Este artículo explora la posibilidad de que las constituciones contemporáneas puedan ser interpretadas de manera armónica, es decir, irenista. Las objeciones más importantes a las que una concepción irenista de la constitución debería hacer frente son las objeciones de la incoherencia y de la inestabilidad. La primera afirma que la armonía no es posible porque se dan conflictos normativos entre los diversos componentes de las constituciones contemporáneas. La segunda afirma que no es posible una armonía de tipo universalista. Una concepción (...) irenista con visos de ser plausible debería poder ser capaz de dar una respuesta a cada una de estas objeciones. (shrink)

Según una sofisticada versión del llamado rule of law, las reglas del derecho deben ser generales, en el sentido de que deben regular clases de casos, no situaciones particulares. La posibilidad de prever cuáles van a ser las decisiones jurídicas depende, entre otras cosas, de este carácter general de las normas. Pero junto a la previsibilidad y certeza que aporta, el carácter general de las reglas puede tener un reverso negativo: en algunas ocasiones, cuando se aplican a algunas circunstancias particulares, (...) lo que parecía funcionar de forma satisfactoria en la teoría o en abstracto, proporciona soluciones inadmisibles (inadmisibles con arreglo a alguna concepción de la justicia). Esos casos son conocidos como casos recalcitrantes. En este artículo propongo una manera de entender el razonamiento jurídico-práctico que mitiga ese reverso negativo de las reglas generales conservando buena parte de la certeza que aportan. (shrink)

Both because of the vagueness of the word ‘give’ when speaking about giving reasons, and because we lack an adequate definition of ‘reasons’, there is a harmful ambiguity in the expression ‘giving reasons’. Particularly, straightforwardly identifying argumentation with reasons giving would make of virtually any interplay a piece of argumentation. Besides, if we adopt the mainstream definition of reasons as “considerations that count in favour of doing or believing something”, then only good argumentation would count as argumentation. In this paper, (...) I defend a qualified characterization of argumentation as reasons giving that is shown to be fruitful for shedding light on the practice of giving reasons, and an inferentialist conception of reasons that makes room for speaking of “bad reasons” and, consequently, makes it possible to talk of argumentation as reasons giving even if we are talking about bad argumentation. (shrink)

The aim of the present study was to determine statistical differences in a set of badminton competition matches in five different modalities with regard to competition level (Group Phase versus Eliminatory Phase). Data from 453 sets (125 in men’s singles; 108 sets in women’s singles; 77 sets in men’s doubles; 73 in women’s doubles and 70 in mixed doubles) from the RIO 2016 Olympics Games were recorded and classified in two groups of variables to analyse variables related to match (5) (...) and set (15). A descriptive analysis and univariate test (Mann Whitney U) for non-parametric data were conducted. The results show in men’s and women’s singles all the variables related to match were higher in the Elimination Phase than in the Group Phase (p<0.01). In Sets 1 and 3, the longest set duration, rally and average rally were found in the Elimination Phase than Group Stage (p<0.05). In women’s singles, these differences were also recorded in Set 2. For doubles, the results are more stable among groups. Men’s doubles had a longer duration of the match and set (set 1 and set 2) (p<0.01), and also scored highest for average rally strokes (set 1 and set 3) (p<0.05) and shuttles used in the Elimination Phase versus the Group Phase along the match (p<0.01). In women’s doubles, more shuttles were used in a match in the Elimination than in the Group Phase. Moreover, the same results are established for Set 2, including for average rally. Mixed doubles saw no match going to three sets. However, the greatest differences showed a longer rally and average rally being registered in the Elimination than in the Group Phase. In conclusion, the timing factors of the badminton singles and doubles games were different in the Elimination and Group Phases. This information may help players and coaches prepare and administer different types of workouts or, more specifically, competition schedules adapted to the characteristics of modern badminton. (shrink)

