Human nature is a puzzling matter that must be analysed through a holistic lens. In this commentary, I foray into anthropology's biosocial dimensions to underscore that human relations span from microorganisms to global commodities. I argue that the future of social-cultural anthropology depends on the integration of evolutionary theory for its advancement. Ultimately, since the likelihood of novel zoonoses' emergence, digital ethnography could offer remarkable opportunities for ethical and responsible inquiries.

Bd. 1. A-B -- Bd. 2. C-F -- Bd. 3. G-Inn -- Bd. 4. Ins-Loc.

Indecent Theology has provided both Feminist Theology and Liberation Theology with new contours for rethinking bodies, power, dominance, and submission. With regard to the logic of dominance that radically pushes the margins of the margins into a form of inexistent living, I suggest a material turn to rethink the contours that are evoked with Indecent Theology. Materialism has long stood as a philosophy opposing the overwhelming dominance of language and the poststructuralist emphasis that has emerged as the ‘linguistic turn’. Considering (...) ‘new materialism’ as a theoretical platform to reread Indecent Theology provides theologies and ethics an opportunity to re-imagine indecent methodologies through indecency, a sort of ethical perversion. I suggest an indecent turn in mobilizing materialism and kink as theories to reread indecent theology for a productive queer materialist sexual theology. The feminist liberation theology of Marcella Althaus-Reid pushes both feminism and liberation into new contours of power and submission and initiates new contours of queer sexuality into the discourse. When analysing Althaus-Reid’s work, we are brought to attention to the margins of the margins, an awareness of the struggle for power and control by those deemed less than. There are contours of power at and in the margins of the margins, those who occupy ‘bottom space’. From a kink/bdsm orientation, I propose to reread Alrhaus-Read’s feminist liberation theology as decolonial erotics that helps to generate a productive materialist queer sexuality. The overarching methodology of this article is a quasi-auto ethnographic investigation into the ways in which the contours of race, class, gender, sex, sexuality, and ability affect power and submission and in turn reframes both queer theology and queer sexuality that is rooted in the living out of a very particular theology and ethics, which is rooted in queer relating. Theology can neither materialize in a vacuum nor in isolation. An indecent turn to a queer sexual theology that is rooted in a queer relationality demands attention to the interdependence of queer relating that is materialized through the interdependency of the growing queer desires of bodies, power, dominance, and submission. (shrink)

This issue contains a book symposium on Anneli Jefferson’s book, Are mental disorders brain disorders?. It is a delight that the symposium brings together a variety of perspectives from philosopher...

Cultural landscapes represent a complex category where the nature-culture dichotomy seem to not be able to unfold the main features and the profound relations that humans have with the environment. Drawing on ethnographic data collected in the saltpans of Se-ovlje (Slovene Istria) and Janubio (Lanzarote--Canary Islands) this article examines informant`s perceptions about the awareness of the importance and the enhancement of the holistic values of both saltpans, as well as the impacts and benefits of tourism. Comparing these perceptions about both (...) cultural landscapes, I try to suggest that the complex fruitfully relations between humans and nature in these saltpans are at odds with the neoliberal logic of nature which exploit and commoditize its resources depriving them of their respective agency. A sustainability to contrast the harmful activities of the market ought to be understood not as a simply isolation and fencing of nature for the sake of conservation, but as a preservation that need to foster the continuity of the deep interactions between human culture and non-human nature which are the core of the cultural landscapes. (shrink)

Emotional self-regulation in childhood and adolescence constitutes a growing interest in the scientific community, highlighting in recent years the need to observe its development in their daily life. Therefore, the objective of this systematic review is to characterize publications referring to the development of emotional self-regulation of people under 18 years-old, in natural contexts. Based on the PRISMA guidelines, searches are carried out in the Web of Science, Scopus and PsycINFO databases, and in Google Scholar until May 2020. After reviewing (...) the full text of 376 publications, 14 works are selected that are observed in their extrinsic, substantive and methodological characteristics based on the GREOM and MQCOM guidelines, by two independent evaluators. Most of the studies correspond to the last 20 years, increasing the interest in observing older children, in interaction with adults and/or in different cultures. They apply mixed methodologies, not always ascribing to a low intensity design. Strengths are observed regarding the collection and analysis of the quality of the data; and weaknesses related to the failure to record the duration and sequence of behaviors, highlighting the use of guidelines as guides for future research. (shrink)

