The development in 1996 of a new generation of antiretroviral drugs was a major pharmaceutical advancement in the struggle against the epidemics of HIV and AIDS. However, due to high costs, access to these new drugs was almost impossible for most people living with HIV or AIDS. This situatiowhas been even more dramatic for those living with HIV/AIDS in poorer countries. Many of the organizations that are fighting for the rights of those with HIV have since developed human rights advocacy (...) and legal strategies to try to achieve universal access to treatment. These organizations are also fighting for states’ compliance with human rights obligations under health-related treatises and conventions. This paper draws upon the experience gained in Latin America, focusing on the legal strategies that have been explored in Venezuela and the legal consequences for domestic law. (shrink)

The development in 1996 of a new generation of antiretroviral drugs was a major pharmaceutical advancement in the struggle against the epidemics of HIV and AIDS. However, due to high costs, access to these new drugs was almost impossible for most people living with HIV or AIDS. This situatiowhas been even more dramatic for those living with HIV/AIDS in poorer countries. Many of the organizations that are fighting for the rights of those with HIV have since developed human rights advocacy (...) and legal strategies to try to achieve universal access to treatment. These organizations are also fighting for states’ compliance with human rights obligations under health-related treatises and conventions. This paper draws upon the experience gained in Latin America, focusing on the legal strategies that have been explored in Venezuela and the legal consequences for domestic law. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta uma visão de conjunto do pensamento de Lima Vaz, a partir de seu método original, caracterizado por seu cunho rememorativo, dialético e sistemático. Ele é aplicado particularmente na Antropologia Filosófica e na Ética, sintetizando a categoria de história com a de transcendência, superando assim a crise do pensamento moderno à luz da práxis ética.

O artigo trata da primeira da fase, bem mais breve, do pensamento filosófico de Lima Vaz, reconhecido como um dos principais filósofos de sua geração no Brasil. Depois de fornecer algumas indicações sobre sua formação intelectual, detém-se na sua reflexão sobre as condições de reconciliação entre a mensagem cristã e o pensamento moderno através de seus artigos sobre “consciência histórica”, visando resgatar o verdadeiro sentido da modernidade. Analisa também a aplicação feita por ele dessas ideias à solução dos graves problemas (...) da sociedade brasileira então em debate, bem como a repercussão pública de sua proposta num momento decisivo da história nacional. Discute em seguida se ele com isso se mostra então favorável a um pensamento cristão alternativo à metafísica tradicional, concluindo por uma provável negativa. (shrink)

As relações Estado-Religião têm sido regidas na modernidade pelo princípio da laicidade do Estado. Esta laicidade assumiu, muitas vezes, o caráter de negação dos valores transcendentes, sob a capa de neutralidade do Estado. Tal posição se explica pela origem do Estado laico como reação à influência dominante das Igrejas cristãs sobre toda a vida social, no período anterior à Revolução Francesa. Ora, esta contraposição entre as esferas religiosa e política perdeu qualquer sentido no mundo atual, pelo menos, no Ocidente. Com (...) efeito, as mudanças culturais advindas com a secularização da sociedade reclamam - está é a proposta do artigo - um novo modelo de laicidade, segundo o qual o Estado, longe de pretender impor aos cidadãos uma determinada visão do mundo, pretensamente científica, mas, na verdade, ideológica, promova a participação de todas as forças vivas da nação, em particular, das comunidades religiosas, no debate público sobre as questões de interesse comum, sobretudo no seu aspecto ético. Palavras-chave : Laicidade; Estado; Religião; Tradições culturais; Secularização; Ética.The relations between Religion and State have been ruled in modern times by a secularist view of politics. Official secularism has often assumed the denial of transcendent values, under cover of State neutrality. This position can be explained in view of the origins of the secular State as a reaction against the hegemonic social influence of Christian Churches prior to the French Revolution. The opposition between the religious and political spheres, however, has lost all meaning in today's world, at least in the West. In fact, as this article intends to show, the cultural changes arising precisely from the secularization of society require a new model of secular State, wherein the State should not seek to impose on its citizens a certain worldview which, although purportedly scientific, would in fact be ideological. On the contrary, it should promote the participation of all of civil society, and of the nation's religious communities in particular, in the public debate about issues of common interest, especially regarding their ethical aspects. Key Words : Secularity; State; Religion; Cultural traditions; Secularization; Ethics. (shrink)

