The following study shows the main qualitative results obtained by means of a two follow up study with a group of telephone interpreters who previously participated in an ad hoc emotional regulation program designed according to their specific needs.The study aimed to evaluate the impact of the intervention program in the long term.The results demonstrated the positive effect of the program on the interpreters’ lives and on their emotional management.The need of verifying the effect of this kind of programs in (...) order to totally measure their impact through the time is discussed. (shrink)

Referirse a la multiplicidad es un lugar común cuando se trata de la obra de Alain Badiou, en tanto es una producción de una notoria complejidad y la exploración de sus diversas facetas es adentrarse en un universo de múltiples dimensiones. En este sentido, se propone comparar su producción con un caleidoscopio, un artefacto que revela la multiplicidad como esencia de la unidad y, a su vez, confiere significado a esa diversidad. Esta multiplicidad caleidoscópica no se limita únicamente a la (...) figura del intelectual y sus escritos, sino que se expande hacia otros ámbitos. En efecto, al analizar sus primeras obras y los inicios de su trayectoria intelectual se vuelve evidente la influencia de Sartre, así como sus conexiones posteriores con el estructuralismo francés y, en particular, con la figura de Louis Althusser. Por otra parte, interesa aquí destacar que las producciones de Badiou, lejos de encerrarse en debates del ámbito académico, se entrelazan con tópicos como la cuestión del amor, la cual se conecta de modo directo con el resto de sus reflexiones teóricas y políticas. De este modo, interesa aquí apreciar esta particular intersección que permite una comprensión más profunda de su pensamiento y su preocupación radical por lo social. (shrink)

In this conceptual article, we argue that defining corporate social responsibility and corporate social irresponsibility as opposite constructs produces a lack of clarity between responsible and irresponsible acts. Furthermore, we contend that the treatment of the CSR and CSI concepts as opposites de-emphasizes the value of CSI as a stand-alone construct. Thus, we reorient the CSI discussion to include multiple aspects that current conceptualizations have not adequately accommodated. We provide an in-depth exploration of how researchers define CSI and both identify (...) and analyze three important gray zones between CSR and CSI: the role of harm and benefit, the role of the actor and intentionality, and the role of rectification. We offer these gray zones as factors contributing to the present lack of conceptual clarity of the term CSI, as a concept in its own right, leading to difficulties that researchers and managers experience in categorizing CSI acts as distinct from CSR. (shrink)

According to some evolutionary theorists human prosocial dispositions emerged in a context of inter-group competition and violence that made our psychology parochially prosocial, ie. cooperative towards in-groups and competitive towards strangers. This evolutionary hypothesis is sometimes employed in bioethical debates to argue that human nature and contemporary environments, and especially large-scale societies, are mismatched. In this article we caution against the use of mismatch theories in moral philosophy in general and discuss empirical evidence that puts into question mismatch theories based (...) on parochial prosociality. Evolutionary mismatch theories play at best a rhetorical role in these moral debates and may misrepresent the status of relevant evolutionary research. We finally recommend that moral philosophers interested in the evolutionary literature also engage with dispositions such as xenophilia and social tolerance to counterbalance the focus on psychological mismatches adopted so far. (shrink)

Ensayos-homenaje en el primer centenario del nacimiento del fil sofo espa ol, que abordan diversos aspectos de la obra de Ortega. Los cuatro trabajos dibujan con rigor algunos de los horizontes planteados por el maestro y respetan la debida modernidad conceptual. la compilaci n estuvo a cargo de Fernando Salmer n, Alejandro Rossi, Luis Villoro y Ram n Xirau.

This paper delves into the deconstruction of the notion of responsibility, drawing a correlation with the process of decomposition of the concept of sovereignty as discussed by Derrida in his last research works. We explore Derrida’s consideration of absolute responsibility as no longer passing through the figure of the sovereign. Derrida’s thought takes its distance from the philosophical and hegemonic determination of the notion of responsibility, for the conceptual system of its axiomatic defines responsibility based on the sovereign individual’s freedom (...) and makes responsibility the effect of his power. Yet, this definition condemns ethics to failure, since it does not account for the other supposed in the idea of response. Derrida incorporates absolute singularity, and consequently secrecy, into the structure of responsibility, enabling thought to encounter the absolute other. The text outlines the influence of Nietzsche and Celan in Derrida’s thought and develops an approach that sees in his work the effort to create a poetic revolution in the history of philosophy and knowledge by opening thought to radical alterity. (shrink)

