In 2012, a U.S. Institute of Medicine report called for a different approach to health care: “Left unchanged, health care will continue to underperform; cause unnecessary harm; and strain national, state, and family budgets.” The answer, they suggested, would be a “continuously learning” health system. Ethicists and researchers urged the creation of “learning health organizations” that would integrate knowledge from patient‐care data to continuously improve the quality of care. Our experience with an ongoing research study on atrial fibrillation—a trial known (...) as IMPACT‐AFib—gave us some insight into one of the challenges that will have to be dealt with in creating these organizations. Although the proposed educational intervention study placed no restrictions on what providers and health plans could do, the oversight team argued that the ethical principle of beneficence did not allow the researchers to be “bystanders” in relation to a control group receiving suboptimal care. In response, the researchers designed a “workaround” that allowed the project to go forward. We believe the experience suggests that what we call “bystander ethics” will create challenges for the kinds of quality improvement research that LHOs are designed to do. (shrink)

In 2012, a U.S. Institute of Medicine report called for a different approach to health care: “Left unchanged, health care will continue to underperform; cause unnecessary harm; and strain national, state, and family budgets.” The answer, they suggested, would be a “continuously learning” health system. Ethicists and researchers urged the creation of “learning health organizations” that would integrate knowledge from patient‐care data to continuously improve the quality of care. Our experience with an ongoing research study on atrial fibrillation—a trial known (...) as IMPACT‐AFib—gave us some insight into one of the challenges that will have to be dealt with in creating these organizations. Although the proposed educational intervention study placed no restrictions on what providers and health plans could do, the oversight team argued that the ethical principle of beneficence did not allow the researchers to be “bystanders” in relation to a control group receiving suboptimal care. In response, the researchers designed a “workaround” that allowed the project to go forward. We believe the experience suggests that what we call “bystander ethics” will create challenges for the kinds of quality improvement research that LHOs are designed to do. (shrink)

Se pretende mostrar la contradicción existente entre el carácter plural e interdisciplinar de la bioética y la figura del bioeticista o experto. Las éticas aplicadas, de las que la bioética es una rama muy desarrollada, surgen a finales del siglo XX para confrontar los retos de las nuevas tecnología.

Most cognitive scientists nowadays tend to think that at least some of the mind’s capacities are the product of biological evolution, yet important conceptual problems remain for all scientists in order to be able to speak coherently of mental or cognitive systems as having evolved naturally. Two of these important problems concern the articulation of adequate, interesting, and empirically useful concepts of homology and variation as applied to cognitive systems. However, systems in cognitive science are usually understood as functional systems (...) of some sort. Thus, to be able to talk about functional systems being homologous requires having a solid, adequate, and empirically articulated concept of functional homology—and the same is true about functional variation. Here I construct an original concept of functional homology that, in my view, adequately systematizes a number of actual uses of the word “functional homology” in a variety of biological disciplines and in ethology. I also propose a number of criteria for the empirical application of the concept that are analogous to the criteria that are currently used in comparative biology, ethology, and molecular developmental genetics. Then I construct a concept of functional variation on the basis of this concept of homology. (shrink)

Este artículo se centra en el análisis del uso de la industria del big data en la política. Se examina de forma pormenorizada el caso de la empresa Cambridge Analytica y se profundiza en los efectos del uso de la tecnología del big data en el referéndum de permanencia de Reino Unido en la Unión Europea y en las elecciones presidenciales estadounidenses de 2016. El objetivo es exponer los efectos nocivos que tiene el uso de la tecnología del big data (...) en los procesos electorales y los daños que esta tecnología puede producir en los sistemas democráticos. (shrink)

