Joaquim Braga

This book provides new theoretical approaches to the subject of virtuality. All chapters reflect the importance of extending the analysis of the concept of “the virtual” to areas of knowledge that, until today, have not been fully included in its philosophical foundations. The respective chapters share new insights on art, media, psychic systems and technology, while also presenting new ways of articulating the concept of the virtual with regard to the main premises of Western thought. Given its thematic scope, this book is intended not only for a philosophical audience, but also for all scientists who have turned to the humanities in search of answers to their questions.

This text attempts to analyze and inquire the relationship between virtuality and imagination in Susanne Langer’s art theory. One of my main purposes is to know whether the “actual-virtual” binomial can be applied, without any theoretical concern, to artistic objects and art in general. Since, in Langer, the symbol theory is directly connected with a theory of perception, it remains to scrutinize how aesthetic experiences mediated by the several artistic modalities imply the transformation of works of art into virtual objects. That such a transformation carries the effective power of imagination is a capital condition inherent to all artistic symbolization processes. That these latter, however, do not always express a linear dynamic of the “actual-virtual” binomial is, as will be seen, a critical point of view that must be applied to the aesthetic formulations and concepts developed by Langer.

Com este texto pretende-se articular dois conceitos que fazem parte da reflexão de Niklas Luhmann sobre os processos de formação de sentido. Trata ‑se dos conceitos de “negação” e “virtualização”, que, na teoria dos sistemas luhmanniana, contribuem, de forma decisiva, para a caracterização das operações dos sistemas psíquicos e dos sistemas sociais. Tendo em vista a compreensão do desempenho operatório das possibilidades de sentido inactualizadas no interior dos dois sistemas, um dos objectivos principais desta reflexão passa pela especificação conceptual da negação, bem como pela ampliação teórica do espectro das suas funções.

Num parágrafo do seu artigo “Max Weber e Adorno, sobre o conceito de progresso: Contrastes da racionalização técnica na música e na pintura”, dedicado à interpenetração estética entre composições musicais e composições picturais, Luis Felipe de Salles Roselino refere-se ao conceito adorniano de pseudomorfose aplicado à pintura. Por ser um conceito-chave na teoria estética do filósofo frankfurtiano e contribuir para a elucidação das principais teses que, no presente artigo, são elencadas, creio que ele deve ser contrastado com o de “convergência” (Konvergenz), tal como vem formulado no texto “Über einige Relationen zwischen Musik und Malerei” (1978), de Adorno.

This book integrates studies on the thought of Bernard de Mandeville and other philosophers and historians of Modern Thought. The chapters reflect a rethinking of Mandeville’s legacy and, together, present a comprehensive approach to Mandeville’s work. The book is published on the occasion of the 300 years that have passed since the publication of the Fable of the Bees. Bernard de Mandeville disassembled the dichotomies of traditional moral thinking to show that the outcomes of the social action emerge as new, non-intentional effects from the combination of moral opposites, vice and virtue, in such a form that they lose their moral significance. The work of this great writer, philosopher and physician is interwoven with an awareness of the paradoxical nature of modern society and the challenges that this recognition brings to an adequate perspective on the historical world of modernity.