Carlos Sanchez

The debate between Antonio Caso and Vicente Lombardo Toledano was political, philosophical, and public. To decide whether to reform public education, particularly undergraduate education, Caso and Lombardo Toledano argued over whether “[t]‌he courses that constitute the study plan for the Bachelor degree will obey the principle of essential identity in regards to the different phenomena of the Universe and will culminate with the teaching of philosophy based on nature.” Caso argued that despite violating the autonomy of the University and academic freedom, protected under the Constitution, the education reform proposed by the Second Commission was based on a false philosophical thesis: historical materialism. Since Caso and Lombardo Toledano agree that University is defined as a “cultural community,” much of the debate is focused on the nature of community, culture, history, and ethics.

La violencia en Colombia ha sido un tema recurrente en la literatura nacional, destacándose la novela como el género que más ha explorado esta problemática. Actualmente, se observa una tendencia hacia la narrativa centrada en la reconciliación, a través del ejercicio de la reescritura de la propia identidad de sus protagonistas. Este artículo examina cómo la narración de sí en tres novelas de no ficción –Mi vida y el palacio (Helena Uran, 2020), Cómo maté a mi padre (Sara Jaramillo, 2019) y Lo que no borró el desierto (Diana López, 2020)– actúa como un camino de reconciliación frente a las violencias en Colombia. La investigación, de enfoque hermenéutico, se sustenta en los aportes de Paul Ricoeur y Hannah Arendt. Se destaca que la narración de sí se convierte en una forma de resistencia para las protagonistas, quienes resignifican sus vidas mediante la escritura al enfrentar su identidad trastocada por el horror de la violencia.

Offers the first comprehensive survey of Mexican existentialism to appear in English. This book examines the emergence of existentialism in Mexico in the 1940s and the quest for a genuine Mexican philosophy that followed it. It focuses on the pivotal moments and key figures of the Hyperion group, including Emilio Uranga, Luis Villoro, Leopoldo Zea, and Jorge Portilla, who explored questions of interpretation, marginality, identity, and the role of philosophy. Carlos Alberto Sánchez was the first to introduce and emphasize the philosophical significance of the Hyperion group to readers of English in The Suspension of Seriousness, and in the present volume he examines its legacy and relevancy for the twenty-first century. Sánchez argues that there are lessons to be learned from Hyperion’s project not only for Latino/a life in the United States but also for the lives of those on the fringes of contemporary, postmodern or postcolonial, economic, political, and cultural power.

The aim of this paper is to advance, within the framework of enactivism, towards a more radically embodied and situated theory of emotions and, in general, of affectivity. Its starting point is that of discussing the well-established notion of bodily resonance (Fuchs 2013, Fuchs & Koch 2014, Fuchs 2018) and the primordial affectivity approach (Colombetti 2014). I will incorporate John Dewey’s theory of emotions, and recent models and empirical finding from cognitive science on the relation between perception and bodily activity (Azzalini, Rebollo & Tallon-Baudry 2019; Allen et al. 2019). The novel element proposed in this paper is taking into consideration the role of bodily oscillatory activity in the perceptual side of cognition through phenomena of relative coordination. This concept from dynamical systems theory allows for an enactivist view of emotions as temporal episodes triggered by a tension that affects the rhythmic interaction between brain, body, and environment. By defending the importance of this enacted rhythm, the body emerges as a truly active agent, gating and modulating affectivity during all the stages of the sensorimotor circuit from perception to action.

This paper considers the nature of Heidegger’s Eurocentrism in regard to philosophy. Focusing primarily on “A Dialogue on Language,” I argue, first, that Heidegger recognizes the limits of the Eurocentric idea of philosophy and proposes its overcoming. Secondly, I suggest that the proposal to overcome philosophy is made in an attempt to protect philosophy from the encroachment of an otherness that challenges its very identity. This leads me to the view, thirdly, that Heidegger’s Eurocentrism about philosophy is compromising insofar as he is willing, to a certain degree, to let go of philosophy’s European origin. This “thinning” out of Heidegger’s Eurocentrism, finally, opens the door to a consideration of the possibility for a non-Western, namely, a Latin American, or Mexican “philosophy.”

El estudio de la cultura no fue en Freud un mero complemento, sino que contribuyó desde un principio a fraguar las hipótesis y conceptos psicoanalíticos. Es preciso, sin embargo, señalar los caracteres y límites del “psicoanálisis aplicado” (1). Tras reconsiderar el concepto freudiano de sexualidad –pulsional, no instintiva– y la polémica con autores como Bloch, se trata de poner de manifiesto por qué, para Freud, es la sexualidad lo que se reprime y estructura el psiquismo (2). A través de Duelo y melancolía y El yo y el ello se analiza el anudamiento establecido por Freud entre lo sexual y lo cultural, entre el deseo y la norma (3), para plantear, finalmente, en la tensión entre arcaísmo y progreso (4), uno de los problemas culturales abordados en las obras finales de Freud, el de la concepción de la historia, y apuntar las principales líneas de influencia del psicoanálisis en el pensamiento filosófico del siglo XX.

_In this symposium, Roberto A. Carleo III, Gregory Doukas and Imogen M. Sullivan think alongside Carlos Alberto Sánchez about the contingency of human existence as it is understood in Mexican existentialism. They ask: Should the notion of a metaphysical substance be discarded altogether due to its misuse in the history of European philosophy? Or are there philosophical reasons to avoid ontological uncertainty by, for example, postulating the notion of a non-discrete substance? And if attempts to define human substantiality merely seek to defy this accidentality, should scholars with deviant identities deliberately engage in a wandering beyond dominant frameworks to evade the material and hermeneutical hostility of these frameworks? How should they work alongside others to best take up their responsibility? In his reply, Sánchez considers what the project of accidentalization would imply for each of these carefully-crafted interventions._.

