Guillermo de Saint-Thierry, teólogo y místico del siglo XII, despliega en un lenguaje de auténtica belleza, la nostalgia y el deseo del hombre por conocer y amar a Dios. Esta vía de movimiento ascensional –presente en todos sus escritos– le permite desarrollar una sólida teología, en cuanto el hombre puede llegar a comprender que amar a Dios le posibilita entrar en la misma Trinidad. Por esta razón, para el abad de Saint-Thierry, la nostalgia es una forma del amor que se (...) hace camino y aspira llegar a la meta del día final que en el Comcant corresponde al Amado salutare Dei. De este movimiento, el deseo no solo se reduce a un simple fenómeno psicológico, sino se transforma en destino del hombre fruitio Dei. Por consiguiente, esta línea de pensamiento se ha de verificar a partir del método teológico del autor, el fundamento bíblico y la riqueza de la interpretación espiritual presente en el tejido de esta investigación. (shrink)

Actualmente, «pensar la mujer» constituye una tarea inacabada y debatida. En pleno siglo XX, la fenomenóloga Edith Stein explora tal despliegue interrogándose por su naturaleza y valor propio. La presente investigación expone el itinerario que establece la filósofa desde la reflexión de la persona humana a la comprensión de la mujer. Para tal efecto, se articulan desde la obra steiniana los principales conceptos y matices que, mediante el análisis fenomenológico posibilita examinar las nociones constituyentes del sujeto en su dimensión corporal (...) y espiritual. Finalmente, se esboza la peculiaridad de la esencia femenina, cuya indagación permite detenerse en la pregunta esencial por la mujer. La conclusión avanza hacia un balance de los principales aspectos desarrollados como aporte al diálogo contemporáneo. (shrink)

Resumen: El objetivo de este trabajo es describir la situación actual y las proyecciones de la comparación forense de la voz en Chile, a la luz de los estándares internacionales que se enfocan en la producción de evidencia confiable, que pueda ser utilizada en los tribunales de justicia. Para ello, en principio, se dan a conocer los fundamentos científicos que caracterizan esta rama de las ciencias forenses y, luego, sobre esa base se analiza y comenta la situación de Chile y (...) sus proyecciones, tanto en la práctica como en la investigación forense. Abstract: The objective of this work is to describe the current situation and the projections of forensic voice comparison in Chile, in the light of international standards that focus on the production of reliable evidence that can be used in the courts of justice. To do this, first, the scientific foundations that characterize this branch of forensic sciences are disclosed and, then, on that basis, the situation in Chile and its projections are analyzed and discussed, both in practice and in the forensic research. (shrink)

Resumen El presente artículo pretende poner de relieve a partir de la obra In Canticum canticorum de Gregorio de Nisa, el recorrido que el autor realiza en torno al tema de la visión mística. De esta manera se podrá analizar algunos conceptos que lo comprenden: luz y su antítesis noche; así como también detenerse en la formulación de los términos ojos-visión; lo cual nos remitirá a la pregunta, ¿qué es lo que se ve? y/o ¿quiénes contemplan a Dios como El (...) es? De este modo, la contemplación en la obra del Niseno obtendrá alcances significativos desde una lectura antropológica cristiana.This paper intends to highlight, from Gregory of Nyssa’s In Canticum canticorum, the author’s journey around the issue of mystic vision. In this way, some of his concepts can be analyzed: light and its antithesis night, along with making a stop in the formulation of the terms eyes-vision, which will lead us to the question, what is that which is seen? and/or, who contemplates God as He is? So, contemplation in the work of the Nicene will have meaningful approaches from a Christian anthropological reading. (shrink)

Resumen El presente artículo pretende poner de relieve a partir de la obra In Canticum canticorum de Gregorio de Nisa, el recorrido que el autor realiza en torno al tema de la visión mística. De esta manera se podrá analizar algunos conceptos que lo comprenden: luz y su antítesis noche; así como también detenerse en la formulación de los términos ojos-visión; lo cual nos remitirá a la pregunta, ¿qué es lo que se ve? y/o ¿quiénes contemplan a Dios como El (...) es? De este modo, la contemplación en la obra del Niseno obtendrá alcances significativos desde una lectura antropológica cristiana.This paper intends to highlight, from Gregory of Nyssa’s In Canticum canticorum, the author’s journey around the issue of mystic vision. In this way, some of his concepts can be analyzed: light and its antithesis night, along with making a stop in the formulation of the terms eyes-vision, which will lead us to the question, what is that which is seen? and/or, who contemplates God as He is? So, contemplation in the work of the Nicene will have meaningful approaches from a Christian anthropological reading. (shrink)

