In this paper, the complexity of dialogue in ethical impasses is approached from Wittgenstein’s point of view. With the analogy of language with games, Wittgenstein shows us what it means not to share the same background of implicit rules. In the case of ethical impasses, two points of view with different ethical backgrounds are opposed. However, this does not imply ethical relativism, since the fact that the backgrounds are different does not presuppose that they have nothing in common. Establishing a dialogue requires an “embodied understanding”, that is, seeking similarities by means of explicit figures that are not separated from the implicit.
This paper explores the relationship between justice, the question of who is entitled to economic rights, and the role played by the new economic order that followed the Second World War in America in shaping the structure of public institutions. It highlights that the abstract philosophical discussion around fairness and the design of political institutions emerges at the end of the 20th century as a result of the collapse of the positivist conception regarding who was entitled to enjoy economic privileges linked to citizenship, a conception that contemplated the political endowment of economic privileges on a professional class that was to conform an elite with the task to dynamize each local economy. The disappearance of this consensus has given way to today’s anarchic, and deeply unfair, “gig” economy, an economy that at times resembles very much the scenario the world saw before the war.
In this paper contrasts the use of the expression “mechanisms” to refer to practices or institutions that perpetuate structural injustices against other practices that pursue dem-ocratic effects. Despite the mechanistic terminology they employ, it is argued that Robert Goodin and Adrian Vermeule agree on using a pragmatic approach that emphasizes the agency of individuals, countering functionalist methodological perspectives. In this sense, their work can be aligned with studies on deliberative systems driven by John Parkinson and Jane Mansbridge to explain the development of democracy in complex societies. The purpose is to explore adjustments in those mechanisms to make them more equitable.
Charles S. Peirce was interested on logical machines developed in the late 19th century and discussed whether they could develop the authentic semiotic processes indispensable for deductive reasoning. Is it possible for machines to have a genuine capacity to carry out inferences? In this paper, Peirce's arguments are analyzed, who argued that deduction, in general, cannot be reduced to mechanical factors. To this end, reference will be made to the idea of theorematic reasoning, which is fundamental for mathematical proofs and goes beyond mechanical procedures. The idea of semiosis in Peirce will also be explored, which seems to extend to the organic realm, but not to the artificial inorganic world of machines. Finally, some conclusions will be drawn about Artificial Intelligence from Peirce’s semiotic perspective.
his article explores the influence of Simmel and Pareto on the social theory of J. Freund (1921-1993). Recognized as an interpreter and promoter of the sociology of both authors in the French academic context of the last third of the past century, both play a fundamental role in the construction of his social philosophy, a central part of which is his theory of essences, developed especially in L’essence du politique (1965). However, this influence has not been yet sufficiently studied. This article proposes a preliminary approach, highlighting the presence of both authors in the definition of what I will be described here as Freundian “dialectical interactionism”, his methodological perspective for the study of dynamics and social equilibrium.
