Resumen: El estatuto teórico del concepto de la violencia escolar se ha resuelto parcialmente mediante el uso de definiciones. En el caso del campo científico chileno las definiciones de violencia escolar se formulan desde una episteme dualista, que establece la distinción entre lo escolar y lo no escolar, priorizan a un individuo abstracto, donde el espacio prima sobre el tiempo, las relaciones son causales y, en menor medida, de tipo covariación, constructiva de realidades y especular. El componente performativo es doble: (...) i) un modo de codificación y clasificaciones que estabilizan a un objeto que irrumpe en el campo científico y escolar; ii) producen una ausencia y exclusión de las relaciones y categorías posibles. No obstante, se observa que al interior de las propias definiciones se encuentran las semillas para un trabajo de transformación hacia epistemes no dualistas y complejas mediante las dimensiones de producción, reproducción y cruce de las violencias en la institución escolar según un enfoque tríadico. Esta reconstrucción se basa en un corpus de artículos indexados del campo de la educación sobre Chile entre los años 2001 a 2013.: The theoretical statute of the concept of school violence has been partly solved using definitions. In the case of the Chilean scientific field, the definitions of school violence are defined from a dualistic episteme that establishes the distinction between what is part of the school and what is not, that prioritizes an abstract subject, where space is more important than time, the relationships are of causal type and, to a lesser extent, of covariation type, that builds realities and that is speculative. The performative component has two aspects: i) a coding mode and classifications that stabilize an object that disrupts the scientific and school fields, and ii) produce a lack and exclusion of the relationships and potential categories. Nevertheless, it has been observed that there are some elements within the own definitions that could work for the transformation of dualistic and complex epistemes, through a dimension of production, reproduction, and the cross of different types of violence at school, following a triadic approach. This reconstruction is based on a corpus of articles from indexed journals about the Chilean educational field between 2001 and 2013. (shrink)

Sebastián Madrid, Teresa Valdés, Roberto Celedón. Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano y Crea Equidad. 2020, 492 pp. Santiago, ISBN: 978-956-7382-50-7.

Background Voluntary post-mortem donation to science (PDS) is the most appropriate source for body dissection in medical education and training, and highly useful for biomedical research. In Mexico, unclaimed bodies are no longer a legal source, but PDS is legally possible, although scarcely facilitated, and mostly ignored by the general population. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the attitude and willingness for PDS and to identify a sociodemographic profile of people with willingness toward PDS. Methods A validated on-line survey was distributed (...) by the convenience method via the social networks of a Catholicism-inspired, private university in northern Mexico. Frequency analyses of all variables and coded free comments were complemented with association studies. Results Although the responder cohort (n = 143) was too small and biased to be representative of the university community (n = 13,500), willingness to post-mortem organ donation was 90.7% and to PDS 70.7%. In this cohort, PDS willingness had the strongest association with mature age (> 40 years old; P, 0.0008). Among young adults, willingness to PDS was the lowest among volunteers from technical and business schools and the highest among those from the social sciences (P, 0.009). Respondents from the social sciences were also the most consistent between attitude and behavior with respect to organ donation. A free comment option revealed respondents were interested in the unusual taboo topic. Conclusions A small, but sufficiently large proportion expressed willingness toward PDS. In our university cohort, which was biased in higher education and altruism, mature age and social interest were associated with PDS willingness. (shrink)

Resumen: La dimensión teórica del estudio de la violencia escolar ha quedado rezagada en el campo de la investigación en educación. Se constata un déficit explicativo y en consecuencia de orden teórico, con ciertos reduccionismos y una proliferación de mediciones de conductas. En este artículo se plantea la necesidad de pasar de un objeto binario que separa, a veces en términos de oposición, la escuela de la sociedad a un objeto de estudio de tres dimensiones: las violencias que produce la (...) escuela; las violencias que se reproducen en la escuela; las violencias que cruzan la escuela. Esta reformulación tríadica del objeto de estudio es producto de una línea de investigación y de la revisión de la literatura indexada entre el año 1990 y 2015.: School violence theoretical research has been falling behind in the field of education research. An explanatory deficit emerges and therefore also theoretical, with certain reductionism and a proliferation of behavior measurement. This article focuses on the need of moving from a binary object that puts apart, sometimes in terms of opposition, the school from society, to an object of study with three dimensions: different forms of violence produced by the school itself; different forms of violence that are reproduced at the school; different forms of violence that pass through the school. This triadic reformulation of the object of study is the result from a line of research and the review of indexed literature between 1990 and 2015. (shrink)