In this paper, we give a constructive nonstandard model of intuitionistic arithmetic (Heyting arithmetic). We present two axiomatisations of the model: one finitary and one infinitary variant. Using the model these axiomatisations are proven to be conservative over ordinary intuitionistic arithmetic. The definition of the model along with the proofs of its properties may be carried out within a constructive and predicative metatheory (such as Martin-Löf's type theory). This paper gives an illustration of the use of sheaf semantics to obtain (...) effective proof-theoretic results.The axiomatisations of nonstandard intuitionistic arithmetic (to be calledHAIandHAIωrespectively) as well as their model are based on the construction in [5] of a sheaf model for arithmetic using a site of filters. In this paper we present a “minimal” version of this model, built instead on a suitable site of provable filter bases. The construction of this site can be viewed as an extension of the well-known construction of the classifying topos for a geometric theory which uses “syntactic sites”. (Such sites can in fact be used to prove semantical completeness of first order logic in a strictly constructive framework, see [6].)We should mention that for classical nonstandard arithmetics there are several nonconstructive methods of proving conservativity over arithmetic, e.g. the compactness theorem, Mac Dowell–Specker's theorem [3]. (shrink)

In this paper, we give a constructive nonstandard model of intuitionistic arithmetic (Heyting arithmetic). We present two axiomatisations of the model: one finitary and one infinitary variant. Using the model these axiomatisations are proven to be conservative over ordinary intuitionistic arithmetic. The definition of the model along with the proofs of its properties may be carried out within a constructive and predicative metatheory (such as Martin-Löf's type theory). This paper gives an illustration of the use of sheaf semantics to obtain (...) effective proof-theoretic results.The axiomatisations of nonstandard intuitionistic arithmetic (to be calledHAIandHAIωrespectively) as well as their model are based on the construction in [5] of a sheaf model for arithmetic using a site of filters. In this paper we present a “minimal” version of this model, built instead on a suitable site of provable filter bases. The construction of this site can be viewed as an extension of the well-known construction of the classifying topos for a geometric theory which uses “syntactic sites”. (Such sites can in fact be used to prove semantical completeness of first order logic in a strictly constructive framework, see [6].)We should mention that for classical nonstandard arithmetics there are several nonconstructive methods of proving conservativity over arithmetic, e.g. the compactness theorem, Mac Dowell–Specker's theorem [3]. (shrink)

This text proposes an interpretation of the work of Franklin Leopoldo e Silva based on the reading of some of his numerous published articles and books, without neglecting the classes and guidance received from the stage of Scientific Initiation to Postdoctoral studies. Precisely, by highlighting the importance of three thinkers widely studied by Professor Franklin – Berkeley, Bergson and William James –, we suggest that at the heart of this philosophical experience there would be a constant: empiricism. Whether in the (...) classical or radical version, the line we draw in this multiplicity reveals an openness to concrete empiricism. (shrink)

In this study we present a self-organizing connectionist model of early lexical development. We call this model DevLex-II, based on the earlier DevLex model. DevLex-II can simulate a variety of empirical patterns in children's acquisition of words. These include a clear vocabulary spurt, effects of word frequency and length on age of acquisition, and individual differences as a function of phonological short-term memory and associative capacity. Further results from lesioned models indicate developmental plasticity in the network's recovery from damage, in (...) a non-monotonic fashion. We attribute the network's abilities in accounting for lexical development to interactive dynamics in the learning process. In particular, variations displayed by the model in the rate and size of early vocabulary development are modulated by (a) input characteristics, such as word frequency and word length, (b) consolidation of lexical-semantic representation, meaning-form association, and phonological short-term memory, and (c) delayed processes due to interactions among timing, severity, and recoverability of lesion. Together, DevLex and DevLex-II provide an accurate computational account of early lexical development. (shrink)

A Steiner triple system (STS) is a set S together with a collection B of subsets of S of size 3 such that any two elements of S belong to exactly one element of B. It is well known that the class of finite STS has a Fraïssé limit M_F. Here, we show that the theory T of M_F is the model completion of the theory of STSs. We also prove that T is not small and it has quantifier elimination, (...) TP2, NSOP1, elimination of hyperimaginaries and weak elimination of imaginaries. (shrink)

