This paper deals with one of the first attempts to measure simple reactions in humans. The Swiss astronomer Adolph Hirsch investigated personal differences in the speed of sensory transmission in order to achieve accuracy in astronomy. His controversial results, however, started an intense debate among both physiologists and astronomers who disagreed on the nature of these differences. Were they due to different eyes or brains, or to differences in skill and education? Furthermore, they debated how to eliminate them. Some, for (...) example, wanted to eliminate the observer, and prescribed the use of new technologies like the electro-chronograph or photography, while others believed in discipline and education. By debating the nature of these differences, astronomers and physiologists sketched both different conceptions of ‘man’ and different paths to objectivity. These diverse conceptions, moreover, were tied to current nineteenth-century debates, such as the benefits or disadvantages of railroads, telegraphy and the standardization of time and longitudes. By focusing on the debates surrounding the speed of sensory transmission, this paper reevaluates the history of astronomy, physiology and experimental psychology. Furthermore, in investigating astronomy's relation to the human sciences, it uncovers profound connections in the traditionally separate histories of objectivity and the body.L'heure sera distribuée dans les maisons,comme l'eau ou le gaz.Adolph Hirsch. (shrink)

On April 6, 1922, in Paris, Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson publicly debated the nature of time. Einstein considered Bergson’s theory of time to be a soft, psychological notion, irreconcilable with the quantitative realities of physics. Bergson, who gained fame as a philosopher by arguing that time should not be understood exclusively through the lens of science, criticized Einstein’s theory of time for being a metaphysics grafted on to science, one that ignored the intuitive aspects of time. The Physicist and (...) the Philosopher tells the remarkable story of how this explosive debate transformed our understanding of time and drove a rift between science and the humanities that persists today. -/- Jimena Canales introduces readers to the revolutionary ideas of Einstein and Bergson, describes how they dramatically collided in Paris, and traces how this clash of worldviews reverberated across the twentieth century. She shows how it provoked responses from figures such as Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger, and carried repercussions for American pragmatism, logical positivism, phenomenology, and quantum mechanics. Canales explains how the new technologies of the period—such as wristwatches, radio, and film—helped to shape people’s conceptions of time and further polarized the public debate. She also discusses how Bergson and Einstein, toward the end of their lives, each reflected on his rival’s legacy—Bergson during the Nazi occupation of Paris and Einstein in the context of the first hydrogen bomb explosion. -/- The Physicist and the Philosopher reveals how scientific truth was placed on trial in a divided century marked by a new sense of time. (shrink)

ArgumentIn 1895 when the Lumière brothers unveiled their cinematographic camera, many scientists were elated. Scientists hoped that the machine would fulfill a desire that had driven research for nearly half a century: that of capturing the world in its own image. But their elation was surprisingly short-lived, and many researchers quickly distanced themselves from the new medium. The cinematographic camera was soon split into two machines, one for recording and one for projecting, enabling it to further escape from the laboratory. (...) The philosopher Henri Bergson joined scientists, such as Etienne-Jules Marey, who found problems with the new cinematographic order. Those who had worked to make the dream come true found that their efforts had been subverted. This essay focuses on the desire to build a cinematographic camera, with the purpose of elucidating how dreams and reality mix in the development of science and technology. It is about desired machines and their often unexpected results. The interplay between what “is” (the technical), what “ought” (the ethical), and what “could” be (the fantastical) drives scientific research. (shrink)

This paper situates Einstein’s theory of relativity within broader networks of communication.The speed of light, explained Einstein, was an unsurpassable velocity if, and only if, it was considered in terms of »arbitrary« and »voluntary« signals. Light signals in physics belong within a broader set of signs and symbols that include communication and military signals, understood by reference to Helmholtz, Saussure, media philosophies from WWII to ‘68 (Lavelle, Ong, McLuhan) and Derrida. Once light signals in physics are considered in relation to (...) semaphore, print, telegraph, radio, computers and tape recorders, Kittler and Habermas provide us with conflicting ways for understanding science and technology, rationality and consensus.We conclude with a study of »flash and bang« in popular accounts of relativity theory to understand the role of theoretical science in the transmission of information and violence. (shrink)

