Javier Pérez Jara

This edited volume advances meaning-centered approaches to understanding the social construction of public intellectuals and their enduring influence on contemporary societies. The contributors reject reductionist perspectives that depict intellectuals and their ideas as mere byproducts of broader social forces. Instead, the volume champions a multidimensional approach that recognizes the semi-autonomy and causal power of intellectual discourses. At the core of this framework is the concept of dramatic intellectuals—figures who navigate collective anxieties and hopes, shaping public discourse through master narratives of salvation and catastrophe, utopia and apocalypse. Through diverse case studies, the volume identifies key features of their master stories, including stark binaries, the social construction of meta-adversaries and meta-saviors, the mobilization of cultural traumas and ideological packs, and the Cassandra complex. Each chapter examines at least one pivotal dramatic intellectual within her cultural context, exploring how these figures shape public discourse and collective imagination. The volume covers a diverse range of intellectuals, including Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Frantz Fanon, Jean-Paul Sartre, Bertrand Russell, Noam Chomsky, Arne Naess, Ingemar Hedenius, Ayn Rand, Otis Eugene “Gene” Ray, Pedro Almodóvar, Agustín Laje, Slavoj Žižek, Jordan Peterson, and Giorgio Agamben. Beyond detailed case studies, the book lays the groundwork for new research agendas in the sociology of intellectuals. This book will be essential reading for scholars of cultural sociology.

This introduction revisits the enduring binary of nature and nurture, tracing its roots from ancient Greek sophistic thought to contemporary scientific and philosophical debates. Using the Sphinx’s riddle as a metaphorical point of departure, it poses the central enigma of human nature and interrogates what it truly means to be human. Across cultures and historical periods, humanity has been interpreted through binary oppositions—sacred and profane, body and soul, reality and illusion—yet few have remained as persistent or divisive as the nature/nurture divide. This volume examines how human traits such as aggression, love, and morality have been explained through both biological determinism and radical social constructionism, and how both perspectives have been alternately sacralized or challenged by different ideological camps. While the volume does not claim to definitively resolve the deeper riddle posed by the Sphinx, it offers a rigorous, pluralistic, and multidisciplinary approach to the question of human nature—understood as neither fixed nor entirely malleable, but shaped by a complex and evolving interplay of dimensions and variables.

Since its inception, the intricate mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics has empowered physicists to describe and predict specific physical events known as quantum processes. However, this success in probabilistic predictions has been accompanied by a profound challenge in the ontological interpretation of the theory. This interpretative complexity stems from two key aspects. Firstly, quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory that, so far, is not derivable from any more basic scientific theory. Secondly, it delves into a realm of invisible phenomena that often contradicts our intuitive and commonsensical notions of matter and causality. Despite its notorious difficulties of interpretation, the most widely accepted set of views of quantum phenomena has been known as the Copenhagen interpretation since the beginning of quantum mechanics. According to these views, the correct ontological interpretation of quantum mechanics is incompatible with ontological realism in general and with philosophical materialism in particular. Anti-realist and anti-materialist interpretations of quantum matter have survived until today. This paper discusses these perspectives, arguing that materialistic interpretations of quantum mechanics are compatible with its mathematical formalism, while anti-realist and anti-materialist views are based on wrong philosophical assumptions. However, although physicalism provides a better explanation for quantum phenomena than idealism, its downward reductionism prevents it from accounting for more complex forms of matter, such as biological or sociocultural systems. Thus, the paper argues that neither physicalism nor idealism can explain the universe. I propose then a non-reductionistic form of materialism called inclusive materialism. The conclusion is that the acknowledgment of the qualitative irreducibility of ontological emergent levels above the purely physical one does not deny philosophical materialism but enriches it.

This book gathers several of the world’s leading scholars in the nature vs. nurture debate, offering a timely reconsideration of the dynamic interactions between physical, chemical, biological, social, and cultural factors that shape human multidimensionality. Emphasizing this multidimensionality, this edited volume seeks to bridge the divide between biology and social theory—two research communities that have too often overlooked each other. These disciplines, despite being central to understanding human nature, have long operated in isolation. While some animal species exhibit higher degrees of phenotypic plasticity in specific traits, humans stand out as the most plastic species in both their neurological and sociocultural systems. This plasticity leads the contributors of this book to move beyond both biological reductionism and the blank-slate hypothesis. While biology undoubtedly plays a role in shaping and stabilizing human social and cultural processes, it does so only within the framework of an inherently social environment—one shaped by historically contingent and socially constructed realities, such as values, codes, and cultural perceptions. More importantly, cultural structures and social interactions actively shape and transform certain biological features that were once considered immutable.

