In this text, the relationship between fallibilism and cognitive vulnerability is examined using Richard Rorty’s thinking as an example. First, some of Rorty’s central ideas are collected and commented on, especially the substitution of objectivity for solidarity, since it affects relevant issues of epistemology and of reflection on rationality. Next, the notions of fallibilism and cognitive vulnerability are examined, which will be connected to an existential dimension of vulnerability. Examples of all those things are also given from Rorty’s thinking and (...) it is highlighted that the author operates with both a negative and a positive sense of existential vulnerability. It is then stated that Rorty’s proposal implies pessimistic fallibilism and an excess of cognitive vulnerability. First, it is argued that the cause of this lies in the fact that his approach is imprisoned in what Richard Bernstein called Cartesian anxiety and secondly, this generates unwanted consequences for the Rortyan goals themselves to raise his ethnocentric proposal as a non-relativistic alternative to realism and authoritarianism. In this respect, it is maintained that the priority that Rorty attributes to solidarity is accompanied by the rejection of any notion of evidence. This produces a conceptual lacuna in the structure of his thought that makes it impossible to reflect philosophically on an epistemic activity (the activity of adducing or requesting evidence) that is a normal part of day-to-day conversational exchanges as important as controversies to determine the best option in each case. In response, we will argue that one can better work towards the achievement of Rortyan goals if we bear in mind that reasons based on solidarity do not replace and do not deactivate the value of epistemic reasons, although they do combine and reinforce each other. (shrink)

Pocas dudas hay hoy en día sobre la importancia de contar con buenas traducciones y ediciones de textos filosóficos relevantes. Más si se trata de textos clásicos, y más aún cuando las propuestas filosóficas que contienen no manifiestan el punto de vista hegemónico sobre el tema en cuestión. Estas son, precisamente, las circunstancias que acompañan a la reciente traducción al español realizada por Ángel Manuel Faerna de Lógica: La Teoría de la Investigación de John Dewey. No es la primera tra...

La noción butleriana de política como resistencia destaca por su originalidad, pues se dobla de performatividad y, al mismo tiempo, está abierta a las alianzas. En este texto se argumenta que su singularidad proviene del marco teórico materialista elaborado por Butler, pues ofrece una caracterización de los seres humanos que los vincula socialmente por su mutua dependencia y vulnerabilidad. Finalmente, comentaré tres aspectos confusos o problemáticos de la propuesta butleriana: el primero relacionado con la reconciliación, el segundo con la emancipación (...) y el tercero con la universalidad. (shrink)

Every time that one refers to the political philosophy that could be drawn from the so called " Last Wittgenstein ", the most habitual thing is to associate it with conservative positions, given that the majority of the available literature on the matter does it so. Nevertheless, in the last few years some philosophers, such as Chantal Mouffe and Paolo Virno, have tried to offer a new picture in which Wittgenstein fits better with democratic political ideas, even though this manoeuvre (...) requires to go beyond some presuppositions of Wittgenstein philosophy. My aim is to twofold. First, I will analyze why it has been thought that some elements ofWittgenstein’s late philosophy are compatible with political conservatism. Second, I will try to point out what notions of this network should be discarded in order to make it useful to elaborate democratic anticonservative models. This last task is necessary since it is logical to think that the same body of thought cannot be coherent with so different and even opposite political derivations. (shrink)

Este estudio trata de mostrar cómo las primeras reflexiones modernas sobre cuestiones de racionalidad práctica dan pie a tres modelos básicos de subjetividad: el elaborado por Maquiavelo, el que ofrece Lutero y el del utopismo. El trabajo se centra principalmente en los dos primeros. This paper aims to show how the first modern reflections on questions about practical rationality may eventually give rise to three different samples of subjectivity: first, that elaborated by Macchiavelli, secondly the one which may be found (...) in Luther and, thirdly, the utopism. The paper focuses, however, its attention on the first two. (shrink)

order to defend Putnam’s conceptual pluralism. Finally, the paper defends the compatibility between conceptual pluralism and the idea of convergence in a final opinion. Consequently, I conclude that objectivity depends on the particular vocabularies employed. This paper examines the concept of objectivity as a point of view without perspective. This sense of objectivity is present (among others) in Williams’ works (particularly in its notion of absolute conception of reality). The structure of the paper is the following: first, Williams’ physicalist program (...) is described. Secondly, the article presents some objections to Williams’ physicalism. Thirdly, some reasons are given against the notion of objectivity as a point of view without perspective in. (shrink)

Pritchard sostiene que la condición de habilidad y la condición de seguridad le imponen demandas independientes al conocimiento, i.e., que la satisfacción de una no implica la satisfacción de la otra y que, por lo tanto, ninguna de ellas es suficiente por sí misma para ofrecer una caracterización adecuada de esta noción. Argumento, por el contrario, que no hay buenas razones para pensar que la condición de seguridad es insuficiente. Empleando algunos conceptos de Greco y Pritchard y Kallestrup para caracterizar (...) a las habilidades cognitivas y el caso del mentiroso consistente de Lackey, argumento que TEMP, el caso clave de Pritchard para mostrar que puede haber seguridad sin habilidad, no funciona porque el proceso cognitivo relevante constituye una realización legítima, aunque anómala, de una habilidad. Pritchard maintains that the ability and the safety conditions impose independent demands on knowledge, i.e., that satisfying only one of them is not sufficient to acquire knowledge. I argue that there are no good reasons to suppose that the safety condition is not sufficient. I claim that TEMP, the key case proposed by Pritchard to show that there can be safety without ability, fails because therelevant cognitive process constitutes a legitimate, although anomalous, realization of a cognitive ability. (shrink)

"Libro sumamente valioso. Tras sendas visiones de conjunto, muy logradas, del positivismo en América Latina en general y en Venezuela en particular, siguen capítulos sobre: Adolfo Ernst; Rafael Villavicencio; Vicente Marcano; Lasandro Alvarado; Luis Razetti; Guillermo Delgado Palacios; Luis López Méndez; José Gil Fortoul; Laureano Vallenilla Lanz; César Zumeta y Manuel Arcaya. Tiende a hacer comparaciones con otras manifestaciones del positivismo latinoamericano"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.