During the late nineteenth century, scientists around the world disagreed as to the types of instruments and methods that should be used for determining the most important constant of celestial mechanics: the solar parallax. Venus’s 1874 transit across the sun was seen as the best opportunity for ending decades of debate. However, a mysterious “black drop” that appeared between Venus and the sun and individual differences in observations of the phenomenon brought traditional methods into disrepute. To combat these difficulties, the (...) astronomer Jules Janssen devised a controversial new instrument, the “photographic revolver,” that photographed Venus at regular intervals. Another solution came from physicists, who rivaled the astronomers’ dominance in precision measurements by deducing the solar parallax from physical measurements of the speed of light. Yet other astronomers relied on drawings and well‐trained observers. The new space emerging from this debate was characterized by a decline in faith in photography and in geometry and by the growing realization of the importance of alternative elements needed for establishing scientific truths: power and authority, skill and discipline, standardization, mechanical reproducibility, and theatricality. By examining the “cinematographic turn” in science and its alternatives, this essay brings to light unexplored multidisciplinary connections that contribute to the histories of psychology, philosophy, physics, and film studies. (shrink)

Does a privileged frame of reference exist? Part of Einstein’s success consisted in eliminating Bergson’s objections to relativity theory, which were consonant with those of the most important scientists who had worked on the topic: Henri Poincaré, Hendrik Lorentz and Albert A. Michelson. In the early decades of the century, Bergson’s fame, prestige and influence surpassed that of the physicist. Once considered as one of the most renowned intellectuals of his era and an authority on the nature of time, The (...) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2010) does not even include him under the entry of “time.” How was it possible to write off from history a figure that was once so prominent? Through an analysis of behind-the-scenes of science correspondence, this article traces the ascendance of Einstein's views of time at the expense of Bergson’s. (shrink)

How are fundamental constants, such as c for the speed of light, related to particular technological environments? Our understanding of the constant c and Einstein’s relativistic cosmology depended on key experiences and lessons learned in connection to new forms of telecommunications, first used by the military and later adapted for commercial purposes. Many of Einstein’s contemporaries understood his theory of relativity by reference to telecommunications, some referring to it as “signal-theory” and “message theory.” Prominent physicists who contributed to it (Hans (...) Reichenbach, Max Born, Paul Langevin, Louis de Broglie, and Léon Brillouin, among others) worked in radio units during WWI. At the time of its development, the old Newtonian mechanics was retrospectively rebranded as based on the belief in a means of “instantaneous signaling at a distance.” Even our thinking about lengths and solid bodies, argued Einstein and his interlocutors, needed to be overhauled in light of a new understanding of signaling possibilities. Pulling a rod from one side will not make the other end move at once, since relativity had shown that “this would be a signal that moves with infinite speed.” Einstein’s universe, where time and space dilated, where the shortest path between two points was often curved and which broke the laws of Euclidean geometry, functioned according to the rules of electromagnetic signal transmission. For some critics, the new understanding of the speed of light as an unsurpassable velocity—a fundamental tenet of Einstein’s theory—was a mere technological effect related to current limitations in communication technologies. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the problem of individual differences in observation and reaction that arose in nineteenth-century science. This new problem could no longer be explained away by invoking the well-known fallibility of the senses. The inability to perceive and react to the world independently from the individuality of an observer seemed to be parasitical to the very sources of knowledge itself. Individual differences affected elementary perceptions of color, intensity, length and angles and dramatically impacted observations and reactions to moving phenomena. (...) By looking at how measurements, observations, and times of reaction varied amongst individuals, in this dissertation I attempt to track essential changes in what it means to observe and to know. The periodization that I introduce starts during the Second Empire, when the problem became critical in France . It ends with the cinematographic method , by reference to which certain scientists, astronomers and amateurs had sought to solve the problem. I investigate the problem of individual differences in three areas: in the sky, inside bodies, and in things. The first part concerns mostly astronomers and physicists. The second part treats the problem from the perspective of the human sciences. The third and final part brings all of these actors together in an analysis of instruments and imaging techniques that were used to eliminate individual differences. A central intention of my dissertation is to connect my historical account to historiographic questions pertaining to the boundaries between history, philosophy and science. I introduce the concept of frameline as a methodological tool that enables me to relate theories of perception and reaction to current debates in the history and philosophy of science. Using this concept my dissertation explores how the problem of individual variations was related to differences between science and culture, between the exact and the human sciences, instruments and humans, retinas and brains; boundaries often set by invoking the distinction between words and language and felt in bodies considered variously as sensors, reactors, authors and texts. (shrink)

Einstein’s relativity and its reception is definitely a prominent option for a case-study aiming to highlight the impact of the socio-cultural environment to the formulation of the scientific image of the world and other aspects of the worldview of a given era. Indeed, Einstein’s relativity clearly marked the course of 20th-century science, changed our view and shaped our experience of time.

