The Great Palace of Constantinople has been subject to several investigations since the second half of the nineteenth century. All of them have been mostly concerned with the topographical, architectural and typological development of the imperial residence, leaving aside questions such as toponymics. This paper will deal with this issue taking into consideration the name of the complex of buildings that once was the core of the Constantinian Palace, the Daphne. Doing so, we will better understand the denomination of the (...) Palace, and shed light on the functions related to several spaces, the courtly ritual and, in short, the representation of power through architecture in an imperial context. Besides, the present enquiry will challenge some topographical assumptions on the complex. (shrink)

After briefly presenting the approaches to price theory developed in American colonial scholasticism by Tomás de Mercado, Bartolomé de Albornoz and Juan de Matienzo, we intend to demonstrate the preponderant role played by Aristotle and the peculiar reception given to him by these authors in their respective works.

Estudiamos varios conceptos clave en la obra del franciscano Fray Juan de Pineda, especialmente el concepto de ‘gracia justificante’, que se opone teológicamente a las ideas luteranas pero que desarrolla un pensamiento erasmista, afín a Fray Luis de Granada, a Francisco de Osuna y a Bartolomé de Las Casas. Estudiamos también su concepto de ‘lavacro’, procedente de San Pablo y su relación con la interpretación del Padre Nuestro, lo que apunta de lleno a la polémica doctrinal entre Carranza y (...) Melchor Cano. Finalmente hacemos ver la identidad de planteamientos erasmistas con el Lazarillo de Tormes, cuya geografía (Salamanca, Escalona, Maqueda y Almorox) coincide con el área de predicación de Fray Juan de Pineda a partir de 1544. Dada la coincidencia léxica, biográfica, doctrinal y de estilo entre el Lazarillo y la obra de Fray Juan de Pineda, sostenemos que esta novela picaresca corresponde a la intención reformadora del pensamiento erasmista franciscano del siglo XVI. (shrink)

La recepción europea de Gómez Dávila comenzó a desplegarse de manera más amplia a partir de la lectura y difusión realizada por Franco Volpi. Este artículo alude a la manera como dicha lectura concretó las interpretaciones del colombiano, principalmente a la luz de una filosofía práctica y una perspectiva crítica. De dichas posturas, el italiano destaca la vocación vital y el carácter provocador del pensamiento de Gómez Dávila.

Este artículo analiza en primera instancia la lectura y consideración hermenéutica que Ernesto Volkening realiza de la obra de Nicolás Gómez Dávila. Tras una presentación de las pautas interpretativas que se dan en el Diario de lectura de Volkening, se considera luego el interés de losautores por la arquitectura y el urbanismo modernos, como claves para la crítica del modo de vida reificante del hombre actual. Posteriormente, se ilustran las pautas que abordan la historia y la historicidad, bajo la idea (...) de una comprensión hermenéutica gestada en los contextos, opuesta a cualquier determinismo y puesta en marcha bajo la impronta de la singularidad e individualidad. (shrink)

A tendência de algumas visões naturalistas de deduzir o sentido da ação humana da sua natureza biológica conduz a naturalizar a violência como fenômeno político inexorável. A violência naturalizada leva a sociedade para a dinâmica da inexorável violência, cuja única solução é a legitimação de uma violência total. Propomos, neste ensaio, a desconstrução crítica dos determinismos naturalistas por meio da análise da ação humana e da especificidade de sua potência que se manifesta como potência criadora (Cornelius Castoriadis) e potência do (...) não (Giorgio Agamben). A potência da ação humana transcende os determinismos da sua natureza biológica, embora por eles esteja condicionada. The tendency some naturalist visions have to deduce the meaning of human action from their biological nature, leads to a naturalization of violence as an inexorable political phenomenon. Naturalized violence leads the society towards the dynamics of inexorable violence, whose only solution is legitimazing total violence. In this article we propose the critical deconstruction of naturalistic determinism by means of the analysis of human action and the specificity of its power, which is manifested as creative power (Cornelius Castoriadis) and power of no (Giorgio Agamben). The power of human action transcends the biological determinisms of its biologic nature, although the power of human action is conditioned by them. (shrink)

