En el presente artículo exponemos las reflexiones desarrolladas por Kant y Hume sobre la filosofía (metafísica) de la causalidad, sin insistir en los aspectos problemáticos de aquella comparación. Más bien se señala que ambas filosofías desarrollan extremos diferentes de un único a priori. No tomaremos en cuenta, para empezar, la terminología comúnmente aceptada: la contraposición entre racionalismo y empirismo. Por el contrario, no dando por establecidas caracterizaciones generales, exponemos idea tras idea en su significado inmediato. No obstante, se verá que (...) la perspectiva de Hume se acerca a la perspectiva trascendental; y no intentaremos evaluar la filosofía de Kant desde el punto de vista psicológico de la causalidad, que supuestamente es decisivo en Hume. (shrink)

Die Poesie ist für Hegel die Endform der Kunst, in der die Kunst im Allgemeinen durch die Religion überwunden wird. Die These, dass die Poesie den anderen Künsten, d.h. der Architektur, der Skulptur, der Malerei und der Musik, überlegen ist, spricht von einer besonderen Hierarchisierung und Periodisierung, die Hegel zwischen die verschiedenen Kunstformen einführt. Das Kriterium für diese Hierarchisierung und Periodisierung ist offensichtlich das gleiche, nach dem Hegel die Kunst wiederum als eine der Religion und der Philosophie unterlegene Form betrachtet. (...) Dass die Poesie eine den anderen Künsten überlegene Kunstform ist, ist auf den ersten Blick eine überraschende These; und sie wirkt noch überraschender, wenn man sie durch die These ergänzt, dass die Kunst wiederum durch die Religion und die Philosophie als weitere Phasen eines linearen Prozesses aufgehoben wird. Um was für einen linearen Prozess handelt es sich hier eigentlich? Ein linearer Prozess wohin? Der Prozess, von dem Hegel in diesem Kontext spricht, ist ein Erkenntnisprozess, und zwar ein ziemlich spezifischer Erkenntnisprozess, nämlich Erkenntnis des Absoluten. Die Poesiegattung, die für Hegel die Endphase der Kunst ausmacht, ist das moderne Drama, in dessen Zentrum die Darstellung des Charakters und der Handlungen seiner verschiedenen Gestalten steht. Was hat das alles aber mit dem Absoluten zu tun? Was haben das Drama und seine Subgattungen - der Tragödie, der Komödie, der Satire usw. - mit Religion und Philosophie zu tun? Hegel verbindet außerdem die Kunst mit dem Absoluten als eine Erkenntnisform desselben. Aber in welchem Sinne ist die Kunst Erkenntnis? Ist Kunst nicht eher Darstellung und Ausdruck subjektiver Gefühle und Ideen - und eben nicht ein Erfassen der Realität, eben nicht eine Erkenntnisform der Wirklichkeit? Um den allgemeinen Sinn von Hegels Ästhetik und dadurch die besondere Rolle, die er darin der Poesie zuschreibt, verstehen zu können, ist es unentbehrlich, die oben gestellten Fragen zu beantworten. Ein theoretisches und exegetisches Modell zu liefern, das imstande ist, eine solche Aufgabe zu erfüllen, ist das Ziel dieses Beitrags. (shrink)

Resuelta evidente la desigualdad que ha develado la crisis sanitaria a nivel global. Sin embargo, no se trata de una fotografía actual, sino que ha puesto de manifiesto las falencias estructurales del sistema económico político global y, con ello, los devastadores efectos sobre el ser humano en todas sus dimensiones. Las consecuencias de la pandemia no son homogéneas dentro de una misma sociedad. Existen sectores que se han vuelto más ricos y otros más pobres. Las distancias en salud, bienestar y (...) dignidad de los individuos han aumentado y estamos ante una crisis de que esta injusticia se siga calcificando. El ser humano no sólo tiene que sobrevivir sino lograr la fundamental biopsicosocial realización tanto individual como colectiva. Por lo tanto, es imperativo, recuperar al Otro, al necesitado, dentro del discurso y, sobre todo, en la acción política, mirando al Otro como un fin en sí mismo, y no como un medio. Este es el origen y debe volver a ser la finalidad primordial de la política interna y externa de cada gobierno. Para ello, la reflexión filosófica nos proporciona nuevas perspectivas para reestructurar la realidad, cambiando, y mejorando, las escalas de valores y nuestro modo de actuar. La postpandemia nos plantea un único objetivo, el restaurar y reactivar las verdaderas relaciones intersubjetivas, rehumanizando al hombre, es decir, volviendo a la raíz de la esencia de toda sociedad, que no es otra que el ser humano mismo, como un fin en sí mismo. No se podrá lograr de manera inmediata, por lo tanto es fundamental recanalizar todas las herramientas e instituciones políticas hacia y para el bienestar del hombre, sin devastar su entorno, donde la reflexión filosófica es primordial para construir un nuevo mundo. (shrink)

