I elaborated a bibliographic report for the last issue of "Estudios Nietzsche," which is a monographic issue on Nietzsche and Women. -/- I aimed to select and combine important publications from multiple traditions and schools within Nietzsche scholarship. I hope it becomes a valuable resource to find literature on the topic for both teaching and research purposes.

La filosofía de Nietzsche anticipó notablemente el umbral de la modernidad biológica al conceptualizar el alcance fisiológico de la moral, la política y la religión, así como su instrumentalización con fines de control social. El objetivo de este artículo es analizar el estímulo que ha representado la filosofía de Nietzsche para algunos de los principales pensadores de la cuestión biopolítica, en concreto, Michel Foucault, Roberto Esposito y Peter Sloterdijk, y desvelar en qué medida sus núcleos conceptuales convergen y divergen. La (...) aportación concreta reside en señalar algunos de los vínculos que articulan el tema de la disciplina y la cría con la configuración de la biopolítica como una de las principales corrientes filosóficas actuales, analizar las interpretaciones que dichos pensadores han formulado sobre la cuestión de la Züchtung y resaltar así la capacidad heurística de la filosofía nietzscheana para el diagnóstico de nuestro presente. -/- Nietzsche notably anticipated the threshold of biological modernity, when he conceptualized the physiological scope of morals, politics and religion, as well as their instrumentalization with the aim of social control. The aim of this paper is to analyze the stimulus that Nietzsche’s philosophy has represented for some of the main philosophers of biopolitics, namely Michel Foucault, Roberto Esposito and Peter Sloterdijk, and to reveal to what extent their core concepts converge and diverge. The specific contribution is to point out some of the links between the theme of discipline and breeding (Zucht und Züchtung) and the configuration of biopolitics as one of the main philosophical currents, to analyze whether and how those philosophers have interpreted the question of Züchtung in Nietzsche’s philosophy, and to stress the heuristic capacity of Nietzschean philosophy for the diagnosis of current social issues. Keywords: Nietzsche; breeding; discipline; Foucault; biopower; norm; Esposito; community; Sloterdijk; anthropotechnics. (shrink)

El artículo comienza explorando la peculiar función política y legislativa que Nietzsche otorga a los filósofos y a la filosofía, de. A continuación, se explora la nítida inspiración platónica de estas ideas y se localizan ejemplos directos en los textos de Platón, de tal manera que se desvela el origen griego de muchos términos intempestivos de la filosofía nietzscheana. La filosofía y la cultura se presentan como sistemas de aculturación, sobre la base de paralelismos entre la cría de animales y (...) la aculturación humana. Construyendo sobre la base de las conexiones Nietzsche-Platón, se incide en las tensiones entre ‘primeras’ y ‘segundas naturaleza’. Los aportes finales de Catherine Malabou se muestran cruciales para captar los circuitos de retroalimentación entre organismo y entorno, que se descubren como vínculos genealógicos entre lo biológico y lo simbólico. Platón, Nietzsche y Malabou comparten el deseo de redefinir y reorientar procesos formativos que ya en marcha en la sociedad. En último término, se trata de desvelar y tomar poder sobre la función ‘selectiva’ de la filosofía en su proceso de culturización. (shrink)

The article presents the sources and definitions of the concepts «system» and «lifeworld», emphasizing how the colonization of the lifeworld by the system appears as a pathological process, in the presence of which a critical stance must be maintained. Facing the increase of the systemic complexity, it is necessary to ensure the symbolic reproduction of the lifeworld through communicative action. Although we share with Habermas the meaning of his critique of the colonization, we present some objections to the dichotomous opposition (...) of both spheres, inasmuch as it confers the economical and administrative systems with an ontological status that ultimately safeguards them from any possible critique. (shrink)

El presente trabajo expone el diálogo entre nietzsche y la escuela darwinista, destacando el contraste entre dos nociones de «vida» opuestas: vida como lucha por la supervivencia o vida como voluntad de poder. En oposición a la selección natural, que según nietzsche no favorece a los fuertes y poderosos sino a lo mediano y al «gran número», el filósofo alemán idea un proyecto de cría (Züchtung), una formación tanto fisiológica como moral que aspira a una auténtica elevación del ser humano, (...) mediante la superación de las interpretaciones nihilistas y la transvaloración de los valores desde una perspectiva vitalista. (shrink)

El artículo se propone elucidar el papel que juegan los usos de “raza” en los escritos de Nietzsche, situándolos e interpretándolos en conjunto con el léxico de transformación del ser humano y de su crítica de la cultura. Para ello, se estudia su empleo junto a otros conceptos fronterizos e ideas análogas como el tratamiento de la cuestión judía, su crítica del nacionalismo, la figura de los buenos europeos, la metáfora de la bestia rubia, los tipos humanos y el pensamiento (...) de la cría. Se concluye que “raza” posee un indudable carácter fisiológico y evolutivo, pero a través del proceso de incorporación (Einverleibung), el ámbito de la cultura y la moral intervienen de manera fundamental en su conformación, y como concepto, forma parte del mismo proyecto de transvaloración de los valores, la reforma de la cultura y de la humanidad. El artículo finaliza con una reflexión de la llamada a superar la raza (Über-Rasse). (shrink)

