Ressenya /Reseña / Review H. U. Gumbrecht, R. Koselleck, H. Stuke, Il·lustració, progrés i modernitat. Història dels conceptes, València, Institució Alfons el Magnànim, 2018.

Background: Screen time among adults represents a continuing and growing problem in relation to health behaviors and health outcomes. However, no instrument currently exists in the literature that quantifies the use of modern screen-based devices. The primary purpose of this study was to develop and assess the reliability of a new screen time questionnaire, an instrument designed to quantify use of multiple popular screen-based devices among the US population. -/- Methods: An 18-item screen-time questionnaire was created to quantify use of (...) commonly used screen devices (e.g. television, smartphone, tablet) across different time points during the week (e.g. weekday, weeknight, weekend). Test-retest reliability was assessed through intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) and standard error of measurement (SEM). The questionnaire was delivered online using Qualtrics and administered through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). -/- Results: Eighty MTurk workers completed full study participation and were included in the final analyses. All items in the screen time questionnaire showed fair to excellent relative reliability (ICCs = 0.50–0.90; all < 0.000), except for the item inquiring about the use of smartphone during an average weekend day (ICC = 0.16, p = 0.069). The SEM values were large for all screen types across the different periods under study. -/- Conclusions: Results from this study suggest this self-administered questionnaire may be used to successfully classify individuals into different categories of screen time use (e.g. high vs. low); however, it is likely that objective measures are needed to increase precision of screen time assessment. (shrink)

Resumen Este trabajo analiza los anuncios de televisión y prensa de la compañía española de telefonía móvil Yoigo para explorar cómo la publicidad usa la apelación emocional para persuadir al consumidor a adquirir un servicio. El marco teórico se basa, por una parte, en el concepto de efecto social del acto comunicativo : 577–603) y el de actividad de imagen : 175–198), entendiendo la imagen social desde las categorías básicas de autonomía y afiliación con sus manifestaciones grupal e individual, Actos (...) de habla y cortesía en el español. Munich: Lincom Europa). Por otro lado, se parte de las propuestas de identidad de Spencer-Oatey, Face, Communication and Social Interaction ) y los tipos de valores centrales e individuales de los que se nutren tanto la imagen social como la identidad, 268-290). Los resultados de los análisis demuestran que en los anuncios de Yoigo los valores de honestidad y originalidad están presentes en las estrategias comunicativas elegidas, lo que supone una serie de actividades de imagen donde la afiliación y la autonomía – tanto de grupo como individual – se ponen de manifiesto. Así, las estrategias realizadas por los anuncios utilizan atributos conocidos de la identidad del consumidor español y de su imagen social para lograr su propósito persuasivo: convencerle para contratar el servicio ofrecido. (shrink)

This essay proposes that the work of Sylvia Wynter, a canonical figure in Afro-Caribbean philosophy, demonstrates other ways of doing philosophy, a comparative philosophy carried out as a cross-cultural exercise. Sylvia Wynter has argued for a “New Science of the Word” by drawing from the contributions of Frantz Fanon (sociogeny), Aimé Césaire (poetic knowledge), and the field of cybernetics, among other sources. This essay aims to explain the framework and methodology of the New Science and the original transdisciplinary engagement that (...) such a framework facilitates. It argues that, by appropriating the concept of “autopoiesis” beyond the natural sciences, Wynter refashions autopoiesis as autopoetics to answer the age-old question of what it means to be human. Comparative philosophy, the essay concludes, can be fertile ground for Wynter’s project and epistemic decolonization. (shrink)

In this article, I seek to contribute to the recent philosophical interest in the phenomenon of narco-culture. I build on the intervention initiated by Carlos Alberto Sánchez’s A Sense of Brutality: Philosophy after Narco-Culture (2020) by articulating the spiritually “generative” aspects of violence. For this endeavor, I turn to the French philosopher René Girard, whose work audaciously understands community-building and the maintenance of social order as a violent process of sacralization. This conception of violence then permits me to challenge some (...) of Sánchez’s interpretations of the violence and brutality of narco-culture. My argument is that any comprehensive analysis of the narco-world, just as any other existential option, must consider the spiritual component that, in Girard’s terms, can be expressed as a search for the sacred. (shrink)