This chapter examines ways to transcend simplistic and reductive perspectives on the nature vs. nurture debate by analyzing one of cultural sociology’s central theses: the relative independence of culture. The degree to which culture is contingent upon social structures and natural processes distinguishes cultural sociology from various forms of reductionism and determinism. At the same time, its emphasis on culture’s relative independence differentiates it from cultural idealism. This chapter focuses on the primary ontological and epistemological assumptions and implications underlying the thesis of culture’s semi-autonomous power. To support this exploration, I propose a philosophical framework addressing key concepts such as upward and downward causation, ontological and epistemological discontinuities, asymmetries, and emergence. I argue that the relationships between biological and cultural factors form a subset of broader interactions within the asymmetrical and dynamic multidimensionality of human existence, which itself represents a specific instance of the universe’s overarching asymmetrical multidimensionality.

Este artículo ofrece una evaluación filosófica crítica del sistema materialista desarrollado por Gustavo Bueno (1924-2016), con especial atención a su núcleo ontológico. Frente al fisicalismo, el materialismo de Bueno plantea una alternativa no reduccionista que reconoce discontinuidades estructurales en la realidad sin recurrir al espiritualismo ni al idealismo. Se analizan aquí tanto la coherencia interna y externa del sistema como sus ambigüedades y problemas interpretativos. Se examina de manera destacada las principales problemáticas asociadas a las nociones ontológicas clave del sistema y los debates que estas suscitan en relación con cuestiones filosóficas clásicas como el realismo, el pluralismo y la emergencia. Sobre esta base, se defiende la necesidad de repensar tanto la noción de materia como la de materialismo desde una ontología de procesos. La contribución está dirigida tanto a lectores no familiarizados con la obra de Bueno como a especialistas interesados en explorar críticamente uno de los pocos sistemas filosóficos contemporáneos que articulan un materialismo no reduccionista, sistemático y comprometido con las ciencias.

This discussion concerns whether philosophical materialism is false or not. The exchange between Graham Harman and Javier Pérez-Jara goes to the core of the present book: what is materialism, how many varieties are there, and what use are they today? While Harman identifies materialism with reductionism, Pérez-Jara offers a broader definition that includes non-reductionist materialisms. It might seem to be just as a matter of differing definitions. And yet, each approach gives rise to a whole different way of reconstructing the history of philosophy as well as of deciding which are the current available options in metaphysics.

This paper focuses on some aspects of a recent book by professor Juan Arana. For that purpose, and from the stand point of philosophical materialism, it builds a critic of the Idea of free will as defended through Arana's book and many philosophical traditions. Ontological determinism is here defended as a result of some unavoidable contradictions in which indeterministic approaches are founded, namely: causa sui and metaphysic emergency. The argument outlines the paradoxical fact that theistic metaphysic is absolutely incompatible with freedom, defined as free will, since recognising an omnipotent and omniscient God contradicts any king of indeterminism and thus, contradicts free will. Finally, the paper argues for a materialistic conception of freedom founded in determinism and with important precedents in some philosophical traditions

This discussion focuses on whether Mario Bunge’s emergent materialism implies continuism or not. Íñigo Ongay defends that Bunge’s emergent materialism implies continuism. In his response, Javier Pérez-Jara argues that Bunge’s emergent materialism explicitly assumes structural ontological and epistemological discontinuities in the universe. The question is more than a Scholastic one, concerning only a particular system of philosophy, however relevant for current philosophical materialism. Rather, what is at stake is the ability of non-reductionist ontologies to explain (non-miraculous) novelty and plurality.

This paper starts briefly presenting the “ontological pillars” above which Gustavo Bueno’s philosophical materialism stands as a discontinous materialism. After this, I analyze some important philosophical problems related to the ontological idea of discontinuity, such as the classical problems about Diodorus Cronus’ Master Argument and the future contingents, the “relationship between the brain and the mind”, and the ontological structure of death. Finally, this paper analyzes the utility of offering a new tipology of the main types of ontological discontinuities that we can find in reality. Since Bueno’s philosophy holds the discontinous structure of matter, my paper defends the convenience of solving these problems in the future in order to expand the philosophical capacity of this worldview.

