Objective: Loneliness is the subjective distress of feeling alone and has a strong impact on wellbeing and health. In addition to well-known predictors like isolation and poor health, a better understanding of the psychological determinants of loneliness would offer effective targets for future complementary interventions.Methods: In this cross-sectional observational study, we compared the explanatory power of several important risk factors of loneliness with the affective, motivational, and cognitive aspects of the Meaning in Life construct. Different nested linear models were compared (...) including socio-demographic, lifestyles, social-connectedness, and self-rated health variables, to assess the overlapping and non-overlapping explanatory power of each of them.Results: Health status and MiL were found to be the most important predictors of loneliness, followed by social connectedness and, with a much lower weight, lifestyles, and socio-demographic factors. Within the MiL factor, the most cognitive component, sense of coherence, had a greater explanatory power than the more affective and motivational ones.Conclusion: Reduced MiL, the capacity of an individual to attach “value and significance” to life, is a crucial predictor to the feeling of loneliness. These results suggest that programs aiming to combat loneliness should go well beyond situational interventions and include more cognitive, value-centered interventions that enable individuals to define and pursue a meaningful vital plan. (shrink)

Background Prison creates philosophical needs due to the exceptionality of the situation. This study explores how philosophy can meet these needs by focusing on three aspects: critical thinking, personal relationships and the government of passions. It builds on similar interventions in several countries and is proposed as a research that bypasses some limitations of previous projects in prisons.Method Following the participation of 81 inmates in 22 philosophical sessions over six months, the results of both interventions were analyzed using mixed methods, (...) as well as a pretest posttest design with a control group. Specifically, Webster’s Self Assessed Wisdom Scale, a questionnaire and an interview with four participants were used. These methods were triangulated in order to obtain data from the various methodologies and to improve the validity and reliability of the results.Results It was demonstrated that the experimental group showed significant progress in relation to the categories “openness”, “humor” and “emotion regulation”. Participants also showed a progression in categories related to the project’s goals. These results allow for a description of the categories that explain in what sense philosophy can act in the context of imprisonment.Conclusions This study demonstrates, on the one hand, how philosophy workshops involve outcomes linked to cognitive, affective and relational aspects. Furthermore, it provides evidence to confirm previous studies and interventions that are more modest in their results and use less rigorous scientific methodologies. (shrink)

The figure of the “double” or the other self is an important topic in the history of literature. Many centuries before Jean Paul Richter coined the term, “doppelgänger,” at the beginning of the Romantic Movement in the year 1796, it is possible to find the figure of the double in myths and legends. The issue of the double emphaszses the contradictory character of the human being and invokes a sinister dimension of the psychological world, what has been called in German (...) as “umheimlich.” However, does multiciplicity always involve pathology? Related to this figure in literary history, a new perspective from clinical psychology called “dialogical self” defines the self as a multi-voice reality. Along the same line, postmodernist psychology considers the self a discursive construction. From these perspectives, the “self” is situated a long way away from the classical essential conception of the self. In this paper, we review briefly some important landmarks of the figure of the double in the literature, and we compare the coincidences of the “double” experiencies described in literature with the experiences of our patients. Finally, we discuss how this literary tradition can help us to understand new psychological perspectives. (shrink)

This paper argues for a dilemma: you can accept liberalism or immigration restrictions, but not both. More specifically, the standard arguments for restricting freedom of movement apply equally to textbook liberal freedoms, such as freedom of speech, religion, occupation and reproductive choice. We begin with a sketch of liberalism’s core principles and an argument for why freedom of movement is plausibly on a par with other liberal freedoms. Next we argue that, if a state’s right to self-determination grounds a prima (...) facie right to restrict immigration, then it also grounds a prima facie right to restrict freedom of speech, religion, sexual choice and more. We then suggest that the social costs associated with freedom of immigration are also costs associated with occupational choice, speech and reproduction. Thus, a state’s interest in reducing these costs gives it prima facie justification to restrict not only immigration but also other core liberal freedoms. Moreover, we rebut the objection that, even if the standard arguments for a prima facie right to restrict immigration also support a prima facie right to restrict liberal freedoms generally, there are differences that render immigration restrictions – but not restrictions on speech, religion, etc. – justified all things considered. In closing, we suggest that the theoretical price of supporting immigration restrictions – viz., compromising a commitment to liberal principles – is too steep to pay. (shrink)

