Learning to adapt to the new set of conditions that confound behavioral standards was made possible by the pandemic-driven change in the school system. Due to these conditions and the COVID-19 pandemic, students may experience behaviors like social media addiction and social anxiety that may affect their well-being or happiness. Thus, this study aims to investigate the effects of social media addiction and social anxiety on the happiness of tertiary students amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was conducted on 316 (...) first-year college students utilizing Google forms to disseminate questionnaires. After utilizing Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale, Social Anxiety Scale, and Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, it was found that social media addiction (β = -0.30, p<.00) and social anxiety (β = -0.003, p<.00) has a significant negative effect on happiness. Therefore, the study recommended and designed a student wellness program that provides a range of recreational, healthimproving, self-esteem-boosting, and relationship-strengthening activities for students in order to mitigate the negative effects of problematic social media usage and social anxiety that negatively effect their happiness. (shrink)

Se evaluó la autorregulación en estudiantes de nuevo ingreso en una licenciatura en psicología en línea. Se adaptó y aplicó el Inventario de Estilos de Aprendizaje y Orientación Motivacional de Castañeda y Ortega a una muestra de 204 estudiantes encontrando que la edad se relaciona con la eficacia percibida, la aprobación externa y el manejo de materiales de estudio. Palabras clave: autorregulación, educación en línea, educación superior, estrategias de aprendizaje, motivación.

La recepción durante el siglo XX se preguntó si la filosofía nietzscheana era a-, im- o anti-política, es decir, si podía ser asimilada por la democracia, o si era antimoderna, elitista y reaccionaria. El italiano Roberto Esposito ha propuesto leerla como formando e informando el paradigma de la biopolítica. Se discuten cuatro lecturas de esa biopolítica: como formadora del paradigma de la inmunidad, como tanatopolítica, como liberal y neoliberal, y como biopolítica afirmativa. Twentieth-century readers wondered if Nietzschean philosophy was apolitical, (...) impolitic, or anti-political; that is, if it could be assimilated by democracy or if it was antimodern, elitist, and reactionary. The Italian philosopher Robert Esposito has proposed reading Nietzsche's philosophy as forming and informing the biopolitical paradigm. Four readings of these biopolitics are discussed: as part of the paradigm of immunity, as thanatopolitics, as liberal and neoliberal, and as affirmative biopolitics. (shrink)

Durante las últimas décadas, el análisis de los procesos de integración regional ha sido materia de especial interés para numerosos estudiosos de las relaciones internacionales. Entre las distintas visiones que se han enfocado en esta esfera, especialmente destacables resultan el funcionalismo, desde cuya perspectiva los estudios de David Mitrany resultan especialmente importantes; el neofuncionalismo de Ernst Haas y Philippe Schmiter; y el análisis de Karl Deutsch, desde el punto de vista d..

Reseña de ‘Filosofía y experimentación sonora’ de Gustavo Celedón Bórquez, realizada por Marcela Rivera Hutinel, Dra. en Filosofía, académica de la Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación. Gustavo Celedón Bórquez Filosofía y experimentación sonora Ediciones Metales Pesados 2023 Santiago 376 páginas ISBN: 9789566203100.

Este texto corresponde a una versión ligeramente extendida de la presentación leída en el lanzamiento del libro _La Universidad (im)posible_, publicado por Ediciones Macul, realizada el 10 de mayo de 2019 en el Salón Juan Gómez Millas de la UMCE. El volumen reúne la mayoría de los trabajos presentados en el Coloquio Internacional “La Universidad posible”, realizado en Santiago de Chile, entre el 18 y el 21 de abril de 2016, incluyendo contribuciones de quienes se hicieron parte de la (...) convocatoria, pero no pudieron estar presentes. Ampliando las resonancias de la fórmula nietzscheana que da nombre a la segunda de sus consideraciones intempestivas, en las que el golpe de martillo recae sobre la utilidad y el perjuicio de la historia para la vida, intentamos esbozar una clave de lectura que permita recorrer los diversos envites de este libro desde la atención al malestar que se aloja hoy en la universidad, anudado a su devenir corporativo y a la gramática de una existencia sofocada por el lenguaje_ _del neoliberalismo. Viendo resquebrajarse la idea que la universidad tenía de sí misma, su transformación exige a quienes la habitamos volver a tensar los hilos que la anudan con la vida y con la muerte, para no conceder simplemente a las prácticas que, por los poderes y lógicas que la asedian y conforman, esta institución actualmente alberga. Si la vida queda excluida de la universidad, como vislumbra Walter Benjamin en su ensayo temprano sobre _La vida de los estudiantes, _la tarea recae en activar las facultades de la contienda para inventarse una nueva, _otra _universidad posible, una en la que el pensamiento, la imaginación y el deseo puedan volver a rastrillar lo que queda de porvenir en la memoria de ese nombre. _Palabras Clave: _Universidad – Vida – Neoliberalismo – Crítica. (shrink)

