Background: The present article aims to measure the extent to which the physical and recreational needs of elderly persons in the communities of Posorja and Puna are being met. Nowadays, it is known that physical activity is beneficial for the elderly, as it helps to diminish illness and all kinds of diseases. Method: The population in this study is comprised on 378 elderly persons between 65 and 79 years of age: 200 belong to the community of Posorja and 178, to (...) the community of Puna in Guayas Province. The tools used for this research include, among others, the ADL Test, which evaluates the degree of self-care and mobility; the Lawton and Brody Scale, which is an appropriate instrument to evaluate the level of independence and skills; and the MMT, which evaluates cognitive functions such as memory, language, praxis and attention. They all are essential to detecting and diagnosing Alzheimer´s disease. Results: Various statistical techniques were used to obtain the results, such as descriptive analysis, contingency tables and main components. Conclusions: The population between 65 and 90 years of age was analyzed and it accounted for 35.9% of the total population back in 2010, which means there was a variation. Nowadays, it represents 56.6% of the obtained sample. This generational group refers to the elderly, who should be favored by public policies that are intended to improve health programs, generate recreational areas, and create senior care centers. Generally, the demographic dynamics of Posorja show a structured pyramid, with an expanding population, a large amount of young people and adults who contribute to the economic dynamics and productivity of the area. The questionnaire could be adapted and contain the specifications required to suit the true dimensions of this population. (shrink)

This article studies natural food packaging as enabling artifacts of the traditional material culture of Antioquia in Colombia. For this purpose, we consider artifacts as objective nodes that combine design and use intentions, functions, materials, histories, artifactual lineages, and cooperative relationships that stabilize ritualized practices of a human group. We take the example of natural packaging as artifacts that enablers and stabilizers of traditional cooking and food preparation practices. Natural packaging materials are here assumed to be leaves having some favorable (...) property to contain a food product. After providing a theoretical reflection, we analyze the data collected from fieldwork we conducted in two towns in Antioquia, Colombia (Santa Fe de Antioquia and Amagá), as well as from an interview with an expert in the field. Finally, we show that it is possible to postulate an analysis under a relational ontological description of a traditional practice with conceptual categories of the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

Background: The present study compared the effects of a traditional resistance training and resistance training combined with cognitive task on body composition, physical performance, cognitive function, and plasma brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels in older adults. Methods: Thirty community-dwelling older adults were randomized into TRT and RT+CT. Exercise groups performed a similar resistance training program, twice a week over 16 weeks. Cognitive Training involved performing verbal fluency simultaneously with RT. Exercise sessions were performed 2-3 sets, 8-15 repetitions at 60-70% of 1-repetition (...) maximum. Body composition, physical function, cognitive performance, and BDNF levels were assessed before and after intervention period. Results: The physical performance was similarly improved in response to both TRT and RT+CT. However, exclusive improvements on cognitive function and BDNF levels were observed only after RT+CT. Conclusion: The RT program associated with a cognitive task, improved physical and cognitive performance in healthy older adults. (shrink)

We give $A_p$ type conditions which are sufficient for two-weight, strong $$ inequalities for Calderón-Zygmund operators, commutators, and the Littlewood-Paley square function $g^*_\lambda $. Our results extend earlier work on weak $$ inequalities in [13].

To verify the occurrence of a singular instance of testimonial injustice three facts must be established. The first is whether the hearer in fact has an identity prejudice of which she may or may not be aware; the second is whether that prejudice was in fact the cause of the unjustified credibility deficit; and the third is whether there was in fact a credibility deficit in the testimonial exchange. These three elements constitute the facts of the matter of testimonial injustice. (...) In this essay we argue that none of these facts can be established with any degree of confidence, and therefore that testimonial injustice is an undetectable phenomenon in singular instances. Our intention is not to undermine the idea of testimonial injustice, but rather to set limits to what can be justifiably asserted about it. According to our argument, although there are insufficient reasons to identify individual acts of testimonial injustice, it is possible to recognize recurrent patterns of epistemic responses to speakers who belong to specific social groups. General testimonial injustice can thus be characterized as a behavioral tendency of a prejudiced hearer. (shrink)

