La Teoría de la Justicia de Rawls es, sin duda, la teoría de la justicia más relevante de la filosofía moderna, y ha tenido (y sigue teniendo) inmenso y riquísimo impacto en la generación de investigaciones y debates. De los múltiples posibles, analizaré la tensión y la complejidad que se presenta para la igualdad y la libertad desde la lectura de los principios de justicia rawlsianos. Concretamente, desde el principio de diferencia, que es el que distribuye los bienes sociales del (...) ingreso y la riqueza e instituye la posición social del más y del menos aventajado. Leyéndolo con medio siglo a las espaldas, haré un repaso general de los aspectos básicos de la teoría para detenerme de manera directa en el principio de diferencia analizándolo desde la crítica que considera a Rawls un autor insuficientemente igualitario. (shrink)

Basil Bernstein rarely had a good press in the forty-odd years in which he presented his developing theories to the public. Early admiration for his sociolinguistic 'discoveries' - of codes which regulate, at a deep-structural level, family beliefs and behaviours and relationships, as well as surface utterances - turned quite quickly into a suspicion that his description of social class difference amounted to a declaration of working class deficit. Although Bernstein's writings, particularly in the 1990s, became opaque to the point (...) of seeming to be purposefully obscurantist, they have always been enlivened by clear, pithy and punchy statements which left no room for ambiguity about the case he was making. The struggle to achieve an education system which would offer genuinely equal opportunities to children from all class and cultural backgrounds continued to underpin the writing and teaching of his later years. (shrink)

These essays represent an important contribution to modern philosophical theology. They begin with an appreciation of Basil Mitchell's work and then discuss the role of reason in the justification of Christian theism, giving special attention to the nature of informal reasoning in religion and science. The latter essays examine particular arguments raised by specific religious concepts, covering such topics as the problem of evil, conspicuous sanctity, atonement, and the Eucharist. Drawn from a wide spectrum of philosophers and theologians, the contributors (...) include Maurice Wiles, Grace M. Jantzen, Gordon Kaufman, J.R. Lucas, Rom Harr'e, Richard Swinburne, and Michael Dummett. (shrink)

The article focuses on the definition of constitutional conflicts as moral dilemmas. It discusses the conception of tragic conflicts by which “loss” is a distinctive feature that identifies both moral and constitutional dilemmas. It also asserts the peculiarity of constitutional conflicts vis-à-vis moral dilemmas, as well as the possibility of legal solutions to constitutional conflicts.

Since conflicts of human rights can be translated into conflicts of values, this article looks into the sources and extension of value pluralism for a better understanding of the sort of conflicts of human rights that women face in multicultural contexts. Furthermore, a proper understanding of personal autonomy as a founding value underlying individual rights can contribute to an interpretation of women's human rights that takes account of both their untouchable core as well as their contextual meaning. As conflicts of (...) fundamental rights most often take place in a scenario of strong pluralism, the article considers cases of conflicts of rights in multicultural societies focusing on the overlapping values to be balanced. Religious freedom, education, neutrality, equality or toleration are some of the issues to be addressed: all of these are important and should be evaluated considering their further implications for women as well as for the other individuals involved. (shrink)

