En este artículo el autor propone revisar la idea kantiana de virtud, su relación con el deber, con la razón y con el sentimiento moral: el respeto. También se revisan las ideas de santidad y perfección, como referencia para dos caras del mismo deber y su papel como orientadoras de la facultad de juzgar, demostrando el carácter unitario de la ética kantiana.

René Girard: Sacrifice, trad. M. Patillo y D. Dawson, Breakthroughs in Mimetic Theory, Michigan State University Press, 2011.

Este artículo expone los argumentos de Kant y Fichte a favor del deber ético de la beneficencia. De manera concreta, se evalúan las razones para que este deber, en sus respectivos sistemas de deberes morales, obtenga un posicionamiento particular y requiera consideraciones aparte de los criterios que, en general, estructuran dichos sistemas. Además, se hacen comentarios comparativos respecto al papel que juega la facultad de juzgar ante el margen de latitud o de juego que, en particular, implica este deber ético (...) en uno y otro autor. (shrink)

La posición sistemática de la Metafísica de las costumbres de Kant y en concreto de su segunda parte, la Doctrina de la virtud, es análoga a la del Sistema de la doctrina de las costumbres según los principios de la Doctrina de la Ciencia de Fichte. Sin embargo, en dicha obra, Fichte califica la ética kantiana de “formalista” y pretende que la suya es más concreta y aplicable por su teoría de la conciliación entre el impulso natural y el impulso (...) moral. En este artículo se explica y discute dicha postura de Fichte, mostrando que la crítica a Kant es injusta, dado que precisamente la Doctrina de la virtud ofrece, de un modo metódicamente diverso pero sólido y coherente con la ética de la autonomía, la “ética material” kantiana. (shrink)

En Self-Constitution. Agency, Identity, and Integrity (2009), Christine Korsgaard defiende la conclusión de que el imperativo categórico rige la acción humana porque es el único principio que permite alcanzar la unidad psíquica plena, la cual, según Korsgaard, es un prerrequisito esencial para la acción efectiva. Para los agentes humanos, alcanzar esa unidad -que consiste en hacer coherentes distintos impulsos hacia la acción- es una actividad constante, denominada "autoconstitución". De acuerdo con Korsgaard, ésta es la fuente originaria de la normatividad y (...) de las identidades prácticas e incluso de la identidad personal. Después de exponer las ideas centrales del libro, presento dos objeciones: primero, critico la equiparación del imperativo categórico con la autoconstitución exitosa, pues no toda falla de auto-constitución es una falla moral. Segundo, argumento que la tesis de que la identidad personal es producto de la autoconstitución es problemática y que, al defenderla, Korsgaard confunde identidad práctica con identidad personal. In Self-Constitution. Agency, Identity, and Integrity (2009), Christine Korsgaard argues that the categorical imperative rules human action because it is the sole principle that allows us to reach the complete psychic unity that, Korsgaard thinks, is an essential prerequisite for effective action. Reaching this unity -which consists in making cohere diverging impulses for action- is for human agents a constant activity called "self-constitution." According to Korsgaard, this activity is the source of normativity, of human practical identities and even of personal identity. After explaining the main ideas of the book, I present two objections. First, I criticize the linkage of the categorical imperative to successful self-constitution, for not every failure of the latter counts as a moral failure. Second, I argue that the thesis that personal identity is a product of self-constitution is problematic and that it betrays a confusion between practical identity and personal identity. (shrink)

En esta reseña, resumo el contenido y expongo la estructura del libro de Omri Boehm, Kant´s Critique of Spinoza, y evalúo los argumentos del autor para tratar de mostrar que en la Crítica de la razón pura el interlocutor de Kant es el filósofo judío.