La teoría de números, o la aritmética pura, concierne a los números naturales mismos, no a la notación usada, y en particular no a los numerales. La teoría de ristras, o la sintaxis pura, concierne a los numerales como ristras de caracteres «no-interpretados», al margen de los números que puedan denotar cuando son usados. La teoría de los números es puramente aritmética, la teoría de ristras es puramente sintáctica… en tanto se considere el universo del discurso solo. La aritmética semántica (...) es un amplio tema que se inicia cuando se menciona a los numerales y éstos se mencionan como nombres de números. La aritmética semántica da lugar a muchos fascinantes y sorprendentes algoritmos y procesos de decisión; revela en forma vívida el importe experiencial de las proposiciones matemáticas y el poder predictivo del conocimiento matemático; aporta una interesante perspectiva para los estudios filosóficos, históricos y pedagógicos, acerca del crecimiento del conocimiento científico y del papel del discurso metalingüístico en el pensamiento científico. (shrink)

Those who argue that corporations can be morally responsible for what they do help us to understand how autonomous corporate agency is possible, and those who argue that they cannot be help us maintain distinctive value in human life. Each offers something valuable, but without securing the other's important contribution. I offer an account that secures both. I explain how corporations can be autonomous agents that we can continue to be justified in blaming as responsible agents, but without it also (...) being the case that corporations are morally responsible for anything that they do. The upshot is that we can make sense of the reality of corporate agency and the value that we derive from our sophisticated interactions with them as autonomous agents, while vindicating the idea that they are not members of the moral community. (shrink)

“Myth theorists” have recently called the normative requirement of means-end rationality into question. I show that we can accept certain lessons from the Myth Theorists and also salvage our intuition that there is a normative requirement of means-end rationality. I argue that any appeal to a requirement to make our attitudes coherent as such is superfluous and unnecessary in order to vindicate the requirement of means-end rationality and also avoid the problematic conclusion that persons ought to take the means to (...) whatever ends they happen to intend. (shrink)

La epistemología bayesiana tiene como concepto capital la condicionalización simple. Para comprender de buena forma cómo opera esta regla, se debe dar cuenta de la concepción subjetiva de la probabilidad. Sobre la base de lo anterior es posible esclarecer alcances y límites de la condicionalización simple. En general, cuando esta regla enfrenta una dificultad se hacen esfuerzos por resolver dicha particular cuestión, pero no es usual encontrar propuestas unificadas con la intención de resolver varias de las complicaciones subyacentes al bayesianismo (...) ortodoxo. Por lo mismo, el propósito de esta investigación es justamente proponer aquello: un marco bayesiano ampliado que tendrá por objeto solucionar más de una cuestión particular. Más específicamente, el problema de la incorregibilidad, el problema del surgimiento del cero, el problema de la evidencia antigua y el problema de las teorías nuevas. Lo anterior se logrará adicionando al bayesianismo ortodoxo dos cuestiones, a saber, la condicionalización épsilon y una reconstrucción racional. Palabras clave: Probabilidad Subjetiva, Grados de Creencia, Dogmatismo Bayesiano, Evidencia Antigua, Nuevas Teorías. (shrink)

Contemporary research offers a more compelling account on the complex emotion of envy than the traditional view of envy as simply something bad. This essay explains how Logic-Based Therapy can use this account to coach individuals struggling with negative species of envy. Given that jealousy and envy are often equated, the essay differentiates the two; explains the conditions that make the four species of envy possible; identifies cardinal fallacies associated with negative species of envy; proposes counteractive virtues, and describes ways (...) to help people struggling with negative species of envy acquire these virtues. (shrink)

Bd. 1. A-B -- Bd. 2. C-F -- Bd. 3. G-Inn -- Bd. 4. Ins-Loc.

