En este artículo se analiza la labor docente de Jesús Galíndez Suárez en diferentes instituciones universitarias americanas. El objetivo es desmitificar a este político nacionalista vasco y delegado del Gobierno vasco en el exilio en Nueva York, cuya figura ha estado rodeada por la conspiración y el espionaje de la Guerra Fría debido a su misteriosa desaparición, y poner en valor una faceta habitualmente olvidada: su puesto de profesor en la Universidad de Columbia, una de las más prestigiosas de Estados (...) Unidos. En esta investigación se han utilizado fuentes inéditas de los archivos de la Universidad de Columbia y de la Universidad de Rutgers. (shrink)

This paper addresses the topic of determinism in contemporary microbiome research. I distinguish two types of deterministic claims about the microbiome, and I show evidence that both types of claims are present in the contemporary literature. First, the idea that the host genetics determines the composition of the microbiome which I call “host-microbiome determinism”. Second, the idea that the genetics of the holobiont (the individual unit composed by a host plus its microbiome) determines the expression of certain phenotypic traits, which (...) I call “microbiome-phenotype determinism”. Drawing on the stability of traits conception of individuality (Suárez in Hist Philos Life Sci 42:11, 2020) I argue that none of these deterministic hypotheses is grounded on our current knowledge of how the holobiont is transgenerationally assembled, nor how it expresses its phenotypic traits. (shrink)

La perspectiva evolutiva de Michael Ruse sobre la moral se caracteriza por combinar dos aspectos aparentemente contradictorios: por un lado, un escepticismo metaético y, por otro lado, una defensa de la ética normativa. Siguiendo la distinción de Daniel Dennett entre explicaciones con ‘ganchos celestiales’, que apelan a entidades sobrenaturales, y con ‘grúas’, que se adecúan a la teoría de la evolución por selección natural, la propuesta de Ruse busca llevar la comprensión de la ética y de la metaética en clave (...) de ‘grúa’ hasta sus últimas consecuencias. Ahora bien, la propuesta ruseana parece llegar a una aporía. Esto porque si bien en su propuesta se plantea una defensa de la ética normativa, Ruse le adjudica un rol destacado a las ‘disposiciones mentales innatas’ (vinculadas con piezas de psicología como las intuiciones o emociones morales), quedando todavía, aparentemente, un cabo suelto de su filosofía: cómo capturar, sin diluir, o sin reducir al mínimo, la normatividad de dicha ética (que el autor llama a veces ‘sustantiva’ en contraste con la metaética). En este artículo nos proponemos conservar la comprensión de la moral en clave de ‘grúa’ propuesta por Ruse pero, al mismo tiempo, recuperar una noción de razonamiento moral con mayor injerencia en la normatividad ética. Para ello, recurriremos al concepto de ‘metacognición’ que, una vez definido, nos permitirá poner en evidencia de qué manera el conocimiento de los procesos y productos cognitivos propios puede jugar un papel en el razonamiento moral destinado a inhibir disposiciones tendencialmente egoístas. (shrink)

Wittgenstein defiende que los problemas filosóficos son ilegítimos. Sin embargo, no resulta del todo claro qué se entiende en general por problema filosófico, cuál es, pues, su naturaleza. El presente artículo intenta elucidar la observación de Wittgenstein que sostiene que la forma de un problema filosófico se puede presentar con la expresión “Yo no sé salir del atolladero” (IF § 123). En el artículo se elige, a manera de ejemplo, el escándalo kantiano, que demanda que demostremos con el uso de (...) la razón que la proposición “hay objetos físicos” es verdadera. Sin renunciar al ejemplo, se explora en qué sentido la expresión de Wittgenstein caracteriza en buena medida la naturaleza misma de la dificultad filosófica. En el ejercicio se atienden recomendaciones formales del Tractatus, terapias desplegadas en Sobre la Certeza y el recurso de distinguir entre sentido primario y sentido secundario de una expresión insinuado en las Investigaciones Filosóficas. (shrink)