From the earliest days of its history, Brazil has been a favoured ‘laboratory’ for ethnic, cultural and religious hybridization. The absence or scarcity of white women and the temptations of sexual exoticism drove the Portuguese discoverers, and with them sailors from Normandy, Brittany and Poitou, to have relations with Indian women they chanced to meet, thus creating a race of coloured people, oddly called mamelucos, later cabocles (of mixed white and Indian ethnicity). Afterwards, the very substantial recourse to the Negro (...) slave trade and to manpower of African slave origin because of the requirements of the sugarcane economy (which remained predominant for a long time, especially in the Nordeste region of Bahia and Pernambuco), as well as the numerical imbalance of the sexes, characterized by a great predominance of men, popularized concubinage - all the more so because the Catholic Church was extremely reluctant to sanction interethnic unions with the sacrament of marriage. The Jesuits even recommended the despatch of white prostitutes or women condemned by common law (degredadas), for whom Brazil would furnish the opportunity for redemption, in order to avoid or reduce the number of unions of this kind. Thus, concubinage was the most common vehicle of miscegenation in Brazil. (shrink)

Aproximación al análisis formal de la imagen, desde un punto de vista perceptivo y organizativo en el proceso artístico personal de alumnos que cursan la asignatura de Análisis de la Imagen y la Forma de la Universidad de Zaragoza. A través de la Historia de la Imagen se apuesta por estudios prácticos que posibiliten la comprensión de los fundamentos de la comunicación visual, desde su perspectiva estética, a través de la apreciación consciente de las imágenes y las formas. El alumnado (...) abre su mente a nuevas perspectivas, interrogantes y otras líneas de investigación desde diversas áreas: culturales, sociales y artísticas. (shrink)

La palabra cultura tiene, por lo menos, un doble sentido, uno primario y otro suplementario. El primero hace referencia a habilidades básicas y el segundo a destrezas adquiridas. El presente trabajo se ocupa de la cultura en el primer sentido, de la cultura que adquirimos con sólo nacer y criarnos en un determinado medio humano, en el medio particular donde nos hacemos individuos y capacitamos como personas. Existe un derecho a la cultura propia. Los Estados amparan las culturas con las (...) que se identifican y, por lo tanto, el derecho a las mismas de las gentes individuadas y socializadas gracias a ellas, al tiempo que han podido perfectamente acometer políticas genocidas con el resto. He ahí en definitiva la razón esquizofrénica por la que un derecho tan esencial como el derecho a la cultura propia no se ha cualificado hasta hoy como derecho humano. El problema no es la falta de algún derecho que debiera añadirse, sino la articulación del conjunto de los derechos humanos y, particularmente, los de carácter individual con los colectivos. Es un problema que no se plantea con los derechos humanos en sí, sino con el actual orden internacional y su correspondiente filosofía. (shrink)

The causal characters (spacelike, lightlike, timelike) of the coordinate lines, coordinate surfaces and coordinate hypersurfaces of a coordinate system in Relativity define what is called its causal class. It is known that, in any relativistic space-time, there exist one hundred and ninety nine such causal classes. But in Newtonian physics (where only spacelike and timelike characters exist) the corresponding causal classes have not been discussed until recently. Here it is shown that, in sharp contrast with the relativistic case, in Newtonian (...) space-time the different causal classes of coordinate systems are drastically reduced to four. These causal classes admit simple geometric descriptions and physical interpretations. For example, it is shown that one can generate coordinate systems of the four causal classes by means of the sole linear synchronization group, i.e. by coordinate transformations that only change the origin of time linearly. The relativistic analogs of these examples are also considered. (shrink)

Contiene una sección especial sobre Filosofía Latinoamericana, donde hay ponencias de los siguientes autores: Carlos Alemián, Abelardo Barra Ruatta, Alberto Buela y Oscar Wingartz Plata. Además, sobre Arturo A. Roig (dos artículos, uno de Estela Fernández y otro de Marisa Muñoz, Dante Ramaglia y Oscar Zalazar); sobre ensayo y fenomenología en América Latina (Clara Alicia Jalif de Bertranou); sobre Agustín Alvarez (Dante Ramaglia); y sobre Simón Rodríguez (Oscar Salazar). De otras secciones destacamos una ponencia de Arturo A. Roig sobre la (...) historia de las ideas y la filosofía latinoamericana, y otras dos, una sobre Mariátegui (Néstor Kohan) y la segunda sobre Andrés Mercado Vera (Isabel Luchetta)"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58. (shrink)

This essay defends that mimesis is an inherently agonistic and paradoxical human practice. The divergent views on mimesis by Plato and Aristotle, as well as by Adorno and Benjamin, are the philosophical manifestation of an agonistic tension of human mimesis that is not resolved in the exclusive truth of one of the positions, but remains as a permanent possibility to create alternative paths in history.

