Mere Instrument Research Articles

Usos e lugares da fotografia nos museus de arte

O objetivo deste artigo é identificar e compreender o momento em que a fotografia passa de instrumento utilitário a serviço da arte para se tornar obra de arte, quando assume valor de culto e, consequentemente, desperta o interesse museológico. O período histórico da virada nos usos da fotografia é marcado pela sua relação com a emergente arte conceitual dos anos 1960 e 1970 e pela crescente crítica e teoria, que deram origem a textos e autores ainda citados em pesquisas sobre fotografia. Recentemente, com a entrada dos museus e coleções no ambiente digital, sua função utilitária torna-se cada vez mais complexa, e o seu lugar como obra de arte, cada vez mais diluído na contemporaneidade.

Fantasy, Affect, and Pan-Asianism: Mariano Ponce, the First Philippine Republic's Foreign Emissary, 1898–1912

This article examines Mariano Ponce’s Asianist thought and his work to promote a Pan-Asianist alliance, actively participating in the overthrow of Western imperialism and the revitalization of Asia. Ponce’s interest in Japan, Asia, and the Malays ran deeper than mere revolutionary and reformist instrument, however, as his lifelong scholarship shows. This article focuses on the neglected affective and material dimensions of “peripheral” Pan-Asianism in order to make it legible to the Northeast Asian-centric “center” of the discourse and to reframe the broader history of Pan-Asianism to include Southeast Asia and specifically the Philippines. KEYWORDS: PAN-ASIANISM • JAPAN • MARIANO PONCE • PHILIPPINE REVOLUTION • AFFECT

Public-Private Partnership as an Instrument for Stimulating Public Sector Innovation, as Exemplified by Projects Implemented in the Health Sector in Poland

The subject of the article is an analysis of public-private partnership as an instrument affecting the development of innovation in the public sector. The analysis was based on two PPP projects implemented in the health care sector in Poland and it was preceded by a discussion of the concept of innovation and PPP. The article focuses on the analysis of PPP elements that may have an indirect or direct impact on stimulating innovation in the area of public sector activities. As a result of the analysis, it should be clearly stated that PPP should be inherently associated with perceiving innovation as a process of changes aimed at increasing efficiency. The use of PPP by the public sector may, among other things, enable wider access to a specific public service for the general public, improve the quality of services provided, or increase access to know-how in the area of modern technological solutions. It seems that there will be a gradual shift in the public sector’s perception of PPP, from a mere instrument enabling the implementation of public tasks to an instrument enabling changes in the public management model. This, in turn, should lead to a change in the entire public administration, so that it will be better equipped to face the challenges of modern times, and this certainly will not be possible without the innovativeness of the actions undertaken and the solutions applied.

Investigate from the knowledge of the peoples

The following paper addresses from a critical point of view the way on how Venezuelan universities approach popular knowledge and how it would be transmitted to future generations. For the author institutions cannot become mere instruments generating ideologies or become Universities for the Generation of Communes and less in particularities ... "believe that you can replace a research university by a university in the commune ... "1 As our current policy in Venezuela intends, it is to try to apply policies that pretend to relegate us to the past.

Rehablitación de la filosofía práctica y neo-aristotelismo

From the beginning of the sixties until the end of the seventies, an intense debate took place in Germany that has become famous under the title “The Rehabilitation of Practical Philosophy”. Its origin is essentially found in the philosophical positions which, while fairly different from one another, were later brought together under the single designation “neo-Aristotelism”. The recovery of the Aristotelian understanding of praxis and of the ethical and political knowledge with which it is concerned has offered itself as an alternative paradigm for the unitary notion of science that characterizes modernity, and has opened a perspective from which it is once again possible to examine in a critical manner the identification of science with theory posited in modernity, as well as the paleo-modern and modern notion of reason and its development in the direction of mere instrumentality and functionalism. Therefore, despite quite a few unilateral decisions, the considerations and problems brought to our attention by the rehabilitation of practical philosophy and the neo-Aristotelians retain a disturbing relevance.