La exterioridad de una cosa o de un estado de cosas configurados por el ser humano no implica para Hegel que esa cosa o ese estado de cosas deban ya por ello ser considerados como formas del espíritu objetivo, mientras que en contrapartida las formas del espíritu absoluto estarían entonces conformadas por contenidos ideales del pensamiento. La diferencia entre espíritu objetivo y espíritu absoluto no radica en la diferencia entre lo que el espíritu humano “hace” y lo que “conoce”. En (...) efecto, las obras de arte, es decir, configuraciones exteriores hechas por el ser humano utilizando, por ejemplo, piedras, metales, colores o sonidos, son para Hegel instancias del espíritu absoluto, mientras que, por su parte, realidades que en cuanto tales no son intuibles, como, por ejemplo, los contratos o la organización estatal, son instancias del espíritu objetivo. Que Hegel considere al arte como una forma del espíritu absoluto pone de manifiesto que, a sus ojos, las cosas que intuimos en el universo son, en rigor, productos del propio sujeto que las conoce. Espontáneamente el sujeto cognoscente piensa que lo que intuye es algo que recibe desde un mundo externo; sostener que el arte es una forma de conocimiento es justamente el modo como Hegel está expresando que lo intuido es en todos los casos un contenido producido por el propio espíritu, que es, por así decirlo, una obra de arte humano. En el arte mismo, sin embargo, la producción de la cosa intuible es insuficiente, dado que el material que el espíritu utiliza para sus configuraciones conserva en mayor o menor medida, según el caso, una determinidad propia que resiste a la determinidad que el espíritu busca conferirle. Por esta razón, las obras de arte se presentan inicialmente como productos arbitrarios. Recién cuando integra sus intuiciones en la actividad de comprensión -actividad cognitiva con la que opera la filosofía- y media con ello completamente la determinidad de los contenidos intuidos, el espíritu configura finalmente un universo que le es propio y específico. El objetivo de mi ponencia es reconstruir desde el marco teórico recién expuesto el sentido y función que Hegel le atribuye al arte en su teoría del conocimiento. (shrink)

We show that in the Maxwell–Lorentz theory of classical electrodynamics most initial values for fields and particles lead to an ill-defined dynamics, as they exhibit singularities or discontinuities along light-cones. This phenomenon suggests that the Maxwell equations and the Lorentz force law ought rather to be read as a system of delay differential equations, that is, differential equations that relate a function and its derivatives at different times. This mathematical reformulation, however, leads to physical and philosophical consequences for the ontological (...) status of the electromagnetic field. In particular, fields cannot be taken as independent degrees of freedom, which suggests that one should not add them to the ontology. (shrink)

It is proved that Vaught's conjecture is true for modules over an arbitrary countable hereditary noetherian prime ring.

It is proved that Vaught's conjecture is true for modules over an arbitrary countable serial ring. It follows from the structural result that every module with few models over a (countable) serial ring is ω-stable.

Gift of utterance: expanding vocabularies for truth -- Dainty as candle-lights: veiled truths and shadowy lies -- Philomela and the risk of history -- Truth: a muddy sprout -- No auditors in the courtroom of history.

According to the doctrine of Super-Humeanism, the world’s mosaic consists only of permanent matter points and changing spatial relations, while all the other entities and features figuring in scientific theories are nomological parameters, whose role is merely to build the best law system. In this paper, I develop an argument against Super-Humeanism by pointing out that it is vulnerable to and does not have the resources to solve the well-known problem of immanent comparisons. Firstly, I show that it cannot endorse (...) a fundamentalist solution à la Lewis, since its two pillars—a minimalist ontology and a best system account of lawhood—would generate, together, a tedious problem of internal coherence. Secondly, I consider anti-fundamentalist strategies, proposed within Humeanism, and find them inapplicable to the Super-Humean doctrine. The concern is that, since it is impossible to choose the best law system within Super-Humeanism, this doctrine may be charged with incoherence. (shrink)

