El texto es una contrarréplica a las críticasdel profesor Pablo Arango. Se argumenta, principalmente, que a pesar de las observaciones de Arango en sentido contrario, el esencialismo no puede hacer frente a una versión interesante de la relatividad conceptual, que el argumento que va desde la designación rígida hasta el esencialismo no es concluyente, y que la metafísica esencialista viola el principio de sustituibilidad de los términos correferenciales.

El artículo es un comentario crítico a“Realismo, esencialismo yextensionalismo”, del profesor IgnacioÁvila. En particular, se contestan lascríticas que el profesor Ávila hace a lametafísica esencialista, argumentando,principalmente, que esta metafísica escompatible con el fenómeno de larelatividad conceptual.This paper is a critical commentary to“Realism, Essentialism and Extensionalism”, by professor Ignacio Ávila. In particular, professor Ávila’s criticisms to an essentialist metaphysics are answered,arguing, mainly, that this metaphysicsis compatible with the phenom-enon of conceptual relativity.

Taking language as its general theme, this book explores how the tradition of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist philosophical speculation exemplifies the character of scholasticism. Scholasticism, as an abstract and general category, is developed as a valuable theoretical tool for understanding a variety of intellectual movements in the history of philosophy of religion. The book investigates the Buddhist Scholastic theory and use of scripture, the nature of doctrine and its transcendence in experience, Mahayana Buddhist hermeneutics, the theory and practice of exegesis, and questions (...) concerning the authority of sacred texts. It also deals with the Buddhist Scholastic theory of conceptual thought as the mirror of language, the Scholastic defense of logic and rationality as a method, as well as the role of language in the idealist and nominalist ontologies of the Mahayana. Finally, the author treats the question of ineffability and the silence of the Buddha from a new perspective. (shrink)

Responses to outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics involves a heterogeneous set of activities that aim to address threats to public health. In addition to research, non-research activities, such as prevention and control interventions, and surveillance, are conducted. The boundaries between research and non-research responses can rapidly blur during a public health emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic. There may be common elements between these types of activities, and they may draw on the same resources and infrastructure. Non-research activities, such as surveillance (...) and emergency non-research use of unproven interventions, and research activities must all be undertaken in an ethical manner as components of emergency response. However, care is needed to distinguish between non-research public health activities and research, because research often has considerations and requirements for its ethical conduct which are distinct from non-research public health activities. Research aims to produce generalizable knowledge, and mechanisms such as participant consent and independent ethics review aim to ensure that the rights and interests of research participants are respected. Ensuring that research and non-research activities are appropriately distinguished can additionally promote proper coordination of such activities, and increase trust and social accountability in pandemic responses. Consequently, it is important to distinguish between these different activities on the basis of their primary aim, and to consider whether their implementation is justifiable, based on their aims and the relevant ethical framework for each type of activity, and how they are coordinated as part of the larger collective activity of emergency response and management. Complex questions arise about how the different stakeholders involved in decision-making should make valid and justifiable decisions about whether the response activity is research or non-research. The cases in this chapter invite consideration about how such decisions should be made, and their implications, in the context of applications to conduct retrospective research into the outcomes of emergency uses of unproven interventions outside clinical trials, and of characterising antibody-testing initiatives and systematic data collection activities as surveillance or research. (shrink)

El siguiente trabajo analiza las acciones artísticas ligadas al Colectivo Escena Política que tuvieron lugar en la ciudad de Buenos Aires entre 2013 y 2016. Daremos cuenta de tres formas específicas de intervención artístico-política en el espacio público. La primera relacionada con una denuncia de la explotación laboral de los artistas escénicos en la ciudad. La segunda vinculada a prácticas micropolíticas que denominamos activismo de lo sensible. Y la tercera, relacionada con la lucha llevada adelante por la Asamblea Lopérfido Renunciá (...) Ya, en conjunto con organismos de derechos humanos. En última instancia, el artículo propone que la eficacia política del activismo artístico depende de su articulación sincrónica con las diversas luchas que atraviesan el entramado social. (shrink)