The article analyses the close link between perspectivism, genealogy, and physiology in Nietzsche’s philosophy. The cardinal thesis is that the point of view of value is more fundamental than that of truth. The genealogical method enables the study of the conditions of conservation and growth of points of view and values, following the conductive thread of the body, with the aim of creating new springs of meaning and leaving nihilism behind. Special attention is paid to the tension between dogmatism and (...) relativism. Lastly, I present Nietzsche's notion of “breeding” (Züchtung), which enables a radical questioning of culture and highlights the physiological character of morals. Keywords: perspectivism, value, breeding, moral, point of view, interpretation. (shrink)

This article explores the new meaning of suffering in the cosmological and ethical doctrine of eternal return in Nietzsche’s philosophy. The role of suffering is key to understanding why Nietzsche considered the eternal return «the great cultivating [or breeding] thought.» The eternal return transforms affectivity and selects new human values and ways of experiencing suffering, approving the «discipline of suffering» and condemning guilt, punishment, and resentment. The cultivating sense of the eternal return reconciles opposing forces and emotions, such as joy (...) and suffering, and brings to light the tragic insight of life. -/- Este artículo explora el nuevo significado que adquiere el sufrimiento a partir de la doctrina cosmológica y ética del eterno retorno en la filosofía de Nietzsche. El papel del sufrimiento nos permite comprender por qué Nietzsche consideraba el eterno retorno «el gran pensamiento criador». El eterno retorno opera una transformación de la afectividad y selecciona nuevos valores y modos de experimentar el sufrimiento, aprobando la «disciplina del sufrimiento» y condenando la culpa, el castigo y el resentimiento. El sentido cultivador del eterno retorno reconcilia fuerzas y emociones opuestas, como la alegría y el sufrimiento, y saca a la luz la visión trágica de la existencia. (shrink)

El artículo analiza desde una perspectiva crítica las tentativas de interpretar a Nietzsche como un precursor del transhumanismo. Tras una breve contextualización del fecundo debate en torno a Nietzsche y el transhumanismo, se evalúa el carácter fraccional o parcial del alegato de Stefan Sorgner en favor de un “transhumanismo nietzscheano”. Después, se investiga la tensión entre humanidad, la superación del ser humano y su cría en los escritos de Nietzsche. Una vez ejecutado este análisis, y sin ánimo de caer en (...) el anacronismo, se sostiene que Nietzsche anticipa ciertamente un germen de la idea de post-humanidad, en su crítica de la cultura humanista y en su invitación a transformar el ser humano y superar el nihilismo, pero no asimilable a la vertiente tecnológica del transhumanismo. Para concluir, se sugiere una prospectiva de análisis del transhumanismo desde una perspectiva nietzscheana, tomando como ejemplo la imagen de las “sombras de Dios”. (shrink)

Resumen: En el presente artículo me propongo elucidar el significado del concepto “pathos de la distancia” y sus implicaciones ético-políticas, destacando, además, su sentido y coherencia con el conjunto del pensamiento nietzscheano. La tesis fundamental es que el pathosde la distancia, como característica básica del ideal noble, muestra cómo el concepto de preeminencia política en Nietzsche se diluye siempre en un concepto de preeminencia anímica. La reflexión se enmarca dentro de la crítica nietzscheana de la cultura, la política y la (...) educación, y su propuesta de reforma de los valores dominantes de la sociedad, entre ellos, los que configuran la subjetividad y la individualidad. Se estudian las diversas dimensiones del pathos de la distancia: como articulación jerárquica, como principio de individuación, como parte la Gran Política y como elemento del pensamiento de la cría. Palabras clave: Pathos de la distancia, Valor, Moral, Gran Política, Cría. (shrink)

El trabajo somete a discusión algunos elementos y argumentos del ensayo "Anti-Nietzsche. La crueldad de lo político" de Jorge Polo Blanco. Analizo el libro de Polo considerando el problema de la diversidad de caracterizaciones parciales que obtiene la figura de Nietzsche en el pensamiento filosófico contemporáneo y el desafío que supone actualizar a Nietzsche a la luz de nuestras sensibilidades democráticas. Examino los capítulos del libro apuntando algunas de las incorrecciones y aspectos más dudosos de su argumentario “anti-nietzscheano” e incidiendo (...) en la importancia del estudio de fuentes (Quellenforschung) y de la historia de las ediciones de la obra de Nietzsche para una interpretación filosófica rigurosa. Palabras clave: Nietzsche, Política, Democracia, Crítica genética, Fuentes, Ediciones. -/- Abstract: This article discusses some elements and arguments of Jorge Polo Blanco’s book, Anti-Nietzsche. La crueldad de lo político. I analyze Polo’s book while considering the problem of the diversity of characterizations that Nietzsche receives in contemporary philosophical thought and the challenge of evaluating his philosophy in light of our democratic sensibilities. I examine the different chapters and identify some of the inaccuracies and most dubious aspects of Polo’s “anti-Nietzschean” argument. In doing so, I stress the importance of source research (Quellenforschung) and the history of the editions for rigorous philosophical analyses. Keywords: Nietzsche, Politics, Democracy, Genetic Criticism, Sources, Editions. (shrink)

