_ Source: _Page Count 21 In the past two and a half decades, Frank Ankersmit has developed a complex notion of historical experience. Despite its many virtues it has at least one major difficulty: it implies a sharp separation between experience and language. This essay aims to bridge this gap, while preserving the positive aspects of Ankersmit’s theory. To do this, I will first present the ontological and epistemological implications of Ankersmit’s notion of historical experience. Next, I will present my (...) objections to his idea. Finally, I will propose two modifications to his notion of historical experience: first, in the epistemological sense by considering historical experience as a form of Louis Mink’s configurational comprehension and, second, in the ontological sense by relating historical experience with the _vitalist_ ontology of José Ortega y Gasset. (shrink)

Este artigo possui a finalidade de apresentar as correlações entre a filosofia como forma de vida e as insurreições dos governados a partir de uma leitura foucualtiana em torno da ontologia histórica de nós mesmos. Num primeiro momento, procura-se estabelecer uma leitura acerca da problematização empreendida por Foucault em torno da biopolítica compreendida como governo da vida na nossa modernidade a partir da formação de certos dispositivos de controle e de assujeitamentos através da articulação entre as estratégias de saber, das (...) práticas de poder e dos processos de subjetivação. Já o segundo momento é dedicado a pensar os traços fundamentais da parresía como prática aletúrgica de uma manifestação cínica do escândalo da verdade. As considerações finais são dedicadas a pensar, a partir de Foucault, as experiências éticas a partir de uma dimensão ontológica cuja atitude é a sublevação de forças necessárias para a produção de novas práticas de liberdade. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal, David Chalmers introduced the meta-problem of consciousness as “the problem of explaining why we think consciousness poses a hard problem” (Chalmers, 2018, p. 6). A solution to the meta-problem could shed light on the hard problem of consciousness. In particular, it would be relevant to elucidate whether people’s problem intuitions (i.e. intuitions holding that conscious experience cannot be reduced to physical processes) are driven by factors related to the nature of consciousness, or rather (...) by factors that are independent of consciousness. Whether people hold problem intuitions, and what factors drive those intuitions, are largely empirical questions. However, there is a lack of empirical research on these issues to date. The results of four studies will show that (1) problem intuitions are not widespread, and (2) when they arise, they do so because of factors that are unrelated to the nature of consciousness. This suggests that consciousness is, after all, not so problematic. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that emotion concepts are purely descriptive. However, recent investigations suggest that the concept of happiness includes information about the morality of the agent's life. In this study, we argue that normative influences on emotion concepts are not restricted to happiness and are not about moral norms. In a series of studies, we show that emotion attribution is influenced by whether the agent's psychological and bodily states fit the situation in which they are experienced. People consider that (...) emotions are not just about feeling in certain ways, but also about feeling the right way. (shrink)

In emotion research, both conceptual analyses and empirical studies commonly rely on emotion reports. But what do people mean when they say that they are angry, afraid, joyful, etc.? Building on extant theories of emotion, this paper presents four new studies (including a pre-registered replication) measuring the weight of cognitive evaluations, bodily changes, and action tendencies in people’s use of emotion concepts. The results of these studies suggest that the presence or absence of cognitive evaluations has the largest impact on (...) people’s emotion attributions, and that bodily changes and action tendencies are considered to depend on cognitive evaluations. Implications for theories of emotion (concepts) and the interpretation of emotion reports are discussed. (shrink)

Are feelings an essential part or aspect of emotion? Cases of unconscious emotion suggest that this is not the case. However, it has been claimed that unconscious emotions are better understood as either (a) emotions that are phenomenally conscious but not reflectively conscious, or (b) dispositions to have emotions rather than emotions proper. Here, I argue that these ways of accounting for unconscious emotions are inadequate, and propose a view of emotions as non-phenomenal attitudes that regard their contents as relevant (...) to one's motivations. (shrink)

Emergency situations require individuals to make important changes in their behavior. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, official recommendations to avoid the spread of the virus include costly behaviors such as self-quarantining or drastically diminishing social contacts. Compliance (or lack thereof) with these recommendations is a controversial and divisive topic, and lay hypotheses abound regarding what underlies this divide. This paper investigates which cognitive, moral, and emotional traits separate people who comply with official recommendations from those who don't. In (...) four studies (three pre-registered) on both U.S. and French samples, we found that individuals' self-reported compliance with official recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic was partly driven by individual differences in moral values, disgust sensitivity, and psychological reactance. We discuss the limitations of our studies and suggest possible applications in the context of health communication. (shrink)

