This article describes the effect of a teaching–learning sequence based on the discovery of oxygen in promoting students’ argumentation. It examines the written and oral arguments produced by 63 high school students in France during a complete TLS supervised by the same teacher. The data used in this analysis was derived from students’ written responses, audio and video recordings, and written field notes. The first goal of this investigation was to provide evidence that an approach combining history and philosophy of (...) science and argumentation could increase students’ awareness of the relevance of experimentation and communication to scientific progress. The second goal was to assess the effectiveness of the TLS to engage students in argumentative classroom interactions relating to the discovery of oxygen at the end of the 18th century. The findings show that this historical case can be useful for promoting students’ argumentation and is also appropriate for high school students. Future research should include students of other ages, other historical episodes and experiences in other parts of the world. (shrink)

Developing critical thinking ability is one of the main goals of medical education, in part because it enhances clinical reasoning, a vital competence in clinical practice. However, there is limited evidence suggesting ways to effectively teach critical thinking in the classroom. Here, we describe the use of a drama-based critical thinking classroom scenario. The study used a mixed-methods approach with both quantitative and qualitative analysis of questionnaire responses. Ninety-one medical students in Colombia were asked to identify and evaluate arguments regarding (...) a dilemma between ethics, social responsibility and scientific work presented in the play Should’ve by the Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann. Chi square analyses of responses to closed-ended questions showed that the drama-based classroom scenario provided learners with opportunities to make decisions, and to identify and evaluate arguments from the play. Qualitative analysis of responses to open-ended questions confirmed these findings and illustrated the processes underlying the decisions. Students were able to evaluate arguments in an impartial way. Our findings support the use of drama-based scenarios in the classroom as an approach to fostering medical students’ critical thinking. This approach could contribute to a classroom pedagogy in which all students have an active role in responding to controversial questions, evaluating arguments and critically responding. This would support the development of critical thinking and promote deeper understanding of the dilemmas involved in scientific work. (shrink)

What should our theorizing about social justice aim at? Many political philosophers think that a crucial goal is to identify a perfectly just society. Amartya Sen disagrees. In The Idea of Justice, he argues that the proper goal of an inquiry about justice is to undertake comparative assessments of feasible social scenarios in order to identify reforms that involve justice-enhancement, or injustice-reduction, even if the results fall short of perfect justice. Sen calls this the “comparative approach” to the theory of (...) justice. He urges its adoption on the basis of a sustained critique of the former approach, which he calls “transcendental.” In this paper I pursue two tasks, one critical and the other constructive. First, I argue that Sen’s account of the contrast between the transcendental and the comparative approaches is not convincing, and second, I suggest what I take to be a broader and more plausible account of comparative assessments of justice. The core claim is that political philosophers should not shy away from the pursuit of ambitious theories of justice (including, for example, ideal theories of perfect justice), although they should engage in careful consideration of issues of political feasibility bearing on their practical implementation. (shrink)

This essay explores the relation between two perspectives on the nature of human rights. According to the "political" or "practical" perspective, human rights are claims that individuals have against certain institutional structures, in particular modern states, in virtue of interests they have in contexts that include them. According to the more traditional "humanist" or "naturalistic" perspective, human rights are pre-institutional claims that individuals have against all other individuals in virtue of interests characteristic of their common humanity. This essay argues that (...) once we identify the two perspectives in their best light, we can see that they are complementary and that in fact we need both to make good normative sense of the contemporary practice of human rights. It explains how humanist and political considerations can and should work in tandem to account for the concept, content, and justification of human rights. (shrink)

The topic of alienation has fallen out of fashion in social and political philosophy. It used to be salient, especially in socialist thought and in debates about labor practices in capitalism. Although the lack of identification of people with their working lives—their alienation as workers—remains practically important, normative engagement with it has been set back by at least four objections. They concern the problems of essentialist views, a mishandling of the distinction between the good and the right, the danger of (...) paternalistic impositions, and the significance of democratic authorization. This paper recasts the critique of alienation in a way that vindicates its importance for social and political philosophy and rebuts these objections. First, it provides an analytic framework to understand alienation—distinguishing its various conceptual, explanatory, and normative dimensions. Second, it accounts for the normative aspect of the critique of alienation by articulating it in terms of prudential and moral ideas of positive freedom regarding human flourishing and solidaristic empowerment. Finally, the normative account is developed further, and sharpened to respond to the four objections, through the introduction of the Dignitarian Approach—the view that we have reason to organize social life in such a way that we respond appropriately to the valuable features of individual human beings that give rise to their dignity. (shrink)

