In the digital era, video games have become a major propaganda tool, used for political purposes by state agents and different organisations, including extremist groups. Similarly, some titles have structured their narratives with an educational and awareness-raising purpose, denouncing the senselessness and violence of different terrorist groups. In this article, we will present a general theoretical framework on how video games have been used in the virtual war on terrorism, either in favour of or against it, either by means of (...) special creations or through modifications of famous war games. Next, we will include a case study referring to Spain, analysing the representation in this video game format of the ETA problem or the 11-M jihadist attacks. As a preliminary result, we would like to highlight the importance of this interactive format today, whether from a propaganda, educational or informative point of view. (shrink)

Relationships between degree/area of academic formation and religious and Darwinian views are controversial. This study aimed to compare the religious beliefs and acceptance of Darwinian evolution between two contrasting South American scientific communities (Chile and Colombia), accounting for different degrees and areas of academic formation. In 2018, 115 last year bachelor students (surveyed as freshmen in 2014 for a previous study) from Chile, and 283 first/last year bachelor students, graduate students, and professors from Colombia, all belonging to biology, chemistry, or (...) physics, were surveyed. Chilean students/faculty were significantly more agnostic/atheist, more accepting of Darwinian evolution, and less creationist than their Colombian counterparts. Academic degree and area differently affected these views in both countries, as only in Chile there was a clear tendency among biologists and physicists with higher degrees to hold less religious and creationist views. Marked differences between the history, socioeconomic contexts, and especially in high school and university curricula of both countries might explain these results. (shrink)

El presente artículo se propone indagar en la praxis de extrañamiento que lleva acabo Gómez de la Serna en El Rastro (1914), praxis que será esencial de cara a comprender uno de los vectores fundamentales de la (ulterior) objetología surrealista. Dicha praxis comprende al menos ocho prácticas o posibilidades de deshacer que afectan al Límite (que discrimina y jerarquiza), al Futuro (ingenuo y dictatorial), a la familiaridad hogareña burguesa (que encarcela y amodorra), a la funcionalidad utilitaria (que banaliza), a la (...) idealidad falsa (de los prestigios de la ciudad), a la propiedad (de nuestras cosas), a uno mismo (praxis de desasimiento), y al propio texto. Estas prácticas configuran un extrañamiento masivo, aunque sereno, con una clara proyección de trascendencia poética, existencial y metafísica. (shrink)

Tras reconocer el papel decisivo que juega en el pensamiento husserliano la intersubjetividad en su estructura trascendental, y, respecto a la Einfühlung y la Fremderfahrung, el importante papel que desempeña la Umfiktion, el presente artículo desarrolla la posibilidad experiencial y de senti-do que supone ese extraño personaje que es la Voz Narrativa heterodiegética. En concreto, la Voz Narrativa como Otro subsidiario en el caso de que los personajes duerman o hayan muerto. Esto permite pensar al Testigo como dativo de manifestación (...) en off en soporte último del continuum de la fenomenalidad. Con ello, se trata de profundizar en la tesis husserliana acerca de la inmortalidad de la subjetividad trascendental y extraer algunas conclusiones metafísicas y éticas. El artículo se basa en un texto de Muñoz Molina en el que comentaba un pasaje de Al faro, de V. Woolf.Recognizing the decisive role in Husserl's thought of the intersubjectivity in its transcendental structure, and, for the Einfühlung and Fremderfahrung, the important role of Umfiktion, this article develops the experiential possibility and the possibility of meaning that assumes the Strange character who is the heterodiegetic Narrative Voice. Specifically, the narrative voice as subsidiary Other in the event that the characters sleep or have died. This suggests the Witness as dative of manifestation in off as last stand of the continuum of phenomenality. With this, it is deepening the Husserlian thesis about the immortality of transcendental subjectivity and draw some metaphysical and ethical conclusions. The article is based on a text by Muñoz Molina that commented a passage from To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf. (shrink)

Specific classes of cyberspaces emphasize different types of digital transactions given the user’s context, thus making it essential to take into account what these environments can afford. In this way, we can portray the niches of technological use as ecologies of particular possibilities and compare how they differ between distinct spheres of human life. The present research is focused on describing the conceptual integration of a taxonomic crossover between Virtual Learning Environments and Educational Affordances of Technology, while also performing empirical (...) testing and determining the psychometric properties in a scale regarding the aforementioned taxonomy. The study sample consisted of 320 students in the departments of foreign languages from three different universities in Sonora. Students were given a questionnaire of 21 items organized into four subscales with a Likert-type response option to measure the notions concerning their usage of Virtual Learning Environments. Internal consistency procedures and confirmatory factor analysis by means of Cronbach’s alpha and Structural modeling support the derived factorial structure, which contains Cyber-Communications, Virtual Behavior Settings, Virtual Communities, and Availability and Access to Connectivity. This structure traces the environmental properties perceived by learners in a virtual environment. Results sustain the initial conceptual construction regarding the proposed taxonomy, conclude that the ‘Virtual Learning Environments Questionnaire’ demonstrates adequate psychometric properties, and validate it as a fitting measure to assess the perceived psychological experience of students in a digital educational setting. (shrink)

