A selection of speeches and essays from the author's second decade as president of Yale University.

La fenomenología describe las estructuras trascendentales de la experiencia humana. Momentos tales como la afectividad, la temporalidad, la corporalidad, la espacialidad y la intersubjetividad constituyen elementos clave al interior de esta aproximación. Situada en este contexto, la siguiente contribución tiene como objetivo elaborar una descripción acerca de la experiencia de la disociación (Spaltung). Para lograr este cometido nuestro artículo dispondrá de tres momentos. Primero, presentaremos una descripción fenomenológica acerca del cuerpo propio (Leib). Segundo, y situados al interior de la propuesta (...) filosófica de Marc Richir, esbozaremos una fenomenología genética que deje de manifiesto la primera constitución del esquema corporal durante la infancia mediante la labor de la Phantasia. Para finalizar, presentaremos una fenomenología genética del cuerpo propio que arroje luces acerca del origen trascendental de la experiencia disociativa. (shrink)

En este artículo se analiza una recreación quijotesca en la novela de Graham Greene Monseñor Quijote. Para ello se utilizan dos términos procedentes del Derecho romano: los conceptos de autoridad y poder. En esta obra de Greene, la autoridad surge de los libros o de autores de libros, cuya lectura permite que la vida siga teniendo sentido. En Greene encontramos la estrategia de lectura conocida como las sortes virgilianae que permite a los personajes orientarse en las dificultades diarias. Sin embargo, (...) el poder está caracterizado por su condición iletrada, la ausencia de libros y su ignorancia. In this article a novel by Graham Greene entitled Monsignor Quixote is analysed, a book that involves a recreation of the novel by Cervantes. The author of this article employs two concepts from Roman law: authority and power in his analysis. In this work by Greene, authority arises from the books or the book writers, whose reading allows life to keep making sense. In Greene, a strategy of reading known as the sortes virgilianae is found and this allows the characters to get their bearings in the daily difficulties. However, power is described as illiterate, the absence of books and ignorance. (shrink)

El presente escrito ensaya la crítica al colonialismo en la filosofía de Enrique Dussel centrándose en tres tópicos relevantes que ayudarán a la explicación y argumentación expuestos: (i) el ego conquiro, sujeto colonial previo al ego cogito cartesiano; (ii) la propuesta del proyecto de pluriverso transmoderno como proyecto de superación de la unilateralidad del mundo colonial, y; (iii) la idea de Segunda Emancipación de América Latina que recuerda que en ella aún hay una deuda pendiente para socavar las relaciones neocoloniales. (...) Este recorrido está precedido por una introducción en la cual se pone un necesario énfasis en la importancia de la experiencia del propio Enrique Dussel en Europa y Medio Oriente durante los años sesenta del siglo pasado, en la cual la recepción de la obra de Leopoldo Zea juega un papel relevante. Finalmente, el escrito termina con un par de reflexiones que se derivan de la argumentación elaborada. (shrink)

The renowned biologist and thinker Richard Dawkins presents his most expansive work yet: a comprehensive look at evolution, ranging from the latest developments in the field to his own provocative views. Loosely based on the form of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dawkins's Tale takes us modern humans back through four billion years of life on our planet. As the pilgrimage progresses, we join with other organisms at the forty "rendezvous points" where we find a common ancestor. The band of pilgrims (...) swells into a vast crowd as we join first with other primates, then with other mammals, and so on back to the first primordial organism. Dawkins's brilliant, inventive approach allows us to view the connections between ourselves and all other life in a bracingly novel way. It also lets him shed bright new light on the most compelling aspects of evolutionary history and theory: sexual selection, speciation, convergent evolution, extinction, genetics, plate tectonics, geographical dispersal, and more. The Ancestor's Tale is at once a far-reaching survey of the latest, best thinking on biology and a fascinating history of life on Earth. Here Dawkins shows us how remarkable we are, how astonishing our history, and how intimate our relationship with the rest of the living world. (shrink)

