IntroductionExcitability of the primary motor cortex measured with TMS has been associated with cognitive dysfunctions in patient populations. However, only a few studies have explored this relationship in healthy adults, and even fewer have considered the role of biological sex.MethodsNinety-seven healthy middle-aged adults completed a TMS protocol and a neuropsychological assessment. Resting Motor Threshold and Long-Interval Intracortical Inhibition were assessed in the left motor cortex and related to attention, episodic memory, working memory, reasoning, and global cognition composite scores to evaluate (...) the relationship between cortical excitability and cognitive functioning.ResultsIn the whole sample, there was a significant association between LICI and cognition; specifically, higher motor inhibition was related to better working memory performance. When the sample was broken down by biological sex, LICI was only associated with working memory, reasoning, and global cognition in men. No associations were found between RMT and cognitive functions.ConclusionGreater intracortical inhibition, measured by LICI, could be a possible marker of working memory in healthy middle-aged adults, and biological sex plays a critical role in this association. (shrink)

Ningún luriter debe leerse lejos de su propio Sitz im Leben. El de Parménides se sitúa en el sur de Italia a finales del siglo VI y principios del VII. Se trata de un entorno cultural rico en comunidades órficas y pitagóricas, en el que el antiguo orden mítico-feudal está siendo superado y el politeísmo de Homero es objeto de severas críticas. En consecuencia, el poema de Parménides está impregnado de un profundo ímpetu religioso, que se convierte en la piedra (...) angular de su correcta interpretación. Un análisis riguroso de los fragmentos 6 y 7, en los que se discute ampliamente la tercera vía, muestra, en primer lugar, que esos fragmentos constituyen una unidad autónoma dentro de la obra, que no puede relacionarse con ninguna otra de sus partes; y, en segundo lugar, que una interpretación convincente de esa tercera vía apoya la lectura teológica del poema, como sugiere W. Jaeger, y al mismo tiempo preserva la perfecta coherencia del pensamiento parmedineano frente a otras interpretaciones más recientes, empezando por Burnet y Reinhardt. (shrink)

A marked feature of eukaryotic programmed cell death is an early drop in mitochondrial transmembrane potential. This results from the opening of permeability transition pores, which are composed of adenine nucleotide translocators and mitochondrial porins. The latter share striking similarites with bacterial porins, (including down‐regulation of their pore size by purine nucleotides), suggesting a common origin. The porins of some invasive bacteria play a crucial role during their accommodation inside the host cell and this co‐existence resembles the endosymbiotic origin of (...) mitochondria. The above observations suggest that early in eukaryotic evolution, former invaders may have used porin‐type channels to enter their host and to induce its death when the levels of its cytoplasmic purine nucleotides were dropped. The appearance of adenosine nucleotide translocators in the primitive eukaryotes, which permitted usage of the oxidative metabolism of the invaders, provided the basis for the permeability transition phenomena, now linked to the apoptotic process. Bcl‐2‐type molecules, being able to modulate the permeability transition pores by interaction with adenosine nucleotide translocators, may have played an essential role in conferring a means of controlling apoptosis. (shrink)

Jose Manuel Delgado Ocando presents us with a brilliant and original analysis of Venezuelan political reality. It is well known that due to the election of President Hugo Chavez Frías, a popular referendum was convened with the express intention of constituting a new constitutional order. This..

This article discusses two coextensive concepts of logical consequence that are implicit in the two fundamental logical practices of establishing validity and invalidity for premise-conclusion arguments. The premises and conclusion of an argument have information content (they ?say? something), and they have subject matter (they are ?about? something). The asymmetry between establishing validity and establishing invalidity has long been noted: validity is established through an information-processing procedure exhibiting a step-by-step deduction of the conclusion from the premise-set. Invalidity is established by (...) exhibiting a countermodel satisfying the premises but not the conclusion. The process of establishing validity focuses on information content; the process of establishing invalidity focuses on subject matter. Corcoran's information-theoretic concept of logical consequence corresponds to the former. Tarski's model-theoretic concept of logical consequence formulated in his famous 1936 no-countermodels definition corresponds to the latter. Both are found to be indispensable for understanding the rationale of the deductive method and each complements the other. This study discusses the ontic question of the nature of logical consequence and the epistemic question of the human capabilities presupposed by practical applications of these two concepts as they make validity and invalidity accessible to human knowledge. (shrink)