En 15 apretados artículos y 4 capítulos, el presente libro representa una puesta al día de los conocimientos que en la actualidad se manejan para valorar y sintetizar el aporte de esta cultura al legado cultural pan andino. La obra, iniciativa de los profesores Rivera y Kolata, constituye el resultado final de uno de los simposios del LI Congreso de Americanistas, celebrado en la ciudad de Santiago en julio del año 2003.Es el mérito indiscutido de los dos editores (...) el haber logrado obtener un .. (shrink)

Una paradoja constitutiva de la cuestión migratoria a nivel mundial, tiene relación con el derecho humano a la libre circulación y la incapacidad política para avalarlo. Principalmente porque las garantías extendidas al emigrante no son las mismas que se ofrecen al inmigrante, y varían dependiendo de lo reconocido legítimamente por los Estados en su constitución y del interés, la conveniencia y la voluntad política de los gobiernos. Los que muchas veces tienden a politizar un problema social,..

The emergency of aesthetics -- Measurable contemplations -- Indifferent beauty -- Emergency through art -- Social paradoxes -- Urban discharges -- Environmental calls -- Historical accounts -- Emergency aesthetics -- Anarchic interpretations -- Existential interventions.

Este trabajo desarrolla una propuesta de análisis en torno a los repertorios de acción que pusieron en cuestión los símbolos de la nación moderna y al proyecto urbano neoliberal, como elementos civilizadores. Proponemos que la narrativa monumental ha sido tensionada por el despliegue de una producción estética que ha revelado sus violencias y exclusiones históricas. El centro de Santiago fue el escenario donde se desplegaron diversos repertorios que hablan de las múltiples temporalidades que habitamos, entre ellas la temporalidad colonial. (...) En este sentido, creemos que la Revuelta tuvo un carácter chi’xi, siguiendo las ideas de Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, es decir, operaron repertorios y estéticas yuxtapuestas desde donde se impugnaron las políticas de identidad del estado chileno. Asimismo, como parte de este proceso, se desplegaron nuevos usos, significados y nombres en el espacio urbano, a modo de un quehacer insurgente cuya densidad retorica todavía nos desborda, sigue abierto y en disputa. (shrink)

First collected in Italy in 1985, _Art's Claim to Truth_ is considered by many philosophers to be one of Gianni Vattimo's most important works. Newly revised for English readers, the book begins with a challenge to Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel, who viewed art as a metaphysical aspect of reality rather than a futuristic anticipation of it. Following Martin Heidegger's interpretation of the history of philosophy, Vattimo outlines the existential ontological conditions of aesthetics, paying particular attention to the works of (...) Kandinsky, which reaffirm the ontological implications of art. Vattimo then builds on Hans-Georg Gadamer's theory of aesthetics and provides an alternative to a rationalistic-positivistic criticism of art. This is the heart of Vattimo's argument, and with it he demonstrates how hermeneutical philosophy reaffirms art's ontological status and makes clear the importance of hermeneutics for aesthetic studies. In the book's final section, Vattimo articulates the consequences of reclaiming the ontological status of aesthetics without its metaphysical implications, holding Aristotle's concept of beauty responsible for the dissolution of metaphysics itself. In its direct engagement with the works of Gadamer, Heidegger, and Luigi Pareyson, _Art's Claim to Truth_ offers a better understanding of the work of Vattimo and a deeper knowledge of ontology, hermeneutics, and the philosophical examination of truth. (shrink)

