La fundamentación de la física clásica llevó a Descartes a encontrar en el "ego cogito" la condición necesaria de todas las representaciones posibles: los conceptos de materia y de movimiento, tal como los exigía la nueva ciencia fueron concebidos por él inicialmente en una forma extremadamente racionalista, lo cual convirtió al "yo pienso" en el sujeto, en el fundamento de todo lo que puede ser real. Algunos científicos han sostenido que el "yo" según Descartes supone una tal preeminencia de la (...) epistemología, que impide pensar la moral y la situación del hombre frente a la incertidumbre de la vida. Se verá en el artículo que el sujeto hace de la naturaleza un mero objeto, pero mantiene su propia esfera, la de la libertad, hacia la cual estará dirigida toda la admiración después de que Descartes lograra resolver el enigma del universo. (shrink)

¿Cuántas imágenes hacen un poema? ¿Cuántas palabras se necesitan para construir un pensamiento? Vemos palabras de la misma manera que vemos árboles y casas, pero no vemos el bosque ni la ciudad como no vemos el poema y el pensamiento; lo verdaderamente esencial de ambos permanece oculto a nuestra simple y cotidiana mirada. El ojo y el oído se han acostumbrado a ver y a oír, es natural, es lo que se espera de dos órganos que están hechos para cumplir (...) esta misión. Pero ni vemos ni oímos más allá de los límites creados por la rutina de nuestra cotidianidad, hemos fijado a la superficie el paisaje y todo cuanto lo contiene: colores, olores, sonidos y texturas; vemos sin ver, oímos sin oír, olemos sin oler, tocamos sin sentir; esto es, sin diferenciar. Sin duda, establecer la diferencia, en cada acontecimiento particular, nos permitiría ir más allá de lo que simplemente se pone frente a nosotros; estamos tentados a nombrar esta diferencia como profundidad, pero mucho me temo que la profundidad también es una trampa, se trataría más bien de saber moverse entre ambas; sería algo así como dejarse sorprender por lo nuevo que hay en lo mismo, por lo imperceptible e invisible que existe en lo real y visible de la cotidianidad. (shrink)

El objeto de este artículo consiste en señalar las relaciones entre el método, la física y la metafísica cartesianas. Puede afirmarse que a partir de la idea básica de como debe ser la ciencia, Descartes concibe su física y fija el mecanicismo como la condición de toda explicación y de toda inteligibilidad; de estos se siguen las consecuencias metafísicas concernientes a la distinción del cuerpo y del alma y los temas finales de su unión que tanta claridad aportan sobre los (...) sentimientos y la moral. (shrink)

Es paradójico cómo la vida suele entenderse de manera menos equivocada desde la ficción, la realidad en sí y por sí se convierte en una trampa donde la razón que la justifica termina por dibujarle sus propios barrotes. Tal vez lo que sucede es que la razón no tiene tan completamente asegurada una razón, de la misma manera que la locura no está ausente de razón y de sentido; es evidente que siempre hallaremos una razón en la locura y una (...) locura en cada razón. Exacerbar la razón o la locura nos pondrá siempre en el ojo del huracán, nos hará visibles ante los demás, nos personalizará, es decir, descubrirá en cada uno de nosotros a un personaje. (shrink)

¿Estamos los seres humanos predeterminado o somos creadores de nuestro propio destino? La respuesta puede ser inmediata, algo parecido al texto de Erich Fromm que nos sirvió de epigrafe, o demorarse un poco en algunas consideraciones históricas que nos permitan hacer el recorrido de aquello que hemos pensado a lo largo de una historia en la cual no nos conformamos con simplemente ser o existir, sino que buscamos razones que expliquen esos modos de ser y de existir, intentando claridad sobre (...) nuestro ethos. (shrink)

El presente número de la Revista Escritos recoge algunos artículos cuyos resultados fueron presentados en el II Congreso Iberoamericano de Bioética e Investigación, llevado a cabo por la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana en convenio con la Corporación Universitaria Lasallista, entre el 17 y 19 de agosto de 2016. Así mismo, se incluyen algunas de las ponencias leídas por los invitados centrales del evento.

