One of the objectives in the field of artificial intelligence for some decades has been the development of artificial agents capable of coexisting in harmony with people and other systems. The computing research community has made efforts to design artificial agents capable of doing tasks the way people do, tasks requiring cognitive mechanisms such as planning, decision-making, and learning. The application domains of such software agents are evident nowadays. Humans are experiencing the inclusion of artificial agents in their environment as (...) unmanned vehicles, intelligent houses, and humanoid robots capable of caring for people. In this context, research in the field of machine ethics has become more than a hot topic. Machine ethics focuses on developing ethical mechanisms for artificial agents to be capable of engaging in moral behavior. However, there are still crucial challenges in the development of truly Artificial Moral Agents. This paper aims to show the current status of Artificial Moral Agents by analyzing models proposed over the past two decades. As a result of this review, a taxonomy to classify Artificial Moral Agents according to the strategies and criteria used to deal with ethical problems is proposed. The presented review aims to illustrate (1) the complexity of designing and developing ethical mechanisms for this type of agent, and (2) that there is a long way to go (from a technological perspective) before this type of artificial agent can replace human judgment in difficult, surprising or ambiguous moral situations. (shrink)

Francisco Suárez Sometimes called the "Eminent Doctor" after Paul V’s designation of him as doctor eximius et pius, Francisco Suárez was the leading theological and philosophical light of Spain’s Golden Age, alongside such cultural icons as Miguel de Cervantes, Tomás Luis de Victoria, and El Greco. Although initially rejected on grounds of deficient health … Continue reading Suárez, Francisco →.

In the history of literary criticism the name of Ortega y Gasset is indispensable, since in this, as well as in all other sectors of cultural activity, the influence of his thought has been most decisive. He opened paths and established guidelines that remain in effect; his vision of the Quijote not only counterbalanced that of Unamuno, against which it purposely rebelled, but also, by underscoring the resources called into play by Cervantes in composing his master work, he has (...) shaped the attitudes of subsequent professional and academic criticism; and his analysis of the personalities of such important writers as Baroja is as yet unsurpassed. Among his many influential works, Francisco Ayala has written Reflexiones sobre la estructura narrativa (criticism) and España, a la fecha. (essays). His collected fiction appeared in 1969 under the title Obras narrativas completas. At Professor Ayala's request, this essay, and Ideas sobre Pío Baroja, by José Ortega y Gasset, were translated by Richard Ford. (shrink)

Entre las diferentes apariciones del arte en la obra cervantina, se cuentan dos poemas con elementos pictóricos de interés: el temprano soneto “A san Francisco” presenta una écfrasis en la que el alarde de conocimientos artísticos muestra un uso social y cortesano de la poesía, mientras el romance a Altisidora aprovecha una serie de tecnicismos pictóricos de manera burlesca.

Estas líneas están escritas como homenaje a Ricardo Sánchez Ortiz de Urbina, con todo el cariño y con la esperanza de ser acogido con la benevolencia que demanda el ensayo. En todo caso, nunca podré dejar de agradecer a nuestro maestro que me permitiera salir sin brusquedad del encierro al que me había conducido el sujeto gnoseológico, el sujeto de la ciencia, siempre omnipresente en toda investigación. Siguiendo la estela de la matriz fenomenológica configurada por Urbina, entreví en el nivel (...) superior ―el nivel de máxima ambigüedad―, y mediante trasposiciones sucesivas, el origen humano de los celos, que desbordan el simple comportamiento o el mero afecto. Los celos como fondo siempre desbordante en el proceso que nunca concluye de fijación de la identidad humana. Un camino que habían recorrido, con los medios de que disponían, los escritores del Barroco español en el contexto de los conversos hispanos y Miguel de Cervantes como centro. (shrink)

