Background: This study developed a photo and video database of 4-to-6-year-olds expressing the seven induced and posed universal emotions and a neutral expression. Children participated in photo and video sessions designed to elicit the emotions, and the resulting images were further assessed by independent judges in two rounds. Methods: In the first round, two independent judges, experts in the Facial Action Coding System, firstly analysed 3,668 emotions facial expressions stimuli from 132 children. Both judges reached 100% agreement regarding 1,985 stimuli, (...) which were then selected for a second round of analysis between judges 3 and 4. Results: The result was 1,985 stimuli were produced from 124 participants. A Kappa index of 0.70 and an accuracy of 73% between experts were observed. Lower accuracy was found for emotional expression by 4-year-olds than 6-year-olds. Happiness, disgust and contempt had the highest agreement. After a sub-analysis evaluation of all four judges, 100% agreement was reached for 1,381 stimuli which compound the ChildEFES database with 124 participants and 51% induced photographs. The number of stimuli of each emotion were: 87 for neutrality, 363 for happiness, 170 for disgust, 104 for surprise, 152 for fear, 144 for sadness, 157 for anger 157, and 183 for contempt. Conclusions: The findings show that this photo and video database can facilitate research on the mechanisms involved in early childhood recognition of facial emotions in children, contributing to the understanding of facial emotion recognition deficits which characterise several neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. (shrink)

Feminists, critical race scholars, and other social‐justice theorists sometimes object to “abstraction” in liberal normative theory. Arguing that oppression affects individual agents in powerful yet subtle ways, they contend that allegedly abstract theories often reinforce oppressive power structures. Here I critically examine and ultimately reject Onora O'Neill's “abstraction without idealization” as a solution to this problem. Because O'Neill defines abstraction as simply the “bracketing of certain predicates,” her methodology fails to guide decisions about what to bracket and what to include (...) in the theory. Moreover, it may not be possible to abstract without also relying on some particular ideals. While abstraction is unavoidable, I conclude that it must be employed with greater attention to sociopolitical hierarchies and by using ideals that do not collude with structures of oppression. I discuss the work of Susan Babbitt and Elizabeth Anderson as examples of how nonoppressive ideals might be incorporated into normative theory. (shrink)

This book explores the epistemic side of racial and sexual oppression. It elucidates how social insensitivities and imposed silences prevent members of different groups from listening to each other.

An important objection to political liberalism is that it provides no means by which to decide conflicts between public and non-public reasons. This article develops John Rawls' idea of `reasoning from conjecture' as one way to argue for a commitment to public reason. Reasoning from conjecture is a form of non-public justification that allows political liberals to reason from within the comprehensive views of at least some unreasonable citizens. After laying out the basic features of this form of non-public justification, (...) this article responds to three objections based on concerns about insincerity, cultural imperialism, and the epistemic authority of those who reason from conjecture. (shrink)

Trata-se de um ensaio visual onde o autor nos convida para com ele embarcar em uma viagem/meditação entre imagens e discursos, depois de sermos, junto dele, confrontados com o punctum de post-its e cartões postais de sua parede. As diminutas notas para si mesmo e as pinceladas sinuosas de uma pintura de Van Gogh descortinam uma investigação tateante sobre o problema da não-figuração (que Salomão designa como abstração) nas artes e sobre o trabalho psíquico do sintoma: cerne da subjetividade, (...) deiscência existencial e origem do discurso, conforme pensou Lacan. Nesse sentido, os artistas e escritores loucos seriam, na melhor tradição artística hölderliniana, aqueles capazes de capturar um pequeno brilho/acontecimento na realidade que teima em se apagar. (shrink)

A common objection to the idea of public reason is that it cannot resolve fundamental political issues because it excludes too many moral considerations from the political domain. Following an important but often overlooked distinction drawn by Gerald Gaus, there are two ways to understand this objection. First, public reason is often said to be inconclusive because it fails to generate agreement on fundamental political issues. Second, and more radically, some critics have claimed that public reason is indeterminate because it (...) cannot provide any citizen with sufficient reason(s) for making important political decisions. Against the first of these objections, I argue that the purpose of public reason is not to end reasonable disagreement. Rather, it is to provide a suitable framework of values and principles within which citizens may resolve their moral and political differences. Against the second objection, I argue, first, that the indeterminacy of public reason is much less common than its inconclusiveness; and, second, that there are second-order decision-making strategies that may enable citizens to cope with cases of indeterminacy. The incompleteness of public reason, whether it takes the form of inconclusiveness or indeterminacy, is not a reason for citizens to abandon their commitment to public justification. (shrink)

