Me irrita la asepsia que ostentan algunos estudiosos, derivada del temor a asumir riesgos intelectuales. Contra esta clase de mediocridad expongo el legado de una impregnación estético-vital, que, en mi modesta opinión, constituye el modo sincero de revelar la calidad de un espíritu. Se notará un efecto de vasos comunicantes. Por ello, dispuesto a tratar sobre la personalidad de don Pío Baroja, lo haré compartiendo su profunda emoción de ser, cota que excede el alcance de lo anecdótico, de lo chismográfico (...) y hasta de la mera erudición. (shrink)

There are surely some dozens of young Spaniards who, submerged in the obscure depths of provincial existence, live in a perpetual and tacit irritation with the atmosphere around them. I can almost see them, in the corner of some social hall, silent, with embittered gaze and hostile mien, withdrawn into themselves like little tigers awaiting the moment for their vengeful, predatory leap. That corner and that frayed plush divan are like the solitary crag where the shipwrecked of monotony, of utter (...) banality, of the abjection and emptiness of Spanish life, hope for better times. Not far away, playing their card games, making their petty politics, plotting their minimal business ventures, are the "life forces" of the community, these men who contrive this ominous moment in our national life. (shrink)

Una de las aportaciones más importantes de la obra de Ortega se encuentra en su teoría y práctica de la perspectiva. Independientemente de su filiación nietzscheana, el artículo se plantea una posible segunda inspiración en Renan, autor que Ortega conocía bien en el momento de sus primeros trabajos. Para ello, se realiza una comparación de la posición de Renan ante el pensador Lamennais y la de Ortega ante Pío Baroja, donde se aprecian coincidencias no sólo en la interpretación de los (...) personajes, sino en la forma de concebir la práctica intelectual que subyace en sendos trabajos. (shrink)

This work tries to give the possible most suitable vision of the Generation of 98 regarding the purposes and interest of the main authors: Azorín, Pío Baroja, Miguel Unamuno, Antonio Machado and José Ortega y Gasset.

The concept of vital force – the immanent energy that promotes the processes of life in the body and in nature – has proved a source of endless fascination and controversy. Indeed, the question of what vitalizes the body has haunted humanity since antiquity, and became even more pressing during the Scientific Revolution and beyond. Examining the complexities and theories about vital force in Spanish modernity, Nicolás Fernández-Medina's Life Embodied offers a novel and provocative assessment of the question of bodily (...) life in Spain. Starting with Juan de Cabriada's landmark Carta filosófica, médico-chymica of 1687 and ending with Ramón Gómez de la Serna's avant-gardism of the 1910s, Fernández-Medina incorporates discussions of anatomy, philosophy, science, critical theory, history of medicine, and literary studies to argue that concepts of vital force served as powerful vehicles to interrogate the possibilities and limits of corporeality. Paying close attention to how the body's capabilities were conceived and strategically woven into critiques of modernity, Fernández-Medina engages the work of Miguel Boix y Moliner, Martín Martínez, Diego de Torres Villarroel, Sebastián Guerrero Herreros, Ignacio María Ruiz de Luzuriaga, Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, Pedro Mata y Fontanet, Ángela Grassi, Julián Sanz del Río, Miguel de Unamuno, and Pío Baroja, among others. Drawing on extensive research and analysis, Life Embodied breaks new ground as the first book to address the question of vital force in Spanish modernity. (shrink)

In the history of literary criticism the name of Ortega y Gasset is indispensable, since in this, as well as in all other sectors of cultural activity, the influence of his thought has been most decisive. He opened paths and established guidelines that remain in effect; his vision of the Quijote not only counterbalanced that of Unamuno, against which it purposely rebelled, but also, by underscoring the resources called into play by Cervantes in composing his master work, he has shaped (...) the attitudes of subsequent professional and academic criticism; and his analysis of the personalities of such important writers as Baroja is as yet unsurpassed. Among his many influential works, Francisco Ayala has written Reflexiones sobre la estructura narrativa (criticism) and España, a la fecha. (essays). His collected fiction appeared in 1969 under the title Obras narrativas completas. At Professor Ayala's request, this essay, and Ideas sobre Pío Baroja, by José Ortega y Gasset, were translated by Richard Ford. (shrink)

