Throughout the following analysis we propose a reflection on the reasons and causes that motivated the appearance and development of “revolutionary terrorism” or of the extreme left in Latin America and Western Europe. We review the role played by some of its main reference organizations and the response offered by the States in which they acted. As fundamental axes, we consider two. On the one hand, the role played by violence in these organizations. On the other hand, the causes that (...) motivated his defeat/disappearance. (shrink)

la agresión física y verbal propiciada a dos guardias civiles y a sus parejas en Alsasua (Navarra) en octubre de 2016 puso de manifiesto que la subcultura de la violencia difundida y patrocinada por ETA durante sus años de existencia se halla aún presente entre amplios sectores de la sociedad vasca y navarra. Un escenario, por tanto, contrario a los parámetros del normal funcionamiento del Estado de Derecho, cuya principal consecuencia radica en la transformación de las víctimas en victimarios.

Las relaciones de España con Iberoamérica, a pesar de la retórica compartida que alude a un pasado común, han retrocedido en las últimas décadas. Esta afirmación resulta compatible con aquella otra que pone en valor la actuación española a la hora de apoyar a aquellas naciones iberoamericanas que iniciaron transiciones a la democracia y procesos de reconstrucción post-bélica en la recta final de la Guerra Fría. El panorama observado a partir de 1990 ha certificado la persistencia de una serie de (...) obstáculos en Iberoamérica que han lastrado su crecimiento económico y han minado su seguridad, sobresaliendo la criminalidad organizada. También se ha detectado la presencia de actores como China, Rusia o Irán cuyo compromiso con la democracia es inexistente, lo que incrementa las incertidumbres acerca de la estabilidad iberoamericana. (shrink)

El tema de las relaciones entre ciencia y religión es central en la obra de Ruse. No se trata de una mera curiosidad o de una cuestión tratada tangencialmente, sino que está en el corazón de sus preocupaciones intelectuales e incluso vitales (sección 1). Hay que señalar, además, que la actividad de Ruse coincide con una cierta encrucijada histórica, en la cual se enfrentan dos posiciones extremas y mutuamente hostiles, el creacionismo, por una parte, y el nuevo ateísmo, por otra (...) (sección 2). Para entender las propuestas respetuosas, matizadas y constructivas que hace Ruse, hay que situarlas en un marco teórico complejo, donde sean posibles actitudes menos burdas que el simple enfrentamiento (sección 3). Quizá la fórmula que mejor recoge las ideas de Ruse en este dominio sea la de “existencialismo darwinista”, como él mismo propone (sección 4). Por último, presentaré un resumen conclusivo de lo hallado (sección 5). (shrink)

En la poesía de Ramón López Velarde es fundamental la presencia del corazón y del alma. Ambos conceptos no son simples y únicos, sino complejos y diversos. Hay un corazón confesional e íntimo, llamado “Corazón de San Agustín”; un corazón como órgano del cuerpo, conocido como “Corazón de Harvey”; y un corazón simbólico, el cual recibe el nombre de “Corazón de León”. En correspondencia con estos elementos, hay un alma individual, perteneciente al sujeto lírico; un Anima mundi, relativa a la (...) belleza del mundo; y un Alma Superior, la cual remite al mundo de las ideas platónicas o arquetípicas. Con base en un enfoque propio de la Mitocrítica, se demuestra la importancia de la presencia del símbolo, del mito y del arquetipo en la poesía de López Velarde. Palabras clave: corazón, alma, mitocrítica, poesía, López Velarde. (shrink)

La ética ambiental nació como justa contestación a los excesos del antropocentrismo. Sin embargo, un énfasis obsesivo en lo ético y en lo ambiental, con el consiguiente olvido de lo antropológico, puede estar dañando la vida humana, la libertad de las personas y la vida en general. Abogamos aquí por la construcción de una ecología humana que vaya más allá y más al fondo que las éticas ambientales al uso. Defendemos que el humanismo es perfectamente compatible con el reconocimiento del (...) valor inherente de todos los seres naturales. Lo hacemos basándonos principalmente en algunas ideas de Hans Jonas, aunque rechazamos su heurística catastrofista. De él retomamos la idea de que existe una responsabilidad moral hacia los demás seres vivos, empezando por los más próximos en el tiempo y en el espacio, y hacia el libre florecimiento de las personas actuales. Con ello, también, se rebaja el peso de lo ético sobre nuestra acción ecológica. Esta ha de atender principalmente a criterios experienciales, antropológicos, científicos y de sentido común. Por último, defendemos que la política, la educación y la comunicación ambiental deben orientarse directamente hacia la libertad y el desarrollo virtuoso de las personas actuales, y no hacia el control de las mismas por culpabilización. El tránsito desde la ética ambiental hacia la ecología humana —concluimos— puede ser beneficioso tanto para las personas como para la naturaleza. (shrink)

