In the context of macroevolutionary transitions, environmental changes prompted vertebrates already bearing genetic variations to undergo gradual adaptations resulting in profound anatomical, physiological, and behavioral adaptations. The emergence of new genes led to the genetic variation essential in metazoan evolution, just as was gene loss, both sources of genetic variation resulting in adaptive phenotypic diversity. In this context, F12‐coding protein with defense and hemostatic roles emerged some 425 Mya, and it might have contributed in aquatic vertebrates to the transition from (...) water‐to‐land. Conversely, the F12 loss in marine, air‐breathing mammals like cetaceans has been associated with phenotypic adaptations in some terrestrial mammals in their transition to aquatic lifestyle. More recently, the advent of technological innovations in western lifestyle with blood‐contacting devices and harmful environmental nanoparticles, has unfolded new roles of FXII. Environment operates as either a positive or a relaxed selective pressure on genes, and consequently genes are selected or lost. FXII, an old dog facing environmental novelties can learn new tricks and teach us new therapeutic avenues. (shrink)

This volume collects a number of important and revealing interviews with Richard Rorty, spanning more than two decades of his public intellectual commentary, engagement, and criticism. In colloquial language, Rorty discusses the relevance and nonrelevance of philosophy to American political and public life. The collection also provides a candid set of insights into Rorty's political beliefs and his commitment to the labor and union traditions in this country. Finally, the interviews reveal Rorty to be a deeply engaged social thinker and (...) observer. (shrink)

Se desarrolla la concepción normativista de la autoconciencia hegeliana, de acuerdo con los aportes de los denominados “neohegelianos de Pittsburgh” (Robert Brandom, John McDowell), así como de otros autores anglosajones como Robert Pippin, Terry Pinkard y Paul Redding. Se presenta el recorrido de la autoconciencia en el capítulo IVde la Fenomenología del Espíritu, y se desarrollan algunos rasgos que pueden extraerse de dicha presentación, de acuerdo con la lectura normativista de los autores mencionados.

Se desarrolla la concepción normativista de la autoconciencia hegeliana, de acuerdo con los aportes de los denominados "neohegelianos de Pittsburgh", así como de otros autores anglosajones como Robert Pippin, Terry Pinkard y Paul Redding. Se presenta el recorrido de la autoconciencia en el capítulo IV de la Fenomenología del Espíritu, y se desarrollan algunos rasgos que pueden extraerse de dicha presentación, de acuerdo con la lectura normativista de los autores mencionados. The normativist conception of Hegelian self-consciousness according to the contributions (...) of the so-called "Pittsburgh neo-Hegelians" is developed along with the contributions of other English-speaking scholars such as Robert Pippin, Terry Pinkard and Paul Redding. An overview is given of self-consciousness as laid out in chapter IV of the Phenomenology of Spirit, and some of the features that can be extracted from this overview are developed according to a normativist reading of the authors mentioned. (shrink)

The first sections of the paper deal with the notion of a dialogue and some basic dialogic modalities. The critical or rational modality is highlighted as typical of philosophical argumentation. The following sections deal with a widespread phenomenon in current philosophical controversies: to charge the dialogic counterpart with the commission of a philosophical fallacy. The Naturalistic Fallacy is taken as the most famous example of that sort of strategy. Its structure and aims are analized, and it is concluded that, leaving (...) aside other sorts of critical points, the accusation violates the canons of the rational dialogue. (shrink)

It is assumed that the content of an assertion is determined either by the semantically defined content or by the interaction of the latter with the context. Here I present a counterexample by means of the Wookiee problem. After considering several options I offer what appears to be its most satisfactory solution. This requires that we give up the assumption in favor of a view according to which it may be that semantic information does not at all determine the content (...) of an assertion, not even partly so. (shrink)

According to dynamic semantics, what is said by an utterance of a sentence is determined by how the common ground is affected by the acceptance of such utterance. It has been claimed that dynamic semantics offers an account of what is said by an utterance in a context that excels that of traditional static semantics. Assertions of negative existential constructions, of the form ‘X does not exist’, are a case in point. These assertions traditionally pose a problem for philosophers of (...) language. A recent proposal, owed to Clapp, argues that static semantics is unable to solve the problem and offers a dynamic semantics account that promises to succeed. In this paper I want to challenge this account and, more generally, the scope of the dynamic semantics framework. I will offer a counterexample, inspired by “answering machine” uses of indexical and demonstrative expressions, to show how dynamic semantics fails. I conclude by considering the merits of both static and dynamic accounts. (shrink)

In this essay an engineer and a philosopher, after many conversations, develop an argument for why the Aristotelian version of virtue ethics is the most promising way to develop what we call artificial moral, social agents, i.e. robots. This, evidently, applies to humans as well. There are several claims: first, that humans are not born moral, they are socialized into morality; second, that morality involves affect, emotion, feeling, before it engages reason; third, that how a moral being feels is related (...) to some narrative, whether moral or not; and finally, that narrativity is what builds a sense of a “moral” I, namely an authorial moral self. (shrink)

