Human rights advocates often use inflated and thus underspecified terminologies when addressing the content of their claims. One example of such loose terminology is the term ‘well-being’, as currently employed in connection with a definition for the right to health. What I call the ‘well-being conception of health’ conflates the distinct ideas of basic and non-basic health needs, as well as those of individual autonomy and freedom. I call this the conflation problem. This paper argues for the need of an (...) understanding of the right to health, nuanced enough to capture not only these distinct ideas, but also their moral relevance for the common good. (shrink)

This paper argues that the existing definition of pandemics is not nuanced enough, because it is predicated solely on the criterion of spread, rather than on the criteria of spread and severity. This definitional challenge is what I call ‘the conflation problem’: there is a conflation of two different realities of global health, namely global health emergencies (i.e., severe communicable diseases that spread across borders) and nonemergencies (i.e., communicable or noncommunicable diseases that spread across borders and that may be severe). (...) To put this argument forth, this paper begins by discussing the existing and internationally accepted definition of pandemics, its requirements, as well as its strengths (section 1). Section 2 then considers the problem with the standard definition of pandemics (i.e., the conflation problem) and some examples of it. Finally, section 3 evaluates some practical implications of the conflation problem to then explore conceptual clarity as the adequate solution. (shrink)

This commentary defines what shared yet differentiated ethical responsibilities to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR) mean, by introducing a threefold principled account of AMR global governance. It argues that the principles of solidarity, subsidiarity, and stewardship can be especially helpful for further justifying some of the universal, differentiated, and individual responsibilities that Van Katwyk et al propose. The upshot of my threefold principled account of AMR global governance is a less ambitious AMR treaty, one that can only justify (i) universal duties (...) of global coordination (as per the principle of solidarity); (ii) differentiated duties to local communities, which bear the primary AMR responsibilities (as per the principle of subsidiarity); and (iii) individualized duties for ensuring truthful, evidence-based, consistent, and timely shared accountable communication (as per the principle of stewardship). (shrink)

Studies suggest that emotional complexity—the experience of positive and negative emotion in response to the same event—is unusual in Western samples. However, recent research finds that the co-occurrence of positive and negative emotion during unstructured situations is more common among East Asians than Westerners, consistent with theories emphasising the prevalence of dialectical folk epistemology in East-Asian culture. The present study builds upon previous research by examining Asian- and European-Americans' experience of a particular positive emotion—love—and a situationally appropriate negative emotion during (...) four structured laboratory conversations with their romantic partner. Among Asian Americans, love and the experience of negative emotion were typically less negatively correlated during these conversations than was true for European Americans. (shrink)

© 2016 Regents of the University of California.The Review summarizes much of particle physics and cosmology. Using data from previous editions, plus 3,062 new measurements from 721 papers, we list, evaluate, and average measured properties of gauge bosons and the recently discovered Higgs boson, leptons, quarks, mesons, and baryons. We summarize searches for hypothetical particles such as supersymmetric particles, heavy bosons, axions, dark photons, etc. All the particle properties and search limits are listed in Summary Tables. We also give numerous (...) tables, figures, formulae, and reviews of topics such as Higgs Boson Physics, Supersymmetry, Grand Unified Theories, Neutrino Mixing, Dark Energy, Dark Matter, Cosmology, Particle Detectors, Colliders, Probability and Statistics. Among the 117 reviews are many that are new or heavily revised, including those on Pentaquarks and Inflation. The complete Review is published online in a journal and on the website of the Particle Data Group. The printed PDG Book contains the Summary Tables and all review articles but no longer includes the detailed tables from the Particle Listings. A Booklet with the Summary Tables and abbreviated versions of some of the review articles is also available. (shrink)

: C.S. Peirce defines mathematics in two ways: first as "the science which draws necessary conclusions," and second as "the study of what is true of hypothetical states of things" (CP 4.227–244). Given the dual definition, Peirce notes, a question arises: Should we exclude the work of poietic hypothesis-making from the domain of pure mathematical reasoning? (CP 4.238). This paper examines Peirce's answer to the question. Some commentators hold that for Peirce the framing of mathematical hypotheses requires poietic genius but (...) is not scientific work. I propose, to the contrary, that although Peirce occasionally seems to exclude the poietic creation of hypotheses altogether from pure mathematical reasoning, Peirce's position is rather that the creation of mathematical hypotheses is poietic, but it is not merely poietic, and accordingly, that hypothesis-framing is part of mathematical reasoning that involves an element of poiesis but is not merely poietic either. Scientific considerations also inhere in the process of hypothesis-making, without excluding the poietic element. In the end, I propose that hypothesis-making in mathematics stands between artistic and scientific poietic creativity with respect to imaginative freedom from logical and actual constraints upon reasoning. (shrink)

