In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 30.1 (2000) 78-88 [Access article in PDF] Kierkegaardian seduction, or the aesthetic actio(nes) in distans Begonya Saez Tajafuerce The one who cannot seduce people cannot save them either. --Søren Kierkegaard, Papirer IX A 383 Being an heir of Romanticism, Søren Kierkegaard appropriates the figure of seduction in his works and thought, yet he does so in a critical and unconventional manner. For Kierkegaard, seduction can no longer be (...) described or conceived of as an exclusively aesthetic undertaking, as the sheer fulfillment of pleasure and desire, as the factual consolidation of immediacy and sensuousness, but, on the contrary, seduction must be redescribed and reconceived within the realm of ethics or, to be more precise, within the confinium or border area between ethics and aesthetics. In this sui generis no-man's-land, which to a certain extent is formally inaugurated and categorially established by the notion of aesthetic action, as we will see--resides the ethical seduction.In effect, such a reconception of seduction presupposes an organic and dialectic recomprehension of the well-known Kierkegaardian theory of the stages, according to which any significant relation between the aesthetic and the ethical is not grounded on the evident divergences between both but, on the contrary, on their coadjuvancy. The point is that neither the aesthetic nor the ethical can or should be understood if disconnected, if incommensurably read, if seen only in the light of (an) Either/Or [E/O 1, 2].Forged within the aforementioned ambivalent frame, the Kierkegaardian figure of seduction becomes more than just a category, a sheer theoretic or analytic tool to reflect upon existence: it becomes a literary strategy as well, of philosophical and specifically ethical signification.Through an examination of some texts of E/O 1 (especially "The Seducer's Diary") and of Kierkegaard's journals and papers, I will pursue a typology of seduction with three modes: the musical seduction, or Don Juan's; the linguistic seduction, or Faust's; and the literary seduction, or Johannes's. The johannesque seduction will be stressed as the first janus frontis of the dilemma between the aesthetic and the ethical stages, to blur the conventional differences between both. Then I will bring Johannes, the seducer, and A, the aesthete, close to each other in order to illuminate what might be understood as [End Page 78] the aesthetic action. It will be argued that the aesthetic can no longer be deprived of all pragmatic connotations. Therewith, not only are the limits or chiasm between aesthetics and ethics blurred, but a common categorial space is established. The paradigmatic action in this context will be the johannesque actio(nes) in distans, that is, the second janus frontis of our dilemma. Finally, I will briefly consider Søren Kierkegaard's own aesthetic action or actio(nes) in distans, that is, his own literary practice. Seducers: Don Juan and Faust A typological consideration of the figure of seduction in E/O 1 quickly makes it clear that Kierkegaard's main source of inspiration, or rather of conceptual kleptomania, is to be found in Romanticism. 1 In this spirit, A, the aesthete, would let himself be brought from reflection to reflection, from insight to insight, and from glimpse to glimpse, by the experienced guiding hands of (his colleagues) Don Juan and Faust.In 1836, several years before the publication of E/O, where Don Juan and Faust are characterized as and related to the phenomenological realm of the demonic (det dœmoniske), Kierkegaard significantly writes in his journals that both cases, or figures, incarnate two "ideas," that is, two paradigmatic vital ideals or even two conceptions of life, which take shape "beyond the religious" [Pap I A 150]. 2 Consequently, seduction presupposes a nonreligious conception and/or way of life. It seems unclear, however, whether seduction presupposes, as Judge Wilhelm claims it does, a full rejection of the ethical. In E/O 2 Wilhelm states that all seducers share the virtue of holding the "ethical determinations" in check [SKS 3: 196], but he is by no means aware of what the game may... (shrink)

