In this urbane and witty book, Ronald de Sousa disputes the widespread notion that reason and emotion are natural antagonists.

Jair Bolsonaro, the current President of Brazil, has made himself into one of the most influent advocates of COVID-19 denial. His health policy and his political doctrine are partly based on an implicit moral claim, which is neglected by contemporary political theory. Bolsonarism’s rhetoric raises a moral claim to freedom without responsibility, which relieves its followers from the burdens that emerge from liberal accounts of liberty or from basic goods accepted in a political community. In opposition to liberal or communitarian (...) accounts, Bolsonarism endorses a Hobbesian concept of freedom that describes it as the absence of ‘impediments to motion’. Nonetheless, it differs from Hobbes because it treats this liberty as endowed with moral value and non-negotiable through a social contract. (shrink)

Taking literally the concept of emotional truth requires breaking the monopoly on truth of belief-like states. To this end, I look to perceptions for a model of non-propositional states that might be true or false, and to desires for a model of propositional attitudes the norm of which is other than the semantic satisfaction of their propositional object. Those models inspire a conception of generic truth, which can admit of degrees for analogue representations such as emotions; belief-like states, by contrast, (...) are digital representations. I argue that the gravest problem-objectivity-is not insurmountable. /// [Adam Morton] It is accuracy rather than truth itself that is valuable. Emotional truth is a dubious though attractive notion, but emotional accuracy is much easier to make sense of. My approach to accuracy goes via an account of what makes a story accurate. Stories can be accurate but not true, and emotions can be accurate whether or not they are true. The capacity for emotional accuracy, for emotions that fit a person's situation, is an aspect of emotional intelligence, which is as important an aspect of rational human agency as the intelligent formation of beliefs and desires. (shrink)

The word "truth" retains, in common use, traces of origins that link it to trust, troth, and truce, connoting ideas of fidelity, loyalty, and authenticity. The word has become, in contemporary philosophy, encased in a web of technicalities, but we know that a true image is a faithful portrait; a true friend a loyal one. In a novel or a poem, too, we have a feel for what is emotionally true, though we are not concerned with the actuality of events (...) and characters depicted. To have emotions is to care about certain things: we can wonder whether those things are really worth caring about. We can wonder whether our passions reflect who we are, and whether they constitute fitting responses to the vicissitudes of life. So there are two aspects to emotional truth: how well an emotion reflects the threats and promises of the world, and how well it reflects our own individual nature. That is the starting point of this book, which looks first at the analogies and disanalogies between strict propositional truth and a looser, "generic" sense of truth. As applied to emotions, generic truth is closer to those original meanings: as in a portrait's fidelity or friend's loyalty. Taken in this sense, the notion of emotional truth opens up large vistas on areas of life essential to our existence as social beings, and to our concerns with beauty, morality, love, death, sex, knowledge, desire, coherence, and happiness. Each of those topics illustrates some facet of the dominant theme of the book: the crucial but often ambivalent role of our emotions in grounding and yet also sometimes undermining our values. Emotions act, in holistic perspective, as ultimate arbiters of values where different and independently justified standards of value compete. (shrink)

Para el historiador mexicano Edmundo O’Gorman la reflexión filosófica se constituyó en un arma o en un instrumento, cuya eficacia y necesidad surgieron de la lectura de diversas interpretaciones de los procesos históricos y de las meditaciones acerca de su naturaleza y su sentido. En su juventud O’Gorman se entusiasmó por el historicismo, pero posteriormente prefirió no adscribirse a una corriente o escuela específica sino a una tradición. Para O’Gorman, Vico forma parte del linaje de los historiadores a quienes no (...) interesa la historia comprobada sino la historia comprendida, no la constatación rigurosa de los hechos, sino su articulación en la dinámica global del pensamiento. Por eso ambos tienen coincidencias en sus reflexiones sobre la naturaleza del conocimiento histórico, la función de la imaginación, los métodos para entender la diversidad cultural y, sobre todo, el problema de aprehender una “universalidad racional” que no se limite al orden técnico–instrumental.PALABRAS CLAVE: Vico, Edmundo O’Gorman, historicismo, historia, pensamiento hispánico.According to the Mexican historian Edmundo O’Gorman, philosophical reflection was constituted as an arm, or as an instrument, which’s efficacy and necessity emerged from different interpretations of historical processes, and from meditations as to its nature and meaning. In his youth, O’Gorman was enthusiastic about historicism, but later we preferred not to be ascribed to any specific trend or school, but to a tradition. O’Gorman considers Vico as one of those historians who are not interested in history as something to be checked, but as something to be understood; not in the rigorous confirmation of facts, but in its articulation in the global dynamics of thought. Therefore, there are coincidences in their reflections on the nature of historical knowledge, the function of imagination, the methods to understand cultural diversity and, mainly, theproblem of getting an ‘universal rationality’ which would not be limited to the technical or instrumental order.KEYWORDS: Vico, Edmundo O’Gorman, historicism, history, Hispanic thought. (shrink)

