Juan Manuel Cincunegui

This doctoral thesis offers a philosophical critique of Varelian enactivism and Participatory Sense-Making, arguing that despite their rejection of representationalism and their emphasis on embodied and intersubjective cognition, they remain grounded in an ontology of immanent closure. Through a historical and epistemological reconstruction of cybernetics, autopoiesis, and radical constructivism, the study examines the concepts of autonomy, enaction, and participation as theoretical devices that tend to neutralize radical alterity, reducing otherness to a functional element of self-organizing systems. In contrast, drawing on Levinas, Fanon, Ambedkar, Federici, and especially Enrique Dussel, the thesis rethinks life, language, and cognition from the perspective of vulnerability, exclusion, and ethical responsibility toward the Other. It argues for an ontological and political reopening of meaning grounded in the historical exteriority of victims, as an alternative to the technical totalization of contemporary thought.

The object of study in this research is the homologies between epistemology and politics. Based on a critical reformulation of the dialectical method, we identify the co-implications between theories of mind and subjectivity, and social and political doctrines. In this context, we analyze (1) alternative conceptions of individuality and sociability; (2) opposing theories of action and history; and (3) the modern moral order, its imaginaries, and social practices. The purpose is to identify the malaises underlying the separation between "the economic" and "the political" that define the institutional form of capitalism. From an epistemological point of view, we assess recent reconsiderations of realism in the face of the anti-realism hegemonically imposed by the postmodern cultural turn. This is linked to the "return" of Marx at the beginning of the 21st century. Within this framework, we explore the critique of representationalist theories of knowledge and reconsider the "cultural" theories of modernity in the light of their underlying structures. The result of this research, inspired mainly by the works of Charles Taylor, Ellen Meiksins Wood, and Enrique Dussel, is the formulation of a dialectical realism that navigates between (1) the nihility to which the anti-realist dialectic that imposes the "subject-object correlational circle" leads us, when the latter is abstracted from its background and remains closed to its transcendence, and (2) metaphysical realism, trapped in the aporias of time and history. Against the anti-realist dialectic —the idealism that emerges in the face of the impossibility of resolving the contradictions posed by the enunciation of the objectivity of the world—, the realist dialectic invites us to go beyond the limits of the so-called "correlational circle", to remain open to otherness, and to keep in force the promise of liberation that the closure of the "immanent framework" —expressed in the figures of "the death of god" and the "end of history"— pretends to cancel. Palabras clave

In this research I have tried to offer a preliminary answer to a series of questions that had arisen due to a generalized impression: that despite the validity of "human rights" as an emblem of a our contemporary moral horizon, "Human Rights" as an institutionalized social form, are on the verge of a "legitimation crisis". The description of a crisis of this type shows that human rights are in a process of regression after several decades of hegemonic presence in the center of our social imaginaries and the assumption of a vicarious role as a foundation of our legal and political systems. The answer I have given to those questions is articulated in a set of hypotheses. Each of them deals with an aspect or dimension of what we call "Human Rights". In such a way that together they could end up becoming an integral explanation of the intrinsic limitations of the notion and its application, or its irrelevance for our current political lives. In general, when I refer to Human Rights what I have in mind are its normative articulations, and its legal, institutional and executive dimensions. The genuine yearnings of "those below", who at present also use the language of human rights to express their demands and struggles, is never an object of criticism on my part. The charge is directed to those uses of human rights by the bureaucratic, state and transnational elites, and corporate elites, who have appropriated a notion which seduced in the past the imagination of individuals and peoples. Today, however, the name of the promised justice has been put at the service of the interests of the minorities. One way of explaining this distinction between "Human Rights" and what I call the human rights of “those below" is to recognize that, in critical circumstances such as those we are living today, social actors express their struggles evoking ideas, values, and principles that are at hand, within the institutional order they inhabit. However, although it is true that these resources are embedded in the fabric of capitalist societies (available to social actors), in times of crisis, human rights are used in a different manner to what is "normal" for the social order. Human rights are a name in dispute.

