8 March, now known as International Women’s Day, is a day for feminist claims where demonstrations are organized in over 150 countries, with the participation of millions of women all around the world. These demonstrations can be viewed as collective rituals and thus focus attention on the processes that facilitate different psychosocial effects. This work aims to explore the mechanisms involved in participation in the demonstrations of 8 March 2020, collective and ritualized feminist actions, and their correlates associated with personal (...) well-being and collective well-being, collective efficacy and collective growth, and behavioral intention to support the fight for women’s rights. To this end, a cross-cultural study was conducted with the participation of 2,854 people from countries in Latin America and Europe, with a retrospective correlational cross-sectional design and a convenience sample. Participants were divided between demonstration participants and non-demonstrators or followers who monitored participants through the media and social networks. Compared with non-demonstrators and with males, female and non-binary gender respondents had greater scores in mechanisms and criterion variables. Further random-effects model meta-analyses revealed that the perceived emotional synchrony was consistently associated with more proximal mechanisms, as well as with criterion variables. Finally, sequential moderation analyses showed that proposed mechanisms successfully mediated the effects of participation on every criterion variable. These results indicate that participation in 8M marches and demonstrations can be analyzed through the literature on collective rituals. As such, collective participation implies positive outcomes both individually and collectively, which are further reinforced through key psychological mechanisms, in line with a Durkheimian approach to collective rituals. (shrink)

In this essay we argue that the notion of machine necessarily includes its being designed for a purpose. Therefore, being a mechanical system is not enough for being a machine. Since the experimental scientific method excludes any consideration of finality on methodological grounds, it is then also insufficient to fully understand what machines are. Instead in order to understand a machine it is first required to understand its purpose, along with its structure, in clear parallel with Aristotle’s final and formal (...) causes. Obviously, purpose and structure are not machine components that can physically interact with other components; nonetheless they are essential to understanding their operation. This casts an interesting light on the relationship between mind and body: for just as an artifact’s finality and structure explain its operation, so also consciousness is the explanation—not the efficient cause—of specifically human behavior. What machines and human beings have in common is that, in order to understand them, it is necessary to appeal to the principle of finality. Yet while finality is given and extrinsic in the case of machines, we human beings are characterized by the ability to self-propose our own ends. Since the principle of finality is essential to understanding the production of machines, the traditional view in modern Western philosophy that finality lies beyond the scope of objective/scientific knowledge should be rectified to allow for a genuine science of the artificial. We think a correct understanding of final causality will overcome current resistance to this principle. (shrink)

For companies involved in the supply chain, proper warehousing management is crucial. Warehouse layout arrangement and operation play a critical role in a company’s ability to maintain and improve its competitiveness. Reducing costs and increasing efficiency are two of the most crucial warehousing goals. Deciding on the best warehouse layout is a remarkable optimization problem. This paper uses an optimization method to set bin allocations within an automated warehouse with particular characteristics. The warehouse’s initial layout and the automated platforms limit (...) the search and define the time required to move goods within the warehouse. With the help of historical data and the definition of the time needed to move goods, a mathematical model of warehouse operation was created. An optimization procedure based on the well-known Variable Neighbourhood Search algorithm is defined and applied to the problem. Experimental results demonstrate increments in the efficiency of warehousing operations. (shrink)

El artículo analiza la teoría de todos y partes de Carl Stumpf. Por un lado, se presentan los elementos básicos de su psicología descriptiva de la experiencia. Por otro lado, se analiza el desarrollo de la teoría de todos y partes sobre la base de dicha psicología descriptiva. El trabajo pretende probar dos tesis complementarias: primero, si bien la teoría mereológica de Stumpf es aún incipiente y no del todo explícita, constituye un auténtico punto de partida. Segundo, dicha mereología surge (...) a partir de una atenta descripción de la experiencia dada y no es algo impuesto a ésta. The article focuses on Carl Stumpf's theory of parts and wholes. On the one hand, I present the basic elements of his descriptive psychology of experience. On the other hand, I analyze the development of his theory of parts and wholes, which is based upon his descriptive psychology. The article aims to prove two different, yet complementary theses: firstly, despite the fact that Stumpf's mereological theory is still incipient and not quite explicit, it represents an authentic point of departure; secondly, this mereology arises out of an attentive description of given experience and not as an imposition to it. (shrink)

