Nuestro objetivo examinar las razones por las que se dice que la modernidad ha entrado en crisis y por qué sus avances, tan glorificados en la Ilustración, representan más bien un retroceso. En este sentido, se abordará en un primer momento la crítica realizada por un pensador que, aún inserto en esta época, vislumbra los elementos que han constituido el fracaso de algunos proyectos occidentales. Tal es el caso de Nietzsche, quien fue uno de los primeros que criticaron a la (...) razón y a la noción de verdad; a la primera en tanto facultad sobrevalorada e irracional, y a la segunda como una ficción, creada por el ser humano en tanto útil para sus empresas prácticas. Asimismo, se menciona de forma breve a Max Weber y su concepto de Jaula de Hierro en cuanto fue una de las primeras reflexiones sobre la modernidad entendida como periodo de debilitamiento de las ideas absolutas sobre el mundo. En segundo lugar, se abordará la teoría crítica de la Escuela de Frankfurt, concentrándose en la caracterización que hacen de la razón como razón instrumental. La crítica que realizan estos teóricos se centra en los supuestos que han coronado a la razón y al conocimiento científico como el centro y la jerarquía más alta de todo saber. Una vez hecho esto, se abordará la crítica más reciente a la modernidad dentro de la tradición occidental, conocida bajo el nombre de Posmodernidad.La última parte del escrito busca determinar qué es aquello que se conoce bajo el nombre de Posmodernidad. Para esto, se establecerán cuáles son los problemas relativos a su definición, se analizarán algunos de los elementos del contexto histórico que influyeron en su surgimiento y, por último, se hablará acerca de su alcance teórico. A pesar de ser un concepto problemático, y no tener un núcleo teórico concreto, este concepto se ha usado para definir la aparente crisis de valores generada a partir de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y la expansión del capitalismo en su forma globalizada. Más aún, la tendencia mayoritaria de la Posmodernidad es rechazar, en su totalidad, los valores desarrollados y defendidos en la modernidad. (shrink)

El trabajo que aquí se presenta arranca de la tesis de que la Retórica no es un arte restringido a ciertas situaciones lingüísticas, sino una auténtica teoría del conocimiento y de la expresión humanas. El hombre es fundamentalmente un animal retórico. El fenómeno de la ironía no es un mero tropo sino el indicador de que el ser humano sólo puede conocer y expresarse desviadamente, a través de un elemento sígnico. Y los tropos de la metáfora y la metonimia no (...) son adornos añadidos al lenguaje reservados a ocasiones concretas, sino los mecanismos fundamentales de toda expresión lingüística, es decir de toda encarnación del sentido en la palabra. (shrink)

El presente artículo no trata de analizar procesos o estructuras, como es habitual en la Ciencia Política, sino de dilucidar aquello que, según Aristóteles, hace posible y es constitutivo de la vida política del ciudadano. La Política en Aristóteles es resultado de una prudencia y ciencia arquitectónica. Y el instrumento generador de esa arquitectura es el lenguaje. El uso de ese instrumento social de carácter fundamental para la constitución de una sociedad humana y de su organización política se denomina Retórica. (...) Un instrumento es un medio de obtener formas y fines determinados, pero cuando el instrumento adquiere un carácter fundamental deja de ser un simple medio para nuestros fines, determinando incluso el fin y la estructura que está por elaborar. Y esa instrumentalidad que nos dirige y orienta corre el riesgo de pasarnos totalmente inadvertida, formando parte de lo inconsciente colectivo. Considerando la Retórica como el uso consciente del lenguaje, quiere el autor reivindicar el valor de una consciencia retórica sin la cual no es posible la coordinación de la acción de todos y la de cada uno en una comunidad social y política. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es hacer una revisión de las principales teorías que se han propuesto en ética ambiental en torno a la noción de valor intrínseco. Para esto, dilucidaré qué se entiende por valor intrínseco, para después remarcar la importancia que tiene este concepto dentro de la reflexión sobre el medio ambiente. Por último, perfilaré las principales teorías de corte biocentrista dentro de la ética ambiental que han tratado la noción de valor intrínseco como eje central.

responsibility based on rhetoric, logic and politics. Three life spaces in which the personality of a good citizen should be developed are dealt with: the practice of the art of correct thought, good speech, and just actions. A new concept of social citizenry is unthinkable without these eleme..