Effective vaccines for COVID‐19 are already available to humankind. In Peru, 86 million doses were administered to cover the demand for 33 million Peruvian people. Hence, vaccination has been prioritized in groups: health personnel, subjects with pre‐existing health conditions and those over 65 years of age. However, given the social problems and the public health situation in Peru, this work defends that the priority of vaccination should be focused on the population living in extreme poverty. The method used was an (...) ethical argumentation on the distribution of scarce antiSARS‐CoV2 vaccine in Peru. This argument is based on the analysis of the Peruvian population living in extreme poverty, which presents different layers of vulnerability, and that, in the face of an eventual SARS‐CoV2 infection, these would be exacerbated one after the other, through a cascade effect. This scenario would give rise to new vulnerabilities to those already existing, causing greater damage. Vaccination efforts on this key population would give them the opportunity to continue to find ways to bring food to their homes, significantly reducing the risk of contagion in their environment and mitigating the devastating effect of the local diseases to which they are already exposed. Four objections related to this argument are raised with their corresponding responses. Priority access to the vaccine would significantly reduce the humanitarian harm to people living in extreme poverty, prevailing the principles of justice and equity. (shrink)

La humanidad ya dispone de vacunas eficaces contra el COVID‐19. En Perú se administraron 86 millones de dosis para cubrir la demanda de 33 millones de peruanos. Para ello, se ha priorizado la vacunación en grupos clave: personal de salud, sujetos con condiciones de salud preexistentes y mayores de 65 años. Sin embargo, dada la problemática social y la situación de la salud pública en Perú, este trabajo defiende que la prioridad de la vacunación debe centrarse en la población que (...) vive en extrema pobreza. El método utilizado fue una argumentación ética sobre la distribución de la vacuna contra el COVID‐19 en Perú. Esta argumentación se basa en el análisis de la población peruana que vive en extrema pobreza, la cual presenta diferentes estratos de vulnerabilidad, y que, ante una eventual infección por SARS‐CoV‐2, se irían agravando uno tras otro, a través de un efecto en cascada. Este escenario daría lugar a nuevas vulnerabilidades de las ya existentes, causando mayores daños. Los esfuerzos de vacunación en esta población clave les brindaría oportunidad de seguir encontrando formas de llevar alimentos a sus hogares, reduciendo significativamente el riesgo de contagio en su entorno y mitigando el efecto devastador de las enfermedades locales a las que ya está expuesta. Se plantean cuatro objeciones relacionadas con este argumento, con sus correspondientes respuestas. El acceso prioritario a la vacuna reduciría significativamente el daño a las personas que viven en la extrema pobreza, haciendo prevalecer los principios de justicia y equidad. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI)-3 test to evaluate eating disorders in young Chilean population. Methods: The sample consisted of 1,091 Chilean adolescents and young people (i.e., 476 men and 615 women) between 15 and 28 years old, from the metropolitan region, and four regions from the coast and south-central zone of the country. The reliability and factorial structure of the instrument were analyzed, replicating the confirmatory factor analyses ofBrookings (...) et al. (2020), evaluating four additional models that included bifactor exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM), bifactor, and two-bifactor. Results: A majority of the subscales presented alphas and omegas equal to or greater than 0.70, with the exception of asceticism (α = 0.543, ω = 0.552) and interpersonal alienation (α = 0.684, ω = 0.695) scales, which are consistent with the values of the Spanish and Mexican non-clinical samples. The best fit indices were obtained by the ESEM two-bifactor model, with twelve specific factors corresponding to the EDI-3 subscales and two general orthogonal factors (i.e., risk subscales and psychological subscales), consistently with the theoretical basis. (shrink)

El reclutamiento de esclavos y libertos en las milicias, guerrillas y ejércitos conformados durante las guerras de Independencia fue un fenómeno creciente tanto en las filas de las fuerzas realistas como en la de los patriotas. Ambos prometieron a los reclutas con ese estatus social la libertad por su servicio militar, pero el Ejército libertador le sumó al hecho de ser personas libres la ciudadanía. Los libertos soldados, entonces, aprovecharon el contexto generado por la guerra para luchar y afianzar la (...) libertad, la ciudadanía y otros derechos a través de memoriales y representaciones en los cuales emplearon un lenguaje revolucionario que en ocasiones trascendía las propuestas de los libertadores. (shrink)

