This work examines the scientific and social objectives of the Human Genome Project. Scientific ones are “to map the human genome” while social ones are “to improve the human health and welfare”. Ten years after this project has begun, their scientific aims are fullfilled, but their social ones are still pending. The reason for that is that both scientists and policy makers have forgotten something: the current configuration for the right to intellectual property—patents —grants to the discoverers of the human (...) genetic map the possibility of using their new knowledge to obtain private profit. There is a scientific-business dynamic in this area that make difficult to reach the proclaimed social aims of the human genome project. “Human dignity” —a common topic in international and European Declarations—is also afected. (shrink)

Alors que l’éducation apparaît comme un thème principal de la pensée néoplatonicienne, et qu’elle a fait l’objet de nombreux articles scientifiques et chapitres de livres, il n’existe que très peu de monographies sur cette question (on songe par exemple à l’ouvrage d’E. Watts, 2006, City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria, University of California Press, qui a déjà une quinzaine d’années). La contribution de Jean-Michel Charrue, parce qu’elle place l’éducation, même disséminée d...

Education implies that a student learns when the teacher teaches : if there is not learning, it would be absurd to think that teaching has occured. However, in the case of distance learning, it is sometimes difficult to ensure the participation of the student, particularly when there is a time gap between teaching and learning. Under these circumstances, using certain narrative or stylistic devices prone to solicit the reader may bring the latter to actively take part in the course she (...) is reading). The dialogue is one of the literary devices that improves the reader’s cognitive activity, because she then identifies either with the respondant or with a silent witness. Epistolarity has a similar effect because it evokes a dialogue. This paper studies the literary devices used in Epicure’s letters along with recent research on distance learning, to highlight their didactical purposes. (shrink)

Observing the practical situation of the techniques of assisted procreation in European societies, one is allowed to affirm that these techniques are largely in use in our societies, it did not find resistance among the secular groups of the society. It is not the case of the representatives of the Catholic church, hostile to each intervention on the reproductive mechanisms as being a violation against natural law, the most virulent opposition is linked to intervention on embryos or to each way (...) of reproduction outside of the canonic marriage, considering therefore artificial insemination as immoral and anti-juridical.The opposition between secular and the catholic groups is of unequal intensity in the different European countries, it did not stop the application and the use of these reproductive techniques although it made the adoption difficult of measures in some states, and even in the European Parliament. However, they could not oppose the scientific and medical corporation and their arguments of treatment of diseases and of sterility of men or women. This way to present these reproductive techniques in terms of lowering of suffering of couples not able to reproduce naturally received a full social acceptance and legitimation, acceptation because the origin of these techniques is incontestably scientific and legitimation because the goal is essentially medical. (shrink)

La méfiance à l'égard de l'écriture traverse l'histoire de la philosophie grecque. Comment éviter que l'usage de l'écrit ne mette à mal le partage des savoirs essentiel à toute pratique philosophique? À travers une étude des pratiques orales et écrites d'élaboration et de transmission des savoirs philosophiques dans l'Antiquité, cet ouvrage révèle une philosophie qui, pour être mieux partagée, préfère prendre naissance et se développer dans le corps même de ceux qui la pratiquent, dans la matérialité des livres et des (...) lettres qu'ils lisent, écrivent et s'échangent avec générosité, dans des pratiques savantes amicales et des activités conviviales"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

We examined whether variations in contextual diversity, spacing, and retrieval practice influenced how well adults learned new words from reading experience. Eye movements were recorded as adults read novel words embedded in sentences. In the learning phase, unfamiliar words were presented either in the same sentence repeated four times (same context) or in four different sentences (diverse context). Spacing was manipulated by presenting the sentences under distributed or non‐distributed practice. After learning, half of the participants were asked to retrieve the (...) new words, and half had an extra exposure to the new words. Although words experienced in diverse contexts were acquired more slowly during learning, they enjoyed a greater benefit of learning at immediate posttest. Distributed practice also slowed learning, but no benefit was observed at posttest. Although participants who had an extra exposure showed the greatest learning benefit overall, learning also benefited from retrieval opportunity, when words were experienced in diverse contexts. These findings demonstrate that variation in the content and structure of the learning environment impacts on word learning via reading. (shrink)

