Este artigo pretende expor e ampliar de que modo a arquitetura bela ou reflexiva pensada por Immanuel Kant inclui uma crítica à tradição vitruviana. Partindo das interpretações de Paul Guyer (1977, 2011) sobre um sentido de expressão e do lugar histórico assumido por Kant na filosofia da arquitetura, tentaremos incluir nesse debate a importância teórica do projeto arquitetônico (desenho), visando, com isso, uma compreensão mais ampla da arquitetura reflexiva.

pt. 1. The form of the state : on beginnings -- pt. 2. Machiavelli's theory of history : modes of encounter between action and time -- pt. 3. The event of the republic : the return to beginnings.

I think it will be generally admitted that if Oxford philosophers have any claim to have added in recent years to the store of our philosophical ideas, it lies in their published works on the theory of conduct. I don’t think it can be claimed that, even in this sphere, they have given us many new and illuminating positive truths. After reading Mr. Ross, Professor Prichard, and Mr. Joseph, we are left, I think, with the impression that the whole subject (...) is much more intricate and puzzling than we should have thought possible. I intend in this paper to try and discover what is true in the theories of these three moralists on one of the most difficult and puzzling of ethical problems, viz., “What Renders a Right Act Right?” Professor Prichard and Mr. Ross, in the main, stand together; it is regrettable that Professor Prichard's published work is so very meagre. And if in quoting from his article in Mind , 1912, on “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake,” I am doing him an injustice in attributing to him any views which he no longer holds, I am sorry; but modesty in publishing has its penalties, and anyhow, the article is too guilty an offender to get off free, for its annoying subtleties started the whole trouble, and led indirectly to Some Problems in Ethics and the Right and the Good. (shrink)

The paper engages Christopher Boorse’s Bio-Statistical Theory. In its current form, BST runs into a significant challenge. For BST to account for its central tenet—that lower-level part-dysfunction is sufficient for higher-level pathology—it must provide criteria for how to decide which lower-level parts are the ones to be analyzed for health or pathology. As BST is a naturalistic theory, such choices must be based solely on naturalistic considerations. An argument is provided to show that, if BST is to be preserved, such (...) parthood choices are based on non-naturalistic considerations. We demonstrate that even when parthood choices are based on the best way to preserve BST, there are counterintuitive results which bring the central tenet of BST into question. (shrink)

En este trabajo presentamos los fundamentos teóricos de una propuesta para el abordaje didáctico de concepciones teleológicas de los y las estudiantes en la enseñanza de la Biología. La propuesta en cuestión supone acudir al modo en que Darwin lidió con las concepciones teleológicas dominantes entre sus contemporáneos, para proponer una estrategia general a través de la cual se podría incidir sobre las intuiciones teleológicas de los estudiantes, de modo que se pueda facilitar el aprendizaje de la teoría de la (...) selección natural. Sugeriremos también que esta propuesta implica un modo original de apelar a la analogía entre el cambio teórico en la Historia de la Ciencia y el aprendizaje de las ciencias. (shrink)

Summary For the study of the first year of life, Sander, Stern, and Gomez each chose the adult–infant relationship as the unit of analysis; they followed its development, respectively, in moments of meeting, in the proto-conversation and in the focus of attention. The authors explicitly refer to the Gestalt theory and support the need to interpret the behavior of the child as part of a wider context, as the experiences of a person in relation since birth.

Is The Prelude a philosophical poem? It is, of course, many things besides: it is an autobiography; it contains profound reflections on psychology, education and politics; and there are passages of an almost purely lyrical character. Does it also contain philosophical poetry? On this question, the critics of Wordsworth are divided. Coleridge and Raleigh answer Yes; Arnold, Bradley, Dr. Leaves, from their different points of view, agree in answering No. I believe that the first answer is right, although it has (...) usually been supported by the wrong reasons. I believe the second answer to be wrong, although many of the arguments that are supposed to lead to it are in themselves sound enough. Those who say that The Prelude is not a philosophical poem, usually mean that it does not offer a coherent system of philosophy—that it expresses an original outlook and a personal wisdom, but that the only systematic philosophy in it comes at second-hand from Hartley or Coleridge and contributes not at all to the poem. And this is largely true. But the mistake is, to identify philosophy with system, philosophizing with “a philosophy.” This is a mistake that has been repudiated again and again by many of the greatest philosophers, from Socrates and Plato to Locke and Kant and others. I shall argue that The Prelude achieves philosophical poetry, because in it Wordsworth grapples with philosophical problems—problems which arise out of the story of his own early life—which are actually forced upon him by the poem itself; and because he tries to answer these problems in a way which would be possible only in poetry. (shrink)

