This paper critically compares the philosophy of Günther Anders and the contemporary transhumanists, like Julian Savulescu, Ingmar Persson, or Thomas Douglas. The Andersian concepts of moral blindness, promethean gap, and promethean shame will be discussed in order to understand human beings’ outdatedness; parallel to this, we will also expose the transhumanist analysis on the unfitness of human beings in evolutive and cognitive terms. We will show that much of the transhumanist analysis is a reformulation of the Andersian thesis, now under (...) scientific terminology. Finally, we will approach the transhumanist proposal of moral enhancement, explaining and confronting some critics raised on the grounds of freedom and moral responsibility. (shrink)

The essay intends to demonstrate the need to postulate an spiritual reality in the human being as a condition of possibility of the world’s visibility. For that purpose, it employs the phenomenological method. It describes the structure of human sensitive perception. This description firstly presents the world’s structure. Secondly, it manifests the importance of the body as a border element between the soul and the world and as an organ by means of which the soul structures the world. It is (...) the second distance the distance between the body and the world. But, thirdly, the description states that, no matter how intimately the soul interpenetrates the body and requires it to know the world, the soul is not the body. It is the third distance or the primordial distance between the soul and everything else. (shrink)

El artículo indaga en la reemergencia de ciertos principios que la Edad Media vinculó al pensamiento de Averroes en pensadores contemporáneos como Giorgio Agamben, Roberto Esposito, Emanuele Coccia y Jean Baptiste Brenet. La eternidad del mundo y la separación del itnelecto vuelven a aparecer como sustento de una filosofía capaz de poner en tela de juicio ideas fundamentales de la modernidad como la de sujeto o persona, sin por ello entramparse en el nihilismo.

En este texto, el autor dirige una mirada hacia una estética renovada de la mano de los manuscritos de Marx; desde un acercamiento personal al pensamiento estético de Sánchez Vázquez, todo ello reflexionado a lo largo de 14 tesis sobre los valores estéticos, partiendo de dos libros de Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez “Las ideas estéticas de Marx” e “Invitación a la estética”.

This article addresses some of the central aspects of the philosophy proposed by Philip Mainländer. The intention is focused on glimpsing the implications of this author’s thinking, mainly with regard to the attitude derived from the contemplation of the extermination of the human as a consequent solution to the suicide and death of God. The intention of man in the world is analyzed from this perspective and links are offered with authors who have welcomed the rugged and complex paths of (...) compromised nihilism. The text ends with a series of alternatives for the redemption of the human through a philosophy about death and not as a function of death itself. (shrink)

Labour is the cornerstone of Marxist understanding of the human being and the nature of his thought. This is true both from the phylogenetic and the ontogenetic point of view. The present article tries to introduce itself in that understanding starting from the ideas of Marx and Engels seen from the prism of the activity theory. The specifically human thought only arises when the individual internalizes the socio-historically developed forms of interaction with reality inscribed in the external objects that constitute (...) the system of culture. This appropriation takes place not only through the use of artifacts, but also through the relationships that the individual establishes with other human beings in daily activity. Near the end of the paper, is made a philosophical analysis of the educational experience with blind-deaf-mute children under the direction of A. I. Meshcheryakov that provides a paradigmatic demonstrative case of the sustained theses. (shrink)

How does economics understand the human being? In this article, I present the current dominant conception of the human being in neoclassical theory, which is usually labelled as 'homo oeconomicus' (economic man). I describe the traits of this anthropology, and present the historical context in which it emerged. Then I make its critical evaluation. This is followed by a discussion of two recent alternative conceptions of the human being, which try to go beyond the individualist 'homo economicus' paradigm. I highlight (...) the recent contributions of John B. Davis and Luigino Bruni. Finally I reflect on some elements of Christian anthropology which can contribute to enrich the conception of the person in economics. (shrink)

Individualism is one of the fundamental traits of our time, based on an emphatic and recurrent defence of individual freedom, as experienced by consciousness. This point of view seems to entail a refuse of all kinds of transcendence, cosmological or onto-theological, characterized by an authoritarian and undisputed heteronomy. However, this perspective does not take into account a third type of transcendence, one that occurs in that radical immanence, in the core of individual freedom and autonomy. This type of transcendence takes (...) shape as an ethical and aesthetical relationship carved in the heart of each individual human being, each one of his particular conscious states and the simultaneous consciousness of his Humanity. The aim of this essay is to give an understanding of Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity and its philosophy of Revelation, as a reflection on religion and its anthropological origins. In our viewpoint, The Essence of Christianity is an effort to ascertain the genetic elements of human religiosity and clarify its meaning as a movement of reconnecting the human individual with a transcendence that is his own Humanity, given in the immanence of his conscious life. Religion remains a law of transcendence, as the feeling that binds the individual to his Humanity, an everlasting commandment coming from an Otherness that projects itself as a horizon to his free actions. (shrink)

Publicamos dos obras desconocidas de Ellacuria: "Comunicación y trabajo" y "El sentido de la historia". Ambos textos han permanecido inéditos porque su elaboración no había sido completada. Sin embargo, muestran dos aspectos de este pensamiento l filosófico es tan interesante que podría ser necesario para que los estudiosos les tengan en cuenta la importancia del trabajoy comunicación para la realidad personal y si la historia tiene un sentido o no y cuál podría ser este sentido.

