The acquisition and evolution of speech production, discourse and communication can be negatively impacted by brain malformations. We describe, for the first time, a case of developmental dynamic dysphasia (DDD) in a right-handed adolescent boy (subject D) with cortical malformations involving language-eloquent regions (inferior frontal gyrus) in both the left and the right hemispheres. Language evaluation revealed a markedly reduced verbal output affecting phonemic and semantic fluency, phrase and sentence generation and verbal communication in everyday life. Auditory comprehension, repetition, naming, (...) reading and spelling were relatively preserved, but executive function was impaired. Multimodal neuroimaging showed a malformed cerebral cortex with atypical configuration and placement of white matter tracts bilaterally and abnormal callosal fibers. Dichotic listening showed right hemisphere dominance for language and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) additionally revealed dissociated hemispheric language representation with right frontal activation for phonology and bilateral dominance for semantic processing. Moreover, subject D also had congenital mirror movements (CMM), defined as involuntary movements of one side of the body that mirror intentional movements of the other side. Transcranial magnetic stimulation and fMRI during voluntary unimanual (left and right) hand movements showed bilateral motor cortex recruitment and tractography revealed a lack of decussation of bilateral corticospinal tracts. Genetic testing aimed to detect mutations that disrupt the development of commissural tracts correlating with CMM (e.g., Germline DCC mutations) was negative. Overall, our findings suggest that DDD in subject D resulted from the underdevelopment of the left inferior frontal gyrus with limited capacity for plastic reorganization by its homologous counterpart in the right hemisphere. Corpus callosum anomalies probably contributed to hinder interhemispheric connectivity necessary to compensate language and communication deficits after left frontal involvement. (shrink)

In Lukács: Praxis and the Absolute, Daniel Andrés López reassembles Lukács’s philosophy of praxis on a Hegelian basis, as a conceptual-historical totality, both defending him and proposing an unprecedented, immanent critique that raises problems for Marxian philosophy as a whole.

In most domains of human life, we are willing to accept that there are experts with greater knowledge and competencies that distinguish them from non-experts or laypeople. Despite this fact, the very recognition of expertise curiously becomes more controversial in the case of “moral experts”. Do moral experts exist? And, if they indeed do, are there ethical reasons for us to follow their advice? Likewise, can emerging technological developments broaden our very concept of moral expertise? In this article, we begin (...) by arguing that the objections that have tried to deny the existence (and convenience) of moral expertise are unsatisfactory. After that, we show that people have ethical reasons to ask for a piece of moral advice in daily life situations. Then, we argue that some Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems can play an increasing role in human morality by becoming moral experts. Some AI-based moral assistants can qualify as artificial moral experts and we would have good ethical reasons to use them. (shrink)

In the last third of the 20th century, the social dynamic in the Ecuadorian Andes was subject to a series of significant changes : the emergence of a powerful Indian movement, on the one hand, and the reconfiguration of the role of the State, as a corollary of the implementation of structural adjustment policies, better known as “Washington Consensus”, on the other. In spite of the strengths of an Indian movement that found its roots in the agrarian reform of the (...) 1960s and 1970s, it became clear that the new neoliberal matrix led to the dissociation of rural development problem from the yet to be solved question of the concentration of land and wealth. By placing the emphasis on the politics of identity and on the organizational aspects of the Indian and peasant issue, the champions of ethno-development have downgraded any reference to the socioeconomic and political claims of the peasant populations. (shrink)

In recent discussions on contextualism and relativism, some have suggested that audience-sensitivity motivates a content relativist version of radical relativism, according to which a sentence as said at a context can have different contents with respect to the different perspectives from where it is assessed. The first aim of this note is to illustrate how this is not so. According to Egan himself, the phenomenon motivates at least refinement of the characteristic moderate contention that features of a single context determine (...) the appropriate truth-value of the sentence. The second aim of this note is to explore how this may not be so. (shrink)

