Rogério Severo

Cada época produz imagens, atitudes e sentimentos religiosos específicos em resposta a diversos tipos de anseios e indagações. A poesia de Rainer Maria Rilke contém uma das mais belas e profundas apresentações contemporâneas de Deus e do sagrado. Seus versos tornam vivas as possibilidades de experiências diretas e íntimas de Deus, de colaborarmos com ele, de sentirmos seu lado sombrio, de ansiarmos amorosamente por ele e de ele ser alguém que está por vir. Essas características delineiam um divino mais humano e mais próximo, e indicam desenvolvimentos de aspectos da tradição cristã ao lado de traços inéditos nessa mesma tradição. Palavras-chave: Rilke. Religião. Poesia. Deus. Experiência religiosa.

ABSTRACT The sacred writings of a wide variety of religious traditions and the reports of saints and mystics of those same traditions present the spiritual domain in a paradoxical and mysterious manner, often incomprehensible. Those writings contrast starkly with the philosophical and theological discourse on those matters, which sought to describe clearly and precisely what is said ambiguously, metaphorically and indirectly in them. This paper advances an argument originally put forth by William James, according to which religious beliefs are grounded not on philosophical and theological theories, but on religious experiences. We argue that an epistemology of religion based on those experiences cannot merely imitate an epistemology of ordinary objects (e.g., physical objects), but has to incorporate intuitions and feelings as sources of knowledge alongside more traditional sources.

Quine is frequently acknowledged as one of the main proponents of both confirmation holism and underdetermination. In the recent literature, however, his views have been often criticized and misrepresented: the distinction between the two theses has been often blurred, the obviousness of holism has been rejected, and the plausibility of underdetermination has come under attack. This paper attempts to formulate both theses as clearly as possible and to defend Quine’s views against some recurrent criticisms. In particular, it is argued that Quine’s theses are significantly weaker than they have been taken to be and that only confirmation holism, but not underdetermination, plays a fundamental role in his philosophy. Key words: confirmation holism, underdetermination, Quine.

O naturalismo sustenta que não há acesso mais elevado à verdade do que por meio de hipóteses empiricamente testáveis. No entanto, não repudia hipóteses intestáveis. Elas preenchem os interstícios de teorias e conduzem a novas hipóteses que são testáveis.Uma hipótese é testada deduzindo-se, dela e da base [background] de uma teoria aceita, algum categórico observacional que não se segue da base apenas. Esse categórico, um enunciado condicional generalizado composto de duas frases observacionais, admite, por sua vez, um teste experimental primitivo.As frases observacionais elas mesmas, tais como gritos de símios e cantos de pássaros, estão em associação holofrástica com gamas de recepções neurais. A denotação de objetos determinados não figura nem nessa associação nem na dedução do categórico a partir de hipóteses científicas. Consequentemente, a indeterminação da referência; a ontologia é puramente auxiliar à estrutura da teoria. A verdade, no entanto, é vista ainda como transcendente ao menos no seguinte sentido: dizemos de uma teoria científica superada, não que deixou de ser verdadeira, mas que foi descoberta ter sido falsa.

Este artigo mostra que não há uma tese de subdeterminação de teorias científicas pelos indícios observacionais, mas várias. Identificamos quatro, com significados, plausibilidades e implicações distintos. Mostra-se que as mais fortes não passam de conjeturas, e que as mais fracas são mais plausíveis, mas não possuem implicações filosóficas robustas – em particular, não implicam o antirrealismo científico –, embora forneçam indícios de alternativas teóricas sistematicamente ignoradas na ciência, bem como do emprego de critérios em parte valorativos de escolha de teorias.

Quine's writings on indeterminacy of translation are mostly abstract and theoretical; his reasons for the thesis are not based on historical cases of translation but on general considerations about how language works. So it is no surprise that a common objection to the thesis asserts that it is not backed up by any positive empirical evidence. Ian Hacking (1981 and 2002) claims that whatever credibility the thesis does enjoy comes rather from alleged (fictitious) cases of radical mistranslation. This paper responds to objections of that kind by exhibiting actual cases of indeterminacy of translation.

