There are a number of candidate rationales for the settlement of Mars. These are considered in Sect. 10.1. At least one of them is economically plausible: its use as a base of operations for asteroid mining in the Main Belt. This rationale suggests that environmental protection on Mars needs to be considered in a broader context than that of the planet alone. More specifically, the authors argue in Sect. 10.2 that planetary environmental protection is partly a matter of containment and (...) so requires a framing principle. Section 10.3 supplies such a principle for protection, “the 1/8 principle”: while economic growth in space remains exponential and comparable to historical patterns on Earth, we should use no more than 1/8 of the available resources, in order to secure a reasonable ‘breaking distance’ before we reach a point of super-exploitation. Section 10.4 examines the difficulties of applying such a principle to Mars, the need for trade-offs and special weighting for special strategic resources such as uncollapsed lava tubes. Section 10.5 points out the ease with which the principle can be turned into policy options and its good matchup with human practices of valuing and use. The latter considerations may not be decisive, but they do count strongly in its favour. (shrink)

Este trabalho compõe-se de algumas reflexões sobre o ensino de filosofia na educação básica brasileira. Especificamente, analisar-se-ão dois pontos relativos à atividade filosófica na educação básica, a saber: 1) o ensino de filosofia concebido como exercício de pensamento, de modo a reivindicar, a partir da prática filosófica, um filosofar na educação; 2) as contribuições que a filosofia pode oferecer para a formação do aluno do ensino médio, sobretudo no que diz respeito ao exercício da cidadania. Esses dois pontos serão analisados (...) na perspectiva de reforçar a importância da filosofia como componente curricular obrigatório e como instrumento imprescindível para que sejam alcançados os objetivos do ensino médio, última etapa da educação básica, entendida esta como instrumento que prepara o indivíduo para exercer o seu papel de cidadão. (shrink)

Ontologized Ethics is a collection of essays in meta-ethics with an emphasis on philosophical discourse in the African context. It focuses primarily on the extent to which metaphysical beliefs may or may not justify moral beliefs, thereby revisiting the issue of the ‘is-ought’ relationship.

The Routledge International Handbook of Neuroaesthetics is an authoritative reference work that provides the reader with a wide-ranging introduction to this exciting new scientific discipline. The book brings together leading international academics to offer a well-balanced overview of this burgeoning field while addressing two questions central to the field; how the brain computes aesthetic appreciation for sensory objects, and how is art created and experienced.

Recent developments in Continental philosophy have included the emergence of a school of “speculative realism,” which rejects the human-centered orientation that has long dominated Continental thought. Proponents of speculative realism differ on several issues, but many agree on the need for an object-oriented ontology. Some speculative realists identify realism with materialism, while others accord equal reality to objects that are non-material, even fictional. Several thinkers retain a focus on difference, a well-established theme in Continental thought. This paper looks at speculative (...) realism from the perspective of systems theory. Many of the tenets of speculative realism have long been features of systems metaphysics and are expressed clearly in a systems framework. However, some views of some speculative realists differ substantially from systems theoretic ideas. (shrink)

Online supplement, "Mulsow: Additions to Notes drawn from the 2002 edition of Moderne aus dem Untergrund" full versions of nearly 300 notes that were truncated in the print edition. Hosted on H. C. Erik Midelfort's website. Martin Mulsow's seismic reinterpretation of the origins of the Enlightenment in Germany won awards and renown in its original German edition, and now H. C. Erik Midelfort's translation makes this sensational book available to English-speaking readers. In Enlightenment Underground, Mulsow shows that even in (...) the late seventeenth century some thinkers in Germany ventured to express extremely dangerous ideas, but did so as part of a secret underground. Scouring manuscript collections across northern Europe, Mulsow studied the writings of countless hitherto unknown radical jurists, theologians, historians, and dissident students who pushed for the secularization of legal, political, social, and religious knowledge. Often their works circulated in manuscript, anonymously, or as clandestinely published books. Working as a philosophical microhistorian, Mulsow has discovered the identities of several covert radicals and linked them to circles of young German scholars, many of whom were connected with the vibrant radical cultures of the Netherlands, England, and Denmark. The author reveals how radical ideas and contributions to intellectual doubt came from Socinians and Jews, church historians and biblical scholars, political theorists, and unemployed university students. He shows that misreadings of humorous or ironic works sometimes gave rise to unintended skeptical thoughts or corrosively political interpretations of Christianity. This landmark book overturns stereotypical views of the early Enlightenment in Germany as cautious, conservative, and moderate, and replaces them with a new portrait that reveals a movement far more radical, unintended, and puzzling than previously suspected. (shrink)

