Uno de los problemas de justicia más importantes que existen en la actualidad es el que se refiere a los seres humanos con diversidad funcional. Desde hace algunas décadas el modelo social de la discapacidad ha insistido en que estos deben ser contemplados como sujetos activos de justicia y no como meros sujetos pasivos de beneficencia. La pretensión de este artículo es doble: por un lado, aplicando la teoría de la justicia como reconocimiento de A. Honneth, indagamos en qué consiste (...) dicho trato justo; por otro lado, siguiendo la ética cordial de Cortina, abordamos la cuestión del fundamento de los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad.One of the most important problems of justice existing today is centred on human beings with functional diversity. Through the last few decades the social model of disability has insisted on the fact that these individuals should be considered active subjects of justice and not only mere passive subjects of charity. The aim of this article is twofold: on the one hand, applying the theory of justice as recognition by Honneth, we investigate what such fair treatment consists of; on the other hand, following the cordial ethics by Cortina, we deal with the question of the basis of the Rights of People with Dissabilities. (shrink)

En la primera parte de este trabajo analizo los rasgos que definen el paradigma del cuerpo desarrollado por Marx. Señalo también algunas reflexiones contemporáneas sobre el cuerpo que pueden ser entendidas en relación con dicho paradigma. En una segunda parte, analizo su caracterización económica del cuerpo a partir de la idea de necesidad, argumentando que en Marx se da una concepción normativa del cuerpo y estableciendo una relación con el principio de necesidad. Finalmente, me centro en algunas aportaciones de teóricos (...) actuales de la justicia que han reflexionado sobre la aplicación del principio de necesidad en el ámbito de la asistencia y el cuidado del cuerpo. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo, encuadrado en la perspectiva filosófica del entrecruzamiento entre los estudios sobre discapacidad (Disability studies) y los estudios filosófico-sociales sobre la ciencia y la tecnología (CTS), es abordar la cuestión de la accesibilidad universal, relacionada con el diseño para todas las personas. Pretendo llevar a cabo una reflexión ético-política sobre esta temática, en el contexto de las posibilidades abiertas por el desarrollo científico-tecnológico emergente y sus repercusiones en relación a los colectivos de personas con diferentes tipos (...) de diversidad funcional. (shrink)

En este artículo hacemos un breve recorrido por algunas de las ideas fundamentales de la ética del diálogo (K.O. Apel, J. Habermas y A. Cortina) considerando que constituye un enfoque adecuado para afrontar las obligaciones de justicia con la totalidad de las personas con diversidad funcional. Nos basamos en que: a) la ética del diálogo mantiene el universalismo moral y político defendido por Kant, transformando su noción normativa de persona a partir de la idea de reconocimiento propuesta por Hegel, lo (...) que permite sostener la perspectiva igualitaria de los derechos de todos; b) En su evolución, recoge las críticas planteadas desde el feminismo y el neoaristotelismo (Benhabib, Young, Nussbaum, MacIntyre) y concibe al sujeto moral como un ser corporal, lo que implica una concepción de la autonomía moral y política abierta a la vulnerabilidad corporal.In this article we make a short exposure of some fundamental ideas of the ethics of dialogue (KO Apel, J. Habermas and A. Cortina) considering that it constitutes an adequate approach to face the obligations of justice with all the people with functional diversity. We base ourselves on the fact that a) the ethics of dialogue maintains the moral and political universalism defended by Kant, transforming his normative notion of person from the idea of recognition proposed by Hegel, which allows to maintain the egalitarian perspective of the rights of all; B) In its evolution, it takes the criticisms raised from feminism and neoaristotelism (Benhabib, Young, Nussbaum, MacIntyre) and conceives the moral subject as a corporeal being, this implies a conception of moral and political autonomy open to the body vulnerability. (shrink)

