En este trabajo ofrezco una interpretación de la concepción heideggeriana del organismo biológico presente en sus cursos de 1929. Para ello, primero enmarcaré la discusión dentro de la interpretación heideggeriana del naturalismo y su manera de entender la relación entre filosofía y ciencia. Luego, analizaré su interpretación de la embriología y la ecología mediante la cual Heidegger esboza aportes originales a la filosofía de la biología, especialmente en torno al problema de la identidad del organismo biológico. Finalmente, mostraré cómo esta (...) interpretación supone una profunda crítica a las concepciones sustancialistas del organismo a favor de una concepción relacional y procesual. (shrink)

In this paper I will critically assess a very popular interpretation of Heidegger’s early thought, according to which meaning (Bedeutung) is conceived as ontologically dependent on human existence (Dasein). In order to criticize this subjectivist understanding of meaning, I will offer an interpretation of Heidegger’s analysis of signs in Being and Time (§17). This will reveal two main things: first, that the ubiquity of sign-phenomena is founded on the universality of the structure known as reference (Verweisung); second, that Heidegger’s idea (...) of reference offers a non-substantialist understanding of meaning and its relation to the world. (shrink)

Scientifically speaking, quantum mechanics (QM) is the most successful theory ever made. Philosophically speaking, however, it is the most controversial theory. Its basic principles seem to contravene our deepest intuitions about reality, which are reflected in the metaphysical commitments of classical mechanics (CM). The aim of this paper is twofold. First, I argue that QM implies an ontological challenge, and not merely an “ontic” one, as it has been traditionally interpreted in the analytic tradition. Second, I suggest that positions known (...) as “ontological pluralism” exhibit an internal weakness due to its unwarranted compromise to a representational view of scientific theories. (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)

¿Qué es la mente humana? ¿Es un aspecto de la naturaleza? ¿O acaso la trasciende? ¿Se puede explicar enteramente al hombre en un lenguaje científico-natural? Desde que Aristóteles definió al hombre como un "animal racional", el pensamiento occidental ha erigido una distinción ontológica entre hombre y naturaleza. Sin embargo, el darwinismo nos ha legado una verdad ineludible: que somos organismos animales, cuyas capacidades conceptuales no escapan a los procesos propios de la naturaleza. ¿Se puede, entonces, pensar al hombre como un (...) ser mental, y al mismo tiempo como un organismo natural? Para ello, sin duda, será necesario reformular los conceptos tradicionales de "mente" y de "naturaleza" en busca de una reconciliación conceptual. El siguiente volumen recorre campos como la fenomenología trascendental, la lógica, la biología, la semiótica, la lingüística y la psicología con el fin de superar este dualismo tan antiguo como la filosofía. (shrink)

El ensayo busca fundamentar la vigencia del concepto martiano de Nuestra América y del proyecto de sociedad y de pensamiento que este entraña. Se realiza un análisis comparativo de la idea compartida por Hegel y Martí sobre la centralidad que pueden asumir ciertos pueblos en la Historia y el diferente papel que cada uno le asigna a América en el concierto universal de naciones. Se analiza la posibilidad de que sea por fin el XXI el siglo de Nuestra América, los (...) elementos que confirman el inicio de su realización y los retos y peligros que la consumación de esa posibilidad enfrenta. (shrink)

En este 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)

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.

Cambios estructurales en el modelo económico apuntan a revalorizar el papel del trabajo en Cuba, indican expertos en mesa redonda convocada por BOHEMIA. Apremia descentralizar gestiones administrativas y que cada individuo sea responsable y participante, coinciden. Las motivaciones efectivas han de convertir al trabajo en primera necesidad y, junto a la educación de la familia, borrar la cultura del "rebusque". Formar en los valores del trabajo debe encontrar sustento en la realidad y sus ejemplos.

Se trata de una antología que recoge los más importantes pasajes del pensamiento sobre los valores de Risieri Frondizi (1910-1983), uno de los más importantes axiólogos de América Latina. Además de la selección de fragmentos que integra la antología, José Ramón Fabelo Corzo escribe el Prólogo (que busca ubicar a Frondizi en el contexto histórico del pensamiento axiológico latinoamericano) y el Epílogo (en el que se realiza una valoración crítica de las propuestas de este destacado pensador argentino.

