While COVID-19 has generated a massive burden of illness worldwide, healthcare workers (HCWs) have been disproportionately exposed to SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection. During the so-called ‘first wave’, infection rates among this population group have ranged between 10% and 20%, raising as high as one in every four COVID-19 patients in Spain at the peak of the crisis. Now that many countries are already dealing with new waves of COVID-19 cases, a potential competition between HCW and non-HCW patients for scarce resources can (...) still be a likely clinical scenario. In this paper, we address the question of whether HCW who become ill with COVID-19 should be prioritised in diagnostic, treatment or resource allocation protocols. We will evaluate some of the proposed arguments both in favour and against the prioritisation of HCW and also consider which clinical circumstances might warrant prioritising HCW and why could it be ethically appropriate to do so. We conclude that prioritising HCW’s access to protective equipment, diagnostic tests or even prophylactic or therapeutic drug regimes and vaccines might be ethically defensible. However, prioritising HCWs to receive intensive care unit (ICU) beds or ventilators is a much more nuanced decision, in which arguments such as instrumental value or reciprocity might not be enough, and economic and systemic values will need to be considered. (shrink)

Although shared decision-making is a standard in medical care, unilateral decisions through process-based conflict resolution policies have been defended in certain cases. In patients who do not stand to receive proportional clinical benefits, the harms involved in interventions such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation seem to run contrary to the principle of non-maleficence, and provision of such interventions may cause clinicians significant moral distress. However, because the application of these policies involves taking choices out of the domain of shared decision-making, they face (...) important ethical and legal problems, including a recent challenge to their constitutionality. In light of these concerns, we suggest a re-conceptualization of informed non-dissent as an alternative approach in cases where the application of process-based policies is being considered. This clinician-directed communication model still preserves what is valuable in such policies and salvages professional integrity, while minimising ethical and legal challenges. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated an imbalance between the clinical needs of the population and the effective availability of advanced life support (ALS) resources. Triage protocols have thus become necessary. Triage decisions in situations of scarce resources were not extraordinary in the pre-COVID-19 era; these protocols abounded in the context of organ transplantation. However, this prior experience was not considered during the COVID-19 outbreak in Spain. Lacking national guidance or public coordination, each hospital has been forced to put forth independent (...) and autonomous triage protocols, most of which were, nonetheless, based on common ethical principles and clinical criteria. However, controversial, non-clinical criteria have also been defended by Spanish scientific societies and public institutions, including setting an age cut-off value for unilaterally withholding ALS, using ‘social utility’ criteria, prioritising healthcare professionals or using ‘first come, first served’ policies. This paper describes the most common triage criteria used in the Spanish context during the COVID-19 epidemic. We will highlight our missed opportunities by comparing these criteria to those used in organ transplantation protocols. The problems posed by subjective, non-clinical criteria will also be discussed. We hope that this critical review might be of use to countries at earlier stages of the epidemic while we learn from our mistakes. (shrink)

Translating ethical theories into clinical practice presents a perennial challenge to educators. While many suggestions have been put forth to bridge the theory-practice gap, none have sufficiently remedied the problem. We believe the ascendance of hospital medicine, as a dominant new force in medical education and patient care, presents a unique opportunity that could redefine the way clinical ethics is taught. The field of hospital medicine in the United States is comprised of more than 50,000 hospitalists—specialists in inpatient medicine—representing the (...) fastest growing subspecialty in the history of medicine, and its members have emerged as a dominant new force around which medical education and patient care pivot. This evolution in medical education presents a unique opportunity for the clinical ethics community. Through their proximity to patients and trainees, hospitalists have the potential to teach medical ethics in real time on the wards, but most hospitalists have not received formal training in clinical ethics. We believe it is time to strengthen the ties between hospital medicine and medical ethics, and in this article we outline how clinical ethicists might collaborate with hospitalists to identify routine issues that do not rise to the level of an “ethics consult,” but nonetheless require an intellectual grounding in normative reasoning. We use a clinical vignette to explore how this approach might enhance and broaden the scope of medical education that occurs in the inpatient setting: A patient with an intra-abdominal abscess is admitted to the academic hospitalist teaching service for drainage of the fluid, hemodynamic support, and antimicrobial therapy. During the initial encounter with the hospitalist and his team of medical students and residents, the patient reports night sweats and asks if this symptom could be due to the abscess. How should the hospitalist approach this question? (shrink)

