María G. Navarro

La obra del filósofo estadounidense David H. Finkelstein, Expression and the Inner, publicada originariamente en 2003 por Harvard University Press (2ª ed. 2008) puede ahora leerse en la versión española de Lino San Juan, editada por la ovetense KRK Ediciones con el título: La expresión y lo interno. Finkelstein propone en La expresión y lo interno un análisis expresivista del autoconocimiento. Podría parecer cuando menos sorprendente y aún más admirable que con tan sólo dos capítulos (“Detectivismo y constitutivismo” y “Expresión”) y un Epílogo (“Deliberación y transparencia”), Finkelstein haya conseguido presentar en esta obra un planteamiento calificado por muchos como una auténtica renovación de la discusión analítica en torno al tema del autoconocimiento, o sea, acerca del problema de qué clase de autoridad quepa atribuir a las expresiones sobre nuestros propios estados de ánimo y/o nuestros estados mentales sin más.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that abductive reasoning is part of a cognitive process of interpreting something as being something. The paper holds two fundamental claims. First, it proposes a definition of interpretation as a type of cognitive event. Second, it is argued that in some cases the activity of interpreting is a process to search for plausible assumptions for consistent explanatory hypotheses formation. As a result of these two theses, it is concluded that logic of interpretation could enrich and extend the study of so-called reproduction or hypothesis generation. The treatment given here to abduction is contrasted and integrated into the history of studies on logical pattern of abduction and its applications.

New Waves in Philosophy, a book collection that stands out for giving a snapshot of research in all areas of philosophy is a successful editorial project addressed by Vincent F. Hendricks and Duncan Pritchard. New Waves in Philosophy of Action is one of its last titles, edited by Jesús H. Aguilar, Andrei A. Buckareff and Keith Frankish. The book is aimed at the researchers of all fields and readers in general interested in this sub-discipline of philosophy very difficult to localize (is it part of a sub-discipline such as metaphysics or maybe part of the philosophy of mind?). What is and how can we know the nature of intentions and its role in action?

In the work Ser errático (Erratic Being) Luis Sáez Rueda proposes a Critical ontology of society in which the author analyses some of the most salient philosophical questions relating to different philosophical traditions, especially to phenomenology, in which he is a specialist. However, it must be said that the essay Erratic Being stands out as a clear exercise in philosophical and literary creativity. Ser errático is an essay arranged in four chapters: Phenomenology of everyday life; Erratic being, discordant being; Dimensions of the event; and The life of the thought. This set of chapters sums up very simply the fundamental theses maintained by the author. Sáez Rueda also introduces into this critical ontology of society certain texts with the structure of dialogues. In these, the imagined conversation between two people renders the arguments put forward by the specialist, by the philosopher - only in a more informal register, yet without being less critical and demanding from the theoretical point of view. This literary device is clearly a nod at common sense and its ways of calling into question the most speculative assertions.

Some authors sustain that historical research is an effect of a specific historiographical context (Jenkins, 1991; González de Oleaga, 2009). An approach to the historiographical debate between constructivism and recontructivism is presented in this paper. Two theses are here defended. The first one affirms that the above mentioned debate is deeply related to epistemological questions (study of mental representations, different conceptions about historical reasoning functions, historical reasoning, cognitive bias, and informal falacies). The second thesis affirms that each historiographical conception can be understood as the effect of assuming a specific perspective about these epistemic questions. As an evidence of this, some connections between historiography and epistemology will be analysed through the analogy between the reconstructivism vs. constructivism debate, and the epistemological debate detectivism vs. constitutivism (Finkelstein, 2003).

Since the first volume appeared in 2005, the collection Controversies has brought together pieces of work related to the field of argumentation, giving particular attention to those that are concerned with theoretical and practical problems connected with discursive controversy and confrontation. Authors such as P. Barrotta, M. Dascal, S. Frogel, H. Chang and D. Walton had already either edited or written previous editions to the present volume (volume six) of the collection. F. H. van Eemeren and B. Garssen (the former has already, with P. Houtlosser, edited the second volume of this collection) are responsible for compiling and editing this collection. In this volume Van Eemeren and Garssen edit works they conceive as being akin to those elements which, in argumentation discourse, serve to resolve – or often to present – differences of opinion. However, it should be added that this is not a mere editing job, but rather the result of an intellectual collaboration between two international research groups dedicated to a common field – consisting, on the one hand, of controversies and, on the other, of argumentation.

