The development of philosophical ideas throughout history has sometimes been assisted by the use of handcrafted instruments. Some paradigmatic cases, such as the invention of the telescope or the microscope, show that many philosophical approaches have been the result of the intervention of such instruments. The aim of this article is to show the determining role that stringed musical instruments with frets had in the crisis and generation of philosophical paradigms. In fact, just as the observations of the moon with (...) the telescope broke more than a thousand years of Aristotelian hegemony, the fretted string instruments, predecessors of the guitar, played a central role in the collapse of one of the most influential approaches in the history of Philosophy: Pythagorism. We focus on the fundamental hallmarks of Pythagorism and on how, during the 16th century and from the fretted string instruments, the mathematical-musical notion of equal temperament emerged, which from the middle of the 19th century will be established as the prevailing philosophical-musical paradigm of the West. (shrink)

The development of philosophical ideas throughout history has sometimes been assisted by the use of handcrafted instruments. Some paradigmatic cases, such as the invention of the telescope or the microscope, show that many philosophical approaches have been the result of the intervention of such instruments. The aim of this article is to show the determining role that stringed musical instruments with frets had in the crisis and generation of philosophical paradigms. In fact, just as the observations of the moon with (...) the telescope broke more than a thousand years of Aristotelian hegemony, the fretted string instruments, predecessors of the guitar, played a central role in the collapse of one of the most influential approaches in the history of Philosophy: Pythagorism. We focus on the fundamental hallmarks of Pythagorism and on how, during the 16th century and from the fretted string instruments, the mathematical-musical notion of equal temperament emerged, which from the middle of the 19th century will be established as the prevailing philosophical-musical paradigm of the West. (shrink)

Call ‘a substance’ a person who is at home in a relatively stable and unified sense-making framework: a social structure that to some degree specifies which categories are important for interpreting reality, which goals are worth pursing, which character traits are admirable, etc. Call ‘an accident’ a person who is not at home in one such framework. It is tempting to think that being a substance is preferable, but I present some considerations for thinking otherwise. Mexican philosophers Emilio Uranga and (...) Jorge Portilla, I argue, present notions of accidentality as decolonial tools. Uranga’s account enables Mexicans to have positive valuation of their being independently of the approving gaze of the colonizers and their standards of value. Portilla’s thought distinguishes between pernicious accidentality resulting from the disintegration of sense-making frameworks and authentic accidentality as a condition for freedom, self-creation, and ultimately for individual and communal liberation. (shrink)

Este artículo es el resultado de una investigación del programa de Maestría en Educación de la universidad la Gran Colombia; se propuso como objetivo general determinar cómo construyen la categoría “valor” estudiantes de grado once de dos colegios de la ciudad de Bogotá, con edades que oscilan entre quince y diecinueve años respectivamente. El enfoque metodológico fue de carácter cualitativo en el cual se utilizaron las técnicas de recolección de información: grupos focales y entrevistas a profundidad, que tuvieron el propósito (...) de recoger e interpretar la asignación de sentidos y representaciones expresadas en las narrativas de los actores participantes. Algunos de los hallazgos sugieren que las percepciones de la población objeto de estudio sobre la categoría “valor” están relacionadas con procesos de subjetivación que se construyen en la vida cotidiana en dinámicas complejas y no necesariamente lineales, como resultados de acuerdos sociales. De otra parte, existe una tendencia significativa a construir la categoría “valor” de acuerdo con las necesidades, intereses y motivaciones que se generan en el contexto escolar, lo que produce conflictos, contradicciones y valoraciones morales que muchas veces devienen en lucha de fuerza con las instituciones. Se destaca entre otras conclusiones, el juego en que se sumergen los estudiantes a partir de prácticas éticas asociadas a la categoría “valor” de carácter teleológico, porque las conductas intentan evitar un castigo o alcanzar un premio; y autotélicas porque los comportamientos producen felicidad en el hacer. (shrink)

Leibniz claims that for every possible substance S there is an individual concept that includes predicates describing everything that will ever happen to S, if S existed. Many commentators have thought that this leads Leibniz to think that all properties are had essentially, and thus that it is not metaphysically possible for substances to be otherwise than the way their individual concept has them as being. I argue against this common way of reading Leibniz’s views on the metaphysics of modality. (...) I develop a model in which individual concepts are innocent; that is, individual concepts are divine ideas that permit God to know everything that will ever happen to all possible substances, if created, but these individual concepts neither require that all properties are had essentially nor require that it is metaphysically necessary for substances to be the way their individual concepts have them as being. (shrink)