Background Ethical conflicts generate difficulties in daily clinical activity. Which methods of ethical advice are most frequently used to resolve them among Spanish doctors has not been studied. The objective of this study is to describe what methods hospital internal medicine physicians in Spain use to resolve their ethical doubts and which they consider most useful. Design A cross-sectional observational study was conducted through a voluntary and anonymous survey and distributed through an ad hoc platform of the Spanish Society of (...) Internal Medicine. Measures We measured methods by which to resolve doubts, types of tools sought, frequency of consulting the Clinical Ethics Committees, and satisfaction with resolution of ethical issues. Results Of 261 internists surveyed, 86 per cent resolve their ethical doubts with assistance, the most frequently used method being consultation with colleagues (58.6 per cent), followed by using specific protocols or guides (11.8 per cent) and consultation with experts in bioethics (9.6 per cent). The most preferred tools are the creation of protocols (30.3 per cent) and the establishment of a consultant/expert in bioethics (27.8 per cent). Conclusions Internists in Spain usually seek assistance to resolve their ethical doubts. Consulting colleagues is the most frequently adopted method. The majority regard tools to resolve ethical conflicts as necessary, seeking above all protocols and consultants/experts in bioethics. (shrink)

Movies can serve valuable didactic purposes teaching clinical ethics to medical students. However, using film sequences as means to develop critical thinking is not a straightforward task. There is a significant gap in the literature regarding how to analyse the ethical content embedded in these clips systematically, in a way that facilitates the students’ transition from anecdotal reflections to abstract thinking. This article offers a pedagogical proposal to approach the ethical analysis of film sequences in a systematic fashion. This structured (...) stepwise method encourages students to identify the main ethical problem of a selected scene and to reflect on the theoretical principles involved, emphasizing the application of these norms and values in a contextually situated analysis. We believe this method in film studies both reinforces the students’ comprehension of the theoretical framework of an ethical topic, and casts light on its pertinence and limitations under the circumstances of the scene, thus proving a constructive tool to strengthen the bridge between the theoretical teaching of clinical ethics and clinical practice. (shrink)

A 47-year-old woman with a history of anxiety disorder is admitted to the hospital for shortness of breath. On the third day of hospitalization, she asks her physician for a copy of all documents pertaining to her care. What expectation should she have for full disclosure? Are there limits on her access to her medical records and do her physician's concerns about professional privilege matter?The virtues of transparency in medicine have been well described. As proponents of transparency, we favor patient (...) access to their medical records, but we are increasingly troubled by the ease and extent of disclosure in current practice as technology advances and... (shrink)

Undocumented and undomiciled, Gustavo Jiménez had been in the United States for several years. He knew his leg wasn’t right when it began to swell and redden. After the cellulitis spread to his bloodstream, he was found unconscious on the street and admitted to the intensive care unit. He improved quickly and was soon able to tell a social worker his name and that he had family in Quito. Then his health took a turn for the worse, and he developed (...) multisystem organ failure. His doctors believed his prognosis grave and further care futile. They wanted to invoke a provision under their state’s law that allows, at the discretion of at least two physicians, for the withdrawal of life‐sustaining therapy for isolated and decisionally incapacitated patients, but the social worker had ethical concerns about the doctors’ desire to make such a momentous decision without family input. She asked for a “time‐out to locate his family,” but one of the doctors asserted, “His family isn’t here, and you’ll never find them. Besides we need the bed. The ER is full of patients we can help.” What is owed a patient and family in such a situation? (shrink)

