It is not yet clear which response behavior requires self-regulatory effort in the moral dilemma task. Previous research has proposed that utilitarian responses require cognitive control, but subsequent studies have found inconsistencies with the empirical predictions of that hypothesis. In this paper we treat participants’ sensitivity to utilitarian gradients as a measure of performance. We confronted participants (N = 82) with a set of five dilemmas evoking a gradient of mean utilitarian responses in a 4-point scale and collected data on (...) heart rate variability and on utilitarian responses. We found positive correlations between tonic and phasic HRV and sensitivity to the utilitarian gradient in the high tonic group, but not in the low tonic group. Moreover, the low tonic group misplaced a scenario with a selfish incentive at the high end of the gradient. Results suggest that performance is represented by sensitivity correlated with HRV and accompanied with a reasonable placement of individual scenarios within the gradient. (shrink)

A partir da fenomenologia de Merleau-Ponty podemos perceber que o ponto de vista da corporeidade se relaciona diretamente com o desafio da educação, o corpo não é tomado como um objeto no espaço e no tempo, ou então em movimento, definido exclusivamente como um conjunto de partes. A relação entre filosofia e arte se faz fundamental para pensar a formação humana e a educação nos termos que estamos pesquisando aqui, pois trata-se da própria fundamentação do conhecimento, a partir de uma (...) atitude de experiência perceptiva com o mundo no qual estamos inseridos. Com isso, neste artigo demonstraremos que a arte se aproxima da filosofia e da educação, pois é impossível filosofar renegando a condição humana, posto que essa ação pretende desvelar o sentido original do ser. Portanto, ao invés de negá-la, é necessário assumi-la. Ao final, debruçados nas pesquisas de Merleau-Ponty, poderemos compreender a árdua tarefa que é defrontar o mistério da sensibilidade na esfera da educação, admitir a arte enquanto tarefa infinita e a filosofia como uma reflexão inacabada, além de identificar as ambiguidades e contradições que permeiam nossas vidas. (shrink)

Nesse ensaio destacamos alguns elementos do horizonte filosófico diltheyano para pensar a educação. Dilthey se insere no território da educação, via pedagogia, pois considerava que a filosofia representa um instrumento teórico que serve de guia para a ação social do homem ou, em outras palavras, para a atividade pedagógica. Segundo nossa perspectiva, a educação é o principal objetivo da filosofia, pois a formação humana tem culminância no filosofar e este é efeito daquela, além disso, a filosofia diltheyana faz sua reflexão (...) sobre pedagogia e sua cientificidade possível, tendo como contexto o confronto com o positivismo do século XIX e a fundação das ciências do espírito em contraposição às da natureza. É nesse sentido, que o problema da consciência histórica - e sua finitude, articula a autonomia da pedagogia, sem a influência do empirismo científico e as exigências da pedagogia tradicional. (shrink)

O presente artigo trata de uma investigação acerca da teoria do filósofo Alva Noë sobre a percepção visual e como ela responde à seguinte questão: “o cego realmente vê com o uso do sistema de substituição tátil-visual?”. Conhecido como TVSS em inglês, é uma prótese construída nos anos 70 pelo neurocientista Bach-y-Rita capaz de recuperar a capacidade visual de cegos ao transformar dados sensoriais táteis em visuais com o uso de uma câmera e eletrodos conectados à uma parte do corpo (...) do usuário. As imagens de um objeto são convertidas em sinais elétricos e transmitidos para um eletrodo. O cérebro, por fim, identifica os sinais elétricos e, conforme o usuário habitua-se com os sinais táteis, o cérebro interpreta-os como sinais visuais. Esta reflexão remete ao problema de Molyneux, proposto à Locke, o qual questiona se um cego que tem sua visão restaurada é capaz de reconhecer objetos que antes reconhecia apenas pelo tato. O problema não possui uma resposta conclusiva e o aparelho de TVSS de Bach-y-Rita é considerado uma boa resposta para a questão. Sobre a teoria de Noë, para perceber visualmente é necessário que utilizemos de movimentos corporais para que a percepção seja utilizada em sua capacidade plena. Não há hierarquia perceptual na teoria de Noë: a visão não é mais importante do que o tato. Perceber, para o filósofo, é agir. Portanto, intenta-se, aqui, apresentar o ponto de vista do filósofo com a finalidade de expor uma visão alternativa acerca de problemáticas da filosofia da percepção. (shrink)

