In this article, I broadly sketch out the current philosophical debate over immigration and highlight some of its shortcomings. My contention is that the debate has been too focused on border enforcement and therefore has left untouched one of the more central issue of this debate: what to do with unauthorized immigrants who have already crossed the border and with the “push and pull” factors that have created this situation. After making this point, I turn to the work of (...) class='Hi'>Enrique Dussel and argue that his philosophical approach offers some insights that can help overcome these shortcomings. In particular, Dussel’s commitment to a social critique and transformation that begins with the material grievances of the most excluded and oppressed in a community. Under this type of approach, the immigration debate would begin with the grievances of the victims of immigration polices and reform (i.e. unauthorized immigrants) instead of with concerns for how to better enforce borders. Lastly, I point out that this type of approach is consistent with the current Immigrant Rights Movement in the United States. (shrink)

Comentario de los libros de José Ortega y Gasset : "Meditación de la técnica" y "La rebelión de las masas". ISBN 978 846 8661 76 6 Published by Bubok Publishing S.L., 2015.

In this article, I contend that the three Cuban philosophers/pedagogues of the nineteenth century – Félix Varela y Morales, José de la Luz y Caballero, and Enrique José Varona were responsible for overcoming the teaching of late scholastic at the Royal and Pontifical University of St. Jerome of Havana. Against late scholastic philosophers and pedagogues who preferred syllogistic logic and the authority of tradition over induction, they argued in favor of the latter over the first. Since they (...) defended liberal and republican ideas, they also argued against those who appeal to the authority of tradition rather than to our ordinary experiences. Of course, their liberal spirit challenged not only the tyrannical regime imposed by Spain at the time but any other regime whose authority depends on force rather than on the will of the people. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the peculiar case of infectious logics, a group of systems obtained generalizing the semantic behavior characteristic of the -fragment of the logics of nonsense, such as the ones due to Bochvar and Halldén, among others. Here, we extend these logics with classical negations, and we furthermore show that some of these extended systems can be properly regarded as logics of formal inconsistency and logics of formal undeterminedness.

But the modelling of the Confucian gentleman or junzi type of human being under the music simile and the rules of propriety (li) 禮 needs to be brought within the perspective of the Confucian use of language and the ultimately harmonising role of this philosophy. Such considerations lead us back to a concept that Pound was always keen to produce in his expositions, and refers directly to the importance of precise language usage. Pound's first concern for 'le mot juste' and (...) later for zheng ming 正名 is consistent throughout his career. (shrink)

Many conservatives endorse a defence of closed borders grounded in basic liberal rights such as the basic right of association. Some conservatives also endorse libertarian principles of legitimacy. It is not clear though that this sort of defence of closed borders is somehow coherent with these libertarian ideals. I argue that conservative libertarians of this kind must reject this defence of closed borders because either it collapses into a form of statism incoherent with libertarian principles of legitimacy, or into an (...) ideal precept without appeal regarding reality in the here and now that could only be applied to changing the very nature of the societies we know. As a result, at least conservative libertarians need to find a different source of justification for closed borders. (shrink)

This chapter connects the phenomenon of double bookkeeping to two critical debates in the philosophy of delusion: one from the analytic tradition and one from the phenomenological tradition. First, I will show how the failure of action guidance on the part of some delusions suggests an argument to the standard view that delusions are beliefs (doxasticism about delusion) and how its proponents have countered it by ascribing behavioral inertia to avolition, emotional disturbances, or a failure of the surrounding environment in (...) supporting the agent’s motivation to act. Second, I will show how the mismatch between the experience of double bookkeeping and that of having the usual propositional attitudes of folk psychology suggests another, more recalcitrant argument not only against doxasticism but against the very attempt to fit delusion into folk psychology. Third, I will show how phenomenologically inspired theories of delusion, such as the multiple realities hypothesis, bypass the debates above and focus on describing and understanding the disturbances in the structure of experience undergone by patients. I conclude that the philosophical discussions ensuing from an appreciation of double bookkeeping show some of the limitations of the analytic philosophical approach to delusion. (shrink)

