This is a topically organized introduction to the traditional problems of philosophy. It aims to introduce readers to traditional philosophical problems and to expose readers to philosophical argumentation in such a way that they will feel confident in handling abstract concepts.

Revised edition of the author's Business ethics, c2012.

Properly speaking, the corporation, considered as an entity distinct from its members, cannot be morally responsible for wrongful corporate acts. Setting aside (in this abstract) acts brought about through negligence or omissions, we may say that moral responsibility for an act attaches to that agent (or agents) in whom the act "originates" in this sense: (1) the agent formed the (mental) intention or plan to bring about that act (possibly with the help of others) and (2) the act was intentionally (...) brought about through bodily movements over which that agent had direct control (i.e. the kind of direct mental control that I have over the body I refer to as "my" body) and through which the agent carried out his (mental) intention or plan. Corporate acts do not thus originate in some corporate entity distinct from its members because the corporation has neither a mind to form intentions nor a body it directly controls: it lacks the proper mind/body unity. Instead, corporate acts originate in individual autonomous human beings who make up the corporation and who intentionally bring about corporate acts through their own bodily movements. Such human individuals, and not "the corporation," are morally responsible for corporate acts. Moreover, to say that an entity is "morally responsible" for a wrongful act is to say that the entity is liable to blame and punishment. But it is not possible to impose blame and punishment on a corporation without inflicting it on corporate members. Thus, to say that a corporation (as an entity distinct from its members) is "morally responsible" for a wrongful corporate act is to imply that a (possibly innocent) corporate member legitimately may be punished for something for which another entity was morally responsible. This violates the moral principles that underlie blame and punishment. To hold that the corporation can be morally responsible for its acts is to adopt a dangerous organicism. (shrink)

Gómez Pereira's Antoniana Margarita (1554) represents one of the most original works of his time. Its author develops some issues of great impact in later philosophy, such as animal automatism, soul-body radical separation and self-awareness.

This paper provides new elements for reconstructing Heinrich Hertz's conversion from an electrodynamic concept to a concept of field theory, a process that took place between September 1887 and February 1888. First of all, it is argued that, contrary to what one could deduce from Hertz's own presentation in his Untersuchungen (or Electric Waves), paper N∘ 5 was actually written after the first publication of papers N∘ 6 and N∘ 7; this fact is illuminated by Hertz's unpublished correspondence (Section 1). (...) Following this reordering, an approximative process of Hertz's conversion based only on his published papers is described (Section 2). Second, by complementing Hertz's published Erinnerungen (or Memoirs, Letters, Diaries) with his unpublished Versuchsprotokolle (Laboratory notes), a much finer description of this conversion process is discussed (Section 3). It is finally concluded that Hertz's idea of “air waves” belongs at the very end of this process, and was mainly attained through experimental hints found within Helmholtz's theoretical framework. (shrink)

Properly speaking, the corporation, considered as an entity distinct from its members, cannot be morally responsible for wrongful corporate acts. Setting aside (in this abstract) acts brought about through negligence or omissions, we may say that moral responsibility for an act attaches to that agent (or agents) in whom the act "originates" in this sense: (1) the agent formed the (mental) intention or plan to bring about that act (possibly with the help of others) and (2) the act was intentionally (...) brought about through bodily movements over which that agent had direct control (i.e. the kind of direct mental control that I have over the body I refer to as "my" body) and through which the agent carried out his (mental) intention or plan. Corporate acts do not thus originate in some corporate entity distinct from its members because the corporation has neither a mind to form intentions nor a body it directly controls: it lacks the proper mind/body unity. Instead, corporate acts originate in individual autonomous human beings who make up the corporation and who intentionally bring about corporate acts through their own bodily movements. Such human individuals, and not "the corporation," are morally responsible for corporate acts. Moreover, to say that an entity is "morally responsible" for a wrongful act is to say that the entity is liable to blame and punishment. But it is not possible to impose blame and punishment on a corporation without inflicting it on corporate members. Thus, to say that a corporation (as an entity distinct from its members) is "morally responsible" for a wrongful corporate act is to imply that a (possibly innocent) corporate member legitimately may be punished for something for which another entity was morally responsible. This violates the moral principles that underlie blame and punishment. To hold that the corporation can be morally responsible for its acts is to adopt a dangerous organicism. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWe investigated the time course of selective attention to face regions during judgment of dis/approval by low and high social anxiety undergraduates (with clinical levels on que...

Properly speaking, the corporation, considered as an entity distinct from its members, cannot be morally responsible for wrongful corporate acts. Setting aside (in this abstract) acts brought about through negligence or omissions, we may say that moral responsibility for an act attaches to that agent (or agents) in whom the act "originates" in this sense: (1) the agent formed the (mental) intention or plan to bring about that act (possibly with the help of others) and (2) the act was intentionally (...) brought about through bodily movements over which that agent had direct control (i.e. the kind of direct mental control that I have over the body I refer to as "my" body) and through which the agent carried out his (mental) intention or plan. Corporate acts do not thus originate in some corporate entity distinct from its members because the corporation has neither a mind to form intentions nor a body it directly controls: it lacks the proper mind/body unity. Instead, corporate acts originate in individual autonomous human beings who make up the corporation and who intentionally bring about corporate acts through their own bodily movements. Such human individuals, and not "the corporation," are morally responsible for corporate acts. Moreover, to say that an entity is "morally responsible" for a wrongful act is to say that the entity is liable to blame and punishment. But it is not possible to impose blame and punishment on a corporation without inflicting it on corporate members. Thus, to say that a corporation (as an entity distinct from its members) is "morally responsible" for a wrongful corporate act is to imply that a (possibly innocent) corporate member legitimately may be punished for something for which another entity was morally responsible. This violates the moral principles that underlie blame and punishment. To hold that the corporation can be morally responsible for its acts is to adopt a dangerous organicism. (shrink)