La tesis que plantea Gaetano Chiurazzi en Teorías del juicio llamará la atención del lector interesado tanto en las cuestiones filosóficas esenciales como en su dilucidación y exposición en el curso de la historia. El profesor de hermenéutica filosófica en la Universidad de Turín plantea el análisis del discurso apofántico que, desde la filosofía aristotélica, se distingue por estar formado por proposiciones en las que, por medio de la función atributiva, se expresa la relación predicativa «S es P». Reparar en la idea de que la reflexión filosófica no puede eludir el problema de la naturaleza del discurso apofántico, ya sea desde disciplinas como la metafísica, la ontología o la teoría del conocimiento es ya una cuestión fundamental, por lo que, como consecuencia de ello, no le ha resultado difícil a su autor presentarla como hilo conductor de algunos de los más afamados problemas especulativos de la filosofía occidental. Para muestra un botón: junto al problema del juicio puede hallarse una línea discursiva que atraviesa la historia de la filosofía si atendemos, por ejemplo, a su definición más convencional según la cual de éste cabe decir si es verdadero o falso.

motion and Psyche is a really exciting book. In just 47 pages, Marc Jackson gets to define what is an emotion, what emotion categories can be established, when an action represents an emotional conflict, why some people tend to keep memories of certain events while others forget them, and so on. Emotion and Psyche is a reflection on the nature of emotions. But it is much more. The author does not only question the meaning of emotions in our affective life, he presents an audacious thesis that describes the intricate and complex relationship between emotional life, cognition, and psyche in a broad sense.

Taking into account the critical analysis of the first scientific magazines written in Spanish during the so-called “República de las letras”, the author explores the progressive constitution of the written press as an ideal public space to express Opinion and Thought. The study looks over the formation of the abovementioned public space from a point of view of its dimension and both as a cognitive and juridic agent. In this article, the contradictions, paradoxes and limitations of that double dimension are explored. The two dimensions, namely the cognitive and juridical, are examined in the context of the public opinion for both the civil society and the scientific one.

A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in our judgment or our processing of what we perceive. Its raison d'être is the evolutionary need to produce immediate judgments in order to adopt a position quickly in response to stimuli, problems, or situations that catch our attention for some reason. They have a social dimension because they are present in the interactions and decision-making processes of ordinary life. They can be understood to be an adaptive response to human inability to process all of the available information that we receive and selectively filter through biased reasoning or through procedures and heuristic rules.

Comprender las tecnologías de la comunicación a la luz de las redes con que se comunican y entran en cooperación las personas ha sido una constante en autores que no han disociado su visión acerca del significado de las tecnologías respecto a los nuevos movimientos sociales. Este artículo sostiene que las TIC no son sólo una red a la que se suman los individuos, sino que actúan como tecnologías sociales cuyo perfeccionamiento depende tanto de la diversidad de sus funciones (socio-políticas, cognitivas, etc.) como de la flexibilidad con que se adapten a nuestra diversidad funcional (ciclos de la vida, motricidad, umbrales de percepción, etc.). Prueba de ello son desafíos tecnológicos como el diseño de dispositivos llevables, las redes de área personal, las interfaces de usuario de alta usabilidad, los sistemas de cuidado en el hogar, etc. Este artículo explora dichas tesis en relación con el entorno educativo.

This article explores the extent to which our deliberative culture determines our capacity to recognize relevant knowledge, to select and value epistemic authority, or to recognize the importance of individual and/or collective epistemic achievements in a deliberative context. This investigation is especially relevant in a moment in which the formation of public opinion no longer depends exclusively on political parties. This leads to a paradoxical situation in which the diffuse energy issued by the electorate is not easily subjected to the discipline of party-oriented proposals or by media disputes that, despite their projection, may be ignored by many people. Thus, it is unclear in which sense social networks act as an alternative to the traditional system of intermediation set up by trade unions and pressure groups. By combining the approaches of deliberative democracy and social cognition theories, this essay sustains the relevance of what is defined here as ‘cooperative cognition’ in order to face this challenge.

La misma serie editorial en la que aparecieron obras de Robert Walter, Hasso Höfman, Arthur Kaufmann o Robert Alexy ofrece ahora a los lectores interesados por el mundo de la argumentación jurídica una esmerada traducción de la obra de Eveline T. Feteris, Fundamentals of Legal Argumentation, editada por Kluwer Academic en 1999. En los doce capítulos que componen esta obra, Feteris consigue mostrar de manera a un tiempo sustantiva y concisa los problemas teóricos más importantes de las distintas tradiciones que componen el ámbito de la argumentación jurídica. Sobre la base de esta exposición de naturaleza histórica, la profesora holandesa examina con detalle las teorías de la justificación de las decisiones judiciales sin perder de vista el hilo realmente vertebrador de esta investigación, a saber, la descripción de los componentes teóricos implícitos en las distintas concepciones sobre la argumentación jurídica.