As in other countries, the public in Argentina became aware of the existence of something called “the theory of relativity” only after November 1919. Although the news of Arthur Eddington's eclipse expedition, which provided the first confirmation of Einstein's theory, was poorly reported in the newspapers, by the end of 1920 Einstein had become a household name for the educated middle class of Buenos Aires, the capital city of the country. This was in great measure the result of the activity (...) of a few enthusiastic lecturers. Significantly, none of them belonged to the prestigious Institute of Physics of the University of La Plata, which during the decade of the 1910s was considered the most important center of physical research in Latin America. Between July and August 1920 the Spanish physicist Blas Cabrera – perhaps the greatest popularizer of Einstein's theory in Spain – visited Argentina and talked about relativity. In September Georges Duclout, a French engineer who had graduated from the Zurich Polytechnic and by then was professor of applied mechanics at the School of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires, also gave a series of conferences on the subject. That same month José Ubach, a Jesuit astronomer trained at the Ebro Observatory in Spain, and established in Buenos Aires, lectured on relativity at the Colegio del Salvador. (shrink)

En el sufismo la experiencia visionaria (ru’ya) es uno de los principales métodos de conocimiento profundo de la realidad (ḥaqīqa). La visión verídica (ru’ya ṣadīqa) y la visión despierta (ru’ya fi-l yaqẓa) son las principales vías de acceso al mundo imaginal (‘ālam al-mithāl) y a la hermenéutica vital que se desprende de estas experiencias. Este trabajo recoge y analiza desde una perspectiva filosófica las principales experiencias visionarias de uno de los más importantes personajes de la ṭarīqa Tijāniyya, Aḥmad Tijāni, comparándolas (...) ambas con los planteamientos y vivencias de Muḥy al-dīn Ibn ‘Arabī sobre la experiencia visionaria. (shrink)

En el año 1986 Diego Gracia publicó el libro `Voluntad de verdad: Para leer a Zubiri`, que pronto se consagró como la obra de referencia para una primera introducción al pensamiento del filósofo español. Pero han pasado desde entonces treinta años, las obras publicadas de Zubiri y sobre Zubiri se han multiplicado, su interpretación ha ido evolucionando y el conocimiento sobre él es cada vez más amplio y profundo. Ya no es hora de hacer introducciones a su filosofía sino (...) análisis detallados y críticos de la misma. Eso es lo que Gracia ha intentado en múltiples trabajos sobre el tema publicados en diferentes lugares a lo largo de estas tres décadas (y en algunos que se publican por primera vez aquí). Antonio Pintor-Ramos se ha encargado de revisar todos esos trabajos, seleccionarlos, ordenarlos y formar con ellos el presente volumen, que ha resultado no ser una simple recopilación de textos sino un libro perfectamente organizado y sistemático. Esta obra ofrece, por tanto, una revisión actual del pensamiento de Zubiri, profunda y detallada, que sintetiza las diversas interpretaciones realizadas sobre él a la vez que expone con argumentos la que el propio Gracia asume como suya. (Fuente: Triacastela). (shrink)

En una carta del 20 de julio de 1664 Spinoza le relata a su amigo Peter Balling un sueño con “cierto brasileño, negro y sarnoso”. Tal vez sea esa la única mención en la obra spinozista que refiere al Nuevo Mundo, donde Holanda poseía colonias. A partir de ese sueño, el presente trabajo inquiere sobre la coexistencia de las filosofías modernas de la libertad con la esclavitud real de miles de seres humanos en América, y en particular sobre el (...) silencio de Spinoza en relación con la trata de esclavos africanos en tierras americanas. (shrink)

Problematizando a partir de las implicancias epistemológicas de la noción de punto vista, se realiza un análisis del trayecto filosófico del perspectivismo, adentrándose en la dimensión virtual de lo real, presente en el diálogo Leibniz-Nietzsche-Deleuze, que configura conceptualmente el perspectivismo amerindio desarrollado por los antropólogos Eduardo Viveiros de Castro y Tânia Stolze Lima en tanto lenguaje común de las cosmologías indígenas, expresadas en nuestros propios términos y traduciendo este ejercicio en la inversión de nuestros modos occidentales de conocimiento. Palabras (...) clave: Perspectivismo amerindio - Virtualidad - Epistemología. (shrink)

