Some versions of moral naturalism are faulted for implausibly denying that moral obligations and prescriptions entail categorical reasons for action. Categorical reasons for action are normative reasons that exist and apply to agents independently of whatever desires they have. I argue that several defenses of moral naturalism against this charge are unsuccessful. To be a tenable meta-ethical theory, moral naturalism must accommodate the proposition that, necessarily, if anyone morally ought to do something, then s/he has a categorical reason to do (...) it. Versions of moral naturalism that deny this claim would, if widely believed, disable some crucial practical uses of moral concepts. In particular, if the existence of normative reasons for action is taken to be dependent on agents’ desires, it would breed profound skepticism about the legitimacy of evaluating others’ actions from a moral point of view. Also, it would raise doubts about whether people ought to correct their own behavior in light of moral considerations. Following Richard Joyce, I take these consequences to indicate that the concept of a categorical reason is a “non-negotiable” part of moral concepts. (shrink)

This article defends a claim about the conditions under which agents possess normative reasons for action. According to this claim, an agent has a normative reason to φ only if it’s psychologically possible for that reason to motivate the agent to φ. The claim is called‘Williams’s explanatory constraint,’since it’s drawn from Bernard Williams’s work on the topic of practical reason. A two-premise‘master argument’ for Williams’s explanatory constraint is put forward. First, an agent has a normative reason to φ only if (...) that agent has the ability to φ for that reason. The second premise states that an agent has the ability to φ for a normative reason only if it’s psychologically possible for that reason to motivate the agent to φ. It is suggested that the ability to act for a normative reason involves the ability to act from a consequence-sensitive process of practical reasoning. Furthermore, normative reasons for action can motivate agents by being the objects of psychological states—particularly beliefs,desires, and intentions. In reply to the objection that normative reasons can never be objects of psychological states, I contend that all normative reasons are capable of being represented as the objects of psychological states. (shrink)

Morally progressive social changes seem to have taken place with the onset of democratic governance, the abolition of slavery, the rise of gender equality, and other developments. This essay attempts to demonstrate that natural and objective moral facts are a plausible cause of some morally progressive social changes. Since this hypothesis is a version of naturalistic moral realism, I call it the Naturalist-Realist Hypothesis. To support the NRH, I argue that objective moral facts are natural facts pertaining to the impartial (...) promotion of well-being within a population of agents facing a social dilemma. I then describe a mechanism to explain how natural and objective moral facts so construed may cause some morally progressive social changes. I suggest that the NRH is a credible hypothesis because it is compatible with empirical findings from research on the evolution of moral cognition and on the sociology of mass political movements. (shrink)

Abstract In The Descent of Man (1879), Charles Darwin proposed a speculative evolutionary explanation of extended benevolence—a human sympathetic capacity that extends to all nations, races, and even to all sentient beings. This essay draws on twenty-first century social science to show that Darwin’s explanation is correct in its broad outlines. Extended benevolence is manifested in institutions such as legal human rights and democracy, in behaviors such as social movements for human rights and the protection of nonhuman animals, and in (...) normative attitudes such as emancipative values and a commitment to promote the rights or welfare of animals. These phenomena can be substantially explained by cultural evolutionary forces that trace back to three components of what Darwin called the human “moral sense”: (1) sympathy, (2) our disposition to follow community rules or norms, and (3) our capacity to make normative judgments. Extended benevolence likely emerged with “workarounds,” including political ideologies, that established an inclusive sympathetic concern for sentient life. It likely became as widespread as it is now due to recently arisen socio-economic conditions that have created more opportunities for people to have contact with and take the perspective of a broader cross-section of humanity, as well as other species. (shrink)

This essay proposes and defends a descriptive definition of morality. Under this definition, a moral system is a system of rules, psychological states, and modes of character development that performs the function of enabling mutually beneficial social cooperation. I shall argue that the methodologies employed by two prominent moral psychologists to establish a descriptive definition of morality only serve to track patterns in people’s uses of moral terms. However, these methods at best reveal a nominal definition of morality, since moral (...) appraisers may be ignorant about the referents of their moral terms. I propose a real definition of morality that characterizes moral systems as a natural kind—more precisely, a copied kind. I explain what it takes for a moral system to satisfy this definition, and I identify the sorts of evidence needed to distinguish moral systems from value systems of other kinds. (shrink)