When travelling to a new city, we acquire knowledge about its physical terrain, directions, historical facts and aesthetic features. Engaging in tourism practices, such as guided walking tours, provides experiences of a city that are necessarily mediated and partial. This has led scholars in tourism studies, and more recently in philosophy, to question the epistemological value of city tours, critiquingthem as passive, lacking in autonomous agency, and providing misrepresentative experiences of the city. In response, we argue that the mediated and (...) partial knowledge of a city acquired through city tours is not epistemologically disvaluable. Although city tours involve the transmission of testimonial knowledge, this does not necessarily render tourists as passive and non-autonomous. Instead,tourists have the potential to participate in the generation of their knowledge actively. Moreover, we argue that city tours also provide a tourist with valuable ‘objectual’ knowledge of a city, whichhas the potential to be first-personal and active, and does not necessarily misrepresent the city’s identity. This type of knowledge is valuable both for tourists as credible epistemic agents, and for the city itself, as the knowledge generated by the tour can facilitate an accurate representation of the city and promote social transformation. We conclude by highlighting four further epistemic and ethical implications of our argument. (shrink)

Critical studies in higher education often embrace the ideas of the slowness movement to address time pressure. However, this desirable horizon presents some limitations. On the one hand, by emphasizing solutions at the individual level, boosting slowness may promote tactics incapable of producing changes to the underlying structural dynamics of time pressure. On the other hand, approaches based on slowness may also inadvertently foster a form of ethical paternalism within the context of ethical pluralism by prescribing substantive models of practice (...) ultimately based on ‘do this quickly or do it slowly.’ This theoretical research moves away from the temporal paradigm to that of the way of relating. Building upon the ethical concept of resonance, the approach focuses on a formal critique of the current socioeconomic and ethical dynamics of social acceleration, growth, and innovation that can contribute to projecting non-alienated relationships in higher education. (shrink)

Social Education implies a constant exposition to human experiences of vulnerability and suffering. In this paper, Levinas’s philosophy of alterity and, specifically, the notion of hospitality constitutes our ethical lens to explore educational encounters in non-formal contexts within the Spanish Social Sector. The study is developed from a hermeneutic phenomenological approach into the depth of lived experiences of eight social educators who currently work with different populations groups. The testimonies, explored through semi-structured interviews, are presented in a conversational, dialogic, poetic (...) format. First, Levinas’ philosophy is presented as our ethical position, focusing on subjectivity as hospitality. Secondly, methodological aspects regarding hermeneutics are addressed. Finally, the testimonies of social educators are presented in an evocative way, exploring uncertainty and three different tensions regarding human relations in their practices: physical spaces, affection, and embodiment. (shrink)

Shows the relevance of Schiller’s thought for contemporary philosophy, particularly aesthetics, ethics, and politics. This book seeks to draw attention to Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) as a philosophical thinker in his own right. For too long, his philosophical contribution has been neglected in favor of his much-deserved reputation as a political playwright. The essays in this collection make two arguments. First, Schiller presents a robust philosophical program that can be favorably compared to those of his age, including Rousseau, Kant, Schelling, and (...) Hegel, and he proves to be their equal in his thinking on morality, aesthetics, and politics. Second, Schiller can also guide us in our more contemporary philosophical concerns and approaches, such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, aesthetics, and politics. Here, Schiller instructs us in our engagement with figures such as Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Jacques Rancière, Roberto Esposito, and others. María del Rosario Acosta López is Associate Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University. She has published several books, including La tragedia como conjuro: el problema de lo sublime en Friedrich Schiller. Jeffrey L. Powell is Professor of Philosophy at Marshall University and the editor of Heidegger and Language. (shrink)

In this work I argue that Descartes was not a trialist by showing that the main tenets of trialist interpretations of Descartes's theory of substance are either not supported by the text or are not sufficient for establishing the trialist interpretation.

