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

The aim of the article is to point out the limitations of scientism to account human experience and to affirm the need to apprehend the human being from a comprehensive perspective, which is the way to a perennial intercultural encounter. For this purpose, Charles Taylor's approach is used. First, the conceptual difference between the “natural sciences” and the “social sciences” is clarified. Secondly, the importance of a hermeneutic methodology in the social sciences is stressed to overcome the double risk of ethnocentrism and the relativistic thesis of cultural incorrigibility. Finally, intercultural dialogue is presented as an appropriate way towards a self-criticism of cultures and a broadened understanding between human beings.

In view of Kramer’s theory about paranoid cognition, this paper examines how exaggerated distrust and such cognition produce important negative effects upon social reality. The first section deals with Searle’s theory of social reality, and how it is basically explained in terms of one world of physical particles and groups of intentional agents performing “we” actions. The aim of this section is to show that the “we” actions of collective intentionality allow fundamental social practices, namely, those related to institutions. Looking at trust, cooperation, and collective intentionality, the second section examines in what sense these three elements form the triad of human civilization. Finally, the last section analyses which negative effects exaggerated distrust and Kramer’s paranoid cognition have upon the Searlean social reality: both, which break off cooperative relations and solemn pacts, end up disrupting the triad.

Latin American configurationism is the proposal developed in the late work of Mexican sociologist Enrique de la Garza Toledo. This article proposes a genealogical and archaeological approach to this perspective in three convergent fields. First, as a social theory that proposes the category of subjectivity as a mediation between structure and action. Secondly, as a constructivist epistemology with methodological implications for social research. And finally, as a school in the field of the sociology of work that has resulted in the new Latin American labour studies. The article also proposes moments of tension and lines of prospective based on the theoretical, epistemological and methodological development and the empirical studies promoted by De la Garza.

This article proposes an analysis on the impact of pragmatism in the social sciences. To do this, in this first part of the text, the intersections between pragmatist philosophy and sociology are explored, retracing the different intellectual contexts and the results of these intersections. In this way we try to show the differences between, on the one hand, the close link between pragmatism and sociology in the North American context and, on the other hand, the difficulties, and disagreements of that link in continental Europe. We also pay particular attention to the contemporary movement for the recovery of pragmatism, considering the conditions, opportunities, and challenges that this movement has for the social sciences in Latin America. Finally, we argue that the most productive way to think about the relationship between the pragmatist tradition and the social sciences is in terms of the configuration of an imperative for the development of research work. In these terms we express a type of relationship between philosophy and social sciences that moves away from the classic scheme formulated by epistemology.

In this work, an epistemological approach to social meanings is developed, understood as a central entity that weaves the symbolic composition of reality. To do this, a theoretical and reflective work is deployed with the aim of clarifying the three social meanings established here: social imaginaries, social representations, and discursive re-presentations. At the same time, it seeks to present a taxonomy in planes of meaning, corresponding to the particularities and fields of action of social imaginaries (deep plane), social representations (middle plane of transition) and discursive representations (superficial plane). This epistemic work, which contributes to the conceptual clarification of the three notions discussed, offers theoretical support for future research and a new way of approaching social meanings.

This paper brings forth a theory of complex problems, distinguishing when and why a problem can be said to be complex, and when and why not. A world of non-zero sum, highly intertwined, with multiple sensitivities, with systemic and systematic crises requires a theory of complex systems, which does not exist today. Negatively said, analytical understandings and approaches are insufficient. It is needed, we argue, a synthetic structure regarding problems. Henceforth three axes emerge as referents: mathematical knots theory, theory of computational complexity, and the wicked problems. This paper consists of a synthesis of the three axes, and develops a theory for problems highly intertwined, dynamic, difficult, and with strong implications in various levels and contexts. A fourth section is devoted to the study of how the epistemology of the social sciences can benefit from the theory of complex systems.