To assess—from a qualitative perspective—the perceptions and attitudes of Spanish rehabilitation professionals (e.g. rehabilitation doctors, speech therapists, physical therapists) about Brain–Computer Interface (BCI) technology. A qualitative, exploratory and descriptive study was carried out by means of interviews and analysis of textual content with mixed generation of categories and segmentation into frequency of topics. We present the results of three in-depth interviews that were conducted with Spanish speaking individuals who had previously completed a survey as part of a larger, 3-country/language, survey (...) on BCI perceptions. 11 out of 15 of these Spanish respondents (survey) either strongly or somewhat accept the use of BCI in rehabilitation therapy. However, the results of our three in-depth interviews show how, due to a strong inertia of attitudes and perceptions about BCI technology, most professionals feel reluctant to use BCI technology in their daily practice (interview). (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the identity of the teacher as a dialectical being that is in permanent construction, to identify some obstacles teachers might find in this process while operating in an institutional framework, and the effects these could have upon the teacher and the goals she pursues with her students. By ruling out the idea of identity as an autonomous self that can be constructed with no ties with its context, we propose that identity is (...) dialogical and is built through the relationships we establish with others. This fact situates the relationship between the student and the teacher at the center of pedagogical practices and allows us to establish the ideas of teacher presence and integrity as central elements for the moral development of students. In this context, we identify the excessive institutionalization of the role of the teacher as a cause for the reduction of identity and a defensive retreat to the possible outcomes of being judged by strictly formal criteria, wh... (shrink)

The paper gives an overview of primate research and the economic-ethical 'lessons' we can derive from it. In particular, it examines the complex, multi-faceted and partially conflicting nature of (non-) human primates. Our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, apparently walk on two legs: a selfish and a groupish leg. Given evolutionary continuity and gradualism between monkeys, apes and humans, human primates seem to be bipolar apes as well. They, too, tend to display a dual structure: there seems to (...) be a pro-social and a self-interested side to our species and a bipolar tension seems to exist between competition and cooperation respectively between self-interest and the common good. We are apparently at the same time Homines oeconomici and Homines culturali. Our inner ape tries to combine self-interested and common good motives. Based on de Waal's Russian doll model, the essay investigates the evolutionary origins of morality and 'eusociality'. With the help of selected case studies stemming from behavioural sciences/economics, the paper illustrates examples of empathy, altruism, reciprocal fairness, pro-social and other-regarding preferences, inequity aversion and altruistic punishment in (non-)human primates. Beside this selfless and groupish side, the paper also reflects on the self-interest and egoistic nature of (non-)human primates and the behavioural and cognitive differences between monkeys, apes and humans. (shrink)

En el presente artículo nos proponemos reconocer y analizar el uso de la técnica de la ring-composition o estructura anular en los cantos corales de Antígona de Sófocles en relación con los elementos de los cultos eleusino y dionisíaco que atraviesan la obra. Nuestra hipótesis consiste en que, lejos de ser un factor de mera articulación formal, la ring-composition cumple con una función dramática pues cohesiona, con su juego de paralelismos, las alusiones a los misterios con el fin de presentar (...) la acción como un ritual iniciático fallido. En esta primera parte trataremos el marco general de análisis y el canto de entrada del coro. (shrink)

This is the first critical edition and study of a unique and important Muslim polemic against Christians and Jews. The Book of Disputation was written in Arabic by a Mudejar (subject Muslim living under Christian rule in late medieval Iberia) and offers new insight into the cultural and intellectual life of this Muslim minority. The text advances arguments drawn from natural philosophy-largely from Aristotle and Averroes-along with more traditional revealed sources such as the Qur'an and the Bible. Mudejar communities suffered (...) a diminution of religious and political intelligentsia over time. This text, however, highlights the author's particular conception of the world as the creation of God in his defense of Islam, demonstrates the vitality of intellectual life among Muslims in medieval Christian Iberia, and documents the continued cultivation of natural philosophy within these Muslim communities. (shrink)

