Cooperative learning encourages the development of interpersonal skills and motivates students to participate more actively in the teaching and learning process. This study explores the impact of cooperative learning on the academic goals influencing university students’ behavior and leading to the attainment of a series of academic objectives. To this end, a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design was used, with a sample of 509 university students from Preschool, Primary and Social Education undergraduate degree courses. Using the Academic Goals Questionnaire, pretest (...) and posttest measures were taken via self-reports to evaluate three types of academic goals: learning goals, social reinforcement goals and achievement goals. The results show that cooperative learning is an effective tool for encouraging university students to develop academic goals that motivate them to fully engage with the tasks they are set in order to acquire knowledge and skills. In addition, when students are asked to work as part of a team on an autonomous basis without the structure and supervision necessary to ensure a minimum standard of cooperation, they display a greater tendency toward social reinforcement goals than toward learning and achievement goals. These findings contribute new knowledge to the conceptual framework on cooperative learning. Goals may be considered one of the most important variables influencing students’ learning and the use of cooperative learning techniques in university classrooms creates the necessary conditions for encouraging students to develop goals oriented toward learning. (shrink)

Group work is a very common practice in higher education when it comes to developing key competences for students’ personal and professional growth. The goals that students pursue when working in teams determine how they organize and regulate their behavior and how they approach the tasks. The academic goals are a relevant variable that can condition the success of the group, as they guide and direct the students towards involvement in the task, the effort they make, and the desire to (...) increase their academic competence, and their learning. Thus, the need arises to create new evaluation instruments to help us understand the importance of academic goals when students work as a team. The purpose of this paper is to corroborate the construct validity of the Questionnaire on Teamwork Learning Goals (QTLG) based on the Achievement Goal Questionnaire (3x2 AGQ) of Elliot, Murayama & Pekrun (2011) in the context of teamwork, and to determine if the model 3X2 offers a better fit to the data than other models, such as: 2x2; Trichotomous; Definition; Valence, among others. The results obtained from a sample of 700 students from 6 Spanish universities confirm that, in the context of teamwork, the 3x2 model fits the data better than the rest of the models subjected to confirmatory analysis, with contrasting evidence of validity and reliability. Therefore, we considered it a useful instrument for studying motivation in the group work context. The QTLG has practical applications, allowing us to explore in detail the academic goals of university students. (shrink)

This volume publishes the Proceedings of the 1st International Meeting "Thinking Baroque in Portugal" (26-28 June 2017), which dealt with the metaphysical, ethical and political thought of Francisco Suárez. Counting on the collaboration of some of the greatest international specialists in the work and thought of this famous professor of the University of Coimbra in the 17th century, this volume celebrates the 400th anniversary of his death and marks the productivity of his philosophical-theological legacy.

The emergency of aesthetics -- Measurable contemplations -- Indifferent beauty -- Emergency through art -- Social paradoxes -- Urban discharges -- Environmental calls -- Historical accounts -- Emergency aesthetics -- Anarchic interpretations -- Existential interventions.

First collected in Italy in 1985, _Art's Claim to Truth_ is considered by many philosophers to be one of Gianni Vattimo's most important works. Newly revised for English readers, the book begins with a challenge to Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel, who viewed art as a metaphysical aspect of reality rather than a futuristic anticipation of it. Following Martin Heidegger's interpretation of the history of philosophy, Vattimo outlines the existential ontological conditions of aesthetics, paying particular attention to the works of (...) Kandinsky, which reaffirm the ontological implications of art. Vattimo then builds on Hans-Georg Gadamer's theory of aesthetics and provides an alternative to a rationalistic-positivistic criticism of art. This is the heart of Vattimo's argument, and with it he demonstrates how hermeneutical philosophy reaffirms art's ontological status and makes clear the importance of hermeneutics for aesthetic studies. In the book's final section, Vattimo articulates the consequences of reclaiming the ontological status of aesthetics without its metaphysical implications, holding Aristotle's concept of beauty responsible for the dissolution of metaphysics itself. In its direct engagement with the works of Gadamer, Heidegger, and Luigi Pareyson, _Art's Claim to Truth_ offers a better understanding of the work of Vattimo and a deeper knowledge of ontology, hermeneutics, and the philosophical examination of truth. (shrink)

Principles of biological psychology -- Criminology -- Toward an ethic without doctrines -- Moral forces -- Mediocre man.

