Utopía, la posibilidad de la imposibilidad: una lectura desde Thomas More, es un trabajo que muestra, por un lado, la vitalidad de la utopía; por otro lado se destaca su grado de necesidad en la sociedad contemporánea. La Utopía de Thomas More se presenta como un paradigma del pensamiento utópico, y del influjo que éste ejerce en las diferentes sociedades. Además, ésta se yergue como el epítome de toda posibilidad de visualizar un mejor mundo, es la máxima expresión de la (...) simbología del Renacimiento y es la obra cumbre del humanismo de aquel período histórico. La utopía no es la simple imposibilidad que sugiere su construcción semántica. Utopía es la posibilidad de construir el mejor mundo posible, de volver a ubicar en su perspectiva correcta la esperanza y toda la capacidad simbólica del género humano. (shrink)

A partir de una distinción entre la crítico al mito tradicional, que puede llevar a hacer usos pedagógicos del mismo una vez reformado y el uso del mito dentro de una investigación filosófica como herramienta del pensamiento, se procede en este trabajo a considerar tres mitos filosóficos y a establecer la forma en que puedan ser leídos adecuadamente, especialmente tratando de establecer las repercusiones del tipo ético que tienen dentro de la obra de Platón. Se realizan, en primer lugar algunas (...) consideraciones generales sobre el lugar del mito en la filosofía de Platón; a continuación se hace un comentario de los tres mitos; por último se formulan dos tipos de conclusiones: las metodológicas y las éticas. (shrink)

This article traces the link between Deleuze’s philosophy of individuation, developed in such works as Difference and Repetition and Logic of Sense, and the notion of structure, that articulated a good part of the epistemological and ontological discussions in French philosophy and science in the 1960s. Besides pointing out the originality of Deleuze’s take on the term ‘structure’—as it ceases to correspond to a formal constant that is opposed or indifferent to the genesis of singular individuals, and becomes a virtual (...) field of pre-individual determinations—, the author presents the possible limits of its use in a philosophy of difference in itself. The reconstruction of this philosophical bet that wanted to turn “structuralism” into a new transcendental philosophy allows to assess how much of this idea of structure remains alive in Deleuze and Guattari’s later works, and to what extent their philosophy transforms or displaces the project that had been formulated in those early books. (shrink)

This paper presents an overview of the activation of background knowledge during text comprehension. We first review the cognitive processes involved in the activation of inferences during text comprehension, stressing the interaction between text and reader in the construction of situation models. Second, we review evidence for embodied theories of cognition and discuss how this new framework can inform our understanding of the nature and role of background knowledge. We then review the neuropsychological data on the activation of background knowledge (...) during text comprehension. Finally, the paper presents existing and future challenges in researching the role of background knowledge both at a conceptual and a methodological level. (shrink)

Nakata (Theory Decis 71:559–574, 2011) presents a model of acquisition of information where the agent does not know what pieces of information she is missing. In this note, we point out some technical problems in a few of Nakata’s results and show how to correct them.

This paper presents an overview of the activation of background knowledge during text comprehension. We first review the cognitive processes involved in the activation of inferences during text comprehension, stressing the interaction between text and reader in the construction of situation models. Second, we review evidence for embodied theories of cognition and discuss how this new framework can inform our understanding of the nature and role of background knowledge. We then review the neuropsychological data on the activation of background knowledge (...) during text comprehension. Finally, the paper presents existing and future challenges in researching the role of background knowledge both at a conceptual and a methodological level. (shrink)

English translates ‘genos’ as kind and ‘eidos’ as form, which differ in meaning as much as ‘herd’ and ‘brand’ do. But there are hard passages where ‘genos’ and ‘eidos’ have appeared to be synonyms, usually given the new meaning class. We show that, although ‘genos’ and ‘eidos’ are never synonyms and continue to mean kind and form, the word ‘eidos’ can be used figuratively, as a metonym, for a genos.

Drawing from cognitive learning theories we hypothesize that exposure to nationalistic appeals that suggest consumers should shun foreign brands for moral reasons increases the general belief in consumers that buying foreign brands is morally wrong. In parallel, drawing from the theory of psychological reactance we posit that such appeals may, against their communication goal, increase the reputation of foreign luxury brands. We term the juxtaposition of these apparently contradictory effects the “Ambivalence Hypothesis.” Further, drawing from prior research on source-similarity effects (...) we posit that foreign luxury brands that communicate cultural proximity to target consumers (i.e., a local brand positioning) reinforce psychological reactance (“Clean Conscience Hypothesis”). We test these hypotheses experimentally in the context of luxury car brand advertising in China, a market that is heavily dominated by foreign brands, and therefore provides a breeding ground for ambivalent consumer reactions. Results show that exposure to nationalistic appeals enhances consumers’ national identity dispositions (patriotism, local identity), which results in higher levels of consumer ethnocentrism. Further, nationalistic appeals enhance the social responsibility associations that consumers hold for foreign luxury brands and their countries of origin, which results in a higher brand reputation. Finally, effects of nationalistic appeals on foreign luxury brand reputation are positively stronger for brands using a local vs. a foreign or a global positioning. These findings suggest that nationalistic appeals are a double-edged sword with important implications for ethics in political communication and luxury brand marketing. (shrink)

Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) and Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) are two of the most commonly used health measures to determine resource prioritization and the population burden of disease, respectively. There are different types of problems with the use of QALYs and DALYs for measuring health benefits. Some of these problems have to do with measurement, for example, the weights they ascribe to health states might fail to reflect with exact accuracy the actual well-being or health levels of individuals. But even (...) if these weights represent accurately the well-being levels of individuals, there is room for questioning whether these measures capture everything that we care about in these cases, or whether there are important issues that they leave out, including considerations of fairness or equality. In this regard, the measures have been criticized for treating the aggregation of small benefits as greater than the aggregation of fewer but bigger benefits,1for disregarding fair chances in favor of utility maximization,2and for raising problems when applied in the context of variable population size.3Perhaps one of the most pervasive ethical issues that has been associated with the use of these measures is the fact that they seem to discriminate against disabled people.4Since the measures assume that disabled people have lower well-being and a shorter life span, treating a disabled person’s medical condition contributes less to the maximization of years of life with good health than treating a non-disabled patient’s medical condition. (shrink)

This paper introduces the logic of evidence and truth \ as an extension of the Belnap–Dunn four-valued logic \. \ is a slightly modified version of the logic \, presented in Carnielli and Rodrigues. While \ is equipped only with a classicality operator \, \ is equipped with a non-classicality operator \ as well, dual to \. Both \ and \ are logics of formal inconsistency and undeterminedness in which the operator \ recovers classical logic for propositions in its scope. (...) Evidence is a notion weaker than truth in the sense that there may be evidence for a proposition \ even if \ is not true. As well as \, \ is able to express preservation of evidence and preservation of truth. The primary aim of this paper is to propose a probabilistic semantics for \ where statements \\) and \\) express, respectively, the amount of evidence available for \ and the degree to which the evidence for \ is expected to behave classically—or non-classically for \ \). A probabilistic scenario is paracomplete when \ + P 1\), and in both cases, \ < 1\). If \ = 1\), or \ = 0\), classical probability is recovered for \. The proposition \, a theorem of \, partitions what we call the information space, and thus allows us to obtain some new versions of known results of standard probability theory. (shrink)

The aim of this text is to reply to criticisms of the logics of evidence and truth and the epistemic approach to paraconsistency advanced by Barrio [2018], and Lo Guercio and Szmuc [2018]. We also clarify the notion of evidence that underlies the intended interpretation of these logics and is a central point of Barrio’s and Lo Guercio & Szmuc’s criticisms.

The main aim of this paper is to introduce first-order versions of logics of evidence and truth, together with corresponding sound and complete Kripke semantics with variable and constant domains. According to the intuitive interpretation proposed here, these logics intend to represent possibly inconsistent and incomplete information bases over time. The paper also discusses the connections between Belnap-Dunn’s and da Costa’s approaches to paraconsistency, and argues that the logics of evidence and truth combine them in a very natural way.

La identidad se ha constituido como una noción hegemónica y estática, sin embargo, la música de Herencia de Timbiquí consolida identidades múltiples y evidencia la hibridación racial, histórica y cultural por la que han pasado las comunidades Afro-Pacíficas desde la época de la Colonia y la esclavitud negra hasta la globalización y el conflicto armado colombiano. Estos hechos han ido transformando las identidades que originalmente traían las comunidades desde África, pues sus prácticas culturales se fueron entretejiendo con las prácticas indígenas (...) y españolas. Posteriormente, gracias a la globalización apareció un auge de los medios masivos de comunicación y la industria cultural, lo que hizo que los cantos Afro-Pacíficos comenzaran a hibridarse con ritmos populares provenientes de Norte América y Europa. Ahora bien, esta hibridación revela la ausencia de una noción de identidad purista y estática y, a la vez, evidencia los procesos de desterritorialización simbólica y física por los que han pasado las comunidades afro-Pacíficas a través de los siglos por la imposición de culturas dominantes. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present and analyze the truthmaker monism , a result according to which any truthmaker makes true any true proposition. Truthmaker monism depends on the characterization of the truthmaking relation in terms of strict implication, the principle of excluded middle and the so called disjunction thesis. I will restrict the discussion to a theory of truthmakers of empirical truths and I will argue that, in the scope of such a theory, the problem does not (...) lie in the use of strict implication neither in the excluded middle but, rather, in the disjunction thesis, that must be rejected. (shrink)