Dysfunctions of the neural circuits that implement social behavior are necessary but not a sufficient condition to develop schizophrenia. We propose that schizophrenia represents a disease of general connectivity that impairs not only the “social brain” networks, but also different neural circuits related with higher cognitive and perceptual functions. We discuss possible mechanisms and evolutionary considerations.

We commend Arbib for his original proposal that a mirror neuron system may have participated in language origins. However, in our view he proposes a complex evolutionary scenario that could be more parsimonious. We see no necessity to propose a hand-based signing stage as ancestral to vocal communication. The prefrontal system involved in human speech may have its precursors in the monkey's inferior frontal cortical domain, which is responsive to vocalizations and is related to laryngeal control.

The thought of Nicolás Gómez Dávila is a great absent in the academic atmosphere of our Nation. This article’s intention is to present its principal assumptions, to measure its argumentative richness that could back up a true philosophical thought in our land. To revise his personal opinions in regards to different issues, such as his critique of democracy, modern rationality, Christianity, among others, might help us as an excuse to read a scholar that, though did not leave an immense production, (...) wrote a most interesting series of annotations and texts, that could appeal to every person interested in knowledge. Through his writings, there can be observed the critical view of a man that was raised in tradition: Philosopher, Christian, polyglot, a self-confessed reactionary. However, there is too a tinge of innovation, that turns his reading into something passionate. Thus, Gómez Dávila challenges his reader to know more, from the exquisiteness of his language he tempts the reader to discover even more... from his annotation he suggests the novelty, based in the tradition of thought of which he is extremely familiar with. (shrink)

The standard approach to the core phenomenology of thought insertion characterizes it in terms of a normal sense of thought ownership coupled with an abnormal sense of thought agency. Recently, Fernández (2010) has argued that there are crucial problems with this approach and has proposed instead that what goes wrong fundamentally in such a phenomenology is a sense of thought commitment, characterized in terms of thought endorsement. In this paper, we argue that even though Fernández raises new issues that enrich (...) the topic, his proposal cannot rival the version of the standard approach we shall defend. (shrink)

This paper concerns a recently discovered, puzzling asymmetry in judgments of whether an action is intentional or not (Knobe, Philosophical Psychology 16:309–324, 2003a ; Analysis 63:190–193, b ). We report new data replicating the asymmetry in the context of scenarios wherein an agent achieves an amoral or immoral goal due to luck. Participants’ justifications of their judgments of the intentionality of the agent’s action indicate that two distinct folk concepts of intentional action played a role in their judgments. When viewed (...) from this perspective, the puzzle disappears, although the asymmetry remains. (shrink)

Ira Brevis furor, said the Latins: anger is a brief bout of madness. There is a long tradition that views all emotions as threats to rationality. The crime passionnel belongs to that tradition: in law it is a kind of “brief-insanity defence.” We still say that “passion blinds us;” and in common parlance to be philosophical about life's trials is to be decently unemotional about them. Indeed many philosophers have espoused this view, demanding that Reason conquer Passion. Others — from (...) Hume to the Emotivists — have appeared to reverse this hierarchy.” But those philosophers who refuse to join in the general denigration of emotion as irrational usually share the presupposition that the role of rationality is limited to the calculation of means. In so far as emotions are concerned with the determination of ends, they remain, on this view, beyond the pale of rationality. Modern decision theorists have worked out schemes to assess the rationality of desires, as well as actions, against the background of beliefs and other desires.1 But these schemes leave no room at all for emotions, except, by implication, as disrupters of the rational process. (shrink)

Abstract: In a previous article in this journal, Daniel Kelly, Stephen Stich, Kevin Haley, Serena Eng and Daniel Fessler report data that, according to them, foster scepticism about an association between harm and morality existent in the Turiel tradition ( Kelly et al. , 2007 ). This article challenges their interpretation of the data. It does so by explicating some methodological problems in the Turiel tradition that Kelly et al. themselves in a way inherit and by drawing on new evidence (...) coming from a partial replication of their research. (shrink)

