Regla y tiempo real son las ineludibles entidades entre las que se genera la creación musical. En contra de ciertas idealizaciones que enturbian la comprensión de lo que hacemos cuando hacemos música, no hay --en un extremo del eje-- improvisación ni interpretación que no dependan en mayor o menor medida de un predeterminado marco normativo. Y, en el otro extremo, hasta el más exhaustivo conjunto de instrucciones se implementa siempre en un irrepetible tiempo real, lo que hace de la música (...) un fenómeno solo parcialmente predecible y, por lo tanto, abierto a la improvisación. En consecuencia, lejos de las inclinaciones excepcionalistas tanto de algunos discursos académicos como de ciertos valedores de lo que solemos llamar músicas improvisadas, esta obra señala una relevante continuidad entre distintos modos de hacer música, una continuidad a menudo oscurecida por la desatención o el humo ideológico. Toda interpretación es, pues, constitutivamente improvisativa y, a la vez, dependiente de un marco normativo. Si, finalmente, y en contra del hegemónico platonismo musical, admitimos que "una obra musical no existe sino en el momento de su interpretación", por decirlo en los términos de Vladimir Jankélévitch, parece que debiéramos contemplar sin reparos la posibilidad --por contraintuitiva que parezca-- de que toda obra musical sea forzosamente improvisativa. Estas páginas fascinantes pretenden, desde disciplinas complementarias como la estética, la musicología o la ontología del arte, esclarecer determinados aspectos básicos de nuestras prácticas musicales y responder a una serie de preguntas sobre la tradición, la naturaleza y la interpretación de la obra musical que no solemos hacernos"--Back cover. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene como objetivo desarrollar el pensamiento crítico y actitudes cívicas sobre los derechos humanos en la infancia con el álbum ilustrado. Para ello, se explica la conjunción entre lenguaje textual y visual del álbum y su aprovechamiento para desarrollar la educación literaria, plástica y en valores. Se analizan cuatro títulos con los que realizar mediación educativa en Educación Infantil relacionada con los derechos humanos. Finalmente, se concluye que el álbum es una herramienta pedagógica idónea para fomentar la lectura (...) literaria, la alfabetización visual y la creación de una futura ciudadanía crítica, empática y consciente de los derechos humanos. (shrink)

Uterus transplantation (UTx) research has been introduced in several countries, with trials in Sweden and the United States producing successful outcomes. The growing interest in developing UTx trials in other countries, such as Spain, the Netherlands, Japan, and Australia, raises important questions regarding the ethics of surgical innovation research in the field of UTx. This paper examines the current state of UTx in the context of the surgical innovation paradigm and IDEAL framework and discusses the ethical challenges faced by those (...) considering the introduction of new trials. We argue that UTx remains an experimental procedure at a relatively early stage of the IDEAL framework, especially in the context of de novo trials, where protocols are likely to deviate from those used previously and where researchers are likely to have limited experience of UTx. We conclude that countries considering the introduction of UTx trials should build on the strengths of the reported outcomes to consolidate the evidence base and shed light on the uncertainties of the procedure. Authorities responsible for the ethical governance of UTx trials are advised to draw on the ethical framework used in the oversight of surgical innovation. (shrink)

Expanding on the results of previous contributions I advance several hypotheses on the interaction of physical and semiotic processes, both in organisms and in human artifacts. I then proceed to employ these ideas to formulate a general account of evolutionary processes in terms of concrete generalization, where, in analogy with conceptual generalization, novel creations retain antecedent features as special or restricted cases. I argue the following theses: 1) the main point of intersection of physical and semiotic causation is the process (...) of regulation; 2) The broadest form of regulation is a course of actions known as modulation ; 3) Modulation is a universal means of conveyance by which a form is lifted from one supporting vehicle and re-embodied into another replica. These considerations suggest viewing biological evolution as a complex generalization of semiotic evolution. Biological reproduction is then regarded as a complex generalization of sign replication. The latter is a relatively simple affair: the embodied form is external and largely independent of its indifferent supporting medium. Biological reproduction, on the contrary, is an extremely complex dynamical process in which the embodied type is duplicated from within the medium, through the subsidiary internal replication of molecular genetic records. These ideas are developed and illustrated through comparisons between the evolution of organisms and that of human artifacts. (shrink)

Valdés’s work is abstract and speaks in part to earlier traditions including cubist art, even as it transports us most pointedly to his native Cuba, and to a series of what he describes as “visual enigmas” emerging specifically from contemporary realities. Both his public sculptures and installations restructure the space around them: on the one hand quoting a longer tradition of work, including the geometrical cubes of classic modern sculpture, while on the other hand moving beyond that history and transporting (...) earlier twentieth-century ideas about materiality and spatial abstraction in late modern global cultural and ecological forms and in sites not previously considered. (shrink)

This article provides an overview of recent contributions to the debate on the ethical use of previously collected biobank samples, as well as a country report about how this issue has been regulated in Spain by means of the new Biomedical Research Act, enacted in the summer of 2007. By contrasting the Spanish legal situation with the wider discourse of international bioethics, we identify and discuss a general trend moving from the traditional requirements of informed consent towards new models more (...) favourable to research in a post‐genomic context. (shrink)