Los grandes flujos migratorios globales que tuvieron lugar entre mediados del siglo XIX e inicios del XX vieron a cientos de millones de personas en todo el mundo cruzar la frontera de su país para ir a otro. En ese escenario, y a diferencia de otros países suramericanos, Colombia no fue un gran receptor de inmigrantes. Sin embargo, algunos de quienes llegaron, entre ellos judíos de distintos orígenes, enfrentaron restricciones para su ingreso al país, que fueron incrementándose particularmente en la (...) década de los años treinta, todo ello bajo gobiernos, en principio, de distintas vertientes ideológicas. Este artículo tiene el propósito de caracterizar los discursos, políticas y percepciones alrededor de la inmigración judía en Colombia durante las primeras cuatro décadas del siglo pasado, en el marco de una serie concepciones sobre cuestiones como la_ raza_ y la _nación_ y sus supuestas vinculaciones con las posibilidades de _progreso_. (shrink)

It is not yet clear which response behavior requires self-regulatory effort in the moral dilemma task. Previous research has proposed that utilitarian responses require cognitive control, but subsequent studies have found inconsistencies with the empirical predictions of that hypothesis. In this paper we treat participants’ sensitivity to utilitarian gradients as a measure of performance. We confronted participants (N = 82) with a set of five dilemmas evoking a gradient of mean utilitarian responses in a 4-point scale and collected data on (...) heart rate variability and on utilitarian responses. We found positive correlations between tonic and phasic HRV and sensitivity to the utilitarian gradient in the high tonic group, but not in the low tonic group. Moreover, the low tonic group misplaced a scenario with a selfish incentive at the high end of the gradient. Results suggest that performance is represented by sensitivity correlated with HRV and accompanied with a reasonable placement of individual scenarios within the gradient. (shrink)

A recent turn in the cognitive sciences has deepened the attention on embodied and situated dynamics for explaining different cognitive processes such as perception, emotion, and social cognition. This has fostered an extensive interest in the social and ‘intersubjective’ nature of moral behavior, especially from the perspective of enactivism. In this paper, I argue that embodied and situated perspectives, enactivism in particular, nonetheless require further improvements with regards to their analysis of the social nature of human morality. In brief, enactivist (...) proposals still do not define what features of the social-relational context, or which kind of processes within social interactions, make an evaluation or action morally relevant or distinctive from other types of social normativity. As an alternative to this proclivity, and seeking to complement the enactive perspective, I present a definition of the process of moral sense-making and offer an empirically-based ethical distinction between different domains of social knowledge in moral development. For doing so, I take insights from the constructivist tradition in moral psychology. My objective is not to radically oppose embodied and enactive alternatives but to expand the horizon of their conceptual and empirical contributions to morality research. (shrink)

En años recientes, los enfoques globales se han constituido como alternativas metodológicas que configuran importantes desarrollos en la historiografía al intentar superar las divisiones propias de las fronteras y de las tradicionales historias nacionales. A partir de la revisión de algunos trabajos destacados en este campo, el artículo plantea una reflexión historiográfica sobre esos enfoques, sus propósitos, aportes metodológicos y progresos en el contexto latinoamericano. Se propone la pertinencia de entender una parte sustancial de la historia humana desde una perspectiva (...) más amplia y diversa que intenta superar las habituales visiones eurocéntricas, como resultado de los contactos e intercambios producidos entre las personas y los grupos que conectan a distintas partes del mundo. (shrink)

