Decolonial approaches to technical design are part of a broader category of design methodologies, which actualize unfulfilled sociotechnical potentialities. In this paper, I present some decolonial theory concepts and discuss three decolonial approaches to illuminate philosophical debates that: 1) Can find in them clear traces of a third set of elements that shape every design/technology, along with the well-analyzed technical-scientific and ethical-political ones. In dialogue with Walter Vincenti and some others, I call these elements structured procedures, imagery lexicon, and aesthetical (...) values, which constitute the central aspects of Eugene Ferguson’s art of engineering; 2) Identify, starting from some Gilbert Simondon’s and Andrew Feenberg’s ideas, any invention as triply situated ; 3) Can be taught by these decolonial approaches about some of the mainstream philosophy of technology’s colonial limitations, becoming thus able to widen it. (shrink)

The brief life of the Accademia del Cimento (1657–1667), the first known society with a purely experimental programme,1 is entangled with the most surprising advancements in the history of scientific instruments of that century, from the telescope to the microscope, the thermometer to the barometer, the hygrometer to the pendulum as a time-regulator, and more. The making of instruments at the Florentine court shows the interaction of princely, scholarly and artisanal actors. This paper explores this collaboration and shows how the (...) supposed “invisibility’ of artisans depended on their proximity to the academicians and princes, who mainly communicated verbally with them, directly or through middlemen. The visibility of artisans increases proportionally to their physical distance from the Court. In this essay I unveil the identity of the artisans of the Cimento and, finally, attempt to attribute five instruments (some lost and others still extant) to specific makers, shedding light also on relations between the artisan and his patron. (shrink)

Roger Ames and François Jullien are eminent scholars writing on ancient Chinese thought, yet they have followed quite different paths in their academic research. In this paper I will argue that, although their styles, theories and motivations are sometimes dramatically different, both authors share an interest in combining philosophy and sinology in an effort to unveil the existence of a radical contrast between China and the West. I will explain that language is at the center of the affirmation of Chinese (...) otherness, insofar as it is seen as a reflection of the processual inclinations of ancient China. Thus, Ames and Jullien have developed a hybrid Chinese-Western language that seeks to bridge East and West, while at the same time respecting the boundaries and preserving the strangeness of both traditions. (shrink)

L'obiettivo del presente articolo è l'osservazione storica delle politiche della memoria nel Brasile contemporaneo, con particolare attenzione al periodo tra il 2019 e il 2022 (governo Bolsonaro). Dall'analisi delle azioni giudiziarie proposte da diversi attori sociali e politici, l'articolo propone una riflessione sulle temporalità coinvolte nelle politiche della memoria nel contesto post-dittatoriale, soprattutto dalla prospettiva delle vittime del regime.

This essay proposes that the only publication of the Accademia del Cimento, referred to as Saggi,Footnote11 Accademia del Cimento, Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell’ Accademia del Cimento sotto la protezione del serenissimo principe Leopoldo di Toscana e descritte dal segretario di essa Accademia (Firenze: Per Giuseppe Cocchini, 1667). had as one of its main goals the celebration of the House of Medici’s paternity of cutting-edge experiments and instruments during the reign of Grand Duke Ferdinando II. These included Ferdinando II’s (...) thermometers and hygrometers, Torricelli’s experiment and barometer, and Galileo’s pendulum as a clock-regulator. It seems that this agenda went unnoticed, not at the time of its initial circulation, but rather in modern historiography. Christiaan Huygens’s challenged invention of the pendulum clock provides a case study to explore the agenda of this publication and the problem of defining an invention in seventeenth-century Europe. This paper presents for the first time the document that attests to when the first specimen of Huygens’s clock arrived in Florence, disproving the previously believed date of September 1657. The paper argues that over the last two centuries, this error has made the Medici narratives of this dispute appear inconsistent and marginalized them. In light of this new find, they must be reconsidered. (shrink)

Andrew Feenberg is an essential author in the field of philosophy of technology. His ideas are particularly relevant in revealing the political dimension of technology, be it shaping society or being shaped by society. However, current Feenberg’s reflection fails to consider the internal domain of technical disciplines more rigorously. Indeed, he usually stops his analysis in the border between lifeworld (where the democratizing mobilizations occur and new/different requirements or values arise) and the technical disciplines. To identify and overcome this failure, (...) I articulate some elements from Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Yuk Hui. I also present the example of three decolonial (or empowering) technical interventions, which illustrate: how what Santos and Hui theorize is already being developed by some technical interventions in the Global South, and the impacts of such interventions on the technical teams (and, through that, also on the technical disciplines). (shrink)

In _Jesuit Philosophy on the Eve of Modernity_ Cristiano Casalini collects eighteen contributions by renowned specialists to track the existence and distinctiveness of Jesuit philosophy during the first century since the inception of the order.