Neoclassical economics assumes that individuals have stable and context-independent preferences, and uses preference satisfaction as a normative criterion. By calling this assumption into question, behavioural findings cause fundamental problems for normative economics. A common response to these problems is to treat deviations from conventional rational choice theory as mistakes, and to try to reconstruct the preferences that individuals would have acted on, had they reasoned correctly. We argue that this preference purification approach implicitly uses a dualistic model of the human (...) being, in which an inner rational agent is trapped in an outer psychological shell. This model is psychologically and philosophically problematic. (shrink)

El presente trabajo aborda el concepto de Transmodernidad bajo dos puntos de vista diferentes. Por un lado, la mirada de Rosa María Rodríguez Magda, la cual nos plantea la Transmodernidad como una tríada dialéctica entre Modernidad-Postmodernidad-Transmodernidad, siendo esta última tanto una continuación como una superación de la Postmodernidad. El otro punto de vista corresponde a Enrique Dussel, el cual nos plantea la Transmodernidad como un proyecto utópico que es transversal a la Modernidad/Postmodernidad; está antes de la Modernidad y a la (...) vez la trasciende, siendo una categoría de exterioridad que pretende sacar la voz propia de las culturas no europeo-norteamericanas, para así poder establecer diálogos interculturales simétricos que llevan consigo características de la propia cultura inconmensurables al proyecto moderno europeo. Así enfrentamos ambas concepciones de la Transmodernidad para destacar sus diferencias y contraposiciones. (shrink)

If few authors have paid much attention to the feminine concerns in new reproductive technologies, actually it is mainly some feminist authors, who, to a great extent, have allowed these concerns to enter into public debate. On the other hand, the preoccupation about women's interests and points of view is a feature in common of all feminist approaches, independently of their other philosophical concepts. Nevertheless, another feature of feminist discourses is their plurality and heterogeneity. So, we have not find back (...) answers to the questions we have analysed in this paper, because there is not only one answer. This is not an inconvenience but an incentive to continue the democratic debate within the framework of plurality and tolerance. We must incorporate to this debate the, often forgotten, women's own interests, and a critical view of the underlying assumptions and biases. These two points of view are common to the majority of feminist approaches, and should be seriously considered as worthy to be incorporated to our discourses when debating the issues linked to the new reproductive technologies. (shrink)

This note replies to a comment by Daniel Hausman on our paper ‘Preference purification and the inner rational agent: a critique of the conventional wisdom of behavioural welfare economics’. We clarify our characterisation of behavioural welfare economics and acknowledge that Hausman does fully endorse this approach. However, we argue that Hausman’s response to our critique, like behavioural welfare economics itself, implicitly uses a model of an inner rational agent.

Currently, the concept of the cell as a society or an ecosystem of molecular elements is gaining increasing acceptance. The basic idea arose in the 19th century, from the surmise that there is not just a single unit underlying an individual’s appearance, but a plurality of entities with both collaborative and conflicting relationships. The following hypothesis is based around this model. The incompatible activities taking place between different original elements, which were subsumed into the first cell and could not be (...) eliminated, had to be controlled very closely. Similarly, a strong level of control had to be developed over many cellular elements after the cell changed its genome to DNA. We assume that at least some of those original RNA agents and other biomolecules which carry incompatibilities and risks, are retained within current cells, although they are now under strict control. A virus functions as a signal informing these repressed cellular RNAs and other elements of ancient origin how to restore suppressed degrees of molecular freedom, favoring pre-existing molecular affinities and activities, re-establishing ancient molecular webs of interactions, and giving fragments of ancient coded information the opportunity to be re-expressed. Collectively, these newly activated mechanisms lead to different possibilities for pathological cell states. All these processes are opposed by cell-control mechanisms. Thus, in this new scenario, the battle is considered intracellular rather than between the virus and the cell. And so the virus is treated as the signal that precipitates the cell’s change from a latent to an active pathological state. (shrink)