Ernest Sosa has proposed two different ways to respond to dreaming skepticism. In this paper I argue that Sosa's first response —which centers on holding that we have no beliefs in dreams— does not appear to be successful against either the hyperbolic or the realistic dreaming skeptic. I also argue that his second attempt to respond to the dreaming skeptic by arguing that perceptual knowledge indeed counts as what he calls "animal knowledge", may succeed but requires us to perform what (...) appears to be some radical surgery on the concept of knowledge; a radical surgery that, as I show, is probably unnecessary to avoid dreaming skepticism. Finally, I sketch some independent considerations why I think that the hyperbolic skeptic's dreaming argument is not acceptable. Ernesto Sosa propone dos maneras de responder al escéptico del sueño. En este ensayo argumento que su primera propuesta, según la cual no tenemos creencias en los sueños, no parece ser una buena respuesta en contra de ninguno de los escepticismos del sueño, de los cuales distingo dos tipos: el hiperbólico y el realista. También argumento que su segunda propuesta para responder al escéptico del sueño, en la que argumenta que el conocimiento perceptual sí cuenta como conocimiento animal, quizá resulte exitosa; sin embargo, ésta requiere llevar a cabo una cirugía radical en el concepto de conocimiento; una cirugía que, como muestro, es probablemente innecesaria para evitar el escepticismo del sueño. Finalmente bosquejo algunas razones independientes por las cuales considero que el argumento del escéptico hiperbólico del sueño no es aceptable. (shrink)

This is the introduction of the Synthese Topical Collection Epistemological Issues in Neurodivergence and Atypical Cognition written by the guest editors. In order to justify the relevance of the topic, a minimum context is given on the notions of neurodivergence as well as some brief remarks on the neurodiversity advocacy movement. This serves as a basis to establish the importance of increasing the scope of epistemology to include issues that do not fit in the descriptions of typical subjects and cognitive (...) processes. (shrink)

Aquí argumento que algunas propuestas recientes de caracterizar una noción de lo innato teóricamente útil usando conceptos de la biología padecen serios problemas conceptuales. También defiendo una propuesta propia, de inspiración biológica, la cual pretende capturar las formas en que se usa el término 'innato' en algunas disciplinas cognitivas.

In this paper, we analyze the origin of the links between global bioethics (which we differentiate from biomedical bioethics) and human rights. We understand that we are in a global civilizational crisis, whose roots extend to 1492 today, in which the modern-capitalist model used the discourse of human rights to justify its predatory technocracy. There are three theoretical assumptions that support our analysis: 1) The current conditions in which the technique shows its destructive power over nature (Anthropocene) indicate that none (...) of the ethical antecedents are applicable to such circumstances. In this new context, the kantian categorical imperative has been reconverted into a moral and political duty to not instrumentalize either human beings or nature. We call this new ethical consideration bioethics. 2) The current geopolitical composition of the world must be thought in terms of the global North and the global South, as two regions that are forged in the midst of important processes of globalization of the world-system, and whose main consequence lies in the absence of equity in the distribution of wealth and well-being between the two. 3) The current environmental crisis or climate change, the product of an economic model based on extractive technology, has become one of the most serious threats against human rights. (shrink)

There is an argument that has recently been deployed in favor of thinking that the mind is mostly (or even exclusively) composed of cognitive modules; an argument that draws from some ideas and concepts of evolutionary and of developmental biology. In a nutshell, the argument concludes that a mind that is massively composed of cognitive mechanisms that are cognitively modular (henceforth, c-modular) is more evolvable than a mind that is not c-modular (or that is scarcely c-modular), since a cognitive mechanism (...) that is c-modular is likely to be biologically modular (henceforth, b-modular), and b-modular characters are more evolvable (e.g., Sperber 2002, Carruthers 2005). In evolutionary biology, the evolvability of a character in an organism is understood as the “organism’s capacity to facilitate the generation of non-lethal selectable phenotypic variation from random mutation” with respect to that character. Here I will argue that the notion of cognitive modularity needed to make this argument plausible will have to be understood in terms of the biological notion of variational independence; that is, it will have to be understood in such a way that a cognitive feature is c-modular only if few or no other morphological changes (cognitive and not) are significantly correlated with variations of that feature arising in members of the relevant population. I will also argue that all –except for (possibly) one—of the connotations contained in a cluster of notions of cognitive modularity widely accepted in some of the mainstream currents of thought in classical cognitive science, are simply irrelevant to the argument. In order to argue for this, I will have to examine the question as to whether there are any strong theoretical connections between (1) those connotations and (2) notions of modularity accepted in biology, specially in evolutionary and in developmental biology, that are thought to be most relevant to arguments to the effect that biological modularity enhances evolvability. (shrink)