This paper provides a philosophical analysis of the Price equation and its role in evolutionary theory. Traditional models in population genetics postulate simplifying assumptions in order to make the models mathematically tractable. On the contrary, the Price equation implies a very specific way of theorizing, starting with assumptions that we think are true and then deriving from them the mathematical rules of the system. I argue that the Price equation is a generalization-sketch, whose main purpose is to provide a unifying (...) framework for researchers, helping them to develop specific models. The Price equation plays this role because, like other scientific principles, shows features as abstractness, unification and invariance. By underwriting this special role for the Price equation some recent disputes about it could be diverted. (shrink)

I argue for the distinction between presuming that p and maintaining that presumably p. In order to make sense of this distinction, I defend a non-inferentialist conception of presumptions and offer an account of the correctness conditions for both presumptions and presumptive inferences. I characterize presumptions as a type of constative speech-act having certain semantic correctness conditions. In turn, regarding presumptive inferences, my strategy is to provide the correctness conditions for the use of an epistemic modal such as “presumably.” This (...) epistemic modal is characterized as a force indicator for speech-acts of concluding in complex speech-acts of arguing involving presumptive inferences. (shrink)

Desarrollamos un análisis comparativo de las vivencias del dolor físico y de la imaginación desde la perspectiva fenomenológica. Partimos de la hipótesis de que ambas vivencias forman los estados límite de la vida consciente. Nuestro objetivo es mostrar las características esenciales de dichas vivencias y para ello seguimos los textos más relevantes de la tradición fenomenológica, especialmente los de Husserl y Sartre. Los de Husserl dedicados al cuerpo vivido y a las sensaciones táctiles, por un lado, y los dedicados a (...) la conciencia de imagen y a la fantasía, por el otro, son totalmente imprescindibles, y los complementamos con los de Sartre dedicados a la imaginación. Recurrimos también a estudios fenomenológicos actuales sobre ambas vivencias. En primer lugar describiremos la vivencia del dolor físico como una auto-afección que en casos de dolor severo destruye el fundamento de la constitución de sentido que es el cuerpo vivido. En segundo lugar, describiremos la imaginación como la reproducción de una experiencia posible. La conciencia como auto-afección es opuesta a la conciencia como reproducción de modo que, efectivamente, ambas forman los limites extremos de la conciencia humana como subjetividad encarnada. (shrink)

This paper questions the conceptual and pragmatic worth of the category of relational values. Combining philosophical reasoning with ethnographic field-work in Wallmapu/Chile, I analyse a variety of ways in which people think about, value and behave toward the land. I thereby demonstrate that relational-ity is inherent to held, instrumental and intrinsic values. This means that there is no meaningful way in which to distinguish relational values from more familiar types of values. Yet, to be able to argue that a distinct (...) class of relational values exists, those who have proposed the term have been compelled to silence or downplay the relational natures of those other values. This has the perverse effect of confining, rather than promoting, relational thinking. (shrink)

