Intense interest has long been shown in the nature of humankind. Are we the products of genes? Are we the products of culture? Or are we something in between? The Marxist position, stressing the dominant significance of social methods for studying humans, is sketched. Then, a number of Western, biologically influenced views are discussed and criticised. Although there are important insights in the writings of the holders of these views, ultimately they produce only a semiscience.

The article examines the question posed in the title, which implies the consideration of sculpture as a method of sense making by plastic means, revealing the truth of being in spatial form. The study of the phenomenological perspective of this method is built upon I. Kant’s conception of art as a free play of genius, based on reason. The apparent contradiction between the spontaneity of the subjective assumption of an image, which implies the impossibility of its being deduced, and its (...) rationality, assuming an extra-subjective universalism of meaning, is resolved based on the F. Schelling’s doctrine of creation as “a pure being who escapes to any thought” (unvordenkliche) act of the subject positing something in the conceptual horizon of the logical possibilities of its existence uncertainty. The act of vivid imagination and the coherent process of creating art work presupposes not only the subjective arbitrary will of the artist, but also the “intelligence of vision,” connecting the intentional act constituting the image and the counter-intentional act, in which the image created manifests its own teleology, clarifying and elaborating the author’s idea. The sculptor’s consciousness acts as a kind of tuning fork, capable of capturing the accuracy of the sound of the image, its harmony with aesthetic sensibility. At the same time, the expressiveness of the art work, its beauty is the non-verbal aspect of meaning, capable of signifying and expressing the author’s vision of the ideological depth of the chosen theme, which allows the sculptor to create original philosophical parables that heuristically complement verbal forms of thought. These provisions are considered in the context of the sculptural series “Masque Theatre” created by Alexander Apollonov, whose plastic images show various scenarios and complex drama of the relationship between the subject and his personal objectifications, manifested in masks-personalities. (shrink)

Este trabajo, apoyándose en el caso emblemático del contexto italiano, muestra cómo la cultura jurídica europea de los últimos años ha pasado en gran parte de una cultura basada en normas escritas-positivas (rule-based) a una cultura jurisdiccional caracterizada por la creación de nuevas situaciones de protección (right-based). Esta transformación se habría traducido en una preferencia por la razón práctica de una jurisprudencia suplente y, en ocasiones, enfrentada al legislador a través de decisiones productoras de nuevos derechos sin que en paralelo (...) haya un control democrático serio. Esa labor propone considerar una nueva cultura jurídica de base socrática para llevar al centro de la experiencia jurídica y, en particular, del fenómeno procesal el enfoque acusatorio, que permita conciliar democráticamente las premisas normativas generales adoptadas por las partes, garantizando al mismo tiempo la racionalidad y sistematicidad de los pronunciamientos jurisprudenciales. (shrink)

En este artículo, se analiza la expansión en el número de novelas publicadas en Costa Rica entre 1990 y 2024. Tal proceso, favorecido por el crecimiento de la actividad editorial privada, dependió de la capacidad económica de los autores (hombres más que mujeres) para financiar sus obras. A partir del siglo XXI, la autopublicación fue reforzada por el surgimiento de plataformas donde es posible publicar de manera gratuita, como la de Amazon. Dado que esta novelística no respondió a una demanda (...) efectiva de diversas audiencias de lectores, tuvo un alcance limitado: por lo general, las personas solo publicaron una novela, y de la mayoría de los textos, se publicó solo una edición. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the personalist view of Kant’s thought in general and the personalist criticism of Kant’s understanding of human dignity and natural law. It is pointed out the way in which the results of that criticism were realized as a personalist concept of human dignity, which was also reflected in the fundamental legal acts on human rights. Concluding considerations are presented in the light of contemporary discussions of the reception of the origin of the legal foundation of human dignity.

Una de las problemáticas que acompañan a los derechos económicos, sociales y culturales en su desarrollo y aplicación, es la indeterminación de su contenido esencial en los textos constitucionales. En este supuesto normativo se ubica el derecho a la salud en México. Su formulación lingüística en nuestro orden constitucional está expuesta de forma general, lo cual produce un problema de vaguedad al momento de hacerlo exigible ante las instituciones encargadas de protegerlo. Este texto plantea la necesidad de la especificación y (...) comprensión del núcleo esencial que configura el derecho a la salud. Esta problemática de la textura abierta del derecho a la salud se ha ido solventando gradualmente mediante la formulación y adopción de precedentes por parte del Poder Judicial de la Federación. La evolución del derecho a la salud y de su contenido se observa en las sentencias en materia de atención médica, de protección contra riesgos sanitarios y de acciones de salud pública, que en su conjunto reflejan una serie de líneas jurisprudenciales del derecho a la salud en México. (shrink)