El presente trabajo analiza la teoría de la imitación desarrollada por Walter Benjamin en el célebre ensayo sobre la obra de arte. Se pretende abordar el ensayo como una nueva muestra de la “investigación sobre el origen” ya empleada en sus obras anteriores, lo cual nos permitirá esclarecer el papel privilegiado que Benjamin asigna a la “mimesis” como el “origen” que revela la ley unitaria de toda la época. El ensayo, por tanto, supera el reducido ámbito de la estética en (...) el que ha sido tradicionalmente enmarcado y apunta a una reflexión más amplia sobre las contradicciones internas de la modernidad, respecto de la cual la mimesis señala a la vez el problema y una posible vía de salida. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the problematic relationship between method and object in Walter Benjamin’s research. In order to do this, first we will try to clarify the dialectical structure of the notion of “critique”, which plays a key role in his method of historical knowledge. Benjamin’s peculiar appropriation of Goethean “dialectics” will allow us then to show the structural affinity that exists between the medium of representation and the historical object represented, paying special attention to the particular case of the (...) object called “Baroque”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aristotle Rules, OK?José M. Villagrán (bio) and Rogelio Luque (bio)KeywordsAristotle, causes, philosophy, psychiatry, psychopathologyPérez-Alvarez, Sass, and García-Montes (2008) propose a theoretical approach to the nature of mental disorders (MD) that attempts to explain the type of reality they constitute. In line with this approach, they argue that (1) MDs should be considered not from within psychology and psychiatry, but rather from the realm of philosophy, so as to (...) avoid what they call the Charcot effect; (2) the resulting theoretical model is in contrast to naturalist models such as that of internal dysfunction, and involves “strong” constructivist assumptions from which they develop an anthropological perspective based on the clinician–patient situation; 3) this model is applicable, in principle, to all MDs (“at least to some extent”); and (4) it is based on the Aristotelian theory of the four causes.We would argue, however, that (1) it is precisely from within psychology and psychiatry that conceptual models accounting for MDs should be proposed; (2) the naturalist–constructivist dichotomy in these models should be deconstructed, and primacy given not to the ontological approach but to the epistemological one; (3) a theoretical model of this scope should account not only for MDs but also for physical disorders; and (4) only in this way would the Aristotelian theory of causes, understood as types of explanation (and therefore as epistemological approaches) be useful.Approaches from within and from WithoutFor Berrios (2006), the theoretical discourse in relation to the conceptualization of MDs in a particular sociocultural context can be formulated in two ways: on the one hand, in a centripetal fashion, using established philosophical systems (be it phenomenology [Jaspers 1977], logical empiricism [Hempel 1994], or analytic philosophy [Fulford, Thornton, and Graham 2006]). This centripetal approach can be used both by professional philosophers and by psychiatrists/psychologists. When developed by professional philosophers, such proposals, despite their possible brilliance, run the risk of being tangential to the psychiatric issues owing to a lack of first-hand experience of them (Murphy 2006). When developed by psychiatrists and psychologists, the majority of the proposals simply mix fragments of different philosophical systems, in either a kind of syncretism or collage that fails to take into account the contradictions between fragments, or a kind of pluralism that reflects, without entering into analysis, a sort of consensus among the different paradigms (Ghaemi 2003; Kendler 2005).A second way of formulating this theoretical discourse (according to Berrios) would employ a centrifugal approach from the very core of the disciplines, through the reflection of professionals (primarily, although not only, psychiatrists/psychologists with philosophical training) who would conceptualize the problems from within and develop a specific metalanguage for analyzing [End Page 265] them (Lanteri-Laura 1991; Reznek 1991; Sass 1992). Not all problems are of the same type. For those that are extrinsic to psychiatry/psychology (definition of the mental, the mind–body relationship, the distinction between causes and reasons, or interdisciplinary reduction), the methods common to the philosophy of science and of the mind can be used. However, issues intrinsic to the disciplines themselves (the nature of mental symptoms and how they are generated, how to explain their heterogeneity, what a MD is, how to diagnose and classify it, or how to implement a psychopathological project) cannot be dealt with using preestablished formulas, and require new and original proposals that take into account the nature of the disciplines and their object of study (Villagrán 2007).The authors of the target article base their preference for the centripetal approach for responding to one of the intrinsic questions of psychiatry (what MDs are) on the consequences of what they call the Charcot effect, a kind of variant of observer bias applied to psychiatric diagnosis. They offer as an example the classic diagnosis ad iuvantibus in its postmodern version, namely, the efficacy of the pharmaceutical industry in contributing to creating nosological entities for which their drugs are indicated. Consequently, clinicians are not only unable to surmount the substantial epistemological obstacles that hamper attempts to theorize, but also find themselves doomed to assuming an ingenuous essentialism that considers MDs as natural kinds (such as apples, trees, or dogs) determined... (shrink)

