Typically, existentialist analyses of “America” have been limited to North America (more specifically, the United States). I argue that developing an adequate framework for existentially analyzing America requires a turn to Mexican existentialism. In Emilio Uranga’s and Jorge Portilla’s writings, we discover new conceptual tools for understanding Americanness as such. These thinkers help us imagine an account of American being that does not restrict itself to the United States by using the concepts of existentialism to describe the crises their neighbors (...) to the north as well as they themselves face. American existence has been historically characterized by a convergence (oftentimes clash) of disparate races, ethnicities, languages, cultures, religions, and identities. As history unfolded, this convergence led to various existential crises across the Americas. Whereas the US American way of life is marred by a blustering, naïve, and purposeless misuse of freedom that disregards the other, the existential crisis the Mexican lives is characterized by “accidentality” and “zozobra.” Despite these important differences, all existentialists, and the Mexican existentialists of the Hyperion Group especially, remind us that there is a common way to overcome the various existential crises plaguing the Americas, and that is to exercise freedom in a purposeful, communally conscious manner. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that, contrary to scholarly consensus, Antonio Caso draws inspiration from important principles and ideas from Kant’s philosophy in his critique of positivism. I first examine the prima facie textual reasons why someone might believe that Caso and Kant are philosophical enemies. To contradict this notion, I proceed by noting and developing three core ideas that the two share in common. First, Caso and Kant are both ardent critics of dogmatic philosophizing. Second, both Caso and Kant (...) carve out special room for intuition in their respective accounts of cognition, resisting the idea that the understanding has a more prominent role in the formation of knowledge. Third, Kant’s doctrine of aesthetic judgment paves the way for Caso’s de-intellectualized aesthetics. In the end, we see that Kant and Caso are closer to being philosophical friends than enemies. (shrink)

Purpose As part of an international study of knowledge of and attitudes to Snowden’s revelations about the activities of the National Security Agency/Government Communications Headquarters, this paper aims to deal with Mexico, taking its socio-cultural and political environment surrounding privacy and state surveillance into account. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire was answered by 160 Mexican University students. The quantitative responses to the survey were statistically analysed as well as qualitative considerations of free text answers. Findings Snowden’s revelations have had a limited influence (...) over Mexican youngsters’ attitudes toward privacy and state surveillance, although there is a great awareness by Mexican young people of individual rights issues. Practical implications The study results imply a need to build a collective awareness of the importance of the right to privacy and its responsibilities, the available technological options for individuals to exert their own privacy and security and the democratic means to agree and enforce appropriate legal restrictions on state surveillance. Social implications The results of this study based indicate an urgent necessity for providing Mexican youngsters with opportunities to learn more about privacy, liberty, individual autonomy and national security. Originality/value This study is the first attempt to investigate the social impact of Snowden’s revelations on Mexican students’ attitudes toward privacy and state surveillance as part of cross-cultural analyses between eight countries. (shrink)

The benefits of homework on student learning and academic achievement, to a large extent, depend on the degree of student engagement. Motivational engagement (my intention or why I do the homework), cognitive engagement (how I get involved in homework), and behavioral engagement (how much homework I do, how much time I devote to it, how I manage that time) are key aspects that condition the quality of the process of doing homework, learning, and academic achievement. Prior academic achievement is one (...) of the variables that seems to be positively related to student engagement (both due its motivational component and to the training to do homework). The main purpose of this work was to study in detail this relationship in students of the last stage of Primary Education (N = 516). The results showed that (i) as achievement levels rise, the use of a shallow focus to doing homework decreases (and the use of a deep approach increases); (ii) there is also a progressive increase in the amount of homework done and in the management of the time dedicated to homework. On another hand, as in previous research, (iii) no relationship was observed between the levels of prior achievement and the amount of time spent doing homework. (shrink)

