Hablar sobre la muerte puede parecer filosófico o teológico. Entrenarse y trabajar periódicamente con la propia mortalidad o con enfermos terminales es otro asunto. Las teorías no sirven de nada cuando morimos, o cuando el que esta muriendo es un ser humano cercano. La muerte en el mejor de los casos produce paz; en condiciones no tan ventajosas es incómoda; en condición habitual, nos aterra y desagrada; y, a veces, nos congela en el pánico. En Estados Unidos y Europa occidental, (...) hace por lo.. (shrink)

The emergent Coronavirus Disease 2019 caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 could produce a maternal immune activation via the inflammatory response during gestation that may impair fetal neurodevelopment and lead to postnatal and adulthood mental illness and behavioral dysfunctions. However, so far, limited evidence exists regarding long-term physiological, immunological, and neurodevelopmental modifications produced by the SARS-CoV-2 in the human maternal-fetal binomial and, particularly, in the offspring. Relevant findings derived from epidemiological and preclinical models show that a MIA (...) is indeed linked to an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders in the offspring. We hypothesize that a gestational infection triggered by SARS-CoV-2 increases the risks leading to neurodevelopmental disorders of the newborn, which can affect childhood and the long-term quality of life. In particular, disruption of either the maternal or the fetal cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway could cause or exacerbate the severity of COVID-19 in the maternal-fetal binomial. From a translational perspective, in this paper, we discuss the possible manifestation of a MIA by SARS-CoV-2 and the subsequent neurodevelopmental disorders considering the role of the fetal-maternal cytokine cross-talk and the CAP. Specifically, we highlight the urgent need of preclinical studies as well as multicenter and international databanks of maternal-fetal psychophysiological data obtained pre-, during, and post-infection by SARS-CoV-2 from pregnant women and their offspring. (shrink)

This study conforms an essay, in the terms of an investigation of a faculty subject at University, on the usage of exploratory methods of multivaried analysis. The exercise consists in conforming a regionalisation of subprovincial areas according to their level of social development. In order to ac..

The city of Puebla was put on the UNESCO list of Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 1987; its history dates back to the sixteenth century allowing for the preservation of various important buildings, such as churches with baroque and neoclassical facades, buildings from the period known as Novo Hispanics, when some of its historic neighbourhoods were founded, including the Barrio el Refugio, hereinafter referred to as BR, where indigenous people employed in the lime manufacture used to live. Since those times, (...) however, the neighbourhood has become a place with bad reputation, “a den of thieves”. The traditional, religious commemoration, the “Fiesta Patronal de la Virgen del Refugio,” is the most important celebration in the neighbourhood. In the Church of La Virgen del Refugio, built in the seventeenth century after an inhabitant painted a mural with the image of the virgin, the “mañanitas” are sung with the Mariachi. During the patronal feast, the “El Refugio Cultural Festival” is held with more than a hundred artists taking part and creating about a thousand murals according to the organiser’s estimation. This happens in the city where a project “Puebla Ciudad Mural” was started, as an initiative of the “Colectivo Tomate,” which sought to regenerate the neighbourhood through art, in alliance with the government and private companies. However, these policies are more tourist oriented rather than benefit the neighbourhood. For this reason, the graffiti movement “Festival Cultural el Refugio” is becoming a meeting point for urban artists from Mexico and Puebla, accustomed to taking up public or private space, as they demand space where they can live and express themselves. For ten years the festival has realised more than one thousand pieces of urban art, including Wild Style graffiti, bombs, stickers, stencil, and murals. All this is done under the patronage of the artists themselves, as three hundred of them come from all over the country to take part in every edition of the festival that does not receive any government support or other form of sponsorship. (shrink)

Previously, the author tried to show that some arguments in one of the two versions of Nicholas of Autrecourt’s Quaestio de intensione visionis are taken almost verbatim from the anonymous Tractatus de sex inconvenientibus. This paper concentrates on the arguments themselves in order to consider two main issues: the ‘translatability’ of limit decision problems, manifest in Autrecourt’s juxtaposition of questions de maximo et minimo, de primo et ultimo instanti, and the intension and remission of forms; the importance of Parisian discussions (...) of limit decision problems prior to the adoption of the new analytical languages developed at Oxford. Thus, the paper is divided in two sections, the first concerning some arguments of Autrecourt’s question, the second focusing on the link between one of Autrecourt’s arguments and the medieval tradition of commentaries on Aristotle’s De caelo, in which it is possible to find some antecedents of the analytical approach that later Parisian scholars would apply to these problems. (shrink)