This Article shows how three modern English thinkers — Hobbes, Locke and Bentham — construe the law as an intersection of secular eternity on the one one hand and transience in modernity on the other, allowing for immovability and movement at the same time, combining stability with change. It details how these theorists, who undoubtedly have earned themselves places of honor in the canon of modern political thought, tried to solve the problem of self-grounding in three different and yet paradigmatically (...) modern ways, each of them intertwining law and time in a different fashion, and each of them connecting both law and temporality to happiness. Thus this Article shows not only that these three British thinkers claim in one way or another that while natural desires may provide pleasure, only the law can bring happiness, but also emphasizes that, in their view, the transformation of the former into the latter entails a transformation of temporal consciousness. Thereby this Article foregrounds two elements that are crucial to an understanding of how seventeenth and eighteenth century British thinkers envisaged the transformation of pleasure into happiness by means of the law: first, the notion that the law creates or reinforces duration in social life, and second, the idea that the law can harness the immediacy of desires by assuring the legal protection of enduring pleasures, which lead to happiness. (shrink)

A partir del reto axiológico que presupone el hecho de que sea el propio ser humano el creador de los principales peligros que amenazan su supervivencia, tanto en sus efectos naturales como sociales, en el trabajo se argumenta por qué ello es indicador del extravío de los valores fundamentales que debe guiar el accionar humano y cómo el rescate de una confiable brújula axiológica debe partir por asumir a la vida como el criterio último de lo valioso.

El ensayo tiene como tema central el desarrollo de la capacidad valorativa y la participación que en este proceso tienen lo genético y lo sociocultural. Nos interesa mostrar las premisas biológicas generales de esa relación y enfatizar en la especificidad cualitativamente humana de su desarrollo, todo ello sobre todo desde el ángulo del vínculo entre las influencias genéticas y del medio y sus respectivos papeles en la determinación del desarrollo de aquella capacidad que a nivel humano identificamos como valoración. -/- (...) . (shrink)

Nationalism seems a persistent ideology in academia as much as in politics; despite the fact that it has been shown that nationalism is deeply unjust for minorities. A case for national identity is often invoked to supplement liberalism regarding the inner difficulties that liberal theories have to explain their membership, assure stability and produce endorsement. So, it seems that national identity may also be required for justice. While this controversy continues, I argue that a different approach is available. We can (...) define a conception of legitimacy independently from a conception of justice, and then ask what legitimacy requires from our national allegiances. If everything goes well, much of the controversy from justice disappears as we find that the case for cultural nationalism may be illegitimate for liberal democracies. (shrink)

Textos sobre la Espana Negra y sobre la corrupcion actual.

Humans and AI systems are usually portrayed as separate sys- tems that we need to align in values and goals. However, there is a great deal of AI technology found in non-autonomous systems that are used as cognitive tools by humans. Under the extended mind thesis, the functional contributions of these tools become as essential to our cognition as our brains. But AI can take cognitive extension towards totally new capabil- ities, posing new philosophical, ethical and technical chal- lenges. To (...) analyse these challenges better, we define and place AI extenders in a continuum between fully-externalized systems, loosely coupled with humans, and fully-internalized processes, with operations ultimately performed by the brain, making the tool redundant. We dissect the landscape of cog- nitive capabilities that can foreseeably be extended by AI and examine their ethical implications. We suggest that cognitive extenders using AI be treated as distinct from other cognitive enhancers by all relevant stakeholders, including developers, policy makers, and human users. (shrink)

In Spanish, on Internet as the new god of all us.

La pregunta por la ética y la voluntad de vivir, frente a la racionalidad y la ecología utilitarista dan forma al texto de Enrique Leff. ¿Cómo se puede superar el estado actual de cosas sin recuperar una ética primigenia, la cual se hacía la pregunta por la buena vida, aquella que merece ser vivida? Siguiendo a Nietzsche, el rechazo por el sentimiento y las pulsiones están en el centro de la mirada racional e instrumental respecto de la naturaleza. La (...) búsqueda incesante del conocimiento objetivo nos ha llevado a olvidar las viejas preguntas acerca de cómo habitar el mundo; las mismas que la ilustración desechó en nombre del conocimiento científico y la dominación del mundo material. Este texto reflexiona sobre el señalado conflicto, y aporta elementos de análisis para su posible superación. (shrink)

The ancient Ouroboros symbolism (one who eats oneself) is here integrated into a simple birth-death clustering process that needed nothing but itself for a transition from indistinguishable phases to a sort of higher level ”conscious” phases. Birth and death coefficients are formulated in terms of odd and even exponentials used to represent a suitable form for conscious states via the internal transfer of information. This toy model may ideally quantify conscious states having inner causes via an Ouroboros index 0 < (...) Υα,Ω < 1. The value Υα,Ω = 0 lends to infinite loops and the limiting values Υα,Ω → 1 disclose transformation into awareness. Relationships with physics theories of consciousness and the use of the Oroborous index to discern about conscious-like states in Artificial Intelligence systems are discussed. Consciousness and freedom of will may go side-by-side in the model when Υα,Ω is extended to be a complex number modulus. (shrink)

Commentary on "Politics " of Aristotle , in Spanish.

