Mathematical explanations are poorly understood. Although mathematicians seem to regularly suggest that some proofs are explanatory whereas others are not, none of the philosophical accounts of what such claims mean has become widely accepted. In this paper we explore Wilkenfeld’s suggestion that explanations are those sorts of things that generate understanding. By considering a basic model of human cognitive architecture, we suggest that existing accounts of mathematical explanation are all derivable consequences of Wilkenfeld’s ‘functional explanation’ proposal. We therefore argue that (...) the explanatory criteria offered by earlier accounts can all be thought of as features that make it more likely that a mathematical proof will generate understanding. On the functional account, features such as characterising properties, unification, and salience correlate with explanatoriness, but they do not define explanatoriness. (shrink)

The literature on mathematical explanation contains numerous examples of explanatory, and not so explanatory proofs. In this paper we report results of an empirical study aimed at investigating mathematicians’ notion of explanatoriness, and its relationship to accounts of mathematical explanation. Using a Comparative Judgement approach, we asked 38 mathematicians to assess the explanatory value of several proofs of the same proposition. We found an extremely high level of agreement among mathematicians, and some inconsistencies between their assessments and claims in the (...) literature regarding the explanatoriness of certain types of proofs. (shrink)

In this article, we report a study in which 109 research-active mathematicians were asked to judge the validity of a purported proof in undergraduate calculus. Significant results from our study were as follows: (a) there was substantial disagreement among mathematicians regarding whether the argument was a valid proof, (b) applied mathematicians were more likely than pure mathematicians to judge the argument valid, (c) participants who judged the argument invalid were more confident in their judgments than those who judged it valid, (...) and (d) participants who judged the argument valid usually did not change their judgment when presented with a reason raised by other mathematicians for why the proof should be judged invalid. These findings suggest that, contrary to some claims in the literature, there is not a single standard of validity among contemporary mathematicians. (shrink)

Two experiments are reported which investigate the factors that influence how persuaded mathematicians are by visual arguments. We demonstrate that if a visual argument is accompanied by a passage of text which describes the image, both research-active mathematicians and successful undergraduate mathematics students perceive it to be significantly more persuasive than if no text is given. We suggest that mathematicians’ epistemological concerns about supporting a claim using visual images are less prominent when the image is described in words. Finally we (...) suggest that empirical studies can make a useful contribution to our understanding of mathematical practice. (shrink)

The issue of what constitutes a valid logical inference is a difficult question. At a minimum, we believe a permissible step in a proof must provide the reader with rational grounds to believe that the new step is a logically necessary consequence of previous assertions. However, this begs the question of what constitutes these rational grounds. Formalist accounts typically describe valid rules of inferences as those that can be found by applying one of the explicit rules of inference in the (...) formal system in which the proof is couched. However, philosophers of mathematics find such a description unhelpful because many inferences in the proofs that mathematicians actually produce cannot be expressed in a formal language, at least not without seriously distorting the semantic content of the inference (e.g., Larvor, 2012). In this chapter, we investigate mathematicians’ perceptions of a particular kind of inference in a particular setting. Specifically, we shed light on what types of graphical inferences mathematicians find permissible in a real analysis proof. Following Larvor (in press), we examine mathematicians’ reactions to metrical graphical inferences (i.e., inferences whose validity depends on the accuracy of the graph that was drawn and whose validity can be changed by minor deformations) and nonmetrical graphical inferences (i.e., inferences whose validity does not depend on a the accuracy of the graph and whose validity is not vulnerable to local deformations). The goal of this chapter is threefold. First, we demonstrate that most mathematicians reject metrical graphical inferences as impermissible in a real analysis proof. Second, we show that many mathematicians regard nonmetrical graphical inferences as permissible in a real analysis proofs. Third, we illustrate how mathematicians collectively disagree on the permissibility of nonmetrical inferences. (shrink)

