Resumen Para Freud la relación entre violencia y ley parece indisociable, en tanto la instauración de esta última depende de una violencia inaugural, la que en lugar de quedar limitada a este momento inicial continúa activa a través de los propios mecanismos psíquicos que encarnan la función de la ley, de manera tal que la ley se encuentra coludida permanentemente con la misma violencia que intenta regular. Pensamos que este dilema es equivalente al delimitado por Benjamin en Para una crítica (...) de la violencia, ensayo en el que este propone, por medio de la figura de la violencia divina o pura, una vía para interrumpir el papel fundante y conservador de la ley que le cabría a la violencia mítica. Se propone que la interpretación de Lacan sobre el acto de Antígona como trasgresión de la Átē, resulta afín a la idea de Benjamin sobre la superación del compromiso entre violencia mítica y ley que adjudica al acontecimiento de la violencia pura, replicando una crítica a la violencia, esta vez dentro de los márgenes teóricos del psicoanálisis. En ambos casos resulta posible situar un más allá del compromiso entre violencia y ley, el cual permite pensar una refundación de los límites simbólicos que dan soporte a la vida en comunidad.For Freud, the relationship between violence and law seems inseparable, in that the establishment of the law depends on an inaugural violence. However, instead of being limited to this initial moment, this inaugural violence continues active through the psychic mechanisms which embody the function of the law, so that the law is constantly in collusion with the same violence that it tries to regulate. We think that this dilemma is equivalent to that defined by Benjamin in his Critique of Violence, an essay in which he proposes, through the figure of divine or pure violence, a way to interrupt the founding and conservative role of law attributed to mythical violence. It is proposed that Lacan’s interpretation of the act of Antigone as a transgression of Átē is akin to Benjamin’s idea of overcoming the compromise between mythic violence and the law that adjudicates the occurrence of pure violence. Lacan thus provides a critique of violence, this time within the theoretical margins of psychoanalysis. In both cases it is possible consider something beyond the compromise between violence and law, allowing one to think of a refoundation of the symbolic limits that support the law and regulate the bonds of community life. (shrink)

Este artículo explora el concepto de trauma colectivo y su aplicación en el contexto histórico y social de las sociedades latinoamericanas. La transferencia del término «trauma colectivo» desde el campo del conocimiento psicológico a la esfera social e histórica plantea preguntas sobre su legitimidad y marco conceptual. El estudio examina la fidelidad de esta transferencia conceptual y su relación con la comprensión psicoanalítica temprana de los fenómenos traumáticos. El contexto cultural europeo de finales del siglo xix y principios del siglo (...) xx proporcionó la base para teorizar las consecuencias de experiencias intensas y violentas, lo que resultó en el concepto de «neurosis traumática», influenciado significativamente por el trabajo de Freud. El artículo discute la apropiación de herramientas psicoanalíticas en la crítica histórica y cultural para comprender eventos que desafían marcos tradicionales y la inteligibilidad social, como el Holocausto. La noción del trauma como una fuerza enigmática y recurrente en la experiencia histórica se explora a través del enfoque de los estudios del trauma. El artículo pone de relieve a destacados y destacadas académicas en este campo y su uso de conceptos psicoanalíticos, demostrando la preservación y aplicación significativa de estas nociones en la comprensión de fenómenos históricos y colectivos. Al acortar la brecha entre las experiencias psicológicas individuales y los traumas colectivos, los estudios del trauma ofrecen un enfoque único para interpretar y representar eventos que resisten las narrativas históricas tradicionales. (shrink)

Los estudios sobre el sacerdocio de Jesucristo en santo Tomás se suelen basar en la Suma Teológica; por lo que nosotros proponemos, en este trabajo, mostrar el desarrollo de este tema en el Comentario a la Carta a los Hebreos. Este abordaje nos permite ver no sólo cómo su conocimiento bíblico alimenta la teología, sino también que Tomás incluye ya temas que serán explicitados muchos siglos después.

