Filosofia Unisinos / Unisinos Journal of Philosophy

Critical view of “Negritude sem identidade: sobre as narrativas singulares das pessoas negras”. São Paulo: Editora N-1, 2023

Marcos Silva — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

Although Negritude Without Identity, by Érico Andrade, presents a thought-provoking critique of modernity and emphasizes the singularity of Black experience, the work raises serious theoretical and political concerns. The ambiguous and undefined use of the concept of “identity” undermines argumentative clarity, especially when Andrade proposes the renunciation of identity as a strategy of resistance. Such a proposal overlooks the central role identity plays in the political, legal, and historical cohesion of marginalized groups. By abandoning the concept due to its lack of ontological grounding, there is a risk of pragmatically disarming these groups in their struggle for rights, recognition, and legal protection. Furthermore, the work neglects the interrelation between racism and speciesism, failing to recognize how both stem from the same exclusionary logic of modernity. Andrade’s critique of modern racism does not extend to its anthropocentrism, inadvertently reinforcing a paradigm that disqualifies other beings based on arbitrary criteria of rationality. Finally, by emphasizing the body and performativity as the core of Black experience, the author risks reproducing the very error he critiques: flattening singularity and reinforcing stereotypes that associate Blackness exclusively with corporeality, at the expense of the intellectual and existential diversity of Black individuals.

Presentation

Inacio Helfer, Leonardo Marques Kussler; Luís Miguel Rechiki Meirelles — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

Using virtue theory to define science and related concepts

Alexandre Ziani de Borba — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

My aim in this paper is to construct definitions for the concept of science and related concepts by employing concepts from a particular type of theory in normative ethics, namely, virtue theory. In section 1 I introduce some of the central concepts of the Aristotelian virtue theory and explain how such a theory can be fruitfully applied in the context of the philosophy of science. In section 2 I employ the concept of intellectual virtue to characterize science and the opposite concept of intellectual vice to characterize pseudoscience. I also offer a characterization of good and bad science from my definition of science, and definitions of anti-science, protoscience, and emergent science in terms of theriotes, akrasia, and enkrateia, respectively. Moreover, I present some advantages of my theory, including its capacity to take into account psychological and social factors in scientific development. In section 3 I discuss two recent theories very similar to my own, highlighting what I think are the advantages of my theory. Finally, I address an objection to my theory. I conclude by arguing that if my theory is correct, then Zagzebski’s lesson to epistemology applies to the philosophy of science as well.

Motives and moral theory in Hume

André Klaudat — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

Hume’s moral sentimentalism is based on the practicality of morals. Because the object of moral distincions is presented in actions, the will and its motives are crucial for the nature of these distinctions. After explaining what gives moral dimension to an action, I analyse the principle “which takes us so far out of ourselves” so that the morality of actions is brought about. But it’s only its operation from a “judicious spectator” point of view, that makes possible a “stable” judgment of things by making it turn on the influence and effect of actions on the persons affected by them, that we can form the moral terms which we use in tracing moral distinctions. I argue that this is a basis sufficient for morality to present us with the motives for actions towards the people involved in this situation of moral appreciation. And the reason for that is the sentimental expansion constitutive of morals which is an expansion of our common humanity to which we are not indifferent. In this way, Hume’s moral theory gives a backing to the morality of actions. The conclusion is that Hume’s “undoubted maxim” is incontroversial: we need to supose “a motive to the action distinct from the sense of duty”. It is the “antecedent principle of humanity, which is meritorious and laudable”.

A logic for logical acceptance

Diego Tajer — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

In this article, I develop a formal analysis of the concept of logical acceptance, extending a proposal by Lokhorst (1997). In the formal system I propose, we can represent the idea that an agent accepts a certain sentence or argument as valid. To do this, we use the apparatus of epistemic logic. As an example, we explore the possibility of accepting or rejecting three-valued logics such as LP or K3. I then develop a semantics for this system, using ideas from non-normal modal logic. Towards the end of the article, I show that not only logical acceptance and rejection can be represented in the system, but also beliefs about the logical commitments of other agents.

If we suffer for love, it’s Plato’s fault:

Francisco Fianco — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

The present text has as its initial objective to weave a critical reading of Plato’s well-known dialogue, The Symposium, reflecting on the conceptions of love, sexuality and affectivity that this text presents and the way in which such conceptions penetrated and developed in the western culture. This critique will be made from a post-modern perspective, based on Michel Onfray’s Théorie du corps amoureux, as well as some fragments from Nietzsche that underlie this author’s thinking, among other references that prove to be opportune. For this, the text will be divided into three distinct parts, the first reconstructing in general terms the arguments of Plato’s text, the second pointing out the weaknesses of these classical conceptions and the third directing the reader to the alternatives available in contemporary times through so many transformations in the forms of living, thinking and loving that we find at the beginning of the 21st century.

Charcot, hysteria designer

Francisco Verardi Bocca — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

Article dedicated to reconstructing, through a biographical and bibliographical review, the scientific-aesthetic project of the Salpêtrière hospital in the second half of the 19th century, highlighting Martin Charcot and collaborators’ interest in art, especially drawing as an instrument for research, nosography, diagnosis, and teaching of hysteria. It aims to show that this interest took effect in the proposal of a reciprocal relationship of influence and collaboration between medical science and art, giving the former the status of medical criticism of art, with naturalism as its artistic ideal. It ends with a critical reflection that evaluates the results of such collaboration between science and art, as well as the consequences of this cooperation following the advent of Freudian psychoanalysis.

