Steve Fuller es una de las figuras más originales e interesantes en el heterogéneo campo de los estudios sociales de la ciencia y la tecnología. Entre la filosofía de la ciencia, la historia de la ciencia, y el análisis social, la obra de Fuller constituye una brillante, novedosa y controvertida reflexión acerca las complejas relaciones entre la ciencia, la tecnología y la sociedad. Una clara muestra de esto lo constituye su libro: Steve Fuller, Science, Buckingham: Oxford University Press. En este (...) libro, comienza preguntándo qué hace que disciplinas aparentemente tan diferentes como la paleontología, la física de altas-energías, la química industrial y la ingeniería genética sean definidas como ciencia. En principio, la gente en general no llega a comprender claramente lo que hace que tales disciplinas sean consideradas científicas y, por lo tanto, merecedoras del interés y el apoyo económico público. ¿Supone este hecho un verdadero estado de crisis?, o ¿significa que la comunidad científica ha sido incapaz de captar lo más significativo de las condiciones sociales que posibilitan su existencia? Una importante lección de este libro es que la respuesta del público, cuando se le pregunta acerca de qué hace que se catalogue una determinada disciplina como ciencia, es acertada, y, de este modo, ha de ser objeto de una profunda reflexión. Fuller defiende que si hay algo que comparten disciplinas tales como las citadas, hemos de buscarlo más en el modo en que estratégicamente malinterpretan su propia historia, y en el modo en que tales disciplinas se han institucionalizado, que en un posible acceso privilegiado a la naturaleza. (shrink)

Este trabajo presenta como objetivo revelar la influencia de los contextos socioeconómicos en las maneras de afrontamiento al cáncer como enfermedad. Se muestra un análisis sobre el cáncer como problema social y de salud; se analiza el papel de algunos entes sociales involucrados, el acceso de los enfermos a las terapias y de los productores de fármacos a las nuevas tecnologías. Se reflexiona acerca de la sobreevaluación de los fármacos que dificulta el acceso a novedosas y efectivas terapias; la supeditación (...) del saber tecnocientífico a los intereses del capital; la creciente contaminación ambiental como detonante al incremento de casos; y la escasez de tecnologías para la prevención y el saneamiento en países subdesarrollados. Finalmente se refiere el programa cubano de lucha contra el cáncer, su situación actual y proyecciones. This paper aimes at revealing the influence of the socioeconomic contexts on the way cancer is faced as a disease. An analysis about cancer as a social and health problem is presented; the role of some social organizations involved the sick's access to therepies and drug producers' access to new technologies. It is reflected on the over-asessment of drugs which makes access to new and effective therapies difficult; the subordination of the technoscientific knowledge to the interests of the capital; the growing environmental pollution as a trigger for cases increase; and the limited technological resources for prevention and cleanup in underdeveloped countries. Finally, it is made reference to the Cuban cancer fighting program, its current status and scope. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Defending a Phenomenological–Behavioral Perspective: Culture, Behavior, and ExperienceMarino Pérez-Álvarez (bio), José M. García-Montes (bio), Adolfo J. Cangas (bio), and Louis A. Sass (bio)KeywordsBehavior, contextual phenomenology, culture, experienceWe should like to express our sincere thanks to all the authors for their commentaries on our articles. Given the restrictions of space (a limitation they too had to contend with), we can only respond to a few aspects of their interesting (...) remarks. We shall reply of course on the basis of our own approach—an approach that sets out to integrate culture, behavior, and experience, and that might be termed contextual phenomenology, phenomenological behaviorism, or perhaps most accurately (albeit more awkwardly), the phenomenological–behavioral perspective.In her commentary, Ibáñez-Guerra (2008), referring to the target articles “Phenomenology and behaviorism” (Pérez-Álvarez, Sass, and Cangas 2008) and “The role of superstition in psychopathology” (García-Montes et al. 2008), wonders whether our maintaining of the spirit of Skinner, as well as our recourse to phenomenology, might not themselves represent forms of superstitious behavior. She points out that it is not always a good idea to put new wine in old barrels. For her, the new wine and new barrels would be represented by social constructivism, of which she is reminded by some aspects of our work. But in making her own case, Ibáñez-Guerra (2008) reveals certain common prejudices concerning behaviorism, prejudices that have apparently persisted even after reading our article. Thus, for example, she does not see operant behavior as incorporating intentionality (what, in the target article, is presented in terms of final causality), because she assumes that intentionality would necessarily imply a mentalist and dualist notion involving a supposed internal mental entity that causes behavior. Skinner (1974) himself noted and rejected this very assumption in a passage that clearly distinguishes his own approach from what he calls a “stimulus-response formula”: “Possibly no charge,” he wrote,is more often leveled against behaviorism or a science of behavior than that it cannot deal with purpose or intention. A stimulus-response formula has no answer, but operant behavior is the very field of purpose and [End Page 281] intention. By its nature it is directed toward the future: a person acts in order that something will happen, and the order is temporal.(pp. 55–6)The place Skinner gives to intentionality and purpose is elaborated in our target article.Furthermore, Ibáñez-Guerra (2008) assumes that, on methodological grounds, Skinner rejects all that is not observable, or at least that cannot be operationalized. This, however, is simply incorrect, at least as regards Skinner’s radical behaviorism. As the reader may recall, radical (as opposed to methodological) behaviorism is neither operationalist nor does it reject private or subjective events because of their unobservability. Indeed, Skinner specifically acknowledges that such events are in fact observable—at least for one person: the subject him- or herself. The question for Skinner is to understand how the part of the world that is only observable and experiential for oneself is constructed or formed. In the end, it turns out that radical behaviorism is more radical, in the Aristotelian ontological sense (see Pérez-Alvarez, Sass, and García-Montes 2008), than post-modern constructionism. Indeed, as we remarked, radical behaviorism can still surprise us today. Similarly, phenomenology is starting to be missed in the clinical context (Andreasen 2007). We believe that radical behaviorism and phenomenology, mutually readjusted, are in fact excellent wines for the times we live in—if only we knew how to appreciate them.In their commentary on “Phenomenology and behaviorism: A mutual readjustment,” Fletcher and Hayes (2008) argue that the philosophy and theory of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)/Relational Frame Theory (RFT) already contain the salutary aspects of phenomenology that we highlight in our target article. Their insistence on reducing the affinities we find between phenomenology and behaviorism to ACT/RFT consists, in our view, in a scientific–technical argument that is more scientistic than strictly philosophical in nature. Their insistence on the scientific–technical argument itself implies an unclarified philosophical assumption. On what grounds do experimental data constitute the last word? Has... (shrink)

