Soto Calderón, Andrea (2022)Imaginación materialSantiago de Chile: Metales Pesados, 149 p.ISBN 978-9566048923.

This article deals with a deep and theoretical thought on post-photography from the point of view of image’s genealogical approach. It is our aim to problematize the current image’s Statute throughout the cultural pattern’s context, mediated by digital technology. There will be three main axes in our research, namely the image’s symbolical power: it must be taken connected with mortality and the religious side of image, according to the Max Weber concept’s Disenchantment. Around these conceptual axes, our article will try (...) to link the ontology traditional subjects on image with the current photography practices, into the contemporary framework of the so-called post-photography. Therefore, it is needed to articulate a conceptual background around the new forms of gaze, conditioned by fragmentation, saturation, and acceleration. The critical apparatus will be based on a multidisciplinary focus. The works of authors like Joan Fontcuberta on post-photography and Régis Debray on life and death of image will vertebrate our article. We will take an essayistic point of view problematizing the subjects developed in the article as an invitation to deep thoughts. El artículo traza una reflexión teórica de la post-fotografía desde la conceptualización genealógica de la imagen, con el objetivo de problematizar el actual estatuto de la imagen en el marco de los patrones culturales contemporáneos, condicionados por la tecnología digital. Serán tres los ejes principales de reflexión: el poder simbólico de la imagen, su relación con la mortalidad y el carácter religioso de la imagen en el sentido weberiano de encantamiento. En torno a tales ejes de discusión, el artículo tratará de vincular las problemáticas tradicionales de la ontología de la imagen y la fotografía con las derivas actuales, en el marco de prácticas post-fotográficas. Será preciso, pues, una contextualización de las nuevas formas de mirada condicionadas por la fragmentación, la saturación y la aceleración. El aparato crítico del texto partirá de un enfoque multidisciplinar, donde los trabajos de Joan Fontcuberta acerca de la post-fotografía y la reflexión sobre la imagen de Régis Debray, servirán de núcleo vertebrador en la ilación de ideas. El punto de vista será ensayístico, por lo que el artículo se plantea como una invitación a cuestionar la problemática abordada. (shrink)

In our paper we aim to meditate on the concept of depth (profondeur) in the works of M. Merleau-Ponty, as it is a key notion to understand the French philosopher’s concept of space. Furthermore we will try to show that space plays a fundamental role in the development of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, allowing us to understand important features both of his phenomenological readings and ontological project.

As we turn to the lived experience of memory, we are confronted with an eerie and enigmatic possibility: the possibility to remember what we ourselves never lived. How to explain phenomenologically this enigmatic but fundamental level of spatialized memory? I would like to come back to these issues in order to face yet another fundamental question: Does a phenomenology of spatialized memory require any onto-phenomenological concretizations?

It is in Sein und Zeit that Heidegger decrees the end of the Geisteswissenschaften and their tradition, when, as he is commenting on the Briefwechsel [exchange of letters] between Dilthey and Yorck von Wartenburg, he pays homage to the latter for “his full understanding of the fundamental character of history as virtuality [...] [which he] owes to his knowledge of the character of being of human Dasein itself.” Consequently, Heidegger continues, “the interest of understanding historicality” is confronted with the task (...) of an elaboration of the “generic difference between the ontic and the historical.” But he must part ways with Yorck when the latter, after having clearly established that difference, moves from virtuality to mysticism. If, on the other hand, once separated from the ontic, “the question of historicality shows itself to be an ontological question which inquires into the constitution of being of historical being”, it is once again towards Dilthey that one must turn, in spite of his confused vitalism. Heidegger effects two operations at once. On the one hand, he expels the Geisteswissenschaften from the position they occupied at the heart of metaphysics, as the inheritors of the Enlightenment and the outcome of Hegelianism. On the other hand, he brings to fulfillment the critical labor which had precisely shown its value in Dilthey’s historicism —acritical labor which develops the search for the meaning of historicity and allows one to move from the theory of objectivity to that of expression, from the acknowledgment of historiography in the context of the critique of cognition to its definition at the heart of the transcendental schematism. Historicity is then posited as an ontological dimension and leaves only its ontic residue for historiography. (shrink)

This paper addresses the following problem: to what extent do ontological considerations about musical works affect our evaluation of performances of those works? I argue for the claim that at least some important grounds on which performances are evaluated are specific to them, in that these grounds are either independent from, or related but not fully determined by, the properties of the works they are of. In the first part of the paper, I explore the relations between good-making features of (...) works and of performances of them. The second and third parts develop two kinds of example in favour of the claim above. In the last part, I discuss the significance of those examples in relation to the ways in which performances are assessed, and explore some further ramifications of them. (shrink)

This essay is a thorough critique of Regieoper and related contemporary modes of opera production that make radical deviations from the intended plot, setting, etc. of the work as conceived by its author(s).

