'Computationalism' is a relatively vague term used to describe attempts to apply Turing's model of computation to phenomena outside its original purview: in modelling the human mind, in physics, mathematics, etc. Early versions of computationalism faced strong objections from many (and varied) quarters, from philosophers to practitioners of the aforementioned disciplines. Here we will not address the fundamental question of whether computational models are appropriate for describing some or all of the wide range of processes that they have been applied (...) to, but will focus instead on whether `renovated' versions of the \textit{new computationalism} shed any new light on or resolve previous tensions between proponents and skeptics. We find this, however, not to be the case, because the 'new computationalism' falls short by using limited versions of "traditional computation", or proposing computational models that easily fall within the scope of Turing's original model, or else proffering versions of hypercomputation with its many pitfalls. (shrink)

El propósito de Levinas coincide con el intento moderno de recuperación de la verdad y del sentido aunque en una dirección y contenidos distintos. Si en Hegel la Aufhebung tendía a la Totalidad y lo Mismo , para Husserl será esencial la apertura de Mundo que tiene lugar ya en la experiencia de conciencia del ego trascendental, mientras que Heidegger, por su parte, primará la pregunta por el Ser. El intento de Levinas, en cambio, no será recomponer la relación entre (...) el yo, por un lado, y el mundo, lo absoluto, las cosas o el ser, por el otro, sino la recuperación de la relación entre yo-y-otro. No es un simple cambio en la dirección o en el contenido del sentido de la reflexión filosófica, sino un intento serio de encontrar una nueva significación, «otra manera que ser» que no termine siendo otro proyecto más de integración y síntesis. Lo que propone Levinas es una auténtica salida para la que traza el itinerario que va del ser al otro, recurriendo sencillamente a la experiencia que cotidianamente se nos impone a cada uno de nosotros con un peso incontestable, a saber: la presencia de las diferencias, de lo asimétrico, en definitiva, la manifestación del otro en tanto que otro. Es esta experiencia heterónoma ordinaria, esta vivencia diaria de la alteridad como dato primordial del fenómeno de la intersubjetividad el ámbito que ha intentado explorar nuestro autor. ¿Acaso es esta responsabilidad así sentida conjugable con una experiencia filosófica universal? ¿La responsabilidad puede llevarse hasta el límite de la substitución por el otro, hasta la de-posición del Yo sin identidad? ¿Qué tipo de relación puede darse con algo absolutamente asimétrico, exterior, previo e irreductible? ¿De dónde viene esa asignación apremiante de responsabilidad que llega hasta arrojarme en la obsesión y el asedio? ¿Cómo puede ser éticamente plausible un mandato tan traumatizante y violento que termina por convertir al sujeto en rehén, sustituido ya por los otros? ¿Es posible conciliar la libertad y la autónoma decisión del sujeto con una consideración de la subjetividad como «heme aquí», absoluta pasividad expuesta a los otros y vulnerabilidad de una piel que se ofrece al ultraje y la herida?. En definitiva: ¿es la subjetividad algo de lo que partimos o a lo que llegamos? (shrink)

Alison L. Spedding es la antropóloga y novelista que fue arrestada en marzo de 1998 por las autoridades bolivianas bajo el cargo de tráfico de drogas, que ella niega fuertemente. Al momento de ser impreso este número, se había eliminado el cargo de tráfico por falta de evidencia, pero se estaba ..

This paper looks at the interpretation of legal texts, with a special emphasis on the legislative ones, from the semiotic and pragmatic points of view. The interpretation of a legislative text must start by considering it as a product of a communication act, performed through linguistic signs, and therefore it has to be studied within basic semiotic categories. Secondly, legislations are texts, and they must therefore be analyzed with the aid of textual linguistics. Thirdly, legislative texts and their legal utterances (...) are all speech acts, and consequently they must be interpreted from the perspective of the pragmatic theory of speech acts. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present a formalization of the language, semantics and axiomatization of justification logic in Coq. We present proofs in a natural deduction style derived from the axiomatic approach of justification logic. Additionally, we present possible world semantics in Coq based on Fitting models to formalize the semantic satisfaction of formulas. As an important result, with this implementation, it is possible to give a proof of soundness for $\mathsf{L}\mathsf{P}$ with respect to Fitting models.