[Ronald de Sousa] Taking literally the concept of emotional truth requires breaking the monopoly on truth of belief-like states. To this end, I look to perceptions for a model of non-propositional states that might be true or false, and to desires for a model of propositional attitudes the norm of which is other than the semantic satisfaction of their propositional object. Those models inspire a conception of generic truth, which can admit of degrees for analogue representations such as emotions; (...) belief-like states, by contrast, are digital representations. I argue that the gravest problem-objectivity-is not insurmountable. /// [Adam Morton ] It is accuracy rather than truth itself that is valuable. Emotional truth is a dubious though attractive notion, but emotional accuracy is much easier to make sense of. My approach to accuracy goes via an account of what makes a story accurate. Stories can be accurate but not true, and emotions can be accurate whether or not they are true. The capacity for emotional accuracy, for emotions that fit a person's situation, is an aspect of emotional intelligence, which is as important an aspect of rational human agency as the intelligent formation of beliefs and desires. (shrink)

Emotions are Janus‐faced. They tell us something about the world, and they tell us something about ourselves. This suggests that we might speak of a truth, or perhaps two kinds of truths of emotions, one of which is about self and the other about conditions in the world. On some views, the latter comes by means of the former. Insofar as emotions manifest our inner life, however, we are more inclined to speak of authenticity rather than truth. What is the (...) difference? We need to distinguish the criteria of correspondence or appropriateness suitable for authenticity from those that embody the criterion of truth. Furthermore there is also a question about the transitions – among states of mind, and between states of mind and behaviour – that emotions encourage. This realm of transitions concerns rationality. After sketching the relevant distinctions, I will endeavour to justify the view that emotions should be appraised in terms of all three terms. (shrink)

Ivan Domingues é professor do Departamento de Filosofia da Universi­dade Federal de Minas Gerais. Seu livro, “Filosofia no Brasil: legados e perspectivas” foi publicado pela Editora UNESP, ele traz em sua obra um forte e pertinente problema que muitos estudiosos se debruçam afim de entender e esclarecer pontos sobre a filosofia no Brasil, e todo contexto histórico envolto dela.

Este artículo busca poner de manifiesto el pensamiento de María Zambrano en relación con la educación, para ello apelaremos a algunos de sus manuscritos: El Aula, La vida de las aulas, el espejo de las aulas y entre el ver y el escuchar, dado que los elementos allí tratados respecto al aula, la atención y los sentidos, actualmente cobran total vigencia, máxime si se considera que los avances tecnológicos proponen hoy al respecto una nueva re-significación, asunto que a su vez (...) conlleva nuevos desafíos para la comunidad académica, no obstante el llamado de la filósofa es que el docente, independientemente de los recursos que medien el proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje, procure mantener el sentido de humanidad que debe sustentar la acción educativa, en tiempos donde la deshumanización coloniza más terreno. (shrink)

La presente investigación con diseño metodológico experimental, de tipo cualitativa con un aprendizaje basado en método de observación a 15 estudiantes en cada grupo, como propuesta didáctica extracurricular, realizada dentro de la asignatura de Química General del tronco común en Ingeniería, implantada en tres semestres consecutivos 2018-1, 2018-2 y 2019-1, en el Laboratorio de Química, de la Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Campus Guadalupe Victoria del Valle de Mexicali, en Baja California, México. La materia de Química General, es de carácter (...) obligatorio y está ubicado en el segundo semestre del tronco común de las ciencias de la ingeniería. (shrink)

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo analisar o fenômeno do Totalitarismo no pensamento da filósofa alemã Hannah Arendt tendo como fio condutor a obra Origem do Totalitarismo. Verificaremos como a filósofa compreende o movimento totalitário e atuação do mesmo para capturar os seres humanos e destituí-los de todos os direitos usando para este fim os mais baixos artifícios, tais como os campos de concentração e o sistema propagandista ficcional. Focalizaremos especificamente no terceiro capítulo da obra supracitada, no qual a pensadora (...) apresenta os horrores das ditaduras e do Totalitarismo, revelando a face tenebrosa e cruel do homem. (shrink)