Significant individual differences exist in dream recall frequency but some variance is likely attributable to instrument choice in measuring DRF. Three hundred and fifty eight participants estimated their weekly DRF and recorded their dreams in either a narrative log or checklist log for 2–5 weeks. There was an early peak in DRF within the first week of both types of prospective logs after which DRF remained relatively stable. Although the two groups did not differ in their estimated DRF, significantly fewer (...) dreams were reported per week on the narrative logs and only checklist logs yielded significantly higher DRF than participants’ questionnaire estimates. The interactions between DRF measures did not vary across groups with low, medium or high baseline levels of DRF. Keeping a dream log does not necessarily increase DRF and narrative logs’ time consuming nature can impact subjects’ motivation to report all of their dreams over time. (shrink)

Este artigo aborda as principais teorias sobre a natureza metafísica das obras de arte, cobrindo as propostas eliminativistas, monistas e pluralistas. Entre estas últimas, é dado destaque ao trabalho sobre a ontologia das artes performativas, e em particular, da música. Termina-se com uma referência à recente viragem da discussão para o campo da meta-ontologia e a polémica sobre a plausibilidade do revisionismo ontológico no caso de artefactos ou objectos sociais.

O artigo parte do consenso sobre a facto de que a arte tem valor para a exploração dos vários problemas sobre esse valor cujas soluções dividem os filósofos da arte. O enfoque é especialmente sobre a dimensão mais actual do debate em torno do tema, que se debruça não tanto sobre questões como o realismo quanto aos valores estéticos e a objectividade e justificação dos juízos de valor estético, mas acima de tudo sobre a natureza do valor artístico – que (...) tipo de valor é e em que propriedades da arte (se nalguma) reside. (shrink)

The paper addresses the issue of ethical obligations in the performance of musical works in the Western classical tradition, arguing that there are indeed such obligations, although they are not categorical. -/- PT: Na tradição clássica ocidental, as obras de arte musicais, teatrais e, até certo ponto, as coreografias, são criadas por artistas-autores, mas necessitam de ser executadas por intérpretes (instrumentistas, cantores e maestros, actores e encenadores, bailarinos, etc.). Estes são assim chamados porque existe sempre uma dose de descricionariedade, não (...) só nas suas decisões sobre o que as instruções inscritas na notação por parte do autor querem "realmente" dizer, como ainda acerca dos muitos aspectos necessária ou voluntariamente deixados em aberto por ele. Limitando-nos aos casos em que é evidente ou relativamente claro que o autor favorece, directamente ou por via das convenções artísticas por si tacitamente aceites, uma forma de interpretação da sua obra entre outras, debruço-me sobre a questão de saber se, para além das considerações estéticas integrantes da decisão de respeitar total ou parcialmente essa forma, há também considerações especificamente morais que sejam relevantes para tal decisão. Os tratamentos filosóficos desta questão tiveram alguma expressão nos anos 80 e 90, sobretudo a propósito do movimento da interpretação musical historicamente correcta ou informada de obras de épocas com as quais se estava a recuperar o contacto perdido em termos de modos de execução e instrumentos específicos dessas épocas. Curiosamente, contrastando com o debate entre a crítica de arte, o debate filosófico é muito menos vivo numa actualidade marcada pelo ecletismo pós-moderno que, sobretudo no teatro e na ópera, trata mesmo os aspectos mais estruturantes das obras como completamente opcionais, ou as obras elas as próprias como materiais para fusão, reconstrução ou improvisação. Revisitando os argumentos em torno do tópico, defenderei a prevalência da posição segundo a qual há uma dimensão moral nas artes performativas, mas que as obrigações daí resultantes não são todas categóricas, tendo diferentes graus de força, e devem ser entendidas como uma variável que tem de ser, em cada caso, ponderada lado a lado com as considerações estéticas. (shrink)

Esse artigo parte da arte, da ficção científica e da literatura fantástica para propor uma outra cosmopolítica, divergente daquela que sustentaria, simultaneamente, realismo literário e etnocentrismo ocidental.

