Sartori (1970) warned a long time ago of the danger of concept stretching for effective and cumulative theory building. Such concept stretching has happened with regard to deliberation, which has become a very faddish term. For theoretically well-founded empirical research it is better conceptually to distinguish clearly between strategic bargaining and deliberation, although in the empirical political world the two concepts are usually heavily intertwined. Keywords deliberation; concept stretching; strategic bargaining.

La teoría de la intentio hoy conocida como “intencionalidad” había pasado desapercibida en la filosofía moderna y fue recuperada por Brentano, pero sobre todo fue puesta de relieve por Husserl, quien se apoyó en ella como uno de los elementos básicos de su fenomenología. Sin embargo, en esta corriente la intencionalidad perdió su sentido clásico. Así lo pone de manifiesto Jacques Maritain en su gnoseología. ¿Por qué Husserl cambia el sentido del concepto?, ¿cuál es la crítica principal de Maritain a (...) este hecho? Parece pertinente esclarecer ambas visiones a fin de comprender el sentido que ha prevalecido en la Filosofía de la Mente contemporánea y las Neurociencias. Lo que se halla en juego es nuevamente la antigua confrontación entre inmanentismo y realismo gnoseológico: admitir en qué consiste la intencionalidad es el punto de inflexión entre estas posiciones. En este trabajo pongo de manifiesto que la forma de asumir un legítimo realismo es mediante una metafísica del ser que reclama una intencionalidad radicada no solamente en el sujeto cognoscente sino además en su relación con la cosa conocida y no sólo con los meros objetos mentales. -/- El propósito de esta publicación es mostrar el punto de quiebre que se lleva a cabo en la teoría del conocimiento y en la psicología racional con respecto al concepto “intencionalidad” del realismo metafísico. La teoría de la intentio en F. Brentano recoge la idea original de los medievales pero sin ser muy explícito en los términos gnoseológicos ya que su objetivo primario consistió sobre todo en superar el psicologismo de su época. En cambio, esa teoría heredada por Husserl se ve alterada completamente con respecto a su sentido primigenio cuando aplica su método trascendental. Esto se puede apreciar en varias partes de su obra "Ideas relativas a una fenomenología pura y una filosofía fenomenológica" (1913). (shrink)

I propose a systematic survey of the various attitudes proponents of enaction (or enactivism) entertained or are entertaining towards representationalism and towards the use of the concept “mental representation” in cognitive science. For the sake of clarity, a set of distinctions between different varieties of representationalism and anti-representationalism are presented. I also recapitulate and discuss some anti-representationalist trends and strategies one can find the enactive literature, before focusing on some possible limitations of eliminativist versions of enactive anti-representationalism. These limitations are (...) here taken as opportunities for reflecting on the fate of enactivism in its relations with representationalism and anti-representationalism. (shrink)

When reasoning about dependence relations, philosophers often rely on gradualist assumptions, according to which abrupt changes in a phenomenon of interest can result only from abrupt changes in the low-level phenomena on which it depends. These assumptions, while strictly correct if the dependence relation in question can be expressed by continuous dynamical equations, should be handled with care: very often the descriptively relevant property of a dynamical system connecting high- and low-level phenomena is not its instantaneous behaviour but its stable (...) fixed points (those in the vicinity of which it spends most of the time, after comparatively short transitory periods), and stable fixed points can change abruptly as a result of infinitesimal changes of the low-level phenomenon. We illustrate this potential gradualist trap by showing that Chalmers’ fading qualia argument falls into it. (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)

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)

Dans la formulation classique habermassienne du modèle délibératif, les arguments doivent être justifiés d’une façon rationnelle, reliant logiquement des raisons à des conclusions. Sur la base de données empiriques, il est montré que les histoires personnelles ont également un rôle à jouer pour une bonne délibération, créant l’empathie à l’égard des besoins des autres. Plus généralement, les émotions ne devraient pas être exclues de la délibération.

Questions of research ethics are raised when deliberative research is done in war situations.

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)

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)

The Challenge from Cognitive Diversity (CCD) states that demography-specific intuitions are unsuited to play evidential roles in philosophy. The CCD attracted much attention in recent years, in great part due to the launch of an international research effort to test for demographic variation in philosophical intuitions. In the wake of these international studies the CCD may prove revolutionary. For, if these studies uncover demographic differences in intuitions, then in line with the CCD there would be a good reason to challenge (...) philosophical views that rely on those intuitions for evidential support. I argue that philosophical views that rely on demography-specific intuitions for evidential support need not be threatened by such findings. I first provide a detailed analysis of the epistemological principles driving the CCD and distinguish three formulations of this challenge. I then show that there are good reasons to reject all such formulations of the CCD. (shrink)