A sacralidade da vida humana tornou-se um problema filosófico com desdobramentos éticos e políticos. Este ensaio apresenta uma arqueologia da sacralidade a partir dos estudos de Walter Benjamin e Giorgio Agamben, estabelecendo uma comparação com o sentido da sacralidade nas polis antigas. A sacralidade aparece como figura simbólica marcada pelo paradoxo – ao mesmo tempo que protege a vida pelo direito sagrado, o direito a captura e a ameaça com a exceção. Porém, o paradoxo é insuperável, já que constitui o (...) modo de ser do humano. (shrink)

Philosophers of perception frequently assume that we see actual states of affairs, or facts. Call this claim factualism. In his book, William Fish suggests that factualism is supported by phenomenological observation as well as by experimental studies on multiple object tracking and dynamic feature-object integration. In this paper, I examine the alleged evidence for factualism, focusing mainly on object detection and tracking. I argue that there is no scientific evidence for factualism. This conclusion has implications for studies on the phenomenology (...) and epistemology of visual perception. (shrink)

The sensorimotor theory of vision and visual consciousness is often described as a radical alternative to the computational and connectionist orthodoxy in the study of visual perception. However, it is far from clear whether the theory represents a significant departure from orthodox approaches or whether it is an enrichment of it. In this study, I tackle this issue by focusing on the explanatory structure of the sensorimotor theory. I argue that the standard formulation of the theory subscribes to the same (...) theses of the dynamical hypothesis and that it affords covering-law explanations. This however exposes the theory to the mere description worry and generates a puzzle about the role of representations. I then argue that the sensorimotor theory is compatible with a mechanistic framework, and show how this can overcome the mere description worry and solve the problem of the explanatory role of representations. By doing so, it will be shown that the theory should be understood as an enrichment of the orthodoxy, rather than an alternative. (shrink)

In a broad-based study of experiences in psychological research, 65 undergraduates participating in a wide range of psychological experiments were interviewed in depth. Overall findings demonstrated that participants hold varying views, with only 32% of participants characterizing their experiences as completely positive. Participants' descriptions of their debriefing experiences suggest substantial variability in the content, format, and general quality of debriefing practices. Just over 40% of the debriefing experiences were viewed favorably. Positive debriefing experiences were described as including a thorough explanation (...) of the study and detailed information concerning the broader relevance of the experiment to the field of psychology. The most common complaint, characterizing 28.8% of the responses, was that the debriefing was unclear and that insufficient information was provided. Participants' views of psychological research and the discipline of psychology were also elicited. Results are discussed in terms of ethical and methodological implications. (shrink)

The activism of institutional investors tends more and more toward the supervision and control of the behavior of the managers of big companies. In this article, we present a model based on the creation of an activism index that lets us evaluate such activism's effect on the sensitivity of the investment policies of a company in the face of financial variables and market variables. To test our assertions, we analyze firm-level data for United Kingdom, Germany, France, Denmark, and Spain during (...) the period 1995-2004. Our results point to a significant reduction in the sensitivity of company investment decisions in the face of these variables, especially relative to intangible capital, as a result of the neutralizing effect of activism on the high agency costs of free cash flow and on the information asymmetries of the market. (shrink)

The activism of institutional investors tends more and more toward the supervision and control of the behavior of the managers of big companies. In this article, we present a model based on the creation of an activism index that lets us evaluate such activism's effect on the sensitivity of the investment policies of a company in the face of financial variables and market variables . To test our assertions, we analyze firm-level data for United Kingdom , Germany, France, Denmark, and (...) Spain during the period 1995-2004. Our results point to a significant reduction in the sensitivity of company investment decisions in the face of these variables, especially relative to intangible capital, as a result of the neutralizing effect of activism on the high agency costs of free cash flow and on the information asymmetries of the market. (shrink)

The activism of institutional investors tends more and more toward the supervision and control of the behavior of the managers of big companies. In this article, we present a model based on the creation of an activism index that lets us evaluate such activism’s effect on the sensitivity of the investment policies of a company in the face of financial variables (such as cash flow and liquidity ratio) and market variables (ownership concentration and value creation index). To test our assertions, (...) we analyze firm-level data for United Kingdom (U.K.), Germany, France, Denmark, and Spain during the period 1995–2004. Our results point to a significant reduction in the sensitivity of company investment decisions in the face of these variables, especially relative to intangible capital, as a result of the neutralizing effect of activism on the high agency costs of free cash flow and on the information asymmetries of the market. (shrink)