Melatonin is a hormone with complex roles in the pathogenesis of autoimmune disorders. Over the years, it has become clear that melatonin may exacerbate some autoimmune conditions, whereas it alleviates others such as multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disorder characterized by a dysregulated immune response directed against the central nervous system. Indeed, the balance between pathogenic CD4+ T cells secreting IFN‐γ (TH1) or IL‐17 (TH17); and FoxP3+ regulatory T cells and IL‐10+ type 1 regulatory T cells (Tr1 cells) (...) is thought to play an important role in disease activity. Recent evidence suggests that melatonin ameliorates multiple sclerosis by controlling the balance between effector and regulatory cells, suggesting that melatonin‐triggered signaling pathways are potential targets for therapeutic intervention. Here, we review the available data on the effects of melatonin on immune processes relevant for MS and discuss its therapeutic potential. (shrink)

El objetivo que dirige este artículo es esbozar el modo en que, desde la filosofía para niños, es pensable un ejercicio crítico de la identidad y, a partir de ello, promover una revitalización del mundo político, entendido desde el concepto arendtiano de acción. Revelar los marcos referenciales y, una vez puestos de relieve, someterlos a una crítica dialógica, comunitaria, supone la posibilidad ―quizás utópica― de proyectar desde la niñez y construir a futuro un mundo digno de ser vivido. La metodología (...) utilizada es cualitativa, de corte hermenéutico. En el primer apartado se desglosa el concepto tayloriano de identidad en su vínculo con los marcos referenciales y la idea de bien. En el segundo acápite nos concentramos en el doble concepto arendtiano de mundo, como mundo circundante y como trama política. Finalmente, y tomando como punto de partida los análisis de Lipman, se esboza el carácter político de la filosofía para niños, entendiendo aquí lo político con Hannah Arendt. (shrink)

The objectives of the present study were to adapt a grief intervention program to family caregivers of patients with dementia, and assess its effectiveness in improving the symptoms of grief and other health-related variables. The intervention was based on Shear and Bloom's grief intervention program, with the necessary adaptations for use in the grieving process for a family member's illness. A total of 52 family caregivers of individuals with dementia participated. They were evaluated using a battery of self-report measures assessing (...) grief, overload, resilience, post-traumatic growth, experiential avoidance, health-related quality of life, and benefits of care. The results suggest that the program is effective in improving grief symptoms, caregiver burden, resilience, post-traumatic growth, and quality of life of family caregivers. It is necessary to create and implement interventions targeting caregivers' feelings and manifestations of ambiguous grief, because there is a lack of programs providing an efficient solution for the mental and physical health of caregivers, and because of the human and socioeconomic cost involved in neglecting this group. (shrink)

The article develops a dialogue between the works of Marx, Husserl and Heidegger, about the problem of mathematization in its double perspective: scientific and economic. At first, we show the way in which ideation as well as real abstraction involve a forgetting of the world of life will be exposed. In a second moment, we will focus on the dissolution of the gold standard and on fictitious capital, to show the contemporary expression-in an economy obsessed with the reproduction of abstract (...) wealth-of the aforementioned oblivion. (shrink)

El presente trabajo tiene por propósito exponer —desde las consideraciones de Nancy y Kant—, el modo en que la libertad sólo puede ser pensada en su plena radicalidad, cuando es asumida desde una clave histórica. Aunque Nancy critique a Kant la identificación de Idea y Libertad, reconoce en el filósofo de Königsberg el haber visualizado un «más allá de la idea». El «más allá», de acuerdo a Nancy, es ubicado por Kant simplemente en la realidad objetiva de la idea de (...) libertad. A nuestro juicio, dicho «más allá de la idea» se incrusta y nutre de las reflexiones históricas y jurídicas kantianas. Este hecho, permite crear un terreno común para el diálogo entre la posición kantiana y la fenomenológica: libertad e historia constituyen una unidad indisoluble. (shrink)

As in other countries, medical ethics in Mexico has rescued the world of philosophical ethics from oblivion. The needs of clinical medicine gave birth to Mexican bioethics. After the growth of scientific and technologic subjects in medical schools, the humanities, such as medical history, deontology, and medical philosophy, were replaced by such core subjects as radiology, pharmacology, and microbiology. Since the 1950s, graduates from Mexican medical schools have not been exposed to any courses in the medical humanities.