El corpus de manuscritos árabes de los musulmanes de los territorios cristianos de la península ibérica medieval y temprano-moderna (mudéjares y moriscos) ha sido generalmente estudiado en menor medida que sus escritos en romance en caracteres latinos o árabes (aljamiado). Este artículo discute los nuevos datos en el códice misceláneo Árabe 1668 (El Escorial), copiado en 928 (=1522) probablemente por musulmanes en los territorios cristianos. MS Escorial Árabe 1668 no es totalmente desconocido por los estudiosos, pero han sido pocos los (...) intentos por investigar sus extraordinarios contenidos, que hasta ahora han permanecido en gran medida sin identificar. Destacable es la copia en árabe de la historia universal de ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb (s. IX), el Kitāb al-Taʾrīkh [La historia], considerada como el ejemplar más antiguo de literatura árabe en al-Andalus y que se preserva solamente en un único manuscrito árabe en Oxford. Además, MS Escorial Árabe 1668 contiene un número importante de narrativas adaptadas en aljamiado que ya se conocían, pero de las cuales aún no se habían identificado los originales árabes en circulación entre los musulmanes peninsulares. Estos materiales amplían los datos ya existentes de la producción tardía de manuscritos árabes de los musulmanes peninsulares y la preservación dentro de sus comunidades de originales provenientes de al-Andalus, el norte de África y el oriente islámico, algunos de los cuales contienen miniaturas. En el MS Escorial Árabe 1668 también encontramos un sermón árabe-Aljamiado (waʿẓ) que arroja luz sobre las reuniones de musulmanes que a veces se celebraron de forma clandestina debido a las crecientes restricciones impuestas a sus comunidades por los cristianos. (shrink)

Digital transformation has allowed to offer additional services - which complement the main product - both in terms of use, emotional and relationship terms. Focused on a traditionally rational insurance customer offering a value that explores the customer's emotions, from co-creating with the user, allows brand differentiation. Given this idea, this document has three purposes. First, identify the role of expectations and the perceived quality of the customer's digital experience. Secondly, to identify the relationship between experience and satisfaction gained in (...) private insurance web areas. Third, identify the most valued digital attributes by the user. A sample of 4,178 customers registered was analyzed using the partial least squares technique. The model is highly predictive to customer experience and evidence the important relationship between the WOW effect and satisfaction, as well as the weak but doble role that expectations play on insurance digital self-service. The model demonstrates that expectations are only relevant before web consumption, because during the process it is the perceived digital quality, in particular the usefulness, information and technology, that offer a true customer experience. This article offers high academic value because it more accurately defines the determinants of the digital insurance customer experience and its effect on customer satisfaction in digital services. While expectations influence attitude before service, this research reveals that perceived digital quality is what delivers a true customer experience. Strategically, the implications are immediate in the field of business as it shows the importance of co-creation in digital design, not only because of the significant savings in implementation costs but also because it guarantees a greater experience, essential in the loyalty of its customers. This ensures the sustainable growth of the company. (shrink)

¿Hay requisitos epistemológicos para la posesión de conceptos? Aunque nuestra intuición apunta claramente a una relación muy estrecha entre condiciones de posesión de conceptos y ciertos tipos de conocimiento, posiciones naturalistas en filosofía —como la defendida por Jerry Fodor— traen consigo una visión según la cual los conceptos que un sujeto posee son independientes metafísica y conceptualmente de las capacidades epistémicas de dicho sujeto. En este artículo argumentaré que, tal y como el análisis del dogmatismo de Pryor puede mostrar, las (...) teorías de la justificación epistémica proporcionan, desde un punto de vista general, apoyo independiente a la idea intuitiva de requisitos epistemológicos para la posesión de conceptos. Por este motivo, las aproximaciones naturalistas a los conceptos harían bien en evitar condiciones de posesión que carezcan de compromisos epistemológicos. (shrink)

