This article analyzes the interpretation proposed by Michel Foucault of the Iranian Revolution, i.e. the popular uprisings and revolts that took place in Iran in 1978 and their consequences in the formation of the Islamic Republic in 1979, with the aim of systematizing the thought of the philosopher about this question and of going further in a highly potent matrix in his production which unfortunately has been partly eclipsed by the shallow and hasty criticisms it received. For this purpose, I (...) will proceed to the exam of the problematic cores and the conceptual categories arising from what can be called Foucault’s dossier Iran accounting for the relationship between the subject, politics and history. Likewise, I will highlight the main axes of that interpretation following the link with the researches and central lines that Foucault is developing at that moment, in particular, the relationship he establishes between life, government and truth and the reformulation of the problem of power in terms of the problem of government which will enable him to deploy that aspect of his analyses of power and politics relating to resistance, freedom and the critique of the present. Finally, I will propose an assessment in perspective, underlining the scope and the potentialities of the Foucauldian ideas about these events. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza la noción de vida del paradigma biopolítico foucaultiano a partir de una bivalencia fundamental de la vida, entendida tanto como correlato de un poder que la domina y la administra, como posibilidad de un poder que resiste y que escapa siempre también a las tecnologías biopolíticas y se enfrenta a ellas. Ahora bien, ¿de dónde extrae Foucault esas virtualidades de la vida?, ¿con qué materiales construye ese concepto? y sobre todo, ¿qué alcances y potencialidades tiene? El análisis, (...) que toma en consideración la producción foucaultiana en su conjunto así como el aparato crítico sobre esta problemática, destaca y se centra, en particular, en el ascendente nietzscheano, lo que tendrá consecuencias de importancia para comprender desarrollos ulteriores sobre la vida en el pensamiento del filósofo francés, como la estética de la existencia, la resistencia, la crítica y la libertad. Con el fin de llevar a cabo este trabajo, el artículo se estructura a partir de los siguientes puntos: una breve revisión de la noción de vida al interior de la producción foucaultiana en su conjunto; el análisis de la noción de vida que Foucault presenta hacia mediados de los años 1970 en lo que se podría denominar el “paradigma biopolítico” y, en particular, en su relación con las nociones de poder y de gobierno; el examen de la genealogía entre las nociones de vida y de poder del paradigma biopolítico foucaultiano y la noción nietzscheana de “voluntad de poder”; y la propuesta de un conjunto de conclusiones tentativas de la noción de vida en el paradigma biopolítico foucaultiano, destacando una serie de alcances y potencialidades del componente de la resistencia de esa noción. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza las ideas que Foucault produjo sobre la cuestión del racismo con el fin de evaluar sus alcances y potencialidades para seguir pensando hoy esa problemática, para interactuar con ella, pero también para discutir con esa perspectiva y para revisar las transmutaciones, los trastocamientos y las nuevas configuraciones que el racismo puede asumir actualmente. El desarrollo argumental se estructura a partir del examen de los siguientes puntos: la noción de racismo elaborada por Foucault y su complementaria de racismo (...) de Estado, como transformaciones fundamentales de la idea de la guerra de razas y del discurso de la contra-historia y como epifenómenos de la biopolítica; el modelo de la guerra, el discurso de la contra-historia y la guerra de razas como los antecedentes que, en el análisis foucaultiano, llevaron, en el interior de las sociedades y los Estados europeos, pero también en una relación inescindible con los sistemas de clasificación y jerarquización social de las colonias, a la idea de racismo, o al menos, a un cierto desarrollo paradigmático de aquello que concebimos como racismo; y finalmente, una serie de conclusiones tentativas acerca de las ideas que Foucault propone para abordar y analizar el racismo, sopesando los alcances y las potencialidades de esas ideas. (shrink)

In this article, I propose a Foucauldian reading of the so-called Conquest of the Desert, which took place in Argentina during the 19th century. This event played a foundational role in the formation of the Argentinian nation-state and its society, and its effects are still present in the current political, economic, social, and cultural scenario of the country. After a brief presentation of the “Conquest of the Desert”, I examine the concepts that the Foucauldian thought offers to analyze this event (...) and its implications and derivations. Then, I outline ideas, tools and lines of study that can help understand the event, extracted from research developed following the Foucauldian thought, or which discuss with it and attend to the particularities and specificities of the event. Finally, I present the conclusions that resulted from analyzing the ideas, tools, and orientations, and weigh their scope and potential, as an epilogue to the issues raised. (shrink)

