La noche de piedra and Los días de Mercurio are, until today, the two novels published of the trilogy La Iniquidad by Alexis Ravelo. They present two different stories and settings in the line of hard boiled and noir and in the best tradition of the Spanish thriller from the 70s and 80s, whose social and philosophical dimensions are recovered through an interesting treatment of the space and the reconstruction of historical memory. Ravelo reformulates the genre with narrative techniques typical (...) of postmodernism. His writing is close to the neopolicial genre in our cultural sphere and moves away from the new crime novel that succeeds in the publishing market. (shrink)

ResumenEn este trabajo queremos indagar sobre algunas cuestiones epistemológicas que se discuten en torno al fenómeno del big data. Como principal herramienta de análisis epistemológico utilizamos a la noción de Marco Epistémico formulada por Piaget y García, y revisada por nosotros en trabajos más recientes, para problematizar los condicionamientos de los valores éticos y políticos, así como de otras regulaciones, en el desarrollo del conocimiento científico. Para ello, proponemos ordenar los debates que se registran en la literatura reciente sobre big (...) data a través de diversas dualidades, tales como dato/interpretación, automático/no-automático o causalidad/correlación, en torno a las cuales vamos a argumentar que es posible pensar dos marcos epistémicos específicos tendientes a la escisión de estos términos o a su integración. Abogando por esta última manera de focalizar los debates, hacia el final del trabajo identificamos algunos desafíos epistemológicos de la investigación con big data, especialmente en las ciencias sociales computacionales.Palabras clave: big data; marco epistémico; constructivismo; computación. (shrink)

Context: Constructivist epistemology is not a doctrinal set of clear and consistent theses and assumptions but a movement full of tensions, with minimally integrated lines of discussions. Problem: This situation explains why it is so difficult to come up with a general definition of constructivist epistemology that could serve as a starting point to study its several research programs systematically and comparatively. Method: We compare the constructivist epistemologies of Jean Piaget, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Humberto Maturana, and Niklas Luhmann regarding tensions (...) between knowledge/reality and individual/society. Results: Our comparison leads to a general definition of constructivist epistemology as a heterogeneous movement problematizing certain dualities - such as subject/object, knowledge/reality, or individual/society - that have been shown to be central for epistemological inquiry. We argue that such dualisms can be used as dimensions for critical analysis, comparison, and discussion among the different research programs, and that, at the same time, they would allow us to analyze the general strategies characterizing such programs. The comparative and critical analysis of the programs by way of the aforementioned tensions results in an organized presentation highlighting their convergences, divergences, and singularities. (shrink)

Resumen Aunque Carlos Arturo Truque sigue siendo poco conocido, no podemos hablar de literatura afrocolombiana, ni colombiana, sin su aporte. Con una producción literaria dispersa en publicaciones periódicas, el chocoano apuesta por el cuento cuando este no era suficientemente valorado en su país. Vivan los compañeros recoge todos sus cuentos, en los que se acerca tanto a los personajes excluidos de la sociedad como a los episodios de la historia colombiana más “vergonzosos”, desde un lenguaje que se aleja de todo (...) academicismo. Su obra, calificada en la época de “literatura sucia”, y ubicada concretamente en el Chocó y el puerto de Buenaventura, no es ajena a cualquier injusticia humana. Además, la necesidad de Truque de plasmar el habla de su comunidad no le impide contemplar las nuevas técnicas narrativas que llegaban entonces de Norteamérica. Así, renueva el cuento colombiano desde el plano formal y de contenido.Although Carlos Arturo Truque is still not well known, we cannot talk about Afro-Colombian, or Colombian literature, without mentioning his contribution. With an unfocused literary production in periodic publications, the “chocoano” bets on the short story when this genre was not highly valued in his country. Vivan los compañeros collects all his short stories, where he approaches the excluded characters of society as well as the more “shameful” episodes of Colombian history, from a language that distances itself from all academic art. His work, described at the time as “dirty literature” and specifically located in Chocó and the port of Buenaventura, is not alien to any human injustice. Besides, the need for Truque to express the speech of his community does not prevent him from contemplating new narrative techniques coming from North America. Thus, he renews the Colombian short story from the formal level and its content. (shrink)

Linking the process of rational decision making to emotions, an award-winning scientist who has done extensive research with brain-damaged patients notes the dependence of thought processes on feelings and the body's survival-oriented regulators. 50,000 first printing.

