Dentro de la obra de Zubiri pueden distinguirse varias posiciones en torno al problema de la psique, indudablemente incompatibles, fruto de la evolución de su pensamiento. En sentido general, el hombre es una sustantividad o un sistema de notas que debido a su unidad posicionalmente interdependiente en forma de clausura posee suficiencia constitucional. Pero la conceptuación de esta suficiencia puede resultar problemática en función de cómo se articule la psique dentro de la sustantividad humana.

The subject of ethics has already been studied by scholars who have focused on the work of the philosopher Xavier Zubiri. Nevertheless, within the framework of what we might call ‘Zubiri’s ethics’ (Aranguren, Ellacuria, D. Gracia, etc.), not all the presuppositions of a postmetaphysical Zubirian ethics have yet been analyzed. By Zubirian ‘post-metaphysical ethics’ we understand that which derives from noology or the theory of sentient intelligence. As this theory affects both the affecting feeling and the tending will according to (...) what Zubiri called ‘intellectionism’, the aim of the present work is the study of ethics from the perspective of the third vector, the tending will, following what Zubiri called ‘possessional intelligence’. The result is that the description of the moral fact allows us to approach the concepts of ‘power’ and ‘duty’ from new viewpoints, highly fruitful in present-day ethics. (shrink)

La tesis de este trabajo es que, respecto de los actos emocionales, en Zubiri se puede hablar de un "sentimiento primordial de realidad". Esta idea nunca se ha afirmado como tal puesto que algunos textos oscuros del autor parecían impedirlo. Reinterpretando no obstante esos textos se ha podido llegar a sostener que la "determinación" intelectiva de la que habla Zubiri no entra "formalmente" en contradicción con la existencia de un acto inmediato y radical de carácter emocional. Se trata de un (...) acto específico, en una unidad con el acto intelectivo y volitivo, en el que se actualiza la realidad como bella, como "belleza real". (shrink)

Quantum gravity poses the problem of merging quantum mechanics and general relativity, the two great conceptual revolutions in the physics of the twentieth century. The loop and spinfoam approach, presented in this book, is one of the leading research programs in the field. The first part of the book discusses the reformulation of the basis of classical and quantum Hamiltonian physics required by general relativity. The second part covers the basic technical research directions. Appendices include a detailed history of the (...) subject of quantum gravity, hard-to-find mathematical material, and a discussion of some philosophical issues raised by the subject. This fascinating text is ideal for graduate students entering the field, as well as researchers already working in quantum gravity. It will also appeal to philosophers and other scholars interested in the nature of space and time. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente trabajo intenta analizar los elementos críticos a la base de aquella suerte de prescripción que Edward Said formulara a los intelectuales bajo la célebre consigna de “decir las verdades al poder”, esto es, de interpelar públicamente al poder -político, económico, religioso, militar- frente a toda evidencia de injusticia, inconsistencia o turbia manipulación en su operar. En tanto tal, y a partir de nuestra lectura de Said, delimitamos cinco dilemas que el intelectual ha de resolver, en tanto requisitos (...) para decir las verdades al poder: orientación intramundana versus extramundana, rol profético versus sacerdotal, libertad universalista versus organicidad, racionalidad sustantiva versus instrumental y arrojo versus temor. Se comentan las implicaciones de estos dilemas a la luz de los desafíos y oportunidades que las sociedades contemporáneas -en particular, las latinoamericanas- presentan para el rol del intelectual.: This work analyzes the critical foundations of that quasi-rule posed by Edward Said to intellectuals through the famous motto “speaking truth to power”, that is, of publicly interpellating to power -political, economic, religious, military- whenever its exercise may involve injustice, inconsistency or underhanded manipulation. So, according to our interpretation of Said’s work, we identify five dilemmas the intellectual should resolve in order to be able to speak truth to power: a worldliness orientation versus an otherworldliness one, a prophetic role versus a priestly one, universalist freedom versus organic compromise, a substantive rationality versus an instrumental one, and courage versus fear. Involvements of these dilemmas are discussed according to the challenges and opportunities posed by current societies -in particular, the Latin American ones- to the intellectual’s role. (shrink)