El campo de las ciencias de la salud se encuentra actualmente en constante cambio y esta condición ha sido más acentuada en la última década ya que nuevas enfermedades, como el SARS-CoV-2, forzaron a la ciencia a evolucionar y pusieron a prueba el componente ético del personal de la salud, despertando un interés especial en la bioética y la ética médica.

Elizabeth Anker y Bernardette Meyler, profesoras de literatura y de derecho respectivamente, involucradas ambas en los últimos años con el movimiento “derecho y literatura”, editan en 2017 New Directions in Law and Literature.

The purpose of this essay is to advocate for including jurilinguistics in legal education. It presents jurilinguistics as a tool for understanding law and therefore supports continuing efforts to teach it. Knowing it is not unique, this essay proposes a jurilinguistic approach that focuses on the in-between of legal translation and comparative law. The proposal outlines the importance of educating in the capabilities of teaching a particular subject in a language other than their official one. The idea is to let (...) the Other help to understand the Self. Particularly pertinent in transnational law programs, it is a multicultural approach that not only recognizes the other, but also embraces it. (shrink)

A 50 años del golpe de Estado: reflexiones sobre la revolución y la historia reciente desde la militancia.

It has been pointed out that Sensorimotor Enactivism, a theory that claims that perception is enacted and brought about by movement, says very little about the neural mechanisms that enable perception. For the proponents of the predictive approach to Sensorimotor Enactivism, this is a challenge that can be met by introducing predictive processing into the picture. However, the compatibility between these theories is not straightforward. Firstly, because they seem to differ in their stand towards representations: while Sensorimotor Enactivism is said (...) to belong to the non-representational wing of cognitive science, predictive processing has a representational profile. And secondly, because they exhibit different explanatory strategies: while Sensorimotor Enactivism prioritizes the interactions of the embodied agent, predictive processing has internalist commitments. The aim of this paper is to address these concerns and show that a predictive approach to Sensorimotor Enactivism is viable. More specifically, I focus on the Free-Energy approach, a theory that falls within the ballpark of predictive processing. In this paper I argue for the following claims. I argue that both Sensorimotor Enactivism and the Free-Energy approach may be understood for some systems in representational terms. The non-representational reading of Sensorimotor Enactivism is not mandatory and neither is the representational reading of the Free-Energy approach. Sensorimotor Enactivism is, in this respect, compatible with both representational and non-representational interpretations of the FEA. So, the position towards representations of these frameworks should not stand in the way of a predictive approach to Sensorimotor Enactivism. I also show that the Free-Energy approach allows for an account that prioritizes the interaction of the embodied agent with the environment. This is the explanatory strategy followed by Sensorimotor Enactivism. To justify this strategy and following other proponents of Sensorimotor Enactivism, I argue that by referring to the interactions of the embodied agent a better account of the phenomena in question is provided. On this basis, I claim that Sensorimotor Enactivism and the Free-Energy approach are compatible in what concerns their explanatory strategy as well. Thus, making the case for the viability of the predictive approach to Sensorimotor Enactivism. (shrink)

Al reconstruir el cambio en la figura del otro entre la escuela del sentido moral y el sistema de la simpatía, es posible establecer una diferencia importante entre A. Smith y sus antecesores en la Ilustración escocesa, y explorar desde un nuevo ángulo el lugar que ocupa la política en la obra de Smith. Al pasar de una figura universal y abstracta, a una concreta y real, el sistema de la simpatía permite pensar en la continuidad que hay entre la (...) comunidad moral y la comunidad política y también en su ruptura, cuando la segunda se convierte en el espacio que permite manejar la exclusión que puede generar la primera. La invisibilidad de algunos miembros de la comunidad moral exige la creación de un espacio de tolerancia para evitar la violencia simbólica que implica la negación de participar en la comunicación afectiva de la simpatía. (shrink)