En los estudios sobre participación política se observan diferencias tanto conceptuales como metodológicas relativas a su evaluación que afectan la producción del conocimiento en este campo. Tales diferencias configuran un nivel de complejidad mayor cuando refieren a estudios hechos sobre una misma población. Con el fin de evaluar la participación política de la población cordobesa se desarrollaron 7 estudios en un período de 14 años utilizando diferentes innovaciones metodológicas tendientes a mejorar la calidad de los datos y con el propósito (...) de contribuir a la discusión en torno a la evaluación de este constructo de marcada relevancia social y complejidad. Los resultados reportados son consistentes con la tendencia observada en el campo de estudios que sugiere la complejización de la evaluación de este constructo abarcando su intensidad, amplitud y orientación para conocer de modo más preciso su multidimensionalidad. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene por objeto analizar el proceso de creciente marginalización que experimentó la figura de Manuel Ugarte (1875-1951) hacia los años treinta del pasado siglo. Hasta entonces, y desde su despertar a la vida pública a fines del siglo XIX, este intelectual había ocupado un lugar central en el escenario político-cultural latinoamericano en virtud, por un lado, de su participación en los círculos literarios vinculados al modernismo latinoamericano. Por otro, como corolario de su campaña antiimperialista y latinoamericanista emprendida hacia (...) comienzos de siglo que lo convirtió, en los años veinte, en un referente indiscutido del antiimperialismo impulsado entonces por intelectuales y juventudes latinoamericanas. No obstante, en la siguiente década, el prestigio de Ugarte inició un férreo declive que se correspondió con el progresivo aislamiento de su figura del mundo político-cultural latinoamericano. De ese lugar marginal habría de rescatarlo, posteriormente, un sector de la izquierda nacional como precursor del “socialismo nacional”. The purpose of this work is to analyze the process of increasing marginalization experienced by the figure of Manuel Ugarte (1875-1951) during the 1930s’. Until then, and since his irruption into public life by the end of the Nineteenth Century, his intellectual figure had played a key role in the Latin American political and cultural scenarios by virtue, on the one side, of his presence in literary societies belonging to the Latin American modernism. On the other side, as a corollary to the Latin-Americanist and anti-imperialist campaigns initiated by the beginning of the Twentieth Century which turned his figure, during the 1920s’, into an undisputed reference of the imperialism stimulated by the intellectuals and Latin-American youths of that time. However, within the following decade, Ugarte’s public recognition experienced a steady decline that matched his increasing isolation from the Latin American political and cultural scenarios. His figure was to be revived, at a later stage, from such isolation, by a sector within the local left as an early figure of the “national socialism”. (shrink)

El trabajo que se presenta analisa los libras de texto que tratan la problemática de la formacíón de la ciudadanía en Argentina entre 1870 y 1930. Se han analizado 39 textos de la Argentina época y se han comparado los mismos con los planes y programas de las escuelas dependientes dei Consejo Nacional de Educación. El terna se encuentra presente tanto en los libras de lectura como en los manuales de instrucción Educación). Sin embargo, en ambos tipos de texto, el (...) tema es tratado diferenciadamente. Estos manuais. tipos de texto cumplen, en la lógica escolar, funciones diferentes. Mientras los libras de lectura procuran nacionalizar ai inmigrante, los libras de instrucción cívica procuran convertirlo en ciudadano. Esta doble función de los textos inmigrants, no se refleja en los planes y programas de la época. Mientras estos últimos observan una lógica disciplinar, en la que los contenidos de la formación cívica se incluyen en una materia específica, y trabajan fundamentalmente temas vinculados a las leyes, los libras de texto dispersan los contenidos entre otras disciplinas y trabajan no sólo el contentes tema de la Jey sino además la formación cívica. Los textos enfocan el tema desde la lógica de la dispersión. (shrink)

Tras abordar el análisis del pluralismo de valores y proponer una interpretación de los derechos humanos como valores plurales, la autora se centra en un caso jurisprudencial de conflicto de derechos fundamentales que pone de manifiesto el tipo de problemas jurídicos y morales que el pluralismo presenta. Finalmente, se examinan el multiculturalismo y el cosmopolitismo como modelos filosófico-políticos para la comprensión de las sociedades plurales.

Does language dominance modulate knowledge of case marking in Hindi-speaking bilinguals? Hindi is a split ergative language with a rich morphological case system. Subjects of transitive perfective predicates are marked with ergative case (-ne). Human specific direct objects, indirect objects, and dative subjects are marked with the particle -ko. We compared knowledge of case marking in Hindi-English bilinguals with different dominance patterns: 23 balanced bilinguals and two groups of bilinguals with Hindi as their weaker language: 24 L2 learners of Hindi (...) with age of acquisition (AoA) of Hindi in adulthood and 26 Hindi heritage speakers with AoA of Hindi since birth) in oral production and acceptability judgments. The balanced bilinguals outperformed the English-dominant bilinguals; the L2 learners and the heritage speakers, who showed similar lower command of the Hindi case marking system, with the exception of –ko marking as a function of specificity with direct objects. We consider how dominant language transfer, age of acquisition of Hindi, and input factors may explain the acquisition and knowledge of morphology in Hindi as the weaker language. (shrink)

