In this article, we propose a philosophical exploration on the main problems involved in two neurorights that concern autonomous action, namely free will and cognitive liberty, and sketch a possible solution to these problems by resourcing to a holistic interpretation of human actions. First, we expose the main conceptual and practical issues arising from the neuroright to “free will,” which are far from minor: the term itself is denied by some trends participating in the neurorights debate, the related concept of (...) ultimate control is also disputed, the understanding of free will depends on cultural context, and the exercise of being free to act in several domains may be covered by other regulations. Second, we analyze the historical origin of cognitive liberty, its current status, and its relation with free will. Third, we criticize the concept of decision in mainstream action theory and propose to conceive action as a unified process constituted by three explanatory, non-sequential dimensions: intention, decision, and action realization. Fourth, we discuss two possible cases involving neurotechnologies and suggest ways to interpret them according to a unified framework in which free will and cognitive liberty fall under a single neuroright to personal autonomy. Finally, we outline a recommendation to introduce freedom of thought and personal autonomy as complementary neurorights to protect both the internal and external dimensions of thought and action. (shrink)

El presente artículo examina los discursos histórico-geográficos sobre América transmitidos en China por misioneros jesuitas entre los siglos XVI y XVIII. Este busca demostrar el modo en que misioneros y sus colaboradores chinos crearon, cuidadosa y estratégicamente, sus informaciones sobre el continente con el fin de apoyar su agenda política y misional. El texto comienza con una descripción general de las estrategias de la misión en China y su relación con la producción geográfica sino-jesuita, para luego ejemplificar a través de (...) un análisis de los contenidos sobre la geografía, etnografía y el “descubrimiento” del continente, la conexión de estas informaciones con los planes de la misión. El artículo concluye que las representaciones sobre la geografía, gentes e historia de América reflejan tres intereses interrelacionados: atraer la atención de los literatos chinos; resaltar el alto desarrollo de la civilización europea; y comunicar mensajes religiosos. (shrink)

Table of Contents Acknowledgments 1 Self-Consciousness and the Body: An Interdisciplinary Introduction by Naomi Eiland, Anthony Marcel and José Luis Bermúdez 2 The Body Image and Self-Consciousness by John Campbell 3 Infants’ Understanding of People and Things: From Body Imitation to Folk Psychology by Andrew N. Meltzoff and M. Keith Moore 4 Persons, Animals, and Bodies by Paul F. Snowdon 5 An Ecological Perspective on the Origins of Self by George Butterworth 6 Objectivity, Causality, and Agency by Thomas Baldwin (...) 7 At Two with Nature: Agency and the Development of Self-World Dualism by James Russell 8 Ecological Perception and the Notion of a Nonconceptual Point of View by José Luis Bermúdez 9 Proprioception and the Body Image by Brian O’Shaughnessy 10 Awareness of One’s Own Body: An Attentional Theory of Its Nature, Development, and Brain Basis by Marcel Kinsbourne 11 Body Schema and Intentionality by Shaun Gallagher 12 Living without Touch and Peripheral Information about Body Position and Movement: Studies with Deafferented Subjects by Jonathan Cole and Jacques Paillard 13 Bodily Awareness: A Sense of Ownership by M. G. F. Martin 14 Bodily Awareness and the Self by Bill Brewer 15 Introspection and Bodily Self-Ascription by Quassim Cassam 16 Consciousness and the Self by Naomi Eilan Contributors Index. (shrink)

La confianza ciega ya no corre. Estamos en tiempos de crisis. La pérdida de confianza está generalizada, va desde lo privado a lo público. Pasa por las desconfianzas políticas, los organismos financieros y llega hasta nuestros líderes espirituales. La ruptura de la confianza, sobre todo ante situaciones de abuso, muchas veces parece definitiva, pero vivir en la total desconfianza es imposible. Conocido por haber denunciado públicamente los abusos de un poderoso sacerdote chileno, el filósofo José Andrés Murillo ha creado (...) el concepto de confianza lúcida, que limita con la desconfianza por un lado y con la confianza ciega por el otro. La confianza lúcida es el centro de este libro que surge en días marcados por el rechazo a los abusos de poder, la desconfianza, el miedo y la obsesión por la seguridad. Una declaración de principios según la cual ningún abuso tiene derecho a robar lo más preciado del ser humano: Confiar en otros y en uno mismo. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas holds that the actual content of our thought is not accessible for any creature, and that free will cannot be superseded. These theses are founded on the spiritual condition of our intelligence and will, which makes them directly invulnerable to any intervention on our body. On the other hand, he enthrones the will as the keeper of interiority: it precludes a full transparency that would make our free decision to communicate superfluous, and it exert an inalienable control over (...) the action through which we direct ourselves to the good. In this sense, Aquinas departs from reductionist accounts, which either refuse the existence of free will, suppressing the reason to protect its expression, or face the difficulty of explaining the meaning and justification of the rights that are claimed for free will. However, Thomas Aquinas admits the possibility of indirectly accessing our minds through the knowledge of brain states and of influencing our will through passions by means of alterations of our organisms. Although this possibility was not within the reach of the human being in his time, he considered it was within the reach of separated substances. The consideration of the limits of their perspicacity and control sheds light on the possibilities that neurotechnology can allow in the future. The existence of an unassailable stronghold that guarantees our interiority and free will legitimates our right to be respected but does not make their protection superfluous. (shrink)

