A number of theories of consciousness define consciousness by the folk-intuition that consciousness is somehow aware of, or ‘given’ to itself. I attempt to undermine this intuition on phenomenological, conceptual and psychological grounds. An alternative, first-order theory of consciousness, however, faces the task of explaining the possibility of self-awareness for consciousness, as well as the everyday intuition supporting it. I propose that another, weaker kind of givenness, ‘givenness as availability’, is up to both of these tasks, and is therefore sufficient (...) and suitable for first-order theories of consciousness. (shrink)

Intensified job demands originate in the general accelerated pace of society and ever-changing working conditions, which subject workers to increasing workloads and deadlines, constant planning and decision-making about one’s job and career, and the continual learning of new professional knowledge and skills. This study investigated how individual characteristics, namely negative and positive affectivity related to competence demands, and multitasking preference moderate the association between IJDs and cognitive stress symptoms among media workers. The results show that although IJDs were associated with (...) higher cognitive stress symptoms at work, that is, difficulties in concentration, thinking clearly, decision-making, and memory, competence demands-related negative affectivity explained the most variance in cognitive stress symptoms. In addition, IJDs were more strongly associated with cognitive stress symptoms at work in individuals with high competence demand-related negative affectivity, and low multitasking preference. Altogether, the present findings suggest that HR practices or workplace interventions to ease employees’ negative affectivity from increasing competence demands at work could usefully support employees’ effective cognitive functioning when confronted with IJDs. (shrink)

This volume contains the workshop papers of the philosophical conference Dimensions of Personhood held in August 13-15, 2004 at University of Jyväskylä, Finland. The conference was organized by the Finnish Academy research project The Concept of Person. In the call for papers, the theme of the conference was formulated as follows. Recent developments in neuroscience and information technology, in medicine and biotechnology, and in society and culture more broadly have made various questions concerning our identity as human beings urgent. As (...) our power over ourselves increases, the questions of who we are, how we are to conceive of ourselves and how we should use our powers over ourselves, become more and more pressing. The concept of person is in many ways a necessary starting point in answering such questions. However, the concept is often used in an indeterminate sense, and when efforts have been made to clarify the concept, different philosophers have ended up with rival usages and rival theories. For example, the theories differ on whether ‘person’ is identical with ‘human being’, ‘subject’ or ‘self ’. Yet it seems to us that the rival theories of personhood are trying to capture a common idea, namely that persons differ from (other) animals, machines, detached ‘minds’, brains and sub-personal mechanisms in the kind of relations to self, to others and to the world that they have, or are capable of having. The general idea of the conference is thus to approach personhood along three dimensions, where the being of persons differs from the being of non-persons: 1 self-relations, 2. interpersonal relations, and 3. world-relations. The guiding question of the conference is: how does the concept of person illuminate these relations (to self, to others, to the world), and how do these relations illuminate the concept of person? Our wish is to bring together recent work done in each of these dimensions and further our understanding concerning the ways in which personhood and these relations are intertwined. (shrink)

La tesis que este artículo persigue desarrollar es que en el pensamiento de Kant hay una remisión de la teleología natural a la teleología ética, particularmente en la tercera Crítica. La primera ha de remitirse a la segunda para evitar la trivialidad. A despecho de las lecturas que se centran en las implicancias epistemológicas y científicas del juicio teleológico kantiano, este acercamiento pone énfasis en su dimensión ética, instancia definitiva y necesaria en la que culminan los esfuerzos del autor. En (...) esta dirección, se develará la insuficiencia de una teleología meramente natural y se aportarán materiales de análisis para evidenciar la prominencia del compromiso ético en el seno de la obra. (shrink)

