The coronavirus epidemic has provoked changes in most spheres of public life and has given rise to many ways of rethinking in matters of security, economics, social philosophy, ethics and so on. Against the background of discussing global issues, some kind of simple but not problem-free perspective is being lost – the spectacle of an epidemic from the spectator’s point of view. This perspective is the most obvious, but requires further analysis. In quarantine conditions, spectator’s contact with the phenomenon is (...) entirely mediated by the screen determining his perception of the epidemic as a media phenomenon. Dividing the existential experience caused by the epidemic and the spectator’s experience, we put the former in parentheses and focus only on the latter, not being interested in the epidemic as a phenomenon, but in the “phenomenon of the epidemic on the screen”. It is the representation of the epidemic that is the problem: despite real-time broadcasting and the unprecedented “visibility” of the epidemic, quarantine visuality is eventless. Discussion of the epidemic captures the information field and its totality makes a claim to an exceptional event. However, its exclusivity is refuted historically, and eventfulness has no place in the philosophical sense. The spectacle remains – but its mode is specific. The brilliant analysis of spectacle by Guy Deborah and Jean Baudrillard in the case of a modern epidemic is inappropriate: the usual way of experiencing a spectacle in the case of an epidemic is changing – this spectacle is non-spectacular. The spectacle of an epidemic is a “quarantine spectacle”: isolated from “what is” and / or isolating spectators from it. Without displaying death, the screen does not reflect what is happening inside the epidemic itself. The fundamental representativeness of death is complemented by a number of invisibilities – the invisibility of the unceremoniously buried dead, the invisibility of isolated patients, the invisibility of physicians protected by their suits and, most importantly, the invisibility of the threat. However, since the screen cannot remain blank, it is filled with images of scarcity and absence: the image of an empty city is decisive for quarantine visuality. The representation of the epidemic, despite the fact that it is broadcast online as a constant update of statistics, avoids both eventness and entertainment. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to consider individual symptoms and areas of alienation in the history of mankind and in the modern information society, and the disclosure of its logic and patterns. Methodologically, the study is based on the historical, information and cybernetic approaches. The paper points to a positive feedback between the amount of knowledge in alienated form and figures of society, the development of its comprehensive intelligence. New forms of exclusion, which exist in the form of artificial (...) intelligence, robotics, and global computer networks, are analysed. The findings suggest a communicative model of the interaction of mankind with man-made external memory, which describes a non-linear process of communicating to it all human knowledge and intellectual abilities. It is emphasized that the contradiction between man and the material world created by him is the main contradiction of modernity. (shrink)

Aktualność badania spowodowana współczesnymi tendencjami srategicznego rozwoju Ukrainy skierowanego przede wszystkim na eurointegrację. Coraz więcej Ukraińców decyduje na podjęcie studiów w Polsce, którzy potrzebują poznania języka polskiego w stopniu pozwalającym swobodnie komunikować i opanowywać określone gatunki oraz wyrażać towarzyszące im funkcje językowe. Ustawienie zadania przewiduje analizę kategorii odbiorców kursów języka polskiego oraz ustalenie typologii i przyczyn najczęściej popełnianych błędów podczas uczenia się języka polskiego przez osoby słowiańskojęzyczne, na podstawie własnych doświadczeń autorów w nauczaniu języka polskiego jako obcego w Centrach Języka (...) i Kultury Polskiej w Zaporożu i w Berdiańsku. Głównym celem artykułu jest omówienie najczęściej spotykanych błędów pojawiających się podczas uczenia się języka polskiego jako obcego przez studentów ukraińsko- i rosyjskojęzycznych i przyczyny ich pojawienia się. Metodologia przewiduje wykorzystanie metod strukturalno-funkcjonalnych, porównawczych, aksjologicznych i innych metod i podejść, które pozwoliły na dogłębną analizę przedstawionych problemów i wytypowanie błędów popełnianych przez słuchaczy kursu języka polskiego. Za najważniejsze przyczyny błędów uznano homonimię międzyjęzykową oraz wpływ interferencji negatywnej. Analiza ostatnich badań i publikacji świadczy o aktualności podjętego tematu pod względem zwiększającej się popularności i atrakcyjności języka polskiego wśród Ukraińców oraz wzmocnienia i rozwoju relacji, jak politycznych tak i międzyludzkich między Ukrainą a Polską. (shrink)

