Higher-Order Thought (HOT) theories of consciousness maintain that the kind of awareness necessary for phenomenal consciousness depends on the cognitive accessibility that underlies reporting. -/- There is empirical evidence strongly suggesting that the cognitive accessibility that underlies the ability to report visual experiences depends on the activity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). This area, however, is highly deactivated during the conscious experiences we have during sleep: dreams. HOT theories are jeopardized, as I will argue. I will briefly present HOT (...) theories in the first section. Section 2 offers empirical evidence to the effect that the cognitive accessibility that underlies the ability to report depends on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: dlPFC is the neural correlate of HOTs. Section 3 shows the evidence we have of the deactivation of this brain area during dreams and, in section 4, I present my argument. Finally, I consider and rejoin two possible replies that my opponent can offer: the possibility of an alternative neural correlate of HOTs during dreams and the denial that we have phenomenally conscious experiences during sleep. (shrink)

Explaining agency is a significant challenge for those who are interested in the sciences of the mind, and non-representationalists are no exception to this. Even though both ecological psychologists and enactivists agree that agency is to be explained by focusing on the relation between the organism and the environment, they have approached it by focusing on different aspects of the organism-environment relation. In this paper, I offer a suggestion for a radical embodied account of agency that combines ecological psychology with (...) recent trends in enactive cognitive science. According to this proposal, while enactivism focuses primarily on describing how our acquired sensorimotor schemes and habits mutually equilibrate, affecting our tendency to act upon some affordances instead of others, ecological psychology focuses on studying how perceptual information contributes to the actualization of the sensorimotor schemes and habits without mediating representations, inferences, and computations. The paper concludes by briefly exploring how this ecological-enactive theory of agency can account for how socio-cultural norms shape human agency. (shrink)

Alleged self-evidence aside, conceivability arguments are one of the main reasons in favor of the claim that there is a Hard Problem. These arguments depend on the appealing Kripkean intuition that there is no difference between appearances and reality in the case of consciousness. I will argue that this intuition rests on overlooking a distinction between cognitive access and consciousness, which has received recently important empirical support. I will show that there are good reasons to believe that the intuition is (...) misguided—at least on the reading that the conceivability arguments require—and hence that the arguments are unsupported. This, in turn, alleviates the Hard Problem but leaves us with what I think is a not easy problem. (shrink)

Recension of the 2023 book "Ethics and Time in the Philosophy of History" an interesting book on metaphysics, moral philosophy, existentialism, and speculative philosophy of history.

In having an experience one is aware of having it. Having an experience requires some form of access to one's own state, which distinguishes phenomenally conscious mental states from other kinds of mental states. Until very recently, Higher-Order (HO) theories were the only game in town aiming at offering a full-fledged account of this form of awareness within the analytical tradition. Independently of any objections that HO theories face, First/Same-Order (F/SO) theorists need to offer an account of such access to (...) become a plausible alternative. My aim in this paper is twofold. In the first place, I wish to widen the logical space of the discussion among theories of consciousness by offering a distinction, orthogonal to that between F/SO and HO theories, between what I will call 'Self-Involving' (SI) and 'Mental-State-Involving' (MSI) theories and argue in favor of the former one. In the second place, I will present the basics of a characterization of such a Self-Involving theory in Same-Order terms. (shrink)

En esta entrevista, el integrante de RIO, Cucho Galarza, narra cómo conformó este grupo musical en el Perú y la repercusión que tuvo en la conciencia de los ciudadanos. Esto se generaría porque las letras de sus canciones estaban caracterizadas por un mensaje social y político que se vivía en ese entonces. Por ese motivo, el objetivo de este trabajo es que el artista revele qué hizo asequible que la transmisión de su ideal fuera bien recibida por la sociedad, sin (...) que tenga que enfrentarse a la censura o al silencio político. Más allá de ese contenido, debe destacarse que la melodía de sus canciones también hizo posible que la recepción fuera grata. Para finalizar, en esta conversación, se conocerá toda esa trayectoria musical que permitió que la banda RIO lograse un valor en la sociedad peruana que hasta hoy en día se le recuerda y se le escucha. (shrink)

Higher-order thought theories of consciousness attempt to explain what it takes for a mental state to be conscious, rather than unconscious, by means of a HOT that represents oneself as being in the state in question. Rosenthal Consciousness and the self: new essays, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011) stresses that the way we are aware of our own conscious states requires essentially indexical self-reference. The challenge for defenders of HOT theories is to show that there is a way to explain (...) the required reference-fixing mechanisms that is compatible with the theory. According to Rosenthal, the reference to oneself as such is grounded in the disposition to identify the individual the HOT refers to as the individual who has that HOT. I argue that this leads to a vicious infinite regress on the more than plausible assumption that our cognitive capacities are limited. This leaves such theories without a foundation, since self-reference is thought essential to consciousness. (shrink)

