"Knowing how we know" is the subject of this book. Its authors present a new view of cognition that has important social and ethical implications, for, they assert, the only world we humans can have is the one we create together through the actions of our coexistence. Written for a general audience as well as for students, scholars, and scientists and abundantly illustrated with examples from biology, linguistics, and new social and cultural phenomena, this revised edition includes a new afterword (...) by Dr. Varela, in which he discusses the effect the book has had in the years since its first publication. (shrink)

We propose that to understand the biological and neurophysiological processes that give rise to human mental phenomena it is necessary to consider them as behavioral relational phenomena. In particular, we propose that: a) these phenomena take place in the relational manner of living that human language constitutes, and b) that they arise as recursive operations in such behavioral domain. Accordingly, we maintain that these phenomena do not take place in the brain, nor are they the result of a unique operation (...) of a human brain, but arise with the participation of the brain as it generates the behavioral relational dynamics that constitutes language. (shrink)

Diante das presentes dificuldades de fundamentação da ética, ocasionadas pelas cisões necessárias, mas logo extrapoladas, entre natureza e subjetividade, conhecimento e ação, muitos pensadores têm se voltado para a grande síntese tomasiana do pensamento ocidental. Com numerosas releituras nos campos da ética, do direito, da epistemologia e da metafísica, o pensamento tomasiano vive sem exageros uma pequena renascença, particularmente em língua inglesa, ensejando inúmeras abordagens revisionistas, históricas ou adaptações às pesquisas da filosofia e da teologia analíticas. Mais como informativo deste (...) processo do que como análise sistemática, elencamos aspectos centrais da ética tomasiana e seus fundamentos metafísicos de acordo com autores contemporâneos que participam desta renovação do tomismo, buscando evidenciar a importância da disposição natural do ser humano para moralidade neste quadro teórico. (shrink)

La lección de Weber sobre la democracia es doble. Por un lado, la precisión acerca de qut actores y qut procesos son claves en su estudio -lidera, burocracia, partidos, búsqueda del poder, responsabilidad, &c.- y, por otro, la convicción acerca de los limites de lo posible en una democracia. P..

En el presente trabajo se propone un estudio comparativo de las producciones de algunos referentes de la Investigación Participativa. Se revisan algunos de los textos de Orlando Fals Borda, Paulo Freire, João Bosco Guedes Pinto, Michel Thiollent, María Teresa Sirvent y Joel Martí. Este trabajo se inscribe en el proceso reciente de transformación universitaria en Uruguay, en particular, en una de sus iniciativas: la de la integración curricular de la extensión a través de lo que se ha denominado “prácticas universitarias (...) integrales”. En este marco, la reflexión teórico-metodológica sobre la extensión crítica y las prácticas de investigación-acción conectadas con ella resultan fundamentales para dotar las iniciativas en curso de mayor pertinencia académica y potencial transformador. (shrink)

I do not wish to deal with all the domains in which the word time enters as if it were referring to an obvious aspect of the world or worlds that we human live. Indeed, the very fact that time can be made an issue of reflection shows us that what the word time connotes changes with the circumstances in which it is used. This situation alone, however, would not constitute a problem inviting us to enter in deep reflections if (...) we just accepted that the context defined the meaning of the word in each case. But we do not do that, and we ask the question what is time? as if we thought that the word time referred to some independent entity or dimension of nature that could be properly disclosed or described if we tried hard enough, even if we could not the final essence of it. I consider, however, that the question what is time? is adequate because it implies from the start the view that time can be properly treated as some kind of independent entity or dimension of nature. And I consider that such a view is fully inadequate because I think that all that we human beings talk about are relations that arises in our operation in language as a closed domain of recursive consensual coordinations of behaviors. Let me explain what I say with a few words about living, language, and cognition, and then answer the question what distinctions do we make or connote when we talk of time? (shrink)

Natura 2000 is a network of natural sites whose aim is to preserve species and habitats of relevance in the European Union. The policy underlying Natura 2000 has faced widespread opposition from land users and received extensive support from environmentalists. This paper addresses the ethical framework for Natura 2000 and the probable moral assumptions of its main stakeholders. Arguments for and against Natura 2000 were analyzed and classified according to “strong” or “weak” versions of the three main theories of environmental (...) ethics – anthropocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism. Weak (intergenerational) anthropocentrism was found to underlie the Natura 2000 network itself and the positions of environmentalists, while strong (traditional) anthropocentrism pervaded the positions of economic developers. Land users seemed to fall somewhere between weak and strong anthropocentrism. The paper discusses the relation between ethics and different attitudes towards Natura 2000, highlighting some of the implications for the network’s ongoing implementation. It is shown that Natura 2000 achieves a strong reversal of the burden of proof from conservation to economic development and land use change under anthropocentrism. It is argued that the alleged theoretical divide between anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism in relation to the burden of proof does not seem to hold in practice. Finally, it is predicted that the weak versions of anthropocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism, are likely to converge extensively in respect to nature conservation policy measures. (shrink)

