In Greek mythology, the Chimera is a fire-breathing monster with three heads: one of a lion, one of a horned goat, and one of a powerful dragon. Of similar construction is the presence of three structures in US society, whiteness, patriarchy, and capitalism, which are overwhelmingly represented, valued, and espoused when examining areas of progress, i.e., family income, poverty rates, high school and college graduation rates, and home ownership. This modern American three-headed beast controls, manipulates, and permeates all aspects of (...) US society irrespective of class, culture, or gender. Using critical race theory and critical whiteness studies, this critically interpretive parable draws from the ways in which whiteness, patriarchy, and capitalism function in social, cultural, economic, and educational spheres. The parable tells the story of Sue Libertad and analyzes how this metaphorical Chimera, despite its ubiquity, silently permeates all aspects of her life. Not until a tragic outbreak occurs, does the hegemony of this chimera erodes and Sue. (shrink)

Music can reduce stress and anxiety, enhance positive mood, and facilitate social bonding. However, little is known about the role of music and related personal or cultural variables in maintaining wellbeing during times of stress and social isolation as imposed by the COVID-19 crisis. In an online questionnaire, administered in 11 countries, participants rated the relevance of wellbeing goals during the pandemic, and the effectiveness of different activities in obtaining these goals. Music was found to be the most effective activity (...) for three out of five wellbeing goals: enjoyment, venting negative emotions, and self-connection. For diversion, music was equally good as entertainment, while it was second best to create a sense of togetherness, after socialization. This result was evident across different countries and gender, with minor effects of age on specific goals, and a clear effect of the importance of music in people's lives. Cultural effects were generally small and surfaced mainly in the use of music to obtain a sense of togetherness. Interestingly, culture moderated the use of negatively valenced and nostalgic music for those higher in distress. (shrink)

Se investiga la metodología estructural deHistoire de la folie à l’ageclassique. Se sos- tiene que Michel Foucault, a partir de los trabajos de George Dumézil, elabora el concepto de experiencia para dar fundamento a las diversas experiencias históricas de la locura. La experiencia epocal, desarrollada en aquel texto, apela a una causalidad estructural que proviene del esquema de la trifuncionalidad ideológica indoeuropea de las obras de Dumézil.

RESUMEN Se investiga la metodología estructural deHistoire de la folie à l'ageclassique. Se sostiene que Michel Foucault, a partir de los trabajos de George Dumézil, elabora el concepto de experiencia para dar fundamento a las diversas experiencias históricas de la locura. La experiencia epocal, desarrollada en aquel texto, apela a una causalidad estructural que proviene del esquema de la trifuncionalidad ideológica indoeuropea de las obras de Dumézil. ABSTRACT The article inquires into the structural methodology of the Histoire de la folie (...) à Γ âge classique. It argues that Michel Foucault draws on the works of Georges Dumézil to develop the concept of experience that grounds the different historical expressions of madness. The epochal experience developed in the above-mentioned text resorts to a structural causality that has its source in the Indo-European trifunctional scheme of ideology found in the works of Dumézil. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic led to various government-imposed limitations on social interaction and strict home confinement. Such involuntary social-distancing policies can exacerbate feelings of loneliness and alter emotional well-being. Dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis is a potential mechanism for loneliness’ deleterious health effects. In this study, we explored whether pre-pandemic diurnal cortisol output, a measure of HPA axis function, may predict the propensity to changes in loneliness during long-term COVID-19 home confinement and if extraversion would moderate this relationship. This (...) association has been explored by analysing the impact of COVID-19 pandemic and strict home confinement on social and emotional loneliness in 45 Spanish young adults. Diurnal cortisol levels were measured from five saliva samples obtained across a day just before the pandemic, and data about participants’ perceived loneliness, empathic state, extraversion, and prospective volunteering were obtained both before and during the confinement. Participants’ social and family loneliness increased during long-term strict home confinement, while prospective volunteering tendencies and extraversion decreased. Importantly, after adjusting for relevant confounders, moderation analyses revealed that in young adults with high pre-pandemic extraversion, a higher AUCG predicted a larger increase in social loneliness during confinement, while in individuals with low extraversion, AUCG was negatively related to change in loneliness. Our findings highlight the utility of pre-pandemic diurnal cortisol output in predicting the social impact of COVID-19 home confinement, presenting this hormone as a potential biomarker for a priori identification of at-risk groups during public health crises. (shrink)

