El artículo presenta un examen de la relación entre la teología cristiana católica en México en el siglo XVII, específicamente en las ideas de autores pertenecientes a la Compañía de Jesús, y el estilo barroco de las obras que se crearon en dicho periodo, sobre todo en pintura, poesía y arquitectura. Se estudian especialmente las ideas expresadas por Tomás de Alfaro, S.J. (ca. 1667) y Luis de Villanueva, S.J. (1605-1659).

Este trabajo estudia el pensamiento teológico y filosófico de Francisco Suárez sobre la libertad. El problema de la Concordia entre gracia y libertad, suprime el concepto de naturaleza como quicio del pensamiento filosófico cristiano. La libertad se sitúa como causa metafísica formal en Suárez, no como fundamento a la manera moderna de un Yo afincado en sus solas fuerzas, sino como principio heurístico y creador de un ser lleno de posibilidades cuya afirmación: “soy libre”, sintetiza la filosofía suareciana, y hace (...) inteligibles las realidades dadas por la experiencia concreta para obtener una comprensión superior.Palabras llave: Francisco Suárez; teología neoescolástica; filosofía neoescolástica.This work studies Francisco Suárez’s theological and philosophical thought about freedom. The problem of agreement between grace and freedom suppresses the concept of nature as physis and its ethiology, as a referential shelf for Christian philosophical thought. In Suárez, freedom is placed as a formal metaphysical cause, not as a foundation in the modern manner of an “I” based on its sole forces, but as heuristic principle that creates a being full of possibilities, whose statement: “I am free”, synthesizes Suárez’s philosophy and makes intelligible the realities given by concrete experience in order to obtain a superior understanding.Palabras llave: Francisco Suárez; theology; liberty. (shrink)

Este trabajo inicia su meditación teniendo como punto de partida la enseñanza de la Biblia sobre la naturaleza misma del hombre, su influjo sobre el enigma de la libertad y de la cual el pensamiento de Kierkegaard se hace eco: sólo un Dios omnipotente puede crear un ser libre. Prosigue el estudio con las reflexiones meta- físicas de san Agustín, san Anselmo, santo Tomás y Duns Scoto, interrogándose cuál son las raíces de esa libertad y cómo se relacionan con la (...) voluntad y la inteligencia, que permiten dirigirse y elegir: la libre elección del bien y del mal (libertas minor) y la libertad dentro del bien (libertas maior). (shrink)

In qualitative decision theory, a very natural way for defining preference relations over policies (acts) -functions from a set S of states to a set X of consequences- is by using the so called Dominance Plausible Rule. In this context we need a relation > over X and a relation ? over P(S) (the subsets of S). Then we define ≥ as follows: f ≥ g, ? [f > g] ? [g > f], where [f > g] denotes the set (...) {s ? S : f(s) > g(s)g}. In many cases > is a modular relation and ? is a total preorder. A quite rational and desirable property for the relation over policies is transitivity. In general, the relation ≥ defined by the Dominance Plausible Rule is not transitive in spite of the transitivity of ?. In this work we characterize the properties of the relation ? forcing the relation ≥ over policies to be transitive. All this under the hypothesis of modularity of the relation >. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEmotion regulation substantially develops during the childhood years. This growth includes an increasing awareness that certain ER strategies are more appropriate in some contexts than...

Jane Austen normally avoids discussing appearance throughout her works. Persuasion constitutes the exception to the rule, as the story focuses on the premature aging experienced by her protagonist, Anne Elliot, seemingly due to disappointed love. Much has been written about Anne’s “loss of bloom,” but never from the perspective of psychoneuroimmunology, the field that researches the interrelation between psychological processes and the nervous and immune systems. In this paper, we adopt a perspective of psychoneuroimmunology to argue that Austen established a (...) connection between psychological distress, specifically lovesickness, and the development of early senescence signs, and vice versa, since the recovery of love is associated with happiness and physical glow. From a gender perspective, we discuss how Austen brightly reflected these interrelationships through the story of Anne, when the latest psychoneuroimmunological research has actually shown that women age earlier than men as a consequence of psychological turmoil. (shrink)

