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The paper presents a reconstruction of the metaphysical core of Dante’s political thought as expressed in the Monarchy, following on the footsteps of Guido Vernani’s critique of Dante’s political ideas in his De reprobatione Monarchie composite a Dante (Bologna, 1327-1334). The paper focuses on the link between Dante’s alleged Averroism, an accusation formulated for the first time by the Dominican friar, but latter repeated by philosophical historiography, and the interpretation of the Monarchy as a sign of the beginning of modern philosophy.

In this paper, death and immortality ideas of Russian cosmists are in syncretic way put together with key ideas in postmodern philosophy. The problem considered in world philosophy on creating co-evolutionary conditions for the emergence of «immortal» man is illustrated by a wide variety of ideas and concepts. This paper contains innovative ideas of the Russian cosmists as the starting point of the research. Special attention is paid to the extraordinary teachings of N. F. Fedorov, who is the founder of Russian Cosmic philosophy. Using the system-diachronic method and technologies of ascending from the abstract to the concrete, the author compares the ideas of Russian cosmism with manifest concepts of modern philosophy (synergetics, phenomenology, transhumanism). The author also gives the most striking facts of discoveries of modern natural science and draws conclusions about ideas of Russian cosmists that have been put forward ahead of their time and retained their relevance and ontological potential until now. The paper presents the prospects for further studying the heritage of Russian cosmism to search for philosophical tools that could, without going beyond the limits of ethical universals, successfully combine the controversial theoretical directions of modern philosophy for the future positive practical development of society.

This paper shows how the whole of Zubiri’s work —incorporating his recently edited texts and courses— argued against a favorable presumption of atheism, and instead suggested that atheism remains in identic intellectual status that theism and agnosticism. In order to do this, the paper rebuilds in Zubiri’s mature philosophy, his analyses about an atheistic logos and a reason of atheism, and at the end it adds some practical and political perspectives in order to explain this philosophy of atheism.

Commodification is «the transformation of goods, services, ideas and people into standardized objects of trade». The establishment of an unsustainable economic system has long been linked to the commodification of nature. This paper presents a view of commodification as a process that has applied to a growing spectrum of human affairs, which includes not only nature, goods and labor, but also our body, experiences and relationships. The enabling role of technoscience is discussed. The road to reconciliation —with nature, each other and ourselves— needs to recognize and appreciate what is unique and irreplaceable. This paper concludes with some possible roads for the use of technology as a tool for this reconciliation. Reversing this process if essential if we wish to establish a sustainable economy and a more human society.

The main purpose of the paper is to try to understand the Buddha’s silence as a proper answer to the ten unanswered question set. When regarded as di††hi, the undeclared questions are meant to be considered as a set of conceptually distorted propositions. The paper is divided into five sections. The first two sections deals with the Buddha’s own explanation of his silence. Its scope is mainly expository and aims to place the discussion in context. The third part is devoted to explain the mental mechanisms involved in generating conceptually distorted mental patterns. A detailed analysis of the cognitive mechanisms related to papañca has been given in order to clarify the meaning of both mental defilements and the notion of inflowing in the fourth section. Finally, the explanation of the Buddha’s silence is presented as an answer consistent with set of publicly avowed principles he professed.

Suárez distinguishes between four different ways of intending an end of action: actually, virtually, habitually, and interpretatively. This distinction comes to be repeated in scores of books and articles in subsequent centuries as a standard part of action theory, and Suárez is evidently the source for many of the later authors. This paper examines Suárez’s treatment of the distinction. Interpretative intention receives the most attention, since Suárez appears to give several inconsistent characterizations of it in different works. The paper ends with some notes about the subsequent reception of the distinction and reflects briefly on the lessons to be drawn about tracing Suárez’s influence.

The following paper takes as its theme the philosophical problem of nothingness in the thought of Heidegger. The paper has two purposes: On one hand, to clarify the position that metaphysics has in Heidegger; and, on the other, to show the relationship he establishes between metaphysics and nihilism.