The discussion of good and evil must not be confined to the sterile lecture halls of academics but related instead to ordinary human feelings, needs, and desires, says noted philosopher Richard Taylor. Efforts to understand morality by exploring human reason will always fail because we are creatures of desire as well. All morality arises from our intense and inescapable longing. The distinction between good and evil is always clouded by rationalists who convert the real problems of ethics into complex (...) philosophical puzzles. In the first part of Good and Evil, Taylor looks for a more meaningful conception by reexamining and rejecting the whole rationalistic tradition that dominates philosophical ethics. The second part provides an empirical explanation of good and evil, noting that one does not have to look too far to find prime examples of the failure of fixed moral rules. Including important commentary on Joseph Fletcher's groundbreaking situation ethics, and Aristotle's virtues (e.g., magnanimity and pride), Taylor rounds out the book by developing a philosophy of aspiration--personal worth as an ethical ideal--to replace the morality of duty. He offers a modified form of situation ethics to fit the contemporary problems we face. (shrink)

Orientalism and Religion offers us a timely discussion of the implications of contemporary post-colonial theory for the study of religion. Drawing on a variety of post-structuralist and post-colonial thinkers, including Foucault, Gadamer, Said, and Spivak, Richard King examines the way in which notions such as mysticism, religion, Hinduism and Buddhism are taken for granted, and shows us how religion needs to be redescribed along the lines of cultural studies.

This is the third edition of a classic book first published in 1960, which has sold thousands of copies in two paperback edition and has been translated into several foreign languages. Popkin's work ha generated innumerable citations, and remains a valuable stimulus to current historical research. In this updated version, he has revised and expanded throughout, and has added three new chapters, one on Savonarola, one on Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, and one on Pascal. This authoritative treatment of the (...) theme of scepticism and its historical impact will appeal to scholars and students of early modern history now as much as ever. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es demostrar que los avances en liberalización del aborto han encontrado una cortapisa en la necesidad social de conciliarlos con la preservación del orden de género preexistente. Las narrativas sociales sobre la feminidad/maternidad impregnan la discusión jurídico-constitucional del aborto e impiden el reconocimiento efectivo de la capacidad moral de las mujeres para tomar decisiones en el ámbito de la procreación. Estas narrativas generan regulaciones ambiguas, que descansan sobre una vinculación funcional entre el control social de (...) la sexualidad y de la procreación, restringiendo, en la práctica, los derechos de las mujeres. Lo anterior es amplificado por la presencia, formalmente permitida, de dispositivos de poder-saber que remiten a las creencias y prácticas del personal de salud. (shrink)

Thinking through the body: educating for the humanities -- The body as background -- Self-knowledge and its discontents: from Socrates to somaesthetics -- Muscle memory and the somaesthetic pathologies of everyday life -- Somaesthetics in the philosophy classroom: a practical approach -- Somaesthetics and the limits of aesthetics -- Somaesthetics and Burke's sublime -- Pragmatism and cultural politics: from textualism to somaesthetics -- Body consciousness and performance -- Somaesthetics and architecture: a critical option -- Photography as performative process -- Asian (...) ars erotica and the question of sexual aesthetics -- Philosophy as awakened life : everyday aesthetics of embodiment in American transcendentalism and Japanese Zen practice -- Somatic style. (shrink)

Resumen:Durante los últimos años nuestra cotidianidad ha sido afectada por una larga experiencia de encierro, producto de la pandemia de COVID-19. ¿Pero es realmente nueva la experiencia del encierro? En el siguiente texto intentaremos examinar la relación entre temporalidad y encierro, a la luz de las experiencias del sufrimiento y la depresión melancólica tematizadas por Lévinas y Maldiney. Así, mostraremos que ambas vivencias conllevan una clausura al tiempo de la trascendencia que nos mueve a preguntarnos si acaso el encierro existencial (...) agota su sentido en su dimensión puramente espacial.Palabras clave: tiempo; encierro; fenomenología; sufrimiento; depresión. (shrink)

El siguiente artículo tiene como objetivo principal estudiar el esquema husserliano de superposición de actos, que establece la fundamentación de toda experiencia predicativa en la antepredicativa, y, más precisamente, analizar el momento atencional que vincula ambos niveles de nuestras vivencias. De acuerdo con esto, el presente texto dispone de tres partes. En primer orden, estudiaré la distinción entre intuición sensible y categorial desarrollada por este filósofo en la sexta de sus Investigaciones lógicas. En segundo orden, y siguiendo los comentarios que (...) Dieter Lohmar hace de esta doctrina, revisaré con detención la función que juega el fenómeno de la atención en dicha teoría. Para finalizar, abordaré la distinción entre experiencia pre-predicativa y predicativa tal como la presenta Husserl en Experiencia y juicio bajo el contexto de su filosofía genética. (shrink)

