Migrant farm workers recruited under Canada’s temporary employment programs work in difficult environments, under poor working conditions, and live in unsafe housing in remote rural communities. Fearful of repatriation or replacement, many accept their working and living conditions as part of a necessary sacrifice to improve their living conditions and those of their families in the countries of origin. At the same time, some migrant farm workers assert their agency by escaping from farms, subverting regulations, or challenging various forms of (...) discipline used to control their bodies and activities. Following Isin and Nielsen (2008), we refer to these actions as “acts of citizenship.” Drawing on research conducted among migrant farm workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in the province of Quebec, Canada, we situate these acts, particularly the tendency to escape from abusive and exploitative working relationships, in a particular space and time shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, we demonstrate the link between these acts and certain conditions and opportunities that arose at that time, such as increased support for migrant farmworkers by a non-governmental organization and the facilitation of movement of migrant farmworkers across the Canada-U.S.-border by the “migration industry.”. (shrink)

We present a mathematical approach to defeasible reasoning based on arguments. This approach integrates the notion of specificity introduced by Poole and the theory of warrant presented by Pollock. The main contribution of this paper is a precise, well-defined system which exhibits correct behavior when applied to the benchmark examples in the literature. It aims for usability rather than novelty. We prove that an order relation can be introduced among equivalence classes of arguments under the equi-specificity relation. We also prove (...) a theorem that ensures the termination of the process of finding the justified facts. Two more lemmas define a reduced search space for checking specificity. In order to implement the theoretical ideas, the language is restricted to Horn clauses for the evidential context. The language used to represent defeasible rules has been restricted in a similar way. The authors intend this work to unify the various existing approaches to argument-based defeasible reasoning. (shrink)

: In this paper I will examine two conceptions of philosophy that were defended in Latin America during the last century. I believe that both models have to be put away and that we must build a new one, recovering elements of both of them. At the end of my paper I will consider very briefly what can we learn from this in order to construct a genuine philosophical dialogue between the United States and Latin America.

In this article I present the two essential conceptions of conspiracy theories, offering reasons for working from the point of view of the second one. Next, I introduce the debate between internalism and externalism of justification and, following the most contemporary perspectives, I focus on the political and social applicability of the second one, for which I use the srinivasian concept of “bad ideology case”. This new perspective allows me to interpret the conspiracy theories in function of this debate and (...) show their lack of epistemic justification. Finally, I analyse the epistemic trust phenomenon, an opposed model to conspiracy theories, answering affirmatively to the two essential questions of its epistemic justification and its criticality. (shrink)

En el escrito que aquí se rescata, publicado originalmente por la Universidad Nacional del Litoral en 1936, Vicente Fatone (Buenos aires, 1903-1962) concibe la danza y la arquitectura como modos privilegiados de acceso a lo absoluto. El filósofo argentino identifica la arquitectura como un infinito espacial y con una ascética, y a la danza, como infinito temporal, con una mística: mientras la primera es entendida como instauración de un mundo, la segunda es considerada como un ejercicio de libertad, que expresa (...) lo divino que habita en el ser humano a través de un principio dinámico. (shrink)

This two-volume work provides a new understanding of Western subjectivity as theorized in the Augustinian Rule. A theopolitical synthesis of Antiquity, the Rule is a humble, yet extremely influential example of subjectivity production. In these volumes, Jodra argues that the Classical and Late-Ancient communitarian practices along the Mediterranean provide historical proof of a worldview in which the self and the other are not disjunctive components, but mutually inclusive forces. The Augustinian Rule is a culmination of this process and also the (...) beginning of something new: The paradigm of the monastic self as protagonist of the new, medieval worldview. Three main theoretical challenges leading to, and present in the Rule are tackled: What are the sources of our modern understanding of subjectivity? Can Ancient sources provide an alternative genealogy that resists the individualistic turn of Modernity? And can the commons be saved without suppressing individuality? Jodra seeks to prove that the synthesis-which is also an appropriation-of Greek and Judaic sources carried out by the first Christians allowed for two contrasting models of subjectivity, the self-less and the other-less, to 'take turns' to dominate our understanding of human nature. The Greek world provided the political dimension and the Jewish world established the key theological principles of a Mediterranean synthesis which took place in Rome. Coherently and progressively, Jodra emphasizes the theopolitical nature of our worldview even today, and claim that the subject of the primitive Church is its most visible incarnation. These volumes therefore restore the unity of the Hellenistic and Judaic world as found by the first Christians, proving that the self and the other are two essential pieces in the construction of our world. (shrink)

