Coloquio "Con Arreglo a Esta Opinión Trabajaremos. A 50 Años de la Revista Pensamiento Crítico" (Casa Cultural de ALBA, La Habana, 21 de febrero de 2017) -- La Rebeldia es la Adultez de la Cultura. Mesa Homenaje a Fernando Martínez Heredia (Centro de Investigación Cultural Juan Marinello, 22 de junio de 2017).

This book offers a theoretical and epistemological-methodological framework as an alternative approach to the instrumental-descriptive methodology that has prevailed in psychology to date. It discusses the differences between the proposed approach and other theoretical and methodological positions, such as discourse analysis, phenomenology and hermeneutics. Further, it puts forward a proposal that allows the demands of studying subjectivity to be addressed from a cultural-historical standpoint. The book mainly highlights case studies that have been conducted in various countries, and which employ or (...) depart from the theoretical, epistemological and methodological proposals that guide this book. The research discussed here introduces readers to new discussions on theoretical and methodological issues in subjectivity that have increasingly attracted interest. (shrink)

La presente obra ofrece una perspectiva abierta de la filosofía de al-Andalus con enfoques diversos y complementarios a cargo de reconocidos especialistas del arabismo, el hebraísmo y el pensamiento medieval: Miguel Asín Palacios, Manuel Alonso, Roger Arnaldez, Miguel Cruz Hernández, Fernando Díaz Esteban, Salvador Gómez Nogales, David Gonzalo Maeso, Joaquín Lomba, Andrés Martínez Lorca y Juan Vernet. Novedad importante que reflejan estas páginas es la integración de los filósofos judíos y musulmanes en la casa común de al-Andalus, como históricamente (...) aconteció. En la primera parte se analizan las influencias clásicas y orientales que confluyeron en la vida intelectual de la España musulmana. En la segunda se traza un amplio y detallado panorama de los principales filósofos de al-Andalus. El editor ha reconstruido en la introducción el desarrollo del pensamiento andalusí dentro de su contexto histórico. Rigor histórico-filológico, contextualización social, profundización en las cuestiones especulativas y espíritu crítico constituyen rasgos comunes de estos ensayos. (Fuente: Almuzara). (shrink)

The triumph of the Sandinista Revolution on July 19, 1979 marked the beginning of a period of intensification of the struggle of the insurgent movements in El Salvador and Guatemala that, encouraged by the victory of their Sandinista comrades, tried to emulate the defeat of the oligarchy in their respective countries. Nicaragua acquired a relevant role as it had not had in the region until then, becoming one of the actors that would mark the course of the isthmus during the (...) eighties of the last century. One of the effects of this new role was the strengthening of relations between the Sandinista National Liberation Front and the Nicaraguan government with the guerrillas of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front of El Salvador and the National Revolutionary Unity. of Guatemala. The climate of revolutionary optimism that very graphically expressed this Central American vision of the revolution was summed up in the motto of the time: "If Nicaragua won, El Salvador will win and Guatemala will follow." The objective of this article is to describe and analyze the relationships that were forged between the FSLN, the FMLN and the URNG in the 1980s. (shrink)

The starting premise of this paper is that business models can transform social reality—sometimes to an extreme. Then, building on the concept of “grand challenges,” we argue that such transformations can be either positive or negative in nature —even in the case of business models designed to improve value not only economically but environmentally and socially as well. To further our understanding of the negative aspects, we introduced two conceptual categories of business model: those for oppression or depletion and exclusionary (...) ones. We further argue that bringing the notion of grand challenges center-stage highlights four elements that can contribute to emerging research and inform practice on transformational business models. These elements are: participatory forms of architecture; multivocal inscriptions; scaffolding; and proximity. They are central components of what we name transformational business models. (shrink)

In this paper I examine two ways of defining the rigidity of general terms. First I discuss the view that rigid general terms express essential properties. I argue that the view is ultimately unsatisfactory, although not on the basis of the standard objections raised against it. I then discuss the characterisation in terms of sameness of designation in every possible world. I defend that view from two objections but I argue that the approach, although basically right, should be interpreted cautiously.

A dilemma has stymied interpretations of the Stranger’s method of dividing kinds into subkinds in Plato’sSophistandStatesman. The dilemma assumes that the kinds are either extensions or intensions. Now kinds divide like extensions, not intensions. But extensions cannot explain the distinct identities of kinds that possess the very same members. We propose understanding a kind as like an animal body—the Stranger’s simile for division—possessing both an extension and an intension. We find textual support in the Stranger’s paradigmatic four steps for collecting (...) a subkind. (shrink)

