This paper argues that practitioners of psychedelic-assisted therapy could learn a great deal from Deleuze and Guattari’s critique of psychoanalysis in Anti-Oedipus, as well as the practice of materialist psychiatry – schizoanalysis – that they offer in its stead. Much of the clinical research on psychedelics (particularly psilocybin) over the past fifteen years has privileged mystical experience, assessed according to a quantifiable scale, as the goal of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and source of cure ( Griffiths et al. 2006, 2016 ; Barrett (...) and Griffiths 2018 ; Pollan 2018 ). Has ‘mystical experience’ become the ‘imperialism of Oedipus’ within the psychedelic revival, towards which all psychedelic experience and activity of the unconscious is expected to tend? Distressed patients would be better held, I contend, through a therapeutic practice that adopts Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the unconscious as a desiring-machine and the cure as a completion of the process of desiring-production that is not arrested and reduced to pre-assigned ends. In this mode of working with psychedelics, the embodied memories, visions and sensations of the patient do not in a predetermined way ‘express’ or ‘represent’ a perennial, quantifiable experience (or myth). Rather, they enable the positive task of schizoanalysis of learning what a subject’s desiring-machines are and how they work, and the negative task of identifying and destroying all that stands in the way of their functioning. (shrink)

Theorists in various scientific disciplines offer radically different accounts of the origin of violent behavior in humans, but it is not clear how the study of violence is to be scientifically grounded. This problem is made more complicated because both what sorts of acts constitute violence and what needs to be appealed to in explaining violence differs according to social scientists, biologists, anthropologists and neurophysiologists, and this generates serious problems with respect to even attempting to ascertain the differential bona fides (...) of these various explanatory programs. As a consequence, there is little theoretical reason to suspect that efforts to prevent violence will have any appreciable effect. In this paper we investigate the general issue of whether any of the general theoretical approaches to violent behavior can reasonably be taken to be the best approach to the explanation of seriously violent behavior. Our more specific aim is to examine the controversial explanation of violent behavior offered by Lonnie Athens in order to ascertain whether it can be seriously considered to be the best explanation of violent behavior. (shrink)

What is morality? Where does it come from? And why do most of us heed its call most of the time? In Braintrust, neurophilosophy pioneer Patricia Churchland argues that morality originates in the biology of the brain. She describes the "neurobiological platform of bonding" that, modified by evolutionary pressures and cultural values, has led to human styles of moral behavior. The result is a provocative genealogy of morals that asks us to reevaluate the priority given to religion, absolute rules, (...) and pure reason in accounting for the basis of morality. Moral values, Churchland argues, are rooted in a behavior common to all mammals--the caring for offspring. The evolved structure, processes, and chemistry of the brain incline humans to strive not only for self-preservation but for the well-being of allied selves--first offspring, then mates, kin, and so on, in wider and wider "caring" circles. Separation and exclusion cause pain, and the company of loved ones causes pleasure; responding to feelings of social pain and pleasure, brains adjust their circuitry to local customs. In this way, caring is apportioned, conscience molded, and moral intuitions instilled. A key part of the story is oxytocin, an ancient body-and-brain molecule that, by decreasing the stress response, allows humans to develop the trust in one another necessary for the development of close-knit ties, social institutions, and morality. A major new account of what really makes us moral, Braintrust challenges us to reconsider the origins of some of our most cherished values. (shrink)

Writing for non-specialists and students as well as for fellow philosophers, this book explores some basic issues surrounding sex and love in today's world, among them consent, objectification, nonmonogamy, racial stereotyping, and the need to reconcile contemporary expectations about gender equality with our beliefs about how love works. Author Patricia Marino argues that we cannot fully understand these issues by focusing only on individual desires and choices. Instead, we need to examine the social contexts within which choices are made (...) and acquire their meanings. That perspective, she argues, is especially needed today, when the values of individualism, self-expression, and self-interest permeate our lives. Marino asks how we can fit these values, which govern so many areas of contemporary life, with the generosity, caring, and selflessness we expect in love and sex. Key Features ofPhilosophy of Sex and Love: An opinionated introduction Offers a contemporary, problems-based approach to the subject, helping readers better understand and address current issues and controversial questions Includes coverage of sex and love as they intersect with topics like disability, race, medicine, and economics Considers not only the ethical, but also the broadly social and political dimensions of sex and love Includes a helpful introduction and conclusion in each chapter and is written throughout in a clear and straightforward style, with examples and sign-posts to help guide the student and general reader A comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography provides a valuable tool for anyone's further research P> Offers a contemporary, problems-based approach to the subject, helping readers better understand and address current issues and controversial questions Includes coverage of sex and love as they intersect with topics like disability, race, medicine, and economics Considers not only the ethical, but also the broadly social and political dimensions of sex and love Includes a helpful introduction and conclusion in each chapter and is written throughout in a clear and straightforward style, with examples and sign-posts to help guide the student and general reader A comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography provides a valuable tool for anyone's further research. (shrink)

