‘Can you tell me, Philocles, what in the world it is that makes many men so fond of lying that they delight in telling preposterous tales themselves and listen with especial attention to those who spin yarns of that sort?’ In the seventh book of his Historia Ecclesiastica the church historian Sozomen provides us with a detailed account of the social and political climate and subsequent motives which precipitated the outbreak of the Riot of the Statues in Antioch a.d. 387. (...) According to his version ‘on the night before the sedition occurred, a spectre was seen in the form of a woman of prodigious height and terrible aspect, pacing through the streets of the city, lashing the air with an ill-sounding whip, similar to that which is used in goading on the beasts brought forward at the public theatres. It might have been inferred that the sedition was excited by the agency of some evil and malicious demon. There is no doubt but that much bloodshed would have ensued, had not the wrath of the emperor been stayed by his respect for this sacerdotal entreaty.’. (shrink)

El actual discurso social sobre el mal es obsoleto e ineficaz. Vivimos bajo presupuestos cognitivos (parcialmente) fallidos que se resisten a sucumbir porque están en juego necesidades psicológicas unidas a un determinado concepto del ser humano, de Dios (o de lo que se esconde tras esta idea para los ateos) y de la realidad. Este artículo trata de desarrollar un nuevo enfoque del problema-enigma del mal que pone en cuestión diez paradigmas dominantes, planteando la necesidad de reconocer su existencia (en (...) torno al concepto de exceso) como requisito para plantarle cara como única opción moral, la de luchar con todas las armas disponibles, incluido un saber que aspira a relacionar e integrar diversos saberes en torno a un único objetivo: derrotar el mal o al menos intentarlo. (shrink)

El antiguo convento del Carmen calzado de Sevilla fue uno de los edificios religioso más paradigmáticos de su ciudad. No ya sólo por sus dimensiones o por el enorme patrimonio artístico que llegó a albergar (del que hoy nos queda in situ sólo buena parte de su arquitectura), sino también por su amplio significado devocional. En él llegaron a establecerse en el s. XVI y hasta el s. XIX numerosas hermandades y cofradías. En este artículo no se pretende simplemente resumir (...) la historia de dichas corporaciones durante ese periodo carmelitano, sino ahondar en sus relaciones con respecto a los frailes que los acogían, y reflexionar sobre el estrecho paralelismo que hubo entre la evolución y posterior decadencia de esta comunidad religiosa con respecto a esas hermandades. (shrink)

This article analyzes the current political transition in México from the vantage point of civil society. It departs from a definition of the Mexican authoritarian regime, now the oldest in the world, as a model of fusion between the state, the market and society. The crisis of the developmental model and the regime’s increasing inability to incorporate the new social actors created by industrialization and urbanization opened up a long period of political crisis whose main content was a process of (...) societal differentiation. The failure of President Salinas’ project of neo‐liberal reconstruction of the authoritarian regime deepened the crisis and led to the formation and consolidation of strong national political parties, the beginning of a still unequal, but effective electoral competition and especially to the emergence of several civic groups that are struggling for a democratization that goes beyond electoral politics. The collective identity as civil society of these civic groups has been instrumental for the critique of the regime’s gradualist strategy of “permenent electoral reform”. (shrink)

Este trabajo orienta su contenido a las aplicaciones de la lógica borrosa, pero no desde una aproximación que trate de abordar ciertas caracterrsticas relevantes de algunas de ellas y/o comentar sus coincidencias y discrepancias desde el punto de vista dei soporte dado por la lógica borrosa. Existen excelentes y abundantes revisiones de este estilo, por lo que nosotros hemos optado por introducir algunas reflexiones a modo de respuesta a preguntas formuladas al hilo de la más general que da trtulo al (...) trabajo. Contestar a algunas de ellas es, sin duda, uncometido realmente arriesgado, como ocurre al tratar de plasmar, por ejemplo, y aunque sea con trazos “borrosos”, cuáles serán las aplicaciones futuras de la lógica borrosa. Esperamos que se nos disculpe si el acierto torna a ser escaso.This paper discusses about the field of fuzzy logic applications, but not from the point of view of its importance or commenting their main features and how they are formally supported by fuzzy logic. Very good, exist in this field, and so we decided to present some reflections trying to answer very general questions about this issue. Answering, for example, to the question about possible futureapplications of fuzzy logic is, no doubts, a very risky task. We look forward to be forgiven if our approach proves not to be very successful. (shrink)

