When people understand a counterfactual such as “if the flowers had been roses, the trees would have been orange trees,” they think about the conjecture, “there were roses and orange trees,” and they also think about its opposite, the presupposed facts. We test whether people think about the opposite by representing alternates, for example, “poppies and apple trees,” or whether models can contain symbols, for example, “no roses and no orange trees.” We report the discovery of an inference‐to‐alternates effect—a tendency (...) to make an affirmative inference that refers to an alternate even from a negative minor premise, for example, “there were no orange trees, therefore there were poppies.” Nine experiments show the inference‐to‐alternates effect occurs in a binary context, but not a multiple context, and for direct and indirect reference; it can be induced and reduced by prior experience with similar inferences, and it also occurs for indicative conditionals. The results have implications for theories of counterfactual conditionals, and of negation. (shrink)

We examine two competing effects of beliefs on conditional inferences. The suppression effect occurs for conditionals, for example, “if she watered the plants they bloomed,” when beliefs about additional background conditions, for example, “if the sun shone they bloomed” decrease the frequency of inferences such as modus tollens (from “the plants did not bloom” to “therefore she did not water them”). In contrast, the counterfactual elevation effect occurs for counterfactual conditionals, for example, “if she had watered the plants they would (...) have bloomed,” when beliefs about the known or presupposed facts, “she did not water the plants and they did not bloom” increase the frequency of inferences such as modus tollens. We report six experiments that show that beliefs about additional conditions take precedence over beliefs about presupposed facts for counterfactuals. The modus tollens inference is suppressed for counterfactuals that contain additional conditions (Experiments 1a and 1b). The denial of the antecedent inference (from “she did not water the plants” to “therefore they did not bloom”) is suppressed for counterfactuals that contain alternatives (Experiments 2a and 2b). We report a new “switched‐suppression” effect for conditionals with negated components, for example, “if she had not watered the plants they would not have bloomed”: modus tollens is suppressed by alternatives and denial of the antecedent by additional conditions, rather than vice versa (Experiments 3a and 3b). We discuss the implications of the results for alternative theories of conditional reasoning. (shrink)

We report five experiments showing that the activation of the end-terms of a syllogism is determined by their position in the composite model of the premises. We show that it is not determined by the position of the terms in the rule being applied (Ford, 1994), by the syntactic role of the terms in the premises (Polk & Newell, 1995; Wetherick & Gilhooly, 1990), by the type of conclusion (Chater & Oaksford, 1999), or by the terms from the source premise (...) (Stenning & Yule, 1997). In our first experiment we found that after reading a categorical premise, the most active term is the last term in the premise. In Experiments 2, 3, and 4 we demonstrated that this pattern of activity is due to the position of the concepts in the model of the premises, regardless of the delay after reading the premises (150 or 2000 msec) or the quantity of the quantifiers (universal or existential). The fifth experiment showed that the pattern switches around after participants evaluate a conclusion. We propose that the last element in the model maintains a higher level of activity during the comprehension process because it is generally used to attach the incoming information. After this process, the first term becomes more active because it is the concept to which the whole representation is referred. These results are predicted by the mental model theory (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991), but not by the verbal reasoning theory (Polk & Newell, 1995), the graphical methods theory (Yule & Stenning, 1992), the attachment-heuristic theory (Chater & Oaksford, 1999), or the mental rules theory (Ford, 1994). (shrink)

Si la virtus de la Antigüedad era la fuerza, la valentía y el coraje, y en la modernidad la diligencia, el trabajo, el mérito y el esfuerzo, actualmente se ha instalado la commoditas, una suerte de pseudovirtud nihilista que reivindica la ociosidad, el igualitarismo radical y el entretenimiento. La sociedad contemporánea posmoderna ha superado tanto la metafísica filosófica grecorromana como la teología cristiana, tanto el racionalismo y el empirismo ilustrado como el idealismo romántico decadentista y el positivismo materialista, y ha (...) entrado en una suerte de fin de la historia de nihilismo lúdico autocomplaciente y autosatisfecho. Concluimos que la commoditas está para quedarse y reconfigurará la naturaleza del ser humano en función de una nueva mentalidad que empalidece a la tradición hasta prácticamente anularla. (shrink)

1Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol, 9 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TB, UKScience Without Laws Ronald Giere Chicago, IL University of Chicago Press 1999 x + 285 Hardback£17.50.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic, now a global health crisis, has surprised health authorities around the world. Recent studies suggest that the measures taken to curb the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak have generated issues throughout the population. Thus, it is necessary to establish and identify the possible risk factors related to the psychosocial and psychophysiological strain during the COVID-19 outbreak. The present extensive literature review assesses the social, psychological, and physiological consequences of COVID-19, reviewing the impact of quarantine measures, (...) isolation, vast human loss, social and financial consequences in the family’s economies, and its impact on the psychological health of the population. We also discussed the effect of psychophysiological factors, considering the impact of physical inactivity and modifications in nutritional habits, at psychological and physiological levels. The present review includes an actualized to date bibliography, articles for which were methodologically analyzed to verify they met the standards of quality and scientific accuracy. Authors understand the pandemic as a multifactorial event for which only a profound and extensive analysis would lead to better compression and efficient intervention in the near future. (shrink)

Despite the promises made by molecular evolutionists since the early 1960s that phylogenies would be readily reconstructed using molecular data, the construction of molecular phylogenies has both retained many methodological problems of the past and brought up new ones of considerable epistemic relevance. The field is driven not only by changes in knowledge about the processes of molecular evolution, but also by an ever-present methodological anxiety manifested in the constant search for an increased objectivity—or in its converse, the avoidance of (...) subjectivity.This paper offers an exhaustive account of the methodological and conceptual difficulties embedded in each of the steps required to elaborate molecular phytogenies. The authors adopt a historical perspective on the field in order to follow the development of practices that seek to increase the objectivity of their methods and representations. These include the adoption and development of explicit criteria for evaluation of evidence, and of procedures associated with methods of statistical inference, quantification and automation. All these are linked to an increasing use of computers in research since the mid 1960s. We will show that the practices of objectivity described are highly dependent on the problems and tools of molecular phylogenetics. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the consolidation of Molecular Evolution, a field originating in the 1960s at the interface of molecular biology, biochemistry, evolutionary biology, biophysics and studies on the origin of life and exobiology. The claim is made that Molecular Evolution became a discipline by integrating different sorts of scientific traditions: experimental, theoretical and comparative. The author critically incorporates Timothy Lenoir’s treatment of disciplines , as well as ideas developed by Stephen Toulmin on the same subject. On their account disciplines (...) are spaces where the social and epistemic dimensions of science are deeply and complexly interwoven. However, a more detailed account of discipline formation and the dynamics of an emerging disciplinary field is lacking in their analysis. The present essay suggests focusing on the role of scientific concepts in the double configuration of disciplines: the social/political and the epistemic order. In the case of Molecular Evolution the concepts of molecular clock and informational molecules played a central role, both in differentiating molecular from classical evolutionists, and in promoting communication between the different sorts of traditions integrated in Molecular Evolution. The paper finishes with a reflection on the historicity of disciplines, and the historicity of our concepts of disciplines. (shrink)

Johannes Kepler dedicated much of his work to discover a law for the refraction of light. Unfortunately, he formulated an incorrect law. Nevertheless, it was useful for anticipating the behavior of light in some specific conditions. Some believe that Kepler did not have the elements to formulate the law that was later accepted by the scientific community, that is, the Snell–Descartes law. However, in this paper, we propose a model that agrees with Kepler’s heuristics and that is also successful in (...) anticipating the behavior of light when it passes through a surface that separates two media with different optical densities. This model adopts strategies that were recommended by Kepler in two types of analogies. The obstacles that led to the failure of the two types of analogies are presented in the article, and we argue that the model proposed here could overcome these specific obstacles. Finally, we show how the proposed model could be articulated with Kepler’s metaphysics of light. (shrink)

