Clarifies and systematises the concepts and presuppositions behind the influential new field of assemblage theoryRead and download the preface, by series editor Graham Harman, and the Introduction to Assemblage Theory for free nowManuel DeLanda provides the first detailed overview of the assemblage theory found in germ in Deleuze and Guattari's writings. Through a series of case studies DeLanda shows how the concept can be applied to economic, linguistic and military history as well as to metaphysics, science and mathematics.DeLanda then presents (...) the real power of assemblage theory by advancing it beyond its original formulation allowing for the integration of communities, institutional organisations, cities and urban regions. And he challenges Marxist orthodoxy with a Leftist politics of assemblages.Key FeaturesCritically connects DeLanda with more recent theoretical turns in speculative realismMakes sense of the fragmentary discussions of assemblage theory in the work of Deleuze and GuattariOpens up assemblage theory to sociology, linguistics, military organisations and science so that future researchers can rigorously deploy the concept in their own fields"e. (shrink)

Theoretical tools aimed at making explicit the injustices suffered by certain socially disadvantaged groups might end up serving purposes which were not foreseen when the tools were first introduced. Nothing is inherently wrong with a shift in the scope of a theoretical tool: the popularization of a concept opens up the possibility of its use for several strategic purposes. The thesis that we defend in this paper is that some public figures cultivate a public persona for whom the conditions of (...) the notion of testimonial injustice might be taken to apply, and this situation is exploited to their advantage, as a means to advance their political agendas. More specifically, they take advantage of this to generate situations of crossed disagreements, which in turn foster polarization. (shrink)

Recent years have seen recurring episodes of tension between proponents of freedom of speech and advocates of the disenfranchised. Recent survey research attests to the ideological division in attitudes toward free speech, whereby conservatives report greater support for free speech than progressives do. Intrigued by the question of whether “canceling” is indeed a uniquely progressive tendency, we conducted a vignette-based experiment examining judgments of offensiveness among progressives and conservatives. Contrary to the dominant portrayal of progressives and conservatives, our study documented (...) ideological symmetry in their evaluations of offensive speech. When faced with utterances whose content matters to them, both conservatives and progressives viewed outgroup speakers as more offensive than ingroup speakers. A second contribution of this chapter is to provide a deeper understanding of the cognitive mechanism implicated in evaluating outgroup speech as more offensive than ingroup speech. Our results suggest that perception of offensiveness is mediated by ascriptions of intent: we tend to attribute negative intent to the speaker whenever we deem their utterances to be offensive, even against the explicitly stated speaker’s background attitudes. (shrink)

Most experimental studies of facial expression processing have used static stimuli (photographs), yet facial expressions in daily life are generally dynamic. In its original photographic format, the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces (KDEF) has been frequently utilized. In the current study, we validate a dynamic version of this database, the KDEF-dyn. To this end, we applied animation between neutral and emotional expressions (happy, sad, angry, fearful, disgusted, and surprised; 1,033-ms unfolding) to 40 KDEF models, with morphing software. Ninety-six human observers categorized (...) the expressions of the resulting 240 video-clip stimuli, and automated face analysis assessed the evidence for 6 expressions and 20 facial action units (AUs) at 31 intensities. Low-level image properties (luminance, signal-to-noise ratio, etc.) and other purely perceptual factors (e.g., size, unfolding speed) were controlled. Human recognition performance (accuracy, efficiency, and confusions) patterns were consistent with prior research using static and other dynamic expressions. Automated assessment of expressions and AUs was sensitive to intensity manipulations. Significant correlations emerged between human observers’ categorization and automated classification. The KDEF-dyn database aims to provide a balance between experimental control and ecological validity for research on emotional facial expression processing. The stimuli and the validation data are available to the scientific community. (shrink)

According to the partisan cheerleading view, numerous political disagreements that appear to be genuine are not authentic disputes, because partisans _deliberately_ misreport their beliefs to show support for their parties. Recently, three arguments have been put forth to support this view. First, contemporary democracies are characterized by affective rather than ideological polarization. Second, financial incentives indicate that partisans often deliberately misreport their beliefs to express their attitudes. Third, partisans have inconsistent and unstable political beliefs, so we should not take these (...) attitudes seriously. In this paper, I examine these arguments and present an alternative view, which I call the partisan conviction view. According to it, partisans are not necessarily insincere in their political judgments, and they are in genuine disagreement. (shrink)

