El cristianismo, obligado por la Modernidad, tuvo que hacer un desplazamiento desde el plano dogmático al plano moral; hoy estamos ante otro desplazamiento: el que va desde el terreno moral al místico. En este terreno dominará sobre todo la experiencia personal de la presencia salvífica de Dios en Cristo. Esa experiencia, vivida en medio del pluralismo, consistirá en una síntesis activa entre la Presencia y su interpretación . Este ensayo trata de diseccionar las dimensiones existenciales y lingüísticas de esa síntesis. (...) Después de ver por qué somos pobres en experiencia, se analizan los componentes y caracteres esenciales de toda experiencia religiosa A continuación se disecciona la estructura simbólica de esta experiencia , y su configuración mítico-narrativa Palabras clave: 'Hermenéutica de los símbolos'; 'Mitos'; 'Mundos ficcionales'; 'Hermenéutica narrativa'; 'Mundo del texto'; 'Apropiación del sentido'.Christianity forced by modernity had to make a shift from a dogmatic plane to a moral one; today, there is another shift which goes from a moral to a mystical ground. The personal experience of God’s saving presence in Christ will dominate, over all, in this field. That experience, lived in the midst of pluralism will consist of an active synthesis between the presence and its interpretation .This essay intends to dissect the linguistic and existential dimensions of this synthesis. After seeing why we are poor in experience, we will analyze the essential components and characteristics of the religious experience , and its mythical narrative configuration. (shrink)

La presente contribución atiende a la interpretación por parte de Heidegger de la dualidad planteada expresamente por Kant de facultades cognoscitivas y sus respectivos tipos específicos de representación. Intentará mostrar cómo su interpretación fenomenológica da cuenta de esta cooriginariedad de sensibilidad y entendimiento y puede incluso –en un sentido bien determinado– legitimarla. Para ello enfoca su interés en el posicionamiento crítico de Heidegger frente a la lectura neokantiana de este elemento doctrinal de la filosofía transcendental de Kant.

Este artículo toma el esquema de J.B.Vico de las tres etapas del discurso (etapa mítico-poética, la conceptual-dialéctica y la descriptiva), y hace la propuesta de si no estaremos ante el ¿ricorso¿ de que habla Vico: esto es, la vuelta desde el discurso descriptivo, predominante en el siglo XX, al discurso imaginativo de la ¿poiética¿ que nos alumbra los ¿mundos posibles¿. El autor argumenta esta hipótesis analizando el fracaso de la tradición de la ¿mímesis¿, la recuperación por Heidegger de la tradición (...) de lo posible, los aportes del construccionismo simbólico y el concepto de lo ¿real posible¿ de Bloch. Añáde a favor de esta hipótesis, las propuestas de dos semióticos: H.Eco y L.Dolezel. (shrink)

Este artículo de homenaje a la Profesora Yolanda Ruano se divide en dos partes. En la primera discuto las críticas que ella realizara a mi libro sobre la diosa Fortuna en las que avanzaba su propio análisis de las complejas relaciones entre razón y fortuna en el pensamiento occidental. En la segunda parte, desde el punto de vista del “giro icónico” en humanidades y ciencias sociales, analizo el caso concreto del auge y desaparición de la diosa Fortuna en la iconografía (...) política de la ciudad de Berlín. A lo largo del siglo XIX la diosa Fortuna desaparece de la escena berlinesa y es sustituida por la diosa Niké o Victoria, que popularmente se interpreta como un Ángel de la Victoria. Este es el marco de la infancia de Walter Benjamin, quien más tarde expresará su visión de la historia con un otro ángel completamente distinto, el Angelus Novus de Paul Klee. (shrink)

