Washington Morales Maciel | Universidad de la República (original) (raw)

Papers by Washington Morales Maciel

Revista Relaciones , 2024

A 300 años del nacimiento de Immanuel Kant, este artículo revisa la recepción de Kant más allá de... more A 300 años del nacimiento de Immanuel Kant, este artículo revisa la recepción de Kant más allá de los estrechos límites artísticos de la estética, proponiendo para eso el señalamiento de las virtudes y limitaciones de la estética kantiana en la comprensión de la naturaleza, el diseño y sus intersecciones. El foco de nuestro escrito es la posibilidad de una estética con valor ecológico.

Boletín de Estética, 2024

Resumen A cien años del fallecimiento de Franz Kafka (1883-1924), este artículo estudia el valor ... more Resumen A cien años del fallecimiento de Franz Kafka (1883-1924), este artículo estudia el valor de su obra para la tradicional discusión filosófica acerca de la naturaleza de la interpretación literaria. Particularmente, la tesis propuesta sugiere el valor directriz de sus textos en la producción del sentido (apreciación literaria) de sus obras y, con ello, la peculiar intervención que desde allí se resuelve en el uso no-ficcional de nuestros conceptos. Así, el diseño del primer capítulo de El proceso es propuesto como caso modélico de intervención de una ficción literaria en nuestra construcción cognitiva del mundo.

Élenkhos, 2023

Resumen. Es usual pensar nuestras historias de vida, individuales y colectivas, bajo la forma de ... more Resumen. Es usual pensar nuestras historias de vida, individuales y colectivas, bajo la forma de narraciones. Así, desde autobiografías hasta conversaciones de la vida cotidiana hacemos de nuestras experiencias relatos, contamos qué nos ocurre, figurándonos los porqué e incluso entreteniendo los modos de narrarnos como diversión. Nuestro sentido común presupone, sin embargo, una cierta reducción de lo narrativo a un tipo de narrativa específico, i.e., la narrativa literaria. Dos preguntas filosóficas han abierto dos debates acerca de ese presupuesto. En primer lugar, la interpretación literaria sería análoga a los modos de interpretación del psicoanálisis, asunto que iluminaría tanto la naturaleza de la comprensión literaria cuanto la psicoanalítica. En segundo lugar, la constitución de la identidad personal sería literaria, asunto del que depende el humanismo literario. El objetivo de este artículo es hacer explícitos los problemas que se siguen de aquel presupuesto.

Word and Text, 2023

This article argues that for Theodor W. Adorno psychoanalysis illuminates the nature of literary ... more This article argues that for Theodor W. Adorno psychoanalysis illuminates the nature of literary interpretation. Particularly, Adorno's metacriticism defines the interpretative procedures of literature and some affinities between the aims of literary and psychoanalytic interpretations. However, his arguments do not rest on a 'top-down' analysis but on a 'bottom-up' one. So, this article also argues that Adorno's interest in Franz Kafka's oeuvre focuses on literary criticism and defends some theses on metacriticism. Nevertheless, for Adorno, interpreting literature implies switching the reader's attention from ordinary meaning understanding to aesthetic appreciation. In this respect, my article finally argues that what Adorno called (literary) 'gestures' works as the resource for metacriticism, analogous to Freudian slips.

Croatian Journal of Philosophy, 2022

Literature has been philosophically understood as a practice in the last thirty years, which invo... more Literature has been philosophically understood as a practice in the last thirty years, which involves "modes of utterance" and stances, not intrinsic textual properties. Thus, the place for semantics in philosophical inquiry has clearly diminished. Literary aesthetic appreciation has shifted its focus from aesthetic realism, based on the study of textual features, to ways of reading. Peter Lamarque's concept of narrative opacity is a clear example of this shift. According to the philosophy of literature, literature, like any other art form, does not compel us to engage realistically with it. Against this trend, this paper argues for the distinction between two kinds of opacity, defending textual opacity as a necessary condition for literary opacity. In this sense, examples in literary criticism properly illustrate not a peripheral role of meaning in literary appreciation, but arbitrariness in interpretation, which involves semantic concerns. So the assumed interest in the specifi c ways in which literature embeds meaning in fi ctional narrative works.

Veritas, 2022

This contribution aims to elucidate a dilemma involved in the debate on the relationship between ... more This contribution aims to elucidate a dilemma involved in the debate on the relationship between the practical and theoretical knowledge, on the one hand, and the aesthetic value of literature, on the other. To achieve that objective, Peter Lamarque’s arguments against the epistemic reduction of literary value will be analyzed. Firstly, it is argued that the defense of the cognitive value of literature does not necessarily imply an engagement with a propositional truth theory of literary value. Secondly, it is also argued that it is the specific manner by which literature plays a role in “the battle for the ideas” that determines its particular aesthetic value. Therefore, according to our interpretation of that dilemma, the narrative opacity thesis argued by Lamarque not only does not exclude our knowledge of the world, but it is what explains the aesthetic value of literary works.

Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics, 2021

Peter Lamarque has suggested that literature could not win the "battle for ideas" without engagin... more Peter Lamarque has suggested that literature could not win the "battle for
ideas" without engaging with a (propositional) truth theory of literary value. Thus, denying the theoretical role of truth in the aesthetic appreciation of literary works seems to compel us to leave any disputing arena. In that sense, accepting Peter Lamarque's arguments can be considered a wrong framework for any cognitivist approach to literature since his narrative opacity thesis seems to exclude a cognitivist elucidation. In this article, I briefly discuss that set of inferences. Firstly, I question the Lamarquean approach concerning the battle for ideas concept. Secondly, I propose an elucidation of the narrative opacity, which pretends to be cognitivist and non-truth dependent

Crítica Contemporánea , 2020

In this paper I hold some hypotheses on recent changes of the urban furniture in Montevideo City.... more In this paper I hold some hypotheses on recent changes of the urban furniture in
Montevideo City. The new sites of traditional urban objects as fences, tubes, and flowerpots are overlooked when we pass through the City. Nevertheless, precisely by virtue of these changes in the locations of traditional objects, it is reasonable to think that they are problematic signs of the new uses we give them. The general aim pursued by these hypotheses is triple: 1) to call into question the urban transformation of Montevideo by means of international references on the so named “hostile design”, 2) to denaturalize non-isolated changes of the interpretations by which we comprehend our social relationships, and 3) to think about a set of problems to further sociological, anthropological, and psychological researches on the Montevidean social polarizations. In short, I argue that the aestheticization of the urban defensive furniture in Montevideo
strengthens a regressive interpretation of those social problems which are apparently resolved employing aestheticized urban furniture. Through that category –regression– I claim to publicly point out the ideological character of the aestheticization involved in the Montevidean social problems.

Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics , 2020

Peter Lamarque’s The Narrative of Opacity1 is a very stimulating book on the philosophy of liter... more Peter Lamarque’s The Narrative of Opacity1
is a very stimulating book on
the philosophy of literature. It not only presents extremely powerful
theoretical tools to value any literary theory, but also provides a deep
understanding of literary production and reception. In addition, it introduces
interesting problems that should, in my opinion, be analysed with further
philosophical tools in order to hold, and theoretically promote its central
concept – narrative opacity – as well as rethink the concept of literary truth.
This paper pursues an analysis and reconstruction of this lamarquean concept
through other philosophers like Theodor W. Adorno, Gottlob Frege, Ernst H.
Gombrich, Nelson Goodman and Galvano Della Volpe. In this line, first, the lamarquean concept of narrative opacity is introduced, and then, some of the arising challenges are addressed.

Conference Proceedings of the Academy for Design Innovation Management , 2020

The debate about the so called "excluding design" has been a focus for applied philosophy for sev... more The debate about the so called "excluding design" has been a focus for applied philosophy for several years. The structure of this debate is constituted by deontological and consequentialist's applied ethics and as well as agonistic democratic approaches. This paper asks for the applicability of these points of view to the particular socio-political reality of Montevideo. Examining this reality closer, I hold that we cannot comprehend the recent aestheticization of the excluding design there through these contemporary philosophical frameworks. As an alternative philosophical procedure, I analyze the aestheticization of excluding design in Montevideo from Rahel Jaeggi's immanent criticism. I hold that this process of aestheticization implies an ideological regressive "form of life". And I also argue that the Uruguayan democracy is affected by this ideological regression. Nevertheless, because this aestheticization is not an exclusive Uruguayan phenomenon, this paper intends to open one direction in applied philosophy of urban design.

