One of the objectives in the field of artificial intelligence for some decades has been the development of artificial agents capable of coexisting in harmony with people and other systems. The computing research community has made efforts to design artificial agents capable of doing tasks the way people do, tasks requiring cognitive mechanisms such as planning, decision-making, and learning. The application domains of such software agents are evident nowadays. Humans are experiencing the inclusion of artificial agents in their environment as (...) unmanned vehicles, intelligent houses, and humanoid robots capable of caring for people. In this context, research in the field of machine ethics has become more than a hot topic. Machine ethics focuses on developing ethical mechanisms for artificial agents to be capable of engaging in moral behavior. However, there are still crucial challenges in the development of truly Artificial Moral Agents. This paper aims to show the current status of Artificial Moral Agents by analyzing models proposed over the past two decades. As a result of this review, a taxonomy to classify Artificial Moral Agents according to the strategies and criteria used to deal with ethical problems is proposed. The presented review aims to illustrate (1) the complexity of designing and developing ethical mechanisms for this type of agent, and (2) that there is a long way to go (from a technological perspective) before this type of artificial agent can replace human judgment in difficult, surprising or ambiguous moral situations. (shrink)

A partir de una investigación sobre los Consejos Asesores Presidenciales en el Gobierno de Michelle Bachelet, se desarrolla un marco teórico sobre movimientos sociales y las llamadas formas subpolíticas, que permite ver cómo el movimiento estudiantil secundario de 2006 desafió el enclave educacional y el tipo de respuesta que un gobierno que buscaba un sello ciudadano, dio a través de la formación de un Consejo Asesor con participación de diversos sectores. El análisis de los debates en el seno de ese (...) Consejo muestra las diversas posiciones en juego y también la imposibilidad de llegar a acuerdos de trasformación profunda. (shrink)

El concepto de autopoiesis ha tenido un importante impacto en el ámbito de las ciencias sociales, en la filosofía y las humanidades en general. Algunos intelectuales contemporáneos han llevado a cabo una apropiación crítica del mismo y otrxs han realizado una traspolación directa desde la biología hacia sus respectivas disciplinas y campos de interés. El objetivo del presente artículo es desarrollar un estudio comparativo sobre ciertos usos críticos y no críticos del concepto de autopoiesis que, en su mayoría, hasta el (...) momento no han sido examinados en profundidad y menos aún de una manera comparativa. Se trata de trabajos de investigadorxs con recorridos, intereses y posiciones ético-políticas diversas: Terry Winograd y Fernando Flores, Arturo Escobar, Félix Guattari, Rosi Braidotti, Sylvia Wynter y Donna Haraway. (shrink)

Hegel. La Odisea del Espíritu reúne la totalidad de las conferencias pronunciadas en el congreso homónimo que, coordinado por Félix Duque, se celebró en el Círculo de Bellas Artes y la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid entre el 28 de mayo y el 1 de junio de 2007 con motivo del segundo centenario de la publicación de "La Fenomenología del Espíritu". El congreso reunió a los mayores especialistas en la obra del pensador alemán y el resultado es una aportación de (...) primer orden a los estudios hegelianos, un libro de referencia imprescindible para quien quiera adentrarse en el magma de ideas y sugerencias de su libro capital. Incluye ensayos de Félix Duque, Volker Rühle, Walter Jaeschke, Jorge Pérez de Tudela, José María Ripalda, Eduardo Álvarez, Dietrich Von Engelhardt, Antonio Gómez Ramos, Klaus Vieweg, Ángel Gabilondo, Jacinto Rivera de Rosales, Paolo D'Angelo, Christoph Jamme, Vincenzo Vitiello y Klaus Düsing. Como el lector, hoy, podrá apreciar, los ensayos están hogaño ordenados como antaño se sucedieron las sesiones del Congreso, es decir: cada articulista interpreta y escribe para su coleto y el de sus lectores un capítulo o tema de la obra. Y así se va siguiendo con regular obediencia la sobresaltada vía de las experiencias de la conciencia, o sea: tal como la obra fue concebida entre -Hegel dixit- dolores del parto de un mundo nuevo que, de no haberse malogrado tan pronto, habría hecho de aquélla, efectivamente, palabra de ayer. Del "Preámbulo" de Félix Duque. (shrink)