This paper offers an exploration of the socialist principle “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” The Abilities/Needs Principle is arguably the ethical heart of socialism but, surprisingly, has received almost no attention by political philosophers. I propose an interpretation of the principle and argue that it involves appealing ideas of solidarity, fair reciprocity, recognition of individual differences, and meaningful work. The paper proceeds as follows. First, I analyze Marx’s formulation of the Abilities/Needs Principle. Second, (...) I identify the principle’s initial plausibility, but show that it faces serious problems that cannot be addressed without developing a fresh interpretation of it. Third, I provide an interpretation of the principle that highlights demands concerning opportunities for self-realization in work, positive duties of solidarity, sensitivity to individual differences, and mechanisms of fair reciprocity. Fourth, I discuss a possible institutional implementation of the Abilities/Needs Principle. Finally, I identify some normative puzzles about the transition from capitalism to socialism, and suggest how the Abilities/Needs Principle might gain motivational traction by mobilizing the powerful idea of human dignity. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a quasi-transcendental argument to justify Kant’s infamous claim “man is evil by nature.” The cornerstone of my reconstruction lies in drawing a systematic distinction between the seemingly identical concepts of “evil disposition” (böseGesinnung) and “propensity to evil” (Hang zumBösen). The former, I argue, Kant reserves to describe the fundamental moral outlook of a single individual; the latter, the moral orientation of the whole species. Moreover, the appellative “evil” ranges over two different types of moral failure: (...) while an “evil disposition” is a failure to realize the good (i.e., to adopt the motive of duty as limiting condition for all one’s desires), an “evil propensity” is a failure to realize the highest good (i.e., to engage in the collective project of transforming the legal order into an ethical community). This correlation between units of moral analysis and types of obligation suggests a way to offer a deduction of the universal propensity on behalf of Kant. It consists in tracing the source of radical evil to the same subjective necessity that gives rise to the doctrine of the highest good. For, at the basis of Kant’s two doctrines lies the same natural dialectic between happiness and morality. While the highest good brings about the critically acceptable resolution of this dialectic, the propensity to evil perpetuates and aggravates it. Instead of connecting happiness and morality in an objective relation, the human will subordinatesmorality to the pursuit of happiness according to the subjective order of association. If this reading is correct, it would explain why prior attempts at a transcendental deduction have failed: interpreters have looked for the key to the deduction in the body of Kant’s text, where it is not to be found, for it is tucked, instead, in the Preface to the first edition. (shrink)

The idea of dignity is pervasive in political discourse. It is central to human rights theory and practice, and it features regularly in conceptions of social justice as well as in the social movements they seek to understand or orient. However, dignity talk has been criticized for leading to problematic exclusion. Critics challenge it for undermining our recognition of the rights of non-human animals and of many human individuals (such as children, the elderly, and people with disabilities). I argue that, (...) on a plausible articulation of it, the idea of dignity does not lead to these exclusions and that it in fact helps defend an appropriately inclusive moral and political treatment of all individuals. Difficult issues about equality and diversity indeed arise, but a dignitarian approach can provide good answers to them or at least help make them clearer and more tractable. (shrink)

Do we have positive duties to help others in need or are our moral duties only negative, focused on not harming them? If these positive duties exist, are they strong and strict demands or are they weak and discretionary? Can we say that at least some positive duties of assistance are also duties of justice worthy of institutionalization and coercive enforcement by legal institutions? Can the scope of some of such duties be cosmopolitan or should all of them be circumscribed (...) to what we owe to our compatriots? This paper addresses these questions from a Kantian perspective, and argues that Kant’s practical philosophy provides sufficient resources to develop and defend the claim that there are basic positive duties of justice, some of which have a global scope. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of human dignity based on a discussion of Kant's moral and political philosophy and then shows its relevance for articulating and developing in a fresh way some normative dimensions of Marx’s critique of capitalism as involving exploitation, domination, and alienation, and the view of socialism as involving a combination of freedom and solidarity. What is advanced here is not Kant’s own conception of dignity, but an account that partly builds on that conception and partly criticizes (...) it. The same is the case with the account of socialism in relation to Marx’s work. As articulated, Kantian dignity and Marxian socialism turn out to be quite appealing and mutually supportive. (shrink)

