El progreso biológico es un tema ampliamente debatido en biología evolutiva que tiene partidarios y detractores. Sin embargo, no es una cuestión, a pesar de su importancia, de la que podamos afirmar que está resuelta desde el punto de vista científico. En este trabajo presento un análisis del concepto basado en la teoría de la evolución por selección natural, sus paralelismos con el también debatido concepto de “progreso” en la historia de la humanidad y, finalmente, se intenta orientarlo hacia formas (...) accesibles a la investigación científica. Para ello, en lugar del concepto de progreso, recurro al de “complejidad biológica”. Si tenemos formas de medirla, podemos comprobar si las supuestas tendencias de la evolución hacia complejidad creciente son producto pasivo, aleatorio e inevitable de la misma, ya que solo puede esperarse algo complejo de algo que inicialmente era simple o, por el contrario, existe alguna fuerza direccional que requeriría interpretar la selección natural en una perspectiva más allá de la de tener efectos locales y microevolutivos. La importancia filosófica que esto tendría si este programa de investigación científica demostrara que la evolución avanza hacia una complejidad creciente es importante. (shrink)

We are strongly inclined to believe in moral responsibility - the idea that certain human agents truly deserve moral praise or blame for some of their actions. However, recent philosophical discussion has put this natural belief under suspicion, and there are important reasons for thinking that moral responsibility is incompatible with both determinism and indeterminism, therefore potentially rendering it an impossibility. Presenting the major arguments for scepticism about moral responsibility, and subjecting them to sustained and penetrating critical analysis, _Moral Responsibility_ (...) lays out the intricate dialectic involved in these issues in a helpful and accessible way. A well-written and lively account, the book then goes on to suggest a way in which scepticism can be avoided, arguing that excessive pre-eminence given to the will might lie at its root. Offering an alternative to this scepticism, Carlos Moya shows how a cognitive approach to moral responsibility that stresses the importance of belief would rescue our natural and centrally important faith in the reality of moral responsibility. (shrink)

hiCLIP (RNA hybrid and individual‐nucleotide resolution ultraviolet cross‐linking and immunoprecipitation), is a novel technique developed by Sugimoto et al. (2015). Here, the use of different adaptors permits a controlled ligation of the two strands of a RNA duplex allowing the identification of each arm in the duplex upon sequencing. The authors chose a notoriously difficult to study double‐stranded RNA‐binding protein (dsRBP) termed Staufen1, a mammalian homolog of Drosophila Staufen involved in mRNA localization and translational control. Using hiCLIP, they discovered a (...) dominance of intramolecular RNA duplexes compared to the total RNA duplexes identified. Importantly, the authors discovered two different types of intramolecular duplexes in the cell: highly translated mRNAs with long‐range duplexes in their 3′‐UTRs and poorly translated mRNAs with duplexes in their coding region. In conclusion, the authors establish hiCLIP as an important novel technique for the identification of RNA secondary structures that serve as in vivo binding sites for dsRBPs. (shrink)

Histamine is a multifunctional biogenic amine with relevant roles in intercellular communication, inflammatory processes and highly prevalent pathologies. Histamine biosynthesis depends on a single decarboxylation step, carried out by a PLP-dependent histidine decarboxylase activity (EC 4.1.1.22), an enzyme that still remains to be fully characterized. Nevertheless, during the last few years, important advances have been made in this field, including the generation and validation of the first three-dimensional model of the enzyme, which allows us to revisit previous results and conclusions. (...) This essay provides a comprehensive review of the current knowledge of the structural and functional characteristics of mammalian histidine decarboxylase. BioEssays 27:57–63, 2005. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Gut microbiome plays a significant role in defining the health status of subjects, and recent studies highlight the importance of using time series strategies to analyse microbiome dynamics. In this paper, we develop a Bayesian model for microbiota longitudinal data, based on Dirichlet distribution with time-varying parameters, that take into account the compositional paradigm and consider principal balances. The proposed model can be effective for predicting the future dynamics of a microbial community in the short term and for analysing the (...) microbial interactions using the value of the estimated parameters. The usefulness of the proposed model is illustrated with six different datasets, and a comparison study with four alternative models is provided. (shrink)

