There is a debate in philosophy and cognitive science over whether concepts – the building blocks of thought—are couched in a perceptual modality or are amodally represented. The empirical evidence so far collected seems not to have adjudicated this question yet, as reinterpretation of the same set of evidence by both supporters of modalism and amodalism have been provided. I offer a critique of such reinterpretations, arguing that they ultimately derive from theoretical problems in the definition of a modal representation. (...) In particular, I will review three criteria which have been offered to distinguish amodal concepts from modal ones: the isomorphism criterion, the neural location criterion, and the input specificity criterion. I will explain how these criteria often lack theoretical clarity, making it possible in most cases to propose a parsimonious explanation of the same set of data from both an amodalist and a modalist perspective. As a result, it becomes impossible to empirically discriminate between the two interpretations. My conclusion is that the main problem with the discussed criteria is that they frame the question on the format of concept as an either/or debate, by overlooking more interesting empirical questions. (shrink)

Experimental Semiotics (ES) is the study of novel forms of communication that communicators develop in laboratory tasks whose designs prevent them from using language. Thus, ES relates to pragmatics in a “pure,” radical sense, capturing the process of creating the relation between signs and their interpreters as biological, psychological, and social agents. Since such a creation of meaning-making from scratch is of central importance to language evolution research, ES has become the most prolific experimental approach in this field of research. (...) In our paper, we report the results of a study on the scope of recent ES and evaluate the ways in which it is relevant to the study of language origins. We coded for multiple levels across 13 dimensions related to the properties of the emergent communication systems or properties of the study designs, such as type of goal (coordination versus referential), modality of communication, absence or presence of turn-taking, or the presence of vertical vs. horizontal transmission. We discuss our findings and our classification, focusing on the advantages and limitations of those trends in ES, and in particular their ecological validity in the context of bootstrapping communication and the evolution of language. (shrink)

This book is a comprehensive, analytical study of the way the mind/body dichotomy has perpetuated social hierarchy on the basis of gender. It challenges the tradition of dualism and argues that the term “rational woman” is not a contradiction in terms. Having investigated the two major dualisms contained in the term “rational woman”, the author develops an argument for a new relational conception of all the terms involved in “rational woman”, emphasizing the relationship of interdependence of reason and emotion, man (...) and woman, rather than placing these terms in hierarchical and polarized opposition. (shrink)

The Alternative University: Lessons from Bolivarian Venezuela explores the educational reforms undertaken under late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavéz. Focusing on the University of Bolivarian Venez...

The combination of single material elements characterises Nespolo’s artworks since the 60s. The primacy of art factuality - to do art manually - emerges both in his geometrically structured works and in his machines and wooden uniconic structures. These are all combined and based on the strategy of puzzle and on a reflection about the mental attitude to do art. For these reasons, it is possible to consider Nespolo as a forerunner of Conceptual Art.

Esse artigo pretende explorar os temas do estatuto e da função do intelectual em dois autores significativos para a questão a partir do século XX: Julien Benda e Jean-Paul Sartre. Trata-se de revisitar as noções de autonomia e engajamento, fundamentais para uma compreensão comparativa entre os dois autores. O texto procura caracterizar de forma ampla o tipo de intelectual defendido por Benda no mesmo passo em que procura evidenciar a gênese e as condições de aparecimento do intelectual para Sartre. O (...) Caso Dreyfus, momento histórico de surgimento do intelectual como o conhecemos, é revisitado a fim de estabelecermos um referencial concreto para as posições dos autores em discussão. A partir dos elementos levantados, procura-se argumentar no sentido das divergências entre Benda e Sartre sobre a natureza e o papel do intelectual, mas também propõe-se evidenciar o solo comum em que os dois autores parecem trafegar. O texto, ainda, aponta questões para se pensar o intelectual a partir das novas condições políticas e sociais na contemporaneidade. (shrink)

Nesse artigo, empreenderemos uma reflexão sobre a analítica do poder em Michel Foucault. Nossa intenção é percorrer a produção foucaultiana a partir de meados dos anos setenta até início dos anos oitenta, buscando compreender os deslocamentos ou “reviravoltas” pelos quais o conceito de poder sofreu ao longo do tempo. Procuraremos mostrar que é possível identificar três momentos na pesquisa de Foucault. Em primeiro lugar, ao tentar se afastar da tradicional compreensão jurídica-discursiva do poder, ele introduz uma análise inédita a respeito (...) da dinâmica do poder disciplinar e dos micropoderes que compõem o campo social. Pode-se considerar esse um deslocamento, de modo geral, em relação à tradição política ocidental. Com o curso Em defesa da sociedade encontramo-nos diante de uma modificação na compreensão do poder, ao identificá-lo como guerra ou luta. Por fim, com a introdução dos conceitos de biopoder/biopolítica, Foucault é levado a uma grande expansão de suas pesquisas, tematizando conceitos que não faziam parte de seu interesse até então, como, por exemplo, o conceito de Estado. É nesse contexto que o conceito de governo fará sua entrada nas reflexões de Foucault. Entendemos que o conceito de governo se configura como um refinamento e, igualmente, deixa mais ampla e complexa sua análise do poder a fim de dar conta do presente político. (shrink)

