Associate Professor, Institute of Philosophy, Universidad Diego Portales (Santiago, Chile)
He works on classical German philosophy —Kant, Fichte and Hegel— and, from there, on problems in the theory of action, practical philosophy and the philosophy of law: what it is to act for reasons, what grounds the authority of law, and which social and institutional conditions full rational agency presupposes.
He directs the Honours Diploma at Universidad Diego Portales and teaches Moral Philosophy and the Logic of Norms at the Faculty of Law of the Universidad de Chile.
CV (PDF, Spanish) UDP Institute of Philosophy ORCID Google Scholar Academia.edu
First, open-access texts that can be read and downloaded freely; then the volumes he has edited (in Spanish).
Open access
Edited by Milton Abellón. Quito: Editorial Universitaria, Universidad Central del Ecuador / Filosófica Editorial, 2026.
Includes his chapter «Acción intencional y autodesconocimiento» [Intentional Action and Self-Misknowledge] (pp. 293–327).
Download his chapter (PDF, 0,8 MB) Full book (PDF, 3,2 MB)
Free non-commercial use with attribution.
Edited by Juan Ormeño Karzulovic and Ignacio Peña Caroca. Santiago: Editorial Universitaria, 2020.
Starting from a critique of the individualism of modern social and political philosophy, the volume draws on recognition theory to give an intersubjective foundation to legal concepts and institutions such as authority, property, taxation and social rights.
Edited by Juan Ormeño Karzulovic and Miguel Vatter. Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2017.
A collection of essays on Kant's Doctrine of Right, covering the application of the moral law to politics, the relation between right and morality, the concept of external freedom, and the relation between private and public right.
Edited by Juan Ormeño Karzulovic. Santiago: LOM Ediciones, 2016.
Ten authors discuss what an action is, how it differs from a mere event, and how it is explained by reasons, relating these questions to moral and legal responsibility. Includes the first Spanish version of G. E. M. Anscombe's 'Under a Description'.
Edited by Vanessa Lemm and Juan Ormeño Karzulovic. Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Diego Portales, 2010.
A collective volume on the Phenomenology of Spirit and its relevance today, gathering Chilean and international authors such as Pippin, Siep and Quante, several of them in translation.
Four problems organize his work: what it is to act for reasons, what grounds the authority of law, how individuality is constituted in relations of recognition, and what a political community of equals requires.
The expressive and retrospective character of action, as against causalist and mentalist theories; subjective morality in the Philosophy of Right (§§ 105–141), with the rights of knowledge and of intention as conditions of imputation; and the thesis that full rational agency presupposes the institutions of ethical life.
The Doctrine of Right as a theory of external freedom, distinct from a moralizing reading of Kant's political philosophy; the first juridical duty and the founding of the civil condition; republicanism and the problem of institutional reform without a right of revolution.
Fichte's and Hegel's theory of recognition as a social theory of individuality: no one becomes an individual agent except within relations of recognition. Its bearing on Taylor's «politics of recognition», and the question whether recognition is a normative ethical principle or a thesis of social ontology.
Intrapersonal and interpersonal responsibility; norms and reasons for action; envy, resentment and self-respect under democratic equality; the authority of law and private property.
Articles, chapters and books, most recent first. Most are in Spanish; English translations of titles are given in brackets. Open versions are linked where available.
35 publications
«Acción intencional y autodesconocimiento». In Milton Abellón (ed.), G. W. F. Hegel. Estudios críticos, 293–327. Quito: Editorial Universitaria, Universidad Central del Ecuador / Filosófica Editorial. [Intentional Action and Self-Misknowledge]
Examines Hegel's conception of intentional action and the demanding notion of individual agency it implies: for Hegel, an agent's recognizing his own agency in what he does is not a given but a historical and social achievement that can fail, and such failure is not mere practical error but reaches the agent's own self-conception.
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«Private Property». Metodo. International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy 12 (2): 51–74.
