Leaving the cave in search of life (A Platonic reading of R. Sirera's La caverna (The Cave)

The aim of this article is to show how a contemporary playwright thinks once more of the Platonic image of the cave in order to reflect on the necessary existential journey of men and women as in the case of a Bildungsroman. Sooner or later men and women must abandon the protection that any sort of cavern such as home, the family garden or family itself can offer. In spite of writing from a by no means idealistic or metaphysical point of view, thanks to R. Sirera and to the very applicability of Platonic images, Plato becomes once again a classical reference which is both useful and even unavoidable if one bears in mind the Platonic origin of all the literary caverns.

Damn Platonism! Concrete Persons' Skin, Flesh and Bodies: Three Phases of a Won Battle in Miquel Àngel Riera's poetry

The aim of this article is to show how, throughout M. A. Riera's poetry, an evident anti-metaphysical sensibility can be easily detected, which in its turn makes the poet to praise concrete person's skin, flesh and bodies, thus avoiding any personal Platonic or idealistic experience of human love. In the author's opinion, an accurate reading of his poems makes us discover Plato and Platonism as one of the great responsible thinkers for the contempt of carnal love, which has been undoubtedly the origin of a real human pain as a result of denying the somatic side of eros.

La forma lògica de les oracions d'acció i la tesi d'Anscombe

This paper has three sections. In the first one, I expose and discuss Davidson's semantic account of adverbial sentences: the basic idea is that these sentences involve quantification over events, and I defend that view from opposing perspectives like the theory of adverbs as predicate modifiers. In the second section I defend the claim that in english constructions following the scheme: ¿X did V by T-ings¿, we are referring to the same action of X; what is sometimes called ¿The Anscombe Thesis¿. Again I discuss competing theories only to conclude that the Anscombe Thesis is true. In the third section, however, it is shown that to assume as premisses these two theses -Davidson's account and the Anscombe Thesis- leads to a serious conflict. Alternative solutions are worked out and rejected. It is also argued that the only tenable solution depends on certain metaphysical assumptions. Finally, however, I will cast doubt on this solution.

"Voyage through death/to life upon these shores": the living dead of the Middle Passage

While historical studies of the Atlantic slave trade have amply demonstrated the magnitude of slave mortality during the Middle Passage, only recently have they started to examine how the captives might have endured and coped with this traumatic experience. Although it constitutes a major topos in African diasporic culture, the Middle Passage has only occasionally been represented directly and in details in novels and in films. This article examines three recent narratives of the Middle Passage, Fred D'Aguiar's novel Feeding the Ghosts (1998), Guy Deslauriers's film Passage du milieu (2000), and Stephanie Smallwood's historical study Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (2007). Beyond their individual poetic, aesthetic, and scholarly qualities, what is most striking about these three texts is that they all use the figure of the living dead in order to explore the captives' experience of the transatlantic journey. If the ghastly quality of the living dead powerfully captures the life-threatening material and physical conditions the captives endured on the voyage, its dual, liminal character also allows D'Aguiar, Deslauriers, and Smallwood to represent the metaphysical, psychological, social, and cultural journey they were forced to undertake. Through their use of the trope of the living dead, these three texts show that if death is indeed a central aspect of the experience of the Middle Passage, it impacts the captives in ways that go well beyond the issue of mortality.

Hume, liberty and the object of moral evaluation

Hume's project concerning the conflict between liberty and necessity is ";reconciliatory";. But what is the nature of Hume's project? Does he solve a problem in metaphysics only? And when Hume says that the dispute between the doctrines of liberty and necessity is merely verbal, does he mean that there is no genuine metaphysical dispute between the doctrines? In the present essay I argue for: (1) there is room for liberty in Hume's philosophy, and not only because the position is pro forma compatibilist, even though this has importance for the recognition that Hume's main concern when discussing the matter is with practice; (2) the position does not involve a ";subjectivization"; of every form of necessity: it is not compatibilist because it creates a space for the claim that the operations of the will are non-problematically necessary through a weakning of the notion of necessity as it applies to external objects; (3) Hume holds that the ordinary phenomena of mental causation do not preempt the atribuition of moral responsibility, which combines perfectly with his identification of the object of moral evaluation: the whole of the character of a person, in relation to which there is, nonetheless, liberty. I intend to support my assertions by a close reading of what Hume states in section 8 of the first Enquiry.

