My research aims to explore the notion of active matter through the history of materialism and map its contemporary implications. In order to approach the various emergences of the concept in the history of materialism, my work will firstly examine the body as a core notion that allows materialists of different kinds (from 18th-century French materialists to the contemporary so-called new materialists) to challenge the notion of matter as inert res extensa. Indeed, the body occupies a controversial position in the history of western philosophy. The body, whose skin is constructed as the individual's boundary, is neither absent nor insignificant in western cosmology (as many claim), yet it is neither placed on a pedestal. As both "thing" and subject, the body challenges lines of demarcation that structure scientific rationality: therefore rather than being praised or ignored, it took the place of the antagonist of scientific reason. I will explore the hypothesis that 18th-century French materialists (I am thinking in particular of La Mettrie's "Man a Machine") grasped to some extent this critical potential of the body, and, while partially continuing that tradition which had conceived of the body as its worst enemy, laid the foundations for a critique of those lines of demarcations and for the flourishing of alternative ontologies. Positing matter as the sole substance of reality and at the same time acknowledging the existence of the capability of thinking, French materialists end up with a very peculiar understanding of such substance: if the body coincides with the soul, then the matter of which it consists has the faculty of thinking and feeling too. The body seems therefore to play a key role in the conceptualization of active matter. Since, according to this hypothesis, such an understanding of body and matter are crucial for 18th-century French materialism to get distinguished from mechanicism, the place they hold in subsequent schools of materialism is to be further investigated. What is the understanding of matter underlying Marxism? What is the place of the body in Marx's philosophy and Marxist materialism in general? What are the continuities and discontinuities in the way the body is approached in the history of materialism? What is the understanding of matter at the core of the so-called new materialism? Is that conception of matter to some extent linked to the body?The hypothesis of the first part of this research is that the body became a key to reinterpreting the conception of matter precisely because of the controversial relationship that western philosophy has with it. While basing on it (secretly? unconsciously?) the theory of the individual subject, western philosophy has significantly insisted on relegating the body to the status of brute matter, an inert object.For the purpose of exploring current uses and implications of active matter, the second part of the research will focus on the debates and the challenges posed by the critique of the subject-object pair in contemporary materialisms. In order to do so, the work will examine two emblematic (and polemic) "objects" that, just like the body, generate, for philosophical, historical, and political reasons, significant debates over their status of brute and inert matter: technical objects, on the one hand, natural objects on the other (rivers, mountains and so on).As far as technical objects are concerned, the question my research will try to answer is if and how they can be read from a materialist point of view as socio-political actors. Hence, this part will investigate object-oriented approaches to technology with the aim of charting the contours of a materialist position in the debate on the technological agency. Can active matter be a useful tool to approach it? How is agency of matter understood in the case of technological objects? Do the meanings of "active matter" differ in the cases of technical objects and the body?Regarding natural objects, the historical context of the ecological crisis has led scholars and activists to problematize the ontological status of what is traditionally understood as nature, criticizing its reduction to inert matter and proposing legal and conceptual tools such as environmental personhood. In this part, the focus will be on analyzing the implications of choosing personhood instead of agency and the controversies generated by that choice. Is a person someone who has to be alive? how are the distinctions dead/alive, organic/inorganic challenged, and blurred by active matterings? can a river be a legal subject? how can a mountain speak for herself? is there a language of matter to be explored? how are natural objects connected to technical objects? and to the body?

Visamos explicitar como a luz, que incide e se propaga sobre as superfícies internas e externas das peças de Donald Judd, foi concebida pelo artista como parte constitutiva de sua estrutura física. A cor torna-se sinônimo da superfície material nas peças de Judd: ela é substantiva, inerente, não aplicada, e sem intenções metafóricas. Acompanhamos a tendência crítica recente de encontrar um conceito inovador de cor na obra de Donald Judd, que até pouco tempo atrás era tomada como a representante máxima de um minimalismo ortodoxo, distante de todo e qualquer apelo sensível.

ABSTRACT The use of no-till conservationist agricultural systems as well as intercropping in the Cerrado biome are practices that increase soil organic matter (SOM) due to the deposition of straw. This study aimed to quantify the carbon stock and organic fractions of a latosol under off-season monoculture (Sorghum bicolor and Urochloa ruziziensis) and intercropping (S. bicolor-U. ruziziensis) systems, in Rio Verde, state of Goiás, Brazil. Soil samples were collected from different layers: 0-10, 10-20 and 20-40 cm. The following variables were determined: organic carbon content, carbon stock, dry matter and fractions of organic matter (labile and mineral). The results showed that the organic fractions of the soil are modified according to the adopted management. Intercropping of S. bicolor and U. ruziziensis increased the carbon stock, with the presence of more labile organic fractions on the soil surface, while the use of U. ruziziensis enhances the production of recalcitrant organic fractions, promoting greater preservation of the soil organic matter.