Public reason liberalism is defined by the idea that laws and policies should be justifiable to each person who is subject to them. But what does it mean for reasons to be public or, in other words, suitable for this process of justification? In response to this question, Kevin Vallier has recently developed the traditional distinction between consensus and convergence public reason into a classification distinguishing three main approaches: shareability, accessibility and intelligibility. The goal of this paper is to defend (...) the accessibility approach by demonstrating its ability to strike an appealing middle course in terms of inclusivity between shareability and intelligibility. We first argue against Vallier that accessibility can exclude religious reasons from public justification. Second, we use scientific reasons as a case study to show that accessibility excludes considerably fewer reasons than shareability. Throughout the paper, we connect our discussion of accessibility to John Rawls’s model of public reason, so as to give substance to the accessibility approach and to further our understanding of Rawls’s influential model. (shrink)

Recientes innovaciones en la teoría social están abocadas a desarrollar puntos de encuentro y colaboración con la teoría de la complejidad. Por supuesto, tal aproximación conlleva una reconceptualizacion profunda de la noción de sistema y de diversas dinámicas y procesos asociados. En el artículo se mostrará cómo la síntesis constructiva entre teoría social y teoría de la complejidad hace posible avanzar en el estudio e investigación de ciertos problemas teóricos sociológicos y de la “complejidad global”.

This important collection of lectures and essays was regarded by Gabriel Marcel as the best introduction to his thought.

The small-improvement argument is usually considered the most powerful argument against comparability, viz the view that for any two alternatives an agent is rationally required either to prefer one of the alternatives to the other or to be indifferent between them. We argue that while there might be reasons to believe each of the premises in the small-improvement argument, there is a conflict between these reasons. As a result, the reasons do not provide support for believing the conjunction of the (...) premises. Without support for the conjunction of the premises, the small-improvement argument for incomparability fails. (shrink)

The organizational climate is the work environment conceived by emotions and motivation of an organization and, an optimal way of increasing participation is with working groups in the dependencies to improve: objectives, processes, conflicts, leadership. Thus the objective was to determine the characterization of variables. The method incorporates the quantitative approach, non -experimental design, descriptive level, applied and transversal type, analysis and deductive methods. The results show, there is a high organizational climate level, due to the contribution of three dimensions (...) or aspects that are: economic conditions, management values and organizational policies. (shrink)

RESUMEN:El siguiente escrito ensaya una interpretación del rendimiento del mito de los metales expuesto por Platón en su diálogo llamado Politeia a propósito de la siguiente interrogación: ¿Cómo se constituye el orden social en la pólis platónica? Para responder a esta pregunta debemos esclarecernos respecto de: i) El papel de la educación en la constitución del orden social. ii) La correlación entre el mito de los metales y el orden social. iii) La constitución tripartita de la psykhḗ humana. Una vez (...) aclarado estos distintos puntos podremos comprender la oculta pero significativa función del mito de los metales en la constitución del orden social platónico. ABSTRACT:This article attempts an interpretation of the account of the myth of the metals as expounded by Plato in the Politeia. We address the following question: How is the social order established in the Platonic polis? To answer this question we must clarify: i) the role of education in the constitution of the social order; ii) the correlation between the myth of the metals and the social order; iii) the tripartite constitution of the human psyche. Once these various points have been made clear, we can understand the hidden but significant function of the myth of the metals in the constitution of the Platonic social order. (shrink)

This discussion of pride, shame, and guilt centers on the beliefs involved in the experience of any of these emotions. Through a detailed study, the author demonstrates how these beliefs are alike--in that they are all directed towards the self--and how they differ. The experience of these three emotions are illustrated by examples taken from English literature. These concrete cases supply a context for study and indicate the complexity of the situations in which these emotions usually occur.

In this paper, I distinguish three general approaches to public trust in science, which I call the individual approach, the semi-social approach, and the social approach, and critically examine their proposed solutions to what I call the problem of harmful distrust. I argue that, despite their differences, the individual and the semi-social approaches see the solution to the problem of harmful distrust as consisting primarily in trying to persuade individual citizens to trust science and that both approaches face two general (...) problems, which I call the problem of overidealizing science and the problem of overburdening citizens. I then argue that in order to avoid these problems we need to embrace a (thoroughly) social approach to public trust in science, which emphasizes the social dimensions of the reception, transmission, and uptake of scientific knowledge in society and the ways in which social forces influence both positively and negatively the trustworthiness of science. (shrink)