One of Ortega y Gasset's more important contributions was his theory and methodological use of the concept of perspective. Clearly he´s indebeted to Nietzsche on this issue, but it can also be surmised that Renan was also important in this issue at the time that Ortega was preparing Meditaciones del Quijote. The article compares Renan's criticism of Lamennais with Ortega's interpretation of Pío Baroja focusing not only on the paralelism of their criticisms of established and prominent personalities of their intelectual (...) community, but also on the underlying understanding of cultural practice. (shrink)

In the current world of education, politics and public opinion, musical experience is increasingly threatened. It is designated ever more as an expendable luxury. This kind of general trend has hardly left the thinking in the field of music and music education untouched. Inspiration comes from the technical rationality of our time. This rationality affects an oblivion of ontology. In this article we discuss this trend related to Martin Heidegger’s thinking concerning the human existence in the world, artworks and notions (...) like “being” (Sein) and “oblivion-of-being” (Seinsvergessenheit). We think that it is possible to see this “oblivion-of-being” in relation to the trend in cultural and educational politics as well as in music educational thinking to focus on the instrumental usefulness of learning music. (shrink)

Scientific practices have been changed by the increasing use of computer simulations. A central question for philosophers is how to characterize computer simulations. In this paper, we address this question by analyzing simulations in biochemistry. We propose that simulations have been used in biochemistry long before computers arrived. Simulation can be described as a surrogate relationship between models. Moreover, a simulative aspect is implicit in the classical dichotomy between in vivo–in vitro conditions. Based on a discussion about how to characterize (...) a simulative aspect in this dichotomy, we will argue that an adequate understanding of computer simulations in biochemistry requires a previous understanding of simulations in experimental contexts. (shrink)

In this article we propose an analysis of the controversy between Geoffrey Jefferson and Alan Turing in terms of a Kuhnian account of thought experiments. In this account, the main task is not to evaluate intuitions or (only) to rearrange concepts. Instead, we propose that the main task is to construct scenarios by proposing relevant experiences in which shared assumptions and conflicting lines of inquiry can be made explicit. From this perspective, we can understand the arguments and assumptions in the (...) Jefferson-Turing thinking machine controversy. (shrink)

This paper develops two central themes of the Canti Orfici, intrinsically connected to each other: Orphism, with particular attention to La Notte, and Dino Campana’s relationship with Nietzschean sources, in order to deepen the latent trace of a Nietzscheanism scattered in the metaphors and symbols of the poetic word. È forse un azzardo addentrarsi negli incerti sentieri sul crinale tra letteratura e filosofia, dove il confine non risulta visibilmente tracciato e non vi è alcun segno certo ch...

The last ethicalpolitical events of the countries of the East seem to confirm the old hegelian idea according to which the way of history advances, even though errors and contradictions occurs, in direction of the freedom. Nevertheless, the poshegelian thought has emphasized the value of the ind..

A través del análisis de la interpretación que Nicol hace de Vico asoman en este trabajo otras aproximaciones a la filosofía española "transterrada" en México.Trough the analysis of Nicol's reading of Vico, other considerations of banished Spanish philosophy in Mexico are offered in this paper.

Investigating the paths of ethics —ethics of politics, ethics of philosophy—, contemporary thought has been inquiring for a long into several tasks and aims, concerning the same practice of philosophy. Very lucidly, Emmanuel Levinas started from the criticism on philosophy as power ideology. In the background of the being qua totality, a plurality of existents competes among themselves to impose one’s right to be. Philosophy is the awareness of the fact that the unwinding of being is determined by conflict, which (...) is its impulse. Nevertheless, as a critical practice, philosophy consists in the capacity for unmasking the terrible evidence of the all-determining conflict. Philosophy is the defence tool enabling us not to be victims of illusion. Just because of that, contemporary ethics invites us to reconsider, with ever greater critical care, the connection me-you. After a careful analysis of the considerations on this subject by some thinkers in our time —from Heidegger to Sartre, from Jaspers to Levinas, from Guardini to Piovani and Fornet Betancourt— this essay detect the possibility of a way out from the aporias, inevitably involving the connection to otherness —with the resulting impossibility to usurp the exteriority of one another, who is kept safe by an insurmountable transcendency— in a new idea of Hybridisation . It has not to do with ethnic or racial Hybridisation; the Hybridisation we refer to is anything but the idea about the existence of a social, cultural, linguistic, ethnic starting condition, neither of an homogeneous set generating a heterogeneous phenomenon by the meeting with another set. Instead, it could be considered as a ‘virtue’, that is, «sharing an existence without essence», a condition that allow us for escaping from the twofold trap of bringing the other into the boundaries of the supremacy of the same, or of falling into mere crossbreeding forms. (shrink)