La música popular ha funcionado en numerosas ocasiones como una herramienta para articular discursos y lanzar mensajes que desafían los valores de una sociedad. Más allá de repertorios musicales con un explícito mensaje político, existen numerosos ejemplos que desde el mainstream y a través de estrategias más sutiles envían mensajes que resultan subversivos y generan debates sobre convenciones que han sido normalizadas en nuestra cultura. En los últimos años, la proliferación de las redes sociales ha incrementado el papel de la (...) música en las discusiones políticas, y el crecimiento del consumo musical audiovisual a través de YouTube y las redes sociales ha convertido a los videoclips en un soporte fundamental para dar forma a estos mensajes. En este artículo analizamos cómo se utiliza el espacio urbano en la música mainstream para articular discursos capaces de generar debate en la sociedad. Partimos de una concepción dual (física y simbólica) del espacio urbano para entenderlo como un constructo social cargado se significados, y abordamos su funcionamiento en la música popular estudiando casos recientes, como la representación de espacios e imaginarios religiosos en los videoclips mainstream. (shrink)

Francisco Suárez (1548-1617) was one of the most important philosophers and theologians of Early Modern Scholasticism. Although Suárez spent most of his academic career as a professor of theology, he is better known today for his Metaphysical Disputations (Salamanca, 1597). The present volume contains a facing-page English translation of Metaphysical Disputations III & IV. Metaphysical Disputation III offers a general treatment of the properties of being as such, while Metaphysical Disputation IV deals with one of these properties in (...) particular, transcendental unity. The Latin text contained in this volume introduces a significant number of corrections to the text of the Vivès edition, the one standardly used by scholars of Suárez, and thus more faithfully reproduces the text of the first edition. The volume also contains a lengthy introduction that provides a detailed survey of the disputations' principal claims and arguments. (shrink)

Desde un punto de vista interdisciplinar, esta investigación explora la forma en que la palabra miedo funciona en la novela de Miguel Ángel Oeste Vengo de ese miedo (2022). A partir de este análisis, el trabajo pretende dar cuenta de la problemática de la identidad y la búsqueda del sentido del ser humano en el mundo contemporáneo, esclarecer la importancia del cuerpo y las emociones en la sociedad posmoderna y arrojar más luz sobre una de las tendencias más importantes de (...) la literatura actual, como es la autoficción. (shrink)

La técnica no es un fenómeno más de nuestra época, sino que ha llegado a convertirse en la figura metafísica que la define. El estudio analiza el alcance de esta tesis planteada por Jaspers y Heidegger. Para ello ofrecemos, en un primer momento, una tematización del elemento innovador que caracteriza a la técnica moderna respecto de épocas anteriores, atendiendo especialmente a su carácter totalizador y a la inversión antropológica que supone. A continuación, discutiremos algunas de las consecuencias antropológicas del estatuto (...) ontológico de la técnica. Un fenómeno sin precedentes en la historia de la humanidad, por cuanto la técnica ha dejado de ser un medio o instrumento al servicio de las necesidades y fines humanos para convertirse en un fenómeno capaz de producirlos, estableciendo posibilidades de sentido. Una inversión onto-antropológica que provoca una alienación de la existencia misma. (shrink)

1Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol, 9 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TB, UKScience Without Laws Ronald Giere Chicago, IL University of Chicago Press 1999 x + 285 Hardback£17.50.

Wittgenstein defiende que los problemas filosóficos son ilegítimos. Sin embargo, no resulta del todo claro qué se entiende en general por problema filosófico, cuál es, pues, su naturaleza. El presente artículo intenta elucidar la observación de Wittgenstein que sostiene que la forma de un problema filosófico se puede presentar con la expresión “Yo no sé salir del atolladero” (IF § 123). En el artículo se elige, a manera de ejemplo, el escándalo kantiano, que demanda que demostremos con el uso de (...) la razón que la proposición “hay objetos físicos” es verdadera. Sin renunciar al ejemplo, se explora en qué sentido la expresión de Wittgenstein caracteriza en buena medida la naturaleza misma de la dificultad filosófica. En el ejercicio se atienden recomendaciones formales del Tractatus, terapias desplegadas en Sobre la Certeza y el recurso de distinguir entre sentido primario y sentido secundario de una expresión insinuado en las Investigaciones Filosóficas. (shrink)

It is shown that the before-before (or Suarez-Scarani) experiment refutes hidden variable models with a deterministic (“realistic”) nonlocal part, whereas experiments violating Leggett-type inequalities refute models with biased random local part. Therefore the claim that Gröblacher et al. (Nature 446:871–875, 2007) present “an experimental test of nonlocal realism” is misleading, and Marek Żukowski’s (Found. Phys. 38:1070, 2008) comment misses the point. A new experiment is suggested.