Moral motivation refers to the psychological causes that motivate or explain moral action. Moral action refers to action that complies with the requirements of morality. In this essay, I lay out alternative views on moral motivation, giving particular attention the way each view conceives of the explanatory link between practical reasoning and moral conduct. In trying to understand this link, philosophers look to moral judgment. The main rival accounts of the relationship between practical reasoning, moral judgment, and moral motivation can (...) be distinguished according to the way in which they respond to two questions: (1) Can a cognitive (i.e., belief-like) state produce in an agent a motivation at time t, without being accompanied by an affective (i.e., emotional or desire-like) state which exists prior to t? (2) Are moral judgments cognitive states or affective states? -/- I shall defend the Humean theory of motivation, or HTM, as the best account of moral motivation. HTM is often called the belief-desire model of action because it explains behavior by citing a combination of a desire for some end and a belief that a certain action is a means to satisfying that desire. The Humean answer to the first question above is that any process of practical reasoning which generates a motivation is necessarily linked to a non-cognitive state. Regarding the second question, Humeans are split between cognitivists and non-cognitivists. Anti-Humeans, on the other hand, hold that moral judgments express cognitive states, and that cognitive states can independently produce motivations via practical reasoning. -/- I offer two arguments in favor of HTM. First, I suggest that Humeanism meets one criterion of theory choice better than anti-Humeanism. This is the continuity constraint. Given that humans and non-humans evolved common ancestors, the continuity constraint advises us to prefer an account of human psychology which can explain how complex human traits evolved from simpler antecedents resembling the traits of non-human animals. Non-human primates, in particular, are capable of acting altruistically toward con-specifics. Altruistic behavior in primates can shed light on an evolutionary precursor to moral action in humans, since morally significant action often involves altruism. I maintain that a Humean theory of motivation offers the best explanation of altruistic behavior in non-human primates. Therefore, by the continuity constraint, HTM should be the preferred model of the psychological mechanisms underlying human moral motivation, unless empirical evidence strongly suggests otherwise. -/- To ward off the objection that anti-Humeanism is warranted due to the vast differences between humans and non-human primates, I offer a second argument for HTM. This is an argument from a criterion of theory choice called Morgan’s Canon. Morgan’s Canon is a standard of theoretical parsimony according to which a psychological mechanism should be attributed to an organism only if it’s the sole mechanism which can cause some behavior. I argue that HTM meets this criterion much better than anti-Humeanism. This is because the special psychological mechanisms which anti-Humeans postulate to explain moral action are not the sole mechanisms which could produce such action. Rather, the Humean belief-desire model could easily be recruited to explain moral action, as well as a broad variety of non-moral actions. (shrink)

In Book I of Plato’s Republic, Thrasymachus famously maintains that ideas of morality and justice are nothing more than an ideology indoctrinated in “the weaker” to benefit “the stronger.” This is Thrasymachus’s challenge to morality: the thesis that some social arrangements, including some moral norms, are products of ‘false consciousness.’ False consciousness occurs when a dominant social group shapes the beliefs and desires of a subordinate group in such a way that the subordinates act for the benefit of the dominants, (...) but against their own interests. In this paper, I grant that some moral norms emerge or persist because of false consciousness. However, I shall argue that these norms actually have the function of impartially promoting the interests of all persons in their range of application. Even if the actual effect of false consciousness norms is to benefit a powerful class while being harmful and discriminatory toward others, the true function of false consciousness norms is the intended effect that they were designed to have. And the crucial feature of false consciousness norms is that their designers—particularly subordinates—teach, preach, follow, and enforce them with the intention of promoting the mutual interests of everyone to whom the norms apply. (shrink)

