El Realismo Científico Estándar sostiene el enfoque metafísico de que el mundo es como es independiente de la mente. Sin embargo, el presente artículo demuestra cómo esta postura es incompatible con todas las teorías no-eliminativistas sobre la mente, lo cual hace que la postura sea inconsistente, incompatible con la ciencia, elimina la consciencia, la intencionalidad, la causación mental y la ética. Se propone una tesis realista alternativa que conserva la idea de que el mundo en general es de la forma (...) que es, independiente de lo que pensemos sobre él, compatible con la mente como parte real del mundo. Este cambio restaura la posibilidad de consistencia, la mente, la consciencia, la intencionalidad, la ciencia y la ética. -/- Standard Scientific Realism holds the metaphysical view that the world is the way it is independent of the mind. However, this paper demonstrates how this view is incompatible with all non-eliminativist theories of mind, leading it to be inconsistent, incompatible with science, and eliminating consciousness, intentionality, mental causation and ethics. An alternative realist thesis is proposed which preserves the idea that generally the world is the way it is independent of what we think of it, compatible with mind as a real part of the world. This reform restores the possibility of consistency, mind, consciousness, intentionality, science and ethics, while at the same time preserving the theoretical advantages over non-realist competitors. (shrink)

Este artículo desarrolla el contenido de la teoría de la democracia constitucional de derechos y justicia, y sustenta su utilidad al aplicarlo a la nueva estabilidad democrática del Estado ecuatoriano, luego de que el país viviera un período de democracia mínima neoliberal, nacida con la muerte de Jaime Roldós en 1981. -/- El documento muestra la correlación que existe entre la instalación del Estado de democracia mínima neoliberal, altamente vulnerador de los derechos y la justicia, con la inestabilidad estatal. Sostiene (...) que con el surgimiento del nuevo marco constitucional del año 2008, impulsado por el Gobierno de la Revolución Ciudadana, como alternativa de construcción de un Estado democrático con enfoque de derechos y justicia, el Estado ecuatoriano encuentra una resaltable nueva estabilidad. Se explica esta nueva estabilidad estatal por el surgimiento de una clara alternativa elegida y altamente apoyada por el pueblo informado. Esta alternativa se identifica por las principales políticas públicas empleadas, especialmente las económicas y sociales, y sus efectos. (shrink)

Physicalism, if it is to be a significant thesis, should differentiate itself from key metaphysical contenders which endorse the existence of platonic entities, emergent properties, Cartesian souls, angels, and God. Physicalism can never be true in worlds where things of these kinds exist. David Papineau, David Spurrett, and Barbara Montero have recently developed and defended two influential conceptions of physicalism. One is derived from a conception of the physical as the non-mentally-and-non-biologically identifiable. The other is derived from a conception of (...) the physical as the non-sui-generis-mental. The paper looks at the resources available to those conceptions, but argues that each is insufficient to yield a conception of physicalism that differentiates it from key anti-physicalist positions. According to these conceptions, if we lived in a world full of things that clearly cannot be physical, we would still live in a physical world. Thus, such conceptions of physicalism are of little theoretical interest. (shrink)

This paper focuses on two prominent arguments claiming that physicalism entails reductionism. One is Kim’s causal exclusion argument (CEA), and the other is Papineau’s causal argument. The paper argues that Kim’s CEA is not logically valid and that it is driven by two implausible justifications. One is “Edward’s dictum”, which is alien to non-reductive physicalism and should be rejected. The other is by endorsement of Papineau’s conception of the physical, immanent in Papineau’s causal argument. This argument only arrives at the (...) physical property-property identities by using a conception of the physical that licenses anything to be reductively physical, including putative core anti-physical entities; thus, leaving Papineau’s causal argument and Kim’s CEA without a reductive physicalist conclusion of philosophical interest. (shrink)