I argue for a substantive interpretation of Carlos Vaz Ferreira’s account of intellectual flourishing as intellectual liberation. For Vaz Ferreira, I argue, there is an inescapable master-slave dynamic between language and language users, so that flourishing intellectually essentially involves a type of mastery of language that frees up thinking from enslaving linguistic/conceptual confusions and thus facilitates the acquisition of truth. Central to this project are Vaz Ferreira’s most interesting, and radical, views on the nature of language signification and thus on (...) human’s ability to accurately describe and know reality, for failing to keep these linguistic limitations in mind, Vaz Ferreira argues, is a central way for language to enslave humans to confused thinking and thus prevent their intellectual flourishing. (shrink)

Can a person from Latin America be a Catholic, or a feminist, or a democratic socialist in an authentic way? These identities come from Europe, and given the colonial history of Latin America, it seems reasonable to think that decolonizing the Latin American mind is a condition for its authenticity. Further, it seems reasonable to think that decolonization itself requires extirpating ideas and identities originating from the colonizers, especially those used to establish the colonial order. Thus, it seems that Latin (...) Americans cannot adopt such identities; authentic decolonization demands otherwise. In this paper I argue that the thought of twentieth century Mexican philosopher Jorge Portilla provides a persuasive account of the nature of authentic self-creation that allows for a kind of decolonization that makes it conceptually possible for Latin Americans to be Catholics, feminists, or democratic socialists in an authentic fashion. That is, authentic decolonization of the mind, I argue, need not involve a blanket rejection of identities originating from the colonizers; instead, it can be understood as a particular kind of authentic self-creation: one that is appropriately sensitive to the colonial history of the identities freely chosen by the agent. (shrink)

With the advent of the cloud computing model allowing a shared access to massive computing facilities, a surging demand emerges for the protection of the intellectual property tied to the programs executed on these uncontrolled systems. If novel paradigm as confidential computing aims at protecting the data manipulated during the execution, obfuscating techniques (in particular at the source code level) remain a popular solution to conceal the purpose of a program or its logic without altering its functionality, thus preventing reverse-engineering (...) on the program even with the help of computing resources. The many advantages of code obfuscation, together with its low cost, makes it a popular technique. This paper proposes a novel methodology for source code obfuscation that can be used together with other traditional obfuscation techniques, making the code more robust against reverse engineering attacks. Three program complexity metrics are used to define three different single-objective combinatorial optimization versions of the problem, which are solved and analysed. Additionally, three multi-objective problems are defined, those considering each of the selected metrics together with the program execution time, in order to avoid strong obfuscations penalizing the performance. The goal of the defined problems is to find sequences of LLVM optimizations that lead to highly obfuscated versions of the original code. These transformations are applied to the back-end pseudo-assembly code (i.e., LLVM Intermediate Representation), thus avoiding any further optimizations by the compiler. Classical genetic algorithms (GAs) are used to solve the studied problems, namely a basic cellular GA for the single-objective problems and the popular NSGA-II for the multi-objective ones. The promising results show the potential of the proposed technique. (shrink)

Sound symbolism refers to non-arbitrary associations between word forms and meaning, such as those observed for some properties of sounds and size or shape. Recent evidence suggests that these connections extend to emotional concepts. Here we investigated two types of non-arbitrary relationships. Study 1 examined whether iconicity scores (i.e. resemblance-based mapping between aspects of a word’s form and its meaning) for words can be predicted from ratings in the affective dimensions of valence and arousal and/or the discrete emotions of happiness, (...) anger, fear, disgust and sadness. Words denoting negative concepts were more likely to have more iconic word forms. Study 2 explored whether statistical regularities in single phonemes (i.e. systematicity) predicted ratings in affective dimensions and/or discrete emotions. Voiceless (/p/, /t/) and voiced plosives (/b/, /d/, /g/) were related to high arousing words, whereas high arousing negative words tended to include fricatives (/s/, /z/). Hissing consonants were also more likely to occur in words denoting all negative discrete emotions. Additionally, words conveying certain discrete emotions included specific phonemes. Overall, our data suggest that emotional features might explain variations in iconicity and provide new insight about phonemic patterns showing sound symbolic associations with the affective properties of words. (shrink)

In the following paper, I wish to examine a problem for the theist libertarian. On the one hand, libertarians insist that freedom requires possible alternatives open to the agent. On the other hand, God’s perfectly formed moral character implies that He always does the morally best. Give His moral character, then, it appears that there are no possible alternatives open to God. We thus get a dilemma for the theist libertarian: either a) God is not libertarian free – because His (...) moral character rules out possible alternatives; or b) God’s character is not perfectly formed – because libertarian freedom requires that it is possible for God to act out of character. In the present paper, I argue that Thomas Reid, a paradigmatic libertarian, has the theoretical tools to retain a robust account of libertarian freedom without compromising a robust account of perfectly formed characters. In sum, it is necessary that agents with fully formed characters always act in character (read de dicto), but it is possible that agents with fully formed characters act out of character (read de re). The former claim captures the robustness of perfectly formed moral characters and the latter claim captures the robustness of libertarian freedom. (shrink)

La influencia de la filosofía positivista ha propiciado que, en el mundo contemporáneo, se tienda a identificar verdad y objetividad. Este artículo se propone argumentar que: a) el concepto de objetividad es una reducción indebida del concepto clásico de verdad; b) las premisas en las que se basa la teoría de la objetividad no son axiomáticas, como parecen, y conducen a contradicciones; c) es necesaria una rehabilitación de la concepción realista de verdad, libre de las ataduras del pensamiento positivista.

