Na presente investigação, objetivou-se analisar, a partir do referencial teórico e metodológico pós-estruturalista, os conceitos de Ciência, Tecnologia e Sociedade na trama com a educação e o ensino de Ciências. Como substrato teórico são utilizadas obras de Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze e Felix Guattari, ofertando pistas para ampliar a discussão destes conceitos. Na reunião dos saberes investigados, afirma-se um pensamento científico que desenvolve a produção de sentidos para a educação. Diante do exposto, pensa-se em um ensino, que crie estratégias (...) de existências, que reivindique a trama de teorias e práticas, operando os conteúdos científicos na Sociedade. (shrink)

It is being increasingly recognized that the Saussurean dictum of “the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign” is in conflict with the pervasiveness of the phenomenon commonly known as “sound symbolism”. After first presenting a historical overview of the debate, however, we conclude that both positions have been exaggerated, and that an adequate explanation of sound symbolism is still lacking. How can there, for example, be (perceived) similarity between expressionsand contents across different sensory modalities? We offer an answer, based on the (...) Peircian notion of iconic ground, and G. Sonesson’s distinction betweenprimary and secondary iconicity. Furthermore, we describe an experimental study, in a paradigm first pioneered by W. Kohler, and recently popularized by V.Ramachandran, in which we varied vowels and consonants in fictive word-forms, and conclude that both types of sounds play a role in perceiving an iconic ground between the word-forms and visual figures. The combination of historical conceptual analysis, semiotic explication and psychological experimentationpresented in this article is characteristic of the emerging paradigm of cognitive semiotics. (shrink)

In typical statistical learning studies, researchers define sequences in terms of the probability of the next item in the sequence given the current item (or items), and they show that high probability sequences are treated as more familiar than low probability sequences. Existing accounts of these phenomena all assume that participants represent statistical regularities more or less as they are defined by the experimenters—as sequential probabilities of symbols in a string. Here we offer an alternative, or possibly supplementary, hypothesis. Specifically, (...) rather than identifying or labeling individual stimuli discretely in order to predict the next item in a sequence, we need only assume that the participant is able to represent the stimuli as evincing particular similarity relations to one another, with sequences represented as trajectories through this similarity space. We present experiments in which this hypothesis makes sharply different predictions from hypotheses based on the assumption that sequences are learned over discrete, labeled stimuli. We also present a series of simulation models that encode stimuli as positions in a continuous two‐dimensional space, and predict the next location from the current location. Although no model captures all of the data presented here, the results of three critical experiments are more consistent with the view that participants represent trajectories through similarity space rather than sequences of discrete labels under particular conditions. (shrink)

The following definition of objective is proposed: A statement S is objective if and only if in S all parameters that are relevant to its truth value are made explicit. The objectivity of predicates and relations can be defined in a similar manner. This simple conception of objectivity-which could be called explicitness conception of objectivity-can be found in Hermann Weyl and plays a central part in the natural sciences. There are grades of objectivity depending on the quality and the number (...) of parameters our predicates are relativized to A relativistic Ockham principle has to be recognized: Relativization parameters are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. The explicitness conception of objectivity is accessible to mathematical specifications, is the core of the idea of invariance, has a lot of philosophical applications and leads to precise notions of subjectivity and a precise formulation of the problem of the limits of objectivity. (shrink)

Peace is possible even though it is always interspersed with its absence. Necropolitical systems hinder peace. The dissociation of the subject, preventing the action of selective force in the face of obstruction of human potential, makes it a-critical, unable to find overcoming strategies. It is the integration of human multidimensionality providing the expression of the potential and action of selective force that can lead the subject to critical reflection and awareness that enables them to create strategies against hegemonic. Knowledge and (...) knowledge carry an axiological burden; values are learned and taught. The way out is in education. Hope and indignation for her absence is a challenge to the whole educational process. The proposals of Espinosa and Rolando Toro Araneda, in dialogue with Ferdinand Röhr and Paulo Freire, constitute philosophies that point out the conditions of possibility with which, not accepting any educational process, strategies are created whose challenge is to educate for peace. In this context, the article proposes to reflect on epistemic-ethical proposals that contribute to peace. (shrink)