ArticleDOI
«Las condiciones formales de la agencia individual: la moralidad subjetiva en las Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts de Hegel, §§ 119–128». In Gustavo Leyva Martínez y Alejandro Nava Tovar (eds.), La Filosofía del derecho de Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Sentido, problemas y perspectivas, 163–190. Ciudad de México: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. [The Formal Conditions of Individual Agency: Subjective Morality in Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right, §§119–128]
ChapterDOI
«Sin vida ética, no hay agencia racional cabal». In Miguel Giusti y Josimar Castilla (eds.), La pérdida de la eticidad. La crisis presente en clave hegeliana, 31–50. Buenos Aires: Teseo. [Without Ethical Life There Is No Full Rational Agency]
Defends Hegel's thesis that individual rational agency depends on rational institutions against critics who see it as bound to its time, reading Hegel as radicalizing the natural-law tradition and concluding that such institutions must be rethought rather than abandoned.
«¿Acaso esto es todo? Comunidad política y sociedad civil a 50 años del golpe». Editorial, Littera Scripta. Revista de Filosofía 6: i–vi. [Is This All There Is? Political Community and Civil Society Fifty Years after the Coup]
OtherDOI
«Realismo y pragmatismo en las concepciones intrapersonal e interpersonal de la responsabilidad. Comentario a Adscripción y reacción de Sebastián Figueroa». Eunomía. Revista en Cultura de la Legalidad 23: 476–482. [Realism and Pragmatism in Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Conceptions of Responsibility: A Commentary on Sebastián Figueroa's 'Adscripción y reacción']
Comments on chapter IV of Figueroa's book, accepting the need for an interpersonal conception of responsibility while objecting to equating the intrapersonal view with a metaphysical thesis and to the claim that every responsibility judgment is perspectival.
ArticleDOI
«Una concepción igualitarista de la justicia». In A cincuenta años de Teoría de la justicia. Ciudad de México: Contraste Editorial. [An Egalitarian Conception of Justice]
Chapter
Reconocimiento y derecho. Del yo al nosotros en las instituciones jurídicas. Edited, with Ignacio Peña Caroca. Santiago: Editorial Universitaria. [Recognition and Law: From the I to the We in Legal Institutions]
Starting from a critique of the individualism of modern social and political philosophy, the volume draws on recognition theory to give an intersubjective foundation to legal concepts and institutions such as authority, property, taxation and social rights.
BookOnline
«La concepción expresiva del espíritu, en particular de la agencia racional, en la Enciclopedia de las ciencias filosóficas de Hegel». In Ricardo Espinoza Lolas, Jorge Eduardo Fernández y Alberto Toscano (eds.), Hegel hoy. El pensador de las contradicciones del presente, 145–165. Barcelona: Herder. [The 'Expressive' Conception of Spirit, and of Rational Agency in Particular, in Hegel's Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences]
ChapterDOI
«Las condiciones formales de la persecución individual del Bien: la moralidad subjetiva en las Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts de Hegel, §§ 119–128». Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Internacional de Filosofía 15: 51–65. [The Formal Conditions of the Individual Pursuit of the Good: Subjective Morality in Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right, §§119–128]
Analyzes Hegel's move from the 'person' of abstract right to the 'subject' of morality, the distinction between deed and action, the right of knowledge and the right of intention as conditions of imputation, and the subject's right to its particularity (welfare).
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«Metafísica y revolución: ¿es el materialismo, al que los marxistas rusos adhirieron y que los bolcheviques convirtieron en doctrina oficial del Estado soviético, una concepción filosófica progresista por sí misma?». In Santiago Aránguiz Pinto (ed.), La Revolución Bolchevique y América Latina. Apropiaciones, experiencias y trayectorias. Santiago: RIL Editores. [Metaphysics and Revolution: Is the Materialism Embraced by Russian Marxists and Made Official Soviet Doctrine by the Bolsheviks a Progressive Philosophical Conception in Itself?]
Chapter
«El proyecto de una crítica de la economía política». In José Antonio Valdivia Fuenzalida (coord.), Filosofía de la economía. Principios fundamentales. Gijón: Trea. [The Project of a Critique of Political Economy]
Chapter
«Envidia, resentimiento e igualdad». HYBRIS. Revista de Filosofía 9 (special issue): 201–219. [Envy, Resentment, and Equality]
Argues that unequal distribution of goods people believe should be shared equally gives rise to a social and political kind of envy or resentment characteristic of democratic equality, linked to self-respect and to threats to citizens' mutual recognition.