Digicom Proceedings, 2019

The aim of this paper is to point out the structural connection between two processes of the rece... more The aim of this paper is to point out the structural connection between two processes of the recent transformation of Montevideo’s urban landscape. One process is the explicit and intended governmental
incentive of muralism in Montevideo, especially in its most political
and touristic centric spaces. The other process, according to my interpretation, is the dissolution of politically engaged graffiti. Given graffiti’s inherent political potential, I hold that these phenomena contribute to disperse and, thus, to weaken the expressive power of the “urban graffiti”. By virtue of this dispersion, Montevideo is not merely undergoing a material transformation of the colours, compositions,
themes, and textures of its walls, but also a transformation of the
non-verbal ways by which the population conceives its socio-political
problems. Therefore, the phenomenon that I want to call into question is the actual reduction of the public ways of seeing into clearly
institutionalized visual patterns. The analogical, as well as the digital,
visual designs lose a necessary and rich source of popular ways of
visual thinking (graffiti). The main consequence of these processes is
a subtle form of depoliticization of Montevideo’s Agora by a state-imposed aestheticization

Estudios Dostoievski, 2019

Resumen Este artículo, de carácter más bien ensayístico, se pregunta por el valor del estudio lit... more Resumen Este artículo, de carácter más bien ensayístico, se pregunta por el valor del estudio literario a través de una lectura de un breve pasaje de Crimen y castigo. Este pasaje nos invita a pensar sobre la divergencia de la Europa nihilista de Dostoievski y el joven ordenamiento social del Uruguay. La pregunta por el valor de la literatura tendrá, entonces, el valor de que, desde una recepción tanto afectiva como intelectual, el pasaje de Crimen y castigo vuelve posible para quien lo lea el autorreconocimiento de nuestras experiencias, incluso cuando éstas sean divergentes a las de la somatización del nihilismo. Palabras clave: Fiódor Dostoievski, Crimen y castigo, Rahel Jaeggi, Juan Fló, Recepción, Uruguay. Introducción En ocasión de una estancia de estudio en Brasil, país en el que ensayé la escritura de este texto, asistí a una magnífica conferencia del profesor João A. Hansen (Universidade de São Paulo) sobre por qué estudiar literatura. A sólo un día de su fala, el actual presidente de este país, Jair Bolsonaro, anunciaba «descentralizar» (de la jurisdicción del Estado) la inversión económica en facultades de humanidades, con el objetivo de «enfocarse en áreas que generan [una] devolución inmediata al contribuyente», según él áreas como veterinaria, ingeniería y medicina. Las respuestas a este anuncio fueron inmediatas en varios ámbitos de la sociedad civil, especialmente el académico. Aquellas palabras de Hansen del día previo fueron, a nuestro pesar, las más acertadas acerca del estado de la situación de Brasil y, en alguna medida, de muchos de nuestros países en América Latina; ella fue una respuesta a priori a aquel dislate político. Según Hansen, las propias condiciones de emergencia de la pregunta (por qué estudiar literatura) son, ahora ya en mis palabras, ominosas. Solamente si la práctica, y experiencia, de la lectura literaria es extraña para una sociedad, la pregunta toma el verdadero sentido de una duda. Al igual que el profesor Hansen, entiendo, por un lado, que la pregunta toma sentido en las condiciones socio-culturales complejas, difíciles, en las que vivimos actualmente y, por otro lado, entiendo que de todos modos la pregunta más que nunca debe ser formulada y respondida con el propósito de transformar las condiciones sociales de su formulación.

Anais do SEFIM, Música e Sensibilidade. Linguagens e Sensibilidades, 2019

Há algumas semanas, assisti a uma fala do professor João Hansen, organizada pela Universidade Est... more Há algumas semanas, assisti a uma fala do professor João Hansen, organizada pela Universidade Estadual Paulista-campus Assis (UNESP), sobre por que estudar lite-ratura. Esta pergunta é inquietante ou infamiliar, no sentido freudiano de Unheimlich, porque a familiaridade da leitura literária já não supõe, ipso facto, a claridade da resposta. A questão é familiar, mas também estranha. Provavelmente, a condição da emergência da pergunta revele a dúvida sobre o que fazer quando pegamos uma produção literária. Em outras palavras, quais seriam as crenças, regras e condições contextuais que dirigem nossas práticas de leitura? Estas têm um rol nas progressões e regressões das nossas formas (sociais) de vida? Que rol é esse? Meu objetivo não é responder a essas perguntas, mas tentarei apresentar uma tese sobre uma questão análoga: por que escutar-estudar-música? A tese acompanha a mesma linha da dis-cussão sobre a literatura, ou seja, pensando-a como uma crítica das formas de vida. Um grande problema na busca pela resposta é a familiaridade da música. A música é irradiada o tempo todo e parece tão natural quanto nosso costume de assobiá-la (DEBUSSY, 1921). Porém, a resposta deve chamar nossa atenção às letras da música irradiada para a própria música. Ao contrário do que Nietzsche quis dizer sobre a música (NIETZSCHE, 1988), as letras absorvem uma grande parte da nossa atenção musical e esta fica subordinada às letras. Os estudos musicológicos das relações entre as letras, à música e nossa percepção dão algumas pistas para refletir criticamente sobre o rol da música popular nas nossas formas de vida. Mas o que acontece com aquela música chamada absoluta? Não temos, nessa música, uma língua que nos encaminhe sem opa-cidade para um mundo de fatos ontologicamente determinados. Portanto, a conexão da música com o elemento mais familiar das formas de vida-a língua-torna a resposta para essa pergunta mais difícil. Porém, meu objetivo não é respondê-la em termos empírico-descritivos, senão pensá-la nos termos normativos de Rahel Jaeggi (2018). Minha estratégia, portanto, tem dois momentos. O primeiro é expor o conceito das for-mas de vida de Jaeggi, que nos permite retomar o conceito de ideologia sem supor uma