Abstract:This article theorizes the disruptive epistemic work performed by microcosms in recent eco-fiction. Contemporary fiction often explores large-scale ecological disruption through smaller organisms and environments, enabling readers to perceive the Earth through analogy, allegory and metaphor. Within and against this scale-free reading, I argue that the microcosm has become a fracturing trope that troubles relations between scales. Drawing on fiction by T. C. Boyle, A. S. Byatt, Amitav Ghosh, Ali Smith, and Karen Tei Yamashita, I read the microcosm as a (...) critical tool of Anthropocene awareness, because it foregrounds and questions scalar collapse–the epistemic projection of one scale onto another. (shrink)

O artigo explora as fontes históricas da lenda O riso de Demócrito e o pranto de Heráclito, com destaque para a antiguidade greco-romana e para a modernidade renascentista. É realizado um estudo genealógico da referida lenda, seguido da análise de três obras: as Cartas do Pseudo-Hipócrates (c. século I d.C.) e os discursos oratórios de Antônio Vieira (Le lacrime d'Eraclito) e de Girolamo Cattaneo (Il riso di Democrito) (1674). Diante da tirania da felicidade que se impõe nas sociedades contemporâneas, o (...) resgate desse construto cultural milenar serve como locus de reflexão sobre prudencialidade ética e condição humana. (shrink)

Abstract:This article is about how a very specific section of the Rio Grande was transformed through human intervention over the course of the twentieth century. Geographically, I focus on the stretch of river between and around the twin border towns of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. This is an important area of analysis not only because of the historic importance of the urban complex to U.S.-Mexico relations, but also because it is a desert. I analyze two major (...) river engineering projects, one in the 1930s, the other in the 1960s, as well as the transformation of the water itself due to increased toxicity beginning in the 1990s. In sum, the river was straightened, completely relocated, lined in concrete, and poisoned. No other place on the entire international divide underwent such extreme changes. I explain this by arguing that both political forces and environmental conditions combined to produce such totalizing interventions in the riverine ecosystem. I also argue that these processes reversed the age-old meaning of water in the desert. Historically, water in the desert has been associated with life and biodiversity, but over the course of the twentieth century the desert section of the Rio Grande border was converted into a deadened zone. (shrink)

Apresenta uma análise preliminar das manifestações dos autores das Ciências Sociais e Humanas dentro do campo da Biblioteconomia e da Ciência da Informação (B & C.I.), por meio do método bibliométrico e análise de citação. Com o objetivo de descortinar quais teóricos são convocados para a construção do conhecimento na produção científica dos campos supracitados, realizou-se uma pesquisa exploratória com vistas ao levantamento dos autores das Ciências Sociais e Humanas e, posteriormente, a verificação da ocorrência deles na produção indexada (...) pela Base de Dados em Ciência da Informação (BRAPCI). Foram identificados 180 autores, dos quais 91 apareceram pelo menos uma vez nas buscas empreendidas pelos nomes e sobrenomes desses autores das Ciências Sociais e Humanas. O resultado desta pesquisa demonstrou os dois autores mais citados, Michel Foucault e Pierre Bourdieu, bem como a presença de diversos autores das Ciências Sociais e Humanas na construção do conhecimento da Biblioteconomia e da Ciência da Informação, o que contribui para o fortalecimento e a consolidação de ambas. (shrink)

Three famous sophists are referred to together in the Apology of Sokrates as still practising their enviably lucrative itinerant profession in 399 b.c. : Gorgias of Leontinoi, Prodikos of Keos and Hippias of Elis. The last of these was the least well known to the Athenian demos, having practised mainly in I Dorian cities. There is no extant reference to him in Old Comedy, but we can assume that he was sufficiently famous – especially for his fees – to justify (...) his inclusion as the third of this ‘triad’; cf. the triad Protagoras – Hippias – Prodikos in the Protagoras, considered further below. Gorgias was by now a grand old man of about ninety , the last survivor of the first generation of fee-taking educators, associated first and foremost in the popular mind with the suspect arts of political and forensic persuasion. Prodikos and Hippias were probably in their sixties. (shrink)

I would like to defend a conception of life that many of us in philosophy practice but few of us preach, and with it a set of virtues that have often been ignored in ethics. In short, I would like to defend what philosopher Sam Keen, among many others, has called the passionate life. It is neither exotic nor unfamiliar. It is a life defined by emotions, by impassioned engagement and belief, by one or more quests, grand projects, embracing affections. (...) It is also sometimes characterized in terms of frenzy, vaulting ambition, essentially insatiable goals, impossible affections. I want to contrast this conception of life with ordinary morality and “being a good person,” although for obvious reasons I do not want to say that one must give up the latter in pursuing the former. This is a mistake that Nietzsche often suggests with his “immor-alist” posturing and warrior metaphors, but I am convinced—on a solid textual basis—that he intended no such result. Nor do I want to dogmatically assert any superiority of a passionate, engaged life over a life that is more calm and routine. On the other hand, I do want to raise the question whether mere proper living, obedience to the law, utilitarian “rational choice” calculations, respect for others' rights and for contracts, and a bit of self-righteousness is all there is to a good life, even if one “fills in” the nonmoral spaces with permissible pleasures and accomplishments. Even a greatly enriched version of Kant, in other words, such as that recently defended by Barbara Herman, unfairly denigrates a kind of life that many of us deem desirable. (shrink)