Scarcity acts as a mental burden that disrupts how people process information and make decisions (Mullainathan and Shafir in Scarcity: Why having too little means so much. Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2013; Mani et al. Science 342:976–980, 2013). In this study, we replicated Mani et al.’s (Science 342:976–980, 2013) experimental design to explore whether scarcity also taxes Colombian high school students’ mental bandwidth. In a lab-in-the-field experiment, we tested how 417 high school students from high and low socioeconomic status (SES) in Bogotá, (...) Colombia, responded to different scarcity situations. Students were first presented with hypothetical scenarios of harsh or soft scarcity. Next, participants had to solve a series of tasks that measured higher cognitive functions (i.e. Raven’s Progressive Matrices, Cognitive Reflection Task and questions to assess their Delay Discounting value) and had to explain how they would solve the scarcity situation. As opposed to Mani et al. (Science 342:976–980, 2013), we did not find that scarcity taxed individuals’ mental bandwidth, neither their cognitive nor executive functions. We found that low-SES individuals, under the harsh scarcity condition, displayed more empathic attributes than high-SES individuals. Taken together, the results of this study show the importance of replication in different cultures and environments. (shrink)

The abundance of literature on ethical concerns regarding artificial intelligence (AI) highlights the need to systematize, integrate, and categorize existing efforts through a systematic literature review. The article aims to investigate prevalent concerns, proposed solutions, and prominent ethical approaches within the field. Considering 309 articles from the beginning of the publications in this field up until December 2021, this systematic literature review clarifies what the ethical concerns regarding AI are, and it charts them into two groups: (i) ethical concerns that (...) arise from the design of AI and (ii) ethical concerns that arise from human–AI interactions. The analysis of the obtained sample highlights the most recurrent ethical concerns. Finally, it exposes the main proposals of the literature to handle the ethical concerns according to the main ethical approaches. It interprets the findings to lay the foundations for future research on the ethics of AI. (shrink)

I argue that there are different orders of mechanisms with different constitutive relevance and individuation conditions. In common first-order mechanistic explanations, constitutive relevance norms are captured by the matched-interlevel-experiments condition (Craver et al. (2021) Synthese 199:8807–8828). Regarding individuation, we say that any two mechanisms are of the same type when they have the same concrete components performing the same activities in the same arrangement. By contrast, in higher-order mechanistic explanations, we formulate the decompositions in terms of generalized basic components (GBCs). (...) These GBCs (e.g., logic gates) possess causal properties that are common to a set of physical systems. Mechanistic explanations formulated in terms of GBCs embody the epistemic value of horizontal integration, which aims to explain as many phenomena as possible with a minimal amount of abstract components (Wajnerman Paz (2017a) Philos Psychol 30:213–234). Two higher-order mechanisms are of the same type when they share all the same GBCs, and they are organized as performing the same activities with the same interactions. I use this notion of mechanistic order to enhance the mechanistic account of computation (MAC) and provide an account of the epistemic norms of computational explanation and the nature of medium-independent functional properties and mechanisms. Finally, I use these new conceptual tools to address four criticisms of the MAC. (shrink)

El artículo presenta una propuesta para promover la comprensión de las nociones de posibilidad, necesidad y validez argumental. Por medio de un criterio psicológico, la propuesta busca que los estudiantes capten dichas nociones de forma intuitiva antes de comenzar a usar las pruebas formales de validez. Se muestra cómo puede adaptarse la propuesta en el uso de los diagramas de Venn y en la diagramación de algunas formas silogísticas que la teoría clásica del silogismo considera válidas pero que no aparecen (...) como formas válidas en la diagramación canónica que usa los diagramas de Venn. (shrink)

Among the many applications of artificial intelligence (AI), virtual assistants are one of the tools most likely to grow in the future. The development of these systems may play an increasingly important role in many facets of our lives. Therefore, given their potential importance and present and future weight, it is worthwhile to analyze what kind of challenges they entail. In this chapter, we will provide an overview of the ethical aspects of artificial virtual assistants. First, we provide a conceptual (...) clarification of the term ‘virtual assistant’, including different types of interfaces and recommender systems. Second, we address three ethical issues related to the deployment of these systems: their effects on human agency and autonomy and the subsequent cognitive dependence they would generate; the human obsolescence that may cause a generalized extension of the dependence problem; and the invasions of privacy that virtual assistants may cause. Finally, we outline the debates about the use of virtual assistants to improve human moral decisions and some areas in which these systems can be applied. (shrink)

