Rejecting judicial supremacy in constitutional interpretation, this paper argues that understanding the interpretation of constitutions to be a solely legal and judicial undertaking excludes citizens from such activity. The paper proffers a two-pronged classification of analyses of constitutional interpretation. Implicit accounts discuss interpretation without reflecting on whether such activity can or should be performed by non-judicial institutions as well. Explicit accounts ask whether interpretation of constitutions is a matter to be dealt with by courts and answer affirmatively. I criticise both (...) camps. Implicit accounts fail to explain why constitutional interpretation is purely judicial in character. Explicit accounts do not provide enough reasons why the judiciary is allegedly the ideal institution to give constitutions meaning with final authority, both in instrumental and normative terms. The paper closes by suggesting avenues for future research. (shrink)

Por medio del rechazo a la supremacía judicial en la interpretación constitucional, este artículo argumenta que entender la interpretación de una constitución como un práctica estrictamente legal y judicial, excluye a la ciudadanía de dicha actividad. El artículo ofrece una clasificación de análisis de interpretación constitucional. Primero, las tesis implícitas discuten sobre la interpretación sin reflexionar sobre si dicha actividad puede ser también llevada a cabo por instituciones no judiciales. Segundo, las tesis explícitas cuestionan si la interpretación constitucional es un (...) asunto que ha de ser tratado por los tribunales, y responden afirmativamente. Crítico ambos grupos de argumentos. Las tesis implícitas no explican porqué la interpretación constitucional es de naturaleza puramente judicial. Las tesis explícitas no justifican suficientemente por qué la judicatura es la institución ideal para dotar de significado final a la constitución de manera autoritativa, tanto en términos instrumentales como normativos. Finalizo sugiriendo caminos para investigaciones futuras. (shrink)

Rejecting judicial supremacy in constitutional interpretation, this paper argues that understanding the interpretation of constitutions to be a solely legal and judicial undertaking excludes citizens from such activity. The paper proffers a two-pronged classification of analyses of constitutional interpretation. Implicit accounts discuss interpretation without reflecting on whether such activity can or should be performed by non-judicial institutions as well. Explicit accounts ask whether interpretation of constitutions is a matter to be dealt with by courts and answer affirmatively. I criticise both (...) camps. Implicit accounts fail to explain why constitutional interpretation is purely judicial in character. Explicit accounts do not provide enough reasons why the judiciary is allegedly the ideal institution to give constitutions meaning with final authority, both in instrumental and normative terms. The paper closes by suggesting avenues for future research. (shrink)

El artículo da cuenta que la historia constitucional chilena se encuentra vinculada a las nociones de orden y estabilidad. Esta situación se manifiesta de manera particular en la Constitución de 1980, fruto del régimen de un gobierno de facto que implantó un sistema constitucional fundado en una comprensión liberal de la democracia, la cual se fundamenta y se legitima por su uso. Se apuesta por una reforma a la Carta, la que actualmente opera fuera de los fines de toda Constitución, (...) restringiendo la participación ciudadana. Particular atención merecen las manifestaciones que tienen lugar hoy y que reflejan cómo el régimen constitucional impide poner sobre la mesa de discusión con el Gobierno un ideal de educación que abandone una democracia instrumental y que recoja principios republicanos. (shrink)

El artículo da cuenta que la historia constitucional chilena se encuentra vinculada a las nociones de orden y estabilidad. Esta situación se manifiesta de manera particular en la Constitución de 1980, fruto del régimen de un gobierno de facto que implantó un sistema constitucional fundado en una comprensión liberal de la democracia, la cual se fundamenta y se legitima por su uso. Se apuesta por una reforma a la Carta, la que actualmente opera fuera de los fines de toda Constitución, (...) restringiendo la participación ciudadana. Particular atención merecen las manifestaciones que tienen lugar hoy y que reflejan cómo el régimen constitucional impide poner sobre la mesa de discusión con el Gobierno un ideal de educación que abandone una democracia instrumental y que recoja principios republicanos. (shrink)

