The objective of this study is to determine the contribution made by knowledge of letters, phonological awareness, phonological memory, and alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric rapid automatized naming at the ages of six and seven to the ability of Spanish children to read words at 7 years of age. A total of 116 Spanish-speaking school children took part in the study, from schools located in an average socio-cultural setting, without special educational needs. The reading ability of these pupils was evaluated at the (...) age of seven, and cognitive variables were assessed at 6 and 7 years of age. Descriptive-exploratory analyses, bivariate analyses, and multivariate regressions were performed. The results show that cognitive variables measured at these ages contribute differently to the ability to read words at 7 years of age. Rapid naming does not seem to influence word reading; knowledge of letters no longer influences word reading as children grow older; and phonological awareness and phonological memory maintain their contribution to the explanation of word reading. These results indicate that reading in Spanish depends on different cognitive variables and that this relationship varies according to age. The findings have key educational implications in terms of teaching reading skills and the prevention of specific learning difficulties in Spanish Primary Education. (shrink)

The threat of terrorism once again raises some of the classic questions about constitutionalism: is it possible for constitutions to do what they aim to do—channel and control political power in such a way as to make it safe and beneficent for those under its rule but also competent to govern? Does not terrorism reraise the Schmittian problem of “the exception”, i.e., the situation of emergency that necessarily escapes all constitutional limitations? Although they did not face the problem of terrorism (...) as we know it, the American founders developed three different models of constitutionalism, embodying three different ways of responding to emergent circumstances and yet remaining bound to the constitutionalist aspiration. We develop the main outlines of the three models both conceptually and historically and show how they continue to be relevant to current discussions of constitutionalism in the age of terror. Finally, we make a tentative effort to judge which of the three models is most able to do what constitutions should do in difficult times. (shrink)

The psychosocial impacts of natural disasters are associated with the triggering of negative and positive responses in the affected population; also, such effects are expressed in an individual and collective sphere. This can be seen in several reactions and behaviors that can vary from the development of individual disorders to impacts on interpersonal relationships, cohesion, communication, and participation of the affected communities, among others. The present work addressed the psychosocial impacts of the consequences of natural disasters considering individual effects via (...) the impact of trauma and community effects, through the perception of social well-being, the valuation of the community and the social exchange of emotions. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between individual reactions (i.e., intensity of trauma) and the evaluation of social and collective circumstances (i.e., social well-being) after the earthquake of 27F 2010 in Chile, through collective-type intervention variables not used in previous studies (i.e., social sharing of emotions and community appraisal). For this purpose, a descriptive,ex postfacto correlational and cross-sectional methodology was carried on, with the participation of 487 people affected by the 2010 earthquake, 331 women (68%) and 156 men (32%), between 18 and 58 years old (M= 21.09;SD= 5.45), from the provinces of Ñuble and Biobío, VIII region, Chile. The measurement was carried out 4 years after the earthquake and the results show that greater individual than collective involvements were found, mainly in the coastal zone of the region. The mediation analysis showed that the relationship between the intensity of the trauma and social well-being occurs through a route that considers social sharing of emotions and community appraisal. These results indicate that the overcoming of individual affectations to achieve social well-being occurs when in the immediate post-disaster phases the affected communities activate shared emotional and cognitive processes, which allow them to jointly face subsequent threats and abrupt changes. (shrink)