This new textbook is an exceptionally clear and concise introduction to the philosophy of action, suitable for students interested in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of social sciences. Moya begins by considering the problem of agency: how are we to understand the distinction between actions and happenings, between actions we perform and things that happen to us? Moya outlines and examines a range of philosophical responses to this problem. He also develops his own original view, treating (...) the analysis of meaningful action as the basis for understanding the distinctive interplay of agency, intention and commitment. Subsequent chapters examine recent attempts to integrate our understanding of action with the view of the world provided by the natural sciences. The work of Donald Davidson is examined in detail. Moya also discusses the views of many other authors who have contributed to recent debates in the philosophy of action, including Anscombe, Churchland, Harman, Hornsby, Goldman and O'Shaughnessy. (shrink)

Recent debates in contemporary feminist theory have been dominated by the relation between identity and politics. Beyond Identity Politics examines the implications of recent theorizing on difference, identity and subjectivity for theories of patriarchy and feminist politics. Organised around the three central themes of subjectivity, power and politics, this book focuses on a question which feminists struggled with and were divided by throughout the last decade, that is: how to theorize the relation between the subject and politics. In this thoughtful (...) engagement with these debates Moya Lloyd argues that the turn to the subject in process does not entail the demise of feminist politics as many feminists have argued. She demonstrates how key ideas such as agency, power and domination take on a new shape as a consequence of this radical rethinking of the subject-politics relation and how the role of feminist political theory becomes centred upon critique. A resource for feminist theorists, women's and gender studies students, as well as political and social theorists, this is a carefully composed and wide-ranging text, which provides important insights into one of contemporary feminism's most central concerns. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es fundamentar la aplicación de la sociología compleja del conocimiento al estudio de la formación de las principales teorías y marcos conceptuales de la historia del pensamiento económico. Tomando como punto de partida el problema de la inconmensurabilidad de los paradigmas científicos, se expone la propuesta de construcción de sistemas metateóricos para el análisis de los presupuestos no-contrastables que se encuentran en el núcleo de las teorías científicas. Posteriormente, se analizan las implicaciones principales que el (...) carácter social e histórico del objeto de estudio de las ciencias sociales tiene para esta propuesta. El artículo termina con algunas consideraciones metodológicas para la construcción de metasistemas en la historia del pensamiento económico.This article seeks to support the application of the complex sociology of knowledge to the history of economic thought, in order to study the formation of its main theories and conceptual frameworks. With the starting point of the incommensurability of research paradigms’ problem, the construction of metatheoretical systems is proposed to analyse non-verifiable assumptions at the core of scientific theories. Subsequently, the main implications of that proposal are analysed vis-a-vis the social and historical nature of social sciences. The article concludes with some methodological considerations for the construction of metasystems in the history of economic thought. (shrink)

A Black feminist disability framework allows for methodological considerations of the intersectional nature of oppression. Our work in this article is twofold: to acknowledge the need to consider disability in Black Studies and race in Disability Studies, and to forward an intersectional framework that considers race, gender, and disability to address the gaps in both Black Studies and Disability Studies. By employing a Black feminist disability framework, scholars of African American and Black Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Disability (...) Studies have a flexible and useful methodology through which to consider the historical, social, cultural, political, and economic reverberations of disability. (shrink)

Resumen: En nuestros días el término arte ha ampliado su horizonte hasta incluir prácticas y objetos que tradicionalmente habían sido negados. Este cambio de perspectiva se introduce a partir del siglo XX cuando la noción de arte comienza a ser cuestionada desde diferentes vertientes teóricas y prácticas. En este artículo se analiza la definición que el filósofo estadounidense John Dewey propuso en los años treinta, la cual trataba de devolver el arte al contexto cultural en el que se originó. Para (...) ello, en primer lugar se examinará la dimensión cultural del arte: tanto el contexto sociocultural de la obra, como el propio papel del arte para transmitir los significados de una cultura. En segundo lugar, serán consideradas las posibilidades que ofrece esta noción de arte como vía para establecer un diálogo intercultural entre iguales. A través de un estudio sobre su fundamentación teórica, así como su alcance y limitaciones, el objetivo de este artículo es mostrar, pese a sus dificultades, que la definición deweyana de arte alberga un gran potencial para la estética contemporánea.: In present days, the term art has broadened its horizon to include practices and objects that traditionally had been rejected. This change of view was introduced in the twentieth century when this notion begins to be questioned from different theoretical and practical approaches. This article analyzes the definition proposed in the thirties by the American philosopher John Dewey, which tried to return art to the cultural context in which it was created. For this purpose, first, the text examines the cultural dimension of art: the sociocultural context of the work of art; and the role of art in transmitting the meanings of a culture. Second, the text considers the possibilities offered by this notion of art to establish an intercultural dialogue between equals. Through a study of its theoretical fundamentals, its scope and limitations, the aim of this article is to show that, despite its difficulties, the Deweyan definition of art harbors great potential for contemporary aesthetics. (shrink)

