Se suele pensar que la culpa procede de una transgresión a la norma o la ley. La razón universal determina a obrar conforme al deber de un sujeto replegado dentro de sí mismo. La acción que emana de la obediencia a la ley es la virtud moral del singular. Pero Hegel propone la tragedia de una oposición entre dos deberes que compelen a obrar, al mismo tiempo, de acuerdo a ellos. Sin embargo, al acatar una de las leyes se transgrede (...) la otra. De esa manera, la virtud de seguir la ley es, al mismo tiempo, transgresión respecto de la otra ley opuesta. El destino condena a Antígona a violentar la ley de la razón, obrando, empero, conforme a su deber. La sustancia ética se rompe. ¿Cómo eludir la culpa?. (shrink)

Por un lado, el supuesto de todo sistema moral y jurídico es que el hombre desea su bien, y que la verdad es un bien deseado por sí mismo. Por otro lado, es sabido que la mentira política juega un papel importante (e indispensable) en el ejercicio del poder y en la consecución del bien común, y que por ello muchos filósofos la han recomendado y justificado (hoy y en el pasado). Ante esta paradoja vale preguntar cómo se construye la (...) ciudadanía (toma de decisiones y participación social) a partir de la información falsa y cómo se construyen valores ciudadanos sobre la base del derecho a mentir de los gobernantes, porque es esencial para cualquier democracia la calidad de la información y la consecuente participación social de los ciudadanos. Primeramente, se expondrá la justificación de la mentira en tres grandes pensadores de la filosofía occidental (Platón, Maquiavelo y Weber); después, se desarrollará la interpretación marxiana al respecto, y, por último, se dilucidará la manera como hoy día afecta la mentira (y el derecho a mentir) a la comunicación y construcción de valores ciudadanos. (shrink)

En los últimos años se ha visto aumentar significativamente los resultados de las ciencias neurocognitivas y el estudio de los diferentes mecanismos que actúan sobre la conciencia, sobre la identidad personal, sobre el comportamiento libre, sobre la conciencia de culpa o arrepentimiento. Este trabajo analiza la conducta normativa del hombre desde el punto de vista antropológico, derivado de los recientes avances biológicos, médicos, bioquímicos y psicológicos. Dicha perspectiva representa, sin lugar a dudas, un logro en el estudio inter, multi y (...) transdisciplinario del hombre y su conducta, en específico de aquella organizada por reglas. El artículo sugiere que responder a la pregunta sobre la relevancia de las propiedades básicas del cerebro, su actividad electroquímica, su plasticidad sináptica o el tipo de neurotransmisión, para el derecho no puede provenir sino de la filosofía. (shrink)

I present and develop a novel account of the schematism by reading it through the distinction between constitution and regulation. I thus show that Kant’s stipulation of only eight schemata for the twelve pure concepts of the understanding is not haphazard but answers, instead, to two distinct processes of synthesis, mathematical and dynamical, that either constitute objects in intuition or regulate objects of experience. Based on this, I offer a detailed reconstruction of each of the schemata specified by Kant, and (...) I provide an explanation of the systematic role each plays in the Analytic. (shrink)

Health and Illness are noted Concepts form Medicine and Society. This Essay treats on Interaction between both Conceptions and their legal Influence.Resumen:Salud/enfermedad son tanto conceptos centrales de la ciencia médica como de importancia para la sociedad en general. El presente artículo trata de la interacción de ambas concepciones con respecto a su influencia normativa.

In this article, the author discusses how we might talk about the notion of “man” in the law and con siders the different changes this notion has had through different stages of its historical process.Resumen:En el presente texto se reflexiona sobre la manera en que se puede hablar de una idea de hombre en el derecho, así como de los cambios que esta idea de hombre ha sufrido en las principales etapas de su desarrollo histórico.