Lo que les pide San Pablo a los corintios es que tengan un pensamiento adulto, maduro, el cual, por su naturaleza misma, es un pensamiento crítico. Lo opuesto al pensamiento maduro no es un pensamiento superficial, sino el pensamiento pueril, frívolo o la deshonestidad intelectual. Creemos que la situación del catolicismo occidental nos reclama el uso de este pensamiento crítico con no menor apremio que la difícil situación de los corintios a los que aconseja Pablo. El propósito de este ensayo (...) es pensar lo que nos está pasando hoy a los cristianos. Resumo en cuatro rótulos los elementos descriptivos de este análisis de lo que nos pasa: las erosiones en el aparato de nociones y creencias, la quiebra del sentido, y los déficits, el más grave de todos: el de la experiencia religiosa . Como suele ocurrir en los análisis médicos y económicos, es más fácil y se acierta más al decir lo que nos pasa que al proponer remedios. Conscientes de esta dificultad, este ensayo se propone pensar el más grave de los retos –el pluralismo —, y el más grave de los déficits – la experiencia mistagógica de Dios.- . El pluralismo suele presentarse con malas compañías . En este ensayo vamos a separarlo de esas compañías indeseables y con las que, aunque parezcan afines, no guardan parentesco. Se harán algunas propuestas para habérselas con el pluralismo. El pluralismo es uno de los principales factores de la crisis del sentido. Si se trata el pluralismo debidamente, tal vez lograremos salir de la crisis del sentido, que en religión, es, más bien, una hemorrogía del sentido. Pero aun entonces, restará la ingente tarea de recuperar la experiencia religiosa. Con este propósito en la última sección, se ofrecerá una mistagogía en tres fases , que podría crear condiciones de posibilidad para una manera más personal de la experiencia de la fe. (shrink)

This article attempts to show the importance of the concept of superstition in understanding a range of psychological problems. With this aim, we critically analyze several constructs that, without actually using the term “superstition,” concern this phenomenon and its role in the development of mental disorders. First we discuss “Thought–Action Fusion” and “magical thinking,” two concepts from the cognitive tradition that view superstition as basically an ideational phenomenon. Second, we look at “Experiential Avoidance,” a post-Skinnerian concept that understands superstition as (...) a type of avoidance behavior for certain private events. Third, we discuss superstition as an emotional phenomenon, in particular, Jean-Paul Sartre’s phenomenological analysis of emotions as magical operations. Finally, we review a cultural approach to superstition and its influence on psychopathology. In this perspective, superstition is seen as a cultural form linked to the historical–social context, which is fostered by certain social practices or institutions, including (perhaps surprisingly) certain features of modernity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Defending a Phenomenological–Behavioral Perspective: Culture, Behavior, and ExperienceMarino Pérez-Álvarez (bio), José M. García-Montes (bio), Adolfo J. Cangas (bio), and Louis A. Sass (bio)KeywordsBehavior, contextual phenomenology, culture, experienceWe should like to express our sincere thanks to all the authors for their commentaries on our articles. Given the restrictions of space (a limitation they too had to contend with), we can only respond to a few aspects of their (...) interesting remarks. We shall reply of course on the basis of our own approach—an approach that sets out to integrate culture, behavior, and experience, and that might be termed contextual phenomenology, phenomenological behaviorism, or perhaps most accurately (albeit more awkwardly), the phenomenological–behavioral perspective.In her commentary, Ibáñez-Guerra (2008), referring to the target articles “Phenomenology and behaviorism” (Pérez-Álvarez, Sass, and Cangas 2008) and “The role of superstition in psychopathology” (García-Montes et al. 2008), wonders whether our maintaining of the spirit of Skinner, as well as our recourse to phenomenology, might not themselves represent forms of superstitious behavior. She points out that it is not always a good idea to put new wine in old barrels. For her, the new wine and new barrels would be represented by social constructivism, of which she is reminded by some aspects of our work. But in making her own case, Ibáñez-Guerra (2008) reveals certain common prejudices concerning behaviorism, prejudices that have apparently persisted even after reading our article. Thus, for example, she does not see operant behavior as incorporating intentionality (what, in the target article, is presented in terms of final causality), because she assumes that intentionality would necessarily imply a mentalist and dualist notion involving a supposed internal mental entity that causes behavior. Skinner (1974) himself noted and rejected this very assumption in a passage that clearly distinguishes his own approach from what he calls a “stimulus-response formula”: “Possibly no charge,” he wrote,is more often leveled against behaviorism or a science of behavior than that it cannot deal with purpose or intention. A stimulus-response formula has no answer, but operant behavior is the very field of purpose and [End Page 281] intention. By its nature it is directed toward the future: a person acts in order that something will happen, and the order is temporal.(pp. 55–6)The place Skinner gives to intentionality and purpose is elaborated in our target article.Furthermore, Ibáñez-Guerra (2008) assumes that, on methodological grounds, Skinner rejects all that is not observable, or at least that cannot be operationalized. This, however, is simply incorrect, at least as regards Skinner’s radical behaviorism. As the reader may recall, radical (as opposed to methodological) behaviorism is neither operationalist nor does it reject private or subjective events because of their unobservability. Indeed, Skinner specifically acknowledges that such events are in fact observable—at least for one person: the subject him- or herself. The question for Skinner is to understand how the part of the world that is only observable and experiential for oneself is constructed or formed. In the end, it turns out that radical behaviorism is more radical, in the Aristotelian ontological sense (see Pérez-Alvarez, Sass, and García-Montes 2008), than post-modern constructionism. Indeed, as we remarked, radical behaviorism can still surprise us today. Similarly, phenomenology is starting to be missed in the clinical context (Andreasen 2007). We believe that radical behaviorism and phenomenology, mutually readjusted, are in fact excellent wines for the times we live in—if only we knew how to appreciate them.In their commentary on “Phenomenology and behaviorism: A mutual readjustment,” Fletcher and Hayes (2008) argue that the philosophy and theory of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)/Relational Frame Theory (RFT) already contain the salutary aspects of phenomenology that we highlight in our target article. Their insistence on reducing the affinities we find between phenomenology and behaviorism to ACT/RFT consists, in our view, in a scientific–technical argument that is more scientistic than strictly philosophical in nature. Their insistence on the scientific–technical argument itself implies an unclarified philosophical assumption. On what grounds do experimental data constitute the last word? Has... (shrink)