Of course, although this view on meaning was the prevailing one for almost a century, many of the people who initiated the enterprise of logical semantics, including people like Frege and Wittgenstein, had an open eye for all that it did not catch. However, the logical means which Frege, Wittgenstein, Russell, and the generation that succeeded them, had at their disposal were those of classical mathematical logic and set-theory, and these indeed are not very suited for an analysis of other (...) aspects of meaning than those which the slogan covers. A real change in view then had to await the emergence of other concepts, which in due course became available mainly under the influence of developments in computer science and cognate disciplines such as artificial intelligence. And this is one of the reasons why it took almost a century before any serious and successful challenge of the view that meaning equals truthconditions from within logical semantics could emerge. (shrink)

The following paper sets out to highlight the interconnectedness between philosophy and language through a demonstration on how Lacanian psychoanalysis can add texture to literary analysis. Because discourse is in constant flux, it is only natural that adapting a suitably compatible interpretive methodology becomes the norm for the study of language and literature. Unfortunately, adjusting one’s methods of literary critique according to the type of text to be analyzed is far from common practice. In the hopes that this issue might (...) be discussed in further depth, this paper argues that a psychoanalytical approach to literary analysis is particularly well-adapted for the postmodern genre. (shrink)

L’addition, dans la cinquième édition en 1683 de La Logique ou L’Art de penser, d’un chapitre consacré à la définition générale du signe et de plusieurs chapitres relevant spécifiquement d’une analyse des signes linguistiques, a été parfois interprétée comme une apparition tardive du “problème du langage” dans le traité d’Arnauld et Nicole. Parce que la plupart de ces chapitres supplémentaires sont la transposition de passages auparavant destinés dans la Perpétuité de la foi (1669-1674) à réfuter le sens calviniste de Ceci (...) est mon corps, on a été enclin à attribuer l’importance de la question du signe et du “problème du langage” dans l’édition de 1683 à une origine théologique. J’essaie au contraire de montrer que, dès la première édition de L’Art de penser en 1662, la problématisation des écarts des expressions linguistiques avec une correspondance terme à terme entre les mots et les idées a été indissociable pour Port-Royal de l’analyse des opérations de l’esprit. Selon moi, dans la Perpétuité de la foi, la critique du sens calviniste de la formule eucharistique constitue elle-même une application de cette analyse logique du langage : les passages incorporés ensuite dans L’Art de penser sont dans le prolongement des réflexions de 1662 sur les difficultés d’adéquation entre le dire et le vouloir-dire. Je montre pour finir que la définition générale du signe à Port-Royal suppose une restructuration de la définition augustinienne du De doctrina christiana, et fonde en 1683 une identification de la relation de signification linguistique à un rapport de représentation des mots aux idées, qui vient redoubler le rapport de représentation des idées aux choses établi en 1662. (shrink)

Neste artigo, pretendo analisar alguns pontos centrais que culminam no amadurecimento da reflexão de Arendt em relação ao pensamento de Marx e ao marxismo. Para tanto, será analisado a leitura de Arendt a partir dos excertos presentes em Karl Marx and the Tradition of Western Political Thought, escrito no início da década de 1950, texto que é uma espécie de complementação do The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) e fazia parte de um projeto pensado por Arendt de escrever um livro sobre (...) os “elementos totalitários do marxismo”. Visto que esse escrito nunca foi finalizado e o esse projeto foi abandonado, considero que a análise desse texto além de esclarecer muitos pontos importantes da crítica de Arendt a Marx e ao marxismo, pode nos servir também de ponte para o seu Magnum Opus The Human Condition (1958). A minha hipótese é de que, na visão de Arendt, a ruptura presente no pensamento de Marx em relação a tradição da filosofia política acontece com base em um tipo de linguagem que é resultado da própria tradição. Portanto, os resultados práticos do pensamento marxiano e dos marxismos seriam consequência da tradição do pensamento político ocidental quando convertido numa práxis radical. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to show that the reopening of the “quarrel between the ancients and the moderns” proposed by Strauss is an invitation to rethink the format of social science of his time. In his interpretation, the triumph of positivism and historicism in the contemporary era directly influenced the consolidation of a kind of social science that was too technical and scientistic, far from its main object of research, the human life in society. As a result, it (...) was established a nihilistic social science, attached to methods and a theorizing vocabulary, incapable of dealing with the complexity of the human world. I intend to show, based on the criticism elaborated by Professor Strauss, which alternatives are presented to rescue social science through the revival of specific elements of classical political science. (shrink)

