This study offers a proposal about which competencies should be fostered in organizations to promote a culture in favor of sustainability in line with Pope Francis' encyclical letter Laudato Si. As a result, seven main competencies are proposed, with their interpretation in the light of the encyclical letter, and some suggestions on how to implement them in organizations are presented. The competencies are systemic vision, critical thinking, capacity for dialog, inclusion, proper use of goods, creativity, and spirituality. In addition, the (...) study offers a discussion of the relevance of these competencies in today's business context. This study offers a novelty with respect to other theoretical proposals on competencies for sustainability since it includes competencies that require an authentic concern for other people and for a vision of the human being open to transcendence, thus breaking with instrumentalism and technocratic paradigm that underlies other proposals. In this way, it also offers a new key to interpreting the integral ecology proposed by Pope Francis, which goes beyond other approaches to sustainability in that it includes not only the person–nature relationship but also the person–person and person–transcendence or person–God relationships. The conclusions of this theoretical research can be especially useful for those who intend to promote a culture of sustainability inspired by the Catholic Social Teaching, also making use of the knowledge and good practices of competency-based management. (shrink)

La filosofía moral de Adam Smith se fundamenta en el papel de la imaginación para explicar el orden social en un nivel macro, y como mecanismo de identificación afectiva en un nivel micro. En ambos casos, el rol de la imaginación en nuestra psicología moral refuta la tesis de un homo economicus, o de que el ser humano está motivado a entrar en sociedad por su interés personal. Esto sirve de premisa para refutar la posición hobbesiana de un estado de (...) naturaleza histórico que está en la base de nuestros juicios morales que fundan la sociedad civil y la necesidad del magistrado. Adam Smith's moral philosophy is grounded in the role of the imagination in explaining the social order at a macro level and as a mechanism for affective identification at the micro level. In both cases, the role of the imagination in our moral psychology refutes the homo economicus thesis according to which human beings are motivated to enter into society due to personal interests. This premise serves to refute the Hobbesian position of a historical state of nature that underlies the moral judgments grounding civil society and the need for a magistrate. (shrink)

Herman Dooyeweerd ( 1985 ) argued that among the modalities making up the fabric of reality a specifically economic one is to be found. The aim of the present paper is to discuss the texture of such a modality and how it both differentiates and intertwines with others. For an updated brief, albeit cogent and analytically lucid presentation of the Law Framework ontology, see Clouser ( 2009 ). Dooyeweerd’s view entails that the proper object of economics is irreducible to that (...) of other disciplines, but a non-reductionist view of the object of economics presupposes that the nuclear meaning of that discipline has been clearly delimited: this is required in order to determine its nature and separate identity as a scientific discipline. By ‘the nuclear meaning of a discipline’ I understand a pre-theoretical delimitation of its field of research, such as that of the field of physics, characterized by the laws governing force and energy. Within one and the same field there may be many theories, theories competing to explain the same phenomena, or dealing with phenomena so different that it is nearly impossible to trace conceptual connections among them. This last situation calls for a unified-field theory. In the second section of this paper I will attempt to defend a rather commonly accepted definition of the field of economics that sees this discipline as a science of choice. In the third I will show how the analytical conception it involves can be naturally complemented with a classificatory one. According to a classificatory conception, the aggregated social-level phenomena, patterns and regularities economic theories usually deal with, are economic in that sense, even though they are not prima facie cases of individual behavior, or are unintended consequences of aggregated individual choices. In the fourth I will discuss the meaning of the most general, supra-arbitrary economic laws—the modal laws of economics. In the final section I will offer a non-reductionist view of economics that nevertheless takes into account its intertwining with other spheres. (shrink)

Recent studies in social endocrinology have explored the effects of social relationships on female reproductive steroid hormones—estradiol and progesterone—investigating whether they are suppressed in partnered and parous women. Results have been mixed for these hormones although evidence is more consistent that partnered women and women with young children have lower levels of testosterone. These studies were sequential to earlier research on men, based on Wingfield’s Challenge Hypothesis, which showed that men in committed relationships, or with young children, have lower levels (...) of testosterone than unpartnered men or men with older or no children. The study described here explored associations between estradiol and progesterone with partnership and parity among women from two different ethnicities: South Asian and white British. We hypothesized that both steroid hormones would be lower among partnered and/or parous women with children ≤3 years old, regardless of ethnicity. In this study we analyzed data from 320 Bangladeshi and British women of European origin aged 18 to 50 who participated in two previous studies of reproductive ecology and health. Levels of estradiol and progesterone were assayed using saliva and/or serum samples and the body mass index calculated from anthropometric data. Questionnaires provided other covariates. Multiple linear regressions were used to analyze the data. The hypotheses were not supported. We argue here that, unlike links between testosterone and male social relationships, theoretical foundations for such relationships with female reproductive steroid hormones are lacking, especially given the primary role of these steroids in regulating female reproductive function. Further longitudinal studies are needed to explore the bases of independent relationships between social factors and female reproductive steroid hormones. (shrink)