The article aims to critically analyze the conventional tripartite division within Nietzsche’s philosophy that is expressed hyperbolically in the form of personification: the young Nietzsche of the Wagnerian phase, the “positivist” or “enlightened” Nietzsche, and the mature Nietzsche. I aim to contribute to the plea for continuity, paying special attention to a variety of texts in which he acknowledges the continuity of his intellectual development as a coherent unit. This significant retrospection does not indicate rupture or rejection but recognition of (...) a single path. The last section is dedicated to the particular book that is Ecce Homo, understood as a self-presentation strategy. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to relate the critical core of Jesus Conill’s last book, Bodily Intimacy and the Human Person. From Nietzsche to Ortega and Zubiri, with the problem of nihilism, as a structure that survives in our contemporary societies, especially in the context of neurosciences, technology and our way of relating to both. After outlining the key insights of the book, especially its innovative conception of bodily intimacy, I will retrieve some contributions from Nietzsche’s notes regarding nihilism, (...) to show that after the “death of God”, other instances take his place, the logics of nihilism remain intact and underly the majority approach of neurosciences. I will conclude that the elements presented by Conill for a strong intimacy and subjectivity will be necessary for the task, still pending, of overcoming nihilism. (shrink)

El presente trabajo reconstruye argumentativamente el sentido de la idea de una ciudadanía postsecular desde la perspectiva de Jürgen Habermas, a la luz de su trayectoria y producción bibliográfica. En primer lugar, ofrecemos una periodización de su trayectoria intelectual de acuerdo con la atención prestada y la consideración que juega la cuestión religiosa en cada una de las fases. Sobre la base de esta periodización y visión de conjunto, nos es posible apresar el sentido intrateórico del concepto normativo de postsecularización, (...) y mostrar hasta qué punto esta tesis constituye un giro en la trayectoria intelectual de Habermas. Después, exponemos críticamente el sentido de las últimas posturas habermasianas sobre el papel de la religión en la esfera pública. Por último, profundizamos en la idea de traducción de contenidos religiosos como propuesta de “secularización no aniquiladora” y como proceso de aprendizaje común para el conjunto de la ciudadanía. (shrink)

The second volume in the Homo Mimeticus mini-series advances the emerging transdisciplinary field of mimetic studies. After the linguistic and the affective turns, the new materialist and the performative turns, the cognitive and the posthuman turns, it is now time to re-turn to the ancient, yet also modern and still contemporary realization that humans are mimetic creatures. In this second installment of the Homo Mimeticus series, international scholars working in philosophy, literary theory, classics, cultural studies, sociology, political theory, and the (...) neurosciences engage creatively with Nidesh Lawtoo's Homo Mimeticus: A New Theory of Imitation to further the transdisciplinary field of mimetic studies. Agonistic critical engagements with precursors like Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Bataille, Irigaray, and Girard, involving contributions by leading international thinkers such as Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, William E. Connolly, Henry Staten, and Vittorio Gallese, among many others, reveal the urgency to rethink mimesis beyond realism. From imitation to identification, mimicry to affective contagion, techne to simulation, mirror neurons to biomimicry, homo mimeticus casts a shadow—but also a light—on the present and future, from social media to the Anthropocene. (shrink)

RESEÑA / RESSENYA / REVIEW Elogio de la razón mundana. Antropología y política en Kant, por Nuria Sánchez Madrid.

John Rawls shows a deep influence of David Hume’s thought, mainly at his Theory of Justice, though also at the rest of his works. This influence is well-known in the field of political philosophy, much less in the field of moral philosophy. Rawls reads Hume’s thought with a sceptic and naturalistic key, attributing him what he calls a “nature fideism”. Besides this, attributes to Hume an ethical and political position linked with the classical utilitarianism. Nevertheless, his skeptical epistemology will move (...) away, paradoxically, to Hume from the utilitarian positions. Hume’s ethics and politics will finish, according to Rawls, showing a purely descriptive character and a lack of normative purposes. Hume does not have in the strict sense a theory of practical reason. This article examines and puts in question this interpretation of Hume proposed by John Rawls. The philosophy of Hume is not aporetically skeptical, articulates the moral roles of reason and the passions; and finally, is not only connected with utilitarianism; his defense of the role of utility frees to his theory of some of the main contradictions of classical utilitarianism. Besides this, the theory of the “judicious spectator” can be considered a form of a theory of practical rationality. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a performative account of hinge epistemology to make the case for a feminist hinge epistemology. We characterize it as follows: 1) there are hinges that enable and govern our ordinary epistemic practices, functioning as rules; 2) these hinges are enacted and actualized in the specific actions of agents that participate in such practices; 3) this makes room for the transformation and emergence of hinges; 4) against this background, we argue in favor of the possibility of (...) feminist hinges. This novel account opens the way for hinge epistemology to be useful for feminist goals in epistemology, which we believe is the ultimate criterion for hinge epistemology to be legitimately feminist. (shrink)

