In this paper we investigate the history of relationalism and its present use in some interpretations of quantum mechanics. In the first part of this article we will provide a conceptual analysis of the relation between substantivalism, relationalism and relativism in the history of both physics and philosophy. In the second part, we will address some relational interpretations of quantum mechanics, namely, Bohr’s relational approach, the modal interpretation by Kochen, the perspectival modal version by Bene and Dieks and the relational (...) interpretation by Rovelli. We will argue that all these interpretations ground their understanding of relations in epistemological terms. By taking into account the analysis on the first part of our work, we intend to highlight the fact that there is a different possibility for understanding quantum mechanics in relational terms which has not been yet considered within the foundational literature. This possibility is to consider relations in ontological terms. We will argue that such an understanding might be capable of providing a novel approach to the problem of representing what quantum mechanics is really talking about. (shrink)

In this paper we address a deeply interesting debate that took place at the end of the last millennia between David Mermin, Adan Cabello and Michiel Seevinck, regarding the meaning of relationalism within quantum theory. In a series of papers, Mermin proposed an interpretation in which quantum correlations were considered as elements of physical reality. Unfortunately, the very young relational proposal by Mermin was too soon tackled by specially suited no-go theorems designed by Cabello and Seevinck. In this work we (...) attempt to reconsider Mermin's program from the viewpoint of the Logos Categorical Approach to QM. Following Mermin's original proposal, we will provide a redefinition of quantum relation which not only can be understood as a preexistent element of physical reality but is also capable to escape Cabello’s and Seevinck's no-go-theorems. In order to show explicitly that our notion of ontological quantum relation is safe from no-go theorems we will derive a non-contextuality theorem. We end the paper with a discussion regarding the physical meaning of quantum relationalism. (shrink)

In this work we discuss the widespread use and application of the notion of 'particle' within the standard understanding of quantum mechanics, trying to prove how it is not just an innocent and unproblematic “way of talking”, as it is often claimed, but the expression of an atomist metaphysics that represents rather a way of perceiving and thinking that inadvertently determines our understanding of the mathematical formalism and the experimental content of quantum mechanics. We show how the retention of atomist (...) concepts, especially due to Bohr’s work, appears not only as an epistemological obstacle but furthermore as an efficient factory of false problems and misleading intuitions that have concentrated the attention of researchers for some time. Revisiting again Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics, we discuss if it would be possible to advance beyond the substantialist account of QM going back to the operational-invariance of intensive quantities. (shrink)

O presente artigo pretende refletir, a partir de contribuições de Theodor W. Adorno, sobre aspectos da formação objetiva do sujeito. Isso é feito por meio da apropriação de conceitos como autoconservação, autocrítica e crítica imanente. Tomamos como exemplo parte do projeto de à la recherche du temps perdu de Marcel Proust, nomeadamente, Un amour de Swann . A análise do processo de formação de Swann permite observar nexos e tensões que o sujeito elabora com o mundo objetivo. A ação do (...) Swann incorpora na sua relação co m o mundo objetivo os processos próprios da Obra de Arte autêntica para empreender a crítica necessária ao contexto social em que está inserido. Crítica esta, também, voltada a si próprio. (shrink)

This article analyzes the relationship between cyberbullying profile by racist reasons and social abilities in a group of intercultural teenagers living in Spain. The study includes participants aged between 12 and 16 years old. Of these, 738 were male and 740 were female. A correlational study was carried out using online tools with suitable psychometrics parameters. The first one was a scale that measured social abilities, and the second one evaluated racist or xenophobic cyberbullying, differentiating the victim and aggressor profiles. (...) The results indicated five main findings: generally, the participants analyzed present all their social abilities; for the most part, these participants do not normally experience cyberbullying; a positive correlation exists between the majority of social abilities analyzed and the cybervictim profile. It was also observed a negative correlation between the social ability associated with the ability of making requests and this profile; there is a positive correlation among the six social abilities analyzed and the cyberaggressor profile; the racist or xenophobic cyberbullying are driven not only by the absence of social abilities, but in some cases, they are also driven by socio-demographic variables. Likewise, this work shows how the absence of some social abilities in some participants involve racist or xenophobic experiences as victims and as aggressors, which may be of interest for the analysis of teenagers’ behavior in intercultural contexts, as well as according to age and gender. More transcultural research need to be carried out to know the global perspective of the link between social abilities and the different profiles of racist and xenophobic cyberbullying, framed in the context of social psychology and studies of mass communication. (shrink)