Zeno of Eleia and the (im)possibility of movement

Gonçalo Branco Rosete — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article intends to analyze Zeno of Eleia paradox of dichotomy, the first of the arguments against motion, with the intent of exploring some refutative possibilities, showing instead that movement is possible. For this, we will use above all the analyses present in Aristotle’s Physics, using the Aristotelian concepts of continuity, contiguity, and proximity in succession, as well as the refutations presented by H. Bergson about the nature of time and space. The finite-infinite conceptual pairs and the existing relationships between the time-space duality will also be analyzed.

After the ontological categories of indigenous thought from the proposal of the radical difference ontologies

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article examines the importance of ontological reflection as a framework for approaching indigenous and popular thought, and the possible contributions that emerge therein for the construction of an ontology in Latin American perspective. With this purpose, at first, we analyze Heideggerian ontology and its critique of metaphysics, a horizon that made possible the emergence of relational ontologies and radical difference as those that recognize the diversity of perspectives and the interconnection between the different elements of reality. Subsequently, made possible by these relational ontologies and radical difference, we approach and propose a reading of indigenous and popular thought in an ontological key as a contribution to philosophy and ontology in Latin America.

The philosophy of energy as an interdisciplinary field to think about Brazil

Jairo Dias Carvalho, Daniel Caixeta — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

In the article we expose the trajectory of the proposition of building an Energy Philosophy for Brazil. Research on Philosophy of Technology led us to try to understand the relationship between energy and technology, between technical design and energy source, and the relationship between productive forces, therefore, economic production and energy. This led us to formulate a problem and look for theoretical references to face it. The article tells this story. In it we propose three aspects to build a minimum framework for the Philosophy of Energy: the topic of Nature, which addresses biophysical theories of energy and epistemological problems for constructing the concept of energy; the topic of Culture, which addresses the relationship between energy systems and cultural systems; and the topic of techno-economics, which addresses the role of energy in economic production and its relationship to the energy system characterized by the phases of conversion, production, consumption, creation that determine the way in which human societies use energy, the main cause of the climate crisis.

Ethics and Physics in Heraclitus

Julian Ramiro Numpaque García — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article aims to point out that in Heraclitus’ thought ethics is linked to physics. This idea is developed in three stages: 1) The fundamental elements of physics in Heraclitus are identified, such as the Logos, the fire, the unity between opposites and the flux; 2) The characteristics of Heraclitus’ ethical proposal are determined, highlighting the importance given to the soul in Greek ethics and, finally, 3) the relationship between ethics and physics is explored, based on two central elements of Heraclitus of Ephesus’ philosophy: the physical composition of soul and the universal structure of Logos.

Phenomenological studies of the paradox of the liar. A brief analysis of insolubilia. Eine logische studie über die grundlage der mengenlehre by A. Koyré

Luis Alberto Canela Morales — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

Given the importance of both logical paradoxes in general and Koyré’s work Insolubilia. Eine logische Studie über die Grundlage der Mengenlehre in particular, it is necessary and crucial to rigorously study (and, of course, understand) his philosophical analysis regarding the paradox of the liar. The main objective of this article, therefore, is to provide brief critical observations on Koyré’s analyses in this regard (second part of the article), enriching them with an exposition of his phenomenological background (first part of the article). In a way, the recognition that Koyré accords to Husserl and his commitment to phenomenology led him to undertake interesting phenomenological explorations. These explorations, by offering an original approach to paradoxes, allowed him to develop his own research methodology, which we will explore here.

Enaction of mestizo identity in Pedro Páramo

Mindaugas Briedis, Juan Carlos Carrillo — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo (1994 [1955]) is one of the milestones of Mexican literature and it holds an important place in the global canon of the twentieth century. Despite the wide spectrum of interpretative possibilities it offers, there are almost no studies of this important novel from the perspective of embodied cognition. This article draws on the vocabulary of contemporary philosophy to address this critical gap, deconstructing the full range of traditional binary oppositions articulated by Rulfo, which includes: body and mind, cognitive and moral, imaginative and perceptual, mystical and lived, freedom and responsibility, individual and social. However, to establish the relevancy of our chosen conceptual apparatus, we return to Aristotle to offer a novel interpretation which also allows us to situate and correlate both the universal (human) and particular (mestizo) projects laid out by the author of Páramo. We demonstrate both the usefulness of Aristotle’s universal descriptions of the human being and the shortcomings of their rationalism and optimism in the context of the postcolonial world. To modify and extend this adaptation we reflect further on the specific ‘movements’ of the mestizo soul, which privilege embodied moments of cognition and transgression as the proper care for the soul, a soul that embraces both individual and socio-cultural aspects. This finally allows us to address the question of how the post-logocentric enaction and mediation of mestizo identity is possible.

Semantic naturalism and the normativity of meaning

Sérgio Farias Souza Filho — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

The slogan “meaning is intrinsically normative” is regarded by several philosophers as capturing an essential feature of linguistic meaning. The normativity of meaning is supposed to constitute a constraint upon theories of meaning. In particular, it has been extensively objected that naturalist theories of meaning are flawed, on the grounds that semantic facts are normative, while natural facts are descriptive. The goal of this paper is to assess two conflicting views on the normativity of meaning – semantic prescriptivism and anti-prescriptivism. First, I show that only the former threatens semantic naturalism. After that, I argue in favour of semantic anti-prescriptivism and show that the main argument for semantic prescriptivism – the simple argument – is flawed. The conclusion is that the viability of semantic naturalism is not touched by the normativity of meaning.

Reading Notes — Proust

Tiago Nunes Soares Schweiger — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0300

Translation of an appendix in the work L’institution, la passivité: notes de cours au Collége de France (1954-1955), in which Merleau-Ponty presents reading notes on the novel In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust.