Eternalism is the view that all times are equally real. The relativity of simultaneity in special relativity backs this up. There is no cosmically extended, self-existing ‘now.’ This leads to a tricky problem. What makes statements about the present true? I shall approach the problem along the lines of perspectival realism and argue that the choice of the perspective does. To corroborate this point, the Lorentz transformations of special relativity are compared to the structurally similar equations of the Doppler effect. (...) The ‘now’ is perspectivally real in the same way as a particular electromagnetic spectrum frequency. I also argue that the ontology of time licensed by perspectival realism is more credible in this context than its current alternative, the fragmentalist interpretation of special relativity. (shrink)

En este trabajo se afirma que una descripción etnográfica no es una representación objetiva de la realidad - entendida como realidad objetiva -, sea ésta de tipo natural, social, histórico o cultural. Sino que es una ficción - entendida como composición lingüística - de elementos de la experienc..

Giorgio Agamben and Ludwig Wittgenstein seem to have very little in common: the former is concerned with traditional ontological issues while the latter was interested in logics and ordinary language, avoiding metaphysical issues as something we cannot speak about. However, both share a crucial notion for their philosophical projects: form of life. In this paper, I try to show that, despite their different approaches and goals, form of life is for both a crucial notion for thinking ethics and life in-common. (...) Addressing human existence in its constitutive relation to language, this notion deconstructs traditional dichotomies like bios and zoé, the cultural and the biological, enabling both authors to think of a life which cannot be separated from its forms, recognizing the commonality of logos as the specific trait of human existence. Through an analogical reading between both theoretical frameworks, I suggest that the notion of form-of-life, elaborated by Wittgenstein to address human production of meaning, becomes the key notion in Agamben's affirmative thinking since it enables us to consider the common ontologically in its relation to Human potentialities and to foresee a new, common use of the world and ourselves. Giorgio Agamben e Ludwig Wittgenstein parecem ter muito pouco em comum: o primeiro se ocupa de questões ontológicas tradicionais, enquanto o segundo estava interessado na Lógica e na linguagem corrente, evitando os problemas metafísicos como algo de que não podemos falar. No entanto, ambos partilham um conceito crucial para seus projetos filosóficos respectivos: forma de vida. Este artigo tento mostrar que, apesar de seus diferentes enfoques e objetivos, a noção de forma de vida é fundamental no momento de pensar a ética e a vida em-comum. Abordando a existência humana em sua relação constitutiva com a língua, essa noção desconstrói dicotomias tradicionais como bios e zoe, o cultural e o biológico, permitindo-lhes pensar uma vida que não pode ser separada de suas formas, e reconhecendo o caráter comum do logos como o traço específico da existência humana. Através de uma leitura analógica entre ambos quadros teóricos, sugiro que a noção de forma-de-vida, elaborada por Wittgenstein para abordar a produção humana de significados, tornase o conceito-chave do pensamento afirmativo de Agamben, já que nos permite considerar o comum ontologicamente em sua relação com as potencialidades humanas e vislumbrar um uso novo e comum do mundo e de nós mesmos. (shrink)

For the last forty years, Hume's Newtonianism has been a debated topic in Hume scholarship. The crux of the matter can be formulated by the following question: Is Hume a Newtonian philosopher? Debates concerning this question have produced two lines of interpretation. I shall call them ‘traditional’ and ‘critical’ interpretations. The traditional interpretation asserts that there are many Newtonian elements in Hume, whereas the critical interpretation seriously questions this. In this article, I consider the main points made by both lines (...) of interpretations and offer further arguments that contribute to this debate. I shall first argue, in favor of the traditional interpretation, that Hume is sympathetic to many prominently Newtonian themes in natural philosophy such as experimentalism, criticality of hypotheses, inductive proof, and criticality of Leibnizian principles of sufficient reason and intelligibility. Second, I shall argue, in accordance with the critical interpretation, that in many cases Hume... (shrink)