The fact that the permeability between family and work scopes produces work-family conflict (WFC) is well established. As such, this research aims to check whether the unequal involvement in household chores between men and women is associated with increased WFC in women and men, interpreting the results also from the knowledge that arise from gender studies. A correlational study was carried out by means a questionnaire applied to 515 subjects (63% men) of two independent samples of Spanish men and women (...) without emotional relationship, who lived with their heterosexual partner. As expected, results firstly show unequal involvement in household chores by women and men as it is higher in women that in men, and the perception of partner involvement is lower in women that in men. Secondly, those unequal involvements relate differently to men and women on different ways of work-family interaction. They do not increase WFC in women comparing to men, although there are tangentially significant differences in work conflict (WC) and statistically significant in family conflict (FC). However, perception of partner involvement on household chores increases WFC both in men and in women but not WC nor FC. Nevertheless, increase on marital conflict (MC) by domestic tasks neither affect in a significant way WFC in women nor in men, but increase WC in both women and men and FC only in women. Results also confirm that subject involvement on household chores is not a significant predictor of WFC in women nor in men, and that MC by domestic tasks is a statistically significant predictor in women of WFC and FC, but not in men. Thus, results show that traditional gender roles still affect the way men and women manage the work and family interaction, although the increased WFC due to involvement in housework is not exclusive to women, but also occurs in men. Personal and institutional recommendations are made on the basis of these results to cope with these conflicts. (shrink)

El presente estudio trata de ser una aproximación histórica al posmodernismo en una de sus vertientes: el constructivismo, la teoría que defiende que el mundo es construcción social sin correlato objetivo alguno. A través del examen de la genealogía de este perfil, el artículo se propone mostrar que el constructivismo es deudor de diversas tradiciones de pensamiento irracionalista, subjetivista e idealista, y que por ello constituye una doctrina anti y pseudocientífica.

In this paper I will defend the incapacity of the informational frameworks in thermal physics, mainly those that historically and conceptually derive from the work of Brillouin (1962) and Jaynes (1957a), to robustly explain the approach of certain gaseous systems to their state of thermal equilibrium from the dynamics of their molecular components. I will further argue that, since their various interpretative, conceptual and technical-formal resources (e.g. epistemic interpretations of probabilities and entropy measures, identification of thermal entropy as Shannon information, (...) and so on) are shown to be somehow incoherent, inconsistent or inaccurate, these informational proposals need to 'epistemically parasitize' the manifold of theoretical resources of Boltzmann's and Gibbs' statistical mechanics, respectively, in order to properly account for the equilibration process of an ideal gas from its microscopic properties. Finally, our conclusion leads us to adopt a sort of constructive skepticism regarding the explanatory value of the main informationalist trends in statistical thermophysics. (shrink)