And, as The Promise of Salvation makes clear through abundant empirical evidence, religion will not disappear as long as these promises continue to help people ...

Studie předkládá interpretaci souboru článků, které Jan Patočka uveřejnil na počátku své filosofické kariéry a v nichž programově vyložil vlastní stanovisko k problematice historického poznání a smyslu dějin. Na základě výkladu Patočkových statí studie konstatuje, že soubor ve svém celku připravuje předložení ucelené filosofické koncepce a že jeho prostřednictvím Patočka přispěl k soudobé diskusi, „sporu o smysl českých dějin“. Studie nejprve nabízí představení tohoto sporu a jeho dobového kontextu a argumentuje, že tato souvislost má podstatný význam pro porozumění Patočkovým textům. (...) Na základě toho poté studie shrnuje Patočkovu interpretaci hlavních zainteresovaných argumentačních pozic a kritiku, kterou vůči nim snáší. V následujícím kroku studie předkládá interpretaci Patočkova vlastního pojetí dějin. Na závěr představuje východisko tohoto pojetí, Patočkovu koncepci člověka. The paper proposes an interpretation of a set of articles published by Jan Patočka at the beginning of his philosophical career, in which he programmatically sets forth his point of view of the problem of historical knowledge and the meaning of history. Based on the reading of the texts the paper arrives at the conclusion that this collection as a whole anticipates a comprehensive philosophical concept and that by means of these texts Patočka contributed to the discussion of the day, “the dispute over the meaning of Czech history”. The paper begins by presenting the dispute as well as its contemporary context and argues that this link bears essential significance to the understanding of Patočka’s texts. On this basis it then summarizes Patočka’s interpretation of the different parties of the argument and the critique to which he submits them. In the next step the paper presents Patočka’s interpretation of his own conception of history. It concludes by an exposition of the basis of this conception, Patočka’s concept of man. (shrink)

The phenomenon of altruism extends from the biological realm to the human sociocultural realm. This article sketches a coherent outline of multiple types of altruism of progressively increasing scope that span these two realms and are grounded in an ever-expanding sense of “self.” Discussion of this framework notes difficulties associated with altruism at different levels. It links scientific ideas about the evolution of cooperation and about hierarchical order to perennial philosophical and religious concerns. It offers a conceptual background for inquiry (...) into societal challenges that call for altruistic behavior, especially the challenge of environmental and social sustainability. (shrink)

This paper seeks to redress a predominant focus on speaking over listening in theorising the Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CPI). Frequently, where listening is discussed, the focus is on encouraging children to be active listeners. This means of describing the listening that occurs in the CPI has lost some efficacy as the language of active listening has been co-opted as a management technique focussed on making the speaker feel heard with little emphasis on the intentions or outcomes for the listener. (...) Thus, on a cynical reading, ‘active listening’ can become reduced to performative physical indicators of listening (such as eye contact and body language), overlooking the ethical-epistemic commitments of the genuinely engaged listener. Here, rather than formulating new terms to describe listening, I propose Iris Murdoch’s account of attentiveness as an apt descriptor of the effects of truly involved listening on the self that seeks to attend to the unfolding content of the CPI and as a way of characterising the qualities of a CPI where such listening is achieved. Here, attentiveness is presented as a concept that captures the unique facets of listening as a challenge to individual participants concerned with contributing effectively to the dialogue as it unfolds within the CPI and those facilitating the dialogue. The paper briefly explores some implications for practice contexts, proposing three interventions to cultivate attentiveness in CPI participants and in facilitators (especially if they are undergraduate or postgraduate in Philosophy because philosophical identities might become a barrier to attentiveness). At its conclusion, this paper repositions listening in the CPI as a productive risk with a particular form of ‘aliveness’ aptly captured by the term attention. (shrink)

The new western way of war from Vietnam in Iraq -- Theories of the new western way of war -- The global surveillance mode of warfare -- Rules of risk-transfer war -- Iraq: risk economy of a war -- A way of war in crisis.