Resumen: El discurso de la economía ha transitado por una tensión entre pertenecer a una Ciencia Social y presentar rasgos prototípicos de una Ciencia Básica. Ahora bien, evidenciar esta hibridez desafía a los investigadores del lenguaje, sobre todo si estos textos son parte de la formación de un economista. Particularmente, el Informe de Política Monetaria no ha sido estudiado desde el punto de vista lingüístico, por lo que se busca observar, en un corpus de 45 textos, si el género IPOM (...) evidencia dicha tensión discursiva de la disciplina. Para lograr ese objetivo, se ha optado por una metodología basada en dos dimensiones: Contexto de Producción y Organización Retórico-Funcional. Tras el análisis, los hallazgos del corpus IPOM-2013 integradamente muestran que el género IPOM efectivamente evidencia dicha tensión con rasgos más características de la CB como es el uso de recursos matemáticos y, por otro lado, rasgos de la CS, asociados a la modalización del discurso en su macromovida central.: The discourse of economy has gone by a constant tension between belonging to a Social Science and present prototypical features of a Basic Science. However, evidence this hybridity poses a challenge for researchers of language, especially if these texts are part of the training of an economist. In particular, the Monetary Policy Report has not been studied from the linguistic point of view. In this context, this research search to answer the question whether the gender IPOM evidences such discursive tension of the discipline. To achieve this objective, it has opted for a methodology based on 2 dimensions: Production Context and Rhetorical-Functional Organization. After the analysis, the findings Integrally shows that the IPOM genre effectively demonstrates this tension with features more characteristic of the BS such as the use of mathematical resources and, on the other hand, SC traits, mainly associated to the modalization of the discourse in its central macromove. (shrink)

A partir de la expresión Amado de mi alma, Guillermo de Saint Thierry subraya uno de los elementos principales de su doctrina espiritual. A partir de la Expositio in Canticum Canticorum, nuestro autor comenta cómo la Esposa elogia al Esposo a través de esta fórmula, confiriéndole en ello, un sentido particular en la relación de los amados; pues este amor tiene un cierto gusto de aquel a quien busca: sensum quemdam. Amor que es comunicado al hombre para que él ame (...) a Dios, como Dios se ama. Por ello, la Esposa dice a los centinelas: "¿Habéis visto al amado de mi alma?". Estas palabras no solo denotan su afecto, sino permiten considerar que el alma misma experimenta la presencia de Dios. Guillermo de Saint Thierry ofrece una analogía en la que intenta transmitir que en esta comprensión del amor, el amante se transforma en el amado. From the expression Beloved of my soul, William of Saint-Thierry highlights one of the main elements of his spiritual doctrine. From Expositio in Canticum Canticorum, the author comments how the Bride praises the Bridegroom through this formula, thus giving it a particular sense in relation to the beloved ones because this love somehow likes the one he looks for: sensum quemdam; love that is communicated to man so that he can love God, as God loves himself. For this, the Bride says to the sentinels: "Have you seen the beloved of my soul"? These words do not only reveal her affection, but also allow considering that the soul itself experiences the presence of God. William of Saint-Thierry offers and analogy to transmit that, in this comprehension of love, the lover becomes the beloved one. (shrink)

La gestión del talento en la educación universitaria es clave para una educación de calidad. Este estudio tuvo como objetivo comprender y describir las categorías que apoyan a la potencialización del talento de los investigadores, así como conocer los intereses motivantes del desarrollo de liderazgo. Se realizó bajo el enfoque cualitativo. Encontramos que la gestión del talento es obstaculizada por prácticas ineficientes en el reclutamiento, selección del personal, así como la ponderación de los incentivos monetarios en los investigadores para su (...) desempeño. Se recomienda abordar estudios de planes de sucesión en las organizaciones educativas para asegurar las reservas del talento clave. (shrink)