This paper discusses the logical space of alternative conceptual engineering projects, with a specific focus on (1) the processes, (2) the targets and goals, and (3) the methods of such projects. We present an overview of how these three aspects interact in the contemporary literature and discuss those alternative projects that have yet to be explored based on our suggested typology. We show how choices about each element in a conceptual engineering project constrain the possibilities for the others, thereby giving (...) rise to distinct groupings of possible projects under the banner of conceptual engineering. We conclude with a critical reflection on the potential ethical issues that arise as a result of effectively putting conceptual engineering into practice. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering means to provide a method to assess and improve our concepts working as cognitive devices. But conceptual engineering still lacks an account of what concepts are (as cognitive devices) and of what engineering is (in the case of cognition). And without such prior understanding of its subject matter, or so it is claimed here, conceptual engineering is bound to remain useless, merely operating as a piecemeal approach, with no overall grip on its target domain. The purpose of this (...) programmatic paper is to overcome this knowledge gap by providing some guidelines for developing the theories of concepts and of cognition that will ground the systematic unified framework needed to effectively implement conceptual engineering as a widely applicable method for the cognitive optimization of our conceptual devices. (shrink)

En el campo de la filosofía de la religión se destaca el libro Creencia y racionalidad (Romerales, 1992), por su calidad, originalidad y en especial por sus aportaciones como las de John Hick, Anthony Flew, Alvin Plantinga, o Richard Swinburne. El mencionado libro recoge algunos de los artículos más destacados de estos y otros autores en torno a la racionalidad de las creencias religiosas. Aparecen tres posiciones que se encuentran expuestas mediante parábolas. Aquí Karl Popper somete una teoría a una (...) serie de refutaciones con el fin de desmentirla, y así saber que tan confiable y científica resulta ser. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our concepts. However, little has been written about how best to conceive of concepts for the purposes of conceptual engineering. In this paper, I aim to fill this foundational gap, proceeding in three main steps: First, I propose a methodological framework for evaluating the conduciveness of a given concept of concept for conceptual engineering. Then, I develop a typology that contrasts two competing concepts of concept that can be used in conceptual (...) engineering — namely, the philosophical and psychological ones. Finally, I evaluate these two concepts of concept using the proposed methodological framework and I show that, when it comes to making conceptual engineering an actionable method, the psychological concept of concept outclasses its philosophical counterpart on all counts. This provides a baseline from which the concept of concept can be further improved for the purposes of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

El autor propone una re/invención de la ciudadanía desde la educación popular. Señala que en estos tiempos la ciudadanía es el nuevo centro político y social, educativo, cultural y económico, pero que predomina una mirada desde un autoritarismo tecnocrático o de una perspectiva tecnocrática, más o menos mercantilista. El autor contrapone a esto una idea de comunidad libre basada en la reciprocidad de las relaciones no dinerarias, hacia la que se puede desde una práctica educativa liberadora.

In this study, we shall assess the claim concerning the negative effect of sin and positive effect of grace on proper function of reason and cognitive faculties through the lens of the Calvinist tradition and the Reformed Epistemology. Although the noetic effect of sin has already been discussed probably by tracing the role of the non-epistemic factors in acquiring knowledge in general, approaching the issue by focusing on ‘scientific knowledge’ is novel and, to the best of my knowledge, has not (...) been attempted before. This study will be developed by means of an evaluation of Stephen Moroney’s project. Through a critical survey of the views of a number of prominent Christian theologian, he tries to develop a model for the cognitive influence of sin. In our review of his work from the canons of Critical Rationalism, we shall try to show that Moroney's conclusions are inconsistent with his explanation of the effect of sin on the natural sciences. Our main arguments are as follows: what Moroney describes as scientific knowledge from a Christian point of view is more a technological awareness rather than scientific knowledge proper. Furthermore, it is the scientist who is affected by sin and not his scientific claim. (shrink)

