Justificación y error en Descartes: un argumento pragmatista en la validación cartesiana del criterio de claridad y distinción

La percepción clara y distinta es el elemento sobre el que se asienta la certeza metafísica de Descartes. Con todo, el planteamiento de los argumentos escépticos referidos a la duda metódica cartesiana ha evidenciado la necesidad de hallar una justificación al propio criterio de la percepción clara y distinta. Frente a los intentos basados en la indubitabilidad de la percepción o en la garantía surgida de la bondad divina, se defenderá una justificación alternativa pragmatista.

Exploring the Justificational Status of Assertions Made About Nursing’s Collective Beliefs

Nursing publications frequently reference groups (e.g. the group nurses). The nature and capabilities of group agents or collective subjects, and the relationship between nursing as a group and nurses as individuals is, however, rarely made explicit in these publications. Following Alvin Goldman, questions pertaining to groups can be classified as metaphysical or epistemic. Metaphysical questions take two forms. First, we might ask about the ontological status of group agents. For example, to what extent, if at all, do group agents exist and act independently of their constituent members? Second, we can ask whether group agents have psychological states or properties that can, for example, be formulated as propositional attitudes and, if they can, in what ways are group attitudes correlated with or tied to those of individual group members? In this presentation, having recognised the potential reality of group ontological and psychological being, I examine an under researched element of social epistemology. Specifically, the potential of non-individualist reliabilism (social process reliabilism) to justify doxastic group beliefs (i.e. statements such as “nurses believe that”) are considered. It is suggested that this issue has concrete implications for how we think about nursing.

Cultural valuation and biodiversity conservation in the Upper Guinea forest, West Africa

The cultural valuation of biodiversity has taken on renewed importance over the last two decades as the ecosystem services framework has become widely adopted. Conservation initiatives increasingly use ecosystem service frameworks to render tropical forest landscapes and their peoples legible to market-oriented initiatives such as REDD+ and biodiversity offsetting schemes. Ecosystem service approaches have been widely criticized by scholars in the social sciences and humanities for their narrow focus on a small number of easily quantifiable and marketable services and a reductionist and sometimes simplistic approach to culture. We address the need to combine methods from each of the “three cultures” of natural science, quantitative social science, and qualitative social science/humanities in conceptualizing the relationship between cultural valuation and biodiversity conservation. We combine qualitative data with forest inventories and a quantitative index of cultural value to evaluate the relationship between cultural valuation and biodiversity conservation in Upper Guinea forest in Liberia, West Africa. Our study focuses on “sacred agroforests,” spaces that are associated with Mande macro-language speaking groups such as the Loma. We demonstrate that sacred agroforests are associated with different cultural values compared with secondary forests. Although biodiversity and biomass are similar, sacred agroforests exhibit a different species composition, especially of culturally salient species, increasing overall landscape agro-biodiversity. Sacred agroforests are also shaped and conserved by local cultural institutions revolving around ancestor worship, ritual, and the metaphysical conceptual category “salɛ.” We conclude that to understand the relationship between cultural valuation and biodiversity conservation, interpretivist approaches such as phenomenology should be employed alongside positivist ecosystem service frameworks.

The Good Liberal and the Scoundrel Author: Fantasy, Dissent, and neoliberal subjectivity in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials

Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, has acquired an impressive critical reputation and acquired a favored role in British culture as a social commentator. This essay attempts to link the pleasures associated with the trilogy with the politics inscribed in them, and consider both in the context of Pullman’s role in the civil society. The essay suggests that The Northern Lights offers pleasures in fantastical and metaphysical possibilities, and social confederacies that potentially offset the affective privations of neoliberalism. These possibilities are set in the context of recent theories of the “enterprise society.” The essay draws attention to a number of discontinuities that unfold as the trilogy progresses, and suggests that these undermine the possibilities inherent in the first novel. These disconti - nuities throw the role of fantasy and alternative universes into question, and reveal the limitations of Pullman’s fiction. The essay considers the limit and scope of Pullman’s political vision, both as a function of his fiction and his public engagement with social issues, and suggests that he exemplifies Raymond Williams’s concept of “bourgeois dissent” in which political critique and a continuing investment in traditional institutions and class hierarchy can be mutually reinforcing.

Hugh MacDiarmid’s Impossible Community.

This chapter suggests two main related points. The overarching contention is that Hugh MacDiarmid was a poetic, political, polemical, and metaphysical impossibilist (rather than merely the extremist of caricature). More particularly, in an attempt to escape the impossible community of the Kailyard – provincial, retrogressive, Christian, Scotland-as-Brigadoon – MacDiarmid fashioned an equally impossible if conflicting community, profoundly singular yet ultimately spiritual, that nonetheless contained residual Kailyard archetypes. The argument is traced through examination of MacDiarmid’s attitude to the Kailyard; work relating to the small communities in which he lived and wrote, and to cities; and the question of his anti-Englishness.