Loyalty is considered central to people’s moral life, yet little is known about how people think about what it means to be loyal. We used a prototype approach to understand how loyalty is represented in Colombia and the United States and how these representations mediate attributions of loyalty and moral judgments of loyalty violations. Across 7 studies (N = 1,984), we found cross-cultural similarities in the associative meaning of loyalty (Study 1) but found differences in the centrality of features associated (...) with loyalty (Study 2) and the latent structure of loyalty representations (Study 3). Colombians represent loyalty in terms of more general moral characteristics, while US participants represent loyalty in terms of interpersonal commitment, both in contrast with current approaches to loyalty. By comparing representations of loyalty and honesty, we establish that difference in loyalty conceptualizations reflect a different way of thinking about loyalty rather than morality more generally (Study 4). Further, Colombians attributed greater loyalty to individuals with general moral characteristics compared to participants from the United States sample (Study 5) and were more likely to classify non-loyal values as loyalty-related (Study 6). While the centrality of prototypical features predicts categorizing norm violations as loyalty-related, differences in prototypical structure account for differences in the severity of moral judgment for such violations (Study 7), which suggests that loyalty representations have similar functions even though these representations differ in structural characteristics. (shrink)

It seems natural to think that emotional experiences associated with a memory of a past event are new and present emotional states triggered by the remembered event. This common conception has nonetheless been challenged at the beginning of the 20th century by intellectuals who considered that emotions can be encoded and retrieved, and that emotional aspects linked to memories of the personal past need not necessary to be new emotional responses caused by the act of recollection. They called this specific (...) kind of memories “affective memories” and defended their existence. My aim here is to expound the historical background of this debate as well as the characterization and development of the notion of affective memory since its first inception. I aim to show that although the debate was left unresolved and the term disappeared from academy around 1930, many of the characterizations of the nature of emotions and memory done by the advocates of affective memory have reappeared in the scientific agenda and been further developed during the last decades. (shrink)

The continued development of General Circulation Models (GCMs) towards increasing resolution and complexity is a predominantly chosen strategy to advance climate science, resulting in channelling of research and funding to meet this aspiration. Yet many other modelling strategies have also been developed and can be used to understand past and present climates, to project future climates and ultimately to support decision-making. We argue that a plurality of climate modelling strategies and an equitable distribution of funding among them would be an (...) improvement on the current predominant strategy for informing policy making. To support our claim, we use a philosophy of science approach to compare increasing resolution and complexity of General Circulation Models with three alternate examples: the use of machine learning techniques, the physical climate storyline approach, and Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity. We show that each of these strategies prioritises a particular set of methodological aims, among which are empirical agreement, realism, comprehensiveness, diversity of process representations, inclusion of the human dimension, reduction of computational expense, and intelligibility. Thus, each strategy may provide adequate information to support different specific kinds of research and decision questions. We conclude that, because climate decision-making consists of different kinds of questions, many modelling strategies are all potentially useful, and can be used in a complementary way. (shrink)

In his paper “Wellbeing and Changing Attitudes Across Time”, Krister Bykvist investigates the challenge that changing attitudes pose for attitude-sensitive theories of well-being in determining temporal wellbeing. He offers both a useful tool to investigate the conceptual space of possible answers, namely an attitudinal matrix, as well as a seemingly plausible constraint on such an answer, which he terms ‘diagonalism’. This paper draws on his matrix to provide an argument against diagonalism and offer an error theory regarding its intuitive force. (...) Using his matrix, I sketch my own view of temporal well-being according to which it is not a single unified concept, but can rather be understood in two different ways (‘better for’ vs. ‘better off’), both of which are interesting in their own right. (shrink)

Despite the popularity that the embodied cognition thesis has gained in recent years, explicit memories of events personally experienced are still conceived as disembodied mental representations. It seems that we can consciously remember our personal past through sensory imagery, through concepts, propositions and language, but not through the body. In this article, I defend the idea that the body constitutes a genuine means of representing past personal experiences. For this purpose, I focus on the analysis of bodily movements associated with (...) the retrieval of a personal memory, which have certain features that make them different from procedural memories, pragmatic actions and common gestures, as well as other forms of embodied memories found in recent literature. I refer to these as “kinetic memories” and analyse their representative nature as well as their adaptive functions. Kinetic memories are bodily movements in which some event or action that took place in the past can be seen, because they are an externalisation of the subject’s inner intention of representing a past personal experience. Kinetic memories represent a past experience sometimes by imitation of a past movement, and other times through embodied symbols and metaphors. Furthermore, although sometimes they present direct pragmatic benefits, such as communicative benefits, they seem to enhance the whole reexperience of the past event and memory recall, which I argue is one important adaptive value. (shrink)

Citation: Christodoulou, Marina. “Philosophical An(n)ales: Ugliness Abject Disgust ... as an allergy to the (Feminine) Other”, in Wassard Elea Rivista III, no 3 (giugno12,2016), 119-141. -/- -------- -/- Ugliness Abject Disgust ... as an allergy to the (Feminine) Other -/- Appendix: Towards a Philosophy of Poop The Anti-Aesthetics of Scat, the Philosophy of Disgust and the Scato- Libidinal Economy.

