El siguiente artículo analiza la vinculación entre las asambleas barriales surgidas en Argentina a partir de las jornadas del 19 y 20 de diciembre de 2001 y las asambleas socioambientales que emergen en el país con posterioridad. Nos interesa indagar acerca de sus continuidades y rupturas, y de la posibilidad de concebirlas como formas políticas emergentes que estarían evidenciando, en ambos casos, una crisis de la institucionalidad, y en el caso particular de las asambleas socioambientales, también una crisis paradigmática del (...) orden social y económico. A partir de los objetivos propuestos, daremos cuenta de la conformación de ambos momentos asamblearios, analizaremos sus características y reflexionaremos, desde una perspectiva sociopolítica, sobre sus alcances y sus limitaciones, focalizando tanto en encontrar las huellas de las asambleas barriales en las experiencias socioambientales, como en marcar sus peculiaridades, que las constituyen, a nuestro entender, en una propuesta de largo alcance y duración, y de mayor profundidad. (shrink)

Si bien el pensamiento crítico es una competencia fundamental en los actuales enfoques educativos, ha sido objeto de definiciones diversas, exigiendo un abordaje desde su epistemología, teorizaciones y praxis en el aula de clases. La investigación se propuso como objetivo analizar nociones sobre el pensamiento crítico y las prácticas pedagógicas en un grupo de docentes latinoamericanos. Se acudió al paradigma cualitativo-crítico a través del método hermenéutico. La selección de participantes se realizó mediante el procedimiento de muestreo por saturación teórica, obteniéndose (...) un grupo de ocho docentes a quienes se aplicaron entrevistas no directivas a profundidad. En el análisis de resultados emergieron 5 categorías: 1.) Nociones sobre pensamiento crítico, en las cuales se evidencia la tendencia a un énfasis cognitivo y racional; 2.) Praxis didáctica, expresando mayor dominio de las asignaturas de contenido lingüístico como adecuadas para promover el pensamiento crítico; 3.) autoevaluación y necesidad de una mayor reflexión y capacitación sobre la praxis docente en el área, 4.) Currículo y políticas educativas, en la cual se exponen incongruencias entre los currículos y la práctica de aula, y 5.) Pensamiento crítico y rendimiento académico, que expone una relación no lineal entre ambos conceptos. Se concluye que es fundamental evitar los determinismos basados en habilidades que expresan el pensamiento crítico y en su lugar promover aproximaciones complejas que permitan incluir experiencias culturales, sociales y éticas también inherentes al proceso. (shrink)

8 March, now known as International Women’s Day, is a day for feminist claims where demonstrations are organized in over 150 countries, with the participation of millions of women all around the world. These demonstrations can be viewed as collective rituals and thus focus attention on the processes that facilitate different psychosocial effects. This work aims to explore the mechanisms involved in participation in the demonstrations of 8 March 2020, collective and ritualized feminist actions, and their correlates associated with personal (...) well-being and collective well-being, collective efficacy and collective growth, and behavioral intention to support the fight for women’s rights. To this end, a cross-cultural study was conducted with the participation of 2,854 people from countries in Latin America and Europe, with a retrospective correlational cross-sectional design and a convenience sample. Participants were divided between demonstration participants and non-demonstrators or followers who monitored participants through the media and social networks. Compared with non-demonstrators and with males, female and non-binary gender respondents had greater scores in mechanisms and criterion variables. Further random-effects model meta-analyses revealed that the perceived emotional synchrony was consistently associated with more proximal mechanisms, as well as with criterion variables. Finally, sequential moderation analyses showed that proposed mechanisms successfully mediated the effects of participation on every criterion variable. These results indicate that participation in 8M marches and demonstrations can be analyzed through the literature on collective rituals. As such, collective participation implies positive outcomes both individually and collectively, which are further reinforced through key psychological mechanisms, in line with a Durkheimian approach to collective rituals. (shrink)

This highly acclaimed volume brings together some of the world's foremost historians of ideas to consider Machiavelli's political thought in the larger context of the European republican tradition, and the image of Machiavelli held by other republicans. An international team of scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds (notably law, philosophy, history and the history of political thought) explore both the immediate Florentine context in which Machiavelli wrote, and the republican legacy to which he contributed.