An essential requirement for increasing human confidence in computer systems is knowing an event’s origin. Therefore, it is necessary to have an efficient method to record such information. It is especially challenging in robotics, where unexpected behaviours can have unpredictable consequences, endangering the interests of people or even their safety. Furthermore, to analyse an incident’s cause or anticipate future behaviours, we must identify the events that cause a specific action. Although it is common to use logging systems for such purposes, (...) issues such as partial recording of events, unhelpful data or the impact on robot performance suggest conceiving new accountability solutions that assist when determining the responsible entities or the provenance of specific information. This paper presents a general-purpose approach to developing an accountability system for autonomous robots. It consists of four main components: a system event logger, a message producer, a distributed event streaming platform and a database. Our proposal is completely decoupled from the monitored system and allows real-time analysis, improving flexibility, besides system protection and transparency. Finally, the need to reduce the impact of the audit process and logging tasks on robot performance has promoted the development of different assessment scenarios to determine the best strategy for providing accounting services. (shrink)

Hacia 1976 Michel Foucault señalaba que la literatura surge en la modernidad con el gran imperativo ético y político de sacar a la luz las oscuras existencias del mundo social al mismo tiempo que formaba parte de un complejo dispositivo de poder capaz de hacer entrar lo más banal e infame de una sociedad en el orden del discurso. Un par de décadas después será Jacques Rancière quien nos dirá que la aparición de la literatura inaugura un nuevo régimen estético (...) que cambiará para siempre la escritura de la historia y los tipos de composición de las artes al hacer hablar a aquellas existencias mudas e insignificantes. Desde esta perspectiva, Rancière nos revelaría que era esta política de la literatura la que estaba operando inconscientemente en el proyecto de una arqueología de las instituciones y de los saberes, al mismo tiempo que era este último filósofo quien heredaba parte del método foucaultiano, donde se descubrían las potencialidades estéticas y escriturales de la literatura como discurso que pone en juego el poder. (shrink)

The US has built the most extensive immigration detention system globally. Over the last three administrations, several organizations have noted a systemic failure in the provision of health care in detention centers, leading to the torture and death of immigrants. This essay develops the principle of the preferential option for the poor to examine the causes of deficient access to health care and solutions to overcome them. It analyzes the substandard health care in detention centers from the notion of structural (...) violence and systematizes solutions of grassroots immigrant organizations from the idea of solidarity, understood here as a form of friendship with the poor that moves toward relational justice. Its goal is to build bridges between people so that the political will is generated to create policies to improve and enforce health care standards in detention centers and address the unjust foundations of immigration detention. (shrink)

Este texto examina las relaciones entre misioneros católicos y de estos con los protestantes en la zona fronteriza del Vaupés colombo-brasileño. La presencia de católicos comenzó en la zona en 1914 y no es nada despreciable pues cerca de 450 religiosos entre sacerdotes y monjas llegaron a la región. Los protestantes pertenecientes a dos organizaciones de origen norteamericano arribaron treinta años después y alcanzaron una cifra de 115 miembros. Sus relaciones como su impacto diferencial sobre las poblaciones misionadas son un (...) tópico poco desarrollado en las historias de misión, que en este texto se ilustra a través de la consulta de fuentes primarias que detallan los vínculos o visiones de miembros de distintos credos sobre sus contrapartes. El estudio muestra como estas visiones cambiaron a lo largo del tiempo. (shrink)

In the wake of the most recent tragic school shootings in Florida and Texas, one must ask, when will enough be enough? Mass shootings have become an all-too-normal occurrence in contemporary society in our country. Although we are still impacted by every one of them, there is a concern that we are slowly becoming desensitized to the unspeakable actions of violence that are being carried out regularly. After the initial shock, the typical reaction to such actions involves a clichéd response (...) calling for thoughts and prayers, as if thoughts and prayers were enough to prevent the next incident every other time that people have called for them. Next, people engage in heated discussions and arguments over gun violence... (shrink)

Il sansimonismo, sistema culturale della civiltà tecnologica, di A. Cattabiani.--Nota dell'Editore.--Introduzione.--Beniamino Constant.--I San-Simoniani.--Appendice: L'utopismo di Carlo Fourier.