In the classical Turing test, participants are challenged to tell whether they are interacting with another human being or with a machine. The way the interaction takes place is not direct, but a distant conversation through computer screen messages. Basic forms of interaction are face-to-face and embodied, context-dependent and based on the detection of reciprocal sensorimotor contingencies. Our idea is that interaction detection requires the integration of proprioceptive and interoceptive patterns with sensorimotor patterns, within quite short time lapses, so that (...) they appear as mutually contingent, as reciprocal. In other words, the experience of interaction takes place when sensorimotor patterns are contingent upon one’s own movements, and vice versa. I react to your movement, you react to mine. When I notice both components, I come to experience an interaction. Therefore, we designed a “minimal” Turing test to investigate how much information is required to detect these reciprocal sensorimotor contingencies. Using a new version of the perceptual crossing paradigm, we tested whether participants resorted to interaction detection to tell apart human from machine agents in repeated encounters with these agents. In two studies, we presented participants with movements of a human agent, either online or offline, and movements of a computerized oscillatory agent in three different blocks. In each block, either auditory or audiovisual feedback was provided along each trial. Analysis of participants’ explicit responses and of the implicit information subsumed in the dynamics of their series will reveal evidence that participants use the reciprocal sensorimotor contingencies within short time windows. For a machine to pass this minimal Turing test, it should be able to generate this sort of reciprocal contingencies. (shrink)

Hirschfeldt and Shore have introduced a notion of stability for infinite posets. We define an arguably more natural notion called weak stability, and we study the existence of infinite computable or low chains or antichains, and of infinite $\Pi _1^0 $ chains and antichains, in infinite computable stable and weakly stable posets. For example, we extend a result of Hirschfeldt and Shore to show that every infinite computable weakly stable poset contains either an infinite low chain or an infinite computable (...) antichain. Our hardest result is that there is an infinite computable weakly stable poset with no infinite $\Pi _1^0 $ chains or antichains. On the other hand, it is easily seen that every infinite computable stable poset contains an infinite computable chain or an infinite $\Pi _1^0 $ antichain. In Reverse Mathematics, we show that SCAC, the principle that every infinite stable poset contains an infinite chain or antichain, is equivalent over RCA₀ to WSCAC, the corresponding principle for weakly stable posets. (shrink)

Ecological developmental biology (eco‐devo) explores the mechanistic relationships between the processes of individual development and environmental factors. Recent studies imply that some of these relationships have deep evolutionary origins, and may even pre‐date the divergences of the simplest extant animals, including cnidarians and sponges. Development of these early diverging metazoans is often sensitive to environmental factors, and these interactions occur in the context of conserved signaling pathways and mechanisms of tissue homeostasis whose detailed molecular logic remain elusive. Efficient methods for (...) transgenesis in cnidarians together with the ease of experimental manipulation in cnidarians and sponges make them ideal models for understanding causal relationships between environmental factors and developmental mechanisms. Here, we identify major questions at the interface between animal evolution and development and outline a road map for research aimed at identifying the mechanisms that link environmental factors to developmental mechanisms in early diverging metazoans.Also watch the Video Abstract. (shrink)

Analizar epistemológicamente los problemas de salud requiere incorporar la epistemología a los programas de posgrado en ciencias de la salud. Con el propósito de caracterizar los campos problemáticos que fundamenten el diseño de un programa académico para el curso de epistemología en ciencias de la salud se realizó un estudio con el enfoque de la hermenéutica gadameriana en tres etapas. El punto de partida expone la concepción de hombre, conocimiento y epistemología. El horizonte de comprensión se elaboró con tendencias epistemológicas (...) hegemónicas. La fusión de horizontes integró las características de los siguientes campos problemáticos: epistemología de las ciencias de la salud, lógica de las ciencias de la salud, tendencias epistemológicas en ciencias de la salud, problemas epistemológicos de las ciencias de la salud. Se concluye que los campos problemáticos descritos introducen al estudiante a la reflexión de su práctica científica mediante el análisis racional, axiológico y crítico. Analyzing health problems from an epistemological point of view requires epistemology to be included on health sciences postgraduate courses programs. Aimed at characterizing the problematic fields used as basis for the design of a health sciences epistemology academic program, a study with an approach to Gadamer hermeneutics in three stages was carried out. The starting point shows man, knowledge and epistemology conceptions. The comprehension horizon was made with epistemological-dominant trends. The horizons merge included characteristics from the following problematic fields: health sciences epistemology, health sciences logic, epistemological trends in health sciences, health sciences epistemological problems. It was reached the conclusion that the described problematic fields introduce students to their scientific practice reflection through a rational, axiological and critical analysis. (shrink)