We use phenomenology to reflect on the experience of being with others as mediated by screens through videoconferencing platforms, a phenomenon accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic and social isolation measures. We explore two directions to explain the intersubjective experience of a videoconference. One direction introduces a conceptual background based on previous contributions in phenomenology, while the other one is more speculative: we introduce the novel idea of a phantom other. First, we understand this phenomenon either as a correlate of image (...) consciousness or as a paradoxical perception. Then, we introduce the phantom other using ideas offered in phenomenological descriptions in which the phantom limb appears as a quasi-presence. The phantom other is the same flesh and blood body with whom I co-constitute senses of the world. In a videoconference, the other appears as a whole body with which I coordinate, although she appears as a phantom other. (shrink)

Patients with somatoparaphrenia articulate a disavowal of ownership over a extremity. In philosophy, somatoparaphrenia serves as a focal point for discussions concerning the intricacies of self-awareness, specifically the sense of ownership inherent in all mental experiences. Additionally, this disorder prompts reflections on bodily self-awareness, namely, the perception of a body part as an integral component of bodily spatiality. I extend beyond conventional discussions, positing that somatoparaphrenia introduces an anomalous intercorporeal dimension. Diverging from other pathologies associated with bodily spatiality, in somatoparaphrenia (...) the subject establishes a sense of otherness beyond the confines of their organic body: the alien extremity becomes ascribed to another. The exposition is done in two parts. First, I engage in philosophical discourse on bodily awareness, utilizing somatoparaphrenia as an illustrative example. Subsequently, I discuss the issue of otherness within the context of somatoparaphrenia, elucidating the rationale behind conceptualizing this disorder as an intercorporeal experience. (shrink)

In phenomenology, the delusion of thought insertion is described and explained in different ways. There is a common idea that the delusion depends either on a lack of sense of agency or on a confusion between self and others. I propose that the delusion is an alienation in regard to what is expressed in some thoughts, that make them unfamiliar. In this perspective, the delusion has to do with the fact that the lifeworld expressed in inserted thought is given in (...) a second-person perspective, is rooted in a different lived-body experience than one’s own. This contrasts with ordinary thoughts which are given in the first-person perspective, with which we have a sense of intimacy. This discussion is an opportunity for putting forth the idea of the second-person perspective: that is, certain experiences of the world are given to me through others, as distinct from those that are given to me directly as a lived body. In inserted thoughts, there is a sense in which some perspectives of reality, different to my own, are disclosed through an alien voice or through inside me. The distinction between the first person and second person perspectives leads to a better understanding of the primal constitution of the self and of others, based on the relation between the body and the world as it is given to us. (shrink)

This paper examines fundamentalist cognition from a formal perspective with the aim of showing that such a perspective has explanatory power. Formal traits in fundamentalist thought are shown to turn up consistently in different fundamentalist groups and regarding different issues, and to be related to fundamentalist groups’ dynamics, theology, and political organization. Analysis of fundamentalist cognition also suggests that the epistemological stance of strong relativism in the public sphere may be conducive to fundamentalism.

Auschwitz se ve a menudo como una singularidad histórica, un evento que no se puede explicar con las categorías tradicionales que dan cuenta de la agresión entre los seres humanos. En éste artículo queremos dar cuenta, siguiendo la explicación de Freud y Lacan, que lo que pasó allí es una muestra de la actividad de deshumanización inherente a toda guerra que se llevó a su grado máximo en el campo de concentración. La agresión busca la deshumanización más que la muerte; (...) de esto dará cuenta la imagen del musulmán. Con tal categoría se designaba a aquel judío en el campo de concentración, que perdía su humanidad por los maltratos que sobre él se cometían, es decir, debido al poder que ejercía sobre él el yo narciso de otro. Encontraremos que el yo narciso explica la necesidad que tenemos de imponer nuestra humanidad a los otros, hasta el punto de crear significantes imaginarios que deshumanizan a los que no la comparten; en la guerra esa deshumanización se vuelve algo real; el punto máximo de esta acción sobre los otros será el no-humano, aquel que ha perdido completamente su yo. (shrink)