Gregory J Lobo
Biographic Data
| ID | 640327 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gregory J Lobo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gregory J |
| FAMILY NAME | Lobo |
| SIGNATURE | LOBO G J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Universidad de los Andes |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3475-9360 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 14 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Neurology of Culture
The lack of anatomical evolution contrasted with an evident behavioral change in humans during their natural history, from about 200,000 to 700,000 years ago, constitutes something of a puzzle. What explains the behavioral change, a change which is commonly understood as cultural ? Against the surprisingly widespread but tautological response that the change was driven by culture – which amounts to the unsatisfying argument that culture drives cu…
The Neurology of Culture, or How We Move From Rage to Ritual in the Process of Hominization
How do we move from rage to ritual? How do we become human? The work of René Girard would seem to offer an answer to this question. In this brief essay I want to simply add some evolutionary and neuroscientific details to Girard's theory, which flesh out while also corroborating the basic components of it.To do this I need to draw a distinction between religion and culture. I mention this from the outset because the main source upon which I draw …
Against Identity
The wise man belongs to all countries alike, for the home of a great soul is the whole world.-Democritus (quoted in Popper 1963, 593) In the eponymous chapter 10 of his book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper considers what it means to move from "from tribalism to humanitarianism" (1945, 163).Without asserting that all tribal forms of life are similar, Popper highlights a common particular epistemological viewpoint: such forms do not …
Against Identity
Remembering what we never were
Since 2002 and the election of Álvaro Uribe as president, national pride and sentiment have grown substantially in Colombia. While it is possible to understand this as a positive phenomenon, given Colombia's historical difficulties in constructing itself as a nation, this paper develops the notion of nationism (distinct from nationalism) and on that basis argues that the figure of the nation is actually central to constructing an enduring right-w…
A Critique of Searle’s Linguistic Exceptionalism
John Searle’s social ontology distinguishes between linguistic and non-linguistic institutional facts. He argues that every instance of the latter is created by declarative speech acts, while the former are exceptions to this far-reaching claim: linguistic phenomena are autonomous, their meaning is “built in,” and this is necessary, Searle argues, to avoid “infinite regress.” In this essay I analyze Searle’s arguments for this linguistic exceptio…
National construction and popular erasure in Colombia
This article analyses the diachronic symbolic struggle (1810–1991) waged in Colombia’s foundational documents over the legitimation and delegitimation of social relations through the concepts “people” and “nation.” Following the introduction, the method and theory are explained: concept analysis and language-based social ontology. The analysis of the foundational documents follows. These are analysed as extended status function declarations that …
Human Rights and Status Functions, before and after the Enlightenment
This article discusses John Searle’s status function account of human rights and Åsa Burman’s “A Critique of the Status Function Account of Human Rights.” While recognizing the validity of part of the critique, based on the distinction between types and tokens, the author argues that, nonetheless, one is not compelled to accept Burman’s conclusion, that “one must give up the status function account of human rights to explain how a human right (as…
Spectacular ‘nationism’ in modern Colombia
This article analyzes three commercials, part of the ‘Heroes in Colombia really do exist’ media campaign commissioned in 2004 as the country’s armed forces pursued the military option against leftist guerrillas. The author uses qualitative media content analysis, grounding his reading and interpretation of the commercials in a representation of their symbolic and historical environment, and he argues specifically that the commercials were/are spe…
A Critique of Hindriks’ Restructuring Searle’s Making the Social World
This article is a response to Frank Hindriks’ “Restructuring Searle’s Making the Social World.”