Resumo: neste artigo pretendo estender a evidenciação do encobrimento do mundo da vida formulada por Husserl ao uso das tecnologias disruptivas da 4ª Revolução Industrial, mais precisamente o uso da inteligência artificial (IA) nas plataformas sociais. Primeiro, apresento o conceito de mundo da vida que se mantém consistente ao longo das obras de Husserl; em seguida, apresento seu encobrimento derivado da matematização da natureza e do rompimento com o telos, o que originou a crise da humanidade europeia. Segundo, mais camadas (...) de encobrimento do mundo da vida vão se sobrepondo com a 3ª e 4ª RIs. Em mais detalhe, o encobrimento e o afastamento do mundo da vida provocado pelo uso da IA e seus efeitos negativos, individual e coletivamente. Terceiro, a proposta Husserliana de retorno ao mundo da vida através de uma epoché radical. Concluo que a solução proposta por Husserl para a crise ainda é atual e urgente. Abstract: in this paper I intend to extend the disclosure of the cover-up of the lifeworld formulated by Husserl to the use of disruptive technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution, more precisely the use of artificial intelligence on social platforms. First, I present the concept of lifeworld that remains consistent throughout Husserl's works; then, I present its cover-up derived from the mathematization of nature and the break with the telos, which originated the crisis of european humanity. Second, more layers of cover-up of the lifeworld overlap with the 3rd and 4th IRs. In more detail, the cover-up and detachment from the lifeworld caused by the use of AI and its negative effects, individually and collectively. Third, the Husserlian proposal of return to the lifeworld through a radical epoché. I conclude that the solution proposed by Husserl to the crisis is still actual and urgent. (shrink)

Despite the economic relevance and distinctiveness of family firms, little attention has been devoted to researching their nature and functioning. Traditionally, family firms have been associated both to positive and negative features in their relationships with the stakeholders. This can be linked to different orientations toward corporate social responsibility. Thus, this research aims to identify the approaches that Spanish family firms maintain about social responsibility, based on the model developed by Quazi and O' Brien Journal of Business Ethics 25, (...) 33-51 (2000). An empirical study carried out for 112 Spanish family firms gives support to our initial assumption about these organizations not being a homogeneous group in terms of their orientation towards corporate social responsibility. The differences in perceptions do not seem to be associated to biographical characteristics. These results lead to some relevant academic and practical implications that suggest interesting lines for future research. (shrink)

Cet article interroge l’originalité ludique du dispositif sociotechnique conçu par les réseaux socionumériques autour du profil pour organiser les différentes activités en ligne. Alors que les jeux constituent une des activités les plus prisées par les membres du réseau à laquelle ils consacrent un temps important, peu de recherches se sont focalisées sur l’analyse des activités ludiques sur les réseaux socionumériques. Par l’application de cadres conceptuels éprouvés pour analyser les jeux et activités ludiques, il est possible d’interroger la spécificité des (...) modalités de jeux qui sont proposées sur les réseaux socionumériques. Une analyse centrée sur les fonctionnalités offertes par Facebook conduit à interroger de façon critique la nature même de l’activité ludique menée dans le contexte particulier des réseaux socionumériques.This article looks into the distinctively “playful” nature of the socio-technical system that social networking sites construct around user profiles in order to organize different online activities. Although games some of the most popular activities among network members, to which they devote a considerable amount of time, there have been few analyses to date of game-playing on social networking sites. A number of proven conceptual frameworks can be used to analyze online games and game-playing and to examine the particular patterns found on the social networking sites. Based on an analysis of Facebook features, we offer an in-depth discussion of the nature of the game-playing that takes place in the particular context of social networking sites. (shrink)

This paper employs network theory, mining data and bibliometric analysis when mapping the scientific contribution of Nobel Prize candidate; Manuel Sandoval Vallarta, the first and most renowned Mexican physicist and important figure in Latin American science. Vallarta died in 1977, and the existing literature is about his life and contributions to science but not about how those are still valuable today. This paper is the first to highlight, with mapping tools, that his contributions are relevant to the international community of (...) cosmic rays, quantum mechanics and relativity. These tools delivered three findings: Identify how he built his own field of study, same as universal knowledge. Unveil that the backward and forward Vallarta citations follow a scale-free network distribution. Determine social factors that benefited or affected his scientific activities—such as World War II interrupting Vallarta’s successful productivity at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Furthermore, this study confirmed the interdisciplinary nature of the mapping studies of the scientist's contributions using scientometric tools. As a result, several interesting questions arose throughout our research, some of which were answered from the history and philosophy of science. However, others need to be analyzed by experts in the fields of Vallarta. Mapping research sends an invitation to interdisciplinary dialogue/research between experts in different areas of study to better understand the process of knowledge production both, individual and collective. (shrink)

Este estudio pretende demostrar el origen metodológico común del concepto de soberanía popular de Rousseau y Carl Schmitt, entendido como aquella autoridad política cuya legitimidad descansa en un principio democrático verdaderamente sustantivo. En primer lugar, se intentará probar cómo ambas obras serían la expresión de una común reacción al formalismo de una dogmática liberal que identifica metodológicamente la legalidad formal con la legitimidad política. Así, Rousseau critica un enunciado de la ley natural procedente de Locke que legitima la desigualdad social (...) y política y justifica el gobierno burgués de los propietarios y Schmitt cuestiona un positivismo jurídico cuyo normativismo habría ocultado el auténtico valor sociológico del poder y la soberanía. En segundo lugar, una vez avanzada una crítica de las representaciones políticas que niegan el carácter sustantivo del pueblo soberano, se estudia el modo en que ambos formulan una propuesta metodológica alternativa. Aquí se prestará especial atención al modo en que la elaboración schmittiana incorpora, en un contexto de crisis de las formas liberales, una reelaboración de la crítica de Rousseau. (shrink)

