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El significado del asco (Teorema. Serie mayor)
El asco está considerado como una emoción peculiarmente humana. ¿Pero en qué consiste el que algo sea asqueroso? ¿Qué es lo que agrupa a ciertas cosas en tanto que desencadenantes de una emoción de asco? Colin McGinn pretende analizar lo que hay en el fondo del asco, argumentando que la vida y la muerte están implícitas en su significado. El asco es un tipo de emoción filosófica que refleja la actitud humana hacia el mundo biológico. Incluso aunque sea una emoción que nos esforzamos por reprimir. Inicialmente surge, con toda probabilidad, como un método para refrenar el insaciable deseo humano, que, a su vez, es el resultado de nuestra poderosa imaginación. Al sentir asco hacia nosotros mismos como especie, nos situamos ante un tenso dilema nos admiramos por nuestros logros, pero también experimentamos un sentimiento de repulsión hacia nuestra necesaria naturaleza orgánica. Somos presa de una división en nuestros afectos.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 22, 2016
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About the author
Colin McGinn
41 books75 followersColin McGinn is a British philosopher currently working at the University of Miami. McGinn has also held major teaching positions at Oxford University and Rutgers University. He is best known for his work in the philosophy of mind, though he has written on topics across the breadth of modern philosophy. Chief among his works intended for a general audience is the intellectual memoir The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth-Century Philosophy (2002).
Colin McGinn was born in Blackpool, England in 1950. He enrolled in Manchester University to study psychology. However, by the time he received his degree in psychology from Manchester in 1971 (by writing a thesis focusing on the ideas of Noam Chomsky), he wanted to study philosophy as a postgraduate. By 1972, McGinn was admitted into Oxford University's B.Litt postgraduate programme, in hopes of eventually gaining entrance into Oxford's postgraduate B.Phil. programme.
McGinn quickly made the transition from psychology to philosophy during his first term at Oxford. After working zealously to make the transition, he was soon admitted into the B.Phil programme under the recommendation of his advisor, Michael R. Ayers. Shortly after entering the philosophy programme, he won the John Locke Prize in 1972. By 1974, McGinn received the B.Phil degree from Oxford, writing a thesis under the supervision of P.F. Strawson, which focused on the semantics of Donald Davidson.
In 1974, McGinn took his first philosophy position at University College London. In January 1980, he spent two semesters at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as a visiting professor. Then, shortly after declining a job at University of Southern California, he succeeded Gareth Evans as Wilde Reader at Oxford University. In 1988, shortly after a visiting term at City University of New York (CUNY), McGinn received a job offer from Rutgers University. He accepted the offer from Rutgers, joining ranks with, among others, Jerry Fodor in the philosophy department. McGinn stayed at Rutgers until 2006, when he accepted a job offer from University of Miami as full time professor.
Although McGinn has written dozens of articles in philosophical logic, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language, he is best known for his work in the philosophy of mind. In his 1989 article "Can We Solve the Mind-Body Problem?", McGinn speculates that the human mind is innately incapable of comprehending itself entirely, and that this incapacity spawns the puzzles of consciousness that have preoccupied Western philosophy since Descartes. Thus, McGinn's answer to the hard problem of consciousness is that humans cannot find the answer. This position has been nicknamed the "New Mysterianism". The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World (2000) is a non-technical exposition of McGinn's theory.
Outside of philosophy, McGinn has written a novel entitled The Space Trap (1992). He was also featured prominently as an interviewee in Jonathon Miller's Brief History of Disbelief, a documentary miniseries about atheism's history. He discussed the philosophy of belief as well as his own beliefs as an atheist.
Colin McGinn was born in Blackpool, England in 1950. He enrolled in Manchester University to study psychology. However, by the time he received his degree in psychology from Manchester in 1971 (by writing a thesis focusing on the ideas of Noam Chomsky), he wanted to study philosophy as a postgraduate. By 1972, McGinn was admitted into Oxford University's B.Litt postgraduate programme, in hopes of eventually gaining entrance into Oxford's postgraduate B.Phil. programme.
McGinn quickly made the transition from psychology to philosophy during his first term at Oxford. After working zealously to make the transition, he was soon admitted into the B.Phil programme under the recommendation of his advisor, Michael R. Ayers. Shortly after entering the philosophy programme, he won the John Locke Prize in 1972. By 1974, McGinn received the B.Phil degree from Oxford, writing a thesis under the supervision of P.F. Strawson, which focused on the semantics of Donald Davidson.
