The relationship between being and goodness is one of the most engaging philosophical questions, particularly in light of the new science, which pointsto the interconnectedness of the physical world. The relationship between being and goodness is examined here in the thought of Bonaventure, who maintainsa primacy of the good. Bonaventure’s integration of philosophy and theology provides an understanding of being as goodness and hence an understandingof being as relational and generative. Because being is good, created reality is intrinsically good and (...) bears within it an inner dynamic toward the pleroma oflove. The implications of Bonaventure’s metaphysics of the good for ecology and epistemology are explored. (shrink)

Pensamiento atrevido y nuevo, visión abierta, donde el lector hallará cuestiones clave del conocimiento, pero también del confundir y fundir, metafísica, física, antropología, sociedad. Desde la psicología a la reunión de los hombres en ciudades, la política, todo penetrado de la mirada estética, como si el saber fuera una de las bellas artes. Cuestiones como la Orden del Temple, la francmasonería, el ciber-arte, la clonación de obras artísticas o las bibliotecas digitales se convierten en ejemplos para una filosofía alternativa. Ilia (...) Galán, Titular de Estética y Teoría del Arte en la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid y profesor invitado en las universidades de Oxford, Harvard, la Sorbona, New Tork University, etc. Columnista habitual en El País, y otros periódicos. Entre sus libros, editados en varios idiomas, destacan: El Dios de los dioses (Ciencia del Arte) 1993, El romanticismo: Schelling o el arte divino Madrid, 1999, Actualidad del pensamiento de Sem Tob (filosofía hispano-hebrea del siglo XIV), 2003, 2004. Teorías del arte desde el siglo XXI, 2005, Sabiduría oculta en el Camino de Santiago, 2011. (shrink)

Hay que entender que los cambios súbitos de todo tipo que nos están afectando globalmente, demuestran claramente que los modelos puramente racionales resultan ser insuficientes para dar respuesta a las complejidades de este mundo. Pero también, hay que entender que los modelos no puramente racionales han sido de difícil lectura y de poca aceptación. Pienso que este es el caso de la Crítica del Juicio. La falta de sensibilidad respecto de la apreciación de esta obra puede deberse a que la (...) misma ha sido calificada en nuestros días como el trabajo arquetípico del postmodernismo, revelando las contradicciones inherentes a toda idea de conocimiento, racionalidad, cultura y arte... “Ya no es el paradigma del clasicismo, ni del formalismo, la última del trio de las tres grandes Críticas se ha convertido de pronto, en el símbolo del deconstruccionismo”. También consideraremos a esta obra, como centro del sistema kantiano, un modelo para los sistemas complejos. Así que luego de señalar I- las discrepancias de Bauman con la Crítica del Juicio, veremos II- las correspondencias de esta obra con los axiomas del postmodernismo, y III- con los sistemas complejos. Luego IV- presentaremos un proyecto de rehabilitación de esta obra, y en V- ‘proyecciones sobre el presente’, expondremos el pensamiento de Bauman y Jonas señalando que no es el futuro, sino el presente de las condiciones globales de la vida humana y la existencia misma de la especie lo que está en peligro inminente. La metafísica de la moral de Jonas, aplicada a una ‘Moralidad sin Concepto,’ cierra el circulo de la nueva moralidad propuesta. Incluímos al final un apéndice sobre el supremo bien. (shrink)

E n e s t e e n s a y o a r g u me n t o q u e l ametafilosofía de los pragmatistas es lacontribución más importante de estosf i l ós of os a l a hi s t or i a de l a f i l os of í ay es t ambi én l o que l os di st i ngue deot ros f i l ósof os. Los f i (...) l ósof os cl ási cosamericanos y losfilósofos pragmatistas hispanos, Ortegay Gasset y Risieri Frondizi, propusieronque l a f i l osof í a debe de part i r desdel a experi enci a, es deci r, un punt o departida práctico. Despues de explicar quésignifica sostener que la experiencia es elpunto de partida, examino las razonesque tienen estos filósofos para sostenerque la experiencia es el punto de partidaapropiado si se quiere que la filosofía seaempírica y relevante. In this paper the metaphilosophy of pragmatists is the most important contribution of these philosophers to the history of philosophyand is also what distinguishes them fromother philosophers. The classic Americanphilosophers and the Hispanic philosophers, Ortega yGasset and Risieri Frondizi, proposed thatphilosophy must start from experience.After explaining what it means to takeexperience as the starting point, I examinethe reasons that pragmatists philosophershave for holding the view that experienceshould be the starting point if philosophyis to be empirical and relevant. (shrink)

