A partir de la consideración del vínculo entre la dictadura militar y la promoción del pensamiento nacionalista y de los usos del paisaje en la construcción de las narrativas nacionales, se indaga en la obra de Roberto Escobar. En particular, en su Teoría del Chileno (1981) y su defensa del rol del filósofo como poseedor del secreto de la nación, capaz de expresar la posibilidad de compatibilizar modernización e identidad.

RESUMEN A partir de la contraposición entre filosofía y ensayismo, realizada por Th. Adorno, se cuestiona el carácter de "fundador" de la filosofía latinoamericana atribuido a A. Korn, quien comprendió la filosofía como un ejercicio de escritura sin certezas definitivas. Al señalar la distancia entre realidad y lenguaje, la filosofía puede habitar dicha distancia en diversas formas, y cabe preguntar por su relación con la escritura. Contra el positivismo, Korn insiste en el carácter figurativo de toda metafísica como "poema dialéctico", (...) acercándola así al ensayo. ABSTRACT On the basis of Th. Adorno's differentiation between philosophy and essay writing, the article questions A. Korn's status as "founder" of Latin American philosophy, given that he understood philosophy as an exercise in writing, without definitive certainties. By pointing to the difference between reality and language, philosophy can inhabit that distance in diverse forms, thus making it possible to inquire into its relation to writing. Against positivism, Korn insists on the figurative character of all metaphysics as a "dialectical poem", thus bringing it close to the essay. (shrink)

El libro de Alex Ibarra, Filosofía chilena. La tradición analítica en el periodo de la institucionalización de la filosofía, plantea la discusión sobre las líneas filosóficas, demostrando la existencia de cierta tradición analítica en Chile. A partir de allí, reflexionamos en torno a los procesos de constitución del campo de la filosofía en Chile como una historia atravesada por la necesidad de préstamos y cruces que impiden una delimitación clara de sus límites, lo que tornaría necesaria la atención a ciertas (...) políticas de la lectura que el libro soslaya. La productividad de la filosofía producida en Chile surgiría gracias -y no pese- a su inscripción en sus tiempos y espacios, a partir de recepciones cuya ausencia de retraso no impide el gesto de cierto re-trazo de lo leído. Alex Ibarra's exposition in his book Filosofía chilena. La tradición analítica en el periodo de la institucionalización de la filosofía, places the discussion on the philosophical traditions, showing the existence of a certain kind of analytical tradition in Chile. From there, we expose the processes of constitution of the field in Chile as a history crossed by the need of importations and intersections that contest the clear delimitation of its boundaries, what makes necessary the attention of the politics of readings that the book avoid. The productivity of the philosophic production in Chile, arises thanks to -but not in spite of- its inscription in its age/times and spaces, coming from its receptions and its differences. (shrink)

Junto con Rebeldes académicos de Iván Jaksić (SUNY 1989; UDP 2013) y Una disciplina de la distancia de Cecilia Sánchez (CESOC 1992), este libro ya forma parte del canon bibliográfico selecto y escaso que propone investigaciones de largo aliento sobre la historia de la filosofía en el Chile republicano. No se trata de una reseña de nombres y obras, ni de una historia interna del desarrollo de problemas puros o escuelas. Más bien, su foco, en afinidad con las obras mencionadas, (...) son “las distintas relaciones históricas entre las fuerzas del poder y las razones de la filosofía […] las distintas inscripciones en los también múltiples quiasmos entre saberes y poderes” (14-15), asumiendo, de modo más sustantivo, que “el bloque histórico dominante en Chile rara vez ha logrado establecer un relato coherente de la dominación, justamente porque es poco lo que le importan las razones en nombre de las cuales ejerce la fuerza” (41). (shrink)