Trust in vaccination is eroding, and attitudes about vaccination have become more polarized. This is an observational study of Twitter analyzing the impact that COVID-19 had on vaccine discourse. We identify the actors, the language they use, how their language changed, and what can explain this change. First, we find that authors cluster into several large, interpretable groups, and that the discourse was greatly affected by American partisan politics. Over the course of our study, both Republicans and Democrats entered the (...) vaccine conversation in large numbers, forming coalitions with Antivaxxers and public health organizations, respectively. After the pandemic was officially declared, the interactions between these groups increased. Second, we show that the moral and non-moral language used by the various communities converged in interesting and informative ways. Finally, vector autoregression analysis indicates that differential responses to public health measures are likely part of what drove this convergence. Taken together, our results suggest that polarization around vaccination discourse in the context of COVID-19 was ultimately driven by a trust-first dynamic of political engagement. (shrink)

In this chapter, we discuss a selection of current views of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). We focus on the different predictions they make, in particular with respect to the role of prefrontal cortex (PFC) during visual experiences, which is an area of critical interest and some source of contention. Our discussion of these views focuses on the level of functional anatomy, rather than at the neuronal circuitry level. We take this approach because we currently understand more about experimental (...) evidence at this coarse level and because these results are appropriate for arbitrating between current theoretical frameworks. We discuss the Two-Visual-Systems Hypothesis (Milner & Goodale 1995; 2006), Local Recurrency (Lamme 2010; Lamme 2006), Higher Order (Lau 2008; Lau & Rosenthal 2011) and Global Workspace theories (Baars 1997; Baars 2005; Dehaene & Naccache 2001; Dehaene 2014). Despite the apparent stark differences between conscious and unconscious perceptual processing, available evidence suggests that their neural substrates must be largely shared. This indicates that the difference in neural activity between conscious and unconscious perceptual processing is likely to be subtle and highly specialized. We argue that current experimental evidence about the involvement of specific activity in prefrontal cortex supports the higher order neural theory of consciousness. In consequence, imaging techniques that focus only on marked differences between conscious and unconscious level of activity are likely to be insensitive to the relevant neural activity patterns that underlie conscious experiences. Finally, it follows from the evidence we discuss that the functional advantages of conscious over unconscious perceptual processing may be more limited than commonly thought. (shrink)

Introspection is a fundamental part of our mental lives. Nevertheless, its reliability and its underlying cognitive architecture have been widely disputed. Here, I propose a principled way to model introspection. By using time-tested principles from signal detection theory (SDT) and extrapolating them from perception to introspection, I offer a new framework for an introspective signal detection theory (iSDT). In SDT, the reliability of perceptual judgments is a function of the strength of an internal perceptual response (signal- to-noise ratio) which is, (...) to a large extent, driven by the intensity of the stimulus. In parallel to perception, iSDT models the reliability of introspective judgments as a function of the strength of an internal introspective response (signal-to-noise ratio) which is, to a large extent, driven by the intensity of conscious experiences. Thus, by modelling introspection after perception, iSDT can calibrate introspection’s reliability across a whole range of contexts. iSDT offers a novel, illuminating way of thinking about introspection and the cognitive processes that support it. (shrink)

In this article, Laura Quintana elaborates on a conceptual distinction between violence and rage. Along with this distinction, she recognises that while rage may possess a destructive potential, it can also be politicised in emancipatory practices that confront conditions of injustice and structural violence. Her analysis centers on contemporary political movements in Latin America, which she views as collective manifestations of rage. Within these movements, the manifestation of rage is intertwined with forms of care and communal labor. Quintana (...) characterises such movements as embodying a “dignified rage” (digna rabia) that calls for an emancipatory transformation of the status quo. She contends that these practices can be understood in terms of the notion of “anti-violence,” as it has been coined by Étienne Balibar. In this she diverges from Judith Butler, since, according to Quintana’s analysis, such practices challenge the demand for non-violence that has often served to neutralise the disruptive force of such manifestations and movements. (shrink)