La interioridad de lo viviente ha sido ignorada en una descripción científica del comportamiento humano. Hoy en día, sin embargo, la autopoiesis como paradigma de auto-organización, ha continuado incorpo- rando esos primeros atisbos de la interioridad de lo viviente que Kant desarrolló en la tercera Crítica. No hay organismo sin teleología y no hay teleología sin interioridad, nos dice, y sin un segmento teleológico el proyecto total de la moral se vuelve ininteligible. Hay un cambio de una ética basada en (...) el imperativo categórico a una moralidad sin concepto basada en otro aspecto del imperativo categórico presente en la estética kantiana. Con F.Varela surge la convicción de la inminencia de un cambio de paradigma que se trasluce como la primacía de lo concreto y la oposición a todo análisis deliberado e intencional. Estas características ya se habían manifestado en Kant y en Husserl como el cambio de lo exterior a lo interior, donde prima el abandono de toda regla o principio y la contundencia de la evidencia intuitiva. Se han de reconocer la importancia de los impulsos pre-conscientes y los instintos, por lo cual he incluido un Apéndice. Este camino dio lugar a las experiencias límite de lo sublime y de la epojé ética universal, la cual, según N. Depraz, filósofa francesa especializada en Husserl, no tienenada de misterioso o esotérico aunque está lejos de ser autoevidente. (shrink)

Il secondo volume della serie Commentaria in Aristotelem Byzantina, pubblicata sotto gli auspici dell'Accademia di Atene, presenta l'editio princeps, per le cure di Eleni Pappa, del decimo libro della Φιλοσοφία del poligrafo bizantino Giorgio Pachymeres (1242–dopo il 1307). La Φιλοσοφία conta dodici libri ciascuno dei quali contiene un breve riassunto di un'opera di Aristotele, o a lui attribuita. I dodici libri sono preceduti da un proemio e da un indice dettagliato del contenuto. Lo scritto resta ancora purtroppo in larga misura (...) inedito. (shrink)

To my Oxford Classical Text of Cicero's De Officiis, published in 1994, I add two footnotes. The first is an important citation of Cicero in Augustine, which I missed thanks to my own incompetence. Maurice Testard, in his Saint Augustin et Ciceron remarks in Augustine's Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum not only the passage I note at Off. 1.7, but also 4.43 . Migne's text reads as follows: Sequitur ergo ut uerecundiam deponas, ac manente amicitia cum magistro Cynicis foedereris: quos tamen (...) aliquorum, ut Cicero in Officiis refert, etiam Stoicorum argumenta comitantur. Arguunt quippe communem honestatem, ‘quod ea quae re turpia non sint, uerbo 5 flagitiosa ducamus; ilia autem quae re turpia sint, nominibus appellemus suis. Latrocinium perpetrare, fraudem facere, adulterium committere, re turpe est, sed dicitur non obscene: liberis operam dare honestum est re, nomine obscenum. Pluraque in earn sententiam ab eisdem’ inquit ‘contra uerecundiam disputantur. Nos autem 10 naturam sequamur, et omne quod abhorret ab oculorum auriumque approbatione fugiamus.’. (shrink)

Entrevista concedida a Linda Alcoff (CUNY) e Gregory Pappas (TAMU), originalmente para o Inter-American Journal of Philosophy, em inglês, aqui traduzida pelo entrevistado, com alguns retoques.