El designio de este trabajo es mostrar cómo Hans Jonas intenta fundar el deber en el ser y las dificultades que este intento traen consigo.

Este artículo pretende contemplar la obra de Malebranche y poder determinar lo que la caracteriza: el pensar de carácter matemático hace posible los diversos saberes tales como moral, metafísica y teología. El conocimiento de las relaciones de perfección son a la par verdades y leyes inmutables de todos los momentos del espíritu. De la contemplación de los atributos divinos, poder, sabiduría y amor de Dios, Malebranche desprende nuestros deberes respecto a Dios, el prójimo y nosotros mismos.

La presente obra ofrece la primera historia completa de toda la filosofía novohispana desde 1521 hasta 1821. Se trata de una visión unitaria y completa de toda la filosofía de la época colonial de México, única en su género y con muchas aportaciones valiosas y originales, con método y bases de verdadera investigación histórico-filosófica. Se abre el libro con una hermenéutica de la historia de la filosofía novohispana en la cual el autor, siguiendo las orientaciones más modernas, comprende e interpreta (...) la historia de las ideas en México a partir de sus verdaderos comienzos: desde la polémica entablada por Agustín Rivera y Agustín de la Rosa sobre la validez o no de la acción de España en la enseñanza de la filosofía y de la ciencia en la Nueva España. En su conjunto la obra, estructurada cronológicamente, estudia las actividades y manifestaciones filosóficas de las órdenes religiosas en los tres siglos clásicos, estableciendo una división entre humanistas y escolásticos. Entre los humanistas, destacan fray Juan de Sumárraga, fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, Vasco de Quiroga y Francisco Hernández. En la exposición de los escolásticos, y atendiendo a las diversas órdenes, traza un resumen de las obras principales de los autores más destacados: Diego Valdés, Alonso de la Vera Cruz, Pedro de Hortigosa, Antonio Rubio y Antonio Arias, así como sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. (shrink)

Hartmut Rosa advances an account of the temporal structure of society from the perspective of critical theory. He identifies three categories of change in the tempo of modern social life: technological acceleration, evident in transportation, communication, and production; the acceleration of social change, reflected in cultural knowledge, social institutions, and personal relationships; and acceleration in the pace of life, which happens despite the expectation that technological change should increase an individual's free time. According to Rosa, both the structural and cultural (...) aspects of our institutions and practices are marked by the "shrinking of the present," a decreasing time period during which expectations based on past experience reliably match the future. When this phenomenon combines with technological acceleration and the increasing pace of life, time seems to flow ever faster, making our relationships to each other and the world fluid and problematic. It is as if we are standing on "slipping slopes," a steep social terrain that is itself in motion and in turn demands faster lives and technology. As Rosa deftly shows, this self-reinforcing feedback loop fundamentally determines the character of modern life. (shrink)