Dans cet article je me propose d’analyser dans quelle mesure les droits humains peuvent constituer un outil d’émancipation et de construction de nos démocraties compte tenu des critiques fortes qui leur ont été adressées depuis le XIXe siècle et notamment au cours du XXe siècle, en particulier, à partir du paradigme dit postmoderne. Plus spécifiquement, j’essaierai de répondre à cette question à partir de la position foucaldienne à l’égard de la production de droits, notamment de ce que le philosophe appelle (...) les « droits des gouvernés », liés, dans sa production, à la notion de « nouveau droit », comme stratégie de résistance et comme « pratique de liberté ». Ma réponse sera également orientée, en dernière instance, par le besoin d’examiner la potentialité et la portée des droits humains dans l’arène politique actuelle. (shrink)

Esta ponencia pretende hacer explícita la particular relación que Michel Foucault y Giorgio Agamben postulan entre la vida y el poder como una relación de imbricación por la cual el poder siempre ha dado forma a la vida, en el sentido de lo viviente, apresándola bajo modalizaciones específicas y, por esta vía, propone asimismo una hermenéutica de las formas contemporáneas del sujeto a partir de la relación señalada. A tal fin, se revisará la forma particular en que la vida en (...) tanto zōē o simple vida biológica o animal, se ha imbricado con el poder en Occidente y en particular en la modernidad, para producir determinadas formas humanas en las que la vida en términos de bios o vida calificada por la cultura y la polis, ha quedado, en forma contraria a las declaraciones de principios explícitos de la arquitectura metafísicopolítica, neutralizada. Para ello, se examinarán en especial, los desarrollos de Michel Foucault y de Giorgio Agamben en torno del biopoder y la biopolítica, la nuda vida y las figuras del homo sacer y el estado de excepción y el paradigma de la teología económica. (shrink)

The paper is a comparative study of the methodologies of Malthus and Ricardo. Its claims are: (i) economic laws almost always admit of exceptions for Malthus; for Ricardo even contingent predictions allow no exception apart from random temporary variations; (ii) both rely on the prestigious Newtonian paradigm, while interpreting it according to two distinct methodological traditions (the one deriving from MacLaurin, the other from Priestley); (iii) the choice of stressing what happens during intervals or in permanent states leads to opposing (...) definitions of the main problem of economic science in so far as equilibrium is always already given for Ricardo and is never given for Malthus; (iv) their use of the ambiguous notion of "tendency" leaves unclear for both the degree of predictive power with which theories are endowed; (v) what both share is the idea of a natural order and this idea is the source of both shortcomings and endless disagreement. -/- . (shrink)

We examine the most famous controversy between economists as a means of shedding fresh light on the current debate about economic methodology. By focusing on the controversy as the primary unit of analysis, we show how methodological considerations are but one of a whole set of stratagems strategically employed by each opponent. We argue that each opponent's preference for a particular kind of stratagems expresses his own specific scientific style (within the general scientific and cultural style of an age). We (...) also describe a dynamic dimension of the controversy, independent of the participants' intentions. Such a dimension is analysed in a "cycle" of the controversy, which begins with a well-defined issue and expands to additional topics, without reaching a "solution" to the initial issue. The definition and re-definition of the issue(s) at stake and of the difference between both participants is an essential and recurrent feature of such cycles; the conclusion of a cycle does not imply a real "closure" of the controversy, but only that each opponent has reached a satisfying degree of self-clarification. The controversy, thus, does not yield persuasion -- its ostensible aim. Rather, its "benefit" seems to lie in an unintended result -- clarification and deepening of contrasting approaches to the discipline -- due to its peculiar dynamics. In so far as the history of a discipline requires a reconstruction of such contrasts, it is indispensable for it to take into account the controversies where they emerge, and to view both the positive doctrines and the methodological posture of the contenders as parts of a wider framework, that is a scientific style. (shrink)