Los textos acerca del tiempo de Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) se organizan en torno a tres núcleos temáticos. En una primero época, en las Lecciones de fenomenología de la conciencia interna del tiempo (1904-1905), el hilo conductor es la pregunta acerca de cómo la percepción de un objeto que dura (tiempo objetivo) es constituida por una conciencia que vive en el tiempo inmanete y cómo esta es el resultado de un plano anterior -conciencia interna-. En un segundo momento, en los manuscritos (...) de Bernau (1917-1918) y en los textos sobre el carácter pasivo de los procesos de la conciencia (1921), Husserl profundiza en la relación entre conciencia, reflexión y temporalidad, y destaca la pasividad con la que se llevan a cabo las operaciones de constitución de la conciencia. Por último, en los manuscritos C (1929-1934) introducirá la noción de presente viviente como centro desde el que pensar toda la temporalidad. A la par que una investigación sobre el carácter eternamente enigmático del tiempo, los análisis de Jusserl revelan el ser fundamentalmente temporal de nuestra conciencia, en un ejercicio riguroso de pensamiento que lleva a la fenomenología hasta los límites de su potencial descriptivo. (shrink)

The Simple Counterfactual Analysis (SCA) was once considered the most promising analysis of disposition ascriptions. According to SCA, disposition ascriptions are to be analyzed in terms of counterfactual conditionals. In the last few decades, however, SCA has become the target of a battery of counterexamples. In all counterexamples, something seems to be interfering with a certain object’s having or not having a certain disposition thus making the truth-values of the disposition ascription and of its associated counterfactual come apart. Intuitively, however, (...) it would seem that, if all interferences were absent, the disposition ascription and its associated conditional would have the same truth-value. Although this idea may seem obvious, it is far from obvious how to implement it. In fact, it has become widely assumed that the content of qualifying ceteris paribus clauses (such as ‘if all interferences were absent’) cannot be specified in a clear and non-circular manner. In this paper, I will argue that this assumption is wrong. I will develop an analysis of disposition ascriptions, the Interference-Free Counterfactual Analysis, which relies on a clear and non-circular definition of the notion of interference and avoids the standard counterexamples to SCA while vindicating the intuition that disposition ascriptions and counterfactual conditionals are intimately related. (Please note that an erratum has been issued for the published version of this paper. It is recommended to read the self-archived version of the paper.). (shrink)

Este artículo presenta un acercamiento a la noción de “cultura” usando el concepto de “habitualidad”, que proviene de la filosofía genética de Husserl 1. Se explicará como Husserl construye sobre él la noción de “mundo-hogar” para definir lo que es una cultura, insistiendo en el problema de la “extrañeza” que opera dos culturas diferentes. Finalmente estas nociones se usarán para entender el tipo de relación entre dos mundos-hogar en el caso de un conflicto intercultural.This paper presents an approach to the (...) notion of “culture” using the concept of“habituality”, which comes from Husserl´s genetic philosophy. It will be explained also how Husserls builds upon it the notion of “home-world” to define what is a culture, emphasizing the problem of the “strangeness” that operates between two diferent cultures. Finally these notions will be used to understand the kind of relation between two home-worlds in a case of intercultural conflict. (shrink)

This important collection of lectures and essays was regarded by Gabriel Marcel as the best introduction to his thought.

This discussion of pride, shame, and guilt centers on the beliefs involved in the experience of any of these emotions. Through a detailed study, the author demonstrates how these beliefs are alike--in that they are all directed towards the self--and how they differ. The experience of these three emotions are illustrated by examples taken from English literature. These concrete cases supply a context for study and indicate the complexity of the situations in which these emotions usually occur.

The volume deals with the history of logic, the question of the nature of logic, the relation of logic and mathematics, modal or alternative logics (many-valued, relevant, paraconsistent logics) and their relations, including translatability, to classical logic in the Fregean and Russellian sense, and, more generally, the aim or aims of philosophy of logic and mathematics. Also explored are several problems concerning the concept of definition, non-designating terms, the interdependence of quantifiers, and the idea of an assertion sign. The contributions (...) concerned with Wittgenstein's investigations into the philosophy of logic and mathematics pursue issues relating to logical necessity, the undeniability of the law of the excluded middle, and the source of self-evidence, often characterized in the literature as the "rule-following considerations". Additionally, they examine Wittgenstein's attitudes towards the very idea of set-theory as a possible foundation for arithmetic. The volume also includes a number of contributions on specific issues concerning Wittgenstein's views on moral and religious judgements. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es aclarar la crítica que el psicoanalista Jacques Lacan dirige al concepto marxista de plus-valía tal y como es formulado en el Capital de Marx. Tras el concepto de una plus-valía contable Lacan quiere desvelar la necesidad de atender a la noción más fundamental de un plus-de-gozar [plus-de-jouir] incontable. Atenderemos para ello a diferentes pasajes de sus seminarios XVI (1968-69), XVII (1969-70) y de su texto Radiofonía (1970).

