Traigo a colación observaciones sobre problemas que subyacen a muchas de las reflexiones de filosofía de la biología entorno a la caracterización del viviente y la noción de función biológica. Alerto sobre la suplantación de la realidad por información científica inexacta, nocionesentificadas y modelos teóricos preconcebidos. Abogo por el análisis , antes de cualquier otra reflexión, de la relación entre la unidad y la multiplicidad de notas del viviente, análisis que explica la distintiva individualidad del organismo. Finalmente, anuncio el paradigma (...) constitucional como una nueva aproximación al viviente, marco que toma como punto de partida al viviente como realidad estructurante. (shrink)

In line with the book On the Essence by Xavier Zubiri, this paper examines his metaphysical approach to the essence. The project explaines what is meant by the essence being unfounded, founding the rest of the notes, needing the non-essential or being closed. This reflection is carried out from two perspectives: the first considers the essence in itself and the second considers the relation of the essence with the rest of the notes. The analysis reaches its height with the characterization (...) of the essential unity and the description of its function in the construct state. On the one hand, this project proves that the theory of substantivity must be crowned and sustained by the essential unity; on the other hand, it shows that the characterization of the essential subsystem and the constitutional system are not contradictory if we keep in mind the criteria used to assert their closure. (shrink)

Para el transhumanismo, la humanidad es una etapa que, guiada por la evolución biológica, estuvo precedida por otras anteriores y a la que seguirán otras nuevas. Según el transhumanismo hemos de romper la inercia de causas ciegas que gobierna la evolución y, a través de la biotecnología, alcanzar lo que denominan una “vida mejor”. Los autores afines a esta corriente desarrollan sus propuestas negando la existencia de una naturaleza humana, pero sin abandonar la convicción de que resulta posible definir en (...) qué consiste una “vida mejor”. En este artículo analizamos la claridad y el rigor con la que presentan el fin último de su propuesta, la relación entre el fin y los medios planteados para alcanzarlo, y, finalmente, pondremos de manifiesto algunas inconsistencias derivadas de su rechazo de que la naturaleza humana pueda tener valor normativo. (shrink)

Realizamos un recorrido por la ontología de Xavier Zubiri propuesta en Sobre la esencia para descubrir cómo aborda el problema de la esencia quidditativa. Tras consideraciones previas, se analiza la tradicional concepción de esencia específica desmigajando paulatinamente la relación esencia-especie-individuo. Con el phylum entendido como esquema constitutivo transmitido genéticamente y la especie como lo que constituye la pertenencia del engendrado a su phylum, la esencia quidditativa es mostrada como momento de la esencia constitutiva individual.

Presentamos, a modo de introducción al número, algunos aspectos que ayuden a enmarcar la aproximación al estudio comparado de las propuestas filosóficas de Xavier Zubiri y Polo. Mostramos la influencia que tuvieron en ambos las corrientes renovadoras del primer tercio del siglo XX y el interés de ambos en continuar y, a la vez, renovar, el pensamiento filosófico anterior, siempre en continuo diálogo con la tradición clásica. Hacemos también mención a las particularidades de la recepción de sus filosofías y a (...) las inquietudes intelectuales comunes ante el problema de Dios, la creación y la persona y su trascendencia. (shrink)

The most common definition of belief is taken from analytical philosophy, which understands it as a proposition that is considered as true. Such a broad definition is ambiguous for some fields of empirical research, like psychology, which deals with the mental state of the believer when holding the belief. This article aims to reach an operationalization of beliefs to pinpoint their distinctive features with respect to similar concepts. We summarize the most influential interpretations of belief in psychology and psychiatry, which (...) are mainly based on Immanuel Kant and analytical philosophy. We also expose the problem that arises from putting the mental states of beliefs, knowledge, opinions and preferences in the same bag. Our proposal is that a belief is: a proposition that is taken to be true; and which the subject is willing to hold even if irrefutable evidence were hypothetically argued against it. We introduce a narrower interpretation to reliably discriminate the mental state of believing, which is intended to be applied to empirical psychology, neuroscience, behavioral economics, sociology and related sciences. (shrink)