The paradox marking Spinoza’s reappearance in modernity is well known. If Mendelssohn wished to “give him new credence by bringing him closer to the philosophical orthodoxy of Leibniz and Wolff,” and Jacobi, “by presenting him as a heterodox figure in the literal sense of the term, wanted to do away with him definitively for modern Christianity”—well, “both failed in their goal, and it was the heterodox Spinoza who was rehabilitated.” The Mendelssohn-Jacobi debate can be grafted onto the crisis of a (...) specific philosophical model. It generates a figure of Spinoza capable of assuaging the exacerbated spiritual tension of that epoch, and of constituting the systematic preamble of the relation between power and substance—between subject and nature. Spinoza, the damned Spinoza, had a resurgence in modernity as a Romantic philosopher. Lessing won out by recognizing in Spinoza an idea of nature which was capable of balancing the relation between feeling and intellect, freedom and necessity, and history and reason. Herder and Goethe, against the subjective and revolutionary impatience of the Sturm und Drang, based themselves on this powerful image of synthesis and recomposed objectivity: Spinoza is not only the figure of Romanticism; he constitutes its grounding and its fulfillment. The omnipotence of nature was no longer to break off into the tragedy of feeling, but it was to triumph over it, by opposing it to a kingdom of completed forms. Spinoza’s first reception within Romanticism was thus an aesthetic reception, a perception of motion and perfection, of dynamism and forms. And it remained such, even when the general frame and the particular components of Romanticism were subjected to the labor of philosophical critique. Fichte, the real philosophical hero of Romanticism, considered both Spinoza’s and Kant’s systems to be “perfectly coherent,” in the incessant ontological movement of the I. For the Schelling of the 1790s, the assertion of a radical opposition between 1 critical philosophy and dogmatic philosophy—that is, between a philosophy of the absolute I founding itself on the critical philosophy and a dogmatic philosophy of the absolute object and Spinozism—was quickly resolved into an analysis of action which dialectically took on the weight of the objective. Far from becoming antinomial, the absolute position of the I composes itself into a necessary process which, above tragedy, exalts the “spiritual automatism” of the relation between subject and substance. The aesthetic dimension of this synthesis consists in ceaselessly and tirelessly bringing back power and substance, the productive element and the form of production, to perfection. Romanticism, according to Hegel, is characterized by a capacity to overcome the pure objectivity of the ideal and the natural as a true idea of beauty and truth, initially to destroy the union of the idea and its reality, and to locate the latter in the difference, so as then to bring to manifestation the inner world of absolute subjectivity and reconstruct its objectivity where the overcoming of sensibility is appeased in the absolute character of the result. The filiation of this process is still Lessingian, but the new dialectic expresses and articulates its motivations, while insisting on the propaedeutic of the beautiful along the path leading to the absolute. Spinoza, a certain Spinoza, becomes the central figure in this process. (shrink)

The article analyses and comments on the collective volume entitled Storia della metafisica, edited by Enrico Berti. The author goes through the various contributions dedicated to a prominent metaphysician or a metaphysic current and lets emerge the different recalibration experienced by the concepts of ‘transcendence’ and ‘transcendental’. Berti’s preliminary choice is indeed to include in a history of metaphysics only those metaphysicians who have considered transcendence particularly relevant in their philosophical enterprises. From this survey, it is possible to assert the (...) good health of metaphysics in the contemporary Italian debate. (shrink)

As in other domains of art, the assessment of performances or interpretations of musical works is largely considered as a matter of personal taste. In Evaluating Musical Performance, Jerrold Levinson argues that relativism, in this matter, depends on the many interests with which a performance can be faced, and, consequently, evaluated and assessed. My thesis in this article is that not all interests have the same importance and that there is a “purely musical” perspective that must prevail over the other (...) interests. This way I try to diminish the so called relativism. (shrink)