Moral diversity is a fundamental reality of today’s world, but moral theorists have difficulty responding to it. Some take it as evidence for skepticism – the view that there are no moral truths. Others, associating moral reasoning with the search for overarching principles and unifying values, see it as the result of error. In the former case, moral reasoning is useless, since values express individual preferences; in the latter, our reasoning process is dramatically at odds with our lived experience. Moral (...) Reasoning in a Pluralistic World takes a different approach, proposing an alternative way of thinking about moral reasoning and progress by showing how diversity and disagreement are compatible with theorizing and justification. Patricia Marino demonstrates that, instead of being evidence for skepticism and error, moral disagreements often arise because we value things pluralistically. This means that although people share multiple values such as fairness, honesty, loyalty, and benevolence, we interpret and prioritize those values in various ways. Given this pluralistic evaluation process, preferences for unified single-principle theories are not justified. Focusing on finding moral compromises, prioritizing conflicting values, and judging consistently from one case to another, Marino elaborates her ideas in terms of real-life dilemmas, arguing that the moral complexity and conflict we so often encounter can be part of fruitful and logical moral reflection. Aiming to draw new connections and bridge the gap between theoretical ethics and applied ethics, Moral Reasoning in a Pluralistic World offers a sophisticated set of philosophical arguments on moral reasoning and pluralism with real world applications. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the cognitive/computational and evolutionary levels. It describes three proposals to make cognition computationally tractable, namely: Resource Rationality, the Adaptive Toolbox and Massive Modularity. While each of these proposals appeals to evolutionary considerations to dissolve the intractability of cognition, Rich, Blokpoel, de Haan, and van Rooij argue that, in each case, the intractability challenge is not resolved, but just relocated to the level of evolution.

Knowledge-first epistemology includes a knowledge norm of action: roughly, act only on what you know. This norm has been criticized, especially from the perspective of so-called standard decision theory. Mueller and Ross provide example decision problems which seem to show that acting properly cannot require knowledge. I argue that this conclusion depends on applying a particular decision theory which is ill-motivated in this context. Agents’ knowledge is often most plausibly formalized as an ambiguous epistemic state, and the theory of decision (...) under ambiguity is then the appropriate modeling tool. I show how to model agents as acting rationally on the basis of their knowledge according to such a theory. I conclude that the tension between the knowledge norm of action and formal decision theory is illusory; the knowledge-first paradigm should be used to actively select the decision-theoretical tools that can best capture the knowledge-based decisions in any given situation. (shrink)

One key concept in the large body of scholarship concerned with theorizing social relations is the idea of 'cosmopolitanism'. This book unpacks the idea of cosmopolitanism through the linked knowledges of the Global South. It brings into dialogue an inter-disciplinary team of local and transnational scholars who examine various temporal, cultural, spatial and political contexts in countries as different, yet connected, as Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, India, Bangladesh, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. The book also considers a wide range of subjects – (...) present and historical, real, as represented in literature and in theatre, and as theorized in philosophy – across these diverse contexts, but always focusing on regions and places where inter-Asian intermingling has taken place. The conclusions arrived at are varied and considerably enrich social theorizing. The book reveals a cosmopolitanism that is much more specifically Asian than the cosmopolitanism usually associated with the West, demonstrates how concepts of 'nation', 'local' and 'globalization' play out in practice in Asian settings, and re-examines concepts such as migration, diaspora, and the construction of identities. The book has much to offer scholars engaged in history, literary studies, anthropology and cultural studies. (shrink)

El escrito se propone analizar la discusión metodológica desarrollada por Enrique Dussel en la época en que se formuló la filosofía de la liberación; lo que se afirma es que la filosofía de la liberación, en su versión dusseliana, se configura al modo de un diseño metodológico adecuado a la condición de alteridad latinoamericana. Desde este supuesto se abordan algunos puntos de la discusión dusseliana con la filosofía del concepto y con el pensar ontológico en vistas de la configuración de (...) la analéctica. Finalmente, se afirma que la formulación analéctica de la filosofía de la liberación es uno de los modos en que la filosofía latinoamericana desarrolla una propuesta crítica de la categoría de sujeto. This paper sets out to analyze the methodological discussion developed by Enrique Dussel at the time that the philosophy of liberation was formulated; what is stated is that the philosophy of liberation, in its dusselian version, configures an adequate methodological design to the condition of Latin-American otherness. From this assumption some points of the dusselian discussion are undertaken with the philosophy of the concept and with the ontological thinking in views of the configuration of the analectics. Finally, it is stated that the analectic formulation of the philosophy of liberation is one of the ways in which the Latin American philosophy develops a critical proposal of the category of subject. (shrink)

There are two prominent viewpoints regarding the nature of rationality and how it should be evaluated in situations of interest: the traditional axiomatic approach and the newer ecological rationality. An obstacle to comparing and evaluating these seemingly opposite approaches is that they employ different language and formalisms, ask different questions, and are at different stages of development. I adapt a formal framework known as SCOP to address this problem by providing a comprehensive common framework in which both approaches may be (...) defined and compared. The main result is that the axiomatic and ecological approaches are in far greater agreement on fundamental issues than has been appreciated; this is supported by a pair of theorems to the effect that they will make accordant rationality judgements when forced to evaluate the same situation. I conclude that ecological rationality has some subtle advantages, but that we should move past the issues currently dominating the discussion of rationality. (shrink)

Sarah Moss’ thesis that we have probabilistic knowledge is from some perspectives unsurprising and from other perspectives hard to make sense of. The thesis is potentially transformative, but not yet elaborated in sufficient detail for epistemologists. This paper interprets Mossean probabilistic knowledge in a suitably-modified Kripke framework, thus filling in key details. It argues that probabilistic knowledge looks natural and plausible when so interpreted, and shows how the most pressing challenges to the thesis can be overcome. Most importantly, probabilistic knowledge (...) can satisfy factivity in the framework, though we are not forced to accept a specific account of probabilistic “facts”. The framework also reflects Moss’ claim that old-fashioned propositional knowledge is just a limiting case of probabilistic knowledge, and all knowledge is fundamentally probabilistic. Finally, Moss endorses a failure of contraposition: for example, p implies probably p, but not probably p does not imply not p. The framework makes clear the sense in which the valid inferences regarding probably p are as Moss claims. (shrink)

El libro de Alex Ibarra, Filosofía chilena. La tradición analítica en el periodo de la institucionalización de la filosofía, plantea la discusión sobre las líneas filosóficas, demostrando la existencia de cierta tradición analítica en Chile. A partir de allí, reflexionamos en torno a los procesos de constitución del campo de la filosofía en Chile como una historia atravesada por la necesidad de préstamos y cruces que impiden una delimitación clara de sus límites, lo que tornaría necesaria la atención a ciertas (...) políticas de la lectura que el libro soslaya. La productividad de la filosofía producida en Chile surgiría gracias -y no pese- a su inscripción en sus tiempos y espacios, a partir de recepciones cuya ausencia de retraso no impide el gesto de cierto re-trazo de lo leído. Alex Ibarra's exposition in his book Filosofía chilena. La tradición analítica en el periodo de la institucionalización de la filosofía, places the discussion on the philosophical traditions, showing the existence of a certain kind of analytical tradition in Chile. From there, we expose the processes of constitution of the field in Chile as a history crossed by the need of importations and intersections that contest the clear delimitation of its boundaries, what makes necessary the attention of the politics of readings that the book avoid. The productivity of the philosophic production in Chile, arises thanks to -but not in spite of- its inscription in its age/times and spaces, coming from its receptions and its differences. (shrink)

The essays in this book criticise the new positivism in education policy, whereby education is systematically reduced to those things that can be measured by so-called 'objective' tests. School curricula have been narrowed with an emphasis on measurable results in the 3 R’s and the ‘quality’ of university departments is now assessed by managerial exercises based on commercial audit practice. As a result, the traditional notion of liberal arts education has been replaced by utilitarian productivity indices.

This essay presents some thoughts on schizoanalysis and visual culture around the proposition that cinema survives in the digital age as a type of image that, after the movement-image and the time-image, could be called the neuro-image. By considering clinical schizophrenia as ‘degree zero’ of schizoanalysis in a more critical sense, a reading of The Butterfly Effect unfolds the temporal dimensions of schizoanalysis as typical for a definition of ‘the neuro-image’. The argument is that the neuro-image speaks from the (always (...) speculative) future. (shrink)

El ejercicio filosófico de raíz marxista en Chile tiene un capítulo escrito por los intelectuales comunistas de la década del 60 del siglo XX. Uno de ellos, Sergio Vuskovic, se abocó a discutir con las tesis althusserianas que identificaron la teorización de Marx como un antihumanismo teórico. Para oponerse a tal perspectiva, Vuskovic realiza una operación teórica al interior de la obra de Marx con el objetivo de afirmar la categoría de sujeto, así como la interna relación entre ejercicio teórico (...) y praxis socio-histórica. Chilean communist intellectuals of the 1960's wrote a chapter of the history of Marxist philosophy. One of them was Sergio Vuskovic who focused on discussing Marx's theories according to Althusser's thesis of anti-humanism. By affirming the subject category and the internal relationship between "theoretical operation" and socio-historical praxis within Marx's philosophy, Vuskovic opposes Althusser's perspective. (shrink)

