In the context of technological dissemination sessions aimed at prospective students at the Polytechnic University of Baja California in the city of Mexicali, Baja California, the importance of engineering and its role in scientific and technological progress was stressed, as well as its role in scientific and technological progress as drivers of economic development in the region. A group of 2,154 students from 20 different institutions of public high school education answered a survey designed as an evaluation tool for a (...) career path or technology area of interest. The survey results show that students have a low preference for engineering careers. Moreover, these results were augmented with an additional study on the high attrition of students in engineering schools in the city of Mexicali, Baja California, also conducted by the authors. It raises the importance of teaching science in the early education levels, which aims to prepare scientists and technologists needed for the development of research and innovation as a foundation for economic prosperity and welfare of an emerging economy such as Mexico. (shrink)

Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin argue for a revolution in our cosmological ideas. Ideal for non-scientists, physicists and cosmologists.

Facebook claims that it is building a “global community.” Whether this sounds utopian, dystopian, or simply self-promotional, there is no denying that social-media platforms have altered social interaction, political life, and outlooks on the world, even for people who do not regularly use them. In this book, Roberto Simanowski takes Facebook as a starting point to investigate our social-media society—and its insidious consequences for our concept of the self. Simanowski contends that while they are often denounced as outlets for (...) narcissism and self-branding, social networks and the practices they cultivate in fact remake the self in their image. Sharing is the outsourcing of one’s experiences, encouraging unreflective self-narration rather than conscious self-determination. Instead of experiencing the present, we are stuck ceaselessly documenting and archiving it. We let our lives become episodic autobiographies whose real author is the algorithm lurking behind the interface. As we go about accumulating more material for the platform to arrange for us, our sense of self becomes diminished—and Facebook shapes a subject who no longer minds. Social-media companies’ relentless pursuit of personal data for advertising purposes presents users with increasingly targeted, customized information, attenuating cultural memory and fracturing collective identity. Presenting a creative, philosophically informed perspective that speaks candidly to a shared reality, Facebook Society asks us to come to terms with the networked world for our own sake and for all those with whom we share it. (shrink)

Traditionell wird die Metaphysik thematisch zweigeteilt: Einerseits wird sie als jene Disziplin bezeichnet, die das Seiende als solches behandelt (Ontologie), andererseits als jene, die sich mit dem Wirklich-Seienden und damit mit der fundamentalen Realitat befasst (Theologie). Wie verhalten sich aber diese zwei Seiten zueinander? Einer dominierenden Auffassung nach entsteht die Verbindung durch eine inferentielle Dynamik, die, ausgehend vom Seienden als solchem, zum Gottlichen ubergeht. Es gibt aber auch eine Nebentradition, nach der das Gottliche nicht metaphysisch vermittelt werden muss, weil sich (...) das Sein selbst, wenn richtig erfasst, von Anfang an als gottlich erweist. Metaphysik ist deshalb in diesem Kontext eine Evidenzdarstellung. Roberto Vinco leistet mit seiner Studie einen Beitrag zur Erlauterung und Verteidigung dieser zweiten Stromung. Dabei zeigt er vor allem, dass diese Auffassung fundamentale Motive des klassischen Theismus ubernimmt. Evidenzmetaphysik ist Transzendenzmetaphysik. (shrink)

El objetivo de este estudio fue determinar si las características de estratega son adquiridas al realizar un posgrado, la población de interés fueron estudiantes de maestría en finanzas, la muestra fue de 87 alumnos en grupos trimestrales durante dos años consecutivos.Usando metodología de enfoque mixto, un cuestionario y para complementar el aspecto cualitativo, se hizo una inferencia en cada resultado.Las hipótesis “Existe un sinnúmero de características que el estudiante universitario debe desarrollar y el estudiante universitario adquiere 80% de las características (...) de estratega en la Universidad”. Son aceptadas, el 89% adquiere las características en la Universidad. (shrink)

"a book about religion and a religious work in its own right, it proposes the content of a religion that can survive faith in a transcendent God and in life after death. According to this religion—the religion of the future—human beings can be more human by becoming more godlike, not just later, in another life or another time, but right now, on Earth and in their own lives."--Publishers website.