There are two main questions in epistemology: What is knowledge? And: Do we have any of it? The first question asks after the nature of a concept; the second involves grappling with the skeptic, who believes that no one knows anything. This collection of original essays addresses the themes of knowledge and skepticism, offering both contemporary epistemological analysis and historical perspectives from leading philosophers and rising scholars. Contributors first consider knowledge: the intrinsic nature of knowledge -- in particular, aspects of (...) what distinguishes knowledge from true belief; the extrinsic examination of knowledge, focusing on contextualist accounts; and types of knowledge, specifically perceptual, introspective, and rational knowledge. The final chapters offer various perspectives on skepticism. Knowledge and Skepticism provides an eclectic yet coherent set of essays by distinguished scholars and important new voices. The cutting-edge nature of its contributions and its interdisciplinary character make it a valuable resource for a wide audience -- for philosophers of language as well as for epistemologists, and for psychologists, decision theorists, historians, and students at both the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels. Contributors: Kent Bach, Joseph Keim Campbell, Joseph Cruz, Fred Dretske, Catherine Z. Elgin, Peter S. Fosl, Peter J. Graham, David Hemp, Michael O'Rourke, George Pappas, John L. Pollock, Duncan Pritchard, Joseph Salerno, Robert J. Stainton, Harry S. Silverstein, Joseph Thomas Tolliver, Leora Weitzman The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Abailard and Non-Things MARTIN M. TWEEDALE On SEVERAL OCCASIONSin his logical writings Abailard extracts himself from embarrassing ontological implications of his analyses of language by resorting to the notion of a something that is not a thing. I shall note here two such occasions and then discuss Abailard's explanations of this procedure based on the grammatical distinction of personal and impersonal constructions. Since the texts on this latter topic (...) are especially confusing, a considerable portion of my effort will be spent on making sense of them as preparation for drawing some conclusions about Abailard's overall approach. My purpose here is to show how Abailard's grammatical analyses are fundamental to his defence of a number of metaphysical positions. I also want to suggest that Abailard's grammatical approach, especially on the question of dicta, contains insights of continuing interest. Not all of Abailard's non-things are particularly associated with analyses of language. For instance, there are the likenesses the mind supposedly constructs for itself in order to think of things that are not being perceived. These Abailard calls fictive things (res ficta), and he refuses to give them the status of real psychological entities. ~ The likenesses are compared to mirror images which Abailard is also willing to treat as non-things. However, I wish to restrict my discussion here to cases which arise from Abailard's analysis of the reference of certain words. One such instance occurs in his discussion of universals. The peculiar nonthing here is the "state" (status), which, Abailard maintains, is "the common cause by which the universal word is imposed"7 Abailard is very careful to dis1Glossae super Porphyrium, in Peter Abelards philosophische,.gchriIten, edited by Geyer (henceforth referred ~o as Geyer), Miinster i. W., 1919 (BGPM, vol. 21), pp. 20-21, ll. 23-32: Intellectus autem sicut nec corporeo indigens instrumento est, ita /nec/ necesse est eum subiectum corpus habere in quod mittatur, sed rei ~dmilitudine contentus est, quam sibi ipse animus conficit, in quam suae intelligentiae actionem dirigit. Unde turr,~ destructa vel remota sensus qui in earn agebat, perit, inteUectus autem permanet rei similitudine auimo retenta. Sigut autem sensus non est res sentita, in quam dirigitur, sic nec intellectus forma est rei quam concipit, sed intellectus actio quaedam est animae, unde intelligens dicitur, forma vero in quam dirigitur, res imaginaria quaedam est et ficta, quam sibi, quando vult et qualm vult, animus conficit.... 11.9-17: Quaero enim, utrum flla quadratura et ilia altitudo vera forma sit intellectus, qui ad similitudinem quantitatis turris ducatur et compositionis eius. Sed profecto vera quadratura et vera altitudo non nisi corporibus insunt, ficta etiam qualitate nec intellectus nec ulla vera essentia forrnari potest. Restat igitur, ut sicut ficta eat qualitas, ficta substantia sit ei subiecta. Fortasae autem et ea speculi imago, quae visui subiecta apparere videtur, nihil esse vere dici potest, quoniam scilicetin alba speguli superficie contrarii coloris qualitas saepe apparet. Ibid., pp. 19-20,II. 14-16- ~ad nunc ea quae breviter tetigimus, diligenter perquiramus, scilicet quae sit iIla communis causa, secundum quam universale nomen impositum est.... 11. 21-29. Singuli homines discreti ab invicem, gum in propriis differant tam essentiis quam formis, ut supra meminimus rei physicam inquirentes, in eo tamen conveniunt, quod homines aunt. Non dico in homine, gum res nulla sit homo uisi discreta, sed in esse hominem. Esse autem hominem non est homo nec res aliqua, si diligentius consideremus, [329] 330 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY tinguish three different questions frequently confused in discussions on universals. The first is "What is 'universal' predicated of?", and the answer is simply words --words not in the sense of mere marks or sounds, but of meaningful marks or sounds. Another is "How do we have an idea associated with universals?" Here the aforementioned likenesses enter as that by which the mind can have an idea applicable to many individuals. But there is also the question of what makes a certain word correctly applicable to many things. Abailard does not make the error of thinking that an idea in the mind or some operation of the mind could possibly be the cause, as some conceptualists seem to think. This would lead to the conclusion that... (shrink)

Since 1994 the experimental art project, Paris-Réseau, has been a “(net)work in progress”. Texts, images and sounds gathered in various ways before, during and after a performance by the group Art-Réseaux at the Paris Video Library form different layers in the Paris-Réseau Archives, a hypermedia database. Paris-Réseau assembles photographs, sound samples, videos and texts to form a composite image of the city, combining digitised traces of physical places and people with information garnered from individual and collective memory.Paris-Réseau comprises at least (...) five projects. It began very simply, gradually expanding to encompass different time frames and a very large number of paths throughout the city. Then in an effort to compose all this disparate information into a coherent whole, I began zooming in on selected itineraries. Here I will just sketch out the first phases of this project which have already been described at greater length in an article published in Leonardo. (O'Rourke 1996). (shrink)

