Online research in philosophy

El libro se ocupa de las maneras dominantes como el liberalismo ha entendido la libertad y de las ingentes dificultades que este pensamiento enfrenta cuando quiere materializarse en política, es decir, cuando piensa en el poder, el Estado ...

Fue en Inglaterra donde apareció por vez primera un individualismo virtuoso comprometido con la defensa pública de la libertad frente a la amenaza del absolutismo. Allí surgió un discurso político liberal-republicano que defendió que el bien público y el interés privado fueran de la mano. Así, el liberalismo nació como un discurso público y privado de la virtud individual que tenía la vocación de frenar cualquier arrogancia despótica. Pero en la segunda mitad del siglo XX una tendencia neoliberal y libertaria (...) convirtió el mercado en una abstracción dogmática que justificaba un egoísmo descontrolado y sin límites. En Liberales, José María Lassalle expone la necesidad de que el liberalismo del siglo XXI vuelva a los principios virtuosos de sus padres fundadores, John Locke, Adam Smith y Edmund Burke. Los liberales tienen por delante la responsabilidad de enfrentarse a sus propios fantasmas y liderar nuevamente la defensa de una política del deber, y no del beneficio. Una política al servicio de la libertad: preocupada por el c ontrol del poder; que asegure el establecimiento de mecanismos institucionales que impidan la corrupción y las conspiraciones contra el mercado que se urden a las sombras de los gobiernos; que combata el dogmatismo y que defiende la tolerancia como una seña de identidad de nuestra cultura. Ante la mayor crisis de las últimas décadas, urge recuperar la virtud y los valores, una tarea para la que los liberales están mejor capacitados que nadie. (shrink)

This article analyzes efforts in Nicaragua to create ethical organizations and an ethical economy. Three societal ethea found in contemporary Nicaragua are examined: the ethos of revolution, the ethos of corruption, and the ethos of human development. The emerging ethos of human development provides the most hope for the nation's social and economic evolution. The practices of three successful economic development organizations explicitly aligned with the ethos of human development are described and evaluated: (1) a microfinance foundation (FDL), (2) a (...) federation of cooperatives (FENACOOP), and (3) a local branch of an international NGO (IO-Nicaragua). The article concludes with additional reflections on the meaning of ethical organizations and an ethical economy in the context of contemporary Nicaragua. (shrink)

Objective: To measure the stability of life-sustaining treatment preferences amongst older people and analyse the factors that influence stability. Design: Longitudinal cohort study. Setting: Primary care centres, Granada (Spain). Eighty-five persons age 65 years or older. Participants filled out a questionnaire with six contexts of illness (LSPQ-e). They had to decide whether or not to receive treatment. Participants completed the questionnaire at baseline and 18 months later. Results: 86 percent of the patients did not change preferences. Sex, age, marital status, (...) hospitalisation, and self-perception of health and pain did not affect preferences. Morbidity and the death of a relative did. Conclusion: Stability of preferences of older persons in relation to end-of-life decisions seems to be more probable than instability. Some factors, such as the death of a relative or the increase in morbidity, can change preferences. These findings have implications for advance directives (ADs) and advance care planning. (shrink)

Being and value, by J. Zaragüeta y Bengoechea.--The origin of man, by X. Zubiri.--Negation, by J. Gaos.--The juridical notion of the human person and the rights of man, by L. Legaz y Lacambra.--History and truth, E. Nicol.--Vital anxiety, by J. J. López Ibor.--The moralization of power through its self--imitation, by J. L. Aranguren.--The doctor-patient relationship in the general framework of interhuman relationships, by P. Laín Entralgo.--On the singular character of the historical destiny of Europe, by L. Díez del Corral.--On taking (...) things for granted, by J. Ferrater Mora.--The idea of metaphysics, by J. Marías. (shrink)

Aggression, violence, and cruelty are symptoms of psychiatric illness. They reflect abnormalities in the regulation of the stress and emotion circuitries. The functioning of these circuitries depends upon the interaction between genetics and environment. Abuse and neglect during infancy, as well as maternal stress and poor quality of maternal care, are some of the causes that produce these types of abnormal behavior. Research on the neurobiological bases of emotion regulation will allow the detection of the population at risk.