Resumo: O presente artigo reflete sobre o tema da “responsabilidade” no pensamento filosófico de Hannah Arendt (1906 - 1975) e Emmanuel Lévinas (1906 - 1995) com a intenção de demonstrar as nuances e particularidades de cada autor e ao mesmo tempo realizando uma atualização da reflexão filosófica destes dois grandes pensadores do século XX. Para Arendt, o conceito de responsabilidade perpassa tanto o aspecto pessoal quanto coletivo acentuando a dimensão da política e aparece de forma sistemática em escritos a partir (...) do seu livro Eichmann em Jerusalém (1963). Já para Lévinas, o conceito de responsabilidade está intrinsecamente ligado à sua concepção de ética como filosofia primeira. Encontramos uma maior exposição deste conceito nas obras Totalidade e Infinito (1961), Ética e Infinito (1982), Deus, a Morte e o Tempo (1993), dentre outras. Ele tem por objetivo tirar a primazia da ontologia e assim propor um novo paradigma para o agir humano. Segundo Lévinas, a exterioridade do rosto manifesta-se quando o outro olha para mim, torno-me responsável por ele, de tal maneira que, mesmo tendo que assumir responsabilidade a seu respeito, a sua responsabilidade incumbe-me, ou seja, o rosto do outro me interpela, me prende em sua ética da responsabilidade. Podemos afirmar que há uma aproximação entre o pensamento de Hannah Arendt e Emmanuel Lévinas, na concordância de ambos, no fato de que não deve haver uma supervalorização do ‘eu’, mas a centralidade deve estar acentuada na alteridade, quer no cuidado com o mundo (Arendt), quer no cuidado com o Outro (Lévinas). (shrink)

É através do olhar que se inicia a relação com o outro. Em O Ser e o Nada, Sartre usa o exemplo da vergonha como um modo de ser da consciência na qual o outro surge como mediador do Para-si consigo mesmo, pois sinto vergonha de mim tal como apareço ao outro. Existe uma conexão entre mim e o outro, diferente de minha relação com os objetos. Quando sou visto, tenho consciência de mim, mas não sou o meu próprio fundamento, (...) tenho meu fundamento fora de mim através do outro. Pelo olhar, vivo a alienação de minhas possibilidades, pois o outro me objetiva. Ao ser objetivado, adquiro uma dimensão de exterioridade como se eu tivesse uma essência. Mas o homem por si mesmo não tem acesso à sua essência. A existência e a liberdade do outro me ameaçam, pois tendem a me imobilizar no Em-si. Entretanto, não coincido com a sua apreensão de mim, pois não posso me olhar como o outro me olha. Será sempre indecifrável para mim. Mas a qualquer momento posso devolver o olhar do outro, assim, colocando a mim mesmo em minha própria liberdade e afrontando a liberdade do outro. (shrink)