We review different studies of the Periodic Law and the set of chemical elements from a mathematical point of view. This discussion covers the first attempts made in the 19th century up to the present day. Mathematics employed to study the periodic system includes number theory, information theory, order theory, set theory and topology. Each theory used shows that it is possible to provide the Periodic Law with a mathematical structure. We also show that it is possible to study the (...) chemical elements taking advantage of their phenomenological properties, and that it is not always necessary to reduce the concept of chemical elements to the quantum atomic concept to be able to find interpretations for the Periodic Law. Finally, a connection is noted between the lengths of the periods of the Periodic Law and the philosophical Pythagorean doctrine. (shrink)

Stemming from the works of Petr Hájek on mathematical fuzzy logic, graded model theory has been developed by several authors in the last two decades as an extension of classical model theory that studies the semantics of many-valued predicate logics. In this paper we take the first steps towards an abstract formulation of this model theory. We give a general notion of abstract logic based on many-valued models and prove six Lindström-style characterizations of maximality of first-order logics in terms of (...) metalogical properties such as compactness, abstract completeness, the Löwenheim–Skolem property, the Tarski union property, and the Robinson property, among others. As necessary technical restrictions, we assume that the models are valued on finite MTL-chains and the language has a constant for each truth-value. (shrink)

The meaning that expressions take on particular occasions often depends on the context in ways which seem to transcend its direct effect on context-sensitive parameters. ‘Truth-conditional pragmatics’ is the project of trying to model such semantic flexibility within a compositional truth-conditional framework. Most proposals proceed by radically ‘freeing up’ the compositional operations of language. I argue, however, that the resulting theories are too unconstrained, and predict flexibility in cases where it is not observed. These accounts fall into this position because (...) they rarely, if ever, take advantage of the rich information made available by lexical items. I hold, instead, that lexical items encode both extension and non-extension determining information. Under certain conditions, the non-extension determining information of an expression e can enter into the compositional processes that determine the meaning of more complex expressions which contain e. This paper presents and motivates a set of type-driven compositional operations that can access non-extension determining information and introduce bits of it into the meaning of complex expressions. The resulting multidimensional semantics has the tools to deal with key cases of semantic flexibility in appropriately constrained ways, making it a promising framework to pursue the project of truth-conditional pragmatics. (shrink)

Recent work in formal semantics suggests that the language system includes not only a structure building device, as standardly assumed, but also a natural deductive system which can determine when expressions have trivial truth-conditions (e.g., are logically true/false) and mark them as unacceptable. This hypothesis, called the `logicality of language', accounts for many acceptability patterns, including systematic restrictions on the distribution of quantifiers. To deal with apparent counter-examples consisting of acceptable tautologies and contradictions, the logicality of language is often paired (...) with an additional assumption according to which logical forms are radically underspecified: i.e., the language system can see functional terms but is `blind' to open class terms to the extent that different tokens of the same term are treated as if independent. This conception of logical form has profound implications: it suggests an extreme version of the modularity of language, and can only be paired with non-classical---indeed quite exotic---kinds of deductive systems. The aim of this paper is to show that we can pair the logicality of language with a different and ultimately more traditional account of logical form. This framework accounts for the basic acceptability patterns which motivated the logicality of language, can explain why some tautologies and contradictions are acceptable, and makes better predictions in key cases. As a result, we can pursue versions of the logicality of language in frameworks compatible with the view that the language system is not radically modular vis-a-vis its open class terms and employs a deductive system that is basically classical. (shrink)

The classification of ageing as a disease is fundamental to developing new pharmacological strategies that can target said phenomenon. The European Medicines Agency does not do this and maintains a questionable perspective based on the traditional naturalistic argument and the value-free ideal. An alternative is proposed which, inspired by consequentialism, is committed to considering ageing as a disease in European regulatory contexts as long as the ethical consequences are desirable. Within a realistic framework, I show that making this decision would (...) have moderate positive effects such as increased knowledge about antiageing pharmacology or potential greater chances of completing vital projects. Furthermore, we will see that the main arguments used by critics to show that the negative effects outweigh the positive ones are not sound. Therefore, I conclude that it would be beneficial for the European Medicines Agency to change its position on ageing. (shrink)