Depersonalization is characterised by a profound disruption of self-awareness mainly characterised by feelings of disembodiment and subjective emotional numbing.It has been proposed that depersonalization is caused by a fronto-limbic suppressive mechanism – presumably mediated via attention – which manifests subjectively as emotional numbing, and disables the process by which perception and cognition normally become emotionally coloured, giving rise to a subjective feeling of ‘unreality’.Our functional neuroimaging and psychophysiological studies support the above model and indicate that, compared with normal and clinical (...) controls, DPD patients show increased prefrontal activation as well as reduced activation in insula/limbic-related areas to aversive, arousing emotional stimuli.Although a putative inhibitory mechanism on emotional processing might account for the emotional numbing and characteristic perceptual detachment, it is likely, as suggested by some studies, that parietal mechanisms underpin feelings of disembodiment and lack of agency feelings. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente artículo propone que la 31ª Bienal de Sao Paulo entraña un afán emancipador para los "sin tierra" - errantes, migrantes y viajeros. Para ello se conforma como un cuerpo sin órganos, que despliega estrategias liberadoras promoviendo: desarticulación, experimentación, vagabundeo y tránsito de sujetos y pueblos. Esta Bienal, en tanto CsO, mueve intensidades como flujos sensibles por los intersticios de los proyectos artísticos dispuestos en organismo. Acá el CsO es un conjunto de prácticas reservadas a desterritorializar los estratos (...) del "organismo social" y hacer estallar los órganos estructurados en dichos sistemas.: This article shows that the 31st Sao Paulo Biennial has an emancipatory affinity for the landless - wanderers, migrants, and travelers. As such it becomes a Body without Organs that displays liberating strategies, promoting disarticulation, experimentation, wandering, and the transit of subjects and peoples. This Biennial, as a BwO, moves intensities as sensible flows through the interstices of the artistic projects inside the organism. Here, the BwO becomes a set of practices that deterritorialize the strata of the "social organism", making the structured organs in these systems explode. (shrink)

In the logic of theory change, the standard model is AGM, proposed by Alchourrón et al. (J Symb Log 50:510–530, 1985 ). This paper focuses on the extension of AGM that accounts for contractions of a theory by a set of sentences instead of only by a single sentence. Hansson (Theoria 55:114–132, 1989 ), Fuhrmann and Hansson (J Logic Lang Inf 3:39–74, 1994 ) generalized Partial Meet Contraction to the case of contractions by (possibly non-singleton) sets of sentences. In this (...) paper we present the possible worlds semantics for partial meet multiple contractions. (shrink)

1Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol, 9 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TB, UKScience Without Laws Ronald Giere Chicago, IL University of Chicago Press 1999 x + 285 Hardback£17.50.

No presente texto propomos uma perspectiva multiespecífica para a análise da biopolítica. Partindo da situação da emergência da pandemia do COVID-19, tomada dentro do contexto das mutações ecológicas do Antropoceno, argumentamos que, para além da atenção voltada às operações das diversas experiências e dispositivos biopolíticos sobre o corpo humano – corpo individual ou corpo social – deve-se trilhar por uma via expandida que leve também em consideração, conjuntamente (e não por exclusão), os efeitos dessas operações sobre formas de vida outras-que-humanas, (...) tomando termos como meio ambiente e natureza não apenas pelo prisma de serem recursos geridos finalizando a condução da conduta humana, mas como meios vivos, igualmente. (shrink)

This article provides a state of the art review of the philosophical literature on scientific representation. It first argues that the topic emerges historically mainly out of what may be called the modelling tradition. It then introduces a number of helpful analytical distinctions, and goes on to divide contemporary approaches to scientific representation into two distinct kinds, substantive and deflationary. Analogies with related discussions of artistic representation in aesthetics, and of the nature of truth in metaphysics are pursued. It is (...) finally urged that the most promising approaches - and the ones most likely to feature prominently in future developments - are deflationary. In particular, a defence is provided of a genuinely inferential conception of representation. (shrink)

This article provides a state-of-the-art review of the philosophical literature on scientific representation. It first argues that the topic emerges historically mainly out of what may be called the modelling tradition. It then introduces a number of helpful analytical distinctions and goes on to divide contemporary approaches to scientific representation into two distinct kinds, substantive and deflationary. Analogies with related discussions of artistic representation in aesthetics and the nature of truth in metaphysics are pursued. It is finally urged that the (...) most promising approaches—and the ones most likely to feature prominently in future developments—are deflationary. In particular, a defense is provided of a genuinely inferential conception of representation. (shrink)

Rousseau et l'exegese biblique du XVIIIe siecle -- Des pratiques bibliques du XVIIIe siecle a la lecture-consolation de Rousseau -- Intertextualite biblique dans l'ouvre de Rousseau -- Intertexte biblique et representation de soi -- Le Levite d'Ephraim : reecriture biblique -- Schemes de la pensee du religieux -- Ouvre de doctrine : la lettre a Christophe de Beaumont -- Etre Chretien de Jacques : les lettres ecrites de La Montagne.