Plural definite descriptions across many languages display two well-known properties. First, they can give rise to so-called non-maximal readings, in the sense that they ‘allow for exceptions’. Second, while they tend to have a quasi-universal quantificational force in affirmative sentences, they tend to be interpreted existentially in the scope of negation. Building on previous works, we offer a theory in which sentences containing plural definite expressions trigger a family of possible interpretations, and where general principles of language use account for (...) their interpretation in various contexts and syntactic environments. Our theory solves a number of problems that these previous works encounter, and has broader empirical coverage in that it offers a precise analysis for sentences that display complex interactions between plural definites, quantifiers and bound variables, as well as for cases involving non-distributive predicates. The resulting proposal is briefly compared with an alternative proposal by Križ, which has similar coverage but is based on a very different architecture and sometimes makes subtly different predictions. (shrink)

William Molyneux was born in Dublin, studied in Trinity College Dublin, and was a founding member of the Dublin Philosophical Society (DPS), Ireland’s counterpart to the Royal Society in London. He was a central figure in the Irish intellectual milieu during the Early Modern period and – along with George Berkeley and Edmund Burke – is one of the best-known thinkers to have come out of that context and out of Irish thought more generally. In 1688, when Molyneux wrote the (...) letter to Locke in which he posed the now famous question about a man born blind made to see, he was an active member of the DPS and was on familiar terms with several other key figures in Irish philosophy at the time. For the most part, Irish thinkers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries answered “no” to Molyneux’s question of whether a blind man made to see could distinguish, by sight alone, between a cube and a sphere. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our concepts. Some have recently claimed that the implementation of such method in the form of ameliorative projects is truth-driven and should thus be epistemically constrained, ultimately at least (Simion 2018; cf. Podosky 2018). This paper challenges that claim on the assumption of a social constructionist analysis of ideologies, and provides an alternative, pragmatic and cognitive framework for determining the legitimacy of ameliorative conceptual projects overall. The upshot is that one should (...) not ameliorate for the sake of truth or knowledge, in the case of ideologies—at least, not primarily. (shrink)

The debate surrounding ‘big tech’ and antitrust has dominated public policy discourses over the past few years in many parts of the world. Noteworthy is that several countries and regions, including China, the European Union, and the United States, have launched investigations into the allegedly anticompetitive and exclusionary business practices of companies such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google and their Chinese counterparts, Alibaba and Tencent. This paper builds on the renewed interest in the topic and discusses in detail – (...) and from an ordoliberal perspective – the key characteristics of the digital economy, the business conduct of tech platforms, and the corresponding antitrust concerns, as well as possible reform steps which could help to strengthen modern-day competition law and policy (and antitrust enforcement). (shrink)

Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby (2024) argues that “[i]t is time for bioethics to end talk about personhood” (11). The author calls on the field to ask different kinds of normative questions about the mo...

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our representational devices. On its ‘broad-spectrum’ version, it is expected to be appropriately applicable to any of our representation-involving cognitive activities, with major consequences for our whole cognitive life. This paper is about the theoretical foundations of conceptual engineering thus characterised. With a view to ensuring the actionability of conceptual engineering as a broad-spectrum method, it addresses the issue of how best to construe the subject matter of conceptual engineering and successively (...) defends the theses that conceptual engineering should be: (i) About concepts, (ii) psychologically theorised, (iii) as multiply realised functional kinds. Thereby, I claim to theoretically secure and justify the maximum scope, flexibility, and impact for the method of conceptual engineering on our representational devices in our whole cognitive life—in other words, a broad-spectrum version of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

