El presente artículo indaga sobre el poder dinámico y causal del ente finito. Busca fundamentar el accionar del mismo desde su estructura metafísica dando así razón de su causalidad. En este sentido el estudio se desarrolla en el ámbito de lo que santo Tomas de Aquino ha llamado filosofía primera que es, dentro de la disciplina sapiencial, la perspectiva que investiga sobre las diversas especies de causas, como aquellas que dan mayor certeza al conocimiento, y esto con principal acento en (...) la causalidad eficiente y final. El matiz mencionado tiene su fundamento en el ente como sujeto-objeto de la metafísica y lleva en sí la proyección a la teología filosófica como aquella parte de la sabiduría que se dedica a estudiar la causa primera de todo lo real. (shrink)

Nuestro artículo pretende mostrar la vinculación entre la verdad conocida por el hombre y su vida virtuosa en los textos de santo Tomás de Aquino. En esta relación cobrará gran importancia el papel mediador de la razón y de las virtudes intelectuales, como así también el de la virtud de la prudencia. El interés de esta temática radica en que, por un lado, generalmente en los escritos que tratan sobre la vida moral del hombre no se suele destacar el importante (...) papel que tiene la verdad a la hora de configurar el acto humano. Casi siempre y en el mejor de los casos se resalta la vinculación entre la vida virtuosa y el bien, dejandode lado el hecho de que para que algo sea bueno primero tiene que ser conocido como verdadero. Por otro lado, nos encontramos que contemporáneamente se ha dejado de lado el importante papel de la razón en la vida de la persona humana dando lugar a los distintos tipos de voluntarismos o a toda suerte de sentimentalismos. (shrink)

In this article we explore multiple change operators, i.e., operators in which the epistemic input is a set of sentences instead of a single sentence. We propose two types of change: prioritized change, in which the input set is fully accepted, and symmetric change, where both the epistemic state and the epistemic input are equally treated. In both kinds of operators we propose a set of postulates and we present different constructions: kernel changes and partial meet changes.

On the grouds of the archives the proposal explores the actitudes of the resistence adaptation or collaboration of the colour slaves in their individual and collective expressions. Their adaptation means were the paid manumissions and the judicial litigation. Their resistence means to the slave opression werw the runawa. the stockades of Tumán and Feñerrafe and the social homicide of the majordorno in Pomalca. Although the colour slaves lacked a social project opposed to the colonial society, they showed a deep and (...) constant resistence to the opression in a rage of attitudes that went from the paid manuinission and the judicial litigation (adaptation in resistence) to the political protest and the collective revolt going thnough the runaway and the social homicide al1 this within a constant search of liberty. (shrink)

In this paper we analyse the role of description in qualitative research. Our point is this: the description itself has a necessary role in qualitative research; though that role is necessary, it is not enough, interpretation is also necessary, but this interpretation must be supported on a realist epistemology setting up clearly what is observation. In order to defend this point we show some problems in the relationship description-interpretation; then, we choose two proposals that defend the role of description in (...) qualitative research; finally, we respond what is the role of description in qualitative research. En este artículo analizamos cuál es el papel de la descripción en la investigación cualitativa. Afirmamos que la descripción en sí misma tiene un papel necesario en la investigación cualitativa; aunque este papel es necesario, no es suficiente, también se necesita la interpretación, pero esta interpretación debe respaldarse en una epistemología realista que tenga claro qué cuenta como observación. Para defender esta afirmación, mostramos algunos problemas en la relación descripción-interpretación; luego, elegimos dos propuestas que defienden el papel de la descripción en la investigación cualitativa y, finalmente, respondemos cuál es el papel de la descripción en la investigación cualitativa. (shrink)

The Thesis of Theory-Laden [TTL] holds that is not possible a neutral observation. From this thesis, some philosophers have inferred that the facts, i.e., the subject’s independent reality, do not exist or that they are social constructions only. The aim of this paper is assess if TTL necessarily implies a constructivist point of view or if, conversely, we can still speak about the reality. In order to do this, we will clarify these terms: "the theory-ladenness of observation" and "constructivism". Then, (...) we will argue that although TTL is possible, we are not committed to constructivism, and on the contrary, TTL can be an interesting frame to the realistic thesis. Finally, we will point out the impact this had has when evaluating many epistemological proposals. La tesis de la carga teórica de la observación [CTO] sostiene que no es posible una observación neutral. A partir de esta tesis, algunos filósofos han derivado que los hechos, o mejor, la realidad independiente del sujeto, no existen o que son solo construcciones sociales. El objetivo de este artículo es evaluar si CTO implica necesariamente una visión constructivista o si, por el contrario, permite seguir hablando de realidad. Para ello, se aclararán los conceptos de "carga teórica de la observación" y de "constructivismo". Posteriormente, se defenderá que pese a la plausibilidad de CTO, no estamos comprometidos a adoptar el constructivismo, antes bien, CTO puede ser un interesante marco para las tesis realistas. Finalmente, se señalarán algunas repercusiones que esto tiene a la hora de evaluar propuestas epistemológicas. (shrink)