The study of social, ethical, and political issues from a naturalistic perspective has been pervasive in social sciences and the humanities in the last decades. This articulation of empirical research with philosophical and normative reflection is increasingly getting attention in academic circles and the public spheres, given the prevalence of urgent needs and challenges that society is facing on a global scale. The contemporary world is full of challenges or what some philosophers have called ‘existential risks’ to humanity. Nuclear wars, (...) natural and/or engineered pandemics, climate change, global totalitarianism, and emergent technologies, are some of the challenges mentioned by many authors devoted to the study of long-term potential risks for the survival of the human species. However, while there are many reasons to be a pessimist about the future of humanity, there is also a lot of ink wasted in showing that the world today is far better than we had in the past and also that there have been many instances of social and moral progress in the last centuries. Some authors have even claimed that “we have made more progress over the last 100 years than in the first 100,000”. According to ‘our world in data’, some of the most relevant advances of humanity in the last centuries have to do with the reduction of poverty and/or inequality, better health and security, the decline of violence and war, and the development of democracy and institutional mechanisms to guarantee individual freedom and rights. Yet, there is a more concrete concern that our world faces nowadays, and requires a particularly detailed analysis. In a few words, the advance in information and communication technologies, the huge volume of people migration because of prevalent instances of global inequality, and the reality of an interconnected world that just mirrors an extensive history of massive human intergroup relations open the question about the feasibility of social and moral progress in the contexts of diverse, multicultural, and unequal societies. This makes it crucial to reflect not only on whether human societies may keep advancing on a path of social progress, but how this can be achieved by addressing the challenges of inequality and potential intergroup conflict. This concern closely relates to the further consolidation of democratic values and the achievement of a more generalized consideration of the equal moral value of human individuals far from group, ethnic, or collective distinctions. This vision of progress follows the moral convictions that have been considered right and worthy to be pursued by most ethical theories explored by philosophers and social scientists so far. This work aims to contribute to the study of the mechanisms and feasibility of social and moral progress grounded on the precept of human equality and is guided by the idea that social and moral progress in a plural world requires the accomplishment of a more democratic and tolerant society. These forms of progress have already been defined by philosophers Allen Buchanan and Russel Powell as inclusivist forms of moral progress. According to these authors, inclusivist moral progress is featured by the transformation of moral judgments, motivations, and norms guided by the rejection of “group-based restrictions on moral standing and moral status” (2018). The work of Buchanan and Powell is fundamental for the argumentation developed in this work since they have pioneered a more complex debate in the field of evolutionary social sciences and philosophical anthropology. In brief, these authors have inquired how human nature, conceptualized by the advances in evolutionary thinking and the empirical sciences, is related to our moral convictions and the possibilities that we have to establish certain forms of social and moral progress. The work of Buchanan and Powell contributes to the debate on moral progress by incorporating empirically-informed concepts and arguments. With this objective in mind, they develop their discussion around a generalized tension between exclusivist and inclusivist forms of moral progress. This tension revolves around the question of whether and to what extent human moral concerns, motivations, and norms, are limited or bounded by social identities, group thinking, or collective values. This question is at the center of this work. In other words, I aim to answer whether and to what extent the nature of our social and moral cognition hinders or enables the development of inclusivist forms of morality and moral progress. As I mentioned so far, the distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist forms of morality has a practical implication and facilitates the reflection on the mechanisms and feasibility of concrete forms of progress based on the precept of human equality, which is the road to progress that we should follow according to most ethical theories. The distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist morality is not used here as a form of summarizing highly divergent descriptive approaches to morality, but as a way to address the practical implications of morality research, particularly around the question of the feasibility of social forms of progress based on the precept of equality and tolerance. My objective then has less to do with offering a conceptualization of human morality or with the proposition of a new ethical perspective. Instead, I aim to identify, from an empirically informed perspective, what enables the achievement of egalitarian forms of social progress, to subsequently offer a normative reflection about what we should do if we want to accomplish such inclusivist forms of progress. This task is of great relevance, having in mind that some theoretical proposals on the matter have claimed that human prosocial behavior and morality are constrained by exclusivist fixed tendencies as a product of our evolutionary history. According to these views, human morality is a group-centered cognitive and behavioral expression that has severe limits in its scope and extent, which hinders in the end the emergence of inclusivist forms of moral concerns and behaviors. These claims align with the philosophical intuition about the ‘dissociation of empathy’, or the fact that human individuals tend to express empathy and sympathy preferably for members of their group whereas their empathic and moral concern and recognition for outgroup individuals tend to be reduced or eliminated in real-life social interactions. Multiple theorists have expressed, however, that these assumptions are wrong for empirical and philosophical reasons, which results in a serious challenge to the conception of human morality as exclusivist by nature. Furthermore, simple intuition and practical experience constantly show us that human individuals can develop and endorse a broad spectrum of moral considerations and adopt an arguably inclusivist stance concerning the kind of persons or agents that deserve moral concern. Moreover, and adopting a historical perspective, the expansion of cultural and commercial exchanges, the consolidation of democracy, the development of welfare states, or the emergence of institutions based on the concept of universal human rights, have partially driven human progress based on the impartial concern for the well-being of persons. These historical instances of cultural evolution and institutional design have shown that it is feasible to promote behaviors and attitudes grounded in impersonal prosocial and inclusivist principles. This optimistic perspective, however, still begs the question of the exact relationship between social, cultural, and historical contexts, and the emergence of certain behavioral expressions of inclusivist morality. This is crucial since a great number of human individuals around the world still do not make part of these instances of social progress, and some authors have suggested that such instances of social and moral progress are particularly favored by the contexts of the WEIRD world, that is the world of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies. Some of these approaches consider moral inclusivity a ‘luxury good’ and follow the ‘dependency thesis’ according to which the expression of moral inclusivity depends on the presence of very concrete material conditions that trigger inclusivist and impersonal prosocial tendencies that human beings are not able to express in threatening contexts without physical security. This thesis is problematic for various reasons and has led to incomplete explanations about the enabling and causal factors of inclusivist moral progress, as well as unsatisfactory suggestions about what we should do to foster the accomplishment of more generalized instances of progress based on inclusivist concerns. In an attempt to contribute to this debate, the main objective of this thesis is to offer an alternative proposal about the nature of human morality and a more detailed reflection on what we should do if we want to further accomplish such instances of progress. More precisely, this work adopts a particular developmental and constructivist vision of human morality to answer the question of how feasible it is to reach generalized forms of social progress based on the precepts of moral inclusivity. Furthermore, it offers some ideas about what are the most adequate and favorable conditions to foster such progress