Quando olha atentamente para os detalhes de uma obra literária, o leitor mais perspicaz toma consciência de mecanismos que regem e organizam o texto com objetivos específicos para a economia da narrativa. No romance Memorial do Convento , de José Saramago (1994), a relação entre Literatura e Religião é um desses mecanismos, algo que se torna visível no confronto entre sagrado e profano, na inversão de seus valores e na afinidade entre “poder espiritual” e “poder temporal”, o que se (...) assemelha àquilo que Giacomo Marramao definiu como “jogo de espelhos”, ou seja, a “estatização” da Igreja e a “eclesiastização” do Estado. Investigar o estatuto do sagrado e da relação entre a Igreja e a corte portuguesa do século XVIII, analisando suas implicações na narrativa literária, constitui-se como objetivo primordial deste texto. Dessa forma, o artigo se insere no movimento atual que Umberto Eco chamou de “a volta ao pensamento religioso”, um retorno frenético a tudo o que diz respeito ao sagrado e que se situa na contracorrente do cientificismo iluminista, trazendo explicitamente de volta à literatura a “questão de Deus”. Palavras-chave: José Saramago. Literatura portuguesa. Religião. Sagrado. Profano.When the more insightful reader takes a careful look at the details of a literary work, he realizes mechanisms that govern and organize the text with specifics goals for the arrangement of the narrative. In the novel "Memorial do Convento", by José Saramago, the relationship between literature and religion is one of such mechanisms, which becomes visible in the confrontation between sacred and profane, as well as in the reversal of their values and in the affinity between "spiritual power" and "temporal power", resembling what Giacomo Marramao has defined as "game of mirrors", i.e. the "nationalization" of the Church and the "ecclesiastization" of the State. The present text aims to investigate the status of the sacred and the relationship between the Church and the Portuguese court in the 18th century, analyzing its implications in the literary narrative. This article is part of the current movement that Umberto Eco called “the come back to religious thought", one frenetic regress to everything that reports to the sacred, somewhat that is in the countercurrent of Enlightenment scientism, explicitly bringing back the "question of God" to literature. Keywords: José Saramago. Portuguese literature. Religion. Sacred. Profane. (shrink)

Esse texto, de caráter ensaístico, tem a finalidade de fazer algumasreflexões sobre a disputa ou suposto conflito que há entre dois elementos que se tornaram essenciais na constituição do domínio filosófico, de forma a verificar a sua contribuição no campo ético. De um lado, encontramos a dimensão racional, que, tem marcado e que adquiriu um certo predomínio no pensamento ocidental. De outro, a dimensão passional, que ao longo da história da filosofia, tem sido objeto de exclusões e de desvalorização, tornando-se (...) como se fosse um empecilho à formulação de ideias verdadeiras e de valores universais e substanciais. Se um olha o mundo enxergando ouatribuindo a ele um caráter necessário e essencial, o outro tende a reconhecer o aspecto contingente da realidade, vendo nela a possibilidade do acidental e do incerto. (shrink)

O presente texto procura colocar em diálogo reflexões do campo da Filosofia da Infância com os da Educação Infantil. Além das contribuições teóricas pretende fazer conexões com situações observadas em uma pesquisa de doutorado na qual as relações com o espaço e o tempo são entrelaçadas com as do corpo como experiência que surgem nas relações que as crianças estabelecem com seus machucados, ou como elas definem, seus ‘dodóis’. Nessas relações duas particularidades podem ser observadas: uma primeira é que as (...) crianças percebem o corpo como uma experiência contextualizada com o mundo social e material, ou seja, elas não percebem seus corpos separados dos espaços. Uma segunda particularidade é que as crianças trazem a possibilidade do tempo aión como uma aproximação à experiência, uma compreensão do tempo entrelaçado com pessoas, espaços, lugares e ações em que evidencia também relações, emoções e encontros. Dando seqüência as reflexões o texto pretende trazer para o diálogo também situações nas quais são tema entre as crianças as expressões dos sentimentos e das emoções e ainda situações que envolvem suas excreções como as ‘melecas’ e os ‘ranhos’ trazendo uma potencialidade para se pensar as relações entre corpo, infância e educação. A partir da compreensão de uma infância como experiência, como acontecimento que rompe com a história, pretende pensar indicações para uma infância da educação e não já apenas uma educação da infância. Essa necessidade de se pensar uma infância da educação, e não já apenas uma educação da infância parece simples, mas requer um outro ‘olhar’, requer ‘jogar fora’, ou pelo menos questionar, problematizar parte de nossa história para que seja possível pensar em condições de outras ordens, outros valores, enfim, outra educação. Ou seja, uma educação, em que se ‘olha’ não apenas os processos de desenvolvimento das crianças, mas também os seus conhecimentos, as suas produções, as suas manifestações, as suas preferências, as suas interações e particularmente as suas experiências. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