In this chapter we use methods of corpus linguistics to investigate the ways in which mathematicians describe their work as explanatory in their research papers. We analyse use of the words explain/explanation (and various related words and expressions) in a large corpus of texts containing research papers in mathematics and in physical sciences, comparing this with their use in corpora of general, day-to-day English. We find that although mathematicians do use this family of words, such use is considerably less prevalent (...) in mathematics papers than in physics papers or in general English. Furthermore, we find that the proportion with which mathematicians use expressions related to ‘explaining why’ and ‘explaining how’ is significantly different to the equivalent proportion in physics and in general English. We discuss possible accounts for these differences. (shrink)

Concerns about threats to human autonomy feature prominently in the field of AI ethics. One aspect of this concern relates to the use of AI systems for problematically manipulative influence. In response to this, the European Union’s draft AI Act (AIA) includes a prohibition on AI systems deploying subliminal techniques that alter people’s behavior in ways that are reasonably likely to cause harm (Article 5(1)(a)). Critics have argued that the term ‘subliminal techniques’ is too narrow to capture the target cases (...) of AI-based manipulation. We propose a definition of ‘subliminal techniques’ that (a) is grounded on a plausible interpretation of the legal text; (b) addresses all or most of the underlying ethical concerns motivating the prohibition; (c) is defensible from a scientific and philosophical perspective; and (d) does not over-reach in ways that impose excessive administrative and regulatory burdens. The definition is meant to provide guidance for design teams seeking to pursue responsible and ethically aligned AI innovation. (shrink)

In recent years, Julien Deonna and Fabrice Teroni have proposed to understand emotions as embodied evaluative attitudes we take towards objects that figure in nonevaluative representational states. Although their account nicely explains some of the key features that emotions are widely taken to have, it runs into a version of what I call the problem of integration. In the case of the attitudinal view, the integration problem takes the form of explaining how, from the point of view of the subject, (...) the bodily responses that make up the attitude part of the emotion and the representational states that provide the particular object of the emotion come to form an intentionally structured unitary experience, that is, one in which the bodily responses are intentionally directed towards the object. I argue that what explains this integration is the way in which the experience of bodily responses and the experience of the representational states interact. This, I propose, produces what I call an experience of convergence. I also suggest that understanding emotional experience in this way not only solves the problem of the integration but also provides a more solid ground for the claim that emotions qua embodied attitudes are evaluative. (shrink)

How did cultural factors participate in the event of October in Chile? How were these factors related to each other? What implications did they have for collective action and social life? The purpose of the article is to carry out a cultural reading of the October event. To do this, a dialogue is proposed between cultural sociology and cultural studies, applied to the October protest movement, resorting to interpretive research tools. The appropriation of Plaza Italia, in Santiago, by the protesters, (...) is used in an illustrative way to highlight the cultural elements and their interactions. Among the findings, the production of meaning based on motifs and frames stands out, the production of its own symbolism and iconography and the deployment of performances that allow defining the Plaza itself as an artifact of protest. Then certain scopes of the above for civil society are discussed. It concludes with a projection of the work and a brief reflection on the relationship between social sciences and humanities to deploy an interpretive strategy of empirical research. (shrink)

From our everyday commuting to the gold medalist’s world-class performance, skillful actions are characterized by fine-grained, online agentive control. What is the proper explanation of such control? There are two traditional candidates: intellectualism explains skillful agentive control by reference to the agent’s propositional mental states; anti-intellectualism holds that propositional mental states or reflective processes are unnecessary since skillful action is fully accounted for by automatic coping processes. I examine the evidence for three psychological phenomena recently held to support anti-intellectualism and (...) argue that it supports neither traditional candidate, but an intermediate attention-control account, according to which the top-down, intention-directed control of attention is a necessary component of skillful action. Only this account recognizes both the role of automatic control in skilled action and the need for higher-order cognition to thread automatic processes together into a unified, skillful performance. This applies to bodily skillful action in general, from the world-class performance of experts to mundane, habitual action. The attention-control account stresses that, for intentions to play their role as top-down modulators of attention, agents must sustain the intention’s activation; hence, the need for reflecting throughout performance. (shrink)