In this paper we defend structural representations, more specifically neural structural representation. We are not alone in this, many are currently engaged in this endeavor. The direction we take, however, diverges from the main road, a road paved by the mathematical theory of measure that, in the 1970s, established homomorphism as the way to map empirical domains of things in the world to the codomain of numbers. By adopting the mind as codomain, this mapping became a boon for all those (...) convinced that a representation system should bear similarities with what was being represented, but struggled to find a precise account of what such similarities mean. The euforia was brief, however, and soon homomorphism revealed itself to be affected by serious weaknesses, the primary one being that it included systems embarrassingly alien to representations. We find that the defense attempts that have followed, adopt strategies that share a common format: valid structural representations come as “homomorphism plus X”, with various “X”, provided in descriptive format only. Our alternative direction stems from the observation of the overlooked departure from homomorphism as used in the theory of measure and its later use in mental representations. In the former case, the codomain or the realm of numbers, is the most suited for developing theorems detailing the existence and uniqueness of homomorphism for a wide range of empirical domains. In the latter case, the codomain is the realm of the mind, possibly more vague and more ill-defined than the empirical domain itself. The time is ripe for articulating the mapping between represented domains and the mind in formal terms, by exploiting what is currently known about coding mechanisms in the brain. We provide a sketch of a possible development in this direction, one that adopts the theory of neural population coding as codomain. We will show that our framework is not only not in disagreement with the “plus X” proposals, but can lead to natural derivation of several of the “X”. (shrink)

The idea has recently taken root that evolutionary theory and social constructivism are less antagonistic than most theorists thought, and we have even seen attempts at integrating constructivist and evolutionary approaches to human thought and behaviour. We argue in this article that although the projected integration is possible, indeed valuable, the existing attempts have tended to be vague or overly simplistic about the claims of social constructivist. We proceed by examining how to give more precision and substance to the research (...) programme of evolutionary social constructivism, a task we accomplish by focusing on the specific selection pressures that may have shaped the psychological and cultural mechanisms that give rise to social constructions. The benefit of such an integration for social constructivism is to have a solid foundation in the natural sciences. For evolutionists, evolutionary social constructivism offers a wider assortment of methods with which to study the interplay between culture and human nature. (shrink)

A la fin du XIXe siècle, le progrès des sciences et des techniques parut ouvrir une ère de bonheur où l'homme, délivré des tâches serviles et de toutes les superstitions, serait enfin le maître de la nature et de son propre destin. Mais le XXe siècle ne tint pas ces promesses. Certes, le progrès des sciences a fait reculer la mortalité infantile et allonger l'espérance de vie. Les nouveaux moyens de communication ont permis la circulation rapide d'informations autour du (...) globe. Mais notre environnement est menacé par toutes sortes de déchets. La biologie a ouvert des voies effrayantes. l'automatisation a bouleversé le monde du travail. La nécessité de former des scientifiques pour créer et maîtriser ces nouveaux outils a fait reculer la culture classique. De tels changements ont obscurci les repères traditionnels, les esprits sont déroutés, le sens est en crise. A l'entrée du troisième millénaire, l'Académie d'Education et d'Etudes sociales ne pouvait laisser ces questions dans l'ombre : elles sont trop souvent l'objet de débats plus passionnés que fondés et raisonnés. La science menace-t-elle l'homme et son environnement? Pèse-t-elle sur la cohésion sociale et la démocratie? Quelle est sa place dans la culture, à côté de la philosophie? Comment le chrétien se situe-t-il dans ce monde scientifique et technique? Par une étude raisonnée de ces questions, l'AES souhaite délivrer un message d'espoir et de confiance, et contribuer à mettre le développement scientifique et technique au service de l'homme, suivant la parole de l'Ecclésiastique : " Le Très-Haut a donné à l'homme le savoir pour être glorifié dans ses merveilles " (17,8). (shrink)

A revised and expanded edition of the text that presents a justice-based ethics that avails itself of the perspectives and experiences of those on the margins.

In this article I present the phenomenological tradition as a new grounding for human rights as universal rights. The hypothesis defended is to conciliate Husserl’s phenomenological method and Reinach’s a priori law in order to offer a new grounding to human rights. In order to combine Husserl and Reinach’s ideas, I propose to expand the comprehension of a priori. It would be present as eidos of each object and I name it as material a priori; it also be present in (...) the eidetic relations and I name it as formal a priori. Yet the object would have an essence, a necessary content, a material a priori, and necessary states of affairs, necessary relations and connections, a formal a priori. Reinach, in The A priori Foundations of the Civil Law, describes eidetic relations, such as, the relation between promise, claim and obligation. I propose three eidetic universalities to ground law, these are what I will call human rights. I also face a few difficulties presented by DuBois and De Vecchi derived from the amoral approach of a priori laws. Then, I highlight the difference between this proposition and Albert’s. Finally, I defend the proposition that a priori laws are beyond natural and positive laws. (shrink)

