It is commonly thought that that the best system account of lawhood ((Mill (1843), Ramsey (1978)[fp. 1928], Lewis (1973)) makes available a nice explanation for why laws are ‘distinctively appropriate targets of scientific inquiry’ (Hall, 2015). The explanation takes the following general form: laws are especially valuable for agents like us because they efficiently encode a lot of valuable (non-nomic) information in a tractable format. The goal of this paper is to challenge this style of explanation: I argue that the (...) general principle it presupposes is in conflict with our best account of practical rationality. After considering and rejecting a number of proposals for dissolving the tension, I conclude that BSA proponents may need to scale back the explanatory ambitions of their theory; in particular, they may need to give up the hope of non-circular explanations of the value of nomic information. I end by outlining some challenges for the humean world-view that results after this shift. (shrink)

We describe the informed consent procedures in a research clinic in Santiago, Chile, and a qualitative study that evaluated these procedures. The recruitment process involves information, counseling and screening of volunteers, and three or four visits to the clinic. The study explored the decision‐making process of women participating in contraceptive trials through 36 interviews. Women understood the research as experimentation or progress. The decision to participate was facilitated by the information provided; time to consider it and to discuss it with (...) partners or relatives; and perceived benefits such as quality of care, non‐cost provision of methods and medical care. For some women, participation was an opportunity to express altruism. The main obstacles for participation were perceived side effects or risks. The final risk‐benefit balance was strongly influenced by women’s needs. Women perceived that the consent form benefited the clinic, proving that participants had made a free decision, and benefited the volunteers by warranting their right to free medical care. The most important problem detected was occasional misunderstanding of the information given on the form. We concluded that a full decision‐making process enhances women’s ability to exercise their right to choose, and assures research institutions that trials are conducted without coercion and that the participants are committed to the study. Researchers have the responsibility of conducting this process. (shrink)

Let ‘semantic relevance’ be the thesis that the wide semantic properties of representational mental states (like beliefs and desires) are causally relevant to behavior. A popular way of arguing for semantic relevance runs as follows: start with a sufficient counterfactual condition for causal or explanatory relevance, and show that wide semantic properties meet it with respect to behavior (e.g., Loewer & Lepore (1987,1989), Rescorla (2014), Yablo (2003)).This paper discusses an in‐principle limitation of this strategy: even the most sophisticated counterfactual criteria (...) systematically misclassify irrelevant properties as relevant when they stand in certain kinds of modal co‐variation or ‘entanglement’ relations to genuinely relevant properties. This entanglement problem, I argue, is more general and more serious than proponents of the counterfactual strategy have recognized: it threatens recent interventionist arguments for semantic relevance, and is not easily solved by appeal to proportionality or naturalness. I end by suggesting that proponents of semantic relevance may need to shift their attention from patterns of counterfactuals to the lawful psychological generalizations that explain them. (shrink)

Dos místicos relativamente contemporáneos: Etty Hillesum y Benjamín González Buelta; dos estilos, dos contextos y una coincidencia establecida desde sus experiencias espirituales, en profunda conexión con la realidad, en medio de la vida y sus desafíos. Hillesum no habla propiamente de la experiencia mística, sin embargo, su proceso personal existencial en el duro contexto de guerra que le tocó vivir, la condujo a descubrirse profundamente habitada. Su experiencia de Dios le hizo posible comprender y gestionar el dolor en medio de (...) la guerra, así como la necesidad de ‘hacerse bálsamo sobre las heridas’ de sus hermanos judíos. Etty es una mística de ojos abiertos. Benjamín González Buelta ha profundizado en la comprensión de la mística, describiéndola y analizándola desde la experiencia de Dios en el contexto latinoamericano. Su reflexión permite hoy leer a Etty Hillesum desde la perspectiva del místico de ojos abiertos. (shrink)

This article analyses the concept of people in language, as a collective identity and as a subject of political representation in the crisis of the Hispanic monarchy from 1808 and throughout the constituent process that culminated in the promulgation of the Constitution of 1812. Based on the discursive uses of pueblo in chronicles, essays on political philosophy, press articles and parliamentary speeches, it points out the relevance of the semantics of pueblo in the political language of the time until its (...) displacement by that of nation. This semantic shift is related to the problems of constitutional engineering derived from the crisis of the privileged nobility in the context of the Napoleonic invasion. The view reinterprets the urban juntas of 1808 by stressing changes in the foundations of sovereignty, and puts into question the conventional characterisation from social history. It also traces the persistence of a rhetoric about the people in the wake of the Cadiz Constitution. Finally, the proposal claims the need to recover the category of people for the narrative of contemporary history. (shrink)