In recent years attacks on the Kripke-Putnam approach to natural kinds and natural kind terms have proliferated. In a recent paper, Häggqvist and Wikforss (The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 1–23, 2017) attack the once-dominant essentialist account of natural kinds. Häggqvist & Wikforss also suggest that it is time to return to some sort of cluster-based descriptivist semantics for natural kind terms, thus targeting both the metaphysical and semantic tenets that underpin the Kripke-Putnam approach. In our paper we (...) want to challenge both parts of Häggqvist and Wikforss’ project. We will argue that the anti-essentialist considerations and arguments they raise against the Kripke-Putnam view are far from compelling in some cases, and certainly not decisive against a reasonable form of the view. On the semantic side, although Häggqvist and Wikforss give few details about what a viable cluster-based descriptivist theory should look like, we will argue that one can already see the approach to be a non-starter. Ignorance and error arguments of the kinds provided by Kripke and Putnam continue to be decisive objections. The only way we can see to save the cluster descriptivist approach is to make the essential properties postulated by Kripke and Putnam become essential features of the descriptive cluster. But this makes the success of the approach parasitic on the correctness of the Kripke-Putnam view. (shrink)

Abstract The article addresses three aspects of the humanitarian intervention doctrine. It argues, first, that the value of sovereignty rests on the justified social processes of the target state ? the horizontal contract. Foreign interventions, even when otherwise justified, must respect the horizontal contract. In contrast, morally objectionable social processes (such as the subjection of women) are not protected by sovereignty (intervention, of course, may be banned for other reasons). In addition, tyrants have no moral protection against interventions directed at (...) them. Second, the article addresses the internal legitimacy of humanitarian intervention. It concludes that the liberal state may only use voluntary soldiers (either the voluntary army or mercenaries) to conduct humanitarian intervention. Conscription for that purpose is not permissible. The article shows that the long-standing criticism of mercenaries stems from a romantic prejudice and is thus unfair. Third, the article makes a distinction between intention (the determination to perform an action) and motive (a further goal that the agent seeks with that action) and shows that only intention is relevant for humanitarian intervention. A justified humanitarian intervention requires the intention to liberate the victims, but not necessarily a good further motive. It shows how mainstream doctrine has impermissibly confused the two concepts. (shrink)

We have witnessed a fundamental change of perspective in the conception of reference. What the proponents of the new approach criticized and what they proposed to abandon is relatively clear; it is much less clear though what is at the heart of the philosophy that inspired the change. The proponents of the new approach all agreed in disagreeing with Frege: natural languages may, and in fact do, contain expressions that refer without the mediation of a Fregean sense. The core motto (...) of the revolution can thus be summarized in a phrase: there are linguistic devices of pure reference. It is difficult though to put one's finger on a clear characterization of what pure reference consists in. This is so, I believe, because, underlying the anti-Fregean slogans, there are two different ideas which are not just two conceptually different ways of characterizing the same phenomenon. The two conflict in the classifications that they generate, because they rely on different conceptions of the essence of pure, genuine reference. (shrink)

Føllesdal (1966 and 1969) claims that modal distinctions collapse, that is that p and Necessarily p are equivalent, in any system of modal logic that incorporates a standard theory of definite descriptions, like the one proposed by Carnap in M&N. I argue that his argument fails.

La obra reúne un conjunto de textos de diversos especialistas en teoría y práctica artística que abordan asuntos recurrentes en el arte de las últimas décadas: desde la posición del espectador ante el arte actual y sus instituciones hasta la construcción del sujeto moderno y sus crisis; las cuestiones de género; el arte en un mundo global o las conexiones entre la estética y la política. Los temas centrales del libro se presentan a través de textos introductorios acompañados de reflexiones (...) de artistas, estudios de caso, entrevistas, glosarios de términos e imágenes seleccionadas para reforzar, alterar o contradecir el discurso de la palabra. (shrink)

This article analyzes the financial performance and managerial abilities of a sample of US and European socially responsible (SR) mutual funds. The period analyzed commences from January 1994 and concludes in January 2013 and yields 18 US and 89 European green funds. The results obtained for green fund managers are compared with those achieved for conventional and other forms of SR mutual fund managers. We control for the mutual fund investment objective (distinguishing between domestic and global portfolios) and for the (...) effect of crisis market periods. For US SR funds, partitioning the data into crisis and normal periods reveals that SR funds obtain statistically insignificant performance in crisis periods but underperform relative to the market in normal periods. Furthermore, the findings indicate that green funds do not perform worse than other forms of SR mutual funds. For European SR funds partitioning the data into crisis and normal periods reveals that SR funds obtain statistically insignificant performance irrespective of market conditions. Similar to the US findings, green Europe SR funds do not perform worse than other forms of SR mutual funds. Managerial abilities are not evident in the findings though unsuccessful timing of the market is revealed for both Europe and US global green funds. When analyzing managerial abilities in crisis and non-crisis market periods, US green fund managers achieve better results in crisis market periods and the opposite occurs for green fund managers in European market. (shrink)

According to Donnellan the characteristic mark of a referential use of a definite description is the fact that it can be used to pick out an individual that does not satisfy the attributes in the description. Friends and foes of the referential/attributive distinction have equally dismissed that point as obviously wrong or as a sign that Donnellan's distinction lacks semantic import. I will argue that, on a strict semantic conception of what it is for an expression to be a genuine (...) referential device, Donnellan is right: if a use of a definite description is referential, it must be possible for it to refer to an object independently of any attributes associated with the description, including those that constitute its conventional meaning. (shrink)

We defend the view that defines the rigidity of general terms as sameness of designated universal across possible worlds from the objection that such a characterization is incapable of distinguishing rigid from non-rigid readings of general terms and, thus, that it trivializes the notion of rigidity. We also argue that previous attempts to offer a solution to the trivialization problem do no succeed.

