Juan Manuel Garrido Wainer

This article carries out a systematic exposition of the concept of the body in Jean-Luc Nancy, with all the risks of reduction that such an exposition entails. First it is necessary to return to Western philosophy’s founding text on living corporality, that is, Aristotle’s treatise on the soul. The oppositions that can be established between the Greek thinker’s psyche (soul) and Nancy’s dead Psyche are not so radical as may at first be thought: In both it is a question of thinking the soul as the difference, the retreat or departure in which the exposition of bodies consists. The article continues with an analysis of touch and the self and concludes with an elaboration of the idea of the body within the general program of the deconstruction of Christianity.

The problem of the origin of geometry is crucial for understanding the formation and development of Derrida’s early conception of historicity. Mathematical idealities offer the most powerful example of meanings that are fully transmissible through history. Against Husserl’s explanation of the particular, Derrida considers that the logic and progression of mathematical idealities can only be explained if they are referred to non-intentional and pre-subjective movements of production and development of significations: language itself, which is structured as non-phonetic writing. Historicity is, to Derrida’s eyes, the non-intentional and non-present structure at work in the formation and transmission of meaning. Therefore, pure transmissibility of meaning is an essentially equivocal and creative process. However, Derrida’s analyses fail at understanding the logic of mathematical progression. He explains it by generalizing consciousness’ inner temporality to what he describes as being the “dialecticity” of non-present temporal modes. But the dialecticity of mathematical concepts is not reducible to the dialecticity of temporal modes of experience. We cannot characterize the pre-intentional conditions of historicity if we put into brackets the concrete field in which history becomes factual, i.e. in which meaning and appearing actually historialize: the effective progression of objects.

This article carries out a systematic exposition of the concept of the body in Jean-Luc Nancy, with all the risks of reduction that such an exposition entails. First it is necessary to return to Western philosophy’s founding text on living corporality, that is, Aristotle’s treatise on the soul. The oppositions that can be established between the Greek thinker’s psyche (soul) and Nancy’s dead Psyche are not so radical as may at first be thought: In both it is a question of thinking the soul as the difference, the retreat or departure in which the exposition of bodies consists. The article continues with an analysis of touch and the self and concludes with an elaboration of the idea of the body within the general program of the deconstruction of Christianity.

En el siguiente artículo, me propongo explicar y analizar las que me parecen ser las tesis filosóficas principales del libro de Pablo Oyarzún Entre Celan y Heidegger, así como proponer algunas pistas para reflexionar en torno a problemáticas relevantes que esta obra contribuye a identificar y a formular. Dos son los principales argumentos que elaboro con el fin de llevar a cabo este trabajo. El primero concierne el concepto de "sentido", que Oyarzún intenta desarrollar en tensión con lo que entiende ser la "lectura hermenéutica" de la poesía de Celan , que presupone según él que el poema, como cualquier otra creación de lenguaje, quiere decir algo y por lo tanto es portador de significados accesibles para la comprensión. Frente a eso, Oyarzún opone la inaccesible insignificancia del lenguaje poético, la "pizca" de sentido cuya propiedad fundamental consiste en irrumpir en medio de la circulación y transmisión de sentido y resistir a la comprensión -pero, de ese modo, la posibilita como comprensión, dado que solo lo que la resiste logra ponerla en movimiento. El segundo argumento concierne a la significación del "dolor", que precisamente no ha de poseer ninguna "significación", so pena de ser neutralizado y obliterado como dolor. Solo la absurda crudeza del dolor, a título de acontecimiento traumático que retorna excediendo la identidad temporal de una conciencia colectiva -es la función de la "data" en la poesía de Celan-, puede dar origen a una memoria y a una historia auténticas. This paper seeks to elaborate and analyze the main philosophical import of Pablo Oyarzun's book, Entre Celan y Heidegger. Along the way, I will hint at possibilities for thinking through certain key issues that have been identified and formulated by the author. In doing so, this essay will follow two major lines of argumentation. The first trajectory will consider the concept of "sense" as it is exhibited in Oyarzun's discussion of "hermeneutic readings" of Celan's poetry in particular . According to Oyarzún, hermeneutic readings operate under the assumption that a given poem, like any other linguistic creation, possesses a definite meaning and signifies in a way that is accessible to the understanding. In response, Oyarzún elaborates the inaccessible insignificance at work in poetic language. The primary function of this insignificance can be seen in the way it bursts open the circuit of sense, thereby resisting the understanding -and, as will be seen, only that which resists the understanding can in turn put it into play. The second trajectory will then consider the meaning of "suffering" as something that must be deprived of signification if it is to overcome being neutralized and obliterated. Indeed, only the traumatic event of absurd suffering is tenacious enough to return and exceed the temporal identity of collective consciousness . Finally, I would like to suggest that it is only with suffering that authentic memory and history arise

The traditional way of understanding life, as a self-appropriating and self-organizing process of not ceasing to exist, of taking care of one's own hunger, is challenged by today's unprecedented proliferation of discourses and techniques concerning the living being. This challenge entails questioning the fundamental concepts of metaphysical thinking--namely, time, finality, and, above all, being. Garrido argues that today we are in a position to repeat Nietzsche's assertion that there is no other representation of "being" than that of "living." But in order to carry out this deconstruction of ontology, we need to find new ways of asking: What is life? In this study, Garrido establishes the basic elements of the question concerning life through readings of Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida; through the discussion of scientific breakthroughs in thermodynamics and evolutionary and developmental biology; and through the reexamination of the notion of hunger in both its metaphysical and its political implications.