En términos de la filosofía socrática, la doxa u opinión representa un principio vago debido a sus alcances limitados en la construcción de un conocimiento bien establecido. Sin embargo, debido a conveniencias como su facilidad de manejo, la opinión se ha extendido como mecanismo epistémico en espacios como las redes sociales, donde su uso se fomenta a través de objetos virtuales como el meme, de tal forma que se vuelve necesaria una evaluación filosófica para las nuevas formas de expresión doxástica (...) por medio del juicio y de la crítica como los procedimientos filosóficos más adecuados para confrontar sus repercusiones. (shrink)

Los trabajos enfocados en estudiar los procesos de digitalización de las noticias ya no constituyen un tema incipiente en el campo de la comunicación. Pasaron más de 15 años de la aparición de los primeros formatos online de los periódicos y ya es posible encontrar diversos tipos de abordajes académicos que dan cuenta de preocupaciones teóricas y metodológicas sobre los modos de abordar los procesos de digitalización de las noticias. En el siguiente trabajo presentaremos una síntesis de los principales aportes (...) realizados en Iberoamérica y Estados Unidos con el objeto agrupar 3 matrices que en general han guiado a los intereses de estos trabajos: a) relevar las primeras experiencias de digitalización de periódicos ya reconocidos, b) analizar las nuevas características que asume la práctica periodística y los componentes discursivos de los nuevos formatos periodísticos y c) reconocer la emergencia de nuevos actores que comienzan a disputar el campo periodístico. (shrink)

Researchers often claim that self-control is a skill. It is also often stated that self-control exertions are intentional actions. However, no account has yet been proposed of the skillful agency that makes self-control exertion possible, so our understanding of self-control remains incomplete. Here I propose the skill model of self-control, which accounts for skillful agency by tackling the guidance problem: how can agents transform their abstract and coarse-grained intentions into the highly context-sensitive, fine-grained control processes required to select, revise and (...) correct strategies during self-control exertion? The skill model borrows conceptual tools from ‘hierarchical models’ recently developed in the context of motor skills, and asserts that self-control crucially involves the ability to manage the implementation and monitoring of regulatory strategies as the self-control exercise unfolds. Skilled agents are able do this by means of flexible practical reasoning: a fast, context-sensitive type of deliberation that incorporates non-propositional representations into the formation and revision of the mixed-format intentions that structure self-control exertion. The literatures on implementation intentions and motivation framing offer corroborating evidence for the theory. As a surprising result, the skill of self-control that allows agents to overcome the contrary motivations they experience is self-effacing: instead of continuously honing this skill, expert agents replace it with a different one, which minimizes or prevents contrary motivations from arising in the first place. Thus, the more expert you are at self-control, the less likely you are to use it. (shrink)

Mereology deals with the study of the relations between wholes and parts. In this work we will discuss different developments and open problems related to the formulation of a quantum mereology. In particular, we will discuss different advances in the development of formal systems aimed to describe the whole-parts relationship in the context of quantum theory.

Although the link between epistemic and ontological aspects of social reality has always been a problematic issue for the social sciences, this debate loses centrality from the second half of the twentieth century. This article critically reviews the epistemic reasons for that loss, mainly in relation with "hard" constructivism, arguing for the need to return to the ontological debate about sociological foundations. At the same time, it presents a theoretical proposal: social ontology constitutes itself epistemically; that is, the question about (...) "the social" inevitably involves the question about beliefs that constitute it. But social reality is not exhausted in beliefs, since it requires a material component to exist. From this proposal, this paper makes an explicit defense for a realist approach in sociology. To do this, critically reviews John Searle’s social ontology and makes concretes contributions to sociological theory, emphasizing the importance of action, power and causal reciprocity between individual and society, to have a social ontology that shows the specificity of the social. Aun cuando la vinculación entre los aspectos epistémicos y ontológicos de la realidad social ha sido siempre un asunto problemático para las ciencias sociales, este debate pierde centralidad desde mediados del siglo XX. Este artículo revisa críticamente las razones epistémicas de esa pérdida de centralidad, principalmente en relación con el constructivismo "duro", argumentando la necesidad de retomar el debate ontológico acerca de los fundamentos de la disciplina sociológica, al mismo tiempo que plantea una propuesta teórica de elucidación: la ontología de lo social se constituye epistémicamente; vale decir, la pregunta acerca de qué es lo social implica inevitablemente la pregunta por las creencias que lo constituyen. No obstante, la realidad social no se agota en las creencias, puesto que requiere de un componente material para existir. Desde esa propuesta, en una segunda parte, el artículo defiende la necesidad de adoptar una postura realista en sociología. Para ello, revisa críticamente la propuesta de ontología social de Searle y realiza aportes concretos desde la teoría sociológica, concluyendo la importancia de la acción, del poder y de la reciprocidad causal entre individuo y sociedad, para contar con una ontología que dé cuenta de la especificidad propia de lo social. (shrink)

