Hace treinta años apareció un libro que estaba destinado a tener un gran impacto: Descartes’ Error. Su autor era Antonio Damasio (1994) y, tras su aparición en inglés, se sucedieron tanto las críticas, positivas en su mayor parte, como las traducciones que incluyeron la de lengua castellana. Cuatro años después, en 1999, la revista Enrahonar publicó un número especial dedicado al filósofo francés, festejando con algo de retraso el haberse cumplido cuatrocientos años desde su nacimiento en 1596. En el homenaje (...) de Enrahonar apareció un artículo que repasaba la lectura de Descartes por parte de Damasio. Volvamos ahora, aprovechando parte de lo escrito desde entonces, sobre las claves que nos proporcionan las neurociencias hoy día acerca de la relación entre mente y cerebro que comenzó a sopesar Descartes. (shrink)

In this paper we compare the thesis of underdetermination of theories with the thesis of indeterminacy of translation. Drawing upon this comparison, we argue that, in the context of Quine’s philosophy, the thesis of indeterminacy of translation can only be maintained if it is taken as establishing an indeterminacy in the logical form of sentences. Consequently, we contend that Quine lacks a solid argument for indeterminacy of translation.

The study on argumentation has been developed until it becoming into an independent studying field since mid last century. Nowadays, this field embraces its own academic structure of magazines, books series, societies, symposiums, Internet Web Pages, experts systems, and it even takes place within departments and curriculums concerning certain Universities' media, which attempt to give an academic discipline shape to the argumentation..

This paper is about the ontology of a cancer diagnosis at high-end hospitals in Colombia. Drawing on a seventeen-month ethnographic fieldwork study in this country, it pays attention to how dermatologists, pathologists, and oncologists looked at my partner’s skin during a routine medical checkup and enacted two seemingly contradictory diagnoses: a lethal melanoma and a benign dysplastic nevus—commonly known as mole. Because their differences under the microscope or through dermatology goggles may be subtle, physicians often disagree on what they see. (...) When medical services are not unrelated to the economic possibilities of patients to pay for them, what emerges through a microscope might be different. With neoliberal medical reforms in Colombia as background, this paper focuses on the ontological indeterminacy of cancer and its relationship to high-end hospitals and a patient who could, albeit not without effort, pay for the treatment. Thus, I argue that how physicians saw was not unrelated to what they saw and therefore to their practices of medicine in neoliberal Colombia. How do medical practices and ways of seeing in Colombia enter into composition with the bodies they study? Could the same skin tissue simultaneously be cancerous and noncancerous? (shrink)

En este artículo examinamos los aspectos más relevantes de la concepción del espacio de Leibniz. A través de un enfoque genético, nuestro propósito es mostrar que, en su desarrollo evolutivo, dicha concepción sufre dos transiciones destacables, las que separan y distinguen tres versiones teóricas. En su juventud, Leibniz defiende una concepción substancialista del espacio. Sin embargo, debido a la adopción del nominalismo, dicha concepción sufre un primer giro que decanta en un monismo substancialoide, el que se consolida en el período (...) medio de la filosofía de Leibniz. Ya en el período tardío, Leibniz reformula, en una segunda transición, su concepción del espacio, la que adopta la forma definitiva de -lo que llamamos- un relacionismo substancialoide. (shrink)

Why do we have social norms—of fairness, cooperation, trust, property, or gender? Modern-day Humeans, as I call them, believe these norms are best accounted for in cultural evolutionary terms, as adaptive solutions to recurrent problems of social interaction. In this paper, I discuss a challenge to this “Humean Program.” Social norms involve widespread behaviors, but also distinctive psychological attitudes and dispositions. According to the challenge, Humean accounts of norms leave their psychological side unexplained. They explain, say, why we share equally, (...) but not why we disapprove of those who don’t. I defend the Humean Program against this challenge. In particular, I suggest an idea for how to extend the Program to account for the psychological side of norms. Socially adaptive behaviors aren’t just likely to emerge in a group; They are also likely to be widely taught within it. The transmission of these behaviors through instruction explains why they are associated with distinctive normative attitudes and dispositions. These attitudes play a pedagogical role in helping transmit these behaviors to children and newcomers. (shrink)