Al penetrar en el tiempo histórico y en la figura de Simón Rodríguez, Arturo Uslar Pietri esboza una explicación del problema originario de la identidad de América; su conflicto consigo misma, las trampas de la libertad, las dificultades dramáticas con las que tropieza el proyecto civilizatorio de la América republicana. Esta visión conflictiva de lo americano aparece prefigurada magistralmente en la propia vida del hombre Simón Rodríguez, por la desmesura de su figura, tanto intelectual como humana, por encarnar de la (...) forma más intensa posible la utopía de la fraternidad y la libertad. En este trabajo nos aproximamos a la visión uslariana de Simón Rodríguez y a la simbología de su figura como representación del problema esencial de Hispanoamérica. (shrink)

Las procesiones de difuntos fueron un tema muy favorecido en la literatura mexicana de los siglos XIX y XX. Estas historias tienen sus orígenes en los relatos sobre una aparición de ultratumba que dentro del imaginario sobrenatural de Galicia es conocida como la Santa Compaña, la cual llegó a tierras novohispanas en el siglo XVI, como parte de las crónicas de las órdenes religiosas. No obstante, con el paso del tiempo la creencia se secularizó y adquirió tintes cada vez más (...) literarios, hasta tomar la forma de un relato tradicional con añadidos y supresiones que obedecen a elementos locales y a la idiosincrasia de los pueblos entre los que circula. (shrink)

En este trabajo presentaré una forma de evitar los problemas más recurrentes en cierta versión del pluralismo lógico, aquella que defiende que incluso considerando un lenguaje fijo existen múltiples sistemas lógicos legítimos. Para ello, será necesario considerar los puntos de partida del programa pluralista y explicitar los problemas que de ellos surgen, principalmente el Desafío de Quine y el Problema del Colapso. Luego, propondré una modificación respecto de lo que se entiende por consecuencia lógica, para poder considerar una familia de (...) sistemas lógicos, las lógicas mixtas, que abarcan tanto a las lógicas puras como a las impuras. Finalmente, mostraré que con una interpretación razonable del formalismo se puede eludir aquellos problemas a la vez que se respeta el espíritu del programa pluralista. (shrink)

In order to define some interesting consequence relations, certain generalizations have been proposed in a many-valued semantic setting that have been useful for defining what have been called pure, mixed and ordertheoretic consequence relations. But these generalizations are insufficient to capture some other interesting relations, like other intersective mixed relations or relations with a conjunctive interpretation for multiple conclusions. We propose a broader framework to define these cases, and many others, and to set a common background that allows for a (...) direct compared analysis. At the end of the work, we illustrate some of these comparisons. (shrink)

Resumen: Una de las formas más comunes y menos estudiadas de parcialidad judicial subjetiva es la disminución de la credibilidad otorgada a un testigo debido a un prejuicio identitario implícito del agente judicial. En la epistemología social, este fenómeno ha sido estudiado bajo la rúbrica de la injusticia testimonial. En este ensayo mostramos que para determinar la ocurrencia de un caso de injusticia testimonial en el derecho se deben cumplir tres condiciones que son imposibles de verificar empíricamente y que están (...) basadas en presupuestos psicológicos que han sido puestos en duda en años recientes. Sin la posibilidad de verificar estas condiciones, estamos frente a un tipo de parcialidad judicial indetectable. En su lugar, ofrecemos una nueva forma de entender la injusticia testimonial en el derecho como un fenómeno más general que describe una tendencia comportamental prejuiciosa recurrente por parte de un agente judicial. Entendida de este modo, la injusticia testimonial es completamente verificable. -/- Abstract: One of the most common and least studied forms of subjective judicial partiality is the credibility deficit suffered by a witness due to an implicit identity prejudice in a judicial agent. Social epistemologists have studied this form of partiality under the rubric, “testimonial injustice.” In this essay we argue that to verify the occurrence of a singular instance of testimonial injustice in law three facts must be established, none of which can be established with any degree of confidence. Furthermore, all of them are based on psychological suppositions that have been recently discredited. Without the possibility of establishing these facts, we end up with an undetectable form of subjective judicial partiality. In its place, we offer a new way of understanding testimonial injustice in law as a general phenomenon that describes a recurrent pattern of prejudiced behavior in a judicial agent. Under this characterization, testimonial injustice becomes empirically verifiable. (shrink)