Education moves in the space of distance between those who are coming into the world and the world that they arrive. Since Modern Age, this distance formed by the opposing subject and object, has tended to be an impassable abyss. In this way, the world unfolds in two: the world whose image under investigation in the field of Education is the blackboard, and the world of everyday life. In front of the blackboard the student is installed, constituted as a subject, (...) which should curtail the reality until it fits with the security and accuracy of mathematical world-object-blackboard. The world of ordinary life is there and education does not know what to deal with it, and have it for non-existent. The reality held by non-existent prevents people’s existential integration. But there’s another kind of Educations that integrates and includes subjective and objective world and needs the courage to accept and even demand the new perspectives of those who are coming to build a more complete and always risky world. (shrink)

Classic and modern philosophy propose different views on the question of self-knowledge. Ancient philosophy identifies self-knowledge with the knowledge of the soul, which is the principle of unity in man. Modern philosophy is intereseted in subjectivity, but has a problematic view of it. Some currents, like Idealism, consider that a total reflexcion is possible, in which the subjectivity becomes totally present to itself, but others, as Empiricists, are skeptical and even deny the existence of a true subject. The difficulties of (...) the Idealistic project have are uncovered by some contemporary philosophers, like Heidegger and post-modern thinkers. Polo shows how the denial of a reflective and objective knowledge of the person is compatible with the claim that the person is a radical and transcendental act of intellect. The key of this proposal is the affirmation that there are different kinds of acts of the intellect, according to their theme. (shrink)

The epistemic status of Natural Selection has seemed intriguing to biologists and philosophers since the very beginning of the theory to our present times. One prominent contemporary example is Elliott Sober, who claims that NS, and some other theories in biology, and maybe in economics, are peculiar in including explanatory models/conditionals that are a priori in a sense in which explanatory models/conditionals in Classical Mechanics and most other standard theories are not. Sober’s argument focuses on some “would promote” sentences that (...) according to him, play a central role in NS explanations and are both causal and a priori. Lange and Rosenberg criticize Sober arguing that, though there may be some unspecific a priori causal claims, there are not a priori causal claims that specify particular causal factors. Although we basically agree with Lange and Rosenberg’s criticism, we think it remains silent about a second important element in Sober’s dialectics, namely his claim that, contrary to what happens in mechanics, in NS explanatory conditionals are a priori, and that this is so in quite specific explanatory models. In this paper we criticize this second element of Sober’s argument by analyzing what we take to be the four possible interpretations of Sober’s claim, and argue that, terminological preferences aside, the possible senses in which explanatory models in NS can qualify, or include elements that can qualify, as a priori, also apply to CM and other standard, highly unified theories. We conclude that this second claim is unsound, or at least that more needs to be said in order to sustain that NS explanatory models are a priori in a sense in which CM models are not. (shrink)

This paper explores the distinction between secularism as ideology and secularism as statecraft principle. By secularism as statecraft principle, I understand simply some principle of separation between religious and political authority, either for the sake of the neutrality of the state vis-à-vis each and all religions, or for the sake of protecting the freedom of conscience of each individual, or for the sake of facilitating the equal access of all citizens, religious as well as nonreligious, to democratic participation. Such a (...) statecraft doctrine neither presupposes nor needs to entail any substantive "theory," positive or negative, of "religion." Indeed, the moment the state holds a particular view of "religion" one enters the realm of ideology. Secularism becomes an ideology the moment it entails a theory of what "religion" is or does. It is this assumption that "religion," in the abstract, is a thing that has an essence or that produces certain particular and predictable effects that is the defining characteristic of modern secularism. (shrink)

