This article focuses on the idea of ‘human rights city’ and explores its practice. It starts from the concepts of human rights cities and subsidiarity to explain what a human rights city is and delves into the existing literature identifying the challenges to guarantee human rights in local contexts, such as the legal framework, education and training, the institutional structure, and the resources. Our article is based on an empirical-based study of Madrid Human Rights Plan (2017–2019). We carried out (...) semi-structured interviews, focus group, and participant observation to grasp the obstacles that civil servants encounter in the implementation of the Plan. We identify five types of obstacles that we classify as conceptual, ideological, legal, organisational, and budgetary. Our study questions the idea that the local context, just because of its proximity to the citizenry, is the best equipped level of government to guarantee human rights. Without proper training and resources human rights can be lost in translation. Through the identification of such obstacles in a specific case study, we contribute to the academic debate on human rights in practice with the aim of fostering its guarantee in local contexts. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical reconstruction of Thomas Nagel’s principal arguments in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, ethics and political philosophy.

Aesthetic properties figure prominently in our daily lives, our conversations and many actions we take. Yet theoretical disagreement prevails over their nature, their variety, their epistemic and metaphysical status. This overview highlights the heterogeneity of aesthetic properties and examines repercussions for explanation. Aesthetic properties belong to natural objects or scenes, to artworks in any medium, to artefacts and built environments across historical eras; and they draw a wide variety of responses such as our perceptions, emotions or imaginative thought. Historicism about (...) artworks carries over to at least some aesthetic properties that depend on facts of their broader historical context just as works do. One issue is whether aesthetic properties can be demarcated solely in terms of non-aesthetic properties. If not, explanations of aesthetic properties need to draw on other aesthetic notions such as aesthetic experience, attention, judgement or value. The paper examines several accounts of aesthetic value to show how they extend to aesthetic properties. The paper concludes with an overview of the current metaphysical debate between realists and non-realists about aesthetic properties. (shrink)

The aim of this volume is to present Kafka not as a writer, or not only as a writer, but as a philosopher. However, even after narrowing the scope of our interest down, there will still be several Kafka’s left on the table. Themes treated in the volume include: the so-called Brentano School in Prague, Kafka’s affiliation to the Louvre Circle, Kafka and existentialist philosophy, Kafka’s Jewish heritage, his love of Nietzsche and Meister Eckhart and—last but not least, since he (...) was such an exceptional writer—his aesthetics. (shrink)

John Carvalho’s Thinking with Images, an Enactivist Aesthetics argues that puzzling artworks can draw us into a special activity – thinking when we don’t know what to think – which is valuable because it takes us beyond our skills and understanding. Enactivism is the theory of mind that best explains such thinking. The book illustrates this proposal with four chapters that detail Carvalho’s highly personal or individual encounters with enigmatic works of art. I raise two concerns. First, the four illustrative (...) chapters say that they are enactivist, but they do not show this. The illustrative chapters detail considerations about the works that are not distinguished by a particular theory of mind and might fit with any number of approaches to works of art. The suggestion that the thinking presented in each chapter is skillful is not explained. Second, the book does not just focus on thinking when we don’t know what to think, it also claims that such thinking frees us from mere looking. But enactivism does not require us to deny that our engagement with particular works in their ‘concrete singularity,’ to use Carvalho’s term, is perceptual. If perception is richly integrated or even continuous with what we understand skillfully or cognitively – and enacted in one’s circumstances – this does not erase differences between perception and thought or between their functions. When we ‘think with’ an individual so that we are engaged with it in its concrete singularity, perception is involved either in the present or the past. There is no need to shunt perception or looking aside as life activities that are just rule-bound, just part of knowing what to think rather than part of our response when we don’t know what to think. (shrink)

If artworks and their aesthetic properties stand in constitutive relationships to historical context and circumstances, so that some understanding of relevant facts is involved in responding to a work, what becomes of the intuitive view that we see artworks and at least some of their aesthetic properties? This question is raised by arguments in both aesthetics and art history for the historical nature of works of art. The paper argues that the answer needs to take philosophy of perception into account. (...) The principal development that has shaped philosophy of perception in the last thirty years—explaining perceptual experience in terms of contents that represent that such-and-such is the case—is directly relevant to key arguments for the historical nature of art because contents can represent complex kinds and properties. Conceptual realism is especially well-suited for explaining perception of artworks and aesthetic properties because it emphasizes that forms of understanding—in the sense of capacities, abilities and techniques—are involved in perceptual engagement with individual objects and instances of properties. To make this case, the paper examines influential arguments for the historical nature of art and aesthetic properties by Arthur C. Danto and Kendall L. Walton; and examines art-historical discussions by Michael Baxandall, Linda Nochlin and T. J. Clark. The paper argues that the aesthetic properties of an artwork depend on human intentional uses of properties, colours and contours among them, and such uses may themselves be aesthetic. The Wittgensteinian notion of use is contextual and historical, and uses are perceptible. (shrink)