In this paper I propose a new solution to the problem of change: situationalism. According to this view, parts of reality fundamentally disagree about what is the case and reality as a whole is unsettled (i.e. metaphysically indeterminate). When something changes, parts of the world irreconcilably disagree about what properties it has. From this irreconcilable disagreement, indeterminacy arises. I develop this picture using situations, which are parts of possible worlds; this gives it the name situationalism. It allows a B-theory endurance (...) view on which there is genuine incompatibility when things change. There are costs to the view, which are explored, but it is a novel approach which offers a distinct explanation of what happens when things exist through change. (shrink)

Is it right to convict a person of a crime on the basis of purely statistical evidence? Many who have considered this question agree that it is not, posing a direct challenge to legal probabilism – the claim that the criminal standard of proof should be understood in terms of a high probability threshold. Some defenders of legal probabilism have, however, held their ground: Schoeman (1987) argues that there are no clear epistemic or moral problems with convictions based on purely (...) statistical evidence, and speculates that our aversion to such convictions may be nothing more than an irrational bias. More recently, Hedden and Colyvan (2019, section VI) describe our reluctance to convict on the basis of purely statistical evidence as an ‘intuition’, but suggest that there may be no ‘in principle’ problem with such convictions (see also Papineau, forthcoming, section 6). In this paper, I argue that there is, in some cases, an in principle problem with a conviction based upon statistical evidence alone – namely, it commits us to a precedent which, if consistently followed through, could lead to the deliberate conviction of an innocent person. I conclude with some reflections on the idea that the criminal justice system should strive to maximise the accuracy of its verdicts – and the related idea that we should each strive to maximise the accuracy of our beliefs. (shrink)

Pastor and author Martin Thielen has compiled a list of ten things people need to believe, and ten things they don't, in order to be a Christian. This lively and engaging book will be a help to seekers as well as a comfort to believers who may find themselves questioning some of the assumptions they grew up with. With an accessible, storytelling style that's grounded in solid biblical scholarship, Thielen shows how Christians don't need to believe that sinners will (...) be "left behind" to burn in hell or that it's heresy to believe in evolution. And while we must always take the Bible seriously, we don't always have to take it literally. At the same time, Christians do need to believe in Jesus--his life, his teachings, his death and resurrection, and his vision for the world. A great benefit of those beliefs is that they provide promising answers to life's most profound questions, including: Where is God? What matters most? What brings fulfillment? What about suffering? Is there hope? Thielen articulates centrist, mainline Christianity in a way that's fresh and easy to understand, and offers authentic Christian insights that speak to our deepest needs. This new edition includes a leader's guide, previously only available online, and a new introduction from the author that reflects on the book's reception. The leader's guide features unique and easily implemented aids for carrying out a seven-week, congregation-wide initiative that will help local churches reach out to their communities. More information is available at thielen.wjkbooks.com. (shrink)