Resumen:Junto con Rebeldes académicos de Iván Jaksić (SUNY 1989; UDP 2013) y Una disciplina de la distancia de Cecilia Sánchez (CESOC 1992), este libro ya forma parte del canon bibliográfico selecto y escaso que propone investigaciones de largo aliento sobre la historia de la filosofía en el Chile republicano. No se trata de una reseña de nombres y obras, ni de una historia interna del desarrollo de problemas puros o escuelas. Más bien, su foco, en afinidad con las obras mencionadas, (...) son “las distintas relaciones históricas entre las fuerzas del poder y las razones de la filosofía […] las distintas inscripciones en los también múltiples quiasmos entre saberes y poderes” (14-15), asumiendo, de modo más sustantivo, que “el bloque histórico dominante en Chile rara vez ha logrado establecer un relato coherente de la dominación, justamente porque es poco lo que le importan las razones en nombre de las cuales ejerce la fuerza” (41). (shrink)

Tras esbozar la noción de la ficción en Borges a partir de la alegría que este último lee en Don Quijote, buscamos mostrar cómo la obra de Foucault no presenta una lectura alegre de la novela cervantina. El filósofo francés ve allí el testimonio trágico de una locura que se aísla, la risa de la razón frente a la locura que confunde las palabras y las cosas. Frente a ello, la lectura lacaniana del barroco muestra la falta en medio de (...) la representación, y así la opción de leer, en Don Quijote, cierta crítica de la razón en la razón. Terminamos mostrando esa chance a partir de los juegos del significante en la transformación del yelmo de Mambrino en baciyelmo. (shrink)

A partir de la contraposición entre filosofía y ensayismo, realizada por Th. Adorno, se cuestiona el carácter de “fundador” de la filosofía latinoamericana atribuido a A. Korn, quien comprendió la filosofía como un ejercicio de escritura sin certezas de- finitivas. Al señalar la distancia entre realidad y lenguaje, la filosofía puede habitar dicha distancia en diversas formas, y cabe preguntar por su relación con la escritura. Contra el positivismo, Korn insiste en el carácter figurativo de toda metafísica como “poema dialéctico”, (...) acercándola así al ensayo. (shrink)

El ensayo articula las reflexiones que Benjamin, en variados textos, expone sobre la infancia. El autor resalta la experiencia infantil por su capacidad de transmutar los objetos, otorgándoles un uso contrario al corriente, pudiendo tal desfiguración incluso alcanzar la propia identidad. Por ello, en la infancia se alojaría cierto carácter destructivo, a partir de cierta fidelidad al objeto que permite su rescate ante todo evolucionismo. Desde allí se concluye, a partir de ciertos comentarios de Agamben y Didi-Huberman, en torno a (...) la infancia como imagen de la inventiva capaz de recuperar justamente lo ido y de anunciar la diferencia por venir. (shrink)

Tras situar la obra de Korn en la crisis del Centenario argentino, se presenta su propuesta de construcción de una filosofía argentina que pueda forjar ciertos valores que, más allá de la economía, puedan regir el desarrollo nacional. En ese marco, intentamos mostrar cómo Korn apoya discursiva e institucionalmente los proyectos de Reforma Universitaria, pues ve en ella la posibilidad de construir una nueva Universidad capaz de trascender la lógica positivista. En particular, con la Facultad de Humanidades, por su capacidad (...) de instalar una mirada crítica irreductible a la lógica instrumental. (shrink)

Most discussions of Rawls’s philosophy tend to neglect the strong communitarian strand of his theory: so much so that in the debate between liberals and communitarians Rawls’s account of community has been for the most part intriguingly absent. This article is an attempt to fill in the gap by offering a discussion of the Rawlsian understanding of community as it was presented in A Theory of Justice and its possible implications for a pluralist society. At the same time, I want (...) to take issue with one of the most influential critiques leveled against Rawls’s conception of the self: namely, Sandel’s critique of the ‘individuated subject’ that, in his view, underlies justice as fairness. Rawls’s constructions, so Sandel argues, rest on an unencumbered self that is individuated in advance and whose identity is fixed once and for all. (shrink)

