Indisciplinar el vestigio conlleva retornarle su potencia antimoderna y decolonial. Desde un mero punto de vista epistemológico sería abordar la simultanedidad como apertura al conocimiento, traspasar los umbrales divisorios de la ciencia colonial, conectar lo que la disciplina ha separado y fluir aquello que ha sido estancado. La arqueología es una herramienta fundamental del conocimiento contrahegemónico. Pero, al mismo tiempo, y dado que las relaciones evestigiales son simultáneas, estratificadas y constitutivas tanto del mundo como de nuestra relación en el mundo, (...) el otro lado del vestigio importa mucho más que una apertura al conocimiento. (shrink)

"John Rawls: Del consenso entrecruzado al equilibrio reflexivo. Algunas consideraciones sobre el uso publico de la razón"El autor sugiere una reconstrucción de la idea de razón pública de Rawls a lo largo de su obra como .sí­ su destino de llegada pudiera haber sido trazado desde el principio. Es así­ porque el objeto de este estudio -el uso público de la razón adquiere impulso en la obra rawlsiana, básicamente, sólo a partir del giro operado en ella en los años (...) ochenta y que se afianza en El liberalismo politico, donde es ya preeminente. En sus escritos tempranos Rawls está especialmente concentrado en el diseño de una teorí­a antiutilitarista que permita articular unos principios de justicia básicos de convivencia. "John Rawls: From the overlapping consensus to the reflecting equilibrium. Some considerations about the public use of' reason"The author's suggestion is to reconstruct the idea of public reason through the Rawls' work as the destiny were known since the beginning. The aim of this work is supported by the study of the concept of the public use of reason. That won importance in the eighties and were strengthened in Political Liberalism, were has an important play. (shrink)

E. Berti habla en esta entrevista sobre sus estudios de filosofía, su descubrimiento del método dialéctico en Aristóteles, basado en las opiniones comunes, la importancia de la filosofía práctica de Aristótles y su concepto de la relación entre ética y política. La noción de técnica, que parece haber cobrado importancia en el último siglo, parece incapaz de afrontar los problemas metafísicos más elementales; esta es la razón por la que aún hoy necesitamos la metafísica.

Resumen:“Arrojar luz sobre nuestra época”; esa fue la finalidad central que declara haber tenido Kierkegaard para escribir acerca de lo que significó el caso jurídico llevado en contra de Adolph Adler (Prefacio: 21), y para hacer toda su filosofía, se podría añadir (desde el escrito de Gilleleje, Temor y temblor, Lo uno o lo otro, el Postcriptum y, especialmente, hasta los artículos de El instante). Expresiones similares acerca del sentido de su proyecto filosófico general lo expresa Kierkegaard en varios (...) momentos de El libro sobre Adler. Su objetivo era tratar a A. Adler como una figura representativa de una determinada característica de su época, a la que quería diagnosticar y mejorar (40). Y la meta más amplia de Kierkegaard era, pues, orientar al tiempo y la cultura en que le tocó vivir. La última sección del último capítulo del libro, tiene justamente el título: “El profesor Adler como epigrama de la cristiandad de nuestros días” (198). (shrink)

“Arrojar luz sobre nuestra época”; esa fue la finalidad central que declara haber tenido Kierkegaard para escribir acerca de lo que significó el caso jurídico llevado en contra de Adolph Adler (Prefacio: 21), y para hacer toda su filosofía, se podría añadir (desde el escrito de Gilleleje, Temor y temblor, Lo uno o lo otro, el Postcriptum y, especialmente, hasta los artículos de El instante). Expresiones similares acerca del sentido de su proyecto filosófico general lo expresa Kierkegaard en varios (...) momentos de El libro sobre Adler. Su objetivo era tratar a A. Adler como una figura representativa de una determinada característica de su época, a la que quería diagnosticar y mejorar (40). Y la meta más amplia de Kierkegaard era, pues, orientar al tiempo y la cultura en que le tocó vivir. La última sección del último capítulo del libro, tiene justamente el título: “El profesor Adler como epigrama de la cristiandad de nuestros días” (198). (shrink)