It has been widely acknowledged that indexical thought poses a problem for traditional theories of mental content. However, recent work in philosophy has defied this received view and challenged its defenders not to rely on intuitions but rather to clearly articulate what the problem is supposed to be. For example, in “The Inessential Indexical”, Cappelen and Dever claim that there are no philosophically interesting or important roles played by essential indexical representations. This paper assesses the role of essential indexicality in (...) understanding the content of perception and argues that, if the perceptual experiences of different subjects can have the same phenomenology, and thus share a representational content (phenomenal content)—assumptions shared by a well-established research project, including a wide variety of theories—, then phenomenal content exhibit a particular kind of essential indexicality (perspectival). I also discuss how the argument is immune to Cappelen and Dever’s objections to the idea that the content of perceptual experiences is essentially indexical. (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)

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.

Theoretical and practical activity have traditionally been understood as complementary activities: through theoretical activity the subject would internalize the external world, while through practical activity she would externalize her internal goals. Hegel scholars have often attempted to interpret the difference and relation between subjective and objective spirit on the basis of that way of understanding theoretical and practical activity. Such approach, however, raises serious exegetical and conceptual problems about the meaning and formal structure of Hegel´s entire philosophy of spirit. Indeed, (...) if what primarily characterizes subjective spirit is the activity of knowing considered as the process of idealization and internalization of the external world and what characterizes, in turn, objective spirit is the externalization of the goals of the will, how should we conceive within such explanatory framework the specificity of the acts of absolute spirit, that is to say, of the human behavior in art, religion, and philosophy? In my talk I will first attempt to clarify what exactly defines, according to Hegel, theoretical and practical activity, in order to develop on that basis an exegetical model that can satisfactorily account for Hegel´s peculiar periodization of the different forms of human activity. (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)

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)

The non-transitivity of the relation looks the same as has been used to argue that the relation has the same phenomenal character as is non-transitive—a result that jeopardizes certain theories of consciousness. In this paper, I argue against this conclusion while granting the premise by dissociating lookings and phenomenology; an idea that some might find counter-intuitive. However, such an intuition is left unsupported once phenomenology and cognitive access are distinguished from each other; a distinction that is conceptually and empirically grounded.

To deliberate is a skill like any other that can be learned. The paper shows how schools can teach deliberative skills.

The historically-influential perceptual analogy states that intuitions and perceptual experiences are alike in many important respects. Phenomenalists defend a particular reading of this analogy according to which intuitions and perceptual experiences share a common phenomenal character. The phenomenalist thesis has proven highly influential in recent years. However, insufficient attention has been given to the challenges that the phenomenalist thesis raises for theories of intuitions. In this paper, I first develop one such challenge. I argue that if we take seriously the (...) idea that intuitions and perceptual experiences have a common phenomenal character, then an analogous version of the familiar problem of perceptual presence arises for intuitions. I call this the 'problem of intuitive presence'. In the second part of the paper I sketch a novel enactivist solution to this problem. (shrink)

The traditional approach in cognitive sciences holds that cognition is a matter of manipulating abstract symbols followingcertain rules. According to this view, the body is merely an input/output device, which allows the computationalsystem—the brain—to acquire new input data by means of the senses and to act in the environment following its com-mands. In opposition to this classical view, defenders of embodied cognition (EC) stress the relevance of the body inwhich the cognitive agent is embedded in their explanation of cognitive processes. (...) From a representationalist frameworkregarding our conscious experience, in this article, I will offer a novel argument in favor of EC and show that cognitionconstitutively—and no merely causally—depends upon body activity beyond that in the brain. In particular, I will arguethat in order to solve the problem derived from the empirical evidence in favor of the possibility of shifted spectrum,representationalist should endorse the view that experiences concern its subject: the content of experience isde se.Ishow that this claim perfectly matches the phenomenological observation and helps explaining the subjective characterof the experience. Furthermore, I argue that entertaining this kind of representation constitutively depends on bodilyactivity. Consequently, insofar as cognition depends on consciousness, it is embodied. (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)

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)

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)

Que la tecnología nos ha cambiado la vida es una verdad de perogrullo. Y, la pertinencia de una reflexión científica sobre la tecnología, a estas alturas, tampoco plantea dudas. La técnica nos rodea y no es posible ignorarla ni detenerla, ya no hay vuelta atrás, a menos que se produzca una catástrofe. Pero, ¿es posible que se produzca? En esta comunicación pongo de manifiesto la necesidad de congeniar dos puntos que suelen presentarse enconados: la naturaleza y la tecnología. Esta necesidad (...) no viene impuesta por un deseo romántico de contemporizar a los partidarios de ambos extremos, sino de poner de manifiesto que este enfrentamiento y ruptura es uno de los peligros que pueden impedir la prolongación de la vida de la especie humana. Deseo a toda costa evitar el catastrofismo, pero también mostrar que con la tecnología, en poco tiempo, hemos llegado muy lejos y es perentorio asumir responsabilidades. (shrink)