With millions of animals brought into existence and raised for food every year, their negative impact upon the environment and the staggering growth in the number of chronic diseases caused by meat and dairy diets make a global move toward ethical veganism imperative. Typi-cally, utilitarians and deontologists have led this discussion. The purpose of this paper is to pro-pose a virtuous approach to ethical veganism. Virtue ethics can be used to construct a defense of ethical veganism by relying on (...) the virtues of compassion and fairness. Exercising these values in our relations with animals involves acknowledging their moral value, thus seeing that they are not our property or our food. It is important to emphasize that this argument applies only to well-developed societies that need not rely upon animals as sources of food, clothing, and various by-products. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, a public rationale for the implementation of telehealth has emerged at the interplay of specialised literature and political orientations. Despite the lack of consistent findings on the magnitude of its benefits, telehealth is nowadays presented as a worthy solution both for patients and healthcare institutions. Far from denying the potential advantages of telehealth, the main objective of this work is to provide a critical assessment on the spread of the remote services as a vector of (...) positive transformation of contemporary health systems. For pursuing this objective, the EU agenda for the promotion of telehealth will be retraced, and the main evidences alleged to sustain the implementation of remote care services will be assessed. Furthermore, it will be evaluated the attempt made by the European Commission to establish an ethical framework for guiding the use of telehealth in daily practice, and a roadmap of the most relevant legal and ethical issues posed by the spread of telehealth will be traced. In the conclusions, it will be argued that the radical transformations induced by this form of technological innovation call on to a new, ad hoc ethics through which critically evaluate benefits and implications of telehealth services, with a view to keep high the standard of healthcare against the economic interests of private stakeholders and ICTs’ vendors. (shrink)

I argued against relationalism with four objections. One of those was that, under reasonable assumptions, relationalism's modal relation needs to be what I called an `extra order' relation. I recently came to notice that the objection could have been posed with much less substantive assumptions. In particular, I recently noticed that order-dissonant predications are not required for the objection; therefore, noncumulativism is not relevant for my argument.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Academy and Pyrrhonism The New Academy and Epicureanism The New Academy and Stoicism The New Academy and Middle Platonism Bibliography.

This paper attempts to delineate a kind of realism, which incorporates some anti-realistic insights regarding the perspective, situated, and historical character of our forms of knowing and being in the world, and which resonates with the basic tenets of Christian theism. The first part of the paper analyzes the challenges anti-realism poses to Christian theism, particularly regarding the role, which the doctrine of creation played in securing the correspondence theory of truth as well as the fundamental experience of God as (...) the foundation of order and meaning. Using Heidegger’s hermeneutics in the second part, it is shown that epistemic pluralism can be made compatible with realism. Given that this form of hermeneutic realism still has problems with integrating the transcendence of God, as well as his/ her presence and action in the “world,” the notion of continuous co-creation as the basis for a pluralist realism that is amenable to Christian theism is explored in the final part. (shrink)

En este trabajo propongo que la experiencia estética del trap posee una capacidad influencial que se realiza a través de la narrativa de la acción que ofrece el fearless speech. Este discurso se da desde un modo de existencia inferior y es capaz de contar la verdad de la realidad del sujeto. Dicha acción implica reconfigurar el mundo a través de la narrativa que parte desde un llegar a ser o becoming. Esta reconfiguración a su vez supone la reconfiguración de (...) las posibilidades de acción reales del sujeto que es posible a través de la creación de la obra en el mundo y la experiencia estética de la obra. Esto implica una estética existencial de la resistencia que parte del cuidado de uno mismo y las acciones en el mundo que se establecen con relación a otros. Propongo que es en este último punto en el que convergen algunos planteamientos de Paul Ricoeur, Michel Foucault y Martin Heidegger. (shrink)

Three decades ago Laudan posed the challenge: Why should the logic of discovery be revived? This paper tries to answer this question arguing that the logic of discovery should be revived, on the one hand, because, by Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem, mathematical logic fails to be the logic of justification, and only reviving the logic of discovery logic may continue to have an important role. On the other hand, scientists use heuristic tools in their work, and it may be useful (...) to study such tools systematically in order to improve current heuristic tools or to develop new ones. As a step towards reviving the logic of discovery, the paper follows Aristotle in asserting that logic must be a tool for the method of science, and outlines an approach to the logic of discovery based on the analytic method and on ampliative inference rules. (shrink)

