A Revista Sofia (ISSN 2317-2339, classificada como A2 no Qualis 2021-2024), vinculada ao Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia da Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (UFES), publica artigos originais, traduções e resenhas na área de Filosofia, assinados por professores e pesquisadores que sejam doutorandos ou possuam título de mestre ou doutor. Dessa forma, busca contribuir para o debate na comunidade filosófica nacional e internacional. A Revista é publicada semestralmente, com edições previstas para julho e dezembro. Seu conteúdo inclui dossiês temáticos, artigos submetidos em fluxo contínuo, traduções e resenhas. Serão aceitos trabalhos originais em português, inglês, francês, espanhol, italiano ou alemão.
Dada a política de acesso público da revista, o uso dos textos publicados é gratuito, com a obrigação de reconhecer a autoria original e a primeira publicação nesta revista. Os autores das contribuições publicadas são inteiramente e exclusivamente responsáveis por seus conteúdos. I Os autores autorizam a publicação do artigo nesta revista. II Os autores garantem que a contribuição é original e assumem total responsabilidade pelo seu conteúdo em caso de impugnação por terceiros. III Os autores garantem que a contribuição não está sob avaliação em outra revista. IV Os autores mantêm os direitos autorais e concedem à revista o direito de primeira publicação, sendo o trabalho licenciado sob uma Licença Creative Commons Atribuição-BY. V Os autores são autorizados e incentivados a divulgar e distribuir seu trabalho on-line após a publicação na revista. VI Os autores dos trabalhos aprovados autorizam a revista a distribuir seu conteúdo, após a publicação, para reprodução em índices de conteúdo, bibliotecas virtuais e similares. VII Os editores reservam o direito de fazer ajustes no texto e adequar o artigo às normas editoriais da revista.
BENATAR, David. The Human Predicament: a candid guide to life's biggest questions. Nova Iorque: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Copyright (c) 2026 André Mário Gonçalves Oliveira https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Meaning and expression in Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of music
Schopenhauer conceived music as a genuinely metaphysical and cosmopolitan art, believing that in it the Will would gain a voice in a universal and immediately understandable language. His metaphysics of music is, however, as interesting as it is ambiguous. It is interesting because, among other aspects, it resists Hanslick’s criticism of the “aesthetics of feeling”, approaching his “formalism”. It is ambiguous because, on the one hand, while understanding music in relation to other arts, Schopenhauer tends to see it as a mimetic art, whose language is all the richer in meaning the more penetrating its reference to the most intimate aspects of things. On the other hand, while understanding music in and for itself, highlighting its autonomy and proximity to philosophy, Schopenhauer tends to see it as an epiphanic art, whose language is all the more expressive the more it allows us to hear the very dynamics of the Will. However, since Schopenhauer does not clearly distinguish between meaning and expression, the problem of musical semantics, which he thought he had solved, results in an insoluble aporia, before which metaphysics succumbs, without, however, dragging music itself down with it.
Copyright (c) 2026 Ricardo Barbosa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This article discusses Giordano Bruno’s liminal position between late medieval and Renaissance mystical-esoteric traditions and emerging modern demands for the intelligibility of nature. It seeks to clarify how the author incorporates and reorganizes esoteric traditions within his philosophical project. To this end, it examines, drawing on historiography and the author’s works, how astrology, hermeticism, and natural magic are rearticulated as conceptual, symbolic, and rhetorical resources and integrated into a naturalistic and reformist philosophy of nature. It argues that, in Bruno, these repertoires do not function as practices of enchantment or superstition, but as instruments for thinking about connections, causalities, and internal links within the cosmos.
Copyright (c) 2026 Willian Ricardo Santos https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In this article, we examine Nietzsche’s critique of the rationalization of historical knowledge in the nineteenth century. The guiding hypothesis of this analysis is that Nietzsche’s critiques of historical knowledge should be understood through their entanglement with the problem of memory, insofar as the scientifization of the past promotes an excessive accumulation of memory and leads to the paralysis of existential potentialities. We further argue that Nietzsche’s critique can be better understood when situated in dialogue with Arthur Schopenhauer’s contribution, particularly through his work, The World as Will and Representation. Accordingly, we explore the interrelation between Nietzsche and Schopenhauer as a means of more precisely elucidating the Nietzschean perspective.