Le XI.ème Congrès International de Philosophie Médiévale de la Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale (S.I.E.P.M..) s’est déroulé à Porto (Portugal), du 26 au 30 août 2002, sous le thème général: Intellect et Imagination dans la Philosophie Médiévale. A partir des héritages platonicien, aristotélicien, stoïcien, ou néo-platonicien (dans leurs variantes grecques, latines, arabes, juives), la conceptualisation et la problématisation de l’imagination et de l’intellect, ou même des facultés de l’âme en général, apparaissaient comme une ouverture possible pour aborder (...) les principaux points de la pensée médiévale. Les Actes du congrès montrent que « imagination » et « intellect » sont porteurs d’une richesse philosophique extraordinaire dans l’économie de la philosophie médiévale et de la constitution de ses spécificités historiques. Dans sa signification la plus large, la théorisation de ces deux facultés de l’âme permet de dédoubler le débat en au moins six grands domaines: — la relation avec le sensible, où la fantaisie/l’imagination joue le rôle de médiation dans la perception du monde et dans la constitution de la connaissance ; — la réflexion sur l’acte de connaître et la découverte de soi en tant que sujet de pensée ; — la position dans la nature, dans le cosmos, et dans le temps de celui qui pense et qui connaît par les sens externes, internes et par l’intellect ; — la recherche d’un fondement pour la connaissance et l’action, par la possibilité du dépassement de la distante proximité du transcendant, de l’absolu, de la vérité et du bien ; — la réalisation de la félicité en tant qu’objectif ultime, de même que la découverte d’une tendance au dépassement actif ou mystique de toutes les limites naturelles et des facultés de l’âme ; — la constitution de théories de l’image, sensible ou intellectuelle, et de ses fonctions. Les 3 volumes d’Actes incluent les 16 leçons plénières et 112 communications, ainsi que les index correspondants (manuscrits ; noms anciens et médiévaux ; noms modernes ; auteurs). Le volume IV des Actes, contenant 39 communications et des index, est publié par la revue " Mediaevalia. Textos e Estudos ", du Gabinete de Filosofia Medieval de l’Universidade do Porto (volume 23, de 2004). Ouvrage publié avec l’appui de l’Universidade do Porto, de la Faculdade de Letras da U.P., du Departamento de Filosofia - F.L.U.P. et de la Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal). (shrink)

Making mistakes is the key to making progress. There are times, of course, when it is important not to make any mistakes--ask any surgeon or airline pilot. But it is less widely appreciated that there are also times when making mistakes is the secret of success. What I have in mind is not just the familiar wisdom of nothing ventured, nothing gained. While that maxim encourages a healthy attitude towards risk, it doesn't point to the positive benefits of not just (...) risking mistakes, but actually of making them. Instead of shunning mistakes, I claim, you should cultivate the habit of making them. Instead of turning away in denial when you make a mistake, you should become a connoisseur of your own mistakes, turning them over in your mind as if they were works of art, which in a way they are. You should seek out opportunities to make grand mistakes, just so you can then recover from them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:7 Forum: Teaching about Ferguson 8 Feminist Studies 41, no. 1. © 2015 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 211 Jennifer C. Nash Teaching about Ferguson: An Introduction This forum was organized around the idea of asking feminist scholars to reflect on the practice of teaching about racial violence as well as on the experiences of teaching in the midst of racial violence. What do feminist pedagogies centered on Ferguson and (...) its aftermath look like? How do we present the various forms of violence—including state action (in the case of murder) and state inaction (in the case of nonindictments)— that produce and uphold the conditions that mark the current situation? How do we bring our feelings about this moment into our classrooms, and how do we do this feeling-teaching in ways that attend to the fact that feminist scholars are endlessly called on to perform affective labor and also that racialized and gendered bodies’ affects are policed inside and outside of the academy? What happens if we refuse the composure that faculty bodies are supposed to perform and enact grief, rage, or sadness? What happens if we refuse performing anything but exhaustion, numbness, or a protective desire to shield our bodies from our students’ scrutiny or curiosity? It quickly became apparent that a forum focused on “feminist pedagogies of Ferguson” would be far more expansive than a conversation focused on how to teach about Ferguson; put simply, to speak about Ferguson is always to speak about more than Ferguson. “Ferguson” has become shorthand for a murdered young man, Michael Brown, for a grand jury’s nonindictment of the police officer who shot him, and for 212 Jennifer C. Nash the Department of Justice’s recommendation not to bring civil rights charges against the officer, Darren Wilson. “Ferguson” has also become shorthand for a number of lives that ended violently, often at the hands of the state: Eric Garner, Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Tarika Wilson, Tanisha Anderson, Renisha McBride, and Tamir Rice, to name a few. “Ferguson,” then, has become a keyword around which scholars organize conversations about legal murders, the variety of laws that regard property more than black life (so-called stand-your-ground laws, for example), racial profiling, stop and frisk, mass imprisonment, the death penalty, and the racial logics of systems of value that ensure that racially marked bodies are, in Lisa Marie Cacho’s words, “ineligible for personhood.”1 The scholars included in this forum capture the expansive ways that we, as scholars and educators, articulate the meanings of this moment and the ways that we situate Brown’s death in the conditions of the unfolding present. The scholars included in this forum also powerfully ask about the possibilities for activism in the wake of Ferguson(s) and the powerful coalitions that have formed in the wake of Ferguson(s). If “Black Lives Matter” (and #blacklivesmatter) and “I Can’t Breathe” have become refrains that respond to the violence of the present by making visible black pain, the scholars included here voice the possibilities these movements might open up. We can consider these possibilities alongside the painful truth that it takes spectacular violence to generate a widespread articulation of black bodies as bodies that matter. 1. Lisa Marie Cacho, Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 6.... (shrink)

