The rapid increase of industry-sponsored clinical research towards developing countries has led to potentially complex ethical issues to assess. There is scarce evidence about the perception of these participants about the ethical compliance, security, and protection. We sought to evaluate and contrast the awareness and perception of participants and non-participants of industry-sponsored research trials on ethical, safety, and protection topics. A Cases-control survey conducted at twelve research sites in México. Previous and current participants of ISRT as well as non-participants with (...) one of four chronic diseases, were asked to complete the survey which focused on ethical compliance and protection issues of ISRT, and the perception of participating in a trial. A total of 604 cases and 604 controls were surveyed. Cases significantly answered that ethics committees are aware of what is happening in studies, and that medical care of industry-sponsored research trials is better than their usual medical care. The same proportion of cases and controls thought patients must receive economical reimbursement for participating in a research study. The informed consent of the pharmaceutical clinical trial was fully read by 90.4% of the cases. Most cases were satisfied or very satisfied with their overall study participation. Previous and current participants of industry-sponsored research trials have a more positive attitude towards ethics committees, the quality of medical care of the research trials, and the main purpose of economical reimbursements, when compared to non-participants. (shrink)

The beginning of university life can be a stressful event for students. The close social relationships that they can experience can have positive effects on their well-being. The objective of this paper is to estimate the effect of perceived social support on the changes of the hedonic and eudaimonic well-being of Chilean university students during the transition from the first to the second academic year. Overall, 205 students participated with an average age of 19.14 years, evaluated during their first academic (...) year and the succeeding one. For the evaluation of perceived social support, the Spanish version of the Perceived Social Support Questionnaire “MSPSS” was used, and PERMA-profiler was used to measure hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Changes through the time of hedonic well-being and social support and the correlations between the variables were analyzed. Changes in the perception of social support were analyzed according to four categories of hedonic well-being. The prediction of social support for eudaimonic well-being was evaluated. Results indicated that the perception of students’ social support did not change over time. Statistically significant differences were found in hedonic well-being scores in the two measurements, being significantly higher in the first measurement than in the second one. More than 50% of the participants presented a positive balance of affections. The perception of social support is associated with the two types of well-being. Students who had a high balance of affections had a greater perception of general social support than the groups of positive evolution of affections and a low balance of affections. In the case of the friends and family support dimensions, the perception in the high-balance group of affections concerning the low-scale group is greater. Improving the perception of social support increases the eudaimonic well-being of university students. The perception of support that students had during the beginning of their university life benefits their general well-being, which contributes to their mental health. (shrink)

The assembly of products or components by operators in industries is a complex task with recurring problems. In these processes, operators often make errors that can lead to defective products. Therefore, they need to be inspected later to verify their correct assembly. The main problems are caused by several reasons including high employee turnover, lack of experience in manufacturing specific products or confusion in interpreting instructions to assemble similar components. In this paper, a novel structured language aimed to describe the (...) required actions to manufacture a product in industrial assembly environments is presented. The main contribution is to provide a formal language to feed automatic systems that can verify through visual control whether the actions performed by the operator are carried out following the standard described by this language. In general, the use of this formal language will allow to minimize the negative impact of errors during assembly and to reduce waste in many forms in the industry. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to determine the accuracy of a brief informed consent quiz to detect consent comprehension in individuals with cognitive impairment and to explore the degree to which cognitive domains and recent substance use, independently, predict comprehension. We performed a secondary analysis of two cross-sectional studies in individuals with substance use disorders. The ICQ total score was used as the index test and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment as reference standard in receiver operating characteristic curves. Two (...) independent multiple binary logistic regression models were performed using cognitive domains and days of recent substance use as predictors of ICQ outcome. We analyzed data from 215 and 251 participants, respectively. The ICQ showed moderate accuracy for major cognitive impairment and lower accuracy for mild impairment. Optimal cutoff score was set at 10 points or less for detecting comprehension difficulty. Lower scores in Short-Term Memory, Attention, Language, and Orientation increased the probability of failing the ICQ. A procedure including both the ICQ and cognitive screening measure could improve the accuracy of consent comprehension assessments. (shrink)