Banking firms are becoming increasingly aware that their clients’ management of environmental and social risks may in term threaten their own business as lenders and investors. In addition, stakeholders are requiring banks to improve their social performance. As a result, some banks are developing corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and management systems to reduce potential risks and improve their performance. In the Spanish financial system, half of the banking firms are savings banks, most of which have always used some Corporate (...) Social Responsibility (CSR) criteria in their management. Private Banks have only recently started to integrate social aspects in their performance. However, no formal analysis has been carried out on the impact of CSR strategies. Various initiatives have been launched nationally and internationally to include the social dimension in management systems. The purpose of this research is to analyse the social performance of the main Spanish financial companies through public data such as social or sustainability reports and media sources. In order to do this, we need to determine which CSR criteria most greatly affect banking firms and to choose the most accurate quantitative and qualitative indicators to measure social performance. (shrink)

The main objective of the article will be to consider and analyze the process of modernization of the Armed Forces in the last decades of the twentieth century, as well as to highlight the obligatory interdependence between it and the changing political-social and international environment. To this end, attention will be paid to the four main milestones of this process: reorganization of the Spanish defence superstructure; reform of the organization of the armed forces and review of the functions entrusted to (...) them; insertion of Spain into Western defensive alliances, and accommodation of the military justice to the common one. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America by Michael John WitgenGeronimo Barrera de la TorreSeeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America BY MICHAEL JOHN WITGEN Williamsburg, Va., and Chapel Hill, N.C.: Omohundro Institute for the Study of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press, 2022The colonial projects (...) of nation-states in the Americas have defined the relationship between states and Indigenous peoples by means of [End Page 138] dispossession, as Anishinaabeg thinker Leanne Betasamosake Simpson asserts.1 Seeing Red delves into the processes through which dispossession of Indigenous land became the ideology and systematic practice behind US expansion as Indigenous communities struggled to reshape their place in the new context. The book carefully details the settler- colonial ideology and logic of elimination that permeated US territorial expansion over the Northwest Territories at the end of the eighteen and the first decades of the nineteenth centuries. Seeing Red thoroughly examines the complex context of dispossession by the US colonial power, centering on Anishinaabeg communities, the “mix- race” population, and the different Indigenous people inhabiting this region. However, the book focuses on what the author names “unthinkable history,” following Michel- Rolph Trouillot’s argument that this region, and the whole continent, was conceived as an unsettled territory instead of belonging to many Indigenous peoples. Thus, the text explores Indigenous and mixed- raced communities’ political imaginaries and imagined futures to retain autonomy and territory.Author Michael John Witgen is a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe and a professor in the Department of History and the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University. His research centers on the complex relations between Indigenous people and settler colonizers in the Great Lakes and the Northwest Territories. Seeing Red expands his previous analysis of race, ethnicity, and citizenship intersections, bringing to the fore Indigenous people’s history to rethink the statemaking process in the United States.This book’s pages show that theft lies at the foundation of wealth transfer from Indigenous territories to the United States government and white citizens. The white settler ideology, based on a “doctrine of discovery,” established a stark division between the civilized and uncivilized to rationalize, among other things, the theft of Indigenous people. This is a central argument of the book that signals how the civili zation project underpinning the territorial expansion of the United States was based on the transformation of commons into private property. Indigenous land became critical in the “political economy of plunder” advanced by the state and the meaning of “native” as a racial categorization of exclusion. Chapter 1 explores this economy of plunder by detailing the advancement of the settler frontier through different [End Page 139] mechanisms, such as the treaty policy— subsequently violated by the state— and territory surveying to make land legible for the state and cheap for settlers. It is worth mentioning that the book contains historical and thematic maps that visually represent the ideology of wilderness behind the colonization project and evidence of the territorial extent of dispossession suffered by Indigenous communities. However, this crusade to dispossess Indigenous peoples from their territory also rested on the national mythology that strengthened the trope of Indigenous vanishing. The author shows how during the years of the study, the Indigenous population was not vanishing but immersed in an intricate social world and transregional trade networks. Chapter 2 explores such context, following the story of an Ojibwe man to evidence the context in which settlers and federal officials relied on Indigenous customs to profit from the fur trade while using ties with communities to further land cessions.Mix- race families played a crucial role in expanding the settler frontier through treaty negotiations but remained marginalized as they identified themselves as both Natives and US citizens. Chapter 3 examines the significance of mixed- raced families, particularly women, in establishing and expanding missions’ schools that relied on their domestic and linguistic labor. Moreover, it shows the intricate landscape of the civilization mission that depended on the complex networks that had created... (shrink)

To survive and be successful in today's setting of globalisation and complexity, companies are obliged to think in wider strategic terms, developing active and enterprising strategies that include social, political and ecological elements, besides the economic ones. The analysis of the relationship between companies and society is especially interesting when these companies operate in international markets. Countries demand that large corporations contribute to local, regional and national development in such a way that their resources are exchanged for a significant increase (...) in their citizens' quality of life. Faced with that fact, the aim of this work is to establish what actions the subsidiaries will take in order to offer a response to the needs of their stakeholders in the host countries. Secondly, we attempt to identify the factors explaining the different levels of social response of the subsidiaries established in a particular country by different parent companies. The empirical study was carried out on a sample of Spanish subsidiaries in the two manufacturing industries with most foreign investment (the chemical and automobile industries) and the results obtained both confirmed the validity of the tool used to measure social response and permitted us to determine which factors influence the institutionalisation of social responsiveness. (shrink)