Resumen En este artículo se examina el Darwinismo Neural en su explicación de la evolución de la conciencia humana, contrastando su metodología con la utilizada por Richard Lewontin, Richard Levins y Steven Rose, quienes han hecho importantes aportaciones en el estudio de los sistemas vivos desde un punto de vista dialéctico. Concluimos que la explicación interaccionista de la evolución de la conciencia planteada en el DN, supera muchas de las deficiencias del determinismo biológico; sin embargo, al compartir algunos lineamientos con (...) el cartesianismo, mantiene un carácter a-histórico insuficiente para la explicación de la conciencia humana. Finalmente, proponemos la adopción de una teoría explicativa de la conciencia humana que considere las relaciones existentes en ella, no sólo como interacciones sino también como interpenetraciones ontogénicas y filogenéticas.This article examines Neural Darwinism proposed as an explanation of evolution of human consciousness. His methodology is contrasted with that used by Richard Lewontin, Richard Levins, and Steven Rose, who made important contributions to the study of living systems from a dialectical point of view. We conclude that the interactionist explanation of the evolution of conscience put forward in ND overcomes many of the deficiencies proper to biological determinism. However, as ND also shares many of the foundations of the Cartesian approach, it maintains a non-historical character, insufficient for the account of human consciousness. We suggest the adoption of an alternative theory, able to fully explain human conscience which must consider the whole of existing relations in it, and, instead of merely considering them as interactions, they have to be observed as dialectical interpenetrations. (shrink)

In this paper art history and visual studies, the disciplines that study visual culture, are presented as a field whose conjectural paradigm can be used to understand the epistemic problems associated with abduction. In order to do so, significant statements, concepts and arguments from the work of several specialists in this field have been highlighted. Their analysis shows the fruitfulness and potential for understanding the study of visual culture as a field that is interwoven with the assumptions of abductive cognition.

In this paper I develop a framework for relating dualities and emergence: two notions that are close to each other but also exclude one another. I adopt the conception of duality as 'isomorphism', from the physics literature, cashing it out in terms of three conditions. These three conditions prompt two conceptually different ways in which a duality can be modified to make room for emergence; and I argue that this exhausts the possibilities for combining dualities and emergence. I apply this (...) framework to gauge/gravity dualities, considering in detail three examples: AdS/CFT, Verlinde's scheme, and black holes. My main point about gauge/gravity dualities is that the theories involved, qua theories of gravity, must be background-independent. I distinguish two senses of background-independence: minimalistic and extended. I argue that the former is sufficiently strong to allow for a consistent theory of quantum gravity; and that AdS/CFT is background-independent on this account; while Verlinde's scheme best fits the extended sense of background-independence. I argue that this extended sense should be applied with some caution: on pain of throwing the baby out with the bath-water. Nevertheless, it is an interesting and potentially fruitful heuristic principle for quantum gravity theory construction. It suggests some directions for possible generalisations of gauge/gravity dualities. The interpretation of dualities is discussed; and the so-called 'internal' vs. 'external' viewpoints are articulated in terms of: epistemic and metaphysical commitments; parts vs. wholes. I then analyse the emergence of gravity in gauge/gravity dualities in terms of the two available conceptualisations of emergence; and I show how emergence in AdS/CFT and in Verlinde's scenario differ from each other. Finally, I give a novel derivation of the Bekenstein-Hawking black hole entropy formula based on Verlinde's scheme; the derivation sheds light on several aspects of Verlinde's scheme and how it compares to Bekenstein's original calculation. (shrink)