Normative reasons for action are facts or considerations that contribute to the justification of an action. Sometimes, normative reasons for action conflict: one reason may favor doing something, while another may favor not doing it. These conflicts can be so radical that it seems difficult, if not impossible, to judge which reason should ultimately guide one’s actions. According to a theory of practical rationality known as reasons pluralism, there are some radical cases of conflict among normative reasons for action in (...) which there can be no fact of the matter about what one ought to do. This is because normative reasons fall into a plurality of types, and normative reasons of different types are incommensurable with one another. However, reasons pluralism is compatible with a principle that would enable us to judge when a normative reason of one type overrides a normative reason of another type. I will argue that this “Override Principle” is a facet of practical wisdom—an intellectual virtue. Practical wisdom, as Aristotle construed it, involves the ability to order one’s ends into a coherent system that allows for the attainment of a good life. The Override Principle is sure to be one criterion by which those endowed with practical wisdom would order their ends. (shrink)

In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin proposed a speculative evolutionary explanation of extended benevolence—a human sympathetic capacity that extends to all nations, races, and even to all sentient beings. This essay draws on twenty-first century social science to show that Darwin’s explanation is correct in its broad outlines. Extended benevolence is manifested in institutions such as legal human rights and democracy, in behaviors such as social movements for human rights and the protection of nonhuman animals, and in normative attitudes (...) such as emancipative values and a commitment to promote the rights or welfare of animals. These phenomena can be substantially explained by cultural evolutionary forces that trace back to three components of what Darwin called the human “moral sense”: sympathy, our disposition to follow community rules or norms, and our capacity to make normative judgments. Extended benevolence likely emerged with “workarounds,” including political ideologies, that established an inclusive sympathetic concern for sentient life. It likely became as widespread as it is now due to recently arisen socio-economic conditions that have created more opportunities for people to have contact with and take the perspective of a broader cross-section of humanity, as well as other species. (shrink)

We investigate dynamic operations acting over a knowing how logic. Our approach makes use of a recently introduced semantics for the knowing how operator, based on an indistinguishability relation between plans. This semantics is arguably closer to the standard presentation of knowing that modalities in classic epistemic logic. Here, we discuss how the semantics enables us to define dynamic modalities representing different ways in which an agent can learn how to achieve a goal. In this regard, we study two types (...) of updates: ontic updates (for which we provide axiomatizations over a particular class of models), and epistemic updates (for which we investigate some semantic properties). (shrink)

People sometimes explain behavior by appealing to an essentialist concept of the self, often referred to as the true self. Existing studies suggest that people tend to believe that the true self is morally virtuous; that is deep inside, every person is motivated to behave in morally good ways. Is this belief particular to individuals with optimistic beliefs or people from Western cultures, or does it reflect a widely held cognitive bias in how people understand the self? To address this (...) question, we tested the good true self theory against two potential boundary conditions that are known to elicit different beliefs about the self as a whole. Study 1 tested whether individual differences in misanthropy—the tendency to view humans negatively—predict beliefs about the good true self in an American sample. The results indicate a consistent belief in a good true self, even among individuals who have an explicitly pessimistic view of others. Study 2 compared true self-attributions across cultural groups, by comparing samples from an independent country and a diverse set of interdependent countries. Results indicated that the direction and magnitude of the effect are comparable across all groups we tested. The belief in a good true self appears robust across groups varying in cultural orientation or misanthropy, suggesting a consistent psychological tendency to view the true self as morally good. (shrink)

