Purpose This study aims to explore the main concerns and attitudes Basque adolescents have regarding online privacy. It analyzes their motivations for sharing private information and the kind of information they share. Likewise, it examines whether they consider the potential consequences of revealing certain information online and analyzes if there are any differences between the motivations and attitudes of young people from Gipuzkoa and Labourd. Design/methodology/approach For this study, three methods were combined to collect the data in 17 schools in (...) the Basque provinces of Gipuzkoa and Labourd: a survey carried out among 1,133 students, out of which 242 also completed a diary and 482 took part in discussion groups. Findings The data from this research does not fully support the “youth cultures of disclosure” in the Basque Country; however, some of these practices have been observed. Originality/value Time spent online by adolescents has increased sharply in recent years. This increase has brought with it concerns about youth’s level of awareness regarding online privacy. This is the first cross-border study conducted in the Basque Country addressing this topic. (shrink)

We discuss some methodological aspects of the relation between physics and metaphysics by dealing specifically with the case of non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Our main claim is that current attempts to productively integrate quantum mechanics and metaphysics are best seen as approaches of what should be called ‘the metaphysics of science’, which is developed by applying already existing metaphysical concepts to scientific theories. We argue that, in this perspective, metaphysics must be understood as an autonomous discipline. It results that this metaphysics (...) cannot hope to derive any kind of justification from science. Thus, one of the main motivations of such project, which is the obtaining of a scientifically respectable justification for the attribution of a single true metaphysical profile to the posits of a scientific theory, is doomed because of the emergence of metaphysical underdetermination from the outset. If metaphysics floats free from physics, which is a premise of such project of integration between these two areas, then it is always possible to attribute more than one metaphysical profile to dress physical entities. (shrink)

Spain has become one of the European epicenters of coronavirus (COVID-19), a virus that particularly affects the elderly, since this group accounts for the majority of hospitalized cases and has the highest mortality rates. Therefore, the aim of this research is to understand how elderly people represent and emotionally cope with COVID-19 during the days when the pandemic emerged in Spain. Using a qualitative methodology, a free association exercise elicited by the word “COVID-19” was completed by 115 participants (age range: (...) 60–85 years) from the North of Spain. Lexical analysis was used to analyze the content. The results revealed that the government and the mass media are criticized for failing to communicate a clear message, and for giving out information that is both insufficient and contradictory. However, participants are clear that it is essential to follow the guidelines of the scientists and doctors, which are represented as credible sources. However, when the state of alarm and the lockdown of all citizens was declared, most of the participants represented the risk as being associated with the elderly and the pandemic became something that might also affect their families. Due to these circumstances, negative emotions appear such as fear, nervousness, uncertainty, restlessness, and insecurity. Feelings of solitude and loneliness also emerged, and these are represented as being linked to death. These results indicate the need for governments to manage the current situation with the elderly by placing greater emphasis on social and inclusive policies to help alleviate the possible effects of the pandemic and the lockdown. (shrink)

Scholars in the humanities and social sciences have turned to ethics to theorize politics in what seems to be an increasingly depoliticized age. Yet the move toward ethics has obscured the ongoing value of political responsibility and the vibrant life it represents as an effective response to power. Sounding the alarm for those who care about robust forms of civic engagement, this book fights for a new conception of political responsibility that meets the challenges of today's democratic practice. Antonio Y. (...) Vázquez-Arroyo forcefully argues against the notion that modern predicaments of power can only be addressed ethically or philosophically through pristine concepts that operate outside of the political realm. By returning to the political, the individual is reintroduced to the binding principles of participatory democracy and the burdens of acting and thinking as a member of a collective. Vázquez-Arroyo historicizes the ethical turn to better understand its ascendence and reworks Adorno's dialectic of responsibility to reassert the political in contemporary thought and theory. (shrink)

Federico Monjeau. La invención musical. Ideas de historia, forma y representación, segunda edición. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2023, 151 páginas. Pablo Palomino. La invención de la música latinoamericana. Una historia transnacional, traducción de Laura Palomino e Ignacio de Cousandier. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2021, 287 páginas.