Nestes nossos tempos gerundistas e de valores-isopores o apelo ao eufemismo e à grandiloquência torna-se palavra de ordem e progresso. Oficinas mecânicas passam a ser chamadas de centros automotivos, açougues transmutam-se em butiques de carnes e sapatarias em recuperadoras de calçados.Daí a gente olha em volta e começa igualmente a não achar mais nem barbearias nem barbeiros.Quedê, perguntamos, a Tesoura de Ouro do Carlão? Pois seu salão ganhou a neomodernosa indicação de Cabeleireiro Masculino e virou ele esteticista capilar. Bate (...) daí saudade danada – possivelmente, diria. (shrink)

Este ensaio visual desdobra-se de uma pesquisa poética de mestrado na qual o corpo da pesquisadora-artista é tornado objeto de si em experimentação. Essa experimentação se dá a partir da produção de uma série de fotodobragens intitulada Mulher dobrada (2016-2019), realizada em um ambiente rural de origem. Com isso, busca pensar os processos de subjetivação do feminino. O conceito filosófico de dobra, presente nos estudos de filosofia de Michel Foucault e Gilles Deleuze é aberto ao ato físico de dobrar e (...) redobrar o corpo ao meio. Um corpo definido em múltiplas formas, que pertence, mas, por vezes, destoa de seu ambiente. Um corpo que nasce nos diferentes ambientes, aos quais sempre volta, como os ciclos das plantas e a persistência de suas paisagens. Um corpo que, em uma poética, pode criar novas relações e voltar diferente. Fechado em si, protege-se do que é externo. Ao mesmo tempo, seu exercício particular é exposto ao outro, espectador. De dentro e para fora do próprio corpo, através da imagem, o gesto repetido de dobrar-se ao meio testa sua resistência. Entre a ductilidade e a quebra, movimento e inoperância, entre continuidade e ruptura, pertencimento e estranheza, no entre, visa desafiar a anatomia e o olhar identificador do corpo de mulher conhecido, através de uma mulher que olha para si. (shrink)

A condição indígena no Brasil se apresenta atualmente de forma complicada. Tendo suas garantias constitucionais violadas, a existência desses povos tem sofrido sérios danos. A situação se torna mais complexa quando se olha para a Educação Escolar Indígena, cuja existência é garantida pela Constituição Federal e pela Lei 9.394/96. Este trabalho tem por objetivo analisar e discutir a revisão bibliográfica pertinente de modo a ampliar a produção de conhecimento sobre o tema. É uma pesquisa bibliográfica e analítica que justifica (...) à medida em que há a constante necessidade de atualização das discussões deste tema, porque é pertinente dadas as reais condições em que os indígenas vivem no Brasil. Nossos resultados apontam que é dever do Estado garantir e propiciar os meios adequados para a formação e promoção da educação escolar indígena, sem no entanto compartilhar conflitos de interesses que coloquem em xeque a sobrevivência das formas de ser dos povos indígenas. Concluímos que a educação escolar indígena pode ser fornecida pelo Estado a partir da formação de professores e educadores das próprias comunidades indígenas, que, conhecendo sua realidade e a de seu povo, pode ajudar na transformação da realidade de seu povo. Palavras-chave: direitos; estado; educação escolar; povos indígenas. (shrink)

Theories of autobiographical memory emphasise effortful, generative search processes in memory retrieval. However recent research suggests that memories are often retrieved directly, without effortful search. We investigated whether direct and generative retrieval differed in the characteristics of memories recalled, or only in terms of retrieval latency. Participants recalled autobiographical memories in response to cue words. For each memory, they reported whether it was retrieved directly or generatively, rated its visuo-spatial perspective, and judged its accompanying recollective experience. Our results indicated that (...) direct retrieval was commonly reported and was faster than generative retrieval, replicating recent findings. The characteristics of directly retrieved memories differed from generatively retrieved memories: directly retrieved memories had higher field perspective ratings and lower observer perspective ratings. However, retrieval mode did not influence recollective experience. We discuss our findings in terms of cue generation and content construction, and the implication for reconstructive models of autobiographical memory. (shrink)