This work develops the ethical attitude of courageous vulnerability through the integration of the phenomenon of involuntary memory in Marcel Proust's work and ...

In this paper I present reasons for us to accept the hypothesis that suspended judgment has correctness conditions, just like beliefs do. Roughly put, the idea is that suspended judgment about p is correct when both p and ¬p might be true in view of certain facts that characterize the subject’s situation. The reasons to accept that hypothesis are broadly theoretical ones: it adds unifying power to our epistemological theories, it delivers good and conservative consequences, and it allows us to (...) assess processes of reasoning involving attitudes of suspended judgment. (shrink)

The significance of critical phenomenology for psychiatric praxis has yet to be expounded. In this paper, I argue that the adoption of a critical phenomenological stance can remedy localised instances of hermeneutical injustice, which may arise in the encounter between clinicians and patients with psychosis. In this context, what is communicated is often deemed to lack meaning or to be difficult to understand. While a degree of un-shareability is inherent to subjective life, I argue that issues of unintelligibility can be (...) addressed by shifting from individualistic conceptions of understanding to an interactionist view. This takes into account the contextual, historical and relational background within which meaning is co-constituted. I conclude by providing a corrective for hermeneutical injustice, which entails a specific attentiveness towards the person’s subjectivity, a careful sensitivity to contingent meaning-generating structures, and a degree of hermeneutical flexibility as an attitude of openness towards alternative horizons of possibility. (shrink)

Are there representations in the brain? It depends on what you mean by representations, and it depends on what you want them to do for you—both in terms of the causal role they play in the system, and in terms of their explanatory value. But ideally, we would like an account of representation that allows us to assign a representational role and content to the appropriate mechanistic precursors of behavior that in fact play that role and conversely, search for the (...) mechanistic realizers of representational roles that are posited by our models of behavior and cognition. Such an account would be methodologically valuable in neuroscience. Lately, people have started asking similar questions about deep neural networks. What representations do they learn and use, and what is the relation between those representations and the sometimes impressive capacities these networks exhibit? More philosophically puzzling, perhaps, is the question of why the internal activities or dispositions labeled as such in neuroscience and AI research should count as representations at all. I think we can give a unified answer to both sets of questions, in the form of a kind of representational pragmatism. What makes something a representation just is that we can identify and re-identify it as such, and moreover, that we can manipulate it effectively to do whatever it is that we think representations ought to do for us in that particular context. For the first condition, the idea is that so long as we have some probe that allows us to pick out the relevant causally effective candidate, we should consider that to be a candidate representation-relative-to-that-probe. The second condition can be understood as a kind of anti-gerrymandering constraint: one ought to be able to intervene on the candidate, and see effects of that intervention consistent with the functional role the representation is supposed to play. Naturally the details need to be spelled out for different contexts—and I will articulate them for a few illustrative cases—which effectively allows for a kind of pluralism about representation depending on the setting and the kinds of questions being asked. With the extra components filled in, representational pragmatism can make sense of existing practices in neuroscience and AI, as well as their relationship to naturalistic theories of representation in philosophy. (shrink)

Virtue ethics has often been regarded as complementary or laissez-faire ethics in solving business problems. This paper seeks conceptual and methodological improvements by developing a virtue character scale that will enable assessment of the link between organizational level virtue and organizational performance, financial or non-financial. Based upon three theoretical assumptions, multiple studies were conducted; the content analysis of 158 Fortune Global 500 firms ethical values and a survey of 2548 customers and employees. Six dimensions of organizational virtue (Integrity, Empathy, Warmth, (...) Courage, Conscientiousness and Zeal) are identified through confirmatory factor analysis, and validated against satisfaction measure. Strategic implications of virtue characters are discussed. (shrink)