This paper presents a program of action for the philosophy of regulatory science, based on a general theory of social epistemology. Two candidates are considered. The first one, offered by Alvin Goldman, is not fit for our purposes because it is focused on a veritism incompatible with non‐epistemic aims of regulatory science. The second, championed by Steve Fuller, sociologically investigates the existing means of producing knowledge, to modify them with the goal of obtaining democratic aims through action on a legislative (...) meta‐level. The program has been built upon this procedure, instantiated by the identification, characterization, and modification of epistemic policies. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo se hace una aproximación a los parámetros morales enseñados por la Iglesia en sus obras pastorales (manuales de confesión y tratados de teología moral) en lo que se refiere a la relación entre gobernantes y gobernados. Para ello, se ha seleccionado un grupo de obras que se escribieron o leyeron asiduamente en la Corona de Castilla y León entre los siglos XIV y XVII. En primer lugar, se trata la casuística sobre la legitimidad de la autoridad, (...) del poder y del dominio sobre bienes y recursos por parte de los gobernantes (reyes, príncipes, nobles...). En segundo lugar, se aborda la cuestión de la responsabilidad del gobernante de la comunidad sobre la conducta de sus súbditos. En la tercera parte se exponer la problemática de los tributos e impuestos (cuáles son lícitos y cuáles no, los fines para los que se debe emplear...). Por último, se tratan los deberes que deben cumplir los súbditos respecto a sus señores y cuándo están obligados a obedecerlos y cuándo no. (shrink)

Con este título se pretende llamar la atención sobre las consecuencias positivas que Hegel plantea para el arte al poner en alto el concepto de apariencia frente a las doctrinas que lo consideran con una profunda carga crítica y negativa, sobre todo en la tradición platónica. Hegel rescata el concepto de apariencia de la formalidad universalizante de la idea, que lo considera ajeno e innecesario al acontecer de lo absoluto, con el propósito de determinar su valor a partir de la (...) verdad intuitiva que propicia. (shrink)

A partir del estudio del comportamiento de los protagonistas en la obra de Franz Kafka, intentaremos mostrar los mecanismos de control de las autoridades administrativas, proponiendo al mismo tiempo un antídoto contra la sumisión acrítica. Una observación detallada de la configuración de las situaciones diegéticas permitirá invertir las situaciones de sometimiento forzoso para ofrecer, en la voz de las figuras teóricamente secundarias, una comprensión crítica que posibilite la recuperación de la libertad individual. Palabras-clave: Kafka, comedia, política, ley.

Resumen: Estas páginas pretenden abordar conceptos relativos a la bioética a partir de la revisión de nuestra concepción de los conceptos de sensibilidad e inteligencia en el reino vegetal, cuestiones ambas que no dejan de comprenderse como umbral en el que queda a un lado un deseo de respeto hacia el medio con el que convivimos y, en el otro, de modo más sutil, un nuevo apropiamiento de carácter antropocéntrico por parte del sujeto.

En este trabajo se interpreta un breve pasaje de Heidegger sobre la diferencia entre literatura y poesía y sobre el “insondable poder esencial” de la primera. Se argumenta cuáles son los rasgos fenomenológicos de ese “poder” que la distingue de la poesía, mostrando la problematicidad interna de tal distinción. Para poner en primer plano el sentido de ese “insondable poder esencial” de la literatura, se leerá brevemente El curioso impertinente, de El Quijote. La conclusión es que lo “insondable” del poder (...) de la literatura se encuentra en su ambivalencia, que es el medio de homologación y resistencia ante dicha homologación. (shrink)

El presente artículo indaga sobre el poder dinámico y causal del ente finito. Busca fundamentar el accionar del mismo desde su estructura metafísica dando así razón de su causalidad. En este sentido el estudio se desarrolla en el ámbito de lo que santo Tomas de Aquino ha llamado filosofía primera que es, dentro de la disciplina sapiencial, la perspectiva que investiga sobre las diversas especies de causas, como aquellas que dan mayor certeza al conocimiento, y esto con principal acento en (...) la causalidad eficiente y final. El matiz mencionado tiene su fundamento en el ente como sujeto-objeto de la metafísica y lleva en sí la proyección a la teología filosófica como aquella parte de la sabiduría que se dedica a estudiar la causa primera de todo lo real. (shrink)