Las interpretaciones ascética y vitalista del eidos son incapaces de pensar a fondo su relevancia fenomenológica. Siempre parece que se valora más su perímetro y cerco, al servicio de la clausura y la consolidación de la unidad, que la diversidad intraeidética, infinita o empíricamente abierta. Más allá de lo típico, las rutinas y asentamientos mundanos, la diversidad intraeidética es críticamente eficaz sobre todo en la periferia, al tiempo que propicia la flexibilidad y dilatación interior de cada eidos. Esta problemática es (...) decisiva cuando se trata de pensar la dimensión proteica e hibrida de la cultura humana, así como la posibilidad de diversidad y cordura en un mundo complejo y en expansión.The ascetic and vitalistic interpretations of eidos are unable to think thoroughly its phenomenological relevancy. It always seems that the perimeter and boundary of eidos, at the service of the closure and consolidation of the unity, is more valued than intraeidetic diversity, infinitely or empirically opened. Beyond the typical, mundane routines and settlements, intraeidetic diversity is critically effective especially in the periphery, while enabling the flexibility and inner expansion of each eidos. This problem is crucial when it comes to thinking about the protean and hybrid dimensions of human culture, as well as the possibility of diversity and sanity in a complex and expanding world. (shrink)

El presente artículo se propone indagar en la praxis de extrañamiento que lleva acabo Gómez de la Serna en El Rastro, praxis que será esencial de cara a comprender uno de los vectores fundamentales de la objetología surrealista. Dicha praxis comprende al menos ocho prácticas o posibilidades de deshacer que afectan al Límite, al Futuro, a la familiaridad hogareña burguesa, a la funcionalidad utilitaria, a la idealidad falsa, a la propiedad, a uno mismo, y al propio texto. Estas prácticas configuran (...) un extrañamiento masivo, aunque sereno, con una clara proyección de trascendencia poética, existencial y metafísica. (shrink)

Partiendo del eje reflexivo que brinda la ambigüedad de la Cultura como atolladero y trascendencia de los individuos, el presente estudio toma dos circunstancias de nuestra situación cultural (hipersubjetividad y superconductividad) como base para una reflexión en torno a las posibles deformaciones del proceso postmoderno de personalización y sobre sus correspondientes enmiendas -mediación densa (resistencia), inspiración (recogimiento) y ruptura de la inmanencia (responsabilidad)-, que puedan reorientar el desarrollo del individuo como Uno entre Otros.

Este ensayo, motivado por una crítica de Riccardo Guastini, ilustra el papel de la lógica en el derecho y precisamente: a) en la construcción de la teoría del derecho, b) en el razonamiento y en los discursos desarrollados por las disciplinas jurídicas positivas y c) en los razonamientos y en las operaciones de operadores jurídicos y en particular de los jueces.

Este ensayo, motivado por una crítica de Riccardo Guastini, ilustra el papel de la lógica en el derecho y precisamente: a) en la construcción de la teoría del derecho, b) en el razonamiento y en los discursos desarrollados por las disciplinas jurídicas positivas y c) en los razonamientos y en las operaciones de operadores jurídicos y en particular de los jueces.

At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from (...) social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic. (shrink)

Background: Pain has been associated with structural changes of the brain. However, evidence regarding white matter changes in response to acute pain protocols is still scarce. In the present study, we assess the existence of differences in brain white matter related to pain intensity reported by patients undergoing surgical removal of a mandibular impacted third molar using diffusion tensor imaging analysis.Methods: 30 participants reported their subjective pain using a visual analog scale at three postsurgical stages: under anesthesia, in pain, and (...) after the administration of an analgesic. The diffusion data were acquired prior to surgery.Results: DTI analysis yielded significant positive associations of fractional anisotropy in white matter areas related to pain processing with the differences in pain between the three postsurgery stages. Extent and location of these associations depended on the magnitude of the subjective pain differences. Tractography analysis indicated that some pain–tract associations are significant only when pain stage is involved in the contrast, while others are only when anesthesia is involved in the contrast.Conclusions: The association of white matter fractional anisotropy and connectivity, measured before the pain stages, with subjective pain depends on the magnitude of the differences in pain scores. (shrink)

