El presente artículo busca presentar el proyecto institucional Árbol de la Memoria, el cual consistió en la recuperación de la memoria de 13 trabajadores forestales y agrarios de la Corporación Nacional Forestal Región de La Araucanía, Chile, que fueron asesinados entre los días 6 y 7 de octubre de 1973 en los fundos “Carmen, Maitenes y Pemehue”, en lo que es actualmente la Reserva Nacional Malleco, sector los Guindos, comuna de Collipulli y de Mulchén. A lo largo del artículo se (...) realiza un análisis cualitativo y estudio de caso, presentando extractos de entrevistas realizadas a los familiares directos de las víctimas, como así también una problematización teórica mediante la utilización de bibliografía especializada que otorga una explicación de los sucesos acaecidos y los peligros actuales que enfrenta el sitio. (shrink)

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and (...) political philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

Victory is the ultimate aim in high performance sports; when it comes to team sports, the goal is the key that allows players to achieve that victory. This is the case with futsal which, due to its internal structure as well as the speed in the development of its game, makes the achievement of a goal not an isolated event, but rather more than one goal must be scored to achieve victory. The aim of the present study is to analyze (...) the construction of offensive sequences that have resulted in goal-scoring in the two main European futsal leagues, the Spanish and the Italian, as well as to identify the patterns relating to offensive actions that have ended with a goal being scored. Observational methodology was used to develop the research and an ad hoc observation instrument was developed for this purpose. The data was analyzed using inferential statistics as well as sequential analysis of delays in a diachronic analysis to identify the patterns of offensive actions. The results obtained enable recognition of a league’s idiosyncrasy patterns in goal-scoring in each of the leagues studied. The results obtained will allow experts to have a better understanding of how goals are scored and how to establish more specific training tasks, in both attack and defense. (shrink)

The main goal of this article is to explain the transdisciplinary training model developed at the National University of Education in Ecuador, based on the ancestral worldviews of Buen Vivir. Good Living is a philosophical and political concept of the Kichwa indigenous peoples in the Andean Region, where human beings are interconnected with planet Earth and the whole cosmos. In 2008, Ecuador became the first country in the world to recognize the Rights of Nature in its Constitution, in order to (...) face climate change and to restore the ecological footprint. This article first unifies scientific knowledge with ancestral wisdom, creating an inter-epistemological dialogue using a transdisciplinary approach. Second, the article explores the epistemological notions of transdisciplinary education: self-training, hetero-training, eco-training, and onto-training. Third, the article argues that as a result, Educational Sciences of Good Living emerged to design regenerative cultures that face socio-ecological challenges of the Anthropocene age. In sum, the article argues that training transdisciplinary educators implies an intercultural, decolonial, and biocentric approach that promotes their inner spiritual self-awareness, among other perceptive, affective, emotional, rhetorical, poetic, epistemic, creative, artistic, cognitive, and philosophical dimensions. (shrink)

As systems based on opaque Artificial Intelligence (AI) continue to flourish in diverse real-world applications, understanding these black box models has become paramount. In response, Explainable AI (XAI) has emerged as a field of research with practical and ethical benefits across various domains. This paper not only highlights the advancements in XAI and its application in real-world scenarios but also addresses the ongoing challenges within XAI, emphasizing the need for broader perspectives and collaborative efforts. We bring together experts from diverse (...) fields to identify open problems, striving to synchronize research agendas and accelerate XAI in practical applications. By fostering collaborative discussion and interdisciplinary cooperation, we aim to propel XAI forward, contributing to its continued success. Our goal is to put forward a comprehensive proposal for advancing XAI. To achieve this goal, we present a manifesto of 27 open problems categorized into nine categories. These challenges encapsulate the complexities and nuances of XAI and offer a road map for future research. For each problem, we provide promising research directions in the hope of harnessing the collective intelligence of interested stakeholders. (shrink)