Resumen: La contingencia de los fenómenos sociales y políticos ha sido abordada por diversas teorías contemporáneas. El tema circula en la sociología histórica, la teoría de sistemas de Luhmann, el institucionalismo histórico, la historia contrafáctica o el posmarxismo, asociado, entre otras, al carácter disruptivo y abrupto de ciertos procesos históricos, al cruce de series causales inicialmente independientes, a la inconsistencia de todo orden, a la coexistencia de mundos posibles o a la electividad asociada a la agencia. Como parte de esa (...) constelación, y de la mano de un estudio de caso, el sociólogo Charles Kurzman habla de “anti-explicación”. Su propósito no es solo cuestionar, sobre esa base, cualquier afán predictivo de las ciencias sociales, sino la posibilidad misma de analizar causalmente fenómenos contingentes como las revoluciones y los movimientos sociales. El texto busca desarrollar un contraargumento a esta tesis, moviéndose en el doble plano en el que opera Kurzman y mostrando, a la vez, su filiación y resonancia con posturas posmarxistas. Pretendiendo integrar la contingencia en la explicación del tipo de fenómenos mencionados, se recurre para ello a conceptos como causación descendente, catalizadores, bucles complejos y mecanismos causales.: The contingency of social and political phenomena has been addressed by various contemporary theories. The topic circulates in historical sociology, Luhmann's system theory, historical institutionalism, counterfactual history, or post-Marxism, associated, among others, to the disruptive and abrupt character of certain historical processes, the cross points of initially independent causal series, the inconsistency of all order, the coexistence of possible worlds or the electivity associated with the agency. As part of that constellation, and along with a case study, the sociologist Charles Kurzman speaks of the “anti-explanation”. The purpose of such is not just to question, on that basis, any predictive haste of the social sciences, but the very possibility of causally analyzing contingent phenomena such as revolutions and social movements. The text seeks to develop a counterargument to this thesis, moving along the epistemological and historical-social double plane in which Kurzman operates and showing, at the same time, its filiation and resonance with post-Marxist positions. With the purpose of integrating the contingency with the explanation of the type of phenomena mentioned, concepts such as downward causation, catalysts, complex loops, and causal mechanisms are used. (shrink)

El texto traducido como el ‘Tratado de los derechos’ fue escrito por el cuarto imam chiita, Zayn al-‘Abidin. La traducción es, a la vez, acertada e imprecisa, pues huqūq incluye el sentido de ‘derechos’ pero no se reduce, en absoluto, a él. El propósito de este ensayo es hacer una contribución al entendimiento del término haqq, cuyo plural es huqūq, apelando a un texto del islam temprano y considerando la pluralidad y superposición de sus niveles semánticos, con miras a nutrir (...) potenciales ejercicios de teoría política y jurídica comparada. Como resultado pueden identificarse 8 niveles de sentido diferentes, pero interconectados, que comprenden dimensiones ético-religiosas, jurídicas y ontológicas. (shrink)

Plagiarism is a serious, yet widespread type of research misconduct, and is often neglected in developing countries. Despite its far-reaching implications, plagiarism is poorly acknowledged and discussed in the academic setting, and insufficient evidence exists in Latin America and developing countries to inform the development of preventive strategies. In this context, we present a longitudinal case study of seven instances of plagiarism and cheating arising in four consecutive classes of an Epidemiology Masters program in Lima, Peru, and describes the implementation (...) and outcomes of a multifaceted, “zero-tolerance” policy aimed at introducing research integrity. Two cases involved cheating in graded assignments, and five cases correspond to plagiarism in the thesis protocol. Cases revealed poor awareness of high tolerance to plagiarism, poor academic performance, and widespread writing deficiencies, compensated with patchwriting and copy-pasting. Depending on the events’ severity, penalties included course failure and separation from the program. Students at fault did not engage in further plagiarism. Between 2011 and 2013, the Masters program sequentially introduced a preventive policy consisting of: intensified research integrity and scientific writing education, a stepwise, cumulative writing process; honor codes; active search for plagiarism in all academic products; and a “zero-tolerance” policy in response to documented cases. No cases were detected in 2014. In conclusion, plagiarism seems to be widespread in resource-limited settings and a greater response with educational and zero-tolerance components is needed to prevent it. (shrink)

Los estudiosos del Cristianismo reconocen dos grandes escuelas de pensamiento –la alejandrina y la antioquena– que delinearon las ideas que servirían de estructura a la teología cristiana. Un punto en discordia entre ellas era la exégesis alegórica de las Escrituras. Epifanio, quien adscribe a la corriente de pensamiento antioquena, condena el método alegórico incluyendo a Orígenes entre las sectas tratadas en su Panarion, a la vez que presenta al lector una propuesta exegética más acorde con la ortodoxia. En nuestro trabajo (...) analizaremos cuáles son los criterios que el autor propone como necesarios para captar el verdadero sentido del texto bíblico. (shrink)

Recordar a Paul Ricoeur a 10 años de su muerte es considerar propiamente el valor de su obra en el sentido de su vida, es decir, en la disociación de la que él mismo habla en que la muerte es un retirase de la obra. Sus aportes a la Filosofía y a las Ciencias Humanas en general son vastos y han venido siendo reconocidos lentamente por los académicos, en la medida en que sus textos han empezado a ser referenciados con (...) mayor fuerza en el tratamiento de diversos tópicos particulares de cada disciplina. (shrink)

