Due to the proximity of certain strands of constructionism to postmodernism, the term has been associated with idealistic positions and absolute relativism in the conceptualization of social reality. As the objectives of this article are linked to the discussion of three main axes-the definition of reality, the analysis of ideology, and the rejection of absolute relativism-it is argued that critical constructionism distances itself from idealism and relativism by conceiving social reality as the result of human action, mediated by language and social practices. Rejecting idealism, reductionist physicalism, and fatalism as expressions of essentialism, critical constructionism formulates an ontology of social reality based on contingency and human agency, emphasizing the role of the symbolic and the ideological in the sedimentation of historical and cultural arrangements. Likewise, it rejects ontological and moral relativism, according to which understanding reality as a construct would imply the irrefutable legitimacy of any construction. On the contrary, it affirms the conventional and arbitrary nature of institutions and shows that social orders can incorporate forms of domination, oppression, and exclusion that must be criticized and overcome.
In a media environment saturated with images and marked by armed conflicts that produce mass population displacements, it is crucial to examine the role that war images play in shaping empathy. From the perspective of embodied cognition and through phenomenological analysis, this article argues that such images do not operate solely as informative representations, but as tools that affect the lived experience of the viewer and activate perceptual, affective, and practical schemas. The text articulates three levels of analysis: a phenomenology of the image, an overview of the phenomenology of empathy, and an examination of social interactions in contexts of extreme crisis. Based on this framework, it is argued that image-mediated empathy is grounded in shared bodily vulnerability and in processes of intersubjective synchronization that precede rational inference. This theoretical reflection is complemented by direct experiences of interaction and reception of refugees and people displaced by war, which allow us to observe how, in the face of the breakdown of the usual social scripts, practices of caring for others emerge based on embodied interactions and daily rituals.
This proposal aims to shed light on a recently described problematic dimension in the field of trauma studies, namely, the absence of an explicit ethical position consistent with the demands arising from the field of research itself. The bibliographical research has shown that until now this need has been addressed through Levinasian ethics; however, it is necessary to carefully examine this option given the possible theoretical incommensurability between Levinas's ideas and the conceptual bases of trauma studies, which are based on theoretical foundations of a psychoanalytic nature, such as the concept of trauma itself. Given this possible theoretical incompatibility, the possibility of considering a proposal on ethics from the field of psychoanalysis itself is proposed, such as that formulated by Lacan, which could help resolve the conceptual incommensurability between an ethics inspired by Levinas and the theoretical foundations that support Trauma studies.
This essay advances an innovative perspective on war by defining it not as an extension of individual aggressiveness but as public intergroup violence, the product of collective intelligence and force. War is qualitatively distinct from interpersonal conflicts, since it presupposes technical and symbolic organization, shared memory and ideology, strategic coordination, and political legitimation. Thus, the naturalization of war and peace, through theodicies or anthropologies, is rejected, and its historical-cultural contingency is emphasized, as an epigenetic and technical process of human sociality. By constructing a differentiated typology of violence (intergroup, interpersonal, hybrid, unilateral, pseudo-warlike), the essay offers a new philosophical taxonomy that clarifies the specific sense of war as a motivated, collective, and contingent phenomenon. Peace, in turn, emerges as an anthropological and juridical possibility rooted in civic self-critique, political deliberation, and cooperative capabilities. The original contribution lies in articulating the philosophy of war with cosmopolitan ethics and law, thus providing a conceptual reconstruction of the borders and relationships between violence, war, and peace.
This paper contends that silence in piano music is not just an acoustic nothingness, but an active aesthetic power, which, in turn, actively creates musical meaning. It responds to the question of why silence works as a structural, expressive and perceptual medium, by analysing the concept of empty space in piano music through the context of Chinese philosophical aesthetics. Based on the Daoist notions of you-wu ((sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)) and da yin xi sheng ((sic)(sic)(sic) (sic)), along with the aesthetic principles of liu bai ((sic)(sic)), jing((sic)) and qi yu ((sic)(sic)), the paper will create an integrated philosophical system, in which you emptiness functions as an active medium instead of passive nothingness. The paper utilizes two chosen pieces of piano work and the performance practices through close philosophical-interpretive examination to show the ways in which pauses, resonance decay and registral openness can create structural clarity, expressive tension and increased perceptual awareness. This paper expands upon existing philosophical discussions of musical silence, extending beyond Western theoretical paradigms by treating silence as an analytically functional and conceptually productive constituent, which offers a non-Western conceptual approach to explaining musical silence.
