The article is a continuation of a paper published in “Etyka”, vol. 21, Concepts of Man in the Náhuatlan Culture and contains an overview of the fundamental types of education provided by the Aztecs, with special emphasis on moral ideals. The investigation of Indian education not only furthers historical knowledge but also plays a role in the search of the origins of the specific religious, moral and behavioural expression of contemporary Mexico, due to the fact that some elements of the (...) education preceding the Spanish conquest became an integral part of the culture of that country. The analysis to which this article bears a testimony permits the author to say that before the conquest, the Aztecs had an integral educational system, an ideal to be put into practice, adequate institutions, competent teachers, didactic material elaborated by specialists. Skill formation practised at all levels of education, was complemented by moral instruction and intellectual, religious and aesthetic guidance. The norms inculcated through training had been worked out through the ages in the náhuatl tribes and served to protect the principal values of the family and social life. They had the function of elementary moral rules and emerged from the conditions of the perennial culture of Mexican Indians. Aside from setting models of behaviour and values, the norms that the author finds in all forms of education display some differentiation which is a reflection of the multi-layered, complex structure of that culture. It embraced two different lifestyles and two ideals. Beneath the dominant religious and military habits of the Aztecs survived the old morality of the Toltecs, preserved most conspicuously in the traditional norms of family life. It has also been expressed in the poetry of the 16th and early 17th centuries. (shrink)

Francis Remedios provides important criticisms of Fuller's position and Fuller's responses to philosophical debates, as well as reconstructions of Fuller's arguments. The result is a carefully argued, in-depth analysis of the work of a very important philosopher of science."--Jacket.

This book examines Fuller’s pioneering vision of social epistemology. It focuses specifically on his work post-2000, which is founded in the changing conception of humanity and project into a ‘post-‘ or ‘trans-‘ human future. Chapters treat especially Fuller’s provocative response to the changing boundary conditions of the knower due to anticipated changes in humanity coming from the nanosciences, neuroscience, synthetic biology and computer technology and end on an interview with Fuller himself. While Fuller’s turn in this direction has invited at (...) least as much criticism as his earlier work, to him the result is an extended sense of the knower, or ‘humanity 2.0’, which Fuller himself identifies with transhumanism. The authors assess Fuller’s work on the following issues: Science and Technology Studies (STS), the university and intellectual life, neo-liberal political economy, intelligent design, Cosmism, Gnosticism, agent-oriented epistemology, proactionary vs precautionary principles and Welfare State 2.0. (shrink)

Remedios’s and Dusek’s response to Lynch’s review is that Lynch misreads Fuller on knowledge and misdirects his criticism of Fuller’s turn to agency.

This articles is about Steve Fuller’s humanity 2.0 and how it relates to a collective vision of social epistemology.

As a problem for science studies, the commercialization of scientific knowledge is characterized as whether scientific knowledge is a public good, like health care and education, or a positional good, a good whose value allows for exclusion to clients, the opposite of a public good (Callon 1994; Mirowski and Sent 2007). Mirowski and Sent (2007) have highlighted the problem of the commercialization and privatization of scientific knowledge. Furthermore, Mirowski (2009) avers that the commercialization of scientific knowledge is the apotheosis of (...) a neoliberal program to promote and to construct free markets as the central condition of success of the neoliberal agenda. Mirowski argues that the problem of commercialization of scientific knowledge is that scientific knowledge is being transformed from a public good to a positional good. A further argument from Mirowski (2009b) is that science has been harmed by its commercialization. (shrink)

If there is life elsewhere in the universe and its level of development is as backward as its terrestrial counterpart, they will probably have sociologists and political scientists constructing and deconstructing social reality. If and when they finally make contact with earth, these pundits will have great difficulty making sense of American race relations, no matter how many studies the Federation will commission to make sense out of the subject. The earth's most developed country, whose success is largely due to (...) its heterogeneity, pragmatism and common sense, does not seem able to deal with differences in skin pigmentation, to the point that its best intellectuals systematically make fools of themselves in explaining it. (shrink)

A special edition of the journal Social Epistemology on Fuller’s Thomas Kuhn.