I examine an argument that has recently appeared in the cognitive science literature in favor of thinking that the mind is mostly composed of Fodorian-type cognitive modules; an argument that concludes that a mind that is massively composed of classical cognitive mechanisms that are cognitively modular is more evolvable than a mind that is not cognitively modular, since a cognitive mechanism that is cognitively modular is likely to be biologically modular, and biologically modular characters are more evolvable. I argue that (...) the notion of cognitive modularity needed to make this argument plausible will have to be understood in terms of the biological notion of variational independence, as follows: a cognitive feature is cognitively modular only if few or no other morphological changes are significantly correlated with variations of that feature arising in members of the relevant population as a result of ontogeny. I also argue that most of the connotations contained in a cluster of notions of classical cognitive modularity are, as far as we know, irrelevant to the argument, and that only the presence of selective impairments—also known as cognitive dissociations—can be considered as strong indicators of the type of modularity that genuinely enhances evolvability. (shrink)

Here we defend the view that one ought to categorize and classify at least some mental disorders as clusters of interrelated dysfunctions of (usually, several) cognitive capacities – that is, the kinds of capacities that are postulated in cognitive science; capacities that are understood as entities that are primarily individuated in cognitive-functional terms (CF-systems); systems that have a set of peculiar properties in their manner of operation when processing information or representations. Usually, some of the mental disorders postulated in psychiatry (...) are clinically heterogeneous with respect to their symptoms, and tend to be comorbid – that is, one disorder is often accompanied by other disorders – for example, schizophrenia often comes with major depression. We argue that describing the manner in which CF-systems operate within themselves and with other CF-systems as well as with stimuli and other kinds of information can best explain why certain mental disorders are very heterogeneous with respect to their symptoms, and why comorbidity is so frequent among these disorders. A consequence is that both within-category heterogeneity and comorbodity are not necessarily indications of defective classifications but are rather a consequence of the actual cognitive functional architecture itself and are therefore to be expected in these cases. (shrink)

Designers acknowledge that their skills can assist the visualization and materialization of a desirable future and have gone as far as proposing that design can achieve societal change. Designing for a better world is associated with decreasing environmental depletion impacts while making good for both people and the environment, if possible. Evidently, this is a space where design deals with ethical matters, defining what is good or questioning if good has a universal meaning. This paper discusses the case of Aalto (...) LAB Mexico's Eco-hostel project, a practical and ethical design exploration. It shares the impressions of the design team when co-designing with the Mayan community of ‘20 de Noviembre’, located in Calakmul, Campeche, México. The Eco-hostel project was proposed as an element which can play a central role in achieving betterment of several aspects of the community's daily life. Several of those aspects were communicated by the inhabitants of 20 Nov, and some others were ident.. (shrink)

El objetivo fue analizar la adquisición de vocabulario en idioma inglés de estudiantes de bachillerato a partir de la implementación de actividades de resolución de problemas. Se empleó un diseño cuasiexperimental de pre y post test, con grupo experimental y control. Los resultados sugieren que las actividades de resolución de problemas son estrategias didácticas efectivas para la enseñanza del inglés.

En este ensayo presento brevemente la propuesta de un concepto de homología funcional, junto con sus criterios empíricos. Argumento que dicho concepto es necesario para la articulación de una ciencia cognitiva evolutiva rigurosa y completa. Luego considero la pregunta sobre cuál de los dos principales conceptos de función que han sido desarrollados por filósofos de la biología —a saber, el análisis sistémico o el seleccionista— es el que encaja de mejor manera con mi concepto de homología funcional, y concluyo que (...) la noción de tipo sistémico es la más coherente con dicho concepto. (shrink)