Gestão municipal de resíduos sólidos urbanos à luz da Política Nacional de Resíduos: estudo de caso no município de Japeri, RJ, Brasil

Este artigo visa analisar a gestão de resíduos urbanos (RSU) no município de Japeri, Região Metropolitana do estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, à luz da Política Nacional de Resíduos Sólidos, criada em 2010, identificando os entraves na sua implantação. Trata-se de pesquisa de abordagem qualitativa realizada entre 2015 e 2016. Os procedimentos de coleta de dados utilizados foram: revisão da literatura; análise documental; entrevistas com gestores; observação direta e uso da técnica de grupo focal com representantes da comunidade. O estudo analisou a gestão de RSU de Japeri com uma perspectiva inovadora e colaborativa, ao usar a técnica do grupo focal, a qual evidenciou a importância em se envolver a comunidade na compreensão dos seus problemas e se mostrou adequada para fomentar esse debate. Entre os desafios a serem enfrentados por Japeri, tem-se: implantar o Plano Municipal de Gestão Integrada de Resíduos Sólidos (PMGIRS); reduzir a dependência dos órgãos estaduais e federais na gestão; universalizar a coleta regular de resíduos; ampliar a cobertura da coleta seletiva; envolver a sociedade na gestão, entre outros. Uma das limitações do estudo foi a pouca qualidade e disponibilidade de dados atuais sobre a gestão municipal de resíduos. A complexidade do tema também não permitiu que todas as questões fossem contempladas no estudo. A maior contribuição da pesquisa foi a sua abordagem, ao dar voz às demandas e sugestões de representantes da comunidade. Para o sucesso do PMGIRS, a participação social é imprescindível, a fim de impedir a sua descontinuidade ou que ele se transforme em mero instrumento político. Espera-se que a técnica de grupo focal empregada possa ser adaptada a outros contextos. Devido à escassez de estudos mais aprofundados sobre o tema, este artigo poderá vir a contribuir com o preenchimento dessa lacuna.

United States Unilateralism and the World Trade Organization

The ascendance of Donald J. Trump to the US Presidency coincided with the adoption of an aggressive US trade policy putting “America First” and backed by the use of unilateral trade sanctions by the US in defiance of the World Trade Organization. The basic tenets of US unilateralism, gleaned from legal sources propounded by the current US Administration, consists of three basic tenets: (1) the US will ignore any WTO decision with which it disagrees; (2) the US will unilaterally impose trade sanctions on WTO member nations without first consulting with or fulfilling any of the requirements of the WTO; and (3) the US will follow the law of the WTO or disregard it totally depending on whether it suits US needs, reducing the WTO to a mere instrumentality for US purposes. These positions have alienated US allies and antagonized powerful competitors, such as China, into retaliating on its own unilateral terms. US unilateralism threatens to undermine and reduce the WTO to irrelevance and to bring the world into a dangerous new era of economic nationalism and protectionism that can have catastrophic effects on the world economy.

Social control as the central concept of sociology and social pedagogy

This article focuses on the issue of social control, which is discussed here from different points of view within sociology and social pedagogy. Social control deals with prevention as well as with responses to deviations from desirable behavioural patterns, and in the centre of its interest are interrelationships and sometimes rather inconsistencies between the individual and society. This is connected with the question of what are actually "desirable patterns of behaviour" and who are the concrete authors of this norm, i.e. in whose interest (individuals or groups) are introduced the norms of behaviour. The authors point out the fact that the usual reference to society conceals only the decisive context, i.e. social norms have in fact very often ideological function which also influences significantly the area of social pedagogy which (like other sciences or more precisely their knowledge) can become a mere instrument of any ideology, i.e. of the ruling class or group.

Narrating the First Dogs: Canine Agency in the First Contacts with Indigenous Peoples in the Brazilian Amazon

ABSTRACTNarratives addressing the presence of European domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) in the encounters between Indians and non-Indians in the conquest of the Central and South American lowlands often portray those animals as terrible and bloodthirsty weapons. From the settlers’ perspective, dogs were formidable instruments in the subjugation of the native peoples they came across at various times over more than 500 years of American colonialization. But the indigenous narratives of these first contacts with dogs may exhibit distinct perspectives that view dogs not only as weapons, instruments, or tools of conquest but rather as agents or actors smoothing contact and establishing peaceful relations between Indians and non-Indians. This article explores the narratives of the first dogs encountered by two native populations in southwestern Brazilian Amazonia—the Puruborá and the Karitiana in the state of Rondônia—to demonstrate the canine agency behind the interethnic meetings in this region, where dogs were largely absent until the arrival of the Europeans and their descendants beginning in the sixteenth century. First contacts between Indians and non-Indians are complex inter-specific events, and may extend beyond only two participants (a group of non-Indians and a native people) to include at least three parties, since the actions and dispositions of dogs play a crucial role in the development of human interactions. Recollections of the first dogs encountered by the Puruborá and Karitiana point precisely toward recognizing the importance of the animal's presence as an actor, far beyond a mere instrument.