Can we experience emotion without the feeling of accelerated heartbeats, perspiration, or other changes in the body? In his paper “What is an emotion”, William James famously claimed that “if we fancy some strong emotion and then try to abstract from our consciousness of it all the feelings of its bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind” (1884, p. 193). Thus, bodily changes are essential to emotion. This is known as the Subtraction Argument. The Subtraction Argument is still (...) used to support Embodied theories of emotion. Proponents of Disembodied theories, however, have different intuitions regarding the role of bodily changes in the experience of emotion. In order to advance this debate, I conducted a series of studies testing people’s intuitions regarding the Subtraction Argument. Results show that, against James’ claims, most people consider that their hypothetical (Study 1) and actual (Study 2) emotions persist in the absence of bodily feelings. Furthermore, Study 1 found that participants’ responses were not related to individual differences in reflection or interoceptive awareness. These results pose a problem for Embodied theories of emotion and challenge extant explanations for the persistence of emotional experience in cases of impaired interoception. (shrink)

Christine Tappolet’s book Philosophy of Emotion: A contemporary introduction, and many other works in emotion theory, focus primarily on emotional episodes at the expense of so-called “emotional dispositions.” I argue that there are no reasons for theories of emotion to focus on emotional episodes or to reserve the term “emotion” for them.

Evaluative judgments imply positive or negative regard. But there are different ways in which something can be positive or negative. How do we tell them apart? According to Evaluative Sentimentalism, different evaluations (e.g., dangerousness vs. offensiveness) are grounded on different emotions (e.g., fear vs. anger). If this is the case, evaluation differentiation requires emotional awareness. Here, we test this hypothesis by looking at alexithymia, a deficit in emotional awareness consisting of problems identifying, describing, and thinking about emotions. The results of (...) Study 1 suggest that high alexithymia is not only related to problems distinguishing emotions, but also to problems distinguishing evaluations. Study 2 replicated this latter effect after controlling for individual differences in attentional impulsiveness and reflective reasoning, and found that reasoning makes an independent contribution to evaluation differentiation. These results suggest that emotional sensibilities play an irreducible role in evaluative judgment while affording a role for reasoning. (shrink)

It is often claimed that fear has an important epistemological function in making us aware of danger. Reactive theories challenge this view. According to them, fear is a response to real or apparent danger. In other words, real or apparent danger is the reason for which we experience fear. Thus, fear depends on awareness of danger instead of making us aware of danger. Proponents of the reactive theory have appealed to phenomenological and, most prominently, linguistic observations to support their views. (...) In particular, they argue that how we talk about the objects of fear supports the view that fear is a response (rather than a perception), and that how we talk about reasons for fear supports the view that reasons for fear are necessarily evaluative (about danger). Building on systematic linguistic observations in the form of corpus analyses and survey data, we argue that how we talk about the objects of fear and how we talk about reasons for fear do not support the reactive theory. Indeed, these linguistic considerations undermine the reactive theory. Most importantly, they suggest that there are non-evaluative reasons for fear. This is good news for rival theories, like perceptual theories, which hold that emotions have epistemic value in contributing to knowledge of evaluative properties such as danger. (shrink)

This chapter analyses the prospects of using neuroimaging methods, in particular functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), for philosophical purposes. To do so, it will use two case studies from the field of emotion research: Greene et al. (2001) used fMRI to uncover the mental processes underlying moral intuitions, while Lindquist et al. (2012) used fMRI to inform the debate around the nature of a specific mental process, namely, emotion. These studies illustrate two main approaches in cognitive neuroscience: Reverse inference and (...) ontology testing, respectively. With regards to Greene et al.’s study, the use of Neurosynth (Yarkoni 2011) will show that the available formulations of reverse inference, although viable a priori, seem to be of limited use in practice. On the other hand, the discussion of Lindquist et al.’s study will present the so far neglected potential of ontology-testing approaches to inform philosophical questions. (shrink)