Since mid-nineteenth century, many Arabists and historians have referred to al-Andalus as a “Muslim Spain”. In the last decades, several scholars have criticized this historiographic tradition, which they see as a Hispanization of al-Andalus resulting from late-nineteenth-century nationalism. Although partly accurate, this criticism has overshadowed the fact that the success of the phrase “Muslim Spain” was not so much due to a Hispanization as to a de-Arabization of al-Andalus. Prior to the nineteenth century, Hispanizing al-Andalus was already a common historiographical (...) practice: referring to the influence of the Iberian climate was enough to turn Arabs into Spaniards. The novelty of the last half of the nineteenth century was the triumph of racialism: national humors, until then attributed to geographical conditions, came to be understood as a product of biological inheritance. Thus, in order to continue Hispanizing al-Andalus, it was necessary to “demonstrate” that its inhabitants were not of “Arabian race”. And so “Arab Spain” became “Muslim Spain”. (shrink)

A 68-year-old patient who suffered from gastric cancer diagnosed 8 months earlier presented with multiple peritoneal and hepatic metastasis, despite several rounds of chemo- and radiotherapy. After admission to hospital, his general condition quickly became severely compromised. He was nearly emaciated, despite being on partial parenteral feeding. Four years earlier, due to a cardiac arrhythmia that was refractory to medication, the patient had a cardiac pacemaker implanted, regulated to go off at frequencies of below 70 beats per minute. Given the (...) patient's terminal situation, the team started developing some doubts about the pacemaker's effects during his dying process. The patient had mentioned his intention to donate his pacemaker after his death, but had not asked for its deactivation. The specialists were not sure about the effect of the pacemaker in unnecessarily prolonging the patient's final hour. Nevertheless, they opposed deactivation, which they considered ethically uncertain. The family, who had been initially for the deactivation, decided against it. The patient's condition was progressively deteriorating, as he was falling into a state of sopor and, later, into a coma. (shrink)

Does self-control require willpower? The question cuts to the heart of a debate about whether self-control is identical with some psychological process internal to the agents or not. Noticeably absent from these debates is systematic evidence about the folk-psychological category of self-control. Here, we present the results of two behavioral studies (N = 296) that indicate the structure of everyday use of the concept. In Study 1, participants rated the degree to which different strategies to respond to motivational conflict exemplify (...) self-control. Participants distinguished between intra-psychic and externally-scaffolded strategies and judged that the former exemplified self-control more than the latter. In Study 2, participants provided various solutions to manage motivational conflict and rated their proposals on effectiveness. Participants produced substantially more intra-psychic strategies, rated them as more effective, and advised them at a higher rate than externally-scaffolded strategies. Taken together, these results suggest that while people recognize a plurality of strategies as genuine instances of self-control, purely internal exercises of self-control are considered more prototypical than their externally-scaffolded counterparts. This implies a hierarchical structure for the folk psychological category of self-control. The concept encompasses a variety of regulatory strategies and organizes these strategies along a hierarchical continuum, with purely intra-psychic strategies at the center and scaffolded strategies in the periphery. (shrink)

