De entre las múltiples posibilidades de estudio filosófico que ofrece el fértil asunto de la fotografía, en este ensayo propongo un acercamiento especialmente interesado en explorar y clarificar su extraño vínculo con la idea de muerte. Para ello, me serviré de una explicación en clave genealógica con la que propiciar al lector una adecuada inmersión a través de diferentes etapas diferenciadas en las que será posible advertir la progresiva evolución de este concepto hacia la contemporaneidad que habitamos. Con este trazado (...) se cuestionará su procedencia, hoy heredada como algo perfecto y sin fisuras. Mostrar el equívoco de esto mismo, haciendo hincapié en su fragmentación, en su dispersión y en el viraje que este ha experimentado a lo largo del tiempo, constituirá el principal objetivo de estas páginas. (shrink)

RESUMEN Los preámbulos son introducciones cortas que manifiestan, en términos generales, el propósito y contexto de una constitución. Su contenido presenta una gran variedad de temas que reflejan el momento histórico y la ideología que dio origen al marco legal de un país. En este artículo utilizamos el análisis crítico del discurso para examinar los preámbulos de las constituciones de Bolivia y Ecuador y planteamos que ambos son ejemplos claros de pensamiento decolonial. Nos hemos centrado en tres aspectos del pensamiento (...) decolonial: biocentrismo, plurinacionalismo y visibilidad del género social. Este artículo también muestra que la traducción inglesa de estos preámbulos falla en transmitir su propuesta epistemológica. (shrink)

RESUMENLos preámbulos son introducciones cortas que manifiestan, en términos generales, el propósito y contexto de una constitución. Su contenido presenta una gran variedad de temas que reflejan el momento histórico y la ideología que dio origen al marco legal de un país. En este artículo utilizamos el análisis crítico del discurso para examinar los preámbulos de las constituciones de Bolivia y Ecuador y planteamos que ambos son ejemplos claros de pensamiento decolonial. Nos hemos centrado en tres aspectos del pensamiento decolonial: (...) biocentrismo, plurinacionalismo y visibilidad del género social. Este artículo también muestra que la traducción inglesa de estos preámbulos falla en transmitir su propuesta epistemológica. (shrink)

El modelo de desarrollo sustentable ha motivado la generación de una importante producción científica en distintos ámbitos. Tal ha sido el caso de la psicología que se ha propuesto comprender el papel de los factores conductuales y mentales implicados en la relación del hombre con la naturaleza. Si bien el emergente campo de la psicología ambiental se ha planteado objetivos pertinentes para el fomento de conductas sustentables, ésta ha operado desde modelos epistemológicos que tienden a mantener elementos de la cosmovisión (...) moderna relacionada con el deterioro ambiental. Se proponen las aproximaciones narrativas de la psicología como una alternativa capaz de subvertir el orden epistemológico. (shrink)

" Il n'y a pas plus de culture populaire que de culture élitaire : il y a des œuvres qui exhaussent, élèvent, transcendent, embellissent, d'autres qui diminuent, rabaissent, avilissent... Le comble du malentendu, ou de la lâcheté ambiante, c'est que nombre de moyens de communication et de divulgation ont fait avec cynisme le choix de promouvoir à outrance le populisme culturel [...] Le livre, quand il se tient dans l'espace spécifique de sa vocation intrinsèque, est encore cet objet de sens (...) et de pressentiment qui véhicule le meilleur de ce que l'humanité a à se proposer à elle-même.". (shrink)

In this article, I propose a unified account of systemic emergence, downward causation, and interlevel integrative explanations. First, I argue for a relational-transformational notion of emergence and a structural-relational account of downward causation in terms of both its transformational and conditioning effects. In my view, downward causation can avoid the problems traditionally attributed to it, provided that we are able to reconceptualize the notion of ‘whole’ and that form of causality in a purely relational way. In this regard, I distinguish (...) contextual or whole-to-part causation from downward causation, the latter defined by the existence of second-order structural relations. Finally, I argue that while emergence and downward-structural causation imply the in-principle failure of micro-determinism and therefore micro-reduction, they do not rule out the possibility of any type of explanation. On the contrary, they call for the development of interlevel integrative explanations. (shrink)