Human emotional expressions can communicate the emotional state of the expresser, but they can also communicate appeals to perceivers. For example, sadness expressions such as crying request perceivers to aid and support, and anger expressions such as shouting urge perceivers to back off. Some contemporary artificial intelligence (AI) systems can mimic human emotional expressions in a (more or less) realistic way, and they are progressively being integrated into our daily lives. How should we respond to them? Do we have reasons (...) to reply to the appeals made by AI emotional expressions? In this paper, we examine the conditions under which AI emotional expressions could give us prudential or even moral reasons to change our behavior. We argue that these conditions do not depend on whether the emotional expression is genuine or not, but rather on the presence of features some of which can be implemented in emotive AI given our current level of technological development. We extract recommendations and warnings for the development of emotive AI. (shrink)

Testimonial injustices occur when individuals from particular social groups are systematically and persistently given less credibility in their claims merely because of their group identity. Recent “pluralistic” approaches to folk psychology, by taking into account the role of stereotypes in how we understand others, have the power to explain how and why cases of testimonial injustice occur. If how we make sense of others’ behavior depends on assumptions about how individuals from certain groups think and act, this can explain why (...) speakers are given different degrees of credibility depending on their group identity. For example, if people assume that women are more emotional than men, they will systematically give less credibility to women’s claims. This explanation involves three empirical claims: people assume that women are more emotional than men, people assume that emotionality hinders credibility, and people give less credibility to women’s claims. While extant studies provide some support for and, no study to date has directly tested. In two different studies, we tested all these three claims. The results from both studies provide support for, as we found significant negative correlations between emotionality and credibility attributions. However, in contrast to what some accounts of folk psychology posit, we did not find any significant difference in people’s attributions of emotionality and credibility towards women versus men speakers. We hope that our studies here pave the way for further empirical studies testing the phenomenon of testimonial injustice in a context-sensitive way, in order to have a better understanding of the conditions in which testimonial injustices are likely to happen. (shrink)

Research has consistently shown that people consider harmful side effects of an action more intentional than helpful side effects. This phenomenon is known as the side- effect effect (SEE), which refers to the influence of moral considerations in judgments of intentionality and other non-moral concepts. There is an ongoing debate about how to explain this asymmetric pattern of judgment and the psychological factors involved in it. It has been posited that affective reactions to agents that bring about harmful side- effects (...) could bias intentionality attributions in these cases, explaining the asymmetric pattern of intentionality judgments that we observe in the SEE. We call this the affective bias hypothesis (ABH). Evidence for the ABH is mixed, with some findings suggesting a role for affective processes, while others suggesting that affective processes play no role in the SEE. A possible explanation for these apparently contradictory results points to affective processes involved in the SEE being confined to anger. In a series of empirical studies, we systematically measured and manipulated participants’ anger in order to test this possibility. Our findings suggest that anger play no role in intentionality judgments in SEE cases, while providing support for a non-emotional motivation to blame as a factor underlying the SEE. (shrink)

Do moral beliefs motivate action? To answer this question, extant arguments have considered hypothetical cases of association (dissociation) between agents’ moral beliefs and actions. In this paper, I argue that this approach can be improved by studying people’s actual moral beliefs and actions using empirical research methods. I present three new studies showing that, when the stakes are high, associations between participants’ moral beliefs and actions are actually explained by co-occurring but independent moral emotions. These findings suggest that moral beliefs (...) themselves have little or no motivational force, supporting the Humean picture of moral motivation. (shrink)

Are emotions bodily feelings or evaluative cognitions? What is happiness, pain, or “being moved”? Are there basic emotions? In this chapter, I review extant empirical work concerning these and related questions in the philosophy of emotion. This will include both (1) studies investigating people’s emotional experiences and (2) studies investigating people’s use of emotion concepts in hypothetical cases. Overall, this review will show the potential of using empirical research methods to inform philosophical questions regarding emotion.

