Saúde vulgar e fabricação do corpo a partir de Georges Canguilhem

O texto parte de uma conferência de Canguilhem sobre o estatuto do conceito de saúde. Trata-se de uma exegese da citação de Epicteto nas Entrevistas (Livro II, 17) que busca explicitar a dupla dimensão da saúde como questão filosófica e como conceito vulgar. Busca-se articular esta formulação tardia e singular da obra de Canguilhem em seu projeto de uma história das ciências da vida compreendida como tarefa filosófica. Neste sentido cabe evocar questões centrais de sua tese Normal e Patológico – especialmente a disjunção entre o par antinômico saúde e doença e a dupla cromática fisiologia-patologia. Enquanto conclusão é oferecida uma articulação do problema com a crisecovid em curso, entendida a partir de impasses do campo biomédico e respostas insatisfatórias das ciências sociais e da filosofia.Palavras-chave: Canguilhem. Corpo. Conceito de saúde. Pandemia. Epicteto. Vulgar health and body fabrication from Georges Canguilhem ABSTRACTThe text is part of a conference by Canguilhem on the status of the concept of health. It is an exegesis of the quote from Epictetus in the Interviews (Book II, 17) that seeks to explain the double dimension of health as a philosophical issue and as a common concept. The aim is to articulate this late and singular formulation of Canguilhem's work in his project for a history of the life sciences understood as a philosophical task. In this sense, central issues of his Normal and Pathological thesis should be evoked – especially the disjunction between the antinomic pair health and disease and the chromatic physiology-pathology pair. As a conclusion, an articulation of the problem with the ongoing crisis is offered, understood from the impasses in the biomedical field and unsatisfactory answers from the social sciences and philosophy.Keywords: Canguilhem. Body. Health concept. Pandemic. Epicteto.

The Moods of the Historical Time: “New Renaissance” of V. Bibikhin and “Historical Anxiety” of P. Ricoeur

The article offers a comparative study of the concepts of “historical mood” in the works of V.V. Bibikhin and P. Ricoeur. The efficiency of the comparative study can be founded by the common intellectual context, the common influence of such authors as Aristotle, Augustine, M. Heidegger, on P. Ricoeur and V.V. Bibikhin. It is also important to note that both philosophers combine the perspectives of the phenomenological method, historical hermeneutics and they both turn to the ontology of understanding. The article shows how the paradoxical nature of time leads to difficulties in interpreting the historical time, and explains the conceptual findings, that were proposed by Bibikhin and Ricoeur to overcome this paradox. Whereas Bibikhin prefers to comprehend time as the time of the present event, i.e. time-kairos or pora (in Russian), Ricoeur follows the logic of retrospective analysis of the time-narrative. Still, the time paradox can be solved by the appeal to the a priori perfectum (Bibikhin) or the time of memory (Ricoeur). Then it is explained how the phenomenon of the colouredness of the historical time is rooted in some fundamental mood: for Bibikhin it is joy and indignation, while for Ricoeur — anxiety and hope. The proposed analysis of the concepts of pora (in Russian), kairos, patina of time, new Renaissance, colour of time (Bibikhin) and intrigue, historical mood, historical anxiety, truth}, hope (Ricoeur) leads to the question that the fundamental philosophical task — as long as philosophy is associated with the striving for the truth — is to understand the historical time of the present.

Ontology

One example of the impressive breadth, depth, and deep interconnectedness of Fine’s work concerns his views about what sorts of entities we should commit ourselves to, as philosophers. In “The Question of Ontology” he challenges existing accounts of the philosophical task of ontology, rejecting a Quinean concern with what there is in favor of a focus on what entities are real. Fine thinks such a notion of reality is primitive, although linked to the notion of being ungrounded. The present chapter constitutes a critique of Fine’s interconnected set of ideas about the task of ontology, and defends the ability of quantificational constructions to capture ontological commitments, while questioning the usefulness to ontology of a primitive concept of reality.

Naturalism and the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a paradigmatic example of a scientific theory seemingly demanding ‘an interpretation’. What is it to ‘interpret’ a physical theory? Bas van Fraassen has recently argued that the attitude towards the task of interpreting science can be used to demarcate two otherwise similar epistemic stances: empiricism and naturalism. He claims that while empiricists are committed to the task of interpretation, naturalists cannot make sense of interpretation from outside the scientific theory. Naturalists, it seems, would have to be quietists about interpretation. Chapter 6 investigates in what form, if any, naturalists can make sense of the task of interpretation in the case of quantum mechanics. Doing so will shed light on the question whether interpretation of physical theories is a distinctively philosophical task, and what its purpose might be. It suggests that the aim of interpreting theories is to enhance our understanding, and that this task is not exclusively philosophical.