The question of how psychiatric classifications are made up and to what they refer has attracted the attention of philosophers in recent years. In this paper, I review the claims of authors who discuss psychiatric classification in terms referring both to the philosophical tradition of natural kinds and to the sociological tradition of social constructionism — especially those of Ian Hacking and his critics. I examine both the ontological and the social aspects of what it means for something to be (...) a mental disorder, and how the ontological status of these disorders hinges on social causation. Finally, I conclude by suggesting a way in which the biological and the social may be reconciled in an integrative model of variation in psychiatric disorder. (shrink)

Etude de l'extension par la negation semi-intuitionniste de la logique positive des propositions appelee logique C, developpee par A. Urquhart afin de definir une semantique relationnelle valable pour la logique des valeurs infinies de Lukasiewicz (Lw). Evitant les axiomes de contraction et de reduction propres a la logique classique de Dummett, l'A. propose une semantique de type Routley-Meyer pour le systeme d'Urquhart (CI) en tant que celle-la ne fournit que des theories consistantes pour la completude de celui-ci.

In Consciousness Studies it is common to distinguish between subjective character and qualitative character. It is also non unusual to maintain that both can be analyzed independently. This is called the “division of conceptual labor”. This idea, however, does not match with our intuitive insight that subjective character is multiple. Here I identify the idea of the division of conceptual labor as a version of the myth of the self, and I push forward two arguments against it. After that, I (...) will propose an alternative characterization of subjectivity on conscious experience. My main conclusion is that, in order to define the subjective character, we do need the qualitative character. The self needs the other. (shrink)

El trabajo aborda el tema de la democracia desde una perspectiva axiológica, tratándola como valor político. Aunque se singulariza el análisis para el caso de la sociedad cubana, el texto desarrolla ideas metodológicas aplicables al estudio de la democracia como valor en otras sociedades. A diferencia de otros estudios sobre el tema, el presente trabajo aplica al estudio de la democracia una concepción pluridimensional de los valores, buscando delimitar el contenido del valor democracia en las dimensiones instituida, subjetiva y objetiva. (...) Para el estudio de la democracia en esta última dimensión se apela a tres modelos que permiten metodológicamente analizarla y que acá se designan con los conceptos: ser real, deber ser ideal y deber ser actual. (shrink)

Some recent researches in experimental philosophy have posed a problem for philosophers’ appeal to intuition (hereinafter referred to as PAI); the aim of this paper is to offer an answer to this challenge. The thesis against PAI implies that, given some experimental results, intuition does not seem to be a reliable epistemic source, and —more importantly— given the actual state of knowledge about its operation, we do not have sufficient resources to mitigate its errors and thus establish its reliability. That (...) is why PAI is hopeless. Throughout this paper I will defend my own conception of PAI, which I have called the Deliberative Conception, and consequently, I will defend intersubjective agreement as a means to mitigate PAI errors, offering empirical evidence from recent studies on the Argumentative Theory of Reason that favor the conception I defend here. Finally, I will reply to some objections that might arise against the Deliberative Conception, which will lead me to discuss some metaphilosophical issues that are significantly relevant for the future of the dispute about the appeal to intuition. (shrink)

In the world where many of the traditional values are in crisis and where quite a few identities stagger, follows from the crucial importance of investigation of these processes in close relation with education, to the extent to which this allows to avoid the crises of values or favor the protection of the identities. Perhaps this would allow to establish certain directions and methodological norms that tend to favor the performance of these functions on the part of the educational work. (...) In this sense, more than definitive answers, this paper explores certain problems and stimulates the reflection on these vital issues. (shrink)