Although not often recognized as a major concern in his fecund writings, as Derrida himself indicates, Antonin Artaud accompanies his thought throughout his career. This essay explores that relationship by marking the various places where it appears, and by focusing on Derrida’s early discussions of Artaud. In them, Derrida traces the obsessive character of metaphysics as figured by Artaud’s word, a word that occurs as a speaking-writing-drawing. While Derrida’s discussions expose us to the physicality of Artaud’s word and with them (...) to a saying exterior to the metaphysical tradition. Derrida’s own obsession with the transcendental voice keeps him at a distance from engaging in the physicality and play of language one finds in Artaud’s words. (shrink)

Referirse a la multiplicidad es un lugar común cuando se trata de la obra de Alain Badiou, en tanto es una producción de una notoria complejidad y la exploración de sus diversas facetas es adentrarse en un universo de múltiples dimensiones. En este sentido, se propone comparar su producción con un caleidoscopio, un artefacto que revela la multiplicidad como esencia de la unidad y, a su vez, confiere significado a esa diversidad. Esta multiplicidad caleidoscópica no se limita únicamente a la (...) figura del intelectual y sus escritos, sino que se expande hacia otros ámbitos. En efecto, al analizar sus primeras obras y los inicios de su trayectoria intelectual se vuelve evidente la influencia de Sartre, así como sus conexiones posteriores con el estructuralismo francés y, en particular, con la figura de Louis Althusser. Por otra parte, interesa aquí destacar que las producciones de Badiou, lejos de encerrarse en debates del ámbito académico, se entrelazan con tópicos como la cuestión del amor, la cual se conecta de modo directo con el resto de sus reflexiones teóricas y políticas. De este modo, interesa aquí apreciar esta particular intersección que permite una comprensión más profunda de su pensamiento y su preocupación radical por lo social. (shrink)

This paper delves into the deconstruction of the notion of responsibility, drawing a correlation with the process of decomposition of the concept of sovereignty as discussed by Derrida in his last research works. We explore Derrida’s consideration of absolute responsibility as no longer passing through the figure of the sovereign. Derrida’s thought takes its distance from the philosophical and hegemonic determination of the notion of responsibility, for the conceptual system of its axiomatic defines responsibility based on the sovereign individual’s freedom (...) and makes responsibility the effect of his power. Yet, this definition condemns ethics to failure, since it does not account for the other supposed in the idea of response. Derrida incorporates absolute singularity, and consequently secrecy, into the structure of responsibility, enabling thought to encounter the absolute other. The text outlines the influence of Nietzsche and Celan in Derrida’s thought and develops an approach that sees in his work the effort to create a poetic revolution in the history of philosophy and knowledge by opening thought to radical alterity. (shrink)

Modern moral and political philosophy is in debt with natural law theory, both in its ancient and mediaeval elaborations. While the very notion of a natural law has proved highly controversial among 20th Century scholars, the last decades have witnessed a renewed interest in it. Indeed, the threats and challenges as result of multiculturalism, plural societies and global changes have generated a renewed attention to natural law theory. Clearly, it offers solid basis as possible framework to a better understanding of (...) human goods without contradictions and partial bias. The purpose of the present volume is to provide an overview of the history of this concept (Cicero, St. Paul, Aquinas, Melanchthon, Montaigne, Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Burke, Kant, MacIntyre, etc.) as well as a deep understanding of ongoing research, both in Europe and in America. Furthermore, the specificity of these studies will be of particular value to philosophers, law-philosophers, historians, anthropologists, sociologists and theologians, and those concerned on such issues as the relation between law and moral norm, law and practical reason, and the presence of the idea of natural law in several prominent thinkers. It includes a selected bibliography on natural law. The book also provides an excellent introduction to several of the major topics in natural law theory making it useful both as a reference text and as a sourcebook for academics alike. Natural law is a rich, complex, and highly disputed term. Since its first appearances in the history of Western civilization, it has been used both to point to God as the source of the moral order and to assert that there is an objective order of justice in nature that men and their laws ought to respect. In modern times, natural law theory gave birth to what we usually call "human rights." Unlike the meaning of the term, the importance of an ongoing debate on natural law and on the theories related to it is undisputable. This is why I welcome today this new collection of essays edited by Alejandro Nèstor Garcìa Martìnez, Mario Å ilar and Josè M. Torralba. Natural Law: Historical, Systematic and Juridical Approaches includes a wide variety of studies, covering key authors and issues in natural law theory. Younger students will appreciate the clarity of the chapters, and more trained readers the detailed and accurate bibliographical references that each of them offers. The editors's choice to go from a historical approach to contemporary theories, and then to theoretical and more practical issues is also commendable. Students in philosophy and in legal theory will greatly benefit from this book. Fulvio Di Blasi, author of God and the Natural Law: A Rereading of Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

