Following some of the main arguments Derrida develops in ‘White Mythology’, in this article I propose an unexplored dialogue between Derrida and Althusser considering the use and the place that each of them gives to metaphor in their philosophical strategies. I give special attention to some rather isolated passages of ‘Elements of Self-Criticism’ and ‘Lenin and Philosophy’, where Althusser, against all evidence, seems to be quite aware of the importance of metaphor and mataphorization in every philosophical practice. As Balibar has (...) argued, contrary to the metaphysical tradition, metaphor would not be the opposite but what anticipates the concept. In this sense, it is possible to observe how Althusser’s work has continuously put into practice – as the singular signature of his theoretical practice – something that I call the ‘detour of metaphor’ as a necessary ‘deviation’ for the production of new concepts. Without any evidence that Althusser may have known Derrida’s essay, I show how Althusser’s own theoretical work, one in which ‘metaphor’ as a philosophical theme appears to be rather anecdotic, is unexpectedly close to Derrida’s own positions concerning the margins of philosophy and its ‘outside’, the relation to the metaphysical tradition, and the importance of strategy in philosophy. (shrink)

This paper raises an open critical discussion on some key notions in Michael Ruse’s philosophy. These include the conceptual elements of scientific explanation, the difference between epistemic and cultural values, the epistemological status of science and religion in explaining nature, the compatibility or incompatibility between Darwinian thought and Christian thought, and especially between evolutionary theory and creationism, the key importance of admitting or not admitting supernatural causality when qualifying an explanation as scientific, the role played by the divinity in the (...) argumentation about the compatibility or incompatibility between science and religion, the convenience of not understanding the Abrahamic god from an ontological perspective but from a psychological one, etc. It ends by proposing certain conclusions that could perhaps contribute to contrast and enrich his philosophy. (shrink)

There is an ongoing debate about the meaning of lexical words, i.e., words that contribute with content to the meaning of sentences. This debate has coincided with a renewal in the study of polysemy, which has taken place in the psycholinguistics camp mainly. There is already a fruitful interbreeding between two lines of research: the theoretical study of lexical word meaning, on the one hand, and the models of polysemy psycholinguists present, on the other. In this paper I aim at (...) deepening on this ongoing interbreeding, examine what is said about polysemy, particularly in the psycholinguistics literature, and then show how what we seem to know about the representation and storage of polysemous senses affects the models that we have about lexical word meaning. (shrink)

The paper argues for a decompositionalist account of lexical concepts. In particular, it presents and argues for a cluster decompositionalism, a view that claims that the complexes a token of a word corresponds to on a given occasion are typically built out of a determinate set of basic concepts, most of which are present on most other occasions of use of the word. The first part of the paper discusses some explanatory virtues of decompositionalism in general. The second singles out (...) cluster decompositionalism as the best explanation of the variability of meaning. The third part is devoted to responding to some problems. (shrink)

In this article, I contend that the three Cuban philosophers/pedagogues of the nineteenth century – Félix Varela y Morales, José de la Luz y Caballero, and Enrique José Varona were responsible for overcoming the teaching of late scholastic at the Royal and Pontifical University of St. Jerome of Havana. Against late scholastic philosophers and pedagogues who preferred syllogistic logic and the authority of tradition over induction, they argued in favor of the latter over the first. Since they defended liberal and (...) republican ideas, they also argued against those who appeal to the authority of tradition rather than to our ordinary experiences. Of course, their liberal spirit challenged not only the tyrannical regime imposed by Spain at the time but any other regime whose authority depends on force rather than on the will of the people. (shrink)

De maneira reconhecida ou não, a presença de Górgias, e suas teses, no corpus platônico transcende os limites da presença da personagem Górgias nos sete diálogos em que este é mencionado por Platão. Diante de uma influência multifacetada – que abarca desde questões relativas à linguagem, passando pela metafísica, política e estatuto da arte – faz-se necessário um recorte para melhor evidenciar a apropriação e reelaboração platônica do quadro conceitual gorgiano. A pretensão é fazer uma releitura de alguns momentos do (...) texto platônico por meio de um destaque às referências, diretas e indiretas, que nele estão contidas, tanto da sofística de um modo geral, como de Górgias de Leontinos de modo específico. A tese que se pretende defender é a de que as principais hipóteses teóricas apresentadas pelos sofistas, e por Górgias de modo proeminente, devem ser consideradas imprescindíveis para a construção da filosofia platônica – ainda que esta constitua-se como reação ou apropriação seletiva daquelas. Assim, a indústria platônica não se constitui apenas em desqualificar o edifício filosófico gorgiano, a fim de erguer suas teses sobre as ruínas deste, mas também utilizar alguns conceitos da empresa filosófica de Górgias como vigas-mestras da nova perspectiva reflexiva que o discípulo de Sócrates comprometeu-se a desenvolver. Palavras-chave: Górgias; Platão; Sofística; Platonismo; Discurso. (shrink)

Se analiza la importancia de Bataille en El Anti Edipo de Deleuze y Guattari, para mostrar la deuda o filiación entre la noción de “gasto improductivo” y la noción de “producción deseante”. Explicando el sentido de la primera en el marco de una economía general, se muestran afinidades entre dicha reflexión y la propuesta de D-G en AE, en relación con una lectura de la tesis marxiana sobre la identidad entre hombre y naturaleza. Se concluye con posibles inscripciones que los (...) trabajos de Bataille y de D-G pueden tener en la trayectoria del marxismo y del pensamiento contemporáneo. (shrink)

This paper presents a blueprint for an ecological cognitive architecture. Ecological psychology, I contend, must be complemented with a story about the role of the CNS in perception, action, and cognition. To arrive at such a story while staying true to the tenets of ecological psychology, it will be necessary to flesh out the central metaphor according to which the animal perceives its environment by ‘resonating’ to information in energy patterns: what is needed is a theory of resonance. I offer (...) here the two main elements of such a theory: a framework and a methodology. (shrink)