Se pretende ofrecer claves para presentar y comprender la estructura antropológica del sujeto nietzscheano en códigos hermenéuticos. Para ello se utilizará vehicularmente la idea de la voluntad de poder, que se desplegará a lo largo de distintos hitos de la filosofía del autor. Se rastrearán elementos fundamentales del pensamiento de Nietzsche con el fin de mostrar la coherencia de la unidad conceptual de términos aparentemente distantes como los de “devenir”, “genealogía”, “cuerpo” o “ser”, articulados desde la condición perspectivista a la (...) que aboca la original obra de Nietzsche. La integración sintética de los mencionados términos se apoyará, también, en la experiencia radical del nihilismo decimonónico, ofreciendo finalmente un original criterio de verdad cuya ontología respeta tanto la precariedad de la existencia humana como la indigencia de un tiempo privado de sentido último. Tras el diagnóstico de la sintomatología epocal y de la integración del hombre en tal espacio asignificativo y horizonte perspectivista se ofrecerán algunas tentativas de existencia que respeten la peculiaridad hermenéutica del hombre nietzscheano. Teniendo siempre por límite la propia vida efectiva. (shrink)

A characteristics of Contemporary Occidental Cultural machinery is making Ethics a central point concerning to the several spheres of human activity, including the action of mass media, crossing public health problems and economic questions, and coming to political activity, new technologies development and ecology. However, if this positively points us to a possible enhancement of human being before the viral pluralism in which we now live by showing how ethical requirements are more extensive each moment everywhere, on the other side (...) this apparent consensus can not prevent us to take the question concerning what it is deeply mobilizing all that Cultural machinery around that subject. This paper presents the main axes of Alasdair MacIntyre´s virtue ethics by showing how tradition, rationality and human good are articulated in order to offer an alternative to the difficulties of granting a moral rationality inside the Contemporary Occidental Cultural machinery, before the cultural force of Emotivism and also of relativism. (shrink)

El trabajo hace un breve desarrollo del problema del mal y se aproxima a las dos concepciones que se tienen sobre él: el mal amplio y el mal estricto. Se enmarca tanto dentro de la tradición del pensamiento de Arendtiano como de su idea de la banalidad del mal. Retoma y considera a distintos pensadores que muestran una serie de argumentos para probar la existencia del mal. Asimismo, encontramos un punto importante donde se observa que la resistencia armada, como ejemplo (...) del mal, es necesaria en la lucha contra el enemigo. Lo mismo ocurre con los desplazados de la tierra, que muestran una forma de violencia radical del mal. En el artículo se intentará llegar a la conclusión que el mal estricto debe ser estudiado con mayor detalle, ya que es a partir de su banalización que se observa un aumento en la violencia entre todos; con ello se busca demostrar que el problema del mal es una situación con aristas y parámetros muy peculiares, y que todos somos susceptibles y estamos expuestos a él. (shrink)

The theme of the writing is the multidimensionality of the human being from the perspective of two authors: Max Scheler and Viktor Frankl. Regarding this, we ask: how does the notion of person enable an understanding of the unity of the human from the multiplicity of its dimensions? An essay responding to this problem is linked to Scheler philosophical anthropology and Frankl's dimensional ontology. Here the referred multiplicity is investigated from Frankl's understanding of the human under the influence of Scheler. (...) Therefore, we will begin with a presentation about the “person” in Scheler, treating it as the center of intentional acts. Still with this thinker, we will indicate the human as a phenomenon that surpasses its natural determinants. Afterwards, an attempt is made to characterize the related concept of human self-transcendence, originating from Frankl's thought. Finally, it is worth pointing out how multidimensional the human being is based on the Franklian appropriation and how this adds to the intuitions of Scheler's philosophy. We assume we can state that, in both authors, the intuition of a unitas multiplex is present. (shrink)

This study considers the ranges of the power of self-determination in human action, attending to the « status quaestionis » of the matter as it is contained in statements of Cicero on the Stoic position, his own thoughts on this matter, and the reception and re-reading of the theme in Thomas Aquinas. We thus attend to the Ciceronian exposition in De natura deorum, De divinatione and De fato on the Stoic position regarding the need for causal connection. We also study (...) the criticism added by Cicero to its transmission, and the projections of the problematic in Aquinas’s quaestio De fato, in the Summa Theologiae, and in other parallel passages. (shrink)

Baseado nas reflexões de Nietzsche sobre a ação humana e o além-do-homem, este artigo discute sua crítica demolidora à ética clássica à luz do contexto mais amplo do século XIX de desconstrução dos valores éticos enraizados até então. Duas questões são enfatizadas: A suspeita lançada por Nietzsche sobre a ética clássica desencadeou um vazio ético? A efetivação histórico-social da Unwertung seria apenas uma utopia?

