A biography of Pedro Alfonso is proposed from the information today known. There is reproduced our mathematical deduction of the icon Trinitario of a parchment of Chartres of the XIIIth century from a figure precabalística introduced in 1110 by Pedro Alfonso of Huesca and it is presented three other materializations of the «alternated link of three rings any two not linked».

On propose une biographie de Petrus Alfonsi de Huesca. On reproduit notre déduction mathématique de l'icone Trinitaire d'un parchemin de Chartres, du Xlll siècle, depuis la figure précabalistique de Petrus Alfonsi, qu'il a introduit dans son oeuvre Dialogue contre les juifs en l'année 1110. On presente aussi trois matérialisations de I'enlacement alterné de trois anneaux deux à deux non enlacés.A Biography of Pedro Alfonso es proposed from the information today known. There is repruduced our mathematical deduction of the icon Trinitario (...) of a parchment of Chartres of the XIIIth century from a figure precabalistica introduced in 1110 by Pedro of Huesca and it is presented three other materializations of the "alternated link of three any two nost linked". (shrink)

En este trabajo se atiende a algunos problemas de la subjetividad moderna y a la cuestión de la identidad personal. Trata de alcanzar la definición de persona que puede superar tanto el atomismo social como el individualismo. Llevando a cabo esto, explora la distinción de Leonardo Polo entre vida y viviente.

Summary The paper follows the lives of Mateu Orfila and François Magendie in early nineteenth-century Paris, focusing on their common interest in poisons. The first part deals with the striking similarities of their early careers: their medical training, their popular private lectures, and their first publications. The next section explores their experimental work on poisons by analyzing their views on physical and vital forces in living organisms and their ideas about the significance of animal experiments in medicine. The last (...) part describes their contrasting research on the absorption of poisons and the divergences in their approaches, methods, aims, standards of proof, and intended audiences. The analysis highlights the connections between nineteenth-century courtrooms and experimental laboratories, and shows how forensic practice not only prompted animal experimentation but also provided a substantial body of information and new research methods for dealing with major theoretical issues like the absorption of poisons. (shrink)

Summary The paper follows the lives of Mateu Orfila and François Magendie in early nineteenth-century Paris, focusing on their common interest in poisons. The first part deals with the striking similarities of their early careers: their medical training, their popular private lectures, and their first publications. The next section explores their experimental work on poisons by analyzing their views on physical and vital forces in living organisms and their ideas about the significance of animal experiments in medicine. The last (...) part describes their contrasting research on the absorption of poisons and the divergences in their approaches, methods, aims, standards of proof, and intended audiences. The analysis highlights the connections between nineteenth-century courtrooms and experimental laboratories, and shows how forensic practice not only prompted animal experimentation but also provided a substantial body of information and new research methods for dealing with major theoretical issues like the absorption of poisons. (shrink)

Summary The paper follows the lives of Mateu Orfila and François Magendie in early nineteenth-century Paris, focusing on their common interest in poisons. The first part deals with the striking similarities of their early careers: their medical training, their popular private lectures, and their first publications. The next section explores their experimental work on poisons by analyzing their views on physical and vital forces in living organisms and their ideas about the significance of animal experiments in medicine. The last (...) part describes their contrasting research on the absorption of poisons and the divergences in their approaches, methods, aims, standards of proof, and intended audiences. The analysis highlights the connections between nineteenth-century courtrooms and experimental laboratories, and shows how forensic practice not only prompted animal experimentation but also provided a substantial body of information and new research methods for dealing with major theoretical issues like the absorption of poisons. (shrink)

Ha sido mi interés en los últimos años reflexionar formalmente sobre la conciencia en referencia a sus fundamentos y aspectos biológicos, en especial los cerebrales y los de comportamiento. Urdiendo sobre sus aspectos fisiológicos, fenomenológicos, epistemológicos y ontológicos, he explorado la naturaleza del dolor como un estado paradigmático de conciencia en un cuento de “neurociencia ficción” (Díaz, 2002), en un trabajo publicado en Salud Mental (Díaz, 2007) y en un libro sobre la conciencia viviente (Díaz, 2007). Estos análisis utilizan (...) al dolor como un fenómeno de conciencia fértil para examinar las principales conjeturas vigentes sobre la relación mente cuerpo y el problema epistemológico del acceso científico a la conciencia. La presente comunicación es un breve repaso de las principales ideas exploradas que se especifican en un decálogo de afirmaciones sobre la naturaleza y el conocimiento del dolor. Medical Epistemology: Ten Postulates on Pain It has been my interest in recent years to formally reflect on consciousness’s biological aspects and foundations, especially the brain-related and behavioral ones. In dwelling on its physiological, phenomenological, epistemological and ontological aspects, I have explored the nature of pain as a paradigmatic state of consciousness in a “neuroscience-fiction” tale (Díaz, 2002), in a work published in Mental Health (Díaz, 2007), and in a book on living consciousness (Díaz, 2007). These analyses use pain as a fertile consciousness phenomenon in order to examine the main current conjectures on the mind-body relation and the epistemological problem of scientific access to consciousness. This work is a brief summary of the main ideas explored, specified as a Decalogue of statements on the nature and knowledge of pain. (shrink)