There currently is sufficient scientific evidence directly linking acquisition, exposure and prevalence of the human papillomavirus to cervical cancer. The article addresses HPV in women by taking NaProTechnology into account, which makes it posible to combine scientific evidence with ethical approaches. It looks at both the biological aspect of sexuality and the ability to become a person within one’s sexual nucleus. There is an analysis of sex education programs based on preventive health and on the anthropology of sexuality, and supported (...) by family institutions, that have demonstrated better acceptance in dealing with the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, including HPV infection. (shrink)

Filósofos como Marcuse han subrayado las propiedades liberadoras del quehacer artístico. Pero si hemos de pensar el arte como el Gran Rechazo, es necesario mostrar qué rechaza el arte y con qué busca sustituirlo. Respecto a estas preguntas, existen dos respuestas antagónicas. Mientras una busca en la experiencia artística rechazar lo dado en nombre de una verdad intemporal, la otra también reniega de lo dado, pero admite el carácter provisorio de toda verdad. Aunque en apariencia sutil, esta distinción es sustancial. (...) A partir de una lectura de Platón, muestro por qué en la primera posición no hay cabida para lo humano, y por qué de ella se desprenden implicaciones totalitarias. Para caracterizar a la segunda posición, me sirvo de la concepción estética de Octavio Paz y de la propuesta escultórica de Alexander Calder. Ambas propuestas permiten conciliar la insatisfacción que palpita en el arte con la alteridad que caracteriza a lo humano. (shrink)

El trabajo cuestiona críticamente cierta visión extrema y unilateral apreciable en Adorno y Horkheimer al juzgar la relación de la industria cultural con la música. Es cierto que hoy prácticamente toda actividad humana se encuentra condiciona¬da por el mercado y que la música no es una excepción. Ella también es portadora de valor de cambio que tiende a ser dominante en los marcos de la industrial cultural. Pero es plausible que dentro de las industrias culturales mismas se empezara a hacer (...) una distinción entre los bienes culturales producidos por razones meramente comerciales y aquellos producidos por razones más artísticas. Un público demandante de obras de valor artístico, aun cuando pueda ser minoritario y estar inmerso también él en el mercado, condiciona de cierta manera la propia producción cultural, o, al menos, un segmento de ella. Esta posibilidad real no era muy reconocida por los autores de la “La industria cultural”. Según su lógica, como nada puede sustraerse a la industria cultural y como ésta compulsa a la prevalencia del valor de cambio o comercial y a la casi supresión de cualquier otro valor, entonces el arte, el verdadero arte, terminaría por desaparecer, sucumbiendo ante una lógica no interesada en su conservación o crecimiento, sino sólo en la maximización de ganancias a toda costa. Los hechos han contradicho esta conclusión. La relación de la música con la industria cultural, igual que las monedas, tiene dos caras. No basta con reconocer sólo la parte negativa, la que busca alienar las obras con tal de convertirlas en sólo mercancías. Es imprescindible tomar en cuenta también la posibilidad más que comprobable de que piezas con excelente factura estética surjan también en los marcos de esta industria. El asunto radicaría en develar las condiciones que lo posibilitan. El mercado, si bien puede favorecer la generación de productos pseudoculturales de escaso o nulo valor artístico, también se constituye en la única vía, dentro de la sociedad de consumo, por medio de la cual lo genuinamente valioso se convierte en patrimonio común. (shrink)

En este artículo se estudia la estructura “artículo definido + nombre propio antropónimo” y su distribución de uso en casos de antropónimos femeninos y masculinos. Se parte del supuesto de que esta estructura es más frecuente cuando el antropónimo es femenino. Al ser expletiva la presencia del artículo ante los sustantivos propios y, por el contrario, ser requerido su uso o el de otro determinante, en posiciones sintácticas específicas, ante los sustantivos comunes, la aparición del artículo definido precediendo al antropónimo (...) femenino podría ser una marca del prejuicio social hacia la mujer. Para corroborar esta hipótesis, se realizó un rastreo del fenómeno estudiado en textos de prensa escrita chilena, con el objetivo de analizar su aparición y frecuencia de uso en los casos de antropónimo femenino y masculino. (shrink)

Existe gran consenso dentro de la academia en relación a la necesidad de tener en cuenta un gran número de variables para poder conceptualizar y medir la inclusión o, por ende, la exclusión social que viven ciertos colectivos. A través de un estudio en profundidad de la bibliografía, casos piloto y proyectos similares, se ha creado un sistema de indicadores con la finalidad de medir el impacto socioeconómico de una actividad sociodeportiva vinculada a la inclusión de personas con diversidad funcional. (...) El sistema resultante, se aplicarán en el caso piloto VARIED, un proyecto europeo realizado en cinco países de la propia Unión Europea. (shrink)

