La humanidad, como especie racional, trata de comprender y explicar el mundo a través de conocimientos y teorías de diversos tipos. Karl Raimund Popper, filósofo vienés, trabajó en la constitución de un mundo mejor por medio de la elaboración de concepciones sobre aquellos conocimientos y teorías que hicieran posible un acercamiento adecuado a la realidad. Nos referimos al tema del tradicionalismo y del historicismo que, junto con la dialéctica, crearon un sentido innovador para pensar el presente social. En este trabajo (...) abordaremos específicamente la crítica que hace Popper de la dialéctica, la cual confronta con su propia metodología de ensayo y error. (shrink)

Lo que me propongo exponer es una comparación de sistemas, el dela dirección del tiempo con el sistema de la causalidad, donde me parecemás básico o plausible en una teoría metafísica elegir la direccióndel tiempo con un sentido de antes a después, porque de esta maneranos permite dar una explicación coherente y lógica de la realidad queestamos percibiendo.

In The Grammar of Society, first published in 2006, Cristina Bicchieri examines social norms, such as fairness, cooperation, and reciprocity, in an effort to understand their nature and dynamics, the expectations that they generate, and how they evolve and change. Drawing on several intellectual traditions and methods, including those of social psychology, experimental economics and evolutionary game theory, Bicchieri provides an integrated account of how social norms emerge, why and when we follow them, and the situations where we are (...) most likely to focus on relevant norms. Examining the existence and survival of inefficient norms, she demonstrates how norms evolve in ways that depend upon the psychological dispositions of the individual and how such dispositions may impair social efficiency. By contrast, she also shows how certain psychological propensities may naturally lead individuals to evolve fairness norms that closely resemble those we follow in most modern societies. (shrink)

In Norms in the Wild, distinguished philosopher Cristina Bicchieri argues that when it comes to human behavior, social scientists place too much stress on rational deliberation. In fact, she says, many choices occur without much deliberation at all. Two people passing in a corridor automatically negotiate their shared space; cars at an intersection obey traffic signals; we choose clothing based on our instincts for what is considered appropriate. Bicchieri's theory of social norms accounts for these automatic components of coordination, (...) where individuals react automatically to cues that focus their attention on what the norm is in that situation. Social norms thus act as rules for making choices in a social world where people expect others -- often unconsciously -- to follow the same rule. Some norms enable seamless social co-operation, while others are less beneficial to human flourishing.Bicchieri is famous for her interdisciplinary work on game theory and most recently her work on social norms, and Norms in the Wild represents her latest challenge to many of the fundamental assumptions of the social sciences. Bicchieri's work has broad implications not only for understanding human behavior, but for changing it for better outcomes. People have a strongly conditioned preference for following social norms, but that also means that manipulating their expectations can cause major behavioral changes. Bicchieri has been working recently with UNICEF and other NGO's to explore the applicability of her views to issues of human rights around the world. Is it possible to change social expectations around forced marriage, genital mutilations, and public health practices like vaccinations and sanitation? If so, how? What tools might we use? This short book explores how social norms work, and how changing them - changing preferences, beliefs, and especially social expectations - can potentially improve lives all around the world. It will appeal to an unusually broad range of readers including philosophers, psychologists and others in behavioral sciences, and anyone involved in public policy or at NGOs. (shrink)

The Meno is often interpreted as an illustration of Plato’s decision to replace elenchus with recollection and the method of hypothesis. My paper challenges this view and defends instead two theses: that far from replacing elenchus, the method of hypothesis incorporates and uses elenctic arguments in order to test and build its own steps; and that recollection is not a method of search on a par with elenchus and the method of hypothesis, but is rather primarily a theory that accounts (...) for the metaphysical horizon within which the method of hypothesis, coupled with elenchus and perhaps other dialectical methods, can lead us from opinions to knowledge. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: This article addresses two main concerns: first, the relation between the truth/falsehood and purity/impurity criteria as applied to pleasure, and, second, the status of our pleasures of learning. In addressing the first, I argue that Plato keeps the truth/falsehood and purity/impurity criteria distinct in his assessment of pleasures and thus leaves room for the possibility of hybrid pleasures in the form of true impure pleasures and false pure pleasures. In addressing the second issue, I show that Plato's view is (...) perfectly able to accommodate an understanding of our pleasures of learning as pure pleasures even if such pleasures are preceded by awareness of a lack (ignorance).RÉSUMÉ: Cet article aborde deux concepts principaux: premièrement, la relation entre les critères de vérité/fausseté et de pureté/impureté appliqués au plaisir, et deuxièmement, le statut de notre plaisir d'apprendre. En abordant le premier concept, j'argumente que Platon tient distincts les critères de vérité/fausseté et de'pureté Iimpureté dans son évaluation du plaisir, laissant ouverte la possibilité de plaisirs hybrides sous forme de vrais plaisirs impurs et faux plaisirs purs. En abordant le deuxième concept, je montre que le point de vue de Platon est parfaitement capable d'accommoder la compréhension de nos plaisirs d'apprendre comme plaisirs purs si de tels plaisirs sont précédés par la conscience d'un manque (ignorance). (shrink)