The author of this paper highlights the priority of feeling in A. Rosmini´s philosophy. Feeling is life itself and is also the criterion of reality. But human beings cannot be reduced to the real dimension only, since they also possess an intellectual and a moral dimension. The paper analyzes the elements of the act of thinking, and clarifies the difference among sensations, fundamental (vital, substantial) feeling, and instinct (vital and sensual). It also considers the distinction between our body and its identity —insofar as it is our body— and the bodies of other persons. The paper finally analyzes some deficient philosophical definitions of the human body.

The questioning of the epistemological perspective characteristic of the modernity, brings into question the Cartesian exclusion of the possibility that, in Foucault could be defined as a «reasonable Unreason». Although, in general, the thought of Derrida also points in the same direction, negative values of Foucault’s reading of the radical separation between Reason and Unreason in Descartes, just pretending to make a defense of some deep reading the Meditations that, in his view, would yield result in disqualification of the interpretation Foucault History of Madness. However, not only the replica of the latter in «My body, this paper, this fire» but, above all, the re-reading of the text of Descartes, come to support Foucauldian interpretation. This paper, after analyzing the Heideggerian roots of such approaches, performs a re-reading of Foucault, Derrida controversy known. My purpose is to show how, rereading the above controversy from certain budgets set by Heidegger, the result of it is illuminated in a new light.

Traditional epistemological models classify knowledge into separate disciplines with different objects of study and specific techniques, with some frameworks even proposing hierarchies (such as Comte’s). According to thinkers such as John Holland or Teilhard de Chardin, the advancement of science involves the convergence of disciplines. This proposed convergence can be studied in a number of ways, such as how works impact research outside a specific area (citation networks) or how authors collaborate with other researchers in different fields (collaboration networks). While these studies are delivering significant new insights, they cannot easily show the convergence of different topics within a body of knowledge. This paper attempts to address this question in a quantitative manner, searching for evidence that supports the idea of convergence in the content of the sciences themselves (that is, whether the sciences are dealing with increasingly the same topics). We use Latent Dirichlet Analysis (LDA), a technique that is able to analyze texts and estimate the relative contributions of the topics that were used to generate them. We apply this tool to the corpus of the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) working papers, which spans research on Complexity Science from 1989 to 2015. We then analyze the relatedness of the different research areas, the rise and demise of these sub-disciplines over time and, more broadly, the convergence of the research body as a whole. Combining the topic structure obtained from the collected publication history of the SFI community with techniques to infer hierarchy and clustering, we reconstruct a picture of a dynamic community which experiences trends, periodically recurring topics, and shifts in the closeness of scholarship over time. We find that there is support for convergence, and that the application of quantitative methods such as LDA to the study of knowledge can provide valuable insights that can help researchers navigate the increasingly wide literature as well as identifying potentially fruitful areas for research collaboration.

This paper attempts to clarify what constitutes «the problem of God» as a philosophical problem with Xavier Zubiri. To do this, we divide the paper into three parts. First, we should clarify if possible to study «philosophically» the subject of «God». From Zubiri, this is possible if we study the «problem» of God as something «given» sentiently, not «God» understood as a supreme being beyond the world. Second, we have to analyze what is the «problem of God» according to Zubiri. Do we mean that the problem of God is «given» as a starting point in the primordial apprehension? Or might it be that the «problem of God» is something that can lead or not «towards» God? Finally, thirdly, we must analyze the various attitudes and solutions to the «problem of God» as atheism, agnosticism or theism. Zubiri defended himself a theistic position and established a rational proof that was gradually modified in his later years.