En este texto partiremos de la conocida tensión cinematográfica entre la imagen y la narración, refiriendo a un caso concreto de cine mexicano tipológico costumbrista. Es un género que se distingue por una trama débil constituida por secuencias con un importante peso mostrativo o “descriptivo”, más que narrativo y el espectador se entretiene en el reconocimiento de los estereotipos, obteniendo un goce mimético de reconocimiento. Para abordar tal reconocimiento mimético distinguiremos entre los imaginarios literarios y los imaginarios fílmicos. Los imaginarios (...) literarios son esquemas faltos de concreción. Por el contrario, los imaginarios fílmicos no son lo absoluto una cuestión de la imaginación más o menos vaga, sino que dada su base fotográfica presentan girones de la realidad tal cual es en su apariencia. Este imaginario fílmico ya no consta de imágenes de la mera imaginación, al gusto del que se las imagina, sino que consta de fragmentos fotográficos de la apariencia real, por lo que esas imágenes de calidad fotográfica tienden a generan de inmediato aprobación o rechazo. Puede ser que se lea algo que no gusta y entonces tiende a dejarse de lado, pero es más difícil dejar de lado algo que, aunque no guste no se leyó sino se vio. Para analizar el género de narrativa débil tipologizante recurrimos a la teoría de D. Bordwell sobre la construcción de la historia combinándola con la teoría de R. Barthes acera de los núcleos, catálisis, informantes e indicios narrativos. (shrink)

Given the past two decades of over 40 failed trials of amyloid-lowering therapies in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), many of which succeeded in lowering amyloid as designed, we present an ethical argument for emptying the drug pipeline of tests of amyloid-lowering agents so as to end the historical dominance of the amyloid-reducing therapeutic approach in AD.

To assess the effectiveness of Visual Thinking Strategies in medical education curricula, a pretest–posttest experimental study design was used to evaluate the impact of participating in VTS workshops on first-year medical students. A total of forty-one intervention and sixty comparative students completed the study which included the analysis of clinical images followed by a measurement of word count, length of time analyzing images, and quality of written observations of clinical images. VTS training increased the total number of words used to (...) describe clinical images, the time spent analyzing the images, and the number of clinically relevant observations. (shrink)

This major publication is a history of the semantic tradition in philosophy from the early nineteenth century through its incarnation in the work of the Vienna Circle, the group of logical positivists that emerged in the years 1925–1935 in Vienna who were characterised by a strong commitment to empiricism, a high regard for science, and a conviction that modern logic is the primary tool of analytic philosophy. In the first part of the book, Alberto Coffa traces the roots of (...) logical positivism in a semantic tradition that arose in opposition to Kant's theory that a priori knowledge is based on pure intuition and the constitutive powers of the mind. In Part II, Coffa chronicles the development of this tradition by members and associates of the Vienna Circle. Much of Coffa's analysis draws on the unpublished notes and correspondence of many philosophers. The book, however, is not merely a history of the semantic tradition from Kant 'to the Vienna Station'. Coffa also critically reassesses the role of semantic notions in understanding the ground of a priori knowledge and its relation to empirical knowledge and questions the turn the tradition has taken since Vienna. (shrink)

Alireza Bagheri supports a policy on organ procurement where individuals could choose their own definition of death between two or more socially accepted alternatives. First, we claim that such a policy, without any criterion to distinguish accepted from acceptable definitions, easily leads to the slippery slope that Bagheri tries to avoid. Second, we suggest that a public discussion about the circumstances under which the dead donor rule could be violated is more productive of social trust than constantly moving the line (...) between life and death. (shrink)

