Las Disputaciones metafísicas de Francisco Suárez se presentan como una reconstrucción de la filosofía fundamental que se organiza no ya según el esquema de la metafísica aristotélica, ni problemáticamente, al estilo del comentario escolástico, sino como un edificio ordenado que expone la noción de la realidad misma. Es la elaboración de un sistema que no sólo respete el orden tradicional de las cuestiones filosóficas, sino que configure una nueva estructura mediante la cual la metafísica, lejos de ser un freno para (...) el desarrollo científico pueda transformarse en el resorte para su progreso. Estamos ante una especie de Enciclopedia del saber filosófico estructurado sistemáticamente, sobre cuya base podrá el pensamiento europeo llevar a cabo su revolución racionalista. La Europa moderna e ilustrada, de Descartes a Kant, buscará, de un modo manifiesto o implícito, en las Disputaciones metafísicas la referencia escolar que precisa para su propia construcción teórica racional y crítica. En suma, la equilibrada doctrina de Suárez constituye el fulcro a partir del que podrán alzarse las más variadas doctrinas sobre el conocimiento humano, la naturaleza, la sociedad y la legitimación del poder político, que aún hoy constituyen la base de nuestra comprensión de la realidad. (shrink)

Las obras de Sergio Rábade contenidas en el presente volumen constituyen una de las aportaciones más valiosas de su legado filosófico. En los orígenes de la edad de la crítica, la aparición de nuevos valores asociados al conocimiento impulsó una afanosa renovación de los métodos en científicos y filósofos. Método y pensamiento en la modernidad analiza las exigencias de esta demanda en pro de un cambio real en los procedimientos de búsqueda y control de las ideas. Las complejas (...) conexiones entre el método teorizado y su práctica ocupan la atención del autor en Descartes y la gnoseología moderna. El filósofo francés, «faro de la moderna Europa», inaugura un nuevo estilo de pensar que será referencia obligada tanto para sus partidarios como para sus adversarios. Spinoza, considerado por Rábade como un «cartesiano anticartesiano», es el caso más representativo de referencialidad al autor del Discurso, aunque cargada de ambivalencia. El filósofo holandés de raíces judías entendió el cumplimiento del proyecto patrocinado por Descartes precisamente como una enmendación de los tópicos de su filosofía: el método, la sustancia divina, el hombre y las pasiones humanas (Espinosa: razón y felicidad). Los artículos insertados entre las obras del volumen no ocultan las contradicciones inherentes al pensamiento de estos dos grandes filósofos. (shrink)

We discuss the axiomatization of generalized consequence relations determined by non-deterministic matrices. We show that, under reasonable expressiveness requirements, simple axiomatizations can always be obtained, using inference rules which can have more than one conclusion. Further, when the non-deterministic matrices are finite we obtain finite axiomatizations with a suitable generalized subformula property.

In the philosophy of science, abstraction has usually been analyzed in terms of the interface between our experience and the design of our concepts. The often implicit assumption here is that such interface has a definite identifiable and universalizable structure, determining the epistemic correctness of any abstraction. Our claim is that, on the contrary, the epistemic grounding of abstraction should not be reduced to the structural norms of such interface but is also related to the constraints on the cognitive processes (...) of specific abstractions. This suggests that we should understand abstraction as embodied in different kinds of abstraction practices. (shrink)

In recent years, there have been several high-profile recalls of hybrid products. If consumers perceive a global firm to be responsible for the recall, then it will reduce their brand equity. Therefore, global firms may respond in ethically questionable ways to justify themselves to important stakeholders and avoid blame. Understanding how stakeholders attribute blame for crises involving hybrid products is important to shed light on the unethical manner in which global firms might avoid blame in such situations. The research reported (...) here shows that in a hybrid product crisis, consumers show a bias in favor of the brand company and against the manufacturing company. This bias is more pronounced when the country of manufacture has an unfavorable image or when consumers lack familiarity with the recalled brand. Ambiguous recall announcements by companies that fail to provide a specific and clear reason for the product defect prompt consumers to assume that a manufacturing flaw caused the product defect. As a result, consumers reduce their attribution of blame for the brand company, and thus its brand equity is maintained. (shrink)

