Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The following paper examines Tuomela’s explanation of the appearance of basic social facts. In this proposal, the elementary components of a social ontology are due to the “collective intentionality” shared by different actors. Even though Tuomela alludes to language being present in some forms of intentionality in his exhibition, his reconstruction is oriented towards other forms of generating social facts that suppos-edly would not include it. In this writing, it will be argued, on the contrary, that it is not possible to avoid the main mechanism of generation of basic phenomena of sociality in any of its instances. Once language takes its central place as the main mechanism for coordinating action, creator of social groups and guide for a social ontology, many of the distinctions of the intentionalist program lose relevance from an ontological point of view.

Pascal's work is punctuated by a paradox. On the one hand, only a handful of the texts that constitute it are explicitly political; on the other hand, it is haunted by a constant political concern. To resolve this paradox, the paper shows that Pascal incites us to rethink the very definition of politics. Emerging on the basis of a double human nature marked by the Fall, violence is an ontological problem that arises from the need to preserve an infinite object for human love. For this reason, its solution lies in affective self-regulation, which makes politics an exclusively behavioralist field that cannot be a part of the intimacy of individuals who belong to another order. Thus, Pascalian politics does no more than serve the same gesture of the divine creation of the human being that keeps him alive to praise God. Pascalian politics is, then, an indirect way of realizing God’s will: its différance.

This text is a critical review of Katherine Puddifoot's book, How Stereotypes Deceive Us (2021).

Este artículo es disonante con el resto de las colaboraciones que componen este volumen denominado Ciencia, cambio téorico e inconmensurabilidad. Homenaje a Pablo Melogno. Es disonante por varias razones. La primera de ellas es que en este texto no se presentarán discusiones conceptuales o interpretativas aunque puede aludirse a ellas como mojones para dar cuenta de la trayectoria intelectual de Pablo. La segunda razón es que esta colaboración ha sido escrita desde el recuerdo de quién fue durante sus últimos 20 años de vida compañera intelectual, amiga, esposa y madre de su hijo e hijas. Por lo anterior esta contribución no tiene en principio la intención de aportar a la discusión teórica en torno a Thomas Kuhn ni a las diversas disquisiciones interpretativas que su teoría posibilitó y que incluso fueron abordadas por Pablo. Sin embargo, puede ocurrir que encontremos al leer estas páginas elementos que permitan comprender por donde se inició el interés intelectual e identificar el hilo de la madeja argumental que construyó Pablo. Por lo anterior desde ya disculpen si el tono con el que está escrito no es el esperado. Así que lo que leerán de aquí en más es desde el recuerdo amoroso que busca rescatar para nuestra memoria académica y en particular para la memoria familiar los caminos recorridos por Pablo quien tuvo pasiones variopintas entre ellas la filosofía, el fútbol, el heavy metal y la política aunque no siempre en el orden aquí propuesto. También me interesa detenerme un momento en cómo he dado en llamar a esta contribución. De ninguna manera quiero dar a entender con la alusión al hilo de Ariadna que Pablo se encontraba perdido. Nunca estuvo perdido en cuestiones intelectuales o en relación a sus ambiciones académicas. Solo quiero destacar que Thomas Kuhn en particular aunque podría incluir a los problemas de la racionalidad científica en general, pueden concebirse como el hilo conductor de su despliegue académico. Es así que Kuhn se tornó en el hilo que le hizo avanzar, en el hilo que marcó el camino para aventurarse en nuevas lecturas y en la entrada en contacto con referentes de la filosofía de la ciencia como Godfrey Guillaumin, Paul Hoyningen- Huene, Juan Vicente Mayoral por mencionar algunos nombres. Incluso, considero que Kuhn se convirtió para y con Pablo en el factor estratégico en la resolución de problemas vinculados a la inconmensurabilidad, a la racionalidad científica, al cambio teórico entre otros.