Las relaciones con el poder son una práctica ineludible de todo aquel individuo que pasaba a América. Fray Pedro de Ayala, franciscano, obispo de Nueva Galicia (1561-1569) tuvo que desempeñarse, como religioso y gobernante, en esta difícil tarea de congeniar voluntades: de una parte, la sociedad civil y, de otra, los intereses espirituales de las personas encomendadas a su tarea episcopal. Sus cartas al rey Felipe II ofrecen el testimonio directo del hombre contra el entorno social y geográfico de un (...) territorio en construcción, como era la Nueva Galicia de mediados del siglo XVI. (shrink)

Christine de Pizan da vida a su gobernante ideal a partir de la tradición medieval del aristotelismo político y su noción de lo “arquitectónico”. Construido a modo de una arquitectura viviente de ciencias, el rey sabio aparece dominando la paleta de saberes, que va desde la episteme hasta los conocimientos más prácticos. Teoría y práctica se encuentran, así, en la base de su construcción de lo político. Pero ¿en qué medida la autora se consagra a brindar una explicación del pasaje (...) de las ciencias, sobre todo, aquel que va de las especulativas al registro práctico de la ciencia política? Si el rey se distingue por ser un sabio al tiempo que un experto en las diversas ciencias, cabe preguntarse si acaso la autora teoriza sobre dicho pasaje de lo teórico a lo práctico que constituye la esencia de su pensamiento. ¿Cuál es el canal para volcar la episteme al servicio del Estado? Al respecto, sostengo la hipótesis de que tanto la prudencia como el entendimiento o intelecto parecen ser los dos componentes de la sabiduría perfecta que la escritora aúna en una perfecta díada; operación, esta, que le permite explicar el pasaje de todas las ciencias al plano de lo contingente. ¿Acaso no es, gracias a esta operación, que el rey sabio de Christine de Pizan aparece como el intelecto supremo de la comunidad política, encarnada en el reino de Francia? ¿No son las ciencias, de este modo, redituables en servicio del Estado? (shrink)

La lamentación sobre el rey de Tiro que se encuentra en Ez 28,11- 19 tiene su mejor interpretación en el texto masorético –que podría no ser el original–, según el cual, un rey de Tiro era magnífico y sabio, pero se ensoberbeció y pretendió convertirse en un dios, por lo que Dios lo castiga con la expulsión y aniquilación. La tradición judía ve en ese rey ya sea a Adán, ya a Eva, pero dichas identificaciones, aunque iluminan un aspecto del (...) poema, no explican su conjunto. El hebreo (no vocalizado) se presta a una interpretación diferente de la masorética, en la que el rey de Tiro era realmente un dios, pero que sería destituido y destruido por su soberbia. En esta línea interpretativa, es posible incluir la que relaciona esta lamentación con la creación según mitos ugaríticos y mesopotámicos, presentes también en la Biblia. Dios habría tenido que luchar con otros dioses para establecer orden en la creación. Los LXX orientaron la lamentación hacia el sumo sacerdote, sin que podamos precisar exactamente cuál. También es posible que esa traducción haya sufrido una glosa que identificaría al rey de Tiro no con el sumo sacerdote, sino con Antíoco IV. Finalmente, la tradición cristiana antigua vio en este rey al mismo Satanás, al que identificó con la serpiente de Gn 3. Aunque esta interpretación es muy popu­lar –en el cristianismo–, no puede erigirse en la explicación de la lamentación, pues tiene muchas diferencias con la historia de Gn 3. (shrink)

Does life have meaning? What is flourishing? How do we attain the good life? Philosophers, and many others of us, have explored these questions for centuries. As Eva Feder Kittay points out, however, there is a flaw in the essential premise of these questions: they seem oblivious to the very nature of the ways in which humans live, omitting a world of co-dependency, and of the fact that we live in and through our bodies, whether they are fully abled or (...) disabled. Our dependent, vulnerable, messy, changeable, and embodied experience colors everything about our lives both on the surface and when it comes to deeper concepts, but we tend to leave aside the body for the mind when it comes to philosophical matters. Disability offers a powerful challenge to long-held philosophical views about the nature of the good life, what provides meaning in our lives, and the centrality of reason, as well as questions of justice, dignity, and personhood. These concepts need not be distant and idealized; the answers are right before us, in the way humans interact with one another, care for one another, and need one another--whether they possess full mental capacities or have cognitive limitations. We need to revise our concepts of things like dignity and personhood in light of this important correction, Kittay argues. This is the first of two books in which Kittay will grapple with just how we need to revisit core philosophical ideas in light of disabled people's experience and way of being in the world. Kittay, an award-winning philosopher who is also the mother to a multiply-disabled daughter, interweaves the personal voice with the philosophical as a critical method of philosophical investigation. Here, she addresses why cognitive disability can reorient us to what truly matters, and questions the centrality of normalcy as part of a good life. With profound sensitivity and insight, Kittay examines other difficult topics: How can we look at the ethical questions regarding prenatal testing in light of a new appreciation of the personhood of disabled people? What do new possibilities in genetic testing imply for understanding disability, the family, and bioethics? How can we reconsider the importance of care, and how does it work best? In the process of pursuing these questions, Kittay articulates an ethic of care, which is the ethical theory most useful for claiming full rights for disabled people and providing the opportunities for everyone to live joyful and fulfilling lives. She applies the lessons of care to the controversial alteration of severely cognitively disabled children known as the Ashley Treatment, whereby a child's growth is halted with extensive estrogen treatment and related bodily interventions are justified. This book both imparts lessons that advocate on behalf of those with significant disabilities, and constructs a moral theory grounded on our ability to give, receive, and share care and love. Above all, it aims to adjust social attitudes and misconceptions about life with disability. (shrink)