This paper explores the symbolic and material implications of the use of DALYs and QALYs as priority or tie-breaker criteria in triage decisions. It aims to answer the question of their ethical permissibility based on the particular case of the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, theories framed in a queer-crip perspective and ethical frameworks of equity will be used. From a queer-crip perspective, the use of DALYs and QALYs in triage decisions discriminates against and excludes people with disabilities, as it (...) allocates scarce resources based on ableist value judgments about people's quality of life, rather than on evidence. From the point of view of equity, it may imply and reinforce structural injustices involving inequities, that is, avoidable or remediable inequalities. This analysis will argue that the use of DALYs and QALYs categories in triage decisions allocates potentially life-saving resources based on ableist value judgments that lead to an unfair distribution of risks, burdens, and costs. Finally, two objections related to the relevance or necessity of using these or similar categories as criteria will be addressed: the independent cases of structural inequities and the inevitability of setting priorities in the face of a crisis. (shrink)

El presente estudio propone un enfoque crítico de la cuestión del mal y del sufrimiento humano. En el marco del pensamiento ético de Levinas y desde una nueva perspectiva respecto de la concepción actual del lenguaje y del cuerpo, pretendemos cuestionar todas las formas de racionalismo y comprensión metafísica acerca del dolor y del sufrimiento humano. El propósito del presente estudio consiste en delinear una nueva forma de comportamiento en torno a la cuestión del mal y la debilidad humana, buscando (...) alternativas conceptuales para esclarecer este complejo problema ético. (shrink)

Resumen El artículo expone la noción de temporalidad discontinua implícita formalmente en la fenomenología de la conciencia interna del tiempo de Husserl y las correspondencias equivalentes que se encuentran en una lectura atenta de la obra de Marcel Proust. Para eso se reconstruye la peculiar noción de tiempo implícita en la obra de ambos autores mostrando el sentido diferencial y discontinuo que la misma reviste. A partir de dicha reconstrucción se desarrollan las implicaciones críticas que la misma acarrea respecto de (...) las concepciones tradicionales de memoria, subjetividad y corporalidad. Finalmente se hacen algunas consideraciones respecto de las influencias recíprocas entre filosofía y arte.The article exposes the notion of a discontinuous temporality formally implied in Husserl's phenomenology of internal time consciousness and its corresponding equivalencies found in an attentive reading of the work of Marcel Proust. To this end, the peculiar notion of time implicit in the work of both authors is reconstructed showing the differential and discontinuous sense that this notion has. It is developed the critical implications that this reconstruction carries with it regarding the traditional conceptions of memory, subjectivity and corporeality. Finally, some considerations are made regarding the reciprocal influences between philosophy and art. (shrink)

Esta investigación ofrece un esbozo de una forma alternativa de concebir la categoría clásica de la subjetividad que subyace al concepto de objeción de conciencia y de desobediencia civil. La mayoría de los puntos de vista habituales sobre este tema se centran en el individuo y sus derechos. Demostrando que este enfoque es insuficiente y, por lo tanto, insatisfactorio, esta investigación destaca la importancia de conceptualizar de nuevo la categoría de subjetividad, lo que a su vez hará posible una nueva (...) forma de conceptualizar la noción de objeción de conciencia, es decir, pensar en ella no más como un derecho individual, sino como un deber de responsabilidad social. Para la explicitación de este enfoque alternativo, esta investigación se basa principalmente en la obra de Emmanuel Levinas, quien centra todas sus reflexiones filosóficas en la perspectiva del otro. (shrink)