Las actuales sociedades de mercado han dado lugar a situaciones de extrema desigualdad y descontento social, lo que constituye una de las principales causas de la actual crisis de la democracia en casi todos los países de Occidente, en especial en Latinoamérica. Debido a lo anterior, han vuelto a cobrar vigencia las tesis que desde un principio hicieron frente a la concepción liberal de la libertad y la democracia. En este ensayo se examinan brevemente estas corrientes “contraliberales” de la democracia (...) y se ponen en evidencia serios inconvenientes a los que pueden llevar por cuenta de uno de sus elementos esenciales: el cultivo de la virtud cívica de las personas y la identidad y responsabilidad con la sociedad que aquélla implica. (shrink)

Voces técnicas mínimas que forman el lenguaje filosófico, extraídas de los libros de Filosofía de Bachillerato, Ética y textos de COU.

Introduction:Episodic memory is a cognitive process that allows the recall of experiences, learning, and the pursuit of future goals. During the aging process, episodic memory declines negatively, impacting social and psychological aspects in the elderly. Such intervention strategies as cognitive training are non-pharmacological ways of reducing these losses.ObjectiveWe systematically reviewed studies of the cognitive training of episodic memory in healthy elderly individuals and elderly individuals with clinical conditions.MethodWe systematically searched the PubMed, PsycNET, Web of Science, and SciELO databases using the (...) descriptors “Episodic Memory” AND “Training” AND “Elderly” OR “Aging” OR “Dementia” in English and translated into Portuguese.ResultsOf the 572 articles that were identified by the search, 23 were included in the final analysis. The main variables that comprised the intervention protocols were investigated, as well as the outcome variables, efficacy, and risk of bias. The main results indicated effectiveness with regard to different forms of the cognitive training of episodic memory.ConclusionEpisodic memory training among the elderly can mitigate the negative effects of cognitive decline in dementia and healthy subjects promoting impacts at social, psychological, and economic levels. Although it is a widely studied topic, further empirical studies on the utility of episodic memory training in healthy elderly individuals and elderly individuals with clinical conditions are still needed. (shrink)

Literature reports that depressive symptoms may precede suicidal ideation. Several studies have identified social support and substance use as moderators of this relationship. However, no study has evaluated these variables together by testing how substance use can affect the moderating effect of social support in this relationship. The purpose of this article is to individually evaluate dimensions of social support (friends, family, significant others, and school) and substance use (alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drugs), as moderators of the relationship between (...) depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation; as well as analyze the moderating role of substance use in the moderation exerted by social support in this relationship. This study, quantitative and cross-sectional, considered 775 adolescents [Average age = 15.48 (SD = 0.96), 45.9% women], from 20 randomly selected schools in Santiago de Chile. Simple moderation models were used to analyze possible moderators separately, and double moderation models were used to analyze the moderating role of substance use in the moderating effect of social support. The results show that the four dimensions of social support moderate the relationship between depressive symptomatology and suicidal ideation, showing the strongest interaction in the case of family support, followed by support of a significant person, support at school, and support of friends, in that order. On the other hand, alcohol was the only drug that moderated the relationship in question. In addition, the results show that the use of alcohol limits the moderating effect of social support in the fields of family, significant person, and school support, but not in the case of support of friends. The use of marijuana and other illicit drugs did not affect the moderating effects of social support for any of the areas evaluated. The results are discussed according to the different roles that alcohol use can play in adolescence, and how these, together with perceived social support, are related to the emergence of suicidal ideation from depressive symptoms. (shrink)

This paper deals with the recent Swedish proposals of a Intuitionistic notion of Truth, by Dag Prawitz and Per Martin-Löf.