Over the past decade or so, a new interdisciplinary field has emerged in the ground between, on the one hand, computer science – and artificial intelligence in particular – and, on the other, the area of philosophy concentrating on the language and structure of argument. There are now hundreds of researchers worldwide who would consider themselves a part of this nascent community. Various terms have been proposed for the area, including "Computational Dialectics," "Argumentation Technology," and "Argument-based Computing," but the term (...) that has stuck is simply Argument & Computation. It encompasses several specific strands of research, such as: . the use of theories of argument, and dialectic in particular, in the design and implementation of protocols for multi-agent action and communication; . the application of theories of argument and rhetoric in natural language processing and affective computing; . the use of argument-based structures for autonomous reasoning in artificial intelligence, and in particular, for defeasible reasoning; . computer-supported collaborative argumentation – the implementation of software tools for enabling online argument in domains such as education and e-government. These strands come together to form the core of a research field that covers parts of artificial intelligence (AI), philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive science, but, increasingly, is building an identity of its own. (shrink)

En este artículo exploraremos un dilema surgido del progresivo asentamiento de una disciplina reciente en el ámbito de la teoría moral, comprendida como una rama de los enfoques naturalistas de la ética, a saber, la ‘ética evolutiva’. Esta disciplina incluye en sus investigaciones de orden ético conocimientos de tipo biológico y, particularmente, estudios en clave de las teorías posdarwinianas de la evolución. En pocas palabras, el dilema surgido de la articulación entre ética y naturalismo evolutivo consiste en lo siguiente: (i) (...) o bien las propiedades morales son naturales y explican nuestro comportamiento como resultado de procesos evolutivos, pero no alcanzan para justificar el comportamiento moral; (ii) o bien lo justifican, pues tales propiedades retienen su autonomía respecto de las propiedades naturales, pero dejan de explicar o anclar la moral en bases ‘reales’ (naturales, fácticas) objetivas de la moralidad como tal. Nuestra propuesta en este artículo busca, si no solucionar dicho dilema, al menos ‘relajar’ la tensión que contiene. Para ello realizaremos una exploración del debate en torno al realismo moral que subyace al dilema en cuestión, así como también, y particularmente, a los posibles aportes que algunas perspectivas neoaristotélicas contemporáneas podrían ofrecer para la elucidación de una vía intermedia, que evite caer en ambos extremos. (shrink)

Despite recognizing the importance of impact investing in combating complex societal challenges, researchers have yet to examine the capacity of the field to address systemic inequality. While impact investments are intended to benefit vulnerable stakeholders, the voices of those stakeholders are generally overlooked in the design and implementation of such investments. To resolve this oversight, we theorize how the fields’ design—through its tools, organizations, and field-level bodies—influences its capacity to address inequality by focusing on the concept of giving voice, which (...) we define as the inclusive participation of vulnerable stakeholders in decision-making processes. We build from stakeholder engagement research to show how the design of impact investing can address inequality using three illustrative cases: social impact bonds, impact investing funds, and national advisory boards. We conclude with a discussion of how the ethical decision of giving voice to vulnerable stakeholders will determine the capacity of the field to address inequality, as well as provide implications for future research and practice. (shrink)

How are biases encoded in our representations of social categories? Philosophical and empirical discussions of implicit bias overwhelmingly focus on salient or statistical associations between target features and representations of social categories. These are the sorts of associations probed by the Implicit Association Test and various priming tasks. In this paper, we argue that these discussions systematically overlook an alternative way in which biases are encoded, that is, in the dependency networks that are part of our representations of social categories. (...) Dependency networks encode information about how features in a conceptual representation depend on each other. This information determines the degree of centrality of a feature for a conceptual representation. Importantly, centrally encoded biases systematically disassociate from those encoded in salient-statistical associations. Furthermore, the degree of centrality of a feature determines its cross-contextual stability: in general, the more central a feature is for a concept, the more likely it is to survive into a wide array of cognitive tasks involving that concept. Accordingly, implicit biases that are encoded in the central features of concepts are predicted to be more resilient across different tasks and contexts. As a result, the distinction between centrally encoded and salient-statistical biases has important theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)

The logicality of language is the hypothesis that the language system has access to a ‘natural’ logic that can identify and filter out as unacceptable expressions that have trivial meanings—that is, that are true/false in all possible worlds or situations in which they are defined. This hypothesis helps explain otherwise puzzling patterns concerning the distribution of various functional terms and phrases. Despite its promise, logicality vastly over-generates unacceptability assignments. Most solutions to this problem rest on specific stipulations about the properties (...) of logical form—roughly, the level of linguistic representation which feeds into the interpretation procedures—and have substantial implications for traditional philosophical disputes about the nature of language. Specifically, contextualism and semantic minimalism, construed as competing hypotheses about the nature and degree of context-sensitivity at the level of logical form, suggest different approaches to the over-generation problem. In this paper, I explore the implications of pairing logicality with various forms of contextualism and semantic minimalism. I argue that to adequately solve the over-generation problem, logicality should be implemented in a constrained contextualist framework. (shrink)