I respond to Karin de Boer, Thomas Land, and Claudio La Rocca’s comments on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics (CUP 2023). I first provide a quick outline of some of the main claims I make in the book. I then directly address their criticisms, which I group into three categories. The first group of comments raises doubts concerning my characterization of the central tasks of the critique of pure reason. The second targets the fact that (...) I downplay faculty analysis as an essential characteristic of the critique. The third has to do with my claim that the Critique of Pure Reason aims to show that metaphysics is capable of architectonic unity, where this unity is only achievable when we construe metaphysics according to the worldly concept of philosophy. (shrink)

Philosophers suggested that usual picture perception requires the simultaneous occurrence of the perception of the surface and of the depicted object. However, there are special cases of picture perception, such as trompe l'oeil perception, in which, unlike in usual picture perception, the object looks like a real, present object we can interact with, of the kind we are usually acquainted with in face-to-face perception. While philosophers suggested that usual picture perception and trompe l'oeil perception must differ with respect to the (...) perception of the surface, nobody has ever proposed a final explanatory account for such a difference. Here, I propose such an account. I consider the two possible options as candidates for the explanation of the illusory power of trompe l'oeil perception. The first is that, with trompe l'oeils, we perceive the surface unconsciously. The second is that, with trompe l'oeils, we cannot perceive the surface at all, that is, we cannot perceive it either consciously or unconsciously. I show that the second option is the unique plausible option, as it is in line with vision science, and with our received view about the nature of usual picture perception. (shrink)

Philosophers suggested that usual picture perception requires the simultaneous occurrence of the perception of the surface and of the depicted object. However, there are special cases of picture perception, such as trompe l'oeil perception, in which, unlike in usual picture perception, the object looks like a real, present object we can interact with, of the kind we are usually acquainted with in face-to-face perception. While philosophers suggested that usual picture perception and trompe l'oeil perception must differ with respect to the (...) perception of the surface, nobody has ever proposed a final explanatory account for such a difference. Here, I propose such an account. I consider the two possible options as candidates for the explanation of the illusory power of trompe l'oeil perception. The first is that, with trompe l'oeils, we perceive the surface unconsciously. The second is that, with trompe l'oeils, we cannot perceive the surface at all, that is, we cannot perceive it either consciously or unconsciously. I show that the second option is the unique plausible option, as it is in line with vision science, and with our received view about the nature of usual picture perception. (shrink)

Se examinan las diversas modalidades de la nada como casos de pérdida del sentido y falta de consumación del conocimiento: la nada como noúmeno y su relación con el fenómeno, así como la conexión trascendental de ambos. Aunque la nada pone en jaque al concepto de sentido, este se encuentra supuesto antes de todo tipo de pregunta por el ser, y se constituye en el trasfondo de las condiciones trascendentales que posibilitan el conocimiento.

Public reason liberalism is defined by the idea that laws and policies should be justifiable to each person who is subject to them. But what does it mean for reasons to be public or, in other words, suitable for this process of justification? In response to this question, Kevin Vallier has recently developed the traditional distinction between consensus and convergence public reason into a classification distinguishing three main approaches: shareability, accessibility and intelligibility. The goal of this paper is to defend (...) the accessibility approach by demonstrating its ability to strike an appealing middle course in terms of inclusivity between shareability and intelligibility. We first argue against Vallier that accessibility can exclude religious reasons from public justification. Second, we use scientific reasons as a case study to show that accessibility excludes considerably fewer reasons than shareability. Throughout the paper, we connect our discussion of accessibility to John Rawls’s model of public reason, so as to give substance to the accessibility approach and to further our understanding of Rawls’s influential model. (shrink)