El artículo provee una interpretación de la actual crisis financiera como parte de una crisis económica que tiene una serie de facetas sincronizadas, -amén de lo financiero, en lo ambiental, lo energético, lo alimentario- eventuales antesalas de una profunda y prolongada crisis civilizatoria. Plantea la necesidad de no reducir la atención sólo a los temas coyunturales y de diseñar una estrategia que permita sentar las bases estructurales para el cambio, aprovechando las actuales dificultades coyunturales y las debilidades relativas de los (...) centros de poder mundial. Presenta tres propuestas que apuntan hacia la construcción de un nuevo y mejor sistema económico internacional, pilares sobre los cuales se puede empezar a diseñar un nuevo sistema financiero y monetario mundial: un Código Financiero Internacional; un Banco Central Mundial, y un Tribunal Internacional de Arbitraje de Deuda Soberana. Plantea la necesidad de repensar íntegramente la Organización Mundial de Comercio (OMC), así como la creación de una Organización Mundial de Medio Ambiente y del Cambio Climático y dar paso a la Declaración Universal de los Derechos de la Naturaleza, tal como lo hizo la Asamblea Constituyente del Ecuador. El objeto de esta estrategia que apenas se esboza, es el Buen Vivir de la población. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the precautionary principle in the discussion about the ethical status of the human embryo. In this debate, some argue that the mere probability that a human person is involved justifies the duty to refrain from harming to the human embryo; from another point of view, the respect for life and human dignity decreases if the human embryo is not respected; finally, the philosophers Hans Jonas and Jürgen Habermas have proposed the existence of responsibility towards the human life (...) beginning because it is “inviolable” and “unavailable”. (shrink)

Richard Rorty is one of the most important philosophers of our current world. His thought, inside the movement known as pragmatism, has had a great influence in the North American universities. This article treats on his principal work, Philosophy and future, in that the central concepts of the philosophy they are put in context, looking for it real utility and assuming the conflicts that they generate.

Accord ing to the neoplatonist tradition, the article emphasizes the outstanding relevance of the concept of limit or mesure, specially in relation to the practical realm. Diverging from the apparences, reachingt he limits of one's own possibiliti es doesn't me an for the human being to get locked in itself, but to become great. The greatness of the soul is born in th eadequate conscience of one's own lim its and it is the most relevant virtue.

RESUMENSuele mantenerse que la tesis de la inconmensurabilidad enunciada por Kuhn en La estructua de las revoluciones científicas constituye el núcleo de las doctrinas relativistas. Frente a esta tesis, el artículo argumenta que admitir la incomensurabilidad entre tradiciones culturales diferentes o, incluso, negar que existan criterios absolutos y eternos de racionalidad no implica de suyo relativismo. Se recogen y critican los argumentos de Popper y Gombrich en contra del llamado "mito del marco conceptual" y se examina la postura de Putnam, (...) para concluir que éste se encuentra mucho más cerca de la inconmensurabilidad que lo que él mismo admite. En conra de la interpretación de la inconmensurabilidad que convierte a las culturas en totalidades cerradas y aisladas, se argumenta que la doctrina de la inconmensurabilidad no niega la existencia de comunicación intercultural: la caracteriza. En la misma línea se subraya que la inconmensurabilidad no impide el reconocimiento de lo humanoPALABRAS CLAVECULTURA-PARADIGMA-INCONMENSURABILIDAD-RELATIVISMOABSTRACTIt is usually maintained that Kuhn's claims on inconmensurability made up the core of the relativist doctrines. Against this view, the paper argues that the inconmensurability between the different cultural traditions or, even, the denial of the existence of eternal and absolute standars of rationaliti do not commit to relativist thesis. Popper and Hombrich's arguments are challenged and Putnam's view is examined in order to prove that he is closer to Kuhn than what he himself seems to think. In face of the reading of the idea of incommensurability that looks cultures as isolated and closed wholes, it is maintained that theinconmensurability thesis does not deny the existence of cultural communication: rather it characterizes how they communicate. Following the same line of thought, it is emphazised that the existence of inconmensurability between different cultures does not make impossible the recognition of the specific human phenomena.KEYWORDSCULTURE-PARADIGM-INCOMMENSURABILITY-RELATIVISM. (shrink)

En cada época y en cada civilización existen problemas socialmente importantes que son objeto de especial atención. Son hechos que, por su ámbito de extensión o por su gravedad, tienen una gran resonancia. Es lo que en las últimas décadas ocurre con las adicciones, que constituyen uno de los trastornos emblemáticos de nuestra sociedad.