ArticleDOI
Forzados a ser libres. Kant y la teoría republicana del derecho. Edited, with Miguel Vatter. Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Económica. [Forced to Be Free: Kant and the Republican Theory of Right]
A collection of essays on Kant's Doctrine of Right, covering the application of the moral law to politics, the relation between right and morality, the concept of external freedom, and the relation between private and public right.
Book
«El debate sobre la filosofía del derecho de Kant hoy» (with Miguel Vatter). Introduction. In Juan Ormeño Karzulovic y Miguel Vatter (eds.), Forzados a ser libres. Kant y la teoría republicana del derecho, 11–24. Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Económica. [The Current Debate on Kant's Philosophy of Right]
Other
«Violencia y autorrespeto. Las bases kantianas de la libertad exterior». In Juan Ormeño Karzulovic y Miguel Vatter (eds.), Forzados a ser libres. Kant y la teoría republicana del derecho, 159–173. Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Económica. [Violence and Self-Respect: The Kantian Foundations of External Freedom]
Chapter
Christoph Horn, «¿Qué es erróneo en una interpretación moral de la filosofía política de Kant?». Translation. In Juan Ormeño Karzulovic y Miguel Vatter (eds.), Forzados a ser libres. Kant y la teoría republicana del derecho, 67–96. Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Económica. [What Is Wrong with a Moral Reading of Kant's Political Philosophy?]
Translation
«¿Puede la teoría moral de Kant hacer su trabajo?». In Daniela Alegría y Paula Órdenes (coords.), Kant y los retos práctico-morales de la actualidad, 168–182. Madrid: Tecnos. [Can Kant's Moral Theory Do Its Job?]
Chapter
«Reconocimiento: ¿teoría ética normativa u ontología social?». In Miguel Giusti (ed.), El paradigma del reconocimiento en la ética contemporánea. Un debate en curso, 123–142. Lima: Fondo Editorial PUCP. [Recognition: Normative Ethical Theory or Social Ontology?]
ChapterDOI
Acciones, razones y agentes. Ensayos sobre teoría de la acción e imputabilidad jurídica y moral. Edited. Santiago: LOM Ediciones. [Actions, Reasons and Agents: Essays on Action Theory and Legal and Moral Imputability]
Ten authors discuss what an action is, how it differs from a mere event, and how it is explained by reasons, relating these questions to moral and legal responsibility. Includes the first Spanish version of G. E. M. Anscombe's 'Under a Description'.
Book
«Las eventuales consecuencias políticas que implicaría la adopción del “reconocimiento” como paradigma de la teoría social». Perspectiva Filosófica 43 (2): 64–90. [The Possible Political Consequences of Adopting 'Recognition' as the Paradigm of Social Theory]
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«Presentación». In Juan Ormeño Karzulovic (ed.), Acciones, razones y agentes. Ensayos sobre teoría de la acción e imputabilidad jurídica y moral, 15–33. Santiago: LOM Ediciones. [Introduction]
OtherFull text
«Expresivismo y retrospectividad. ¿Es la teoría hegeliana de la acción una alternativa a las teorías mentalistas y causalistas?». In Juan Ormeño Karzulovic (ed.), Acciones, razones y agentes. Ensayos sobre teoría de la acción e imputabilidad jurídica y moral, 125–143. Santiago: LOM Ediciones. [Expressivism and Retrospectivity: Is Hegel's Theory of Action an Alternative to Mentalist and Causalist Theories?]
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«Expresión y retrospección: la concepción hegeliana de la acción». In Marcelo Carvalho, Ricardo Tassinari y José Pertille (orgs.), Hegel, 161–178. Coleção XVI Encontro ANPOF. São Paulo: ANPOF. [Expression and Retrospection: Hegel's Conception of Action]
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«Libertad abstracta y racionalidad. Sobre la autoridad del derecho abstracto». Pensamiento Político 5: 91–102. [Abstract Freedom and Rationality: On the Authority of Abstract Right]
Reconstructs Hegel's argument on abstract right, arguing that its normative authority is reducible neither to an external reason indifferent to agents' motives nor to an internal reason grounded in the usefulness of right for satisfying desires.
