A considerable number of books and papers have analyzed normative concepts using new techniques developed by logicians; however, few have bridged the gap between the English legal culture and the Continental tradition in legal philosophy. This book addresses this issue by offering an introductory study on the many possibilities that logical analysis offers the study of legal systems. The volume is divided into two sections: the first covers the basic aspects of classical and deontic logic and its connections, advancing an (...) explanation of the most important topics of the discipline by comparing different systems of deontic logic and exploring some of the most important paradoxes in its domain. The second section deals with the role of logic in the analysis of legal systems by discussing in what sense deontic logic and the logic of norm-propositions are useful tools for a proper understanding of the systematic structure of law. (shrink)

The increasing application of artificial intelligence (AI) to healthcare raises both hope and ethical concerns. Some advanced machine learning methods provide accurate clinical predictions at the expense of a significant lack of explainability. Alex John London has defended that accuracy is a more important value than explainability in AI medicine. In this article, we locate the trade-off between accurate performance and explainable algorithms in the context of distributive justice. We acknowledge that accuracy is cardinal from outcome-oriented justice because it helps (...) to maximize patients’ benefits and optimizes limited resources. However, we claim that the opaqueness of the algorithmic black box and its absence of explainability threatens core commitments of procedural fairness such as accountability, avoidance of bias, and transparency. To illustrate this, we discuss liver transplantation as a case of critical medical resources in which the lack of explainability in AI-based allocation algorithms is procedurally unfair. Finally, we provide a number of ethical recommendations for when considering the use of unexplainable algorithms in the distribution of health-related resources. (shrink)

In general, existential threats are those that may potentially result in the extinction of the entire human species, if not significantly endanger its living population. Among the said threats include, but not limited to, pandemics and the impacts of a technological singularity. As regards pandemics, significant work has already been done on how to mitigate, if not prevent, the aftereffects of this type of disaster. For one, certain problem areas on how to properly manage pandemic responses have already been identified, (...) like the following: (a) not being able to learn from previous experiences, (b) the inability to act on warning signals, and (c) the failure to reach a global consensus on a problem (i.e., in a timely manner). In terms of a singularity, however, it may be said that further research is still needed, specifically on how to aptly respond to its projected negative outcomes. In this paper, by treating the three problem areas noted above as preliminary assessment measures of a country’s capacity to coordinate a national response to large-scale disasters, we examine the readiness of the Philippines in preparing for an intelligence explosion. By citing certain instances of how the said country, specifically its national government, faced the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, it puts forward the idea that the likely Philippine disaster response towards a singularity needs to be worked on, appealing for a more comprehensive assessment of such for a more informed response plan. (shrink)

In some small-scale societies, a sexual division of labor is common. For subadult hunter-gatherers, the onset of this division dates to middle childhood and the start of puberty; however, there is apparently no physiological explanation for this timing. The present study uses an experimental approach to evaluate possible energetic differences by sex in gathering-related activities. The energetic cost of gathering-related activities was measured in a sample of 42 subjects of both sexes aged between 8 and 14 years. Body mass and (...) other anthropometric variables were also recorded. Our results show that the energetic differences in the simulated gathering activities depend only on body mass. Both sexes expend a similar amount of energy during locomotion activities related to gathering. Discarding the energetic factor, the sexual division of tasks may be explained as an adaptation to acquire the skills needed to undertake the complex activities required during adulthood as early as possible. Carrying out gathering activities during childhood and adolescence could be favored by the growth and development cycles of Homo sapiens. Moreover, if most of the energetic costs of gathering activities depend on body mass, the delayed growth in humans relative to other primates allows subadults to practice these tasks for longer periods, and to become better at performing them. In fact, this strategy could enable them to acquire adults’ complex skills at a low energetic cost that can be easily subsidized by other members of the group. (shrink)

This article studies Isidore of Seville’s reception of the moral theology of Gregory the Great. Examples will be offered from the Expositio in Vetus Testamentum and the second book of the Differentiae; the moral project of the Sententiae will also be explored. The most significant conclusion is that Isidore refuses to reproduce the most relevant innovations of Gregory’s teaching on charity.