'...a challenging and useful book, both because it provokes a careful scrutiny of one's own basic ideas regarding evolutionary theory, and because it cuts across so many biological disciplines.' -The Quarterly Review of Biology 'In my view, this work exemplifies Theoretical Biology at its best...here is rampant speculation that is consistently based on cautious reasoning from the available data. Even more refreshing is the absence of sloganeering, grandstanding, and 'isms'.' -Biology and Philosophy 'Epigenetics is fundamental to understanding both development and (...) gene expression, and not surprisingly, evolutionary biologists have long been fascinated with its proper place in evolutionary theory...Enter Jablonka and Lamb, who provide a thoughtful review of the recent molecular literature and suggest a number of potential consequences.' -EvolutionSince first publication of this controversial book, much of the initial opposition to the ideas it contained has been replaced by a general, although often grudging, acceptance of them. Advances in knowledge, especially at the molecular level, have enhanced general awareness and interest in epigenetics and the evolution of systems that store and transmit information and put any of the authors' speculations on a more solid basis. This paperback edition contains a new Preface that sets out the major changes in the scientific world and in the authors' own thinking that have occurred since the book was published. A new Appendix provides a selected bibliography of the many books and articles about epigenetic inheritance and its role in evolution that have appeared since first publication. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene dos partes, una plantear el tema de la necesidad del diálogo de la Teoría Crítica con la Filosofía de la Liberación, para aunar esfuerzos en la crítica al capitalismo. La otra, ver algunas relaciones que se dieron en el siglo XX con los pensadores de la Escuela de Frankfurt, que las nuevas generaciones tendrían que retomar. Para que esto sea real y también crítico es necesario que el diálogo sea analógico, que se respeten las diferencias.

The scientific study of consciousness or subjective experiencing is a rapidly expanding research program engaging philosophers of mind, psychologists, cognitive scientists, neurobiologists, evolutionary biologists and biosemioticians. Here we outline an evolutionary approach that we have developed over the last two decades, focusing on the evolutionary transition from non-conscious to minimally conscious, subjectively experiencing organisms. We propose that the evolution of subjective experiencing was driven by the evolution of learning and we identify an open-ended, representational, generative and recursive form of associative (...) learning, which we call Unlimited Associative Learning (UAL), as an evolutionary transition marker of minimal consciousness. This evolutionary marker provides evidence that the evolutionary transition to consciousness has gone to completion and allows reverse-engineering from this learning capacity to the system that enables it – making possible the construction of a toy model of UAL. The model allows us to identify some of the key processes and structures that constitute minimal consciousness, points its taxonomic distribution and the ecological context in which it first emerged, highlights its function and suggests a framework for exploring developmental and evolutionary modifications of consciousness. We point to ways of experimentally testing the relationship between UAL and consciousness in human and in non-human animals and discuss the theoretical and ethical implications of our approach. The framework we offer allows the exploration of the evolutionary changes in agency, value systems, selective processes and goals that were involved in the transition to subjective experiencing from a perspective that resonates with the approaches of bio-semioticians. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The profound influence of Thomas Donaldson and Thomas Dunfee’s integrative social contracts theory on the field of business ethics has been challenged by Andreas Scherer and Guido Palazzo’s Habermasian approach, which has achieved prominence of late with articles that expressly question the defensibility of ISCT’s hypernorms. This article builds on recent efforts by Donaldson and Scherer to bridge their accounts by providing discursive foundations to the hypernorms at the heart of the ISCT framework. Extending prior literature, we propose an ISCT* (...) framework designed to retain ISCT’s practical virtue of managerial guidance while answering the demands of Scherer and Palazzo’s discursive account. By subscribing to a suitable portfolio of discursively justified hypernorms, we argue, companies unlock the valuable moral guidance of ISCT*, which says to treat these hypernorms as unequivocal outer bounds to the pursuit of business and as a starting point to tailor local norms through discursive stakeholder engagement. (shrink)