This work shows how systematically studying people’s use of emotion concepts (what people think emotions are), can inform debates regarding the nature of emotion (what emotions are). As such, it makes a contribution both in terms of method and content. In regards to the methodological approach, this work constitutes the first experimental philosophy Intuitions Project approach (see Article 4) to general questions regarding the nature of emotion. It does not only bring together the philosophical and scientific literature on emotion (as (...) much research has already done) but directly combines philosophical analysis and empirical research methods to study emotion. Articles 1 – 3 use quantitative (inferential statistics) and qualitative (text analysis) methods on data from surveys whose design was guided by philosophical analysis. And Article 4 considers the use of neuroimaging methods in philosophy. Finally, Article 2 builds bridges between analytic philosophy and the scientific study of concepts. In particular, by considering concepts’ internal structure (typicality, weight, and dependency relations). In regards to the content, the main contribution of this work consists in testing the premises used in arguments for (and against) emotion theories. This helps us discriminate between sound and unsound arguments, and select the appropriate conclusions regarding the nature of emotion. Figure 1 graphically represents the state of the debate after this contribution (see Figure 5 in the Introduction for a comparison point). In the following, I will detail the contribution of each of the articles in this work, and how they converge and complement each other to provide a coherent picture of emotion (concepts). Figure 1. Arguments from conditional and problem cases as applicable for both Cognitive / Perceptual theories and Somatic / Attitudinal theories. Solid black arrows indicate support, dashed red arrows indicate opposition. Claims challenged in this work are flagged using dashed lines. Claims not tested are flagged using transparency. -/- The studies presented in Article 1 tested the Subtraction Argument in favor of Somatic theories of emotion. The results of these studies showed that people apply emotion concepts (fear, anger, sadness) in cases of absence of bodily feelings. This questions the claim that bodily perceptions (attitudes) are necessary for emotion (see Introduction §4.1.) and supports the existence of “calm” cases of emotion (see Introduction §4.3.2.). As we saw in the introduction, these two claims are incompatible. The first one supports the Subtraction Argument in favor of Somatic (Attitudinal) theories, while the second one supports arguments against them. With these results in hand, we can conclude that the Subtraction Argument is unsound (its main premise is likely false), and the argument from calm emotions is sound (see Figure 1). This poses a problem for Somatic and Attitudinal theories of emotion, but also Hybrid theories of emotion, as they are also committed to the claim that felt bodily changes constitute emotions. The studies presented in Article 2 went beyond those in Article 1 by testing people’s use of emotion concepts in cases where the presence (absence) of bodily feelings, cognitive evaluations, and action tendencies is independently manipulated. The results show that people consider that bodily feelings are non-necessary for emotion, in line with the results in Article 1. Action tendencies were also regarded as non-necessary, which poses a problem for Motivational theories of emotion (see Introduction §5.2.1.). Finally, cognitive evaluations were considered non-necessary in two out of three studies. However, across all studies, cognitive evaluations were the most important factor in determining people’s use of emotion concepts. Thus, it seems like we should not give up the claim that “When someone does not [value perception/belief], she is not emotion]” (see Figure 1). Furthermore, the results show that bodily changes and action tendencies depend on cognitive evaluations. These last two results square well with the core tenets of Cognitive, Perceptual, and Appraisal theories of emotion. Thus, the results presented in Article 2 support these theories. Article 3 complements Article 1 and 2 by testing the weight of yet another factor in people’s use of emotion concepts. Namely, the value of the situation in which the emotion is experienced. The results of Article 3 show that this factor significantly influences people’s use of emotion concepts. This poses a challenge for theories of emotion as non-intentional states (Morag, 2017; Whiting, 2011). According to these accounts, emotions are only causally related to the situation in which they are experienced, but they are not about that situation. Thus, they seem unable to explain why differences in the value of the situation influence the use of emotion concepts even when the reaction of the agent is the same. By stressing the importance of the intentionality of emotion and the (normative) connection between emotion and value, these results (as those in Articles 1 and 2) favor Cognitive, Perceptual, and Appraisal theories. As we saw in the Introduction, these theories are especially well-suited to explain the intentionality of emotions and their relation to value. Finally, the main goal of Article 4 is to analyze the prospects of using fMRI to inform philosophically relevant questions concerning emotion. First, we saw that there are no brain areas specifically associated with emotion. The brain correlates of emotions are also involved in other psychological processes, so we cannot infer emotion from localized brain activity. Second, and against the predictions of Basic Emotion theories (see Introduction §5.2.), we saw that patterns of brain activity are not significantly different across emotion types. This provides evidence against this particular Componential account. However, other Componential theories (e.g. Appraisal theories) are compatible with the results. Note that the same approach used to test the claims of Basic Emotion theories (Ontology testing) could potentially be used to inform questions regarding the role of evaluative cognitions / bodily feelings in emotion. In particular, we could test the degree of overlap between the neural correlates of emotion and evaluative cognitions vs. the degree of neural overlap between emotion and bodily feelings. Future research should consider this approach to further investigate what constitutes emotions. To sum up, Articles 1 to 4 challenge Somatic, Attitudinal, Hybrid, Motivational, and Basic Emotion theories, and instead favor Cognitive, Perceptual, and Appraisal theories. But before declaring winners, some limitations should be taken into account. First, it is important to note that Cognitive, Perceptual, and Appraisal theories still face challenges. Cognitive theories have to account for the emotions of non-human animals as well as the phenomenology of emotion. Appraisal theories have to account for the problem of integration. And all Cognitive, perceptual, and appraisal theories have to account for cases of recalcitrant emotion. The work presented here provides an independent motivation to develop and defend such accounts. Second, as it has been noted in the discussion of Article 1, one could account for mismatches between theoretical and ordinary uses of emotion concepts by appealing to factors that are orthogonal to emotion. For example, it might be that people’s use of emotion concepts is heavily influenced by pragmatic factors. Thus, although the results presented in this work demand proponents of Somatic, Attitudinal, Hybrid, and Motivational theories to develop and empirically support such hypotheses, it doesn’t preclude the possibility to protect these theories from the evidence. Third, note that important issues around the nature of emotion, such as those concerning emotions’ representational (see, e.g. Grzankowski, 2016) or reason-responsive nature (see, e.g. Maguire, 2017), were not treated in this work. Arguably, these questions are better addressed using philosophical analysis alone. However, future work should consider the prospects of using empirical research methods to illuminate these issues. In general, future work should continue to explore the possibilities of combining philosophical analysis and empirical research methods to inform questions regarding the nature of emotion, so we can further advance long-standing debates in emotion theory. Hopefully, this work sets a precedent for this. (shrink)