Philosophers such as Elizabeth Anscombe and Donald Davidson have explained that we cannot derive predictions from judgments such as "he boasted from vanity." Such judgments are also the source of countless painful mistakes. However, are they necessarily unreliable? Often enough, even if only gradually and partially, we get people right. Assuming that we do is already assuming that there must be a connection, if not causal then at least casual, between what a person is, what she does, and how she (...) acts; and that we may describe it correctly. If no ironclad generalizations can be made that connect the way a person is, her reasons, and her actions, how might we describe correctness in judgments such as this?Anscombe... (shrink)

Na medida em que o termo espiritualidade é em si mesmo ambíguo, o desafio específico da pesquisa em espiritualidade e saúde enquanto campo é definir de que maneiras o conceito ‘espiritualidade’ pode ser frutiferamente aplicado à saúde física e mental. Uma vez que a relatividade hermenêutica de um conceito humanístico tem de se relacionar com os resultados mensuráveis das ciências empíricas, algumas dificuldades inevitavelmente surgem. Isso não impediu, contudo, a formação de duas abordagens claramente definidas na pesquisa em espiritualidade e (...) saúde; uma a que poderíamos chamar hermenêutica-existencial e a outa mais relacionada às ciências da natureza. Por falharmos em distinguir essas opções, muitas das interações entre a ciência da religião ou os estudos da religião e a pesquisa em espiritualidade e saúde é prejudicada ao ponto da quase ausência de diálogo. Nosso intuito aqui é apresentar e conceituar as duas alternativas nos termos das ciências humanas. (shrink)

This article inquires whether or not religious beliefs are rational, that is to say, whether or not they can be rationally sustained. The point of the article is not to prove the existence of God, but rather simply to show whether or not religious language has real meaning. To do this, we shall examine the concept of belief in general. Then we shall look at religious beliefs in particular from two opposing points of view: on the one hand, from the (...) position of authors who claim that religious beliefs can in fact be sustained by rational evidence, and on the other hand, from the perspective of other authors who affirm that these beliefs cannot be rationally justified, because spiritual discourse refers to the ineffable, which deprives it of the means to verify or deny its propositions. (shrink)

This paper deals mainly with Marx's conception of politics. My contention is that in Marx's works two basic and opposed conceptions of politics coexist. On the one hand we find a negative, instrumental and realist conception that sees politics as nothing but domination of one class over another and the State as the main instrument of that domination. On the other, we find a positive conception that understands politics as community self-rule. I trace the conceptual origins of these two conceptions (...) to three basic concepts: "alienation", "emancipation" and "species-being". These notions provide the foundations of Marx's conception of politics and enable us to understand its shortcomings. It is basically a contradictory and utopian conception which seriously disregards both the positive traits of actual politics and individual freedoms. /// El tema central de este trabajo es la concepción de la política de Marx. En el artículo sostengo que es posible encontrar dos concepciones básicas de la política en los escritos de Marx: por un lado, una concepción negativa, instrumental y realista que la concibe como la dominación de una clase sobre otra, y al Estado como el instrumento principal de tal dominatión; por el otro, una concepción positiva que entiende la política como el autogobierno de una comunidad. Estas concepciones están basadas en tres conceptos fundamentales de la obra de Marx: "enajenación", "emancipación" y "ser de la especie", los cuales nos permiten entender los errores de la concepción general de la política de Marx. Se trata de una concepción contradictoria y utópica, que no entiende ni las características positivas de la política efectiva, ni la importancia de las libertades individuales. (shrink)

editorial changes not yet reviewed by author Purpose My intent in this essay is to reflect on the history of some biological notions such as autopoiesis, structural coupling, and cognition, that I have developed since the early 1960’s as a result of my work on visual perception and the organization of the living. No doubt I shall repeat things that I have said in other publications (Maturana and Varela 1980 and 1988), and I shall present notions that once they are (...) said appear as obvious truisms. But the reader it is not invited to attend to the truisms, rather he or she is invited to attend to the consequences that they entail for the understanding of biological processes. After all, explanations or demonstrations always become self evident once they are understood and accepted. KEYWORDS Autopoiesis, structural coupling, cognition, explanations, self consciousness, 1. Autopoiesis 1.1 Origins of the notion In November 1960, a first year medical student asked me the question “What began three thousand eight hundred million years ago so that you can say now that living systems began then?” I realized that I could not properly answer that question, so I said “I cannot answer this question now, but if you come back next year I shall propose an answer then.” Thus I accepted the question of the student to be answered later, and as I did so, I accepted also the question for myself. I realized that to answer this question I had to create a living system, either conceptually or practically, because I had to be able to say what kind of systems were living system to be able to say how they began. While in the attempting to answer the dual questions of what kind of systems are living systems, and of how did they begin so that I could now speak of their origin, it became obvious to me that living systems exist as autonomous entities in the form of self contained closed molecular dynamics of self production, open to the flow of molecules through them. Indeed, one can say that living systems arose in the history of the earth in the moment in which some spontaneous networks of molecular autocatalytic processes became closed upon themselves.. (shrink)

