Se estudia la conveniencia de incluir el concepto de histéresis en las disciplinas humanistas, así como la necesidad de incorporar el análisis de los fenómenos donde aquél participa. La histéresis se produce en los más diversos campos de la acción y el pensamiento humanos, y su estudio contribuiría a completar y perfeccionar la visión que tenemos de los mismos. Al realizar la inclusión que aquí se propone, se operan varios cambios de orden epistemológico, operativo y conceptual. En las disciplinas humanistas, (...) los conceptos vienen asumiendo por tradición el papel de herramientas analíticas en bastante mayor medida que el de contenidos sobre los que efectuar el análisis. La histéresis manifiesta su alcance como hecho a analizar y también como herramienta de análisis, pero en el caso presente hemos tenido en cuenta más aspectos del segundo enfoque que del primero. De aquí que nos hayamos centrado en ubicar su campo epistemológico. (shrink)

Scholars in the humanities and social sciences have turned to ethics to theorize politics in what seems to be an increasingly depoliticized age. Yet the move toward ethics has obscured the ongoing value of political responsibility and the vibrant life it represents as an effective response to power. Sounding the alarm for those who care about robust forms of civic engagement, this book fights for a new conception of political responsibility that meets the challenges of today's democratic practice. Antonio Y. (...) Vázquez-Arroyo forcefully argues against the notion that modern predicaments of power can only be addressed ethically or philosophically through pristine concepts that operate outside of the political realm. By returning to the political, the individual is reintroduced to the binding principles of participatory democracy and the burdens of acting and thinking as a member of a collective. Vázquez-Arroyo historicizes the ethical turn to better understand its ascendence and reworks Adorno's dialectic of responsibility to reassert the political in contemporary thought and theory. (shrink)

It is sometimes argued that, given its detachment from our current most successful science, analytic metaphysics has no epistemic value because it contributes nothing to our knowledge of reality. Relatedly, it is also argued that metaphysics properly constrained by science can avoid that problem. In this paper we argue, however, that given the current understanding of the relation between science and metaphysics, metaphysics allegedly constrained by science suffers the same fate as its unconstrained sister; that is, what is currently thought (...) of as scientifically respectful metaphysics may end up also being without epistemic value. The core of our claim is that although much emphasis is put on the supposed difference between unconstrained analytic metaphysics, in opposition to scientifically constrained metaphysics, it is largely forgotten that no clear constraining relation of metaphysics by science is yet available. (shrink)

We discuss the ‘Consciousness Causes Collapse Hypothesis’ (CCCH), the interpretation of quantum mechanics according to which consciousness solves the measurement problem. At first, it seems that the very hypothesis that consciousness causally acts over matter counts as a reductio of CCCH. However, CCCH won’t go so easily. In this paper we attempt to bring new light to the discussion. We distinguish the ontology of the interpretation (the positing of a causally efficacious consciousness as part of the furniture of reality) from (...) metaphysics (the metaphysical character of that consciousness). That distinction allows us to map the philosophical theories of consciousness compatible with quantum mechanics under the tenets of CCCH. Also, it indicates that the problem will have to be discussed at a metaphysical level rather than at the physical level. Our analysis corroborates recent arguments to the effect that this interpretation is not ruled out so easily. (shrink)

In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual conditionals that can exhibit different degrees of contingency. We use the idea of possible worlds to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, it is this structure what helps explain why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful (...) in scientific practice. (shrink)

A Geografia da Religião configura-se no cenário acadêmico da Geografia Cultural como um subcampo dotado de potencialidades profícuas à apreensão do fenômeno religioso. Espacializar o rito, a prática cotidiana que se espraia em redes de informações fluídicas, repletas de subjetividades capazes de construir territórios e demarcar identidades é o objetivo principal deste campo do saber. É no tempo e no espaço que o sagrado se manifesta e semiografa indelevelmente como um mapa permanente as fronteiras entre o eu e o outro. (...) Esse fluxo humano contínuo que se reconfigura através de novas releituras e assimilações feitas pelos grupos estudados, releva ao espaço mudanças e permanências como um elemento chave, um conceito passível de ser analisado frente à relevância que ele apresenta como receptáculo dessas marcas físicas oriundas dos grupos religiosos que demarcam seus centros de cosmologia nos espaços escolhidos. Para um estudo mais aprofundado, busca-se na Filosofia husserliana o substrato teórico capaz de justificar o novo olhar geográfico ao subconsciente na conjunção do homem com o Criador. Portanto, leva-se a cabo uma detalhada revisão conceitual do termo fenomenologia e sua aplicabilidade á ciência geográfica. (shrink)