In recent years, democratic theorists have inquired into the aesthetic dimension of contemporary politics. Influenced by Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière, these scholars claim that there is an analogy between democratic politics and aesthetic experiences, since both involve the confrontation of an indeterminacy that cannot be overcome by means of rational argumentation. Contributing to this perspective, but challenging some of Rancière’s insights, this article shows the importance of Jean-François Lyotard’s writings on aesthetics for understanding what I call ‘democratic aesthetics’. This (...) aesthetics, I argue, consists in works of art that bring representation to its limits, thus arousing an experience of the unpresentable. Influenced by Immanuel Kant’s analysis of the sublime, Lyotard claims that avant-garde art, by disrupting the rules of representational art, put representation as such into question. This experience of the unpresentable contributes to cultivating a readiness to listening to voices that are not yet heard, because they lack a discourse by which to express themselves. Given that politics in postmodernity, following Lyotard, consists in shifting the dividing line between the sayable and the unsayable, avant-garde art is conductive to a postmodern politics – which, I argue, is analogous to democratic politics. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyze the physical content of the main information concepts in the history of physics of the last seven decades. I argue that this physical character should be evaluated not by appealing to analytical-linguistic confusion (Timpson 2013) or to the usefulness of its applicability (Lombardi et al. 2016), but properly from its capacity to allow us to acquire significant knowledge about the physical world. After systematically employing this epistemic criterion of physical significance I will conclude by rejecting (...) the main strategies of ontological inflation and physical content of the main information concepts in the classical thermal physics literature. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that the Epicurean genealogy of justice and laws presuppose an analysis of the just as a modality of the useful, an approach that denies the conventional character of justice. This genealogical pattern differentiates the origin of justice from that of the law and refers to friendship as a relevant explanatory factor of the origin of justice. We maintain that the interpretations that underline the incoherence of this reference to friendship, in the framework of a hedonistic (...) theory, presuppose a non-Epicurean sharp distinction between altruism and selfishness. (shrink)

Against the idea that market economy is something greedy and immoral, we will set out the idea that market economy based on firms has a very positive moral content: the possibility of excellence of human action. Firms based on people acting together, sharing the culture of the organization, toward virtue-based ethics, create and distribute most of the economy’s wealth, innovate, trade and raise living standards. We will present a criterion which states that social coordination improves if the process of creation (...) of individual possibilities of action, which is carried out in the social institutions—in our case, the firm—is extended. There is a retention of possibilities that is formed in the institutions and transmitted culturally. In that moment entrepreneurship emerges, the creative tension that expands, maintains, or diminishes the possibilities of action. Hence, the firm is the institution that carries out a very important practice: fostering new possibilities of individual action. In this paper, we will adopt the point of the view of the acting person. The reality we observe is personal action within its cultural and institutional dimensions. A theory of personal action in societal institutions bridges the way from virtue-based ethics toward ethics of institutions. (shrink)

Desde su juventud, Hitler experimentó el anhelo interno de convertirse en un renombrado artista, tanto en su Austria natal como en la Alemania a la que sentía pertenecer. Si bien la Escuela de Bellas Artes de Viena frustró, por dos veces, su sueño en el terreno de las artes plásticas, la política le brindó la oportunidad de hacerlo realidad; y, una vez convertido en Führer de todos los alemanes, se concibió a sí mismo como el gran artista que debía regenerar (...) y dar forma a una nueva Alemania. A través de este ensayo, trataré de presentar los principales trazos de la estética con que el nacionalsocialismo recubrió al iii Reich. Una estética que fue más allá del plano artístico, configurando toda una sociedad, un modelo político y una forma de pensamiento, a partir de su pretensión de dominio, su afán de eternidad y su deseo de hacer de la comunidad alemana una auténtica obra de arte. (shrink)

Intelligent Transportation Systems are expected to automate how parking slots are booked by trucks. The intrinsic dynamic nature of this problem, the need of explanations and the inclusion of private data justify an agent-based solution. Agents solving this problem act with a Believe Desire Intentions reasoning, and are implemented with JASON. Privacy of trucks becomes protected sharing a list of parkings ordered by preference. Furthermore, the process of assigning parking slots takes into account legal requirements on breaks and driving time (...) limits. Finally, the agent simulations use the distances, the number of trucks and parkings corresponding to the proportions of the current European Union data. The performance of the proposed solution is tested in these simulations with three different distances against an alternative with complete knowledge. The difference in efficiency, the number of illegal breaks and the traveled distances are measured in them. Comparing the results, we can conclude that the nonprivate alternative is slightly better in performance while both alternatives do not produce illegal breaks. In this way the simulations show that the proposed privacy protection does not impose a relevant handicap in efficiency. (shrink)