Education is essential to life, and the epidemic affected everything. Parents want to get their kids the most important teaching. However, since COVID-19 has affected schools and other institutions, providing education has become the most significant issue. Online learning pedagogy uses technology to provide high-quality learning environments for student-centered learning. Further, this study explores the experiences and challenges faced by Filipino tertiary students regarding the lack of gadgets amidst online learning. Employing the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the findings of this study (...) were: Some college students still have difficulty with online learning. Attending online classes is difficult, especially for students with limited resources. Smartphones, other gadgets, and internet connections play a significant role in online classrooms because they are the ones that students utilize while learning online, which is essential for successful participation in online higher education as well as for solving a variety of other difficulties in the new normal. Further, College students face similar health challenges. Having an online learning setup is not just about students' struggles with learning resources but also about their health issues. When our respondents used their smartphones for an extended period, they reported eye aches and blurred vision. They also said that some of their body parts, such as their legs and back, are aching, and feel pressured because they tend to overthink things in their surroundings, which causes them incredible difficulty in performing their best in attending online classes. Even though college students continue to suffer from a lack of learning resources during online sessions, they do their best to manage their needs and the scarcity of learning resources. Students have unique coping methods for dealing with difficulties in online classes. (shrink)

: En el trabajo se busca constatar y analizar los fundamentos de la simbiosis armoniosa que se da entre lo poético y lo filosófico en el pensamiento de José Martí. Tal imbricación la encontramos no sólo en él. Ha llegado a ser bastante frecuente en un contexto como el latinoamericano. Pero, tal vez sea en Martí en quien esa fusión se acrisola de manera más brillante. Nunca se preocupó demasiado por el contenido filosófico de su poesía ni por la (...) forma poética con que vertió sus pensamientos más profundos y de mayor alcance. O, dicho de manera más exacta, sí se preocupó, y mucho, porque lo uno y lo otro nunca estuviera ausente. Y por esa misma razón fue siempre más que poeta y más que filósofo, fue escritor y pensador, o como prefirieron llamarlo sus contemporáneos, fue maestro, en cualquier caso, universal, con todas las posibles acepciones que a este último término pueda otorgársele, excepto de aquella que asume la universalidad como el despego de lo propio y particular. Eso sí no lo encontraremos en Martí. En ningún momento olvidó, no importa el lugar donde se encontrara, que escribía y pensaba desde y para su colonizada Cuba y desde y para su también sufrida América. (shrink)

The Foundational Model of Anatomy (FMA) is a map of the human body. Like maps of other sorts – including the map-like representations we find in familiar anatomical atlases – it is a representation of a certain portion of spatial reality as it exists at a certain (idealized) instant of time. But unlike other maps, the FMA comes in the form of a sophisticated ontology of its objectdomain, comprising some 1.5 million statements of anatomical relations among some 70,000 anatomical kinds. (...) It is further distinguished from other maps in that it represents not some specific portion of spatial reality (say: Leeds in 1996), but rather the generalized or idealized spatial reality associated with a generalized or idealized human being at some generalized or idealized instant of time. It will be our concern in what follows to outline the approach to ontology that is represented by the FMA and to argue that it can serve as the basis for a new type of anatomical information science. We also draw some implications for our understanding of spatial reasoning and spatial ontologies in general. (shrink)

We study whether it is possible to generalise Seidenfeld et al.’s representation result for coherent choice functions in terms of sets of probability/utility pairs when we let go of Archimedeanity. We show that the convexity property is necessary but not sufficient for a choice function to be an infimum of a class of lexicographic ones. For the special case of two-dimensional option spaces, we determine the necessary and sufficient conditions by weakening the Archimedean axiom.

In the graphical representation of ontologies, it is customary to use graph theory as the representational background. We claim here that the standard graph-based approach has a number of limitations. We focus here on a problem in the graph-based representation of ontologies in complex domains such as biomedical, engineering and manufacturing: lack of mereotopological representation. Based on such limitation, we proposed a diagrammatic way to represent an entity’s structure and various forms of mereotopological relationships between the entities.