In this essay I begin to lay out a conceptual scheme for: analysing dualities as cases of theoretical equivalence; assessing when cases of theoretical equivalence are also cases of physical equivalence. The scheme is applied to gauge/gravity dualities. I expound what I argue to be their contribution to questions about: the nature of spacetime in quantum gravity; broader philosophical and physical discussions of spacetime. - proceed by analysing duality through four contrasts. A duality will be a suitable isomorphism between models: (...) and the four relevant contrasts are as follows: Bare theory: a triple of states, quantities, and dynamics endowed with appropriate structures and symmetries; vs. interpreted theory: which is endowed with, in addition, a suitable pair of interpretative maps. Extendable vs. unextendable theories: which can, respectively cannot, be extended as regards their domains of application. External vs. internal intepretations: which are constructed, respectively, by coupling the theory to another interpreted theory vs. from within the theory itself. Theoretical vs. physical equivalence: which contrasts formal equivalence with the equivalence of fully interpreted theories. I will apply this scheme to answering questions - for gauge/gravity dualities. I will argue that the things that are physically relevant are those that stand in a bijective correspondence under duality: the common core of the two models. I therefore conclude that most of the mathematical and physical structures that we are familiar with, in these models, are largely, though crucially never entirely, not part of that common core. Thus, the interpretation of dualities for theories of quantum gravity compels us to rethink the roles that spacetime, and many other tools in theoretical physics, play in theories of spacetime. (shrink)

Este artículo trata sobre cómo la imagen de la mujer en la pintura tradicional presenta un código de conducta y una realidad histórica. La mujer desnuda, en cuyo retrato tiene más importancia el cuerpo que la cabeza, la mujer pintada ofrecida como un paisaje, una comida o una presa, dificultará una relación de comunicación entre los sexos y encerrará a la mujer en un arquetipo denigrante. Por eso la primera respuesta de las mujeres pintoras ha sido siempre la búsqueda de (...) su propia imagen en el autorretrato. Actualmente las mujeres artistas buscan nuevos símbolos con qué definir su identidad en oposición a los símbolos clásicos de la tradición pictórica. (shrink)

In this paper we present a schema for describing dualities between physical theories, and illustrate it in detail with the example of bosonization: a boson-fermion duality in two-dimensional quantum field theory. The schema develops proposals in De Haro : these proposals include construals of notions related to duality, like representation, model, symmetry and interpretation. The aim of the schema is to give a more precise criterion for duality than has so far been considered. The bosonization example, or boson-fermion duality, (...) has the feature of being simple, yet rich enough, to illustrate the most relevant aspects of our schema, which also apply to more sophisticated dualities. The richness of the example consists, mainly, in its concern with two non-trivial quantum field theories: including massive Thirring-sine-Gordon duality, and non-abelian bosonization. This prompts two comparisons with the recent philosophical literature on dualities:--- Unlike the standard cases of duality in quantum field theory and string theory, where only specific simplifying limits of the theories are explicitly known, the boson-fermion duality is known to hold {\it exactly}. This exactness can be exhibited explicitly. The bosonization example illustrates both the cases of isomorphic and {\it non-isomorphic} models: which we believe the literature on dualities has not so far discussed. (shrink)

Mi ensayo trata de mostrar que es insostenible la ficción de Rorty de una civilización avanzada científicamente cuyos habitantes no sintieran el dolor como una vivencia sufrida en primera persona y que únicamente lo captaran como una excitación objetiva de su sistema nervioso. Entre otras dudas relativas a que esa captación objetiva y exacta se hallaría en indefinida reconstrucción teórica y a que ella no puede ser la experiencia primera del dolor ni siquiera en esa otra galaxia, aduzco que tener (...) un estado fisiológico no equivale por principio a captarlo y que captar determinados rasgos objetivos no puede equivaler por principio a sufrir, a padecer. Concluyo señalando que Rorty, en su empeño por impugnar las representaciones mentales, pierde de vista cómo la experiencia del dolor manifiesta sobre todo la condición originaria del cuerpo vivido.My paper tries to show that Rorty’s fiction of a scientifically developed civilization whose inhabitants should not feel pain as a first-person experience, but would grasp it rather as an objective state of their nervous system, is unsustainable from a phenomenological point of view. I point out several doubts concerning the facts that such an objective apprehension would be in an indefinite process of theoretical reconstruction, and that even in that other galaxy it could not be valid as the original pain situation. But then I focus on the principles that to have a physiological state cannot be equiva-lent to grasping it, and second that to grasp several objective features cannot be equivalent to suffering or to undergoing pain. I conclude by suggesting that Rorty’s eagerness to discard mental representations made him neglect the lived body as implied in everyday experience: the body, not the mind, comes to the fore in the experience of pain. (shrink)