Since Seligman's 1971 statement that the vast majority of phobias are about objects essential to the survival of a species, a multitude of laboratory studies followed, supporting the finding that humans learn to fear and detect snakes (and other animals) faster than other stimuli. Most of these studies used schematic drawings, images, or pictures of snakes, and only a small amount of fieldwork in naturalistic environments was done. We address fear preparedness theories, and automatic fast detection data from mainstream laboratory (...) data and compares it with ethobehavioural information relative to snakes, predator-prey interaction, and snakes’ defensive kinematics strikes in order to analyse their potential matching. From this analysis four main findings arose, namely that: 1) Snakebites occur when people are very close to the snake and are unaware or unable to escape the bite; 2) Human visual detection and escape response is slow compared to the speed of snake strikes; 3) In natural environments, snake experts are often unable to see snakes existing nearby; 4) animate objects in general capture more attention over other stimuli and dangerous but recent objects in evolutionary terms are also able to be detected fast. The issues mentioned above pose several challenges to evolutionary psychology-based theories expecting to find special-purpose neural modules. The older selective habituation hypothesis (Schleidt, 1961), that prey animals start with a rather general predator image from which specific harmless cues are removed by habituation might deserve reconsideration. (shrink)

This article presents an enquiry into one aspect of Michel de Certeau’s intellectual project: to make Christianity intelligible in our epistemological situation. I seek to demonstrate how this epistemological and theological question shapes many of his historical and anthropological works, which seek to elucidate the re-composition of the human sciences and Christianity from a particular reading of modernity. The matrix of his thought is configured by the irruption of mystical experience in otherness and strangeness and the questions this poses to (...) the claimed uniqueness modern reason, heir to the Aufklärung. We will inquire about the fundamental theoretical tools that support the political discernment made by Michel de Certeau in the cultural crisis of May 68. Then we analyse the place of the nominalist rupture in the process of desontologization of language and the passage from the religious system to the ethics of Enlightenment as a way through the notion of “the formality of practices”. Both are preludes to his particular reading of secularization. (shrink)

The following text aims to pose the question provoked by the of discrepancy between infancy as defined in the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard and childhood per se, and to do so in the epochal context of an educational temporality governed by the attributes of acceleration, “profitable,” knowledge, cognitivism, rampant inequalities, an ethos of “success” at any cost, a univocal relationship between knowledge and utilitarianism, and a severe conflict between egalitarian organization and experience and the demand for performance. The loss (...) of infancy in childhood is perhaps the loss of infancy in humanity, depriving it of free time, the possibility of fiction, creation, play, and art. The question that permeates the article is, what does it mean to listen to the voices of infancy in childhood? What is being articulated there? How might we appreciate those voices as a starting point for the reinvention of a different form of education? Our fundamental objective is to construct a politics and a poetics of time that, in their aesthetic and ethical expression, indicate the possibility of a different educational journey for children and childhood, based on the sense of the existence of a time for which it is never too late. (shrink)

Although the treatise presented here is most interesting, it was never widely disseminated. As far as we know, it is preserved only in Latin, in one manuscript. The text poses many questions. Who produced a copy of the text? Who is the translator? Is the treatise a genuine work of Averroes? And if so, what was his intention in writing this monograph on the First Cause?

In what follows I consider the apparent contrast between two kinds of theories of context: a theory of objective context - exemplified in the works of Kaplan and Lewis - and a theory of subjective context -exemplified in the works of McCarthy and Giunchiglia. I consider then some difficulties for the objective theory. I don't give any formalization; instead I give some theoretical points about the problem. A possible result could be the abandon of the double indexing for a development (...) a multi-context theory (I give an example of a case). However other results could be possible and a challenge is posed to solve problems using the best results from each tradition of research. (shrink)