The trope of fetishization is central to Latin American liberation philosophy and its proposal for an “anti-fetishist” method. In this essay, I offer a genealogy of the trope of fetishization in the work of the Argentine-Mexican philosopher of liberation Enrique Dussel. Engaging recent work in cultural anthropology that demonstrates how the notion of “fetishism” develops out of a one-sided Eurocentric anthropology of religion that misrepresents elements of Afro-Atlantic religions, I argue that without a serious revision of the metaphysical premises of (...) “anti-fetishism,” liberation philosophy risks perpetuating a Eurocentrism that runs counter to the interests of epistemic decolonization to which it is committed. This essay therefore concludes by outlining the prospects of a decolonial “anti-fetishist” method that might overcome the Eurocentric misapprehension of Afro-Atlantic religions. (shrink)

*Winner of the American Philosophical Association's 2020 Essay Prize in Latin American Thought* This essay offers a novel account of the secularity of Latin American liberation philosophy. It challenges the accepted notion that liberation philosophy applies the methods and approaches of Latin American liberation theology to the philosophical arena, thus putting liberation theology on secular grounds. While this formulation is true insofar as liberation philosophy is not bound by the hermeneutics of any particular religious tradition, this formulation could be misconstrued (...) given that liberation philosophy does not premise such secularization in an undialectical understanding of secularity as secularism that disavows religion. Rather, liberation philosophy’s secularity is dialectical in that it requires constant engagement with re-ligion, not in the hermeneutics of any specific tradition but with “the traditional question of the Absolute.” Due to this often-misunderstood element of liberation philosophy, it has frequently been “ghettoized and relegated to the ‘safe’ area of theological studies,” as Eduardo Mendieta argues. However, I contend that liberation philosophy’s secular grounds offer an original contribution to philosophy as a decolonial and postsecularist liberation philosophy, one that conceives of secularism as an aspect of coloniality to be overcome, an obstacle rather than a benefit for Latin American philosophers seeking to gain a better understanding of our historical conditions. (shrink)

Background The purpose of this study was to examine whether extended use of a variety of screen-based devices, in addition to television, was associated with poor dietary habits and other health-related characteristics and behaviors among US adults. The recent phenomenon of binge-watching was also explored. -/- Methods A survey to assess screen time across multiple devices, dietary habits, sleep duration and quality, perceived stress, self-rated health, physical activity, and body mass index, was administered to a sample of US adults using (...) the Qualtrics platform and distributed via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Participants were adults 18 years of age and older, English speakers, current US residents, and owners of a television and at least one other device with a screen. Three different screen time categories (heavy, moderate, and light) were created for total screen time, and separately for screen time by type of screen, based on distribution tertiles. Kruskal-Wallis tests were conducted to examine differences in dietary habits and health-related characteristics between screen time categories. -/- Results Aggregate screen time across all devices totaled 17.5 h per day for heavy users. Heavy users reported the least healthful dietary patterns and the poorest health-related characteristics – including self-rated health – compared to moderate and light users. Moreover, unique dietary habits emerged when examining dietary patterns by type of screen separately, such that heavy users of TV and smartphone displayed the least healthful dietary patterns compared to heavy users of TV-connected devices, laptop, and tablet. Binge-watching was also significantly associated with less healthy dietary patterns, including frequency of fast-food consumption as well as eating family meals in front of a television, and perceived stress. -/- Conclusions The present study found that poorer dietary choices, as well as other negative health-related impacts, occurred more often as the viewing time of a variety of different screen-based devices increased in a sample of US adults. Future research is needed to better understand what factors among different screen-based devices might affect health behaviors and in turn health-related outcomes. Research is also required to better understand how binge-watching behavior contributes impacts health-related behaviors and characteristics. (shrink)

This essay builds on a recent intervention made by Mariana Ortega, who has called on philosophers committed to decolonization to avoid reproducing “colonial impulses and erasures” in the very attempt to advance epistemic decolonization. When connected to “practices of un-knowing,” these tendencies become an “affliction,” which Ortega labels with the notion of “decolonial woes.” The author focuses on the reception of the spiritual elements in Anzaldúa’s work to identify a specifically secular form of a decolonial woe: the disregard for the (...) potential that spirituality comprises for advancing the project of decolonization. To counter such secularist erasure, this essay offers an interpretation of Anzaldúa’s well-known concept of la facultad as a postsecular methodology that can help advance the project of epistemic decolonization. (shrink)

Since the publication of Alexander Weheliye’s Habeas Viscous (2014), a devastating critique of biopolitics from the perspective of Black feminist theory, I have been on the lookout for a critique o...

We have now provided an overall simple theoretical account of the structure of perceptual experience proto-philosophically examined in Part I. The next task is to find the proper logical machinery to formulatte those accounts rigorously.