Sobre el libro: Isaiah Berlin ha sido, además de un original e intuitivo historiador de las ideas y autor de numerosos conceptos teórico-políticos, un reconocido teorizador de la libertad y defensor acérrimo del pluralismo. Rasgos que lo han convertido en un innegable referente intelectual en nuestra época. Sobre el editor: El Editor de la presente obra, Pablo Badillo O'Farrell, con motivo del centenario del nacimiento de Berlin, ha reunido un número de contribuciones de estudiosos italianos y españoles que ofrecen, (...) desde muy diferentes perspectivas, un amplio abanico de miradas diversas sobre la obra y el pensamiento del autor, que van desde el análisis y confrontación del pluralismo valorativo y la ética de la libertad, al de la interculturalidad o la identidad personal y el nacionalismo, pasando por la confrontación de historicismo, historia de las ideas y contra-corriente. (shrink)

To be justifiable, the demands of a conception of human rights and global justice must be such that (a) they focus on the protection of important human interests, and (b) their fulfilment is feasible. I discuss the feasibility condition. I present a general account of the relation between moral desirability, feasibility and obligation within a conception of justice. I analyse feasibility, a complex idea including different types, domains and degrees. It is possible to respond in various ways if the fulfilment (...) of basic socioeconomic human rights against severe poverty seems at first to be infeasible. (shrink)

In a common, pejorative sense of it, ideology consists in attitudes whose presence contributes to sustaining, by making them seem legitimate, social orders that are problematic. An important way a social order can be problematic concerns the prospects for well-being facing the people living in it. It can make some people wind up worse off than they could and should be. They have “real interests” that are not properly served by the social order, and the interests aligned with it are (...) in fact “false,” merely “apparent,” or “distorted.” Ideology critique consists in part in noting the existence of such different interests, and in challenging the latter to facilitate the fulfillment of the former. This picture of ideology critique implies that ideology thwarts well-being. This paper aims to clarify, develop, and vindicate this picture. It argues that ideology critique should indeed draw (inter alia) on prudential considerations, and that a specifically objectivist view of well-being would be fitting. The fruitfulness of this approach is shown by exploring the specific case of the critique of working practices in contemporary capitalism. (shrink)

Little is known about employee reactions in the form of un/ethical behavior to perceived acts of unfairness toward their peers perpetrated by the supervisor. Based on prior work suggesting that third parties also make fairness judgments and respond to the way employees are treated, this study first suggests that perceptions of interactional justice for peers (IJP) lead employees to two different responses to injustice at work: deviant workplace behaviors (DWBs) and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Second, based on prior literature pointing (...) to supervisors as among the most important sources of moral guidance at work, a mediating role is proposed for ethical leadership. The article suggests that supervisors who inflict acts of injustice on staff will be perceived as unethical leaders, and that these perceptions would explain why employees react to IJP in the form of deviance (DWBs) and citizenship (OCBs). Data were collected from 204 hotel employees. Results of structural equation modeling demonstrate that DWBs and OCBs are substantive reactions to IJP, whereas ethical leadership significantly mediates reactions in the form of DWBs and OCBs. Behavioral ethics and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

In World Poverty and Human Rights, Thomas Pogge argues that the global rich have a duty to eradicate severe poverty in the world. The novelty of Pogges approach is to present this demand as stemming from basic commands which are negative rather than positive in nature: the global rich have an obligation to eradicate the radical poverty of the global poor not because of a norm of beneficence asking them to help those in need when they can at little cost (...) to themselves, but because of their having violated a principle of justice not to unduly harm others by imposing on them a coercive global order that makes their access to the objects of their human right to subsistence insecure. In this paper, I claim that although Pogge is right in arguing that negative duties are crucial in an account of global justice, he is wrong in saying that they are the only ones that are crucial. Harming the global poor by causing their poverty provides a sufficient but not a necessary condition for the global rich to have a duty of justice to assist them. After engaging in a critical analysis of Pogges argument, I conclude by suggesting the need for a robust conception of cosmopolitan solidarity that includes positive duties of assistance which are not mere duties of charity, but enforceable ones of justice. (shrink)