El artículo ofrece una reconstrucción de la concepción de la acción que, anclada en una concepción más amplia de la imputación, Hegel nos presenta en el capítulo “La moralidad” de su Filosofía del Derecho, y que arranca de la clarificación preliminar de qué significa que “crimen” designe algo que tiene el estatus de una acción. A partir de un conjunto de premisas obtenidas de algunas recientes reinterpretaciones analíticamente orientadas de su obra, desarrolladas por Brandom y Quante, se examina la distinción (...) que Hegel hace entre los conceptos de hecho y acción, para entonces esclarecer qué cabe entender por el “derecho del saber” y cómo este se conecta con el “derecho de la intención”. Ello hace posible explicitar la particular forma de “compatibilismo” que cabe extraer de la filosofía de Hegel para enfrentar el problema de la suerte moral. (shrink)

For agents like us, the feeling of effort is a very useful thing. It helps us sense how hard an action is, control its level of intensity, and decide whether to continue or stop performing it. While there has been progress in understanding the feeling of mental effort and the feeling of bodily effort, this has not translated into a unified account of the general feeling of effort. To advance in this direction, I defend the single-feeling view, which states that (...) the feeling of effort is one and the same for both mental and bodily actions. This feeling represents the subjective costs, both mental and physical, of performing a given action. Cost-based approaches have recently become influential for the feeling of mental effort. Here I focus on arguing that our sense of bodily effort does not simply represent physiological processes, but rather represents the subjective costs of a bodily action. Through this paper I discuss the role of the feeling of effort (and affective states more broadly) in action guidance and the sense of agency. I also define efforts themselves in terms of the feeling of effort. (shrink)

Self-control is deemed crucial for reasons-responsive agency and a key contributor to long-term wellbeing. But recent studies suggest that effortfully resisting one’s temptations does not contribute to long-term goal attainment, and can even be harmful. So how does self-control improve our lives? Finding an answer requires revising the role that overcoming temptation plays in self-control. This paper distinguishes two forms of self-control problems: temptation (the presence of a strong wayward motivation) and apathy (the lack of commitment-advancing motivation). This distinction makes (...) it possible to separate negative self-control (aimed at overcoming temptation) from positive self-control (aimed at overcoming lack of motivation). The paper argues that temptation should not play a central role in our conception of self-control, since overcoming temptation is neither necessary nor sufficient for successful self-control. (shrink)

RESUMEN Con frecuencia el amor y la racionalidad se ven como capacidades que fácilmente entran en conflicto, cuando no se consideran por principio opuestas. En este artículo desarrollo algunos puntos esbozados por Harry Frankfurt con el fin de proponer que la relación entre amor y racionalidad no es de simple oposición. Tras ofrecer una caracterización del amor como disposición híbrida de seguimiento múltiple, defenderé que el amor es racional en el siguiente sentido: el amor no es justificable, pero a pesar (...) de ello es una fuente de razones básicas y a veces irresistibles que en buena medida informan el campo de nuestra racionalidad. Esto no significa que el amor sea una base irracional o arracional, o que sea completamente blindado a la razón, sino que en circunstancias específicas tiene sentido someter el amor a escrutinio racional. ABSTRACT Love and rationality are often considered as capacities which easily come into conflict, or are even opposed to one another. In the paper I elaborate some points suggested by Harry Frankfurt in order to propose that the relation between love and rationality is not one of opposition. After offering a characterization of love as a hybrid multi-track disposition, I will argue that love is rational in the following sense: although love is not justifiable, it is nevertheless a source of basic and sometimes irresistible reasons which to a large extent shape the field of our rationality. This does not mean that love is an irrational or arrational foundation, or that it is impervious to reason; it only means that in certain circumstances it makes sense to subject love to rational scrutiny. (shrink)

Which is the best icon of philosophical activity? The Spanish philosopher Garcia Morente analyses three sculptures: Le penseur by Rodin, Il pensieroso by Michelangelo and a sculpture known as El Doncel de Siguenza, in the cathedral of this Castilian town. Morente asserts that the latest reflects better than anyone else the nature of philosophy. In this paper the Morente’s view is rejected and another two ways of representing the philosophical activity are suggested: two ancient paintings that represent more properly the (...) philosophical labour, understood as an unending Socratic dialogue. (shrink)