The main purpose of this thesis is to critically analyze the philosophical anthropology of Charles Taylor. The first part deals with preliminary issues: the sources, the theoretical and methodological elements of his thought. In the second part we elaborate his theory of identity. This implies: (1) to account for the inextricable relationship between the self of the person and his moral orientation, and (2) by means of transcendental arguments, to articulate an ontology that determines the perennial features of human nature. An ontology of identity requires the articulation of the continuities and discontinuities between human and nonhuman animals. That is, a philosophy of biology which provides insights from Aristotelianism to post-Darwinism. In line with Adaslair MacIntyre, we try to complete the contributions made by Taylor in the context of his philosophy of action. On the other hand, we identify some of the distinctive features of human agency (language, purpose and dialogue) and tackle the challenges of (1) versions that radicalized the consequences of the contingency of the subject and (2) the reductionism that thrive among the analytical philosophers. So we confront the interpretations of Richard Rorty about Nietzsche and Freud, and the quasi-Buddhism of Parfit, with the strong hermeneutics of Charles Taylor and Paul Ricoeur. In the third part, we study the historical dimension of human identity. That means pointing out the peculiarities of the modern anthropos. Therefore, in addition to contrast the modern self with the premodern version of our common humanity, we confront Taylor's interpretation of the meaning of the cosmological, anthropological and ethical mutations of modernity, with the interpretations that authors as Michel Foucault, Jürgen Habermas and Alasdair MaIntyre offer about these mutations.

In a world where the struggle for justice and dignity is waged in the streets as well as in ideas, Mind and Politics. Dialectics and Realism from the Perspective of Liberation emerges as an indispensable work for those seeking to understand and transform power structures. The book invites the reader to explore the connections between theories of knowledge, political action, and social philosophy through an innovative interpretation of the relationship between theory and practice. With an ethical-political commitment that does not shy away from reality, the author challenges us to rethink the role of philosophy in the struggle for liberation. Starting from a critical analysis of metaphysical realism and dialectics, Mind and Politics proposes a new vision: a realist dialectic that does not resign itself to the injustices of the existing order, but remains open to the exteriority and demands of the victims. Confronting both liberal political philosophy and deterministic social science, this work argues that the only legitimate perspective is that of those who suffer under current power structures. Drawing on thinkers such as Charles Taylor, Ellen Meiksins Wood, and Enrique Dussel, the author offers a contrast between the “figures of limits” proposed by postmodern philosophy and the “figures of liberation” that emerge from thinking constructed from the margins. Mind and Politics is an invitation to a deep and committed reflection and a call to action for all those who are not satisfied with an unjust world.

Contemporary societies are currently experiencing a comprehensive crisis that affects all their institutional forms and threatens to become a ‘crisis of legitimacy’. A critical analysis of transnational human rights requires the adoption of a “deep perspective”, free from the prevailing fatalism and moralism, which allows us to recover the political dimension of human rights. Since its rise alongside market fundamentalism and liberal democracy to the podium of the new moral order of globalised capitalism, the transnational human rights movement has become captive to its myths. Whatever the future holds for them (reinventing themselves, or giving way to an alternative “utopia”), human rights require “demystification”. The growing suspicion that transnational human rights and “neoliberalism” have acted in tandem demands a historical clarification of how the temporal coincidence of their parallel and meteoric triumph over other preceding social imaginaries and their global institutionalisation since the 1970s can be considered the fruit of a fortuitous circumstance, the sign of a causal link, or complicity with crimes that today are beginning to be perceived as “the greatest atrocity” and the result of a “planned misery”.

This article discusses the sources of the (anti)-Epistemology in the work of the Canadian author Charles Taylor. The starting point of his critique to the representationalist positions that characterize the backgrounds of signifi cance in our culture from the seventeenth century onward, are the works of Hegel, Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Merleau Ponty. According to Taylor, these philosophers have given us resources to confront the image of disengaged agency promoted by naturalistic philosophies, giving us an alternative understanding of the anthropos as an embodied subject, an agent linked to a culture and a way of life.