The political writings of Kant and of Hegel present two contrasts, whose connection and explanation have never been adequately explored. The first contrast is in respect of the quality of their discussions of ‘home’ politics—in Kant's language, the ‘problem of establishing a perfect civic constitution’. Here Hegel shines. However much one may dislike the tone of voice, the vocabulary, the style and the arrangement of its arguments, his Philosophy of Right , especially when supplemented by his more topical political writings, (...) presents an array of dicta, judgments and arguments of notable penetration, balance and prescience. Consider for instance his account of the very different political functions of free associations and of representative bodies, and his perception of the symbolic—but crucially symbolic—role of head of state. On these, as on many other issues, Hegel's views deserve the credit that has of late begun to be restored to them. Whatever his philosophical failings, he had a remarkable sense of the key junctures of different strands in the life of politics; so that, although the kind of state he describes and admires retains little practical relevance today, his exposition of it remains a valuable training-ground in political appreciation. By contrast Kant's philosophy of the state, as we find it in Part II of his Philosophy of Right , in Part II of Theory and Practice and in Appendices I and II of Perpetual Peace , is at first sight little more than an academic exercise. It amounts to a restatement, in dehistoricized terms and in accordance with Kant's rationalist theory of morals, of Rousseau's central political teachings, viz. that an original, unanimous, unrescindable contract explains political allegiance, and that the idea of a General Will is a sufficient criterion of political justice within the state. From these two basic positions Kant develops a theory of civic obedience far more restrictive than that of Rousseau or indeed than that of Hobbes. Throughout, Kant accepts—in the spirit which one might accord to revelation—Rousseau's assumptions that government can be confined to issues that fall under a General Will, and that such a Will can be ‘found’ for the resolution of every political issue, so that honest men need never disagree about what the General Will is. But to say this is to say that Kant's concern with home politics is little more than academic. (shrink)

One Morality or many? Liberal morality and Socialist morality; bourgeois morality and Georges Sorel's “morality of producers”; Protestant morality and Catholic; Greek morality and Christian; “aristocratic” morality and “slave” morality, “open” morality and “closed” morality—what, if any, is the relevance of such distinctions as these to moral philosophy?

Despite the emergence of computer games as a dominant cultural industry, we know little or nothing about the ethics of computer games. Considerations of the morality of computer games seldom go beyond intermittent portrayals of them in the mass media as training devices for teenage serial killers. In this first scholarly exploration of the subject, Miguel Sicart addresses broader issues about the ethics of games, the ethics of playing the games, and the ethical responsibilities of game designers. He argues (...) that computer games are ethical objects, that computer game players are ethical agents, and that the ethics of computer games should be seen as a complex network of responsibilities and moral duties. Players should not be considered passive amoral creatures; they reflect, relate, and create with ethical minds. The games they play are ethical systems, with rules that create gameworlds with values at play. Drawing on concepts from philosophy and game studies, Sicart proposes a framework for analyzing the ethics of computer games as both designed objects and player experiences. After presenting his core theoretical arguments and offering a general theory for understanding computer game ethics, Sicart offers case studies examining single-player games, multiplayer games, and online gameworlds from an ethical perspective. He explores issues raised by unethical content in computer games and its possible effect on players and offers a synthesis of design theory and ethics that could be used as both analytical tool and inspiration in the creation of ethical gameplay. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the semantics of bare plural I-generics such as ‘Tigers are striped’, ‘Chickens lay eggs’, and ‘Kangaroos live in Australia’. In a series of recent papers, Bernhard Nickel has developed a comprehensive view of a certain class of bare plural I-generics, which he calls characterizing sentences :629–648, 2009. doi:10.1007/s10988-008-9049-7; Linguist Philos 33:479–512, 2010a. doi:10.1007/s10988-011-9087-4; Philos Impr 10:1–25, 2010b). Nickel’s ambitious proposal includes a detailed account of their truth-conditions, an account of certain pragmatic phenomena that they give (...) rise to, a metaphysical picture of their truth-makers in terms of mechanisms, and an epistemological story connecting characterizing sentences to such concepts as induction and explanation. This paper offers an extended critique of the central truth-conditional component of Nickel’s proposal. In a nutshell, his account has it that ‘Tigers are striped’ is true iff, for tigers, there is a way of being normal with respect to fur-pattern such that all tigers that are normal that way are striped. I begin by explaining what characterizing sentences are and distinguish several readings that are available for sentences with bare plurals in subject position. I then introduce Nickel’s account and discuss some of its predictions which, in my view, seem highly problematic. Moreover, I argue that Nickel’s principle of Homogeneity does not go together well with his proposed truth-conditions, and that his truth-conditional account violates a plausible principle about the logic of generics, a principle I call generic non-contradiction. (shrink)