Abductive problems and their solutions are presented by means of justification logic. We introduce additional meta-constructions in order to generate and compare different solutions to the same abductive problem. Our approach has three advantages: it makes structurally explicit the solution to an abductive problem ; it gives a precise meaning to the notion of evidence; it provides clear definitions and procedures for the comparison of solutions that can be adapted to different needs.

The idea of ‘hope’ has received significant attention in the political sphere recently. But is hope just wishful thinking, or can it be something more than a political catch-phrase? This book argues that hope can be understood existentially, or on the basis of what it means to be human. Under this conception of hope, given to us by Gabriel Marcel, hope is not optimism, but the creation of ways for us to flourish. War, poverty and an absolute reliance on technology (...) are real-life evils that can suffocate hope. -/- Marcel’s thought provides a way to overcome these negative experiences. An ethics of hope can function as an alternative to isolation, dread, and anguish offered by most existentialists. This book presents Marcel’s existentialism as a convincing, relevant moral theory; founded on the creation of hope, interwoven with the individual’s response to the death of God. Jill Hernandez argues that today’s reader of Marcel can resonate with his belief that the experience of pain can be transcended through a philosophy of hope and an escape from materialism. (shrink)

Las copias de los manuscritos de las Relecciones de Francisco de Vitoria se multiplicaron, y enseguida atravesaron el océano, para llegar muy pronto a manos de universitarios y misioneros. En España llegaron a la corte imperial, provocando una rápida censura, y al humanista J. Ginés de Sepúlveda, que asume el texto como favorable a su imperialismo. En ultramar el catedrático agustino Alonso de Veracruz aprueba y enriquece sus argumentos, y el dominico Bartolomé de Las Casas se queda sólo con (...) los condicionantes del propio Vitoria. Creo que esos condicionantes merecen ser conocidos en su entorno para su justa valoración. Lo dedico a los grandes vitoriólogos que honraron con sus estudios a esta revista.The manuscript copies of the Relecciones by Francisco de Vitoria multiplied and crossed the ocean to fall very soon in the hands of university students and missionaries . In Spain they reached the imperial court causing a rapid censorship and the humanist J. Ginés de Sepúlveda who takes the text as in favor of his imperialism. Overseas the Augustinian professor of university Alonso de Veracruz approves and enriches his arguments, the Dominican Bartolome de las Casas remains alone with the own Vitoria’s Condicionnantes. I think that those Condicionantes are worth being known in their context to value them appropriately. I devote it to Vitoria’s great friends who honored this journal with their studies. (shrink)

Establecido lo que es el uso de razón, estudia ahora el momento en que el hombre llega a él y la obligación de orientar entonces su vida al bien con el deseo o propósito de llevarlo a la práctica. En los que han crecido y se han educado en un ambiente de fe en Dios como máximo bien, su obligación moral es ordenarse a Él y proponerse actuar conforme a sus mandamientos. En los que han nacido y vivido en ambientes (...) desconocedores de Dios, su obligación es la de orientarse al bien en conformidad con el bagaje de sus conocimientos. Le inquieta el tema: cómo en ese momento les queda, particularmente a los últimos, abierto el camino de la salvación y la vida eterna. (shrink)

Establecido lo que es el uso de razón, estudia ahora el momento en que el hombre llega a él y la obligación de orientar entonces su vida al bien con el deseo o propósito de llevarlo a la práctica. En los que han crecido y se han educado en un ambiente de fe en Dios como máximo bien, su obligación moral es ordenarse a Él y proponerse actuar conforme a sus mandamientos. En los que han nacido y vivido en ambientes (...) desconocedores de Dios, su obligación es la de orientarse al bien en conformidad con el bagaje de sus conocimientos. Le inquieta el tema: cómo en ese momento les queda, particularmente a los últimos, abierto el camino de la salvación y la vida eterna. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to think the moral law in Francisco Miró Quesada's version: What is its source? What does it orders? And why is it important for ethics? The paper answers this question while contrasting Miró Quesada's position with that of Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant.

