La disparition conjointe, à quelques mois d’écart, de Jean-Pierre Vernant (1914-2007) et de Pierre Vidal-Naquet (1930-2006) a donné lieu à toute une série de colloques, rencontres, conférences et publications consacrés à l’apport des recherches de ces deux grands hellénistes aux études classiques et aux échos qu’elles ont reçus par-delà les frontières nationales et disciplinaires. Les Américains ont donné le nom d’« école de Paris » à la nébuleuse de chercheurs qui s’est constituée autour des...

Much of the human research conducted in the United States or by U.S. researchers is regulated by the Common Rule. The Common Rule reflects the decision of 17 federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, to require that investigators follow the same rules for conducting human research., though there is significant overlap with the Common Rule.) Many of the obligations delineated in the Common Rule can be traced back to the work of the National Commission for the (...) Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. The National Commission was appointed in 1974 as part of the National Research Act in response to revelations about serious abuses involving human subjects, most notably the Tuskegee/United States Public Health Service Syphilis Study. (shrink)

Automated decision-making takes up an increasingly significant place in the administrative state. This article presents a conception of discretion that is helpful for evaluating the proper place of algorithms in public decision-making. I argue that the algorithm itself is not a site of discretion. The threat is that automated decision-making alters the relationships between traditional actors in a way that can cut down discretion and human commitment. Algorithmic decision-makers can serve to fetter the discretion that the legislature and the populace (...) expect to be exercised. We must strive to maintain discretion, moral agency, deliberative ideals, and human commitment through the system that surrounds the use of an algorithm and to develop a new expertise that can retain and exercise the expected discretion. Backing this argument are traditional legal constraints, public expectations, and administrative law principles, tied together through the organizing principle of discretion. (shrink)

Uno de los principales retos del transhumanismo lo encontramos en su antropología. Nos encontramos ante un reduccionismo en el que el cuerpo aparece despojado de su dignidad y el espíritu no existe. El ejemplo que más me llama la atención de esto es el de la endogénesis: no se valora el hecho de que el ser humano sea gestado dentro del vientre de otro ser humano; para ellos sería preferible tener una máquina que pudiese hacer la misma misión, en lugar (...) de que el embarazo sea un acto de amor que tiene impacto en toda la vida de la persona. Creo que este es el mayor obstáculo en el que nos encontraremos al valorar el transhumanismo, y es especialmente importante: la persona es un edificio de múltiples dimensiones inextricablemente ligadas. Es necesario reconocer la dignidad de nuestro cuerpo, que va más allá de ser sustrato material de nuestra consciencia. El cuerpo forma parte de nuestra naturaleza, en la que cuerpo, emoción, pensamiento y espíritu son dimensiones que están íntimamente ligadas. No podemos renunciar a nuestro cuerpo. Además, me gustaría proponer que dentro del cuerpo existen portales ante la trascendencia. no es lo mismo ser que parecer. Muchos defienden que pronto tendremos robots que estarán dotados de consciencia. Que podrán pasar el test de Turing. Además, la Inteligencia Artificial permite generar mensajes de manera sintética. En algunos casos, estos mensajes son relativamente simples, pero en otros casos, como los chatbots, resultan muy interesantes. Algunos autores estiman que, dentro de poco, estos chatbots podrían llegar a pasar el test de Turing. Una vez tengamos máquinas que pasen el test de Turing, ¿podremos decir que son conscientes? ¿Es lo mismo una máquina que pase el Test de Turing que una máquina consciente? Para algunos, la respuesta es «es indiferente». Yo digo que no, que no es lo mismo. (shrink)

Se presenta el descubrimiento de un zócalo pintado con almagra, decorado con motivos geométricos de lacería. El muro en que aparece pertenece a un salón alargado en el que se abrirían dos alcobas a cada extremo. El diseño está organizado en cuatro paños, enmarcados por trenza de lazos. Esta composición destaca por la conservación del trazo regulador, y también por el uso de filigranas que ocupan los espacios libres. La cronología de la pintura se establece al pertenecer a las estructuras (...) de una vivienda demolida en el año 1172 para construir la Aljama. Existen varios paralelos, como el ejemplar del patio del Yeso del Alcázar de Sevilla y el aparecido en la calle Imperial. (shrink)

Recently, there has been increasing theoretical and experimental interest in Popper's gedanken experiment. We calculate in this paper, using the path integral approach, the diffraction patterns predicted by quantum mechanics for this arrangement. The calculations confirm the narrowing of the width of the pattern in absence of the slit obtained experimentally by Kim and Shih (Y. Kim and Y. Shih, Found. Phys. 29, 1849 (1999)).

