La grave problemática socioambiental que atraviesa el planeta a causa del cam- bio climático, la contaminación y la degradación de los ecosistemas, obliga a un fuerte cuestionamiento ante la forma en que se ha estructurado la relación hu- mano-naturaleza en la modernidad occidental. Resulta necesario repensar esta relación en clave de reintegración y de compromiso ético con todas las formas de vida, desde el ejercicio de una racionalidad dialéctica. Para tal fin, se requiere construir un nuevo marco conceptual de entendimiento (...) de dicha relación, dentro del cual el enfoque bioético en sentido amplio tendría un papel central, pues permitiría la formulación de imperativos universales como el de Fritz Jahr, orientados a la protección de la vida por encima de la distinción entre especies. Este nuevo marco de entendimiento conduciría, al aterrizarse en el campo del derecho, a renovar la fundamentación de ciertos derechos humanos entendidos como derechos de la naturaleza. (shrink)

"Knowing how we know" is the subject of this book. Its authors present a new view of cognition that has important social and ethical implications, for, they assert, the only world we humans can have is the one we create together through the actions of our coexistence. Written for a general audience as well as for students, scholars, and scientists and abundantly illustrated with examples from biology, linguistics, and new social and cultural phenomena, this revised edition includes a new afterword (...) by Dr. Varela, in which he discusses the effect the book has had in the years since its first publication. (shrink)

Resumen:El propósito de este ensayo es analizar en qué manera se producen las elaboraciones de conocimiento social, diferenciando el que es propiamente generado como construcción del mundo social del que, de un modo más específico, tiene pretensión de validez científica. Nuestra intención ha sido hacerlo poniendo el fundamento en esa intuición que se caracteriza por ser una forma de acceso al conocimiento cotidiano habitual, natural, sin complejas elaboraciones, intuitivo, en definitiva, que parece regir los posicionamientos, puntos de vista y percepciones (...) en nuestros días; y lo hace, además, de una forma que puede llamarse estética por las propias conceptualizaciones más clásicas, y también porque la estética parece ser uno de los signos de nuestros tiempos que ha quedado incorporado a los mecanismos por los que se produce el conocer intuitivo. Sobre estas bases, concluiremos proponiendo algunas conceptualizaciones que definan y delimiten la validez de las distintas formas de conocimiento social.Palabras clave: intuición; estética; conocimiento; construcción social; verdad. (shrink)

Este ensayo aborda una interpretación de la violencia, la criminalidad y la corrupción en la sociedad, a partir del estudio de un cúmulo de fuentes de diversa índole, y del análisis crítico de las interpretaciones vigentes. Por ello, se discuten, con cierto detalle, los efectos perniciosos del predominio del platonismo en la interpretación de dichas fuentes, y se propone, de la mano de Nietzsche y del pensamiento evolucionista, un abordaje del problema, que, apoyado en la perspectiva del platonismo invertido planteado (...) por el filósofo, concibe la sociedad como un ecosistema, esto es, un sistema vivo, donde cada individuo debe enfrentar el reto de sobrevivir, arreglándoselas para obtener recursos que aseguren su existencia. Así, hemos identificado diferentes modos de supervivencia y los hemos clasificado en tres categorías: 1) generadores (creadores-productores); 2) saqueadores (parásitos, predadores y oportunistas) y, 3) simbiontes (mutualistas y leoninos). (shrink)

En el presente trabajo se propone un estudio comparativo de las producciones de algunos referentes de la Investigación Participativa. Se revisan algunos de los textos de Orlando Fals Borda, Paulo Freire, João Bosco Guedes Pinto, Michel Thiollent, María Teresa Sirvent y Joel Martí. Este trabajo se inscribe en el proceso reciente de transformación universitaria en Uruguay, en particular, en una de sus iniciativas: la de la integración curricular de la extensión a través de lo que se ha denominado “prácticas universitarias (...) integrales”. En este marco, la reflexión teórico-metodológica sobre la extensión crítica y las prácticas de investigación-acción conectadas con ella resultan fundamentales para dotar las iniciativas en curso de mayor pertinencia académica y potencial transformador. (shrink)

