Hablar de adolescentes consumidores de drogas supone deducir automáticamente conductas delictivas, violentas, faltas de respeto en la escuela, marginalidad, etc. Todo ello haciéndonos eco de la experiencia social que relaciona consumo y conductas desadaptadas. Esto si no nos ponemos a generalizar y clasificamos a todos los adolescentes como realizadores de estas conductas inadecuadas. Es como si de repente hubiésemos perdido a toda una generación, de hecho hemos llegado a inventarnos un nombre en función de los que no saben hacer y (...) no de lo que son: "generación ni-ni". Partir de esta premisa es un grave error, implica asumir que los adolescentes que hacen as cosas bien (la inmensa mayoría de ellos), son seres extraños e inadaptados que sólo ocuparán su puesto en la sociedad si se dedican a realizar estas conductas. (shrink)

Drawing on political, legal, national, post-national, as well as American and European perspectives, this collection of essays offers a diverse and balanced discussion of the current arguments concerning deliberative democracy. The essays consider the thr.

After World War II, infant mortality rates started dropping steeply. We show how this was accomplished in socialist countries in East-Central Europe. Focusing on the two postwar decades, we explore comparatively how medical experts in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany saved fragile newborns. Based on an analysis of medical journals, we argue that the Soviet Union and its medical practices had only a marginal influence; the four countries followed the recommendations of the World Health Organization instead, despite not being (...) members. Importantly, we analyze the expert clashes over definitions of livebirth, which impact infant mortality statistics. We analyze the divergent practices and negotiations between countries: since the infant mortality rate came to represent the level of socioeconomic advancement, its political significance was paramount. Analyzing the struggle to reduce infant mortality thus helps us understand how socialist countries positioned themselves within the transnational framework while being members of the “socialist bloc.”. (shrink)

Optimization, in general, is regarded as the process of finding optimal values for the variables of a given problem in order to minimize or maximize one or more objective function(s). Brain storm optimization (BSO) algorithm solves a complex optimization problem by mimicking the human idea generating process, in which a group of people solves a problem together. The aim of this paper is to present hybrid BSO algorithm solutions in the past 5 years. This study could be divided into two (...) parts: strategies and applications. In the first part, different strategies for the hybrid BSO algorithms intended to improve the various ability of the original BSO algorithm are displayed. In the second part, the real-world applications in the past five years in optimization, prediction and feature selection processes are presented. (shrink)

Consider any subvariety of BL-algebras generated by a single BL-chain which is the ordinal sum of the standard MV-algebra on [0, 1] and a basic hoop H. We present a geometrical characterization of elements in the finitely generated free algebra of each of these subvarieties. In this characterization there is a clear insight of the role of the regular and dense elements of the generating chain. As an application, we analyze maximal and prime filters in the free algebra.

Edith Stein leyó la obra de Martin Heidegger Ser y tiempo en 1927, el mismo año de su publicación. Este artículo trata de reconstruir la «hermenéutica blanca» de esa lectura, es decir, las reacciones que pudo suscitar y que no fueron puestas por escrito en ese momento. Se toman como guía tres comentarios azarosos de la autora en relación tanto a Ser y tiempo como a la filosofía de Heidegger en general. Edith Stein read Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time in (...) 1927, the year of its publication. This article explores a «white hermeneutics» of her reading, tracing some possible reactions to this work that Stein did not record at the time. Three incidental comments on Being and Time and Heidegger’s philosophy in general made by Stein guide our research. (shrink)

La proporción áurea es señalada por la tradición como un canon de belleza. Este artículo explica el concepto de proporción áurea, empleando como ejemplo la fachada de la capilla de Schönstatt. A continuación se pregunta si hay una base neurológica de la predilección por esta proporción y propone un experimento de magnetoencefalografía para dilucidarlo. Si respeta determinadas condiciones, este experimento puede proporcionar claves más relevantes para este asunto que la medida estética de Birkhoff. Incluso podría cuestionar la opinión de Kant (...) de que el juicio estético es completamente desinteresado. (shrink)

Este artículo estudia la utilidad del concepto heideggeriano de «Sorge» para una filosofía de la ecología. Primero analiza las traducciones de la «Sorge» en lengua española. Un análisis crítico selecciona el concepto de «cura». En segundo lugar expone el significado de la «cura» en Heidegger. En tercer lugar muestra las posibilidades del concepto de «cura» para la reflexión ecológica: se hace aquí una interpretación de la obra de Hans Jonas, El principio de responsabilidad, como una derivación ecológica de la «cura» (...) heideggeriana. De esta manera se afirma el «Dasein» como lugar de vinculación entre el hombre y la naturaleza. (shrink)

En este artículo se trata de explicar la mereología de Gustavo Bueno Mar-tínez comparándola con la de Edmund Husserl. Ulteriormente se analiza la aplicación de esa doctrina sobre los todos y las partes en la filosofía de la ciencia y en el pensamiento de Gustavo Bueno sobre la unidad de una nación política como España. Finalmente se propone aprovechar la categoría de “partes personales” para superar una concepción materialista de la mereología.