Este trabajo de investigación toma varias encuestas aplicadas a nivel internacional y nacional, para identificar la cultura política de los ciudadanos sobre los grandes temas de la agenda nacional y su percepción sobre la democracia. Advierte sobre los problemas que tiene México en torno a las instituciones que garantizan la democracia y advierte sobre cuáles son los rasgos de desmocratización que pueden mostrar las encuestas de opinión como la ENCUCI, aplicada en 2020. Al final, describe las sugerencias con base en (...) la revisión teórica y documental del caso mexicano. (shrink)

The objective was to analyze the influence of the social context on bullying. A mixed investigation was proposed: the social context was analyzed, were applied questionnaires and interviews; were analyzed descriptively, normality tests and non-parametric tests; different manifestations of bullying are presented; their frequency varies between both high schools.

"La filosofía en Puerto Rico: los transterrados reúne varios estudios sobre filófofos extranjeros que en algún momento decidieron compartir su vida, su enseñanza y sus trabajos académicos con los habitantes de esta bella y hospitalaria Isla de Puerto Rico. La presente es una obra en la cual han colaborado varios autores: Manfre Kerkhoff, Antonio Mansilla Triviño, Juan José Sánchez, Luis Ramírez, José Rivera y Carlos Rojas Osorio, quien estuvo a cargo la iniciativa, el plan de la (...) obra y la edición."--Cubierta. (shrink)

This paper argues that, while there is a difference between personal and sub-personal explanation, claims of autonomy should be treated with scepticism. It distinguishes between horizontal and vertical explanatory relations that might hold between facts at the personal and facts at the sub-personal level. Noting that many philosophers are prepared to accept vertical explanatory relations between the two levels, I argue for the stronger claim that, in the case of at least three central personal level phenomena, the demands of explanatory (...) adequacy require postulating horizontal explanatory relations. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between two ways of thinking about the sources of self-consciousness. We can think about the sources of self-consciousness either in genetic terms (as the origins or precursors of self-conscious thoughts) or in epistemic terms (as the grounds of self-conscious judgements). Using Christopher Peacocke's account of self-conscious judgements in Being Known as a foil, this paper brings out some important ways in which we need to draw upon the sources of self-consciousness in the genetic sense for (...) a proper understanding of the sources of self-consciousness in the epistemic sense. (shrink)

How precisely to understand and evaluate counterfactuals can be an intricate issue. The aim of this article is to examine a new set of difficulties for evaluating counterfactuals that arise in the context of the dynamical spacetimes described by the theory of general relativity (GR). The initial value formulation provides us with a methodology to pin down the specific combination of features of the theory at the origin of the difficulties, namely, non-linearity and certain non-local aspects (typically captured by ellipticity (...) at the analytical level), in particular when combined with the global and/or quasi-local character of physical quantities in GR. Finally, we connect the philosophical question about counterfactuals with concrete applied physical issues in GR about extracting meaningful predictions by constructing appropriate initial data sets, leading us to question the very suitability of the Cauchy approach to fully account for the explanatory power of the theory. (shrink)

Empirical reports on scientific competition show that scientists can be depicted as self-interested, strategically behaving agents. Nevertheless, we argue that recognition-seeking scientists will have an interest in establishing methodological norms which tend to select theories of a high epistemic value, and that these norms will be still more stringent if the epistemic value of theories appears in the utility function of scientists, either directly or instrumentally. (Published Online July 11 2006) Footnotes1 The author gratefully acknowledges financial support from DGI grant (...) BEC2002-03715 (Ministerio de Educación y Cultura). 2 The author gratefully acknowledges financial support from grants PB98-0495-C08-01 and BFF2002-03656 (Ministerio de Educación y Cultura). (shrink)

Recent Descartes scholarship has revised the traditional view of the Cartesian project as one of strictly deductive rationalism. This revision has particularly stressed the role of science in Descartes’ thought. The revisionist conception of Descartes also downplays the significance of the sceptical arguments offered in the First Meditation, seeing them as tools for ‘turning the mind away from the senses’ in the interest of Cartesian science, rather than as reflecting genuinely epistemological concerns. This paper takes issue with this aspect of (...) the revisionist reading of Descartes. It argues that seeing scepticism as critically important for Descartes is independent of interpreting him as a canonical rationalist. In fact, it is precisely Descartes’ scientific thought and practice which make scepticism such a problem for him. (shrink)