The Mute Monologue of Resentment

In this essay I reflect on fear and cultural exhaustion and their effect on our language, as possible causes, among many others, of the rise of nationalist and chauvinist feeling across Europe today. By fear I mean the fear of not understanding and of not being understood by the other, which may affect us in various ways; by exhaustion I refer to our modern work life with its permanent accessibility and the uncontrolled flood of pictures and information we are exposed to by digitization, as well as to the more general cultural exhaustion when it comes to discussing “values” or “ideas,” which more and more people see as empty words. This pervasive sense of fear and exhaustion has a substantial effect on our language, for the use of readymade phrases, as in the German “Phrasendreschen” (threshing phrases), tends to see them as identity markers and thus to induce resentment against those who do not belong to the same in-group. But language, once it is reduced to a mere instrument for transmitting information, generates the sense that everything has already been said, and in feeding our cultural exhaustion and boredom, leads us to abandon the notions of utopia, irony and poetry, all of which thrive on the creative inexhaustibility of language. Fear and exhaustion ultimately lead us to abandon any dialogue with others. What we need is a new way of listening, “new ears” with which to listen to what we initially perceive as “unheard” words, for without the ability to listen to “strange” words, the words of the “stranger,” no society can survive for long.

The orbital: a pivotal concept in the relationship between chemistry and physics? A comment to the work by Fortin and coauthors

The present work is a comment of a recent paper by Fortin and coauthors (Fortin et al. in Found Chem 19:43–59, 2017) in which the authors propose the introduction of Bohmian mechanics (BM) in the philosophy of chemistry and the use of standard quantum mechanics (SQM) as a mere instrument of prediction. This way would allow overcoming the obstacles found in linking molecular chemistry and quantum mechanics. Starting from some remarks on the orbital concept, we highlight and discuss some general issues that need to be taken into account when two scientific theories coexist within the same investigation field, i.e. SQM and BM.

Anti-Scepticism and Epistemic Humility in Pierre Duhem’s Philosophy of Science

Duhem’s philosophy of science is difficult to classify according to more contemporary categories like instrumentalism and realism. On the one hand, he presents an account of scientific methodology which renders theories as mere instruments. On the other hand, he acknowledges that theories with particular theoretical virtues (e.g., unity, simplicity, novel predictions) offer a classification of experimental laws that “corresponds to real affinities among the things themselves.” In this paper, we argue that Duhem’s philosophy of science was motivated by an anti-sceptical tendency, according to which we can confidently assert that our theories reveal truths about nature while, at the same time, admitting that anti-scepticism should be moderated by epistemic humility. Understanding Duhem’s epistemological position, which was unique amongst French philosophers of science in the beginning of the 20th century, requires a careful examination of his accounts of representation, explanation, and of their interrelation.

A negociação de imagens identitárias em depoimentos judiciais e no debate eleitoral

Este trabalho procura evidenciar que a negociação de faces é um processo inerente à linguagem. Nesse sentido, a noção de face, tal como proposta por Goffman, assume importância central. Definida como um valor social positivo que o sujeito reivindica para si, essa noção é fundamental para os estudos da linguagem, por afetar todos os planos de organização do discurso. Em outros termos, todos os recursos linguísticos podem funcionar como estratégias por meio das quais os interlocutores negociam faces, preservando a própria imagem ou reparando-a de ataques sofridos e preservando ou atacando a imagem do outro. É a partir dessa noção de face que propomos o estudo de dois gêneros – o depoimento e o debate eleitoral. Especificamente, estudaremos o debate eleitoral que ocorreu em 2012 entre os então candidatos à prefeitura de São Paulo, Fernando Haddad e José Serra, e dois depoimentos relacionados a uma denúncia de uma vítima contra seu ex-companheiro, depoimentos registrados nas Delegacias Especializadas no Atendimento às Mulheres. Os estudos de ambos os gêneros revelam que, em situações de comunicação caracterizadas por um grau de tensão elevado, a linguagem está longe de ser um mero instrumento de comunicação. Muito mais do que isso, a linguagem é a dimensão que permite aos interlocutores – seja uma vítima de agressão, seja um candidato a um cargo político – construírem as imagens mais adequadas aos seus propósitos comunicativos.