Für den metaethischen Realismus sind Werteigenschaften wie die Vortrefflichkeit ein irreduzibler Teil der subjektunabhängigen Welt. Obwohl sich diese Position in den letzten Jahren zunehmender Beliebtheit erfreut, bleibt die Frage nach der Ontologie dieser Eigenschaften meist ausgeklammert. Der Magnetismus des Guten diskutiert eine philosophiegeschichtlich höchst einflussreiche, in der zeitgenössischen Metaethik jedoch weitgehend vernachlässigte Antwort auf diese Frage: den metanormativen Platonismus. Ihm zufolge ist das Gutsein im Sinne der Vortrefflichkeit nichts anderes als ein bestimmtes In-Beziehung-Stehen zu einem Ideal. Verschiedene Formen dieser Theorie (...) lassen sich anhand zweier Fragen unterscheiden. Erstens, ist das Ideal selbst normativ irreduzibel? Zweitens, muss es personal oder nicht-personal verstanden werden? Anhand von Studien zu Platon, Plotin, Iris Murdoch und Robert Adams untersucht Der Magnetismus des Guten den Platonismus in seinen verschiedenen Varianten auf seine Erklärungskraft. Das Buch stellt damit zugleich die erste historisch informierte systematische Rekonstruktion der Normativitätstheorie des Platonismus dar.­­. (shrink)

1. Introduction. Now that operationalism has evolved from a battle cry of a militant minority to a widely accepted maxim of scientific method, and has in the process lost much of its initial intransigeance, it seems time to devote more attention to the application of operational analysis to the social sciences. This paper attempts to explicate some basic concepts in the behavioral sciences, both individual and social, namely, ‘control’ and ‘unfreedom,’ as well as the concepts by which they will be (...) defined, such as ‘persuasion,’ ‘constraint,’ ‘deprivation,’ and ‘punishment’. This analysis will enable us to ascertain with greater precision some of the rather intricate connections which exist between these relations. (shrink)

To determine the relevance of judgments of rationality and of morality in foreign policy decisions, it is necessary to provide a value‐neutral definition of “the national interest.” This makes it possible to ascertain, in principle, whether a given governmental foreign policy decision is rational with respect to this goal, in turn a necessary means to any government’s ultimate purposes. While it is pointless to judge the pursuit of the national interest itself morally right or wrong, moral judgments are relevant to (...) policies and goals compatible with the national interest. However, moral principles are often invoked to justify the pursuit of this intermediate goal. (shrink)

After criticizing some recent writings typical of the different forms of ethical objectivism, that is, intuitionism, naturalism (including the ideal observation theory and supervenience), and rationalism, I gave my reasons for siding with ethical subjectivism. I hope to demonstrate that this alternative meta‐ethical theory does not consider moral judgements meaningless nor arbitrary, and that it is compatible with empiricism in science and with serious moral commitment. Objectivists, on the other hand, tend to take a parochial view of ethics, identifying morality (...) with a particular moral point of view, nowadays liberalism and the common good, while ignoring rival moral principles which are politically important. (shrink)

Trotz ihrer unzweifelhaften praktischen Bedeutung werden Laster für gewöhnlich als bloßes Anhängsel zur Theorie der Tugend behandelt. Sie verdienen jedoch eine gründliche und eigenständige Untersuchung, wie die Behandlung der folgenden zwei Fragen zeigt. Erstens: Was sind Laster überhaupt? Manche Theorien betrachten Laster als Dispositionen, andere als Einstellungen; ich plädiere für einen gemischten Ansatz, der Einsichten beider Auffassungen aufgreift. Zweitens: Wie lassen sich Laster klassifizieren, und sind manche Laster kapitaler als andere? Hier unterscheide ich zunächst zwischen strukturellen und substantiellen Lastern, und (...) unter den letzteren wiederum zwischen Lastern der Verhältnismäßigkeit, Lastern der Gleichgültigkeit und Lastern der Böswilligkeit. (shrink)

The following article discusses an edition of Hugo Grotius’s De jure belli ac pacis, issued without a place of publication or publisher in 1719. The article focuses on the claim first advanc...

Pupils’ attribution of significance to sensitive ‘heritage’ of slavery may differ, particularly in multicultural classrooms. Little is known about the ways in which pupils establish a relationship with the present when discussing the significance of heritage of slavery. Starting from theories of historical significance and identity, these attributions and the interplay with the pupils’ identities were examined at a Dutch secondary school using questionnaires and interviews. Pupils primarily used two arguments: significance for a specific identity or group; and slavery as (...) a historical example of inequality. The interplay with their identity was ambiguous. (shrink)

Different languages present a variety of ways of talking about emotional experience. Very commonly, feelings are described through the use of ¿body image constructions¿ in which they are associated with processes in, or states of, specific body parts. The emotions and the body parts that are thought to be their locus and the kind of activity associated with these body parts vary cross-culturally. This study focuses on the meaning of three ¿body image constructions¿ used to describe feelings similar to, but (...) also different from, English ¿jealousy¿, ¿envy¿, and ¿covetousness¿ in the West African language Ewe. It is demonstrated that a ¿moving body¿, a pychologised eye, and red eyes are scripted for these feelings. It is argued that the expressions are not figurative and that their semantics provide good clues to understanding the cultural construction of emotions both emotions and the body. (shrink)