La invitación hecha en el segundo semestre de 2022 para participar en este dosier de Co-herencia suponía, entonces, por un lado, el sometimiento de los comentarios de Volkening a la obra en proceso de Gómez Dávila a un primer escrutinio crítico y, por el otro, la apertura a la discusión sobre crítica literaria y el pensamiento en Colombia y a consideraciones sobre formas alternativas de escritura crítica, como las ofrecidas por el ensayo literario, el diario y los géneros marginales y (...) fragmentarios. El llamado invitaba a considerar la pertinencia de un tema lleno de posibilidades, que permite relacionar la pregunta por la escritura, la lectura, la institucionalización y la recepción literaria con las perspectivas que prodiga un diálogo entre dos intelectuales colombianos, actualizado gracias a su publicación casi medio siglo después. Surgía de este modo la opción de descubrir, no solo un objeto de estudio de interés, sino también nuevos caminos críticos para los problemas del campo literario, editorial e intelectual colombiano. (shrink)

Numerous eukaryotic DNA processing enzymes, such as DNA polymerases and ligases, bind the processivity factor PCNA, which acts as a platform to recruit and regulate the binding of enzymes to their DNA substrate. Multiple PCNA‐interacting motifs (PIPs) are present in these enzymes, but their individual structural and functional role has been a matter of debate. Recent cryo‐EM reconstructions of high‐fidelity DNA polymerase Pol δ (Pol δ), translesion synthesis DNA polymerase κ (Pol κ) and Ligase 1 (Lig1) bound to a DNA (...) substrate and PCNA demonstrate that the critical interaction with PCNA involves the internal PIP proximal to the catalytic domain. The ancillary PIPs, located in long disordered regions, are instead invisible in the reconstructions, and appear to function as flexible tethers when the enzymes fall off the DNA. In this review, we discuss the recent structural advancements and propose a functional hierarchy for the PIPs in Pol δ, Pol κ, and Lig1. (shrink)

Informed consent forms have been useful in clinical practice and they constitute a part of the shared decision making in the informed consent process. They provide information to patients about clinical procedures and techniques. They also act as a remainder of the information discussed after the medical interview. Sometimes these documents are not readable to everybody. Belgian law specifies that all information that patients receive has to be proportionate verbally, but written information is also handled. The present research analyzes the (...) readability of the Flemish informed consent forms located in the webs of all General Hospitals using a simple random sample of 75 informed consent forms. By using the Douma tool, which bases its analysis in the length of words and sentences, the readability mean of the sample was 46, level “Difficult”. The 59% of them had a difficult level. The 11% were normal. It is a fact, then, that the 59% of the informed consent forms evaluated in this study are not suitable for everybody in Flanders, especially those people with low literacy. There were some researches made in other countries that agreed with these results. Written clinical information was poorly written so the informed consent forms were not working helping patients to recall information nor helping patients to become a part in the shared decision making about their health. The use of readability formulas represented a simple way to discriminate those informed consent forms that had normal readability scores from those that should be adapted. (shrink)

How should automated vehicles react in emergency circumstances? Most research projects and scientific literature deal with this question from a moral perspective. In particular, it is customary to treat emergencies involving AVs as instances of moral dilemmas and to use the trolley problem as a framework to address such alleged dilemmas. Some critics have pointed out some shortcomings of this strategy and have urged to focus on mundane traffic situations instead of trolley cases involving AVs. Besides, these authors rightly point (...) out the political nature of the most interesting debates involving AVs. However, in our view, they do not offer an adequate account of the distinction between ethics and politics and still see their proposals as contributions to the ethics of AVs. We argue that many of the interesting questions about how AVs should behave, both in emergency and other situations, are of political, and not moral, nature. This view is based on a conception of politics and political normativity that we have developed elsewhere and that we call “political minimalism.” Additionally, we show that this proposed perspective has significant consequences for the design, management, and regulation of transport systems. (shrink)