De acuerdo a la teoría disposicional del valor de M. Smith, algo resulta valioso en la medida en que sea deseado por cualquier agente que delibere racionalmente a partir de un conjunto desiderativo que sea completamente informado, coherente y unificado. A fin de reconocer el valor objetivo de algo, como el valor de promover el cuidado del medioambiente, por ejemplo, la teoría nos compele a adoptar una perspectiva universal y convergente. Sin embargo, ¿qué sucede cuando lidiamos con actos, hechos u (...) objetos cuyo valor parece estar supeditado a nuestros deseos, proyectos o identidades personales? ¿Apreciar el valor de estas cosas acaso también supone la adopción de una perspectiva universal y convergente? El objetivo principal del presente trabajo consiste en determinar qué papel desempeñan en la teoría disposicional del valor los valores personales o agencialmente relativos. Aunque este papel será calificado como ‘incierto’ o ‘ambiguo’, ello no debería ser óbice para pensar que tales valores podrían encontrar en esta teoría un lugar apropiado, junto a los valores impersonales o agencialmente neutrales. Para respaldar esta hipótesis, no obstante, primero será conveniente revisar algunos de los supuestos racionalistas que contendría el enfoque de Smith. (shrink)

Hsueh M. Qu's research book begins with two central problems in Hume scholarship: (1) What is the relation between scepticism and naturalism? (2) What is the relation between the first book of the Treatise (THN) and the first Enquiry (EHU)? His premise is that by answering the second question, the first question will be answered as well.

Este artículo tiene como objetivo clarificar algunas nociones fundamentales de la reconstrucción del cristianismo de Søren Kierkegaard . En primer lugar, se hará una distinción entre creencia histórica y fe cristiana, que sirve de base para entender la relación existencial que el individuo puede desarrollar con la enseñanza de Cristo. Seguidamente, se hará alusión al concepto de espíritu que propone el pensador danés, demarcando con esto los estadios kierkegaardianos de la existencia. Y, por último, se conectarán ambos puntos anteriores con (...) lo que entiende Kierkegaard por verdad y libertad en el contexto religioso. (shrink)

Eternalism is the view that all times are equally real. The relativity of simultaneity in special relativity backs this up. There is no cosmically extended, self-existing ‘now.’ This leads to a tricky problem. What makes statements about the present true? I shall approach the problem along the lines of perspectival realism and argue that the choice of the perspective does. To corroborate this point, the Lorentz transformations of special relativity are compared to the structurally similar equations of the Doppler effect. (...) The ‘now’ is perspectivally real in the same way as a particular electromagnetic spectrum frequency. I also argue that the ontology of time licensed by perspectival realism is more credible in this context than its current alternative, the fragmentalist interpretation of special relativity. (shrink)

Giorgio Agamben and Ludwig Wittgenstein seem to have very little in common: the former is concerned with traditional ontological issues while the latter was interested in logics and ordinary language, avoiding metaphysical issues as something we cannot speak about. However, both share a crucial notion for their philosophical projects: form of life. In this paper, I try to show that, despite their different approaches and goals, form of life is for both a crucial notion for thinking ethics and life in-common. (...) Addressing human existence in its constitutive relation to language, this notion deconstructs traditional dichotomies like bios and zoé, the cultural and the biological, enabling both authors to think of a life which cannot be separated from its forms, recognizing the commonality of logos as the specific trait of human existence. Through an analogical reading between both theoretical frameworks, I suggest that the notion of form-of-life, elaborated by Wittgenstein to address human production of meaning, becomes the key notion in Agamben's affirmative thinking since it enables us to consider the common ontologically in its relation to Human potentialities and to foresee a new, common use of the world and ourselves. Giorgio Agamben e Ludwig Wittgenstein parecem ter muito pouco em comum: o primeiro se ocupa de questões ontológicas tradicionais, enquanto o segundo estava interessado na Lógica e na linguagem corrente, evitando os problemas metafísicos como algo de que não podemos falar. No entanto, ambos partilham um conceito crucial para seus projetos filosóficos respectivos: forma de vida. Este artigo tento mostrar que, apesar de seus diferentes enfoques e objetivos, a noção de forma de vida é fundamental no momento de pensar a ética e a vida em-comum. Abordando a existência humana em sua relação constitutiva com a língua, essa noção desconstrói dicotomias tradicionais como bios e zoe, o cultural e o biológico, permitindo-lhes pensar uma vida que não pode ser separada de suas formas, e reconhecendo o caráter comum do logos como o traço específico da existência humana. Através de uma leitura analógica entre ambos quadros teóricos, sugiro que a noção de forma-de-vida, elaborada por Wittgenstein para abordar a produção humana de significados, tornase o conceito-chave do pensamento afirmativo de Agamben, já que nos permite considerar o comum ontologicamente em sua relação com as potencialidades humanas e vislumbrar um uso novo e comum do mundo e de nós mesmos. (shrink)