I develop a non-representationalist account of mathematical thought, on which the point of mathematical theorizing is to provide us with the conceptual capacity to structure and articulate information about the physical world in an epistemically useful way. On my view, accepting a mathematical theory is not a matter of having a belief about some subject matter; it is rather a matter of structuring logical space, in a sense to be made precise. This provides an elegant account of the cognitive utility (...) of mathematics. Further, it makes explicit how the brand of non-representationalism I develop is compatible with there being substantive rationality constraints on our mathematical theorizing. (shrink)

What is the effect of light as it measures the seasons? How does light leave different traces on the terrain—on a Pacific Island, in the Aegean Sea, high in the Alps, or in the forest? John Sallis considers the expansiveness of nature and the range of human vision in essays about the effect of light and luminosity on place. Sallis writes movingly of nature and the elements, employing an enormous range of philosophical, geographical, and historical knowledge. Paintings and drawings by (...) Alejandro A. Vallega illuminate the text, accentuating the interaction between light and environment. (shrink)

Este artículo se centra en el concepto de gobierno. A partir de algunos planteamientos filosóficos de pensadores como Michel Foucault, Peter Sloterdijk, Maurizio Lazzarato y otros se despliega una argumentación sobre las formas como se fabrica lo humano. En un primer momento se hace una exploración terminológica desde un punto de vista antropológico del verbo "gobernar" para delimitar los alcances de esta reflexión; posteriormente se realiza un desplazamiento de la mirada hacia las nuevas formas como se gobiernan los seres humanos, (...) tanto desde lo colectivo como lo individual. This article focuses on the concept of governing. Based on some philosophical approaches by thinkers like Michel Foucault, Peter Sloterdijk, Giorgio Agamben, and Maurizio Lazzarato among others, an argument is developed about the ways how the human is constructed. Firstly, a terminological exploration on the verb "to govern/to rule" is carried out from an anthropological view in order to define the scope of this reflection. The view is subsequently turned to the new ways how humans are being governed, both in their collective and individual extent. (shrink)

El presente artículo pretende aproximarse a dos conceptos centrales en las reflexiones de la pensadora judío-alemana Hannah Arendt. En principio, se realiza un abordaje del concepto “política” para efectos de mostrar su sentido en términos cotidianos. En un segundo momento se hará una exploración de las nociones de libertad y poder, centrales para comprender el sentido de la política. Finalmente, se realiza una exploración al concepto de logos, noción central a la hora de comprender el asunto de la libertad como (...) acto en el ejercicio del poder. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende realizar un estudio comparado del proceso de profesionalización de la filosofía española y mexicana, con el fin de evaluar la contribución específica del ethos del exilio filosófico español a la profesionalización de la filosofía mexicana. El trabajo se apoya en la sociología de las profesiones para definir las condiciones de posibilidad de una actividad intelectual profesionalizada como tipo ideal. A continuación lleva a cabo un ejercicio de historia social de la filosofía para comparar el tipo ideal con (...) los dos casos empíricos. Finalmente se realiza una comparación entre ambos casos para poder evaluar la contribución específica del exilio filosófico español a la profesionalización de la filosofía en México. (shrink)

In diesem Band werden Beiträge gesammelt, die sich nicht nur auf rein formal logische Aspekte, sondern auch auf Probleme beziehen, die mit der Erkenntnistheorie, der Naturphilosophie und der Dialektik in Verbindung stehen. Iván de los Ríos Gutiérrez stellt die Aristotelische Kontingenzlehre dar. Miguel García-Valdecasas erörtert die wissenschaftstheoretischen Fundamente der Aristotelischen Nous-Lehre. Joseph Li Vecchi entwickelt ein formales Modell für Inferenzen, die auf der Grundlage von analogischen Verhältnissen basieren. Niels Öffenberger charakterisiert die abgeleiteten Wahrheitswerte, die sich durch die Dichotomie der schlichten (...) Wahrheit und der schlichten Falschheit ergeben. Paloma Pérez-Ilzarbe und María Cerezo verteidigen durch eine Interpretation der Struktur der Assertion die Gültigkeit des Bivalenz prinzips im Rahmen der Aristotelischen Wahrheitstheorie. Gabriela Rossi präsentiert eine systematische Darstellung der Rolle der lysis als Instrument der Aristotelischen Dialektik. Mirko Skarica untersucht die zeitgenössische Rezeption der Aristotelischen Auffassung des einfachen prädikativen Satzes bei Vertretern sowohl der analytischen als auch der phänomenologischen Tradition. Alejandro G. Vigo charakterisiert das Aristotelische Modell der Kausalerklärung in der Naturphilosophie in Verbindung mit dem Begriff eines sog. Hintergrundsholismus. (shrink)