The paper tries to show that an evolutionary perspective helps us to address what is called the adaptation problem, that is, the remarkable coherence, and seemingly successful design, existing between our cognitive tools and the phenomena of the material world. It argues that a fine-grained description of the structure and function of experimental techniques—as a special type amongst evolving scientific practices—is a condition for a better understanding and, ultimately, an explanation of how adaptation among the heterogeneous elements of experimental knowledge (...) is attained. Some apparently contradictory features of techniques, such as their high context-dependency and their capabilities to reproduce and diversify outside their original contexts, are addressed with the help of the concepts of technical variation and the historical entrenchment of phenomena in techniques. In order to do so, a case-study on the construction of satellite-DNA and the evolution of nucleic acid hybridization, a research project carried out by Roy J. Britten and his colleagues in the 1960s, is presented in detail. This case illustrates the close relationship existing between the evolution of techniques and the stabilization of phenomena in experimental biology. (shrink)

Este artículo propone una discusión sobre la naturaleza hermenéutica de la corporalidad (Leiblichkeit). Un aspecto que resultará decisivo para descifrar fenómenos corporales como el dolor y que hará comprensible la tesis del filósofo de que para lograr un acceso al fenómeno del dolor es preciso tener en cuenta lo que denomina aspectos existenciales del fenómeno del cuerpo (Leibphänomen). Para ello, este trabajo mostrará, por una parte, en qué sentido el ser corporal(leiblich sein) de lo humano es un fenómeno cooriginario de (...) las otras estructuras existenciales que integran su ser-en-el-mundo (In-der-Welt-sein) y, por otra, el carácter afectivo de dicha constitución existencial o mundana de la experiencia corporal. Una perspectiva hermenéutica que contribuirá asimismo a entender el carácter extático y disruptivo del dolor. (shrink)

En el contexto del conflicto armado interno en Colombia, la atrocidad en las acciones violentas también se transmite a los conflictos familiares y comunitarios, y aumenta el desplazamiento político forzado, que provoca fuertes choques culturales al generar debilitamiento en la estructura familiar patriarcal, en los roles de los géneros y en las prácticas de la sexualidad. El artículo destaca el apoyo brindado por organizaciones no gubernamentales y agencias de cooperación internacional a este fenómeno, presentando los casos de tres núcleos de (...) mujeres desplazadas. (shrink)

"Ce volume presente la seconde partie d'une etude sur l'angelologie medievale dont la premiere partie a paru dans cette meme collection sous le titre: 'Les anges et la philosophie: subjectivite et fonction cosmologique des substances separees au XIIIe siecle', Etudes de philosophie medievale LXXXII, Paris, 2002"--T.p. verso.

A partir de questions sur l'ange, son individualité, sa position et sa fonction par rapport aux autres êtres, dans l'architecture cosmologique et dans la structure métaphysique de l'univers, les penseurs médiévaux élaborent des théories autour de la structure et du sens de l'ordo rerum, et d'un paradigme de la subjectivité. Par le biais de ce dernier, l'ange figure le meilleur de l'humanité.