In this Chapter, Maria Kronfeldner discusses whether psychological essentialism is a necessary part of dehumanization. This involves different elements of essentialism, and a narrow and a broad way of conceptualizing psychological essentialism, the first akin to natural kind thinking, the second based on entitativity. She first presents authors that have connected essentialism with dehumanization. She then introduces the error theory of psychological essentialism regarding the category of the human, and distinguishes different elements of psychological essentialism. On that basis, Kronfeldner connects (...) historical, socio-psychological, and philosophical insights in order to show that although essentialism can act as a catalyst for dehumanization, it is not necessary for it. Examples relate to dehumanization in the context of colonialism and evolutionary thinking, to the history of dehumanizing women from Aristotle to 19th-century craniology, and to contemporary self-dehumanization and ‘lesser mind’ attribution. (shrink)

El presente texto propone una lectura de A Feminist Theory of Refusal asumiendo como propia la doble clave teórica y política que el libro sostiene. En la primera parte se resumen los puntos centrales de Honig sobre el tipo de complejización e impurificación de la teoría vigente que el drama Las Bacantes de Eurípides habilitaría, y sobre la importancia de esta nueva conceptualización para la práctica política feminista. A continuación se formulan algunos interrogantes respecto del proceso histórico en el cual (...) este concepto deviene protagónico para la teoría política crítica y se señalan posibles limitaciones del mismo a la hora de describir el tipo de desafíos que enfrentan las luchas emancipatorias e igualitarias emprendidas por el movimiento feminista en Argentina. (shrink)

So far little are the studies that have focussed on exploring school principals’ self-conception of their distributed leadership competencies in relation to their managerial and teaching experience. To do so, an exploratory research was carried out with a sample of 163 pre-service and in-service school principals studying a Master’s programme in School Management, Innovation and Leadership at a Spanish University. Data were obtained by using an Ad hoc questionnaire of 7 units of competence and 5 proficiency levels for each unit, (...) based on an existing rubric to analyse students’ self-conception of their development of leadership competencies. The findings of this preliminary study show statistically significant differences in the self-perception in all dimensions associated to Managerial Experience and Teaching Experience in schools. Study participants with ME showed statistically higher levels than those who had non-ME in four of seven dimensions: lead the school organisation, address the needs of the students, manage the organisation of the school organisation, and manage administrative work. Similar results were obtained in relation to TE versus non-TE were statistically significant differences are found in six dimensions: manage pedagogical and didactic resources, attend to the needs of students, manage didactic strategies, manage the organisation of the school organisation, manage the link between the school organisation and the community, and lead the school organisation. This study shows the importance of teaching and professional experience to acquire leadership competencies in education, therefore the school principal should also be a teacher. This preliminary study provides insights into the relevance of providing pre-service or in-service school principals with training and professional development programmes on sustainability distributed leadership that enable them to genuinely engage the school community, develop innovative pedagogies and lead the process of change toward building more sustainable schools. (shrink)

Batteries are a fundamental storage component due to its various applications in mobility, renewable energies and consumer electronics among others. Regardless of the battery typology, one key variable from a user’s perspective is the remaining energy in the battery. It is usually presented as the percentage of remaining energy compared to the total energy that can be stored and is labeled State Of Charge (SOC). This work addresses the development of a hybrid model based on a Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) (...) power cell, due to its broad implementation. The proposed model calculates the SOC, by means of voltage and electric current as inputs and the latter as the output. Therefore, four models based on k-Means, Agglomerative Clustering, Gaussian Mixture and Spectral Clustering techniques have been tested in order to obtain an optimal solution. (shrink)

Maria Kronfeldner’s Preface and Introduction to the Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization maps the landscape of dehumanization studies. She starts with a brief portrayal of the history of the field. The systematically minded sections that follow guide the reader through the resulting rugged landscape represented in the Handbook’s contributions. Different realizations, levels, forms, and ontological contrasts of dehumanization are distinguished, followed by remarks on the variety of targets of dehumanization. A discussion on valence and emotional aspects is added. Causes, functions, and (...) consequences of dehumanization, and the prospects for reducing or undoing it, are introduced. The systematic overview closes with a discussion of some important theoretical complexities that arise in studying dehumanization. After these systematic sections, the scholarly work on dehumanization gets situated in the broader intellectual landscape of debates about the ‘human’ in the humanities and social sciences. The Introduction ends with some notes on scope, limitations, and intended readership of the Handbook. (shrink)

Historically, as well as more recently, women's emancipation has been seen in two ways: sometimes as the `right to be equal' and sometimes as the `right to be different'. These views have often overlapped and interacted: in a variety of guises they have played an important role in both the development of ideas about women and feminism, and the works of political thinkers by no means primarily concerned with women's liberation. The chapters of this book deal primarily with the meaning (...) and use of these two concepts in the context of gender relations, but also draw attention to their place in the understanding and analysis of other human relationships. (shrink)