The phenomenon of size constancy is defined as the apparent perceptual invariance of the linear dimensions of a seen object as this approaches the eye or recedes from it. It has been interpreted as resulting from the application by the brain of a size correction, made possible by the subject's apprehension of distance cues present in the image. We present several observations which, by dissociating accommodation from distance of the seen object and by suppressing the optic effects of accommodation on (...) the visual image itself, show that this interpretation is incorrect, and that in fact the size correction of the visual image is a function of the central effort of accommodation, not of the distance of the seen object. (shrink)

Theodor Adorno once wrote an essay to "defend Bach against his devotees." In this book Dana Villa does the same for Hannah Arendt, whose sweeping reconceptualization of the nature and value of political action, he argues, has been covered over and domesticated by admirers who had hoped to enlist her in their less radical philosophical or political projects. Against the prevailing "Aristotelian" interpretation of her work, Villa explores Arendt's modernity, and indeed her postmodernity, through the Heideggerian and Nietzschean (...) theme of a break with tradition at the closure of metaphysics.Villa's book, however, is much more than a mere correction of misinterpretations of a major thinker's work. Rather, he makes a persuasive case for Arendt as the postmodern or postmetaphysical political theorist, the first political theorist to think through the nature of political action after Nietzsche's exposition of the death of God. After giving an account of Arendt's theory of action and Heidegger's influence on it, Villa shows how Arendt did justice to the Heideggerian and Nietzschean criticism of the metaphysical tradition while avoiding the political conclusions they drew from their critiques. The result is a wide-ranging discussion not only of Arendt and Heidegger, but of Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Habermas, and the entire question of politics after metaphysics. (shrink)

This essay is part of a special issue celebrating 50 years of Political Theory. The ambition of the editors was to mark this half century not with a retrospective but with a confabulation of futures. Contributors were asked: What will political theory look and sound like in the next century and beyond? What claims might political theorists or their descendants be making in ten, twenty-five, fifty, a hundred years’ time? How might they vindicate those claims in their future contexts? How (...) will the consistent concerns of political theorists evolve into the questions critical for people decades or centuries from now? What new problems will engage the political theorists (or their rough equivalents) of the future? What forms might those take? What follows is one of the many confabulations published in response to these queries. (shrink)

Philosophers such as Elizabeth Anscombe and Donald Davidson have explained that we cannot derive predictions from judgments such as "he boasted from vanity." Such judgments are also the source of countless painful mistakes. However, are they necessarily unreliable? Often enough, even if only gradually and partially, we get people right. Assuming that we do is already assuming that there must be a connection, if not causal then at least casual, between what a person is, what she does, and how she (...) acts; and that we may describe it correctly. If no ironclad generalizations can be made that connect the way a person is, her reasons, and her actions, how might we describe correctness in judgments such as this?Anscombe... (shrink)

editorial changes not yet reviewed by author Purpose My intent in this essay is to reflect on the history of some biological notions such as autopoiesis, structural coupling, and cognition, that I have developed since the early 1960’s as a result of my work on visual perception and the organization of the living. No doubt I shall repeat things that I have said in other publications (Maturana and Varela 1980 and 1988), and I shall present notions that once they are (...) said appear as obvious truisms. But the reader it is not invited to attend to the truisms, rather he or she is invited to attend to the consequences that they entail for the understanding of biological processes. After all, explanations or demonstrations always become self evident once they are understood and accepted. KEYWORDS Autopoiesis, structural coupling, cognition, explanations, self consciousness, 1. Autopoiesis 1.1 Origins of the notion In November 1960, a first year medical student asked me the question “What began three thousand eight hundred million years ago so that you can say now that living systems began then?” I realized that I could not properly answer that question, so I said “I cannot answer this question now, but if you come back next year I shall propose an answer then.” Thus I accepted the question of the student to be answered later, and as I did so, I accepted also the question for myself. I realized that to answer this question I had to create a living system, either conceptually or practically, because I had to be able to say what kind of systems were living system to be able to say how they began. While in the attempting to answer the dual questions of what kind of systems are living systems, and of how did they begin so that I could now speak of their origin, it became obvious to me that living systems exist as autonomous entities in the form of self contained closed molecular dynamics of self production, open to the flow of molecules through them. Indeed, one can say that living systems arose in the history of the earth in the moment in which some spontaneous networks of molecular autocatalytic processes became closed upon themselves.. (shrink)