Investigadores pertenecientes a la tradición de la psicología del desarrollo cognitivo han llevado a cabo estudios que sugieren que existe un vínculo entre la percepción de daño y el dominio moral. Frente a esta propuesta unificadora del dominio moral han surgido críticas desde la psicología cultural. Haidt publicó en 1993 uno de los estudios más influyentes en esta línea, afirmando haber encontrado evidencia que sugiere la existencia de dominios morales no vinculados a la noción de daño. En este artículo (...) se hará una presentación general del debate en torno al contenido del dominio moral. Luego presentaremos y evaluaremos el estudio de Haidt et al.. Por último, presentamos resultados experimentales que cuestionan las conclusiones de ese estudio y sugieren que el debate sigue abierto. Researchers belonging to the tradition of cognitive-developmental psychology have suggested studies that the perception of harm is central to the Moral Domain. This unifying proposal of the Moral Domain has provoked the criticisms of researchers working in Cultural Psychology. Haidt published in 1993 a very influential study, claiming to have found evidence for the existence of Moral Domains not linked to the notion of harm. In this paper, we briefly present the debate around the content of the moral domain. We then critically examine the study by Haidt et al.. Finally, we present experimental results that question the conclusions of their study and suggest that the debate is still open. (shrink)

Ensayos-homenaje en el primer centenario del nacimiento del fil sofo espa ol, que abordan diversos aspectos de la obra de Ortega. Los cuatro trabajos dibujan con rigor algunos de los horizontes planteados por el maestro y respetan la debida modernidad conceptual. la compilaci n estuvo a cargo de Fernando Salmer n, Alejandro Rossi, Luis Villoro y Ram n Xirau.

Research that involves the creation of animals with human-derived parts opens the door to potentially valuable scientific and therapeutic advances, yet invokes unsettling moral questions. Critics and champions alike stand to gain from clear identification and careful consideration of the strongest ethical objections to this research. A prevailing objection argues that crossing the human/nonhuman species boundary introduces inexorable moral confusion (IMC) that warrants a restriction to this research on precautionary grounds. Though this objection may capture the intuitions of many who (...) find this research unsettling, it relies on mistaken views of both biology and moral standing, ultimately distorting the morally relevant facts. We critically examine IMC, identify mistaken essentialist assumptions, and reframe ethical concerns. The upshot is a stronger line of objection that encourages a more inclusive and productive ethical discourse. (shrink)

Virginia Held, best known for her landmark book Rights and Goods, has made an indelible mark on the fields of ethics, feminist philosophy, and social and political thought. Her impact on a generation of feminist thinkers is unrivaled and she has been at the forfront of discussions about the way in which an ethic of care can affect social and political matters. These new essays by leading contemporary philosophers range over all of these areas. While each stands alone, the essays (...) together demonstrate the lasting value of Held's work to the field. Includes an afterword by Held. (shrink)

The relation between method, concept and theory in science is complicated. I seek to shed light on that relation by considering an instance of it in systematics: The additional challenges phylogeneticists face when reconstructing phylogeny not at a single level, but simultaneously at multiple levels of the hierarchy. How does this complicate the task of phylogenetic inference, and how might it inform and shape the conceptual foundations of phylogenetics? This offers a lens through which the interplay of method, theory and (...) concepts may be understood in systematics, which, in turn, provides data for a more general account. (shrink)

In this essay I revise, based on the notion of the ‘enlightened ruler’ or mingzhu and his critique of the literati of his time, the common belief that Han Fei was an amoralist and an advocate of tyranny. Instead, I will argue that his writings are dedicated to advising those who ought to rule in order to achieve the goal of a peaceful and stable society framed by laws in accordance with the dao.