Cellular senescence is an anti‐proliferative program that restricts the propagation of cells subjected to different kinds of stress. Cellular senescence was initially described as a cell‐autonomous tumor suppressor mechanism that triggers an irreversible cell cycle arrest that prevents the proliferation of damaged cells at risk of neoplastic transformation. However, discoveries during the last decade have established that senescent cells can also impact the surrounding tissue microenvironment and the neighboring cells in a non‐cell‐autonomous manner. These non‐cell‐autonomous activities are, in part, mediated (...) by the selective secretion of extracellular matrix degrading enzymes, cytokines, chemokines and immune modulators, which collectively constitute the senescence‐associated secretory phenotype. One of the key functions of the senescence‐associated secretory phenotype is to attract immune cells, which in turn can orchestrate the elimination of senescent cells. Interestingly, the clearance of senescent cells seems to be critical to dictate the net effects of cellular senescence. As a general rule, the successful elimination of senescent cells takes place in processes that are considered beneficial, such as tumor suppression, tissue remodeling and embryonic development, while the chronic accumulation of senescent cells leads to more detrimental consequences, namely, cancer and aging. Nevertheless, exceptions to this rule may exist. Now that cellular senescence is in the spotlight for both anti‐cancer and anti‐aging therapies, understanding the precise underpinnings of senescent cell removal will be essential to exploit cellular senescence to its full potential. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente texto es realizar un acercamiento a las diferentes corrientes de pensamiento económico feminista en función de sus propuestas de redefinición del objeto de estudio de la economía; propuestas que pueden entenderse como intentos de deconstrucción de las dicotomías económico/no-económico, trabajo/no-trabajo propias de los marcos teóricos androcéntricos. Se identifican dos estrategias de deconstrucción, con diferentes implicaciones tanto para el ámbito de la teoría económica como para el del análisis empírico y la propuesta política. La primera de ellas (...) está basada en el descubrimiento y revalorización del “otro” económico, el trabajo doméstico. La segunda, en proporcionar un “término bisagra”, el de sostenibilidad de la vida, que permita trascender las dicotomías y a partir del cuál se revisan conceptos asociados, como el de trabajo. Finalmente, se argumentará que se está produciendo un desplazamiento teórico hacia esta última estrategia. (shrink)

The article gives an overview of the past and present situation on the Croatian lesbian scene – from the period prior to the war in Croatia, after the war, right up to the present situation. The ‘coming out’ process of Croatian lesbians during the 1980s and 1990s has been determined by social and cultural homophobic indoctrination, which sends out clear messages about how deviant and unacceptable homosexuality is. Heterosexuality has traditionally been the imperative of social normality within Croatian society. Not (...) being compatible with the social norm, lesbians are condemned by society to failure and isolation. Nevertheless, after the 10-year rule of a strongly nationalistic, rightist and patriarchal regime, recent political changes have brought Croatia to the threshold of a new transitional period. Even though the new Social Democratic and Liberal coalition government is sending mixed signals on many issues to do with gender equality, the homosexual population of Croatia can finally hope for better times to come. (shrink)

En el contexto de a psiquiatría y la psicología clínica, el término "adicción" tradicionalmente ha estado unido al concepto de "dependencia" física y psíquica de "sustancias" (alcohol, cocaína, opiáceos, drogas sintéticas, medicamentos, etc.). La dependencia se define por un conjunto de síntomas cognoscitivos, de comportamiento y fisiológicos que indican, a pesar de la aparición de problemas significativos, que la persona continúa consumiendo la sustancia. Así pues, el diagnóstico clínico de dependencia necesita alguna sustancia concreta y para formalizarlo necesariamente requiere, según (...) los manuales diagnósticos al uso, de malestar clínicamente significativo, deterioro de la actividad laboral, social, o de otras áreas importantes de la actividad del individuo. (shrink)