Mainstream cognitive neuroscience typically ignores the role of quantum physical effects in the neural processes underlying cogni¬tion and consciousness. However, many unsolved problems remain, suggesting the need to consider new approaches. We propose that quantum theory, especially through an ontological interpretation due to Bohm and Hiley, provides a fruitful framework for addressing the neural correlates of cognition and consciousness. In particular, the ontological interpretation suggests that a novel type of 'active information', connected with a novel type of 'quantum potential energy', (...) plays a key role in quantum physical processes. After introducing the ontological interpretation we illustrate its value for cognitive neuroscience by discussing it in the light of a proposal by Beck and Eccles about how quantum tunneling could play a role in controlling the frequency of synaptic exocytosis. In this proposal, quantum tunneling would enable the 'self' to control its brain without violating the energy conservation law. We argue that the ontological interpretation provides a sharper picture of what actually could be taking place in quantum tunneling in general and in synaptic exocytosis in particular. Based on the notions of active information and quantum potential energy, we propose a coherent way of understanding how mental processes (understood as involving non-classical physical processes) can act on traditional, classically describable neural processes without violating the energy conservation law. (shrink)

Muchos autores que se han ocupado de la autonomía personal parecen identificar la capacidad de autonomía esencialmente con la capacidad de todo agente racional para identificar preferencias y tomar decisiones conforme a las mismas. Estos autores -entre los que podríamos ubicar a C. Nino- prescinden a menudo de ulteriores elementos o condiciones para su ejercicio. Sin embargo, resulta fundamental ahondar en esos aspectos a veces pasados por alto; ahondar principalmente en las opciones y el proceso de formación de preferencias de (...) los agentes, para delinear mejor los aspectos normativos de la autonomía. En este trabajo propongo recuperar un elemento central del concepto que ha sido extensamente desarrollado en la literatura feminista, me refiero al contexto de relaciones que ha dado lugar a la llamada "autonomía relacional". Propongo incorporar esta noción al núcleo conceptual de la autonomía sin renunciar, sin embargo, a otros elementos del concepto entre los que destacaré las "opciones relevantes", es decir, la presencia de cursos de acción, de oportunidades, que la persona es capaz de reconocer como propuestas no solo viables sino legítimas para sí. Para desarrollar esta idea comenzaré por definir la autonomía a través de los que considero los elementos o condiciones centrales del concepto, deteniéndome especialmente en la condición de opciones relevantes. A continuación se abordará la cuestión relativa al modo en que las opciones se perfilan, se construyen y son percibidas por los sujetos. En este punto el estudio se fijará específicamente en el entorno contextual y de relaciones que sirve de trasfondo para la construcción de las opciones, para proponer la noción de opciones relacionales. Many authors have written about autonomy focusing mainly on the capacity of the autonomous agent for identifying preferences and making decisions. These authors -C. Nino among them- do not take into consideration further elements or conditions for being autonomous. However, it is necessary to take other aspects into consideration; mainly it is important to take account of both options and the building of the agent’s preferences. This way, autonomy normative aspects will be better understood. I propose here to analyse the concept of "relational autonomy", which has been largely elaborated within feminist theory. My aim is to incorporate relations and options to the core of the concept of personal autonomy. In this article, I will define personal autonomy first, highlighting the importance of relevant options. Second, I will describe the way options are built and their perception by the agent. Finally, I will focus on the context and relations on the background, and I will propose the notion of relational options. (shrink)

This book represents part of an ongoing effort to understand the rules, practices, agencies and agents which shape and change the social construction of pedagogic discourse. It draws together and re-examines the findings of the author's earlier work.

El presente artículo analiza el planteamiento que algunos autores comunitaristas han hecho de la noción de autonomía personal. En primer lugar centraré la atención en la formulación kantiana de la autonomía y en las posteriores reformulaciones que se han hecho de la propuesta original. En la segunda parte expondré algunos aspectos generales de la teoría comunitarista para luego desarrollar la propuesta de Charles Taylor, específicamente la ética de la autenticidad. En el análisis se destacan los problemas que surgen de entender (...) la autonomía desde la perspectiva de una ética comprehensiva que concibe al sujeto como continuador de una tradición moral colectiva. (shrink)