We experimentally investigated the influence of context-based biases, such as prestige and popularity, on the preferences for quotations. Participants were presented with random quotes associated to famous or unknown authors, or with random quotes presented as popular, i.e. chosen by many previous participants, or unpopular. To exclude effects related to the content of the quotations, all participants were subsequently presented with the same quotations, again associated to famous and unknown authors, or presented as popular or unpopular. Overall, our results showed (...) that context-based biases had no, or limited, effect in determining participants’ choices. Quotations preferred for their content were preferred in general, despite the contextual cues to which they were associated. We conclude discussing how our results fit with the well-known phenomenon of the spread and success of misattributed quotations, and we draw some more general implications for cultural evolution research. (shrink)

Content-based authorship identification is an emerging research problem in online social media networks, due to a wide collection of issues ranging from security to privacy preservation, from radicalization to defamation detection, and so forth. Indeed, this research has attracted a relevant amount of attention from the research community during the past years. The general problem becomes harder when we consider the additional constraint of identifying the same false profile over different social media networks, under obvious considerations. Inspired by this emerging (...) research challenge, in this paper we propose and experimentally assess an innovative framework for supporting content-based authorship identification and analysis in social media networks. (shrink)

At first russell thought (p) that whatever a proposition is about must be a constituent of it. Then, Around 1900, He discovered denoting concepts and realized that a proposition could be about something and have only its denoting concept as constituent. However, A number of remarks that he made through the years can only be understood as inspired by (p). In particular, The arguments offered in "on denoting" against the doctrine of denotation of "principles" are grounded on (p).

El texto analiza y sistematiza de un modo completo la doctrina quesustenta el deber de motivación de las sentencias judiciales en el Estadoconstitucional. Este deber se encuentra anclado al Estado de Derechoy a sus principios, valores y derechos recogidos por la Constitución,al sistema «político» de la Democracia y al sistema «jurídico» delEstado constitucional. Abordo las peculiaridades de la motivación judicialen cada una de estas dimensiones (Estado de Derecho y Constitución,sistema político y sistema jurídico), y en el ámbito del sistemajurídico, me (...) detengo especialmente en la problemática más habitual dela motivación judicial en relación a los principios de la decisión judicial(parte fáctica y parte normativa) en el ámbito de desarrollo de lapraxis jurídica. Finalmente, abordo las principales patologías de lamotivación judicial que surgen en la actividad profesional de los jueces,juezas y tribunales de justicia. (shrink)

Reseña de la obra de Ruiz Andrés, Rafael, _La secularización en España. Rupturas y cambios religiosos desde la sociología histórica_. Madrid, Cátedra, 2022, 321 pp. ISBN: 978-84-376-4390-8.

This essay answers the question: Which are the themes often considered as “Philosophy of Law” that are of concern to legal scholars? My answer seeks to sort out how the “thematic content” has become into what today is known as “Philosophy of Law” to legal scholars (against “Philosophy of Law” to philosophers). To deal with this question I will consider Norberto Bobbio’s point of view.Resumen:En este texto trato de responder a la pregunta: ¿cuáles son los temas calificados generalmente como “de (...) filosofía del derecho” que nos interesan a los juristas? Mi respuesta se dirige a desgranar cómo se ha ido construyendo el “contenido temático” más habitual que hoy identifica a la filosofía del derecho de los juristas (frente a la filosofía del derecho de los filósofos). Para tratar esta cuestión examino el punto de vista de Norberto Bobbio. En nuestro tiempo, dicha perspectiva constituye el punto de partida en la discusión de cuáles son los ámbitos problemáticos más habituales de la reflexión teórico-jurídica. (shrink)