En la Historia de la Filosofía podemos encontrar todo tipo de temáticas y problemáticas. Algunos dicen filosofemas. O sea, el tema como problema: qué es la vida, qué es el alma, qué es lo que está bien o mal, etc., temas que, posteriormente, llevan su desarrollo o explanación. Son las filosofías. Porque la filosofía no es –o no es sólo– un saber académico, sino una manera de entender nuestra propia existencia. Y esto es clave para lo que viene después. No (...) hay forma de vivir una vida como seres humanos sin tener antes una filosofía de vida. (shrink)

España, inicios del siglo XX. José Ortega, armado de razón, busca un ideal que guíe su vida, oriente su acción pública e ilumine lo que le rodea. En su demanda se enfrentará con Don Quijote, Unamuno o Baroja; descifrará el neokantismo, la fenomenología, el psicoanálisis; investigará la leyenda milenarista, la prehistoria del criticismo, la anatomía del alma; descubrirá la mujer, la política, el compromiso; predicará el socialismo, la construcción de Europa, la recreación de España y recorrerá Castilla, Marburgo o Asturias (...) para asentarse en El Escorial, donde ya estaba. Los edificios conceptuales se asientan sobre vidas concretas; bajo toda construcción universal transpira una biografía particular. El joven José Ortega propone un recorrido atento por el pensamiento de juventud de Ortega y Gasset, reconstruyendo sus peripecias intelectuales hasta encontrar la razón vital de la razón vital. (shrink)

Nos deteremos aqui sobre a crítica de Matthew Kramer em relação à interpretação de Quentin Skinner sobre o conceito de “liberdade” em Hobbes contida em seu artigo “On the Unavoidability of Actions: Quentin Skinner, Thomas Hobbes, and the Modern Doctrine of Negative Liberty” (2001). Nele, Kramer trata do então crescente interesse do projeto intelectual de Skinner pelo pensamento hobbesiano, algo já evidenciado desde a publicação de seu livro Liberdade Antes do Liberalismo (1998). Kramer toma como referência central de sua resposta (...) o artigo de Skinner intitulado “Thomas Hobbes on the Proper Signification of Liberty”, criticando a sua posição e contrastando com algumas de suas próprias ideias sobre “liberdade” e “não-liberdade”. Através dessas considerações, Kramer reavalia a noção da liberdade em Hobbes, tomando-a como o protótipo liberal da liberdade negativa por excelência, demonstrando assim os supostos equívocos contidos na interpretação de Skinner sobre ela. Buscamos defender aqui, contudo, que a proposta interpretativa de Kramer carece da devida fundamentação metodológica que correlaciona o neorrepublicanismo de Skinner no campo da filosofia política com certos princípios oriundos de sua historiografia que não são devidamente considerados pelo primeiro. A sua crítica estaria, assim, comprometida por uma abordagem desconectada do pensamento e das intenções de Hobbes enquanto um agente político inserido em um determinado contexto linguístico e social, quadro que seria posteriormente resgatado de maneira primorosa por Skinner em seu estudo Hobbes and Republican Liberty (2008). (shrink)

Uno de los mayores desafíos que enfrenta el realismo científico es la tesis de la inconmensurabilidad. Consideramos, empero, que la teoría descriptiva causal de la referencia puede determinar si hay alguna continuidad referencial en un cambio de teoría y, específicamente, en qué circunstancias se daría. Tras caracterizarla brevemente, la someteremos a prueba mediante un análisis de caso, a saber, las diferentes caracterizaciones de ‘órbita’ en la astronomía antigua. Ello supone dilucidar cuáles son las propiedades fundamentales por las cuales la órbita (...) ejerce su función. La continuidad referencial se podrá establecer si constatamos que las descripciones causales nucleares de las distintas nociones de órbita, son equivalentes. Este estudio de caso, además, constituye una oportunidad para ahondar en la reflexión: ¿sirve el descriptivismo causal como argumento a favor del realismo científico? ¿Es factible aplicarlo? ¿Cuál es su alcance? Estas y otras preguntas se suscitan a partir del análisis propuesto. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is commonly characterized as the method for assessing and improving our representational devices. Little has been said, however, on how best to construe these representational devices—in other words, on what conceptual engineering should be all about. This paper tackles this problem with a basic strategy: First, by presenting a taxonomy of the different possible subject matters for conceptual engineering; then, by comparatively assessing them and selecting the most conducive one with a view to making conceptual engineering an actionable (...) method, that is, a method that can be applied effectively and consistently to specific case studies. The outcome is that conceptual engineering should be all about concepts on pain of pragmatic inconsistencies otherwise. (shrink)