Nosso ensaio procura explorar as relações entre os pensamentos de Foucault e Gadamer nos contextos da hermenêutica e da ética do cuidado de si. Num primeiro momento apresentamos os desdobramentos do cuidado de si e os exercícios espirituais da filosofia antiga e o acesso à verdade como forma de vida. O segundo momento é dedicado a elaborar uma leitura sobre a hermenêutica compreendida como uma experiência ética originária baseadas nas contribuições de Gadamer, Heidegger e Schmidt. Nossas considerações finais são dedicadas (...) a pensar as relações entre o cuidado de si e a hermenêutica através da retomada de uma ética originária desdobrada na analítica sobre o ethos, aqui compreendido como a morado do Ser. (shrink)

"El repertorio bibliográfico no presenta resumen".

One of metaepistemology’s most central debates revolves around the question of what the source of epistemic normativity is. Epistemic instrumentalism claims that epistemic normativity is a species of means-ends normativity. One of the most prominent objections against epistemic instrumentalism features cases of epistemic indifference: Cases where there’s evidence that p yet believing that p wouldn’t promote any of the agent’s aims, wants, or needs. Still, there’s an epistemic reason for the agent to believe that p and thus epistemic instrumentalism is (...) false. In response, instrumentalists have modified their views in various ways, with new contributions still forthcoming. Here, we investigate a neglected aspect of this debate: Laypeople’s judgments on cases of epistemic indifference. In two studies, we investigated whether laypeople agree with the verdict in cases of epistemic indifference as well as the key ideas behind the more recent instrumentalist replies. Our findings indicate that a significant amount of participants found it hard to “buy into” the cases of epistemic indifference as Kelly has constructed them. Participants did generally share Kelly’s judgment in cases of epistemic indifference. Lastly, some instrumentalist replies are well suited to explain participants’ judgments that agents ought to believe in cases of epistemic indifference. (shrink)

Three ethics program components, a code of ethics, ethics training initiatives and ethics-oriented performance appraisal content, were examined for their relationship to ethical intent using a sample of 525 employees from the Spanish financial services industry. As expected, all three components contributed to the prediction of ethical intent. Importantly, clusters of employees who reported experiencing distinct combinations of the program components were identified and compared for their level of ethical intent. Employees who perceived all three components to be strongly implemented (...) reported significantly higher levels of ethical intent relative to those who viewed the components as either all weakly implemented or not present. Combinations including training initiatives plus one other element had a similar impact to the fully implemented approach. Contrary to expectations, ethics-oriented performance appraisal content did not relate more strongly to ethical intent than codes of ethics. (shrink)

