Wide analysis of "María Teresa López de la Vieja, La pendiente resbaladiza. La práctica de la argumentación moral . Madrid y México, D.F.: Plaza y Valdés, 2010, 288 páginas.".

Rooted in late seventeenth-century theories of rights, liberal ideas have brought forth since the nineteenth century a full-edged complex of traditions in moral, political, economic, social, and legal thought. Yet in historiographical debates such complexity is often blurred by presenting it under the uniform terms of a canon. Along with other methods, conceptual history is contributing to the rediscovery of liberalism's diversity. This group of articles compiles three conceptual studies on scarcely explored aspects of the history of liberalism in Denmark, (...) Finland, and Hungary—countries whose political past has only occasionally figured in mainstream accounts of European liberalism. This introductory article is a methodological discussion of the rationale and forms in which liberalism's historical diversity is rendered through comparative conceptual research. After reflecting on the limits of the Anglophone history of political thought to grasp the plurality of liberal traditions, the article examines how transnational conceptual histories recast the understanding of liberalism as a concept, theory, ideology, and political movement. (shrink)

RESUMENEl trabajo presenta algunos de los rasgos básicos de la condición política moderna. Esboza así su génesis interna desde la sacralización del ámbito político hasta los inicios de la secularización en el siglo XIII. Para ilustrar ambos momentos de la filosofía política de Santo Tomás provee una argumentación básica que, aun siendo incompleta para reconstruir este tránsito, resulta significativamente clarificadora. PALABRAS CLAVEFILOSOFIA POLITICA MEDIEVAL-HISTORIA DEL PENSAMIENTO POLITICO- SANTO TOMAS DE AQUINOABSTRACTThe paper presents some of the basic features of the medieval (...) political condition. This, it outlines the genesis from the sacralization of the political realm to the beginnings of secularization in the XIIIth century. To illustrate both moments, Saint Thomas' political philosophy provdes a significant, though incomplete, argumentative basis. KEYWORDSMEDIEVAL POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY-HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT- AQUINAS. (shrink)

This paper argues that liberalism provides democracy with the experience of civic reformism. Without it, democracy loses any tie-argumentative or practical-to a coherent design of public policy endeavoring to provide the resources for the realization of democratic citizenship. The case for liberalism rests on an argumentative reconstruction of the function it performs before the rise of a world economic order and, more specifically, in the creation of the welfare state after the Second World War. Accordingly, liberalism defines a reformist political (...) program: it is an emancipatory political project by virtue of its struggle for an egalitarian and universalist extension of citizenship rights. This is but a formulation of the modern idea of citizenship, conceived of as a universalizable contract of rights. At the same time, liberalism embraces a socioeconomic emancipatory project that endeavors to provide the conditions, within the institutional framework of modern societies, for the accomplishment of citizenship rights. (shrink)

Representation is a major and multifaceted concept of modern politics. Through open and regular elections, it shields the democratic character of representative governments, compelling politicians to pursue the interests of their constituencies and become responsive to their demands. But since the concept of representation is so embedded in the day-to-day workings of democratic regimes, it has largely lost significant traces of its history that shed light on its political dawn. The instrumentalization of the concept by representative governments in order to (...) assess their democratic legitimacy obfuscates its seminal ambiguities and the history of conflicts about its meaning and institutional functions. (shrink)

La dimensión política de la inmigración y la condición ciudadana: Una propuesta liberal. Recensión de José María Rosales, La integración cívica de los inmigrantes. Un ensayo sobre inmigración, ciudadanía y derechos. Barcelona: Horsori Editorial, 2014, 118 pp.

