Devenires es una revista académica de filosofía, arbitrada y de acceso abierto, publicada en línea semestralmente en los meses de enero y julio (ISSN-e 2395-9274). Devenires acepta en español o inglés artículos originales de investigación, notas, traducciones, testimonios, entrevistas, conmemoraciones y obituarios y reseñas bibliográficas concernientes a todas las áreas y tradiciones filosóficas, que hagan aportaciones a los debates contemporáneos. Si bien está dirigida a un público filosófico, las temáticas que aborda procuran establecer una comunicación transdisciplinaria. Devenires es editada por la Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo a través de la Facultad de Filosofía y el Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas bajo licencia internacional de Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). La revista se publica de manera continua desde el año 2000.
Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Facultad de Filosofía e Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas
Judith Butler, Who’s Afraid of Gender?, Estados Unidos de América, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024, 308 pp.
Copyright (c) 2025 UMSNH https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This paper presents contributions by Luis Villoro and Enrique Dussel to philosophical political ethics. The text develops the philosophical foundation each author uses to justify his favored moral attitudes regarding political action and the political sphere. It also seeks to provide elements of contrast between these two positions and models of political ethics. In particular, it aims to show what political ethics consists on according to Villoro, and how this formulation of normative politics differs from Dussel’s. The paper also highlights fragments from these authors that could be overlooked or relegated as marginal but that, on the proposed reading, are key to understand what these authors seek when formulating their respective proposals.
What’s Left? La izquierda como “optimismo social”
The left is in crisis. But the way we think about the left is also in crisis. The first objective of this article is to determine the origin of left-wing thought; it is assumed to reside in Enlightenment thought and, as Judith N. Shklar stated, in its “social optimism.” Another issue to be addressed is that of temporal orientation: although left-wing thought is still understood as projecting itself into the future, the question of its relation to the past must be raised today. This article will argue in favor of becoming aware of the achievements of left-wing movements, in whose defense left-wing thought and politics should be committed, because it is precisely these achievements that have been destroyed in the course of forty years of neoliberal offensive as well as in the current phase of authoritarian populism. Finally, we will ask what we are to make of current “left-wing” movements, which can be subsumed under terms such as “cultural left,” “lifestyle left,” “woke left,” or simply “aesthetic left”. We will also ask whether a left that goes back to Marx is necessarily an alternative to those. The underlying question is: What’s left?
The article examines aporophobia as a phenomenon that connects affective and socio-structural dimensions within contemporary neoliberalism. Drawing on Adela Cortina’s notion of rejection toward the poor and Sianne Ngai’s concept of “ugly feelings,” it proposes a strategic articulation that combines normative and aesthetic-affective approaches. This combination enables the analysis of exclusionary logics alongside regimes of sensitivity that define the undesirability of certain bodies. Aporophobia emerges as a concept that reveals an affective modulation reinforcing forms of active violence, such as exclusion and spatial marginalization, directed at those deprived of social, symbolic, and political capital. Aporophobic affects, embedded in social structures, legitimize capitalist power by producing affective distances that sustain exclusion and segregation. The text offers an interdisciplinary analysis of this phenomenon, emphasizing its role in reproducing social hierarchies and maintaining the exclusion of impoverished groups. The proposal connects critical affect theory with contemporary approaches to poverty under neoliberal conditions, aiming to broaden interpretive frameworks. It also seeks to establish a conceptual foundation for future research on exclusion and its affective architecture, without abandoning its speculative dimension or its critical stance.
This article explores the possibility of an integrative concept of ideology through a comparative dialogue among the proposals of Leopoldo Zea, Luis Villoro, and Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez. The analysis centers on their conceptual convergences regarding theoretical activity, knowledge, science, philosophy, and the phenomenon of ideology, following the threads of their debate in the key texts. The research adopts an eclectic method, integrating diverse theoretical perspectives with logical rigor and respect for the original contexts, without eluding fundamental differences. The relevance of this study is threefold: first, it stimulates a critical dialogue between historically confronted philosophical currents (Latin Americanism, Analytical Philosophy, Marxism); second, it reveals significant points of convergence through a detailed examination; and last, it articulates a complex concept of ideology that is nourished by the confluence of contrasting visions.