The question about man appears again in contemporary philosophy no longer as an eidetic, but as an existential question (if it ever ceased to be so). Martin Buber, Austrian-Jewish thinker (1878-1965), seeks with his thought to recover the value of man, adding to the existentialist influences of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and to the phenomenological influence of Husserl, the dialogic principle; that is, the necessity of the other as a Thou for the becoming of the I as a person. This last (...) concept, person, has its origin in the philosophical discourse in the Trinitarian and Christological Theology of the Fathers of the Church, among them, Augustine of Hippo. In this article we want to make explicit the presence of this Augustinian conception of person in the personalism of Martin Buber. To do so, we will identify the most important characteristics of the person for the bishop of Hippo, which are explained in detail in his work De Trinitate, and then we will link these characteristics with those that are central to Buber's thought. Our hypothesis is that we can find in Buber's anthropology traces of Augustine's thought, influenced especially through existentialism and phenomenology. (shrink)

According to intellectualists, the will is a rational inclination towards apprehended goodness. This conception of the will makes its acts intelligible: they are explained by (i) the nature of the will as a rational inclination, and (ii) the judgement of the intellect that moves the will. From this it follows that it is impossible for an agent to will evil as such or for its own sake. In explaining wrongdoing intellectualists cite cognitive error or the disruptive influences of the passions; (...) these considerations, however, seem involuntary and at least partly exculpatory. The intellectualist needs an account that renders wrongful actions intelligible without undermining their status as responsible. I argue that Leibniz has the theoretical tools to provide at least part of an answer to this problem. In sum, an agent is directly responsible for her wrongdoing if the cognitive error or the disruptive influence of the passions that help explain this wrongdoing do not completely undermine her acting freely; an agent is indirectly responsible for her wrongdoing if she is directly responsible for previous actions which partly resulted in her wrongdoing, even if the presence of cognitive error or disruptive influence of the passions completely undermines her acting freely. (shrink)

La universidad española se enfrenta en estos momentos a un cambio en la oferta de titulaciones, en la estructuración y homologación de los estudios y también en la metodología de la enseñanza. Este proceso es percibido por sus principales protagonistas (gestores de la educación, profesores y estudiantes) de diversas maneras: a veces como una amenaza, otras como una oportunidad e incluso en ocasiones como un mero cambio nominalista. ¿Deben modificarse los procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje universitarios? ¿Hasta qué punto existe (...) la adecuada disposición y preparación para ello? ¿En qué dirección caminaría un aprendizaje de calidad? (shrink)

Carlos Vaz Ferreira argues that the problem of freedom is conceptually distinct from the problem of causal determinism. The problem of freedom is ultimately a problem regarding the ontologically independent agency of a being, and the problem of determinism is a problem regarding explanations of events or acts in terms of the totality of their antecedent causal conditions. As Vaz Ferreira sees it, failing to keep these problems apart gives rise to merely apparent but unreal puzzles pertaining to the nature (...) of freedom and its relation to determinism. In this article, I present my interpretation of Vaz Ferreira’s distinctive ideas regarding the nature of freedom and its relation to casual determinism. (shrink)

The aim of the present study was to determine statistical differences in a set of badminton competition matches in five different modalities with regard to competition level (Group Phase versus Eliminatory Phase). Data from 453 sets (125 in men’s singles; 108 sets in women’s singles; 77 sets in men’s doubles; 73 in women’s doubles and 70 in mixed doubles) from the RIO 2016 Olympics Games were recorded and classified in two groups of variables to analyse variables related to match (5) (...) and set (15). A descriptive analysis and univariate test (Mann Whitney U) for non-parametric data were conducted. The results show in men’s and women’s singles all the variables related to match were higher in the Elimination Phase than in the Group Phase (p<0.01). In Sets 1 and 3, the longest set duration, rally and average rally were found in the Elimination Phase than Group Stage (p<0.05). In women’s singles, these differences were also recorded in Set 2. For doubles, the results are more stable among groups. Men’s doubles had a longer duration of the match and set (set 1 and set 2) (p<0.01), and also scored highest for average rally strokes (set 1 and set 3) (p<0.05) and shuttles used in the Elimination Phase versus the Group Phase along the match (p<0.01). In women’s doubles, more shuttles were used in a match in the Elimination than in the Group Phase. Moreover, the same results are established for Set 2, including for average rally. Mixed doubles saw no match going to three sets. However, the greatest differences showed a longer rally and average rally being registered in the Elimination than in the Group Phase. In conclusion, the timing factors of the badminton singles and doubles games were different in the Elimination and Group Phases. This information may help players and coaches prepare and administer different types of workouts or, more specifically, competition schedules adapted to the characteristics of modern badminton. (shrink)