Background The Regional Committee for Africa of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2001 expressed concern that some health-related studies undertaken in the Region were not subjected to any form of ethics review. In 2003, the study reported in this paper was conducted to determine which Member country did not have a national research ethics committee (REC) with a view to guiding the WHO Regional Office in developing practical strategies for supporting those countries. Methods This is a descriptive study. The (...) questionnaire was prepared and sent by diplomatic pouch to all the 46 Member States in the WHO African Region, through the WHO country representatives, for facilitation and follow up. The data were entered in Excel spreadsheet and subsequently exported to STATA for analysis. A Chi-Squared test (χ 2) for independence was undertaken to test the relationship between presence/absence of Research Ethics Committee (REC) and selected individual socioeconomic and health variables. Results The main findings were as follows: the response rate was 61% (28/46); 64% (18/28) confirmed the existence of RECs; 36% (10/28) of the respondent countries did not have a REC (although 80% of them reported that they had in place an ad hoc ethical review mechanism); 85% (22/26) of the countries that responded to this question indicated that ethical approval of research proposals was, in principle, required; and although 59% of the countries that had a REC expected it to meet every month, only 44% of them reported that the REC actually met on a monthly basis. In the Chi-Squared test, only the average population in the group of countries with a REC was statistically different (at 5% level of significance) from that of the group of countries without a REC. Conclusion In the current era of globalized biomedical research, good ethics stewardship demands that every country, irrespective of its level of economic development, should have in place a functional research ethics review system in order to protect the dignity, integrity and safety of its citizens who participate in research. (shrink)

Este artículo aborda el antiguo problema de la diferencia entre filosofía y poesía partiendo de una interpretación del arte narrativo personificado por Ulises en la Odisea. Una lectura del episodio de las Sirenas permite reconstruir la trama de voces diversas que compone el relato homérico y comprender la significación de esta estructura polifónica en el imaginario odiseico. Frente a la neta oposición entre autofonía y alofonía que propone la filosofía platónica, la poesía homérica implica una idea de heterofonía que apunta (...) más allá de una lógica binaria y sugiere la irreductibilidad de la voz poética a un juego entre extremos contrarios. La heterofonía consiste más bien en una voz figural que crea la «lógica difusa» del mundo ficcional mediante la neutralización de las diferencias entre sujetos enunciativos. (shrink)

Based on published works and unpublished materials, this article analyses how cybernetics was received by two Spanish thinkers exiled in Mexico: José Gaos (1900–1969) and Eduardo Nicol (1907–1990). This reception is particularly intriguing especially when considering the substantial presence and social impact that Norbert Wiener had in Mexican society because of his friendship with Arturo Rosenblueth. Gaos and Nicol are the first philosophers to develop a complex and original diagnosis of cybernetics in Mexico. It will be shown how the (...) exiled thinkers take on the philosophical implications of this science in the light of their respective theoretical projects, and finally, it will be defended how the critical perspective they develop is particularly significant for Mexico’s political and academic context since it illuminates some negative aspects of cybernetics that Wiener did not foresee and that had not been reported there until then. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that when Aristotle uses the word ‘ἀρχή’ he is often referring to what we call a condition, whether necessary, sufficient or necessary and sufficient. To this end I will discuss how conditions for being, change, and knowledge, as identified by Aristotle, can be equated to ontological, physical and noetic principles, respectively.

1 Domains of application 2 Formulating the conceptual/nonconceptual distinction 3 Is there such a thing as nonconceptual content? 4 Developing the account of nonconceptual content .

In this chapter, I outline what philosophers working on the ethics of immigration have had to say with regard to invidious discrimination. In doing so, I look at both instances of direct discrimination, by which I mean discrimination that is explicitly stated in official immigration policy, and indirect discrimination, by which I mean cases where the implementation or enforcement of facially “neutral” policies nonetheless generate invidious forms of discrimination. The end goal of this chapter is not necessarily to take a (...) side, but to outline the terrain and provide the reader with an adequate entryway into these philosophical discussions over discrimination and immigration. (shrink)

This article argues that bodily awareness is a basic form of self-consciousness through which perceiving agents are directly conscious of the bodily self. It clarifies the nature of bodily awareness, categorises the different types of body-relative information, and rejects the claim that we can have a sense of ownership of our own bodies. It explores how bodily awareness functions as a form of self-consciousness and highlights the importance of certain forms of bodily awareness that share an important epistemological property with (...) canonical forms of self-consciousness such as introspection. (shrink)

