Building on a model first proposed by Gary Johnson, it is hypothesized that religious institutions demanding celibacy and other forms of altruism from members take advantage of human predispositions to favor genetic relatives in order to maintain and reinforce these desired behaviors in non-kin settings. This is accomplished through the institutionalization of practices to manipulate cues through which such relatives are regularly identified. These cues are association, phenotypic similarity, and the use of kin terms. In addition, the age of recruits (...) and their contact with actual kin are factors that relate to kinship recognition and that are similarly manipulated by institutions in order to reinforce altruistic behavior directed toward non-kin. Support for this set of predictions is presented from historical and ethnographic sources on monastic life in Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism, as well as Islamic dervish groups, the Essenes, Shakers, and others. Potential implications of the model for understanding the development of religious institutions are preliminarily explored by reviewing Joachim Wach's model of religious developmental stages as well as some of the literature on the relationship between individualism and communalism in incipient religious organizations, in light of the kin-cue manipulation model. (shrink)

In recent years, much has been learned about the strategic and organizational contexts of suicide attacks. However, motivations of the agents who commit them remain difficult to explain. In part this is because standard models of social learning as well as Durkheimian notions of sacrificial behavior are inadequate in the face of the actions of human bombers. In addition, the importance of organizational structures and practices in reinforcing commitment on the part of suicide recruits is an under-explored factor in many (...) analyses. This essay examines the potential applicability of evolutionary models of altruism to the understanding of commitment to suicide on the part of terrorist organizational recruits. Three evolutionary models of sacrificial behavior in nonhuman species and many categories of human behavior are explored cross-organizationally: reciprocity, inclusive fitness theory, and induced altruism. Reciprocal altruism is unlikely to be a major motivator in suicide attacks because the costs exhibited by attackers are too high to be adequately compensated. However, the role of evolved self-deception in perceptions of personal death, and thus of rewards in the afterlife, is potentially illuminating. Inclusive fitness theory can help explain the motivations of attackers because rewards to kin often are offered by organizations to suicide recruits. However, suicide bombers also often act out of revenge for the loss of or injury to relatives, and inclusive fitness theory generally, as well as more specific theoretical models of retaliatory aggression, may not adequately account for the bombers' actions. Predictions from induced altruism theory appear to be well supported because suicide terror organizations tend to be tightly structured around practices intended to maintain and reinforce commitment though the manipulation of kinship-recognition cues. (shrink)

Evolutionists studying human cooperation disagree about how to best explain it. One view is that humans are predisposed to engage in costly cooperation and punishment of free-riders as a result of culture/gene coevolution via group selection. Alternatively, some researchers argue that context-specific cognitive mechanisms associated with traditional neo-Darwinian self- and kin-maximization models sufficiently explain all aspects of human cooperation and punishment. There has been a great deal of research testing predictions derived from both positions; still, researchers generally agree that more (...) naturalistic data are needed to complement mathematical modeling and laboratory and field experiments. Most of these data have been obtained from small-scale forager and other societies, but modern intentional communities offer another productive source of information. This exploratory study describes context-specific patterns of punishment in 46 American intentional communities that cast doubt on the prediction that people are predisposed to punish free-riders in naturalistic interactions. (shrink)

Atran & Norenzayan (A&N) fail to address several problems with commitment theory as it relates to non-kin altruism in religious contexts. They (1) provide little support for the contention that religious sacrifices function as signals, (2) do not distinguish between religious specialists and lay believers, and (3) conflate definitions of cooperation and sacrifice.

Evolutionarily-minded scholars working on the most puzzling aspects of human cooperation-one-shot, anonymous interactions among non-kin where reputational information is not available-can be roughly divided into two camps. In the first, researchers argue for the existence of evolved capacities for genuinely altruistic human cooperation, and in their models emphasize the role of intergroup competition and selection, as well as group norms and markers of membership that reduce intragroup variability. Researchers in the second camp explain cooperation in terms of individual-level decision-making facilitated (...) by evolved cognitive mechanisms associated with well-established self- and kin-maximization models, as well as by ‘misfires’ that may result from these mechanisms interacting with novel environments. This essay argues that the manner in which culture provides information that de-anonymizes intragroup strangers suggests that neither evolved capacities for genuine altruism nor widespread misfires are necessary to account for anonymous, one-shot cooperation. (shrink)

Explores the complexity of truth and the ways that people take advantage of this complexity to use and abuse neutral truths to suit their own agendas in politics, business, the media, and everyday life. -- Provided by publisher.

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 65 Heft: 2 Seiten: 337-348.

