El presente articulo propone un acercamiento al estudio de las piedras de significación hegemónicas sobre las cuales hoy se reconstruye una relacionalidad dominadora poder-ambiente, desde el estudio mismo de las nociones de poder desde autores modernos y posmodernos. Se profundiza en sus vacíos epistémicos, socio-filosóficos y políticos desde los horizontes de la perspectiva marxista y el pensamiento latinoamericano.

After a “very personal” introduction, and a reference to how accurate indeed is the use of the “new window” metaphor by Ulanowicz and about what “can be seen through it”, the article dwells into the evolution of our understanding about the most general sources—material and/or non-material—of change and transformation; in order to examine further the item about the ways through which “information” can be a source of change and transformation also in pre-biotic processes, where commonly it is not taken into (...) account. Thus, the article argues the convergence between Ulanowicz’s and the Author’s treatments of—non only biotic—networks of configuration of processes (a central theme in Ulanowicz’s book). Finally, the article pays attention to how Ulanowicz’s vision through his “new Third Window”, can indeed help us transcend the non desirable division of contemporary culture into two isolated compartments (science and technology versus the humanities and ethics), which has contributed not only to the globalization of communications, transactions, knowledge and so on, but also to the globalization of multiple crisis of different sort that need to be solved if we want “a better world to be possible”. (shrink)

This study provides the historical background to, and analysis and translations of, two seminal texts from the medieval Islamic world concerning the univocity of being/existence and a theory of “ambiguous predication” (tashkīk), which is similar to the Thomistic theory of analogy. The disputants are Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1149–1210), who defended a theory of the univocity of being, and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (1201–1274), who defended the theory of ambiguous predication. While the purported issue is whether a quiddity can cause its own (...) existence, the debate extends further. Rāzī draws on several arguments that “existence” must be predicated univocally of God and creature and then concludes that, given the univocity of “existence,” God cannot be simple, but is a composite of the divine quiddity and distinct attributes. In contrast, Ṭūsī denies that “existence” is said univocally of God and creature and rather is predicated ambiguously/analogously, and then defends divine simplicity. (shrink)

This study provides the historical background to, and analysis and translations of, two seminal texts from the medieval Islamic world concerning the univocity of being/existence and a theory of “ambiguous predication” (tashkīk), which is similar to the Thomistic theory of analogy. The disputants are Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1149–1210), who defended a theory of the univocity of being, and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (1201–1274), who defended the theory of ambiguous predication. While the purported issue is whether a quiddity can cause its own (...) existence, the debate extends further. Rāzī draws on several arguments that “existence” must be predicated univocally of God and creature and then concludes that, given the univocity of “existence,” God cannot be simple, but is a composite of the divine quiddity and distinct attributes. In contrast, Ṭūsī denies that “existence” is said univocally of God and creature and rather is predicated ambiguously/analogously, and then defends divine simplicity. (shrink)

La Colección Campus Virtual es el resultado de una iniciativa dirigida a laformación a distancia y la promoción y difusión de los programas y proyectosacadémicos regionales e internacionales que CLACSO impulsa a través de su plataforma virtual. Este libro presenta una versión reformulada de las clases y una selección de los trabajos finales del curso de formación a distancia La revolución contemporánea delsaber y la complejidad social: hacia unas ciencias sociales de nuevo tipo, que se desarrolló en el marco del (...) concurso de la Cátedra Florestan Fernandes de CLACSO, gracias al patrocinio de la Agencia Sueca de Desarrollo Internacional, Asdi. (shrink)

Rationale, aims and objectives Given the increasing prevalence of cataract and demand for cataract extraction surgery, patients must often wait to undergo this procedure. We validated a previously developed priority scoring system in terms of clinical variables, pre-intervention health status, appropriateness of surgery and gain in visual acuity (VA) and health-related quality of life (HRQoL).Methods Explicit prioritization criteria for cataract extraction created by a variation of the Research and Development (RAND) and University of California Los Angeles appropriateness methodology were retrospectively (...) applied to a prospective cohort of 5257 patients on waiting lists to undergo cataract by phacoemulsification at 17 hospitals in Spain. Demographic data, clinical data and data related to surgical technique were collected by trained ophthalmologists. Patients were evaluated by their ophthalmologist before the intervention and 6 weeks afterward. They also completed, by mail, the Visual Function Index (VF-14) before the intervention and 3 months afterward.Results High-priority patients experienced greater improvement in VA and HRQoL than those classified as intermediate or low-priority (P < 0.0001), even after adjusting by VA and the VF-14 score at baseline. The time to intervention was the same for high-priority patients as it was for intermediate and low-priority patients.Conclusions The priority score we developed identified patients most likely to experience the greatest improvements from cataract extraction. Use of this tool could provide a fairer and more rational way to prioritize patients for cataract extraction. (shrink)

