O liberum arbitrium, para Santo Anselmo, não pode residir no poder permanente de pecar e de não pecar (posse peccare et non peccare), porque tal definiçao tomaria inútil «a graça, a predestinação e a presciencia de Deus» (DLA, I, 207, 1-2). Por outro lado, se nós não tivéssemos sempre essa potestas, o pecado não poderia ser-nos imputado porque nós pecaríamos «sine libero arbítrio». Procurando separar esta alternativa, que lhe parece armadilhada, Santo Anselmo busca uma definição de libertas arbitrii independente do poder negativo de pecar (potestas peccandi) e, a partir da distinção entre voluntas propter se (instrumentum volendi) e voluntas propter aliud (usus sive opus volendi), julga encontrá-la na seguinte: a libertas arbitrii é «o poder de guardar a rectitude da vontade pela própria rectitude» (DLA, III, 212, 19-20: «potestas servandi rectitudinem voluntatis propter ipsam rectitudinem»), poder que exprime a exacta e positiva noção da «justiça original». À luz de tal definição transcendental de libertas arbitrii, comum a Deus, aos anjos e aos homens, pode Anselmo avançar a tese teologicamente mais ousada do opúsculo: nem Deus, apesar de poder «reduzir a nada uma substância que Ele fez do nada», é capaz de «separar a rectidão de uma vontade que a possui» (DLA, VIII, 220, 13-15).

The present paper investigates Anselm’s position regarding the use of the civil power (secular authority), especially in the period between his nomination for Archbishop of Canterbury (1093) and the reconciliation with Henry I (1105) based on some of his Letters. Three points are articulated: 1. The configuration of the historical and juridical, the Cluniac Reform (as a model of translocal, hierarchical, corporate govemment) and the Papal Revolution (as a fundamental break in the historical continuity of the church). 2. The apprehension of Anselm conceming issue the justification of the power: insistently reaffirms his fidelity to the apostolic authority, but it also recognises certain legitimacy out of the ecclesiastical domain. In the continuity of Gregory VII, it would be impossible to ignore the distinction between the two powers («Investiture Struggle»). However, the polarisation of the spiritual power above all demands the reason (sola ratione), not the fideism. That is why Anselm could not have a negative or secular view of the constituted real determination and source of meaning which he gave to the civil power. 3. Relationship between theology and politics: the separation, concurrence, and interaction of the spiritual and secular jurisdictions were the true source of Anselm’s conception of power. The essay concludes with the positive implications of Anselm’s notion of the power.

Since intelligence and will are component parts of the soul, they do not oppose, but collaborate in the happiness of man. In the sequence of their masters and the franciscan school, Scotus gives priority, in the execution order, to the will over the intelligence, without diminishing the role of the reason which is a sine qua non condition of the will. A previous and necessary condition, since without knowing there is no want, and the one who wants, wants something that intelligence gives to know as an object. In a particular way intelligence makes clear the end of volition, which is the infinite good. Being the will defined as “free rational appetite”, the freely tendency, and therefore in contingent way for the good, according to the right reason, it can not be violated, even if it has to be ordained by an affection for justice.

Situamos Dante no contexto das polémicas medievais sobre a relação entre os poderes temporal e espiritual, em clara defesa das prerrogativas e da autonomia do poder temporal contra os partidários da teocracia. Neste contexto cumpre, por um lado, sublinhar a concepção da sociedade e da politica como tendo por fim a actualização da potencia especifica do homem, ou seja, da faculdade ou virtude da intelecção, colocando, deste modo o poder numa base gnosiológica. Por outro lado, situando a questão da origem do poder fora das teses tradicionais da escolástica, Dante considera e defende a tese da origem divina imediata do poder, procurando, por essa via, sublinhar a sua autonomia perante as pretensões do Pontífice romano. É neste quadro que se entrega à análise criteriosa do «oficio das chaves» de São Pedro, limitando a sua extensão aos assuntos do foro espiritual, por devermos a Pedro tudo o que é de Pedro e por nao devermos a Pedro tudo o que é de Cristo.