The paper presents a renewed Habermasian view on transnational multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) and assesses the institutional characteristics of the Equator Principles Association (EPA) from a deliberative democracy perspective. Habermas’ work has been widely adopted in the academic literature on the political responsibilities of (multinational) corporations (i.e., political corporate social responsibility), and also in assessing the democratic qualities of MSIs. Commentators, however, have noted that Habermas’ approach relies very much on ‘nation-state democracy’ and may not be applicable to democracy in MSIs—in (...) which nation-states are virtually absent. We argue that Habermas’ detailed conceptualization of the institutionalization of deliberative democracy can be applied to transnational MSIs if these initiatives can be said to have their own ‘dèmoi’ that can be represented in associational decision-making. Therefore, we develop a definition of the dèmos of an MSI based on the notion of collective agency. Subsequently, we explain how Habermas’ approach to democracy can be applied to MSIs and show that it has more to offer than hitherto has been uncovered. Our illustrative analysis of the EPA confirms the criticisms regarding this MSI which have recently been articulated by researchers and practitioners, but also yields new findings and possible avenues for the further development of the EPA: That is, although our assessment suggests that the EPA in its current state is still far from being a democratic MSI, the possibility of a sensible analysis of its democratic character indicates that transnational MSIs can, in principle, help to fill governance gaps in a democratic way. (shrink)

In the light of several ongoing antitrust investigations in the E.U. and the U.S., the following research paper analyzes whether ‘big tech’ – same as the big banks – need special regulatory (and economic -political) attention and if so, how an updated form of regulatory policy for the digital era could look like. It does so by utilizing – and reviving – the normative and business -ethical ideals of German ‘neoliberalism’, also known as (classical) ordoliberalism. Especially, Walter Eucken’s work has (...) the potential to inform and enrich the current debate concerning the regulation of big tech. The main goal of the paper is to outline a potentially new regulatory framework – one that combines (and revises) Eucken’s ordoliberalism with the competition policy of the European Union. (shrink)

Presupposition, vagueness, and oddness can lead to some sentences failing to have a clear truth value. The homogeneity property of plural predication with definite descriptions may also create truth-value gaps: The books are written in Dutch is true if all relevant books are in Dutch, false if none of them are, and neither true nor false if, say, half of the books are written in Dutch. We study the projection property of homogeneity by deploying methods of general interest to identify (...) truth-value gaps. Method A consists in collecting both truth judgments and, independently, falsity judgments. The second method, employed in experiment series B and C, is based on one-shot ternary judgments: completely true vs. completely false vs. neither. After a calibration of these methods, we use them to demonstrate that homogeneity projects out of negation, the scope of universal sentences and the scope of non-monotonic quantifiers such as exactly two, to some extent. We assess our results in light of different theoretical approaches to homogeneity—approaches based on presuppositions, scalar implicatures, and something like supervaluations, respectively. We identify free parameters in these theories and assess various variants of them based on our results. Our experimental paradigms may be of broader significance insofar as they can be applied to other phenomena which result in the failure of a sentence to have a definite truth value. (shrink)

The past few years have seen the opening of several antitrust investigations against some of the most dominant and powerful companies in the world—e.g., the U.S. Department of Justice, numerous states, and the Federal Trade Commission have sued Google, Facebook, and Amazon, and the E.U. has launched additional proceedings against Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. This paper looks at the latest trends and developments in the E.U. and the USA and analyzes the different regulatory approaches taken from a distinct business (...) ethics, that is, ordoliberal perspective. The paper aims to derive ordoliberal-inspired antitrust principles and apply them to the current antitrust proceedings and investigations, thereby assessing their strengths and weaknesses. It also aims at developing ordoliberal-inspired reform proposals which might help to strengthen and “harden” modern-day antitrust regimes. (shrink)

En este artículo se presenta una revisión de los diferentes enfoques de enseñanza de la ecuación de segundo grado para Educación Secundaria que se conjetura serían necesarios con el fin de aumentar la calidad del aprendizaje con el rigor y el tratamiento requerido, resaltando el valor de este tópico en sí mismo y de sus aplicaciones. Además, se aportan los resultados de un estudio descriptivo exploratorio realizado sobre los conocimientos de la ecuación de segundo grado de alumnado de Enseñanza Secundaria (...) para finalmente extraer la conclusión de que su conocimiento no quedó consolidado y se precisa hacer cambios. (shrink)