This article addresses John Holloway's thought regarding the potentiality of social transformation based on can-do options that constitute fissures in the capitalist mode of production. It explores theoretical possibilities based on Karl Marx's thought that elevate this everyday power-to-do to the level of persistent struggle against the denial of life in accordance with the reproduction of capital. The praxis that materialist dialectics deals with gives John Holloway's contemporary thought the substance of the radical materiality of this disruptive power-to-do, in favor of the process of permanent overcoming of capitalism. The "Scream" is the beginning and, at the same time, the very fissure capable of multiplying the struggles of social agents. An approach is proposed here that, within the limits, offers materiality and objectivity to the disruptive subjectivities in struggle, at the base of contemporary labor transformations, in which the social labor time available for the disposition of these struggles is expanded.
This essay interrogates the modern notion of philosophy from the perspective of enslavement, proposing an exercise in political imagination of the African diaspora, that is, an action in which revisiting the past marks a repetition within enslaved territories that surpasses expectations of appeasement. Thus, I emphasize the need for a philosophical method that takes anti-Blackness into account. Initially, the abstract idea of humanity and its regulation of human groups is questioned. This is followed by an engagement with the figure of the "ghost" as a signifier of a past time that animates the present by accentuating contemporary systems of exclusion. In the second part, I delve into the term "embodiment" to precisely affirm how bodies forgotten by modernity, when presenting themselves as protagonists of their own epistemes, reshape the very notion of philosophy in connection with diasporic cultural elements. These two movements aim to respond to Saidiya Hartman's question: "To what end is the ghost of slavery conjured up?" Thus, this essay seeks to evoke how narratives of slavery not only reveal a distant past but also show how, as heirs to a history of violence, we are entangled in a web of interrupted knowledge.
Domain-general dual-process theories assume the existence of two types of cognitive processing: intuitive System 1 and reasoned System 2. These theories were introduced not only in logic and economics, but also in moral psychology. A clear example is the "social intuitionist model" proposed by Jonathan Haidt, which assumes that moral judgments are not caused by moral reasoning, but by moral intuitions. Since social intuitionism presents a System 2 subordinate to System 1, it raises the problem of identifying what the cognitive component regulating moral decisions and behaviors would be. In his studies on logical reasoning, social psychologist Olivier Houd & eacute; postulates the existence of a metacognitive System 3, correlated at the neuroanatomical level with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, capable of inhibiting System 1 to enable System 2. This article analyzes the possibility of resolving the challenge of social intuitionism in the field of moral psychology, in light of System 3 proposed by Houd & eacute;.
This study aims to examine the criticism of linguistics made by Mikhail Bakhtin in his book Aesthetics of Verbal Creation and Jacques Derrida, with his work Of Grammatology and Jacques Derrida, with a view to proposing a confrontation of thought of these two philosophers and the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure on aspects such as meaning, the primacy of sound in the sign, and the supposed stability of meaning. Although both philosophers have different approaches to questioning the science of language, with regard to Derrida's trace and differance, and Bakhtin's dialogic echoes of statements and discursive genres, there seems to be a intellectual convergence in these two figures of 20th-century philosophy.
The article approaches the distinction proposed by Brentano between primary and secondary objects of mental acts, proposing the distinction between primary and secondary presentations (corresponding to those both kinds of objects). The relation between (primary and secondary) presentations, on the one hand, and the primary object, on the other, is discussed. After an exposition of the concepts of presentation (section 2) and object (section 3) employed by Brentano, is discussed his argument for the fusion of (primary and secondary) presentations (section 4). After that, are discussed the problems of the multiplication of objects (section 5) and of the evidences of inner experience against this multiplication (section 6). Finally, is discussed the content of secondary presentations (section 7). I conclude that the secondary presentation presents the primary presentation in a merely incidental or peripheral way, maintaining an equally peripheral relation with the primary object (section 8).