Developing virtues requires attending to the affective and cognitive components of virtue. The former component implies cultivating apt emotional responses to specific situations. The cognitive part requires the (meta) virtue of phronesis. In dealing with “Phronesis in educating emotions,” this article attends to the nature of emotions and phronesis as its role in cultivating good action habits and virtuous emotional habits. It understands emotion regulation as one of the functions of phronesis. In the broader sense, phronesis includes elements other than (...) deliberation, such as dialectics and rhetoric, which can be helpful to induce a certain suspicion or to persuade somewhat since our affectivity is susceptible to persuasion (i.e. Aristotle’s political dominion of emotions). As a topic in the intersection of moral psychology and moral philosophy, we get valuable insights into a psychologist’s work, Magda Arnold’s (1903–2002) emotion theory. Her understanding of emotion elicitation elucidates the relation between phronesis and emotions. The article focuses on one of the central elements of emotion elicitation, the appraisal. This piece can make the education of emotions for virtue development more understandable. At first glance, our initial appraisal may be hasty and inaccurate, leading to emotional reactions. However, with careful reflection, we can correct and improve upon our initial appraisal and subsequent emotions. If our initial assessment was flawed, this second, more thoughtful evaluation can be enhanced through phronesis. Due to the appraisal’s spontaneity, cultivating educated emotions requires values’ teaching, learning, and thus, appraising good things. With the development of virtues, intuitive estimates become adequate, so emotional responses are more attuned to diverse situations. (shrink)

To verify the occurrence of a singular instance of testimonial injustice three facts must be established. The first is whether the hearer in fact has an identity prejudice of which she may or may not be aware; the second is whether that prejudice was in fact the cause of the unjustified credibility deficit; and the third is whether there was in fact a credibility deficit in the testimonial exchange. These three elements constitute the facts of the matter of testimonial injustice. (...) In this essay we argue that none of these facts can be established with any degree of confidence, and therefore that testimonial injustice is an undetectable phenomenon in singular instances. Our intention is not to undermine the idea of testimonial injustice, but rather to set limits to what can be justifiably asserted about it. According to our argument, although there are insufficient reasons to identify individual acts of testimonial injustice, it is possible to recognize recurrent patterns of epistemic responses to speakers who belong to specific social groups. General testimonial injustice can thus be characterized as a behavioral tendency of a prejudiced hearer. (shrink)

Ernesto Laclau es un reconocido teórico político precursor del postmarxismo. Si bien reside en Inglaterra hace varios lustros, su vinculación con Argentina y América Latina sigue siendo muy importante. Su libro Hegemony and Socialist Strategy de 1985 (aparecido en español en 1987 con el título Hegemonía y Estrategia Socialista) co-escrito con Chantal Mouffe tuvo un gran impacto en el pensamiento de la intelectualidad de izquierda identificada con un proyecto de radicalización de los ideales ..

Resumen: Durante la Reconquista de Alberto Blest Gana puede ser leída como una novela en donde el secreto y el poder se entrelazan de manera profundamente significativa. Esta interrelación se constituye en el soporte de la narración, en cuyo desarrollo se entretejen los acontecimientos históricos, las intrigas amorosas y la descripción de costumbres sociales. En el despliegue de la novela hallamos inscritas las preocupaciones políticas y éticas de su autor.: Durante la Reconquista by Alberto Blest Gana can be read as (...) a novel in which a secret and power are intertwined in a profoundly significant manner. This interrelationship is constituted in the narrative support, in which the development of historical events, amorous intrigues and social customs are all interwoven. In the unfolding of the novel we can find the inscription of the political and ethical concerns of the author. (shrink)

Durante la Reconquista de Alberto Blest Gana puede ser leída como una novela en donde el secreto y el poder se entrelazan de manera profundamente significativa. Esta interrelación se constituye en el soporte de la narración, en cuyo desarrollo se entretejen los acontecimientos históricos, las intrigas amorosas y la descripción de costumbres sociales. En el despliegue de la novela hallamos inscritas las preocupaciones políticas y éticas de su autor.