What kind of citizenship education, if any, should schools in liberal societies promote? And what ends is such education supposed to serve? Over the last decades a respectable body of literature has emerged to address these and related issues. In this state of the debate analysis we examine a sample of journal articles dealing with these very issues spanning a twenty-year period with the aim to analyse debate patterns and developments in the research field. We first carry out a qualitative (...) analysis where we design a two-dimensional theoretical framework in order to systematise the various liberal debate positions, and make us able to study their justifications, internal tensions and engagements with other positions. In the ensuing quantitative leg of the study we carry out a quantitative bibliometric analysis where we weigh the importance of specific scholars. We finally discuss possible merits and flaws in the research field, as evidenced in and by the analysis. (shrink)

This thought-provoking book discusses the concept of progress in economics and investigates whether any advance has been made in its different spheres of research. The authors look back at the history, successes and failures of their respective fields and thoroughly examine the notion of progress from an epistemological and methodological perspective. The idea of progress is particularly significant as the authors regard it as an essentially contested concept which can be defined in many ways – theoretically or empirically; locally or (...) globally; or as encouraging or impeding the existence of other research traditions. The authors discuss the idea that for progress to make any sense there must be an accumulation of knowledge built up over time rather than the replacement of ideas by each successive generation. Accordingly, they are not concerned with estimating the price of progress, reminiscing in the past, or assessing what has been lost. Instead they apply the complex mechanisms and machinery of the discipline to sub-fields such as normative economics, monetary economics, trade and location theory, Austrian economics and classical economics to critically assess whether progress has been made in these areas of research. -/- Bringing together authoritative and wide-ranging contributions by leading scholars, this book will challenge and engage those interested in philosophy, economic methodology and the history of economic thought. It will also appeal to economists in general who are interested in the advancement of their profession. (shrink)

En las últimas décadas, las reflexiones filosóficas de Hannah Arendt han tenido profundas influencias en la filosofía política, la sociología, la ciencia política y la teoría política. Sin embargo, a estas reflexiones les subyace un componente restrictivo que no ha sido considerado a la hora de abordar dichas influencias. Es por esto, que en el presente escrito se busca mostrar que la connotación que Arendt le asigna a la política es restrictiva, lo cual permite diferenciarla de la actividad económica y (...) del mundo social, pero en dicha restricción se termina dejando a la actividad política sin contenido material, lo cual conlleva resituarla en el ámbito discursivo y del juicio humano, más que en el de la acción práctica. Abordaremos este objetivo mediante la revisión analítica de algunas de las principales obras de Arendt a la par que serán contrastadas con parte de la filosofía política clásica, moderna y contemporánea. De esta manera, los resultados de esta revisión analítica confirman que en el intento arendtiano por diferenciar a la política de lo social se resitúa a la primera en la abstracción carente de materialidad; en un no lugar, ajeno a los horizontes de posibilidad de la práctica colectiva concreta. (shrink)

In this article are treated, in general strokes, the methodological foundations of the Diccionario de conceptos políticos y sociales de la España de los siglos XIX y XX which has been published recently under the direction of the above mentioned editors. This dictionary in which nearly 200 authors of different Spanish universities and centres of research have collaborated collects more than 100 articles. It is partly inspired by the German Begriffsgeschichte. Its editors, however, have also taken into account the contribution (...) of the famous school of Cambridge by adapting the influences of several methodological currents to the specific claims of their work, i. e. to the elaboration of a dictionary which, on the basis of a huge volume of sources, pretends to cartograph, in an alphabetical order, the principal ideological lines – the discoursive and conceptual ones – of the Spanish 19th century. The article ends with a discussion of certain difficulties and aspects which are treated controversally in the intellectual history. It also claims to give a reflexion on the suitability and meaning which can – in the actual situation of the social sciences – pretend to determine the studies of political languages, especially the basic essays concerning the comparative history of political and social thinking under a conceptual perspective. (shrink)

The essays in this book engage the original and controversial claims from Michael Boylan's A Just Society. Each essay discusses Boylan's claims from a particular chapter and offers a critical analysis of these claims. Boylan responds to the essays in his lengthy and philosophically rich reply.