ABSTRACT John MacFarlane’s truth relativism makes use of two notions of propositional truth: a monadic assessment sensitive one taken to be our ordinary truth notion, and a non-monadic one that is meant to account for the assessment sensitivity of the former notion. Some authors contend that any theory introducing a technical non-monadic truth notion has to make sense of it by defining or characterizing it in terms of ordinary monadic truth. First, I give some reasons why the relativist should not (...) discard this approach to make sense of the notion of truth relative to a context of assessment. Second, I argue that an illuminating characterization of this notion must provide an answer to a dilemma Paul Boghossian poses to the relativist. Third, I single out the characterization that can answer this dilemma. Finally, I contend that the relativist still needs to show that this solution works for each case subject to a relativist treatment. (shrink)

Fear, which has always been one of the most powerful of human passions, has grown in importance during modernity. First with Machiavelli and later especially with Hobbes, fear has become one of the foundational ideas of modern political philosophy. If fear, especially fear of death, does indeed occupy a central place in the foundation of modern politics, then it is necessary to study carefully the implications and consequences of the transhumanist attempt to overcome death. Among the main aspirations of transhumanism (...) is the search for almost infinite longevity and, eventually, the total abolition of aging. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the specific role that fear of death has played in modern political philosophy to understand the possible effects that an eventual overcoming of death would have, albeit partial, as wanted by transhumanists. While the possibility of achieving immortality seems unlikely, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t study what’s behind this transhumanist aspiration. In this way, transhumanism seems the final consequence of modern development, since it’s in continuity with the modern attempt to respond to the fear of death, but it does so by trying an ultimate solution to it through the elimination of death, at least by sickness and old age. In this paper, we will review the role of fear of death in the founding of modern political philosophy by Machiavelli and Hobbes, and then we will analyse the transhumanist attempt to overcome death as a consequence of this fear and its possible political effects. (shrink)

This article explores the strategic management of government affairs in companies active in the EU. The article relies on a unique large-N dataset on the functioning and staffing of EU government affairs. The analysis shows that companies delegate government affairs functions to in-house managers with specific competences, who stay in office for long periods and who have an extensive knowledge of the core competences of the company, thanks to their educational background and work experience in the private sector. These findings (...) suggest that how companies strategically manage and staff government affairs in Brussels rests on the distinct structure of business–government relations in the EU, which are based on the exchange of technical information and the establishment of credibility and long-run trust arrangements. (shrink)

Eternalism is the view that the past, the present and the future exist simpliciter. A typical argument in favor of this view leans on the relativity of simultaneity. The ‘equally real with’ relation is assumed to be transitive between spacelike separated events connected by hyperplanes of simultaneity. This reasoning is in tension with the conventionality of simultaneity. Conventionality indicates that, even within a specific frame, simultaneity is based on the choice of the synchronization parameter. Hence the argument for eternalism is (...) compromised. This paper lays out alternative eternalist strategies which do not hinge on hyperplanes. While we lack a rigorous proof for eternalism, there are still cogent reasons to prefer eternalism over presentism. (shrink)

El presente trabajo analizará una serie de esfuerzos teóricos recientes vinculados a la posible redefinición y aprehensión conceptual de los fenómenos de ideología en las sociedades contemporáneas. El estudio desplegará algunos de los problemas que se presentan al interior de esta clase de esfuerzos conceptuales, enfocando especialmente en el contexto del pensamiento político de raíces postestructurales y lacanianas. Se observará, en suma, el modo en que dichas redefiniciones confrontan con ciertas dificultades o generan tensiones conceptuales debido al tipo de presupuestos (...) epistémicos más vastos desde los que las búsquedas parten. La puesta en relieve y el análisis de algunos de estos problemas constituye el objeto principal del presente estudio. (shrink)

The concept of “revolutionary myth” is the idea of Georges Sorel most influential in the thinking of José Carlos Mariátegui. However, this concept does not work the same way in both authors, mainly because it is applied in each case on markedly different national situations, such as France and Peru in the early twentieth century. For this reason it is important, regardless of the theoretical similarities, expressed as the difference between a general strike myth, linked to European industrial proletariat, and (...) another characterized around the social revolution, linked to the masses of the indigenous peasantry. In both cases we see that such concepts are functional to an extension of the limits of Marxism beyond Stalinism and the III International. (shrink)

