Observações introdutórias sobre a natureza da beleza na filosofia de George Santayana

A publicação da obra “O Sentido da Beleza” do filósofo George Santayana assinala a maturidade da estética norte-americana. A partir de uma abordagem psicológica naturalista ele se volta a questão da beleza para entender por que, como e onde a beleza surge, as condições necessárias para sua formação e os elementos que auxiliam o seu florescimento. Apesar da importância, desde a morte do filósofo em 1952 sua obra cai em um estágio de semiesquecimento. O propósito do presente trabalho é justamente recuperando do limbo histórico essa obra tão relevante esclarecer como Santayana tratou o problema da beleza nessa primeira obra juvenil.

The Reign of the Genteel

This conclusion examines some episodes in the formation of the narrative about 'the genteel tradition'. Having shown that Henry Adams, Henry James, Edith Wharton and their friend Barrett Wendell all contribute to a realist critique of a liberal idealism, American Snobs notes here that when George Santayana makes his own influential commentary on the 'genteel', he is responding to the same liberal Harvard milieu that provokes that realist critique. Wendell's Harvard students Van Wyck Brooks and Vernon Louis Parrington adapt this critique as they develop the narrative about the genteel for their own ends. Brooks, the conclusion shows, contributes to the distortions of that narrative by conflating Charles Eliot Norton's perspective with that of the much more reactionary Wendell. The book closes by considering the unsexy femininity that frequently figures the genteel, linking it to Reconstruction-era evocations of the schoolmarm and later references to sterile Anglo-Saxon womanhood that hastens racial decline. In later iterations of the narrative about the genteel, negative representations of this unsexy white femininity tend to serve progressive ends; in earlier iterations like those surveyed in American Snobs, however, such representations tend to serve a conservatism that is sceptical about democracy and understands itself as realist.

Searching for Answers to Hybrid Approaches in Communication and Learning Environments

This examination focuses on hybrid approaches and highlights two in particular: blended learning and the hybrid shift. Blended learning can support online and face-to-face (F2F) students equally by providing similar learning experiences. Incorporating synchronicity is recommended as a way to address the limitations of asynchronous learning resident in the proposed hybrid approach. Synchronicity is connecting two or more people in related educational events at the same time. Another approach, the “hybrid shift,” features faculty design content and structure with a focus on being thoughtful, engaging, and intentional in promoting learning, effective collaboration, critical thinking, and communication skills. George Santayana said, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This is relevant in that social media grew, in part, out of a need to overcome communication limitations of geographical distance and time. This examination looks closely at hybrid approaches and offers some answers for educational implications.

Common themes contributing to recent drinking water disease outbreaks in affluent nations

New Zealand experienced its largest waterborne disease outbreak in modern history in August 2016 with 5,500 cases and four fatalities. This recent outbreak is one of 24 drinking-waterborne disease outbreaks in affluent nations that have been reported in the scientific literature since the infamous Walkerton, Ontario, Canada fatal outbreak (2,300 cases, seven fatalities) in May 2000. These disasters were all eminently preventable given the economic and intellectual resources existing in the countries where they occurred. These outbreaks are analysed according to major recurring themes, including: complacency, naiveté and ignorance, failure to learn from experience and chemophobia. Lessons that can be learned to improve preventive approaches for ensuring safe drinking water are based on an extensive and authentic body of evidence in support of meaningful improvements. Philosopher George Santayana captured this need with his famous quote: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’