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.25247/P1982-999X.2019.v19n1.p103-134• Esta obra está licenciada sob uma licençaCreative Commons Atribuição 4.0 InternacionalISSN 1982-999x|Pragmatic ambiguity and Kripke’s dialogue against DonnellanAmbiguidade Pragmática e o diálogo de Kripke contra DonnellanCarlo Penco (Universidade de Genova, Itália)AbstractIn this paper I discuss Donnellan’s claim of the pragmatic ambiguity of the distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite des-criptions. The literature on the topic is huge and full of alternative analysis. I will restrict myself to a very classical topos: the challenge posed by Kripke to Donnellan’s (...) distinction with the case of a dialogue on an attempt to update a misdescription. I claim that to treat the problem of the referential use of definite descriptions we need not only to take into account the context of utterance, but also the cognitive context with its epistemic restrictions and the possible different contexts of reception of the same utterance. I try to show different aspects of what can be called “pragmatic ambiguity”, which seem not correctly considered by Kripke, and connect them to the basic tenets of Grice Cooperative principle. (shrink)

When “Sinning Against Frege” was published in 1979 I thought it should have given a real turn in the discussion on Frege’s ideas. Actually the impact was less then I imagined, and the problem was that – at the end of the story – Tyler Burge’s interpretation should have posed a shadow on the direct reference theories and the Millean criticism of descriptivist theories of proper names, based on the criticism of the identification of Frege’s notion of sense with linguistic (...) meaning or connotation1. In fact Burge (1979) claims that the identification of Frege’s notion of sense with the notion of linguistic meaning is a «basic misunderstanding» of Frege’s work2. This claim implies that Fregean senses are not like Mill’s connotations; therefore many direct-reference criticisms against Frege, which are grounded on Mill’s claims that proper names have no connotation, lose their efficacy. Burge, in giving specifications3, apparently accepts at least the idea that sense is an aspect of meaning, in particular «the aspect of meaning relevant to fixing the truth value of sentences». This feature is the “harmless” part of the assimilation of sense and linguistic meaning; but this assimilation becomes dangerous when context dependence is concerned. Revisiting Burge (1979), after more than two decades of debate on indexicals, may help to better understand the originality and the limitation of his claims. (shrink)

Dans cet article j’examine la situation de la Nouvelle Académie dans la classification du scepticisme élaborée par Jules Vuillemin. Celui-ci, dans une étude intitulée « Une morale est-elle compatible avec le scepticisme? », a distingué quatre types de scepticisme : le scepticisme radical, celui de Pyrrhon ; le scepticisme esthète ou raffiné, celui d’Aristippe ; le probabilisme individuel, celui de Carnéade ; et le probabilisme démocratique, celui de Hume. Or cette classification présente de multiples difficultés. Est-il légitime de faire usage (...) à propos de la Nouvelle Académie du concept de « scepticisme » qui la définit beaucoup plus par rapport au néopyrrhonisme d’Enésidème et de Sextus Empiricus que par rapport à ses racines platoniciennes? Comment ignorer le fait que les arguments de Carnéade n’étaient pas formulés propria persona, mais dans un processus dialectique anti-stoïcien? Et que dire de tous les textes qui, notamment sur la question du plaisir, ne correspondent pas à son analyse? Et pour terminer, le fait que Villemin cite pour l’essentiel le témoignage cicéronien, pose le problème des différences sémantiques entre le latin et le grec. (shrink)

Dans cet article j’examine la situation de la Nouvelle Académie dans la classification du scepticisme élaborée par Jules Vuillemin. Celui-ci, dans une étude intitulée « Une morale est-elle compatible avec le scepticisme? », a distingué quatre types de scepticisme : le scepticisme radical, celui de Pyrrhon ; le scepticisme esthète ou raffiné, celui d’Aristippe ; le probabilisme individuel, celui de Carnéade ; et le probabilisme démocratique, celui de Hume. Or cette classification présente de multiples difficultés. Est-il légitime de faire usage (...) à propos de la Nouvelle Académie du concept de « scepticisme » qui la définit beaucoup plus par rapport au néopyrrhonisme d’Enésidème et de Sextus Empiricus que par rapport à ses racines platoniciennes? Comment ignorer le fait que les arguments de Carnéade n’étaient pas formulés propria persona, mais dans un processus dialectique anti-stoïcien? Et que dire de tous les textes qui, notamment sur la question du plaisir, ne correspondent pas à son analyse? Et pour terminer, le fait que Villemin cite pour l’essentiel le témoignage cicéronien, pose le problème des différences sémantiques entre le latin et le grec. (shrink)