One of the metaepistemology’s most central debates revolves around the question of what the source of epistemic normativity is. Epistemic instrumentalism claims that epistemic normativity is a species of means-ends normativity. One of the most prominent objections against epistemic instrumentalism features cases of epistemic indifference: Cases where there’s evidence that p yet believing that p wouldn’t promote any of the agent’s aims, wants, or needs. Still, there’s an epistemic reason for the agent to believe that p and thus epistemic instrumentalism (...) is false. In response, instrumentalists have modified their views in various ways, with new contributions still forthcoming. Here, we investigate a neglected aspect of this debate: Laypeople’s judgements on cases of epistemic indifference. In two studies, we investigated whether laypeople agree with the verdict in cases of epistemic indifference as well as the key ideas behind the more recent instrumentalist replies. Our findings indicate that a significant amount of participants found it hard to buy into the cases of epistemic indifference as Kelly has constructed them. Participants did generally share Kelly’s judgement in cases of epistemic indifference. Lastly, some instrumentalist replies are well suited to explain participants’ judgements that agents ought to believe in cases of epistemic indifference. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza el rol de la escuela chilena en la comunidad andina y las demandas locales por un sistema educativo permanente. Dentro de este contexto, se realiza una discusión en torno al Estado, la construcción de la nación y la utilización de la escuela como instrumento disciplinador de la sociedad. Asimismo, se analiza la experiencia histórica de la escuela en el sur peruano, como parte de un proceso que antecede a la instauración del modelo educativo nacional chileno, relevando la (...) praxis política que las propias comunidades asumen en torno diversos petitorios por la presencia de profesores y de establecimientos educacionales en los sectores cordilleranos andinos. (shrink)

Responding to recent concerns about the reliability of the published literature in psychology and other disciplines, we formed the X-Phi Replicability Project to estimate the reproducibility of experimental philosophy. Drawing on a representative sample of 40 x-phi studies published between 2003 and 2015, we enlisted 20 research teams across 8 countries to conduct a high-quality replication of each study in order to compare the results to the original published findings. We found that x-phi studies – as represented in our sample (...) – successfully replicated about 70% of the time. We discuss possible reasons for this relatively high replication rate in the field of experimental philosophy and offer suggestions for best research practices going forward. (shrink)

Appendix 1 was incomplete in the initial online publication. The original article has been corrected.

Abstract:Facial transplantation is emerging as a therapeutic option for self-inflicted gunshot wounds. The self-inflicted nature of this injury raises questions about the appropriate role of self-harm in determining patient eligibility. Potential candidates for facial transplantation undergo extensive psychosocial screening. The presence of a self-inflicted gunshot wound warrants special attention to ensure that a patient is prepared to undergo a demanding procedure that poses significant risk, as well as stringent lifelong management. Herein, we explore the ethics of considering mechanism of injury (...) in the patient selection process, referring to the precedent set forth in solid organ transplantation. We also consider the available evidence regarding outcomes of individuals transplanted for self-inflicted mechanisms of injury in both solid organ and facial transplantation. We conclude that while the presence of a self-inflicted gunshot wound is significant in the overall evaluation of the candidate, it does not on its own warrant exclusion from consideration for a facial transplantation. (shrink)