La muerte es un asunto central en la obra de Federico García Lorca, que llego a convertirse en una obsesión que impregnó su bibliografía al completo. Este tema, común entre otros poetas y escritores de la época, adquiere un tamiz especial de la mano del literato que afronta y reflexiona sobre la misma a través de sus poemas y piezas teatrales. Este artículo plantea un análisis filosófico sobre la muerte en las páginas de Lorca, haciendo un recorrido por las principales (...) obras dedicadas a este tema. Para ello, en primer lugar, se muestra la posición de Lorca ante la muerte y su forma de tratarla. Después, se analizará la visión de la muerte en sus poemas y piezas teatrales. A modo de conclusión, me gustaría destacar cómo la obra del poeta no considera la muerte desde una perspectiva trágica de la vida sino desde una filosofía de la creación. (shrink)

El análisis comparado entre Hegel y John Dewey ha sido desarrollado previamente debido a la influencia del filósofo alemán en el pensamiento inicial del pensador estadounidense. Este artículo se centra en la estética, y particularmente en el papel del arte en sus proyectos filosóficos. A lo largo de estas páginas se intenta mostrar cómo ambos autores defienden que el arte no se limita a copiar la naturaleza, sino que es una actividad genuina basada en la creación. Para ello, en primer (...) lugar analizaré el origen del arte y la imaginación como facultad esencial para su creación y recepción. Después consideraré cómo ambos filósofos comparten que el punto de partida de la filosofía del arte será la visión cultural del mundo, la práctica auto-reflexiva de la cultura. (shrink)

Authors have empirically evidenced that cultural stereotypes influence gender-typed behavior. With the present work, we have added to this literature by demonstrating that gender roles can explain sex differences in risk-taking, a stereotypically masculine domain. Our aim was to replicate previous findings and to analyze what variables affect women making risky decisions in the social domain. A sample composed of 417 Spanish participants, between 17 and 30 years old, answered a set of self-report measures referring to femininity, fear of negative (...) evaluation, and social risk-taking. According to the main results, sex indirectly linked to risk-taking in the social domain, through femininity and fear of negative evaluation. Specifically, women self-reported higher feminine traits, which were associated with increased fear of negative evaluation, which in turn was associated with less risky decisions in the social domain. Thus, we have showed the relationship between gender roles and women’s behaviors in a stereotypically masculine domain. Our findings highlight the necessity of considering a gender-based perspective in the field of risk-taking, showing that not all women make more risky decisions in the social domain. (shrink)

Dans sa thèse de médecine de 1943 sur le normal et le pathologique, Georges Canguilhem se sert largement des idées de Kurt Goldstein lorsqu’il définit la normalité comme la capacité de l’organisme à créer de nouvelles normes de vie dans un débat polarisé avec son milieu. Pourtant, il déclara ensuite que les conceptions de Goldstein avaient constitué pour lui un « encouragement et non une inspiration ». Les archives personnelles de Canguilhem nous permettent effectivement de considérer le rapport de Canguilhem (...) à Goldstein comme une convergence plutôt que comme une influence mais surtout, l’usage que Canguilhem fait de Goldstein nous permet de mieux saisir la portée de ses propres idées. Nous interrogeons dans une première partie la conception holiste de l’organisme de Goldstein, dans ses rapports à la gestalt-théorie et à Kant, conception qui se réfère au processus d’actualisation de l’essence de l’organisme dans son rapport avec le milieu. Ceci nous permet d’appréhender l’usage que fait Canguilhem de certains concepts et idées de Goldstein pour élaborer son propre concept de normativité vitale. Dans une deuxième partie, nous nous proposons de comprendre la manière dont Canguilhem pose le problème du rapport de la connaissance à la normativité vitale à partir de sa lecture des textes du neurologue allemand. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to defend the proposal that one has to be a realist about the existence and causal efficacy of reasons if one wants to have rationally justified actions. On this basis, I will propose to understand intentional action in terms of justification alone, not in terms of justification plus causation. I shall argue that an action is intentional, under a certain description, if, and only if, it is justified, under that description, by the agent’s reasons. The (...) proposal recommends itself as being capable of solving the problem of wayward causal chains and is promising as a way of avoiding epiphenomenalism of mental properties. (shrink)