RESUMEN: El tema de este trabajo es la reconstrucción de la teoría de la selección natural darwiniana. Me propongo esbozar la ley fundamental de esta teoría de manera informal a partir de sus aplicaciones en El origen de las especies de Darwin y presentar sus conceptos fundamentales. Presentaré la red teórica de leyes especiales que surgen de la especialización de esta ley fundamental. Supondré el estructuralismo como marco metateórico. Señalaré también algunas consecuencias que mi propuesta tiene sobre ciertas discusiones metateóricas (...) en torno a la teoría y, finalmente, relacionaré mi reconstrucción con otras reconstrucciones disponibles.ABSTRACT: This paper is about the reconstruction of the Darwinian Theory of Natural Selection. My aim here is to outline the fundamental law of this theory in an informal way from its applications in The Origin of Species and to make explicit its fundamental concepts. I will introduce the theory-nets of special laws that arisefrom the specialization of the fundamental law. I will assume the metatheoretical structuralist frame. I will also point out many consequences that my proposal has about a few metatheoretical discussions around the theory and, finally, I will relate my propose to other reconstructions available. (shrink)

Though coming from different and distinct intellectual traditions, Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo are united in their criticism of the metaphysical tradition. The challenges they put forward extend beyond philosophy and entail a reconsideration of the foundations of belief in God and the religious life. They urge that the rejection of metaphysical truth does not necessitate the death of religion; instead it opens new ways of imagining what it is to be religious -- ways that emphasize charity, solidarity, and irony. (...) This unique collaboration, which includes a dialogue between the two philosophers, is notable not only for its fusion of pragmatism and hermeneutics but also for its recognition of the limits of both traditional religious belief and modern secularism. In "Anticlericalism and Atheism" Rorty discusses Vattimo's work _Belief_ and argues that the end of metaphysics paves the way for an anti-essentialist religion. Rorty's conception of religion, determined by private motives, is designed to produce the gospel's promise that henceforth God will not consider humanity as a servant but as a friend. In "The Age of Interpretation," Vattimo, who is both a devout Catholic and a frequent critic of the church, explores the surprising congruence between Christianity and hermeneutics in light of the dissolution of metaphysical truth. As in hermeneutics, interpretation is central to Christianity, which introduced the world to the principle of interiority, dissolving the experience of objective reality into "listening to and interpreting messages." The lively dialogue that concludes this volume, moderated and edited by Santiago Zabala, analyzes the future of religion together with the political, social, and historical aspects that characterize our contemporary postmodern, postmetaphysical, and post-Christian world. (shrink)

Though coming from different and distinct intellectual traditions, Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo are united in their criticism of the metaphysical tradition. The challenges they put forward extend beyond philosophy and entail a reconsideration of the foundations of belief in God and the religious life. They urge that the rejection of metaphysical truth does not necessitate the death of religion; instead it opens new ways of imagining what it is to be religious -- ways that emphasize charity, solidarity, and irony. (...) This unique collaboration, which includes a dialogue between the two philosophers, is notable not only for its fusion of pragmatism and hermeneutics but also for its recognition of the limits of both traditional religious belief and modern secularism. In "Anticlericalism and Atheism" Rorty discusses Vattimo's work _Belief_ and argues that the end of metaphysics paves the way for an anti-essentialist religion. Rorty's conception of religion, determined by private motives, is designed to produce the gospel's promise that henceforth God will not consider humanity as a servant but as a friend. In "The Age of Interpretation," Vattimo, who is both a devout Catholic and a frequent critic of the church, explores the surprising congruence between Christianity and hermeneutics in light of the dissolution of metaphysical truth. As in hermeneutics, interpretation is central to Christianity, which introduced the world to the principle of interiority, dissolving the experience of objective reality into "listening to and interpreting messages." The lively dialogue that concludes this volume, moderated and edited by Santiago Zabala, analyzes the future of religion together with the political, social, and historical aspects that characterize our contemporary postmodern, postmetaphysical, and post-Christian world. (shrink)

In Insight, an essay on human understanding, Lonergan presents a heuristic model of emerging probability in order to define, explain and extract norms from the dynamism common to all nature, including human nature, a dynamism that mirrors the reality of intellection. Continuity between different levels of nature discloses a directed, upward, but indeterminate dynamism of the emerging generalized probability. In addition to the ethical consequences that he elaborates, Lonergan remains in an open hermeneutic framework, beyond being proportionate to discursive reason; (...) he opens the way for a surprising final manifestation of this universal dynamism through what he calls transcendent conjugated forms of generalized probability emerging – faith, hope and charity – that are proposed to human freedom. (shrink)