In the first part of this paper, I analyze the logical-epistemological categories that Cicero uses to address the problem of determinism, and in particular, the distinction between causal and logical-epistemological necessity. In this context, the problem of divination, that is, the ability to utter true statements about the future, is fundamental for Cicero, which suggests —as I argue in the second part of this paper— that Ciciero's substantive argument, albeit highly technical, in essence is not logical-epistemological, since what is fundamentally at issue is a religious, or political-religious, problem. Following Carneades, Cicero directly criticizes Stoic epistemology (in particular Chrysippus’s version), but he does so because, indirectly, and independent of the skeptical philosopher, Cicero wants to overcome the theological implications of the Stoic concept of fate, which, in turn, is central to his political project for the reconstruction of the res publica: logic, religion and politics thus go hand in hand.

This paper will study the relationship between mathematics and religion from the perspective of reason and the role played by reason in human knowledge. Firstly, I will study the relationship between reason, logic and mathematics. From this starting point, I will study the relationship between reason and natural science and finally, I will draw some conclusions on the relationship between reason, philosophy and theology. The relationship between mathematics, reason and religion will be studied within the context of the global unity of human knowledge. This paper intends to explain how the ‘pure deductive reason’ is present in all human thinking. Mathematics and natural science share this universal presence with metaphysics and religion. Pure deductive reasoning is somehow an absolute value that transcends all aspects and levels of human knowledge, including metaphysical and religious knowledge. Metaphysical and theological arguments need to be able to span different cultural communities. Pure deductive reasoning is a kind of reasoning that can fully span communities and it forms a basis for interdisciplinary, inter-cultural and inter-religious communication.

Husserl’s phenomenology can be apprehended on the whole as a teleology of reason which consists of the aspiration to the greatest possible rationality in the cognitive, practical-individual and practical-communitarian or historic field. Following this tripartite division this paper analyzes the appearances of this concept in several texts of Husserl’s thinking: Logical Investigations (1900-1901), Renewal of human being and of culture (1932-1937), some manuscripts of the 30’s about teleology, the Crisis (1936) and the complementary text to the Crisis number 32 «Teleology in the history of philosophy»(1936). Finally the paper deals with an introduction to a possible analysis of the divine from the concept of teleology and a discussion about how far the concept of teleology can be tackled by phenomenology or would have to be studied exclusively by theology. (1932-1937), some manuscripts of the 30’s about teleology, the

In this paper I analyse F. Schiller’s conception of recognition. This conception has beenhitherto ignored by the studies on the history of philosophy and by the contemporary debate on recognition.The thesis of the present paper is that Schiller’s reflexions about the question on recognition opens upthe possibility for recognizing the other in his or her otherness and/or uniqueness. Accordingly, thepresent paper attempts not only at a revision and improvement of the vision we have about EighteenthCentury German Philosophy, but also at offering a new point of view from which the contemporarydebate can be critically analysed.

This is an interdisciplinary work (biology-philosophy) product of reflection on the challenges today presented by a biological vision of the world regarding questions, concepts and notions of cosmology (Philosophy of Nature). Based on and in dialogue with the current state of biological research, this work deals with certain cosmological problems such as that between the living and the inert, the traditional division between the soul or the vital vegetative principle, sensitive or intellective; the problem of individuation and the concept of species, among others; the solution found within classical philosophy in this paper takes into account the latest discoveries findings of modern biology.

This paper deals with the possible ways of understanding the relation between the reconstruction of history and literary fiction (postmemory and ectopic literature). The transmission of memory across generations – postmemory, and the composition of literary works out of the place of the origin – ectopic literature – facilitate the formation of historical discourse, which is inevitably accompanied by modern interpretation. As interpretation is understanding reality in a subjective manner, literary fiction takes its place in the reconstruction of historical events. And ectopic literature is one of the main narratives, which helps to understand the relation between facts and fantasy.

In this paper I map the conceptual framework of naturalism, its ontological implications and its current projection in the field of neurophilosophy. I show how critical naturalism formally differs from radical ontological naturalisms, both global and sectoral, in order to become a critical instance. Its theoretical implications lead to a definition of natural causality from the emergentist perspective and to metaphysical scenarios ranging from ontological pluralism to noumenal monism.