This encyclopedia entry provides an introductory examination information communication technology (ICT) as a subject of moral, social, and legal analysis. The entry begins with a survey of philosophical perspectives on human-computer interaction such as the moral agency of artifacts, mediation theory, trans or posthumanism, and extension theory. The entry then turns to survey normative and epistemic issues in ICT including the nature of socially disruptive technology, the outsourcing of human capabilities, privacy, echo chambers, epistemic bubbles, and the effect of ICTs (...) on moral virtue and attention. (shrink)

When a circular coin is rotated in depth, is there any sense in which it comes to resemble an ellipse? While this question is at the center of a rich and divided philosophical tradition (with some scholars answering affirmatively and some negatively), Morales et al. (2020, 2021) took an empirical approach, reporting 10 experiments whose results favor such perspectival similarity. Recently, Burge and Burge (2022) offered a vigorous critique of this work, objecting to its approach and conclusions on both philosophical (...) and empirical grounds. Here, we answer these objections on both fronts. We show that Burge and Burge’s critique rests on misunderstandings of Morales et al.’s claims; of the relation between the data and conclusions; and of the philosophical context in which the work appears. Specifically, Burge and Burge attribute to us a much stronger (and stranger) view than we hold, involving the introduction of “a new entity” located “in some intermediate position(s) between the distal shape and the retinal image.” We do not hold this view. Indeed, once properly understood, most of Burge and Burge’s objections favor Morales et al.’s claims rather than oppose them. Finally, we discuss several questions that remain unanswered, and reflect on a productive path forward on these issues of foundational scientific and philosophical interest. (shrink)

Epidemiological models directly shape policy responses to public health crises. We argue that they also play a less obvious but important role in solving certain coordination problems and social dilemmas that arise during pandemics. This role is both ethically and epistemically valuable. However, it also gives rise to an underappreciated dilemma, as the features that make models good at solving coordination problems are often at odds with the features that make for a good scientific model. We examine and develop this (...) dilemma in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and suggest extensions to other domains. (shrink)

As various forms of artificial intelligence become increasingly integrated into our daily lives, understanding the ethical challenges that can be met by the development of human-centered AI is vital. This paper investigates the intersection of the philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, and user experience design to explore points of interaction between humans and machines. The paper suggests that examining the context in which AI is often deployed, including social and digital environments, offers a rich vein for examining the mechanisms underlying (...) ethical issues in AI. Finally the paper identifies concerns in the ethics of technology that complement issues arising in the development of human-computer interactions and explores a notion practice that can frame design as concerned with human values. By examining these intersections, I hope to offer insights that can aid in the deployment of human-centered AI. (shrink)

This article reviews the development of a new epistemic discourse in Latin America. Global modernity opens up a historical time of bifurcation and cognitive emergency, which confronts the hegemony of Eurocentric thinking. An episteme that expresses the profound historical changes of the modern mind-set. It also aims to imagine an inherent rationality that holds a complex holistic vision of the world as well as the values of freedom and social equality. El artículo examina el desarrollo de un nuevo discurso epistémico (...) en América Latina. La modernidad global abre un tiempo histórico de bifurcación y emergencia cognoscitiva que confronta la hegemonía del pensamiento eurocéntrico. Episteme que expresa los profundos cambios históricos del modo de pensar moderno y pretende imaginar una racionalidad inherente a una visión holística compleja del mundo y a los valores de libertad e igualdad social. (shrink)

Resumen: El trabajo presenta algunas proposiciones iniciales sobre el desarrollo de la universidad peruana. La investigación se divide en cuatro partes. La primera sección, estudia las tendencias históricas esenciales que definen la universidad actual. La segunda, describe la influencia de los cambios tecnológicos en la educación universitaria. La tercera, muestra las relaciones divergentes entre heterogeneidad de saberes y la educación superior principalmente monocultural. La cuarta parte, discute las posibilidades de desarrollo de la universidad.: The paper presents some initial proposals on (...) the development of the university in Peru. The research is divided into four sections. The first one studies the essential historical trends that define the current university. The second, describes the influence of technology and its changes upon college education. The third shows the divergent relations between heterogeneity of knowledge and higher education, mainly monocultural. Finally, the fourth section discusses the possibilities of development in the university. (shrink)

