Josep Maria Capdevila (1892-1972) és un dels intel·lectuals més destacats de la primera meitat del segle XX a Catalunya. L’autor n’ha resseguit el pensament, reconstruint-ne significativament la formació intel·lectual, el món ideològic i les idees estètiques, per acabar amb una digressió sobre el punt de partença de la filosofia.

In describing and explaining the sexes, medicine and science participated in the delineation of what was "feminine" and what was "masculine" in the Middle Ages. Hildegard of Bingen and Albertus Magnus, among others, writing about gynecology, the human constitution, fetal development, or the naturalistic dimensions of divine Creation, became increasingly interested in issues surrounding reproduction and sexuality. Did women as well as men produce procreative seed? How did the physiology of the sexes influence their healthy states and their susceptibility to (...) disease? Who derived more pleasure from sexual intercourse, men or women? The answers to such questions created a network of flexible concepts which did not endorse a single model of male-female relations, but did affect views on the health consequences of sexual abstinence for women and men and on the allocation of responsibility for infertility - problems with much social and religious significance in the Middle Ages. Sometimes at odds with, and sometimes in accord with other forces in medieval society, medicine and natural philosophy helped to construct a set of notions that divided significant portions of the world - from the behavior of animals to the operations of astrological signs - into "masculine" and "feminine." Even cases that seemed to exist outside the definitions of this duality, for example, hermaphrodite features or homosexual behavior, were brought under control by the application of gendered labels, such as "masculine women.". (shrink)

The best framework for moral and political thought is the one that creates the best climate for good political judgments. I argue that universalistic theories of justice fall short in this regard because they cannot distinguish idealization from abstraction. After describing how an ethic of care guides judgments, I suggest the practical effects that make this approach preferable. The ethic of care includes more aspects of human life in making political judgments.

This paper traces the history of uses of the word “gender”. It suggests that though “gender” has been recuperated and become commonplace, many issues persist around the way “women” and “men”, and the power relations between them, are defined and are evolving. Provided it still allows us to question the meanings attached to the sexes, how they are established and in what contexts, gender remains a useful, because critical, analytical category.

_A new, definitive translation of Heidegger's most important work._.

Sophia De Morgan’s Memoir of Augustus De Morgan highlights the difficulty of creating a unified picture of a scientific life. It also provides a critical perspective from which to view the chronological development of the modern “scientist” from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries.

Universalistic claims about the nature of justice are presumed to require larger commitments from a global perspective than partialist claims. This essay departs from standard partialist accounts by anchoring partialist claims in a different account of the nature of responsibility. In contrast to substantive responsibility, which is akin to an obligation and derived from principles, relational responsibilities grow out of relationships and their complex intertwining. While such accounts of responsibility are less clear cut, they will prove in the long run (...) to be more valuable in thinking about global ethics. I illustrate this point by considering the moral issue surrounding abandoned relationships. The approach offered here—partiality that rests upon relational responsibilities—makes the responsibilities owed by those in higher income countries towards lower income countries much richer and more complex than is usually presumed. (shrink)

This paper proposes an introduction to the Kierkegaardian relation between freedom and truth. In order to do this, mainly paying attention to his Philosophical Fragments, it begins with the Socratic problem of acquiring truth. After this, it focuses on truth as the fruit of God’s free love, whence emerges the topic of freedom. Finally, this theme leads to the Kierkegaardian account of becoming, and specifically to the relation between possibility and reality. Throughout this exposition, the central concept that articulates this (...) itinerary is the “instant”, understanding it as the point of convergence between the eternal and the temporal, stressing the paradox therein. (shrink)