Drawing on the contributions of some of the most recent and relevant studies on neuroethics and moral neuroeducation, this paper undertakes an analysis of compassion. In order to focus on the results of this neuroscientific research a reductionist naturalist framework is set aside in order to embrace the broader outlook of a moral neuroeducation that, firstly, refuses to reduce its normative character to the human capacity for evolutionary adaptation; and, secondly, seeks to locate within the brain the neuronal foundations for the development of a capacity for compassion towards those of one’s own community, and also those from outside it. Thereby, this capacity for compassion moves beyond empathic tribalism.

Though originated from a different historio-geographical background, Mohammad Taghi Jafari’s definition of moral conscience in his book The Conscience helps to further explore Fyodor Dostoevsky’s thematic concern with the same notion in Crime and Punishment. The following study probes into the concepts of self-evaluation and repentance as reflected in the novel. It then explores the manifestation of a phenomenon called the «ugliness of conscience» and all its implications ranging from hallucinations and self-hatred to paranoia and nightmares in this classic work of fiction. Moreover, this paper also studies Dostoevsky’s narrative for any sign of emphasis on the priority of «moral conscience»over «intelligence» and «individuaity», as it is also philosophically proposed and stressed by Jafari.

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the African cultural philosophy. The aim of the study is to focus on identifying the elements present in the African ontology and epistemology which may contribute towards the consecution of a harmonious coexistence in the increasing plurality of today society. Based on an understanding of reality in which everything dwells in complementarity, interdependence and mutuality, the African worldview approaches difference and particularity as opportunities for mutual growth and cooperation. The acknowledgement of such an intimate mutual relatedness among all human groups which form a given society is the African key to understand the process towards coexistence. This sheds light on the understanding of social dialogue, the peacebuilding processes, and the means for the resolution of conflicts.

The paper tries to develop the role that the feeling of fundamentality plays in Zubiri. This feeling is expressed in diverse attitudes towards the problem of God (theism, atheism, etc.). We propose that the feeling allows, in part, to direct the creation of diverse possibilities of realization through value judgments. It directs, to a certain extent, the search for these diverse attitudes. On the other hand, it allows for the experience of the sketches of these attitudes. For instance, the negative experience of a determined conception of God is conditioned not only by intellective aspects, but also sentimental ones. We give some examples of this out of some philosophers’ lives.

In this paper, we explore Bernard Suits’ analysis of the instrumental use of reason in the utopia presented in The Grasshopper. To do so, we analyze the role instrumental rationality plays in Suits’ theory of games and utopia. Then, we compare the use of instrumental reason to what we call «lusory rationality.» The latter embodies the lusory attitude that players have to adopt to play a game and live in Suits’ Utopian world. To conclude, we argue that the lusory attitude offers an alternative to the predominance of the instrumental use of reason in our society.

Until the publication of Jorge M. Ayala’s book about the years in which García Bacca stayed in the Claretian institution, we knew very little about that stage in the life of the Spanish- Venezuelan philosopher. The data provided by Ayala about these years are key to knowing better about his life. But the approach Ayala takes in his book significantly limits the irrefutable achievements it contains. The aim of this paper is to dismantle many of Ayala’s views and judgements about García Bacca and, particularly, the bias in his interpretative approach to the events of the Spanish civil war and the many victims it caused, especially among Claretian members.

This paper deepens the proposed solution on the knowledge of the singular developed by Ernst Cassirer. The problem arises that the relationship between the particular and the general is already conceived in the first studies of the author until crystallizing in his proposal to exchange substantive concepts for functional concepts. This methodological exchange will allow the neo-Kantian to base, eventually, (1) the Philosophie der Symbolischen Formen as a worldview that conceives culture as a universal criterion of meaning of all human actions and (2) the symbol as a harmonic functional unit between the singular and the universal.

This paper wants to ask the question about the possibility to bring closer the phenomenologies of Jan Patočka and Michel Henry from the common ground of the description of the appearance as such. It also deals with the question of the differences between them and of their respective aporia. We will examine how we can solve them and we will begin a possible dialogue between both of them about such problematic solutions.