Los documentos del Concilio Vaticano II tienen profundas consecuencias sociales para la misión evangelizadora de la Iglesia. En el posconcilio, la revista Vida Nueva, especializada en la información social y religiosa, acoge el mensaje conciliar e intenta aplicarlo a las circunstancias de la Iglesia y sociedad de aquel momento. Este estudio analiza los contenidos de los editoriales publicados por Vida Nueva de 1968 a 1975. Los resultados muestran la repercusión del Concilio en el enfoque editorial de una revista que, comprometida (...) con el orden temporal, analiza la actualidad política; fomenta el ejercicio de las libertades; defiende los derechos humanos; presta una atención preferencial a las personas más vulnerables; promueve la libertad y veracidad informativa; apuesta por una actividad económica puesta al servicio de los ciudadanos; aborda temas relativos a la moral de la persona discutidos en el seno de la Iglesia; mantiene una postura dialogante con la cultura, la ciencia y la tecnología; y propone cambios en los derechos, metodología y contenidos del sector educativo. (shrink)

Computer simulations have conventionally been understood to be either extensions of formal methods such as mathematical models or as special cases of empirical practices such as experiments. Here, I argue that computer simulations are best understood as instruments. Understanding them as such can better elucidate their actual role as well as their potential epistemic standing in relation to science and other scientific methods, practices and devices.

In this paper I argue that Artificial Intelligence and the many data science methods associated with it, such as machine learning and large language models, are first and foremost epistemic technologies. In order to establish this claim, I first argue that epistemic technologies can be conceptually and practically distinguished from other technologies in virtue of what they are designed for, what they do and how they do it. I then proceed to show that unlike other kinds of technology (_including_ other (...) epistemic technologies) AI can be uniquely positioned as an epistemic technology in that it is primarily designed, developed and deployed to be used in _epistemic contexts_ such as inquiry, it is specifically designed, developed and deployed to manipulate _epistemic content_ such as data, _and_ it is designed, developed and deployed to do so particularly through _epistemic operations_ such as prediction and analysis. As has been shown in recent work in the philosophy and ethics of AI (Alvarado, AI and Ethics, 2022a), understanding AI as an epistemic technology will also have significant implications for important debates regarding our relationship to AI technologies. This paper includes a brief overview of such implications, particularly those pertaining to explainability, opacity, trust and even epistemic harms related to AI technologies. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo se analizan tres piezas de Rodolfo Usigli bajo la perspectiva del chantaje que impulsa la confrontación de dos fuerzas axiológicas que son la verdad y la mentira; sin embargo, no se trata sólo de dos antagonismos que determinan la temática de su teatro, sino además son dos términos cuya confrontación construye la estructura de la mayor parte de sus dramas. Esta confrontación entre verdad y mentira Rodolfo Usigli la maneja desde distintas aristas, como es la desinformación, (...) la obediencia a la autoridad y la gubernamentalidad. (shrink)

Early in animal development, gradients of secreted morphogenic molecules, such as Sonic hedgehog (Shh), Wnt and TGFβ/Bmp family members, regulate cell proliferation and determine the fate and phenotype of the target cells by activating well‐characterized signalling pathways, which ultimately control gene transcription. Shh, Wnt and TGFβ/Bmp signalling also play an important and evolutionary conserved role in neural circuit assembly. They regulate neuronal polarization, axon and dendrite development and synaptogenesis, processes that require rapid and local changes in cytoskeletal organization and plasma (...) membrane components. A key question then is whether morphogen signalling at the growth cone uses similar mechanisms and intracellular pathway components to those described for morphogen‐mediated cell specification. This review discusses recent advances towards the understanding of this problem, showing how Shh, Wnt and TGFβ/Bmp have adapted their ‘classical’ signalling pathways or adopted alternative and novel molecular mechanisms to influence different aspects of neuronal circuit formation. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 2, Page 121-133, February 2022.