Se presenta el reporte de una intervención docente para la enseñanza de la ética en la Educación Media Superior a través del enfoque por competencias. Primero, se contextualiza y problematiza sobre la Reforma Integral de la Educación Media Superior que tuvo lugar en México en el 2008, para observar los cambios curriculares y señalar el lugar de la ética como asignatura en este subsistema y los retos de los profesores frente a estos cambios. Segundo, se presentan los principios teóricos del (...) enfoque por competencias, así como una perspectiva filosófica sobre la enseñanza de la ética basada en la phrónesis, que desde una perspectiva aristotélica es traducida como prudencia, como modelo de ser ético. Tercero, se expone el diseño didáctico, así como los resultados que muestran las experiencias del docente en el aula, el trabajo de los alumnos y los resultados de los procesos de aprendizaje. En la conclusión se analiza el impacto del enfoque por competencias en la enseñanza de la ética, señalando las dificultades y limitaciones, pero también sus posibilidades para el trabajo docente al vincularse con concepciones filosóficas más amplias. (shrink)

En este trabajo se trata de analizar el papel de la mujer en la religión céltica prerromana. Para ello se realiza una revisión del funcionamiento social, así como los roles y estructuras de género que se podrían haber encontrado en este ámbito cultural. Del mismo modo, el estudio de los compuestos cosmológicos y mitológicos que formarían el principal entramado religioso facilita la comprensión del papel de las divinidades femeninas, en caso de que puedan identificarse como tales. Por otro lado, la (...) participación de la mujer como especialista religioso es un tema de gran interés para la investigación. En este trabajo se tratará de identificar la posibilidad de desempeño de prácticas druídicas por parte de personajes femeninos y si en caso de ser así deberían ser consideradas ‘druidesas’, en pie de igualdad con respecto al término ‘druida’. (shrink)

Los escenarios educativos son espacios propicios para pensar cómo la innovación pedagógica es una oportunidad para replantearse la enseñanza y el aprendizaje, de tal manera que respondan a la necesidad de transformar el conocimiento y la realidad presente en las aulas de clase, es decir, la diversidad de pensamientos, saberes, experiencias, intereses, culturas y trayectorias dentro de un marco inclusivo. Este trabajo tiene como finalidad presentar una propuesta de enseñanza y aprendizaje desde la elaboración de proyectos construidos en función de (...) progresiones curriculares, implementados en aulas flexibles y dinámicas, donde las interacciones, el diálogo y el trabajo colaborativo cobran un nuevo sentido y valor. Así, al eliminar las barreras contextuales, pueden emerger prácticas innovadoras que integran el conocimiento, y buscan romper con la mirada asignaturista y segregadora presente y arraigada en nuestras escuelas. A través de un enfoque cualitativo y bajo la técnica de análisis documental, se recogen y analizan experiencias de aprendizaje que responden a proyectos elaborados bajo la metodología del Aprendizaje basado en problemas y que articulan de manera progresiva el currículo. Por otro lado, se recogen las percepciones de docentes que implementaron la experiencia, poniendo en tensión la enseñanza tradicional y las innovaciones implementadas. Los resultados dan cuenta de la relevancia que cobra el trabajo colaborativo para diseñar e implementar metodologías de enseñanza para la inclusión y que tiene como motor la articulación y progresión del currículo, la propuesta muestra la factibilidad de tener aulas activas, donde la experiencia y el aprendizaje mediado son posibles como consecuencia de una sinergia continua. (shrink)

Desde el 2020 se ha generado en España una emergencia discursiva en torno al suicidio que ha ocasionado una relevante movilización de la agenda mediático-política. Esto se advierte en el impulso de medidas como el teléfono de asistencia (024) por parte del Gobierno central. Sin embargo, lo interesante de esta decisión es su sustrato en un nuevo marco interpretativo de los significados del suicidio en la (pos)pandemia. Por tanto, a través de un análisis crítico del discurso, el presente texto observa (...) una serie de fragmentos discursivos del discurso gubernamental y el testimonio de 4 periodistas especializados y 8 miembros de asociaciones de supervivientes en relación con estos cambios. Como principales resultados, se observan convergencias respecto a la identificación contextual del suicidio y la salud mental en la pandemia. Asimismo, supervivientes y periodistas destacan en problematizar la salud emocional como clave de un reclamo terapéutico de una prevención efectiva del suicidio. (shrink)

