Littera Scripta. Revista de Filosofía es una publicación afiliada al Departamento de Humanidades de la Universidad Andrés Bello, Chile, cuya fundación fue el año 2020. El propósito de nuestra publicación es, fundamentalmente, contribuir en la apertura de nuevos espacios de divulgación académica tanto nacional como internacional que permitan promover y consolidar las investigaciones de académicas(os) e investigadoras(es) de filosofía.
Universidad Andrés Bello. Facultad de Educación y Ciencias Sociales. Departamente de Humanidades
Ursula K. Le Guin. El nombre del mundo es bosque. Traducido por Matilde Horne. Minotauro, 2023. ISBN: 978-84-450-1457-8
Copyright (c) 2025 Felipe Sepúlveda Barrios https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Counterpart Theory and Quantified Modal Logic
Traducción del inglés de Esteban Echaniz Publicado originalmente el 7 de marzo de 1968 en The Journal of Philosophy, LXV(5), 113-126.
Copyright (c) 2025 David Kellog Lewis; Esteban Echaniz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The dispensability problem of idealizations regarding the understanding of physical phenomena
The debate about scientific understanding has been relevant in the literature of philosophy of science in the last few years. The debate arises over the basis of the received view of understanding that proposes that understanding is a kind of knowledge (Khalifa, 2017, p. 154). In this context, the problem of felicitous falsehoods is presented: inaccurate misrepresentations whose inaccuracy does not abate their epistemic function to understanding phenomena (Elgin, 2017, p. 3). Scientific practice uses idealizations to understand complex phenomena; hence, they are necessary to study the target phenomenon. Nonetheless, there are some proposals in the literature that hold that, despite this, our understanding is factive. Therefore, idealizations are problematic since understanding cannot be based on misrepresentations if understanding is a kind of knowledge. In this paper, I present three factivist replies to the problem regarding the use of idealizations. Nevertheless, these replies assume the dispensability of idealization, a problematic trait since there are cases in which the idealization involved is indispensable to understanding the phenomenon. I employ, as an example, the case of the Nuclear Shell Model used to explain the stability of magic numbers. Factivist replies reduce the idealizations' role to mere convenience; however, the NSM’s idealization cannot be reduced in that way since it is required to understand the phenomenon. The paper aims to expose the problem of assuming a priori the idealizations' dispensability, ignoring their contribution and permeability in that way.
Copyright (c) 2025 Nibaldo Lorca Améstica https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Alterity versus Coexistence in the Early Work of Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty
This paper examines the possibility of coexistence (Mitsein) within the framework of Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy in Being and Nothingness, engaging in a critical dialogue with the Merleau-Pontian interpretation that denies such a possibility. The research revolves around a central question: Is the fundamental relation with the other an experience of alterity or of coexistence? Against Merleau-Ponty’s thesis—which posits coexistence as an originary phenomenon and reduces the Sartrean perspective to a secondary fact—we argue that Sartre integrates the communal dimension without abandoning the ontological primacy of alterity. To this end, three conceptual axes are examined: (1) the structural function of the look in the constitution of being-for-others; (2) Merleau-Ponty’s critique, which privileges a background of coexistence over alterity; and (3) Sartre’s notion of the “we-subject” as a psychological experience of community. In this way, we show that Sartre does indeed offer a theory of coexistence, though conceived as a fragile and secondary phenomenon. This allows us to reconsider the Sartre/Merleau-Ponty opposition not as a simple incompatibility, but as two antagonistic responses to the same question: Is alterity or coexistence the originary condition of my encounter with the other?
Copyright (c) 2025 Francisca Hill Grez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Micropolitics: A Concatenation of Dispositifs
The configuration of the concept of ‘micropolitics’ in the work of Argentine psychiatrist Marcelo Pakman is fundamental to understanding his thesis, according to which it is constituted as a concatenation of dispositifs in the sense proposed by Foucault. This is of vital importance when it comes to clarifying both the philosophical lineage of the concept and its psychotherapeutic implications. Thus, it will be understood that the subject is the product of micropolitical influence while simultaneously reproducing that influence in a recursive circular movement, understood as an organized process. All of this will demonstrate that the subject is also an active agent in the constitution of micropolitics. Thus, the presentation will begin with a brief introduction to the concept of micropolitics, along with its four constitutive moments, namely: social imaginary, knowledge, power, and subject. Then, the concept of dispositifs will be explained, and finally, the micropolitical constitution of subjectivity will be presented as a recursive process.