Images abound of women throughout the ages engaging in various activities. But why are there so few representations of childbirth in visual art? Feminist artist Judy Chicago once suggested that depictions of women giving birth do not commonly occur in Western culture but can be found in other contexts such as pre-Columbian art or societies previously considered "primitive." Chicago's own exploration of the theme resulted in the creation of The Birth Project (1980-85): an unprecedented series of eighty handcrafted works of (...) art created in a variety of needlework techniques by more than 130 artisans that celebrate the experience of birth and a woman's transformation into motherhood. But why is The Birth Project an aberration from today's norm? What are the reasons that childbirth remains a taboo subject in our visual culture? Why is the birthing experience--so pervasive for women--so infrequently celebrated, even by female artists? (shrink)

La palabra alegría es muy importante para Fernando Savater... Y es el tema central en tomo al que se articula el libro "Misterios gozosos", una antología de textos, a cargo de Héctor Subirats, que recorre 25 años de la producción filosófica y literaria de Savater. El escritor definió la palabra alegría como "afirmación del presente, no nostalgia del pasado ni del futuro". Misterios gozosos se divide, en cinco capítulos en los que se recogen las razones para la (su) alegría: (...) el solo hecho de vivir, el gusto por la comida, el buen vino, el regocijo por la polémica, el entusiasmo por lo admirado, desde figuras históricas como Voltaire o Spinoza a personajes míticos como Groucho Marx o King Kong. De hecho, Savater aparece en la portada, del libro con un pequeño King Kong en las manos. El escritor, siempre vitalista, reflexiona también en su libro sobre cuestiones de primordial interés como las drogas, la salud, los derechos humanos, el amor, la muerte o la soledad.Subirats explicó que seleccionó los textos con "mala leche, para mostar la evolución o involución de Savater". Preguntado sobre cómo ha sido la involución del escritor, Subirats respondió que "Savater permanece en su sitio. Ha sido el mundo el que se ha echado para atrás". Y Savater precisó: "Las ideas no entran en uno como en la religión. A los 20 años se piensa de una manera y a los 50, de otra. Si uno lee, va al cine, sigue atento la marcha del país... y sigue pensando invariablemente lo mismo es que no ha pensado nunca". "El resultado del pensamiento no es siempre gozoso: lo gozoso es pensar", añadió. (En "Fernando Savater defiende la alegría de vivir en "Misterios gozosos"". Madrid : El País. 28 de febrero de 1995). (shrink)

The book Paraconsistent Logic: Consistency, Contradiction and Negation by Walter Carnielli and Marcelo Coniglio is the most thorough study of Logics of Formal Inconsistency...

Foreword : Consistency, Contradiction, and Consequence.

Nada hay más confortable para el hombre, ni más peligroso, que las certezas. Nuestra mejor defensa es la filosofía, que consiste engran medida en el arte de cuestionarlas, de atreverse a pensar, de interpelar las verdades establecidas y ver qué esconden. En estepaseo por la historia de la filosofía, Fernando Savater nos presenta a los grandes personajes que con sus preguntas, y en ocasiones con sus respuestas, han marcado el pensamiento occidental. Platón, Aristóteles, Hobbes, Tomás de Aquino, Nietzsche, Marx, (...) Ortega, Wittgenstein y hasta dieciocho filósofos más desfilan por estas páginas de la mano de Savater, que con su habitual estilo lúcido, ameno e inteligente explica sus ideas más importantes y resume sus trayectorias. Un canto al irrenunciable ejercicio de la libertad intelectual, este libro es en realidad una invitación a huir de los tópicos y a compartir con los grandes filósofos la maravillosa aventura de pensar. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present a paraconsistent formal system and a corresponding intended interpretation according to which true contradictions are not tolerated. Contradictions are, instead, epistemically understood as conflicting evidence, where evidence for a proposition A is understood as reasons for believing that A is true. The paper defines a paraconsistent and paracomplete natural deduction system, called the Basic Logic of Evidence, and extends it to the Logic of Evidence and Truth. The latter is a logic of (...) formal inconsistency and undeterminedness that is able to express not only preservation of evidence but also preservation of truth. LETj is anti-dialetheist in the sense that, according to the intuitive interpretation proposed here, its consequence relation is trivial in the presence of any true contradiction. Adequate semantics and a decision method are presented for both BLE and LETj, as well as some technical results that fit the intended interpretation. (shrink)