Botero’s Della Ragion di Stato has a monarchical character that has been overlooked or taken for granted. This is due to the successful reception of the reason of state formula, which justifies any kind of political regime, including principalities, republics, and monarchies, regardless of the author’s preferences. However, there is a clear distinction between monarchy and reason of state that requires further discussion. Botero not only uses Machiavellian language when referring to a political community (as res publica) or the prince (...) (as a metaphor for centralized monarchies), but also reappropriates it. In addition, he goes beyond this to explain a non-legal path to absolute sovereignty, which differs from Jean Bodin’s (1530–96) idea of the king as being above the law and Thomas Hobbes’ (1588–1679) theory of authorization and the social contract. This paper argues that Botero’s concept of reason of state can be understood as a complex process of reduction to unity, similar to God’s creation and the functioning of the natural world. Despite its contradictions and limitations, it grants the prince an unusual supremacy and control over society. (shrink)

Resumen: La objeción de nivelar a la baja es una de las principales objeciones que se le realizan a la igualdad, especialmente al igualitarismo como principio distributivo. Y cómo se responde a esta objeción, depende de qué tipo de igualitarismo se defienda y cuál sea, por lo tanto, la igualdad que se pretende. En el presente artículo, parto de una explicación general del concepto de igualdad y de los distintos tipos de igualitarismos y sus características centrales, para luego analizar los (...) argumentos y justificaciones que dan los autores que discuten la objeción de nivelar a la baja. Todo ello con el objetivo de construir analíticamente una propuesta de igualdad más resistente. Abstract: The Levelling Down Objection is one of the main complaints against equality, specially against egalitarianism as a distributive principle. How this objection is responded depends on what version of egalitarianism is assumed, and therefore on which kind of equality is pursued. This article examines the concept of equality and the different egalitarian approaches as well as its main features. Then, the arguments and justifications given by the egalitarian authors to confront the levelling down objections are analyzed. The main goal is to analytically build a stronger more consistent idea of equality. (shrink)

Gerald Cohen ha marcado una impronta genuinamente igualitaria en los debates sobre la justicia, que exige ser analizado para comprender de manera adecuada los desafíos a los que se enfrenta la justicia social en el mundo. Desde su agudeza crítica y el marco del marxismo analítico que le han convertido en uno de los más brillantes filósofos contemporáneos, ha defendido un particular igualitarismo de la suerte que blinda la exigencia de compensar los impactos de la suerte bruta y refuerza los (...) argumentos sobre la reconsideración de la responsabilidad y la posibilidad de escoger que definen la suerte opcional –en principio no compensable–, a la luz de los condicionamientos de las desigualdades en las que las personas desarrollan sus vidas y realizan sus opciones vitales y en cómo éstas impactan en lo libres y responsables (o no) que resultan ser. Cohen ofrece su propuesta de igualdad en el acceso a las ventajas sociales desde un entramadoteórico analítico complejo sobre los incentivos, los condicionamientos del mercado, la consideración de los gustos caros, el impacto de las desigualdades, y las exigencias de la igualdad de oportunidades; advirtiendo que la pobreza implica, desde su crítica aguda al sistema político y económico contemporáneo, privaciones a la manera en que ejercemos nuestras libertades. (shrink)

A contracorriente de su tiempo, Eric Voegelin replanteó la cuestión de la ciencia política en los estratos más hondos del Ser. Su idea de la política como una ciencia del orden, cuyo vector trascendental despliega una triple representación de la noción de verdad apunta hacia una recuperación de la problemática metafísica para las ciencias humanas. Con la cuestión metafísica y la problemática de la verdad, Voegelin atisbó en toda su complejidad el desafío que supone la simbiosis con la omnipotencia como (...) dato político de la existencia humana. La trayectoria civilizatoria de Israel y Grecia supondrán en este camino dos hitos de diferenciación de la consciencia y de la identidad occidental. Dos caminos políticos paralelos que ofrecen distintas concepciones de la razón, del hombre y del poder. (shrink)

At the beginning of his magnum opus, Process and Reality (1929), Whitehead lists a series of beliefs which he thinks are widely held by contemporary philosophers. They are all condemned as dangerously mistaken. What are these myths? Why are they rejected? In the works of which modern thinker did they arise? What precisely went wrong? At what stage in the development of Western thought did this happen? By tackling these questions, Pierfrancesco Basile makes it possible to grasp the main (...) concepts of Whitehead's process metaphysics - especially the crucial notion that being and power are one and the same - and appreciate the complex way this is rooted in the modern philosophical tradition. (shrink)