Resumen: El artículo busca observar el hecho religioso mapuche, a partir de la reflexión de Rudolf Otto respecto de lo numinoso y lo santo. Para ello se utiliza su metodología de análisis fenomenológico aplicada a los conceptos de mysterium, tremendum y fascinans o las dimensiones del temor, incorporadas en la cultura mapuche. Se concluye que el análisis de estos diversos momentos de la experiencia santo-numinoso en la vida religiosa del mapuche, permite constatar el dinamismo existente en la idea religiosa del (...) mapuche, lo que a su vez representa adecuadamente la relación entre el hombre religioso y lo santo.: This article seeks to observe the Mapuche religious fact, starting from Rudolf Otto’s reflection on the numinous and the holy. For this, it uses its methodology of phenomenological analysis applied to the concepts of mysterium, tremendum and fascinans or the dimensions of fear, incorporated in the Mapuche culture. It is concluded that the analysis of these different moments of the saint-numinous experience in the religious life of the mapuche, allows to verify the dynamism existing in the religious idea of ​​the mapuche, which in turn represents adequately the relationship between religious man and the Holy. (shrink)

Se ha tratado de desprestigiar al postmodernismo y no se ha valorado su gran contribución a la cultura universal. El postmodernismo empieza a desarrollarse cuando el ser humano se da cuenta que no tan solo sus órganos de los sentidos pueden engañarlo, sino que también su intelecto, razón y sus facultades superiores más preciadas. Las caídas del positivismo y del racionalismo le abrieron la puerta, apoyado por la insuficiencia de la ciencia y la filosofía para entender el universo. La nomología (...) (legalidad) ha tenido que resignarse frente a la ideografía (procesos irrepetibles e irreversibles) para entender el desarrollo universal. La antinomia del mentiroso, el teorema de Gödel, los procesos caóticos, la impredecibilidad, la incertidumbre, son parte de sus elementos sustantivos. El postmodernismo ha condenado a los ideologismos nomológicos o raciales que terminaron en las masacres de la Revolución Francesa, el Nazismo y las dos Guerras Mundiales, entre otros. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue that lying differs from mere misleading in a way that can be morally relevant: liars commit themselves to something they believe to be false, while misleaders avoid such commitment, and this difference can make a moral difference. Even holding all else fixed, a lie can therefore be morally worse than a corresponding misleading utterance. But, we argue, there are also cases in which the difference in commitment makes lying morally better than misleading, (...) as well as cases in which the difference is not morally relevant. This view conflicts with the two main positions philosophers have defended in the ethics of lying and misleading, which entail either that lying is in virtue of its nature worse than misleading or that there is no morally relevant difference between lying and misleading. (shrink)

This paper describes a method for analyzing a corpus of descriptions collected through micro-phenomenological interviews. This analysis aims at identifying the structure of the singular experiences which have been described, and in particular their diachronic structure, while unfolding generic experiential structures through an iterative approach. After summarizing the principles of the micro-phenomenological interview, and then describing the process of preparation of the verbatim, the article presents on the one hand, the principles and conceptual devices of the analysis method and on (...) the other hand several dimensions of the analysis process: the modes of structural unfolding of generic structures, the mutual guidance of the processes of structural and experiential unfolding, the tracking of analysis processes, and finally the assessment of analysis results. (shrink)

Computational models have shown how polarisation can rise among deliberating agents as they approximate epistemic rationality. This paper provides further support for the thesis that polarisation can rise under condition of epistemic rationality, but it does not depend on limitations that extant models rely on, such as memory restrictions or biased evaluation of other agents’ testimony. Instead, deliberation is modelled through agents’ purposeful introduction of arguments and their rational reactions to introductions of others. This process induces polarisation dynamics on its (...) own. A second result is that the effect size of polarisation dynamics correlates with particular types of argumentative behaviour. Polarisation effects can be soothed when agents take into account the opinions of others as premises, and they are amplified as agents fortify their own beliefs. These results underpin the relevance of argumentation as a factor in social-epistemic processes and indicate that rising issue polarisation is not a reliable indicator of epistemic shortcomings. (shrink)