Se investiga la metodología estructural deHistoire de la folie à l’ageclassique. Se sos- tiene que Michel Foucault, a partir de los trabajos de George Dumézil, elabora el concepto de experiencia para dar fundamento a las diversas experiencias históricas de la locura. La experiencia epocal, desarrollada en aquel texto, apela a una causalidad estructural que proviene del esquema de la trifuncionalidad ideológica indoeuropea de las obras de Dumézil.

RESUMEN Se investiga la metodología estructural deHistoire de la folie à l'ageclassique. Se sostiene que Michel Foucault, a partir de los trabajos de George Dumézil, elabora el concepto de experiencia para dar fundamento a las diversas experiencias históricas de la locura. La experiencia epocal, desarrollada en aquel texto, apela a una causalidad estructural que proviene del esquema de la trifuncionalidad ideológica indoeuropea de las obras de Dumézil. ABSTRACT The article inquires into the structural methodology of the Histoire de la folie (...) à Γ âge classique. It argues that Michel Foucault draws on the works of Georges Dumézil to develop the concept of experience that grounds the different historical expressions of madness. The epochal experience developed in the above-mentioned text resorts to a structural causality that has its source in the Indo-European trifunctional scheme of ideology found in the works of Dumézil. (shrink)

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo investigar el fundamento existencialista de la introducción escrita por Michel Foucault a “Traum und Existenz” de Ludwing Binswanger. Sostenemos que Foucault, partiendo de la antropología binswangeriana, desarrolla el esbozo de una antropología de la imaginación. Esta antropología se centra en una serie de conceptos: sueño, existencia, libertad, imagen e imaginación. Sin embargo, a diferencia del Daseinsanalyse, Foucault pone el acento en la facticidad y en la expresión histórica de la libertad. En este punto se (...) plantea una diferencia importante entre ambos autores: mientras que Binswanger pone el acento en una noción de individuo que supedita su existencia individual a un ideal de totalidad comunitaria, Foucault destaca la necesidad de dirigir la dimensión fundante de la libertad hacia sus formas de expresión concretas. (shrink)

“Michel Foucault and the Tragic Structure. An Early Nietzschean Reading of Tragedy”. The purpose of this article is to investigate the statute of the tragic in Michel Foucault’s early texts, especially in the original preface of Histoire de la folie à l’age classique. It will be argued that in his early reading of Nietzsche, Foucault elaborates the concept of tragic structure to give foundation, in epistemic sense, to the historical experiences of madness. Subsequently, we will trace the different formulations on (...) tragic in Foucault’s early texts. The concept of tragic appears on these texts as a term to identify the negativity and of the oblivion in the field of the psychological knowledge. Finally, we will explain how Foucault re-elaborates Nietzsche’s concept of the tragic to expose an underlying determination to the history. The battle between the dionysian and apollonian elements defines the status of this experience. (shrink)

I examine an intuitive property of folk-psychological explanations I call self-sufficiency. I argue that individualism cannot honor this property and work toward distilling an account of psychological explanation that does honor it, given some fairly standard assumptions. In doing so, my preference for an Externalist individuation of intentional state will emerge unambiguously. The assumptions I rely on are fairly standard but not uncontroversial. Yet not always do I attempt to defend them from objections. My goal is an account of folk (...) psychology consistent with our every-day practices rather than the deduction of an idealized psychology from first principles. I conclude with some applications offered as evidence that the goal was achieved. (shrink)