Ante la gravedad de la mentira, causante de todos los males, difundida desde hace muchas décadas en el Mundo Hispánico, este libro, con la fuerza del conocimiento de la verdad, pretende orientar a ese mismo mundo hacia su estabilidad, su concordia y su libertad, puestas hoy en peligro por tantas falsedades. Lo hace principalmente mostrando cómo la Corona Española, desde 1493, ordenaba tratar "muy bien y amorosamente a los indios", los cuales siempre encontraron en ella su principal bienhechora y, por (...) ello, en el siglo XIX, prefirieron seguir vinculados a ella frente a los descendientes de los encomenderos independentistas. Índice: PREFACIO DE DON JUAN DE BORBÓN INTRODUCCIÓN SIGLAS Y ABREVIATURAS I. APROXIMACIÓN A LA REINA ISABEL I II. REINA HUMANISTA III. HUMANISMO FRENTE A ESCLAVITUD IV. «QUE TODOS TRATEN MUY BIEN Y AMOROSAMENTEA LOS INDIOS» V. «¿QUÉ PODER TIENE MÍO EL ALMIRANTE PARA DARA NADIE MIS VASALLOS?» VI. «CON MUCHO AMOR» VII. LOS ÚLTIMOS DOCE AÑOS DE LA REINA ISABEL VIII. LAS CASAS Y EL REY FERNANDO IX. LA UNIVERSITAS CHRISTIANA DE CARLOS V X. LA INCORPORACIÓN DE LAS INDIAS A LACORONA DE CASTILLA Y LEÓN XI. LA ENCOMIENDA Y LA ESCLAVITUD NATURAL XII. CARLOS V Y LOS DERECHOS DE LOS INDIOS XIII. LA JUNTA CONVOCADA POR EL EMPERADOR EN 1550 XIV. FILOSOFÍA POLÍTICA DE VITORIA Y LA ESCUELA DE SALAMANCA XV. LA RECOPILACIÓN DE LEYES DE LOS REINOS DELAS INDIAS XVI. LA MONARQUÍA A PARTIR DEL SIGLOXVIII XVII. LA FUNCIÓN DE LA CORONA EN HISPANOAMÉRICA BIBLIOGRAFÍA. (shrink)

Ante la gravedad de la mentira, causante de todos los males, difundida desde hace muchas décadas en el Mundo Hispánico, este libro, con la fuerza del conocimiento de la verdad, pretende orientar a ese mismo mundo hacia su estabilidad, su concordia y su libertad, puestas hoy en peligro por tantas falsedades. Lo hace principalmente mostrando cómo la Corona Española, desde 1493, ordenaba tratar "muy bien y amorosamente a los indios", los cuales siempre encontraron en ella su principal bienhechora y, por (...) ello, en el siglo XIX, prefirieron seguir vinculados a ella frente a los descendientes de los encomenderos independentistas. Índice: PREFACIO DE DON JUAN DE BORBÓN INTRODUCCIÓN SIGLAS Y ABREVIATURAS -/- I. APROXIMACIÓN A LA REINA ISABEL I -/- II. REINA HUMANISTA -/- III. HUMANISMO FRENTE A ESCLAVITUD -/- IV. «QUE TODOS TRATEN MUY BIEN Y AMOROSAMENTEA LOS INDIOS» -/- V. «¿QUÉ PODER TIENE MÍO EL ALMIRANTE PARA DARA NADIE MIS VASALLOS?» -/- VI. «CON MUCHO AMOR» -/- VII. LOS ÚLTIMOS DOCE AÑOS DE LA REINA ISABEL -/- VIII. LAS CASAS Y EL REY FERNANDO -/- IX. LA UNIVERSITAS CHRISTIANA DE CARLOS V -/- X. LA INCORPORACIÓN DE LAS INDIAS A LACORONA DE CASTILLA Y LEÓN -/- XI. LA ENCOMIENDA Y LA ESCLAVITUD NATURAL -/- XII. CARLOS V Y LOS DERECHOS DE LOS INDIOS -/- XIII. LA JUNTA CONVOCADA POR EL EMPERADOR EN 1550 -/- XIV. FILOSOFÍA POLÍTICA DE VITORIA Y LA ESCUELA DE SALAMANCA -/- XV. LA RECOPILACIÓN DE LEYES DE LOS REINOS DELAS INDIAS -/- XVI. LA MONARQUÍA A PARTIR DEL SIGLOXVIII -/- XVII. LA FUNCIÓN DE LA CORONA EN HISPANOAMÉRICA -/- BIBLIOGRAFÍA. (shrink)

Christopher Meckstroth’s book The Struggle for Democracy poses and attempts to solve a central problem of democratic theory: what he calls the ‘paradox of authorization’, whereby the very activity of spelling out the political content of democracy is said to potentially contradict its object, since the democratic theorist may end up substituting himself or herself for ‘the people’ in deciding what this form government amounts to in practice. In order to avoid this problem, Meckstroth suggests that the political content of (...) democracy ought to be extrapolated out of concrete political struggles, by submitting competing claims to represent the people’s will to a rational scrutiny that tests them for internal coherence. While pointing out the intrinsic interest and originality of this approach, the review also advances some reservations concerning the posited criterion’s capacity to perform all the work Meckstroth assigns it. In the end, the proposed solution to the ‘paradox of authorization’ may fall prey to... (shrink)