A Computable Universe is a collection of papers discussing computation in nature and the nature of computation, a compilation of the views of the pioneers in the contemporary area of intellectual inquiry focused on computational and informational theories of the world. This volume is the definitive source of informational/computational views of the world, and of cutting-edge models of the universe, both digital and quantum, discussed from a philosophical perspective as well as in the greatest technical detail. The book discusses the (...) foundations of computation in relation to nature. It focuses on two main questions: What is computation? How does nature compute? The contributors are world-renowned experts who have helped shape a cutting-edge computational understanding of the universe. They discuss computation in the world from a variety of perspectives, ranging from foundational concepts to pragmatic models to ontological conceptions and their philosophical implications. The volume provides a state-of-the-art collection of technical papers and non-technical essays representing a field that takes information and computation to be key to understanding and explaining the basic structure underpinning physical reality. It also includes a new edition of Konrad Zuse's "Calculating Space", and a panel discussion transcription on the topic, featuring worldwide experts (including a Nobel prize) in quantum mechanics, physics, cognition, computation and algorithmic complexity.A Computable Universe is a collection of papers discussing computation in nature and the nature of computation, a compilation of the views of the pioneers in the contemporary area of intellectual inquiry focused on computational and informational theories of the world. This volume is the definitive source of informational/computational views of the world, and of cutting-edge models of the universe, both digital and quantum, discussed from a philosophical perspective as well as in the greatest technical detail. The book discusses the foundations of computation in relation to nature. It focuses on two main questions: What is computation? How does nature compute? The contributors are world-renowned experts who have helped shape a cutting-edge computational understanding of the universe. They discuss computation in the world from a variety of perspectives, ranging from foundational concepts to pragmatic models to ontological conceptions and their philosophical implications. The volume provides a state-of-the-art collection of technical papers and non-technical essays representing a field that takes information and computation to be key to understanding and explaining the basic structure underpinning physical reality. It also includes a new edition of Konrad Zuse's "Calculating Space", and a panel discussion transcription on the topic, featuring worldwide experts (including a Nobel prize) in quantum mechanics, physics, cognition, computation and algorithmic complexity. (shrink)

Thinking, Language, and Experience was first published in 1989.Hector-Neri Castañeda's intricate and provocative essays have been widely influential, especially his work in epistemology and ethics, and his theory on the relation of thought to action. The fourteen essays in Thinking, Language, and Experience -- half of them written expressly for this volume -- demonstrate the breadth and richness of his recent work on the unitary structure of human experience.A comprehensive, unified study of phenomena at the intersection between experience, thinking, language, (...) and reality, this book focuses on singular reference -- that is, reference to individuals insofar as they are thought of as individuals: indicators, quasi-indicators, proper names, singular descriptions. Castañeda establishes a large number of new facts -- linguistic, semantic, psychological, and sociological -- about the workings of language in human experience, and from them develops a network of new theories, all grounded in his comprehensive Guise Theory.These theories offer a systematic account for: the structure of human experience and the world at large; the mental powers required to think of the world and to undergo experiences; self-consciousness; the language for thinking of other minds; perception and the interaction between indexical reference and perceptual fields; and the role of subjectivity in perception and intentional action. (shrink)

Bajo el signo de 1918 se produjo en Alemania una revitalización compensatoria del nacionalismo cultural heredero del fenómeno de la recepción de Schopenhauer a mediados del siglo xix que, mediante la identificación de un enemigo interno, trató de dar respuesta a una crisis de identidad. En este trabajo estudiamos esta hipótesis a través del análisis de una polémica que se dio en torno a la _Schopenhauer-Gesellschaft_ a raíz del panfleto de Maria Groener _Schopenhauer und die Juden_.

En este trabajo utilizaremos la tipología schmittiana de pares conceptuales teológico-políticos como marco interpretativo para estudiar cómo el panteísmo fue considerado en la Alemania decimonónica como una doctrina revolucionaria en un sentido político. Esto lo haremos presentando brevemente los antecedentes ilustrados de esta problemática y analizando tanto los debates sobre la personalidad de Dios surgidos a raíz de la publicación de Das Leben Jesu de Strauß como los textos de la izquierda hegeliana en los que se reconoce explícitamente un proyecto (...) político revolucionario vinculado al panteísmo. (shrink)