Estas páginas reseñan uno de los últimos libros de Roberto Gargarella. La obra, un diagnóstico de los problemas estructurales y normativos del constitucionalismo latinoamericano, abre debates centrales para las reformas de los sistemas políticos y jurídicos de la región, al tiempo que ofrece un ideal regulativo propio hacia donde dichas reformas deban dirigirse: el del derecho entendido como una conversación entre iguales. En el marco de la exposición de dichos argumentos se muestra los principales méritos del libro. Se agregan algunas (...) consideraciones críticas relativas a la forma en que el ideal de la conversación entre iguales articula las relaciones entre las instituciones representativas y la ciudadanía. Hacia el final se destaca la reflexión a la que incita La derrota del derecho en América Latina. (shrink)

Courts do many good things. Judges carefully consider individual claims and arguments,1 and contrast them against the law in light of evidence. Their decisions are argued for, are public, and can be contested in form and content in different hierarchical stages. Additionally, and among other things, these practices are said to contribute to the will-formation of the public sphere and improve the quality of the legislative process.2.

Legal scholars generally consider the theorisation and constitutionalisation of constitutional interpretation as a matter for the courts. This article first challenges this tendency on conceptual grounds, showing that no institutional commitment follows from the nature of interpretation in law, constitutional law included. It then provides guidance for thinking about institutional perspectives according to two criteria: the nature and normative strength of the sources interpreted and the capacity of the interpreter to include and consider every possibility affected when her interpretation carries (...) collective effects and is authoritatively final. The application of these criteria places the discussion on the grounds of democratic theory. The article thus reviews competing democratic theories and champions deliberative democracy as the alternative whose constitutive features best allow for the development of institutions capable of exercising constitutional interpretation when the imposition of meaning on the constitution is final and carrieserga omneseffects. (shrink)

The article elaborates an original intertwined reading of republican theory, deliberative democracy and political equality. It argues that republicans, deliberative democrats and egalitarian scholars have not paid sufficient attention to a number of features present in these bodies of scholarships that relate them in mutually beneficial ways. It shows that republicanism and deliberative democracy are related in mutually beneficial ways, it makes those relations explicit, and it deals with potential objections against them. Additionally, it elaborates an egalitarian principle underpinning the (...) resulting model that I label Equality of Access and Deliberation. The upshot of these considerations is a novel and mutually reinforcing interrelated three-tiered theoretical and institutional proposal. (shrink)

We lack analyses of the judiciary from a systemic perspective. This article thus examines arguments offered by deliberativists who have reflected about this institution and argues that the current state of deliberative democracy requires us to rethink the ways they conceive of the judiciary within a deliberative framework. After an examination of these accounts, I define the deliberative system and describe the different phases deliberative democracy has gone through. I then single out elements common to all systemic approaches against which (...) I test whether the regard that the authors show for the judiciary in deliberative terms can be maintained and argue in the negative. I conclude by pointing at the necessity to think about the definition of deliberative systems, and to the value of these discussions for debates on the legitimacy of judicial review when it is exercised under the form of judicial supremacy. (shrink)

Champions of systemic approaches to deliberative democratic theory consider that deliberative systems serve sundry functions. Whether guaranteeing political freedom should be one of those functions has not been explored in the scholarly literature. This article thus examines which conceptions of freedom underpin systemic approaches to deliberative democracy. I explore and circumscribe the analysis to two prominent options: freedom as absence of interference and freedom as non-domination. The answer to which of these alternatives best serves as a function of the deliberative (...) system hinges on the previous question of whether holistic evaluations of systemic deliberative performance are to be endorsed. The article then argues that holistic evaluations are only compatible with freedom as non-interference. By contrast, freedom as non-domination is incompatible with holism. I then provide reasons for endorsing freedom as non-domination and, by implication, to reject holistic systemic evaluations. (shrink)

This article analogises political representation to legal interpretation. It then applies the analogy to the hitherto neglected question of what political representation means for deliberative constitutionalism. The upshot is a conception of deliberative constitutionalism that, while uncompromisingly grounded in the reasoned expression of the preferences of a polity's constituents through deliberative democratic institutional innovations, mandates representatives to translate those preferences into general and abstract constitutional law. It thus enhances the deliberative contribution of citizens in the determination of constitutional meaning, while (...) preserving the value of representative institutions. (shrink)

Constitutionalists and deliberative democrats show increasing interest in deliberative constitutionalism. They seek to reconcile two prima facie conflicting camps in legal and political philosophy:...