No livro Plato’s Philosophers, Catherine Zuckert olha para o Timeu de Platão de maneira renovada e revive implicitamente a tese de A. E. Taylor, segundo a qual Timeu não fala por Platão. Taylor devotou seu escrupuloso comentário de 1927 para construir esse argumento, o qual, porém, encalhou diante da questão colocada dez anos depois por F. M. Cornford, no livro Plato’s Cosmology : “Qual poderia ter sido o seu motivo?” O motivo de Platão era tanto pedagógico quanto parmenídico: assim (...) como a deusa expõe o peregrino à “Via da Opinião” depois da revelação da “Verdade”, assim também o Timeu de Platão expõe o leitor a um relato poético de uma cosmologia baseada na visão – outro kosmo/j e0pe/wn a0pathlo/j – depois da revelação, feita na República V-VII, da ontologia platônica puramente inteligível. (shrink)

The concept of an appearance is bona fide and rule‐governed. It is such that appearances can be shared, which suggests that a visual appearance is a complex universal, compounded out of colour and spatial appearance. The only appearance material objects have is their look, because uniquely in the case of sight when the Attention lands upon its colour it lands upon the object, and it lands upon the object through landing upon its secondary quality. We experience the visual appearance when (...) we perceive the bearer to be endowed with those visible qualities that visually individuate it for us. Now the primary appearance in Physical Reality is the look of a material object, a ‘look in the round’, upon which aspect‐appearance is dependent. The relation between the two is charted, together with the vital role of the understanding in experiencing ‘looks in the round’, an experience that depends upon knowledge of the objective physical situation in which it occurs. Finally, the criteria of visibility are spelt out. (shrink)

Rationality of state is essential to consciousness, and depends both on self‐knowledge and on mental activeness—and above all upon the mental activity of thinking. What contribution does the overall activeness of the stream of consciousness make to the obtaining of consciousness? It firstly contributes to the epistemological and perceptual function, through ordering perceptual process. But it secondly conditions the intelligibility of the stream of consciousness of the conscious. The least apparently active experiences of the conscious, such as daydreaming, are shown (...) to be intentionally active, along with the others. This activeness makes possible rationality and explanatorial pellucidity in the development of that ‘stream’, which would otherwise be absent, because of the close link between activeness and rationality. This internal intelligibility has epistemological repercussions, for it is a necessary condition for making sense of the outer phenomenal world. (shrink)

The stream of consciousness of the waking conscious manifests both meaningfulness and interiority as the dream does not. The variety of meaning involved is spelt out. It emerges that it is a derivative of the overall mental activeness of consciousness together with the fact that the activeness pre‐eminently includes the thinking process. This is the one active experiential line that carries its own rationale, for thinking is a mental willing, which par excellence knows where it is going, indeed is the (...) meaning‐giver par excellence in the mind. The nature of thinking is investigated, including the rationale of its close link with the use of language. Thinking is an active process of engendering phenomena in one's understanding, whose object is a changing entity expressed in the symbolism that encapsulates thought. It lies at the heart of consciousness, being the custodial agency responsible for the continuing state of rationality necessary for the state, and is coincident with the interiority of that state. (shrink)

Proprioception is true perceiving. It and touch form a closely linked mutually dependent yet diverse pair. The puzzle whereby the demands upon the Attention of proprioception are no distraction in instrumental action is resoluble through the fact that the internal active content within an instrumental deed is a harmonious hierarchy. The ‘long‐term body image’ is a causally posited something whose content encompasses body shape, which is a necessary but insufficient condition of proprioception of body shape and posture. It is distinct (...) from the ‘short‐term body image’, which designates the internal content of the proprioceptive perception of the body at any moment. The main philosophical problem consists in assembling a bona fide veridical concept of the long‐term image. Reasons for positing it begin with the common content in the short‐term images over lengthy periods. But they must be supplemented by the fact that bodily sensations do not represent body shape, being already dependent on body‐awareness for both individuation and position. Only through hypothesizing a long‐term image can one make sense of proprioception. Reasons are given for believing the body image is a dispositional psychological phenomenon, it is one and the same when explaining proprioception and sensation‐location, it is an empirical postulate, and even though it falls short of being an a priori necessity, it is as deeply embedded in animal existence as proprioception. (shrink)