En este artículo voy a profundizar en una interpretación aplicada de la obra del segundo Wittgenstein, propuesta por José Medina, Miranda Fricker y Peg O’Connor, entre otros. Estos autores equiparan juegos de lenguaje y formas de vida, entienden las reglas de los juegos como normas sociales y trasladan la argumentación del filósofo vienés a un ámbito sociopolítico. Concretamente, José Medina propone un argumento en oposición a los juegos de lenguaje sociales, que es la versión social al argumento de (...) Wittgenstein en oposición a los juegos de lenguaje privados. En segundo lugar, analizaré dos casos: las distintas denominaciones de los indios huicholes y el uso del plural inclusivo por parte de algunos feminismos. Lo más interesante de estos dos casos es que estos grupos proponen significados privados o usos del lenguaje que sólo parecen ser válidos para ellos. Preguntaré si estos usos se pueden entender como juegos de lenguaje sociales y ser criticados desde los argumentos de Medina. Este estudio de casos servirá para evaluar la adecuación, validez y límites de esta interpretación de la obra de Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Cabrera Rodríguez, José Antonio. “El trasfondo psicologista en la teoría schopenhaueriana de la percepción.” Estudios de Filosofía 52 (2015): 95-110.

O Diário de Júlio Cabrera foi desenvolvido em três partes. Na primeira ele examina a filosofia brasileira: em que ela consiste, quais são seus autores, contribuições, perfil e valor. Na segunda parte expõe as linhas gerais de uma reflexão própria sobre: Lógica e Linguagem, Ética e relação entre Filosofia e Cinema e, finalmente, na última volta à reflexão sobre o sentido de uma filosofia brasileira. Ele conclui o livro com uma entrevista concedida a um interlocutor imaginário na qual se (...) defende de críticas que lhe poderiam ser dirigidas em virtude das teses expostas no livro. (shrink)

While in agreement with Miranda Fricker’s context-sensitive approach to hermeneutical injustice, this paper argues that this contextualist approach has to be pluralized and rendered relational in more complex ways. In the first place, I argue that the normative assessment of social silences and the epistemic harms they generate cannot be properly carried out without a pluralistic analysis of the different interpretative communities and expressive practices that coexist in the social context in question. Social silences and hermeneutical gaps are misrepresented if (...) they are uniformly predicated of an entire social context, instead of being predicated of particular ways of inhabiting that context by particular people in relation to particular others. I contend that a more nuanced—polyphonic—contextualization offers a more adequate picture of what it means to break social silences and to repair the hermeneutical injustices associated with them. In the second place, I argue that the particular obligations with respect to hermeneutical justice that differently situated subjects and groups have are interactive and need to be determined relationally. That is, whether individuals and groups live up to their hermeneutical responsibilities has to be assessed by taking into account the forms of mutual positionality, relationality, and responsivity (or lack thereof) that these subjects and groups display with respect to one another. The central argument is developed through an examination of what in race theory and in contemporary epistemologies of ignorance has been termed “white ignorance”; that is, the kind of hermeneutical inability of privileged white subjects to recognize and make sense of their racial identities, experiences, and social positionality. (shrink)

Decision Theory and Rationality offers a challenging new interpretation of a key theoretical tool in the human and social sciences. This accessible book argues, contrary to orthodoxy in politics, economics, and management science, that decision theory cannot provide a theory of rationality.

Reliabilist accounts of knowledge are widely seen as having the resources for blocking sceptical arguments, since these arguments appear to rely on assumptions about the nature of knowledge that are rendered illegitimate by reliabilist accounts. The goal of this book is to assess the main arguments against the possibility of knowledge, and its conclusions challenge this consensus. The book articulates and defends a theory of knowledge that belongs firmly in the truth-tracking tradition, and argues that although the theory has the (...) resources for blocking the main standard lines of sceptical reasoning, there is a sceptical argument against which the theory offers no defence, as it doesn’t rely on any assumptions that the theory would render illegitimate. The book ends with the suggestion that the problem might have a metaphysical solution—that although the sceptical argument may make no illegitimate epistemological assumptions, it does rest on a questionable account of the nature of cognition. (shrink)