Each science has its own domain of investigation, but one and the same science can be formalized in different languages with different universes of discourse. The concept of the domain of a science and the concept of the universe of discourse of a formalization of a science are distinct, although they often coincide in extension. In order to analyse the presuppositions and implications of choices of domain and universe, this article discusses the treatment of omega arguments in three very different (...) formalizations of arithmetic. In Peano's formalization the domain is a restricted class of individuals, while the universe of discourse is the unrestricted class of all individuals. In Gödel's formalization the domain is a restricted class of individuals as in Peano's formalization, but the universe of discourse coincides with the domain. In Whitehead-Russell's formalization the domain is a class of logical notions in Tarski's sense, that are necessarily not individuals, whereas the universe of discourse is the unrestricted class of individuals as in Peano's formalization. The present approach emphasizes the viewpoint that the universe of discourse of a given discourse is important in determining which propositions are expressed by which sentences. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to introduce an alternative to Łukasiewicz’s 4-valued modal logic Ł. As it is known, Ł is afflicted by “Łukasiewicz type paradoxes”. The logic we define, PŁ4, is a strong paraconsistent and paracomplete 4-valued modal logic free from this type of paradoxes. PŁ4 is determined by the degree of truth-preserving consequence relation defined on the ordered set of values of a modification of the matrix MŁ characteristic for the logic Ł. On the other hand, PŁ4 (...) is a rich logic in which a number of connectives can be defined. It also has a simple bivalent semantics of the Belnap–Dunn type. (shrink)

The logic TM is the result of adding the mingle axiom, M to Ticket Entailment logic, T. In the present study, it is proved that TM has the variable-sharing property . Ternary relational semantics for TM is provided. Finally, an interesting extension of TM with the vsp is briefly discussed.

This paper offers a particular intuitionistic negation completion of Urquhart's system C resulting in a super-intuitionistic contractionless propositional logic equivalent to Dummett's LC without contraction.

Suplemento a / Some Additions to: Jose M. Sevilla, "Bibliografía viquiana en español", Cuadernos sobre Vico, 1, 1991, pp. 179-196 ; ID., "Añadido a la bibliografía viquiana en español", Cuadernos sobre Vico, 3, 1993, pp. 199-205 ; ID., "Nuevo añadido a la Bibliografía Viquiana en español", Cuadernos sobre Vico, 5/6, 1995-1996, pp. 419-422 ; ID., "Tercer añadido a la Bibliografía Viquiana en español", Cuadernos sobre Vico, 7/8, 1997, pp. 451-455 . 307 nuevas entradas / 307 new entries nn. 500 - (...) 807. (shrink)

Suplemento a / Some Additions to: José M. Sevilla, "Bibliografía viquiana en español" entradas / entries 1-266; ID., "Añadido a la Bibliografía viquiana en español" , entradas / entries 267-364. Ahora 62 nuevas entradas / 62 new entries now: 365-426.

Tarski's 1936 paper, “On the concept of logical consequence”, is a rather philosophical, non-technical paper that leaves room for conflicting interpretations. My purpose is to review some important issues that explicitly or implicitly constitute its themes. My discussion contains four sections: terminological and conceptual preliminaries, Tarski's definition of the concept of logical consequence, Tarski's discussion of omega-incomplete theories, and concluding remarks concerning the kind of conception that Tarski's definition was intended to explicate. The third section involves subsidiary issues, such as (...) Tarski's discussion concerning the distinction between material and formal consequence and the important question ofthe criterion for distinguishing between logical and non-logical terms.§1. Preliminaries. In this paper an argument is a two-part system composed of a set of propositions P and a single proposition c. The expression ‘c is a [logical] consequence of P’ is used with the same meaning as the expression ‘c is [logically] implied by P’. The expressions ‘is a logical consequence of’ and the converse ‘implies’ are relational. Often, I shall be talking in the same sense of validity of an argument. Validity is a property of arguments; an argument with premise-set P and conclusion c is valid if and only if P implies c; i.e., c is a logical consequence of P. Notice that this notion of argument is strictly ontic; it does not involve any agent that thinks, determines or establishes that a given proposition is or is not a consequence of a given set of propositions. (shrink)