Both because of the vagueness of the word ‘give’ when speaking about giving reasons, and because we lack an adequate definition of ‘reasons’, there is a harmful ambiguity in the expression ‘giving reasons’. Particularly, straightforwardly identifying argumentation with reasons giving would make of virtually any interplay a piece of argumentation. Besides, if we adopt the mainstream definition of reasons as “considerations that count in favour of doing or believing something”, then only good argumentation would count as argumentation. In this paper, (...) I defend a qualified characterization of argumentation as reasons giving that is shown to be fruitful for shedding light on the practice of giving reasons, and an inferentialist conception of reasons that makes room for speaking of “bad reasons” and, consequently, makes it possible to talk of argumentation as reasons giving even if we are talking about bad argumentation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Three Poems RICARDO PAU-LLOSA panta rhei¿Quién es tu hermano? Tu vecino más cercano. (Who is your brother? Your nearest neighbor.) —Spanish saying In emergencies, the closest will do. Love, even a few blocks away, fails when the stranger next door rises in charity unknown to him till then. The day is saved by those whose names you’ll forget: the driver in the next car, the gardener who rushed into (...) a house he’s never seen to pull, guard, rescue. All the verbs which were alien and will resume their callous grip, now storm the sudden heart that just then fled the wolf condition. But it hears the lunar groan returningly. Homo homini lupus est, teach Romans who knew so much about impenetrability. Ovid and Hobbes differ, Erasmus equivocates, Freud surrenders. A pack of thinkers have torn at the flesh of our layered psyche, wishing to find an identifying center. We are the poker hand, tossing and assembling bluff and triumph. We fold, we hold on. There is nothing Chaos, our secret god, cannot bestow. arion 28.2 fall 2020 70 three poems Proteus In the dream, the man is bathing a large dog whose breed changes as the chore unfolds, starting with a rottweiler, then bulldog, great dane.... Starts on the lawn, then shifts to the groomer’s, the man’s bathtub, a creek from his childhood.... First it was a dog he owns, then a former pet, then a friend’s, a dog from a commercial.... It is as if the dream announced this thing, then that, then changed its mind, and it is then that the man understands he cannot truly embrace the idea that the dream has a mind to make up or change, for then life would have a toolbox, a menu, program tabs, training schedule.... hence throwing into the acid of questions whether he has such powers—to alter, navigate, reflect, cure, develop.... this tumble of paradigms, themselves becoming a chain, sequence, sentence, syntax, metonymy.... because the thing —the announcement— cannot simply be a fate but a motion, a variance, an effect that churns the weather of effects, topples the still life on the table just when the painter had caught the just-so light, right before the supper, the sole ingestion point of the thing, the call to itself, begins and leaves everything else twirling. Ricardo Pau-Llosa 71 puddle 2 Samuel 14:14 My student sees filth everywhere, even in this dank, rotten-leafed, cigarette-butt poisoned tongue of late morning bronze. It laces the oak branches above it and folds the mid-day sky in green convections. Allow me to introduce you to squallor’s gorgeous mirror who taught the golden youth to catch himself in love. This silent bed whose many sheets are one mellifluous of shade, has hosted boot and quandary, astronomy and betrayal. I cannot hold it accountable for accuracy or permanence. Surely it knew from the start how short the mission and how stark the light. But linger, pupil, where an eye might brave the trough whose vapid depth dared frame the trees, their sky.... (shrink)

a recent paper, Fábio Perin Shecaira proposes a defence of Waller’s deductivist schema for moral analogical argumentation. This defence has several flaws, the most important of them being that many good analogical arguments would be deemed bad or deficient. Additionally, Shecaira misrepresents my alternative account as something in between deductivism and non-deductivism. This paper is both an attempt at solving this misunderstanding and an analysis and criticism of Waller and Shecaira’s forms of deductivism.

Following a Toulmian account of argument analysis and evaluation, I offer a general unitary schema for, so called, deductive and inductive types of analogical arguments. This schema is able to explain why certain analogical arguments can be said to be deductive, and yet, also defeasible.

Our aim is to defend the Precautionary Principle (PP) against the main theoretical and practical criticisms that it has raised by proposing a novel conception and a specific formulation of the principle. We first address the theoretical concerns against the idea of there being a principle of precaution by arguing for a distinctively political conception of the PP as opposed to a moral one. Our claim is that the rationale of the PP is grounded in the fact that contemporary societies (...) wish to avoid morally unacceptable risks while at the same time pursuing other goals, aspirations and values. Following this political conception of the PP, we propose a specific formulation in terms of an argumentation scheme—the Argumentation Scheme for Appealing to Precaution—which is meant to solve, in turn, the main practical concerns that the PP has raised. We explain the advantages of our proposal by analysing appeals to precaution in the cases of (1) the European restrictions on the free movement of persons during the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) the discharge of nuclear wastes into the Irish Sea. (shrink)

Immédiates, efficaces et inépuisables comme des sensations, mais indépendantes du dehors et maîtresses de l’espace comme des images, les visions «imaginatives» de Thérèse, pour voisines qu’elles soient de nos visions sensorielles, méritent pourtant une place à part et ne sont ni des hallucinations vulgaires, indiscernables des sensations, ni des hallucinations psychiques. Ce sont les hallucinations thérésiennes. (Pierre Quercy 1930).