Research has found that both cisgender and transgender androphilic males (i.e., males sexually attracted to and aroused by other adult males) have female-typical occupational preferences when compared with gynephilic males (i.e., males sexually attracted to and aroused by adult females). Moreover, whereas cisgender androphilic males’ occupational preferences tend to be intermediate between those of gynephilic men and androphilic women, transgender androphilic males tend to have occupational preferences that are more similar to androphilic women. No study has directly compared both types (...) of androphilic males within the same culture. The present study investigated occupational preference and its relation to childhood sex-atypical behavior (CSAB), among gynephilic men (_n_ = 208), androphilic women (_n_ = 138), and cisgender (_n_ = 132) and transgender (_n_ = 129) androphilic males from the Istmo region of Oaxaca, Mexico, where androphilic males are recognized as third gender, _muxes_. The study found large sex differences in occupational preferences (_d_ = 2.80). Furthermore, both cisgender _muxe nguiiu_ (_d_ = 2.36) and transgender _muxe gunaa_ (_d_ = 3.44) reported having more sex-atypical occupational preferences compared with men. However, _muxe gunaa_ reported higher female-typical occupational preferences than women (_d_ = 0.59) and _muxe nguiiu_ (_d_ = 0.57), whereas _muxe nguiiu_ and women did not differ (_d_ = 0.08). These findings are consistent with the conclusion that sex-atypical occupational preferences are a cross-culturally universal aspect of male androphilia. Finally, CSAB was associated with sex-atypical occupational preferences among all participants. These findings suggest that a developmental continuity exists between childhood and adulthood sex-atypicality. (shrink)

En el presente libro, Carlos Molina centra su análisis en el desarrollo y la evolución histórica que tuvieron las instituciones sanitarias en nuestro país desde finales del siglo XIX hasta la actualidad, ya que busca comprender las maneras en que el Estado chileno ha respondido a las necesidades y problemas de salud de la sociedad. Para abordar estos temas, el autor se remonta a 1889, año en que el Estado comenzó a intervenir de una manera más directa en esta materia (...) gracias a la creación del.. (shrink)

This article analyses the epistemic status of law and its presumption of being a science in relation with the so-called demarcation criterion proposed by different philosophers of science. Such criteria are the main analytical elements to differentiate scientific discourses from those who are not and the ones who pretend to be. In relation to those, pseudoscience and law are treated, to finally conclude with the exposition of the case of Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, in which a judicial process defined (...) demarcation criteria. This paper shows how the demarcation criteria of science and the concept of pseudoscience cannot be applied to law science given its own rationality. (shrink)

Corporate, Social, Ethical and Environmental Reporting should ideally discharge the accountability of an organisation to its stakeholders. Voluntary reporting has been characterised by a dearth of neutral and objective information such that the advocates of SEER recommend that it be made compulsory. Their underlying rationale is that legally specified disclosure requirements and enforcement mechanisms will enhance the quality of such reporting. This paper sets out to explore how realistic this scenario actually is, in view of the conflicting interpretations in the (...) literature on this subject. To that end, a survey of the reporting patterns of 78 of the largest Spanish companies between 2001 and 2003 examines the extent of their compliance with the ICAC-2002 standard, which obliged them to make environmental disclosures in their financial statements. The results suggest that progressive and improved regulation could increase the volume and quality of SEER disclosures. They also suggest, however, that persistent non-compliance means that the problems associated with voluntary disclosure still exist. Finally, through an impression management perspective, the study reveals, the diverse strategies, ranging from dismissal to concealment, that are employed by companies to avoid transparency. As regulation improves and enforcement expectations rise, it becomes more difficult to dismiss compulsory reporting norms. As a result, some firms engage in more complex concealment strategies to attain corporate legitimacy, depriving stakeholders of regulatory information. The latter point serves to reconcile apparently contradictory explanations in the literature as to whether legitimacy theory might explain partial compliance with SEER regulation. (shrink)