The primary objective of this book is to open space for rethinking the relationship between art and politics. It seeks to combat one of the fundamental assumptions that has plagued many of the previous debates on this issue: that art and politics are distinct entities definable in terms of common properties, and that they have privileged points of intersection, which can be determined once and for all in terms of an established formula. This common sense assumption is rooted in a (...) transcendent illusion according to which there are more or less fixed characteristics that unify our terms, concepts, and practices in such a way as to guarantee their meaning. Against this substantialist approach, Radical History & the Politics of Art argues for a praxeological account that begins the other way around by analyzing specific cultural practices without presupposing a conceptual unity behind them. Such an orientation is radically historicist in the sense that it recognizes that all of our practices—be they linguistic, theoretical, aesthetic or political—are historically constituted and that they are necessarily part of a temporal dynamic. Hence the contingent nature of the labels used to classify various practices or even identify ‘practice’ as such. Radical history thereby proposes a significant departure from the extant debates on art and politics by maintaining that there is no ‘art’ or ‘politics’ in general, nor a singular relation between them. There are only historically constituted practices in various conjunctures, some of which have been labeled, through practical acts of denomination, as ‘artistic’ or ‘political.’ Instead of proposing one more response to the oft-repeated question ‘what is the relationship between Art and Politics?’ this book seeks to overcome the presuppositions that plague such a question. It thereby changes the very nature of the investigation by asking: ‘how do the diverse aspects of practices identified as ‘aesthetic’ and ‘political’ overlap, intertwine and sometimes merge in precise socio-historical force fields of action? (shrink)

Famously, in the essay Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality (Prize Essay), Kant attempts to distance himself from the Wolffian model of philosophical inquiry. In this respect, Kant scholars have pointed out Kant’s claim that philosophy should not imitate the method of mathematics and his appeal to Newton’s “analytic method.” In this article, I argue that there is an aspect of Kant’s critique of the Wolffian model that has been neglected. Kant presents a powerful (...) attack of the idea that philosophy should proceed through the analysis of concepts and argues that we should give up the aim of arriving at “complete” concepts as one of its fundamental desiderata. Importantly, this attack of philosophy conceived as conceptual analysis is distinctive and original if one compares it with Kant’s critique of analysis in the Critique of Pure Reason, which rests on the idea that analysis is insufficient to ground substantial metaphysical truths. I also make an additional point: Scholars have debated whether the appeal to Newton’s analytic method involves a form of empiricism. I submit that this debate is ill-conceived because Kant uses a notion of “given concepts” that is indeterminate with respect to their a priori or a posteriori status. (shrink)

Se examinan las diversas modalidades de la nada como casos de pérdida del sentido y falta de consumación del conocimiento: la nada como noúmeno y su relación con el fenómeno, así como la conexión trascendental de ambos. Aunque la nada pone en jaque al concepto de sentido, este se encuentra supuesto antes de todo tipo de pregunta por el ser, y se constituye en el trasfondo de las condiciones trascendentales que posibilitan el conocimiento. Various modes of non-being are examined as (...) cases of loss of sense and as a lack of consummation of knowledge: non-being as noumena and its relationship with the phenomena, as well as the transcendental connection between them. Although non-being makes the concept of sense doubtful, it is presupposed before any kind of question regarding being and it is constituted in the background which belongs to the transcendental conditions which make knowledge possible. (shrink)

Interpretations of Kant’s account of the forms of “taking-to-be-true” (Fürwahrhalten) have generally focused on three such forms: opinion (Meinung), belief (Glaube), and knowledge (Wissen). A second distinction that has received comparatively less attention is that between conviction (Überzeugung) and persuasion (Überredung). Kant appears to use the distinction between the subjective and the objective sufficiency of a taking-to-be-true to characterize all of these forms. However, it is impossible to account for the differences between them by relying on this latter distinction alone. (...) In turn, this makes it difficult to fit all of these forms into a single classification of taking-to-be-true. In this chapter, I propose a new approach to conviction and persuasion that dissolves these problems. Conviction and persuasion are not single forms of taking-to-be-true with distinctive characteristics, yet it is not useful to treat them as “classes” of taking-to-be-true either. Rather, they are “operators” that determine whether a taking-to-be-true is apt or inapt, depending on whether it rests on a correct evaluation of the grounds we have. (shrink)