Kendall Walton explains pictures in terms of games of perceptual make-believe. Pictures or depictions are props that draw us to participate in games of make-believe where we imagine seeing what a picture depicts. Walton proposes that one imagines of one’s perceptual experience of the coloured canvas that it is a different perceptual experience. The issue is whether perception and imagination can combine the way Walton suggests. Can one imagine a perception to be different? To get a clearer understanding of the (...) unified perceptual-imaginative experience Walton posits, the paper turns to competing theories that explain perceptual experience in terms of contents, relations to objects, or both contents and relations. Walton appeals to theories of perceptual content and cognitive penetration. But it is also important to examine whether his view fits with recent theories that explain perception only in terms of relations or in terms of both contents and relations. The paper argues that Walton’s view is compatible with content theories of perception and can be defended from some objection once we look at the detail these theories offer. Walton’s view is not compatible with pure relational theories of perception but it can be explained by hybrid content-relational theories of perception that posit de re senses. (shrink)

This paper argues that perception is a mode of engagement with individuals and their determinate properties. Perceptual content involves determinate properties in a way that relies on our conceptual capacities no less than on the properties. The “richness” of perceptual experience is explained as a distinctive individual and property involving content. This position is developed in three steps: (i) novel phenomenological description of lived experience; (ii) detailed reconstruction of Gareth Evans’ proposal that we are capable of genuinely singular thought that (...) involves individuals under modes of presentation; (iii) re-consideration of the re-identification condition on conceptual contents. (shrink)

This article argues that conceptual realism offers an important alternative to naïve realist, purely relational approaches with which ‘disjunctivism’ has come to be readily associated. I argue that John McDowell’s account of perception as both contentful and relational tends to go unnoted when the options for disjunctive theories are laid out. But McDowell’s approach is important because it comes up the middle between ‘intentional’ and ‘relational’ views of perception. In doing so, it offers theoretical resources for explaining perceptual experience and (...) its epistemic standing that purely relational views associated with naïve realism do not have. McDowell’s work opens a unified approach to perception and its epistemic potential that turns on the claim that it is contents and the broader context of capacities in which such contents figure that secure the perceiver’s relation to what she sees. I call views of this kind conceptual realism, though commonsense realism might be more apt. Following comparison of the explanations that conceptual and naïve realism can provide of various difficult scenarios, the paper concludes with an example of how conceptual realist theories might disagree or diverge from the detail of McDowell’s approach. My criticism draws on aesthetics to discuss experience of aesthetic properties. (shrink)

The "new materialisms' offer an important critique of 'human exceptionalism, however they tend to overstate their case by ignoring those qualities of freedom that remain distinctive to human life. The paper turns to Simone de Beauvoir to make an argument for a more modest human exceptionalism.

Tekst ma na celu bliższe zapoznanie Czytelnika z otwierającą cykl Aristotelica pracą doktorską Franza Brentano Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles (1862), która znana jest głównie z tego, że miała zainspirować młodego Martina Heideggera i sprawić, że zajął się filozofią. Tekst bada naturę i siłę tej inspiracji. Część pierwsza opowiada historię powstania Von der mannigfachen … oraz przedstawia szerszy kontekst zetknięcia się Heideggera z filozofią Brentana, a także stara się przedstawić Heideggera na tle jego pozostałych uczniów (Kazimierz Twardowski, (...) Edmund Husserl, Alexius Meinong, Carl Stumpf, Anton Marty, et al.). Część druga omawia piętnaście tez o bycie, które stanowią sedno dzieła O wielorakim znaczeniu bytu u Arystotelesa i tym samym umożliwia porównanie tomistycznej w duchu ontologii Brentana z ontologią fundamentalną Heideggera, o czym traktuje część trzecia. Część trzecia stara się również zweryfikować faktyczną wysokość „długu”, jaki Heidegger miał u Brentana zaciągnąć i odpowiedzieć na pytanie, do jakiego stopnia, o ile w ogóle, Martina Heideggera możemy nazwać „brentanistą”. (shrink)

This article offers a detailed textual reexamination of the ‘family resemblance’ passages to reconsider their implications for understanding art. The reassessment takes into account their broader context in the Philosophical Investigations, including the rule following considerations, and draws on a realist interpretive framework associated principally with the work of Cavell, Diamond, McDowell, and Putnam. Wittgensteinian “realism with a human face” helps us discern that the primary issue is not whether certain concepts are definable, posing a stark opposition between essentialism and (...) its denial about kinds such as language or games. What is at issue is keeping uses of language in view in their variety and their broader life contexts. Focus on rules suggests more broadly that norms and values inhere in practices and play a constitutive role in determining the entities integral to those practices. From this perspective, a Wittgensteinian framework explains art as locally overlapping practices, each with their own constitutive norms and values for the works integral to them. What makes something art has normative force specific to a practice. This recognizes the historically contingent nature of art practices in a way that relational definitions or disjunctive ‘cluster’ explanations do not. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between beauty and aesthetic properties to argue that aesthetic properties are connected to a work’s content, to what a work conveys or expresses. I turn to Kant’s Critique of Judgement to make the case. My argument highlights two parts of Kant’s approach. Kant argues that pure aesthetic judgements of beauty are grounded in a harmonious yet free play of the imagination and understanding. Such free play is pleasurable and intimates that the power or capacity of (...) imagination is suitable for and can be brought within the conditions of the capacity for conceptual understanding. Within this broader frame, Kant’s account of artistic beauty specifies the relationship of aesthetic properties to the beauty of a work: aesthetic attributes help convey the aesthetic ideas that beautiful works express. I examine how Kant’s view helps us appreciate that aesthetic properties of artworks are integral to conveying the content of a work, and that the pleasure we feel has the potential to make us aware of the experience, its nature and value. (shrink)

