El artículo considera la obra de Fichte a partir de la noción de nihilismo, interpretándola sobre todo como una subordinación de la vida afectiva al imperativo moral. Tras su salida de Jena, Fichte habría intentado responder a las críticas de Jacobi, convirtiendo el concepto de vida en un tema central de su filosofía. El intento de conciliar esa dependencia del imperativo moral y la importancia dada a la vida a partir de las objeciones de Jacobi, permitiría entender algunas claves de (...) su filosofía en el periodo de Berlín y en particular su concepción de lo absoluto. (shrink)

En este artículo sostengo que los tres filósofos/pedagogos cubanos del siglo XIX, Félix Varela y Morales, José de la Luz y Caballero y Enrique José Varona, fueron responsables de superar la enseñanza de la escolástica tardía en la Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Jerónimo de La Habana. Contra los filósofos y pedagogos escolásticos tardíos que preferían la lógica silogística y la autoridad de la tradición sobre la inducción, argumentaron a favor de esta última sobre la primera. Puesto que defendían (...) las ideas liberales y republicanas, también argumentaban en contra de aquellos que apelan a la autoridad de la tradición en lugar de a nuestras experiencias cotidianas. Su espíritu liberal desafió no sólo al régimen tiránico impuesto por España, sino a cualquier otro régimen cuya autoridad dependiera de la fuerza más que de la libre voluntad del pueblo a escoger sus gobernantes. (shrink)

Se presenta el argumento de W. T. Stace sobre el realismo señalando no que éste sea falso sino solamente que no hay absolutamente ninguna razón para considerar que sea verdadero y por tanto no tenemos por qué creerlo. Esto se aplica a la discusión de la pregunta: ¿Cómo sabemos que los átomos existen? Haciendo referencia a algunas de las respuestas científicas más importantes conocidas que son en orden cronológico: i) La ley de las proporciones definidas o Ley de Proust, ii) (...) la teoría cinética de los gases, iii) el movimiento Browniano y, iv) imágenes de microscopio de efecto túnel. (shrink)

I argue that, while unbeknown to most ordinary people, there is an ominous relationship between Gödel and President-elect Trump. The president-elect has flirted with the idea of being a one-day dictator when he assumes the presidency on January 20th, 2025. Less known is that when Gödel was studying the US Constitution to apply for his US citizenship in 1947, he claimed to have discovered a contradiction in the Constitution that could legally allow for the president to become a dictator. While (...) some might consider his concern as farfetched, he might have realized a possible loophole in our constitutional text that could legally pave the way to a dictatorship. (shrink)

In this short piece, I acknowledge that there are two main hypotheses regarding the origin of Sars-Cov2: the zoonotic jump hypothesis defended by the scientific establishment, and the lab leak hypothesis defended by a minority of scientists. Despite the new evidence supporting the zoonotic jump hypothesis, I contend that the minority’s view still seems more reasonable to accept at this time than the majority’s view regarding the origin of the virus. I will try to justify the plausibility of the minority’s (...) hypothesis by deductive reasoning first and then by inductive reasoning appealing to the notion of Inference to the Best Explanation (aka, I2BE). (shrink)

This review highlights The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Philosophy’s focus on “departures from nothingness.” These departures are seen in four themes: the definition of tetsugaku, interpersonal relationships, culture, and the socio-political sphere. In the first theme, I examine the dialogical character of nothingness and how it might relate with being. In the second, I show how this engagement with being connects to how we relate with the Thou, and examine its particulars in a unique spiritual form of Japanese (...) feminism. In the third, I examine how this relational nothingness connects to society, social imaginaries, and aesthetics. And in the fourth, I delve into the complex interrelationship of nothingness and politics. I end with a note on the philosophical relevance of Yusa’s ordering of these chapters, and the potential of both departing from and returning to nothingness. (shrink)

