El artículo presenta algunos de los conceptos clave de las teoríasde la democracia deliberativa y la política discursiva, de Habermas, y de lapolítica de la liberación, de Dussel, con el fin de establecer coincidencias ydivergencias en vista de una interpretación actual de la democracia y de lopolítico.

With the concept of commom good reference has been made, along history, to those material and immaterial goods which are not circumscribed to a person, but remit to each and every member of society. Among those goods, basic elements for biological human survival, such as air and water, are usually included, but also the right to participate of the profits of cultural goods. In some cases, commom good has been made equivalent to common wellfare; in others, to the summation of (...) particular interests or to the benefit of the majority. Beyond the diverse interpretations, the promotion of common good continues at present to be a key aim of State in the democratic ideary and a recurrent issue in public ethics. In what follows, the concept of traditional common good has been reconstructed, making special reference to the works of Plato, Aristotle and St. Thomas, with the purpose of setting the basis for a new comprehension of the idea of common good in pluralist and democratic societies.Con el concepto de bien común se ha hecho referencia, a través de la historia, a aquellos bienes materiales e inmateriales que no se circunscriben a una persona sino que remiten a todos y cada uno de los miembros de la sociedad. Entre esos bienes suelen contarse elementos básicos para la supervivencia humana biológica, como el aire y el agua, pero también el derecho a participar en el usufructo de los bienes de la cultura. En algunos casos, el bien común es equiparado al bienestar general; en otros, a la suma de intereses particulares o al beneficio de la mayoría, como cuando se busca el mayor bien para el mayor número posible de individuos. Más allá de las diversas interpretaciones, la promoción del bien común sigue siendo en la actualidad un objetivo clave del Estado en el ideario democrático y un tema recurrente de la ética pública. En lo que sigue, se reconstruye críticamente el concepto tradicional de bien común, haciendo especial referencia a las obras de Platón, Aristóteles y Santo Tomas, con el fin de sentar bases para una nueva comprensión de la idea de bien común en sociedades pluralistas y democráticas. (shrink)

El artículo expone sintéticamente, en primer término, algunas ideas clave de la teoría ético-discursiva en relación con la resolución de conflictos. Luego se presentan las observaciones críticas que realiza Julio De Zan a la Ética del discurso en el sentido de que los discursos prácticos no serían aptos para resolver los conflictos de valores, los conflictos de intereses y los conflictos político-sociales, como también su propuesta de complementar la Ética del discurso con un aporte hermenéutico y una estrategia de cooperación (...) mutua para la solución de aquellos conflictos que no pueden ser resueltos mediante el discurso argumentativo. Esta estrategia no estaría orientada a alcanzar un consenso entre las partes, sino a lograr un modus vivendi razonable y pacífico. El artículo cierra con una ponderación crítica de las reflexiones de Julio De Zan y con la mención de algunos interrogantes que se plantean a partir de su propuesta de complementación de la Ética del discurso. (shrink)

el artículo presenta algunos de los conceptos clave de las teorías de la democracia deliberativa y la política discursiva, de Habermas, y de la política de la liberación, de Dussel, con el fin de establecer coincidencias y divergencias en vista de una interpretación actual de la democracia y de lo político.

El presente texto aborda la problemática del aborto como una cuestión moral, y deja de lado otros enfoques relevantes, dado que estos, en opinión del autor, no tienen como horizonte último el punto de vista moral. A partir de los presupuestos conceptuales y metodológicos de la Ética del discurso, en tanto que ética de la corresponsabilidad solidaria no rigorista, se presentan conceptos ético-discursivos que pueden fundamentar las dos tesis siguientes: a) La interrupción arbitraria de la vida humana en la etapa (...) inicial de desarrollo es una práctica injusta; b) En determinados contextos de interacción y en situaciones específicas de decisión, el principio moral que exige no interrumpir voluntariamente la vida humana inicial puede ser no aplicable o su aplicación no exigible. The present text addresses the problem of abortion as a moral issue, and leaves aside other relevant approaches, since these, in the author's opinion, do not have the moral point of view as their ultimate horizon. From the conceptual and methodological assumptions of Discourse Ethics, as ethics of non-rigorous solidary co-responsibility, discourse-ethical concepts are presented that can support the following two theses: a) The arbitrary interruption of human life in the initial stage of development is an unjust practice; b) In certain contexts of interaction and in specific situations of decision, the moral principle that demands not voluntarily interrupting the initial human life may not be applicable or its application may not be enforceable. (shrink)