This study examines the Critique of Pure Reason to determine its importance for Kant's ethical philosophy. It discusses Kant's many remarks on ethical matters in the First Critique and also the ethical significance of his arguments in that work. In its Prefaces Kant explains that the argument of the Critique is a two-sided one that limits reason in its speculative employment, while at the same time opening up and establishing a field for reason's practical employment. This study examines the neglected (...) positive side of Kant's argument. It shows how many of the concepts central to Kant's account of practical reason are already presented in his description of pure reason. The focus of this study is on the theme of freedom as it is presented in the First Critique. I show how one can find three descriptions of freedom in this work: the freedom necessary for the activity of thought, the transcendental freedom Kant describes as an idea of pure reason, and the practical freedom exhibited in free will. ;The thesis consists of an Introduction, four chapters, and a Conclusion. Chapter one shows how Kant's statement of his project in the Prefaces and Introduction indicates the importance in the First Critique of discussions of freedom and other practical matters. Chapter two analyzes the significance of the Transcendental Aesthetic for Kant's conception of freedom and practical reason. Chapter three discusses further developments from the Transcendental Analytic, most importantly, its descriptions of both the active and categorical structure of human reason. Chapter four explores Kant's discussions of transcendental and practical freedom in the Antinomy and Canon of Pure Reason. Throughout this study I point out evidence for Kant's claim that pure and practical reason are "the same," by indicating both where and how concepts presented in the First Critique are repeated and developed in Kant's ethical works. In chapters two, three, and four of this study I also discuss Martin Heidegger's published writings and lectures on the First Critique because Heidegger offers an interpretation that highlights the ethical significance of Kant's arguments in the Critique. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Das Mittelalter Jahrgang: 19 Heft: 2 Seiten: 420-452.

Arendt wrote that "to think what we are doing" may make humans "abstain from evil-doing." I suggest that there is more to it than that. Moral Acuity is a phrase I use to discuss how one can know the right thing to do, often practically without thinking, when situations involving evil arise. Evil, for my purposes, refers to the causing of great harm to another. I propose that to be Morally Acute one must have the capacity for independent judgments and (...) possess sympathetic awareness of suffering. One must be able to make decisions independent of others. And, one must emphasize the suffering of the victim in moral decision-making. "Truly bringing the victim to mind" is a phrase which illustrates these two attributes. Truly bringing the victim to mind underscores the need for a kind of accuracy or acuity of perception unfettered by ego, belief, peers or cultural norm. Truly bringing the victim to mind emphasizes that the victim's experience be foremost in one's mind, that the suffering of another take precedence over other elements of particular circumstances. ;I stress the need for literacy regarding evil and those who refuse. I offer suggestions for moral development which stress the importance of thinking for oneself as well as the benefits of being able to see things from another person's perspective. The combination, while not the only channel for doing the right thing, will, I suggest, increase the likelihood. To be thought-full and clear-headed and sensitive to harm will, in the long run--and doesn't common sense tell us this anyway?--be the best route to determining the right thing to do. (shrink)

: Are social movements responsible for their unfinished agendas? Feminist successes in opening the professions to women paved the way for the emergence of the upper middle-class two-career household. These households sometimes hire domestic servants to accomplish their child care work. If, as I shall argue, this practice is unjust and furthers social inequality, then it poses a moral problem for any feminist commitment to social justice.

Contributors to this volume demonstrate how the ethics of care factors into a variety of social policies and institutions, and can indeed be useful in thinking about a number of different social problems. Divided into two sections, the first looks at care as a model for an evaluative framework that rethinks social institutions, liberal society, and citizenship at a basic conceptual level. The second explores care values in the context of specific social practices or settings, as a framework that should (...) guide thinking. (shrink)

A standard view in ethics is that ethical issues concern a different range of human concerns than does politics. This essay goes beyond the long-standing dispute about the extent to which applied ethics needs a commitment to ethical theory. It argues that regardless of the outcome of that dispute, applied ethics, because it presumes something about the nature of authority, rests upon and is implicated in political theory. After internalist and externalist accounts of applied ethics are described, “mixed” approaches are (...) considered that contain inevitable political dimensions. A feminist alternative, Walker’s metaethic of responsibility, shows that authority is best understood as relational and that situations of unequal power are therefore often the places where applied ethics arises. Furthermore, in a democratic society, commitments to democracy should shape the account of authority, and, thus, the nature of applied ethics as well. (shrink)

This paper develops a simple, conceptual, mathematical model for the evolution of holobionts. Its purpose is to clarify how holobiont selection may cause evolutionary change in the traits of holobionts.