Although the controversy between Malthus and Ricardo has long been considered to be an important source for the history of economic thought, it has hardly been the object of a careful study qua controversy, i.e. as a polemical dialogical exchange. We have undertaken to fill this gap, within the framework of a more ambitious project that places controversies at the center of an account of the history of ideas, in science and elsewhere. It is our contention that the dialogical co-text (...) is essential for reconstructing the meaning and the evolution of science. In the present paper we try to substantiate this contention by means of a pragma-rhetorical study of this particular controversy. First, we reconstruct, through an analysis of a chunk of the correspondence, a micro-level of specific moves and countermoves which constitute a sequential structure within which also meta-scientific and meta-controversial considerations play a role. We then move to a macro-level of analysis, looking for recurrent patterns of argumentation. Finally, we draw epistemological conclusions on the nature of rationality and progress as manifested in actual scientific controversies. (shrink)

We reconstruct the text, that is, we analyse the development of the discussion between Malthus and Ricardo both in the correspondence and in published works, paying special attention to (a) the use of methodological statements, (b) some pragmatic features of the controversy, (c) considerations pertaining to the meta-level of the controversy (assessments of the status of the controversy, of ways of solving it, etc.); then, we reconstruct the co-text, that is, unpublished papers by each opponent that were not made available (...) to the other, records of exchanges between each of these and third parties, etc.; thirdly, we describe the essential features of the context, focusing on events that influenced the course of the controversy; (iv) we draw lessons from our case study on the role of co-text and context, on pragmatic and semantic interpretation, and on "casts of mind”. (shrink)

We reply to Philippe Depoortère’s paper “On Ricardo’s method: The Unitarian influence examined. Some comments on Cremaschi and Dascal’s article ‘Malthus and Ricardo on Economic Methodology’”. Depoortère asks two questions: (1) was Ricardo’s ‘conversion’ to Unitarianism sincere? (2) did Ricardo follow the methodologies of Priestley and Belsham? His answers are that he was a ‘religious skeptic’ and he was not an ‘empiricist’ like Priestley and Belsham. We reply that the sincerity of Ricardo’s religious beliefs is irrelevant since we start with (...) the evidence that he was exposed for a long time to the intellectual influence of Belsham, primarily in matters of philosophy, and to deny this would imply a negative answer to a different question, namely, did Ricardo attend Unitarian meetings for 15 years? Then we reply that Ricardo inherited Belsham’s version of Newtonian methodology which omitted the fourth rule, that is the most anti-Cartesian and anti-systematic rule, and this has little to do with empiricism but instead with apriorism. (shrink)

Resumen: Dada la multiplicidad de planos que acompañan a las observaciones de la actual pandemia, importa identificar aquellas que alcanzan una mayor resonancia. Así, observamos cómo los ciudadanos y los agentes de decisión han incrementado sus demandas de informaciones validadas por medio de la aplicación de la racionalidad, los métodos y los procedimientos de la ciencia de manera exponencial. En este trabajo desarrollamos en forma sintética un conjunto seleccionado de lineamientos sobre cómo se aborda la actual pandemia desde las ciencias (...) sociales sistémicas, para luego exponer algunas de sus propuestas respecto a las condiciones, a nivel organizacional, las cuales podrían permitir alcanzar los niveles de diálogo y cooperación requeridos para enfrentar la pandemia actual.: Given the multiplicity of perspectives that accompany the observation of the current pandemic, becomes relevant to identify those that achieve the greatest resonance. Thus, it is observed how citizens and decision makers have increased their demands for valid information by applying rationality, methods, and procedures of science in an exponential manner. In this paper we develop a synthetic set of selected guidelines on how the current pandemic is approached from systemic social sciences, and then present some of their proposals regarding the conditions, at the organizational level, which could enable the achievement of the levels of dialogue and cooperation required to address the current pandemic. (shrink)

Both Adam Smith's epistemology and his politics lead to a stalemate. The former is under the opposing pulls of an essentialist ideal of knowledge and of a pragmatist approach to the history of science. The latter still tries to provide a foundation for a natural law, while conceiving it as non-absolute and changeable. The consequences are (i) inability to complete both the political and the epistemological works projected by Smith; (ii) decentralization of the social order, giving rise to several partial (...) orders, such as that of the market. (shrink)