In The Science of Culture and the Phenomenology of Styles, Renato Barilli examines the history of artistic style in relation to scientific discovery. Applying an innovative analysis, he illustrates the subtle, yet intrinsic, connection between paradigm shifts in the sciences and in the arts. Barilli argues that there are "homologies," or equivalences, between specific discoveries or inventions and revolutionary advances in artistic techniques. He draws upon the pioneering work of Lucien Goldman, who provides the fundamental definition of "homology," as (...) well as the theories of Luciano Anceschi and Marshall McLuhan in order to reassess conventional modes of dividing art history into such periods as modern, contemporary, and postmodern. By correlating moments like the invention of the printing press and the internal combustion engine with canonical periods in the evolution of art, Barilli unearths conceptual links across domains and disciplines. An insightful reflection on the historic perspectives of cultural production, The Science of Culture and the Phenomenology of Styles sheds new light on the relationship between visual culture, art, and language. (shrink)

Uma concepção de cosmopolitismo, de base eurocêntrica, é questionada por pensadores como K. A. Appiah, Walter Mignolo, Silviano Santiago entre outros, para buscar possíveis ressemantizações do termo no contexto contemporâneo, marcado pela globalização, pelo multiculturalismo e pela expansão das novas tecnologias de comunicação. Considerando esse confronto de noções de cosmopolitismo, indaga-se como se deu a interpretação do Brasil no início do século XX, quando recrudesceram as tensões entre cosmopolitismo e nacionalismo. Busca-se, por outro lado, confrontar tais interpretações com as que (...) surgem no início do século XXI, quando a nação vai deixando de ser o centro de um sistema de significação, em tempo heterogêneo e de globalização, em que se pode falar em “cosmopolitismo do pobre” (cosmopolitismo do subalterno), como formulou Silviano Santiago. (shrink)

The contemporary theological discourse is still understood as something restricted to the ecclesiastical and clerical ambit. Nevertheless, the theologian's task to use new languages to reach new fields and ease the dialogue still remains. It is observed as even more complex in a plural scene as the present days. For this reason, the narrative, as a theological language, presents a reading key to Christology, used by the contemporary french theologian, Joseph Moingt. Through this key, it is supposed to give a (...) relevant and convincing answer to the question repeated all the time: who is Jesus of Nazareth and what he means for our relationship with God? (shrink)

Em A transcendência do Ego, primeiro ensaio filosófico de Sartre, recusa-se a presença do Ego na consciência. Apropriando-se da fenomenologia de Husserl, Sartre critica as posições filosóficas e psicológicas que transformaram o Ego num habitante da consciência. O presente artigo se propõe a examinar a tese de Sartre e delinear o alcance de suas considerações para a psicologia e para a filosofia. Trata-se de momento importante da trajetória de Sartre porque nele podemos identificar as primeiras preocupações do filósofo, assim como (...) compreender o alcance da fenomenologia em obras posteriores. (shrink)

In this book, Spinoza's political theory is examined through an analysis of his engagement with the practical politics of his day in the United Provinces. 17th-century Dutch history, political life and political thought, and in particular Dutch republicanism, represent an important context in which to discuss Spinoza's political philosophy. The significance of Spinoza's republicanism is highlighted in a comparison with English political thought and its presuppositions in the 17th century.

Annotated logics were introduced by V.S. Subrahmanian as logical foundations for computer programming. One of the difficulties of these systems from the logical point of view is that they are not structural, i.e., their consequence relations are not closed under substitutions. In this paper we give systems of annotated logics that are equivalent to those of Subrahmanian in the sense that everything provable in one type of system has a translation that is provable in the other. Moreover these new systems (...) are structural. We prove that these systems are weakly congruential, namely, they have an infinite system of congruence 1-formulas. Moreover, we prove that an annotated logic is algebraizable (i.e., it has a finite system of congruence formulas,) if and only if the lattice of annotation constants is finite. (shrink)

