Heidegger, the founder of the hermeneutic paradigm, rejected the traditional account of cultural activity as a search for universally valid foundations for human action and knowledge. His main work, Sein und Zeit (1927), develops a holistic epistemology according to which all meaning is context-dependent and permanently anticipated from a particular horizon, perspective or background of intelligibility. The result is a powerful critique directed against the ideal of objectivity. Gadamer shares with Heidegger the hermeneutic reflections developed in Sein und Zeit and the critique of objectivity, describing the cultural activity as an endless process of "fusions of horizons." On the one hand, this is an echo of the Heideggerian holism, namely, of the thesis that all meaning depends on a particular interpretative context. On the other hand, however, this concept is an attempt to cope with the relativity of human existence and to avoid the dangers of a radical relativism. In fact, through an endless, free and unpredictable process of fusions of horizons, our personal horizon is gradually expanded and deprived of its distorting prejudices in such a way that the educative process (Bildung) consists in this multiplication of hermeneutic experiences. Gadamer succeeds therefore in presenting a non-foundationalist and non-teleological theory of culture.

Resumo: Trata-se do estudo de um dos desafios práticos da arbitragem: o princípio da autonomia da cláusula compromissória. Num primeiro momento identifica-se o princípio, suas peculiaridades, razão de existência e sua função. Posteriormente, faz-se sua aproximação ao princípio da conservação dos contratos, tema bastante discutido pelos contratualistas contemporâneos. A cláusula compromissória válida inserida em contrato nulo é discutida com fundamentos teóricos e práticos. Conclui-se pela prevalência do princípio da autonomia sobre a nulidade dos contratos, de forma que o procedimento arbitral, se eleito, deverá ser a forma de solução do conflito, mesmo que o conflito seja a nulidade do próprio contrato.Palavras-chave: Contrato. Arbitragem. Cláusula compromissória. Autonomia. Abstract:This presentation aims the study of an important issue related to arbitration: the arbitration clause and the principle of separability. Firstly, it's necessary to identify the principle and its peculiarities, the reason for existence, and its function. Then, favor contractus principle, a subject quite discussed by contemporary practices, will be approached. The valid arbitration clause inserted into a null contract is discussed with theoretical and practical arguments. As a conclusion, the prevalence of the separability is reached. In a practical case, the arbitration clause shall prevail and the discussions shall be settled by arbitration procedure.

According to an influential epistemological tradition, science explains phenomena on the basis of laws, but the last two decades have witnessed a neo-mechanistic movement that emphasizes the fundamental role of mechanism-based explanations in science, which have the virtue of opening the “black box” of correlations and of providing a genuine understanding of the phenomena. Mechanisms enrich the empirical content of a theory by introducing a new set of variables, helping us to make causal inferences that are not possible on the basis of macro-level correlations (due to well-known problems regarding the underdetermination of causation by correlation). However, the appeal to mechanisms has also a methodological price. They are vulnerable to interference effects; they also face underdetermination problems, because the available evidence often allows different interpretations of the underlying structure of a correlation; they are strongly context-dependent and their individuation as causal patterns can be controversial; they present specific testability problems; finally, mechanism-based extrapolations can be misleading due to the local character of mechanisms. At any rate, the study of mechanisms is an indispensable part of the human sciences, and the problems that they raise can be controlled by quantitative and qualitative methods, and an epistemologically informed exercise of critical thinking.