both at the individual and the collective level. At this point, a preliminary clarification of some starting points is necessary. In the first place, and contrary to what other authors have proposed when debating moral progress from an empirically-based approach, my perspective adopts a radical developmental and constructivist perspective, following particularly the conceptual and empirical ideas of the social-domain theory in moral psychology. From this perspective, morality is a domain of normative and social knowledge that develops and emerges in human interactions. Moral concerns, judgments, and norms are not only the result of the expression of innate adaptive intuitions, nor the product of social conformity and a simple process of mirroring the normativity that communities have established to organize their social life. Human individuals, instead, construct moral concerns and judgments during their situated interactions. More specifically, the constructivist tradition claims that we need to research how moral concerns, judgments, and reasons emerge in social interactions and how human beings construct the content of their moral knowledge in the first place. Based on these ideas, morality is defined here as the result of a constructive process through which human individuals, by the means of constant interactions on a background of mutual respect and recognition, develop evaluative concerns about how we ought to treat others, and how to ‘care’ and ‘respect’ others’ well-being, needs, and vulnerabilities. This developmental-constructivist theory of human psychology contributes to an alternative understanding of the origins of moral variability and informs a very particular normative stance about the most desirable contexts needed for the urgent accomplishment of inclusivist forms of morality in contemporary societies. This is so given that the very same definition of morality adopted presupposes the feature of inclusivity. The main objective of this work is then to argue, based on a developmental perspective, what are the most favorable conditions to foster the development of moral inclusivity and what we should do to accomplish concrete instances of moral progress that truly help us to overcome our most urgent moral challenges. The whole thesis is organized as follows. In part I, I show how received visions about human social evolution have informed conceptions of morality as an adaptive function evolved to solve the challenges of cooperative life. Based on these assumptions, some theories argue that human morality is limited by the boundaries of group thinking, and always obeys the mandates of collective interests and the will of the majority. However, this conception has problematic implications from a normative and ethical perspective. The aim of Chapter 1 is to present this introductory debate in detail. In chapter 2, I consider a relevant amount of scientific evidence that helps to consolidate a more optimistic and inclusivist perspective about the starting conditions of human prosocial behavior. Later, I will summarize some ideas offered to explain the possible evolutionary mechanisms that led to the consolidation of these inclusivist capacities. However, I will also show how evolutionary theories that share the same adaptationist foundations but initially seem relevant to explain the feasibility of moral inclusivity, result incomplete when considering the complexity of moral behavior and its ethical implications. Part II is devoted to presenting a developmental alternative to the adaptationist versions around the starting conditions of morality. In this section, I first summarize the epistemological, conceptual, and empirical basis of a constructivist perspective already proposed by several authors in the last decades. This is the goal of chapter 3. More precisely, I adopt the conceptualization of morality established by the social-domain theory school and clarify its conception of the situated development of moral concerns, motivations, and norms. All these ideas are essential for my argumentation on the feasibility of inclusivist moral progress offered later. Chapter 4 provides a more detailed idea of constructivist thinking about moral development, by analyzing one particular dimension: the development of moral concerns for fairness and the sense of justice in distributive dilemmas. In Part III, I assume a constructivist perspective on morality to contribute to the philosophy of moral progress. In particular, I discuss the implications of such a perspective for the conceptualization of human moral nature and discuss what are the most favorable conditions for moral inclusivity to emerge. Answering that question is of enormous relevance since favoring the transition of human societies towards more inclusivist forms of moral concern and behavior supposes a more generalized accomplishment of our most urgent moral convictions. Previous developmental or culturally-sensible attempts to explore this issue are already on the market. As mentioned before, most authors have approached the topic by situating the cultural evolution and development of (inclusivist) moral progress in the WEIRD world. For instance, some of these authors claim that very concrete material conditions (mostly present in the Western World) have been necessary for triggering inclusivist and impersonal prosocial tendencies that human beings are not able to express in threatening contexts without physical security. Despite their interest in explaining inclusivist morality and the feasibility of inclusivist forms of progress following a naturalistic and culturally situated approach, these theories are problematic for two main reasons. In the first place, most of the authors that explain moral progress tend to focus exclusively on the consolidation of liberal values in the Western world and the underlying adoption of laws, social-epistemic practices, and public narratives about tolerance and inclusivity, as unequivocal signs of inclusivist morality. Nevertheless, there is an enormous distance between the institutional and public support of inclusivist moral values or the construction of public images of tolerance and inclusivity, and the real materialization of impersonal moralities in situated social interactions. Secondly, the variability of human moral behavior is far bigger than most of the theories in moral psychology and moral progress tend to assume. Accordingly, inclusivist and exclusivist forms of morality may develop simultaneously in similar or divergent geographical and socio-ecological environments, including those with harsh conditions such as competition for scarce resources, potential intergroup conflict, and risks of disease transmission. In addition, harsh environmental conditions are usually present in almost all societies around the globe, and the presence of socio-ecological conditions such as physical security and prosperity, predominant in highly resourced populations, do not prevent the existence of exclusivist moral tendencies. My model explores a different perspective on the relationships between cultural, institutional, and historical factors, and the situated development of human morality. This supposes a clear distinction from previous approaches to the matter since it offers a different view on what we should do to pursue further instances of inclusivist social progress. In the fifth chapter, I first analyze the proposals of some defenders of the ‘dependency’ theory. The attention is focused on the ‘Evolutionary Developmental Model’ proposed by Buchanan and Powell (2018). Based on a critique of this approach, I will argue that to explain the evolution and development of human morality in its multiple manifestations, it is essential to put focus on social interactions. This also involves a different perspective on human-environment relations that in line with a constructivist worldview makes an innovative contribution to the philosophy of moral behavior and moral progress. Later, in the sixth chapter, I will define my alternative relational view of inclusivist morality and I will offer my view on how to establish favorable conditions that make inclusivist morality possible. Complementing the constructivist approach, my conception is based on the essential role of equality and individuality and on how moral inclusivity is favored if moral concerns do not develop driven by the accomplishment of group-centered, binding, and communitarian concerns and values. In brief, my relational model suggests that the accomplishment of moral inclusivity not only depends on the overall achievement of certain levels of physical security or economic prosperity. Instead, its development is favored by transforming the interactional contexts in which moral concerns towards autonomy and individuality emerge. In arguing so, I will need to start with a critique of contemporary situated and embodied approaches in ethics. Then, I will show how societies guided by the accomplishment of group-centered values of power, dominance, and relational inequality tend to express exclusivist moral behaviors, while individualistic societies tend to be more inclusivist. Starting from this diagnosis, my final attempt is then to reflect on which are the best conditions for the moral valuation of individuality to emerge and what we should do to promote the accomplishment of moral inclusivity at the societal level. (shrink)