In 1974, McGinn took his first philosophy position at University College London. In January 1980, he spent two semesters at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as a visiting professor. Then, shortly after declining a job at University of Southern California, he succeeded Gareth Evans as Wilde Reader at Oxford University. In 1988, shortly after a visiting term at City University of New York (CUNY), McGinn received a job offer from Rutgers University. He accepted the offer from Rutgers, joining ranks with, among others, Jerry Fodor in the philosophy department. McGinn stayed at Rutgers until 2006, when he accepted a job offer from University of Miami as full time professor.
Although McGinn has written dozens of articles in philosophical logic, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language, he is best known for his work in the philosophy of mind. In his 1989 article "Can We Solve the Mind-Body Problem?", McGinn speculates that the human mind is innately incapable of comprehending itself entirely, and that this incapacity spawns the puzzles of consciousness that have preoccupied Western philosophy since Descartes. Thus, McGinn's answer to the hard problem of consciousness is that humans cannot find the answer. This position has been nicknamed the "New Mysterianism". The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World (2000) is a non-technical exposition of McGinn's theory.
Outside of philosophy, McGinn has written a novel entitled The Space Trap (1992). He was also featured prominently as an interviewee in Jonathon Miller's Brief History of Disbelief, a documentary miniseries about atheism's history. He discussed the philosophy of belief as well as his own beliefs as an atheist.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 2, 2025
3.5
Plantea conceptos y visiones distintas interesantes acerca de esta sensación de repugnancia; pero en algunas partes se me hizo redundante la información sobre el Sosein del asco (la misma explicación pero con otras palabras), desde el principio ya se deja en claro cómo distinguir el tópico de la esencia básica del desagrado, pero se vuelve a repetir en posteriores ocasiones sobre explicando y sentí que estaba leyendo lo mismo una y otra vez.
Por otro lado, me gustó que empleara ejemplos de varios tipos de rechazo hacia los objetos, personas, animales y demás. El que haya descrito tanto el porqué de la sensación y detallar las características del cuerpo que posee las causas de esa sensación me pareció muy acertado. Se puede explorar y reflexionar más de lo que uno se podría imaginar. El asco es más interesante de lo que pensé.
Hay ciertos argumentos que carecen de veracidad completa y se pueden desmontar fácilmente, pero se entiende que llega a ser difícil de entender la repulsión, ya que es algo más complejo de lo que parece.
También se encuentran incoherencias, pero la más importante que noté, fue cómo describe los rasgos de este sentimiento de aversión y de lo que lo distingue o separa del miedo u odio:
"La asquerosidad, argumento, es una propiedad objetiva, no subjetiva o relativa."
"Lo que un elemento objetivamente hace es lo que lo convierte en algo temible u odiable; lo que un elemento subjetivamente parece es lo que lo hace desagradable."
Por otro lado, fue una revisión profunda y abierta de un estímulo tan natural que tenemos. Me gustó.
"El asco no es aburrido, es una clase de glamour negativo."
Plantea conceptos y visiones distintas interesantes acerca de esta sensación de repugnancia; pero en algunas partes se me hizo redundante la información sobre el Sosein del asco (la misma explicación pero con otras palabras), desde el principio ya se deja en claro cómo distinguir el tópico de la esencia básica del desagrado, pero se vuelve a repetir en posteriores ocasiones sobre explicando y sentí que estaba leyendo lo mismo una y otra vez.
Por otro lado, me gustó que empleara ejemplos de varios tipos de rechazo hacia los objetos, personas, animales y demás. El que haya descrito tanto el porqué de la sensación y detallar las características del cuerpo que posee las causas de esa sensación me pareció muy acertado. Se puede explorar y reflexionar más de lo que uno se podría imaginar. El asco es más interesante de lo que pensé.
Hay ciertos argumentos que carecen de veracidad completa y se pueden desmontar fácilmente, pero se entiende que llega a ser difícil de entender la repulsión, ya que es algo más complejo de lo que parece.
También se encuentran incoherencias, pero la más importante que noté, fue cómo describe los rasgos de este sentimiento de aversión y de lo que lo distingue o separa del miedo u odio:
"La asquerosidad, argumento, es una propiedad objetiva, no subjetiva o relativa."
"Lo que un elemento objetivamente hace es lo que lo convierte en algo temible u odiable; lo que un elemento subjetivamente parece es lo que lo hace desagradable."
Por otro lado, fue una revisión profunda y abierta de un estímulo tan natural que tenemos. Me gustó.
"El asco no es aburrido, es una clase de glamour negativo."
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