In this article, we propose a philosophical exploration on the main problems involved in two neurorights that concern autonomous action, namely free will and cognitive liberty, and sketch a possible solution to these problems by resourcing to a holistic interpretation of human actions. First, we expose the main conceptual and practical issues arising from the neuroright to “free will,” which are far from minor: the term itself is denied by some trends participating in the neurorights debate, the related concept of (...) ultimate control is also disputed, the understanding of free will depends on cultural context, and the exercise of being free to act in several domains may be covered by other regulations. Second, we analyze the historical origin of cognitive liberty, its current status, and its relation with free will. Third, we criticize the concept of decision in mainstream action theory and propose to conceive action as a unified process constituted by three explanatory, non-sequential dimensions: intention, decision, and action realization. Fourth, we discuss two possible cases involving neurotechnologies and suggest ways to interpret them according to a unified framework in which free will and cognitive liberty fall under a single neuroright to personal autonomy. Finally, we outline a recommendation to introduce freedom of thought and personal autonomy as complementary neurorights to protect both the internal and external dimensions of thought and action. (shrink)

Los logros socioeconómicos alcanzados por Chile en estas últimas décadas, han tenido su correlato en mejoras importantes con relación al desarrollo humano de su población. Sin embargo, surgen dudas respecto de la capacidad de los chilenos, y en general de los países latinoamericanos, para adaptarse a un contexto de sociedad de mercado, donde el Estado ha ido perdiendo su centralidad como eje de la integración social. En este ensayo, el autor nos invita a superar este diagnóstico potenciando la democracia y (...) las posibilidades de ejercer una real ciudadanía participativa, fundada ya no en el verticalismo estatal, sino que en las diversas y variadas formas de la sociedad civil. La propuesta apunta, en definitiva, a rescatar el espacio público más allá del discurso economicista que apunta únicamente a la mantención de un orden social autorregulado. (shrink)

Los problemas del desarrollo que enfrenta Chile desde aproximadamente una década son cualitativamente diferentes a los que enfrentó en etapas anteriores. El artículo propone una perspectiva conceptual que sea adecuada al tipo específico de desafíos que tiene actualmente el país. Para ello justifica y define la pertinencia de la perspectiva de las prácticas en relación al análisis del desarrollo. En el pasado el principal desafío de la política y de las políticas públicas consistió en cómo diseñar las transformaciones institucionales y (...) de infraestructura necesarias para desencadenar causalmente los cambios sociales pretendidos por las elites. Hoy, en cambio, las dificultades del desarrollo que enfrenta Chile tienen uno de sus principales orígenes en la persistencia o aparecimiento de fenómenos a nivel de la coordinación de la acción de las personas y grupos que no pueden ser ni adecuadamente observadas ni eficazmente intervenidas desde una perspectiva que relegue las prácticas sociales a un segundo plano. Para fundamentar esta tesis, el artículo expone los fundamentos del enfoque de las prácticas a partir de los aportes conceptuales de diversas teorías elaboradas en las ciencias sociales. Dicho enfoque teórico sustentó las indagaciones empíricas contenidas en el Informe sobre Desarrollo Humano 2009. (shrink)

El autor reinstala la importancia de las personas y su subjetividad en los procesos de desarrollo, tras reconocer que en América Latina, la búsqueda obsesiva del crecimiento del producto geográfico bruto, acarreó pérdidas de otro tipo en las personas concretas y sus vínculos sociales. En este sentido, sostiene que es necesario reinstalar a las personas en el centro de la búsqueda de desarrollo, y no considerar que en el contexto de un mundo que se mueve desde la complejidad, sólo se (...) puede intentar proteger al individuo. No se trata de imponer la subjetividad sobre las instituciones, pero tampoco de borrar la subjetividad desde la solución tecnocrática. (shrink)

. Introductory Remarks THEODOSIUS DOBZHANSKY The problems of reduction in biology are currently of considerable theoretical interest and practical ...