Background: Chronic Pain (CP) has serious medical and social consequences, and leads to economic burden that threatens the sustainability of healthcare services. Thus, optimized management of pain tools to support CP patients in adjusting to their condition and improving quality of life is timely. Although Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is considered an evidence-based psychological approach for CP, evidence for the efficacy of online-delivered ACT for CP is still scarce. At the same time, studies suggest that self-compassion mediates the change (...) in disability and psychopathological symptoms in ACT interventions for CP, although self-compassion is not a specific target in ACT. Thus, an explicit focus on self-compassion might increase the efficacy of ACT interventions for CP, although this hypothesis has not been tested. This study aims to develop an eHealth ACT and compassion-based self-management intervention for CP, the iACTwithPain, and to compare its efficacy in improving health outcomes to a similar ACT-only intervention and a waiting list group. Methods: The eHealth platform that will host the interventions will be developed using a flat design identity and will be interactive. The iACTwithPain intervention will comprise 8 weekly self-management sessions, and will be developed taking into consideration the psychological flexibility model applied to CP, with the addition of explicit compassion-based components. To analyse whether the iACTwithPain intervention will present superiority in improving CP’s impact and related health markers over the two other conditions, this study will follow a RCT design with three arms. CP patients will be recruited through direct contact with patient associations and healthcare services and a national press release in Portugal. Outcome measurement will be conducted at baseline, post-intervention and at 3- and 6-months follow-ups. The interventions’ acceptability will also be assessed. Discussion: The iACTwithPain intervention is expected to improve CP patients’ psychosocial functioning, quality of life, and empowerment, by promoting adaptive disease management and regulation of pain-related internal experiences. Results will contribute to a better understanding on the pertinence of adding compassion elements to ACT for CP and to reach an optimized intervention for CP. (shrink)

John Perceval (1803-1876), who suffered from schizophrenia, published two books on his experience, in 1836 and 1840. More than a century later, the anthropologist Gregory Bateson discovered in Perceval's memoirs a lucid anticipation of his own theories on schizophrenia. To Bateson, Perceval describes the interactive patterns between himself, his family, and the hospital psychiatrists, as examples of "double bind" interactions, in which he played the role of a "sacrificial victim." The article underlines the strong convergence between Bateson's theory of schizophrenia (...) and René Girard's theory of the scapegoat. In the anthropological theory of Girard, the sacrificial ceremonies are the main way of constructing social order. In that perspective, the schizophenic can be considered as a particular example of a scapegoat, that is, as an important figure in social life, and not as a mere phenomenon of psychopathology. This theoretical convergence is remarkable, in particular, because both anthropologists explain the sacrificial processes through a theory of social life based on the idea that the main unit of analysis is not the individual, but the interactive dynamic as a whole: patterns of relationships, to Bateson; reciprocal imitation (mymesis), to Girard. (shrink)

In this research, we evaluate the response of Brazilian consumers to corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives accompanied by a price increase. We demonstrate that the extent to which Brazilian consumers perceive a company to be socially responsible (i.e., their CSR perceptions) is related to both the basic transactional outcome of purchase intentions as well as two relational outcomes: the likelihood to switch to a competitor and to complain about the CSR-based price increase. More interestingly, we find that these relationships are (...) jointly mediated by the consumers’ perceptions of price fairness and feelings of personal satisfaction. Perhaps most interesting, we find that these mediating effects vary with consumer purchasing power; the mediating effect of price fairness on purchase intention is stronger for lower income than for higher income consumers, whereas the mediating effects of personal satisfaction on switching and complaining intentions are stronger for higher income than for lower income consumers. (shrink)

An interpretation of quantum mechanics that rejects hidden variables has to say something about the way measurement can be understood as a transformation on states of individual systems, and that leads to the core of the interpretive problems posed by Luders' projection rule: What, if any, is its physical content? In this paper I explore one suggestion which is implicit in usual interpretations of the rule and show that this view does not stand on solid ground. In the process, important (...) aspects of the role played by the projection postulate in the conceptual structure of quantum mechanics will be clarified. It will be shown in particular that serious objections can be raised against the (often implicit) view that identifies the physical relation of compatibility preserved by Luders' rule with the relation of simultaneous measurability. (shrink)

About 35 years ago Wheeler introduced the motto “law without law” to highlight the possibility that Physics may be understood only following regularity principles and few relevant facts, rather than relying on a treatment in terms of fundamental theories. Such a proposal can be seen as part of a more general attempt summarized by the slogan “it from bit”, which privileges the information as the basic ingredient. Apparently it seems that it is possible to obtain, without the use of physical (...) laws, some important results in an easy way, for instance, the probability distribution of the canonical ensemble. In this paper we will present a general discussion on those ideas of Wheeler’s that originated the motto “law without law”. In particular we will show how the claimed simplicity is only apparent and it is rather easy to produce wrong results. We will show that it is possible to obtain some of the results treated by Wheeler in the realm of the statistical mechanics, using precise assumptions and nontrivial results of probability theory, mainly concerning ergodicity and limit theorems. (shrink)