This article studies natural food packaging as enabling artifacts of the traditional material culture of Antioquia in Colombia. For this purpose, we consider artifacts as objective nodes that combine design and use intentions, functions, materials, histories, artifactual lineages, and cooperative relationships that stabilize ritualized practices of a human group. We take the example of natural packaging as artifacts that enablers and stabilizers of traditional cooking and food preparation practices. Natural packaging materials are here assumed to be leaves having some favorable (...) property to contain a food product. After providing a theoretical reflection, we analyze the data collected from fieldwork we conducted in two towns in Antioquia, Colombia (Santa Fe de Antioquia and Amagá), as well as from an interview with an expert in the field. Finally, we show that it is possible to postulate an analysis under a relational ontological description of a traditional practice with conceptual categories of the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

El presente escrito tiene por objetivo demostrar cómo el estado actual del capitalismo neoliberal, entendido como una fuerza productora de la subjetividad basada en el rendimiento [síntesis de la disciplina (Foucault) y el control (Deleuze y Guattari) que se cataliza con la digitalidad (Han, Berardi, Fisher, entre otros)], se centra en ejercer una colonización frente al tiempo como concepto estructural de la existencia humana para poder desplegar un sistema de dispositivos psicopolíticos que le permitan su reproducción sistémica. Para conseguir este (...) objetivo la investigación cuenta con tres momentos: el primero expone el paso del domino espacial del capitalismo fordista al neoliberalismo actual de carácter temporal desde una disincronía del tiempo. El segundo explica la desfactificación del mundo como la pérdida del vínculo humano con la realidad, lo que perturba directamente el estado de ánimo de los sujetos desde un peso cargado de nihilismo. Finalmente, se expone la psicopolítica como un concepto que parte tanto de la disincronía como de la desfactificación para posicionar un dominio sugestivo de la psique humana. (shrink)

En el Gorgias, Platón distingue el modo de ser y actuar propio del filósofofrente al modo de ser y actuar propio del retórico. Para esto, usa comocriterio a la misma retórica a partir de la distinción retórica aduladora – retóricacientífica. Frente a esto, Aristóteles realiza una toma de posición quereformula las críticas platónicas referentes a la posibilidad de una technêretórica. El presente texto confrontara las condiciones que según el Gorgiasdebe cumplir la retórica para llegar a ser technê con las características (...) que,según Aristóteles, tiene la retórica a partir de su relación con la dialéctica. (shrink)

Conceptual congruency effects are biases induced by an irrelevant conceptual dimension of a task (e.g., location in vertical space) on the processing of another, relevant dimension (e.g., judging words’ emotional evaluation). Such effects are a central empirical pillar for recent views about how the mind/brain represents concepts. In the present paper, we show how attentional cueing (both exogenous and endogenous) to each conceptual dimension succeeds in modifying both the manifestation and the symmetry of the effect. The theoretical implications of this (...) finding are discussed. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo diagnosticar el estado de la competencia comunicativa en estudiantes de primer año de pedagogía, considerando las competencias léxica, de comprensión lectora y de producción escrita. Para ello, en el marco de un estudio de caso, se diseñaron y adaptaron tres instrumentos, uno para cada competencia: test de disponibilidad léxica, test de comprensión lectora y rúbrica para evaluar una tarea de escritura argumentativa. Dentro de los principales hallazgos, destaca que el rendimiento más alto corresponde al desempeño (...) en lectura, por sobre escritura, quedando el desempeño léxico en tercer lugar. Se concluye que los resultados obtenidos permiten clasificar los desempeños en niveles iniciales y que, si bien no es posible hablar de la existencia de una correlación, los vínculos más estrechos se presentan entre lectura-escritura, léxico-escritura y léxico-lectura, respectivamente. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente estudio es describir dos experiencias de implementaci ó n de un programa de intervenci ó n dirigido a j ó venes y adolescentes españoles y dominicanos. El programa se desarrolla mediante la estrategia de gamificaci ó n a travé s del videojuego "Aislados" que contribuye al desarrollo del aprendizaje social y emocional. Se comparan las experiencias, incluyendo los resultados de autopercepci ó n en ambos contextos.