Este artículo analiza las “palabras sobre Dios” de cinco comunidades eclesiales periféricas de Medellín, a través de un método hermenéutico y etnográfico. Lo anterior se desarrolla en dos momentos; el primero, caracteriza la población sujeto y objeto de estudio; y el segundo, identifica la visiones y atributos de Dios que estas personas poseen desde la experiencia de lo religioso. Se concluye que la mayoría de las personas que participaron del estudio suponen la existencia de Dios, lo conciben como un ser (...) personal, eterno, espiritual y supremo. En sus afirmaciones se evidencia la influencia de una visión trinitaria de la divinidad que implica un acto de confianza. Dios, en ese contexto, es sobre todo poderoso, actúa y crea. En la manifestación de la experiencia de las personas no se percibe una diferencia conceptual en relación con la visión de Dios que profesa el cristianismo; y aunque hay un uso del lenguaje tradicional para referirse a los contenidos de la fe, no es sencilla la manera en que comprenden y explican cada uno de ellos. Lo anterior tiene una incidencia en las prácticas eclesiales. (shrink)

This paper proposes freedom as the condition of possibility for the construction of trust in human relationships. The methodology used is a review of the scientific literature of the most recent moral and political philosophy. As a result of the dialogue between different positions, it is discovered that freedom, despite being present in the act of trust, is forgotten in the discussion around trust, a forgetfulness that has as its main causes the assumption that trust is natural and the confusion (...) between the propensity to trust and the act of trusting. All this leads to proposing an approach of the act of trusting that starts from the freedom of the trustee and the trustor. (shrink)

Esta investigación pone en diálogo las posiciones de Hobbes y de Spaemann respecto a la naturaleza de la confianza, para lo cual se asume una postura hermenéutica. Los principales resultados de esta arrojan que para Hobbes la confianza ha de ser aprendida, pues la desconfianza es lo primero con lo que se encuentra el ser humano; mientras que, para Spaemann, el hombre es un ser confiado y aprende a desconfiar. Como efecto de este diálogo se descubre que ambos autores tienen (...) como base para la confianza la sociabilidad humana, por lo cual se concluye que la disposición de la confianza se da en la naturaleza humana como condición de posibilidad para el acto de confiar. (shrink)

Ficción y mito son algo más que lenguajes o formas narrativas, son estructuras arquitectónicas a través de las que se fija el pensamiento y su forma manifiesta de aparecer en la cotidianidad; este texto pretende rastrear la fundación de América Latina a través de la literatura en su forma de ficción y mito.

There is an evident lack of studies examining the pursuit of excellence in futsal. The aims of this study were to evaluate anthropometric and physiological variables that may contribute to distinguishing among performance levels in professional futsal players and to evaluate correlates of those variables. The participants were 75 male professionals (age = 25.1 ± 5.1 years, body height = 182.3 ± 6.2 cm, body mass = 80.8 ± 10.4 kg), who were divided into performance levels using two criteria: (i) (...) starters (first teams) vs. non-starters (substitutes) and (ii) top-level players (members of the national team and players who participated in top-level team competition in Europe) vs. high-level players (team players competing at the highest national competitive rank). Variables included anthropometrics (body height and mass, BMI, body fat percentage), generic tests of physiological capacities [5- and 10-m sprints, countermovement jump, broad jump, 20-yard test, reactive strength index (RSI)], and futsal-specific fitness tests [kicking speed by dominant and non-dominant leg, futsal-specific tests of change of direction speed, and reactive agility (FSRAG) involving/not involving dribbling the ball]. Top-level players outperformed high-level players in RSI, broad jump, kicking speed, and FSRAG involving dribbling. Starters achieved better results than non-starters in fewer variables, including kicking speed and RSI. Body fat percentage negatively influenced FSRAG involving dribbling, and RSI. FSRAG, RSI, and kicking speed were significantly correlated, indicating the similar physiological background of these capacities. The findings suggest that enhanced reactive strength and the ability to rapidly change direction speed in response to external stimulus while executing futsal-specific motor tasks (e.g., dribbling), along with players’ ability to kick the ball speedily, can be considered essential qualities required for advanced performance in futsal. Consequently, futsal strength and conditioning training should be targeted toward lowering relative body fat, maximizing lower-body reactive strength and including futsal-specific skills (e.g., dribbling, shooting) in reactive agility drills. (shrink)

Robert Alexy has argued that the democratic objection to judicial review of legislation can be successfully addressed by assuming that judges exercise a special form of argumentative representation. In this article we argue that Alexy does not explain (as he should) under what circumstances judicial review tends to produce better decisions than parliamentary procedure, nor does he explain how judicial review can have a greater intrinsic value than parliamentary procedure. Subsequently, we argue that the intrinsic value of argumentative representation depends (...) on the promotion of citizen deliberation, whereas its instrumental value depends on judges being committed to the rights of discrete and insular minorities in the face of hostile majorities. (shrink)

The "theory of mind" framework has been the fastest growing body of empirical research in contemporary psychology. It has given rise to a range of positions on what it takes to relate to others as intentional beings. This book brings together disparate strands of ToM research, lays out historical roots of the idea, and indicates better alternatives.