Considerando el contexto bélico y el surgimiento de las vanguardias a inicios del siglo XX, fundamento en este trabajo las razones por las cuales la presencia del concepto de nivola, atribuida por Miguel de Unamuno para hacer referencia a la técnica literaria que emplea en su novela Niebla (1914), suscita una confrontación posible entre universos compuestos por elementos de la realidad y lo virtual. En ese sentido, será propicio explicar el procedimiento que origina esa colisión de planos establecidos. Para (...) ello, recurriré a categorías literarias que sustentan las teorías de la ficción, según la percepción de Thomas Pavel y Marie-Laure Ryan. (shrink)

Non-representational approaches to cognition have struggled to provide accounts of long-term planning that forgo the use of representations. An explanation comes easier for cognitivist accounts, which hold that we concoct and use contentful mental representations as guides to coordinate a series of actions towards an end state. One non-representational approach, ecological-enactivism, has recently seen several proposals that account for “high-level” or “representation-hungry” capacities, including long-term planning and action coordination. In this paper, we demonstrate the explanatory gap in these accounts that (...) stems from avoiding the incorporation of long-term intentions, as they play an important role both in action coordination and perception on the ecological account. Using recent enactive accounts of language, we argue for a non-representational conception of intentions, their formation, and their role in coordinating pre-reflective action. We provide an account for the coordination of our present actions towards a distant goal, a skill we call distal engagement. Rather than positing intentions as an actual cognitive entity in need of explanation, we argue that we take them up in this way as a practice due to linguistically scaffolded attitudes towards language use. (shrink)

Today, the notion of identity is usually linked with ethical-political discussions like multiculturalism, gender or sexual diversity, recognition of plurality, etc. Nevertheless, the flourishing of this vision that interprets “identity” mainly in its plural form (as “identities”) contrasts sharply with the sense that “identity” has had during most of the history of philosophy (in which identity was understood in connection with “unity” or “selfsameness”, not with “diversity” or “otherness”). In order to explain the passage from one notion of identity to (...) the other (a passage mainly made in the last third of the 20th century), we will focus on the reflections made by Ludwig Wittgenstein towards the middle of that century. Our contention is that these reflections open the way to a more plural understanding of human identity, against the many interpreters of Wittgenstein that defend the opposite: that he offered a strong notion of common human identity in his writings, a notion based on the idea of “human nature”. In order to sustain our thesis, we will have to give an interpretation of some key terms of Wittgenstein’s philosophy (like “forms of life” or “natural history”) from a pluralistic point of view; this is the only way of understanding to what extent he is a predecessor of contemporary discussions about plural identities. (shrink)

Donald Davidson contributed to the discussion of logical form in two ways. On the one hand, he made several influential suggestions on how to give the logical forms of certain constructions of natural language. His account of adverbial modification and so called action-sentences is nowadays, in some form or other, widely employed in linguistics (Harman (forthcoming) calls it "the standard view"). Davidson's approaches to indirect discourse and quotation, while not as influential, also still attract attention today. On the other hand, (...) Davidson provided a general account of what logical form is. This paper is concerned with this general account. Its foremost aim is to give a faithful and detailed picture of what, according to Davidson, it means to give the logical form of a sentence. The structure of the paper is as follows. (1) I will first informally introduce a notion of logical form as the form that matters in certain kinds of entailments, and indicate why philosophers have taken an interest in such a notion. (2) The second section develops constraints that we should arguably abide by in giving an account of logical form. (3) I then turn to Davidson’s view of what is involved in giving such an account. To this end, I will try to reconstruct Davidson’s view of the connection between an assignment of logical forms, a truth theory and a meaning theory. (4) Finally, I will briefly discuss possible problems of Davidson’s account as developed in this paper. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article offers the first step in an ongoing project of revisiting the foundations of latinidad and lo latinoamericano by focusing on the exclusions enacted by the history of these concepts and the cultural and political identity that comes with them. In conversation with Susana Nuccetelli and Omar Rivera, the author focuses on two emblematic authors in the history of Latin American philosophy (Simón Bolívar and José de Vasconcelos) that are usually read as offering a novel, liberatory conception of (...) the Latin American reality/identity, categorically different from European and Anglo-American conceptions. This common reading of some of the foundational texts on Latin American identity, however, conceals not only the active, textual removal of Blackness in the construction of this identity, but also the literal subtraction of Black bodies, lives, and histories from the Latin American nations and communities. Both of these elements are an explicit part of the philosophical programs of Bolívar and Vasconcelos. The article shows how the thought and political practice of these two authors, celebrated in different ways as foundational of what we understand as Latin America today, exemplify the exclusionary historical demarcation of latinidad. (shrink)

Many philosophers and scientists have argued that the difference between phenomenally conscious states and other kind of states lies in the implicit self-awareness that conscious states have. Higher-Order Representationalist theories, attempt to explain such a self-awareness by means of a higher-order representation. Consciousness relies on our capacity to represent our own mental states, consciousness depends on our Theory of Mind. Such an ability can, at least conceptually, be decomposed into another two: mindreading and metacognition. In this paper I will argue (...) that consciousness cannot depend on mindreading. The tenability of HOR theories depends, therefore, on the relation between mindreading and metacognition. I analyze several views on such a relation and argue that none of them seem to be a plausible option for HOR theories. (shrink)