The Book of Mormon begins as missionaries Kevin Price and Arnold Cunningham eagerly await a location assignment for their two‐year mission. Religious fundamentalism is the real problem that The Book of Mormon and South Park usually have in mind when they tackle the topic of religion. Throughout this chapter, the author explains The Book of Mormon and South Park expose the way of believing for what it really is: a naive and arrogant approach to God, the world, and what it (...) means to be human. Fundamentalist thinkers have the luxury of living in a black and white world of cold absolutes. The rest of us, fortunately or unfortunately, don't. Rather, we have no choice but to live in the real world, a world of difficult questions and deep ambiguities. But the real world is also a fascinating place of brilliant color and real diversity. (shrink)

‘Gnosticism and Modern Nihilism’ (published in Social Research , 1952) is indeed one of Hans Jonas’ most famous essays, to which its author reserved very deep attention during his philosophical career. As a former pupil of Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Bultmann, Jonas started to deal with religious topics, and specifically with Gnosticism, from the very outset of his philosophical career in the 1920s. After gaining recognition thanks to his remarkable philosophical-existential interpretation of Gnosticism, he returned to the modern age and (...) its philosophical characters. Principally, Jonas discovered that modern philosophy up to Heidegger and Sartre suffered from a peculiar spiritual disease – namely, nihilism – that he had already traced in ancient Gnosticism and that he intended to reject. Therefore, Jonas’ acquaintance with ancient religion and thinking gave him a deep insight into the modern age and provided him with a first glimpse of what was later to become his biological philosophy. However, whoever could imagine that the idea of tracing similarities between Gnosticism and modern thinking came to Jonas at the beginning of 1950 from the famous philosopher and biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy? In this article, I shall endeavour to demonstrate this thesis by quoting from unpublished documents. However, I shall also try to prove that Jonas did not follow von Bertalanffy’s advice completely. The overall aim is, therefore, both to highlight the origins of an essential turning point in the thinking of Hans Jonas, and, on such a basis, to outline the innovation and originality of his philosophical contribution. (shrink)

CONTENIDO: La ciencia del derecho y el lenguaje jurídico - Algunas estructuras lógicas del pensamiento jurídico - Valores, normas morales y validez del derecho - Las técnicas de control social y el derecho - El concepto de obligación jurídica y las formas de responsabilidad - Derecho subjetivo y relación jurídico - El concepto de órgano de derecho y las categorías derivadas - La personificación del sujeto de derecho - Los sistemas normativos y la idea del derecho como un orden - (...) Las fuentes del derecho - Producción, compatibilización y anulación de normas jurídicas - La interpretación de las normas y el conocimiento científico del derecho. (shrink)

Recordando a Bachelard a medio siglo de su muerte (2011) -- Filosofia de la relatividad (2011) -- La proliferación de los conceptos de especie en la biología evolucionista (2010).

The hopes fostered by the end of the Cold War have been shattered, in this troubled beginning of the XXI century, both by a new kind of extreme violence, transnational terrorism, and-more recently-by a global economic downturn with no end yet in sight. Facing these challenges, world governance suffers from the inadequacy both of political theory and of institutions. This book invites us to go back to basics, i.e. to revisit the very foundations of political and moral theory, and reconsider (...) in the light of the present global predicament the relationship between ends and means, the concept of liberty, the precept of solidarity. Terrorism is a test case of our capacity to look beyond our narrow political options in order to attain the common goal of banning it legally, politically and morally. In order to do that, we will have to be able to define terrorism in a way that recognizes it as distinct from other forms, sometimes equally repulsive but different, of violence. It is an effort that requires at the same time ethical sensitivity and a new kind if non-ideological realism. The same effort that must allow us to build and strengthen new international institutions, from the economy to international criminal law. (shrink)

Roberto Mangabeira Unger sets out to reinvent philosophy. His central theme is our transcendence-everything in our existence points beyond itself-and its relation to our finitude: everything that surrounds us, and we ourselves, are flawed and ephemeral. He asks how we can live so that we die only once, instead of dying many small deaths; how we can breathe new life and new meaning into the revolutionary movement that has aroused humanity for the last three centuries, but that is now (...) weakened and disoriented; and how we can make sense of ourselves without claiming for human beings a miraculous exception to the general regime of nature. For Unger, philosophy must be the mind on fire, insisting on our prerogative to speak to what matters most. (shrink)

An enquiry into the relevance of Hans Jonas' thinking to present-day debates, including transhumanism, posthumanism, and human enhancement.