Este escrito tiene como objetivo describir los principales enunciados que gravitaron a la hora de analizar el contenido de varias obras literarias que describían sucesos propios del siglo XX en Colombia. Esto con el fin de reconocer las representaciones, las prácticas y los sentidos de la sociedad a lo largo del siglo, así pues, el artículo está orientado en gran medida a responder a la posibilidad de poner en diálogo el estudio de la corriente historiográfica de la historia cultural y (...) su relación con la literatura. (shrink)

After viral entry into the cell, the nuclear envelope poses a major cellular barrier that needs to be overcome upon adaptation of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIV) to the new host. To ensure efficient viral transcription and replication in the nucleus of the host cell, the viral polymerase complex of avian influenza viruses needs to switch from recognition of avian to mammalian components of the nuclear import machinery. Recent evidence suggests that influenza viruses have evolved different mechanisms to utilize (...) importin‐α isoforms as components of this machinery, bridging pre‐ and post‐nuclear import on both sides of the nuclear envelope. (shrink)

Ernst Bloch's work reflects on the revolution and the need to take advantage of cultural legacy content with an emancipatory sense. In Heritage of our times, written during the period of the Weimar Republic, the author places special emphasis on three aspects of cultural heritage to reconsider. Namely: the genuine concept of the Third Reich, the epic theater of Brecht and expressionism. This article examines the three mentioned aspects of reconsideration of heritage by Bloch. La obra de Ernst Bloch reflexiona (...) sobre la revolución y la necesidad de aprovechar contenidos del legado cultural emancipadoramente. En Herencia de esta época, texto escrito durante el periodo de la República de Weimar, el autor incide en tres aspectos de la herencia cultural a reconsiderar. A saber: el concepto genuino de Tercer Reich, el teatro épico de Brecht y el expresionismo. Este artículo examina los tres citados focos de reconsideración del concepto de herencia por parte de Bloch. La obra de Ernst Bloch reflexiona en torno a la revolución y a la necesidad de aprovechar contenidos del legado cultural con un sentido emancipador. En Herencia de esta época, escrito llevado a cabo durante el periodo de la República de Weimar, el autor hace especial hincapié en tres aspectos de la herencia cultural a reconsiderar. A saber: el concepto genuino de Tercer Reich, el teatro épico de Brecht y el expresionismo. Este artículo examina los tres citados focos de reconsideración de la herencia por parte de Bloch. (shrink)

A través de este artículo se llegará a la conclusión de que la obediencia es una expresión de la dialéctica entre la encarnación de Cristo y su kenosis, superando la provisionalidad de las realidades terrenas y consagrando a Dios la facultad de disponer de la propia vida. Pero este caminar entre la vida y la muerte, encuentra su punto culminante en el misterio pascual de Jesucristo, el cual contribuye a la glorificación de Dios en el hombre, haciendo de la experiencia (...) de Dios en Jesucristo, el proyecto fundamental de la vida. El hombre participa de este misterio mediante la contemplación y lo extiende hacia fuera gracias a la predicación. Se pondrá así de relieve la dimensión pneumatológica y eclesial de la obediencia, que parte de la imagen de un hombre apasionado y entusiasta del sueño de Dios sobre la humanidad, revelado y realizado en Jesús, por la fuerza del Espíritu de amor. Through this article you will come to the conclusion that obedience is an expression of the dialectic between the incarnation of Christ and his ‘kenosis’, surpassing the impermanence of earthly realities and consecrating to God the faculty to dispose of one´s own live. But this journey between life and death, finds its culmination in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, which contributes to the glorification of God in man, making the experience of God in Jesus Christ, the fundamental project of life. The Man participates in this mystery, through contemplation, and extends it out through the preaching. In this way, it will express the pneumatologic and ecclesial dimension of obedience, which part of the image of a passionate and enthusiastic man of God's dream for humanity, revealed and realized in Jesus, by the power of the Spirit of love. (shrink)