El siguiente texto trata de responder por qué la infancia es un material de recordación o una presencia permanente en el cine en clave de recuerdo. Para ello, propone tres hechos explicativos. El primero, consiste en el giro hacia la memoria que propició el Holocausto y que a la postre facilitó visibilizar a los niños y niñas como víctimas de las violencias políticas y los totalitarismos. En segundo lugar, las memorias de la infancia se trasladan al cine por efecto de (...) las adaptaciones de novelas y diarios donde con anterioridad se había dado ese proceso, o por las búsquedas de cineastas que para hablar de su niñez recurren a cartas familiares y a documentos de archivo. Por último, esta interrelación se sostiene en el extenso aprovechamiento narrativo y en la explotación sentimental de los fenómenos, gestos, miradas e historias de los niños y niñas que el cine implementó desde su invención. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone como objetivo analizar detalladamente la definición mínima de democracia propuesta por Norberto Bobbio, sus elementos constitutivos, sus principales características así como sus límites conceptuales, sobre todo sus pretensiones de universalidad, univocidad y neutralidad, enfocándonos críticamente en estos tres últimos elementos en aras de tensionar la definición bobbiana de democracia. Se comenzará por analizar el rasgo procedimental de esta definición. A continuación se descompondrá detalladamente cada uno de los elementos que la caracterizan, haciendo énfasis en el supuesto (...) y prioridad de la libertad. Finalmente, se indicarán una serie de objeciones que obstaculizarían las pretensiones de universalidad, univocidad y neutralidad, tensionando con ello la intencionalidad teórica del filósofo italiano. Metodológicamente hablando, se tratará de un análisis descriptivo y sistemático, no prescriptivo ni tampoco axiológico. (shrink)

Atherosclerosis is the major cause of death in the industrialised world. Though much work on the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis points to 'oxidised' low density lipoprotein (LDL) as a key aetiological feature in the generation of the atherosclerotic plaque, the nature of this 'oxidised' LDL in vivo remains an enigma. We argue here that glycated LDL shows many of the characteristics attributed to 'oxidised LDL' and may be the source of the latter in vivo. These include the increased uptake and impaired (...) degradation of glycated LDL by macrophages and the stimulation of transendothelial chemotaxis of monocytes, cytokine secretion and platelet aggregation. We hypothesise that the covalent binding of glycated LDL to the endothelial cell wall may result in the formation of the early atherosclerotic lesion of the fatty streak and that apolipoprotein E may mediate the physiological clearance of glycated moieties. The proposed role of glycation in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis would explain its high incidence among diabetics and the contentious epidemiological and experimental correlations between dietary sugar and atherosclerosis. (shrink)

El presente texto intenta rastrear aquello que ha dicho Nick Land sobre lo animal o la animalidad en tanto vector de contagio de lo desconocido o de comunicación con el afuera. Para ello, presentamos inicialmente su lectura de Kant en tanto constructor de un aparato teórico que prohíbe el contacto con lo desconocido y el afuera. Luego, exponemos la interpretación que hace Land de algunos poemas de Trakl y de algunas figuras animales que aparecen en ellos en tanto formas de (...) posibles devenires animales desterritorializadores. (shrink)

La infancia es un hecho social y por este principio no se reduce a una única expresión. En Colombia, las investigaciones de la memoria histórica han omitido esta concepción sociológica al resumir la interacción de la guerra y la infancia al estudio del reclutamiento de menores de edad. Ante esto, este artículo invita a construir una memoria histórica de las infancias olvidadas y desprovistas de existencia en la narración del conflicto armado. Para tal fin, propone empezar por cuatro infancias (la (...) desplazada, la masacrada, la desaparecida y la violentada sexualmente), tomando en cuenta algunas herramientas metodológicas e interpretativas para abordarlas. (shrink)