El propósito central de este artículo consiste en realizar una exploración crítica de la idea de educación democrática. La tesis que se defiende afirma que existe una relación de complementariedad entre los modelos deliberativo y agonista de la democracia, defendidos por Amy Gutmann y Chantal Mouffe, que permite una comprensión de la educación que satisface las exigencias morales que deben integrar una concepción democrática de ciudadanía. El texto inicia con un planteamiento acerca de la relación entre política y educación; seguidamente, (...) se exponen los enfoques agonal y deliberativo de la política en la interpretación de la democracia, para finalmente identificar los puntos de intersección entre ambos modelos y proponer algunas líneas de reflexión en torno a la comprensión la ciudadanía y la praxis de la formación ciudadana. (shrink)

The article offers an analysis of Kant’ s “Third Antinomy of Pure Reason” (in which he examines the possibility of reconciling Transcendental freedom with natural Determinism), in order to show the lack of grounds of the interpretation that claims that the critical resolution of the antinomy implies a shift with respect to the cosmological terms in which the conflict was initially stated. Through a detailed analysis of the sources, we will suggest that the conflict analyzed in the Third Antinomy is (...) not exclusively cosmological, but rather that it also –and to the same degree– constitutes a practical conflict, and, secondly, that the critical solution is not developed in exclusively practical terms, but that it also involves certain aspects directly linked to the cosmological question initially formulated. (shrink)

Often referred to as one of the “founding fathers of quantum mechanics”, Erwin Schrödinger’s thoughts were popularized by his contributions to contemporary physics. However, this thinker contributed to the discussion about the limits of philosophical thought and the ultimate foundation of reality, especially in his later writings. This article addresses such discussions, having as a guideline the Schrödingerian notion of ‘consciousness’ and the ethical implications of such a conception.

This thesis inquires what it means to interpret non-relativistic quantum mechanics (QM), and the philosophical limits of this interpretation. In pursuit of a scientific-realist stance, a metametaphysical method is expanded and applied to evaluate rival interpretations of QM, based on the conceptual distinction between ontology and metaphysics, for objective theory choice in metaphysical discussions relating to QM. Three cases are examined, in which this metametaphysical method succeeds in indicating what are the wrong alternatives to interpret QM in metaphysical terms. The (...) first two cases failed in doing so due to different kinds of underdetermination. In the third case, unlike underdetermination, where there are many choices to be made, a “null-determination” is proposed where there may be no metaphysical choices in the available metaphysical literature. Considering what has been discussed, an agnostic philosophic position is adopted concerning the possibility of interpreting QM from a scientific-realistic point of view. (shrink)

Phylogeography, a relatively new subdicipline of evolutionary biology that attempts to unify the fields of phylogenetics and population biology in an explicit geographical context, has hosted in recent years a highly polarized debate related to the purported benefits and limitations that qualitative versus quantitative methods might contribute or impose on inferential processes in evolutionary biology. Here we present a friendly, non-technical introduction to the conflicting methods underlying the controversy, and exemplify it with a balanced selection of quotes from the primary (...) biological literature, to invite the philosophy of biology community to pay attention to the elements that have played a primary role in its presumed resolution. We also present the basic features of our own metascientific take on the debate, and point out—as a preliminary step in preparation for upcoming, more detailed treatments—the importance that appeals to authority in fields external to phylogeography per se have played in the current status of this highly visible evolutionary biology dispute. (shrink)

ABSTRACTTyphoon Haiyan damaged around a million houses in the Philippines in November 2013. It especially affected the poor. Using a realist laminated ontology, this paper explains how multiple cau...

El hecho de que la filosofía del arte de Adorno incorpore categorías propias de la estética burguesa ha sido señalado no solo como una de las causas del supuesto carácter conservador de esta teoría, sino también como una limitación ideológica: el compromiso asumido con la estética idealista le impediría a Adorno desvelar los intereses materiales que se ocultan en la relación entre el arte autónomo y la sociedad burguesa. Contra estas acusaciones, el presente trabajo busca dar cuenta de la relación (...) problemática que Adorno sostiene con la estética tradicional y mostrar que la apropiación de conceptos de origen idealista solo se produce mediante una profunda crítica inmanente de los mismos, cuyo propósito es sentar las bases para la elaboración de una estética dialéctico-materialista original. Para ello, en primer lugar, se reconstruyen los procedimientos a través de los cuales Adorno lee las estéticas de Kant y de Hegel; luego, se analiza la elaboración materialista que Adorno realiza de la exigencia kantiana de desinterés; por último, estableciendo una conexión con la antropología estética de Christoph Menke, se recupera la crítica adorniana a la función ideológica que el juicio estético kantiano desempeña en relación con la fundamentación del sujeto moderno. (shrink)