A post written by Marina Trakas, a philosopher and cognitive scientist interested in the ethical and epistemological aspects of memories of our personal past. -/- .

In An Inquiry into the Human Mind and in Essays on Intellectual Powers, Thomas Reid discusses what kinds of things perceivers are related to in perception. Are these things qualities of bodies, the bodies themselves, or both? This question places him in a long tradition of philosophers concerned with understanding how human perception works in connecting us with the external world. It is still an open question in the philosophy of perception whether the human perceptual system is providing us with (...) representations as of bodies, or only as of their properties. My project in this article is to explain how, on Reid's view, we can have perceptual representations as of bodies. This, in turn, enables him to argue that we have a robust understanding of the world around us, an understanding that would be missing if our perceptual system only supplied us with representations as of free-floating properties of bodies. (shrink)

Citation: Marina Christodoulou, “I Own therefore I Am. The Ontology of Property”, In Why Does What Exists Exist? Some Hypotheses on the Ultimate “Why” Question, edited by Mariano L. Bianca,Paolo Piccari. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021, pp. 169-182. Contributors: Mariano L. Bianca, Konstantinos Boultzis, Marina Christodoulou, Maurizio Ferraris, Marco G. Giammarchi, Enrico Guglielminetti, Roberta Lanfredini, Fabio Minazzi, Crister Nyberg, Paolo Piccari, Paolo Rossi. ISBN (10): 1-5275-6294-8; ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-6294-3 -/- -------------- -/- The concept of Property is what attaches us (...) to Existence, Property, and Life, instead of non-existence, non-Being and Non-life (or Death). I occupy, I possess, I own, therefore I am, therefore I exist. I own a body, therefore, I am a being; I also own a self, therefore I am. -/- What exists exists because we have the notion, the concept, the idea, the habit of property and of ownership. There is something rather than nothing because we own it. Why private property? Because we have the notion, the concept, the idea, the habit of property and of ownership. There is private property because we need to own things, including ourselves, and we need to own because we need to sign and vice versa. (shrink)

Against those who dismiss Kant's project in the "Religion" because it provides a Pelagian understanding of salvation, this paper offers an analysis of the deep structure of Kant's views on divine justice and grace showing them not to conflict with an authentically Christian understanding of these concepts. The first part of the paper argues that Kant's analysis of these concepts helps us to understand the necessary conditions of the Christian understanding of grace: unfolding them uncovers intrinsic relations holding between God's (...) justice and grace. Parts two and three provide an analysis of two concepts of grace used by Kant. Getting clear on their differences is the key to understanding why Kant's account is not Pelagian. (shrink)

La literatura de Kafka no es ciertamente complaciente, obliga al lector a releer una y otra vez. El sentido no está dado allí en el texto sino desplazado, porque la única manera que tiene de acontecer es en lo ausente, en lo inacabado. En diálogo con V. Karam, el presente artículo pretende recorrer parte de esa huella, intentando repensar allí la inasibilidad del tiempo, de la ley y de la interpretación.

Memory is not a unitary phenomenon. Even among the group of long-term individual memory representations (known in the literature as declarative memory) there seems to be a distinction between two kinds of memory: memory of personally experienced events (episodic memory) and memory of facts or knowledge about the world (semantic memory). Although this distinction seems very intuitive, it is not so clear in which characteristic or set of interrelated characteristics lies the difference. In this article, I present the different criteria (...) proposed in the philosophical and scientific literature in order to account for this distinction: (1) the vehicle of representation; (2) the grammar of the verb “to remember”; (3) the cause of the memory; (4) the memory content; and (5) the phenomenology of memory representations. Whereas some criteria seem more plausible than others, I show that all of them are problematic and none of them really fulfill their aim. I then briefly outline a different criterion, the affective criterion, which seems a promising line of research to try to understand the grounds of this distinction. (shrink)

Debate about the nature of time has been dominated by discussion of two issues: the reality of absolute time and the reality of A-series. We argue that Aristotle adopts a form of the A-theory entailing a denial of the reality of absolute time. Furthermore, Aristotle's denial of absolute time is linked to a denial of the reality of pure temporal becoming, namely, the idea that the now moves through a fixed continuum along which events are arranged in chronological order. We (...) show that the puzzles discussed by Aristotle in IV:10 of the Physics are generated by this view of time and that Aristotle's own theory of time, according to which changes are used to measure one another, avoids these problems. (shrink)

Policies that require male-female sex comparisons in all areas of biomedical research conflict with the goal of improving health outcomes through context-sensitive individualization of medical care. Sex, like race, requires a rigorous, contextual approach in precision medicine. A “sex contextualist” approach to gender-inclusive medicine better aligns with this aim.