La gamificación o ludificación, entendida como la aplicación de la filosofía del juego en contextos no lúdicos, está experimentando en los últimos años un desarrollo espectacular en áreas de diversa naturaleza. Si bien está más que comúnmente aceptado que las funciones principales de los museos consisten en preservar y dar a conocer sus colecciones, resulta fundamental que logren conectar de manera satisfactoria con los usuarios empleando para ello medios y estrategias innovadoras y accesibles. En las siguientes páginas ponemos de manifiesto (...) cómo la gamificación no es sino un recurso idóneo para motivar, fidelizar e influir en el comportamiento de los usuarios. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease pandemic fundamentally disrupted humans’ social life and behavior. Public health measures may have inadvertently impacted how people care for each other. This study investigated prosocial behavior, its association well-being, and predictors of prosocial behavior during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and sought to understand whether region-specific differences exist. Participants from eight regions clustering multiple countries around the world responded to a cross-sectional online-survey investigating the psychological consequences of the first upsurge of lockdowns in spring 2020. Prosocial behavior (...) was reported to occur frequently. Multiple regression analyses showed that prosocial behavior was associated with better well-being consistently across regions. With regard to predictors of prosocial behavior, high levels of perceived social support were most strongly associated with prosocial behavior, followed by high levels of perceived stress, positive affect and psychological flexibility. Sociodemographic and psychosocial predictors of prosocial behavior were similar across regions. (shrink)

v. 1. El tiempo histórico de Mario Hernández Sánchez-Barba -- v. 2. Generaciones y mentalidades. Estudios de teoría de la Historia.

Objective: Illness perceptions are important predictors of emotional and behavioral responses in many diseases. The current study aims to investigate the COVID-19-related IP throughout Europe. The specific goals are to understand the temporal development, identify predictors and examine the impacts of IP on perceived stress and preventive behaviors.Methods: This was a time-series-cross-section study of 7,032 participants from 16 European countries using multilevel modeling from April to June 2020. IP were measured with the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire. Temporal patterns were observed (...) considering the date of participation and the date recoded to account the epidemiological evolution of each country. The outcomes considered were perceived stress and COVID-19 preventive behaviors.Results: There were significant trends, over time, for several IP, suggesting a small decrease in negativity in the perception of COVID-19 in the community. Age, gender, and education level related to some, but not all, IP. Considering the self-regulation model, perceptions consistently predicted general stress and were less consistently related to preventive behaviors. Country showed no effect in the predictive model, suggesting that national differences may have little relevance for IP, in this context.Conclusion: The present study provides a comprehensive picture of COVID-19 IP in Europe in an early stage of the pandemic. The results shed light on the process of IP formation with implications for health-related outcomes and their evolution. (shrink)

El presente escrito presenta las ventajas y desventajas de la formalización matemática como una herramienta para el análisis de argumentos complejos o difusos en la filosofía. De tal forma, aquí se encuentra un recorrido histórico de algunas consideraciones del papel de las matemáticas en la búsqueda del conocimiento. Posterior a ello, se muestra cómo por medio de la teoría de conjuntos y laabstracción matemática, es posible proponer una reinterpretación de algunos textos filosóficos. Para lograr este objetivo, se presenta, a manera (...) de ejemplo, la formalización de los conceptos de “Dios”, “error” y “Creación” dados por Descartes en su libro las Meditaciones de la filosofía primera, este ejercicio permiteproponer una paradoja en donde se evidencia una posible falencia en la delimitación del concepto de Dios. Con todo ello, se demuestra por qué los enfoques matemáticos deben ser promovidos en los estudios filosóficos. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to expose the function of the culture and thought of the Far East, expressed in Japanese Zen Buddhism and Chinese Chan (as well as, in general, in Chinese philosophy and culture), within the thought of Byung-Chul Han. This dimension of the Korean's work has not been sufficiently deepened in the analyses that are made of him. This error leads to mistakes such as stating that there is no emancipation proposal in Han or that his (...) work is limited to a pessimistic description of the world. Thus, the investigation that follows the bibliographic-documental research method is divided into three moments; the first exposes the foundations of the philosophy of Zen-chan Buddhism developed by Han; the second delineates the ontology of Hanian falsification and; the third, analyzes the theses on the East within Han's theoretical project. (shrink)

The Search for the Legacy of the USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee is a collection of essays from experts in a variety of fields seeking to redefine the legacy of the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The essayists place the legacy of the study within the evolution of racial and ethnic relations in the United States. Contributors include two leading historians on the study, two former United States Surgeons General, and other prominent scholars from a wide range of fields.