A participação popular no orçamento público: orçamento participativo em quatro municípios do sul do Brasil

As funções do orçamento público vêm sofrendo diversas alterações ao longo do tempo, passando de mero instrumento de controle do legislativo sobre o executivo chegando até conceitos mais modernos, uma vez que é encarado como ferramenta de planejamento, de gestão eficiente e, mais recentemente, de participação popular. Dessa forma, este trabalho tem o objetivo de analisar a discussão de algumas experiências de orçamento participativo desenvolvidas no sul do Brasil a partir da Constituição de 1988. Para tanto, buscou-se resgatar um pouco sobre as principais conquistas obtidas por meio da participação da sociedade, bem como a importância do orçamento participativo como ferramenta que garanta a participação popular na elaboração do orçamento público. Foram analisadas as experiências descritas na literatura sobre a implantação do orçamento participativo nos municípios de Porto Alegre (RS), Biguaçu (SC), Blumenau (SC) e Chapecó (SC). As análises dessas experiências demonstram que as conquistas com orçamento participativo superam a mera participação popular na elaboração dos orçamentos, influenciando a elaboração de políticas públicas. No entanto, o comprometimento governamental, ou a falta dele, afeta diretamente a implantação e a manutenção do orçamento participativo.

Vladimir Putin’s Analytical Credit Rating Agency: The Importance of Perception

The establishment of a wave of new regulatory measures against credit rating agencies operating in Russia, in conjunction with pressures emanating from International sanctions, has resulted in an exodus of the established rating agencies, like Moody’s and Fitch. In their place, the recently established ‘Analytical Credit Rating Agency’ is attempting to provide a different approach to the rating of Russian debt. However, the agency has been dogged by its apparent connection to the Kremlin, and in this article the focus will be upon the importance of perception in the rating arena and why, ultimately, The ACRA will be dismissed on the global stage as a mere instrument of the Russian Government

The emotional perception of landscape between research and education

The paper presents the laboratory activity put at the heart of the action training based on the idea of Geography as a science, whose holistic dimension fosters individual knowledge of the outside world and, at the same time, facilitates the understanding of human interaction with it. The didactic activities were performed basing them on an e-Learning methodology via the Moodle platform, a technology adopted in the e-Learning Lab of the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Salerno. The laboratory involved 234 students – enrolled in the third year of the Primary Educational Sciences Degree – randomly divided into 26 groups. The investigation conducted through the laboratory availed of images that, far from being a mere instrument, involved higher cognitive processes, essential for the completion of a significant training process. The methodology adopted and the creation of a virtual learning environment are completely in line with the constructivist pedagogy that considers cooperation, collaboration, sharing and negotiation of purposes and meanings as key drivers for a really effective teaching. Through the lab experience, the learners were allowed to investigate a lived-acted space by identifying landscape elements symbolizing certain emotions. Making use of a photo-elicitation technique, the research helped them to gain a greater awareness of the landscape as a result of the interactions between man and nature, and turned out to be an effective tool for knowledge construction and training.

The Role of Art in Society with Particular Reference to the Problem of Violence$

Background: According to the Latin poet Virgil, art is capable of revealing to us what no science can ever reveal to a human mind. The main thesis of this paper is that art can play an extremely beneficial role in society as it can strongly foster humans’ efforts to attain a deeper and broader comprehension of reality. Objective: The experience of art can provide a powerful contribution to the efforts to avoid resorting to violence and to address conflicts constructively. Violence or, more exactly, unjustified violence, basically rests on an irrational and short-sighted analysis and interpretation of reality. Results: The psychological processes relating to the aesthetic experience and to its connections with violence are described. It is also pointed out that this theoretical perspective does not fully coincide with the theoretical theses underpinning art therapy. In fact, in this paper art is not considered as a mere therapeutic instrument. Instead, an attempt has been made to consider art and our relationship with art in their more complex and partly still unexplored aspects, where neither art or the individual is “at the service” of the other. Conclusion: Art can provide the possibility to experience a new dimension, where no power relations exist and where new ways of seeing and feeling are made possible. It can hence foster the development of less primitive and richer personalities. In this way violence should lose its raison d’être. So it appears that this theoretical approach might be particularly helpful in order to better understand and countervail violence.