Detecting intrusions in large networks is a highly demanding task. In order to reduce the computation demand of analysing every single packet travelling along one of such networks, some years ago flows were proposed as a way of summarizing traffic information. Very few research works have addressed intrusion detection in flows from a visualizations perspective. In order to bridge this gap, the present paper proposes the application of a novel projection method (Beta Hebbian Learning) under this framework. With the aim (...) to validate this method, 8 traffic segments, containing many flows, have been analysed by means of this projection method. The promising results obtained for these segments, extracted from the University of Twente dataset, validate the proposed application. (shrink)

La resistencia de la memoria. Un recorrido por el proyecto: Se rebelan, se revelan, de Estudio Biopus.

En este artículo se examina la influencia que ejerce la violencia en la construcción del Estado. Asimismo, desde la perspectiva de Hannah Arendt, se analiza la política como espacio donde se afirma y protege la vida a través de la acción política y las normas jurídicas. Se trata de razonar el dualismo política-violencia, y violencia-normas jurídicas. En este sentido, la pregunta que da origen al presente escrito se enuncia en los siguientes términos: ¿cómo es posible reafirmar la vida como voluntad (...) a través de la política y cuidar de la existencia humana en un contexto en donde la violencia pareciera ser consustancial a la forma de estado y al medio por el cual se construye la comunidad política? Un examen riguroso de las circunstancian que fuerzan el análisis de este interrogante conduce necesariamente a sostener que: solo se podrá afirmar la vida a través del ejercicio de la política, cuando la sociedad política sea concebida como una construcción institucional cuya meta principal sea combinar la libertad de los individuos y las colectividades con la unidad de las normas jurídicas. (shrink)

This book describes in detail the relationship between symbolic representations of knowledge and abstract states of knowledge, exploring along the way the foundations of knowledge, knowledge bases, knowledge-based systems, and knowledge representation and reasoning. The idea of knowledge bases lies at the heart of symbolic, or "traditional," artificial intelligence. A knowledge-based system decides how to act by running formal reasoning procedures over a body of explicitly represented knowledge—a knowledge base. The system is not programmed for specific tasks; rather, it is (...) told what it needs to know and expected to infer the rest. This book is about the logic of such knowledge bases. It describes in detail the relationship between symbolic representations of knowledge and abstract states of knowledge, exploring along the way the foundations of knowledge, knowledge bases, knowledge-based systems, and knowledge representation and reasoning. Assuming some familiarity with first-order predicate logic, the book offers a new mathematical model of knowledge that is general and expressive yet more workable in practice than previous models. The book presents a style of semantic argument and formal analysis that would be cumbersome or completely impractical with other approaches. It also shows how to treat a knowledge base as an abstract data type, completely specified in an abstract way by the knowledge-level operations defined over it. (shrink)

A Computable Universe is a collection of papers discussing computation in nature and the nature of computation, a compilation of the views of the pioneers in the contemporary area of intellectual inquiry focused on computational and informational theories of the world. This volume is the definitive source of informational/computational views of the world, and of cutting-edge models of the universe, both digital and quantum, discussed from a philosophical perspective as well as in the greatest technical detail. The book discusses the (...) foundations of computation in relation to nature. It focuses on two main questions: What is computation? How does nature compute? The contributors are world-renowned experts who have helped shape a cutting-edge computational understanding of the universe. They discuss computation in the world from a variety of perspectives, ranging from foundational concepts to pragmatic models to ontological conceptions and their philosophical implications. The volume provides a state-of-the-art collection of technical papers and non-technical essays representing a field that takes information and computation to be key to understanding and explaining the basic structure underpinning physical reality. It also includes a new edition of Konrad Zuse's "Calculating Space", and a panel discussion transcription on the topic, featuring worldwide experts (including a Nobel prize) in quantum mechanics, physics, cognition, computation and algorithmic complexity.A Computable Universe is a collection of papers discussing computation in nature and the nature of computation, a compilation of the views of the pioneers in the contemporary area of intellectual inquiry focused on computational and informational theories of the world. This volume is the definitive source of informational/computational views of the world, and of cutting-edge models of the universe, both digital and quantum, discussed from a philosophical perspective as well as in the greatest technical detail. The book discusses the foundations of computation in relation to nature. It focuses on two main questions: What is computation? How does nature compute? The contributors are world-renowned experts who have helped shape a cutting-edge computational understanding of the universe. They discuss computation in the world from a variety of perspectives, ranging from foundational concepts to pragmatic models to ontological conceptions and their philosophical implications. The volume provides a state-of-the-art collection of technical papers and non-technical essays representing a field that takes information and computation to be key to understanding and explaining the basic structure underpinning physical reality. It also includes a new edition of Konrad Zuse's "Calculating Space", and a panel discussion transcription on the topic, featuring worldwide experts (including a Nobel prize) in quantum mechanics, physics, cognition, computation and algorithmic complexity. (shrink)