Given the oncoming demographic changes—which are primarily driven by the growth in the Latinx community—the United States is predicted to become a minority-majority country by around 2050. This seems to suggest that electoral strategies that employ “dog-whistle” politics are destined for the dust-bin of history. Following the work of critical race theorists, such as Ian Haney-Lopez and Derrick Bell, I want to suggest that pronouncing the inevitable demise of dog-whistle politics is premature. This is because there are reasons to suspect (...) that certain segments of the Latinx community—much like the Southern and Eastern Europeans in the early part of 20th Century—might be co-opted into American whiteness. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that a special kind of hermeneutical injustice occurs when someone is not permitted to interpret their experiences in a meaning-making way. I suggest that this occurs in certain cases where the possibility that the patient has a genuine religious experience is excluded by a medical diagnosis. In such cases, it is not that an experience is incomprehensible because of the absence of a valid interpretation. Instead, one perspective is not only dominant but exclusive, so the (...) ensuing power imbalance is absolute. I begin by introducing the notion of hermeneutical injustice and subsequent refinements that have been instrumental in applying it to psychiatry. Then I show how even though voice-hearers are liable to be victims of such injustices, the literature has neglected the specific harm done to someone whose interpretation of their own experience is obliterated because of the dominance of exclusive medical views. To illustrate this, I point to a case that evinces the harms perpetrated toward patients diagnosed with psychotic symptoms with religious content and argue that depriving persons of meaning-making interpretations of their own experiences constitutes a profound and willful form of hermeneutical injustice. I then gesture toward studies on the religious reframing of anomalous experiences through contact with a normalizing framework. Finally, I pry from a successful case a general directive toward the virtue of hermeneutical justice through the attitudes of respect to first-person authority and the hermeneutical flexibility it embodies. (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)

Although delusion is one of the central concepts of psychopathology, it stills eludes precise conceptualization. In this paper, I present certain basic issues concerning the classification and definition of delusion, as well as its ontological status. By examining these issues, I aim to shed light on the ambiguity of the clinical term ‘delusion’ and its extension, as well as provide clues as to why philosophers are increasingly joining the ranks of psychiatrists, psychologists, and neuroscientists in the effort to come to (...) a comprehensive understanding of delusion. (shrink)

Clinical delusions are widely characterized as being pathological beliefs in both the clinical literature and in common sense. Recently, a philosophical debate has emerged between defenders of the commonsense position (doxasticists) and their opponents, who have the burden of pointing toward alternative characterizations (anti-doxasticists). In this chapter, I argue that both doxasticism and anti- doxasticism fail to characterize the functional role of delusions while at the same time being unable to play a role in the explanation of these phenomena. I (...) also argue that though a more nuanced view of belief in which mental states are more or less belief-like instills a healthy skepticism towards the precision of folk-psychological concepts, such a stance fails to be of use in building a theory of delusion that will be able to bridge different levels of explanation, such as the phenomenology and neurobiology of delusion. Thus, I advocate moving past the question ‘Are delusions beliefs?’ and their description as propositional attitudes toward the description of the processes that generate delusion, with a view toward explaining, rather than explaining away, the personal-level aspects of the phenomenon that have been made inscrutable by investing in doxastic terminology. (shrink)

Se trata de una Mesa Redonda organizada por la revista Bohemia de Cuba sobre los jóvenes, la historia y la formación de valores. El texto es la transcripción del debate en el que participaron 7 especialistas de diferentes áreas.

In this paper, we discuss an abductive argument for the existence of God from the experience of awe at natural beauty. If God's creative work is a viable explanation for why we experience awe at natural beauty, and there is no satisfactory naturalistic explanation for the origins of such experiences, then we have defeasible evidence that God exists. To evaluate the argument's tenability, we assess the merits of the two main theocentric frameworks that can be marshaled to answer the question (...) of why human beings experience awe at natural beauty: (1) taking the experience of natural beauty as resulting from God's design intentions and (2) conceiving experiences of natural beauty as religious experiences in themselves. We argue that the presence of phenomenological content the fine-grainedness of which exceeds our descriptive and conceptual capacities is better accounted for by the latter hypothesis: experiencing natural beauty amounts to experiencing divine attributes. We conclude that the argument's theological premise is tenable and, having previously argued for the empirical premise (Porcher & De Luca-Noronha, 2021), we conclude that awe at natural beauty is best explained by the existence of God. (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.