In the context of technological dissemination sessions aimed at prospective students at the Polytechnic University of Baja California in the city of Mexicali, Baja California, the importance of engineering and its role in scientific and technological progress was stressed, as well as its role in scientific and technological progress as drivers of economic development in the region. A group of 2,154 students from 20 different institutions of public high school education answered a survey designed as an evaluation tool for a (...) career path or technology area of interest. The survey results show that students have a low preference for engineering careers. Moreover, these results were augmented with an additional study on the high attrition of students in engineering schools in the city of Mexicali, Baja California, also conducted by the authors. It raises the importance of teaching science in the early education levels, which aims to prepare scientists and technologists needed for the development of research and innovation as a foundation for economic prosperity and welfare of an emerging economy such as Mexico. (shrink)

This article attempts to show the importance of the concept of superstition in understanding a range of psychological problems. With this aim, we critically analyze several constructs that, without actually using the term “superstition,” concern this phenomenon and its role in the development of mental disorders. First we discuss “Thought–Action Fusion” and “magical thinking,” two concepts from the cognitive tradition that view superstition as basically an ideational phenomenon. Second, we look at “Experiential Avoidance,” a post-Skinnerian concept that understands superstition as (...) a type of avoidance behavior for certain private events. Third, we discuss superstition as an emotional phenomenon, in particular, Jean-Paul Sartre’s phenomenological analysis of emotions as magical operations. Finally, we review a cultural approach to superstition and its influence on psychopathology. In this perspective, superstition is seen as a cultural form linked to the historical–social context, which is fostered by certain social practices or institutions, including (perhaps surprisingly) certain features of modernity. (shrink)

Sainsbury 2005 and 2009 offers a theory of empty names that purports to account for the content and truth-value of all utterances involving them. The goal is to do this while offering a homogenous semantic treatment: both empty and nonempty names make the same kind of contribution to truth-values. The account is based on a new theory of reference that purports to be an alternative among nondescriptivist accounts. According to the new theory, there is reference even without referents. In this (...) paper I argue that the theory does not offer a homogeneous semantics for names and that, thus, it fails to offer a more satisfactory alternative to the theories already available. I conclude by briefly describing a way in which a theory could in fact offer such homogeneous semantics for names via a cognitive theory of empty names. (shrink)