En el artículo se ofrece un análisis crítico de la misión como inculturación del Evangelio, desde una perspectiva filosófico-teológica. Para comenzar, se exponen las deficiencias de la evangelización colonizadora en América. Posteriormente, se proponen dos posibles sentidos de la plantatio ecclesiae como meta de la misión. En tercer lugar, se esclarece la manera en la que se entiende la relación entre Evangelio y cultura en la Nueva Evangelización. La tesis por demostrar es que el principal problema al que está expuesta (...) la inculturación del Evangelio es la idolatría. (shrink)

Johannes Kepler dedicated much of his work to discover a law for the refraction of light. Unfortunately, he formulated an incorrect law. Nevertheless, it was useful for anticipating the behavior of light in some specific conditions. Some believe that Kepler did not have the elements to formulate the law that was later accepted by the scientific community, that is, the Snell–Descartes law. However, in this paper, we propose a model that agrees with Kepler’s heuristics and that is also successful in (...) anticipating the behavior of light when it passes through a surface that separates two media with different optical densities. This model adopts strategies that were recommended by Kepler in two types of analogies. The obstacles that led to the failure of the two types of analogies are presented in the article, and we argue that the model proposed here could overcome these specific obstacles. Finally, we show how the proposed model could be articulated with Kepler’s metaphysics of light. (shrink)

Clinical bioethics plays a significant role in hospital settings through bioethics consultations, which focus on providing ongoing assistance in complex situations within the doctor-patient dynamic. These consultations entail regular interaction between physicians and clinical bioethicists. This situation prompts an exploration into how bioethics consultations affect physicians. The current research aims to understand the influence of bioethics consultations on physicians’ bioethical knowledge by analyzing the lexical content in their patients’ medical records. Medical records are a synthesis carried out by physicians, often (...) reflecting collaborative efforts, and capturing verbal statements indicative of thought processes suggestive of learning. The study is a sequential mixed-methods design with a retrospective descriptive approach, comparing medical records from the early years of the Department of Humanism and Bioethics’ operation (2013–2015) to the more recent ones (2019). Technical bioethical terminology such as “therapeutic effort limitation,” “futility,” “beneficence,” and “respect for autonomy” is more prevalent in recent medical records. This trend may stem from the positive impact of bioethics consultations conducted by the Department, with haptic communication serving as a particularly effective form of interaction with others during experiences of moral distress. This appears to be characteristic of cultures like those in Latin America. (shrink)

L'index detaille de la Metaphysique d'Aristote publie en 1597 par Suarez, constitue une introduction aux Disputes metaphysiques. Il a pour objectif de produire les conditions d'un renouvellement de l'heritage de la Metaphysique d'Aristote en redefinissant le contenu et les limites d'une science de l'etant.Le projet de refondation de la metaphysique comme ontologie s'effectue dans cet ouvrage de presentation en quatre moments:1) L'exposition du probleme de la nature de la connaissance qui implique le depassement de l'equivocite de la notion de sagesse.2) (...) La determination de l'objet, des proprietes et des principes veritables de la metaphysique en tant que science de l'universel, c'est a dire de l'etantite de l'etant selon son abstraction la plus extreme.3) La redefinition du statut de la realite a partir d'une theorie de la representation de l'objet qui fasse abstraction de l'objet, c'est a dire qui procede a l'indifferenciation des etants afin d'en donner une representation universelle et abstraite; ainsi est affirme le primat d'une ontologie de l'essence sur toute ontotheologie.4) Enfin, la mise en place d'un systeme de reference transcendantal rendant possible une fondation universelle de la comprehension de l'etant par la mediation d'une theorie du concept.L'index prefigure ainsi, par son ambition et sa demarche, ce que Heidegger nommera, en evoquant la philosophie de Suarez, l'avenement du "caractere fondamental de la metaphysique moderne". (shrink)

A Richard Rorty se le considera hoy en día como uno de los filósofos más importantes de Norteamérica. Es posible que esta afirmación sea discutible; lo indiscutible es que, a juicio de los críticos, es el mejor escritor filosófico después de Bertrand Russell….

