Cristina Lafont

En la discusión contemporánea sobre modelos normativos para un nuevo orden internacional está ampliamente aceptado que la justicia internacional requiere garantizar la paz, la seguridad y la defensa de los derechos humanos. Sin embargo, así́ como los objetivos de paz y seguridad son incontrovertibles, no puede decirse lo mismo del objetivo de protección de los derechos humanos. Los habituales candidatos al desacuerdo son los llamados derechos económicos y sociales, seguidos por los derechos políticos a la participación democrática. Pero, desgraciadamente, ni siquiera el derecho a la igualdad plena es incuestionado. Algunos autores optan por la estrategia minimalista de identificar derechos humanos básicos, con la esperanza de suscitar aprobación universal en el seno de la comunidad internacional, mientras que otros siguen una estrategia más generosa, con la intención de incrementar las consecuencias normativas de sus propuestas. [Fragmento]

To address the question posed in the title, I focus on Heidegger's conception of linguistic communication developed in the sections on Rede and Gerede of Being and Time. On the basis of a detailed analysis of these sections I argue that Heidegger was a social externalist but semantic internalist. To make this claim, however, I first need to clarify some key points that have led critics to assume Heidegger's commitment to social externalism automatically commits him to semantic externalism regarding concept use. I begin by explaining the independence of those positions, arguing that social externalism answers the question of whose concepts in a linguistic community are properly individuated, whereas semantic externalism makes a claim about what it takes for concepts to be properly individuated. Once these issues are distinguished, it is possible to see that Heidegger's intersubjectivist conception of language commits him to social externalism, while his conception of the ontological difference commits him to semantic internalism.

Bekanntester deutscher Philosoph der Gegenwart. Seit mehr als fünfzig Jahren prägt Jürgen Habermas das intellektuelle Leben Deutschlands und darüber hinaus. Mit seinem Werk nimmt er entscheidenden Einfluss auf die Wissenschaften, auf Politik und aktuelle gesellschaftliche Diskussionen. Neben einem Überblick zur Biografie stellt das Handbuch Habermas intellektuelle Kontexte, wie z. B. die Frankfurter Schule, vor und beleuchtet die wichtigsten Stationen seines komplexen Werkes. Der Schlussteil informiert über Begriffe und Konzepte, die sich durch das gesamte Werk ziehen.

This paper is an attempt to criticize the reification of language present in Heidegger’s writings after the Kehre . The steps of the argument are as follows. First, it is argued that the specific features of Heidegger’s conception of language after the Kehre can be traced back to Heidegger’s conception of the ontological difference in Being and Time . The common element in both conceptions is the assumption that meaning determines reference (i.e. that the way entities are understood determines which entities we can refer to). In the next step the implications of this assumption are shown through an analysis of Heidegger’s conception of designation in Being and Time and after the Kehre . Finally, this conception of designation is criticized with the help of the analysis of designation offered by the so-called theories of direct reference. Key Words: Donnellan • Heidegger • language • linguistic idealism • meaning • ontological difference • reference • referential/attributive distinction.

En este artículo se intenta mostrar cómo es posible defender un punto de vista universalista y cognítivista en cuestiones morales sin tener que negar el pluralismo ético que caracteriza a las sociedades modernas. Para ello se analiza una dificultad que ha sido planteada recientemente a la ética del discurso de Habermas en relación con la posibilidad de compaginar ambas cosas. Si defender un universalismo moral implica defender lo que Habermas denomina "la premisa de una respuesta correcta» en relación con las cuestiones morales, tal universalismo tiene que suponer, pues, que sólo puede haber una interpretación correcta de dichas cuestiones; si esto es así, el universalismo moral, en realidad, excluye el pluralismo como alternativa racional al acuerdo en cuestiones prácticas. Dicha dificultad puede evitarse, sin embargo, si se muestra que «la premisa de una respuesta correcta» no implica, en realidad, «la premisa de una única interpretación correcta»

En este artículo se argumenta contra la interpretación metaética del kantianismo moral como una forma de constructivismo o antirealismo moral. Dado que los kantianos no comparten el expresivismo característico del antirealismo moral estándar, el constructivismo kantiano parece llevar a una posición inherentemente inestable que sólo puede desarrollarse o bien en un realismo consistente con el cognitivismo moral kantiano o en un decidido antirealismo moral. Tomando la ética del discurso de Habermas como ejemplo, aquí se contrasta una interpretación realista con una interpretación antirealista del principio moral de universalización con la intención de mostrar que sólo la primera es compatible con el cognitivismo moral característico de las éticas kantianas, mientras que la segunda lleva inevitablemente a un planteamiento decisionista y, con ello, a un claro relativismo moral.

In this essay I analyze some conceptual difficulties associated with the demand that global institutions be made more democratically accountable. In the absence of a world state, it may seem inconsistent to insist that global institutions be accountable to all those subject to their decisions while also insisting that the members of these institutions, as representatives of states, simultaneously remain accountable to the citizens of their own countries for the special responsibilities they have towards them. This difficulty seems insurmountable in light of the widespread acceptance of a state-centric conception of human rights, according to which states and only states bear primary responsibility for the protection of their citizens' rights. Against this conception, I argue that in light of the current structures of global governance the monistic ascription of human rights obligations to states is no longer plausible. Under current conditions, states are bound to fail in their ability to protect the human rights of their citizens whenever potential violations either stem from transnational regulations or are perpetrated by non-state actors. In order to show the plausibility of an alternative, pluralist conception of human rights obligations I turn to the current debate among scholars of international law regarding the human rights obligations of non-state actors. I document the various ways in which these obligations could be legally entrenched in global financial institutions such as the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank. These examples indicate feasible methods for strengthening the democratic accountability of these institutions while also respecting the accountability that participating member states owe to their own citizens. I conclude that, once the distinctions between the obligations to respect, protect and fulfill human rights are taken into account, no conceptual difficulty remains in holding states and non-state actors accountable for their respective human rights obligations.

Any attempt to elucidate the interconnections between phenomenology and critical theory must at some point confront the question of what role Heidegger's philosophy plays in that equation. The historical or biographical side of the question is interesting in its own right and can be philosophically illuminating.1 My focus here, however, will be systematic. In particular, I would like to analyze the similarities and differences between Heidegger's hermeneutic transformation of phenomenology in Being and Time and Habermas's transformation of critical theory in his Theory of Communicative Action. As a way of narrowing my focus, I will take as a guide the..

The main thesis of this article consists in that the two concepts “reference” and “truth” have an ultimate realist sense of which all epistemologizing conceptions -like relativism and incommensurabilist theses- necessarily have to come short. The arguments for this thesis are embedded in a revision of the ‘direct’-reference-position as well as of recent arguments against epistemic notions of truth, to show in the next,evaluating step how it is exactly the realist kernel of both concepts that makes arguments as to the corrective function of both notions within epistemic practices possible. This nucleus of both notions, necessary for every intent to explain learning from experience, consists in the supposition of an objective world to which all speakers refer using the same concepts and which is represented by their statements. This supposition does not inevitably have to be interpreted as a metaphysical postulate of a world in itself, but can be seen, the author argues, as a necessary formal presupposition ofcommunication, which is mastered by the speakers themselves through their having learned to use desigantive expressions referentially as well as to use the true/false distinction in its normative bipolarity