En el presente artículo se analizará la propuesta teórica, del utilitarismo de la preferencia de Peter Singer, y se estudiará sus alcances y límites en relación con la defensa de un trato igualitario hacia animales no humanos. En un primer momento se presentará el modelo teórico del autor, posterior a ello, se abordarán tres críticas: a) el contraargumento de los recursos reemplazables; b) la determinación de la vida de los animales no humanos como valor intrínseco, y c) importancia del tratamiento (...) del concepto de derechos de los animales. Al finalizar, se evaluará la propuesta de Singer a la luz de estas críticason el fin de tener una propuesta teórica más coherente que ofrezca una defensa hacia las otras especies distintas a la humana. (shrink)

Research, innovation, and progress in the life sciences are increasingly contingent on access to large quantities of data. This is one of the key premises behind the “open science” movement and the global calls for fostering the sharing of personal data, datasets, and research results. This paper reports on the outcomes of discussions by the panel “Open science, data sharing and solidarity: who benefits?” held at the 2021 Biennial conference of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies (...) of Biology, and hosted by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. (shrink)

Having a “normal” professional job and doing research impose different social and personal connotations. These differences materialize at least in two clear ways. First, it is common that researchers in the making find it very difficult to communicate to their closest social network (e.g., family and old close friends) the content and the importance of their work, as they lose known sources of social comparison. Meanwhile, professional job titles (e.g., brand manager, auditor, lawyer) are self-explanatory, and they provide for the (...) owner an immediate social contextualization and recognition. Second, students normally receive delayed and ambiguous feedback and reinforcement while doing a PhD, contrasting with the continuous flow of assessment that companies give to their employees. In this article, I analyze how young researchers may develop a feeling of social isolation as the communication bridges with family, old friends, and undergraduate colleagues become narrower than before, making it difficult to receive external reinforcement on their social position and comparative achievement. This feeling, combined with the ambiguous feedback during the early stages of a research career, challenges the self-esteem of PhD students, forcing them to develop a self-contained personal security in order to cope with those two social contexts. Some young researchers might even withdraw from PhD programs should they fail to develop such psychological strength. I approach the issue through my own experience, first as a junior consultant in a multinational firm and then as a PhD candidate in economics. Second, I explore the behavioral phenomena that occur beneath those feelings in order to understand how to build such psychological strength. My goal is, through the exploration of my personal experience of becoming a researcher, to offer young researchers a useful narrative to help face the potentially negative feelings that may emerge when learning to balance these conflicting social roles. (shrink)

RESUMEN El artículo argumenta la importancia de la meditación axiológica de Nicolás Gómez Dávila como ruta investigativa que facilitaría el estudio de su obra. Se analiza la ambivalente recepción que tuvieron sus publicaciones, para buscar la razón en las características de la obra y su relación forma-contenido. Se plantea la pertinencia de su meditación axiológica como eje temático en su explicitación, que ayuda a comprender las características de su obra filosófica. ABSTRACT The article emphasizes the importance of Nicolás Gómez Dávila's (...) axiological meditation as a research path that facilitates the study ofhis work. It analyzes the ambivalent reception of his publications, and seeks the causes for that in the characteristics of his work and the relation between form and content. It suggests the pertinence of his axiological meditation as a thematic line that helps explain and understand the characteristics of his philosophical work. (shrink)