This chapter reconstructs the neo‐Wittgensteinian proposals, and re‐examines the “family resemblances” passages from the Philosophical Investigations. Arthur Danto chooses to explain the historically contextual nature of art in some of the same terms as Wittgenstein sketches for language. The neo‐Wittgenstein view is typically reconstructed as a conjunction of two claims about the concept of art: the concept is not definable and it needs to be understood along the lines of Wittgenstein's discussion of “family resemblances.” The concept of art evolves historically (...) with different uses and conditions of application in different historical contexts. Wittgenstein briefly invokes resemblances among family members to characterize such networks of overlapping similarities and immediately proceeds to apply the idea to numbers. Danto's considered view is that the diversity of art is a matter of the historicity of both meaning and embodiment. (shrink)

In der heutigen Welt der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie hat sich die Generation Z, die Digital Natives, wiedergefunden. Im Jahr 2021 nutzten 95% der jungen Menschen in der EU täglich das Internet (Eurostat, 2022). Um in der überwältigenden Menge an Informationen navigieren zu können, müssen Jugendliche Medienkompetenz beweisen. Der Fortschritt der Medien und Technologien erfordert eine zunehmende Anzahl an digitalen Fähigkeiten, wobei die Medienkompetenz in den letzten Jahren viele Formen und Gestalten gekannt hat. In diesem Zusammenhang befasst sich die vorliegende Literaturübersicht (...) mit dem Übergang von der Medienkompetenz der 90er Jahre (Aufderheide, 1993) zur neuen, digitalen Medienkompetenz. Unsere primären Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass die neue Medienkompetenz ein Grundstein in der fortlaufenden Entwicklung und in der Bildungsphase der Jugendlichen ist. (shrink)

Joseph T. O’Connell drew attention to the relative scarcity of academic work on religion in South Asia, and o ered as a plausible explanation for this state of a airs the tension between secular and religio‐political communal interests. This paper explores the potential role of phi‐ losophy as an established academic discipline within this situation, in the context of India. It argues that objective study, including evaluation, of the truth claims of various religious traditions is an important aspect of academic (...) as opposed to confessional engagement with religion, and that philosophy in India is especially well suited to undertake such re ection and to provide corresponding education. Unlike Western countries, philosophy and religion were never clearly separated in India and did not evolve in tension with one another. The history of Indian philosophy therefore includes and is included within the history of its ‘religions’, in a way that makes philosophical examination of the truth claims of Indian religions internal to those religions themselves. By tracing this history, the discipline of philosophy can help to unsettle the idea of religion as a matter of xed dogma. It can also continue the procedure of interpreting and evaluating metaphysical and epistemological theses that has been an intrinsic component of Indian religious thought for most of its history. (shrink)

O estudo de casos múltiplos procurou analisar comparativamente as relações entre criatividade, inovação e características do trabalho (CT) em quatro empresas juniores (EJs) de áreas de formação distintas, de uma mesma instituição de ensino superior. Participaram do estudo somente os membros de cada diretoria. Foram utilizados a Prova de Imaginação Criativa para Adultos (PIC-A), uma medida de Inovação de Empresas Juniores (INOVEj) e uma medida de Características de trabalho. O grupo focal foi utilizado somente para apresentação e discussão dos resultados (...) coletivos com os membros da diretoria. Os resultados apontaram haver diferenças entre as EJs somente nos indicadores de criatividade e inovação. Conclui-se que as relações entre criatividade, inovação e CT parecem depender das características de cada EJ, como tempo de existência da empresa, características dos membros da diretoria e suporte de docentes-supervisores. (shrink)

The Introduction provides an overview of Kendall Walton’s make-believe framework for a variety of representations and his arguments that such representations are dependent on their social or historical context. Walton argues that diverse representations involve our capacities for imagination and make-believe with props; they overlap with the fictional. Focusing on make-believe with props explains paradigmatic representational arts such as paintings and novels, theater and film. But this perspective reaches beyond the arts: it explains pictures and photographs in general not only (...) artistic ones; stories in general as well as literary and performing arts; music; metaphors, and even the claims we make about fictional entities and existence. The first section explains the main points of the make-believe framework in Mimesis as Make-Believe, and it reconstructs Walton’s argument in “Categories of Art” that some aesthetic properties depend on the perceptible and historical categories of art to which a work belongs. The second section outlines Walton’s specific proposals about literary fiction, fictional characters, poetry, pictures, photographs, music and negative existential claims. These explanations are integrated with summaries of the papers. The third section examines Walton’s implicit view of two much-discussed issues: the ontology of art and definitions of art. This discussion clears away some misunderstandings of Walton’s contextualism or historicism and relates Walton’s work to Arthur Danto’s and Frank Sibley’s. (shrink)

The paper argues that Daniel Dennett’s reductive account of consciousness in Consciousness Explained goes against theoretical commitments driving much of his previous work. I focus on considerations for the plurality of distinctive explanation of ourselves, as they have been articulated in Dennett's earlier work, and argue that Dennett's reductive framework is not adequately supported in the face of these considerations. The paper details tensions in Dennett’s work and shows how Consciousness Explained departs from the diagnoses of the mind/body problem offered (...) by Ryle, Wittgenstein and Sellars with which Dennett casts it as continuous. (shrink)

