Aesthesis, the classical term for sensing and perceiving, is at the heart of innumerable problems that plague global society. The purpose of this article is to open a conversation on aesthesis. We survey the roots and relevance of aesthesis as a direct albeit contested relation and engagement with the world and with Others. From its pre-Socratic origins, aesthesis has been both a pragmatic, somatic concept, prompting a re-evaluation of the distinction between experience and abstraction. We trace its ongoing repression from (...) Plato through ‘western’ theories of formal Aesthetics. Drawing on a relational interpretation of Protagoras’ aesthesis, we argue that modern pragmatists and radical empiricists, as well as more contemporary critics of the ‘colonization’ of aesthesis (Mignolo and Vasquez) by formal Aesthetics recognize and develop the relational and ethical aspects of aesthesis. We consider the role of the body, affect, and of the intangible or virtual qualities of aesthesis. The ethics of obligations (Weil) in the polis (Arendt) shows how aesthesis informs politics despite its repression in favour of moral and legal norms. We argue this is relevant to contemporary crises such as xenophobia and ecocidal climate warming. (shrink)

Moral intuitionism, once an apparently moribund metaethical position, has seen a resurgence of interest of late. Robert Audi, a leading moral intuitionist, has argued that in order for a moral belief to qualify as intuitional, it must fulfill four criteria: it must be non-inferential, firmly held, comprehended, and pre-theoretical. This paper centers on the fourth and seemingly most problematic criterion: pre-theoreticality. The paper begins by stipulating the defensibility of the moral cognitivism upon which moral intuitionism turns. Next, the paper develops (...) the distinction between semantic and epistemic pre-theoreticality, and goes on to explore and reject the putative ubiquity of the theoreticality of first-order moral discourse: it argues that on a defensible understanding of theoryhood, both semantic and epistemic pre-theoretical moral belief is not only possible, but in fact frequently realized. The paper then briefly explores and rebuts objections to (epistemic) pre-theoreticality issuing from (i) the “Cornell Realists” and (ii) considerations of the epistemic relevance of the epistemic/valuational background of moral belief. The paper concludes that, so far as the pre-theoreticality criterion is concerned, moral intuitionism remains in the running as a viable thesis regarding foundationally justified first-order moral belief and knowledge. (shrink)

Desde principios del siglo XX, muchos autores han intentado relacionar el origen del pensamiento griego con las transformaciones sociales o políticas que se produjeron con la irrupción de la polis antigua. Cornford veía una proyección de la estructura del comportamiento social, Jaeger, una analogía, y Vernant, una analogía de estructura del proceso de geometrización del espacio urbano. En este artículo, abordaré los problemas de analizar esta relación bajo el concepto de analogía, y propondré un enfoque alternativo basado en la distinción (...) entre los conceptos de espacio y lugar defendida por el filósofo australiano Jeff Malpas. Mi propuesta se complementa con algunos aspectos relacionados con la antropología comparada de Marcel Detienne, y se traduce en una metodología de investigación que propone abordar el problema del inicio de la sabiduría a través del concepto de matrices de pensamiento. (shrink)

The presence of a theory of the transmigration of the soul or, according to Empedocles’ words, of the δαίμων is a controversial issue among scholars. A major difficulty arises when one tries to read the fragments of the Purifications – where this theme is particularly recurrent – in conjunction with those usually attributed to the poem On nature. The aim of this paper is to suggest a ‘method’ to analyse the extant fragments, and to offer a possible interpretation of the (...) nature of the so–called cycle of the δαίμων. On the one hand, I shall try to show that the two poems, if read together, can provide a ‘salvific’ message. As a matter of fact, the description of the cosmic order that emerges from the poem On nature might convey the same prescription as stated in the Purifications for following the universal laws, which would ultimately allow human beings to be happy even in an age of universal evil. On the other hand, I shall propose to identify the δαίμων with the roots, which can escape from the cycle – i.e. become happy – when they are shaped as human minds, thanks to the way in which the processes of knowledge work. (shrink)

