Consuelo Martínez-Priego

We aim to map out the points of confluence between phronesis and emotion, as well as the nature of this confluence. We do so based on philosophical and psychological explanations of emotions and phronesis. Making sound decisions, which requires phronesis, is an important matter, but its relationship with emotions has only just begun to be studied. We propose that the interplay between phronesis and emotion is possible (rather than inevitable) because both have a cognitive-behavioural structure and because emotions are hierarchical. In the case of emotion, there are no gaps between the cognitive and behavioural dimensions, while phronetic acts can only manifest if cognitive and behavioural aspects are activated simultaneously. The confluence we identify is bidirectional and involves mutual enrichment in this dual dimension. On the one hand, phronesis enriches emotion because it involves extra subjective knowledge and allows emotion to be directed towards higher goals. On the other hand, emotions enrich phronesis because phronesis makes decisions based on sensitive preferences and because emotions confirm correctness in the context of moral decision making. Methodologically, this study is theoretical and interdisciplinary, as our approach is both philosophical and psychological. Philosophy helps us to improve the conceptual foundation of the construct, while psychology provides an analysis of the emotional process, allowing philosophy to understand how emotional evaluation-assessment and motivation lead to decision making.

This article aims to theoretically analyse so-called character friendship from the perspective of emotions. From this angle, our research enables us to distinguish different types of emotions, and we propose a conceptual model of the hierarchy of the emotions of character friendship and their influence on social behaviour. With this model in hand, the article discusses whether other-oriented emotions fully explain the emotional underpinnings of character friendship. We find other-oriented emotions to be ambiguous because they may or may not be selfless. Thus we question whether these emotions can adequately explain the bonding content of character friendship. We conclude that there is a higher affective tier related to moral emotions and moral behaviour, which we have labelled the ‘bonding feeling’. This feeling is described with reference to its historical precedents (Rof Carballo’s ‘affective warp’), thus explaining its particularity.

El pensamiento psicológico de Rof Carballo gira en torno a la constitución del hombre, de su personalidad, en virtud de relaciones interpersonales de carácter transaccional, es decir, de la “urdimbre afectiva”. El establecimiento de vínculos adecuados o deficitarios lleva consigo la conformación de una personalidad madura o bien predispuesta a patologías o deficiencias en la personalidad, pero también en la manifestación psicosocial del vínculo originario. Entre las “patologías” propias de la dimensión psicosocial de la urdimbre encontramos la “sociedad sin padre”, caracterizada por la violencia. En su raíz se encuentra la falta de seguridad, autoridad y sentido de lo sagrado.Rof Carballo’s psychological theory deals with humans’ constitution of personality, based on interpersonal relationships of a transactional type, in other words, their affective warp. The establishment of adequate or deficient bondages directly intervenes in the shaping of either a mature personality or a predisposition to pathologies of personality deficiencies, together with a psychosocial manifestation of the original bondage. A “fatherless society”, characterized by violence, stands out among the proper pathologies of the psychosocial dimension of the warp. Lack of security, authority and sense of the sacred can be found in its roots

Departing from Leibniz’s ontological argument, and specifically from the “possibility-complement” just as it appears in his texts, this article offers a detailed analysis of the very same concept of possibility. This is an attempt at showing its consistency in a very extreme metaphysical situation: the possibility of God without any reference to the world of possibility, contingency or eternal truths. The logic and real possibility, the merely possible, the relationship between possibility, compossibility and the Characteristic, are some of the questions dealt with in this article.

It is patently clear that theoretical difficulties in the understanding of human freedom exist, the roots of which can be found in classic psychological proposals. The western crisis may require reconsideration of freedom and responsibility as expressed in each person. One such proposal of this type begs clarification of the approaches that led to the loss of freedom in the existential horizon and thus of social dynamics. The purpose of this paper is to explain its roots in the psychoanalytic context. Specifically there seems to be three theses that give way to this analysis: the role of the past in shaping the personality; the influence of the psychological workings as related to the handling of conflict as well as the understanding of psychoanalysis as hermeneutics. The three are united in the consideration of freedom as “liberation”, and the temporal dynamics implicit in this concept. We conclude that this is the origin of the limitation of the concept of freedom within psychoanalysis.