This paper is a response to Haze’s brief argument for the falsity of the theory that instantial terms refer arbitrarily, proposed by Breckenridge and Magidor in 2012. In this paper, I characterise instantial terms and outline the theory of arbitrary reference; then I reconstruct Haze’s argument and contend that it fails in its purpose. Haze’s argument is supposed to be a _reductio ad absurdum:_ according to Haze, it proves that a contradiction follows from the most basic tenets of the theory (...) of arbitrary reference. I will argue, however, that the contradiction in question follows not from these tenets, but from the surreptitious use that Haze makes of a self-referential expression. I conclude, consequently, that Haze’s argument is nothing more than an illustration of the well-known fact that self-referential expressions produce paradoxical results. (shrink)

There are compelling reasons to believe that musical works are abstract. However, this hypothesis conflicts with the platitude that musical works are appreciated by means of audition: the things that enter our ear canals and make our eardrums vibrate must be concrete, so how can musical works be listened to if they are abstract? This question constitutes the audibility problem. In this paper, I assess Julian Dodd’s elaborate attempt to solve it, and contend that Dodd’s attempt is unsuccessful. Then I (...) discuss what I take to be the ideal response to the audibility problem, and show that it ultimately fails. I contend, consequently, that the project of construing musical works as audible is disheartening. Accordingly, in my last section, I will argue the audibility problem may be satisfactorily resolved without ascribing audibility to musical works. (shrink)

In this paper I suggest that in order to avoid some of the difficulties to which the contemporary discussion on the transcendental arguments has led we must discriminate different ways of understanding the sceptic’s challenge that Kant faces in the Critique of Pure Reason. In the first part, I expound a dilemma into which the Kantian epistemology could fall if we accept the characterization of the transcendental arguments as anti-sceptic arguments. In the second part, I present three ways of understanding (...) the sceptic’s challenge and the different strategies that could be developed to answer it correctly. (shrink)

This article reads some familiar examples of contemporary visual arts, such as Cindy Sherman, Mona Hatoum, Robert Gober, John Miller, Eva Hesse, Orlan and Robert Mapplethorpe, by engaging with diff...

Aunque una filosofía de la esperanza pareciera ser una propuesta del todo contemporánea (Bloch, Fromm, Husserl, Laín, Marcel, Heidegger, Patočka, Stein), sus esbozos tuvieron lugar en el siglo VI a.n.e. El objetivo principal de esta investigación es exponer los ejercicios preliminares en torno a una filosofía de la esperanza en el marco de la controversia de Heráclito con Pitágoras. Desde un enfoque cualitativo, mediante el método histórico hermenéutico, se hizo un análisis de datos. Como muestra tomamos fuentes primarias sobre los (...) Versos dorados de Pitágoras y los Fragmentos de Heráclito y como secundarias las traducciones y comentarios más reconocidos. El instrumento utilizado fue las fichas de trabajo mixtas. Como resultado, se observa que la esperanza es un problema para el pueblo griego, que en los vv. 52-53 de los Versos dorados y en el fragmento 22B 18 DK se encuentra esbozada como problema filosófico, que este se comprende mejor a partir de la crítica de Heráclito a Pitágoras y en relación con otros fragmentos clave del pensamiento del Efesio. La investigación permite concluir que la esperanza no es un tema exclusivo de la teología ni propiamente contemporáneo, sino inicialmente de la filosofía, que encuentra en el debate de Heráclito con Pitágoras sus formulaciones preliminares y un contexto propicio para problematizarla en su comprensión habitual, repensarla a la luz del espíritu del tiempo y resignificarla como forma-de-vida. (shrink)

Este es un ensayo fotográfico que, ante el deterioro del fondo habitacional de Centro Habana, Cuba, se pretende construir un archivo tipológico de las decoraciones con azulejos o baldosas hidráulicas vidriadas, aún visibles en algunas edificaciones, mediante la fotografía documental, para preservar lo que alguna vez fuera parte de la vida cotidiana de residentes y transeúntes, y que ha sido reconocido por los especialistas como parte del patrimonio de la ciudad.