Z recenzji prof. Barbary Stawickiej-Pireckiej: Układ artykułów, przebieg granic tematycznych, zasięg problemowy proponowanych tekstów składają się na logiczną, ciekawą i różnorodną mapę tez i koncepcji, stanowiących niejako osnowę wiążącą Stary Kontynent z Nowym Światem, myśl głównych przedstawicieli filozofii hiszpańskiej – Unamuna i Ortegi y Gasseta – z „wędrującą”, wielokulturową świadomością bytu Marii Zambrano, złożone konteksty problematyki socjologicznej Peru w świetle nowelistyki Alfreda Bryce`a Echeniquego z polityczną utopią wybitnego meksykańskiego poety i eseisty – Octavio Paza. Filozoficzny wymiar dzieła literackiego w poszukiwaniu (...) nowych dróg dla słowa (Cervantes, Machado, Goytisolo, Cortázar) spotyka się w przedstawionym tomie z próbą odnalezienia nowych dróg dla koncepcji jednostki i społeczeństwa (teologia wyzwolenia, twórczość Santayany, koncepcje Manuela Castellsa i Nicolasa Gomeza Dávili). [...] -/- Wszyscy autorzy tekstów, piszący zarówno po polsku jak i po hiszpańsku, mają wypracowany własny, indywidualny sposób wypowiedzi, obrazowania, argumentacji. Czytelnik tomu obcuje zatem z dojrzałymi formami nie tylko opisu zjawisk i problemów, lecz także z ich wnikliwą i ciekawą interpretacją. (shrink)

La obra de Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) siempre suele relacionarse con la de autores ajenos a la literatura española como De Quincey, Stevenson, Whitman, Chesterton, Coleridge o Poe. Su anglofilia es bien conocida por todos. También su relación con el idioma de Goethe o con la cultura árabe y Las mil y una noches. Sin embargo, asumiendo su propia sentencia «Mi destino es la lengua castellana, el bronce de Francisco de Quevedo», rastrearemos las huellas indelebles que dejó la literatura (...) española del Barroco y de los Siglos de Oro en la obra del escritor argentino, y cómo los símbolos del siglo XVII son recuperados desde la literatura reconstructivista de Borges para continuar con una tradición y al mismo tiempo transformar su significado. (shrink)

Bravo, F. La dialéctica en Teilhard de Chardin.--Carías, R. El conocimiento de Dios en Max Scheler.--Cappelletti, A. J. El fuego y el logos en la filosofía de Heráclito.--Li Carrillo, V. Estructuralismo y antihumanismo.--Rosales, A. Martín Heidegger y la crisis de la filosofía transcendental.--Rosales, A. La crítica de Heidegger al idealismo moderno.--Rosales, A. El giro del pensamiento de Heidegger.