Jorge Portilla argues that authentic philosophical inquiry plays a liberating function. This function is that of bringing more fully to consciousness aspects of identities or ways of being‐in‐the world that have been, up until then, tacit or opaque to the agent herself to facilitate her endorsement, rejection, or modification of these identities. For Portilla, this function facilitates greater self‐mastery by increasing the range of free variations of subjectivity available to the agent, and this increase in self‐mastery itself constitutes a kind (...) of liberation. The main goal of this article is to provide a substantive interpretation of the nature of liberation Portilla thinks is embedded in this central function of authentic philosophical inquiry. I argue that this type of liberation should be understood ultimately in terms of increases in human agency, so I label it “agential liberation.” For Portilla, agential liberation involves two central elements: (i) a type of agential flourishing central to human flourishing, and (ii) an increase in the reach of intentional action that I describe as an expansion in the arena of human agency. (shrink)

Psychological flexibility is a key concept of acceptation and commitment therapy. This factor has been linked with psychological wellbeing and associated factors, such as quality of life, in cancer patients. These and other positive results of acceptation and commitment therapy in cancer patients found in previous research could be enhanced by using mhealth tools. A three-arm randomized superiority clinical trial, with a pre-post-follow-up repeated measures intergroup design with a 1:1:1 allocation ratio is proposed. A hundred and twenty cancer patients will (...) be randomly assigned to one of the following interventions: face-to-face ACT + mobile application, face-to-face ACT, and Waitlist control group. The primary expected outcome is to observe significant improvements in psychological flexibility acceptance and action questionnaire- II in the face-to-face ACT + app group, after comparing baseline and post-treatment scores, and the scores will remain stable in the two assessment points, 3 and 6 months after the intervention. Secondary expected outcomes are significant increasing scores in quality of life and post-traumatic-growth, and significant decreasing scores in anxiety and depression, insomnia and fatigue at the same assessment points. Also, it is expected that the scores of this group will be higher than the scores of the face-to-face ACT group and the waitlist control group. This study aims to assess the efficacy of a combined intervention for psychological flexibility and associated symptoms in cancer patients. The results of this protocol may help to consider the use of acceptation and commitment therapy and mhealth applications in cancer settings as a valid therapeutic choice.Clinical Trial Registration[www.ClinicalTrials.gov], identifier [NCT05126823]. (shrink)

The area of smart power grids needs to constantly improve its efficiency and resilience, to provide high quality electrical power in a resilient grid, while managing faults and avoiding failures. Achieving this requires high component reliability, adequate maintenance, and a studied failure occurrence. Correct system operation involves those activities and novel methodologies to detect, classify, and isolate faults and failures and model and simulate processes with predictive algorithms and analytics. In this paper, we showcase the application of a complex-adaptive, self-organizing (...) modeling method, and Probabilistic Boolean Networks, as a way towards the understanding of the dynamics of smart grid devices, and to model and characterize their behavior. This work demonstrates that PBNs are equivalent to the standard Reinforcement Learning Cycle, in which the agent/model has an interaction with its environment and receives feedback from it in the form of a reward signal. Different reward structures were created to characterize preferred behavior. This information can be used to guide the PBN to avoid fault conditions and failures. (shrink)

Among the graphic peculiarities that the manuscript T 235 presents, the famous Alcoran in letter of the Christians kept in the Library of Castilla-La Mancha, it is noticeable the use of the abbreviation al̶h. to translate the term Allāh. Examined the different techniques used to that end in other manuscripts in Latin characters coming from the different Hispanic Islamic communities between the 16th and 17th centuries, ranging from non-translation to the equivalent coined and through the loan with different transcripts, we (...) propose an interpretation of the aforementioned abbreviation in terms of intersemiotic translation, i.e. as a reduction to a simple visual form that aims to keep in the Spanish version the fiction of retaining the term Allāh in its original form in Arabic spelling by means of Latin characters. (shrink)