Neoliberalism advocates for the construction of free markets, which are to be used for solutions to economic and social problems rather than state solutions to those problems. Though Neoliberal reforms in Japan have affected its science and technology, STS literature has not focused on responses to neoliberalism through the lens of a country. Japan has a discrete STS history and Japan makes a good case study to the influence of neoliberalism on STS. In August 2010, at Tokyo’s Social Studies of (...) Science (4S) meetings, there were several sessions on neoliberalism and STS. At these sessions, Kunio Goto, Yasumoto Fujita, Hidetoshi Kihara, Hideto Nakajima, Steve Fuller, David Hess, Francis Remedios presented different responses to neoliberalism and STS. This special issue explores two themes. The first theme is Goto's and Fujita's call for a revitalization of Marxist STS as an alternative to the influence of neoliberalism on STS in Japan. The second theme is Kihara's and Nakajima's call for a revitalization of a critical function of STS in Japan. Hess examines STS as a field and its response to neoliberalism in Europe and Anglophone countries. (shrink)

El siguiente trabajo, dedicado a la memoria del profesor Mariano Álvarez Gómez, se basa en sus trabajos sobre Sófocles y reflexiona sobre la naturaleza del conflicto trágico. En Edipo Rey este conflicto se ilustra mediante la lucha entre realidad y apariencia, entre apariencia y ser, y es tanto más trágico cuanto más se obstina Edipo en conocer su origen. En Antígona, siguiendo la interpretación hegeliana, el conflicto se pone en relación con el concepto griego de phrónesis, a través de los (...) sucesivos enfrentamientos entre los principales protagonistas de la tragedia, pero se mantiene siempre abierta la posibilidad de superación de dicho conflicto. Al final, se apunta otra interpretación que afirma la imposibilidad de superarlo y la función que en ese caso asume el arte. (shrink)

Fullerand Rouse are both political social epistemologists concerned with the cognitive authority of science, though both disagree on what role it should play in science. Fullerar gues that political factors such as knowledge policy and a constitution play a primary role in the global legitimation of scientific knowledge, while Rouse holds that politics play a role on the local (practices) level but not on the global (metascientific) level of legitimation. While Fullerpr ovides a political response to the legitimation project, Rouse (...) rejects the legitimation project because he holds that it involves the need forglobal legitimation of the place of scientific knowledge in our culture. Key Words: legitimation project • social epistemology • epistemic sovereignty • metascience • scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Comparison of Steve Fuller's and Alvin Goldman's social epistemologies.

Realist dialetheism is the view that there are contradictions in reality. One argument against this idea says that it is impossible because it has to make room for the possibility of a trivial reality, which is metaphysically impossible. Another argument against it says that the metaphysical structure of reality is such that it is impossible to have contradictions in it. I argue here that both arguments fail to establish the impossibility of realist dialetheism because they are based on a misconception (...) about the notions of negation and contradiction, which leads them, in the first case, to wrongly hold that dialetheism has to be compatible with trivialism, and, in the second case, to assume that the validity of the Aristotelian principle of non-contradiction prevents the existence of dialetheias. (shrink)

Review of Fuller’s New Sociological Imagination.

[Omslag] Was is Sprache? Vom Wort als Laut und Gedanke bis zur Verwirklichung der Sprache als bedeutungsgeladenes Schweigen. Das Thema der Sprache kann und wird von verschiedenen Blickwinkeln behandelt: Sprache als Grammatik, als Baustein der Gedanken, als Kommunikationsmittel, als Kunst, als Ausdruck einer Kultur, einer Weltansicht... Aber was ist Sprache in ihrem wahren Sein? Ist Sprache wirklich bloß Wort? Oder ist Sprache doch ein komplexes, dynamisches Phänomen, welches sich auf mehreren Ebenen ereignet: Ebenen, die sich gegenseitig bedingen, voraussetzen und wesenhaft (...) erst definieren? Liegt die wesenhafte Verwirklichung der Sprache vielleicht in einem scheinbaren Paradox: in einem bedeutungsgeladenen Schweigen? Der vorliegende Versuch einer Sprachontologie befasst sich mit diesen Fragen und untersucht Augustinus, Martin Heidegger und Hans-Georg Gadamer auf ihr Verständnis des Seins der Sprache. (shrink)