How precisely to understand and evaluate counterfactuals can be an intricate issue. The aim of this article is to examine a new set of difficulties for evaluating counterfactuals that arise in the context of the dynamical spacetimes described by the theory of general relativity. The initial value formulation provides us with a methodology to pin down the specific combination of features of the theory at the origin of the difficulties, namely, non-linearity and certain non-local aspects, in particular when combined with (...) the global and/or quasi-local character of physical quantities in general relativity. Finally, we connect the philosophical question about counterfactuals with concrete applied physical issues in general relativity about extracting meaningful predictions by constructing appropriate initial data sets, leading us to question the very suitability of the Cauchy approach to fully account for the explanatory power of the theory. (shrink)

Recent work on Descartes has drastically revised the traditional conception of Descartes as a paradigmatic rationalist and foundationalist. The traditional picture, familar from histories of philosophy and introductory lectures, is of a solitary meditator dedicated to the pursuit of certainty in a unified science via a rigourous process of logical deduction from indubitable first principles. But the Descartes that has emerged from recent studies strikes a more subtle balance between metaphysics, physics, epistemology and the philosophy of science. There is much (...) to be praised in this revaluation, but a dangerous amount of over-compensation has gone on, particularly in the reinterpretation of the role of sceptical doubt in Descartes' thought. This reinterpretion plays down the epistemological reasons for worrying about scepticism, suggesting that Cartesian physics is what ultimately drives the introduction of scepticism in the First Meditation. (shrink)

Empirical reports on scientific competition show that scientists can be depicted as self-interested, strategically behaving agents. Nevertheless, we argue that recognition-seeking scientists will have an interest in establishing methodological norms which tend to select theories of a high epistemic value, and that these norms will be still more stringent if the epistemic value of theories appears in the utility function of scientists, either directly or instrumentally.

Philosophers have often argued that ascriptions of content are appropriate only to the personal level states of folk psychology. Against this, this paper defends the view that the familiar propositional attitudes and states defined over them are part of a larger set of cognitive proceses that do not make constitutive reference to concept possession. It does this by showing that states with nonconceptual content exist both in perceptual experience and in subpersonal information-processing systems. What makes these states content-involving is their (...) satisfaction of certain basic conditions deriving from a general account of representation-driven behaviour that is neutral on the question of concept possession. It is also argued that creatures can be in states with nonconceptual content even though they possess no conceptual abilities at all. (shrink)

Table of Contents Acknowledgments 1 Self-Consciousness and the Body: An Interdisciplinary Introduction by Naomi Eiland, Anthony Marcel and José Luis Bermúdez 2 The Body Image and Self-Consciousness by John Campbell 3 Infants’ Understanding of People and Things: From Body Imitation to Folk Psychology by Andrew N. Meltzoff and M. Keith Moore 4 Persons, Animals, and Bodies by Paul F. Snowdon 5 An Ecological Perspective on the Origins of Self by George Butterworth 6 Objectivity, Causality, and Agency by Thomas (...) Baldwin 7 At Two with Nature: Agency and the Development of Self-World Dualism by James Russell 8 Ecological Perception and the Notion of a Nonconceptual Point of View by José Luis Bermúdez 9 Proprioception and the Body Image by Brian O’Shaughnessy 10 Awareness of One’s Own Body: An Attentional Theory of Its Nature, Development, and Brain Basis by Marcel Kinsbourne 11 Body Schema and Intentionality by Shaun Gallagher 12 Living without Touch and Peripheral Information about Body Position and Movement: Studies with Deafferented Subjects by Jonathan Cole and Jacques Paillard 13 Bodily Awareness: A Sense of Ownership by M. G. F. Martin 14 Bodily Awareness and the Self by Bill Brewer 15 Introspection and Bodily Self-Ascription by Quassim Cassam 16 Consciousness and the Self by Naomi Eilan Contributors Index. (shrink)

Cognitive Science combines the interdisciplinary streams of cognitive science into a unified narrative in an all-encompassing introduction to the field. This text presents cognitive science as a discipline in its own right, and teaches students to apply the techniques and theories of the cognitive scientist's 'toolkit' - the vast range of methods and tools that cognitive scientists use to study the mind. Thematically organized, rather than by separate disciplines, Cognitive Science underscores the problems and solutions of cognitive science, rather than (...) those of the subjects that contribute to it - psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, etc. The generous use of examples, illustrations, and applications demonstrates how theory is applied to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. Drawing upon cutting-edge research, the text has been updated and enhanced to incorporate new studies and key experiments since the first edition. A new chapter on consciousness has also been added. (shrink)

Decision Theory and Rationality offers a challenging new interpretation of a key theoretical tool in the human and social sciences. This accessible book argues, contrary to orthodoxy in politics, economics, and management science, that decision theory cannot provide a theory of rationality.