The aim of this paper is to examine whether and, if so, how far, the Augustinian notion of malum is related to Plotinus’concept of evil, as it appears in Ennead I. 8 [51]. The Augustinian notion of evil will be analyzed by focusing on the De natura boni, considering plurality and unity in Augustine’s identification of malum and nihil, both in their ontological and axiological dimensions. Topics selected for special consideration will be, first, evil as lack of modus, species and ordo naturalis (De nat. b., 4), and, secondly, corruptio as cause of defectio boni (De nat. b., 6). The second part will analyze Plotinus’notion of evil, as spelled out in Ennead I, 8 [51], considering the Plotinian identity of to kakon and me on. Topics selected for analysis will be, first, the concept of evil as lack of measure, form and order (Enn. I. 8. 3), and secondly, the notion of to kakon as lack of good (Enn. I. 8. 5) simpliciter.  The third part of this paper will consider the differences between Augustine’s and Plotinus’identity of evil and non-being, as related to the notion of matter. Topics selected for analysis will be, firstly, Plotinus’identity of matter and evil (Enn. I. 8. 10), and, secondly, Augustine’s concept of matter as capacitas formarum (De nat. b., 18). The conclusion will bring out how Plotinus’concept of steresis suggests both a different relation between evil and non-being while being closely resembling Augustine’s pattern of malum and nihil.

The artistic and geophilosophical project "The Earth as Event", in its cinematographic aspect, problematises the relationship between the Earth and nature. It is a transdisciplinary project which, in essence, leads to the emergence of new images of the Earth, questioning the historically and ethologically marked notion of territory. It is increasingly felt that the territorial logic that captures the earth is reaching a critical moment, of which the climate crisis and the entry into the Anthropocene are an important indication. In the film "The Earth as Event II", through its use of materials and the transduction of the arts it develops, it operates a deterritorialisation, accentuating the displacement of materials and questioning them in their almost pre-human originality. Only cinema has the ability to deterritorialise the logic of historical borders, without illusory reterritorialisation. The appearance of the earth in its elementality as cinema gives it place without dominating it, crossed with phrases that are also nomadic, which punctuate the video, opens up political possibilities for thinking about the relationship with the earth and the community of those who inhabit it. This is a creative expression that aims to intervene and give visibility to other possibilities for inhabiting the Earth. [...].

This essay is a critical reading of Raul Leal’s text published in Orpheu 2, “Atelier, Novela Vertígica”, and brief comparison with Castello de Moraes’s text which should have been published in Orpheu 3, “Névoa”. Several issues arised by the texts will be discussed: the gap between the self and the other, a commonly discusssed issue by portuguese modernists; the questioning of artistic expression and what is the best means to create sublime art; what are, according to Leal, the sublime and superior art and artist. It will be concluded that, according to Leal’s work, the sublime expression of art will be the one that requires less physical means to be created and that translates, therefore, spirituality and soul most purely. The sublime artist will be the one who can feel and create that art in the most spiritualized way possible, turning himself and his life into art itself.

The aim of this research is to focus on organic materiality in the 20th century art, for its appearance as a protagonist element presented in an artwork for what it actually is rather than as a mere component or instrument for chromatic or decorative purposes. By examining some works and specific case studies, organic materiality is suggested as a filter, and also as a sketch of a method to introduce the elaboration of a problem not to be solved, but to be left open to a variety of possibilities. Regarding the geographical span, this research has an international scope, mainly covering the artistic production carried out in Europe, Northern and Southern America, and Japan in some cases. In this sense, this work assumes its inevitable incompleteness as an attempt to find a place into a pluralistic theoretical discourse in art, and more specifically contemporary art, putting at its core matter as a matter of concern. The present investigation focuses on a kind of materiality that is, organic in the primal meaning of the term, in other words, an adjective “relating to or derived from living matter.” Therefore, in order to present the organic materiality of plants and animals (human and non-human) and their interactions with the 20th century art this research, over its chapters, counts on the contributions of history of science and medicine, and philosophical approaches such as philosophy of nature, philosophy of Vitalism, and philosophical anthropology. Moreover, the cycle of life of organic materiality became not only the object of research but also the method to study 20th century art from the point of view selected for this work, whose division in five chapters reflects this “organic method.” Proposing a spiral curve from birth, through youth, maturity, ageing and death with the increase of advanced technology and dissemination of digital media, the apparent disappearance of the organic, seems rather to propose a reformulation of its meaning. Motivated by contemporary artistic practices carried out in the first years of the 21st century, this research aim to understand the organic in the past century, investigating it from a theoretical point of view, but somehow by asking the organic materiality itself. In other words, the question on the levels of the organic and the human is developed by interrogating the same organic into artworks, not represented but presented, materialised.