While the notion of chance has been central in discussions over the probabilistic nature of natural selection and genetic drift, its role in the production of variants on which populational sampling takes place has received much less philosophical attention. This article discusses the concept of chance in evolution in the light of contemporary work in evo-devo. We distinguish different levels at which randomness and chance can be defined in this context, and argue that recent research on variability and evolvability (...) demands a causal understanding of variational probabilities under which development acquires a creative, rather than a constraining role in evolution. We then provide a propensity interpretation of variational probabilities that solves a conceptual confusion between causal properties, variational probabilities and extant variation present in the literature, and explore some metaphysical consequences that follow from our interpretation, specifically with regards to the nature of developmental types. 2.1Mutational randomness 2.2Morphological randomness 2.3Adaptive randomness3Variability and Phenotypic Probabilities 3.1The RNA model as a model for evo-devo4Evolvability and the Probability of Evolving5Variational Propensities in Evo-Devo 5.1Individuating variational propensities 5.2Developmental types6Conclusion. (shrink)

La religiosidad popular es una de las manifestaciones más patentes en la cultura de los pueblos y una importante y recurrente forma de expresión del patrimonio cultural intangible. Se transforma y evoluciona a la par del desarrollo social y juega un importante papel en la trasmisión de conocimientos culturales. Es a su vez un cardinal instrumento didáctico en la enseñanza de la historia y el patrimonio vinculado a ella. El objetivo del presente artículo es demostrar el valor educativo e importancia (...) del patrimonio cultural inmaterial, de la necesidad de su estudio, preservación y difusión de los exponentes materiales que le son inherentes, a través de un acontecimiento vinculado a la religiosidad popular, de gran significación y sin precedentes en la cultura matancera. (shrink)

An analysis is briefly presented of the possible causes of the failure of stochastic electrodynamics (SED) when applied to systems with nonlinear forces, on the basis that the main principles of the theory are correct. In light of this analysis, an alternative approach to the theory is discussed, whose postulates allow to establish contact with quantum mechanics in a natural way. The ensuing theory, linear SED, confirms the essential role of the vacuum–particle interaction as the source of quantum phenomena.

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar el concepto de responsabilidad y los procesos para su institucionalización promovidos por las universidades jesuitas subrayando su singularidad y valor frente a otros modelos y estrategias de responsabilidad social universitaria. Ese enfoque de responsabilidad está cimentado en una noción de justicia pensada en términos globales y fundada en la solidaridad, que pone de manifiesto la insuficiencia del enfoque de la responsabilidad como obligación. Su énfasis lo dirige hacia una responsabilidad política compartida que aspira (...) a la transformación de las injusticias estructurales. Este es uno de los rasgos propios de la Identidad y Misión de las universidades jesuitas. En el artículo se identifican los contornos de esa propuesta de responsabilidad encarnada en el ámbito social y se examina su carácter diferenciador frente a otras propuestas impulsadas desde las universidades para definir su compromiso con el entorno. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene por objetivo realizar una crítica inmanente a la obra de Freud. Su principal hipótesis es que el concepto antropológico hobbesiano del estado de naturaleza, como la guerra de todos contra todos, infl uencia Freud y produce algunos impasses mayores en su obra: la imposibilidad de fundar una clínica que no dependa de la sugestión y la imposibilidad de pensar un lazo social ateo, es decir, no regulado por la culpa. Para llevar adelante este encuentro entre Freud y (...) Hobbes, este artículo recurre al concepto de “paradigma inmunitario” de Roberto Esposito. En este sentido el artículo muestra, junto a la lectura que René Girard hace de Totem y Tabú, que el concepto freudiano de sacrifi cio, lejos de apaciguar la ley totémica, la produce retroactivamente. La consecuencia de esta relación invertida entre ley y sacrifi cio ha sido caracterizada como la inevitable deriva tanatopolítica del liberalismo moderno: para conservar la vida, hay que sacrifi carla; para conservar la ley, hay que fundarla y refundarla con violência ilegítima. Es decir, una vez que la obra de Freud asume los presupuestos antropológicos hobbesianos, queda atrapada entre el fantasma del retorno destructivo del salvaje pre-social y la ley superyoica que, si bien parece ser la única capaz de controlar al salvaje, no hace sino que perpetuar su violencia y la necesidad de repetir el sacrificio. (shrink)

En este artículo examino la noción de amor a Dios (amour envers Dieu) en Descartes, conectándola con los principios metafísicos de su sistema y con los objetivos a los que da respuesta, y mostrando sus beneficios para la vida de todo hombre. Los desacuerdos de Spinoza en esta materia no constituyen una discrepancia menor, sino que adquieren relevancia sistémica desde el momento en que el amor Dei está conectado con nociones centrales de su filosofía, como la idea de Dios y (...) sus atributos, la relación del hombre con la sustancia infinita, la actividad mental-corporal, el conocimiento como expresión del deseo, la función liberadora de los afectos y la fruición del amor a Dios. Esta noción constituye una plataforma privilegiada para examinar las peculiaridades de los sistemas de Descartes y Spinoza, y deja ver notables diferencias en sus respectivos proyectos de naturalización de la realidad. (shrink)