El viernes 01 de julio de 2022 se realizó, en el edificio Sergio Karakachoff de la UNLP, la presentación de los dos volúmenes de la "Antología comentada" de la obra de José Sazbón compilados por Alberto Pérez y Daniel Lvovich. La antología reúne el trabajo realizado durante décadas por el intelectual argentino José Sazbón, quien fuera profesor e investigador de la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación y el primer Director de la Maestría en Historia y Memoria. (...) Recopilamos aquí las intervenciones de Fernanda Tocho (Secretaria Académica de la Maestría en Historia y Memoria), Mariana Canavese (UBA-CONICET), María Belforte (UBA-CONICET), Marcelo Starcenbaum (UNLP-CONICET), quienes oficiaron de presentadores de la antología, junto a sus compiladores, Daniel Lvovich (UNGS) y Alberto Pérez (UNLP), acompañados además por Carlos Gazzera (Director de Eduvim) y Ayelén Sidún (Decana de la Facultad de Periodismo y Comunicación Social). (shrink)

This article investigates the existence of an original Brazilian legal culture. It parts from a critical examination of the key moments in the history of Brazil through the accounts of its most important scholars, such as Caio Prado Júnior, Darcy Ribeiro, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Wilson Martins, Oliveira Viana, Roberto Damatta, José Murilo de Carvalho, among others. It identifies in the Brazilian legal culture something one might call tradition of exception, which can be found in many of its most prominent (...) aspects, such as the persistent denial of any general or abstract regulatory standards, the uncritical introduction of foreign doctrines and legal patterns, the maintenance of aristocratic traditions in social life and the historical disregard of the Brazilian people as political subject. The article also offers a reflection on the problems and potentials of the current historic moment, in which for the first time Brazilians face the possibility of a genuine cultural emancipation. (shrink)

Índice del número colectivo Minga-Mutirão de Revistas Latinoamericanas de Teología 2013, «A los 40 años de la Teología de la Liberación: balance y futuro» VIGIL, José Maria. Presentación . BARROS, Marcelo; VIGIL, José Maria. Anunciaron su muerte, ¡pero está bien viva! Teología de la Liberación 40 años: balance y perspectivas . SUSIN, Luiz Carlos, Secretario Executivo do Foro Mundial de Teologia e Libertação, Porto Alegre, Brasil, Teologia da Libertação: de onde viemos, para onde vamos? ALMEIDA, Antonio José de , (...) Teologia da Libertação e transições eclesiasis pendentes para o futuro. ARAGÃO, Gilbraz, Recife, Brasil, A Libertação se desdobra em diálogo. Teologia da Libertação e pluralismo religioso. BARROS, Marcelo, Recife, Brasil, Para una teología bolivariana de la Liberación. Teología de la Liberación y Patria Grande hoy . SCHIAVO, Luigi, San José, Costa Rica , Tiempos oscuros, tiempos de monstruos. Teología de la Liberación y nuevos desafíos culturales. OSORIO, Sergio, Bogotá, Colombia , Una nueva dimensión epistemológica para la teología. La Teología de la Liberación y el desafío epistemológico. RODRIGUES SILVA Marcos, Coordenador da Comissão de Teologia Afro da ASETT, Teologia Afro (ou Negra) da Libertação: balanço e perspectivas. TOMICHÁ, Roberto, Cochabamba, Bolivia, Teologías de la liberación indígenas. VÉLEZ, Consuelo, Coordinadora de la Comisión de Teología Feminista de la ASETT, Universidad Xaveriana, Bogotá, Colombia, Teología feminista latinoamericana de la Liberación: balance y futuro. KERBER, Guillermo : Teología de la liberación y movimiento ecuménico. CASTILLO, Jorge, panameño profesor de teología en la Universidad de Nijmegen, Holanda, Teología de la liberación y «cristianismo mundial». VIGIL, José María, Panamá, Panamá, Teología de la Liberación en camino hacia nuevos paradigmas. (shrink)

Most contemporary action theorists accept – or at least find plausible – a belief condition on intention and a knowledge condition on intentional action. The belief condition says that I can only intend to ɸ if I believe that I will ɸ or am ɸ-ing, and the knowledge condition says that I am only intentionally ɸ-ing if I know that I am ɸ-ing. The belief condition in intention and the knowledge condition in action go hand in hand. After all, if (...) intending implies belief, and if ɸ-ing intentionally implies intending to ɸ, then in ɸ-ing, I intend to be ɸ-ing, and, by the belief condition, I believe that I am ɸ-ing, and if this belief is justified, and we are not in a Gettier situation, etc., then, I will also satisfy the knowledge condition. Moreover, the claim that when intentions properly result in action, the corresponding belief constitutes knowledge is a relatively safe assumption, at least as an assumption about what it is generally the case. (shrink)