From Marxism to Neo-Zapatism: the incalculable difference between what has been gained and what has been lost
An assessment is made of the process that led from marxism to neo-zapatism in Mexico, between 1969 and 2023, through the history of the National Liberation Forces (FLN) and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). The movement from the FLN to the EZLN is interpreted as a logical development of the Marxist theoretical syllogism itself, leading to its practical Neo-Zapatista consequence. After reviewing the origin and development of these guerrilla organizations, their respective leaders, and their relationships with Marxism, the paper reconsiders all this in light of the ideological necessity of post-Marxism in the historical conjuncture of the post-Cold War. Then, through the discourse of the EZLN, the strategic shift from Marxism to Neo-Zapatism and the contradictions between Marxist theory and Neo-Zapatista practice are analyzed. Finally, discussing various opinions about the EZLN in relation to Marx's legacy, we reflect on the incalculable difference between what is gained and what is lost in moving from Marxism to Neo-Zapatism.
Guillermo Hurtado, Biografía de la verdad: ¿Cuándo dejó de importarnos la verdad y por qué deberíamos recuperarla?, México, Siglo XXI Editores, 2024, 142 pp.
This essay aims to address the diagnosis of the illness of our time, which, curiously, takes the form of a temporal pathology, and, at the same time, to explore the alternative of slowness (not merely as a modulation of speed, but as a virtue, pathos, and way of life).
Jorge Dubatti (ed.) Artistas-investigadoras/es y producción de conocimiento desde la escena. Una filosofía de la praxis teatral,
Interpretation, critique and anthropology
In this article I reflect about the notion of experience on the basis of some approaches of hermeneutics and Critical Theory, in order to, on the one hand, find points in common between them that justify combining interpretation and critique, and , on the other one, including sociocultural anthropology in the interpretation of modernity, on the other. Thus, by using a dialogue with Victor Turner's anthropology of experience and François Laplantine's modal anthropology, I propose a critical interpretation of modern experience as an experience of extramodernity.
Reception and criticism of Kantian philosophy in German-language philosophy in the 21st century
Commemoration: Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804
Sociology and philosophy in the work of Jürgen Habermas
Marco A. Toscano Medina, La educación filosófica: aprender un modo de vida. Morelia, Instituto Michoacano de Ciencias de la Educación, 2021, 207 pp.
Everyday Life, Abstract Time and Reification: an Approach to History and Class Consciousness
History and Class Consciousness is regarded as a seminal work in the emergence of various philosophical, political, and aesthetic issues at the beginning of the 20th century. Its impact can be observed in perspectives from other theoretical fields that recognized the work’s identification of determining topics of modernity. This article delves into the analysis of three theoretical cores considered central in History and Class Consciousness, believed to critically elucidate the contemporary world: everyday life, abstract time, and reification. These three pathways will be deepened as possibilities for a critical appropriation of the Lukácsian proposal, utilizing as analytical framework the perspective of “Critique of Value”, certain propositions of Karl Marx, and the presentation of specific critiques of his project, all to demonstrate the vigor and relevance of the work in understanding substantial dynamics of present social reality.
A normative vision of narrative literary fiction: fiction, narrative and literature within the debate of make-believe theories
Philosopher Manuel García Carpintero has recently proposed a new approach to define what fiction is, which he calls normative, that applies the theoretical framework of make-believe theories. This approach characterizes the concept of narrative literary fiction as a practice defined by a set of ideal and necessary entities, or in other words, by a set of constitutive norms. The present paper focuses on applying García Carpintero’s normative approach to define a specific type of fiction, namely fictionary literary narrative, relying on three concepts: fiction, narrative and literature. The conclusion is that fictionary literary narrative is a hybrid artifact designed to accomplish the functions relative to these three different concepts.
