Everettian quantum mechanics tells us that the fundamental dynamics of the universe are deterministic. So what are the `probabilities' that the Born rule describes? One popular answer has been to treat these probabilities as rational credences. A recent alternative, Isaac Wilhelm's centered Everett Interpretation (CEI), takes the Born probabilities to be centered chances: the objective chances that some centered propositions are true. Thus, the CEI challenges the `orthodox assumption’ that fundamental physical laws concern only uncentered facts. I provide three arguments (...) against the centered Everett Interpretation. First, I argue that the CEI is in apparent tension with a significant motivation for adopting Everettian quantum mechanics: rejecting the attribution of special significance to observers or agents in fundamental physics. I suggest the CEI can avoid this tension, but only at the cost of sacrificing its central claim that there are objective chances in an Everettian multiverse. My second argument concerns the CEI’s claim that the centered Born rule is a fundamental physical law. I provide two plausible notions of fundamentality for physical laws, and I argue that the centered Born rule satisfies neither. My final argument is that the CEI’s branch-relative laws cannot explain or constrain an agent’s rational credences in the way that the CEI claims. (shrink)

Smartphone technology is ubiquitous and subject to frequent complaints, both by reformers and the recalcitrant. The ubiquity of smartphone technology has led to many negative consequences, some of which may not be fully addressed by empirically oriented literature. One such consequence is a threat to a certain kind of autonomy. I argue that this threat justifies a form of Cynicism about smartphone technology, styled after ancient Cynicism. Cynicism is importantly different from its colloquialized, contemporary namesake (“cynicism”). While ancient Cynicism shares (...) the theme of opting out, in some sense, with contemporary cynicism, it is not a philosophy of withdrawn futility; in fact, the Cynic emphasis on embodiment may have an import on our lives in a time of smartphone ubiquity. Accordingly, I offer one Cynic value, autarkeia (self-sufficiency), which can be recruited to address the way that smartphone technology threatens our autonomy. (shrink)

Are norms of inquiry in tension with epistemic norms? I provide a (largely) negative answer, turning to a picture of epistemic practices as rule-governed games. The idea is that, while epistemic norms are correctness standards for the attitudes involved in epistemic games, norms of inquiry derive from the aims of those games. Attitudes that, despite being epistemically correct, are inadvisable regarding the goals of some inquiry are just like bad (but legal) moves in basketball or chess. I further consider cases (...) in which the aims of inquiry recommend breaking epistemic norms. I compare them to strategic infractions, which are common in many coherent games. Finally, I explore the connections between rules and aims in games and in inquiry. I show that in both cases respecting the rules is constitutively required for satisfying the aims of the practice. (shrink)

Higher‐order evidence can make an agent doubt the reliability of her reasoning. When this happens, it seems rational for the agent to adopt a cautious attitude towards her original conclusion, even in cases where the higher‐order evidence is misleading and the agent's original reasons were actually perfectly good. One may think that recoiling to a cautious attitude in the face of misleading self‐doubt involves a failure to properly respond to one's reasons. My aim is to show that this is not (...) so. My proposal is that (misleading) higher‐order evidence can undermine the agent's possession of her first‐order reasons, constituting what I call a dispossessing defeater. After acquiring the higher‐order evidence, the agent is no longer in a position to rely competently on the relevant first‐order considerations as reasons for her original conclusion, so that such reasons stop being available to her (even if they remain as strong as in the absence of the higher‐order evidence). In this way, an agent with misleading higher‐order evidence can adopt a cautious stance towards her original conclusion, while properly responding to the set of reasons that she possesses–a set that is reduced due to the acquisition of higher‐order dispossessing defeaters. (shrink)