En este trabajo se estudia la concepción escotista del universal entendido como universallógico y accidente intencional, cuya función cognitiva se entiende como modo de aprehensión oconcepción de la esencia o naturaleza. El artículo se concentra en analizar las cuestiones 4 y 5 del comentario de Duns Escoto a la Isagoge. Se subraya la relación de los análisis escotistas con lateoría aviceniana del triple estatuto de la esencia sobre el telón de fondo de la teoría boeciana de los universales. Al final (...) del artículo se presenta brevemente el momento ontológico del universal tal comose puede ver en la teoría de la naturaleza común. (shrink)

This article discusses Jacques Rancière's theory of literature as centred on an agonistic concept of literature, where literature is seen as a ‘positive contradiction’. This positive contradiction arises from what Rancière sees as literature's origins in the ‘errant letter’, which is conceived as an intrinsically democratic principle that, for Rancière, also results in the tendency of literature to incarnate the word and to propose an extra-textual truth which would signal the end of literature as democratic errancy. Asking whether it is (...) possible to identify Rancière as ‘taking sides’ in what he sets up as a struggle, the article analyses three examples of Rancière's engagement with literary texts in which he demonstrates the necessity for literature to maintain its constitutive contradiction, resulting in a conception of literature as an agonistic field and as a self-critical mode of writing. (shrink)

Inter-organizational models are both a well-documented phenomena and a well-established domain in management and business ethics. Those models rest on collaborative capabilities. However, mainstream theories and practices aimed at developing these capabilities are based on a narrow set of assumptions and ethical principles about human nature and relationships, which constrain the very development of capabilities sought by them. This article presents an Aristotelic–Thomistic approach to collaborative entrepreneurship within and across communities of firms operating in complementary markets. Adopting a scholarship of (...) integration approach and evaluating the six studies of communities of organizations, we contribute an inter-organizational network model based on the assumptions about human motives and choice offered by Aristotle. We argue that the sustainability of inter-organizational communities depends on how rich is the set of assumptions about human nature upon which they are based. In order to develop and sustain collaborative capabilities in inter-organizational communities, a set of assumptions that takes both self-regarding and others’-regarding preferences as ends is required to avoid any kind of instrumentalization of collaboration, which is an end in itself. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. (shrink)

El propósito de este escrito es reflexionar sobre el significado y la vigencia de la filosofíade la liberación en el actual contexto de la globalización y en el marco de la crisis dela modernidad ilustrada. La razón, para el pensamiento postmoderno, es débil, complejay plural; la historia carece de desarrollo progresivo y lineal. Sin embargo, estacrítica posmoderna parece dejarnos desprovistos de criterios para adelantar una acciónresponsable y solidaria de cara precisamente a los grandes desafíos globales delpresente. Ante estas insuficiencias posmodernas, (...) parece recuperable de la modernidadsu crítica racional a lo existente y la transformación de la praxis desde y a través de loracionalmente sabido. En el fondo, sigue abierta la posibilidad de una filosofía críticay liberadora. Y es aquí donde el pensamiento de Ignacio Ellacuría ofrece aportes a laaltura de los requerimientos teóricos y prácticos de hoy, fundamentalmente los tressiguientes: su visión estructural de la totalidad, su concepción de la historicidad de larealidad y su perspectiva de la relación teoría-praxis. (shrink)

This paper presents the notion of transfinite developed by García Bacca in his «Infinito, transfinito, finito». This concept is a reaction to the Aristotelian concepts of «nature» and «finite», making man a historical being. García Bacca argues that man has lost his nature and his finitude through technology. So, strictly speaking, is not finite, nor infinite.