Este ensayo muestra la diferencia entre neoliberalismo y ordoliberalismo a partir de las raíces weberianas del segundo movimiento. Decisivas en este sentido son las críticas de Weber a los ideales-tipo de las abstracciones económicas clásicas y las necesarias determinaciones desde los "hombres vivientes". Para identificar estas raíces el ensayo usa tanto de las reflexiones de Weber como de las aportaciones decisivas de Foucault en "El nacimiento de la biopolítica".

El concepto ontológico de «deseo» ha sido elaborado por el dualismo falogocéntrico a partir de las ideas de falta, privación, materia, caída, prohibición o culpa, con la intención de erradicar del cuerpo viviente la energía activa y creadora de lo real, y remitirla a la trascendencia inaccesible del espíritu puro. Habida cuenta del modo en que la diferencia sexual femenina ha sido inscripta por el falogocentrismo hegemónico del lado de la falta, la pasividad, la materia y el mal, el (...) vaciamiento del deseo coincide estrictamente con la eliminación del cuerpo materno y la dominación patriarcal. En tal contexto, el presente artículo se propone restituir el deseo a su potencia de creación en mediación materno-material. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza las caracterizaciones de la vida como autopoiesis, autoorganización, sistema complejo organizado, en términos de la visión de Polo de la vida como praxis orgánica. Se consideran especialmente las notas del automovimiento y el crecimiento. El viviente puede entenderse a la luz de la concausalidad como sustancia "más que hilemórfica" en cuanto la forma viviente incorpora el movimiento de un modo intrínseco.

La biología sintética es una ciencia y tecnología emergente, o mejor, una tecnociencia, que converge con otras como la nanotecnología, las tecnologías de la información y de la comunicación, la robótica, la inteligencia artificial o la neurociencia. Todas ellas poseen rasgos comunes que apuntan a unas repercusiones sociales y ambientales de lo más preocupantes. Con sus ambiciosos fines de control de la complejidad, rediseño y creación de nuevas entidades vivientes, la biología sintética ejemplifica a la perfección una nueva realidad bioeconómica, (...) que exige ampliar el foco de la discusión más allá de los limitados análisis comparativos de riesgos y beneficios, para encarar las incertidumbres, reasignar responsabilidades y plantear a fondo una evaluación social de todo lo que está en juego. (shrink)

The paper develops an account of semantic notions which occupies a middle ground between antirealism and traditional forms of realism, using some ideas from the work of John McDowell. The position is based on a contrast between two points of view from which we might attempt to characterize our linguistic practices from the cosmic exile s point of view and from the midst of language as a going concern. The contrast is drawn in terms of whether our characterization of our (...) linguistic practices is taken to result from engagement in the very same practices that we are trying to characterize. The position takes realism to be correct when understood as an account from the internal perspective, but incorrect when taken as an account from the external perspective. However, the intelligibility of the question as to what our practices would look like from the cosmic exile s point of view is presented as problematic. (shrink)

There is a question that has not been raised in the literature on Japan's regionalism: Why does it have a strong tendency toward making the boundary of the proposed East Asian community fluid? By looking back beyond the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of the 1940s, a method hitherto untried, the paper shows that this Japanese propensity was also present in the first half of the twentieth century, especially in the 1920s and 1930s. Moreover, both then and now, Japan did (...) not and does not have a firm adherence to an ideology. These are two similarities between the pre-World War II period and the present (from the 1960s). On the other hand, Japan's present international situation is very different from its pre-World War II position. The paper uses the logic of the comparative method, which states that in two cases that are different in most aspects but the same in some, one or some of the similarities may explain the other similarity or similarities. It concludes that in both periods, the lack of a firm commitment to an ideology explains Japan's prejudice toward boundary fluidity. This explanation has the potential to contribute to a more comprehensive, if not yet a general theory of Japan's approach to regionalism because it applies not only to the present, but to the past as well. And it has to be stressed, the past refers not only to the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of the 1940s but also to the decades before. (shrink)