A holobiont is a composite organism consisting of a host together with its microbiome, such as a coral with its zooxanthellae. To explain the often intimate integration between hosts and their microbiomes, some investigators contend that selection operates on holobionts as a unit and view the microbiome’s genes as extending the host’s nuclear genome to jointly comprise a hologenome. Because vertical transmission of microbiomes is uncommon, other investigators contend that holobiont selection cannot be effective because a holobiont’s microbiome is an (...) acquired condition rather than an inherited trait. This disagreement invites a simple mathematical model to see how holobiont selection might operate and to assess its plausibility as an evolutionary force. This paper presents two variants of such a model. In one variant, juvenile hosts obtain microbiomes from their parents (vertical transmission). In the other variant, microbiomes of juvenile hosts are assembled from source pools containing the combined microbiomes of all parents (horizontal transmission). According to both variants, holobiont selection indeed causes evolutionary change in holobiont traits. Therefore, holobiont selection is plausibly an effective evolutionary force with either mode of microbiome transmission. The modeling employs two distinct concepts of inheritance, depending on the mode of microbiome transmission: collective inheritance whereby juveniles inherit a sample of the collected genomes from all parents, as contrasted with lineal inheritance whereby juveniles inherit the genomes from only their own parents. A distinction between collective and lineal inheritance also features in theories of multilevel selection. (shrink)

The Question of the Self Perhaps the clearest access to the question of the self in Dogen lies in the fascicle of Shobogenzo entitled "Genjo-koan. ...

At least since the seventeenth century, the strange combination of epistemological certainty and ontological power that characterizes mathematics has made it a major focus of philosophical, social, and cultural negotiation. In the eighteenth century, all of these factors were at play as mathematical thinkers struggled to assimilate and extend the analysis they had inherited from the seventeenth century. A combination of educational convictions and historical assumptions supported a humanistic mathematics essentially defined by its flexibility and breadth. This mathematics was an (...) expression of l’esprit humain, which was unfolding in a progressive historical narrative. The French Revolution dramatically altered the historical and educational landscapes that had supported this eighteenth‐century approach, and within thirty years Augustin Louis Cauchy had radically reconceptualized and restructured mathematics to be rigorous rather than narrative. (shrink)

The ArgumentIt has long been apparent that in the nineteenth century, mathematics in France and England developed along different lines. The differences, which might well be labelled stylistic, are most easy to see on the foundational level. At first this may seem surprising because it is such a fundamental area, but, upon reflection, it is to be expected. Ultimately discussions about the foundations of mathematics turn on views about what mathematics is, and this is a question which is answered by (...) a variety of different groups including mathematicians, students, curricular planners, parents, etc. Mathematical practice rests on some kind of mixture of the answers to this fundamental question which come from these diverse groups. Comparing the cultural matrices which supported mathematics in France and Britain in the first decades of the nineteenth century sheds light on the real though often subtle differences in the ways the subject was pursued in the two countries. (shrink)

Stambaugh (philosophy, City U. of New York) elucidates one of the central themes in the work of German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), based on her talks with him, and on her extensive study of his works, several of which she has ...

Psychodynamic theory and practice are often misunderstood as appropriate only for the worried well or for those whose problems are minimal or routine. Nothing could be further from the truth. This book shows how psychodynamically informed, clinically based social care is essential to working with individuals whose problems are both psychological and social. Each chapter addresses populations struggling with structural inequities, such as racism, classism, and discrimination based on immigrant status, language differences, disability, and sexual orientation. The authors explain how (...) to provide psychodynamically informed assessment and practice when working with those suffering from mental illness, addiction, homelessness, and cognitive, visual, or auditory impairments, as well as people in prisons, in orphanages, and on child welfare. The volume supports the idea that becoming aware of ourselves helps us understand ourselves: a key approach for helping clients contain and name their feelings, deal with desire and conflict, achieve self-regulation and self-esteem, and alter attachment styles toward greater agency and empowerment. Yet autonomy and empowerment are not birthrights; they are capacities that must be fostered under optimal clinical conditions. This collection uses concepts derived from drive theory, ego psychology, object relations, trauma theory, attachment theory, self psychology, relational theories, and intersubjectivity in clinical work with vulnerable and oppressed populations. Contributors are experienced practitioners whose work with vulnerable populations has enabled them to elicit and find common humanity with their clients. The authors consistently convey respect for the considerable strength and resilience of the populations with whom they work. Emphasizing both the inner and social structural lives of client and clinician and their interacting social identities, this anthology uniquely realizes the complexity of clinical practice with diverse populations. (shrink)

