In this paper the question of note-taking is addressed in reference to a specific educational approach, that of the community of philosophical inquiry (CPI) in the tradition of Matthew Lipman and Ann Sharp’s Philosophy for Children (P4C). After emphasizing the pivotal role that this activity plays within a typical session of P4C, its specific status (in comparison with what happens in a classic lecture) is explored, insofar as it could be interpreted as a gesture distributed among and between the teacher (...) and the students. The argumentation is animated and sustained by three intimately interwoven questions: first, how can we construe note-taking in reference to the two philosophical-educational matrices (the Socratic-Platonic and the pragmatist) presiding over CPI? Secondly, who actually takes notes in a P4C session? Could we venture to say that it is CPI as an “intersubject”? And, thirdly, what is the status of the notes taken and written on the flip-chart as a text? Through the analyses developed, note-taking is interpreted as the ‘inscription’ of the co-philosophizing and a kind of self-writing and its significance for the emergence of CPI as such is shown. (shrink)

This text seeks to situate Being and Time in the line of the ancient philosophical tradition of care for self (epiméleia heautou). After a brief description of the main features of this tradition as portrayed by Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot, the author presents the elements of Being in Time in favour and those against such a link. Her hypothesis appears to encounter a major objection in the explicit refusal of Heidegger to speak of Selbstsorge. But an attentive examination of (...) the meaning of this reserve (the rejection of selfhood as a transparent and introspective relationship of the soul to itself) makes it in reality possible to show Heidegger to be one of the most consequent philosophers in the tradition of care for the soul. Indeed, by highlighting the constitutive link between selfhood and care, Heidegger shows the very condition of possibility of the tradition of care for the soul: that the self is not given as a thing, but may contribute to its own transformation through a specific form of care. (shrink)

In this article I engage with Foucault’s reading of the Platonic dialogue Alcibiades in his Hermeneutics of the Subject, developing his view that this text offers a model of the self-constitution of the subject. Foucault’s reading is part of his larger aim to find alternative conceptualizations of subjectivity besides the Cartesian ones that he thinks have dominated modern thought. His reading has been contested; but I argue that the Alcibiades does indeed develop a notion of subjectivity as reflexive and self-constituting. (...) Moreover, two aspects of the text that Foucault misrepresents make even clearer the distance of its notion of subjecthood from a Cartesian view. First, the reflexive subject of the Alcibiades, though viewed as essentially intellectual, is the result of an ascetic practice of self-constitution. Second, this practice is essentially interpersonal, operating through reciprocal and equal dialectic. (shrink)

Reseña de Gutiérrez, D. Sócrates y la práctica de la espiritualidad.

Resumen: El principal objetivo de este trabajo es pensar el concepto de meditación en la filosofía de Ortega y Gasset. La meditación es la esencia de la filosofía para Ortega. Meditar y filosofar son sinónimos. La filosofía no es mera teoría, sino que implica también práctica. El elemento teórico sólo tiene sentido cuando surge de la vida, pero ante todo la teoría sólo vale si vale para vivir. El ser humano para Ortega piensa porque vive, pero lo fundamental es que (...) piensa para vivir. Sólo los pensamientos que se alcanzan viviendo tienen valor para vivir. La meditación filosófica está siempre supeditada a la vida.The principal aim of this work is to think the concept of meditation in the Ortega y Gasset’s philosophy. For Ortega, meditation is the essence of philosophy. To meditate and to philosophize are synonymous. Philosophy isn’t simply theory, but it also implies practice. The theoretical element only makes sense when it arises from life, but above all theory only have value if it have value for life. For Ortega, human being thinks because he lives, but is fundamental that he thinks for life. Only thoughts reached by living have value for life. Philosophical meditation is always subordinated to life. (shrink)

¿Fue realmente la necesidad de responder a los retos del escepticismo –y, en concreto, del escepticismo de Montaigne– lo que incitó a Descartes a formular el argumento del cogito? Este artículo defiende una respuesta negativa, pues no fue la herencia del escepticismo sino la del estoicismo clásico, también revitalizado en el Renacimiento, lo que fue determinante en el surgimiento del internalismo epistémico moderno.Palabras claves: Montaigne, Descartes, Epicteto, escepticismo, estocismo, internalismo epistémico moderno.Was Descartes’ Cogito argument an answer to the challenges of (...) Scepticism and, in particular, to Montaigne’s version of it? This paper claims that the answer to this question should be negative, since it was not the influence of Scepticism, but the one of classic Stoicism –a trend that was also retrieved in the Renaissance– the one that had the main role in the rise of modern epistemic internalism.Keywords: Montaigne, Descartes, Epictetus, Scepticism, Stoicism, modern epistemic internalism. (shrink)

...that is, “Let no-one without knowledge of geometry enter:” the inscription displayed on the entrance to Plato’s Academy reminds us how close the relationships between mathematics1 and philosophy used to be. In this perspective, when we approach the issue of how philosophical inquiry can further maths’ teaching/learning, a sort of archaeological attitude is in order, which delves into the layers of a long history, plumbs the recondite depths of Western thought, and unearths what remains too often concealed either because it (...) is taken for granted or because we have become unable to detect what constitutes the very way in which we think. (shrink)