This paper critically analyses conscientious objection to abortion in the context of the new regulation of pregnancy termination in Chile. It argues that adequate regulation should not be blind: The bioethical requirements that seek to balance the interests involved must consider the legal regulation of the interests at stake, the context in which they are implemented, and, fundamentally, the effectiveness of the solutions adopted. Attention should be paid to the risks involved in the political use of conscientious objection to prevent (...) the implementation of women’s reproductive rights. In describing the process of the entrenchment and expansion of conscientious objection to abortion in Chile, we show how this process has overprotected conscience and how the risks of undermining the effectiveness of the new abortion legislation hinder the enjoyment of rights entrenched by the law. (shrink)

Mientras que en las concepciones neoaristotélicas de la virtud y la Bildung el concepto de segunda naturaleza describe la culminación exitosa de la educación humana, Hegel utiliza este término para analizar la naturaleza irremediablemente ambigua, incluso conflictiva, del espíritu. El espíritu solo puede realizarse a sí mismo creando (1) una segunda naturaleza como orden de libertad, perdiéndose a sí mismo, o (2) una segunda naturaleza, es decir, un orden de exterioridad, regido por los automatismos inconscientes del hábito. En la segunda (...) acepción del término, segunda naturaleza refiere a la inversión de sí mismo del espíritu. Por otro lado, la misma inversión de la libre posición en la existencia objetiva es el momento del éxito del espíritu (“absoluto”). El artículo expone esta ambigüedad indecidible de la segunda naturaleza y afirma que su aceptación y desarrollo son las condiciones de una comprensión adecuada de la constitución y las formas de la segunda naturaleza. (shrink)

Este artículo propone una perspectiva histórica para analizar la crisis política y social acontecida desde octubre de 2019 en Chile. Se basa en la caracterización de tres grandes ciclos socioambientales en los que se generan condiciones para la instalación de grandes empresas transnacionales y “nacionales”. A su vez, se enfatiza en que lo que persiguen estas empresas es la generación y apropiación de renta de la tierra, un tipo específico de ganancia capitalista que requiere subordinar territorios, ecosistemas y población humana (...) para reproducirse. Señalamos que esta relación socioambiental es causante de precarizaciones, devastaciones y conflictividades sociales y ambientales en todo el país y argumentamos que, por lo mismo, forma parte de los sedimentos históricos que emergen desde el 18-O. Por último, se esbozan e indican algunas propuestas que permitirían orientarse a desmontar algunos de los procesos históricos, sociales y ambientales causantes de la crisis en curso. (shrink)

According to certain normative theories in epistemology, rationality requires us to be logically omniscient. Yet this prescription clashes with our ordinary judgments of rationality. How should we resolve this tension? In this paper, I focus particularly on the logical omniscience requirement in Bayesian epistemology. Building on a key insight by Hacking :311–325, 1967), I develop a version of Bayesianism that permits logical ignorance. This includes: an account of the synchronic norms that govern a logically ignorant individual at any given time; (...) an account of how we reduce our logical ignorance by learning logical facts and how we should update our credences in response to such evidence; and an account of when logical ignorance is irrational and when it isn’t. At the end, I explain why the requirement of logical omniscience remains true of ideal agents with no computational, processing, or storage limitations. (shrink)

The book begins with an overview that introduces the Theorem and the issues surrounding it, and explores how the essays that follow contribute to our understanding of those issues.