During the last decade, Network Science has become one of the most active fields in applied physics and mathematics, since it allows the analysis of a diversity of social, biological and technological systems [24]. From the diversity of applications of Network Science, in this Opinion paper we are concerned about its potential to analyse one of the most extended group sports, Football (soccer in U.S. terminology) [29], since it allows addressing different aspects of the team organization and performance not captured (...) by classical analyses based on the performance of individual players. The reason behind relies on the complex nature of the game, which, paraphrasing the foundational paradigm of complexity sciences “can not be analysed by looking at its components (i.e., players) individually but, on the contrary, considering the system as a whole” or, in the classical words of after-match interviews “it’s not just me, it’s the team”. The recent ability of obtaining datasets of all events occurring during a match, including the position of the players and the interactions between them has opened the door to new kind of studies where it is possible to analyse and quantify the behaviour of a team as a whole, together with the role of a single player [17]. Under this framework, the organization of a team can be considered as the result of the interaction between its players, creating a network based on passes. In this way, we can create passing networks, which are directed (i.e.,... (shrink)

The Nacional Socialist totalitarian project unleashed an unprecedented savagery in Europe, giving raise to the largest war to have taken place in our history and to a never before seen systematic genocide. In opposition to those who consider this way of savagery as something purely irrational, the truth is that Nazism’s savagery was product of a “rational” project which would have its roots in the period of the Enlightenment. The cruel and inhuman murder of millions of people was the result (...) of a perfectly planned, systematic, and rational act, supported in a bureaucracy which made easier the creation of a series of psychological barriers by perpetrators and whose traces were intended to be erased from history. From this point of view, National Socialism showed that Reason by itself does not save the world from savagery. (shrink)

The human rights system continues to evolve including new groups that are discriminated or oppressed in the world. Spain, as a Western country seemingly respectful of human rights must meet the challenge of maintaining that respect after the recent adoption of the recently approved United Nations Convention on the rights of people with disabilities (functional diversity), and modify its social policies, current laws, as well as prevent new laws that discriminate on the grounds of functional diversity, such as the recent (...) proposed law of sexual and reproductive health and abortion. (shrink)

Este ensayo presenta las posibilidades que ofrece la hermenéutica de Charles Taylor para el encuentro intercultural. Partimos, en primer lugar, de las condiciones de la comprensión planteadas por Taylor en su temprano ensayo "Interpretation and the sciences of man". Desde éstas y apoyándonos en otros textos clave del autor, reparamos en las dificultades que entraña el encuentro intercultural para la comprensión. Explicamos la propuesta de Taylor de "generar un contraste perspicaz" y de qué modo es posible avanzar en la comprensión (...) salvando el peligro deetnocentrismo, por un lado, y de relativismo (absoluto) por otro. En este sentido comparamos la propuesta de Taylor con la conocida "fusión de horizontes" de Gadamer. Terminamos el ensayo realizando unas últimas consideraciones para seguir la andadura en favor de una hermenéutica intercultural. (shrink)

RESUMEN El objetivo es analizar la hermenéutica filosófica de Hans-Georg Gadamer con vistas a considerar la posibilidad de llevar a cabo una lectura intercultural a partir de sus planteamientos. Se cuestiona la lectura intercultural que de la hermenéutica de Gadamer lleva a cabo Ram Adhar Mall. Con Gadamer, pero más allá de él, se detectan las posibilidades y limitaciones de su concepto humanista de cultura y se ensaya un modo de autosuperación hermenéutica de la cultura en la interculturalidad. ABSTRACT The (...) objective of the article is to analyze the philosophical hermeneutics of HansGeorg Gadamer in order to explore the possibility of an intercultural reading based on his proposals. It questions the intercultural reading of Gadamer’s hermeneutics carried out by Ram Adhar Mall. With Gadamer but going beyond him, the paper identifies the possibilities and limitations of his humanist concept of culture and attempts a form of hermeneutical overcoming of culture in interculturalism. (shrink)