This research aims to fill a major gap in the relevant literature on small businesses in developing countries, specifically concerning the development of models to better explain economic and environmental performance as a result of environmental compliance, thus moving toward an explanation of the sustainable behavior of these businesses. Data from 186 pottery craft businesses located in three Mexican states (Oaxaca, Puebla and Tlaxcala) reveal that environmental compliance significantly influences economic and environmental performance, with the mediating role of environmental innovation, (...) confirming the Porter hypothesis in the context of small businesses in an emerging economy. Environmental compliance is an important factor in improving the economic and environmental performance of small businesses in emerging economies. (shrink)

A partir de la duplicidad del aparecer, principio básico de la fenomenología radical elaborada por Michel Henry en continuidad y ruptura con el proyecto husserliano, se pueden plantear ciertas notas para una antropología filosófica. Esta fenomenología propone la vida como fenómeno originario y, al definirla como autoafección, postula la necesidad de reconocer en ella, por principio, la presencia de una ipseidad, de modo que no hay vida sin viviente ni viviente sin vida. Determinar cuáles sean las notas que definen la (...) condición de dicho viviente sería la tarea de la antropología fenomenológica correspondiente. En atención a la enunciada duplicidad, dicho viviente —que es el hombre— ha de ser comprendido como pasividad radical respecto de la vida y como actividad constituyente respecto del mundo. (shrink)

En este artículo pretendemos definir el concepto mismo de «biopolítica» en su originaria significación foucaultiana. Para ello, pondremos en relación diferentes aspectos de la obra de Michel Foucault, con el fin de aclarar ciertos elementos no exentos de dificultad interpretativa. A continuación, trazaremos un breve recorrido histórico a través de las distintas formas de «biopolítica» que han ido sucediéndose a lo largo de los últimos doscientos años, a fin de justificar nuestra visión discontinuista de la historia, y deslegitimar así la (...) conocida como «hipótesis de la sofistificación progresiva» de las tecnologías de poder. (shrink)

This article explains the History (past reality), the Historiology (the theories and methods to study the past), and the Historiography (the academic literature) about Cross-Cultural Studies in the U.S.A., from traditional and native subjects (i.e. American Studies), until the current version. It pays attention to religion, as a relevant factor in the evolution of U.S. culture and its model of social relations. En este artículo se explica la Historia (la realidad pasada), la Historiología (las teorías y métodos con los que (...) se estudia dicho pasado), y la Historiografía (la literatura académica al respecto) de los estudios interculturales en los EE.UU., desde las primeras disciplinas tradicionales y nativistas (e.g. Estudios Estadounidenses), hasta los actuales estudios interculturales. Se presta especial atención al factor religioso, pues ha sido muy influyente en el devenir de la cultura estadounidense y en sus relaciones sociales. (shrink)

The Communicational Theory of Law (CTL) usually differentiates between Legal Sociology and Legal Theory, in the sense that Legal Sociology is concerned with the social validity of the rules and Legal Theory with the formal or legal validity of the rules. It can be argued that both disciplines are two different perspectives of the same empirical reality (legal rules). Also, legal System and social milieu are two closely linked realities; they cannot be separated because they need each other. The Law (...) is the form or order that the social milieu takes, and, at the same time, the social environment provides the ideas, collective representations and other matters that need a legal regulation. For this reason, the epistemological separation between Sociology and Legal Theory must be overcome when the theoretical perspective comes to legal decisions. Thus, the decisional moment becomes the meeting point between the legal System and the social milieu. This is where the concept of the legal System fulfils its main function, as it allows for the dynamism and adaptability of the legal order. The hermeneutic re-elaboration of the normative texts will be the channel through which the social facts and other material elements can inform the meaning or possible interpretations of the rules and institutions of the legal order. This happens primarily by influencing theoretical and doctrinal works of an expository and didactic nature; and secondarily by influencing the decisions of legal operators and courts. This study seeks to explain how the social context influences legal decisions and the formation of the legal System, from a communicational perspective of Law. In order to do so, it will be necessary to set out two epistemological premises of CTL: the semiotic tripartition of the Theory of Law and the legal Order-legal System distinction. (shrink)

_First in-depth analysis of this important Mexican philosopher’s work._.

