This paper aims to develop the notion of ‘therapy of desire’ as a hermeneutic key for understanding Kierkegaard’s view of desire. First, I develop the notion of ‘therapy of desire’ as it has appeared in the secondary literature on Kierkegaard and Augustine, particularly in Lee C. Barrett. In my reading, I underscore how a ‘therapy of desire’ implies that the desire can be ‘healed’ and that the desirer has ‘agency’ over his/her desires. Second, I conduct a textual analysis of Kierkegaard’s (...) discourse on Lk 22:15, which deals with the desire for the Eucharist. In employing the notion of ‘therapy of desire’ as a hermeneutic key to interpret it, I characterize Kierkegaard’s view of desire as a lack of satisfaction and verify how the ideas of ‘agency’ and ‘healing’ appear in Kierkegaard’s text. Finally, I show how the characterization of desire as a constant lack of satisfaction that consists in a gift from God, that implies the possibility of undertaking a healing process and that underscores the agency of the desirer, differs from some Lutheran ideas, namely the relationship between grace and deeds and the understanding of original sin. (shrink)

In Lukács: Praxis and the Absolute, Daniel Andrés López reassembles Lukács’s philosophy of praxis on a Hegelian basis, as a conceptual-historical totality, both defending him and proposing an unprecedented, immanent critique that raises problems for Marxian philosophy as a whole.

This book tells the story of the Scientific Buddha, "born" in Europe in the 1800s but commonly confused with the Buddha born in India 2,500 years ago. The Scientific Buddha was sent into battle against Christian missionaries, who were proclaiming across Asia that Buddhism was a form of superstition. He proved the missionaries wrong, teaching a dharma that was in harmony with modern science. And so his influence continues. Today his teaching of "mindfulness" is heralded as the cure for all (...) manner of maladies, from depression to high blood pressure.In this potent critique, a well-known chronicler of the West's encounter with Buddhism demonstrates how the Scientific Buddha's teachings deviate in crucial ways from those of the far older Buddha of ancient India. Donald Lopez shows that the Western focus on the Scientific Buddha threatens to bleach Buddhism of its vibrancy, complexity, and power, even as the superficial focus on "mindfulness" turns Buddhism into merely the latest self-help movement. The Scientific Buddha has served his purpose, Lopez argues. It is now time for him to pass into nirvana. This is not to say, however, that the teachings of the ancient Buddha must be dismissed as mere cultural artifacts. They continue to present a meaningful challenge, even to our modern world. (shrink)

Shows the relevance of Schiller’s thought for contemporary philosophy, particularly aesthetics, ethics, and politics. This book seeks to draw attention to Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) as a philosophical thinker in his own right. For too long, his philosophical contribution has been neglected in favor of his much-deserved reputation as a political playwright. The essays in this collection make two arguments. First, Schiller presents a robust philosophical program that can be favorably compared to those of his age, including Rousseau, Kant, Schelling, and (...) Hegel, and he proves to be their equal in his thinking on morality, aesthetics, and politics. Second, Schiller can also guide us in our more contemporary philosophical concerns and approaches, such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, aesthetics, and politics. Here, Schiller instructs us in our engagement with figures such as Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Jacques Rancière, Roberto Esposito, and others. María del Rosario Acosta López is Associate Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University. She has published several books, including La tragedia como conjuro: el problema de lo sublime en Friedrich Schiller. Jeffrey L. Powell is Professor of Philosophy at Marshall University and the editor of Heidegger and Language. (shrink)

El artículo propone revisitar la “transición democrática” desandando la conceptualización que identifica dicho proceso como el paso de un régimen a otro, de uno autoritario a uno democrático. La propuesta de “mirar desde abajo” la democracia y la democratización, como algo que no fue dado sino que tuvo que ser hecho, supone la pregunta acerca de con qué materialidades sociales está hecha esa experiencia. Así, a partir de la recuperación de las ideas que sobre el tema se despliegan en el (...) libro Zona Sur, se propone una problematización del proceso de democratización que encarna en la acción colectiva popular, en lugares específicos. Desde esas premisas conceptuales, el texto aborda las continuidades y los cambios vinculados con el fin de la dictadura. Por otro lado, se problematizan los vínculos del movimiento popular con el de Derechos Humanos. Finalmente, se mencionan algunas posibilidades de establecer diálogos con el presente. (shrink)