One big challenge faced by cognitive science is the development of a unified theory that integrates disparate scales of analysis of cognitive phenomena. In this paper, I offer a unified framework that provides a way to integrate neural and behavioral scales of analysis of cognitive phenomena—typically addressed by neuroscience and experimental psychology, respectively. The framework is based on the concept of resonance originated in ecological psychology and aims to be the foundation for a unified theory for radical embodiment; that is, (...) a unified theory for that dissident part of cognitive science that shares a methodological commitment to dynamic systems theory and remains skeptical about the adequacy of mechanism and representationalism as the guiding ideas in the field. In the course of my presentation, I analyze different issues regarding the requirements and constraints unification poses to radical embodiment. (shrink)

Lo malo, si breve.--Dolencia con gracia.--Entre Dios y el diablo.--El huésped borracho.--Bizarro disparate.--La eterna escena del espejo.--Apéndice: De cómo no soy el autor de "El cubil de los leones.".

In this paper we introduce two issues relevantly related to the cognitive phenomenology debate, which, to our minds, have not been yet properly addressed: the relation between access and phenomenal consciousness in cognition and the relation between conscious thought and inner speech. In the first case, we ask for an explanation of how we have access to thought contents, and in the second case, an explanation of why is inner speech so pervasive in our conscious thinking. We discuss the prospects (...) of explanation for both sides of the debate and argue that cognitive phenomenology defenders are in an overall advantageous position. We also propose an account of inner speech that differs from other influential explanations in some interesting respects. (shrink)

Much of what we say is never said aloud. It occurs only silently, as inner speech. We chastise, congratulate, joke and cajole, all without making a sound. This distinctively human ability to create public language in the privacy of our own minds is no less remarkable for its familiarity. And yet, until recently, inner speech remained at the periphery of philosophical and psychological theorizing. This essay collection, from an interdisciplinary group of leading philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists, displays the rapidly growing (...) interest among researchers in the puzzles surrounding the nature and cognitive role of the inner voice. Questions explored include: the aids and obstacles inner speech presents to self-knowledge; the complex relation it bears to overt speech production and perception; the means by which inner speech can be identified and empirically assessed; its role in generating auditory verbal hallucinations; and its relationship to conceptual thought itself. (shrink)

La figura de Walter Benjamin ha venido adquiriendo en los últimos años una inesperada actualidad. Su contribución al pensamiento de nuestro siglo aparece hoy como una intervención singular e irrepetible, producto de una encrucijada cultural patentemente determinada por la conciencia de crisis generalizada por la modernidad. En este contexto, la presente investigación trata de ofrecer una aproximación informativa y ajustada al conjunto de la obra de Benjamin, en una lectura efectuada desde el punto de vista de la Estética. En consecuencia, (...) el libro recorre puntualmente la sinuosa trayectoria de Benjamin desde sus tempranos escritos juveniles, pasando por su maduración crítica en sus trabajos en torno al universo romántico y el barroco, hasta su conversión al materialismo histórico y su explosiva dispersión en la obra de los Pasajes. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss a phenomenon we call perspectival plurality, which has gone largely unnoticed in the current debate between relativism and contextualism about predicates of personal taste. According to perspectival plurality, the truth value of a sentence containing more than one PPT may depend on more than one perspective. Prima facie, the phenomenon engenders a problem for relativism and can be shaped into an argument in favor of contextualism. We explore the consequences of perspectival plurality in depth and (...) assess several possible responses on behalf of advocates of relativism. (shrink)

En este artículo el autor propone revisar la idea kantiana de virtud, su relación con el deber, con la razón y con el sentimiento moral: el respeto. También se revisan las ideas de santidad y perfección, como referencia para dos caras del mismo deber y su papel como orientadoras de la facultad de juzgar, demostrando el carácter unitario de la ética kantiana.

Heras-Escribano argues against the normative character of affordances from a framework that relies on a Wittgensteinian notion of normativity and the incompatibility of direct perception, ….

O projeto emancipatório moderno estabelece uma concepção otimista de desenvolvimento científico e social. Os filósofos Immanuel Kant e Karl Marx, de modo distinto, levam ao ápice tal projeto emancipatório, o primeiro, ancorado numa concepção de sujeito transcendental capaz de estabelecer verdade e validade universal, o segundo, ancorado na categoria de trabalho desenvolvida em sua doutrina do materialismo histórico. A partir do século XIX, filósofos como Nietzsche, Heidegger e Adorno/Horkheimer põem sob suspeita tal projeto ao demonstrar seus fundamentos não metafísicos. Tais (...) críticas expurgam as pretensões totalitárias do projeto emancipatório moderno, e nos remetem à sua revisão. O filósofo alemão Jurgen Habermas, considerando as críticas elaboradas pelos filósofos da suspeita, vai buscar reconstruir o projeto emancipatório moderno a partir de bases pós-metafísicas. A raiz de tal reconstrução está em Trabalho e Interação. Notas sobre a filosofia do espírito de Hegel em Jena, na qual Habermas promove o confronto da filosofia hegeliana com o pensamento de Kant e Marx, possibilitando a revisão destes. Nessa revisão Habermas desenvolve os conceitos de trabalho e interação, que ao mesmo tempo fundamentam sua crítica à tecnocracia e lançam os pilares para a posterior elaboração da Teoria da Ação Comunicativa. (shrink)

This is the introductory chapter to the anthology: Inner Speech: New Voices, to be published in fall 2018 by OUP. It gives an overview of current debates in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience concerning inner speech, and situates the chapters of the volume with respect to those debates.