O debate teológico presente no Stift de Tübingen é campo de recepção da filosofia kantiana por meio de uma questão específica: aquela da existência de Deus e de Sua revelação aos homens. Reconstruindo-o tangencialmente, pode-se sublinhar qual a posição que a filosofia kantiana ocupa nele, salientando-a frente àquela de Storr e Flatt. Também, apontar para a apropriação dela no seio daquele debate. Assim, quando se volta para a posição de Hegel, nota-se que ele se contrapõe à apropriação teológica de Kant, (...) posicionando-se de modo similar ao kantiano. Tem-se aqui um liame entre Kant e aquilo que se chama, incipientemente, de filosofia hegeliana. (shrink)

We take a stance against radical constructivism as presented by Gash. Referring to Latour’s actor-network theory we argue in favor of relational ontologies associations with sustainability ….

Questions about the relevance and value of various liberal concepts are at the heart of important debates among feminist philosophers and social theorists. Although many feminists invoke concepts such as rights, equality, autonomy, and freedom in arguments for liberation, some attempt to avoid them, noting that they can also reinforce and perpetuate oppressive social structures. In Challenging Liberalism Schwartzman explores the reasons why concepts such as rights and equality can sometimes reinforce oppression. She argues that certain forms of abstraction (...) and individualism are central to liberal methodology and that these give rise to a number of problems. Drawing on the work of feminist moral, political, and legal theorists, she constructs an approach that employs these concepts, while viewing them from within a critique of social relations of power. (shrink)

Resumo A discussão que este artigo se propõe a fazer toma como ponto de partida, referenciada nas interações do receptor com o universo midiático, o que parece estar acontecendo, nas últimas décadas, com o sentido da escuta. Esta reflexão quer problematizar o ambiente acústico em suas circunstâncias de produção e ofertas de sentido – partindo do princípio que a mídia radiofônica pode, e muito, avançar ao permitir-se novos formatos e linguagens que recuperem e realmente se valham da força produtora de (...) sentido do som em seu potencial de tocar não apenas a razão, mas, pela sensorialidade, ofertar melhores condições e perspectivas para a recepção das mensagens que divulga. Palavras-chave: Som; Sentido; Novas mediaçõesThis paper proposes to discuss to take a starting point, referenced in receptor interactions with the media, wich seems to be happening in the recent decades, with the sense of the hearing. This reflection both problematize the acoustic enviroment in their circumstances of production and offers direction - assuming that the radio can advance to allow yourself to new formats and languages ??that retrieve and really worth the sense of producing force sound in its potential to touch not only the reason , but the sensuousness , offer better conditions and prospects for receiving the messages it disseminates. Key-words: Sound; Sense; New mediations. (shrink)

O presente artigo discute a inclusão do imigrante em contextos políticos democráticos. Pretende demonstrar que o paradigma procedimental de direito proposto por Jürgen Habermas oferece as condições formais requeridas para a solução da tensão entre cidadania e identidade, produzida pelo fenômeno das migrações. O modelo habermasiano visa a assegurar, mediante a estrutura reflexiva do direito, a inviolabilidade da pessoa e a neutralidade ética do Estado democrático de direito. Todavia, embora tenha fundado o Princípio da Democracia na ideia de reconhecimento intersubjetivo, (...) Habermas não se deteve em explicitar o teor normativo de tal noção. Dado que a noção de reconhecimento possa ser interpretada em sentido meramente descritivo, buscamos sustentar, com base no modelo teórico-crítico de Honneth, que a plausibilidade do procedimentalismo habermasiano depende de uma concepção reconhecimento enquanto postura moral de afirmação fática do valor intrínseco de uma pessoa ou grupo de pessoas. (shrink)

John Locke's theory of toleration has been criticized as having little relevance for politics today because it rests on controversial theological foundations. Although there have been some recent attempts to develop secular; or publicly accessible, arguments out of Locke's writings, these tend to obscure and distort the religious arguments that Locke used to defend toleration. More importantly, these efforts ignore the role that religious arguments may play in supporting the development of a normative consensus on the legitimacy of liberal political (...) principles. Bracketing the search for publicly accessible justifications makes it possible to appreciate the continued relevance of Locke's religious arguments for toleration. (shrink)

Popular interest in the topic of food has exploded in the past decade. Due in part to books by Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, and Eric Schlosser and films such as Food, Inc., Super Size Me, and Forks over Knives, people are starting to think critically about where their food originates, how it is processed, and how their consumption choices affect the environment, nonhuman animals, and other people. At the same time, there is rising concern about the dangers of obesity. Although (...) the voices raising these concerns are by no means monolithic, one of the most common solutions offered to various food-related issues is the suggestion that people educate themselves and make.. (shrink)

“It is certainly true, as nominalists have been concerned to acknowledge, that judgements about kinds are determined in part by human interests, projects, and practices. But the possibility that human interests, projects, and practices sometimes develop as they do because the real (physical or social) world is as it is suggests that this sort of dependence is not by itself an argument against essentialism.” -Susan Babbitt (1996, 146).