Copyright (c) 2025 Gonzalo Andrés Correa Rivera https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Contemporary literature has highlighted various shortcomings that liberalism—in its specifically philosophical formulation—suffers from when attempting to understand its own exceptional status as a historically situated reality within modernity. Added to this is the fact that the self-understanding professed by the liberal community –i.e., the reconstruction of the tradition that is said to have shaped it over the past centuries- is deeply affected by a kind of selective memory or historical myopia. However, none of these critiques seem particularly useful for an approach that aims to be normative—that is, for an assessment that seeks to philosophically evaluate the credentials of liberalism as a justification for our so-called “liberal” institutions. If we wish to undertake such an assessment, we must connect the acknowledgment of the anomalies within liberal historical consciousness to a philosophical argument of deeper scope. In this sense, the aim of this paper is twofold: (i) to present both deficiencies as “symptoms of the same illness,” namely, the lack of historical consciousness that is constitutive of liberalism, and (ii) to suggest that both deficiencies (and, along with them, liberal anti-historicism) can be challenged—from a strictly philosophical standpoint—if we contextualize them within the framework of so-called Ideologiekritik, a philosophical “program” that possesses the minimal resources required to outline a normative critique of liberalism, understood, in this case, as an ideology.
Copyright (c) 2025 Juan Andrés Vargas Cartajena https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Jordi Maiso. Desde la vida dañada. La teoría crítica de Theodor W. Adorno. Madrid: Siglo XXI de España Editores, 2022. ISBN: 978-84-323-2040-8
Copyright (c) 2025 Andrés Romero Pérez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Traducción del francés de Jorge Acevedo Guerra Publicado originalmente en: Fédier, F. (1995b). Regarder Voir. Les Belles Lettres / Archimbaud.
Copyright (c) 2025 François Fédier; Jorge Acevedo Guerra https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Philautía, Self-Love, and Self-Help in Contemporary Times: Self-Love Is Not Love
The study examines the evolution of the concept of self-love in contemporary society, contrasting it with the perspectives of Aristotle and Jean-Luc Marion. Aristotle distinguishes between a virtuous self-love, aligned with virtue and the common good, and a vicious one, marked by selfishness. Marion, on the other hand, offers a radical contrast, viewing love as a saturated phenomenon that transcends the subject and is oriented towards otherness, challenging the notion of self-referential or self-love. The article highlights how modern narratives, influenced by positive psychology and self-help culture, have transformed selflove into a tool for self-satisfaction, disconnected from its ethical and communal dimension, which in turn affects human relationships and social cohesion. The research uses a hermeneutic exegetical approach to explore how both philosophical frameworks can contribute to a deeper understanding of self-love, emphasizing the need to reevaluate this concept in the context of current social dynamics.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ignacio Alarcón, Francisco Novoa-Rojas https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Kant’s spatialization of time. A bergsonian perspective
The criticism that Bergson addresses to Kant is well known, even if only superficially: Kant “spatialized” time, understood it in terms of space losing sight of real time, “durée”. Sadly, as if the validity of his criticism were self-evident, or as if its comprobation were left as some sort of exercise for the reader, Bergson never wrote a rigorous study of the Critique of Pure Reason. The only way to carry out such a comprobation must consist in an analysis of Kant’s text. Is the first Critic really guilty of “spatializing” time? If so, how and why does it do it? And what are the repercussions that stem from it? To answer these questions it turns necessary to read the Transcendental Aesthetic and Analytic from a Bergsonian perspective in an attempt to discover just to what extent -taking into account the arguments of Kant himself- the criticism of Bergson holds true.
Copyright (c) 2025 Juan Negrete Castañeda https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Reflexivity and Self-Knowledge in Aristotle
From ancient times to the present day, self-knowledge has been understood on the basis of a particular model of reflexivity that goes back to Aristotle’s description of the type of activity that divinity essentially carries out. However, little attention has been paid to the fact that the self-knowledge that corresponds to God is not extended, due to the self-referentiality that it involves, to human beings. Therefore, I will defend the thesis that, at least within the context of Aristotle’s philosophy, it is possible to find another model of self-knowledge that better fits the heteroreferential nature of human cognition. To that end, I will begin with some introductory considerations on the forms of reflexivity involved in each case. I will then analyze the central passages of Metaphysics and De anima in which Aristotle characterizes the kind of intellection that is proper to the being that is the object of theology as one based on the relation of identity, and then contrast them with various statements in his Ethics where otherness is highlighted as the distinctive note of human cognitive acts. From this, I will conclude by distinguishing two senses in which self-knowledge can be understood in Aristotle: either as “intellective self-knowledge” or as “relational self-knowledge”.