The notion of the human embryo is not immutable. Various scientific and technological breakthroughs in reproductive biology have compelled us to revisit the definition of the human embryo during the past 2 decades. Somatic cell nuclear transfer, oocyte haploidisation and, more recently, human stem cell-derived embryo models have challenged this scientific term, which has both ethical and legal repercussions. Here, we offer a legal perspective to identify a universally accepted definition of ‘embryo’ which could help to ease and unify the (...) regulation of such entities in different countries. (shrink)

Considering the war context and the emergence of the avant-garde in the early twentieth century, I base on this work the reasons why the presence of the concept of nivola, attributed by Miguel de Unamuno to refer to the literary technique used in his novel Mist (1914), provokes a possible confrontation between universes composed of elements of reality and the virtual. In that sense, it will be appropriate to explain the procedure that originates that collision of established plans. For (...) this, I will resort to literary categories that support the theories of fiction, according to the perception of Thomas Pavel and Marie-Laure Ryan. (shrink)

Este artigo consiste em abordagem de cunho introdutório sobre a crítica à metafísica. Destacam-se elementos isolados do conteúdo de crítica à metafísica na modernidade e que tende a vir a ser desenvolvido na contemporaneidade. Com isso quer-se dizer que na passagem da modernidade para a contemporaneidade a filosofia acaba por incorporar o conteúdo de crítica à metafísica e evolui na direção de vir a reconhecer sua condição de ser metafísica e de empreender crítica a essa condição. Para estabelecer a abordagem (...) do assunto procura-se aqui manter subjacente a ideia de crítica à metafísica no contexto da história da filosofia; mas é priorizado nisso o aspecto temático em vez de seu aspecto histórico. Busca-se mostrar que no processo de compreender a crítica à metafísica tem ocorrido de se tentar apartar do caráter de metafísico o caráter de teórico da ciência. Requer então indagar se é possível estabelecer marco de separação entre uma coisa e a outra. Em vez de separação opta-se aqui por investir no conhecimento da identidade da própria metafísica como saber filosófico; busca-se esclarecer que a pergunta pelo que é filosofia e a dificuldade de compreender o seu conteúdo é o que traz à tona a crítica à metafísica e a torna necessária, mas como modo de se compreender melhor o que é filosofia. (shrink)

El libro de María González Navarro se presenta a sí mismo como una “nueva hermenéutica” (23). La novedad involucra dos aspectos: uno que llamaremos metateórico y otro hermenéutico en propiedad. Hablando metateóricamente, el libro presenta una hermenéutica gadameriana vigorizada y robustecida por las teorías pragma-dialécticas de la argumentación. Desde el punto de vista hermenéutico propiamente dicho, la novedad reposa en que se considera que la interpretación correcta está indesligablemente vinculada a la argumentación abductiva.

Representations are not only used in our folk-psychological explanations of behaviour, but are also fruitfully postulated, for example, in cognitive science. The mainstream view in cognitive science maintains that our mind is a representational system. This popular view requires an understanding of the nature of the entities they are postulating. Teleosemantic theories face this challenge, unpacking the normativity in the relation of representation by appealing to the teleological function of the representing state. It has been argued that, if intentionality is (...) to be explained in teleological terms, then the function of a state cannot depend on its phylogenetical history, given the metaphysical possibility of a duplicate of an intentional being that lacks an evolutionary history. In this paper, I present a method to produce, according to our current knowledge in genetic engineering, human-like individuals who are not the product of natural selection in the required sense. This variation will be used to shed light on the main replies that have been offered in the literature to the Swampman thought experiment. I argue that these replies are not satisfactory: representations should better not depend on natural selection. I conclude that a non-etiological notion of function is to be preferred for characterizing the relation of representation. (shrink)

Many Christian thinkers have embraced the notion “art for art’s sake.” Chesterton did not. To the contrary, he saw such an idea as deeply problematic for a Christian aesthetic. In the following article, I will explore some philosophical aspects of the “art for art’s sake” movement and then explain why Chesterton parted company with it.