Desde la consideración de Tomás de Aquino del conocimiento por connaturalidad, "el conocimiento que aporta a la inteligencia más datos que los puramente racionales, especialmente todos los datos proporcionados por la afectividad", es posible hacer un acercamiento integral a la realidad y establecer una relación con otras áreas de sabiduría y sus objetos de estudio. Esto ayuda a confrontar algunos problemas filosóficos reales, como la pérdida de la visión holística de la realidad, el reduccionismo epistemológico y el relativismo gnoseológico. Recordar (...) el estudio iniciado en la primera parte del siglo XX por tomistas bien conocidos sobre la connaturalidad ayudaría a comprender mejor la realidad y el ser humano, y facilitaría el diálogo entre Filosofía, Ciencia y Teología sobre temas como Ecología, Estética o Mística. (shrink)

TRABAJO DE FIN DE GRADO -/- Søren Kierkegaard (Copenhague, 1813-1855) figura como una de las grandes figuras del pensamiento filosófico de Europa en pleno siglo XIX. Su filosofía se articula como una tensión constante entre el pesimismo existencial, la fe protestante y la impotencia de la razón, motivo por el cual se ha debatido acerca de lo adecuado del calificativo de filósofo o teólogo. Los años 1844 y 1849, por otra parte, son uno de los más prolijos de su carrera (...) como escritor, publicando textos como "Migajas filosóficas", "El concepto de angustia" o "La enfermedad mortal". Se trata de las obras seleccionadas para el presente trabajo, cuyo primer objetivo no es sino la investigación del papel de la fe en la filosofía de Kierkegaard. Esto responde a varios motivos: el primero de ellos, por la inextricabilidad que comporta la religión con las concepciones de la existencia en su obra. Como hemos mencionado, el análisis vital que hace en sus escritos siempre tienen presente las aportaciones del cristianismo, sobre todo en su vertiente protestante. De esta manera, saber cuál es la significación esencial de fe en el autor danés permitirá una más profunda dilucidación de su vinculación con el resto de los condicionantes existenciales que plantea, como lo son la angustia o el terror. -/- El segundo motivo se marcaría por la cercanía temática que guarda con un aclamado personaje de nuestras letras: Miguel de Unamuno. En efecto, el bilbaíno escritor de "nivolas" ha sido y es conocido por una finísima —y, desde luego, también agónica— sensibilidad existencial. Los temas centrales de sus escritos principales son, mediata o inmediatamente, la expresión y canalización literaria de los análisis de Kierkegaard. Así, "San Manuel Bueno, mártir" rezuma una incertidumbre nauseabunda —en el sentido sartreano del término— que recuerda a "El concepto de angustia"; mientras que "Del sentimiento trágico de la vida" expone, a caballo entre la poesía y la filosofía —a las cuales, como veremos, considera idénticas—, las características esenciales de la fe y su naturaleza de «salto» aducidas en las "Migajas filosóficas". De hecho, es bien conocida la fascinación de don Miguel por el autor de Copenhague, llegando incluso a estudiar danés para acceder a los textos originales. -/- De esta manera, el breve ensayo que se sigue pretende investigar uno de los conceptos angulares de la filosofía de Søren Kierkegaard con el objetivo último de aproximarlo al contexto peninsular, donde los desasosiegos existenciales del norte europeo encuentran en la figura de Miguel de Unamuno un digno interlocutor. Para ello, se hará una lectura comparativa, si bien no tratando de detectar influencias intelectuales o biográficas reales, sí planteando el núcleo de investigación como perteneciente a una misma preocupación fundamental: lo que Unamuno bautizó como el sentimiento trágico de la vida. (shrink)

Our interest here will be limited to decide how we could use the philosophy of Wittgenstein to oppose Marxist theorizations. We will not imply, thus, that Wittgenstein himself made that use or wanted anybody else to make it. Our focus here is not Wittgenstein’s possible intentions against Marxism, but his implications against it. We have found five possible implications of this kind. The first one links his private language argument and Ludwig von Mises’ argument about why Marxists fail in determining (...) prices. The second one goes from that very private language argument to a liberal argument against the dictatorship of proletariat. The third is a skeptical argument for participatory democracy that undermines some of Marx’s ideas about power. Finally, the fourth and fifth implications use Wittgenstein’s philosophy against the Marxist ideas of an essential divide in society and a common human progress, respectively. (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.

No artigo “O vegetarianismo como obrigação ética” (Crítica, 10 de Setembro de 2015), Moutinho defende que o vegetarianismo é uma obrigação moral. Fá-lo argumentando por duas vias: que o estatuto moral dos animais é incompatível com serem usados pelos humanos para alimentação; e que o vegetarianismo é consequência do nosso dever em preservar o equilíbrio ecológico do planeta. O meu objectivo neste artigo é mostrar que os argumentos apresentados são insuficientes para estabelecer o vegetarianismo como obrigação moral.