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In 1809--the year of Charles Darwin's birth--Jean-Baptiste Lamarck published Philosophie zoologique, the first comprehensive and systematic theory of biological evolution. The Lamarckian approach emphasizes the generation of developmental variations; Darwinism stresses selection. Lamarck's ideas were eventually eclipsed by Darwinian concepts, especially after the emergence of the Modern Synthesis in the twentieth century. The different approaches--which can be seen as complementary rather than mutually exclusive--have important implications for the kinds of questions biologists ask and for the type of research they conduct. (...) Lamarckism has been evolving--or, in Lamarckian terminology, transforming--since Philosophie zoologique's description of biological processes mediated by "subtle fluids." Essays in this book focus on new developments in biology that make Lamarck's ideas relevant not only to modern empirical and theoretical research but also to problems in the philosophy of biology. Contributors discuss the historical transformations of Lamarckism from the 1820s to the 1940s, and the different understandings of Lamarck and Lamarckism; the Modern Synthesis and its emphasis on Mendelian genetics; theoretical and experimental research on such "Lamarckian" topics as plasticity, soft (epigenetic) inheritance, and individuality; and the importance of a developmental approach to evolution in the philosophy of biology. The book shows the advantages of a "Lamarckian" perspective on evolution. Indeed, the development-oriented approach it presents is becoming central to current evolutionary studies--as can be seen in the burgeoning field of Evo-Devo. Transformations of Lamarckism makes a unique contribution to this research. (shrink)

The semantic concept of information is one of the most important, and one of the most problematical concepts in biology. I suggest a broad definition of biological information: a source becomes an informational input when an interpreting receiver can react to the form of the source (and variations in this form) in a functional manner. The definition accommodates information stemming from environmental cues as well as from evolved signals, and calls for a comparison between information‐transmission in different types of inheritance (...) systems—the genetic, the epigenetic, the behavioral, and the cultural‐symbolic. This comparative perspective highlights the different ways in which information is acquired and transmitted, and the role that such information plays in heredity and evolution. Focusing on the special properties of the transfer of information, which are very different from those associated with the transfer of materials or energy, also helps to uncover interesting evolutionary effects and suggests better explanations for some aspects of the evolution of communication. (shrink)

Current knowledge of the genetic, epigenetic, behavioural and symbolic systems of inheritance requires a revision and extension of the mid-twentieth-century, gene-based, 'Modern Synthesis' version of Darwinian evolutionary theory. We present the case for this by first outlining the history that led to the neo-Darwinian view of evolution. In the second section we describe and compare different types of inheritance, and in the third discuss the implications of a broad view of heredity for various aspects of evolutionary theory. We end with (...) an examination of the philosophical and conceptual ramifications of evolutionary thinking that incorporates multiple inheritance systems. (shrink)

Versions and extensions of intuitionistic and modal logic involving biHeyting and bimodal operators, the axiom of constant domains and Barcan's formula, are formulated as structured categories. Representation theorems for the resulting concepts are proved. Essentially stronger versions, requiring new methods of proof, of known completeness theorems are consequences. A new type of completeness result, with a topos theoretic character, is given for theories satisfying a condition considered by Lawvere . The completeness theorems are used to conclude results asserting that certain (...) logics are conservatively interpretable in others. (shrink)

This is an introduction to a Filipino virtue ethics which is a relationship-oriented virtue ethics. The concepts to be discussed are the result of the unique history of the Philippines, namely a Southeast Asian tribal and animist tradition mixed with a Spanish Catholic tradition for over 300 years. Filipino virtue ethics is based on two foundational concepts in Filipino culture. The first is loób, which can easily be misunderstood when literally translated into English as ‘inside’ but which is better translated (...) as ‘relational will’, and the second is kapwa, which is literally translated as ‘other person’ but is better understood as ‘together with the person’. These serve as pillars for a special collection of virtues which are not individualistic virtues in the same way as most of the cardinal virtues of the Western tradition but are all directed towards the preservation and st.. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to introduce a new approach to the modal operators of necessity and possibility. This approach is based on the existence of two negations in certain lattices that we call bi-Heyting algebras. Modal operators are obtained by iterating certain combinations of these negations and going to the limit. Examples of these operators are given by means of graphs.