La poesía de Rodrigo Lira está marcada por el uso del humor negro y la polifonía, tanto para referirse a la voz poética como a su contexto literario, cultural, social y político. Estas estrategias para la configuración de su identidad y posicionamiento discursivo, de carácter fragmentario, se utilizan para conjurar su sentido de despertenencia, soledad y culpa de ser.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Why Iberia?María Rosa Menocal (bio)My first instinct was to correct the title and rename this essay “Why Medieval Spain?” rather than “Why Iberia?” After all, I never say I work on or teach about “Iberia.” And yet the editors have got it just right to signal—using the geographic Iberia instead of the national Spain—that the terrible difficulty of finding worthy names is at the heart of the matter here, (...) at the heart of why it is that the study of the cultures and peoples of the Iberian peninsula during the medieval period is as exacting, as stimulating, as important as it is. It is easy enough, and accurate enough too, to point out that the study of all premodern cultures brings with it comparable difficulties, that, for example, before there was a France or an Italy, it is also misleading to talk about what might have been French or Italian, and yet medievalists in those areas, as well as the man on the street, regularly do so. But in the case of the Iberian peninsula the misprisions reflected in the confusion of terms—when we call a Christian kingdom “Spanish” but an Islamic one “Moorish,” to take only one of dozens of egregious examples—are confusions both more severe and more meaningful. It is true that Dante is not an Italian, but rather a Florentine, and the distinction is far from trivial—indeed, for Dante, central. And yet the comparable distinctions in the Iberian peninsula are likely to be more searing, because they involve not just political but religious and ethnic distinctions. If we call Rodrigo Diaz, the Cid, a Spaniard, why not his contemporary Judah Halevi? And why do we so often—even among those of us who “know better”—persist in calling the Muslims of the Iberian peninsula “Moors” or even “Arabs”—thus grossly confusing religion and ethnicity and suggesting, every time we do, that to be a Muslim was always not to be a Spaniard, in the way that being a Christian was, or that confession is equivalent to ethnicity?Of course, at this late date we all know the largest answer to these and other comparable questions: Spain defined itself as a modern nation through the expulsion not only of its Jewish and Muslim citizens but especially through the expulsion of the memory that they had ever been a part of the real body politic of “Spain.” It is not merely that after 1492 and 1609 (and everything in between) to be a Spaniard was aggressively defined as those who were not (and, better still, had never been) Christian; it is that this early modern definition of the national identity was transferred to the medieval past, and the medieval past rewritten and reimagined accordingly, as if the twelfth century were already longing for the sixteenth. This obliteration of the historical memory of the cultural and religious complexities of the medieval Iberian universe has long meant that the parameters that define how we talk about its languages and cultures are profoundly misshaped, which I mean not as a moral but as a historical statement: Alfonso X would no doubt have been startled by the suggestion that Arabic was not a vital part of the Castilian cultural universe or that Jews were not Toledanos or Sevillanos, nor citizens of his “Spain.” [End Page 7]It is of course the singular fact in European history—and now the word is out, almost everyone knows it—that the three Abrahamic religions long coexisted, in highly complex and always-shifting ways, in the Iberian peninsula. This has for some years now been both the distinction and the bane of “our” medieval studies, since not only the terminology but the most fundamental epistemological categories at our disposal—things as basic as the languages that are considered the legitimate or necessary ones for a medievalist to study in a department in which Spanish medievalists are trained—are still almost invariably at odds with what, explicitly echoing Americo Castro, we might call la realidad historica. Thus part of the answer to the “Why Iberia” question is that the moment is clearly at hand to begin to undo the damage... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Iconicity, Romance and History in the Crónica SarracinaMarina S. Brownlee (bio)Though seemingly alien discourses, romance and historiography are perennially linked. Far from offering an atemporal imaginary universe that bears no resemblance to historical specificity, romance is constructed as a response to it. Rather than simply projecting for the reader the naïve appeal of a prelapsarian escapism from the harsh realities of history, romance involves a continuous and sophisticated reinvention (...) of itself as a response to an ever-changing historico-political configuration. It is, in fact, a reciprocal relationship. We frequently see history appropriating romance paradigms explicitly, as, for example, when Bernal Díaz chooses to present Spain’s New World conquest and colonization as a continuation of the exploits of Amadís [see Gilman].Whatever form it takes, romance is committed to the celebration of a coherent system of socio-political values. This extra-textual frame of reference can take a variety of forms—from political propaganda that offers a self-aggrandizing depiction of the nobility or patron for whom the text is produced, to escapist fantasy—futuristic or archaizing. It is nostalgia for the lost world of chivalric romance which Cervantes embodies in the figure of Don Quijote, a foolish old man driven mad by his obsession with this perennial literary form. Cervantes is rightly credited with a brilliant and programmatic use of romance constructs to communicate the ongoing historical crisis of the Spanish empire. A byproduct of this romance scrutiny of history was his invention of the modern novel.Testimony to the long-standing interaction between romance and history in Spain, as elsewhere in Europe, is evident in the fact that its first romances were based on history, the so-called “romances of antiquity.” In those texts historical figures and events are evoked for the purpose of legitimating the present, vernacular poets as they celebrate the empowering myths projected by their society, as well as their own literary endeavors by invoking venerable Latin models. The well known translatio studii et imperii topos offers such allegory of empire.At the same time, the confrontation of romance and historical representation can also have a destabilizing effect, and this is programmatically explored in Pedro del Corral’s Crónica sarracina (c. 1430). His text ponders the possibilities of romance and historiography in an obsessive manner and he accomplishes his task by examining representation of the most iconic figures associated with the fall of Spain in 711, namely, La Cava and her father, Count Julián, King Rodrigo, and Pelayo, the messianic hope of the Reconquest effort which would last nearly 800 years.Of related and perhaps even broader importance, Corral’s text merits careful reading because its exploration of iconicity related to Spain’s fall offers meditations on the workings of ideology, which inevitably proposes “imaginary or formal solutions to unresolvable contradictions” [Jameson 79]. Ideology—its unmasking—is intriguingly posited by Corral in powerful ways.If we turn to Corral’s text, we find a work offering an extraordinary consideration of history and romance—their profound interaction—whose full title reads, La crónica [End Page 119] del rey don Rodrigo con la destrucción de España (The Chronicle of King Rodrigo with the Destruction of Spain). My interest in the Crónica here is primarily to consider the mechanisms by which it gestures boldly toward what Žižek has described as the project of the postmodern critique of ideology—though it is clearly a recurring cultural constant—namely to “designate the elements which point towards the system’s antagonistic character, and thus ‘estrange’ us to the self-evidence of its established identity” [Žižek 7]. A reading of the Crónica provides an extended paradigm of such estrangement.Iberia is the area of the Mediterranean which underwent the most protracted encounter between Christianity and Islam, and the events of the Moorish invasion of 711 constitute Spain’s unique foundational subject-matter—on a par with the Troy legend and with King Arthur [see Deyermond 355]. Like them, the retelling of 711 is all about forging mythic connections in order to legitimize empire in a temporally remote time-frame. What interests me in this essay is... (shrink)