Copyright (c) 2025 Luciano Garófalo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Epistemology and Relativism in Wittgenstein: A Reading of On Certainty
In the literature concerning Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, there has been extensive debate on whether his ideas endorse epistemic relativism. For this reason, it is necessary to examine to what extent his work, particularly On Certainty, upholds a relativistic stance, defined by the dependency of beliefs and their justification on a specific epistemic system. Through a review of his theses on justification, epistemic systems, and hinge beliefs, it is argued that Wittgenstein rejects absolute foundationalism and, although he acknowledges the variability and dependency of systems, does not subscribe to an equivalence between them. Ultimately, the text concludes that Wittgenstein offers a moderate epistemic relativism that dismisses the possibility of rationally resolving disagreements between incompatible systems. Nevertheless, his anti-foundationalism does not lead to radical skepticism; rather, it clarifies the effective operation of our epistemic practices, suggesting that beliefs can be justified within their own context without the need for universal validation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Sebastián Nicolás Vargas Rodríguez, Gabriel Ignacio Salas Candia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Copyright (c) 2024 Francisco Castro; Dr. Kenneth A. Taylor https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Descartes’ Demon–More Powerful and Virtuous than God?
Copyright (c) 2024 Leandro Abel Cuellar; Dr. Joshua Hall https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The issue of space and the city in Akira by Katsuhiro Ôtomo
Copyright (c) 2024 Franco Casoni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Theo(geo)logy. Planetary historicity and natural antiquities in the Baroque
The article aims to problematize the relationship between theology and geology in the speculative natural philosophy of the seventeenth century. In particular, the article investigates the philosophical impact of the emergence of the deep time of the Earth and the appearance of material ruins –fossils– that transformed the way of conceiving planetary historicity. Therefore, one of the contributions consists of showing how the geological revolution that took place in the Baroque transformed the metaphysics of human time by modifying the terrestrial scales: a change from thousands of years according to the biblical theory of time to billions of years from the emergence of geology. The conjecture being tested is the epistemological continuity between theology and natural science in the Seventeenth Century, as some theologians and philosophers chose as a philosophical enterprise to explain empirically some assumptions of Christian Theology, whose ultimate aim is to prove how God proceeds according to natural causes. The novelty of the article, then, is to explain the emergence of geology from the philosophical theories and theological arguments of some baroque thinkers, in particular the Anglican theologian Thomas Brunet and the German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher.
Copyright (c) 2024 Ángel Octavio Álvarez Solis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Organic Society and degenerative inheritance in the Naturalism of Émile Zola
In the nineteenth century, the naturalism literature relied on medical physiology and topographical treatises to produce a discourse on the physical and cultural degeneration of society. One of the novelists who best explained the degenerative discourse in his literary corpus was Emile Zola; however, one of the hermeneutic problems underlying the French novelist's work is that there is no strict separation between the literary text, social medicine and the use of biological metaphors. A problem that Gilles Deleuze managed to detect through the concept of the “crevices”, but which does not explain how it is possible to think about deviant behavior without resorting to Freudian notions of the death instinct. For this reason, the main contribution of the article is an explanation of the concept of degenerative heritability without resorting to Freudian psychoanalysis and, on the contrary, to make explicit the scientific theories that support the concept of degeneration assumed in the naturalistic composition.
Copyright (c) 2024 Ingrid Sánchez Téllez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The transcendental necessity of the body. The second theorem (§3) in Fichte’s natural rights
The aim of this research is to return to the now famous second theorem that Fichte expounds in his Foundations of Natural Right of 1796, specifically to how exhortation is introduced as the foundation of intersubjectivity. According to certain positions, such as Honneth's, the doctrine of exhortation would fail to justify intersubjective relations as a transcendental condition for the constitution of self-consciousness. Because of this, it seems difficult to situate Fichte as the progenitor of the intersubjectivist tradition. However, it will be argued that this argument can be salvaged if 1) one reevaluates Fichte's transcendental method as distinct from that expounded by Kant, 2) one shows that in fact the second theorem resolves a contradiction put by Fichte in the first two paragraphs, and 3) if one completes the argument of the exhortation with the development made of corporeality in the second part of the treatise. With this, it will be possible to realize that the argument of the exhortation manages to be completed through the pre-reflective recognition of a human figure (Menschliche Gestalt) that Fichte puts as a transcendental condition of the recognition of a rational being.