An anonymous biography of Lucan known as the Life of Vacca attributes to the poet the composition of a work called Siluae. This information has been accepted by scholars with regard to both Lucan and Statius, thus transforming Lucan into a predecessor of Statius’ Siluae. This article seeks to demonstrate that neither the manuscript tradition of Lucan's biography nor alleged references to Lucan's Siluae in Statius’ collection substantiate the affirmation that Lucan composed a work called Siluae. It is argued that (...) the Life of Vacca is most probably late and its very long catalogue of works (mostly problematic or otherwise unknown) aggrandizes Lucan in response to the need for a commendatory biography of the poet when he became a school author. Pomponio Leto is responsible for perpetuating the mention of Lucan's Siluae by including it in his influential biography of Lucan (the first to reach the printed press). It is further argued that the circumstances of the tradition of Statius’ Siluae explain Leto's acceptance of Lucan's work of the same title. Leto was working on a commentary on the recently rediscovered Siluae, which explains his inclusion of a work called Siluae in his biography of Lucan, a great poet who had preceded Statius. Finally, this article deconstructs the theories that find references to Lucan's Siluae in Statius’ Siluae or that justify Statius’ silence about Lucan's Siluae with its political motifs. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This paper analyzes how national institutional factors affect the adoption of the international environmental management standard ISO 14001, using a panel of 139 countries from 1996 to 2006. The analysis emphasizes that during the emerging phase of the standard, the potential lack of consensus within the constituents of the national institutional environment concerning the value of a new standard could send mixed signals to firms about the standard. The results show that in the early phase of adoption, regulative and normative (...) forces within the institutional environment can work against each other. Results also show that regulative or coercive forces play a relatively more important role in the early phase of adoption of the standard than in the subsequent phases of diffusion. In the later phases of diffusion of ISO 14001, normative forces, such as the diffusion of other management standards, as well as factors related to trade, play a more important role. Because of the similarities between environmental management standards and corporate social responsibility standards, this study can help identify some of the challenges for diffusion of ISO management standards in the area of social responsibility. (shrink)

Fred Sanger, the inventor of the first protein, RNA and DNA sequencing methods, has traditionally been seen as a technical scientist, engaged in laboratory bench work and not interested at all in intellectual debates in biology. In his autobiography and commentaries by fellow researchers, he is portrayed as having a trajectory exclusively dependent on technological progress. The scarce historical scholarship on Sanger partially challenges these accounts by highlighting the importance of professional contacts, institutional and disciplinary moves in his career, spanning (...) from 1940 to 1983. This paper will complement such literature by focusing, for the first time, on the transition of Sanger’s sequencing strategies from degrading to copying the target molecule, which occurred in the late 1960s as he was shifting from protein and RNA to DNA sequencing, shortly after his move from the Department of Biochemistry to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, both based in Cambridge (UK). Through a reinterpretation of Sanger’s papers and retrospective accounts and a pioneering investigation of his laboratory notebooks, I will claim that sequencing shifted from the working procedures of organic chemistry to those of the emergent molecular biology. I will also argue that sequencing deserves a history in its own right as a practice and not as a technique subordinated to the development of molecular biology or genomics. My proposed history of sequencing leads to a reappraisal of current STS debates on bioinformatics, biotechnology and biomedicine. (shrink)