According to political minimalism, a debate is considered political when it revolves around the question “What shall we do?” This account suggests that certain issues related to human enhancement technologies (HETs), which have traditionally been addressed in the realm of applied ethics, could be better approached from a political standpoint. However, this raises the question of who constitutes the “we” – the communities that face the political challenges posed by HETs. We argue that there is a global human community that (...) directly faces at least some of these challenges, and this fact underscores the relevance of a cosmopolitan perspective. While some authors have already advocated for a cosmopolitan approach in addressing issues such as poverty or climate change, they often do so from a moral outlook, without adequately distinguishing between ethics and politics. In contrast, we assert that HETs present compelling arguments in favour of cosmopolitanism as a political stance. In support of this claim, we consider two cases: the pills that would allow people to eat at will without gaining weight, and the choice between different types of cognitive enhancers. (shrink)

We performed a critical review of the historiographical studies on biogeography. We began with the pioneering works of Augustin and Alphonse de Candolle. Then, we analyzed the historical accounts of biogeography developed by (1) Martin Fichman and his history on the extensionism-permanentism debate; (2) Gareth Nelson and his critique of the Neo-Darwinian historiography of biogeography; (3) Ernst Mayr, with his dispersalist viewpoint; (4) Alan Richardson, who wrote a microhistory on the biogeographic model constructed by Darwin; (5) Michael Paul Kinch and (...) the ideas discussed in the 19th century about the geographical distribution of living beings; (6) Janet Browne, who highlighted the importance of the pre-Darwinian naturalists; (7) Peter Bowler, who focused mainly on the influence of paleontology on biogeography; (8) James Larson, who looked into the practices of the naturalists of Northern Europe in the late 18th century; and (9) Malte Ebach, who like Larson, was more interested in analysing the practices rather than the ideas of naturalists who studied the geographical distribution of organisms. Finally, these works are compared with each other. There has not been a dominant paradigm in the construction of historical narratives of biogeography; however, they provide a useful context for understanding problems of biogeography that continue to be debated to this day. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine how workgroup diversity can be managed through specific strategic human resource management systems. Our review shows that ‘affirmative action’ and traditional ‘diversity management’ approaches have failed to simultaneously achieve business and social justice outcomes of diversity. As previous literature has shown, the benefits of diversity cannot be achieved with isolated interventions. To the contrary, a complete organizational culture change is required, in order to promote appreciation of individual differences. The paper contributes to (...) this discussion by exploring the implications of this change for human resource management, and explaining how the systems of practices should be changed when they are directed to diverse groups. The model designed to test this notion includes: (1) demographic and human capital diversity as independent variables, (2) group performance (measured as innovation outcomes) as the dependent variable and, (3) the orientation of the strategic human resource management system as a potential moderator of this relationship. The main conclusion of the empirical analysis developed is that different patterns of human resource management practices can be used, depending on the type of diversity that the organization faces, and the specific effects that it wishes to manage. Concretely, three alternative management systems are identified in this paper, with different moderating effects. This result has interesting implications for human resource management professionals, explained in the last section. The limitations of this study are also discussed, as well as some issues that future research in this field should address. (shrink)

En este articulo se examina la tradicional caracterización de la filosofía de la ciencia como una disciplina normativa. Se discuten varias concepciones de esta disciplina, cada una de las cuales ofrece una respuesta diferente a la pregunta de si es posible, y cómo, una filosofía de la ciencia genuinamente normativa. De entre esas concepciones, se opta por una forma de naturalismo que se diferencia de otras en la exigeneia de que la normatividad de la filosofía de la ciencia inc!uya la (...) discusión de los objetivos y valores, epistémicos o no, de la ciencia. La necesidad de esta inc!usión se ilustra, finalmente, con el ejemplo de la aetividad conocida como “cicncia reguladora”.This article examines the traditional characterization of the philosophy of science as a normative discipline. Several understandings of this discipline are discussed; each of them offering a different answer to the question whether, and how, a genuinely normative philosophy of science might be possible. Among these views, I choose one variety of naturalism that differs from others in its commitment with the discussion of science’s aims and values, either epistemic or non-epistemic. Finally, the need for this inclusion is illustrated with the example of the so-called “regulatory science”. (shrink)

What is the relationship between morals and politics? What is the relationship between moral philosophy and political philosophy? Defenders of political moralism postulate moral aims or constraints for politics, and hence they see political philosophy as a chapter of moral philosophy. Contrastingly, advocates of political realism describe politics as an independent endeavor aiming at providing order and security, and conceive of political philosophy as an autonomous discipline. This article claims that political moralism and political realism share the mistake of assuming (...) that politics has substantial, permanent goals or constraints. After criticizing political substantialism, the article explains the main ingredients of its alternative, political minimalism: the idea that politics, understood as collective instrumental rationality, aims at providing adequate means for the accomplishment of people's goals, whatever these are; and the conception of the relationship between morality and politics as one of “reciprocal containment.” Finally, it addresses some foreseeable criticisms of political minimalism. (shrink)

