Esta obra se abre con una introducción histórica, no heleno ni eurocéntrica, en la que se reinterpretan los sistemas éticos en la historia mundial, hasta situar la problemática en la Modernidad dentro del sistema-mundo como proceso de globalización que simultáneamente excluye a la mayoría de la humanidad. En la primera parte se aborda una crítica a las morales formales (Kant, Rawls, Apel, Habermas) desde un principio material o de contenido con pretensión de universalidad; el deber de producir, reproducir y desarrollar (...) la vida humana en comunidad. El principio de factibilidad ética, por su parte, permite que el cumplimiento del acto, institución o sistema de eticidad pueda tener la pretensión de bondad. En la segunda parte, desde la imposibilidad de que dicho acto, institución o sistema de eticidad «buenos» pueda tener pretensión de perfección acabada, se descubren los que «sufren» en su corporalidad vulnerable la imposibilidad de vivir, el hecho de ser excluidos. Se trata de las víctimas, al decir de Marx, Horkheimer, Benjamin, Nietzsche, Freud o Lévinas. Desde las víctimas comienza propiamente el discurso de la Ética de la Liberación, en su nivel negativo material (deben poder vivir), en el principio discursivo crítico (deben poder participar en la argumentación), todo lo cual culmina en el principio crítico negativo de la factibilidad: el principio-liberación que inspira las transformaciones con pretensión de justicia. (shrink)

In this classic work of feminist political thought, Iris Marion Young challenges the prevailing reduction of social justice to distributive justice.

El artículo examina la concepción neopragmatista desde la cual Rorty defiende una concepción antirrcalista del conocimiento. A fin de evaluar si es correcta la radicalización del «signo lingüístico) emprendida por el autor estadounidense, se compara la problemática contextualista con la duda epistemológica del escéptico moderno y se analiza el problema -tradicionalrnente ligado a las concepciones de la verdad como coherencia que subyacen a los planteamientos contextualistas-> de cómo distinguir la verdad de la aceptabilidad racional. Ante esta cuestión las opiniones se (...) dividen: mientras que Rorty asimila verdad y justificación al precio de sacrificar la intuición realista cotidiana, otros autores intentan dar cuenta de esta intuición desde dentro del paradigma lingüístico, ya sea mediante una deflación de la problemática de la verdad o mediante una idealización del proceso de justificación mismo. El autor reacciona frente a ambas posiciones: por un lado, contra un deflacionismo que se apoya en el concepto semántico de verdad, hace valer aquí una posición pragmática; por otro, desde esta misma óptica, crítica un tipo de epistemologizacíón del concepto de verdad que él mismo había defendido hasta el momento. Por esta vía se articula unaalternativa frente a la liquidación de las pretensiones de verdad incondicionales que ha llevado a Rorty a una naturalización de la razón lingüística muy problemática. (shrink)

No serious philosopher or student of philosophy can afford to neglect Wittgenstein's work. Professor Fogelin provides an authoritative critical evaluation of both the _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_ and _Philosophical Investigations_, enabling the reader to come to grips with these difficult yet key works. Fogelin explains Wittgenstein's attempt in the _Tractatus_ to combine a picture theory of propositional structure, and also explores Wittgenstein's own criticisms of the Tractarian synthesis. He gives particular attention to topics in the philosophy of language, logic, psychology and the (...) foundations of mathematics, examining Wittgenstein's work on these fields and arguing that Wittgenstein's criticisms in these areas form the basis for a radically new standpoint in philosophy. (shrink)

This book, first published by Yale University Press, is a summary of Dewey's late philosophy of religion. The book is a standard work in the field for many scholars, and has been continuously in print since the time of its first publication. Dewey defends a naturalism, and this work is an interesting and important contrast to the later religious thought of William James.

What would something unlike us--a chimpanzee, say, or a computer--have to be able to do to qualify as a possible knower, like us? To answer this question at the very heart of our sense of ourselves, philosophers have long focused on intentionality and have looked to language as a key to this condition. Making It Explicit is an investigation into the nature of language--the social practices that distinguish us as rational, logical creatures--that revises the very terms of this inquiry. Where (...) accounts of the relation between language and mind have traditionally rested on the concept of representation, this book sets out an alternate approach based on inference, and on a conception of certain kinds of implicit assessment that become explicit in language. Making It Explicit is the first attempt to work out in detail a theory that renders linguistic meaning in terms of use--in short, to explain how semantic content can be conferred on expressions and attitudes that are suitably caught up in social practices. -/- At the center of this enterprise is a notion of discursive commitment. Being able to talk--and so in the fullest sense being able to think--is a matter of mastering the practices that govern such commitments, being able to keep track of one’s own commitments and those of others. Assessing the pragmatic significance of speech acts is a matter of explaining the explicit in terms of the implicit. As he traces the inferential structure of the social practices within which things can be made conceptually explicit, the author defines the distinctively expressive role of logical vocabulary. This expressive account of language, mind, and logic is, finally, an account of who we are. (shrink)

‘Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic’ This sentence from Wittgenstein's On Certainty is the source of my title. A passage in George Orwell's Shooting an Elephant might have prompted the same choice: ‘The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent. Each of them tacitly claims that “the truth” has already been revealed, and (...) that the heretic, if he is not simply a fool, is secretly aware of “the truth” and merely resists it out of selfish motives’. (shrink)

One of Hume's most well-known works and a masterpiece of philosophy, A Treatise of Human Nature is indubitably worth taking the time to read.

Der kommunikativen Alltagspraxis müssen kognitive Deutungen, moralische Erwartungen, Expressionen und Wertungen einander durchdringen. Die Verständigungsprozesse der Lebenswelt bedürfen deshalb einer kulturellen Überlieferung auf ganzer Breite, nicht nur der Segnungen von Wissenschaft und Technik. So könnte die Philosophie ihren Bezug zur Totalität in einer der Lebenswelt zugewandten Interpretenrolle aktualisieren. Sie könnte mindestens dabei helfen, das stillgestellte Zusammenspiel des Kognitiv-Instrumentellen mit dem Moralisch-Praktischen und dem Ästhetisch-Expressiven wie ein Mobile, das sich hartnäckig verhakt hat, wieder in Bewegung zu setzen.

Based on the 1972 Radcliffe Lectures, this book presents a systematic treatment of the conceptual framework as well as the practical problems of measurement of inequality.

This volume stages a debate between two philosophers, one North American, the other German, who hold different views of the relation of redistribution to ...

A provocative critique of Western attitudes about the Orient, this history examines the ways in which the West has discovered, invented, and sought to control the East from the 1700s to the present.

This revised edition includes a new Preface outlining developments in Relevance Theory since 1986, discussing the more serious criticisms of the theory, and ...

David Bloor's challenging new evaluation of Wittgenstein's account of rules and rule-following brings together the rare combination of philosophical and sociological viewpoints. Wittgenstein enigmatically claimed that the way we follow rules is an "institution" without ever explaining what he meant by this term. Wittgenstein's contribution to the debate has since been subject to sharply opposed interpretations by "collectivist" and "individualist" readings by philosophers; in the light of this controversy, Bloor argues convincingly for a collectivist, sociological understanding of Wittgenstein's later work. (...) Accessible and simply written, this book provides the first consistent sociological reading of Wittgenstein's work for many years. (shrink)