In a class of quantum gravity approaches it is indicated that our observable world emerges out of a fundamental structure that appears highly resistant to any clear spatial or temporal interpretation. In this work we are examining an analogue quantum system that appears to simulate such an unintuitive structure: the emergence of the so called topological phase of matter depicted by the Chern–Simons gauge theory. By investigating the proposed analogy from the lens of category theory, we offer a clear interpretation (...) of the way in which space and time act at the fundamental level. (shrink)

The doctrines of the Hellenistic Schools - Epicureans, Stoics, and Sceptics - are known to have had a formative influence on later thought, but because the primary sources are lost, they have to be reconstructed from later reports. This important collection of essays by one of the foremost interpreters of Hellenistic philosophy focuses on key questions in epistemology and ethics debated by Greek and Roman philosophers of the Hellenistic period. There is currently a new awareness of the great interest and (...) influence of Hellenistic philosophy. In bringing together a major collection of scholarly and interpretative studies by a leading figure in the field, this volume is a boon to philosophers and classicists who work on the Hellenistic period, but also to students keen to enrich their understanding of the history of epistemology and ethics. (shrink)

The exchange between Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig on the status of halakha is a well known, but also frustrating fixture in scholarship. For rather than responding to Rosenzweig’s critique, Buber seems to retreat in silence, claiming to be “unable to speak” about his position on Jewish Law. Scholars have generally tried to explain Buber’s failure to respond on philosophical and biographical grounds. What I propose, by contrast, is to revisit the question of Buber’s silence and secrecy from a hermeneutical (...) standpoint, arguing that Buber engaged in a deliberate strategy of concealment that constituted its own form of response. The hermeneutics of silence discloses a call for religious renewal that follows a state of Dialogvergessenheit, but which cannot be made audible. Neither dialogue nor its remembrance can be commanded. While Buber struggles with his Nichtredenkönnen, he also stands in a tradition of secretive hermeneutics – the Jewish hermeneutics of sod. (shrink)

Providing a novel multi-disciplinary theorization of memory politics, this insightful Handbook brings varied literatures into a focused dialogue on the ways in which the past is remembered and how these influence transnational, interstate, and global politics in the present. With case studies from Africa, East and Southeast Asia, Europe, South America, and the United States, the Handbook focuses on the political features of historical memory in international relations. Chapters examine key concepts of memory politics, including accountability, commemoration and memorialization, the (...) Europeanization of memory, and the politics of trauma and victimhood, as well as analyzing different sites of memory, from the human body and memorial sites to media, film, and television. It also answers essential questions such as who and what determines the relevance of the past in the present; how does memory become a political question; and what are the political effects and ethical implications of its mobilization? Exploring the links between the politics of memory, international ethics, law, and diplomacy, this stimulating Handbook will be essential reading for students and scholars of politics and international relations, cultural studies, history, and transitional justice. Its discussion of notable agents and practices of memory politics will also be beneficial for practitioners working in human rights, politics, and public policy. (shrink)

This paper discusses the myths regarding both the conceptualization and the expected effects that are implicitly or explicitly presented in analyses of the so-called ‘democratic innovations’, that is, the new institutions that aim to increase public participation beyond regular elections. It is argued that these myths, together with the (fictitious) confrontation between direct and indirect politics, have generated false oppositions and reductionisms that mask the debate and limit empirical approximations to democratic innovation. A research agenda based on the concept of (...) ‘participatory ecologies’ is suggested as a way to gain an understanding of the mechanisms of participation in a systematic way.Este artículo analiza los mitos que se han construido, tanto en un plano conceptual como de efectos esperados, en torno a las denominadas innovaciones democráticas, entendidas como instituciones destinadas a incrementar la participación ciudadana más allá de las elecciones. Argumentamos que tanto estos mitos como la (ficticia) confrontación entre política directa e indirecta ha generado falsas oposiciones y reduccionismos que enmascaran el debate y limitan el estudio empírico de la innovación democrática. Una agenda de investigación basada en el concepto de ecologías participativas se sugiere para el entendimiento de los mecanismos de participación en forma sistemática. (shrink)

During the IAEA’s Mobile Radioisotope Exhibition (1960–1965) through the eventful roads of five Latin American countries (Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia), a variety of photographs were taken by an unknown Mexican official photographer, and by Josef Obermayer, a staff driver from Vienna. The exhibition carried not only bits of nuclear sciences and technologies, but also the political symbolism of the ‘friendly atom’ as a token of modernization. The photographs embarked on different trajectories, though all of them ended up at (...) the training and exchange official’s desk in charge of the exhibition, Argentinian physicist Arturo Cairo. The ones taken in Mexico also had a local circulation as propaganda intended to promote radioisotope applications. The two sets of images were intended to show the contrast between modernity and traditional society, but they did it from different gazes. Our paper argues that, in the case of Mexico, the photographer reinforced representations of the country which were already popularized by Hollywood for foreign and local audiences. On the other hand, the Viennese photographer’s gaze delivers an autoethnography of his dutiful journey. We also argue that Obermayer’s projection is one of what Roger Bartra has conceptualized as the ‘salvage on the mirror’. (shrink)