Boletín de Estética , 2019

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct the concept of aesthetic normativity by Th... more The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct the concept of aesthetic normativity by Theodor W. Adorno. In doing so, it introduces an affirm-ative reconstruction of the concept of “truth content” (Wahrheitsge‐halt), because Adorno expressly defined it in a negative way. It argues that the music, directly related to mimicry, has its truth by refusing schematic forms which objectify the subject’s gestural narratives made by his own. In this sense, Arnold Schoenberg’s early works are clear examples of a musical refuse that implies also an experience refused. The true character of a work depends on its potential of refuse and, in turn, the aesthetic norm’s paradox is based on this potential, i.e., the norm is the refuse of the norm.

Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics, 2019

In recent times, a heterogeneous set of institutions, such as, journals, websites, cooperative sp... more In recent times, a heterogeneous set of institutions, such as,
journals, websites, cooperative spaces of creation, peculiar galleries and
museums, have been founded in order to call into question the creative
boundaries between art and science. Moreover, famous artists like Eduardo
Kac and Natalie Jeremijenko have also called into question these boundaries
even before those institutions were founded. In addition, philosophy has also
grasped the problematic by publishing academic papers in famous journals
like Leonardo. A question arises, have the boundaries between art and
science been dissolved by the artifacts of these artists? Moreover, are there
actual or clear differences among traditional arts, mainstream contemporary
art, and scientific and technological arts? Against standard perspectives in
philosophy and history of art, I hold that some forms of scientific art are
consequences of a historical process which I would like to call
“defictionalization” and “demimetization” of arts. This defictionalization is, I
argue, associated to the process that Lucy Lippard has called
“dematerialization” of contemporary art. The defictionalization traces the
boundaries among these recent forms of art by virtue of the cognitive
consequences in the receptors. Naturalization and reification of our aesthetic
comprehension of everyday social and physical world is a key consequence
of that process. This process that contemporary art is going through, allows us to question about the nature of the latest art history and, of course, about
the nature of the art criticism.

Actas de las Segundas Jornadas de Estudios Eslavos, Buenos Aires, Argentina 2018, 2018

Este artículo busca plantear la necesidad de considerar las condiciones ideológicas de recepción ... more Este artículo busca plantear la necesidad de considerar las condiciones ideológicas de
recepción de la obra de Féodor Dostoievski en el Río de la Plata para la reflexión sobre
su valor estético en nuestro contexto. Para ello presentaremos algunas observaciones de
Juan Fló (Uruguay, 1930) sobre el estado de cultura uruguaya y sobre el concepto de
verdad estética.

Books by Washington Morales Maciel

Perspectives on Sound, Music and Musicology, 2021

This chapter aims to elucidate the relationships between design and music, appealing to the conce... more This chapter aims to elucidate the relationships between design and music, appealing to the conceptual metaphor debate. It considers the epistemological importance of George Lakoff's invariance hypothesis on conventional metaphors to criticize the labor of historians of culture who focus on design, visual arts, and music connections. Given that many relevant cultural historians interpret entire historical intervals as epochal units by crossing through heterogeneous practices and assuming their discursive identity, this chapter intends to point out how methodologically conduct the historian across the study of trans-disciplinary connections. As an example, this chapter examines the String Quartet op. 7 composition process by Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg's musical compositions were constituted by a music theory and also by epistemic virtues based, in turn, on a metaphysical conception of art whose mayor principle is reducible into the following primary metaphor: an artwork is an organism. That metaphysical metaphor was precisely the link among different heterogeneous practices as design and music. The famous rejection of "decoration" by rejecting ornaments was founded in Schoenberg's Vienna in that particular metaphor.