Copyright (c) 2026 Rafael Gomes Nogueira Pereira https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This paper proposes a reading of F. Nietzsche's work, The birth of tragedy, in order to discuss its two central theses: the birth of tragedy from the phenomenon of the Dionysian and its death due to the influence of Socrates' theoretical reflection on Euripides' tragedies.
Copyright (c) 2026 Fernando Mendes Pessoa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The epistemic validity of religious propositions
This article examines the logical admissibility of religious propositions through the framework of Suhrawardi’s logic. It does not seek to confirm or refute religious claims, but to assess whether such propositions satisfy the minimal conditions required for epistemic evaluation. Four criteria derived from Suhrawardi’s logic structure the analysis: definability of the subject, self-evidence as the starting point of cognition, the capacity to generate genuine knowledge, and the preservation of the distinction between existence and essence. The study suggests that many widely employed religious propositions encounter significant difficulties in meeting these logical requirements. They often lack clearly determinate conceptual content, may not provide a legitimate epistemic starting point, and do not readily culminate in analyzable knowledge. Moreover, by loosening or suspending the relation between essence and existence, they tend to resist rational assessment. Consequently, within this strictly logical framework, such propositions can be understood as tending to remain outside, or at best at the margins of, epistemic validity.
Copyright (c) 2026 Saeed Javdaniyan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The problem of the vicious circle of intelligence in the face of life in Bergson's Creative Evolution
Our objective will be to postulate in favor of the existence of a superintelligence capable of breaking the vicious circle of empirical intelligence, according to Bergsonian thought. With the help of intuition, it would be able to surpass itself through a linguistic leap. If we accept that it is the action of a superior intelligence that breaks its own circle, we will demonstrate that an essential change in human attitudes toward language, knowledge, and life will occur by overcoming this problem, which is the purely anthropological theme of Creative Evolution. Finally, we will argue that overcoming the vicious circle of practical intelligence, according to Bergson, aims to replace and reconfigure the speculative habit that characterizes it, adopting a radical use of language that connects with the totality of vital experience through the use of metaphors and images.
Copyright (c) 2026 Fernando Machado https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“The Science of feeling and of suffering”
This article investigates the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau on Judith Shklar’s political theory. I argue that Shklar inherits from Rousseau not only elements of a moral psychology, but more importantly, a psychological sensibility attuned to the negative experiences of the ordinary individual. The essay begins with Men and citizens (1969), where Shklar presents Rousseau as a reformulator of Lockean introspective psychology, imbuing it with moral and political significance. I then examine, based on Rousseau’s own works, descriptions of the feeling of injustice as an experience both enabled by natural dispositions and mediated by social relations, serving as a psychic foundation for the normative critique of political reality. Finally, I explore how, in The faces of injustice (1990), Shklar draws on this legacy to develop an agonistic defense of liberal democracy, rooted in the articulation of situated experiences of fear, injustice, and suffering.
Copyright (c) 2026 João M. Nonato https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This article proposes a critical reformulation of semantic inferentialism and logical expressivism from a peripheral perspective. It argues that, for groups subjected to regimes of racial, colonial, and gender domination, language should be conceived neither as a mirror of reality nor merely as a lamp that makes explicit norms already operative in language games. Such regimes of domination are analyzed as forms of grammatical violence, understood as the imposition of networks of material inferences that not only fix the meaning of the concepts operative in our language games but also prey upon the grammar of an autochthonous form of life, insofar as they redistribute authority, value, recognition, and exclusion. Concepts such as “race” and “gender” function as conceptual axes with high inferential density that naturalize hierarchies under the appearance of normative neutrality. A distinction is thus drawn between inferential bootstrapping and grammatical levers. The former designates the process of making rules explicit while participating in the practices that confer meaning upon them. Grammatical levers name situated interventions that identify conceptual fulcrums within these inferential networks and, beyond making them explicit, mobilize collective action to shift them. The paper also discusses normative “aquilombamento” as a historical form of collective consolidation of alternative grammars. Examples such as the Quilombo dos Palmares, the activism of Malcolm X, and the Black Panthers are analyzed as struggles for grammatical sovereignty and normative self-determination by minoritized groups within supremacist language games, rather than as demands for mere assimilation, integration, or expansion of civil rights.