En noviembre de 1976, Amnesty Internacional llegó al país a constatar denuncias sobre violaciones a los derechos humanos. Dos de sus integrantes llegaron a la ciudad de Córdoba. El Hotel Crillón, ubicado en plena city cordobesa y locación donde se alojaron los visitantes, fue el escenario de las acciones de espionaje, persecución y amedrentamiento que sufrieron los dos delegados, un varón y una mujer, que habían llegado para contactarse con posibles denunciantes. Al no poder constituirse como un refugio seguro para (...) expresar aquello que las autoridades negaban, el artículo analiza cómo se frustró esta visita en base a los informes elevados por la Policía Federal a través de un memorando reservado. En la misma se contextualiza el momento, apoyándonos en la historia de la represión local, y se procura una lectura analítica del documento resguardado en el Archivo Provincial de la Memoria de Córdoba. Asimismo, se ofrece su cotejo y contraste con otras informaciones provenientes de testimonios vertidos en diferentes momentos. ¿Cómo y por qué se frustró la visita? ¿Quiénes tuvieron contacto con los visitantes y por qué no fue posible contactar a los familiares y allegados de la/os represaliada/os? ¿Qué testimonios posteriores se conocieron de este acontecimiento frustrado? ¿Cómo habrá incidido en la costosa configuración de la cuestión de los derechos humanos en Córdoba, algo que hemos demostrado en nuestras investigaciones previas del tema? Por fin, ¿qué nos dice este evento de las características de la represión local, de los modos de informar y de las actitudes sociales en dictadura? (shrink)

En torno a la simplificación que liga el término "postmodernidad" con el final histórico, cronológico, de la Modernidad se concitan dos posiciones opuestas: la de quienes (en la estela de Habermas) denuncian el talante conservador y apocalíptico, anti-moderno, de buena parte de los filósofos del siglo XX, especialmente en sus últimas décadas, y la de quienes (por ejemplo, Lyotard) celebran la caída de los referentes clásicos. Lejos de tal dicotomía, se trata de realizar del ambiguo "post" una lectura atenta no (...) a la noción de tiempo sino a la de lugar o espacio semántico: la postmodernidad no vendría a finalizar nada, antes al contrario, se trataría de una perspectiva práctica desde la que entender los problemas aún vigentes de la Modernidad, de la que el "post" antepuesto sería modulación radical, extremo Kunstwollen, voluntad crítica basada siempre en la descreencia última en toda trascendencia, incluida la propia de la lógica moderna del progreso y la emancipación. (shrink)

Ante la crisis social de la intimidad en favor de la extimidad, en las neurociencias y su reducción a privacidad en el derecho, este artículo expone la idea orteguiana de la intimidad, destacando su carácter corporal. Esta noción corporal de la intimidad descubre el ámbito sentimental de la realidad, superando el cosismo y el subjetivismo, mediante el análisis del mecanismo de la metáfora y de la capacidad de ensimismamiento. El modo de realidad de la intimidad se revela como ejecutividad y (...) constituye una alternativa al idealismo, al objetivismo de la conciencia y a la introspección psicológica. (shrink)

Estudio de la noción «voz de la conciencia» en la obra de Xavier Zubiri, tras una contextualización histórica del tema, mostrando su importancia en las obras más tardías, así como su conexión con las fuentes más relevantes en el pensamiento contemporáneo, en especial, la Fenomenología y la Analítica existencial de Heidegger. Se destaca la aportación zubiriana del análisis noológico de la voz de la conciencia, que distingue la experiencia moral y la religiosa, pero que descubre, a su vez, una peculiar (...) conexión entre lo moral y lo religioso. (shrink)

Nos ocupamos aquí de una cuestión de importancia para la filosofía moderna, y para la filosofía leibniziana en particular, como es el concepto de substancia. Veremos cómo, en Leibniz, la divisibilidad de la materia al infinito y la necesidad de un principio que dé razón de la unidad en la multiplicidad de los elementos que componen todo cuerpo, lo llevan a concebir unidades metafísicas que son su fundamento. Asimismo, la respuesta a esta cuestión alude al problema del cuerpo de una (...) manera que presenta una singular complejidad, y exige seguir cierto itinerario de conceptos, con especial cuidado a las variaciones que el propio Leibniz realiza en su concepción de la substancia a lo largo de la evolución de su filosofía. Finalmente, nos ocupamos de las nociones de unidad y composición, vinculadas al llamado pluralismo substancial leibniziano. (shrink)