This paper explores the relations between self-esteem and competition. Self-esteem is a very important good and competition is a widespread phenomenon. They are commonly linked, as people often seek self-esteem through success in competition. Although competition in fact generates valuable consequences and can to some extent foster self-esteem, empirical research suggests that competition has a strong tendency to undermine self-esteem. To be sure, competition is not the source of all problematic deficits in self-esteem, and it can arise for, or undercut (...) goods other than self-esteem. But the relation between competition and access to self-esteem is still significant, and it is worth asking how we might foster a desirable distribution of the latter in the face of difficulties created by the former. That is the question addressed in this paper. The approach I propose neither recommends self-denial nor the uncritical celebration of the rat race. It charts instead a solidaristic path to support the social conditions of the self-esteem of each individual. The paper proceeds as follows. I start, in section 2, by clarifying key concepts involved in the discussion. In section 3, I identify ten mechanisms that support individuals’ self-esteem and impose limits on competition. I focus, in particular, on the challenges faced by people in their practices of work. In section 4, I outline prudential and moral arguments to justify the use of the proposed mechanisms. Section 5 concludes with remarks on the role of social criticism in the processes of change implementing the mechanisms. (shrink)

In the sacrificial moral dilemma task, participants have to morally judge an action that saves several lives at the cost of killing one person. According to the dual process corrective model of moral judgment suggested by Greene and collaborators (2001; 2004; 2008), cognitive control is necessary to override the intuitive, deontological force of the norm against killing and endorse the utilitarian perspective. However, a conflict model has been proposed more recently to account for part of the evidence in favor of (...) dual process models in moral and social decision making. In this model, conflict, moral responses and reaction times arise from the interplay between individually variable motivational factors and objective parameters intrinsic to the choices offered. To further explore this model in the moral dilemma task, we confronted three different samples with a set of dilemmas representing an objective gradient of utilitarian pull, and collected data on moral judgment and on conflict in a 4-point scale. Collapsing all cases along the gradient, participants in each sample felt less conflicted on average when they gave extreme responses (1 or 4 in the UR scale). They felt less conflicted on average when responding to either the low- or the high-pull cases. The correlation between utilitarian responses and conflict was positive in the low-pull and negative in the high-pull cases. This pattern of data suggests that moral responses to sacrificial dilemmas are driven by decision conflict, which in turn depends on the interplay between an objective gradient of utilitarian pull and the moral motivations which regulate individual responsiveness to this gradient. (shrink)

Although anomic feelings have been found to lead employees to unethical performance, little is known about why this relationship is possible. The aim of this study is to test a compassion-based explanation of why anomic employees harm co-workers by displaying interpersonal deviance. The prediction is made that once sociological anomie enters organizations in the form of employees’ private feelings of anomie—i.e., “anomia”—, this anomia will individually move staff to be uncompassionate in the workplace. Three uncompassionate feelings toward co-workers are then (...) hypothesized to mediate the relationship between anomia and interpersonal deviance: negative judgments about others, over-identification, and isolation. Data were collected from 280 employees at ten hotels in the Canary Islands. The results indicated that anomia was significantly and positively linked to uncompassionate feelings and interpersonal deviance, but only negative judgments about others mediated the anomia effects on interpersonal deviance. Findings suggest to managers that by spreading ethical standards that discourage negative judgments about others in the workplace, they can neutralize the mechanisms leading anomia to interpersonal deviance. (shrink)

This paper offers a normative exploration of what exploitation is and of what is wrong with it. The focus is on the critical assessment of the exploitation of workers in capitalist societies. Such exploitation is wrongful when it involves a contra-solidaristic use of power to benefit oneself at the expense of others. Wrongful exploitation consists in using your greater power, and sometimes even in making other less powerful than you, in order to get them to benefit you more than they (...) ought to. This account of exploitation is appealing because it simultaneously captures three morally significant dimensions of exploitation—its material and social background, the relational (interpersonal and systemic) attitudes it enacts, and the final distributive results it generates. Exploitation is indeed a multidimensional social process. The flipside of the proposed critical characterization of this process is a positive ideal of solidaristic empowerment in the allocation and use of economic power, which the paper articulates in terms of the socialist Abilities/Needs Principle (“from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”). The Abilities/Needs Principle is grounded in human dignity. (shrink)