In most domains of human life, we are willing to accept that there are experts with greater knowledge and competencies that distinguish them from non-experts or laypeople. Despite this fact, the very recognition of expertise curiously becomes more controversial in the case of “moral experts”. Do moral experts exist? And, if they indeed do, are there ethical reasons for us to follow their advice? Likewise, can emerging technological developments broaden our very concept of moral expertise? In this article, we begin (...) by arguing that the objections that have tried to deny the existence (and convenience) of moral expertise are unsatisfactory. After that, we show that people have ethical reasons to ask for a piece of moral advice in daily life situations. Then, we argue that some Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems can play an increasing role in human morality by becoming moral experts. Some AI-based moral assistants can qualify as artificial moral experts and we would have good ethical reasons to use them. (shrink)

Consensual homicide remains a crime in jurisdictions where active voluntary euthanasia has been legalized. At the same time, both jurisdictions, in which euthanasia is legal and those in which it is not, recognize that all patients (whether severely ill or not) have the right to refuse or withdraw medical treatment (including life-saving treatment). In this paper, I focus on the tensions between these three norms (the permission of active euthanasia, the permission to reject life-saving treatment, and the prohibition of consensual (...) homicide), assuming a justification of euthanasia based on the right to (personal) autonomy. I argue that the best way to provide a coherent account of these norms is to claim that patients have two distinct rights: the right to autonomy and the right to bodily integrity. This solution has some relevant implications for the discussion of the legalization of active euthanasia. (shrink)

When travelling to a new city, we acquire knowledge about its physical terrain, directions, historical facts and aesthetic features. Engaging in tourism practices, such as guided walking tours, provides experiences of a city that are necessarily mediated and partial. This has led scholars in tourism studies, and more recently in philosophy, to question the epistemological value of city tours, critiquingthem as passive, lacking in autonomous agency, and providing misrepresentative experiences of the city. In response, we argue that the mediated and (...) partial knowledge of a city acquired through city tours is not epistemologically disvaluable. Although city tours involve the transmission of testimonial knowledge, this does not necessarily render tourists as passive and non-autonomous. Instead,tourists have the potential to participate in the generation of their knowledge actively. Moreover, we argue that city tours also provide a tourist with valuable ‘objectual’ knowledge of a city, whichhas the potential to be first-personal and active, and does not necessarily misrepresent the city’s identity. This type of knowledge is valuable both for tourists as credible epistemic agents, and for the city itself, as the knowledge generated by the tour can facilitate an accurate representation of the city and promote social transformation. We conclude by highlighting four further epistemic and ethical implications of our argument. (shrink)

Some of the fundamental activities of the software development process are related to the discipline of Requirements Engineering. Their objectives are to discover, analyze, document, and verify the system’s requirements. The requirements are the conditions or capabilities that software needs to have or fulfill to meet its users’ needs, and problems in its identification can mean the failure of a software project. This study is part of the research that is being developed to propose a model based on Know­ledge Organization (...) Systems to be used in the Requirements engineering process. This article aims to present the results of an analysis on a set of Know­ledge Organization Systems to identify whether they are likely to be applied in the Requirements engineering process and identify at which stage of this process each one of them can be implemented. The Know­ledge Organization Systems analyzed were the authority files, gazetteers, glossaries, subject headings, classification systems, thesauri, semantic networks, and ontologies. Based on the results obtained, it was possible to conclude that the Know­ledge Organization Systems analyzed can be used in the Requirements engineering process and, consequently, contribute to increasing the software requirements’ quality. (shrink)

Critical studies in higher education often embrace the ideas of the slowness movement to address time pressure. However, this desirable horizon presents some limitations. On the one hand, by emphasizing solutions at the individual level, boosting slowness may promote tactics incapable of producing changes to the underlying structural dynamics of time pressure. On the other hand, approaches based on slowness may also inadvertently foster a form of ethical paternalism within the context of ethical pluralism by prescribing substantive models of practice (...) ultimately based on ‘do this quickly or do it slowly.’ This theoretical research moves away from the temporal paradigm to that of the way of relating. Building upon the ethical concept of resonance, the approach focuses on a formal critique of the current socioeconomic and ethical dynamics of social acceleration, growth, and innovation that can contribute to projecting non-alienated relationships in higher education. (shrink)