An English translation of the Second Disputation.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.1 (2006) 35-53 [Access article in PDF] "Truth Is What Works": Francisco J. Varela on Cognitive Science, Buddhism, the Inseparability of Subject and Object, and the Exaggerations of Constructivism—A Conversation Francisco J. Varela Bernhard Poerksen Institut für Journalistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft Universität Hamburg Francisco J. Varela (1946-2001) studied biology in Santiago de Chile, obtained his doctorate 1970 at Harvard University with a (...) dissertation on the insect eye, and worked there for some time in the laboratory of Torsten Wiesel, the later Nobel Laureate for medicine. From his scientific beginnings as a researcher in biology, he not only studied and practiced biology but, resisting the dominating mainstream, pursued a research program that ignored and broke down traditional disciplinary boundaries. This research program is best characterized as experimental epistemology, a concept introduced by the neuropsychiatrist and cybernetician Warren S. McCulloch. Francisco J. Varela's great aspiration was to examine and answer the philosophical ur-question of cognition with scientific precision and with the help of the best possible theoretical framework. [End Page 35]Having obtained his doctorate, he went back to Chile to work as a professor of biology together with Humberto R. Maturana. He contributed to the writing of the theory of autopoiesis, which was to cause a furor in the world of science as a universally applicable explanatory model. After the overthrow of Allende and the installation of the dictatorship by the putsch general Pinochet, Francisco J. Varela first escaped to Costa Rica, then became a professor at the American University of Colorado and University of New York, and finally returned in 1980 to the University of Chile in Santiago for five years. Temporary positions as guest professor for neurobiology, philosophy, and cognitive science in Germany, Switzerland, and France led him to Paris in the end, where he worked as research director of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique until his death on May 28, 2001.In his research work embracing cognitive science, evolutionary theory, and immunology, Francisco J. Varela, constantly inspired by his fundamental interest in the key questions of epistemology, gave the epistemological debate a new orientation. In his thinking he refuses to accept the strict separation of subject and object, of knower and known, which as a rule unites realists and constructivists alike. Francisco J. Varela rejects the fundamental dualism dividing mind and world, which had shaped Western philosophy from its earliest beginnings. He does not subscribe to the idea that human individuals can invent their own realities—blindly and arbitrarily, and without experiencing any resistance from the external world and all other things given. He equally distances himself, however, from the diametrically opposite position that overstates the eigenpower of the world of objects. The external world and all other things given cannot determine what happens in an organism. Varela's claim is that individual and world create each other. The Computational Model of the Mind Poerksen: The ancient key questions of philosophy are at the center of modern cognitive science. What is the essence of the mind? Do our conceptions represent a given world, which is independent from our minds? What is the formative power of external objects over our perceptions? How does cognition function? The search for an adequate answer and an improved understanding of the human mind has led many cognitive scientists to entertain the assumption that the brain is actually a kind of computer. Memory is taken to be a store. Thinking and perceiving are understood as data processing in the sense that an independent external world is computationally transformed into symbols and represented in the organism in this manner. You are very critical of this view. Why?Varela: If the brain is considered as a kind of computer, then cognitive research is limited to discovering certain self-sufficient shapes—the symbols—together with the rules [End Page 36] governing them—the programs. But this search for symbols and programs will never be profitable because it... (shrink)

Francisco Suárez se inserta en la línea de los escolásticos españoles del siglo XVI, especialmente de los dos jesuitas que, junto con él, culminan esta escuela: Gabriel Vázquez de Belmonte y Luis de Molina. Se diferencia de ellos en que él es nominalista. Se adelantó a los autores de la Edad Moderna en la carrera por las libertades típicamente modernas, tales como la afirmación de los derechos subjetivos naturales, la democracia como la forma más natural o más próxima a (...) la libertad del hombre, la libertad de conciencia (no de cultos). Estuvo omnipresente en los escolásticos de las Edades Modernas y Contemporánea que, de hecho, entendieron que él culminó la escolástica, de forma tal que también Tomás de Aquino debe ser interpretado a la luz de sus escritos. (shrink)

This is the first German volume for more than one century, dealing with the two main subjects that have dominated the present reception of the Spanish philosopher and theologian Francisco Suárez (1548-1617): metaphysics and law theory. The contributors discuss both Suárez as an influential thinker of modern European school metaphysics and as a representant of a global law philosophy and ethics. They also debate on the combination of theory and praxis in the light of the question which commitment a (...) universal First Philosophy could have today. The volume is complimented by an introduction to Suárez's works and vita, an overview and guide to recent primary and secondary literature, as well as a name register.--publlisher's desciption. (shrink)

O presente volume reune quase uma trintena de artigos com temas culturais, de consagrados autores portugueses e brasileiros, que assim pretenderam homenagear o Professor. oordenada por Joaquim Gonçalves, a obra é estruturada em 4 partes. As três primeiras agrupam as intervenções, consagrando-se a quarta à vida e obra do homenageado.

Suárez undertakes systematic study of natural moral law in Book II of De legibus, which is integrally consecrated to the study of the eternal law, natural right and the right of nations. In confrontation, among others, with the thesis of Gabriel Vázquez, Suárez maintains the natural moral law is a divine obligatory law or command, which orders to do or to avoid that which is «fitting» or «unfitting» with the human rational nature. Divine Mind and Will contribute thus, each within (...) the bounds of his own sphere, towards the promulgation of the natural moral law. (shrink)