The attentional blink (AB) is an impairment of attention, which occurs when subjects have to report a target stimulus (T2) following a previous target (T1) with a short delay (up to 600 ms). Theories explaining the AB assume that processing of T2 is more vulnerable to decay or substitution, as long as attention is allocated to T1. Existing models of the AB, however, do not account for the fact that T2 detection accuracy reaches the minimum when T2 is presented after (...) about 300 ms and not immediately following T1. Therefore, a new model is suggested, which is based on chronometrical considerations together with recent neurophysiological findings concerning the relation between the P3 event-related potential and the AB, the interaction between P3 and gamma oscillations, and the significance of the early evoked gamma band response. We hypothesize that suppression of the early gamma response to T2, accompanying the P3 related to T1, causes the AB. (shrink)

La traducción que al inglés hace el ilustre profesor norteamericano Harold Raley (cuya filosofía sigue a Ortega y a Marías) resulta excelente. El profesor Harold Cecil RALEY nació el año 1934 en el Estado de Alabama (USA), en cuya Universidad se doctoró en Lenguas y Literaturas Románicas, y quiso especializarse en la obra de José Ortega y Gasset. Casado y padre de varios hijos, ha sido catedrático de Lengua y Literatura españolas de la Universidad del Estado de Oklahoma desde 1964; (...) también catedrático y decano de Bellas Artes y Humanidades en la Houston Baptist University (nombrado por ella Distinguished Professor). Entre otros libros, es autor de los siguientes: "Ortega y Gasset, filósofo de la unidad europea" (Prólogo de Julián Marías. Revista de Occidente. Madrid, 1977; edición inglesa: "José Ortega y Gasset, the Philosopher of European Unity". The University of Alabama Press. USA, 1971); "La visión responsable. La filosofía de Julián Marías" (Prólogo de José Luis Pinillos. Espasa-Calpe. Madrid, 1977; edición inglesa: "Responsible Vision: The Philosophy of Julián Marías". The American Hispanist. Clear Creek, Indiana. USA, 1980); "Julián Marías. Una filosofía desde dentro" (Alianza Editorial. Madrid, 1997; edición inglesa: "A Watch over Mortality: the Philosophical Story of Julián Marías". The State University of New York Press. USA, 1997); "El espíritu de España" (Prólogo de Julián Marías. Alianza Editorial. Madrid, 2003; edición inglesa: "The Spirit of Spain". Halcyon Press. Houston. USA, 2002); "The Light of Eden. A Christian Worldview" (John M. Hardy Publishing. Houston. USA, 2008); "Language Oddities. Quirks and Curiosities of English and Other Languages" (Kingsle. Houston. USA, 2011); "Louisiana Rogue. The Life and Times of Pierre Prospère-Tourmoulin translated by Peter Tourmoulin" (Lamar University Press. Beaumont. USA, 2013); "The Unknown God: Mysteries of Deity, Time, Space, and Creation" (Charleston, SC, USA, 2011. También es autor de más de un centenar de estudios y artículos sobre temas filosóficos y literarios. Además ha traducido al inglés algunos de los libros de Julián Marías. (shrink)