Después de una visión general del Gorgias de Platón, se hace una presentación del realismodel personaje Calicles y la respuesta de Sócrates, así como de las tesis centrales sobre la justicia en el texto. Posteriormente se sintetizan algunas de los elementos nucleares de la ética de la investigación que compete a los comités de regulación de los estudios clínicos, poniendo énfasis en los vacíos que dejan ver desde la perspectiva filosófica, a la luz del propio texto platónico, y los aportes (...) que este último podría ofrecer, sobre todo desde perspectiva de la prudencia y la equidad griegas.After an overview of Plato’s Gorgias a presentation of Callicles’ realism and the response of Socrates is made, as well as the main theses on justice in the text. Then some of the main elements of research ethics concerning regulation committees of clinical studies is synthesized, pointing out the gaps that appear there from a philosophical perspective, in the light of the platonic text and the contributions that this text can make, in particular from the perspective of Greek prudence and equity. (shrink)

Podemos sugerir sin temor a equivocarnos que After Virtue significó un antes y un después para la investigación filosófica acerca de la moral y generó un renacido interés por la ética clásica, especialmente de las virtudes. Pero lejos de haber quedado en el pasado After Virtue es hoy bibliografía obligatoria para quien quiera comprender la ética contemporánea y sus estructuras sociales del orden moral. Es inviable estudiar las características de la ética actual sin un desarrollo histórico de sus raíces filosóficas: (...) que abarca a enemigos de la razón como Hume y Calvino, es continuada por los fundadores de la ilustración y que termina con la crítica letal de Nietzsche a todos los intentos modernos de enmascarar la voluntad de poder bajo formas contractuales o racionalistas de la moral. Además, para todo aquel que camina tras el pensamiento del filósofo Alasdair MacIntyre, esta obra contiene un esbozo y diseño intelectual de lo que serán sus obras posteriores. Por eso, a 40 años de su publicación decidimos evocar sus principales aportes, que mantienen solidez y vigencia a pesar de los años. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper we deal with Hobbes’s elucidation of the political conflict caused by rebellious groups. First of all, we attempt to prove that groups are important characters in Hobbesian antagonisms. Secondly, it will be argued that the isomorphic structure that underlies all associations is vital to account for these disputes. To wit, the fact that minor corporate bodies are ‘similar’ vis à vis the State leaves a lengthy flank open to rebellion, since this homology may encourage their leaders (...) to compare themselves with the sovereign and to challenge his or her power. Whereas the inclusion of this trait may seem at face value paradoxical to Hobbes’s absolute order project, we shall contend that it is actually a way of ascribing responsibility to the leaders of rebellious groups. Furthermore, as a subsidiary hypothesis, it will be claimed that the centrality of the theory of represented corporations is a result of Hobbes’s aim to erase, not rebellion as such, but only its tumultuous setup. (shrink)

En mi opinión, uno de los grandes problemas de la academia colombiana consiste en que hay una profunda ignorancia acerca de lo que están haciendo nuestros colegas en otras universidades. Desconocemos su trabajo y, en el peor de los casos, no lo tomamos como punto de referencia porque, a priori, no lo consideramos bueno. En no pocas ocasiones, la bibliografía que acompaña los syllabus de los cursos que dictamos no contiene artículos o libros de filósofos colombianos que, sin importar su (...) calidad, deberíamos incluir. No sólo deberíamos incluirlos para saber qué están produciendo nuestros colegas, sino también porque criticarlos, mostrar sus puntos débiles y fuertes, es lo que debe hacer la academia y lo que genera un conocimiento vigoroso y robusto... (shrink)