In this study, I explore the challenges that ideological hegemonies of personhood imbibed by nurses and other healthcare workers could pose for the nursing profession, particularly in terms of inhibiting the acknowledgment of difference. Dominant or hegemonic conceptions of personhood in particular spaces often consist of self‐contained ideas and essentialist ontologies and normativity of what it means to be a person, lack of which results in the denial of personhood and the othering as non‐person or sub‐person. The other as the (...) residue of such self‐contained notions of personhood is most often denied the quality of care that the one who fits within such conceptions enjoy. For nurses and other healthcare workers to overcome such exclusionary tendencies in healthcare, they must overcome hegemonies and ideological dominance and be more open to alternative viewpoints and theories of personhood. I develop these lines of thought by focusing on the rich ideological traditions of Continental and African philosophies showing how exclusion takes place within these traditions based on conceptions of personhood and how such exclusion on the basis of difference impacts negatively on healthcare. I conclude by highlighting the need to go beyond hegemonic philosophies of personhood by decolonizing and demasculinizing healthcare, thereby allowing difference to flourish in an ecology of medical knowledge. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é refletir sobre o problema da formação intelectual no ambiente acadêmico brasileiro, a partir de uma crítica à ênfase constante aos referenciais teóricos estrangeiros e à pouca valorização dos pensadores do Brasil. Será problematizada a necessidade de formação constante do “espírito” do povo brasileiro a partir do contato compromissado com o nosso próprio solo cultural, de tal modo que referenciais não nacionais sejam bem acolhidos, desde que isso não aconteça à custa de um certo epistemicídio local. (...) Para tanto, nos aportaremos a pensadores brasileiros e estrangeiros, tais como Darcy Ribeiro, Roberto Gomes, Michel de Montaigne, dentre outros, tomando de empréstimo alguns de seus núcleos conceituais centrais. (shrink)

Tato studie se zabývá problémem metody v kritické teorii. Nejprve zkoumá ustavující texty, v nichž založili Horkheimer a Marcuse kritickou teorii jako dialektický a materialistický přístup k analýze kapitalistické společnosti adekvátní její objektivně-abstraktní povaze. Stať diskutuje též Hegela a Marxe, nejdůležitější předchůdce frankfurtské školy, a způsob, jímž kritická teorie čerpá z jejich děl. Dále příspěvek obrací svou pozornost k Adornovým metodologickým postulátům, jež vyústily v analytické kategorie „reálné abstrakce“ a „objektivní konceptuality“. Reichelt a Backhaus vyšli z Adorna, jehož byli žáky, (...) a interpretovali v tradici kritické teorie Marxovo dílo jako úsilí o zachycení určité kvality procesu inverze, v němž je práce, lidská moc ustavující společnost, nahrazena sociálním panstvím kapitalistických abstrakcí, které degradují její tvůrčí potenciál. Nové čtení Marxe dále analyzuje mizení smyslovosti v říši nadsmyslné reality kapitálu jako vůdčí hegeliánský motiv v celé Marxově práci. The essay deals with the problem of method in Critical theory. Firstly, it explores the constituent texts in which Horkheimer and Marcuse founded Critical theory as a dialectical and materialist approach for analysing capitalist society in terms of its objectively-abstract nature. It discusses its most important predecessors – Hegel and Marx – and the way critical theory is based on their works. Secondly, the essay turns its attention to Adorno's methodological postulates that resulted into analytical categories of ‘real abstraction’ and ‘objective conceptuality’. Building upon Adorno, their mentor, Reichelt and Backhaus interpreted, in the tradition of critical theory, Marx's oeuvre as an endeavour to catch determinate quality of the process of inversion in which labour, humanity's constituent power, is displaced and demoted by the social domination of capitalist abstractions. The neue Marx-Lektüre further analyses the disappearance of sensuousness in the realm of supersensible reality of capital as the defining Hegelian motive in Marx. (shrink)

In this paper I respond to Marcello Di Bello’s criticisms of the ‘normic account’ of the criminal standard of proof. In so doing, I further elaborate on what the normic account predicts about certain significant legal categories of evidence, including DNA and fingerprint evidence and eyewitness identifications.

Albinism is a global public health issue but it assumes a peculiar nature in the African continent due, in part, to the social stigma faced by persons with albinism in Africa. I argue that there are two essential reasons for this precarious situation. First, in the African consciousness, albinism is an alterity or otherness. The PWA in Africa is not merely a physical other but also an ontological other in the African community of beings, which provides a hermeneutic for the (...) stigmatising separateness or difference of the PWA. The second reason hinges on a distinction drawn by Jürgen Habermas between the ethical point of view and the moral point of view. While the former consists of the ethos, customs, or idea of the good shared by a group of persons with a shared tradition or way of life, the latter consists of what is good for all and transcends particular traditions or ways of life. Consequently, the African ethical point of view, the ethics of solidarity, justifies within the African worldview the established alterity and, by implication, stigmatization of PWAs. On this view, actions that promote harmony and prevent discord and disequilibrium among accepted beings in the African community are permissible. I further show that unless there is a change in the physical and ontological conception of PWAs and a leap from the ethical point of view to the moral point of view, the negative attitudes toward PWAs will not change. The leap to the moral point of view does not suggest an abandonment of the ethical point of view but only recommends that the two meet halfway in respect for universally accepted norms of human actions. To achieve this, I will show that much needs to be done in the areas of policy formulation, law, health care services, and education. (shrink)