La masacre de obreros ocurrida en la escuela de Santa María de Iquique en el año 1907 es un hecho histórico que hasta los días de hoy sigue siendo revisitado desde distintas disciplinas. A partir de una perspectiva filosófica, en este artículo se plantea el rol que tiene “el perdón”, a más de cien años del acontecimiento, y las posibilidades que tendría la literatura de representar la violencia o el trauma que subyace en él. Para ello, se ha tomado como (...) objeto de estudio la novela Hijo del Salitre, del escritor chileno Volodia Teitelboim, en la cual se aborda como temática central los funestos hechos ocurridos en Iquique a inicios del Siglo XX. (shrink)

El siguiente trabajo se propone analizar críticamente la concepción clásica y monológica de la imparcialidad del juez, su respectivo correlato institucional y las consecuencias para interpretar el vínculo que debería tener con los afectados. Para ello se realiza un análisis reconstructivo de El Federalista de Hamilton, Madison y Jay. En primer lugar, se analiza en tal documento el concepto de imparcialidad y sus supuestos teóricos. En segundo lugar, se señala el modelo constitucional derivado. En tercer lugar, se muestra cómo, a (...) pesar de los giros y la distancia teórica del "nuevo constitucionalismo", algunas de las ideas subyacentes en El Federalista permanecen vigentes. Finalmente, el trabajo intenta poner en práctica el marco teórico-normativo de la democracia deliberativa para el análisis histórico reconstructivo de la teoría constitucional. The following work intends to critically analyze the classic and monological conception of the Judge´s impartiality, its respective institutional correlate and the consequences to understand the bond that should have with those affected. For this, a reconstructive analysis of The Federalist by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay is made. In the first place, the concept of impartiality and its theoretical assumptions are analyzed in such document. Second, it shows how, despite the turns and transformations of the "new constitutionalism", some of this assumptions remain applicable. Finally, the paper attempts to put into practice the normative theoretical framework of deliberative democracy for the historical reconstructive analysis of constitutional theory. (shrink)

La reciente firma del Acuerdo sobre Víctimas en la Habana el pasado 15 de diciembre de 2015 por parte del Gobierno colombiano y las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia pone de presente una vez más la difícil tensión entre los propósitos por lograr una coexistencia pacífica y las exigencias normativas relacionadas con el deber de rendir de cuentas por parte de quienes han cometido graves violaciones de derechos humanos e infracciones al Derecho Internacional Humanitario.Pero, además, presenta un reto adicional: la (...) posibilidad de articular los principios de justicia restaurativa y de justicia transicional. (shrink)

Este artículo busca establecer un diálogo con la literatura internacional sobre justicia transicional y ofrecer un marco teórico crítico que permita analizar la experiencia reciente en Colombia. Para tal efecto, en la primera parte del artículo sostengo que la idea de justicia transicional es una construcción discursiva relativamente reciente en el escenario político y académico internacional, pero que, a su vez, ha experimentado diferentes momentos y transformaciones. En la segunda parte, el artículo ofrece un marco teórico que permita reflexionar sobre (...) la construcción de sentidos democráticos sobre la justicia transicional y los derechos de las víctimas en un escenario complejo como el colombiano. En tal sentido, con base en la perspectiva de campos sociales expuesta por Pierre Bourdieu, sostengo que la justicia transicional es un espacio de confrontación y lucha entre sujetos sociales que cuentan con distintos acumulados de poder. Así mismo, me baso en perspectivas críticas en materia de derechos humanos y justicia transicional para resaltar la relevancia de sujetos sociales, como los movimientos sociales y las redes de derechos humanos, en la construcción de una justicia transicional “desde abajo”. (shrink)