In this essay, we explore the possibility to find affinities, parallelisms and analogue functions in some aspects of the philosophies of Edmund Husserl and Arthur Schopenhauer. In order to achieve this, we begin taking into consideration the question about Husserl’s relation with Schopenhauer’s works by the means of some biographical facts on the first one; then we analyze the similarities between the concept of “better consciousness” and the liberation from the principle of sufficient reason through “aesthetic contemplation” in the philosophy (...) of Schopenhauer, and Husserlian “phenomenological attitude” and “ἐποχή”. Finally, we show the differences between both authors concerning the ultimate goal pursued with such concepts. (shrink)

This study explores the efficacy of a specific tool – the articulation of the ideal self – in job engagement, psychological well-being, and organizational citizenship behavior. We hypothesized that employees who can visualize their jobs as part of their ideal self – in particular how it helps in its development and realization – would feel higher levels of engagement and fulfillment in their lives, as well as engage in greater amounts of helping and voice OCB. A total of 239 full (...) time employees from five companies in Costa Rica filled out the ideal self questionnaire, the job engagement, and psychological well-being surveys, and were evaluated by their peers on task behavior and helping and voice OCB. Results of the SEM model showed that the ideal self was positively related to job engagement, psychological well-being and helping and voice. These findings contribute to the research on the impact and importance for organizations to help employees find meaningfulness in their work. (shrink)

Resumen: En muchas lenguas las cláusulas adverbiales iniciales presentan una repetición del predicado de la oración anterior, lo que se conoce como enlace tail-head. Este trabajo busca describir las construcciones de eth del quichua santiagueño de acuerdo con dos parámetros: a) el grado de solapamiento semántico entre los predicados de la construcción de eth, y b) el grado de integración eventiva de la adverbial inicial con la cláusula principal. El primer parámetro permite identificar construcciones verbatim -con repetición exacta del verbo (...) anterior- y no verbatim -sin repetición exacta-. El segundo parámetro se manifiesta en la forma que adopta la cláusula “cabeza”. Así, se identificaron, por un lado, una forma converbal y, por el otro, cláusulas con los sufijos del sistema de conmutación de la referencia. La interacción entre estos dos parámetros muestra que las diferentes construcciones de eth poseen diversas funciones discursivas, en particular para la coherencia temática.: In many languages preposed adverbial clauses repeat the previous verb or predicate, which phenomenon has been termed tail-head linkage. This paper aims to describe THL constructions in Santiagueño Quichua according to two parameters: a) the degree of semantic overlap between the predicates of the THL constructions, and b) the degree of event integration of the preposed adverbial with its main clause. The first parameter allows the identification of verbatim constructions -with exact repetition of the previous predicate- and non verbatim constructions -without exact repetition-. The second parameter manifests itself in the form the head clause might adopt, where it is a converb or it takes switch reference suffixes. The interplay of both parameters shows that the different THL constructions possess diverse discourse functions, particularly regarding thematic coherence. (shrink)

Main description: Verbreitet ist die Auffassung, dass es vernünftig ist, moralisch zu handeln, weil es unvernünftig ist, gegen moralische Normen zu verstoßen. Gegen diese Ansicht vertritt der Autor die These, dass es immer vernünftigerweise erlaubt ist, moralisch zu handeln, dass aber im Falle eines Konflikts zwischen Klugheitsgründen und moralischen Normen sowohl die moralische als auch die unmoralische Handlungsweise vernünftigerweise erlaubt sind.

This is a presentation about joint work between Hector Zenil and Jean-Paul Delahaye. Zenil presents Experimental Algorithmic Theory as Algorithmic Information Theory and NKS, put together in a mixer. Algorithmic Complexity Theory defines the algorithmic complexity k(s) as the length of the shortest program that produces s. But since finding this short program is in general an undecidable question, the only way to approach k(s) is to use compression algorithms. He shows how to use the Compress function in Mathematica to (...) give an idea about the compressibility of various sequences. However, the idea of applying a compression algorithm breaks down for very short sequences. This is true not only for the Compress function, but also for any other compression algorithm. Zenil's approach is to construct a metric of algorithmic complexity for short sequences from scratch. He defines the algorithmic probability as the probability that an arbitrary program produces a sequence. The basic idea is to run a whole class of computational devices such as Turing Machines or Cellular Automata, and compute the distributions of the sequences they generate. Zenil presents a comparison of frequency distributions of sequences generated by 2-state 3-color Turing Machines and 2-color radius 1 Cellular Automata. He also compared these distributions to distributions found in data from the real world, and found that not only there is correlation across different systems, but also that the distributions are rather stable, and the difference between the distributions in abstract systems and real-world data can be attributed to noise. In his paper Zenil elaborates on the nature of the noise he has encountered. Zenil conjectures that the correlation distances between different systems decreases with a larger number of steps, and converge in the infinite limit case. (shrink)

A. E. HEATH WHEN I had finished reading the manuscript of this book I came to the reluctant conclusion that Mr. Hector Hawton, though not an academic person, ...