Copyright (c) 2026 Marcos Silva https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The present essay aims to introduce the Methodology of the Theory of Science, developed and structured by Professor Jose Raymundo Novaes Chiappin in his PhD dissertation (Chiappin, 1989), as a methodological instrument capable of organizing and hierarchizing the various philosophical components relevant to the rational reconstruction of episodes in the history of science. As a case study, we employ the narrative concerning the origins of Relativistic Cosmology, focusing on the model of the universe proposed by Einstein in 1917. The MTC suggests identifying the epistemic unit and distinguishing the methodological, metaphysical, and historical components. At the metaphysical level, one must identify the ontological, methodological, and axiological components of any conception of science. In reconstructing Einstein’s cosmological model, we are led to identify General Relativity as the epistemic unit of his formulation and of all major cosmological formulations that immediately followed it (such as the cosmologies of Friedmann and Lemaître). In the following pages, we provide a more detailed decomposition of his cosmological formulation, separating propositions concerning our knowledge of the universe (epistemological), the constituents of the universe (ontological), and the aims and values of Cosmology as a science (axiological). Decompositions at the levels of methodology, metamethodology, logic, and history are also presented in this essay. We argue that the MTC, as a theoretical instrument, can contribute to the growing and fruitful integration between studies in the history and philosophy of science.
Copyright (c) 2026 Danilo Rodrigues, Dr. Chiappin, Dr. Jojomar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Rawls, Ideal Theory and the Relevance of Context
The article investigates how John Rawls’s theory of justice both accommodates and limits the relevance of context within his account of justice as fairness, drawing on the distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory. First, we reconstruct the ideal dimension of the Rawlsian framework, with emphasis on the circumstances of justice, the moral psychology of agents, and the notion of the quasi-stability of a well-ordered society. We then offer an account of these non-ideal circumstances as a kind of challenging context that serves as a test for the scope of ideal theories of justice. Engaging with the debate on contextualism in justice, and in particular with so-called iterative contextualism, the article defends a more open reading of Rawls’s theory, one that can enter into dialogue with this kind of approach without abandoning the normative core of his proposal as presented in the ideal part of his theory.
Virtudes e perfeccionismo: Aristóteles, Nietzsche, Rawls e além
Copyright (c) 2025 Evandro Barbosa, Thaís Alves Costa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Prudent reflective equilibrium and the climate crisis
The aim of this paper is to investigate to what extent the use of the reflective equilibrium (RE) method can point us towards our personal and institutional responsibility in the face of the climate crisis. To this end, I begin by characterizing the RE method and pointing out its limitations, especially its conservatism and relativism/subjectivism. Following this, I propose an alteration to the method, so as to allow for the use of the prudent agent's expertise in the initial selection of beliefs, in order to overcome the criticisms mentioned. The next step will then be to apply the prudent reflective equilibrium (PRE) method in the context of the climate crisis in order to identify our duties in the face of the problem and to understand the best course of public action. Finally, I make some concluding remarks on the problem investigated, suggesting some personal duties in the face of the climate crisis, as well as suggesting some courses of action that should be taken by the main public institutions to address the environmental problem.