In the historical context of the ancient Roman Empire, especially in Southwestern Spain, this study employs fuzzy logic methodology to conduct a comprehensive comparative analysis of topographical measurement instruments. These instruments—specifically the groma, surveyor's square, dioptra, chorobate, and odometer—were instrumental in shaping the region's infrastructure and played a crucial role in ancient engineering projects. Fuzzy logic is strategically utilized to assign fuzzy values ranging between 0 and 1 to five pivotal characteristics: precision, complexity, versatility, durability, and ease of use. These (...) attributes enable a nuanced evaluation of each instrument. For instance, an instrument known for its precision would be assigned a value closer to 1, while one with lower precision would receive a value closer to 0. The outcomes of this research provide a multifaceted perspective on the historical importance of these instruments in Southwestern Spain during the Roman era. By offering detailed assessments of their strengths and weaknesses through fuzzy logic-based comparisons, the study highlights the suitability of each tool for distinct measurement requirements. By illustrating the adaptability of fuzzy logic in evaluating historical instruments, this research introduces a novel approach that can be applied to various contexts. It not only reveals the pivotal role played by these instruments during the Roman Empire but also underscores their relevance to contemporary surveying and topography, providing a valuable bridge between ancient and modern practices. (shrink)

Enhancement-line human genetic engineering has recurrently been targeted for bioethical discussion and is usually illustrated by examples alluding to a genetic technology that is far beyond our current possibilities. By discussing an ambitious project related to solid tumor cancers – multidrug resistance – the present paper places the question on a more realistic plane and draws bioethical conclusions to serve as guidelines in the field. The paper also establishes the inadequacy of the prevalent concept of genetic medicine as one of (...) substitution. (shrink)

The first part of this article shows that oureffective means to know and modify directly thehuman genetic make-up generates singular anddifficult situations for the application offundamental medical categories. Specifically,we demonstrate that in dealing with thesesituations, some predominant views on health,such as descriptivism or that which reduces thestate of health to not having presentdisabilities, cannot provide adequate answerseither from the point of view of medicalscience or in terms of our ordinary intuitions.The second part of the article examines thereasons for the failure (...) of these views totackle the mentioned situations, proposessolutions to urgent problems and, finally,offers some foundations for an alternativetheoretical development, id est, for atheory of health able to satisfactorilyintegrate our genetic dimension. (shrink)

During the course of its short history the discipline concerned with the origin of life has given birth to several scientific programmes in the Lakatosian sense, two of the most prominent and widespread being those initiated by Oparin (life began from protein entities) and Muller-Haldane (life began from genetic entities). The present paper sets down the bases for the rational reconstruction of both views by identifying their hard core and some of their successive developments. An assessment is made of the (...) various stages in the evolution of these programmes with respect to the crucial Lakatosian notions of progressivity and regressivity and of how their arguments stand up against one another. This epistemological analysis also establishes the internal reasons why the RNA version of the genotype programme (developed in particular by L. Orgel and S. Spiegelman) has today taken on a progressive character and enjoys recognition by the international scientific community. (shrink)

Technical and tactical actions are decisive in terms of badminton player competitive performance. The main objective of this research was to design, validate, and estimate the reliability of an observational instrument for the analysis of the tactical and technical actions in individual badminton. The process was carried out in four different steps: first, there was a review of the scientific literature and a preliminary list of variables was made; second, a qualitative and quantitative assessment was completed by 10 badminton expert (...) judges; in the third step, the content validity was estimated using Aiken’s V coefficient; finally, intra-observer reliability and interobserver reliability were tested by two observers specialized in badminton using the Cohen’s Kappa coefficient and the intraclass correlation coefficient. Strokes were used as the unit of measure by our observational instrument; every time badminton players hit the shuttlecock, 22 variables are observed. The minimum Aiken’s value was 0.58, and reliability was 0.63. In spite of these values, none of the variables had to be removed, but there were modifications in terms of drafting in some of them. The main findings confirmed the validity and the usefulness of this instrument. (shrink)

Health means today something more than the absence of illness or suffering of disability, as the pioneer theories of health had assumed. To be healthy also involves not having genetic mutations that indicate inexorably premature dead or serious disabilities. Genetic tests, whose amount and use grow day by day, have open these predictive possibilities for medicine and, at the same time, influenced for a more strict notion of health. The pathology known as ‘Huntington’s Chorea’ is an example of this kind (...) of situations. Because of the concept of health has deep economical, ethical and legal implications –among others-, it is evident that its modification will influence on society, something that now is occurring in some medical practices. The transformation process of the notions of health and unhealth supports –albeit in part- the sociological thesis that affirm that west society is undergoing a geneticization process. (shrink)