This paper deals with two different meanings of the concepts of representation related to historiography. Both of them have different consequences when they attempt to give account of recent pasts in conflict. The first of them is representation as it is understood in cultural or social history –a sort of belief that people have about the world, especially with recent pasts that affect them. The other one is historical language or historiography understood -after the linguistic turn- as a representation of (...) the past. The main objective of this paper is to show how these two meanings of representation collapse in a “history of the present” or in a“history of the recent past”. (shrink)

1. As John Hawthorne and Maria Lasonen-Aarnio appreciate, some of the central issues raised in their ‘Knowledge and Objective Chance’ arise for all but the most extreme theories of knowledge. In a wide range of cases, according to very plausible everyday judgments, we know something about the future, even though, according to quantum mechanics, our belief has a small but nonzero chance (objective probability) of being untrue. In easily constructed examples, we are in that position simultaneously with respect to many (...) different propositions about the future that are equiprobable and probabilistically independent of each other, at least to a reasonable approximation. (shrink)

Spain is one of the most advanced European countries in terms of the legislative and administrative development of ADs. Article 11 of Law 41/2002, concerning Patient Autonomy, regulates 'advance directives' and has prompted various Autonomous Regions to develop legislation in this area. Nevertheless, whilst the variety of legislations in different territories presents advantages, the disparity of criteria also presents problems. Despite significant legislative development, only 23,000 Spanish citizens have filled in an AD. Clearly, AD use is confined to a minority. (...) Several surveys, however, show that the Spanish population views these documents in a positive light. Thus, we must analyse this discrepancy between attitude and practice. A similar situation exists amongst health professionals. Whilst they generally feel that the use of ADs is positive and necessary, they are frequently unwilling to employ them. Bioethical literature and research on ADs has significantly increased in Spain over the last six years. It is likely that this trend will continue in the foreseeable future; but more resources and effort are required if ADs are to become consolidated. (shrink)

Are all canonical property designators (i.e. nominalizations of predicative phrases) rigid? Dan López de Sa recently criticized the arguments I gave for an affirmative answer to that question. The current article rebuts López de Sa's objections.

Surprising as it may appear, the philosophical writings of political economist Karl Marx (1818–1883), and those of philosopher, educator Maria Montessori(1870–1952), show thematic resemblances that invite further exploration. These resemblances reflect both keen awareness of the historical period they shared, but also important common threads in their philosophical anthropology, ethical and political values, and goals. In this paper, I examine one central thread which both take as fundamental, namely, the centrality of work in achieving the harmonious development of humankind. I (...) critique Marx’s description of the dynamic process leading to his classless society, because he fails to supply the proximate, efficient cause or middle term that effects this goal. My thesis is that Montessori supplies this missing causal link through her scientific demonstration of the work and function of the child and her holistic understanding of the human person in its full historical dimension, and human and cosmic telos. (shrink)

Managers’ commitment to contribute to sustainable development holds the key to their long-term business success and may be a source of competitive advantage. The managerial perception of business ethics is influenced by the level of moral development and personal characteristics of managers. These perceptions are also shaped by forces existing in the environment of the firm, including available resources, societal expectations, sector, and regulations. The resource-based perspective can thus contribute to the analysis of ethical issues offering important insights on how (...) they can influence the environmental strategy of the firm. The findings of this study show that firm resources have a strong influence on business managers’ ethical attitudes. In addition, the application of resource-based rationales to ethical issues can be justified in the following several ways: it influences a managerial perception of natural environment as a competitive opportunity, it requires investments of financial and human resources, flexibility and speed in the adaptation to environmental changes, and it creates new resource-based opportunities through changes in prevention pollution technology, policy process, and market forces. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo caracterizar el proceso de evaluación del aprendizaje del contenido estadístico en la carrera de Medicina. Los resultados obtenidos evidencian que el nivel de asimilación alcanzado por los estudiantes en muchas ocasiones es el reproductivo, lo que refleja la necesidad de seguir profundizando en los estudios de esta problemática. Issues related to the learning evaluation have been present throughout the teaching learning process history. The following research aims at characterizing the learning process of evaluation of the (...) statistical content in medicine. Results demonstrate that the assimilation level reached by students, on many occasions, is the reproductive one, as a need to deepen on methodology of the design of the system of evaluation of the statistical content learning in medicine. (shrink)