El presente artículo trata de hacer ver que el desencuentro entre la modernidad ilustrada y la religión católica, fue debido a una serie de factores y circunstancias desgraciadas, y no a una incompatibilidad inevitable. Es más, a pesar de los malentendidos y desencuentros, no son pocos los ideales de la modernidad ilustrada que, si profundizamos en ellos, descubriremos su inspiración y raíces cristianas. Es más, guste o no a algunos, el patrimonio espiritual y moral que ha ido configurando la identidad (...) europea ha tenido una de sus más importantes fuentes de inspiración en la tradición judeo-cristiana, sin menoscabar, por supuesto, la herencia griega, el derecho romano, la tradición liberal-ilustrada, y la revolución científica. Especialmente, hemos hecho hincapié en la autoridad moral del sufrimiento de la tradición judeocristiana, como una baza fundamental de cara la defensa de la dignidad humana. Para profundizar en esta compleja problemática hemos tenido en cuenta, entre otros, los análisis de Karl Löwith, Hans Blumenberg, J. Habermas, Benedicto XVI y J.B. Metz. Nuestra conclusión es que no tiene razón el actual secularismo-laicismo excluyente al pretender minusvalorar, o borrar simplemente del mapa, las raíces cristianas de Europa, como portadoras de valores y actitudes, que son tan necesarias ante el relativismo, el nihilismo postmoderno, y la crisis de valores de una sociedad, cada vez más deshumanizada. Frente al euroescepticismo que hoy sobrevuela amenazante, hay que reivindicar el “humanismo socrático-cristiano” como una seña de identidad irrenunciable. Otra cosa es el integrismo religioso, que no acaba de admitir la autonomía de la sociedad civil y del Estado, como presupuesto fundamental de una sana secularidad. Es precisamente en el seno de la sociedad civil donde la institución religiosa tiene derecho a dejar oír su voz, en diálogo respetuoso con las otras voces que en ella se ubican, de cara a consensuar soluciones frente a los graves problemas que nos acucian. Y sólo desde una identidad europea bien asentada, podremos enfrentarnos con el reto de la multiculturalidad al que Europa se ve inevitablemente abocada, en el contexto de la globalización.This article attempts to show, that the disagreement between enlightened modernity and Catholic religion, was due to a number of factors and unfortunate circumstances and not to an unavoidable incompatibility. There is more, despite misunderstandings and disagreements, there are many ideals of enlightened modernity that when we go deeper into them, we discover their Christian inspiration and roots. Even more, like it or not some people, spiritual and moral heritage, which has configured European identity, had Judeo- Christian tradition as one of its sources of inspiration, without underestimating, of course, Greek heritage, Roman law, liberal enlightenment tradition and scientific revolution. We have emphasized, especially, the moral authority of suffering of Judeo-Christian tradition as something basic to defend human dignity. To go deeper into this complex problem, we took into account, among others, the analyses of Karl Löwith, Hans Blumemberg, J. Habermas, Benedit XVI, and J:B: Metz. Our conclusion is that the current exclusive secularism is not right trying to underestimate or eliminate the Christian roots in Europe as carriers of values and attitudes, so necessary against relativism, postmodern nihilism and the crisis of values in a society increasingly dehumanized. Against an Euroscepticism which overflies threatening, we must claim a Socratic-Christian humanism as a sign of indispensable identity. Religious secularismis something different, it does not admit the authority of a civil society and state, as a fundamental prerequisite for a healthy secularity. It is precisely within a civil society where a religious institution has the right to be heard in a respectful dialogue with others voices that are located in there to agree on solutions against the problems we are facing and, only from a well established European identity, we will be able to face the challenge of multiculturalism to which Europe is inevitably doomed in a context of Globalization. (shrink)

This article makes a critical reading of two Types of Faith from an approximation to its sources and its context. Analysing two types of faith suggested by Buber, we identify the characterization of the same from the perspective of the history of religions. This raises the development, from a philosophicaltheological perspective, of a reflection on the Buber’s criteria of demarcation in the distinction between emunah and pistis, while on the image that of Jesus and Paul reflects his work.

The first encounters of Marcel with Sartre show the “Christian origins” they shared. Likewise, these encounters and their disagreements throughout life and the different paths they followed reveal a broader scope of thought than what is commonly known about Sartre.

El objetivo de esta investigación es poner de manifiesto la importancia de las imágenes de vestir marianas y, también, las joyas y accesorios que presentan. Se plantearán las bases y claves de un lenguaje no verbal que actúa como testimonio de la devoción además de las relaciones sociales y económicas del momento que las marcan. Merced a los casos analizados, se comprobará cómo, con gran frecuencia, se une a la piedad popular de pueblos y de las culturas de determinados acontecimientos (...) de la zona. Los resultados demostrarán la importancia dada y valores atribuidos a este tipo de iconografía. (shrink)

Born and initially spread as a Jewish movement and unconnected with the classical world, Christianity became an identifiable religion in the mid-second century CE, above all due to its contacts with the Greek civilisation, from which it borrowed many ethical and ideological principles. nevertheless, Christianity only reached its whole identity after its transformation in religion, i.e., in the Roman sense of the word, when Christianity was became to be seen as a supernatural protection for both society and the Roman Empire. (...) With the consequent changes in its hierarchy, rituals, and beliefs, Christian religion thus lost its main Jewish and Hellenistic features. The Constantine’s reform and the religious policy of his successors definitely sealed this radical and far-reaching evolution as this paper will try to focus on in further details, highlighting the most decisive aspects and moments. (shrink)