John Searle believes that computational properties are purely formal and that consequently, computational properties are not intrinsic, empirically discoverable, nor causal; and therefore, that an entity’s having certain computational properties could not be sufficient for its having certain mental properties. To make his case, Searle’s employs an argument that had been used before him by Max Newman, against Russell’s structuralism; one that Russell himself considered fatal to his own position. This paper formulates a not-so-explored version of Searle’s problem with computational (...) cognitive science, and refutes it by suggesting how our understanding of computation is far from implying the structuralism Searle vitally attributes to it. On the way, I formulate and argue for a thesis that strengthens Newman’s case against Russell’s structuralism, and thus raises the apparent risk for computational cognitive science too. (shrink)

Education is a pillar of buen vivir, the guiding ideal of Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution. In this framework, Ecuador made significant shifts in its education system from 2006 to 2016, the decade of the Citizens’ Revolution. The key buen vivir concepts and processes that framed these shifts were considering education as a right, as a social debt, and as a driver of a more just, knowledge-intensive and clean economy. Resource allocation, general access, learning, and inclusion of structurally marginalized groups showed significant (...) improvement in this decade, along with other key political, economic and social changes, thus making significant advances in the emancipation of society toward buen vivir, and marking elements of how and why advancing this transformation is important. (shrink)

We will examine the revolts, begun in October of 2019, and currently developing in Chile under three conjoined parts. First, we will not try to theoretically ‘tame’ the revolutionary creature, but rather to plug immanently into the energy of the ‘potentia’ of the revolutionary event. To this extent, we will highlight the shortcomings of a theoretical enterprise that intends to explain it in traditional terms or that thrives for a variant of simple ‘reformism’. Second, and consequently, we will describe how (...) the concept of the constitution is the perfect product of coloniality. Hence, the concept of the ‘constitutional trap’ is not something unique to the Chilean experiment, but that the constitutional idea itself is the main pipeline of coloniality and the most sophisticated product in the contention of democracy. Third, and to encompass and give a particular direction to the previous topics, we will deploy the ‘theory of encryption of power’ and the concept of the ‘hidden people’ to explicate the Chilean phenomenon under a new light, where no past is irrevocable, and no future is necessary. (shrink)

The concept of the republic is a complex meta-principle that facilitates and conceals global relations of domination. Specifically, it enables the invisibility of racism as the core of political power. From its very origins the concept of republic serves to seize constituent power or politeia. In modernity, as it merges with private property, it will serve as the launchpad of a vast colonization project that then evolves in a new form of power in coloniality. The article applies the theory of (...) the ‘encryption of power’—to decrypt the historical concept of the republic. In doing so, we will demonstrate the key antidemocratic role it has played at the heart of global coloniality. We will bear witness as to how, from within the concept of republic, a refined mechanism of domination raises and expands, conforming the most magnificent and lethal form of power of our times. We exemplify our theory showing that the concept of ‘republic’ is the common thread between the law that abolished slavery in Brazil and the 1988 constitution. Within this scope, we propose a vital space of reconsideration of political ontology through radical democracy as the only means to build the world from immanent difference. (shrink)

This book provides a sharp tool for clarifying the nature of power relations in our globalized world. It presents a coherent approach from diverse disciplinary and geopolitical perspectives on key concepts such as power, democracy and the law, connecting studies of coloniality, Caribbean thought, critical legal thinking and Latin American studies.

Amartya Sen’s theory of enhancement of justice bears an insurmountable blind side that impairs and makes it incomplete, if not parochial. It dismisses coloniality as the veiled face of modernity without which any understanding of a theory of justice in a globalized world is impossible. Constructing a theory outside the complex frame of coloniality makes the theory vulnerable to severe hindrances. The duality produces a twofold but interdependent reality: for the western world it means the achievement of values such as (...) liberty and prosperity; for the non-western world, racism, extraction and exclusion. Since colonialism has been rearticulated into coloniality, these two categories cannot be isolated for they presuppose one another. Democracy remains a fallacy as long as real power depends on capitalism, which is the inextricable way of coloniality itself. Henceforth, free public discussion and free social choice remain chimerical, obtainable only when democracy as a true, unresolved conflict is a reality through the destruction of coloniality. Finally we propose a third principle of justice that would correct both Rawls’ and Sen’s conceptions of justice. Such corrections pinpoint the void in their approaches thus inverting the panoptic. (shrink)