The status of scientific knowledge in political liberalism is controversial. Although Rawls argued that the noncontroversial methods and conclusions of science belong to the kind of reasons that citizens can legitimately call forth in public deliberation, critics have observed that the complexity and elaborateness of scientific arguments drive them away from the spirit of public reason, i.e., that which should reflect judgments that are the product of general beliefs and forms of reasoning found in common sense. In other words, scientific (...) claims remain as inaccessible as esoteric or religious reasons. This paper contends that this objection can be met by introducing a crucial assumption, drawn from W. V. O. Quine and the ‘naturalized epistemology’ tradition: that scientific reasoning and everyday reasoning are not two different epistemic categories but rather form a continuum. The former is just a filtered or refined version of the latter. Accordingly, evidence-based scientific reasoning is common to all citizens, regardless of their actual acceptance of specific scientific claims. Following the Quinean Assumption, political liberals may argue that, unlike religious or esoteric sources of knowledge, scientific reasoning is the expression of a cognitive operation that is fundamentally shared across comprehensive doctrines and politically reasonable individuals. (shrink)

There have been persistent philosophical efforts to demarcate the province of science. Fewer attempts have been made to explore whether these demarcation strategies are consistent with the liberal promise of religious neutrality. Within this framework, most liberal political theorists seem to agree that hypotheses suggesting supernatural agency should remain outside the purview of science by principle. In their view, this rule of methodological naturalism is neutral in the relevant sense, since it is silent towards ultimate questions. This paper examines whether (...) this is so, especially when discussing the content of the science curriculum in public education. In this context, advocates of the status of Intelligent Design creationism as a scientific theory argue that MN arbitrarily dismisses a type of supernatural agency that is fundamental to several branches of theistic belief. Drawing on Thomas Nagel’s position, the paper contends that MN assumes a meta-scientific position to which either god does not exist, or god does not intervene in cosmic history. To that extend, MN cannot be reconciled with LPRN. However, this conclusion does not entail that hypotheses that suggest supernatural agency must be included in the science curriculum. Creationist theories may remain excluded to the extent that they fall short of the standards that are required for a proficient scientific account. But, crucially, it will not be their religious character what keeps them out of the classroom, but a series of pseudoscientific wrongs which are non-exclusive to supernaturalistic hypotheses. The paper thus suggests the exploration of an alternative demarcation strategy, one that is consistent with LPRN. (shrink)

In his new book, Logical Form, Andrea Iacona distinguishes between two different roles that have been ascribed to the notion of logical form: the logical role and the semantic role. These two roles entail a bifurcation of the notion of logical form. Both notions of logical form, according to Iacona, are descriptive, having to do with different features of natural language sentences. I agree that the notion of logical form bifurcates, but not that the logical role is merely descriptive. In (...) this paper, I focus on formalization, a process by which logical form, on its logical role, is attributed to natural language sentences. According to some, formalization is a form of explication, and it involves normative, pragmatic, as well as creative aspects. I present a view by which formalization involves explicit commitments on behalf of a reasoner or an interpreter, which serve the normative grounds for the evaluation of a given text. In previous work, I proposed the framework of semantic constraints for the explication of logical consequence. Here, I extend the framework to include formalization constraints. The various constraints then serve the role of commitments. I discuss specific issues raised by Iacona concerning univocality, co-reference and equivocation, and I show how our views on these matters diverge as a result of our different starting assumptions. (shrink)

The move from open outcry to electronic trading added another responsibility to futures exchanges—that of matching orders between buyers and sellers. Matching systems can affect the level and speed of price discovery, the distribution of revenue, as well as the level of price efficiency of a given market. Whether the matching system is procedurally fair is another important consideration. I argue that while FIFO (First In First Out) is a fair procedure in principle and is perceived as the default matching (...) system, it is not a fair procedure in practice. Likewise, while pro rata is a fair procedure in principle, it is not so in practice. Nevertheless, both FIFO and pro rata are relics of an open outcry system. Instead, I propose an alternative approach to matching systems that builds on the strengths of electronic trading—the ability to randomize in real time. I introduce random selection for service (RSS) as a matching system that is procedurally fair both in principle and in practice. (shrink)

Philosophers of well-being have tended to adopt a foundationalist approach to the question of theory and measurement, according to which theories are conceptually before measures. By contrast, social scientists have tended to adopt operationalist commitments, according to which they develop and refine well-being measures independently of any philosophical foundation. Unfortunately, neither approach helps us overcome the problem of coordinating between how we characterize well-being and how we measure it. Instead, we should adopt a coherentist approach to well-being science.