El artículo recorre la obra de Rodolfo Kusch posicionando sus principales propuestas en la construcción de tres enfoques convergentes en su filosofía. El primer enfoque está relacionado con la fenomenología y la cultura. El segundo enfoque se refiere a la influencia de la antropología y el cuestionamiento por el símbolo. El tercer enfoque despliega una aproximación filosófico-política. Estos enfoques permiten introducir tres “horizontes de pregunta” principalmente relacionados con el método, con lo popular y con lo indígena, que son expuestos como (...) asuntos centrales en toda su obra. Estos “horizontes de pregunta” buscan comprender los alcances de la filosofía de Kusch y su contribución al pensamiento filosófico americano. This paper analyses the work of Rodolfo Kusch remarking his main philosophical proposals through three correlated perspectives. The first perspective refers to phenomenology and culture. The second focuses on the influence of anthropology and the problem of symbols. The third posits a political-philosophical approximation. These perspectives operate interdependently as the background for Kusch’s philosophy and allow us to introduce three “questioning horizons” related to the method, the popular and the indigenous as the central issues of his philosophical work. Thus, these “questioning horizons” build a platform to understand Kusch’s philosophy and his contribution to the Latin American philosophy. (shrink)

El presente artículo ofrece una revisión crítica de la noción de injusticia hermenéutica de Miranda Fricker a partir de dos elementos de la obra de Frantz Fanon: 1) la «historicidad» como una carga cultural en las categorías sociales que es productiva, lo que exige cuestionar la definición de injusticia hermenéutica como ausencia o tergiversación de categorías; 2) la redefinición que Fanon hizo del «esquema corporal» de Merleau Ponty: la experiencia vivida del cuerpo, lo que muestra que los recursos hermenéuticos no (...) son solo categorías mentales, sino que están imbricados con la dimensión material. Nuestro objetivo es mostrar cómo estos dos elementos de la teoría fanoniana hacen una contribución a la noción de injusticia hermenéutica y por qué esta es relevante para entender la injusticia estructural del racismo. (shrink)

Este trabajo se encuadra dentro de una nueva visión de la lógica de Leibniz, la cual pretende mostrar que sus escritos fueron ricos no solamente en proyectos ambiciosos sino también en desarrollos lógico-matematicos concretos. Se demuestra que su “Caracteristica Numerica” que asigna pares de números a las proposiciones categóricas es una semántiea para la cual la silogística aristotélica es correcta y completa, y que el sistema algebraico presentado en Fundamentos de un Cálculo Lógico es una lógica algebraica similar a la (...) de Boole.This work is a contribution to a new view of Leibniz’s logic, pretending to show that his writings were not only rich in projects, but also in concrete logico-mathematical developments. We prove that his “Numerical Characteristic” assigning pairs of numbers to terms of categorical propositions, is a complete and correct semantics for aristotelian syllogistic, and the algebraic system presented in Fundamentals of Logical Calculus is essentially a complete version of boolean algebraic logic. (shrink)