Scientists have always attempted to explain the world in terms of a few unifying principles. In the fifth century B.C. Democritus boldly claimed that reality is simply a collection of indivisible and eternal parts or atoms. Over the centuries his doctrine has remained a landmark, and much progress in physics is due to its distinction between subjective perception and objective reality. This book discusses theory reduction in physics, which states that the whole is nothing more than the sum of its (...) parts: the properties of things are directly determined by their constituent parts. Reductionism deals with the relation between different theories that address different levels of reality, and uses extrapolations to apply that relation in different sciences. Reality shows a complex structure of connections, and the dream of a unified interpretation of all phenomena in several simple laws continues to attract anyone with genuine philosophical and scientific interests. If the most radical reductionist point of view is correct, the relationship between disciplines is strictly inclusive: chemistry becomes physics, biology becomes chemistry, and so on. Eventually, only one science, indeed just a single theory, would survive, with all others merging in the Theory of Everything. Is the current coexistence of different sciences a mere historical venture which will end when the Theory of Everything has been established? Can there be a unified description of nature? Rather than an analysis of full reductionism, this book focuses on aspects of theory reduction in physics and stimulates reflection on related questions: is there any evidence of actual reduction? Are the examples used in the philosophy of science too simplistic? What has been endangered by the search for (the) ultimate truth? Has the dream of reductionist reason created any monsters? Is big science one such monster? What is the point of embedding science Y within science X, if predictions cannot be made on that basis? (shrink)

Though it is held that some models in science have explanatory value, there is no conclusive agreement on what provides them with this value. One common view is that models have explanatory value vis-à-vis some target systems because they are developed using an abstraction process. Though I think this is correct, I believe it is not the whole picture. In this paper, I argue that, in addition to the well-known process of abstraction understood as an omission of features or information, (...) there is also a family of abstraction processes that involve aggregation of features or information and that these processes play an important role in endowing the models they are used to build with explanatory value. After offering a taxonomy of abstraction processes involving aggregation, I show by considering in detail several models drawn from different sciences that the abstraction processes involving aggregation that are used to build these models are responsible for their having explanatory value. (shrink)

Roughly 40% of the sizeable medical research and literature on recently approved drugs is “ghost managed” by the pharmaceutical industry and its agents. Research is performed and articles are written by companies and their agents, though apparently independent academics serve as authors on the publications. Similarly, the industry hires academic scientists, termed key opinion leaders, to serve as its speakers and to deliver its continuing medical education courses. In the ghost management of knowledge, and its dissemination through key opinion leaders, (...) we see the pharmaceutical industry attempting to hide or disguise the interests behind its research and education. (shrink)

This paper deals with the proposal of a person‐affecting version of the principle of Procreative Beneficence. Such a principle has been stated by Savulescu & Kahane in an impersonal form and balanced with a person‐affecting principle of harm to address the moral problem of the selection of future children. The paper aims to show some differences between Person‐affecting Procreative Beneficence and Savulescu & Kahane’s hybrid position, and to distinguish the former from other pro‐selection perspectives. Moreover, it explores the extension of (...) such a principle beyond selection to other issues of reproductive ethics. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to understand more precisely what kind of irrationality involved in procrastination. The chapter argues that in order to understand the irrationality of procrastination one needs to understand the possibility and the nature of what I call “top-down independent” policies and long-term actions. A policy or long-term action) is top-down independent if it is possible to act irrationally relative to the adoption of the policy without ever engaging in a momentary action that is per se (...) irrational. involved in procrastination one needs to It argues that procrastination is one of the corresponding vices of an overlooked virtue; namely, “practical judgment.” On this account, procrastination turns out to be a failure of instrumental rationality that can be so characterized without assuming the correctness of any further norms of practical rationality. Thus this account of procrastination also constitutes an important objection to Christine Korsgaard’s claim that a purely instrumental conception of rationality is incoherent. (shrink)