The Kiki-Bouba effect comprises a relation between two abstract figures and two non-words: the star-shaped figure is called 'Kiki' and the rounded figure 'Bouba'. The effect is explained by a sound-vision synaesthesia: certain sounds are associated with certain shapes in a non-arbitrary manner.When we asked the participants to decide which of the two figures, the star-shaped or the rounded one, to call yin and which yang, some 85% choose the star-shaped figure as yin. There are previous cases of synaesthesia where (...) personality is attributed to numbers or letters. In our results, the word Kiki is overall happy, clever, small, thin, young, unpleasant, and nervous. The starshaped figure is overall clever, tall, small, slim, nervous, unpleasant, and upper-class. That is, the correspondence above all concerns the qualifying adjectives clever, unpleasant, and nervous, as well as the physical appearance small and thin. This brings us to the fat-thin effect. Cinema, literature, comics, and children's programmes are full of contrasting figures: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Laurel and Hardy , Asterix and Obelix, Tintin and Captain Haddock, Bert and Ernie , or the Spanish comic about very naughty twin boys called Zipi and Zape . Our main conclusion is that first names and last names are not entirely arbitrary. There is a correspondence between names and physical characteristics and concepts . The Kiki-Bouba effect is a semantic one. (shrink)

En su intervención en el debate alemán de finales del siglo XVIII sobre el significado de la ilustración, Moses Mendelssohn asigna a la ilustración (Auflkärung) y a la cultura (Kultur), componentes teórico y práctico respectivamente de la formación (Bildung) de un pueblo, una función de profilaxis recíproca. El desarrollo de cada una constituye el mejor medio para prevenir la corrupción que produce el mal uso de la otra. Dado que la “manera de destruir” de cada una se contrapone a la (...) de la otra, la felicidad de una nación depende de su avance equilibrado. La intención de este artículo es determinar la posición de Mendelssohn respecto a los límites de la ilustración así como clarificar el vínculo profiláctico entre ilustración y cultura. (shrink)

En el presente escrito, se da a conocer una interpretación _“personal”_, no por ello arbitraria, del texto _Sobre el concepto de historia _o _Tesis de filosofía de la historia_, _Über den Begriff der Geschichte_ de Walter Benjamín, leído de manera situada, una lectura cuya óptica pretende ser _desde_ América Latina. Se insistirá en la excepcionalidad crítica de la obra de Benjamín, sugiriendo que su propuesta alcanza una re-definición y transvaloración del concepto de historia, aquel que de manera habitual nos determina, (...) y que impide todo actuar, toda praxis revolucionaria, que para un tiempo como el nuestro, y que es ahora, se requiere más que nunca. (shrink)