An English translation of the Second Disputation.

El propósito de estas páginas es describir los rasgos esenciales del misticismo como modalidad de la vida fáctica, a partir del análisis de un fenómeno hermenéutico: la obra poética y doctrinal de San Juan de la Cruz. La intención es plantear la pregunta por el origen y el sentido último de la existencia, con el fin de mostrar que la mística destaca por su radicalidad de entre los caminos que conducen al hombre a la plenitud. Esta meditación filosófico-teológica es antropología (...) por su objeto; es fenomenología, por su método; hermenéutica, porque aquello a lo que se dirige la pregunta por el ser del hombre es una construcción textual. The purpose of these pages is to describe the essential features of mysticism as a modality of factual life, based on an analysis of a hermeneutic phenomenon: the poetry and the doctrine of Saint John of the Cross. The intention is to ask for the source and the ultimate meaning of existence, in order to show that the Mystic stands by its radicalism among the paths that lead to the man in the fullness. This philosophical-theological meditation is anthropology by its object; is phenomenology, its method; hermeneutics, because that what the question is directed by the being of man is a textual construction. (shrink)

This paper defends an inferential conception of scientific representation. It approaches the notion of representation in a deflationary spirit, and minimally characterizes the concept as it appears in science by means of two necessary conditions: its essential directionality and its capacity to allow surrogate reasoning and inference. The conception is defended by showing that it successfully meets the objections that make its competitors, such as isomorphism and similarity, untenable. In addition the inferential conception captures the objectivity of the cognitive representations (...) used by science, it sheds light on their truth and completeness, and it explains the source of the analogy between scientific and artistic modes of representation. (shrink)

I argue against theories that attempt to reduce scientific representation to similarity or isomorphism. These reductive theories aim to radically naturalize the notion of representation, since they treat scientist's purposes and intentions as non-essential to representation. I distinguish between the means and the constituents of representation, and I argue that similarity and isomorphism are common but not universal means of representation. I then present four other arguments to show that similarity and isomorphism are not the constituents of scientific representation. I (...) finish by looking at the prospects for weakened versions of these theories, and I argue that only those that abandon the aim to radically naturalize scientific representation are likely to be successful. (shrink)

Despite the promises made by molecular evolutionists since the early 1960s that phylogenies would be readily reconstructed using molecular data, the construction of molecular phylogenies has both retained many methodological problems of the past and brought up new ones of considerable epistemic relevance. The field is driven not only by changes in knowledge about the processes of molecular evolution, but also by an ever-present methodological anxiety manifested in the constant search for an increased objectivity—or in its converse, the avoidance of (...) subjectivity.This paper offers an exhaustive account of the methodological and conceptual difficulties embedded in each of the steps required to elaborate molecular phytogenies. The authors adopt a historical perspective on the field in order to follow the development of practices that seek to increase the objectivity of their methods and representations. These include the adoption and development of explicit criteria for evaluation of evidence, and of procedures associated with methods of statistical inference, quantification and automation. All these are linked to an increasing use of computers in research since the mid 1960s. We will show that the practices of objectivity described are highly dependent on the problems and tools of molecular phylogenetics. (shrink)

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic, now a global health crisis, has surprised health authorities around the world. Recent studies suggest that the measures taken to curb the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak have generated issues throughout the population. Thus, it is necessary to establish and identify the possible risk factors related to the psychosocial and psychophysiological strain during the COVID-19 outbreak. The present extensive literature review assesses the social, psychological, and physiological consequences of COVID-19, reviewing the impact of quarantine measures, (...) isolation, vast human loss, social and financial consequences in the family’s economies, and its impact on the psychological health of the population. We also discussed the effect of psychophysiological factors, considering the impact of physical inactivity and modifications in nutritional habits, at psychological and physiological levels. The present review includes an actualized to date bibliography, articles for which were methodologically analyzed to verify they met the standards of quality and scientific accuracy. Authors understand the pandemic as a multifactorial event for which only a profound and extensive analysis would lead to better compression and efficient intervention in the near future. (shrink)