This chapter discusses some strategies pharmaceutical companies employ to establish influence and even hegemony over domains of medical knowledge: marketing products via medical research and education. The chapter thus contributes to understanding the political economy of knowledge in this industry. As a counterpart to traditional epistemology, studying the political economy of knowledge shifts attention from individual claims and their justifications to some of the forces available to shape terrains on which claims are produced, distributed, and consumed.Of pharmaceutical companies’ clinical research, (...) 70–75% is performed by contract research organizations. CROs conduct trials with one eye to the drug approval process and the other to the marketing of products. On the basis of trial data, analyzed by pharmaceutical company statisticians and scientists, publication planners design suites of scientific manuscripts and hire ghostwriters to write them. These are then given to academic authors, who generally have had little prior connection to the research, analysis, or writing. The manuscripts are published in medical journals appropriate for the audiences the companies wish to reach.The doctors and researchers with whom companies engage most closely are generally termed key opinion leaders. In addition to authoring manuscripts, KOLs serve companies in a number of roles, but most prominently as speakers—at professional meetings, in after-dinner and similar settings arranged by sales representatives, and in continuing medical education courses, which doctors must take to keep their licenses. Research, education, and marketing, then, are often fused. (shrink)

In chapter one I will try to reconstruct a plot, or a hidden agenda, in the discussion in ethics between the beginning of the twentieth century and 1958, the year of a decisive turning point in ethics, both Anglo-Saxon and Continental, and strangely enough also the year of the beginning of the end of the Cold War, of post-Tridentine Catholicism, and perhaps something else. My hypothesis will be that there are two similar starting points for the Anglo-Saxon and the Continental (...) twentieth-century discussion, the philosophies of Henry Sidgwick and Friedrich Nietzsche, both expressions of some kind of ethical scepticism, and that a third, somewhat analogous starting-point could be found in Émile Durkheim, the proponent of the dream of the morale laïque. I will discuss how far the diagnosis formulated by Karl-Otto Apel of a kind of ‘parallel convergence' between existentialism and analytic philosophy, based on the shared division of facts and values that eventually justified two kinds of 'decisionism' is useful in making sense of the agenda of the discussion. In the second chapter I will discuss the reasons for two parallel U-turns around 1958 which brought back traditional schools of normative ethics, 'deontologism' and utilitarianism, as well as the reasons for criticism to both schools from the heterogeneous alignment of virtue ethics. In the third chapter I will discuss the remarkable phenomenon of the emergence, starting with the Sixties or the early Seventies, of ‘applied’ ethics. I examine the reasons, both theoretical and political, for the revival, the point to which applied ethics may look as a grand return of a casuistic and natural law way of thinking, or in Alan Donagan’s words a case of “reverse subversion” of the modern secular world by traditional Scholastic ways of thinking, and the difficult coexistence between general normative ethics and procedures for settling issues in a ‘reasonable’ way while dissent on issues of principle is as alive as ever. Then I try to draw a provisional moral. My suggestions are that (i) casuistry is more alive than ever; (ii) natural law thinking is more alive than ever; (iii) moral dilemmas never arise; (iv) moral dissent is treatable, with the right strategy; (v) practical philosophy does not need the same degree of exactness as the theoretical sciences but this is no obstacle to its working in practice. (shrink)

For non-analytic ethical naturalists, externalism about moral motivation is an attractive option: it allows naturalists to embrace a Humean theory of motivation while holding that moral properties are real, natural properties. However, Michael Smith has mounted an important objection to this view. Smith observes that virtuous agents must have non-derivative motivation to pursue specific ends that they believe to be morally right; he then argues that this externalist view ascribes to the virtuous agent only a direct de dicto desire to (...) do what is morally right, but not a direct motivation to be kind, help those in need, et. I first clarify this “fetishism objection”; I then show how the non-analytical naturalist can provide an understanding of virtuous motivation that is immune to this objection. (shrink)

La percepción clara y distinta es el elemento sobre el que se asienta la certeza metafísica de Descartes. Con todo, el planteamiento de los argumentos escépticos referidos a la duda metódica cartesiana ha evidenciado la necesidad de hallar una justificación al propio criterio de la percepción clara y distinta. Frente a los intentos basados en la indubitabilidad de la percepción o en la garantía surgida de la bondad divina, se defenderá una justificación alternativa pragmatista.

I discuss the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. I argue that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one, more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist (...) opponents for polemical purposes, which she seems to endorse even though it is an image manufactured by the same writers she choose as a polemical target; d) the difficulty to identify the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favor of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is precisely a response to difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action, a case for which Anscombe herself has nothing better to offer. (shrink)

A reconstruction of the discussion on issues of economic ethics in the Talmud, in Islamic religious, juridical and philosophical literalture, in Medieval literature, and in Reformed casuistry.

A discussion of distinct usages of the term reciprocity in philosophy of language, ethics, logic, anthropology and game theory.