The debate about justice in immigration seems somehow stagnated given that it seems justice requires both further exclusion and more porous borders. In the face of this, I propose to take a step back and to realize that the general problem of borders—to determine what kind of borders liberal democracies ought to have—gives rise to two particular problems: first, to justify exclusive control over the administration of borders (the problem of legitimacy of borders) and, second, to specify how this control (...) ought to be exercised (the problem of justice of borders). The literature has explored the second but ignored the first. Therefore, I propose a different approach to the ethics of immigration by focusing on concerns of legitimacy in a three-step framework: first, identifying the kind of authority or power that immigration controls exercise; second, redefining borders as international and domestic institutions that issue that kind of power; and finally, considering supranational institutions that redistribute the right to exclude among legitimate borders. (shrink)

Presocratic philosophy as a historical category was defined by Aristotle as physics, or physical philosophy, because φύσις (understood as a single genus of being, among others) was its object of study, its practitioners being since tagged accordingly as φυσικοί or φυσιόλογοι. The central part of the paper deals briefly with the four pioneering Heraclitean uses of the word φύσις (frs. DK B106, B1, B112, and B123), in which the sense of the only Homeric use of the term seems to be (...) deepened and continued. Φύσις in Heraclitus has an ontological sense (covering the rationale of genuine and unitary being), and appears always in epistemic contexts, as the object of search, criterion of knowledge, basis for action and language, susceptible of show­ing and concealing. Contrasting with Aristotle’s outlook, Plato’s Phaedo 95e ff. sheds a different light on φύσις, suggesting Plato’s acknowledgement of a wider metaphysical reach of Presocratic thought, and stressing historical continuity of the philosophical project as such. In particular, the meaning of the word φύσις in Plato and Heraclitus isn’t natural or physical reality, but reality tout court, or the nature of things (their essential being: the what, how and why of things that are). (shrink)

El presente artículo es un texto de Paul Ricoeur, traducido por el profesor Jorge Enrique González, con motivo de la publicación de este número conmemorativo de Cuadernos de Filosofía Latinoamericana. El texto presenta la importancia de la hermenéutica como medio teórico para la interpretación de los textos, capaz de proyectarse al campo prácticpo de las ciencias sociales.

El mapa y por ende la cartografía, en cuanto que sistema mediante el cual el mapa se desarrolla, no es desde nuestro punto de vista un objeto neutro, una herramienta que ayuda a la comprensión del mundo a través de una serie de abstracciones como argumentaría una geografía empirista. Tampoco creemos que se trate exclusivamente de un producto nacido en un espacio y en una época determinada que refleja la ideología del momento y que se constituye en un eje articulador (...) del poder como postula por otro lado la geografía radical. El mapa, desde nuestra línea de investigación, es ante todo un texto que junto a otros se constituyen en herramienta indispensable para modelizar el espacio desde donde es observado, es decir el mundo y por consiguiente lo que entendemos por realidad. (shrink)

El artículo analiza desde una perspectiva hermenéutico-fenomenológica pre-confesional el concepto y significación del matrimonio en el discurso _En ocasión de una boda _de Søren Kierkegaard. Primero, explicita el enamoramiento, la resolución y la idea efectiva de sí y de Dios como los aspectos esenciales del concepto de matrimonio. Luego reconstruye y articula la significación estética, ética y religiosa inherentes a un matrimonio genuino. Finalmente, a partir de las categorías de testimonio y trascendencia, elucida el sentido sagrado del matrimonio como un (...) experimentarse los cónyuges referidos a lo absoluto por medio de la interpelación a realizar absoluta e incondicionalmente el amor que los une. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the concept of alterity in the thought of Emmanuel Levinas and its importance to make a critic of the ethical ones of dialogical inspiration. As opposed to the conception of the intersubjective relations founded on in a previous community, the alterity concept shows the necessity to think the sense to us of the ethics from the other.