Recent epidemiological research on the social determinants of health has been used to attack an important framework, associated with Norman Daniels, that depicts healthcare as special. My aim is to rescue the idea that healthcare has special importance in society, although specialness will turn out to be mainly limited to clinical care. I build upon the link between Daniels's theory and the work of John Rawls to develop a conception of public justification liberalism that is suitable to the field of (...) justice and health. I argue that, from the perspective of public justification liberalism, (clinical) healthcare deserves special status. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop Mauricio Suárez’s distinction between denotation, epistemic representation, and faithful epistemic representation. I then outline an interpretational account of epistemic representation, according to which a vehicle represents a target for a certain user if and only if the user adopts an interpretation of the vehicle in terms of the target, which would allow them to perform valid (but not necessarily sound) surrogative inferences from the model to the system. The main difference between the interpretational conception I (...) defend here and Suárez’s inferential conception is that the interpretational account is a substantial account—interpretation is not just a “symptom” of representation; it is what makes something an epistemic representation of a something else. (shrink)

Carnap’s seminal ‘Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology’ makes important use of the notion of a framework and the related distinction between internal and external questions. But what exactly is a framework? And what role does the internal/external distinction play in Carnap’s metaontology? In an influential series of papers, Matti Eklund has recently defended a bracingly straightforward interpretation: A Carnapian framework, Eklund says, is just a natural language. To ask an internal question, then, is just to ask a question in, say, English. (...) To try to ask an external question is to try, absurdly, to ask a question in no language at all. Finding that so trivial an I/e distinction can’t help to explain Carnap’s deflationary metaontology, Eklund is led to attribute to Carnap a view he calls ontological pluralism. In this paper, I show that Eklund misreads Carnap, and I argue that this misreading obscures fundamental features of Carnap’s philosophy. I then defend an account of frameworks as what Carnap called semantical systems, and I place this account in the context of Carnap’s philosophical program of explication. Finally, I discuss the role that frameworks and the I/e distinction play in ESO, showing that ESO provides no reason to attribute the doctrine of ontological pluralism to Carnap. (shrink)

El capital social, si bien corresponde a una categoría nacida de la economía política clásica y, en particular, empleada por Karl Marx, en su versión contemporánea se muestra en la combinación del capital físico y el capital humano en el contexto de la teoría de la economía de bienestar. En la primera parte se expone la cuestión conceptual y en la segunda se expone el capital humano en un modelo de crecimiento de Convergencia. Se consideran los niveles de escolaridad promedio (...) en los asentamientos irregulares de la Delegación Milpa Alta en el Distrito Federal entre 2000-2005 y se proyectan las tasas al 2020 que mantiene los resultados de Convergencia obtenidos en el modelo para el 2000-2005, demostrando la relación entre valor, trabajo, educación y crecimiento. (shrink)

La perspectiva teórica del Capital, del siglo XIX, aparece alejada del capital social del siglo XXI. Ambas, con la misma raíz, sin embargo, pareciera que no se tocan, ni teórica ni prácticamente. Quizás, sería pertinente escudriñar esta relación.Desde la década de los noventa, el tema del “capital social” ha sido visto por muchos estudiosos de la realidad social contemporánea como una propuesta promisoria, transversal y hegemónica. Tanto desde la economía, las ciencias morales, la ciencia y..

Este artículo expone algunos antecedentes sobre el origen y las vertientes actuales del campo del capital social en las ciencias sociales en tanto instrumento analítico de la realidad social. Trata de los fundadores y de sus posiciones, así como de los trabajos emprendidos desde las organizaciones internacionales, especialmente, el Banco Mundial. Discute sobre las dimensiones e indicadores, señalando los principales aportes y los desafíos necesarios de considerar.

A partir de una discusión sobre el concepto de pobreza desde la perspectiva de las necesidades, absoluta y relativa, y su satisfacción, se exponen estrategias metodológicas y alternativas para su medición. Considerando zonas espaciales, se estima la pobreza territorial para las delegaciones del Distrito Federal sincrónica y diacrónicamente en el periodo 2000-2040. Se hace uso del método de ESNBI a fin de comparar espacios territoriales demarcados por una división política, lo cual se desarrolla a través de variables de Necesidades Básicas (...) o variables directas y un indicador de feminización de la pobreza. A las variables seleccionadas se les da un tratamiento con base en el Método de Componentes Principales que da como resultado un índice de pobreza. (shrink)

El desarrollo humano y la justicia, así como las maneras de su realización, han acompañado conflictivamente la historia de la civilización humana. Sin embargo el tema alcanza una especial significación desde la Segunda Guerra, gracias al crecimiento económico y la desigualdad inéditas. Algunos de los más destacados científicos de las ciencias sociales y humanas enfrentaron el desafío desde sus disciplinas a comienzos del siglo XX. Importantes fueron los planteamientos desde la educación y l..