This article explores the case of informal car parkers in Mexico City, to whom drivers regularly entrust the keys to their vehicles. In contrast to literature on social trust that expects institutional trust and interpersonal trust to support one another, the article shows that interpersonal trust improbably arises in the context of corrupt and inefficient institutions. Coercive and market dynamics undergird the interactions among car parkers, police officers, and drivers, making possible the emergence of an informal market and noncontractual agreements. (...) The exchange between car parkers and drivers depends on the performance of class—a performance that becomes legible and formulaic enough to appear safe, precisely because it coalesces classist tropes that are clearly distinct and recognizable. Interpersonal trust becomes possible not only despite class cleavages and institutional shortcomings but, paradoxically, because of them. (shrink)

Este trabajo analiza unos treinta documentos testamentarios de la familia de la Puerta de Osuna, que nos revelan que la salvación del alma era una de las grandes preocupaciones humanas en los siglos pasados. Además de la mentalidad de la época ante la llegada del momento trascendental de la muerte, se obtienen multitud de datos sobre las costumbres funerarias, el coste de los entierros y misas, las obras sociales y de caridad a la que los difuntos destinaban parte de sus (...) bienes, así como una gran cantidad de referencias de la vida religiosa de la Villa Ducal, de sus conventos y monasterios. Más importantes aún si cabe son las conclusiones que nos aportan los justificantes de los recibís firmados por los ejecutores de las diversas obras funerarias ante los albaceas testamentarios designados para tal efecto, ya que, debido al temor que siempre se ha tenido ante la muerte, las ocurrencias y curiosidades que se desvelan en dicho momento tan circunstancial nos pueden llegar a sorprender. (shrink)

Todo texto requiere de la participación del lector para completar su sentido, provocando una permanente renovación de significados con cada generación de intérpretes interrogados por nuevas cuestiones sociales, teóricas y políticas. Así, los Manuscritos de París de Karl Marx han sido objeto de discusión desde su publicación en 1932 hasta nuestros días. Si en las primeras décadas fueron leídos desde los conflictos políticos del periodo de entreguerras, de la Guerra Fría y la polémica sobre el humanismo, hoy son los debates (...) en torno al especismo, el antropocentrismo y el ecologismo los que han impulsado nuevas lecturas. En este trabajo presento las diferentes estrategias interpretativas que los autores han elaborado para tratar los principales conceptos de los Manuscritos de París desde la crítica al especismo y el antropocentrismo, contrastándolas con las estrategias de las lecturas tradicionales. (shrink)

RESUMENLa Carta de Derechos Fundamentales de la Unión Europea contribuye a desarrollar la ciudadanía europea, basada en valores comunes, como la justicia y la dignidad. La Carta se refiere al consentimiento libre e informado en Medicina y Biología, prohibiendo la clonación reproductiva y las prácticas eugenesicas. El artículo considera el papel de los temas de Bioética en la expansión de los derechos de los ciudadanos; los debates recientes han demostrado que los derechos han de estar garantizados y, además, que las (...) buenas practicas profesionales sólo pueden desarrollarse dentro de buenas instituciones. El artículo analiza el papel de los principios de gobernanza (transparencia, eficiencia, participación, rendición de cuentas), así como la relación interna entre éstos y la integración de las políticas publicas: las cuestiones de Bioética ejemplifican el proceso de «europeanización».PALABRAS CLAVEBIOÉTICA, UNIÓN EUROPEA, GOBERNANZA, BUENAS PRACTICAS, EUROPEANIZACIÓNABSTRACTThe Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union contributes to develop European citizenship based on common values like justice and dignity. The Charter refers to free and informed consent in Medicine and Biology, and prohibits reproductive cloning and eugenic practices. This article considers the role of bioethical topics in the expansion of citizens’ rights; in fact, recent debates not only have proved that rights have to be guaranteed but that good professional practice could only develop within good institutions. The article also analyzes the role of the principles of governance (transparency, efficiency, participation, accountability), and the internal relationship between these principles and the integration of social policies; bioethical issues could exemplify the process of Europeanization.KEY WORDSBIOETHICS, EUROPEAN UNION, GOVERNANCE, GOOD PRACTICES, EUROPEANIZATION. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to provide a logical reconstruction of the Marxian Theory of Value. This reconstruction is based upon the concept of abstract as opposed to that of homogeneous labor.labour is a social relation that holds in a market economy, whenever the profit rate is uniform; it consists in a comparison of the different labors through the exchange relationship. The author proved in a different place that there exists a mathematical representation of abstract labor which is (...) unique up to similarity transformations. The existence of this function -- which is none other than the value function -- is the basis of the present axiomatization, which includes detailed reconstructions of two of the most important models of the theory. (shrink)