Columbia University Press's multivolume _Prison Notebooks_ is the only complete critical edition of Antonio Gramsci's seminal writings in English. Based on the authoritative Italian edition of Gramsci's work, _Quaderni del Carcere_, this comprehensive translation presents the intellectual as he ought to be read and understood, with critical notes that clarify Gramsci's history, culture, and sources; an index of names; and a contextualization of the thinker's ideas against his earlier writings and letters. This set includes notebooks 1 through 8 with (...) all attendant notes and materials and is an indispensible resource for scholars in the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

Playing soccer in public parks, participating in parades, or marching in religious processions are public performances that express membership in a political community. When these practices are performed by noncitizens, they highlight how the public space—in its physical and symbolic character—is not a space exclusive to members of the political community. Rather, public space is a terrain subject to contestation. In this article, I explore the ways Mexican migrants in New York City use and appropriate public spaces and in doing (...) so expand the boundaries of the political community. I argue that by gaining access to public spaces, appropriating them, and then transforming them, noncitizens claim recognition as members of the political community and thus unsettle its boundaries. (shrink)

Scientists are rapidly mapping the chemical and physical pathways that constitute biological systems, making the complexity of processes such as inheritance, development, evolution, and even the origin of life increasingly tractable. Through genetics and neuroscience, biological understanding is now being extended deeply into the human sciences and has begun to transform our understanding of behavior, mind, culture, and values. The idea of a science-driven unity of knowledge has reemerged in several forms in both reductionist and nonreductionist frameworks. This volume examines (...) some of the extraordinary empirical discoveries that have caused a revival of this idea and presents theories from thinkers in a variety of disciplines, including E. O. Wilson, Eric Kandel, and Elaine Scarry. (shrink)

The publication of this book is an event in the making. All over the world scientists, psychologists, and philosophers are waiting to read Antonio Damasio's new theory of the nature of consciousness and the construction of the self. A renowned and revered scientist and clinician, Damasio has spent decades following amnesiacs down hospital corridors, waiting for comatose patients to awaken, and devising ingenious research using PET scans to piece together the great puzzle of consciousness. In his bestselling Descartes' Error, (...) Damasio revealed the critical importance of emotion in the making of reason. Building on this foundation, he now shows how consciousness is created. Consciousness is the feeling of what happens-our mind noticing the body's reaction to the world and responding to that experience. Without our bodies there can be no consciousness, which is at heart a mechanism for survival that engages body, emotion, and mind in the glorious spiral of human life. A hymn to the possibilities of human existence, a magnificent work of ingenious science, a gorgeously written book, The Feeling of What Happens is already being hailed as a classic. (shrink)

Este artículo trata sobre el filósofo chileno Jenaro Abasolo. Se expone en él, primeramente, la producción literaria de Abasolo y la nula receptividad que su obra tuvo en los círculos intelectuales de su tiempo, aludiendo, a la vez, al concepto central de su filosofía, es decir, la idea de personalidad. Luego, y más extensamente, se presentan las consideraciones de Abasolo respecto de algunas de las problemáticas sociales y económicas discutidas en los inicios de la República, abordando temas como la moral, (...) la religión, el fin social y la libertad. This artick is a treatise on the Chilean philosopher Jenaro Abasólo. Vrimarilj, it exposes Abasólo, his literary production, and the complete lack of attention that his oeuvre recieved from the intellectual áreles of his period. It alludes, at the same time, to the central concept of his philosophy, Le., the idea of personality. Later and more extensively, it presents Abasolo’s considerations regarding social and economic issues discussed at the beginning of the Republic, addressing topics such as morality, religión, social order and freedom. (shrink)