Biosemiotics—a discipline in the process of becoming established as a new research enterprise—faces a double task. On the one hand it must carry out the theoretical and experimental investigation of an enormous range of semiotic phenomena relating organisms to their internal components and to other organisms (e.g., signal transduction, replication, codes, etc.). On the other hand, it must achieve a philosophical re-conceptualization and generalization of theoretical biology in light of the essential role played by semiotic notions in biological explanation and (...) modeling. This paper attempts to contribute to the second task by tracing some aspects of the historical evolution of explanatory models in biology. In so doing, a parallel can be drawn between the present status of biosemiotics and that of physics during the early decades of the last century. By following the career of the concept instrument (organon) in Aristotelian science, we revisit historical stages of the antithetical (but often complementary) roles of mechanical and teleological forms of explanation. The impact of the introduction of the organic codes in biology is seen to be somewhat analogous to that of the introduction of the quantum of action in physics. Faced with intractable empirical facts, physicists combined experimental results and bold philosophical speculation to create quantum physics—a wider, deeper framework that accommodates the new facts through a wholesale reformulation of the classical ideas. Essential to this development was the articulation of the epistemic functions of instruments, which was absent from classical physics. Similarly, the consideration of the role of instruments in biology may lead to a synthesis of Aristotelian and Kantian intuitions within a wider framework capable of joining now separate perspectives, such as Jablonka’s four-fold view of inheritance information, Barbieri’s theory of artifactual copymakers and codemakers, and recently developed models of causation based on the idea of manipulative interventions. (shrink)

The course of biological evolution is regarded by many authors as an ascending path toward higher levels of variety, complexity and integration. There are similar but partly conflicting accounts of the nature and causes of this ascending course. With the aim of reaching a unified conception I start by summarily reviewing three notable examples. These are, in their latest presentations, those of Hoffmeyer and Stjernfelt 2015, Szathmáry 2015, and Lane 2015a. Comparison of their commonalities and divergences, combined with further reflections, (...) leads to the following views: 1) cooperation between preexistent traits and processes is the primary determinant in the emergence of evolutionary novelty; 2) cooperation is a triadic relation similar to semiosis ; 3) regulation, the key element of both metabolism and replication, results from the cooperation of energetic and semiotic causation; 4) conceptual generalization and concrete generalization are fruits of cooperation. Conceptual generalizations spring from the cooperation of ideas. I believe these realizations supply essential elements for a unified view of the ascent of biological evolution towards higher levels of organization. Some of these conceptions are also applicable to similar ascending trajectories through the stages of cultural and technological evolution. (shrink)

Drawing from existing theory and empirical evidence on mindfulness, we posit that trait mindfulness is associated with less accurate memories of immoral conduct. We report three studies that provide evidence of this argument. One significant implication of this finding is that it provides a more balanced and complete view of mindfulness. Specifically, while mindfulness is widely promoted for its positive effects for employee well‐being, mindfulness may inadvertently promote a biased moral self‐perception based on inaccurate memories of one's past immoral conduct. (...) In a fourth study, we explore this implication and demonstrate that memory mediates the negative relationship between trait mindfulness and self‐reported immoral conduct. This research contributes to literatures on mindfulness, memory, morality, and to the growing body of work assessing the importance of mindfulness. (shrink)

The inner semiotic core of biology Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9547-z Authors Eliseo Fernández, Linda Hall Library of Science and Technology, Kansas City, MO 64110, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

This book clarifies the meaning of the most important and pervasive concepts and tools in bioethical argumentation and assesses the methodological suitability of the main methods for clinical decision-making and argumentation. The first part of the book is devoted to the most developed or promising approaches regarding bioethical argumentation, namely those based on principles, values and human rights. The authors then continue to deal with the contributions and shortcomings of these approaches and suggest further developments by means of substantive and (...) procedural elements and concepts from practical philosophy, normative systems theory, theory of action, human rights and legal argumentation. Furthermore, new models of biomedical and health care decision-making, which overcome the aforementioned criticism and stress the relevance of the argumentative responsibility, are included. (shrink)

La autonomía es parte esencial de la fundamentación moral de la sociedad contemporánea y ha dado lugar en el ámbito asistencial a un nuevo modelo de relación y de toma de decisiones clínicas. El objetivo de este artículo es exponer el significado de la autonomía del paciente a través de la distinción de tres dimensiones: autonomía decisoria, autonomía informativa y autonomía funcional o ejecutiva, la periodización de su evolución normativa a lo largo de tres etapas, y la propuesta de cuestiones (...) o desafíos que merecen ser objeto de estudio y aplicación en el futuro. (shrink)

In the context of comparing linguistic profiles across neurodevelopmental disorders, Down syndrome has captured growing attention for its uneven profile. Although specific weaknesses in grammatical and phonological processing have been reported, research evidence on phonological development remains scarce, particularly beyond early childhood. The purpose of this study was to explore the phonological profiles of children and adolescents with Down syndrome. The profiles were based on the frequency and relative proportion of the processes observed by classes, and they were compared to (...) those of typically developing preschool children of similar verbal age. A complementary goal was to assess the effect of two different methods of elicitation: a test of articulation and spontaneous speech sampling. Finally, intergroup and intragroup differences in full match percentages between three positions at syllable-level were assessed. The results of the present study confirmed that the frequency of phonological processes in children and adolescents with DS is atypically high and is above what is expected for lexical age and at the same level as grammatical age. Highly increased frequency of processes, consistent in all kinds of processes and positions at the syllable-level, and asynchronous with verbal age and mental age suggest atypical developmental trajectories of phonological development in the Down syndrome population. (shrink)

En este trabajo pretendo mostrar el modo como la simpatía humeana sirve para convertir las pasiones barrocas en sentimientos morales con los que el interés puede establecerse como algo admisible en un comportamiento virtuoso. Ello supone la admisión de que no hay moralidad sino en un contexto social desde el cual se afinan los sentimientos de un modo reflexivo, aunque no únicamente racional siguiendo el mismo modelo que se usa para afinar el sentido del gusto.