One of the most pleasurable aspects of video games is their ability to induce immersive experiences. However, there appears to be a tentative conceptualization of what an immersive experience is. In this short review, we specifically focus on the terms of flow and immersion, as they are the most widely used and applied definitions in the video game literature, whilst their differences remain disputable. We critically review the concepts separately and proceed with a comparison on their proposed differences. We conclude (...) that immersion and flow do not substantially differ in current studies and that more evidence is needed to justify their separation. (shrink)

Suele señalarse la fuerte influencia que la teología natural tuvo sobre Darwin en su conceptualización del fenómeno de la adaptación. La teoría de la selección natural explicaría el mismo fenómeno que los teólogos naturales querían explicar: la adaptación. Recientemente ha sido señalado, sin embargo, que la forma darwiniana de conceptualizar la adaptación es novedosa. Las adaptaciones de la teología natural presupondrían la idea de que los organismos existen para la realización y manutención del equilibrio natural establecido por el creador. El (...) punto de este trabajo discutir esta cuestión, asumiendo el marco del estructuralismo metateórico. The strong influence that natural theology had over Darwin’s conceptualization of the adaptation phenomenon is frequently noted. The natural selection theory would explain the same phenomenon that the natural theologist intended to explain: the adaptation. Recently has been claimed, on the contrary, that the Darwinian way of conceptualizing adaptation is new. The concept of adaptation from natural theology presupposes the idea that organisms exist for realization and support of the natural equilibrium stated by the creator. In this work I will discuss this point, assuming the metatheoretical structuralism frame. (shrink)

The concept of fitness has generated a lot of discussion in philosophy of biology. There is, however, relative agreement about the need to distinguish at least two uses of the term: ecological fitness on the one hand, and population genetics fitness on the other. The goal of this paper is to give an explication of the concept of ecological fitness by providing a reconstruction of the theory of natural selection in which this concept was framed, that is, based on the (...) way the theory was put to use in Darwin’s main texts. I will contend that this reconstruction enables us to account for the current use of the theory of natural selection. The framework presupposed in the analysis will be that of metatheoretical structuralism. This framework will provide both a better understanding of the nature of ecological fitness and a more complete reconstruction of the theory. In particular, it will provide what I think is a better way of understanding how the concept of fitness is applied through heterogeneous cases. One of the major advantages of my way of thinking about natural selection theory is that it would not have the peculiar metatheoretical status that it has in other available views. I will argue that in order to achieve these goals it is necessary to make several concepts explicit, concepts that are frequently omitted in usual reconstructions. (shrink)

In _Basic Concepts_, Heidegger claims that "Being is the most worn-out" and yet also that Being "remains constantly available." Santiago Zabala radicalizes the consequences of these little known but significant affirmations. Revisiting the work of Jacques Derrida, Reiner Schürmann, Jean-Luc Nancy, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Ernst Tugendhat, and Gianni Vattimo, he finds these remains of Being within which ontological thought can still operate. Being is an event, Zabala argues, a kind of generosity and gift that generates astonishment in those who experience (...) it. This sense of wonder has fueled questions of meaning for centuries-from Plato to the present day. Postmetaphysical accounts of Being, as exemplified by the thinkers of Zabala's analysis, as well as by Nietzsche, Dewey, and others he encounters, don't abandon Being. Rather, they reject rigid, determined modes of essentialist thought in favor of more fluid, malleable, and adaptable conceptions, redefining the pursuit and meaning of philosophy itself. (shrink)