Se pretende mostrar, en primer lugar, cuál es la reinterpretación que Hegel lleva a cabo del Espíritu Verdadero en la comunidad griega, a partir de la situación de Antígona. Luego, se expone cómo esta armonía entre las leyes divina y humana podría llevar dentro la semilla de su fracaso porque, el (lugar del) entierro y la relación entre Polinices y Antígona, se encontrarían por fuera del sistema mismo y lo destruirían, si se hiciesen efectivos. Para esto último, estaríamos frente a (...) un “proceso autoinmune”, como lo llama Derrida, porque se trataría de poner en el núcleo y fundamento mismo de la comunidad un lugar imposible dentro de ella, un lugar para su autodestrucción. Finalmente, se pretende cuestionar tanto la posición de Hegel como la de Derrida en torno a Antígona. (shrink)

According to buck-passers about art, such as Dominic Lopes, every work of art belongs to some art. I distinguish two versions of the buck-passing theory of art—what I call the double-buck-passers’ (DBP) view and the single-buck-passers’ (SBP) view—and point out that Lopes’s view is an instance of the latter. Then I argue the SBP view faces a dilemma, each horn of which leads to trouble. In doing so, I explore uncharted territory: the implications of vagueness for theories of art. I (...) conclude that buck-passers should not be single-buck-passers. (shrink)

Animal replaceability is supposed to be a feature of some consequentialist theories, like Utilitarianism. Roughly, an animal is replaceable if it is permissible to kill it because the disvalue thereby caused will be compensated by the value of a new animal’s life. This is specially troubling since the conditions for such compensation seem easily attainable by improved forms of raising and killing animals. Thus, grounding a strong moral status of animals in such theories is somewhat compromised. As is, consequently, their (...) position as an alternative to rights-based theories in animal ethics. Recognising this, some utilitarians tried to disassociate utilitarianism and replaceability. I will here add my voice to this project. However, instead of seeing the culprit in the usual suspects (hedonism, maximisation or the total view), I advance a new proposal. After identifying that the compensating value for a disvaluable action has to be its consequence, I present a restriction on consequences: consequences of sequences of actions cannot be consequences of the isolated actions in the sequences. Given this, the main argument is simple: killing an animal is permissible only if the the value of the new animal’s life is a consequence of the killing; but this value is a consequence of a sequence of actions which involves the killing plus some additional actions; therefore, since, via the restriction, such value is not a consequence of the killing, it is irrelevant to its normative status. I then present two further motivations for the restriction: firstly, it prevents the value of conditional actions from trivially influencing the value of the actions on which they are conditional; secondly, it is useful – even if not a complete solution – to reply other objections to consequentialism: the accordion effect of action and the cluelessness problem. I finally consider a couple of objections. (shrink)

Esta entrevista se realizó al instructor Carlos Reymer con la finalidad de que comentara cómo ha sido su formación en las artes marciales, su preparación técnica como competidor y representante de la selección peruana de taekwondo y su desempeño como instructor en alumnos de distintas edades. Con esta conversación, se logra obtener un conocimiento panorámico y biográfico del recorrido en la práctica y la enseñanza de este deporte.

La Neuroteología surge como una nueva forma de explicar las relaciones entre el ser humano y Dios, las religiones y la espiritualidad en general a partir de la neurología (estudio del sistema nervioso, especialmente del encéfalo). Pero en algunos casos pretende incluso demostrar la existencia o no existencia de Dios. En este trabajo deseo exponer de qué manera algunas formas de Neuroteología manifiestan un rasgo sintomático de la cultura actual donde la ciencia actúa como un saber omnímodo que aspira explicar (...) todos los aspectos de la realidad pasando por alto sus propios límites metodológicos. Algunos investigadores transgreden los principios del método científico-experimental para extrapolarlos a cuestiones filosóficas y teológicas. De esta forma violentan las fronteras epistemológicas de los saberes para convertirse en un único tipo de conocimiento. La ciencia lleva a cabo, cuando menos, un reduccionismo naturalista. -/- Neurotheology appears as a new way to explain the relations between the human being and God, religions, and spirituality in general starting from Neurology (the study of the nervous system, especially the brain). But in certain cases it also pretends to demonstrate the existence or nonexistence of God. In this paper I would like to demonstrate how some forms of Neurotheology offer a symptomatic characteristic of our current culture, where Science acts as an all-embracing knowledge —it aspires to explain the entire aspect of reality— ignoring the limits of its method. Actually, some researchers transgress the principles of the scientific-experimental method and extrapolate to philosophical and theological issues. In this way, they overlap the epistemological limits of the different kinds of knowledge to become one only. Thus, science carries out, to say the least, a naturalist reductionism. (shrink)

Recent experimental studies indicate that epistemically irrelevant factors can skew our intuitions, and that some degree of scepticism about appealing to intuition in philosophy is warranted. In response, some have claimed that philosophers are experts in such a way as to vindicate their reliance on intuitions—this has become known as the ‘expertise defence’. This paper explores the viability of the expertise defence, and suggests that it can be partially vindicated. Arguing that extant discussion is problematically imprecise, we will finesse the (...) notion of ‘philosophical expertise’ in order to better reflect the complex reality of the different practices involved in philosophical inquiry. On this basis, we offer a new version of the expertise defence that allows for distinct types of philosophical expertise. The upshot of our approach is that wholesale vindications or rejections of the expertise defence are shown to be unwarranted; we must instead turn to local, piecemeal investigations of philosophical expertise. Lastly, in the spirit of taking our own advice, we exemplify how recent developments from experimental philosophy lend themselves to this approach, and can empirically support one instance of a successful expertise defence. (shrink)