Resumen: Este trabajo tiene como principal objetivo el de lograr una comprensión de la la filosofía en cuanto fundamento insoslayable para la teología. Sostiene, en primer lugar, la necesidad de desarrollar una teología más autocosciente en el sentido racional del σὺν λόγω, es decir, desde el programa plenamente actual de la fides quarens intellectum. Defiende, en segundo lugar, que la filosofía solo puede entenderse partiendo de la pretensión que la ha animado desde el comienzo de su andadura: la búsqueda de (...) la verdad de las cosas (veritas rerum). Y para este fin tendrá necesariamente que dotarse de densidad metafísica suficiente y apostar por las tesis de un sano realismo cognoscitivo. Este estudio concluye con una reflexión, en tercer lugar, sobre el uso teológico de la filosofía. La tesis que se defiende es que sin el fundamento filosófico, la fe y la teología pierden lo más nuclear de su misión, la posibilidad misma de presentarse todavía con algún rastro de significatividad para el hombre de hoy. Palabras clave Filosofía, Teología, Universidad, Facultad Eclesiástica, Fe, Razón Summary: This work has as principal objective the achievement of an understanding of philosophy in such as it forms an inescapable foundation for theology. It sustains, in the first place, the need to develop a more self-aware theology in the rational sense of the σὺν λόγω, that is to say, from the fully current program of the fides quarens intellectum. It defends, in the second place, that philosophy can only be understood parting from the pretension that has animated it from its outset: a search for the truth of things (veritas rerum). And to this end, it must necessarily equip itself with the sufficient metaphysical density and wager upon the thesis . (shrink)

For Francisco Suárez, beings of reason are non-existent objects that we can think about, objects like goat-stags and round squares. The first section of the fifty-fourth of Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations is about the ontological status of beings of reason. Suárez’s view has been the subject of disagreement in the literature because he sometimes says that there are beings of reason, and he sometimes says there are not. In this paper, I argue for and explain an ontological pluralist reading of (...) Suárez. Ontological pluralism is the claim that there is more than one way of being. I distinguish between two varieties of ontological pluralism, strict and non-strict, and argue that Suárez endorsed the latter. In the contemporary literature, it is sometimes alleged that ontological pluralism is an idle hypothesis, unintelligible or philosophically vacuous. I argue that Suárez has a response to this objection in his argument against ontological monism. (shrink)

It is necessarily true that water is H2O, but it is a contingent fact that there is any water at all. Water therefore seems ill suited to ground the necessary truth that water is H2O. One view traditionally attributed to Scotus and Henry of Ghent was that while water is contingent, the essence of water is necessary; hence, the essence of water can ground the so-called eternal truth that water is H2O. Francisco Suárez rejects this view on the grounds (...) that it contradicts the Christian doctrine of creation, according to which everything other than God was contingently created in time. Suárez’s own view of the eternal truths has proven elusive to commentators, but I argue that Suárez ultimately endorses a version of the view he rejects: essences ground the eternal truths. But this raises several puzzles: how is Suárez’s view distinct from the views traditionally ascribed to Scotus and Henry? How does Suárez’s view escape the argument from creation, which Suárez raises against his opponents? I argue that Suárez distinguishes between his view and his opponents’ view by saying that essences have “extrinsic being,” whereas his opponents claim that essences have “intrinsic being.” The distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic being has not received much attention, but I argue that it marks an important fault line in scholastic thinking about the ontological status of non-existents. I argue that the notion of extrinsic being can be explicated in terms of ontological pluralism and grounding. The notion of extrinsic being helps differentiate Suárez’s view from his Scotistic and Henrician opponents, and it allows Suárez to respond to the creation argument he raises against his opponents. On my reading, Suárez’s solution to the problem of eternal truths turns out to be both highly original and philosophically satisfying. (shrink)