O propósito deste trabalho é muito simples: localizar ou delimitar uma análise existencial da morte em relação a algumas outras abordagens do mesmo fenômeno. Com isso pretende-se não apenas ampliar nossa compreensão acerca da morte, mas acessar filosoficamente o conceito existencial de ser-para-a-morte, desenvolvido na obra Ser e tempo de M. Heidegger. Para tanto, tomaremos por base o pensamento deste autor, principalmente o do §49 de Ser e tempo que se ocupa desta problemática.

This volume explores emotion in medieval and early modern thought, and opens a contemporary debate on the way emotions figure in our cognitive lives.

A moral requirement R1 is said to be lexically prior to a moral requirement R2 just in case we are morally obliged to uphold R1 at the expense of R2 – no matter how many times R2 must be violated thereby. While lexical priority is a feature of many ethical theories, and arguably a part of common sense morality, attempts to model it within the framework of decision theory have led to a series of problems – a fact which is (...) sometimes spun as a ‘decision theoretic critique’ of lexical priority. In this paper, I develop an enriched decision theoretic framework that is capable of modelling lexical priority while avoiding all extant problems. This will involve introducing several new ingredients into the standard decision theoretic framework, including multidimensional utilities, de minimis risks, and the means to represent two different conceptions of risk. (shrink)

Entitlement is defined as a sort of epistemic justification that one can possess by default – a sort of epistemic justification that does not need to be earned or acquired. Epistemologists who accept the existence of entitlement generally have a certain anti-sceptical role in mind for it – entitlement is intended to help us resist what would otherwise be compelling radical sceptical arguments. But this role leaves various details unspecified and, thus, leaves scope for a number of different potential conceptions (...) of entitlement. At one extreme there are conceptions that portray entitlement as a weak, attenuated epistemic status and, at the other, we have conceptions that portray entitlement as something potent and strong. Certain intermediate conceptions are also possible. In this paper, I shall argue that the weak and intermediate conceptions of entitlement do not survive careful scrutiny, and the stronger conceptions – while they do, in a way, strain credulity – are the only conceptions that are ultimately viable. (shrink)

Charting new routes for film ethics, _Transformational Ethics of Film_ develops a critical account of the ethics of personal transformation at work within the ‘film as philosophy’ debate.

Die Konstitution des menschlich-personalen Geistes ist fur Augustinus und Anselm von<I> Canterbury von<I> zentraler Bedeutung. Dabei sind Einheit und Identitat des Geistes und die Erkenntnis Gottes als des immer schon gewussten absoluten Grundes untrennbar miteinander verbunden. Dies wird bei Augustinus unter anderem in der Zeituberhobenheit des Geistes und bei Anselm im ontologischen Argument deutlich. Mit Hilfe der gewonnenen Erkenntnisse konnen auch unterschiedliche Perspektiven in okumenischer Hinsicht deutlich gemacht werden, wie anhand zweier Exkurse aufgezeigt wird.".

Discussions often end before the issues that started them have been resolved. For example, in the late sixties and early seventies, a hot topic in philosophical logic was the development of an adequate semantics for the language of modal predicate logic. However, the result of this discussion was not one single system that met with general agreement, but a collection of alternative systems, each defended most ably by its proponents.

This work is an exceptionally rich account both of the connections and divergences between Levinas and Derrida as ethical thinkers. Against the backdrop of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy and phenomenology, Srajek draws on Hermann Cohen's ethics of correlation so as to demonstrate how far it is possible to read Levinas and Derrida as constructing similar approaches to ethics.

Drawing on new manuscript sources, this volume offers seven contributions on Hermann Samuel Reimarus, the most significant biblical critic in eighteenth-century Germany, as well as an eminent Enlightenment philosopher, a renowned classicist ...