A obra principal de Bernard Lonergan Inteligência: Um ensaio sobre o conhecimento humano, é um tratado que leva a cabo uma integração segundo o método transcendental dos conhecimentos heterogéneos da ciência, da filosofia, do senso comum e da teologia. A obra visa a auto-apropriação da nossa auto-consciência intelectual e racional com base na experiência consciente dos actos de intelecção. Começa como teoria cognitiva, expande-se para uma metafísica e uma ética, e avança para uma concepção e uma afirmação de Deus, para (...) ser finalmente confrontada com o problema do mal que exige a transformação da inteligência auto-confiante no intellectus quaerens fidem. Ao cumprir estes objectivos, Inteligência tornou-se uma das mais importantes obras de filosofia do século XX, aqui sucintamente elucidada em cinco das suas principais vertentes: a relação entre conhecimento e realidade, conhecimento científico e cosmologia, a acção humana e a ética, as questões de interpretação, a relação entre natureza de Deus e filosofia. O artigo conclui com uma avaliação da cosmopolis lonerganiana, ou seja, o poder da comunidade de espírito na sociedade. /// Bernard Lonergan s opus magnum, Insight: A Study of human understanding, handles the heterogeneous fields of knowledge as given in science, philosophy, common sense and theology according to a transcendental method. The work aims at the self-appropriation of human intellectual and rational self-conscience as based in the conscious experience of insight. Lonergan s work starts as a cognitive theory, and advances, through metaphysics and ethics, to a conception and affirmation of God, one that is confronted with the problem of evil and therefore requires a transformation of self-confident intelligence into the intellectus quaerens fidem. Handling these goals, Insight became one of the most important works of philosophy in the 20 th century. The present article deals with five of the main issues in Lonergan s work: the relation between knowledge and reality, scientific knowledge and cosmology, human action and ethics, the problem of interpretation, as well as the problem of the relation between the nature of God and philosophy. The article ends with an assessment of the lonerganian notion of cosmopolis, a notion that represents the power of the community of the spirit in society. (shrink)

Frente a la teoría de la pena, con sus sutiles matices y fines comunicativos, encontramos una realidad que diverge sustancialmente de aquella. Donde, con frecuencia, la denominada prevención general no acontece, porque la resolución no llega a esta, a la generalidad a la que se apela como fundamento del castigo. Pero, en particular, cuando tal comunicación acontece, tiene lugar en un inquietante marco discursivo que va dando nombre a nuestro tiempo: la era de la posverdad. Se revela aquí un contexto (...) comunicativo hostil al discurso experto y a los hechos, que se ven desplazados por su valoración, donde los interlocutores se alejan del modelo del ciudadano racional sobre el que se teoriza en Derecho, y donde actores políticos desarrollan estrategias comunicativas propagandistas, de modo que, en ocasiones, se termina comunicando un mensaje contrario a lo que enuncia literalmente la resolución judicial. (shrink)

First collected in Italy in 1985, _Art's Claim to Truth_ is considered by many philosophers to be one of Gianni Vattimo's most important works. Newly revised for English readers, the book begins with a challenge to Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel, who viewed art as a metaphysical aspect of reality rather than a futuristic anticipation of it. Following Martin Heidegger's interpretation of the history of philosophy, Vattimo outlines the existential ontological conditions of aesthetics, paying particular attention to the works of (...) Kandinsky, which reaffirm the ontological implications of art. Vattimo then builds on Hans-Georg Gadamer's theory of aesthetics and provides an alternative to a rationalistic-positivistic criticism of art. This is the heart of Vattimo's argument, and with it he demonstrates how hermeneutical philosophy reaffirms art's ontological status and makes clear the importance of hermeneutics for aesthetic studies. In the book's final section, Vattimo articulates the consequences of reclaiming the ontological status of aesthetics without its metaphysical implications, holding Aristotle's concept of beauty responsible for the dissolution of metaphysics itself. In its direct engagement with the works of Gadamer, Heidegger, and Luigi Pareyson, _Art's Claim to Truth_ offers a better understanding of the work of Vattimo and a deeper knowledge of ontology, hermeneutics, and the philosophical examination of truth. (shrink)