Propongo la expresión “forma-centauro” para caracterizar la escritura orteguiana porque en ella predominó el ensayo, pero este tuvo desde el principio la pretensión de pensar filosófica, es decir, sistemáticamente. Por tanto este escrito se ocupa de reflexionar sobre la polémica del ensayo filosófico, polémica que viene de lejos (Lukács, Adorno), recuperada en la filosofía hispánica (Gaos, Nicol). Concluyo con un análisis sobre el específico genus dicendi que aportó Ortega a la filosofía del siglo XX y su propuesta de un sistema (...) abierto. (shrink)

El artículo ana liza ciertas tensiones internas en la filosofía del arte de Danto, derivadas de una tensión originaria, la que se da entre esencialismo eternizante e historicismo. Analiza después la definición del arte que ofrece Danto, interpretando que es una definición poco específica, a falta de una mayor caracterización del símbolo artístico. Concluye con la consideración de la tesis de los indiscernibles perceptivos, y el problema que plantea en relación con una de las dos condiciones esenciales del arte, la (...) de la "encarnación del significado", problema que se mantiene a la hora de pensar la belleza artística. (shrink)

Muitos termos possuem um sentido técnico sem que ele seja evidente para todos, por exemplo, a "governança ambiental", termo que remete no contexto atual a uma participação cidadã nesse tipo de questão, por exemplo, da saúde de um ecossistema específico, tal como uma floresta ou um vale agrícola, a partir de preocupações partilhadas e não a partir de uma problemática de controle organizacional. Após ter tornado preciso o que é a expertise e quais são os principais problemas postos pelo recurso (...) à expertise nos contextos da ação cidadã, proponho que as expertises técnicas podem ser postas no mesmo patamar que outros tipos de expertise, referindo principalmente aos saberes comuns, à prática e à experiência concreta, dita "de campo", o que corresponde a uma ampliação. Sugere-se, então, o modelo de fórum híbrido como quadro teórico possível dessa reformulação da concepção de expertise. Many terms have a technical meaning although it is not evident for everyone, for example, the "environmental governance", term that refers in the present context to citizen participation on this type of question, for example, of the health of a specific ecosystem, such as a forest or an agricultural field, from shared preoccupations and not from a problematic of organizational control. After having made precise what is the expertise and what are the main problems posed by the recourse to the expertise in the contexts of citizen action, I propose that technical expertise can be tantamount to other types of expertise, referring mainly to profane knowledge, to the practice and concrete experience called "of field", which corresponds to an enlargement. Then it is suggested the model of an hybrid forum as a possible theoretical frame of this reformulation of the conception of expertise. (shrink)

La lectura del profesor Fernando Vallespín sobre el _Leviatán _de Thomas Hobbes resulta tan heterodoxa como oportuna para entender las “guerras ideológicas” del presente, en tanto incide en la faceta retórica de su lenguaje y su sustrato pasional, así como revela el trasfondo de un dilema, inherente al liberalismo, que hoy vuelve a reproducirse: el de la conciliación entre el pluralismo axiológico y la adhesión a un conjunto de principios universales. En la condición de axioma del instinto de supervivencia en (...) Hobbes, es decir, en la prevalencia del miedo como presupuesto de partida, que en sí no obedece a decisión racional alguna, probablemente radique un motivo crucial para que Hobbes no descartase acudir al lenguaje emocional. La complejidad reside en la intromisión de Hobbes en la “guerra de las plumas”, abierta a un pluralismo que se repliega en defensa del absolutismo y la cientificidad. (shrink)

From the convocation of the Gospel, proclaimed by Jesus Christ in Palestine in the 1st century, the outskirts of the Roman Empire, to Pope Francis proposal in announcing it to the existential and geographical peripheries. How to understand the convocation of Jesus Christ to his church? How to understand Pope Francis ecclesiology: Church that goes forth? To dynamize and proclaim the wonders of the Kingdom of God, Christ Jesus built his Church over the Apostles, having Peter as the one responsible (...) for its unit. The Pope has not been saying anything new, but has presented the eternal words of Christ Jesus as something new. The Pontiff brings dynamism and joy to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. (shrink)

