The traditional way of understanding life, as a self-appropriating and self-organizing process of not ceasing to exist, of taking care of one's own hunger, is challenged by today's unprecedented proliferation of discourses and techniques concerning the living being. This challenge entails questioning the fundamental concepts of metaphysical thinking--namely, time, finality, and, above all, being. Garrido argues that today we are in a position to repeat Nietzsche's assertion that there is no other representation of "being" than that of "living." But in (...) order to carry out this deconstruction of ontology, we need to find new ways of asking: What is life? In this study, Garrido establishes the basic elements of the question concerning life through readings of Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida; through the discussion of scientific breakthroughs in thermodynamics and evolutionary and developmental biology; and through the reexamination of the notion of hunger in both its metaphysical and its political implications. (shrink)

En este ensayo se examina de manera crítica el desarrollo de la filosofía analítica y, en particular, de la filosofía analítica latinoamericana. Se propone que esta última adopte un giro político y uno pedagógico con el fin de recuperar su espíritu original y reconectarse con la tradición intelectual latinoamericana. This essay is a critical examination of the development of analytic philosophy and, in particular, of Latin American analytic philosophy. It is argued that the latter ought to adopt a political and (...) pedagogical turn in order to recover its original spirit and to be reconnected to Latin American intelectual tradition. (shrink)

The problem of the origin of geometry is crucial for understanding the formation and development of Derrida’s early conception of historicity. Mathematical idealities offer the most powerful example of meanings that are fully transmissible through history. Against Husserl’s explanation of the particular, Derrida considers that the logic and progression of mathematical idealities can only be explained if they are referred to non-intentional and pre-subjective movements of production and development of significations: language itself, which is structured as non-phonetic writing. Historicity is, (...) to Derrida’s eyes, the non-intentional and non-present structure at work in the formation and transmission of meaning. Therefore, pure transmissibility of meaning is an essentially equivocal and creative process. However, Derrida’s analyses fail at understanding the logic of mathematical progression. He explains it by generalizing consciousness’ inner temporality to what he describes as being the “dialecticity” of non-present temporal modes. But the dialecticity of mathematical concepts is not reducible to the dialecticity of temporal modes of experience. We cannot characterize the pre-intentional conditions of historicity if we put into brackets the concrete field in which history becomes factual, i.e. in which meaning and appearing actually historialize: the effective progression of objects. (shrink)

This article carries out a systematic exposition of the concept of the body in Jean-Luc Nancy, with all the risks of reduction that such an exposition entails. First it is necessary to return to Western philosophy’s founding text on living corporality, that is, Aristotle’s treatise on the soul. The oppositions that can be established between the Greek thinker’s psyche (soul) and Nancy’s dead Psyche are not so radical as may at first be thought: In both it is a question of (...) thinking the soul as the difference, the retreat or departure in which the exposition of bodies consists. The article continues with an analysis of touch and the self and concludes with an elaboration of the idea of the body within the general program of the deconstruction of Christianity. (shrink)

This article carries out a systematic exposition of the concept of the body in Jean-Luc Nancy, with all the risks of reduction that such an exposition entails. First it is necessary to return to Western philosophy’s founding text on living corporality, that is, Aristotle’s treatise on the soul. The oppositions that can be established between the Greek thinker’s psyche (soul) and Nancy’s dead Psyche are not so radical as may at first be thought: In both it is a question of (...) thinking the soul as the difference, the retreat or departure in which the exposition of bodies consists. The article continues with an analysis of touch and the self and concludes with an elaboration of the idea of the body within the general program of the deconstruction of Christianity. (shrink)

En el siguiente artículo, me propongo explicar y analizar las que me parecen ser las tesis filosóficas principales del libro de Pablo Oyarzún Entre Celan y Heidegger, así como proponer algunas pistas para reflexionar en torno a problemáticas relevantes que esta obra contribuye a identificar y a formular. Dos son los principales argumentos que elaboro con el fin de llevar a cabo este trabajo. El primero concierne el concepto de "sentido", que Oyarzún intenta desarrollar en tensión con lo que entiende (...) ser la "lectura hermenéutica" de la poesía de Celan , que presupone según él que el poema, como cualquier otra creación de lenguaje, quiere decir algo y por lo tanto es portador de significados accesibles para la comprensión. Frente a eso, Oyarzún opone la inaccesible insignificancia del lenguaje poético, la "pizca" de sentido cuya propiedad fundamental consiste en irrumpir en medio de la circulación y transmisión de sentido y resistir a la comprensión -pero, de ese modo, la posibilita como comprensión, dado que solo lo que la resiste logra ponerla en movimiento. El segundo argumento concierne a la significación del "dolor", que precisamente no ha de poseer ninguna "significación", so pena de ser neutralizado y obliterado como dolor. Solo la absurda crudeza del dolor, a título de acontecimiento traumático que retorna excediendo la identidad temporal de una conciencia colectiva -es la función de la "data" en la poesía de Celan-, puede dar origen a una memoria y a una historia auténticas. This paper seeks to elaborate and analyze the main philosophical import of Pablo Oyarzun's book, Entre Celan y Heidegger. Along the way, I will hint at possibilities for thinking through certain key issues that have been identified and formulated by the author. In doing so, this essay will follow two major lines of argumentation. The first trajectory will consider the concept of "sense" as it is exhibited in Oyarzun's discussion of "hermeneutic readings" of Celan's poetry in particular . According to Oyarzún, hermeneutic readings operate under the assumption that a given poem, like any other linguistic creation, possesses a definite meaning and signifies in a way that is accessible to the understanding. In response, Oyarzún elaborates the inaccessible insignificance at work in poetic language. The primary function of this insignificance can be seen in the way it bursts open the circuit of sense, thereby resisting the understanding -and, as will be seen, only that which resists the understanding can in turn put it into play. The second trajectory will then consider the meaning of "suffering" as something that must be deprived of signification if it is to overcome being neutralized and obliterated. Indeed, only the traumatic event of absurd suffering is tenacious enough to return and exceed the temporal identity of collective consciousness . Finally, I would like to suggest that it is only with suffering that authentic memory and history arise. (shrink)