Epistemic Utility Theory is often identified with the project of *axiology-first epistemology*—the project of vindicating norms of epistemic rationality purely in terms of epistemic value. One of the central goals of axiology-first epistemology is to provide a justification of the central norm of Bayesian epistemology, Probabilism. The first part of this paper presents a new challenge to axiology first epistemology: I argue that in order to justify Probabilism in purely axiological terms, proponents of axiology first epistemology need to justify a (...) claim about epistemic value—what I label ‘Downwards Propriety’—much stronger than any they have offered justification. The second part of this paper offers an argument that this challenge cannot be met: that there is no hope for providing a purely axiological justification of Downwards Propriety, at least given widely accepted assumptions about epistemic value. (shrink)

The literary genesis of Einbahnstraße by Walter Benjamin represents a very special case of the use of the procedures of surrealism in the philosophical-literary production of the author. The process of evolution of thinking that ended up in the writing of this piece is unveiled throughout the present analysis. This is a sign of both waiver and restart; the opening for a new productive dimension in the career of one of the most important —and misunderstood— philosophers of the 20th century. (...) More than enlightening a small master piece of philosophy from a literary perspective, or analyzing a small master piece of literature from the philosophy, what is being problematized here is the division, cultivated or figured throughout the years, between both disciplines. This work is intended to recover what is insoluble from the philosophical-literary labor of Walter Benjamin, besides tracing a possible reconfiguration for an interdisciplinary field of work to come up and contribute in the understanding of the problem called The Retreat of Metaphor by Jacques Derrida. (shrink)

Although touch frequently occurs in psychotherapy with children, there is little written on the ethical considerations of therapeutic touch. Because physical contact does occur, therapists must consider if, how, and when it is used, for both their clients' safety and their own. In this review, I further develop the issues suggested by Aquino and Lee (2000) in the use of nurturing touch in therapy by considering many types of touch that occur in psychotherapy with children; the possible positive role of (...) touch; clients' perception of touch in therapy; considerations related to the therapist, the child's safety, and any history of abuse in the child's and family's background; and other practical considerations. I list guidelines. (shrink)

Patagonia: Land of Giants captures the wonders of the Patagonian landscape in hundreds of stunning color photographs by famed Argentine nature photographer Daniel Rivademar.

El martes 26 de abril de 2016 en la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana de Medellín, en el curso “De la analítica a los acto de habla” del Doctorado en Filosofía, tuvimos la oportunidad de compartir y hacer una conversatorio con el filósofo mexicano Dr. Alejandro Tomasini Bassols, investigador del Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas y profesor de filosofía en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la UNAM. El profesor Tomasini es uno de los investigadores más reconocidos en la obra del (...) Filósofo austriaco Ludwig Wittgenstein, además de haber desarrollado una importante obra alrededor de la tradición analítica y de algunos problemas actuales como la discusión sobre la pena capital. También el profesor Tomasini en su visita a Colombia, inicialmente participó en Medellín con una conferencia titulada “Derecho y objetividad”, en la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana y luego en la Feria del Libro de Bogotá –FILBO- realizó la presentación y conferencia del libro Hacer mundos: el nombrar y la significatividad. Previo a su viaje a Bogotá, interactuó con el curso doctoral en filosofía y de este encuentro académico presentamos el siguiente diálogo. (shrink)

I argue that Husserl’s concept of position-taking, Stellungnahme, is adequate to understand the idea of second nature as an issue of philosophical anthropology. I claim that the methodological focus must be the living subject that acts and lives among others, and that the notion of second nature must respond to precisely this fundamental active character of subjectivity. The appropriate concept should satisfy two additional desiderata. First, it should be able to develop alongside the biological, psychological, and social individual development. Second, (...) it should be able to underlie the vast diversity of human beings within and across communities. As possible candidates, I contrast position-taking with two types of habit-like concepts: instinct and habitus, on the one hand, and customary habits, on the other. I argue that position-taking represents the active aspect of the subject while the habit-like concepts are passive. A subject’s position-takings and ensuing comportments are tied together by motivations, which evince a certain consistency, and for this reason are expression of the subject’s identity. I conclude by nuancing the relation between Stellungnahme and passivity. Passivity is deemed necessary to action but subservient to it; position-taking is thought to be prior to passivity. (shrink)