The analysis of the confession in Foucault's work based on the comparison between Les anormaux, Mal faire, dire vrai and Les aveux de la chair shows one of the most relevant displacements in Foucault's work, which constitutes a good part of the essence of what has been called the last Foucault: the relation of the subject and the truth. An attempt will be made to account for this turn, analyzing the look at primitive Christianity of the last Foucault and the (...) relationship of such reflection in the analysis of the hermeneutics of the self. The last reflections on the confession in Les aveux de la chair will show the meaning of the ethical inquiry of the last Foucault that reproduces the double critical and ontological character of anarcheology. (shrink)

Gianni Vattimo's Non-religious Christianity. Weakening of being, secularization and divine kenosis.

Manual completo y actualizado de la teología moral católica que responde plenamente a las preguntas que sobre esta materia se hace el hombre de hoy.

By drawing on what the ancient Greeks understood by παράδεισος, and reviewing different conceptions of the biblical paradise as portrayed in the New Testament, the Old and New Testament Apocrypha, the Nag Hammadi Library, the Manichean literature, the Koran, and other mystical sources of Islam, this paper seeks to determine the nature of the ‘paradise’ mentioned in the Chaldean Oracles (frs. 107 and 165). Particular attention is paid to the Christianized reading by the Byzantine scholar Michael Psellus, who arranged Greek (...) traditional themes, motives of Genesis concerning the Garden of Eden, the allegorical exegesis by Philo ofAlexandria, and Neoplatonic doctrines, all together in his Commentary of the Chaldean Oracles. (shrink)

En este trabajo ofrecemos la traducción del latín al español del Liber de convenientia fidei et intellectus in obiecto de Ramón Llull, con introducción y notas. Se trata de una obra en la que el filósofo mallorquín efectúa una síntesis de su pensamiento en torno de las relaciones entre fe y razón, así como de su posición respecto de la defensa de la fe católica y la conversión de los no cristianos. El opúsculo, que se muestra como un trabajo definitivo (...) en cuanto al establecimiento de la relación mencionada, hecha mano de los elementos fundamentales de su sistema, el Ars magna, pero aun así es una rara avis dentro de la opus luliana: está pleno de citas bíblicas y alusiones a las auctoritates eclesiásticas más renombradas, unas y otras ausentes en la mayoría de las obras lulianas. In this paper we offer the translation from Latin to Spanish of Ramón Llull´s Liber de convenientia fidei et intellectus in obiecto with introduction and notes. This is a work where the mallorcan philosopher makes a synthetic framework of his thinking on the relationship between faith and reason, as well as of his position towards the defense of catholic faith and conversion of non-christian people. The text, which is shown as a definitive work in the setting of this relationship, uses the most characteristic principles of his system, Ars magna, but still is a rara avis inside the opus lulliana: is full of biblical quotations and allusions to the most renowned ecclesiastical auctoritates, all these absents in most lullian woks. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende dar cuenta del rol de los libros, los copistas y la circulación de textos en la obra de Libanio, y especialmente en su Autobiografía. Sobre la base de las referencias a la cultura libresca, por lo demás, se establecen vínculos con la cultura griega anterior, en particular con la segunda sofística; contemporánea y cristiana; y posterior, de los períodos medio y tardo-bizantino. This article tackles the role of books, scribes and text circulation in the oeuvre of Libanius, (...) especially in his Autobiography. On the basis of his references to scriptorial culture, I underline his links to previous Greek culture -mainly to the Second Sophistic -; to contemporary Christian paideia; and to later Byzantine erudition. (shrink)

El Papa y humanista Eneas Silvio Piccolomini (Pío II) es aquel autor medieval que más explícita e insistentemente se ha ocupado del problema de Europa, no sólo como entidad geográfica sino también política, religiosa y cultural. El artículo analiza los rasgos fundamentales de su concepción de Europa, en el horizonte de los grandes problemas de su tiempo. Por una parte la amenaza turca sobre Europa y por otra las transformaciones internas de Europa, tanto políticas como religiosas.