We advocate an account of dualities between physical theories: the basic idea is that dual theories are isomorphic representations of a common core. We defend and illustrate this account, which we call a Schema, in relation to symmetries. Overall, the account meshes well with standard treatments of symmetries. But the distinction between the common core and the dual theories prompts a distinction between three kinds of symmetry: which we call ‘stipulated’, ‘accidental’ and ‘proper’.

We discuss some aspects of the relation between dualities and gauge symmetries. Both of these ideas are of course multi-faceted, and we confine ourselves to making two points. Both points are about dualities in string theory, and both have the ‘flavour’ that two dual theories are ‘closer in content’ than you might think. For both points, we adopt a simple conception of a duality as an ‘isomorphism’ between theories: more precisely, as appropriate bijections between the two theories’ sets of states (...) and sets of quantities. The first point is that this conception of duality meshes with two dual theories being ‘gauge related’ in the general philosophical sense of being physically equivalent. For a string duality, such as T-duality and gauge/gravity duality, this means taking such features as the radius of a compact dimension, and the dimensionality of spacetime, to be ‘gauge’. The second point is much more specific. We give a result about gauge/gravity duality that shows its relation to gauge symmetries to be subtler than you might expect. For gauge theories, you might expect that the duality bijections relate only gauge-invariant quantities and states, in the sense that gauge symmetries in one theory will be unrelated to any symmetries in the other theory. This may be so in general; and indeed, it is suggested by discussions of Polchinski and Horowitz. But we show that in gauge/gravity duality, each of a certain class of gauge symmetries in the gravity/bulk theory, viz. diffeomorphisms, is related by the duality to a position-dependent symmetry of the gauge/boundary theory. (shrink)

Mi ensayo revisa la ordenación de las experiencias aflictivas que elaboró Buytendijk con la mirada puesta en el dolor físico. Esta clasificación cuatripartita permite distanciarse del enfoque de Scheler en que el dolor físico se reduce a un estado afectivo más bien amorfo que sólo de manera mediata incumbe al yo. Las convergencias entre las cuatro formas de penalidad que distingue Buytendijk apoyan la determinación propuesta por García-Baró del dolor como experiencia del mal.

También el dolor se dice de múltiples modos, se presenta de maneras muy diversas, adopta aspectos heterogéneos. Tantos que parece imposible su reducción a un único tipo básico o su dependencia genérica respecto de una forma fundamental que el pensamiento pudiera aprehender con ayuda de un solo concepto abarcador. Pero, por otra parte, en esta multiplicidad, en su dispersión prolífica, los muchos tipos de dolores tampoco llegan a fracturar una poderosa unidad de sentido, una inmediata afinidad interna entre ellos, que (...) reaviva el interés del pensamiento por habérselas con el dolor. (shrink)

Este ensayo asume que los dolores físicos son, con igual originariedad, vivencias intransferibles de conciencia y sucesos espaciales que presentan localización en el cuerpo. Defiende la antigua tesis de F. Buytendijk de que no cabe un dolor desubicado que, al modo del de Job, coincida con la totalidad del cuerpo, y añade que sí caben, en cambio, dolores simultáneos que se distinguen por su ubicación. La íntima unidad de cogitatio y extensio conduce a sostener que el dolor vivido remite a (...) una espacialidad más profunda que la imagen corporal perceptible y más primitiva también que el esquema corporal que opera en los movimientos deliberados del cuerpo. (shrink)