This book provides both an introduction to the philosophy of scientific modeling and a contribution to the discussion and clarification of two recent philosophical conceptions of models: artifactualism and fictionalism. These can be viewed as different stances concerning the standard representationalist account of scientific models. By better understanding these two alternative views, readers will gain a deeper insight into what a model is as well as how models function in different sciences. Fictionalism has been a traditional epistemological stance related to (...) antirealist construals of laws and theories, such as instrumentalism and inferentialism. By contrast, the more recent fictional view of models holds that scientific models must be conceived of as the same kind of entities as literary characters and places. This approach is essentially an answer to the ontological question concerning the nature of models, which in principle is not incompatible with a representationalist account of the function of models. The artifactual view of models is an approach according to which scientific models are epistemic artifacts, whose main function is not to represent the phenomena but rather to provide epistemic access to them. It can be conceived of as a non-representationalist and pragmatic account of modeling, which does not intend to focus on the ontology of models but rather on the ways they are built and used for different purposes. The different essays address questions such as the artifactual view of idealization, the use of information theory to elucidate the concepts of abstraction and idealization, the deidealization of models, the nature of scientific fictions, the structural account of representation and the ontological status of structures, the role of surrogative reasoning with models, and the use of models for explaining and predicting physical phenomena. (shrink)

This paper deals with the question of whether uncertainty regarding model structure, especially in climate modeling, exhibits a kind of “chaos.” Do small changes in model structure, in other words, lead to large variations in ensemble predictions? More specifically, does model error destroy forecast skill faster than the ordinary or “classical” chaos inherent in the real-world attractor? In some cases, the answer to this question seems to be “yes.” But how common is this state of affairs? Are there precise mathematical (...) results that can help us answer this question? And is dependence on model structure “sensitive” in that arbitrarily small errors can destroy forecast skill? We examine some efforts in the literature to answer this last question in the affirmative and find them to be unconvincing. (shrink)

Proponents of enactivism should be interested in exploring what notion of action best captures the type of action-perception link that the view proposes, such that it covers all the aspects in which our doings constitute and are constituted by our perceiving. This article proposes and defends the thesis that the notion of sensorimotor dependencies is insufficient to account for the reality of human perception, and that the central enactive notion should be that of perceptual practices. Sensorimotor enactivism is insufficient because (...) it has no traction on socially dependent perceptions, which are essential to the role and significance of perception in our lives. Since the social dimension is a central desideratum in a theory of human perception, enactivism needs a notion that accounts for such an aspect. This article sketches the main features of the Wittgenstein-inspired notion of perceptual practices as the central notion to understand perception. Perception, I claim, is properly understood as woven into a type of social practices that includes food, dance, dress, music, etc. More specifically, perceptual practices are the enactment of culturally structured, normatively rich techniques of commerce of meaningful multi- and inter-modal perceptible material. I argue that perceptual practices explain three central features of socially dependent perception: attentional focus, aspects’ saliency, and modal-specific harmony-like relations. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone analizar las “trampas” de la comunidad en la perspectiva de Bourdieu. Para ello, primero, se señala el legado de Tönnies para la sociología respecto del vínculo entre la comunidad y las relaciones desinteresadas (pasadas, escasas en el presente y emancipatorias futuras). Segundo, se rastrean las profundas críticas de Bourdieu a tal legado, desde su estudio del “interés por el desinterés” enmarcado en sus reflexiones sobre la dominación social y sus eufemismos. Esto se observa en su interpretación (...) tanto de las sociedades no modernas como del desinterés moderno del Estado, con pretensiones de universalidad (por ejemplo, en la lengua unificada y la educación), y de los campos autonomizados y desinteresados de bienes simbólicos, entre los cuales se incluye a la sociología. Por último, las “trampas” que la comunidad encierra emergen en las últimas obras de Bourdieu. Allí, él propugna una intervención política explícita en la cual aparecen tópicos comunitarios y del desinterés, por ejemplo en su llamado a la colaboración entre militantes e intelectuales. Entonces, se vuelve patente una tensión en el autor entre una sociología crítica y reflexiva y la emancipación social. Así, este artículo pretende contribuir a una teoría sobre la comunidad y la dominación social, que tiene implicancias sugerentes para la actualidad. (shrink)

In the beginning of Star Trek Into Darkness, Mr. Spock descends into the heart of a raging volcano on the planet Nibiru. His mission: to detonate a cold fusion device that will solidify the bubbling magma before it erupts and destroys an entire civilization. Meanwhile, Captain James T. Kirk is on the bridge of the Enterprise facing a dilemma. He's duty‐bound never to violate the Prime Directive. One way to address the problem of the Prime Directive is to follow the (...) criteria used by Vulcans: reason and logic. This approach has been highly revered in the history of moral philosophy, and was most convincingly articulated by Immanuel Kant. Confucius and Aristotle would agree that while the Prime Directive is usually correct, there will be cases where it's wrong not to break it. The Prime Directive symbolizes just how difficult making good moral decisions can be. (shrink)