In this paper, we defend that what is meaningful and sensible to us is also affective. Our mental operations and actions in the world are affectively oriented. In the first section, we discuss how sense and affect have been conceived of under traditional conceptions of mind and body. In the second section, we propose a conception of sense as public, embodied and constituted by affect. To this purpose, we rely on the commonalities on sense and affect that can be found on the philosophies of L. Wittgenstein and M. Merleau-Ponty. Finally, in the third section, we discuss the implications of the idea we have defended; we will discuss some important differences with approaches similar to ours and some objections to them.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the functions of the ideas of pure reason, focusing on this treatment of this subject in the Appendix that concludes the Transcendental Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason. In particular, it addresses the systematizing function of the ideas and the problem of their hypothetical or regulative use, as well as the link between both functions. It will present how the reason’s search for systematic unity makes possible the coherent use of the understanding, and how ideas, as focus imagarius, guide the understanding and widen the knowledge and the scope of the experience given from the outside of the possible empirical knowledge.

Through a systematic reconstruction of the conception of religious unification conceived by Hegel during his time in Frankfurt this paper seek to emphasize both the peculiar and differentiating aspects of it and the anticipative elements of the course the Hegelian thought will acquire from Jena. The reconstruction proceeds in three steps: thematization of the immediate life, reflection and its action on life; Characterization of religion as an elevation over finitude and access to infinite life as spirit; Determination of the critical-negative function of philosophy, subordinated to religion. As conclusion is established that in these early texts Hegel comes to a central structure of his later thought, namely, the life-cognition-spirit structure. It also offers a consideration of the liberating potential that for Hegel both religion and philosophy have since they overcome the limitations of a specific form of hegemonic rationality in culture.

This article offers a compared analysis of the problema of technology in Oswald Spengler and Henri Bergson, authors of Man and technics and The two sources of morals and religión, respectively. In general, this paper is focused on the main topics of agreement and the main philosophical divergences between both. This is a threefold text. Section 1, shows the different anthropological visions held by these two authors, so related to the topic of technology since both are defenders of the definition of humans as homo faber. Secondly, I show the different historical interpretations of the problem of technics (origins and specificity of the Western phenomenon of technology). In the end, I reach to the historical context of these two books. Is technology a symbol of the decadence of modernity? At this point, the fatalist Spenglerian position is opposite to the Bergsonian one.

The main aim of this paper is to present, in the Spanish language, text by professor Thomas Buchheim about the «ultimate proof» of God’s existence in response to futurum exactum by his professor, Robert Spaemann. In the first section the «have-been» argument of the futurm exactum is analyzed. This section is followed by the criticisms of the afore mentioned argument. Then a discussion about truth, based on the futurum exactum, is explored. Finally an analysis of the personal traits of the capacity of truth is presented, which leads to an examination of the necessity of personal awareness in order to be able to discuss truth.

This paper discusses the difficulties of finding a rigorous and universal definition of «cerebral complexity». The main conclusion points to the necessity of accepting a creative tension between the quantitative and the qualitative dimensions of cerebral complexity.

In this paper we discuss the hot topic of Big History, doing a brief description of the evolution: from the cosmic evolution to the biological evolution. Here we present an abridgement of cosmic evolution and biological evolution, and the scientific description and philosophical reflection of different theories attempting to explain them, highlighting the emerging and complex characters, which we believe that are structural effects of the evolutionary process. We called this global evolution cosmo-bio-anthropological evolution. Also, it is to be noted the exposition we did on recent scientific discoveries that experimentally corroborate the Big Bang Theory, and so, they assert the temporal beginning of the universe.

