The author argues that Michael Polanyi’s philosophy of science can be understood as an (unconscious) attempt to recapture elements of experience largely forgotten or repressed in modernity. Specifically, the author argues that Polanyi’s epistemology appears to draw on elements of oral—aural experience that have been relatively ignored by the heavily visual sensory orientation typical of modern Western societies. The author does this by first deriving the primary features of the modern objectivist conception of knowledge from Polanyi’s critique of objectivism and (...) then using the anthropological literature on the differences between oral and literate cultures to demonstrate that these same aspects of the objectivist paradigm correspond closely to typical features of literate, visual consciousness while Polanyi’s alternative formulations correspond to a more oral—aural orientation. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to question, from the perspective of a principled theory of criminalization, the legitimacy of making irregular immigration a crime. In order to do this, I identify three main ways in which the political decision to introduce a crime of IM may be defended: according to the first, IM is a malum in se the wrongness of which resides in its being a violation of states’ territorial sovereignty; according to the second, IM is a justified (...) malum prohibitum the wrongness of which resides in its being a violation of a justified immigration regulation; according to the third, IM is a malum in se the wrongness of which resides in its harmful consequences for receiving states’ citizens. My thesis is that none of these arguments succeeds in providing us with sufficiently good reasons to justify the use of criminal punishment to enforce the closure of state borders. As regards the first, I argue that it relies on a misleading conception of what is entailed by states’ territorial sovereignty, and that therefore it is unsound as an argument for the state’s right to control immigration. With regard to the second, I argue that, be they legitimate or not, immigration regulations enacted by states cannot provide those would-be immigrants they aim to exclude with content-independent reasons to comply with them; and this is a necessary pre-condition to conclude that IM is a justified malum prohibitum. As regards harm-based approaches, I argue that the notions they rely on are completely unfit as criteria for criminalization. This leads me to the conclusion that, unless other more convincing arguments are provided for, IM should not be criminalized. (shrink)

A reading of Solon's elegy to eunomia through Castoriadis's seminal theory of autonomy as the explicit and reflective self-institution of society can elucidate the question of what constitutes sound governance. Solon proposes that the dignified realm of mortal life is the ethos of citizenship in a political state. Accordingly, this regime, which relies on intrinsic justification, needs to be understood in ethico-political terms. Its inherent ordinance is the rule of justice - the reciprocity of equitable proportion governing relations among citizens. (...) It is the responsibility of these citizens to safeguard the governing reciprocity, and when they neglect it, the entire state suffers the dire consequences of hubris. The political order that best observes and promulgates the rule of justice is good governance, which functions both as self-limitation and as a balancing measure by arranging the contest of civic forces into a fitting harmony. (shrink)

En este trabajo me interesa abordar la figura del poeta legislador Solón, a fin de examinar la influencia que sus escritos pudieron haber ejercido sobre la concepción de la poesía forjada por Platón en _Leyes_. No se trata tanto de la poesía de Solón en sí misma como de lo que Platón supo leer en ella en términos de posibilidad para la conformación de un nuevo linaje poético. Partiendo de un breve examen de la figura de Solón y de algunos (...) de sus escritos, procuro dar cuenta de la influencia que aquel célebre legislador pudo haber ejercido sobre la figura platónica del poeta legislador. (shrink)