Many arguments have been made against gene editing. This paper addresses the commonly invoked argument that gene editing violates human dignity and is ultimately a subversion of human nature. There are several drawbacks to this argument. Above all, the concept of what human dignity means is unclear. It is not possible to condemn a practice that violates human dignity if we do not know exactly what is being violated. The argument’s entire reasoning is thus undermined. Analyses of the arguments involved (...) in this discussion have often led to the conclusion that gene editing contravenes the principle of genetic identity (genetic immutability) thereby subverting a requisite of human dignity and ultimately threatening human nature. This paper refutes these arguments and shows that any opposition to gene editing cannot rely on the human dignity argument. (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)

This study explores the efficacy of a specific tool – the articulation of the ideal self – in job engagement, psychological well-being, and organizational citizenship behavior. We hypothesized that employees who can visualize their jobs as part of their ideal self – in particular how it helps in its development and realization – would feel higher levels of engagement and fulfillment in their lives, as well as engage in greater amounts of helping and voice OCB. A total of 239 full (...) time employees from five companies in Costa Rica filled out the ideal self questionnaire, the job engagement, and psychological well-being surveys, and were evaluated by their peers on task behavior and helping and voice OCB. Results of the SEM model showed that the ideal self was positively related to job engagement, psychological well-being and helping and voice. These findings contribute to the research on the impact and importance for organizations to help employees find meaningfulness in their work. (shrink)

Replicability is usually considered to be one of the cornerstones of science; however, the growing recognition of nonreplicable experiments and studies in scientific journals—a phenomenon that has been called ‘replicability crisis’—has spurred a debate on the meaning, function, and significance of replicability in science. Amid this discussion, it has become clear that replicability is not a monolithic concept; what is still controversial is exactly how the distinction between different kinds of replicability should be laid out terminologically and conceptually, and to (...) what extent it bears on the more general debate on the centrality of replicability in science. This paper’s goals are to clarify the different uses of the terms related to replicability and, more importantly, to conceptually specify the kinds of replicability and their respective epistemic functions. (shrink)

One dimension of cognitive success concerns getting it right: having many true beliefs and no false ones. Another dimension of cognitive success concerns using the right concepts. For example, using a concept of a person that systematically excludes people of certain demographics from its extension is a sort of cognitive deficiency. This view, if correct, tasks inquirers with critically examining the concepts they are using and perhaps replacing those concepts with new and better ones. This task is often referred to (...) as “conceptual engineering”. However, so far it is unclear what exactly happens in cases of conceptual engineering. How does language change when we engineer a concept? This article offers an answer. I propose a view on which, when speakers assess the truth of propositions, they often rely on assumptions with regard to what is required for their truth. For example, when speakers assess whether unborn fetuses are people, they rely on assumptions with regard to what is required to be a person. Based on this idea, I develop a model of conceptual engineering according to which speakers “engineer concepts” when they change how they assess the truth of propositions. For example, speakers engineer the concept of a person when they change how they assess the truth of the proposition that unborn fetuses are people. (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)

Do numbers exist? Carnap (1956 [1950]) famously argues that this question can be understood in an “internal” and in an “external” sense, and calls “external” questions “non-cognitive”. Carnap also says that external questions are raised “only by philosophers” (p. 207), which means that, in his view, philosophers raise ”non-cognitive” questions. However, it is not clear how the internal/external distinction and Carnap’s related views about philosophy should be understood. This paper provides a new interpretation. I draw attention to Carnap’s distinction between (...) purely external statements, which are independent from all frameworks, and pragmatic external statements, which concern which framework one should adopt, and argue that the latter express noncognitive mental states. Specifically, I argue that “frameworks” are systems of rules for the assessment of statements, which are utterances of ordinary language sentences. Pragmatic external statements express noncognitive dispositions to follow only certain rules of assessment. For instance, “numbers exist” understood as a pragmatic external statement expresses a noncognitive disposition to use only rules of assessment according to which numbers do exist. Carnap can thereby be understood as proposing a distinctive form of noncognitivism about ontology that is in some respects analogous to norm-expressivism in metaethics. (shrink)

