Seriousness, Irony, and Cultural Politics: A Defense of Jorge Portilla

This essay discusses Jorge Portilla’s phenomenological analysis of values and freedom in his essay, “The Phenomenology of Relajo.” Portilla argues that genuine freedom requires seriousness and sincerity; it requires wholehearted participation in cultural practices that one finds truly valuable. To support his argument, Portilla examines the ways that values and freedom are undermined when cultural practices are disrupted and break down as a result of the antics of the so-called "relajiento," a kind of “class clown” figure in Mexican culture who refuses to take anything seriously. Carlos Sánchez has criticized Portilla's rejection of the relajiento, suggesting that the relajiento’s disruptive behavior may be a liberatory act of defiance against the legacy of colonialism. I argue, however, that Portilla was right to see the relajiento’s behavior as counterproductive in the fight for liberation from oppression

Surviving Social Disintegration: Jorge Portilla on the phenomenology of zozobra

​In the wake of the extremely divisive 2016 presidential election, many US Americans are feeling deeply unsettled by the sense that the basic norms that govern life in our society are in a state of flux. How might we best describe and analyze the experience of living in a society that is so divided, a society whose very normative structure seems to be disintegrating? What problematic behaviors might arise in this situation? And how might we continue to work for positive social change without further disrupting the normative order of our society? In this paper, I explore some insights into these issues that can be found in the work of Mexican phenomenologist Jorge Portilla, whose fascinating essays on cultural politics are just beginning to be translated into English. Portilla lived at a time in which his society’s normative structure was also in a state of flux. He argues that this state of normative disintegration generates a widely shared sense of zozobra—a profound anxiety that is not a psychological state but a state of existence, and that tends to provoke a number of defensive reactions that may be familiar to us today. I argue that Portilla's analysis of zozobra is a valuable resource for navigating the contemporary world.

Metaphilosophy: Defining Latin American and Latinx Philosophy,

Some of the central questions that have been explored by Latin American and Latinx philosophers are questions of metaphilosophy. "Metaphilosophy" refers to philosophical reflections on the nature of philosophy itself. For example, we might ask: What is the purpose of doing philosophy? How does philosophy compare and contrast with other disciplines, such as science, theology, or literature? And what is the best way of categorizing the different kinds and traditions of philosophy? These are philosophical questions about philosophy as an activity and as a discipline. In this chapter, we discuss some ways that Latin American and Latinx philosophers have addressed these and other metaphilosophical issues. Our focus will be on the following questions: What are the defining characteristics of Latin American philosophy and Latinx philosophy? Do they constitute distinctive traditions of philosophy, and if so, what is especially valuable about these traditions

On the Distinctive Value of Mexican-American Philosophy: Beginning with the concerns and intuitions of Mexican Americans

It has been said that all philosophy begins with a set of concerns and a set of intuitions. With this idea in mind, we ask: Would it be helpful to understand Mexican-American philosophy as a kind of philosophy that begins with the concerns and intuitions of the Mexican-American community? On this view, what distinguishes Mexican-American philosophy is the orientation from which the philosophical investigation proceeds. Such an orientation is shaped by the experiences and relationships that are characteristic of those who identify as Mexican-American. We offer a list of concerns and intuitions that we suggest are widely held by the Mexican-American community. Focusing on questions surrounding linguistic assimilation in the U.S., we illustrate how beginning from these particular starting points might alter the way we think about philosophical issues

Detection and Tracking of the Regions of Skin Using the Technique HS-ab

The content of this work is the proposal of the technical HS-ab for the detection and tracking of the regions of skin in real time. First, two proposed techniques are analyzed for the modeling of skin color in images using a combination of color spaces HSV with YCbCr and HSV with CIELab. In the process of definition of the intervals of pixels is taken into account the following: non-skin color uses the components H and S, whereas skin color uses the components Cb, Cr, a, and b. The results showed that the HS-ab technique is better than the HS-CbCr technique because of the precision in detecting skin color according to the percentages C (34.8%) and CDR (67%). After, the morphologic operations are applied to debug the images of the previous segmentation and detect regions of skin using methods such as blob extraction and contour detection. Subsequently, the tracking of skin color consists of calculating the moments and positions of each frame to know the trajectory of the regions of skin. The purpose of the work is to design an easy-to-use computer vision system that will facilitate the early rehabilitation of patients before they are clinically ready to be fitted with a prosthesis

Estudio sobre las motivaciones para recorrer el Camino de Santiago

Este estudio se ha centrado en conocer las motivaciones del viajero jacobeo actual, mayor de 15 años, que andando o en bicicleta recorre el Camino de Santiago, analizando las relaciones referentes a las necesidades de evasión de la vida cotidiana y la experiencia activa a través de la actividad físico-deportiva. La investigación se ha desarrollado mediante la aplicación de un cuestionario autoadministrado a una muestra de 1.071 sujetos, utilizando el procedimiento de muestreo estratificado polietápico con afijación proporcional, con un margen de error muestral del ± 3 % y un nivel de confianza del 95,5%. Los resultados han puesto de manifiesto la adaptación de esta ruta, tradicionalmente recorrida por motivos religiosos, a la época contemporánea, constituyendo, en la actualidad, un escenario en el que están presentes los distintos elementos del ocio y las actividades físico-deportivo-recreativas en el medio natural, vinculada con el turismo rural, deportivo, de aventura o cultural, y donde el sujeto busca también alejarse del cotidiano estrés urbano

Estudio sobre las motivaciones para recorrer el Camino de Santiago

Este estudio se ha centrado en conocer las motivaciones del viajero jacobeo actual, mayor de 15 años, que andando o en bicicleta recorre el Camino de Santiago, analizando las relaciones referentes a las necesidades de evasión de la vida cotidiana y la experiencia activa a través de la actividad físico-deportiva. La investigación se ha desarrollado mediante la aplicación de un cuestionario autoadministrado a una muestra de 1.071 sujetos, utilizando el procedimiento de muestreo estratificado polietápico con afijación proporcional, con un margen de error muestral del ± 3 % y un nivel de confianza del 95,5%. Los resultados han puesto de manifiesto la adaptación de esta ruta, tradicionalmente recorrida por motivos religiosos, a la época contemporánea, constituyendo, en la actualidad, un escenario en el que están presentes los distintos elementos del ocio y las actividades físico-deportivo-recreativas en el medio natural, vinculada con el turismo rural, deportivo, de aventura o cultural, y donde el sujeto busca también alejarse del cotidiano estrés urbano