This textbook presents the basics of philosophy that are necessary for the student and researcher in science in order to better understand scientific work. The approach is not historical but formative: tools for semantical analysis, ontology of science, epistemology, and scientific ethics are presented in a formal and direct way. The book has two parts: one with the general theory and a second part with application to some problems such as the interpretation of quantum mechanics, the nature of mathematics, and (...) the ontology of spacetime. The book addresses questions such as "What is meaning?", "What is truth?", "What are truth criteria in science?", "What is a theory?", "What is a model?" "What is a datum?", "What is information?", "What does it mean to understand something?", "What is space?", "What is time?", "How are these concepts articulated in science?" "What are values?" "What are the limits of science?", and many more. The philosophical views presented are "scientific" in the sense that they are informed by current science, they are relevant for scientific research, and the method adopted uses the hypothetical-deductive approach that is characteristic of science. The results and conclusions, as any scientific conclusion, are open to revision in the light of future advances. Hence, this philosophical approach opposes to dogmatic philosophy. Supported by end-of-chapter summaries and a list of special symbols used, the material will be of interest for students and researchers in both science and philosophy. The second part will appeal to physicists and mathematicians. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se analiza las posibilidades de la teoría de las Representaciones Sociales (RS) para, desde la perspectiva de los sujetos, analizar los elementos cognitivos implicados y socialmente construidos que sustentan las acciones de gestión micro y macro institucional, y de coordinación entre varias municipalidades de un mismo territorio, lo que la literatura de gestión denomina trabajo asociativo o asociativismo. Interesan específicamente las representaciones sociales de la asociatividad en el tema educativo, desde actores político-administrativos y profesionales implicados en (...) la mejora de la educación municipal. Se postula y fundamenta que el estudio de las Representaciones Sociales del Asociativismo Municipal en Educación es pertinente desde los elementos conceptuales de la perspectiva Procesual, dado que el objeto de Representación –el Asociativismo Municipal en Educación- y las técnicas para su análisis se ajustan a las estrategias de implementación del trabajo asociativo en los distintos niveles de organización municipal en el tema educativo. (shrink)

Resumen: En este artículo se analiza el estatuto epistémico del derecho y su presunción de cientificidad en relación con los llamados criterios de demarcación, propuestos por diferentes filósofos de la ciencia. Tales criterios son los principales elementos analíticos para diferenciar a los discursos científicos de aquellos que no lo son y de los que pretenden serlo. En relación con estos se trata la pseudociencia, el derecho y se concluye con la exposición del caso Daubert v. Merroll Dow Pharmaceuticals, en el (...) que, en un proceso jurídico, se definen criterios de demarcación. El artículo muestra cómo los criterios de demarcación no pueden ser aplicados al derecho, pero tampoco la denominación de pseudociencia, debido a la propia racionalidad jurídica.: This article analyses the epistemic status of law and its presumption of being a science in relation with the so-called demarcation criterion proposed by different philosophers of science. Such criteria are the main analytical elements to differentiate scientific discourses from those who are not and the ones who pretend to be. In relation to those, pseudoscience and law are treated, to finally conclude with the exposition of the case of Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, in which a judicial process defined demarcation criteria. This paper shows how the demarcation criteria of science and the concept of pseudoscience cannot be applied to law science given its own rationality. (shrink)

A veinticinco años de la publicación en Social Text del artículo que da inicio al escándalo Sokal, este trabajo hace una evaluación del caso desde cuatro perspectivas. En la primera parte se analizan los argumentos a favor y en contra del escándalo y de lo que sostiene Sokal con respecto a cierto tipo de estudios en Humanidades. La segunda hace un recuento de casos similares que anteceden y suceden al escándalo. La tercera evalúa la recepción del caso en Francia a (...) partir de una tradición que ha sido esquiva a la Filosofía analítica en ese país, tanto intelectual como institucionalmente. En la cuarta parte se debate la perspectiva política del fraude. (shrink)

In recent years, Cesar Chavez’s life and legacy have been subjected to increased scrutiny. The ensuing reevaluations of Chavez, wittingly or not, are matters of ethical, as well as historical and biographical, concern. This article has two aims. First, it reconstructs Chavez’s account of exemplarity and uses it to assess his legacy. Second, it provides an account of exemplarity situated within social practices. As I argue, exemplarity operates through social practices, rather than mystically as posited by a contagion model. The (...) end result is an ethically nuanced reassessment of Chavez and an account of exemplarity that includes its social dimension. (shrink)