Adrian Bardon has produced a new version of his historical introduction to the philosophy of time. Originally published in 2013, the second edition of 2024 is partly rewritten and supplemented with a more extensive discussion on our disposition to project the passage of time [...] Although the book’s title emphasizes history, most of the chapters are directed at issues in systematic philosophy of time: the realism/antirealism debate, temporal passage, temporal experience, spacetime, direction, time travel, time and free will, and the (...) temporal boundaries of the universe. (shrink)

For the last forty years, Hume's Newtonianism has been a debated topic in Hume scholarship. The crux of the matter can be formulated by the following question: Is Hume a Newtonian philosopher? Debates concerning this question have produced two lines of interpretation. I shall call them ‘traditional’ and ‘critical’ interpretations. The traditional interpretation asserts that there are many Newtonian elements in Hume, whereas the critical interpretation seriously questions this. In this article, I consider the main points made by both lines (...) of interpretations and offer further arguments that contribute to this debate. I shall first argue, in favor of the traditional interpretation, that Hume is sympathetic to many prominently Newtonian themes in natural philosophy such as experimentalism, criticality of hypotheses, inductive proof, and criticality of Leibnizian principles of sufficient reason and intelligibility. Second, I shall argue, in accordance with the critical interpretation, that in many cases Hume... (shrink)

Fear, which has always been one of the most powerful of human passions, has grown in importance during modernity. First with Machiavelli and later especially with Hobbes, fear has become one of the foundational ideas of modern political philosophy. If fear, especially fear of death, does indeed occupy a central place in the foundation of modern politics, then it is necessary to study carefully the implications and consequences of the transhumanist attempt to overcome death. Among the main aspirations of transhumanism (...) is the search for almost infinite longevity and, eventually, the total abolition of aging. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the specific role that fear of death has played in modern political philosophy to understand the possible effects that an eventual overcoming of death would have, albeit partial, as wanted by transhumanists. While the possibility of achieving immortality seems unlikely, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t study what’s behind this transhumanist aspiration. In this way, transhumanism seems the final consequence of modern development, since it’s in continuity with the modern attempt to respond to the fear of death, but it does so by trying an ultimate solution to it through the elimination of death, at least by sickness and old age. In this paper, we will review the role of fear of death in the founding of modern political philosophy by Machiavelli and Hobbes, and then we will analyse the transhumanist attempt to overcome death as a consequence of this fear and its possible political effects. (shrink)

This article explores the strategic management of government affairs in companies active in the EU. The article relies on a unique large-N dataset on the functioning and staffing of EU government affairs. The analysis shows that companies delegate government affairs functions to in-house managers with specific competences, who stay in office for long periods and who have an extensive knowledge of the core competences of the company, thanks to their educational background and work experience in the private sector. These findings (...) suggest that how companies strategically manage and staff government affairs in Brussels rests on the distinct structure of business–government relations in the EU, which are based on the exchange of technical information and the establishment of credibility and long-run trust arrangements. (shrink)

Although the main focus of Hume’s career was in the humanities, his work also has an observable role in the historical development of natural sciences after his time. To show this, I shall center on the relation between Hume and two major figures in the history of the natural sciences: Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and Albert Einstein (1879–1955). Both of these scientists read Hume. They also found parts of Hume’s work useful to their sciences. Inquiring into the relations between Hume and (...) the two scientists shows that his philosophical positions had a partial but constructive role in the formation of modern biology and physics. This is accordingly a clear indication of Hume’s impact on the scientific tradition. Before proceeding to analyze Hume’s contribution to the history of science, it is important to address his broader role in the history of philosophy of science. Hume’s discussions concerning the topics of causation, induction, the distinction between mathematical and empirical propositions, and laws of nature have been important for the philosophy of science of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. (shrink)

Eternalism is the view that the past, the present and the future exist simpliciter. A typical argument in favor of this view leans on the relativity of simultaneity. The ‘equally real with’ relation is assumed to be transitive between spacelike separated events connected by hyperplanes of simultaneity. This reasoning is in tension with the conventionality of simultaneity. Conventionality indicates that, even within a specific frame, simultaneity is based on the choice of the synchronization parameter. Hence the argument for eternalism is (...) compromised. This paper lays out alternative eternalist strategies which do not hinge on hyperplanes. While we lack a rigorous proof for eternalism, there are still cogent reasons to prefer eternalism over presentism. (shrink)

