: This response to Nikolaus Knoepffler's paper in the same issue of the Journal agrees that if the arguments supporting the first two of the eight human embryonic stem cell research policy options discussed are unsound, as Knoepffler argues, then it seems natural to move to the increasingly permissive options. If the arguments are sound, however, then the more permissive options should be rejected. It is argued that three of the rejected arguments, taken together, constitute very good reasons to hold (...) that a human embryo is endowed with dignity from fertilization onward. Thus, countries that want their public policies to match the moral imperative of respect for human beings should refrain from allowing destructive human embryo research and should devote considerable energy and public funds to research and clinical trials using non-embryonic ("adult") stem cells. (shrink)

Respect for human embryos is often defended on the basis of the potentiality argument: embryos deserve respect because they already possess potentially the features that in adults are fully actualized. Opponents of this argument challenge it by claiming that if embryos should be respected because they are potentially adults, then gametes should be respected because they are potentially embryos. This article rejects this reductio ad absurdum argument by showing that there are two different types of potentiality involved so that the (...) transitivity of potentiality does not hold up in this case. Respect for embryos does not logically entail respect for gametes. (shrink)

In this provocative new work, Alfonso Gomez-Lobo proposes that the earliest Platonic writings, in particular Apology, Crito, and sections of Gorgias, contain an underlying moral philosophy that can be attributed to Socrates with some degree of assurance. His aim is to show that Socratic moral philosophy is a reasonably systematic construction generated by a small number of principles or axioms.

The aim of this paper is focused on presenting the method of historical analysis built by Michel Foucault in his book Histoire de la Folie à l’Âge Classique as a “History of the Other”. Such term appears for the first time at Les Mots et les Choses’s Preface, in which Foucault analyses his method in the quoted book on madness (but also in La Naissance de la Clinique). In this sense, firstly we have to verify the hypothesis of this relation (...) between Foucault’s archeological method as a Thought of the Otherness, precisely concerning to that “Other History” proposed by the philosopher. Secondly, we need to analyse specifically Histoire de la Folie as a privileged work, as far as the approach on the relation with the other is concerned. KEY WORDS – Archeology of knowledge. History. Alterity. Madness. (shrink)

In order to understand the nature of human embryos I first distinguish between active and passive potentiality, and then argue that the former is found in human gametes and embryos (even in embryos in vitro that may fail to be implanted) because they all have an indwelling power or capacity to initiate certain changes. Implantation provides necessary conditions for the actualization of that prior, active potentiality. This does not imply that embryos are potential persons that do not deserve the same (...) respect as actual persons. To claim that embryos become persons is to understand the predicate person as a phase sortal, roughly equivalent to adult person. This entails that we would not be essentially persons. In order to explain the traditional understanding of person as a proper sortal rather than a phase sortal, the author distinguishes between proximate and remote potentiality, and shows that, unlike feline embryos, human embryos, by their genetic constitution, possess the remote potentiality to later exercise the typically human activities. It follows that they are already persons essentially. (shrink)

El artículo relaciona el nuevo orden narrativo con la técnica del “storytelling” y cómo se manifiestan en el periodismo actual. Se estudian los casos de tres periodistas: David Simon, Stieg Larsson y Ryzard Kapuscinski y cómo su obra muestra la difusa línea de los hechos, la recreación, la invención, la fábula, la historia, la apariencia y la verdad. Se contrastan estos casos con las aportaciones del paradigma narrativo de Fisher. Nos preguntamos también cómo se crean narraciones en Internet a partir (...) de los periodistas estudiados. El ámbito de la verdad periodística se entremezcla con una apariencia de verdad mientras la ficción que aparenta realidad se convierte en acercamiento a ésta. La aproxi-mación a este fenómeno, que se inicia a finales del siglo XX y se consolida en la primera década del siglo XXI, se lleva a cabo desde las aportaciones de la Teoría de la Comunicación. (shrink)

Frente a los riesgos del monopolio de significados sobre la vida en común, la sociedad civil puede actuar como fuente de reconocimiento y desarrollo de identidades, pero afirmarlo requiere que previamente se establezcan nuevos puntos de partida para el análisis sobre su significado. Apoyados en esta premisa, proponemos un cuestionamiento a la apropiación teórica y práctica que desde la dimensión política se ha hecho y establecemos la redefinición de lo cívico como el sustento para un tipo de pluralismo basado en (...) la capacidad para expresar y conocer por medio de la razón. (shrink)

Self-interest theories hold that rationality requires one always to choose what is best for oneself. Where these theories differ is in their accounts of what is best for one. Hedonism is a typical self-interest theory, distinguished from other versions by the claim that what is best for one is what gives one the greatest net balance of pleasure over pain. Gómez-Lobo thinks that Socrates is a self-interest theorist: Socrates believes that “a choice is rational if and only if it (...) is a choice of what is best for the agent”. Gómez-Lobo also thinks that Socrates holds that “something is good for an agent if and only if it is morally right” ; this distinguishes his theory from hedonism and other self-interest theories. Finally, Gómez-Lobo thinks that Plato defends Socrates’ in arguing at Gorgias 506c5-507a3 that “a being is good if and only if it has the order proper to it”: follows from and other Socratic principles. These three claims constitute the “foundations” of Socratic ethics mentioned in Gómez-Lobo’s title. (shrink)

This article is a response to Frank Hindriks’ “Restructuring Searle’s Making the Social World.”.