Using a hypothetical language game as a premise and working through the theory of decryption of power, the book decrypts the pillars of the philosophy of being, mainly Heidegger´s construction of the “ready to hand,” proposing a novel theory of being as difference that is impregnated in politics.

This paper suggests the democratic direction in which the right of freedom of expression should be conceived and applied. In the first two sections it suggests some counter-examples to, and diagnoses of, the libertarian and liberal conceptions of freedom of expression, taking Scanlon (1972) and Scanlon (1979), respectively, to be their chief proponents. The paper suggests that these conceptions cannot take into account clear examples, like fraudulent propaganda, which should not be legal. The democratic conception takes it to heart that (...) the pillars upon which the right of freedom of expression is founded are individual and collective autonomy, the right to know facts of public interest and information necessary for effective democratic control of government. The paper suggests that in a time when private powers seriously threaten these pillars, it is correct for the government to step in to provide the framework in which genuine discussion geared toward fulfilling the objectives of these pillars can take place. (shrink)

Auty (1993) and Sachs and Warner (1997) reignited the line of argument of the resource curse: the idea that natural resource wealth has negative net effects on the development of nations. However, the result has been found to be highly dependent on the types of variables used to represent natural resource wealth (Brunnschweiler, 2007) and similar questions can raised about variables used to represent being “cursed”. In this paper we pursue the hunt for better variables by looking at the relationship (...) between average income from natural resources per person and a wide array of key development indicators: Adjusted National Net Income, GDP per capita, an aggregate of services and industrialized goods, inequality measured by the Gini index, Poverty, the Human Development Index, the Prosperity Index, the Social Progress Index and the Fragile State Index. We do this on a global scale between 1970 and 2010. On the contrary, we find that natural resource wealth is positively linked to development. We suggest, alternatively, that much of the actual cases where abundant natural resources hurt nations have been cases of common theft by tyrants, often backed by imperial powers. (shrink)

Detractors of Searle’s Chinese Room Argument have arrived at a virtual consensus that the mental properties of the Man performing the computations stipulated by the argument are irrelevant to whether computational cognitive science is true. This paper challenges this virtual consensus to argue for the first of the two main theses of the persons reply, namely, that the mental properties of the Man are what matter. It does this by challenging many of the arguments and conceptions put forth by the (...) systems and logical replies to the Chinese Room, either reducing them to absurdity or showing how they lead, on the contrary, to conclusions the persons reply endorses. The paper bases its position on the Chinese Room Argument on additional philosophical considerations, the foundations of the theory of computation, and theoretical and experimental psychology. The paper purports to show how all these dimensions tend to support the proposed thesis of the persons reply. (shrink)

Es difícil imaginar una sociedad del buen vivir sin arte. Por ello, la creatividad artística es reconocida como derecho en la Constitución del Ecuador, y como derecho humano en los intrumentos internacionales relevantes. Partiendo de esta reflexión, los artículos de este libro argumentan que siendo el arte un derecho, le corresponde al Estado la provisión de condiciones para su garantía por medio de políticas públicas, que deben tomar en cuenta tanto las especificidades de las personas, y los pueblos y nacionalidades, (...) como el contexto tecnológico de la era digital, que brinda las bases para una sociedad abierta donde el conocimiento sea libre. (shrink)