Languages use predicates and arguments to express events and event participants. In order to establish generalizations concerning the variety languages show regarding the strategies for discerning some arguments from the others, the concept of roles—and, particularly, macroroles, mesoroles, and microroles—associated with participants provides a widely studied starting point. In this article, the formal properties in the arguments of a set of 14 verb meanings in Spanish Sign Language have been analyzed. Arguments have been studied by considering their microroles, and a (...) quantitative method for measuring distances from a plurality of properties has been adopted. The novelty of this analysis is that it focuses on how arguments group in terms of these properties. Subsequently, some generalizations justifying why some verb meanings have a tendency to associate with certain forms of argument expression are highlighted in this study. (shrink)

Bentley et al.--O’Brien bypass the relevance of emotions in decision-making, resulting in a possible over-simplification of behavioral types. We propose integrating emotions, both in the north-south axis (in relation to cognition) as well as in the west-east axis (in relation to social influence), by suggesting a Z axis, in charge of registering emotional depth and involvement.

This work begins by proposing the need for exploring the mode of being of mental disorders. It is a philosophical study in an Aristotelian perspective, with special emphasis on the anthropological–cultural dimension. It is difficult for such an inquiry to be carried out from within psychiatry or clinical psychology, committed as these fields are to their own logic and practical conditions. The issues are, in any case, more ontological than strictly clinical in nature. We therefore turn to Aristotle, and specifically (...) his doctrine of the four “causes,” to flesh out the social and cultural dimensions of mental disorders. In accordance with the present analysis, the material cause of disorders would be found in the contingencies of life; the formal cause would pertain primarily to the way clinical conditions themselves can serve as models of ‘being ill’ in our society; the efficient cause would correspond to the patients themselves, understood as active (albeit less than fully conscious) agents as well as to the pharmaceutical industry and the mass media; the final cause would be found in different adaptive functions served by the disorder. We conclude that the “mode of being” of most (if not all) mental disorders—in particular, their status as mental disorders—can often have more to do with cultural forms than with biological factors. (shrink)

This study aimed to explore the role of two models of well-being in the prediction of psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic, namely PERMA and mature happiness. According to PERMA, well-being is mainly composed of five elements: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning in life, and achievement. Instead, mature happiness is understood as a positive mental state characterized by inner harmony, calmness, acceptance, contentment, and satisfaction with life. Rooted in existential positive psychology, this harmony-based happiness represents the result of living in (...) balance between positive and negative aspects of one's life. We hypothesized that mature happiness would be a more prominent protective factor during the present pandemic than the PERMA composite. A total of 12,203 participants from 30 countries responded to an online survey including the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21), the PERMA-Profiler, and the Mature Happiness Scale-Revised (MHS-R). Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that PERMA and mature happiness were highly correlated, but nonetheless, they represented two separate factors. After controlling for demographic factors and country-level variables, both PERMA Well-being and MHS-R were negative predictors of psychological distress. Mature happiness was a better predictor of stress, anxiety, and general distress, while PERMA showed a higher prediction of depression. Mature happiness moderated the relation between the perceived noxious effects of the pandemic and all markers of distress (depression, anxiety, stress, and total DASS-21). Instead, PERMA acted as a moderator in the case of depression and stress. These findings indicate that inner harmony, according to the mature happiness theory, is an essential facet of well-being to be taken into consideration. The results of this study can also orient policies aimed to alleviate the negative effects of the pandemic on mental health through the promotion of well-being. (shrink)