La palabra "amor" tiene más de 215 millones de entradas en uno de los buscadores más populares de Internet y "love" más de 1.370 millones. Este elevado número de entradas bien pudiera reflejar las muy distintas concepciones que la gente tiene del amor y la importancia que adquiere en sus vidas. Si estudiamos algo más las fuentes que nos ofrece Internet, el amor en muchas ocasiones suele ir ligado al sexo, a menudo lleva la etiqueta de "romántico", pero también se (...) encuentra vinculado con la amistad o el compromiso, los celos, la pasión, la intimidad, el odio, el cariño, la infidelidad, la admiración, el respeto� Las encuestas y los estudios que se están haciendo desde la psicología empiezan a revelar algunos resultados interesantes. (shrink)

El propósito central de este artículo consiste en realizar una exploración crítica de la idea de educación democrática. La tesis que se defiende afirma que existe una relación de complementariedad entre los modelos deliberativo y agonista de la democracia, defendidos por Amy Gutmann y Chantal Mouffe, que permite una comprensión de la educación que satisface las exigencias morales que deben integrar una concepción democrática de ciudadanía. El texto inicia con un planteamiento acerca de la relación entre política y educación; seguidamente, (...) se exponen los enfoques agonal y deliberativo de la política en la interpretación de la democracia, para finalmente identificar los puntos de intersección entre ambos modelos y proponer algunas líneas de reflexión en torno a la comprensión la ciudadanía y la praxis de la formación ciudadana. (shrink)

In ontological terms, what can we learn from the current state of the art in Epidemiology? Applying the Quinean criterion of ontological commitment, we can learn that there are several fundamental entities for the theory to work. One is a virus type entity, in which the (in)famous Coronavirus is a particular case. In metaphysical terms, this entity can, in principle, be understood in several ways. One of those ways, apparently, and perhaps intuitively, is the notion of object. Applying the metametaphysical (...) method of Unavailable Metaphysical Stories, we found that Epidemiology is incompatible with an object metaphysics. (shrink)

We articulate a distinction between ontology, understood as involving existence questions, and metaphysics, understood as either providing for metaphysical profiles of entities or else as dealing with fundamentality and/or grounding and dependence questions. The distinction, we argue, allows a better understanding of the roles of metaontology and metametaphysics when it comes to discussing the relations between ontology and science on the one hand, and metaphysics and science on the other. We argue that while ontology, as understood in this paper, may (...) have reasonable perspectives for naturalization, given its relation to science, the same cannot be said for metaphysics, given that it is typically understood as an additional theoretical layer over science, not participating in the scientific investigation. That may result either in skepticism over metaphysics, or else on accepting that metaphysics is an autonomous branch of investigation, depending on one’s concern for metaphysics. (shrink)

The French Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote provocatively about world civilization from his dual expertise as paleontologist and Catholic priest. This paper will extract from his many writings references to civilizational process in terms of his concept of the noosphere, that is, the transhuman accumulation of knowledge. Basing himself on the notion of a geogenetic process that he described in his important publication, Le Phenomenene Humain (1955), de Chardin considered the evolution of humankind to involve not merely the change (...) of individual members of the species, but in the development of the capacity to shape the earth and its forces by the invention of technology. He foresaw the human creation of a new level of understanding (some would say this is the cyberspace of the Internet) that would be the achievement of a unifying human civilization. The impulse to contribute to and benefit from this wealth of shared knowledge constituted for the Jesuit a quasi-magnetic force that brought together disparate human experiences. Borne in part by his religious faith, de Chardin described in a second masterpiece, Le Milieu Divin (1957) this unifying force as “love”. When a new world civilization learned to harness this kind of love in common purpose, said de Chardin, “for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire”. Possibly because of his religiously tinted language and mystical orientation, Teilhard has not always been viewed a contributor to the field. This paper will offer suggestions for ways to incorporate the French Jesuit among the sources for civilizational analysis. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to provide a discussion that counters the infinite particle disappearance conclusion argued by Shackel, 417–433, 2018). In order to do this, clear criteria to disprove the results of the applications of his continuity principles are provided, in addition to the consideration of the fundamental Classical Mechanical principle of mass conservation as an independent and clear basis for this disproof.