Background: Waiving parent permission can be an option in some epidemiological and social research with adolescents. However, exemptions have not been uniformly considered or applied. Our aim is to critically assess the different factors that could be taken into account when making decisions about waiving active parental permission in observational research with adolescents.DiscussionIn some cases alternatives to parental permission could be applied to protect the rights of both adolescents and parents and also to assure the benefits to adolescents as a (...) group that can come from appropriately conducted studies. However, the criteria of ensuring minimal risk can be difficult to define and apply and a distinction between harm and discomfort is reviewed. Waiving active parental permission could be acceptable when the risk of harm is minimal; when the research questions are related to an activity for which adolescents are not legally considered to be children; when the risk of harm or discomfort may increase if parental permission is required; and when risk of discomfort is low because the questionnaire is not potentially offensive for some adolescents and/or for some parents.SummaryStringent rules concerning parental permission in some studies could be detrimental to adolescents. A framework and a decision tree guide are proposed to help researchers and Research Ethics Committees in their decisions on whether active parental permission must be obtained. (shrink)

Tesis doctoral presentada en el departament de Lògica Història i Filosofia de la Ciencia de la Universitat de Barcelona per optar al títol de Doctor en Filosofia.

This paper explores the way in which Agamben takes part in the dialogue on “impolitical communities” that was inaugurated by J. L. Nancy and was soon followed by authors like M. Blanchot, J. Derrida and R. Esposito, among others. Although Agamben’s ontological exploration of ‘whatever being,’ followed later by the political idea of form-of-life, are still very close particularly to Nancy’s work, the article will show in which ways Agamben’s view of a political coming community explores different paths and moves (...) in unusual registers, that help to understand in new ways the kind of inoperativeness involved in a contemporary rethinking of community. The notion of experience of thought as potentiality and its relationship to that “tiny displacement” of the world which Agamben seems to connect with his idea of a coming community will play a central role in the analysis. (shrink)

Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kafalas, Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s10806-010-9266-2 Authors Doug Seale, 21 Turner Ridge Road Marlborough MA 01752 USA Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863.

In recent years, the stakeholder approach has been widely applied in the debate on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Although many authors of this approach have reviewed many elements of the model, they have unconditionally accepted several criteria assumed by Freeman ( 1984 ) to identify stakeholders. In general, stakeholder authors have assumed that (a) the company establishes dyadic relationships with other agents, and (b) decisions made by a company only have foreseen and direct effects on other agents. These criteria have (...) enabled researchers to understand simple processes. However, they have also prevented researchers from explaining how action comes about, and how responsibility is shared, in many complex processes taking place in contemporary societies. Such complex processes involve many agents, and each decision can generate unexpected effects which accumulate or disseminate. Furthermore, the normative structure governing these processes can affect and/or be affected by the actions of agents. In this study, we propose new criteria to expand the stakeholder model and facilitate the study of CSR in such processes. (shrink)

In order to illuminate the very complex relationship between ethics and politics in the thought of Jacques Derrida, this paper stages the (dis)encounter between Hegel's and Derrida's notion of forgiveness. It will be shown how for these two authors forgiveness is closely related both with certain ‘impossibility’, and with the disclosure of a condition for rethinking the ethico-political realm. Both Hegel and Derrida seem to suggest that forgiveness opens up a realm in which something must remain ‘absolute’, that is to (...) say, ‘intact, inaccessible to law, to politics, even to morals’. And, for both, it seems to be precisely there, where something arrives at the verge of politics, that a thinking (and a re-thinking) of the ‘political’ becomes possible. The paper explores what kind of impossibility is staged in each case, and how can each one bring into light the risks and limits, but also the scope and significance of the other. (shrink)

: One of the most influential branches of nineteenth-century American feminism was a resistance movement committed to the idea that the key to social reform was the recognition and maintenance of human differences. This approach, which became central to American pragmatism, had its roots in a tradition of American women writers including Lydia Maria Child. This paper examines Child's work and focuses on her conception of pluralism and its role in sustaining diverse communities.