O conceito de outrem (autrui) não recebeu a devida atenção no conjunto da filosofia de Deleuze até recentemente (VENTURA, 2020; FERREIRA, 2021). Outrem aparece na obra deleuziana em alguns momentos de Diferença e Repetição, em O que é a filosofia? – obra escrita juntamente a Félix Guattari – mas, sobretudo, num texto presente no apêndice de Lógica do sentido intitulado “Michel Tournier e o mundo sem outrem”, no qual ele comenta o romance de M. Tournier, Sexta-feira ou os limbos (...) do pacífico. Outrem nada mais é do que a expressão de um mundo possível, ou ainda, uma estrutura que organiza a percepção e assegura as margens e transições do mundo. Quando esta estrutura se dissolve, os simulacros ascendem às superfícies, destruindo as formas e libertando as forças e intensidades. Acreditamos que o agente dessa dissolução é Sexta-feira, cuja vinda desarranja a ordem forjada por Robinson em sua ilha. Sexta-feira já não funciona como a estrutura outrem, visto que ele é um outro de outrem, que vai possibilitar o acesso a um campo transcendental impessoal, pré-individual, povoado de singularidades livres. Os conceitos de Emmanuel Lévinas de “rosto” e “absolutamente outro” (tout autre) auxiliará nesse movimento a fim de compreender o outro de Deleuze, embora seja necessário apontar a sua pertinência e as suas limitações. (shrink)

There are numerous studies that, from different perspectives, have dealt with the debate held in the Spanish Empire during the 16th century on the slavery of the American Indians, starring –among others– by Francisco de Vitoria and his disciples from the School of Salamanca, and also –outside the academic sphere– by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. The purpose of this work is to study whether this debate made its mark in Spanish society. For this, it (...) is analyzed three theatrical pieces from the Golden Age signed by playwrights of the stature of Tirso de Molina, Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderón de Barca, who –given their enormous popularity– had the capacity to reach the wide audience that congregated in the corrals of comedies. Were these three writers influenced by the controversy over the Indians carried out, among other authors, by Vitoria, Las Casas and Sepúlveda? Did they fully grasp in their works the subtle debate that Vitoria, Las Casas and Sepúlveda maintained when they interpreted Aristotelian arguments on slavery and the consequences that derived from them in terms of the possibility of enslaving or not the Indians? (shrink)

In this chapter we use methods of corpus linguistics to investigate the ways in which mathematicians describe their work as explanatory in their research papers. We analyse use of the words explain/explanation (and various related words and expressions) in a large corpus of texts containing research papers in mathematics and in physical sciences, comparing this with their use in corpora of general, day-to-day English. We find that although mathematicians do use this family of words, such use is considerably less prevalent (...) in mathematics papers than in physics papers or in general English. Furthermore, we find that the proportion with which mathematicians use expressions related to ‘explaining why’ and ‘explaining how’ is significantly different to the equivalent proportion in physics and in general English. We discuss possible accounts for these differences. (shrink)

Der Band nimmt gewisse, mit dem Begriff Theurgie assoziierte Wandlungen innerhalb des spätantiken Neuplatonismus in den Blick. Theurgie wird vor allem als Suche nach immanenten Medien zur Verkörperung göttlicher Kräfte verstanden. Entgegen dem häufig kolportierten Bild vom weltflüchtigen Platonismus zielt die von Iamblichos und seinen Nachfolgern verfochtene Philosophie, so die Grundthese, auf Integration der körperlich-materiellen Wirklichkeitsebenen ab und das Endziel der Philosophie wird stärker unter dem Gesichtspunkt einer positiven Teilhabe am demiurgisch-kosmogonischen Werk begriffen. Diese Aufwertung von Körperlichkeit wird anhand verschiedener (...) Aspekte – z. B. dem Symbolbegriff, der „göttlichen Materie", aber auch des feinstofflichen Ochema-Pneuma-Konzepts – in ihrer Relevanz für das spirituelle Gesamtprofil der theurgischen Neuplatoniker erstmals umfassender untersucht. Abgerundet wird die Studie durch einen Vergleich mit ähnlichen Tendenzen im nicht-dualistischen Śivaismus von Kaschmir. (shrink)