El campo de intereses de la Antropología es basto. Cubre todas las épocas, todos los espacios, incorporando en las últimas décadas estudios en sociedades complejas, antropología política, económica, estudios de parentesco, etc. Cubre tanto la dimensión biológica -estudio de hominización, clasificación de las variedades raciales- como la dimensión cultural. Pretende explicar tanto las diferencias como las semejanzas entre los distintos grupos humanos. Pretende dar, también, razón tanto de la continuidad como del cambio de las sociedades. Algunos quieren ver las variaciones (...) de las sociedades y las culturas como una evolución semejante a la de las especies. Cuando la biología pretende responder todas las preguntas que el hombre se formula desde una teoría general de los viviente se transforma en una ciencia universal, proponiendo que los comportamientos de los social pasen a lo biológico, algo que hay que criticar. (shrink)

La Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible promueve una sociedad inclusiva. Por eso debemos iniciar este proceso de convivencia intercultural desde la etapa de Educación Infantil. A través del eje central del cuento infantil y utilizando la música como recurso didáctico motivador, sustentaremos la acción docente en tres ejes de categorías: comunicación, imagen y sonido. Metodológicamente, se propone desde una perspectiva cualitativa y cuantitativa, a través del método etnográfico. El contexto se circunscribe a un centro educativo con un alumnado vulnerable. (...) Los resultados han permitido superar prejuicios y estereotipos y construir espacios de inclusión escolar. (shrink)

Today it is difficult to investigate how to deal with the interaction of heterogeneous societies living in common spaces of coexistence. Certainly, the intervention in this field of scientific knowledge requires to know and to be able to apply the concepts, models and paradigms of social relation that differ considerably according to the social context in which we are investigating. It is not the same, contextualizing this situation in the American society, or in the European, Asian or Latin American, to (...) give some examples. The education, through a new concept of sociocultural relations, specific to each context, will favour the establishment of ties to promote and encourage the coexistence of peoples. This coexistence in the social context of Latin America is based on the momentum generated by the Indigenous Peoples that have led to profound changes in educational paradigms and social relations. The new situation causes the interaction of such disparate concepts as intra- and transculturality through the incidence of identity in the context of globalization. (shrink)

Für Ali Paya verspricht die Zivilgesellschaft im Kontext muslimischer Gesellschaften an sich schon die Aussicht auf Distanzierung und Relativierung fundamentalistischer religiöser Standpunkte. Der Beitrag, der durch eine solche inner-islamische Wende weltweit geleistet werden könnte, liegt auf der Hand: muslimische Zivilgesellschaften könnten, wenn sie entstehen, genau in jenem Gespräch mit anderen Gesellschaften, auch säkularen, in der Lage sein, den Boden für eine volle und konstruktive Partizipation in der Gestaltung einer wünschenswerten künftigen globalen Zivilgesellschaft zu bereiten.

In modern times many militant atheist thinkers and activists have tried to promote the idea that religions, as well as religious ways of life, are one of the main, if not the main source of evil in the social arena. Some other non-believer scholars, while taking a respectful approach towards religions and religious people, maintaining that it is more rational for people and communities to adopt a non-religious outlook on life and become members of the community of non-believers. In this (...) paper, I do not take issue with the militant non-believers. The reason is that their approach to religion is so ideologically driven that it leaves not much room for proper rational discussions; it only invites some polemical replies. My aim here is, instead, to enter into a dialogue with those non-believer scholars who view religion in a measured and rational way. My intention is to critically assess the claims of this latter group of scholars and explain why, contrary to what they suggest, certain interpretations of religion, and in particular, the Islamic faith, can provide them with better alternatives than their atheist outlooks. The arguments of this paper are mostly in reply to the views expressed by Professor Shearmur in his paper on critical rationalism and religion. (shrink)

The criticisms levelled at the notion of truth by an anti-realist and an entity-realist are critically examined. The upshot of the discussion will be that whilst neither of the two anti-truth philosophers have succeeded in establishing their cases against truth, for entity-realists to reject the notion of truth is to throw out the baby with the bath water: entity-realism without the notion of correspondence truth will degenerate into anti-realism.