The current legal and political practice of human rights invokes entitlements to freely chosen work, to decent working conditions, and to form and join labor unions. Despite the importance of these rights, they remain under-explored in the philosophical literature on human rights. This article offers a systematic and constructive discussion of them. First, it surveys the content and current relevance of the labor rights stated in the most important documents of the human rights practice. Second, it gives a moral defense (...) of these rights arguing that their support involves an appropriate response to important human interests and to the human dignity of workers. Finally, it explores central normative issues about the relation between labor rights and human dignity. It responds to some objections about the importance of work, explains why labor human rights may not exhaust the demands of dignity regarding labor and arbitrates a common tension between independence and solidarity within our practical affirmation of human dignity. (shrink)

What is a duty of justice? And how is it different from a duty of beneficence? We need a clear account of the contrast. Unfortunately, there is no consensus in the philosophical literature as to how to characterize it. Different articulations of it have been provided, but it is hard to identify a common core that is invariant across them. In this paper, I propose an account of how to understand duties of justice, explain how it contrasts with several proposals (...) as to how to distinguish justice and beneficence, respond to some objections and suggest further elaborations of it. The conceptual exploration pursued in this paper has practical stakes. A central aim is to propose and defend a capacious concept of justice that makes a direct discussion of important demands of justice (domestic and global) possible. Duties of justice can be positive besides negative, they can be imperfect as well as perfect, they can range over personal besides institutional contexts, they can include multiple associative reasons such us non-domination, non-exploitation and reciprocity, and they can even go beyond existing national, political, and economic associative frameworks to embrace strictly universal humanist concerns. We should reject ideological abridgments of the concept of justice that render these possibilities, and the important human interests and claims they may foster, invisible. (shrink)

Spain is one of the most advanced European countries in terms of the legislative and administrative development of ADs. Article 11 of Law 41/2002, concerning Patient Autonomy, regulates ‘advance directives’ and has prompted various Autonomous Regions to develop legislation in this area. Nevertheless, whilst the variety of legislations in different territories presents advantages, the disparity of criteria also presents problems.Despite significant legislative development, only 23,000 Spanish citizens have filled in an AD. Clearly, AD use is confined to a minority. Several (...) surveys, however, show that the Spanish population views these documents in a positive light. Thus, we must analyse this discrepancy between attitude and practice. A similar situation exists amongst health professionals. Whilst they generally feel that the use of ADs is positive and necessary, they are frequently unwilling to employ them.Bioethical literature and research on ADs has significantly increased in Spain over the last six years. It is likely that this trend will continue in the foreseeable future; but more resources and effort are required if ADs are to become consolidated. (shrink)

After examining some of the most fundamental aspects of the general concept of ‘neuroright’ in the current discussion, this paper analyzes the concept of ‘the mental’ contained in the very first law of neurorights in the world currently under discussion in the Senate of the Republic of Chile (Bulletin 13.828-19 of the Chilean Senate). It is claimed that the lack of specificity of the target notion might not only posit difficulties for the creation of specific legal frameworks for the protection (...) of subjects from potential misuses of neurotechnologies with access to neural data, but it might also make very difficult the process of decision-taking when interpreting the law. (shrink)

El artículo analiza la producción de vacunas en el Instituto Bacteriológico del Departamento Nacional de Higiene de Argentina entre 1913 y 1921. Durante estos años, bajo la dirección del bacteriólogo austríaco Rudolf Kraus, la producción de vacunas fue una apuesta central de las actividades del IB. Para ello, presentamos una reconstrucción de los diferentes aspectos sociales y cognitivos involucrados en estos desarrollos, tales como la selección de los productos, de las técnicas utilizadas, del alcance que tuvieron en su distribución y (...) aplicación efectiva, de las expectativas en torno a su aplicación y de las relaciones y antecedentes a nivel internacional de cada caso, entre otras cuestiones. Proponemos, como eje del análisis, que es posible identificar tres tipos de racionalidades que guiaron el desarrollo de las vacunas, ligadas a las retribuciones o diferentes usos que estas podían redituar en los distintos campos o espacios sociales: una médica-sanitaria, una comercial y una científico-técnica, resultado de las diferentes expectativas y demandas que atravesaron al IB. En términos metodológicos, el trabajo se basa en el análisis de diversas fuentes documentales, tales como trabajos científicos y memorias institucionales del IB y del DNH, trabajos de divulgación profesional o educación universitaria de la época, y bibliografía secundaria de la historia de la ciencia y la medicina. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to propose a model for understanding the relation between substance and procedure in discourse ethics and deliberative democracy capable of answering the common charge that they involve an ‘empty formalism’. The expressive-elaboration model introduced here answers this concern by arguing that the deliberative practical rationality presupposed by discourse ethics and deliberative democracy involves the creation of a practical medium in which certain general basic ideas of solidarity, equality and freedom are expressed and elaborated in (...) the context of widespread moral disagreement. In the course of this paper I propose an elucidation of these ideas and argue for the thesis that they are internally related to the endorsement of deliberative practical rationality. The three basic substantive ideas contribute to the determination of the existence, the form, the topics and intended outcomes, and the effects of the practice of public deliberation. This amounts to an elucidatory defense of deliberative practical rationality by explicating its substantive significance or point. Key Words: critical theory • deliberative democracy • discourse ethics • equality • freedom • Jürgen Habermas • practical reason • John Rawls • solidarity • substance and procedure. (shrink)