Grounding Deleuze

The article discusses the significance of What Is Grounding?, a text based on a lecture course given by Deleuze at the Lycée Louis le Grand. This course is crucial for understanding Deleuze’s thought, as it presents his ideas in a focused manner and also establishes the differences between various approaches to the philosophical task of (self)grounding and the beginning of philosophy as a whole. Deleuze begins with mythology: mythological thinking accompanied by the endless task of ritual repetition forms the first step towards attaining reason as infinite. With Hume, Kant and post-Kantianism we arrive at the grounding of reason, and Deleuze’s text itself is also concerned with the capacity of finite creatures to “realize reason”. Knowledge after Hume, however, is grounded on subjective principles and in it the subject begins to assert its right to grounding through “questioning”. The structures of questioning are three: the existential, the logical-rational and the critical, and they are not opposed, but rather form a triple function of grounding. They could also have a relation either to knowledge or to expressing things as they are in themselves. Deleuze calls the first relation “method” and the second “system,” and takes a positive view of post-Kantian philosophers and even Hegel because they had moved towards system after Kant could not choose between it and method and yet had emphasized the constitutive character of human finitude. The deepest aspect of grounding, however, remains “groundlessness/ungrounding” — in these lectures Deleuze is already turning toward an encounter with the dark ground of the unconscious, an idea he borrowed from Schelling and related to individuation. Thus, grounding brings difference into ground, and this is what the immanent realization of reason consists of.

Internal and External Objects of Cognition

Detailed analysis is conducted of the different constructions in which ‘know’, ‘believe’, ‘see’, and cognate verbs appear in ordinary or natural language, of their functions and of the relations and differences between them: e.g. noun-clauses of the form ‘that P’ serve different purposes after each of these classes of verb, partly reflected in the proposition–fact distinction—although ‘facts’ are ontologically unsuited to be what it is in the world we know. Some relevant views of Timothy Williamson (e.g. ‘e=k’) are discussed. The emphasis in current epistemology on the ‘know/see that P’ construction is criticized—no construction, and no use of the term ‘evidence’, is philosophically best, since it is no accident that we have them all. The philosophical task is to understand how they work together—the footprints in language of our cognitive relation to reality, manifestations of what knowledge, belief, and perception are.

Is There Common Ground between Anthropocentrists and Nonanthropocentrists?

Despite the fact that their disagreement concerns the most basic metaethical and metaphysical questions regarding our relation to nature, it has become apparent that many anthropocentrists share with nonanthropocentrists a concern for the environment for its own sake, that is to say, a noninstrumental concern for nature. This concern is also present in practical spheres of environmental engagement. With regard to the philosophical task of justifying the claim that we ought to protect nature, this concern imposes on those that share it at least three conditions: priority, independence of future interaction, and universality. Reasonably specified, these conditions are neutral between anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism and should be attractive to both camps. Although there are reasons to think it would be difficult to meet all three conditions at the same time, with some modification a promising way to do it becomes apparent.

Bioethics

While bioethics, a part of applied ethics, is usually identified with medical ethics, in its broadest sense it is the study of the moral, social and political problems that arise out of biology and the life sciences generally and involve, either directly or indirectly, human wellbeing. Thus, environmental and animal ethics are sometimes included within it. In this regard, bioethics can be of broader concern than is either medical/biomedical ethics or the study of the moral problems that arise out of new developments in medical technology. The interrelated issues of who or what has moral status, of what justifies a certain kind of treatment of one creature as opposed to another, and whether, if a creature has moral status, it can lose it, have proved especially important issues in this broadest sense of bioethics. The philosophical task of probing arguments for soundness appears essential to deciding these issues. As a part of applied ethics, bioethics is exposed to the difficulty that (1) we do not agree in our moral convictions and principles about many of the cases that feature in bioethics, (2) we do not agree in the moral theories in which our moral principles find their home and by which we try to justify them, and (3) we do not agree in the test(s) of adequacy by which to resolve the disagreements at the level of moral theory. We seem left with no way of deciding between contending principles and theories.

Reflections on the Debate: What Does Philosophy Have to Do with the Cognitive Study of Religion?

Why should the study of religion in general and cognitive study of religion in particular be interested in philosophy in the first place, and vice versa? The paper offers some responses to the debate between John Shook and his respondents. It will suggest that such debates are useful, as it is a philosophical task to reflect upon the basic assumptions, inference patterns and theories of the study of religion. Furthermore, cognitive study of religion and other approaches in the study of religion should be of great interest to philosophers of religion. The paper puts the debate in a larger context of the dialogue of philosophy and cognitive science of religion and introduces two central themes: debates about psychological explanations and debunking arguments.