This dissertation studies the relationship between divine providence and human freedom in Hegel's thought. The view taken in this study is that an understanding of this relationship in the philosophy of Hegel hopefully will shed significant light on the contemporary dialogue that considers religious faith not as an alienating human experience, but rather, as fundamental for full human liberation and self-realization. ;The underlying hypothesis of this study is that the Absolute Spirit in Hegel's philosophy, not only is the providential trinitarian (...) God of the Christian religion; but it is also thereby what constitutes precisely the ultimate foundation and necessary condition of possibility for authentic human freedom. ;In line with this, for Hegel, on the one hand, authentic human freedom necessarily entails man's creative commitment to the revolutionary progressive process of human liberation from oppression that is taking place in man's history under divine providence; and on the other hand, the nature of divine providence coincides with the internal logic of the reconciling love of the trinitarian God. Hence, our study attempts to show that, according to Hegel, world history is constituted by a progressive process of liberating reconciliation among men, that takes place in the very process wherein men reconcile themselves with the trinitarian love of God. This reconciliation of man with the trinitarian love of God specifically entails man's "paschal" elevation to the eternal death and resurrection of God that takes place in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. ;While our study concentrates especially on Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion and on the Introduction to his Lectures on the Philosophy of History, its main ideas are elucidated by taking into consideration also the works of Hegel's mature system since and including the Phenomenology of Spirit. (shrink)

The cases of corruption reported by the media tend almost always to involve a private party (a citizen or a corporation) that pays, or promises to pay, money to a public party (a politician or a public official, for example) in order to obtain an advantage or avoid a disadvantage. Because of the harm it does to economic efficiency and growth, and because of its social, political and ethical consequences, private-to-public corruption has been widely studied. Private-to-private corruption, by contrast, has (...) been relatively neglected and only recently has started to receive the attention it deserves. The purpose of this paper is to offer some thoughts on the nature and importance of private-to-private corruption; the legal treatment it receives in some of the world''s leading countries; and the measures that companies can take to combat it, with special consideration of its ethical aspects. (shrink)

San Isidoro de Sevilla destaca por poseer un saber universal. Esta universalidad de su saber también es expresada en su reflexión sobre el ministerio sacerdotal. A través de una triple aproximación «teológica», «pastoral» y «espiritual», invita a los obispos y presbíteros a vivir su ministerio de una forma «eclesial», «virtuosa» y «santa».

Strategies purporting to determine the meaning of inner states of belief-content in terms of their inferential role usually assume the inner structure of the human inferential competence to be that of first order logic plus identity. Considerations of computational complexity and cumbersomeness of representation tend to undermine the plausibility of combining such strategies with this assumption. In this paper I contend that appealing to rules of default reasoning won’t make things turn out any better for the inferential role functionalist.

Ramseyan decision theory is the best explication of the philosophical model of folk-psychology. Davidson contends that its basic axioms are synthetic a priori truths of human psychology. This contention admits being reduced to the claim that human agents have to be regarded as rational betters. Tversky and Kahneman challenge this claim. Consideration of the evidence indicates that theory-contradicting interpretations of human actions make frequently more cognitive sense and are more 'commonsensical' than theory-preserving interpretations. Thus, the philosophical model of folk- psychology (...) fails in two ways: as an empirical theory of human action and as a model of our folk-psychological interpretive practices. (shrink)

Ramseyan decision theory is the best explication of the philosophical model of folk-psychology. Davidson contends that its basic axioms are synthetic a priori truths of human psychology. This contention admits being reduced to the claim that human agents have to be regarded as rational betters. Tversky and Kahneman challenge this claim. Consideration of the evidence indicates that theory-contradicting interpretations of human actions make frequently more cognitive sense and are more 'commonsensical' than theory-preserving interpretations. Thus, the philosophical model of folk- psychology (...) fails in two ways: as an empirical theory of human action and as a model of our folk-psychological interpretive practices. (shrink)

The debate concerning human rationality has been revolving around four main standpoints: 1) Unbounded rationality, 2) Optimization under constraints, 3) Heuristics and biases, and 4) Ecological rationality. Typically, proponents of 3) and 4) criticize models 1) and 2) for their cognitive unrealism. However, many ethologists contend that it makes sense to account for data gathered in animal behaviour research along the lines defined by the latter models. Elaborating upon this contention, Stanovich suggested recently a fifth standpoint in this debate – (...) I’ll call it ‘Brute Rationality’. According to it, traditional rational choice models are more appropriate to account for the behaviour of creatures endowed with simple cognitive architectures rather than to account for human behaviour. In my talk, I´ll contend that the term ‘rationality’ is being used in this debate to cover too wide a semantic area. In fact, once one distinguishes the different meanings associated with it, the positions defining this debate reveal themselves to be much less clear than what is usually taken to be the case. (shrink)