La metáfora técnica «cambiar agujas» es empleada por Jürgen Habermas en el marco de su discusión sobre el diagnóstico preimplantatorio. Este artículo analiza la concordancia de dicha metáfora con las ideas de continuidad y acción comunicativa, así como la incoherencia que mantienen con ella ciertas afirmaciones sobre el estatuto del embrión humano. Tomar en serio la metáfora permite hablar de una acción comunicativa germinal en términos de llamada recibida por el agente racional como base de una llamada proferida respecto del (...) ser humano no nacido. (shrink)

In the Reality we know, we cannot say if something is infinite whether we are doing Physics, Biology, Sociology or Economics. This means we have to be careful using this concept. Infinite structures do not exist in the physical world as far as we know. So what do mathematicians mean when they assert the existence of ω? There is no universally accepted philosophy of mathematics but the most common belief is that mathematics touches on another worldly absolute truth. Many mathematicians (...) believe that mathematics involves a special perception of an idealized world of absolute truth. This comes in part from the recognition that our knowledge of the physical world is imperfect and falls short of what we can apprehend with mathematical thinking. The objective of this paper is to present an epistemological rather than an historical vision of the mathematical concept of infinity that examines the dialectic between the actual and potential infinity. (shrink)

A chapter surveying Jerry Fodor's contributions to philosophy and cognitive science. In 12 Modern Philosophers, edited by Christopher Belshaw and Gary Kemp.

Julián Marías es uno de los pensadores humanistas más completos del siglo XX y uno de los intelectuales más grandes de la España contemporánea. La presente obra pretende fijar de un modo muy detallado su aportación personal y filosófica al pensamiento universal. El resultado ha sido un riguroso trabajo pluridisciplinar que, desde un planteamiento divulgativo, reúne por primera vez a los mejores conocedores de su vida y su obra.

Following Thomas Aquinas, Francisco de Vitoria's analysis of justice in exchanges takes place by commenting on the corresponding questions of the Summa Theologica. The identification of the just price with that of common estimation occurs under a sufficient concurrence of sellers and buyers. A high level of concurrence limits the ability to take advantage of the need on the other side of the market. This fact guaranties a full consent of the parties involved in trading. Under conditions of market power (...) or when some authority fixes a legal price, just price should also be taken as a normative ideal. (shrink)

Human language has the characteristic of being open and in some cases polysemic. The word “infinite” is used often in common speech and more frequently in literary language, but rarely with its precise meaning. In this way the concepts can be used in a vague way but an argument can still be structured so that the central idea is understood and is shared with to the partners. At the same time no precise definition is given to the concepts used and (...) each partner makes his own reading of the text based on previous experience and cultural background. In a language dictionary the first meaning of “infinite” agrees with the etymology: what has no end. We apply the word infinite most often and incorrectly as a synonym for “very large” or something that we do not perceive its completion. In this context, the infinite mentioned in dictionaries refers to the idea or notion of the “immeasurably large” although this is open to what the individual’s means by “immeasurably great.” Based on this linguistic imprecision, the authors present a non Cantorian theory of the potential and actual infinite. For this we have introduced a new concept: the homogon that is the whole set that does not fall within the definition of sets established by Cantor. (shrink)

The liar paradox is a famous and ancient paradox related to logic and philosophy. It shows it is perfectly possible to construct sentences that are correct grammatically and semantically but that cannot be true or false in the traditional sense. In this paper the authors show four approaches to interpreting paradoxes that illustrate the influence of: the levels of language, their belonging to indeterminate compatible propositions or indeterminate propositions, being based on universal antinomy and the theory of dialetheism.

sBuilding models as a practical aspect of ecological theory has as a principal purpose the determination of relations in formal language. In this paper, the authors provide a formalization of ecological models based on impure systems theory. Impure systems contain objects and subjects: subjects are human beings. We can distinguish a person as an observer that by definition is the subject himself and part of the system. In this case he acquires the category of object. Objects are significances, which are (...) the consequence of perceptual beliefs on the part of the subject about material or energetic objects with certain characteristics. The impure system approach is as follows: objects are perceptual significances of material or energetic objects. The set of these objects will form an impure set of the first order. The existing relations between these relative objects will be of two classes: transactions of matter and/or energy and inferential relations. Transactions can have alethic modality: necessity, possibility, impossibility and contingency. In this work we define measures which let us choose the more suitable variables to relate both the model with the ecosystem and with different models. In this way we define different comparison indexes. (shrink)