This paper is a follow-up of the first part of the persons reply to the Chinese Room Argument. The first part claims that the mental properties of the person appearing in that argument are what matter to whether computational cognitive science is true. This paper tries to discern what those mental properties are by applying a series of hypothetical psychological and strengthened Turing tests to the person, and argues that the results support the thesis that the Man performing the computations (...) characteristic of understanding Chinese actually understands Chinese. The supposition that the Man does not understand Chinese has gone virtually unquestioned in this foundational debate. The persons reply acknowledges the intuitive power behind that supposition, but knows that brute intuitions are not epistemically sacrosanct. Like many intuitions humans have had, and later deposed, this intuition does not withstand experimental scrutiny. The second part of the persons reply consequently holds that computational cognitive science is confirmed by the Chinese Room thought experiment. (shrink)

Framed within the dialectic of the causal exclusion argument (Kim 2005), this paper does two things. One, it clarifies some properties of multiple realizability based on its true origin (Turing 1950). And two, it challenges a form of argument Noordhof (1997), Clarke (1999), and Whittle (2007) employ to support the idea that the mental has causal powers not had by its physical realization base (Novel). The paper challenges Novel with ideas derived from multiple realizability, among others.

Es difícil imaginar una sociedad del buen vivir sin arte. Por ello, la creatividad artística es reconocida como derecho en la Constitución del Ecuador, y como derecho humano en los intrumentos internacionales relevantes. Partiendo de esta reflexión, los artículos de este libro argumentan que siendo el arte un derecho, le corresponde al Estado la provisión de condiciones para su garantía por medio de políticas públicas, que deben tomar en cuenta tanto las especificidades de las personas, y los pueblos y nacionalidades, (...) como el contexto tecnológico de la era digital, que brinda las bases para una sociedad abierta donde el conocimiento sea libre. (shrink)

This work, in English "Struggle for power, organic crisis and judicial independence", has its origin in research academics of the IAEN carried out to provide expert advise to the Inter American Court of Human Rights in the case Quintana and others (Supreme Court of Justice) vs the State of Ecuador. The research is about the nature of the evolution of the ecuadorian state, the dynamics of its institutions, its players, parties, laws, its factors of instability, the way rights have been (...) deployed since the return to democracy in 1979, those who have benefited from neoliberal democracy and those who have paid the costs, and where in all this was the Supreme Court of Justice. The Introduction takes a look at this origin of the work and its intellectual import, provides a brief characterization of the Inter American Sistem of Human Rights Protection, how the Quintana Case fits within it, and an overview of the chapters and their logic. The first chapter analyzes the institutional and sociological factors that have contributed to Ecuador's historically unstable state, based primarily in an antagonistic struggle for power between the Executive and Legislative branches. The second chapter analyzes the economic and political factors that provoked an organic crisis, or crisis of hegemony, between 1997 and 2007 in Ecuador. The third chapter analyzes the evolution of the way in which judges are selected in Europe, the outcomes they have generated, and how they compare with the ecuadorian systems of judge selection in terms of securing judicial independence. The fourth chapter develops a theory of judicial independence in democracy and analyzes how Ecuador measures up to that standard, from when it became a neoliberal minimal democracy in 1981, to when it became a neoliberal false democracy as a consequence of instalation of a system evidently lacking in the people's support under the guise of the 1998 Constitution and its system of judge selection, and the new democratic horizons set by the 2008 Constitution, and the judicial system that springs from it. (shrink)

Se identifica el argumento de que la teoría de que hay propiedades computacionales suficientes para propiedades mentales es una teoría o falsa o vacía, ya que las propiedades computacionales no son empíricamente descubriles, intrínsecas ni causales, como sí lo son las propiedades mentales. Es un argumento que se puede destilar de los problemas que John Searle imputa a la ciencia cognitiva computacional, pero encuentra su correlato antecedente en el argumento que Max Newman utilizó para refutar el estructuralismo físico de Bertrand (...) Russell. Sin embargo, se utiliza la teoría computacional elucidada por la máxima pragmática para argumentar que la ciencia cognitiva computacional no está sujeta a la crítica de Searle, aunque haya sido exitosa la crítica al estructuralismo físico. (shrink)