Background. The study of entrepreneurial activity has undergone intense development in recent decades. Traditionally this topic has been addressed from three approaches: economic, sociological and psychological. In the study of enterprising personality, two fundamental perspectives stand out: the use of general personality traits, like the Big Five, and the use of more specific traits related to entrepreneurial spirit, such as self-efficacy, autonomy, innovation, optimism, and others. The objective of this study is to provide validity evidence for a new instrument for (...) measuring eight specific dimensions of entrepreneurial personality (BEPE). Method. The sample was composed of 1,170 adults from the general population (59.9% women). The average age was 42.34 years with a standard deviation of 12.96. Of the sample, 13% were self-employed. Internal factorial structure and reliability of BEPE were examined. The relationships with other variables and the discriminative capacity of the BEPE between different groups of workers were analyzed. Results. First order factor analyses show the essential unidimensionality of each of the eight proposed sub-scales, with factorial weights ranging between 0.341 and 0.825. A second-order factor analysis was carried out, obtaining a general dimension of entrepreneurial personality. With regards to reliability, the eight BEPE sub-scales gave high alpha coefficient values, between 0.825 and 0.899, as did the total battery (0.97). BEPE sub-scales show a high canonical correlation with the Big Five personality factors (.795), and with the sub-scales of the Measure of Entrepreneurial Talents and Abilities questionnaire (.815). Conclusions. The BEPE questionnaire for the evaluation of the eight fundamental specific dimensions of the entrepreneurial personality presents adequate psychometric properties. Its relationships with other measures of personality traits are in line with what is expected. Therefore, the BEPE is a new measurement instrument that can be used with confidence both in the applied field and in research. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aristotle Rules, OK?José M. Villagrán (bio) and Rogelio Luque (bio)KeywordsAristotle, causes, philosophy, psychiatry, psychopathologyPérez-Alvarez, Sass, and García-Montes (2008) propose a theoretical approach to the nature of mental disorders (MD) that attempts to explain the type of reality they constitute. In line with this approach, they argue that (1) MDs should be considered not from within psychology and psychiatry, but rather from the realm of philosophy, so as (...) to avoid what they call the Charcot effect; (2) the resulting theoretical model is in contrast to naturalist models such as that of internal dysfunction, and involves “strong” constructivist assumptions from which they develop an anthropological perspective based on the clinician–patient situation; 3) this model is applicable, in principle, to all MDs (“at least to some extent”); and (4) it is based on the Aristotelian theory of the four causes.We would argue, however, that (1) it is precisely from within psychology and psychiatry that conceptual models accounting for MDs should be proposed; (2) the naturalist–constructivist dichotomy in these models should be deconstructed, and primacy given not to the ontological approach but to the epistemological one; (3) a theoretical model of this scope should account not only for MDs but also for physical disorders; and (4) only in this way would the Aristotelian theory of causes, understood as types of explanation (and therefore as epistemological approaches) be useful.Approaches from within and from WithoutFor Berrios (2006), the theoretical discourse in relation to the conceptualization of MDs in a particular sociocultural context can be formulated in two ways: on the one hand, in a centripetal fashion, using established philosophical systems (be it phenomenology [Jaspers 1977], logical empiricism [Hempel 1994], or analytic philosophy [Fulford, Thornton, and Graham 2006]). This centripetal approach can be used both by professional philosophers and by psychiatrists/psychologists. When developed by professional philosophers, such proposals, despite their possible brilliance, run the risk of being tangential to the psychiatric issues owing to a lack of first-hand experience of them (Murphy 2006). When developed by psychiatrists and psychologists, the majority of the proposals simply mix fragments of different philosophical systems, in either a kind of syncretism or collage that fails to take into account the contradictions between fragments, or a kind of pluralism that reflects, without entering into analysis, a sort of consensus among the different paradigms (Ghaemi 2003; Kendler 2005).A second way of formulating this theoretical discourse (according to Berrios) would employ a centrifugal approach from the very core of the disciplines, through the reflection of professionals (primarily, although not only, psychiatrists/psychologists with philosophical training) who would conceptualize the problems from within and develop a specific metalanguage for analyzing [End Page 265] them (Lanteri-Laura 1991; Reznek 1991; Sass 1992). Not all problems are of the same type. For those that are extrinsic to psychiatry/psychology (definition of the mental, the mind–body relationship, the distinction between causes and reasons, or interdisciplinary reduction), the methods common to the philosophy of science and of the mind can be used. However, issues intrinsic to the disciplines themselves (the nature of mental symptoms and how they are generated, how to explain their heterogeneity, what a MD is, how to diagnose and classify it, or how to implement a psychopathological project) cannot be dealt with using preestablished formulas, and require new and original proposals that take into account the nature of the disciplines and their object of study (Villagrán 2007).The authors of the target article base their preference for the centripetal approach for responding to one of the intrinsic questions of psychiatry (what MDs are) on the consequences of what they call the Charcot effect, a kind of variant of observer bias applied to psychiatric diagnosis. They offer as an example the classic diagnosis ad iuvantibus in its postmodern version, namely, the efficacy of the pharmaceutical industry in contributing to creating nosological entities for which their drugs are indicated. Consequently, clinicians are not only unable to surmount the substantial epistemological obstacles that hamper attempts to theorize, but also find themselves doomed to assuming an ingenuous essentialism that considers MDs as natural kinds (such as apples, trees, or dogs) determined... (shrink)

