A partir del estudio del comportamiento de los protagonistas en la obra de Franz Kafka, intentaremos mostrar los mecanismos de control de las autoridades administrativas, proponiendo al mismo tiempo un antídoto contra la sumisión acrítica. Una observación detallada de la configuración de las situaciones diegéticas permitirá invertir las situaciones de sometimiento forzoso para ofrecer, en la voz de las figuras teóricamente secundarias, una comprensión crítica que posibilite la recuperación de la libertad individual. Palabras-clave: Kafka, comedia, política, ley.

Through the study of the behaviour of the protagonists in the work of Franz Kafka, we will try to expose the control mechanisms used by the administrative authorities, providing at the same time with an antidote to uncritical submission. A thorough observation of the configuration of diegetic situations will allow to reverse the situations of forced compliance to proffer, in the voice of the so-called secondary figures, a critical understanding to enable the recovery of individual freedom.

We examine the comportment of the global trajectory of a piecewisely conceived single species population growth model. Formulation relies on what we develop as the principle of limiting factors for population growth, adapted from the law of the minimum of Liebig and the law of the tolerance of Shelford. The ensuing paradigm sets natality and mortality rates to express through extreme values of population growth determining factor. Dynamics through time occur over different growth phases. Transition points are interpreted as thresholds (...) of viability, starvation, and intraspecific competition. In this delivery, we focus on the qualitative study of the global trajectory expressed on continuous time and on exploring the feasibility of analytical results against data on populations growing under experimental or natural conditions. All study cases sustained fittings of high reproducibility both at empirical and interpretative slants. Possible phase configurations include regimes with multiple stable equilibria, sigmoidal growth, extinction, or stationarity. Here, we also outline that the associating discrete-time piecewise model composes the logistic map applied over a particular region of the phase configuration. Preliminary exploratory analysis suggests that the logistic map’s chaos onset could surpass once the orbit enters a contiguous phase region. (shrink)

Participatory research (PR) has been analyzed and documented from different points of view, with emphasis on the benefits generated for farmers. The effect of PR on organizational learning has, however, received little attention. This paper analyzes the interaction between a research and a development institution, the International Potato Center (CIP) and CARE in Peru, respectively, and makes the case that PR can contribute to creating a collaborative learning environment among organizations. The paper describes the evolution of the inter-institutional collaborative environment (...) between the two institutions for more than a decade, including an information-transfer period (1993–1996), an action-learning period (1997–2002), and a social-learning period (2003–2007). Several lessons learned from each period are described, as are changes in institutional contexts and stakeholders’ perceptions. The case shows that research and development-oriented organizations can interact fruitfully using PR as a mechanism to promote learning, flexibility in interactions, and innovation. Interactions foster the diffusion of information and the sharing of tacit knowledge within and between organizations, which in turn influences behavior. However, the paper also argues that long-term inter-organizational interactions are needed to facilitate learning, which can be used to influence the way organizations implement their interventions in a constantly changing environment. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to introduce everyday aesthetics in education. First, it presents everyday aesthetics as a subdiscipline within philosophical aesthetics, that revisits sensory perception as the backdrop of all experience, claims ordinary life is a proper venue for aesthetic inquiry, and problematizes the impact aesthetic preferences have on habitual decisions. Second, the paper argues that among the diverse matters students learn in school, they learn—explicitly or implicitly—what and how to perceive, as well as the pedagogical purposes of (...) daily perception. School models the relationships that students will develop between what they perceive, what they think about it, and how they act accordingly. Next, the paper elaborates on the notions of “school aesthetic matrixes” and “space and place in school”. School aesthetic matrixes refer to perceptual patterns that allow characterizing relationships between daily perception and the pedagogical project of a school. They manifest through expressions such as prison school, home school, mall school, etc. Space and place in school allude to concomitant experiences, of corporeal basis, that allow describing how we inhabit the world. What distinguishes them is the approach each one gives to the senses and the body. The paper concludes by calling attention to the comprehension and role of perception in education, urging to mind the aesthetic-pedagogical character that students develop throughout 12 years of schooling. Ultimately, the key relationships we develop with ourselves, others, and the world, entail a basic perceptual dimension that can be educated to become more purposefully and integrally present in life. (shrink)