El trabajo ensaya un análisis sobre los perfiles subjetivos en la política dentro del esquema comunicacional vigente. El mundo global, la conectividad y las imágenes son elementos que invitan a atender como la palabra y la información funcionan en la actualidad. Esta revisión toma aportes de Sartori, Serres y Rancière, entre otros. Luego se discute el lugar de lo letrado como dispositivo de articulación de la comunidad. Para ello se examinan las tesis de Ángel Rama: el primado de la letra (...) implica un orden social con un impacto severo en la institucionalidad política. Posteriormente, se incorpora la noción de poslexia sugerida por Mark Fisher, quien afirma el carácter “iletrado” de la actualidad. Se construye así un diálogo en el que se profundizan algunas de las perspectivas implicadas. Finalmente, se sugieren algunas interrogantes sus efectos en la subjetividad política. Estas preguntas acuden a los aportes de Virno, Castillo y Ferraris, entre otros. (shrink)

Based on Maldonado-Torres’s formulation of the term, we conceive the decolonial turn as a form of liberating and decolonising reason beyond the liberal and Enlightened emancipation of rationality, and beyond the more radical Euro-critiques that have failed to consistently challenge the legacies of Eurocentrism and white male heteronormativity (often Eurocentric critiques of Eurocentrism). We complement Maldonado-Torres’s account of the decolonial turn in philosophy, theory and critique by providing an analysis of the trajectories of academic philosophy and clarifying the relevance of (...) decolonising philosophy and of the decolonial turn for current efforts in transforming philosophy in face of the challenges of social movements such as the Third World Liberation Front and Black Lives Matter in the United States, and Rhodes Must Fall in South Africa and England. After a brief analysis of the trajectory and current status of philosophy as a discipline in the modern Western research university, we provide examples of the decolonial turn and of decolonising philosophy in three areas: the engagement with (1) Asian and (2) Latin American philosophies, and (3) debates in the philosophy of race and gender. (shrink)

Para Hegel, Asia señala el comienzo de la historia universal, mientras que Europa señala su consumación y final. La América precolombina, al igual que la África negra, están para Hegel fuera de la historia universal; en cuanto a la historia de América tras su descubrimiento por los europeos, Hegel sostiene que lo que ha sucedido desde entonces en el continente americano proviene, en rigor, del “principio de Europa”. Hegel contrapone a su vez la historia de América Latina a la de (...) los actuales Estados Unidos en términos del respectivo desarrollo económico y social. Hegel atribuye la brecha de desarrollo entre las dos Américas, por un lado, a que América Latina es católica y Estados Unidos es mayoritariamente protestante, y, por el otro, a que América Latina fue “conquistada”, mientras que Estados Unidos fue “colonizado”. Sobre la base del análisis de los textos pertinentes de la obra de Hegel, se reconstruirá su teoría sobre el desigual nivel de desarrollo socio-económico de América Latina y Estados Unidos y se evaluará la plausibilidad, actualidad y eventual deficiencia de la misma. (shrink)