A través de este artículo se llegará a la conclusión de que la obediencia es una expresión de la dialéctica entre la encarnación de Cristo y su kenosis, superando la provisionalidad de las realidades terrenas y consagrando a Dios la facultad de disponer de la propia vida. Pero este caminar entre la vida y la muerte, encuentra su punto culminante en el misterio pascual de Jesucristo, el cual contribuye a la glorificación de Dios en el hombre, haciendo de la experiencia (...) de Dios en Jesucristo, el proyecto fundamental de la vida. El hombre participa de este misterio mediante la contemplación y lo extiende hacia fuera gracias a la predicación. Se pondrá así de relieve la dimensión pneumatológica y eclesial de la obediencia, que parte de la imagen de un hombre apasionado y entusiasta del sueño de Dios sobre la humanidad, revelado y realizado en Jesús, por la fuerza del Espíritu de amor. Through this article you will come to the conclusion that obedience is an expression of the dialectic between the incarnation of Christ and his ‘kenosis’, surpassing the impermanence of earthly realities and consecrating to God the faculty to dispose of one´s own live. But this journey between life and death, finds its culmination in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, which contributes to the glorification of God in man, making the experience of God in Jesus Christ, the fundamental project of life. The Man participates in this mystery, through contemplation, and extends it out through the preaching. In this way, it will express the pneumatologic and ecclesial dimension of obedience, which part of the image of a passionate and enthusiastic man of God's dream for humanity, revealed and realized in Jesus, by the power of the Spirit of love. (shrink)

Differences between the sexes in education is something of particular interest in much research. This study sought to investigate the possible differences between the sexes in math performance, and to deeply examine the causal factors for those differences. Beginning from the administration of the BECOMA-On (Online Evaluation Battery of Mathematics Skills) to 3,795 5th year primary students aged 10-11, in 16 Spanish autonomous communities and the 2 autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. The results for each sex were compared to (...) their perceptions of self-efficacy about completing the test items, and with their interest in and motivation for mathematics. Statistically significant differences were seen in the variables examined. The boys were generally more engaged with science and technical subjects. Generalizing from studies such as this aims to more thoroughly explore, and improve this situation. (shrink)

Abstract:This essay performs an anticolonial and poetic methodology of combining Black and Native feminists' deconstruction of metaphor and metaphysics in order to argue for the centrality of colonial metaphor to colonial metaphysics. I combine their analyses of the separate gendered metaphors of Blackness and Indianness and the centrality of these metaphors to the development of a global metaphysics as well as the transference of the terms of metaphysics to whiteness. I then apply this method of combined terms and readings to (...) white colonial writing that compares Black and Native America, which transforms both communities not only into individually potent, gendered metaphors but into an essential poetic pairing, a poetic couplet. Drawing on the work of Black and Native feminists, I further argue that when we take this paired model to evaluate the political concerns of Black and Native America, we come to a more complete and global understanding and refutation of whiteness. The creation, connection, and comparison of the gendered metaphors and archetypical figures of the "African Slave" and "Indian Savage" are important to each other and to the creation of a Western conception of the globe. Colonialism uses gender to compound metaphor's ability to create, by combining metaphors of gender with metaphors of race and colonialism to develop new symbolic amalgamations. This gestalt of metaphors comes together in order to create a fictive European metaphysics used to ameliorate white fears of the diversity of life on planet Earth and to satisfy white desires to control it. In this coupled metaphoric form, Blackness and Indianness are not connected by analogy but by the open-ended cut, the caesura, of poetry and the violence of slavery and conquest. I offer this anticolonial and poetic pairing as a model for political imagining between Black and Native theory. (shrink)

