Because of the failed coupe d’etat in Venezuela on April 11th of this year, the country has fallen into an institutional and governability crisis which appears to have no short run solution. This has not only influenced the political activism of new social actors and movements, very distinct f..

In this essay a vision of the synthesis of thought on the part of the Checkoslovakian philosopher Karel Kosick is presented. His work inspired by theMarxist dialectic and the philosophy of praxis, is, and will become ever more so, a theoretical reference for the understanding of the development o..

The author points in this article to the social and political importance of the theory of fetishism and the alienation of Marx when analyzing the social criticism that the development of the hegemonic forces of capitalism on a global scale de served. The post-structuralist and post-marx ist metaphys..

Resenha de Gramsci em Quadrinhos, de Néstor Kohan e Rep.

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.

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)

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)

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)

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.

This paper is an attempt to connect the Brazilian Paulo Freire’s well known educational thinking with the “philosophy for children” movement. It considers the relationship between the creator of philosophy for children, Matthew Lipman and Freire through different attempts to establish a relationship between these two educators. The paper shows that the relationship between them is not as close as many supporters of P4C have claimed, especially in Latin America. It also considers the context of Educational Policies in our time (...) and why Freire’s understanding of the politics of education makes it impossible to be Freirean and at the same time be neutral or favorable to the actual status quo. Finally, after presenting Lipman’s understanding of the relationship between philosophy, education and democracy and their connection to capitalism, it proposes ways to begin the political path of philosophizing with children inspired by Paulo Freire’s educational thinking. As a result, a more politically committed path to doing philosophy with children is offered. (shrink)

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

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)