In den Aufsätzen dieses Bandes präsentiert Anton Friedrich Koch Hegels theoretische Philosophie als diejenige Nichtstandard-Metaphysik, in der sich die Metaphysik, nicht aber die Philosophie vollendet. Jenseits von Hegels Evolutionstheorie des Absoluten gilt es von einem Standpunkt der Endlichkeit aus neu zu philosophieren.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Benedict XVI, A Life: Volume 1, Youth in Nazi Germany to the Second Vatican Council 1927–1965 by Peter SeewaldEmil AntonBenedict XVI, A Life: Volume 1, Youth in Nazi Germany to the Second Vatican Council 1927–1965 by Peter Seewald, translated by Dinah Livingstone (London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2020), xi + 500 pp.What better way to spend Pope Benedict XVI's ninety-fourth birthday than by reviewing a Ratzinger biography while having Apfelstrudel (...) and some traditional Bavarian beer?German journalist and author Peter Seewald, who in his many interviews has asked Joseph Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI a total of two thousand or more questions (ix), has written a splendid biography that surprises even someone who has already read dozens of books by and about Benedict XVI. Written in an extremely enjoyable style and divided into chapters of just the perfect length, this page-turner deserves the highest praise. It will likely take its place alongside George Weigel's famous (and equally massive) biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope.The German biography has been divided into two volumes in English (vol. 2 was just published in November of 2021). Volume 1 deals with the years 1927–1965, dominated by two historic "Twos": World War II and Vatican II. Theologically, this is the period of the progressive Ratzinger (regardless of whether he "converted" to a more conservative stance later on), or as Seewald puts it, a man formed by "liberal Bavarian Catholicism" (124).Seewald provides lots of new and interesting information about Joseph Ratzinger, both bitter and sweet. One example from the early chapters concerns the origins of Ratzinger's mother. It turns out that she was an illegitimate child and not actually from South Tyrol, contrary to what her children had thought. A local historian has discovered that Ratzinger's mother Maria was actually born in Mühlbach "in the district of Rosenheim,... in a house that specialized in helping unmarried pregnant women to give birth" (15).For the romantic, the sweetest story of the book comes when Seewald [End Page 963] pushes the reserved Pope Emeritus to reveal more about the "painful decisions" that the young Munich seminarian had to make in relation to his vocation as a celibate priest. "'Were you in love with a girl?' 'Perhaps.' 'So, yes?' 'It could be interpreted like that.' 'How long did this passionate time last? A few weeks? A few months?' 'Longer'" (219). Ratzinger was in love! Or at least it could be interpreted like that! Other heart-warming details include the revelation that Ratzinger's childhood teddy from Marktl followed him all the way to the Apostolic Palace, as well as the fact that, when his blind brother Georg (now deceased) needed a housekeeper, Benedict XVI personally organized the job interview in the Vatican gardens.A darker episode, minimized in Ratzinger's autobiographical memoirs, concerns his role in the radar crew of the German anti-aircraft forces in World War II. The future Pope was entrusted with the task of targeting British bombers. Seewald fills in the narrative: "Ratzinger delivered readings for three guns,.... The more precisely Joseph measured, the higher the hit rate. As the war demanded" (101). Years later, Ratzinger confessed that these experiences still occasionally gave him sweaty nightmares.Seewald goes on to describe the exceptional postwar context in which Ratzinger prepared for the priesthood. The future priests knew that they would soon have to hear confessions of ex-Nazis who had shot people in the war (153). Indeed, after the war, many old Nazis turned to the Church and attempted to get de-Nazification certificates. Ratzinger's parish priest even joked that one day "they will say the only Nazis were the priests" (131).As did everyone, Ratzinger also felt the effects of poverty in postwar Germany. Whenever a festive dinner had to be given for a visitor at the seminary, "we went hungry on the most meagre rations for four long weeks in order to gather the ingredients" (189). After a short period of pastoral ministry subsequent to his ordination, the stellar theologian went back to the seminary as a teacher. Barely twenty-five-years-old, he was younger... (shrink)

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is both a staple in the philosopher’s diet and the lesson that is often difficult to digest. In this paper, I describe one way to teach the Sun, Line, and Cave analogies in reference to students’ personal past experiences. After first learning about Plato’s metaphysics and epistemology through reading Republic VI-VII, students are asked to reflect upon a time in their lives when they emerged from a particular “cave of ignorance.” In reflecting on this experience, (...) students are encouraged to consider how each aspect of the line analogy might be represented in their own experience. Students also consider the epistemological experience turning towards that which is more real. In so doing, students gain a deeper understanding of these lessons by connecting new, abstract, and difficult information to information that is so familiar, it is remembered and not merely imagined. Putting Plato’s theories into the context of their own learning experiences facilitates students’ comprehension of the different levels of being and cognition, their interrelation, and the psychological process of increasing understanding. (shrink)