This volume is the result of a thorough exploration of contemporary conceptions of romantic love from different points of view. Beginning with an initial text where the meanings of romantic love are discussed theoretically and historically, the contributions gathered here present current discussions about love in the present day and in different geographical contexts that range from Hungary to Italy or Spain. The first part of the book is devoted to the analysis of mobilities for the sake of love as (...) a result of globalization. These mobilities are analysed in relation to love ideals, to gender equality and to online searches for the ideal partners. The second part of the book deals with the exploration of different imaginaries of love in particular geographical contexts. The topics dealt with here include love as sickness, love and violence, love ideals for men engaged in gender equality and love ideals for those who engage in cross-dressing practices. In the third part, writing about and for love is addressed. Love writings to the beloved dead, teenage girlsâ (TM) blogs and bestsellers such as Fifty Shades of Grey are discussed in particular detail. This book addresses current conceptions of romantic love in different social groups through different practices and in different countries, and shows that, despite the variability of discourses, experiences and practices related to love, a number of ideas of what love should be like â " related to the Western ideals of romantic love â " persist in all these contexts. The contributions to this volume are derived from extensive fieldwork and ethnographic research, and will be of undoubted interest for the academic milieu. However, given the topic it deals with, the book will also appeal to the general public, who will find in these pages many â ~love storiesâ (TM) derived from the detailed study of the society which we inhabit and the ideals of love that we breathe. (shrink)

I argue for the distinction between presuming that p and maintaining that presumably p. In order to make sense of this distinction, I defend a non-inferentialist conception of presumptions and offer an account of the correctness conditions for both presumptions and presumptive inferences. I characterize presumptions as a type of constative speech-act having certain semantic correctness conditions. In turn, regarding presumptive inferences, my strategy is to provide the correctness conditions for the use of an epistemic modal such as “presumably.” This (...) epistemic modal is characterized as a force indicator for speech-acts of concluding in complex speech-acts of arguing involving presumptive inferences. (shrink)

Following a Toulmian account of argument analysis and evaluation, I offer a general unitary schema for, so called, deductive and inductive types of analogical arguments. This schema is able to explain why certain analogical arguments can be said to be deductive, and yet, also defeasible.

Our aim is to defend the Precautionary Principle (PP) against the main theoretical and practical criticisms that it has raised by proposing a novel conception and a specific formulation of the principle. We first address the theoretical concerns against the idea of there being a principle of precaution by arguing for a distinctively political conception of the PP as opposed to a moral one. Our claim is that the rationale of the PP is grounded in the fact that contemporary societies (...) wish to avoid morally unacceptable risks while at the same time pursuing other goals, aspirations and values. Following this political conception of the PP, we propose a specific formulation in terms of an argumentation scheme—the Argumentation Scheme for Appealing to Precaution—which is meant to solve, in turn, the main practical concerns that the PP has raised. We explain the advantages of our proposal by analysing appeals to precaution in the cases of (1) the European restrictions on the free movement of persons during the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) the discharge of nuclear wastes into the Irish Sea. (shrink)

Both because of the vagueness of the word ‘give’ when speaking about giving reasons, and because we lack an adequate definition of ‘reasons’, there is a harmful ambiguity in the expression ‘giving reasons’. Particularly, straightforwardly identifying argumentation with reasons giving would make of virtually any interplay a piece of argumentation. Besides, if we adopt the mainstream definition of reasons as “considerations that count in favour of doing or believing something”, then only good argumentation would count as argumentation. In this paper, (...) I defend a qualified characterization of argumentation as reasons giving that is shown to be fruitful for shedding light on the practice of giving reasons, and an inferentialist conception of reasons that makes room for speaking of “bad reasons” and, consequently, makes it possible to talk of argumentation as reasons giving even if we are talking about bad argumentation. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to show that politics constitutes a normative domain of its own. To this, a concept of political value that explains why the politically good provides reasons for actions is indispensable. I shape this concept by adopting the framework of political minimalism and developing one of its central tenets, namely, that politics, as a constitutively normative practice, specifies objective standards for evaluating political phenomena. I characterize the notion of political value in these terms to (...) offer a non-moralist foundation for political normativity. In this endeavor, the work of Bernard Williams plays two opposing roles: while his metapolitical ideas exemplify the shortcomings of substantialist accounts of political normativity, his criticism of the morality system and his conception of practical rationality as all-things-considered practical deliberation are fundamental, to the point that the conception of political normativity endorsed here can be seen as an extension of Williams’ ideas on normativity in general. Finally, I draw some consequences from this account of political minimalism to show that this conception of political normativity can hardly be considered a variety of political realism. (shrink)