Durante años se ha venido demostrando que es necesario fomentar espacios de intercambio intergeneracional para la construcción de sociedades más solidarias e inclusivas. Partiendo de este marco, en el presente artículo se evalúa una experiencia intergeneracional llevada cabo en el entorno universitario donde estudiantes y personas mayores comparten sus miradas sobre la soledad a través de cartas. Para el análisis del material recopilado (18 cartas y 82 narrativas) se ha utilizado el software Iramuteq. Los resultados remarcan la propia metodología como (...) una nueva manera de relacionarse que posibilita el intercambio y el conocimiento mutuo necesario en una sociedad segregada. (shrink)

The French Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote provocatively about world civilization from his dual expertise as paleontologist and Catholic priest. This paper will extract from his many writings references to civilizational process in terms of his concept of the noosphere, that is, the transhuman accumulation of knowledge. Basing himself on the notion of a geogenetic process that he described in his important publication, Le Phenomenene Humain (1955), de Chardin considered the evolution of humankind to involve not merely the change (...) of individual members of the species, but in the development of the capacity to shape the earth and its forces by the invention of technology. He foresaw the human creation of a new level of understanding (some would say this is the cyberspace of the Internet) that would be the achievement of a unifying human civilization. The impulse to contribute to and benefit from this wealth of shared knowledge constituted for the Jesuit a quasi-magnetic force that brought together disparate human experiences. Borne in part by his religious faith, de Chardin described in a second masterpiece, Le Milieu Divin (1957) this unifying force as “love”. When a new world civilization learned to harness this kind of love in common purpose, said de Chardin, “for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire”. Possibly because of his religiously tinted language and mystical orientation, Teilhard has not always been viewed a contributor to the field. This paper will offer suggestions for ways to incorporate the French Jesuit among the sources for civilizational analysis. (shrink)

The division of Christianity into two: Orthodox Christian and Western Civilizations by Arnold Toynbee should be understood to describe not a difference of creedal belief but different spiritualities. Christian spiritualities are the animating forces for the material disposition of religious resources and the motivation that patterns individual behavior. The past offers many examples of how spirituality provides discipline to believers to overcome conflictive social pressures and follow doctrinal obligations. The monastic orders recast the evangelical counsel to holding material goods in (...) common during the Middle Ages and groups like the Franciscans, Jesuits, Methodists, Quakers, etc. have performed similar functions. Despite the erosion of institutional resources since the Enlightenment and contemporary secularism, Christianity has produced various new spiritualities. For the III Millennium, it appears the two major characteristics of Christian spirituality include the discipline to “let go” that rejects the dystopia of contemporary society; and the embrace an earth spirituality that extends respect for life to the environment and an equitable distribution of material resources. (shrink)

The division of Christianity into two: Orthodox Christian and Western Civilizations by Arnold Toynbee should be understood to describe not a difference of creedal belief but different spiritualities. Christian spiritualities are the animating forces for the material disposition of religious resources and the motivation that patterns individual behavior. The past offers many examples of how spirituality provides discipline to believers to overcome conflictive social pressures and follow doctrinal obligations. The monastic orders recast the evangelical counsel to holding material goods in (...) common during the Middle Ages and groups like the Franciscans, Jesuits, Methodists, Quakers, etc. have performed similar functions. Despite the erosion of institutional resources since the Enlightenment and contemporary secularism, Christianity has produced various new spiritualities. For the III Millennium, it appears the two major characteristics of Christian spirituality include the discipline to “let go” that rejects the dystopia of contemporary society; and the embrace an earth spirituality that extends respect for life to the environment and an equitable distribution of material resources. (shrink)