O propósito deste texto é discutir o conceito de funcionalismo ético-estéticoàmedida que ele torna lícita a defesa deuma noção de política, baseada no trabalho de Deleuze, que escapa a caracterizações de sua filosofia como conservadora ou politicamente impotente. Depois de uma introdução muito brevedo problema,apresentamos o conceito de repetição, sobretudo como aparece em Qu’est-ce que fonder? (1956-1957), Différence et répétition(1968)e outras obras deleuzianas iniciais. A seguir, demonstramos como a repetição e outros conceitos deleuzianosse relacionam com a noção de funcionalismo, tendo (...) por base, em especial, os textos L’anti-Oedipe(1972), de Deleuze e Guattari, e Deleuze et le possible (de l’involontarisme en politique), de François Zourabichvilli (1998). Por fim, demonstramos como a conjugação dos conceitos apresentados e desenvolvidos dá consistência ao conceito de funcionalismo ético-estético no contexto da política deleuziana. (shrink)

Advances in behavioral and brain sciences have engendered wide ranging efforts to help understand consciousness. The target article suggests that abstract computational models are ill-advised. This commentary broadens the discussion to include mysteries of subjective experience that are inconsistent with current neuroscience. It also discusses progress being made through demystifying specific cases and pursuing evolutionary considerations.

It is widely held that there is a distinctive norm of assertion. A plausible idea is that there is an analogous, perhaps weaker, norm for indirect communication via implicatures. I argue against this type of proposal. My claim is that the norm of assertion is a social norm governing public updates to the conversational record. Off the record implicatures are not subject to social norms of this type. I grant that, as happens in general with intentional actions, off the record (...) communicative acts may be subject to normative assessments on different levels (for instance, regarding their moral or prudential appropriateness). However, such assessments do not generate distinctive norms that apply to all cases of implicature. (shrink)

Pierre-Henri Castel provides a short but richly argued precis of his recently published two-volume 1,000-page masterwork on the history of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Having not read the as-yet-untranslated books, I write this commentary from Plato’s cave, trying to infer the reality of Castel’s analysis from expository shadows. I am unlikely to be more successful than Plato’s poor troglodytes, so I apologize ahead of time for any misunderstandings. Moreover, I cannot assess Castel’s detailed evidential case for his substantive theses.1 I thus focus (...) on some key philosophical issues that impinge on an area of my concern, the concept of mental disorder. Castel is a rare breed of French.. (shrink)

Within Jean Paul Sartre’s atheistic program, he objected to Christian mysticism as a delusory desire for substantive being. I suggest that a Christian mystic might reply to Sartre’s attack by claiming that Sartre indeed grasps something right about the human condition but falls short of fully understanding what he grasps. Then I argue that the true basis of Sartre’s atheism is neither philosophical nor existentialist, but rather mystical. Sartre had an early mystical atheistic intuition that later developed into atheistic mystical (...) experience. Sartre experienced the nonexistence of God. (shrink)

My aim is to discuss the impact of higher-order evidence on aesthetic appreciation. I suggest that this impact is different with respect to aesthetic beliefs and to aesthetic affective attitudes (such as enjoyment). More specifically, I defend the view that higher-order evidence questioning the reliability of one’s aesthetic beliefs can make it reasonable for one to revise those beliefs. Conversely, in line with a plausible account of emotions, aesthetic affective attitudes are not directly sensitive to this type of higher-order evidence; (...) they are sensitive only to those features of objects that make such attitudes (un)fitting. Thus, I argue, there are cases of non-defective recalcitrant aesthetic attitudes where the subject has both a non-defective, fitting aesthetic affective attitude and a reasonable belief questioning the fittingness of this attitude. I further discuss whether, in this type of case, the subject has decisive reasons to try to change her recalcitrant attitudes—say by trying to modify her aesthetic affective dispositions. My answer is negative. Even granting that subjects always have aesthetic reasons to try to avoid aesthetically unfitting attitudes, these can be outweighed by further reasons not to do so—perhaps including aesthetic reasons related to the construction of valuable aesthetic identities or to the value of aesthetic engagement. (shrink)

Daniel Whiting has argued, in this journal, that Mark Schroeder’s analysis of knowledge in terms of subjectively and objectively sufficient reasons for belief makes wrong predictions in fake barn cases. Schroeder has replied that this problem may be avoided if one adopts a suitable account of perceptual reasons. I argue that Schroeder’s reply fails to deal with the general worry underlying Whiting’s purported counterexample, because one can construct analogous potential counterexamples that do not involve perceptual reasons at all. Nevertheless, I (...) claim that it is possible to overcome Whiting’s objection, by showing that it rests on an inadequate characterization of how defeat works in the examples in question. (shrink)

