José Manuel Beato

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze some aspects of the tension between ‘care for oneself’ and ‘care for others’ from an aretological approach to morality. A traditional perspective—based on a metaphysical foundation—may conceive virtue ethics as centered on the affirmation and realization of the self. Conversely, an ethics of care will tend to have an ethical perspective centered on the other. However, a virtue theory centered on a “relational self” that reconfigures its spectrum by considering care as a virtue among other virtues (justice, temperance, courage, etc.) will allow us to overcome the antinomy of self and other centredness and render the opposition between these ethical proposals obsolete. The traditional principle of unity and mutual implication of virtues is reinforced if we see virtues as multiple expressions of care and care as a virtue that implies the whole aretological spectrum. From these assumptions, a new perspective of “moral perfectionism” emerges.

Este texto apresenta o dossier temático “Temas clássicos em Ricoeur: hermenêutica, religião, reconhecimento”. A apresentação explica a origem dos artigos, procedentes do VII Congresso Ibero‑Americano sobre o Pensamento de Paul Ricoeur, “Ricoeur e os Clássicos”, expõe de forma sucinta a importância da reflexão sobre os clássicos no contexto da hermenêutica ricoeuriana, e introduz cada um dos artigos do dossier. A hermenêutica bíblica e a relação entre filosofia e religião, a própria noção de “clássico”, bem como a investigação da questão do reconhecimento são exemplos de temas clássicos explorados aqui, no contexto do pensamento de Ricoeur.

Por ocasião do centenário de nascimento de Paul Ricoeur, a Universidade de Coimbra juntou num mesmo volume um conjunto de estudos académicos em tributo a este pensador. Reuniram-se deste modo comunicações de professores, de novos investigadores e de estudantes de doutoramento em redor de temas que marcaram a receção da obra e do filósofo francês em Coimbra. Cada capítulo do presente livro demonstra a fecundidade de um pensamento que, enraizado na “tradição reflexiva”, assumindo a mensagem das “filosofias da existência”, articulando Fenomenologia e Hermenêutica, adquire, hoje, crescente impacto e relevância. Esta é uma filosofia que promove o diálogo entre disciplinas, autores e culturas e supera divisões teóricas em ordem a enfrentar as exigências da praxis. O desafio da praxis fez assim emergir um pensamento exigente e, simultaneamente, capaz de dialogar com diversas áreas do saber como: a psicoterapia, a história, as neurociências, a bioética, as ciências sociais e os estudos literários. At the occasion of the Paul Ricoeur’s centenary this volume joined in tribute several scholars, young researchers, and Ph.D students around the main themes that marked the reception of the philosopher’s work in Portugal and, especially in the University of Coimbra. Each chapter demonstrates the vigour Ricoeur’s thought as it is rooted in the "reflexive tradition", as it assumed the "existentialist" horizon, as it articulated Phenomenology and Hermeneutics. This philosophical project as, today, an enormous range of influence. This is a project that promotes dialogue between disciplines, authors, and cultures, overcoming theoretical divisions in face the demands of praxis. From this rich and plural inspiration comes the ability to meet with other fields of thought, namely psychotherapy, history, neuroscience, bioethics, social sciences, and literary studies.

Within the context of the relationships between virtue ethics and the ethics of care, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the theoretical conditions that allow conceiving and defining care as a virtue. The move from natural caring to ethical caring, especially by extending its scope and range to strangers and distant people, opens and invests a particular field of ethical “demands of the world”, and a specific form of moral “excellence”, that is, a virtue. Care as a disposition and a practice presents a triple cognitive, affective and volitional dimension conducive to morally relevant actions. This same functional structure is recognized in the most common definitions of virtue. Intrinsically empathetic and altruistic, aiming, in the first instance, at the well-being of the other, we may call it a “relational virtue” that challenges the constitution of the moral agent as a “relational self”.

One of the issues insufficiently discussed in the contemporary virtues ethics is whether it is pertinent and possible to draw up a systematic board of virtues, and, in this context, to analyze what new skills or character traits can be included on it. Having as context the relationships between virtue ethics and the ethics of care, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the theoretical conditions that allow conceiving and defining care as a virtue. The move from natural caring to ethical caring, especially by extending its scope and range to strangers and distant people, opens and invests a particular field of ethical “demands of the world”, and a specific form of moral “excellence”, that is, a virtue. Care as a disposition and a practice presents a triple cognitive, affective and volitional dimension conducive to morally relevant actions. This same functional structure is recognized in the most common definitions of virtue. Intrinsically empathetic and altruistic, aiming, in the first instance, at the well-being of the other, we may call it a “relational virtue” that challenges the constitution of the moral agent as a “relational self”.

Em Outubro de 2017Renaud Barbaras visitou a Universidade de Coimbra para pronucniar no Departamento de Filosofia, Comunicação e Informação duas sessões de seminário em redor do seu pensamento. Aqueles que tiveram a felicidade de participar neste evento inesquecível sabem bem da profundidade filosófica das lições do famoso filósofo, uma profundidade que soube ainda motivar um conjunto interessante de diálogos que se prolonga. Aqui apresenta‑se uma entrevista com Renaud Barbaras que se iniciou com um desses diálogos.

The philosophical work of Vladimir Jankélévitch lives on a narrow interweaving of metaphysics, morals and aesthetics. The metaphysical concepts he created and mobilized, as well as his method – which combines “paradoxology” and “mysteriology” – are find in the treatment of musical questions, as already are seen in action in his ethics. Amateur but dedicated pianist, Jankélévitch also possessed high musicological skills. Thus, in addition to monographic studies and essays on modern composers such as Ravel, Debussy, Fauré, among others, he left us elements of a philosophy of music in La musique et l’ineffable. The present article aims to present some of the fundamental themes of this connection between philosophy and musical experience. Fundamentally, music allows listening to the “irreversible”: a way of experiencing the essence of time, articulating lived time and the time of cosmos in a “stylized time” that ultimately is a great instant between two liminal and fecund silences.