Liberados el romanticismo y el idealismo del lastre secular de su vínculo imaginario con la “catástrofe alemana” deviene una vez más posible recurrir a ellos para repensar los problemas teóricos y prácticos del presente y localizar nuevos instrumentos conceptuales para su solución. En este contexto recobran interés numerosos temas que fueron objetos privilegiados de reflexión por parte de los pensadores románticos e idealistas. El romanticismo exaltó la Revolución Francesa como un acontecimiento epocal de reivindicación de los derechos de los individuos (...) contra la opresión de las formas anquilosadas de la religión y la organización estatal. Los pensadores románticos se rebelaron contra el orden burgués en todas sus formas, contra la pauta ubicua de la razón económico-instrumental. Para Kant, lo que es útil e intercambiable no posee dignidad, sino precio. El rechazo romántico de la exhaustiva reducción del mundo a mercancía conduce a la recuperación del valor infinito de la naturaleza, en esa medida, a su “reencantamiento”. En una misma línea, el romanticismo preconiza tendencialmente todos los fenómenos no cuantificables, aquéllos que no permiten ser calculados en términos mercantiles: la corporeidad, el erotismo, la pasión, la imaginación y la fantasía, el arte y la poesía, lo telúrico, la diversidad individual y cultural. El idealismo, por su parte, busca una síntesis entre la concepción ilustrada del mundo material y la visión pre-moderna del mismo. El resultado de esa mediación es la explicitación de las estructuras del propio espíritu humano presentes en su comprensión del mundo, toda vez que para el idealismo el mundo es siempre la teoría de la mente humana sobre el mundo. El pensamiento ilustrado pudo por ello confundir la filosofía de la naturaleza de los idealistas con una visión de lo material viciada de antropomorfismo, más próxima a la mística y a los bestiarios medievales que a las ciencias naturales de la Edad Moderna. El idealismo, por el contrario, encuentra en esta suerte de principio antrópico de toda teoría un factor de liberación moral y política. La toma de conciencia de que es el sujeto el que crea sistemas de sentido y que, por tanto, éstos deben reflejar en sí mismos su origen humano, implica el corolario de que con las teorías –sea cual sea el ámbito de la realidad que ellas busquen explicar– se trata en verdad de dispositivos de ordenamiento para el conocimiento y la acción construidas por la propia subjetividad humana; en esta medida, en su origen no se encuentran datos brutos de un supuesto orden natural que debe, por tanto, ser respetado sacralmente, sino la propia comunidad de sujetos vivientes. Aunque haya dejado tras de sí y olvidado el proceso de mediaciones que le dio origen, aunque se presente, pues, como replegado sobre sí mismo y, en esa medida, como la suma de re-presentaciones de un orden encontrado en el mundo, cada sistema de ideas contiene el conjunto de prácticas subjetivas inferenciales que lo constituyeron y que fueron realizadas por múltiples sujetos en plexos históricos concretos. El idealismo consiste en explicitar a la subjetividad actuando en el objeto y, con ello, en conminar el peligro de la mutación de las teorías en ideologías. El fundamento último de la libertad descansa para el idealismo menos en el orden determinado que funciona como condición de posibilidad del ejercicio de la libertad que en el modo de autoconcepción de la propia subjetividad. A partir del mundo de las autoconcepciones del sujeto –para Hegel se trata del ámbito específico del sujeto que ha devenido por ello mismo absoluto– derivan luego, como sus corolarios prácticos, las formas concretas de ordenamiento social y político. Si bien asume en sí numerosos motivos románticos, el idealismo aspira también a una mediación de esos elementos con las contribuciones teóricas de la Ilustración, con la que guarda entonces una relación menos crítica que el romanticismo. Fruto de este espíritu más ecuménico y menos orientado a la ruptura, defiende una concepción más pacífica de la racionalidad capitalista y el mundo burgués. Hegel reivindica así el rol positivo del mercado con su división social del trabajo y una concepción menos revolucionaria y más reformista de la vida política. El neoliberalismo contemporáneo se concibe a sí mismo como el sistema que resulta naturalmente del principio de la libertad negativa. Una tesis central del idealismo alemán es que para que sea posible el ejercicio de la capacidad de decidirse autónomamente por diferentes metas es necesario el marco efectivo de la libertad positiva. Sin la presencia de un orden racional con poder coercitivo sobre los miembros de la sociedad para regular su conducta, la libertad negativa de esos miembros, a primera vista disminuida y parcialmente cercenada por aquel orden, no es en la práctica posible. (shrink)

This book describes in detail the relationship between symbolic representations of knowledge and abstract states of knowledge, exploring along the way the foundations of knowledge, knowledge bases, knowledge-based systems, and knowledge representation and reasoning. The idea of knowledge bases lies at the heart of symbolic, or "traditional," artificial intelligence. A knowledge-based system decides how to act by running formal reasoning procedures over a body of explicitly represented knowledge—a knowledge base. The system is not programmed for specific tasks; rather, it is (...) told what it needs to know and expected to infer the rest. This book is about the logic of such knowledge bases. It describes in detail the relationship between symbolic representations of knowledge and abstract states of knowledge, exploring along the way the foundations of knowledge, knowledge bases, knowledge-based systems, and knowledge representation and reasoning. Assuming some familiarity with first-order predicate logic, the book offers a new mathematical model of knowledge that is general and expressive yet more workable in practice than previous models. The book presents a style of semantic argument and formal analysis that would be cumbersome or completely impractical with other approaches. It also shows how to treat a knowledge base as an abstract data type, completely specified in an abstract way by the knowledge-level operations defined over it. (shrink)