This article aims to review the standard objections to dualism and to argue that will either fail to convince someone committed to dualism or are flawed on independent grounds. I begin by presenting the taxonomy of metaphysical positions on concrete particulars as they relate to the dispute between materialists and dualists, and in particular substance dualism is defined. In the first section, several kinds of substance dualism are distinguished and the relevant varieties of this kind of dualism are selected. The (...) remaining sections are analyses of the standard objections to substance dualism : It is uninformative, has troubles accounting for soul individuation, causal pairing and interaction, violates laws of physics, is made implausible by the development of neuroscience and it postulates entities beyond necessity. I conclude that none of these objections is successful. (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)

The notion of habit used in neuroscience is an inheritance from a particular theoretical origin, whose main source is William James. Thus, habits have been characterized as rigid, automatic, unconscious, and opposed to goal-directed actions. This analysis leaves unexplained several aspects of human behavior and cognition where habits are of great importance. We intend to demonstrate the utility that another philosophical conception of habit, the Aristotelian, may have for neuroscientific research. We first summarize the current notion of habit in neuroscience, (...) its philosophical inspiration and the problems that arise from it, mostly centered on the sharp distinction between goal-directed actions and habitual behavior. We then introduce the Aristotelian view and we compare it with that of William James. For Aristotle, a habit is an acquired disposition to perform certain types of action. If this disposition involves an enhanced cognitive control of actions, it can be considered a “habit-as-learning”. The current view of habit in neuroscience, which lacks cognitive control and we term “habit-as-routine”, is also covered by the Aristotelian conception. He classifies habits into three categories: (1) theoretical, or the retention of learning understood as “knowing that x is so”; (2) behavioral, through which the agent achieves a rational control of emotion-permeated behavior (“knowing how to behave”); and (3) technical or learned skills (“knowing how to make or to do”). Finally, we propose new areas of research where this “novel” conception of habit could serve as a framework concept, from the cognitive enrichment of actions to the role of habits in pathological conditions. In all, this contribution may shed light on the understanding of habits as an important feature of human action. Habits, viewed as a cognitive enrichment of behavior, are a crucial resource for understanding human learning and behavioral plasticity. (shrink)

El trabajo, escrito originalmente en octubre de 1994, propone un análisis crítico del ensayo del norteamericano Samuel Huntington titulado “El conflicto entre civilizaciones, próximo campo de batalla”, difundido en el año 1993 y precursor de su libro El choque de civilizaciones (1996). El texto confronta sobre todo la idea de Huntington de que en el futuro los conflictos no serán ideológicos ni económicos, ni tendrán otro sustento que no sean las culturas y las religiones.

This essay aims to contribute comparative points of contact between two influential figures of nineteenth century aesthetic reflection; namely, Victor Hugo’s artful considerations on architecture in his novel Notre-Dame de Paris and G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophical appraisal of the artform in his Lectures on Fine Art. Although their individual views on architecture are widely recognized, there is scant comparative commentary on these two thinkers, which seems odd because of the relative convergence of their historically situated observations. Owing to this shortage, I (...) note that, while certainly not identical, Hugo and Hegel share an aesthetic family resemblance in how they hold similar ideas on architecture’s symbolic function, cognitive content, and, ultimately, how the artform’s ability to remain a standing paragon of meaning was razed by successive modes of cultural communication. Consequently, the essay works to show some congruent aesthetic affinities between these two great figures, but which appears to be overlooked in the literature. (shrink)

In the attempt of defending an interpretation of David Hume's moral and political philosophy connected to classical utilitarianism, intervenes in a key way the so called problem of the " Sensitive Knave " raised by this author at the end of his more utilitarian work, the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. According to the classic interpretation of this fragment, the utilitarian rationality in politics would clash with morality turning useless the latter. Therefore, in the political area the defense of (...) a moral utilitarianism would be an auto contradictory task. In order to show that, first, Hume does not say anything similar to this and second, that even indicates the way of overcoming this apparent contradiction between morality and rationality, we analyze briefly the arguments from which there comes basically this "anti-utilitarian" standard interpretation, and we defend an interpretation of the humean discussion on the problem of the supposed conflict between morality and rationality, or of rational incentives for immoral behavior, which allows to explain better Hume's position on this problem. Finally, we propose an instance of overcoming the contradiction morality/ rationality by a rule adjusted utilitarianism centered on the idea of the "progressive development of artificial institutions of reinforcement of morality", that Hume himself would suggest in other places in which he approaches the topic of the apparent contradiction between "morality" and "knavery". We propose also possible lines of future development of this idea, between them its use to clarify the relation of David Hume's thought with certain forms of contemporary liberalism. (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)

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)

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 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)

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)

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)