Social capital and educational achievements: Coleman vs. Bourdieu

The influence of social capital on an individual’s educational achievements is the subject of numerous scientific papers. Research on social capital is most frequently based on Coleman’s (1988) or Bourdieu’s (1986) theories of capital, which are related to different paradigms of social theory: whereas Coleman’s approach has its roots in structural functionalism, Bourdieu’s approach contains elements of conflict theory. A number of authors, starting with Bourdieu, attempt to explain and prove that, when connected with the education of individuals, the activity of social capital facilitates social reproduction. Other authors support the notion that social capital is, in fact, a powerful weapon that encourages social mobility. A third group of researchers emphasise that neither of these approaches in isolation can entirety explain the influences of social capital on an individual’s education (Ho, 2003). The present paper offers a review of research focusing on the influences of social capital on educational achievements, while outlining the fundamental differences between the two theoretical approaches that are most frequently used for research of this topic. The aim of the paper is to explain the influence of social capital on an individual’s educational achievements under Bourdieu’s and Coleman’s theoretical concepts, and to establish whether combining the approaches is possible. The conclusion and arguments show that it is legitimate to use all three theoretical approaches. (DIPF/Orig.)

La forma y la norma: narración del poder en la ciudad a través del símbolo

El siguiente artículo se constituye desde la necesidad epistemológica de reflexionar sobre la ciudad y discernir la manera como los símbolos del poder se manifiestan y se despliegan en ella. La perspectiva de este estudio se enmarca desde la estética y la metafísica de la ciudad, más que desde su urbanismo; y para esto se han relacionado referentes estéticos y semióticos, logrando perfilar una hipótesis sobre la forma simbólica de la ciudad, la cual se articula con los instrumentos económicos y políticos que ejercen el poder en la misma. Esta investigación sobre las estéticas de la ciudad metafísica permitió identificar el origen de la idea de ciudad como forma y símbolo que deviene en dispositivo social que propicia una perpetuación del poder, influyendo la construcción del relato social. Del mismo modo esta investigación posibilitó un acercamiento al fenómeno de desdivinización de los símbolos que conforman la ciudad y la relación de estos símbolos desdivinizados en la estructuración de un relato común definido, ya no por lo político o lo religioso, sino por el consumo, la fragmentación y la preponderancia del olvido. Finalmente, se propone la educación como un eje donde convergen lo estético y lo ético, permitiendo una posibilidad de sentido a la hora de interactuar con los símbolos de la ciudad.

From physics to metaphysics: philosophy and style in the critical writings of T. S. Eliot (1913-1935)

This thesis considers Eliot's critical writing from the late 1910s till the mid-1930s, in the light of his PhD thesis - Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley - and a range of unpublished material: T S. Eliot's Philosophical Essays and Notes (1913- 4) in the Hayward Bequest (King's College, Cambridge University); T. S. Eliot's Family Papers in the T. S. Eliot Collection at the Houghton Library (Harvard University); and items from the Harvard University Archives at the Pusey Library. 'Me thesis offers a comprehensive view of Eliot's critical development throughout this important period. It starts by considering The Sacred Wood's ambivalence towards the metaphysical philosophy of F. H. Bradley and Eliot's apparent adoption of a scientific method, under the influence of Bertrand Russell. It will be argued that Eliot uses rhetorical strategies which simultaneously subvert the method he is propounding, and which set the tone for an assessment of his criticism throughout the 1920s. His indecision, in this period, about the label 'Metaphysical' for some poets of the seventeenth century, reveals the persistence of the philosophical thought he apparently rejects in 1916, when he chooses not to pursue a career in philosophy in Harvard. This rhetorical tactic achieves its fulfilment in Dante (1929), where Eliot finds a model in the medieval allegorical method and 'philosophical' poetry. Allegory is also examined in connection with the evaluation of Eliot's critical writings themselves to determine, for instance, the figurative dimension of his early scientific vocabulary and uncover metaphysical residues he had explicitly disowned but would later embrace. Finally, it is suggested that, the hermeneutics of allegory are historical and it is used here to test the relationship between Eliot's early and later critical writings, that is the early physics and the later metaphysics.

Sobre a possibilidade da explicação pessoal diante de explicações científicas e intencionais

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília,Instituto de Ciências Humanas, Departamento de Filosofia, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia, 2015.

El derecho y la paz transformadora. El sentido de la estructura social en Talcott Parsons

El funcionalismo estructural de Talcott Parsons propone un sistema de acción que permite el análisis de la estructura social a partir de aspectos como la adaptación, la capacidad para alcanzar metas, la inte­gración y la latencia. En este sentido, se encuentra una serie de subsistemas que permiten que una sociedad funcione. El de­recho es uno de ellos, y cumple una función integradora; además, se convierte en un instrumento para el logro de objetivos so­ciales; se propone el concepto de paz trans­formadora como objetivo (valor cultural) en la estructura social, y el derecho como medio idóneo para lograr la integración de los individuos a la estructura societal. Cabe resaltar que la paz transformadora es un proceso y un fin en sí misma, lo que permite que sea un objetivo de construc­ción participativa.