Political sociologists have paid closer attention of late to the territoriality of political communities, and have even begun theorizing the theme of territoriality’s legitimation. To date, however, the field has mostly overlooked the topic of maps, the quintessential territorial tool. Thus, we know little regarding maps’ crucial role in shaping modern subjects’ relationship to territory. This article argues that “map-mindedness”—i.e., the effects of map imagery on how subjects experience territory—can be productively theorized by working through the social-scientific concept of “place.” (...) Using a range of modern and contemporary examples, I illustrate how maps can draw on and manipulate political subjects’ experience of place. Maps, I submit, allow political communities to render themselves more place-like, thus bridging the phenomenological distance between these abstract, territorially vast units and their “emplaced” subjects. More specifically, maps solve this “problem of distance” through three ideal-typical processes: 1) they render the political community as a proximate “object in the world”; 2) they present the political community as a body-like target for cathexis and identification; and 3) they mediate the traffic of meaning between the local and the national to produce a multi-scalar sense of place that can be harnessed in the service of the political community. Maps are a potent means of “re-personalizing” politics; their study suggests that territoriality is not only a form of “impersonal rule,” as recent works have observed, but always also implicated in the production of political subjects. (shrink)

RESUMEN La filosofía hegeliana en general, y en particular la “Ciencia de la lógica” y el tratamiento que en esta se hace sobre nociones como las de identidad y diferencia, generaron desde el momento mismo en que vio la luz, un sinnúmero de posiciones críticas tales como las de Schelling, los hegelianos de izquierda y, en general, de todos aquellos filósofos que, en virtud de las posibles implicaciones prácticas de una filosofía de la identidad buscaron “expurgar la semilla del dragón (...) del panteísmo hegeliano”, entre las cuales es necesario mencionar la legitimación de estados totalitarios y los genocidios asociados a ellos. Esta búsqueda, fue realizada sobre la afirmación de que el pensamiento hegeliano, al estar soportado sobre la identidad, implica una negación y, por tanto, aniquilación y reducción de la diferencia. En este sentido, el presente artículo busca examinar la noción hegeliana de la identidad, la correspondencia o no de las críticas que sobre el particular se han hecho sobre Hegel y, finalmente, analizar una de las salidas que, desde las interpretaciones hegelianas más recientes, se han hecho para responder a las críticas: la filosofía hegeliana in stricto sensu, una filosofía de la diferencia. ABSTRACT The Hegelian philosophy in general, and in particular the “Science of Logic” and the treatment that in this is made about notions as identity and difference, generated since its conception a countless critical positions such as those of Schelling, the left Hegelian and, in general, of all those philosophers who, accordingly with the posible practical implications of a philosophy of identity sought to “purge the dragon’s seed from Hegelian pantheism” among which it is worth to mention the legitimization of totalitarian states and genocide associated with them. This search was made on the assertion that Hegelian thought, being supported on the identity, implies a negation and, therefore, annihilation and reduction of the difference. In this sense, the present article seeks to examine the Hegelian notion of identity, the correspondence or not of the criticisms that have been made about Hegel and, finally, to analyze one of the outlets that, from the most recent Hegelian interpretations, have been made to respond to the criticisms: the Hegelian philosophy in stricto sensu, a philosophy of the difference. (shrink)

For more than a century, Harlem has been the epicenter of black America, the celebrated heart of African American life and culture—but it has also been a byword for the problems that have long plagued inner-city neighborhoods: poverty, crime, violence, disinvestment, and decay. Photographer Camilo José Vergara has been chronicling the neighborhood for forty-three years, and Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto is an unprecedented record of urban change. Vergara began his documentation of Harlem in the tradition of such (...) masters as Helen Levitt and Aaron Siskind, and he later turned his focus on the neighborhood’s urban fabric, both the buildings that compose it and the life and culture embedded in them. By repeatedly returning to the same locations over the course of decades, Vergara is able to show us a community that is constantly changing—some areas declining, as longtime businesses give way to empty storefronts, graffiti, and garbage, while other areas gentrify, with corporate chain stores coming in to compete with the mom-and-pops. He also captures the ever-present street life of this densely populated neighborhood, from stoop gatherings to graffiti murals memorializing dead rappers to impersonators honoring Michael Jackson in front of the Apollo, as well as the growth of tourism and racial integration. Woven throughout the images is Vergara’s own account of his project and his experience of living and working in Harlem. Taken together, his unforgettable words and images tell the story of how Harlem and its residents navigated the segregation, dereliction and slow recovery of the closing years of the twentieth century and the boom and racial integration of the twenty-first century. A deeply personal investigation, Harlem will take its place with the best portrayals of urban life. (shrink)