It is widely supposed that evolutionary debunking arguments against morality constitute a type of epistemological objection to our moral beliefs. In particular, the debunking force of such arguments is not supposed to depend on the metaphysical claim that moral facts do not exist. In this paper I argue that this standard epistemological construal of EDAs is highly misleading, if not mistaken. Specifically, I argue that the most widely discussed EDAs all make key and controversial metaphysical claims about the nature of (...) morality or the possibility of moral truth that belie their apparently epistemological character. I show that the debunking force of these EDAs derives largely from metaphysical claims about morality and their implications for the possibility of moral reduction, rather than from epistemological worries associated with the existence of an causal/non-moral explanation of our moral judgments. The paper briefly concludes with a dilemma that I believe confronts all EDAs such as those discussed in this paper: either such arguments are unsound, or else they prove too much, debunking our knowledge of science and the external world, as well as morality. (shrink)

A ‘companions in guilt’ strategy against moral error theory aims to show that the latter proves too much: if sound, it supports an implausible error-theoretic conclusion in other areas such as epistemic or practical reasoning. Christopher Cowie [2016 Cowie, C. 2016. Good News for Moral Error Theorists: A Master Argument Against Companions in Guilt Strategies, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94/1: 115–30.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]] has recently produced what he claims is a ‘master argument’ against (...) all such strategies. The essence of his argument is that CG arguments cannot work because they are afflicted by internal incoherence or inconsistency. I argue, first, that Cowie's master argument does not succeed. Beyond this, I argue that there is no good reason to think that any such argument—one that purports to identify an internal incoherence in CG arguments—can succeed. Second, I argue that the main substantive area of disagreement between error theorists and CG theorists essentially concerns the conceptual profile of epistemic reasons—specifically, whether they are strongly categorical—not the ontological question of whether such reasons exist. I then develop an argument in favour of the CG theorist's position by considering the moral error theorist's arguments in support of the conceptual claim that moral reasons are strongly categorical. These include, notably, criticisms made by Joyce [2011] and Olson [2014] of Finlay's [2008] ‘end relational’ view of morality, according to which moral reasons are relative to some end or standard, hence not strongly categorical. Examining these criticisms, I argue that, based on what moral error theorists have said regarding the conceptual profile of moral reasons, there is a strong case to be made that moral reasons are strongly categorical if and only if epistemic reasons are. (shrink)

The COVID-19 outbreak has ravaged all societal domains, including education. Home confinement, school closures, and distance learning impacted students, teachers, and parents’ lives worldwide. In this study, we aimed to examine the impact of COVID-19-related restrictions on Italian and Portuguese students’ academic motivation as well as investigate the possible buffering role of extracurricular activities. Following a retrospective pretest–posttest design, 567 parents reported on their children’s academic motivation and participation in extracurricular activities. We used a multi-group latent change score model to (...) compare Italian and Portuguese students’: pre-COVID mean motivation scores; rate of change in motivation; individual variation in the rate of change in motivation; and dependence of the rate of change on initial motivation scores. Estimates of latent change score models showed a decrease in students’ motivation both in Italy and in Portugal, although more pronounced in Italian students. Results also indicated that the decrease in students’ participation in extracurricular activities was associated with changes in academic motivation. Furthermore, students’ age was significantly associated with changes in motivation. No significant associations were found for students’ gender nor for parents’ education. This study provides an important contribution to the study of students’ academic motivation during home confinement, school closures, and distance learning as restrictive measures adopted to contain a worldwide health emergency. We contend that teachers need to adopt motivation-enhancing practices as means to prevent the decline in academic motivation during exceptional situations. (shrink)

In this study we examined whether parents’ perceptions of students’ anxiety as well as perceived support from both teachers and classmates were predictive of changes in students’ academic motivation during the first wave of COVID-19. To this end, we used a retrospective pretest-posttest design together with a latent change score model to analyze our data. From April to May of 2020, 394 Portuguese parents of students in grades 1–9 participated in this study. Our results showed that students’ anxiety and teachers’ (...) social support, as perceived by parents, were highly significant predictors of academic motivation changes. Specifically, we found a negative effect of anxiety and a positive effect of teachers’ social support on students’ academic motivation. Our results did not show, however, a significant predictive role of classmates’ social support. This study provides an important contribution to further understand the intrapersonal and interpersonal factors that are associated with the decline of students’ academic motivation during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pivotal role of teachers in sustaining students’ academic motivation and other relevant educational implications for the ongoing pandemic are discussed. (shrink)