Conditionalization is one of the central norms of Bayesian epistemology. But there are a number of competing formulations, and a number of arguments that purport to establish it. In this paper, I explore which formulations of the norm are supported by which arguments. In their standard formulations, each of the arguments I consider here depends on the same assumption, which I call Deterministic Updating. I will investigate whether it is possible to amend these arguments so that they no longer depend (...) on it. As I show, whether this is possible depends on the formulation of the norm under consideration. (shrink)

En el presente artículo realizamos un análisis del estatus ontológico de la noción de psicopatología que se deriva de cuatro aproximaciones metodológicas a su estudio, a saber: aproximación psiquiátrica, fenomenológico-existencial, constructivista-histórica y antipsiquiátrica. Por medio de una metodología de revisión bibliográfica sistematizada y siguiendo el marco de trabajo metaframework ReSiste-CHS (Revisiones Sistematizadas en Ciencias Humanas y Sociales), sostendremos que dicha noción presenta divergencias en al menos tres puntos: (i) la relevancia de la sintomatología como característica, (ii) la existencia o inexistencia (...) del sufrimiento psíquico y (iii) la relevancia de los factores sociales en su configuración. En el apartado introductorio abordaremos las consideraciones históricas generales relacionadas con el estudio de los trastornos mentales. En el segundo apartado nos referiremos a la metodología empleada para la realización del artículo. En el tercer apartado expondremos los rasgos fundamentales de las cuatro metodologías de estudio mencionadas anteriormente, dividiendo la descripción en los siguientes puntos: orientación, etiología, clasificación, diagnóstico y tratamiento. En el cuarto apartado contrastaremos los conceptos de psicopatología que pueden ser extraídos de ellas. A modo de conclusión, propondremos una sistematización de las condiciones mínimas que debe cumplir una noción de psicopatología que sea fructífera desde un punto de vista teórico y práctico. Estas condiciones incluyen un posicionamiento crítico ante los extremos reduccionista y relativista, la consideración del sufrimiento psíquico como rasgo constitutivo y núcleo fundamental de este género de experiencia, así como una dimensión ética relacionada con su abordaje. Por último, mostraremos algunas limitaciones y futuras directrices que se derivan del trabajo realizado. (shrink)

The Desire-as-Belief thesis (DAB) states that any rational person desires a proposition exactly to the degree that she believes or expects the proposition to be good. Many people take David Lewis to have shown the thesis to be inconsistent with Bayesian decision theory. However, as we show, Lewis's argument was based on an Invariance condition that itself is inconsistent with the (standard formulation of the) version of Bayesian decision theory that he assumed in his arguments against DAB. The aim of (...) this paper is to explore what impact the rejection of Invariance has on the DAB thesis. Without assuming Invariance, we first refute all versions of DAB that entail that there are only two levels of goodness. We next consider two theses according to which rational desires are intimately connected to expectations of (multi-levelled) goodness, and show that these are consistent with Bayesian decision theory as long as we assume that the contents of 'value propositions' are not fixed. We explain why this conclusion is independently plausible, and show how to construct such propositions. (shrink)

Strangers, Gods and Monster is a fascinating look at how human identity is shaped by three powerful but enigmatic forces. Often overlooked in accounts of how we think about ourselves and others, Richard Kearney skillfully shows, with the help of vivid examples and illustrations, how the human outlook on the world is formed by the mysterious triumvirate of strangers, gods and monsters. Throughout, Richard Kearney shows how strangers, gods and monsters do not merely reside in myths or fantasies (...) but constitute a central part of our cultural unconscious. Above all, he argues that until we understand better that the Other resides deep within ourselves, we can have little hope of understanding how our most basic fears and desires manifest themselves in the external world and how we can learn to live with them. (shrink)

Hilbert’s program was an ambitious and wide-ranging project in the philosophy and foundations of mathematics. In order to “dispose of the foundational questions in mathematics once and for all,” Hilbert proposed a two-pronged approach in 1921: first, classical mathematics should be formalized in axiomatic systems; second, using only restricted, “finitary” means, one should give proofs of the consistency of these axiomatic systems. Although Gödel’s incompleteness theorems show that the program as originally conceived cannot be carried out, it had many partial (...) successes, and generated important advances in logical theory and metatheory, both at the time and since. The article discusses the historical background and development of Hilbert’s program, its philosophical underpinnings and consequences, and its subsequent development and influences since the 1930s. (shrink)

Most recent accounts of will-power have tried to explain it as reducible to the operation of beliefs and desires. In opposition to such accounts, this paper argues for a distinct faculty of will-power. Considerations from philosophy and from social psychology are used in support.