Having encountered landmines in offering a critique of philosophy based on my experience as the mother of a cognitively disabled daughter, I ask, “Should I continue?” I defend the idea that pursuing this project is of a piece with the invisible care labor that is done by people with disabilities and their families. The value of attempting to influence philosophical conceptions of cognitive disability by virtue of this experience is justified by an inextricable relationship between the personal, the political, and (...) the philosophical. If one grants that the “special relationship” between mother and child requires moral recognition, then I need first to make vivid the case that this relationship in the case of a child who lacks some “normal capacities” is indistinguishable from any mother‐child relationship. If this is so, then I believe I can make a case that has as its conclusion that the moral personhood of even the severely cognitively disabled must be granted. Moreover, such recognition, I argue, necessitates the recognition of others who bear no special relationships to the child. (shrink)

In discussions of standards of proof, a familiar perspective often emerges. According to what we call specificationism, standards of proof are legal rules that specify the quantum of evidence required to determine that a litigant’s claim has been proven. In so doing, they allocate the risk of error among litigants (and potential litigants), minimizing the risk of certain types of error. Specificationism is meant as a description of the way the rules actually function. We argue, however, that its claims are (...) either mistaken or at a minimum deeply misleading, especially when it comes to standard of proof rules (SPRs) that contain indeterminate formulas, as is typical. As against specificationism, we argue that SPRs are best understood as rules that confer competence to decide whether a given standard has been met—according to whatever vague or inchoate interpretation (if any) of the rule in question triers of fact implicitly or explicitly employ. We call this the competence-norm approach. (shrink)

In the modern age, the political secret has acquired a bad reputation. With modern democracy’s ideal of transparency, political secrecy is identified with political crime or corruption. The article argues that this repression of secrecy in modern democracies falls short of a substantial understanding of the structure and workings of political secrecy. By outlining a genealogy of political secrecy, it elucidates the logic as well as the blind spots of a current culture of secrecy. It focuses on two fundamental logics (...) of secrecy, deduced from the Latin terms ‘ arcanum’ and ‘ secretum’. Whereas the logic of arcanum regards secrecy as a legitimate dimension of government, a modern logic of secretum is marked by an inextricable dialectics between the withdrawal and communication of knowledge, between secrecy and publicity. Here, the secret is not so much a piece of withheld knowledge as a ‘secrecy effect’ that binds the realm of secrecy to the public sphere by a dialectics of permanent suspicion and scandal. Instead of falling into the trap of this ‘secrecy effect’ it is worth taking a closer look at the tradition of thought on the arcana imperii, from Tacitus to early modern doctrines of raison d’état to Carl Schmitt. What this tradition deals with is the functionality of secrecy and its complicated relation to the law. The arcana tradition elaborates the crucial point of secrecy: its potential, but also its profound ambivalence. Secrecy opens up a discretionary space of action exempt from the rule of law, and, according to Carl Schmitt, ignores the law so as to allow it to become effective. Secrecy serves to protect and stabilize the state, but at the same time it opens a space of exception from the rule of law that breeds violence, corruption and oppression. Instead of seeing secrecy as the opposite of a political culture of transparency, it is more productive to regard secrecy as transparency's complement – a counterpart, however, that is marked by the profound paradox of being both a consolidation of and a threat to democracy. (shrink)

In this commentary I expand on the first of Noble’s illusions, the selection metaphor. Building on my work with Simona Ginsburg on the evolution of minimal consciousness, I argue that the existence of some complex sensory and motor patterns in the living world can be accounted for only through the evolution of conscious choice.

This volume, the fourth in the Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science published by OUP, examines the role of logic in cognitive psychology in light of recent developments. Gonzalo Reyes's new semantic theory has brought the fields of cognitive psychology and logic closer together, and has shed light on how children may master proper names and count nouns, and thus acquire knowledge. The chapters highlight the inadequacies of classical logic in its handling of ordinary language and reveals the prospects of (...) applying the new theory of kinds to cognitive psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, the philosophy of language and logic. (shrink)

The essays of this volume consider how acknowledgement of the fact of dependency changes our conceptions of law, political theory, and morality, as well as our very conceptions of self.