El artículo se concentra en el cruce conceptual y político de dos escrituras, las de Frantz Fanon y Gilles Deleuze y Félix Guattari, en el momento en que trabajan una crítica a la representación como categoría filosófica y política. Aprovechamos las inducciones que están en él para trazar nuestra propia intervención en dicha crítica. Hemos puesto en contacto estas dos escrituras porque apostamos a comprenderlas dentro de un movimiento crítico de la modernidad, pero también de la colonialidad. Esta última categoría, (...) con frecuencia escamoteada, permite conectar textos, conceptos y escrituras para entender la dimensión organizacional de los cuerpos en la diferencia colonial y en la racialización. Los textos de Fanon son anteriores, cronológicamente hablando, a los de Deleuze y Guattari. No obstante, los tres autores participan del proceso crítico que se inició a mediados de siglo XX, en particular a partir del movimiento histórico de la descolonización. Si bien cada una de estas escrituras apunta inicialmente a audiencias distintas, ambas ofrecen intervenciones asimilables entre sí para una heurística en nuestro presente de la relación modernidad/colonialidad. Abstract This article focuses on the conceptual and political crossroads of two contemporary writings, Frantz Fanon´s and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari´s, and it read them in the precise moment they develop a critique of representation as a philosophical and political category. We take inductions that are in it to draw our own involvement in such criticism. Both writings are committed not only to produce a critical movement of modernity but also of coloniality, especially Fanon. The latter category, often retracted, is crucial to connect texts and concepts to understand the organizational dimension of bodies in the colonial difference and racialization. Fanon´s texts predate, chronologically speaking, to Deleuze and Guattari work. However, both are part of the critical process that began in the mid-twentieth century, particularly from the historical movement of decolonization. While each of these writings is initially aimed at different audiences, both offer comparable interventions which make sense for a heuristic, in our present, of modern/colonial relationships. (shrink)

The autopoietic theory and the enactive approach are two theoretical streams that, in spite of their historical link and conceptual affinities, offer very different views on the nature of living beings. In this paper, we compare these views and evaluate, in an exploratory way, their respective degrees of internal coherence. Focusing the analyses on certain key notions such as autonomy and organizational closure, we argue that while the autopoietic theory manages to elaborate an internally consistent conception of living beings, the (...) enactive approach presents an internal tension regarding its characterization of living beings as intentional systems directed at the environment. (shrink)

Building on the original formulation of the autopoietic theory (AT), extended enactivism argues that living beings are autopoietic systems that extend beyond the spatial boundaries of the organism. In this article, we argue that extended enactivism, despite having some basis in AT’s original formulation, mistakes AT’s definition of living beings as autopoietic entities. We offer, as a reply to this interpretation, a more embodied reformulation of autopoiesis, which we think is necessary to counterbalance the (excessively) disembodied spirit of AT’s original (...) formulation. The article aims to clarify and correct what we take to be a misinterpretation of AT as a research program. AT, contrary to what some enactivists seem to believe, did not (and does not) intend to motivate an extended conception of living beings. AT’s primary purpose, we argue, was (and is) to provide a universal individuation criterion for living beings, these understood as discrete bodies that are embedded in, but not constituted by, the environment that surrounds them. However, by giving a more explicitly embodied definition of living beings, AT can rectify and accommodate, so we argue, the enactive extended interpretation of autopoiesis, showing that although living beings do not extend beyond their boundaries as autopoietic unities, they do form part, in normal conditions, of broader autopoietic systems that include the environment. (shrink)

In this paper we will demonstrate that a computational system can meet the criteria for autonomy laid down by classical enactivism. The two criteria that we will focus on are operational closure and structural determinism, and we will show that both can be applied to a basic example of a physically instantiated Turing machine. We will also address the question of precariousness, and briefly suggest that a precarious Turing machine could be designed. Our aim in this paper is to challenge (...) the assumption that computational systems are necessarily heteronomous systems, to try and motivate in enactivism a more nuanced and less rigid conception of computational systems, and to demonstrate to computational theorists that they might find some interesting material within the enactivist tradition, despite its historical hostility towards computationalism. (shrink)