Se parte del planteamiento general de la perspectiva moderna que aún impera en la interpretación regular de la fe, para señalar sus insuficiencias. Posteriormente, se aborda la oposición entre universalidad ética y particularidad teológica, con base en las observaciones hechas por Kant y Kierkegaard, respectivamente, a fin de determinar el ámbito de la fe y su independencia respecto de la moral. Hecho el deslinde entre el Dios de la fe y el Dios de las filósofos, se describen los rasgos fundamentales (...) de la fe teologal, con base en el testimonio neotestamentario. Finalmente, se expone la concepción místico-religiosa de San Juan de la Cruz acerca de la fe como conocimiento oscuro amoroso, para luego aclarar en qué sentido la fe está íntimamente relacionada con el amor-ágape y la esperanza. Unidad que constituye la esencia de la actitud teologal. Be part of the overall approach of the modern perspective that still prevails in the interpretation regular of faith, to point out its shortcomings. Subsequently, deals with the opposition between ethical universality and particularity theological, based on observations made by Kant and Kierkegaard, respectively, to determine the field of faith and independence from morality. Made the boundary between the God of faith and the God of the philosophers, describes the basic features of theological faith, based on the New Testament witness. Finally, we illustrate the mystical-religious conception of San Juan de la Cruz about faith as loving dark knowledge, then clarify in what sense faith is intimately linked to the love-agape and hope. Unit which is the essence of the theological attitude. (shrink)

El propósito de esta reflexión es presentar aportaciones originales para la aplicación del método fenomenológico a la interpretación de testimonios místicos relevantes, desde una perspectiva ontológica. Siguiendo al primer Heidegger, pero tratando de superar sus insuficiencias, propongo algunas directrices para el desarrollo de una fenomenología hermenéutica de la mística, a través de la interpretación de aquellos textos donde se expresan los rasgos esenciales del misticismo como modalidad de la vida fáctica.

Tras un minucioso análisis de las aprehensiones claras y distintas que las potencias pueden recibir tanto natural como sobrenaturalmente, San Juan de la Cruz descubre que ninguna de ellas es medio proporcionado para la unión mística. Dicho hallazgo conduce al santo al desarrollo de una elevada y recia doctrina: para no impedir la infusión de las virtudes, el espiritual debe ejercitarse en la privación voluntaria de dichas aprehensiones. El presente artículo es una meditación filosófica sobre un tema esencial de la (...) teología espiritual: la purificación de la memoria, durante la noche activa del espíritu. La tesis a demostrar es que la memoria es tanto un sentido interno como una potencia, cuya operación es principio de la unidad de la existencia y fundamento del ethos. (shrink)

Resumen El artículo muestra los rasgos esenciales, el principio y el sentido último de la conversión cristiana, a través del análisis del Libro de la vida y de Las Moradas del castillo interior, de Santa Teresa de Jesús. El método filosófico utilizado para la interpretación de los testimonios místicos ya indicados es un desarrollo original, cuyo origen se remonta a la fenomenología hermenéutica de Heidegger, cuyos principios he expuesto en el primer capítulo de mi libro ¿A dónde te escondiste, Amado, (...) ¿y me dejaste con gemido? Una fenomenología hermenéutica del Cántico Espiritual B, de San Juan de la Cruz. La importancia de estas páginas radica en que, para comprender el proceso místico cristiano, testimoniado por Santa Teresa de Jesús, el primer paso consiste en describir la experiencia con la cual comienza.The article shows the essential features, the beginning and the ultimate meaning of Christian conversion, through the analysis of Libro de la vida and Las moradas del castillo interior, by Santa Teresa de Jesús. The philosophical method used for the interpretation of the mystical testimonies already indicated is an original development, whose origin dates back to Heidegger's hermeneuticalphenomenology, the principies of which I have set out in the first chapter of my book ¿A dónde te escondiste, Amado, ¿y me dejaste con gemido? Una fenomenología hermenéutica del Cántico Espiritual B, de San Juan de la Cruz. The importance of these pages is that, to understand the christian mysticalprocess, witnessed by Saint Teresa of Jesus, the first step consists in describing the experience with which it begins. (shrink)