Most philosophers would agree that loving one’s romantic partner (i.e., being in love) is, in principle, a good thing. That is, romantic love can be valuable. It seems plausible that most would then think that the process leading to being in love—i.e. falling in love—can be valuable too. Surprisingly, that is not the case: among philosophers, falling in love has a bad reputation. Whereas philosophy of love has started to depart from traditional (and often unwarranted or false) tropes surrounding romantic (...) life, this tendency has not yet reached the analysis of falling in love. The phenomenon continues to be looked at mostly through a compendium of generalisations taken as metaphysical truths—the view of falling in love being akin to “losing one’s mind” or “not being able to think about anything else”. Here, I analyse some of these generalisations to show that although they may reflect some experiences of what falling in love feels like, they wrongly reduce falling in love to two related, but distinct, phenomena: limerence and infatuation. My aim is to refine the current terminology to lay the foundations for a neutral view of falling in love. (shrink)

This book tells the story of the Scientific Buddha, "born" in Europe in the 1800s but commonly confused with the Buddha born in India 2,500 years ago. The Scientific Buddha was sent into battle against Christian missionaries, who were proclaiming across Asia that Buddhism was a form of superstition. He proved the missionaries wrong, teaching a dharma that was in harmony with modern science. And so his influence continues. Today his teaching of "mindfulness" is heralded as the cure for all (...) manner of maladies, from depression to high blood pressure.In this potent critique, a well-known chronicler of the West's encounter with Buddhism demonstrates how the Scientific Buddha's teachings deviate in crucial ways from those of the far older Buddha of ancient India. Donald Lopez shows that the Western focus on the Scientific Buddha threatens to bleach Buddhism of its vibrancy, complexity, and power, even as the superficial focus on "mindfulness" turns Buddhism into merely the latest self-help movement. The Scientific Buddha has served his purpose, Lopez argues. It is now time for him to pass into nirvana. This is not to say, however, that the teachings of the ancient Buddha must be dismissed as mere cultural artifacts. They continue to present a meaningful challenge, even to our modern world. (shrink)

In contrast to individualistic explanations of social injustice that appeal to implicit attitudes, structural explanations are unintuitive: they appeal to entities that lack clear ontological status, and the explanatory mechanism is similarly unclear. This makes structural explanations unappealing. The present work proposes a structural explanation of one type of injustice that happens in conversations, discursive injustice. This proposal meets two goals. First, it satisfactorily accounts for the specific features of this particular kind of injustice; and second, it articulates a structural (...) explanation that overcomes their unattractiveness. The main idea is that discursive injustice is not the result of biased interlocutors, but of problematic discursive norms. (shrink)

In Leibniz’s New Essays stands out, within many important topics, his doctrine of innate ideas, which supposes the division between sense knowledge and innate knowledge and implies the distinction between truths of reason and truths of fact. That doctrine is particularly relevant for Leibniz’s philosophy, but implicitly entails the epistemological difference between belief, on one hand, and certainty, on the other. In this paper I outline, according to my interpretation, how Leibniz explains that humans can have certainty about innate ideas. (...) This topic is important because if Leibniz demonstrates the possibility of having certainty of those ideas, then, it is feasible to believe in its existence. However, if his explanation is unsatisfactory his metaphysical doctrine would be seriously weakened and, at the same time, both skepticism and Locke’s empiricist doctrine would be reinforced. (shrink)

Hinge epistemology is a family of views that offers a novel approach to avoiding skeptical conclusions about the possibility of a posteriori justification of our empirical beliefs. They claim that at the basis of our empirical beliefs lie certain commitments whose rational status is not determined by our evidence. These are called hinge commitments. Prominent hinge epistemologists have claimed that hinge commitments are either rational or arational but yet not beliefs. I argue that such views are subject to decisive objections. (...) I then offer what I consider to be the best version of hinge epistemology. On this view, hinge commitments are best understood as arational beliefs that contingently inform our worldview. I call this view the Arational Beliefs View. (shrink)

Why does social injustice exist? What role, if any, do implicit biases play in the perpetuation of social inequalities? Individualistic approaches to these questions explain social injustice as the result of individuals’ preferences, beliefs, and choices. For example, they explain racial injustice as the result of individuals acting on racial stereotypes and prejudices. In contrast, structural approaches explain social injustice in terms of beyond-the-individual features, including laws, institutions, city layouts, and social norms. Often these two approaches are seen as competitors. (...) Framing them as competitors suggests that only one approach can win and that the loser offers worse explanations of injustice. In this essay, we explore each approach and compare them. Using implicit bias as an example, we argue that the relationship between individualistic and structural approaches is more complicated than it may first seem. Moreover, we contend that each approach has its place in analyses of injustice and raise the possibility that they can work together—synergistically—to produce deeper explanations of social injustice. If so, the approaches may be complementary, rather than competing. (shrink)