Though coming from different and distinct intellectual traditions, Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo are united in their criticism of the metaphysical tradition. The challenges they put forward extend beyond philosophy and entail a reconsideration of the foundations of belief in God and the religious life. They urge that the rejection of metaphysical truth does not necessitate the death of religion; instead it opens new ways of imagining what it is to be religious -- ways that emphasize charity, solidarity, and irony. (...) This unique collaboration, which includes a dialogue between the two philosophers, is notable not only for its fusion of pragmatism and hermeneutics but also for its recognition of the limits of both traditional religious belief and modern secularism. In "Anticlericalism and Atheism" Rorty discusses Vattimo's work _Belief_ and argues that the end of metaphysics paves the way for an anti-essentialist religion. Rorty's conception of religion, determined by private motives, is designed to produce the gospel's promise that henceforth God will not consider humanity as a servant but as a friend. In "The Age of Interpretation," Vattimo, who is both a devout Catholic and a frequent critic of the church, explores the surprising congruence between Christianity and hermeneutics in light of the dissolution of metaphysical truth. As in hermeneutics, interpretation is central to Christianity, which introduced the world to the principle of interiority, dissolving the experience of objective reality into "listening to and interpreting messages." The lively dialogue that concludes this volume, moderated and edited by Santiago Zabala, analyzes the future of religion together with the political, social, and historical aspects that characterize our contemporary postmodern, postmetaphysical, and post-Christian world. (shrink)

Though coming from different and distinct intellectual traditions, Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo are united in their criticism of the metaphysical tradition. The challenges they put forward extend beyond philosophy and entail a reconsideration of the foundations of belief in God and the religious life. They urge that the rejection of metaphysical truth does not necessitate the death of religion; instead it opens new ways of imagining what it is to be religious -- ways that emphasize charity, solidarity, and irony. (...) This unique collaboration, which includes a dialogue between the two philosophers, is notable not only for its fusion of pragmatism and hermeneutics but also for its recognition of the limits of both traditional religious belief and modern secularism. In "Anticlericalism and Atheism" Rorty discusses Vattimo's work _Belief_ and argues that the end of metaphysics paves the way for an anti-essentialist religion. Rorty's conception of religion, determined by private motives, is designed to produce the gospel's promise that henceforth God will not consider humanity as a servant but as a friend. In "The Age of Interpretation," Vattimo, who is both a devout Catholic and a frequent critic of the church, explores the surprising congruence between Christianity and hermeneutics in light of the dissolution of metaphysical truth. As in hermeneutics, interpretation is central to Christianity, which introduced the world to the principle of interiority, dissolving the experience of objective reality into "listening to and interpreting messages." The lively dialogue that concludes this volume, moderated and edited by Santiago Zabala, analyzes the future of religion together with the political, social, and historical aspects that characterize our contemporary postmodern, postmetaphysical, and post-Christian world. (shrink)

In _Basic Concepts_, Heidegger claims that "Being is the most worn-out" and yet also that Being "remains constantly available." Santiago Zabala radicalizes the consequences of these little known but significant affirmations. Revisiting the work of Jacques Derrida, Reiner Schürmann, Jean-Luc Nancy, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Ernst Tugendhat, and Gianni Vattimo, he finds these remains of Being within which ontological thought can still operate. Being is an event, Zabala argues, a kind of generosity and gift that generates astonishment in those who experience (...) it. This sense of wonder has fueled questions of meaning for centuries-from Plato to the present day. Postmetaphysical accounts of Being, as exemplified by the thinkers of Zabala's analysis, as well as by Nietzsche, Dewey, and others he encounters, don't abandon Being. Rather, they reject rigid, determined modes of essentialist thought in favor of more fluid, malleable, and adaptable conceptions, redefining the pursuit and meaning of philosophy itself. (shrink)