With a focus on Asian philosophical traditions, this book examines varieties of philosophical thought and self-transformative practice that do not fit neatly on one side or another of the standard Western division between philosophy and religion. It contains chapters by experts on Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, Upaniṣadic and Jain philosophies, as well as ancient Greek philosophy and recent contemplative and spiritual movements. The authors problematize the notion of a European philosophical canon distinguished by "reason and rationality" in contrast to “religious Eastern (...) wisdom-traditions,” which are purportedly grounded in “faith.” These essays lay the groundwork needed to rethink dominant historical and conceptual categories from a wider global perspective to arrive at a deeper, more plural understanding of the diverse nature of both philosophy and religion. (shrink)

According to Essentialism, an object’s properties divide into those that are essential and those that are accidental. While being human is commonly thought to be essential to Socrates, being a philosopher plausibly is not. We can motivate the distinction by appealing—as we just did—to examples. However, it is not obvious how best to characterize the notion of essential property, nor is it easy to give conclusive arguments for the essentiality of a given property. In this paper, I elaborate on these (...) issues and explore the way in which essential properties behave in relation to other related properties, like sufficient-for-existence properties and individual essences. (shrink)

The paper compares the suitability of two different epistemologies of counterfactuals—(EC) and (W)—to elucidate modal knowledge. I argue that, while both of them explain the data on our knowledge of counterfactuals, only (W)—Williamson’s epistemology—is compatible with all counterpossibles being true. This is something on which Williamson’s counterfactual-based account of modal knowledge relies. A first problem is, therefore, that, in the absence of further, disambiguating data, Williamson’s choice of (W) is objectionably biased. A second, deeper problem is that (W) cannot satisfactorily (...) elucidate modal knowledge. Third, from a naturalistic perspective, the nature of this second problem favours (EC) against (W). (shrink)

The paper argues against Peacocke's moderate rationalism in modality. In the first part, I show, by identifying an argumentative gap in its epistemology, that Peacocke's account has not met the Integration Challenge. I then argue that we should modify the account's metaphysics of modal concepts in order to avoid implausible consequences with regards to their possession conditions. This modification generates no extra explanatory gap. Yet, once the minimal modification that avoids those implausible consequences is made, the resulting account cannot support (...) Peacocke's moderate rationalism. (shrink)

How does it feel to be a worm? No doubt, it feels Kafkaesque. The metamorphosis (1915) is a story of an ordinary man, Gregor Samsa, who wakes up one morning as an ungeheures Ungeziefer or ‘giant vermin’. Is this only a bodily change, or has his mind been transformed as well? And how do the people around him cope with this transformation? In this paper, I am going to examine these issues by using tools from Franz Brentano’s (1838–1917) and Anton (...) Marty’s (1847–1914) philosophy of mind and language. Rumour has it that Kafka’s stories were not only products of his own troubled soul, but were also profoundly influenced by the work of these two philosophers. In my paper, I will cover the following issues: the influence of Franz Brentano on Anton Marty and a fortiori on Franz Kafka (1883–1924), who was Marty’s student in Prague (and in this way, saying something about the School of Brentano); Brentano’s and Marty’s theory of correct and incorrect emotions, and its traces in Kafka’s The metamorphosis; Marty’s philosophy of language and communication as reflected in Kafka’s writings; and Brentano’s reism in comparison to Kafka’s nominalism, on the basis of Roberto Calasso’s interpretation of Kafka. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present a revision of international versions of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale and to describe the psychometric properties of a Portuguese version of the UWES-9 developed simultaneously for Brazil and Portugal, the validity evidence related with the internal structure, namely, Dimensionality, measurement invariance between Brazil and Portugal, and Reliability of the scores. This is the first UWES version developed simultaneously for both countries, and it is an important instrument for understanding employees' work engagement (...) in the organizations, allowing human resources departments to better use workforces, especially when they are migrants. A total of 524 Brazilian workers and 522 Portuguese workers participated in the study. Confirmatory Factor Analysis, group comparisons, and Reliability estimates were used. The use of workers who were primarily professionals or administrative support, according to ISCO-08, reinforced the need to collect data on other professional occupations. Confirmatory factor analysis showed acceptable fit for the UWES-9 original three-factor solution, and a second-order factor structure has been proposed that presented an acceptable fit. Full-scale invariance was obtained between the Portuguese and Brazilian samples, both for the original three-factor first-order and second-order models. Data revealed that Portuguese and Brazilian workers didn't show statistically significant differences in the work engagement dimensions. This version allows for direct comparisons of means and, consequently, for performance of comparative and cross-cultural studies between these two countries. (shrink)

Pace Necessitism – roughly, the view that existence is not contingent – essential properties provide necessary conditions for the existence of objects. Sufficiency properties, by contrast, provide sufficient conditions, and individual essences provide necessary and sufficient conditions. This paper explains how these kinds of properties can be used to illuminate the ontological status of merely possible objects and to construct a respectable possibilist ontology. The paper also reviews two points of interaction between essentialism and modal logic. First, we will briefly (...) see the challenge that arises against S4 from flexible essential properties; as well as the moves available to block it. After this, the emphasis is put on the Barcan Formula (BF), and on why it is problematic for essentialists. As we will see, Necessitism can accommodate both (BF) and essential properties. What necessitists cannot do at the same time is to continue to understanding essential properties as providing necessary conditions for the existence of individuals; against what might be for some a truism. (shrink)