In what follows I offer an explanation for the evils in our world that should be a live option for theists who accept middle knowledge. My explanation depends on the possibility of a multiverse of radically different kinds of universes. Persons must pass through various universes, the sequence being chosen by God on an individual basis, until reaching God’s goal for them. Our universe is depicted as governed much by chance, and I give a justification, in light of my thesis, (...) for why God would have people pass through a universe of just such a sort. (shrink)

I urge philosophers of religion to investigate far more vigorously than they have until now the acceptability of varied components of the world religions and their epistemological underpinnings. By evaluating "acceptability" I mean evaluation of truth, morality, spiritual efficacy and human flourishing, in fact, any value religious devotees might think significant to their religious lives. Secondly, I urge that philosophers of religion give more attention to what scholars have called the "esoteric" level of world religions, including components of strong ineffability, (...) weak ineffability, and an alleged perennial philosophy. All this should involve a cooperative effort between analytic, comparative, and feminist philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Science is a crowning glory of the human spirit and its applications remain our best hope for social progress. However, there are limitations to existing science and perhaps to any science. The general mind-body problem is known to be currently intractable and mysterious (8). This is one of many deep problems that are generally agreed to be beyond the present purview of Science, including many quantum phenomena, etc. However, all of these famous unsolved problems are either remote from everyday experience (...) (entanglement, dark matter) or are hard to even define sharply (phenomenology, consciousness, etc.). In this note, we will consider some computational problems in vision that arise every time that we open our eyes and yet are demonstrably inconsistent with current theories of neural computation. The focus will be on two famous related phenomena, known as the neural binding problem and the experience of a detailed stable visual world. I, among many others, have struggled with these issues for more than fifty years (1, 2, 3). Somewhat paradoxically, the continuing progress in scientific methods and knowledge reveals that these are both unsolvable within existing neuroscience. By considering some basic facts about how the brain processes image input, we will show that, under the standard theory, there are not nearly enough brain neurons to compute what we experience as vision. Inconsistencies like the ones shown here have had a profound effect on paradigm change in the sciences. More directly, the discussions below suggest possible new theories and experiments. (shrink)

We discuss the role of practical costs in the epistemic justification of a novice choosing expert advice, taking as a case study the choice of an expert statistician by a lay politician. First, we refine Goldman’s criteria for the assessment of this choice, showing how the costs of not being impartial impinge on the epistemic justification of the different actors involved in the choice. Then, drawing on two case studies, we discuss in which institutional setting the costs of partiality can (...) play an epistemic role. This way we intend to show how the sociological explanation of the choice of experts can incorporate its epistemic justification. (shrink)

This paper discusses practical akrasia from the perspective of the sophisticated form of moral subjectivism that can be derived from Nuno Venturinha’s (2018) remarks on moral matters.

The objective of this study is to present a theoretical paper about a clinical issue. Our aim is to propose some clinical and semiological considerations for a psychopathological conception of psychopathy. We will discuss several major theoretical works dedicated to this nosographic entity. We will also examine a significant issue raised by Cooke et al., namely whether psychopathic functioning is consistently related to antisocial behavior. This theoretical essay is informed by clinical situations. The method applied a phenomenological psychopathology analysis to (...) the clinical material. We first compare Binswanger’s conception of mania with psychopathic functioning. Patients’ behavior is similar but there is a difference related to the dialectic between the ego and the alter ego. A patient with mania has a fundamental crisis of the ego, which a psychopath does not have. A second finding of our investigations concerns emotions and the adaptive dimension of the psychopathic disorder. An epistemological discussion of the concept of emotions reveals that psychopaths are competent in the management of emotional stimuli, which confers a psychological advantage upon them. (shrink)

