Wittgenstein's views on action and the will changed throughout his philosophical writings, although there are common themes to be found within this evolution. This chapter concerns his later views on action and the will, as expressed in remarks on these topics mainly in Philosophical Investigations. It explores some core themes in those remarks and examines how some of these were taken up and developed by Wittgenstein's student Elizabeth Anscombe, in her influential monograph Intention. Wittgenstein was concerned with offering a characterization (...) of the concepts of voluntary and intentional action that escaped certain familiar philosophical temptations. In the Investigations, Wittgenstein wrote: “When people talk about the possibility of foreknowledge of the future they always forget the fact of the prediction of one's own voluntary movements”. A common thread in their discussion is a conviction in “the uselessness of an introspective explanation of intention”, of the idea that an intention is “a particular feeling, an inner experience”. (shrink)

Language is the main resource for meaningful action, including the very formation of selves and psychosocial identities, shaped by practical norms, beliefs, and values. Thus, language education constitutes one of the most powerful means for both social reproduction and social production and ideological maintenance and utopian innovation. In this paper, we attempt to emphasise the invaluable psychosocial, political, economic, and cultural function of language education in order to propose a critical view of the current transition from the monolingual to a (...) multilingual paradigm. We maintain that multilingual approaches tend to serve the neoliberal framework and reproduce its systemic inequalities. Therefore, we argue in favour of emancipatory multilingual practices that could embody a translingual pedagogy capable of promoting the development of capabilities, the recognition of otherness, and the cultivation of diversity. Rooted in critical theory, namely in Foucault’s notion of subjectification and Freire’s view of conscientisation, an emancipatory translingual pedagogy would enable and empower every learner to synthesise a contextually creative field of new semantic and pragmatic relationships. Critical language education would enhance the ethos of biophilia that fosters what we term the poetics of communality and selfhood, that is to say, the proactive commitment to expanding symbolic and existential novelty. (shrink)

The general topic of this paper is the ontological commitment to so-called "fictitious objects", that is, things and characters of fictional stories, like Sherlock Holmes and Pegasus. Discourse about fiction seems to entail an ontological commitment to fictitious entities, a commitment that is often deemed inconsistent with empirical facts. For instance, "Pegasus is a flying horse" seems to entail "There are flying horses" as well as "Pegasus exists" (according to some widely accepted logical principles). I discuss two solutions that have (...) been proposed in the literature. The first one amounts to rejecting sentences like "Pegasus is a flying horse" as false, at least if they are taken at face value. This solution is called the "story operator strategy". It consists in paraphrasing sentences like "Pegasus is a flying horse" by means of the expression "according to a story" such that they are interpreted as an elliptic formulation of, e.g., "According to a story, Pegasus is a flying horse". I spell out the difficulties of the story operator strategy and opt for a realist ontology of fiction. A novel interpretation of the story operator "according to a story" is given, which is not only consistent with but even sheds new light on such a realist ontology. In particular, it is shown how the story operator can be used as a tool to introduce the so-called "modes of predication distinction" (which is an essential ingredient of many realist ontologies of fiction) in a commonsensical way. (shrink)

States of affairs raise, among others, the following questions: What kind of entity are they (if there are any)? Are they contingent, causally efficacious, spatio-temporal and perceivable entities, or are they abstract objects? What are their constituents and their identity conditions? What are the functions that states of affairs are able to fulfil in a viable theory, and which problems and prima facie counterintuitive consequences arise out of an ontological commitment to them? Are there merely possible (non-actual, non-obtaining) states of (...) affairs? Are there molecular (i.e., negative, conjunctive, disjunctive etc.) states of affairs? Are there modal and tensed states of affairs? (shrink)