The paper aims at finding a way out of deadlocks in Malthus scholarship concerning his relationship to utilitarianism. The main claim is that Malthus viewed his own population theory and political economy as Hifsdisziplinen to moral and political philosophy, that is, empirical enquiries required in order to be able to pronounce justified value judgments on such matters as the Poor Laws. On the other hand, Malthus’s population theory and political economy were no value-free science and his policy advice – far (...) from being “utilitarian” – resulted from his overall system of ideas and was explicitly based on a set of traditional moral assumptions. These in turn were justified by a peculiar meta-ethical theory, which has been named in a somewhat improper way “theological utilitarianism” and which I propose to name instead “consequentialist voluntarism”. The issue of poverty and its remedies is the one where Malthus’s peculiar approach, once applied to a real-world issue, displays it potentialities, yielding a kind of policy-advice that is softer and more flexible than the one that may be drawn from Benthamite utilitarianism. The reconstruction shows how, through subsequent approximations and under pressure of critics, Malthus yields finally a kind of Institutional approach to policies concerning poverty, making room for generalized basic education, free markets for labour and for corn, colonies, and private beneficence. Such a mix of policies should bring about for the lower classes of society “the means of being respectable, virtuous and happy”. -/- . (shrink)

A short discussion of Charles Taylor's masterwork.

The genealogical deconstruction of the notion of "good" by F.Nietzsche in Genealogy of Morals highlights the arbitrariness of the Platonic unification of various kinds of good, a unification that is still shared by both objectivists and subjectivists. For the same reasons, the attempt of G.E. Moore and other neo-intuitionists to define a single property that is common to all uses of the term "good" and the specular denial of the existence of this property by the emotionalism of A.J. Ayer and (...) Ch.L. Stevenson perhaps debate a false problem. The revival of various forms of Aristotelianism has proposed again Aristotle's answer to Plato: when we say something is good, we want to know what is good, and the answer will be different for different goods. (shrink)

A short historical overview of the idea of equality from early modernity to the twentieth century.

A short presentation of Rawl's theory of justice and its revision in 'Political Liberalism' with an overview of criticism by Ronald Dworkin, Robert Nozick, Alan Buchanan, Amartya Sen and John Harsanyi.

A discussion of 'Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation', a collection of 18 essays by Davidson already published since 1964. The first key idea of the book is the notion of 'radical interpretation', based on the semantic conception of truth, which contrasts with Frege's and the early Wittgenstein's conception of meaning, and is an extension of Quine's notion of radical translation. The second idea is the critique of the distinction between empirical content and the conceptual scheme that organizes it, a distinction (...) that lies at the basis of relativism for which different languages organize the world in different ways; the distinction itself is but a third dogma of empiricism, which has survived the eradication therapy implemented by Quine against the two dogmas of analytical/synthetic distinction and reductionism. The third idea is the "principle of charity". The fourth is the critique of Max Black's theory of metaphor as interaction. (shrink)

Simon Blackburn defends a 'quasi-realist' view intended to preserve much of what realists want to say about moral discourse. According to error theory, moral discourse is committed to indefensible metaphysical assumptions. Quasi-realism seems to preserve ontological frugality, attributing no mistaken commitments to our moral practices. In order to make good this claim, quasi-realism must show that (a) the seemingly realist features of the 'surface grammar' of moral discourse can be made compatible with projectivism; and (b) certain realist-sounding statements which we (...) might use in describing the nature of our moral commitments can be understood in projectivist terms. Much attention has been devoted to whether quasi-realism can deliver (a). I raise an important difficulty with regard to (b). (shrink)

Usual derivations of Lilders's projection rule show that Liuders's rule is the rule required by quantum statistics to calculate the final state after an ideal (minimally disturbing) measurement. These derivations are at best inconclusive, however, when it comes to interpreting Liuders's rule as a description of individual state transformations. In this paper, I show a natural way of deriving Liiders's rule from well-motivated and explicit physical assumptions referring to individual systems. This requires, however, the introduction of a concept of individual (...) state which is not standard. (shrink)