Perfectionism about well-being is, at a minimum, the view that people’s lives go well when, and because they realize their capacities. It is common to link perfectionism with an idea of human essence or nature, to yield the view that what constitutes people’s well-being is the development and exercise of characteristically human capacities. The first part of this paper considers the very serious problems associated with the idea of human nature or essence, and argues that perfectionism would be more plausible (...) if it abandons reliance on it and focuses instead on the unfolding of some valuable capacities that need not be unique to, or shared by all human beings. This revised perfectionism is evaluative all the way down, pragmatic but not unprincipled, and holistic. In its second part, the paper articulates this account in terms of the dignitarian approach—the view that we have reason to organize our personal and social life in such a way that we respond appropriately to the valuable features of individuals that give rise to their dignity. Dignity is a non-conventional, normative status based on a diverse and disjunctive set of valuable capacities. The dignitarian approach helps develop, defend, and identify the implications of the revised perfectionism suggested in the previous part of the paper while also allowing us to make sense of the role of some generalizations that animated some of the plausibility of traditional perfectionism—and this without the pitfalls of reliance on an idea of human nature. On this paper’s proposed view—Dignitarian Perfectionism—human individuals’ well-being consists, at least in part, in developing and exercising the capacities at the basis of their dignity. (shrink)

This paper presents a substantivist construal of discourse ethics, which claims that we should see our engagement in public deliberation as expressing and elaborating a substantive commitment to basic moral ideas of solidarity, equality, and freedom. This view is different from Habermas's standard formalist defence of discourse ethics, which attempts to derive the principle of discursive moral justification from primarily non-moral presuppositions of rational argumentation as such. After explicating the difference between the substantivist and the formalist construal, I defend the (...) former by showing that it is not only intuitively compelling, but also particularly well equipped for addressing four important objections recently levelled against discourse ethics and its political applications. I conclude by pointing out some consequences of the previous discussion for the future of Critical Theory. (shrink)

Are positive duties to help others in need mere informal duties of virtue or can they also be enforceable duties of justice? In this paper I defend the claim that some positive duties (which I call basic positive duties) can be duties of justice against one of the most important prin- cipled objections to it. This is the libertarian challenge, according to which only negative duties to avoid harming others can be duties of justice, whereas positive duties (basic or nonbasic) (...) must be seen, at best, as informal moral requirements or recommendations. I focus on the contractarian version of the libertarian challenge as recently presented by Jan Narveson. I claim that Narveson’s contractarian construal of libertarianism is not only intuitively weak, but is also subject to decisive internal problems. I argue, in particular, that it does not pro- vide a clear rationale for distinguishing between informal duties of virtue and enforceable duties of justice, that it can neither successfully justify libertarianism’s protection of negative rights nor its denial of positive ones, and that it fails to undermine the claim that basic positive duties are duties of global justice. -/- . (shrink)

The present article aims to inquire the negativity implied in the relation between man and nature in Kant’s early philosophy. This negativity will be treated from the realm of the theodicy as the dimension from where human fate can be posed. The characterization of this fate will be possible via ethical and aesthetic dimensions set out by Kant in his works dedicated to the subject of theodicy and philosophy of nature; i.e. Über Optimismus, which dates back to the 1750´s. Followingly, (...) we will discuss certain aspects of the author´s Universal History of Nature and Theory of Heaven, and thereafter we will refer ourselves to three minor works concerning earthquakes. In the last chapter we will point out how the comprehension of the aforementioned works are essential in order to define the sentiment of the sublime. In conclusion we will define the sublime as incompatible with optimism. (shrink)