Copyright (c) 2024 Feyie Ferrán Pizarro https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The algebraic theory of propositions and belief reports
Intensional contexts are those contexts in which the principle of substitution of co-referential terms salva veritate fails. A particular case within these contexts are reports of propositional attitudes, that is, contexts in which relations expressed by transitive intensional verbs (“believes”, “doubts”) link an agent and a proposition. Traditional conceptions that reduce propositions to possible worlds have failed to account for these contexts because they posit coarse grained identity conditions. This has been one of the motivations for the formulation of algebraic theories of properties, relations and propositions. The objective of this work is to explain how this theory accounts for these failures. According to these conceptions, propositions are 0-adic properties that appear as elements within intensional algebraic systems. The identity conditions of propositions are determined by their constituents and the structure imposed by algebraic operations. It is argued that algebraic theories cannot accommodate belief reports by appealing only the structures of propositions, so it is necessary to complement the theory with modes of presentation.
Copyright (c) 2024 Felipe Carrasco Figueroa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Ortega y Gasset. Acerca de nuestro tiempo
Copyright (c) 2024 Jorge Acevedo Guerra https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Traducción del inglés de Natalia Sohee Chung Park https://orcid.org/0009-0006-9188-210X Este trabajo reciente de David Papineau retoma el proyecto de la exacta relación entre las correlaciones estadísticas y la causalidad desde un análisis a posteriori acerca de naturaleza de la causalidad. Da cuenta del comportamiento estadístico de la causalidad y propone un enfoque y método reduccionista nuevo para abordar la causalidad, entre sus ventajas, la capacidad de responder acerca de la asimetría temporal entre causa y efecto, explicar la discrepancia entre causalidad y causalidad caso–particular (singular–case causation), y entre otros problemas que típicamente se enfrentan los enfoques y métodos tradicionales de inferencias causales o modelamiento de estructuras determinísticas causales. La importancia de este trabajo filosófico radica en la continuación del proyecto del uso de ecuaciones estructurales determinísticas para hacer inferencias causales, su clara y rigurosa metodología, su aplicación a casos relevantes para explicar más acabadamente su teoría causal (uno de los casos siendo el de las correlaciones EPR), y su novedoso aporte a la estadística y a la metafísica de la causalidad. Este artículo fue publicado originalmente en: David Papineau, The Statistical Nature of Causation, The Monist, Volume 105, Issue 2, April 2022, Pages 247–275, https://doi.org/10.1093/monist/onab034
Copyright (c) 2024 David Papineau https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Some considerations on the relationship between the Elements of the Philosophy of Law and The Science of Logic. An approach from Slavoj Žižek
While contemporary interpreters of Hegel have generally made significant efforts to distance themselves from the metaphysical aspects of his work, this separation appears incongruent with the understanding provided by the author himself, beyond the explanatory value that such distancing may lend. On the contrary, considering the effective relationship between the Elements of the Philosophy of Law and The Science of Logic, the development of the concept and its implications for the concept of law can only be adequately understood through a joint reading of both works. In this sense, a radical perspective on the consequences of Hegel’s thought is offered by Žižek, who sees the philosopher from Stuttgart as a continuation of the Kantian critical project but taken to its ultimate conclusions. This interpretation has a series of consequences for understanding Hegel’s legal thought that not only allows for a restricted view to the author’s era but also enables an approach to the legal matters in our time.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sebastián Vera Briones https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
An analysis of the possible reasons why Kant develops in detail the gratuitous contracts, in comparison to other kinds of contracts, in his work The Metaphysics of Morals, requires examining the Kantian distinction between private law and public law, under whose considerations different conclusions are opposed. In this respect, on the basis of the notion of contract and its place in the system of the Doctrine of Right, Kant’s careful treatment of gratuitous contracts of donation and lending is due to the legal problems that arise, in the first case, when there is a temporal discrepancy between the promise to donate and the giving of the thing donated, in the interim of which there is a retract of the promisor, and, in the second case, when the thing lent suffers damage at the hands of the bailee (in lending agreement). These problems seem to refer, in the last instance, to the ancient discussion that has arisen among jurists with respect to the cause of gratuitous contracts. Kant, however, seems to go beyond a positive legal consideration, by maintaining that, from an a priori point of view, it is not possible to coerce a person for the realization of the virtuous duty of beneficence, consisting in the maxim of proposing the happiness of others as an end.