It is now 25 years since Gareth Evans introduced the distinction between conceptual and nonconceptual content in The Varieties of Reference. This is a fitting time to take stock of what has become a complex and extended debate both within philosophy and at the interface between philosophy and psychology. Unfortunately, the debate has become increasingly murky as it has become increasingly ramified. Much of the contemporary discussion does not do full justice to the powerful theoretical tool originally proposed by Evans (...) and subsequently refined by theorists in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s – most effectively, I think, by Christopher Peacocke (particularly in his 1992). Even worse, significant parts of the discussion are somewhat confused. This paper makes a start on clarifying what I think ought to be the central issues in debates about nonconceptual content. I begin in §1 by pointing out how narrowly focused contemporary discussion is relative to Evans’s original discussion. We are not making as much use as we should of nonconceptual content as a tool for understanding subpersonal information processing and the complexities of its status relative to perception and thought at the personal level. In §2 I turn to what is the central focus of contemporary discussion, namely, the content of perception and identify a “master argument” for nonconceptualism based on the relation between conceptual capacities and capacities for perceptual discrimination. The aim of §3 is to clarify the relation between the claim that perception has nonconceptual content and some superficially similar claims discussed by philosophers of perception. Finally, in §4 I explain why the attention recently focused on what is sometimes called the state version of the nonconceptualist thesis seems to me to be misdirected. (shrink)

This article argues that bodily awareness is a basic form of self-consciousness through which perceiving agents are directly conscious of the bodily self. It clarifies the nature of bodily awareness, categorises the different types of body-relative information, and rejects the claim that we can have a sense of ownership of our own bodies. It explores how bodily awareness functions as a form of self-consciousness and highlights the importance of certain forms of bodily awareness that share an important epistemological property with (...) canonical forms of self-consciousness such as introspection. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of self-deception can be divided into two broad groups – the intentionalist and the anti-intentionalist. On intentionalist models what happens in the central cases of self-deception is parallel to what happens when one person intentionally deceives another, except that deceiver and deceived are the same person. This paper offers a positive argument for intentionalism about self-deception and defends the view against standard objections.

Frames and framing make one dimension of a decision problem particularly salient. In the simplest case, framesprimeresponses (as in, e.g., the Asian disease paradigm, where the gain frame primes risk-aversion and the loss frame primes risk-seeking). But in more complicated situations frames can function reflectively, by making salient particular reason-giving aspects of a thing, outcome, or action. For Shakespeare's Macbeth, for example, his feudal commitments are salient in one frame, while downplayed in another in favor of his personal ambition. The (...) role of frames in reasoning can give rise torational framing effects. Macbeth can prefer fulfilling his feudal duty to murdering the king, while also preferring bravely taking the throne to fulfilling his feudal duty, knowing full well that bravely taking the throne just is murdering the king. Such patterns ofquasi-cyclicalpreferences can be correct and appropriate from the normative perspective of how one ought to reason. The paper explores three less dramatic types of rational framing effects: (1) Consciously framing and reframing long-term goals and short-term temptations can be important tools for self-control. (2) In the prototypical social interactions modeled by game theory, allowing for rational framing effects solves longstanding problems, such as the equilibrium selection problem and explaining the appeal of non-equilibrium solutions (e.g., the cooperative solution in the Prisoner's Dilemma). (3) Processes for resolving interpersonal conflicts and breaking discursive deadlock, because they involve internalizing multiple and incompatible ways of framing actions and outcomes, in effect create rational framing effects. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Fredérique de Vignemont has argued that there is a positive quale of bodily ownership . She thinks that tactile and other forms of somatosensory phenomenology incorporate a distinctive feeling of myness and takes issue with my defense in Bermúdez of a deflationary approach to bodily ownership. That paper proposed an argument deriving from Elizabeth Anscombe’s various discussions of what she terms knowledge without observation . De Vignemont is not convinced and appeals to the Rubber Hand Illusion (...) to undercut my appeal to Anscombe. Section 1 of this article restates the case against the putative quale of ownership. Section 2 explains why de Vignemonts’ objections miss the mark. Section 3 discusses in more detail how to draw a principled distinction between bodily awareness and ordinary perceptual awareness. (shrink)