Copyright (c) 2025 Denis Coitinho https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The article critically examines the tension between political neutrality and moral perfectionism within contemporary liberalism, with particular attention to Denis Coitinho’s (2024) proposal to reconcile both traditions through what he calls moderate perfectionist liberalism. Based on a brief reconstruction of the debate between Rawls (1993), Raz (1986), and other interpreters of liberalism, the paper argues that the internal coherence of liberal theory depends on a minimal ethical foundation. It is claimed that Rawls’ (1971; 1993) attempt to sustain political legitimacy without appealing to substantive conceptions of the good leads to a weakening of its own normativity, since neutrality, when understood as epistemic abstinence regarding moral truth, becomes self-contradictory. By distinguishing between political consensus and moral truth, the paper maintains that liberalism preserves its intelligibility only when it recognizes that values such as freedom, equality, and respect possess normative force independent of mere procedural agreement. From this diagnosis, the article contends that Coitinho’s hybridist project offers a promising alternative by affirming the complementarity between ethics and politics and conceiving public reason not merely as a neutral space of deliberation, but as a moral practice of mutual recognition.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lucas M Dalsotto https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Liberal political perfectionism as a morally permissible, politically possible, and probably effective non-ideal theory
This article analyzes the position of the liberal political perfectionist proposal, understood as the state promotion of liberal political virtues, in relation to its practical necessity and feasibility. Initially, the authors present their proposal for liberal political perfectionism, emphasizing its fundamental practical importance for the maintenance and flourishing of liberal democracies. Then, in light of the current debate between ideal theories, non-ideal theories, and political realism, this article shows how such perfectionism, although based on markedly realist descriptions, should be considered a non-ideal theory due to its prior commitment to the normativity of egalitarian political liberalism, yet remaining capable of guiding political action. Finally, it argues that this commitment to the normativity of egalitarian political liberalism and the consequent departure from political realism do not lessen its effective applicability in liberal democratic societies.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ricardo Araújo, Alceu Maurício Junior https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Thinking philosophically with other thinkers
This research aims to investigate the extent to which the knowledge of indigenous peoples can contribute to the decolonization of thought. The methodology adopted is based on reading and analyzing the works of four authors whose contributions broaden conceptions of the world and question the hegemony of a single narrative. Of particular note is the writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, whose critique of the “single narrative” denounces the risks of the homogenization of thought. In the Brazilian context, the voices of Ailton Krenak and Davi Kopenawa reaffirm the centrality of ancestry, spirituality and the relationship with nature as indispensable ontological foundations for understanding other forms of existence. Complementing these perspectives, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro's contribution, especially through the concept of Amerindian perspectivism, offers ways of accessing distinct forms of perception and knowledge. Friedrich Nietzsche's perspectivism will also be considered, due to its potential to broaden the critical vision and break with the closure in a single interpretative perspective. The conclusion is that the adoption of diverse epistemologies favors a more inclusive and plural philosophical dialogue, avoiding the confinement of reflection in a homogeneous vision. Recognizing multiple voices is essential for a richer and more complex understanding of reality, reaffirming the commitment to diversity and overcoming hegemonic views.
Copyright (c) 2026 Ricardo Valim https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Metapsychology of sadism-masochism in Freud and its relation to the drive theories
This work proposes an analysis of the concepts of sadism and masochism in Freud's works, with the aim of showing how the theory of sadism-masochism and the drive theories were articulated and mutually influenced each other. In his first drive theory, Freud associates sadism with the aggressive component of the drive that became exacerbated and independent, consequently dominating the subject’s sexual tendency, while masochism is considered a continuation of sadism turned back against the person themselves. In the second drive theory, with the introduction of the death drive, the emphasis previously placed on sadism moves to masochism, now considered as primary. Masochism would correspond to the part of the death drive that remained bound to the libido and retained within the organism, and sadism, the portion of that drive deflected toward external objects and placed in the service of the sexual function. We conclude that not only did the introduction of the concept of death drive into Freud’s work imply an important reformulation in his theory of sadomasochism, but the concepts of sadism and masochism themselves also exerted, in a certain way, an influence on the reformulation of his theory of drives.
