Luis Rodrigues

Angolan Political Thought introduces anticolonial thinkers whose writings on colonialism and liberation have been instrumental in the formation of Angolan identity. It focuses on the political nature of these thinkers and how their work has impacted Angolan political reality. Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues both introduces and critically analyzes the thought of Queen Njinga, Mário Pinto de Andrade, Agostinho Neto and Pepetela and systematically addresses five important topics in Angolan political thought. Firstly, it gives a general introduction to African political philosophy and explains the place of Angolan political thought in this. Secondly, it explains how different Angolan thinkers have conceptualized colonialism and its effects on the global Black community. Thirdly, the book surveys what key Angolan thinkers have identified as legitimate and effective tools of liberation and resistance from colonialism. For example, it addresses the place of poetry for liberation, as well as the justification for war against colonial powers. Fourth, this book will explain the different theories that Africa and, in particular, African identity, consists of. Finally, it will look at Angolan theories of distributive justice and compensation for historical injustices.

Are the existence of God and evil logically compatible? Philosophers have been dwelling on this question since the era of Ancient Greek philosophy. Most responses to this philosophical problem have come from a Western viewpoint. This article aims to answer this question by considering an African cosmological and ethical groundwork. Working conceptually within this cosmology and ethic, we argue that if the evil in the world is understood as a lesser evil, then a good God can plausibly allow evil to happen. This is the case because God preventing evil will lead to a worse state of affairs which will result in a worse world. Allowing a lesser evil is the best possible outcome. We assert that this view offers a better theory than the theodicy defended by some mainstream Western philosophers according to which a greater good is achieved through evil.

The rapid development of AI in recent years has brought the problem of AI's moral status to the fore. In this article, we combine Afro-communitarian ethics with a cognitive perspective and argue that some AI can hold a moral status to the extent that it can be both a subject and an object of communion. Further, different kinds of AI have different degrees of moral status, depending on their communal capacities. To demonstrate this, we show that AI can engage in moral behavior and be morally disposed to act in certain ways. We defend that this theory deserves consideration along with other theories of moral status.

Onde acaba a mente e começa o mundo? A pergunta solicita duas respostas standard. Alguns aceitam as fronteiras da pele e do cérebro e dizem que o que se encontra fora do corpo está fora da mente. Outros ficam impressionados por argumentos sugerindo que o significado das nossas palavras “simplesmente não está na cabeça”, sustentando que este externismo a respeito do significado leva a um externismo sobre a mente. Propomo-nos seguir uma terceira posição. Defendemos um tipo de externismo muito diferente: um externismo ativo baseado no papel ativo do ambiente orientando processos cognitivos.

There are concerns that participation in open science will lead to various forms of exploitation – of researchers and scholars in low‐income countries and under‐resourced institutions. This article defends a contrary thesis and demonstrates the exact ways the underexplored notions of communal relationships, human dignity and social justice – and the normative principles to which they give rise – grounded in African philosophy can usefully address critical concerns regarding exploitation in the sharing of research resources to facilitate open partnership/collaboration and reuse. Further research is required to study the specific roles different institutions can play in facilitating open practice and contribute towards establishing effective structures that can enhance equity and balance unfavourable power asymmetries.

The Gettier Problem (henceforth GP) is a milestone in contemporary epistemology. Half a century after the philosophical earthquake caused by the well-known Gettier article (1963), solutions continue to appear and the discussion resurfaces. Because we, like many, choose to adopt an optimistic stance towards the possibility of finding a plausible answer to the GP, in this paper we present an unconventional solution to solve it. Crucially, we argue that the only plausible and non-falsifiable definition of the propositional knowledge is the one given by an “open” formula that contains a placeholder or a “variable” – on the third necessary condition – which takes a value according to which, depending on the circumstances, is necessary and sufficient for epistemic success

Existem várias leituras da questão (Q) que dá título a este ensaio. Não obstante, pensamos que apenas duas dessas leituras são adequadas, no sentido em que são as únicas realmente interessantes do ponto de vista filosófico. Diremos que a primeira é urna leitura forte, porque mais exigente que a segunda, e diremos desta que é mais fraca, porque menos exigente do que aquela. Considerando, como faremos adiante, que a justificação referida em Q é justificação epistémica ultima facie e que a percepção visada é do tipo sensorial, a leitura forte é da nossa perspectiva a seguinte: (Qfo) Pode a percepçao justificar todas as nossas crenças acerca da realidade? Já a leitura fraca é a seguinte: (Qfr) Pode a percepção justificar muitas das nossas crenças acerca da realidade? Depois de tentarmos identificar concisamente os conceitos de percepçao, de crença perceptual, de justificaçao e de realidade que nos interessam para efeitos de uma resposta cabal a Qfo e Qfr defenderemos urna resposta negativa a Qfo e uma resposta afirmativa a Qfr. Para levar a cabo essa defesa de forma sistemática, submetemos os nossos argumentos em très fases. No primeiro momento, tomamos a visão como exemplo paradigmático de percepção e mostramos que as mais salientes teorias disponíveis na literatura acerca da visão nao impossibilitam uma resposta afirmativa a Qfr. No segundo momento tentamos mostrar que os casos clássicos de erro perceptual massivo e os fenómenos empiricamente demonstráveis de cegueira-à-mudança e de cegueira-porinatenção nos obrigam a dar uma resposta negativa a Qfo. No terceiro momento tentamos reforçar uma resposta afirmativa a Qfr. Crucialmente, sustentamos que a eficacia da acção, actual ou possível, motivada por crenças acerca da realidade formadas a partir de evidencia perceptual, fundamenta e legitima essa mesma evidencia perceptual, o que por sua vez possibilita que essas crenças estejam ultima facie justificadas. There several interpretations to the question (Q) placed by the title of this essay. Be as it may, we think that only two of those readings are adequate, in the sense of being philosophically stimulating. We shall say of the first one that it is a strong interpretation, since it is more demanding than the second, and we shall say of the latter that it is a weak interpretation, since it is less demanding than the former. Assuming that the kind of justification mentioned in Q is ultima facie epistemic justification, and that the kind of perception at stake is sensorial perception, the strong interpretation is, from our perspective, the following: (Qg) Can perception justify all our beliefs about the reality? The weak interpretation is: (Qw) Can perception justify many of our beliefs about the reality? Following an attempt to succinctly identify the concepts of perception, perceptual belief, justification and reality that matter to us considering a proper response to Qs and Qw, we shall defend a negative answer to Qs and a positive answer to Qw. In order to pursue such a defense in a systematic way, we will submit our arguments in three stages. In the first stage we take vision as a paradigmatic case of perception and show that the more noticeable theories about vision available in the literature do not preclude a positive answer to Qw. In the second stage we try to show that the classical cases of massive perceptual error and the empirically demonstrable phenomena of changeblindness and inattention-blindness force us to answer negatively to Qs. In the third stage we aim at securing a positive answer to Qw. Crucially, we hold that the efficiency of an action, actual or just possible, motivated by beliefs about reality caused by perceptual evidence, grounds and vouch for that very perceptual evidence, which in turn allows that those beliefs become ultima facie justified