The past decades have seen an increase in the design and implementation of sexuality education programs deemed comprehensive within formal schooling. Qualitative research is gaining relevance in the field; however, few studies focus on youth perspectives. This study analyzes qualitative research through a literature review on the implementation of Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) programs from the perspective of young people. A review of qualitative studies and a meta-synthesis were conducted to outline a state-of-the-art of qualitative research on youth perceptions of (...) CSE. Results point to two main areas of concern for youth: contents and pedagogy. There remains a general dissatisfaction over the depth and breadth of the CSE curriculum, leaving young people feeling unprepared for positive relationships and good sexual health. In terms of pedagogy, there is still a shortfall in the effective implementation of innovative teaching and learning strategies, pointing towards a gap regarding the pedagogical frameworks underlying CSE. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo consiste en dialogar con los discursos universitarios de Peter Hans Kolvenbach, superior general de la Compañía de Jesús entre 1983 y 2008. En particular analizamos la dimensión “iustitia” como elemento distintivo del paradigma de la educación superior jesuita y todo ello lo contextualizamos, a la vez, en su tradición histórica. La apuesta por la promoción de la justicia social, en el entramado universitario de la orden de Ignacio de Loyola, responde asimismo a las opciones que (...) la Compañía de Jesús ha tomado, a raíz del Concilio Vaticano II, y se posiciona como una alternativa a la óptica utilitarista. (shrink)

What is the metaphysics of gender about? Metaphysics is the study of what there is and what it is like. On this conception, questions in the metaphysics of gender would be about the existence and nature of gender. That is, the metaphysics of gender would be about whether alleged gender categories such as being a man, a woman or an agender person are real features or kinds, and if so, what their nature is. In recent years, the metaphysics of gender (...) has received a lot of attention and has shifted from being a rather marginal part of metaphysics to being a growing area of interest. Moreover, growing attention to the metaphysics of gender and the social domain have given rise to fruitful methodological questions about what metaphysics is about and what are the best methods to pursue metaphysical inquiries. This Element offers a survey of recent discussions of these questions. (shrink)

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Se trata de una reseña del libro de Barra Ruatta, Abelardo, Ética Erótica. Política, tecnología y gestión de los placeres, Buenos Aires, Editorial Prometeo, 140 páginas. ARK: ark:/s18537960/td05t7sf1.