Abstract: This essay examines two interpretations of Kant's argument for the formula of humanity. Christine M. Korsgaard defends a constructivist reading of Kant's argument, maintaining that humans must view themselves as having absolute value because their power for rational choice confers value on their ends. Allen Wood, however, defends a realist interpretation of Kant's argument, maintaining that humans actually are absolutely valuable and that their choices do not confer value but rather reflect their understanding of how the objects of their (...) choices fulfill their needs and wants and contribute to their flourishing. Though Korsgaard's reading is more consistent with Kant's prioritizing of the right over the good, this essay raises a metaethical question regarding her constructivist position, namely, “What is meant by her claim that rational choice ‘confers’ value on objects?” In developing this question, it presents a realist account of goodness that is taken from Peter Geach's “Good and Evil.”. (shrink)

Resumen: Diversos académicos han analizado la influencia de Toynbee y Spengler en la conocida saga Foundation, escrita por Isaac Asimov y considerada una de las más importantes de la ciencia ficción. Sin embargo, nuestra hipótesis es que, si bien existe un cierto diálogo transtextual con los trabajos de ambos autores, es en la obra del historiador griego Polibio, Historias, donde se halla la principal relación de tipo hipertextual. Comparando la anaciclosis descrita por Polibio con la evolución política que Asimov narra (...) en sus novelas, comprobamos que las semejanzas no solo alcanzan a los diferentes sistemas de gobierno, sino incluso a la misma secuencia en que estos se suceden. El resultado es una obra que permite una interesante lectura palimpséstica, enriqueciendo sensiblemente la experiencia del lector con formación humanística.: Several scholars have analyzed the influence of Toynbee and Spengler, in the well-known saga of the Foundation, written by Isaac Asimov and considered one of the most important of science fiction. However, although there exists a transtextual dialogue with Spengler's and Toynbee’s works, our hypothesis is that the main hypertextual relationship must be searched in the work of the Greek historian Polybius, Histories. Comparing the anacyclosis described by Polybius with the political evolution that Asimov narrates in his novels, we can see that similarities not only reach different systems of government, but even the very same sequence in which they happen. The result is a work that allows an interesting palimpsestic reading, significantly enriching the experience of those readers possessing humanistic knowledge. (shrink)

Se van mostrar algunos contrastes en los lugares de la noción de mismidad del Poema de Parménides de Elea entre diversos textos de Martin Heidegger, con especial atención a qué tiene que ver el olvido de la «palabra enigma» de Parménides en Sein und Zeit con la noción de Sí mismo que allí se elabora. A través del camino hacia los “pensadores del inicio”, distinguir el horizonte de cuestionamiento del diálogo de Platón de aquel del Poema de Parménides, nos llevará (...) a su vez a señalar los diversos sentidos en que Heidegger piensa lo mismo en el Poema de Parménides. (shrink)

The question “what is an interpretation?” is often intertwined with the perhaps even harder question “what is a scientific theory?”. Given this proximity, we try to clarify the first question to acquire some ground for the latter. The quarrel between the syntactic and semantic conceptions of scientific theories occupied a large part of the scenario of the philosophy of science in the 20th century. For many authors, one of the two currents needed to be victorious. We endorse that such debate, (...) at least in the terms commonly expressed, can be misleading. We argue that the traditional notion of “interpretation” within the syntax/semantic debate is not the same as that of the debate concerning the interpretation of quantum mechanics. As much as the term is the same, the term “interpretation” as employed in quantum mechanics has its meaning beyond (pure) logic. Our main focus here lies on the formal aspects of the solutions to the measurement problem. There are many versions of quantum theory, many of them incompatible with each other. In order to encompass a wider variety of approaches to quantum theory, we propose a different one with an emphasis on pure formalism. This perspective has the intent of elucidating the role of each so-called “interpretation” of quantum mechanics, as well as the precise origin of the need to interpret it. (shrink)

Carnap's conception of linguistic frameworks is widespread; however, it is not entirely clear nor consensual to pinpoint what is the influence of his stance within the traditional realist/anti-realist debate. In this paper, we place Carnap as a proponent of a scientific realist stance, by presenting what he called “linguistic realism”. Some possible criticisms are considered, and a case study is offered with wave function realism, a popular position in the philosophy of quantum mechanics.