BUDDHISM AND MODERNITY: IN THE MARGIN OF DONALD S. LOPEZ JR.'S "BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE

ABSTRACT The present article aims at setting the issue of the relationship between Buddhism and science in a historical and philosophical frame wider than that one taken into account by the international scholarship so far. The historical point of view allows us to conclude that the narrative that connects Buddhism with science is not based on features intrinsic to Buddhist thought. In fact, such narrative prospered thanks to the development of a dialectic, typical of the 18th and 19th centuries, between science and religion. The philosophical point of view allows us to conclude that such narrative is backed by a metaphysical-like thought that denies the specificity of both science and Buddhism.

The transcendence of time in the epistemology of observation from a phenomenological standpoint

In this article I deal with time as a notion of epistemological content associated though with the notion of a subjective consciousness co-constitutive of physical reality. In this phenomenologically grounded approach I attempt to establish a 'metaphysical' aspect of time, within a strictly epistemological context, in the sense of an underlying absolute subjectivity which is non-objectifiable within objective temporality and thus non-susceptible of any ontological designation. My arguments stem, on the one hand, from a version of quantum-mechanical theory (History Projection Operator theory, HPO theory) in view of its formal treatment of two different aspects of time within a quantum context. The discrete, partial-ordering properties (the notions of before and after) and the dynamical-parameter properties reflected in the wave equations of motion. On the other hand, to strengthen my arguments for a transcendental factor of temporality, I attempt an interpretation of some relevant conclusions in the work of J. Eccles ([5]) and of certain results of experimental research of S. Deahaene et al. ([2]) and others.

Escaping the flybottle: solipsism and method in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Remarks

The paper supports a dialectical interpretation of Wittgenstein's method focusing on the analysis of the conditions of experience presented in his Philosophical Remarks. By means of a close reading of some key passages dealing with solipsism I will try to lay bare their self-subverting character: the fact that they amount to miniature dialectical exercises offering specific directions to pass from particular pieces of disguised nonsense to corresponding pieces of patent nonsense. Yet, in order to follow those directions one needs to allow oneself to become simultaneously tempted by and suspicious of their all-too-evident "metaphysical tone" - a tone which, as we shall see, is particularly manifest in those claims purporting to state what can or cannot be the case, and, still more particularly, those purporting to state what can or cannot be done in language or thought, thus leading to the view that there are some (determinate) things which are ineffable or unthinkable. I conclude by suggesting that in writing those remarks Wittgenstein was still moved by an ethical project, which gets conspicuously displayed in these reiterations of his attempts to cure the readers (and himself) from some of the temptations expressed by solipsism.

The notion of process in nonstandard theory and in Whiteheadian metaphysics

In this article I intend to show that certain aspects of A.N. Whitehead's philosophy of organism and especially his epochal theory of time, as mainly exposed in his well-known work Process and Reality, can serve in clarify the underlying assumptions that shape nonstandard mathematical theories as such and also as metatheories of quantum mechanics. Concerning the latter issue, I point to an already significant research on nonstandard versions of quantum mechanics; two of these approaches are chosen to be critically presented in relation to the scope of this work. The main point of the paper is that, insofar as we can refer a nonstandard mathematical entity to a kind of axiomatical formalization essentially 'codifying' an underlying mental process indescribable as such by analytic means, we can possibly apply certain principles of Whitehead's metaphysical scheme focused on the key notion of process which is generally conceived as the becoming of actual entities. This is done in the sense of a unifying approach to provide an interpretation of nonstandard mathematical theories as such and also, in their metatheoretical status, as a formalization of the empirical-experimental context of quantum mechanics.

Metaphysics in Königsberg prior to Kant (1703-1770)

The present contribute aims to reconstruct, using the methodology of intellectual history, the broad spectrum of metaphysical doctrines that Kant could know during the years of the formation of his philosophy. The first part deals with the teaching of metaphysics in Königsberg from 1703 to 1770. The second part examines the main characteristics of the metaphysics in the various handbooks, which were taught at the Albertina, in order to have an exhaustive overview of all metaphysical positions.