This article seeks to clarify the concepts of risk and uncertainty, restricting its focus to environmental problems and to three strands of reflection. Firstly, I suggest that we should apply the label riscophrenia to the tendency to envisage most environmental problems excessively in terms of probabilistic risk, erecting the concept to a core dogma of certainty based on the image it offers of safety and control of the random. Looking at the most serious environmental problems of the twenty-first century through (...) the prism of "animal spirits" is above all an exercise which shows that unpredictability and uncertainties are constituent elements of human existence and social life. Secondly, I argue that the assessment of uncertainty has political and normative implications. I hold that uncertainty may make it possible to invoke precautionary, not just preventive, measures, and that alternative "contextualised" research strategies, open to a variety of points of view, are possible. Lastly, I claim that the language of risk and its excessive application is generally laden with a type of ambiguity which tends not to emphasize society's current problems, and so facilitates the continuation rather than the questioning of our society's dominant technocratic and technological model. (shrink)

In Leibniz’s New Essays stands out, within many important topics, his doctrine of innate ideas, which supposes the division between sense knowledge and innate knowledge and implies the distinction between truths of reason and truths of fact. That doctrine is particularly relevant for Leibniz’s philosophy, but implicitly entails the epistemological difference between belief, on one hand, and certainty, on the other. In this paper I outline, according to my interpretation, how Leibniz explains that humans can have certainty about innate ideas. (...) This topic is important because if Leibniz demonstrates the possibility of having certainty of those ideas, then, it is feasible to believe in its existence. However, if his explanation is unsatisfactory his metaphysical doctrine would be seriously weakened and, at the same time, both skepticism and Locke’s empiricist doctrine would be reinforced. (shrink)

El propósito de este artículo es analizar la perspectiva de Hannah Arendt sobre el problema de la originalidad e incomprensibilidad del horror de los regímenes totalitarios, utilizando los testimonios de Primo Levi en Si esto es un hombre y Los hundidos y los salvados. Arendt considera que los campos de concentración y exterminio son la institución central de los regímenes totalitarios, en los cuales se intenta destruir la humanidad de las víctimas a través de prácticas de terror que no solo (...) acaban con su cuerpo, sino con su espíritu. Así, los testimonios de los sobrevivientes se convierten en las piezas clave para comprender la esencia y los ideales de estos sistemas políticos. De ahí que la memoria salte a la escena política para develar la verdad de este tipo de acontecimientos políticos y, a su vez, plantee una serie de problemas cuando se intenta definir su estatus investigativo. (shrink)

Desde su descolonización en los años sesenta, África ha sido entendida en el imaginario global como un lugar de conflictos armados, inestabilidad política y pobreza. Sin embargo, durante las últimas décadas, el continente ha atravesado un importante proceso de estabilización, democratización y pacificación. Desde el liderazgo de Mandela en África en la década de 1990 hasta la creación y consolidación de la Unión Africana (UA) desde 2002, los esfuerzos pacificadores han transformado radicalmente el continente. En este proceso han participado numerosos (...) actores internacionales, continentales y regionales como las Naciones Unidas (ONU), la UA y organizaciones regionales como la Comunidad para el Desarrollo del África Meridional (SADC), que, en conjunto, han implementado diferentes enfoques para la consolidación de la paz en el continente. Uno de ellos es la puesta en marcha de una activa iniciativa de "Diplomacia Preventiva" destinada a hacer frente a las tensiones antes de que se conviertan en conflictos armados. Algunos de los ejemplos más importantes son la disputa entre Malawi y Tanzania por la demarcación de las fronteras nacionales en el lago Malawi y la participación continental en la resolución de las crisis políticas de Lesoto y Gambia. Este capítulo destaca los esfuerzos para prevenir los conflictos en África, a nivel estatal y desde las organizaciones regionales. También se analiza la forma en que África se ha convertido en un punto de referencia en las iniciativas internacionales de diplomacia preventiva, al tiempo que se asumen las carencias y dificultades a las que todavía se enfrenta el aparato de consolidación de la paz del continente. (shrink)

Abstract Does Duns Scotus identify the natural will with the affectio commodi ? This identification has become the standard view. In this paper, I will challenge this view through an analysis of some key texts. The main thesis of the paper is that Scotus allows for two scenarios related to the will's dual affections. The first is the real situation of the created will: the will is a free potency and possesses two affections. The second is a hypothetical case; Scotus (...) suggests the fictive case of a will that only possesses the affectio commodi . Accordingly, it can be concluded that: ( i ) when considering the will in its real condition, both affections belong to the will's free appetite; ( ii ) in the hypothetical case the natural will, the intellectual appetite and the affectio commodi are all identified; ( iii ) in the real condition of the will, the natural will is a passive inclination to receive perfection. (shrink)

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion.