El propósito de estas páginas es describir los rasgos esenciales del misticismo como modalidad de la vida fáctica, a partir del análisis de un fenómeno hermenéutico: la obra poética y doctrinal de San Juan de la Cruz. La intención es plantear la pregunta por el origen y el sentido último de la existencia, con el fin de mostrar que la mística destaca por su radicalidad de entre los caminos que conducen al hombre a la plenitud. Esta meditación filosófico-teológica es antropología (...) por su objeto; es fenomenología, por su método; hermenéutica, porque aquello a lo que se dirige la pregunta por el ser del hombre es una construcción textual. The purpose of these pages is to describe the essential features of mysticism as a modality of factual life, based on an analysis of a hermeneutic phenomenon: the poetry and the doctrine of Saint John of the Cross. The intention is to ask for the source and the ultimate meaning of existence, in order to show that the Mystic stands by its radicalism among the paths that lead to the man in the fullness. This philosophical-theological meditation is anthropology by its object; is phenomenology, its method; hermeneutics, because that what the question is directed by the being of man is a textual construction. (shrink)

We argue that microbiome research should be more reflective on the methods that it relies on to build its datasets due to the danger of facing a methodological problem which we call “epistemic misalignment.” An epistemic misalignment occurs when the method used to answer specific scientific questions does not track justified answers, due to the material constraints imposed by the very method. For example, relying on 16S rRNA to answer questions about the function of the microbiome generates epistemic misalignments, due (...) to the different temporal scales that 16S rRNA provides information about and the temporal scales that are required to know about the functionality of some microorganisms. We show how some of these exist in contemporary microbiome science and urge microbiome scientists to take some measures to avoid them, as they may question the credibility of the field as a whole. (shrink)

Desde un punto de vista interdisciplinar, esta investigación explora la forma en que la palabra miedo funciona en la novela de Miguel Ángel Oeste Vengo de ese miedo (2022). A partir de este análisis, el trabajo pretende dar cuenta de la problemática de la identidad y la búsqueda del sentido del ser humano en el mundo contemporáneo, esclarecer la importancia del cuerpo y las emociones en la sociedad posmoderna y arrojar más luz sobre una de las tendencias más importantes de (...) la literatura actual, como es la autoficción. (shrink)

Every area of knowledge is based on a variety of products of conceptual engineering. This article is programmatic in essence: it aims at introducing a model of how conceptual engineering works and, particularly, how conceptual innovation is achieved in the context of theoretical inquiry. First, it describes the context in which the explicit study of the relevance, scope, mechanisms, and aims of conceptual engineering was born. Secondly, it introduces a distinction between evaluative and instrumental conceptual engineering based on the difference (...) between committed and instrumental conceptual use. According to this, it argues that both evaluative and instrumental conceptual engineering might be formally seen as the result of one function, which, provided a conceptual problem, maps to possible conceptual solutions generating success or failure values. Lastly, it introduces a third kind of conceptual engineering, namely, constructive conceptual engineering. Its core is a function that maps solutions to a representational space of non-considered alternatives, thus generating new conceptual content. In general, the proposed model offers a productive and novel field of inquiry on the conditions and factors that grounds theoretical innovation through conceptual engineering. (shrink)

La conciencia fenoménica es la propiedad que los estados, sucesos y procesos mentales poseen cuando, y sólo cuando, hay algo que es como algo para el sujeto que los posee; para experimentarlos o estar en tales estados. Hay algo que es como oler café recién preparado. Tener la experiencia de oler café recién preparado es un estado fenoménicamente conciente. Comúnmente, qué es algo como tener una experiencia conciente refiere al carácter fenoménico de las experiencias. Las teorías de la conciencia intentan (...) explicar éste carácter fenoménico. (shrink)

Esta derivación educativa concurrió en comprobar el impacto de un modelo metodológico desde la valoración del alumnado universitario. El estudio se realizó a 34 personas jóvenes y matriculadas en una asignatura de Economía Social (ES). Se observó a la muestra durante la formación y sus datos fueron tratados en estadística descriptiva. El estudio señaló que las personas estudiantes universitarias estiman los aprendizajes significativos y una participación activa en la construcción de conocimiento sobre ES. Se valora bien la formación universitaria en (...) ES, pero se demanda su mejora. Asimismo, se identificó la necesidad de retocar los contenidos y reformular el modelo metodológico. (shrink)