En opinión de Francisco Puy, el jurista debe ser una persona que agarre decidido una experiencia jurídica siempre conflictiva, la describa, la valores y ofrezca una solución para limpiarla, pacificando los problemas que presenta de apropiación, transmisión, reparto, violación y reposición de derechos. Una experiencia jurídica se inicia cuando un individuo le dice a otro que una cosa es suya y el otro o los otros asienten o consienten en que es suya. Una experiencia jurídica crece, tornándose problemática, cuando (...) un individuo o dos o todo el grupo rechazan la declaración de uno o varios que dijeron que algo es suyo, que tiene un derecho de uso, de disfrute o de propiedad; un interés legítimo o cualquier otra opción jurídica. El Derecho es la misma cosa justa, lo justo materializado en el caso concreto real y práctico; y no lo justo legal ni lo justo diseñado en grandes teorías. Este enfoque teñido de realismo abre un amplio horizonte filosófico-jurídico que Puy ha recorrido en muchas direcciones, ensayando nuevas soluciones para cuestiones viejas. Catedrático ce Filosofía del Derecho de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela durante 45 años, Francisco Puy ha dedicado una buena parte de su pensamiento a desarrollar una forma de estudio y comprensión de la experiencia jurídica, la prudencial, diferente de la usualmente utilizada en las universidades públicas. Su camino lo ha conducido por las sendas de la Tópica, la Retórica y la Dialéctica clásicas, que ha actualizado en diálogo con la moderna teoría de la argumentación jurídica. En este libro, los colegas, amigos y discípulos del maestro dialogan con él y entre ellos, transitando un panorama temático tan complejo como sugestivo. (shrink)

Resumen Ante el dilema de si la Lógica de Hegel debe entenderse como una ontología o como una continuación del proyecto kantiano de la lógica trascendental, el artículo sostiene que no es propiamente una ontología, ni un análisis de conceptos y categorías subjetivas. Su vocación metafísica se basa en el postulado según el cual la reflexión del pensamiento sobre sí mismo tiene consecuencias para la comprensión del ser de lo que no es pensamiento, de modo que resulta ser un proyecto (...) novedoso de ontología mediada por la autorreflexión del pensar.This text faces the dilemma whether Hegel’s Logic must be understood as ontology or as continuation of the Kantian project of transcendental logics. It upholds the thesis that Hegel’s Logic is not properly an Ontology -a direct and immediate description of object’s immanent way of being- nor an analysis of merely subjective concepts and categories. The metaphysical vocation of Hegel’s Logic draws rather on the claim that thought’s self-reflection has necessarily consequences for the comprehension of the being of all that is not thought. Hence, we are facing a groundbreaking project of an ontology that is mediated by thought’s self-reflection. (shrink)

Regarding the epistemological borderlines between science and philosophy, this article approaches the human mind and ethics from biological and philosophical theories. For this purpose, the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection provides a scientific foundation to understand the human mind and ethics. However, not only Charles Darwin has studied mental faculties and ethics, this is also a topic researched by eminent contemporary paleontologists and biologists. Prior to modern biology, going back to Greek philosophy, philosophers have traditionally studied the human (...) mind and ethics, separating human beings and the rest of nature ontologically. Following modern biology, the philosopher Hans Jonas has developed a philosophical biology from the perspective of hermeneutical phenomenology to understand life. With the help of his hermeneutical phenomenology, Jonas has presented an ontological theory of organism-metabolism to understand the phenomenon of life from simple living beings to the human mind in relation to nature, based on the body. Recently, the evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala has proposed a coherent scientific and philosophical theory about biological and cultural roots for ethics, considering the evolution of human mental and intellectual capacities and the three conditions for ethical behavior as a part of human intellectual capacity, which scientifically complements and informs Hans Jonas’s philosophical biology and ethics of responsibility. (shrink)

From the development of Literature Theory wich based on the analogy with Architecture the author analyze the relationships between Cervantes and Vargas Llosa works. Research on Cervantes reception in Latin America it is a work to keep doing. In Peru Vargas Llosa has received Cervantes works in a peculiar way. This paper tries to clarify what are the structural relations between these two literary architecture.