Philosophy is the search of truth. This means that philosophers are those which are looking for the truth, no matter where it could be. As a consequence, the study of previous philosophers can only have the role of an aid in order to reach this task. They are only means, not ends in themselves. The rest is ‘scholasticism’. As a true philosopher, Zubiri was changing all his life his mind and progressing in the analysis of reality. In this paper some (...) important differences between their two major works, On essence (1962) and Sentient intelligence (1980-1982) are analyzed. At the first glance it seems that both are talking about the same, ‘reality’, but the first is the analysis of what Zubiri calls ‘real-thing’ (cosa-realidad), while the goal of the second is the description of ‘reality’ as such, understood as the formality of the intellectual human approach to things. This difference, which seems minimal at the beginning, is at the end plenty of consequences, not only in the field of Metaphysics, but also in Anthropology and Theology. (shrink)

Este texto se propõe perspectivar a agência humana no entorno do ato de grafar, ou seja, trata das relações e suas tensões entre as percepções do real e de sua inscrição no tempo-espaço, com ênfase à escrita. Dimensiona essa questão circunscrevendo certa noção de um corpo em jogo no mundo, no qual nota e anota o que percebe, via uma Poética da Notação Esquizográfica. Passa, por conseguinte, a perspectivar tal noção de corpo a partir da ideia de um indivíduo (...) que, em Deleuze, é colocada em questão nos termos de um eu passível, ou um ante-eu, como condição para determinações diferenciais dos e nos encontros: sob esse ante-eu, todavia, se impõe um Eu pessoal. Um corpo é, então, considerado como composto por singularidades em movimentos contínuos, variações nas quais irrompem individuações – individualidades dotadas de forças pré-individuais inerentes aos corpos. O problema é colocado a partir da ideia, presente em Barthes, de que uma logosfera nos envolve, e que precisamos, portanto, sacudi-la, pois se trata de um dado do nosso sujeito centrado: pôr em jogo, assim, o que, em nossa individualidade, constitui o Eu pessoal, que condiciona os movimentos da representação, via recognição. Com efeito, é um jogo com a linguagem, tomando-a, com Deleuze e Guattari, como incorpóreos que se expressam dos corpos. Trata-se de ponderar que o mundo, após pensado, só pode ser perspectivado nesses termos, com o pensamento e a linguagem. Destarte, o jogo que propomos – e seus efeitos sobre a educação –é condicionado, com Baudrillard, por uma impostura radical, que passa a lidar com o real, via certa Poética da Notação Esquizográfica. Palavras-chave: Poética. Jogo. Corpo. Pensamento. Linguagem. (shrink)

Brain monitoring combined with automatic analysis of EEGs provides a clinical decision support tool that can reduce time to diagnosis and assist clinicians in real-time monitoring applications (e.g., neurological intensive care units). Clinicians have indicated that a sensitivity of 95% with specificity below 5% was the minimum requirement for clinical acceptance. In this study, a high-performance automated EEG analysis system based on principles of machine learning and big data is proposed. This hybrid architecture integrates hidden Markov models (HMMs) for (...) sequential decoding of EEG events with deep learning-based postprocessing that incorporates temporal and spatial context. These algorithms are trained and evaluated using the Temple University Hospital EEG, which is the largest publicly available corpus of clinical EEG recordings in the world. This system automatically processes EEG records and classifies three patterns of clinical interest in brain activity that might be useful in diagnosing brain disorders: (1) spike and/or sharp waves, (2) generalized periodic epileptiform discharges, (3) periodic lateralized epileptiform discharges. It also classifies three patterns used to model the background EEG activity: (1) eye movement, (2) artifacts and (3) background. Our approach delivers a sensitivity above 90% while maintaining a specificity below 5%. We also demonstrate that this system delivers a low false alarm rate, which is critical for any spike detection application. (shrink)

Este trabajo versa sobre a la noción de metron en la filosofía antigua. Se analizará, más precisamente, la concepción que de ella tuvieron dos autores de la Antigüedad: Heráclito y Protágoras, su relación y las implicacioness de esta idea. Asimismo, se presentará la propuesta de interpretar el metron, en ambos autores, concediéndole el status de fundamento ontológico de lo real.

