En este trabajo se discuten dos modelos opuestos de construcción de la identidad a partir de la contraposición que hace el filósofo Bernard Williams de las figuras de Rousseau y el sobrino de Rameau de Diderot. Frente a la concepción representacional de la identidad como copia o proyección de un ser interior, se propone una noción performativa de la personalidad basada en la espontaneidad y la multiplicidad como fuentes del sujeto contemporáneo. En el trasfondo de esta reflexión se encuentra (...) la hipótesis de que ambos métodos de producción ética de la identidad personal responden a concepciones estéticas profundamente enraizadas, una más próxima al modelo pictórico de copia de un original y la otra, teatral, basada en la importancia de la interpretación en los procesos de creación. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article, we contextualize and introduce the papers that comprise the special issue, “Bernard Suits’ Legacy: New Inspirations and Interpretations.” The articles discuss the work of S...

Un vínculo necesario entre estética y socialización explica la profundidad sensible que debe construir todo cambio de paradigma y toda re-socialización. La democracia no funciona sin una apropiación individual y colectiva del sentir y de la producción de sentir. Es a partir entonces del trabajo artístico y de la instrospección y exteriorización de la dimensión sensible, que toda transformación puede ser aplicada. Se recorren parcialmente los pensamientos de Alain Badiou y Bernard Stiegler. A required link between aesthetic and socialization (...) explains the sensitive depth that all paradigm and re-socialization must build. Democracy does not work without an individual and collective ownership of feeling and feeling's production. It is from the artwork and the introspection and externalization of the sensitive dimension, that any transformation can be applied. The article covers partially the thoughts of Alain Badiou and Bernard Stiegler. (shrink)

By the time of his death in 2003, Bernard Williams was one of the greatest philosophers of his generation. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is not only widely acknowledged to be his most important book, but also hailed a contemporary classic of moral philosophy. Presenting a sustained critique of moral theory from Kant onwards, Williams reorients ethical theory towards ‘truth, truthfulness and the meaning of an individual life’. He explores and reflects upon the most difficult problems in contemporary (...) philosophy and identifies new ideas about central issues such as relativism, objectivity and the possibility of ethical knowledge. This edition also includes a new commentary on the text by A.W.Moore and a foreword by Jonathan Lear. (shrink)

By the time of his death in 2003, Bernard Williams was one of the greatest philosophers of his generation. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is not only widely acknowledged to be his most important book, but also hailed a contemporary classic of moral philosophy. Presenting a sustained critique of moral theory from Kant onwards, Williams reorients ethical theory towards ‘truth, truthfulness and the meaning of an individual life’. He explores and reflects upon the most difficult problems in contemporary (...) philosophy and identifies new ideas about central issues such as relativism, objectivity and the possibility of ethical knowledge. (shrink)

With a new foreword by Jonathan Lear 'Remarkably lively and enjoyable…It is a very rich book, containing excellent descriptions of a variety of moral theories, and innumerable and often witty observations on topics encountered on the way.' -_ Times Literary Supplement_ Bernard Williams was one of the greatest philosophers of his generation. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is not only widely acknowledged to be his most important book, but also hailed a contemporary classic of moral philosophy. Drawing on (...) the ideas of the Greek philosophers, Williams reorients ethics away from a preoccupation with universal moral theories towards ‘truth, truthfulness and the meaning of an individual life’. He explores and reflects upon the most difficult problems in contemporary philosophy and identifies new ideas about central issues such as relativism, objectivity and the possibility of ethical knowledge. This edition also includes a commentary on the text by A.W.Moore. At the time of his death in 2003, Bernard Williams was hailed by the Times as 'the outstanding moral philosopher of his age.' He taught at the Universities of Cambridge, Berkeley and Oxford and is the author of many influential books, including _Morality; Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry_ and _Truth and Truthfulness_. (shrink)

In this work we argue that there is no strong demarcation between pure and applied mathematics. We show this first by stressing non-deductive components within pure mathematics, like axiomatization and theory-building in general. We also stress the “purer” components of applied mathematics, like the theory of the models that are concerned with practical purposes. We further show that some mathematical theories can be viewed through either a pure or applied lens. These different lenses are tied to different communities, which endorse (...) different evaluative standards for theories. We evaluate the distinction between pure and applied mathematics from a late Wittgensteinian perspective. We note that the classical exegesis of the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics, due to Maddy, leads to a clear-cut but misguided demarcation. We then turn our attention to a more niche interpretation of Wittgenstein by Dawson, which captures aspects of the aforementioned distinction more accurately. Building on this newer, maverick interpretation of the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics, and endorsing an extended notion of meaning as use which includes social, mundane uses, we elaborate a fuzzy, but more realistic, demarcation. This demarcation, relying on family resemblance, is based on how direct and intended technical applications are, the kind of evaluative standards featured, and the range of rhetorical purposes at stake. (shrink)

In the mid twentieth century the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously asserted that games are indefinable; there are no common threads that link them all. "Nonsense," says the sensible Bernard Suits: "playing a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles." The short book Suits wrote demonstrating precisely that is as playful as it is insightful, as stimulating as it is delightful. Suits not only argues that games can be meaningfully defined; he also suggests that playing games is a (...) central part of the ideal of human existence, so games belong at the heart of any vision of Utopia. Originally published in 1978, The Grasshopper is now re-issued with a new introduction by Thomas Hurka and with additional material (much of it previously unpublished) by the author, in which he expands on the ideas put forward in The Grasshopper and answers some questions that have been raised by critics. (shrink)

How I became a philosopher -- To love, to love me, to love us.