En el Escolio acerca del “Espacio y el Tiempo”, Newton expone su concepción referida a un Espacio absoluto, elcual posee existencia tan real, como la de los demás cuerpos físicos pero en forma independiente de estos, es asíque una de las características de la física newtoniana‡ va a ser el interés por conceder una existencia independientey real al espacio y al tiempo, así como a la materia, ya que en las leyes del movimiento de Newton aparece elconcepto de aceleración, y (...) en esta teoría, la palabra aceleración sólo puede denotar “aceleración con respecto alespacio”. Por consiguiente, el espacio de Newton debe ser concebido “en reposo absoluto” o, al menos, con elfin de que sea posible considerar que la aceleración que aparece en las leyes del movimiento sea una “magnitud”o (fuerza), con algún significado. Por tal motivo, se propone: “distinguir el reposo y el movimiento tanto relativoscomo absolutos, por sus propiedades, causas y efectos.”. (shrink)

COVID-19 has turned many ethical principles and presuppositions upside down. More precisely, the principle of respect for autonomy has been shown to be ill suited to face the ethical challenges posed by the current health crisis. Individual wishes and choices have been subordinated to public interests. Patients have received trial therapies under extraordinary procedures of informed consent. The principle of respect for autonomy, at least in its mainstream interpretation, has been particularly questioned during this pandemic. Further reflection on the nature (...) and value of autonomy is urgently needed. Relational autonomy has been proposed as an alternative account of autonomy that can more adequately respond to contemporary ethical issues in general and to a pandemic such as the one we are currently facing in particular. As relational autonomy is an emerging notion in current bioethics, it requires further consideration and development to be properly operationalized. This paper aims to show how six different philosophical branches––namely, philosophy of nature, philosophical anthropology, existential phenomenology, discourse ethics, hermeneutics, and cultural anthropology––have incorporated the category of relation throughout the twentieth century. We first delve into primary philosophical sources and then apply their insights to the specific field of medical ethics. Learning from the historical developments of other philosophical fields may provide illumination that will enable bioethics to experience a successful “relational turn”, which has been partially initiated in contemporary bioethics but not yet achieved. (shrink)

The research “From Pure Quantity to Quantum in Hegel's Science of Logic reconstructs the 1st chapter of this session that poses the problem of passing from Quality to Quantity. The dialectic of being-for-itself led to the quantitative unit that is, initially, pure immediate quantity in relation to itself; the result of this process brings immanent moments of attraction and repulsion that are now continuous and of discrete magnitude; these two moments contain each other reciprocally forming an inseparable unit, that is, (...) quantity is an uninterrupted process of the ones. However, the limitation of quantity describes that both in continuity and in discretion there is a limit that leads to the quantum. Then, we briefly present the problematization of the quantitative being and mathematics, in order to show the relevance of making quantity explicit in Hegelian logic. (shrink)

Christopher Meckstroth’s book The Struggle for Democracy poses and attempts to solve a central problem of democratic theory: what he calls the ‘paradox of authorization’, whereby the very activity of spelling out the political content of democracy is said to potentially contradict its object, since the democratic theorist may end up substituting himself or herself for ‘the people’ in deciding what this form government amounts to in practice. In order to avoid this problem, Meckstroth suggests that the political content of (...) democracy ought to be extrapolated out of concrete political struggles, by submitting competing claims to represent the people’s will to a rational scrutiny that tests them for internal coherence. While pointing out the intrinsic interest and originality of this approach, the review also advances some reservations concerning the posited criterion’s capacity to perform all the work Meckstroth assigns it. In the end, the proposed solution to the ‘paradox of authorization’ may fall prey to it too, since on its own terms the criterion of internal coherence is insufficient to specify any determinate outcomes. This leaves it up to the theorist applying it to decide which concrete proposals best satisfy the test. (shrink)

What did John Dewey mean by the experience? Researchers of John Dewey’s work often attempt to decipher the American thinker’s thesis, statements and postulates. However, specific approaches have probably become inexact when interpreting many of his concepts, even thinking that they are superficial idealism. Detailed state-of-the-art review during the past decade, in terms of the idea of experience in Dewey, makes it possible to think that this concept –although not precisely defined as that of a dictionary– can be analyzed more (...) accurately. The last is the debate and reflection that will be open to the academic community in this paper; to clarify and, subsequently, define the concept, two fundamental and inherent aspects are presented in this document: first, the pragmatist line that addresses an epistemological framework of the idea; second, two Deweyan elements will be enlightened, these are the living organism and nature, which, as the axis of an empirical influence, are analyzed from the Vermont philosopher’s perspective. This concept also addresses three essential perspectives: biological, psychological and social, bearing in mind that, according to Dewey, real experiences occur if “meaning” comes after. Finally, an interpretative approach will answer, as possible, the question posed at the beginning of this abstract. (shrink)