Wim Wenders’ films offer not only emotions but are also a source of profound reflections on human existence, on the meaning of the change that breaks into the actuality of existence, on the privilege that mankind has to enjoy even the small pleasures of life. This essay deals with some central themes present in The Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin), with emphasis on the literary, conceptual and poietic references, which are a sort of “subtext”, a “secret plot” for (...) the understanding of the film. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt fut tout d'abord l'élève, puis la muse et l'amie de Martin Heidegger avant de devenir la collègue et la critique sévère de son ancien maître. A la différence de Heidegger qui, pour un laps de temps plutôt bref, adhéra au parti nazi lorsqu'il fut élu recteur de l'université de Fribourg en 1933, Hannah Arendt fut quant à elle contrainte de se réfugier aux Etats-Unis à cause de ses origines juives. Pendant une vingtaine d'années, toute relation entre le maître (...) et son élève fut interrompue. En 1950, Hannah Arendt rentra en Europe et, contre toute attente, voulut revoir son ami d'autrefois. C'est à cette époque que reprit leur relation épistolaire. Cet ouvrage reporte le lecteur au tout début de leur amitié retrouvée : à travers un jeu énigmatique d'allusions et de renvois, Heidegger évoque, dans une longue lettre, les épisodes majeurs de sa vie politique, académique et de penseur, l'amour pour son élève et des fragments d'événements oubliés dans le passé et retrouvés grâce à la puissance de l'imagination et de la mémoire. (shrink)

The concept of memory has always been a crucial topic in philosophical discourse. This book re-traces the thought of major philosophers such as Edmund Husserl, Paul Ricoeur, Hannah Arendt, Karl Jaspers, William James, José Luis Borges and Sigmund Freud to provide an in-depth exploration around several aspects of this timely issue. How is a memory formed? How can we bring into existence what has sunk into oblivion? What is the role of our instincts and inner drives in the constitution of (...) memory? What is the connection between memory and forgetfulness, as well as that between mercy and remembrance? Focusing on these fundamental questions, the author presents a rich interconnection of concepts and ideas that build a significant work on the great theme of memory"--Front cover flap. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Response to Cathy Benedict, “Naming Our Reality: Negotiating and Creating Meaning in the Margin.”Frederik PioIn this paper we are offered a reflection on the historical and present marginalization of music education. As Cathy Benedict says, "What of this marginalization and what of its possibilities? I would like to suggest in this paper that this marginalized status partly reflects our own complicity as we have historically allowed others to (...) speak for us." The field of music education in other words is suffering from a lack of independence. She goes on to say, "music educators have copied the perceived successes of the basic disciplines instead of striving for transformation." However, the radical transformation which is called for seems to lie neither in the integration of music education as part of general education nor in the isolation of music education for she adds, "if we continue to 'concern ourselves with possible future scenarios for music education as part of general education' and in a music education vacuum, then we will probably continue to construct what 'could be' in the guise of what has 'always been.'"The assumption seems to be that music education belongs in the margin, for Benedict also adds, "it is misguided to think of our goal as simply to place music education as part of general education." Instead it is the margin that is claimed to be ripe with possibillities of transformation: "It is true that we need to envision 'what could be' scenarios for music education as part of general education.... It seems more important, though, even imperative, to grapple with the systemic issues that continually haunt us." From the margin music education "must begin narratives with the other disciplines." In other words, the margin seems to be the place from which one can "go about facilitating the creation of liminal space [End Page 69] and facilitate the habits of mind that will relativize taken-for-granted beliefs." It is from the margin that the transformations asked for can be carried out.The margin however has been infected with a dominance which stems from outsiders: "This margin... is our standpoint and a perspective from which we have allowed a worldview to be constructed for us." So the tension regarding the status of music education, between autonomy and integration, is not resolved.At the same time music education must become free. That means tearing loose from the "hidden hegemonic structures that inevitably serve to obscure the purpose of education" while an integrative effort on behalf of music education is called for in relation to general education: "In many cases, we have allowed other disciplines to name what we are and can be. We have crafted and named our importance in a version of their eyes." Consequently what is demanded here is that we craft a version of our field according to our own eyes. So far the field of music education has been marginalized (isolated), but it has never-the-less created itself according to the eyes of outsiders.On behalf of the field of music education, Benedict however seems to ask for a new productive or transformative kind of autonomy (exercised from the margin). The challenge then must now be to create the field of music education in our own eyes. Then perhaps the margin becomes the borderline between autonomy and integration.It would be helpful if Benedict could shed some light on the concept of 'the margin' positioned within a field of tension between autonomy (isolation) and integration. In other words, is the margin a place which has until now remained undiscovered? Does it mark out the limit between isolation and integration (on behalf of the field of music education)?Given the state of things described above the agenda created in the margin is seen as liberatory and transformative: "the space we need to facilitate is liberatory with change as a given not a goal oriented end-point" (emphasis added). In other words a liberation is called for which amounts to an attempt to oppose an oppression: "the field of music education has in fact manifested several characteristics of an oppressed society" (emphasis added). But what is meant by this reference to a liberation/oppression... (shrink)