We examine the expressive power of probabilistic context free grammars (PCFGs), with a special focus on the use of probabilities as a mechanism for reducing ambiguity by filtering out unwanted parses. Probabilities in PCFGs induce an ordering relation among the set of trees that yield a given input sentence. PCFG parsers return the trees bearing the maximum probability for a given sentence, discarding all other possible trees. This mechanism is naturally viewed as a way of defining a new class of (...) tree languages. We formalize the tree language thus defined, study its expressive power, and show that the latter is beyond context freeness. While the increased expressive power offered by PCFGs helps to reduce ambiguity, we show that, in general, it cannot be decided whether a PCFG removes all ambiguities. (shrink)

We examine the expressive power of probabilistic context free grammars (PCFGs), with a special focus on the use of probabilities as a mechanism for reducing ambiguity by filtering out unwanted parses. Probabilities in PCFGs induce an ordering relation among the set of trees that yield a given input sentence. PCFG parsers return the trees bearing the maximum probability for a given sentence, discarding all other possible trees. This mechanism is naturally viewed as a way of defining a new class of (...) tree languages. We formalize the tree language thus defined, study its expressive power, and show that the latter is beyond context freeness. While the increased expressive power offered by PCFGs helps to reduce ambiguity, we show that, in general, it cannot be decided whether a PCFG removes all ambiguities. (shrink)

The CRISPR-Cas9 system is a genetic editing technology that, in addition to expanding the possibilities for scientific research, promotes reflections associated with human dignity, biological control, therapy, and genetic improvement. Bioethical discussions on the challenges and repercussions of the CRISPR-Cas9 system are reviewed. As a result, bioethical questions tend to problematize the application to non-human organisms, primary research, and the human somatic and germline. In brief, it is necessary to increase the levels of safety and effectiveness so that the benefits (...) outweigh the risks, while reducing bioethical concerns and increasing the credibility of the technique. (shrink)

En un tiempo de profundas transformaciones, conflictos y resistencias, desde una aproximación filosófico-política, pondremos el foco en la emergencia de la Naturaleza como sujeto de derechos, de los pueblos indígenas y de las mujeres indígenas en los procesos de lucha, negociación y representación, como nuevos sujetos políticos en los distintos niveles de la esfera pública. Desde esta perspectiva, examinaremos la incorporación de la Naturaleza como sujeto de derechos en la Constitución de Ecuador en 2008 y las luchas y métodos del (...) Pueblo Originario Kichwa de Sarayaku (Ecuador), a nivel nacional e internacional, frente al extractivismo petrolífero, atendiendo al papel que desempeñan las mujeres, a su interpretación del Sumak Kawsay (Buen Vivir) y del Kawsak Sacha (Selva Viva), y a sus aportaciones para la resolución de los conflictos ecológicos y políticos. Además de dar a conocer y presentar Sarayaku como un caso ejemplar, se concluye afirmando que la irrupción de estos «nuevos sujetos» nos sitúan ante un nuevo y complejo escenario, interpelándonos desde el Sur Global. (shrink)

En este artículo pretendo argumentar de qué manera el lenguaje es conformador de la experiencia estética y, en especial, cómo el argot involucrado en las vivencias estéticas es indisociable de estas, al operar como uno de sus factores constituyentes. A través del análisis de ejemplos de jerga estética popular, procedentes en su mayor parte del lenguaje juvenil, señalo algunos de los modos en que el argot conforma experiencias estéticas que no existirían sin su intervención. En este análisis recurro a algunas (...) ideas sobre la relación entre el lenguaje y la experiencia de autores como Wittgenstein, Vigotsky o Searle. (shrink)

El coraje de la ternura es una aproximación a la obra poética de Julia Valiente que, partiendo de dos poemas de su primer libro, hasta llegar a su producción actual aún inédita, pretende dar cuenta de cómo ha construido una voz propia desde la honestidad de una mirada cuya desnudez nos muestra quienes somos.