This essay explores the contact between the Italian and Argentine cultures during the period of mass immigration by pointing out and commenting on a series of translations and artistic creations made by Italian artists in Buenos Aires: musical, literary, theatrical and pictorial works. In order to understand how the semiotic frontier was composed, we approached the question from a methodology that arises at the intersection of the phenomenon of translation and the semiotic theory of cultural interaction. Thinking about translation in (...) this way highlights its sociological dimension given the links that the source-text establishes with the programs of certain trends in the organization of a culture. The methodology consists on the description of the semiotic frontier showing which texts are of interest to whom and for what. In this way, we seek to understand how a certain tendency was positioned in relation to the project of sustaining italianità in Buenos Aires at the end of the 19th Century. The path proposed shows the frontier between the Italian and Argentine cultures as a bilingual mechanism of mediation from which a cultural group of immigrants developed actions to propose the textual and metatextual guidelines of c. (shrink)

La vida de cada cual es contingente, pero es una contingencia necesaria para una porción de vidas; aunque me atrevo a decir, incluso, que así es para la creación en continuidad. Creo que nosotros tenemos misión. La misión implica que aquello que no haga alguien quedará sin hacerse tal y como lo podría hacer esa persona. En otras palabras, la misión de cada cual, como la propia vida, exige y es disyunción,―o esto o aquello, así o de otro modo. Y (...) si tenemos en cuenta, que la realidad es sistemática, y que un sistema es orden de los elementos que se ve afectado por entero en caso de que suceda algo a alguno de los que lo componen, entonces para estar viviendo tal y como vivimos se nos revelan los otros como contingencias necesarias, imprescindibles. Bien podría hacer una aproximación a Pablo Posada desde la razón vital y algo habrá de ello a lo largo de estos párrafos, pero eso es una tarea prematura, como su muerte. (shrink)

There is no consensus in the literature about the nature of terrorism. The authors’ main claim is that this is ultimately the result of the coexistence of two senses of the term, the action and the actor sense, which are not fully congruent. Rather than trying to advocate a specific conceptualization, the authors provide in this article a map of the different ways in which scholars talk about terrorism. They identify first the set of terrorist actions and the set of (...) terrorist actors. Terrorist tactics are a variety of the power to hurt, based on the lack of military power. Terrorist groups are underground ones with no territorial control. When the two criteria meet, the core of terrorism exists: coercive violence perpetrated by underground groups. The ambiguity that surrounds terrorism is caused by two other possibilities: actors with some measure of territorial control adopting coercive tactics and underground actors adopting military tactics. Although it is not possible to remove this ambiguity in empirical research, scholars can at least identify it and analyze it. The authors illustrate the two senses of terrorism and their interaction by using the most comprehensive dataset on terrorist incidents, the Global Terrorism Database. (shrink)

The radical posthumanism of Kurzweil aims to achieve immortality. Fukuyama and Habermas criticize posthumanism defending the idea of an inalterable human nature. Pinker, for his part, considers that there is a human nature, but susceptible to modifications. There is a limit to human nature: it is found in the mortal nature of each member of the human species. Sloterdijk will introduce a nuance and insist on the natality of the creative acts of man, standing in continuity with the Nietzschean concept (...) of overman. (shrink)

Frente a Descartes, y de acuerdo con autores como Nietzsche, Darwin o Chomsky, Pinker sostiene que el lenguaje es un instinto más de la naturaleza humana. Pero se separa de Chomsky al afirmar que el lenguaje es también el resultado del mecanismo de la selección natural. Recientes descubrimientos parecen respaldar la tesis de Pinker, en la medida en que se ha podido establecer una vinculación entre el gen FOXP2 y el lenguaje. La filosofía debería tomar buena nota de estos esultados, (...) pues afectan de lleno al estatuto del lógos: en adelante, es posible, sin necesidad de recurrir a ninguna instancia... (Leer más) trascendente, considerar al lenguaje como constitutivo de la sigularidad humana con respecto a las demás especies y, al mismo tiempo, como un avatar más de la evolución del mundo natural. (shrink)

A veces se argumenta que la acción tiene primacía sobre la cau salidad. Esto se puede entender de dos maneras: que la causalidad es una proyección de la acción al ámbito natural o que la causalidad presupone un agente que actúa. Defiendo que la primera tesis es falsa y que la segun da sólo liene sentido desde una teoría realista de las causas.