The purpose of this article is to show how the redefinition that Eugenio Trias has made of rationality in terms of «border reason» (razónfronteriza) has a deeper meaning if understood as an alternative to the postmodern drifts of rationality. In spite of the fact that this hypothesis can have a practical point of view, this paper is only pointing out the theoretical aspect of border reason. For this reason, an intertextual analysis has been made of the mature works of the philosophy of the limit, and this allows to understand some passages that, if read in isolation, can be ambiguous or incomprehensible. The conclusion of this study shows that an opening towards a «symbolic supplement» (in its artistic, but above all in its religious aspect) reveals its coherence and its most genuine hermeneutics if it is interpreted in the light of the controversy that the philosophy of the limit has with postmodernism.

The fact that we live in an interconnected plural world makes it necessary for common problems such as environmental crisis to be solved in common. One of the best ways to accomplish this is through dialogue, the more extensive the better. Plurality, which has plenty of virtues, can also lead to difficulties when defining the conditions of possibility of said dialogue. The present paper wishes to analyze whether the Catholic Church, through the encyclical Laudato Si’ by Pope Francis, could be a valid interlocutor in the environmental crisis, specifically in the context of modernity. Can a text written by the highest authority in Catholicism be of interest to others than the believers of this religion and the scholars studying religious phenomena? Do LS’s critiques of technoscience imply a rejection of modernity, given that technoscience is an unequivocal part of modern rationality?

This paper analyses a variety of issues (biography, history, theory, methodology…) that throw light on the peculiarity of John L. Austin and his philosophy, as well as on the rejection generated against it. From all these aspects, this study intends to highlight the stylistic and discursive ones, especially the role of rhetoric, whit the aim to show that this author creates a performative prose in line with its intellectual content. In this way, Austin gives to his work a unique coherence between content and form.

The proposal to deal with the scholḗ understood simply as ‘free time’ must start with two questions: free time of which kind of activities? and free time for what kind of activities? Aristotle’s exposition tries to answer both questions. The implicit conceptual assumptions that the author uses when offering answers are the following: a) the teleological ordering of human activities; b) the excellence necessary to carry them out and; c) the characterization of the two kinds of eudaimonia that appear in the last book of the Nicomachean Ethics (EN). The purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship of the concept of scholē´ with other concepts of the Aristotelian practical philosophy and to distinguish the different contents of the word scholḗ.

The present paper performs a metaphorical comparison between the Lettered city described by Ángel Rama and the reality of the Spanish University today with the same claim: «the democratization of intellectual functions». For this we will resort to an auto-ethnographic methodology, and the narration of ours experiences inside the Academy. We focus on the increased mercantilization of the institution and «new Lettereds» —agencies of control of knowledge and quality— and reflected on some social categories such as age and gender as builders of difference and maintainer of structures of power and inequality.

In this paper we adopt a critical stance, firstly, related to a view which seeks to explain the aims of education from the empirical research. Against this, we propose the hermeneutic-critical methodology to unravel what the ultimate goals of education are. We find that the approach of critical hermeneutics illuminates adequately education and provides a solvent ethical justification. Deeping on the critical dimension of hermeneutics, but without moving away from his experiential nerves, we notice that it is not enough to interpret the values set by society. It is necessary to delve into the ethical roots, which justify education as authentic human development of moral capabilities. This overriding experience of education, which is rooted in the human being, is a genuinely ethical experience. Regarding this, we emphasize eleven keys of the ethical hermeneutics and its advantages for the concretion of the enclave of the education.

