Wittgenstein scholars have tended to interpret the acquisition of certainties, and by extension, of a world-picture, as the achievement of a state in which these certainties are assimilated in a seemingly unconscious way as one masters language-games. However, it has not been stressed that the attainment of this state often involves facing a series of challenges or difficulties which must be overcome for the development of the world-picture and therefore the socialization process to be achieved. After showing, on the one (...) hand, how a world-picture is usually developed, and on the other hand, why a child who seemingly found itself trapped in a precocious skepticism might have serious problems in assimilating certainties, in this paper, I describe some of the challenges children often meet as they acquire a world-picture. Since the overcoming of these challenges is often needed for children to develop a world-picture, I aim at raising the awareness of the necessity of ‘learning to believe’, that is, of developing a series of skills that allow children to undertake the challenges described in this paper. (shrink)

KOINONIA/ASETT MINGA/MUTIRÃO DE REVISTAS DE TEOLOGIA LATINO-AMERICANAS Teología de la Liberación en camino hacia nuevos paradigmas (Liberation Theology towards new paradigms).

Wide analysis of "María Teresa López de la Vieja, La pendiente resbaladiza. La práctica de la argumentación moral . Madrid y México, D.F.: Plaza y Valdés, 2010, 288 páginas.".

This paper presents the concept of ‘religious certainty’ I have developed by drawing inspiration from Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘certainty’. After describing the particular traits of religious certainty, this paper addresses two difficulties derived from this concept. On the one hand, it explains why religious certainty functions as such even though all its consequences are far from being absolutely clear; on the other hand, it clarifies why, unlike the rest of certainties, the loss of religious certainty does not result in the (...) collapse of the world-picture made up of all certainties. Subsequently, it analyzes to what extent the teacher can teach religious certainty by acting as a facilitator for its acquisition–if desired—particularly bearing in mind that religious certainty cannot be attained at will. These basic teaching guidelines have several advantages. First, they make it possible to know the nature of religious certainty even better. Second, and most importantly, the fact of having adopted the perspective of a teacher who tries inculcating a religious certainty contributes to detecting and preventing forms of indoctrination that, arguably, might go unnoticed even when attempting to properly present religious certainty—or rather, this way of being religious—in current schools to foster understanding thereof. (shrink)

Though Wittgenstein's On Certainty has been influential in analytic epistemology, its interpretation has been enormously controversial. It is true that exegesis has been mainly concerned with the proper characterization of Wittgenstein's very notion of ?certainty?; however, some important questions remain unanswered regarding this notion. On the one hand, I am above all referring to the study of the possibilities we have of retaining a certainty when it has seemingly been placed into question and, on the other hand, of regaining a (...) certainty once it has been lost. In this paper, I attempt to provide a detailed answer to both questions. In so doing, some important features of the picture of ourselves which emerges from Wittgenstein's On Certainty are also revealed. (shrink)

En el presente texto se intenta presentar una visión ordenada de la evolución de la pregunta de si es España una nación, y en caso de ser la respuesta afirmativa, si ha sido una nación normal y si es su historia la historia de una decadencia. La preocupación por el tema de “España como problema” se remonta al siglo XVII y llega a nuestros días. Nos detendremos especialmente en las tesis al respecto de Ortega y Gasset y su discípulo Julián (...) Marías. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s conception of ‘persuasion’, understood as the persuader’s attempt to modify the persuadee’s certainties, has been recently misinterpreted by some scholars. For Persichetti has overlooked the fact that one cannot persuade unintentionally, while Marconi and Perissinotto have not only taken for granted that persuasion consists in the mere transfer of a world-picture or set of certainties to an individual even when she has not alternative or different certainties, but also that education is restricted to persuading or transmitting certainties. After clarifying (...) these misinterpretations, among others, I argue that persuasion is not used for teaching certainties at the outset, but for modifying them when they do not fit the ones expected by the persuader. If it is agreed that education partly consists in transmitting a world-picture, then persuasion constitutes a necessary resource for educators. Lastly, I provide a set of guidelines for teachers to draw attention to the basic aspects of persuasion that they should consider in the classroom. (shrink)

The paper focuses on Reinhardt Grossmann's analysis of the Argument from Physics, as well as the analysis by the Spanish philosopher Antonio Millán-Puelles, in an attempt to assess the validity of the Argument on the basis of their respective critical views. Both authors agree in perceptual realism and in the need to distinguish between the scope and object of Physics and the ordinary objects of natural perception. Their criticisms mainly concern the innappropiate use of the principle of reduction in the (...) Argument and the distinction between secondary and primary qualities, which is, according to Grossmann, one of the sources of idealism and phenomenalism. (shrink)