In a time marked by the development of innovative treatments in healthcare and the need for health professionals to deal with resulting ethical dilemmas in clinical practice, this study was developed to determine the influence of the bioethics teaching on the moral competence of medical and nursing students. The authors conduct a longitudinal study using the Moral Competence Test extended version before and after attending the ethics curricular unit, in three nursing schools and three medical schools of Portugal. In this (...) questionnaire the participant is confronted with three ethical dilemmas and asked to evaluate arguments for and against the attitude of the main character. For both nursing and medical students, C-score was lower after the attendance of the ethics curricular units, with a statistically significant decrease in the total score for nursing students and a decrease not statistically significant for medical students. A multivariate analysis did not find any association between this decrease and gender, course, or age. The phenomenon of moral segmentation was observed, with better performance in the worker and judge dilemma, than in the doctor dilemma. These results highlight the need to reflect on the curricular strategies that can be implemented for health professionals to better develop moral competence and decision-making, allowing for the provision of humanized health care. (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)

Ontological expressivism is the view that ontological existence claims express non-cognitive mental states. I develop a version of ontological expressivism that is modeled after Gibbard’s (2003) norm-expressivism. I argue that, when speakers assess whether, say, composite objects exist, they rely on assumptions with regard to what is required for composition to occur. These assumptions guide their assessment, similar to how norms may guide the assessment of normative propositions. Against this backdrop, I argue that “some objects have parts”, uttered in the (...) context of an ontological disagreement, expresses a noncognitive disposition to assess the truth of propositions by using only rules of assessment according to which the proposition that some objects have parts is to be evaluated as true. (shrink)

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)

The aim of this article is to shed light on Kant’s anthropological theory of memory. I shall contrast physiological studies of memory against Kant’s own study. I suggest some ideas about the relation between memory and time, as long as memory has the power to store and reproduce the temporal configuration of our representations. Moreover, I deal with the problem of personal identity and I suggest that memory contributes to the possibility of this identity from a pragmatic point of view. (...) Finally, I hold that Kant’s pragmatic anthropology does not only provide a description of memory for the human being’s self-knowledge but also for the human being’s self-perfection. Thus, such description discloses not only what the human being is but also what this can become, insofar as it is capable of perfecting itself. (shrink)

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

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)

Ao analisar a teoria da memória mecânica de Hegel, a maioria dos intérpretes considerou apenas dois aspectos da memorização mecânica: o desaparecimento do significado nas palavras mecânicamente memorizadas ou a internalização totalmente abstrata da mente que as memoriza. No primeiro caso, a interpretação concentrou-se na relação entre o significante e o significado das palavras; no segundo caso, concentrou-se na relação entre o signo linguístico como um todo e a mente. Entretanto, a posição específica da memória mecânica na sistematização das atividades (...) cognitivas de Hegel não se baseia nessas duas relações, mas na relação entre o significado de cada palavra e o significado das outras palavras. Ao memorizar de cor fileiras de palavras que não estão conectadas umas às outras por seus significados, mas apenas pela força da mente que decide memorizá-las juntas, a mente se liberta de qualquer conteúdo dado externamente e sublima a referência linear do conteúdo representacional de cada significado à intuição em sua origem. A atualização do poder da mente de interconectar conteúdos de acordo com as próprias regras lógicas da mente realiza, para Hegel, a transição para o pensamento propriamente dito. (shrink)

Here are crucial data for any theory of the self, self-consciousness or the structure of experience. We discuss the fundamental structure of both indexical reference, especially first-term reference, and quasi-indexical reference, used in attributing first-person reference to others. Chisholm's ingenious account of direct awareness of self is tested against the two sets of data. It satisfies neither. Chisholm's definitions raise serious questions both about philosophical methodology and about the underlying ontology of individuation, identity, and predication. Chisholm's adverbial account of non-physical (...) contents of consciousness is also examined; several questions are raised about the possible success of the linguistic technique of ontological reduction by hyphenation and creation of grammatical devices. (shrink)

Easy Ontologists, most notably Thomasson (2015), argue that ontological questions are shallow. They think that these questions can either be answered by using our ordinary conceptual competence—of course tables exist!—or are meaningless, or else should be answered through conceptual re-engineering. Ontology thus is “easy”, requiring no distinctively metaphysical investigation. This paper raises a two-stage objection to Easy Ontology. We first argue that questions concerning which entities exist are inextricably bound up with “ontological category questions”, which are questions concerning the identity (...) of and differences between kinds of entities. We then argue that ontological category questions do not have trivial answers, are meaningful, and cannot be answered through conceptual re-engineering. Easy Ontology hence does not constitute a comprehensive ontological methodology. While some of ontology might be easy, category questions form a central part of ontology and are not answered easily. (shrink)