Cet article vise à enrichir l’approche désagrégative proposée par Cécile Laborde dans Liberalism’s Religion [HUP, 2017] à l’aide de certaines intuitions rawlsiennes provenant de notre ouvrage La nation pluraliste [PUM, 2018]. En partant de la notion d’« accommodement raisonnable » telle que comprise dans le contexte légal du Québec et du Canada, nous parvenons à une interprétation des fondements normatifs de la distinction entre droits fondamentaux et accommodements qui repose sur la raison publique. La perspective que nous défendons permet ultimement (...) d’admettre des droits fondamentaux à la fois pour les personnes et pour les groupes. (shrink)

I have spent over 50 years of dedicated research on this theme. These are my overall conclusions. I think that science-as-it-is has come to too-limited conclusions, largely because, by in large, they are using an outmoded, "Newtonian" model of reality, (echoing Penrose, D'Espagnat, Maturana). Twentieth century physics has changed that, and it is time to apply its results to the rest of our world picture. I contend that the "materialists", as exemplified by Dennett, are archeological artifacts! There still remains room (...) for the human mind and the human soul -and my book shows how! This book proposes an entirely new perspective and an actual solution to the problem based on modern biology,(Maturana), modern physics, (Bohr, D'Espagnat, Einstein), modern logic, (Quine) and modern philosophy, (Cassirer), but it is still firmly grounded in Realism. It's conclusion is that the existence of "mind" is a necessary consequence of realism. (shrink)

Employing the ideas of modern mathematics and biology, seen in the context of Ernst Cassirer's "Symbolic Forms, the author presents an entirely new and novel solution to the classical mind-brain problem. This is a "hard" book, I'm sorry, but it is the problem itself, and not me which has made it so. I say that Dennett, and, indeed, the whole of academia is wrong.

This paper proposes a methodological strategy to investigate the question of the individuation of the senses both from a commonsensical and a scientific point of view. We start by discussing some traditional and recent criteria for distinguishing the senses and argue that none of them taken in isolation seems to be able to handle both points of views. We then pay close attention to the faculty of hearing which offers promising examples of the strategy we pursue of combining commonsense and (...) science. In particular, we argue in favour of a distinction between two kinds of modes of presentation associated with sound perception: a mechanical mode of presentation that makes sounds perceptible by other modalities than audition such as touch and a tonal mode of presentation that makes people conceive of sounds as the proper objects of auditory perception. (shrink)

This paper aims to develop an understanding of how the culture industry still operates in the postcolonial era. To this end, the first part of this paper will look at Adorno and Horkheimer’s reading of modernity, touching on how instrumental reasoning can lend itself to barbarism, along with an exposition of Adorno’s analysis of the culture industry. The second part will present decolonial theory, its critique of European modernity and, particularly, its focus on neo-imperialism. This theory will then be put (...) alongside critical theory, analyzing their differences concerning racial issues and how their critique of capitalism may represent a meeting point between the two theories. Finally, the conclusion will consider all previous elements to explain the connection between the Culture industry and its current strategy in former colonial areas. (shrink)

The fact that Internet companies may record our personal data and track our online behavior for commercial or political purpose has emphasized aspects related to online privacy. This has also led to the development of search engines that promise no tracking and privacy. Search engines also have a major role in spreading low-quality health information such as that of anti-vaccine websites. This study investigates the relationship between search engines’ approach to privacy and the scientific quality of the information they return. (...) We analyzed the first 30 webpages returned searching “vaccines autism” in English, Spanish, Italian, and French. The results show that not only “alternative” search engines but also other commercial engines often return more anti-vaccine pages (10–53%) than Google (0%). Some localized versions of Google, however, returned more anti-vaccine webpages (up to 10%) than Google. Health information returned by search engines has an impact on public health and, specifically, in the acceptance of vaccines. The issue of information quality when seeking information for making health-related decisions also impact the ethical aspect represented by the right to an informed consent. Our study suggests that designing a search engine that is privacy savvy and avoids issues with filter bubbles that can result from user-tracking is necessary but insufficient; instead, mechanisms should be developed to test search engines from the perspective of information quality (particularly for health-related webpages) before they can be deemed trustworthy providers of public health information. (shrink)

El libro E-physicalism - A Physicalist Theory of PhenomenalConsciousness presenta una teoría en el área de la metafísica de laconciencia fenomenal. Está basada en las convicciones de que la experienciasubjetiva -en el sentido de Nagel - es un fenómeno real,y de que alguna variante del fisicalismo debe ser verdadera.

