José Ignacio Murillo

Classic and modern philosophy propose different views on the question of self-knowledge. Ancient philosophy identifies self-knowledge with the knowledge of the soul, which is the principle of unity in man. Modern philosophy is intereseted in subjectivity, but has a problematic view of it. Some currents, like Idealism, consider that a total reflexcion is possible, in which the subjectivity becomes totally present to itself, but others, as Empiricists, are skeptical and even deny the existence of a true subject. The difficulties of the Idealistic project have are uncovered by some contemporary philosophers, like Heidegger and post-modern thinkers. Polo shows how the denial of a reflective and objective knowledge of the person is compatible with the claim that the person is a radical and transcendental act of intellect. The key of this proposal is the affirmation that there are different kinds of acts of the intellect, according to their theme

The philosophy of Plotino represents, with respect to Parménides -although in dependency of him-, a new way to think the relations between Unity and Thought. Whereas Parménides maintains that being is the only object adapted to thought, Plotino considers that it is not possible to think without the distinction between intelligible contents. Consequently, thinking cannot be the highest. But, although in this sense he surpasses to Parménides, his forgetfulness of some Aristotelian contributions prevents him to extract all potentialities contained in his discovery.

El estudio de la libertad plantea el problema de cuál es el método o los métodos más adecuados y qué podemos esperar de ellos. La filosofía clásica accede a la libertad desde la noción de naturaleza, mientras que la filosofía moderna, que concibe la naturaleza de un modo mecanicista y ateleológico, accede a ella desde la subjetividad. Dos ejemplos de estos planteamientos son, respectivamente, los de Aristóteles y Schelling. Se analizan sus méritos y sus deficiencias para dar cuenta de los rasgos esenciales de lo que entendemos por libertad.

Presentamos algunos aspectos de la filosofía de Xavier Zubiri que resultan centrales para comprender su acercamiento al problema mente-cerebro y se comentan desde la filosofía de Leonardo Polo: las nociones de viviente y cuerpo y las relaciones psique-organismo y cerebro-intelección. Esta comparación muestra algunos elementos comunes tanto en el planteamiento como en los términos que emplean, que hacen posible un diálogo provechoso, junto con algunas diferencias de método y contenido, que sirven para comprender mejor sus posiciones. Este examen introductorio muestra que un debate en torno a las aproximaciones de estos filósofos comportaría una contribución relevante al debate mente-cerebro.

In the middle of the twentieth century, Wittgenstein warned that “the method of reducing the explanation of natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws…leads…into complete darkness” (1958, p. 18). At the time, few philosophers and even fewer scientists were prepared to heed his warning. A half-century later, however, the reductive method of science—the method famously defined by Descartes, brilliantly exemplified by Newtonian physics, and long upheld as the gold standard of scientific explanation—seems to have finally lost its luster. While reduction is still widely defended, in the last decades alternative views have gained credibility, to the extent that a “non-reductive science” is no longer dismissed as an oxymoron.