This paper explores Kant's concept of the highest good and the postulate of the existence of God arising from it. Kant has two concepts of the highest good standing in tension with one another, an immanent and a transcendent one. I provide a systematic exposition of the constituents of both variants and show how Kant’s arguments are prone to confusion through a conflation of both concepts. I argue that once these confusions are sorted out Kant’s claim regarding the need to (...) postulate God’s existence from a moral point of view makes much more sense. (shrink)

Citation: Christodoulou, Marina. “Philosophical An(n)ales: Laideur Abject Dégoût...comme une allergie à l’Autre (féminin),” (trans. Bertrand Naivin) in Sur la laideur. [Actes du symposium On Ugliness, organizé par Lars Aagaard- Mogensen au Wassard Elea (Ascea, Italie) en juin 2016], edited by d Bertrand Naivin and Lars Aagaard-Mogensen (Paris: Editions Complicités, 20178, 97-109. ISSN: 9782351201435 -/- -------------------- -/- Laideur Abject Dégoût ... comme une allergie à l’Autre (féminin) Sur l’art et l’esthétique sexués. -/- Pourquoi le dégoût est-il (ou peut-il être considéré) (...) comme sexiste (phallocratique et misogyne): Une allergie à l’Autre. (shrink)

Citation:Christodoulou, Marina. “Technopolis as the Technologised Kingdom of God. Fun as Technology, Technology as Religion in the 21st Century. God sive Fun.” Cahiers d'études germaniques N° 74, 2018. La religion au XXIe siècle - Perpectives et enjeux de la discussion autour d'une société post-séculière. Études reunites par Sébastian Hüsch et Max Marcuzzi, 119-132. -/- -------- -/- Neil Postman starts his book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1993)1 with a quote from Paul Goodman’s New Reformation: “Whether or not (...) it draws on new scientific research, technology is a branch of moral philosophy, not of science.” (Postman 1993: motto; Goodman 2010: 40). I would extend Postman’s Technopoly to Technopolis, to give it more of a presence in time and space. Hence, I will use the term Technopoly when I am referring to Postman; the term Technopolis is my own. -/- In his book From Faith to Fun: The Secularisation of Humour, Russel Heddendorf argues that humour is a technology (Heddendorf 2009: 32-34), as it is understood and theorized by Neil Postman in Technopoly. Russel Heddendorf also argues that “Technopoly” is a term correlated with Wittgenstein’s use of the term “worldview” (Weltanschauung) (Heddendorf 2009: 11). -/- I would like to draw on these thoughts to propose that Technopoly (or Technopolis) could be the secularized Kingdom of God, namely that Technology is the Religion of the 21st century, and that Fun is a paradigm of such a Technology / Technique. God is yet another technique or Technology of and in Technopoly. -/- The godless individual in the 21st century, I will argue, is as much a believer as the faithful in the Sacred Religion (term used in opposition to Secular or rather Technological or Technologized Religion, which is Fun). He believes in Fun (as a post-modern form of pleasure), as much as the believer believes, or more accurately, believed in God. In the 21st century, the faithful in Sacred Religion believes in a fun God, as opposed to the serious God of the past. Fun is turning into the Technologized Religion for all; for the faithful in Godly / Sacred Religion, as well for as the unfaithful. Fun (pleasure, humour) is the definitive qualia of 21st century pleasure. The mechanics of Fun make it absolutely functional for controlling people; as Aldous Huxley wrote in Brave New World, people “are controlled by inflicting pleasure” (cited in Heddendorf 2009: 158). Now, indulging in pleasure is having Fun. In the 21st century, nobody is unfaithful, nobody disputes God, because God has been manufactured into Fun. We are living in the most religious century of all. -/- The commodity of God, now inextricably blended into work and leisure ethics and culture, is as unavoidable as survival. You don’t work, you don’t survive, you don’t exist. You work, you are entitled to leisure, or free time – the time (“busy-time”) when you are busy is work. The free time of leisure (“fun-time”) is a time for fun (pleasure). The time dedicated to Fun is culturally (capitalistically) pre-defined; no moment is actually free, each moment that is sold as free is to be bought with Work Time tokens –which is money. Believe is Enjoy. Happiness, achieved through pleasure, and pleasure through Fun, and Life as Play, is the recipe for Teleology in the 21st century. -/- The Technological God (Fun), as the Sacred God before him, is sovereignty’s technique or a social “mode of release”: demonstrations, marches, petitions, freedom of speech, citizen and human rights vindications, are “modes of release”, so that the next day, feeling relieved and released that you are working for a better life and a better world, you can wake up cheerfully to walk to your workplace, feeling it will change because of your marching, or your petition, or your speech, or the mass you attended, or the prayer you said yesterday. Thus life continues unchanging, through postponing hope; the tension of the tragedy is always released (lysis) in catharsis: refreshment for the next day of work. Art, especially cinema, (namely, simulated life) follows the same cathartic principles as real life. Thus, you can keep coping, and hoping in the meantime is of much help. Religion, Art, Science, Therapy, and Technology are all technologies used to market life, sell it or lend it, and humans are buying it back. Fun is free to produce, and expensive to buy. (shrink)

