Political sociologists have paid closer attention of late to the territoriality of political communities, and have even begun theorizing the theme of territoriality’s legitimation. To date, however, the field has mostly overlooked the topic of maps, the quintessential territorial tool. Thus, we know little regarding maps’ crucial role in shaping modern subjects’ relationship to territory. This article argues that “map-mindedness”—i.e., the effects of map imagery on how subjects experience territory—can be productively theorized by working through the social-scientific concept of “place.” (...) Using a range of modern and contemporary examples, I illustrate how maps can draw on and manipulate political subjects’ experience of place. Maps, I submit, allow political communities to render themselves more place-like, thus bridging the phenomenological distance between these abstract, territorially vast units and their “emplaced” subjects. More specifically, maps solve this “problem of distance” through three ideal-typical processes: 1) they render the political community as a proximate “object in the world”; 2) they present the political community as a body-like target for cathexis and identification; and 3) they mediate the traffic of meaning between the local and the national to produce a multi-scalar sense of place that can be harnessed in the service of the political community. Maps are a potent means of “re-personalizing” politics; their study suggests that territoriality is not only a form of “impersonal rule,” as recent works have observed, but always also implicated in the production of political subjects. (shrink)

El trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar la incompatibilidad teórica existente entre el concepto (y/o los principios) del desarrollo sostenible y la producción de biocombustibles fundamentada en el modelo del agronegocio o agribusiness. Así en el primer ítem describimos los principales alertas emitidos a través de los Informes del IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, o Panel Inter gubernamental sobre los Cambios Climáticos) destacando: a) la influencia y el papel de las actividades humanas en el proceso del calentamiento global y la (...) contaminación ambiental, y b) el costo de oportunidad de reducir las emisiones de CO2. En el segundo destacamos los principales inversionistas extranjeros interesados en la producción de los biocombustibles, colocando algunas reflexiones en relación a este negocio “lucrativamente sostenible”, y por último -a modo de consideración- enfatizamos la imposibilidad en relación a la creencia absoluta en el libre mercado como la mejor fuente de innovación y aprendizaje para desarrollar alternativas energéticas viables y sostenibles ambientalmente. (shrink)

La publicación del trabajo doctoral de Carlos Arturo López sacude desde la raíz el relato convencional de lo que ha sido la filosofía en Colombia. En un regreso “a los textos mismos” publicados entre 1892 y 1910, atendiendo a los criterios de escritura válidos en ese momento y lugar, López propone describir las condiciones históricas de un “relieve específico de la escritura filosófica” (38). Con esto aporta un concepto metodológico prometedor para futuras investigaciones. El concep-to de mínimo textual reúne (...) los temas, problemas y modos de argumentar y de reconocerse entre escritores contempo-ráneos a una determinada época; “define las exigencias y limitaciones, creencias y procedimientos técnicos propios de la escritura filosófica en Colombia” duran-te el período estudiado (cf. 36-38), para dar una imagen fija de las ideas más o menos compartidas sobre lo que debería ser la filosofía entre los escritores locales que se identificaban a sí mismos como “filósofos”. (shrink)

A readable, well illustrated, and often entertaining book surveying the main issues in the controversy over "time-dilation" and the "clock paradox" in Einstein's theory of relativity.

This is the penultimate draft of a paper originally presented at the Hart-Fuller at 50 conference, held at the NYU Law School in February 2008. A revised version will appear in the NYU Law Review. The paper seeks to clarify and assess HLA Hart's famous claim that legal positivism somehow involves a 'separation of law and morals.' The paper contends that Hart's 'separability thesis should not be confused with the 'social thesis,' with the 'sources thesis,' or with a methodological thesis (...) about jurisprudence. Hart's thesis denies the existence of necessary (conceptual) connections between law and morality. But that thesis is false: there are many necessary connections between law and morality, some of them conceptually significant. Among these is an important negative connection: law is of its nature morally fallible and morally risky. Lon Fuller emphasised the 'internal morality of law,' the 'morality that makes law possible'. Hart stressed that there is also an immorality that law makes possible. Law's nature is seen not only in its internal virtues, in legality, but also in its internal vices, in legalism. (shrink)

This paper explores the evolution of cooperative societies through the lens of Gilbert Simondon's cybernetic process philosophy, emphasizing the preservation of cooperative identity. Cooperative societies, which promote values such as equality and solidarity, face challenges in maintaining their identity amidst technological advancements and changing socio-economic conditions. Traditional theories of organisational identity, which focus on centrality, distinctness, and continuity, fall short in addressing the dynamic nature of cooperative evolution. Simondon's philosophy offers a robust framework for understanding these transformations. Key concepts like (...) the associated milieu, metastability, and transduction are applied to analyse the genealogical development of cooperative societies. Findings suggest that cooperative identity is not static but evolves with technological integration, co-evolving with their environment and governance models. This interdependence highlights the crucial role of technology in shaping cooperative structures and behaviours. The study contributes to management theory by providing a nuanced perspective on organisational identity and its evolution. It underscores the importance of understanding the dynamic interplay between technology and cooperative values. By integrating Simondon's philosophical insights with cybernetic principles, this research offers a comprehensive view of how cooperative societies adapt and thrive in a technologically driven world. (shrink)