In this paper, I critique a popular yet seldom recognized theory of the political role of religious reasons. According to this theory, the Free Marketplace model, laws may be justified on religious reasons as long as such laws do not impinge on rights. I argue that this theory is internally contradictory and can only be defended by either accepting normatively unacceptable consequences, or resorting to ad hoc distinctions between compelling and non-compelling legal justifications.

El tema de la globalización es uno de esos temas que todo el mundo cree conocer bien. Todos hemos oído hablar del asunto en la radio y la televisión. Leído en los periódicos, comentado entre los amigos, etc. Sin embargo es uno de los asuntos más complejos por la cantidad de variables que se deben de tener en cuenta. Asimismo, las perspectivas desde las que se habla de globalización son también variadas y a veces incluso, contradictorias. En este artículo se (...) va a intentar tratar el tema de la globalización desde la perspectiva del consumo y teniendo en cuenta nuestro contexto geográfico. (shrink)

Leemos la analítica de Kant mediante una alegoría arquitectónica con fines dicácticos. Examinamos los límites de una tal metáfora sostenida: el malentendido de la síntesis como resultado de un proceso que parte de lo más simple ; la dificultad de ilustrar lo trascendental con lo empírico ; el uso de lo más escolástico de Kant, las facultades ; la dificultad de representar lo subjetivo. Los principales términos comparativos son: habitar conocer, edificio experiencia fenoménica, garantía de habitabilidad validez objetiva, suministrador de (...) materiales sensibilidad, arquitecto entendimiento, plano concepto, tareas básicas / categorías, maestro de obras imaginación, procesos de montaje esquemas, Consejo Juicio, Sujeto-del-Arte Apercepción trascendental, etc. Su despliegue muestra una sorprendente adaptabilidad a los problemas de la KrV. (shrink)

En el presente artículo argumento que algunos de los descubrimientos empíricos relativamente recientes en la biología del desarrollo nos llevan a abandonar ciertos conceptos de lo innato, en particular, aquellos que llamaremos 'internistas'. También examino la adecuación de tres caracterizaciones de lo innato propuestas recientemente que toman en cuenta los descubrimientos empíricos antes mencionados y pretenden recoger un núcleo importante de las connotaciones y afirmaciones asociadas a lo innato en algunas disciplinas empíricas. Además, argumento que dos de estas caracterizaciones son (...) inadecuadas por razones diversas, y que es más plausible considerar la tercera como una explicación del concepto de un rasgo fenotípico heredado. /// In this paper I argue that some relatively recent empirical findings in developmental biology lead us to abandon some concepts of innateness, in particular those which we shall call 'internalist concepts'. I also examine three characterizations of innateness that have been recently proposed--characterizations which take into account those empirical findings and are attempts to explain some of the most important connotations and assertions associated to the word 'innate' as it is used in some empirical disciplines. It is also argued that two of these characterizations are inadequate for various reasons, and that it is more plausible to consider the third characterization as an explication of the concept of an inherited phenotypic trait. (shrink)

Writings celebrations and honors to authors seem to correspond to distinct dispositions. Celebrations require, above all, that the writings had obtained significant recognition from readers. Honor, sometimes, can be dedicated to writers because they are authors nevertheless, most of the times, honors are towards those writers that – because of the nature of their activity – constantly go apart from the discursive interrelationship with their peers therefore this solitude does not prevent them of an intensesharing of the human common preoccupations (...) of their own epoch. For those ones it is the honoring gesture that seems to suspend, for instants, the care for their writing, to show gratitude for what these writers have done to enlarge and magnify the relations with those ones that they have lived with and to thank for their actions and words that have been said to preserve the world as a shared and inhabited space by many people. Considering Arendt, celebrating her writings which are dedicated to recognize the dignity that correspond to the politic life seem to converge to the gesture of honor that person who, for sure, through their writings, opinions, and judgments contributed to signify and preserve the mundane interspaces in which the human issues happen and are achieved. (shrink)

Como bien se sabe, la caracterización del conocimiento en términos de "creencia verdadera justificada" (CVJ) se ha considerado fallida desde la popularización de contraejemplos tipo Gettier. En este artículo se revisa el trabajo seminal de Gettier y sus argumentos. Se sostiene que los contraejemplos..