Judges have a duty to decide judicial cases, however, judicial decision will vary and will have certain characteristics depending on the kind of case at hand: this article address three kinds of judicial cases: clear cases, borderline cases and pivotal cases. The purpose: discuss if relying on these classifications is useful or not in light of the unity in judicial adjudication principle.Resumen:Los jueces tienen el deber general de resolver los casos judiciales; sin embargo, la decisión judicial variará y tendrá ciertas (...) características dependiendo del tipo de caso; son tres los tipos de casos judiciales que este artículo estudia: clear cases, borderline cases y pivotal cases. El objetivo: intentar descubrir si adoptar una de las tipologías señaladas vulnera o reafirma el principio de unidad propio de la aplicación judicial. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The humble origins of Russell's paradox by J. Alberto Coffa ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS Russell pointed out that the discovery of his celebrated paradox concerning the class of all classes not belonging to themselves was intimately related to Cantor's proof that there is no greatest cardinal. lOne of the earliest remarks to that effect occurs in The Principles ofMathematics where, referring to the universal class, the class of all (...) classes and the class of all propositions, he notes that when we apply the reasoning of his [Cantor's] proofto the cases in question we find ourselves met by definite contradictions, of which the one discussed in Chapter x is an example. (P. 362) And in a footnote he adds: "It was in this way that I discovered this contradiction". Throughout his writings Russell left a number ofhints concerning the sort of connection he had drawn between Cantor's proof and his own discovery. In fact, his suggestions are so specific that there would seem to be little room left for speculation concerning how the discovery took place.2 The picture that emerges almost immediately from Russell's observations is the following. For reasons which are 1 See, e.g., Bertrand Russell, The Principles of Mathematics, 2nd ed. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1937), §§100, 344-9; G. Frege, Wissenschaftlicher Briefwechsel (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1976), pp. 215-16; B. Russell, Essays in Analysis, ed. D. Lackey (New York: George Braziller, 1973), p. 139; B. Russell, Introducrion to Mathemarical Philosophy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971), p. 136; B. Russell, My Philosophical Development (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959), pp. 75-6; The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, I (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), 195. 2 See, e.g., Ch. Thiel's "Einleitung des Herausgebers" in Frege, Wissenschaftlicher Briefwechsel, pp. 203 and 216 (footnote), and 1. Grattan-Guinness, "How Bertrand Russell Discovered his Paradox", Historia Marhematica, 5 (1978),127-37. 31 32 Russell, nos. 33-4 (Spring-Summer 1979) never made clear, Russell decided to analyze Cantor's argument applying it to "large" classes such as the universal class V, and the class of all classes. When, for example, we consider V, its power set and the correlationf(x) = {x} if x is not a class, f(x) =. x otherwise, then Cantor's diagonal class D turns out to be the class of all classes not belonging to themselves. Moreover, since the element ofV which is taken toD byfisD itself(i.e., sincef(D) = D), Cantor's reasoning invites us to raise the question whether D belongs tof(D) (i.e., toD) or not; and it establishes that it does precisely if it doesn't.3 The purpose of this note is to present recently uncovered information that complements and corrects our present understanding of Russell's discovery of his paradox. As it turns out, far from originating from his desire to apply the ideas in Cantor's theorem, a version of Russell's paradox first occurred in an argument that Russell had devised, late in 1900, in order to establish the invalidity of that theorem. An appeal to "large" classes such as V or Class was, as we shall see, essential to Russell's attempted refutation. As he displayed the details of his counterexample Russell's paradox emerged, at first unrecognized, as the by-product of a project that the paradox itself would eventually undermine. In a paper written in 1901 and largely devoted to a popular exposition and defence of Cantor's theory of the infinite, Russell expressed what appeared to be a rpinor reservation to Cantor's treatment : There is a greatest of all infinite numbers, which is the number of things altogether, of every sort and kind. It is obvious that there cannot be a greater number than this, because, if everything has been taken, there is nothing left to add. Cantor has a proof that there is no greatest number, and if this proof were valid, the contradictions of infinity would reappear in a sublimated form. But in this one point, the master has been guilty of a very subtle fallacy, which I hope to explain in some future work.4 3 See Principles, §349. Perhaps I should remind... (shrink)

Hempel's high probability requirement asserts that any rationally acceptable answer to the question 'Why did event X occur?' must offer information which shows that X was to be expected at least with reasonable probability. Salmon rejected this requirement in his S-R model. This led to a series of paradoxical consequences, such as the assertion that an explanation of an event can both lower its probability and make it arbitrarily low, and the assertion that the explanation of an outcome would have (...) qualified as an explanation of its non-occurrence as well. We argue that if inductive explanations are to be seen as generalizations of the causal-deterministic model, or if they are to be seen as satisfying the requirement--fulfilled by the D-N model--that explanations ought to identify certain features of the universe that are nomically responsible for the explanadum event, then the high probability requirement seems to be unacceptable. If this is so, a realistically inspired theory of inductive explanation will be committed to the paradoxes that follow from Salmon's model. (shrink)