Este artigo considera a evolução do problema da racionalidade científica desde Kant, passando por Carnap, até Kuhn. Argumento em favor de uma versão relativizada e historicizada da concepção original kantiana dos princípios científicos a priori, e examino o modo pelo qual esses princípios mudam e se desenvolvem através de mudanças revolucionárias de paradigmas. O empreendimento distintivamente filosófico de refletir sobre e contextualizar tais princípios é então visto como desempenhando um papel chave ao tornar possível a comunicação intersubjetiva racional entre paradigmas que de outro modo seriam incomensuráveis.

Quine’s thesis of underdetermination is significantly weaker than it has been taken to be in the recent literature, for the following reasons: (i) it does not hold for all theories, but only for some global theories, (ii) it does not require the existence of empirically equivalent yet logically incompatible theories, (iii) it does not rule out the possibility that all perceived rivalry between empirically equivalent theories might be merely apparent and eliminable through translation, (iv) it is not a fundamental thesis within Quine’s philosophy, and (v) it does not carry with it the anti-realistic consequences often associated with the thesis in recent debates. The paper analyzes Quine’s views on the matter and the changes they underwent over the years. A conjecture is put forth about why Quine’s thesis has been so widely misrepresented: Quine’s writings up to 1975 tackled primarily the formulation and justification of the thesis, but afterwards were concerned mostly with the question whether empirically equivalent rivals to the theory we hold are to be considered true also. When this latter discussion is read without bearing in mind Quine’s earlier formulation and justification of the thesis, his thesis seems to have stronger epistemic consequences than it actually does. A careful reading of his later writings shows, however, that the formulation of the thesis remained unchanged after 1975, and that his mature and considered views supported only a very mitigated version of the thesis.

Kant’s treatments of incongruent counterparts have been criticized in the recent literature. His 1768 essay has been charged with an ambiguous use of the notion of ‘inner ground’, and his 1770 claim that those differences cannot be apprehended conceptually is thought to be false. The author argues that those two charges rest on an uncharitable reading. ‘Inner ground’ is equivocal only if misread as mapping onto Leibniz notion of quality. Concepts suffice to distinguish counterparts, but are insufficient to specify their spatial forms. Kant’s claims are reasonable and plausible, and have been reaffirmed repeatedly in contemporary discussions of demonstrative identification.

Kant uses incongruent counterparts in his work before and after 1781, but not in the first Critique. Given the relevance that incongruent counterparts had for his thought on space, and their persistence in his work during the 1780s, it is plausible to think that he had a reason for leaving them out of both editions of the Critique. Two implausible conjectures for their absence are here considered and rejected. A more plausible alternative is put forth, which explains that textual absence as a result of the synthetic method of presentation intended for the Critique.

This is a review of Peter Hylton's Quine (Routledge, 2007). The review highlights three aspects of the book that make are somewhat novel in the literature: (1) Hylton points out that Quine does not reject the analytic-synthetic distinction altogether, but merely its epistemological use by Carnap and others; (2) that the thesis of indeterminacy of translation is not a central doctrine in Quine's philosophy; and (3) that besides a naturalized epistemology, Quine's philosophy contains also a "naturalized metaphysics".

Quine’s writings on indeterminacy of translation are mostly abstract and theoretical; his reasons for the thesis are not based on historical cases of translation but on general considerations about how language works. So it is no surprise that a common objection to the thesis asserts that it is not backed up by any positive empirical evidence. Ian Hacking (1981 and 2002) claims that whatever credibility the thesis does enjoy comes rather from alleged (fictitious) cases of radical mistranslation. This paper responds to objections of that kind by exhibiting actual cases of indeterminacy of translation.

Quine is frequently acknowledged as one of the main proponents of both confi rmation holism and underdetermination. In the recent literature, however, his views have been often criticized and misrepresented: the distinction between the two theses has been often blurred, the obviousness of holism has been rejected, and the plausibility of underdetermination has come under attack. This paper attempts to formulate both theses as clearly as possible and to defend Quine’s views against some recurrent criticisms. In particular, it is argued that Quine’s theses are signifi cantly weaker than they have been taken to be and that only confi rmation holism, but not underdetermination, plays a fundamental role in his philosophy.

One of the objections against the thesis of underdetermination of theories by observations is that it is unintelligible. Any two empirically equivalent theories — so the argument goes—are in principle intertranslatable, hence cannot count as rivals in any non-trivial sense. Against that objection, this paper shows that empirically equivalent theories may contain theoretical sentences that are not intertranslatable. Examples are drawn from a related discussion about incommensurability that shows that theoretical non-intertranslatability is possible.