El artículo analiza la producción de vacunas en el Instituto Bacteriológico del Departamento Nacional de Higiene de Argentina entre 1913 y 1921. Durante estos años, bajo la dirección del bacteriólogo austríaco Rudolf Kraus, la producción de vacunas fue una apuesta central de las actividades del IB. Para ello, presentamos una reconstrucción de los diferentes aspectos sociales y cognitivos involucrados en estos desarrollos, tales como la selección de los productos, de las técnicas utilizadas, del alcance que tuvieron en su distribución y (...) aplicación efectiva, de las expectativas en torno a su aplicación y de las relaciones y antecedentes a nivel internacional de cada caso, entre otras cuestiones. Proponemos, como eje del análisis, que es posible identificar tres tipos de racionalidades que guiaron el desarrollo de las vacunas, ligadas a las retribuciones o diferentes usos que estas podían redituar en los distintos campos o espacios sociales: una médica-sanitaria, una comercial y una científico-técnica, resultado de las diferentes expectativas y demandas que atravesaron al IB. En términos metodológicos, el trabajo se basa en el análisis de diversas fuentes documentales, tales como trabajos científicos y memorias institucionales del IB y del DNH, trabajos de divulgación profesional o educación universitaria de la época, y bibliografía secundaria de la historia de la ciencia y la medicina. (shrink)

En este artículo se analizan tres modos de explicar la emergencia de lo social como una realidad en sí misma. Esto implica, el reconocimiento de lo social como ámbito específico del mundo no reductible a otros. Así, se revisan tres planteos de distintas tradiciones teóricas con el objeto de fundamentar esta perspectiva. Analizamos, en primer lugar, la noción de reciprocidad elaborada por Malinowski; en segundo lugar, los postulados acerca del orden de la interacción propuestos por Goffman; y en tercer lugar, (...) las observaciones de Luhmann acerca de la doble contingencia. Más allá de las diferencias entre estas tres teorías sociales, pensamos que son comparables en la medida que abordan de un modo similar las condiciones de posibilidad que dan origen a lo social. (shrink)

Social systems are always exposed to critical processes in which their organization, or part of it, is questioned by the society that demands solutions through different critical saliences. The traditional approach to such social crises has mainly focused on their anticipation and management, implying that the focus is on trying to deal with crises once they occur, rather than delving in their essential characteristics that seemingly depend on the adaptive nature of the system and the increase in its internal complexity. (...) To address this issue, we propose a dual approach that utilizes both qualitative and quantitative methods in order to delve into the relationship between the complexity of the social system, its adaptation, and critical episodes. Our analysis shows how an explosive economic growth affects a social system, increasing its complexity. This complexity produces different demands from the system itself. These demands manifest signatures of complexity such as a heterogeneous and rich social structure, which emerges during moments when the society acts strongly. (shrink)

Este artículo se inserta en el marco teórico de las controversias actuales y contemporáneas en torno a la discusión de las categorías heideggerianas. El mismo tiene por objetivo exponer el sentido de las nociones de acontecimiento y diferencia, ya que estas nociones presentan un carácter problemático, pues no pueden ser fundamentadas sino que resultan fundadas sobre el abismo. En las conclusiones, presentamos un marco conceptual apropiado para pensar al acontecimiento y la diferencia a partir de la interpretación de la Zwischen (...) respecto a su estatus tensivo. (shrink)

¿Qué pasa cuando un concepto tan ambiguo como “Desarrollo” es trabajado por un libre pensador global (de acuerdo a Alberto Acosta) como J. María Tortosa? ¿Qué pasa cuando un texto enfoca de manera directa las paradojas, confusiones y debilidades de un concepto tan usado en ciencias sociales y por lo mismo tan impreciso? Se gana en precisión y claridad analítica, pero a la vez en apertura y creatividad interpretativa. El concepto pierde su carácter de concepto paraguas, para mostrar limitacion..