This article focuses on the role played by the critique of political economy and Marxian philosophy in the redefinition of Gramsci’s political philosophy during his intellectual moment known as the “return to Marx’’. On the one hand, we show the theoretical importance of the concept of mercato determinato in the formation of notions such as “civil society” and “relations of forces”. On the other hand, the Italian philosopher’s prison revisitation of some of Marx’s works are evaluated; as well as its (...) effects on the revision of certain topics such as the relationship between structure-superstructure or the theory of hegemony. Through an original interpretation of the critique of political economy; and also re-examining the theoretical principles of “historical materialism” in a “philosophy of praxis”, the final aim is to present an interpretation of Gramscian social ontology able to provide a theory on the genesis, reproduction and crisis of a given social formation. (shrink)

El presente artículo evalúa la legislación argentina sobre servicios de comunicación audiovisual a partir de la teoría política republicana. El abordaje se centró en dos normas de nivel federal: la Ley de Servicios de Comunicación Audiovisual (Ley 26.522) y el Decreto 267/2015. Este trabajo se enmarca en la filosofía práctica de orientación analítica y los métodos utilizados son el equilibrio reflexivo y el análisis conceptual. De esta manera, se hizo una breve reconstrucción del concepto de libertad republicana para, a partir (...) de allí, establecer qué barreras institucionales establece esta tradición y qué marcadores indican el funcionamiento de estas barreras. Luego, se usaron estos marcadores para medir el cumplimiento de las exigencias de esta teoría por parte de la legislación argentina en materia audiovisual. Tras un abordaje de estas instituciones, se concluyó que las normas sancionadas por el gobierno nacional de Cambiemos implicaron un retroceso en términos republicanos. (shrink)

This article aims to illustrate the development of physiognomy following one of its central themes: moral characterisation. This work deals with the origins of the discipline until the proliferation of works that, during the 16th and 17th centuries, approached the so-called «passions of the soul» from such seemingly disparate points of view as philosophy, optics, comparative anatomy, astrology and medicine. To conclude, two opposite perspectives on the treatment of emotions or «passions of the soul» are discussed: one by René Descartes (...) and another by philosopher-physician Marin Cureau de La Chambre. (shrink)

This article aims to illustrate the development of physiognomy following one of its central themes: moral characterisation. This work deals with the origins of the discipline until the proliferation of works that, during the 16th and 17th centuries, approached the so-called «passions of the soul» from such seemingly disparate points of view as philosophy, optics, comparative anatomy, astrology and medicine. To conclude, two opposite perspectives on the treatment of emotions or «passions of the soul» are discussed: one by René Descartes (...) and another by philosopher-physician Marin Cureau de La Chambre. (shrink)

Despite impressive technological developments, there is something that does not seem to have changed in the future of the Alien saga: capitalist society. The capitalist mode of production was largely triggered by an important event in the history of humanity: the Industrial Revolution. In the Alien films the worst tendencies of capitalism seem to drive the Weyland‐Yutani Corporation's decisions, confirming Karl Marx's fears that people would not be at the center of the process of capitalist production. It is clear the (...) Weyland‐Yutani Corporation has taken its goal of acquisition of profit at all costs very seriously, as demonstrated by Special Order 937. Alienation is one of Marx's key ideas. This chapter mainly focuses on alienation as it is described in a series of notebooks written in 1857‐1858, also known as the Grundrisse. Marx concludes, based on insights from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers, that the good life should be one of active self‐realization and autonomy. (shrink)