Borders delimit the spatial units in which political action takes place. They are not, however, a given object that can be assumed without further reflection. Thus, it is astonishing that until very recently the subject has not been attributed an adequate philosophical status. The border, apart from being a territorial demarcator or a line on the map, is a social construct subject to the political, economic and social conjuncture of each moment in history, and therefore subject to relevant mutations. In (...) the current context of globalization, beyond the question of the extinction of borders or the maintenance of their functions, structural transformations have occurred that alter their material image and their practical scope. It is essential for political philosophy to take note of these changes. Las fronteras delimitan las unidades espaciales en las que se desenvuelve la acción política. No son, sin embargo, un objeto dado que pueda ser asumido sin más reflexión, por lo que resulta insólito que hasta tiempos muy recientes no se le haya otorgado al tema el suficiente rango filosófico. La frontera, además de ser un demarcador territorial o una línea en el mapa, es un constructo social sujeto a la coyuntura política, económica y social de cada momento de la historia, y sujeto, por ende, a relevantes mutaciones. En el actual contexto de la globalización, más allá de la extinción de las fronteras o del mantenimiento de sus funciones, se observan transformaciones estructurales que alteran su imagen material y su alcance práctico. Es imprescindible que la filosofía política tome nota de ello. (shrink)

- Presentación del número monográfico sobre Fronteras, democracia y justicia global.

Se van mostrar algunos contrastes en los lugares de la noción de mismidad del Poema de Parménides de Elea entre diversos textos de Martin Heidegger, con especial atención a qué tiene que ver el olvido de la «palabra enigma» de Parménides en Sein und Zeit con la noción de Sí mismo que allí se elabora. A través del camino hacia los “pensadores del inicio”, distinguir el horizonte de cuestionamiento del diálogo de Platón de aquel del Poema de Parménides, nos llevará (...) a su vez a señalar los diversos sentidos en que Heidegger piensa lo mismo en el Poema de Parménides. (shrink)

El ideal cosmopolita desarrollado por Kant en su breve escrito La paz perpetua , publicado en 1795, ha gozado de una inmensa influencia y conserva aún hoy una indiscutible vigencia. En su formulación original el ideal kantiano se encontraba íntimamente ligado a la necesidad de encontrar medios adecuados para superar el estado de guerra en el que la historia humana se ha instalado. Tres son las principales propuestas kantianas al respecto: la formación de gobiernos democráticos, la instauración de una federación (...) de Estados libres y la constitución de un derecho cosmopolita. Estas ideas son examinadas a lo largo del presente artículo a la luz de los problemas de las actuales relaciones internacionales, y con especial referencia a dos recientes textos de Rawls y Habermas. (shrink)

This essay conceptualizes the intersections between contemporary catastrophes and political life by exploring how narratives of catastrophe mediate discursive and objective processes of catastrophization. It argues for the need to counteract catastrophization, a discursive and objective political phenomenon, by not only re-cognizing how catastrophes impinge on political life but by offering a more critical understanding of this intersection. The essay thus calls for the politicization of catastrophe as a response to the “catastrophization of political life.” Apropos of these concerns, it (...) engages with Habermas in order to explore how his political theory and interventions illustrate important aspects of the intersections between narratives of catastrophe and contemporary political life, say, how discursive catastrophization leads to the misrecognition of objective modalities of catastrophe. Overall, this essay offers an account of how to conceptualize catastrophe and catastrophization in order to articulate the broad contours of a political theory of catastrophe. (shrink)

In view of recent studies that identified certain interest groups as potential whistleblowers, we propose an integrative conceptual framework to examine whistleblower behavior by whistleblower type. The framework, dubbed the whistleblowing triangle, is modeled on the fraud triangle and is comprised of three factors that condition the act of whistleblowing: pressure, opportunity, and rationalization. For a rich examination, we use a qualitative research framework to analyze 11 whistleblowing cases of corporate financial statement fraud in Canada that were publicly denounced between (...) 1995 and 2012. Our analysis indicates that whistleblowers are not only insiders but also outsiders [financial analysts, auditing firms, journalists, politicians, customers, and investors]. It also suggests that a dynamic relation may exist between whistleblowers. In addition, our findings show that most whistleblowers opt for external channels when they fail to receive an adequate response from management, seek media exposure, are interested in financial benefits resulting from the act of whistleblowing, or are interested in protecting their investment. Lastly, we propose categorizing whistleblowers into four conceptual types: protective, skeptical, role-prescribed, and self-interested. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted medical care in many ways; previously, a patient would enter a hospital and had an approximate idea of what would happen upon his admission, the physician informed them about it, but in the last two years this scenario has changed. Therefore, our aim was to identify if bioethical principles are present in the physician–patient relationship and the effect of these in the health care provided, through an observational and descriptive study where patients answered the validated (...) ReMePaB questionnaire that measures the presence of bioethical principles in the physician–patient relationship, on the seventh day of their hospital stay and 24 h after discharge, during the period from 1 August to 5 November 2020. In autonomy, an improvement in the score was observed in the second application compared to the first measurement; in the principle of non-vulnerability, the same scenario was observed for the first and second measurements, respectively. In the principles of beneficence, dignity, and justice, no statistically significant differences were observed. Considering the presence or absence of bioethical aspects in health care in this pandemic creates an area of opportunity to know the feelings of the patient during the care received and to maintain what is done well and improve those aspects that can be improved. (shrink)