This article discusses the notion of the anthropos as a «selfinterpretive animal» that characterizes Charles Taylor’s philosophical anthropology. This entails: (1) to provide answers to questions arising from the relation between the generic and the specific of the definition. This means offering an interpretation regarding the continuities and discontinuities between human and nonhuman animals; (2) to develop a hermeneutic and a philosophical history that allow us to establish the perennial and the peculiar of modern anthropos. Finally, (3) to raise ontological arguments that address the challenge of naturalism that still seeks to enclose the meaning or significance in the exclusive realm of subjectivity.

This article explores the critique of the epistemological tradition that Charles Taylor identifies in the works of Hegel, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Merleau-Ponty. These authors point to a conception of reason that is ontologically reduced to its procedural function. By contrast, they offer a situated conception of the subject and an understanding of the human being as radically embedded—as a being-in-the-world, immersed in a culture and a form of life—which stands opposed to the purported disengagement promoted by their counterparts in the debate.

Alasdair MacIntyre’s philosophical project offers a rereading of virtue ethics within the classical tradition that must be interpreted in a revolutionary way, as opposed to a romantic or neoconservative reading. The breakdown of the moral order brought about by the advent of modernity calls for forms of political and economic resistance to the alienating power of liberal capitalism in its globalized stage. According to MacIntyre, among the progeny of modern liberalism we find Nietzsche, who unmasked modern morality as emotivism. However, Nietzsche nonetheless remained part of the modern project of the rational justification of morality. For MacIntyre, the genuine alternative to the modern project is the rearticulation of a virtue ethics rooted in the tradition of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.

According to Charles Taylor we cannot imagine a human life without the ethical orientation of the self. That means that the moral dimension is constitutive of subjectivity. The person can only be understood against the background of strong evaluations. For Taylor, contemporary moral philosophy must begin by redefining the limits of the discipline to include not only the issues of what we ought to do or what is of utility for the majority, but also matters negligently abandoned about what it means to live a good life and what we can expect in suffering and death

This article is about the moral philosophy of Charles Taylor. The Canadian philosopher establishes a constitutive relationship between our ethical horizons and the way in which we make our identity. This construction is performed by means of the narrative activity of agents that shape their moral space in view of the horizons of meaning that guide them in it. Authors such as Paul Ricoeur, Alasdair MacIntyre , and others have defended against the claim of addressing issues of identity through metaphysical analysis as proposed by the analytic tradition originated in the works of John Locke, David Hume to contemporary authors such as Derek Parfit, the need to address it in phenomenological and hermeneutical terms. Finally, we explore the strategies in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition of authors such as Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti and Tsong Khapa, and explore hypothetical implications of their position for the contemporary philosophical debate.

In this article I address the criticism that Charles Taylor performed on Foucault’s genealogical project. The main criticism revolves around Foucault’s insistence on keeping inarticulated the goods that guide his thinking. The critical historical analysis that the French philosopher has given us, seek to answer the question about how we have become who we are. However, these are only plausible if we recognize as a background some notion of good or goods not realized, or repressed that we are now better able to understand.

Drawing on Alasdair MacIntyre’s later work on the relationship between dependence, vulnerability, autonomy, and rationality, as well as the relation between biology and virtue; and on Charles Taylor’s early work concerning the nature of action and his critique of reductionism in psychology and ethics, this article addresses the problem of the ontological indistinction between human animals and humans. The aim is to defend the possibility of establishing a basic notion of the self and of what is one’s own, which would allow us to escape an unintended consequence of modern epistemology in this domain, by rearticulating a description of sentient existence and a mode of ethical understanding that is not anchored in an exclusively human horizon.

In this article, we analyze various aspects of what has come to be called “the crisis of capitalist modernity.” To this end, we address its epistemological, economic, political, and ecological dimensions. All of these aspects are interpreted as part of a deeper ethical–spiritual crisis. This ethical–spiritual crisis is the expression of a civilizational forgetting. We have forgotten that our natural and cultural existence is grounded in a primordial space and a primordial time. Primordial space refers to our mere being-here together, without exclusion. Primordial time refers to hope—our response to the future—which proves to be ontologically inescapable.