This book develops a theory of aesthetics that criticizes scientific and philosophical reductionism that denies the importance of culture in art and taste, but its theory accepts some fundamental aspects of Neo-Darwinist theory of culture by addressing points of convergence among the notions of meme, simulacrum, and symbol.

Fazer filosofia, para Roberto Mangabeira Unger, é pensar radicalmente. É insistir em tratar dos assuntos mais importantes, ainda que tenhamos de fazê-lo na fronteira do que seja possível pensar e dizer. Resignado ao colonialismo mental, o pensamento brasileiro não está acostumado a tal ousadia. Neste primeiro livro, Mangabeira leva o leitor pela mão e se oferece como guia de seu despertar para a ambição de compreender o mundo das ideias mais básicas e influentes. Seu alvo é rever tudo em (...) nossos pontos de partida – na filosofia e na política – que negue ou desmereça nossa capacidade, como indivíduos e como povo, de criar o novo. O livro ressoará num Brasil que está pronto para se repensar e se refazer, e a passar pela desilusão da desilusão. Não à toa, o nosso autor trará ao título e ao cerne da sua análise e proposição dois conceitos (e práticas) hoje atacados pelo ideário totalitário: o conhecimento e a política. Conhecimento e política, publicado em 1975, foi o primeiro livro de Roberto Mangabeira Unger. A editora LeYa Brasil o publica novamente agora, na tradução primorosa da mãe do autor, a poetisa Edyla Mangabeira Unger, para dar início à reedição de toda a obra de Mangabeira no Brasil, uma obra que se mantém atual e, ao mesmo tempo, visionária. O tema do livro é a superação do mais influente sistema de ideias no pensamento Ocidental desde a Renascença: conjunto de conceitos que abrange o individualismo e o liberalismo na política, o ceticismo e o subjetivismo na ética, e o empiricismo e positivismo na filosofia do conhecimento e da natureza. Desde que saiu da sombra de Aristóteles e do cristianismo, o pensamento ocidental se entregou, argumenta Mangabeira, à construção de uma maneira de pensar que o levou a contradições insolúveis e nos fez perder o rumo do esclarecimento e da emancipação. No centro dessas contradições está um equívoco a respeito de quem somos e de como nos relacionamos com o mundo. Pensamos a partir de regimes de pensamento, mas não temos de ser prisioneiros deles. Podemos subvertê-los e transformá-los para chegar mais perto da realidade. Precisamos participar de determinada sociedade e cultura. Nenhum regime social e cultural, contudo, nos serve como moradia definitiva. Daí a importância de construir um regime que facilite sua própria transformação. Nesta obra, Mangabeira iniciou a longa busca do roteiro das rebeldias libertadoras no pensamento e na política. E se levantou contra a tradição intelectual que continua a nos acorrentar. (shrink)

The nature of Kierkegaard's political legacy is complicated by the religious character of his writings. Exploring Kierkegaard's relevancy for this political-theological moment, this volume offers trans-disciplinary and multi-religious perspectives on Kierkegaard studies and political theology. Privileging contemporary philosophical and political-theological work that is based on Kierkegaard, this volume is an indispensable resource for Kierkegaard scholars, theologians, philosophers of religion, ethicists, and critical researchers in religion looking to make sense of current debates in the field. While this volume shows that Kierkegaard's (...) theological legacy is a thoroughly political one, we are left with a series of open questions as to what a Kierkegaardian interjection into contemporary political theology might look like. And so, like Kierkegaard's writings, this collection of essays is an argument with itself, and as such, will leave readers both edified and scratching their heads--for all the right reasons. -- Amazon.com. (shrink)