El libro "E-physicalism - A Physicalist Theory of Phenomenal Consciousness" presenta una teoría en el área de la metafísica de la conciencia fenomenal. Está basada en las convicciones de que la experiencia subjetiva -en el sentido de Nagel - es un fenómeno real, y de que alguna variante del fisicalismo debe ser verdadera.

This study was designed to determine effects of peer-health-education on sexual health knowledge and attitudes of tertiary institution students in Imo State Nigeria by determining the mean gain scores of sexual health knowledge and attitudes after peer health education. Quasi-experimental (pre-test-post-test) research design was employed. Two hundred students drawn from the University, Polytechnic and College of Education, using a multi-stage sampling technique participated in the peer sessions which were facilitated by trained peer educators. Data were analyzed using ANCOVA and Z-test. (...) Findings revealed improved knowledge and attitudes on sexual health, as depicted by positive mean gain scores. Age group 16 - 20 years had the highest mean gain score ( X = 22.31) of sexual health knowledge than the rest, while age group 26 - 30 years had the highest mean gain score ( X = 10.59) of sexual health attitudes. Males had higher mean gain score ( X = 26.05) of sexual health knowledge, while females had higher mean gain score ( X = 9.77) of sexual health attitudes. The first years (100 level students) had the highest mean gain score ( X = 25.71) of sexual health knowledge and also had the highest mean gain score ( X = 14.12) of sexual health attitudes. Level of study was significant both for knowledge and attitudes (P < 0.01). It is recommended that peer-health-education be explored further as a method of communicating sexual health issues to tertiary institution students and youths generally. (shrink)

[español] En primer lugar, el texto ofrece un acercamiento al papel que amor y nostalgia cumplen en la poesía de Emilio Prados, así como a su íntimo nexo con la muerte como aniquilación mística. Como herramienta interpetativa, recurriré a la razón poética de María Zambrano, autora profundamente emparentada, vital y teóricamente, con la poesía pradiana. Este enfoque permitirá una visión de conjunto sobre la obra del poeta español y en segundo lugar, trazar una comparativa con el saudosismo de Teixeira de (...) Pascoaes. Así, indicaré las numerosas coincidencias que existen entre ambos y me detendré en la cuestión de la muerte mística, ámbito más problemático, donde sin embargo, puede apreciarse una comunión de espíritu entre el español y el portugués. ****************** [english] Firstly, the text offers an approach to the function of love and nostalgia in the poetry of Emilio Prados, as much as its intimate connection with death as mystical annihilation. As interpretive tool, I will use the poetic reason of María Zambrano, an author deeply linked, vital and theoretically, with pradian poetry. This focus will provide an overall view of Prado's work and the possibility of a comparison with Teixeira de Pascoaes's saudosism. Thus, I will point same coincidences between them and I will consider the question of mystical death. This sphere, although it is problematic, can show some kind of community of spirit between both. (shrink)

En la novela La ciudad y los perros (1963), del escritor peruano Mario Vargas Llosa, se muestra el desbalance que se genera en los cadetes del Colegio Militar Leoncio Prado que se dedican a estudiar enfáticamente (como ocurre con el caso del Esclavo): conduce a la envidia de quienes dominan poco alguna materia, además de que los maestros no apoyan su educación. Un acontecimiento similar es cuando se origina lo opuesto: no se proyecta un buen porvenir en quien no (...) estudia (caso del Jaguar). Sin embargo, pasa algo particular con este protagonista: no necesitó ir a una cárcel luego de haber asesinado al Esclavo para reflexionar sobre su vida, bastó con que se le brindara la oportunidad de aprovechar su existencia en hacer buenas obras para su reivindicación. Esa posibilidad lo configura como un personaje más civilizado y ético. (shrink)