In this essay I revise, based on the notion of the ‘enlightened ruler’ or mingzhu and his critique of the literati of his time, the common belief that Han Fei was an amoralist and an advocate of tyranny. Instead, I will argue that his writings are dedicated to advising those who ought to rule in order to achieve the goal of a peaceful and stable society framed by laws in accordance with the dao.

_ Source: _Volume 46, Issue 3, pp 390 - 404 This article puts into play the ghostly horizon of “death” as it follows its semblances through Derrida’s reading of Heidegger in the French thinker’s last seminars as published in _The Beast and the Sovereign_ Vol. II. The moments I underscore are three, always marking the playing out or releasing of death’s ghost, its sovereignty over life, while the readings, drift off driven by other forces: 1. In Session IV, Derrida’s enjambment (...) of Heidegger’s sense of _dasein_ and _Welt_ with Celan’s line from _Atemwende, “Die Welt ist fort, Ich muß dich tragen”_ ; 2. The mutual displacement of the question of the other and the question of death at the beginning of Session V ; and 3, the unfolding of Crusoe’s desire and fear of “living a living death” in Derrida’s discussion of _survivance_, also in session V. The discussion closes with the interpolation of Latin American thought through the introduction of the temporalizing movement of _différance_ read in light of the non-linear simultaneous asymmetric temporality one finds constitutive of Latin American consciousness. Thus, the reading moves from the deconstruction of various figures of death that permeate in an almost transcendental manner the organizing of the meaning of Derrida and Heidegger’s thought, to a thinking with the temporalizing movement of _survivance_ or living-dying, in which the binomial reasoning and teleological structures of temporality held by the figures of life and death are released to a thought beyond their supposed mutually exclusive timeline. (shrink)

This paper critically explores the ethical dimensions of Behavioral Public Policy (BPP), a domain grounded in the understanding that human rationality is bounded and that this limitation often leads to behaviors deemed irrational. By applying the behavioral lens, which posits that people operate under bounded rationality, BPP aims to craft interventions that safeguard individuals against their biases. However, this approach raises significant ethical concerns, both in the scientific underpinnings of BPP and its application through policy interventions. Accordingly, this paper examines (...) two distinct ethical dimensions of BPP, both as a scientific discipline and through its intervention methodologies. The analysis of the first dimension argues that, viewing bounded rationality as only instrumental in decision-making processes, risks oversimplifying ethical complexities. Such simplification may ignore the moral and value-based rationalities underlying decisions, potentially misattributing instances of immorality and akrasia (the failure to act according to one's judgment) to mere deficiencies in rational thinking. Secondly, the paper examines the impact of BPP on moral behavior and character development, addressing ethical concerns like the evidentiary basis of BPP research, the bounded rationality of choice architects themselves, and the morality of behavior changes induced by policy. Overall, this article provides a much-needed examination of the moral considerations associated with behavioral strategies in public policy and its epistemological foundations, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of their ethical implications . (shrink)