Perhaps because groupishness comes so easily to humans, clear operational definitions of the phenomena and justifications for the claim that it is deep‐seated are lacking in much of the literature. Furthermore, the assertion of human groupishness glosses over several important questions including which behaviors, which social boundaries, and which evolutionary processes make us groupish. In this paper I use an evolutionary lens, and cross‐species and cross‐cultural comparative examples to clarify the bases on which such a claim of particular human groupishness (...) can be made. Specifically, if humans are particularly groupish, it is because we produce culturally‐structured social landscapes. This means the cognitive science of groupishness must incorporate the social science of the cultural evolution of group boundaries. (shrink)

In his article 'Individualism and Descartes' (Teorema, vol. 16, pp. 71-86), William Ferraiolo puts into question the widely accepted interpretation of Descartes as an individualist about mental content. In this paper, I defend this interpretation of Descartes thought against Ferraiolo's objections. I hold, first, that the interpretation is not historically misguided. Second, I try to show that Descartes’s endorsement of anti-individualism would lead either to depriving skeptical hypotheses of their force or to rejecting the epistemological privilege of the first person. (...) Finally, I argue that Ferraiolo’s objections to the individualistic interpretation rest on two important errors: a misapprehension of the argumentative order of the Meditations and a confusion between the notions of causal and constitutive dependence of content on the external environment. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to examine both the work of Judith Butler on gender performativity and examples of how Butler's writings have been appropriated by certain other writers. I explore three areas in particular: the relation between performance and performativity in the work of Butler and her `adherents'; the developmental changes in Butler's argument between Gender Trouble and Bodies That Matter; and the question of the effectiveness of the politics of parody. I argue that it is the ambiguities (...) in Butler's own several accounts of the distinction between performance and performativity that fuel the readings of the politics of performance as the province of the autonomous subject - a perspective at variance with Butler's own. In addition, I explore the deficiencies in Butler's account of politics, especially her denial of the significance of the context on the efficacy of political interventions. (shrink)

Previous research has focused on the relation between social class and prosocial behavior. However, this relation is yet unclear. In this work, we shed light on this issue by considering the effect of the level of empathy and the social class of the recipient of help on two types of prosociality, namely helping and caring. In one experimental study, we found that for high-class participants, empathy had a positive effect on helping, regardless of the recipient’s social class. However, empathy had (...) no effect for low-class participants. When it comes to caring, empathy had a positive effect for both high and low-class participants, but only when the recipient of help belonged to the same social class. This highlights that empathy by itself is not sufficient to promote cooperative relations and that the social class of the recipient of help should be taken into account to shed light on this issue. (shrink)

This paper is intended to meet some objections that Vermazen has raised about the treatment of the regress-problem in the author's book on the philosophy of action. This problem is shown to involve a skeptical claim about the very existence of actions as distinct from happenings. It is argued, against Vermazen's contention, that only one version of the problem is at work in that book and that, while Danto's basic actions, McCann's volitions and O'Shaughnessy's and Hornsby's tryings do not solve, (...) after analysis, that version of the problem, the author's proposal does in fact provide a solution to it. (shrink)

According to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, an agent is morally responsible for an action of hers only if she could have done otherwise. The notion of a robust alternative plays a prominent role in recent attacks on PAP based on so-called Frankfurt cases. In this paper I defend the truth of PAP for blameworthy actions against Frankfurt cases recently proposed by Derk Pereboom and David Widerker. My defence rests on some intuitively plausible principles that yield a new understanding of (...) the concept of a robust alternative. I will leave aside whether PAP also holds for praiseworthy actions -/- Según el Principio de Posibilidades Alternativas, un agente es moralmente responsable de una acción sólo si hubiera podido actuar de otro modo. La noción de alternativa robusta desempeña un papel prominente en ataques recientes al PPA basados en los llamados casos Frankfurt. En este artículo defiendo el PPA para la culpabilidad moral frente a casos Frankfurt propuestos recientemente por Derk Pereboom y David Widerker. Mi defensa descansa en algunos principios intuitivamente plausibles que dan lugar a una comprensión nueva del concepto de alternativa robusta. No trataré la cuestión de la verdad del PPA para acciones moralmente laudables. (shrink)