Context: The majority of contemporary enactivist work is influenced by the philosophical biology of Hans Jonas. Jonas credits all living organisms with experience that involves particular “existential” structures: nascent forms of concern for self-preservation and desire for objects and outcomes that promote well-being. We argue that Jonas’s attitude towards living systems involves a problematic anthropomorphism that threatens to place enactivism at odds with cognitive science, and undermine its legitimate aims to become a new paradigm for scientific investigation and understanding of (...) the mind. Problem: Enactivism needs to address the tension between its Jonasian influences and its aspirations to become a new paradigm for cognitive science. By relying on Jonasian phenomenology, contemporary enactivism obscures alternative ways in which phenomenology can be more smoothly integrated with cognitive science. Method: We outline the historical relationship between enactivism and phenomenology, and explain why anthropomorphism is problematic for a research program that aspires to become a new paradigm for cognitive science. We examine the roots of Jonas’s existential interpretation of biological facts, and describe how and why Jonas himself understood his project as founded on an anthropomorphic assumption that is incompatible with a crucial methodological assumption of scientific enquiry: the prohibition of unexplained natural purposes. We describe the way in which phenomenology can be integrated into Maturana’s autopoietic theory, and use this as an example of how an alternative, non-anthropomorphic science of the biological roots of cognition might proceed. Results: Our analysis reveals a crucial tension between Jonas’s influence on enactivism and enactivism’s paradigmatic aspirations. This suggests the possibility of, and need to investigate, other ways of integrating phenomenology with cognitive science that do not succumb to this tension. Implications: In light of this, enactivists should either eliminate the Jonasian inference from properties of our human experience to properties of the experience of all living organisms, or articulate an alternative conception of scientific enquiry that can tolerate the anthropomorphism this inference entails. The Maturanian view we present in the article’s final section constitutes a possible framework within which enactivist tools and concepts can be used to understand cognition and phenomenology, and that does not involve a problematic anthropomorphism. Constructivist content: Any constructivist approach that aims for integration with current scientific practice must either avoid the type of anthropomorphic inference on which Jonas bases his work, or specify a new conception of scientific enquiry that renders anthropomorphism unproblematic. (shrink)

A partir de la contraposición entre filosofía y ensayismo, realizada por Th. Adorno, se cuestiona el carácter de “fundador” de la filosofía latinoamericana atribuido a A. Korn, quien comprendió la filosofía como un ejercicio de escritura sin certezas de- finitivas. Al señalar la distancia entre realidad y lenguaje, la filosofía puede habitar dicha distancia en diversas formas, y cabe preguntar por su relación con la escritura. Contra el positivismo, Korn insiste en el carácter figurativo de toda metafísica como “poema dialéctico”, (...) acercándola así al ensayo. (shrink)

Este artículo se ocupa de la concepción del alma elaborada por Alejandro de Afrodisia, con especial atención a un aspecto específico que la distingue de la concepción aristotélica: la introducción de una facultad o capacidad impulsiva. En primer lugar, se considera la reformulación de la concepción jaristotélica del alma como forma del cuerpo que Alejandro lleva a cabo, en conexión con su original reconstrucción del hilemorfismo. Aquí se pone especial énfasis en el modo en el cual Alejandro (...) construye lo que puede llamarse un “modelo escalonado” de composición hilemórfica. En segundo lugar, se considera el tratamiento de la facultad impulsiva, atendiendo especialmente al rendimiento teórico que extrae Alejandro de la adopción de la noción de impulso. Por último, se considera brevemente el modelo reformulado de psicología de la acción que elabora Alejandro, para dar cuenta de la secuencia del proceso de producción del movimiento voluntario y la acción. Se trata de un modelo explicativo que deja de lado el recurso aristotélico a la estructura del silogismo práctico e incorpora, en cambio, los elementos más característicos de la concepción estoica. Ello no implica, sin embargo, el abandono de la tesis básica de la concepción aristotélica de la motivación, por oposición al intelectualismo socrático, a saber: la tesis de la primacía del deseo, en todas sus posibles formas, como factor que da cuenta del origen del movimiento voluntario y la acción. (shrink)

Research traditions on cognition and depression focus on relatively unconnected aspects of cognitive functioning. On one hand, the neuropsychological perspective has concentrated on cognitive control difficulties as a prominent feature of this condition. On the other hand, the clinical psychology perspective has focused on cognitive biases and repetitive negative patterns of thinking for emotional information. A review of the literature from both fields reveals that difficulties are more evident for mood-congruent materials, suggesting that cognitive control difficulties interact with cognitive biases (...) to hinder cognitive switching, working memory updating, and inhibition of irrelevant information. Connecting research from these two traditions, we propose a novel integrative cognitive model of depression in which the interplay between mood-congruent cognitive control difficulties, cognitive biases, and rumination may ultimately lead to ineffective emotion-regulation strategies to downregulate negative mood and upregulate positive mood. (shrink)