The generation of the pitch control signal in a wind turbine (WT) is not straightforward due to the nonlinear dynamics of the system and the coupling of its internal variables; in addition, they are subjected to the uncertainty that comes from the random nature of the wind. Fuzzy logic has proved useful in applications with changing system parameters or where uncertainty is relevant as in this one, but the tuning of the fuzzy logic controller (FLC) parameters is neither straightforward nor (...) an easy task. On the other hand, reinforcement learning (RL) allows systems to automatically learn, and this capability can be exploited to tune the FLC. In this work, a WT pitch control architecture that uses RL to tune the membership functions and scale the output of a fuzzy controller is proposed. The RL strategy calculates the fuzzy controller gains in order to reduce the output power error of the WT according to the wind speed. Different reward mechanisms based on the output power error have been considered. Simulation results with different wind profiles show that this architecture performs better (123.7 W) in terms of power errors than an FLC without RL (133.2 W) or a simpler PID (208.8 W). Even more, it provides a smooth response and outperforms other hybrid controllers such as RL-PID and radial basis function neural network control. (shrink)

From the beginning of the environmental crisis, a constellation of ecosophies, theories, ideologies, discourses, and narratives have irrupted in the emergent complex ground of environmental philosophy and political ecology. In this non-unifyable field of forces, sociological analysis has been intended to sketch maps and derive typologies to order the different views and standpoints in science, ecological thinking, and environmental ethics so as to guide academic research or political action. From this will to set and settle differences in thought and strategy, (...) a diversity of environmentalisms has emerged; the lines are drawn from North to South, rich to poor, masculine to feminine, naturalism to culturalism. Environmentalisms differentiate their sources, attachments, and derivations from mother theories and their approaches from different disciplines. Thus, the prefix eco- or the adjective environmental are attached to traditional disciplines. Latin American environmental thinking draws its sources from critical philosophical thought; it differs from other systems of thought by a radical epistemological concept of environment; and it acquires its identity from the cultural heritage of its peoples and the ecological potentials of its territories. (shrink)

El artículo analiza desde una perspectiva fenomenológica y hermenéutica el modo originario de donación del mundo y el origen del mundo en el pensamiento de Jan Patočka posterior a 1965. Primero muestra en qué sentido tanto la donación del mundo como horizonte, cuanto los movimientos de la existencia humana, implican un vínculo esencial entre el modo originario de darse del mundo y la noción de infinito, concebido como lo indefinido e inagotable. Finalmente explicita por qué el vínculo del mundo con (...) lo infinito reposa sobre un impulso creativo divino que constituye el fundamento cosmológico de la religiosidad humana. (shrink)

Según la liturgia, mi vida, es decir, la de cada cual, en su realidad concreta, no es «cosa» alguna, sino proyecto, empresa, misión; acontece, se va haciendo. La tradicional perspectiva cris-tiana reclama una intensificación del conocimiento, relativamente descuidado, de lo que significa ser persona. Un peso del pensamiento helénico, ajeno al cristianismo, ha orientado al pensamiento poste-rior, filosófico y también teológico, a un «sustancialismo» que ha lle-vado a reducir la persona a un tipo muy particular de «cosa».

1. La política desde la ética -- 2. Problemas morales de las democracias.

Este trabajo quiere responder a la demanda de quienes buscan una introducción breve pero significativa a las reflexiones de Joseph Ratzinger sobre la identidad histórica de Europa. Se trata de un estudio que, desde la perspectiva del teólogo alemán, realiza un somero itinerario por la historia político-espiritual de Europa, subrayando la cesura que constituyó el siglo XX, y que finaliza con algunas propuestas para construir una Europa con futuro. Entre éstas no conviene olvidar la luz que proviene de los extraños (...) destellos de revelación, sugiriendo un futuro ensayo de teología de la historia. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo se propone una síntesis de las necesidades humanas condensadas en los pactos internacionales de derechos humanos (Derechos Civiles y Políticos y Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales) al igual que en los mecanismos emergentes que reconocen los actuales retos en derechos humanos y condiciones de vida de las poblaciones como la Agenda 2030 – Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible. Relacionándola con la teoría de las necesidades expuestas por Maslow de aquellas compuestas por las de carácter radical de mantenimiento (...) y de autorrealización. Se hace lo propio con los instrumentos internacionales de derechos humanos y una relación con lo propuesto en la doctrina jurídica. (shrink)