Making mistakes is the key to making progress. There are times, of course, when it is important not to make any mistakes--ask any surgeon or airline pilot. But it is less widely appreciated that there are also times when making mistakes is the secret of success. What I have in mind is not just the familiar wisdom of nothing ventured, nothing gained. While that maxim encourages a healthy attitude towards risk, it doesn't point to the positive benefits of not just (...) risking mistakes, but actually of making them. Instead of shunning mistakes, I claim, you should cultivate the habit of making them. Instead of turning away in denial when you make a mistake, you should become a connoisseur of your own mistakes, turning them over in your mind as if they were works of art, which in a way they are. You should seek out opportunities to make grand mistakes, just so you can then recover from them. (shrink)

The Materialist who interests me is the one who identifies such things as thoughts with what he speaks of with a degree of grand unspecificity [[sic]] infuriating to the physiologist as "brain processes" or "brain-states." The casual vagueness with which he invokes the brain happens not to affect the logic of his position, and it will prove more useful than to confront him with a physiologist demanding details to face him instead with a philosophical opponent, even if we must resurrect (...) one for the purpose. Let us, then, summon an Idealist from the shadows. His view, expressed equally grosso modo, is that all brain-states are thoughts. As the "is" of either position is the one of identity, the positions sound at this stage dangerously like mere commutations of one another, so in order to forestall the ignominy of saying the same thing while meaning to sound different, the opponents make sly countermoves. The Materialist says that there are brain-states—or even more unspecifically, that there are "material objects"—which are not thoughts ; and the Idealist, that there are thoughts which are not brain-states. These detrivialize [[sic]] the contest, but they equally disguise the contest’s comical ambiguities. It will appear upon analysis of the main strategies of logical offense that these traditional antagonists have been addressing themselves to different matters all along, and are saying different but quite compatible things. My chief reason for exhuming the contest is to illuminate features of Materialism which hardly can be discerned in the context of current preoccupation with predicates and language-games. Allowing myself the privileges of gross discourse which I have accorded my contestants, I shall say: the Idealist has been speaking of the content of thought, the Materialist about thoughts themselves. Let us now aim for a fraction of precision. (shrink)

One of this century’s most important philosophers here focuses on Plato’s Protagoras, Phaedo, Republic, and Philebus and on Aristotle’s three moral treatises to show the essential continuity of Platonic and Aristotelian reflection on the nature of the good.“Well translated and usefully annotated by P. Christopher Smith.... Gadamer’s book exhibits a broad and grand vision as well as a great love for the Greek thinkers.”-Alexander Nehemas, New York Times Book Review“The translation is highly readable. The translator’s introduction and frequent annotation provide (...) special elucidation on points of doctrinal complexity, giving ample references to other works and rival interpretations.”-Choice“This book is an important addition to the steadily growing number of Gadamer’s works available in English. In it, we see Gadamer at his best, that is, engaged in the practice of interpreting important texts from the philosophical tradition, and also at his most controversial.... I enthusiastically recommend this...challenging book as one that rewards all efforts to understand the important claims it makes on its readers.”-Francis J. Ambrosio, International Philosophy QuarterlyHans-Georg Gadamer is professor of philosophy emeritus at the University of Heidelberg. He is the author of numerous books, including two others translated by Smith: Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato and Hegel’s Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies. (shrink)