At present, educational discourses on innovative methodologies make up an enthusiastic panorama that is not exempt from criticism. The aim of this paper is to understand the real possibilities of success for new methodological proposals in a case study focused on the Geography and History classes of a teacher–researcher. The results obtained allow us to identify a central category of analysis, “methodological ineffectiveness”, and two subcategories, “methodological supply” and “methodological demand”. This confirms the importance of exploring the impact of (...) new methodologies based on the factors and voices specific to each educational context. (shrink)

La ‘declaración’ es uno de los momentos constitutivos de la adquisición de una propiedad (AA 6 258). Este momento debe verse satisfecho si es que dicha adquisición ha de volverse real, sin importar las condiciones empíricas bajo las que tal objeto sea adquirido, ni tampoco el objeto del que se trate (AA 6 251-254, 273). No obstante, teniendo en consideración que la presentación de los attendenda —entre los que la declaración se halla— es posterior a la exposición de los (...) objetos que le son apropiables a nuestro arbitrio (cf. AA 6 247-248), podría pensarse que dichos momentos sufren de algún condicionamiento para su posibilidad en referencia al tipo de objeto que vaya a ser adquirido, o bien, que son estos los que resultan condicionados por ellos. Más aún, en la medida en que toda ‘declaración’ demanda una ejecución, su pretendido estatuto trascendental queda puesto en tensión. No obstante, se mostrará que dicha tensión se resuelve atendiendo a (1) que la procedencia de toda ‘declaración’ es la comunidad originaria, y (2) que la ‘declaración’, fundada en la comunidad originaria, es un acto de habla que no modifica la naturaleza de dicha comunidad. (shrink)

El presente trabajo se construye alrededor de dos ejes centrales: el aprendizaje rizomático y la era posdigital. El aprendizaje rizomático asienta sus principios en la construcción del conocimiento a partir de las aportaciones del alumnado en tiempo real, con la finalidad de entender la comunidad como currículo. Por su parte, la era posdigital se entiende como la coyuntura en que la tecnología digital es una necesidad social impuesta. Partiendo de que la educación, pese a ser pública, no es gratuita, (...) la digitalización aumenta la brecha socioeconómica entre elalumnado con acceso a herramientas digitales y el que no. Así, se propone la posibilidad de contradigitalización:usar la tecnología digital como una herramienta emancipadora más. Esto es, cuando sea posible, utilizarla de manera competente y equitativa. Ahora bien, cuando esta situación no pueda darse debemos contar con una práctica posdigital que comprenda el sistema-mundo con las mismas o similares posibilidades. Para ello,aprendizaje rizomático y era posdigital serán presentados como núcleos inherentes a la producción de la propuesta pedagógica viniente: la posibilidad de establecimiento de una pedagogía posdigital. Como sustento filosófico se presenta una revisión de literatura de los dos ejes mencionados desde la obra de Deleuze y Guattari,exponiéndose un acercamiento rupturista con las posiciones digitalistas de la educación tecnocapitalista actual. (shrink)

El libro E-physicalism - A Physicalist Theory of PhenomenalConsciousness presenta una teoría en el área de la metafísica de laconciencia fenomenal. Está basada en las convicciones de que la experienciasubjetiva -en el sentido de Nagel - es un fenómeno real,y de que alguna variante del fisicalismo debe ser verdadera.

El artículo aborda la discusión acerca de la unicidad divina y la existencia de atributos, tanto en la filosofía como en la teología islámica medieval, haciendo énfasis en la obra de Averroes. Se analiza cómo en el pensamiento Islámico, al tiempo que se afirma el dogma de la unicidad divina se sostiene la existencia de atributos reales, apuntando directamente a conceptos dialecticos como unidad y multiplicidad, identidad y diferencia, o igualdad y alteridad. Así mismo, partiendo del análisis de su obra, (...) se busca mostrar la manera en la que el pensador cordobés legitimó el uso de la razón filosófica como camino optimo y recomendado para el abordaje de las verdades religiosas. Se considera que Averroes avanzó en una doctrina teológico-filosófica particular diferente del asharismo que se estaba imponiendo en la época, resistiéndose a Al Ghazali, y reivindicando el valor la perspectiva peripatética para enriquecer el debate en el Islam. (shrink)