Intercultural research poses critical ethical challenges. In 2019, in collaboration with more than 200 researchers from more than 30 countries, a group of researchers developed an ethical conflict analysis model that seems relevant for Latin America. The model proposes a flexible frame of reference where ethical challenges depend on four factors present throughout the research process: the place where the research is carried out, the people involved, the relevant ethical principles, and the precedents from previous research. This article discusses the (...) applicability of this model through two case analyses: one study with Indigenous peoples in Chile and the other with Latin-American migrants on the border between Mexico and US. (shrink)

According to John Rawls, the methods and conclusions of science—when these are non-controversial—constitute public reasons. However, several objections have been raised against this view. This paper focuses on two objections. On the one hand, the associational objection states that scientific reasons are the reasons of the scientific community, and thus paradigmatically non-public in the Rawlsian sense. On the other hand, the controversiality objection states that the non-controversiality requirement rules out their public character when scientific postulates are resisted by a significant (...) portion of the citizenry. The paper replies that both objections miss their mark. To the associational objection, it replies that the relevant test for a reason to be public is whether the reasons have been construed under the rules and constrains of a public frame of thought. Insofar as scientific methods and conclusions correspond to the principles of reasoning and rules of evidence that liberals understand as public, their associational origin is secondary. To the controversiality objection, it replies that the standard for a scientific argument to be regarded as non-controversial should refer to its degree of intra-scientific consensus, since ordinary citizens accept or reject scientific pronouncements conditioned to their particular comprehensive views. Nonetheless, a wide extra-scientific agreement on the epistemic virtues of the scientific method will be needed. The paper concludes that there is a good case to think about scientific reasons as public to the extent that scientific reasoning is a mode of inquiry that mirrors a central aspiration of Rawlsian political liberalism: having a public way of thought and an impersonal standpoint to adjudicate between competing claims. (shrink)

Physicians frequently encounter situations in which their professional practice is intermingled with moral affordances stemming from other domains of the physician’s lifeworld, such as family and friends, or from general morality pertaining to all humans. This article offers a typology of moral conflicts ‘at the margins of professionalism’ as well as a new theoretical framework for dealing with them. We start out by arguing that established theories of professional ethics do not offer sufficient guidance in situations where professional ethics overlaps (...) with moral duties of other origins. Therefore, we introduce the moral theory developed by Christine M. Korsgaard, that centres around the concept of practical identity. We show how Korsgaard’s account offers a framework for interpreting different types of moral conflicts ‘at the margins of professionalism’ to provide either orientation for solving the conflict or an explanation for the emotional and moral burden involved in moral dilemmas. (shrink)

Generating an account that can sidestep the disagreement among substantive theories of well-being, while at the same time still providing useful guidance for well-being public policy, would be a significant achievement. Unfortunately, the various attempts to remain agnostic regarding what constitutes well-being fail to either be an account of well-being, provide useful guidance for well-being policy, or avoid relying on a substantive well-being theory. There are no theory-free lunches in well-being policy. Instead, I propose an intermediate account, according to which (...) well-being is constituted by endorsed veridical experiences. This account refers back to theories of well-being but does so as agnostically as possible. An intermediate account of well-being is meant as a policy guiding compromise between the different theories of well-being that make claims regarding what constitutes well-being. An intermediate account does as well as can be hoped for in providing a basis for well-being policy. (shrink)

Downward causation exercised by emergent properties of wholes upon their lower-level constituents’ properties has been accused of conceptual and metaphysical incoherence. Only upward causation is usually peacefully accepted. The aim of this paper is to criticize and refuse the traditional hierarchical-vertical way of conceiving both types of causation, although preserving their deepest ontological significance, as well as the widespread acceptance of the traditional atomistic-combinatorial view of the entities and the relations that constitute the so-called ‘emergence base’. Assuming those two perspectives (...) with no reserves, we are condemned to confine our debate to the question of whether reified wholes can have the power to downwardly change or influence their lower-level parts, a question which seems profoundly misleading to me. I therefore propose an alternative relational ontological view, assuming a straightforward horizontal and intra-level way of representing those putative cases of cross-level causation. I finally confront two recent replies to Kim’s well-known objections to DC—Craver and Bechtel and Kistler :595–609, 2009)—, emphasizing their global positive approaches, as well as the reasons why their accounts still seem insufficient to me. I conclude arguing that both Kim’s principle of the causal closure of the physical domain and its allegation of an overdetermination in cases of DC can be surpassed by the new relational ontological perspective presented here. (shrink)

Resumen: El artículo reflexiona sobre la especificación del juicio “conforme al derecho” como juicio justo por criterios legales y morales. La evolución de la filosofía jurídica desde la tesis de que el juicio justo del juez debe fundarse solamente en fuentes legales hacia la constatación de que tal juicio no es posible exige que la teoría analítica del derecho, la filosofía jurídica hermenéutica y la teoría del derecho natural se complementen para evitar el irracionalismo nihilista.