This paper refers to the connection between the metaphysical duality of ground and existence and inner dynamic of the particular will of man. We will analyse how the metaphysical monism, which Schelling attributes to Spinoza and later to Hegel, is responsible for the abolition of the freedom of the human individual, because it does not account for the existence of evil, and consequently reduces it to the existence of a higher order reference system that over and predetermines the individual (1). (...) We will first scrutinise the principles of separation and union, ground and understanding from the human point of view, namely as the will of ground and love, as particular and universal will (2). The will of man reveals itself as the culmination and model of the will that permeates nature, an essential aspect of the process of God’s revelation and becoming. The link between the principles of separation and union shows us the difference that Schellingian thought establishes between man and God, the real and the ideal. While God, or the purely ideal principle, precedes the separation in a logical-ontological sense, the will of man remains always in an indissoluble tension between the principles, since it is unable to overcome the opposition between good and evil that is characteristic of freedom. The good remains one of the results of human freedom and thus of the particular will of man. The good lies for Schelling not in the simple actualization of the general, but in the moment ineradicable particularity needed for the attainment of a real and effective principle (3). It is to this insurmountability of the particular will in the process of the constitution of man that our proposal of Schelling’s libertarian anarchism refers. The connection of this thesis with the critique of the State is also discussed (4). (shrink)

Antonio Caso, “La existencia como economía y como caridad” (1916). Translated with Jose G. Rodriguez Jr. as “Existence as Economy and as Charity,” in 20th Century Mexican Philosophy: Essential Readings, eds. Carlos Alberto Sánchez and Robert Eli Sanchez, Jr. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).

Este artículo busca el reconocimiento del trabajo de los educadores de adultos y sus luchas desde el fin de la dictadura hasta la actualidad para asentar las bases de la educación de adultos.Con una metodología cualitativa de corte exploratorio, basada en entrevistas en profundidad a los profesionales que estuvieron involucrados, este artículo describe los orígenes, las dificultades encontradas y los procesos llevados a cabo en la creación y reconocimiento oficial del centro de educación de adultos Joan Carles I, situado en (...) el barrio de La Mariola de Lleida, que tiene una idiosincrasia propia. (shrink)

Este trabajo de investigación toma varias encuestas aplicadas a nivel internacional y nacional, para identificar la cultura política de los ciudadanos sobre los grandes temas de la agenda nacional y su percepción sobre la democracia. Advierte sobre los problemas que tiene México en torno a las instituciones que garantizan la democracia y advierte sobre cuáles son los rasgos de desmocratización que pueden mostrar las encuestas de opinión como la ENCUCI, aplicada en 2020. Al final, describe las sugerencias con base en (...) la revisión teórica y documental del caso mexicano. (shrink)

Previous research suggests that free will beliefs and moral responsibility beliefs are strongly linked, yet ultimately distinct. Unfortunately, the most common measure of free will beliefs, the free will subscale (FWS) of the Free Will and Determinism Plus, seems to confound free will beliefs and moral responsibility beliefs. Thus, the present research (1,700 participants across two studies) details the development of a 2-factor FWS – the FWS-II – that divides the FWS into a free will subscale and a moral responsibility (...) subscale. The FWS-II showed good fit compared to standard fit thresholds and superior fit compared to the original FWS. The moral responsibility subscale was moderately correlated with general punitive attitudes and specific punitive assignments, even when controlling for the free will subscale. Conversely, the free will subscale was moderately correlated with conservativism and religiosity, even when controlling for the moral responsibility subscale. These results provide evidence that the FWS is better suited – psychometrically, theoretically, and practically – as a 2-factor measure of free will beliefs and moral responsibility beliefs than as a 1-factor measure of free will beliefs. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene el objetivo de dilucidar el contexto, contenido y propósito general de las críticas que Agnes Heller (1929-2019) planteó sobre las filosofías de la historia. Para tal efecto, se revisan algunos de los postulados de estas con el fin de destacar cómo Heller, a propósito del contexto político en el que vivió, volvió su mirada hacia esas filosofías con el fin de escrutar los vínculos que, a su parecer, se tejían entre ellas y los regímenes totalitarios que se (...) forjaron durante el siglo xx. Al respecto, se argumenta que las reflexiones de la autora no se orientaron solamente a dar cuenta de dicha cuestión, sino que, como resultado de su esmerada labor intelectual, de sus convicciones morales y de su propia experiencia personal, encaminó sus esfuerzos hacia la elaboración de una sugerente concepción de la historia que se fundamentó en criterios y principios éticos. (shrink)