The historiographic tradition of the history of science that originated with Auguste Comte bears all the marks of narratives with roots in the Enlightenment, such as a view of religion as an underdeveloped stage in the ascending road in humanity's quest for a more mature understanding. This article explores the development of the peripheral branch of a tradition that developed in Argentina by the mid‐twentieth century with authors such as the Italians Aldo Mieli, José Babini, and the Hungarian Desiderius Papp. (...) It is argued that, contrary to the historiographic program of the conflict thesis developed in English‐speaking countries, those scholars who cultivated the kind of “positivist” history of science that thrived in continental Europe were inclined to see science as a social and epistemological replacement of a fossilized religious outlook. In the final section, I suggest a way to relate the more or less strong versions of the conflict thesis to different patterns of secularization. (shrink)

E! De arte venandi cum avibus deFederico II ha sido ensalzado por pane de medievalistase historiadores de la ciencia como uno delos logros más importantes de la ciencia medieval,sobre la base de su supuesto carâcter "empírico"y "observacional" y su critica a Aiistóteles.En esta comunicación se intenta una reconsideracióndel significado de la obra, ubicândoladentro dei panorama de la literatura sobre losanimales en e! siglo XIII. Luego de proporcionaralgunos datos básicos sobre el tratado, se adoptaun criterio historiogrâfico, pasando revista criticaa las opiniones (...) de los distintos autores que haninvestigado el tema. Posteriormente se discute laconcepción dei De arte venandi como un libro"cientifico" asumiendo que la scientia en elsiglo XIII es radicalmente distinta de la cienciasurgida a partir del siglo XVII, que e! tratadode Federico es la exposición de un ars, en e!sentido que los médicos otorgaban a esta nocióny que la obra pertenece mâs bien ai género detratados sobre cetrería, uno de los modos en losque se articulaba el discurso sobre los animalesen el siglo XIII. (shrink)

ArgumentThe eighteenth-century natural histories ofParaquaria, a Jesuit province in South America ranging from the tropical forest to Río de la Plata (the River Plate), constitute a rich and consistent tradition of nature writing. The way the material is organized, the frequent use of lists of aboriginal names, and the focus on naming, all attest to the missionaries' preoccupation with language, understandable given that they were engaged in writing dictionaries and thesauri of the native tongues. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, (...) this body of work went through a series of appropriations, reflecting the various intellectual programs that contributed to the making of the national tradition in Argentina. While these natural histories are still often interpreted in terms of Argentina's national history, science, and literature, I will argue that they should be considered a product of a mixed culture oriented toward the practical and religious goals that are characteristic of most of Jesuit missionary culture, the result of the missionaries' attempt at organizing their experience of the wilderness and their encounter with the aboriginal peoples. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper is intended as a contribution to the study of science and religion in late modern Catholic societies. I explore the treatment of natural philosophy vis-à-vis religious authority, the teaching of Biblical geology, and the use of natural theology in texts from Río de la Plata in the transition from late colonial to early independent times. After reviewing the assimilation of modern science into scholastic teaching and the articulation of reason and religious authority, the article considers the handling (...) of the early history of the Earth in the theses of scholastic teachers and in the geological memoirs of the naturalist priest from Montevideo Dámaso Larrañaga. The core of the paper is devoted to the treatment of natural theology in Larrañaga’s Diary of Natural History and in the speeches and documents of enlightened crown bureaucrats. The conclusion is reached that the harmonious character of the relationships between science and religion in this period and location harboured tensions which could be accounted for in terms of the inherent inconsistencies in the programme of Catholic Enlightenment. (shrink)

Infin de siècleArgentina a secularist ideology of science was part of the positivist world view espoused by liberals and socialists. Between the years 1910 and 1935, a period in which the Catholic Church experienced a significant cultural expansion, the activities of the Catholic naturalist Ángel Gallardo and the astronomer and priest Fortunato Devoto challenged the so far prevailing idea of science as opposed to religion. This paper explores the connections between the scientific, religious and political aspects of those figures in (...) order to get some insights into the complexity of the relationships between science and secularization in societies with a Catholic majority. (shrink)