The concept of exploitation is central in social and political theory, but there is no precise, widely accepted definition. This paper analyses John Roemer’s seminal theory, which construes exploitation as a distributive injustice arising from asset inequalities, with no reference to notions of power or dominance. First, an intertemporal generalisation of Roemer’s static economies is set up and several doubts are raised on the claim that exploitation theory can be reduced to a kind of resource egalitarianism. Then, Roemer’s philosophical arguments (...) that exploitation should be defined as a merely distributive concept are also questioned and it is argued that a notion of power, or dominance, is an essential part of the definition of exploitation. (shrink)

The civil rights and feminist movements of the sixties did not leave legal theory untouched. Over the following two decades, the critical legal studies movement--led by the Brazilian philosopher, social theorist and politician Roberto Unger--sought to transform traditional views of law and legal doctrine, revealing the hidden interests and class dominations in prevailing legal frameworks. It remains highly influential, having spawned more recent movements, including feminist legal studies and critical race theory. The Critical Legal Studies Movement develops its major (...) ideas, showing how laws and legal discourse hide the social inequalities and political biases that so interest philosophy and revolutionary politics. (shrink)

Italian translation of "Holes and Other Superficialities" (1994).

El presente trabajo de investigación tiene como objeto el estudio de la legislación penal en la República de Colombia desde 1890 hasta la actualidad con la ley 599 de 2000, este último conocido como el vigente Código Penal. Lo anterior, conforme a la siguiente pregunta problémica ¿se ha dado un desarrollo oportuno de la legislación penal colombiana que otorgue soluciones fehacientes a las necesidades de una política criminal sólida desde sus inicios hasta la actualidad? Con ello, se pretende analizar las (...) diversas escuelas que han influido en los legisladores a la promulgación y tipificación de los delitos y sus penas en el marco jurídico penal colombiano. Se destaca ante todo, el análisis que a lo largo del desarrollo del ordenamiento jurídico colombiano abarca el contexto constitucional, doctrinal y jurisprudencial, los cuales, han logrado evidenciar el carácter de un óptimo “derecho penal” a lo largo del contexto histórico del país en mención. Se destaca así, la gran influencia de las Escuelas Clásica, Positivista y Finalista, que a hoy han venido a establecerse con fuerza en Colombia a lo largo de su codificación, desde 1980 hasta la actual ley 599 del año 2000. (shrink)

El artículo aborda el concepto de subjetivación como otro modo de resistencia al poder desde el pensamiento de Michel Foucault. Para esto instala el problema en las dimensiones del saber/poder y su funcionamiento en los dispositivos concretos, y como éstos remiten a un diagrama de fuerzas puras. Teniendo en consideración estos antecedentes, el texto intenta desplazar la resistencia hacia otro lugar, el que va más allá de la clásica relación poder/contrapoder; es en este sentido que la resistencia aparece como un (...) pliegue de la fuerza que encuentra en la subjetivación una efectuación que disloca la visión común de este concepto. Palabras clave: Resistencia - Subjetivación - Diagrama - Dispositivos. (shrink)

Este ensayo ilustra relaciones entre educación, comunicación y complejidad. Se vinculan para complejizar lo que parece sencillo: la comunicación educativa. Su finalidad es mostrar tensiones al comunicar. Enlaza educar y comunicar apoyándose en propuestas de la teoría de la complejidad: códigos, incertidumbre y relatividad. La postura metodológica reúne métodos: fenomenológico-descriptivo, hermenéutico-explicativo, pedagógico-prescriptivo; no los explicita. Primero, describe la tendencia de circunscribir el trabajo universitario al aprendizaje estudiantil; se ilustra para contrastarla con ciencias de la educación adicionales a la psicología. Luego (...) se narra la complejidad de la comunicación docente al humanizar: educar, socializar y jugar. Después se muestra la importancia de justipreciar la comunicación educativa compleja. Complejidad enmarcada en la crisis del paradigma actual. Ulteriormente, ese paradigma se detalla con el recurso de los códigos ideológico, cultural, particular, individual, pedagógico y disciplinar. Se concluye reconociendo la urgencia de humildad, soberbia y eros docente para humanizar(se), conforme a una comunicación educativa compleja. (shrink)

A critical survey of the main philosophical theories about events and event talk, organized in three main sections: (i) Events and Other Categories (Events vs. Objects; Events vs. Facts; Events vs. Properties; Events vs. Times); (ii) Types of Events (Activities, Accomplishments, Achievements, and States; Static and Dynamic Events; Actions and Bodily Movements; Mental and Physical Events; Negative Events); (iii) Existence, Identity, and Indeterminacy.