The article develops, in a Hegelian key, a possible explanation of the role that the Protestant idea of subjective autonomy plays in the shaping of the American political imaginary, and its respective paradigm of democracy. The starting point is an important indication by James Doull, later developed by David Peddle, on the notion of internal consent for the acceptance of political institutions, originally formulated within the Calvinist tradition of the Covenant. In my opinion, this observation is correct but insufficient to (...) fully explain the conformation of the imaginary of the sovereignty of the Demos. Following Doull's own line, whose examination projects Hegelian philosophy, what is required, in my opinion, is to investigate the specific type of experience of American consciousness in the colonial period from the perspective of analysis that Hegel develops in the Phenomenology of the Spirit. (shrink)

Legal interpretation is a complex subject that raises several problems, and one of them relates to the question whether legal interpretative propositions are objective. Several claims arguing in favor of this objective stance are discussed in the article with the idea of understanding the nature of such claims.Resumen:La interpretación jurídica es un tema complejo que plantea diversos pro- blemas, y uno de ellos, quizá el más relevante, es el relativo a establecer si las proposiciones interpretativas derivadas de un texto jurídico (...) son objetivas. Las principales posturas existentes en torno a la posible objetividad de las proposiciones interpretativas, son analizadas y evaluadas por el autor (en especial, la llamada “objetividad modesta”) para descubrir si existe un referente objetivo para las interpretaciones jurídicas, el término objetivo de esa referencia y en que consiste tal objetividad. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the problem of rational justification of law in general and legal norms in particular, a problem highlighted by the so-called postmodern trends that deny the possibility and validity of these attempts. While the postmodern trends serve as a background to the discussion, the article provides a summary of rational justification of norms based on Sergio Cotta’s innovative approach, who is arguably one of the authors that has dealt to the topic with more prominence and consistency. Thus, the (...) goal of this article is to point out how the election of a norm can be justified, and to explain the main notions of Cotta’s approach, in order to assess his accuracy and weakness, and his connection to the theory of practical knowledge. The article concludes with some remarks on Cotta’s justification model.Resumen:El presente artículo desarrolla el problema de la justificación racional del derecho en general y de las normas jurídicas en particular, ante las corrientes de pensamiento denominadas posmodernas que niegan la posibilidad y validez de tales intentos. El trabajo ofrece una reseña acerca de la justificación racional de las normas a partir de la novedosa doctrina de Sergio Cotta, quien es uno de los autores que ha abordado el tema con mayor extensión y consistencia. A lo largo del artículo, el autor intenta mostrar de qué manera está fundada la elección de una norma, explica las nociones centrales de la doctrina de Cotta, identifica sus aciertos, sus debilidades, su conexión con la teoría del conocimiento práctico y concluye con algunas observaciones al modelo de justificación propuesto. (shrink)

This paper reports on the meeting of the Sounding Board of the EU Reprogenetics Project that was held in Budapest, Hungary, 6–9 November 2005. The Reprogenetics Project runs from 2004 until 2007 and has a brief to study the ethical aspects of human reproductive cloning and germline gene therapy. Discussions during The Budapest Meeting are reported in depth in this paper as well as the initiatives to involve the participating groups and others in ongoing collaborations with the goal of forming (...) an integrated network of European resources in the fields of ethics of science. (shrink)

This paper reports on the meeting of the Sounding Board of the EU Reprogenetics Project that was held in Budapest, Hungary, 6–9 November 2005. The Reprogenetics Project runs from 2004 until 2007 and has a brief to study the ethical aspects of human reproductive cloning and germline gene therapy. Discussions during The Budapest Meeting are reported in depth in this paper as well as the initiatives to involve the participating groups and others in ongoing collaborations with the goal of forming (...) an integrated network of European resources in the fields of ethics of science. (shrink)

This paper reports on the meeting of the Sounding Board of the EU Reprogenetics Project that was held in Budapest, Hungary, 6–9 November 2005. The Reprogenetics Project runs from 2004 until 2007 and has a brief to study the ethical aspects of human reproductive cloning and germline gene therapy. Discussions during The Budapest Meeting are reported in depth in this paper as well as the initiatives to involve the participating groups and others in ongoing collaborations with the goal of forming (...) an integrated network of European resources in the fields of ethics of science. (shrink)