Copyright (c) 2026 Renan Dutra da Cunha, Daniel Omar Perez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
From the sources of normativity to metaeguical constructivism in Christine Korsgaard
By raising the “normative question”, Christine Korsgaard inquiries about the possibility of justification in practical philosophy. We shall try to clear up what is implied in that question and try to recognize in which aspects some traditional answers to it are incorporated by the philosopher. From there on it’ll follow the constitutivist thesis about agency and its consequences to the Kantian (and procedural in nature) enterprise of Korsgaard. A strain of metaethical constructivism results from this fundamental structure, in which practical normativity in general is constituted by beings who take themselves to be valuable and are uniquely capable of evaluating considerations qua reasons. As a conclusion, we shall make use of different cotemporary ways of understanding the constructivist position in general to interpret Korsgaard’s position in regard to this aspect as a way of making this philosophical strain within metaethics clearer.
Copyright (c) 2026 Andrew Moura https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Understanding the materialist method historical-dialectic
At the present article we seek to problematize professor Triviños Preliminary Document, that was used at his Search Methodology classes. This document, named Introduction to Dialectical Method at Social Science Search was organized by Professor Augusto Nibaldo Silva Triviños, aiming helping the neophytes of postgraduate studies at qualified search. In this article, we objectively present and discuss the dialectical method of four theorists who discuss Karl Marx's dialectical method. Methodologically we work with literature review of the field, as well we seek to undestand, discuss and work with the Dialectical Search Method. Regarding the results, it is worthy highlight that the authors studied (Hegel, Cheptulin, Kosik Triviños) revealed to use qualitative research methodologies, however, they all present and discuss specific aspects and issues of Qualitative Methodology. Triviños, however, aimed to collaboratively think and write during his methodological path, as well as he guided his neophytes to develop their search based on the Materialist Method Historical-Dialectic, that seeks to prioritize the study of material and qualitative phenomena of the Materialist Historical-Dialectic, furthermore request to identify the main and secondary categories and experience the connection between what is done and what is researched, among other aspects of the dialectical method.
Copyright (c) 2025 Miguel Alfredo Orth https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Dezessete questões sobre o evangelho segundo Mateus
Copyright (c) 2025 Matheus Reis Gomes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
SCRUTON, Roger. Conservadorismo: um convite à grande tradição. Tradução: Alessandra Bonrruquer. 11º ed. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2024, 153 p. ISBN: 978-85-01-11451-8.
Copyright (c) 2025 Walace Alexsander Alves Cruz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Notes on Latin American Philosophy and Analogical Hermeneutics: An Interview with Mauricio Beuchot
This interview with Professor Mauricio Beuchot explores his proposal for advancing analogical hermeneutics and discusses both the history of Latin American Philosophy and interdisciplinary connections within the broader field of Philosophy.
Copyright (c) 2025 Bento Machado Mota https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
History and happiness on Notes from underground and Civilization and Its Discontents
This paper aims to present, in general terms, the relationship between the notions of history and happiness in the works Notes from Underground (1864) and Civilization and Its Discontents (1929), in order to signal the confluence of perspectives between the images of the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) and the conceptual framework of the Austrian thinker Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). To this end, the monologue of the character "the underground man" is addressed, exposing the critique of the idealistic optimism of his historical time embodied in the figure of the radical theorist Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828-1889). Then, the Freudian vision of the relationship between the individual and society is thematized, given under the sign of a fundamental and, therefore, insurmountable tension between instinctive freedom and the demands of maintaining social experience. From this, the elective affinity between the images of one and the concepts of the other is concluded, signaled in the refusal of the idea of progress as the evident destiny of reason, which delegitimizes the affirmation of a necessary link between history and happiness.