Due to the influence of Nathan Salmon’s views, endorsement of the “flexibility of origins” thesis is often thought to carry a commitment to the denial of S4. This paper rejects the existence of this commitment and examines how Peacocke’s theory of the modal may accommodate flexibility of origins without denying S4. One of the essential features of Peacocke’s account is the identification of the Principles of Possibility, which include the Modal Extension Principle (MEP), and a set of Constitutive Principles. Regarding (...) their modal status, Peacocke argues for the necessity of MEP, but leaves open the possibility that some of the Constitutive Principles be only contingently true. Here, I show that the contingency of the Constitutive Principles is inconsistent with the recursivity of MEP, and this makes the account validate S4. It is also shown that, compatibly with the necessity of the Constitutive Principles, the account can still accommodate intuitions about flexibility of origins. However, the account we end up with once those intuitions are consistently accommodated may not be satisfactory, and this opens up the debate about whether or not artefacts allow for some variation in their origins. (shrink)

During the last few years, burnout has gained more and more attention for its strong connection with job performance, absenteeism, and presenteeism. It is a psychological phenomenon that depends on occupation, also presenting differences between sexes. However, to properly compare the burnout levels of different groups, a psychometric instrument with adequate validity evidence should be selected (i.e., with measurement invariance). This paper aims to describe the psychometric properties of the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI) version adapted for workers from Brazil and (...) Portugal, and to compare burnout across countries and sexes. OLBI's validity evidence based on the internal structure (dimensionality, reliability, and measurement invariance), and validity evidence based on relationships with other variables (work engagement) are described. Additionally, it aims presents a revision of different OLBI's versions—since this is the first version of the instrument developed simultaneously for both countries—it is an important instrument for understanding burnout between sexes in organizations. Data were used from 1,172 employees across two independent samples, one from Portugal and the other from Brazil, 65 percent being female. Regarding the OLBI internal structure, a reduced version (15 items) was obtained. The high correlation between disengagement and exhaustion, suggested the existence of a second-order latent factor, burnout, which presented measurement invariance for country and sex. Confirmatory factor analysis of the Portuguese OLBI version presented good goodness-of-fit indices and good internal consistency values. No statistically significant differences were found in burnout between sexes or countries. OLBI also showed psychometric properties that make it a promising and freely available instrument to measure and compare burnout levels of Portuguese and Brazilian employees. (shrink)

BioéthiqueOnline was launched in March 2012 as a non-peer reviewed journal with the aim of providing a platform to facilitate and encourage the development of a bilingual bioethics community in Canada and internationally. In light of discussions amongst the Editorial Committee over the past few months regarding the growth of the journal, we have decided to move to a peer-reviewed process for articles submitted to the journal.

En Diseño moviendo al Mundo se recopilan investigaciones donde el denominador de los artículos es pensar al diseño como disciplina holística que al extender lazos a otros mundos del saber aporta herramientas conceptuales y estrategias proyectuales para desenredar problemas e inspirar gráficos, objetos, servicios y sistemas para la buena vida de las personas.

Entrevista concedida a partir da presença da filósofa em encontro realizado no dia 12 de dezembro de 2020 a convite do Grupo de Pesquisa, Ensino e Extensão em Ética Animal da Universidade Federal de Uberlândia para apresentação e discussão de sua obra “Galactolaria: mau deleite” (2012). Em nome da Revista Primordium, os discentes do curso de graduação e pós-graduação em Filosofia da UFU, Laís Oliveira Rios e Gustavo Henrique de Freitas Coelho, prepararam e conduziram a entrevista.

Las relaciones que entre mística y filosofía contemporánea establecieron algunos filósofos de la Escuela de Madrid, fueron expuestas a colación del cuarto centenario de San Juan de la Cruz celebrado en México (1942), las cuales -y según la visión de José Gaos en su breve pero denso Filosofía y mística aquí y ahora- tuvieron fuertes concomitancias entre sí, y su estela permanece en forma de “vasos comunicantes” con autores contemporáneos como Fernando Rielo (1923-2004), quien también nos ofreció su visión (...) (1992) sobre la mística y la Escuela. (shrink)

Estudio sobre el contexto filosófico de la Escuela de Madrid, y sus inicios, a colación de la figura de Juan Rof Carballo.

Era imprescindible una edición de aquellos textos que José Gaos escribiera sobre su gran maestro, Ortega, máxime desde que se ha comenzado a estudiar con un interés inusitado la obra del filósofo asturiano exiliado en México, tal y como se deduce del gran número de trabajos, investigaciones, publicaciones, jornadas, etc., que se han venido realizado, en la última década, mediante el esfuerzo de centros de investigación y universidades españolas como la Universidad de Valencia, la UNED, el CSIC, la U. de (...) Zaragoza, la Fundación Manuel Mindán y la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, así como en México, tanto en la UNAM como en El Colegio de México. (shrink)