Aim: The presence of noise in urban environments is rarely considered a factor that causes damage to the environment. The primary generating source is transportation means, with vehicles being the ones that affect cities the most. Traffic noise has a particular influence on the quality of life of those who are exposed to it and can cause health alterations ranging from annoyance to cardiovascular diseases. This study aims to describe the relationship between the traffic noise level and the perceived annoyance (...) in the inhabitants of a city on the Northern Border of Mexico. The work carried out in a city represents the vulnerability characteristics: economic, social, and migratory of its sizable portion of the inhabitants. Due to that, it is impossible to identify precisely the number of residents as the number of vehicles in circulation.Methods: The streets and avenues with an annual average daily traffic of more than 1,000 vehicles were considered for the measurement of traffic noise. The equipment used was a vehicle gauge with non-invasive speed radar; type I integrating sound level meters, with their respective gauges and tripods. A questionnaire was applied to people living within 250 m of the streets and avenues in which the noise was measured.Results: The noise measurement found a parameter of LAeq estimated for 12 h during the day, exceeding 70 dBA. The data received from the questionnaire were statistically tested by using Pearson's correlation tests. A total number of 2,350 people were participated, of whom 1,378 were women and 972 were men. The age of participants is ranged from 18 to 75 years. The overall perception of traffic noise annoyance identified that 1,131 participants responded “Yes” as they considered the noise annoying. Participants who responded “No” as well as those who responded “Do not know” resulted in a total of 1,219 people.Conclusion: The results show that the population is desensitized to traffic noise and does not perceive it as an annoyance. The flow of vehicles and the type of vehicles are the significant factors for the propagation and increase in the traffic noise levels. Women present a considerable appreciation of traffic noise perception instead of younger people who demonstrate a higher tolerance to high-level exposure. This reflects the lack of information of the population around the noise problem and its effects. (shrink)

Explaining agency is a significant challenge for those who are interested in the sciences of the mind, and non-representationalists are no exception to this. Even though both ecological psychologists and enactivists agree that agency is to be explained by focusing on the relation between the organism and the environment, they have approached it by focusing on different aspects of the organism-environment relation. In this paper, I offer a suggestion for a radical embodied account of agency that combines ecological psychology with (...) recent trends in enactive cognitive science. According to this proposal, while enactivism focuses primarily on describing how our acquired sensorimotor schemes and habits mutually equilibrate, affecting our tendency to act upon some affordances instead of others, ecological psychology focuses on studying how perceptual information contributes to the actualization of the sensorimotor schemes and habits without mediating representations, inferences, and computations. The paper concludes by briefly exploring how this ecological-enactive theory of agency can account for how socio-cultural norms shape human agency. (shrink)

The literature studying the characteristics associated with revictimization in Intimate Partner Violence is heterogeneous and inconclusive. The absence of studies on the role of the emotional variables of the victims and the failure to distinguish revictimization by the same or different aggressors are two of the main limitations in this area of research. The aim of this work was to study the relative contribution of the material, social, and emotional resources available to IPV victims in predicting revictimization by the same (...) or different perpetrators. The sample consisted of 290 women registered in the city of Madrid who had filed at least one police report for intimate partner violence. The material resources of the victims were evaluated through their level of monthly income and employability status, the social resources through perceived social support, and the emotional resources through emotional regulation and coping strategies. Hierarchical multinomial logistic regression models were estimated to predict single-offender victimization, same-offender revictimization, and multiple-offender revictimization. The results revealed that: differentiating between revictimization by the same and different aggressors improved the fit of the model by 50.8% compared to when only differentiating between victimized and revictimized women; material resources had no significant weight in the prediction of any type of revictimization; SRV women had more social support than VSRDA women ;, those victims who had made several reports to the authorities of violence by different aggressors, had worse emotional regulation than those victims who had made a single report to the authorities ; and VSRDA obtained the worst mental health indexes and they used more coping strategies based on positive reappraisal than the VSR women and those victims with several reports by the same aggressor. These results show that being a victim of several episodes of intimate partner violence by different aggressors should be understood as a form of revictimization of great severity associated with worse emotional regulation and less social support. (shrink)

Los tropos presentados por los escépticos antiguos constituyen un punto de referencia para todo aquel que pretenda demostrar, alcanzar alguna verdad o justificar alguna creencia. Por ello, este artículo analiza las objeciones de los filósofos escépticos posteriores a Enesidemo y anteriores a Sexto Empírico, que generalmente se atribuyen a Agripa y que suponen un cuestionamiento de los fundamentos del conocimiento mismo y de los procedimientos que han de emplearse para cualquier demostración o justificación. Asimismo, intentaremos mostrar algunas de las soluciones (...) posibles, especialmente las planteadas varios siglos antes por Aristóteles. (shrink)