In the article “Towards a Genealogy of Thomas Kuhn's Semantics” (2023), Pablo Melogno, along with Leandro Giri, undertakes the task of reconstructing the path followed by Thomas Kuhn in the development of a semantics capable of accounting for scientific change. In particular, the authors examine the connections between the Lowell Lectures of 1951 and the Notre Dame Lectures of 1980, asserting that both respond to the same program of semantic concerns, which supports a continuist reading of Kuhnian thought about semantic issues. The present article seeks to extend this analysis to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), emphasizing the parallels that can be drawn between this work and the Lowell Lectures concerning certain linguistic aspects involved in scientific change through the analysis of the parts concerning this subject matter present in both writings.

This article examines the “experimentalist dogma” in Pablo Melogno’s analysis of empirical incommensurability during the chemical revolution. Melogno argues that preserving experimental methods indicates no significant perceptual differences between Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier. To refine this view, we propose a taxonomy of empirical incommensurability and apply it to the neuronist revolution, focusing on the late 19th–early 20th-century controversy between Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal. We challenge the experimentalist dogma by analyzing debates on dendritic spines and cerebellar stellate cells, showing that shared experimental practices do not ensure perceptual similarity. Instead, we argue that, even under identical experimental conditions, perceptual differences between Golgi and Cajal stem from their commitments to incompatible conceptual schemes.

This work is a critical review of the book Perspectives on Kuhn. Contemporary Approaches to the Philosophy of Thomas Kuhn by Giri, L., Melogno, P., Miguel, H. (2023)

This article aims to carry out a historical, philosophical, and political analysis of Jean-Luc Nancy’s conception of communism. To achieve this end, a series of texts by the author, published between 1986 and 2021, are referenced, where the question of communism is approached in relation to themes such as totalitarianism, community, the common, literature, democracy, and capitalist civilization. The paper investigates the development of Nancy’s approach until it reaches its more or less definitive form in the mid-2000s, within the framework of the debate on “the Idea of communism” (Alain Badiou). The interpretation of Nancy’s position in this international debate leads to the two main contributions of the article. First, the characterization of an ontological or existential understanding of communism radically differs from other current positions and does not have antecedents within communist theoretical traditions. Secondly, the identification of a threshold in Nancy’s thought, and by extension in contemporary thought, where the sense of “communism,” as the demand for granting inestimable value to every existence, communicates with the search for another “spirit” for our time.

Pareyson raises a particular criticism of Jaspers' concept of existential shipwreck, understood as the annihilation of the existing due to its finitude, preceded by a supreme moment of self-awareness and revelation. In contrast to the negativity and guilt that Jaspers assumes as inherent to finitude and, paradoxically, as determinants of freedom, Pareyson interprets existence as a point of revelation of being in history. He does so by replacing the concept of implication between finite and infinite with that of incommensurability. Between an eternal non-relative absolute and a temporal relative finite. On this basis, he builds his concept of person as an “initiated initiative,” that is, a freely chosen and operative agency, preceded by the establishment of an original relationship with the absolute.

The present article explores the concept of truth from the philosophical perspective of Gilles Deleuze, emphasizing its intrinsically social nature. It examines how knowledge is invariably mediated by the social, focusing on three fundamental dimensions: interconnection, difference, and the socio-historical conditions underlying scientific progress. The discussion centers on the intersection of science, truth, and nihilism, addressing the challenges that confront the construction of truth in the contemporary context. It also highlights certain epistemological limits, the possibility of engaging with truth, and the paradox of nihilism—understood not as the destruction of meaning, but as the opening of new possibilities for truth and knowledge. Ultimately, the article argues that the advancement of knowledge is inseparably tied to the specific contexts in which it emerges. The methodology employed combines philosophical analysis and hermeneutics, grounded in a close reading of Deleuzian texts. The objective is to interpret their relevance and applicability in contemporary settings, emphasizing the interrelations between the social and the epistemological.