IntroductionThe idea of video recording in the operating room with panoramic cameras and microphones is a new concept that is changing the approach to medical activities in the OR. However, VR in the OR has brought up many concerns regarding patient privacy and has highlighted legal and ethical issues that were never previously exposed.AimTo review the literature concerning these aspects and provide a better ethical and legal understanding of the new challenges concerning VR in the OR.ConclusionsThere is a disparity between (...) the two main legal models concerning VR in the OR, namely the European legal system ) and the American legal framework ). This difference mainly deals with two distinct bioethical paradigms: GDPR places a strong emphasis on protecting patients’ privacy to improve the public health system, whereas HIPAA indicates the need to generate protocols to safeguard the risks connected to medical activity and patient privacy. Following from this point, we may argue that, at the ethical and bioethical level, GDPR and HIPAA depend mainly on two different ethical models: a perspective based on moral acquaintances and weak proceduralism, respectively. It is worth noting the importance of developing additional guidelines concerning different world regions to avoid the ethical problems that may emerge when simply applying a foreign paradigm to a very different culture. (shrink)

Philosophical proponents of predictive processing cast the novelty of predictive models of perception in terms of differences in the functional role and information content of neural signals. However, they fail to provide constraints on how the crucial semantic mapping from signals to their informational contents is determined. Beyond a novel interpretative gloss on neural signals, they have little new to say about the causal structure of the system, or even what statistical information is carried by the signals. That means that (...) the predictive framework for perception can be relabeled in traditional, non-predictive terms, with no empirical consequences relevant to existing or future data. To the extent that neuroscientific research based on predictive processing is both innovative and productive, it will be due to the framework’s suggestive heuristic effects, or perhaps auxiliary empirical claims about implementation, rather than a difference in the information-processing structure that it describes. (shrink)

The brain is often taken to be a paradigmatic example of a signaling system with semantic and representational properties, in which neurons are senders and receivers of information carried in action potentials. A closer look at this picture shows that it is not as appealing as it might initially seem in explaining the function of the brain. Working from several sender-receiver models within the teleosemantic framework, I will first argue that two requirements must be met for a system to support (...) genuine semantic information: 1. The receiver must be competent —that is, it must be able to extract rewards from its environment on the basis of the signals that it receives. 2. The receiver must have some flexibility of response relative to the signal received. In the second part of the paper, this initial framework will be applied to neural processes, pointing to the surprising conclusion that signaling at the single-neuron level is only weakly semantic at best. Contrary to received views, neurons will have little or no access to semantic information (though their patterns of activity may carry plenty of quantitative, correlational information) about the world outside the organism. Genuine representation of the world requires an organism - level receiver of semantic information, to which any particular set of neurons makes only a small contribution. (shrink)

Delusions are often portrayed as paradigmatic instances of incomprehensibility and meaninglessness. Here we investigate the relationship between delusions and meaning from a philosophical perspective, integrating arguments and evidence from cognitive psychology and phenomenological psychopathology. We review some of the empirical and philosophical literature relevant to two claims about delusions and meaning: delusions are meaningful, despite being described as irrational and implausible beliefs; some delusions can also enhance the sense that one’s life is meaningful, supporting agency and creativity in some circumstances. (...) Delusions are not incomprehensible representations of reality. Rather, they can help make sense of one’s unusual experiences and in some circumstances even support one’s endeavours, albeit temporarily and imperfectly. Acknowledging that delusions have meaning and can also give meaning to people’s lives has implications for our understanding of psychotic symptoms and for addressing the stigma associated with psychiatric conditions. (shrink)