Artificial intelligence (AI) models have demonstrated a growing capacity to generate results that approximate human thought, leading us to revisit Alan Turing's now-classic question: "Can machines think?". This article examines the relationships between the operation of AI models and the conceptions of knowledge deemed valid by the Western episteme, which are grounded in what Martin Heidegger referred to as "calculative thinking". This reflection leads to a provocation that, to a certain extent, seeks to reverse the English mathematician's question: rather than suggesting that AI models are approaching human modes of thought, haven't we, since the primacy of reason in ancient Greek philosophy, shaped our ways of thinking in the West in a manner analogous to the way AI algorithms operate? Against the grain of the privilege of calculation, Heidegger then presents the alternative of "meditative thought", characterized by openness to the enigmatic, the unpredictable and the non-calculable.
This paper intends to undertake an analysis that goes beyond the mere definitions of good and bad taste, as well as of "high" art to the detriment of "pop" or "mainstream" art, in addition to other current prejudices, such as popular culture, erudite culture, original art, inauthentic art, etc. We adopt three main guides for this study: Abraham Moles' and Umberto Eco's considerations about entertainment and futile pleasure, Merleau-Ponty's concern about the lack of a language and the consequences of technical reproducibility and the loss of artistic aura according to Walter Benjamin. Our critical point of view is directed at kitsch and its analogous manifestations as typical characteristics of a market society, under a capitalist regime that appropriates even art.
This article draws a conception of information from process ontology and, in doing so, explores the relationship between metaphysics and information. Adopting an analytical approach, we discuss the notions of mathematical, algorithmic, and semantic information, as integrated within Losee's perspective of information from processes. Following a critique of such conception, we propose a three-dimensional metaphysics of information, composed of pragmatic semantics, onto-epistemology, and process ontology. This article's contribution consists of demonstrating that conceiving processes information directly from a process ontology complements the general conceptual framework of information metaphysics.
Qu Yuan's Li Sao is commonly interpreted as an expression of political grievance, emotional lament, or symbolic aestheticization of suffering. This paper challenges these approaches and argues that Li Sao articulates a philosophical model in which exile functions as the necessary condition for the formation of ethical subjectivity. Rather than treating exile as a biographical consequence of failed politics, the paper contends that exile in Li Sao structures moral testing, self-judgment and ethical reorientation. Drawing on distinct yet complementary resources from Confucianism, Daoism and the I Ching, the paper shows how spatial, cultural and spiritual displacement generate ethical agency and self-cultivation. The symbolic images of fragrant herbs, the fair lady, and the long road are interpreted as inferential sites in which exile compels decision, evaluation and transformation. The paper concludes that Li Sao advances a defensible philosophical proposition: ethical subjectivity in early Chinese thought emerges through a triadic process of struggle, transformation and ethical generation. This view provides a citable perspective on the genesis of moral agency in Chinese philosophy and clarifies why exile is not merely literary theme, but a normative structure of ethical life.
This paper delves into the age old philosophical debate between virtue and law within Chinese political philosophy and the development of the theory of Dynamic Political Ethics, a three countenance framework that incorporates moral legitimacy (Confucian Ren), institutional legitimacy (Legalist Fa), a three return tenon, which lies under the foundational learning of the Chinese classical philosophy of Confucianism (Ren as moral legitimacy), Legalism (Fa as institutional legitimacy) and Taoism (Dao as natural harmony). This paper, in fact, discusses the moot question: can political happiness be obtained by moral virtue, by institutional law, or by their dynamic equilibrium? The aim of this paper is to claim that neither the prevalence of one principle, nor that of the other, is a sufficient condition of political well-being, but rather the application of the two to each other in a dialectics, namely, in such a way that the loss of either leads to the recovery of the other: when the morality is loseness, law restores order; when law is rigidity, virtue restores humanity; when they both are lost, Dao restores harmony. This paper demonstrates how these traditions oppose, complement and integrate through a problem-based and dialogical methodology to create an ethical paradigm applicable to contemporary governance. In addition to its historical background, this framework presents theory, practical recommendations for the people's governance, the rule of law and ecological civilization, and it presents a philosophical way to attain just, moral and sustainable political happiness.