The debate concerning the so-called U.S. Health and Human Services Contraception Mandate has been adequately framed, in the academic field, within the traditional ethical doctrine on cooperation with evil. This principle will allow us to conclude whether employers may ethically comply with the onerous existing law or not. The discussion has been quite heated, because the practical conclusions authors have reached vary widely, depending on which interpretation of the theory they rely on. In this paper, some of these explanations are (...) addressed and analyzed from the standpoint of the Thomistic theory of action, which is now the most common point of view. This work concludes that, although the Contraception Mandate will most likely be repealed by the current U.S. administration, as things once stood, compliance with it may have been ethically licit in some cases. (shrink)

Due to its high degree of complexity and its historical nature, evolutionary biology has been traditionally portrayed as a messy science. According to the supporters of such a view, evolutionary biology would be unable to formulate laws and robust theories, instead just delivering coherent narratives and local models. In this article, our aim is to challenge this view by showing how the Price equation can work as the core of a general theoretical framework for evolutionary phenomena. To support this claim, (...) we outline some unnoticed structural similarities between physical theories and evolutionary biology. More specifically, we shall argue that the Price equation, in the same way as fundamental formalisms in physics, can serve as a heuristic principle to formulate and systematise different theories and models in evolutionary biology. (shrink)

This article analyzes the view of evolutionary theory as a theory of forces. The analogy with Newtonian mechanics has been challenged due to the alleged mismatch between drift and the other evolutionary forces. Since genetic drift has no direction several authors tried to protect its status as a force: denying its lack of directionality, extending the notion of force and looking for a force in physics which also lacks of direction. I analyse these approaches, and although this strategy finally succeeds, (...) this discussion overlooks the crucial point on the debate between causalists and statisticalists: the causal status of evolutionary theory. (shrink)

I characterize the deductivist ideal of justification and, following to a great extent Toulmin’s work The Uses of Argument, I try to explain why this ideal is erroneous. Then I offer an alternative model of justification capable of making our claims to knowledge about substantial matters sound and reasonable. This model of justification will be based on a conception of justification as the result of good argumentation, and on a model of argumentation which is a pragmatic linguistic reconstruction of Toulmin’s (...) model of argument. (shrink)

In Giving Reasons: A Linguistic-pragmatic-approach to Argumentation Theory (Springer, 2011), I provide a new model for the semantic and pragmatic appraisal of argumentation. This model is based on a characterization of argumentation as a second order speech-act complex. I explain the advantages of this model respecting other proposals within Argumentation Theory, such as Pragma-dialectics, Informal Logic, the New Rhetoric or the Epistemic Approach.

The deductivist ideal of justification is bounded to scepticism respecting the trustability of reasoning. This ideal is supported by a conception of formal validity as a necessary condition for argumentative goodness. In this work, I propose an alternative to formalism in order to make sense of the idea of justification out of the scope of the deductivist ideal.

This paper analyses the structure of evolutionary theory as a quasi-Newtonian theory and the need to establish a Zero-Cause Law. Several authors have postulated that the special character of drift is because it is the default behaviour or Zero-Cause Law of evolutionary systems, where change and not stasis is the normal state of them. For these authors, drift would be a Zero-Cause Law, the default behaviour and therefore a constituent assumption impossible to change without changing the system. I defend that (...) drift's causal and explanatory power prevents it from being considered as a Zero-Cause Law. Instead, I propose that the default behaviour of evolutionary systems is what I call the Principle of Stasis, which posits that an evolutionary system where there is no selection, drift, mutation, migration, etc., and therefore no difference-maker, will not undergo any change (it will remain in stasis). (shrink)