At the beginning of the decade 1770-1779, Kant developed a critique of taste that, even if it needs to be understood pre-critically, influenced the way in which Kant presented his arguments in the trascendental deduction of the judgment of taste, in 1790’s Critique of Judgment. Several important features of this final argument can be traced back to Kant’s early writings. Amongst them, the following ones might be mentioned : the rejection of the prescriptive role of taste principles, or the feeling (...) of beauty, understood as the subjective effect on the mind of a legislation resting on a priori principles. The aim of this paper is to offer a reading of Kant’s first aesthetic project, based on the Dissertatio, and to shed some light on the trascendental meaning of the critique of taste in the Critique of Judgment, offering a comparative analysis between the Critique of Judgment and the first aesthetic project. (shrink)

In a journal entry from 1906, Husserl complains of lacking “internal stability” and of his desire to “achieve” it. My claim in this paper is that the “phenomenological method,” which he made public in his 1907 lectures Die Idee der Phänomenologie was, and is, a means to achieve the inner harmony that Husserl longed for. I do not provide an analysis of why Husserl might have felt the way he did; my aim is to show what internal stability might be (...) and how one might achieve it. I conclude that the phenomenological method is the means, the “how,” to internal stability, which I characterize as “clarity” and “harmony” regarding our beliefs and, and ultimately, our authentic comportment. (shrink)

In this paper I review the different opinions held by scientists and philosophers as regards the status of the action-at-a-distance concept within relativistic physics. It is shown that in spite of the fact that the prevailing opinion has been that special relativity precludes actions at a distance, some important physicists have continued employing that concept throughout the present century. The key to understand that “anomalous” behaviour lies, in fact, in the relationships existent between quantum and classical physics (“inverse” principle of (...) correspondence). (shrink)

En este trabajo se define formamente el concepto de representacion en química utilizando homomorfismos desde estructuras algebraicas, que llamamos sistemas de tipo C, en otras estructuras especiales de símbolos muy relacionados con los que son habituales en la qímica experimental. Para la definicion de los sistemas de tipo C se ha seleccionado un conjunto minimo de relaciones y funciones, que son necesarias para expresar proposiciones significativas en química. Tambien se define un lenguaje formal de primer orden adecuado a los sistemas (...) de tipo C, que llamamos L. EI resultado principal que se demuestra es que toda representación que verifica las mismas sentencias de L que un sistema de tipo C, es necesariamente isomorfo a él. Se concluye por lo tanto que puede existir un problema linguístico subyacente en la aplicacion que de la mecaníca cuántica se hace en la química teórica.The concept of representation in chemistry bas been formallv defined by means of homomorphisms from algebraical structures, which we call type-C systems, to some special sets of symbols which can be related to the symbols ordinarily used in experimental chemistry. A minimum number of relations and functions, which would suffice to express significant propositions in chemistry, have been chosen to define type-C systems. A first order formal language L adequate to type-C systems has been defined. It has been shown that each representation that verifies the same sentences of L as a type-C system is necessarily isomorphic to it. It is concluded that a systematic study of the representation problem in chemistry is in order because a deep language problem underlies the application of quantum mechanies to chemical problems. (shrink)

Both as regards their compass (non-other-addressed speech and non-informative communication are in effect ignored) and their scarcely empirical nature, there is reason to be dissatisfied with recent developments in Pragmatics. How to find a sounder basis for pragmatic investigation? If a psychological (in this sense: centered on underlying mental processes) appproach is adopted in Pragmatics investigation, a strategic detour through mental processes leading to other kinds of activities is likely to prove methodologically sound and heuristically fruitful. For it allows outlining (...) an abstract model of (mental processes) inception of any kind of activity, keeping so at bay theoretical bias from the particular pragmatic standpoint that the theorist may happen to favor. And filling in the model with the specific features of language use shows promise to provide more specific models of the psychological processes underlying performance of linguistic activities. (shrink)

En este artículo se utiliza el mito y la figura de Anfitrión para analizar el juego situacional entre los roles antitéticos, pero también complementarios, del anfitrión y el invitado, así como la dialéctica entre lo privado y lo público. Por último, el mito da pie para analizar el complejo papel de la deuda moral en dicha interactuaciónDon, público, privado, deuda moral, anfitrión, invitado.