Kant’s Groundwork is the most read and surely the most exasperating of his works on practical philosophy. Both its structure and its arguments remain obscure and controversial. A quick list of unsettled questions reminds one how much is in doubt. The list might include the following: Why does Kant shift the framework of his discussion three times in a short work? Does he establish that there is a supreme principle of morality? Does he show that the Categorical Imperative is that (...) supreme principle? Does he show that human beings are free agents for whom such principles of morality are important? What is the relationship between the various apparently distinct formulations of the Categorical Imperative? To what extent are any of them action-guiding? (shrink)

Using video to facilitate data collection has become increasingly common in health research. Using video in research, however, does raise additional ethical concerns. In this paper we utilize family therapy data to provide empirical evidence of how recording equipment is treated. We show that families made a distinction between what was observed through the video by the reflecting team and what was being recorded onto videotape. We show that all parties actively negotiated what should and should not go ‘on the (...) record’, with particular attention to sensitive topics and the responsibility of the therapist. Our findings have important implications for both clinical professionals and researchers using video data. We maintain that informed consent should be an ongoing process and with this in mind we present some arguments pertaining to the current debates in this field of health-care practice. (shrink)

Ethical leadership encompasses the personal conduct of the leader and the leader’s expectations that followers behave ethically. Building on social learning and social exchange theory, we propose that ethical leadership interacts with coworker ethicality to predict personnel’s ethical intentions and organizational citizenship behavior. Using data collected from a large organizational sample, we use moderated regression analysis to test the main and interactive effects of ethical leadership and coworker ethicality on ethical intentions and OCB as it relates to conscientiousness, civic virtue, (...) and altruism. Study 1 examines how ethical leadership and coworker ethicality interact to predict ethical intentions using a sample of 1,551 military personnel. Study 2 extends the results of Study 1 by examining how ethical leadership and coworker ethicality interact to predict OCB using a combined sample of 3,363 military and civilian personnel. Consistent with social learning theory, we found positive relationships between ethical leadership and coworker ethicality with ethical outcomes. Consistent with social exchange theory, we found that perceptions of ethical leadership strengthened the relationship between coworker ethicality and ethical intentions and OCB, highlighting the importance of leaders in shaping the behavior of organizational members. (shrink)

The concept of knowledge is the topic of this monograph, the purpose of which is to study how it has been represented in educational research literature since 1939. Six texts have been selected, which use the Malmö Longitudinal Study data. These texts span the time period of 1939-1995 and have different foci, such as intelligence, social adjustment, benefits of education, recurrent education and quality of life. Discourse analysis has been used to study the texts. The assumption, guiding the analysis, is (...) that representations of knowledge are found in the texts. In this study the representations that are sought are ideas with reference to knowledge. It was found that different concepts of knowledge have been constucted by diverse activities of choosing, judging and interpreting. The purposes and sources, for whcih these activities have been undertaken, are quite dissimilar, so much so, as to constitute differing conceptualizations of knowledge, underlying these six educational research texts.
The theoretical framework is based on the work of two philosophers, Ernst Cassirer and Michael Lyncg. Cassirer's work from the 1930s and 1940s, in which precision in scientific concepts is advanced, is contrasted to Lynch's work from 1995, in which he proposes the use of fluid concepts. One such fluid concept has been used in the title of this monograph. Over the years, conceptualizations of knowledge have changed in this educational discourse. These results are presented, using social cartography to map the texts as intertextual fields. Visualizing complex pheonomena in this manner provides the reader with an interpretation of the discourse, in which the change is seen. Thus, mapping opens up the discourse for us to see, showing us the concepts of knowledge embedded in the texts, and allows us to see how the ways of seeing have changed over time in this discourse. The monograph ends with a discussion on the construction of knowledge, its consequences for the nature of knowledge and Cassirer's "unity of essence". (shrink)

The article begins from a previous attempt by Glenn Graber "(Journal of Religious Ethics 1973)" to characterize Tillich's metaethics as an ontologically based self-realization theory. After proposing a modification of Graber's thesis, the article attempts to show that some of the ambiguities noted by Graber in Tillich's position-notably the tension between a formal and a material account of ethics-have their roots in his early German writings. There the treatment of ethics as a "cultural science" led Tillich to posit a formal, (...) philosophical moment (Kant), a cultural-historical moment, and a normative moment. He refused to identify the latter with theological ethics and instead, following his reformulation of the concept of religion, found it in theonomous forms of legal and community structures, identified with socialism. When Tillich abandoned the "cultural sciences" approach and ceased to see socialism as the concrete and normative content of ethics, he was forced to replace it with a notion of essential human nature and "new being," coexisting uneasily with Kantian formalism. (shrink)

Chasing Medical Miracles" is the first book to give readers a behind-the-scenes look at the complicated world of clinical trials, revealing how a multibillion-dollar industry of private companies conducting them with little oversight has taken root and quietly become a major part of the American medical establishment.

Key issues in the philosophy of mind, examined by leading figures in the field.