Esta obra literaria de Mario Vargas Llosa plasma una configuración asimétrica en sus personajes. Esta es distintiva de la condición moderna que justifica su inestabilidad ontológica, tal como lo constata Milagros Ezquerro. A su vez, se comprende por el contexto en el que se desarrolla: etapa dictatorial que se atraviesa en el Perú y Latinoamericana en la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Retomando esta premisa, este artículo tendrá como objetivo fundamentar cuáles son los enclaves que delimitan y convergen la constitución (...) de las jerarquías que adoptan las autoridades responsables y los cadetes que oscilan en el universo castrense de la novela. Para ello, se corroborará con la noción de violencia que fluctúa Walter Benjamín, la concepción de espacio de Iuri Lotman y el paradigma del universo militar que aborda Herbert Morote. Estas categorías se imbricarán para demostrar con triángulos jerárquicos la implicancia que se alcanzó con este tipo de instrucción. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically analyse Jerome Gellman’s proposal that there existsa type of experience in which a subject experiences evil and perceives in this evil that there is no God. This a-religious experience gives prima facie support to the belief that there is no God. I show how accepting Gellman’s pro-posal allows us to go beyond the classical distinction between the intellectualand the emotional problem of evil. It also allows us to defend the rationality of some atheists, who do (...) not believe in God because they experienced evil, but do not know the relevants arguments from evil. I suggest that there are twoproblems with Gellman’s account. The first is that there are no clear criteria of identifying a given experience of evil as the perception of God’s non-existence. The second problem concerns the scope of Gellman’s proposal. It is possible that some experiences of evil, which lead people to the belief that there is no God, do not count as perceptions that there is no God. In case of beliefsformed on the basis of such experiences, one must therefore look for another,non-perceptual grounds for justifying such beliefs. (shrink)

Jerome Wakefield has argued that a disorder is a harmful dysfunction. This paper develops how Wakefield should construe harmful in his harmful dysfunction analysis. Recently, Neil Feit has argued that classic puzzles involved in analyzing harm render Wakefield’s HDA better off without harm as a necessary condition. Whether or not one conceives of harm as comparative or non-comparative, the concern is that the HDA forces people to classify as mere dysfunction what they know to be a disorder. For instance, one (...) can conceive of cases where simultaneous disorders prevent each other from being, in any traditional sense, actually harmful; in such cases, according to the HDA, neither would be a disorder. I argue that the sense of harm that Wakefield should employ in the HDA is dispositional, similar to the sense of harm used when describing a vile of poison: “Be careful! That’s poison. It’s harmful.” I call this harm in the damage sense. Using this sense of harm enables the HDA to avoid Feit’s arguments, and thus it should be preferred to other senses when analyzing harmful dysfunction. (shrink)

One way in which bioethicists can benefit the medical community is by clarifying the concept of disorder. Since insurance companies refer to the DSM for whether a patient should receive assistance, one must consider the consequences of one’s concept of disorder for who should be provided with care. I offer a refinement of Jerome Wakefield’s hybrid concept of disorder, the harmful dysfunction analysis. I criticize both the factual component and the value component of Wakefield’s account and suggest how they might (...) be improved. I propose that the factual component should be statistical variation analyzed in multilevel and chronological compilations of physiological data. I propose that the value component should prioritize the individual’s authority regarding the experience of suffering from a physiological condition. My account preserves the insight of using a factual and a value component while avoiding the problems that Wakefield’s original account faces. (shrink)

British writers of the eighteenth century such as Shaftesbury and Hutcheson are widely thought to have used the notion of disinterestedness to distinguish an aesthetic mode of perception from all other kinds. This historical view originates in the work of Jerome Stolnitz. Through a re-examination of the texts cited by Stolnitz, I argue that none of the writers in question possessed the notion of disinterestedness that has been used in later aesthetic theory, but only the ordinary, non-technical concept, and that (...) they did not use this notion to define a specifically aesthetic mode of perception or a specifically aesthetic mode of anything else. The nearest thing that they had to the Stolnitzian conception of “the aesthetic” was their conception of taste, which differs from the former in some essential respects. (shrink)