The study of some real reasonings (observed in the Humanities) reveals the very heterogeneous nature of the arguments used in the building of scientific knowledge and the complexity of their overall architecture. The building of a formal theory of the trace of these mental processes on the classical grounds of logic seems quite impossible. Instead, we propose a flexible methodology based on some local formal models, integrated in a global strategy. This strategy allows an empirical, but systematic, description of the (...) process of reasoning as a whole.The local models can be very different, from plausible inference to conditional transitivity. Their integration is based on some argumentative markers or structures (topoï). We propose a procedural semantics for some of them.This paper is based on the AVEROES Project, a study of the sea-borne trade in the Occidental Mediterranean Sea during the Roman Empire. (shrink)

The analysis of the time is a matter of first importance in the philosophical investigation. Roman Ingarden, who was a distinguished disciple of Husserl, developed an interesting theory about temporally determined objects. In this paper are presented the fundamental elements of his theory and the difficulties implied in the Ingarden’s intent to define time with independence of the subjectivity. Finally, it is argued that it is possible applying partially the concepts developed by Ingarden in order to progress in the analysis (...) of the time, as it emerges in the own subjectivity, where exist an equilibrium of endurance and transience. (shrink)

The opponents of Epicureanism in antiquity, including Cicero, Plutarch and Lactantius, succeeded in establishing a famous cliché: the theoretical and practical disinterest of Epicurus and the Epicureans in political communities. However, this anti-Epicurean literature did not provide considerations of Epicurean political theory or the testimonies about Epicurean lifestyle. Therefore, the purpose of this book is to shed light on the contribution of Epicurean thought to political life in the ancient world. Incorporating the most up-to-date archaeological material, including papyri which have (...) been recovered from Herculaneum and the Greek epigraphy of the Roman Epicureans, this volume will bring to the foreground new testimonies surrounding the public activities of the Epicureans. In this way, the reader will learn that Epicurean political theory is, in fact, a crucial ingredient of its philosophy. As a result, this connection creates an ongoing dialogue with the Greek philosophical tradition, revealing the presence of Plato in the Epicurean political model. (shrink)

L'immagine del "grembo materno della natura" da cui la ragione umana si deve emancipare per guadagnare la libertà è usata da Kant in uno scritto polemico contro Herder, Mutmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte , che può essere considerato una risposta al libro decimo delle Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, uscito nel 1785. Seguendo il racconto biblico, anche Kant pone la prima coppia umana in un "giardino", un luogo sicuro e ben fornito di alimenti; ma il vero inizio della storia (...) è fatto consistere nella rottura di questo equilibrio ad opera della ragione che gradualmente si è sottratta alla tutela della natura, imparando un po' alla volta a dominarla. Kant dichiara di condividere l'ideale rousseauiano di una cultura che non neghi la natura dell'uomo ma la promuova in quella che dovrà diventare la sua condizione fondamentale di esistenza, che è la libertà. Pone tuttavia questo ideale come termine finale del processo storico, non come condizione da recuperare nella sua purezza iniziale, ritornando alle origini, come invece appariva nella visione della storia proposta da Herder, che avrebbe su questo punto frainteso il pensiero di Rousseau. The image of the "womb of nature", from which human reason must emancipate itself in order to gain freedom, is used by Kant in a pamphlet against Herder. This was the Mutmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte , which can be considered a response to the tenth book of Herder's Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, published in 1785. Following the biblical account, Kant imagines the first two human beings in a "garden", a place safe and well-stocked with food; but the real beginning of history consists in the disruption of this balance produced by reason. Human reason gradually removes itself from the protection of nature, learning gradually to dominate nature. Kant shares Rousseau's idea of a culture that does not deny the nature of man, but promotes it in order to attain the fundamental condition of human existence, which is freedom. However, this ideal remains only as the final term of historical process, not as a condition to be regained in its original purity. The latter was the vision of history proposed by Herder, who on this point misunderstood the thought of Rousseau. (shrink)

The following article studies the liberalitas as the roman virtue that causes the roman elites' munificent behaviour. We study what liberalitas means for Cicero's De Officiis (his best-known philosophical and political work) and compare his idea of this virtue whit others ancient writer's ideas on the same subject. We discover that sometimes the munificent behaviour we know by epigraphical documentation was not liberalis as Cicero wanted to be, and was only the exhibition of elites' pride that doesn't follow the limits (...) that from an ethical point of view this virtue should have. (shrink)

El pensamiento político de Mario Briceño Iragorry está atravesado por profundas pinceladas utópicas. Su preocupación por alertar las trampas de la historia y las manipulaciones de la política, le llevaron a proponer un antidiscurso desde la sensibilidad como código ético y el pasado colonial a..

