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In this paper, I claim that the distinction between "philosophy" and "spirituality" can be a key for understanding Foucault's work, assuming that his philosophy and historical thought do possess a "spiritual dimension." For this purpose, I analyze the figures of transgression and pensée du dehors of the archaeological period, the figures of resistance and criticism as reflexive indocility of the genealogical period, and the fold of the ethical period. I determine whether they can be considered a spiritual dimension that promotes être autrement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first part of this paper, a "Habermas-way" diagnosis is made: uncertainty as the climate of an interconnected world without a common basis, the crisis of successful "Enlightened Reason", including its techno-scientific expression, and critical reason. In the second part, it discusses the paradoxical outcome of modernity and its unfulfilled promises, as well as the crisis of modern reason which, despite the postmodern reaction, addresses the search for the foundation of discourse ethics and the problem of presuppositions, demonstrably valid norms, the importance of language, communicative action and parliamentarism. The third section presents three final reflections, including the need to continue the struggle for emancipation, the complexity of putting this diagnosis into practice, and the criticism that Habermas has received for ignoring cultural differences and reducing communication to a linguistic exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the idea that essay has a aesthetics, a literary style, but at the same time this aesthetics is a mental style that presupposes a ethics as ground. Therefore, we think the essay as philosophy. More precisely: in modernity, philosophy is essayistic. This essay's philosophy has five main characteristics that are inseparable from each other. Essay is based on lifeworld and in consequence is a experimental philosophy opposed to the rationalist system. This philosophy is a philosophy of finitude, anti-absolutist, that defends the philosophical relevance of the concrete and real subject. Finally, the essay understands critical reflection as a method of freedom. Essayistic philosophy contains a ethics that avoids both rationalist totalitarianism and aestheticist nihilism, and that concludes in a dialogical pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the figure of the intellectual in Michel Foucault and Maurice Blanchot, from three distinct perspectives: 1) The affirmation of the anonymity of language; 2) the critical approach against power; and 3) the ethics of thinking and writing. The intellectual is thus characterized as an anonymous voice among anonymous voices; as someone who holds power accountable; as a solidary guard for the anonymous--and his writing as the exercise of a specific kind of responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the impact that Emmanuel Lévinas’s thinking has had on the philosophy of education, especially in Spain and Latin America, and particularly in the works of Joan-Carles Mèlich and Fernando Bárcena. It examines its relevance and usefulness in order to think about a series of pressing ethical and metaphysical questions within the discipline, which have to do with the notion of humanity, and also with the limit between humanity and animality. It seeks to emphasize how such speculations are both effects as determinants factor of teaching. As will be developed, these are not peripheral aspects but primordial when it comes to thinking the philosophy of education and, moreover, to create an attentive thought with otherness. The most palpable conclusion of the research is that the «posmetaphysical ethic» proposed by Mélich, insofar as it is based on the Levinasian notion of «face», refers to religious humanism. On the other hand, this paper aims to highlight the practical and political side of Jacques Derrida’s thought - so many times ignored -, as well as to point out its relevance to the educational question in this new century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On June 6 the 30th anniversary of the death of Vladimir Jankélévitch, happened in Paris in 1985. After a considerable time lag, almost a third of a century, allows us to take stock of the present and foreseeable future survival of his work. In this paper we try to provide a brief overview of some of the philosophical issues addressed in his most important works, vindicating their importance thought this century, which are presented through deep human dramas. In a way, such complex circumstances are projections of those that Jankélévitch met throughout his extraordinary life. With all this as background, I will focus my attention on five major issues: the status of philosophical knowledge, ethics as the basis for the relationship with the other, love, death and the search for purity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term bioethics has been highly spread in the scientific society since its appearance in the middle of the 20th century. It is being assumed by scientists and intellectuals of different knowledge branches who have worked to clarify its heterogeneous approaches which lead the themes, proposals and concerns of different academic circles. The present paper has as objective to make an analysis of the features of the development of bioethics in Latin America, as well as the problems it is facing today, for which theoretical methods as the analysissynthesis and inductive-deductive were used. In addition, empirical methods such as content analysis, documental bibliographic research were reviewed to get a closed approach to the principal criteria that on this topic are debated today in our context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advance directives (also called "living wills") are documents signed by a competent individual providing directives as to the permission to apply or to reject medical treatments in the event that the individual who wrote it may not be in a position to declare his or her will. Despite the good reception from the global bioethics community, their validity has been seriously questioned. In this paper, I intend to analyze in depth the faults mentioned by its detractors and I will try to offer an alternative that is superior to the classic version of these documents and manage to escape the criticism which, for decades, they have been subject to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]