El artículo recorre la obra de Rodolfo Kusch posicionando sus principales propuestas en la construcción de tres enfoques convergentes en su filosofía. El primer enfoque está relacionado con la fenomenología y la cultura. El segundo enfoque se refiere a la influencia de la antropología y el cuestionamiento por el símbolo. El tercer enfoque despliega una aproximación filosófico-política. Estos enfoques permiten introducir tres “horizontes de pregunta” principalmente relacionados con el método, con lo popular y con lo indígena, que son expuestos como (...) asuntos centrales en toda su obra. Estos “horizontes de pregunta” buscan comprender los alcances de la filosofía de Kusch y su contribución al pensamiento filosófico americano. This paper analyses the work of Rodolfo Kusch remarking his main philosophical proposals through three correlated perspectives. The first perspective refers to phenomenology and culture. The second focuses on the influence of anthropology and the problem of symbols. The third posits a political-philosophical approximation. These perspectives operate interdependently as the background for Kusch’s philosophy and allow us to introduce three “questioning horizons” related to the method, the popular and the indigenous as the central issues of his philosophical work. Thus, these “questioning horizons” build a platform to understand Kusch’s philosophy and his contribution to the Latin American philosophy. (shrink)

El objetivo de mi trabajo estriba en reconocer sucintamente algunos de los puntos principales en que se fundamenta la posición de Nietzsche en relación a la teleología natural. El modo de atajar la cuestión será, en esta oportunidad, oponer la visión de Nietzsche al estado en que dejó Schopenhauer la cuestión. Para ello, abordaré en primer lugar algunos de los elementos que emparentan ambos proyectos y, en segundo lugar, un aspecto clave que parece alejarlos irremediablemente. Además de esclarecer este último (...) aspecto, intentaré un acercamiento a la especificidad y originalidad del proyecto nietzscheano sobre el tema. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo pretende consignar los puntos centrales de la crítica que despliega el joven Nietzsche a la noción kantiana de teleología en su inconcluso proyecto de tesis doctoral, de 1868. Me enfocaré en el reconocimiento de dos puntos que sostienen su crítica: uno teórico, que apunta a los problemas epistemológicos y ontológicos de la teoría de Kant, y uno práctico, dirigido a los problemas éticos que la doctrina kantiana implica. Básicamente, se intentará mostrar que Nietzsche rechaza el concepto de (...) conformidad a fin por ser una forma falseadora del intelecto, innecesaria para sintetizar la experiencia, con un anclaje histórico y fisiológico y que, además, favorece una ética nihilista y decadente.This article aims to elucidate the central points in the critique of the Kantian notion of teleology set out by young Nietzsche in his unfinished doctoral thesis project of 1868. I will focus on the identification of two issues of Nietzche’s criticism: a theoretical one, pointed at the epistemological and ontological problems of the Kantian theory, and a practical one, which looks at the ethical issues implied in the Kantian doctrine. Basically, the objective is to show that Nietzsche rejects the concept of purposiveness for being a counterfeiting form of intellect -unnecessary for synthesizing experience and with a historical and physiological origin-, which, besides, favors a nihilistic and decadent ethics. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se intenta un acercamiento a la dilucidación de lo trágico en las filosofías de Nietzsche y Unamuno, bajo la convicción de que existe una coincidencia entre ambas que va más allá del alcance nominal del nombre «tragedia». El elemento común estará dado en la experiencia del dolor humano que ambos autores reconocen como originaria; esta será entendida como una tensión contradictoria entre la exigencia de infinitud y superación continua a la que se deben y a la (...) que aspiran los hombres trágicos y, en contraste, los límites que comporta su existencia individual y finita. (shrink)

In this collection, philosophers, social psychologists, and social scientists approach contemporary social reality from the viewpoint of solidarity. They examine the nature of solidarity and explore its normative and explanatory potential.

This is an introduction to a collection of essays on solidarity. It maps the most important meanings of solidarity at the micro- and macrolevels.