La déconstruction de l'onto-théologie par Jacques Derrida : détour littéraire et mise en relief de la matrice langagière comme "différance"

Le mouvement derridien de la différance marque la rupture avec l'affirmation de la métaphysique de la présence, avec l'autorité du signifié transcendantal. Dans cet univers mouvant de signifiants qui se renvoient perpétuellement les uns aux autres, la logique d'univocité se disloque. La "présence" n'est que fantomatique, s'esquissant au sein d'une chaîne ininterrompue de signifiants et se laissant toujours creuser par la marque d'un irréductible manque. Face au logocentrisme, corollaire de l'affirmation de la présence, l'écriture se veut siège et articulation de la trace, d'une origine qui ne peut être que raturée, véhicule d'une irrémédiable fêlure. La volet littéraire de la déconstruction a pour but de mettre en évidence le fonctionnement de l'"indécidabilité" du discours, soit une certaine ambivalence dans la signification qui caractérise tout texte. L'objectif principal de la présente recherche est de fournir une compréhension plus approfondie de la déconstruction en insistant sur l'ancrage langagier de tout texte. Le discours philosophique n'échappe ainsi pas au mécanisme différentiel du langage et de la dérive métaphorique. La parenté entre la perspective déconstructiviste derridienne et la conception mallarméenne du langage poétique semble frappante. La mise en oeuvre, par Mallarmé, d'une dislocation de l'espace textuel, son minutieux "creusement" du vers après renoncement à toute quête d'"Idéal", la mise en relief du leurre de l'appropriation langagière, voilà qui trouve un écho particulier dans les thèses derridiennes. La "mimésis" platonicienne se voit au travers du prisme de la "mimique" mallarméenne. La déconstruction poursuit son travail de "luxation" de l'oreille philosophique, insérant les philosophèmes dans la matrice langagière, les livrant ainsi au hasard du cheminement textuel et les confrontant à l'aporie. La philosophie n'a alors d'autre choix que d'abandonner ses prétentions transcendantales. La marche de la "différance" instaure une inexorable distance qui prive le sujet de tout rapport direct avec une origine assurée et lui ôte toute possibilité de maîtrise sur le monde. Au travers de la langue, se profile la question de l'altérité, de la relation dissymétrique qui nous lie à cet "autre", ce "tout-autre" qui nous fonde et nous constitue. L'accueil inconditionnel de cette altérité nous mènera à l'étude de la "religion", la déconstruction se tournant vers le "religieux" tout en effectuant un "retournement" habile de tout credo essentialiste.

Necessidade

Este artigo dá uma introdução à noção de necessidade. O objetivo principal é refletir sobre os fundamentos e as fontes da necessidade. Primeiro, apresentamos a semântica dos mundos possíveis. Como ela depende fundamentalmente da noção de mundo possível, discutimos algumas críticas relevantes a essa noção. Em seguida, analisamos duas teorias do novo atualismo, que pretendem justamente explicar a necessidade sem recorrer a mundos possíveis, a saber, a teoria de Fine, na qual as essências de objetos são os fundamentos da necessidade, e a teoria de Jubien, na qual as necessidades são obtidas em virtude da relação básica de necessitação entre propriedades. Propomos algumas modificações às duas teorias. Finalmente, apresentamos uma estrutura do reino das necessidades segundo a qual a necessidade metafísica é a necessidade genuína e mais inclusiva.

O que serviço social quer dizer

Este artigo trata da concepção/definição do Serviço Social em uma perspectiva histórica e teórica, levando em conta o contexto em que foi formulada e seus pressupostos. Tem como objetivo contrapor, de forma crítica, os enunciados discursivos sobre a profissão, sem nenhum propósito evolutivo ou exaustivo. O método foi de consulta bibliográfica a livros publicados de autores que tenham servido de referência e a definições de associações profissionais. O resultado da pesquisa mostrou uma diversidade de posições a partir do funcionalismo e do marxismo, da história e das práticas de serviço social. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT

A antessala da argumentação : por uma abordagem negativa

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília,Instituto de Ciências Humanas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia, 2015.

La fantasmatique du grand remplacement dans le roman français contemporain (Renaud Camus, Éric Zemmour, Michel Houellebecq)

L’imaginaire social français est aujourd’hui dominé par une peur lancinante. Au début du XXIe siècle, les angoisses démographiques et culturelles entretenues par une partie des intellectuels trouvent de nouvelles assises dans la popularisation de la fantasmatique du « grand remplacement », un scénario conspirationniste qui annonce un changement de population sur le territoire français où une civilisation orientale prend peu à peu la place des « idéaux occidentaux ». La littérature a la particularité de mettre en récit des représentations et des débats précis qui circulent dans l’imaginaire social. Cette étude évalue le travail d’invention spécifique à la littérature produit dans trois romans – L’Épuisant désir de ces choses de Renaud Camus, Petit frère d’Éric Zemmour et Soumission de Michel Houellebecq – qui créent, modifient et reconfigurent cette fantasmatique. Ces textes décrivent et anticipent la fin de la Ve République telle qu’elle est aujourd’hui connue, mais de façons différentes. Pour des raisons ethniques, civiques ou métaphysiques, ils laissent entendre que désormais « la France, c’est les autres! ».