Here they are revised notions of the Western tradition that conform the discourse of poetic reason, and the way that Maria Zambrano assumed them. Her thought examines the possibilities of the words, either poetic or philosophical, to allow persons to get conscience. She attempts to unify both types of words using a notion of love as essential intent for dealing with the otherness, allowing, also, the human being conscious reflection on the affectivity. To achieve this, she revises culture to find (...) ideas and examples to support the poetic reason as loving and hopeful reflection and as a possibility of the humanity to know about its own feelings. (shrink)

A abordagem deste artigo trata de uma busca pelo sentido ontológico da vida humana em relação ao seu modo de ser e estar no mundo e com o mundo. Partindo de uma breve contextualização sobre a vastidão do cosmos, mostramos, direta e indiretamente, o paradoxal legado da ciência moderna que, de um lado, hoje evidencia nossa insignificância diante da infinitude do universo e, de outro, promoveu antinomias sociais por sua incansável busca pela dominação da natureza. O resultado desse processo é (...) um antropocentrismo desastroso em relação às questões ambientais. O ensaio, eminentemente teórico, promove um diálogo, a múltiplas vozes, na tentativa de angariar fundamentos éticos e epistemológicos para a Educação Ambiental. Trata-se de um estudo de metodologia bibliográfica. Destarte, em nossa abordagem, a filosofia figura com seu papel de buscar permanentemente pelo sentido e significado da vida, dos fenômenos humanos e não humanos. Defenderemos a tese de que é necessário e emergente o reconhecimento da esfera noológica da humanidade, pois se continuarmos a negligenciá-la incorreremos no risco de mantermos sufocado o lado demens do ser humano. Amparados pelas contribuições do pensador francês Edgar Morin, buscamos fundamentos filosóficos para a Educação Ambiental por querermos afirmá-la como campo de saberes e conhecimentos que promovem a busca pelo sentido da vida e a compreensão sobre a condição humana nacontemporaneidade. A ciência moderna promoveu a matematização e o desencantamento do mundo, fazendo com que o epíteto sapiens de nossa nomenclatura taxonômica ganhasse a companhia do epíteto degradandis. Para que seja possível a revitalização dos sentidos sobre a existência humana, é necessário que o epíteto sapiens seja acompanhado, metaforicamente, da desinência demens. Palavras-chave: Educação Ambiental. Ética. Epistemologia. Filosofia. (shrink)

Neste artigo, objetivamos investigar os desafios da compreensão da complexidade imanente às múltiplas realidades. Metodologicamente, dada a natureza teórica do ensaio, fomos acompanhados pelas reflexões de Edgar Morin sobre "O Método". Tomamos como ponto de partida a ruptura entre as ciências da natureza e as ciências do espírito que, por consequência, encerraram a ciência e a filosofia em compartimentos disciplinares aparentemente incomunicáveis. Com vistas à superação deste isolamento, reivindicamos uma hermenêutica da complexidade de modo que possamos compreender as relações, colaborações (...) e complementações intrínsecas aos diferentes conhecimentos e saberes. (shrink)

La disolución del poder colonial en la América española creó una serie de interrogantes respecto al ordenamiento jurídico-político de los futuros estados soberanos. En este sentido, Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) insistió en la idea de que el control político de los territorios liberados por él debía estar al mando de un poder central conservador capaz de garantizar los derechos ciudadanos sin menoscabo de la estabilidad sociopolítica del orden republicano. Aunque algunos aspectos del ideario constitucional bolivariano resultaron inaceptables para sus contemporáneos, sus (...) medidas para asegurar el goce de los derechos civiles y políticos de los americanos se ajustaban a la realidad social de su tiempo. Con base en una amplia consulta bibliográfica, el presente artículo examina la concepción bolivariana del cuerpo político a la luz de las circunstancias sociohistóricas a las que el Libertador debió hacer frente. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta o projeto de G. Vico para o estabelecimento da ciência moral. Vico esteve empenhado na emancipação do estudo das manifestações objetivas do espírito por intermédio da reforma do racionalismo cartesiano. A crítica ao iluminismo é feita com a retomada do conceito de barbárie no âmbito da filosofia, contrapondo-o ao conceito de esclarecimento do Século das Luzes.