There has been a growing interest within analytic philosophy in addressing political and social issues, which has been referred to as the “political turn” in the discipline. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it discusses the very characterization of the political turn. In particular, it introduces the definition proposed by Bordonaba-Plou, Fernández-Castro, and Torices, suggests that we should not consider the turn a form of activism, and explores an additional benefit of the ideal/nonideal distinction for characterizing the turn. (...) Second, it addresses the concern of what attitude we should take in the face of the different sensitivities we might have with respect to what constitutes an injustice. Which philosophical works should count as part of the political turn? The paper explores three different attitudes toward this dilemma, and favors what it calls the revisionist attitude, which emphasizes the fact that our perception of injustice is subject to error. (shrink)

It has been found that children appreciate the limited substitutability of co-referential terms in opaque contexts a year or two after they pass false belief tasks (e.g. Apperly and Robinson, 1998, 2001, 2003). This paper aims to explain this delay. Three- to six-year-old children were tested with stories where a protagonist was either only partially informed or had a false belief about a particular object. Only a few children had problems predicting the protagonist’s action based on his partial knowledge, when (...) he was only partially informed about a property of the desired object (e.g. he knew that it was a Lego® block, but not that it was a red Lego® block). But many had problems making the correct action prediction when he was only partially informed about dual identities (e.g. he knew it was a dog, but not that it was also an eraser). About as many children made an incorrect action prediction for partial knowledge problems involving dual identity as answered higher-order belief questions incorrectly. In contrast many more children answered first-order false belief questions correctly, as many as correct action predictions when the protagonist was partially informed about a property of an object. The results support the claim that children have a specific problem with dual identity, rather than a broader problem representing partial knowledge. (shrink)

Although commitment is one of the attributes of family firms of continuing interest to researchers, they almost always study it from the perspective of the owning family. In the current work, we analyze the commitment of the non-family employees. We propose a model of commitment, with the aim of studying the implications that this variable may have for family businesses. We study both the aspects on the basis of the approaches of Meyer and Allen's three-component model of organizational commitment and (...) stewardship theory. Results show that the identification level of non-family employees positively and significantly influences the profitability and the survival or continuity of familyowned businesses. At the same time that their involvement level positively and significantly influences the survival or continuity of family-owned businesses. (shrink)

In _A Treatise of Human Nature_, Hume proposes a new philosophical method. This method results from integrating an empirically founded skepticism with an innovative study of the epistemic role of emotions. This combination of skepticism, empiricism, and moral psychology aims to establish a virtuous way of doing philosophy based on the regulation of our epistemic emotions. In this paper, I present the operating principles of this virtuous way of doing philosophy. The paper has three parts. I firstly claim that four (...) principles compose Hume’s philosophical methodology. I contend that the moderation of curiosity plays the central role among them. Secondly, I claim that that is the case because of the pernicious effects resulting when this passion becomes excessive and misplaced. Finally, I show the role of curiosity’s moderation in the Conclusion of Book 1 of the _Treatise_, to substantiate the claim that the crisis Hume there depicts illustrates his virtuous way of doing philosophy. (shrink)

I submit that epistemic progress in key areas of contemporary academic philosophy has been compromised by politically correct ideology. First, guided by an evolutionary account of ideology, results from social and cognitive psychology and formal philosophical methods, I expose evidence for political bias in contemporary Western academia and sketch a formalization for the contents of beliefs from the PC worldview taken to be of core importance, the theory of social oppression and the thesis of anthropological mental egalitarianism. Then, aided by (...) discussions from contemporary epistemology on epistemic values, I model the problem of epistemic appraisal using the frameworks of multi-objective optimization theory and multi-criteria decision analysis and apply it to politically correct philosophy. I conclude that philosophy guided by politically correct values is bound to produce constructs that are less truth-conducive and that spurious values which are ideologically motivated should be abandoned. Objections to my framework stemming from contextual empiricism, the feminine voice in ethics and political philosophy are considered. I conclude by prescribing the epistemic value of empirical adequacy, the contextual value of political diversity and the moral virtue of moral courage to reverse unwarranted trends in academic philosophy due to PC ideology. (shrink)