Citation: Christodoulou, Marina. “‘To be dead is an unthinkable anomaly’ Reversed Necropolitics and the Death Imaginary.” Lo Sguardo - rivista di filosofia N. 23, 2017 (I) - Reinventare il reale. Jean Baudrillard (2007-2017) a cura di Eleonora de Conciliis, Enrico Schirò, Daniela Angelucci, pp. 127-137. Articolo sottoposto a peer review. Ricevuto il 14/10/2016. Accettato il 12/01/2017. ISSN: 2036-6558 -/- --------- -/- The concept or the theory of Death in the thought of Jean Baudrillard is not given the particular attention (...) it needs. When one speaks of the thought of Baudrillard, one rarely will mention ‘death’ as one of the keywords of his corpus. I think, though, that it deserves such a key place, for three reasons. Firstly, because the theme of Death is a gargantuan concept in the history of Philosophy and it even emerges with the definition of Philosophy itself, since, at least, Plato. Every philosopher, more or less is preoccupied with it, as an archetypical necessity of both human culture and of philosophy in particular. It is always interesting to see how each philosopher or each person thinks on it, as their thoughts on Death are a departure point and an indication of their whole philosophical system or, for non-philosophers, of their whole way of life. Secondly, it is important to examine this theme in Baudrillard because it inseparably interconnects, explains, and is explained by all the other, key, and the less prominent themes in his philosophy. Baudrillard’s thinking might take new dimensions when viewed through his thoughts on Death. Finally, Baudrillard is considered a difficult thinker, because, unlike other philosophers, he grasps themes which people are used to seeing as the pre-occupation or within the realm of fiction, even science-fiction. I would like to show, using simple language, that his philosophy, especially surrounding the subject of Death, is completely naked of any metaphysical, romanticised, fantastic, or fiction-like properties; it is realistic and political. (shrink)

To naturalize the concept of teleological causality in biology it is not enough to avoid assuming backward causation or positing the existence of an inscrutable te- leological essence like the élan vital. We must also specify how the causality of or- ganisms is distinct from the causality of designed artifacts like thermostats or asym- metrically oriented processes like the ubiquitous increase of entropy. Historically, the concept of teleological causality in biology has been based on an analogy to the familiar experience (...) of purposeful action. This is experienced by us as a disposition to achieve a general type of end that is represented in advance, and which regulates the selection of efficient means to achieve it. Inspired by this analogy, to bridge the gap between biology and human agency we describe a simple molecular pro- cess called autogenesis that shows how two linked complementary self-organizing processes can give rise to higher-order relations that resemble purposeful disposi- tions, though expressed in terms of constraints on molecular processes. Because the autogenic model is described in sufficient detail to be empirically realizable, it provides a proof of principle demonstrating a simple form of teleological causality. (shrink)

Hay una profundidad en la letra, entre las letras, que solo la lectura es capaz de enunciar. Enunciación que evoca la pregunta por la violencia de la palabra misma, su ambición de significar. La letra, en cambio, es un acontecer sutil. No hay escritor ni lector que pueda estrecharla, reducirla, asfixiar su siempre prosódica pulsión. Hay otros signos que la letra codicia -dice Jabes- signos borrados que el gesto reproduce en lo que nombra. El presente trabajo pretende interrogar la tradición (...) de la interpretación jurídica occidental emprendiendo la tarea de una restauración: la de la lectura midrashica como modo otro de interpretación. Como advierte Legendre, el armazón lógico de nuestros sistemas jurídicos sostenido sobre un derecho romano canónico como su representación histórica se instituyó sobre la marca de un silencio: la represión de cualquier sistema de interpretación disonante, juzgados como contrarios a la Razón por la tradición del derecho romano cristianizado. ¿Cómo leer esta censura? He ahí la pregunta fundamental que porta la institución. (shrink)

This paper develops a largely neglected parallel between prudence and population ethics. Prudence is generally understood to be concerned with the balancing of well-being over time. How, precisely, well-being ought to be balanced over time, however, is a fervently debated question. I argue that developing a standard guiding such evaluations is exceedingly challenging. This is due to an often overlooked fact about prudence, namely that it shares a structural similarity with population ethics: In both contexts, we assess the comparative value (...) of populations of personstages/people, which may vary in number and level of well-being. Based on this analogy, I show that the development of an adequate theory of prudence runs into very similar impossibility results as obtain in population ethics. In particular, I prove that Arrhenius’ fifth impossibility theorem can be applied to prudence. I develop and compare four possible answers to this challenge. First, I discuss the possibility of accepting the very repugnant conclusion intrapersonally. Second, I present and further develop Donald Bruckner’s Minimax Regret approach, which gives up Transitivity. Third, I apply Jacob Nebel’s Lexical Threshold View to prudence and critically evaluate it. Lastly, I introduce what I call the Negative Lexicality View, which is based on Lexical Threshold View but overcomes some of its problems. (shrink)