Institutionalizing Cultural Studies in Colombia
In this article, I locate the institutionalization of Cultural Studies in the Departamento de Lenguajes y Estudios Socioculturales in the Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. The conditions of possibility of the said institutionalization are ascribed to something like a crisis, itself engendered by the encroachment of neoliberal ideology on the University's sense of mission and understanding of itself. Essentially, a more or less tradition…
Colombia, from failing state to a second independence
Amid social and political conditions that could well lead to Colombia being described in the terms of a failed state, the country’s electorate chose Álvaro Uribe as its thirty-ninth president in 2002, and again in 2006, preferring to keep in office a man who seemed to be putting the country together again, rather than respecting the constitutional prohibition against consecutive presidential terms. Though his presidency was marked by scandals and…
Diccionario de estudios culturales latinoamericanos
Pensamientos Sobre El Otro 11 De Septiembre
En este ensayo el autor reflexiona sobre el 'milagro capitalista' que se inauguro en America del Sur el 11 de septiembre de 1973, cuando los militares chilenos, dirigidos por el General Pinochet y apoyados por los Estados Unidos, bombardearon y destrozaron la democracia chilena por haber intentado construir, libremente, el socialismo. Se argumenta que ese 11 de septiembre es un momento clave en una campana barbara y bastante exitosa contra el soc…
Lo decimos con cariño? Articulating Blackness in Colombia
For all its well-publicised problems, Colombia, like several other countries in Latin America, is often presented as a ‘racial democracy’, a nation in which the very issue of race is largely irrelevant given the predominantly mixed nature of its population. The interesting question of whether Colombia can really be considered a democracy escapes the scope of this article, but the claims of those who would argue that the ‘problem of race’ has larg…
Politicemos Siempre! O, La Cultura Como La Política-Qua-Cultura
The political interpretation of culture remains a problematic endeavor. The problem lies in the competing and differing understandings of culture that are current in critical discourse. This article examines the two major ways culture is used —referring to either the arts and intellectual life, or a specific way of life, following Raymond Williams— and shows how both cultures are, in their specific ways, political, that is, constitutive of hierar…
A Critique of Hindriks’ Restructuring Searle’s Making the Social World
This article is a response to Frank Hindriks’ “Restructuring Searle’s Making the Social World.”
Colombia, from failing state to a second independence
Amid social and political conditions that could well lead to Colombia being described in the terms of a failed state, the country’s electorate chose Álvaro Uribe as its thirty-ninth president in 2002, and again in 2006, preferring to keep in office a man who seemed to be putting the country together again, rather than respecting the constitutional prohibition against consecutive presidential terms. Though his presidency was marked by scandals and…
Diccionario de estudios culturales latinoamericanos
Lo decimos con cariño? Articulating Blackness in Colombia
For all its well-publicised problems, Colombia, like several other countries in Latin America, is often presented as a ‘racial democracy’, a nation in which the very issue of race is largely irrelevant given the predominantly mixed nature of its population. The interesting question of whether Colombia can really be considered a democracy escapes the scope of this article, but the claims of those who would argue that the ‘problem of race’ has larg…
Human Rights and Status Functions, before and after the Enlightenment
This article discusses John Searle’s status function account of human rights and Åsa Burman’s “A Critique of the Status Function Account of Human Rights.” While recognizing the validity of part of the critique, based on the distinction between types and tokens, the author argues that, nonetheless, one is not compelled to accept Burman’s conclusion, that “one must give up the status function account of human rights to explain how a human right (as…
Politicemos Siempre! O, La Cultura Como La Política-Qua-Cultura
The political interpretation of culture remains a problematic endeavor. The problem lies in the competing and differing understandings of culture that are current in critical discourse. This article examines the two major ways culture is used —referring to either the arts and intellectual life, or a specific way of life, following Raymond Williams— and shows how both cultures are, in their specific ways, political, that is, constitutive of hierar…
Politicemos Siempre! O, La Cultura Como La Política-Qua-Cultura
The political interpretation of culture remains a problematic endeavor. The problem lies in the competing and differing understandings of culture that are current in critical discourse. This article examines the two major ways culture is used —referring to either the arts and intellectual life, or a specific way of life, following Raymond Williams— and shows how both cultures are, in their specific ways, political, that is, constitutive of hierar…
Pensamientos Sobre El Otro 11 De Septiembre
En este ensayo el autor reflexiona sobre el 'milagro capitalista' que se inauguro en America del Sur el 11 de septiembre de 1973, cuando los militares chilenos, dirigidos por el General Pinochet y apoyados por los Estados Unidos, bombardearon y destrozaron la democracia chilena por haber intentado construir, libremente, el socialismo. Se argumenta que ese 11 de septiembre es un momento clave en una campana barbara y bastante exitosa contra el soc…
Lo decimos con cariño? Articulating Blackness in Colombia
For all its well-publicised problems, Colombia, like several other countries in Latin America, is often presented as a ‘racial democracy’, a nation in which the very issue of race is largely irrelevant given the predominantly mixed nature of its population. The interesting question of whether Colombia can really be considered a democracy escapes the scope of this article, but the claims of those who would argue that the ‘problem of race’ has larg…
Diccionario de estudios culturales latinoamericanos
Institutionalizing Cultural Studies in Colombia
In this article, I locate the institutionalization of Cultural Studies in the Departamento de Lenguajes y Estudios Socioculturales in the Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. The conditions of possibility of the said institutionalization are ascribed to something like a crisis, itself engendered by the encroachment of neoliberal ideology on the University's sense of mission and understanding of itself. Essentially, a more or less tradition…
Colombia, from failing state to a second independence
Amid social and political conditions that could well lead to Colombia being described in the terms of a failed state, the country’s electorate chose Álvaro Uribe as its thirty-ninth president in 2002, and again in 2006, preferring to keep in office a man who seemed to be putting the country together again, rather than respecting the constitutional prohibition against consecutive presidential terms. Though his presidency was marked by scandals and…
A Critique of Hindriks’ Restructuring Searle’s Making the Social World
This article is a response to Frank Hindriks’ “Restructuring Searle’s Making the Social World.”