Academics are confronted with multiple and conflicting narratives as to what it is to be an academic. Their identities, however, are not entirely of their own making. Through a qualitative study, and deploying a social realist perspective, this paper analyses academic identities in Chile and attempts to locate the patterns of identity in the context of a marketised higher education system. The data were collected in both a state and a private university. The results suggest that distinct kinds of fragilities (...) may be emerging among Chilean academics (ontological and contractual fragilities). These two fragilities can be traced to the attendant structures of the university system at an institutional level (reputational fragility in the public sector and a branding fragility in the private sector). The paper concludes by observing that, although the power of the structures is considerable, there are still spaces for agentic responses. (shrink)

This paper elaborates a typology of universities in which each university is characteristically associated with diverse missions, different ways of producing knowledge and contrasting pedagogical configurations. Four university forms are identified, analysed and illustrated, namely the expert university, the non-elite university, the entrepreneurial university and the revolutionary university. It is suggested that the typology and the analysis of university forms offered here provide insight into the current positioning of universities in relation to the wider world and have potential in prompting (...) new forms of university for the twenty-first century. The paper further advances another possible university for the future, namely the complex university. The complex university is part of and respectful of diverse ecosystems. It creates new frameworks to understand the world and, in that way, supports social transformations. (shrink)

This book provides a comprehensive investigation into Hans Morgenthau's life and work. Identifying power, knowledge, and dissent as the fundamental principles that have informed his worldview, this book argues that Morgenthau's lasting contribution to the discipline of International Relations is the human condition of politics.

ABSTRACT The sense of kairos is of time as having an event-like character. Fundamental here is a split between quantitative time and a qualitatively distinct moment. The decisive moment connects the kairological to crisis. By exploring the accounts of kairos in three contemporaries responding to the sense of crisis in 1920s Germany—Benjamin, Heidegger, and Tillich—this article shows the manner in action in the kairos can be understood as both responsive and non-opportunist. Themes such as the “tiger leap” (Benjamin), the “moment (...) of vision” (Heidegger), and the “shuddering” of time (Tillich) are analyzed to demonstrate how these accounts taken in dialogue with one another give an understanding of kairos, as a displacement and disruption of time as chronos and not simply as an interruption in chronological time. Such a disruption of chronological time is a necessary condition for responsible action, giving a measure also for the present. (shrink)

States act wrongly. Sometimes, they are held responsible, or take responsibility of their own accord, to remediate their wrongdoing: they cease to act wron.

Charles Parsons’ book “Mathematical Thought and Its Objects” of 2008 (Cambridge University Press, New York) is critically discussed by concentrating on one of Parsons’ main themes: the role of intuition in our understanding of arithmetic (“intuition” in the specific sense of Kant and Hilbert). Parsons argues for a version of structuralism which is restricted by the condition that some paradigmatic structure should be presented that makes clear the actual existence of structures of the necessary sort. Parsons’ paradigmatic structure is the (...) so-called ‘intuitive model’ of arithmetic realized by Hilbert’s strings of strokes. This paper argues that Hilbert’s strings, considered as given in intuition, cannot play the role Parsons assigns to them: the criteria of identity of these strings do not have the sharpness that Parsons wants to see in them, and Parsons inadvertently projects abstract structures into his ‘intuitive model’. This diagnosis is exemplified with respect to (a) Parsons’ distinction between addition and multiplication on the one hand and exponentiation on the other and (b) his analysis of arithmetical knowledge in simple cases like “7 + 5 = 12”. All in all, it is claimed that Parsons book contains many important insights with respect to, for example, different versions structuralism, the notion of “natural number” and its uniqueness, induction, predicativity and other things, for which he is rightly famous, but that his way of drawing on the notion of intuition leaves too many questions unanswered. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The influx of new groups into society, such as recently established religious groups whose practices differ from societal norms, may disturb relatively stable communities. This instability is exacerbated if these practices contravene long-held fundamental societal tenets, such as the protection of children. This situation now exists in Mexico, where the country's traditional Catholic and secular values clash with those of a religion introduced from the United States, Jehovah's Witnesses. The focal point for these clashes, as it has been elsewhere, is (...) in the bioethics arena. (shrink)