Copyright (c) 2026 Marta Maria Aragão Maciel, Ângela Calou https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The present essay aims to go through some of the main quasi-concepts and articulations of Derrida's ethical-political thought that we consider as a meta-ethics and a meta-politics, since he aims not only to dramatize the concepts of traditional political theory, showing its origin, its history, its implications and performativities as, through a dissent and a refusal that we take as ultra- or hyper-political in relation to established politics, engaging in an absolutely other way of understanding the political (which also we will name a “politics of ethics”), mainly with regard to political-institutional and State policies. In this sense, we intend to point out the singularity of Derrida's ethical-political thought through the idea of ​​promise and a non-utopian impossible, the search for points of instability that permeate (or even underlie) current political and legal institutions towards their emancipation, of para-state and supra-national devices that can install a logic other than the hegemony of nation-states and that are guided by the ideas of democracy to come, in the deconstruction of state sovereignty, in the reformulation of the idea of ​​hospitality, in the proposal of a new international and another zooanthropolytics, among other topics that we will cover here.
Copyright (c) 2025 Martha Luiza Bernardo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The theme of this article will analyze essential aspects of Theodor Adorno's diagnosis of contemporary art, namely, the cultural industry, the disartification of art, the theme of the end of art and the relationship between art and society. Our hypothesis is that all these themes together form an important force field for understanding contemporary art, even today. This theme also reveals the relevance of Adorno's aesthetics for reflection on art.
Copyright (c) 2025 Bruno Luciano de Paiva Silva https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Kant and the Genesis of Postmodern Relativism
This paper explores the relationship between Immanuel Kant's thought and contemporary relativism, arguing that Kant's philosophical premises, although he was a defender of the universality of reason, paved the way for interpretations that fed relativist and postmodern currents. However, he defended the universality of reason and paved the way for interpretations that fed relativist and postmodern currents. The article demonstrates that the relativism present in authors such as Foucault, Latour, Kuhn, and Rorty can be understood, to some extent, as a consequence of the Kantian system itself, even though they do not call themselves Kantians, since they reproduce and, in many cases, intensify problems already present in the Critique of Pure Reason. By emphasizing that symbolic, historical, and cultural structures always mediate knowledge, such currents relativize truth and question the possibility of direct access to reality. Thus, this work aims to contribute to the debate about the limits and possibilities of knowledge, highlighting the need for research that engages both with Kantian roots and with postmodern critiques and reinterpretations of knowledge.
Copyright (c) 2025 Domingos Braga Da Silva https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Nearly three decades after the first Brazilian edition of La société du spectacle (1967) was published in 1997 – translated by Estela dos Santos Abreu (1932-) and due to the efforts of the publisher Contraponto from Rio de Janeiro, founded by César de Queiroz Benjamin (1954-) – it is fair to say that the “theory book” of the Situationist International (1957-1972) has had a significant impact on the Brazilian public sphere. Since then, the French critical theorist has increasingly penetrated the political and academic imagination of our country, inspiring political-cultural actions and publications addressing various aspects of his work. At present, however, I would like to emphasize that there remains a facet of this work that is still lacking in more robust discussion among our peers: namely, Debord’s critique of French Structuralism. To pursue this objective, I will examine a few selected paragraphs from the 1967 book and three letters concerning Louis Althusser (1918-1990) that appear in Debord’s correspondence. This material will be confronted with brief but crucial passages from works by prominent figures of French Structuralism in the 1950s and 1960s, notably Roland Barthes (1915-1980) and Althusser himself. This philosophical reflection is guided by a key interpretative thread: the mistranslation in the Brazilian edition that rendered Structuralism as the “university thought of the lower clergy” rather than the “university thought of the middle ranks.” The original theoretical contribution and hypothesis of this interpretative essay, therefore, aims to demonstrate the fruitfulness of Debord’s methodological approach to ‘détournement’ as a key to understanding contemporary history, considering that Brazilian intellectual circles are still deeply marked by Structuralist influence. Broadly speaking, Debord emphasized that, from another point of view, errors and failures can be transformed into victories. Indeed, this procedure could be expanded in future historical struggles and, perhaps, in the transformation of social life as we know it now.