La solución de los problemas biojurídicos depende fundamentalmente de la concepción del derecho y de la valoración de la vida humana de la que se disponga. La supresión de la perspectiva de la justicia, unida a la consideración de la vida humana como mera propiedad inmanente de un ser vivo que, en el caso del hombre, permitirá la libre disposición de ella, conducirá necesariamente a una degradación de la protección jurídica de la vida. Por el contrario, la vinculación del derecho (...) con la moral, a través de la justicia, propia de la concepción óntico-valorativa o, al menos, de una concepción del derecho que aúne las tres dimensiones, conducirá a una más firme defensa jurídica de la vida. Desde esta perspectiva se analiza la desprotección jurídica, y por tanto moral, de la vida en la regulación del aborto en la legislación española. (shrink)

En este artículo abordo críticamente la aseveración de David Papineau según la cual la evidencia fisiológica acumulada es suficiente para adoptar razonablemente el Principio del Cierre Causal de lo Físico y la vía negativa, viz. entender físico como no mental, como solución al dilema de Hempel. Comenzaremos restando fuerza a tal afirmación revisando el trabajo de W. Penfield y J. Eccles, dos importantes neurocientíficos y declarados dualistas. No obstante, luego nos centraremos en el trabajo de B. Libet en el que (...) se demostraría que los movimientos voluntarios están realmente determinados por causas enteramente fisiológicas, lo cual constituiría una pieza fundamental de evidencia a favor de Papineau. Nuestro análisis mostrará que no se siguen tales conclusiones. Esto tendrá consecuencias negativas para el Cierre Causal de lo Físico y con ello para el Argumento Causal para el Fisicalismo del cual el mencionado principio es premisa clave. (shrink)

This article raises issues of science, politics, economics and ethics. The first section presents the ontological transition from the first Copernican revolution to the second Copernican revolution in the global study of sustainability and the ethics of climate change. The second section describes the «Giddens’s paradox» and the Hilbertian program of the Earth System Science, that presuppose a paradigmatic challenge. Finally, the third section links this methodological challenge to the description of the «post-normal science» and the «transdisciplinarity chain» in a (...) post-Kuhnian epistemology.  . (shrink)

Resumen: El título de Niebla, acaso el relato más importante de toda la obra de Unamuno, sugiere las ideas de confusión, indefinición e imprecisión. Lo contrario de lo que se busca en el ámbito intelectual, aunque caracteres esenciales en toda vida humana. Tomando estas coordenadas como punto de partida, nuestro propósito es relacionar la nebulosa vida de Augusto Pérez, sus acciones y circunstancias, en apariencia azarosas e impredecibles, con la concepción de Schopenhauer en torno a la Voluntad, el querer y (...) el carácter humano. Esto nos permitirá conciliar, o confundir, la libertad con el determinismo y la realidad con la ficción, incurriendo en contradicción, si es preciso, para sugerir que quizá la vida de Augusto, como la nuestra, no sea otra cosa que el despliegue temporal de un eterno e inquebrantable anhelo.: Mist, perhaps the most important of all of Unamuno’s works, suggests ideas of confusion, uncertainty and imprecision; the opposite of what is desired in intellectual spheres, but essential features in every human life. Taking these coordinates as a starting point, the aim of this study is to link the nebulous life of Augusto Pérez, his apparently random and unpredictable actions and circumstances, to Schopenhauer’s conception of Will, desire and human character. This will allow this study to bring together, or confuse, freedom with determinism and reality with fiction. If necessary, we will incur in the contradiction of suggesting that Augusto’s life, much like ours, may just be the temporary display of an eternal and unbreakable fervor. (shrink)

En este trabajo se discute el método de las hipótesis que Platón emplea en la segunda parte del Parménides, el cual, según se dice en el propio diálogo, es una réplica del empleado por Zenón de Elea. La discusión es especialmente relevante porque la interpretación de la relación entre las hipótesis sobre lo Uno y el método zenoniano determina el modo en que se entiende el diálogo en su conjunto y las pretensiones del autor al redactarlo. Se pretende aquí demostrar (...) la semejanza entre los métodos de ambos filósofos y su utilidad en el filosofar platónico. (shrink)