Obra ganadora de la VIII edición del Premio Internacional de Ensayo «Mariano Picón Salas». Propone una aproximación crítica a la “labor civilizatoria” del proyecto de la modernidad occidental que en pleno siglo xxi se reproduce a través de la hiper-conectividad que permiten las redes sociales y los dispositivos digitales. -/- It’s A Selfie World… denuncia, con intensidad expresiva, estilo osado y cautivante, los modos a través de los cuales se constituyen las subjetividades digitales que tienen como horizonte una consciencia transhumana (...) con la cual se afinan los ya complejos procesos de dominación cultural, económica y política, y se nos prepara para naturalizar nuevas formas de racismo, esclavitud y control social. (shrink)

Ecological psychology is one of the most influential theories of perception in the embodied, anti-representational, and situated cognitive sciences. However, radical enactivists claim that Gibsonians tend to describe ecological information and its ‘pick up’ in ways that make ecological psychology close to representational theories of perception and cognition. Motivated by worries about the tenability of classical views of informational content and its processing, these authors claim that ecological psychology needs to be “RECtified” so as to explicitly resist representational readings. In (...) this paper, we argue against this call for RECtification. To do so, we offer a detailed analysis of the notion of perceptual information and other related notions such as specificity and meaning, as they are presented in the specialized ecological literature. We defend that these notions, if properly understood, remain free of any representational commitment. Ecological psychology, we conclude, does not need to be RECtified. (shrink)

The well-known distinction between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness has moved away from the conceptual domain into the empirical one, and the debate now is focused on whether the neural mechanisms of cognitive access are constitutive of the neural correlate of phenomenal consciousness. In this paper, I want to analyze the consequences that a negative reply to this question has for the cognitive phenomenology thesis – roughly the claim that there is a “proprietary” phenomenology of thoughts. If the mechanisms responsible (...) for cognitive access can be disentangled from the mechanisms that give rise to phenomenology in the case of perception and emotion, then the same disentanglement is to be expected in the case of thoughts. This, in turn, presents, as I argue, a challenge to the cognitive phenomenology thesis: either there are thoughts with cognitive phenomenology we lack cognitive access to or there are good reasons to doubt that there is such a thing as cognitive phenomenology. I discuss a... (shrink)

This article develops a constructive criticism of methodological conventionalism. Methodological conventionalism asserts that standards of inductive risk ought to be justified in virtue of their ability to facilitate coordination in a research community. On that view, industry bias occurs when conventional methodological standards are violated to foster industry preferences. The underlying account of scientific conventionality, however, is problematically incomplete. Conventions may be justified in virtue of their coordinative functions, but often qualify for posterior empirical criticism as research advances. Accordingly, industry (...) bias does not only threaten existing conventions but may impede their empirically warranted improvement if they align with industry preferences. My empiricist account of standards of inductive risk avoids such a problem by asserting that conventional justification can be pragmatically warranted but has, in principle, only a provisional status. Methodological conventions, therefore, should not only be defended from preference-based infringements on their coordinative function but ought to be subjected to empirical criticism. (shrink)

Cognitive theories claim, whereas non-cognitive theories deny, that cognitive access is constitutive of phenomenology. Evidence in favor of non-cognitive theories has recently been collected by Block and is based on the high capacity of participants in partial-report experiments compared to the capacity of the working memory. In reply, defenders of cognitive theories have searched for alternative interpretations of such results that make visual awareness compatible with the capacity of the working memory; and so the conclusions of such experiments remain controversial. (...) Instead of entering the debate between alternative interpretations of partial-report experiments, this paper offers an alternative line of research that could settle the discussion between cognitive and non-cognitive theories of consciousness. Here I relate the neural correlates of cognitive access to empirical research into the neurophysiology of dreams; cognitive access seems to depend on the activity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. However, that area is strongly deactivated during sleep; a period when we entertain conscious experiences: dreams. This approach also avoids the classic objection that consciousness should be inextricably tied to reportability or it would fall outside the realm of science. (shrink)

Esta entrevista se hizo con el propósito de polemizar sobre el nuevo uso al que se está adecuando el lenguaje a partir de los avances informáticos, los cuales están en constante evolución y tienen diversos soportes tecnológicos que permiten su desarrollo, como las computadoras, las tabletas o los celulares. Desde este avance consuetudinario, Juan Grompone considera que distintos métodos de estudio o aprendizaje de antaño ya no son compatibles en esta era; es decir, han perdido vigencia por su falta de (...) utilidad y por la existencia de otros modelos que facilitan el accionar humano. Polémicamente, el académico afirma que los diccionarios físicos publicados en tomos han sido reemplazados por la inmediatez con la que uno encuentra la información por internet. Asimismo, destaca el uso beneficioso de la página web de Wikipedia, la cual siempre ha tenido muchas críticas. De igual manera, muestra su desacuerdo con la dinámica de muchas de las publicaciones digitales que se hacen hoy en día. Estas y otras diatribas del entrevistado hacen que la lectura de este manuscrito sea interesante para quien desee contar con un conocimiento panorámico de la escritura en estos dos últimos siglos. Juan Arturo Grompone Carbonell 1 nació el 26 de agosto de 1939 en Montevideo (Uruguay). Es miembro de número de la Academia Nacional de Letras del Uruguay desde 1996, fecha en la que expuso su discurso titulado “Jitanjáforas, neologismos y computadoras”. Estudió la carrera de Ingeniería en la Universidad de la República. En la actualidad, labora en las áreas de telecomunicaciones e informática y ha publicado textos de esa materia. También ha incursionado en la creación literaria, como lo demuestra con sus novelas Asesinato en el hotel de Baños (1992) o Rosa del tercer milenio (2002). Ha obtenido los siguientes reconocimientos: Premio Ingeniero Eminente por la Región Latinoamericana (1991), Premio de Narrativa del Ministerio de Educación y Cultura (1991) y Maimónides (2002). (shrink)