The philosophical interest in experimental practice in neuroscience has brought renewed attention to the study of the development and use of techniques and tools for data production. John Bickle has argued that the construction and progression of theories in neuroscience are entirely dependent on the development and ingenious use of research tools. In Bickle's account, theory plays a tertiary role, as it depends on what the tools allow researchers to manipulate, and the tools, in turn, are developed not in order to test theories but as solutions to engineering problems. However, Bickle's account is not entirely precise in explaining what informs researchers' decision-making in their atheoretical laboratory tinkering. Identifying the sources that guide researchers in tool development and use is crucial if one wishes to contribute to the philosophical or meta-scientific understanding of experimental practice in neuroscience. In the following paper, I claim that decision-making in tools' development and use in neuroscience is doubly guided. Pre-existing theory and concepts determine information's relevance, whereas tools' functioning in controlled situations determines information's reliability. Accordingly, experimenters' decision-making is situated both in the context of analysing, modelling or interpreting information and in the context of producing information. I study the case of the tungsten microelectrode developed by David Hubel during the 1950s. First, I show that pre-existing theory and concepts determine in advance what information would be relevant to obtain from the microelectrode. Second, I show that Hubel's tinkering follows the guidelines derived from the very structure of what we recognise as reliable experimentally produced information. Finally, I suggest that data-production processes allow experimenters to assess what to expect from an experimental system in terms of concept- and theory-generation and confirmation, thereby endorsing Bickle's tenet on the tertiary role of theory in neuroscience.

Data production in experimental sciences depends on localised experimental systems, but the epistemic properties of data transcend the contingencies of the processes that produce them. Philosophers often believe that experimental systems instantiate but do not produce the epistemic properties of data. In this paper, we argue that experimental systems' local functioning entails intrinsic capacities to produce the epistemic properties of data. We develop this idea by applying Derrida's model of arche-writing to study a case of theory-oriented experimental practice. Derrida's model relativises or dissolves the conceptual distinction between the moment of data production and a subsequent moment of data dissemination. It thus has consequences for understanding both data production (despite being intrinsically local, data production a priori generates transferrable and modellable information) and data dissemination (when modelling information, researchers needs to refer this information to the context of its production). We study a case of data production in a non-exploratory experimental system designed to test a pre-existing hypothesis in visual neuroscience. A case of theory-oriented experimental practice should allow us to identify the autonomous functioning of experimental systems in data production more clearly, insofar as it allows us to study the limits of pre-existing theory in the activities of these systems. We suggest that pre-existing concepts, hypotheses and theories condition the relevance but not the production of experimental data.

En el siguiente artículo, me propongo explicar y analizar las que me parecen ser las tesis filosóficas principales del libro de Pablo Oyarzún Entre Celan y Heidegger, así como proponer algunas pistas para reflexionar en torno a problemáticas relevantes que esta obra contribuye a identificar y a formular. Dos son los principales argumentos que elaboro con el fin de llevar a cabo este trabajo. El primero concierne el concepto de "sentido", que Oyarzún intenta desarrollar en tensión con lo que entiende ser la "lectura hermenéutica" de la poesía de Celan, que presupone según él que el poema, como cualquier otra creación de lenguaje, quiere decir algo y por lo tanto es portador de significados accesibles para la comprensión. Frente a eso, Oyarzún opone la inaccesible insignificancia del lenguaje poético, la "pizca" de sentido cuya propiedad fundamental consiste en irrumpir en medio de la circulación y transmisión de sentido y resistir a la comprensión -pero, de ese modo, la posibilita como comprensión, dado que solo lo que la resiste logra ponerla en movimiento. El segundo argumento concierne a la significación del "dolor", que precisamente no ha de poseer ninguna "significación", so pena de ser neutralizado y obliterado como dolor. Solo la absurda crudeza del dolor, a título de acontecimiento traumático que retorna excediendo la identidad temporal de una conciencia colectiva -es la función de la "data" en la poesía de Celan-, puede dar origen a una memoria y a una historia auténticas. This paper seeks to elaborate and analyze the main philosophical import of Pablo Oyarzun's book, Entre Celan y Heidegger. Along the way, I will hint at possibilities for thinking through certain key issues that have been identified and formulated by the author. In doing so, this essay will follow two major lines of argumentation. The first trajectory will consider the concept of "sense" as it is exhibited in Oyarzun's discussion of "hermeneutic readings" of Celan's poetry in particular. According to Oyarzún, hermeneutic readings operate under the assumption that a given poem, like any other linguistic creation, possesses a definite meaning and signifies in a way that is accessible to the understanding. In response, Oyarzún elaborates the inaccessible insignificance at work in poetic language. The primary function of this insignificance can be seen in the way it bursts open the circuit of sense, thereby resisting the understanding -and, as will be seen, only that which resists the understanding can in turn put it into play. The second trajectory will then consider the meaning of "suffering" as something that must be deprived of signification if it is to overcome being neutralized and obliterated. Indeed, only the traumatic event of absurd suffering is tenacious enough to return and exceed the temporal identity of collective consciousness. Finally, I would like to suggest that it is only with suffering that authentic memory and history arise.