The author challenges the view that birth cannot be a morally relevant fact in the process of development from zygote to child. He reviews specific arguments against giving any moral significance to the fact of birth. Drawing on recent work in developmental psychology, he contends that the lives of neonates can have a level of self-consciousness that confers moral significance but can only be possessed after birth. He shows that the position he has argued for provides a framework within which (...) the move from the moral validity of aborting sentient fetuses to the moral validity of infanticide might be resisted. He concludes that arguments suggesting that birth can be morally significant support the view that the acquisition of moral significance is a gradual and multilayered phenomenon. (shrink)

The paper deals with a version of the principle that a belief source can be a knowledge source only if the subject knows that it is reliable. I argue that the principle can be saved from the main objections that motivate its widespread rejection: the claim that it leads to skepticism, the claim that it forces us to accept counterintuitive knowledge ascriptions and the claim that it is incompatible with reliabilist accounts of knowledge. I argue that naturalist epistemologists should reject (...) these claims. I introduce my treatment of the principle by considering the analogous situation posed by the closure principle. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to defend, contra Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini (F&PP), that the theory of natural selection (NS) is a perfectly bona fide empirical unified explanatory theory. F&PP claim there is nothing non-truistic, counterfactual-supporting, of an “adaptive” character and common to different explanations of trait evolution. In his debate with Fodor, and in other works, Sober defends NS but claims that, compared with classical mechanics (CM) and other standard theories, NS is peculiar in that its explanatory models are (...) a priori (a trait shared with few other theories). We argue that NS provides perfectly bona fide adaptive explanations of phenotype evolution, unified by a common natural-selection guiding principle. First, we introduce the debate and reply to F&PP’s main argument against NS. Then, by reviewing different examples and analyzing Fisher’s model in detail, we show that NS explanations of phenotypic evolution share a General Natural Selection Principle. Third, by elaborating an analogy with CM, we argue against F&PP’s claim that such a principle would be a mere truism and thus explanatorily useless, and against Sober’s thesis that NS models/explanations have a priori components that are not present in CM and other common empirical theories. Irrespective of differences in other respects, the NS guiding principle has the same epistemic status as other guiding principles in other highly unified theories such as CM. We argue that only by pointing to the guiding principle-driven nature that it shares with CM and other highly unified theories, something no-one has done yet in this debate, one can definitively show that NS is not defective in F&PP’s sense: in the respects relevant to the debate, Natural Selection is as defective and as epistemically peculiar as Classical Mechanics and other never questioned theories. (shrink)

As in other countries, the public in Argentina became aware of the existence of something called “the theory of relativity” only after November 1919. Although the news of Arthur Eddington's eclipse expedition, which provided the first confirmation of Einstein's theory, was poorly reported in the newspapers, by the end of 1920 Einstein had become a household name for the educated middle class of Buenos Aires, the capital city of the country. This was in great measure the result of the activity (...) of a few enthusiastic lecturers. Significantly, none of them belonged to the prestigious Institute of Physics of the University of La Plata, which during the decade of the 1910s was considered the most important center of physical research in Latin America. Between July and August 1920 the Spanish physicist Blas Cabrera – perhaps the greatest popularizer of Einstein's theory in Spain – visited Argentina and talked about relativity. In September Georges Duclout, a French engineer who had graduated from the Zurich Polytechnic and by then was professor of applied mechanics at the School of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires, also gave a series of conferences on the subject. That same month José Ubach, a Jesuit astronomer trained at the Ebro Observatory in Spain, and established in Buenos Aires, lectured on relativity at the Colegio del Salvador. (shrink)

We argue that there is no general theory of explanation that spans the sciences, mathematics, and ethics, etc. More specifically, there is no good reason to believe that substantive and domain-invariant constraints on explanatory information exist. Using Nickel (Noûs 44(2):305–328, 2010 ) as an exemplar of the contrary, generalist position, we first show that Nickel’s arguments rest on several ambiguities, and then show that even when these ambiguities are charitably corrected, Nickel’s defense of general theories of explanation is inadequate along (...) several different dimensions. Specifically, we argue that Nickel’s argument has three fatal flaws. First, he has not provided any compelling illustrations of domain-invariant constraints on explanation. Second, in order to fend off the most vehement skeptics of domain-invariant theories of explanation, Nickel must beg all of the important questions. Third, Nickel’s examples of explanations from different domains with common explanatory structure rely on incorrect formulations of the explanations under consideration, circular justifications, and/or a mischaracterization of the position Nickel intends to critique. Given that the best and most elaborate defense of the generalist position fails in so many ways, we conclude that the standard practice in philosophy (and in philosophy of science in particular), which is to develop theories of explanation that are tailored to specific domains, still is justified. For those who want to buy into a more ambitious project: beware of the costs! (shrink)

I discuss the account of logical consequence advanced in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. I argue that the role that elementary propositions are meant to play in this account can be used to explain two remarkable features that Wittgenstein ascribes to them: that they are logically independent from one another and that their components refer to simple objects. I end with a proposal as to how to understand Wittgenstein's claim that all propositions can be analysed as truth functions of elementary propositions.