part 1: lecture 1. What is existentialism? ; lecture 2. Albert Camus : The stranger, part I ; lecture 3. Camus : The stranger, part II ; lecture 4. Camus : The myth of Sisyphus ; lecture 5. Camus : The plague and The fall ; lecture 6. Camus : The fall, part II ; lecture 7. Soren Kierkegaard : On becoming a Christian ; lecture 8. Kierkegaard on subjective truth ; lecture 9. Kierkegaard's existential dialectic ; lecture 10. Friedrich (...) Nietzsche on Nihilism and the death of God ; lecture 11. Nietzsche, the immortalist ; lecture 12. Neitzsche on freedom, fate and responsibility -- Part 2: lecture 1. Nietzsche, the Ubermensch and the will to power ; lecture 2. Three grand inquisitors, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Hesse ; lecture 3. Husserl, Heidegger and phenomenology ; lecture 4. Heidegger on the world and the self ; lecture 5. Heidegger on authenticity ; lecture 6. Jean-Paul Sartre at war ; lecture 7. Sartre on emotions and responsibility ; lecture 8. Sartre's phenomenology ; lecture 9. Satre on bad faith ; lecture 10. Sartre's Being-for-others and No exit ; lecture 11. Sartre on sex and love ; lecture 12. From existentialism to postmodernism. (shrink)

SummaryI examine an internal tension between Quine's empiricist methodology and his doctrine of naturalism — a tension that bears on his well‐known thesis of empirical underdetermination of scientific theory., viz., that there can be empirically equivalent but logically incompatible formulations of comprehensive scientific theory. Quine recognizes the tension and tries to resolve it via his distinction between the conditions that justify belief in a theory and the conditions that warrant the attribution of truth to a theory. I argue that Quine's (...) resolution is unsatisfactory, but that there is a more defensible resolution via Quine's own theory of ontological relativity; and moreover, the latter mode of resolution avoids certain undesirable aspects of Quine's problematic notion of evidence.Summary RésuméJ'examine la tension interne entre la méthodologie empiriciste de Quine et sa doctrine naturaliste — tension qui porte sur sa thèse de la sous‐détermination des théories scientifiques, these qui affirme qu'il peut y avoir des formulations empiriquement équivalentes, mais logiquement incompatibles de grandes théories scientifiques. Quine admet cette tension et cherche à la résoudre par sa distinction entre des conditions qui justifient la croyance en une théorie et d'autres qui garantissent l'attribution d'une valeur de véritéà cette théorie. Je prétends que la solution de Quine est insatisfaisante, mais on peut en proposer une autre, plus défendable, en se basant sur sa propre théorie de la relativité ontologique. En outre, cette dernière solution évite certains aspects indésirables de la notion, problématique chez Quine, d'évidence empirique.ZusammenfassungIch untersuche ein internes Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Quines empirischer Méthodologie und seiner naturalistischen Doktrin — ein Spannungsverhältnis, das in seiner bekannten These der empirischen Unterdeterminiertheit einer wissenschaftlichen Theorie begründet liegt, d.h. in der These, wonach es empirisch äquivalente, aber logisch inkompatible Formulierungen einer umfassenden wissenschaftlichen Theorie geben kann. Quine erkennt diese Spannung und versucht, sie durch seine Unterscheidung zwischen den Bedingungen, die den Glauben in eine Théorie rechtfertigen, und den Bedingungen, die die Zuschreibung von Wahrheit an diese Théorie begründen, aufzulösen. Ich argumentiere, dass Quines Lösung unbefriedigend ist, aber dass eine besser verteidigbare Lösung existiert, die an Quines eigene Theorie der ontologischen Relativität anknüpft; zudem vermeidet die letztgenannte Lösung gewisse unerwünschte Aspekte von Quines problematischem Begriff eines empirischen Belegs. (shrink)

Mad about it they still were, in 1926, when Hemingway's splendid spoofing appeared in The Sun Also Rises. But it was not everybody who had been responsible. It was mainly Anatole France, abetted by his almost unanimously enthusiastic critics. And of all his works, the one that must have seemed to fit the formula best was Thaïs, already a quarter of a century old when Jake Barnes learned of irony and pity. It is not a bad formula for the effect (...) of Thaïs, as formulas go. It is at least as useful—and at least as misleading—as "pity and fear" for tragedy. There is, however, a surprising difference. If I tell you the story of any classical tragedy, even in very brief form, you will know at once why someone might talk about that story using the terms "pity" and "fear." But if I tell you of the priest who lost his soul converting the prostitute, you will not be able to predict any determinate reaction—except perhaps that the story will have for everyone a slight bit of ironic wonder at the grand reversal. In other words, a teller will be able to turn such material almost any direction he chooses, making it into a tragedy, a comedy, a farce, a celebration of God's wonder and mystery—or a tale playing with pity and irony. Wayne C. Booth's most recent books are A Rhetoric of Irony and Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent. He is now completing a book on critical warfare and critical pluralism . A version of one chapter from that book, "M.H. Abrams: Historian as Critic, Critic as Pluralist," will appear in the Spring issue of Critical Inquiry. Other contributions to Critical Inquiry include "Kenneth Burke's Way of Knowing" , "'Preserving the Exemplar': Or, How Not to Dig our Own Graves" , "Notes and Exchanges" , "Metaphor as Rhetoric: The Problem of Evaluation" , "Ten Literal ‘Theses’" , with Wright Morris: "The Writing of Organic Fiction: A Conversation" , and with Robert E. Streeter, W.J.T. Mitchell: "Sheldon Sacks 1930-1979". (shrink)