Relying on aesthetic testimony seems problematic. For instance, it seems problematic for me to simply believe or assert that The Velvet Underground's debut album The Velvet Underground and Nico (1964) is amazing solely because you have told me so, even though I know you to be an honest and competent music critic. But why? After all, there do not seem to be similar reservations regarding testimony from many other domains. In this paper, I will argue that relying on aesthetic testimony (...) seems problematic because we are attached to an ideal of aesthetic authenticity and feel that living up to this ideal is anathema to simply relying on aesthetic testimony. (shrink)

This is an important work of scholarship with regard to Machiavelli and the development of political thought in England. It charts the reactions of successive English thinkers to Machiavelli’s challenge, and the different aspects of Machiavelli’s thought which were perceived in the changing context of English history. There is the Machiavelli of Catholic and Protestant reformers, the Machiavelli of Raleigh and Bacon, of the royalist Clarendon and the republican Harrington. Through their eyes the reader can see the gradual process whereby (...) the atheistical monster repudiated by the subjects of Henry VIII was quietly absorbed by the politically sophisticated subjects of William III. (shrink)

Recently, Jennifer Saul (“Racial Figleaves, the Shifting Boundaries of the Permissible, and the Rise of Donald Trump”, 2017; “Racist and Sexist Figleaves”, 2021) has explored the use of what she calls “figleaves” in the discourse on race and gender. Following Saul, a figleaf is an utterance that, for some portion of the audience, blocks the conclusion that some other utterance, R, or the person who uttered R is racist or sexist. Such racial and gender figleaves are pernicious, says Saul, because, (...) among other things, they can shift the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable to think or say. This paper expands on Saul’s picture in a threefold way: It is first argued that appeals to statistics can function as figleaves. It is then argued that—as far as figleaves go—there is reason to believe that statistics-as-figleaves are especially pernicious. Finally, the paper explores some strategies for counterspeech. (shrink)

Should refugees govern refugee camps? This paper argues that they should. It draws on normative political thought in consulting the all-subjected principle and an instrumental defense of democratic rule. The former holds that all those subjected to rule in a political unit should have a say in such rule. Through analyzing the conditions that pertain in refugee camps, the paper demonstrates that the all-subjected principle applies there, too. Refugee camps have developed as near distinct entities from their host states. They (...) have formed their own economic, legal and even political systems within which refugees are subjected to political rule. The paper then demonstrates that democratic rule should be preferred over any other decision-making procedure. No amount of experts can replace the institutions that would lead to the accountability of decision-makers and to the incorporation of refugees as situated and epistemically diverse knowers of the problems they face and the solutions that would work best. (shrink)

Ce livre résume une recherche que l'auteur a menée pendant de très longues années, et qu'il a voulu exposer comme élargissement de l'œuvre de William James, fondateur de la philosophie et de la psychologie américaines.

Este libro quiere desarrollar un pensamiento que, poniéndose del lado de las víctimas y rechazando la salida nihilista, abogue por la construcción del futuro sobre la herencia de la racionalidad griega y del cristianismo, sin renunciar tampoco a lo que pueda ser heredado de lo mejor de la tradición ilustrada, convencido de que sólo un nuevo encuentro entre fe y razón puede devolver al hombre la confianza en sí mismo.

For quite some time, cognitive science has offered philosophy an opportunity to address central problems with an arsenal of relevant theories and empirical data. However, even among those naturalistically inclined, it has been hard to find a universally accepted way to do so. In this article, we offer a case study of how cognitive-science input can elucidate an epistemological issue that has caused extensive debate. We explore Jason Stanley’s idea of the practical grasp of a propositional truth and present naturalistic (...) arguments against his reductive approach to knowledge. We argue that a plausible interpretation of cognitive-science input concerning knowledge—even if one accepts that knowledge how is partly propositional—must involve an element of knowing how to act correctly upon the proposition; and this element of knowing how to act correctly cannot itself be propositional. (shrink)

Este libro recoge una veintena de estudios que, desde el punto de vista de la teoría social abordan aspectos variados de la Globalización, el Riesgo y la Reflexividad, considerados como los retos fundamentales con los que ha de enfrentarse la sociología actual.