Social robotics attempts to build robots able to interact with humans and other robots. Philosophical and scientific research in social cognition can provide social robotics research with models of social cognition to implement those models in mechanic agents. The aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, I present and defend a framework in social cognition known as mindshaping. According to it, human beings are biologically predisposed to learn and teach cultural and rational norms and complex cultural patterns of behavior that (...) enhance social cognition. Secondly, I will highlight how this framework can open new research perspectives in the area of social robotics. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that no theory of consciousness can simultaneously respect four initially plausible metaphysical claims – namely, ‘first-person realism’, ‘non-solipsism’, ‘non-fragmentation’, and ‘one world’ – but that any three of the four claims are mutually consistent. So, theories of consciousness face a ‘quadrilemma’. Since it will be hard to achieve a consensus on which of the four claims to retain and which to give up, we arrive at a landscape of competing theories, all of which have pros (...) and cons. I will briefly indicate which kinds of theories correspond to the four horns of the quadrilemma. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to account for privileged access or, more precisely, the special kind of epistemic right that we have to some beliefs about our own mental states. My account will have the following two main virtues. First of all, it will only appeal to those conceptual elements that, arguably, we already use in order to account for perceptual knowledge. Secondly, it will constitute a naturalizing account of privileged access in that it does not posit any mysterious (...) faculty of introspection or "inner perception" mechanism. (shrink)

In the last 30 years, the key issue in developmental Theory of Mind has been if and when children are capable of representing false beliefs. Moving away from this research question, the aim of this study was to investigate the role of attentional processes in false-belief tasks. We focused on the design of the test phase and investigated two factors that may be critical for 3-year-old children’s success: the form of the wh-question and the salience of the target object. The (...) results of two experiments confirmed that 3-year olds are able to explicitly choose the correct answer in a false-belief task provided that they are allowed to focus on the protagonist throughout the task. The salience of the target object, however, was a critical factor in the design of the test phase, as increasing it had a negative effect on children’s performance. These results suggest that the experimental record of the last 30 years may be skewed since standard false-belief tasks do not control for the relative salience of the wrong response, potentially hindering the performance of children under 4. We conclude that a careful investigation of performance factors in false-belief tasks has the potential to reveal deep insights into the development of Theory of Mind skills, even if not directly focused on children’s representation of beliefs. (shrink)

The proper relationship between phenomenology and naturalism has reemerged as a pressing issue following interdisciplinary developments in the cognitive sciences. Most solutions opt for a naturalized phenomenology, rather than a phenomenological naturalism. This article takes up the latter approach, confronting the implications of Merleau-Ponty's reformulation of Husserl's paradox of subjectivity. I argue that Merleau-Ponty's formulation—which I term “the paradox of madness”—reveals a deep, ontological contingency in what Husserl took to be necessary transcendental structures of consciousness and world, revealing that these (...) transcendental structures are in fact embedded in and contaminated by the very world they constitute and disclose. (shrink)

Spacetime as we know and love it is lost in most approaches to quantum gravity. For many of these approaches, as inchoate and incomplete as they may be, one of the main challenges is to relate what they take to be the fundamental non-spatiotemporal structure of the world back to the classical spacetime of GR. The present essay investigates how spacetime is lost and how it may be regained in one major approach to quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity.

One of the hallmark themes of Karl Popper’s approach to the social sciences was the insistence that when social scientists are members of the society they study, then they are liable to affect that society. In particular, they are liable to affect it in such a way that the claims they make lose their validity. “The interaction between the scientist’s pronouncements and social life almost invariably creates situations in which we have not only to consider the truth of such pronouncements, (...) but also their actual influence on future developments. The social scientist may be striving to find the truth; but, at the same time, he must always be exerting a definite influence upon society. The very fact that his pronouncements do exert an influence destroys their objectivity.” (Popper 1963. (shrink)

Scientific concepts are defined by metaphors. These metaphors determine what atten- tion is and what count as adequate explanations of the phenomenon. The authors analyze these metaphors within 3 types of attention theories: (a) --cause-- theories, in which attention is presumed to modulate information processing (e.g., attention as a spotlight; attention as a limited resource); (b) --effect-- theories, in which attention is considered to be a by-product of information processing (e.g., the competition meta- phor); and (c) hybrid theories that combine (...) cause and effect aspects (e.g., biased- competition models). The present analysis reveals the crucial role of metaphors in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and the efforts of scientists to find a resolution to the classic problem of cause versus effect interpretations. (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)