Modern philosophy is divided, apparently. The two apparent divisions are commonly referred to as “Analytic” and “Continental” (Prado). The former division is often seen as Kantian, ahistoricist, scientific, and logical; the latter division is often seen as Hegelian, historicist, conversational, and rhetorical (Rorty). In this paper, we attempt to use the principles of experimental philosophy and comparative computational techniques against a corpus of self-identified “analytic” and “continental” texts in order to test various hypotheses about the analytic/continental divide from the (...) philosophical literature: some hypotheses are supported, some opposed, and others left open to further research. This project was funded by the 2022 University of Houston MD Anderson Library Digital Research Commons Special Projects Grant. (shrink)

La educación militar y el tratamiento pedagógico se muestran afectados a través del adiestramiento recibido por el Colegio Militar Leoncio Prado La ciudad y los perros, al igual que el fallo de la ética y la religión. No se pudo precisar que hubiera señales de que la formación del estudiante se hallase en buenas condiciones y óptimo cuidado, puesto que en esa institución no se eliminaron los posibles riesgos perjudiciales del medio. Se imparte también una educación violenta (con la (...) imposición de un poder y una cultura arbitrarios); no hay un modelo de educador carismático o liberador; por lo tanto, se concibe, en términos de Pierre Bourdieu y Passeron, una educación informal, por la que el proceso continuo de adquisición de conocimientos y competencias no se ubica en ningún cuadro institucional. Además, se encuentra afectada la enseñanza por el problema tercermundista y la falta de democracia. (shrink)

En este artículo, reviso el concepto y la tipología de violencia condensados por autores como Galtung, Bourdieu, Lacan, entre otros, para fundamentar su existencia en los personajes de La ciudad y los perros y el contexto donde se desenvuelven. La apropiación de ese paradigma de agresión será factible para evidenciar su evolución y su desarrollo humano, porque transitan por un estado de la adolescencia a la madurez. Sin embargo, en ese proceso ontológico, se revela la predominancia de rasgos concomitantes de (...) la ironía que sirven para apaciguar el entorno caótico que les produce permanecer de forma obligatoria en el Colegio Militar Leoncio Prado. Entre las investigaciones de Tenorio, Sobrevilla, Sommers u Oviedo, ya se han corroborado que efectivamente se incluyen patrones de la sátira y la comicidad. Por esa razón, será de utilidad adecuar ejemplos de la novela para demostrar la interacción pertinente de los cadetes en ese microcosmos castrense. (shrink)

Este artículo examina La ciudad y los perros (1963) de Mario Vargas Llosa para fundamentar cómo se logra la estratificación teórica de estilos y técnicas que se emplean para abordar la violencia en el texto. Sobre la epistemología, recurre principalmente a Todorov, Hamburger, Lotman y Genette. Y, para argumentar la manifestación de la violencia, considera las eventualidades que padecen los personajes del Colegio Militar Leoncio Prado; en especial, el Jaguar, el Poeta y el Esclavo. Esas acciones serán justificadas por (...) la instrucción castrense, la evolución humana, la necesidad de una conducta hegemónica idónea y la búsqueda del efecto perlocutivo en el lector. Para sistematizar esas peculiaridades, se opta por una metodología adscrita al cotejo de información teórica para que sea confrontada con el discurso literario. El análisis que se desarrolla es complementado con fragmentos representativos para que las formulaciones sean más directas y convincentes. Como resultado, se confirma esa correspondencia entre las teorías heterogéneas, la novela y la interpretación, por lo que el concepto de violencia adoptaría una multidimensionalidad que evidencia su existencia y su requerimiento esencial en los personajes. Con ello, se sustenta como conclusión que la violencia en ese contexto debería ser permanente e imprescindible para subsistir. (shrink)

El propósito de este artículo es sistematizar los estudios críticos acerca del adiestramiento castrense en los personajes de La ciudad y los perros (1963). Para conseguirlo, se confrontará con la hermenéutica de Gadamer, orientada a la propalación de estrategias heurísticas y taxonomías que consoliden el corpus de la novela cotejada. Así, se reconocerá el efecto que cumplen las variantes extrínsecas de la lectura, tales como las jerarquías y las percepciones idóneas y erróneas de la educación del Colegio Militar Leoncio (...) class='Hi'>Prado. Por ello, la adecuación de este contenido permitirá una mayor dilucidación del tema cuestionado con su respectivo soporte crítico. (shrink)