Three philosophical attitudes in dialogue are suggested in answering the question posed by the Journal. An inviting, First Inner Voice undeerstands philosophy as a shareable theoretical task that can be explained and understood even across distant philosophical paradigms. A Second Inner Voice, sometimes termed in the dialogue as sceptic, distrusts any metaphilosophical definition of what philosophy is and what it should do, but would, nevertheless, aspire to retain a certain universalistic understanding of its own work, though it cannot be strongly (...) and conceptualy rendered. A Third Inner Voice, regarded in the text as somewhat Hegelian, insists in the unavoidability of strong philosophical definitions both in historical and in conceptual terms. No proposal or conclusion is forwarded regarding what should be done in contemporary philosophy, though an analysis of harm experiences is taken as an example of philosophical work. (shrink)

In the last two decades the growth of economic inequalities in Latin America has increased with unprecedented speed. Strategically the advance of neoclassical economic orthodoxy on Latin American, posed the issue in terms that it was their autochthonous economic Ideas (”structuralism”) the real cul..

Christopher Meckstroth’s book The Struggle for Democracy poses and attempts to solve a central problem of democratic theory: what he calls the ‘paradox of authorization’, whereby the very activity of spelling out the political content of democracy is said to potentially contradict its object, since the democratic theorist may end up substituting himself or herself for ‘the people’ in deciding what this form government amounts to in practice. In order to avoid this problem, Meckstroth suggests that the political content of (...) democracy ought to be extrapolated out of concrete political struggles, by submitting competing claims to represent the people’s will to a rational scrutiny that tests them for internal coherence. While pointing out the intrinsic interest and originality of this approach, the review also advances some reservations concerning the posited criterion’s capacity to perform all the work Meckstroth assigns it. In the end, the proposed solution to the ‘paradox of authorization’ may fall prey to... (shrink)

Je rappelle ici l’une des plus constantes préoccupations de la pensée de Jean-Luc Nancy : celle du destin d’un Occident qui, au moment même où il paraît accomplir son élargissement au monde entier, est amené à faire, de plus en plus, le constat de son propre effacement, de son déclin, ou de sa finitude. Je le fais tout en déplaçant quelque peu le point de vue d’où le problème se pose « normalement » car, comme c’est arrivé maintes fois (...) dans mes échanges avec Nancy lui-même, j’y fais jouer mon écart, ou mon arrabal hispanique. (shrink)

In "Wittgenstein in relation to his times" Von Wright1 poses a dilemma regarding the relationship between three wittgensteinian tenets: (i) the view that individual's beliefs and thoughts are entrenched in accepted language games and socially sanctioned forms of life (ii) the view that "philosophical problems are disquietudes of the mind caused by some malfunctioning in the language games, and hence in the way of life of the community". (iii) the "rejection of the scientific-technological civilisation of industrialised societies". The dilemma is (...) the following: is Wittgenstein's rejection of technological civilisation strictly linked to his general view of philosophy? Or is it "only contingently - that is for historical and psychological reasons, connected with the other two in Wittgenstein's thought"? Von Wright argues, even with some doubts, for a strong link between Wittgenstein's rejection of technological society and his general approach to philosophy; the argument is as follows: "because of the interlocking of language and ways of life, a disorder in the former reflects disorder in the latter. If philosophical problems are symptomatic of language, producing malignant outgrowths which obscure our thinking, then there must be a cancer in the Lebensweise, in the way of life itself" (p.119). The argument seems to be not compelling; among some of the main philosophical problems Wittgenstein is willing to "cure" there are misunderstandings lying in the history of our language much time before our technological civilisation (Wittgenstein refers to Augustine and Plato as suffering these disorder of language). We should generalise the criticism to technological society to the effect of enclosing ancient Greece. In this way the criticism seems to loose all its polemical vein, becoming a generic criticism of the structures of western thought since Greece. But probably this was the point Wittgenstein wanted to make in his criticism of the idea of progress and technological civilisation. I will argue therefore for the second horn of the dilemma, relying on another kind of de facto argument: contemporary technological civilisation is embodying some of Wittgenstein's main ideas (we might also note that these ideas are among the strongest points Wittgenstein gives against Greek classical tradition in philosophy).. (shrink)