We present a mathematical approach to defeasible reasoning based on arguments. This approach integrates the notion of specificity introduced by Poole and the theory of warrant presented by Pollock. The main contribution of this paper is a precise, well-defined system which exhibits correct behavior when applied to the benchmark examples in the literature. It aims for usability rather than novelty. We prove that an order relation can be introduced among equivalence classes of arguments under the equi-specificity relation. We also prove (...) a theorem that ensures the termination of the process of finding the justified facts. Two more lemmas define a reduced search space for checking specificity. In order to implement the theoretical ideas, the language is restricted to Horn clauses for the evidential context. The language used to represent defeasible rules has been restricted in a similar way. The authors intend this work to unify the various existing approaches to argument-based defeasible reasoning. (shrink)

The “systematicity argument” has been used to argue for a classical cognitive architecture (Fodor in The Language of Thought. Harvester Press, London, 1975, Why there still has to be a language of thought? In Psychosemantics, appendix. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 135–154, 1987; Fodor and Pylyshyn in Cognition 28:3–71, 1988; Aizawa in The systematicity arguments. Kluwer Academic Press, Dordrecht, 2003). From the premises that cognition is systematic and that the best/only explanation of systematicity is compositional structure, it concludes that cognition is (...) to be explained in terms of symbols (in a language of thought) and formal rules. The debate, with connectionism, has mostly centered on the second premise-whether an explanation of systematicity requires compositional structure, which neural networks do not to exhibit (for example, Hadley and Hayward, in Minds and Machines, 7:1–37). In this paper, I will take issue with the first premise. Several arguments will be deployed that show that cognition is not systematic in general; that, in fact, systematicity seems to be related to language. I will argue that it is just verbal minds that are systematic, and they are so because of the structuring role of language in cognition. A dual-process theory of cognition will be defended as the best explanation of the facts. (shrink)

The declared goal of this paper is to fill this gap: “... cognitive systems research needs questions or challenges that define progress. The challenges are not (yet more) predictions of the future, but a guideline to what are the aims and what would constitute progress.” – the quotation being from the project description of EUCogII, the project for the European Network for Cognitive Systems within which this formulation of the ‘challenges’ was originally developed (http://www.eucognition.org). So, we stick out our neck (...) and formulate the challenges for artificial cognitive systems. These challenges are articulated in terms of a definition of what a cognitive system is: a system that learns from experience and uses its acquired knowledge (both declarative and practical) in a flexible manner to achieve its own goals. (shrink)

Respecto del tema de la eternidad divina, las Sentencias de Pedro Lombardo nos presentan una intrigante paradoja. Por una parte, podría parecer que esta obra, más allá de la simple enunciación de locuciones que significan la eternidad divina, no ofrece desarrollos doctrinales que merezcan mayor consideración. Por otra, encontramos allí una noción de eternidad que no está en sus fuentes ni es recibida por sus más ilustres comentadores. En efecto, esta noción interviene en el conocimiento del ser y de la (...) esencia de Dios como su verdad y propiedad. Por ello mismo, resulta particularmente idónea para manifestar la igualdad de las personas divinas. (shrink)

KOINONIA/ASETT MINGA/MUTIRÃO DE REVISTAS DE TEOLOGIA LATINO-AMERICANAS Teología de la Liberación y movimiento ecuménico: breve reflexión desde una práctica (Liberation Theology and ecumenical movement: a brief reflection from praxis).

En este trabajo invito a considerar la existencia de la perspectiva de segunda persona de la atribución mental, como una perspectiva diferenciada de las de primera y tercera persona. Su ámbito específico sería el de las atribuciones espontáneas y recíprocas en situaciones de interacción cara a cara, por lo que supondría su naturaleza expresiva. Al tratarse de la perspectiva ontogenéticamente primaria, ofrece una vía para superar las dificultades complementarias de los enfoques teóricos y empáticos dominantes.