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

(Spanish) RESUMEN: La libertad absoluta postulada por Viktor Emil Frankl y Jean-Paul Sartre, la Shoah y la creencia en un dios omnipotente, bueno y justo parecen contradecirse. La pregunta por el sentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas del Holocausto (la verdadera catástrofe, el mayor crimen contra la humanidad), simbolizado por Auschwitz, y como punto de inflexión en la historia, es terriblemente dolorosa y parece no tener una respuesta filosófica ni teológica. A mi juicio, es importantísimo distinguir entre las víctimas inocentes (...) de la Shoah que perecieron y las víctimas inocentes que sufrieron un verdadero infierno y perdieron a sus seres queridos, pero que lograron sobrevivir. Ambas son víctimas, por supuesto, pero así como encontrarle un posible sentido al sufrimiento de las víctimas masacradas y gaseadas podría suponer un insulto a su sufrimiento y agonía –en especial, al horror que sufrieron los niños–, el horrible sufrimiento de los supervivientes pudo dar, tal vez, de alguna manera, un sentido a sus vidas después de la liberación de los campos de concentración y exterminio, ya fuera como voz, como protesta o como simple supervivencia. Frankl apuesta por un sentido último (que abraza el sentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas), y Sartre, aunque parezca no apostar por sentido alguno, volcó su vida al compromiso político después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, y ello parece vislumbrar una minúscula pizca de sentido después de la barbarie. La filosofía de Frankl es un sí a la vida incluso en las situaciones más extremas, un grito casi nietzscheano que exalta el valor de la vida más allá de cualquier sufrimiento. Frankl, padre de la logoterapia y superviviente del Holocausto, abre una puerta a Dios al hablar de un dios inconsciente, una dimensión suprahumana y una fe incondicional, y define la religión como espiritualidad y como la búsqueda del hombre por el sentido último. Según Frankl, la libertad no se contradice con Dios, y la religión existe no a raíz de la barbarie, sino a pesar de la barbarie. El existencialismo sartreano es una filosofía de la libertad radical y de la responsabilidad. El hombre está condenado a ser libre. El ser humano es un ser en el que la existencia precede a la esencia. Somos totalmente responsables de lo que somos. Sartre afirma que la libertad humana es incompatible con Dios. En un mundo sin Dios, la moral la construyen los hombres, con sus propias decisiones y sus acciones, y la existencia y el sufrimiento de las víctimas no tienen sentido alguno. Sartre define al hombre como libertad, responsabilidad, angustia y contingencia. Frankl define al hombre como libertad, responsabilidad, espiritualidad y búsqueda de sentido. Con esta tesis me propongo entrar en la resbaladiza dimensión del dolor, la desesperación, el sentido y sinsentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas (teniendo presente los horrores de Auschwitz, que en teología y filosofía ha simbolizado desde la liberación de los campos la muerte de Dios y la muerte de la moral). Es verdad que no solo los hombres, mujeres y niños judíos fueron víctimas de la barbarie alemana, pero, como reza el mensaje de Elie Wiesel en la exposición permanente del Block 27 del Auschwitz-Birkeanu State Museum: "Not all victims were Jewish in this place, but all Jews were victims". La Shoah no es un episodio dentro de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, sino un punto de inflexión en la historia de la humanidad, y es una catástrofe que nos concierne a todos, hombres y mujeres judíos y no judíos, religiosos e irreligiosos, creyentes e increyentes, como seres libres, responsables y morales que somos –o que deberíamos ser. Muchas de las víctimas del Holocausto, en medio de la desesperación, entraron en las cámaras de gas orando, aferrándose a la esperanza de que ese final espeluznante no era un punto final. Con esta tesis no me propongo de ninguna manera responder a la eterna pregunta de si Dios existe o no, sino que propongo interpretar ese grito hacia Dios como un desesperado anhelo de esperanza. También me propongo encontrar una coherencia en las posturas de estos dos grandes pensadores para quienes la libertad y la responsabilidad definen al hombre: Frankl (quien apuesta por una dimensión suprahumana donde existe un sentido último en el que el sufrimiento de las víctimas tiene que tener algún sentido, aunque ese sentido sea completamente incomprensible en la dimensión humana) y Sartre (el existencialista ateo por excelencia, para quien el mundo, la existencia y el sufrimiento son absolutamente contingentes). En el primer capítulo expongo la logoterapia y el existencialismo sartreano: describo las tres dimensiones del hombre y las tres búsquedas de sentido propuestas por Frankl, y expongo las cinco consecuencias de "l'existence précède l'essence", centrándome en la libertad y la responsabilidad, y hablo del suicidio. El segundo capítulo está dedicado al dios inconsciente frankleano, la dimensión suprahumana, la búsqueda por el sentido último y la fe incondicional. En el tercer capítulo ilustro la libertad sin Dios sartreana, la ontología sartreana, el ateísmo sartreano y el humanismo sartreano, y hablo sobre la responsabilidad, la mauvaise foi, la contingencia, la situation y la angustia. El cuarto capítulo es necesariamente histórico (sin dejar de ser filosófico): me pregunto por la muerte de Dios después de Auschwitz, argumento y defiendo la unicidad del Holocausto (la Shoah es un punto de inflexión en la historia de la humanidad), describo las masacres antes de los campos de exterminio (Einsatzgruppen, Ordnungspolizei y Wehrmacht), el gigantesco complejo de Auschwitz (Stammlager, Auschwitz-Birkenau y Monowitz-Buna), reflexiono sobre Dios y el mal (centrándome en los niños de Auschwitz), describo los días de Frankl en Auschwitz, hablo de Dios como esperanza, de la inmortalidad y la escatología, de la crueldad de Dios, de la relación entre el cristianismo y el antisemitismo, del islam y el antisemitismo, critico el silencio de Dios, hablo de la muerte de Dios y del juicio contra Dios. En el quinto capítulo expongo la moral frankleana (una moral que atañe al hombre y no a Dios), basándome en su teoría del amor y en su única obra de teatro (Synchronisation in Binkerwald), y la moral sartreana (una moral que atañe a una humanidad sin Dios), recordando a Dostoyevsky, analizando la famosa cita de Garcin en Huis clos "L'enfer, c'est les Autres", criticando el marxismo de Sartre y cuestionando (con la mirada de Frankl y Sartre) el verso de Brecht "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral"; al final del capítulo incluyo una reflexión propia y las críticas frankleana y sartreana sobre la impunidad de los verdugos y colaboradores después del Holocausto (con el permiso de Dios). Después de la Conclusión, añado un Apéndice sobre las vidas de Frankl y Sartre, para