Threatened aboriginal cultures provide valuable criteria for fruitful criticism of the dominant Western cultural paradigm and perceptual model, which many take for granted as the inevitable path for humankind to follow. However, this Western model has proven itself to be imprecise and limiting. It obscures fundamental aspects of human nature, such as the mythical, religious dimension, and communication with the Cosmos. Modern technology, high-speed communication and mass media affect our ability to perceive reality and respond to it. Non-Western worldviews could (...) help us to regain meaningful communication with Nature and to learn new ways of perceiving our world. (shrink)

We present a description of the Stern–Gerlach type experiments using only the concepts of classical electrodynamics and the Newton’s equations of motion. The quantization of the projections of the spin (or the projections of the magnetic dipole) is not introduced in our calculations. The main characteristic of our approach is a quantitative analysis of the motion of the magnetic atoms at the entrance of the magnetic field region. This study reveals a mechanism which modifies continuously the orientation of the magnetic (...) dipole of the atom in a very short time interval, at the entrance of the magnetic field region. The mechanism is based on the conservation of the total energy associated with a magnetic dipole which moves in a non uniform magnetic field generated by an electromagnet. A detailed quantitative comparison with the (1922) Stern–Gerlach experiment and the didactical (1967) experiment by J.R. Zacharias is presented. We conclude, contrary to the original Stern–Gerlach statement, that the classical explanations are not ruled out by the experimental data. (shrink)

Our purpose in this essay is to introduce new concepts in a wide and recursive view of the systemic consequences of the following biological facts that I and we have presented that can be resumed as: that as living systems we human beings are molecular autopoietic system; that living systems live only as long as they find themselves in a medium that provides them with all the conditions that make the realization of their living possible, that is, in the continuous (...) conservation of their relation of adaptation to the circumstances in which they find themselves; that as a living system exists only in a relation of adaptation with the medium that operates as its ecological niche, its reproduction necessarily occurs as a process of systemic duplication or multiplication of the ecological organism-niche unity that it integrates; that the worlds of doings that we generate as languaging beings in our conversations, explanations, reflections and theories are part of our ecological niche; and that we human beings as living beings that exist in languaging, are biological–cultural beings in which our cultural and our biological manners of existences can be distinguished but cannot be separated. Of the systemic consequences of these biological facts that we consider in this essay, we wish to mention two as the principal: that the diversification of manners of living produced in biological evolution is the result of differential survival in a changing medium through the conservation of adaptation, and not through competitive survival of the best; and that we in our living as languaging human beings are the epistemological fundament of all that we do and know as such. (shrink)

The causal theory of action is widely recognized in the literature of the philosophy of action as the "standard story" of human action and agency -- the nearest approximation in the field to a theoretical orthodoxy. This volume brings together leading figures working in action theory today to discuss issues relating to the CTA and its applications, which range from experimental philosophy to moral psychology. Some of the contributors defend the theory while others criticize it; some draw from historical sources (...) while others focus on recent developments; some rely on the tools of analytic philosophy while others cite the latest empirical research on human action. All agree, however, on the centrality of the CTA in the philosophy of action. The contributors first consider metaphysical issues, then reasons-explanations of action, and, finally, new directions for thinking about the CTA. They discuss such topics as the tenability of some alternatives to the CTA; basic causal deviance; the etiology of action ; teleologism and anticausalism; and the compatibility of the CTA with theories of embodied cognition. Two contributors engage in an exchange of views on intentional omissions that stretches over four essays, directly responding to each other in their follow-up essays. As the action -oriented perspective becomes more influential in philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science, this volume offers a long-needed debate over foundational issues. Contributors: Fred Adams, Jesús H. Aguilar, John Bishop, Andrei A. Buckareff, Randolph Clarke, Jennifer Hornsby, Alicia Juarrero, Alfred R. Mele, Michael S. Moore, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Josef Perner, Johannes Roessler, David-Hillel Ruben, Carolina Sartorio, Michael Smith, Rowland Stout The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