After stressing the shortcomings of Darwinian accounts of self-consciousness and knowledge - i.e. in terms of their survival value - Anthony O'Hear presents Peirce's metaphysical hypotheses on cosmic evolution as an alternative approach that avoids those shortcomings. Although O'Hear does not straightforwardly defend Peirce's views, his argument suggests that only some teleological account of self-consciousness and knowledge is reasonable. The argument, though correct, is not enough to establish the metaphysical point O'Hear defends. Before developing his metaphysical ideas, Peirce's rejection of (...) natural selection as an explanation for every phenomenon brought him to consider the more appropriate question of how natural selection could give rise to a different kind of evolution. This involved outlining an evolutionary account of the origin of self-consciousness and of the mechanisms of belief fixation. The point is not one about Peirce, of course, but about the relationship between, on the one hand, biological and, on the other, psychological and cultural phenomena. (shrink)

How are biases encoded in our representations of social categories? Philosophical and empirical discussions of implicit bias overwhelmingly focus on salient or statistical associations between target features and representations of social categories. These are the sorts of associations probed by the Implicit Association Test and various priming tasks. In this paper, we argue that these discussions systematically overlook an alternative way in which biases are encoded, that is, in the dependency networks that are part of our representations of social categories. (...) Dependency networks encode information about how features in a conceptual representation depend on each other. This information determines the degree of centrality of a feature for a conceptual representation. Importantly, centrally encoded biases systematically disassociate from those encoded in salient-statistical associations. Furthermore, the degree of centrality of a feature determines its cross-contextual stability: in general, the more central a feature is for a concept, the more likely it is to survive into a wide array of cognitive tasks involving that concept. Accordingly, implicit biases that are encoded in the central features of concepts are predicted to be more resilient across different tasks and contexts. As a result, the distinction between centrally encoded and salient-statistical biases has important theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)

: In this paper I will examine two conceptions of philosophy that were defended in Latin America during the last century. I believe that both models have to be put away and that we must build a new one, recovering elements of both of them. At the end of my paper I will consider very briefly what can we learn from this in order to construct a genuine philosophical dialogue between the United States and Latin America.

This book is a unique exploration of the idea of the "second person" in human interaction, the idea that face-to-face interactions involve a distinctive form of reciprocal mental state attributions that mediates their dynamical unfolding. Challenging the view of mental attribution as a sort of "theory of mind", Pérez and Gomila argue that the second person perspective of mental understanding is the conceptually, ontogenetically, and phylogenetically basic way of understanding mentality. Second person interaction provides the opportunity for the acquisition (...) of concepts of mental states of increasing complexity. The book reviews the growing interest in a variety of second person phenomena, both in development and in adulthood, presenting research that shows how participants in human interaction attribute psychological states of a referentially transparent kind to each other. This review documents the spontaneous preference for face-to-face interaction, from eye contact to joint attention, from forms of vitality to communicative intentions, from interaction detection to joint action, and from synchrony to interpersonal coordination. Also looking at the implications and applications of the second person perspective within fields as diverse as art and morality, this book is fascinating reading for students and academics in social and cognitive psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, and philosophy. (shrink)

La escritura. Entre la crisis logocéntrica de Occidente y la ascesis caligráfica de Oriente. La escritura japonesa como caso. Resumen de Tesis de doctorado en Filosofía de Guillermo Goicochea.

Despite recognizing the importance of impact investing in combating complex societal challenges, researchers have yet to examine the capacity of the field to address systemic inequality. While impact investments are intended to benefit vulnerable stakeholders, the voices of those stakeholders are generally overlooked in the design and implementation of such investments. To resolve this oversight, we theorize how the fields’ design—through its tools, organizations, and field-level bodies—influences its capacity to address inequality by focusing on the concept of giving voice, which (...) we define as the inclusive participation of vulnerable stakeholders in decision-making processes. We build from stakeholder engagement research to show how the design of impact investing can address inequality using three illustrative cases: social impact bonds, impact investing funds, and national advisory boards. We conclude with a discussion of how the ethical decision of giving voice to vulnerable stakeholders will determine the capacity of the field to address inequality, as well as provide implications for future research and practice. (shrink)

