECG we derived the RR intervals series, and, for each piece, analyzed HRV in the time and frequency domains and performed non-linear analysis. We (...) also studied the correlation between the time course of music volume envelope and tachogram. Results showed a general reduction of parasympathetic and an increase of sympathetic activity, with the greatest changes during the classical pieces execution, the pianist appraised as more demanding than the jazz ones. The most marked changes occurred during the most technically/emotionally demanding piece, and correlation analysis revealed a negative association between music volume envelope time course and tachogram only for this piece, suggesting a modulation of the limbic system on the synchronization between heart rhythm and music temporal features. Classical music was also associated with the increase of entropy with respect to rest, indicating its effectiveness in driving flexible, healthy, heart dynamics. In conclusion, HRV seems modulated not only by the music temporal features, but also by the pianist’s emotional involvement, which is greatly influenced, in a non-trivial manner, by the technical demands and musician expertise. (shrink)