The growing use of genetic tests in medical practice has a strong influence on some widespread notions of health and unhealth. Two consequences of this phenomenon are: (i) important changes in the meaning of these current notions and, therefore, (ii) the arrival of a new taxonomy or rearrangement for the so-called “health-concepts”. This paper attempts to demonstrate that both facts fuel a theoretical change that might be considered a model of scientific Kuhnean change in a fundamental aspect. On the other (...) hand, this theoretical shift process offers the basis for approaching a present-day controversy, i.e. whether Western society is going through a period of geneticization or not, from a new perspective. (shrink)

En urbanisme, l’approche phénoménologique permet de se pencher sur l’expérience de l’individu et, plus précisément, sur le rapport que celui-ci entretient avec son milieu de vie. Cette approche permet de concevoir des milieux de vie mieux adaptés aux besoins et aux expectatives des individus et suppose des démarches d’aménagement qui accordent un rôle important au citoyen. Toutefois, si l’approche phénoménologique est couramment utilisée dans le cadre de travaux théoriques, elle est difficilement adoptée sur le terrain, en dépit de son utilité (...) et des justifications que l’on peut donner à son utilisation au plan éthique. Dans le présent article, nous explorons les raisons d’une telle disparité en levant le voile sur une double difficulté : difficulté professionnelle, d’une part, à dépasser le modèle déterministe du rapport personne–environnement ; diffi- culté scientifique, d’autre part, à ancrer la production de connaissances dans les processus de transformation du milieu de vie. (shrink)

Evaluative markers of diminution and augmentation typically express quantity or intensity. Prior evidence suggests that they also convey emotions, although it remains unexplored as to whether this function is mediated by their role in expressing quantification/intensification. Here we investigated the effects of evaluative suffixes on the assessment of word affective properties by asking participants (N = 300) to score valence and arousal features for augmentatives, diminutives and base words with negative, positive or neutral valence. Diminutives and, to a lesser extent, (...) augmentatives were assessed more positively than base forms in negative words and more negatively than bases in positive words. The capacity of diminution to express attenuated emotions is in line with its function in conveying quantity. By contrast, valence effects for augmentatives suggests a role in expressing pejoration and amelioration that is not mediated by quantification. With regard to arousal, negative, neutral and positive augmentatives showed higher scores than base words, which, in addition, were also rated higher than diminutives. These incremental effects suggest that suffixes which convey larger quantity are also associated with increased arousal. Thus, with the exception of valence effects in augmentatives, it seems that evaluative suffixes encode both valence and arousal through quantification. (shrink)

La réflexion sur l’éthique et la participation des jeunes et des enfants à l’aménagement com- porte au moins deux dimensions : d’une part, les justifications d’une telle participation ; d’autre part, les problèmes que la pratique participative fait émerger et face auxquels les cadres de réfé- rence conventionnels (non participatifs) ne sont pas toujours utiles. Le présent article aborde ces deux dimensions et explore leurs liens à la lumière de trois méthodes distinctes en matière de théorie morale, soit l’éthique déontologique, (...) l’éthique conséquentialiste et l’éthique de la vertu. Sur la base d’une expérience participative d’aménagement inscrite dans le programme Grandir en Ville de l’UNESCO, certaines contradictions entre les principes d’une pratique participative avec des enfants et la manière dont les problèmes éthiques sont parfois gérés sont mises en évidence. (shrink)

Nuestro tiempo debe ser expresado en las palabras de siempre. Limitarse a rasguear la contemporaneidad induce a creer que los nuevos tiempos no se nutren más que de sí mismos y que, por ello, devienen a través de concatenaciones originales. Pero no es así. No siempre resulta tan sugerente. Cuando el pasado histórico deja de ser percibido como lastre para pasar a ser contemplado como irrenunciable posibilidad de radicación, entonces puede decirse que se ha tomado conciencia de la primera grada (...) que podría llevar tanto a un esfuerzo por desentrañar e identificar lo medular de determinado período histórico como a la valentía de expresarlo al margen de pueriles afectos. Como no podía ser de otro modo, la presente obra contiene un diagnóstico del momento cultural presente. No basta con pesar, contar y medir. Porque las promesas suelen habitar en los mismos lugares que las amenazas, una pedagogía inhóspita caracterizada por ser una pura técnica de aplicación externa e incentivo sin alma –aunque, por ello, nada desideologizada- deja inermes tanto al teórico como al educando que, decepcionado, termina obrando como mero instrumento. Es difícil aceptar que sólo puede realizarse la necropsia de lo valioso en sí, que sólo queda el infierno. Por tanto, es un deber buscar razones para la resistencia y razones para educar en la beligerancia. Las herencias disimuladas, las herencias rechazadas, las herencias soportadas y las herencias pretendidas nos hablan de la semilla más que del despojo. Ciertamente, todas ellas permiten divisar la subjetiva búsqueda de lo mejor; con todo, hay que decir que ninguna puede escamotear la fabricación de lo objetivamente conveniente. De todas formas, falsear la Historia puede implicar que lo potencialmente recuperable o restaurable, por valioso, tenga posibilidades de salir indemne; podrá sobrevivir al quedar sepultado transitoriamente tras los escombros de lo otro de sí. La repatriación es la esperanza del forzado a la expatriación. La presente obra tuvo su origen en la preocupación por dar una respuesta al problema del porvenir de la educación y de la Pedagogía, es decir, al tema de la reconfiguración de éstas en un futuro no muy lejano. Ello llevó, de inmediato, a la exigencia de analizar críticamente el presente tanto desde el punto de vista de los posicionamientos discursivos dominantes más relacionados con la filosofía de la educación como desde la perspectiva de su propio devenir histórico. La constante aparición del nexo entre los problemas antropológicos más relevantes y la crítica de la metafísica exigió que la postmodernidad fuese reubicada en un contexto que superara su inserción en un escenario que tuviese por trasfondo únicamente a la modernidad. En otras palabras, fue apareciendo la necesidad de trascender el binarismo modernidad-postmodernidad. De esta manera, se consideró que la tradición realista –o, vagamente, premodernidad- debía aparecer en escena en abierto diálogo crítico con los posicionamientos cronológicamente posteriores. Expresar nuestro tiempo en las palabras de siempre supone la intención de apresar las constantes históricas sin perder de vista el dinamismo propio del presente. Análisis y perspectivas filosóficas, epistemológicas e históricas de la contemporaneidad desde un discurso crítico-pedagógico indica una dirección y una ubicación. Si unos pocos capítulos como los que siguen atrapan algo de la compleja realidad me daré por satisfecho. (shrink)