El presente artículo recuerda momentos cruciales de una historia del sujeto que va de Jacques Lacan a Alain Badiou. Tras la división y la subversión lacaniana del sujeto, se revisan reacciones que intentan revertirla en varios autores. Estas reacciones se contrastan con la idea badiouana de la escisión del sujeto entre el esplacio y el fuera-de-lugar. La absolutización estructuralista del esplacio estructural se ilustra con la acción de la estructura de Jacques-Alain Miller, se aproxima al argumento de las estructuras que (...) descienden a la calle con el que Lacan defendió la posición estructuralista contra Lucien Goldmann y se explica por la forclusión del sujeto en el estructuralismo, en el sistema capitalista y en la ciencia en general. Con respecto al campo científico, se muestra cómo fue definido primero por la forclusión y luego por la suturación del sujeto en Miller, simultáneamente por la forclusión y la suturación en Lacan, y sólo por la forclusión en Badiou, quien empezará negando y terminará aceptando la existencia de un sujeto de la ciencia, pero diferente del de Lacan y Miller. (shrink)

The issue of time appears in the analysis that the Bishop of Hippo makes of the account of creation in Genesis, and offers better understanding the nature of created things and with them, created time. The way Augustine understands reality allows us to understand his interpretation of Genesis, which enriches the treatise’s view of time in Book XI of Confessiones, since in De Genesi ad litteram and De civitate Dei Augustine addresses time, not as experiences the soul, but as a (...) creature made with other creatures, and linked to change and movement. (shrink)

The issue of time within Augustine’s work requires a new look, as the problem has been seen in an almost generalized way from the perspective of Book XI of Confessions, and sufficient prominence has not been given to his reflection before this great work. The central text on time has received excessive interpretation, leaving in the background previous approaches, such as in De Musica, Book VI, where the saint addresses the issue of time in the middle of his analysis of (...) temporal and eternal rhythms. (shrink)

In the Augustinian reflection on time, the analysis derives from its condition as a creature; for this reason, the time turns out to be as it is, that is, turns out to have this ontological precariousness that shares with all creation. When we asked about the time, we discover that this reality is not something that our understanding can address as when a man takes an unknown object, but this notion is revealed to us as a dimension of our being. (...) In this article, I propose an interpretation key of the Book XI of Confessions in which I show the importance of presenting the sense of temporal existence facing the eternal Creator and also I propose an interpretation of the dual dimension, positive and negative, of distentio animi. (shrink)

Moving into the space of tension and contradiction between philosophy and psychoanalysis, I reflect on the spectral way in which Marx and his legacy appear in the Lacanian Left. I explain this spectrality through the impossible mourning of Marxism. I bring in three authors who prescribe mourning here and ignore its impossibility: Özselçuk, Stavrakakis and Alemán. I resort to Benjamin, Lacan, Allouch and Traverso to problematise the Freudian distinction between mourning and melancholy in its application to Marxism. Instead of mourning (...) with its post-Marxist bet, I defend an openly melancholic position based on the militant historical commitment to the dead and what Lacan has represented as the insurmountable directions indicated by Marx. I distinguish three great idealist attempts by the Lacanian Left to overcome the materially insurmountable directions: Laclau’s anti-essentialist discursive postmodernism, Žižek’s pessimistic Lacanian Hegelianism and Badiou’s Jacobin political Platonism. I contrast the Laclauian democratic populist concessions with the Badiouan-Žižekian fidelity to Marxism and communism. (shrink)

El presente artículo se ocupa de la orientación marxista del filósofo esloveno Slavoj Žižek. Se intenta elucidar su lectura de Marx, su relación con él y su particular versión del marxismo. Primero se indaga cómo Žižek adopta ciertas concepciones marxianas de la universalidad, la retroactividad, la contingencia, el materialismo, la libertad y la economía. Luego se examina la forma en que, por un lado, Žižek aplica ciertas ideas de Marx a la explicación del mundo actual y, por otro lado, reinterpreta (...) el pensamiento marxiano desde una perspectiva lacaniana u original, propiamente žižekiana. Por último, después de haberse detectado algunos puntos en los que Žižek adhiere a Marx, se abordan críticamente otros puntos en los que discrepa de él. (shrink)