Se realiza un análisis de las identidades desde una perspectiva axiológica y se valora el papel de la educación en el fomento preservación de las identidades. La educación constituye el mecanismo fundamental para la conformación de una identidad propia, proceso que conduce no sólo al autorreconocimiento del individuo como personalidad única e irrepetible, sino también al sentimiento de pertenencia a grupos humanos que van desde los más particulares hasta los más universales. Las identidades presuponen la asunción colectiva de valores comunes (...) y el sentimiento de pertenencia a una comunidad y, por lo tanto, una actitud subjetiva compartida. (shrink)

En esta edición se adiciona, al ensayo “El marxismo en los umbrales del siglo XXI”, que había aparecido en solitario en las ediciones anteriores, otro ensayo titulado “Hacia una refundamentación valorativa del paradigma emancipatorio en América Latina”. El primero de ellos se pretende caracterizar críticamente en sus rasgos más generales las actitudes mejor dibujadas ante el marxismo hacia la década de los noventa del siglo XX para, sobre esta base, proyectar algunos de los principios de su renovación y las prioridades (...) más importantes que tienen en general las ciencias sociales en las condiciones de Cuba. En el segundo se analiza el papel que desempeña el componente valorativo en los marcos constitutivos del paradigma emancipador y su importancia para que este paradigma desempeñe su función orientadora y movilizadora . (shrink)

Este trabajo forma parte una serie de reflexiones que el autor ha estado promoviendo sobre lo que podría calificarse como el "cordón umbilical" existente entre la vida y los valores humanos. En otros trabajos se muestra por qué la capacidad humana de valorar tiene su prehistoria biológica en la capacidad universal de la vida de dar respuestas selectivas a las influencias del medio, según su incidencia favorable o desfavorable para la propia vida. Aquí el propósito consiste en dar continuidad a (...) ese análisis, centrando la atención ya no en las premisas filogenéticas, sino en la antropogénesis misma de la capacidad de valorar, como consecuencia de nuevos procesos que son prolongación y, a la vez, transformación sustancial, de aquellas tendencias advertidas en la evolución de la vida. Esta idea es esencial para una renovación necesaria de las teorías axiológicas tradicionales y de especial significado para la labor práctico-pedagógica en el ámbito de los valores. (shrink)

Se reflexiona sobre los orígenes de la identidad mestiza latinoamericana y sobre el papel del mestizaje cultural en la búsqueda de caminos propios que den respuesta a los valores nacidos de la peculiar historia de Nuestra América.

El presente trabajo pretende caracterizar críticamente en sus rasgos más generales las actitudes mejor dibujadas ante el marxismo hacia la década de los noventa del siglo XX para, sobre esta base, proyectar algunos de los principios de su renovación y las prioridades más importantes que tienen en general las ciencias sociales en las condiciones de Cuba.

Este trabajo pretende mostrar las líneas generales de la propuesta humeana de una teoría de la evolución de las instituciones en clave utilitarista; en segundo lugar, analizará la objeción interna a esta teoría que supone la existencia de posibles sujetos no cooperadores pero inteligentes, en tercer lugar, intentará también defender dicha teoría de la acusación externa de no tener un auténtico carácter normativo; y al no haber desarrollado el propio Hume con detalle su contestación al problema del conflicto Moral/Racionalidad, tal (...) y como surge en el contexto de su discusión de la Knavery, finalmente, y en cuarto lugar, este trabajo, yendo en un cierto sentido algo más allá de lo propuesto por Hume, ensayará un argumento post-humeano en torno a ese conflicto, basado, por una parte, en el reconocimiento de la multidimensionalidad de la Moral, así como en la paralela aceptación de la necesidad de un ajuste contextual de ésta, asentado sobre consideraciones primaria, que no exclusivamente, utilitaristas. (shrink)

James Shaw has written an excellent book on Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations. It manages to provide fresh perspectives on a topic on which it seemed.

In debating the ethics of immigration, philosophers have focused much of their attention on determining whether a political community ought to have the discretionary right to control immigration. They have not, however, given the same amount of consideration to determining whether there are any ethical limits on how a political community enforces its immigration policy. This article, therefore, offers a different approach to immigration justice. It presents a case against legitimate states having discretionary control over immigration by showing both how (...) ethical limits on enforcement circumscribe the options legitimate states have in determining their immigration policy and how all immigrants (including undocumented immigrants) are entitled to certain protections against a state’s enforcement apparatus. (shrink)