In having an experience one is aware of having it. Having an experience requires some form of access to one's own state, which distinguishes phenomenally conscious mental states from other kinds of mental states. Until very recently, Higher-Order (HO) theories were the only game in town aiming at offering a full-fledged account of this form of awareness within the analytical tradition. Independently of any objections that HO theories face, First/Same-Order (F/SO) theorists need to offer an account of such access to (...) become a plausible alternative. My aim in this paper is twofold. In the first place, I wish to widen the logical space of the discussion among theories of consciousness by offering a distinction, orthogonal to that between F/SO and HO theories, between what I will call 'Self-Involving' (SI) and 'Mental-State-Involving' (MSI) theories and argue in favor of the former one. In the second place, I will present the basics of a characterization of such a Self-Involving theory in Same-Order terms. (shrink)

Why computer games can be ethical, how players use their ethical values in gameplay, and the implications for game design.

Recent experimental studies indicate that epistemically irrelevant factors can skew our intuitions, and that some degree of scepticism about appealing to intuition in philosophy is warranted. In response, some have claimed that philosophers are experts in such a way as to vindicate their reliance on intuitions—this has become known as the ‘expertise defence’. This paper explores the viability of the expertise defence, and suggests that it can be partially vindicated. Arguing that extant discussion is problematically imprecise, we will finesse the (...) notion of ‘philosophical expertise’ in order to better reflect the complex reality of the different practices involved in philosophical inquiry. On this basis, we offer a new version of the expertise defence that allows for distinct types of philosophical expertise. The upshot of our approach is that wholesale vindications or rejections of the expertise defence are shown to be unwarranted; we must instead turn to local, piecemeal investigations of philosophical expertise. Lastly, in the spirit of taking our own advice, we exemplify how recent developments from experimental philosophy lend themselves to this approach, and can empirically support one instance of a successful expertise defence. (shrink)

Philosophers of mathematics commonly distinguish between explanatory and non-explanatory proofs. An important subclass of mathematical proofs are proofs by induction. Are they explanatory? This paper addresses the question, based on general principles about explanation. First, a recent argument for a negative answer is discussed and rebutted. Second, a case is made for a qualified positive take on the issue.

Resumen: Este artículo pretende abordar aspectos esenciales del pensamiento de Henri Bergson en la dimensión de las prácticas políticas. Específicamente, esta indagación se centrará en un análisis del sentido de la democracia en Les Deux Sources de la morale et de la religion, en las escuetas, pero decisivas porciones de texto donde esta es abordada. Bajo este objetivo, se podrá extender una discusión de fondo, de carácter ontológico, en torno al rendimiento de una noción de Acontecimiento que pretende servir de (...) reflexión basal en torno al dominio de un concepto de lo político atribuible a este filósofo francés.: This article aims to address essential aspects of Henri Bergson’s thought in the dimension of political practices. Specifically, this inquiry will focus on an analysis of the meaning of democracy in Les Deux Sources de la morale et de la religion, in the succinct, but decisive portions of the text where it is focussed. Under this point, it will be possible to extend a substantive discussion, of an ontological nature, around the performance of a notion of Event that aims to serve as a basal reflection on the domain of a concept of the political attributable to this French philosopher. (shrink)

It is often claimed that a minimal form of self-awareness is constitutive of our conscious experience. Some have considered that such a claim is plausible for our ordinary experiences but false when considered unrestrictedly on the basis of the empirical evidence from altered states. In this paper I want to reject such a reasoning. This requires, first, a proper understanding of a minimal form of self-awareness – one that makes it plausible that minimal self-awareness is part of our ordinary experiences. (...) I will argue that it should be understood as Perspectival First-Person Awareness : a non-conceptual identification-free self-attribution that defines the first-person perspective for our conscious experience. I will offer a detailed characterization of PFP-Awareness in semantic and epistemological terms. With this tool in hand, I will review the empirical literature on altered states. I will focus on psychedelics, meditation and dreams, as they have been claimed to present the clearest cases in favor of a radical disruption of self-awareness. I will show that the rejection of the idea that minimal self-awareness is constitutive of our experience on the basis of this evidence is unfounded, for two main reasons. First, although there are good grounds to think that some forms of self-awareness that typically accompany our ordinary experiences are compromised, they do not support the claim that PFP-Awareness is absent. Secondly, the reports that could make us think of a radical disruption of self-awareness are most probably due to a confirmation bias – and hence we should mistrust them – derived from the expectations and metaphysical views of their subjects. (shrink)