Resumen A diferencia de trabajos anteriores sobre el universalismo y el colonialismo en el pensamiento filosófico y político de Žižek, el presente artículo se basa en profundas coincidencias con este pensamiento, así como en irreductibles discrepancias con respecto a muchos de sus detractores. Todo esto no impide que se disienta con respecto a dos puntos fundamentales del filósofo esloveno: su posición universalista abiertamente eurocéntrica y su concepción positiva del colonialismo. La doble divergencia es resumida y justificada en las siguientes doce (...) tesis y en las objeciones que plantean a lo que se juzga inaceptable en el pensamiento žižekiano: 1) la conciencia y la crítica del horror colonial no son legados europeos; 2) el colonialismo es él mismo opresión; 3) hay otros orígenes fuera de Europa; 4) nunca se pierden todas las raíces; 5) lo aparente puede ser lo universal; 6) el capitalismo nunca supera su particularidad; 7) el capitalismo sigue comportando la colonialidad; 8) la modernidad capitalista incluye una otredad que no es ni anterior ni posterior; 9) la otredad sabe cómo explotar lo europeo que la explota; 10) un sujeto puede encontrarse en más de un universo; 11) no todo es comparable al ello fuera de Europa y Estados Unidos; y 12) es Europa la que se distorsiona al reflejarse en Estados Unidos.Unlike earlier work on universalism and colonialism in Žižek’s philosophical and political thought, this article draws on deep coincidences with this thought, as well as irreducible disagreements with many of its detractors. All this does not prevent that there are also divergences with respect to the two fundamental points of the Slovenian philosopher: his universalist openly Eurocentric position and his positive conception of colonialism. The double divergence is summarized and justified in the following twelve theses and in the objections they raise to what is deemed unacceptable in Žižekian thought: 1) the consciousness and critique of colonial horror are not European legacies; 2) colonialism is itself oppression; 3) there are other origins outside of Europe; 4) all roots are never lost; 5) the apparent can be the universal; 6) capitalism never overcomes its particularity; 7) capitalism continues to involve coloniality; 8) capitalist modernity includes an otherness that is neither anterior nor posterior; 9) otherness knows how to exploit the European that exploits it; 10) a subject can be found in more than one universe; 11) not everything is comparable to the id outside of Europe and the United States; and 12) it is Europe that is distorted when reflected in the United States. (shrink)

The literary genesis of Einbahnstraße by Walter Benjamin represents a very special case of the use of the procedures of surrealism in the philosophical-literary production of the author. The process of evolution of thinking that ended up in the writing of this piece is unveiled throughout the present analysis. This is a sign of both waiver and restart; the opening for a new productive dimension in the career of one of the most important —and misunderstood— philosophers of the 20th century. (...) More than enlightening a small master piece of philosophy from a literary perspective, or analyzing a small master piece of literature from the philosophy, what is being problematized here is the division, cultivated or figured throughout the years, between both disciplines. This work is intended to recover what is insoluble from the philosophical-literary labor of Walter Benjamin, besides tracing a possible reconfiguration for an interdisciplinary field of work to come up and contribute in the understanding of the problem called The Retreat of Metaphor by Jacques Derrida. (shrink)

Patagonia: Land of Giants captures the wonders of the Patagonian landscape in hundreds of stunning color photographs by famed Argentine nature photographer Daniel Rivademar.

This paper deals with the question of whether uncertainty regarding model structure, especially in climate modeling, exhibits a kind of “chaos.” Do small changes in model structure, in other words, lead to large variations in ensemble predictions? More specifically, does model error destroy forecast skill faster than the ordinary or “classical” chaos inherent in the real-world attractor? In some cases, the answer to this question seems to be “yes.” But how common is this state of affairs? Are there precise mathematical (...) results that can help us answer this question? And is dependence on model structure “sensitive” in that arbitrarily small errors can destroy forecast skill? We examine some efforts in the literature to answer this last question in the affirmative and find them to be unconvincing. (shrink)

El propósito de esta investigación se centra en la propuesta de una práctica artística sobre “poesía visual” en la asignatura de Ilustración del Grado en Bellas Artes. El objetivo principal de esta actividad será la de mostrar los paralelismos existentes entre la ilustración y la poesía verbal. Con él se pretende el alumno conozca y domine los ele-mentos del lenguaje visual, además de favorecer la comprensión crítica al desarrollar el propio trabajo artístico. En el proceso de elaboración el estudiante aplicará (...) las técnicas y conocimientos adquiridos en las clases teóricas, además de documentarse de diversos trabajos previamente realizados por profesionales. Los ejercicios finales serán clasificados y analizados en función de los contenidos teóricos propuestos, el lenguaje y la retórica visual. A partir de esta primera clasificación se investigará sobre el impacto expresivo de la poesía visual y la nuevas dimensiones “paragramaticales” que suscita la imagen de un poema verbal. Las conclusiones extraídas mostrarán las nuevas asociaciones mentales que surgen más allá de la desviación de la norma gramatical, es decir, la imagen modifica la percepción de lo escrito y activa una nueva interpretación del texto. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza una fotografía de Fidel Castro que es muy lejana a la etapa épica del guerrillero, pero que forma parte de la iconografía en torno a este personaje. Se trata de un retrato de Fidel a los tres años, tomado en Birán, en 1929, estudiado con el objeto de comprender los intereses y las inten ciones alrededor de su producción, así como los usos actuales de esa misma imagen. Partiendo de la consideración de la fotografía como una práctica (...) social y cultural que integra significados, ella debe ser incorporada en el estudio de la historia como un documento que permite aportar información de sus contextos de producción y reproducción. A partir de estas consideraciones, se pudo observar el significado de la representación iconográfica de Fidel a los tres años, quien fue fotografiado utilizando convenciones que resaltaban las favorables condiciones económicas de las que gozaba la familia Castro Ruz, sin embargo, la investigación revela que se le han añadido significados en sus posteriores usos, producto de intereses políticos en torno a la trayectoria guerrillera de Fidel. (shrink)