The thesis develops solutions to two main problems for mental realism. Mental realism is the theory that mental properties, events, and objects exist, with their own set of characters and causal powers. The first problem comes from the philosophy of science, where Psillos proposes a notion of scientific realism that contradicts mental realism, and consequently, if one is to be a scientific realist in the way Psillos recommends, one must reject mental realism. I propose adaptations to the conception of scientific (...) realism to make it compatible with mental realism. In the process, the thesis defends computational cognitive science from a compelling argument Searle can be seen to endorse but has not put forth in an organized logical manner. A new conception of scientific realism emerges out of this inquiry, integrating the mental into the rest of nature. The second problem for mental realism arises out of non-reductive physicalism- the view that higher-level properties, and in particular mental properties, are irreducible, physically realized, and that physical properties are sufficient non-overdetermining causes of any effect. Kim’s Problem of Causal Exclusion aims to show that the mental, if unreduced, does no causal work. Consequently, given that we should not believe in the existence of properties that do not participate in causation, we would be forced to drop mental realism. A solution is needed. The thesis examines various positions relevant to the debate. Several doctrines of physicalism are explored, rejected, and one is proposed; the thesis shows the way in which Kim’s reductionist position has been constantly inconsistent throughout the years of debate; the thesis argues that trope theory does not compete with a universalist conception of properties to provide a solution; and shows weakness in the Macdonald’s non-reductive monist position and Pereboom’s constitutional coincidence account of mental causation. The thesis suggests that either the premises of Kim’s argument are consistent, and consequently his reductio is logically invalid, or at least one of the premises is false, and therefore the argument is not sound. Consequently, the Problem of Causal Exclusion that Kim claims emerges out of non-reductive physicalism does not force us to reject mental realism. Mental realism lives on. (shrink)

John Searle believes that computational properties are purely formal and that consequently, computational properties are not intrinsic, empirically discoverable, nor causal; and therefore, that an entity’s having certain computational properties could not be sufficient for its having certain mental properties. To make his case, Searle employs an argument that had been used before him by Max Newman, against Russell’s structuralism; one that Russell himself considered fatal to his own position. This paper formulates a not-so-explored version of Searle’s problem with computational (...) cognitive science, and refutes it by suggesting how our understanding of computation is far from implying the structuralism Searle vitally attributes to it. On the way, I formulate and argue for a thesis that strengthens Newman’s case against Russell’s structuralism, and thus raises the apparent risk for computational cognitive science too. (shrink)

In order to achieve a true democracy, this book explores different political and philosophical traditions that do not necessarily seem to speak in unison, notwithstanding their common goal: to propose an alternative to hard-line neo-liberalism, Western hegemony and coloniality.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Institutional History of Colonial Philosophy The Conquest of America: Some Epistemological and Ethical Questions Post Conquest Indigenous Perspectives Creole Perspectives: Two Seventeenth‐Century Intellectuals The American Experience of the Enlightenment Colophon References.

En este trabajo se intentan mostrar algunas tensiones entre el discurso de la conservación, el multiculturalismo y los prejuicios racistas, tomando como punto de referencia el caso de los Montes de María en el Caribe colombiano, donde han tenido lugar proyectos de cooperación a propósito de la biodiversidad y existen iniciativas locales para su conservación. Se describen tres niveles en los que pueden encontrarse los prejuicios racistas en el discurso de la conservación, y las tensiones que los caracterizan, asociadas tanto (...) a las ideas de resistencia y de comunidad, como a la necesidad de corrección de las prácticas por parte de quienes habitan los bosques. El propósito de estas reflexiones es cuestionar el discurso de la conservación y el multiculturalismo para ampliar las perspectivas frente a las apuestas por la conservación y las luchas étnico-campesinas que se llevan a cabo en la alta montaña de los Montes de María, similares seguramente a otros casos en América Latina. (shrink)