The different “postmodern” philosophies that arose from the 1970s to the 1990s have often been considered as a kind of irrationalist-skeptical-relativist “ideology” or assorted amalgam, which in our time would dangerously take over the philosophical academy and western cultures, with grave risk for universalist or simply rationalist projects. Nevertheless, as the title of this article shows, a closer examination of some trends of postmodern thought would be able to perceive that they not only are uncomfortable with the label “relativist,” “irrationalist” (...) or “skeptical,” but also that they offer substantial arguments against, for example, the main theses of relativism. Naturally, none of these trends has any qualms about abominating universalism as well (the presumed mortal enemy of the relativists). Thus the most sensible conclusion would be that what really seems erroneous to authors such as those we shall approach here is the presumed dilemma (presented as inevitable) between relativism and universalism (it is curious that, at least as far as faith in the existence of such a dichotomy is concerned, these presumed irreconcilable enemies, which both the relativists and the universalists believe themselves to be, are plainly in agreement). Only if they subscribe to such a rejection of this dilemma could it be explained that important thinkers of the heterogeneous postmodern group (such as those whom I propose to have a dialogue with in this article) have scorned, on the one hand, any and all universal project of rationality, but have also strongly disallowed relativist proposals (just as, naturally, they have likewise taken advantage of the issue to deny their presumed adherence to relativism as such). This idea, however, has not been understood by a large part of the scholars involved today in epistemology and practical philosophy (the two philosophical specialties in which one most frequently faces the question of relativism). To approach this understanding, therefore, perhaps it would not be amiss to review the different arguments that some postmodern thinkers use against relativism. Specifically, we shall tale a look at the reasoning in this sense that has come from Gianni Vattimo (1936), Paul K. Feyerabend (1924-1994), and Richard Rorty (1931). All of them have too often had to suffer from the suspicion of being considered as relativists. To absolve philosophers such as these from such an accusation seems to be a sine qua non condition for understanding their true position towards the universalism versus relativism dilemma. (shrink)

This paper is my short commentary on Marshall McLuhan’s “The Medium is the Message.” McLuhan wrote this essay in 1964, during a time when the internet was not yet invented. Hence, my contribution to his philosophy and the main content of this paper is to apply his analysis on the age of the internet particularly on the role of this medium in education and remote learning.

Los sótanos del universo plantea la necesidad de cambiar la epistemología del conocimiento apodíctico científico-filosófico basado en la certidumbre por la “epistemología del riesgo”. Asimismo, sugiere un mayor acercamiento entre ciencia y filosofía para superar la actual confusión y estancamiento que afectan a estos saberes. Este artículo analiza ambos temas. -/- Los Sótanos del Universo proposes the necessity of changing the epistemology of apodictic scientific-philosophical knowledge, based on certainty, for the “epistemology of risk”. Furthermore, it suggests a better approach between (...) philosophy and science in order to surpass the confusion and standstill that affect these disciplines today. This paper analyses both matters. (shrink)

En esta entrevista, Itxaso del Castillo Aira relata sus experiencias al especializarse en el tópico del terror cinematográfico y televisivo; en rigor, se refiere a la técnica audiovisual del found footage. Películas como El proyecto de la bruja de Blair, Actividad paranormal y REC han desarrollado este recurso para emerger una impresión de realismo en la trama de estos largometrajes al momento de ser proyectados. Así como esta técnica, la investigadora propondrá otras categorías vigentes, tales como las de las monstruas (...) o los filmes estribados en un horror noire. De esa manera, queda constancia de que esta conversación permitirá a los lectores tener un conocimiento más profundo sobre este tema del terror, que a muchos no deja de cautivar. (shrink)