IN THE LAST PART of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith puts his theory in a class with those of his contemporaries Francis Hutcheson and David Hume, namely, the systems that make sentiments the principle of approbation. Despite recognizing important differences with both of them, he thinks that since he has placed the origin of moral sentiments in sympathy, and in particular the fact that we are able to enter into the motives of the agent and get pleasure from (...) finding them appropriate to their cause, sentiments are the foundation of his theory of morals. Many of Smith’s commentators, in fact almost all of the most important studies over the last few years, reaffirm the author’s self-description. However, my aim in this paper is to challenge this view by showing that Smith’s system can also be plausibly seen as a theory of practical reasoning, and in some important aspects very similar to Aristotelian ethics. Surprisingly few scholars have seen this parallel. Laurence Berns, Samuel Fleischacker, Charles Griswold, and Gloria Vivenza are the latest exceptions, identifying several points of coincidence between Adam Smith and Aristotle’s ethics. None of them, however, has tied all these similarities under a unified interpretation, such as the one I propose here: The basic analogy between these theories, and the source of those particular coincidences, is the operation of practical reason. Moreover, and besides the common elements with Aristotle’s ethics, Smith’s reconstruction of practical reason simultaneously announces some of the main features of modern accounts of ethics, such as impartiality and universality as preconditions of moral judgment. The integration of these ancient and modern elements in a single coherent theory allows Smith’s TMS to overcome the insufficiencies and paradoxes of both these traditions, and it constitutes one of the most interesting and challenging proposals of modern ethics. (shrink)

En este trabajo se aborda la relación entre la vida del iusfilósofo español, Gregorio Peces-Barba Martínez y el desarrollo de los derechos humanos y de los derechos fundamentales en el ámbito universitario español de los años noventa. Se analiza de manera comparada su evolución en la Argentina en el mismo período de tiempo. Por último, se ponen de resalto tanto las bases integrales (y tridimensionales) del pensamiento del maestro español, como su alcance en el presente y en el porvenir de (...) los derechos. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza los aspectos centrales de la concepción del Estado en El Anti-Edipo. Capitalismo y esquizofrenia, en particular los desarrollos ofrecidos en el capítulo tercero: "Salvajes, Bárbaros, Civilizados". La innovadora figura del Estado surge de un juego polifónico, abigarrado, discontinuo y elíptico con Karl Marx a partir de la noción de Modo de producción asiático; con Friedrich Nietzsche considerando la noción de origen y domesticación; y con Sigmund Freud siguiendo la noción de latencia. Los rasgos centrales para su conceptualización (...) se sintetizan en: 1) El Estado despótico como momento paradigmático de todo Estado y 2) el Estado es entendido como máquina social, en su doble articulación: social y libidinal. The article analyzes the key aspects of the conception of the State in The Anti-Oedipus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia, in particular the developments offered in chapter three: "Savages, Barbarians, Civilized". The innovative idea of the State arises from a game polyphonic from the notion of Asian Production Mode, from the concept of origin and domestication, and from the notion of latency. The central features for conceptualization are summarized as follows: 1) The Despotic State as paradigmatic moment of every State and 2) the State is understood as a social machine, in its double articulation: social and libidinal. (shrink)

The early modern play Sir Thomas More, written by Anthony Munday, Henry Chettle, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood, and William Shakespeare, takes an ecumenical viewpoint of the play's Catholic hero in order to conform to the expectations of the Master of the Revels and to appeal to a cross-confessional audience. The playwrights carefully construct the play within the confines of censorship by centering the play's action around More's dynamic personality instead of giving a full exposition of historical plot. More's personality and (...) famous wit function together as a means for diverting attention away from the controversy surrounding More's silent opposition to Henrician policy while subtly validating his martyrdom. The argument of this article examines the adaptation of the play's ideologically diverse source material, the playwrights’ use of martyrological conventions, and the subtle traces of Erasmian allusion and recusant rhetoric in its reading of the play. (shrink)

En el Santiago del siglo XVIII, los ajustes urbanísticos y sociales emanados de las autoridades se tradujeron en prácticas y representaciones, institucionales y de las otras, que involucraron a todos los habitantes de la ciudad. La actuación decidida de algunos alcaldes, como los de Aguas y los de Barrio, implicó el acomodo de voluntades e intereses, y también el enfrentamiento violento de cuerpos y de subjetividades, los que han quedado registrados en los pleitos por injuria seguidos en tribunales de primera (...) y de última instancia. El análisis comparado de dos casos puntuales, con el auxilio de preguntas y miradas propias de las ciencias sociales, enriquece el conocimiento de la dinámica vida cotidiana en la capital del reino durante el último siglo colonial. (shrink)