In this paper, I propose to analyse two objections raised by Turner Jr in his paper “On Two Reasons Christian Theologians Should Reject The Intermediate State” in order to show that the intermediate state is an incoherent theory. As we shall see, the two untoward consequences that he mentions do not imply a metaphysical or logical contradiction. Consequently, I shall defend an Intermediate State and I shall propose briefly one metaphysical conception of the human being able to reply to Turner (...) Jr’s objections. (shrink)

Since the concept of “nudge” was introduced in 2008 by Thaler and Sunstein, proposing that small interventions based on changes in choice architectures can alter people’s behavior and make it easier for them to achieve their desired goals, the application in public policy of behavioral economics has gained significant attention. This has led to the emergence of different types of policies based on behavioral insights, which have been used in a variety of areas, including health or finance, with the goal (...) of promoting well-being and addressing social and economic issues. After providing a basic theoretical background as a frame of reference to understand gender violence, this study explores the use of tools from the field of behavioral economics as it is applied in public policy. Regulatory (paternalistic) and non-regulatory (libertarian) interventions based on behavioral insights will be considered: nudges, boosts, shoves, budges, or sludge audits, are examined as potential interventions to use in matters related to this type of violence. After evaluating these behavioral policy instruments and their potential effectiveness, the limitations of the behavioral perspective are recognized, and the need for a multifaceted approach to combating gender violence is acknowledged. The article concludes by arguing that public policies addressing gender violence should not only utilize behavioral tools but should also incorporate strategies related to education, legislation, and social norms. (shrink)

Galen conceives of wounds, fractures, and similar conditions as belonging to one of the highest genera in his taxonomy of disease. This classification is puzzling, as much from an ancient Greco-Roman perspective as from a contemporary one. In what sense are wounds and other injuries diseases? The classification appears more perplexing in light of Galen's method of conceptual analysis, which takes ordinary language use as a starting point. What, then, motivated Galen's departure from common Greek conceptions of disease? This article (...) examines the class of disease that Galen called “dissolutions of continuity” in the broader context of his system of nosological definition and classification. It concludes that Galen's analysis of wounds is driven by his theory of causation, and by his localization of disease and its mechanism inside the body, a conceptualization typical of Greco-Roman medical writing. This conclusion sheds further light on Galen's method of disease classification and the role of dissolutions within it. (shrink)

Teacher quality, its effect on students’ outcomes, and the association of these with economic growth, is the core of recent discussions in Latin America given the region’s weak results in international learning assessments. This paper investigates whether there is an effect of philosophy on the outcomes of critical reading for students in B.Ed. programs in Colombia. Relying on exact matching combined with propensity score matching with regression adjustment, we use national data from Colombia to show that students in B.Ed. in (...) philosophy outperformed students in other B.Ed. in critical reading test (0.401–0.124 SD), and, importantly, with higher effects observed for students with lower prior academic achievement (0.44 SD). This suggests that philosophy can help to narrow educational outcomes of students whose socioeconomic conditions are disadvantageous, contributing to social justice in education. (shrink)

I argue that Husserl’s concept of position-taking, Stellungnahme, is adequate to understand the idea of second nature as an issue of philosophical anthropology. I claim that the methodological focus must be the living subject that acts and lives among others, and that the notion of second nature must respond to precisely this fundamental active character of subjectivity. The appropriate concept should satisfy two additional desiderata. First, it should be able to develop alongside the biological, psychological, and social individual development. Second, (...) it should be able to underlie the vast diversity of human beings within and across communities. As possible candidates, I contrast position-taking with two types of habit-like concepts: instinct and habitus, on the one hand, and customary habits, on the other. I argue that position-taking represents the active aspect of the subject while the habit-like concepts are passive. A subject’s position-takings and ensuing comportments are tied together by motivations, which evince a certain consistency, and for this reason are expression of the subject’s identity. I conclude by nuancing the relation between Stellungnahme and passivity. Passivity is deemed necessary to action but subservient to it; position-taking is thought to be prior to passivity. (shrink)