Este texto pregunta filosóficamente porel sustento poético de la pieza literariade Simón Bolívar, Mi delirio sobre El Chimborazo. De la lectura del poema sedesprende la vinculación de lo pensante con lo axiológico y lo político, y desde allí,con los universales de justicia, libertad y dignidad como auténticas expresiones de lo bello, y por ende, de lo estético de la naturaleza y de la gramática del lenguaje. Se analizan así los andamios históricos y evolutivos que le permiten al hombre atravesar los (...) niveles de su configuración pensante en una equivalencia perfecta con su naturaleza lingüística, la cual, desde el desempeño biográfico de cada sujeto, permite reconciliarse con una comprensión estética de la naturaleza. (shrink)

La noción de sentido común en la obra de Hannah Arendt juega un papel fundamental a la hora de explicar cómo un hombre del tipo de Adolf Eichmann podía mantener una auténtica incapacidad para pensar. No obstante, la manera como esta autora comprende aquella noción no es plenamente clara: el sentido común se halla aparentemente en un punto medio entre la actividad del pensamiento y el conocimiento científico, pues aun cuando el sentido de realidad proporcionado por el sentido común resulta (...) fundamental para ambos, éstos, dada la manera como se oponen entre sí, no se reducen a este mero sentido de realidad. Según creo, la tensión que genera este fenómeno puede ser evaluada con más claridad si se estudia la expresión ‘sentido común’ a partir de dos significados distintos –aunque complementarios– de acuerdo con su carácter pasivo y activo: el sentido común puede ser comprendido desde un punto de vista ‘sensible’ y un punto de vista ‘semántico’, respectivamente. (shrink)

Numerous social and environmental issues are under increasing time constraints, and society is placing greater demands on organizations that foster greater social inclusion, well-being, and human flourishing. In this regard, social innovation research has gained relevance as it provides a rich context to examine how to generate and prioritize dignity-based organizing more effectively. This research aims to examine how the concepts of dignity and humanistic management can shape social innovation processes that generate better results for organizations and society. Building on (...) humanistic management and social innovation literature, a qualitative case study explores how the notions of dignity and humanistic management practices are present at every stage of the social innovation process (origin, mobilization, execution, and integration). This paper is one of the few studies exploring the relationship between humanistic management principles and social innovation processes, filling a significant gap in the literature with important praxeological implications. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo determinar el fundamento teológico del concepto de soberanía propuesto por el jurista alemán Carl Schmitt. Según nuestra hipótesis, tal fundamento teológico se encuentra en la filosofía del pensador danés Søren Kierkegaard, quien, en diferentes obras, desarrolló los importantes conceptos de excepción, decisión y suspensión teleológica de la ética en relación a la experiencia religiosa de la repetición. Como veremos, tales conceptos forman parte del fundamento teológico de la famosa definición schmittiana de la soberanía: “soberano (...) es quien decide sobre el estado de excepción”, la cual define el decisionismo del jurista alemán. Así, por medio del concepto de decisión, extraído de la obra kierkegaardiana e introducido en la doctrina de la soberanía, Schmitt logra tres objetivos. Por un lado, no solo inicia la crítica al parlamentarismo liberal y al Estado burgués de Derecho, sino que revela el fundamento teológico-existencial de la unidad política del Estado moderno. En segundo lugar, en el marco jurídico-político, actualiza la teología fideísta desarrollada por Kierkegaard en su obra. Finalmente, en el marco teológico-metafísico, introduce el papel de la decisión como actualizador del rol público de la trascendencia en la modernidad secularizada frente a la reserva escatológica de la teología. Para lograr nuestro objetivo, utilizaremos el método de la analogía conceptual teológico-política creado y aplicado por el mismo Carl Schmitt a la historia de la soberanía europea. (shrink)