The research analyzes the teledentistry service applied in health services during COVID-19, studying the quality of the teledentistry service and the level of satisfaction of patients treated with this care model. A sample of 341 patients was worked on, using the SERVQUAL model. The results showed a statistically significant relationship between quality of service in teledentistry and patient satisfaction (p<0.05), where 34.9% patients perceived low quality of service and dissatisfaction, while 33.7% were pleased with the care. We conclude that, given (...) the dental health difficulties, the population of the Peruvian central jungle is dissatisfied with the teledentistry service. (shrink)

In this article, we present for the first time Schelling’s early critique of absolute idealism within his middle metaphysics (1804–1820), which has great relevance and influence on the subsequent course of German philosophy, and, more broadly considered, on later systematic thinking about the categories of unity and duality. We aim to show how Schelling defends a form of metaphysical duality, from 1804 onwards, without relapsing into a stronger Kantian dualism. In this sense, our author rejects both the dualism between nature (...) and spirit, necessity and freedom, as well as the monist-immanent metaphysical stance later associated with Hegelian panlogism. Against Hegel, Schelling increasingly vindicates the reality of the finite and degrades the infinite to mere ideality in a movement that resembles later existentialism. Furthermore, we defend Schelling against the accusation of irrationalism that sections of Hegelianism formulated against him and present the concept of infinity without the notion of totality, which he thinks of, much like Fichte, in the light of the concept of an ‘infinite task’. Schelling’s later criticisms of Hegel are shown to be influenced by his early idealist critique of the period at hand. (shrink)

Proponemos que ciertos “detalles” (la catálisis, según Barthes) revelan la presencia del poder disciplinario en la esfera del relato moderno. Iniciamos el análisis a partir de algunas unidades descriptivas del Purén Indómito, a las que consideramos antecedentes directos de esa revelación, y concluimos con la novela Martín Rivas y el cuento El matadero. El texto colonial da cuenta detallada de la vida cotidiana en el reino de Chile, cuenta que expresa las estrategias del poder de soberanía, mientras que en los (...) relatos modernos relevará la presencia del poder disciplinario. Así, la presencia de detalles dramáticos en el Purén obedece a lograr la intervención jurídica-moral del monarca en el reino. En cambio, a partir del realismo esos detalles muestran el actuar de los cuerpos a someter y disciplinar, tal y como ocurre en Martín Rivas y El matadero. La estrategia narrativa será entonces sacar a la luz los detalles de las costumbres retrógradas, bárbaras, sucias, de la sociedad latinoamericana para disciplinarlas, limpiarlas y conseguir, así, naciones modernas y productivas. Our proposition is that certain “details” (catalysis, according to Barthes) reveal the presence of disciplinary power in the sphere of modern fiction. Our analysis starts with some of the descriptive units of Purén Indómito, which we consider to be a direct precedent for this revelation, and we conclude with the novella, Martín Rivas, and the short story, El matadero. The text dating from the colonial period gives a detailed account of daily life in the kingdom of Chile, describing the strategies of the sovereign power, while the modern stories highlight the presence of disciplinary power. Thus, the purpose of the dramatic details recounted in Purén is to ensure the legal-moral intervention of the monarch in the kingdom. In realist works, on the other hand, these details show the actions of organisations to subject and discipline the people, just as it occurs in Martín Rivas and El matadero. In this case, the narrative strategy is to exhibit the details of the foul, barbarous, reactionary customs of Latin American societies in order to discipline and purify them, and thus transform them into modern, productive nations. (shrink)

Los estudiantes de las instituciones educativas de educación básica y media en Colombia y en el mundo, se tuvieron que enfrentar a nuevas realidades y situaciones de su proceso académico, debido a la crisis sanitaria del 2020 por el virus COVID 19, que impidió que alrededor de 1370 millones de estudiantes no asistan a la escuela en condiciones tradicionales de educación, en Latinoamérica más de 156 millones de niños y jóvenes, según la UNESCO y en Colombia más de 9,4 millones (...) de niños de educación inicial, básica y media según cifras del MEN Colombia. (shrink)