In this article I address the issue of the ontological conditions of possibility for a naturalistic notion of emergence, trying to determine its fundamental differences from the atomist, vitalist, preformationist and potentialist alternatives. I will argue that a naturalistic notion of ontological emergence can only succeed if we explicitly refuse the atomistic fundamental ontological postulate that asserts that every entity is endowed with a set of absolutely intrinsic properties, being qualitatively immutable through its extrinsic relations. Furthermore, it will be shown (...) that, ironically enough, this metaphysical assumption is implicitly shared by all the above mentioned alternatives to Emergentism. The current article concludes that the notion of organization by itself is not enough, and that ontological emergence can only be justified by assuming a relational ontological perspective that, in opposition both to atomism and holism, defends that the existence-conditions, the identity and the causal behavior of any emergent systemic property can only be conceived, and explained, as constructed by and through specific networks of qualitatively transformative relational processes that occur between the system’s components and between the system and its environment. Additionally, I try to explain how one can make sense of the idea that an emergent phenomenon is both dependent on, and autonomous from, its emergence base. (shrink)

It is an open question whether well-being ought to primarily be understood as a temporal concept or whether it only makes sense to talk about a person’s well-being over their whole lifetime. In this article, I argue that how this principled philosophical disagreement is settled does not have substantive practical implications for well-being science and well-being policy. Trying to measure lifetime well-being directly is extremely challenging as well as unhelpful for guiding well-being public policy, while temporal well-being is both an (...) adequate indirect measure of lifetime well-being, and an adequate focus for the purposes of improving well-being through public policy. Consequently, even if what we ought to care about is lifetime well-being, we should use temporal measures of well-being and focus on temporal well-being policies. (shrink)

Spoofing is the act of placing orders to buy or sell a financial contract without the intention to have those orders fulfilled in order to create the impression that there is a large demand for that contract at that price. In this article, I deny the view that spoofing in financial markets should be viewed as morally permissible analogously to the way bluffing is permissible in poker. I argue for the pro tanto moral impermissibility of spoofing and make the case (...) that spoofing is disanalogous from bluffing in at least one important regard—speculative trading serves an important economic role, whereas poker does not. (shrink)

Policy-makers sometimes aim to improve well-being as a policy goal, but to do this they need some way to measure well-being. Instead of relying on potentially problematic theories of well-being to justify their choice of well-being measure, Daniel Hausman proposes that policy-makers can sometimes rely on preference-based measures as evidence for well-being. I claim that Hausman’s evidential account does not justify the use of any one measure more than it justifies the use of any other measure. This leaves us at (...) a loss as to which policy should be chosen in the non-trivial cases for which there is substantial disagreement between the different measures in their assessment of policy. (shrink)

In this paper we will reconstruct a hypothesis on love in Gilles Deleuze's philosophy. We notice that, at different moments of his philosophical itinerary, the topic of love is the object of a complex treatment, which moves from the discovery of the expression of worlds that the other involves, and which gradually detach themselves from that other, towards a progressive liberation of dehumanized elements that open up in a transformed sexuality. We will try to show that this experimental exercise reveals (...) a surface, defined by the decomposition of the self and where the passage through a world without others will allow us to discover a plane of liberated elements, open to connections that will allow us other ways of understanding the phenomenon of love. (shrink)

Cet article passe en revue les principaux points à retenir des travaux de Gilles Fauconnier, en particulier de son travail collaboratif avec Mark Turner sur la théorie du _blending_, pour les lecteurs qui ne sont pas familiers avec ce cadre théorique ou qui pourraient bénéficier d'un regard extérieur. Je souligne les leçons globales à tirer des notions d'espaces mentaux et de leurs connexions ou _mappings_, les avantages d'utiliser de petits packages au lieu de grands domaines pour analyser l’activité conceptuelle, comment (...) les réseaux d'intégration (_blending networks_) nous permettent d'aller au-delà de simples projections ou correspondances entre domaines de l'expérience, ainsi que la nécessité d'étudier des modèles qui fournissent un pont entre les principes généraux et les exemples riches et contextualisés qui les exposent. Je cherche avant tout à transmettre le message de Gilles Fauconnier sur la fascination, la curiosité, l'ambition et l'humilité requises par l'entreprise scientifiq... (shrink)