Lisa Tessman’s Moral Failure: On the Impossible Demands of Morality raises important questions about ideal theory, oppression, and the role of action guidance in normative philosophy. After a brief overview of feminist and anti-racist philosophers’ critiques of ideal theory, I examine Tessman’s claim that nonideal oppression theorists focus too narrowly on action guidance and thereby obscure other important normative issues, such as the problem of moral failure. Although I agree with Tessman’s advocacy of a wider focus—and with her suggestion that (...) situations of inevitable moral failure are particularly important to examine in contexts of oppression—I question whether nonideal oppression theorists actually emphasize action guidance to the exclusion of other concerns. I conclude with a brief examination of the way that ideal and nonideal theory have been defined and understood in debates about normative methodology, and I suggest that a move away from Rawls’s account of the ideal/nonideal distinction would benefit feminists and other oppression theorists. (shrink)

Legal definitions of rape traditionally required proof of both force and nonconsent. Acknowledging the difficulty of demonstrating the conjunction of force and nonconsent, many feminists argue that rape should be defined based on one element or the other. Instead of debating which of these two best defines the crime of rape, I argue that this framework is problematic, and that both force and nonconsent must be situated in a critique of social power structures. Catharine MacKinnon provides such a critique, and (...) she reframes rape as a matter of gender inequality. However, rather than rejecting the force/nonconsent dichotomy, MacKinnon focuses exclusively on force, which she thinks can be reconceived to include inequalities. Considering the #MeToo movement and feminist efforts to use Title IX to address campus rape, I argue that the concept of consent is more flexible than MacKinnon suggests and that “affirmative consent” can challenge this liberal model. In requiring active communication, affirmative consent shifts responsibility for rape, opens space for women’s sexual agency, and allows for the transformation of rape culture. Thus, I argue that rape should be defined by the use of force, the lack of affirmative consent, or the presence of both elements. (shrink)

Background The Regional Committee for Africa of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2001 expressed concern that some health-related studies undertaken in the Region were not subjected to any form of ethics review. In 2003, the study reported in this paper was conducted to determine which Member country did not have a national research ethics committee (REC) with a view to guiding the WHO Regional Office in developing practical strategies for supporting those countries. Methods This is a descriptive study. The (...) questionnaire was prepared and sent by diplomatic pouch to all the 46 Member States in the WHO African Region, through the WHO country representatives, for facilitation and follow up. The data were entered in Excel spreadsheet and subsequently exported to STATA for analysis. A Chi-Squared test (χ 2) for independence was undertaken to test the relationship between presence/absence of Research Ethics Committee (REC) and selected individual socioeconomic and health variables. Results The main findings were as follows: the response rate was 61% (28/46); 64% (18/28) confirmed the existence of RECs; 36% (10/28) of the respondent countries did not have a REC (although 80% of them reported that they had in place an ad hoc ethical review mechanism); 85% (22/26) of the countries that responded to this question indicated that ethical approval of research proposals was, in principle, required; and although 59% of the countries that had a REC expected it to meet every month, only 44% of them reported that the REC actually met on a monthly basis. In the Chi-Squared test, only the average population in the group of countries with a REC was statistically different (at 5% level of significance) from that of the group of countries without a REC. Conclusion In the current era of globalized biomedical research, good ethics stewardship demands that every country, irrespective of its level of economic development, should have in place a functional research ethics review system in order to protect the dignity, integrity and safety of its citizens who participate in research. (shrink)

In Speech Matters, Seana Shiffrin claims that certain lies should be tolerated on grounds of political inclusiveness. If political equality requires perfect compliance with fair terms of social cooperation, and if lying violates those terms, then liars might be at risk of losing their standing as political equals. To avoid that draconian result requires accommodation of moral imperfections, including some lies. In response, I argue that Shiffrin’s view may have broader implications for requirements of sincerity under non-ideal political conditions. In (...) some circumstances, where there is widespread defection from fair terms of cooperation, lying might be a moral but not a political wrong. (shrink)