A daring marriage of philosophical theory and practical politics, this collection is the first of Gianni Vattimo's many books to combine his intellectual pursuits with his public and political life. Vattimo is a paradoxical figure, at once a believing Christian and a vociferous critic of the Catholic Church, an outspoken liberal but not a former communist, and a recognized authority on Nietzsche and Heidegger as well as a prominent public intellectual and member of the European parliament. Building on his unique (...) position as a philosopher and politician, Vattimo takes on some of the most pressing questions of our time: Is it still possible, long after Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, to talk of moral imperatives, individual rights, or political freedom? Are these values still relevant in today's world? Tackling these crucial issues, Gianni Vattimo argues that nihilism is not the absence of meaning but a recognition of a plurality of meanings; it is not the end of civilization but the beginning of new social paradigms. Commonly associated with the pessimistic belief that all of existence is meaningless, nihilism, as a philosophical principle, is far less sensational -- it is the ethical doctrine that there are no moral absolutes or infallible natural laws, that "truth" is inescapably subjective. Because the conditions for equality and liberty are not "naturally" given, society must actively create these ideals or it will inevitably fall prey to irrationality, prejudice, and oppression. Vattimo contends that the infighting, timidity, and confusion that have overtaken contemporary liberal thought and politics are the products a prolonged and indulgent mourning over the loss of the transcendental father figure -- any institution or power structure that defines truth, knowledge, and reality. Until humanity overcomes its need for external authority -- whether it be organized religion, the nation-state, or free-market capitalism -- emancipation will remain unattainable. Collecting fourteen of Vattimo's most influential essays on ethics, politics, and law, _Nihilism and Emancipation_ is a provocative reevaluation of meaning, values, and the idea of freedom in Western culture. (shrink)

Algunos aspectos de La expresión de las emociones de Charles Darwin pueden resultar intrigantes, pues, en la explicación de cómo tales expresiones se originan, Darwin casi nunca apela a la selección natural. En cambio, apela principalmente a la idea de que movimientos voluntarios se asocian a emociones, volviéndose por hábito innatos e involuntarios al heredarse a la descendencia. Si bien Darwin da varias razones para defender esta explicación, en este trabajo trataré de mostrar que, si se entiende el libro sobre (...) las expresiones en relación con los objetivos explícitos e implícitos de El origen del hombre, el asunto se entiende mejor. En particular, resulta interesante la tesis que Desmond y Moore plantean respecto a la importancia de los ideales antiesclavistas de Darwin a la hora del tratamiento de las razas. Defenderé en este trabajo que el enfoque de Desmond y Moore puede extenderse al libro acerca de las expresiones. Específicamente, estableceré vínculos entre la explicación del origen de las razas y la explicación del origen del rubor. Palabras clave: Charles Darwin, La expresión de las emociones, El origen del hombre, Rubor, Antiesclavismo. (shrink)

Para algunos la selección natural se identifica con las diferencias de éxito de distintos organismos en la reproducción diferencial. Si esto fuese así, el principio de Hardy-Weinberg, por permitir determinar con bastante precisión bajo ciertos supuestos que la frecuencia génica en una población no es la esperada, podría ser visto como una versión cuantitativa de la selección natural cualitativa propuesta por Darwin. Es mi intención mostrar, a través del análisis de explicaciones dadas por Darwin, que la selección natural es más (...) que la mera diferencia en el éxito en la reproducción diferencial e investigar algunas relaciones entre la teoría de la selección natural y la genética de poblaciones. (shrink)

The high levels of land use, inputs, and investment, along with the specific forms of organization and management that characterized Cuba's state extensive growth model during the 1980s, could not overcome the challenges posed by the integrated care required by the sugarcane crop and corresponding industrial activities. Starting in 1993, large state farms have been converted into Basic Units of Cooperative Production with some degree of autonomy. Although first-year production results are not satisfactory, it is too early to evaluate their (...) performance. Their establishment, however, is a step in the right direction to alleviate the problems that the previous forms of organization and management inherent to the state extensive growth model were unable to solve. (shrink)