Advances in Design, Music, and Arts, 2020

Arnold Schoenberg's refusal of ornaments is usually interpreted as a refusal of an entire epocal ... more Arnold Schoenberg's refusal of ornaments is usually interpreted as a refusal of an entire epocal sense and sensibilia. In particular, modernism, art déco, or Jugendstil design seem to have embodied that rejected sensibility by Schoenberg. It seems that music can call into question certain forms of life by calling into question a materialization of these forms. Nevertheless, the immediate systematic communication between design and music is not obvious, because it is also not obvious at all which the relationships between music and the forms of life are. From Egon Friedell's notes on his experiences visiting Vienna interior designs, I isolate a set of general assumptions implied in Vienna's indoor spaces. Everyday life in Vienna can be better comprehended by analyzing these notes than a collection of interpretations of art déco pieces. That set of assumptions is compared with a set of epistemic virtues involved in the composition of the String Quartet op. 7 by Arnold Schoenberg. His technical problems emerged from the specific non-technical beliefs. It is not an analogical level what determines the communication of design and music, but precisely the pre-theoretical level of each discipline. I argue that the String Quartet op. 7 is the acoustic embodiment of a Schoenberg's critical statement, that is, a complex disjointed unity of elements is not a condition of a more authentic expression.

Perspectives on Design and Digital Communication, 2021

The aim of this paper is to point out the theoretical importance of calling into question the soc... more The aim of this paper is to point out the theoretical importance of calling into question the socio-political sources of digital design. Precisely, by means of that idea of "sources of fiction" partly imported from the philosophy of literature and art, I postulate a distinction between digital design and visual world akin to that distinction between world fiction and natural and social world. If we comprehend the digital design in that way, many socio-political aspects of our everyday visual world are as important as the specific technical, practical and theoretical characteristics of digital design. In order to achieve that aim, I introduce and analyze the special aestheticization of the urbanscape of Montevideo City (Uruguay). The general thesis of this paper is that a really democratic digital design is also that design whose more basic visual materials are socially heterogeneous, because the democracy is not only a set of agreements among the members of the whole social body, but also the public acknowledgement of disagreements.

Revista Relaciones , 2024

Boletín de Estética, 2024

Élenkhos, 2023

Word and Text, 2023

Croatian Journal of Philosophy, 2022

Veritas, 2022

Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics, 2021

Crítica Contemporánea , 2020

Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics , 2020

Conference Proceedings of the Academy for Design Innovation Management , 2020

Digicom Proceedings, 2019

Estudios Dostoievski, 2019

Anais do SEFIM, Música e Sensibilidade. Linguagens e Sensibilidades, 2019

Boletín de Estética , 2019

Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics, 2019

Actas de las Segundas Jornadas de Estudios Eslavos, Buenos Aires, Argentina 2018, 2018

Perspectives on Sound, Music and Musicology, 2021

Advances in Design, Music, and Arts, 2020

Perspectives on Design and Digital Communication, 2021

by Viviana Suñol, Manuel Berrón, Eduardo Sinnott, Eduardo H. Mombello, Washington Morales Maciel, Mariana Castillo Merlo, Paola Druille, Ulises Leandro Drisner, Giuseppe Greco, Francisco Iversen, Matias Muriete, Jose Maria Nieva, claudia Seggiaro, Valeria Sonna, Miguel Ángel Spinassi, Belén Turiace, Laura Pérez, and Matias E. Kogel

Asociación Argentina de Filosofía Antigua, 2020

El presente volumen reúne buena parte de los trabajos que oportunamente se presentaron en el IV S... more El presente volumen reúne buena parte de los trabajos que oportunamente se presentaron en el IV Simposio Nacional de Filosofía Antigua organizado por la Asociación Argentina de Filosofía Antigua (AAFA), el cual se desarrolló del 28 al 30 de agosto de 2019 en el Centro de Posgrado de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
Además de las 48 ponencias de destacados especialistas latinoamericanos, el libro contiene las conferencias dictadas por el Dr.. Eduardo Sinnott y la Dra. Virginia Aspe Armella.

Anais Arquisur, 2022

Este ensaio busca a defesa de uma hipótese sobre a maneira em que a ordenação médica do espaço pe... more Este ensaio busca a defesa de uma hipótese sobre a maneira em que a ordenação médica do espaço pessoal e urbano transformou a nossa vida cotidiana em tempos da pandemia de Covid-19, especialmente no ano 2020. Uma introdução à pequena conferência "Des espaces autres" de Michel Foucault, sob a forma de quatro problematizações, será o universo discursivo desde o qual este ensaio é projetado. A sua estrutura tem uma primeira seção em que essas problematizações são colocadas e uma segunda em que os resultados dessa primeira são implementados na compreensão específicas de alguns fenômenos sociais próprios da pandemia de Covid-19.