We formulate from first principles a theory of stochastic processes in configuration space. The fundamental equations of the theory are an equation of motion which generalizes Newton's second law and an equation which expresses the condition of conservation of matter. Two types of stochastic motion are possible, both described by the same general equations, but leading in one case to classical Brownian motion behavior and in the other to quantum mechanical behavior. The Schrödinger equation, which is derived here with no (...) further assumption, is thus shown to describe a specific stochastic process. It is explicitly shown that only in the quantum mechanical process does the superposition of probability amplitudes give rise to interference phenomena; moreover, the presence of dissipative forces in the Brownian motion equations invalidates the superposition principle. At no point are any special assumptions made concerning the physical nature of the underlying stochastic medium, although some suggestions are discussed in the last section. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 34.2 (2006) 3-13 [Access article in PDF] Biographical Illusion and Methodological Reality Leland De La Durantaye Pierre Bourdieu. Esquisse Pour Une Auto-Analyse. Paris: Raisons d'Agir, 2004. 1 Like his student and friend Nietzsche, Jacob Burckhardt often stressed the necessity for a scholar to work in solitude. Like Nietzsche, he also possessed a gift for acidic analogy and likened the world of academia to a group of dogs sniffing (...) one another.Few observers of the academic interactions of his time had such sharp senses as Pierre Bourdieu, and few have been as torn between solitary reflection and communal exchange. Trained by France's most elite academic institutions (such as the celebrated Parisian lycée Louis-le-Grand and the even more celebrated École Normale Supérieure), Bourdieu was grateful for the opportunities that this training afforded him. And he felt that this gratitude could best be repaid by submitting those elite academic institutions and their insular world to an unsparing critique, to unveiling the distance that separated their stated ideals from their real effects.Like Bergson and Jaurès, like Sartre and Aron, like Foucault and Derrida, Bourdieu studied that which was most difficult and most prestigious where it was most difficult and prestigious: philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure. Like those famous fellow alumni, he was a brilliant student, and like them, he longed to distinguish his personal vision from those around him. This led him to do something surprising, something that, despite their separate and significant dissatisfactions with the philosophy of their day, neither Bergson nor Sartre, neither Foucault nor Derrida ever did: he abandoned philosophy. He left what he saw as the intellectual royal road for the most pedestrian of paths—that of sociology.As he often reminded his readers, sociology was in a sorry state when he entered it. Both in academic appraisal and the popular imagination, it was considered dry and provincial. It was thought to have no true intellectual adventure in it—nothing of the ethnologist tramping through the rain forests of the Amazon, nothing of the lone philosopher working through the night on an opus to end metaphysics. It was laborious and abstract; it dealt in statistical generalities. Bourdieu repeatedly described sociology as "the pariah of disciplines."1 He had, however, a special mission for it in mind. [End Page 3]In Bourdieu's posthumous memoir Esquisse pour une auto-analyse, published in February 2004—two years after his death—by the small publishing house he helped found, Raisons d'Agir, he notes how, "a bit as a joke," he had often defined himself as "the leader of a liberation movement aiming to free the social sciences from philosophy's imperialism" [94].2 From early on in his career, he had wished to revolt against the "empire of the total philosopher"—an empire reigned over by, more than any other, Jean-Paul Sartre [cf. 25].3 Looking back upon this decisive period of his development, Bourdieu goes so far as to state that the shaping of his identity was done "against everything which the Sartrian enterprise represented for me" [37]. In historical accounts, Sartre is often given as counterfigure his friend and fellow normalien Raymond Aron. In his Esquisse, Bourdieu proposes a different, and less conventional, counterfigure for the imperial philosopher: the brilliant Austrian satirist and cultural critic Karl Kraus. Bourdieu notes the particular affection he had always felt for Kraus and attributes it to the latter's singular capacity for "critical reflectivenesss" [37]. Subtly, and appropriately, Bourdieu follows this remark with something that occurs nowhere else in his memoir: an epigram (the composing of which Kraus excelled in). Bourdieu writes: "there are a great many intellectuals who question the world, but there are very few intellectuals who question the intellectual world" [37]. The remark could not more compactly and precisely reflect what Bourdieu had aspired all his life to do: to excel in the art and science of questioning the intellectual world. 2 Leo Spitzer liked to cite Friedrich Gundolf's dictum "Methode ist Erlebnis" (method is lived experience). Nearing the end of his career... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 33.2 (2005) 3-9 [Access article in PDF] The Suspended Substantive On Animals and Men in Giorgio Agamben's The Open Leland de la Durantaye Giorgio Agamben. The Open: Man and Animal. Trans. Kevin Attell. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2004. [O] Trans. of L'aperto: L'uomo e l'animale. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2002. [A] With a title as enigmatic as The Open, the reader might well wonder, "the open what?" Is the title's (...) adjective to stand alone? Does it need no substantive to support it? This unfamiliar title is not what one might first guess—it is not an awkward translation from the work's original title. No substantive follows in the original, and none is meant to. The idea that gives Agamben's book its title is that of an openness which is unconditioned—and perhaps unconditional, an openness which is unspecified—and perhaps unspecifiable.If the answer to the question "the open what?" can be answered with no substantive, might we ask in what this opening occurs? Between what more substantive things has an indefinable space been opened? The first answer to the question can be found in the work's subtitle—Man and Animal. The open space in question is that which separates and distinguishes man from animal. Philosophers, anthropologists, social scientists, zoologists, chemists, taxonomists—and many others—have had no small difficulty in agreeing upon the matter.Philosophers have traditionally had a low opinion of animals [cf. de Fontenay]. Descartes had especially little respect for the minds of animals and influentially classified them as automata mechanica. As Agamben notes, the great naturalist and taxonomist Linnaeus responded to this assertion with the laconic rejoinder: "Descartes obviously never saw an ape" [cf. O 23/A 30; translation modified]. Philosophers have been more eager than taxonomists to put distance between themselves and the animals—and for this reason have been particularly interested in studying what separates man from animal. The last great philosophical attempt in this regard is that of Martin Heidegger. Despite his preference for the primordial, his openness to the woods and the wilderness, his opinion of animals' faculties was not much higher than that of Descartes. In his view, animals live in an environment in which they are receptive to various stimuli, but where they have nothing approximating what we call a "world"—animals are, as he claims, "poor in world" (weltarm)—or even "without world" (weltlos). They live in such intense and incessant proximity to their environment and its stimuli that they do not see the existential forest for the environmental trees. They can never take a step away from the immediacy of their perception and for this reason cannot be said to possess a "world" in the sense that man, in Heidegger's view, does.As mentioned above, the title The Open is, for all its strangeness, not the result of [End Page 3] an awkward translation from Agamben's Italian. Its strangeness stems, nevertheless, in large part from a translation. Or, to be more precise, from two translations. The first of these is from the German. The German in question is a special one—that of the profoundly idiosyncratic technical vocabulary that Heidegger fashioned for his philosophical purposes. For Heidegger, "the open" is something literally fundamental which lay at the heart of his thought. "The open" is the space revealed to us in the moment when the world we live in, which because of our many tasks and travails we tend to take no distance from (like animals with their stimuli), opens out onto something larger. This moment of distancing ourselves from our everyday concern with means and ends, with stimuli and response, is what gives us not just an environment, but a "world." "The open" is what we find ourselves in when the bustle and haste of our environment recedes and we see that environment in all its strangeness and immensity—as a "world," greater and less graspable than our restricted and finite representations. This experience of "the open" is, for Heidegger, what makes us human, and... (shrink)