En este nuevo contexto social, cultural, político y económico, sin lugar a dudas la educación ha logrado avances en el tema de la reforma educacional y en específico en los cambios de la educación especial. Sin embargo, pese a ello se vuelve trascendental a estas alturas un cambio a nivel paradigmático, respecto a como el sistema educativo concibe el tema de la discapacidad y en específico de la discapacidad auditiva. En especial cuando vemos en un contexto más global que en (...) países como: Cuba, Brasil, Argentina, etc. la comunidad sorda es estudiada a partir de una visión socio–cultural, visión que sin lugar a dudas ha permitido grandes avances en educación y ha dejado en evidencia que en nuestro país se concibe el tema de la discapacidad auditiva como una cualidad ontológica ignorando la visión sociocultural que considera a la comunidad sorda como portadora de su propia lengua, cultura e inteligencias, lo cual sin lugar a dudas, es trascendental en el proceso de integración y de enseñanza y aprendizaje. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Decolonial Movidas: María Lugones’s Notion of Decolonial Aesthesis through CosmologiesDenise Meda CalderonIntroductionMaría Lugones advances a decolonial feminist methodology that allows one to see both dehumanizing social reductions of colonized peoples and the resistant relations operating within non-dominant socialities. By exploring this double “seeing,” I articulate the relationship between resistant socialities and Lugones’s notion of decolonial aesthesis. In her only published text on decolonial aesthesis, Lugones states: “Thinking about aesthesis, (...) I think about the body and permeability and all that permeability allows us to reconceive about the world we live in” (qtd. in Ortega 275). Lugones promotes a notion of decolonial aesthesis that engages a resistant permeable sensing and, I argue, is exposed by her distinct approach to cosmology.1My analysis begins with Lugones’s decolonial methodology to articulate a “seeing” of coloniality that I contend leads to her development of decolonial aesthesis. In particular, I show that Lugones sketches a view of decolonial aesthesis as a sensing that grounds resistance to dehumanizing social reductions and reveals a non-dominant social relationality expressed through concrete sensuous movements. I suggest that Lugones theorizes a communal interconnected dimension of resistance as decolonial aesthesis through cosmologic relation. To flesh out this point, I turn to two interlocutors central to Lugones’s intellectual genealogy: Gloria Anzaldúa and Rodolfo Kusch. I conclude by interpreting Lugones’s reading of Anzaldúa as a coalitional movida performing decolonial aesthesis.Moving to “Seeing” ColonialityLugones’s 2010 essay “Toward a Decolonial Feminism” constitutes a methodological intervention or movida in gender scholarship. Referring to the [End Page 22] expansive global power system, Lugones argues that gender is historically implicated as part of the colonial/modern project and sustains a dominative closure that marks alternative socialities as unintelligible. The colonial/modern system established norms that did not previously inform social communities. A gender binary was imposed onto colonized peoples, erasing the existing socialities that informed the everyday of those peoples. Lugones’s analysis of gender exposes the deep social fissures that emerge from coloniality, and the tremendous harm sustained by reading gender across all social arrangements and onto all knowledge systems.According to Lugones, the colonial/modern category of gender shows a pervasive subjugation to non-humanity of peoples whose sex status does not conform to binary logics. Regarding these reductive processes, Lugones writes: “This dehumanization and bestialization occurred precisely because these people were not understood by the colonizers and enslavers as social agents, and thus their sexual difference [was] not socializable. Thus, one does not find gender; animals do not have gender” (“Gender and Universality” 44). Since gender is assigned to humans, reading gender onto colonized peoples covers up dehumanization, even in calls for gender-based liberation.It is precisely through seeing coloniality that we can track the concealed social arrangements and see the worlds of sense that do not conform to the colonial/modern system. Lugones suggests this point in the following quote:To see the coloniality is to see both jaqi, the persona, the being that is in a world of being without dichotomies, and the beast, both real, both vying under different powers for survival. Thus to see the coloniality is to reveal the very degradation that gives us two renditions of life and a being rendered by them.(“Toward a Decolonial Feminism” 751–52)As Lugones’s words indicate, seeing coloniality involves a complex sensing that goes beyond seeing from dominant social norms and gender roles.Lugones’s methodological movida of seeing coloniality reveals the dichotomous categorization as part of the immense violence committed against peoples as colonized subjects with non-human status. This move urges a recognition of the superimposed categories that continue to harm and separate colonized peoples from their fluid relations with cosmologies (Lugones, “Toward a Decolonial Feminism” 746). Seeing the coloniality of gender elicits a transition to the possibilities of sensing from the positionalities deemed animal, in search of socialities that are not mediated by modern/colonial categories. Subsequently, seeing coloniality is a pivotal methodological movida to theorizing resistance in non-dominative socialities, or what Lugones calls decolonial aesthesis.2 [End Page 23]Decolonial AesthesisLugones’s decolonial aesthesis is not concerned... (shrink)