This paper’s main contention is that some basically methodological developments in science which are apparently distant and unrelated can be seen as part of a sequential story. Focusing on general inferential and epistemological matters, the paper links occurrences separated by both in time and space, by formal and representational issues rather than social or disciplinary links. It focuses on a few limited aspects of several cognitive practices in medical and biological contexts separated by geography, disciplines and decades, but connected by (...) long term transdisciplinary representational and inferential structures and constraints. The paper intends to show a given set of knowledge claims based on organizing statistically empirical data can be seen to have been underpinned by a previous, more familiar, and probably more natural, narrative handling of similar evidence. To achieve that this paper moves from medicine in France in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth century in England among gentleman naturalists, following its subject: the shift from narrative depiction of hereditary transmission of physical peculiarities to posterior statistical articulations of the same phenomena. Some early defenders of heredity as an important causal presence in the understanding of life adopted singular narratives, in the form of case stories from medical and natural history traditions, to flesh out a special kind of causality peculiar to heredity. This work tries to reconstruct historically the rationale that drove the use of such narratives. It then shows that when this rationale was methodologically challenged, its basic narrative and probabilistic underpinings were transferred to the statistical quantificational tools that took their place. (shrink)

Resumen: Chela Reyes, es una escritora chilena nacida en Santiago el mismo año que Pablo Neruda. Ella tiene una relevante producción poética, casi desconocida, que puede y debería considerarse como parte de la tradición de la vanguardia histórica chilena. Este trabajo pretende evidenciar cómo en Ola nocturna, su tercer poemario publicado en 1945, la autora utiliza personajes y referencias de la mitología griega para dar forma a su imaginario. Su universo figurativo está constituido por poderosas evocaciones de un espacio marítimo (...) en el que se confunde Eros y Tanatos. Personajes como Eolo, Hipocampos, Sirenas, Neptuno, Eco, Venus, forman parte de su galería mitológica-poética. Mediante estas figuras la poeta construye un mundo sorprendente y fascinante en donde el erotismo es tanto creación como destrucción.: Chela Reyes is a chilean writer born in Santiago, the same year as Pablo Neruda. She has a relevant poetic production, almost unknown, that can and should be considered as part of the tradition of the Chilean historical avant-garde. This work aims to show how, in Ola nocturna, her third book of poems published in 1945, the author uses characters and references from Greek mythology to shape her imaginary. Its figurative universe is constituted by powerful evocations of a maritime space in which Eros and Thanatos are confused. Characters such as Eolo, Hippocampus, Sirens, Neptune, Echo, Venus, are part of its mythological-poetic gallery. Through these figures the poet builds a surprising and fascinating world in which eroticism is both creation and destruction. (shrink)

Chela Reyes, es una escritora chilena nacida en Santiago el mismo año que Pablo Neruda. Ella tiene una relevante producción poética, casi desconocida, que puede y debería considerarse como parte de la tradición de la vanguardia histórica chilena. Este trabajo pretende evidenciar cómo en Ola nocturna, su tercer poemario publicado en 1945, la autora utiliza personajes y referencias de la mitología griega para dar forma a su imaginario. Su universo figurativo está constituido por poderosas evocaciones de un espacio marítimo en (...) el cual se confunde Eros y Tanatos. Personajes como Eolo, Hipocampos, Sirenas, Neptuno, Eco, Venus, forman parte de su galería mitológica-poética. A través de estas figuras la poeta construye un mundo sorprendente y fascinante en el cual el erotismo es tanto creación como destrucción. (shrink)