In this article, we outline a simple and intuitively appealing procedure to derive default priors. The main idea is to regard the choice of such a prior as a formal Bayesian decision problem. We also discuss Jeffreys prior and more generally the reference prior of Bernardo (J R Stat Soc B 41:113–147, 1979) from this standpoint.

The tree-based data structure of -tree for propositional formulas is introduced in an improved and optimised form. The -trees allow a compact representation for negation normal forms as well as for a number of reduction strategies in order to consider only those occurrences of literals which are relevant for the satisfiability of the input formula. These reduction strategies are divided into two subsets (meaning- and satisfiability-preserving transformations) and can be used to decrease the size of a negation normal form A (...) at (at most) quadratic cost. The reduction strategies are aimed at decreasing the number of required branchings and, therefore, these strategies allow to limit the size of the search space for the SAT problem. (shrink)

The tree-based data structure of △-tree for propositional formulas is introduced in an improved and optimised form. The △-trees allow a compact representation for negation normal forms as well as for a number of reduction strategies in order to consider only those occurrences of literals which are relevant for the satisfiability of the input formula. These reduction strategies are divided into two subsets (meaning- and satisfiability-preserving transformations) and can be used to decrease the size of a negation normal form A (...) at (at most) quadratic cost. The reduction strategies are aimed at decreasing the number of required branchings and, therefore, these strategies allow to limit the size of the search space for the SAT problem. (shrink)

Este artículo explora desde una perspectiva filosófica la forma como la rostricidad está asociada al deseo y producción de subjetividad. De ahí que el campo de interés se centre en cómo dichas categorías tensionan la constitución subjetiva de los sujetos, a tal punto que inciden en la proyección de su propio trayecto biográfico. Esto a partir de algunos planteamientos teóricos acuñados por filósofos como Foucault, Deleuze y Guattari, con respecto al papel del rostro como productor de significado cultural en la (...) gestión de la economía del deseo. Con miras a ambientar el texto, se tomará como recurso a Catarino, personaje de la novela Cien años de soledad, de Gabriel García Márquez. (shrink)

Este texto trabaja a partir de la poesía de José Manuel Arango. Dada la formación filosófica del poeta, se buscó en su obra una reflexión con respecto a las preguntas fundamentales al ser humano y que la filosofía ha intentado responder desde la antigüedad: qué idea del hombre, del mundo y de la existencia hay en su poesía, de tal forma que pudiera establecerse un puente entre la filosofía y la literatura; y derivada de esta última, pero igualmente importante, se (...) indagó por la reflexión estética que allí subyace, su concepción del arte, del artista y particularmente de la poesía. Y ambas preguntas tendieron, a su vez, a un fin común: encontrar la posibilidad de verdad que hay en su obra. (shrink)

Resumen: El objetivo del presente escrito es analizar una confusión epistemológica recurrente en algunas corrientes filosóficas contemporáneas: el sociologismo, que consiste en establecer juicios acerca de la justificación de la ciencia a partir de sus orígenes históricos. En particular, me interesa revisar sus variantes relativistas, que, en sus formas más radicales, llegan a identificar la pretensión de racionalidad y objetividad de la ciencia con los mecanismos de poder. Mediante el análisis argumentativo, mostraré los errores en los que incurren estas vertientes.: (...) This article analyzes a recurrent epistemological confusion in some contemporary philosophical trends, namely, sociologism, which consists on the establishment of judgements on the justification of science based on its historical origins. Specifi cally, I am interested in reviewing its relativistic variants, which, in its most radical forms, get to identify the pretension of rationality and objectivity of science with power mechanisms. By means of an argumentative analysis, I will show the errors these proposals commit. (shrink)

Jürgen Habermas es hoy el tipo de filósofo que no necesita presentación. Su extensa y conocidaobra, empezada a desarrollar en forma sistemática a mediados de la década del60, cuando apenas contaba con 35 años, ha sido reflejo del espíritu de la época. Polémico, analista de primera mano de lo que sucede y de lo que se dice en Alemania y el mundo, es el tipo de filósofo «que va a la plaza de mercado», es decir, que no concibe la filosoña (...) como un metadiscurso propio de mandarines elegidos que encuentran la esencia de las cosas. Por el contrario, la filosoña es. para él la posibilidad de aclarar la acción cotidiana. (shrink)