Digital COVID certificates are a novel public health policy to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. These immunity certificates aim to incentivize vaccination and to deny international travel or access to essential spaces to those who are unable to prove that they are not infectious. In this article, we start by describing immunity certificates and highlighting their differences from vaccination certificates. Then, we focus on the ethical, legal, and social issues involved in their use, namely autonomy and consent, data protection, equity, and (...) international mobility from a global fairness perspective. The main conclusion of our analysis is that digital COVID certificates are only acceptable if they meet certain conditions: that they should not process personal data beyond what is strictly necessary for the aimed goals, that equal access to them should be guaranteed, and that they should not restrict people’s autonomy to access places where contagion is unlikely. We conclude that, if such conditions are guaranteed, digital COVID certificates could contribute to mitigating some of the most severe socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic. (shrink)

According to F. Adams [this journal, vol. 68, 2018] cognition cannot be realized in plants or bacteria. In his view, plants and bacteria respond to the here-and-now in a hardwired, inflexible manner, and are therefore incapable of cognitive activity. This article takes issue with the pursuit of plant cognition from the perspective of an empirically informed philosophy of plant neurobiology. As we argue, empirical evidence shows, contra Adams, that plant behavior is in many ways analogous to animal behavior. This renders (...) plants suitable to be described as cognitive agents in a non-metaphorical way. Sections two to four review the arguments offered by Adams in light of scientific evidence on plant adaptive behavior, decision-making, anticipation, as well as learning and memory. Section five introduces the ‘phyto-nervous’ system of plants. To conclude, section six resituates the quest for plant cognition into a broader approach in cognitive science, as represented by enactive and ecological schools of thought. Overall, we aim to motivate the idea that plants may be considered genuine cognitive agents. Our hope is to help propel public awareness and discussion of plant intelligence once appropriately stripped of anthropocentric preconceptions of the sort that Adams' position appears to exemplify. (shrink)

Contra recent, inflationary views, the paper submits a deflationary approach to legal ontology. It argues, in particular, that to answer ontological questions about legal entities, we only need conceptual analysis and empirical investigation. In developing this proposal, it follows Amie Thomasson’s ‘easy ontology’ and her strategy for answering whether ordinary objects exist. The purpose of this is to advance a theory that, on the one hand, does not fall prey to sceptical views about legal reality (viz., that ontological truths about (...) legal entities are established by metaphysical principles); and, on the other, is compatible with common-sense jurisprudence (viz., that there in fact exist legal entities, and they all have important practical implications). While this methodology is common to legal philosophers interested in elucidating the ‘artifactual nature’ of law, the paper departs from their projects by taking a step forward in connecting this deflationary approach to legal ontology with an expressivist account of legal discourse, thus providing enough resources to satisfy the general ambition of jurisprudence, viz., to establish the conditions for the analysis of legal reality and its normative character. (shrink)

There has recently been emphasis put on providing two-factor accounts of monothematic delusions. Such accounts would explain (1) whether a delusional hypothesis (e.g. someone else is inserting thoughts into my mind) can be understood as a prima facie reasonable response to an experience and (2) why such a delusional hypothesis is believed and maintained given its implausibility and evidence against it. I argue that if we are to avoid obfuscating the cognitive mechanisms involved in monothematic delusion formation we should split (...) the first factor (1 above) into two factors: how abnormal experience can give rise to a delusional ‘proto-hypothesis’ and how a ‘proto-hypothesis’ in consort with normal experiences and background information, can be developed into a delusional hypothesis. In particular I will argue that a schizophrenic is faced with the unusual requirement of having to identify an introspectively accessible thought as one's own, and that this requirement of identification is the central experiential abnormality of thought insertion, auditory verbal hallucination, and alien control (i.e. passivity symptoms). Additionally, I will consider non-experiential factors which are required for the formation of a delusional hypothesis. (shrink)

Esta investigación retoma la obra de Gabriel García Márquez, Noticia de un secuestro (1996), con la volición de cuestionar la idea de Estado nación que está inmersa en el libro. Para ello, es necesario entender que la naturaleza del texto exige un conocimiento amplio al lector o al intérprete, puesto que su contenido revela datos multidisciplinarios. Además, es insoslayable realizar un análisis discursivo de la historia de ese contexto y cotejar con pasajes del mismo libro. Para facilitar esta labor, la (...) extrapolación de conceptos del teórico Luis Rodríguez Manzanera será de utilidad, ya que él despliega definiciones de Criminología, un tema frecuente en la obra. Verbigracia, la macrocriminalidad, una noción que él postula, permite que se comprenda la complexión del periodo histórico finisecular del siglo XX en Colombia, etapa que le corresponde a Noticia de un secuestro. Por otro lado, es menester dilucidar que este estudio no se reduce a lo literario, lo histórico y lo criminológico, sino que abarca distintas disciplinas, por lo que la exigencia en la consolidación epistemológica e interpretativa estará demostrada consuetudinariamente, sin obviar la inmanencia de la obra. Este tipo de análisis interdisciplinarios ya ha sido trabajado desde los Estudios Culturales, tal como se constata en las investigaciones de Richard Johnson (2000) o Néstor García Canclini (1997). De igual modo, el intento de establecer lineamientos y conexiones entre disciplinas como las de Literatura y Derecho ya ha sido desarrollado por Stanley Fish (1986), Faustino Martínez (2005), Carlos Pérez (2006) y Denise Schalet (2014). A diferencia de estos abordajes ya estudiados, el objetivo de esta investigación es detectar y fundamentar cómo se articula una propuesta ideológica desde una configuración que reanuda elementos históricos y literarios. En específico, lo que se busca es argumentar por qué fracasó implícitamente un proyecto sociopolítico de democracia y progreso, a partir de un panorama de violencia, narcoterrorismo, corrupción, negociaciones ilícitas, transgresión a los derechos humanos e inseguridad ciudadana. Con todo ello, esta tesis de maestría terminará siendo fructuosa para análisis postremos de discursos que tienen como esencia un soporte multidisciplinario. (shrink)