Garrett W. Brown has argued that donor voting caucuses produce a deliberative deficit between donor and non-donor members in the Global Fund International Board. Although we agree with this assessment, in our research on low-transaction cost alternatives to cope with consistent deliberative conditions we have found that deliberation and interest-based preference maximisation are not necessarily mutually exclusive, as long as we manage to stop donor members from behaving like monopolists. To this end, we have to open up the Board from (...) its present state of non-transparency, so that new input can be obtained from new constituents. This will also soften the current principal-agent structure that links members to their donors, easing the transition to market-driven governance rules that provide for the replacement of Board members if they do not fulfil the new constituents' expectations. (shrink)

In line with recent efforts to empirically study the folk concept of weakness of will, we examine two issues in this paper: (1) How is weakness of will attribution [WWA] influenced by an agent’s violations of best judgment and/or resolution, and by the moral valence of the agent’s action? (2) Do any of these influences depend on the cognitive dispositions of the judging individual? We implemented a factorial 2x2x2 between–subjects design with judgment violation, resolution violation, and action valence as independent (...) variables, and measured participants’ cognitive dispositions using Frederick’s Cognitive Reflection Test [CRT]. We conclude that intuitive and reflective individuals have two different concepts of weakness of will. The study supports this claim by showing that: a) the WWA of intuitive subjects is influenced by the action’s (and probably also the commitment’s) moral valence, while the WWA of reflective subjects is not; b) judgment violation plays a small role in the WWA of intuitive subjects, while reflective subjects treat resolution violation as the only relevant trait. Data were collected among students at two different universities. All subjects (N=710) answered the CRT. A three-way ANOVA was first conducted on the whole sample and then on the intuitive and reflective groups separately. This study suggests that differences in cognitive dispositions can significantly impact the folk understanding of philosophical concepts, and thus suggests that analysis of folk concepts should take cognitive dispositions into account. (shrink)

In "Machiavelli’s Art of Politics" Alejandro Bárcenas offers a reexamination of Niccolò Machiavelli’s political thought in order to propose a concise and historically accurate portrayal of his ideas and intellectual context. -/- This study provides a nuanced view of the complexities of Machiavelli’s thought by analyzing his classical background, taking into particular consideration the influence of Xenophon, and his view of the ideal ruler as someone who creates the conditions for a flourishing human life. In addition, Bárcenas explains why (...) Machiavelli defends a republican political order that encourages citizens to live according to their own laws while serving a common good and revises his legacy through the writings of Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin and Maurizio Viroli. (shrink)

While recognizing its origins and scope, Alejandro A. Vallega offers a new interpretation of Latin American philosophy by looking at its radical and transformative roots. Placing it in dialogue with Western philosophical traditions, Vallega examines developments in gender studies, race theory, postcolonial theory, and the legacy of cultural dependency in light of the Latin American experience. He explores Latin America’s engagement with contemporary problems in Western philosophy and describes the transformative impact of this encounter on contemporary thought.

In the operating room, patient safety is of paramount importance. Medical students and junior trainees, despite their primary role as students, may play active roles in assessing patient safety and reporting suspected errors. Active consent is one layer of patient safety that is continuously assessed by several team members. This article examines an instance where patient consent may have been violated. Through the lens of trainee and senior perspectives, we discuss the ethical principles at stake and provide recommendations for medical (...) student and junior trainee involvement in patient care when an error is suspected. (shrink)

Most discussions of Rawls’s philosophy tend to neglect the strong communitarian strand of his theory: so much so that in the debate between liberals and communitarians Rawls’s account of community has been for the most part intriguingly absent. This article is an attempt to fill in the gap by offering a discussion of the Rawlsian understanding of community as it was presented inA Theory of Justiceand its possible implications for a pluralist society. At the same time, I want to take (...) issue with one of the most influential critiques leveled against Rawls’s conception of the self: namely, Sandel’s critique of the ‘individuated subject’ that, in his view, underlies justice as fairness. Rawls’s constructions, so Sandel argues, rest on an unencumbered self that is individuated in advance and whose identity is fixed once and for all. (shrink)