En las ciencias cognoscitivas, existe una teoría con respecto a la arquitectura computacional de la mente conocida como el modularismo masivo. Esta teoría sostiene que la mente está en su mayoría constituida por mecanismos que son cognoscitivamente modulares. Algunos de los defensores de esta teoría proponen un argumento cuya conclusión es que es muy probable que mecanismos que son cognoscitivamente muy modulares sean más evolucionables que aquellos mecanismos que no son cognoscitivamente modulares. Aquí muestro que para poder defender plausiblemente esta (...) conclusión es necesario añadir a la noción de modularidad cognoscitiva la siguiente característica: "Un sistema cognoscitivo S de organismos de una población P es cognoscitivamente modular sólo si S es variacionalmente modular en P." Defiendo también la idea que una de las características que normalmente se asocian al concepto de modularidad cognoscitiva-i.e., la noción de doble disociación cognoscitiva-es muy cercana a la idea de modularidad variacional. Adicionalmente, argumento que no hay razones positivas, y sí algunas razones negativas, para pensar que las otras características usualmente asociadas al concepto de modularidad cognoscitiva-tales como la especificidad de dominio o la especialización funcional-coadyuven a la evolucionabilidad de los módulos cognoscitivos. In the cognitive sciences, there is a theory concerning the computational architecture of the mind known as massive modularity. This theory holds that the mind is constituted mostly by cognitive modules. Some of the defenders of this theory have put forward an argument whose conclusion is that it is very likely that those mechanisms that are cognitively very modular are more evolvable than mechanisms that are not cognitively modular. Here I show that a plausible defense of this conclusion requires us to add to the usual notion of cognitive modularity the following characteristic: "A cognitive system S of organism of a population P is cognitively modular only if S is variationally modular in P." I also defend the view that one of the characteristics normally associated to the concept of cognitive modularity-namely, the notion of a double dissociation-is conceptually close to the concept of variational modularity. Additionally, I argue that there are not positive reasons-while there are some negative ones-to think that the other characteristics usually associated to cognitive modularity, such as domain specificity or functional specialization, enhance the evolvability of cognitive modules. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that an adequate and coherent account of Descartes’ concepts of mental representation, ideas, clarity and distinctness, obscurity and confusion, and material falsity requires that one takes Descartes seriously whenever he makes a distinction between what an idea appears to represent and what it actually represents, and that one understands an idea’s representing a thing in terms of the objective existence in the mind of the essence of that thing. The paper also contains a logical articulation (...) of most of these views, in a manner which shows overall coherence. (shrink)

Con las propuestas realizadas en este artículo lo que se pretende de alguna manera es marcar toda una línea de trabajo, tanto individual como social para tratar de hacer del consumo responsable no sólo una práctica de comportamiento de compra, sino todo un estilo de vida, donde se recogen aspectos políticos, educativos, de participación ciudadana, etc. A la vez que se intentan dar pautas para las conductas.

In this paper I present a proposal to characterize in a precise manner the notions of domain specificity and of a bias in connection with rules of inference, as such notions are used in the psychology of human reasoning, and argue —against many cognitive psychologists— that there are no strong con..

The doctrine of the Image of God which is to be found in humankind is usually based by the Scholastic tradition in the human intellect and will. Bañez, a commentator of St. Thomas Aquinas, takes the further step of basing this Image in the personal act of being. In this way the Image of God as found in the created human being is never lost. The Image of God in the "recreated" human being (in the order of grace) can be (...) lost, however, due to the vicious use of one's freedom. (shrink)