abstract The possibility that organ sales by living adults might be made legal is morally distressing to many of us. However, powerful arguments have been provided recently supporting legalisation (I consider two of those arguments: the Consequentialist Argument and the Autonomy Argument). Is our instinctive reaction against a market of organs irrational then? The aim of this paper is not to prove that legalization would be immoral, all things considered, but rather to show, first, that there are some kinds of (...) arguments, offered in favour of legalisation, that are, in an important sense, illegitimate, and second, that even if legalisation might not be wrong all things considered, there are good reasons for our negative moral intuitions. Moreover, identifying these reasons will help highlight some features of moral decisions in non‐ideal situations, which in turn might be relevant to some other moral or policy choices. (shrink)

First collected in Italy in 1985, _Art's Claim to Truth_ is considered by many philosophers to be one of Gianni Vattimo's most important works. Newly revised for English readers, the book begins with a challenge to Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel, who viewed art as a metaphysical aspect of reality rather than a futuristic anticipation of it. Following Martin Heidegger's interpretation of the history of philosophy, Vattimo outlines the existential ontological conditions of aesthetics, paying particular attention to the works of (...) Kandinsky, which reaffirm the ontological implications of art. Vattimo then builds on Hans-Georg Gadamer's theory of aesthetics and provides an alternative to a rationalistic-positivistic criticism of art. This is the heart of Vattimo's argument, and with it he demonstrates how hermeneutical philosophy reaffirms art's ontological status and makes clear the importance of hermeneutics for aesthetic studies. In the book's final section, Vattimo articulates the consequences of reclaiming the ontological status of aesthetics without its metaphysical implications, holding Aristotle's concept of beauty responsible for the dissolution of metaphysics itself. In its direct engagement with the works of Gadamer, Heidegger, and Luigi Pareyson, _Art's Claim to Truth_ offers a better understanding of the work of Vattimo and a deeper knowledge of ontology, hermeneutics, and the philosophical examination of truth. (shrink)

A daring marriage of philosophical theory and practical politics, this collection is the first of Gianni Vattimo's many books to combine his intellectual pursuits with his public and political life. Vattimo is a paradoxical figure, at once a believing Christian and a vociferous critic of the Catholic Church, an outspoken liberal but not a former communist, and a recognized authority on Nietzsche and Heidegger as well as a prominent public intellectual and member of the European parliament. Building on his unique (...) position as a philosopher and politician, Vattimo takes on some of the most pressing questions of our time: Is it still possible, long after Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, to talk of moral imperatives, individual rights, or political freedom? Are these values still relevant in today's world? Tackling these crucial issues, Gianni Vattimo argues that nihilism is not the absence of meaning but a recognition of a plurality of meanings; it is not the end of civilization but the beginning of new social paradigms. Commonly associated with the pessimistic belief that all of existence is meaningless, nihilism, as a philosophical principle, is far less sensational -- it is the ethical doctrine that there are no moral absolutes or infallible natural laws, that "truth" is inescapably subjective. Because the conditions for equality and liberty are not "naturally" given, society must actively create these ideals or it will inevitably fall prey to irrationality, prejudice, and oppression. Vattimo contends that the infighting, timidity, and confusion that have overtaken contemporary liberal thought and politics are the products a prolonged and indulgent mourning over the loss of the transcendental father figure -- any institution or power structure that defines truth, knowledge, and reality. Until humanity overcomes its need for external authority -- whether it be organized religion, the nation-state, or free-market capitalism -- emancipation will remain unattainable. Collecting fourteen of Vattimo's most influential essays on ethics, politics, and law, _Nihilism and Emancipation_ is a provocative reevaluation of meaning, values, and the idea of freedom in Western culture. (shrink)

Genetic research in human beings poses deep ethical problems, one being the problem of distributive justice. If we suppose that genetic technologies are able to produce visible benefits for the well being of people, and that these benefits are affordable to only a favored portion of society, then the consequence is obvious. We are introducing a new source of inequality. In the first section of this paper, I attempt to justify some concern for the distributive consequences of applying genetics to (...) human beings. This concern transcends a mere preoccupation for material equality. I argue that genetic inequality can undermine the very basis of social cooperation, at least regarding health care. The second section is more practical. My aim is to defend how, at least in some legal and cultural frameworks , the undesired distributive consequences of genetics are more likely to arise and more difficult to avoid. (shrink)