Literature on indoctrination has focused on imparting and revising beliefs, but it has hardly considered the way of teaching and acquiring certainties—in Wittgenstein’s sense. Therefore, the role played by rationality in the acquisition of our linguistic practices has been overestimated. Furthermore, analyses of the relationship between certainty and indoctrination contain major errors. In this paper, the clarification of the aforementioned issues leads me to suggest the avoidance of the term ‘indoctrination’ so as to avoid focusing on the suitability of the (...) case to the concept rather than on the analysis of the case itself. This should facilitate that the process of helping children to acquire a world-picture—by teaching them to ignore alternatives to certainties—is definitely accepted as normal and natural, for many beliefs are expected to end up becoming ungrounded certainties not only in the medium or long term, but also, and above all, in the short term. (shrink)

Traducción, selección y estudio preliminar José María Felipe Mendoza * Edición bilingüe. Se recomienda descargar el PDF para visualizar mejor la traducción y el original en paralelo.

Índice del número colectivo Minga-Mutirão de Revistas Latinoamericanas de Teología 2013, «A los 40 años de la Teología de la Liberación: balance y futuro» VIGIL, José Maria. Presentación . BARROS, Marcelo; VIGIL, José Maria. Anunciaron su muerte, ¡pero está bien viva! Teología de la Liberación 40 años: balance y perspectivas . SUSIN, Luiz Carlos, Secretario Executivo do Foro Mundial de Teologia e Libertação, Porto Alegre, Brasil, Teologia da Libertação: de onde viemos, para onde vamos? ALMEIDA, Antonio José (...) de , Teologia da Libertação e transições eclesiasis pendentes para o futuro. ARAGÃO, Gilbraz, Recife, Brasil, A Libertação se desdobra em diálogo. Teologia da Libertação e pluralismo religioso. BARROS, Marcelo, Recife, Brasil, Para una teología bolivariana de la Liberación. Teología de la Liberación y Patria Grande hoy . SCHIAVO, Luigi, San José, Costa Rica , Tiempos oscuros, tiempos de monstruos. Teología de la Liberación y nuevos desafíos culturales. OSORIO, Sergio, Bogotá, Colombia , Una nueva dimensión epistemológica para la teología. La Teología de la Liberación y el desafío epistemológico. RODRIGUES SILVA Marcos, Coordenador da Comissão de Teologia Afro da ASETT, Teologia Afro (ou Negra) da Libertação: balanço e perspectivas. TOMICHÁ, Roberto, Cochabamba, Bolivia, Teologías de la liberación indígenas. VÉLEZ, Consuelo, Coordinadora de la Comisión de Teología Feminista de la ASETT, Universidad Xaveriana, Bogotá, Colombia, Teología feminista latinoamericana de la Liberación: balance y futuro. KERBER, Guillermo : Teología de la liberación y movimiento ecuménico. CASTILLO, Jorge, panameño profesor de teología en la Universidad de Nijmegen, Holanda, Teología de la liberación y «cristianismo mundial». VIGIL, José María, Panamá, Panamá, Teología de la Liberación en camino hacia nuevos paradigmas. (shrink)

Major depression etiopathogenesis is related to a wide variety of genetics, demographic and psychosocial factors, as well as to environmental factors. The objective of this study is to analyze sociodemographic and environmental variables that are related to the prevalence of depression through correlation analysis and to develop a regression model that explains the behavior of this disease from an ecological perspective. This is an ecological, retrospective, cross-sectional study. The target population was 1,148,430 individuals over the age of 16 who were (...) registered in Aragon (Spain) during 2010, with electronic medical records in the community’s primary health care centers. The spatial unit was the Basic Health Area (BHA). The dependent variable was the diagnosis of Depression and the ecological independent variables were: Demographic variables (gender and age), population distribution, typology of the entity, population structure by sex and age, by nationality, by education, by work, by salary, by marital status, structure of the household by number of members, and state of the buildings. The results show moderate and positive correlations appear with higher rates of depression in areas having a higher femininity index, higher population density, areas with a higher unemployment rate and higher average salary. The results of the linear regression show that aging +75 and rural entities act as protective factors for depression, while urban areas and deficient buildings act as risk factors. In conclusion, the ecological methodology may be a useful tool which, together with the statistical epidemiological analysis, can help in the political decision making process. (shrink)

There currently is sufficient scientific evidence directly linking acquisition, exposure and prevalence of the human papillomavirus to cervical cancer. The article addresses HPV in women by taking NaProTechnology into account, which makes it posible to combine scientific evidence with ethical approaches. It looks at both the biological aspect of sexuality and the ability to become a person within one’s sexual nucleus. There is an analysis of sex education programs based on preventive health and on the anthropology of sexuality, and supported (...) by family institutions, that have demonstrated better acceptance in dealing with the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, including HPV infection. (shrink)

An analysis of the particular kind of determinism that is to be found in the moral election according to Leibniz shows the model of practical reason held in his philosophy. The hermeneutical clue used in the article is to make a parallelism between the model of rationality of God’s election to create the best possible world and that of human moral election.