In this article, we examine the political and educational relevance of Hannah Arendt’s account of friendship. Drawing from Arendt’s central works on friendship, we offer a novel interpretation of the concept by connecting the notion with the idea of educational ‘love for the world’, amor mundi. With this interpretation, we seek to demonstrate that the concept of friendship has both direct educational and indirect political significance. Thereby, we distinguish our interpretation from two previous understandings of the educational relevance of the (...) Arendtian notion of friendship—those by (1) Aaron Schutz and Marie G. Sandy, and (2) Morten T. Korsgaard—in which friendship is either assigned a specifically political role (as in (1)) or its significance to education is narrowly understood (as in (2)). We argue our interpretation of friendship offers both a new contribution to the understanding of the relationship between education and politics in the context of Arendt scholarship, and a novel way of thinking about the educational significance of friendship in the context of contemporary democratic politics, especially the prevailing political polarization. (shrink)

CONTENIDO: Vestigios protodemocráticos en la Edad Media tardía: Marsilio de Papua, Nicolás de Cusa / Matthias Vollet / - La concepción normativa de la democracia: un aporte neokantiano / Rodolfo Arango / - El concepto de lo político y la razón pública en Schmit y Rawls / Miguel Vatter / - Democracia y liberación pública / Cristina Lafont / - La democracia desde la teoría de las emociones / Viviana Quintero / - Ontología y democracia en spinoza y Negri (...) / Amalia Rey / - Reconocimiento y redistribución: el rol de un teoría crítica de la democracia / Nicolás Espejo / - La contribución de Haberman a la crítica de la tecnocratización de la democracia / Luis Javier Orjuela / - Libertad, derecho y democracia: aspectos teóricos y pragmáticos, con énfasis en la competencia / Joachim Lege / - Democracia representativa y democracia deliberativa: reflexiones a partir de la situación peruana reciente / David Sobrevilla. (shrink)

Macrocephaly is present in about 2–5% of the general population. It can be found as an isolated benign trait or as part of a syndromic condition. Brain overgrowth has been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism during the first year of life, however, evidence remains inconclusive. Furthermore, most of the studies have involved pathological or high-risk populations, but little is known about the effects of brain overgrowth on neurodevelopment in otherwise neurotypical infants. We investigated the impact of brain overgrowth (...) on basic perceptual learning processes during the first year of life. We recorded high density electroencephalograms in 116 full-term healthy infants aged between 3 and 11 months, 35 macrocephalic and 81 normocephalic classified according to the WHO head circumference norms. We used an adapted oddball paradigm, time-frequency analyses, and auditory event-related brain potentials to investigate differences between groups. We show that brain overgrowth has a significant impact on repetition effects and change detection response in the 10–20 Hz frequency band, and in N450 latency, suggesting that these correlates of sensorial learning processes are sensitive to brain overgrowth during the first year of life. (shrink)

RESUMEN Se hace un breve recuento sobre la mujer en la filosofia y la crítica a la visión patriarcal predominante en la filosofía, en particular se resalta a la filósofa María Zambrano como filósofa del siglo XX y su pensamiento político, como un giro en la mirada de lo que hasta el momento se ha destacado en su obra. Se desarrolla el contenido a partir de una introducción y cuatro apartados, en los que se aborda una reflexión sobre el género (...) como constructo cultural, cargado de sentidos de lo masculino y femenino, y se plantea asimismo la relación con el lugar de la mujer en la filosofía. Luego se centra la exposición en María Zambrano y su filosofía, en la búsqueda de la comprensión de su pensamiento, sosteniendo la importancia que tiene el reconocimiento de su vida y obra a partir de su contexto histórico. En las conclusiones se muestran los matices en la filosofía zambraniana, la multiplicidad de lecturas e interpretaciones que pueden hacerse de la misma. ABSTRACT This paper presents a brief historical account of woman in philosophy and the critique to the patriarchal vision predominant in philosophy. Maria Zambrano is highlighted as a twentieth-century philosopher as well as her political thought, marking a change of direction in the look at what so far has been highlighted in her work. The content, an introduction and four sections, addresses gender as a cultural construct plenty of masculine and feminine meanings and its relationship to women's role in philosophy. Then, the paper focuses on Maria Zambrano and her philosophy, looking for understanding her thought, keeping in mind the importance of recognizing her life and work from its historical context. In the conclusions the nuances in the Zambranian philosophy and the multiplicity of readings and interpretations that can be made of it are shown. (shrink)

Among the phenomena that make up the mind, cognitive psychologists and philosophers have postulated a puzzling one that they have called ?epistemic feelings.? This paper aims to (1) characterize these experiences according to their intentional content and phenomenal character, and (2) describe the nature of these mental states as nonconceptual in the cases of animals and infants, and as conceptual mental states in the case of adult human beings. Finally, (3) the paper will contrast three accounts of the causes and (...) mechanisms of epistemic feelings: the doxastic account; the mental scanner account; and the heuristic mechanism account. The paper will argue in favor of the heuristic mechanism account. (shrink)