This paper will examine the violence of heteronormativity: the violence that constitutes and regulates bodies according to normative notions of sex, gender, and sexuality. This violence, I will argue, requires more than a focus on gendered or sexualized physical harms of the kinds normally examined when studying violence against sexual minorities or women. Rather, it necessitates focusing on the multiple modalities through which heteronormativity performs its violence on, through, and against bodies and persons, including through the production of certain bodies (...) and persons as inciting violence in their very being. To establish my argument, I explore the killing in 2002 of trans woman Gwen Araujo and the violence of the legal strategy (the trans panic defense) used in the legal trials that followed her killing. Both forms of violence, I suggest, operate in a similar way, albeit through different mechanisms, to maintain and extend the system of binary morphology that itself entails the perpetual violent materialization of sexed bodies. (shrink)

In this book chapter, Moya argues that recognizing, indeed mobilizing, identities in the classroom is a necessary part of educating for a just and democratic society. Only a truly multi-perspectival, multicultural education can create the conditions needed to alter the negative identity contingencies that minority students commonly face, while creating opportunities for all students. By treating identities as epistemic resources and mobilizing them, we can draw out their knowledge-generating potential and allow them to contribute positively to the production and (...) transmission of knowledge. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se analizan las representaciones del sujeto-ciudadano que se articulan en los discursos sobre la ciudadanía del saber experto chileno. El enfoque metodológico es el estudio de caso y el análisis crítico del discurso, analizando una muestra de documentos institucionales de tres Think Tank de gran influencia nacional: “Instituto Libertad y Desarrollo”, “Centro de Estudios Públicos” y “Fundación Chile 21”. El análisis identifica dos posiciones de sujeto-ciudadano en los discursos: el “sujeto post-ciudadano” y el “sujeto neo-ciudadano”, proponiendo (...) como conclusión, que ambas representaciones están articuladas a partir de una racionalidad política común. (shrink)

In this paper we don’t intend to show, against the sceptic, that most of our everyday beliefs about the external world are cases of knowledge. What we do try to show is that it is more rational to hold that most of such beliefs are actually cases of knowledge than to deny them this status, as the external world sceptic does. In some sense, our point of view is the opposite of Hume’s, who held that reason clearly favours scepticism about (...) the independent existence of an external world rather than common sense belief in such an independent existence. In arguing for the superior rationality of this common sense, Moorean view, we also take a fallibilist conception of knowledge to be rationally preferable to an infallibilist view of it. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is Butler's recent work on Antigone, kinship and the state. Like many advocates of radical democracy, Butler is suspicious of attempts to enlist state support for political demands, preferring politics at the level of civil society. Butler turns to the narrative of Antigone, in part, to explore just such a version of (feminist?) resistance to the state but also, crucially, to contemplate the constitutive role that Antigone (and her contemporary counterparts) represents in respect of the (...) formation of the state and politics. While sympathetic to Butler's thesis in general, in this paper, I raise three sets of questions concerning her reading of the state. First, I explore the ambiguity surrounding her conceptualization of the state. Next, I turn to the tension between the state's purported efficacy in achieving its aims and the theory of resignification that Butler deploys widely throughout her work. Finally, I look at the understated role of Creon whose failure to compel obedience from Antigone is largely occluded in Butler's re-reading of Antigone. (shrink)

Para el autor de este artículo, el rechazo kantiano de la identificación de su concepto de a priori con la noción leibniciana de lo innato solo puede comprenderse de manera clara y precisa, si recurrimos a la concepción kantiana de la epigénesis como modelo epistemológico; es decir, si consideramos las facultades cognitivas como fuerzas formativas que se componen con otras fuerzas de la naturaleza para hacer posible la adquisición originaria de intuiciones y conceptos a priori.

Replies to commentators Respuestas a los comentarios críticos de Carlos Patarroyo, Mirja Pérez de Calleja y Pablo Rychter.