El presente trabajo pretende explorar las contribuciones que lecturas y categorías posestructuralistas ofrecen a la conformación de una crítica decolonial. En particular, se orienta a la recuperación del concepto de tercer espacio desarrollado por Homi Bhabha, la reinscripción de una política del reconocimiento en las figuraciones del lenguaje propuesta por Julia Kristeva y la crítica al humanismo de Sylvia Wynter. Lejos de confundir colonialismo y colonialidad o estudios poscoloniales y decoloniales, el artículo intenta dar cuenta de su íntima productividad. Es (...) precisamente en la torsión de la enunciación donde se esboza una apuesta por la subversión de dicha disputa. A partir de estos acercamientos se delinea una propuesta para repensar las subjetividades jurídicas. (shrink)

Nadie sabe lo que quiere la Justicia porque la justicia no se deja escribir. Cuando digo escribir, digo instituir. La Justicia no se deja instituir. Con ello debe lidiar la actividad judicial, con el límite mismo, con la propia imposibilidad. Límite que exhibe oculto que hay algo allí que no hace cuerpo. Que hay algo que el orden de lo simbólico no logra apresar. Legendre decía: en occidente, instituir es escribir. Instituir a los hombres es ante todo, escribirlos, inscribirlos, ¿marcar (...) sus cuerpos? Kafka lo sabía bien. La democracia enfrenta también un desafío similar: asumir que el signo de lo ilimitado la acompaña en el regazo mismo que la dialéctica de la modernidad le ofrece. Los escritores, señala Milner, han descripto lo ilimitado para condenar sus consecuencias y sustraerse a ellas, como el caso de Rousseau, o para constatarlas y combatirlas mediante estrategias de inversión, de Baudelaire a Brecht.Arrasar con la diferencia es no soportar el límite, aquello que hace borde, aquello que no se deja decir. En otras palabras no aceptar la falta en el lenguaje. El presente trabajo pretende mostrar que es, precisamente, el punto de cruce que constituye el límite mismo, el lugar que aloja un encuentro posible entre justicia y democratización. El límite, lejos de clausurar, posibilita aquel enlace, lo augura. Es a nivel del lenguaje que esta relación requiere ser situada. Democratizar la lengua supone horizontalizarla, en otras palabras, abogar por la apertura y circulación del sentido. Son las teorías críticas del derecho las que aportan las herramientas necesarias para pensar esta articulación. Como señala Cárcova, es en el campo del sentido en donde el derecho adquiere su especificidad y produce los efectos que le son propios. Profundizar la democracia desde el campo jurídico exige, ante todo, democratizar al derecho mismo. (shrink)

The notion of epistemic responsibility applied to memory has been in general examined in the framework of the responsibilities that a collective holds for past injustices, but it has never been the object of an analysis of its own. In this article, I propose to isolate and explore it in detail. For this purpose, I start by conceptualizing the epistemic responsibility applied to individual memories. I conclude that an epistemic responsible individual rememberer is a vigilant agent who knows when to (...) engage in different kinds of mental and non-mental actions in order to monitor and update her memories, and who develops and nurture different kinds of virtuous attitudes that guide those actions. These (epistemic) virtuous attitudes are oriented not only towards herself but also towards others. Whereas this conception of epistemic responsibility does not pose a problem to understand shared memories of family members and friends, it may seem suspicious when applied to large-scale collective memories. These memories, which I name historical memories, are memories of events that have a traumatic impact for the community, are permeated by unequal relations of power, keep a complex relationship with historical science, and present other characteristics that distinguish them from individual memories. But despite these differences, the analysis undertaken in this work shows that the general principles that govern the epistemic responsibility of individual and (large-scale) collective rememberers are similar, and are based on similar grounds: pragmatic considerations about the consequences of misremembering or forgetting and a feeling of care. The similarities at the individual and collective scale of the epistemic vigilant attitude that is and should be taken toward our significant past may partially justify the use of the same epithet—“memory”—to refer to these different kinds of representations. (shrink)

I defend a Deferred Ostension view of quotation, on which quotation-marks are the linguistic bearers of reference, functioning like a demonstrative; the quoted material merely plays the role of a demonstratum. On this view, the quoted material works like Nunberg’s indexes in his account of deferred ostensión in general. The referent is obtained through some contextually suggested relation; in the default case the relation will be … instantiates the linguistic type __, but there are other possibilities. In this way, the (...) deferred ostension view deals with a problem I pointed out for the identity proposal in my earlier work, that we do not merely refer with quotations to expression-types, but also to other entities related in some way to the relevant token we use: features exhibited by the token distinct from those constituting its linguistic type, features exhibited by other tokens of the same type but not by the one actually used (as when, by using a graphic token, we refer to its phonetic type), or even other related tokens (see the examples on p. 261 of García-Carpintero 1994). (shrink)

The present investigation concerns Reid’s explanation of how objects (be they real or nonexistent) are conceived. This paper shows that there is a deep-rooted tension in Reid’s understanding of conception: although the type of conception employed in perception is closely related to the one employed in imagination, three fundamental features distinguish perceptual conception (as the former will be referred to throughout this paper) from imaginative conception (as the latter will be called henceforth). These features would have been ascribed by Reid (...) himself to conception as involved in perception, but not to conception as involved in imagination. He should have recognized them as marking the former as a different kind from the latter, and he should not have hastily lumped perceptual and imaginative conceptions together. (shrink)