En este texto buscamos hacer inteligible el lugar y los derroteros que sigue el concepto de auto-afección en el pensamiento de Jacques Derrida. Dicho concepto se desarrolla a partir de una interpretación de Kant y el problema de la metafísica, de Heidegger. En la elaboración del concepto en Derrida se enfatiza el momento de distancia en el que el sí-mismo no puede reducir al otro, sino que tiene que hacer patente la demora en su propia formación. Esto implicaría considerar que (...) la mismidad que se constituye en la auto-afección no puede ser separada de una hetero-afección, mediante la cual el otro no puede ser objetivado y no es otra cosa que el sí-mismo en su alteración. La forma de dicho espaciamiento que produce la alteración se pone a prueba en la voz y en la estructura del “oírse-hablar”, la que se revela como un espacio polifónico irreductible a una unidad, donde la auto-afección se desune de sí para retornar como aquello que no espera y como aquello que no puede replegarse en un lugar de reunión. In this paper we try to understand the status and the path followed by the concept of self-affection in the thought of Jacques Derrida. This concept is developed based on an interpretation of Martin Heidegger’s Kant and the problem of Metaphysics. In the elaboration of the concept, Derrida emphasizes the moment of distance in which the self cannot be reduced to the other, but the self makes clear the delay in its own formation. This means that the sameness that constitutes self-affection cannot be separated from hetero-affection, in which the other cannot be objectified and is nothing more than the self in its own alteration. The shape of the spacing that produces such alteration is tested in the voice and its own structure of “s’entendre-parler”, which is revealed as a polyphonic space irreducible to a unity, where self-affection is detached from itself in order to return as something that it does not expect and as something that cannot not retreat into a meeting place. (shrink)

To advance current knowledge on ethical decision-making in organizations, we integrate two perspectives that have thus far developed independently: the organizational identification perspective and the ethical climate perspective. We illustrate the interaction between these perspectives in two studies, in which we presented participants with moral business dilemmas. Specifically, we found that organizational identification increased moral decision-making only when the organization’s climate was perceived to be ethical. In addition, we disentangle this effect in Study 2 from participants’ moral identity. We argue (...) that the interactive influence of organizational identification and ethical climate, rather than the independent influence of either of these perspectives, is crucial for understanding moral decision-making in organizations. (shrink)

We analyze conceptual patterns shared by Michael Ende’s novel about time, Momo, and examples of time conceptualization from psychology, sociology, economics, conventional language, and real social practices. We study three major mappings in the materialization of time: time as money in relation with time banking, time units as objects produced by an internal clock, and time as a substance that flows. We show that binary projections between experiential domains are not enough to model the complexity of meaning construction in these (...) widely successful examples. To account for the intricacies of time materialization in context, we use generic integration templates, models for conceptual templates based on Fauconnier and Turner’s Blending Theory. The interplay of such detailed patterns with pragmatic and cultural factors, including diachronic aspects, is crucial to identify the cognitive models at work, and the factors that guide their instantiations as a variety of surface products. The blending model for the spatialized time can be refined and extended to the materialization of time. (shrink)

Deleuze’s philosophy is permeated with the problem of the continuum. The idea that the coexistence of durations is implied in the concept of duration itself allows Deleuze to offer a fresh perspective on multiplicity, which is distinct from Bergson’s approach, and which proposes new perspectives on the continuum. While Deleuze critiques Leibniz’s view on this concept by highlighting the non-uniform nature of the continuum, the infinitesimal still plays a significant role in his analysis. However, in his late reading of Leibniz, (...) Deleuze emphasises that folds, rather than infinitesimals, should be considered as the smallest components of the continuum’s labyrinth. This implies that there is a union of indiscernible cuts in the continuity, cuts that do not create gaps or breaks in the overall coherence, but rather a labyrinth. I will show how, in exploring this problem, Deleuze and Guattari draw inspiration from Kafka, in order to relate continuity to contiguity. This relation reveals an internal difference that defines the distinction between what is continuous and what is contiguous. This, in our view, marks a considerable shift between Deleuze’s early reading of Bergson and his late reading of Leibniz, and it allows Deleuze to further develop his idea of the continuum. (shrink)