A dilemma has stymied interpretations of the Stranger’s method of dividing kinds into subkinds in Plato’sSophistandStatesman. The dilemma assumes that the kinds are either extensions or intensions. Now kinds divide like extensions, not intensions. But extensions cannot explain the distinct identities of kinds that possess the very same members. We propose understanding a kind as like an animal body—the Stranger’s simile for division—possessing both an extension and an intension. We find textual support in the Stranger’s paradigmatic four steps for collecting (...) a subkind. (shrink)

Although the eighteenth century is not a chief interest of historians of psychology, nor is the history of psychology a main topic of Enlightenment studies, the era has long qualified as what a textbook of modern philosophy called "the century of psychology". The present article examines such a historiographical paradox, and asks in what senses eighteenth-century might deserve that label. For the general historian of the Enlightenment, as for historians of logic, esthetics, moral philosophy, or education, the label is justified (...) by the psychologization experienced by those domains and others. The historian of the human sciences can agree because, especially in Germany, empirical psychology became during the eighteenth century an autonomous field of academic investigation. Psychology, under that name or otherwise, gained throughout Europe the highest rank in the hierarchy of the sciences. Moreover, insofar as its object was the soul united to, and interacting with the body, and to the extent that human beings were defined precisely by such a union and "commerce", psychology became the crucial anthropological science, on which all other branches of the "science of man" were said to depend. Finally, the development during the Aufklärung of a historical discourse about empirical psychology reveals the self-consciousness attained within the emerging field by the end of the eighteenth century. Weder ist das achtzehnte Jahrhundert für die Geschichte der Psychologie ein Schwerpunkt der Forschung, noch ist die Geschichte der Psychologie ein Hauptthema der Arbeiten über die Aufklärung. Trotzdem wurde diese Ära doch lange Zeit als das qualifiziert, was ein Textbuch der modernen Philosophie als "das Jahrhundert der Psychologie" bezeichnet. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht dieses historiographische Paradoxon, und fragt, inwiefern das achtzehnte Jahrhundert die Bezeichnung "Jahrhundert der Psychologie" verdient.Für den "allgemeinen" Historiker der Aufklärung genauso wie für die Historiker der Logik, der Ästhetik, der Moralphilosophie oder der Erziehung rechtfertigt sich die Bezeichnung aus der Psychologisierung, die diese und andere Gebiete erfahren haben. Der Historiker, der sich mit den Geisteswissenschaften beschäftigt, kann ihr ebenfalls zustimmen, da die empirische Psychologie, insbesondere in Deutschland, während des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts ein eigenständiges Feld auf dem Gebiet der akademischen Forschung wurde.Die Psychologie, sei es nun unter diesem oder einem anderen Namen, erreichte in der Hierarchie der Wissenschaften in ganz Europa den höchsten Rang. Darüber hinaus wurde sie zu einer kritischen anthropologischen Wissenschaft, von der gesagt wurde, daß alle anderen "Humanwissenschaften" auf ihr beruhen. Denn ihr Gegenstand war die mit dem Körper eine Einheit bildende und mit ihm zusammen agierende Seele, und in dem Umfang, in dem die Menschen präzise durch diese Einheit und durch das "commercium" beschrieben wurden. Letztendlich spiegelt die Entwicklung eines historischen Diskurses über die empirische Psychologie während der Aufklärung das Selbstbewußtsein wieder, das innerhalb dieses aufstrebenden Bereichs gegen Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts erlangt wurde. (shrink)

This article analyzes the financial performance and managerial abilities of a sample of US and European socially responsible (SR) mutual funds. The period analyzed commences from January 1994 and concludes in January 2013 and yields 18 US and 89 European green funds. The results obtained for green fund managers are compared with those achieved for conventional and other forms of SR mutual fund managers. We control for the mutual fund investment objective (distinguishing between domestic and global portfolios) and for the (...) effect of crisis market periods. For US SR funds, partitioning the data into crisis and normal periods reveals that SR funds obtain statistically insignificant performance in crisis periods but underperform relative to the market in normal periods. Furthermore, the findings indicate that green funds do not perform worse than other forms of SR mutual funds. For European SR funds partitioning the data into crisis and normal periods reveals that SR funds obtain statistically insignificant performance irrespective of market conditions. Similar to the US findings, green Europe SR funds do not perform worse than other forms of SR mutual funds. Managerial abilities are not evident in the findings though unsuccessful timing of the market is revealed for both Europe and US global green funds. When analyzing managerial abilities in crisis and non-crisis market periods, US green fund managers achieve better results in crisis market periods and the opposite occurs for green fund managers in European market. (shrink)