Freud uses paradoxical and conflictual rhetoric to create an unstable and conflictual picture of the mind. Thus he diverges from both dominant traditions of thought in the West: the Judeo-Christian way of filling all gaps in meaning by putting a single omnipotent divinity in charge of them, and the Enlightenment quest for a final, causal language to describe reality. By both suggesting and displacing a plurality of perspectives on the unconscious, Freud’s text mirrors what it claims happens in our minds, (...) in which unconscious impulses undermine the pretense of total rational self-control. Though Freud suggests that a mechanistic description of the mind may bring us nearer to the reality of the unconscious, he also explains that this reality will remain dark. He not only develops an ostensibly mechanistic vocabulary for unconscious mental processes, but also clarifies that his terminology is most fictional precisely when it seems most scientific. Hence, Freud’s science of the unconscious cannot be assimilated to an empiricist position; its philosophical underpinnings are both Kantian and Nietzschean, with metaphors and analogies playing a crucial role. Two dramatic images, in which the mind appears as a domain of warring gods and a realm of political conflict, demonstrate that Freud did not regard the unconscious as some kind of true inner self. He depicts the mind in general and the unconscious in particular as a pagan, conflictual universe over which no god or goddess can gain exclusive control and where no rigid dictatorship is possible. (shrink)

The idea that thoughts are structured is essential to Frege's understanding of thoughts. A basic tenet of his thinking was that the structure of a sentence can serve as a model for the structure of a thought. Recent commentators have, however, identified tensions between that principle and certain other doctrines Frege held about thoughts. This paper suggests that the tensions identified by Dummett and Bell are not really tensions at all. In establishing the case against Dummett and Bell the paper (...) argues (a) that Frege was committed, in virtue of his doctrine of decomposition, to the thesis that a single sentence can express a range of thoughts, and (b) that Frege was committed, in virtue of his views about truth, to the thesis that a single thought can be expressed by structurally different sentences. But neither of these theses comes into conflict with the basic principle. (shrink)

A set of notes on consciousness and creativity by Federico Faggin are here collected. Federico Faggin, Italian-American physicist and 2009 U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation, is best known for designing and creating the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. Faggin's curiosity about consciousness started in the late eighties when he asked himself if it was possible to develop a conscious computer. Faggin reveals here the main aspects and beliefs of his model about consciousness, fruit of his creative experiences (...) and reflections. These notes (in Italian) at times integrated, partially rewritten or kept unaltered by Federico Faggin himself, are meant to be an invitation to new generations of scholars and researchers to deepen on the topic of human creativity and consciousness. A final section with reflections of the author in times of SARS-CoV-2 is also presented. ----- Si presenta un compendio degli appunti su consapevolezza e creativita' del fisico italo-americano Federico Faggin. Faggin, vincitore nel 2009 della U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation, e' conosciuto globalmente per avere progettato e realizzato la prima CPU-on-a-chip al mondo: il microprocessore Intel 4004. La curiosita' di Faggin per la consapevolezza inizia alla fine degli anni Ottanta, quando si chiese se fosse possibile realizzare un computer cosciente. Faggin ci svela qui gli aspetti principali del suo modello, raccontando e mettendo in evidenza le sue principali convinzioni, frutto delle sue esperienze creative e delle sue riflessioni. Questi appunti talvolta integrati, parzialmente riscritti o lasciati inalterati da Federico Faggin in prima persona, vogliono essere un invito alle nuove generazioni di studiosi e ricercatori ad approfondire la ricerca su consapevolezza e creativita'. Il redattore ha aggiunto qualche spunto di riflessione sull'argomento al tempo di SARS-CoV-2. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis essay examines Freud's construction of a mythical moment during early childhood, in which differences between male and female sexual identities are said to originate. It focuses on the way in which Freud divides fear and envy between the sexes, allocating the emotion of fear to men, and that of envy to women. On the one hand, the problems of this construction are pointed out, but on the other hand, it is shown that even a much-maligned myth may still (...) provide food for thought.Then, four critiques of Freud which have been articulated by prominent feminist psychoanalysts – Karen Horney, Nancy Chodorow, Luce Irigaray, and Jessica Benjamin – are presented, as well as the alternative visions of sexual identities which these thinkers have developed. The basic metaphors or economies guiding these visions of sexual difference are appraised in terms of their breadth and depth, with particular reference to their ability to acknowledge and integrate the presence of fear and envy as passions which are evoked but also repressed in the face of sexual difference.From this angle, the contributions of Nancy Chodorow and Luce Irigaray are found to be more limited than those of Karen Horney and Jessica Benjamin, since the former two theorists allocate fear primarily or exclusively to men, as Freud has done, while they remain completely silent on envy. Differences in the scope or reach of the four feminist approaches are explained as a result of the theorists' differing perceptions of the social, political, and cultural position of women in patriarchal society. (shrink)