O meu propósito é abordar um aspecto do pensamento de Petrarca no qual se revela a faceta de filósofo moral que quase sempre ficou oculta sob a maior evidência da do poeta e do humanista. Essa faceta, que se expõe sobretudo em obras como De remediis utriusque fortunae, De vita solitaria e De secreto conflictu curarum mearum, era porém bem reconhecida pelos primeiros leitores quatrocentistas e quinhentistas do autor das Rime. Servir-me-ei do tópico da humana conditio para delinear a topografia da reflexão antropológica do autor, destacando a sua concepção heracliteana e agónica da existência humana e da própria realidade, regidas uma e outra pela luta e conflito ou pela ambivalência da fortuna, ao que o humanista responde com uma filosofia moral própria, concebida como moderação racional das paixões da alma, tanto da esperança e da alegria como do medo e da dor, concebida enfim como medicina mentis e meditatio mortis, que se inspira seja no estoicismo senequiano seja no platonismo agostiniano. Relevo será dado ao primado concedido pelo filósofo a ordem dos afectos, o que o inscreve na linhagem do voluntarismo agostiniano, bem como à sua meditação acerca da nobreza e excelência do homem, na qual os tópicos colhidos na antropo-teologia patrística são temperados pela viva consciência da miséria da condição humana. Sobressairá o perfil de um pensador cujos assomos de optimismo se oferecem envoltos nas tonalidades da melancolia e do pessimismo e que, com igual razão, pode ser lido como «o primeiro dos modernos» ou como um dos últimos medievais.

Our aim is to reflect upon the theme of “Transcending God”, as the core of the spiritual and mystical quest and journey, in Meister Eckhart and Angelus Silesius. We comment positions like “So therefore we pray to God that we may be free of “God”” (Eckhart) and “I must go even beyond God, to a desert” (Silesius), situating them in the context of neoplatonic experience and tradition. Finally, we wonder if we couldn’t find here a previous and more radical “death of God”, where religion is simultaneously accomplished and overpassed by mystical spirituality. This could be the other side of the “death of God” proclaimed by Nietzsche.

Se a crise da racionalidade é uma constante da sua história e uma implicação natural do carácter fragmentário e conjectural do conhecimento, já a sua derrapagem céptica se afigura mais preocupante e insana, sobretudo quando oriunda daqueles sectores da cultura que, por inerência e vocação, mais deveriam velar pela preservação da validade de critérios cognitivos e mora is de indiscutível interesse social. É este, a nosso ver, um estado de coisas que pode e deve ser combatido pelo retorno às fontes intuitivas e onto lógicas da racionalidade. Tal é, pelo menos a breve trecho, a tese que neste artigo se defende em uníssono com a fenomenologia. Assim, após revisitar as concepções clássica e moderna de verdade e relevar de vários modos a natureza auto-refutante do relativismo, o presente texto advoga a normatividad e da razão alegando que a verdade, na sua formalidade, se dá a pensar não apenas como índice de si própria mas ainda da estrutura do próprio ser na sua aprioridade transcendente e ideal.

El problema “biología e inteligencia”, considerado filosóficamente, forma parte de un problema más amplio, que provisionalmente podría denominarse “organismo y psiquismo” y debería ser tratado desde très puntos de vista distintos, mas estrechamente entrelazados: el de las acciones, el de la habitud-actividad y el de las estructuras. El terreno de los actos es el más aparente y se refiere a todo el enorme campo de las acciones del hombre - no distinguimos aquí entre actos y acciones- , que tejen la vida del ser humano; el terreno de las habitudes, y con él el de la actividad, es más profundo y alude al modo esencial de habérselas el ser humano consigo mismo y con lo que le circunda en las acciones que realiza; finalmente, el terre no de las estructuras es todavia más profundo - tan sólo en el sentido de más radical- y alude a aquellas realidades, de la índole que sean, por las que el hombre posee modos específicos de habérselas con las cosas y puede realizar determinadas acciones. En este trabajo nos vamos a ceñir lo más posible al problema “biologia e inteligencia” y al solar de las acciones y de las habitudes, dejando para otra ocasión el problema de las estructuras, que nos conduciría al planteamiento más englobante de “psique y organismo”. Por la unidad de los tres niveles y por la unidad de lo que es el ser humano y de lo que es su actividad, en ocasiones tocaremos aspectos que desbordan la “ inteligencia” y que desbordan también el nivel de las acciones y de la habitud.