Current knowledge of the genetic, epigenetic, behavioural and symbolic systems of inheritance requires a revision and extension of the mid-twentieth-century, gene-based, 'Modern Synthesis' version of Darwinian evolutionary theory. We present the case for this by first outlining the history that led to the neo-Darwinian view of evolution. In the second section we describe and compare different types of inheritance, and in the third discuss the implications of a broad view of heredity for various aspects of evolutionary theory. We end with (...) an examination of the philosophical and conceptual ramifications of evolutionary thinking that incorporates multiple inheritance systems. (shrink)

In our target article, “Learning and the evolution of conscious agents” we outlined an evolutionary approach to consciousness, arguing that the evolution of a form of open-ended, representational, and generative learning (unlimited associative learning, UAL) drove the evolution of consciousness. Our view highlights the dynamics and functions of consciousness, delineates its taxonomic distribution and suggests a framework for exploring its developmental and evolutionary modifications. The approach we offer resonates with biosemioticians’ views, but as the responses to our target article show, (...) our proposal also faces challenges and has led to suggestions that extend, develop and qualify it. Our response to the 14 varied and rich commentaries starts with the recurring and deep question raised by many of them – the relation between life and sentience. We explore this question by introducing and expanding on “vivaciousness”, a term we coined to describe the turbulent, flexible exploration-stabilization processes inherent in the living condition, as well as addressing the related concepts of Umwelt and selfhood. We then consider the question of the adequacy of unlimited associative learning (UAL) as an evolutionary transition marker (ETM) of minimal consciousness (rather than as a marker of a complex form of sentience), and the possible precursors of sentience. The engagement with these broad themes is entangled with a discussion of evolutionary transitions, constitutive emergence and the function/s of consciousness. The suggestions of our commentators, urging us to explore new concepts and new avenues of research within the framework of a richer view of evolution are then discussed. We end by briefly considering what we regard as a conceptual lacuna, which is leading to the indiscriminate use of the term “sentience” and which awaits further investigation. (shrink)

Seen through the quest for a new metaphysics, the visual arts were interpreted in the framework of the particular sense of progress that the generation of György Lukács developed in the first decade of the twentieth century. They saw Impressionism as the veritable symptom of the deficiencies of their age and dreamed of a great, solid, lasting new Hungarian culture which would transcend the fragmentariness, sociological interests, and ethereality of Impressionism. Although exhibitions of contemporary modernist art were organized in Budapest (...) and the Nagybánya artists' colony was in contact with the living French art, the nascent aesthetic theory, first of all that of Lukács, based the appreciation of Post-Impressionism on ideological considerations rather than the artistic particularities of the artists. Central to this aesthetic was the notion of greatness and a sense of metaphysics derived from German idealist philosophy and applied to the art of Cézanne, Gauguin, and the Budapest group The Seekers (founded in 1909, renamed, in 1911, as The Eight), all of whom were appreciated for features pointing in the direction of a new Classicism. (shrink)

Through a series of essays contributed by clinicians, medical historians, and prominent moral philosophers, Cognitive Disability and Its Challenge to Moral ...

Building on Dor’s theory of language as a social technology for the instruction of imagination, I suggest that autobiographical memory evolved culturally as a response to the problems of false memory and deliberate deceit that were introduced by that technology. I propose that sapiens’ linguistic communication about past and future events initially occurred in small groups, and this helped to correct individual memory defects. However, when human groups grew in size and became more socially differentiated, and movement between groups prevented (...) story-verification, misattributions of events became more common. In such conditions individuals with better autobiographical memory had an advantage because they could evaluate their own contents and sources of information, as well as that of others, more accurately; this not only benefitted them directly, but also improved their reliability as social partners. Autobiographical memory thus evolved in the context of human linguistic communication through selection for communicative reliability. However, the advantages of imagination, which enables forward-planning and decision-Making, meant that memory distortions, although controlled and moderated by autobiographical memory, could not be totally eradicated. This may have driven the evolution of additional forms of memory control involving social and linguistic norms. I interpret the language and the social norms of the Pirahã as the outcome of the cultural-evolutionary control of memory distortions. Some ways of testing aspects of this proposal are outlined. (shrink)