A central aim of cognitive science is to understand the fundamental mechanisms that enable humans to navigate and make sense of complex environments. In this letter, we argue that computational complexity theory, a foundational framework for evaluating computational resource requirements, holds significant potential in addressing this challenge. As humans possess limited cognitive resources for processing vast amounts of information, understanding how humans perform complex cognitive tasks requires comprehending the underlying factors that drive information processing demands. Computational complexity theory provides a (...) comprehensive theoretical framework to achieve this goal. By adopting this framework, we can gain new insights into how cognitive systems work and develop a more nuanced understanding of the relation between task complexity and human behavior. We provide empirical evidence supporting our argument and identify several open research questions and challenges in applying computational complexity theory to human decision‐making and cognitive science at large. (shrink)

Effort and the feeling of effort play important roles in many theoretical discussions, from perception to self-control and free will, from the nature of ownership to the nature of desert and achievement. A crucial, overlooked distinction within the philosophical and scientific literatures is the distinction between theories that seek to explain effort and theories that seek to explain the feeling of effort. Lacking a clear distinction between these two phenomena makes the literature hard to navigate. To advance in the unification (...) and development of this area, this article provides an overview of the main theories of the nature of effort and the nature of the feeling of effort, and then discusses how efforts and their feelings are related. Two key takeaways emerge. First, there is widespread agreement that efforts are goal-directed actions. Second, one of the main philosophical issues to be decided is whether feelings of effort should be defined by reference to efforts (effort-first approach), or whether efforts are defined by reference to the feeling of effort (feeling-first approach). (shrink)

This article analyzes the philosophical concept of dwelling from the perspective of a media pragmatics. Media pragmatics is presented here as a method that discloses the circular relation between rule-bound practices and the material and technological substrates that support them. This method is put into practice through a comparative philosophical interpretation of two “canonical” models of dwelling: the Greek oikos and the bourgeois home. Because dwelling, as Heidegger argued, is an interface mediating between the “lifeworld” and the “world” while also (...) organizing relations within the lifeworld, it serves here as a privileged object for articulating this method. (shrink)

In previous works, an ontology of properties for quantum mechanics has been proposed, according to which quantum systems are bundles of properties with no principle of individuality. The aim of the present article is to show that, since quasi-set theory is particularly suited for dealing with aggregates of items that do not belong to the traditional category of individual, it supplies an adequate meta-language to speak of the proposed ontology of properties and its structure.

This paper proposes a conceptual model that fosters interdisciplinary thinking and critical thinking by connecting the three main philosophical traditions that impact modern thinking – British empiricism, Continental Europe subjective idealism, and realism – with their epistemological foundations and in combination with modern social disciplines: ethics, social responsibility, and political economy. Through a statistical analysis this paper shows which of the three epistemologies produces better social outcomes.

El objetivo del presente trabajo es doble. En primer lugar, pretendo defender un concepto simpliciter de tolerancia según el cual la autonomía personal o la necesidad de fortalecer una cultura son las únicas razones que debe ponderar el agente-Estado para tolerar. En segundo lugar, pretendo responder afirmativamente a la pregunta de si puede el liberalismo perfeccionista y multicultural de Joseph Raz sostener desde la teoría moral y política un derecho intercultural. Para cumplir estos objetivos, me concentraré en los usos morales (...) del término tolerar para luego siguiendo a Michael Sandel, analizar los casos de tolerancia crítica y no crítica. Posteriormente, desarrollaré el liberalismo de Raz con el fin de mostrar los problemas teóricos que genera el fundamento de los derechos colectivos. Concluiré afirmando la existencia de derechos colectivos como recurso institucional para permitir el desarrollo de grupos culturales minoritarios dentro del actual desarrollo del Estado- nación. (shrink)