Spectacular ‘nationism’ in modern Colombia
This article analyzes three commercials, part of the ‘Heroes in Colombia really do exist’ media campaign commissioned in 2004 as the country’s armed forces pursued the military option against leftist guerrillas. The author uses qualitative media content analysis, grounding his reading and interpretation of the commercials in a representation of their symbolic and historical environment, and he argues specifically that the commercials were/are spe…
Human Rights and Status Functions, before and after the Enlightenment
This article discusses John Searle’s status function account of human rights and Åsa Burman’s “A Critique of the Status Function Account of Human Rights.” While recognizing the validity of part of the critique, based on the distinction between types and tokens, the author argues that, nonetheless, one is not compelled to accept Burman’s conclusion, that “one must give up the status function account of human rights to explain how a human right (as…
National construction and popular erasure in Colombia
This article analyses the diachronic symbolic struggle (1810–1991) waged in Colombia’s foundational documents over the legitimation and delegitimation of social relations through the concepts “people” and “nation.” Following the introduction, the method and theory are explained: concept analysis and language-based social ontology. The analysis of the foundational documents follows. These are analysed as extended status function declarations that …
Remembering what we never were
Since 2002 and the election of Álvaro Uribe as president, national pride and sentiment have grown substantially in Colombia. While it is possible to understand this as a positive phenomenon, given Colombia's historical difficulties in constructing itself as a nation, this paper develops the notion of nationism (distinct from nationalism) and on that basis argues that the figure of the nation is actually central to constructing an enduring right-w…
A Critique of Searle’s Linguistic Exceptionalism
John Searle’s social ontology distinguishes between linguistic and non-linguistic institutional facts. He argues that every instance of the latter is created by declarative speech acts, while the former are exceptions to this far-reaching claim: linguistic phenomena are autonomous, their meaning is “built in,” and this is necessary, Searle argues, to avoid “infinite regress.” In this essay I analyze Searle’s arguments for this linguistic exceptio…
Against Identity
The wise man belongs to all countries alike, for the home of a great soul is the whole world.-Democritus (quoted in Popper 1963, 593) In the eponymous chapter 10 of his book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper considers what it means to move from "from tribalism to humanitarianism" (1945, 163).Without asserting that all tribal forms of life are similar, Popper highlights a common particular epistemological viewpoint: such forms do not …
Against Identity
The Neurology of Culture, or How We Move From Rage to Ritual in the Process of Hominization
How do we move from rage to ritual? How do we become human? The work of René Girard would seem to offer an answer to this question. In this brief essay I want to simply add some evolutionary and neuroscientific details to Girard's theory, which flesh out while also corroborating the basic components of it.To do this I need to draw a distinction between religion and culture. I mention this from the outset because the main source upon which I draw …
The Neurology of Culture
The lack of anatomical evolution contrasted with an evident behavioral change in humans during their natural history, from about 200,000 to 700,000 years ago, constitutes something of a puzzle. What explains the behavioral change, a change which is commonly understood as cultural ? Against the surprisingly widespread but tautological response that the change was driven by culture – which amounts to the unsatisfying argument that culture drives cu…
Sociology (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Politics (7 works) · Cultural and political discourse analysis (5 works) · Law (4 works) · Linguistics (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works)