La consciencia es un estado unificado de la mente, cualitativo y subjetivo. Una de cuyas formas más especiales es la autoconsciencia, que nos permite darnos cuenta de que nos damos cuenta y reflexionar sobre nuestros propios pensamientos. Esta consciencia dota al ser humano de la capacidad para interpretar el mundo y responder a él. Así, gracias a los qualia, tenemos la capacidad de comportarnos circunstancialmente. Es importante conocer los correlatos y las causas cerebrales que dan origen a la consciencia. Es (...) en la corteza cerebral donde radica la capacidad de ser consciente. Problema de la unidad de percepción: sincronización de neuronas o integración funcional. Sin embargo, el problema de la consciencia no consiste sólo en conocer su naturaleza, sino también en conocer cómo se produce la emergencia de la imaginación subjetiva, respuesta que actualmente no existe y que tampoco aportaría ninguna ventaja práctica a la especie. (shrink)

According to ecological psychology, agency is a crucial feature of living organisms: therefore many ecological psychologists maintain that explaining agency is one of the core aims of the discipline. This paper aims to contribute to this goal by arguing that an ecological understanding of agency requires an account of intention. So far, intentions have not played a dominant role in ecological accounts of agency. The reluctance to integrate a notion of intention seems to be motivated by the widespread assumption that (...) intentions should be understood as internal states with representational content. This assumption goes against two main tenets of ecological psychology: its anti-representationalist stance and its claim that perception is direct (in the sense of not being mediated by inferential processes). Ecological psychology thus needs a different answer to the question what intentions are. In this paper, we aim to show that Elizabeth Anscombe’s theory of intention can be fruitfully brought to bear on an ecological theory of agency. We will argue that Anscombe’s account can meet the two challenges of bringing intentions into the framework of ecological psychology: firstly it can explain what intentions are, if not representational states; and, secondly, it can show how our perception of affordances is guided by intention without undermining the idea of direct perception. (shrink)

Although it is a common claim in the ecological psychology literature that our perception of the environment’s affordances is influenced by socio-cultural norms, an explanation of how this is possible remains to be offered. In this paper, I outline an account of this phenomenon by focusing on the ecological theory of perceptual learning. Two main theses are defended. First, I argue that to account for how socio-cultural norms can influence perception, we must pay attention not only to the education of (...) attention but to the education of intention too. Consequently, I offer some ideas about how intention can be socio-normatively educated. Secondly, I hold that the education of intention occurs via the acquisition of habit-based preferences for particular actions. I claim that once we understand how these habit-based preferences relate to socio-cultural norms, the hypothesis that norms must be represented in the individual’s mind for them to influence affordance perception is no longer needed. If this hypothesis is on the right track, we can have an explanation for how perception can be normatively shaped and direct (non-mediated by internal representations and inferences) at the same time. (shrink)

L. Polo es un buen maestro, más preocupado por descubrir la verdad que por ser entendido. Su pensar es paciente, la atención, concentrada. Mantiene la congruencia entre el nivel del método cognoscitivo que emplea y los temas reales conocidos que estudia. En él destacan tres cualidades: la audacia en el buscar, la convivencia con la verdad y la apertura universal al saber.

In the last years, we have attended to different attempts to extend the notion of affordance to include mental or cognitive actions. In short, the idea is that our capacity to perform some cognitive functions such as counting, imagining, mathematical reasoning, and so on, is preceded by our awareness of cognitive or mental affordances. In this paper, we analyze two of these attempts, Mental Affordance Hypothesis, and cognitive horizons, and conclude that they fail to deliver their promise. Our argument is (...) two-fold. First, we show that both proposals lack an explanation for how these affordances can be perceived or experienced by the individuals. Second, we argue, focusing on the examples provided by the authors, that the introduction of cognitive affordances is not justified on explanatory grounds. In other words, neither of these proposals offers a compelling justification for thinking that performing said “mental acts” requires the perception of mental or cognitive affordances. Hence, the existence of mental or cognitive affordances remains both scientifically mysterious and explanatorily unjustified. (shrink)