. There are many types of artistic representations of the legend of Don Juan, i.e. the universal archetype of the seducer who, through deception, conquers a woman and, once she succumbs to his charms, he boasts of his triumph, despises her, and shifts his interest towards another lady. In this work, I compare three of the most famous versions don Juan: The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest by Tirso de Molina, Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo (...) Da Ponte, and Don Juan Tenorio by José Zorrilla. The first and third are theatrical pieces, while the second is an opera. The myth of Don Juan is essentially the same in all three, but the message and the moral vary according to the cultural movement the works belong to, namely the Baroque, the Enlightenment and the Romanticism, respectively. Key words: The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest, Don Giovanni, Don Juan, Tirso de Molina, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Lorenzo Da Ponte, José Zorrilla, sin, redemption, sociopath. Resumen. Son muchos los tipos de representación artística —teatro, música, ópera, ballet, literatura, cine, televisión, pintura, escultura, etc.— de la leyenda de Don Juan, el arquetipo universal del seductor que, mediante engaños, conquista a una mujer y, una vez que ella sucumbe a sus encantos, se jacta de su triunfo, las desprecia y reenfoca su interés en otras damas. En este trabajo, comparo a tres de los don Juanes más famosos: El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra de Tirso de Molina, Don Giovanni de Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart y Lorenzo Da Ponte, y Don Juan Tenorio de José Zorrilla. La primera y la tercera son piezas teatrales, en tanto que la segunda es una ópera. El mito de Don Juan es, esencialmente, el mismo en estas tres obras, aunque varían el mensaje y la moraleja según el movimiento cultural al que pertenecen: Barroco, Ilustración y Romanticismo, respectivamente. Palabras clave: Burlador de Sevilla, Don Giovanni, Don Juan, Tirso de Molina, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Lorenzo Da Ponte, José Zorrilla, pecado, redención, sociópata. (shrink)

Resumen Este ensayo analiza la manera tan negativa en que Emilia Pardo Bazán representa al matrimonio en Los pazos de Ulloa. Se intenta mostrar que el escepticismo de la autora, al presentar esta institución social como un proyecto fallido, constituye una protesta feminista contra la soflama masculina hegemónica del siglo xix, que aceptaba como válido únicamente el vínculo conyugal bendecido por la Iglesia y/o sancionado por el Estado. Con este objetivo, se estudian algunos factores que afectaban las relaciones maritales de (...) las mujeres de aquella época, tales como la percepción que se tenía de la mujer—como agente civilizador y como inductora del mal—, las expectativas sociales de la mujer casadera y casada, el alto valor atribuido a la virginidad prenupcial y a la maternidad, la doble moral en el ejercicio de la sexualidad, la subordinación de la mujer al hombre y la violencia doméstica física y mental. Palabras clave: Los pazos de Ulloa, Emilia Pardo Bazán, virginidad, maternidad, matrimonio, civilización y barbarie.In this essay, I analyze Emilia Pardo Bazán's negative portrait of marriage in The House of Ulloa. I attempt to show that the author's skepticism of this social institution, which she presents as a failed project, is a feminist protest against the 19thcentury hegemonic masculine discourse that considered Catholic marriage and/or legal marriage as the only acceptable forms of a conjugal bond. With that intention, I comment on several key factors that affected women’s marital relationships at that time. For example, the dual perception of women both as civilizing agents and as a temptation to sin and subsequent perdition, the social expectations from a maiden and from a married woman, the high value attributed to prenuptial virginity and of maternity, the double standards for men and women in the expression of their sexuality, the subordination of women to men, and domestic physical and mental violence, among other. Key words: Los pazos de Ulloa, The House of Ulloa, Emilia Pardo Bazán, virginity, maternity, marriage, civilization and barbarism\e. (shrink)

Phenomenology is often described as a paradigm shift that calls for a re-assessment of inherited themes and concepts. One of its most important contributions is the central role given to the embodied subject as opposed to the conception of the disembodied subject that has dominated philosophy since Descartes. If perspectival painting best represents the paradigm of modern philosophy since the Renaissance, it is the multiple perspectives of Cubist painting that best represent the phenomenological paradigm. While the relationship between phenomenology and (...) art has been widely studied, my aim in this article is to focus on the way in which Cubism represents the embodied, horizonal structure of our perception, and then to discuss the new form of contemporary art installation as an actualization of Cubist principles in the age of digital reproduction. The embodiment of the subject necessarily involves intersubjectivity, for others appear in the subject’s contextual frame of public space. While for Arendt the shift from private subjective space to public intersubjective space is effected through dialogue, I argue that it is also effected architecturally, for architecture facilitates dialogue by offering multiple perspectives on common space and shared time. I suggest, finally, that architecture’s multiperspectival strategies offer the humanities a useful model of a multidisciplinary methodology. (shrink)