Platonic dialogues are self-concealing, presenting ideas by indirection or in riddling form, often exploring a difficulty or aporia without arriving at a solution. Since philosophers have begun to see Plato's work as imbued with irony, double meaning, and ambiguity, literary techniques that accommodate such layered meanings become a necessary adjunct to interpretation. The dialogue Politicus explores through an aporetic process a central Platonic concern, the relation between ideal and real. Close analysis of the important section dealing with law and constitutions (...) reveals some of the complexity. By his wayward conduct of the argument, the Eleatic stranger repeatedly forces reevaluation of earlier arguments or conclusions. At the close of the cosmic myth , the Stranger warned against confusing the divine monarch, a true shepherd, with his mortal counterpart, the best ruler, whose discovery is the aim of the dialogue. The distinction that was made then is simple in context, but complex in view of the conclusion at 303b8-c5 that the participants in all governments except the ideal monarchy are supreme wizards and fakers. The truly real statesman thus recedes into a distance remote from the world of practical politics, while the familiar regimes are marked as irretrievably flawed and inauthentic. The ability of the fake statesmen to deceive by impersonating the true king also means that it may be impossible to make the crucial distinction between king and tyrant, since either may disregard the laws. The strange fable of legalism run wild confirms the ludicrous and destructive results of rigid obedience to law, but concludes that rigidity is necessary to the false regimes. The corollary is that seekers after truth, like Socrates or even the Stranger himself, must always be rejected by law-based societies. (shrink)

Die Philosophie Helmuth Plessners hat in den letzten Jahren eine Renaissance erfahren: Plessner wurde als relevanter Vertreter einer Biophilosophie (wieder) entdeckt, die nicht nur die uberkommene Trennung von Natur und Kultur, sondern auch die Gegenuberstellung disjunkter Wissenschaftskulturen in Frage stellt und ihr Verhaltnis neu bestimmt. DAs Buch nimmt die verschiedenen disziplinaren Faden auf, die die Konzeption von Plessners Biophilosophie insbesondere in den Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch (1928) verstandlich machen. ES stellt Plessners uberlegungen im Kontext von naturwissenschaftlichen (von Uexkull, (...) Buytendijk, Driesch, von Weizsacker, Portmann, Kohler) sowie philosophischen (Bergson, Misch, Hartmann, Scheler, Heidegger, Jonas) Theorien seiner Zeit vor. (shrink)

Following the revival in the last decades of the concept of “organism”, scholarly literature in philosophy of science has shown growing historical interest in the theory of Immanuel Kant, one of the “fathers” of the concept of self-organisation. Yet some recent theoretical developments suggest that self-organisation alone cannot fully account for the all-important dimension of autonomy of the living. Autonomy appears to also have a genuine “interactive” dimension, which concerns the organism’s functional interactions with the environment and does not simply (...) derive from its internal organisation. Against this background, we focus on a family of natural philosophical approaches that historically have already strongly taken in account this aspect of autonomy, notably going beyond Kant’s perspective on self-organisation. We thus review Hegel, Plessner, and Jonas’ different perspectives on living beings, focussing in particular on four points: the distinction between organic and inorganic, the theory of biological organisation, the processuality of the living, and the “boundary” between inside and outside, through which the organism establishes its relationship to the environment. We, then, compare the three perspectives on these four points, and finally address the question of what advantages their contribution present—especially compared to Kant’s theory—with respect to the topic of organism’s autonomy. This could help—we hope—to better understand what is at the stake still today. (shrink)

A historical investigation of the exclusion of Africa and Asia from modern histories of philosophy.

After preliminarily pointing to the undeniable differences between Jonas’ philosophical biology and Schelling’s philosophy of nature, I contend that, besides their divergencies, the two philosophers agree on several important points. I then show to what extent, based on these elements of convergence, their two approaches could even be taken as complementary. In the core of my paper I lay emphasis on what I believe to be the main ground for the complementarity of the two philosophical inquiries, that is to say, (...) their common radicalization and superseding of Kant’s principle of self-organization. In this respect – all differences considered – they both can be said to delineate a philosophy of the organic that can fruitfully contribute, even better than Kant’s input, to the currently widely discussed topic of biological autonomy. (shrink)

This comprehensive and important volume includes contributions by activists, journalists, lawyers and scholars from twenty-one countries. The essays map the directions the movement for women's rights is taking--and will take in the coming decades--and the concomittant transformation of prevailing notions of rights and issues. They address topics such as the rapes in former Yugoslavia and efforts to see that a War Crimes Tribunal responds; domestic violence; trafficking of women into the sex trade; the persecution of lesbians; female genital mutilation; and (...) reproductive rights. (shrink)

This collection presents stimulating and diverse essays by scholars from several different fields; the contributors have made important contributions to the ...