The moral enhancement of human beings is a constant theme in the history of humanity. Today, faced with the threats of a new, globalised world, concern over this matter is more pressing. For this reason, the use of biotechnology to make human beings more moral has been considered. However, this approach is dangerous and very controversial. The purpose of this article is to argue that the use of another new technology, AI, would be preferable to achieve this goal. Whilst several (...) proposals have been made on how to use AI for moral enhancement, we present an alternative that we argue to be superior to other proposals that have been developed. (shrink)

This article discusses some of the claims of the earlier and later versions of the Contemporary Theory of Metaphor (CTM) and addresses some of the criticism that has been leveled against it. It is argued that much of this criticism arises from common misconceptions as to the real claims made by the theory. However, CTM is still in need of further exploration and empirical support. In this connection, we identify some areas where research is still needed and supply our own (...) developments. We argue for a more complex classification of metaphor types, which takes into account various complementary taxonomic perspectives, including the nature of source and target and the genericity and complexity of the metaphoric operation. We also explore metaphor in relation to cognitive prominence and conceptual interaction issues. Finally, we deal with the problem of constraints on metaphor and make a proposal for three complementary kinds of constraint. (shrink)

Ideas, knowledge, people, and animals were in rapid transit in the nineteenth century, occasionally at the same time. This essay analyzes the unsuccessful government-sponsored experiment to introduce and naturalize dromedaries (Camelus dromedarius) in the northeastern Brazilian province of Ceará between 1857 and 1867. While the scheme is not unknown, it has not yet received a dedicated and thorough examination. Using the lenses of the global exchange of knowledge, transnational scientific enterprises, the history of camelids, and the worldwide phenomenon of acclimatization, (...) the essay seeks to argue that the naturalization plan was tailored following the principles of animal acclimatization while aimed at wider efforts by the Brazilian government to modernize national agriculture. In practice, it meant employment of the dromedaries as livestock and pack animals, moves that sought to address logistics problems in the region. Finally, by reviewing primary sources and scholarship, the essay provides a comprehensive narrative of the events relating to the scheme. (shrink)

This paper considers, firstly, to what extent the administration of oxytocin can augment the capacity of empathy in human beings; and secondly, whether or not such practice ought to be allowed. In relation to the latter, the author develops an argument in favour of this intervention by virtue of its consistency with the belief that, if a therapeutic treatment is to be considered acceptable, it is essential that it maximizes the well-being of those affected and that it does not compromise (...) the autonomy of the patient. Having rejected several objections related to the nature of this intervention, the author finally questions its morality on the basis of a concern with its universalizability. (shrink)

Can Artificial Intelligence be more effective than human instruction for the moral enhancement of people? The author argues that it only would be if the use of this technology were aimed at increasing the individual's capacity to reflectively decide for themselves, rather than at directly influencing behaviour. To support this, it is shown how a disregard for personal autonomy, in particular, invalidates the main proposals for applying new technologies, both biomedical and AI-based, to moral enhancement. As an alternative to these (...) proposals, this article proposes a virtual assistant that, through dialogue, neutrality and virtual reality technologies, can teach users to make better moral decisions on their own. The author concludes that, as long as certain precautions are taken in its design, such an assistant could do this better than a human instructor adopting the same educational methodology. (shrink)

According to relevance theory, irony comprehension invariably entails the identification of some opinion or thought and the identification of the speaker’s dissociative attitude. In this paper, it is argued that it is also essential for hearers to identify not only that propositional attitude, but also the affective attitude that the speaker holds towards the source of this echo so that an optimallyrelevant interpretive outcomeis achieved. This notion comprises feelings and emotions of a non-propositional quality which affect the propositional effects obtained (...) in ironical communication. The paper further argues for the need to incorporate non-propositional effects into the traditional propositional object of pragmatic research. (shrink)

The ultimate source of explanation in biology is the principle of natural selection. Natural selection means differential reproduction of genes and gene combinations. It is a mechanistic process which accounts for the existence in living organisms of end-directed structures and processes. It is argued that teleological explanations in biology are not only acceptable but indeed indispensable. There are at least three categories of biological phenomena where teleological explanations are appropriate.