Resumo Este artigo é sobre o papel da Idade Média nos currículos escolares. Foram consideradas duas versões da BNCC: a publicada em 2015 e a publicada em 2016. A partir da concepção que a aprendizagem histórica se dá também pela via do estranhamento, e considerando a “medievalística”, “medievalidade” e “reminiscências medievais”, problematiza-se o ensino de História da Idade Média no Brasil, a partir de algumas entradas. Entradas são oportunidades de inserções temáticas do medievo no contexto escolar: discursos midiáticos sobre o (...) islã, diferenças entre Ocidente e Oriente e residualidades. Conclui-se que pode haver espaço para a Idade Média na Base desde que ampliada a compreensão do ensino de História para além dos “usos do passado”. Considera-se o ensino de Idade Média uma etapa importante na escolarização básica que pode favorecer a crítica e a compreensão das apropriações feitas do medievo. (shrink)

This paper aims to present a general outline of the institution of the Order of the Preachers’ convents in the Kingdom of Naples between the 13th and 14th centuries. Our documentation is composed of: Frederick II’s Letter to the dominicans, the acts of the general and provincial Chapters, Bernard Gui’s reports on the founding and division of convents in the provinces of the Order and pontifical documents. Our method consists of three parts: characterizing the variety of documentation used; identify information (...) on the institution of convents in Southern Italy and analyze data drawn from documentation in order to compose an approximate landscape of the possible relations of the friars and the angevin court with the Papacy. The historiography available was employed as a means of delimiting possible interpretations drawn from the data revealed by the chosen documentation. Our conclusion points to a complex articulation of Preachers, the House of Anjou and the Papacy, both in the conflagration as well as in the resolution of conflicts, mainly from 1260 onwards. (shrink)

In responding to Anderson, Tobin, and Mills, I focus on questions about non-ideal theory, normative individualism, and standpoint theory. In particular, I ask whether feminist theorizing can be "liberal" and yet not embody the problematic forms of abstraction and individualism described in "Challenging Liberalism". Ultimately, I call for methods of theorizing that illuminate and challenge oppressive social hierarchies.

: Liberal rights theory can be used either to challenge or to support social hierarchies of power. Focusing on Ronald Dworkin's theory of rights and Catharine MacKinnon's feminist critique of liberalism, I identify a number of problems with the way that liberal theorists conceptualize rights. I argue that rights can be used to chal-lenge oppressive practices and structures only if they are defined and employed with an awareness and critique of social relations of power.

v. 1. Edad Media. 4. ed. -- v. 2. La época del Renacimiento. 2. ed. -- v. 3. El siglo del Barroco. 3. ed.

Feminist philosophers have questioned whether liberal theory can account for the phenomenon of adaptive preferences, specifically women’s preferences that are formed under conditions of sexist oppression. In this paper, I examine the argument of one feminist who addresses the problem of women’s “deformed desires” by relying on a liberal framework. Assessing her argument, I conclude that liberalism provides inadequate resources for responding to this issue since it errs in understanding adaptive preferences as exceptional, provides little explanation of how changes in (...) individual preferences are motivated, and often fails to identify the adaptive nature of such preferences. I illustrate my arguments through a brief discussion of women’s choices around motherhood and sexuality, and I conclude by offering several suggestions of how an alternative theory might better address the problems raised by preference adaptation in the context of oppression. (shrink)

Feminist philosophers have questioned whether liberal theory can account for the phenomenon of adaptive preferences, specifically women’s preferences that are formed under conditions of sexist oppression. In this paper, I examine the argument of one feminist who addresses the problem of women’s “deformed desires” by relying on a liberal framework. Assessing her argument, I conclude that liberalism provides inadequate resources for responding to this issue since it errs in understanding adaptive preferences as exceptional, provides little explanation of how changes in (...) individual preferences are motivated, and often fails to identify the adaptive nature of such preferences. I illustrate my arguments through a brief discussion of women’s choices around motherhood and sexuality, and I conclude by offering several suggestions of how an alternative theory might better address the problems raised by preference adaptation in the context of oppression. (shrink)

The Gaia hypothesis emerged from two interpenetrating traditions, the mechanist and the organicist, with the former tending to reductionism and the latter to holism. While mechanist James Lovelock is the acknowledged father, he collaborated with the organicist Lynn Margulis in the early 1970s when the first papers appeared in the scientific literature. Both continued to be active in Gaia-related conferences until Margulis’s premature death in late 2011. In a very readable exposition, Michael Ruse succeeds brilliantly in tracing the philosophical roots (...) of this concept continuing in the histories of modern geology and biology to its formulation in the late twentieth century.This is Lovelock and Margulis’s definition of the Gaia hypothesis quoted in this book: “We conclude from the fact that the temperature and certain other environmental conditions on the earth have not altered very much from what is an optimum for life on surface, that life must actively maintain these conditions”. (shrink)