Theories of emotional justification investigate the conditions under which emotions are epistemically justified or unjustified. I make three contributions to this research program. First, I show that we can generalize some familiar epistemological concepts and distinctions to emotional experiences. Second, I use these concepts and distinctions to display the limits of the ‘simple view’ of emotional justification. On this approach, the justification of emotions stems only from the contents of the mental states they are based on, also known as their (...) cognitive bases. The simple view faces the ‘gap problem’: If cognitive bases and emotions (re)present their objects and properties in different ways, then cognitive bases are not sufficient to justify emotions. Third, I offer a novel solution to the gap problem based on emotional dispositions. This solution (1) draws a line between the justification of basic and non-basic emotions, (2) preserves a broadly cognitivist view of emotions, (3) avoids a form of value skepticism that threatens inferentialist views of emotional justification, and (4) sheds new light on the structure of our epistemic access to evaluative properties. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers—analytic as well as continental—tend to feel uneasy about Ernst Tugendhat, who, though he positions himself in the analytic field, poses questions in the Heideggerian style. Tugendhat was one of Martin Heidegger's last pupils and his least obedient, pursuing a new and controversial critical technique. Tugendhat took Heidegger's destruction of Being as presence and developed it in analytic philosophy, more specifically in semantics. Only formal semantics, according to Tugendhat, could answer the questions left open by Heidegger. Yet in doing (...) this, Tugendhat discovered the latent "hermeneutic nature of analytic philosophy"—its post-metaphysical dimension—in which "there are no facts, but only true propositions." What Tugendhat seeks to answer is this: What is the meaning of thought following the linguistic turn? Because of the rift between analytic and continental philosophers, very few studies have been written on Tugendhat, and he has been omitted altogether from several histories of philosophy. Now that these two schools have begun to reconcile, Tugendhat has become an example of a philosopher who, in the words of Richard Rorty, "built bridges between continents and between centuries." Tugendhat is known more for his philosophical turn than for his phenomenological studies or for his position within analytic philosophy, and this creates some confusion regarding his philosophical propensities. Is Tugendhat analytic or continental? Is he a follower of Wittgenstein or Heidegger? Does he belong in the culture of analysis or in that of tradition? Santiago Zabala presents Tugendhat as an example of merged horizons, promoting a philosophical historiography that is concerned more with dialogue and less with classification. In doing so, he places us squarely within a dialogic culture of the future and proves that any such labels impoverish philosophical research. (shrink)

In his recent article, ‘A Gift to Theology? Jean-Luc Marion's ‘Saturated Phenomena’ in Christological Perspective’, Brian Robinette has critiqued Marion's phenomenology for confining theology to a one-sided approach to Christology, one that stresses only the passive, mystical reception of Christ. To correct this imbalance, Robinette brings Marion into dialogue with those more active Christologies or ‘prophetical-ethical’ liberation theologies of Gustavo Gutierrez, Johann Baptist Metz and others that stress a life-praxis focused on confronting evil and suffering. In this essay I am (...) arguing that Robinette has not fully developed the ‘logic’ of Marion's phenomenology of the ‘call and the gifted’, in which both a passive and an active element are operative. I explore more fully that very dynamic phenomenological process of the call-and-the-gifted as developed in Marion's work Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness. Once viewed in Christological perspective, and especially in light of Christ's death and resurrection, Marion's phenomenology entails an ethical trope consistent with the mission of Christ as rendered in Scriptural revelation, and thus the gap between Marion's work and the prophetical-ethical theologies of Gutierrez and Baptist Metz becomes narrowed. (shrink)

The essays in Weakening Philosophy, from leading figures such as Umberto Eco and Charles Taylor, introduce his ideas to a wider audience.