(Spanish) RESUMEN: La libertad absoluta postulada por Viktor Emil Frankl y Jean-Paul Sartre, la Shoah y la creencia en un dios omnipotente, bueno y justo parecen contradecirse. La pregunta por el sentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas del Holocausto (la verdadera catástrofe, el mayor crimen contra la humanidad), simbolizado por Auschwitz, y como punto de inflexión en la historia, es terriblemente dolorosa y parece no tener una respuesta filosófica ni teológica. A mi juicio, es importantísimo distinguir entre las víctimas inocentes (...) de la Shoah que perecieron y las víctimas inocentes que sufrieron un verdadero infierno y perdieron a sus seres queridos, pero que lograron sobrevivir. Ambas son víctimas, por supuesto, pero así como encontrarle un posible sentido al sufrimiento de las víctimas masacradas y gaseadas podría suponer un insulto a su sufrimiento y agonía –en especial, al horror que sufrieron los niños–, el horrible sufrimiento de los supervivientes pudo dar, tal vez, de alguna manera, un sentido a sus vidas después de la liberación de los campos de concentración y exterminio, ya fuera como voz, como protesta o como simple supervivencia. Frankl apuesta por un sentido último (que abraza el sentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas), y Sartre, aunque parezca no apostar por sentido alguno, volcó su vida al compromiso político después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, y ello parece vislumbrar una minúscula pizca de sentido después de la barbarie. La filosofía de Frankl es un sí a la vida incluso en las situaciones más extremas, un grito casi nietzscheano que exalta el valor de la vida más allá de cualquier sufrimiento. Frankl, padre de la logoterapia y superviviente del Holocausto, abre una puerta a Dios al hablar de un dios inconsciente, una dimensión suprahumana y una fe incondicional, y define la religión como espiritualidad y como la búsqueda del hombre por el sentido último. Según Frankl, la libertad no se contradice con Dios, y la religión existe no a raíz de la barbarie, sino a pesar de la barbarie. El existencialismo sartreano es una filosofía de la libertad radical y de la responsabilidad. El hombre está condenado a ser libre. El ser humano es un ser en el que la existencia precede a la esencia. Somos totalmente responsables de lo que somos. Sartre afirma que la libertad humana es incompatible con Dios. En un mundo sin Dios, la moral la construyen los hombres, con sus propias decisiones y sus acciones, y la existencia y el sufrimiento de las víctimas no tienen sentido alguno. Sartre define al hombre como libertad, responsabilidad, angustia y contingencia. Frankl define al hombre como libertad, responsabilidad, espiritualidad y búsqueda de sentido. Con esta tesis me propongo entrar en la resbaladiza dimensión del dolor, la desesperación, el sentido y sinsentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas (teniendo presente los horrores de Auschwitz, que en teología y filosofía ha simbolizado desde la liberación de los campos la muerte de Dios y la muerte de la moral). Es verdad que no solo los hombres, mujeres y niños judíos fueron víctimas de la barbarie alemana, pero, como reza el mensaje de Elie Wiesel en la exposición permanente del Block 27 del Auschwitz-Birkeanu State Museum: "Not all victims were Jewish in this place, but all Jews were victims". La Shoah no es un episodio dentro de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, sino un punto de inflexión en la historia de la humanidad, y es una catástrofe que nos concierne a todos, hombres y mujeres judíos y no judíos, religiosos e irreligiosos, creyentes e increyentes, como seres libres, responsables y morales que somos –o que deberíamos ser. Muchas de las víctimas del Holocausto, en medio de la desesperación, entraron en las cámaras de gas orando, aferrándose a la esperanza de que ese final espeluznante no era un punto final. Con esta tesis no me propongo de ninguna manera responder a la eterna pregunta de si Dios existe o no, sino que propongo interpretar ese grito hacia Dios como un desesperado anhelo de esperanza. También me propongo encontrar una coherencia en las posturas de estos dos grandes pensadores para quienes la libertad y la responsabilidad definen al hombre: Frankl (quien apuesta por una dimensión suprahumana donde existe un sentido último en el que el sufrimiento de las víctimas tiene que tener algún sentido, aunque ese sentido sea completamente incomprensible en la dimensión humana) y Sartre (el existencialista ateo por excelencia, para quien el mundo, la existencia y el sufrimiento son absolutamente contingentes). En el primer capítulo expongo la logoterapia y el existencialismo sartreano: describo las tres dimensiones del hombre y las tres búsquedas de sentido propuestas por Frankl, y expongo las cinco consecuencias de "l'existence précède l'essence", centrándome en la libertad y la responsabilidad, y hablo del suicidio. El segundo capítulo está dedicado al dios inconsciente frankleano, la dimensión suprahumana, la búsqueda por el sentido último y la fe incondicional. En el tercer capítulo ilustro la libertad sin Dios sartreana, la ontología sartreana, el ateísmo sartreano y el humanismo sartreano, y hablo sobre la responsabilidad, la mauvaise foi, la contingencia, la situation y la angustia. El cuarto capítulo es necesariamente histórico (sin dejar de ser filosófico): me pregunto por la muerte de Dios después de Auschwitz, argumento y defiendo la unicidad del Holocausto (la Shoah es un punto de inflexión en la historia de la humanidad), describo las masacres antes de los campos de exterminio (Einsatzgruppen, Ordnungspolizei y Wehrmacht), el gigantesco complejo de Auschwitz (Stammlager, Auschwitz-Birkenau y Monowitz-Buna), reflexiono sobre Dios y el mal (centrándome en los niños de Auschwitz), describo los días de Frankl en Auschwitz, hablo de Dios como esperanza, de la inmortalidad y la escatología, de la crueldad de Dios, de la relación entre el cristianismo y el antisemitismo, del islam y el antisemitismo, critico el silencio de Dios, hablo de la muerte de Dios y del juicio contra Dios. En el quinto capítulo expongo la moral frankleana (una moral que atañe al hombre y no a Dios), basándome en su teoría del amor y en su única obra de teatro (Synchronisation in Binkerwald), y la moral sartreana (una moral que atañe a una humanidad sin Dios), recordando a Dostoyevsky, analizando la famosa cita de Garcin en Huis clos "L'enfer, c'est les Autres", criticando el marxismo de Sartre y cuestionando (con la mirada de Frankl y Sartre) el verso de Brecht "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral"; al final del capítulo incluyo una reflexión propia y las críticas frankleana y sartreana sobre la impunidad de los verdugos y colaboradores después del Holocausto (con el permiso de Dios). Después de la Conclusión, añado un Apéndice sobre las vidas de Frankl y Sartre, para poder entender mejor su