En la formación inicial docente, el estudio de la epistemología constituye una pieza fundamental para que los futuros profesores puedan filosofar sobre la realidad de los diversos contextos educativos y se pregunten cómo mejorarla desde los principios que rigen la investigación científica. De este modo, gracias al sustento epistemológico, los estudiantes de pedagogía pueden formarse como docentes investigadores capaces de analizar los cambios sociales propuestos por las múltiples realidades y conocer cómo se construye el conocimiento científico de una especialidad dada. (...) La finalidad de este trabajo, es presentar una reflexión filosófica-epistemológica sobre la imperiosa necesidad de desarrollar el conocimiento epistemológico en la formación inicial del profesorado de matemática e historia, considerando los fundamentos disciplinares, pedagógicos y cognitivos de dichas áreas. (shrink)

En el marco de estas conferencias conmemorativas del cuatricentenario del nacimiento de René Descartes, quisiera aproximarme al pensamiento de este gran filósofo francés, preguntando qué relación guarda con el escepticismo.No se trata de una pregunta del todo novedosa, pero su significación es indiscutible tanto para comprender el sentido como para discutir el alcance y las limitaciones del proyecto cartesiano de fundamentación del conocimiento.

La respuesta a la pregunta del título se ofrece en tres niveles. A veces las diferencias se deben a las limitaciones del equipo empleado, deficiencias en el muestreo o preferencias en la interpretación de los datos. Otras veces se deben a que los investigadores operan en base a paradigmas diferentes..

Natura 2000 is a network of natural sites whose aim is to preserve species and habitats of relevance in the European Union. The policy underlying Natura 2000 has faced widespread opposition from land users and received extensive support from environmentalists. This paper addresses the ethical framework for Natura 2000 and the probable moral assumptions of its main stakeholders. Arguments for and against Natura 2000 were analyzed and classified according to “strong” or “weak” versions of the three main theories of environmental (...) ethics – anthropocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism. Weak (intergenerational) anthropocentrism was found to underlie the Natura 2000 network itself and the positions of environmentalists, while strong (traditional) anthropocentrism pervaded the positions of economic developers. Land users seemed to fall somewhere between weak and strong anthropocentrism. The paper discusses the relation between ethics and different attitudes towards Natura 2000, highlighting some of the implications for the network’s ongoing implementation. It is shown that Natura 2000 achieves a strong reversal of the burden of proof from conservation to economic development and land use change under anthropocentrism. It is argued that the alleged theoretical divide between anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism in relation to the burden of proof does not seem to hold in practice. Finally, it is predicted that the weak versions of anthropocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism, are likely to converge extensively in respect to nature conservation policy measures. (shrink)

Na medida em que o termo espiritualidade é em si mesmo ambíguo, o desafio específico da pesquisa em espiritualidade e saúde enquanto campo é definir de que maneiras o conceito ‘espiritualidade’ pode ser frutiferamente aplicado à saúde física e mental. Uma vez que a relatividade hermenêutica de um conceito humanístico tem de se relacionar com os resultados mensuráveis das ciências empíricas, algumas dificuldades inevitavelmente surgem. Isso não impediu, contudo, a formação de duas abordagens claramente definidas na pesquisa em espiritualidade e (...) saúde; uma a que poderíamos chamar hermenêutica-existencial e a outa mais relacionada às ciências da natureza. Por falharmos em distinguir essas opções, muitas das interações entre a ciência da religião ou os estudos da religião e a pesquisa em espiritualidade e saúde é prejudicada ao ponto da quase ausência de diálogo. Nosso intuito aqui é apresentar e conceituar as duas alternativas nos termos das ciências humanas. (shrink)

Here they are revised notions of the Western tradition that conform the discourse of poetic reason, and the way that Maria Zambrano assumed them. Her thought examines the possibilities of the words, either poetic or philosophical, to allow persons to get conscience. She attempts to unify both types of words using a notion of love as essential intent for dealing with the otherness, allowing, also, the human being conscious reflection on the affectivity. To achieve this, she revises culture to find (...) ideas and examples to support the poetic reason as loving and hopeful reflection and as a possibility of the humanity to know about its own feelings. (shrink)

Neste artigo, objetivamos investigar os desafios da compreensão da complexidade imanente às múltiplas realidades. Metodologicamente, dada a natureza teórica do ensaio, fomos acompanhados pelas reflexões de Edgar Morin sobre "O Método". Tomamos como ponto de partida a ruptura entre as ciências da natureza e as ciências do espírito que, por consequência, encerraram a ciência e a filosofia em compartimentos disciplinares aparentemente incomunicáveis. Com vistas à superação deste isolamento, reivindicamos uma hermenêutica da complexidade de modo que possamos compreender as relações, colaborações (...) e complementações intrínsecas aos diferentes conhecimentos e saberes. (shrink)