The conceptual framework of this paper is the structural conception of theories as formulated by Sneed-Stegmüller. We present an informal set-theoretical axiomatization of M. F. Xavier Bichat’s theory of the constitution of the organism, which conceived the tissue as the ultimate constitutive element of the living beings, and a reformulation of our previous axiomatization of the cell theory. We propose a tentative relation of reduction between both theories which possibilitates the derivation of the axioms of the tissue theory from those (...) of the cell theory. The limits and problems of the axiomatization are discussed and brief reference is being made to some historical aspects of the reception of the cell theory. (shrink)

El sistema agro-industrial-alimentario de Argentina, en el actual contexto de globalización económica, está signado desde algunas décadas ya, por el despliegue de un patrón de acumulación capitalista denominado como agronegocios . Se trata de un proceso, de transformación multidimensional y multiescalar, que presenta rupturas y continuidades con la expansión del anterior modelo de la agroindustria orientado al mercado interno a partir de regulaciones estatales. Según nuestras investigaciones desde la Comunidad de Estudios Campesinos (CEC) pudimos identificar cinco dispositivos según los cuales (...) el agronegocio se territorializa: económico-financiero, jurídico-normativo y de políticas públicas, legitimación ideológica, formación y desarrollo tecnológico, coercitivo (CEC, 2009). Nos interesa abonar a la caracterización del despliegue del último de los dispositivos del agronegocio: el de la violencia. En esta oportunidad presentamos un análisis del conjunto de los asesinatos o muertes de campesinos e indígenas en conflictos de tierra en Argentina, desde la desregulación económica hasta la actualidad. En este sentido nos proponemos indagar el significado de la violencia sobre los cuerpos de campesinos/as e indígenas que registramos desde 1991. Nuestra hipótesis se orienta a explicar la vinculación entre la violencia rural y la desterritorialización de la emergente intencionalidad campesina. (shrink)

Recientemente fallecido, Pierre Aubenque consagró la mayor parte de su trayectoria a la interpretación del aristotelismo. Su apuesta por reconsiderar el sentido y la función de la metafísica aristotélica ha puesto de relieve la dignidad inherente a la tarea del historiador de la filosofía, cuya aproximación crítica al pasado exige la actualización de un singular compromiso intelectual. La nítida visión que tenía de los desafíos a los que debía responder la filosofía del s. XX, la participación en múltiples debates y (...) su entrega a la docencia universitaria, reaparecen hoy bajo los rasgos de un coraje bien reconocible en sus intervenciones. (shrink)

Este artigo trata de colocar em diálogo as filosofias de Hannah Arendt e Gilbert Simondon no que diz respeito à relação entre a natureza e a cultura. Contemporâneos, mas advindos de tradições distintas, os dois autores elaboraram filosofias preocupadas com a alienação da realidade humana em relação à progressiva transformação tecnológica. Enquanto Hannah Arendt associa o progresso da técnica com o advento do social e, com isso, o esvanecimento da política, Simondon considera que o estágio maquínico da concretização dos objetos (...) técnicos acentua uma crise da capacidade cultural humana de simbolizar a realidade. Diante da mesma crise, mas apontando aspectos diferentes, subjaz às suas respectivas abordagens duas maneiras distintas de pensar a relação entre a natureza e o mundo: se, para Arendt, duas temporalidades distintas circunscrevem os dois domínios, Simondon aponta para uma diferença de complexificação no qual o mesmo processo de individuação se desdobra. A partir disso, os autores divergem sobre o que está sendo perdido na crise contemporânea: Arendt aponta para a política; Simondon, para a cultura. (shrink)

Gregory Bateson is well known for defining information by stating “In fact what we mean by information – the elementary unit of information – is a difference which makes a difference…” This conceptual perspective has the merit of simplicity and generality. Simplicity, in addressing the complexity of information. Generality, in seeking applicability to any and every field of human experience. The purpose of this paper is to focus the applicability of this conceptual approach by Bateson and use it to perform (...) a calculation of taking the difference between two grey-level digital images that are shifted one relative to the other. The digital images take the place of the field of view that a human being would have access through her sense of vision at two different spatial/temporal instances. The results show that it is possible to highlight the edges of the objects under scrutiny, as well as to highlight other differences within the object. Bateson’s “difference that makes a difference” would seem to provide a first step in the elusive meaning making process of humans. (shrink)