Dynamic Theodicy (DT) is a broad concept we bring up to designate some modern Philosophical Theology attempts to reconcile the necessary and perfect existence of God with the contingent characteristics of human life. In this paper we analyze such approaches and discuss how they have become incomprehensible because the metaphysical assumptions implicit in these explanations have lost their intrinsic relation to the natural human desire for salvation. In the first part we show Charles Hartshorne's DT-model, arising from the modal logic (...) of perfection, and the modern rational problems of this position in making infinite-necessary Being (God) and finite-contingent being (human) compatible. We note that at the heart of the contradictions in this DT account is a dialectical mode of thinking that makes it difficult to find a correct solution to this dichotomy, and to assume a human desire that could be considered related to lifelong goals. In the second part, supported by the proposal of Hans Urs von Balthasar's DT, we develop the concepts of bodily vulnerability, corporeal intentionality, and natural desire for salvation, which come from an Aristotelian-Thomistic thought. This theory is established in order to build an argument, following Alasdair MacIntyre’s ethical framework, on how to make possible the recovery of a metaphysical and anthropological desire that transcends natural aging and goes beyond death. We conclude that both human dependence and the virtues that arise naturally when human beings decide to seek the good of their transcendent condition, make it possible to recover the natural desire for salvation through divine and human love. (shrink)

The Central Dogma of molecular biology, which holds that DNA makes protein and not the other way around, is as influential as it is controversial. Some believe the Dogma has outlived its usefulness, either because it fails to fully capture the ins-and-outs of protein synthesis (Griffiths and Stotz, 2013; Stotz, 2006), because it turns on a confused notion of information (Sarkar, 2004), or because it problematically assumes the unidirectional flow of information from DNA to protein (Gottlieb, 2001). This paper evaluates (...) an underexplored defense of the Dogma, which relies on the assumption that the Dogma and the Inheritance of Acquired Traits, a principle which dates as far back as Jean Baptiste-Lamarck, are incompatible principles (Smith, 1993; Judson, 1979; Dawkins, 1970; Cobb, 2017; Wilkins, 2002; Graur, 2018). By appealing to empirical evidence in molecular science, I argue that this apparent incompatibility is indeed merely apparent. I conclude by briefly demonstrating how these considerations bear on the topic of conceptual pluralism in the philosophy of science (Stencel and Proszewska, 2018; Lu and Bourrat, 2018). (shrink)

The rapid development of large language models (LLM’s) and of their associated interfaces such as ChatGPT has brought forth a wave of epistemic and moral concerns in a variety of domains of inquiry...

There is no denying the Central Dogma’s impact on the biological sciences. Since the Dogma’s formulation by Francis Crick in 1958, however, many have debated the Dogma’s empirical adequacy. My aim is to move beyond these discussions, and instead consider the Central Dogma’s significance to contemporary biological practice. To do this, I consider four distinct approaches for determining the non-descriptive methodological significance of a scientific principle. I argue that these approaches fail to vindicate the Central Dogma, and that, under many (...) of these approaches, the Dogma amounts to a triviality. (shrink)

We point out the need to clarify some of the ideas related to the connection between development and sustainability in the Report of the Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development. In particular, the meaning of ‘sustainable’ is not clear when applied to specific areas of human activity. A more detailed explanation of the kind of equality sought for in the proposal is also needed. Because of potential conflicts between goals, we miss some considerations on the impact (...) of population increase both on development and on sustainability. A distinction is made here between two kinds of goals included in the Report. Some of the proposed 17 goals can then be seen as ends in themselves, whereas others seem to be means for the first set. The two sets thereby established should be seen in theory and dealt with in practice in a differentiated manner. (shrink)

Roughly, the Central Dogma of molecular biology states that DNA codes for protein, not the other way around. This principle, which is still heralded as an important element of contemporary biological theory, has received much critical attention since its original formulation by Francis Crick in 1958. Some have argued that the principle should be rejected, on the grounds that it fails to fully capture the ins-and-outs of protein synthesis, while others have argued that the Dogma is predicated on notions of (...) information that are simply implausible. Yet, despite all this criticism, there is much about the Dogma that has not been said. Existing discussions, for example, gloss over the many distinct, logically independent readings of the Central Dogma that have been defended in the philosophical and biological literature, making it difficult to see which dogma is being criticized. Additionally, this oversight makes it unclear what the overall upshot of these discussions should be taken to be. My aim in this paper is to fix this. (shrink)