Argumentation represents a way of reasoning over a knowledge base containing possibly incomplete and/or inconsistent information, to obtain useful conclusions. As a reasoning mechanism, the way an argumentation reasoning engine reaches these conclusions resembles the cognitive process that humans follow to analyze their beliefs; thus, unlike other computationally reasoning systems, argumentation offers an intellectually friendly alternative to other defeasible reasoning systems. LogicProgrammingisacomputationalparadigmthathasproducedcompu- tationallyattractivesystemswithremarkablesuccessinmanyapplications. Merging ideas from both areas, Defeasible Logic Programming offers a computational reasoning system that uses an argumentation engine (...) to obtain answers from a knowledge base represented using a logic programming language extended with defeasible rules. This combination of ideas brings about a computationally effective system together with a human-like reasoning model facilitating its use in applications. (shrink)

The thought of Pierre Klossowski, praised by Foucault, Blanchot, Deleuze, has been scarcely addressed by the philosophical community. We argue in this article that this is largely due to the frequent difficulty of understanding his work as a whole: both his artistic and literary production and his interpretations of Nietzsche or Sade form a coherent whole, whose significance has a deeply critical political scope. The notion of unproductive spending, which occupies a central place in Bataille's work, will be rearticulated in (...) Klossowski's reflections through the concepts of drive, phantasm, simulacrum, value and consumption. In The Living Currency, the political dimension of these terms appears clearly: relying on a rereading of Fourier and Sade, the author shows the extreme degree of deformation of what we assume as a reality in modern industrial society. In this sense, his thinking takes on special relevance today, as a revelation of the excess and unhingedness of a society in which production and consumption are reproduced without limit through the infinite reflections produced by the game between drives, ghosts and simulacra. (shrink)

Many think that expressivists have a special problem with negation. I disagree. For if there is a problem with negation, I argue, it is a problem shared by those who accept some plausible claims about the nature of intentionality. Whether there is any special problem for expressivists turns, I will argue, on whether facts about what truth-conditions beliefs have can explain facts about basic inferential relations among those beliefs. And I will suggest that the answer to this last question is, (...) on most plausible attempts at solving the problem of intentionality, ‘no’. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Teacher quality, its effect on students’ outcomes, and the association of these with economic growth, is the core of recent discussions in Latin America given the region’s weak results in international learning assessments. This paper investigates whether there is an effect of philosophy on the outcomes of critical reading for students in B.Ed. programs in Colombia. Relying on exact matching combined with propensity score matching with regression adjustment, we use national data from Colombia to show that students in B.Ed. in (...) philosophy outperformed students in other B.Ed. in critical reading test (0.401–0.124 SD), and, importantly, with higher effects observed for students with lower prior academic achievement (0.44 SD). This suggests that philosophy can help to narrow educational outcomes of students whose socioeconomic conditions are disadvantageous, contributing to social justice in education. (shrink)

This paper provides a philosophical critique of the principles that govern extraterritorial punishment under international law. It advocates an interest-based theory of punishment that accounts for states' right to punish offences committed on their territory or against their sovereignty, security or important governmental functions. Yet, it criticizes the states' well-established right to punish crimes committed extraterritorially on grounds of the nationality of the offender or that of the victim. Indeed, it shows that the arguments on the basis of which these (...) jurisdictional bases are commonly defended either beg the fundamental question they are meant to answer or are simply committed to much broader rules than those currently in force. The last section of this paper examines whether competing justifications for legal punishment based on other grounds have more promise in terms of being able to better explain how the international law currently regulates extraterritorial punishment. It suggests that even refined consequentialist and deontological theories ultimately do not fare as well as the argument advocated here in accounting for certain core intuitions regarding the practice of legal punishment. (shrink)

The repair of chromosomal double‐strand breaks (DSBs) by homologous recombination is essential to maintain genome integrity. The key step in DSB repair is the RecA/Rad51‐mediated process to match sequences at the broken end to homologous donor sequences that can be used as a template to repair the lesion. Here, in reviewing research about DSB repair, I consider the many factors that appear to play important roles in the successful search for homology by several homologous recombination mechanisms.

Physician-assisted suicide is a novel idea having affinities with both suicide and euthanasia. It has affinities with suicide because it involves a self-inflicted death, and it has affinities with euthanasia because the physician is instrumental in the death. It is, however, not exactly either, making it the subject of an exciting debate.