En el presente artículo se trata un problema filosófico clásico : el camino epistémico entre la percepción y la formación de conceptos. Se propone una posición doctrinal que afirma que la cognición comienza sin lenguaje pero que gracias a él se asciende hasta la inteligencia humana. Se incluye una referencia a dos momentos de la historia de la gnoseología: la tradición aristotélica enriquecida por la filosofía andalusí y el debate filosófico sobre el tema dentro del empirismo inglés del siglo XVII.

How are we to understand hunger strikes and episodes of lip-sewing in immigration detention? Are they simply cases of self-destruction or bare life, as is often claimed, or is there scope to view these embodied acts of self-harm as having a political dimension and to see those engaged in them as resistant subjects exercising political agency? To explore these issues, I draw on recent feminist theoretical work on vulnerability. Received wisdom suggests that vulnerability is an impediment to political action. Rejecting (...) the idea that vulnerability equates exclusively to injurability and passivity, I contend, by contrast, that corporeal vulnerability can potentially prompt action, serve as a resource for collective acts of resistance, and enable the politicization of certain spaces. Since context matters to how vulnerability and resistance intersect, I illustrate my argument by exploring, in particular, the protests that took place at Woomera immigration detention centre in Australia in 2002. (shrink)

Many accounts of ethnic phenomena imply that processes such as stereotyping, essentialism, ethnocentrism, and intergroup hostility stem from a unitary adaptation for reasoning about groups. This is partly justified by the phenomena’s co-occurrence in correlational studies. Here we argue that these behaviors are better modeled as functionally independent adaptations that arose in response to different selection pressures throughout human evolution. As such, different mechanisms may be triggered by different group boundaries within a single society. We illustrate this functionalist framework using (...) ethnographic work from the Quechua-Aymara language boundary in the Peruvian Altiplano. We show that different group boundaries motivate different ethnic phenomena. For example, people have strong stereotypes about socioeconomic categories, which are not cooperative units, whereas they hold fewer stereotypes about communities, which are the primary focus of cooperative activity. We also show that, despite the cross-cultural importance of ethnolinguistic boundaries, the Quechua-Aymara linguistic distinction does not strongly motivate any of these intergroup processes. (shrink)

Kim Iryeop (1896-1971) fue una de las escritoras feministas más controvertidas de la modernidad coreana y una maestra seon de renombre. Nació el 9 de junio de 1896 en un pueblo al sur de la provincia de Pyeong’an. Su padre era un pastor protestante y su madre una mujer ilustrada para su época, que animo a su hija a estudiar. Tras graduarse en la Ewha Womans University, Kim se convirtió en una prolífera escritora y en una figura primordial del movimiento (...) feminista nueva mujer (sin yeoja). Sin embargo, a principio de los años treinta, Kim abandonó su vida secular y se ordenó monja budista. Este estudio presenta un análisis sobre la filosofía budista que desarrolla Kim, mostrando las principales preocupaciones y aportaciones de su propuesta. (shrink)

In this article, I defend the idea that Kant’s interest in an emergent science in the 18th century as the Embriology (especially in the concept of epigenesis) allows to deepen in a soft naturalization of Kant’s trancendental idealism, as well as to justify the validity of a priori knowledge.

Using samples from three diverse populations, we test evolutionary hypotheses regarding how people reason about the inheritance of various traits. First, we provide a framework for differentiat-ing the outputs of mechanisms that evolved for reasoning about variation within and between biological taxa and culturally evolved ethnic categories from a broader set of beliefs and categories that are the outputs of structured learning mechanisms. Second, we describe the results of a modified “switched-at-birth” vignette study that we administered among children and adults (...) in Puno, Yasawa, and adults in the United States. This protocol permits us to study perceptions of prenatal and social transmission pathways for various traits and to differentiate the latter into vertical versus horizontal cultural influence. These lines of evidence suggest that people use all three mechanisms to reason about the distribution of traits in the population. Participants at all three sites develop expectations that morphological traits are under prenatal influence, and that belief traits are more culturally influenced. On the other hand, each population holds culturally specific beliefs about the degree of social influence on non-morphological traits and about the degree of vertical transmission—with only participants in the United States expecting parents to have much social influence over their children. We reinterpret people's differentiation of trait transmission pathways in light of humans' evolutionary history as a cultural species. (shrink)