The question “what is an interpretation?” is often intertwined with the perhaps even harder question “what is a scientific theory?”. Given this proximity, we try to clarify the first question to acquire some ground for the latter. The quarrel between the syntactic and semantic conceptions of scientific theories occupied a large part of the scenario of the philosophy of science in the 20th century. For many authors, one of the two currents needed to be victorious. We endorse that such debate, (...) at least in the terms commonly expressed, can be misleading. We argue that the traditional notion of “interpretation” within the syntax/semantic debate is not the same as that of the debate concerning the interpretation of quantum mechanics. As much as the term is the same, the term “interpretation” as employed in quantum mechanics has its meaning beyond (pure) logic. Our main focus here lies on the formal aspects of the solutions to the measurement problem. There are many versions of quantum theory, many of them incompatible with each other. In order to encompass a wider variety of approaches to quantum theory, we propose a different one with an emphasis on pure formalism. This perspective has the intent of elucidating the role of each so-called “interpretation” of quantum mechanics, as well as the precise origin of the need to interpret it. (shrink)

La educación emocional como tema de investigación tiene una amplia tradición con diferentes autores tanto a nivel internacional y nacional. Estos estudios afirman que la educación integral del alumnado requiere la inclusión de aspectos de carácter tanto cognitivo como de aquellos que involucran habilidades relacionadas con el autocontrol, el autoconocimiento, o la colaboración con los demás, entre otros. En las próximas líneas se plantea el análisis de la legislación educativa de los Reales Decretos de enseñanzas mínimas redactados a partir de (...) la LOMLOE, a fin de comprobar si se contempla su inserción y de qué forma. (shrink)

Gil R, Arroyo-Anllo EM, Ingrand P, Gil M, Neau JP, Ornon C, Bonnaud V. Self-consciousness and Alzheimer’s disease. Acta Neurol Scand 2001: 104: 296–300. # Munksgaard 2001. Objectives – To propose a neuropsychological study of the various aspects of self-consciousness (SC) in Alzheimer’s disease. Methods – Forty-five patients with probable mild or moderate AD were included in the study. Severity of their dementia was assessed by the Mini Mental State (MMS). Fourteen questions were prepared to evaluate SC. Results – (...) No significant correlations were found between SC score and educational level, age, and duration of disease. A significant correlation was found between SC score and the severity of dementia, whereas frontal disturbances were just short of the significance threshold. The various aspects of SC were not impaired to the same degree. The most disturbed ones were awareness of cognitive deficiencies, moral judgements and prospective memory. The least disturbed aspects were awareness of identity and of mental representation of the body. Items relating to anosognosia and moral judgements were significantly correlated with the MMS score, whereas affective state, body representation disorders, prospective memory, and capacities for introspection were not related to the severity of the dementia. Consciousness of identity was sound, regardless of MMS score. Conclusions – AD clearly induces an heterogeneous impairment of SC. SC requires a convergence of many neural networks. In AD, neuronal alterations involve many cortical areas and information sent to the associative frontal cortex from memory, language and visuospatial areas is lacking or disturbed. Thus, the sequential order of successive stimuli cannot be maintained by the heteromodal associative cortex (dorsal convexity of the prefrontal cortex), and the supramodal associative cortex (located rostrally in the frontal lobes) is unable to provide reliable monitoring and assessment of simultaneous neural cognitive networks carrying insufficient and inadequate input. The core deficiency in AD patients might be impaired SC equated with the disability to maintain sequential and simultaneous ‘‘attention to life’’. The Self-Consciousness Questionnaire, a clinical scale providing multidimensional measurement, indicates that different aspects of consciousness are not correlated with overall cognitive deficiency as determined by the MMSE. (shrink)