In this case, it is clear that the author feels that she has been treated badly by quite a few doctors throughout her life. At first read, the locus of her concern is perhaps a bit less clear. After all, many of her concerns seem to center around uses of humor in which she was not the butt of the joke. Indeed, she was included in the inner circle, treated as a confidant, by her doctors. From the perspective of someone (...) accustomed to being in the inner circle, it may not be immediately obvious why the attempts at humor failed. After all, isn’t humor meant to be a good way to help patients relax? Isn’t it a good way to bond with patients and to make them more comfortable? As Berger (2004) notes “humor offers modes of intimate communication through which these objectives can be achieved. Physicians’ use of quiet, respectful humor may provide patients with the “social license” to enter personal or sensitive content areas” (p. 827). If humor, or joking, is an effective tool in establishing channels of communication, then how or why did it go wrong here? The answer, in brief, is that not all humor is created equal. -/- Before going any further, we should acknowledge a few things. First, in this case the only form of humor that is on offer is joking, but humor is not limited to jokes. Usually, when we refer to humor broadly, as in the quotation above, the point can be taken to apply to jokes. However, if we refer specifically to jokes or joking the point may not apply to humor more broadly. This is so even if the jokes are meant to be humorous. Care should be taken lest we generalize in haste. Second, not all jokes are humorous, nor are all jokes intended to be humorous. Finally, much of what we will consider here—the purpose of joking, the orientation of care, the consideration of content—will be generally applicable to other forms of communication and, mutadis mutandis, should not be restricted to joking and humor. (shrink)

An analysis of the claim that Descartes was a substance trialist.

This article discusses the category of foreigner in the context of academia. In the first part I explore this category and its philosophical significance. A quick look at the literature reveals that this category needs more attention in analyses of dimensions of privilege and disadvantage. Foreignness has peculiarities that demarcate it from other categories of identity, and it intersects with them in complicated ways. Devoting more attention to it would enable addressing issues affecting foreigners in academia that go commonly unnoticed. (...) In the second part of the article I argue that current efforts to make academia a more inclusive environment should address the disadvantages that many foreign academics face. I focus on two senses of foreigner: working and living in a country that is not your country of origin, and being a nonnative speaker of the language in which you work. (shrink)

Love enhancement can give us as a say on whom we love and thus ‘free’ us from our brain chemistry, which is mostly out of our control. In that way, we become more autonomous in love and in our life in general, as long as love enhancement is a free, voluntary choice. So goes the argument in favour of this addition to medical interventions of relationships. In this paper, I show that proponents of love enhancement have overlooked, or at least (...) underestimated, the fact that love itself impacts people’s choices. Since this could include the choice for love or anti-love drugs, I call for a re-formulation of the underlying view on autonomy before this medical intervention is made available to the public. (shrink)

En este trabajo presentamos la traducción al castellano del tratado «Sobre la forma primera y la materia primera» del filósofo zaragozano Avempace, precedida por una introducción que trata de mostrar los cauces por los que ha llegado hasta nosotros esta obra y los problemas que presenta para la traducción.The aim of this essay is to offer the Spanish translation of the "Treatise on Primary Form and Primary Matter" written by the philosopher Avempace, from Saragossa. The preceding introduction is an attempt (...) to show the ways through which this work has reached us and the difficulties it presents for its translation. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to offer the Spanish translation of the "Treatise on Primary Form and Primary Matter" written by the philosopher Avempace, from Saragossa. The preceding introduction is an attempt to show the ways through which this work has reached us and the difficulties it presents for its translation.

In this note, my aim is to point out a phenomenon that has not received much attention; a phenomenon that, in my opinion, should not be overlooked in the professional practice of philosophy, especially within feminist efforts for social justice. I am referring to the way in which being a non-native speaker of English interacts with the practice of philosophy.1 There is evidence that non-native speakers are often perceived in prejudiced ways. Such prejudiced perception causes harm and, more importantly, constitutes (...) wrongdoing. As in other cases of prejudiced perception and biased behavior, it would be pretentious and misguided to expect philosophers and the philosophy profession to be free from this vice. There are good reasons to think that this prejudiced perception is bad not only for the persons who are perceived in such a way, but also for the profession, for it might make us miss important things that could improve philosophy in general. I claim we should be more sensitive to this phenomenon, both out of concern for justice, and for the sake of doing better philosophy. (shrink)