The present dissertation is divided into five Chapters. As an introduction, Chapter 1 characterises hate speech, the harm it creates and its audience. Throughout our investigation, we defend the idea that hate speech is a harmful mechanism used in intergroup disputes for social dominance (Charles-Toussaint & Crowson, 2010; Duckitt & Sibley, 2017; Hoover et al., 2021). Moreover, it targets people based on their actual or perceived "race", colour, descent, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, language, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation (...) and other identity features (Mihajlova et al., 2013). Therefore, its proliferation threatens coexistence within diverse societies, where people from various identities and backgrounds live together. Following Speech Act theory, which defines "illocutionary" speech acts as those that do something by saying something (e.g., marrying someone by saying "Yes, I do"), we feature hate speech as such an act (Langton, 2018a; Maitra, 2012), defending the idea that its power to harm others is directly linked with its capacity to perform various harmful actions through speech. By saying, "We do not want your kind here!", "Go back home!" or "Stop Islamization of our country!" along with other paradigmatic hate speech, we perform several actions: We rank minorities or disfavoured groups as inferior (Langton, 2012; Langton, 2018a; Langton, 2018b; Maitra, 2012), direct bystanders to side with hate speakers, order people to leave if they do not conform with the speaker's standard of a good citizen (Fraser, 2023; Lepoutre 2021; Waldron, 2012), encourage like-minded fellows to take action against targeted groups and, sometimes, perform several or all those actions at a time (Lewiński, 2021). Importantly, we defend the idea that most hate speech not only causes harm but constitutes harm to its targets (Langton, 2018a): whether ranking a group as inferior, blaming minorities for circumstances outside of their control, directing disfavoured groups to leave or legitimating particular treatment of them through hate speech, these all hurt people (Langton, 2018a). In addition, those actions can cause feelings of humiliation, helplessness, isolation, low self-esteem or anger (Fattoracci & King, 2023; King et al., 2011), harming people psychologically and physiologically to varying degrees (Eisenberger, 2015). Moreover, we characterise hate speech as highly context-dependent (Moreno & Pérez Navarro, 2021). This quality contributes to it being perceived as directed at different subjects, expanding its audience and the people it harms, going beyond its direct targets to also include bystanders and society at large. Depending on the context, the audience of hate speech may be any of us. Notwithstanding, as its audience, we all play a relevant role in determining, modulating and countering the actions a hate speech act can perform. Therefore, a good starting point to address this phenomenon should count on all of us, as potential audience, to identify whether and to what extent we perceive hate speech as harmful and the conditions under which a response contributes to reducing its harm. Following an experimental moral philosophy approach to substantiate our characterisation for hate speech and its harm, we conducted two studies testing ordinary people's intuitions in those regards, reproduced in Chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 2 reproduces a Registered Report published in May 2023 in Scientific Reports (Springer Nature), co-authored with Prof. Dr. Ophelia Deroy. In this study, we tested whether people are intrinsically averse to verbal harm compared to other kinds of hate actions (nonverbal, bodily actions) and to what extent. Considering that bystanders rarely report hate speech incidents and the legal, theoretical and social hesitancy to punish them, we hypothesised that people would be more lenient against hate speech than nonverbal hate actions, which share intentions and consequences. We conducted an experiment with 1309 British citizens who read descriptions of verbal and nonverbal incidents stemming from identical hateful intent, which created the same consequences. We asked them how much punishment the speaker (perpetrator) should receive, how likely they would be to denounce such an incident and how harmful the actions were. The results contradicted our pre-registered hypotheses and the predictions of dual moral theories, which hold that intention and harmful consequences are the sole psychological determinants of punishment. Instead, participants consistently rated verbal hate incidents as more deserving of punishment and denunciation, and as being more damaging than nonverbal incidents. The difference remained even when we shifted the scenarios to let participants know that the targets suffered no negative consequences (e.g., the target was deaf and so could not hear the racist remark). We explain this difference through the concept of action aversion (Miller et al., 2014) in opposition to outcome aversion, suggesting that lay observers perceive something inherent to speech that makes them assess it as more harmful and deserving of punishment and denunciation as opposed to other nonverbal hate actions, regardless of its consequences. Later, in Chapter 4, we interpret