Many current problems surrounding science revolve around the complex epistemological framework that shapes a new vision of knowledge about reality. The traditional epistemological positions are characterized by the explanation of nature by means of concatenated facts; that is, as bricks attached to each other giving shape to the edifice of science. A conception of this nature showed that the idea of certainty was nothing more than a mere illusion, opening the way, on the contrary, to the idea of the uncertainty (...) of knowledge based on the descriptions of quantum physics, also a product of the non-reductionist conception of reality, thus criticizing the specular representation. This article addresses the main problems surrounding the critical conceptions that the emerging epistemology reveals about knowledge, pointing towards a much more complex vision of reality. (shrink)

In contrast to Capra’s interpretation of Maturana’s work, I argue that the autopoietic theory does not establish an intrinsic, necessary link between life and cognitive/mental phenomena, and that given its functionalist approach, the theory helps very little to overcome the Cartesian division between mind and body.

This article analyzes the legal-philosophical situation of Artificial Intelligence and the intelligent robot on being a subject of Law to be considered a creative person or author. The contradiction involved in allowing an object to present the legal duality of being protected as an object that it is and at the same time being considered a subject by the resulting work is analyzed, an impairment or vulgarization for the subject of Law as a moral subject when proposing the fictio legis (...) de a moral object, which is not conceivable. Instead, an alternative to such an aporia is proposed, more fictitious than real. (shrink)

While recognizing its origins and scope, Alejandro A. Vallega offers a new interpretation of Latin American philosophy by looking at its radical and transformative roots. Placing it in dialogue with Western philosophical traditions, Vallega examines developments in gender studies, race theory, postcolonial theory, and the legacy of cultural dependency in light of the Latin American experience. He explores Latin America’s engagement with contemporary problems in Western philosophy and describes the transformative impact of this encounter on contemporary thought.

This paper examines a fundamental philosophical difference between two radical postcognitivist theories that are usually assumed to offer the same view of cognition; namely the autopoietic theory and the enactive approach. The ways these two theories understand cognition, it is argued, are not compatible nor incompatible but rather incommensurable. The reason, so it is argued, is that while enactivism, following the traditional stance held by most of the cognitive theories, understands cognitive systems as constituting a natural kind, the autopoietic theory (...) understands them as constituting only a conventional kind. Additionally, the paper shows that AT’s conventionalist stance about cognition, far from being an undesirable or useless position, offers some methodological virtues that might be timely and welcome in the agitated and revolutionary climate of current cognitive science. (shrink)

Traditionally, computational theory (CT) and dynamical systems theory (DST) have presented themselves as opposed and incompatible paradigms in cognitive science. There have been some efforts to reconcile these paradigms, mainly, by assimilating DST to CT at the expenses of its anti-representationalist commitments. In this paper, building on Piccinini’s mechanistic account of computation and the notion of functional closure, we explore an alternative conciliatory strategy. We try to assimilate CT to DST by dropping its representationalist commitments, and by inviting CT to (...) recognize the functionally closed nature of some computational systems. (shrink)

This paper suggests that the enactive approach to ethics could benefit from engaging a dialogue with the phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas, a philosopher who has given ethics a decisive role in the understanding of our social life. Taking the enactive approach of Colombetti and Torrance as a starting point, we show how Levinas’ philosophy, with the key notions of face, otherness, and responsibility among others can complement and enrich the enactive view of ethics. Specifically, we argue that Levinas can provide, (...) on the one hand, a phenomenological characterisation of ethics itself, of its nature and fundamental meaning, and on the other, an account of how sociality, affectivity and embodiment, as presented in Colombetti and Torrance’s work, combine to bring about the ethical experience. However, we also point out that introducing Levinas to the enactive approach could be challenging. It is not obvious how sense-making and value-making, as centred on the precariousness and potential death of the subject, would account for the ethical experience as grounded on the precariousness and potential death of the other. (shrink)

This introduction to a special issue of Topoi introduces and summarises the relationship between three main varieties of 'enactivist' theorising about the mind: 'autopoietic', 'sensorimotor', and 'radical' enactivism. It includes a brief discussion of the philosophical and cognitive scientific precursors to enactivist theories, and the relationship of enactivism to other trends in embodied cognitive science and philosophy of mind.