El presente texto en que Augusto A. Bolívar entrevista a Norbert Lechner, se profundiza sobre un conjunto de temas tales como los de “heterogeneidad estructural” y “hegemonía externa”, la distinción entre modernización y modernidad, “racionalidad normativa”, la tensión entre voluntad y necesidad y entre acción y condicionamiento, la autoproducción como comunidad de la sociedad moderna, las distinciones entre lo político con lo estatal y con lo público, lo que lleva a un análisis de la nueva ciudadanía, y finalmente se aborda (...) el desafío de los procesos de la modernidad y la modernización en el caso chileno, abordando sus tensiones junto a las propuestas para resolverlas. (shrink)

El presente trabajo busca responder cómo se plantearon la cuestión de la representación política aquellos autores a quienes se considera como las fuentes del pensamiento y la teoría política modernos’ atendiendo por un lado a que actualmente la representación se encuentra vinculada con elecciones libres y democracia, que carecían de existencia real cuando ellos escribieron; y por otro lado, que al poner el consentimiento de los individuos como base de la legitimidad política, necesariamente debieron enfrentar el problema de la representación (...) política. El artículo hace un breve esbozo de los rasgos que definen la novedad que representó la teoría del contrato en relación con el pensamiento filosófico político precedente, y luego se examina el problema de la representación en algunos autores seleccionados, para terminar con algunas reflexiones sobre el valor y presencia de sus contribuciones en la actualidad. (shrink)

Se construye el concepto de “representación política constitutivas” como expresión de la “imaginación social y cultural” desde la teoría sociológica contemporánea en sus dimensiones de mito, ideología, utopía o idea. Paralelamente, se propone un ensayo de análisis de la representación de la “Patria Grande” considerada como una “representación social” con pretensiones de universalidad, contradictoria y polisémica, que permite una gran flexibilidad heurística y una variedad de funciones que la hacen operacional a la investigación, pero también, rodeada de una gran confusión. (...) Finalmente, se interpreta Patria Grande como idea de una historia universal con designio cosmopolita dirigida hacia la paz perpetua expresada en el momento de la ilustración y la independencia de las repúblicas latinoamericanas como alternativa crítica a algunas tesis reduccionistas del análisis político contemporáneo. (shrink)

Los patios interiores de la democracia de Norbert Lechnerademás de los contenidos específicos de cada artículo que convocan con inteligencia a la reflexión y al estudio de temas particulares actuales –la revolución, la democracia, la vida cotidiana, el realismo político, el miedo, la cultura posmoderna, etc–, es sugerente a lo menos en tres aspectos generales: el primero, tiene que ver con el discernimiento de la «situación epistemológica» del investigador contemporáneo latinoamericano despué..

Este trabajo examina el Contrato social de Rousseau como exposición de los principios de derecho político de la “república legítima” (Estado), que están en la base de la comprensión de los cuerpos políticos modernos. Tomando en cuenta el campo agonístico de la teoría del contrato y de la tradición republicana en que se inserta, el interés recae en la identificación y sistematización de los principios formales que subyacen a su concepción de la república como un todo compuesto y complejo, así (...) como al enunciado de sus principios constitutivos. A partir de ello, el artículo identifica el modelo de la república en estado de equilibrio, que le permite dar el paso para el desarrollo de su teoría sobre el funcionamiento del Estado y el papel del gobierno. (shrink)

Este trabajo trata de los planteamientos sobre el funcionamiento del Estado y el papel del gobierno que Rousseau presenta en el Contrato Social. Primero se resume la perspectiva teórica del autor, según la cual la república puede verse como un todo compuesto y complejo, para luego examinar el papel del ambiente natural y humano en que ella se instituye, tanto respecto de su funcionamiento como del comportamiento del gobierno. A continuación se sistematizan sus hipótesis teóricas –de orden más bien sociológico– (...) sobre los determinantes del funcionamiento de la república y del gobierno. En las conclusiones se argumenta sobre la importancia de la teoría de Rousseau para el establecimiento de una perspectiva sociológica en el estudio del orden político. (shrink)

Se presenta un breve y sintético recorrido de la producción teórica publicada de Amartya Sen y algunos textos clásicos que acompañan la fundación del campo del desarrollo Humano. La intención es mostrar el proceso de su pensamiento y la diversidad de temas que plantea. El supuesto es que Sen expresa sintéticamente la complejidad del campo.