In this paper I consider the notion of “moral ecology” in relation to the social/cultural construction known as “narco-culture.” My claim is that the moral ecology of narco-culture is one that is both destructive and prohibitive of human flourishing. The general idea of a “moral ecology” is that the moral space of human conviviality is not unlike an ecological, or environmental, space—both are constituted by various interdependent relations which, when working harmoniously and in optimal capacity, maintain the overall well-being of its inhabitants (i.e., human agents or the flora and fauna). Within non-human ecosystems, the quality or health of rivers, trees, earth, air, predator-prey relationships, etc., define what Allen Hertzke calls the system’s “carrying capacity.” The carrying capacity refers to what the system can handle while staying balanced and healthy and also indicates the point beyond which the system, if overburdened or degraded, begins to fall apart. In a social setting, the ecology is constituted by moral rules and behaviors, the degradation of which can cause the degradation of the entire system.

El filósofo esloveno Slavoj Žižek ha sido una figura central en las discusiones contemporáneas en torno a la teoría de la ideología. Sus posiciones al respecto se han basado en tres pilares teóricos básicos: la teoría psicoanalítica lacaniana, la crítica contemporánea de la ideología y la dialéctica hegeliana. A partir de ellos ha abordado la discusión respecto a las relaciones entre sociedad, prácticas y discursos, polemizando no sólo contra las ideologías que pregonan que vivimos en una época ‘pos-política’, sino contra los abordajes posestructuralistas que pierden de vista los aspectos extra-textuales del discurso. Este artículo intenta sistematizar la teoría de la ideología de Žižek, planteando algunos elementos para la comprensión de las relaciones básicas entre teoría política y psicoanálisis.Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek is a central figure in contemporary discussions on the theory of ideology. His positions are grounded on three fundamental theoretical basis: Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, the contemporary critique of ideology and Hegelian dialectics. Taking this as a point of departure, Žižek has engaged into the discussion on the relations between society, practice and discourse as well as entering into polemics not only against those who propose we live in a ‘post-political’ moment, but also against the poststructuralist onslaughts loosing sight of the extra-textual aspects of discourse. This paper attempts to systematise Žižek’s theory of ideology raising certain elements for the understanding of the basic relations between political theory and psychoanalysis

La llamada cuestión social se convirtió durante el siglo XIX en el centro de todos los análisis sociales. Durante dicho siglo se articularon en toda Europa una serie de discursos que abordaban la nueva situación social, producida por el liberalismo político y el capitalismo económico. En España se dan esos mismos discursos, si bien con características y desarrollos propios. Fundamentalmente encontramos cinco discursos que se perfilan como cinco modelos sociales, dada la centralidad que en ese momento tenía la cuestión obrera. Los análisis y propuestas de cada posición son únicamente entendibles si son contempladas en conjunto

Contemporary popular culture is riddled with references to Mexican drug cartels, narcos, and drug trafficking. In the United States, documentary filmmakers, journalists, academics, and politicians have taken note of the increasing threats to our security coming from a subculture that appears to feed on murder and brutality while being fed by a romanticism about power and capital. Carlos Alberto Sánchez uses Mexican narco-culture as a point of departure for thinking about the nature and limits of violence, culture, and personhood. A Sense of Brutality argues that violent cultural modalities, of which narco-culture is but one, call into question our understanding of “violence” as a concept. The reality of narco-violence suggests that “violence” itself is insufficient to capture it, that we need to redeploy and reconceptualize “brutality” as a concept that better captures this reality. Brutality is more than violence, other to cruelty, and distinct from horror and terror—all concepts that are normally used interchangeably with brutality, but which, as the analysis suggests, ought not to be. In narco-culture, the normalization of brutality into everyday life is a condition upon which the absolute erasure or derealization of people is made possible.

Este estudio analiza el artículo 146 del Código Orgánico Integral Penal (COIP) de Ecuador, esta trata sobre el homicidio culposo por práctica profesional equivocada. La mala praxis médica es un problema grave en el sistema de salud de Ecuador, y la interpretación inadecuada de este artículo ha generado confusión en los procesos legales relacionados. El objeto de la investigación es analizar la normativa del artículo 146 del COIP y las lagunas de interpretación jurídica para determinar la culpabilidad o inocencia de los profesionales de la salud. Para ello, se emplearán métodos comparativos e históricos, que incluyen revisión bibliográfica, análisis de contenido del artículo 146. Los resultados esperados son demostrar las dudas razonables en la prueba del delito de mala praxis, resaltar la importancia de la bioética en los procedimientos legales. Este estudio busca contribuir a una mejor comprensión del marco legal y brindar ideas para la resolución de casos de mala praxis y homicidio culposo en Ecuador.

I offer a phenomenological description of undocumented immigrant reason, provisionally understood as a sort of historical reason grounded on undocumented immigrant life. That is, the categories of undocumented immigrant reason are resources for undocumented immigrant existence and are inscribed in the historical memory of immigration (they are shared and communal), accessed by immigrants in stories, anecdotes, and interpersonal trauma. Abstracting from personal experience, testimony, popular culture, and elsewhere, I propose a fragmentary list of these categories of undocumented immigrant reason, a list that includes journeying, crossing/nepantla, uncertainty/zozobra, nostalgia, and return. These categories, which structure undocumented immigrant reason, are reflected in beliefs and attitudes about migration, belonging, the contingency of life, the centrality of memory, and the meaning of death. Constitutive of immigrant rationality are beliefs and ways of being that lend meaning to immigrant life, including those beliefs and ways of being that place immigrants in closer proximity to fundamental human truths.