¿Cómo se forma un sujeto político? En la herencia más antigua de la interrogación filosófica esta pregunta busca recuperar una actitud de asombro suscitada por prácticas diversas de relación consigo y con los otros en las que personas comunes y corrientes ponen en cuestión experiencias sedimentadas sobre el cuerpo y el género, así como fronteras establecidas entre lo natural y lo artificial, lo humano y lo animal, lo común y lo propio. Los artículos aquí reunidos apuntan a mostrar que para (...) pensar estas formas de agencia política es preciso atender a una dimensión amplia de la estética que se refiere al modo en que la materialidad sensorial de la experiencia compartida se ha conformado históricamente y a cómo esta, dada su contingencia, puede reconfigurarse desde ciertas prácticas cotidianas: prácticas de elaboración de sí y de organización colectiva que crean otros escenarios y otras maneras de aparición de los cuerpos, y con esto estrategias de confrontación y antagonismo que atraviesan y afectan lo social. Así, ¿Cómo se forma un sujeto político? es un esfuerzo colectivo de franca resistencia contra la estrechez desde el cual se nos tiende a hacer pensar la política: bien sea desde una política consensual liberal que acaba por neutralizar las diferencias más intratables de nuestra pluralidad, bien sea desde el realismo de una política conflictual y guerrera que funciona desde la polaridad amigo-enemigo. El lector podrá explorar y profundizar, desde otro ángulo, las apuestas epistemológicas, éticas y políticas que resuenan en estas prácticas artísticas y de acción colectiva que nos enseñan hoy, más allá de los paradigmas del "ciudadano" o del "actor racional", cómo se hace un sujeto político. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to establish the way in which Resurrección [Resurrection], a novella by Jose Maria Rivas Groot, reflects the debates over the psychophysiological conception of consciousness that took place in Colombia at the beginning of the twentieth-century. The analysis, made from the standpoint of cultural history, explores the ideas of experimental psychologists and intellectuals, such as Claude Bernard, William James, Émile Zola or Paul Bourget, who, contrary to hegemonical discourses, suggested a sensory cause for consciousness. The (...) article also studies, through a hermeneutical approach, the way in which such conception is developed within Rivas Groot’s work. This study reveals the interest of the writers of this period to explore the aesthetic elements provided by this new conception of the human being, which was undertaken by contrasting it with the forms and paradigms of the metaphysical stance and preferring the latter as the most plausible explanation for existence. (shrink)

Theories related to cognitive sciences, Human-in-the-loop Cyber-physical systems, data analysis for decision-making, and computational ethics make clear the need to create transdisciplinary learning, research, and application strategies to bring coherence to the paradigm of a truly human-oriented technology. Autonomous objects assume more responsibilities for individual and collective phenomena, they have gradually filtered into routines and require the incorporation of ethical practice into the professions related to the development, modeling, and design of algorithms. To make this possible, it is pertinent and (...) urgent to bring them closer to the problems and approaches of the humanities. Increasingly transdisciplinary research must be part of the construction of systems that provide developers and scientists with the necessary bases to understand the ethical debate and therefore their commitment to society. This article considers two theories as articulating axes: Blumenberg’s, coming from the field of philosophy, for whom the process of technification and especially the implementation of mathematical models in their algorithmic form leads to an emptying of meaning and therefore makes programmers who implement their functions to be alien to the concerns that gave them origin; Daston’s, belonging to the field of the history of science and according to which the division of labor in the processes of technification of the calculation implies a kind of subordination in which those who implement the inventions of a small group of privileged mathematicians ignore the procedures that put them into operation. Given these two theories, the black box models prevalent in AI development, and the urgency of establishing explanatory frameworks for the development of computational ethics, this article exposes the need to give a voice to the cultural history of consciousness for promoting the discussions around the implementation of mathematical algorithms. The paper takes as a reference the different points of view that have emerged around the study of technological ethics, its applicability, management, and design. It criticizes the current state of studies from a humanistic perspective and explains how the historical perspective allows promoting the training of software engineers, developers and creators so that they assume intuitions and moral values in the development of their work. Specifically, it aims to expose how cultural history, applied to the study of consciousness and its phenomena, makes those involved in this technological revolution aware of the effect that they, through their algorithms, have on society in general and on human beings in particular. (shrink)

El presente trabajo se propone brindar un curso lineal a la comprensión filosófico-política de Peter Sloterdijk. El hilo conductor nos lo brinda el concepto de “psicopolitica” para mostrar el actuar sloterdjkiano respecto de los diagnósticos de época. Intentamos de esta manera mostrar elementos comunes en la filosofía del autor y su programa psicopolítico. Finalizamos con una breve lectura de la situación actual de su pensamiento, y sus aparentes contradicciones, las que pretenden ser esclarecidas con sus obras más tempranas.