Este artigo tem o objetivo de expor a contra doutrina dionisíaca ao otimismo a partir da discussão sobre a interpretação que o filósofo Friedrich Nietzsche faz de Sócrates no livro _O nascimento da tragédia_. Nossa discussão traz em perspectiva a crítica nietzschiana ao denominado socratismo estético, o qual coloca a filosofia socrática longe da sua proposta para o dionisíaco na arte. Para tanto, reconstruímos os argumentos de Nietzsche e investigamos o alcance dos mesmos, como também apresentamos as considerações de Paul (...) de Man sobre a tensão emergente. Como conclusão, apontamos para a abrangência dos conceitos de pessimismo e otimismo dentro do escopo construído. (shrink)

Este ensaio explora a superação do sofrimento pela arte trágica na teoria da tragédia grega de Friedrich Nietzsche, com foco nas seções 7 a 10 de O nascimento da tragédia. Iniciamos a análise em Nietzsche apresentando o papel crucial do coro na transformação do dionisíaco em uma experiência estética disruptiva e a ideia do trágico como um critério para pensar a profundidade filosófica da arte grega. Em seguida, consideramos a questão do conceito hegeliano de Aufhebung em Nietzsche e sua relevância (...) para a tese da arte como feiticeira da verdade. Por fim, destacamos a capacidade única da tragédia em explorar tensões fundamentais da existência em suas complexidades, contradições e a prazeres inerentes à vida. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Between the 1910s and the 1940s, American naturalists carried out a number of ornithological expeditions in Colombia. With the help of Colombian naturalists, thousands of skins were brought to natural history museums in the United States. By 1948 these birds had become an important treasure: American ornithologists declared Colombia the nation with the most bird species. This story sheds new light on the role science played in the expansion of U.S. political, economic, and cultural influence in Latin America in (...) the early twentieth century, as well as on the relation between nationalist movements in Latin America and the study of the natural world. Recognizing a complex but fruitful interaction between nationalist policies and imperial practices proves important for understanding the success of the naturalists' enterprise in Colombia. (shrink)

We study Hilbert spaces expanded with a unitary operator with a countable spectrum. We show that the theory of such a structure is ω -stable and admits quantifier elimination.

We study the theory of a Hilbert space H as a module for a unital C*-algebra ${\mathcal{A}}$ from the point of view of continuous logic. We give an explicit axiomatization for this theory and describe the structure of all the representations which are elementary equivalent to it. Also, we show that this theory has quantifier elimination and we characterize the model companion of the incomplete theory of all non-degenerate representations of ${\mathcal{A}}$ . Finally, we show that there is an homeomorphism (...) between the space of types of norm less than 1 in this model companion, and the space of quasistates of the C*-algebra ${\mathcal{A}}$. (shrink)

Resumen: Una de las problemáticas más recurrente y también más importante para el mundo del arte del siglo XX, tanto el filosófico como el de los artistas, fue la salida de la belleza como el único relato legitimador de un objeto del que se pretendía el estatus de arte. En tal sentido, la reflexión que Arthur Coleman Danto, filósofo del arte norteamericano, ha hecho carrera como una de las posturas teóricas para enfrentarse al arte después de la belleza y, además, (...) para sustentar la necesidad de una definición del mismo a pesar de la entropía propia del siglo XX, que implicó el advenimiento del arte como producción humana determinada tanto por la belleza como por la fealdad, el asco, la industria y un largo etcétera.: One of the problems not only more recurrent but also more important to the world of art of the 20th century, both the philosophical and the artists, was the departure of beauty as the only legitimizing account of an object which is intended to the status of art. In this sense, the reflection that Arthur Coleman Danto, philosopher of American art, it has made a career as one of the theoretical positions to confront the art after the beauty and, in addition, to support the need for a definition of the same despite the entropy of the 20th century, which meant the advent of art as a human production already determined not only for beauty but for the ugliness, the repugnance, the industry and a long etcetera. (shrink)