Ernesto Volkening leyó, reescribió y comentó los Escolios a un texto implícito de Nicolás Gómez Dávila, labor interpretativa desarrollada mediante un diario de lectura con aspiraciones aforísticas y críticas. Este artículo recuerda el contenido de sus valoraciones y destaca cómo estas sirven en la definición de glosas, máximas y aforismos; así mismo, se concentra en la voluntad de estilo de los fragmentos que conforman la obra. Lo anterior favorece el examen de la forma de la escritura en las tareas críticas (...) de Volkening y la reafirmación de lazos entre diario de lectura, formas argumentativas breves y ensayo. (shrink)

El presente artículo intenta estudiar la concepción del mundo que subyace a la modernidad política peruana. Según nuestro punto de vista, esta concepción del mundo está caracterizada por lo que llamaremos ethos barroco. Aunque no es la única, su manifestación más importante es el fenómeno de la corrupción, desarrollado en el marco de la relación entre una forma de pensar y una forma de actuar: la utopía (derivada de una visión fantasiosa de la sociedad) y la anomia (resultado del incumplimiento (...) de las normas sociales). En este sentido, queremos mostrar la paradójica doble relación entre ambos elementos, consistente, por un lado, en la contradicción discursiva entre el pensamiento utópico y la anomia política, y, por otro lado, en su articulación complementaria en el fenómeno de la corrupción. Debido a esta enigmática y compleja relación, en el Perú se ha instaurado un Estado que promueve la anomia y una Constitución que carece de legitimidad, en lugar de un verdadero Estado de Derecho. (shrink)

Many of the computing systems programmed using Machine Learning are opaque: it is difficult to know why they do what they do or how they work. Explainable Artificial Intelligence aims to develop analytic techniques that render opaque computing systems transparent, but lacks a normative framework with which to evaluate these techniques’ explanatory successes. The aim of the present discussion is to develop such a framework, paying particular attention to different stakeholders’ distinct explanatory requirements. Building on an analysis of “opacity” from (...) philosophy of science, this framework is modeled after accounts of explanation in cognitive science. The framework distinguishes between the explanation-seeking questions that are likely to be asked by different stakeholders, and specifies the general ways in which these questions should be answered so as to allow these stakeholders to perform their roles in the Machine Learning ecosystem. By applying the normative framework to recently developed techniques such as input heatmapping, feature-detector visualization, and diagnostic classification, it is possible to determine whether and to what extent techniques from Explainable Artificial Intelligence can be used to render opaque computing systems transparent and, thus, whether they can be used to solve the Black Box Problem. (shrink)

El presente trabajo investiga las tesis sobre el poder civil de Alonso de la Veracruz que buscan incorporar en la comunidad política española a los habitantes autóctonos del Nuevo Mundo, tesis que suelen relacionarse con F. de Vitoria y el tomismo español, y que últimamente son consideradas parte del republicanismo novohispano elaborado desde la periferia americana. Se busca demostrar que su propósito era aplicar una teoría de derechos naturales, sin que ello implique participación política de los indios americanos. Se analiza (...) la postura del fraile frente a la diversidad cultural y la guerra contra los indios. The paper explores Alonso de la Veracruz's theses on civil power, which sought to integrate the native inhabitants of the New World into the Spanish political community. These theses, which have usually been associated with F. de Vitoria and Spanish Thomism, have recently come to be considered part of a Novohispanic republicanism developed in the American periphery. The article seeks to show that the purpose of such theses was to apply a theory of natural rights that did not entail the political participation of the indigenous population, as well as to analyze Veracruz's position regarding cultural diversity and the war against the indigenous peoples. (shrink)

The received view of dynamical explanation is that dynamical cognitive science seeks to provide covering law explanations of cognitive phenomena. By analyzing three prominent examples of dynamicist research, I show that the received view is misleading: some dynamical explanations are mechanistic explanations, and in this way resemble computational and connectionist explanations. Interestingly, these dynamical explanations invoke the mathematical framework of dynamical systems theory to describe mechanisms far more complex and distributed than the ones typically considered by philosophers. Therefore, contemporary dynamicist (...) research reveals the need for a more sophisticated account of mechanistic explanation. (shrink)