La superación del racionalismo y del relativismo no ha podido gestarse con fecundidad. Posiblemente porque el absolutismo racionalista -que salva la razón a costa de anular la vida- y el relativismo -que salva la vida negando la razón- se han desplazado en una dimensión única que imposibilitaba la insumisión a ese dilema vertebrado por una concepción absolutista de la verdad y que nos constriñe a instalarnos en alguno de sus términos. La constante aparición del nexo entre los problemas antropológicos más (...) relevantes y la crítica de la metafísica exigen que la postmodernidad sea reubicada en un contexto que supere su inserción en un escenario que tengan por trasfondo únicamente a la modernidad. En otras palabras, hay una necesidad de trascender el binomio modernidad-postmodernidad. De esta manera, se considera que la tradición realista debe aparecer en escena en abierto diálogo crítico con los posicionamientos cronológicamente posteriores. Por lo que se refiere a la estructura de la presente obra hay que decir que sus once capítulos se distribuyen en tres partes. La primera de ellas intenta desentrañar y ordenar los elementos que generan el estado de cierta postración en el que se halla el pensamiento crítico-especulativo. En la segunda parte se procede a recorrer cada una de las derivaciones más relevantes de la desconfianza de la razón hacia sí misma. Por último, la tercera parte intenta poner de manifiesto qué posibilidades quedan al pensamiento de la constitución de lo nuevo tanto en el ámbito filosófico como en el pedagógico. Los modernos creyeron que al ser humano cabe forjarlo por el poder de la razón; los postmodernos estiman que no debe hacerse. ¿Es sólo por casualidad que hay una coincidencia fundamental entre ambas perspectivas? En el fondo, uno y otro convienen que la razón lo puede todo; modernos y postmodernos coinciden en la creencia del poder ilimitado de la razón y, como consecuencia de ello, creen en la posibilidad de la ilimitada y absoluta transformación de la totalidad de lo real. Y ello, aunque lo hagan en sentido diverso y lo valoren de manera inversa. Cabe, pues, pensar que, en el fondo, no hay más que una remodelación monótona de lo mismo. Las repercusiones del nihilismo, del relativismo moral, de la crisis antropológica postmoderna, de los nacionalismos identitarios, del pluralismo religioso, de la política democrática y de los tópicos del relativismo cultural son, pues, abordados –y enhebrados- en la Crítica de la razón moderna. Por ello, esta obra supone una seria y muy completa contribución al esclarecimiento de la vertebración del pensamiento y las prácticas culturales vigentes. Además, es una obra imprescindible en la biblioteca de profesores y de estudiantes de las facultades de Educación, Filosofía, Historia, Teología, Ciencias Políticas y Sociología. Y también resulta relevante para todas aquellas personas que se afanan por comprender los fundamentos teóricos de las perspectivas sociales y humanísticas actuales así como sus derivaciones y praxis concretas. (shrink)