Resumen: Desde una reflexión teórica, epistemológica y metodológica, este ensayo propone al “abordaje problemático” como metodología para investigar en teoría sociológica. Para esto, se retoman críticamente las postulaciones de Alexander sobre su multidimensionalidad y las de Ritzer acerca de su carácter multiparadigmático. Allí, se señalan ciertos reduccionismos en sus elaboraciones que interpretan a la teoría sociológica desde algunas dicotomías clásicas. En cambio, el abordaje problemático permite dar cuenta de la pluralidad de problemas, presupuestos y análisis que van transformando a la (...) teoría sociológica, la cual tampoco se recorta únicamente por conceptos. Así, se trazan dimensiones y niveles de un problema, que habilitan a comparar perspectivas. Tal trazado es el resultado de un análisis emergente, que las delimita desde los mismos planteos de las perspectivas, al evitar un estudio “interno”, clausurado en un autor, o “externo”, que las interpreta desde una supuesta perspectiva “superadora”. Asimismo, este abordaje y su análisis emergente se ponen a prueba con el problema de las clasificaciones sociales, en el cual se detectan dos dimensiones, atravesadas por dos niveles. El concepto de reclasificaciones sociológicas, como proceso que reclasifica clasificaciones sociales en general, permite una mirada reflexiva sobre la teoría y sus dicotomías.: This essay proposes the “problematic approach” as a methodology to sociological theory. It is based on a critic of Alexander’s multidimensionality and Ritzer’s multiparadigm. The problematic approach allows to account for a diversity of problems, presuppositions and analyses that have been changing sociological theory, which cannot be reduced to concepts. Such is the result of an emergent analysis, limited from the perspectives themselves, as opposed to an “internal” study around an author, and to an “external” one which interprets them from a supposed “superior” perspective. Also, this approach and its emergent analysis are tested through the problem of social classifications, in which two dimensions are crossed by two levels. The concept of sociological reclassifications, as the process that reclassifies general social classifications, allows a reflexive outlook on theory and its dichotomies. (shrink)

In his comment, McGann argues that in my “From Sensorimotor Dependencies to Perceptual Practices: Making Enactivism Social,” I have overlooked a group of enactivist theories that can be grouped under the participatory sense-making label. In this reply, I explain that the omission is due to the fact that such theories are not accounts of perception. It is argued that, unlike participatory sense-making, the approach of the “From Sensorimotor Dependencies to Perceptual Practices” article does not focus on the perceptual aspects of (...) things social, but on the social aspects that are constitutive of perception in general. I conclude by underscoring the central argument of the original article: that the adequate notion to make enactivism about perception social is that of “perceptual practices,” a social practices-based notion of perception. (shrink)

This dissertation proposes the central elements of a Social Enactive Theory of Perception. According to SEP, perception consists in sensory-based practices of interaction with objects, events, and states of affairs that are socially constituted. I oppose the representational view that perception is an indirect contact with the world, consists of the passive receiving and processing of sensory input, is in need of constant assessment of accuracy, and is a matter of individuals alone. I share the basic enactivist insight that perception (...) is a type of activity, but I depart from standard enactivism on the grounds of its individualistic bias and its limited conception of activity. Instead of motor actions, I formulate the concept of perceptual practices as the appropriate framework to understand perception. Perception is woven into socially informed, contextual, sensory-based everyday activities, such as food, dance, and dress, and even seemingly independent, basic perceptual activities and concepts are constituted by such practices. Perceptual individual interactions instantiate social perceptual practices but are not just repetitions of a script. We perceive objects in virtue of perspectives or appearances, not in spite of them, and on this basis I offer SEPâs take on experience, properties, and contents. I conceive perceptual experience as finely grained interactions between subjects and objects, both of which are spatially, temporally, and pragmatically situated. Objects and their sensory properties are perceived dynamically and always in multiple appearances. Perceptual content offers a pragmatic specification of the perceptual objects in the specific ways they appear to subjects. For SEP, perception is normatively structured. SEPâs perceptual normativity is not a worry about a supposed constant threat that our perceptions be nonveridical, but about the placement of perceptual things in a system of possibilities and expectations, cast in terms of degrees of fulfillment of expectations and in a horizon of pragmatic significance, both of which are functions of the socially constituted interactions between a perceiver and a rich theory of appearances. (shrink)