It would be ahistorical to ridicule vitalists. When one reads the writings of one of the leading vitalists like Driesch one is forced to agree with him that many of the basic problems of biology simply cannot be solved by a philosophy as that of Descartes, in which the organism is simply considered a machine…. The logic of the critique of the vitalists was impeccable.At the turn of the new millennium, concomitant with the development of the evo-devo and eco-devo disciplines (...) within developmental biology, critical appraisals of the reductionist stance of the molecular biology revolution became more numerous and noticeable. Several books and papers address the problems posed by this reductionist agenda and suggest... (shrink)

Without addressing the measurement problem (i. e., what causes the wave function to “collapse,” or to ”branch,” or a history to become realized, or a property to actualize), I discuss the problem of the timing of the quantum measurement: Assuming that in an appropriate sense a measurement happens, when precisely does it happen? This question can be posed within most interpretations of quantum mechanics. By introducing the operator M, which measures whether or not the quantum measurement has happened, I suggest (...) that, contrary to what is often claimed, quantum mechanics does provide a precise answer to this question, although a somewhat surprising one. (shrink)

In this critical notice we review Bozickovic's recent attempt to settle two interrelated issues: (i) the issue of the cognitive significance of indexical thoughts expressed at a time in the face of difficulties posed by cases in which the subject either mistakes two objects for one or one for two different objects; (ii) that of the cognitive dynamics of temporal indexical thoughts in the face of difficulties posed by cases in which the belief seems to be retained while the proper (...) adjustments fail to be made (that is, in cases such as Rip Van Winkle's). We argue that, despite its elegance and merits, the proposal falls short of accounting for the problematic cases in their full complexity. For one thing, the intended non-modal construal of Frege's Criterion of Difference promoted by Bozickovic does not block, in our view, the "proliferation" of senses brought about by the occasion-sensitivity of the individuation of demonstrative thoughts. For another, the proposal fails to appreciate the need for the subject to have an adequate conception of the object of her thought when it comes to orienting herself in space and time. That being so, we conclude that neither (i) nor (ii) is settled. (shrink)

In "Wittgenstein in relation to his times" Von Wright1 poses a dilemma regarding the relationship between three wittgensteinian tenets: (i) the view that individual's beliefs and thoughts are entrenched in accepted language games and socially sanctioned forms of life (ii) the view that "philosophical problems are disquietudes of the mind caused by some malfunctioning in the language games, and hence in the way of life of the community". (iii) the "rejection of the scientific-technological civilisation of industrialised societies". The dilemma is (...) the following: is Wittgenstein's rejection of technological civilisation strictly linked to his general view of philosophy? Or is it "only contingently - that is for historical and psychological reasons, connected with the other two in Wittgenstein's thought"? Von Wright argues, even with some doubts, for a strong link between Wittgenstein's rejection of technological society and his general approach to philosophy; the argument is as follows: "because of the interlocking of language and ways of life, a disorder in the former reflects disorder in the latter. If philosophical problems are symptomatic of language, producing malignant outgrowths which obscure our thinking, then there must be a cancer in the Lebensweise, in the way of life itself" (p.119). The argument seems to be not compelling; among some of the main philosophical problems Wittgenstein is willing to "cure" there are misunderstandings lying in the history of our language much time before our technological civilisation (Wittgenstein refers to Augustine and Plato as suffering these disorder of language). We should generalise the criticism to technological society to the effect of enclosing ancient Greece. In this way the criticism seems to loose all its polemical vein, becoming a generic criticism of the structures of western thought since Greece. But probably this was the point Wittgenstein wanted to make in his criticism of the idea of progress and technological civilisation. I will argue therefore for the second horn of the dilemma, relying on another kind of de facto argument: contemporary technological civilisation is embodying some of Wittgenstein's main ideas (we might also note that these ideas are among the strongest points Wittgenstein gives against Greek classical tradition in philosophy).. (shrink)