Background Decisions regarding Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Do Not Attempt Resuscitation (DNAR) orders remain demanding, as does including patients in the process. Objectives To explore physicians’ justification for CPR/DNAR orders and decisions regarding patient inclusion, as well as their reports of how they initiated discussions with patients. Methods We administered a face-to-face survey to residents in charge of 206 patients including DNAR and CPR orders, with or without patient inclusion. Results Justifications were provided for 59% of DNAR orders and included (...) severe comorbidity, patients and families’ resuscitation preferences, patients’ age, or poor prognosis or quality of life. Reasons to include patients in CPR/DNAR decisions were provided in 96% and 84% of cases, and were based on respect for autonomy, clinical assessment of the situation as not too severe, and the view that such inclusion was required. Reasons for not including patients were offered in 84% of cases for CPR and in 70% for DNAR. They included absent decision-making capacity, a clinical situation viewed as good (CPR) or offering little hope of recovery (DNAR), barriers to communication, or concern that discussions could be emotionally difficult or superfluous. Decisions made earlier in the patient's management were infrequently viewed as requiring revision. Residents reported a variety of introductions to discussions with patients. Conclusions These results provide better understanding of reasons for CPR/DNAR decisions, reasons for patient inclusion or lack thereof, and ways in which such inclusion is initiated. They also point to potential side-effects of implementing CPR/DNAR recommendations without in-depth and practical training. This should be part of a regular audit and follow-up process for such recommendations. (shrink)

This article addresses an open problem in the area of cognitive systems and architectures: namely the problem of handling (in terms of processing and reasoning capabilities) complex knowledge structures that can be at least plausibly comparable, both in terms of size and of typology of the encoded information, to the knowledge that humans process daily for executing everyday activities. Handling a huge amount of knowledge, and selectively retrieve it according to the needs emerging in different situational scenarios, is an important (...) aspect of human intelligence. For this task, in fact, humans adopt a wide range of heuristics (Gigerenzer & Todd) due to their “bounded rationality” (Simon, 1957). In this perspective, one of the requirements that should be considered for the design, the realization and the evaluation of intelligent cognitively-inspired systems should be rep- resented by their ability of heuristically identify and retrieve, from the general knowledge stored in their artificial Long Term Memory (LTM), that one which is synthetically and contextually relevant. This requirement, however, is often neglected. Currently, artificial cognitive systems and architectures are not able, de facto, to deal with complex knowledge structures that can be even slightly comparable to the knowledge heuris- tically managed by humans. In this paper I will argue that this is not only a technological problem but also an epistemological one and I will briefly sketch a proposal for a possible solution. (shrink)

Al intentar establecer cuánto debe Nietzsche a Spinoza en la configuración de su visión radical del mundo y quién de los dos da los pasos más decisivos en la disolución de la trascendencia, encontramos diversas dificultades. La primera es que la disputa acerca del ateísmo spinociano parece que no podrá nunca dirimirse en un grado aceptable. La segunda dice relación con la imagen que Nietzsche tiene de Spinoza en tanto puede considerarse sesgada debido al conocimiento indirecto de su obra. La (...) tercera es que para determinar, en parte, qué adeuda la interpretación de Nietzsche al filósofo holandés, se requiere hacer un análisis exhaustivo y pormenorizado de sus autores fuente. Tomando en cuenta estas complejidades, el autor del artículo defiende que para formarse una idea adecuada de la deuda del radicalismo de Nietzsche con Spinoza y para juzgar quién de ellos nos precipita con más relevancia a la pura inmanencia, es necesario ir estudiando sus lecturas sobre el filósofo judío, incluso las más descuidadas, más allá de Kuno Fischer. De acuerdo con ello, en este escrito se analizan dos lecturas de Nietzsche poco utilizadas en esta reflexión, a saber: Heinrich Heine y Jean-Marie Guyau. Se asume así que, para alcanzar un nivel más alto de claridad en el tema estudiado, se ha de acotar el marco bibliográfico en el que se ha de realizar la hermenéutica de Nietzsche y sus fuentes. Teniendo presente estos presupuestos, se compara el panteísmo, la desantropomorfización del mundo y el conatus sese conservandi de Spinoza, con el monismo, la extramoralidad del mundo y la voluntad de poder de Nietzsche, respectivamente, para evaluar el alcance del radicalismo cosmológico de uno y otro autor. (shrink)