The author reminds us in his Introduction that a phenomenological examina- tion of intersubjectivity is guided by a "twofold critical design". Against sociologism, which stresses the primacy of the We-relationship, so that the irreducible sense-bestowing function of the ego is overlooked, and against psychologism, which ignores a "subjectual" dimension that stands open to objectivity, Moreno M~irquez attempts to throw light on "the essential nexus between egological subjectivity, transcendental intersubjectivity and dialogical praxis, and on the other hand the possibilities of (...) ontological openness and sense-bestowing" (p. 24). In view of various criticisms raised against Husserl's theory, he points out that its primary concern was the cooperation between subjects aimed at the emergence of objectivity, and delimits his subject matter so that the unifying thread among the diverse topics covered is the "ontological competence" of transcendental intersub- jectivity. (shrink)

In 1939, the influential psychophysicist S. S. Stevens proposed definitional distinctions between the terms ‘number,’ ‘numerosity,’ and ‘numerousness.’ Although the definitions he proposed were adopted by syeveral psychophysicists and experimental psychologists in the 1940s and 1950s, they were almost forgotten in the subsequent decades, making room for what has been described as a “terminological chaos” in the field of numerical cognition. In this paper, I review Stevens’s distinctions to help bring order to this alleged chaos and to shed light on (...) two closely related questions: whether it is adequate to speak of a number sense and how philosophers can make sense of the claim by cognitive scientists that numbers are perceptual entities. Moreover, I offer further support to Stevens’s distinction between numerosity and numerousness by showing that they are relational properties that emerge through different relationships between agents and their environments. The final conclusion is that, by adopting Stevens’s distinctions, numbers do not need to be seen as perceptual entities, since the so-called number sense is better described as a sense of numerousness. (shrink)

Timely and provocative essays on bioethical questions brought to the forefront by the bioterrorist threat.

One important limitation of the current renditions of interpretivism is that its emphasis on the moral dimension of sport has overlooked the aesthetic dimension lying at the core of this account of sport. The interpretivist’s failure to acknowledge and consider the aesthetic implicitly distances this realm from the moral. Marcia Muelder Eaton calls this distancing the separatist mistake. This paper argues that interpretivism presupposes not only moral but also aesthetic principles and values. What it sets out to demonstrate is that (...) interpretivism is an integralist, or nonseparatist, account of sport, one in which ethical and aesthetic values are not exclusive. Making explicit and specifying interpretivism’s combined moral-aesthetic approach to sport not only helps to better distinguish the whole range of values that make up sport as well as their interconnection but also encourages sportspeople to pursue more coherent sport and, thus, more enriching lives. (shrink)

La poesía como el reino de la miniatura, del modelo a escala relegado, a comienzos de milenio, a dar cuenta de una experiencia cosificada e intransferible, viene a coronar el repliegue que identificamos a partir de tres instantáneas de la poesía argentina contemporánea: el coloquialismo de Argentino hasta la muerte (1963) de César Fernández Moreno, la poesía “neobarrosa” de Néstor Perlongher y el objetivismo de Cosas (2008) de Edgardo Dobry. Del plano general revestido de inquietud sociológica por la identidad (...) nacional (Fernández Moreno), a un plano americano donde el cuerpo goza al ritmo de la aventura del significante liberado (Perlongher), y de allí al plano detalle enfocado directamente en objetos que guardan reminiscencias vivenciales intransferibles (Dobry), la poesía argentina acusa, veinte años de distancia entre cada período, un movimiento de repliegue y extravío. (shrink)

El artículo se propone indagar en la concepción de la «realidad» que tiene la sofística, como referente fundamental para entender mejor su propuesta crítica ante el avance que en esa época está teniendo la «filosofía dogmática» de tipo metafísica. En particular centrando el análisis en la invectiva que al respecto realiza Gorgias de Leontinos en los fragmentos conservados de dos de sus obras fundamentales: el tratado De lo que no es o de la naturaleza y el discurso Encomio de Helena. (...) Aquí se considera que esta es una posible ruta que permite reconstruir parte de su sediciosa propuesta filosófica. El núcleo fundamental que impulsa la reflexión gorgiana es la infranqueable distancia que separa la concepción de una supuesta «realidad en sí» del pensamiento y lenguaje; ante esta prerrogativa es factible entender el poder que le atribuye al logos para influir en las almas y acciones de los seres humanos, pero también en la capacidad del discurso para «hacer diciendo»; en este sentido perfila su perspectiva extrema de que las palabras estrictamente humanas en su fuerza performativa hacen factible «crear la realidad». (shrink)