Can we reify the form of a substance? Is it possible to identify DNA as the principle of our personal and numerical identity? These questions will be studied through Berti’s reading of Aristotle’s hylomorphism. Indeed, Enrico Berti proposes the identification of the DNA to the Aristotelian notion of form, thesis which raises many questions from an exegetical point of view and a metaphysical perspective. We will present the sources of Berti’s reading and one of the main objections made by Aristotle. (...) Thus, different versions of the Berti’s thesis will be examined and then, a thought experiment that makes them false. Finally, it will be proposed an aristotelian solution, coming from a contemporary Aristotelian (E. J. Lowe), that seems to prevent Berti’s mistakes and gives us a robust metaphysics of the identity. (shrink)

Giorgio Agamben’s thought arises out of thinking through the concrete negativity or ungroundedness figured by “life” as understood under the sovereign exception. His work is sustained by the continuous exposure of philosophical concepts to what remains excluded, silenced, and to an extent unsayable for philosophy: Thus, disfiguring, decentering, and violating the temporality of Western history and philosophy as well as the concepts that order it. This means that Agamben thinks out of the ungrounded occurrences of language and history, and that (...) the transformative potency of his thought arises from sheer negativity and yet, in his engagement of thought’s concrete situation. (shrink)

Modernity’s grand plans were designed far from where we stand today. The prerogative of progress as an ideological imperative that defined colonialism as a natural balance between the ‘developed’ societies’ moral duty to rescue ‘underdeveloped’ peoples from their fate of myth and superstition created education. Education that functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of generations into the logic and aesthetics of the status quo and to bring about conformity to the hegemonic cultural form of western (...) technological consumer capitalism. This article explores whose education and for whom was it created by the imperial ideologies, not of nineteenth- or twentieth-century colonialism but for twenty-first-century western technological consumer neo-colonialism. From South Africa’s Apartheid era Liberation before education to Paulo Freire’s practice of freedom, this article questions the practices of new technologies, art and technology education at the edge of the disenfranchised. The traditional frameworks of education are on an ideological and methodological crisis worldwide. The hegemony of knowledge has ruptured away from academia. The linearity of thought has burst open as an omni-directional array. The hierarchy of authorship is contested and the audiences are becoming users and participants. As the ubiquity of information technologies, the emergence of connectedness, cheap chips and the presage of the Internet of things permeates every aspect of a particular section of people clustered in specific cities and spread out around the globe, a unique consciousness is evolving where a new collaboration paradigm is gaining a place of balance between us, nature and our technologies, our positions on social justice, and is evolving a symbiotic outlook at other cultures and societies. (shrink)

In the Origin of Species (1859), Darwin argued that his revolutionary theory of evolution by natural selection represented a significant breakthrough in the understanding of instinctive behaviour. However, many aspects in the development of his thinking on behavioural phenomena indicate that the explanation of this particular organic feature was by no means an easy one, but that it posed an authentic challenge – something that Darwin himself always recognized. This paper explores Darwin’s treatment of instincts within his theory of natural (...) selection. Particular attention is given to elucidate how he tackled the difficulties of explaining instincts as evolving mental features. He had to explain and demonstrate its inheritance, variation, and gradual accumulation within populations. The historical and philosophical aspects of his theory are highlighted, as well as his study of the case in which the explanation of instincts represented a ‘special difficulty’; that is, the sterile castes of social insects. (shrink)