To the sceptic's contention that I don't know that I have hands because I don't know that there is an external world, the Moorean replies that I know that there is an external world because I know that I have hands. Crispin Wright has argued that the Moorean move is illegitimate, and has tried to block it by limiting the applicability of the principle of the transmission of knowledge by inference—the principle that recognising the validity of an inference from known (...) premises generates knowledge of the conclusion. I argue that, in the presence of some plausible assumptions, blocking the Moorean move does not require limiting the applicability of the transmission principle. Then I argue against Jim Pryor's contention that the Moorean argument transmits evidential support from its premises to its conclusion. (shrink)

Despite the importance of network analysis in biological practice, dominant models of scientific explanation do not account satisfactorily for how this family of explanations gain their explanatory power in every specific application. This insufficiency is particularly salient in the study of the ecology of the microbiome. Drawing on Coyte et al. (2015) study of the ecology of the microbiome, Deulofeu et al. (2021) argue that these explanations are neither mechanistic, nor purely mathematical, yet they are substantially empirical. Building on their (...) criticisms, in the present work we make a step further elucidating this kind of explanations with a general analytical framework according to which scientific explanations are ampliative, specialized embeddings (ASE), which has recently been successfully applied to other biological subfields. We use ASE to reconstruct in detail the Coyte et al.’s case study and on its basis, we claim that network explanations of the ecology of the microbiome, and other similar explanations in ecology, gain their epistemological force in virtue of their capacity to embed biological phenomena in non-accidental generalizations that are simultaneously ampliative and specialized. (shrink)

In the attempt of defending an interpretation of David Hume's moral and political philosophy connected to classical utilitarianism, intervenes in a key way the so called problem of the " Sensitive Knave " raised by this author at the end of his more utilitarian work, the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. According to the classic interpretation of this fragment, the utilitarian rationality in politics would clash with morality turning useless the latter. Therefore, in the political area the defense of (...) a moral utilitarianism would be an auto contradictory task. In order to show that, first, Hume does not say anything similar to this and second, that even indicates the way of overcoming this apparent contradiction between morality and rationality, we analyze briefly the arguments from which there comes basically this "anti-utilitarian" standard interpretation, and we defend an interpretation of the humean discussion on the problem of the supposed conflict between morality and rationality, or of rational incentives for immoral behavior, which allows to explain better Hume's position on this problem. Finally, we propose an instance of overcoming the contradiction morality/ rationality by a rule adjusted utilitarianism centered on the idea of the "progressive development of artificial institutions of reinforcement of morality", that Hume himself would suggest in other places in which he approaches the topic of the apparent contradiction between "morality" and "knavery". We propose also possible lines of future development of this idea, between them its use to clarify the relation of David Hume's thought with certain forms of contemporary liberalism. (shrink)

Re-activating the philosophical quest for real definitions, I dare propose that its fulfillment is most convincingly represented, close to home, where one probably least expects it, notably in the first half of Section 36 of Word and Object, in the pages of Quine. Aristotle must inevitably remain our guide even as we insist on respecting Quine's anti-essentialism, and I must then explain how Aristotle, truncated, can be put here to use. Well, we may begin, appropriately, with a definition or with (...) what, nearly enough, smacks of being one, namely the Aristotelian slogan, definitio fit per genus proximum et differentiam specificam. Although that may be itself a real definition (of real definition), I shall not pursue this scholastic point, preferring to concentrate on my principal task which I take to be to vindicate the feasibility of formulating a real definition of some mind-independent reality. Such a vindication can scarcely succeed today unless it is recognized from the outset that we have here at hand one of those cases where the very (logical) possibility of a problematic thing can be established only by having recourse to the modal principle that actuality entails possibility. Nothing less than a concrete instance of a real definition will then suffice, and I thus expect my sceptical reader (I count on her scepticism) to be in doubt whether the scholastic bit of jargon 'real definition' picks out one of the concepts in her repertoire. (shrink)