It is possible today to observe in hindsight the epistemological landscape of the twentieth century, and the work of Albert Lautman in mathematical philosophy appears as a profound turning point, opening to a true under- standing of creativity in mathematics and its relation with the real. Little understood in its time or even today, Lautman’s work explores the difficult but exciting intersection where modern mathematics, advanced mathe- matical invention, the structural or unitary relations of mathematical knowledge and, finally, the metaphysical (...) and dialectical tensions underly- ing mathematical activity converge. Well beyond other better-known names in philosophy of mathematics – who are focused above all on ques- tions concerning the logical problem of foundations, important but frag- mentary studies in the vast panorama of modern mathematics – Lautman broaches the emergence of inventiveness in the very broad spectrum of the development of the mathematical real. Group theory, differential geome- try, algebraic topology, differential equations, functional analysis, functions of complex variables and number fields are some of the domains of his preferred examples. He detects in them methods of construction, structu- ration and unification of modern mathematics that he connects to a precise Platonic interpretation in which powerful pairs of ideas serve to organize the edifice of effective mathematics. (shrink)

We introduce the work of Mariano Picón Salas, who tries to enlarge the Hispanoamerican tradition —historically focused on the web of transits/obstructions between Europe and Latin America— via a larger triangulation that includes the presence of the culture of the United States. His essays from the period 1930-1950 show how pragmatism —understood in Peircean terms as a web of topological transfers of knowledge between the borders of culture— can help to provide a vision that encompasses America as a whole.

A central discussion in the theory of deliberative democracy in recent decades has focused on whether democratic deliberation, and consequently those participating in it, should aim, at least ideally, for political consensus. Thus, pluralist deliberative democrats have criticized the consensualist approach to deliberative democracy for neglecting the moral importance of political disagreement because of their fixation with reaching consensus. The debate between these two positions, initiated in the 1990s, has evolved in recent years toward more precision and sophistication. However, some (...) vagueness and ambiguities remain in many of the contributions and prevent us from getting an exact idea of the object of discussion. This article starts making further distinctions about several types of agreement and disagreement in order to clarify much more precisely the exact niche of dispute between these two views. They do not need to disagree on the value of many forms of disagreement and consensus. Their dispute consists only in a controversy about the relative value of post-deliberative, operative, substantive, legislative, regulatory, or adjudicative reason-based consensus as opposed to the corresponding reason-based disagreement. Finally, the article argues that this relatively small niche is made smaller by certain considerations. The most important of them is that this controversy remains at a high theoretical level and lacks practical importance: it only affects the kind of personal ideal commitment or aspiration that virtuous deliberators should have when entering into a deliberative process, and has no concrete consequent institutional implications. (shrink)

Estas líneas están escritas como homenaje a Ricardo Sánchez Ortiz de Urbina, con todo el cariño y con la esperanza de ser acogido con la benevolencia que demanda el ensayo. En todo caso, nunca podré dejar de agradecer a nuestro maestro que me permitiera salir sin brusquedad del encierro al que me había conducido el sujeto gnoseológico, el sujeto de la ciencia, siempre omnipresente en toda investigación. Siguiendo la estela de la matriz fenomenológica configurada por Urbina, entreví en el nivel (...) superior ―el nivel de máxima ambigüedad―, y mediante trasposiciones sucesivas, el origen humano de los celos, que desbordan el simple comportamiento o el mero afecto. Los celos como fondo siempre desbordante en el proceso que nunca concluye de fijación de la identidad humana. Un camino que habían recorrido, con los medios de que disponían, los escritores del Barroco español en el contexto de los conversos hispanos y Miguel de Cervantes como centro. (shrink)

En este trabajo abordo un caso específico del problema clásico de la individuación en la Filosofía de la Biología: el de las colonias de insectos, y en particular, de hormigas. El carácter individual de un conjunto de hormigas que forman una colonia puede ser objeto de controversia, ya que, desde un punto de vista intuitivo, no parece constituir un individuo. Mi objetivo es demostrar que las colonias de hormigas son individuos biológicos. Para ello, me centro en dos de los tipos (...) de individuos más estudiados en la Filosofía de la Biología: los funcionales y los evolutivos, y examino si las colonias de hormigas cumplen con las condiciones necesarias para ser consideradas individuos en estos términos. (shrink)