In this article I endeavour to clarify the meaning of ‘responsibility’, which in the last decades has become a cornerstone of the ethical and political debate. To this end, I carry out an etymological enquiry into this notion with respect to antique and modern European languages. The thesis I argue is that language evidences a unique capacity to cherish, nurture, and foresee with a touch of wisdom an inexhaustible repertoire of existential meanings, which take the stage in human endeavours. As (...) a result, this enquiry helps to understand the original relational and future-oriented significance of ‘responsibility’. Additionally, the analysis steers clear of incorrect or incomplete interpretations, as well as of those willing to deal with the complex and multifaced meaning of ‘responsibility’ in a purely logical-analytical way, which results in moving to the background, if not disregarding altogether, its historical and linguistic stratifications, which are in fact relevant to the full comprehension of this notion. (shrink)

Roberto Esposito is one of the most prolific and important exponents of contemporary Italian political theory.

This article analyzes the temporal single-system interpretation (TSSI) of Marx’s economics. From a methodological viewpoint, the TSSI lacks both a clear definition of equilibrium and a rigorous analysis of disequilibrium dynamics, and the dynamic framework is incomplete. From a substantive viewpoint, temporal single-system (TSS) claims are trivially obtained by assuming that goods exchange at values, apart possibly from out-of-steady-state random deviations. Finally, the proof of the law of the tendential fall in the profit rate is tautologically true, but its theoretical (...) relevance is unclear. (shrink)

This paper analyses exploitation and class formation in a dynamic context. An intertemporal model of a subsistence economy is set up and, among other results, it is proved that, in an interior equilibrium, Differential Ownership of (Scarce) Productive Assets is an inherent feature of a capitalist economy, while exploitation tends to disappear in the long run. Asset inequality is therefore proved to be a normatively secondary (though causally primary) wrong. It is also argued that these results raise several doubts about (...) the possibility of providing robust micro-foundations to Marxian concepts by means of Walrasian general equilibrium models. (shrink)

This paper provides a novel axiomatic analysis of exploitation as the unequal exchange of labour in economies with heterogeneous optimising agents endowed with unequal amounts of physical and human capital. A definition of exploitation is proposed, which emphasises the relational nature of exploitation and the resulting inequalities in the allocation of labour and income. It is shown that, among all of the major definitions, this is the only one which satisfies two formally weak and normatively salient axioms, and allows one (...) to generalise a number of core insights of exploitation theory. (shrink)

An axiomatic analysis of the concept of unequal exchange (UE) between countries is developed in a dynamic general equilibrium model that generalises John Roemer’s (Central Planning and the Soviet Economy, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1983) economy with a global capital market. The class of UE definitions that satisfy three fundamental properties—including a correspondence between wealth, class and UE exploitation status—is completely characterised. It is shown that this class is nonempty and a definition of UE exploitation between countries is proposed, which is (...) theoretically robust and firmly anchored to empirically observable data. The full class and UE exploitation structure of the international economy is derived in equilibrium. (shrink)

This paper analyses the Marxian theory of exploitation. The axiomatic approach standard in social choice theory is adopted in order to study the concept of exploitation—what it is and how it should be captured empirically. Two properties are presented that capture some fundamental Marxian insights. It is shown that, contrary to the received view, there exists a nonempty class of definitions of exploitation that preserve the relation between exploitation and profits—called Profit-Exploitation Correspondence Principle—in general economies with heterogeneous agents, complex class (...) structures, and production technologies with heterogeneous labour inputs. However, among the main approaches, only the so-called ‘New Interpretation’ satisfies the Profit-Exploitation Correspondence Principle in general. (shrink)