The activism we don’t appreciate: Your Honor Kent, my mother is a feminist and votes even if she doesn’t know she’s oppressed Resumen: Broncano mantiene que ocupar una situación de opresión no garantiza la lucidez necesaria para identificar la propia situación como injusta. Esta posición nos advierte que nos vamos a encontrar con casos de personas oprimidas que no tienen conocimiento sobre su situación de injusticia ni una actitud crítica hacia la misma. Lo que me interesa analizar en este comentario (...) es cómo afecta esto a la agencia política de esas personas. La conclusión que quiero evitar es la siguiente: Cuando no escuchamos a alguien que está oprimida pero que no conoce su situación de opresión, no la estamos traicionando como agente política, no la estamos silenciando como posible activista. En este comentario propongo un análisis de las quejas que nos permite escapar de esa conclusión. Las quejas de muchas mujeres han de entenderse como acción política, una acción política que no está necesariamente acompañada de conocimiento sobre la injusticia que sufren. Una vez entendemos sus quejas como activismo, ya no podemos excluir a estas mujeres como sujetos políticos en la lucha contra el sexismo. Este análisis de las quejas nos lleva a concluir que estas mujeres sí que pueden ser traicionadas como agentes políticas, aunque no tengan conocimiento de su situación de injusticia. Las traicionamos cuando no entendemos sus quejas como resistencia. Abstract: Broncano thinks that being oppressed does not guarantee knowing that you are oppressed. This view warns us that we are going to find people who are oppressed and who don’t have knowledge about their oppression nor a critical attitude towards their situation. What concerns me here is how this view affects the political agency of those people. The conclusion I want to avoid is as follows: When we don’t listen to someone who is oppressed but who doesn’t know their position as oppressed, we are not betraying them qua a political agent, we are not silencing them as a potential activist. I propose an analysis of complains that allows us to escape that conclusion. I propose that the complains expressed by many women should be understood as a political action, one that is not necessarily accompanied by knowledge of the injustice they are suffering. Once we see their complains as activism, we cannot exclude these women from the fight against sexism and deny their political agency. Under this analysis, women can be betrayed qua political agents even when they don’t have knowledge of their unjust situation. We betray them when we don’t understand their complains as resistance. Palabras clave: Conocimiento, agencia política, activismo, resistencia, quejas. Keywords: Knowledge, political agency, activism, resistance, complains. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es definir la concepción del acto involuntario de Francisco Suárez y mostrarla como un medio que permite comprender y profundizar en su teoría de la acción humana. En esta cuestión, el Doctor Eximio parte de presupuestos elaborados por Tomás de Aquino que amplía y adapta siguiendo sus propias tesis metafísicas y teológicas sobre la relación entre Dios y las creaturas. Mostraremos cómo Suárez vincula el verdadero involuntario con el _simpliciter_, lo forzado, necesario e indeseado, dejando (...) al _secundum quid_ como un acto mixto en el que la libertad y la voluntad, pese a las injerencias externas, no quedan anuladas. Por último, subrayaremos las consecuencias de la definición suareciana de lo involuntario sobre la noción de libertad, haciendo patente que tanto una como otra serían imposibles fuera del marco teórico que él sustenta, caracterizado por la eficiencia humana (y su dependencia de la divinidad) y no por la premoción física. (shrink)

La historia del pueblo romaní es una de las grandes olvidadas de la enseñanza preuniversitaria y universitaria. Más aún lo es el Samudaripen, el Holocausto romaní, un episodio apenas citado en las clases de Historia tanto en Enseñanza Media como en los Grados y Másteres de las ramas de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales. En la primera parte de este artículo, se ofrece una revisión de la literatura en la que se exponen las principales reflexiones realizadas acerca de este vacío curricular (...) y se argumenta la necesidad de incorporar la enseñanza del Samudaripen a las clases de Historia Contemporánea del nivel universitario. La segunda parte describe una secuencia de actividades titulada “Samudaripen: de la persecución al genocidio del pueblo romaní”, diseñada como parte de un “ciclo de mejora docente” en la asignatura de Historia Contemporánea del 1er curso de Grado. (shrink)