In ontological terms, what can we learn from the current state of the art in Epidemiology? Applying the Quinean criterion of ontological commitment, we can learn that there are several fundamental entities for the theory to work. One is a virus type entity, in which the (in)famous Coronavirus is a particular case. In metaphysical terms, this entity can, in principle, be understood in several ways. One of those ways, apparently, and perhaps intuitively, is the notion of object. Applying the metametaphysical (...) method of Unavailable Metaphysical Stories, we found that Epidemiology is incompatible with an object metaphysics. (shrink)

Although recent Kant scholarship has focused on Kant's treatment of various emotions, one that has not received much attention is love. There are three main reasons for this. First, Kant does not have a single, sustained analysis of the emotion of love; what he does say appears scattered throughout his corpus. Second, Kant identifies a number of different kinds of love, and it is not always clear which kinds are emotions or how the different kinds of love are related. Finally, (...) in general Kant is quite critical of the emotion of love, and his critical remarks seem not to fit with the intuitions of some people when it comes to some of the more positive instances of love. In this paper I pursue two related aims. First, I identify and sort out the different kinds of love in Kant's writings, and I address a particular difficulty of interpretation, namely the status of love of human beings in Kant's writings. Second, I argue that, despite Kant's criticisms of the emotion of love, he views it as an expression of our unsocial sociability, and it plays a positive and indispensible role in the moral development of human beings. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On the Trinity:An Ecumenical ConversationIsidoros C. KatsosIntroductionThis paper explores the potential impact of Fr. Thomas Joseph White's impressive new book on the Trinity for the ecumenical dialogue between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches.1 In doing so, the paper responds to the editors' kind request for an explicitly ecumenical approach to the book. Therefore, this paper concentrates on the issue of the Trinity from an ecumenical perspective. But (...) this is not a simple task. Before reading the book, the reader might have thought that Eastern and Western theologians had somehow reached a gentlemen's agreement that the insertion of the Filioque clause in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed had happened sometime somewhere in the Wild West (namely, at the local Council of Toledo in 589). Building on an honest misunderstanding, the Latin Church gradually added to the initial statement of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, according to which the Spirit proceeds "from the Father" (ek tou patros), that the Spirit proceeds "from the Father and the Son" (ex Patre Filioque).2 In the absence of an ecumenical council that would have settled the issue, the creedal addition became the thorniest issue of theological contention between East and West, leading to the "Great Schism." Things took a new [End Page 493] turn during the twentieth century when Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras decided that a new rapprochement was desirable and possible.3 Since then, Eastern theologians have showed willingness, for the first time in centuries, to quiet down their concerns about the Filioque as unwarranted speculation, if not falsification, of the Trinitarian doctrine of the Church Fathers.4 In exchange, they saw their Western colleagues quieting down their own normative claims about the theological necessity of the Filioque.5 The general sentiment in the theological schools, in the East at least, was that the true reasons of the Schism had relocated from the sphere of theology to the sphere of terminology, history, and culture.6 The controversy over the Filioque could be seen as an infelix culpa that shaped Eastern and Western Christianity as religious communities, a historic misunderstanding of historical proportions. Contextual rather than doctrinal—that seemed to [End Page 494] be the shift achieved in the last century.7 After reading the book, however, the reader might think that we are about to return to the previous state. For White now argues that the Filioque is not "just" an accident of language, history, and culture, something that could have happened or not, but the only correct interpretation of the Nicene faith:When the Father spirates the Spirit from all eternity, he necessarily does so as Father of the Son and so also in the Son and with the Son.(108; emphasis mine)As to the historically contested question of the Filioque, there are … many scriptural and traditional bases in favor of its affirmation. In addition, Aquinas affirms it as a necessary component of Trinitarian theology.(504; emphasis mine)If White's argument is correct, it has serious impact on the ecumenical dialogue: it suggests that, regardless of what happened in Toledo in the sixth century, Christian theologians in East and West ought to understand the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed as entailing that the third person of the Trinity always proceeds from the other two together. To put it more pointedly: if the argument of the book is correct, the Orthodox rejection of the Filioque must betoken a failure to grasp something true and important about the life of the Trinity.Clearly, the resurgence of the Filioque as a normative claim poses a genuine challenge for the Orthodox reader. If the Filioque is the correct Trinitarian doctrine, what room is there left for the Orthodox contrary position? In situations like this in the past, an Orthodox theologian would consider whether to meet the argument head on by producing contrary readings of the same patristic sources or to entirely undermine it by softening its conclusions. I presume this would still be the instinctive reaction of the average Orthodox reader. I find this kind of response not conducive to ecumenical dialogue. Let me then probe here with something new. In what follows, I want to... (shrink)