La economía como ciencia social, como ciencia para la vida, está siendo interpelada cotidianamente por los efectos de una generalizada lógica de mercado totalizante que causa muerte y desesperanza a grupos cada vez más amplios de seres humanos y que, enfrenta/destruye la construcción de sujetos. Como respuesta, se impone una mirada crítica, una mirada ética y esfuerzos de diálogo multidisciplinario. En tal sentido se viene desarrollando una investigación de la que se comparten avances en este texto. La primera parte recoge (...) resultados parciales de una indagación -desde una perspectiva de la ética para la vida-, de las razones que se aproximan a explicar la negación del sujeto: desde la economía, desde el pensamiento posmoderno y desde la manipulación de los deseos y el poder. En la segunda parte se reflexionan sobre criterios y opciones para la defensa del sujeto, como sujeto viviente, entendiéndolo como subjetividad-intersubjetividad que no es lo mismo que individualidad. Se trata de recuperar el fundamento de la solidaridad humana y el quehacer económico basado en los derechos humanos. (shrink)

Critics and author, Alvin Goldman’s response to Knowledge in the Social World.

La migración internacional es parte de la globalización, todos los países desarrollados han recibido un gran número de inmigrantes. España también ha recibido a alta cantidad de nómadas. La población española era emigrante y ahora ella tiene que hacer frente a este nuevo fenómeno, las sociedades desarrolladas van a tener que adaptarse a las grandes afluencias de extranjeros. La migración ha sido a menudo una fuente de tensiones entre culturas e incluso entre movimientos racistas y xenófobos. Un problema político fundamental (...) en España es la situación que hay en la frontera del sur, por donde mucha gente intenta entrar en la UE desde África, arriesgando su vida y perdiéndola a menudo.International migration is part of globalization, all developed countries have received significant numbers of migrants. Spain have also received a high amount of migrants. Spanish people were traditionally emigrants and now they have to face this new phenomena, developed societies are going to have to face larger inflows of migrants. Migration has often been a source of tensions among cultures and even racist and xenophobic movements. A prominent political problem in Spain is the situation on the Southern border, where many people try to enter the EU from Africa, risking their life and often losing. (shrink)

“Lo terrorífico del animal de ojos duros (…) es que ve todo el tiempo” (Derrida). No extraña que la pregunta por el fin de la intimidad se active en una época de conexión permanente, ojos-pantalla y sobreexposición generalizada. Si las subjetividades modernas se construyeron mirando a un lugar interior, hoy se deriva hacia la “exteriorización del yo”. Como efecto, las personalidades tienden a mercantilizarse y lo privado no se representa, se expone. En la cultura-red los clásicos ámbitos de relación se (...) diluyen en una esfera público-privada hipervisible, reduciendo a su menor expresión los tiempos de intimidad y como ciudadanos. Sin embargo, entre las amenazas para el sujeto humanista la alianza feminista se ve reforzada por este escenario donde lo personal político puede ser público y compartido. Las lecturas críticas señalan una discontinuidad histórica y cultural en el control sobre la visibilización del ámbito más personal y privado que oscila entre la voluntad propia de publicar lo íntimo y la presión del tecnoliberalismo por gestionarla, por dominar el párpado. (shrink)

Considerando el incremento del interés por las emociones en diversos campos de estudio y en la vida cotidiana junto con los importantes avances teóricos de los últimos años, este artículo pretende realizar un análisis y una síntesis de los aspectos teóricos más relevantes para comprender qué es una emoción. Se identifican los diferentes componentes de un episodio emocional, como el sentimiento de la emoción, las expresiones faciales, las tendencias a la acción, entre otros y se analizan las diferentes relaciones causales (...) entre estos componentes que proponen algunas de las teorías más relevantes en la actualidad, como la teoría Neurocultural y la Teoría del Acto Conceptual. Se concluye que las emociones son fenómenos complejos que combinan tanto aspectos biológicos como aspectos culturales y psicológicos, que se relacionan estrechamente con las necesidades psicológicas y con el bienestar. Además, el lenguaje y los procesos de socialización son claves para lograr una educación emocional que facilite la adaptación social y el bienestar de las personas. (shrink)