obra. PALABRAS CLAVE: logoterapia, existencialismo sartreano, búsqueda de sentido, libertad, responsabilidad, moral, angustia, sufrimiento, supervivientes, víctimas, contingencia, espiritualidad, religión, Dios, esperanza, antisemitismo, culpa, Auschwitz, Holocausto, Shoah. /// (English) ABSTRACT: The absolute freedom defended by Viktor Emil Frankl and Jean-Paul Sartre, the Shoah and the belief in an omnipotent, benevolent and just God seem to contradict each other. The question of the meaning of the victims' suffering of the Holocaust (the true catastrophe, the biggest crime against humanity), simbolised by Auschwitz and as a turning point in History, is terribly painful and doesn't seem to have an answer. In my opinion, it's crucial to distinguish between the innocent victims of the Shoah who perished and the innocent victims who sufferend a real hell and lost their loved ones, but managed to survive. Both are victims, of course, but just as finding a possible meaning to the suffering of the massacred and gassed victims could result in an insult to their suffering and agony –especially to the horror that the children suffered– the gigantic suffering of the survivors could, maybe, somehow, give a meaning to their lives after the liberation of the concentration and extermination camps, either as a voice, as a protest, or as a simple survival. Frankl believes in an ultimate meaning (that embraces the meaning of the victims' suffering), and Sartre, even if it appears not to embrace any meaning, turned his life to political engagement after War World II, and that attitude seems to give a tiny glimpse of meaning after the barbarity. Frankl's philosophy says yes to life even in the most extreme situations, and it's a Nietzschean-like scream that exalts the value of life beyond any monstrous suffering. Frankl, the father of logotherapy and a Holocaust survivor, opens a door to God when he talks about an unconscious God, a supra-human dimension and an unconditional faith; he defines religion as spirituality and as man's search for ultimate meaning. According to Frankl, freedom is not contradictory with God, and religion exists not because of the barbarity but in spite of the barbarity. Sartrean existentialism is a philosophy of radical freedom and responsibility. Men are condemned to be free. We are beings where the existence precedes the essence. We are completely responsible of what we are. Sartre argues that human freedom is incompatible with God. In a godless world, morality is constructed by people, with their own choices and actions, and human existence and the suffering of the victims don't have any meaning. Sartre defines man as freedom, responsibility, Angst and contingency. Frankl defines man as freedom, responsibility, spirituality and search for meaning. With this dissertation I attempt to enter in the slippery dimension of the pain, despair, meaning and meaninglessness of the victims' suffering (having in mind the horrors of Auschwitz, that in theology and in philosophy have simbolised, since the liberation of the camps, the death of God and the death of morality). It's true that not only Jewish men, women and children were victims of the German barbarity, but, as Elie Wiesel's message from the permanent exhibition from Block 27 of the Auschwitz-Birkeanu State Museum reads: "Not all victims were Jewish in this place, but all Jews were victims". The Shoah is not an episode inside War World II, but a turning point in the history of humankind, and a catastrophe that embraces us all, Jewish and not not Jewish men and women, religious and not religious, believers and not believers, as the free, responsible and moral beings that we all are –or that we should be. A lot of the victims, in the midst of their desperation, entered into the gas chambers praying, holding to the hope that their horrifying end was not the ultimate end. With this dissertation I do not attempt to answer the eternal question of the existence of God, rather, I will try to interpret that scream to God as a longing for hope. I also intend to find a coherence between the thought of these two great thinkers for whom freedom and responsibilty define man: Frankl (who argues that there is a suprahuman dimension where an ultimate meaning exists and where the victims' suffering has to have a meaning, even if this meaning is completely incomprehensible in the human dimension) and Sartre (the atheist existentialist par excellence, for whom the world, human existence and suffering are absolutely contingent). In the first chapter I expose logotherapy and Sartrean existentialism: I describe the three dimensions of man, the three searches for meaning, the five consequences of "l'existence précède l'essence" and I speak about suicide. The second chapter delves into the unconscious God, the supra-human dimension, the ultimate meaning and the unconditional faith. In the third chapter I expose the freedom without God defended by Sartre, Sartre's ontology, Sartre's atheism, Sartre's humanism, and his ideas about responsibility, mauvaise foi, contingency, situation, and Angst. The fourth chapter is necessarily historical (while being philosophical too): I wonder about the death of God after Auschwitz, I argue and defend the uniqueness of the Holocaust (the Shoah is a turning point in the history of humankind), I describe the massacres before the extermination camps (Einsatzgruppen, Ordnungspolizei y Wehrmacht), the gigantic Auschwitz camp complex (Stammlager, Auschwitz-Birkenau y Monowitz-Buna), I reflect on God and evil (focusing on the children of Auschwitz), I describe Frankl's days in Auschwitz, I talk about God as hope, about immortality and escathology, I discuss God's cruelty, the relationship between Christianity and antisemitism and Islam and antisemitism, I question the silence of God, and I talk about the death of God and about the trial against God. In the fifth chapter I talk about the Franklean morality (a morality that concerns man and not God), on the basis of his love theory and his only work of theater (Synchronisation in Binkerwald), and the Sartrean morality (a morality that concerns a humanity without God), remembering Dostoyevsky, analysing Garcin's famous quote in Huis clos "L'enfer, c'est les Autres", crticizing Sartre's marxism and questioning (with Frankl's and Sartre's eyes) Brecht's verse "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral"; at the end of the chapter I include my own reflection (and Frankl and Sartre's critique) about the impunity of the executioners and collaborators after the Holocaust (with God's permission). After the Conclusion, I add an Appendix about the lives of Frankl and Sartre, which helps understanding better their work. KEYWORDS: logotherapy, existentialism, search for meaning, freedom, responsibility, morality, Angst, suffering, survivors, victims, contingency, spirituality, religion, God, hope, antisemitism, guilt, Auschwitz, Holocaust, Shoah. (shrink)