In recent years there has been renewed interest in the participation of lay people in regulatory procedures. The debate peaked in the 1980s with the anti-nuclear movements and again more recently as a reaction to the food scandals of the mid-1990s. In the wake of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis there has been a proliferation of European Community rules on the production, processing and retailing of food products, along with the multiplication of scientific committees in order to cope with (...) increased ... (shrink)

The scientist Richard Lovell Edgeworth, educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and Oxford, was a Member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, where he exchanged ideas with other scientists, including James Watt, and was known for his significant mechanical inventions. However, Edgeworth's real interest was education: in this 1788 two-volume work, written with his daughter, the poet Maria Edgeworth, he draws on his own experience of raising twenty children, from which the work derives its authority and innovative character. The work (...) was very influential, and led to his Essays on Professional Education. The two volumes discuss the theories of philosophers and educationalists, while in general arguing for the importance and formative character of early childhood experiences. Volume 1 deals with areas such as play, obedience and behaviour, and Volume 2, with creativity, and public and private education. (shrink)

The reflection proposed in this article aims to briefly consider philosophy and literature on the saga of Genoveva Pia in the early morning cadence of the drums of São Luís (1975), a novel by the great poet from Maranhão, Josué Montello (1917-2006), in which a narrative is made between fiction and the reality of the Brazilian colonial slave period on the historical soil of São Luís, Ma. To this end, the text is divided into two parts: firstly, it looks at (...) the dialectic between history as representative and memory as an actualizable, individual and collective phenomenon that takes shape between spaces, events, memories and forgetfulness and, secondly, it highlights the importance of the saga of the black woman Genoveva Pia, from persistence to resistance in welcoming, protecting and freeing the black men and women, recalling the ancestry of the freed black man Damião, the novel’s central character and narrator. (shrink)

El artículo se propone describir y analizar el discurso pedagógico construido en torno a la política de formación desplegada por la Confederación de Trabajadores de la Economía Popular (CTEP). Desde nuestro abordaje conceptual, la formación política es entendida como un proceso enmarcador que mediatiza la relación del movimiento social y su contexto encuadrando la acción colectiva. Con este fin, se analizan distintos aspectos de la política de formación: (a) su génesis y objetivos; (b) el material de apoyo a la formación; (...) (c) los trayectos formativos establecidos. El supuesto que recorre este artículo plantea que las prácticas político-sindicales de la CTEP y las características de este actor poseen su correlato en el terreno de la política de formación y, en sentido inverso, la construcción de un discurso pedagógico opera en la reafirmación de las prácticas político-sindicales. Se adoptó una metodología cualitativa sustentada en la recopilación de documentos —materiales de apoyo a la formación y artículos de la página web de la CTEP— y la realización de entrevistas a dirigentxs de las distintas organizaciones integrantes de la Confederación vinculadxs a la política de formación. La relevancia de las consideraciones aquí esbozadas reside en abordar un caso de estudio aún poco indagado en general y particularmente desde la perspectiva de la construcción de su discurso pedagógico. (shrink)

La philosophie élaborée à Florence par Marsile Ficin dans la seconde moitié du XVe siècle s'est répandue dans les principales cours princières d'Italie, en particulier celle d'Urbin. Etude de l'influence qu'elle exerça sur les lettres, l'architecture, la peinture et les autres arts (la marqueterie notamment) à la cour du duc Frédéric de Montefeltre et de ses successeurs immédiats.