La dirección de Nemesio Antúnez entre 1962 y 1964, y las administraciones que le siguieron en el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC), son un caso ejemplar de las dinámicas político-culturales desarrolladas durante la Guerra Fría. Este artículo analiza esta gestión museal desde la historia intelectual y la historia cultural, trabajando las redes de pensamiento que rodearon a Antúnez y la disquisición entre su programación y la influencia norteamericana en ese momento, atendiendo a cómo el MAC se involucró en la guerra (...) fría cultural. De esta manera se busca aportar al conocimiento de las tramas institucionales que se dieron entre la intelectualidad periférica y los centros metropolitanos durante uno de los periodos claves del siglo XX, presentando ciertos programas expositivos que respondieron al impulso de los EE. UU. de inserción ideológica. (shrink)

This article investigates the relationship between Hume’s causal philosophy and Newton ’s philosophy of nature. I claim that Newton ’s experimentalist methodology in gravity research is an important background for understanding Hume’s conception of causality: Hume sees the relation of cause and effect as not being founded on a priori reasoning, similar to the way that Newton criticized non - empirical hypotheses about the properties of gravity. However, according to Hume’s criteria of causal inference, the law of universal gravitation is (...) not a complete causal law, since it does not include a reference either to contiguity or to temporal priority. It is still argued that because of the empirical success of Newton ’s theory—the law is a statement of an exceptionless repetition—Hume gives his support to it in interpreting gravity force instrumentally as if it bore a causal relation to motion. (shrink)

There is a longstanding debate in the stakeholder literature as to who and what really counts as the stakeholders of the firm. Likewise, there have been discussions on whether nature should be considered a stakeholder of the firm. However, one seldom encounters any definitions of the key concepts, that is of nature or the natural environment . We seek to contribute to the debate by taking a closer look at what this thing called nature actually is. In addition, we discuss (...) the implications of this conceptual refinement for the stakeholder model. In order to reinforce the status of the natural environment in the stakeholder model, we propose that any visualisation of a stakeholder network should be embedded in the natural environment. (shrink)

Illich’s criticism of contemporary industrial societies involves, among otherthings, a new conception of technology assessment based on the philosophical notionof “conviviality”. The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct such conception, whosemost salient features are radical pluralism, technologic constructivism and humanism, that is,the idea that the best yardstick to measure actual or potential.

En este artículo se propone, como clave de lectura para entender la filosofía política de Maquiavelo, una síntesis, por una parte, entre la primacía del miedo identificada por Leo Strauss y, por otra parte, siguiendo a Claude Lefort, la prioridad del conflicto político causada por los humores. Se discuten las dificultades y el alcance del intento de articular las interpretaciones de Strauss y Lefort sobre Maquiavelo. Una vez mostrada la manera en que la primacía del miedo permite articular las tensiones (...) internas de la teoría de los humores, se aplica la combinación de ambas en el paradigmático discurso de Istorie fiorentine III 13, sobre la revuelta de los ciompi. (shrink)

El presente trabajo reflexiona sobre el pensamiento de la comunidad en Giorgio Agamben y Roberto Esposito. Ambos interrogan lo común desde una perspectiva impolítica que intenta deconstruir los presupuestos de la metafísica y de la filosofía política tradicionales para poder elaborar una conceptualidad afirmativa en clave ontológica. En estos autores predomina el recurso a la figura de la comunidad, situada luego en el horizonte de la biopolítica, ya que la vida deviene el centro hacia el cual apuntarían los dispositivos de (...) poder y las formas de subjetivación política actuales. El trabajo plantea como interrogante si estos abordajes ontológicos logran dar cuenta plenamente de lo común en términos políticos o sólo éticos. (shrink)

The state of our current world has brought about a very active discussion concerning possible alternatives to our current society. In this article, I wish to consider Marx’s idea of communism as a possible alternative, by understanding it as an undetermined concept that only proposes a society without classes and private property. The thesis I will defend here is that we can meaningfully think about such an alternative through the means of Science Fiction literature. In particular, I will take Ursula (...) Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (2006) as a case study. To clarify this relation between science fiction (SF) literature and communism as a particular case of an alternative society, I will introduce some concepts of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological theory. Thus, I shall argue that in SF we can presentify in bounded phantasy an alternative lifeworld, so furnishing with content the undetermined idea, and in doing so, strengthen the belief in the possibility of such an alternative society. (shrink)

The study analyses how the corporate rhetoric of sustainability has developed in Finland during 1985-2005. The dataset consisting of the disclosures of four leading Finnish companies has been analyzed through discourse analytic methods. The findings question whether the ever-increasing popularity of sustainability-related concepts actually means that society is moving forward on the road towards sustainability.