On 26 June 2000, during the presentation of the Human Genome Project's first draft, Bill Clinton, then President of the United States, claimed that "today we are learning the language in which God created life".1 Behind his remarks lay a story of more than half a century involving the understanding of DNA as information. This paper analyses that story, discussing the origins of the informational view of our genes during the early 1950s, how such a view affected the research on (...) the genetic code (1950s and '60s) and the transformation of the information idea in the context of DNA sequencing and bioinformatics ('80s and '90s). I suggest that the concept of DNA as information reached a climax with the proposal of the Human Genome Project (HGP), but is currently facing a crisis coinciding with the questioning of the information society. Finally, I discuss the emergence of systems biology as an alternative paradigm. (shrink)

This article examines how incidents are governed in a Belgian Nuclear Research Center by way of an incident reporting system named Retour d’Experiences. Drawing on a documentary analysis of incident reports, interviews, and focus groups with personnel, it illustrates how REX enacts a safety governmentality centered on identifying incident causes and culprits. As this governmentality mode obscures the epistemic and political character of incidents, it closes down important opportunities for collective learning about safety and safety governance. It is argued that (...) joint reflection about incidents and resistances toward incident reporting serve as fruitful starting points for a more reflexive safety governance that makes explicit how decisions are made in high-risk contexts. Social scientists can enhance governance of this kind by pointing to different perceptions and evaluations of incidents and by insisting that contending interpretations are confronted and accounted for. (shrink)

1. Introducción. Historia, desde los orígenes a la Baja Edad Media -- 2. Historia, desde el Renacimiento a la actualidad.

This article shows part of the results of a research project: The Impact of Social Change in Higher Education Staff Professional Life and Work (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, SEJ2006-01876). The main aim of this project was to explore and understand how scholars establish a dialogue, resist, adapt themselves or adopt changes, in the process of constructing their professional identities. As the members of the research team were scholars ourselves, teaching and carrying out research in Spanish universities, we started (...) this research by writing our own autoethnographies. As a result, we developed nine autoethnographies which give a complex and in-depth account of senior and junior scholars' journeys into their process of constructing their professional identity and working lives in a rapidly changing world. This article starts by giving a context to the research project and arguing the need for conducting autoethnographies. It goes on to discuss the process itself of writing autoethnographies in the context of a given research project. We then refer to the topics which have a bearing on how we have learnt to become scholars: our experience as university students, the beginning of the academic career, relationships with others, and the consequences of the mark of gender. We conclude with the lessons learnt around the dilemmas on writing autoethnographies. (shrink)

Este artículo expone la crítica de Ortega y Gasset al naturalismo y el fracaso de la razón naturalista, y muestra su nueva concepción de la razón vital, histórica y narrativa, como un paradigma alternativo, basándose en la dialéctica de las experiencias, la imaginación creativa del «animal fantástico» y en una nueva visión de la vida que proviene de Nietzsche, Dilthey y Goethe, que puede contribuir a afrontar el reto de los nuevos naturalismos en el contexto del pensamiento actual.

This study provides a representation of the broad spectrum of theoretical work on topics related to business ethics, with a particular focus on corporate citizenship. It considers relations of business and society alongside social responsibility and moves on to examine the historical and systemic foundations of business ethics, focusing on the concepts of social and ethical responsibilities. The contributors explore established theories and concepts and their impact on moral behaviour. Together, the contributions offer varied philosophical theories in approaches to business (...) ethics. The book will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers with an interest in the theoretical development of business ethics. -/- Reviews: 'The rapidly expanding business ethics field is often populated by thinly theorised work. This book is a welcome exception. It is also distinctive in that it embraces a clear macro perspective whereas much of the debate is rather stuck at the level of the individual or the organisation. As such the book has a distinctively European flavour and should be considered as an intellectually stimulating collection offering original perspectives on business ethics.' Laura J. Spence, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK -/- 'This book makes an important contribution to our knowledge and understanding of corporations especially in the areas of corporate citizenship and responsibility as well as ethics and economic ethics. In addition the relationship of these areas with the social contract is well argued.' Australian Journal of Corporate Law. (shrink)