In this chapter I shall reply to a pair of articles in which the main contention of my “Why truthmakers” – namely, that an important class of synthetic true propositions have entities as truth-makers – is rejected. In §§1–5 I reply to Jennifer Hornsby’s “Truth without Truthmaking Entities” (2005) and in §§6–7 I reply to Julian Dodd’s “Negative Truths and Truthmaker Principles” (2007).

In this paper I survey some recent developments in experimental philosophy and discuss their bearing on two leading theories in epistemology: Contextualism and Interest Relative Invariantism. In the first part of the paper, I survey some general issues of how experimental philosophy may be relevant to assessing contextualism and IRI. In the second part, I discuss and critique some of the recent experimental work.

Dialogamos con Cintia Rodríguez Garat, quien obtuvo el Primer Premio Bioética 2023 de la Fundación Jaime Roca por su trabajo “Resiliencia y salud pública de las mujeres mapuce ante el cambio climático. Un análisis desde una perspectiva intercultural, participativa y de derechos humanos”.

The prospect of replication of human beings through genetic manipulation has engendered one of the most controversial debates about reproduction in our society. Ideology is clearly influencing the direction of research and legislation on human cloning, which may present one of the greatest existential challenges to the meaning of creation. In this article, I argue that, in view of the possibility that human cloning and other emerging technologies could enhance physical and cognitive abilities, there is a need for a different (...) way of thinking about life, new technologies and creation. New scientific discoveries require a shift in the way psychology takes responsibility to help individuals and society. Today, psychology needs to follow the progress that humans are taking toward a transhuman stage of development as a transition to a later posthuman stage. (shrink)

La técnica no es un fenómeno más de nuestra época, sino que ha llegado a convertirse en la figura metafísica que la define. El estudio analiza el alcance de esta tesis planteada por Jaspers y Heidegger. Para ello ofrecemos, en un primer momento, una tematización del elemento innovador que caracteriza a la técnica moderna respecto de épocas anteriores, atendiendo especialmente a su carácter totalizador y a la inversión antropológica que supone. A continuación, discutiremos algunas de las consecuencias antropológicas del estatuto (...) ontológico de la técnica. Un fenómeno sin precedentes en la historia de la humanidad, por cuanto la técnica ha dejado de ser un medio o instrumento al servicio de las necesidades y fines humanos para convertirse en un fenómeno capaz de producirlos, estableciendo posibilidades de sentido. Una inversión onto-antropológica que provoca una alienación de la existencia misma. (shrink)

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats genome editing has already reinvented the direction of genetic and stem cell research. For more complex diseases it allows scientists to simultaneously create multiple genetic changes to a single cell. Technologies for correcting multiple mutations in an in vivo system are already in development. On the surface, the advent and use of gene editing technologies is a powerful tool to reduce human suffering by eradicating complex disease that has a genetic etiology. Gene drives are (...) CRISPR mediated alterations to genes that allow them to be passed on to subsequent populations at rates that approach one hundred per cent transmission. Therefore, from an anticipatory biomedical ethics perspective, it is possible to conceive gene drive being used with CRISPR to permanently ameliorate aberrant genes from wild-type populations containing mutations. However, there are also a number of possible side effects that could develop as the result of combining gene editing and gene drive technologies in an effort to eradicate complex diseases. In this paper, we critically analyse the hypothesis that the combination of CRISPR and gene drive will have a deleterious effect on human populations from an ethical perspective by developing an anticipatory ethical analysis of the implications for the use of CRISPR together with gene drive in humans. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene el objetivo de mostrar que actualmente la bioética, si bien requiere de la aplicación de conocimientos de disciplinas heterogéneas, afronta diversas polémicas que tienen una estructura filosófica. Para sustentar una perspectiva filosófica como problema central, el método de abordaje de la presente propuesta contempla un análisis acerca del tipo de indagaciones que caracterizan a la bioética, la delimitación del objeto que estudia, las propuestas metodológicas más relevantes y aquellas alternativas de búsqueda que pretenden tomar distancia de la (...) reflexión filosófica, paralelamente a las variadas conceptualizaciones que parten de la moral y desembocan en la casuística. El argumento central es que la bioética atiende a incertidumbres morales que surgen en la interacción con la vida, estas son el objeto sobre el que reflexiona la ética, y si la ética es una disciplina que se resuelve apelando a los métodos de la filosofía, con este trabajo se pretende concluir que la bioética necesariamente ha de tener una estructura filosófica. (shrink)

