Sculpt in clay
Gabriel Ferreira da Silva
The image of sculpting in clay as a way of confronting the absurd, used by Camus, serves as a motto for Gabriel Ferreira da Silva to point out Camus' response to the nihilism of the absurd and its false solution, suicide, as discussed in The Myth of Sisyphus. The passage from myth to revolt in The Revolted Man indicates the route of his ethics of passion. This aesthetic act of sculpting, in a finite and fragile matter, the possible meaning (establishing aesthetics at the heart of ethical life) links passion and a certain conception of human nature, a conception that constitutes an act of care for passion. Aesthetic care with the agony of the search for meaning is, in Camus, a value, an ultimate and possible value for a man who drags his corpse on his back throughout his life. We face this corpse affirming our revolt against the silence of the world.
Psychology and ethics the development of Franz Brentano's philosophy of the psychic
Evandro Oliveira de Britto
The book Psychology and ethics: the development of the philosophy of the psychic by Franz Brentano is the result of a thorough doctoral research. A pioneer in the Portuguese language, this research inaugurated studies on the ethics of preference, which was developed by the German philosopher Franz Brentano (1838-1917) through his philosophy of the psychic. It is not just another discussion about the principles that determine action in a problematic, assertoric or categorical way. In addition to the foundations that establish the classic opposition between deontological ethics and utilitarian ethics, the Brentanian ethics of preference founded a meta-ethical perspective of analysis and, as a result of this new perspective, proposed the overcoming of ethical theories based on moral feeling by an ethical theory based on moral knowledge. The investigations carried out by researcher Evandro O. Brito explain not only the structure of this cognitive ethics based on Brentan's description of psychic acts preference, but also present the fundamental changes and improvements made by Franz Brentano in his philosophy of the psychic, with the purpose of guarantee the plausibility of his theory. It is, therefore, a publication that fills a gap in studies on ethics in Portuguese. For, as the English philosopher George Moore put it, “this [the ethical theory of Franz Brentano] is by far the best discussion of the most fundamental principles of ethics than any I have ever known. Brentano himself is fully aware that he has made a great advance in the theory of Ethics (...) and his conviction both in the originality and in the value of his own work is completely justified” (1903, p. 115).
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Development: Phenomenology, Grammar, Method, and the Anthropological View
Mauro Engelmann
The book explains why and how Wittgenstein adapted the Tractatus in phenomenological and grammatical terms to meet challenges of his 'middle period.' It also shows why and how he invents a new method and develops an anthropological perspective, which gradually frame his philosophy and give birth to the Philosophical Investigations.
Reading Wittgenstein's Tractatus
Mauro Engelmann
This Element presents a concise and accessible view of the central arguments of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Starting from the difficulties found in historical and current debates, drawing on the background of Russell's philosophy, and grounded in the ladder structure expressed in the numbering system of the book, this Element presents the central arguments of the Tractatus in three lines of thought. The first concerns the role of the so-called 'ontology' and its relationship to the method of the Tractatus and its logical symbolism, which displays the formal essence of language and world. The second deals with the symbolic unity of language and its role in the 'ladder structure' and explains how and why the book is not self-defeating. The third elucidates Wittgenstein's claim to have solved in essentials all philosophical problems, whose very formulation, he says, remains on misunderstandings.