Confronted by answering a complex question such as ‘What are the Limit(s) of Compromise?’ when ‘unpacking State-Society Relations in the Urban Space’, some problematising thoughts are offered to further elaborate urban studies by resorting to systems thinking and its leverage points concept. Both social and ecological issues are addressed, and specific references to Venice, Italy, are offered, including recent grassroot experiences. The dissertation includes some epistemological dilemmas and some initial projections to start to measure ourselves with a new epoch, able (...) to interact with all of the above: social, ecological, urban, and power/governance dimensions. (shrink)

Neste texto apresentamos considerações sobre o agendamento midiático-esportivo realizado em relação aos Jogos Pan-americanos Rio/2007, enfatizando aspectos teórico-conceituais da teoria do agendamento (agenda-setting), bem como evidenciando algumas estratégias utilizadas pela mídia no tocante ao evento, como a utilização de elementos da identidade nacional e a figura dos ídolos esportivos.

The decolonial theory understands that Western Modernity keeps imposing itself through a triple mutually reinforcing and shaping imprisonment: coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge, and coloniality of being. Technical design has an essential role in either maintaining or overcoming coloniality. In this article, two main approaches to decolonizing the technical design are presented. First is Yuk Hui’s and Ahmed Ansari’s proposals that, revisiting or recovering the different histories and philosophies of technology produced by humankind, intend to decolonize the minds of (...) philosophers and engineers/architects/designers as a pre-condition for such decolonial designs to take place. I call them top-down approaches. Second is some technical design initiatives that, being developed alongside marginalized/subalternate people, intend to co-construct decolonial sociotechnical solutions through a committed, decolonizing, and careful dialog of knowledge. I call them bottom-up approaches. Once that is done, the article’s second half derives ontological, epistemological, and political consequences from the conjugation of top-down and bottom-up approaches. Such consequences challenge some established or not yet entirely overcome understandings in the philosophy of technology and, in so doing, are meant to represent some steps in PT’s decolonization. Even though both top-down and bottom-up approaches are considered, the article’s main contributions are associated with decolonial technical design practices, whose methodologies and outcomes are important study cases for PT and whose practitioners can be taken as inspiring examples for philosophers who want to decolonize/enlarge PT or make it decolonial. (shrink)

This work presents the case of the Yanomami indigenous people from Brazil that were the object of US ethnography initiated in the 1960s. The research brought harmful repercussions to the life of the Indigenous people of Brazil for several decades, and it took more than 40 years until the beginning of a process of reparation involving the Brazilian government and American universities. Objective: to discuss the meaning of the return of Yanomami blood samples, as well as contributions from the epistemologies (...) of traditional Indigenous knowledge to the debate about research ethics and the structuring of means for the social control of researchers and the protection of participants in scientific studies, having as an example the Yanomami indigenous people from Brazil, subjected to noxious ethnography in the 1960s and the 1970s. This work used data reports recorded in secondary sources. In this article we argue that Bioethics needs to further diversify its epistemological foundations and to consider epistemologies and cosmologies beyond the frontiers of Western science, as the case of the abusive research involving the Yanomami indigenous people in Brazil reveals. We argue that traditional knowledge, such as those of indigenous and quilombolas, with their epistemologies and cosmologies, are fundamental for the election of less colonized and more efficient principles of research ethics, regarding the protection of the participants' rights in scientific studies. Traditional indigenous populations can teach us a great deal about doing research. (shrink)

Leibniz é um contumaz crítico das filosofias da tradição e de seus contemporâneos. No que se refere à questão do conhecimento, existe na filosofia leibniziana uma oposição clara às gnosiologias mais influentes e determinantes de seu tempo, no caso do cartesianismo, do empirismo e até mesmo do intuicionismo espinoseano. O ecletismo de Leibniz tomou forma a partir de suas críticas, que, segundo algumas interpretações, intentavam conciliar os mais diletos pontos de vista. No entanto, o pensamento de Leibniz envereda por outros (...) campos na questão do conhecimento, assim como o fez reconhecidamente na física, na matemática e na metafísica? Nos propomos a discutir alguns pontos desta questão demonstrando que a ideia de invenção de Leibniz constitui-se em um movimento contra a filosofia da tradição e já reflete a insatisfação do pensador acerca dos rumos tomados pelas ciências em geral no seu tempo. Tendo como base o embate contra o método geométrico, alicerçando-se sobretudo no método matemático, Leibniz estabelece um pensamento que concilia a um só tempo a luz da descoberta e o rigor da demonstração, tendo em vista poder voltar a navegar efetivamente no ‘oceano das ciências’ e em busca da felicidade humana. (shrink)

This article proposes a cost-benefit analysis of argumentation, with the aim of highlighting the strategic considerations that govern the agent's decision to argue or not. In spite of its paramount importance, the topic of argumentative decision-making has not received substantial attention in argumentation theories so far. We offer an explanation for this lack of consideration and propose a tripartite taxonomy and detailed description of the strategic reasons considered by arguers in their decision-making: benefits, costs, and dangers. We insist that the (...) implications of acknowledging the strategic dimension of arguing are far-reaching, including promising insights on how to develop better argumentation technologies. (shrink)

Butler’s idea of evolution was developed over the publication of four books, several articles and essays between 1863 and 1890. These publications, although never achieving the success expected by Butler, proposed a psychological elaboration of evolution, called ‘unconscious memory’. This was strongly in contrast with the materialistic approach suggested by Darwin’s natural selection. Starting with a historical introduction, this paper aspires to ascertain the logic, meaning and significance of Butler’s idea of ‘unconscious memory’ in the post-Darwinian physiological and psychological Pan-European (...) discussion. Particular attention is devoted to demonstrating that Butler was not only a populariser of science but also an active protagonist in the late Victorian psychological debate. (shrink)

In this article we strive to provide a detailed and principled analysis of the role of beliefs in goal processing—that is, the cognitive transition that leads from a mere desire to a proper intention. The resulting model of belief-based goal processing has also relevant consequences for the analysis of intentions, and constitutes the necessary core of a constructive theory of intentions, i.e. a framework that not only analyzes what an intention is, but also explains how it becomes what it is. (...) We discuss similarities and differences between our approach and other standard accounts of intention, in particular Bratman’s planning theory. The aim here is to question and refine the conceptual foundations of many theories of intentional action: as a consequence, although our analysis is not formal in itself, it is ultimately meant to have deep consequences for formal models of intentional agency. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre is often portrayed as a philosopher whose ethics would inevitably have subjectivist or relativist outcomes. Yet, even in Sartre’s early works there are several stances that blatantly belie this image, relying rather on an objectivist conception of value that he notably draws from Max Scheler. The aim of this paper is thus to investigate the influence of Scheler’s moral reflection on Sartre, arguing how it can represent an original and fruitful starting point to approach Sartrean ethics. To this (...) aim, we will first report on and discuss some passages from Sartre’s early works where this debt is most noticeable. Then, we will provide an overview of the Schelerean legacy, arguing how it represents for Sartre the very opening of the ethical issue addressable in phenomenological terms, avoiding the dead end of Hume’s and Kant’s more classical positions, while at the same time being consistent with other peculiar themes of Sartrean philosophy, namely existence and historicity. (shrink)

Chronology of Samuel Butler -- Introduction -- 1. Butler and the science of the mind: a pan-European discussion -- 2. Evolution: from literature to science and back again -- 3. The rise and fall of Butler's fame -- 4. An amateur among the professionals -- Conclusion: another story to tell.

We present an analysis of emotional experience in terms of beliefs and desires viewed as its minimal cognitive constituents. We argue that families of emotions can be identified because their members share some of these constituents. To document this claim, we analyze one family of emotions—which includes the feeling of inferiority, admiration, envy, and jealousy—trying to show that the distinctiveness of each emotion is due to the specific compound of beliefs and desires it implies, whereas the kinship among related emotions (...) is due to their sharing of cognitive or motivational components. Finally, we address the gestalt problem, that is, the question of how it is possible that emotions, although consisting of several “atomic” elements, are felt as unitary experiences. (shrink)

Muitos termos possuem um sentido técnico sem que ele seja evidente para todos, por exemplo, a "governança ambiental", termo que remete no contexto atual a uma participação cidadã nesse tipo de questão, por exemplo, da saúde de um ecossistema específico, tal como uma floresta ou um vale agrícola, a partir de preocupações partilhadas e não a partir de uma problemática de controle organizacional. Após ter tornado preciso o que é a expertise e quais são os principais problemas postos pelo recurso (...) à expertise nos contextos da ação cidadã, proponho que as expertises técnicas podem ser postas no mesmo patamar que outros tipos de expertise, referindo principalmente aos saberes comuns, à prática e à experiência concreta, dita "de campo", o que corresponde a uma ampliação. Sugere-se, então, o modelo de fórum híbrido como quadro teórico possível dessa reformulação da concepção de expertise. Many terms have a technical meaning although it is not evident for everyone, for example, the "environmental governance", term that refers in the present context to citizen participation on this type of question, for example, of the health of a specific ecosystem, such as a forest or an agricultural field, from shared preoccupations and not from a problematic of organizational control. After having made precise what is the expertise and what are the main problems posed by the recourse to the expertise in the contexts of citizen action, I propose that technical expertise can be tantamount to other types of expertise, referring mainly to profane knowledge, to the practice and concrete experience called "of field", which corresponds to an enlargement. Then it is suggested the model of an hybrid forum as a possible theoretical frame of this reformulation of the conception of expertise. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Since the 1980s, technical-scientific knowledge, instrumental and cognitive values as well as ethical-political values are acknowledged as constitutive parts of technology and its development. However, a fourth category of elements that shapes design continues to be largely neglected or unknown: image collections, aesthetical values, and structured procedures. Disregarding such elements impose limits on the technical development. In this manuscript, I present this fourth category elements, its impact on the designing practice, and a way of pluralizing its contents. I also (...) sketch two of the most successful approaches for democratizing the technical development. Then, I discuss: some limits and potentialities of democratizing technology; an actualization of part of Simondon’s understanding of technical development; the theoretical and practical necessity of decolonizing (or continuing the decolonization of) the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

Among the research that nowadays deals with the impact of digital technologies on attention, little is concerned with problematizing the theoretical premises about the nature of this cognitive faculty. Hence, even highly credited studies on digital distraction draw their conclusions from underexamined models of attention, despite them not being the only ones available. In our article we intend to focus on this problem, starting by discussing two case studies in the field of cognitive psychology and trying to show their theoretical (...) shortcomings when compared with an alternative model of attention. We will thus explore the account that a contemporary phenomenologist, Paul Sven Arvidson, has provided of attention and distraction. Finally, we will try to question the conclusions of the empirical studies by reframing them within Arvidson’s model, suggesting the importance of sharpening the definition of attention and distraction as preliminary work for investigating how the digital relates to them. (shrink)

Nosso trabalho almeja analisar a gênese da responsabilidade, segundo a fenomenologia levinasiana, tomando como enfoque a sensibilidade e em particular a afetividade descrita sob os traços do “sofrimento”. Em Lévinas, a dor indica um registro subjetivo em que impera a passividade e cuja ambigüidade se situa na tensão entre o sentido inter-humano e o absurdo do anonimato. O “sofrimento por” ganharia sentido na proximidade inter humana enquanto implica uma responsabilidade individual e inalienável.

The ongoing process of revising and rethinking the foundations of economic theory leads to great complexities and contradictions at the heart of economics. ‘Economics of innovation’ provides a fertile challenge to standard economics, and one that can help it overcome its many criticisms. This authoritative book from Cristiano Antonelli provides a systematic account of recent advances in the economics of innovation. By integrating this account with the economics of technological change, this exceptional book elaborates an understanding of the effects (...) of the introduction of new technologies. This excellent, comprehensive account from respected expert Antonelli will be much appreciated within the innovation economics community, yet it is also a book that should be read by all those with either a private or professional interest in economic theory. (shrink)

Resumo: O presente ensaio visa a interpretar o "Poema de Sete Faces", de Carlos Drummond de Andrade. O exercício de redução fenomenológica, a ambiguidade, a percepção e o corpo próprio, entre outros conceitos da Fenomenologia da percepção, de Merleau-Ponty, orientam o trabalho de leitura, estruturado a partir dos seguintes temas: o lado gauche, a correlação eu-mundo e a primazia do olhar. Tal procedimento de leitura reúne o poema hepta-partido em três faces ou tensões fundamentais, levando em conta os efeitos das (...) imagens.: The purpose of this essay is to interpret Carlos Drummond de Andrade's Poema de Sete Faces. Phenomenological reduction, ambiguity, and corporeality, among other concepts in the Phenomenology of Perception by Merleau-Ponty, lead and structure a reading based on the following themes: the left side, the correlation between self and world, and the primacy of perception. Such a reading brings together the seven part poem and dwivides it into three aspects or fundamental tensions, taking into consideration the effects of metaphor. (shrink)