As it seems impossible to find reliable evidence to back up hypotheses on the origin of our use of the linguistic tool in our acts of communication, I believe that we may start by pointing as accurately as possible to the processes involved, using a methodology that attempts to reach the levels of adequacy proposed by Chomsky, complemented by those suggested by David Marr. If we conclude that human communication and human language may have had different origins, we might find (...) a new perspective which opens a vast field of research. (shrink)

We defend the thesis that the logical level and the objective level are in a strong opposition. Logical level is normative and transcendental whereas objective level is naturalist and substance-based. The use of language is an interpretative/valorative praxis which starts by normative presuppositions. We use satisfaction ambits, elastic constraints and critical states in order to achieve meaning. Meaning of language is not a substance, mental language is immeasurable and the project of naturalization of reason, as in evolutionism and cognitivism, doesn’t (...) work with normativity. Finally, we will support a transcendental and normative conception of logic against eliminative materialism. (shrink)

Cet article s'attache à montrer le processus de création d'un espace public de proximité. À travers une expérience , nous présentons les grandes phases constitutives de ce processus. En effet, la création d'un espace public de proximité suppose une première phase de concertation à travers la mise en présence des différents acteurs et de différentes logiques d'action. Cet espace de concertation doit ensuite se transformer en un espace d'intermédiation. En passant d'un espace public de concertation à un espace public d'intermédiation, (...) on passerait d'une phase de confrontation d'idées à une phase d'articulation de ces idées. L'espace public de proximité correspondrait donc à cet espace d'intermédiation dont le fonctionnement serait basé sur les principes de démocratie et de participation.This article attempts to show the process of creation of a public sphere of proximity. Through an experiment , we present the main phases that made up this process. Indeed, the creation of a community-based development programme requires the first phase of dialogue between those involved concerning the possible spheres of action to be adopted. This dialogue phase must then be transformed into a programme of intermediation which implies moving from discussion of opposing ideas to the articulation of those ideas. The community-based development programme would thus correspond to this mediation process which would be based on the principles of democracy and participation. (shrink)

Robert Kilwardby on the Human Soul examines Kilwardby’s role in conciliating Aristotelian and Augustinian views on the soul, soul-body relation, and cognition.

In this work we present some reflections about the interaction of preschool children (between 3 and 5 years old) with sound-producing objects. We implemented the phenomenological approach of Alfred Schutz, who under the influence of Edmund Husserl, elaborated his own notions concerning the Lebenswelt or life-world. We present some situations of interaction with musical instruments by children that have been documented in different research on musical education in early childhood, the same ones we use to exemplify possible analyses from the (...) perspective of the phenomenology of the social world. We conclude with some remarks that conceive of Schutz’s theory as a relevant perspective for the analysis of children’s experiences with sound-producing objects. (shrink)

I attempt to clarify the specificity of Spinoza’s hermeneutic proposal of the Scripture in the Political-Theological Treatise. In this regard, I assume two levels of analysis in Spinoza interpretation: the historic-critical and the philosophical one. My aim is to find out the relationships between these two levels, and also the differences of Spinoza’s interpretation with others, in particular, that one developed by Lodewijk Meyer in his Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres.

Propaganda has been historically used for the benefit of certain social groups faced up to another. This propaganda is not always ethical at all. It is based on misconceptions, lies, and fallacies. We have analyzed (by using an experimental Psychology task) the presence and cognitive weight of certain mental footnotes and their influence on the Reasoning of Hispanic-Americans (Ecuadorian). These mental footnotes have been extracted from the classical work “A brief account of the destruction of the Indies” of Bartolomé de (...) las Casas in 1552. The most relevant and significant finding of this study is the clear evidence that nowadays we can still find these historical falsehoods in the current cognitive system of Ecuadorian people which are product of a well-planned and maliciously orchestrated propaganda. We conclude that all the contents of the Spanish black legend are the consequences of the aspirations of some social sectors to boycott the Spanish culture. (shrink)