Este artículo da cuenta del impacto en Chile de los movimientos feministas en la instalación del tema de los cuidados, en particular, en el proceso constituyente 2020-2022. Para esto, se establece por qué es relevante para los movimientos feministas la visibilización de este tema. Posteriormente, se realiza un análisis de cómo los movimientos feministas influyeron en el proceso constituyente. Luego, y ante el rechazo del borrador de propuesta constitucional en el plebiscito realizado el 4 de septiembre de 2022, se mencionan (...) otros posibles impactos de los movimientos feministas en referencia al tema de los cuidados. Finalmente, se concluye con una reflexión sobre los posibles efectos de la movilización feminista en la materia. (shrink)

Most individuals realise that we have a moral obligation to avoid the evils of war. But this realization raises a host of difficult questions when we, as responsible individuals, witness harrowing injustices such as ""ethnic cleansing"" in Bosnia or starvation in Somalia. With millions of lives at stake, is war ever justified? And, if so, for what purpose? In this book, Richard J. Regan confronts these controversial questions by first considering the basic principles of just-war theory and then applying (...) those principles to historical and ongoing conflicts. Part One presents two opposing viewpoints: first, that war is not subject to moral norms and, second, that war is never morally permissible. The author rejects both perspectives, and moves to define the principles of just-war theory. He evaluates the roles of the president, Congress and, most importantly, the UN Security Council in determining when long-term US military involvement is justified. The moral limits of war conduct and the moral problem of using, or threatening to use, nuclear weapons are also discussed. On the just cause to wage war, Regan argues that defense of nations and nationals - whether in self-defense or in defense of others - remains the ""only"" classical cause that in the modern world would justify resorting to war. With respect to military intervention in secessionist and revolutionary wars, he contends that such intervention might be justified, but that prudence dictates extreme caution. In considering acceptable war conduct, Regan elaborates the specific principle of discrimination and proportionality; he maintains that civilians uninvolved in the enemy's war should not be directly targeted and that the costs of military action must be proportionate to the anticipated benefits of destroying military targets. The second part of the book presents case studies of eight historical wars - World War I, the Vietnam War, the Falklands War, the revolution and civil war in Nicaragua, the civil war in El Salvador, the Gulf War, the intervention in Somalia, and the Bosnian War - and poses several provocative questions about each. It invites readers and students to apply just-war principles to complex war-related situations and to understand the factual contingencies involved in moral judgements about war decisions. The book should be of particular interest to students of the moral issues of international relations and to readers interested more generally in philosophy, theology and political science. (shrink)

This book gives a descriptive analysis of specific Madhyamika texts. It compares the ideology of Kumarajiva (a translator of the four Madhyamika treatises 400 A.D.) with the ideologies of the three Chinese contemporaries - HuiYuan, Seng-Jui and Seng-Chao. It envisages an intercultural transmission of religious and philosophical ideas from India to China.

In “Theories of Justification,” Richard Fumerton begins an overview of several prominent positions on the nature of justification by isolating epistemic justification from nonepistemic justification. He also distinguishes between “having justification for a belief” and “having a justified belief,” arguing that the former is conceptually more fundamental. Fumerton then addresses the possibility that justification is a normative matter, suggesting that this possibility has little to offer as a concept of epistemic justification. He also critically examines more specific attempts to (...) capture the structure and content of epistemic justification. These include traditional foundationalism and variants thereof, externalist versions of foundationalism, contextualism, coherentism, and “mixed” theories which combine aspects of coherentism and foundationalism. (shrink)

If aesthetics is both surface and depth, impassioned immediacy yet also critical distance of judgment, how can this doubleness be held together in one ...

The doctrine on predicative judgment sustained by Frege and Husserl reopens a discussion already present in the philosophical tradition: Does predicative judgment consist in a “composition” of concepts made by the understanding, or in an “assent” to a propositional content? For Frege, the “thought”, i. e., the sense of the proposition, as expresion of the judgment, presents such unity that it cannot be explained by a “composition” of previous elements; Husserl on the contrary, sustains that, although the propositional content of (...) judgments in composed judgments do present a unity, in the case of the simple predicative judgment this unity arises due to a “synthesis”. Thus, for Frege the act of judging consists in “recognizing the truth-value of a thought”, which agrees with the doctrine of an “assent” to a propositional content. For Husserl, on the contrary, the basic act of judging consists in a “synthesis” of basic representations, which is very close to Aristotle’s doctrine. (shrink)