Este artículo trata sobre el filósofo chileno Jenaro Abasolo. Se expone en él, primeramente, la producción literaria de Abasolo y la nula receptividad que su obra tuvo en los círculos intelectuales de su tiempo, aludiendo, a la vez, al concepto central de su filosofía, es decir, la idea de personalidad. Luego, y más extensamente, se presentan las consideraciones de Abasolo respecto de algunas de las problemáticas sociales y económicas discutidas en los inicios de la República, abordando temas como la moral, (...) la religión, el fin social y la libertad. This artick is a treatise on the Chilean philosopher Jenaro Abasólo. Vrimarilj, it exposes Abasólo, his literary production, and the complete lack of attention that his oeuvre recieved from the intellectual áreles of his period. It alludes, at the same time, to the central concept of his philosophy, Le., the idea of personality. Later and more extensively, it presents Abasolo’s considerations regarding social and economic issues discussed at the beginning of the Republic, addressing topics such as morality, religión, social order and freedom. (shrink)

En este artículo damos a conocer la concepción de la “ciencia” del filósofo chileno Jenaro Abasolo (1833-1884) desde la indagación de algunas de sus deudas conceptuales contraídas con seis autores fuente. Fichte, Schelling, Krause, Ahrens, Darwin y Quinet son quienes le permiten a Abasolo establecer un particular intento de síntesis entre los descubrimientos de la ciencia positiva y los principios comunes a las formas de idealismo. Dichos principios sirven a Abasolo para mantener una perspectiva espiritualista que es compatible con los (...) nuevos hallazgos que las ciencias de la naturaleza aportan desde los datos sensibles. Como correlato, Abasolo considera que la filosofía tiene un rol fundamental cuando se trata de dar una visión unitaria del universo a partir de encontrar el nexo entre las relaciones cualitativas y cuantitativas de lo real. A su vez, se esboza la manera en que el análisis de la dimensión físico-natural aportaría a la interpretación del mundo humano de la libertad y cómo las ciencias permitirían hallar diversas coordenadas capaces de orientar adecuadamente al hombre en su desarrollo hacia la constitución de lo que Abasolo define como personalidad política. (shrink)

En este artículo se estudia el enfoque de las capacidades de Martha Nussbaum como un intento de fundamentar la inclusión de los anima les no humanos dentro de la dimensión cívica de los derechos. En esta perspectiva se pretende establecer ciertos «deberes directos de justicia» para los seres sentientes, poseedores de cierta complejidad, que el Estado debe cautelar y procurar como un mínimo exigido. Tras analizar esta propuesta, se desarrollan algunas de las críticas originadas por la «ética animal» defendida por (...) Nussbaum, entre las que se cuentan las de Donaldson, Kymlicka, Smith, Cortina y Schlosberg. This paper describes the capabilities approach Martha Nussbaum as an attempt to justify the inclusion of non-human animals within the civic rights dimension is studied. In this perspective is to establish certain «direct duties of justice» for sentient beings, possessors of some complexity, that the State must seek precautionary and as a minimum requirement. After analyzing this proposal, they develop some of the criticism caused by the «animal ethics» defended by Nussbaum, among which are counted Donaldson, Kymlicka, Smith, Cortina and Schlosberg. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo da cuenta de la forma en que el liberalismo del filósofo chileno Jenaro Abasolo (1833-1884), al conceder un rol activo al Estado en la “habilitación de la masa desheredada”, responde al adjetivo “social”. En Abasolo, el deber de asegurar en lo posible la prosperidad de las personas, se sostiene en el derecho natural y en una teología de la historia pan[en]teísta afín al krausismo. Abasolo piensa que la redención del desheredado en naciones aun juveniles debe apoyarse en (...) una forma de Estado “casi socialista”. Esto implica una acción de centralización y de tutela del pueblo que enfrenta a los autores del artículo a la gran dificultad de determinar cómo el autor chileno realiza la transición de una habilitación consumada a través de un buen grado de despotismo, hacia la libertad. Es decir, resulta controversial establecer la factibilidad de la realización de esta vía cuasi socialista a un liberalismo contrafácticamente orientado por el laissez faire. Abstract This article shows how the liberalism of the Chilean philosopher Jenaro Abasolo (1833-1884), by granting an active role to the State in the “empowerment of the disinherited mass”, responds to the adjective “social”. In Abasolo, the duty to ensure as far as possible the prosperity of the people is based on natural law and on a pan[en]theistic theology of history akin to Krausism. Abasolo thinks that the redemption of the disinherited in even juvenile nations must be supported by an “almost socialist” form of state. This implies an action of centralization and guardianship of the people that confronts the authors of the article with the great difficulty of determining how the Chilean author makes the transition from an empowerment consummated through a good degree of despotism, towards freedom. That is to say, it is controversial to establish the feasibility of the realization of this quasi-socialist path to a liberalism counterfactually oriented by laissez faire. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo defiendo que el concepto de fantasía es de los más importantes para entender el pensamiento del filosofo Slavoj Žižek, además hago una categorización de lo que sostengo son los principales usos del concepto fantasía en el pensamiento del filósofo, comienzo con el Uso ¿Che voui? que es la relación primera del Otro y el sujeto y termino con el Uso Ideología, en donde hay reflexiones acerca de analogía de ésta con la fantasía. Este trabajo está basado (...) en la obras que van de al año 1989 al 2002. (shrink)