For several decades, historians have realized the limitations of analysing the historical past of science as a mere succession of theories. One of the most stimulating messages that the reinvention of the discipline has launched is that although there are obvious intellectual elements that promote the development and progress of science, there are also social, economic, and institutional aspects to consider. The history of science is no longer just a history of scientific ideas and theories, but also a history of (...) institutions, communities, spaces, objects, and practices as well as a history of the complex interaction among all these dimensions. Accompanying this new panorama is a broad consensus among scholars to accept that major social changes have inexorably some impact on scientific practice and vice versa. This premise, now widespread, is especially relevant to the history of early modern science and the question of its roots because it has allowed the introduction of new agents and spaces previously excluded from the domain of scientific development. In other words, this enriched perspective has multiplied both the processes of knowledge construction and the arenas in which these processes were undertaken. More specifically, historical research is no longer limited to spaces traditionally linked to the construction of science; it now embraces less orthodox ones. Within this broadened field of inquiry, practical knowledge and the objects of material culture have come to occupy a central place. This special issue explores how the new directions in which the history of science has expanded have a direct impact on the study of Iberian science in the Atlantic world. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the specific shift in the meaning of “civilization” that took place in texts and documents of early American philosophical naturalism. Particularly, it will focus on the specific role that naturalization plays in the edification of a newly secularized, science-oriented, and democratic society, as well as of a naturalized conception of culture and civilization. Indeed, as the work of many philosophers and intellectuals of the Forties highlights, naturalism represents not only the banner of a new idea of civilization, (...) but at the same time becomes the symbol of a powerful postwar ideology. (shrink)

En este artículo nos proponemos exponer, a partir de los límites conceptuales encontrados a los planteamientos arqueo-genealógicos de Michel Foucault, la posibilidad de plantear, en dos momentos –arqueo-genealógico y gubernamental–, una “ética de la insubordinación reflexiva”. Es decir, una “ética de la libertad inmanente” al débil que al decir su palabra, denuncia y al denunciar cuestiona al tirano y su mundo al habar y actuar con –y por– los otros. Esta ética de la intersubjetividad planteada como una ética de la (...) insumisión concertada, crítica y deliberada, pensamos, puede derivar de ciertas “condiciones enunciativas” encontradas en las dos últimas investigaciones concernientes al “decir veraz” o el “hablar franco” expuestos en El gobierno de sí y de los otros y El coraje de la verdad. (shrink)

"One of the most significant figures of current political thought."--New Statesman.

Pure shape dynamics (PSD) is a novel implementation of the relational framework originally proposed by Julian Barbour and Bruno Bertotti. PSD represents a Leibnizian/Machian approach to physics in that it completely describes the dynamical evolution of a physical system without resorting to any structure external to the system itself. The chapter discusses how PSD effectively describes a de Broglie-Bohm N-body system and the conceptual benefits of such a relational description. The analysis will highlight the new directions in the quest for (...) an understanding of the nature of the wave function that are opened up by a modern relationalist elaboration on de Broglie's and Bohm's original insights. (shrink)

Machine consciousness is not only a technological challenge, but a new way to approach scientific and theoretical issues which have not yet received a satisfactory solution from AI and robotics. We outline the foundations and the objectives of machine consciousness from the standpoint of building a conscious robot.

Making use of facilitating payments is a very widespread form of corruption. These consist of small payments or gifts made to a person – generally a public official or an employee of a private company – to obtain a favour, such as expediting an administrative process; obtaining a permit, licence or service; or avoiding an abuse of power. Unlike the worst forms of corruption, facilitating payments do not usually involve an outright injustice on the part of the payer as they (...) are entitled to what they request. This may be why public opinion tends to condone such payments; often they are assumed to be unavoidable and are excused on the grounds of low wages and lack of professionalism among public officials and disorganisation in government offices. Many companies that take the fight against “grand” corruption very seriously are inclined to overlook these “petty” transgressions, which are seen as the grease that makes the wheels of the bureaucratic machine turn more smoothly. Despite this, facilitating payments have a pernicious effect on the working of public and private administrations: all too often they are the slippery slope to more serious forms of corruption; they impose additional costs on companies and citizens; and in the long run they sap the ethical foundations of organisations. Although many articles on corruption mention facilitating payments, there have been no systematic studies from a company’s point of view. This article thus focuses on facilitating payments from the point of view of the company that makes the payment, either as the active partner (when it is the company that takes the initiative) or as the passive partner (when the official or employee is the instigator). (shrink)