El concepto de público en Dewey permite reconciliar dos intuiciones en conflicto. Por un lado la idea de que la ciencia requiera de expertos entra en conflicto con la construcción de una sociedad democrática, y por la otra la idea de que las complejas sociedades del presente requieren para el desarrollo de la democracia de ciencia y tecnología. El concepto de público de Dewey permite superar ese conflicto en la medida en que permite superar la oposición tradicional en la filosofía (...) de la tecnología entre substantivistas y construccionistas. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se analiza el relato sobre la supuesta correspondencia mantenida por Jesús y el rey Abgar V de Edesa, presente en la obra Historia Eclesiástica de Eusebio de Cesarea. Desde sus inicios, la leyenda gozó de mucha fama debido a la consideración de los fieles de que se trataba de uno de los pocos testimonios existentes sobre un texto escrito por el mismísimo Jesús. Este hecho provocó que esta tradición se tradujese a numerosas lenguas y recibiera varias (...) influencias distintas, lo que sin duda favoreció su desarrollo y su pervivencia en el tiempo. A pesar de los numerosos estudios sobre su popularidad y sobre las distintas versiones existentes, el origen de esta leyenda sigue sin estar claro y está lejos de llegar a un consenso académico. Por tanto, en este trabajo se estudian las distintas perspectivas sobre el inicio de esta tradición, analizando aquellas teorías que se centran en sugerir que la obra se trata de una invención del autor, pero también buscando algún matiz histórico que pudo servir como fuente de inspiración para Eusebio de Cesarea. (shrink)

The Mexican cult around the image of the Virgin of Tepeyac is commonly addressed in relation with creole nationalism, but that emphasis ignores the survival of its cult until today. Given that construction of identity through ‘miraculous’ images persists through technologies of iconic deployment, it is necessary to examine the original functions of its technologies. I investigate these problems by considering the construction of a newexhibition site for the Virgin of Tepeyac, and the modalities of reproducing the image until today. (...) The historical comparison of these contemporary techniques with those of the seventeenth century enables to appreciate the coherence of this visual tradition and its importance to the construction of social processes in Mexico. (shrink)

This paper discusses historical-critical thought to address the problems of restoration and preservation of tape music, proposing viable solutions to the matter of digitizing the historically valuable data that exists on and is represented by magnetic tapes. A detailed program of research and restoration and some software for helping in creation of critical editions of the musical works are proposed. We also present some of the issues and controversies that must be considered and approaches we have applied in the preservation (...) of tape music, highlighting how these interpretations can impact later performances of these tape documents. Fundamentally, we argue that the act of tape music restoration has a parallel with the interpretation of the “Urtext score” in the performance of music from the Common Practice Era. (shrink)

Designers’ intentions are important for determining an artifact’s proper function (i.e., its perceived real function). However, there are disagreements regarding why. In one view, people reason causally about artifacts’ functional outcomes, and designers’ intended functions become important to the extent that they allow inferring outcomes. In another view, people use knowledge of designers’ intentions to determine proper functions, but this is unrelated to causal reasoning, having perhaps to do with intentional or social forms of reasoning (e.g., authority). Regarding these latter (...) social factors, researchers have proposed that designers’ intentions operate through a mechanism akin to social conventions, and that therefore both are determinants of proper function. In the current work, participants learned about an object’s creation, about social conventions for its use and about a specific episode where the artifact was used. The function implemented by the user could be aligned with the designer’s intended function, the social convention, both, or neither (i.e., an opportunistic use). Importantly, the use episode always resulted in an accident. Data show that the accident negatively affected proper function judgments and perceived efficiency for conventional and opportunistic functions, but not for designers’ intended functions. This is inconsistent with the view that designers’ intentions are conceptualized as causes of functional outcomes and with the idea that designers’ intentions and social conventions operate through a common mechanism. (shrink)

We critically analyse the point of view for which laws of nature are just a mean to compress data. Discussing some basic notions of dynamical systems and information theory, we show that the idea that the analysis of large amount of data by means of an algorithm of compression is equivalent to the knowledge one can have from scientific laws, is rather naive. In particular we discuss the subtle conceptual topic of the initial conditions of phenomena which are generally incompressible. (...) Starting from this point, we argue that laws of nature represent more than a pure compression of data, and that the availability of large amount of data, in general, is not particularly useful to understand the behaviour of complex phenomena. (shrink)

In the fourth line of her first speech in Book 1, to Ilioneus and the Trojan castaways, Dido quotes the first word of the first line of Lucretius’ De rerum natura, and in the fourth line of her second speech, to Aeneas, she quotes the first words of the second line of the De rerum natura. This is not a coincidence but a signal of the importance of Lucretius and Epicureanism for the characterization of Dido in the Aeneid.

Este texto plantea una lectura de la propuesta estética del joven Nietzsche desde una óptica de la estética de las pasiones en su teoría de la voluntad de poder. Se analiza el desarrollo intelectual desde El nacimiento de la tragedia hasta su conversión psicofisiológica del arte en la etapa de madurez, a la vez que se estudia la repercusión de esta evolución en su planteamiento desde la psicología de los afectos. De esta forma, aunque es cierto que el transcurso intelectual (...) de Nietzsche cambia en el momento que abandona la metafísica del artista, continúa ahondando en una propuesta estética desde las tendencias afectivas de la psicología y el cuerpo. (shrink)