Theories of emotional justification investigate the conditions under which emotions are epistemically justified or unjustified. I make three contributions to this research program. First, I show that we can generalize some familiar epistemological concepts and distinctions to emotional experiences. Second, I use these concepts and distinctions to display the limits of the ‘simple view’ of emotional justification. On this approach, the justification of emotions stems only from the contents of the mental states they are based on, also known as their (...) cognitive bases. The simple view faces the ‘gap problem’: If cognitive bases and emotions (re)present their objects and properties in different ways, then cognitive bases are not sufficient to justify emotions. Third, I offer a novel solution to the gap problem based on emotional dispositions. This solution (1) draws a line between the justification of basic and non-basic emotions, (2) preserves a broadly cognitivist view of emotions, (3) avoids a form of value skepticism that threatens inferentialist views of emotional justification, and (4) sheds new light on the structure of our epistemic access to evaluative properties. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers—analytic as well as continental—tend to feel uneasy about Ernst Tugendhat, who, though he positions himself in the analytic field, poses questions in the Heideggerian style. Tugendhat was one of Martin Heidegger's last pupils and his least obedient, pursuing a new and controversial critical technique. Tugendhat took Heidegger's destruction of Being as presence and developed it in analytic philosophy, more specifically in semantics. Only formal semantics, according to Tugendhat, could answer the questions left open by Heidegger. Yet in doing (...) this, Tugendhat discovered the latent "hermeneutic nature of analytic philosophy"—its post-metaphysical dimension—in which "there are no facts, but only true propositions." What Tugendhat seeks to answer is this: What is the meaning of thought following the linguistic turn? Because of the rift between analytic and continental philosophers, very few studies have been written on Tugendhat, and he has been omitted altogether from several histories of philosophy. Now that these two schools have begun to reconcile, Tugendhat has become an example of a philosopher who, in the words of Richard Rorty, "built bridges between continents and between centuries." Tugendhat is known more for his philosophical turn than for his phenomenological studies or for his position within analytic philosophy, and this creates some confusion regarding his philosophical propensities. Is Tugendhat analytic or continental? Is he a follower of Wittgenstein or Heidegger? Does he belong in the culture of analysis or in that of tradition? Santiago Zabala presents Tugendhat as an example of merged horizons, promoting a philosophical historiography that is concerned more with dialogue and less with classification. In doing so, he places us squarely within a dialogic culture of the future and proves that any such labels impoverish philosophical research. (shrink)

The essays in Weakening Philosophy, from leading figures such as Umberto Eco and Charles Taylor, introduce his ideas to a wider audience.

A daring marriage of philosophical theory and practical politics, this collection is the first of Gianni Vattimo's many books to combine his intellectual pursuits with his public and political life. Vattimo is a paradoxical figure, at once a believing Christian and a vociferous critic of the Catholic Church, an outspoken liberal but not a former communist, and a recognized authority on Nietzsche and Heidegger as well as a prominent public intellectual and member of the European parliament. Building on his unique (...) position as a philosopher and politician, Vattimo takes on some of the most pressing questions of our time: Is it still possible, long after Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, to talk of moral imperatives, individual rights, or political freedom? Are these values still relevant in today's world? Tackling these crucial issues, Gianni Vattimo argues that nihilism is not the absence of meaning but a recognition of a plurality of meanings; it is not the end of civilization but the beginning of new social paradigms. Commonly associated with the pessimistic belief that all of existence is meaningless, nihilism, as a philosophical principle, is far less sensational -- it is the ethical doctrine that there are no moral absolutes or infallible natural laws, that "truth" is inescapably subjective. Because the conditions for equality and liberty are not "naturally" given, society must actively create these ideals or it will inevitably fall prey to irrationality, prejudice, and oppression. Vattimo contends that the infighting, timidity, and confusion that have overtaken contemporary liberal thought and politics are the products a prolonged and indulgent mourning over the loss of the transcendental father figure -- any institution or power structure that defines truth, knowledge, and reality. Until humanity overcomes its need for external authority -- whether it be organized religion, the nation-state, or free-market capitalism -- emancipation will remain unattainable. Collecting fourteen of Vattimo's most influential essays on ethics, politics, and law, _Nihilism and Emancipation_ is a provocative reevaluation of meaning, values, and the idea of freedom in Western culture. (shrink)

This paper introduces a body of research on Organizational Behavior and Industrial/organizational Psychology that expands the range of empirical evidence relevant to the ongoing character-situation debate. This body of research, mostly neglected by moral philosophers, provides important insights to move the debate forward. First, the OB/io scholarship provides empirical evidence to show that social environments like organizations have significant power to shape the character traits of their members. This scholarship also describes some of the mechanisms through which this process of (...) reshaping character takes place. Second, the character-situation debate has narrowly focused on situational influences that affect behavior episodically and haphazardly. The OB/io research, however, highlights the importance of distinguishing such situational influences from influences that, like organizational influences, shape our character traits because they are continuous and coordinated. Third, the OB/io literature suggests that most individuals display character traits that, while local to the organization, can be consistent across situations. This puts pressure on the accounts of character proposed by traditional virtue ethics and situationism and provides empirical support to interactionist models based on cognitive-affective processing system theories of personality. Finally, the OB/io literature raises important challenges to the possibility of achieving virtue, provides valuable and untapped resources to cultivate character, and suggests new avenues of normative and empirical research. (shrink)

This is a draft of my chapter on Negligence for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook in Moral Psychology. It discusses philosophical, psychological, and legal approaches to the attribution of culpability in cases of negligent wrongdoing.