El presente Diccionario General de Pedagogía y Anexos Legislativos Españoles tiene la doble pretensión de servir a la comunidad docente en concreto, y al público en general, y de convertirse en un instrumento de consulta estudiantil. Su atención a elementos estables del discurso y del despliegue institucional educativo así como a las últimas transformaciones derivadas del proceso de convergencia europea así lo ponen de manifiesto. Estructurada en dos partes netamente complementarias como son el conjunto de las entradas y los fragmentos (...) legislativos de orden educativo, la obra intenta dotar al lector de los conocimientos precisos y esenciales que requiere hoy una buena formación en el ámbito que nos ocupa, y que es el la Pedagogía en concreto y el de la educación en general. Así, la concisión en las definiciones y caracterizaciones tanto como la exposición de los elementos que sirven de sustentación jurídica del discurso educativo forman una unidad coherente y completa. Si bien no todos los términos que configuran el presente Diccionario General de Pedagogía tienen su origen en el ámbito pedagógico, todos convergen en éste. Así, las entradas procedentes de las teorías pedagógicas conviven con otras provenientes de la psicología, las nuevas tecnologías y de la política y legislación educativas. Ello se justifica si se atiende a las finalidades últimas del sistema educativo y de la educación en general, que señala objetivos al servicio de los cuales se ordenan medios de procedencia diversa pero útiles por su instrumentalización pedagógica. Por lo que se refiere a los Anexos legislativos, éstos se estructuran en seis apartados, cronológicamente estructurados, que van desde la Ley General de Educación y Financiamiento de la Reforma Educativa hasta la Ley Orgánica de Calidad de la Educación, pasando por la Ley de Reforma Universitaria, la Ley Reguladora del Derecho a la Educación, la Ley Ordenación General del Sistema Educativo y la Ley Orgánica de Universidades. Sobre tales leyes se ha procedido a seleccionar sus fragmentos más ilustrativos y relevantes para el potencial lector de este Diccionario. Sólo queda desear que este Diccionario General de Pedagogía y Anexos Legislativos Españoles pueda cumplir su cometido como obra de consulta rápida y de incentivo a la investigación, profundización e innovación educativas. (shrink)

El problema del acceso al conocimiento suele inscribirse en los estrechos márgenes de lo metodológico. Sin embargo, dicha cuestión excede los límites de la pura practicidad y eficiencia. La posibilidad de saber exige una indagación que trascienda la pura epidermis del supuesto de un cúmulo de conocimientos dados y al alcance de todos. Dicha posibilidad es mucho más que la distancia que media entre el sujeto dispuesto a conocer y los contenidos a asimilar. El acceso al saber implica, además, una (...) mirada a la realidad sin la cual el contenido asimilable se desnaturaliza como nutriente espiritual. Por consiguiente, resulta pertinente indagar qué miradas de la realidad son las que sirven de sustento a la diversidad de los concretos accesos a los múltiples saberes. Tal es el núcleo vertebrador que recorre esta obra. Fundamentos, contextos y metodologías de la educación resulta así un subtítulo que pretende especificar el objeto de estudio de El acceso al conocimiento. Se trata tanto de una exposición objetiva como de una dilucidación comprometida, dirigidas ambas al corazón de los procesos formativos vigentes. Cada uno de los veintidós capítulos que componen El acceso al conocimiento ha sido expuesto por separado y públicamente en el seno de diversos Congresos Internacionales. Por tanto, cada uno de ellos ha sido sometido a debate en sesiones congresuales que abarcan seis años: desde el 2000 hasta el 2006. La compilación que aquí se presenta –y en la que se han mantenido las diversas modalidades de cita bibliográfica- tiene, pues, el valor añadido de intentar propiciar nuevos diálogos y renovadas reflexiones. (shrink)

Elementos de Teoría de la Educación se presenta como una obra de síntesis de aquellos aspectos que, dentro del ámbito de la Teoría de la Educación, resultan fundamentales para los estudiantes universitarios preocupados por la educación en todas sus vertientes. Destinada, pues, a prestar un servicio teórico en cuanto a la exposición y clarificación de posiciones filosóficas y pedagógicas perennes -sin dejar por ello de realizar incursiones tanto históricas como culturales-, se estructura de tal modo que puede servir también como (...) guía orientativa y facilitadora que aliente posteriores desarrollos. Estructurada en dos partes bien diferenciadas -Problematizaciones: exigencias y finalidades pedagógicas y, en segundo lugar, Esquemas temáticos-, la presente obra cuenta con la ventaja de introducir en la primera de ellas cuestiones globales que, en la segunda, son retomadas en núcleos temáticos, esto es, con una inserción concreta y muy determinada. Con ello se pretende no sólo guiar al alumno a través de la temática teórico-educativa sino, también, incentivar la lectura activa. Sólo resta desear que los contenidos y la estructuración que aquí se ofrecen respondan tanto a los importantes anhelos de los estudiantes de Educación como a las considerables necesidades formativas que la sociedad les demanda. (shrink)