This paper critically reviews the principal elements of Searle’s proposed social ontology which is scattered in different books and papers. It discusses the philosophical and conceptual affinities between his philosophy of social reality and sociological theory, and proposes some solutions to dilemmas arising from the strong mentalism of his proposal, using tools from classical sociological theory and the sociology of knowledge. The main objective is to help lay the foundation for a comprehensive social ontology, whose structure is supported by the (...) complementarity between the proposed Searle's social ontology and sociological theory. Este artículo revisa de manera crítica los elementos fundamentales de la propuesta de ontología social de Searle que se encuentra diseminada en sus diversos libros y artículos, abordando analíticamente aquellos aspectos que dan cuenta de las afinidades filosóficas y conceptuales entre su filosofía de la realidad social y la teoría sociológica, utilizando herramientas provenientes de la teoría sociológica clásica y de la sociología del conocimiento. El objetivo principal es contribuir a sentar las basespara una ontología social comprensiva, cuya estructura esté sustentada por la complementariedad entre la propuesta de ontología social de Searle y la teoría sociológica. (shrink)

Sophists and rhetoricians like Gorgias are often accused of disregarding truth and rationality: their speeches seem to aim only at effective persuasion, and be constrained by nothing but persuasiveness itself. In his extant texts Gorgias claims that language does not represent external objects or communicate internal states, but merely generates behavioural responses in people. It has been argued that this perspective erodes the possibility of rationally assessing speeches by making persuasiveness the only norm, and persuasive power the only virtue, of (...) speech. Against this view, I show how Gorgias’ texts support a robust normativity of language that goes well beyond persuasion while remaining non-representational. Gorgias’ claims that a speech can be persuasive and false, or true and unpersuasive, reveal pragmatic, epistemic, and agonistic constraints on the validity of speech that are neither representational nor reducible to sheer persuasiveness. (shrink)

The aim of this text is to explore and discuss the way in which both the commercial films and the auteur cinema made by Luis Buñuel in Mexico, introduce us to the production of new cinematic representations of poverty. In order to do this, the films El gran calavera, Los olvidados, El Bruto and Nazarín will be analyzed. It is argued that these films suggest different ways in which poverty is inscribed that put the hegemonic representation imposed by the golden (...) age of Mexican cinema under tension. Moreover, the ideal of desire is recognized as a common mechanism in the actions of its protagonists. (shrink)

En 2014, notre compagnie de théâtre a commencé l’expérience « La Cocina Pública », un projet qui construit une cuisine à l’intérieur d’un conteneur installé dans la rue. En effaçant la ligne qui sépare le « public » des « artistes », nous percevons que la catastrophe et l’urgence de la situation sociale sont des déclencheurs qui réactivent la vie communautaire. La cuisine est un point de départ pour rencontrer l’histoire des territoires à travers la mémoire de leurs recettes.

Scholarship on Aristotle’s theory of action has recently veered toward an intellectualist position, according to which reason is in charge of setting the goals of action. This position has recently been criticized by an anti-intellectualism revival, according to which character, and not reason, sets the goals of action. I argue that neither view can sufficiently account for the complexities of Aristotle’s theory, and suggest a middle way that combines the strengths of both while avoiding their pitfalls. The key problem for (...) intellectualism is that Aristotle explicitly states reason cannot set the goals of action. The key problem for anti-intellectualism is that he also holds that the soul’s rational part must guide and prescribe over the non-rational part. I propose indirect intellectualism, a promising middle path. (shrink)

This article aims to plant and provide elements to reflect on the following question: Is the COVID-19 pandemic an event? So this article pursues two objectives: on the one hand, to make a recount of the theoretical positions that some thinkers have made on this question. Secondly, to frame these positions with respect to the presentation and problematization of the event anchored in Deleuze's philosophy. El presente artículo se propone plantar y brindar elementos para reflexionar sobre la siguiente pregunta: La (...) pandemia del COVID-19, ¿es un acontecimiento? Entonces este artículo persigue dos objetivos: por un lado, hacer un recuento de las posiciones teóricas que algunos pensadores han hecho sobre esta cuestión. En segundo lugar, enmarcar estas posiciones respecto al planteo y problematización del acontecimiento con anclaje en la filosofía de Deleuze. (shrink)