Diseases causing inherited retinal degeneration in humans, such as retinitis pigmentosa and macular dystrophy, are genetically heterogeneous and clinically diverse. More than 40 genes causing retinal degeneration have been mapped to specific chromosomal sites; of these, at least 10 have been cloned and characterized. Mutations in two proteins, rhodopsin and peripherin/RDS, account for approximately 35% of all cases of autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa and a lesser fraction of other retinal conditions. This target article reviews the genes and mutations causing retinal (...) degeneration and proposes mechanisms whereby specific mutations lead to particular clinical consequences, that is, the relationship between genotype and phenotype. Retinitis pigmentosa and macular dystrophy are genetically heterogeneous diseases that cause retinal degeneration in humans and often result in severe visual impairment or blindness. Although many of the genes causing these diseases have not been identified, three photoreceptor-specific proteins have been implicated: rhodopsin, peripherin/RDS, and the P-subunit of rod phosphodiesterase. Mutations in the genes for these three proteins can cause either dominant retinitis pigmentosa, recessive retinitis pigmentosa, dominant congenital stationary night blindness, or dominant macular degeneration. Why this multiplicity of clinical phenotypes? Our target article summarizes the genetic and biochemical background to this question and proposes a number of possible explanations. Discussion focuses mainly on 73 distinct disease-causing mutations of rhodopsin. We feel that rhodopsin and other photoreceptor proteins can serve as model systems for unraveling the connection between genotype and phenotype, not only for inherited retinal diseases but for other degenerative disorders as well. (shrink)

Recent findings emphasize the complexity, both genetic and functional, of the manifold genes and mutations causing inherited retinal degeneration in humans. Knowledge of the genetic bases of these diseases can contribute to design of rational therapy, as well as elucidating the function of each gene product in normal visual processes.

Adaptive optics are techniques used for processing the spatial resolution of astronomical images taken from large ground-based telescopes. In this work, computational results are presented for a modified curvature sensor, the tomographic pupil image wavefront sensor, which measures the turbulence of the atmosphere, expressed in terms of an expansion over Zernike polynomials. Convolutional neural networks are presented as an alternative to the TPI-WFS reconstruction. This technique is a machine learning model of the family of artificial neural networks, which are widely (...) known for its performance as modeling and prediction technique in complex systems. Results obtained from the reconstruction of the networks are compared with the TPI-WFS reconstruction by estimating errors and optical measurements. The reconstructed wavefronts from both techniques are compared for wavefronts of 153 Zernike modes. For this case, a detailed comparison and grid search to find the most suitable neural network is performed, searching between multi-layer perceptron, CNN and recurrent networks topologies. In general, the best network was a CNN trained for TPI-WFS reconstruction, achieving better performance than the reconstruction software from TPI-WFS in most of the turbulent profiles, but the most significant improvements were found for higher turbulent profiles that have the lowest r0 values. (shrink)

Extractive foraging tasks, such as digging, are broadly practiced among hunter-gatherer populations in different ecological conditions. Despite tuber-gathering tasks being widely practiced by children and adolescents, little research has focused on the physical traits associated with digging ability. Here, we assess how age and energetic expenditure affect the performance of this extractive task. Using an experimental approach, the energetic cost of digging to extract simulated tubers is evaluated in a sample of 40 urban children and adolescents of both sexes to (...) measure the intensity of the physical effort and the influence of several anatomical variables. Digging is a moderately vigorous activity for inexperienced girls and boys from 8 to 14 years old, and it requires significant physical effort depending on strength and body size. However, extracting subterranean resources is a task that may be performed effectively without previous training. Sex-specific and age-specific differences in the net energy expenditure of digging were detected, even though both sexes exhibited similar proficiency levels when performing the task. Our results highlight that both boys and girls spend considerable energy while digging, with differences largely driven by body size and age. Other factors beyond ability and experience, such as strength and body size, may influence the proficiency of juveniles in performing certain physically intensive foraging tasks, such as gathering tubers. (shrink)