Copyright (c) 2024 Martín Molina Suárez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The diversity of cognitive content in the aristotelian passions
We propose to analyze in detail the discussion of whether the aristotelian passions, as presented in the Rhetoric, necessarily require belief, appearance, or some other cognitive content for their constitution. This would allow us to understand more clearly the philosopher's theory of the emotions, thereby seeking some unified criterion to explain the common basis of the passions; or, if not, to discard such an interpretative project. We will show how the problem regarding cognitive content arises from the relationship Aristotle establishes between the passions and the formation of a judgment in the general context of the Rhetoric, then we will review in detail the readings that defend each position in this regard. Our goal is to show that this debate dissolves itself, as the alleged technical differences are eliminated, or the perspectives converge by clarifying the conceptual contents and distinctions that are exogenously introduced by the interpreters. Thus, the development shows that, at least as far as Rhetoric and its philosophical function are concerned, Aristotle does not install a monolithic and unified structure of emotions.
Copyright (c) 2024 Felipe Zegers Quiroga https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The necessity of the Individual Ego as Constitutive Moment of the Lifeworld
I want to develop a critical approach to the usual interpretation of the phenomenological reduction proposed by Edmund Husserl in different stages of his philosophy. Often the position of Ideas I is disregarded because of his Cartesian assumptions. In fact, is assumed that, in reconducting us to the evidence given in the interiority of consciousness, the content of the world is lost. Instead of suspending the belief on the validity of the world, the world is completely annihilated. Because of this, the theory of the reduction, developed by Husserl in The Crisis of the European Sciences, is privileged for it is rooted in the lifeworld, that integrates intersubjectivity, history, culture, etc. as necessary moments of he phenomenological reflection. Nevertheless, the necessity of approaching the lifeworld from the individual subjectivity, that is, from the inalienable solitude of the own ego, is not attended. Precisely my goal consists in considering the necessity and relevance of the solitary ego within the lifeworld, that inspite of his solitude does not lead to any kind of solipsism, in which both the perspectives of Ideas and Crisis are unified.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sebastián Charlin Delporte https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
¿Acaso esto es todo? Comunidad política y sociedad civil a 50 años del golpe
Copyright (c) 2024 Juan Ormeño Karzulovic https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Bonefeld Werner & Chris O'Kane (Eds) Adorno and Marx. Negative Dialectics and the Critique of Political Economy. Gran Bretaña: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022. ISBN: 9781350193635
Copyright (c) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Carla Cordua. Estudios sobre Hegel. Santiago de Chile: Ediciones Universidad Diego Portales, 2019. ISBN : 978-956-413-436-9
Poetics of the Cuartito azul Phenomenological Notes on Confinement, Torture and Topophobic in Testimonies of the Bolivian Military Dictatorship (1979-1981)
The phenomenology of lived space, formulated by Gastón Bachelard in 1957, aims to explore representations of joyful spaces through a topophilic perspective. This article delves into a profound reflection on topophobia, derived from the analysis of narratives of women victims of the Bolivian military dictatorship (1979-1981). The collection of testimonies, drawn from the work Libres (2013), focuses on the characterization of the ominous torture chamber known as the “Cuartito azul”. The claim of this investigation is to provide an analytical characterization of the poetic images of sadness present in the testimonies of torture, thereby expanding the foundations of Bachelardian topoanalysis. Initially, the concept of topophilia is succinctly outlined within the context of Bachelard's topoanalytical project. Subsequently, a detailed topophobic analysis of the collection of testimonies is presented, extending the discourse through interaction with the concepts of the New Phenomenology proposed by Hermann Schmitz. The central conclusion of this work rests in the assertion that topophobia represents the study and exploration of poetic images that encapsulate the experience of humiliation in the human being. Through this inquiry, an enriched comprehension of Bachelardian topoanalysis is pursued, by means of the incorporation of historical contexts and personal experiences within anthropological-philosophical investigation, thereby highlighting the significant influence of spaces on the emotional and existential experience of individuals.
anthropological philosophical investigation
Recovered Earth and Donated Earth in Emmanuel Levinas’s Critique to Martin Heidegger
The aim of this paper is to elaborate an analysis in the philosophy of Levinas and Heidegger to define their concept of «earth». This comparison will help us to distinguish the ways of understanding what is the ontological nature of the earth and its relation to human beings. On the one hand, Heidegger's concept of earth can be defined as a return to the mystery and openness of being. On the other hand, for Levinas, the meaning of earth is related to hunger and the possibility of feeding others with it. Those two meanings of earth will show Levinas' critical stance on Heidegger's philosophy. In the same way, through this contraposition we will be able to show the ethical incidence with respect to the human encounter with an earth as homeland, the land where we were born, and the incidence of foreignness - of the other - who as a foreigner asks to be nourished with this earth that belongs to us.