This book is a translation of Zubiri's lectures, published posthumously and partially edited by Zubiri for publication. This translation was made possible by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Culture and is the product of three experts in the thought of Zubiri.

In one of his last published interviews before his death in 2001, Pedro Laín Entralgo expressed his admiration of Zubiri for his expertise in the latest philosophy and science without sacrificing his religious faith.1 Faith and cognition harmonize in Zubiri’s posthumously published course Estructura dinámica de la realidad,2 a work valuable for understanding his evolution as a whole. EDR incorporates much doctrinal material employed previously, as well as ideas to be developed in subsequent works. It belongs to the period of (...) Sobre la esencia ,3 yet points in the direction of Inteligencia sentiente.4 Having translated EDR to English, tried to paraphrase its less transparent passages, and annotated all its references to proper names, I have unexpectedly come into possession of unexplored keys to Zubiri’s cognitive insights. Further, in the learning process, I have found palpable errors in transcription from the oral to the written version of the work. However, these mistakes come as no surrprise in view of the great difficulties that Zubiri’s text obviously presented to its first editor, Diego Gracia Guillén, and has continued to present to me, as its second; for Zubiri’s course spans a dauntingly wide variety of fields: ontology, classical physics, topology,special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, astro-physics, embryology, paleoanthropology, philosophy of society, and philosophy of history. He joins Aristotle, Leibniz, Locke, Kant, and Hegel in commanding multiple disciplines of his times. Stimulated by criticism of Sobre la esencia as excessively static in its approach to being,5 Zubiri elaborates a philosophy of becoming in EDR, and the theme in itself requires cross-disciplinary study. The conceptual tools he has at hand come to him via two main sources: his background in philosophy and theology, acquired at the Madrid Seminary where he studied between 1915 and 1919, as well as his philosophy studies in Louvain and Rome; and his acquaintance as of 1919 with Ortega y Gasset,6 who unlocked to him contemporary Germanic philosophy and science. I shall discuss in order [1.] Zubiri’s debt to Scholasticism in EDR, [2.] contributions of Ortega to EDR, and [3.] the consequent Aristotelianism of EDR in nearly all its parts: Aristotle guides Zubiri in directions enabling him to correct the Stagirite with the latest philosophy and material science available to him so as to elaborate his own metaphysics of dynamism. (shrink)

Unamuno concibe la otra vida en su óptima forma como un dinamismo en el sentido zubiriano. Ha leído en el Libro de Job la visión de vida y muerte como una conscripción militar o como una contratación laboral. El relato unamuniano «Juan Manso. Cuento de muertos» (1892) rechaza la mansedumbre, favoreciendo una «embestida» existencial antes y después de morir. La crisis de 1897 a 1902 hace a Unamuno temer la nada y buscar alivio en una pasajera conversión al protestantismo liberal. (...) Pero cuando la inseguridad regresa, convierte su incertidumbre de la salvación en punto de partida para su filosofía trágica de la religión. En cuatro sucesivas fases, profundiza cada vez más en su concepción dinámica de la vida eterna: en Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho, en el Tratado del amor de Dios; en Del sentimiento trágico, y en La agonía del cristianismo. (shrink)

En el año 2020, Pedro J. Chamizo Domínguez publicó dos estudios, el uno en inglés, el otro en castellano, enfocados en el problema de traducir el sustantivo inglés «actuality» a múltiples idiomas europeos. Arguía que, por resultado de algún cambio semántico en su evolución, dos lenguas-- por ejemplo, el inglés y el castellano-- comparten por lo menos uno de los sentidos de su significante, diferenciándose con respecto a los demás sentidos, y que esta diferencia de sentido, (presente en todas las (...) lenguas romances y en alemán), dificulta la traducción. El trabajo presente ofrece una prueba concreta y significativa de la tesis de Chamizo, siguiendo su ejemplo al analizar la voz inglesa «actuality». Solo que ofrecemos el ejemplo de su empleo en la versión inglesa hecha por nosotros en 2003 del curso de metafísica de Xavier Zubiri, Estructura dinámica de la realidad (1968). Aquí mostraremos que Zubiri obliga al traductor a emplear la palabra «actuality» como monosémico, significando «ser real o completo», «ejecutivo», con el fin de traducir la palabra castellana «actualidad», por razones sugeridas por Chamizo. Pero, además, en Zubiri esta traducción obedece a tres propósitos concretos que, merced a Chamizo, esclarece su metafísica: [1.] el de distinguir la «realidad» del «ser», doctrina fundamental del tratado zubiriano Sobre la esencia, en el cual se basan las teorías del curso del 68; [2.] el de definir el concepto de «estructura», y [3.] el de conceptuar el «tiempo» y su relación con el «ser», frente a Ser y Tiempo de Heidegger. (shrink)

Unamuno estimaba el libro Psyche de Erwin Rohde como la «obra capital» sobre la fe de los griegos en la inmortalidad del alma. La obra influía profundamente en la producción entera de D. Miguel. Aquí estudiamos su presencia en Del sentimiento trágico de la vida (1911-1912), en la «Oración fúnebre» de Orfeo al final de Niebla (1914) y en el drama El Otro (1926). Enfocamos el culto griego a las almas y la psique concebida como el Otro en Rohde y (...) en Unamuno. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that human pattern recognition can be simulated by automata. In particular, I show that gestalt recognition and recognition of family resemblances are within the capabilities of sufficiently complex Turing machines. The argument rests on elementary facts of automata and computability theory which are used to explicate our preanalytic, informal concepts concerning gestalt patterns and recognition. The central idea is that of a machine which "knows" its own structure. Although the paper thus aims to support mechanism, (...) especially as a framework hypothesis for perception, it contains suggestions for philosophy of science and philosophy of language as well. Some of these suggestions are sketched in the final section. (shrink)

The Oregon Basic Health Services Act of 1989 seeks to establish universal access to basic medical care for all currently uninsured Oregon residents. To control the increasing cost of medical care, the Oregon plan will restrict funding according to a priority list of medical interventions. The basic level of medical care provided to residents with incomes below the federal poverty line will vary according to the funds made available by the Oregon legislature. A rationing plan such as Oregon's which potentially (...) excludes medically necessary procedures from the basic level of health care may be just, for the right to publically-sponsored medical care is restricted by opposing rights of private property. However, the moral acceptability of the Oregon plan cannot be determined in the absence of knowing the level of resources to be provided. Finally, Oregon to date has failed to include the individuals being rationed in discussions as to how the scarce resources are to be distributed. (shrink)

First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Environmental ethics tends to be dominated by the idea that the right environmental actions require a change in the value systems of many people. I argue that the “rebirth” approach is perverse in that moral attitudes are not easily changed by moral suasion. A properly ethical approach must begin where we are, as moderately moral people desiring the best for all. The real ethical problem is to develop procedures for collectively defining environmental ends that will be fair to the parties (...) participating in the decision process. This idea is essentially utilitarian, and depends on the maximization of expected social utility. This type of environmental ethics is contrasted with current theories of social choice in welfare economics and with Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness. (shrink)

Quines ontological relativity is related to Tarskis theory of truth in two ways: Quine repudiates term-by-term-correspondence, as does Tarskis rule of truth; and Quines proxy argument in support of relativity finds exact formulation in Tarskis truth definition.Unfortunately, relativity is threatened by the fact that the proxy argument doesnt comply with the rule of truth (Tarskis celebrated condition (T)). Despite Quines express allegiance to (T), use of proxy schemes does not generate all of the true sentences condition (T) requires.