a recent paper, Fábio Perin Shecaira proposes a defence of Waller’s deductivist schema for moral analogical argumentation. This defence has several flaws, the most important of them being that many good analogical arguments would be deemed bad or deficient. Additionally, Shecaira misrepresents my alternative account as something in between deductivism and non-deductivism. This paper is both an attempt at solving this misunderstanding and an analysis and criticism of Waller and Shecaira’s forms of deductivism.

I argue that conductions are a special type of inference indeed, but that this does not mean that we need to develop novel standards of inference goodness or specific argument schemes for properly assessing them. Following LNMA’s theoretical framework, I provide a semantic account of conductions and explain the interesting pragmatic properties of a certain type of conductions in terms of the rhetorical dimension of the speech-act of arguing.

Con remisión a las obras de Michel Foucault y de Jacques Lacan, en el presente artículo se trazan los límites de la teoría de la performatividad de Judith Butler con respecto al sujeto de lo político y a su capacidad de acción tomando como referente fenomenológico la consulta que se llevara a cabo en Cataluña el 9 de noviembre de 2014. Dichos límites se hacen manifiestos mediante la distinción entre acción y acto políticos o entre subversión en tanto que transgresión (...) de la norma que da lugar a la reconfiguración del orden socio-simbólico e interrupción en tanto que transgresión de la norma que constituye un acontecimiento radicalmente otro de dicho orden. (shrink)

In Giving Reasons: A Linguistic-pragmatic-approach to Argumentation Theory (Springer, 2011), I provide a new model for the semantic and pragmatic appraisal of argumentation. This model is based on a characterization of argumentation as a second order speech-act complex. I explain the advantages of this model respecting other proposals within Argumentation Theory, such as Pragma-dialectics, Informal Logic, the New Rhetoric or the Epistemic Approach.

In order to explore the political and transformative potential of bodies in relation to gender and affects, I discuss how bodies, gender and politics are entangled through the figuration of ‘overflown bodies’. Departing from a material-discursive feminist conceptualisation of bodies, ‘overflown bodies’ are assemblages embedded in complex relationships of matter, discourse, emotions, affects, ideologies, protest, norms, values, relations, practices, expectations and other possibilities of (for) social and political action. Three ethnographic cases illustrate how ‘overflown bodies’ assemble matter and discourse, and (...) how matter, bodies and gender matter. They are used to explore the political possibilities of gendered bodies and show how matter is entangled, embedded and assembled with our politics of being. The three cases interrogate the limits and boundaries of bodies and the modes and modalities of (political) agency. Finally, the article argues that it is through visibility and recognition that ‘overflown bodies’ become critically and creatively transforming, which can be useful for addressing issues related to exclusion, domination, political emancipation and social transformation. (shrink)

Teaching mathematics and improving mathematics competence are pending subjects within our educational system. The PEIM (Programa Evolutivo Instruccional para Matemáticas), a constructivist intervention program for the improvement of mathematical performance, affects the different agents involved in math learning, guaranteeing a significant improvement in students’ performance. The program is based on the following pillars: (a) students become the main agents of their learning by constructing their own knowledge; (b) the teacher must be the guide to facilitate and guarantee such a construction (...) by being a great connoisseur of the fundamental aspects of the development of the child’s mathematical thinking; (c) the mathematical contents must be sequenced in terms of the complexity and significance for the student as well as contextualized at all times; and (d) the classroom must have a constructivist climate highlighting cooperative work among students. The implementation of PEIM along with the empirical evaluation conducted in several centers in Madrid and Zaragoza (Spain) confirm how students improve their mathematical competence. Both first- and second-grade students in elementary education were far more effective in solving problems, highlighting the use of more advanced strategies in their resolution and a lower incidence of conceptual errors. Moreover, it was possible to verify how the students proving greater difficulty, experienced an evolution in learning similarly to those who did not present it. The program provides customized education to allow the teacher to know at all times how he should be more influential on the students’ learning through mathematical profiles. Both teaching practice and teachers were observed, being that of the experimental group more prone to analyzing processes and allowing the construction of knowledge by students, due to their psycho-developmental training. As a result, we found several improvements through the implementation of the program that may serve, for upcoming years, as a basis for the necessary changes in the teaching of mathematics. (shrink)