Habermas’s translation proviso aims to legitimize religious argumentation in the informal part of the public sphere while requiring religious citizens to express their arguments in the formal part of the public sphere using a universal (secular) language. By considering secular scholars Gonzalo Scivoletto’s and Javier Aguirre’s critiques of the meaning of “translation,” this article highlights the inconsistency of the proviso as manifested in its application to the religious concept of tzimtzum (“divine contraction”), from which Habermas attempts to extract a secular (...) worldview and moral intuitions that contradict the beliefs of religious citizens, thus undermining the reassessment of religion in the public sphere. (shrink)

In this book, as in various earlier studies of the author, she uses the three-dimensional method, which facilitates a stratified focus in agreement with three ...

The most recent work by Jürgen Habermas tries to revalue religion in today's society. For this he tries to find genealogical connections between secular content and the worldviews that emerged in the Axial Age, including Jewish monotheism. In this article we try to propose that a genealogical approach to monotheism from the perspective of those involved would have to start from the context of undetected origin that constitutes the ethical universalism of Judaism: the Noahide code. To do this, we analyze (...) narrative and conceptual elements of axial and non-axial cultures and show their parallels with the seven laws of the children of Noah as the moral core of humanity. (shrink)

"The days of the pure whites, the victors of today, are as numbered as were the days of their predecessors. Having fulfilled their destiny of mechanizing the world, they themselves have set, without knowing it, the basis for the new period: The period of the fusion and the mixing of all peoples." -- from The Cosmic Race In this influential 1925 essay, presented here in Spanish and English, José Vasconcelos predicted the coming of a new age, the Aesthetic Era, (...) in which joy, love, fantasy, and creativity would prevail over the rationalism he saw as dominating the present age. In this new age, marriages would no longer be dictated by necessity or convenience, but by love and beauty ethnic obstacles, already in the process of being broken down, especially in Latin America, would disappear altogether, giving birth to a fully mixed race, a "cosmic race," in which all the better qualities of each race would persist by the natural selection of love. "This bilingual edition of The Cosmic Race by José Vasconcelos gives the reader a clear and concise introduction to contents that have caused much critical controversy. Didier T. Jaén places this essay in perspective, discussing theories relevant to Vasconcelos's thought... [and] also provides an historical context for Vasconcelos's evolving ideas." -- Hispania. (shrink)

Background The Regional Committee for Africa of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2001 expressed concern that some health-related studies undertaken in the Region were not subjected to any form of ethics review. In 2003, the study reported in this paper was conducted to determine which Member country did not have a national research ethics committee (REC) with a view to guiding the WHO Regional Office in developing practical strategies for supporting those countries. Methods This is a descriptive study. The (...) questionnaire was prepared and sent by diplomatic pouch to all the 46 Member States in the WHO African Region, through the WHO country representatives, for facilitation and follow up. The data were entered in Excel spreadsheet and subsequently exported to STATA for analysis. A Chi-Squared test (χ 2) for independence was undertaken to test the relationship between presence/absence of Research Ethics Committee (REC) and selected individual socioeconomic and health variables. Results The main findings were as follows: the response rate was 61% (28/46); 64% (18/28) confirmed the existence of RECs; 36% (10/28) of the respondent countries did not have a REC (although 80% of them reported that they had in place an ad hoc ethical review mechanism); 85% (22/26) of the countries that responded to this question indicated that ethical approval of research proposals was, in principle, required; and although 59% of the countries that had a REC expected it to meet every month, only 44% of them reported that the REC actually met on a monthly basis. In the Chi-Squared test, only the average population in the group of countries with a REC was statistically different (at 5% level of significance) from that of the group of countries without a REC. Conclusion In the current era of globalized biomedical research, good ethics stewardship demands that every country, irrespective of its level of economic development, should have in place a functional research ethics review system in order to protect the dignity, integrity and safety of its citizens who participate in research. (shrink)