En 1934, Aniceto Olano (1896-1966), alias Miguel de Alzo, publicó un folleto titulado Filosofía vasca, donde se defiende la existencia de una filosofía nacional para Euskal Herria. Esta obra debe estudiarse como un ejemplo de la historiografía nacionalista de la filosofía, paralelo a los casos de la filosofía nacional alemana, francesa, polonesa, etc. En la península Ibérica, encontramos los precedentes de la filosofía nacional española (Menéndez y Pelayo), la filosofía nacional andaluza (Federico de Castro) y la filosofía nacional catalana (Torras (...) i Bages, Bové, Pujols, etc.). Es esta última donde se encuentran las influencias directas de Olano, quien estudió en la Universidad de Barcelona entre 1920-1922 junto con algunos de los mayores representantes de la historiografía nacionalista de la filosofía en Cataluña: Tomàs Carreras i Artau y Jaume Serra Hunter. En su Filosofía vasca, Olano describe las presuntas características que definen y diferencian los pensadores vascos del resto del mundo filosófico. Identifica sus orígenes en Quintiliano, confecciona una primera historia de la filosofía en Euskal Herria y concluye que el pensamiento vasco estaría máximamente encarnado por Francisco de Vitoria, filósofo nacional vasco. (shrink)

Based on narrative, iconographical, and liturgical sources, this is the first systematic study to trace the story of the ritual of royal self-coronations from Ancient Persia to the present. Exposing as myth the idea that Napoleon's act of self-coronation in 1804 was the first extraordinary event to break the secular tradition of kings being crowned by bishops, Jaume Aurell vividly demonstrates that self-coronations were not as transgressive or unconventional as has been imagined. Drawing on numerous examples of royal self-coronations, (...) with a particular focus on European Kings of the Middle Ages, including Frederic II of Germany, Alphonse XI of Castile, Peter IV of Aragon and Charles III of Navarra, Aurell draws on history, anthropology, ritual studies, liturgy and art history to explore royal self-coronations as privileged sites at which the frontiers and limits between the temporal and spiritual, politics and religion, tradition and innovation are encountered. (shrink)

O revezamento de protagonismo de um dos Três Poderes, em determinado momento histórico, é sazonal; acarretando o aperfeiçoamento de mecanismos que recomponham o equilíbrio (freios e contrapesos - checks and balances). Ocorre que a crise dos Poderes Estatais dificilmente é diagnosticada pelas próprias instituições, que se escoram no discurso de “estabilidade institucional” para evitar mudanças. A simples positivação de direitos e garantias fundamentais, também chamada por Marcelo Neves de “legislação simbólica” ou “legislação álibi”; somada à adoção de ritos meramente formais (...) nos processos pelos Três Poderes, sem que se atenha aperspectiva substancial ou à efetividade dos princípios constitucionais - identificada como “procedimentalismo” por Lênio Streck e Écio Oto Ramos Duarte - acaba por acarretar verdadeira letargia institucional. (shrink)

Teleosemantic theories of content constitute a mixed family of different proposals and accounts about what consists mental content. In the present paper, I would like examine the scope and limits of a particular and well defined teleosemantic theory such as Millikan’s account. My aim entails presenting arguments in order to show how her theory of mental content is unnable of giving a complete account of the whole mental life almost for adult human agents without commiting certain adaptationist assumptions. I am (...) going to present my arguments in the following order. In section 1 I present an outline of the Millikan’s theory of mental content. In section 2, after defining useless content I pay attention to her treatment of it. In section 3 I set out my queries concerning to the fixation of useless content defended by Millikan. Finally, I conclude that the theory about useless content doesn’t identify content in terms of sufficient and necessary conditions. (shrink)

Marcel Proust ha passat a la història de la cultura occidental com un escriptor, principalment novelista. Amb tot, la seva obra mestra. A la recerca del temps perdut, un dels cims de la literatura mundial, conté nombroses reflexions que permeten identificar clarament també un Proust pensador. Reconstruir la filosofia de Proust tot resseguint la mirada sobre el món que representa a la recerca?. és l'objectiu d'aquest assaig. A partir dels aforismes, sovint metafòrics, del Narrador proustià, Jaume Urgell ens ofereix (...) una anàlisi de la posició de l'escriptor francès en el context de la filosofia del segle XX. Expressant-se de vegades com a hereu d'un pensament anti-racionalista, en ocasions com a a coetani del existencialisme europeu i sovint precursor tant del pensament ironista com de mites de la quotidianitat més contemporània, Marcel Proust ens llega una obra plena de significats i alhora lliure de qualsevol convencionalisme, cosncient de les seves pròpies màscares i alhora innocent en el seu desenvolupament. Aquest assaigpresenta també algunes de les contribucions més rellevants en l'estudi de l'obra proustiana, com són les de Samuel Beckett, Gilles Deleuze i Richard Rorty, i desbrossa les incursions de Proust en el camp de la psicologia, l'ètica i l'estètica. Jaume Urgell És llicenciat en ciències empresarials i MBA per ESADE i Màster en Administració Pública per la Universitat de Harvard. Té un Diploma d'Estudis Avançats en Filosofia i Literatura per la UB. Dedica la seva vida intel·lectual a la literatura, la filosofia, la política i les relacions internacionals, i ha publicat diversos llibres i articles sobre aquestes matèries. (shrink)