Abstract:This visual essay invites renewed reflection on the iconography of the people. In the spring of 2020, Guatemala's President Alejandro Giammattei prohibited citizens from leaving their homes to help contain the spread of the novel coronavirus known as Covid-19. Doing little to manage the spread of the virus, these curfew events gave new aesthetic and political meaning to a familiar visual genre: photographs of empty streets. For more than a century, and especially in the summer of 2020, images of crowds (...) and mass protests have provided both governments on the one hand, and protesting multitudes on the other with an aesthetic representation of the people. But this interest in collective assemblies has tended to engage only one side of the equation. To fully appreciate the visual power of the people, it is also necessary to understand those images from which people are strikingly absent. (shrink)

¿Cómo justificar la validez jurídica de aquellas normas cuya creación no puede ser evaluada como regular o irregular por apelación a ninguna otra norma jurídica? Entre las respuestas más ilustres a este problema se cuentan la norma fundante kelseniana y la regla de reconocimiento de Hart, pero cada una de esas ideas ha sido objeto de serias críticas. Eugenio Bulygin ha efectuado aportes decisivos en esta discusión: ha advertido que cuando se examina el fundamento último de la validez de las (...) normas jurídicas es preciso discriminar un sentido prescriptivo y uno descriptivo de validez, y que la norma fundante de Kelsen no es sino el producto de una confusión entre ambos; ha resaltado que la regla de reconocimiento debe interpretarse como una regla conceptual que especifica los criterios de identificación de las normas jurídicas, y ha señalado que las normas de competencia no pueden reconstruirse como normas de conducta. Si bien con tales aportes ha sentado las bases para ofrecer una solución, su reconstrucción requiere de ciertas precisiones para poder ser considerada una respuesta enteramente satisfactoria a la pregunta respecto del fundamento último de la validez jurídica. How is it possible to ground the legal validity of those rules whose creation cannot be assessed as regular or irregular by reference to any other legal rule? Kelsen's basic norm and Hart's rule of recognition are among the most famous answers to this question, but both ideas have been seriously challenged. Eugenio Bulygin has made decisive contributions to this discussion. He has shown that in the analysis of the ultimate ground of validity of legal rules, two different senses of validity should be distinguished: a prescriptive and a descriptive sense, and that the Kelsenian basic norm is nothing but the product of confusion between these two different senses. He has also claimed that the rule of recognition has to be understood as a conceptual rule specifying the criteria of identification of legal rules, and those power-conferring rules cannot be interpreted as prescriptive norms of conduct. Although these contributions have provided a basic framework for a possible solution, Bulygin's ideas need a refinement in order to be considered as a satisfactory answer to the question concerning the ultimate ground of legal validity. (shrink)

Being located in the horizon of the philosophical outrage, our article purpose is to show the phenomenological basis of Max Scheler’s anthropological proposal, whose immediate antecedents were Husserl’s researches regarding to the correlation man-world, the debate held between phenomenology and the incursion of psychology within the field of the objectives sciences, the develop of a growing up discipline such as physiology, and in general the gradual consolidation of evolutionary theories, which were taking from the philosophical anthropology his conceit of prevailing (...) discipline in the explanation of human phenomena. In the midst this theoretical chaos Scheler in The man’s place in the cosmos radicalize the thesis of I – world correlation of life, guiding the study of man closer to the eidetic transcendental pretention, and beyond the purely empirical description. According to this we understand that Scheler develops an anthropological proposal with a phenomenological nature. (shrink)

The main aim of this work is to indirectly display, through an analysis of the concepts of world, God, and human freedom, the shift from a harmonious concept of nature to another chaotic, darker, and pre-rational. It is important to relate this transformation, which takes place around 1807, to the change in Schelling’s ideas about the relationship between God and the world to weaken a previous Spinozist monistic standpoint. These changes in turn affect Schelling’s view of the concept of unity. (...) He now modifies the notions of immanence and pantheism in favour of a dualistic doctrine of particular and finite existence that we could relate to Kierkegaard and later existentialists. Finally, we introduce Schelling’s theory of love. Love is a mode of union through free will and personal choice that neutralizes the totalizing metaphysics of identity associated to the systematic construction of idealism from Spinoza to Hegel, and that Schelling criticizes, in his middle and late philosophy, as a resource to a self-transparent and overdetermining Absolute. (shrink)