Recent work in formal semantics suggests that the language system includes not only a structure building device, as standardly assumed, but also a natural deductive system which can determine when expressions have trivial truth-conditions (e.g., are logically true/false) and mark them as unacceptable. This hypothesis, called the `logicality of language', accounts for many acceptability patterns, including systematic restrictions on the distribution of quantifiers. To deal with apparent counter-examples consisting of acceptable tautologies and contradictions, the logicality of language is often paired (...) with an additional assumption according to which logical forms are radically underspecified: i.e., the language system can see functional terms but is `blind' to open class terms to the extent that different tokens of the same term are treated as if independent. This conception of logical form has profound implications: it suggests an extreme version of the modularity of language, and can only be paired with non-classical---indeed quite exotic---kinds of deductive systems. The aim of this paper is to show that we can pair the logicality of language with a different and ultimately more traditional account of logical form. This framework accounts for the basic acceptability patterns which motivated the logicality of language, can explain why some tautologies and contradictions are acceptable, and makes better predictions in key cases. As a result, we can pursue versions of the logicality of language in frameworks compatible with the view that the language system is not radically modular vis-a-vis its open class terms and employs a deductive system that is basically classical. (shrink)

In this paper, we take Darwall’s analytical project of the second-person standpoint as the starting point for a naturalistic project about our moral psychology. In his project, Darwall contends that our moral notions constitutively imply the perspective of second-personal interaction, i.e. the interaction of two mutually recognized agents who make and acknowledge claims on one another. This allows him to explain the distinctive purported authority of morality. Yet a naturalized interpretation of it has potential as an account of our moral (...) psychology. We propose a naturalistic interpretation of Darwall’s work to address some of the main issues about our moral psychology. First, we explain why moral norms motivate us; namely, because of these second-personal relations. We provide a naturalized version of this solution. Second, we articulate how intersubjective interactions take place effectively; grounding duties to particular other subjects, and being related to distinctive moral emotions. Third, we address the question of the limits of the moral community, proposing that it comprises all agents capable of second-personal interactions. Finally, we explain the emergence of community norms through intersubjective interaction. Since all group members can adopt alternatively the second-personal stance to each other, demands are sanctioned and recognized in a triangulation process which explains the emergence of group norms. (shrink)

The goal of this study was to introduce a model explaining how managers' attitudes, subjective norms, attributions, and the individualism-collectivism cultural dimension affect the way managers' deal with employee bribery in organizations. Twenty-six internal and external attributions related to bribery were identified through a series of structured interviews with 65 subject matter experts. These attributions, together with the other variables in the model, were evaluated by 354 Ecuadorian managers. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that attitudes and external attributions significantly predicted managers' (...) intentions to discipline employees who accepted a bribe. In addition, external attributions mediated the relationship between individualism-collectivism and intent to discipline corrupt employees. Implications for the management of bribery in Latin American organizations are discussed. (shrink)

Este trabajo pretende preguntarse si, a pesar del “silencio” de Heidegger ante la teoría de los géneros poéticos de Hölderlin, no es esta misma teoría, y especialmente el poema lírico que caracteriza a la modernidad, la cuestión en la cual se apoya Heidegger para fundamentar su “historia del ser”, de modo que la noción fuerte de _historia _que se maneja en su obra y finalmente el término marcado _das Ereignis _estaría en sintonía con los “trayectos poéticos” que Hölderlin teoriza.

While a standard procedure in mental health internment facilities, physical restraint, as an extreme form of coercion in mental health, has been claimed to be abolished. Three sorts of arguments have been provided: an argument from dignity, and argument from informed consent, and a consequentialism argument. In this chapter we discuss these arguments and conclude that these arguments are not decisive to completely ban such forms of coercion. Restraint, in particular, may be justified in exceptional circumstances, where an imminent risk (...) for the personal integrity of anybody involved, including the person with the mental health problem. However, this sort of case is infrequent, while restraint is often the first option. This conclusion also suggests that much can be done to prevent reaching such extreme circumstances where coercion may be the only option. The discussion also clarifies how coercion should be carried out, when justified, making it supervised and as short as possible. (shrink)

We argue that Anderson's (MRH) needs further development in several directions. First, a thoroughgoing criticism of the several alternatives is required. Second, the course between the Scylla of full holism and the Charybdis of structural-functional modularism must be plotted more distinctly. Third, methodologies better suited to reveal brain circuits must be brought in. Finally, the constraints that naturalistic settings provide should be considered.