This paper tackles the following puzzle. On the one hand, a growing body of literature suggests that most of our current political disagreements are pernicious and difficult to resolve because they are instances of deep disagreement. On the other hand, there does not seem to be anything inherent to a deep disagreement that necessarily makes it pernicious nor irresolvable. To address this issue, I distinguish two senses in which a disagreement can be deemed “deep”, and show that they are conflated (...) in the literature. In order to separate them, I refer to these two senses as deep disagreement and deep conflict. Contrary to recent literature, I argue that most of our current pernicious political disagreements are so not because they are instances of deep disagreement, but of deep conflict. This way, the problem disappears. (shrink)

This article examines the future of social security in emerging economies, exploring the key challenges facing these countries and proposing potential solutions. Financial sustainability, universal coverage and equity are some of the main obstacles that must be overcome to ensure a robust and fair social security system. Through a literature review and case analysis, proposals are presented to improve the effectiveness and sustainability of these systems in the context of emerging economies.

A population can be ideologically or affectively polarized. Ideological polarization relates to people’s political beliefs, while affective polarization deals with people’s feelings toward the ingroup and the outgroup. Both types of mental states, beliefs and feelings, are typically measured through direct self-report surveys. One philosophical assumption underlying this way of measuring polarization is a concrete version of the first-person authority thesis: the speaker’s sincerity guarantees the truth of their mental self-ascriptions. Based on various empirical studies, the first part of this (...) paper argues that we are particularly bad at spotting our own mental states regard­ing political issues. This, in turn, raises doubts about the accuracy of direct self-report surveys in measuring polarization. In the second part, I introduce Michael Lynch’s notion of political meaning to argue that traditional surveys can still provide valuable information for detecting polarization. However, I suggest that this information pertains not to participants’ beliefs and feelings, but rather to their level of commitment to the core beliefs of the political groups they identify with, which is a relevant aspect of pernicious polarization. (shrink)

This article shows how macro-historical processes of change can activate robust and enduring forms of citizenship practice, providing both survey-based evidence for this claim and a theorization of the causal mechanisms involved. Focusing on the case of Portugal, where democratization followed the historically unusual path of social revolution, we examine survey data on civic practice covering twenty countries and find Portugal to be a world leader in public participation in the electronic public sphere. When we examine the subsection of the (...) population socialized politically in the country’s post-revolutionary democracy, we find another important indicator of lively citizenship practice. The article takes the examination of this specific national case as the basis for developing an argument of broad theoretical relevance on the social underpinnings of lively and participatory citizenship practice. With an empirical foundation for our claims in survey data and other sources, our analysis of Portugal offers an interpretation of the case, leading to substantial revision of assumptions in the extant literature. More importantly, through our examination of this case, we show how large-scale macro-historical processes of change can encourage lively civic practice manifested at the individual level. Our argument highlights the importance of hierarchy-challenging collective experiences that reconfigure cultural frameworks and reorient the character of institutional practice. We take up the implications of this argument for cases lacking a history of revolution and find certain parallels with national cases shaped by movements of social reform as in the social democracies of Scandinavia. (shrink)

Un libro imprescindible para comprender los grandes debates de algunos de los importantes temas de la agenda ética de hoy. A la vez profundo y actual, con la rigurosidad intelectual que lo caracteriza, Vivanco rescata para la visión de izquierda los principios de la autonomía individual, mal apropiados por las ideologías conservadoras. Tal autonomía sería, sin embargo abstracta si no se asegura la igualdad material de los individuos que conforman la sociedad, lo que sólo puede ser garantizado por el Estado (...) en sus aspectos normativos y de política pública. Sin entrar en esta dimensión del debate, Vivanco sienta los fundamentos de una posición libertaria anclada en la constitución social de los seres humanos. (shrink)

A cien años del final de la Primera Guerra Mundial, el viejo continente vuelve actualmente a encontrarse en un estado de conmoción como aquel que antecedió a este cruel conflicto. El texto busca pensar cómo esta confrontación llegó a adquirir dimensiones apocalípticas, para, de esta forma, advertir a qué nos podemos ver avocados de continuar por este camino. La tesis propuesta aquí es que al menos cuatro aspectos confluyeron allí, a saber: 1. La propensión nihilista de occidente; 2. La perversión (...) “natural” propia a todos los hombres, largamente reprimida por la sociedad moralista del siglo XIX y que, con el estallido de la Gran Guerra, mostró su lado más siniestro; 3. En el conflicto de 1914 el espíritu de la guerra se compenetró con el alma del progreso; 4. En esta contienda bélica, por primera vez, desempeña un papel determinante el atmoterrorismo. Estas consideraciones tienen como punto de partida las reflexiones que hicieron, a propósito de cada uno de estos aspectos, Martin Heidegger, Sigmund Freud, Ernst Jünger, y Peter Sloterdijk. (shrink)