This paper proposes that Hannah Arendt’s book _Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil_ furnishes both philosophical and empirical elements to understand not only the Nazi crimes but also cases of wrongdoing by and within current organizations. It is suggested that Arendt provides three relevant standpoints to how wrongdoing is _banalized_ within organizations: a critique of bureaucratic administration, an account of the role of interactive socialization, and a reflection on the cognitive and meaning-attribution processes. Arendt originally connected (...) these three dimensions to _thoughtlessness_, understood as a process of routinization in which organizations discourage critical thinking, personal responsibility, and reflection about the ultimate meaning and consequences of actions and decisions. As opposed to this, thoughtfulness is proposed as an approach based on meaningful pursuit within organizations to avoid some of the normative, cognitive, and routine elements that encourage, justify, and reproduce the banalization of misconduct. (shrink)

This article discusses one of the most controversial topics on the creation of Rabbinic Jewish Liturgy—the origin of the Amidah, the main prayer in the Jewish religious public service, after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 E. C. To this end, the formal and literary structure of the Amidah is analyzed followed by a critical discussion on its origin that contributes to the scholarly debate on the topic. An annotated Spanish translation of this first-century prayer is rendered as (...) an Appendix. (shrink)

De Monarchia representa una de las obras de Dante que más influjo político ha ejercido. Probablemente movido a escribirla, hacia 1313. Con ella, Dante quiere contribuir a erradicar la anarquía imperante de su época, en Italia y, concretamente, en su ciudad florentina. Sueña con un orden social que establezca la paz universal. El tono de la obra, netamente gibelino, muestra a un Dante que ha evolucionado intelectualmente. Dante se muestra aquí como un intelectual a caballo entre la escolástica y el (...) florecimiento de un estilo nuevo. Hay en él toda una serie de giros, expresiones, alegorías, imágenes y simbolismos claramente medievales, pero también un conjunto de ideas que, contra corriente, contribuyeron a cambiar el modo de interpretar el mundo. Su De Monarchia ha de considerarse una obra innovadora porque, aunque el texto ciertamente recogió tradiciones legales, jurídicas, políticas y teológicas precedentes, su mayor mérito radicó en la elaboración de una densa, brillante y novedosa teoría, según la cual, el emperador no sólo debía su poder a la elección directa de Dios —con lo que su investidura no devenía un mero oficio de la Iglesia— sino que, además, la institución imperial resultaba superior a la pontificia. Por tanto, hay que plantearse si «De Monarqchia» es una obra que precederá algunas de las principales tesis que posteriormente defenderá la Reforma protestante en cuestiones políticas. (shrink)

Esta breve exposición del pensamiento de Lévinas presentará el esquema de las ideas nucleares para que el lector tenga una idea del potencial del pensamiento de Lévinas para la realidad económica. Lévinas señala el camino para superar los reduccionismos económicos: integrar la libertad humana dentro del Ser, dentro de su relación con el Otro. Para desarrollar una teoría económica que aspire a ser parte de una filosofía política completa que integre la paz, la libertad y la justicia como integrantes del (...) Bien Común con la aspiración de la persona al Bien, la Verdad y la Virtud. La economía como proceso de innovación y creación es una ampliación de satisfacción de necesidades y una ampliación de posibilidades de acción. Hay una retención de posibilidades que se plasman en las instituciones y se transmiten culturalmente. Estas posibilidades de acción ya institucionalizadas se transmiten a las personas para que realicen sus proyectos. (shrink)

Al explorar la contraposición y/o complementación de convicciones y responsabilidades, el autor parte del enfoque de Weber y su polémica interna con la ética de Kant. Así, la Gesinnungsethik es entendida de forma unitaria como una ética de las intenciones que plantear1 problema de las consecuencias, como una ética de los fines que conduce a la cuestión de los medios y a la de los valores, y como una ética de las convicciones que abre el interrogante de los principios e (...) imperativos. Desde el punto de vista de la ética del siglo xxi, entendida como la teoría de la razón práctica, el articulo desarrolla tres perspectivas diferentes: las de su relación con la política, con la tecnociencia y con la ontología, y sus respectivas racionalidades y razonabilidades. (shrink)

From the Kantian idea of “Kingdom of Ends,” we enter in this work in critical discussion with some possible developments of this idea in contemporary ethics and political philosophy, mainly that of Jürgen Habermas, to finally arrive at an own original proposal inspired by the also Kantian idea of “discordant harmony”.