What is implicit in a typically human perception of a material object? First, perceivability is a contingent property of its bearer, relative to perceiver and conditions. Typically, human perception is special in involving the use of concepts and an awareness of object‐structures. When we visually recognize a material object, an almost limitless array of properties and procedures are by implication condensed into an instant: one entertains multiple beliefs, and posits at a distance, multiple properties. Then the experiential integration of the (...) almost limitless visual evidence of a material object is dubbed ‘constituting the material object out of experience’. Central concepts in doing so are those of side, outside, surface, interior, and part. The most important of these experiential syntheses is the spatial, whose unit is the 3D‐seeing of object‐sides, a concept that depends upon those of 2D/3D and 2D/2D seeing. Two vitally important elements in this procedure are, first, the work of the understanding, second, an awareness of the objective physical situation of perceiver and object. (shrink)

Self‐awareness—knowledge of self and of one's mental states—is of central importance in ensuring the properties constitutive of consciousness in rational beings. A modified Cartesian thesis is defended: that a well‐formed state of self‐conscious wakefulness is such that the present contents of that mind must be insightfully given to its owner. This is demonstrated through investigating four different states in which insight is diminished and consciousness absent or impaired: sleep, trance, intoxication, and psychosis. These states are analytically explored, and the thesis (...) proven in each case. It emerges that the very items that constitute consciousness in unthinking animals, do the same in thinking animals, only in a more developed form. The differentia of the state of self‐conscious wakefulness is analysed into the co‐presence of a syndrome of mutually necessitating properties : self‐knowledge, rationality, freedom, thinking, etc. When this syndrome is conjoined with the availability of the perceptual attention, together with experience, the state is fully constituted. This is the answer to the fundamental question: what is consciousness? (shrink)

Secondary qualities are essential to sight, hearing, smell, and taste, and correspond to the sensations definitive of each sense. They are relative, first to which beings they appear to, secondly to the conditions under which they do so. Dispositionist analyses are examined, along with materialist, and rejected: the former because colour is predicable of after‐images, the latter because a disjunct of material properties in principle ‘found’ any secondary quality. While attributions to physical objects are relative, attribution to sensations are absolute: (...) sensations of red are absolutely, intrinsically, essentially red. ‘Red’ names the look predicable necessarily of the sensation of red and contingently and derivatively of much else. What is of central importance to the secondary quality, indeed the rationale behind the very concept, is that it is the only psychological phenomenon that can be an immediate material or external object of noticing. From this unique property, compounded with the psycho‐physical nomic situation governing its objectification, flows the special utility of the secondary quality. Namely, to take its place as material object for the Attention in an experience in which it simultaneously qualifies a whole string of causally interrelated items: sensation, light, surface, side, and object. (shrink)

In perception, objects come to the attention. Accordingly, one might come to believe that ‘The Attention’ names the capacity to harbour events of the specific idiosyncratic type, noticing. In fact it signifies an experiential mental space to which objects can come in perception and, which can contain experiences. After all, many mental phenomena other than perception require awareness if they are to so much as exist, e.g. emotion and thought, thanks to being experiences. That experiential space is of limited extent, (...) for at any moment the mind can experience so much and no more. Indeed, the space is no more than the existence of such a limit, and has no autonomous existence other than the fact of that limit, and it is a dangerous illusion to hypostatize the limit as a real space, leading one to misunderstand what it is to experience an experience. Then there is reason for supposing that the experiences of the moment constitute a system. This circle or centre of awareness is the Attention. And it is to this Attention that perceived existents come—as object. This happens when a noticing or perceiving occurs. (shrink)

The definition of perception is defended by piecemeal assembling of the concept of perception. We begin with the assumption that some event is an intentionally directed experience; add that it is of a type that aspires to ‘success’‐status, as seem‐see and try‐act aspire to status see and act ; and add that the object actually exists, and that the ‘aspiration’ is successful. Now this complex property fits both action and perception. Then to define action we have the need of a (...) further and indefinable concept, that of will, whereas to define perception we have all the conceptual material we need, for we need no more than the concepts, experience, and object. Perception is unique in being the only experience that finds its identity under the concept of experience, for it is merely awareness or experience taking an extensional object. Then since consciousness and experience are universal to any account of mind, perception likewise must have a position of centrality in the mind. It is an a priori‐given a priori‐definable concept, built out of a priori‐given concepts.. (shrink)