Scholars have long debated whether leader's integrity affects managerial decision making with respect to social responsibility. In this paper, we propose a model in which transformational leadership mediates integrity and corporate social responsibility and examine the relationship between these concepts. A survey of 170 senior managers from 50 organizations was conducted. Results indicate that integrity is a predictor of transformational leadership behavior and that transformational leaders’ behaviors are linked to CSR practices. It was also found that leaders rated with higher (...) integrity are engaged in CSR because they exhibit more transformational leadership behaviors. These findings add to the extant literature by demonstrating that integrity is important as transformational leaders engage more actively on ‘responsible’ behaviors. Practical implications call for an understanding among corporate leaders of the benefits of integrity and how it relates to transformational leadership. Organizations can improve their selection and leadership development processes by focusing on these two dimensions. (shrink)

In this article, we propose a philosophical exploration on the main problems involved in two neurorights that concern autonomous action, namely free will and cognitive liberty, and sketch a possible solution to these problems by resourcing to a holistic interpretation of human actions. First, we expose the main conceptual and practical issues arising from the neuroright to “free will,” which are far from minor: the term itself is denied by some trends participating in the neurorights debate, the related concept of (...) ultimate control is also disputed, the understanding of free will depends on cultural context, and the exercise of being free to act in several domains may be covered by other regulations. Second, we analyze the historical origin of cognitive liberty, its current status, and its relation with free will. Third, we criticize the concept of decision in mainstream action theory and propose to conceive action as a unified process constituted by three explanatory, non-sequential dimensions: intention, decision, and action realization. Fourth, we discuss two possible cases involving neurotechnologies and suggest ways to interpret them according to a unified framework in which free will and cognitive liberty fall under a single neuroright to personal autonomy. Finally, we outline a recommendation to introduce freedom of thought and personal autonomy as complementary neurorights to protect both the internal and external dimensions of thought and action. (shrink)

Este artículo de homenaje a la Profesora Yolanda Ruano se divide en dos partes. En la primera discuto las críticas que ella realizara a mi libro sobre la diosa Fortuna en las que avanzaba su propio análisis de las complejas relaciones entre razón y fortuna en el pensamiento occidental. En la segunda parte, desde el punto de vista del “giro icónico” en humanidades y ciencias sociales, analizo el caso concreto del auge y desaparición de la diosa Fortuna en la iconografía (...) política de la ciudad de Berlín. A lo largo del siglo XIX la diosa Fortuna desaparece de la escena berlinesa y es sustituida por la diosa Niké o Victoria, que popularmente se interpreta como un Ángel de la Victoria. Este es el marco de la infancia de Walter Benjamin, quien más tarde expresará su visión de la historia con un otro ángel completamente distinto, el Angelus Novus de Paul Klee. (shrink)

Emotional intelligence (EI) stands at the nexus between intelligence and emotion disciplines, and we outline how EI research might be better integrated within both theoretical frameworks. From the former discipline, empirical research focused upon whether EI is an intelligence and what type of intelligence it constitutes. It is clear that ability-based tests of EI form a group factor of cognitive abilities that may be integrated into the Cattell–Horn–Carroll framework; less clear is the lower order factor structure of EI. From the (...) latter discipline, research linking EI with theoretical frameworks from emotion research remain relatively sparse. Emotion regulation and appraisal theory may be key to explain how EI may reflect different processes. We propose a research agenda to advance the EI study. (shrink)

A simple, bivalent semantics is defined for Łukasiewicz’s 4-valued modal logic Łm4. It is shown that according to this semantics, the essential presupposition underlying Łm4 is the following: A is a theorem iff A is true conforming to both the reductionist and possibilist theses defined as follows: rt: the value of modal formulas is equivalent to the value of their respective argument iff A is true, etc.); pt: everything is possible. This presupposition highlights and explains all oddities arising in Łm4.

Unlike most American novels on the Iraq wars, which tend to be either celebratory or redemptive, Iraqi-born Sinan Antoon’s The Corspe Washer bears witness to the traumatic effects of destitu...