This essay presents a possible interpretation of the concept of beauty in Kant’s Critique of Judgment, which was itself suggested by Kant in the two introductionsto the text and gained force among the Early German Romantics and Idealists, introducing an alternative point of view into the concept of beauty and the role it plays in the relationship between reason and sensibility, man and world. Through the analysis of the four moments of the Analytic of the Beautiful, beauty will manifest itself (...) as the realm in which a special encounter between human freedom and nature takes place. Therefore, and as an alternative to some traditional interpretations of Kant’s aesthetic investigation, which understand Kant’s judgment of taste exclusively on the basis of its subjective conditions, the judgment of beauty will present itself also in the relationship it establishes with the objects of nature. (shrink)

Este trabajo ofrece el contexto de la vida y la obra de María Zambrano - sus orígenes intelectuales; su vida itinerante y de exilio; la correspondencia con su hermana Araceli; la España soñada; las claves humanas del exilio y el ...

Josep Maria Capdevila (1892-1972) és un dels intel·lectuals més destacats de la primera meitat del segle XX a Catalunya. L’autor n’ha resseguit el pensament, reconstruint-ne significativament la formació intel·lectual, el món ideològic i les idees estètiques, per acabar amb una digressió sobre el punt de partença de la filosofia.

Este trabajo tiene por propósito presentar de manera secuencial dos puntos asociados a la actualidad filosófica de lo religioso en el contexto de un pensamiento como el de María Zambrano. Por qué María Zambrano, pues porque nos da dos cosas:1) nos ubica en un tejido hermenéutico que califica de filosófica la cuestión religiosa y, 2) si bien lo religioso como problema tiene su tiempo, Zambrano recupera el tono de actualidad de la relación Dios-persona, vale decir, su pertinencia para la descripción (...) de la impronta del lugar primario de lo religioso en la comunidad humana. Además, que ante la tarea de validar sus objetivos filosóficos, ve en la razón la capacidad de elaborar discursos explicativos sobre la presencia o no de lo sacro en la existencia. This paper has for intention to present sequentially two points associated with the philosophical current importance of the religious thing in a context of a thought as that of Maria Zambrano. Why Maria Zambrano, because she gives us two things: 1) She locates us in a hermeneutical tissue who qualifies of philosophical the religious question and 2) though the religious thing like problem has his time, Zambrano recovers the tone of current importance of the relationship God-person, that is, its pertinence for the description of the stamp of primary place that the religious thing take place in the human community. In addition, that before the task of validating her philosophical aims, she sees in the reason the aptitude to elaborate explanatory speeches about the presence or not of the sacred thing in the existence. (shrink)

Ser, pensar, ver, mirar son el sustrato de la escritura de María Zambrano, que se apoya y brota de una irrenunciable voluntad de pensar y trazar la palabra que la vida necesita. Por ello escribe con la intención de reconducir la filosofía a la concreción de la existencia, para hacer del pensamiento, como ha dicho Wanda Tommasi, una instancia mediadora capaz de llevar a la luz de la conciencia las realidades oscuras del cuerpo, del sentir, de la pasión. María Zambrano (...) se mueve en la frontera entre filosofía y poesía. En los ensayos de Entre el alba y la aurora alienta algo de la investigación filosófica que los unifica: la voluntad de hacer de la lectura experiencia y de la escritura su articulación. En todos ellos la investigación ha sido reflexión sobre el modo en el que la obra de esta autora nos interpela y sobre el porqué de esta interpelación, dirigiendo la atención al contexto de las propias expectativas, a lo que el encuentro con sus páginas obliga a recomponer, al sentido que de aquí nace abriendo posibilidades de comprensión e interpretación. María Zambrano ayuda a pensar el fondo originario del vivir personal y enseña a darle un cauce, pone así de manifiesto el sentido del filosofar, acción reflexiva dirigida a la apertura de un futuro en tarea de creación que no es impositiva, sino liberadora. Carmen Revilla Guzmán es profesora de Filosofía contemporánea en la Universidad de Barcelona. Sobre María Zambrano, entre otras cosas, dirige la revista Aurora y ha editado el libro Claves de la razón poética (Trotta, 1998); recientemente ha publicado Simone Weil: nombrar la experiencia (Trotta, 2003). (shrink)