Ya sea que uno favorezca o se oponga al expresidente Trump, es evidente que, contrario a lo que él ha argumentado, este juicio demostró que ningún ciudadano de los EE. UU. está por encima de la ley. Según el expresidente y sus simpatizantes, el sistema legal estadounidense está «amañado». Alegan que el presidente Biden y el liderazgo del partido demócrata han librado “una guerra legal” (lawfare) es decir, convertir la ley en un arma para obtener una ventaja política sobre el (...) expresidente en las próximas elecciones presidenciales del 5 de noviembre. Sin embargo, para las personas razonables e imparciales, este juicio representa el éxito del Estado de derecho en los Estados Unidos. (shrink)

De maneira reconhecida ou não, a presença de Górgias, e suas teses, no corpus platônico transcende os limites da presença da personagem Górgias nos sete diálogos em que este é mencionado por Platão. Diante de uma influência multifacetada – que abarca desde questões relativas à linguagem, passando pela metafísica, política e estatuto da arte – faz-se necessário um recorte para melhor evidenciar a apropriação e reelaboração platônica do quadro conceitual gorgiano. A pretensão é fazer uma releitura de alguns momentos do (...) texto platônico por meio de um destaque às referências, diretas e indiretas, que nele estão contidas, tanto da sofística de um modo geral, como de Górgias de Leontinos de modo específico. A tese que se pretende defender é a de que as principais hipóteses teóricas apresentadas pelos sofistas, e por Górgias de modo proeminente, devem ser consideradas imprescindíveis para a construção da filosofia platônica – ainda que esta constitua-se como reação ou apropriação seletiva daquelas. Assim, a indústria platônica não se constitui apenas em desqualificar o edifício filosófico gorgiano, a fim de erguer suas teses sobre as ruínas deste, mas também utilizar alguns conceitos da empresa filosófica de Górgias como vigas-mestras da nova perspectiva reflexiva que o discípulo de Sócrates comprometeu-se a desenvolver. (shrink)

Working from Adorno’s notion of negative dialectics, this essay charts a dialectical course of resistance toward a horizon of universal freedom. Rather than propose relations between ideal types of resistance, it emphasizes the ineliminable historical dimensions of not only real-world resistance movements but also the philosophical and political theorizing that attempts to make sense of them. In doing so it brings out certain conceptual relations that emerge or recede as the context of resistance shifts. The first moment considers the dichotomy (...) between reform and revolution, the second moment delves into modes of reform, and the third looks to modes of revolution. Along the way the essay discusses the work of such varied figures and organizations as Rosa Luxemburg, John Rawls, Martin Luther King, Jr., Candice Delmas, Robin Celikates, Kimberlee Brownlee, Emma Goldman, Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground, and the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. In the end, the essay is written in the service of understanding the stakes and presuppositions of resistance, in theory and practice. (shrink)

La publicación del cuarto y último volumen de la _Historia de la sexualidad_ viene a llenar una larga espera, pero, sobre todo, ella permite tener por fin una visión de conjunto del último gran proyecto histórico-crítico de Michel Foucault. En el presente trabajo quisiera mostrar que con la publicación de _Les aveux de la chair_ (Paris, 2018) se vuelve posible comprender una serie de dificultades que han sido planteadas por los especialistas relativos al “giro” foucaultiano, a partir de los años (...) 1980, hacia una reintegración de la experiencia en el análisis. En particular, quisiera aquí defender que lo que Foucault llama “la experiencia de sí”, bajo la figura particular de la experiencia moral de la sexualidad, no será concebida ni por referencia a un sujeto, ni por referencia a un objeto (ni tampoco de manera “intersubjetiva”), sino como la formación de un _a priori_ histórico: el de la experiencia de la carne como transformación de sí. (shrink)

En este artículo, la ética de la inmanencia de inspiración spinozista se propone superar el fondo mítico-existencial de la ética del origen y la visión de la técnica de Heidegger. Otros autores como Paul Ricoeur, Michel Foucault y Peter Sloterdijk aparecen aquí desde esa perspectiva crítica. Al final, se añade un breve comentario sobre la cuestión del mal.