In this paper, we argue for an instrumental form of existence, inspired by Hilbert’s method of ideal elements. As a case study, we consider the existence of contradictory objects in models of non-classical set theories. Based on this discussion, we argue for a very liberal notion of existence in mathematics.

Scholars who favor shareholder primacy usually claim either that managers should not fulfill corporate duties of beneficence or that, if they are required to fulfill them, they do so by going against their obligations to shareholders. Distinguishing between structurally different types of duties of beneficence and recognizing the full force of the normative demands imposed on managers reveal that this view needs to be qualified. Although it is correct to think that managers, when acting on behalf of shareholders, are not (...) required to fulfill wide duties of charity, they are nevertheless required to fulfill a variety of narrow duties of beneficence. What is more, the obligation to fulfill these duties arises precisely because they are acting on behalf of shareholders. As such, this article 1) refines our understanding of the duties of corporate beneficence and 2) helps to identify which duties of beneficence are imposed on managers when they are acting on behalf of shareholders. (shrink)

The History of Political Ideas by the German-American philosopher Eric Voegelin is a monumental work of around 2,600 pages. It remained unpublished during his lifetime, and it came to light through the American edition and the now completed Portuguese edition. Being the author of the first world edition of an abridged version of the History of Political Ideas ; the translator of the first three volumes of the 2012-2018 Portuguese edition; and the author of The civil philosophy of Eric Voegelin (...) I consider that the History of Political Ideas challenges the present climate of opinion: it subverts the dominant corrosive forces of moral relativism, intolerant neo-positivism, end-of-history obsessions, postmodernist deconstructions, agnosticism, nihilism, new age religions, and the all-pervasive ideology of money. Eric Voegelin achieves all this leading his readers from Antiquity to Modern Age. His monumental work begins with the “spiritual disintegration” of the Greek world, after the peak of Plato and Aristotle, a disintegration that ushered a long process of transition in the self-understanding of man in the Mediterranean world. The series goes through Middle Ages, R enaissance and Reformation as Voegelin analyzes the collapse of imperial Christianity, which led to the rise of autonomous reason and sectarian revolts that reached full development in later centuries. A new form of modern human consciousness replaced the Christian understanding of a divinely created closed cosmos. The collection ends - in a suspensive way - with “The Crisis and the Apocalypse of Man” focused on thinkers such as Comte, Bakunine and Marx; although they experienced true epiphanies, they become self-obsessed to the detriment of the world to which they refer. Such “Apocalypse of Man” must now be challenged, albeit with methodologies and hermeneutic principles other than those that Voegelin himself abandoned some decades ago. (shrink)

Se analizan los resultados de una reciente encuesta levantada principalmente en la zona metropolitana de Guadalajara, México, y se destaca que, aunque la mayoría de los informantes realizaron modificaciones materiales a su entorno doméstico para adecuarlo a las nuevas condiciones exigibles, se necesita flexibilidad en los espacios arquitectónicos donde se desarrollan actividades cotidianas, por lo que es necesario que profesionales del hábitat, investigadores académicos, funcionarios gubernamentales y líderes sociales propongan formas de resiliencia ante esta nueva normalidad.

According to epistemological disjunctivism (ED), in paradigmatic cases of perceptual knowledge, a subject, S, has perceptual knowledge that p in virtue of being in possession of reasons for her belief that p which are both factive and reflectively accessible to S. It has been argued that ED is better placed than both knowledge internalism and knowledge externalism to undercut underdetermination-based skepticism. I identify several principles that must be true if ED is to be uniquely placed to attain this goal. After (...) that, I use those principles to formulate a diachronic skeptical argument. This argument yields the counterintuitive conclusion that understanding a global skeptical hypothesis is all it takes for a rational subject to lose all her perceptual knowledge of the world. Next, I show that a popular Austinian move must reject one or another of the principles that underlie ED. I close by delineating a novel strategy that can block the diachronic skeptical argument while preserving all the principles. The key idea is that perceptual knowledge is grounded in primitive, perceptual and recognitional abilities. This view sheds new light on some puzzling features of global skepticism that have been noted by Descartes and Hume, among others. (shrink)