Al final de su libro “La conciencia inexplicada”, Juan Arana señala que la nomología, explicación según las leyes de la naturaleza, requiere de una nomogonía, una consideración del origen de las leyes. Es decir, que el orden que observamos en el mundo natural requiere una instancia previa que ponga ese orden específico. Sabemos que desde la revolución científica la mejor manera de explicar dicha nomología ha sido mediante las matemáticas. Sin embargo, en las últimas décadas se han presentado algunas propuestas (...) basadas en modelos matemáticos que fundamentarían muchos aspectos de la realidad. Dos claros ejemplos provienen de Roger Penrose y Max Tegmark. Esto lleva a pensar en una posición no solo nomológica sino además nomogónica de la matemática. ¿Puede la Naturaleza estar fundada por las matemáticas como señalan algunos físico-matemáticos? Y en ese caso, ¿sería pertinente buscar una nomo-génesis de esta índole en la constitución de la conciencia? -/- At the end of his book “La conciencia inexplicada”, Juan Arana points out that nomology, explanation according to the laws of nature requires a nomogony, an account of the origin of the laws. This means that the order that we can observe in the natural World demands something prior to posit that specific order. Since the scientific revolution we know that the best way to explain that nomology has been through mathematics. Anyway, in recent decades a number of proposals based on mathematical models that found many aspects of reality has been offered. Two clear examples come from Roger Penrose and Max Tegmark. This drives us to think of a position of mathematics as not only nomological but also nomogonical. Can Nature be founded by mathematics as some physicists and mathematicians point out? And, in this case, would be relevant this kind of approach to search a nomo-genesis in the constitution of consciousness? (shrink)

Philosophy has rendered a close attention to audiovisual communication in recent times, but this interest has not always had a parallel in the attention that television has paid to philosophical themes. Nevertheless, some examples of television approaches to philosophy have reached a quite remarkable level of quality. This paper will focus on one of such instances (the DVD Gadamer. Memoria de un siglo, produced by the Spanish Open National University). By means of an analysis of its main virtues and its (...) flaws (from a communicational outlook), we will try to obtain some general conclusions about how philosophical didactics and television can move ahead in their just begun cooperation. (shrink)

Esta entrevista está orientada a desentrañar la participación actoral de Giselle Collao con su personaje de Lucía en la serie televisiva Mil oficios (2001- 2003). Los temas que se desarrollarán para confrontar esa realidad serán la formación y la vocación que tuvo, así como la actitud que debió adoptar por las mismas pautas y los parlamentos del guion. De ese modo, su papel sería más verosímil y acogido con simpatía por la audiencia. Su interpretación en sí ha sido singular y (...) destacable en el país. Esto se ha demostrado con el decurso del tiempo, puesto que el público peruano aún recuerda su tan entrañable rol. Considerando esa premisa, las interrogantes que resuelve la actriz revelarán y complementarán ese universo real y subrepticio que permitió que su desenvolvimiento en la pantalla chica sea exitoso con esta teleserie. (shrink)

¿Cuál debe ser la actitud de un pensamiento genuinamente postmoderno ante el fenómeno religioso? ¿Debe contribuir a desterrarlo de nuestras sociedades (en alianza con cierto racionalismo ilustrado que siempre miró con suspicacia cuanto no cabía dentro de sus estrechos criterios) o, por el contrario, debe colaborar en su emergente renacimiento (y aliarse, por tanto, con los diversos tradicionalismos que lo reivindican)? La filosofía de Gianni Vattimo constituye una respuesta a esta disyuntiva (típicamente moderna) desde una perspectiva que pretende distorsionar (verwinden) (...) tal dicotomía. La idea clave para ello es el concepto de secularización que, a la vez que reconoce nuestra dependencia, como occidentales, de un cierto discurso religioso, lo debilita con el fin de eliminar de él su violencia (pues, de modo circular, reconoce que dentro de él ya existía in nuce el proyecto de esta eliminación, el proyecto de la kénosis). El presente artículo analiza someramente estas ideas y traza algunas de sus conexiones (no siempre explicitadas por el propio Vattimo) con el pensamiento teológico más reciente, para después reseñar algunas de las consecuencias que han tenido en los debates filosóficos hispanos. (shrink)