RESUMEN La teleosemántica es el intento de naturalizar el contenido mental mediante el recurso al concepto de función biológica. En el presente artículo se argumenta que la teleosemántica carece de los recursos necesarios para hacer frente a tres problemas: la indeterminación del contenido, el carácter abstracto de este y la inutilidad biológica de algunas de las representaciones que pueden albergar organismos como los humanos. ABSTRACT Teleosemantics is the attempt to naturalize mental content by resorting to the concept of biological function. (...) The article argues that teleosemantics lacks the necessary resources to solve three problems: the indeterminacy of content, its abstract nature, and the biological uselessness of some of the representations of certain organisms such as human beings. (shrink)

Edmund T. Whittaker’s second edition of his A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity is famous for his treatment of Einstein as an almost irrelevant character in the emergence of what he called “the relativity theory of Poincaré and Lorentz.” Historians of science have given a number of explanations, which include Whittaker’s scientific conservatism as an old classical physicist, his commitment to the ether, the pre-eminent role he attributed to mathematics over physics, and foundational philosophical disagreements, to name (...) a few. And in the background, often more implicit than forthright, the accusation of antisemitism looms over Whittaker. In this paper I intend to shed new light on this controversy by taking into consideration the abundant correspondence between Whittaker and his son preserved in the archives of the Fisher Library, University of Toronto. With it, we will get a more complex and personal view of the context in which his attempt at dethroning Einstein took place. Together with the abovementioned reasons, this correspondence shows that the problematic status quo of general relativity in the early 1950s, a period that has been described as the low-mark of general relativity, was very influential in the historical treatment he gave to Einstein. This is an aspect hardly mentioned in the historical work on this controversy and, from this correspondence, it appears to be central to understanding Whittaker at the time of drafting the new History. His possible antisemitic bias will also be addressed, though with the insufficient information on this subject the matter cannot be settled. (shrink)

This paper examines the astrological and religious thinking of Moshe ben Nahman (also known as Ramban or Nahmanides) and the intellectual connections in this field with two of the most outstanding Christian thinkers of his time, Ramon Llull and Arnau de Vilanova. Nahmanides, like many medieval scholars, admitted an astral influence, but he did not accept astrology as a divinatory science. He incorporated astrological doctrines in his exegetical works, assuming that Israel is not determined by any star because it only (...) responds to God. Yet the study of medieval medicine and its application cannot be separated from astrology practice because it was considered that the stars had a direct influence not only on the development of the human body, from birth to death, but also in the disease processes which affect it. Ramban and his disciple Solomon ben Adret accepted and practiced astrological medicine. Llull and de Vilanova also devoted themselves to this discipline. All of them agree on the influence of the stars on humankind but condemned astral magic. Like Ramban, Llull rejects other astrological methods considered non-scientific in his time, such as prediction through horoscope. Thus, these thinkers tried to develop an astrology that was not in contradiction with divine omnipotence or free will. (shrink)

Dans cet article, j’essaie de montrer la pertinence de la Phénoménologie de la perception pour répondre aux défis de la philosophie dans un monde à la fois déchirée et globalisateur. Si on laisse de côté la dimension théorétique du monde, nous recupérons le fond obscure de l’existence, fond de tous les espaces. Il s’agirait d’un espace primigène dans lequel on trouve le lien affectif propre de l’expérience des enfants et des primitives. Mais le vécu de ces espaces implique une perte (...) du espace de jeu qui fait possible le monde comme ouverture et intersubjectivité. La réponse de Merleau-Ponty devant le psychologisme suppose un tournant envers la philosophie traditionnelle parce qu´il réussit à garder près de sa conscience les consciences «autres» du schizophrène ou de l’enfant. (shrink)

El presente artículo trata de superar la división entre una epistemología de virtudes confiabilista y otra responsabilista. En su lugar se presenta una visión orgánica del conocimiento humano. La visión orgánica –también denominada pre-cismática- articula aspectos confiabilistas y responsabilistas. Finalmente se discute un nuevo concepto: felicidad epistémica, que se justifica desde la perspectiva agentiva del conocimiento. Así, se sostiene que parece razonable pensar que el conocimiento es un tipo de acción cuyo fin último es la felicidad. Esta felicidad se puede (...) obtener por vía negativa –al no obtener una verdad pero sí una mejora de la situación epistémica- o por vía positiva, esto es, cuando se da en el blanco de la verdad. (shrink)

The origin of the bilaterian metazoans from radial ancestors is one of the biggest puzzles in animal evolution. A way to solve it is to identify the nature and main features of the last common ancestor of the bilaterians (LCB). Recent progress in molecular phylogeny has shown that many platyhelminth flatworms, regarded for a long time as basal bilaterians, now belong to the lophotrochozoan protostomates. In contrast, the LCB is now considered a complex organism bearing several features of modern bilaterians. (...) Here we discuss an alternative view, in which acoelomorph (Acoela + Nemertodermatida) flatworms, which do not belong to the Platyhelminthes, represent the earliest extant bilaterian clade. Sequences from ribosomal and other nuclear genes, Hox cluster genes, and reinterpretation of some morphological features strongly support the basal position of acoelomorphs arguing against a complex LCB. This reconstruction backs the old planuloid–acoeloid hypothesis and may help our understanding of the evolution of body axes, Hox genes and the Cambrian explosion. BioEssays 26:1046–1057, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Con Tocqueville la soberanía va a conocer un desplazamiento de lugar. En la articulación entre "estado social y "estado político", la soberanía toma formas inusitadas en la tradición de la teoría política y se convierte en la opinión democrática, la nueva "autoridad social". En Estados Unidos se da además en la vida local, forma de sociabilidad y poder en la que lo público y lo privado interactúan; porque la autoridad moderna y democrática del futuro ya no será propiedad y privilegio (...) del Estado, tal y como ocurría en la monarquía absoluta de las sociedades europeas. (shrink)