the intrinsic feature captured by folk intuitions in hate speech as the ability to harm by saying (i.e., constituting harm, and not only causing it) and to target different people simultaneously (e.g., direct-targets and random bystanders), which remains even when the speakers do not manage to harm their direct targets. Chapter 3 reproduces a paper submitted to the scientific journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, currently under review. Co-authored with Prof. Dr. Ophelia Deroy, Dr. Justin Sulik and Mr. Clemens von Wulffen, it explores people's perception of the role played by silent or opposing bystanders in reducing the harm caused by hate speech. We depart from two widespread assumptions: a prevailing passive attitude towards hate speech and the consideration of bystanders' opposition when facing a hate incident as helpful in mitigating its harm, something that has been stressed by governmental authorities, sociologists, and philosophers (Ayala & Vasilyeva, 2016; Langton, 2018b). We explore whether and under what conditions ordinary people perceive a silent response when facing a hate speech incident as increasing the harm it creates, and how opposing speech may reduce that harm. Across two online experiments with UK participants using custom visual vignettes, we provide empirical evidence that bystanders' expression of opposition can modulate how harmful these incidents are perceived to be, but only as part of a collective response: one that is expressed by a substantial majority of bystanders, which suggests the existence of a social norm against hate speech. Experiment 1 (N=329) shows that recognising the role played by silent or opposing bystanders who witness a hate speech incident depends on whether participants could take from the context the current social norm about how to respond to hate speech. In scenarios with three bystanders, participants recognised those who show opposition as reducing the harm created by the hate speech, while regarding those who remain silent as increasing that harm. However, in scenarios where the hate incident occurred in front of only one bystander, thus not allowing participants to recognise the social norm in place, they assessed hate speech incidents as equally harmful, regardless of whether the single bystander showed opposition or remained silent. Experiment 2 (N=269) shows this is not simply a matter of numbers but rather one of norms: only unanimous opposition reduces the public perception of the damage created. Based on our results, we advance an empirical norm account: group responses to hate speech modulate its harm by indicating either a permissive or a disapproving social norm, which may guide bystanders' responses. Our account and results show the need to complement individual responses with collective strategies (Chater & Loewenstein, 2022) against hate speech and other similar phenomena in which individual efforts seem not to suffice (e.g., climate change or global pandemics). In Chapter 4, we return to our philosophical assumptions regarding hate speech to revise them in light of our empirical work. First, we interpret participants' stronger aversion to hate speech found in Chapter 2 as the recognition that an intrinsic feature of hate speech acts is to perform various harmful actions through speech. These actions not only cause harmful effects, but also are harmful themselves and can target distinct people simultaneously. This is a result which other acts of hate cannot achieve and which is captured by folk intuitions. In addition, the need for collective responses and robust social norms in modulating hate speech harm, highlighted in Chapter 3, make us venture a new characterisation of hate speakers, challenging the idea that they are merely individuals or “lone wolves”, and instead casting them as members of a group. Accordingly, we defend the idea that it is a mistake to consider hate speech purely from the perspective of individual rights to free expression and discussion. The mistake is to treat harmful group speech with normative — and thus social — implications as an individual matter. Once hate speech actions, whether actual or perceived, become accepted by the majority, they risk mutating into policy options, susceptible of being supported by economic or populist lobbies interested in ascension to power through social confrontation. Although further developing this idea is largely beyond the scope of the present dissertation framework, we argue that harmful group speech with policy aspirations against disfavoured and minoritarian groups should not be granted freedom of speech protection under equal conditions alongside individual speech. Furthermore, we highlight the pressing need to challenge the assumption that ordinary people are lenient toward hate speech and other forms of hatred and intolerance. It is crucial to recognise and harness people's capacity to discern the harm caused by such practices and involve them in collective responses against hate speech. By doing so, we can effectively counter harmful discourses and foster tolerance and respect for diversity, thereby promoting peaceful coexistence within diverse societies. Finally, Chapter 5 provides a comprehensive summary of our research, highlighting its key findings and their implications. (shrink)