The contemplation of the heavenly vault suggests to any generalizing intelligence the idea of the world suspended within this concavity. During rude barbaric times such as the High Middle Ages – the records of which are precious in this respect – it was thought that this vault rested on the surface of the Earth like a glass bell. And when experience gained firstly by terrestrial travels and afterwards by circumnavigation showed that this was a delusory phenomenon and, at the same (...) time, that the Earth was an autonomous sphere floating within space, the [heavenly] vault became in turn a hollow and translucent sphere containing the concentric world, like the white of an egg surrounding the yolk. Cosmological experience then revealed that the stars were situated at different heights in the supposed vault, which compelled imagining new concentric spheres. Finally, it was discovered that there are neither such spheres nor such a vault; that the amplification and multiplicity of the latter were illusions – as was the concave aspect of the sky – and that the space enclosing the universe is an abyss. (shrink)

The standard approach for abstractive text summarization is to use an encoder-decoder architecture. The encoder is responsible for capturing the general meaning from the source text, and the decoder is in charge of generating the final text summary. While this approach can compose summaries that resemble human writing, some may contain unrelated or unfaithful information. This problem is called “hallucination” and it represents a serious issue in legal texts as legal practitioners rely on these summaries when looking for precedents, used (...) to support legal arguments. Another concern is that legal documents tend to be very long and may not be fed entirely to the encoder. We propose our method called LegalSumm for addressing these issues by creating different “views” over the source text, training summarization models to generate independent versions of summaries, and applying entailment module to judge how faithful these candidate summaries are with respect to the source text. We show that the proposed approach can select candidate summaries that improve ROUGE scores in all metrics evaluated. (shrink)

África Occidental representa a día de hoy un lugar clave para la geopolítica del islam contemporáneo. Esta situación no es una nueva, al contrario, ya que es un territorio que históricamente ha estado ligado a la religión musulmana. Actualmente, esta región supone un lugar estratégico prioritario para los intereses de los países occidentales, de países musulmanes aliados de estos y de insurgentes y rebeldes ligados a ideologías neo-fundamentalistas. El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar desde una perspectiva transdisciplinar el juego (...) geopolítico del islam en África Occidental, como influyen las diversas escuelas de pensamiento islámico contemporáneo en las identidades locales y que estrategias siguen las potencias actuales para intentar influir identitariamente en la zona. Para este propósito, abordaremos algunos hechos históricos acaecidos, especialmente, en Senegal, Mali, Nigeria y Mauritania. (shrink)

Although same-sex couples and their offspring have been legitimised in many European countries, heteronormativity is still embedded in institutions and practices, thereby continuing to affect the daily lives of LGBT individuals. Italy represents a clear example of the hegemonic power of heteronormativity because of the fierce opposition to recognising lesbian and gay parenthood among many parts of society. This paper focuses on the peculiarities of the Italian scenario with the aim of highlighting how heteronormativity works in contemporary neoliberal contexts. By (...) drawing on queer and feminist perspectives, the article also analyses how LGBT equal rights demands can contribute, to some extent, to reinforcing heteronormativity. Implications concerning strategies for challenging the regime of normality and queering kinship are discussed. (shrink)

The standard approach for abstractive text summarization is to use an encoder-decoder architecture. The encoder is responsible for capturing the general meaning from the source text, and the decoder is in charge of generating the final text summary. While this approach can compose summaries that resemble human writing, some may contain unrelated or unfaithful information. This problem is called “hallucination” and it represents a serious issue in legal texts as legal practitioners rely on these summaries when looking for precedents, used (...) to support legal arguments. Another concern is that legal documents tend to be very long and may not be fed entirely to the encoder. We propose our method called LegalSumm for addressing these issues by creating different “views” over the source text, training summarization models to generate independent versions of summaries, and applying entailment module to judge how faithful these candidate summaries are with respect to the source text. We show that the proposed approach can select candidate summaries that improve ROUGE scores in all metrics evaluated. (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)