Recent studies have proposed that the executive advantages associated with bilingualism may stem from language-switching frequency rather than from bilingualism per se (see for example, Prior & Gollan, 2011). Barbu, Gillet, Orban and Poncelet (2018) showed that high-frequency language switchers outperformed low-frequency switchers on a mental flexibility task but not on alertness or response inhibition tasks. The aim of the present study was to replicate these results as well as to compare proficient high and low-frequency bilingual language switchers to a (...) control group of monolingual participants. Two groups of proficient bilingual adults (30 high-frequency language switchers and 21 low-frequency language switchers) and a group of 28 monolinguals participated in the study. The results showed superior mental flexibility skills in high-frequency language switchers compared to low-frequency switchers and monolinguals; furthermore, the two latter groups showed no difference in mental flexibility skills. These results provide novel support for the hypothesis that the so-called bilingual advantage is, in fact, a result of language-switching habits. (shrink)

This paper analyses the contagious nature of the paradox as the functioning principle of Deleuze and Guattari’s writing machines, aiming to emphasize the semiotic and socio-political contributions of any linguistic enterprise structurally based in paradoxes. Beckett’s texts are discussed here, as they are in Deleuze and Guattari’s works, as component abstract machines apt to couple themselves to other abstract machines in order to generate increasingly sophisticated and far-reaching liberatory procedures. As the paper shows, paradox-based discourses of the highest degree of (...) sophistication can bypass traditional models of “understanding,” replacing traditional requirements of textual interpretation with always-fruitful and immediate affective models of contact and “work” with the text. Consequently, repeated exposure to paradox-based discourses is apt to generate sophisticated affects, delineating powerful procedures to obstruct repression mechanisms and articulating a model of empowerment based on contagion rather than hierarchical distribution. (shrink)

Sanday reads the Statesman as intertwining images with dialectical thinking. On the one hand, we advance from opinions to knowledge by gradually turning away from images and embracing rational arguments instead; on the other, dialectical knowledge must rely on images in order to be effective for the political community. My present comments come not to challenge, but rather to complement, and perhaps refine, Sanday’s account. I begin by highlighting the distinction that the Stranger draws between types of images, namely as (...) perceptible likenesses and as likenesses in account respectively, and then reflect on how this distinction helps in leading the interlocutor’s search for the nature of statesmanship as well as in implementing insights in the practical life of the city. All of this supports the view that Plato has never had a problem with imitation or images as such, but only with our ignorance vis-à-vis our engagement with imitation and usage of images, and with our ignorance as to what are the objects that we imitate, in other words, figuring out whether they are images of Forms or of sensible things. (shrink)

Several researchers have proposed that humans are predisposed to treat ethnic identities as stable and inherent. However, the ethnographic, historical, and genetic records attest to the ubiquity of inter-ethnic migrations across human history. These two claims seem to be at odds. In this article we compare three evolutionary accounts of how people reason about identity stability, and the effect that the cultural evolution of ethnic group boundaries may have on these beliefs. We test our hypotheses among Himba pastoralists in Namibia, (...) whose recent fission from the neighboring Herero makes them ideal for studying the effect of cultural distance on folk beliefs about identity stability. In a vignette experiment, we asked participants whether an individual born in one group who moved to another group would retain their original group membership and cultural characteristics or acquire those of the new group. Across vignette conditions we examine the importance of the direction of migration, parental social influence, and age at migration on perceptions of identity stability. We also compare participant responses to two out-groups, the Herero, and the more distantly related Damara. We find that participants seldom thought of identity as stable or fixed at birth. Furthermore, we show that cultural distance and endogamous preferences are independent of beliefs of identity stability. Himba believed the Damara character was more likely to change identity and cultural traits than was the Herero character, despite their greater cultural distance from the former group, and despite the fact that all participants expressed more anti-Damara than anti-Herero sentiment. (shrink)