Das Heilige hat Konjunktur: Im Zuge des religious turn der Kulturwissenschaften erscheint es nicht mehr als Gegensatz zu einer säkularisierten Moderne, sondern als eines ihrer konstitutiven Momente. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes untersuchen Denkfiguren des Sakralen im 20. Jahrhundert - von Nietzsches Diagnose des ”Todes Gottes“ über geschichtsphilosophische Aneignungen jüdisch-christlicher Glaubensinhalte bis hin zu sprachphilosophischen Reflexionen über das Heilige. Sie arbeiten heraus, wie sich die ästhetische Moderne in Auseinandersetzung mit dem Traditionsbestand sakraler Erfahrungen bildet.

RESUMEN Al reconstruir el cambio en la figura del otro entre la escuela del sentido moral y el sistema de la simpatía, es posible establecer una diferencia importante entre A. Smith y sus antecesores en la Ilustración escocesa, y explorar desde un nuevo ángulo el lugar que ocupa la política en la obra de Smith. Al pasar de una figura universal y abstracta, a una concreta y real, el sistema de la simpatía permite pensar en la continuidad que hay entre (...) la comunidad moral y la comunidad política y también en su ruptura, cuando la segunda se convierte en el espacio que permite manejar la exclusión que puede generar la primera. La invisibilidad de algunos miembros de la comunidad moral exige la creación de un espacio de tolerancia para evitar la violencia simbólica que implica la negación de participar en la comunicación afectiva de la simpatía. ABSTRACT The system of sympathy introduces a change in the figure of the other with respect to the school of moral sense. The reconstruction of this change reveals an important difference between A. Smith and his Scottish Enlightenment predecessors, which allows for the examination of the role of politics in Smith's work from a new angle. By replacing an abstract, universal figure with a concrete, actual one, the system of sympathy makes it possible to think the continuity between the moral community and the political community, but also its disruption, whenever the latter becomes a space to handle the exclusion that might be generated by the former. The invisibility of some of the members of the moral community requires the creation of a space of tolerance in order to avoid the symbolic violence entailed by the refusal to participate in the affective communication of sympathy. RESUMO Ao reconstruir a mudança na figura do outro entre a escola do sentido moral e o sistema da simpatia, é possível estabelecer uma diferença importante entre A. Smith e seus antecessores na Ilustração escocesa e explorar, sob um novo ângulo, o lugar que a política ocupa na obra de Smith. Ao passar de uma figura universal e abstrata para uma concreta e real, o sistema da simpatia permite pensar na continuidade que há entre a comunidade moral e a comunidade política e também em sua ruptura, quando a segunda se converte no espaço que permite manejar a exclusão que pode gerar a primeira. A invisibilidade de alguns membros da comunidade moral exige a criação de um espaço de tolerância para evitar a violência simbólica que implica a negação de participar na comunicação afetiva da simpatia. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo analizaré la tensión que se propone en las novelas Mano de obra de Diamela Eltit y Los cuerpos del verano de Martín Felipe Castagnet, entre la aceleración y los límites de la corporalidad, resto humano que emerge en un mundo de deshumanización y que recuerda el vínculo del cuerpo con el animal y la finitud. En este sentido, el cansancio y la depresión son consideradas patologías del sistema que necesitan corrección, en tanto estados que la sociedad (...) no tolera y de los que se hace responsable al individuo ante el peligro de significar un atasco en el proceso de producción. (shrink)

En este artículo, nos preguntamos si es pertinente un análisis del personaje de Medea de Eurípides, y más concretamente, de su filicidio, a la luz de la doctrina aristotélica de la acción. Resulta dudoso, y quizás equívoco, hablar de "responsabilidad" (en sentido aristotélico) en el caso de la heroína, ya que sus motivaciones, como las de todo héroe trágico, tienen un doble signo: enfrentado a una ἀνάγκη superior, también desea lo que está forzado a hacer. Además, Medea no es una (...) mujer común: es un personaje ontológicamente complejo que participa, más de lo que frecuentemente se ha enfatizado, del plano divino. In this article we wonder if it is pertinent to analyse the character of Euripides' Medea and, more precisely, her filicide, in the light of Aristotle's doctrine of action. With regard to the heroine, it is doubtful and perhaps confusing to talk about "responsibility" (in Aristotelian terms) because her motivations, as all tragic heroes', are two-sided: faced to a superior ἀνάγκη he wants what he is forced to do as well. In addition, Medea is not an ordinary woman: she is an ontologically complex character that has a share in the divine level, a share which is more crucial than what has usually been emphasized. (shrink)