Kant is not typically considered a major figure in the just war tradition's canon, although his work has informed recent discussions about international justice and just war theory. More specifically, philosophers have suggested that Kant's work may provide a coherent, normatively practical just war theory, basing this claim, in the main, on his views on the goal of peace and its purpose of establishing a cosmopolitan civil society.1 Such discussions are mostly concerned with jus ad bellum and jus in bello (...) constraints on nations and how Kant's writings can guide deliberation and, perhaps, the considered policy and practices of governments. Yet, the fact remains that it is embodied men and women and not the metaphysical ?nation? who actually conduct war. Hence, this paper seeks to determine the extent to which Kant's thought might contribute to the moral deliberation of those individuals who a fortiori will be bound to jus in bello constraints. To this end, the idea of moral learning will be explored, emphasizing the Kantian idea of autonomy. The ultimate goal of this paper is to demonstrate how some aspects of Kant's thought would contribute to ethics education in a military academy. (shrink)

In this article, we develop a new approach to integrating philosophical phenomenology with qualitative research. The approach uses phenomenology’s concepts, namely existentials, rather than methods such as the epoché or reductions. We here introduce the approach to both philosophers and qualitative researchers, as we believe that these studies are best conducted through interdisciplinary collaboration. In section 1, we review the debate over phenomenology’s role in qualitative research and argue that qualitative theorists have not taken full advantage of what philosophical phenomenology (...) has to offer, thus motivating the need for new approaches. In section 2, we introduce our alternative approach, which we call Phenomenologically Grounded Qualitative Research (PGQR). Drawing parallels with phenomenology’s applications in the cognitive sciences, we explain how phenomenological grounding can be used to conceptually front-load a qualitative study, establishing an explicit focus on one or more structures of human existence, or of our being in the world. In section 3, we illustrate this approach with an example of a qualitative study carried out by one of the authors: a study of the existential impact of early parental bereavement. In section 4, we clarify the kind of knowledge that phenomenologically grounded studies generate and how it may be integrated with existing approaches. (shrink)

Kentridge and Heywood (this issue) extend the concept of metacognition to include unconscious processes. We acknowledge the possible contribution of unconscious processes, but favor a central role of awareness in metacognition. We welcome Shimamura's (this issue) extension of the concept of metacognitive regulation to include aspects of working memory, and its relation to executive attention.

The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com.

El autor realiza una lectura en clave perspectivista de la neurofenomenología, enfoque transdisciplinar y metodológico iniciado a mediados de los 90 por el neurobiólogo Francisco J. Varela desde el ámbito experimental de las ciencias de la mente. La originalidad del artículo reside en que estudia comparativamente el problemático entrecruce de la neurofenomenología de Varela con el perspectivismo científico de Ronald N. Giere, mostrándonos que la neurofenomenología no sólo lo antecedió cronológicamente, sino que fue mucho más radical al tener en cuenta (...) la la dimensión fenomenológica y trascendental de la experiencia vivida humana y al aplicarla en los protocolos de las neurociencias cognitivas. // The author makes a perspectivist reading of neurophenomenology, a transdisciplinary and methodological approach pioneered in the 90’s by the neurobiologist Francisco J. Varela, who worked in the experimental field of the science of mind. The originality of the article consists in studying with a comparative method the problematic intertwine of Varela’s neurophenomenology and the scientific perspectivism recently defended by Ronald N. Giere. In this way, the autor shows how neurophenomenology notonly came before Giere’s proposal but also how it was more radical in considering the phenomenological and transcendental human dimension and in trying an implementation in cognitive neuroscience protocols. (shrink)

The Modern concept of truth, which subjects truth to certainty, broke the harmonious relation between reality and truth, that prevailed in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. Hans-Georg Gadamer thinks that the main task of contemporary Philosophy is to recover the original harmony of being and knowledge. To shed light on the nature of this problem, we expound the metaphysical-theological foundation of truth, which is at the roots of Aristotelian and Thomistic Philosophies. Specifically, we analyze here the relation between being, truth and (...) logos in the Aristotelian treatise Perì Hermeneías, and in its Thomistic commentary. (shrink)