I explain what exactly constrains presupposition projection in compound sentences and argue that the presuppositions that do not project are conditionalized, giving rise to inferable conditional presuppositions. I combine elements of and which, together with an additional, independently motivated assumption, make it possible to construct an analysis that makes correct predictions. The core of my proposal is as follows: When a speaker felicitously utters a compound sentence whose constituent clauses require presuppositions, the hearer will infer that the speaker presupposes those (...) propositions, unless the sentence contains some element that makes the hearer realize that, if the speaker actually presupposed them, she would be either uninformative or inconsistent in her beliefs. In these cases, the propositions that would have been presupposed, had the clauses been uttered in isolation, will not be presupposed, i.e. the clausal presuppositions will not project. (shrink)

This study proposes and tests a model that integrates ethical leadership, internal social capital, and firm performance in small- and medium-sized family firms at different generational stages. Using the upper echelons theory and the social capital perspective of familiness, this study shows that ethical leadership can explain the effectiveness of certain behaviors in relation to family firm performance. Moreover, social capital helps spread a leader's business ethics to firm members, thus improving the family firm's performance. Our results show that founders' (...) personalities and identities determine high internal social capital, which decreases over generations. The study also shows that internal social capital is a communicative element crucial to ethical leadership, facilitating the absorption of the culture and values of the family in the firm. This powerful resource should be promoted and supported by coherent behavior over time by senior leaders. (shrink)

In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual and hypothetical conditionals that can exhibit different “degrees of contingency”. We use this idea to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, this structure explains why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful in scientific practice. For illustrative (...) purposes, we provide an example from population genetics, the Wright-Fisher Model. (shrink)

We discuss the ‘Consciousness Causes Collapse Hypothesis’ (CCCH), the interpretation of quantum mechanics according to which consciousness solves the measurement problem. At first, it seems that the very hypothesis that consciousness causally acts over matter counts as a reductio of CCCH. However, CCCH won’t go so easily. In this paper we attempt to bring new light to the discussion. We distinguish the ontology of the interpretation (the positing of a causally efficacious consciousness as part of the furniture of reality) from (...) metaphysics (the metaphysical character of that consciousness). That distinction allows us to map the philosophical theories of consciousness compatible with quantum mechanics under the tenets of CCCH. Also, it indicates that the problem will have to be discussed at a metaphysical level rather than at the physical level. Our analysis corroborates recent arguments to the effect that this interpretation is not ruled out so easily. (shrink)

Some adaptationist explanations are regarded as maximally solid and others fanciful just-so stories. Just-so stories are explanations based on very little evidence. Lack of evidence leads to circular-sounding reasoning: “this trait was shaped by selection in unseen ancestral populations and this selection must have occurred because the trait is present.” Well-supported adaptationist explanations include evidence that is not only abundant but selected from comparative, populational, and optimality perspectives, the three adaptationist subdisciplines. Each subdiscipline obtains its broad relevance in evolutionary biology (...) via assumptions that can only be tested with the methods of the other subdisciplines. However, even in the best-supported explanations, assumptions regarding variation, heritability, and fitness in unseen ancestral populations are always present. These assumptions are accepted given how well they would explain the data if they were true. This means that some degree of “circularity” is present in all evolutionary explanations. Evolutionary explanation corresponds not to a deductive structure, as biologists usually assert, but instead to ones such as abduction or induction. With these structures in mind, we show the way to a healthier view of “circularity” in evolutionary biology, and why integration across the comparative, populational, and optimality approaches is necessary. (shrink)