In this paper, I examine a new line of response to Frankfurt’s challenge to the traditional association of moral responsibility with the ability to do otherwise. According to this response, Frankfurt’s counterexample strategy fails, not in light of the conditions for moral responsibility per se, but in view of the conditions for action. Specifically, it is claimed, a piece of behavior counts as an action only if it is within the agent’s power to avoid performing it. In so far as (...) Frankfurt’s challenge presupposes that actions can be unavoidable, this view of action seems to bring his challenge up short. Helen Steward and Maria Alvarez have independently proposed versions of this response. Here I argue that this response is unavailable to Frankfurt’s incompatibilist opponents. This becomes evident when we put this question to its proponents: “Are actions that originate deterministically ipso facto unavoidable?” If they answer “yes,” they encounter one horn of a dilemma. If they answer “no,” they encounter the other horn. Since no one has a clearer stake in meeting Frankfurt’s challenge than these theorists do, it is significant that the Steward-Alvarez response is unavailable to them. (shrink)

This is a rebuttal of influential attempts to appropriate Murdoch for either Christianity or Buddhism. I show that Maria Antonaccio and Peter Byrne ignore Murdoch's explicit statements and misunderstand Murdoch’s interest in the Ontological Argument. I explain how St. Anselm’s remark ‘I believe in order to understand’ is properly connected with Murdoch’s parable of the Mother-in-Law: Murdoch is here offering support for a virtue epistemology. Later, I explore the merits and dangers of exegesis from Peter J. Conradi and Gordon Graham (...) treating Murdoch as a kind of Buddhist. I argue that the sense in which Murdoch is speaking as a ‘Buddhist Christian’ makes her a third kind of thinker resembling a Buddhist on some points, and a Christian on others. (shrink)

I want to explore strategic expressions of ignorance against the background of Charles W. Mills's account of epistemologies of ignorance in The Racial Contract (1997). My project has two interrelated goals. I want to show how Mills's discussion is restricted by his decision to frame ignorance within the language and logic of social contract theory. And, I want to explain why Maria Lugones's work on purity is useful in reframing ignorance in ways that both expand our understandings of ignorance and (...) reveal its strategic uses. I begin with Mills's account of the Racial Contract, and explain how it prescribes for its signatories an epistemology of ignorance, which Mills characterizes as an inverted epistemology. I briefly outline his program for undoing white ignorance and indicate that retooling white ignorance is more complex than his characterization suggests. Making this argument requires an abrupt shift from the white-created frameworks of social contract theory to Lugones's system of thinking rooted in the lives of people of color. So, the next section outlines Lugones's distinction between the logic of purity and the logic of curdling and explains its usefulness in addressing ignorance. With both accounts firmly in place the third section demonstrates how the Racial Contract produces at least two expressions of ignorance and explains how the logic of purity underlying the Contract shapes each expression in ways that limit possibilities for resistance. I don't mean to suggest that the social contract theory's love of purity invalidates Mills's work, only that this framework limits prospects for long-term change by neglecting the relationship between white ignorance and non-white resistance. The final sections explain how people of color use ignorance strategically to their advantage , and argue that examining ignorance through a curdled lens not only makes strategic ignorance visible, but also points to alternatives for retooling white ignorance. (shrink)

Tesis doctoral presentada en el departament de Lògica Història i Filosofia de la Ciencia de la Universitat de Barcelona per optar al títol de Doctor en Filosofia.

This paper strengthens the theoretical ground of feminist analyses of anger by explaining how the angers of the oppressed are ways of knowing. Relying on insights created through the juxtaposition of Latina feminism and Zen Buddhism, I argue that these angers are special kinds of embodied perceptions that surface when there is a profound lack of fit between a particular bodily orientation and its framing world of sense. As openings to alternative sensibilities, these angers are transformative, liberatory, and deeply epistemological.