El paradigma del Juicio constituye un modelo de racionalidad que pretende elevarse como alternativa positiva ante los retos coyunturales introducidos por el giro lingüístico de la filosofía en el pensamiento contemporáneo. Frente a la difícil tarea de defender principios universalistas en la cultura actual, este modelo aspira a pronunciarse positivamente sobre cuestiones tales como la de la validez normativa que pueda afectar las relaciones entre acción humana y deliberación. Para alcanzar su objetivo, el paradigma del Juicio patrocina una forma de (...) la normatividad sin principios (validez ejemplar), enraizada en el juicio reflexionante kantiano y en el sensus communis (sentido común) de la tradición retórico-humanista. El objetivo de este artículo es la presentación de dicho modelo de racionalidad dentro de la filosofía kantiana y, por medio de la exploración de sus antecedentes histórico-filosóficos (Gadamer), y gracias a un rodeo por la tradición retórico-humanista (Aristóteles y Vico), se busca soslayar el énfasis estético que la fundamentación de Kant acentuó. Finalmente, se pondera el alcance y pertinencia que posee dicho paradigma en la reapropiación de dos de sus intérpretes en la filosofía contemporánea: Alessandro Ferrara y Hannah Arendt. (shrink)

La conciencia fenoménica es la propiedad que los estados, sucesos y procesos mentales poseen cuando, y sólo cuando, hay algo que es como algo para el sujeto que los posee; para experimentarlos o estar en tales estados. Hay algo que es como oler café recién preparado. Tener la experiencia de oler café recién preparado es un estado fenoménicamente conciente. Comúnmente, qué es algo como tener una experiencia conciente refiere al carácter fenoménico de las experiencias. Las teorías de la conciencia intentan (...) explicar éste carácter fenoménico. (shrink)

Resumen El artículo se sitúa ante los nuevos contextos que los jóvenes viven en América Latina, especialmente, considerando las estructuras de corrupción ante lo cual los jóvenes son más vulnerables por su condición de búsqueda de espacios de desarrollo y crecimiento social. Esta situación, plantea nuevos retos para la Pastoral Juvenil latinoamericana teniendo en cuenta que la misma institución eclesial no ha estado ajena a situaciones de corrupción. A través de un análisis documental, desde las Escrituras, pasando por cuatro de (...) las Conferencias Episcopales Latinoamericanas, el artículo pretende desarrollar la tensión entre jóvenes, sociedad y pastoral juvenil, para finalmente presentar una propuesta que se fundamenta en un proceso juvenil de cinco décadas que transita desde una pastoral liberadora a una pastoral regeneradora, donde los sujetos jóvenes rotos buscan renacer en nuestra América Latina.s The article is set against the new contexts that young people live in Latin America, especially considering the structures of corruption lo which young people are more vulnerable because oj their search for spaces of development and social growth. This situation poses new challenges for Latin American Youth Ministry bearing in mind that the Church institution itself has not been unaware of situations of corruption. Through a documentary analysis, from the Scriptures, through four of the Latin American Episcopal Conferences, the article aims to develop the tension between young people, socieíy and youth pastoral, lo finally present a proposal thal is based on a youth process of five decades that It goes from a liberating pastoral to a regenerative pasloral, where the broken young subjects seek to be reborn in our Latin America. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to analyze the attitude of a group of cardiologists on the ethical conducts they would accept or adopt when encountered with different hypothetical situations of medical practice. Between August and September of 2011, 700 Argentine cardiologists were surveyed in situations which posed ethical dilemmas in the patient-physician relationship, among colleagues or involving financial agreements with employers or the pharmaceutical industry. Ethical conflicts were evidenced in a series of inappropriate conducts such as differential fees, trips (...) and meals sponsored by laboratories, splitting fees, overbilling, self-referral, charging for patient referral, financial compensation for ordering medical procedures, and various situations derived from the relationship with employers. In general, financial compensation from the pharmaceutical industry was more accepted than the conflictive situations which directly involved patients, colleagues or employers. The rejection of these conducts, the physicians' deontological education and the improvement of financial and organizational conditions in medical practice will help to encourage better medical professionalism and avoid unseemly behaviors. (shrink)