Algunos autores han intentado considerar los delirios como certezas –entendidas en el sentido de Wittgenstein– debido a las similitudes que parecen existir entre sus respectivos estatus epistemológicos. Sin embargo, dicho intento ha sido criticado con agudeza, entre otras razones, porque el contenido de los delirios choca frontalmente con el contenido de las certezas, por lo que los delirios no pueden ser comprendidos debido a los cambios en las relaciones de significado. Pero es evidente que, aunque los delirios no se puedan (...) contemplar como certezas, muchos delirios afectan de un modo u otro al sistema de certezas del paciente. Partiendo de esta base, no es descabellado pensar que dicha influencia pudiera ser también recíproca: en otras palabras, parece sumamente recomendable analizar si algunos delirios se podrían contemplar como el resultado de variaciones en certezas. En este artículo llevo a cabo dicho análisis al intentar mostrar que el origen de algunos delirios pedestres y severos puede ser hallado en lo que llamaré “ceguera a posibilidades” e “incertidumbre”, términos que he desarrollado teniendo en cuenta la obra del filósofo Ludwig Wittgenstein. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the certainty about the wrongness of killing must not be considered as a universal, but as a local one. Initially, I show that there exist communities in which the wrongness of killing innocents is not a moral certainty and that this kind of case cannot be justified by arguing that such people are psychopaths. Lastly, I argue that universal certainties do not admit of exceptions: thus, the fact that some exceptional cases affect the certainty (...) that killing innocents is wrong, leads me to conclude that it is a local certainty. (shrink)

El artículo examina el papel de Crescas y Spinoza en la transición de la concepción medieval a la concepción moderna del universo. Crescas es presentado como ejemplo ilustrativo de la tensión entre aristotelismo y religión revelada y de cómo esta última provoca la disolución del aquel, allanando así el camino a la concepción moderna del universo. A continuación, se muestra cómo la concepción moderna se plasma en el pensamiento de Spinoza, el cual radicaliza algunos de sus rasgos definitorios. Esta radicalización (...) socava la noción tradicional del _Deus absconditus_ y conduce en Spinoza al remplazo de la religión por la filosofía como auténtica revelación divina. (shrink)

Aunque política y ciencia constituyen hoy en día ramas casi antagónicas del conocimiento humano -acaso combinables en ámbitos ficcionales como el cine y la literatura-, la relación entre filosofía política y astronomía es una constante histórica que alcanza especial fuerza en el pensamiento emancipatorio del siglo xix. El presente artículo sitúa en ese marco La eternidad por los astros y, asimismo, somete a contraste la peculiaridad retórica e ideológica de esta obra, en donde Louis-Auguste Blanqui propone una contigüidad entre orbe (...) celeste y sociedades humanas, basada en su análogo funcionamiento y su común atavismo. (shrink)

Literature on indoctrination has focused on imparting and revising beliefs, but it has hardly considered the way of teaching and acquiring certainties—in Wittgenstein’s sense. Therefore, the role played by rationality in the acquisition of our linguistic practices has been overestimated. Furthermore, analyses of the relationship between certainty and indoctrination contain major errors. In this paper, the clarification of the aforementioned issues leads me to suggest the avoidance of the term ‘indoctrination’ so as to avoid focusing on the suitability of the (...) case to the concept rather than on the analysis of the case itself. This should facilitate that the process of helping children to acquire a world-picture—by teaching them to ignore alternatives to certainties—is definitely accepted as normal and natural, for many beliefs are expected to end up becoming ungrounded certainties not only in the medium or long term, but also, and above all, in the short term. (shrink)

El articulo examina la aparente discrepancia en el pensamiento de Spinoza entre su teocentrismo epistemológico, según el cual todo es dudoso mientras desconocemos la existencia de Dios, y el principio verum index sui et falsi, según el cual la mera posesión de ideas verdaderas excluye toda incertidumbre. Lejos de contradecirse, estas dos afirmaciones constituyen en Spinoza dos aspectos correlativos del mismo planteamiento gnoseólogico. Se muestra así que la naturaleza divina no es ajena al intelecto humano y que este es capaz (...) de contemplar la realidad desde una perspectiva omnímoda, idéntica a la de Dios. (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, Volume 45, Issue 1, Page 91-97, January 2022.