En su ensayo de 1784, “Acerca de la pregunta: ¿Qué significa ilustrar?”, Moses Mendelssohn utiliza el término “felicidad nacional” (Nationalglükseligkeit) con un claro sentido negativo. Sin embargo, durante el propio curso de la obra reflexiva de Mendelssohn, la noción de felicidad juega un rol positivo y es bien ponderada en consonancia con muchas otras perspectivas filosóficas de la Ilustración. Este ensayo pretende acercar algunas ideas acerca de los matices que adquiere la idea de felicidad en la obra de Mendelssohn.

Tradicionalmente, la relación entre el yo y la experiencia se ha entendido a través de la conciencia, que no solo experimenta sino que también “crea” la experiencia, reflejando una noción arraigada desde Aristóteles. Para la filosofía moderna, la conciencia tiene la capacidad de categorizar y comprender lo percibido. Desde la perspectiva de Levinas, la conciencia y la comprensión se ven como actividad y poder simultáneamente. Sin embargo, surge la pregunta: ¿Es la experiencia de un objeto finito comparable a la experiencia (...) de lo infinito o absoluto? La experiencia religiosa expone al yo a un acontecimiento que no puede ser comprendido por la actividad sintetizadora de la conciencia, según Levinas. Para abordar esta cuestión, utilizaremos conceptos que van más allá de la filosofía clásica, como la trascendencia, la intencionalidad invertida (bouleversé), lo infinito y Dios. Nuestro objetivo es demostrar que la percepción y la representación subjetiva de lo absoluto difiere fundamentalmente de la de cualquier otro fenómeno. Exploraremos con Levinas el uso de un lenguaje no ontológico que pueda expresar lo invisible e “incognoscible” de la experiencia religiosa, sin abandonar el discurso ontológico. En síntesis, busco dilucidar cómo la experiencia del absoluto desafía las categorías tradicionales de la conciencia y la comprensión, y cómo un enfoque filosófico alternativo puede arrojar luz sobre esta compleja dinámica. (shrink)

Although the link between epistemic and ontological aspects of social reality has always been a problematic issue for the social sciences, this debate loses centrality from the second half of the twentieth century. This article critically reviews the epistemic reasons for that loss, mainly in relation with "hard" constructivism, arguing for the need to return to the ontological debate about sociological foundations. At the same time, it presents a theoretical proposal: social ontology constitutes itself epistemically; that is, the question about (...) "the social" inevitably involves the question about beliefs that constitute it. But social reality is not exhausted in beliefs, since it requires a material component to exist. From this proposal, this paper makes an explicit defense for a realist approach in sociology. To do this, critically reviews John Searle’s social ontology and makes concretes contributions to sociological theory, emphasizing the importance of action, power and causal reciprocity between individual and society, to have a social ontology that shows the specificity of the social. Aun cuando la vinculación entre los aspectos epistémicos y ontológicos de la realidad social ha sido siempre un asunto problemático para las ciencias sociales, este debate pierde centralidad desde mediados del siglo XX. Este artículo revisa críticamente las razones epistémicas de esa pérdida de centralidad, principalmente en relación con el constructivismo "duro", argumentando la necesidad de retomar el debate ontológico acerca de los fundamentos de la disciplina sociológica, al mismo tiempo que plantea una propuesta teórica de elucidación: la ontología de lo social se constituye epistémicamente; vale decir, la pregunta acerca de qué es lo social implica inevitablemente la pregunta por las creencias que lo constituyen. No obstante, la realidad social no se agota en las creencias, puesto que requiere de un componente material para existir. Desde esa propuesta, en una segunda parte, el artículo defiende la necesidad de adoptar una postura realista en sociología. Para ello, revisa críticamente la propuesta de ontología social de Searle y realiza aportes concretos desde la teoría sociológica, concluyendo la importancia de la acción, del poder y de la reciprocidad causal entre individuo y sociedad, para contar con una ontología que dé cuenta de la especificidad propia de lo social. (shrink)