Este artículo propone una discusión sobre la naturaleza hermenéutica de la corporalidad (Leiblichkeit). Un aspecto que resultará decisivo para descifrar fenómenos corporales como el dolor y que hará comprensible la tesis del filósofo de que para lograr un acceso al fenómeno del dolor es preciso tener en cuenta lo que denomina aspectos existenciales del fenómeno del cuerpo (Leibphänomen). Para ello, este trabajo mostrará, por una parte, en qué sentido el ser corporal(leiblich sein) de lo humano es un fenómeno cooriginario de (...) las otras estructuras existenciales que integran su ser-en-el-mundo (In-der-Welt-sein) y, por otra, el carácter afectivo de dicha constitución existencial o mundana de la experiencia corporal. Una perspectiva hermenéutica que contribuirá asimismo a entender el carácter extático y disruptivo del dolor. (shrink)

Scientific representation is a currently booming topic, both in analytical philosophy and in history and philosophy of science. The analytical inquiry attempts to come to terms with the relation between theory and world; while historians and philosophers of science aim to develop an account of the practice of model building in the sciences. This article provides a review of recent work within both traditions, and ultimately argues for a practice-based account of the means employed by scientists to effectively achieve representation (...) in the modelling sciences. (shrink)

Bourrat and Griffiths :33, 2018) have recently argued that most of the evidence presented by holobiont defenders to support the thesis that holobionts are evolutionary individuals is not to the point and is not even adequate to discriminate multispecies evolutionary individuals from other multispecies assemblages that would not be considered evolutionary individuals by most holobiont defenders. They further argue that an adequate criterion to distinguish the two categories is fitness alignment, presenting the notion of fitness boundedness as a criterion that (...) allows divorcing true multispecies evolutionary individuals from other multispecies assemblages and provides an adequate criterion to single out genuine evolutionary multispecies assemblages. A consequence of their criterion is that holobionts, as conventionally defined by hologenome defenders, are not evolutionary individuals except in very rare cases, and for very specific host-symbiont associations. This paper is a critical response to Bourrat and Griffiths’ arguments and a defence of the arguments presented by holobiont defenders. Drawing upon the case of the hologenomic basis of the evolution of sanguivory in vampire bats, I argue that Bourrat and Griffiths overlook some aspects of the biological nature of the microbiome that justifies the thesis that holobionts are evolutionarily different to other multispecies assemblages. I argue that the hologenome theory of evolution should not define the hologenome as a collection of genomes, but as the sum of the host genome plus some traits of the microbiome which together constitute an evolutionary individual, a conception I refer to as the stability of traits conception of the hologenome. Based on that conception I argue that the evidence presented by holobiont defenders is to the point, and supports the thesis that holobionts are evolutionary individuals. In this sense, the paper offers an account of the holobiont that aims to foster a dialogue between hologenome advocates and hologenome critics. (shrink)

This paper critically examines Mitchell’s integrative pluralism. Integrative pluralism is the view that scientific explanations should primarily aim to integrate descriptions from different ontological levels. We contend that, while integrative pluralism is a fundamental strategy in contemporary science, there are specific reasons why one should not expect integration in the sense developed by Mitchell to be the optimal strategy and the one that scientists should always aim for. Drawing on some examples from contemporary biology, we argue that integration is sometimes (...) neither epistemically desirable, nor ontologically achievable. We conclude that integrative pluralism should thus be limited to a specific class of complex systems but cannot be generalised as the preferable research strategy without further information about the epistemic practices of the scientific community or the ontology of the system under investigation. (shrink)