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The term “autonomous education” is not free from the current tendency to neutralize the subversive potency of certain words through generalization and excessive use. If we were to remove it from our lexicon so as not to contribute to its semantic emptying, we would lose a valuable reference in the defense of non-neoliberal ways of life. What to do in the face of this dead end? Our proposal is to assume it precisely as a dead end. To argue it, we rely on the Aristotelian rattle and the learnings of resistance, whose elemental formula is Bartleby’s response, “I would prefer not”.
The motives of phenomenology in Husserl's work.
This text presents a systematic exposition of the motives of Husserl’s phenomenology, that could serve as material for a future investigation of the problem of the passage from the natural attitude to the transcendental attitude and the return from the latter to the former – a problem posed by Eugen Fink’s theory of the motivation of phenomenology. Philosophical motives are distinguished from phenomenological motives. Philosophical motives concentrate on the clarification of concepts and the transcendental problem. Phenomenological motives regard the knowledge of consciousness for its own sake. In the first case, we speak of transcendental phenomenology. In the second, of pure phenomenology and phenomenological psychology. The transcendental reduction is the phenomenological method determined by philosophical motives. The name 'phenomenological reduction' is proposed for the phenomenological method determined by phenomenological motives.
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Hell and sexuality in Jean-Paul Sartre. An ontological reinterpretation
The topic of sexuality is controversial in public debates where it is difficult to accept or take anything for granted. In philosophical analysis little interest has been invested in such considerations and they are relegated more usually to cultural, social or anthropological debates. This paper reviews the brief ontology of sexuality developed by Jean-Paul Sartre in his work Being and Nothingness; the subject is limited to his reflections on primordial relationships with a neighbor. Following up on the rereading made in a related work regarding the problem of interpersonal relationships in Sartre’s reflections, the present aim is to reinterpret the theme of sexuality beyond sadomasochistic limits, and to establish some references to discuss the issue on ontological foundations. The results lead to understanding sexuality as a pre-ontological condition in relation to being-before the other, a requirement for the three ontological elements of the human being to be possible: the body in-itself, which is a biological corporal basis; the body for-itself, as the foundation of human identity; and the body for-the-other, rooted in interpersonal interaction. Moreover, these fundamental components are identified as inscribed in the formative context of being-with.
Luciana Martínez. Ponce Esteban (eds.), El genio en el siglo XVIII, España, Herder, 2022, 334pp.
The present paper aims to contribute to cognitive semiotics, in particular, and to cognitive sciences, in general. The contribution lies in presenting a definition of semiosis that integrates both biological and cultural aspects of a cognitive subject (which we consider as a human being). Therefore, it will be more pertinent to call it “bio-semiosis”. At the same time, we seek that cognitive semiotics, after acquiring relevant and proper concepts, becomes one of the disciplines that make up cognitive sciences. In this sense, the paper draws on certain notions from general semiotics, of course, but also from neuroscience and biology. We thus create a sort of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary amalgamation that revolves around semiosis as a complex and material bio-cognitive process.
What is philosophizing? Towards a reading of the series of fragments 2a-f of Aristotle's Protrepticus
In the series of fragments 2 of the Protrepticus, philosophy is characterized as: 1) the exercise of researching/inquiring or demonstrating (2a, 2d and 2e), 2) a knowledge of contemplative character (2a) and 3) the guiding science that allows us to know how to act correctly (2f). The reading of these extracts, in the light of the remaining preserved fragments, leads us to think that these characterizations can be interpreted as different aspects of the same conception of philosophy. For this reason, it not only allows us to understand the complexity that this conception had in the Protrepticus, but also the partiality supposed by the common association between philosophy and theoretical knowledge. In this paper we propose to analyze this question. To do so, we divide it into three parts, in which we deal with the three aspects of philosophy mentioned above, as well as the relationship among them.
Velázquez Delgado, Jorge, Herencias del humanismo. Filosofía de la praxis y humanismo crítico en Rodolfo Mondolfo. México, Editorial Torres Asociados, 2021, 254 pp.