Due to the advent of modern neuroscience, several scientific disciplines have developed entirely new theories, perspectives, and methodologies. The substantial advances and discoveries made in this field over the last decades, especially those concerned with human cognition and behavior, have steered the course of many traditional research areas and given rise to others, like neuroethics and neurolaw. Here we take a look at some of the general characteristics of the growing field of neurolaw, an interdisciplinary field that dwells on the (...) intersection of law and neuroscience. We then discuss the neuroscience of free will, one of the most impacting and pressing topics in the neurolaw debate, with special attention to Libet’s paradigm, recent scientific developments, and novel interpretations that question customary assumptions about it. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é analisar a crítica de Waldron a Rawls, feita no livro “Law and Disagreement”. Queremos saber se nessa crítica está implícita a ideia de que Rawls faz uma má idealização. Para fazer isso, teremos, em primeiro lugar, que esclarecer o que é uma “teoria ideal” e o que são boas ou más idealizações. Falaremos sobre essas distinções na primeira seção do artigo. Waldron ataca a alegada incapacidade da teoria de Rawls de tratar seriamente os desacordos sobre (...) princípios políticos. A exposição dessa crítica e a análise de seu desenrolar vai ocupar as parcelas mais significativas do artigo, e será feita nas seções seguintes. Ao fim da análise, defenderemos que, apesar de a crítica de Waldron ser forte, ela não implica que há más idealizações de Rawls. (shrink)

This article is a belated contribution to a Common Knowledge symposium on the “unanticipated conceptual practice” of “anthropological philosophy.” The basic argument is that the groundwork for this emerging approach, associated foremost with Eduardo Viveiros de Castro's book Métaphysiques cannibales of 2009, was laid in the 1970s by the controversial French anthropologists Pierre and Hélène Clastres. It is argued that the Clastres took the intellectual practices of Guarani shamans and prophets as analogous to the those of ancient Greek philosophers but (...) also as sharply critical of the principles that underlay early Western metaphysics. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende abordar a importância do ensino de Filosofia para a formação intelectual do jovem estudante, pelo fato de possibilitar o desenvolvimento do senso crítico nas suas mais diversas manifestações. Ressalto também o caráter de criatividade que está presente na reflexão filosófica, pois tal prática se consolida como uma doação de significados e valores por parte daquele que filosofa.

O artigo aborda a calamidade pandêmica da COVID-19 a partir de um enfoque que conecta perspectivas filosóficas, políticas e econômicas na compreensão desse caos global. Disposições éticas são analisadas na tentativa de se mitigar os efeitos deletérios da pandemia na vida humana, assim como os fatores governamentais e corporativos que impedem maior capacidade de enfrentamento da COVID-19, para maior prejuízo da humanidade.

L’œuvre de Gaston Bachelard n’est pas toujours prise en considération dans le cadre de l’histoire de l’esthétique française. S’il est vrai que le philosophe n’a pas élaboré une théorie esthétique accomplie, ses travaux sur l’imagination et la rêverie non seulement démontrent une connaissance des débats théoriques de l’époque, mais, plus profondément, représentent une prise de position en faveur d’une « esthétique concrète » qui s’écarte des stériles disputes philosophiques d’académie pour s’appuyer directement sur la présence matérielle de l’œuvre d’art, aussi (...) poétique que visuelle, afin de réintégrer le sentir dans le penser. Il s’agit donc d’interroger cette manière de réintégrer l’ aisthesis dans le logos à travers le travail de l’imagination, en retrouvant ainsi « une unité du monde ». C’est précisément dans la rencontre avec la beauté que le sujet s’ouvre au monde de façon pré-catégoriale et, en même temps, que le monde fait l’objet d’une expérience non-objective. Cela ouvre la voie à une esthéticité transcendantale jamais théorisée explicitement, mais concrètement mise au travail dans les œuvres du philosophe. (shrink)

Philosophy has often appropriated the reflexive element of literature disembodying the sensible idea from the text, thus exercising a coercive violence against literature, reduced to a simple epiphenomenon of a meta-literary discourse. Philosophy tends to appropriate the sensitive content of literature as a raw material to be integrated into a broader conceptual framework dissolving, in fact, the tensional truth implicit in the novelistic structure as Lukács put it. Literary experience cannot be reduced to a mere conceptual structure, to a pure (...) speculative form, but must be investigated as a possibility of grasping sensible ideas embodied in the literary space, following a path indicated by Merleau-Ponty. Sensible ideas as literary ideas are given thanks to the textual space as a deforming filter that allows them to be manifested as a singular incarnation, without ever exhausting them in a full manifestation. Literature allows to unsettle the prereflexive dimension thanks to an operative intentionality thus revealing those particular ideas incorporated into the sensible. Two works by Paul Valéry, La soirée avec M. Teste and L’introduction à la méthode de Léonard de Vinci will be examined to test the emergence, flexibility and irradiation of literary ideas in the writing space. In this way we will try to show the narrative modalities of elaboration of an implicit philosophy in literature as the embodiment of sensible ideas in the literary space and, in this way, as the manifestation of an aesthetic logos. (shrink)