América Latina es un concepto, una construcción intelectual que intenta dar cuenta de un grupo de estados nacionales, variable en su composición pero con un núcleo estable, las ex colonias españolas y portuguesas del continente americano. Hoy no hay en América Latina un programa de desarrollo nacional alternativo a la integración al mundo capitalista global. Las experiencias nacionales que la izquierda dirige no constituyen una imagen como la que representó Cuba en los años sesenta, ni desde el punto de vista (...) de los programas ni desde el liderazgo. Lo que se construyó en las décadas de los cincuentas y sesentas fue una conciencia de la relevancia de un proyecto continental que merecía ser respaldado por una teorización del conjunto, la construcción de un objeto de conocimiento al mismo tiempo que un actor político colectivo. Como quiera que sea, esta conciencia se desarrolló alrededor de las instituciones internacionales y nacionales residentes en Santiago de Chile y comenzó a desvanecerse junto con el proyecto de Allende y la Unidad Popular. (shrink)

In this essay I revise, based on the notion of the ‘enlightened ruler’ or mingzhu and his critique of the literati of his time, the common belief that Han Fei was an amoralist and an advocate of tyranny. Instead, I will argue that his writings are dedicated to advising those who ought to rule in order to achieve the goal of a peaceful and stable society framed by laws in accordance with the dao.

Argumentation represents a way of reasoning over a knowledge base containing possibly incomplete and/or inconsistent information, to obtain useful conclusions. As a reasoning mechanism, the way an argumentation reasoning engine reaches these conclusions resembles the cognitive process that humans follow to analyze their beliefs; thus, unlike other computationally reasoning systems, argumentation offers an intellectually friendly alternative to other defeasible reasoning systems. LogicProgrammingisacomputationalparadigmthathasproducedcompu- tationallyattractivesystemswithremarkablesuccessinmanyapplications. Merging ideas from both areas, Defeasible Logic Programming offers a computational reasoning system that uses an argumentation engine (...) to obtain answers from a knowledge base represented using a logic programming language extended with defeasible rules. This combination of ideas brings about a computationally effective system together with a human-like reasoning model facilitating its use in applications. (shrink)

En este artículo se analiza el modo en que Joseph Ratzinger se enfrentó en su tesis de habilitación al rechazo de la filosofía por parte de Buenaventura, uno de sus teólogos favoritos. El esfuerzo que hace Ratzinger por reconciliar al doctor Seráfico con el pensamiento filosófico arroja valiosas luces para iluminar el problema de la relación entre la fe y la razón en general, y la teología y la filosofía en particular. El enemigo de Buenaventura no es a fin de (...) cuentas la filosofía, sino un modo desordenado de entenderla con una pretensión de autonomía, desconectada de las fuentes de la revelación.En este artículo se analiza el modo en que Joseph Ratzinger se enfrentó en su tesis de habilitación al rechazo de la filosofía por parte de Buenaventura, uno de sus teólogos favoritos. El esfuerzo que hace Ratzinger por reconciliar al doctor Seráfico con el pensamiento filosófico arroja valiosas luces para iluminar el problema de la relación entre la fe y la razón en general, y la teología y la filosofía en particular. El enemigo de Buenaventura no es a fin de cuentas la filosofía, sino un modo desordenado de entenderla con una pretensión de autonomía, desconectada de las fuentes de la revelación. (shrink)

The present volume brings together a number of studies, eight in all, dedicated to diverse aspects of Aristotle's conception of rational action and practical rationality. Two principal motifs account for their thematic unity. The first one is given in the idea that Aristotle's view is characterized by a fundamental tension between the totalizing orientation of practical rationality, on the one hand, and the situational subjection of human action, on the other. The second one concerns the connection that Aristotle establishes between (...) rational action (praxis) and truth, expressed in the notion of practical truth. The proposed interpretation seeks to show that Aristotle's conception is not just internally consistent and philosophically interesting; it is also capable of entering into fruitful dialogue with a whole range of modern and contemporary views. (shrink)

The thought of Pierre Klossowski, praised by Foucault, Blanchot, Deleuze, has been scarcely addressed by the philosophical community. We argue in this article that this is largely due to the frequent difficulty of understanding his work as a whole: both his artistic and literary production and his interpretations of Nietzsche or Sade form a coherent whole, whose significance has a deeply critical political scope. The notion of unproductive spending, which occupies a central place in Bataille's work, will be rearticulated in (...) Klossowski's reflections through the concepts of drive, phantasm, simulacrum, value and consumption. In The Living Currency, the political dimension of these terms appears clearly: relying on a rereading of Fourier and Sade, the author shows the extreme degree of deformation of what we assume as a reality in modern industrial society. In this sense, his thinking takes on special relevance today, as a revelation of the excess and unhingedness of a society in which production and consumption are reproduced without limit through the infinite reflections produced by the game between drives, ghosts and simulacra. (shrink)