An account of predicate reference is presented which attempts to steer a middle course between reductionism, which construes the notion in terms of speakers' inclinations, and {transcendent) realism, which construes the notion in terms of properties. It is first introduced in the context of a discussion of the accounts of length (distance) advanced by Hans Reichenbach, Adolf Grünbaum and Hilary Putnam. A general account of predicate reference is then developed that explains the notion in terms of speakers' inclinations, while rejecting (...) the idea that this explanation should take the form of a reduction. The view is presented as a vindication of extreme nominalism, as it explains predicate reference solely in terms of the notion of qualia introduced by C.I. Lewis and developed by Nelson Goodman, which, it is argued, is definable in terms of speakers' classificatory propensities. Some connections are explored between the position that is presented and the views of Michael Dummett, John McDowell, Mark Johnston and Hilary Putnam, among others. (shrink)

In this paper I assess the two central ingredients of Laurence BonJour’s position on empirical knowledge that have survived the transition from his earlier coherentist views to his current endorsement of the doctrine of the given: his construal of the problem of the epistemic regress and his rejection of an internalist solution to the problem. The bulk of the paper is devoted to a critical assessment of BonJour’s arguments against externalism. I argue that they fail to put real pressure on (...) externalism, as they rely on a highly questionable conception of epistemic rationality and responsibility. Then, more briefly, I take issue with BonJour’s endorsement of the irrelevance thesis—the claim that even if externalism were true it would not offer a satisfactory solution to the epistemic regress problem. I contend that he is not entitled to subscribe this thesis unless he is prepared to abandon his construal of the problem. (shrink)

Ariel es un ensayo publicado por el uruguayo José Enrique Rodó en 1900 y considerado como una de las obras de mayor influencia en el campo de la cultura y la política latinoamericanas. Es un texto breve compuesto de seis partes. Se caracteriza por su contenido filosófico y su tono pedagógico. Está dirigido principalmente a la juventud hispanoamericana, como señala el autor, para advertirles contra el utilitarismo y contra lo que él llama la nordomanía. Utiliza los personajes de La (...) tempestad de William Shakespeare: Próspero, Ariel y Calibán. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that when Aristotle uses the word ‘ἀρχή’ he is often referring to what we call a condition, whether necessary, sufficient or necessary and sufficient. To this end I will discuss how conditions for being, change, and knowledge, as identified by Aristotle, can be equated to ontological, physical and noetic principles, respectively.

Hablar de adolescentes consumidores de drogas supone deducir automáticamente conductas delictivas, violentas, faltas de respeto en la escuela, marginalidad, etc. Todo ello haciéndonos eco de la experiencia social que relaciona consumo y conductas desadaptadas. Esto si no nos ponemos a generalizar y clasificamos a todos los adolescentes como realizadores de estas conductas inadecuadas. Es como si de repente hubiésemos perdido a toda una generación, de hecho hemos llegado a inventarnos un nombre en función de los que no saben hacer y (...) no de lo que son: "generación ni-ni". Partir de esta premisa es un grave error, implica asumir que los adolescentes que hacen as cosas bien (la inmensa mayoría de ellos), son seres extraños e inadaptados que sólo ocuparán su puesto en la sociedad si se dedican a realizar estas conductas. (shrink)

Replies to contributions to a symposium on the book, Scepticism and Reliable Belief.

El trabajo pretende mostrar, en primer lugar, que el raciovitalismo de José Ortega y Gasset constituye una de las líneas posibles del proceso de transformación hermenéutica del pensamiento contemporáneo. La impronta nietzscheana de carácter hermenéutico en el desarrollo del pensamiento orteguiano se manifiesta en aspectos muy relevantes, como la importancia del cuerpo y la innovadora noción de vida, que son asuntos decisivos para comprender el deporte.En segundo lugar, hay que aprovechar las ricas reflexiones de Ortega y Gasset sobre el (...) deporte, que tienen un alcance muy relevante para la entera vida humana, a partir de la reivindicación de una noción de cuerpo viviente y de una nueva noción de la vida. El deporte forma parte de un horizonte vital no reducido por la estrecha perspectiva utilitaria, sino que anuncia la forma superior de la existencia humana, la apertura a un sentido festival y creativo de la vida. Ésta exige una disciplina, que no se conforma con el mero cumplimiento correcto de unas normas, sino que incita a perfeccionarse indefinidamente. La cualidad de lo deportivo es la vitalidad creativa, una nueva forma de entender la vida. Porque desde esta nueva perspectiva vital, ya no sirve como modelo el homo oeconomicus, sino que el fenómeno vital entendido de modo deportivo es festival, alegre, creativo, agonal y olímpico, libérrimamente esforzado, fuente de energía con sentido. La vida es en principio creación, experimento creador, como en la concepción nietzscheana. (shrink)