This essay urges us to complement work on the philosophy and social science of race that has focused on the “visual” and “epistemic” dimension of racism with work on affect or what is here called the somatological dimensions of racism. The racist self hears race before he sees it. The racist self is convulsed by race before she experiences it as an epistemic affair. It is argued here that we dwell in the sound house of race. Before racism is chromocratic, (...) it is phonocratic. The technologies of the racist self are the technologies of racializing aurality and phonology. Racism brands us sonically. Race, it will be argued, is a sonic stigmata. More specifically, the focus will be on voice, accent, what here is called the prosody of race. The aim is make those racialized and racializing accents in philosophy resound, echo, and reverberate so that we can hear the prosody of race. The racist does not dwell in the silent chamber of the mind’s “I.” The viscera of racism dwells in the body our racist habits have domesticated. (shrink)

A partir del significado que la filosofía moderna asignó a la noción del sujeto, se plantea el modo en que dicho concepto es reinterpretado en el pensamiento de Marx, distinguiendo el nuevo sentido que el término adquiere en los planos más importantes y diversos en los que Marx lleva a cabo esa revisión: el plano que toma en consideración la insuperable condición natural del hombre, el que atiende al sentido de la dialéctica y de la totalidad en que se desarrolla (...) la praxis social, el que destaca la condición social del individuo y, finalmente, el que plantea la discusión con el humanismo tradicional en relación con la posible autonomía del hombre. (shrink)

La pregunta acerca de por qué las personas deben obedecer el derecho introduce uno de los temas más complejos y discutidos de la filosofía política y jurídica contemporáneas. Entre las diversas respuestas ofrecidas en la literatura científica, Rawls formuló la teoría del deber natural de apoyar y promover las instituciones justas. El objetivo de este trabajo es ofrecer un análisis crítico de esta propuesta y mostrar cómo se podrían superar algunas de sus debilidades mediante un enfoque que enfatice la importancia (...) de preservar un esquema social beneficioso que ofrezca un marco de posibilidades para el desarrollo moral de las personas. (shrink)

Este artigo aborda uma crítica feita alguns anos atrás por Avner Baz sobre o trabalho de contextualistas atuais na filosofia da linguagem. A crítica de Baz enfoca a ideia de que os contextualistas interpretaram mal o ataque feito por J. L. Austin e Wittgenstein à chamada “concepção vigente de significado”. Apesar da insistência deles sobre os fatores contextuais que determinam o contexto de uma declaração, Baz argumenta que os contextualistas ainda explicam nossos enunciados em termos das condições de verdade das (...) sentenças que expressam e, ao enfatizarem a dimensão referencial das palavras, acabam por defender uma concepção de significado como uma entidade teórica, responsável por assinalar os objetos do nosso discurso. Portanto, para Baz, eles mantêm uma visão representacionista ainda intimamente ligada à concepção tradicional de concepção de significado. Descrevendo as bases da visão de Baz, sustento neste artigo que a ligação que ele assevera entre referência e uma teoria de significado como representação, é precisamente o objetivo de contextualistas como Charles Travis. O trabalho deles é apresentado aqui como uma tentativa de explicar a referência de palavras e as condições de verdade de uma sentença após a ocorrência de uma negação radical da noção de significado como representação. Nesse sentido, contrariamente ao que Baz afirma, estão intimamente ligados ao espírito dos pioneiros da filosofia da linguagem comum. (shrink)

Con la entrada en el Collège de France, en 1953, Merleau-Ponty comienza una reflexión sobre el problema de la filosofía que no cesa hasta sus últimos cursos en la célebre institución. Termina su conferencia, Elogio de la filosofía, poniendo énfasis en la filosofía como expresión, a la luz de las aportaciones de la lingüística, y sobre la voluntad de hablar del filósofo. Ni una palabra sobre la fenomenología y el existencialismo en esta ocasión. Pero seis años más tarde elogia la (...) filosofía de la existencia, como mirada al mundo de una época y sus problemas. Dedica los últimos cursos en el Collège a justificar la posibilidad de la filosofía, a partir de Husserl sobre todo; entiende que la nueva filosofía, como interrogación del saber (de los saberes) y del ser, es por ello una nueva ontología. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo, enmarcado dentro de una consideración antropológico-ética de las virtudes sociales, nos proponemos mostrar el desarrollo de Santo Tomás de Aquino en torno al concepto de objeto de una acción, el cual presta a ésta su cualidad moral de ser una virtud o un vicio y la relación existente entre el sentido objetivo del obrar social humano y la ley natural.

Horizontes da religião (Horizons of religion) - DOI: 10.5752/P.2175-5841.2011v9n23p633.