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)

En Apuntes por el centenario de la Revolución de Octubre, Miguel Antonio Guevara reflexiona sobre el sentido que tiene hoy en Nuestra América la gesta bolchevique y en particular sobre las luchas por los símbolos, significantes, consignas y formas de hacer política derivados de la experiencia rusa. Todo esto siempre teniendo muy presente la cuestión de la praxis cultural y los desafíos que plantea la industria de la cultura como elementos determinantes en la lucha actual contra el fascismo y (...) el imperialismo. (shrink)

¿Cómo objetivar la subjetividad sin caer en subjetivismos inmanentistas ni en objetivismos ajenos a la existencia personal? Desde el realismo filosófico la clave parece encontrarse en la adecuada articulación entre conciencia y subjetividad. Estudiaremos las teorías de la conciencia de Antonio Millán-Puelles y Karol Wojtyła desde la onto-fenomenología para hallar el modo de superar esta aporía. -/- How to objectify subjectivity without falling into either immanent subjectivisms or objectivisms foreign to personal existence? From the perspective of realist philosophy the key (...) seems to be found in an appropriate articulation between consciousness and subjectivity. We are going to study the theories of consciousness in Antonio Millán-Puelles and Karol Wojtyła from onto-phenomenology in order to find the way to overcome this aporia. (shrink)

En este artículo me propongo revisar en qué medida cabría atribuir a Wittgenstein la responsabilidad de haber propiciado un «giro retórico» con sus inquisiciones filosóficas, correlativo al giro más general, en el mismo sentido, que, según recientemente se ha venido reconociendo, habría sufrido nuestra cultura en los últimos tiempos. Dado que cabe leer la obra de Wittgenstein como si una de sus más pujantes preocupaciones consistiese en dilucidar qué debemos entender hoy por racionalidad, el mentado «giro retórico», de haberse cumplido (...) en él, podría leerse como algo que atañe cardinalmente a tal cuestión. Explicaremos primeramente, pues, en qué consiste efectuar un giro retórico en la filosofía acerca de la racionalidad; para trasladarnos posteriormente a sopesar la presencia de tal giro en Wittgenstein (y de Wittgenstein en tal giro). (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)

Para diagnosticar y curar una enfermedad del pensamiento y de la cultura tan devastadora en nuestros días como es la del relativismo, parece oportuno reparar antes en las diversas tipologías que este mal adopta, pues es razonable sospechar que seguramente las terapias oportunas podrán resultar más efectivas si lo sometemos a un tratamiento particularizado. Así pues, en mi comunicación, y una vez establecido el criterio según el cual se van a clasificar los diferentes modos de planteamiento epistemológico posible (criterio que (...) residirá en el número de instancias que se reconocen como autoridades normativas para nuestro pensamiento), describo tres tipos de relativismo posible: el relativismo cultural, el relativismo protagórico y el relativismo escéptico. Para el primer tipo de relativismo, las instancias normativas pertinentes son tantas como culturas o “paradigmas” existan en el mundo: se trata, pues, de un pensamiento que apuesta por una pluralidad de instancias normativas, y por el hecho de que estas dependan del contexto desde el cual el agente epistémico aborda la tarea de conocer o pensar. Para el segundo y tercer tipos de relativismo, empero, no existe instancia normativa válida alguna, y la diferencia entre ellos reside en el “talante” con el cual se toman tal creencia en la ausencia de autoridades (el relativismo protagórico tenderá al cinismo del “todo vale”, mientras que el relativismo escéptico se refugiará más bien en la tragedia del “nada vale nada”). Por su parte, y como alternativa a estos relativismos, también apuntamos en nuestra comunicación brevemente a los tres tipos de pensamiento (monista, pluralista y postmetafísico) que acaso podrían plantarle cara a la tríada antes descrita, con diversas posibilidades de éxito. (shrink)

Tras una descripción de las características de nuestra actual cultura tecnocientífica y con ejemplos de su influencia en nuestra sociedad, se pone de manifiesto una tendencia en la educación superior que consiste en eliminar la reflexión acerca de quiénes somos y cómo vivimos en la sociedad. El futuro del conocimiento se orienta hacia una “hipertrofia” tecnológica produciendo una “atrofia” antropológica por dejar de lado “el saber sapiencial” de las Humanidades, sobre todo de la Filosofía, que ayuda a comprender mejor el (...) “todo” y no quedar anclados en “partes” desencajadas. Esto aumentaría las posibilidades de descubrir estrategias adecuadas para corregir muchos de los problemas que estamos viviendo en nuestra era tecnocientífica. (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)