Copyright (c) 2026 Davi Galhardo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
From objections to KNA to a case for a hearer-centered norm of assertion
An assertion is generally understood as a speech act in the form of a statement meant to impart something of epistemic significance: we assert to clarify, inform, teach, and improve a hearer’s epistemic status. Epistemologist Timothy Williamson (1996) claims that the nature of assertion is intrinsically normative: assertion has a constitutive norm. That norm, according to Williamson, is that the asserter ought to know the content of the assertion (the “knowledge norm of assertion” or “KNA”). In this paper, I examine (a) Williamson’s argument for a constitutive norm of assertion and (b) whether that norm must be knowledge. I will argue, particularly through Jennifer Lackey’s famous case of the creationist teacher, that an asserter can – and often does – consistently impart something of epistemic significance to a hearer without fully satisfying the KNA. I conclude with a recommendation that KNA, albeit an intuitive expectation about asserters, is not a necessary condition for assertion in epistemically successful assertoric practices.
Copyright (c) 2025 João B. Ferreira Filho https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
We propose to explore Hannah Arendt's concept of will and its relationship to freedom. We return to Tassin's distinction between the ‘philosophical genealogy’ and the ‘political genealogy’ of the concept of freedom, in order to reflect on Arendt's critique of the philosophical tradition. We argue that Arendt does not preserve one and reject the other. This involves detecting the ‘metaphysical fallacies’ of tradition and analyzing the experiences they conceal, without attempting to refute them as mere logical or scientific errors. We recover the theoretical productivity of the concept of will in Arendt's analysis of Augustine. We discuss the redemption of the will through love of the world. We conclude that the concept of will indicates that, thanks to the tensions it engenders, we can ‘not-will’; non-will indicates the possibility of resisting a given order and things and disposes us to change; the redemption of the will through love, as proposed by Augustine, can be understood, in a reinterpretation by Arendt, as redemption through love of the world. This is possible if we understand the articulation between the concept of initium and principium and the concept of the world understood as the lovers of the world who co-constitute it.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ari Angelina Costamagna Fernández, Maria Cristina Müller https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Socio-emotional education in philosophy classes
Socio-emotional competencies are the target of antagonistic perspectives in the educational field. Several educators consider them essential for human development guided by the principles of Integral Education (Casassus, 2009), since they refer to attitudinal knowledge related to the moral and affective dimensions of individuals (Coll, 2000). Critical perspectives, however, argue that, far from aiming to promote integral education, socio-emotional competencies have become yet another device designed to ensure resilience and proactivity in minds and bodies strained by the growing and widespread precariousness of current labor relations, marked by the neoliberal ethos (Dardot, Laval, 2016). In this article, I aim to employ references from the phenomenology of affectivity developed by philosopher and psychiatrist Thomas Fuchs (2012, 2018), in order to reaffirm the importance of Socio-emotional Education in light of such critiques, as well as to highlight that the phenomenological approach, by providing a comprehensive understanding of affects and emphasizing their relevance both for the moral and cognitive formation of individuals, may offer a significant conceptual contribution to the field of Socio-emotional Education, capable of informing pedagogical practices oriented toward integrality. I conclude this article with a pedagogical proposal for the development of socio-emotional education in Philosophy classes, based on the methodology for fostering affective awareness developed by Francisco Varela (1996, 1999).
Copyright (c) 2026 Emiliano Kelmd Duet Chagas https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Leibniz's critique of Descartes' theory of Qualia
This paper aims at trying to answer Leibniz’s critique of Descartes’ theory of qualia. First, I discuss the main reason given by Leibniz for assigning qualia to the Cartesian theory of perception. Then, I put forward the reasons why I believe that it is possible to reject Leibniz’s critique. In my view, there are three elements found in Descartes’ philosophy which should be considered in order to answer Leibniz’s critique: the institution of nature, the deist occasionalism and the psychophysical parallelism. I conclude by suggesting that all these three elements of Descartes’ philosophy seem to have exerted a great influence in shaping both Leibniz’s hypothesis of pre-established harmony and his expressive theory of perception, which were the alternatives that the German philosopher had conceived in order to solve the qualia problem.
Copyright (c) 2025 William Teixeira https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0