Multiple realizability says that the same kind of mental states may be manifested by systems with very different physical constitutions. Putnam ( 1967 ) supposed it to be “overwhelmingly probable” that there exist psychological properties with different physical realizations in different creatures. But because function constrains possible physical realizers, this empirical bet is far less favorable than it might initially have seemed, especially when we take on board the richer picture of neural and brain function that neuroscience has been uncovering (...) over the past forty years, in which all sorts of brain activities play crucial roles beyond all-or-nothing electrical signaling. Because of its evolutionary history, the brain’s metabolic and informational processes are inextricably intertwined. The resulting complex integrated functions impose more constraints on possible realizers than the clean, single-purpose functions usually cited as examples in discussions of multiple realizability—with ramifications for the functionalist and computationalist foundations of cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

El modelo de ser humano: homo oeconomicus, impuesto por la racionalidad económica capitalista, ha tenido en las dos últimas décadas una metamorfosis compleja, a saber, la formación de un tipo de subjetividad representada en la figura del “emprendedor” o “su propio jefe” que, desde una nueva gramática teológica, encarna un proyecto mercantil solapado y subrepticio que condiciona las relaciones entre sujetos. En razón a esto, el propósito de este texto es pensar dicha problemática desde el ejercicio hermenéutico-crítico que lleva a (...) cabo el joven Marx, para someter al análisis las categorías de culpa, deuda, sacrificio y expiación destacadas por Walter Benjamin, a la luz de la categoría esencia subjetiva de la propiedad privada que permita entender cómo el capitalismo se vale hoy de la teología y su lenguaje para continuar responsabilizando al ser humano de su pobreza, de su riqueza o su fracaso económico. (shrink)

The strong influence of pragmatism in the early 20th-century international debate, its subsequent and apparently inexorable decline, and its recent revival are intertwined with the fate of other currents of thought that have marked the development of contemporary philosophy. This volume clarifies the most recent events of this development focusing on key theoretical issues common both to American classic philosophical tradition and analytical thought. Many essays in this volume belong to what we can call “new” pragmatism, namely a pragmatist perspective (...) that is different from the postmodernist “neo” pragmatism à la Rorty. The volume shows that both pragmatists and analytic thinkers stress the importance of logic and scientific method in order to deal with philosophical problems and seek for a clarification of the relation between our ethical values and our understanding of natural facts. Moreover, the anti-skeptic attitude that characterizes pragmatism as well as most part of analytic philosophy, and their common attention to the problems of language and communication are emphasized. The more sophisticated tools for addressing both theoretical and methodological problems developed by analytic philosophy are pointed out, and the essays show the possible integration of these two forms of speculation that, for too a long time, mutually disregarded one another. (shrink)

Con el objetivo de superar la crisis en la que se encuentra la filosofía hoy, se expone de manera sencilla una propuesta de una hermenéutica analógica. Se trata de una teoría de la interpretación que incorpora el concepto de la analogía, noción que evitará caer en la postura unívoca de los positivismos y en la equívoca de los posmodernismos. Esto permitirá salir a terrenos más promisorios y fructíferos para la labor filosófica. Para ello, en primer lugar, se desarrollará la concepción (...) de hermenéutica en general y, en segundo lugar, se expondrá el concepto de analogía, de la que toma su nombre la hermenéutica analógica, a fin de que su concepto sea comprendido más fácil y claramente. (shrink)

While the concept of adaptive preferences is an important tool for criticizing injustice, it is often claimed that using the concept involves showing disrespect for persons judged to have adaptive preferences. In this paper, I propose an account of adaptive preferences that does the relevant political work while still showing persons two centrally important kinds of respect. My account is based in what I call an indirect substantive account of autonomy, which places substantive requirements on the options available to a (...) person, rather than on the option that she ultimately prefers. This allows us to pinpoint cases in which a person's circumstances have rendered her insufficiently autonomous, without saying that any conception of the good must be non-autonomous tout court. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es presentar el problema triple (trilema) de Agripa que cuestiona la posibilidad de alcanzar una justificación epistemológica del conocimiento empírico. Una posible reconstrucción del problema es la que se apoya en el problema del regreso al infinito -uno de los modos de..