In this paper we study the semantic data complexity of several controlled fragments of English designed for natural language front-ends to OWL (Web Ontology Language) and description logic ontology-based systems. Controlled languages are fragments of natural languages, obtained by restricting natural language syntax, vocabulary and semantics with the goal of eliminating ambiguity. Semantic complexity arises from the formal logic modelling of meaning in natural language and fragments thereof. It can be characterized as the computational complexity of the reasoning problems associated (...) to their semantic representations. Data complexity (the complexity of answering a question over an ontology, stated in terms of the data items stored therein), in particular, provides a measure of the scalability of controlled languages to ontologies, since tractable data complexity implies scalability of data access. We present maximal tractable controlled languages and minimal intractable controlled languages. (shrink)

A complete theory T has the Schröder–Bernstein property or simply the SB-property if any pair of elementarily bi-embeddable models are isomorphic. This property has been studied in the discrete first-order setting and can be seen as a first step towards classification theory. This paper deals with the SB-property on continuous theories. Examples of complete continuous theories that have this property include Hilbert spaces and any completion of the theory of probability algebras. We also study a weaker notion, the SB-property up (...) to perturbations. This property holds if any two elementarily bi-embeddable models are isomorphic up to perturbations. We prove that the theory of Hilbert spaces expanded with a bounded self-adjoint operator has the SB-property up to perturbations of the operator and that the theory of atomless probability algebras with a generic automorphism have the SB-property up to perturbations of the automorphism. We also study how the SB-property behaves with respect to randomizations. Finally we prove, in the continuous setting, that if T is a strictly stable theory then T does not have the SB-property. (shrink)

An algebraic interpretation of multigraph networks is introduced in relation to conscious experience, brain and body. These multigraphs have the ability to merge by an associative binary operator $\odot$, accounting for biological composition. We also study a mathematical formulation of splitting layers, resulting in a formal analysis of the transition from conscious to non-conscious activity. From this construction, we recover core structures for conscious experience, dynamical content and causal constraints that conscious interactions may impose. An important result is the (...) prediction of structural topological changes after conscious interactions. These results may inspire further use of formal mathematics to describe and predict new features of conscious experience while aligning well with formal tries to mathematize phenomenology, phenomenological tradition and applications to artificial consciousness. (shrink)

La pregunta acerca de qué es un humano tiene una respuesta trivial: cualquier individuo perteneciente a la especie Homo sapiens. Pero si nos interrogamos por el sentido de lo que es un ser humano, cuáles son los rasgos distintivos respecto de otras especies, cómo evolucionaron y por qué, en qué medida los antecesores nuestros disponían de ellos y dónde y cuándo vivieron esos ancestros, entonces entramos en un terreno de difícil recorrido. En los últimos siete millones de años existieron varias (...) especies a las que cabe llamar «humanas» o, por lo menos, «homínidas». Es éste un repaso breve y muy sintético de lo que supuso tal panorama diverso y dinámico que conduciría, a la postre, a los humanos actuales. Nuestras propias características adquieren una nueva luz cuando se contemplan a lo largo del proceso de su filogénesis. (shrink)

This artic explores Nietzsche's concepts regarding the formation of art, as presented in "The Birth of Tragedy," investigating the duality between the Apollonian and Dionysian artistic impulses. The central focus lies in the aesthetic justification of existence through art, whether through the form provided by the Apollonian or through the duality between the Apollonian and Dionysian in tragic art, as a fundamental interplay of human experience. We will argue about the tension between universal unity and individuality, which the philosopher presents (...) as the core of the aesthetic effect of tragedy, contributing to the affirmation of life and the attainment of freedom. (shrink)