Reseña del libro: Martin Heidegger y Karl Löwith, Briefwechsel. 1919–1973 -/- .

BackgroundScientific literature on posttraumatic growth after terrorist attacks has primarily focused on persons who had not been directly exposed to terrorist attacks or persons who had been directly exposed to them, but who were assessed few months or years after the attacks.MethodsWe examined long-term PTG in 210 adults directly exposed to terrorist attacks in Spain a mean of 29.6 years after the attacks. The participants had been injured by a terrorist attack or were first-degree relatives of people who had been (...) killed or injured by a terrorist attack. They completed diagnostic measures of emotional disorders and measures of PTSD and depression symptomatology, optimism, and PTG.ResultsMultiple regression analyses revealed gender differences and a positive linear relationship between PTG and cumulative trauma after the terrorist attack. Some PTG dimensions were significantly associated with PTSD symptomatology, these associations being linear, not curvilinear. However, PTG was not associated with depression symptomatology, diagnosis of emotional disorders, age, elapsed time since the attack, or optimism. In comparison with survivors assessed 18 years after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Spanish victims of terrorism showed higher levels of appreciation of life, but lower levels of relating to others and spiritual change.ConclusionThe findings underscore the influence of gender on PTG and provide support to the hypothesis that some emotional distress may be a necessary condition of PTG. Future studies on PTG after terrorist attacks should take into consideration the characteristics of the terrorist attack itself and the contexts of violence and threat in which it occurred. The political, social, and cultural characteristics of the community affected by it and the profile and characteristics of other traumatic events suffered after the attack should also be taken into account in further research. (shrink)

Este artículo expone el resultado de la puesta en práctica de una metodología docente novedosa a través de la que se busca superar las dificultades que el proceso de enseñanza/aprendizaje encuentra en las asignaturas jurídicas que forman parte de los grados universitarios no jurídicos. Comienza destacando el papel que tienen las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación en dicho proceso y, significativamente, el campus virtual. Seguidamente, desgrana cada uno de los elementos de la metodología docente aplicaba, entre los que (...) encuentra la gamificación. Concluye con la determinación de las consecuencias de la experiencia desarrollada. (shrink)

Nuestra investigación etnográfica (2019- 2020) en torno a las exhumaciones de fosas comunes del franquismo en el cementerio de Paterna (Valencia) planteó una serie de cuestiones sobre la importancia de realizar una aproximación biográfica a los escenarios de violencia y perpetración. Esto nos proporciona una potente herramienta de análisis que permite ir más allá de la mera secuencia temporal de los hechos y los espacios, dotándolos de agencia propia. Además, permite situar en el centro del debate otras memorias, las de (...) las mujeres, que, debido a las características de los actuales procesos de exhumación, se han ido desplazando hacia los márgenes. (shrink)

Gracias a los estudios de los últimos años, la Escuela de Salamanca ha dejado de ser esa gran desconocida de la historia del pensamiento español. Con ello se ha ganado también precisión sobre qué se entienda por Escuela de Salamanca, algo solidario con la comprensión de su carácter específico y sus integrantes. Los temas de “moral” y “política” que sus autores iluminaron dándoles una fundamentación teológica y filosófica, siguen siendo una propuesta interesante, no sólo para comprender la historia de las (...) ideas, sino como propuesta sistemática con la que considerar la temática señalada. (shrink)