Edited by Ivette Fred-Rivera and Jessica Leech. What is the relationship between ontology and modality: between what there is, and what there could be, must be, or might have been? Throughout a distinguished career, Bob Hale’s work has addressed this question on a number of fronts, through the development of a Fregean approach to ontology, an essentialist theory of modality, and in his work on neo-logicism in the philosophy of mathematics. This collection of new essays engages with these themes (...) in Hale’s work in order to make further progress in our understanding of ontology, modality, and the relations between them. Some essays directly address questions in modal metaphysics, drawing on ontological concerns. Others raise questions in modal epistemology and its links to matters of ontology, such as the challenge to give an epistemology of essence. There are also several essays engaging with questions of what might be called ‘modal ontology’: the study of whether and what things exist necessarily or contingently. Such issues can be raised and addressed directly, but they also have an important bearing on the kinds of semantic commitments engendered in logic and mathematics, e.g., to the existence of sets, or numbers, or properties, and so on. It is thus explored in some chapters to what extent one’s ontology—and indeed, one’s ontology of necessary beings—interacts with other plausible assumptions and commitments. (shrink)

RESUMEN: El tema de este trabajo es la reconstrucción de la teoría de la selección natural darwiniana. Me propongo esbozar la ley fundamental de esta teoría de manera informal a partir de sus aplicaciones en El origen de las especies de Darwin y presentar sus conceptos fundamentales. Presentaré la red teórica de leyes especiales que surgen de la especialización de esta ley fundamental. Supondré el estructuralismo como marco metateórico. Señalaré también algunas consecuencias que mi propuesta tiene sobre ciertas discusiones metateóricas (...) en torno a la teoría y, finalmente, relacionaré mi reconstrucción con otras reconstrucciones disponibles.ABSTRACT: This paper is about the reconstruction of the Darwinian Theory of Natural Selection. My aim here is to outline the fundamental law of this theory in an informal way from its applications in The Origin of Species and to make explicit its fundamental concepts. I will introduce the theory-nets of special laws that arisefrom the specialization of the fundamental law. I will assume the metatheoretical structuralist frame. I will also point out many consequences that my proposal has about a few metatheoretical discussions around the theory and, finally, I will relate my propose to other reconstructions available. (shrink)

A daring marriage of philosophical theory and practical politics, this collection is the first of Gianni Vattimo's many books to combine his intellectual pursuits with his public and political life. Vattimo is a paradoxical figure, at once a believing Christian and a vociferous critic of the Catholic Church, an outspoken liberal but not a former communist, and a recognized authority on Nietzsche and Heidegger as well as a prominent public intellectual and member of the European parliament. Building on his unique (...) position as a philosopher and politician, Vattimo takes on some of the most pressing questions of our time: Is it still possible, long after Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, to talk of moral imperatives, individual rights, or political freedom? Are these values still relevant in today's world? Tackling these crucial issues, Gianni Vattimo argues that nihilism is not the absence of meaning but a recognition of a plurality of meanings; it is not the end of civilization but the beginning of new social paradigms. Commonly associated with the pessimistic belief that all of existence is meaningless, nihilism, as a philosophical principle, is far less sensational -- it is the ethical doctrine that there are no moral absolutes or infallible natural laws, that "truth" is inescapably subjective. Because the conditions for equality and liberty are not "naturally" given, society must actively create these ideals or it will inevitably fall prey to irrationality, prejudice, and oppression. Vattimo contends that the infighting, timidity, and confusion that have overtaken contemporary liberal thought and politics are the products a prolonged and indulgent mourning over the loss of the transcendental father figure -- any institution or power structure that defines truth, knowledge, and reality. Until humanity overcomes its need for external authority -- whether it be organized religion, the nation-state, or free-market capitalism -- emancipation will remain unattainable. Collecting fourteen of Vattimo's most influential essays on ethics, politics, and law, _Nihilism and Emancipation_ is a provocative reevaluation of meaning, values, and the idea of freedom in Western culture. (shrink)