Somos irmãos dos outros animais? Diálogo da ecoteologia com Jorge Riechmann

<p>Jorge Riechmann é autor de vasta obra dedicada à reflexão filosófica sobre ecologia e sustentabilidade. Dentre seus trabalhos significativos, escolhemos “Todos los animales somos hermanos” (2005). Apresentaremos uma síntese do pensamento do autor a respeito da relação dos seres humanos com os outros animais, sobretudo os mamíferos. Riechmann aborda temas candentes, como o contínuo fisio-biológico-social do processo de evolução e a singularidade do humano, os motivos para incluir os animais superiores na comunidade moral humana, e as razões éticas e jurídicas dos direitos dos animais. Deve-se superar o especismo, que considera os animais somente como meros instrumentos. Embora os animais não sejam pessoas, nem agentes morais, tem valor intrínseco. Porque sentem dor e prazer, e apresentam uma finalidade para viver, merecem respeito moral. São “quase pessoas” e tem direitos, concedidos e reconhecidos pelos seres humanos. A seguir, faremos um exercício de interlocução da ecoteologia com Jorge Riechmann. Tomaremos como referência a Encíclica Laudato Si e a obra de Susin e Zampieri, Ética e Teologia da Libertação animal.</p>

Do Computers Write on Electric Screens?

How do we, humans, communicate with computers, or computational machines? What are the activities do humans and machines share, what are the meeting points between the two? Eventually, how can we build concepts of these meeting points that leaves space for the proper mode of existence of both humans and machines, without subduing one to the other? Computers are machines that operates on a scale different from humans: the calculus done by machines is too fast and untangible for humans. This is why computers' activities has to be textualized, put into a form that can be understand for humans. For instance into a graphical interface, or a command line. More generally, this article tackles the problem of interface between humans and machines, the way the relation between humans and machines has been conceptualized. It is inspired both by philosophy of the modes of existence – since computers are machines with their own mode of existence – and semiotics, since computers' activities have to be converted in some sort of signs that can be read by humans. First, inspired by Gilbert Simondon, we try to understand the mode of existence of computational machines. By commenting on Turing 1936's seminal article, On Computable Numbers, we show that computational machines are at their core writing machines. But a writing based on calculus, different from the human way of writing. Writing can therefore be understood as a meeting point for humans and machines, provided we give a definition of writing that is large enough to include both humans and machines. Secondly, we examine theories that deals with the relationship between the two, mostly english-speaking theorists of interface (Manovich, Galloway) compared to french semiotics of les ecrits d'ecran (written writing screens). We show that both approaches share an anthropocentric conception of machines and/or writing, making the machine a mere instrument fulfilling human needs. Eventually, we propose some elements towards a non-anthropocentric semiotics, by focusing on the notions of interpretation and the spatiality of writing. This non-anthropocentric semiotics is the first step towards a semiotics that would make room for the mode of existence of computational machines, enabling us to renew the way we think our relationship to them.

Conceptualizations of “results” in Swedish policy for development cooperation from the 1960s to the 2000s

Abstract Over the last few decades there has been an increased focus on results within development cooperation, and there has been an intense debate regarding the possible success or failures of development efforts. However, there is no general agreement on what a development result is, or why and whose development results should be reported. The understanding of what a development result entails has also shifted over time. This article aims to contribute to the current debate on development results by exploring how one donor, Sweden, historically has conceptualized development results in its policies and strategies on development cooperation. A review of all policies and general strategies on Swedish development cooperation published between 1962 and 2013, reveals that there has been a shift in how results are conceptualized: from being a mere instrument for supporting partner countries in pursuing more effective development policies and interventions, reporting of development results has become one of the main strategic tools for pursuing a Swedish development cooperation.