"The days of the pure whites, the victors of today, are as numbered as were the days of their predecessors. Having fulfilled their destiny of mechanizing the world, they themselves have set, without knowing it, the basis for the new period: The period of the fusion and the mixing of all peoples." -- from The Cosmic Race In this influential 1925 essay, presented here in Spanish and English, José Vasconcelos predicted the coming of a new age, the Aesthetic Era, (...) in which joy, love, fantasy, and creativity would prevail over the rationalism he saw as dominating the present age. In this new age, marriages would no longer be dictated by necessity or convenience, but by love and beauty ethnic obstacles, already in the process of being broken down, especially in Latin America, would disappear altogether, giving birth to a fully mixed race, a "cosmic race," in which all the better qualities of each race would persist by the natural selection of love. "This bilingual edition of The Cosmic Race by José Vasconcelos gives the reader a clear and concise introduction to contents that have caused much critical controversy. Didier T. Jaén places this essay in perspective, discussing theories relevant to Vasconcelos's thought... [and] also provides an historical context for Vasconcelos's evolving ideas." -- Hispania. (shrink)

Each science has its own domain of investigation, but one and the same science can be formalized in different languages with different universes of discourse. The concept of the domain of a science and the concept of the universe of discourse of a formalization of a science are distinct, although they often coincide in extension. In order to analyse the presuppositions and implications of choices of domain and universe, this article discusses the treatment of omega arguments in three very different (...) formalizations of arithmetic. In Peano's formalization the domain is a restricted class of individuals, while the universe of discourse is the unrestricted class of all individuals. In Gödel's formalization the domain is a restricted class of individuals as in Peano's formalization, but the universe of discourse coincides with the domain. In Whitehead-Russell's formalization the domain is a class of logical notions in Tarski's sense, that are necessarily not individuals, whereas the universe of discourse is the unrestricted class of individuals as in Peano's formalization. The present approach emphasizes the viewpoint that the universe of discourse of a given discourse is important in determining which propositions are expressed by which sentences. (shrink)

Background: The Marathon runners must have the proper technical preparation to reach excellence and to achieve adequate psychological preparation for the race. Against this background, the current study aims to describe the implementation results of a cognitive-behavioral intervention based on psychological skills training for marathon runners.Methods: Fourteen amateur male marathoners with an average age of 30 were trained with various emotional and cognitive control techniques to enhance their performance in competition. Various psychological variables, related to the subjects level of perceived (...) stress, and to qualitative characteristics of their thoughts were measured before and after the target marathon race. Results were analyzed through non-parametric tests for two related samples. The Cohen's d effect size for single-group pretest-posttest repeated measures were also performed.Results: Statistical analysis reveals that, controlling for age and running experience, the intervention decreased significantly the level of perceived stress and the occurrence of negative thoughts before the race, during, and after the race.Conclusion: Training in cognitive control and relaxation techniques, as part of the psychological skills training could determine the quality of performance of marathon runners. (shrink)

Las confesiones profesionales de Jose Gaos (Espana, 1900-1969) cultivan un genero donde se conjugan relato y reflexion, exposicion filosofica y recuento autobiografico. Se trata de una exposicion organizada y sobre todo organica donde se pone en juego un trasvase de la vida de las ideas de Gaos.

This article explores the relationship between rhetoric and violence by running this pairing through a corresponding couplet: rhetoric and race. Arguing for a common substrate between these two pairs of terms—coloniality—this article proposes that rhetorics of "nonviolence" are better understood as rhetorics of anti-violence.

Freud and the Politics of Psychoanalysis is a sympathetic critique of Freud's work, tracing its political content and context from his early writings on hysteria to his late essays on civilization and religion. Brunner's central claim is that politics is a pervasive and essential component of all of Freud's discourse, since Freud viewed both the psyche and society primarily as constellations of power and domination. Brunner shows that when read politically, Freud's discourse can be seen to unite mechanics and meaning (...) into a plausible, fruitful and internally consistent theory of the mind, therapy, family and society. Part one deals with the medical and political background of Freud's work. It explains how Freud postulated mental principles that were the same for all races and nations. The second part is concerned with the logic and language of Freud's theory of the mind. Brunner also details how Freud introduced dynamics of dominance and subjugation into the very core of the psyche. Part three addresses dynamics of power in the clinical setting, which Freud forged out of a curious blend of authoritarian and liberal elements. Brunner focuses on how this setting creates an arena for verbal politics. He also examines various social factors that influenced the therapeutic practice of psychoanalysis, such as class, gender and education. Part four explores Freud's analysis of the family and large-scale social institutions. Though Brunner is critical of the authoritarian bias in Freud's social theory, he suggests that it provides a useful vocabulary to unmask hidden psychological aspects of domination and subjection. (shrink)