La investigación en medicina tiene por objetivo generar nuevos conocimientos que ayuden al diagnóstico, el tratamiento y la prevención de enfermedades. Pero la medicina no es una ciencia exacta, sino una actividad humana heterogénea que se basa solo parcialmente en la ciencia, con varios factores no científicos que influyen en la forma de desarrollar esta actividad. El dolor, como síntoma o como enfermedad, es probablemente el trastorno que más afecta y preocupa a las personas y el que con mayor frecuencia (...) motiva una consulta médica. A pesar de la magnitud del problema, y del interés médico y social por el dolor, la atención y el tratamiento de las personas con dolor crónico es un tema infravalorado o tratado inadecuadamente. Con base en múltiples preguntas que se plantean a lo largo del desarrollo del presente documento, nuestro objetivo es, por un lado, el de señalar que los cambios que se han producido en el manejo del dolor crónico hacen de los llamados protocolos de consenso un ejercicio obsoleto en la medicina del siglo XXI. Por otro lado, en términos de bioética, responder a la pregunta ¿se ajustan los protocolos de consenso al principio de beneficencia del paciente individual? (shrink)

This paper analyses the most important changes of philosophy of science since the middle of last century. Specifically, it considers this changes from so-called "historical turn", "naturalistic turn", "social turn", "pragmatic turn", and "political turn" of contemporary philosophy of science.

En el trabajo se propone difundir la teoría y los enfoques referidos a la ciencia de la sostenibilidad, con especial énfasis en el contexto académico cubano, al relacionar su emergencia a las urgencias que surgen en los vínculos entre la ciencia, la naturaleza y la sociedad, así como mostrar las articulaciones de la Ciencia de la Sostenibilidad con la política científica, la educación universitaria y la salud pública. In this paper, the theory and the approaches of the science of sustainability (...) is promoted. Special emphasis is put on the academic Cuban context, when relating its emergence to the urgencies that appear within the links among science, nature and society. The interconnections of the science of sustainability with the scientific policy, the university education and the public health is shown as well as. (shrink)

Este estudo investigou a transmissão de sentimentos frente a situações de luto de 27 mulheres ao longo de três gerações. Após a pré-seleção de mulheres que conheciam histórias de morte em sua família, aplicou-se um questionário com perguntas abertas e fechadas. O coeficiente de Friedman indicou mais..

In his dialogues, Plato presents different ways in which to understand the relation between Forms and particulars. In the Symposium, we are presented with yet another, hitherto unidentified Form-particular relation: the relation is Love (Erôs), which binds together Form and particular in a generative manner, fulfilling all the metaphysical requirements of the individual’s qualification by participation. Love in relation to the beautiful motivates human action to desire for knowledge of the Form, resulting in the lover actively cultivating and bringing into (...) being new beauty in the world, and in herself. Chapters 1 and 2 of this thesis offer a survey of the arguments and examples Plato puts forward in the text of the corpus regarding the nature of Forms and the nature of participation, alongside a framework of the traditional interpretations of these two Platonic concepts in the literature. Chapter 3 turns to a close examination of Erôs in the Symposium, arguing that the love Plato presents in this dialogue is of a different sort than appetitive emotion. It is an aesthetic and intellectual attraction, capable of stimulating cognitive achievement. Erôs, however, does not stop there. The lover is led not only to contemplation of beauty, but to the generation of beauty, which is the subject of Chapter 4. The emotive-turn-to-cognitive relation of Erôs, I argue, is the clearest picture Plato paints of how possession of properties can be explained through participation in Forms. Erôs leads the lover to produce beauty in the world and in the soul, which explains how love in relation to the beautiful can lead to becoming beautiful. The object of love is the generation of beauty, the mortal mechanism of participation in the Form by which the lover herself becomes beautiful. Finally, Chapter 5 focusses on beauty itself and its role in moral education. Beauty, for Plato, is required for creative generation and can be understood as a uniquely powerful virtue of soul. (shrink)

Currently, Nursing Education draws on a commonly taken‐for‐granted folk psychology of a representational view of how the mind works and how human beings learn. Descartes' representational view of the mind strongly influences pedagogies, theories of learning, curricula, and approaches to testing nursing knowledge and more broadly in academia. A representational view of the mind holds that perception occurs in the mind only through representations in the mind through ideas, concepts, templates and schema. Situated, embodied, and socially embedded cognition is presented (...) as a counter view to a representational view of the mind. (shrink)