Un nuevo campo de las ciencias sociales aparece masivamente en los noventa mediante el Índice de Desarrollo Humano (IDH) elaborado por el PNUD. Sin embargo, su prehistoria es vasta y ha convocado grandes pensadores desde la antigüedad. Tres nombres aparecen principalmente en los cincuenta, Sen, Arrow y Rawls que inauguran una gran síntesis que reúne, principalmente, la economía, la ética, las ciencias políticas y la filosofía. Posteriormente, no han dejado de proliferar nuevas metodologías e importantes discusiones teóricas en múltiples seminarios (...) internacionales. El artículo se propone exponer las grandes líneas de este campo de estudio. El propósito es afinar los planos en que se desarrolla el campo, y suscitar el interés de desarrollar esta temática como un nuevo paradigma transdisciplinario. (shrink)

Situándose desde un cuestionamiento acerca de las “políticas de Estado”, el artículo busca contribuir al conocimiento de la transformación estatal y la sociedad en países periféricos. Esta preocupación metodológica se enfoca desde la filosofía del derecho y de la política mediante la perspectiva sociológica del “análisis de políticas públicas”. Aborda el trabajo las sociedades que recientemente han accedido a instituciones modernas de control y que las han adaptado de formas diversas. El hilo conductor supone que la “norma básica”, la “regla (...) de reconocimiento” y los “principios morales”, constituyen “ideas” complementarias que están a la base de la acción y la comprensión estatal, o de la “dinámica jurídica” o de las “políticas institucionales de control político. (shrink)

Those who wish to claim that all facts about grounding are themselves grounded (“the meta-grounding thesis”) must defend against the charge that such a claim leads to infinite regress and violates the well-foundedness of ground. In this paper, we defend. First, we explore three distinct but related notions of “well-founded”, which are often conflated, and three corresponding notions of infinite regress. We explore the entailment relations between these notions. We conclude that the meta-grounding thesis need not lead to tension with (...) any of the three notions of “well-founded”. Finally, we explore the details of and motivations for further conditions on ground that one might add to generate a conflict between the meta-grounding thesis and a well-founded constraint. We explore these topics by developing and utilizing a formal framework based on the notion of a grounding structure. (shrink)

Unlike his theory of justice as fairness, John Rawls’s political liberalism has generally been spared from critiques regarding what is due to the disabled. This paper demonstrates that, due to the account of the basic ideas of society and persons provided by Rawls, political liberalism requires that the interests of numerous individuals with disabilities should be put aside when the most fundamental issues of justice are settled. The aim is to accommodate within public reason the due concern for the disabled (...) while upholding political liberalism. To achieve this aim, a revision of the basic ideas of persons and society is proposed. The idea of persons should be regarded as more fundamental than that of social cooperation, and persons should be defined in terms of minimal moral powers. (shrink)

Gabriel Richardson Lear presents a bold new approach to one of the enduring debates about Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: the controversy about whether it coherently argues that the best life for humans is one devoted to a single activity, namely philosophical contemplation. Many scholars oppose this reading because the bulk of the Ethics is devoted to various moral virtues--courage and generosity, for example--that are not in any obvious way either manifestations of philosophical contemplation or subordinated to it. They argue that (...) Aristotle was inconsistent, and that we should not try to read the entire Ethics as an attempt to flesh out the notion that the best life aims at the "monistic good" of contemplation. In defending the unity and coherence of the Ethics, Lear argues that, in Aristotle's view, we may act for the sake of an end not just by instrumentally bringing it about but also by approximating it. She then argues that, for Aristotle, the excellent rational activity of moral virtue is an approximation of theoretical contemplation. Thus, the happiest person chooses moral virtue as an approximation of contemplation in practical life. Richardson Lear bolsters this interpretation by examining three moral virtues--courage, temperance, and greatness of soul--and the way they are fine. Elegantly written and rigorously argued, this is a major contribution to our understanding of a central issue in Aristotle's moral philosophy. (shrink)