The article offers us a theologic reflection about the environment crisis which is quickly moved by the human being arrogation and a damning evidence by the accumulation of material estate caused by mass consumerism. But in earlier times however, it was not exactly the way it’s used to be. The dream of the Lord represented in the created Heaven and the power to submit the earth, to get forward with his project joing people living together without violence in our “Casa (...) Comum”, having a goog live. Philosophy “levinasiana” recommends alterability as a tool for ethnic-philosophic to face a large crisis which was developed by the total view that reduces the other to himself. We apply this intuition to present the environment as another cosmos, it expresses an ecological alterability that claims ethnically “No kill”. This call reflects the sound of one-earth, the other-environment nowadays. They seem to be as a cosmie alterability which is so important and needful to human being survives. This conscience needs an ecological conversion taking part in a process salvation revealed by Jesus. It’s necessay and urgent an eco-spirituality. We must pay more attention in considerations of Pope Francis encyclicals Laudato Si, Fratelli Tutti and in his apostolical exhortation Laudate Deum. He advices us about our carelessness with our “Casa Comum”; Our Planet. This reality affects mainly who is needy. It produces inequality, poverty, injustice. Because of that the title of this article means: “Are we all together?”. It means to be a conscious agreement changing the attitude in front of an environment crisis. Then, we will realize that together and aware we will be able to make over again our trajectory, saving our Planet, preserving life. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se realiza un análisis de los Estudios Subalternos, acerca de su posibilidad, avances y fracasos. Se parte de la pregunta por el sujeto subalterno y sobre la posibilidad de éste de crear su propia historia. En el fondo se interroga por el derecho a erigirse como sujeto de lenguaje. Se reflexiona a partir de los aportes de Fanon, Chakrabarty y Mignolo sosteniendo que pueden arrojar luz y así producir verdaderos corrimientos en las epistemologías académicamente consolidadas. Se (...) apuesta a epistemologías fronterizas que tomen en cuenta desde dónde pensamos y que al pensar desde el límite puedan llevar a cabo la propuesta del pensamiento decolonial. (shrink)

This paper presents qualitative research that focus on the Reading Groups. The aim is to understand the values of reading and discussing books in group, during the months of lockdown, caused by the Covid-19 health emergency. Using written and structured interviews, we collected the experiences of 73 adult participants in Reading Group in Milan and Bergamo provinces. The results show how, even by the unusual online mode, the Reading Group was a way to defend oneself from the pain of reality, (...) a space of relationship in isolation and a possibility of self-assertion, in situation of strong limitation of individual freedom. Starting from the analysis of what happened, this study wants to outline the potential of Reading Groups as pedagogical environments to produce change. (shrink)

Este artículo constata la generatividad de la fenomenología en nuestro siglo y la atribuye a su “movimiento”. Explicita la doble concepción del mismo y, tras discutir ciertos aspectos de la generatividad, describe algunos campos de acción de la fenomenología generativa como la intersubjetividad, el interculturalismo y la generatividad artística (poiesis). El artículo introduce, además, el cuerpo vivido, como núcleo de la generatividad humana y de las investigaciones de la fenomenología feminista sobre los problemas de la generatividad a los que ya (...) se refirió Husserl: “el problema de los sexos”, nacimiento y muerte. Esta contribución añade la relación entre temporalización y envejecimiento que, además de poner de relieve el tiempo intersubjetivo e intergeneracional, ejemplifica la fertilidad de la “fenomenología comparada”. (shrink)

While there is some consensus that the frame problem is one of the most controversial and difficult problems to solve within the field of the philosophy of the mind, even today it has not been possible to reach a consensus about its definition or solution. It is for this reason that our main objective is to clarify the interpretation of the original frame problem and some problems that derive from it. We will argue that, even this interpretation among several, has (...) various aspects and that it cannot be interpreted as "an" only problem but rather as a set of problems closely related to the same issue. (shrink)

Como respuesta a una práctica clínica cada vez más especializada, tecnologizada y cientificista, la medicina y la bioética buscan restituir el protagonismo a la experiencia del paciente. Para ello, cada vez más sectores dentro de la medicina y la bioética adoptan un marco teórico proveniente de la tradición hermenéutica o del giro narrativo. Ya no se interpretan sólo los síntomas fisiológicos y los resultados de laboratorio: al incorporar la voz del paciente, se busca considerarlo de manera íntegra, como un texto (...) a ser comprendido. No obstante, la heterogénea recepción de estas perspectivas, obstaculiza la retroalimentación entre teorías. Las que subrayan la arista narrativa dejan entrever un dualismo subyacente entre el cuerpo y el paciente, las capacidades técnicas e interlocutivas de los profesionales, y lo científico y lo narrable, y las que enfatizan la arista hermenéutica tienen inconvenientes a la hora de argumentar la aplicación de la teoría a la vida. En este trabajo, se sostiene que es preciso incorporar la dimensión retórica al horizonte teórico hermenéutico-narrativo en medicina y bioética. Se espera que el presente constituya un aporte a “lo no-dicho” en las definiciones que los especialistas en salud emplean de narrativa, hermenéutica y por supuesto, de texto. (shrink)

Until recently, feminist theory and citizenship theory have seemed two distinct areas, with writers in both camps seldom discussing the other's work.