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In seinen moralphilosophischen Schriften hat Kant immer wieder die Selbsttötung als Beispiel für die Erläuterung ethischer Grundsätze gewählt. Daraus darf man schließen, daß er dem moralischen Problem des Suizids große Bedeutung beimaß. Dennoch liegt bis heute keine vollständige Darstellung seiner Argumente gegen die Erlaubtheit der Selbstvernichtung vor. Der vorliegende Aufsatz beabsichtigt, diese Lücke zu schließen. Zwar wird auch in der Literatur über Kants Ethik gelegentlich sein Suizidverbot behandelt, dabei überwiegt aber, wie mir scheint, das Interesse an der Interpretation des kategorischen (...) Imperativs die Aufmerksamkeit für die größeren Zusammenhänge, in die Kants Ablehnung der Selbsttötung zu stellen ist. Sicherlich kommt dem kategorischen Imperativ als einem Kernstück der Kantschen Moralphilosophie eine große Bedeutung zu; jedoch zwingt gerade die Analyse des Suizidverbots dazu, auch andere Probleme in Betracht zu ziehen. Sie führt nämlich erstens auf die wichtige Frage nach dem Verhältnis von Vernunft und Leben und zweitens auf Überlegungen zum Verhältnis von Natürlichkeit und Freiheit des Menschen, also direkt in die Anthropologie. (shrink)

En este trabajo se estudia la primera concepción escotista sobre las categorías y sobre el objeto del tratado aristotélico de las Categorías. El artículo se concentra sobre las tres primeras cuestiones del comentario de Duns Escoto al texto de Aristóteles. Una de las novedades del texto es su tematización del concepto mismo de categoría, entendido como concepto lógico y como objeto propio del tratado aristotélico. Esta aproximación permite a Escoto distinguir el orden lógico y el orden metafísico en el tratamiento (...) de las categorías. En el primero, la lógica se ocupa del concepto de categoría y, en el segundo, la metafísica se ocupa de la diversidad categorial y de su referencia a la categoría de la substancia. (shrink)

The philosophy of history of 1804 and 1805 enables Fichte to place his natural right, developed previously at Jena, against a diachronic background. This means that Fichte does not reason merely synchronically from a timeless conception of society and state. From a synchronic viewpoint, Fichte cannot solve the problem of the control of political power because he has to draw on the assumption of a virtuous ephorate. This assumption is not consistent with the Fichtean ideal of a philosophy of right (...) completely independent from moral considerations. Thus, the control of government is possible only if at least a group of citizens can go beyond the mere rational egoism. This new temporal conception of the state leads Fichte to think that the problems of consistency of his theory of Jena are unavoidable, given that a society integrated by egoist individuals cannot be sustained. However, his later philosophy of history enables Fichte to state the inexorable annihilation of this type of community and gives place to an ensuing epoch, when citizens are not self-interested anymore. (shrink)

In Aristotelian logic, categorical propositions are divided in Universal Affirmative, Universal Negative, Particular Affirmative and Particular Negative. Possible relations between two of the mentioned type of propositions are encoded in the square of opposition. The square expresses the essential properties of monadic first order quantification which, in an algebraic approach, may be represented taking into account monadic Boolean algebras. More precisely, quantifiers are considered as modal operators acting on a Boolean algebra and the square of opposition is represented by relations (...) between certain terms of the language in which the algebraic structure is formulated. This representation is sometimes called the modal square of opposition. Several generalizations of the monadic first order logic can be obtained by changing the underlying Boolean structure by another one giving rise to new possible interpretations of the square. (shrink)

Main description: Verbreitet ist die Auffassung, dass es vernünftig ist, moralisch zu handeln, weil es unvernünftig ist, gegen moralische Normen zu verstoßen. Gegen diese Ansicht vertritt der Autor die These, dass es immer vernünftigerweise erlaubt ist, moralisch zu handeln, dass aber im Falle eines Konflikts zwischen Klugheitsgründen und moralischen Normen sowohl die moralische als auch die unmoralische Handlungsweise vernünftigerweise erlaubt sind.

This article seeks to interrogate the moment of queer theory's ‘birth’ out of French influences, or what is designated by the umbrella term ‘French Theory’. It specifically points to the operations of transformation and dislocation, subversion and perversion of French theoretical influences at work in two distinctive ‘pairings’ of French ‘progenitor’ and American queer ‘offspring’: Jacques Derrida with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Jacques Lacan with Judith Butler.

Amphioxus represents the most basally divergent group in chordates and probably the best extant proxy to the ancestor of all chordates including vertebrates. The amphioxus, or lancelets, are benthic filter feeding marine animals and their interest as a model in research is due to their phylogenetic position and their anatomical and genetic stasis throughout their evolutionary history. From the first works in the 19th century to the present day, enormous progress is made mainly favored by technical development at different levels, (...) from spawning induction and husbandry techniques, through techniques for studies of gene function or of the role of different signalling pathways through embryonic development, to functional genomics techniques. Together, these advances foretell a plethora of interesting developments in the world of research with the amphioxus model. Here, the author review the discovery and development of amphioxus as a superb model organism in evolutionary and evolutionary‐developmental biology. (shrink)