In his paper “What the externalist can know a priori”, Paul Boghossian rejects the compatibility between self-knowledge and content externalism by arguing that compatibilists are committed to the absurd view that a subject can know, by reasoning purely a priori, substantive truths about the world, such as that water exists. In this paper I try to show that Boghossian’s incompatibilist argument does not succeed. According to Boghossian, it is enough, for an externalist to reach the undesired conclusion, that she satisfies (...) a number of conditions that can be known by her a priori. I argue that, by an externalist’s lights, some of these conditions are simply too weak to be acceptable by her and some of them can only be known a posteriori. So, compatibilists are not committed to the absurdity Boghossian ascribes to them. (shrink)

This article focuses on Jacques Rancière’s reflections on Alfredo Jaar’s The Rwanda Project in the context of wider discussions of the politics of naming the dead. Against the claim that his reflections reveal a depoliticizing, universalist commitment to naming all the dead, it contends that foregrounding the relation between naming and counting in this discussion shows Rancière’s focus to be the policing and politics of naming. In an original argument, it focuses specifically on how, for Rancière, in this context, individualized (...) proper names function politically and dissensually. To do so it explores Rancière’s analysis of the role of the mainstream media during the Rwandan genocide in perpetuating the police order which divided nameable individuals from anonymous masses, thereby constituting living and dead Rwandans as of little or no account, and his account of how Jaar’s art is able to disrupt the ‘partition of the sensible’ underpinning this count. The article concludes by considering how Rancière’s ideas about the relationship between naming and counting and between politics and police serve as a useful supplement to and extension of existing discussions of grievability. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente trabajo es defender el Principio de posibilidades alternativas (ppa) frente a dos recientes supuestos contraejemplos a éste, inspirados en el que diseñó, hace ya cuarenta años, Harry Frankfurt. Las tres primeras secciones resumen el estado de la cuestión. A partir de la cuar..

This book provides a welcome assessment of the wide-ranging impact of Michel Foucault's work upon a number of disciplines within the social sciences and humanities. It offers close textual readings of Foucault's work along with clear overviews of how his work has been taken up in subjects such as history, philosophy and international relations. It also offers original applications of his work to important topics within feminist theory, political theory, the sociology of race, and socio-legal studies.

Sila elección está causada por factores ajenos a la voluntad del agente, la libertad y la responsabilidad moral parecen perder su base. Pero si la elección carece de causas, se convierte en un acto irracional y, con ello, irresponsable. La salida de este dilema consiste en advertir la importancia de las razones morales en la deliberación práctica. De acuerdo con la tesis central del presente trabajo, la sensibilidad hacia las razones morales es una condición necesaria de la libertad y la (...) responsabilidad moral. La inconmensurabilidad de tales razones con las razones no morales concede a la elección el lugar central que demanda la responsabilidad moral, pero, al mismo tiempo, la mantiene vinculada a la racionalidad, evitando su conversión en un acto irresponsable. Si esto es así, la disminución (o pérdida) de la sensibilidad de un agente hacia las razones morales significa también la disminución (o pérdida) de su libertad y responsabilidad moral. (shrink)

Habit and Embodiment in Merleau-PontyIntroductionMerleau-Ponty (French phenomenological philosopher, born in 1908 and deceased in 1961) refers to habit in various passages of his Phenomenology of Perception as a relevant issue in his philosophical and phenomenological position. Through his exploration of this issue he explains both the pre-reflexive character that our original linkage with the world has, as well as the kind of “understanding” that our body develops with regard to the world. These two characteristics of human existence bear a close (...) relation with the vision of an embodied mind sustained by Gallagher and Zahavi in their work The Phenomenological Mind: An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science. Merleau-Ponty uses concepts like those of the lived or own body and of lived space in order to emphasize, from a first-person perspective, the co-penetration that exists between subject and world.Gallagher and Zahavi have regained the experience of phenomenology, especially that of Merleau-Ponty and Sartre, to contribute to the development of the cognitive sciences. Via the phenomenological approach to the reality of habit, a new understanding of the body becomes possible for us, such that it becomes characterized “as subject, as experiencer, as agent”, and at the same time we can understand “the way the body structures our experience” (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2008). Additionally, the idea of a pre-reflexive understanding is conceived of by these authors... (shrink)