The health emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic revealed limitations in health systems worldwide, making it necessary to establish a bioethical framework that provides tools to drive health professionals’ decision-making amid scarce health resources. Bioethical models such as principlism, utilitarianism, and personalism seek to focus clinical decisions on respect for people’s rights and dignity, thus protecting the medical practice. Personalism provides a person-centered approach to respect for human dignity during health emergencies to avoid giving material meaning to the individual. Decision (...) criteria are required to face bioethical conflicts in clinical practice, reducing the legal, emotional, and ethical burden of decision-making in pandemic situations. (shrink)

In 1561 J.Cornarius proposed his own version of some passages of Plato's Sophist In this version Theodorus presents the Eleatic Stranger as "a companion (hetairos) of Parmenideans and Zenonians" (216a). Since then, this cliché is accepted by all translations. However, when the possibility of justifying the existence of images and appearances is considered, the Stranger himself proposes 'testing' Parmenides' thesis. His remarks are rather those of an adversary than of a friend or companion of Parmenides. In fact, in spite of (...) Theodorus' presentation, the Stranger, albeit citizen of Elea, does not seem to share the theses of the 'Eleatics'. These anomalies invited us to question the character of 'companion' of the 'Parmenideans' credited to the Stranger. The questioning is possible if we exploit some valuable greek manuscripts of Plato's Sophist, neglected by J.Burnet, like Vindobonensis 21 (Y). This manuscript, among others, has the lecture heteros, 'different', instead of hetairon, 'companion'. This manuscript permits to maintain the formula tôn hetairôn, transmitted by all the manuscripts after the first hetairon, and removed in modern editions. The translation we propose is: the Eleatic Stranger is "different (heteros) of the companions (tôn hetairôn) of Parmenides and Zenon". (shrink)

In 1906, Frigyes Riesz introduced a preliminary version of the notion of a topological space. He called it a mathematical continuum. This development can be traced back to the end of 1904 when, genuinely interested in taking up Hilbert’s foundations of geometry from 1902, Riesz aimed to extend Hilbert’s notion of a two-dimensional manifold to the three-dimensional case. Starting with the plane as an abstract point-set, Hilbert had postulated the existence of a system of neighbourhoods, thereby introducing the notion of (...) an accumulation point for the point-sets of the plane. Inspired by Hilbert’s technical approach, as well as by recent developments in analysis and point-set topology in France, Riesz defined the concept of a mathematical continuum as an abstract set provided with a notion of an accumulation point. In addition, he developed further elementary concepts in abstract point-set topology. Taking an abstract topological approach, he formulated a concept of three-dimensional continuous space that resembles the modern concept of a three-dimensional topological manifold. In 1908, Riesz presented his concept of mathematical continuum at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Rome. His lecture immediately won the attention of people interested in carrying on his research. They promoted his ideas, thus assuring their gradual reception by several future founders of general topology. In this way, Riesz’s work contributed significantly to the emergence of this discipline. (shrink)

The present article tries to emphasize the roll of the experimental logic in the process of education-learning of the methodology of the investigation. Its treatment usually appears as material for the later boarding of the explanation or the calls explanatory designs or explanatory reconnaissanc..

Shors & Matzel propose that hippocampal LTP increases the effective salience of discrete external stimuli and thereby facilitates the induction of memories at distant places. In line with this suggestion, a neural network model of associative learning and hippocampal function assumes that LTP increases hippocampal error signals to the cortex, thereby facilitating stimulus configuration in association cortex. Computer simulations show that under these assumptions the model correctly describes the effect of LTP induction and blockade in classical discriminations and place learning.

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 107 Heft: 2 Seiten: 691-710.

La polysémie, surtout quand elle est conflictuelle, est toujours problématique pour la raison. Gallie explore une voie paradoxale : considérer une certaine polysémie conflictuelle comme la propriété positive et indépassable de certains concepts qu’il appelle essentiellement contestés. Le fait que leurs utilisateurs s’opposent naturellement à propos de leur usage légitime n’est pas une anomalie résultant...

Intersecting systems of inequality are remarkably resistant to change. Many universities, however, seek National Science Foundation Institutional Transformation awards to change processes, procedures, and cultures to make science, technology, engineering, and mathematics departments more inclusive. In this article we describe a case study with observations for eight years of before, five during, and seven after intensive efforts to increase women through reducing barriers and increasing access to women. Finally, we reflect on flawed assumptions built into the proposal, the slow and (...) uneven change in the proportion of women over time, the strengths and weaknesses of numeric assessments, and the value of a longer view for seeing how seeds planted with promising practices initiated during the award may end with the funding but can reemerge and bear fruit when faculty who engage in equity work are in positions of authority later in their careers. (shrink)