Sponsored by the Argentine Association for the Progress of Sciences, Ciencia e Investigación magazine released its first issue in 1945. In order to circulate the discoveries in the areas of medical and natural sciences, and to instruct on scientific thought, the magazine was introduced as a knowledge disseminating one and attempted to address a general audience. However, during its first publication decade the CEI editors faced two challenges related to scientific communication. On the one hand, they exhibited the conflicts implied (...) in research writing and the typical conditions of the language of science. On the other, they manifested their interest to bestow a discursive style on the magazine which, although simple and oriented to a wide audience, would not corrupt scientific veracity. This paper follows the French approach to discourse analysis, whose purpose is the simultaneous and reciprocal study of the verbal and the socio-institutional dimension of discourses, and analyses the sociolinguistic representations of the language of science and of its dissemination formulated in CEI between 1945-1955, a period - besides - complex for the scientific development in Argentina, characterized by state interventionism in different institutions. To this aim, editorials and articles that address the aforementioned problems have been selected and examined. The results exhibit the discursive complexities of scientific dissemination in an environment unaware of this practice and, consequently, the difficulty of determining a reader profile for the magazine. In general terms, they reveal the importance of the reflection on the language for the development and communication of science. (shrink)

En el presente artículo, analizamos la influencia que el “gran Doctor del Occidente” ha ejercido sobre el pensamiento doctrinal de Juan Pablo II, un Pontífice que, a través de su magisterio, lleno de santidad y de sabiduría de Dios, ha demostrado al mundo entero cómo las palabras sabias y elocuentes de este “gran hombre y santo” resuenan aún con fuerza dentro del seno de la Iglesia. Es por ello que, basándonos en algunas Encíclicas o Cartas Apostólicas, corroboramos el “buen (...) olor agustiniano” tanto en la vida como en la obra de este papa santo cuyo único propósito, al igual que san Agustín, fue el de servir a Dios y a la Iglesia, defendiendo en todo momento la fe católica. Así, como reza el título de este artículo, “dos amores constituyeron dos grandes pastores”: el amor a Dios y el amor al prójimo, las dos “alas de la caridad”, pues “Ama y haz lo que quieras”. (shrink)

A lo largo de la historia de la Iglesia, podemos comprobar cómo el magisterio agustiniano se convirtió en una constante, que perdura hasta nuestros días. Así, san Agustín ha sido una “inagotable fuente” de inspiración tanto para Pontífices como para numerosos documentos eclesiales. De esta forma, en el presente artículo analizamos —entre otros aspectos— tanto la encíclica Lumen Fidei como la Nueva edición del Directorio para la vida y ministerio de los presbíteros, ambos documentos influenciados e ilustrados con el magisterio (...) del santo obispo de Hipona, magisterio que —como bien señaló el beato Juan Pablo II en su encíclica Augustinum Hipponensem— debe continuar “en la Iglesia y en el mundo a beneficio de la cultura y de la fe”. (shrink)

There are three ways in which descriptive claims stating non-normative facts might bear on normative claims such as principles of social justice and human rights. They may identify (a) specific occasions that trigger application, (b) conditions of feasible implementation, and (c) certain sources of value. The first relation is obvious but important: norms cannot be applied without stating circumstances that make their application relevant. The second relation is also important, as norms that cannot be fulfilled are deficient for guiding social (...) practices and institutional design. The first relation is widely accepted and discussed, and I will not say much about it here. I will say more about the second relation, but not much more because I have discussed it in detail in my writings on feasibility. In this paper, my main focus is on the third relation, which remains underexplored in the relevant literature. After identifying the three relations between facts and norms as they arise in recent discussions in political philosophy, I offer an account of their significance by articulating a specific view that I call ‘dignitarianism’. According to dignitarianism, at least some of the central norms concerning the treatment of an entity depend on the inherent dignity of that entity. Human rights offer a paradigmatic case of dignitarianism, and I concentrate on them to explore the relations between facts, norms, and dignity. (shrink)

En este texto se estudia la lectura que Heidegger lleva a cabo en torno a la obra de Hölderlin tomando como eje la noción de “aporía”. Por ésta se comprende la imposibilidad de una respuesta o resolución con respecto a la cuestión del ser. Sin embargo, lejos de resultar paralizante, esta aporía leída y expresada a través de Hölderlin conduce a Heidegger a la afirmación de la experiencia de esa aporía, de su necesidad y de su dignidad cuestionante. De este (...) modo, se comprueba cómo Hölderlin aporta el aparato léxico y conceptual que Heidegger desplegará en los años siguientes en su camino del pensar. (shrink)