Mental body-representations are highly plastic and can be modified after brief exposure to unexpected sensory feedback. While the role of vision, touch and proprioception in shaping body-representations has been highlighted by many studies, the auditory influences on mental body-representations remain poorly understood. Changes in body-representations by the manipulation of natural sounds produced when one's body impacts on surfaces have recently been evidenced. But will these changes also occur with non-naturalistic sounds, which provide no information about the impact produced by or (...) on the body? Drawing on the well-documented capacity of dynamic changes in pitch to elicit impressions of motion along the vertical plane and of changes in object size, we asked participants to pull on their right index fingertip with their left hand while they were presented with brief sounds of rising, falling or constant pitches, and in the absence of visual information of their hands. Results show an "auditory Pinocchio" effect, with participants feeling and estimating their finger to be longer after the rising pitch condition. These results provide the first evidence that sounds that are not indicative of veridical movement, such as non-naturalistic sounds, can induce a Pinocchio-like change in body-representation when arbitrarily paired with a bodily action. (shrink)

We give recursion-theoretic characterizations of the counting class \(\textsf {\#P} \), the class of those functions which count the number of accepting computations of non-deterministic Turing machines working in polynomial time. Moreover, we characterize in a recursion-theoretic manner all the levels \(\{\textsf {\#P} _k\}_{k\in {\mathbb {N}}}\) of the counting hierarchy of functions \(\textsf {FCH} \), which result from allowing queries to functions of the previous level, and \(\textsf {FCH} \) itself as a whole. This is done in the style of (...) Bellantoni and Cook’s safe recursion, and it places \(\textsf {\#P} \) in the context of implicit computational complexity. Namely, it relates \(\textsf {\#P} \) with the implicit characterizations of \(\textsf {FPTIME} \) (Bellantoni and Cook, Comput Complex 2:97–110, 1992) and \(\textsf {FPSPACE} \) (Oitavem, Math Log Q 54(3):317–323, 2008), by exploiting the features of the tree-recursion scheme of \(\textsf {FPSPACE} \). (shrink)

Ezequiel Rojas is recognized as one of the most important Colombian utilitarian thinkers of the nineteenth century. His writings, however, have been ignored or underestimated by philosophy historians in Colombia who read them from the perspective of European history of philosophy, class struggles or partisan issues —a reading which ignores the manner of local writings. The present text offers instead a reflection on the notion of “science” in Rojas’ philosophical works emphasizing the practice of localized “exercise of writing”, and thus (...) provides a comprehensive view of his works as part of Colombian history of philosophy. (shrink)

It is well known that the modern atomists assumed the ancient thesis that things are composed of simple entities. It is also known that Leibniz went beyond atomism, since he affirmed that the true substances on which things are founded, the so-called monads, cannot be divisible or extended, for they are souls. For Christian Wolff, the elements of bodies are not extended; these elements have no figure and no magnitude whatsoever, they fill no space and are indivisible. In the Monadologia (...) physica, published in 1756, Kant also argues that the ultimate principles of bodies are the monads or simple substances. The goal of this work is to reconcile the confronted positions of “metaphysics” and “geometry”. (shrink)

There are communities in which disadvantaged groups experience severe inequality. For instance, poor and indigent families face many difficulties accessing their social rights. Their condition is largely the consequence of the wrong choices of those in power, either historical or more recent choices. The lack of opportunities of these deprived citizens is due to state omissions. In such communities, it is not unusual for homeless members of these particular groups to occupy abandoned lands and build their shelters there. However, almost (...) everywhere, these actions constitute a crime. The typical response to this situation is prosecution and punishment. In this paper, I will defend the occupation of public places as a consequence of the failure of governments to solve the problem of housing, and I will argue that we must distinguish a social claim from a crime and avoid the use of criminal law in these “occupation cases”. I will also argue that our right—as a community—to blame and punish these “squatters” is eroded by the fact that we perpetrated their situation of injustice. (shrink)