We distinguish three aspects of medical diagnosis: generating new diagnostic hypotheses, selecting hypotheses for further pursuit, and evaluating their probability in light of the available evidence. Drawing on Peirce’s account of abduction, we argue that hypothesis generation is amenable to normative analysis: physicians need to make good decisions about when and how to generate new diagnostic hypothesis as well as when to stop. The intertwining relationship between the generation and selection of diagnostic hypotheses is illustrated through the analysis of a (...) detailed clinical case study. This interaction is not adequately captured by the existing probabilistic, decision-theoretic models of the threshold approach to clinical decision-making. Instead, we propose to conceptualize medical diagnosis in terms of strategic reasoning. (shrink)

Clinical diagnostic medicine is an experimental science based on observation, hypothesis making, and testing. It is an use dynamic process that involves observation and summary, diagnostic conjectures, testing, review, observation and summary, new or revised conjectures, i.e. it is an iterative process. It can then be said that diagnostic hypotheses are also ‘observation-laden’. My aim is to enlarge on the strategies of medical diagnosis as these are meshed in training and clinical experience—that is, to describe the patterns of reasoning used (...) by experienced clinicians under different diagnostic circumstances and how these patterns of inquiry allow further insight into the evaluation and treatment of patients. I do not aim to present a theory and illustrate it with examples; I wish rather am to let a realistic example, similar to actual clinical scenarios, direct the exposition. To this end, I introduce an account of medical diagnosis—briefly comparing and contrasting it to other accounts—in order to focus on discussing the process of diagnosis through a detailed clinical case. (shrink)

This paper puts forward a general framework for thought about human information processing. It is intended to avoid some of the problems of pipeline or stage models of function. At the same time it avoids the snare of supposing a welter of indefinitely many separate processes. The approach is not particularly original, but rather represents the common elements or presuppositions in a number of modern theories. These presuppositions are not usually explicit, however, and making them so reduces the danger of (...) slipping back into earlier modes of thought.The key point is to distinguish between persisting representations and the processes that translate one representation into another. Various classes or groups of persisting representations can be distinguished by the experimental treatments that interfere with them. In particular, there now seem to be several kinds of short-term or temporary storage, different from each other as well as from longterm memory; the translating processes also have several different modes or kinds. A particularly important aspect of the current position is that a model of this general type no longer requires some external agent to direct and control long sequences of behaviour. (shrink)

So Lentricchia has fulfilled one of his purposes in this essay. He has subverted the patriarchy from within: that is, he has subverted Bloom’s literary history as well as the essentialist feminism associated with it. But he has not fulfilled his affiliated purpose of establishing a dialogue between feminists and feminized males. The “feminization” of literary studies by patriarchal figures like Bloom does not account for the feminization of Stoddard, Gilder, Van Dyke, Woodberry, or Stedman. Their feminization, like that of (...) the Stevens who felt positively lady-like, was not the result of patriarchal oppression. And it will not disappear as the result of the subversion of the patriarchy by a feminized male. Mistaking the work of feminization with the work of the patriarch eradicates the feminine. By identifying the difference between a feminization produced by the patriarchy and a feminine cultural sphere, Lentricchia has made room for the different cultural conversation he wants to develop. But this conversation can take place only after the backdrop of an oppressive patriarch can drop away.This conversation might begin with an account of that cultural sphere in which women are the agency to which Lentricchia alludes. It might begin when we recall that the model for the culture’s “Emmeline Grangerfords” was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Little Eva. The social change Little Eva helped effect was the emancipation of both slaves and slaveholders. Donald E. Pease is professor of English and American literature at Dartmouth College. His articles on nineteenth-century authors and literature have appeared in a number of journals. He is the coeditor, with Walter Benn Michaels, of American Renaissance Reconsidered, and is the author of Visionary Compacts: American Renaissance Writings in Cultural Contexts, which won the Mark H. Ingraham Prize in 1987. (shrink)