Después de la publicación de su tesis doctoral titulada La acción (1893), el filósofo francés Maurice Blondel escribió algunas obras en las que trató asuntos de enorme importancia, tanto en el campo filosófico como teológico, que desarrollaron las temáticas centrales de La acción, obra que a finales del siglo XIX generó tanto revuelo en el ambiente filosófico francés. Con la conciencia de su actualidad y su inmenso valor para una perspectiva novedosa de la metafísica y el diálogo fe-razón, se pretende (...) aquí una aproximación a cuatro obras que los estudiosos del pensamiento blondeliano han llamado “menores”. El presente artículo desarrolla los principales aportes de dichas obras a la reflexión filosófica contemporánea, indagando al mismo tiempo por la filosofía de la acción en cada una de ellas. Después de una corta biografía del pensador en cuestión, se abordará el significado de la filosofía de la acción con vistas a su elucidación para el lector. Posteriormente se presentará el contexto histórico de cada obra y se mostrarán sus vínculos con La acción, para terminar con algunas reflexiones que su lectura suscita en nuestro tiempo, cuyos desafíos son similares a los que Blondel tuvo que enfrentar en su momento. (shrink)

En la obra de Gómez Dávila, se manifiesta una genuina teología política, un análisis religioso de la política. El artículo se enfoca en algunas fuentes teológicas del pensamiento moderno desde la óptica de Gómez Dávila, con miras a comprender el proceso de secularización como fenómeno político distintivo de la Modernidad. Para ello, en primer lugar, se explica la importancia del siglo xiii como siglo de rupturas en la cosmovisión católica a partir de la influencia del pensamiento de Averroes. En segundo (...) lugar, se muestra cómo las ideas averroístas tienen eco en Pascal y en el Romanticismo, para ubicar a Gómez Dávila en la disputa averroísta. Por último, se presenta la conclusión, cuya idea principal es que, para Gómez Dávila, solo un fideísta y místico medieval es genuinamente reaccionario, pues el diálogo fe-razón tomista subyace tras la concepción moderna de la política. (shrink)

Suicide, as one of the leading causes of death for the adolescent population, both in Chile and globally, remains a complex and elusive phenomenon. This research studies the association between positive and negative affect in relation with suicidal ideation and suicidal attempt, given that affectivity is a fundamental basis on which people make evaluations on their satisfaction with life. First, it examines the reliability, structure, and validity of Watson’s positive and negative affect scale (PANAS) scale in a representative random sample (...) of Chilean high school students (N= 4,568). The scale evidences strong reliability coefficients and a confirmatory factor analysis, excluding one positive (excited) and one negative (nervous) item. The scale shows a satisfactory goodness of fit. Secondly, it investigates the association of PANAS positive and negative affect scores with suicidal ideation as well as reported attempt in adolescents, controlling for the potential effect of age and sex (N= 420 high school students). Low positive and high negative affect, but not sex and age, show a significant association with suicidal ideation. Suicidal ideation totally mediates the association of affect with suicide attempt, as expected. Results are discussed regarding prevention and it considers how positive and negative affect can be relevant as indicators for prevention and treatment using widely available technology. (shrink)

El libro tiene su origen en varios encuentros académicos que iniciaron en el 2014 y pasaron por Medellín, Cali y Bogotá; se trata, por tanto, de un primer resultado de un proceso de trabajo colectivo. El pensar, a diferencia de lo que sostiene Hannah Arendt, supone necesariamente una comunidad. Además, como su nombre lo indica, supone la idea de un trabajo necesariamente interdisciplinar. Así como no se puede hacer “filosofía de las matemáticas” o “filosofía de la música” sin saber de (...) matemáticas o de música y, por tanto, de algo diferente a la filo-sofía, la “ontología social” requiere de un diálogo permanente con la sociología, la antropología, la psicología social, la ciencia política o la economía. (shrink)

En el mundo académico contemporáneo han venido tomando fuerza, desde hace varias décadas, los temas de la interdisciplinariedad y la transdisciplinariedad, como respuesta de un sector de la comunidad científica a los problemas de la especialización y a la desconexión entre las ciencias. Como todo elemento o aspecto de la realidad, este tema requiere de una debida fundamentación filosófica que se encuentra en el pensamiento clásico. En el presente artículo se intenta mostrar la relación entre la tradición de la filosofía (...) perenne y este fundamento, atendiendo, sobre todo, a la importancia de la mirada holística del fenómeno ético y pretendiendo sustentar que el diálogo entre las ciencias sólo es posible rescatando el paradigma metafísico, legado por los griegos a la civilización occidental y defendido por MacIntyre en su libro "Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity. An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and Narrative" (University of Cambridge, 2016). (shrink)