El Estado de Hegel es el Estado de Derecho. Sin embargo en su Filosofía del Derecho se encuentran fundamentos decisivos para una teoría del Estado Social. Siguiendo el hilo de las Líneas fundamentales de la Filosofía del Derecho, se empieza por ver el derecho al bienestar, tal como se formula en la Moralidad (1). En la familia aparece el derecho de los hijos "de ser alimentados y educados" (2). El Derecho al bienestar se concreta en la sociedad civil (3), se (...) hace posible en el sistema de las necesidades (3.1.) y efectivo en la policía y la corporación (3.2 y 3.3), que ejercen funciones de suplencia de la familia. El mayor problema es la pobreza, tanto la que surge por contingencias subjetivas y sociales como por el funcionamiento mismo de la sociedad civil: la plebe. A este problema la sociedad es incapaz de darle una solución. (shrink)

The central theme of this important book is that we are paying the price of an arrogance that refuses to recognize mystery. The author invites the reader to enter into the argument that he holds with himself on a great number of problems. Written in the early 1950s, Marcel's discussion of these topics are remarkably contemporary, e.g.: * Our crisis is a metaphysical, not merely social, one. * What a man is depends partly on what he thinks he is, and (...) a materialistic philosophy turns men into things. * Can a man be free except in a free country? * Stoicism is no longer a workable philosophy because today pressure can be put on the mind as well as on the body. * Technical progress is not evil in itself, but a technique is a means that, regarded as an end, can become either an idol or an excuse for self-idolatry. State control of scientific research, leading to a concentration on new means of destruction, is a calamity. * Fanaticism is an opinion that refuses to argue, and so the fanatic is an enemy of truth. * The kind of unification that science is bringing about today is really an ironing out of differences, but the only valuable kind of unity is one that implies a respect for differences. * We must beware of thinking in terms of great numbers and so blinding ourselves to the reality of individual suffering. Our philosophical approach to being is made possible only by our practical approach to our neighbor. * We must encourage the spirit of fraternity and distrust the kind of egalitarianism that is based on envy and resentment. * No man however humble should feel that he cannot spread the light among his friends. No easy solution is offered, but the author conveys his own faith that ultimately love and intelligence will triumph. (shrink)

Sociologists often ask why particular groups of people have the moral views that they do. I argue that sociology’s empirical research on morality relies, implicitly or explicitly, on unsophisticated and even obsolete ethical theories, and thus is based on inadequate conceptions of the ontology, epistemology, and semantics of morality. In this article I address the two main problems in the sociology of morality: (1) the problem of moral truth, and (2) the problem of value freedom. I identify two ideal–typical approaches. (...) While the Weberian paradigm rejects the concept of moral truth, the Durkheimian paradigm accepts it. By contrast, I argue that sociology should be metaphysically agnostic, yet in practice it should proceed as though there were no moral truths. The Weberians claim that the sociology of morality can and should be value free; the Durkheimians claim that it cannot and it should not. My argument is that, while it is true that factual statements presuppose value judgments, it does not follow that sociologists are moral philosophers in disguise. Finally, I contend that in order for sociology to improve its understanding of morality, better conceptual, epistemological, and methodological foundations are needed. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to provide an account of the role played by logic in the context of what Husserl names the “crisis of European sciences.” Presupposing the analyses offered in the Krisis, I look at Formale und Transzendentale Logik to demonstrate that the crisis of logic stems from the deviation of its original meaning as a “theory of science” and from its restriction to a mere “theoretical technique.” Through a comparison between Aristotelian syllogistic and modern logic, I (...) show why the modern discovery of the purely formal dimension of knowledge which makes possible such a mathematical technization is a positive achievement that hinders at the same time the disclosure of the truly philosophical nature of logic. The correct appraisal of this ambiguous phenomenon will explain why the rise of modern logic represents a decisive challenge for the success of Husserl’s late phenomenological project. (shrink)

The standard model of precedential constraint holds that a court is equally free to modify a precedent of its own and a precedent of a superior court—overruling aside, it does not differentiate horizontal and vertical precedents. This paper shows that no model can capture the U.S. doctrine of precedent without making that distinction. A precise model is then developed that does just that. This requires situating precedent cases in a formal representation of a hierarchical legal structure, and adjusting the constraint (...) that a precedent imposes based on the relationship of the precedent court and the instant court. The paper closes with suggestions for further improvements of the model. (shrink)