Models developed using machine learning are increasingly prevalent in scientific research. At the same time, these models are notoriously opaque. Explainable AI aims to mitigate the impact of opacity by rendering opaque models transparent. More than being just the solution to a problem, however, Explainable AI can also play an invaluable role in scientific exploration. This paper describes how post-hoc analytic techniques from Explainable AI can be used to refine target phenomena in medical science, to identify starting points for future (...) investigations of causal relationships, and to generate possible explanations of target phenomena in cognitive science. In this way, this paper describes how Explainable AI—over and above machine learning itself—contributes to the efficiency and scope of data-driven scientific research. (shrink)

Because of the rushed statement that writing is a testament that concentrates the intention of someone who is absent, the idea of the immutability of text has been generalized. The latter is associated with a criterion of coherence in which the realization of the idea flows with no obstacles. Regarding this issue, which limits the dialectic nature of language, this article offers a conceptual alternative that aims at questioning the criterion of linguistic objectivation because it separates the word of its (...) reflective nature, which is in tune with the reference to the entity that drives its meanings. The dynamic reach of writing makes possible for reading to become an appendix of observation, which not only prepares cognitively for the analysis of the set of graphemes, but that also must appropriate sensorially the image that expresses its attributes and alterations as a necessary link in every act of enunciation. Thus, the Marxist conceptual route is linked to a critical philosophical standpoint in which the dialogical relation between text and reader takes effect within a movement of looking towards the heart of the purpose. The latter is done with the aim of making more pedagogical the meeting with the text through a critical hermeneutical approach. To sum up, the resignification of writing implies considering it as a permeable and dynamic texture due to the questions that foster new and surprising findings in the endeavor of knowing. This also means that word, both oral and written, should be linked to new challenges for questioning, which makes of knowing an experience in constant change. (shrink)

In a context of pervasive digitalization of the social world, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the field of education has undergone major changes with the development of digital practices and settings. However, the physical presence of the subjects and the body remain something primordial and irreplaceable in traditional educational processes. Thus, it is often assumed that virtuality is opposed to the corporeal reality of the subjects involved in teaching, learning and studying. In this paper we aim to critically (...) challenge this assumption by addressing the phenomenon of virtuality in a more original sense: as a fundamental dimension of corporeality itself. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological insights, we argue that the experience of the virtual is inherently embodied and fully real. We understand corporeality and virtuality as entangled and multidimensional phenomena. At the same time, this leads us to rethink the digital as only one possible medium in which virtuality can appear as inherent to embodied experience. We develop our phenomenological approach in three instances. First, we question and bracket two common assumptions about corporeality. From our critical perspective, assumptions about a disembodied digitality and a devirtualized corporeality represent extremes within which educational discourses currently move. Second, we address the inherent virtuality of embodied experience. We outline the heuristic concept of the virtual body to describe corporeality and virtuality as entangled and multidimensional phenomena that encompass extension, intercorporeality and intermediality. Finally, we make some remarks on the relationships of corporeality and virtuality considering the challenges of digital education. (shrink)

An important approach to understand how the brain gives rise to consciousness is to probe the depth of unconscious processing, thus to define the key features that cause conscious awareness. Here, we investigate the possibility for subliminal stimuli to shape the context for unconscious processing. Context effects have generally been assumed to require consciousness. In the present experiment, unconscious context processing was investigated by looking at the impact of the context on the response activation elicited by a subliminal prime. We (...) compared the effects of the same subliminal prime on target processing when the prime was embedded in different unconscious contexts. Results showed that the same prime can evoke opposite responses depending on the unconscious context in which it is presented. Taken together, the results of this study show that context effects can be unconscious. (shrink)

Bayesian reverse-engineering is a research strategy for developing three-level explanations of behavior and cognition. Starting from a computational-level analysis of behavior and cognition as optimal probabilistic inference, Bayesian reverse-engineers apply numerous tweaks and heuristics to formulate testable hypotheses at the algorithmic and implementational levels. In so doing, they exploit recent technological advances in Bayesian artificial intelligence, machine learning, and statistics, but also consider established principles from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Although these tweaks and heuristics are highly pragmatic in character and (...) are often deployed unsystematically, Bayesian reverse-engineering avoids several important worries that have been raised about the explanatory credentials of Bayesian cognitive science: the worry that the lower levels of analysis are being ignored altogether; the challenge that the mathematical models being developed are unfalsifiable; and the charge that the terms ‘optimal’ and ‘rational’ have lost their customary normative force. But while Bayesian reverse-engineering is therefore a viable and productive research strategy, it is also no fool-proof recipe for explanatory success. (shrink)