Moderation and liberalism are different and in some cases antagonistic concepts. In recent years, the view that Sieyès’s idea of constituent power is a moderate and liberal rendering of sovereignty has gained acceptance in intellectual history and constitutional theory literature. This claim is based on the premise that radical and illiberal readers of Rousseau’s idea of sovereignty, such as Robespierre and the Jacobins, were opposed to representing the general will (volonté générale). Thus, constituent power as the exercise of power by (...) extraordinary representatives to draft a constitution would be a liberal attempt at political moderation in the French revolution. In contrast to this liberal reading, my analysis shows that Sieyès’s idea of constituent power is an illiberal attempt at political moderation. Against moderate liberal theories, constituent power demands that the extraordinary representatives of the constituent assembly must will, deliberate, and act as if they were the people themselves. These representatives have absolute powers and the mandate to create a constitution but also the imperative to perceive and mirror the sovereign will. From a political theory approach, I conclude that constituent power is not a liberal idea but a key notion of moderate illiberalism that prevailed during the French Revolution. (shrink)

El estudio de la motivación de la utilización de los sistemas de control avanzado de música ambiental y el hecho de crear un buen ambiente, una buena experiencia de cara al cliente que entra en un local a realizar una compra debido al atractivo generado por la música es el objetivo de esta investigación. El estudio de las emociones que se derivan de la utilización de la música en locales comerciales y la repercusión que tiene en el comportamiento de compra (...) del consumidor serán analizados con el estudio de varios casos de éxito sobre esta cuestión. (shrink)

This article analyzes positive scientific thought in modernity in order to study how ways of knowing through scientific certainties helped to make up pragmatic and objective thought. Later, it approaches post-modernity as an age that inaugurated some ways of knowing by means of uncertainties, subjec..

SummaryThis article discusses whether a naturalistic philosopher should endorse the epistemological version of the “is/ought gap” thesis. Quine thinks that there is an epistemological gap between normative epistemology and normative ethics, but I claim that anybody holding his naturalistic and holistic views has good reasons to deny the existence of a gap separating either epistemology from ethics or descriptive discourse from nonnative discourse. I maintain that both gaps can be bridged if one adopts, like Quine, a holistic view of justification. (...) Although justification in science, epistemology and ethics are different in certain respects, holism accounts for the justification of scientific, epistemological and ethical beliefs at a general level. (shrink)

Many artists, art critics, and poets suggest that an aesthetic appreciation of artworks may modify our perception of the world, including quotidian things and scenes. I call this Art-to-World, AtW. Focusing on visual artworks, in this paper I articulate an empirically-informed account of AtW that is based on content-related views of aesthetic experience, and on Goodman’s and Elgin’s concept of exemplification. An aesthetic encounter with artworks demands paying attention to its aesthetic, expressive, or design properties that realize its purpose. Attention (...) to these properties make percipients better able to spot them in other entities and scenes as well. The upshot is that an aesthetic commerce with artworks enlarges the scope of what we are able to see and has therefore momentous epistemic consequences. (shrink)

A faulty understanding of the relationship between morality and politics encumbers many contemporary debates on human enhancement. As a result, some ethical reflections on enhancement undervalue its social dimensions, while some social approaches to the topic lack normative import. In this essay, I use my own conception of the relationship between ethics and politics, which I call “political minimalism,” in order to support and strengthen the existing social perspectives on human-enhancement technologies.

During the second half of the twentieth century, economics exported its logic - utility maximization - to the analysis of several human activities or realities: a tendency that has been called "economic imperialism". This book explores the concept termed by John Davis as "reverse imperialism", whereby economics has been seen in recent years to have taken in elements from other disciplines. Economics and Other Disciplines sheds light on the current state and possible future development of economics by focusing on it (...) from a philosophical perspective, broadening the concept of rationality in economic theory. The beliefs that prevail in the world today make up a physicalist worldview. This book argues that this pervasive view is harmful for economics as a social science. Do new economic currents like behavioral economics, evolutionary economics, neuroeconomics, institutional economics, happiness economics, the capability approach and civil economy, escape this widespread mentality? What would be an adequate underlying economic ethos? Do these approaches fit into this ethos? Ricardo F. Crespo appraises the contributions from a classical philosophy angle, emphasizing their implications regarding practical reason. This volume is of great importance to those who are interested in political economy, economic theory and philosophy, as well as philosophy of social science. (shrink)