This paper aims to deepen our understanding of so-called covert dogwhistles. I discuss whether a covert dogwhistle is a specific sort of mechanism of manipulation or whether, on the contrary, it draws on other already familiar linguistic mechanisms such as implicatures or presuppositions. I put forward a series of arguments aimed at illustrating that implicatures and presuppositions, on the one hand, and covert dogwhistles, on the other, differ in their linguistic behaviour concerning plausible deniability, cancellability, calculability and mutual acceptance. I (...) concluded this paper by outlining a simple theory for covert dogwhistles according to which they are attitude-foregrounders. (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)

Ao desenvolver sua teoria causal no livro II da Física, Aristóteles explica e exemplifica cada uma das causas separadamente, como se existissem por si só. Mas, ao se fazerem presentes nos entes, encontram-se ligadas uma às outras, expressando uma relação de subordinação entre si. Cada ente possui uma causa de um dos quatro tipos em sua formação, sendo uma causa material, uma formal, uma eficiente e uma final. Desse modo, meu objetivo é apresentar como as causas existem nos entes a (...) partir de seus diferentes modos de subordinações, visando, principalmente, como cada uma se relaciona com causa final. (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)

In this paper, we take our cue from Kevin Schilbrack’s admonishment that the philosophy of religion needs to take religious practices seriously as an object of investigation. We do so by offering Afro-Brazilian traditions as an example of the methodological poverty of current philosophical engagement with religions that are not text-based, belief-focused, and institutionalized. Anthropologists have studied these primarily orally transmitted traditions for nearly a century. Still, they involve practices, such as offering and sacrifice as well as spirit possession and (...) mediumship, that have yet to receive attention from philosophers. We argue that this is not an accident: philosophers have had a highly restricted diet of examples, have not looked at ethnography as source material, and thus still need to put together a methodology to tackle such practices. After elucidating Schilbrack’s suggestions to adopt an embodiment paradigm and apply conceptual metaphor theory and the extended mind thesis to consider religious practices as thoughtful, we offer criticism of the specifics of his threefold solution. First, it assumes language is linear; second, it takes a problematic view of the body; and third, it abides by a misleading view of the “levels” of cognition. We conclude that the philosophy of religion should adopt enactivism to understand religious practices as cognitive enterprises. (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)

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)

This essay argues that we should find Crimmigration, which is the collapsing of immigration law with criminal law, morally problematic for three reasons. First, it denies those who are facing criminal penalties important constitutional protections. Second, it doubly punishes those who have already served their criminal sentence with an added punishment that should be considered cruel and unusual (i.e., indefinite imprisonment or exile). Third, when the tactics aimed at protecting and serving local communities get usurped by the federal government for (...) immigration enforcement purposes, they often undermine these original aims or get used in ways that conflict with the U.S. Constitution. These concerns should prompt us therefore either to reject the government’s plenary power over immigration or require the federal government to be more consistent about maintaining the separation between criminal law and immigration law. (shrink)

This paper discusses a dialectic whereby the law not only influenced medical thinking in late nineteenth-century Germany, but also underwent medicalization of its own initiative. At the end of the 1880s, social legislation was crucial in initiating the German discourse on traumatic nervous disorders. By employing doctors as medical experts in court, the law also created a new experiential realm for doctors, altering their behavior toward patients and shifting their focus from therapy to investigation. However, in the wake of their (...) experiences in court, doctors developed a dual etiology of traumatic symptoms, which included the law itself as a pathogenic element with the power to aggravate symptoms. Two medical views of law can be distinguished: some doctors claimed that it was the desire to receive the pensions offered under social legislation that induced workers to perpetuate and exaggerate their symptoms; others argued that since pension claims embroiled claimants in intimidating legal proceedings, the pathogenic effect of social legislation stemmed from fear rather than greed. (shrink)

Miguel de Unamuno’s theory of tragic sentiment is central to understanding his unique contributions to religious existential thought, which centers on the production of perhaps the most unavoidable and distinctive kind of human feeling. His theory is rightly attributed with being influenced by the gestational thought of, inter alios, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, but within these pages I should like to suggest a peculiar kinship between seemingly strange bedfellows, namely, between Unamuno and Immanuel Kant. Although the relationship between Unamuno and (...) Kant is conflicted, ranging from clear indications of influence to expressions of antipathy, there has been relatively little comparative research done on these two thinkers. Moreover, this scant literature has mainly explored connections between Unamuno’s existential thought and Kant’s first two Critiques. In these works, however, feelings are regarded as inclinations and thus receive no serious consideration. In what follows, I therefore juxtapose Unamuno’s analysis of tragic feeling in The Tragic Sense of Life with Kant’s discussion of the feelings of beauty and the sublime in the Critique of Judgment. (shrink)