Despite the central presence of materialism in the history of philosophy, there is no universal consensus on the meaning of the word “matter” nor of the doctrine of philosophical materialism. Dictionaries of philosophy often identify this philosophy with its most reductionist and even eliminative versions, in line with Robert Boyle’s seventeenth century coinage of the term. But when we take the concept back in time to Greek philosophers and forward onto our own times, we recognize more inclusive forms of materialism as well as complex interplays with non-materialist thought about the place of matter in reality, including Christian philosophy and German idealism. We define philosophical materialism in its most general way both positively (the identification of reality with matter understood as changeability and plurality) and negatively (the negation of disembodied living beings and hypostatized ideas). This inclusive approach to philosophical materialism offers a new light to illuminate a critical history of the concept of matter and materialism from Ancient Greece to the present that is also attentive to scientific developments. By following the most important connections and discontinuities among theoretical frameworks on the idea of matter, we present a general thread that offers a rich and plural, but highly cohesive, field of investigation. Finally, we propose building on rich non-reductionist materialist philosophies, such as Mario Bunge’s systemic materialism and Gustavo Bueno’s discontinuous materialism, to elaborate powerful theoretical alternatives to both physicalism and spiritualism.

This chapter has two main complementary goals. First, it analyzes the main ontological ideas of Gustavo Bueno’s discontinuous materialism in contrast with other philosophical systems. Second, it explores some of the main ontological questions and issues still open in this system of thought, while advancing some possible paths of resolution. In order to do this, I follow a double general definition of philosophical materialism. Positively, materialism, in general, names the branch of philosophical worldviews that identify being (i.e. the “ὅντος” of ontology) with matter, understood in its broadest sense as changeability and plurality (partes extra partes). Negatively, materialism denies the existence of disembodied living beings and hypostatized ideas. Within this general framework, I then locate the specific ontological characteristic of discontinuous materialism in the rejection of any attempt to hypostatize any element, property, state or relation of reality. Like the Medusa’s gaze, hypostasizing metaphysics turns parts of the complex interplay of continuities and discontinuities that constitutes reality into stone. I then conduct a comparison between discontinuous materialism and other philosophies, in particular Mario Bunge’s systemic materialism, physicalism, ontotheology, and speculative realism(s). This approach aims at opening new avenues for philosophical research for both metaphysics in general and materialist philosophy in particular.

Bertrand Russell es el último gran filósofo anglosajón del siglo XX. A través de una longeva trayectoria intelectual trató de ofrecer un verdadero mapamundi de la realidad en línea directa con los principales clásicos del pensamiento occidental y los saberes científicos de su tiempo. Sin embargo, la mayoría de estudios existentes acerca de su filosofía suelen realizarse, o bien centrándose en un único periodo, aspecto o dimensión, por lo que resultan generalmente cojos, incompletos o distorsionados, o bien desde una supuesta perspectiva neutral e imparcial, por lo que renuncian a tomar consideraciones filosóficas sobre su figura y legado en nuestro presente. La amplitud del presente libro se ajusta a la extensión y pluralidad de los temas analizados, que oscilan desde las cuestiones clásicas sobre la naturaleza y límites del conocimiento humano, la diferencia entre la ciencia y la filosofía, o la naturaleza de la causalidad, el tiempo y la materia, al estudio de temas antropológicos como los que giran en torno a las religiones y lo sobrenatural, la ética y la política, la guerra, la sexualidad o la liberación de la mujer.

Materialism has been the subject of extensive and rich controversies since Robert Boyle introduced the term for the first time in the 17th century. But what is materialism and what can it offer today? The term is usually defined as the worldview according to which everything real is material. Nevertheless, there is no philosophical consensus about whether the meaning of matter can be enlarged beyond the physical. As a consequence, materialism is often defined in stark exclusive and reductionist terms: whatever exists is either physical or ontologically reducible to it. This conception, if consistent, mutilates reality, excluding the ontological significance of political, economic, sociocultural, anthropological and psychological realities. Starting from a new history of materialism, the present book focuses on the central ontological and epistemological debates aroused by today’s leading materialist approaches, including some little known to an anglophone readership. The key concepts of matter, system, emergence, space and time, life, mind, and software are checked over and updated. Controversial issues such as the nature of mathematics and the place of reductionism are also discussed from different materialist approaches. As a result, materialism emerges as a powerful, indispensable scientifically-supported worldview with a surprising wealth of nuances and possibilities.