La ciudad y los perros (1963) desarrolla una historia de vivencias adolescentes que ocurre mayormente en el Colegio Militar Leoncio Prado. Resulta de interés apreciar cómo se abordó esa convivencia, caracterizada por la frecuencia de la violencia y los constantes disturbios internos de los cadetes. Sobre este tópico, la crítica literaria ha realizado diversidad de estudios, que han sido de utilidad para comprender la composición técnica y temática de la obra. Ante ello, existe un tratado que deseo fluctuar, que (...) se basa en el efecto que genera la estrategia narrativa de la focalización cero. Es importante el entendimiento de ese recurso para explicar cómo se produce la confusión sincrónica al querer reconocer los enunciados y las acciones de los personajes que se muestran con una ambigüedad premeditada. En ese sentido, este artículo tendrá por objetivo detectar cuáles son esas semejanzas y esas diferencias que dificultan provisionalmente la identificación correcta de los protagonistas. (shrink)

La configuración del personaje Alberto Fernández (el Poeta) de La ciudad y los perros (1963) es camaleónica en función de la violencia, por el hecho de asumir que su comportamiento, en algunas ocasiones, era agresivo para adquirir un respeto determinado; por el contrario, el personaje tenderá a querer experimentar un poco más su agresividad al tratar de derrotar al Jaguar y al querer vengarse por la muerte de su compañero Ricardo Arana. Asimismo, su lado humano se destaca (con esa actitud, (...) se contrarresta esa violencia, la cual controla mayormente): es pacífico, sabe convivir en aquel espacio violento, no busca pleitos y llega también a convertirse en cobarde y delator (en el momento que es chantajeado por las autoridades del Leoncio Prado al no mencionar nada sobre la muerte del Esclavo, ya que de hacerlo se le expulsará por ser el autor de novelitas pornográficas que ha difundido en toda su sección). (shrink)

En la primera novela de Mario Vargas Llosa, La ciudad y los perros, se observan múltiples manifestaciones de violencia que se desarrollan con fines disciplinarios y estratégicos para la construcción óptima de una identidad en los alumnos del Colegio Militar Leoncio Prado, sin embargo, estas se asimilan de una forma diversificada por ellos, sobre todo, por el Jaguar, quien ya asume una agresividad exponencial y transfiere una imposición temeraria y respetable hacia los demás personajes. Para que este planteamiento resulte (...) posible, expongo algunas cualidades propicias que se extraen principalmente de propuestas teóricas de la Literatura y la Psicología para determinar esa identidad negativa y violenta que instauraría una nueva manera de sobrevivir en aquel universo militar por parte del Jaguar. Entre los conceptos por desarrollar, fundamentaré las nociones de protagonista, amo, dandi, manipulador, violento, agresor, temerario, vengativo y obsesivo, las cuales serán de utilidad para diferenciar las distintas modalidades con las que se desenvuelve este personaje en aquella institución. (shrink)

Monsters lurk within mathematical as well as literary haunts. I propose to trace some pathways between these two monstrous habitats. I start from Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s influential account of monster culture and explore how well mathematical monsters fit each of his seven theses. The mathematical monsters I discuss are drawn primarily from three distinct but overlapping domains. Firstly, late nineteenth-century mathematicians made numerous unsettling discoveries that threatened their understanding of their own discipline and challenged their intuitions. The great French mathematician (...) Henri Poincaré characterised these anomalies as ‘monsters’, a name that stuck. Secondly, the twentieth-century philosopher Imre Lakatos composed a seminal work on the nature of mathematical proof, in which monsters play a conspicuous role. Lakatos coined such terms as ‘monster-barring’ and ‘monster-adjusting’ to describe strategies for dealing with entities whose properties seem to falsify a conjecture. Thirdly, and most recently, mathematicians dubbed the largest of the sporadic groups ‘the Monster’, because of its vast size and uncanny properties, and because its existence was suspected long before it could be confirmed. (shrink)