In this paper I defend what I call the argument from epistemic reasons against the moral error theory. I argue that the moral error theory entails that there are no epistemic reasons for belief and that this is bad news for the moral error theory since, if there are no epistemic reasons for belief, no one knows anything. If no one knows anything, then no one knows that there is thought when they are thinking, and no one knows that they (...) do not know everything. And it could not be the case that we do not know that there is thought when we believe that there is thought and that we do not know that we do not know everything. I address several objections to the claim that the moral error theory entails that there are no epistemic reasons for belief. It might seem that arguing against the error theory on the grounds that it entails that no one knows anything is just providing a Moorean argument against the moral error theory. I show that even if my argument against the error theory is indeed a Moorean one, it avoids Streumer's, McPherson's and Olson's objections to previous Moorean arguments against the error theory and is a more powerful argument against the error theory than Moore's argument against external world skepticism is against external world skepticism. (shrink)

A comprehensive exploration of the philosophical issues raised by mysticism. This work is a comprehensive study of the philosophical issues raised by mysticism. Mystics claim to experience reality in a way not available in normal life, a claim which makes this phenomenon interesting from a philosophical perspective. Richard H. Jones’s inquiry focuses on the skeleton of beliefs and values of mysticism: knowledge claims made about the nature of reality and of human beings; value claims about what is significant and (...) what is ethical; and mystical goals and ways of life. Jones engages language, epistemology, metaphysics, science, and the philosophy of mind. Methodological issues in the study of mysticism are also addressed. Examples of mystical experience are drawn chiefly from Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, but also from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Daoism. “This is a significant extension of the seminal work by Walter Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy. That work has stimulated much literature, all of which Jones manages to review here. He critically extends Stace’s universal core and embeds it in a sophisticated discussion of the extent, range, and metaphysical implications of mysticism.” — Ralph W. Hood, Jr., coauthor of The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach. (shrink)

Rescorla (Erkenntnis, 2020) has recently pointed out that the standard arguments for Bayesian Conditionalization assume that whenever I become certain of something, it is true. Most people would reject this assumption. In response, Rescorla offers an improved Dutch Book argument for Bayesian Conditionalization that does not make this assumption. My purpose in this paper is two-fold. First, I want to illuminate Rescorla’s new argument by giving a very general Dutch Book argument that applies to many cases of updating beyond those (...) covered by Conditionalization, and then showing how Rescorla’s version follows as a special case of that. Second, I want to show how to generalise R. A. Briggs and Richard Pettigrew’s Accuracy Dominance argument to avoid the assumption that Rescorla has identified (Briggs and Pettigrew in Noûs, 2018). In both cases, these arguments proceed by first establishing a very general reflection principle. (shrink)

What system of morals should rational people select as the best for society? Using a contemporary psychological theory of action and of motivation, Richard Brandt's Oxford lectures argue that the purpose of living should be to strive for the greatest good for the largest number of people. Brandt's discussions range from the concept of welfare to conflict between utilitarian moral codes and the dictates of self-interest.

Uno de los acontecimientos más importantes en las sociedades contemporáneas es la emergencia y consolidación de nuevas elites cuya importancia en la dirección de asuntos nacionales e internacionales va en constante aumento. La fuerza que tiene cada una de estas elites depende directamente del impacto creciente de los conocimientos de alto nivel en casi todo el quehacer social, y de la fusión de estos conocimientos con el poder político (Gyarmati 1984: 17). Los conocimientos científicos y tecnológicos que orientan el destino (...) de las sociedades contemporáneas se adquieren sólo tras largos años de estudios formales, de naturaleza compleja y en instituciones especializadas. Bajo esa premisa, este artículo realiza un recorrido histórico por los procesos de construcción, consolidación y transformación de los saberes y haceres modernos. (shrink)

Many philosophers nowadays believe Frege was right about belief, but wrong about language: The contents of beliefs need to be individuated more finely than in terms of Russellian propositions, but the contents of utterances do not. I argue that this 'hybrid view' cannot offer no reasonable account of how communication transfers knowledge from one speaker to another and that, to do so, we must insist that understanding depends upon more than just getting the references of terms right.