This article aims to show the consistency of Simone Weil’s political thought. To this end, I will analyze some of her main writings in which a tension is displayed between an accentuated political realism and a critical longing for a politics free from the subjection to force and the legitimation of the status quo. From this point of view, Weil’s thought can be understood as a form of political mysticism in which the images, notions, and symbols of mysticism serve the (...) purpose to innervate a renewed political rationality. (shrink)

La instauración de un vínculo entre historia y poder es uno de los aspectos más interesantes del pensamiento político de la filósofa francesa Simone Weil. Durante la primera mitad del siglo XX, Weil desarrolla unas reflexiones en torno al concepto de historia, desde la perspectiva de los vencidos, que aproximan su especulación a la de su contemporáneo Walter Benjamin. La comparación con Benjamin permite acercar el pensamiento weiliano a las recientes teorías de la justicia anamnética y, más en general, a (...) la exigencia actual de incorporar en el discurso político el punto de vista de las víctimas. (shrink)

English summary: The relationship between physics and metaphysics is one of the core questions at the heart of Aristotelian philosophy. The collected studies in this volume explore the epistemological connections between these two sciences, and especially certain essential points raised in Greek and Arabic history concerning this debate. French description: La question de savoir quel type de rapport entretiennent la physique et la metaphysique est au coeur du systeme philosophique d'Aristote. Ce rapport, toutefois, n'est pas facile a saisir, non seulement (...) parce qu'Aristote ne l'a jamais defini de facon claire, mais parce qu'il est delicat d'en comprendre la nature a la lumiere de la theorie de la science exposee dans les Seconds Analytiques. En effet, Aristote affirme d'une part que la metaphysique, concue comme science universelle, n'a pas de genre-sujet propre, et d'autre part que la physique, quoique seconde par rapport a la metaphysique, en assure le fondement. C'est de ce rapport ambivalent que decoule le plus grand nombre d'apories liees au statut epistemologique de chacune des deux sciences comme a la nature de leur rapport. Les contributions reunies dans ce recueil s'inscrivent dans ce contexte theorique complexe. Elles portent moins sur la difficulte de comprendre le critere ou les criteres d'organisation des traites qu'on appelle Metaphysique et Physique que sur celle de presenter et de justifier l'entrelacement epistemologique de ces deux sciences, concues comme deux disciplines unitaires mais plurielles. Sans pretendre reconstruire l'histoire de la question, l'un des enjeux de ce volume fut aussi de degager, passe le texte meme d'Aristote, certains points nodaux de l'histoire grecque et arabe du debat. (shrink)

El artículo analiza los modelos de estados de bienestar y su relación con las políticas públicas familiares. Señala el olvido de la perspectiva de género, mainstreaming, en el diseño de las políticas públicas familiares de los estados de bienestar europeos. Apunta a que tras ese olvido se esconde la división sexual del trabajo: hombres espacio productivo, mujeres tareas domésticas y la no consideración del trabajo doméstico y de los cuidados como trabajo. Finalmente, el artículo hace una revisión crítica de los (...) diez años de política de conciliación en España y distingue dos tipos de políticas públicas familiares: políticas de conciliación y políticas de igualdad. (shrink)

A proposta de refletir sobre a potência dos afetos na e para a educação emergiu da vivência experienciada em discussão interdisciplinar na disciplina “Ensino-aprendizagem: questões contemporâneas”, no Programa de Mestrado em Letras e Ciências Humanas da Universidade do Grande Rio. Destarte, o presente artigo apresenta, em sua estrutura, três objetivos interligados para dar razão à prática docente. Primeiramente, traçou-se a análise sobre a importância do conhecimento, consoante Spinoza, acerca de nossos afetos para sustentar o argumento de a educação ser um (...) processo de aprendizado com foco na liberdade e na autonomia. Para isso, discute-se a proposta desse filósofo com a finalidade de abstrair as ideias e os argumentos necessários à compreensão de como esses afetos agem sobre o corpo e a mente e, então, apontar a como os conceitos spinozianos do desejo tornam-se balizadores de práticas contemporâneas. Nesse tópico, são discutidos como os afetos oferecem subsídios para aumentar a capacidade de agir e de ser atuante em relação à própria vida. Posteriormente, são abordados os gêneros de conhecimento, conceito central desenvolvido por Spinoza, por meio do qual se torna possível o entendimento de como ocorre a passagem da passividade – submissão passional às causas externas – à ação ou à atividade, fortalecendo as paixões alegres e o desejo, que é a própria essência do homem. Finalmente, propõe-se articular a prática educacional à teoria dos afetos de Spinoza, a fim de pensar como um professor pode promover bons encontros com o conhecimento, possibilitando, assim, que os discentes possam ser afetados ao máximo pelas paixões alegres e possam reforçar sua potência de agir. Palavras-chave: Spinoza. Educação. Afetos. Conhecimento. Liberdade. (shrink)