Contemporary biological research has suggested that some host–microbiome multispecies systems (referred to as “holobionts”) can in certain circumstances evolve as unique biological individual, thus being a unit of selection in evolution. If this is so, then it is arguably the case that some biological adaptations have evolved at the level of the multispecies system, what we call hologenomic adaptations. However, no research has yet been devoted to investigating their nature, or how these adaptations can be distinguished from adaptations at the (...) species-level (genomic adaptations). In this paper, we cover this gap by investigating the nature of hologenomic adaptations. By drawing on the case of the evolution of sanguivory diet in vampire bats, we argue that a trait constitutes a hologenomic adaptation when its evolution can only be explained if the holobiont is considered the biological individual that manifests this adaptation, while the bacterial taxa that bear the trait are only opportunistic beneficiaries of it. We then use the philosophical notions of emergence and inter-identity to explain the nature of this form of individuality and argue why it is special of holobionts. Overall, our paper illustrates how the use of philosophical concepts can illuminate scientific discussions, in the trend of what has recently been called metaphysics of biology. (shrink)

This paper defends the deflationary character of two recent views regarding scientific representation, namely RIG Hughes’ DDI model and the inferential conception. It is first argued that these views’ deflationism is akin to the homonymous position in discussions regarding the nature of truth. There, we are invited to consider the platitudes that the predicate “true” obeys at the level of practice, disregarding any deeper, or more substantive, account of its nature. More generally, for any concept X, a deflationary approach is (...) then defined in opposition to a substantive approach, where a substantive approach to X is an analysis of X in terms of some property P, or relation R, accounting for and explaining the standard use of X. It then becomes possible to characterize a deflationary view of scientific representation in three distinct senses, namely: a “no-theory” view, a “minimalist” view, and a “use-based” view – in line with three standard deflationary responses in the philosophical literature on truth. It is then argued that both the DDI model and the inferential conception may be suitably understood in any of these three different senses. The application of these deflationary ‘hermeneutics’ moreover yields significant improvements on the DDI model, which bring it closer to the inferential conception. It is finally argued that what these approaches have in common – the key to any deflationary account of scientific representation – is the denial that scientific representation may be ultimately reduced to any substantive explanatory property of sources, or targets, or their relations. (shrink)

Scientific representation is a booming field nowadays within the philosophy of science, with many papers published regularly on the topic every year, and several yearly conferences and workshops held on related topics. Historically, the topic originates in two different strands in 20th-century philosophy of science. One strand begins in the 1950s, with philosophical interest in the nature of scientific theories. As the received or “syntactic” view gave way to a “semantic” or “structural” conception, representation progressively gained the center stage. Yet, (...) there is another, older, strand that links representation to fin de siècle modeling debates, particularly in the emerging Bildtheorie of Boltzmann and Hertz, and to the ensuing discussion among philosophers thereafter. Both strands feed into present-day philosophical work on scientific representation. There are a number of different orthogonal questions that philosophers ask regarding representation. One set of questions concerns the nature of the representational relation between theories or models, on the one hand, and the real-world systems they purportedly represent. Such questions lie at the more metaphysical and abstract end of the spectrum—and they are often addressed with the abstract tools of the analytical metaphysician. They constitute what we may refer to as the “analytical inquiry” into representation. On the other hand there are questions regarding the use that scientists put some representations to in practice—these are questions that are best addressed by means of some of the favorite tools of the philosopher of science, including descriptive analysis, illustration by means of case studies, induction, exemplification, inference from practice, etc., and are best referred to as the “practical inquiry” into representation. The notion of representation invoked in such inquiries may be “deflationary” or “substantive”—depending on whether it construes representation as a primitive notion, or as susceptible to further reduction or analysis in terms of something else. (shrink)

Este artículo explora la gestualidad multisensorial, háptica y motriz como forma de habitar las atmósferas. Contribuye al desarrollo de epistemologías relacionales sobre la dimensión corporal, al abordar la experiencia corporeizada vivida con entornos aéreos, materiales, ecológicos y sociales, en lugar de centrarse en el significado conceptual y semántico para su explicación. El marco conceptual, se basa en la teoría de las affordances, las ciencias cognitivas enactivas y la fenomenología, que ofrecen una vía para configurar la interacción piel-atmósfera. Consideramos la unidad (...) organismo-entorno y lo que en la literatura se identifica con el concepto de atmósfera sonora. Se introduce la noción de affordances multisensoriales y hápticas como encuentro sensual y atencional de la presencia, para argumentar que tanto el enfoque contemporáneo del cuerpo háptico y gestual con posibilidades afectivas y de movimiento, como la perspectiva estética y ecológico-social de la performatividad -aunque conceptualmente útiles-, pasan por alto la existencia de una fenomenología háptica del reino sensual de las atmósferas. Así, se describe el entrelazamiento de las experiencias sensibles y estéticas con territorios sonoros habitados desde la experiencia táctil. Se discute cómo lo sonoro y la materialidad se utilizan para vivir experiencias particulares del espacio dentro de uno específico: la instalación arpa de fricción. Finalmente, con base en la distinción entre la sensibilidad y la consciencia, se orienta hacia una pedagogía de experiencias háptico-sonoras durante procesos de aprendizaje, útil en contextos de educación corporeizada, estética y crítica. Y se ofrece un lugar para imaginar y escenificar este tipo de entornos de aprendizaje de una manera deliberada, con cualidades permeables, inmersivas, afectivas y colectivas, para acompañar en la co-creación de mundos alternativos. (shrink)