Somehow rounding off an intellectual season in which humanities strongly lament the loss of Darwinian incitements, while exploiting both Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis and Rappaport’s engaged anthropology as springboards, this article wants to cast light on how two anthropologically undervalued manifestos of the Cambridge School – Harrison’s Themis and Cornford’s From Religion to Philosophy – laid the foundation of post-modern science. It highlights, in other words, how within evolutionary anthropology, to which we owe the birth of the comparative study of religions, (...) were surreptitiously raised significant issues against eco-systemic disfunctionalities due to the scientific pattern rooted in Atomism and modern Cartesianism itself. In order to counteract the conventional belief that evolutionary anthropology was entirely shaped by the kind of Positivism of Illuministic inspiration, the association between the “mystic” and the “savage” will be once more taken into consideration. In this regard, a quite unreleased focus on Lévi-Strauss’ paradigm “le totémism du dedans” is deemed also essential. As a consequence, the unfairly forgotten Cambridge Ritualists, Harrison and Cornford, will be especially rehearsed in the light of their adoption of the philosophical Bergsonian concept of durée as a means of probing into the monist vision enshrined in the mysteric religion of Ancient Greece. It is basically the special attention allotted to the mystic’s incorporation of a limitless cyclic time which helps us to detect the extent to which both Harrison and Cornford aimed at propounding an ethical anthropology eager to denounce the forward end because of the obdurate human projection outside the sphere of Life itself. What this essay thus propounds is not a rehearsal of the Cambridge School for the sake of it. While advocating cumulative knowledge around the very same foundation of the “scientific study of religions” through a constant and critical intertwining of past and present within the history of ideas, the essay as a whole speaks about interdisciplinary possibilities for humanizing Humanities. Although here the dire live issue of cultural genocide is not duly dealt with, the reader will find proof of the engagement of the anthropology of monistic religions to bring to the fore the breathtaking disconnection between liberal “developmental” economy and ecology. (shrink)

In regard to the explanation of actions that are governed by institutional rules, John R. Searle introduces the notion of a mental “background” that is supposed to explain how persons can acquire the capacity of following such rules. I argue that Searle’s internalism about the mind and the resulting poverty of his conception of the background keep him from putting forward a convincing explanation of the normative features of institutional action. Drawing on competing conceptions of the background of Heidegger and (...) Wittgenstein, I propose to revise Searle’s conception. The background of institutional agency can only provide a convincing explanation if it includes the context of actions and intersubjective structures of a shared life-world. I suggest that a further development of this idea would lead to the identification of the background with a web of social recognition. (shrink)

David Hernández Castro ABSTRACT: Scholars have generally analysed Empedocles’ criticism of sacrifices through a Pythagorean interpretation context. However, Empedocles’ doctrinal affiliation with this school is problematic and also not needed to explain his rejection of the ‘unspeakable slaughter of bulls.’ His position is consistent with the wisdom tradition that emanated from the Sanctuary of Apollo ….

Skinner has been criticized for advancing essentialist interpretations of meaning in which meaning is treated as the property of a word or a grammatical form. Such a practice is consistent with a "words and things" view that sought to advance an ideal language as well as with S-R views that presented meaning as the property of a word form. These views imply an essentialist theory of meaning that would be consistent with Skinner's early S-R behaviorism. However, Skinner's more developed account (...) of meaning is based on his later selectionist behaviorism, and this account of meaning is aligned in many respects with the views of Darwin, Peirce, F. C. S. Schiller, Dewey, and Wittgenstein. After adopting a selectionist theory of meaning, it was inconsistent for Skinner to maintain essentialist practices although Skinner did so in response to influences that had little to do with his selectionist theory. Skinner's particular contribution to this pragmatic-selectionist tradition of meaning is the integration of meaning within his three-term contingency for operant behavior. In this account, meaning lies in the probabilistic functional relations of verbal behavior rather than in its form. (shrink)

This thesis regards the ancient Pythagorean-Platonic idea of heavenly harmony as a philosophical paradox: stars are silent, music is not. The idea of ‘star music’ contains several potential opposites, including imagination and sense perception, the temporal and the eternal, transcendence and theophany, and others. The idea of ‘star music’ as a paradox can become a gateway to a different understanding of the universe, and a vehicle for a shift to a new – and yet very ancient – form of consciousness. (...) The ancient Greeks had a holistic form of consciousness, which was continually intermingling with a transpersonal dimension. This ancient state of consciousness was related to a musical understanding of the world, the Pythagorean-Platonic experience of the universe as an ordered cosmos. My research is approached from two angles, namely from the history of ideas and from musicianship, exploring how music is reflected in the world of thought. By reflexive re-reading of the sources, new insights into the nature of musical consciousness are explored. The idea of ‘star music’ can be found throughout the history of music and thought in the West, including Plato’s works and that of other ancient philosophers, through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Romantic era and the twentieth century up to contemporary New Age music. As a conclusion, the paradox of ‘star music’ is connected to an experience of a shared transcendent meaning of music, which can be present in the moment of a musical performance. ‘Star music’ is a living paradox. (shrink)