Review of Herencias del humanismo. Filosofía de la praxis y humanismo crítico en Rodolfo Mondolfo.
Éric Sadin, La vida espectral. Pensar la era del metaverso y las inteligencias artificiales, Argentina, Caja Negra, 2024
Reseña de La vida espectral. Pensar la era del metaverso y las inteligencias artificiales de Éric Sadin.
Michel Serres, Aclaraciones: cinco entrevistas con Bruno Latour, Colombia, Piedra Roseta, 2023
Reseña de Aclaraciones: cinco entrevistas con Bruno Latour de Michel Serres.
Introduction to the 25th Aniversary Edition of Devenires.
The relevance of philosophy as social philosophy
The article argues for a philosophy that wants to understand itself primarily as a social philosophy. This refers to a philosophy that is characterized by a commitment to society in a double sense: On the one hand, it is a commitment to a normative concept of society, which is above all a countervailing power to the State. On the other hand, it is a concept of society that understands itself always as a place of crisis. Against this background, philosophy as social philosophy is to be understood as a crisis manager. The article aims to show that this understanding is expressed above all in the tradition of Critical Theory, but also that the current versions of this tradition lack a normatively substantive concept of society.
Walter Benjamin's “Critique of Violence”
It is currently common for some texts by Walter Benjamin to be circumscribed to a cannonical reading and interpretation that academic philosophy has established for the purpose. Many readers and commentators have focused, above all, in a (profoundly anti-benjaminian) discussion about what the author from Berlin really said or wanted to say. With this are lost the essential points and what matters most: the surprising validity of Benjamin’s thought, its prophetic character with respect to what today is affirmed as the “rule-of-law” and what it teaches us with respect to our own present, in which the evident exhaustion and future breaking-point of modern political culture confronts us with old and new forms of political, cultural or criminal violence. Faced with this type of reception, what we will try here is to propose a political reading of the essay “For a critique of violence”. This reading consists of the shaping of a relatively complex epistemic-critical prism, which contains three different but complementary moments or developments: the Benjaminian “moment”; the German “moment”; and what results from the intersection of the last two, that is, the way in which Benjamin recovers and critically interprets what happened in Germany between 1918 and 1921.
Crisis and Reconstruction in Critical Theory
In this paper, I present a critique of the contemporary strands of post-metaphysical critical theory. I maintain that shifts in political economy need to be taken into account when understanding the normative theories that have developed and why they are insufficient as a critical theory of society. I end by presenting an alternative paradigm: that of a critical social ontology that takes the full structure of human needs and capacities into account.
Philosophical Sociology: Fifteen years of a research programme
This brief text summarizes the main assumptions and theses of the research program of Philosophical Sociology. Taking as its starting point the tradition of Philosophical Anthropology of the first half of the last century, Philosophical Sociology argues that, as a species, humans have a set of anthropological properties that make the production and reproduction of the social possible. That is to say, these are general properties that, although they are socioculturally actualized, maintain a high level of autonomy in relation to the contexts. The article reviews three of the distinctive dimensions of Philosophical Sociology: (1) its commitment to a humanist but not anthropocentric position; (2) the post-metaphysical justification of its universalist orientation; (3) the centrality of the concept of “normative idea” to capture the way in which moral ideas are deployed in life.
Hypothesis of general problematization of current philosophy in Mexico
To date, the question “what is philosophy?” remains valid, since it does not have a unique answer. Here, problematizing its concept does not mean observing an abstract and timeless unknown, but rather evaluating the relationship that may exist between the discourses with which it is defined and its factual social presentation (discipline legitimized and supported by the State). Thus, the article presents an investigation to support the following problematic hypothesis of current philosophy in Mexico: if the conceptual state of philosophy appears both undefined and normalized, and if the conception of philosophy has a fundamental character in its concrete social and guild expression, then, the lack of a concept (clear, systematic and common) would be the biggest problem of current philosophy. The objective is to generate a position in the reader about the possibilities of addressing that conception as a collective problem.