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo investigar el fundamento existencialista de la introducción escrita por Michel Foucault a “Traum und Existenz” de Ludwing Binswanger. Sostenemos que Foucault, partiendo de la antropología binswangeriana, desarrolla el esbozo de una antropología de la imaginación. Esta antropología se centra en una serie de conceptos: sueño, existencia, libertad, imagen e imaginación. Sin embargo, a diferencia del Daseinsanalyse, Foucault pone el acento en la facticidad y en la expresión histórica de la libertad. En este punto se (...) plantea una diferencia importante entre ambos autores: mientras que Binswanger pone el acento en una noción de individuo que supedita su existencia individual a un ideal de totalidad comunitaria, Foucault destaca la necesidad de dirigir la dimensión fundante de la libertad hacia sus formas de expresión concretas. (shrink)

“Michel Foucault and the Tragic Structure. An Early Nietzschean Reading of Tragedy”. The purpose of this article is to investigate the statute of the tragic in Michel Foucault’s early texts, especially in the original preface of Histoire de la folie à l’age classique. It will be argued that in his early reading of Nietzsche, Foucault elaborates the concept of tragic structure to give foundation, in epistemic sense, to the historical experiences of madness. Subsequently, we will trace the different formulations on (...) tragic in Foucault’s early texts. The concept of tragic appears on these texts as a term to identify the negativity and of the oblivion in the field of the psychological knowledge. Finally, we will explain how Foucault re-elaborates Nietzsche’s concept of the tragic to expose an underlying determination to the history. The battle between the dionysian and apollonian elements defines the status of this experience. (shrink)

El presente trabajo analizará una serie de esfuerzos teóricos recientes vinculados a la posible redefinición y aprehensión conceptual de los fenómenos de ideología en las sociedades contemporáneas. El estudio desplegará algunos de los problemas que se presentan al interior de esta clase de esfuerzos conceptuales, enfocando especialmente en el contexto del pensamiento político de raíces postestructurales y lacanianas. Se observará, en suma, el modo en que dichas redefiniciones confrontan con ciertas dificultades o generan tensiones conceptuales debido al tipo de presupuestos (...) epistémicos más vastos desde los que las búsquedas parten. La puesta en relieve y el análisis de algunos de estos problemas constituye el objeto principal del presente estudio. (shrink)

There is a longstanding debate in the stakeholder literature as to who and what really counts as the stakeholders of the firm. Likewise, there have been discussions on whether nature should be considered a stakeholder of the firm. However, one seldom encounters any definitions of the key concepts, that is of nature or the natural environment . We seek to contribute to the debate by taking a closer look at what this thing called nature actually is. In addition, we discuss (...) the implications of this conceptual refinement for the stakeholder model. In order to reinforce the status of the natural environment in the stakeholder model, we propose that any visualisation of a stakeholder network should be embedded in the natural environment. (shrink)

The concept of “revolutionary myth” is the idea of Georges Sorel most influential in the thinking of José Carlos Mariátegui. However, this concept does not work the same way in both authors, mainly because it is applied in each case on markedly different national situations, such as France and Peru in the early twentieth century. For this reason it is important, regardless of the theoretical similarities, expressed as the difference between a general strike myth, linked to European industrial proletariat, and (...) another characterized around the social revolution, linked to the masses of the indigenous peasantry. In both cases we see that such concepts are functional to an extension of the limits of Marxism beyond Stalinism and the III International. (shrink)

This article investigates the relationship between Hume’s causal philosophy and Newton ’s philosophy of nature. I claim that Newton ’s experimentalist methodology in gravity research is an important background for understanding Hume’s conception of causality: Hume sees the relation of cause and effect as not being founded on a priori reasoning, similar to the way that Newton criticized non - empirical hypotheses about the properties of gravity. However, according to Hume’s criteria of causal inference, the law of universal gravitation is (...) not a complete causal law, since it does not include a reference either to contiguity or to temporal priority. It is still argued that because of the empirical success of Newton ’s theory—the law is a statement of an exceptionless repetition—Hume gives his support to it in interpreting gravity force instrumentally as if it bore a causal relation to motion. (shrink)

I examine an intuitive property of folk-psychological explanations I call self-sufficiency. I argue that individualism cannot honor this property and work toward distilling an account of psychological explanation that does honor it, given some fairly standard assumptions. In doing so, my preference for an Externalist individuation of intentional state will emerge unambiguously. The assumptions I rely on are fairly standard but not uncontroversial. Yet not always do I attempt to defend them from objections. My goal is an account of folk (...) psychology consistent with our every-day practices rather than the deduction of an idealized psychology from first principles. I conclude with some applications offered as evidence that the goal was achieved. (shrink)