En un análisis fenomenológico, la pose aparece como un evento que establece una relación especial entre el cuerpo y la imagen; en dicho evento la intencionalidad se dirige a la resolución del propio cuerpo como imagen. Las distinciones tradicionales entre imagen y esquema corporales, y entre apercepción y apresentación sirven a este estudio para señalar algunos aspectos característicos del acto de posar, pero es el análisis fenomenológico de la recepción y la empatía el que aporta las claves fundamentales.In a phenomenological (...) analysis, the pose appears as an event that establishes a special relationship between body and image; in that event, the intentionality is directed to the resolution of the body itself as an image. The traditional distinctions between body image and body scheme, and between apperception and presentification, serve to point out some characteristic aspects of the act of posing, but it is the phenomenological analysis of reception and empathy that provides the fundamental insights. (shrink)

RESUMEN En su primera investigación, Edith Stein se propuso definir la esencia de la Einfühlung (empatía) como experiencia de la conciencia ajena; pretendía así fundamentar que, como había indicado Husserl, ese acto abría la posibilidad de una intersubjetividad trascendental como solución al solipsismo de la conciencia. Stein halló la clave de esa esencia en la idea de originariedad, pero intentó evitar el problema de la empatía estética, sirviéndose de Los ídolos del autoconocimiento de Scheler. ABSTRACT In her first research project, (...) Edith Stein set out to define the essence of Einfühlung (empathy) as an experience of another's consciousness. Her objective was to justify the fact that such an act opened up the possibility of a transcendental subjectivity as a solution to the solipsism of consciousness, as Husserl had indicated. Stein found the key to that essence in the idea of originariety, but she tried to avoid the problem of aesthetic empathy by resorting to Scheler's Idols of Self-Knowledge. RESUMO Em sua primeira pesquisa, Edith Stein se propôs a definir a essência da Einfühlung (empatia) como experiência da consciência alheia; pretendia assim fundamentar que, como tinha indicado Husserl, esse ato abria a possibilidade de uma intersubjetividade transcendental como solução ao solipsismo da consciência. Stein encontrou a chave dessa essência na ideia de originalidade, mas tentou evitar o problema da empatia estética ao se servir de Os ídolos do autoconhecimento de Scheler. (shrink)

Presentamos las dificultades relatadas por estudiantes de pedagogía de dos universidades latinoamericanas, en el contexto de la pandemia COVID-19. Los datos fueron obtenidos a partir de registros escritos y encuestas respondidas por los estudiantes y analizados a partir de una visión freireana de educación. Los problemas junto con el sufrimiento emocional de los jóvenes revelaron el distanciamiento entre docentes y estudiantes y entre sus pares, lo que impactó su proceso formativo. Una práctica educativa que valore el diálogo y los contextos (...) de intereses y motivaciones de los estudiantes se torna fundamental para su formación académica más humana, integrada y transdisciplinar. (shrink)

El término nuestroamericano —utilizado por Horacio Cerutti— tiene sus fundamentos en el concepto "Nuestra América". Este hilo conductor de pensamiento tiene como hecho ineludible el hacerse cargo de la realidad en que se vive y del lugar en donde se está, hecho expresado en un permanente interés en la identidad cultural y nacional, como también por una lectura crítica y explicativa del desarrollo de las ideas. En el caso de Chile, a nuestro juicio, la memoria filosófica nuestroamericana ha tendido a (...) ser borrada, olvidada, siendo obnubilada por un fuerte eurocentrismo, lo que ha dado como resultado un escaso número de filósofos preocupados por "lo latinoamericano". Así, este trabajo indaga sobre los orígenes de la vertiente latinoamericanista en la filosofía chilena en la segunda mitad del siglo XX. A modo de conclusión, proponemos que no es sino hasta los años ochenta cuando, desde el Círculo de Filosofía de la Academia de Humanismo Cristiano, se genera un punto de inflexión con la tradición filosófica chilena, dando origen de forma más nítida a la vertiente nuestroamericana que, antes de esto, solo habría tenido pequeñas huellas dispersas. (shrink)