We are morally perplexed about nuclear weapons. Popular debate oscillates tediously between an apparently impractical idealism which would have nothing to do with the things, and a military and political realism which insists that we have to use such means to attain our legitimate ends. The choice, it too often seems, is between laying down our nuclear arms–thus avoiding the moral odium of resting our defence policies on threats to vaporize millions of civilians–but leaving ourselves open to domination by those (...) who do not feel such scruples, and on the other hand, retaining such weapons as long as our potential enemies possess them, constantly maintaining parity with the other side–in other words, proceeding with the arms race. The respective proponents of principle and of prudence typically fail to understand how others can possibly neglect the considerations which loom so large in their own minds. Each has at bottom a deeply held ethical view–that certain means may not be used for any end, or that certain ends are so important that they justify the use of almost any means. The disagreement is so irreconcilable that it spills out from TV studios and newspaper editorial pages on to the streets and the missile bases, and into the courts and the prisons. (shrink)

This brief article introduces a symposium discussing the extended mind thesis and its suggestive relation to religious thought. Essays by Mark Rowlands, Lynne Rudder Baker, Teed Rockwell, Joel Krueger, Leonard Angel, and Matthew Day present a variety of perspectives.

Central to the argument of this article is the sense in which Thomas Hobbes and liberals see freedom as centered around the notion of free movement. Hobbes, in chapter 21 of Leviathan, describes freedom as “the absence of opposition” to motion. This work argues that the Hobbesian view of freedom as motion was taken up by liberalism as its hallmark and flourished most of all in America where emphasis on individualism was greatest. In America, movement coupled with individualism to create (...) a conception of freedom. (shrink)

The distinction between norms and facts is long-standing in providing a challenge for psychology. Norms exist as directives, commands, rules, customs and ideals, playing a constitutive role in human action and thought. Norms lay down 'what has to be' and 'what has to be done' and so go beyond the 'is' of causality. During two millennia, norms made an essential contribution to accounts of the mind, yet the twentieth century witnessed an abrupt change in the science of psychology where norms (...) were typically either excluded altogether or reduced to causes. The central argument in this book is twofold. Firstly, the approach in twentieth-century psychology is flawed. Secondly, norms operating interdependently with causes can be investigated empirically and theoretically in cognition, culture and morality. Human development is a norm-laden process. (shrink)

Desde el Homo sacer: el poder soberano y la nuda vida y luego en Medios sin fin. Notas sobre la política, Agamben expone, apelando a la antigua Grecia, la dificultad original —si se quiere— del hecho de que esta civilización no disponía de un término único para expresar lo que nosotros queremos decir con la palabra vida. Y esta palabra está hondamente ligada a sacerización, dado que cuando esta se expresa, aquella se desvanece o, mejor, desaparece en su acepción más (...) mínima. La sacerización es el fin de la vida, en la nuda vida. Dice nuestro autor que los términos que usaban los griegos eran semántica y morfológicamente distintos: zoé expresaba el simple hecho —continúa Agamben— de vivir que es común a todos los vivientes, mientras que bíos significaba la forma o manera de vivir propia de un individuo o de un grupo. Esta oposición desapareció gradualmente en las lenguas modernas sin dejar viva ninguna diferencia sustancial. Nos preguntamos por la expresión forma de vida entendiendo, sin desprendernos de Agamben, que esta se refiere al hecho de que una vida que no puede separarse nunca de su forma es una vida en la que nunca es posible aislar algo como una nuda vida. Entonces planteamos que, una vez reducida la vida a una nuda vida en la sacerización, la democracia queda en manos del latrocinio político y la corrupción, lo cual provoca paulatinamente su declive en tanto expresión popular originaria. (shrink)

Se analiza en este trabajo, seleccionado de la II Olimpiada de Filosofía en Málaga organizada por FICUM en secundaria, la "tarea vital" a partir de tres pilares básicos: amar, dejar huella y descubrirse a uno mismo.

Con una belleza literaria incomparable, la Comedìa refleja la cosmovisión católica que vertebra la Cristiandad medieval, que tuvo su máximo exponente filosófico y teológico en santo Tomás. A lo largo de todo el itinerario poético, vemos la impronta del Aquinate presente en el meollo de la narración. Aquí analizaré cómo la cuestión teológica fundamental del gobierno divino del mundo permea la Comedìa, tanto en su estructura formal como en ciertos aspectos concretos del viaje de Dante. A partir de dicha premisa, (...) estudiaré las consecuencias que ello tiene en ese orden jurídico manifestado en la «arquitectura» del infierno, cuyo dintel es elocuente: «Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore; / fecemi la divina podestate, / la somma sapienza e ‘l primo amore». Finalmente, abordaré la proporcionalidad de las penas que sufren los condenados, como indicador de la medida natural de los castigos dictados por justicia divina. (shrink)