Political concepts are fundamentally polemical. Their supposed neutrality is solely a vain intellectual supposition. This paper pay attention to the XIX century's Politics through three political concepts: the representation, medieval notion wich the liberal genius transformed to fight the Ancien Régime; the association, socialist and traditionalist alternative to the revolutionary individualism; and finally the participation, based on the originary political community return's myth.

Histone variants are specialized histones which replace their canonical counterparts in specific nucleosomes. Together with histone post‐translational modifications and DNA methylation, they contribute to the epigenome. Histone variants are incorporated at specific locations by the concerted action of histone chaperones and ATP‐dependent chromatin remodelers. Recent studies have shown that the histone chaperone FACT plays key roles in preventing pervasive incorporation of two histone variants: H2A.Z and CenH3/CENP‐A. In addition, Spt6, another histone chaperone, was also shown to be important for appropriate (...) H2A.Z localization. FACT and Spt6 are both associated with elongating RNA polymerase II. Based on these two examples, we propose that the establishment and maintenance of histone variant genomic distributions depend on a transcription‐coupled epigenome editing (or surveillance) function of histone chaperones. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of essays of a philosophical nature on the subject of technology, introducing authors from the Portuguese-speaking community, namely from Portugal itself, Africa and Brazil. Their contributions detail a unique perspective on technology, placing this important topic within the historical, ideological and social contexts of their countries, all of which share a common language. The shared history of these countries and the cultural and economic specificities of each one have stimulated singular insights into these thinkers’ reflections. (...) The essays are thematically diverse. Among the topics covered are technogenic knowledge, visions of technology, risks and uncertainties, mediatization, digitalization, and datafication, engineering practice and ethics, alternative technoscientific strategies, ontotechnologies of the body, virtual and archive. The contributions also explore other themes that are more closely related to the semi-peripheral world, such as technological dependence and the incorporation of Western technology into the social structure of ancestral communities. This book appeals to students and researchers and provides a voice to authors whose work are not usually available in English-language publications. It serves as an ideal guide for all those who seek rigorous and geographically widespread knowledge regarding thinking on technology in several Portuguese-speaking countries. (shrink)

El siguiente monográfico sobre Perú acoge diferentes reflexiones y aportaciones de un total de nueve trabajos que buscan problematizar y arrojar luz sobre algunos aspectos que han acompañado al proceso de construcción democrática que el país ha venido experimentando desde 1980. Como otros escenarios de la región, la democracia se erige tras décadas convulsas para un sistema político cooptado por elites caudillistas, encono político, intromisión militar y condiciones estructurales irresolutas. Este conjunto de factores, inscritos en un contexto de guerra fría, (...) y al albor de la revolución cubana, inspiró movimientos guerrilleros a inicios de los sesenta, como el Ejército de Liberación Nacional o el Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria. Su escasa relevancia nada tendría que ver con la fuerza disruptiva que experimentaría el Partido Comunista del Perú - Sendero Luminoso. Un grupo armado de marcada impronta maoísta que, si bien hunde sus raíces en la ruptura sino-soviética de 1962, construye sus fundamentos ideológicos y sus bases revolucionarias durante la década de los setenta. (shrink)