El artículo expone la contraposición entre dos posiciones filosóficas (deconstrucción y reconstrucción), dos autores (Jacques Derrida, Jean Luc Ferry) y dos libros (Apprendre à vivre enfin, Apprendre à vivre). En última instancia, dos formas de entender las relaciones entre filosofía y vida. Más allá del logocentrismo, objeto de la deconstrucción, el biocentrismo es el eje de la tarea de reconstrucción de una filosofía articulada como ontología o teoría de lo real, filosofía moral o teoría de la justicia y sabiduría o (...) teoría de la salvación. En suma, una forma renovada de asumir la necesidad de la filosofía. (shrink)

Our species' behavioral and cognitive evolution constitute a key research topic across many scientific disciplines. Based on ethnographic hunter-gatherer data, Stibbard-Hawkes challenges the common link made between past material culture and cognitive capacities. Despite this adequate criticism, archaeology must retain a central role for studying these issues due to its unique access to relevant empirical evidence in deep time.

Diez, M.A. Discurso ... -- Urdaneta, A. Contestación ...

The paper is a critical examination of Rorty’s argument against foundationalism, on which depends his view of the social irrelevance of traditional philosophy. I try to demonstrate the incoherence and speciousness of his reasoning against foundationalism and in the process refute his view that traditional philosophy is a tool which can and should be cast off from the public, and even from the private, sphere of human life and that its universal concepts can therefore be circumvented. This demonstration is accomplished (...) in twocomplementary stages. First, I provide a general justification of my “argumentative” style in engaging Rorty’s position against his objection to this approach, while showing that what he calls his strategy of “re-description” is really nothing but a form of logical argumentation. Second, I attempt to show how, in order to substantiate his rejection of traditional philosophy’s claim of social relevance, Rorty’s “re-description” of the motivation underlying traditional philosophy is no different from the strategy of unmasking that he has called into question as an instance of a radical or foundationalist critique. I show that, despite his protestations to the contrary, “unmasking” is precisely what—at least on a number of occasions—Rorty quite inconsistently does in demonstrating that the claim of social relevance arises from a form of self-deception engaged in by the traditional philosopher. I further show that theanti-foundationalist stance that defines his characteristic manner of extricating himself from such self-reference problems is based on faulty reasoning and lands him in a deeper incoherence. Since his depoliticization of traditional philosophy depends on the cogency ofthis anti-foundationalist view, I conclude that this depoliticizing project fails. (shrink)

In this paper, we address the connection between deep disagreements and the rise of affective polarization. Many contemporary approaches to deep disagreement conceive it in atomistic terms, and their practical approaches only explore the consequences of their particular theories. In contrast, we offer a re-lational approach to the phenomenon, consistent with the recent political turn in analytic philosophy. Specifically, we argue that the notion of deep disagree-ment must be approached by taking into account the practical goal of detecting and intervening (...) on social injustices related to situations of deep disagreement. In this line, we briefly discuss both an operationalization of the notion and a way to take care of our disagreements. (shrink)

Recoge un variado mosaico de investigaciones sobre la filosofía en al-Andalus llevadas a cabo por prestigiosos arabistas y hebraístas. En la primera parte se analizan las influencias clásicas y orientales que confluyeron en la vida intelectual de la España musulmana. Y en la segunda, se ofrece una panorámica de los principales filósofos de al-Andalus.

Thesis on metaphysics featuring Galen Strawson and Noam Chomsky. I discuss Strawsons' Materialism, panpsychism and the topic of reference. I compare Strawson's view with Chomsky's in relation to panpsychism, the nature of reference and the limits of human understanding by reviewing important historical events in the history of philosophy. I also cover some aspects of neuroscience to see if empirical evidence in any way contradicts the claims made by Strawson and Chomsky. I conclude by recasting the questions of metaphysics under (...) an epistemological framework. (shrink)