Juan José Sanguineti

Alasdair MacIntyre planteaba en una conferencia en 1984, Is Patriotism a Virtue?, una incompatibilidad entre el patriotismo de la visión liberal, que aparece como fácilmente criticable ante una racionalidad universal abstracta, y el patriotismo de la visión comunitarista, en el que esta virtud se presenta como fidelidad incondicional a un proyecto de nación. En este trabajo presentamos el patriotismo como la virtud política del amor a la patria, compatible con un sincero sentido universalista y con la posible auto-crítica, lejos del riesgo del historicismo si se entronca con el conocimiento metafísico universal. Así entendido, el patriotismo, virtud propia del orden civil natural, resulta fortificado por la fe cristiana y sus exigencias de universalidad en la caridad y la justicia.

This paper presents current trends in philosophy of mind and philosophy of neuroscience, with a special focus on neuroscientists dealing with some topics usually discussed by philosophers of mind. The aim is to detect the philosophical views of those scientists, such as Eccles, Gazzaniga, Damasio, Changeux, and others, which are not easy to classify according to the standard divisions of dualism, functionalism, emergentism, and others. As the variety of opinions in these fields is sometimes a source of confusion, it is worth the effort to obtain an overall panorama of the topic. A general conclusion on epistemological and ontological issues, concerning the relationship between neurobiology and philosophy and the multi-level account of the embodied mind, is proposed.

The article examines Wittgenstein’s thought on the language of pain in first and third person. Relevant grammatical differences, according to the typical analytical method of this philosopher, are highlighted not only in relation to the two perspectives, but also regarding the use of cognitive verbs such as ‘feeling’ and ‘knowing’. The exam of many texts suggests some issues concerning the relationship between personal experiences, empathic grasping of other’s feelings and their conceptual translation. A brief comparison with some Thomas Aquinas’ texts complements the proposal of the existence of non intentional knowledge.

The article presents the relationship between religious faith and natural sciences within a historical perspective. Three great periods are distinguished: classical, enjoying a substantial harmony between science and belief in God; modern period, characterized by a radical rationalism that can be seen as the root of the structural conflict between science and religion; contemporary phase, with the collapse of rationalism, notwithstanding the great prestige of natural science, often perceived within a secularist framework. It is argued that no objective reasons oppose today scientific knowledge to theology and religion. The present state of natural sciences is favourable for a new complementarity between secular/rational views and theological/religious faith.

Cognitive science, and especially neuroscience, currently addresses the philosophical problem of human free choice. This article proposes addressing the problem with the methodology of a confrontation between a phenomenological analysis of human decisions and some main points of philosophy of mind and of neuroscience. The author offers a proposal for the meaning of a 'free' decision, within the context of intentional actions. While avoiding dualism, which is linked to a pure opposition between a disincarnate act of will and a merely physiological account of what is going on in the brain, the author proposes a unitary conception of intentional cognitive/emotional circuits both in animals and in human beings. Neural activations are just a dimension of those circuits and need to be analyzed at the intentional level. Truth and good as a permanent background in human intentional powers provide the root of free choices, as essentially different from animal choices.

This paper studies the problem of the arrow of time from the scientific and philosophical perspective. The scientific section (Castagnino) poses the topic according to the instruments of measuring employed in physical theories, specially when they are applied to dynamic chaotic systems in which a temporal asymmetry is shown. From the analysis of “two schools” (epistemological and ontological), the conclusion is favorable to the reality (both ontological and epistemological) of the difference between past and future, with the recourse to Reichenbach’s notion of global system. In the philosophical section (Sanguineti) the content of the scientific part of the article is presented in a qualitative way. The role of some philosophical choices in the scientific field is stressed, taking into account the diversity of a positivistic and realistic view.