Of empty thoughts and blind intuitions Kant's answer to McDowell

This paper examines the relation between intuition and concept in Kant in light of John McDowell's neo-Kantian position that intuitions are concept-laden.2 The focus is on Kant's twofold pronouncement that thoughts without content are empty and that intuitions without concepts are blind. I show that intuitions as singular representations are not instances of passive data intake but the result of synthetic unification of the given manifold of the senses by the power of the imagination under the guidance of the understanding. Against McDowell I argue that the amenability of intuitions to conceptual determination is not due some pre-existing, absolute conceptuality of the real but to the "work of the subject."3 On a more programmatic level, this paper seeks to demonstrate the limitations of a selective appropriation of Kant and the philosophical potential of a more comprehensive and thorough consideration of his work. Section 1 addresses the unique balance in Kant's philosophy between the work on particular problems and the orientation toward a systematic whole. Section 2 outlines McDowell's take on the Kantian distinction between intuition and concept in the context of the Kant readings by Sellars and Strawson. Section 3 exposes McDowell's relapse into the Myth of the Given. Section 4 proposes a reading of Kant's theoretical philosophy as an epistemology of metaphysical cognition. Section 5 details Kant's original account of sensible intuition in the Inaugural-Dissertation of 1770. Section 6 presents the transition from the manifold of the senses to the synthesis in the imagination and the unification through the categories in the Critique of pure reason (1781 and 1787). Section 7 addresses Kant's formalism in epistemology and metaphysics.

On the Beautiful and the Ugly

Classical aesthetics sees the experience of the beautiful as an anthropological necessity. But, in fact, the beautiful is rather the central category designating classical art, and one can question the relevance of this category considering contemporary art. The reference term most frequently used for contemporary art is interesting: works of art solicit the interests of my faculties (the cognitive-intellectual, the pragmatic community-oriented moral, the affective aesthetic faculties). It is interesting to notice that the categories of the beautiful and the ugly have an axiological-moral value. It looks as if the qualities of contemporary art works are judged according to the intensity of the impact on the interests of our faculties. It reveals important, in this respect, to distinguish the ugly from the sublime and the monstrous. Kant’s Third Critique is of some importance in defining these categories.

Heidegger and Blumenberg on modernity

The debate surrounding the way in which Heidegger and Blumenberg understand the modern age is an opportunity to discuss two different approaches to history. On one hand, from Heidegger's perspective, history should be understood as starting from how Western thought related to Being, which, in metaphysical thinking, took the form of the forgetfulness of Being. Thus, the modern age represents the last stage in the process of forgetfulness of Being, which announces the moment of the rethinking of the relationship with Being by appealing to the authentic disclosure of Being. On the other hand, Blumenberg understands history as the result of the reoccupation process, which means replacing old theories with other new ones. Thus, to the historical approach it is not important to identify epochs as periods of time between two events, but to think about the discontinuities occurring throughout history. Starting from here, the modern age will be thought of not as an expression of the radicalization of the forgetfulness of Being, but as a response to the crises of medieval conceptions. For the same reason, the interpretation of history as a history of the forgetfulness of Being is considered by Blumenberg to subordinate history to an absolute principle, without taking into account its protagonists' needs and necessities.

Além da dicotomia fato/valor: justificação e legitimação

Meu principal objetivo, neste artigo, é analisar o problema da justificação moral para John Rawls, caracterizando a teoria da justiça como equidade como um sistema coerentista de justificação que conta com uma epistemologia coerentista holística, uma teoria do contrato social que introduz uma ontologia social e uma estratégia pragmatista de justificação na teoria contratualista. No escopo deste trabalho, examinarei o pressuposto pragmatista de justificação na teoria do contrato social, o qual faz uso do argumento da estabilidade social e legitimidade política para garantir a validade da regra, isto é, dos princípios de justiça, a partir de dois artigos centrais para este debate: "Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical" e "Reply to Habermas" § 1, 2. Um objetivo específico será o de mostrar a complementaridade entre o descritivismo e o prescritivismo nessa estratégia de justificação que possibilita a superação da dicotomia entre fato e valor.

Form(s)-of-life: agamben's reading of Wittgenstein and the potential uses of a notion

Giorgio Agamben and Ludwig Wittgenstein seem to have very little in common: the former is concerned with traditional ontological issues while the latter was interested in logics and ordinary language, avoiding metaphysical issues as something we cannot speak about. However, both share a crucial notion for their philosophical projects: form of life. In this paper, I try to show that, despite their different approaches and goals, form of life is for both a crucial notion for thinking ethics and life in-common. Addressing human existence in its constitutive relation to language, this notion deconstructs traditional dichotomies like bios and zoé, the cultural and the biological, enabling both authors to think of a life which cannot be separated from its forms, recognizing the commonality of logos as the specific trait of human existence. Through an analogical reading between both theoretical frameworks, I suggest that the notion of form-of-life, elaborated by Wittgenstein to address human production of meaning, becomes the key notion in Agamben's affirmative thinking since it enables us to consider the common ontologically in its relation to Human potentialities and to foresee a new, common use of the world and ourselves.