A partir de la divergencia de M. Foucault con Th. Hobbes con respecto a la guerra como principio y fundamento del poder, se muestra la importancia de esa diferencia conceptual para los análisis políticos contemporáneos. Foucault sostiene que, en las sociedades modernas de Occidente, la comunidad política, y más precisamente la política misma, ha sido el terreno de la guerra librada por otros medios. Por extensión, esta tesis significa invertir el principio de von Clausewitz; a saber, que la guerra es (...) la continuación de la política por otros medios. On the basis of the difference between M. Foucault and Th. Hobbes regarding war as a principle and foundation of power, the article shows the importance of this conceptual difference for contemporary political analyses. Foucault argues that in modern Western societies, the political community and, more specifically, politics itself, has been the space of a war waged by other means. By extension, this thesis entails the inversion of von Clausewitz's principle, namely, that war is the continuation of politics by other means. A partir da divergência de M. Foucault com Th. Hobbes sobre a guerra como princípio e fundamento do poder, mostra-se a importância dessa diferença conceitual para as análises políticas contemporâneas. Foucault sustenta que, nas sociedades modernas do Ocidente, a comunidade política, e mais precisamente a política em si, tem sido o terreno da guerra travada por outros meios. Por extensão, esta tese significa inverter o princípio de von Clausewitz; a saber, que a guerra é a continuação da política por outros meios. (shrink)

Libro reseñado: Orden contrainsurgente y dominación. Autora: Vilma Liliana Franco Restrepo.

Libro reseñado: Orden contrainsurgente y dominación. Autora: Vilma Liliana Franco Restrepo.

This book develops a philosophical analysis of economic reality and economic science from an Aristotelian point of view. It is the result of many years of thinking and philosophical study about these topics. It differs from other philosophy of economics books as it also deals with economic reality (not only the science) and approaches its subject from an Aristotelian perspective. It differs from other Aristotelian studies about economics as it covers the whole of philosophy of the economy. This book argues (...) why Aristotle's thinking guarantees an appropriate interdisciplinary synthesis. (shrink)

A collection of essays on the human genome, European patent law, cloning, and genetic malpractice suits.

In this chapter, Ricardo Silvestre and Alan Herbert offer a reconstruction of the Gītā’s concept of God with a focus on the relationship between God and the world. They try to explain the claim that the Gītā is panentheistic. This is done with the help of some key notions of contemporary metaphysics (such as ontological dependence and fundamentality) along with the Indic notion of prakṛti, considered as a metaphysical primitive denoting the intimate relationship that exists between matter and conscious (...) living beings on the one hand, and God on the other. (shrink)

This paper attempts a renewed understanding of the concept of poetic reason, key in María Zambrano’s philosophical writings, from a hermeneutical approach. Poetic reason might be seen in this light as a gateway to a different kind of rationality, one that might help to enrich its ontological and anthropological implications, and overcome the hubris that has been historically ingrained in this concept. The paper is structured in three parts: in the first one, an attempt will be made to show a (...) reform of the understanding, which involves human life integrally, in such a way that reason transcends and makes it possible to understand the historical complexity of man and the urgent need to return to oneself. In the second, special attention will be focused on Zambrano’s new humanism, based on poetic and merciful reason, as an antidote to the ghost of war. And the third section delves in the work Claros del bosque to point to the reader the three hermeneutical moments that they will possibly face when trying to understand the realm of poetic reason. (shrink)

A partir de la divergencia de M. Foucault con Th. Hobbes con respecto a la guerra como principio y fundamento del poder, se muestra la importancia de esa diferencia conceptual para los análisis políticos contemporáneos. Foucault sostiene que, en las sociedades modernas de Occidente, la comunidad política, y más precisamente la política misma, ha sido el terreno de la guerra librada por otros medios. Por extensión, esta tesis significa invertir el principio de von Clausewitz; a saber, que la guerra es (...) la continuación de la política por otros medios. (shrink)