Many philosophers, following Williamson (The Philosophical Review 105(4): 489–523, 1996), Williamson (Knowledge and its Limits, Oxford, Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2000), subscribe to the constitutive rule account of assertion (CRAA). They hold that the activity of asserting is constituted by a single constitutive rule of assertion. However, in recent work, Maitra (in: Brown & Cappelen (ed). Assertion: new philosophical essays, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011), Johnson (Acta Analytica 33(1): 51–67, 2018), and Kelp and Simion (Synthese 197(1): 125–137, 2020a), Kelp and (...) Simion (in: Goldberg (ed) The Oxford Handbook of Assertion, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020b) aim to show that, for all the most popular versions of the constitutive rule of assertion proposed in the literature, asserting is not an activity constituted by a single constitutive rule and that therefore CRAA is very likely false. To reach this conclusion, they all present a version of what can be dubbed the engagement condition objection. That is, they each propose a necessary condition on engaging in rule-constituted activities. Then they argue that, for all the most popular versions of the constitutive rule of assertion proposed in the literature, one can make assertions without satisfying this condition. In response, I present a counterexample that shows that the proposed engagement conditions lead to coun- terintuitive results, and I propose an alternative that better captures our intuitions. Then I argue that this alternative engagement condition is compatible with all the most popular versions of the constitutive rule of assertion. (shrink)

El pluralismo ontológico depende estrechamente de la doctrina de las relaciones externas. Los términos son singularidades materiales y las relaciones son singularidades virtuales, no menos reales que las primeras y que responden a una lógica propia. En su «empirismo trascendental» Deleuze retoma de modo implícito la discusión tradicional acerca de las relaciones (Bradley, Russell, Whitehead y James), aunque reconduciéndola hacia la ontología de lo virtual que actúa en el plano de inmanencia. Si nuestro análisis es correcto, la ontología misma podría (...) ser definida como una ecología de las relaciones externas que se establecen entre los diversos planos de organización (especies, individuaciones, actualidades) y el plano de inmanencia (medio ecológico o virtual). (shrink)

What exactly do we need to do in order to make a promise, or to exercise some other normative power? On a view relied on by many philosophers writing on promising, consent, and related phenomena, the answer is that we must communicate a suitable kind of intention. On this view, power-conferring principles assert that specific normative consequences, determined in part by the content of the communicated intention, attach to such communicative acts, and these principles need not be socially practised or (...) accepted to be true. The paper offers a defense of this convention-independent view against the forceful challenge developed by Jed Lewinsohn in ‘The “Natural Unintelligibility” of Normative Powers’. Lewinsohn appeals to action-theoretic considerations to show that the relevant type of communicative act could not be performed under conditions of rationality and full information, and that therefore promissory power and other normative powers require the existence of social rules conferring such powers. The defense of the view targeted by Lewinsohn turns partly on the exact content of plausible constraints on the intelligibility of actions done with a particular aim, and partly on the question just how the social acceptance of power-conferring rules should be thought to matter. (shrink)

How does one arrive at a life in politics and policy? What happens to one's ideals when confronted with the reality that the only way to get things done in Washington is compromise? Who are the men and women who help shape our national agenda, and what drives their work? Dispatches From the Eastern Front provides fascinating, intensely personal, yet universal answers to these central questions. Recounting four decades inside Washington politics, Gerald Felix Warburg brings remarkable candor to a most (...) unusual memoir. An idealistic California baby boomer transported to the intimidating world of Capitol Hill policymaking at a young age, Warburg finds himself working to reform nuclear energy, strategic arms control, and foreign policy. As his access and power grow, greater challenges loom: how to maintain principles while cutting deals, and how to balance public purpose with private interests. An eclectic career reveals the slow and often painful development of emotional intelligence for work at the highest reaches of the public arena. (shrink)

This book traces the emergence of a modern culture of exploration, as reflected in the role of institutions such as the Royal Geographical Society and the ...