ISSN:1909-9711 (En línea) Misión La Revista Acta Colombiana de Psicología publica hallazgos originales de las investigaciones en Psicología y de esta disciplina en diálogo con otras, con el propósito de divulgarlas a la comunidad universitaria y a todas las personas interesadas en conocer sus nuevos avances y aplicaciones a distintos campos y necesidades de la sociedad contemporánea.

We tend to suppose that the ancient Greeks had primitive ideas of the self, of responsibility, freedom, and shame, and that now humanity has advanced from these to a more refined moral consciousness. Bernard Williams's original and radical book questions this picture of Western history. While we are in many ways different from the Greeks, Williams claims that the differences are not to be traced to a shift in these basic conceptions of ethical life. We are more like the (...) ancients than we are prepared to acknowledge, and only when this is understood can we properly grasp our most important differences from them, such as our rejection of slavery. The author is a philosopher, but much of his book is directed to writers such as Homer and the tragedians, whom he discusses as poets and not just as materials for philosophy. At the center of his study is the question of how we can understand Greek tragedy at all, when its world is so far from ours. Williams explains how it is that when the ancients speak, they do not merely tell us about themselves, but about ourselves. _Shame and Necessity_ gives a new account of our relations to the Greeks, and helps us to see what ethical ideas we need in order to live in the modern world. (shrink)

According to an influential view, when it comes to representing reality, some words are better suited for the job than others. This is elitism. There is reason to believe that the set of the best, or elite, words should not be redundant or arbitrary. However, we are often forced to choose between these two theoretical vices, especially in cases involving theories that seem to be mere notational variants. This is the riddle of redundancy: both redundancy and arbitrariness are vicious, but (...) there are cases in which one must be picked. Logical realists admit that there are some logical constants among the elite words. This leads to awkward questions, such as which among conjunction and disjunction is elite. In this paper, I show how the riddle of redundancy arises for logical realists, and offer a solution. This approach requires us to change how we represent negation. Instead of using some particular symbol, we represent negation by flipping formulae over the horizontal axis. (shrink)

Figurative communication (the use of metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole and irony) provides economy of expression, clarity, persuasiveness, politeness, evaluation, and communication of emotions. However, it also increases the potential for misunderstanding in situations when people lack shared background knowledge. This book combines theoretical frameworks with empirical studies that measure the effectiveness of different approaches to the use of figurative language in advertisements, to show how to maximise the benefits of creative metaphor and metonymy in global advertising. It highlights how subtle differences (...) in colour, layout, and combinations of different kinds of figurative language affect the reception and appreciation of creative advertising, shedding new light on the nature of figurative communication itself. With a balance between theory, experiments and practical case studies, this book is accessible for academics in linguistics and communication studies, as well as advertising and marketing professionals. (shrink)

It used to be that everyone read the "notorious" Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733). He was a great satirist and come to have a profound impact on economics, ethics and social philosophy. "The Fable of the Bees" begins with a poem and continues with a number of essays and dialogues. It is all tied together by the startling and original idea that "private vices" (self-interest) lead to "publick benefits" (the development and operation of society).

The influence of age and formal education on the development of moral reasoning in a Spanish sample of students was assessed by using a Spanish translation of Rest's Defining Issues Test. Our results support the hypothesis that moral development is highly related to both variables in our cultural context, although more so with formal education than with age.

This paper addresses some relations between the spatial politics of queer assemblies in spaces of protest and the constitution of collective political subjects. It does so by exploring the spatial politics of queer activism within the global Occupy movements, in the light of Judith Butler’s work on the performative power of assembly and the ambivalences of the Foucauldian concept of heterotopia. Specific challenges faced by queer activists in various encampments will be addressed in order to expose some tensions between the (...) constitutive exclusions inherent to the constitution of spaces of protest and the processes of coalition building needed to effectively overcome those very constitutive exclusions. (shrink)

Bernard Williams's remarkable essay on morality confronts the problems of writing moral philosophy, and offers a stimulating alternative to more systematic accounts which seem nevertheless to have left all the important issues somewhere off the page. Williams explains, analyses and distinguishes a number of key positions, from the purely amoral to notions of subjective or relative morality, testing their coherence before going on to explore the nature of 'goodness' in relation to responsibilities and choice, roles, standards, and human nature. (...) The final chapters make a fascinating enquiry into what morality is about, looking beyond happiness to other human aims and ideals. This re-issue of a classic in moral philosophy includes a new foreword by the author. (shrink)