People with bad beliefs — roughly beliefs that conflict with those of the relevant experts and are maintained regardless of counter-evidence — are often cast as bad believers. Such beliefs are seen to be the result of, e.g., motivated or biased cognition and believers are judged to be epistemically irrational and blameworthy in holding them. Here I develop a novel framework to explain why people form bad beliefs. People with bad beliefs follow the social epistemic norms guiding how agents are (...) supposed to form and share beliefs within their respective communities. Beliefs go bad because these norms aren’t reliably knowledge-conducive. In other words, bad beliefs aren’t due to bad believers but due bad social epistemic norms. The framework also unifies different explanations of bad beliefs, is testable and provides distinct interventions to combat such beliefs. The framework also helps to capture the complex and often contextual normative landscape surrounding bad beliefs more adequately. On this picture, it’s primarily groups that are to be blamed for bad beliefs. I also suggest that some individuals will be blameless for forming their beliefs in line with their group’s norms, whereas others won’t be. And I draw attention to the factors that influence blameworthiness-judgements in these contexts. (shrink)

Since its publication in French in 1949 by the Presses Universitaires de France, Basil Tatakis' Byzantine Philosophy remains the sole work of its kind, an analysis of the rise of Christianity in the East and the civilization that grew out of it at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa.

While liberals see personal autonomy as paramount in civil society and as intrinsic to human dignity and human rights, others, such as communitarians, see group rights as intrinsic to human development and human welfare. Thus, while generally liberals give no or very little place in their thinking to right-bearing groups or collective entities, others see communities as conditions for self-fulfilment and individual freedom. This paper explores these two positions and argues that a cultural, pluralist, democratic society will be characterised by (...) a diversity of controversial moral positions at a range of levels. The paper offers discussion as a method of reconciling controversial moral positions, in general and in classrooms, in particular. (shrink)

Cambridge Professor Basil Willey wrote this volume as a companion to his preceding work on the Seventeenth Century Background. Whereas the 17th C. key word was "Truth," he maintains the 18th C key word was "Nature." Organized in 12 chapters including "The Wisdom of God in the Creation, Cosmic Toryism, Natural Morality--Shaftesbury, Nature in Satire, Jos. Priestley and the Socinian Moonlight, and Nature in Wordsworth.

El artículo reexamina individualmente los escasos testimonios pre-clásicos en los que se verifica por primera vez el término bárbaros. Se instrumentará un enfoque discursivo en relación con la ocurrencia del término en las fuentes arcaicas -atento al plano morfosintáctico, semántico y pragmático- con el objeto de obtener indicios y formulaciones de conjunto que puedan enriquecer el debate en torno a la génesis de la voz bárbaros y, en especial, contribuir a echar luz sobre las múltiples connotaciones semánticas que adquirirá el (...) término en su diseminación y proliferación en la etapa posterior a las Guerras Médicas. The paper reexamines individually the sparse pre-classical sources containing the term bárbaros. The analysis of the extant archaic evidence adopts a discursive approach -which encompasses morphosyntactic, semantic and discourse-pragmatic features- in an attempt to shed light on the still much-debated origin of the word bárbaros and, notably, on the manifold semantic connotations the word bárbaros later acquires as its use becomes pervasive in the aftermath of the Persian wars. (shrink)

The author proceeds from empirical basis to show how far the two Rawls's principles of justice can be implemented in Africa. Positions not only of Rawls but also of other philosophers are presented, reconstructed and commented. They are also opposed with critiques and other theories, so that the appropriate position for Africa can be explained. The author comes to the conclusion that the fundamental liberties are still in the making in Africa. A long colonial past and Aparthied have deprived Africa (...) from its blossoming. However, a groping democracy of full hope is pointing ahead. So that freedom and democracy gain more room the author suggests the establishment of federalism based on ethnic groups. To speak of democracy and freedom without a substantial economic support seems illusive. In order to improve the lot of the least advantaged the author proposes betterment of education and health. (shrink)