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Extractivist OntologiesLithium Mining and Anthropocene Imaginaries in Chile's Atacama DesertMauricio F. Collao Quevedo (bio)The term energy transition generally refers to efforts to switch from one energy system to another. In light of the current climate crisis, energy transition projects have sought to move societies away from their reliance on fossil fuels and toward a renewables-based energy system. Yet such projects have not been easy to undertake. As Marie Forget (...) and Vincent Bos point out, an energy system based on renewables requires a transformation of energy "regulatory frameworks, technical and organizational structures, geographic forms and network practices" (1). More specifically, current energy transition models rely on the expansion of lithium production, accompanying systems of private property rights, and complex logistical and technical strategies. This article examines the interplay between lithium extraction, national development, and Anthropocene imaginaries in Chile's Atacama Desert, arguing that the green brand of extractivism that characterizes the industry relies on elaborate institutional arrangements aimed at expanding and protecting extractivist ontological and epistemological regimes in the politically contested region. As such, struggles over lithium in Chile's Atacama region demonstrate the extent to which efforts to decolonize the Anthropocene and make possible non-extractive futures of collective survival must unfold on ontological grounds, against the consolidation of the Age of Man.Mining, Water Rights, and Indigenous Communities in the Atacama DesertAmong today's most promising energy sources and materials are sodium, copper, sulfur, nickel, cobalt, rare earth metals, and lithium. These [End Page 78] have become central to energy transition strategies and states seeking to attract investors for development (Lunde Seefeldt). As a report by the World Bank points out, demand for transition minerals like lithium, cobalt, and graphite could increase by 500% by 2050 ("Climate-Smart Mining"), highlighting the extent to which global energy transition efforts are counting on greater extraction of transition minerals and the expansion of extractive frontiers to previously unexplored or unexploited regions (Moore, Capitalism; World Bank Group). Lithium is at the center of this economic and technological shift toward green economies.Global lithium demand is growing rapidly, with investment and production rates growing significantly in recent years (Narins) and catching the attention of states (e.g., China) and corporate tech giants (e.g., Tesla) that are already trying to secure greater shares of the global market. The light metal's popularity is largely due to its internal chemistry, which meets many of the technical and practical requirements associated with green energy transition. Lithium is light, conducive, and energy-dense, which in the context of batteries means faster recharge, lower costs, and charge-holding abilities that make lithium-ion batteries more efficient than a nickel-metal hybrid equivalent (Perotti and Coviello). Because of this, lithium is increasingly being considered as promising for human development and survival as its energy predecessors, inspiring labels such as "white gold," "white petroleum," "the new copper," "the 21st century's petroleum," or the "new gasoline" of sustainability (Acuña and Tironi; Lunde Seefeldt; Voskoboynik and Andreucci).But the industry is not without its downsides. The negative impacts of lithium extraction in Chile's Atacama Desert have been challenged by local communities for whom the metal does not exist as a discrete entity that can be easily extracted from its socioecological context. For many of these communities, lithium is more than a transition metal found in an appropriable and materially heterogenous underground brine: it is an ontologically contested, socioecological entity that sustains and participates in complex webs of life-supporting, place-based, and more-than-human relations. Such accounts of the brine are radically incompatible with "official" state accounts of it, which are maintained through an institutional architecture that allows the ontological basis of the brine to be manipulated for extractive purposes by both corporate and state actors.In the following pages, I examine the ways in which Chile's legal and institutional arrangements, informed by imaginaries of green modernization, [End Page 79] create conditions under which extralocal actors can manipulate along extractivist lines the ontological ambiguity and material heterogeneity of lithium-containing brines in the salt flats of the Atacama Desert. Through an analysis of the ways in which lithium industries in the... (shrink)