Los Principios del Conocimiento Humano de George Berkeley es un texto crucial en la historia del empirismo y en la historia de la filosofía en general. Su afirmación central y aparentemente sorprendente es que el mundo físico no puede existir independientemente de la mente que percibe. El significado de esta afirmación, los argumentos poderosos a su favor y el sistema en el que está incrustado, se explican de manera altamente lúcida y legible y se colocan en su contexto histórico. La (...) filosofía de Berkeley es, en parte, una respuesta a las profundas tensiones y problemas en la nueva filosofía del período moderno y al lector se le ofrece una descripción de este medio intelectual. Luego, el libro sigue el orden y la sustancia de los Principios mientras se basa en materiales de otros escritos de Berkeley. Este volumen es la introducción ideal a los Principios de Berkeley y será de gran interés para los historiadores de la filosofía en general. (shrink)

Dust was first raised over the problem of the self when Descartes illegitimately passed from the Cogito to the res cogitans. The modern substantial conception began with him and future theories did not try to understand the nature of the self. Rather, they took a stand in favour of or in opposition to the substantial conception. A fallacious dilemma thus arose, according to which philosophers have to choose between a substantial self or no self at all. The origin of the (...) substantial conception of the mind and the story of its slow dissolution through Locke and Berkeley before it reached the Humean peak is too well known to be retold again. Let me only dwell a little on the extremes of the process which at the same time represent the two horns of the dilemma: Descartes and Hume. (shrink)

Se trata de una antología que recoge los más importantes pasajes del pensamiento sobre los valores de Risieri Frondizi (1910-1983), uno de los más importantes axiólogos de América Latina. Además de la selección de fragmentos que integra la antología, José Ramón Fabelo Corzo escribe el Prólogo (que busca ubicar a Frondizi en el contexto histórico del pensamiento axiológico latinoamericano) y el Epílogo (en el que se realiza una valoración crítica de las propuestas de este destacado pensador argentino.

A worthy product of the growing interest on the part of North Americans in Ibero-American philosophy is Patrick Romanell's Making of the Mexican Mind: A Study in Recent Mexican Thought. This is the first book published in English, or, for that matter, in any language, on twentieth-century Mexican philosophy. The fact that Romanell's book was translated into Spanish and published in Mexico soon after the appearance of the American edition is clear proof that it is not a mere expository work (...) written primarily for home consumption. Besides, the volume is not restricted, as its subtitle might suggest, to a study of contemporary Mexican philosophy. It aims at something more than that: to discover the essence of the Mexican way of life and thus to uncover the Latin-American soul. (shrink)

Ensayos acerca de las preocupaciones del autor en dos sentidos: la demostraci n y el sometimiento a examen por medio de un di fano m todo intelectual al empe o marcado por una vocaci n de autenticidad: no seremos cabalmente quienes por raz n hist rica debemos ser mientras no asumamos las tareasdel pensamiento con una constructiva originalidad y con un permanente af n cr tico, serio y esclarecedor.

Por la claridad de la presentacion y el tratamiento didactico de los aspectos fundamentales del tema abordado, este libro bien puede ser tomado como una introduccion a la filosofia que pondra al lector en el camino de la reflexion trascendental sobre sus problemas existenciales.

The general attitude among scholars of both Americas is to deny the existence of such a thing as a Pan-American philosophy. South of the Rio Grande there are those who hold that we cannot even properly speak of Latin-American philosophy, but must speak only of Mexican, Argentine or Brazilian philosophies. Since the truth of this last statement will imply a negative answer to the question of the existence of Pan-American philosophy, let us discuss it, though briefly, in the first place.

To understand Romero's philosophy it is necessary to have a general idea of his "metaphysics of transcendence." This theory was presented for the first time more than ten years ago; he comes back to it in his Theory of Man. Following Max Scheler and other contemporary philosophers, Romero distinguishes four levels in reality; inorganic, living, intentional physique and spirit. Each level supports the next one, which grows out of the former. The degree of transcendence that we can find in each (...) level is what gives it its metaphysical status. On the physical or inorganic level, transcendence is almost non-existent, it is clearly present in the living realm, dominant in the intentional physique and absolute on the spiritual level. (shrink)