Comparing food taboos across 78 cultures, this paper demonstrates that meat, though a prized food, is also the principal target of proscriptions. Reviewing existing explanations of taboos, we find that both functionalist and symbolic approaches fail to account for meat's cross-cultural centrality and do not reflect experience-near aspects of food taboos, principal among which is disgust. Adopting an evolutionary approach to the mind, this paper presents an alternative to existing explanations of food taboos. Consistent with the attendant risk of pathogen (...) transmission, meat has special salience as a stimulus for humans, as animal products are stronger elicitors of disgust and aversion than plant products. We identify three psychosocial processes, socially-mediated ingestive conditioning, egocentric empathy, and normative moralization, each of which likely plays a role in transforming individual disgust responses and conditioned food aversions into institutionalized food taboos. (shrink)

Substantial advances in our understanding of the neural bases of emotional processing have been made over the past decades. Overall, studies in humans and other animals highlight the key role of the amygdala in the detection and evaluation of stimuli with affective value. Nonetheless, contradictory findings have been reported, especially in terms of the exact role of this structure in the processing of different emotions, giving rise to different neural models of emotion. For instance, although the amygdala has traditionally been (...) considered as exclusively involved in fear (and possibly anger), more recent work suggests that it may be important for processing other types of emotions, and even nonemotional information. A review of the main findings in this field is presented here, together with some of the hypotheses that have been put forward to interpret this literature and explain its inconsistencies. (shrink)

Protests and counter-protests seek to draw and direct attention and concern with confronting images and slogans. In recent years, as protests and counter-protests have partially migrated to the digital space, such images and slogans have also gone online. Two main ways in which these images and slogans are translated to the online space is through the use of emoji and hashtags. Despite sustained academic interest in online protests, hashtag activism and the use of emoji across social media platforms, little is (...) known about the specific functional role that emoji and hashtags play in online social movements. In an effort to fill this gap, the current paper studies both hashtags and emoji in the context of the Twitter discourse around the Black Lives Matter movement. (shrink)

The question of how the probabilistic opinions of different individuals should be aggregated to form a group opinion is controversial. But one assumption seems to be pretty much common ground: for a group of Bayesians, the representation of group opinion should itself be a unique probability distribution, 410–414, [45]; Bordley Management Science, 28, 1137–1148, [5]; Genest et al. The Annals of Statistics, 487–501, [21]; Genest and Zidek Statistical Science, 114–135, [23]; Mongin Journal of Economic Theory, 66, 313–351, [46]; Clemen and (...) Winkler Risk Analysis, 19, 187–203, [7]; Dietrich and List [14]; Herzberg Theory and Decision, 1–19, [28]). We argue that this assumption is not always in order. We show how to extend the canonical mathematical framework for pooling to cover pooling with imprecise probabilities by employing set-valued pooling functions and generalizing common pooling axioms accordingly. As a proof of concept, we then show that one IP construction satisfies a number of central pooling axioms that are not jointly satisfied by any of the standard pooling recipes on pain of triviality. Following Levi, 3–11, [39]), we also argue that IP models admit of a much better philosophical motivation as a model of rational consensus. (shrink)

Research on Augmented Reality in education has demonstrated that AR applications designed with diverse components boost student motivation in educational settings. However, most of the research conducted to date, does not define exactly what those components are and how these components positively affect student motivation. This study, therefore, attempts to identify some of the components that positively affect student motivation in mobile AR learning experiences to contribute to the design and development of motivational AR learning experiences for the Vocational Education (...) and Training level of education. To identify these components, a research model constructed from the literature was empirically validated with data obtained from two sources: 35 students from four VET institutes interacting with an AR application for learning for a period of 20 days, and a self-report measure obtained from the Instructional Materials Motivation Survey. We found that the following variables: use of scaffolding, real-time feedback, degree of success, time on-task and learning outcomes are positively correlated with the four dimensions of the ARCS model of motivation: Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction. Implications of these results are also described. (shrink)