Any complete account of morality should be able to account for its characteristic normativity; we show that enactivism is able to do so while doing justice to the situated and interactive nature of morality. Moral normativity primarily arises in interpersonal interaction and is characterized by agents’ possibility of irrevocably changing each other’s autonomies, that is, the possibility of harming or expanding each other’s autonomy. We defend that moral normativity, as opposed to social and other forms of normativity, regulates and, in (...) some cases, constitutes this very possibility. Agents are thus morally responsible for caring about their own and others’ autonomies in interaction. In our conception, moral normativity is embodied, situated, and deeply affective, and is constituted in social practices and maintained in interaction. We identify at least two necessary conditions for moral normativity to arise as a social practice. The first is our embodied constitution as living beings who are precarious and therefore vulnerable and in need of interaction with others and with the environment. The second is our sociolinguistic nature, which allows us to exponentially expand our possibilities for action and normatively distinguish among them. We finish by drawing a distinction between moral character and the moral content of interactions, which allows us to universally recognize the ethical dimensions of all human interaction while doing justice to the situated character of morals. (shrink)

This paper situates Einstein's theory of relativity within broader networks of communication. The speed of light, explained Einstein, was an unsurpassable velocity if , and only if , it was considered in terms of »arbitrary« and »voluntary« signals. Light signals in physics belong within a broader set of signs and symbols that include communication and military signals, understood by reference to Helmholtz, Saussure, media philosophies from WWII to '68 (Lavelle, Ong, McLuhan) and Derrida. Once light signals in physics are considered (...) in relation to semaphore, print, telegraph, radio, computers and tape recorders, Kittler and Habermas provide us with conflicting ways for understanding science and technology, rationality and consensus. We conclude with a study of »flash and bang« in popular accounts of relativity theory to understand the role of theoretical science in the transmission of information and violence. (shrink)

Alberto Magno designa una división tripartita para la filosofía, en la cual la “filosofía real” se encuentra compuesta por la física, la matemática y la metafísica, dispuestas de este modo secundum ordinem doctrinae. El saber metafísico constituye el saber más excelso y es denominado scientia divina, que se articula con la teología a modo de una gradación de distintos estadios de inteligibilidad, y pone de manifiesto el problema dialéctico fe-razón.

En este artículo teórico se presenta el modelo metodológico de los Mapas Corporales como una estrategia para la producción de conocimientos sobre el cuerpo en investigaciones biográficas. Este modelo aborda la corporeidad como un lugar por el que fluye el trazado de construcciones intersubjetivas que regulan al sujeto, permitiendo textualizar procesos subjetivos que, con las estrategias tradicionales del método biográfico, quedan invisibles, en tanto, lenguajes semiótico-materiales encarnados. A nivel interpretativo se busca la comprensión del orden normativo inscrito en el cuerpo (...) donde se articulan aspectos relativos a procesos psicosexuales y modelos de género anclados en la cultura, como así también, la expresión de transgresiones o disidencias a las ideologías de género vigentes. This theoretical paper refers to a methodological model of Body Maps as a strategy to create knowledge on corporeity in bibliographic research. This model approaches the body as a place through which the intersubjective construction path regulating the subject flows, allowing the textualization of subjective processes which, together with the traditional strategies of the bibliographic method, remain invisible as embodied semiotic-material languages. At an interpretational level, the paper deals with understanding the normative order of the body where aspects relative to psychosexual processes and gender models rooted in the culture articulate, along with the expression of transgression to current gender ideologies. (shrink)

La literatura griega registra antecedentes de los recursos propios del slapstick en diversos géneros como la épica, la poesía yámbica, la fábula y la comedia. La comedia de Menandro, en particular El Misántropo, hace uso profuso de esta serie de tópicos del humor físico para caracterizar al anciano Cnemón, su personaje central. En varias de sus obras, el slapstick se asocia específicamente al personajetipo del anciano gruñón. El Misántropo retoma claramente el uso punitivo tradicional del recurso, que resulta dominante en (...) la comedia de Aristófanes, en cuanto el slapstick apunta a castigar y transformar la conducta antisocial de Cnemón. No se trata de un recurso asociado al mero entretenimiento, sino que condena a su víctima mediante el escarnio de la agresión y la risa, o bien a su victimario cuando ejerce una violencia descontextualizada, como lo hace el misántropo. (shrink)