Against the common historiographic narratives of evolutionary biology, the first decades of the 20th century were theoretically far richer than usually assumed. This especially refers to the hitherto neglected role that early theoretical biologists played in introducing visionary research perspectives and concepts before the institutionalization of the Modern Synthesis. Here, we present one of these scholars, the German theoretical biologist and ecomorphologist Hans Böker, by reviewing his 1935 paper “Artumwandlung durch Umkonstruktion, Umkonstruktion durch aktives Reagieren der Organismen”, published in the (...) inaugural volume of the journal Acta Biotheoretica. While largely forgotten today, this work represents a melting pot of ideas that adumbrate some of today’s most lively debated empirical and conceptual topics in evolutionary biology: the active role of organisms as actors of their own evolution, environmental induction and phenotypic plasticity, genetic assimilation, as well as developmental bias. We discuss Böker’s views on how species change through "Umkonstruktion," and how such reconstruction is exerted through active reactions of organisms to environmental perturbations. In addition, we outline the aims and wider context of his "biological comparative anatomy," including Boker’s reprehensible political affiliation with the Nazi Party. Finally, we highlight some of the historical reasons for why Böker’s views did not have a larger impact in evolutionary biology, but we also recount some of the direct and indirect legacies of his approach in research areas such as ecomorphology and EvoDevo. Böker’s paper is available as supplementary material in the online version of this article, as part of the journal's "Classics in Biological Theory" collection; the first translation of the paper into English, by Alexander Böhm and Jan Baedke, is also being published in this volume. (shrink)

Liberatory thought in Latin American philosophy leads to the question of the reinterpretation of historical time consciousness. In the following pages I first introduce the challenge as articulated out of Latin American thought, particularly with reference to Enrique Dussel and Aníbal Quijano, and then I develop a reinterpretation of historical time consciousness in its happening as understood through Hans-Georg Gadamer’s discussion of effected historical consciousness in Truth and Method. As already marked by this trajectory, this essay is not comparative, but, (...) through a dialogue with these thinkers, seeks to rethink the temporalizing-historical movement that is historical consciousness as a possible path to engaging in and understanding liberatory philosophy. (shrink)

Through a discussion of “translucence” in Plato’s Phaidros and in Juan Jose Saer’s “On Line,” in this essay I attempt to engage the simultaneous experience of the concrete sense of language and of the appearing of beings in their materiality through language. The discussion ultimately suggests that, when taken in its full force, the philosophical logos figures the elemental translucence of beings in their intelligibility; a formulation meant to resist the separation of language and concreteness. Such an interpretation of the (...) philosophical logos also leads to the understanding of thought as an elemental, interpretative, transformative, and “marginal” experience. (shrink)

This paper addresses whether the adoption of Japanese financial practices by U.S. corporations can be used as a basis for encouraging U.S. managers to promote the interests of their (human) organizations over those of stockholders. An historical overview is provided of how the corporate organization in each country evolved and the corresponding development of managers’ responsibilities to the corporate organization versus shareholders. These concepts are then examined within the context of each country’s contemporary corporate financial structure and the corresponding financial (...) responsibilities of managers to the corporate organization versus shareholders. A discussion is then provided of whether the values embodied in each system would affect the ability of the United States to encourage a more “corporate-oriented” ethic in its managers by adopting Japanese financial practices. (shrink)

In 1922 the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) Council approved a motion to send an invitation to Albert Einstein to visit Argentina and give a course of lectures on his theory of relativity. The motion was proposed by Jorge Duclout (1856–1927), who had been educated at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zurich (ETH). This proposal was the culmination of a series of initiatives of various Argentine intellectuals interested in the theory of relativity. In a very short time Dr. Mauricio Nirenstein (1877–1935), (...) then the university's administrative secretary, fulfilled all the requirements for the university's invitation to be endorsed and delivered to the sage in Berlin. The visit took place three years later, in March–April 1925. (shrink)

Paul Klee’s sense of modern art and his own painting as the channeling of the originary movement of life leads to an insight beyond modern art, and back towards such dynamic cosmological experiences as that of the Onas people of Patagonia. In their daily life and their rituals their painted bodies expressed the living force of their cosmos, an originary energy that occurred at the limit of what one may call art and nature. In engaging Klee’s painting and drawing, one (...) is brought to such an open space of living transformative movement; one finds a place wider than our present imagination, a time-space that in our being exposed to his works and experience remains for us to inhabit. (shrink)