Are social movements responsible for their unfinished agendas? Feminist successes in opening the professions to women paved the way for the emergence of the upper middle-class two-career household. These households sometimes hire domestic servants to accomplish their child care work. If, as I shall argue, this practice is unjust and furthers social inequality, then it poses a moral problem for any feminist commitment to social justice.

I draw from my papers and oral presentations to address several issues of Core and Neo‐shamanism. These include clarification of definitions and distinctions between traditional shamans, Core shamanism, Neo‐shamanism, and urban shamanism. Finally I propose an evaluation of Core and Neo‐shamanism.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:PrefaceJoan Ramon ResinaAt a time when critical practices are moving beyond poststructuralism into an area that only with considerable effrontery could be labeled by means of another post-, diacritics enters a new phase without forsaking its commitment to the best and most daring contemporary criticism. The journal aims to reinvigorate itself by reaffirming its origin in Romance Studies and recapturing its balance between an ample zone of relative cultural (...) identity and the various (and multiplying) specificities that turn the mirage of identity into a criss-crossing of relations. The purpose is not to look back to a traditional discipline but forward to emerging areas of intellectual endeavor that are changing the long-established balance of critical interests both inside and outside the discipline. With this object in mind, diacritics will devote attention to critical and theoretical issues relating to the Romance cultures of America, including Francophone Canada, Brazil, the Spanish-speaking countries, and US Latino culture. Concurrently, it will widen its long-established interest in French cultural studies and theory to include the many cultures of the Mediterranean basin. The space of these cultures, which once constituted the West’s cultural, economic, and political horizon, is now reemerging as a crucial axis and the place of articulation between a reconfigurating Europe, a fast-changing Africa, and a critical Near East. Thus diacritics intends to maintain its strong metacritical tradition while enhancing the scope of cultural issues in keeping with its proven combination of theoretical rigor, cultural focus, and wide-angled concerns.Copyright © 1999 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

Presents new ways of understanding the old dichotomy city vs country in an effort to think through the epistemological and artistic implications of the modern antinomy's demise, whereby the non-city ceases to be the city's absolute other.

ArgumentThis paper traces the changing fortunes of natural theology in two generations of an English family. The group is represented in the first generation by the Unitarian radical, William Frend, and in the second by the spiritualist Sophia Frend De Morgan and her husband, the mathematician Augustus De Morgan. The Frend/DeMorgans were distinguished from the naturalistic Darwins by their commitment to reason; they were a quintessentially urban group whose impulses to natural theology flowed from a God they encountered through their (...) minds. For William Frend, natural theology was rooted in a tightly disciplined, linguistic view of reason that linked theological and mathematical understandings; in the De Morgan's generation, however, understandings of mathematics and of language changed in ways that undercut the power of Frend's reasoned approach. In its rise and fall this family story of reasoned theology is co-temporal with the natural theology that was wrecked on the rocks of Darwinian evolutionary theory. (shrink)

Mathematics is the most chameleon of subjects, whose meaning is differently defined in different circumstances. This essay considers the mathematics of Augustus De Morgan as an illustration of the ways that the essence of the subject, the very objects that are included within it, has been adjusted in response to cultural factors. Since these cultural factors are the same ones that shape scientific development, the argument is that the history of mathematics and the history of science are always inextricably bound (...) to one another. (shrink)