In Gorgias Plato distinguishes empeiria and technê appealing to the notion of reason: Technê offers reasons while empeiria is an alogon pragma. But he links this criterion to the dichotomy of pleasure and good such that the field of technê is limited to good and the field of empeiria to pleasure. I focus on this connection showing its underlying assumptions. I propose to consider that the central dichotomy is that of pleasure and good and that the criterion based on reason (...) can be derived from it. For this I show that good and pleasure do not act solely as objects of technê and empeiria but rather are ways of reasoning and arguing. This leads to the redefinition of the concept of alogon pragma. it must be understood as an activity that is irrational to the extent that it creates pseudoreasons. The concept of Kosmos will be relevant in this context. (shrink)

La celebración del centenario de la publicación de las Meditaciones del Quijote ofrece la oportunidad única de reflexionar sobre una obra que creó un nuevo tipo de reflexión filosófica contemporánea en lengua castellana, reflexión caracterizada por una forma de “ontología del presente”.

Partiendo de la distinción filosófica entre las leyes de la ciencia y las leyes de la naturaleza, en el presente artículo se defiende la indispensabilidad explicativa de las leyes de la ciencia en el campo de las ciencias cognitivas. Se sostiene que las leyes de la ciencia desempeñan un papel epistémico indispensable tanto en el análisis funcional como en la explicación mecanicista de las capacidades cognitivas. De esta manera, se ofrece una elucidación plausible del poder explicativo de las ciencias cognitivas (...) en términos del papel epistémico de las leyes de la ciencia, suspendiendo el juicio, de manera prudente, respecto del controvertido estatus metafísico de las leyes naturales. Se pone en evidencia que tanto quienes defienden como quienes rechazan el compromiso ontológico con leyes causales intencionales presuponen que esas leyes no contribuyen a la explicación funcionalista ni mecanicista de los fenómenos que describen. Sin embargo, en el presente trabajo se argumenta, primero, que el análisis funcional requiere la especificación de leyes científicas no causales y, segundo, que la representación científica precisa de las actividades y de la organización dinámica de un mecanismo se despliega mayoritariamente, en el contexto de un modelo mecanicista, mediante la especificación de leyes científicas. La conclusión es que las leyes científicas (aunque no necesariamente las leyes de la naturaleza) desempeñan un papel indispensable en la explicación en ciencias cognitivas. (shrink)

This text proposes some lines of reflection and action related to a project that links philosophy and childhood, whose pedagogical and investigative activity has been developed in the province of Córdoba, Argentina, for more than twenty-five years. To do this we recover an experience of workshops with children and adults, in a continuous process of reflection on childhood and how children think about themselves. That experience focuses on imagining a particular space and time – living together on an island where (...) adults cannot be found--and from there question the forms of decision making and participation – of political action – that children perform in the territories they inhabit. Here it is proposed that the circumstance of incompleteness regarding issues such as politics and sexuality encompass all age situations and, therefore, it is more appropriate to let ourselves be traversed by restlessness and doubt than to accept a preconceived world in which problems quickly find answers, and what you do not know or cannot be located in a fixed category is unknown, ignored, or remains hidden. We propose to start by not postulating any pre-conceived notions regarding childhoods--thinking of them as hypotheses with unexplored names, bodies and thoughts to get to know. Likewise, it is assumed that reflection on teaching practice relocates philosophy teachers as intellectuals who keep universal explanations in their “professorial pockets,” and reinvent themselves by dealing with specific problems, the small discoveries one makes through exchanges with others--those others that, as in the case of children, there is much to learn about and from. This is the ethical and political task that emerges from a continuous reflection on shared action. Welcome, then, to the island where everything is to be decided and participated in, the island of Serendipity. (shrink)

La presente investigación se propone mostrar que la rehabilitación del ser sensible realizada por la filosofía de Merleau-Ponty es comprensible a partir de una dimensión originariamente virtual. Para esto se plantea una primera descripción del ser sensible a partir de su latencia constitutiva, colocando atención al desplazamiento de su definición que va desde lo dado a la percepción hacia lo que viene-a-ser en su transaparecer. De tal modo, el ser sensible no es originariamente la pura presencia, antes de esto el (...) ser sensible se comprenderá a partir de un proceso de diferenciación entre lo visible y lo invisible. Así, el sentido del ser sensible viene a expresión medialmente, en la medida en que lo sensible es una singularización de un trasfondo operativamente virtual. Finalmente, la presencia singularizada en la experiencia del cuerpo propio y de toda experiencia sensible adquiere un sentido a modo de constante actualización de potencias virtuales, que abren al mundo como permanente desborde, desajuste y descentramiento. (shrink)