The study provides insights on why large Finnish municipalities are engaging in sustainability reporting. The dataset consists of the sustainability disclosures of five large Finnish cities and of a set of interviews conducted with the personnel responsible for composing the sustainability reports in these cities. Preliminary findings suggest that this rising practice is again an example of a fad, arising as the public sector organizations mimic the corporate sector without anyone really pondering whether the municipalities and the public sector as (...) a whole truly need a similar practice the corporations have. We maintain that there are better ways to use a municipality’s scarce resources than imitating the corporate sustainability reporting practices through producing a sustainability report, the main task of which seems to be to exist. (shrink)

El siguiente artículo muestra algunas particularidades del trabajo femenino en el colectivo laboral docente a principios del siglo XX en Mendoza. Contrastamos investigaciones teóricas y empíricas dedicadas a esta temática en diferentes regiones de la Argentina con las fuentes históricas locales disponibles –informes oficiales, diarios, revistas gremiales y fotografías-. Analizamos las tensiones y conflictos que caracterizaron a la cuestión de la feminización del magisterio desde la historia social con perspectiva de género. Hacemos hincapié en las expectativas sociales que modelaron la (...) tarea docente, sin desatender las contradicciones con sus condiciones de vida y de trabajo. Por caso analizamos la labor docente en zonas rurales de la provincia, marcado por una ausencia de regulaciones legales.Se articulan tres cuestiones en torno a las educacionistas. La tensión entre la función maternal docente y la función modernizadora de ciudadanizar a la población, sin abandonar la sospecha -de la burocracia gubernamental- sobre la incapacidad femenina de formar ciudadanos signados por la virilidad. En segundo lugar la “misión” social/vocacional del magisterio que al trascender lo profesional deslegitimaba las demandas laborales concretas. Y finalmente, la homologación de la maestra con la escuela, las recargó de responsabilidades, al tiempo que se desconocía la multiplicidad de factores y dimensiones que incidían en el funcionamiento de la escuela y el sistema educativo. Este contexto determinado por la estrechez presupuestaria caracterizó a la política educativa de ese tiempo y afectó no sólo a la infraestructura sino a los salarios docentes y, por ende, a la reproducción de sus vidas. (shrink)

The article discusses the experience of the Paris Commune of 1871 from the point of view of the conceptions of democracy. It situates its historical novelty on the basis of the opposing views of Friedrich Nietzsche and Karl Marx. It critically exposes some of the later interpretations of the democratic content of the Commune in Marxism to inquire about the specificity of the democratic principle of the Commune, its novelty and its differences with representative democracies under capitalism.

En las últimas dos décadas, la relación directa o indirecta de Kierkegaard con la nueva fenomenologíase ha vuelto un tópico de creciente interés. Haciendo eco de este ánimo, en este artículo pretendo leerdos niveles del pensamiento de Kierkegaard a partir de las directrices generales de la nuevafenomenología. El primer estadio refiere al carácter descentrado del sujeto kierkegaardiano frente aDios, modulación que se entrelaza con una inversión de la intencionalidad husserliana. Por otro lado,el segundo escalón apunta a la intersubjetividad, en tanto (...) el reconocimiento de y la responsabilidadhacia los otros. El objetivo es mostrar que Kierkegaard contribuye al proyecto de la nuevafenomenología no sólo como un crítico más de la metafísica moderna, sino también como proveedorde categorías reconstructivas del individuo y la comunidad. (shrink)