Scepticism has been one of the standard problems of epistemology in modern times. It takes various forms – the most general one being the thesis that knowledge is impossible; but equally prominent are such versions as the notorious doubt about the existence of an external world, inaugurated by Descartes'Meditations, or doubts about the existence of objective values. Philosophers who undertake to refute scepticism – still a very popular exercise – try to show that knowledge is possible after all, or to (...) prove the existence of an external world, and so on. Sceptics, generally speaking, are seen as radical doubters – philosophers who call into question assumptions that are usually taken for granted by ordinary people as well as by other philosophers. Those doubts have to be refuted by showing that they are in some way unjustified. (shrink)

Myth & Symbol, Volume 6, Issue 2, Page 15-43, November 2010.

The story of Medea has exerted a powerful influence on creative artists since the time of Euripides. It is a tale that has been told in many ways and in several genres. This article offers a discussion of Christa Wolf's 1996 novel, Medea.Stimmen (Medea. Voices), a modern retelling through the voices, and conflicting perspectives, of the major characters involved with Medea, including Jason, Agameda, Akamas, Leukon, Glauce and Medea herself.Medea's role within feminist literary reception and women's literature cannot be overlooked (...) because of the crucial archetype she represents. One task of Feminist criticism has been to expose, deconstruct and rectify prevalent male (mis) interpretations of female archetypes, such as Medea, Medusa and others, and the patriarchal distortions they introduced through 3 000 years of male literature. In the patriarchal realm, Medea represents the Witch, the black Sorceress, and the archetype of the Negative Mother. These negative interpretations or archetypes may be attributed to misogynist perceptions of Medea as the vilest of women, because she committed the most despicable of all crimes — killing her children, the patriarchy's heirs — to take revenge on Jason, the husband who abandons her in Corinth (her place of exile) to marry Glauce, King Creon of Corinth's daughter, for reasons of political expedience.As a writer with her roots in the former East-German regime, Wolf perceives the Medea story as an account of a woman with both extraordinary powers and human shortcomings, who is misunderstood by the Colchians and the Corinthians alike. Wolf explores the distorted patriarchal motives for their loathing of Medea and Medea's ultimate powerlessness to do anything more than accept her tragic destiny. In doing so, Wolf does not attempt to manipulate the Medea story to suit the one-sidedness of some more radical feminist ideologies. (shrink)

The Prior Analytics marks the beginning of formal logic, and is one of the most influential works in the history of thought. It is here that Aristotle sets out his system of syllogistic reasoning. The first book, to which this volume is devoted, offers a coherent presentation of Aristotle's logic as a general theory of deductive argument.

In this paper I would like to examine a conception of happiness that seems to have become popular after the time of Plato and Aristotle: tranquillity or, as one might also say, peace of mind. This conception is interesting for two reasons: first, because it seems to come from outside the tradition that began with Plato or Socrates, second, because it is the only conception of eudaimonia in Greek ethics that identifies happiness with a state of mind and makes it (...) depend entirely on a person’s attitude or beliefs. In this way it may be closer to more recent ideas about happiness, notably those of utilitarians who treat “happiness” as a synonym of “pleasure,” than to the classical Greek conceptions of the good life. For Plato and Aristotle the happy life certainly had to be pleasant or enjoyable, but they did not think that happiness itself consisted in being pleased with one’s life. As the Stoic Seneca puts it, “it is not that virtue is chosen because it pleases, but that, if chosen, it also pleases.” I will argue that tranquillity was in fact not a serious contender for the position of ultimate good in ancient times. Greek theories of happiness from Plato to Epicurus were attempts to spell out what sort of a life one would have to lead in order to have good reasons for feeling tranquil or contented; they were not recipes for reaching a certain state of mind. Looking at the case of tranquillity will show, I think, that modern philosophers interested in questions about the good life might be well advised to follow the lead of their ancient predecessors. (shrink)

This essay argues that ancient Pyrrhonists did not decide to suspend judgment, but rather claimed to have found themselves unable to arrive at any judgment. By giving up the attempt, they also claimed to have unexpectedly reached tranquility, then followed the customs of ordinary life without ever claiming to have found the truth. This anti-rational attitude is not likely to be typical of ordinary people, nor would it seem desirable to modern defenders of ordinary practices like Fogelin.