Este no es un libro de filosofía, ni de astrología, ni de esoterismo. No hay en él ninguna pretensión más allá de la simple expresión de un recorrido intelectual y vital, de una búsqueda y un encuentro. Desde este punto de vista se intentan exponer tres esferas distintas del ser y del conocer, de forma separada pero con las oportunas referencias cruzadas, y manteniendo siempre la jerarquía que las diferencia. La primera de ellas es la que aquí se considera como (...) un tipo de exoterismo, es decir, un ámbito externo de considerar las cosas (en referencia a los dos siguientes): la filosofía; con la razón como facultad analítica y reflexiva por excelencia, pretende buscar las razones de ciertas problemáticas mediante el pensamiento discursivo. El segundo ámbito, el intermedio, definido como el del simbolismo, de la analogía universal o del anima mundi, es tratado aquí en referencia a una ciencia tradicional y sagrada: la astrología. Y el tercero y último es aquel dominio correspondiente a la Metafísica integral, en el sentido profundo que apunta hacia la Trascendencia misma, como núcleo de toda forma espiritual; se presentará aquí desde el esoterismo tradicional en la línea de los trabajos de René Guénon, pero principalmente desde la tradición más reciente (la islámica) y la considerada por muchos más primordial (la hindú). (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze the legal situation regarding physician-assisted suicide in the world. Our hypothesis is that the prohibitive stance on physician-assisted suicide in most societies in the world today seems to be related to our moral attitudes toward suicide. This brings us to a discussion about life itself. We claim that the total lack of legal protection for physician-assisted suicide from international organizations and most countries in the world lies in a philosophical assumption that supports much of our (...) common beliefs about what life really is. This assumption states that life must be thought of as not belonging exclusively to the individual. We argue that this assumption is a misconception that can be heard in the debate on suicide. Consequently we endorse a different conception of life which tends to favor a pro-choice stance towards suicide and assisted death in general. This position takes the patient’s decision about when to die more seriously. We conclude that there is no reason why physician-assisted suicide does not deserve legal protection as an individual right to die under international law. (shrink)

El filósofo mexicano Emilio Uranga (1921-1988) es recordado por su Análisis del ser del mexicano (1952) y por su labor como periodista político y asesor de López Mateos, Díaz Ordaz, Echeverría y López Portillo. Es posible tender un puente entre los dos aspectos, gracias a su concepción ontologizante de la Revolución Mexicana, leitmotiv de su producción teórica.

The first form of the inside-outside dichotomy appears as a self-encapsulated system with an active border. These systems are based on two complementary but asymmetric processes: constructive and interactive. The former physically constitute the system as a recursive network of component production, defining an inside. The maintenance of the constructive processes implies that the internal organization also constrains certain flows of matter and energy across the border of the system, generating interactive processes. These interactive processes ensure the maintenance of the (...) constructive processes thus specifying a meaningful outside. Upon this basic form of identity formation, the evolutionary and historical domain is open for the emergence of a whole hierarchy and ecology of insides and outsides. These which mutually subsume and collaborate in the maintenance of the essential inside-outside dichotomy that defines the conditions of possibility of the subjects and the worlds they generate. (shrink)

Recent research in philosophy of science has shown that scientists rely on a plurality of strategies to develop successful explanations of different types of phenomena. In the case of biology, most of these strategies go far beyond the traditional and reductionistic models of scientific explanation that have proven so successful in the fundamental sciences. Concretely, in the last two decades, philosophers of science have discovered the existence of at least two different types of scientific explanation at work in the biological (...) sciences, namely: mechanistic and structural explanations. Despite the growing evidence about the radically different nature of these two types of explanation, no inquiry has been conducted to date to determine the ontological reasons that might underlie these differences, nor the way in which these types of explanations can be systematically related with each other. Here, we aim to cover this gap by connecting this plurality of research strategies with the existence of emergent levels of reality. We argue that the existence of these different—and apparently incompatible—explanatory strategies to account for biological phenomena derives from the existence of “ontological jumps” in nature, which generate different regimes of causation that in turn demand the development of different explanatory frameworks. We identify two of these strategies—mechanistic modelling and network modelling—and connect them to the existence of two ontological regimes of causation. Finally, we relate them with each other in a systematic way. In this vein, our paper provides an ontological justification for the plurality of explanatory strategies that we see in the life sciences. (shrink)