Antonio Gramsci (1891--1937) was one of the most original political thinkers in Western Marxism and an exceptional intellectual. Arrested and imprisoned by the Italian Fascist regime in 1926, Gramsci died before fully regaining his freedom, yet he wrote extensive letters while incarcerated, rich with insight into the physical and psychological tortures of prison. In meticulous detail, Gramsci records how political prisoners, himself included, contend with the fear of illness and death and the rules and regulations that threaten to efface (...) their individuality. Forming an incomparable link between Gramsci's intellectual passion and his emotional vulnerability, _Letters from Prison_ shows a man reconstructing his life while being separated from it, struggling to recapture the primary relationships that once defined his identity. Frank Rosengarten divides more than four hundred Gramsci letters into two companion volumes, complete with a chronology of the thinker's crucial life experiences, biographical notes on his correspondents, and a bibliography of works cited in his letters. (shrink)

Antonio Negri, one of the world's leading scholars on Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) and his contemporary legacy, offers a straightforward explanation of the philosopher's elaborate arguments and a persuasive case for his ongoing relevance. Responding to a resurgent interest in Spinoza's thought and its potential application to contemporary global issues, Negri demonstrates the thinker's special value to politics, philosophy, and related disciplines. Negri's work is both a return to and an advancement of his initial affirmation of Spinozian thought in _The (...) Savage Anomaly_. He further defends his understanding of the philosopher as a proto-postmodernist, or a thinker who is just now, with the advent of the postmodern, becoming contemporary. Negri also connects Spinoza's theories to recent trends in political philosophy, particularly the reengagement with Carl Schmitt's "political theology," and the history of philosophy, including the argument that Spinoza belongs to a "radical enlightenment." By positioning Spinoza as a contemporary revolutionary intellectual, Negri addresses and effectively defeats twentieth-century critiques of the thinker waged by Jacques Derrida, Alain Badiou, and Giorgio Agamben. (shrink)

Habituation is defined as a decline in responding to a repeated stimulus. After more than eighty years of research, there is an enduring consensus among researchers on the existence of 9-10 behavioral regularities or parameters of habituation. There is no similar agreement, however, on the best approach to explain these facts. In this paper, we demonstrate that the Sometimes Opponent Processes (SOP) model of stimulus processing accurately describes all of these regularities. This model was proposed by Allan Wagner as a (...) quantitative elaboration of Priming Theory, which states that the processing of a stimulus, and therefore its capacity to provoke its response, depends inversely on the degree to which the stimulus is pre-represented in short-term memory. Using computer simulations, we show that all the facts involving within-session effects or short-term habituation might be the result of priming from recent presentations of the stimulus (self-generated priming). The characteristics involving between-sessions effects or long-term habituation would result from the retrieval of the representation of the stimulus from memory by the associated context (associatively-generated priming). (shrink)

This article studies the mathematical properties of two systems that model Aristotle's original syllogistic and the relationship obtaining between them. These systems are Corcoran's natural deduction syllogistic and ?ukasiewicz's axiomatization of the syllogistic. We show that by translating the former into a first-order theory, which we call T RD, we can establish a precise relationship between the two systems. We prove within the framework of first-order logic a number of logical properties about T RD that bear upon the same properties (...) of the natural deduction counterpart ? that is, Corcoran's system. Moreover, the first-order logic framework that we work with allows us to understand how complicated the semantics of the syllogistic is in providing us with examples of bizarre, unexpected interpretations of the syllogistic rules. Finally, we provide a first attempt at finding the structure of that semantics, reducing the search to the characterization of the class of models of T RD. (shrink)