ArticleOnline
«Semántica de las normas y razones para actuar. Comentario a “El derecho desde el punto de vista del aceptante” de Paula Gaido». In Sebastián Figueroa (ed.), Hart en la teoría del derecho contemporánea. A 50 años de El concepto de derecho, 207–215. Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Diego Portales. [The Semantics of Norms and Reasons for Action]
Chapter
«La teoría del reconocimiento de Fichte como teoría social de la individualidad». Revista de Estud(i)os sobre Fichte 7. [Fichte's Theory of Recognition as a Social Theory of Individuality]
Reconstructs Fichte's argument that one becomes an individual agent only through mutual recognition, and assesses the problems this poses for liberalism, contractarianism and methodologically individualist social science.
«Reforma sin revolución. ¿Hay alguna posibilidad de cambio normativo en el marco kantiano del ideal republicano como forma de gobierno?». Cuadernos de Filosofía 28–29: 7–19. [Reform without Revolution: Is Normative Change Possible within Kant's Republican Ideal of Government?]
Argues that Kant's rejection of a right to revolution is coherent only in light of his republicanism, defined by everyone's subjection to a self-imposed law and by self-government exercised only through representatives.
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Hegel, pensador de la actualidad. Ensayos sobre la Fenomenología del espíritu y otros textos. Edited, with Vanessa Lemm. Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Diego Portales. [Hegel, a Thinker of the Present: Essays on the Phenomenology of Spirit and Other Texts]
A collective volume on the Phenomenology of Spirit and its relevance today, gathering Chilean and international authors such as Pippin, Siep and Quante, several of them in translation.
BookOnline
«Dualismo y praxis o ¿cuál es el problema con la teoría moral de Kant, profesor Hegel? La crítica a la “concepción moral del mundo” en la Fenomenología del espíritu». In Vanessa Lemm y Juan Ormeño Karzulovic (eds.), Hegel, pensador de la actualidad, 213–231. Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Diego Portales. [Dualism and Praxis, or What Is the Problem with Kant's Moral Theory, Professor Hegel? The Critique of the 'Moral World-View' in the Phenomenology of Spirit]
Chapter
«Derecho, moral y racionalidad: el caso Hobbes». In M. E. Orellana Benado (comp.), Causas perdidas. Ensayos de filosofía jurídica, política y moral, 231–250. Santiago: Catalonia. [Law, Morality and Rationality: The Case of Hobbes]
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«Planes de vida y razones para actuar». In Olga Grau y Patricia Bonzi (eds.), Grafías filosóficas. Problemas actuales de la filosofía y su enseñanza. Santiago: Cátedra UNESCO de Filosofía / CPEIP. [Life Plans and Reasons for Action]
Chapter
«Identidad y reconocimiento. Una crítica hegeliana a la Politics of Recognition de Charles Taylor». In José Jara, Carlos Ruiz, Fernando Longás y Marcos García de la Huerta (eds.), La política en la era de la globalización, 209–222. Santiago: Cuarto Propio. [Identity and Recognition: A Hegelian Critique of Charles Taylor's Politics of Recognition]
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«Algunas cuestiones teóricas relativas a la “memoria” como práctica social». Athenea Digital 6: 31–46. Reprinted in Alteridad 5 (1), 2010: 72–88. ['Memory' as a Social Practice: Some Theoretical Observations]
Criticizes social-constructionist views that reduce memory to a discursive practice, arguing that the concept requires mental attitudes and truth conditions, and proposes a broader notion of social practice.
Institute of Philosophy. Associate Professor and Director of the Honours Diploma in Contemporary Thought. Courses on modern political philosophy, practical philosophy and classical German philosophy in the Diploma and the MA in Contemporary Thought.
Faculty of Law, Department of Legal Sciences, since 2005. Moral Philosophy and Logic of Norms.
He leads reading groups at the UDP Institute of Philosophy, including one on the «Spirit» chapter of the Phenomenology (2021) and «Practical philosophy: goodness, intention and forms of life» (2026, with Francisca Hill).
For invitations and academic enquiries. Messages in English are welcome.