This book presents a new explanation of the rise, development and demise of social movements and cycles of protest in autocracies; the conditions under which protest becomes rebellion; and the impact of protest and rebellion on democratization. Focusing on poor indigenous villages in Mexico's authoritarian regime, the book shows that the spread of US Protestant missionaries and the competition for indigenous souls motivated the Catholic Church to become a major promoter of indigenous movements for land redistribution and indigenous rights. The (...) book explains why the outbreak of local rebellions, the transformation of indigenous claims for land into demands for ethnic autonomy and self-determination, and the threat of a generalized social uprising motivated national elites to democratize. Drawing on an original dataset of indigenous collective action and on extensive fieldwork, the empirical analysis of the book combines quantitative evidence with case studies and life histories. (shrink)

The meaning that expressions take on particular occasions often depends on the context in ways which seem to transcend its direct effect on context-sensitive parameters. ‘Truth-conditional pragmatics’ is the project of trying to model such semantic flexibility within a compositional truth-conditional framework. Most proposals proceed by radically ‘freeing up’ the compositional operations of language. I argue, however, that the resulting theories are too unconstrained, and predict flexibility in cases where it is not observed. These accounts fall into this position because (...) they rarely, if ever, take advantage of the rich information made available by lexical items. I hold, instead, that lexical items encode both extension and non-extension determining information. Under certain conditions, the non-extension determining information of an expression e can enter into the compositional processes that determine the meaning of more complex expressions which contain e. This paper presents and motivates a set of type-driven compositional operations that can access non-extension determining information and introduce bits of it into the meaning of complex expressions. The resulting multidimensional semantics has the tools to deal with key cases of semantic flexibility in appropriately constrained ways, making it a promising framework to pursue the project of truth-conditional pragmatics. (shrink)

We show that externalization is a feature not only of moral judgment, but also of value judgment in general. It follows that the evolution of externalization was not specific to moral judgment. Second, we argue that value judgments cannot be decoupled from the level of motivations and preferences, which, in the moral case, rely on intersubjective bonds and claims.

Recent work in formal semantics suggests that the language system includes not only a structure building device, as standardly assumed, but also a natural deductive system which can determine when expressions have trivial truth‐conditions (e.g., are logically true/false) and mark them as unacceptable. This hypothesis, called the ‘logicality of language’, accounts for many acceptability patterns, including systematic restrictions on the distribution of quantifiers. To deal with apparent counter‐examples consisting of acceptable tautologies and contradictions, the logicality of language is often paired (...) with an additional assumption according to which logical forms are radically underspecified: i.e., the language system can see functional terms but is ‘blind’ to open class terms to the extent that different tokens of the same term are treated as if independent. This conception of logical form has profound implications: it suggests an extreme version of the modularity of language, and can only be paired with non‐classical—indeed quite exotic—kinds of deductive systems. The aim of this paper is to show that we can pair the logicality of language with a different and ultimately more traditional account of logical form. This framework accounts for the basic acceptability patterns which motivated the logicality of language, can explain why some tautologies and contradictions are acceptable, and makes better predictions in key cases. As a result, we can pursue versions of the logicality of language in frameworks compatible with the view that the language system is not radically modular vis‐á‐vis its open class terms and employs a deductive system that is basically classical. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl critica el positivismo científico por reducir el sentido del mundo de la vida, como si éste consistiera en un conjunto de objetos manipulables instrumentalmente, a la vez que oculta la subjetividad operante tanto a nivel de la ciencia como a nivel de la experiencia precientífica. El retorno al mundo de la vida (Lebenswelt) como contexto universal de significados y fuente inagotable de recursos para validar las pretensiones de verdad, normatividad y veracidad del sujeto, permite a la fenomenología reconstruir (...) genéticamente el sentido de la ciencia, la técnica y la tecnología como actividad humana determinable ética y responsablemente. (shrink)

This paper analyzes an unpublished theory about the origin of global injustices that consider developing countries ethically responsible ontological units. The empirical case studies concern the relationships between multinational companies from developed states and Latin American states. These cases are analyzed based on a qualitative methodology of applied political philosophy and correspond to twelve instances of injustice judged by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights between 1980 and 2014. The article concludes that the distortions in an emerging Ethics of the (...) interdependence of the States, as the acting in bad faith of the governments of developing countries, largely explains the origins of the unfair global distribution of wealth and the economic refugees that it produces. (shrink)

We generalize the notion ofconsequence relationstandard in abstract treatments of logic to accommodate intuitions ofrelevance. The guiding idea follows theuse criterion, according to which in order for some premises to have some conclusion(s) as consequence(s), the premises must each beusedin some way to obtain the conclusion(s). This relevance intuition turns out to require not just a failure of monotonicity, but also a move to considering consequence relations as obtaining betweenmultisets. We motivate and state basic definitions of relevant consequence relations, both (...) in single conclusion (asymmetric) and multiple conclusion (symmetric) settings, as well as derivations and theories, guided by the use intuitions, and prove a number of results indicating that the definitions capture the desired results (at least in many cases). (shrink)