El artı́culo se propone leer los ensayos de Levinas: Algunas reflexiones sobre la filosofı́a del hitlerismo y De la evasión como dos capı́tulos de un mismo discurso en el cual el autor muestra cual pueden ser los peligros y los riesgos de un pensamiento ontológico cuidadoso del Ser. Levinas estudia el hitlerismo como una filosofı́a de aceptación radical del estatus quo del existente desde la cual se puede salir solamente evadiendo, asumiendo, es decir, la condición de revuelta hacia el Ser (...) como una modalidad anti ontológica de nuestro estar en el mundo. La evasión es pensada como una categorı́a capaz de salir de la condición de ser-encadenado a su propio ser de la ontologı́a nazi y del mal que eso comporta. Según Levinas, entonces, la ontologı́a no es del todo inocente, ya que en unos puntos comparte la lógica del poder nazi. El intento es leer estos pequeños libros como un manifiesto aun hoy valido contra cualquier forma de poder que cultiva el sentido de la pertenencia a una comunidad ontológica, biológica y espiritual. Y una invitación a rebelarse. (shrink)

This article analyses the phenomenon of ‘micro-domination’, in which a series of dominated choices are individually inconsequential for a person’s freedom but collectively consequential. Where the choices concerned are objectively inconsequential, micro- domination poses a problem for ‘objective threshold’ accounts of domination which either prioritise particularly bad forms of domination or exclude powers that do not risk causing serious harm to their victims. Where the choices concerned are subjectively inconsequential to the victim, micro-domination poses a problem for the common republican (...) strategy of creating arenas of contestation for victims of domination, which rely on victims objecting strongly enough to a dominating relationship to sound the alarm. This kind of invigilation may systematically fail victims of micro-domination. Throughout the article, I suggest some ways of better accounting for and responding to cases of micro-domination. (shrink)

In her recent paper Virtuous Construal (2019) Vigani provides psychological support to McDowell’s silencing effect of virtue, arguing that it is through her moral outlook that the virtuous person represents the situation as an occasion for virtue only. The term “silencing” is still, however, a controversial matter, for it might lead to the conclusion that the virtuous person does not feel any sort of attachment to what is being silenced, thus suffers no genuine loss when it comes to forsaking something (...) valuable in the face of virtue (“no-genuine loss theory”: McDowell 1998; Baxley 2007). On the other hand, if we try to argue that what is silenced does not completely cease to exist in the eyes of the virtuous, then it is not clear what the difference between virtue and self-control (Aristotle’s enkrateia, continence; NE 1150a35) amounts to. The aim of this paper is to defend the difference between virtue and continence in terms of cognition ; that is to say, to provide further support to Vigani’s argument explaining how it is possible for something to be valuable yet be silenced (thus avoiding the no-genuine loss theory) and how this possibility is precisely what marks the difference between virtue and continence. I shall articulate my defence in the following steps: (A) arguing for the compatibility between a difference in cognition and Aristotle’s distinction between the virtuous and the enkrates (sections 1 and 2), (B) arguing that the silencing effect does not imply blindness to commonly shared human values (e.g. family, relationships, survival; section 3), and (C) making sense of the difference between virtue and continence in terms of deliberation (section 4). I shall be as loyal to Aristotle as possible, grounding my argument on the following premises: (i) virtuous actions issue from a virtuous conception of a life worth living (eupraxia: NE 1139a31-b5); (ii) there is some sort of context-dependency when it comes to deliberating virtuously (NE 1112b10-20); and (iii) virtuous deliberation does not allow for the inner struggle that is proper of continent deliberation (a “harmony” between appetites and reason: NE 1151b35-1152a5; while the continent is the one who has self-control: NE 1152a25-7). If I manage in the quest, then we will have found what the continent is missing in order to become virtuous, and it shall neither look in-humane nor undesirable; just hard. (shrink)

Two of the most important ideas in the philosophy of law are the “Coase Theorem” and the “Prisoner’s Dilemma.” In this paper, the authors explore the relation between these two influential models through a creative thought-experiment. Specifically, the paper presents a pure Coasean version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, one in which property rights are well-defined and transactions costs are zero (i.e. the prisoners are allowed to openly communicate and bargain with each other), in order to test the truth value of (...) the Coase Theorem. In addition, the paper explores what effect (a) uncertainty, (b) exponential discounting, (c) and elasticity have on the behavior of the prisoners in the Coasean version of the dilemma. Lastly, the paper considers the role of the prosecutor (and third-parties generally) in the Prisoner’s Dilemma and closes with some parting thoughts about the complexity of the dilemma. The authors then conclude by identifying the conditions under which the Prisoner’s Dilemma refutes the Coase Theorem. (shrink)

Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando, austriacki pisarz zmarły w 1954 r., którego dzieła, wydane przez Friedricha Torberga w 1957 r., zostały uznane za kwintesencję austriackości, ponownie wzbudził zainteresowanie germanistów. Kolejna, IQ-tomowa edycja Dziel wszystkich, które opierając się na źródłach i rezygnując ze skrótów oraz przeróbek Torberga, rzuca nowe światło na autora. Ujawnia ona m. in. jego antysłowiańskie i antysemickie skłonności, jego fascynację rasistowskimi teoriami Lanza Liebenfelsa i skłonności do mistyki.

In un verso di Ariosto, la sorte di Giordano Bruno. SPECIALE V CENTENARIO ORLANDO FURIOSO (1516–2016).

In recent years, comparisons between abortion and slavery have become increasingly common in American pro-life politics. Some have compared the struggle to extinguish abortion rights to the struggle to end slavery. Others have claimed that Roe v Wade is the Dred Scott of our time. Still others have argued that abortion is worse than slavery; it is a form of genocide. This paper tracks the abortion = slavery meme from Ronald Reagan to the current personhood movement, drawing on work by (...) Orlando Patterson, Hortense Spillers, and Saidiya Hartman to develop a discourse of reproductive justice that grapples with the wounded kinship of slavery and racism. (shrink)

This paper answers critical responses to the author’s “A Theory of Concepts and Concept Possession.” The paper begins with a discussion of candidate counterexamples to the proposed analysis of concept possession -- including, e.g., a discussion of its relationship to Frank Jackson’s Mary example. Second, questions concerning the author’s general methodological approach are considered. For instance, it is shown that -- contrary to the critics’ suggestions -- an analysis of concept possession cannot invoke belief alone, but must also invoke intuition. (...) Finally, a defense is given for the realist framework within which the theory of concepts, and of their possession conditions, is formulated. (shrink)

Reflections on digital mourning in the wake of the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando 2016.