Political philosophy, ethnology, and time: a study of the notion of historical handicap

This article starts by identifying the crucial importance of the notion of historical handicap for the present-day social sciences of Latin America. Such notion is not an original invention made by Latinamericanists. On the contrary, I demonstrate that the genealogy of the notion of historical handicap must be sought in the tradition of Western political philosophy. Such genealogy must take into account the way it was integrated into ethnological descriptions. When and how did the Other become the backward, the primitive? While this relation was secondary for ancient Greek thought, theories of historical development became the main source of ethnological categories in the modern era. Interestingly enough, this modern synthesis suited the practical purpose of justifying two successive waves of European imperialistic: the era of discoveries, and 19th century colonialism. The article concludes by raising questions about the present role and application of the social sciences.

Dignity in care: where next for nursing ethics scholarship and research?

Dignity is recognised as both a central and also a contested value in bioethics discourse. The aim of this manuscript is to examine some of the key strands of the extensive body of dignity scholarship and research literature as it relates to nursing ethics and practice. The method is a critical appraisal of selected articles published in Nursing Ethics and other key manuscripts and texts identified by researchers in the UK and Brazil as influential. The results suggest a wide and rather confusing range of perspectives and findings albeit with some overall themes relating to objective and subjective features of dignity. In conclusion, the authors point to the need for more sustained philosophical engagement contextualising human dignity within a plurality of professional values. Future empirical work should explore what matters to patients, families, professionals and citizens in different cultural contexts rather than foregrounding qualitative research with such a contested concept.

BUDDHISM AND MODERNITY: IN THE MARGIN OF DONALD S. LOPEZ JR.'S "BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE

ABSTRACT The present article aims at setting the issue of the relationship between Buddhism and science in a historical and philosophical frame wider than that one taken into account by the international scholarship so far. The historical point of view allows us to conclude that the narrative that connects Buddhism with science is not based on features intrinsic to Buddhist thought. In fact, such narrative prospered thanks to the development of a dialectic, typical of the 18th and 19th centuries, between science and religion. The philosophical point of view allows us to conclude that such narrative is backed by a metaphysical-like thought that denies the specificity of both science and Buddhism.

Form(s)-of-life: agamben's reading of Wittgenstein and the potential uses of a notion

Giorgio Agamben and Ludwig Wittgenstein seem to have very little in common: the former is concerned with traditional ontological issues while the latter was interested in logics and ordinary language, avoiding metaphysical issues as something we cannot speak about. However, both share a crucial notion for their philosophical projects: form of life. In this paper, I try to show that, despite their different approaches and goals, form of life is for both a crucial notion for thinking ethics and life in-common. Addressing human existence in its constitutive relation to language, this notion deconstructs traditional dichotomies like bios and zoé, the cultural and the biological, enabling both authors to think of a life which cannot be separated from its forms, recognizing the commonality of logos as the specific trait of human existence. Through an analogical reading between both theoretical frameworks, I suggest that the notion of form-of-life, elaborated by Wittgenstein to address human production of meaning, becomes the key notion in Agamben's affirmative thinking since it enables us to consider the common ontologically in its relation to Human potentialities and to foresee a new, common use of the world and ourselves.