La dirección de Nemesio Antúnez entre 1962 y 1964, y las administraciones que le siguieron en el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC), son un caso ejemplar de las dinámicas político-culturales desarrolladas durante la Guerra Fría. Este artículo analiza esta gestión museal desde la historia intelectual y la historia cultural, trabajando las redes de pensamiento que rodearon a Antúnez y la disquisición entre su programación y la influencia norteamericana en ese momento, atendiendo a cómo el MAC se involucró en la guerra (...) fría cultural. De esta manera se busca aportar al conocimiento de las tramas institucionales que se dieron entre la intelectualidad periférica y los centros metropolitanos durante uno de los periodos claves del siglo XX, presentando ciertos programas expositivos que respondieron al impulso de los EE. UU. de inserción ideológica. (shrink)

Illich’s criticism of contemporary industrial societies involves, among otherthings, a new conception of technology assessment based on the philosophical notionof “conviviality”. The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct such conception, whosemost salient features are radical pluralism, technologic constructivism and humanism, that is,the idea that the best yardstick to measure actual or potential.

En este artículo se propone, como clave de lectura para entender la filosofía política de Maquiavelo, una síntesis, por una parte, entre la primacía del miedo identificada por Leo Strauss y, por otra parte, siguiendo a Claude Lefort, la prioridad del conflicto político causada por los humores. Se discuten las dificultades y el alcance del intento de articular las interpretaciones de Strauss y Lefort sobre Maquiavelo. Una vez mostrada la manera en que la primacía del miedo permite articular las tensiones (...) internas de la teoría de los humores, se aplica la combinación de ambas en el paradigmático discurso de Istorie fiorentine III 13, sobre la revuelta de los ciompi. (shrink)

El presente trabajo reflexiona sobre el pensamiento de la comunidad en Giorgio Agamben y Roberto Esposito. Ambos interrogan lo común desde una perspectiva impolítica que intenta deconstruir los presupuestos de la metafísica y de la filosofía política tradicionales para poder elaborar una conceptualidad afirmativa en clave ontológica. En estos autores predomina el recurso a la figura de la comunidad, situada luego en el horizonte de la biopolítica, ya que la vida deviene el centro hacia el cual apuntarían los dispositivos de (...) poder y las formas de subjetivación política actuales. El trabajo plantea como interrogante si estos abordajes ontológicos logran dar cuenta plenamente de lo común en términos políticos o sólo éticos. (shrink)

The state of our current world has brought about a very active discussion concerning possible alternatives to our current society. In this article, I wish to consider Marx’s idea of communism as a possible alternative, by understanding it as an undetermined concept that only proposes a society without classes and private property. The thesis I will defend here is that we can meaningfully think about such an alternative through the means of Science Fiction literature. In particular, I will take Ursula (...) Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (2006) as a case study. To clarify this relation between science fiction (SF) literature and communism as a particular case of an alternative society, I will introduce some concepts of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological theory. Thus, I shall argue that in SF we can presentify in bounded phantasy an alternative lifeworld, so furnishing with content the undetermined idea, and in doing so, strengthen the belief in the possibility of such an alternative society. (shrink)

This collection addresses a post-WWII shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations, where the highest goal moves from reductionism towards some ...

According to a widespread view, Einstein’s definition of time in his special relativity is founded on the positivist verification principle. The present paper challenges this received outlook. It shall be argued that Einstein’s position on the concept of time, to wit, simultaneity, is best understood as a mitigated version of concept empiricism. He contrasts his position to Newton’s absolutist and Kant’s transcendental arguments, and in part sides with Hume’s and Mach’s empiricist arguments. Nevertheless, Einstein worked out a concept empiricism that (...) is considerably more moderate than what we find in the preceding empiricist tradition and early logical positivism. He did not think that the origin of concepts is in observations, but in conventions, and he also maintained a realist ontology of physical events, which he thought is necessary for his theory. Consequently, his philosophy of time in special relativity is not couched in terms of an anti-metaphysical verificationism. (shrink)

The study analyses how the corporate rhetoric of sustainability has developed in Finland during 1985-2005. The dataset consisting of the disclosures of four leading Finnish companies has been analyzed through discourse analytic methods. The findings question whether the ever-increasing popularity of sustainability-related concepts actually means that society is moving forward on the road towards sustainability.