Two main theories about metacognition are reviewed, each of which claims to provide a better explanation of this phenomenon, while discrediting the other theory as inappropriate. The paper claims that in order to do justice to the complex phenomenon of metacognition, we must distinguish two levels of this capacity—each having a different structure, a different content and a different function within the cognitive architecture. It will be shown that each of the reviewed theories has been trying to explain only one (...) of the two levels and that, consequently, the conflict between them can be dissolved. The paper characterizes the high-level as a rationalizing level where the subject uses concepts and theories to interpret her own behavior and the low-level as a controlling level where the subject exploits epistemic feelings to adjust her cognitive activities. Finally, the paper explores three kinds of interaction between the levels. (shrink)

​This contributed volume gives access to semiotic researches adopting a quantitative stance. European semiotics is traditionally based on immanent methodologies: meaning is seen as an autonomous dimension of human existence, whose laws can be investigated via purely qualitative analytical and reflexive analysis. Today, researches crossing disciplinary boundaries reveal the limitations of such an homogeneous practice. In particular, two families of quantitative research strategies can be identified. On the one hand, researchers wish to naturalize meaning, by making semiotic results interact with (...) those coming from Neurophysiological and psychological sciences. On the other hand, statistical and computational tools are adopted to work on linguistic and multimedia corpora. The book acts to put the two approaches into dialogue. (shrink)

The philosopher Jorge J. E. Gracia engages fifteen prominent scholars on race, ethnicity, nationality, and Hispanic/Latino identity in the United States. Their discussion joins two distinct traditions: the philosophy of race begun by African Americans in the nineteenth century, and the search for an understanding of identity initiated by Latin American philosophers in the sixteenth century. Participants include Linda M. Alcoff, K. Anthony Appiah, Richard J. Bernstein, Lawrence Blum, Robert Gooding-Williams, Eduardo Mendieta, and Lucius T. Outlaw Jr., and their dialogue (...) reflects the analytic, Aristotelian, Continental, literary, Marxist, and pragmatic schools of thought. These intellectuals start with the philosophy of Hispanics/Latinos in the United States and then move to the philosophy of African Americans and Anglo Americans in the United States and the philosophy of Latin Americans in Latin America. Gracia and his interlocutors debate the nature of race and ethnicity and their relation to nationality, linguistic rights, matters of identity, and Affirmative Action, binding the concepts of race and ethnicity together in ways that open new paths of inquiry. Gracia's Familial-Historical View of ethnic and Hispanic/Latino identity operates at the center of each of these discussions, providing vivid access to the philosopher's provocative arguments while adding unique depth to issues that each of us struggles to understand. (shrink)

Recent debates on mental extension and distributed cognition have taught us that environmental resources play an important and often indispensable role in supporting cognitive capacities. In order to clarify how interactions between the mind –particularly memory– and the world take place, this paper presents the “selection problem” and the “endorsement problem” as structural problems arising from such interactions in cases of mental scaffolding. On the one hand, the selection problem arises each time an agent is confronted with a cognitive problem, (...) since she has to choose whether to solve it internally or externally. How does she choose? On the other hand, when confronted with the internally or externally retrieved solution to a cognitive task, the subject has to decide whether to endorse the information. How does the subject decide whether to endorse it or not? The last section proposes a solution to each problem in terms of metamemory and metacognitive feelings. Metamemory evaluates memory each time the subject is confronted with a memory task and elicits either a positive or negative metacognitive feeling that guides the decision. (shrink)

"Ivan Illich alights on such topics as education, history, language, politics, and the church. The conversations range over the whole of Illich's published work and public career as a priest, vice-rector of a university, founder of the Centre for Intercultural Documentation in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and author of such classics as Tools for Conviviality, Medical Nemesis, and Deschooling Society.".

Mind-wandering seems to be paradigmatically unintentional. However, experimental findings have yielded the paradoxical result that mind-wandering can also be intentional. In this paper, we first present the paradox of intentional mind-wandering and then explain intentional mind-wandering as the intentional omission to control one’s own thoughts. Finally, we present the surrealist method for artistic production to illustrate how intentional omission of control over thoughts can be deployed towards creative endeavors.

Ouraiminthischapteristodelineatetheformofsharedagencythatwe take to be manifested in collective memory. We argue for two theses. First, we argue that, given a relatively weak conception of episodicity, certain small-scale groups display a form of emergent (i.e., genuinely collective) episodic memory, while large-scale groups, in contrast, do not display emergent episodic memory. Second, we argue that this form of emergent memory presupposes (high-level and possibly low-level) metamemorial capacities, capacities that are, however, not themselves emergent group-level features but rather strictly individual-level features. The form of (...) shared agency that we delineate is thus revealed as being minimal in three senses. First, the relevant groups are themselves minimal in terms of their size. Second, the form of memory in question is minimally episodic. And finally, the cognitive capac- ities attributed to the relevant groups are minimal, in the sense that they need not themselves be capable of metacognition. (shrink)