It is assumed that the content of an assertion is determined either by the semantically defined content or by the interaction of the latter with the context. Here I present a counterexample by means of the Wookiee problem. After considering several options I offer what appears to be its most satisfactory solution. This requires that we give up the assumption in favor of a view according to which it may be that semantic information does not at all determine the content (...) of an assertion, not even partly so. (shrink)

According to dynamic semantics, what is said by an utterance of a sentence is determined by how the common ground is affected by the acceptance of such utterance. It has been claimed that dynamic semantics offers an account of what is said by an utterance in a context that excels that of traditional static semantics. Assertions of negative existential constructions, of the form ‘X does not exist’, are a case in point. These assertions traditionally pose a problem for philosophers of (...) language. A recent proposal, owed to Clapp, argues that static semantics is unable to solve the problem and offers a dynamic semantics account that promises to succeed. In this paper I want to challenge this account and, more generally, the scope of the dynamic semantics framework. I will offer a counterexample, inspired by “answering machine” uses of indexical and demonstrative expressions, to show how dynamic semantics fails. I conclude by considering the merits of both static and dynamic accounts. (shrink)

El presente artículo reconoce que las dos grandes metodologías de Foucault (la arqueología y la genealogía) surgieron en dos momentos diferentes de su enfoque metodológico, y argumenta que a partir de la década del setenta se desarrolla el concepto de dispositivo en el filósofo debido a una discontinuidad en su investigación. Se sostiene que este problema surgió a raíz de una serie de situaciones: el descubrimiento de un nuevo problema de investigación y su relación con la ocurrencia de una coyuntura (...) sociopolítica especifica (fracaso de las movilizaciones sociales del mayo francés en 1968). Lo anterior llevó a Foucault a plantear la pregunta por ¿cómo se ejerce el poder y cuál es su relación con el saber?, en lugar del antiguo interrogante sobre ¿qué es el poder? Esta transformación de la pregunta resultó fundamental en Foucault, ya que le permite concluir que todo dispositivo presupone la existencia de un poder y que todo poder se ejerce mediante la utilización de un saber. El artículo se cierra con una referencia a Jurgen Habermas, autor que precisa la crisis que generó en Foucault el fracaso de las movilizaciones sociales ocurridas durante el denominado mayo francés. El presente trabajo se elaboró a partir de un método de investigación cualitativa y una técnica de rastreo bibliográfico. (shrink)

El presente trabajo se propone analizar el desvío retórico que hace Walter Benjamin en su lectura de la crítica kantiana a la metafísica. En función de ello, mediante una vía de interpretación expositiva, abordaremos cómo se sitúa lo retórico en el marco de una tarea crítica que busca ampliar los dominios transcriptos de la experiencia posible hacia un trasfondo incondicionado, no reducible bajo el ideal sistemático de la _Wissenschaft_ y sus primados de tipo metafísico-gnoseológico. A partir de la exposición de (...) los vínculos entre crítica retórica, _Sprache_ y el uso retórico de figuras teológicas en algunos contextos discursivos de las disquisiciones benjaminianas, arribaremos a las consideraciones finales, en las que planteamos que el desvío retórico de la crítica efectuado por el autor resulta inseparable de una crítica radical al estatuto del discurso filosófico sistemático y a su fundamento de determinación idealista, concebida mediante una reinvención de categorías y problemas estéticos. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo se propone analizar la apropiación que hace Walter Benjamin del criticismo kantiano para la construcción de una filosofía contemporánea venidera. En función de ello, mediante una vía de interpretación expositiva, abordaremos cómo se articula en “Sobre el programa de la filosofía venidera” el pasaje de la crítica a la metafísica hacia una crítica de tipo retórico, considerando los momentos siguientes: la doble articulación del significante Lehre (entendido en su acepción teorético-doctrinal —tal como funciona en el discurso (...) de las filosofías de sistema— o en su fundamento retórico —Lehre como enseñanza, transmisión o comunicación indirecta—), la ampliación del campo de la experiencia concebido en el ámbito de die Sprache y la interpretación de la metafísica crítica en cuanto mitología moderna. A partir de la exposición de estos momentos, arribaremos a las consideraciones finales de que la apropiación de Benjamin del criticismo como punto de partida para la constitución de una filosofía contemporánea venidera, en contraposición con el ideal epistémico de la Lehre entendida bajo una interpretación teórico-doctrinal, resulta inseparable de una crítica radical al estatuto del discurso filosófico sistemático y a su fundamento de determinación idealista. (shrink)