El filósofo canadiense Charles Taylor ha puesto de manifiesto la suprema importancia del entramado de creencias y valores que rodea a los sujetos individuales tanto en el ámbito antropológico, moral o lingüístico como en un terreno más estrictamente ético o político. Sin embargo, el dominio del trasfondo o de la comunidad no provoca en su planteamiento la anulación de la subjetividad, la supresión de los principales valores procedentes de la Modernidad o el rechazo de la tradición liberal.

Early in animal development, gradients of secreted morphogenic molecules, such as Sonic hedgehog (Shh), Wnt and TGFβ/Bmp family members, regulate cell proliferation and determine the fate and phenotype of the target cells by activating well‐characterized signalling pathways, which ultimately control gene transcription. Shh, Wnt and TGFβ/Bmp signalling also play an important and evolutionary conserved role in neural circuit assembly. They regulate neuronal polarization, axon and dendrite development and synaptogenesis, processes that require rapid and local changes in cytoskeletal organization and plasma (...) membrane components. A key question then is whether morphogen signalling at the growth cone uses similar mechanisms and intracellular pathway components to those described for morphogen‐mediated cell specification. This review discusses recent advances towards the understanding of this problem, showing how Shh, Wnt and TGFβ/Bmp have adapted their ‘classical’ signalling pathways or adopted alternative and novel molecular mechanisms to influence different aspects of neuronal circuit formation. (shrink)

The paper offers an interpretation of the role the concept of nationality plays in John Stuart Mill’s thought. To that purpose, I consider not only his best-known writings, but also those less frequently studied in the academic literature on that issue. The argument benefits from Quentin Skinner’s methodological insights into the study of the history of political thought. In that sense, I focus on Mill’s System of Logic textual revisions. In doing so, I briefly examine Mill’s intellectual and personal relationship (...) with Auguste Comte and hence the influence of positivism on Mill’s social and political thinking. (shrink)

En la coyuntura histórica, turbulenta y apasionante a la vez del Humanismo Renacentista, caracterizada por la vuelta a la Antigüedad clásica y por la renovación de principios en todas las manifestaciones culturales, resultan afectadas, desde sus mismos cimientos, la filosofía y la religión. Esta crisis escolástica incide de tal manera en la conciencia de los individuos y de los pueblos, que exige sin demora una solución, aun cuando sea provisional, que haga posible a los hombres el simple fenómeno de seguir (...) viviendo como tales. Nada tiene, pues, de extraño que entre las ruinas de la Moral tomista surjan impulsos moralizadores, como el de Justus Lipsius (1547-1606), queriendo renovar las doctrinas estoicas de Epicteto (ca. 50 a. de C.-125/138) y Séneca (ca. 4-65) y el de Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655), empeñado en cristianizar a Epicuro. Para algunos, a esto se reduce, más o menos, la Etica del Renacimiento. Otros opinan que la primera Ética de la filosofía moderna hay que buscarla entre los grandes filósofos, que sin pertenecer cronológicamente al Renacimiento, son consecuencia madura de él. Se refieren a Descartes (1596-1650), Spinoza (1632-1677) y Kant (1724-1804). Pero en opinión de significativos autores, no hay que remontarse hasta Kant para hallar la auténtica Ética del Renacimiento. Juan Luis Vives publicaba en 1524 un pequeño librito titulado Introductio ad Sapientiam [Introducción a la Sabiduría], que por su estructura ideológica interna y por su ascendencia senequista y cristiana ocupa un lugar preferente entre las Éticas modernas, y por su contenido y cronología puede ser considerada como la Ética del Renacimiento, al menos del Renacimiento español. (shrink)

This paper exammes the construction and de-construction of the "illegal" immigrant in media spectacle and public discourse. I examme the manner in which hnmigrants are rendered "illegal" and then processed through a mechanism of dehumanization where they are simultaneously located in and outside the space of law. In this process, the "illegal" immigrant is stripped of rights, humanity, and intention. The "illegal" immigrant, seen merely as a body or text, becomes a thing—more precisely, a type of equipment, that as equipment, (...) as Martin Heidegger observed, eventually becomes "obtrusive" and thus a target of nativist violence. (shrink)