This paper introduces a body of research on Organizational Behavior and Industrial/organizational Psychology that expands the range of empirical evidence relevant to the ongoing character-situation debate. This body of research, mostly neglected by moral philosophers, provides important insights to move the debate forward. First, the OB/io scholarship provides empirical evidence to show that social environments like organizations have significant power to shape the character traits of their members. This scholarship also describes some of the mechanisms through which this process of (...) reshaping character takes place. Second, the character-situation debate has narrowly focused on situational influences that affect behavior episodically and haphazardly. The OB/io research, however, highlights the importance of distinguishing such situational influences from influences that, like organizational influences, shape our character traits because they are continuous and coordinated. Third, the OB/io literature suggests that most individuals display character traits that, while local to the organization, can be consistent across situations. This puts pressure on the accounts of character proposed by traditional virtue ethics and situationism and provides empirical support to interactionist models based on cognitive-affective processing system theories of personality. Finally, the OB/io literature raises important challenges to the possibility of achieving virtue, provides valuable and untapped resources to cultivate character, and suggests new avenues of normative and empirical research. (shrink)

This is a draft of my chapter on Negligence for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook in Moral Psychology. It discusses philosophical, psychological, and legal approaches to the attribution of culpability in cases of negligent wrongdoing.

“ Moral luck” alludes to the fact of being responsible for things over which we have no control. Typically, we have neither control over the consequences of our acts of will nor over the circumstances in which these acts are performed. The Kantian thesis on oral responsibility claims that every kind of moral responsibility claims that every kind of moral luck should be eliminated from our moral language and practice. In the case of consequences, this aim does not seem impossible. (...) But circumstances are more difficult to avoid because the act of will itself has to be performed within the framework of circumstances that the agent cannot control at all, and these circumstances will dramatically bear on his/her responsibility. Therefore, the following anti-Kantian argument can be construed. Either we reject circumstantial luck argument can be construed. Either we reject circumstantial luck or we accept it. If we reject it, then every attribution of responsibility becomes impossible. If we accept it, then we no longer have a good argument against consequential luck, the core of the Kantian rejection of moral luck. In this paper, I defend the Kantian position from this argument, claiming that both kinds of moral luck are relevantly different. This will, nevertheless, lead to a revision of the scope of our judgments of responsibility. They compare how someone acted with how others would act in identical 8or similar) circumstances. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue for an instrumental form of existence, inspired by Hilbert’s method of ideal elements. As a case study, we consider the existence of contradictory objects in models of non-classical set theories. Based on this discussion, we argue for a very liberal notion of existence in mathematics.

Scholars who favor shareholder primacy usually claim either that managers should not fulfill corporate duties of beneficence or that, if they are required to fulfill them, they do so by going against their obligations to shareholders. Distinguishing between structurally different types of duties of beneficence and recognizing the full force of the normative demands imposed on managers reveal that this view needs to be qualified. Although it is correct to think that managers, when acting on behalf of shareholders, are not (...) required to fulfill wide duties of charity, they are nevertheless required to fulfill a variety of narrow duties of beneficence. What is more, the obligation to fulfill these duties arises precisely because they are acting on behalf of shareholders. As such, this article 1) refines our understanding of the duties of corporate beneficence and 2) helps to identify which duties of beneficence are imposed on managers when they are acting on behalf of shareholders. (shrink)

In The Contemplative Self after Michel Henry: A Phenomenological Theology, Joseph Rivera provides a close and critical reconstruction of the philosophical anthropology of Michel Henry (1922-2002) while also addressing the question of how theology contributes to Henry's phenomenology. In conversation with other French figures such as Derrida, Marion, Lacoste, and Barbaras, Rivera undertakes a global thematic study of Henry's work. He shows how, for Henry, the theological debate is shifted onto a phenomenological problem, with a coincident will to (...) pursue the epistemological efforts of Husserl and Heidegger. The chapters tackle some of the most pressing debates in contemporary Continental philosophy, such as the "modern ego," the nature and experience of temporality, and the constitution of the body and otherness, and how a theological discourse may illumine those anthropological structures. The book expands on the modern narrative of the self from Descartes to Nietzsche, opens up the particular lines of inquiry Henry advances in dialogue with those figures and phenomenology in particular, and highlights the surprising theological turns in Henry's late work on Christianity. Because Henry's work is difficult, it is often misunderstood; Rivera's own vision of the self, one that is shaped by Henry but not in full agreement with him, advances insights internal to Henry but also brings into sharp focus many problematic points in Henry's phenomenological theology. An array of classical theological voices appear in the final chapters, such as St. Augustine, Tertullian, Irenaeus, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Gregory of Nyssa, all of whom are set in dialogue with Henry. A fresh and creative articulation of contemplation and selfhood, the volume is a valuable addition to the continuing conversation that seeks to build bridges between phenomenology and theology. (shrink)