El contacto del filósofo danés Søren Kierkegaard con el concepto de tolerancia está condicionado por el uso propiamente moderno del término. Esta noción encontró su camino hacia Dinamarca a través de N. F. S. Grundtvig, una de las principales figuras del contexto intelectual de Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard se aleja de la tolerancia de corte indiferente que defiende Grundtvig, pero también rechaza una intolerancia violenta y coercitiva. En este marco, el objetivo de este artículo es bosquejar el lugar que ocupa la tolerancia (...) en el pensamiento cristiano de Kierkegaard y la contribución que puede significar para repensar las relaciones intersubjetivas y sociales. (shrink)

El contacto del filósofo danés Søren Kierkegaard con el concepto de tolerancia está condicionado por el uso propiamente moderno del término. Esta noción encontró su camino hacia Dinamarca a través de N. F. S. Grundtvig, una de las principales figuras del contexto intelectual de Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard se aleja de la tolerancia de corte indiferente que defiende Grundtvig, pero también rechaza una intolerancia violenta y coercitiva. En este marco, el objetivo de este artículo es bosquejar el lugar que ocupa la tolerancia (...) en el pensamiento cristiano de Kierkegaard y la contribución que puede significar para repensar las relaciones intersubjetivas y sociales. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to show the evolution of Kierkegaard’s views on the state scattered in his Papers. To do this, I will carry out an analysis divided into chronological periods, and I will characterize each period in terms of its main features. The goal is to give a comprehensive account of Kierkegaard as a champion of the monarchical and authoritative state, who loses his patience and attacks the established order only when he thinks that Christianity’s truth is at (...) the greatest risk. This interpretation contrasts both with a mere despotic Kierkegaard and with a more liberal one. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Gareth Evans and Sven Rosenkranz have respectively formulated two objections to truth relativism that would show that this view does not cohere with our practice of asserting. I argue that the relativist should answer such objections by appealing to the notion of assessment sensitivity. Since the relativist accounts for this notion by means of a technical truth predicate relating propositions to contexts of assessment, the task left to her turns out to be to make sense of assessment sensitivity by (...) making sense of this predicate. RESUMO Gareth Evans e Sven Rosenkranz formularam, respectivamente, duas objeções ao relativismo da verdade que mostrariam que esta visão não é coerente com nossa prática de afirmar. Defendo que o relativista deve responder a tais objeções apelando à noção de sensibilidade da avaliação. Tendo em mente que o relativista considera essa noção por meio de um predicado de verdade técnica, a tarefa deixada para ele calha de ser dar sentido à sensibilidade da avaliação mediante dar sentido a esse predicado. (shrink)

Given the sharp distinction that follows from Hume’s Fork, the proper epistemic status of propositions of mixed mathematics seems to be a mystery. On the one hand, mathematical propositions concern the relation of ideas. They are intuitive and demonstratively certain. On the other hand, propositions of mixed mathematics, such as in Hume’s own example, the law of conservation of momentum, are also matter of fact propositions. They concern causal relations between species of objects, and, in this sense, they are not (...) intuitive or demonstratively certain, but probable or provable. In this article, I argue that the epistemic status of propositions of mixed mathematics is that of matters of fact. I wish to show that their epistemic status is not a mystery. The reason for this is that the propositions of mixed mathematics are dependent on the Uniformity Principle, unlike the propositions of pure mathematics. (shrink)

According to a widespread view, Einstein’s definition of time in his special relativity is founded on the positivist verification principle. The present paper challenges this received outlook. It shall be argued that Einstein’s position on the concept of time, to wit, simultaneity, is best understood as a mitigated version of concept empiricism. He contrasts his position to Newton’s absolutist and Kant’s transcendental arguments, and in part sides with Hume’s and Mach’s empiricist arguments. Nevertheless, Einstein worked out a concept empiricism that (...) is considerably more moderate than what we find in the preceding empiricist tradition and early logical positivism. He did not think that the origin of concepts is in observations, but in conventions, and he also maintained a realist ontology of physical events, which he thought is necessary for his theory. Consequently, his philosophy of time in special relativity is not couched in terms of an anti-metaphysical verificationism. (shrink)