There are currently serious concerns that published scientific findings often fail to be reproducible, and that some solutions may be gleaned by attending the several methodological and sociological recommendations that could be found in the literature. However, researchers would also arrive at some answers by considering the advice of the philosophy of science, particularly semantics, about theses on truth related to scientific realism. Sometimes scientists understand the correspondence thesis of truth as asserting that the next unique empirical confirmation of a (...) hypothesis suffices to attribute truth to it provisionally. Such empiricist bias is not necessarily at the core of CTT, but Mario Bunge proposed the synthetic thesis of truth, based on CTT, to explicitly avoid the bias. STT requires considering a hypothesis corroborated, both by purely empirical confirmation and external consistency or compatibility with the bulk of existing background knowledge. While a capricious understanding of CTT could be rigged to recommend the “one shot game” in hypothesis testing, STT clearly demands the use of multiple approaches, empirical as well as theoretical, and it asserts that a scientific test is effective to the extent to which it is neither purely empirical, nor viewed in isolation. Pattern consistency together with an understanding of causal relations make confirmed hypotheses robust and more reliable. The militancy of the double mechanism of hypothesis control of STT can help mitigate the reproducibility crisis. Earl Werner’s research program in community ecology is an example of the use of STT criteria, which leads to the development of reliable, cross-checked, ecological results, with high predictive capacity. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false ES-CO X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} The very core of the Aristotelian philosophy, where the great metaphysical issues tackled by his predecessors (especially Plato and the philosophers from the Academy) were reconsidered, is structured around the notions of being (einai, tó ón), substance (...) (ousía) and form (eidos, tó ti en einai), largely discussed by Aristotle in the central books of Metaphysics. The understanding of the solutions provided by Aristotle to the aporethic questions formulated and developed by him in the Beta and Kappa 1-2 books concerning the proper object of the first philosophy, the determination of the existent substances as well as the determination of the nature of the first principles of reality, depend all of them on the correct interpretation of such notions. (shrink)

Perniola takes his inspiration from ancient Roman religion and its demystification of myth as ritual without myth. This demystification of ritual does not entail a process of secularization nor does it compromise the sacred character of myth. Instead, it is an attempt to establish a link or a transit between the sacred and the profane. The repetitive nature of ritual thinking is an attempt to relate the individual to the hard nuts of experience-sexuality, death, and the vast complexity of the (...) world.These realities are opaque and impenetrable, indifferent and extraneous to subjective purpose and good intentions. They appear to be 'things' that are irreducible to the life of the spirit and to its ideal aspirations. Where philosophy breaks down in coping with these actualities, ritual thinking provides a symbolic means. Today we witness the global dissemination of behaviors that have lost their original meaning. These behaviors and patterns of thought have become the modern rituals through which we cope with reality.This composite of two works-Transits and The Society of Simulcra-by one of Italy's most innovative thinkers, here translated into English for the first time, will be invaluable to philosophers with an interest in continental philosophy.Mario Perniola is professor of aesthetics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and is the author of many books on aesthetics including Disgusti: New Trends in Aesthetics and Nineteenth Century Aesthetics. (shrink)

Marías’ Romane setzen die kontingente Verfasstheit großstädtischen Lebens in Szene, indem sie das Zeitbewusstsein der Figuren in ein Spannungsverhältnis zur Unausweichlichkeit des – oft plötzlichen – Todes setzen, und dabei die Ambivalenz von Ordnung und Chaos, von Freiheit und Emanzipation in Indifferenz und Beliebigkeit überführen. Sie spiegeln heutige Formen ausgeprägter Individualität in der Großstadt, für die Vanitas zur Erscheinungsweise der als kontingent erfahrenen Selbst- und Welterfahrung wird. Der Roman Morgen in der Schlacht denk an mich thematisiert solche Ambivalenzen der Kontingenz (...) in unterschiedlichen Figurenkonstellationen. Nicht einmal die Möglichkeiten der libidinösen Befriedigung greifen noch, wie Marías’ Roman Die sterblich Verliebten bestätigt. Vielmehr werden Konfigurationen der Vanitas in den skizzierten Rahmen rekontextualisiert, wodurch sich ein Schwinden von Identität, eine Aushöhlung des Subjekts, vollzieht. (shrink)