The field of Philosophy and Education seems to be experiencing a renewed interest in the work of Aristotle. As recently reviewed by Curren (Oxf Rev Educ 36(5):543–559, 2010), most of this attention aligns with the virtue ethics movement where themes like moral development in education, and the inquiry on human flourishing as the aim of education are prevalent. For sources, this scholarship relies heavily and extensively on the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics’ Book VIII where Aristotle develops his single, clearly defined (...) account of education. Among the short list of scholars who include Poetics in their research, their work seems to return to issues of morality and education (Carr in J Aesthet Educ 44(3):1–15, 2010; Gupta in J Aesthet Educ 44(4):60–80, 2010). This paper is an attempt to rediscover Aristotle’s insights on the peculiar type of learning that the arts seem to favor. In order to carry on this investigation, I will first guide my argument towards Aristotle’s remarks on poiesis. Then, I will focus on what constitutes the heart of poiesis, that is, mimesis. I will pay special attention to Aristotle’s consideration of both poiesis and mimesis as ultimately dealing with what he calls “possibility.” I will argue that learning in the arts entails the coming together of these three qualities. This would be a way of learning characterized by seeing human likenesses emerge as such in our interactions with artworks. (shrink)

Let us imagine that a man loses his keys one night and starts looking for them under the light of a street lamp. When people join him to help him search, they ask where it was that he thinks he might have let them fall; with a frustrated look on his face, he then points into the dark distance and says, by way of explanation, “I am looking under the lamppost because this is where the light is!” This story, introduced (...) by Janice Ross, provides us with a metaphorical description of an ongoing situation in arts education advocacy1: Certainly, I can only look for the arts in education where there is something about them that can be seen. Yet there may be aspects of them concealed beyond the reach of the vision.. (shrink)

This is a multifaceted semantico-ontological investigation of different types of families of concepts and properties. One major result is that contrast between: (a) the ontologically egalitarian or democratic, but epistemologically hierarchical family of colors, and (b) the ontologically hierarchical or pyramidal familiy of negations. The different negations (of propositions, imperatives, properties, predication) are studied, and the unity of the whole family under a genus reveals the pyramidal structure of the family. The negation or properties has a powerful bearing on Russell’s (...) paradox -- which shows different strands in negation. The connections between existence and negation provides an introduction to Guise Theory and reveals some limitations in Bertrand Russell’s analysis of definite descriptions. (shrink)

This is a multifaceted semantico-ontological investigation of different types of families of concepts and properties. One major result is that contrast between: the ontologically egalitarian or democratic, but epistemologically hierarchical family of colors, and the ontologically hierarchical or pyramidal familiy of negations. The different negations are studied, and the unity of the whole family under a genus reveals the pyramidal structure of the family. The negation or properties has a powerful bearing on Russell’s paradox -- which shows different strands in (...) negation. The connections between existence and negation provides an introduction to Guise Theory and reveals some limitations in Bertrand Russell’s analysis of definite descriptions. (shrink)

To come to know what to do is to have a thought which itself consists of an awareness of its bringing about an action, or a rearrangement of one’s causal powers...The causal dimension of practical thinking is the coalescence of contemplation and the causation of that contemplation, and the contemplation of that causation.

To come to know what to do is to have a thought which itself consists of an awareness of its bringing about an action, or a rearrangement of one’s causal powers...The causal dimension of practical thinking is the coalescence of contemplation and the causation of that contemplation, and the contemplation of that causation.

Tomberlin's comparative claims about the superiority of the De Dicto-De Re Account over Guise Theory concerning referential opacity are abortively premature. Nevertheless, he may be right. Yet the order of the day is to develop the De Re-De Dicto Account to the hilt. Not until this is done can any useful dia-philosophical comparison of the two theories yield any fruit. My deep desire is, of course, for the sheer enjoyment of experiencing the world from the perspective of each of the (...) two views, indeed, from the perspective of other views — e.g., Frege's Sense/Referent Theory — that can be developed to the same data-encompassing stage as Guise Theory. (shrink)

Este trabajo es un primer acercamiento al texto original de la Constitución de Atenas de Aristóteles, y en él me propongo, básicamente, una sistematización de la información que el propio Aristóteles registró del desarrollo de la ley y de las instituciones de la realidad histórica ateniense, así como presentar esta obra, de por sí desconocida dentro del corpus aristotélico. Probablemente esto se deba a que es la más reciente de las obras descubiertas y atribuidas al filósofo y, en segundo lugar, (...) porque no corresponde al canon del lenguaje estrictamente filosófico. (shrink)