Addressing the limitations of Western linear narrative frameworks in interpreting Chinese-language films, this paper proposes a cinematic temporal ontology based on Daoist philosophy. This ontology transforms "generative", "cyclical" and "harmonious" aspects into "relational generation" (constructing temporal dynamics through non-causal interactions), "rhythmic breathing" (creating non-uniform temporal pulsations through sound and image rhythms) and "field interaction" (achieving coexistence of characters and space through depth-of-field manipulation and ambient sound). Through a close examination of the decreasing shot lengths and synchronized shifts in color and soundscape in In the Mood for Love, and the breathing structure created by long takes and empty shots in The Assassin, this paper demonstrates how the Daoist concept of time, as an operational narrative force, achieves its non-linear self-manifestation in film, providing a new path for global film theory to shift from formal description to ontological reconstruction.
Starting from the theory of comprehensive human development by Marx and dialectical synthesis with the quintessence of traditional Chinese philosophy, that is, the yinyang doctrine and the Doctrine of the Mean, this essay tries to carefully interpret the kind of complementary relationship that Laozi views between work and rest. Based on this, people can gain balance and keep moderation in everything they do. The Dao follows nature, and the sky follows Dao. This phrase will give us some insights about the philosophy behind leisure culture. As culture is defined as the activity and outcome of humanizing nature, the intrinsic content of constructing leisure culture can be made clearer. Adopting a complex view of the combination of Marxism and Eastern wisdom, this research, together with an analysis of the development of the labor-leisure relationship in Chinese society, tries to build up an adequate theoretical framework of leisure culture, so that people can develop in both the material realm and the spiritual one and, fully, realize the holistic human development in a Marxian sense.
This article argues that transportation practices in late Qing China embody a form of normative practical rationality grounded in Heaven-human ethical order, rather than a residual or premodern mode of thought. Against Western instrumental rationality as an evaluative framework, this study adopts a practical philosophical approach grounded in praxis and phronesis to reassess how everyday mobility was ethically constituted. Rather than treating transportation as a technical object of efficiency, it identifies the normative premises through which ethical legitimacy was historically constituted. Manifested in late Qing transport practices, the ethics of Heaven-human unity is shown as a form of practical rationality embedded in social order and moral judgment rather than metaphysical abstraction. From this standpoint, Western efficiency-based rationality lacks normative legitimacy as a universal evaluative standard. Through analysis of Western critiques of roads, mobility and infrastructure, this article establishes a philosophical adjudication among rationalities, affirming Heaven-human ethics as a complete and autonomous form of practical rationality rather than a culturally bounded belief system.
This article advances an ontological interpretation of light in the Taiyi Jinhua Zongzhi (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), arguing that its discourse on luminosity articulates a coherent Daoist metaphysical framework rather than a psychological or purely symbolic model of inner experience. It demonstrates that the text distinguishes xingguang (sic)(sic) (innate light), as the ontological Dao, from shiguang (sic)(sic) (cognitive light), which obscures this primordial luminosity, and prescribes huiguang (sic)(sic) (turning the light inward) as the disciplined path of return. Against prevailing symbolic and psychological readings, this distinction is shown to function as an internally articulated ontological structure rather than a metaphorical taxonomy of experience. Through close textual analysis, the article elucidates a triadic framework of light as ontology, method and visionary confirmation. It concludes that the Taiyi Jinhua Zongzhi presents a distinctively Daoist model of light-centered cultivation, contributing to Daoist metaphysics and to broader debates on non-dual ontology and contemplative practice.
This paper traces the phenomenological debate on intersubjectivity from Husserl's and Stein's original accounts of empathy to Jean-Luc Marion's turn toward donation. After outlining how Husserl's analogical apperception undergirds shared objectivity, the study reviews the critiques of Levinas and Sartre, who argue that otherness exceeds egoic constitution and demands an asymmetric ethical relation. Marion radicalizes this insight by portraying the other's face as a saturated phenomenon whose overabundance renders the subject an adonated recipient of an unsolicited gift. This conceptual shift relocates community from cognitive consensus to an economy of hospitality, where responsibility arises from fidelity to the other's excess. The essay concludes that the phenomenology of donation not only supplements the limits of classical empathy but also provides a framework for rethinking politics, justice, and anthropology considering the constitutive vulnerability of human existence.