Se presenta un artículo acerca de los factores de riesgo asociados a la dermatitis atópica en niños, enfermedad con una incidencia significativa en el municipio Nuevitas. A partir de la revisión de Historias Clínicas en los Consultorios 4,5 y 6 del territorio, en el período comprendido de enero a septiembre del 2015, se constató como importantes los factores genéticos y los medioambientales en estos pacientes. Con el objetivo de disminuir los últimos se elaboró una estrategia educativa para la familia de (...) los infantes. Se aplicó una encuesta inicial y una final con una población de 60 familias y una muestra de 30 que representa el 50 % con el criterio de inclusión de tener algún o algunos de estos factores. Se concluye que la estrategia contribuyó a transformar los estilos de vida en las familias estudiadas. The article deals with risk factors associated to atopic dermatitis in children, a disease with a significant effect on Nuevitas municipality. Starting from the checking of clinical histories in doctors' offices 4, 5 and 6 in the municipality from January to September 2015, genetic and environmental factors were confirmed to be important. Aiming at lessening these risks, an educational strategy for the children's families was developed. An initial and a final survey of a population of 60 families and a sample of 30, make for a 50 % with inclusion criterion of having some or a lot of these factors. It was reached the conclusion that the strategy contributed to transforming lifestyles in the studied families. (shrink)

In moral and political philosophy, collective obligations are promising “gap-stoppers” when we find that we need to assert some obligation, but can not plausibly ascribe this obligation to individual agents. Most notably, Bill Wringe and Jesse Tomalty discuss whether the obligations that correspond to socio-economic human rights are held by states or even by humankind at large. The present paper aims to provide a missing piece for these discussions, namely an account of the conditions under which obligations can apply to (...) loose collections of agents that do not qualify as collective agents in their own right. I first explain the notion of joint obligations of loose collections of agents as opposed to collective obligations of collections of agents that are collective agents in their own right, and argue that the conditions under which agents can jointly have obligations are the conditions under which they are jointly able to do what is required. I then build on Virginia Held’s seminal work on the moral responsibility of “random collections” to develop such conditions for joint ability. My discussion shows that collections of individuals can more easily be subject to moral obligations than previously assumed. It also shows that putative joint obligations need to be carefully time-indexed, and that it is largely an empirical question whether a given collection can be subject to a moral obligation to perform a given joint action at a particular time. (shrink)

When several agents together produce suboptimal outcomes, yet no individual could have made a difference for the better, Act Consequentialism counterintuitively judges that all involved agents act rightly. I address this problem by supplementing Act Consequentialism with a requirement of modal robustness: Agents not only ought to produce best consequences in the actual world, but they also ought to be such that they would act optimally in certain counterfactual scenarios. I interpret this Modally Robust Act Consequentialism as Act Consequentialism plus (...) a requirement of moral virtue, namely, to reliably act rightly and to act rightly for the right reasons. (shrink)

People partaking in a conversation can add to the common ground of said conversation by performing different speech acts. That is, they can influence which propositions are presumed to be shared among them. In this paper, I am going to apply the common ground framework to the phenomenon of epistemic injustice. In doing so, I am going to focus on two kindsof speech acts: making assertions and asking certain kinds of questions. And I am going to look at three varieties (...) of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice, inquiring injus-tice and interpretative injustice.I am going to argue that what all these varieties of epistemic injustice have in common is that they unfairly inhibit the speaker’s ability to add to the common ground in the way intended by her. This in turn negatively affects which con-versational roles a speaker can play in a given conversation. Based on these results, I am going to end by looking at some of the harms that epistemic injustice inflicts upon its victims. (shrink)

Who should be recognized as a refugee? This article seeks to uncover the normative arguments at the core of legal and philosophical conceptions of refugeehood. It identifies three analytically dist...

What is political about political refugeehood? Theorists have assumed that refugees are special because their specific predicament as those who are persecuted sets them aside from other “necessitous strangers.” Persecution is a special form of wrongful harm that marks the repudiation of a person's political membership and that cannot—contrary to certain other harms—be remedied where they are. It makes asylum necessary as a specific remedial institution. In this article, I argue that this is correct. Yet, the connection between political membership, (...) its repudiation, and persecution is far from clear. Drawing on normative political thought and research on autocracies, repression, and migration studies, I show that it is political oppression that marks the repudiation of political membership and leads to various forms of repression that can equally not be remedied at home. A truly political account moves away from persecution and endorses political oppression as the normative pillar of refugeehood and asylum. (shrink)