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the complexity in ironic echoic mention from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics. It builds on the scenario-based approach to irony where ironic meaning is treat...

Language and speech depend on a relatively well defined neural circuitry, located predominantly in the left hemisphere. In this article, I discuss the origin of the speech circuit in early humans, as an expansion of an auditory-vocal articulatory network that took place after the last common ancestor with the chimpanzee. I will attempt to converge this perspective with aspects of the Mirror System Hypothesis, particularly those related to the emergence of a meaningful grammar in human communication. Basically, the strengthening of (...) auditory-vocal connectivity via the arcuate fasciculus and related tracts generated an expansion of working memory capacity for vocalizations, that was key for learning complex utterances. This process was concomitant with the development of a robust interface with visual working memory, both in the dorsal and ventral streams of auditory and visual processing. This enabled the bidirectional translation of sequential codes into hierarchical visual representations, through the development of a multimodal interface between both systems. (shrink)

Should the philosophy of biology deal with organismic, or with molecular aspects , or with both ? We are, of course, not the first to appreciate the ...

Objectivo principal do presente artigo é mostrar até que ponto o evolucionismo darwinista inclui proposições centrais testáveis, para além de várias proposições acessórias também elas testáveis. Nesse sentido, o autor constrói um argumento no sentido de mostrar que as alegações de Karl Popper, segundo as quais não pode ser concedido estatuto de cientificidade ao darwinismo, carecem de fundamento. O autor defende também a necessidade de um questionamento firme em relação a todo e qualquer argumento fornecido pela ciência, pois nem a (...) capacidade de previsão nem a universalidade das leis são garantia de que a ciência, também ela, nunca caia em erro. /// Aim of the present article is to show that the doctrine of evolution defended by Charles Darwin is grounded on propositions that are verifiable, as are verifiable many of its secondary propositions. The author builds up an argument that goes in the direction of showing how the allegations by Karl Popper against the scientific nature of Darwinism are not grounded in reality. The author of the article also defends the necessity of a firm questioning in relation to each and every argument advanced by the practitioners of science, since nor its anticipatory capacity nor the universality of its laws are warrant enough that the science never falls into error. (shrink)

Increased concern for the environment has increased the number of investment opportunities in mutual funds specialized in promoting responsible environmental attitudes. This article examines the performance and risk sensitivities of US green mutual funds vis-à-vis their conventional peers. We also analyze and compare this performance relative to other socially responsible investing (SRI) mutual funds. In order to implement this analysis, we apply a CAPM-based methodology and find that in the 1987–2009 period, environ- mental funds had lower performance than conventional funds (...) with similar characteristics. However, if we focus on a more recent period (2001–2009), green funds achieved adjusted returns not significantly different from the rest of SRI and conventional mutual funds. (shrink)

Erick J. Ramirez, Miles Elliott and Per‑Erik Milam (2021) have recently claimed that using Virtual Reality (VR) as an educational nudge to promote empathy is unethical. These authors argue that the influence exerted on the participant through virtual simulation is based on the deception of making them believe that they are someone else when this is impossible. This makes the use of VR for empathy enhancement a manipulative strategy in itself. In this article, we show that Ramirez et al.’s ethical (...) rejection of empathy enhancement through VR is based on confusion. First, we show that this misunderstanding stems from the conception of empathy-enhancing simulations solely as failed attempts at “being someone else,” along with ignoring the crucial difference between the psychological perspective-taking processes of imagine-other and imagine-self. Then, having overcome that misconception, we argue that the ethical misgivings about the use of VR to promote empathy should disappear and that these projects have greater potential for behavioural change than purely sympathy-focused interventions. (shrink)

Bravo, F. La dialéctica en Teilhard de Chardin.--Carías, R. El conocimiento de Dios en Max Scheler.--Cappelletti, A. J. El fuego y el logos en la filosofía de Heráclito.--Li Carrillo, V. Estructuralismo y antihumanismo.--Rosales, A. Martín Heidegger y la crisis de la filosofía transcendental.--Rosales, A. La crítica de Heidegger al idealismo moderno.--Rosales, A. El giro del pensamiento de Heidegger.