This work explores the concept of urban guerrilla, which was promoted and innovated by National Liberation Movement – Tupamaros, in Uruguay. After a thorough review of the “David Cámpora” Archive of Armed Struggle –located at the University of the Republic– and in–depth interviews with prominent Tupamaro members, this article analyzes the evolution of this particular revolutionary project. These pages address issues such as the factors that influenced the adoption of the urban guerrilla approach and the consequences and demands, internal and (...) external, that accompanied it. It also presents the influences, tensions and contradictions that have arisen regarding the use of violence, the dispute against the State or the adaptation to circumstances that have changed drastically in less than a decade – from a quality of democracy unparalleled in the region, to a dictatorial regime of military imprint. All of the above, without losing sight of the exceptional geopolitical dimension that the Latin American continent went through, and especially the Southern Cone, in the 60s and 70s of the last 20th century. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo se aborda el proyecto político hobbesiano a la luz de las críticas realizadas por Kant en Teoría y praxis. Específicamente, se considera en detalle la objeción contra el Gobierno despótico, según la cual, el soberano sitúa la felicidad del pueblo como la principal finalidad del Estado y, por ello, acaba fomentando involuntariamente la rebelión. Al respecto, se sostendrá que el planteamiento de Hobbes en el Leviatán evade el foco de los reproches kantianos, justamente porque su particular (...) noción de felicidad impide que esta pueda ser constituida como el objetivo de la sociedad política. A su vez, se arguye que existe una sugestiva modificación terminológica con relación al De Cive, que lleva a considerar la posibilidad de que Hobbes haya prefigurado las críticas reseñadas. (shrink)

In this article, we will examine a hermeneutical problem raised in Chapter XI of Hobbes’s Leviathan. Namely: Why does the author refrain from describing the attack led by Brutus against Julius Caesar as the result of a conspiracy? Why instead of talking about the collective action of an organized group does he refer to a “multitude of actions performed by a multitude of men”? In order to unravel this paradox, we will analyze the category of “faction” developed by Hobbes. After (...) confirming that the republican conspiracy is easily explained by this concept and that it adapts poorly to that of an irregular crowd, we shall inquire if the key to this curious reading can be found in Hobbes’s sources. While Plutarch is unequivocal about the conspiratorial status of the group, Shakespeare does indeed problematize the matter. Correspondingly, we will argue that Hobbes may have taken into account Shakespeare’s treatment for his denial of the collective nature of the organized action against Caesar. (shrink)

This work intends to demonstrate the existence of limits that hinder the absolute authority of the sovereign in Hobbes’s political theory. Particularly, I will try to identify the concept of honor as the paradigm of this limitation. The field of the manifestations of worth — it will be argued — operates within a logic that runs parallel to that of the State. Moreover, it engenders authorities with high degree of autonomy. To be sure, the sovereign power can intervene in this (...) field by means of persuasion and coercion, but it will never be able to erase the resistances and limitations imposed by signs of honor. (shrink)

RESUMEN En el presente trabajo se aborda el proyecto político hobbesiano a la luz de las críticas realizadas por Kant en Teoría y praxis. Específicamente, se considera en detalle la objeción contra el Gobierno despótico, según la cual, el soberano sitúa la felicidad del pueblo como la principal finalidad del Estado y, por ello, acaba fomentando involuntariamente la rebelión. Al respecto, se sostendrá que el planteamiento de Hobbes en el Leviatán evade el foco de los reproches kantianos, justamente porque su (...) particular noción de felicidad impide que esta pueda ser constituida como el objetivo de la sociedad política. A su vez, se arguye que existe una sugestiva modificación terminológica con relación al De Cive, que lleva a considerar la posibilidad de que Hobbes haya prefigurado las críticas reseñadas. ABSTRACT The article addresses Hobbes' political project in the light of Kant's critique as set forth in Theory and Praxis. Specifically, it carries out a detailed discussion of the objection to despotic government, in which the sovereign establishes the happiness of the people as the main objective of the State and, consequently, ends up involuntarily fostering rebellion. In this respect, the article argues that Hobbes' formulation in Leviathan manages to circumvent Kant's reproaches precisely because its peculiar notion of happiness prevents it from being construed as the objective of political society. Likewise, we argue that there is a significant modification of terminology with respect to De Cive, which leads us to consider the possibility that Hobbes may have anticipated the objections discussed. (shrink)

This book highlights the powerful impact of some important Spanish Jesuits (Suárez, Acosta, Ribadeneira, Mariana) on some relevant English thinkers such as Locke, Bacon, and others, regarding politics, law and natural rights, an influence sometimes hidden and always controversial.

This book highlights the powerful impact of some important Spanish Jesuits (Suárez, Acosta, Ribadeneira, Mariana) on some relevant English thinkers such as Locke, Bacon, and others, regarding politics, law and natural rights, an influence sometimes hidden and always controversial.