En los años veinte del siglo pasado se constituye lo que luego se llamó la escuela de Cambridge en bioquímica. Bajo el liderazgo de Frederick Gowland Hopkins este grupo tenía como objetivo primario la consolidación de la naciente bioquímica. Una característica particular de este grupo fue el intento explícito de vincular el trabajo científico con la discusión filosófica. Sin embargo, algunos historiadores como Nils Roll-Hansen han cuestionado en duros términos la manera en la cual estos científicos apelaban a la filosofía. (...) En particular Roll-Hansen ha sugerido que los aspectos filosóficos del trabajo de estos investigadores tendrían un mero carácter propagandístico vinculado con el proyecto de la constitución de la bioquímica como una disciplina. En este trabajo voy a defender que es posible considerar a los principios filosóficos presentados por la escuela de Cambridge como algo más que una mera propaganda para un proyecto institucional. Para esto voy a comparar la relación entre los principios filosóficos y trabajo metodológico propuesto por la escuela de Cambridge con una propuesta contemporánea: el Análisis de Control Metabólico, una perspectiva en el estudio de la bioquímica cuyo trabajo metodológico se suele defender apelando a “principios filosóficos”. A pesar de la distancia temporal entre ambas escuelas, tanto la actitud de apelar a principios filosóficos como el campo de estudio científico son semejantes.In the twenties of the last century, the Cambridge school in biochemistry was established. Under the leadership of Frederick Gowland Hopkins this group had as its primary objective the consolidation of a new science: biochemistry. A particular feature of this group was the explicit attempt to link scientific work with philosophical discussion. However, some historians like Nils Roll-Hansen have harshly questioned the way in which these scientists appealed to philosophy. In particular Roll-Hansen has suggested that the philosophical aspects of the work of these researchers would have to be considered as propaganda, motivated by attempt stablish the biochemistry as a discipline. In this paper I am going to defend that it is possible to consider the philosophical principles presented by the Cambridge school as something more than a propaganda for an institutional project. To this end I am going to compare the relationship between the philosophical principles and methodological work proposed by the Cambridge school with a contemporary proposal: the Metabolic Control Analysis, a perspective in the study of biochemistry whose methodological work is usually defended by appealing to “philosophical principles”. Despite the temporal distance between the two schools, both the attitude of appealing to philosophical principles and their field of scientific study are similar. Key Words: Philosophy of Biochemistry; Metabolic Control Analysis; Cambridge School ARK: ark:/s18537960/2ak06yaaq. (shrink)