Veit suggests that the challenge of coordinating movement in multicellular organisms led to the evolution of a prioritizing value system, which rendered organisms complex enough to be sentient and drove the Cambrian explosion, while the absence of this evaluation system led to the demise of Ediacaran animals. In this commentary we criticize Veit’s terminology and evolutionary proposals, arguing that his terminology and evolutionary scenarios are problematic, and put forward alternative proposals. We suggest that sentience is a system property, and that (...) the evolution of sentience was the outcome of the evolution of open-ended associative learning, which included the coevolution of sensory, motor, memory, and value subsystems. We suggest that these coevolutionary system dynamics were a factor in the Cambrian explosion and contributed to the extinction of the Ediacaran biota. (shrink)

In his target article, Koonin discusses the insights into the evolution of bacterial genomes provided by the CRISPR-Cas system. This evolved defense system is based on intrinsic processes of genome engineering which, as he argues, enable Lamarckian inheritance. In this commentary I discuss some historical and conceptual issues that pertain to Koonin’s analysis of this aspect of the CRISPR-Cas system, extending and qualifying his discussion.

Among the various human forms alluded to in the Hebrew prayer, mental retardation appears to be one of the most difficult to celebrate. It is the disability that other disabled persons do not want attributed to them. It is the disability for which prospective parents are most likely to use selective abortion (Wertz 2000). And it is the disability that prompted one of the most illustrious United States Supreme Court Justices to endorse forced sterilization, because "three generations of imbeciles are (...) enough." The mentally retarded have at times been objects of pity, compassion, or abuse by their caretakers and society at large. But they have rarely been seen as subjects, as citizens, as persons with equal entitlement to fulfillment. (shrink)

In his theory of evolution, Darwin recognized that the conditions of life play a role in the generation of hereditary variations, as well as in their selection. However, as evolutionary theory was developed further, heredity became identified with genetics, and variation was seen in terms of combinations of randomly generated gene mutations. We argue that this view is now changing, because it is clear that a notion of hereditary variation that is based solely on randomly varying genes that are unaffected (...) by developmental conditions is an inadequate basis for evolutionary theories. Such a view not only fails to provide satisfying explanations of many evolutionary phenomena, it also makes assumptions that are not consistent with the data that are emerging from disciplines ranging from molecular biology to cultural studies. These data show that the genome is far more responsive to the environment than previously thought, and that not all transmissible variation is underlain by genetic differences. In Evolution in Four Dimensions (2005) we identify four types of inheritance (genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbol-based), each of which can provide variations on which natural selection will act. Some of these variations arise in response to developmental conditions, so there are Lamarckian aspects to evolution. We argue that a better insight into evolutionary processes will result from recognizing that transmitted variations that are not based on DNA differences have played a role. This is particularly true for understanding the evolution of human behavior, where all four dimensions of heredity have been important. (shrink)

This paper examines potential predictors of ethical decisions regarding insider trading. An interactionist perspective is taken, in which person variables, situational variables, and the interaction of these two sets of variables are viewed as influencing ethical decisions. The results of our study support such a perspective. Ethical decisions regarding insider trading appear to be a function of a complex set of interacting variables related to both the person and the situation. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Companies increasingly recognize the importance of communicating corporate social responsibility including their engagement toward employees, the community, the environment and other stakeholder groups to attract applicants. The positive findings on the effect of CSR on applicants’ reactions are commonly based on the assumption that companies send a clear signal about their commitment to CSR. However, communication is always contextualized and has become more ambiguous through the increased availability of information online. External stakeholders including actual and potential applicants are confronted with (...) inconsistencies between the way companies communicate CSR activities and their overall CSR performance. Drawing on signaling theory, this article raises the question of how the interaction between strong CSR communication and low CSR performance influences organizational attractiveness. We propose that low CSR performance dampens the effect of CSR communication on organizational attractiveness. Hence, the inconsistency between CSR communication and CSR performance decreases organizational attractiveness. To test our hypotheses, we scraped 67,189 posts published on corporate Facebook career pages by 58 Fortune 500 companies from the time they began their respective career page until June 2018. Surprisingly, our results show that a low CSR performance strengthens the effect of CSR communication on organizational attractiveness. Thus, inconsistencies between CSR communication and CSR performance seem to lead to positive evaluations among applicants. (shrink)