The paper deals with Hilary Putnam's model-theoretic argument against metaphysical realism. It considers the objections to the argument raised by David Lewis, Mark Heller, James van Cleve, Anthony Brueckner and others, to the effect that Putnam's reasoning fails to undermine versions of metaphysical realism which construe reference along externalist lines. I argue that the version of Putnam's argument that his critics have attacked is indeed powerless against externalist accounts of reference, but that, on a different construal, the argument puts genuine (...) pressure on externalism. On the version of the argument that I develop, the thrust of the model-theoretic considerations is that an externalist construal of reference would make grasp of reference facts impossible. (shrink)

This volume comprises nine lively and insightful essays by leading scholars on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, focusing mainly on his early work.

The politics of nativism directed at Catholic immigrants in 19th-century America offer a fruitful comparative perspective through which to analyze the discourse and the politics of Islam in contemporary Europe. Anti-Catholic nativism constituted a peculiar North American version of the larger and more generalized phenomenon of anti-immigrant populist xenophobic politics which one finds in many countries and in different historical contexts. What is usually designated as Islamo-phobia in contemporary Europe, however, manifests striking resemblances with the original phenomenon of American nativism (...) that emerged in the middle of the 19th century in the United States. In both cases one finds the fusion of anti-immigrant xenophobic attitudes, perennial inter-religious prejudices, and an ideological construct setting a particular religious-civilizational complex in essential opposition to Western modernity. Although an anti-Muslim discourse emerged also in the United States after 11 September, it had primarily a geo-political dimension connected with the ‘war on terror’ and with American global imperial policies. But it lacked the domestic anti-immigrant populist as well as the modern secularist anti-Muslim dimensions. This explains why xenophobic anti-Muslim nativism has been much weaker in the United States than in Europe. (shrink)

O artigo se apóia na filosofia da história da Walter Benjamin para denunciar a barbárie que se aloja na base da sociedade ocidental e promove a exclusão e o esquecimento das vítimas. Indica o papel político da memória na construção da democracia e no resgate da dignidade humana, reconhecida a partir da alteridade evidenciada no sofrimento, seguindo mais de perto a experiência das ditaduras latinoamericanas, em especial, a da ditadura militar brasileira. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Justiça das vítimas. Memória política. História e (...) narração. Dignidade da pessoa humana. Ditadura Militar. Walter Benjamin. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 On February 12, 1440 Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) concludes in his birthplace of Kues drafting the first major systematic formulation of his thinking: De docta ignorantia . The main category of his metaphysics in this context, i.e. the maximum , is analyzed and interpreted by him on three considerations: the maximum in an absolute sense, as contracted and finally as absolute and contracted, at the same time. In the context of the First Book, (...) which presents the singular methodology of the docta ignorantia , considers the maximum in itself in light of the paradoxical concept of coincidentia oppositorum in the absolute. In the final chapters of this first book tackles the critical of the theological discourse and thus, the problem of the ineffable name of maximum et minimum absolutum . Hence the purpose of this work is the further on cusan’s evaluation of language problem as it shows through treatment of the theological discourses and divine names that emerge from them, in light of the way of docta ignorantia. (shrink)

Many controversies within philosophy of science have been attempted to be explained in terms of the metaphilosophical prescription/description distinction over the goal of philosophy of science. The aim of this paper is to show that the controversy between Popper and Kuhn about the ir/rationality of Normal Science cannot be fully explained in these terms, not even if we also take the truth/problem-solving distinction over the goal of science into account. It is argued that, to gain full understanding of this controversy, (...) it is necessary to take into account their differences regarding a topic apparently not involved in it, namely the structure of scientific theories. The conclusion is that both Popper and Kuhn were descriptive/prescriptive at the same time in their attempt to make the rules of scientific practice explicit, yet Kuhn did it better because he had a richer and more accurate idea of what scientific theories are. Although this work is mainly a piece of history of philosophy of science, it also aims at shedding some light on epistemological issues. If the conclusion is sound, it also shows how structural aspects of scientific theories may be relevant to the epistemology of science.Keywords: Falsificationism; Normal science; Rationality; Theories; Thomas Kuhn; Karl Popper. (shrink)