Given one conception of biological individuality (evolutionary, physiological, etc.), can a holobiont – that is the host + its symbiotic (mutualistic, commensalist and parasitic) microbiome – be simultaneously a biological individual and an ecological community? Herein, we support this possibility by arguing that the notion of biological individuality is part‐dependent. In our account, the individuality of a biological ensemble should not only be determined by the conception of biological individuality in use, but also by the biological characteristics of the part (...) of the ensemble under investigation. In the specific case of holobionts, evaluations of their individuality should be made either host‐relative or microbe‐relative. We support the claim that biological individuality is part‐dependent by drawing upon recent empirical evidence regarding the physiology of hosts and microbes, and the recent characterization of the ‘demibiont’. Our account shows that contemporary disagreements about the individuality of the holobiont derive from an incorrect understanding of the ontology of biological individuality. We show that collaboration between philosophers and biologists can be very fruitful in attempts to solve some contemporary biological debates. (shrink)

Mauricio Suárez and Agnes Bolinska apply the tools of communication theory to scientific modeling in order to characterize the informational content of a scientific model. They argue that when represented as a communication channel, a model source conveys information about its target, and that such representations are therefore appropriate whenever modeling is employed for informational gain. They then extract two consequences. First, the introduction of idealizations is akin in informational terms to the introduction of noise in a signal; for in (...) an idealization we introduce ‘extraneous’ elements into the model that have no correlate in the target. Second, abstraction in a model is informationally equivalent to equivocation in the signal; for in an abstraction we “neglect” in the model certain features that obtain in the target. They conclude that it becomes possible in principle to quantify idealization and abstraction in informative models, although precise absolute quantification will be difficult to achieve in practice. (shrink)

I argue against an account of scientific representation suggested by the semantic, or structuralist, conception of scientific theories. Proponents of this conception often employ the term “model” to refer to bare “structures”, which naturally leads them to attempt to characterize the relation between models and reality as a purely structural one. I argue instead that scientific models are typically “representations”, in the pragmatist sense of the term: they are inherently intended for specific phenomena. Therefore in general scientific models are not (...) (merely) structures. I then explore some consequences of this pragmatist account of representation, and argue that it sheds light upon the distinction between theories and models. I finish by briefly addressing some critical comments due to Bas Van Fraassen. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the consolidation of Molecular Evolution, a field originating in the 1960s at the interface of molecular biology, biochemistry, evolutionary biology, biophysics and studies on the origin of life and exobiology. The claim is made that Molecular Evolution became a discipline by integrating different sorts of scientific traditions: experimental, theoretical and comparative. The author critically incorporates Timothy Lenoir’s treatment of disciplines , as well as ideas developed by Stephen Toulmin on the same subject. On their account disciplines (...) are spaces where the social and epistemic dimensions of science are deeply and complexly interwoven. However, a more detailed account of discipline formation and the dynamics of an emerging disciplinary field is lacking in their analysis. The present essay suggests focusing on the role of scientific concepts in the double configuration of disciplines: the social/political and the epistemic order. In the case of Molecular Evolution the concepts of molecular clock and informational molecules played a central role, both in differentiating molecular from classical evolutionists, and in promoting communication between the different sorts of traditions integrated in Molecular Evolution. The paper finishes with a reflection on the historicity of disciplines, and the historicity of our concepts of disciplines. (shrink)