I propose a novel solution to the Sorites Paradox. The account vindicates the tolerance of vague predicates in a way that properly addresses the normativity of vagueness while avoiding sorites contradiction, by treating sorites reasoning as a type of defeasible reasoning. I show how this can be done within the setting of a nonmonotonic deontic logic. Central to the proposal is its deontic interpretation of tolerance. I draw a key distinction between two types of tolerance, based on different deontic notions, (...) and show how the account captures key differences between these types of sorites reasoning. I compare the resulting theory to various existing contextualist proposals and argue that it better accounts for the normative aspects of sorites reasoning. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hispanic Philosophy in the Age of Discovery ed. by Kevin WhiteIván JaksicKevin White, editor. Hispanic Philosophy in the Age of Discovery. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1997. Pp. xv + 326. Cloth, $59.95.The quincentennial of what has been termed the “encounter” between Europeans and Indians in the New World in the late fifteenth century furnished the occasion for much denunciation of the evils inflicted by greedy (...) intruders on the indigenous population and their environment. Many a conference was convened to reflect on such [End Page 463] events from the perspective of what appeared to be a consensus on the ultimately negative effects of European discovery, conquest, and colonization. In this context, it is quite remarkable that a conference on Hispanic philosophy in the age of discovery should have been convened to examine the philosophical figures and treatises of the era. As it turns out, this volume represents probably one of the most enduring outcomes of the myriad activities of 1992. This is a volume that ranges widely into the philosophical world of the period, brings to light the richness and significance of philosophers and their work, and provides a coherent and consistently well-researched set of essays.The volume consists of fifteen essays divided into five parts. Part I consists of one essay by Jorge J. E. Gracia which offers a wide panorama of Hispanic philosophy from 1500 to 1650, as well as a lucid interpretation of the historical reasons why Hispanic philosophy seems to have reached a dead end in the context of modern European philosophy, and suffered the neglect of intervening centuries. Part II consists of one essay by Mauricio Beuchot on discussions concerning the conquest of Mexico; two essays by John Doyle and Marcelo Sánchez-Sorondo on the work of Francisco de Vitoria; and two essays on the celebrated dispute between Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and Bartolomé de las Casas in 1550–51, the first by Eduardo Andújar and the second by Rafael Alvira and Alfredo Cruz. Part III includes essays by William Wallace on Domingo de Soto and Galileo’s science; Juan Antonio Widow on the economic thought of the Spanish Scholastics; Jean de Groot on the mysticism of Teresa de Avila; Yves Floucat on St. John of the Cross, and Mirko Skarica on the problem of future contingents. Part IV includes three essays by Norman Wells, Stephen Menn, and Carlos G. Noreña on the works of Francisco Suárez, probably the best-known Spanish thinker of the period. The volume closes with Part V, which has a long essay by John Deely on John Poinsot’s doctrine of signs.A volume of this scope and nature is bound to contain some overlap and repetition, as is the case with the pieces concerning the Las Casas-Sepúlveda debate. And yet these essays read well because the authors seriously undermine the conventional treatment of Sepúlveda as the hawkish defender of Indian slavery, and place him in the context of a larger Renaissance view of non-European peoples. Las Casas, in the view of the authors, had a great deal more in common with his opponent than the historiography has thus far suggested. In other sections of the volume, the variety of approaches and subjects on the part of the contributors challenges the reader to constantly shift grounds. Part III, for instance, takes us from the disquisitions on the velocity of falling bodies to the moral aspects of economic thought, and to the meaning of mystical theology. Fortunately, the competence of the researchers makes all individual pieces worthwhile even if this particular reviewer would have been somewhat more stringent with the space allotted to make a point.Contributors to this book leave no doubt as to the importance of their subjects, and yet they resist the temptation of exaggerating the extent of the influence of many of the Spanish authors on other European thinkers. Indeed, the essay by Norman Wells shows that while one must consider the linkages between Suárez and Descartes, there is [End Page 464] no reason to believe that the latter made Suárez’s position on the moderni... (shrink)

En este artículo consideramos algunos usos de los conceptos de "tiempo" y de lo "contemporáneo" en el campo de la danza a partir de un estudio de Cesena, pieza de Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker creada en colaboración con el director musical Björn Schmelzer. Los diferentes aspectos que analizamos -el canto, el vínculo entre los gestos y la luz, la problematización de los comunidad, la referencia al pasado histórico medieval, la dramaturgia...- intentan poner de realce algunos sentidos que genera esta obra (...) en tanto que evento escénico: la alteración del concepto europeo de "tiempo", la poética de la espera y la toma de distancia con respecto a los imperativos de rapidez - el "presentismo" - de nuestra época. In this paper, we examine some uses of the concepts of "time" and "contemporary" in dance based on a study about Cesena, a piece by Anne Teresa De Keesmaeker created with musical director Björn Schmelzer. By focusing our analysis on several aspects - the singing, the link between the gestures and the light, the problem of the community, the reference to historic medieval past, the dramaturgy... - we intend to bring to the foreground some senses which this work produce as an scenic event: the alteration of the european concept of time, the poetics of waiting and the distancing from the requirements of speed - the "presentism" - of our present time. (shrink)