The topic is the state of wakeful consciousness. Of what kind is this state? It is the pre‐eminent and ‘founding father’–species of the genus, state of consciousness, all other species being privative derivatives from the original. Consciousness, which is endowed with necessary properties, is constituted‐by rather than the cause‐of its necessary properties. These last include the negative properties of lacking an intentional object, of not being the perception of anything, and of being inexperiencable, together with the following positive properties: encompassing (...) experience, accessibility of the perceptual attention, suitable mode of belief‐formation, obligatory mental activeness together with immediate acquaintance with past and future, and conditional availability of the bodily will. This is a characterization of the consciousness of both rational and non‐rational animals. (shrink)

Modern ethico-philosophical literature treats spirituality as a value characteristic of moral consciousness, although spirituality is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Therefore, this one-sided approach is wrong. In considering this problem, two approaches were identified: theological and purely philosophical. In philosophical thought, the understanding of spirituality as a qualitative characteristic of consciousness, actions and actions of a person, its ability to do good for the benefit of society, its people, and the state, was affirmed. And if so, any person, regardless of (...) his or her outlook, is spiritual. (shrink)

I argue that culture is not essential to race by considering the strongest and most persuasive contemporary articulation of the view that culture is essential to race—that provided by Chike Jeffers I then argue for the possibility of conceiving of race without adverting to culture by presenting the minimalist conception of race I developed in Rethinking Race as an example of a conception of race that makes no reference to culture. I next show how the ancestry-related features of culture that (...) might be thought to be racial but fall outside of the minimalist race can be captured in a minimalist conception of ethnicity. I finally explain why we are better off conceiving of race in a way that does not advert to culture and conclude. (shrink)

Are new democracies with divided government and volatile parties politically ill fated? The literature suggests so, but cases of emergent democracies such as Taiwan and Brazil that face both conditions defy the prediction. This paper explains why: party volatility follows from pursuing distinct executive and legislature agendas under divided government; the political ambition that underlies these conditions sustains democratic and even political performance. We evaluate the argument through government spending in Taiwan. The results corroborate our expectations: they show more parties (...) composing the legislature as government spending favors an executive agenda and neglects a legislative welfare-spending agenda. The findings make three contributions to the literature: first, they reveal a political divide between executive and legislature rather than ideological parties to undercut concerns regarding performance. Second, they demonstrate that the strategic use of government spending to institutionalize party development along an executive agenda fuels party fragmentation. Third, they show that legislators split, switch, or create alternative routes to office in reaction to strategic spending to underscore that ambition underlies party volatility and divided government. (shrink)

Towards Justice and Virtue challenges the rivalry between those who advocate only abstract, universal principles of justice and those who commend only the particularities of virtuous lives. Onora O'Neill traces this impasse to defects in underlying conceptions of reasoning about action. She proposes and vindicates a modest account of ethical reasoning and a reasoned way of answering the question 'who counts?', then uses these to construct linked accounts of principles by which we can move towards just institutions and virtuous lives.

Oliver Sacks MD, Clinical Professor of Neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, talked with Anthony Freeman during his visit to London in January 1995 to publicize his recently published book An Anthropologist on Mars. The interview is preceded by an overview of the book.

James O. Young seeks to explain why we value music so highly. He draws on the latest psychological research to argue that music is expressive of emotion by resembling human expressive behaviour. The representation of emotion in music gives it the capacity to provide psychological insight--and it is this which explains a good deal of its value.