Different species of realism have been proposed in the scientific and philosophical literature. Two of these species are direct realism and causal pattern realism. Direct realism is a form of perceptual realism proposed by ecological psychologists within cognitive science. Causal pattern realism has been proposed within the philosophy of model-based science. Both species are able to accommodate some of the main tenets and motivations of instrumentalism. The main aim of this paper is to explore the conceptual moves that make both (...) direct realism and causal pattern realism tenable realist positions able to accommodate an instrumentalist stance. Such conceptual moves are (i) the rejection of veritism and (ii) the re-structuring of the phenomena of interest. We will then show that these conceptual moves are instances of the ones of a common realist genus we name pragmatist realism. (shrink)

Is it possible ontologically to think about education? Can the ontological category of “being” allow us to think of an educational human being? How can the ontological category of “being there” contextualize the educational reality in Latin America? These questions will guide an ontological reflection based on Latin-American philosophical categories “being” and “being there” for thinking about education. This reflection will propose an ontological presence of the symbol from the analogy and the educational experience, as a reality that opens to (...) new experiences in teaching and learning. (shrink)

A new interpretation of quantum theory is proposed. It coincides in a number of points with the orthodox interpretation, the main difference being that the projection of the state vector can occur without the intervention of any observer.

La determinación husserliana de la evidencia como cumplimiento [Erfüllung] llevó a una tácita identificación de la evidencia con la conciencia plena. Sin embargo, el desarrollo de su fenomenología revela que en todo caso se presenta como una síntesis particular de plenitud y vacío, configuración que resulta modal por tratarse de una conciencia de posibilidad aunque en un sentido material y no cualitativo. Los Prolegómenos aportan un primer elemento en esta línea –que sólo en la fenomenología genética resulta explícita–: la evidencia (...) como vivencia de la verdad supone que la validez de un enunciado se sustenta en la posibilidad de la existencia de otros enunciados idénticos de la misma forma y materia; con las Investigaciones lógicas, estas multiplicidades posibles serán comprendidas como momentos en un nuevo contexto descriptivo: la mención y el cumplimiento, lo cual otorga estatuto intencional a la objetividad que se configura como escorzo de sentido, esto es, el modo en que la unidad determinada de plenitud y vacío –en cuanto horizonte de cumplimiento posible– conforma la evidencia objetiva.Husserlian determination of evidence as fulfillment [Erfüllung] brought a tacit identification of evidence with full consciousness. However, the development of his phenomenology reveals that it always appears as a particular synthesis of fullness and emptiness, configuration that turns out to be modal because it is a consciousness of possibility though in a material and not qualitative sense. The Prolegomena introduce a first element in this perspective –that only in the genetic phenomenology becomes explicit–: evidence as experience of truth supposes that the validity of a judgment supports itself in the possibility of existence of other identical judgments with the same form and matter; with the Logical Investigations, this possible multiplicities will be understood as moments in a new descriptive context: mention and fulfillment, whereby objectivity –configured as adumbration of sense– acquires intentional status, i. e., the mode in which the determined unity of fullness and emptiness –as horizon of possible fulfillment– shapes objective evidence. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es identificar el significado del papel de la madre, en el desarrollo social, para tres iniciativas de la Renovación de la Pedagogía: la Institución Libre de Enseñanza, las Escuelas del Ave María y la Escuela Moderna de Barcelona. Las fuentes primarias, analizadas para alcanzar dicho fin, son publicaciones de revistas con fines socioeducativos, en su gran mayoría. Y nos advierten de un discurso dispar entre los tres proyectos. Determinando como conclusión principal que las propuestas examinadas (...) tuvieron sus propios planteamientos sobre el significado de madre, pero todas ellas sabían de su importancia como figura educadora. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente artículo es revisar la interpretación dada por diversos autores contemporáneos sobre la función de mago o hechicero del chamán sámi de acuerdo a las fuentes tradicionales. El artículo se presenta dividido en tres secciones diferenciadas, comenzando por una introducción del papel y actividades del chamán en la comunidad sámi durante el período en el que fueron escritas las fuentes. La mujer-chamán mostrando las multiples contradicciones encontradas en las fuentes de los autores tradicionales. Las prácticas mágicas: hechicería (...) y éxtasis. El estudio del éxtasis con viaje del alma y los espíritus auxiliares. (shrink)