This paper reviews and defends Wittgenstein’s examination of the notion of introspecting psychological states and his critique of introspectionism, in the sense of using reflective awareness as a tool for philosophical or psychological investigation. Its focus is on inner psychological states, like pains or thoughts—it provisionally excludes perceptual states from this category. It approaches the philosopher’s concept of introspection through an analysis of concepts of awareness and self-awareness. It identifies at least two different forms of self-awareness, just one of which (...) is attention to conscious processes. It sides with those who deny that any self-awareness is perception. It outlines and evaluates the primary objections Wittgenstein made to the notion that we can find out about the nature of our mental states through introspection. These objections involve, inter alia, the privacy of psychological states and the inherent fallibility of judgments based on introspective awareness. The critique motivates more cautious and effective psychological investigation of mental states, including proper use of subjects’ introspective reports, and a conceptual approach to the philosophy of mind. Wittgenstein’s reflections prefigure much later views about the problematic nature of introspective knowledge; yet, Wittgenstein receives virtually no mention or credit for this work from contemporary writers. (shrink)

William James, like his father before him, devoted much attention to religion. He defended the human desire to have faith in something, or some being, whose existence could not be empirically defended. Faith generated a feeling of ease and peacefulness, and therefore could be considered a moral good. In The Varieties of Religious Experience James argued that faith could be discovered and enacted in unconventional ways.Mr. Schulte has redefined James’s thesis to support Alcoholic Anonymous 3rd edition. He claims that James (...) provided the germinal idea of the AA program according to the program’s cofounders Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith. Schulte uses Varieties in an adulterate fashion: each of the 8.. (shrink)

Philosophia (Israel), 16(3-4), 333 - 344. YEAR: 1986 Extensive corrigenda Vol. 17, no. 3. -/- SUBJECT(S): Quine's second thoughts on quantifying in, appearing in the second, revised edition of _From a Logical Point of View_ of 1961, are shown to be incorrect. His original thoughts were correct. ABSTRACT: Additional tumult is supplied to pp. 152-154 of _From A Logical Point of View_, showing that being dated is no guarantee of being right. Among other things, it is shown that Quine's argument (...) to the conclusion that limiting the universe of discourse to intensional entities does not "relieve the original difficulty over quantifying into modal contexts" is incorrect; that the contradictory of that conclusion is in fact true; and that an even stronger conclusion is true, with 'abstract' replacing 'intensional'. (shrink)

This essay presents a scenario of the origin of life that is based on analysis of biological architecture and mechanical design at the microstructural level. My thesis is that the same architectural and energetic constraints that shape cells today also guided the evolution of the first cells and that the molecular scaffolds that support solid-phase biochemistry in modern cells represent living microfossils of past life forms. This concept emerged from the discovery that cells mechanically stabilize themselves using tensegrity architecture and (...) that these same building rules guide hierarchical self-assembly at all size scales (Sci Amer 278:48–57;1998). When combined with other fundamental design principles (e.g., energy minimization, topological constraints, structural hierarchies, autocatalytic sets, solid-state biochemistry), tensegrity provides a physical basis to explain how atomic and molecular elements progressively self-assembled to create hierarchical structures with increasingly complex functions, including living cells that can self-reproduce. BioEssays 22:1160–1170, 2000. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

This book, first published in 2006, examines the incentives at work in a wide range of institutions to see how and how well coordination is achieved by informing and motivating individual decision makers. The book examines the performance of agents hired to carry out specific tasks, from taxi drivers to CEOs. It investigates the performance of institutions, from voting schemes to kidney transplants, to see if they enhance general well being. The book examines a broad range of market transactions, from (...) auctions to labor markets, to the entire economy. The analysis is conducted using specific worked examples, lucid general theory, and illustrations drawn from news stories. Of the seventy different topics and sections, only twelve require a knowledge of calculus. The second edition offers new chapters on auctions, matching and assignment problems, and corporate governance. Boxed examples are used to highlight points of theory and are separated from the main text. (shrink)

Proposes the path for understanding human existence developed by M. Merleau-Ponty as a replacement for the paths historically employed by psychology. Descartes established the agenda for modernistic philosophy when he proposed that the task of philosophy is to provide a foundation on which assurances of certain truth can be built. Modernist philosophers diverged, following the paths of sensation and of reason . Postmodernists argue that Descartes's agenda was misguided and that there is no foundation for certain knowledge. They set upon (...) the path of language which led them to the dismissal of the human S. Merleau-Ponty explored the path of the lived body in which thought and extension are intertwined, and along which is located the human S in its temporality and embodiment. The path of embodiment is held to be a more fruitful path than the path of language. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)