Our aim in this paper is to throw some light on the kind of normativity characteristic of human knowledge. We describe the epistemic normative domain as that field of human agency defined by knowledge understood as an achievement. The normativity of knowledge rests on the contribution of the epistemic agent to the fulfillment of certain tasks. Such contribution is epistemically significant when the agent becomes engaged in the obtaining of success. Finally, we identify some features associated with full epistemic agency (...) and elucidate what we mean by engagement by appealing to the idea of adopting an epistemic perspective. En este artículo pretendemos arrojar luz sobre la normatividad propia del conocimiento humano. Describimos el dominio normativo epistémico como un campo de agencia humana que está definido por el conocimiento entendido como logro. La normatividad del conocimiento se apoya en la contribución del agente epistémico a la consecución de ciertas tareas. Tal contribución es epistémicamente significativa cuando el agente llega a participar en la consecución del éxito. Por último identificamos algunos rasgos asociados con la agencia epistémica completa, y aclaramos lo que queremos decir con implicación apelando a la idea de adoptar una perspectiva epistémica. (shrink)

El presente artículo aborda lo que se considera que son algunas de las deficiencias de la teoría contemporánea de la sociedad civil. Para ello pasa brevemente revista a la evolución histórica del concepto, y se presenta una selección de sus definiciones contemporáneas. Todas ellas manifiestan una cierta imposibilidad para contemplar la política si no es desde una polarización dualista Estado-Sociedad, que trata de superarse abriéndose el concepto de sociedad civil a una mayor interrelación entre estos dos polos. Asimismo, se afirma (...) que el recurso a la «sociedad civil» sirve para recomponer en el ámbito de la teoría y resolver de un solo golpe dos de las grandes deficiencias que asolan a las relaciones entre sistema político y sociedad: la ausencia de un sujeto unitario claramente delimitado y el déficit de integración normativa. (shrink)

Se revisan varios libros publicados recientemente que corresponderían al campo de la epistemología política. Sus autores pertenecen a tradiciones tan distintas como los Estudios sobre la Ciencia, Sociologíael Conocimiento, Epistemología, Filosofía de la Ciencia o Economía. La convergencia en este tema es el dato más significativo, habida cuenta de las bien conocidas controversias contemporáneas sobre la ciencia.El núcleo central de los trabajos es la relación entre ciencia y democracia.

The name of the Genevan critic Jean Starobinski will most likely evoke masterful\nreadings of Rousseau and Montaigne, or insightful reconstructions of the world\nof the Enlightenment. With the possible exception of the history of melancholy,\nmuch more rarely will it be associated with the history of psychology and\npsychiatry. A small number of the critic’s contributions to this field have\nappeared in some of his books. Most of them, however, remain scattered, and\nnothing suggests that they are known as widely as they deserve.\nStarobinski’s work in (...) the history of psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis\nis exemplary in its perspective of the problematic relations between\npsychological concepts and experiences, and between medical thought and the\nlarger culture. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of observation from a realist view. Observation is considered here as a process of information gathering from the environment; the performance of which will be more or less succesfull depending on the theories underlying this process.

This paper offers an account of observation from a realist view. Observation is considered here as a process of information gathering from the environment; the performance of which will be more or less succesfull depending on the theories underlying this process.

Some recent forms of reliabilism, and the epistemic virtues theory, postulate a compromise between reflectivity and informational reliability. In this paper we present a model of epistemic normativity that makes compatible the reflective instance with the physical process of information gathering.The hard core of this proposal is a concept of metarepresentation that allows to represent both the content and the process of belief formation. This new concept is provided by the Recanati´s Principle of Iconicity. We propose this principle as a (...) basis for a more robust knowledge relationship than the considered ones in the clasical forms of reliabilism. (shrink)

Truth is an epistemological concept that sometimes is claimed to have explanatory strength. It is argued, within a realistic view about causality and explanation, that concepts must represent naturalistic properties in order to have explanatory power. The eliminativistic theories about truth fail to account the use of predicate “truth” in explanatory contexts. Many antirealistic explanations of truth are reconstructed in order to sustain that thesis. Specially, we focus on the minimalist theory of truth. As we argue, we cannot eliminate the (...) predicate “truth” in some of the most relevant contexts of science and daily life. (shrink)

El presente artículo debe su aparición a las puntuales catástrofes que agitan nuestro planeta y a las oportunidades que prestan para la creación de nuevos lazos éticos. Bajo el supuesto de que toda ética posibilista debe de acomodarse a las condiciones sociales de su aparición, el presente trabajo intentará estudiar cuáles son las condiciones de emergencia de las catástrofes en nuestras sociedades modernas avanzadas. Posteriormente, a la luz de dicho estudio, se analizarán algunas de las propuestas ético-políticas aducidas para nuestro (...) tiempo , con el fin de comprobar si son o no verosímiles. Finalmente, ante la intuición de su escasa verosimilitud, intentaremos establecer las bases para la creación de nuevas solidaridades, con la ayuda de la perspectiva post-humanista en ciencias sociales. (shrink)