This paper intends to give a critical reading of Jean-Paul Sartre’s treatment of inter-consciousness relationship as presented in his work L'être et le néant, namely in the chapter L'existence d'autrui. Our main objective is to understand the treatment Sartre gave the referred issue in that particular work, but also to show that his theoretical standpoint falls short on a true determination of the meaning of the experience of Otherness for consciousness. Our method for approaching Sartre’s views stands on a detailed reading of the author’s own analyses, trying to show their limited scope and providing a different, less conflictual treatment and interpretation for the presented data. In Sartre’s view, consciousness (the Pour-soi, as he calls it, i.e., non-positional consciousness) is not inhabited by an ego, that is, it doesn’t have an ego until one becomes an object to it, similar to the remaining objects of the world, which occurs with the Other’s entry in the world. That being, Sartre’s fundamental problem is to know how is it possible for consciousness to constitute an ego as an object - as an object among other objects, but whose experience is, for consciousness, different from the one it makes of all other objects - , and, on a second step, to state its identity with that ego, i.e., to be that ego, without loosing, in the process, its subjective spontaneity and freedom. Taken as a subject/object kind of relation, as Sartre affirms it, the inter-consciousness relationship is condemned to failure, doomed to be a permanent struggle for domination of one over an other. Our analysis of the sartrian data as put forward in L'Être et le néant will show that Sartre’s thesis about inter-consciousness relationship is one-sided and that a more comprehensive interpretation of the above-mentioned relationship is possible, an interpretation based in the view that envisaging the Other as an object is founded on an anticipation of its subjectivity and of consciousness’ own subjectivity, that is, on a founding intersubjective relationship. According to our viewpoint, if it is true that an ego can be an object, it is already as a degraded ego and not as the ego properly said, born out of a relationship between subjects. The experience of Othemess shows consciousness, originally and immediately, what it can and should be, and that being has a positivity that remains an other for a concrete, knowable ego. That founding experience, which takes place at an affective level, has the meaning of an experience of the limits which, when surpassed, will allow consciousness to reach a higher dignity of being. Therefore it is as anticipation and project, as desire, as afectivity, that the relationship to an other takes place, as a pure relationality without masks, and not as a dialectical conflict, as Sartre intends to show with his occasionally convincing arguments.

This article has the double goal of reflecting on the concept of narrative identity in Paul Ricoeur’s Thinking and of evaluating its contribution to the resolution of the general problem of personal identity. Accordingly, this article will develop the following thesis: 1) narrative identity results from a permanent dialectic between character (sameness, Idem) and selfhood (constancy, Ipse), that is, between subject’s power to relate continuously to himself during all his life through narrative mediation and subject’s psychological and physical traits; 2) personal identity is the continuous ethical and aesthetical (self)recreation and narrative identity brings perfectly together these two domains.

Modern political philosophy, especially since Machiavelli, intends to uncover what politics actually is, and in order to achieve this it often needs to penetrate into disciplines not immediately related to politics and assimilate for itself additional concepts and methodologies. Thus, it appears to be interdisciplinary in the manipulation of specific conceptual instruments. Since there is a methodological shift in modernity imposing the individual person as a basic starting-point of political philosophy, which is expressed in a language of rights, the birth of this juridical-political interdisciplinarity is to be found in a table of concepts established in the science of law and applicable to political philosophy. In order to further understand this, the origins of Grotius’s definitions of ius must be sought out, since they set the background for the bridge he architected between law and political philosophy to be crossed by subsequent modern political philosophers. The solidity of this theoretical basis for interdisciplinary political philosophy depends upon the simultaneity of all of Grotius’s different meanings of ius: it is from this foundation that seventeenth-century political philosophy can begin from.