Beyond the usual necessary remarks on antisemitism in Heidegger´s Black Notebooks, this paper offers a substantial paradox: Black Notebooks (1931-48), the exposition of an unceasing craftwork on the fate of the world (his own?), revolve around two difficult notions to translate, Geschichte and Historie. They are both usually understood, the former as a chronological account of contents that «really» happened in time (history strictly speaking), the latter as the more or less self-interested writing of these (historiography).Heidegger dismisses this interpretation (that would involve «something» separate from its narrative), and offers instead to understand both notions as selfrepresentation. Geschichte would correspond to the way in which, departing from the —interpreted— development of being, this accounts for itself, for its delivery and exhaustion, awaiting a new start. On the contrary, Historie would correspond to the «techno-scientific» representation with which Modernity accounts for itself and its past, as the secularized degradation of Christianity. The paradox then is that, on the one hand, it is Geschichte (as «history-of-being») that would understand Historie as the latest turn of events in some wandering (considering that both movements would have been coincident in Europe in the 1930s), which would lead to its self-destruction. Yet on the other hand, Historie itself accounts for Seinsgeschichte as just another way, among others, (not the most fortunate or scientific) to explain history. Thus, the rootless (devoid of «pagus»: the country) West would head towards decline. Heidegger: a committed pagan, a Christian in spite of himself.

This paper is intended to be a contribution to the current debate about the political implications of Heidegger’s philosophy. For this purpose, I focus on the philosophy of the young Heidegger in order to explore the two fundamental models of phenomenological analysis that he uses in his first lecture courses in Freiburg. This analysis allows me to make explicit Heidegger’s convictions concerning the object and the sense of philosophy, as well as his connection with what Heidegger considers the originally historical. Due to this, it becomes possible to recognize the presence of hierarchical and elitist political signs that already were working from the beginning of his thought.

This paper compares the world´s phenomenology in Sein und Zeit with the meditation on the fourhold in the conference Das Ding. The goal of this comparison is to show how the argumentation focuses in 1927 in the Worumwillen and how moves in 1949 to the notion of schenken. This displacement, that takes out the tool of the Worumwillen´s context and places it in another that doesn´t guide by «an anthropological figure», can be characterized as a privative modus of praxis, i. e. alost of pragmatically function. The jug´s Give (schenken) express the idea that the tool doesn´t requires another purpose than its own give himself.

The serenity (Gelassenheit) seems to insist on the resigned attitude before a technified world whose unbroken march can only be stopped by a god who can still save us. In my opinion, this well-known reading obviates the active and committed dimension of serenity whose fertility emerges when it is understood linked to care as the essence of Dasein. This paper argues that this interpretation is possible whenever the Christian-Pauline root of Gelassenheit is discovered as the proper attitude to be in the world without being of the world.

The influence of the work and teaching of Francisco Suárez (Granada, 1548-Lisbon, 1617) in the shaping of modern thought has been widely studied in areas such as political philosophy and law, metaphysics, and epistemology. However, the moral philosophy of Suarez, in particular that which, as he himself explains, was needed as a basis for his moral theology, has yet to be analyzed. In this paper, we propose to elucidate some aspects of Suarez’s theory of human agency final causality. We compare two of his commentaries, from different periods, on the I-IIae of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa theologiae: the unpublished manuscript De beatitudine (1579) and Suarez’s treatise De ultimo fine hominis, the first of five treatises on morality posthumously published by Baltasar Álvares (1628). The question analyzed here, the nature of final causality, is assumed as a heuristic instrument to acquaint readers with both the sources studied and the philosophical import of Suárez’ doctrine on morality. The findings suggest the following: i) the closeness, still with doubts, of Suárez’ 1579 commentary to Thomas’ doctrine of human agency final causality; (ii) in the 1628 commentary, his partial assumption of Thomas’ doctrine on the role of intellect in free choice, and his clear determination in the assertion that the locus finis is the will. Working with these nuances, we illustrate some connection points that show both how 16th century scholasticism deals with philosophical tradition to explain a new image of man, and how subsequent moral philosophy is influenced by these theories while rejecting their theological foundation.

The relationships between ethical principles and political requirements have proven to be controversial. In this paper, firstly I will propose a definition of ethics and politics. Then, I will analyze two illustrations of the unavoidable structural conflict between ethics and politics: wars and immigration policies. In those cases political goods require ethical evils. Then, I will refer to conflicts which claim to be rooted on the cultural and historical idiosyncrasies of certain nations. Finally, I will refer to several situations in which ethics and politics share common objectives and other ones in which they just follow independent courses.