We deal with situations incongruent with our automatic response tendencies much better right after having done so on a previous trial than after having reacted to a congruent trial. The nature of the mechanisms responsible for these sequential congruency effects is currently a hot topic of debate. According to the conflict monitoring model these effects depend on the adjustment of control triggered by the detection of conflict on the preceding situation. We tested whether these conflict monitoring processes can operate implicitly (...) in an implicit learning procedure, modulating the expression of knowledge of which participants are not aware. We reanalyze recently published data, and present an experiment with a probabilistic sequence learning procedure, both showing consistent effects of implicit sequence learning. Despite being implicit, the expression of learning was reduced or completely eliminated right after trials incongruent with the learned sequence, thus showing that sequential congruency effects can be obtained even when the source of congruency itself remains implicit. (shrink)

Resumen: No solo Platón y Aristóteles son recordados en la Firenze comunal. También está Epicuro, que mencionan Dante, Boccaccio y Villani. Pero ¿existió un epicureísmo florentino? En su imaginario viaje de la Commedìa, Dante y Virgilio -con la ayuda divina- logran entrar en la Ciudad de Ditis, donde se encuentran los heréticos. Dentro de sepulcros llenos de fuego, deberían estar los miembros de todas las sectas y también los seguidores de Epicuro, que era conocido a través de Cicerón. En realidad, (...) el poeta pone en evidencia a connotados gibelinos. Habla con Farinata degli Uberti e interviene también el padre de Guido Cavalcanti, al que da una ambigua respuesta que, en mi opinión, es un rayo de esperanza para uno que es tachado de sostener la “opinión de los epicúreos”. Más bien podría ser un averroísta, lo que acomuna a todo un grupo de intelectuales de la época que niegan la inmortalidad del alma.: Not only Plato and Aristotle are remembered in the communal Firenze. Epicurus also, mentioned by Dante, Boccaccio and Villani. But was there a Florentinian Epicureism? In their imaginary trip from the Commedia, Dante and Virgil -with divine help- manage to enter Ditis City, where the heretical are. In tombs full of fire, should be members of all sects and also the followers of Epicurus, who was known through Cicero. In fact, the poet brings out notorious Ghibellines. Talks with Farinata degli Uberti and also intervenes with Guido Cavalcanti's father, to whom gives an ambiguous answer, that is in my opinion, a ray of hope for one that is labeled as support the “Epicureans’ opinion”. Rather, he could be an averroist, which brings together a whole group of intellectuals of the time who deny the immortality of the soul. (shrink)

El artículo recorre la obra de Rodolfo Kusch posicionando sus principales propuestas en la construcción de tres enfoques convergentes en su filosofía. El primer enfoque está relacionado con la fenomenología y la cultura. El segundo enfoque se refiere a la influencia de la antropología y el cuestionamiento por el símbolo. El tercer enfoque despliega una aproximación filosófico-política. Estos enfoques permiten introducir tres “horizontes de pregunta” principalmente relacionados con el método, con lo popular y con lo indígena, que son expuestos como (...) asuntos centrales en toda su obra. Estos “horizontes de pregunta” buscan comprender los alcances de la filosofía de Kusch y su contribución al pensamiento filosófico americano. This paper analyses the work of Rodolfo Kusch remarking his main philosophical proposals through three correlated perspectives. The first perspective refers to phenomenology and culture. The second focuses on the influence of anthropology and the problem of symbols. The third posits a political-philosophical approximation. These perspectives operate interdependently as the background for Kusch’s philosophy and allow us to introduce three “questioning horizons” related to the method, the popular and the indigenous as the central issues of his philosophical work. Thus, these “questioning horizons” build a platform to understand Kusch’s philosophy and his contribution to the Latin American philosophy. (shrink)

I present a discussion of some issues in the ontology of spacetime. After a characterisation of the controversies among relationists, substantivalists, eternalists, and presentists, I offer a new argument for rejecting presentism, the doctrine that only present objects exist. Then, I outline and defend a form of spacetime realism that I call event substantivalism. I propose an ontological theory for the emergence of spacetime from more basic entities. Finally, I argue that a relational theory of pre-geometric entities can give rise (...) to substantival spacetime in such a way that relationism and substantivalism are not necessarily opposed positions, but rather complementary. In an appendix I give axiomatic formulations of my ontological views. (shrink)

I present a formal ontological theory where the basic building blocks of the world can be either things or events. In any case, the result is a Parmenidean worldview where change is not a global property. What we understand by change manifests as asymmetries in the pattern of the world-lines that constitute 4-dimensional existents. I maintain that such a view is in accord with current scientific knowledge.