En este trabajo exploro el vínculo entre literatura y filosofía en la obra El fin del Mundo y un Despiadado País de las Maravillas del escritor japonés Haruki Murakami. Concretamente, me concentro en reconstruir la naturaleza de la conciencia y el concepto de identidad que es posible encontrar en su obra. A continuación, reconstruyo cuáles son las implicancias conceptuales principales para la filosofía de la mente y la filosofía moral contemporáneas.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Origins of the Ateneo de la Juventud The Lectures at the Ateneo de la Juventud The Ateneo de la Juventud and the Mexican Revolution References Further Reading.

This reviews the first of a tripartite symposia series dealing with novel neuroscientific technologies, the nature of consciousness and being, and the questions that arise from such interactions. The event took place on May 8 2009, at Georgetown University, and brought together ten leading figures on fields ranging from Neuroscience and Robotics to Philosophy, that commented on their research and provided ethical, moral and practical insight and perspectives into how these technologies can shape the future of neuroscientific and human development, (...) as well as denoting the potential abuses and the best way to proceed about them. (shrink)

In this essay I argue a particular legal philosophy is committed to a partial and closed view of how philosophical work is conceived. This view produces a legal philosophy that lacks the ability to guide substantive discussions. I argue that methodological legal positivism is not a good way to articulate the development of legal philosophy. Then, I argue that we need to consider the place that legal philosophy should occupy in the global intellectual landscape. In addition, I develop my argument (...) by distinguishing the work of legal-philosophy jurists from that of legal-philosophy philosophers and philosophy philosophers. As a coda, I sketch the criteria in order to conceive analytical legal philosophy from a new perspective.Resumen:En este ensayo defiendo que cierta forma de hacer filosofía jurídica está comprometida con una visión cerrada y parcial de concebir el quehacer filosófico. Esta visión genera una filosofía jurídica intelectualmente pobre y carente de capacidad para guiar debates sustantivos. Defiendo que el positivismo jurídico metodológico no es una buena manera de articular el desarrollo de la filosofía jurídica. Sostengo, además, que es preciso re- flexionar sobre el lugar que debería ocupar la filosofía jurídica en un panorama intelectual global. Para desarrollar mis argumentos, distingo el trabajo de los filósofos del derecho juristas respecto del de los filósofos del derecho-filósofos y los filósofos-filósofos. A modo de coda, bosquejo cuáles serían los criterios que hay que revisar para concebir la filosofía jurídica analítica desde una nueva perspectiva. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo de homenaje al Profesor Julio De Zan, me concentro en su crítica al realismo moral. En su libro, La ética, los derechos y la justicia, Julio De Zan niega que existan en el ámbito moral propiedades naturales o metafísicas. Para comprender su crítica, propongo una reconstrucción conceptual de los presupuestos filosóficos que existen para su rechazo del realismo moral. Con este propósito, mi propuesta de reconstrucción conceptual consiste en complementar la ética del discurso defendida por Julio (...) De Zan, relacionando su propuesta con dos complementos filosóficos: por un lado, con el rechazo hacia el realismo moral realizado por Ronald Dworkin en su libro Justicia para erizos; por otro lado, con el rechazo hacia el realismo moral dirigido por Christine Korsgaard en su libro Las Fuentes de la Normatividad. Aunque los tres filósofos mantienen diferencias relevantes, mantienen también un rechazo al realismo moral basado en ciertos parecidos de familia. (shrink)

Los caminos del exceso.--El casuista de Pascal.--La existencia como economía, como desinterés y como caridad.

Resumen Se ofrece un careo filosófico a la manera barroca entre la metáfora de “naturaleza muerta” y una serie de obras artísticas. De este ejercicio hermenéutico se extraen algunas conclusiones históricas y filosóficas sobre nuestra concepción de la vida y la muerte.The metaphor of “naturaleza muerta” and a series of artistic works are philosophically confronted in a Baroque manner. Some historical and philosophical conclusions about our conception of life and death are obtained from this hermeneutical exercise.