¿Puede Tomás de Aquino, pensador del siglo XIII, decirnos algo a nuestra realidad política latinoamericana actual? Un texto entre dos contextos es el pretexto para generar una reflexión en torno al derecho a la rebelión, desde la perspectiva de la no-violencia y el derecho a la desobediencia civil. Un camino desde la justicia y el buen gobierno en el Aquinate, seguido del bien común político y las virtudes políticas en el Angélico para desembocar en el derecho a la rebelión, es (...) la ruta que se traza para esta exposición. Una lectura desde la propuesta exegética hermenéutica del Dr. René Padilla, es decir, una comprensión intuitiva, una comprensión gramático-histórica y una comprensión contextualizadora son el cómo y modo del presente trabajo. (shrink)

The Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suarez was an eminent philosopher and theologian whose _Disputationes Metaphysicae_ was first published in Spain in 1597 and was widely studied throughout Europe during the seventeenth century. The _Disputationes Metaphysicae_ had a great influence on the development of early modern philosophy and on such well-known figures as Descartes and Leibniz. This is the first time that Disputations 17, 18, and 19 have been translated into English. The _Metaphysical Disputations_ provide an excellent philosophical introduction to the (...) medieval Aristotelian discussion of efficient causality. The work constitutes a synthesis of monumental proportions: problematic issues are lucidly delineated and the various arguments are laid out in depth. Disputations 17, 18, and 19 deal explicitly with such issues as the nature of causality, the types of efficient causes, the prerequisites for causal action, causal contingency, human free choice, and chance. (shrink)

Many of our daily activities are now made more convenient and efficient by virtual assistants, and the day when they can be designed to instruct us in certain skills, such as those needed to make moral judgements, is not far off. In this paper we ask to what extent it would be ethically acceptable for these so-called virtual assistants for moral enhancement to use subtle strategies, known as “nudges”, to influence our decisions. To achieve our goal, we will first characterise (...) nudges in their standard use and discuss the debate they have generated around their possible manipulative character, establishing three conditions of manipulation. Secondly, we ask whether nudges can occur in moral virtual assistants that are not manipulative. After critically analysing some proposed virtual assistants, we argue in favour of one of them, given that by pursuing an open and neutral moral enhancement, it promotes and respects the autonomy of the person as much as possible. Thirdly, we analyse how nudges could enhance the functioning of such an assistant, and evaluate them in terms of their degree of threat to the subject’s autonomy and their level of transparency. Finally, we consider the possibility of using motivational nudges, which not only help us in the formation of moral judgements but also in our moral behaviour. (shrink)

A Relevance-Theoretic Classification of Jokes Relevance Theory pictures communication as an inferential activity that adjusts, in parallel, the explicit content of utterances, the implicated premises and conclusions that can be derived, and the right amount of contextual information needed to obtain them. When applied to jokes, a relevance-theoretic classification may be proposed depending on whether the humorist plays with the audience's inferential activity aimed at an explicit interpretation, with the audience's inference devoted to deriving implications or with their access to (...) the right amount and quality of contextual information needed to obtain relevant interpretations. In this paper three types of jokes are proposed which focus on these aspects. A fourth type is also added, but this time referred to broad contextual assumptions on social or cultural values of society that are targeted by humorists. (shrink)

Se trata de un artículo que busca una relectura de los textos y problemas en la obra del filósofo francés Louis Althusser. Hay dos líneas argumentativa que sigue la relectura: 1) su materialismo aleatorio, y 2) su teoría del lenguaje.