Structuré en trois grandes parties, Vieillesses et vieillissements dresse un vaste panorama des recherches contemporaines francophones en la matière. L’ouvrage est constitué en trois parties : une première relative à la construction politique des problèmes de la vieillesse, une seconde attentive aux cadres sociaux de la vieillesse et une troisième centrée sur l’expérience du vieillissement. Les éditeurs ont fait le choix judicieux de faire dialoguer une trentaine d’auteurs, alternant articles..

Neste espaço relataremos o desenvolvimento do projeto de pesquisa Filosofia, Cultura Juvenil e Ensino Médio desenvolvido no período de junho de 2004 a junho de 2009, na Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM), no Rio Grande do Sul. A coordenação foi realizada pela professora Elisete Medianeira Tomazetti, vinculada ao Departamento de Metodologia e Ensino (MEN), do Centro Educação e responsável pelas disciplinas de Didática da Filosofia, Pesquisa para o Ensino de Filosofia e Estágio Curricular Supervisionado, do Curso de Filosofia (...) da UFSM. Desde seu início o projeto contou com vários alunos do Curso de Filosofia da UFSM. Alguns se agregavam ao grupo durante certo período e assim que concluíam seu curso e precisavam buscar emprego, em outras localidades, acabavam deixando o grupo. Outros, devido a bolsas de iniciação científica, oriundas de diferentes editais, permaneceram durante todo o período de desenvolvimento da pesquisa, nas diferentes etapas. O desenvolvimento da pesquisa procurou sempre fomentar o interesse dos alunos em dar continuidade a seus estudos de pós-graduação strictu sensu, seguindo com pesquisas na mesma temática. Muitos trabalhos, a partir desta pesquisa, foram elaborados e apresentados pelos participantes do grupo de pesquisa em eventos da área, ajudando a fortalecer esse campo teórico, ainda com certa carência de estudos e pesquisa significativos no contexto brasileiro. Da mesma forma, a pesquisa ajudou tornar mais visível a problemática do ensino de filosofia na Escola Básica no contexto do Curso de Filosofia e do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação da UFSM, principalmente. (shrink)