In this article we discuss the political thought of the French philosopher Simone Weil. In particular, we analyse two fundamental elements of her critique of Marxism, namely her reflections on the phenomenon of power and her critique of the theory of the unlimited development of productive forces. We do so in dialogue with two of the pioneers of the ecosocialist critique of Marx in Spain: Manuel Sacristán and Francisco Fernández Buey, both readers of Weil. The aim: to point out the (...) relevance of this philosopher’s thought not only for its influence on some of the great ethical-political reflections of the socialist tradition in the twentieth century, but also for its ability to address the current challenges. (shrink)

concepts typically are defined in terms of lacking physical or perceptual referents. We argue instead that they are not devoid of perceptual information because knowledge of real-world situations is an important component of learning and using many abstract concepts. Although the relationship between perceptual information and abstract concepts is less straightforward than for concrete concepts, situation-based perceptual knowledge is part of many abstract concepts. In Experiment 1, participants made lexical decisions to abstract words that were preceded by related and unrelated (...) pictures of situations. For example, share was preceded by a picture of two girls sharing a cob of corn. When pictures were presented for 500 ms, latencies did not differ. However, when pictures were presented for 1,000 ms, decision latencies were significantly shorter for abstract words preceded by related versus unrelated pictures. Because the abstract concepts corresponded to the pictured situation as a whole, rather than a single concrete object or entity, the necessary relational processing takes time. In Experiment 2, on each trial, an abstract word was presented for 250 ms, immediately followed by a picture. Participants indicated whether or not the picture showed a normal situation. Decision latencies were significantly shorter for pictures preceded by related versus unrelated abstract words. Our experiments provide evidence that knowledge of events and situations is important for learning and using at least some types of abstract concepts. That is, abstract concepts are grounded in situations, but in a more complex manner than for concrete concepts. Although people's understanding of abstract concepts certainly includes knowledge gained from language describing situations and events for which those concepts are relevant, sensory and motor information experienced during real-life events is important as well. (shrink)

I argue that conductions are a special type of inference indeed, but that this does not mean that we need to develop novel standards of inference goodness or specific argument schemes for properly assessing them. Following LNMA’s theoretical framework, I provide a semantic account of conductions and explain the interesting pragmatic properties of a certain type of conductions in terms of the rhetorical dimension of the speech-act of arguing.

I defend a conception of Logic as normative for the sort of activities in which inferences super-vene, namely, reasoning and arguing. Toulmin’s criticism of formal logic will be our framework to shape the idea that in order to make sense of Logic as normative, we should con-ceive it as a discipline devoted to the layout of arguments, understood as the representations of the semantic, truth relevant, properties of the inferences that we make in arguing and reason-ing.

I propose a characterization of the dialectical dimension of argumentation by considering the activity of arguing as involving a “second order intersubjectivity”. I argue that argumentative communication enables this kind of intersubjectivity as a matter of the recursive nature of acts of arguing—both as justificatory and as persuasive devices. Calling attention to this feature is a way to underline that argumentative discourses represent the explicit part of a dynamic activity, “a mechanism of rational validation”, as Rescher showed, which is a (...) practice that presupposes the possibility of attaining objectivity. (shrink)

In “Deductivism as an Interpretative Strategy: A Reply to Groarke’s Defense of Reconstructive Deductivism,” David Godden distinguished two notions of deductivism. On the one hand, as an interpretative thesis, deductivism is the view that all-natural language argumentation must be interpreted as being deductive. On the other hand, as an evaluative thesis, deductivism is the view that for a conclusion to follow, it has to follow of necessity from the premises—or, in other words, that being a good inference implies being deductive. (...) The main goal of this paper is to show that evaluative deductivism is wrong. (shrink)

I distinguish four current strategies for integrating a rhetorical perspective within normative models for argumentation. Then I propose and argue for a fifth one by defending a conception of acts of arguing as having a rhetorical dimension that provides conditions for characterizing good argumentation, understood as argumentation that justifies a target-claim.