In this article, we explore the two poles of the constitution of identity: nature and self-interpretation. We begin with the arguments put forward by Alasdair MacIntyre for a philosophical anthropology rooted in a post-Darwinian philosophy of biology; this is followed by Paul Ricoeur’s emphasis against the analytic philosophy of personal identity and in favor of a conception of the human that takes into account the earthly roots of corporeality; and by the sui generis ecological conception that can be inferred from the notions of language, Lichtung, and the fourfold found in the later works of Martin Heidegger, which resonate with Arne Næss’s deep ecology. On this basis, we analyze the notion of the human being as a self-interpreting animal defended by the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor.

In this article, I address the specific criticisms that Santiago Castro-Gómez directed towards Latin American Liberation Philosophy in the decade of 1990, and the general critiques that Seyla Benhabib directed towards the «claims of cultures» in the political arena, with the purpose to highlight the universalistic potential withing the writings of some of its most representative thinkers, as Enrique Dussel and Juan Carlos Scannone. In order to do this, I analyse the original rhetoric of the movement in light of the historical context of its emergence, and I offer some suggestions for an understanding of the tradition as a potential bearer of a "new starting point" for "another cosmopolitanism".

What sort of animal are human rights? Are they ethical, political or cultural artefacts? In this article, I deal with the question of human rights comparing the interpretation given by those that defend a notion of «normal politics» - engaged exclusively with the prevention of «absolute evil», and those who defend a “politics of imagination” that denounce the ubiquity of systemic evil. Advocates of normal politics of human rights are inspired by a spirit of restoration. The promoters of a politics of imagination, or revolutionary politics, are inspired by the «Principle of Hope».

The question «What are human rights?» ought to be answered not only by defining their entity and their normative relevance, but also by explaining how they have become what they are for us. Human rights are the result of causalities, historical conjunctures and an emerging configuration of cosmological, anthropological and social imaginaries in which they find or lose their meaning. In this regard, the history of human rights is not a subsidiary element for its analysis. History establishes human rights as objects for a theoretical analysis. Human rights do not exist without their history, and the story that we tell about their origin and evolution circumscribes their horizon of meaning. In the present article, I analyze three historiographical models whose perspectives give rise to three competing visions about the past, the present and the future of human rights.

Against Kantian ontology, and idealism in all its forms, Quentin Meillassoux proposes a return to absolute contingency beyond the unknowability imposed by the correlational circle, while Graham Harman, through aesthetics, invites us to recover the dignity of a reality that demands to be treated in an irreducible manner. In the face of the widespread use of new technologies of manipulation and propaganda, which have led to the exacerbation of surveillance and the distortion of truth to the point of its complete inadequacy with respect to reality, turning freedom into a myth, Meillassoux and Harman propose a 'recovery of realism', suggesting an unsubsumable and inappropriate exteriority, but expressed through mathematics and aesthetics. In this context we address the ancestral and metaphor as privileged avenues of philosophy. What political significance such suggestions have is difficult to asses at this stage. Their theoretical consequences are beyond the will of both authors.

In this article, we analyze the intrinsic limits of notions such as “human dignity” and other analogous intercultural concepts in light of the inescapable asymmetry imposed by the inherent rules of inclusion, exclusion, and hierarchy that structure all language. Within this framework, we examine the exceptional status that human dignity occupies with respect to the very concept of human rights. On this basis, we argue that it is imperative to keep distinct the privileges we accord to human animals from the rights we recognize in other nonhuman animals, without thereby arguing to the detriment of the latter. Finally, within the scope of epistemological and linguistic analysis, we acknowledge the paradoxical and inescapable character of human rights, which “violently” impose an order of meaning that, ultimately, appears to be grounded in the exclusive will of the legislator.