‘I am not data’ has been produced in collaboration with a creative coder from the Netherlands. Over a period of six months around 4600 images were chosen from approximately 20,000 images of LatinX femmes. The images were then fed into a generative adversarial network (GAN) simulation that produced this film. The resulting work seeks to elucidate a process of lumping together foreign bodies as a method of amalgamation that works to create ‘new’ information. It exists in tandem with ‘Second Nature’, (...) a body of work on Mexican femme bodies and algorithmic web searches, from which some images are included in this article. The process behind the GAN used for this film becomes a mere reference to a human shape. Its processes of synthesis work as a metaphor for systems of human classification in which the bodies of foreigners become fuel for monstrous stereotypes. There is a sense of history repeating itself through the ways that these technological tools are used in artificial intelligence (AI) which launches questions regarding equality and progress in pursuit of social justice. (shrink)

The world has seen several financial and economic crises in the past few years. Psychological, ethical and philosophical levels of causal analysis have been discussed, and in this context, an interest in classical thinkers has emerged. The work of Aristotle has influenced writers from Marx and Menger to Amartya Sen. This book introduces us to Aristotle's thought on 'the economic' and on its influences on economists. First, it focuses on Aristotle´s ideas, situating Aristotle in his historical context, describing his positions (...) on the economic and analysing what kind of reality the economic is, its relation with ethics and with politics. Then, it determines what kind of science is concerned with the economic. Later, it analyses related topics and shows the influence of Aristotle's ideas on contemporary economists. It concludes by highlighting the Aristotelian contributions to today's economy. This scholarly volume offers important new insights into the Aristotelian approach to the economy itself, as well as to the idea of economics as a science, bringing Aristotle's views to bear on the modern economy. (shrink)

El capítulo IV de De la ética a la metafísica es dedicado por Julia Iribarne al estudio del surgimiento de la cuestión de la identidad personal en el pensamiento de Husserl. El objetivo, trazado al inicio del cap., es la exposición de una suerte de “arqueología del sujeto” la cual tiene lugar entre dos polos: por un lado, lo que Husserl denomina fluyente presente viviente y, por otro, ese mismo yo concreto “visto ahora como persona única e irrepetible”. Un paso (...) importante en este proceso arqueológico tiene que ver con la identidad vista en el estrato de la persona moral. En relación con este estrato, este artículo pretende mostrar que las denominadas “emociones morales”, entendidas como vivencias interpersonales y, por tanto, sociales, desempeñan un papel muy importante en la constitución y en la revelación de la persona única e irrepetible que somos cada uno de nosotros. Para ello nos serviremos del reciente estudio de A. J. Steinbock, Moral Emotions. Reclaiming the Evidence of Heart inserto en su proyecto más amplio de lo que él mismo denomina “fenomenología vertical”.Chapter 4 of Iribarne’s De la ética a la metafísica deals with the question of personal identity in Edmund Husserl’s thought. The objective of this chapter is the exposition of a kind of “subject’s archaeology” which takes place between two poles: on the one hand, that what Husserl calls “fluent living present” and, on the other hand, this same concrete ego, but “now seen as unique and unique person”. An important step in this archaeological process has to do with personal identity considered on the level of the moral person. In this regard, this paper tries to show that the so called “moral emotions”, as interpersonal and therefore social experiences, play an important role in the constitution and revelation of the unique person each of us are. To do that I will refer to the recent book by A.J. Steinbock, Moral Emotions. Reclaiming the Evidence of Heart, which has to be considered in the more general frame of what he calls “vertical phenomenology”. In this way I try to develop Iribarne’s analysis on the mentioned chapter. (shrink)

Este artículo aborda el carácter clave del comercio de barrio como espacio para la sociabilidad en contextos locales de migración, centrándose en tres planteamientos que contribuyen a analizar tanto situaciones de convivencia armoniosa como de conflictividad entre vecinos de distintos orígenes etnoculturales: 1) la vinculación entre el comercio como elemento visibilizador de expresiones identitarias y la construcción culturalista del conflicto; 2) cómo se articula el comercio con otros espacios de sociabilidad; y 3) la multiplicidad de espacios de interacción que ofrece (...) la actividad comercial. (shrink)