poder entender mejor su obra. PALABRAS CLAVE: logoterapia, existencialismo sartreano, búsqueda de sentido, libertad, responsabilidad, moral, angustia, sufrimiento, supervivientes, víctimas, contingencia, espiritualidad, religión, Dios, esperanza, antisemitismo, culpa, Auschwitz, Holocausto, Shoah. /// (English) ABSTRACT: The absolute freedom defended by Viktor Emil Frankl and Jean-Paul Sartre, the Shoah and the belief in an omnipotent, benevolent and just God seem to contradict each other. The question of the meaning of the victims' suffering of the Holocaust (the true catastrophe, the biggest crime against humanity), simbolised by Auschwitz and as a turning point in History, is terribly painful and doesn't seem to have an answer. In my opinion, it's crucial to distinguish between the innocent victims of the Shoah who perished and the innocent victims who sufferend a real hell and lost their loved ones, but managed to survive. Both are victims, of course, but just as finding a possible meaning to the suffering of the massacred and gassed victims could result in an insult to their suffering and agony –especially to the horror that the children suffered– the gigantic suffering of the survivors could, maybe, somehow, give a meaning to their lives after the liberation of the concentration and extermination camps, either as a voice, as a protest, or as a simple survival. Frankl believes in an ultimate meaning (that embraces the meaning of the victims' suffering), and Sartre, even if it appears not to embrace any meaning, turned his life to political engagement after War World II, and that attitude seems to give a tiny glimpse of meaning after the barbarity. Frankl's philosophy says yes to life even in the most extreme situations, and it's a Nietzschean-like scream that exalts the value of life beyond any monstrous suffering. Frankl, the father of logotherapy and a Holocaust survivor, opens a door to God when he talks about an unconscious God, a supra-human dimension and an unconditional faith; he defines religion as spirituality and as man's search for ultimate meaning. According to Frankl, freedom is not contradictory with God, and religion exists not because of the barbarity but in spite of the barbarity. Sartrean existentialism is a philosophy of radical freedom and responsibility. Men are condemned to be free. We are beings where the existence precedes the essence. We are completely responsible of what we are. Sartre argues that human freedom is incompatible with God. In a godless world, morality is constructed by people, with their own choices and actions, and human existence and the suffering of the victims don't have any meaning. Sartre defines man as freedom, responsibility, Angst and contingency. Frankl defines man as freedom, responsibility, spirituality and search for meaning. With this dissertation I attempt to enter in the slippery dimension of the pain, despair, meaning and meaninglessness of the victims' suffering (having in mind the horrors of Auschwitz, that in theology and in philosophy have simbolised, since the liberation of the camps, the death of God and the death of morality). It's true that not only Jewish men, women and children were victims of the German barbarity, but, as Elie Wiesel's message from the permanent exhibition from Block 27 of the Auschwitz-Birkeanu State Museum reads: "Not all victims were Jewish in this place, but all Jews were victims". The Shoah is not an episode inside War World II, but a turning point in the history of humankind, and a catastrophe that embraces us all, Jewish and not not Jewish men and women, religious and not religious, believers and not believers, as the free, responsible and moral beings that we all are –or that we should be. A lot of the victims, in the midst of their desperation, entered into the gas chambers praying, holding to the hope that their horrifying end was not the ultimate end. With this dissertation I do not attempt to answer the eternal question of the existence of God, rather, I will try to interpret that scream to God as a longing for hope. I also intend to find a coherence between the thought of these two great thinkers for whom freedom and responsibilty define man: Frankl (who argues that there is a suprahuman dimension where an ultimate meaning exists and where the victims' suffering has to have a meaning, even if this meaning is completely incomprehensible in the human dimension) and Sartre (the atheist existentialist par excellence, for whom the world, human existence and suffering are absolutely contingent). In the first chapter I expose logotherapy and Sartrean existentialism: I describe the three dimensions of man, the three searches for meaning, the five consequences of "l'existence précède l'essence" and I speak about suicide. The second chapter delves into the unconscious God, the supra-human dimension, the ultimate meaning and the unconditional faith. In the third chapter I expose the freedom without God defended by Sartre, Sartre's ontology, Sartre's atheism, Sartre's humanism, and his ideas about responsibility, mauvaise foi, contingency, situation, and Angst. The fourth chapter is necessarily historical (while being philosophical too): I wonder about the death of God after Auschwitz, I argue and defend the uniqueness of the Holocaust (the Shoah is a turning point in the history of humankind), I describe the massacres before the extermination camps (Einsatzgruppen, Ordnungspolizei y Wehrmacht), the gigantic Auschwitz camp complex (Stammlager, Auschwitz-Birkenau y Monowitz-Buna), I reflect on God and evil (focusing on the children of Auschwitz), I describe Frankl's days in Auschwitz, I talk about God as hope, about immortality and escathology, I discuss God's cruelty, the relationship between Christianity and antisemitism and Islam and antisemitism, I question the silence of God, and I talk about the death of God and about the trial against God. In the fifth chapter I talk about the Franklean morality (a morality that concerns man and not God), on the basis of his love theory and his only work of theater (Synchronisation in Binkerwald), and the Sartrean morality (a morality that concerns a humanity without God), remembering Dostoyevsky, analysing Garcin's famous quote in Huis clos "L'enfer, c'est les Autres", crticizing Sartre's marxism and questioning (with Frankl's and Sartre's eyes) Brecht's verse "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral"; at the end of the chapter I include my own reflection (and Frankl and Sartre's critique) about the impunity of the executioners and collaborators after the Holocaust (with God's permission). After the Conclusion, I add an Appendix about the lives of Frankl and Sartre, which helps understanding better their work. KEYWORDS: logotherapy, existentialism, search for meaning, freedom, responsibility, morality, Angst, suffering, survivors, victims, contingency, spirituality, religion, God, hope, antisemitism, guilt, Auschwitz, Holocaust, Shoah. (shrink)