Resumen El artículo se estructura en torno a dos ejes: la concepción de la filosofía como una actividad extremadamente recursiva en su aplicación al saber científico, a la ética y a la pedagogía; la discusión en torno al realismo y al papel que le cabe a las representaciones en la explicación de la cognición. Se pone énfasis en mostrar la plausibilidad de los enfoques antirrepresentacionistas o constructivistas en las ciencias cognitivas, en la medida que estos enfoques pretenden superar las limitaciones (...) y prejuicios que son propios de los enfoques computacionalistas y conexionistas que le precedieron.This paper consists of two main topics: the conception of philosophy as an extremely recursive activity applied to scientific, ethics and educational knowledge; the discussion about realism and the role of the representations in the explanation of cognition. The validity of the anti-representationism or constructivist-based perspectives, is highlighted in Cognitive Sciences where these pretend to overcome the limitations and prejudices that belong to the previous computacionalism and connectionism perspectives. (shrink)

This edition of Marcel's inspiring Homo Viator has been updated to includle fifty-seven pages of new material available for the first time in English, making this the first English-language edition to conform to the standard French edition. Here, Christianity's foremost existentialist of the twentieth century gives us a prodigious personal insight on 'man on the way' that will reinforce and commend our own pilgrimages in hope. Book jacket.

The social virtues are not discussed thematically in the Socratic writings of Plato and Xenophon, but they are on display everywhere. Taking Aristotle's accounts of these virtues as a touchstone, this paper explores the portrait of Socrates as a model of good humour in Xenophon's Symposium. While Xenophon is addressing the same issues as Aristotle, and shares some of his red lines, his conception of the ideal humourist and of virtue in general differs from Aristotle's not only in detail but (...) also in general conception. While he never actually violates the rules Aristotle sets down for eutrapelia, Xenophon's Socrates strives not to avoid opposites but to combine them. It is the careful combining of the spoudaion and the geloion that redeems Xenophon's otherwise outrageous portrait of Socratic humour. This suggests a broader paradigm in which virtuous behaviour is a combination of opposites rather than a middle path. (shrink)

El psicoanalista francés Jacques Lacan piensa el objeto del deseo como un objeto que falta y que no puede ser representado. Por su parte, Gilles Deleuze y Félix Guattari rechazan en El Antiedipo cualquier concepción que relacione el deseo con la carencia y sostienen que el deseo es un proceso de producción de un objeto real presente. En su opinión el psicoanálisis lacaniano maldice al sujeto deseante condenándolo a una melancolía y a una insatisfacción perpetuas. El objetivo principal de este (...) artículo es rechazar esta crítica basándose en tres argumentos: una distinción entre la falta y la carencia, la consideración de la falta como no necesariamente negativa y la defensa de que un deseo limitado y parcialmente insatisfecho es más liberador que un deseo masivamente colmado. (shrink)

ResumenEste estudio ofrece una presentación del trabajo de investigación desarrollado en una tesis doctoral sobre el problema de la conciencia del tiempo en la fenomenología de Husserl defendida en la Universidad de Barcelona en abril del 2007. Tras justificar la importancia que el tema tiene para el pensamiento de Husserl son presentados los diferentes acercamientos a esta cuestión en cada una de las épocas de su pensamiento, distinguiendo fundamentalmente tres periodos: las lecciones sobre la conciencia interna del tiempo (1904/05), los (...) manuscritos de Bernau (1917/18) y los manuscritos C (1929/34).Palabras claveFenomenología, tiempo, conciencia, Husserl.AbstractThis paper offers a general overview of a research developed and defended as a PhD at the University of Barcelona in April 2007 concerning the problem of time- consciousness in Husserl’s phenomenology. After justifying the relevance of the subject to Husserl, we present the different approaches to the problem of time-consciousness in every period of his thinking, distinguishing mainly three phases: the lessons about inner time consciousness (1904/05), the Bernauer manuscripts (1917/18) and the C- manuscripts (1929/34).KeywordsPhenomenology, time, consciousness, Husserl. (shrink)

Ernesto Laclau’s theory of hegemony interprets in a peculiar way two central concepts of Lacanian psychoanalysis: the signifier and the real. Laclau maintains that signifiers are per se tendentially empty and that there is some constituting impossibility in every social system, that is, some real in the Lacanian sense. This paper levels two criticisms at this interpretation. Firstly, Lacan never employs the concept “empty signifier”: His definition of the signifier as that which represents a subject—and his enjoyment—for another signifier contradicts (...) this emptiness. Secondly, in the place of the impossible, Lacan puts enjoyment. The main political consequence of these two considerations is that the theory of hegemony is mistaken when focusing on the rhetorical debate and forgets that individual political inclinations are based mainly on their enjoyment. (shrink)