El presente artículo tiene como propósito poner de relieve el contraste trágico entre la afirmación de una teleología natural y la ausencia de teleología moral en el pensamiento de Schopenhauer. Se comprenderá su gesto filosófico como el vaciamiento de la finalidad. Concretamente, se examinará cómo el absurdo que tiene lugar en virtud del contraste mencionado, sumado a la concepción de vida que late en el proyecto schopenhaueriano, conduce a una consideración necesariamente irracionalista y pesimista de la existencia. Desde la perspectiva (...) del autor, ante la ausencia de una finalidad racional del mundo no existe otra vía más que el pesimismo. En esta dirección, quisiera centrarme en una de las consecuencias más profundas de las premisas mencionadas (a saber, la carencia de finalidad final, apariencia de ajuste teleológico, pesimismo, irracionalidad, concepción de vida, etc). Me refiero a la imposibilidad de la historia y, con ella, a la imposibilidad de cualquier clase de cambio o transformación. Por último, intentaré despejar dos posibles suspicacias en relación con la irracionalidad y ausencia de fin final en la filosofía de Schopenhauer. (shrink)

The following article aims to consider the problem of the empirical consummation of the teleological programme of practical reason in Kant. In other words, it highlights the question about the possibility of achieving the final end in the world. Nature is the domain of mechanical causality, but also of free causality and the highest good. Specifically, I will focus on the field of Kantian philosophy of history, examining it with regard to the possibility of biological evolution and the possibility of (...) moral evolution of humankind. (shrink)

_Christianity and the Roots of Morality_ combines philosophical, early Christian and empirical studies to cast light on the role of religion, especially Christianity, in morality, pro-social behavior and altruism.

Voluntary participation is connected to cultural, political, religious and social contexts. Social and societal factors can provide opportunities, expectations and requirements for voluntary activity, as well as influence the values and norms promoting this. These contexts are especially central in the case of voluntary participation among students as they are often responding to the societal demands for building a career and qualifying for future assignments and/or government requirements for completing community service. This article questions how cultural values affect attitudes towards (...) volunteerism, using data from an empirical research project on student volunteering activity in 13 countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia Pacific region. The findings indicate that there are differences in motivation between countries which represent different cultural values. This article sets these findings in context by comparing structural and cultural factors which may influence volunteerism within each country. (shrink)

Many have invoked the nihilism that is endemic of the age we call the anthropocene. Bernard Stiegler has articulated this sentiment by highlighting how anthropocene films are typically nihi listic, for example, Von Trier’s Melancholia. But if the age is characterized by a cultural pessi mism about the future of human kind, or again about its posthuman supersession, there is also a complementary symptom that corresponds to a strange optimism before the impasses of our age. This optimism, we find (...) it represented in another anthropocene film: Nolan’s Interstellar. This too is a film where the protagonists are faced with a world lacking a future, a world dying under the stresses caused by the human’s exploitation of nature. Here, instead of the mantra ‘Enjoy it while it lasts’, an opposing moral is repeated: ‘Don’t go gentle into that good night, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ In the film, Thomas’ poem is a tribute to prometheanism; the death of the earth will not mean the end of human life, it declares, the human will surpass all the limits of its ecosystem, the constraints of space time itself, and become pure hyperdimensional intelligence. The film echoes the superstitious optimism in the promise of technology we now find at the heart of contemporary movements such as accelerationism. This paper assesses the validity of this intrumentalization of optimism, drawing from Leibniz’s concept of compossibility and the cosmological anthropic principle. (shrink)

The notion of ‘givenness of consciousness’ needs further elucidation. On the one hand, I agree with Lyyra (this volume) that one sense for ‘givenness of consciousness’ is not enough to account for consciousness and self-consciousness. On the other hand, I will argue that Lyyra’s paper is problematic precisely because he fails to consider one basic sense for ‘givenness of consciousness’. Lyyra and I thus agree that there must be (at least) two senses for ‘givenness of consciousness’; we (...) disagree, however about which modes of givenness are involved. (shrink)