Ecological psychology is one of the most influential theories of perception in the embodied, anti-representational, and situated cognitive sciences. However, radical enactivists claim that Gibsonians tend to describe ecological information and its ‘pick up’ in ways that make ecological psychology close to representational theories of perception and cognition. Motivated by worries about the tenability of classical views of informational content and its processing, these authors claim that ecological psychology needs to be “RECtified” so as to explicitly resist representational readings. In (...) this paper, we argue against this call for RECtification. To do so, we offer a detailed analysis of the notion of perceptual information and other related notions such as specificity and meaning, as they are presented in the specialized ecological literature. We defend that these notions, if properly understood, remain free of any representational commitment. Ecological psychology, we conclude, does not need to be RECtified. (shrink)

According to F. Adams [this journal, vol. 68, 2018] cognition cannot be realized in plants or bacteria. In his view, plants and bacteria respond to the here-and-now in a hardwired, inflexible manner, and are therefore incapable of cognitive activity. This article takes issue with the pursuit of plant cognition from the perspective of an empirically informed philosophy of plant neurobiology. As we argue, empirical evidence shows, contra Adams, that plant behavior is in many ways analogous to animal behavior. This renders (...) plants suitable to be described as cognitive agents in a non-metaphorical way. Sections two to four review the arguments offered by Adams in light of scientific evidence on plant adaptive behavior, decision-making, anticipation, as well as learning and memory. Section five introduces the ‘phyto-nervous’ system of plants. To conclude, section six resituates the quest for plant cognition into a broader approach in cognitive science, as represented by enactive and ecological schools of thought. Overall, we aim to motivate the idea that plants may be considered genuine cognitive agents. Our hope is to help propel public awareness and discussion of plant intelligence once appropriately stripped of anthropocentric preconceptions of the sort that Adams' position appears to exemplify. (shrink)

Similarity-based cognition is commonplace. It occurs whenever an agent or system exploits the similarities that hold between two or more items—e.g., events, processes, objects, and so on—in order to perform some cognitive task. This kind of cognition is of special interest to cognitive neuroscientists. This paper explicates how similarity-based cognition can be understood through the lens of radical enactivism and why doing so has advantages over its representationalist rival, which posits the existence of structural representations or S-representations. Specifically, it is (...) argued that there are problems both with accounting for the content of S-representations and with understanding how neurally-based structural similarities can work as representations in guiding intelligent behavior. Finally, with these clarifications in place, it is revealed how radical enactivism can commit to an account of similarity-based cognition in its understanding of neurodynamics. (shrink)

Similarity-based cognition is commonplace. It occurs whenever an agent or system exploits the similarities that hold between two or more items—e.g., events, processes, objects, and so on—in order to perform some cognitive task. This kind of cognition is of special interest to cognitive neuroscientists. This paper explicates how similarity-based cognition can be understood through the lens of radical enactivism and why doing so has advantages over its representationalist rival, which posits the existence of structural representations or S-representations. Specifically, it is (...) argued that there are problems both with accounting for the content of S-representations and with understanding how neurally-based structural similarities can work as representations in guiding intelligent behavior. Finally, with these clarifications in place, it is revealed how radical enactivism can commit to an account of similarity-based cognition in its understanding of neurodynamics. (shrink)

Similarity-based cognition is commonplace. It occurs whenever an agent or system exploits the similarities that hold between two or more items—e.g., events, processes, objects, and so on—in order to perform some cognitive task. This kind of cognition is of special interest to cognitive neuroscientists. This paper explicates how similarity-based cognition can be understood through the lens of radical enactivism and why doing so has advantages over its representationalist rival, which posits the existence of structural representations or S-representations. Specifically, it is (...) argued that there are problems both with accounting for the content of S-representations and with understanding how neurally-based structural similarities can work as representations in guiding intelligent behavior. Finally, with these clarifications in place, it is revealed how radical enactivism can commit to an account of similarity-based cognition in its understanding of neurodynamics. (shrink)