I would like to challenge this view on various grounds, but before I do so, I wish to provide a broader setting for the problems discussed in this paper.

The aim of the paper is to clarify what is properly common to the common good and to support its irreducibility as a guarantee of overcoming an atomistic conception of civil society. We begin by addressing the notion of individual freedom and the questioning of the selfish condition of the human being. Then, we delve into the normative possibilities offered by an ethical interpretation of the common good. The difference of the common good from other notions used in late-modern discourses (...) is key in determining the intrinsic commonality of social relations. In concluding, we argue for a conception of the common good that accommodates individual freedom, understanding it no longer in isolation, but as part of intersubjectivity. (shrink)

This article discusses John Searle’s status function account of human rights and Åsa Burman’s “A Critique of the Status Function Account of Human Rights.” While recognizing the validity of part of the critique, based on the distinction between types and tokens, the author argues that, nonetheless, one is not compelled to accept Burman’s conclusion, that “one must give up the status function account of human rights to explain how a human right can exist without collective recognition”. Specifically, the author accepts (...) Burman’s critique of Searle’s attempt to preserve the intuition that human rights have existed without collective recognition, but concludes offering three ways to understand human rights even in the absence of collective recognition, all of which preserve the status function account. (shrink)

The relation between aisthesis and interiority manifests in Wittgenstein’s account of the subject and his private language argument. But it is also an overlooked leitmotif in Dostoevsky’s novels—one of Wittgenstein’s favorite authors, and in W.G. Sebald’s work—who was inspired by Wittgenstein’s philosophy. This book reflects on the role literature can play in answering the philosophical question of an adequate presentation of intention and pain.

This book investigates Hermann Weyl’s work on the problem of space from the early 1920s onwards. It presents new material and opens the philosophical problem of space anew, crossing the disciplines of mathematics, history of science and philosophy. With a Kantian starting point Weyl asks: among all the infinitely many conceivable metrical spaces, which one applies to the physical world? In agreement with general relativity, Weyl acknowledges that the metric can quantitatively vary with the physical situation. Despite this freedom, Weyl (...) “deduces”, with group-theoretical technicalities, that there is only one “kind” of legitimate metric. This construction was then decisive for the development of gauge theories. Nevertheless, the question of the foundations of the metric of physical theories is only a piece of a wider epistemological problem. Contributing authors mark out the double trajectory that goes through Weyl’s texts, from natural science to philosophy and conversely, always through the mediation of mathematics. Readers may trace the philosophical tradition to which Weyl refers and by which he is inspired, and explore the mathematical tradition that permitted Weyl to elaborate and solve his mathematical problem of space. Furthermore, this volume analyzes the role of the interlocutors with whom Weyl discussed the nature of physical space. This volume features the work of top specialists and will appeal to postgraduates and scholars in philosophy, the history of science, mathematics, or physics. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This work presents efficient algorithms to update knowledge bases in the presence of integrity constraints. The algorithms ensure that the changes to the knowledge bases are minimal. We use the deductive database paradigm to represent knowledge. Minimality is defined as a natural partial order over possible models of the database and expresses a preference for data explicity stored in the database over the data deduced by default. This requirement seems rational for many applications and yet it is hard to (...) be expressed with a set of integrity constraints. We handle safe negation and local variables in the bodies of the rules. We tackle the issue of modifying the active domain (i.e. adding new constants or removing some of the constants which are present in the knowledge base), and we demonstrate how interaction with the user can be used to handle recursive definitions. (shrink)

Resumen El artículo analiza los rituales conmemorativos de los asesinatos de dos miembros del Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados (MTD), Maximiliano Kosteki y Darío Santillán, ocurridos el 26 de junio de 2002. Específicamente, se examinan los cortes del Puente Pueyrredón -que une a la ciudad de Avellaneda, localizada en el conurbano bonaerense, con la Capital Federal- el 26 de cada mes, entre 2002-2008, en los que se desenvuelven los rituales conmemorativos de dichos asesinatos y los modos en que en éstos se (...) actualizan y conjugan las prácticas y los lenguajes de dos narrativas claves de la cultura política nacional: la retórica revolucionaria y de los derechos humanos. (shrink)

This research study investigates Victorian consumers’ understanding, awareness and perceptions of organic food products. Analysis of the quantitative data revealed that there are three major segments of consumers, i.e., pro-organics, reluctant consumers and organic sceptics. The buying and usage pattern of these segments has been identified as also their demographic profile. The findings of this study are strategically important for small and medium size organic food producers. They would be better able to practise and implement differentiation strategies for the three (...) identified segments of customers, thus allowing their marketing teams to emphasise the beneficial attributes of organic food products. (shrink)

Il est difficile de mesurer et de fixer la portée historique de la décontruction en tant qu’événement. C’est peut-être même impossible, si le « messianique », tel que l’entend Derrida, en constitue la dimension véritable, puisqu’elle excède alors tout horizon et donc toute anticipation. Il reste qu’elle se traduit, ici et maintenant, par certaines prises de positions théoriques et politiques dont on peut et doit repérer les effets et dont il incombe à une pratique responsable de la philosophie de déchiffrer (...) les présupposés et les implications. Dans cette optique, il importe tout particulièrement de déterminer les modalités selon lesquelles la déconstruction, en tant qu’attitude et activité intellectuelle, reste endettée auprès de la critique, telle que Marx et Husserl ont prétendu la radicaliser. (shrink)