Emotions can be the subject of moral judgments; they can also constitute the basis for moral judgments. The apparent circularity which arises if we accept both of these claims is the central topic of this paper: how can emotions be both judge and party in the moral court? The answer I offer regards all emotions as potentially relevant to ethics, rather than singling out a privileged set of moral emotions. It relies on taking a moderate position both on the question (...) of the naturalness of emotions and on that of their objectivity as revealers of value: emotions are neither simply natural nor socially constructed, and they apprehend objective values, but those values are multi-dimensional and relative to human realities. The "axiological" position I defend jettisons the usual foundations for ethical judgments, and grounds these judgments instead on a rationally informed reflective equilibrium of comprehensive emotional attitudes, tempered with a dose of irony. (shrink)

Emotions can be the subject of moral judgments; they can also constitute the basis for moral judgments. The apparent circularity which arises if we accept both of these claims is the central topic of this paper: how can emotions be both judge and party in the moral court? The answer I offer regards all emotions as potentially relevant to ethics, rather than singling out a privileged set of moral emotions. It relies on taking a moderate position both on the question (...) of the naturalness of emotions and on that of their objectivity as revealers of value: emotions are neither simply natural nor socially constructed, and they apprehend objective values, but those values are multidimensional and relative to human realities. The axiological position I defend jettisons the usual foundations for ethical judgments, and grounds these judgments instead on a rationally informed reflective equilibrium of comprehensive emotional attitudes, tempered with a dose of irony. (shrink)

Proponer la existencia de filosofía en América Latina se convierte para muchos en un problema. Más dificultades se generarán ahora al proponer la existencia de una estética latinoamericana, teniendo como representante a un pensador colombiano: Nicolás Gómez Dávila. En medio de la obra de este pensador logramos entresacar una serie de códigos estéticos que, si bien están heredados de las concepciones europeas de la estética, podrían darnos atisbos de una mirada distinta otorgada por la observación de objetos y hechos generados (...) por el mestizaje sucedido en medio de tierras fértiles, agrestes y exuberantes como las de nuestra geografía. Realizar esta presentación implica repasar un legado existente, pero olvidado, por lo que actualizar una experiencia filosófica rica que, aunque presente, no se ha manifestado en nuestro medio de manera suficiente. Como objetivos principales de este ejercicio investigativo están: argumentar a favor del ejercicio filosófico realizado en Latinoamérica;proponer el ejercicio aforístico de Gómez Dávila como una aportación colombiana en torno a la estética filosófica; y repasar algunos tópicos estéticos que queremos entresacar en la obra de este autor para realizar un ejercicio hermenéutico de los mismos. Con este trabajo se espera alcanzar no solamente ecos en nuestro medio sino en las distintas latitudes donde ya el autor es reconocido, pero ahora desde la estética. La metodología empleada en esta investigación es realizada desde un ejercicio hermenéutico, en la perspectiva gadameriana. Esperamos proponer, como resultado principal, argumentos que corroboren las aportaciones de Gómez Dávila a la estética desde una perspectiva latinoamericana. Finalmente, concluimos que la estética de Gómez Dávila es de estilo clásicocon vínculos metafísicos, asociada a un canon griego y con una clara perspectiva cristiana, pero que ha sido elaborada por una mente perteneciente a un contexto latinoamericano, del cual no debemos extraer de ningún modo.AbstractTo suggest the existence of philosophy in Latin America becomes a problem for many. Even more difficulties are generated by proposing the existence of a Latin American Aesthetics, having as its representative a Colombian thinker: Nicolás Gómez Dávila. In the midst of this thinker’s work, we were able to identify a series of aesthetic codes which, although inherited from the European concepts of aesthetics, could give us glimpses of a different perspective given by the observation of objects and events generated by the miscegenation that took place in the midst of lush, rugged and fertile lands as those of our geography. To attempt his presentation involves reviewing an existing but forgotten legacy, and updating a rich philosophical experience that, although present, does not manifest in our environment sufficiently. The objectives of this research are: arguing for the philosophy made in Latin America; propose the aphoristic exercise of Gómez Dávila as a Colombian contribution to the field of aesthetics; and review some aesthetic issues that we want to conclude in the work of this author to conduct a hermeneutic exercise thereof. With this paper I expect to reach not only echoes in our philosophical community but in also in other latitudes where Gomez-Davila is already recognized, but now fromthe point of view of aesthetics. The methodology used in this research entailed a hermeneutic exercise, in the perspective of Gadamer. We propose some arguments supporting the contributions of Gómez-Dávila aesthetics from a Latin American perspective. Finally, we conclude that the aesthetics of Gómez-Dávila is of a classic style with metaphysical links, associated with a Greek canon and with a clear Christian perspective, but that it has been developed by a mind that belongs to a Latin American context, from which we cannot intend to separate it in any way. (shrink)