This paper argues that for the purposes of any sort of serious discussion about immoral conduct in sport very little is illuminated by claiming that the conduct in question is cheating. In fact, describing some behavior as cheating is typically little more than expressing strong, but thoroughly vague and imprecise, moral disapproval or condemnation of another person or institution about a wide and ill-defined range of improper advantage-seeking behavior. Such expressions of disapproval fail to distinguish cheating from many other types (...) of immoral conduct. The discussion shows that we should set the concept aside and assess the moral disapproval implied by claims of cheating by reference to the moral and other principles that underlie the practice of sport. This allows us to consider carefully the complexity of the issues that are raised when allegations of cheating are made and not be distracted by the emotionally loaded, conversation-stopping tendency of the concept. This means that some types of disputes in sport will be messy and demand more effort to resolve, but the payoff will be better informed and more thoughtful discussions and greater awareness of the moral complexity of sport and of its principled underpinnings. (shrink)

Isaac Newton wrote the manuscript Questiones quaedam philosophicae at the very beginning of his scientific career. This small notebook thus affords rare insight into the beginnings of Newton's thought and the foundations of his subsequent intellectual development. The Questiones contains a series of entries in Newton's hand that range over many topics in science, philosophy, psychology, theology, and the foundations of mathematics. These notes, written in English, provide a very detailed picture of Newton's early interests, and record his critical appraisal (...) of contemporary issues in natural philosophy. Written predominantly in 1664-5, they give a significant perspective on Newton's thought just prior to his annus mirabilis, 1666. This volume provides a complete transcription of the Questiones, together with an 'expansion' into modern English, and a full editorial commentary on the content and significance of the notebook in the development of Newton's thought. It will be essential reading for all those interested in Newton and the intellectual foundations of science. (shrink)

Scientific disagreements sometimes persist even if scientists fully share results of their research. In this paper we develop an agent-based model to study the impact of diverging diagnostic values scientists may assign to the evidence, given their different background assumptions, on the emergence of polarization in the scientific community. Scientists are represented as Bayesian updaters for whom the diagnosticity of evidence is given by the Bayes factor. Our results suggest that an initial disagreement on the diagnostic value of evidence can, (...) but does not necessarily, lead to polarization, depending on the sample size of the performed studies and the confidence interval within which scientists share their opinions. In particular, the more data scientists share,the more likely it is that the community will end up polarized. (shrink)

The first English translation of Fichte’s second set of 1804 lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre.

v. 1. Nicomachean ethics. Politics. The Athenian Constitution. Rhetoric. On Poetics.--v. 2. Logic.--v. 3. Physics. Metaphysics. On the soul. Short physical treaties.--v. 4. On the heavens. On generation and corruption. Meteorology. Biological treatises.

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is the most likely site where egocentric spatial relationships are represented in the brain. PPC cells receive visual, auditory, somaesthetic, and vestibular sensory inputs; oculomotor, head, limb, and body motor signals; and strong motivational projections from the limbic system. Their discharge increases not only when an animal moves towards a sensory target, but also when it directs its attention to it. PPC lesions have the opposite effect: sensory inattention and neglect. The PPC does not seem (...) to contain a “map” of the location of objects in space but a distributed neural network for transforming one set of sensory vectors into other sensory reference frames or into various motor coordinate systems. Which set of transformation rules is used probably depends on attention, which selectively enhances the synapses needed for making a particular sensory comparison or aiming a particular movement. (shrink)

Orthologic is defined by weakening the axioms and rules of inference of the classical propositional calculus. The resulting Lindenbaum-Tarski quotient algebra is an orthoimplication algebra which generalizes the author's implication algebra. The associated order structure is a semi-orthomodular lattice. The theory of orthomodular lattices is obtained by adjoining a falsity symbol to the underlying orthologic or a least element to the orthoimplication algebra.

Providing an original and systematic treatment of foundational issues in philosophy of religion, J. L. Schellenberg's new book addresses the structure of..

Recent studies indicate that mammalian chromosomes contain discretecis‐acting loci that control replication timing, mitotic condensation, and stability of entire chromosomes. Disruption of the large non‐coding RNA gene ASAR6 results in late replication, an under‐condensed appearance during mitosis, and structural instability of human chromosome 6. Similarly, disruption of the mouse Xist gene in adult somatic cells results in a late replication and instability phenotype on the X chromosome. ASAR6 shares many characteristics with Xist, including random mono‐allelic expression and asynchronous replication timing. (...) Additional “chromosome engineering” studies indicate that certain chromosome rearrangements affecting many different chromosomes display this abnormal replication and instability phenotype. These observations suggest that all mammalian chromosomes contain “inactivation/stability centers” that control proper replication, condensation, and stability of individual chromosomes. Therefore, mammalian chromosomes contain four types ofcis‐acting elements, origins, telomeres, centromeres, and “inactivation/stability centers”, all functioning to ensure proper replication, condensation, segregation, and stability of individual chromosomes. (shrink)