En 2015, la ONU aprobó 17 Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) integrados en la Agenda 2030. Siguiendo esta línea, y dada su relevancia, las universidades europeas están integrando el desarrollo sostenible en sus planes de estudio. El objetivo de esta propuesta consistirá en desarrollar una experiencia piloto donde nuestros estudiantes a través del aprendizaje cooperativo formen equipos de trabajo agrupados según el test Riso-Hudson (1999) garantice el máximo rendimiento. Como resultado se ofrecerá una medida de la rentabilidad que aporta la (...) incorporación de la sostenibilidad en los proyectos de inversión empresariales a la par que la creación de valor sostenible. (shrink)

We examine the extent to which host country income inequality influences multinational enterprises’ (MNE) expansion strategy for foreign production investment, depending on their specific strategic objectives. Applying a transaction cost framework, we predict that national income inequality has an inverted U-shaped relationship with foreign production investment. As inequality increases, MNEs accrue lower transaction costs arising from interactions with various local actors, leading to higher probability of investment. As income inequality increases further, its effect on location attractiveness will become negative, as (...) its attraction effect is increasingly offset by additional monitoring, bargaining, and security costs owing to the more fractious nature of high inequality societies. In addition, we suggest that the impact of income inequality is contingent on investment objectives: The inverted U-shaped relationship is stronger for efficiency-seeking investment but weaker for market-seeking and competence-enhancing investments. We find substantial support for our hypotheses through an analysis of 27 years (1986-2012) of data on Japanese MNEs’ overseas production entries. (shrink)

El concepto de seguridad humana ha estado al centro de un amplio debate desde que el PNUD lo adoptara en su ‘‘Informe sobre Desarrollo Humano’’de 1994. Algunos han señalado sus ventajas como alternativa a concepciones más tradicionales de la seguridad, mientras que los críticos del concepto insisten en su ambigüedad y la posibilidad de que sea utilizado para justificar, incluso, acciones violentas en la línea del realismo político. En estas páginas, tras un balance de los pros y contras, se defiende, (...) con algunos matices, el concepto de seguridad humana como una herramienta útil no sólo para la construcción de alianzas coyunturales orientadas a la acción política, sino también para la crítica de políticas de seguridad vigentes y para la propuesta positiva de políticas de seguridad más adecuadas. (shrink)

In this paper I distinguish two ways of using the expression ‘epistemological naturalism’. In one sense, naturalism amounts to a denial that epistemology should be understood as a kind of first philosophy providing the foundations for science from outside. In a second sense, naturalism holds that human knowledge is a natural phenomenon and that epistemology should be seen as a chapter of natural science. Moreover, naturalism in this second sense usually incorporates some additional specifications that build up a very restrictive (...) concept of science. Two different projects for naturalizing epistemology lie behind these two meanings of ‘naturalism’, and the two projects, although sometimes seen as complementary or even equivalent, are not necessarily so. After drawing this distinction, I set out the difficulties faced by those naturalistic stances that do not discriminate sharply enough or do not establish the appropriate hierarchical relationship between both projects. Finally, I argue for a conception of epistemology which is best described as a radical antilfoundntionnlism. This conception sticks to the requirements that follow from naturalism when understood in the first sense above, and takes the cluster of theses that give birth to the second as subsidiary and revisable. (shrink)

The Critique of Pure Reason—Kant’s First Critique—is one of the most studied texts in intellectual history, but as Alfredo Ferrarin points out in this radically original book, most of that study has focused only on very select parts. Likewise, Kant’s oeuvre as a whole has been compartmentalized, the three Critiques held in rigid isolation from one another. Working against the standard reading of Kant that such compartmentalization has produced, The Powers of Pure Reason explores forgotten parts of the First (...) Critique in order to find an exciting, new, and ultimately central set of concerns by which to read all of Kant’s works. Ferrarin blows the dust off of two egregiously overlooked sections of the First Critique—the Transcendental Dialectic and the Doctrine of Method. There he discovers what he argues is the Critique’s greatest achievement: a conception of the unity of reason and an exploration of the powers it has to reach beyond itself and legislate over the world. With this in mind, Ferrarin dismantles the common vision of Kant as a philosopher writing separately on epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics and natural teleology, showing that the three Critiques are united by this underlying theme: the autonomy and teleology of reason, its power and ends. The result is a refreshing new view of Kant, and of reason itself. (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)

Se discuten varias concepciones con respecto al carácter normativo de la filosofía de la ciencia. De entre éstas, se aboga por una forma de naturalismo comprometido con la necesidad de discutir los valores (epistémicos o no) de la ciencia. El ejemplo de la "ciencia reguladora" ilustra esa necesidad.