The second law results in the growth of the entropy – in superficial interpretation this principle presumes that the sufficient energy inevitably turns into the substandard energy. Order turns into chaos over time; however, chaos also turns into order under certain circumstances. The first research objective is to establish the possible prescientific ideas about the phenomenon – some philosophical intuitions that have preceded the scientific discovery of the second law and have conformed to it in a certain sense. It is (...) essential because there are always certain bonds and continuity in the history of philosophy and science – the correct interpretation of the phenomenon becomes difficult, if not impossible, without the establishment of such bonds.Moreover, the main task is to understand what the second law is and which significance its principal corollaries have. We need to give the second law a correct interpretation that will allow making assumptions about its connection with time in the context of the initial state problem and about the possible new ways of modern physics development – in particular, the creation of the quantum theory of gravity. Two solutions to the entropy and initial state connection problem are proposed in the context of the time arrow discussion (G. Calender’s approach to solving the problem is disputed). (shrink)

This paper clarifies some of the contested ideas put forward by John Stuart Mill by analyzing the reasons and arguments Mill used to support them and demonstrating how these ideas and arguments supporting them are connected into a coherent system. Mill’s theory is placed in wider explanatory framework of democratic legitimacy developed by Thomas Christiano, and is portrayed as a typical example of democratic instrumentalism—a monistic position that focuses on the outcomes and results of a decision-making process. Following this move, (...) the focus is shifted on the understanding of political equality in Mill’s political thought. I claim that, contrary to some contemporary interpretations, Mill’s theory is based on a few fundamentally inegalitarian ideas. Finally, Mill’s view on the role of experts in democratic decision-making is analyzed and compared with contemporary theories advocating democratic expertism—Mill’s view is again portrayed as inegalitarian, both to the extent of setting political aims and creating methods for achieving these aims. (shrink)

"Ivan Illich alights on such topics as education, history, language, politics, and the church. The conversations range over the whole of Illich's published work and public career as a priest, vice-rector of a university, founder of the Centre for Intercultural Documentation in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and author of such classics as Tools for Conviviality, Medical Nemesis, and Deschooling Society.".

Brentano's Four Phases of Philosophy, first published in 1895 and here translated into English for the first time, presents a dramatic account of the history of philosophy in terms of a succession of cycles of renewal and decline. Phases of renewal are associated with the rediscovery of science, of empiricism, of rigour and clarity. Phases of decline are associated with competing schools and sects, with mysticism and obfuscation, and with relativisms and idealisms of various sorts. Each final phase of decline, (...) with its ultimate collapse into nonsense, gives rise to the call for a new phase of renewal, and Aristotle, in Brentano's eyes, represents the ideal type of this renewal phase of philosophy. Brentano exploits his cyclical theory to provide a guiding path through the history of Western philosophy from the beginnings in the Presocratics to what was from his perspective the final phase of decline in the work of Kant and the German idealists. In an extensive introduction, Balász Mezei and Barry Smith present a detailed account of Brentano's method in the history of philosophy. They demonstrate its roots in the work of August Comte, and compare it to other methodologies in the historiography of philosophy, including that of Kant. Most interestingly, however, they seek to bring up to date Brentano's account of the cycles of renewal and decline in the history of philosophy. They show how Brentano's method can be applied to the histories of twentieth-century analytic and Continental philosophy, from their auspicious beginnings in the work of Frege and Husserl (and Brentano) himself to their ultimate decline in the work of Rorty, Levinas and Derrida. (shrink)

ARAGÃO, Ivan Rêgo. “ Vinde todas as pessoas, e vede a minha dor ”: A Festa/Procissão ao Nosso Senhor dos Passos como Atrativo Potencial Turístico em São Cristóvão-Sergipe-Brasil. 2012. 198f. Dissertação (Mestrado) Cultura e Turismo – Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz (UESC), Ilhéus-BA. Palavras-chave: Turismo Cultural-Religioso Católico. Religiosidade Popular. Festa do Senhor dos Passos. Keywords: Catholic Religious-Cultural Tourism. Popular Religiosity. Party of Lord of the Steps.

Religion After Auschwitz is a philosophical approach to the notion of revelation. Following such authors as A. Dulles, R. Swinburne, or K. Ward, Balazs Mezei investigates some of the main problems of revelation and connects them to the general problem of religion today. Religion is considered in the perspective of the age "after Auschwitz", an expression coined by Hans Jonas and further elaborated by J. B. Metz. Mezei develops the insights of these philosophers and investigates various aspects of (...) religion and revelation "after Auschwitz": contemporary theistic philosophy, phenomenology, art, mysticism, and the question of university education today. A fascinating amalgam of subjects and approaches, Religion and Revelation After Auschwitz is an important contribution to contemporary discussions on the possibility of Catholic philosophy. (shrink)

In this article I offer an interpretation of the fundamental problem of phenomenology in terms of a philosophy of revelation proposing in this way the renewal of the last important development of Western philosophy both in terms of its metaphysical aspiration and scientific relevance. After the general introduction, I outline the philosophical problem of revelation. I show how this philosophy influenced early phenomenology. I explain the underlying subject matter in the history of phenomenology, i.e. the notion of disclosure. I also (...) outline what I term “apocalyptic phenomenology” in order to focus on the understanding of revelation. In this part I offer details of the notion of newness and the appropriate method applied here. Finally, I summarize the scientific relevance of my approach in the context of logic, methodology, disciplinarity with a special emphasis on the study of religion. (shrink)