El hombre mediocre está integrado por las lecciones sobre psicología del carácter que dio José Ingenieros en la cátedra de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de Buenos Aires, durante el año 1910. En ellas se proponía comprender cómo funcionan las sociedades humanas. Para ello establecía y describía tres tipos o caracteres que según él era posible reconocer en cualquier comunidad de seres humanos: el idealista, el hombre mediocre y el inferior. Ingenieros no ocultaba su admiración hacia el primer (...) tipo pero, más allá de los juicios morales. Hizo el esfuerzo de entender en clave psicológica las particularidades de cada tipo y su función específica en nuestras sociedades. Así, dedicaba una parte importante de El hombre mediocre al segundo tipo, porque él constituye el grueso de las sociedades: «¿La continuidad de la vida social sería posible sin esa compacta masa de hombres puramente imitativos, capaces de conservar los hábitos rutinarios que la sociedad les transfunde mediante la educación? El mediocre no inventa nada, no crea, no empuja, no rompe, no engendra; pero, en cambio, custodia celosamente la armazón de automatismos y prejuicios y dogmas acumulados durante siglos, defendiendo ese capital común contra la asechanza de los inadaptables. Su rencor a los creadores compénsase por su resistencia a los destructores.». (shrink)

I propose a hypothesis, called the systems convergence-divergence hypothesis, which attempts to explain how the existence and evolution of supraindividual systems (social, political or economic) might be predicted from an analysis of the basic structures that make up their individual entities (molecules and cells) and how, reciprocally, study of these individuals and of their evolution might be approached from knowledge of such systems.

Offering a contemporary perspective on the theory of modernity that differentiates it from its predecessors, this reconstruction has been expanded to include a fourth instrumental aspect. In addition to the recognition of the three parts of traditional modernity—freedom, equality, and solidarity—that follow the basic ideas of the constitutional revolutions of the 18th century, this updated vision introduces responsibility. Concerning itself with what the sociology of development, risk, and ecological crisis have added to these classical ideas, the addition of the fourth (...) part, responsibility, seeks to recognize the experiences of successive eras, and the 20th century in particular. (shrink)

Espero defender la tesis de que la lingüística contemporánea se ha ido consolidando como una ciencia estable. Para ello analizaré, en los conocidos términos de Hempel, casos concretos de explicaciones nomológico-deductivas y probabilístico-inductivas brindadas por la teo-ría generativa y por la teoría sistémico-funcional. Estas explicaciones so-bre hechos del lenguaje son muy superiores a las “no-científicas” : Se sostienen en leyes universales y probabilísticas, cumplen con los requi-sitos de contrastabilidad y pertinencia explicativa y, fundamentalmente, sirven para establecer o comprender las predicciones. (...) Finalmente, el problema de la incompatibilidad manifiesta entre los supuestos de una teoría “biologista” y los de una teoría “sociológica” , puede interpretarse en función de la vieja idea de que en la ciencia no hay experimentos cruciales.In this paper I shall argue that contemporary linguistics has developed as a stable science. I will use Hempel’s well known concep-tual apparatus in my analysis, and apply it to concrete examples of no-mologic-deductive and probabilistic-inductive explanations provided both by the generative and the systemic-functional theory. The expla-nations of concrete linguistic facts yielded by these theories are much better than “non-scientific” explanations : they are based on universal and probabilistic laws, they satisfy the requirements of contrastability and explicative relevance and, more importantly, they are useful in es-tablishing or understanding predictions. Finally, the manifest incom-patibility between the assumptions of a “biologist” theory and those of a “sociologic” theory can be analyzed in terms of the old idea that there are no crucial experiments in science. (shrink)

In this paper I assess the two central ingredients of Laurence BonJour’s position on empirical knowledge that have survived the transition from his earlier coherentist views to his current endorsement of the doctrine of the given: his construal of the problem of the epistemic regress and his rejection of an internalist solution to the problem. The bulk of the paper is devoted to a critical assessment of BonJour’s arguments against externalism. I argue that they fail to put real pressure on (...) externalism, as they rely on a highly questionable conception of epistemic rationality and responsibility. Then, more briefly, I take issue with BonJour’s endorsement of the irrelevance thesis—the claim that even if externalism were true it would not offer a satisfactory solution to the epistemic regress problem. I contend that he is not entitled to subscribe this thesis unless he is prepared to abandon his construal of the problem. (shrink)