The article discusses a concrete case of historiosophic theodicy, viz. the conception of August Cieszkowski, in order to present the structure of such conceptions and discuss theoretic and practical problems involved in them. The starting point of Cieszkowski’s deliberations on evil is a historical fact. To substantiate for his historiosophic optimism Cleszkowski must find not only the sense of the times in which he was living but must also explain the past, with all its moral evil: social catastrophes, misery, suffering, (...) and toil of the millions of people. Concentration on historical facts does not eliminate from the scope of his deliberations the problem of God’s acceptance of evil. This problem is simply shifted to another plane of reflections. (shrink)

En el siguiente artículo, nos preguntaremos acerca del significado que lo intempestivo tiene en el pensamiento de Nietzsche y de Foucault y cómo ello implica una crítica a la concepción tradicional de lo histórico y la temporalidad. Teniendo esto en cuenta, desarrollaremos la manera en la que ambos autores interpretan lo histórico. Para este fin, nos centraremos en dos conceptos fundamentales, como son el eterno retorno, en el caso de Nietzsche, y la experiencia-límite, en el caso de Foucault.

El siguiente trabajo estudia las emociones trágicas en Schopenhauer y se ocupa especialmente de la compasión, reivindicando el valor positivo de esta última. En primer lugar, se refiere a la teoría de la tragedia de Aristóteles con el fin de clarificar la posición de Schopenhauer. En segundo lugar, intenta mostrar que la compasión posee en este autor una triple vertiente o función: estética, ética y ontológica. Finalmente, se examina una serie de cuestiones que dan idea de la novedad y originalidad (...) de la reflexión filosófica de Schopenhauer con especial mención de la función educativa del arte. (shrink)

Para Frege, o erro de base do psicologismo é a sua concepção de sujeito, que se concentra no princípio de que meus únicos objetos são conteúdos imanentes da consciência. Entretanto, essa tese não é meramente falsa, mas também refutável. A refutação da mesma aparece, não obstante, tardiamente em Der Gedanke. É esse o sentido último da crítica do idealismo oferecida neste texto. Ela é um passo necessário e imprescindível para assegurar a possibilidade de que captemos pensamentos, possibilidade com a qual (...) se ocupa boa parte do artigo de 1918. (shrink)

Probabilistic Relational Models (PRMs) are a framework for compactly representing uncertainties (actually probabilities). They result from the combination of Bayesian Networks (BNs), Object-Oriented languages, and relational models. They are specifically designed for their efficient construction, maintenance and exploitation for very large scale problems, where BNs are known to perform poorly. Actually, in large-scale problems, it is often the case that BNs result from the combination of patterns (small BN fragments) repeated many times. PRMs exploit this feature by defining these patterns (...) only once (the so-called PRM’s classes) and using them through multiple instances, as prescribed by the Object-Oriented paradigm. This design induces low construction and maintenance costs. In addition, by exploiting the classes’ structures, PRM’s state-of-the-art inference algorithm “Structured Variable Elimination” (SVE) significantly outperforms BN’s classical inference algorithms (e.g., Variable Elimination, VE; Local Conditioning, LC). SVE is actually an extension of VE that simply exploits classes to avoid redundant computations. In this article, we show that SVE can be enhanced using LC. Although LC is often thought as being outperformed by VE-like algorithms in BNs, we do think that it should play an important role for PRMs because its features are very well suited for best exploiting PRM classes. In this article, relying on Faÿ and Jaffray’s works, we show how LC can be used in conjunction with VE and deduce an extension of SVE that outperforms it for large-scale problems. Numerical experiments highlight the practical efficiency of our algorithm. (shrink)