The article focuses on the new institute of the Lithuanian law of constitutional justice procedure – the dissenting opinion of a Constitutional Court justice as it is consolidated in the Law on the Constitutional Court. It is argued that the current statutory regulation is defective in essence because it creates preconditions for diminishing the quality of both the final act of the Constitutional Court (especially when the dissenting opinion is to be filed by the judge rapporteur) and the dissenting opinion (...) under preparation. The narrative is half-normative and half-behavioural: the institute is analysed in the context of established procedural practice of the Constitutional Court as an extremely collegial institution (also due to the statutory regulation), as well as in the context of the current condition of the public discourse in Lithuania. Namely, statutory regulation allows filing a dissenting opinion (which is not distinguished from the concurring opinion) within three working days after the public announcement of the decision (ruling, conclusion) of the Constitutional Court. Consequently, it is hardly possible to argue that the justice who filed the opinion did not do this in view of the immediate reaction to the decision by the media, the society, or the establishment, and even that he or she did not do this because such reaction took place. Also, the three-day period mentioned above puts any justice ready to file a dissenting (or concurring) opinion into the position where he or she simultaneously needs to participate in the collegial activity of the Court in deciding cases, as well as to write the dissenting (concurring) opinion. In the article, the legislative proposal is presented that the Law on the Constitutional Court should be amended so as to allow for a relatively long time span between the adoption of the decision (ruling, conclusion) and its announcement to the public at large. However, it is not suggested that the general mode of collectivism as dictated by the Law and as implemented in the established practice of the Constitutional Court shall be abandoned. By this article, the author continues his research on the matter as commenced in his two earlier articles (of 2011 and 2012). (shrink)

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been recognized as a promising tool for investigating the causal relationship between specific brain areas of interest and behavior. However, the reproducibility of previous tDCS studies is often questioned because of failures in replication. This study focused on the effects of tDCS on one cognitive domain: beauty perception. To date, the modulation of beauty perception by tDCS has been shown in two studies:Cattaneo et al. (2014)andNakamura and Kawabata (2015). Here, we aimed at replicating their (...) studies and investigating the effects of tDCS on beauty perception using the following parameters: (1) cathodal stimulation over the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) (Nakamura and Kawabata, 2015); (2) anodal stimulation over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (lDLPFC) (Cattaneo et al., 2014). We also performed a more focal stimulation targeting the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) to determine the optimal stimulation site for modulating beauty perception (3). Participants rated the subjectively-perceived beauty of the images before and after the tDCS administration. We divided images into four clusters according to the obtained scores in our preliminary study and examined changes in beauty ratings in each image cluster separately to exclude factors, such as stimuli attributions that may reduce tDCS effects. The results showed no strong effects of tDCS with the same parameters as in previous studies on beauty rating scores in any image cluster. Likewise, anodal stimulation over the OFC did not result in a change in rating scores. In contrast to previous studies, the current study did not corroborate the effects of tDCS on beauty perception. Our findings provide evidence regarding the recent reproducibility issue of tDCS effects and suggest the possible inflation of its effects on cognitive domains. (shrink)

The rapid expansion of computational tools and of data science methods in healthcare has, undoubtedly, raised a whole new set of bioethical challenges. As Laacke and colleagues rightly note,...

Within the climate justice debate, the ‘beneficiary pays’ principle holds that those who benefit from greenhouse emissions associated with industrialization ought to pay for the costs of mitigating and adapting to their adverse effects. This principle constitutes a claim of inter-generational justice, and it is widely believed that the non-identity problem raises serious difficulties for any such claim. After briefly sketching the rationale behind ‘beneficiary pays,’ this paper offers a new way of understanding the claim that persons in developed societies (...) have benefited from industrialization. It argues that when we think of the claim in this new way, it evades the non-identity problem entirely. Some objections to this approach are then considered and rebutted. The paper concludes by comparing the present, relatively modest solution to the nonidentity problem with a much more ambitious attempt from the recent literature. (shrink)

Nationalism seems a persistent ideology in academia as much as in politics; despite the fact that it has been shown that nationalism is deeply unjust for minorities. A case for national identity is often invoked to supplement liberalism regarding the inner difficulties that liberal theories have to explain their membership, assure stability and produce endorsement. So, it seems that national identity may also be required for justice. While this controversy continues, I argue that a different approach is available. We can (...) define a conception of legitimacy independently from a conception of justice, and then ask what legitimacy requires from our national allegiances. If everything goes well, much of the controversy from justice disappears as we find that the case for cultural nationalism may be illegitimate for liberal democracies. (shrink)