Suicide as a form of political protest is a little studied social phenomenon that cannot be dismissed simply as being irrational or patholognomic. We consider protest suicide to be a meaningful social action as purposive political act intended to change oppressive policies or practices. This paper synthesizes theoretical propositions associated with suicide in general, and protest suicide in particular, so as to construct a general explanatory model of protest suicide as a social phenomenon. Then, it analyzes protest suicide as a (...) meaningful social action. People considering protest suicide have to discern the logic of the situation in which such action is to take place. This involves answering two fundamental questions: Is suicide an acceptable course of social action? Is the envisaged protest suicide likely to achieve their hopes, aspirations and goals? How these questions are answered gives rise to a set of protest suicide archetypes. Our analysis generates a more sophisticated understanding of the potential reasons for, and motivations behind, protest suicide as a social phenomenon. (shrink)

En este escrito se analiza la significación y el uso filosófico que Wittgenstein dio en su pensamiento maduro al concepto de forma de vida. Así, aunque se señala que Wittgenstein sólo hizo uso de dicho concepto en el contexto de la justificación de la praxis lingüística como límite epistemológico, se enfatiza no obstante que en ese uso ya es posible vislumbrar una cierta concepción antropológica sobre los seres humanos como animales de conducta expresiva, intencional, simbólica, lingüística generadora de reglas y (...) amante de regularidades. El artículo acaba con un análisis del problema de la forma de vida de los animales y su relación con la forma de vida humana: en concreto se destaca el carácter lingüístico y cultural de la forma de vida humana, y se muestran los límites en la atribución a los animales no-humanos de los predicados mentales humanos. (shrink)