Singularities in general relativity and quantum field theory are often taken not only to motivate the search for a more-fundamental theory (quantum gravity, QG), but also to characterise this new theory and shape expectations of what it is to achieve. Here, we first evaluate how particular types of singularities may suggest an incompleteness of current theories. We then classify four different 'attitudes' towards singularities in the search for QG, and show, through examples in the physics literature, that these lead to (...) different scenarios for the new theory. Two of the attitudes prompt singularity resolution, but only one suggests the need for a theory of QG. Rather than evaluate the different attitudes, we close with some suggestions of factors that influence the choice between them. (shrink)

En la clasificación aristotélica de formas de gobierno no tendría encaje adecuado la forma de dominación política por la que será recordado nuestro siglo: el totalitarismo. Tal es la tesis de Hannah Arendt. Pero la pensadora judía ha querido mostrar ante todo que el análisis de los regímenes totalitarios y de su más peculiar realización -el campo de concentración- daba un sentido inesperado y desconcertante al concepto filosófico del mal radical.

El empeño de claridad ilimitada del pensamiento fenomenológico no se distingue de la vocación de iluminar y orientar la acción humana en medio de la Historia y sus desastres. El redescubrimiento, nunca agotado, de las fuentes vivas del sentido (fenomenología genética) y la meditación sobre la experiencia radical del sentido (el mundo de la vida), sirven, de la mano del último Husserl, de Patocka, de Michel Henry, para sugerir que también la Historia terrible de nuestro siglo es, a la inversa, (...) pieza básica de contraste de la vitalidad de la fenomenología. (shrink)

In this paper I review the problematic relationship between science and philosophy; in particular, I will address the question of whether science needs philosophy, and I will offer some positive perspectives that should be helpful in developing a synergetic relationship between the two. I will review three lines of reasoning often employed in arguing that philosophy is useless for science: philosophy’s death diagnosis ; the historic-agnostic argument/challenge “show me examples where philosophy has been useful for science, for I don’t know (...) of any”; the division of property argument. These arguments will be countered with three contentions to the effect that the natural sciences need philosophy. I will: point to the fallacy of anti-philosophicalism and examine the role of paradigms and presuppositions ; point out why the historical argument fails ; briefly sketch some domains of intersection of science and philosophy and how the two can have mutual synergy. I will conclude with some implications of this synergetic relationship between science and philosophy for the liberal arts and sciences. (shrink)

We give an introductory review of gauge/gravity duality, and associated ideas of holography, emphasising the conceptual aspects. The opening sections gather the ingredients, viz. anti-de Sitter spacetime, conformal field theory and string theory, that we need for presenting, in Sect. 5, the central and original example: Maldacena’s AdS/CFT correspondence. Sections 6 and 7 develop the ideas of this example, also in applications to condensed matter systems, QCD, and hydrodynamics. Sections 8 and 9 discuss the possible extensions of holographic ideas to (...) de Sitter spacetime and to black holes. Section 10 discusses the bearing of gauge/gravity duality on two philosophical topics: the equivalence of physical theories, and the idea that spacetime, or some features of it, are emergent. (shrink)

In this paper we have two aims: first, to draw attention to the close connexion between interpretation and scientific understanding; second, to give a detailed account of how theories without a spacetime can be interpreted, and so of how they can be understood. In order to do so, we of course need an account of what is meant by a theory ‘without a spacetime’: which we also provide in this paper. We describe three tools, used by physicists, aimed at constructing (...) interpretations which are adequate for the goal of understanding. We analyse examples from high-energy physics illustrating how physicists use these tools to construct interpretations and thereby attain understanding. The examples are: the ’t Hooft approximation of gauge theories, random matrix models, causal sets, loop quantum gravity, and group field theory. (shrink)

Theoretical equivalence and duality are two closely related notions: but their interconnection has so far not been well understood. In this paper I explicate the contribution of a recent schema for duality to discussions of theoretical equivalence. I argue that duality suggests a construal of theoretical equivalence in the physical sciences. The construal is in terms of the isomorphism of models, as defined by the schema. This construal gives interpretative constraints that should be useful for discussions of theoretical equivalence more (...) generally. I illustrate the construal in various formulations of Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory. (shrink)