It is expected that children increasingly learn to identify errors throughout their schooling process and even before it. As a further step, however, some scholars have suggested how a culture of error should be implemented in the classroom for the student to be able not only to locate errors but also, and above all, to learn from them. Yet the various proposals aimed at generating a culture of error in the classroom keep regarding error as all those responses and reactions (...) that are not considered as true or correct in each specific case, thereby not realizing that many of these alleged errors are really anomalies with very different characteristics and consequences despite their seeming resemblance. In this paper, I rely on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s On Certainty to clarify the difference between errors and anomalies. Subsequently, I provide guidelines that may be adapted by each teacher to her students’ needs and development level in order to foster a culture of error that begins by distinguishing er... (shrink)

KOINONIA/ASETT MINGA/MUTIRÃO DE REVISTAS DE TEOLOGIA LATINO-AMERICANAS Teología de la Liberación en camino hacia nuevos paradigmas (Liberation Theology towards new paradigms).

Wittgenstein scholars have tended to interpret the acquisition of certainties, and by extension, of a world-picture, as the achievement of a state in which these certainties are assimilated in a seemingly unconscious way as one masters language-games. However, it has not been stressed that the attainment of this state often involves facing a series of challenges or difficulties which must be overcome for the development of the world-picture and therefore the socialization process to be achieved. After showing, on the one (...) hand, how a world-picture is usually developed, and on the other hand, why a child who seemingly found itself trapped in a precocious skepticism might have serious problems in assimilating certainties, in this paper, I describe some of the challenges children often meet as they acquire a world-picture. Since the overcoming of these challenges is often needed for children to develop a world-picture, I aim at raising the awareness of the necessity of ‘learning to believe’, that is, of developing a series of skills that allow children to undertake the challenges described in this paper. (shrink)

Victor Klemperer (1881-1960) foi um professor alemão de línguas românicas que ficou famoso especialmente pelos escritos em que ele relatou como os nazis deformaram a língua alemã ao ponto de desenvolver o que ele chamou de “a língua do Terceiro Reich”. Neste artigo, pretendo explicar o que esta língua revela sobre certezas, compreendidas no sentido de Wittgenstein, o que, por sua vez, também pode contribuir para fornecer uma visão mais abrangente da medida em que a língua do Terceiro Reich foi (...) cuidadosamente projetada para influenciar decisivamente a atitude e a visão de mundo dos alemães. Especificamente, abordarei oito questões: a perversão da moralidade através de uma mensagem radicalmente bipolarizada; a criação de um contexto no qual todos os julgamentos devem ser abandonados; o uso de dois tipos de persuasão; o enviesamento para a generalização excessiva das certezas; a dificuldade de avaliar casos-limite de certeza; o erro propagandístico de gritar alegadas certezas; a exclusão emocional da dúvida - prestando especial atenção aos domínios do exército e da religião, bem como ao uso de slogans e superlativos; e a substituição de imagens do mundo nazis. (shrink)

Among the elements which have gradually been complicating the countless representations of the Virgin Mary throughout history, this paper seeks to highlight and interpret conceptually one of special doctrinal significance in some Marian images during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: the temple, in whose interior some artists place some actual or symbolic episodes of Mary, from her birth or her Annunciation to the Sacra Conversazione, to give a few examples. Even though at first sight it looks as a mere scenographic (...) or ornamental ingredient, without iconographic value, this precise shape of temple reveals in fact some profound Mariological and Christological meanings. In that order of ideas, this essay is based on a double methodological strategy: first and foremost, to analyze some Marian images which include in the aforementioned period the shape of a temple, in order to see what kind of role such a religious building plays in them; secondly, to discover the relevant keys for interpreting such images, by analyzing some specific texts of the Church Fathers and medieval theologians who identify with Mary the figure of the «temple of God». For this reason, after a brief introduction to the problem, the present study is structured into three main parts inextricably intertwined: in the first we comparatively analyze twelve Marian paintings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in which the Virgin appears inside a temple; in the second we explain the many exegesis that, in a consistent and strong patristic and theological tradition, identify the analogy of the templum Dei directly with the Virgin Mary, or indirectly with the Christ’s human body conceived in her womb; on the basis of this double analysis of images and exegetical writings, the third part of the paper states as a synthetic conclusion that the artistic representation of a temple or a church building in some Marian images of this period offers a compelling plastic metaphor of Mary and, ultimately, of her virginal divine motherhood. (shrink)