This book offers the fullest and most sophisticated account of Gert's influential moral theory, a model first articulated in the classic work The Moral Rules: A New Rational Foundation for Morality, published in 1970. In this final revision, Gert makes clear that the moral rules are only one part of an informal system that does not provide unique answers to every moral question but does always provide a range of morally acceptable options. A new chapter on reasons includes an account (...) of what makes one reason better than another and a second new chapter is devoted to the question of justifying violations of the rules. Moral impartiality, the moral ideals, and virtue and vice, are all treated in greater detail. Throughout, Gert attempts to answer all of the challenges that his work has provoked. (shrink)

Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechanics provides a detailed view of the conceptual foundations and problems of quantum physics, and a clear and comprehensive account of the fundamental physical implications of the quantum formalism. This book deals with nonseparability, hidden variable theories, measurement theories and several related problems. Mathematical arguments are presented with an emphasis on simple but adequately representative cases. The conclusion incorporates a description of a set of relationships and concepts that could compose a legitimate view of the world.

Die "Paradoxien des Unendlichen" sind ein Klassiker der Philosophie der Mathematik und zugleich eine gute Einführung in das Denken des "Urgroßvaters" der analytischen Philosophie. Das Unendliche - seit jeher ein Faszinosum für die philosophische Reflexion - wurde in der Zeit nach der Grundlegung der Analysis durch Leibniz und Newton in der Mathematik zunächst als Problem betrachtet, das sich nicht vollkommen widerspruchsfrei behandeln lässt. Bernard Bolzano, der heute als "Urgroßvater der analytischen Philosophie" (Michael Dummett) gilt, zeigt in diesem klassisch gewordenen (...) Text jedoch, dass es beim Nachdenken über das Unendliche, sofern man begrifflich differenziert argumentiert und klare Definitionen zugrunde legt, keine echten Widersprüche gibt und sich die "Paradoxien des Unendlichen" auflösen lassen. Bolzano setzt sich zunächst mit den Unendlichkeitsbegriffen der Mathematik und der (idealistisch geprägten) Philosophie seiner Zeit auseinander, bevor er sich Schritt für Schritt die analytischen Grundlagen einer konsistenten Theorie des Unendlichen erarbeitet. Bereits einige Jahrzehnte vor Georg Cantors bis heute maßgeblicher mathematischer Unendlichkeitsdefinition gelingt Bolzano mit diesem Werk, dessen logische Klarheit und dessen Grad an philosophischer Durchdachtheit bis heute Beispielcharakter haben, die Rehabilitation des Unendlichen für die Philosophie der Mathematik. Die "Paradoxien des Unendlichen" wurden zuerst 1851 aus dem Nachlass herausgegeben. Diese Neuausgabe beruht auf dem der Erstausgabe zugrundeliegenden Manuskript. (shrink)

In this paper I consider recent discussions within the representationalist theories of phenomenal consciousness, in particular, the discussions between first order representationalism (FOR) and higher order representationalism (HOR). I aim to show that either there is only a terminological dispute between them or, if the discussion is not simply terminological, then HOR is based on a misunderstanding of the phenomena that a theory of phenomenal consciousness should explain. First, I argue that we can defend first order representationalism from Carruthers' attacks (...) and ignore higher order thoughts in our account of phenomenal consciousness. Then I offer a diagnostic of Carruthers' misunderstanding. In the last section I consider further reasons to include mindreading abilities in an explanation of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

(2014). Cross-world luck at the time of decision is a problem for compatibilists as well. Philosophical Explorations: Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 112-125. doi: 10.1080/13869795.2014.912673.

An updated and expanded successor to Culver and Gert's Philosophy in Medicine, this book integrates moral philosophy with clinical medicine to present a comprehensive summary of the theory, concepts, and lines of reasoning underlying the ...

This paper explores a remarkable convergence of ideas and evidence, previously presented in separate places by its authors. That convergence has now become so persuasive that we believe we are working within substantially the same broad framework. Taylor's mathematical papers on neuronal systems involved in consciousness dovetail well with work by Newman and Baars on the thalamocortical system, suggesting a brain mechanism much like the global workspace architecture developed by Baars (see references below). This architecture is relational, in the sense (...) that it continuously mediates the interaction of input with memory. While our approaches overlap in a number of ways, each of us tends to focus on different areas of detail. What is most striking, and we believe significant, is the extent of consensus, which we believe to be consistent with other contemporary approaches by Weiskrantz, Gray, Crick and Koch, Edelman, Gazzaniga, Newell and colleagues, Posner, Baddeley, and a number of others. We suggest that cognitive neuroscience is moving toward a shared understanding of consciousness in the brain. (shrink)