Diante das presentes dificuldades de fundamentação da ética, ocasionadas pelas cisões necessárias, mas logo extrapoladas, entre natureza e subjetividade, conhecimento e ação, muitos pensadores têm se voltado para a grande síntese tomasiana do pensamento ocidental. Com numerosas releituras nos campos da ética, do direito, da epistemologia e da metafísica, o pensamento tomasiano vive sem exageros uma pequena renascença, particularmente em língua inglesa, ensejando inúmeras abordagens revisionistas, históricas ou adaptações às pesquisas da filosofia e da teologia analíticas. Mais como informativo deste (...) processo do que como análise sistemática, elencamos aspectos centrais da ética tomasiana e seus fundamentos metafísicos de acordo com autores contemporâneos que participam desta renovação do tomismo, buscando evidenciar a importância da disposição natural do ser humano para moralidade neste quadro teórico. (shrink)

Zygon®, Volume 57, Issue 1, Page 46-59, March 2022.

La reelección presidencial puede analizarse desde una doble perspectiva: la perspectiva personal o la institucional. Mirarla desde el ángulo del enfoque personal, le resta posibilidad al debate, por cuanto no puede desconocerse que el presidente Álvaro Uribe genera comportamientos pasionales entre seguidores y contradictores. U nos lo defienden con ardentía por sus logros en seguridad, y otros lo atacan con pasión por el escaso avance en las políticas de empleo y lucha contra la pobreza. Lo cierto es que por este (...) camino, al final los argumentos se reducirían al amor o desamor que sienten los colombianos frente al primer mandatario. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene el propósito de reflexionar sobre los conceptos de Dasein, tiempo y mundo en la construcción filosófica de Martín Heidegger. Para ello, el autor propone considerar que Dasein es el mismo ser humano que pregunta y responde por el ser, que puede transformarse y desplegar todas sus posibilidades y que debe estar abierto a sí mismo, al mundo y a los demás. Al tiempo lo mira como un elemento integrante de la existencia humana, en el que se producen (...) los acontecimientos y constituye horizonte para toda la comprensión del ser, y que puede estudiarse como tiempo de la vida cotidiana, de la naturaleza y del mundo. En tanto que al mundo lo entiende como aquello que preexiste al ser, de lo que somos inseparables y que de alguna manera determina nuestra existencia porque estamos inmersos en su dinámica y en sus problemas. Este escrito concluye que el enfoque de Heidegger es sobre la existencia humana y que con base en estos conceptos ofrece una mirada práctica que lleva al hombre a la autorreflexión, a la autocomprensión, lo que le permite construir su proyecto de vida y alcanzar la autenticidad. (shrink)

No vive la descentralización un buen momento. Contra ella se han enfilado potentes baterías que quieren limitarla. La responsabilizan, sin razón, de ser la causante del enorme déficit fiscal de la Nación. El presidente Uribe considera que “Esa fórmula es insostenible. Si me dicen que hay que regresar a esa fórmula yo no me siento capaz de despejar el futuro macroeconómico de la Nación en este Gobierno.” Así que de nuevo los medios de financiación de la descentralización están en discusión. (...) Por la importancia que tiene esta iniciativa para el futuro de municipios y departamentos, es previsible que se convierta en uno de los puntos centrales del debate nacional de los próximos meses. Aunque nadie desconoce la necesidad de descentralizar y todos reconocen los logros alcanzados a partir del comienzo del proceso en 1986, los recursos que le dan viabilidad y la sostienen corren graves peligros. (shrink)

This article inquires whether or not religious beliefs are rational, that is to say, whether or not they can be rationally sustained. The point of the article is not to prove the existence of God, but rather simply to show whether or not religious language has real meaning. To do this, we shall examine the concept of belief in general. Then we shall look at religious beliefs in particular from two opposing points of view: on the one hand, from the (...) position of authors who claim that religious beliefs can in fact be sustained by rational evidence, and on the other hand, from the perspective of other authors who affirm that these beliefs cannot be rationally justified, because spiritual discourse refers to the ineffable, which deprives it of the means to verify or deny its propositions. (shrink)