The paper defines dialogic rationality and shows a rational path and understanding from the individual point of view. A separate discipline or discourse should coordinate the urgent need of deeper emotional transformation (metanoia) and explore the appearance of inner spiritual connectedness. This will establish the importance of every unique creature in the universe. Consequently in postmodernism, epistemology can no longer be accomplished by a “clear” cognitive theory, separated from ontological and anthropological elements. Cognition can no longer progress to an unchangeable, (...) non-falsifiable knowledge, because of changes within the object’s inner ontological level. Thus an observer can only interpret the phenomena but can never say “the last word”. Human cognition is based on time-coordinates when an observer tries to make a projection before the future has come. Yet existing now, it also contains the step back to the past as a shore of memory, experience, and knowledge. In this view history is considered to be non-linear—it is a complicated forward process, still continuously going back to the origin of human correlations with nature. A dialogic approach does not reject the importance of self-organizing processes, but tries to compose a sphere of acknowledgeable co-existence with the other to save the whole specter of human physical and mental, existential and creational features. Facing rational or mystical, but still radical, transformation, we get a sense of self-existence and can actively work and challenge ourselves to realize this in every-day life and in communication with the other. (shrink)

In this article, the author analyzes the concept of religious foundations of culture and power as a problem of Russian political consciousness. The paper reveals the patterns of interaction between the religious and political traditions of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. The author provides Bargradsky project case as a unique example of such influence, identifying its mean in the later Russian Empire’s political history. Philosophical-political case that is analyzed in the article makes it possible to trace the (...) inner links between religious attitudes and political imagination of Russian monarchical circles and to identify the peculiarities of religious and political self-awareness of Russian power, its mechanisms for the selecting the ideas, symbols, images of the national political, religious and artistic culture in the last period of the Russian Empire. From our point of view, it would be most effective to combine the cultural-historical and the philosophical and historical approaches both in the reconstruction of Bargradsky project and in studies of Russian political culture. The article examines both the political conditions of activities and spiritual-cultural goals of Bargradsky Committee on Bargradsky project in Italian Bari as well as in Saint Petersburg in the 1910s. The author discusses the religious concept of Russian political culture, applying philosophical-historical method for the analyses Bargradsky Committee activity and its attempt to slow down the degradation of the Russian autocracy. The major emphasis is placed on the political and philosophical way of analysis as well as on the possibility of introducing the results of philosophical-historical research into current debates on the issue of alternatives to Russian history. (shrink)

We define in precise terms the basic properties that an ‘ideal propositional paraconsistent logic’ is expected to have, and investigate the relations between them. This leads to a precise characterization of ideal propositional paraconsistent logics. We show that every three-valued paraconsistent logic which is contained in classical logic, and has a proper implication connective, is ideal. Then we show that for every n > 2 there exists an extensive family of ideal n -valued logics, each one of which is not (...) equivalent to any k -valued logic with k < n. (shrink)

This study is aimed at evaluating the influence of the god of iron on ironworking communities in Ǹsúkkā cultural area. In the study area, the Supreme God – Chúkwú Òkìkè, Chínēkè or Chúkwú Ábíàmà is believed to control the affairs of humanity. He is worshipped through intermediaries such as Ányánwù [Sun God], Àmádíòhà, Áhàjīōkù [fertility goddess], Àlà [earth goddess] and the god of iron, which is called by different names in the study area such as Ékwéñsū-Úzù, Òkóró-Údùmè, Chíkèrè Àgùrù and (...) Áshéné. But, how effective is the god of iron in the study area? To provide answers to this question, ethnographic research method, involving in-depth structured interviews, field observation and photographic documentations, was used to gather data on the subject matter while data collected were analysed descriptively. This article is of the view that the influence of the god of iron in the study area is whittling down as a result of Westernisation and Christianity.Contribution: The study indicates an increasing resistance to the Euro-centrism, which has suppressed beliefs in the god of iron and the associated practices. (shrink)

This paper rejoins the debate surrounding Thomas Tymockzko’s paper on the surveyability of proof, first published in the Journal of Philosophy, and makes the claim that by attending to certain broad features of modern conceptions of proof we may understand ways in which the debate surrounding the surveyability of proof has heretofore remained unduly circumscribed. Motivated by these historical reflections, I suggest a distinction between local and global surveyability which I believe has the promise to open up significant new advances (...) in the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)