The author challenges the view that birth cannot be a morally relevant fact in the process of development from zygote to child. He reviews specific arguments against giving any moral significance to the fact of birth. Drawing on recent work in developmental psychology, he contends that the lives of neonates can have a level of self-consciousness that confers moral significance but can only be possessed after birth. He shows that the position he has argued for provides a framework within which (...) the move from the moral validity of aborting sentient fetuses to the moral validity of infanticide might be resisted. He concludes that arguments suggesting that birth can be morally significant support the view that the acquisition of moral significance is a gradual and multilayered phenomenon. (shrink)

In Thinking without Words I develop a philosophical framework for treating some animals and human infants as genuine thinkers. This paper outlines the aspects of this account that are most relevant to those working in animal ethics. There is a range of different levels of cognitive sophistication in different animal species, in addition to limits to the types of thought available to non-linguistic creatures, and it may be important for animal ethicists to take this into account in exploring issues of (...) moral significance and the obligations that we might or might not have to non-human animals. (shrink)

V. 1. Metodología e introducción histórica. v.2. La Edad de oro. v.3. Del Barro co a la ilustración (Siglos XVII y XVIII). v.4. Liberalismo y romanticismo. v. 5. La crisis contemporánea (1875-1936) pt. 1-2.

My topic in this paper is social understanding. By this I mean the cognitive skills underlying social behaviour and social coordination. Normal, encultured, non-autistic and non-brain-damaged human beings are capable of an impressive degree of social coordination. We navigate the social world with a level of skill and dexterity fully comparable to that which we manifest in navigating the physical world. In neither sphere, one might think, would it be a trivial matter to identify the various competences which underly this (...) impressive level of performance. Nonetheless, at least as far as interpersonal interactions are concerned, philosophers show a rare degree of unanimity. What grounds our success in these interactions is supposed to be our common mastery of folk psychology. (shrink)

En el intento de defender una interpretación de la ética y la filosofía política de David Hume cercana al utilitarismo clásico, se interpone de un modo clave el llamado problema del “ Sensible Knave ” planteado por este autor al final de su obra más utilitarista, la Investigación sobre los Principios de la Moral . Según la interpretación clásica de este fragmento, la racionalidad utilitarista en el ámbito político colisionaría con la moral volviendo a ésta última inútil. Por tanto, en (...) el ámbito político la defensa de un utilitarismo moral sería una tarea autocontradictoria. Con el fin de mostrar que, primero, Hume no dice nada parecido a esto y, segundo, que incluso señala la forma de superar esta aparente contradicción entre moralidad y racionalidad, se analizan brevemente los argumentos de los que procede básicamente esta interpretación “antiutilitarista” estándar y se defiende una interpretación de la discusión humeana sobre el problema del aparente conflicto entre moralidad y racionalidad, o de los incentivos racionales para el comportamiento inmoral, que permite explicar mejor la posición de Hume sobre este problema. Finalmente, se propone una instancia de superación de la contradicción moralidad/racionalidad por medio de un utilitarismo de la regla atemperado centrado en la idea del “desarrollo progresivo de instituciones artificiales de refuerzo de la moralidad”, que el propio Hume sugeriría en otros lugares en los que aborda el tema de la contradicción aparente entre “morality” y “knavery”. Se proponen también posibles líneas de desarrollo futuro de esta idea, entre ellas su uso para aclarar la posible relación del pensamiento de David Hume con ciertas formas de liberalismo contemporáneo. (shrink)

In their recent book The Inessential Indexical Herman Cappelen and Josh Dever take issue with what has become close to philosophical orthodoxy – the view, most often associated with John Perry and David Lewis, that psychological explanations are essentially indexical. Cappelen and Dever claim that claims of essential indexicality are typically driven by intuitions rather than supported by arguments. They issue a challenge to supporters of essential indexicality: Produce an argument to back up the intuitions. This paper answers their challenge.

My topic in this paper is social understanding. By this I mean the cognitive skills underlying social behaviour and social coordination. Normal, encultured, non-autistic and non-brain-damaged human beings are capable of an impressive degree of social coordination. We navigate the social world with a level of skill and dexterity fully comparable to that which we manifest in navigating the physical world. In neither sphere, one might think, would it be a trivial matter to identify the various competences which underly this (...) impressive level of performance. Nonetheless, at least as far as interpersonal interactions are concerned, philosophers show a rare degree of unanimity. What grounds our success in these interactions is supposed to be our common mastery of folk psychology. (shrink)