Suele señalarse la fuerte influencia que la teología natural tuvo sobre Darwin en su conceptualización del fenómeno de la adaptación. La teoría de la selección natural explicaría el mismo fenómeno que los teólogos naturales querían explicar: la adaptación. Recientemente ha sido señalado, sin embargo, que la forma darwiniana de conceptualizar la adaptación es novedosa. Las adaptaciones de la teología natural presupondrían la idea de que los organismos existen para la realización y manutención del equilibrio natural establecido por el creador. El (...) punto de este trabajo discutir esta cuestión, asumiendo el marco del estructuralismo metateórico. The strong influence that natural theology had over Darwin’s conceptualization of the adaptation phenomenon is frequently noted. The natural selection theory would explain the same phenomenon that the natural theologist intended to explain: the adaptation. Recently has been claimed, on the contrary, that the Darwinian way of conceptualizing adaptation is new. The concept of adaptation from natural theology presupposes the idea that organisms exist for realization and support of the natural equilibrium stated by the creator. In this work I will discuss this point, assuming the metatheoretical structuralism frame. (shrink)

The concept of fitness has generated a lot of discussion in philosophy of biology. There is, however, relative agreement about the need to distinguish at least two uses of the term: ecological fitness on the one hand, and population genetics fitness on the other. The goal of this paper is to give an explication of the concept of ecological fitness by providing a reconstruction of the theory of natural selection in which this concept was framed, that is, based on the (...) way the theory was put to use in Darwin’s main texts. I will contend that this reconstruction enables us to account for the current use of the theory of natural selection. The framework presupposed in the analysis will be that of metatheoretical structuralism. This framework will provide both a better understanding of the nature of ecological fitness and a more complete reconstruction of the theory. In particular, it will provide what I think is a better way of understanding how the concept of fitness is applied through heterogeneous cases. One of the major advantages of my way of thinking about natural selection theory is that it would not have the peculiar metatheoretical status that it has in other available views. I will argue that in order to achieve these goals it is necessary to make several concepts explicit, concepts that are frequently omitted in usual reconstructions. (shrink)

According to epistemological disjunctivism (ED), in paradigmatic cases of perceptual knowledge, a subject, S, has perceptual knowledge that p in virtue of being in possession of reasons for her belief that p which are both factive and reflectively accessible to S. It has been argued that ED is better placed than both knowledge internalism and knowledge externalism to undercut underdetermination-based skepticism. I identify several principles that must be true if ED is to be uniquely placed to attain this goal. After (...) that, I use those principles to formulate a diachronic skeptical argument. This argument yields the counterintuitive conclusion that understanding a global skeptical hypothesis is all it takes for a rational subject to lose all her perceptual knowledge of the world. Next, I show that a popular Austinian move must reject one or another of the principles that underlie ED. I close by delineating a novel strategy that can block the diachronic skeptical argument while preserving all the principles. The key idea is that perceptual knowledge is grounded in primitive, perceptual and recognitional abilities. This view sheds new light on some puzzling features of global skepticism that have been noted by Descartes and Hume, among others. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of moral responsibility are standardly framed by two platitudes. According to them, blame requires the presence of a moral defect in the agent and the absence of excuses. In this chapter, this kind of approach is challenged. It is argued that (a) people sometimes violate moral norms due to performance mistakes, (b) it often appears reasonable to hold them responsible for it, and (c) their mistakes cannot be traced to their moral qualities or to the presence of excuses. (...) In the end, the implications for discussions of moral responsibility are discussed. (shrink)