In this essay I analyze some conceptual difficulties associated with the demand that global institutions be made more democratically accountable. In the absence of a world state, it may seem inconsistent to insist that global institutions be accountable to all those subject to their decisions while also insisting that the members of these institutions, as representatives of states, simultaneously remain accountable to the citizens of their own countries for the special responsibilities they have towards them. This difficulty seems insurmountable in (...) light of the widespread acceptance of a state-centric conception of human rights, according to which states and only states bear primary responsibility for the protection of their citizens' rights. Against this conception, I argue that in light of the current structures of global governance the monistic ascription of human rights obligations to states is no longer plausible. Under current conditions, states are bound to fail in their ability to protect the human rights of their citizens whenever potential violations either stem from transnational regulations or are perpetrated by non-state actors. In order to show the plausibility of an alternative, pluralist conception of human rights obligations I turn to the current debate among scholars of international law regarding the human rights obligations of non-state actors. I document the various ways in which these obligations could be legally entrenched in global financial institutions such as the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank. These examples indicate feasible methods for strengthening the democratic accountability of these institutions while also respecting the accountability that participating member states owe to their own citizens. I conclude that, once the distinctions between the obligations to respect, protect and fulfill human rights are taken into account, no conceptual difficulty remains in holding states and non-state actors accountable for their respective human rights obligations. (shrink)

8 March, now known as International Women’s Day, is a day for feminist claims where demonstrations are organized in over 150 countries, with the participation of millions of women all around the world. These demonstrations can be viewed as collective rituals and thus focus attention on the processes that facilitate different psychosocial effects. This work aims to explore the mechanisms involved in participation in the demonstrations of 8 March 2020, collective and ritualized feminist actions, and their correlates associated with personal (...) well-being and collective well-being, collective efficacy and collective growth, and behavioral intention to support the fight for women’s rights. To this end, a cross-cultural study was conducted with the participation of 2,854 people from countries in Latin America and Europe, with a retrospective correlational cross-sectional design and a convenience sample. Participants were divided between demonstration participants and non-demonstrators or followers who monitored participants through the media and social networks. Compared with non-demonstrators and with males, female and non-binary gender respondents had greater scores in mechanisms and criterion variables. Further random-effects model meta-analyses revealed that the perceived emotional synchrony was consistently associated with more proximal mechanisms, as well as with criterion variables. Finally, sequential moderation analyses showed that proposed mechanisms successfully mediated the effects of participation on every criterion variable. These results indicate that participation in 8M marches and demonstrations can be analyzed through the literature on collective rituals. As such, collective participation implies positive outcomes both individually and collectively, which are further reinforced through key psychological mechanisms, in line with a Durkheimian approach to collective rituals. (shrink)

David Lewis may be regarded as an antiessentialist. The reason is that he is said to believe that individuals do not have essential properties independent of the ways they are represented. According to him, indeed, the properties that are determined to be essential to individuals are a matter of which similarity relations among individuals are salient, and salience, in turn, is a contextual matter also determined to some extent by the ways individuals are represented. Todd Buras argues that the acknowledgment (...) of natural properties in counterpart theoretic ontology affects Lewis’s theory with regard to essentialism. Buras’s reasoning is appealing. He claims that, since natural properties determine the existence of similarity relations among individuals that are salient independent of context, Lewis can no longer be claimed to be an antiessentialist. The aim of this paper is to argue, against Buras, that if counterpart theory was antiessentialist before natural properties were taken into account, then it remains so afterwards. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss the problem of the neural conditions of shared attitudes and intentions: which neural mechanisms underlie “we-mode” processes or serve as precursors to such processes? Neurophysiological and neuropsychological evidence suggests that in different areas of the brain neural representations are shared by several individuals. This situation, on the one hand, creates a potential problem for correct attribution. On the other hand, it may provide the conditions for shared attitudes and intentions.

Embora a relação entre subjectividade e tempo seja fulcral para a fenomenologia, é-o sempre com o intuito de fundamentar ontologicamente a consciência na sua verdade A grande originalidade de Levinas consiste em abandonar o plano do cogito e, consequentem.