Belleza y sublimidad fueron dos conceptos sometidos a una profunda revisión por la estética del siglo XVIII. En relación a la belleza de los objetos, el empirismo cuestionó si realmente estaba basada en las proporciones de los mismos, o bien eran efecto de la percepción del espectador. Lo bello, por otra parte, demostró ser una categoría insuficiente para abarcar todo tipo de placeres estéticos. Se reivindicó así la categoría de lo sublime, concepto que, procediendo de la preceptiva retórica, fue trasladado (...) al ámbito de la estética y la creación artística. En este artículo se analiza la posición de Arteaga –expresada en sus dos obras principales, La belleza ideal y Le Rivoluzioni del teatro musicale italiano– en relación a ambos conceptos.Both beauty and sublimity were two concepts under a deep revisión by the eigtheen century aesthetics. Concerning the beauty of objects, empiricism objected whether it was grounded in the proportion which may be found in the very objects or it was rather due to the viewer´s sense perception. The beautiful fell short as to including all sort of aesthetical pleasures. It was thus claimed the categoy of the sublime; a concept whose origins were in the rhetoric was now placed at the center of the aesthetics and into the heart of the artistical creation. In this paper its present the analysis of both concepts concernings to Arteaga’s works: La belleza ideal and Le Revoluzioni del teatro musicale italiano. (shrink)

We discuss the conditions that the knowledge of an action must meet to reach the status of agency or complete intentional action. A first problem is to account how the subject appears in the action. We consider the model of a "sense of agency" and we oppose a theory of action control that does not take in charge the epistemological problems associated to the sense of agency model. Our claim is that epistemological requirements are intrinsic components of the agency, and (...) therefore that a theory of action must take in account an epistemological perspective in some nuclear aspects of the production of actions. (shrink)

En este artículo pretendemos arrojar luz sobre la normatividad propia del conocimiento humano. Describimos el dominio normativo epistémico como un campo de agencia humana que está definido por el conocimiento entendido como logro. La normatividad del conocimiento se apoya en la contribución del agente epistémico a la consecución de ciertas tareas. Tal contribución es epistémicamente significativa cuando el agente llega a participar en la consecución del éxito. Por último identificamos algunos rasgos asociados con la agencia epistémica completa (condiciones de integración (...) cognitiva y autonomía epistémica), y aclaramos lo que queremos decir con implicación apelando a la idea de adoptar una perspectiva epistémica. (shrink)

Se revisan varios libros publicados recientemente que corresponderían al campo de la epistemología politica. Sus autores pertenecen a tradiciones tan distintas como los Estudios sobre la Cieneia, Sociologia del Conocimiento, Epistemología, Filosafia de la Cieneia o Economía. La convergencia en este tema es el dato más significativo, habida cuenta de las bien conocidas controversias contemporaneas sabre Ia ciencia. EI nucleo central de los trabajos es la relación entre ciencia y democracia.We review a few volumes appeared in the last years about (...) the topic of Political Epistemology. The authors came from different traditions such as Science Studies, Sociology of Science, Epistemology, Philosophy of Science or Economics. This convergence is the most meaningful fact, given the well-known controversies in the general field of science. the hard core of the reviewed volumes is the relationship between science and democtratic studies. (shrink)

This paper presents a possibilistic conception of technological artifacts facing technological determinism. Technological artifacts are considered points in a space of pragmatic possibilities determined by the abilities of different sociocultural aspects. The determination process of one possibility is the design of an artifact that comes true as long as the abilities are effective. A design is a process of creation at several levels of reality: material, functional, usefulness. At the same time, the idea of design may also include the social (...) participation of the community, which hereby collectively expresses its desires. This proposed alternative responds to determinism as well as to social constructivism. (shrink)

This paper discusses theoretical issues concerning the topic of subjectivity as it has been recently developed within a cultural – historical framework. This provides a new theoretical and epistemological basis to this issue that does not lead to the misinterpretations of subjectivity found in the modern philosophical approaches to theorizing consciousness. This paper builds on interpretations related to Vygotsky’s theory of consciousness that do not follow the current dominant interpretations in Western Psychology. The analyses take departure in the concept of (...) ‘sense’ introduced by Vygotsky at the end of his work and proceeds to propose the concept of subjective sense as the corner stone for the study of subjectivity. The concept of subjective configuration is discussed and finally, the concept of social subjectivity is introduced understood as those symbolic processes and subjective senses that characterize social scenarios and institutions. (shrink)

Con recurso a las filosofías de Heidegger y Gadamer, a las que ponemos a hablar con la teoría crítica, este artículo vuelve sobre el diálogo entre filosofía e historia. Cuando se leen estos dos autores en contraste con esa otra corriente de pensamiento, empiezan a hallarse resonancias e implicaciones mutuas, así como también las divergencias que se presentan. Desde esta confrontación pretendemos acceder a una consideración del tiempo y de la historia que permita elaborar desde allí una filosofía crítica. El (...) artículo hace productiva para una filosofía social las ontologías de la historicidad y del tiempo de Gadamer y Heidegger. (shrink)

This paper analyses Edith Stein's thought in order to find out, particularly in the investigation the philosopher did about Thomas Aquinas, the metaphysical assumptions hidden in the phenomeno-logy. It tries to clarify in which way the steinian "realism of essence", based on a certain logical atomism, gives up the idealistic postulates of Husserl's philosophy.