In developing a theory of consciousness, one of the main problems has to do with determining what distinguishes conscious states from non-conscious ones—the delimitation problem. This paper explores the possibility of solving this problem in terms of self-awareness. That self-awareness is essential to understanding the nature of our conscious experience is perhaps the most widely discussed hypothesis in the study of consciousness throughout the history of philosophy. Its plausibility hinges on how the notion of self-awareness is unpacked. The idea that (...) consciousness involves self-awareness has been understood in two different ways: either as awareness of oneself—the subject of experience—or as awareness of the conscious episode itself. In this paper I argue (i) that every experience concerns the subject in a very specific way, involving what I will call ‘perspectival de se representation’, and (ii) that there is no need to appeal to the experience itself in order to characterize the awareness within that experience. The view I articulate explains the subjective nature of experience without over-intellectualizing it, accommodates the phenomenology of experience, and dispels any doubt about the need to find the self in introspection. (shrink)

The fictional regime of the photographic image allows Helena Almeida to stage a theatrical metamorphosis of her own body through displacements, expansions and dissimulations, placing photography at the heart of a pictorial transgression that undermines the disciplinary boundaries of visual media: the artist becomes ink, inhabits the empty canvas space, multiplies herself in mirror games that produce the unfolding of a body in deep crisis, thrown beyond its physical limits and identity. Moreover, in multimedia works such as Feel me, Hear (...) me and See me (1979–1980), as well as in some images of the series entitled The House (1982–1983), Almeida seems to move towards a radical linguistic and pictorial derangement, likely to break the traditional communicative and representative mechanisms. We seek to demonstrate, on the basis of these different aspects relating to photography’s effects of hybridization, and making use of the post-structuralist thought of Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze, that the artist moves towards the designation of a structural space that combines photography, writing and the reinvention of the body. Almeida’s work confronts us with a complex reconfiguration of ways of seeing, feeling and thinking the photographic act, as well as its discursive features. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate which of the main conditions proposed in the moral responsibility literature are the ones that spell trouble for the idea that Artificial Intelligence Systems could ever be full-fledged responsible agents. After arguing that the standard construals of the control and epistemic conditions don’t impose any in-principle barrier to AISs being responsible agents, I identify the requirement that responsible agents must be aware of their own actions as the main locus of resistance to attribute that kind (...) of agency to AISs. This is because this type of awareness is thought to involve first-person or de se representations, which, in turn, are usually assumed to involve some form of consciousness. I clarify what this widespread assumption involves and conclude that the possibility of AISs’ moral responsibility hinges on what the correct theory of de se representations ultimately turns out to be. (shrink)

Phenomenology in medicine’s main contribution is to present a first-person narrative of illness, in an effort to aid medicine in reaching an accurate disease diagnosis and establishing a personal relationship with patients whose lived experience changes dramatically when severe disease and disabling condition is confirmed. Once disease is diagnosed, the lived experience of illness is reconstructed into a living-with-disease narrative that medicine’s biological approach has widely neglected. Key concepts like health, sickness, illness, disease and the clinical encounter are being diversely (...) and ambiguously used, leading to distortions in socio-medical practices such as medicalization, pharmaceuticalization, emphasis on surveillance medicine. Current definitions of these concepts as employed in phenomenology of medicine are revised, concluding that more stringent semantics ought to reinforce an empirical phenomenological or postphenomenological approach. (shrink)

Higher-order thought theories of consciousness attempt to explain what it takes for a mental state to be conscious, rather than unconscious, by means of a HOT that represents oneself as being in the state in question. Rosenthal Consciousness and the self: new essays, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011) stresses that the way we are aware of our own conscious states requires essentially indexical self-reference. The challenge for defenders of HOT theories is to show that there is a way to explain (...) the required reference-fixing mechanisms that is compatible with the theory. According to Rosenthal, the reference to oneself as such is grounded in the disposition to identify the individual the HOT refers to as the individual who has that HOT. I argue that this leads to a vicious infinite regress on the more than plausible assumption that our cognitive capacities are limited. This leaves such theories without a foundation, since self-reference is thought essential to consciousness. (shrink)

The fundamental problem proponents of truth conditional semantics must face is to specify what role a truth theory is supposed to play within a meaning theory. The most detailed proposal for tackling this problem is the account developed by Ernest Lepore and Kirk Ludwig. However, as I will show in this paper, theories along the lines of Lepore and Ludwig do not suffice to put someone into the position to understand the objectlanguage. The fundamental problem of truth conditional semantics thus (...) remains unsolved. (shrink)

The objective of the current study was to propose a sensitivity analysis of a 3D left ventricle model in order to assess the influence of parameters on myocardial mechanical dispersion. A finite element model of LV electro-mechanical activity was proposed and a screening method was used to evaluate the sensitivity of model parameters on the standard deviation of time to peak strain. Results highlight the importance of propagation parameters associated with septal and lateral segments activation. Simulated curves were compared to (...) myocardial strains, obtained from echocardiography of one healthy subject and one patient diagnosed with intraventricular dyssynchrony and coronary artery disease. Results show a close match between simulation and clinical strains and illustrate the model ability to reproduce myocardial strains in the context of intraventricular dyssynchrony. (shrink)