A theory of collective violence must explain both why it is collective and why it is violent. Whereas my earlier work addresses the question of why collective violence is violent, here I apply and extend Donald Black's theory of partisanship to the question of why violence collectivizes. I propose in general that the collectivization of violence is a direct function of strong partisanship. Strong partisanship arises when third parties support one side against the other and are solidary among themselves. Such (...) support occurs when third parties are socially close to one side and remote from the other and when one side has more social status than the other. Third parties are solidary when they are intimate, culturally homogeneous, and interdependent. I focus in particular on lynching: Lynching is a joint function of strong partisanship toward the alleged victim and weak partisanship toward the alleged offender. Unequal strong partisanship appears in both classic lynchings and communal lynchings across societies and history. Where partisanship is weak or strong on both sides, lynching is unlikely to occur. Evidence includes patterns of lynching in various tribal societies, the American South, imperial China, and medieval Europe. (shrink)

A través de una fenomenología de las protestas de Octubre 2019, se muestra el abuso de la noción de modelo y la ambivalencia de la pluralidad como categoría analítica. La protesta se presenta en distintas perspectivas: 1) Como expresión de un movimiento social que busca cambiar el modelo; 2) Irrupción de un malestar difuso, cruzado por un proceso constituyente/ destituyente; 3) Expresión nihilista de agentes remisos a toda regla y autoridad; 4) Estrategia de ocupación territorial de grupos narcos en zonas (...) marginales. La conexión con el sistema político sitúa la protesta en otro marco de referencias, y plantea la cuestión de una gobernabilidad alternativa. Por otra parte, esta descripción envuelve un giro hermenéutico contra el sentido tradicional de la comprensión: en lugar de buscar lo permanente a través de lo transitorio, lo permanente aparece atravesado por la transitoriedad, inmerso en la singularidad de una experiencia comunicable narrativamente. (shrink)

The origin of the wave properties of matter is discussed from the point of view of stochastic electrodynamics. A nonrelativistic model of a charged particle with an effective structure embedded in the random zeropoint radiation field reveals that the field induces a high-frequency vibration on the particle; internal consistency of the theory fixes the frequency of this jittering at mc2/ħ. The particle is therefore assumed to interact intensely with stationary zeropoint waves of this frequency as seen from its proper frame (...) of reference; such waves, identified here as de Broglie's phase waves, give rise to a modulated wave in the laboratory frame, with de Broglie's wavelength and phase velocity equal to the particle velocity. The time-independent equation that describes this modulated wave is shown to be the stationary Schrödinger equation (or the Klein-Gordon equation in the relativistic version). In a heuristic analysis appled to simple periodic cases, the quantization rules are recovered from the assumption that for a particle in a stationary state there must correspond a stationary modulation.Along an independent and complementary line of reasoning, an equation for the probability amplitude in configuration space for a particle under a general potential V(x) is constructed, and it is shown that under conditions derived from stochastic electrodynamics it reduces to Schrödinger's equation. This equation reflects therefore the dual nature of the quantum particles, by describing simultaneously the corresponding modulated waveand the ensemble of particles. (shrink)

The political question in Descartes is an enormously complex issue. The historical circumstances surrounding his life, philosophical principles and the strict epistemological considerations that he defended intertwine in a sort of biological- theoretical-practical crossroads. Our work unravels the keys of Cartesian politics commonly perceived as shadowy.

The uncritical appropriation of Eurocentric ethical paradigms can be detrimental to disenfranchised communities of color, especially the Hispanic community. This essay argues for an ethical methodology rooted in the hopelessness found within Latino/a marginalized communities. Advocating for an ethics para joder disrupts a normative Eurocentric ethical discourse that at times normalizes and legitimizes "empire." The essay begins by casting a critical gaze at the academy before analyzing the overall social context in which Hispanics find themselves.