Marías’ Romane setzen die kontingente Verfasstheit großstädtischen Lebens in Szene, indem sie das Zeitbewusstsein der Figuren in ein Spannungsverhältnis zur Unausweichlichkeit des – oft plötzlichen – Todes setzen, und dabei die Ambivalenz von Ordnung und Chaos, von Freiheit und Emanzipation in Indifferenz und Beliebigkeit überführen. Sie spiegeln heutige Formen ausgeprägter Individualität in der Großstadt, für die Vanitas zur Erscheinungsweise der als kontingent erfahrenen Selbst- und Welterfahrung wird. Der Roman Morgen in der Schlacht denk an mich thematisiert solche Ambivalenzen der Kontingenz (...) in unterschiedlichen Figurenkonstellationen. Nicht einmal die Möglichkeiten der libidinösen Befriedigung greifen noch, wie Marías’ Roman Die sterblich Verliebten bestätigt. Vielmehr werden Konfigurationen der Vanitas in den skizzierten Rahmen rekontextualisiert, wodurch sich ein Schwinden (difuminación) von Identität, eine Aushöhlung des Subjekts, vollzieht. (shrink)

This discussion focuses on whether Mario Bunge’s emergent materialism implies continuism or not. Íñigo Ongay defends that Bunge’s emergent materialism implies continuism. In his response, Javier Pérez-Jara argues that Bunge’s emergent materialism explicitly assumes structural ontological and epistemological discontinuities in the universe. The question is more than a Scholastic one, concerning only a particular system of philosophy, however relevant for current philosophical materialism. Rather, what is at stake is the ability of non-reductionist ontologies to explain (non-miraculous) novelty and (...) plurality. (shrink)

Despite the central presence of materialism in the history of philosophy, there is no universal consensus on the meaning of the word “matter” nor of the doctrine of philosophical materialism. Dictionaries of philosophy often identify this philosophy with its most reductionist and even eliminative versions, in line with Robert Boyle’s seventeenth century coinage of the term. But when we take the concept back in time to Greek philosophers and forward onto our own times, we recognize more inclusive forms of materialism (...) as well as complex interplays with non-materialist thought about the place of matter in reality, including Christian philosophy and German idealism. We define philosophical materialism in its most general way both positively (the identification of reality with matter understood as changeability and plurality) and negatively (the negation of disembodied living beings and hypostatized ideas). This inclusive approach to philosophical materialism offers a new light to illuminate a critical history of the concept of matter and materialism from Ancient Greece to the present that is also attentive to scientific developments. By following the most important connections and discontinuities among theoretical frameworks on the idea of matter, we present a general thread that offers a rich and plural, but highly cohesive, field of investigation. Finally, we propose building on rich non-reductionist materialist philosophies, such as Mario Bunge’s systemic materialism and Gustavo Bueno’s discontinuous materialism, to elaborate powerful theoretical alternatives to both physicalism and spiritualism. (shrink)

The following article studies the liberalitas as the roman virtue that causes the roman elites’ munificent behaviour. We study what liberalitas means for Cicero’s De Officiis (his best-known philosophical and political work) and compare his idea of this virtue whit others ancient writer’s ideas on the same subject. We discover that sometimes the munificent behaviour we know by epigraphical documentation was not liberalis as Cicero wanted to be, and was only the exhibition of elites’ pride that doesn’t follow the limits (...) that from an ethical point of view this virtue should have. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper is to recover the ancient but neglected concept of politeness, and to show its utility to under-stand some dimensions and problems of our society. In the first part of the paper some weaknesses of Rousseau's philosophy, whose ideas -in my opinion- are very influential on the contemporary crisis of courtesy norms, are discussed. In the second part, taking as a starting point the tradition of gentility, from Greek and Roman philosophy to Enlightenment, it is (...) shown that politeness is an essential dimension of social life, whose nature and features are very similar to language. (shrink)