I defend a conception of Logic as normative for the sort of activities in which inferences super-vene, namely, reasoning and arguing. Toulmin’s criticism of formal logic will be our framework to shape the idea that in order to make sense of Logic as normative, we should con-ceive it as a discipline devoted to the layout of arguments, understood as the representations of the semantic, truth relevant, properties of the inferences that we make in arguing and reason-ing.

I propose a characterization of the dialectical dimension of argumentation by considering the activity of arguing as involving a “second order intersubjectivity”. I argue that argumentative communication enables this kind of intersubjectivity as a matter of the recursive nature of acts of arguing—both as justificatory and as persuasive devices. Calling attention to this feature is a way to underline that argumentative discourses represent the explicit part of a dynamic activity, “a mechanism of rational validation”, as Rescher showed, which is a (...) practice that presupposes the possibility of attaining objectivity. (shrink)

In “Deductivism as an Interpretative Strategy: A Reply to Groarke’s Defense of Reconstructive Deductivism,” David Godden distinguished two notions of deductivism. On the one hand, as an interpretative thesis, deductivism is the view that all-natural language argumentation must be interpreted as being deductive. On the other hand, as an evaluative thesis, deductivism is the view that for a conclusion to follow, it has to follow of necessity from the premises—or, in other words, that being a good inference implies being deductive. (...) The main goal of this paper is to show that evaluative deductivism is wrong. (shrink)

La espiritualidad es una dimensión del ser humano que requiere ser profundizada, en particular para humanizar la asistencia a las personas que sufren a causa de la enfermedad o la pérdida de un ser querido. El abordaje de este tema es imprescindible para un enfoque centrado en la persona y requiere profesionales no solo sensibles, sino familiarizados y formados con la dimensión espiritual. La detección de necesidades, el conocimiento de síntomas, podrán dar una mayor competencia espiritual para un cuidado espiritual (...) adecuado. La inteligencia espiritual permitirá a los profesionales acompañar de manera humanizada a los pacientes y familiares. Iniciativas de formación al respecto son imprescindibles. Las situaciones de mayor complejidad y sufrimiento espiritual requieren ser abordadas por profesionales específicos en servicios de atención espiritual que debe haber en las estructuras sanitarias y sociosanitarias, más allá de la garantía de la asistencia religiosa plural. (shrink)

RESUMEN: El uso de analogías en bioética es muy frecuente. Dado que son instrumentos especialmente eficaces desde un punto de vista retórico, resulta fundamental determinar bajo qué condiciones la formulación de analogías constituye un recurso discursivo legítimo. En este artículo, distinguimos entre usos no-discursivos y usos discursivos de las analogías, y dentro de estos últimos, entre usos explicativos y usos argumentativos. En base a esta clasificación, proponemos distintos conjuntos de criterios para determinar si una analogía particular constituye un recurso discursivo (...) legítimo o no. Para ello, ilustramos brevemente nuestra clasificación mediante algunos ejemplos tomados del reciente debate sobre los biobancos.ABSTRACT: Analogies are frequently used in bioethics. As they are particularly effective as rhetorical tools, it is essential to determine under which conditions they can be said to be a legitimate discursive resource. In this paper we distinguish between nondiscursive uses and discursive uses of analogies and, within the latter, between explanatory uses and argumentative uses. Taking this classification as a basis, we provide different sets of criteria for determining whether or not a particular analogy constitutes a legitimate discursive resource. In distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate analogies, we briefly illustrate our classification by some examples from recent literature on biobanks. (shrink)