This essays argues that Freud’s vision of the rule of law may be worthwhile pondering by legal scholars. It can heighten awareness of its unconscious dimensions and point to a variety of ways in which the law functions as part of culture or civilization, rather than as a system with its own rules. The first two parts of the essay seek to reconstruct Freud’s notion of the rule of law as a dialectical or paradoxical civilizatory force, restraining the passions even (...) though they drive it. These two parts retrace Freud’s genealogy of the law’s prehistoric origins and unconscious dynamics, which can be found in Totem and Taboo and, in summary form, in Moses and Monotheism. Then, the third section critically assesses the problems and limitations of some of the uses legal scholars made of Freud’s genealogy. Finally, the essay returns to the intellectual context of Freud’s conception of the rule of law, concluding with the claim that a Freudian perspective implies, in fact, that legal studies should be conceived as cultural studies. (shrink)

This article focuses on the dialectic of metapsychology and hermeneutics in psychoanalysis. By combining the causal language of the former with the intentional terminology of the latter, Freud's discourse continuously transgresses narrowly conceived boundaries of scientific disciplines and places its stakes both in the humanities and the natural sciences. The argument is made that attempts to reduce psychoanalytic theory to either causal explanation or interpretation of meaning, turn it into a closed thought-system and rob it of its vitality. Moreover, it (...) is argued that although Freud understood himself to be a scientist, by eschewing the dichotomous reductionism characteristic for both his orthodox followers and critics who try to turn psychoanalysis into either a natural-science-like discipline or a hermeneutics, Freud demonstrated that his self-understanding was far more sophisticated than either of these two groups admit to. This argument is supported by a detailed discussion of Freud's epistemological premises, his conception of science and reality, and, especially, the place which Freud allocated to metapsychology in his interdisciplinary science. It is claimed that metapsychology served Freud as a double-edged sword, both enabling creative and metaphorical thought about the mind's hidden reality, and revealing the necessary incompleteness of hermeneutics. The article concludes with the claim that psychoanalysis needs metapsychology in order to pursue this dual task. (shrink)

This essay discusses various representations of Eichmann's mind that were fashioned on the occasion of his trial in Jerusalem in 1961. Gideon Hausner the prosecutor presented the defendant as demonic. Hannah Arendt, the German-born American Jewish philosopher portrayed him as banal or thoughtless. Limiting themselves to the issue of mens rea in their judgment, the Israeli Supreme Court justices described Eichmann's mind as controlled by criminal intent. While these views have been widely discussed in the literature, much of this essay (...) focuses on a hitherto little noted perspective on Eichmann's mind that was formulated by the mental health experts who examined Eichmann for the prosecution. As compared to the inclusionist, confictual, and complex picture these experts presented of Eichmann's mind, Arendt's and Hausner's views appear similar in their reductionism, rather than diametrically opposed, while the approach of the Supreme Court justices to Eichmann's mind can be regarded as restrictive. Methodological problems involved in all these different perspectives are discussed, and it is argued that even though the psychological outlook declares itself to be non-judgmental, it does, in fact, entail a dimension of moral judgment. Finally, Eichmann 's recently declassified memoirs are adduced and interpreted as lending some support to the psychological, inclusionist perspective on Eichmann's mind. (shrink)

Philosophers have assumed that as long as discriminatory admission and exclusion policies are off the table, it is possible for one to adopt a restrictionist position on the issue of immigration without having to worry that this position might entail discriminatory outcomes. The problem with this assumption emerges, however,when two important points are taken into consideration. First, immigration controls are not simply discriminatory because they are based on racist or ethnocentric attitudes and beliefs, but can themselves also be the source (...) of social and civic ostracism. Second, by focusing so much on questions of admission and exclusion, philosophers have tended to overlook the discriminatory potential of immigration enforcement mechanisms. In this essay, I make the case that philosophers who deal with the issue of immigration cannot dispense with the potential for discrimination in a state's enforcement mechanism as easily as they have with the potential for discrimination in a state’s admission and exclusions criteria. In addition, I put forth the positive claim that the way to combat this potential for discrimination (e.g., xenophobia) must begin with a defense of, and advocacy for, immigrant rights. (shrink)