Lo que suele llamarse la existencia de Dios parece ser un problema que insiste en el pensamiento occidental. Asumir dicha existencia a través de categorías que permitan objetivarla parece descansar en paradojas que obturan su consistencia, de manera que la insistencia de dicho problema permite reconocer la presencia de un exceso. Este exceso será considerado como una huella de aquello que excede, sin determinar una figura. Abordaje que se llevará a cabo en la intersección de dos discursos que abordan, cada (...) uno a su manera, el asunto del estatuto de este tipo de huella: el psicoanálisis y la teología. Dicha intersección opera a través de un elemento común, el cuerpo como localización de un Otro, del que la única noticia que nos es remitida es la concavidad de su ausencia. Desde este lugar común podría pensarse un espacio donde el problema de la existencia de Dios adquiera una consistencia que es apropiada al mismo, en concordancia con la textura de su propio “cuerpo”. (shrink)

La presente contribución tiene por objeto develar y dar respuesta a ciertas dificultades propias de la definición de la justicia basada en el concepto de amor profesada por el joven Leibniz. En un esfuerzo por capitalizar una definición de la justicia sobre la cual sea posible materializar su proyecto de una jurisprudencia universal, Leibniz encuentra en el concepto de amor el elemen­to central de la justicia. Sin embargo, frente a esta indagación de carácter puramente especulativo, aparece la experiencia, que revela (...) la existencia de injusticias en el mundo. Admitiendo la existencia del mal y de injusticias, Dios todopoderoso no parece –como ha de ser no obstante el caso– amar a todos los hombres. Si Leibniz no enuncia explícitamente esta conse­cuencia que se deduce del contraste entre su definición de la justicia y la experiencia, ella es, empero, el acápite con que él pretende resolver el problema en su primera teodicea: la Con­fessio Philosophi. Antes que la predestinación, es la herética consecuencia según la cual Dios no ama a todos los hombres lo que motiva la reflexión de Leibniz en la Confessio, y la que guía su solución a dicho problema. (shrink)

Comunicado del Claustro de Profesores del Programa de Filosofía - Universidad del Quindío Llamado al diálogo, cuidado de la vida y solidaridad por las víctimas de las protestas sociales iniciadas el 28 de abril de 2021 en Colombia La protesta social expresa los deseos de un pueblo por salir de las situaciones políticas y económicas desfavorables, es una expresión de esperanza. Precisamente, las distintas acciones ciudadanas en la mayoría de los municipios quindianos, y en general, en el territorio colombiano, son (...) la muestra de un profundo deseo por aportar a la construcción de un país donde la vida en todas sus manifestaciones sea respetada y valorada. (shrink)

LIPMAN, Matthew y PINEDA, Diego A.: Marcos. Novela de filosofía social y política, Bogotá, Editora Beta, 2004.

El problema que ocupa las reflexiones del siguiente texto es sobre la dificultad de la descripción del sustantivo cuir. Apoyándose en distintos textos, el presente ensayo postula el entendimiento de lo cuir como verbo, es decir encuiramiento. En este segundo sentido, lo cuir viene a ser proceso no terminado, crítica placentera que abre un espacio de futuridad en medio de una cultura condenada a repetir reactivamente el pasado. A partir de una selección de obras de la literatura latinoamericana se muestran (...) diferentes ejemplos de trama cuir que dislocan el ordenamiento heteronormado, desacralizan lo establecido, develan lo inacabado y abren de este modo posibilidades de cambio en el lenguaje. (shrink)

The article takes into consideration human pain from a threefold approach. First, it considers pain as an anthropological reality; second, it shows how medical sciences have contributed to such a reality; and finally, it addresses spiritual pain, recognizing how relevant the latter is for the care of patients, mainly for palliative care. Thus, the aim of the article is to motivate a reflection on how to treat human pain in a comprehensive way.