Suele ser decepcionante asistir a la conferencia de algún/a filósofo/a u otro/a pensador/a, artista si es que uno ya lo ha leído, estudiado o seguido su obra por algún tiempo. Leer Sin miedo no ha sido la excepción. De ahí el valor de una reseña de libro, a saber: definir la audiencia para la cual el texto comentado podría ser un aporte. En este sentido, Sin miedo es perfecto para un público poco familiarizado con la obra de Butler o que (...) todavía no la ha estudiado en profundidad, aunque sí le interesa conocerla. Probablemente este libro abre el apetito por ahondar en la propuesta de Butler, que se desarrolla prolíficamente en su vasta escritura. Sin miedo es una publicación que agrupa cinco conferencias que la filósofa dictó entre los años 2018 y 2019, en ciudades como Berlín, Guadalajara, Ciudad de México, La Habana, Buenos Aires y Santiago de Chile. En cada una de ellas, Judith Butler hace un guiño al lugar en el que habla. Es respetuosa de la audiencia y eso marca sus dichos, que concilian el pensamiento elaborado y complejo con una escucha menos enmarcada en el canon académico. Es fácil detectar en estas conferencias ciertos temas que las recorren transversalmente y de los que la autora ha dado cuenta en sus últimas publicaciones: la violencia política que se ejerce hacia determinados grupos de nuestra sociedad, la común vulnerabilidad como un factor que pone en evidencia tanto la interdependencia como la posibilidad de la acción política, y el énfasis que expone respecto de la desigual distribución de la vulnerabilidad, así como de la necesidad de luchar por una democracia que Butler define como radical. (shrink)

En su situación presente, el hombre se encuentra fragmentado, dirigido a la consumación de fines cuyo último engarce con el destino personal de cada uno a duras penas puede vislumbrarse. El individuo cree ser auténticamente libre en cada uno de los ámbitos en los que tales fines se le presentan, sin que, no obstante, una efectiva libertad real acompañe a su conciencia de actuar libremente. En efecto, no es la posibilidad de elección el sentido más profundo de la libertad humana, (...) sino la capacidad de ser fiel a la propia dignidad en todos los planos en que la vida discurre. (shrink)

Hay libros que nacidos de una expresa voluntad docente, por fortuna logran pronto trascender ese uso para convenirse en fuente de conocimiento más allá de los métodos que impone con excesiva rigidez a veces el quehacer académico ordinario. Y los hay, también, que a pesar de su orientación divulgativa y general, merecen luego usarse en la transmisión de un magisterio. El reciente estudio de J. Vara Martín publicado en Tecnos, pertenece por igual a ambos modelos: sin duda útil y eficaz (...) para la educación de quienes se forman directamente en la praxis jurídica; pero sumamente interesante para quienes, con otras ocupaciones, desearan adentrarse en los fundamentos más sólidos de la tradición jurídica occidental, griega, latina, cristiana y también moderna. (shrink)

Marranos. El otro del otro es el cuarto libro de la filósofa italiana Donatella Di Cesare, Catedrática de la Sapienza-Università di Roma, publicado en la colección «Clásicos del mañana» de la Editorial Gedisa, después de la aparición de Heidegger y los judíos. Los Cuadernos negros (2017), Terrorismo (2017) y Tortura (2018) de la misma autora. Este texto de Di Cesare es una exploración inquieta e inquietante. Su indagación no promete al lector dar, al final del recorrido, con una terra incognita (...) que se revelará reconfortantemente segura o con un tesoro hundido en las profundidades abisales del pasado, sino que se mueve en prodigiosos meandros que aguardan aun, en cada una de sus discontinuidades, una chispa de redención metafísico-política. (shrink)

En un entorno educativo cada vez más fragmentado en diversas posturas intelectuales, sociales y éticas, encauzado muchas veces hacia lo especializado, utilitario e inmediato, José María Torralba nos ofrece una valiente invitación a pensar sobre la educación universitaria sapiencial. Su propuesta está contenida en las páginas de este libro, donde podemos apreciar una valiosa reflexión sobre la formación universitaria integral, orientada hacia el cultivo del amor por la verdad, y el desarrollo de una capacidad de juzgar que sea guía del (...) deseo humano de transformar el mundo. (shrink)