Should we stop talking of race, gender, etc.?

Does rejecting the metaphysical reality of races committees us to “resist a policy of providing support to black-owned businesses, or any other race-based prioritization”, presumably, because we would be committed to reject as false the race-talk behind such measures. 

Social Ontology is Ontology

Social ontology is ontology. This might seem too much a truism to be worth stating, but its consequences are far-reaching. On the one hand, its methodology is completely on a par with other fields of ontology, like the ontology of abstract objects, midsize objects, the mind, etc. The consensual methodology in these fields is to […]

On Moderation

Something my late friend, the philosopher Maite Ezcurdia used to always stress was that extreme positions are always the most stable, while moderate positions are always more attractive, but unstable. What I take this to mean is that extreme positions are more internally coherent, but have contra-intuitive consequences. This means that they show more abstract […]

Ira y Reconciliación

Este martes tuve la oportunidad de escuchar a Diana Rojas hablar sobre su trabajo de investigación sobre emociones políticas colectivas y, en particular, sobre la relación entre ira y reconciliación. Su pregunta central es qué papel juegan, de hecho, las emociones en general, y la ira en particular, en los procesos de reconciliación, especialmente, la […]

A gradualist approach to forgiveness and grudges

The goal:To reconcile the following claims in tension:Forgiveness must be granted, not earned (Jankélévitch, Calhoun)Unconditional forgiveness entails condonation (Murphy, Griswold) Premises:Forgiveness involves the overcoming or extinction of reactive attitudes of sanction (Cazares 2020)Reactive attitudes of sanction [RAS] come in degrees.How much RAS an agent is justified to hold is directly proportional to the severity of […]

Frances Kissling on the Ethics of Philantropical Impact

It is good to ask whether your effort of social change have actually had any impact, i.e., whether some particular action or strategy are effective or we are just waisting our resources. We also want to avoid scam-philanthropical organisations which, unfortunately, are common enough. 

La crítica filosófica de Guillermo Hurtado al malinchismo

Hurtado toma de Foucault la noción de dispositivo para dar cuenta del malinchismo. Tal y como yo lo entiendo, un dispositivo Foucoultiano es una serie de mecanismos que opera sobre lo simbólico para generar y/o mantener un orden de dominio por medio del control de aspectos de nuestra subjetividad. Dar el diagnóstico de un diapositivo implica, […]

Edouard Machery and the non-coming scientific revolution

This morning I had the chance to hear an interview with philosopher of science Edouard Machery at Stanford University‘s new Psychology podcast on his 2020 paper “What Is a Replication?” and his forthcoming book. There, Machery talked, among other topics, on how science has become so reticent to changes, despite overwhelming evidence that change is […]

The Ethics of Praise

Thanks to the LATAM Free Will Project I just had he chance to attend a very interesting workshop on The Ethics of Praise. It started with a talk by Andrea Vial on the amazing work she has been doing on the relation between praise and stereotypes. In particular, she gave empirical evidence that, for example, […]