Los Elementos de ética de Hierocles, junto a los extractos que conservamos por Estobeo, constituyen una presentación ordenada de la ética estoica desde sus primeros fundamentos. En este trabajo nos proponemos desgranar el argumento estoico de la familiaridad (οἰκείωσις) y la tesis de que lo primero familiar, ya seamos seres humanos o animales, no es solo la percepción de sí mismo sino también el impulso a la conservación de sí mismo. Hierocles exhorta a ponerse los unos en el lugar de (...) los otros y a abrirse progresivamente en círculos concéntricos a la humanidad, pero sin demoler, desde el centro de la razón, la perspectiva de lo propio y familiar. (shrink)

La piedra clave que sostiene el sistema simbólico de las religiones, es sin duda, la experiencia de salvación. F. Heiler afirmaba que el aroma de las religiones es la soteriología y R. Panikkar proponía definir el hecho religioso con tres simples palabras: "camino de salvación". Por ello, la realidad existencial del dolor y el sufrimiento son el gran reto lanzado a la experiencia religiosa: proponéis salvación, se puede decir a los creyentes, pero el dolor y el sufrimiento siguen existiendo. ¿Cómo (...) es posible? Por ello, todas las religiones de formas muy diferentes, responden a la pregunta por sufrimiento y proponen formas para integrarlo existencialmente. (shrink)

Lurie, Yuval: Wittgenstein on the Human Spirit. Rodopi, Amsterdam & New York, 2012, 277 pp.

Algunos autores han intentado considerar los delirios como certezas –entendidas en el sentido de Wittgenstein– debido a las similitudes que parecen existir entre sus respectivos estatus epistemológicos. Sin embargo, dicho intento ha sido criticado con agudeza, entre otras razones, porque el contenido de los delirios choca frontalmente con el contenido de las certezas, por lo que los delirios no pueden ser comprendidos debido a los cambios en las relaciones de significado. Pero es evidente que, aunque los delirios no se puedan (...) contemplar como certezas, muchos delirios afectan de un modo u otro al sistema de certezas del paciente. Partiendo de esta base, no es descabellado pensar que dicha influencia pudiera ser también recíproca: en otras palabras, parece sumamente recomendable analizar si algunos delirios se podrían contemplar como el resultado de variaciones en certezas. En este artículo llevo a cabo dicho análisis al intentar mostrar que el origen de algunos delirios pedestres y severos puede ser hallado en lo que llamaré “ceguera a posibilidades” e “incertidumbre”, términos que he desarrollado teniendo en cuenta la obra del filósofo Ludwig Wittgenstein. (shrink)

In this paper, I describe the main lines of modern error theory, a systemic theory which regards errors not as the results of someone’s negligence, but as parts of a complex system. Bearing in mind that errors must be considered as such by an observer or attributor, I expose Wittgenstein’s conception of the attributor responsible for discerning if a strange event constitutes an error or an anomaly. Subsequently, I illustrate this conception of the attributor by describing some traits of the (...) role played by many attributors in business organizations, specifically in the production line of a car manufacturer’s plant, when carrying out the rootcause analysis of problems that arise in the plant. Finally, I reveal a paradox whereby if the attributor denies the possibility that anomalies may happen without being able to explain their source within the system that he or she takes as reference, then the very idea of system no longer makes sense. (shrink)

Según señaló Ludwig Wittgenstein en Sobre la certeza, podríamos imaginar acontecimientos tan extraños que ni siquiera tuvieran cabida en nuestros juegos de lenguaje. En este artículo analizaremos las distintas consecuencias de estos hechos, prestando especial atención a la posibilidad de decidir aferrarnos a nuestras propias certezas. Concretamente, detallaremos en qué circunstancias podemos tomar tal decisión.

Siegel claimed that teachers are obliged to provide grounds whenever demanded, as a result of which they must be able to subject to scrutiny whatever they teach. In this paper, however, and taking as a reference Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, it is shown that such a demand cannot work for second language teachers because their main task consists in transmitting ungrounded certainties. To clarify this point, I begin by presenting Wittgenstein’s conception of ‘certainty’, and explaining why I think he was right (...) to provide examples of teachers who refuse to answer their students’ doubts concerning certainties. Thereafter, I analyze two kinds of grounds – i.e. historical and practical – with which a second language teacher might reply to the students’ queries about the certainties that he aims to transmit to them. This will enable me to reveal the consequences of such replies and, by extension, the scenario that would result from allowing students to decide whether they accept whatever is taught to them. In this way, I will show not only that Siegel’s demand is unfeasible, but also why second language teaching provides a clear example that the acquisition of certainties constitutes a final goal in education. (shrink)