It is now 25 years since Gareth Evans introduced the distinction between conceptual and nonconceptual content in The Varieties of Reference. This is a fitting time to take stock of what has become a complex and extended debate both within philosophy and at the interface between philosophy and psychology. Unfortunately, the debate has become increasingly murky as it has become increasingly ramified. Much of the contemporary discussion does not do full justice to the powerful theoretical tool originally proposed by Evans (...) and subsequently refined by theorists in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s – most effectively, I think, by Christopher Peacocke (particularly in his 1992). Even worse, significant parts of the discussion are somewhat confused. This paper makes a start on clarifying what I think ought to be the central issues in debates about nonconceptual content. I begin in §1 by pointing out how narrowly focused contemporary discussion is relative to Evans’s original discussion. We are not making as much use as we should of nonconceptual content as a tool for understanding subpersonal information processing and the complexities of its status relative to perception and thought at the personal level. In §2 I turn to what is the central focus of contemporary discussion, namely, the content of perception and identify a “master argument” for nonconceptualism based on the relation between conceptual capacities and capacities for perceptual discrimination. The aim of §3 is to clarify the relation between the claim that perception has nonconceptual content and some superficially similar claims discussed by philosophers of perception. Finally, in §4 I explain why the attention recently focused on what is sometimes called the state version of the nonconceptualist thesis seems to me to be misdirected. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of self-deception can be divided into two broad groups – the intentionalist and the anti-intentionalist. On intentionalist models what happens in the central cases of self-deception is parallel to what happens when one person intentionally deceives another, except that deceiver and deceived are the same person. This paper offers a positive argument for intentionalism about self-deception and defends the view against standard objections.

Frames and framing make one dimension of a decision problem particularly salient. In the simplest case, framesprimeresponses (as in, e.g., the Asian disease paradigm, where the gain frame primes risk-aversion and the loss frame primes risk-seeking). But in more complicated situations frames can function reflectively, by making salient particular reason-giving aspects of a thing, outcome, or action. For Shakespeare's Macbeth, for example, his feudal commitments are salient in one frame, while downplayed in another in favor of his personal ambition. The (...) role of frames in reasoning can give rise torational framing effects. Macbeth can prefer fulfilling his feudal duty to murdering the king, while also preferring bravely taking the throne to fulfilling his feudal duty, knowing full well that bravely taking the throne just is murdering the king. Such patterns ofquasi-cyclicalpreferences can be correct and appropriate from the normative perspective of how one ought to reason. The paper explores three less dramatic types of rational framing effects: (1) Consciously framing and reframing long-term goals and short-term temptations can be important tools for self-control. (2) In the prototypical social interactions modeled by game theory, allowing for rational framing effects solves longstanding problems, such as the equilibrium selection problem and explaining the appeal of non-equilibrium solutions (e.g., the cooperative solution in the Prisoner's Dilemma). (3) Processes for resolving interpersonal conflicts and breaking discursive deadlock, because they involve internalizing multiple and incompatible ways of framing actions and outcomes, in effect create rational framing effects. (shrink)

El presente artículo estudia las representaciones de mujeres con VIH/sida, en el libro Tiempos del SIDA. Relatos de la vida real, de Myriam Francis. El trabajo inicia con un análisis sobre la exclusión de los sujetos femeninos de la literatura “seropositiva” latinoamericana. Se plantea que las pocas representaciones que existen se enfocan en “mujeres sospechosas”, lo cual se repite, hasta cierto punto, en los textos de Francis seleccionados: “La última puerta”, “La viuda alegre” y “La chica alegre”. Luego, se ofrece (...) una explicación sobre el contexto en el que surgen las historias, un “pabellón-moridero” que se describe más bien como un espacio ameno, el cual, sin embargo, enfatiza la tragicidad que rodea a cada “caso”. Después, se estudian los tres relatos mencionados, en los que se mueven los símbolos primarios del mal (la mancilla, el pecado y la culpabilidad), de manera que una mujer es representada como una “víctima inocente” y otras, como “víctimas culpables” (fundamentalmente por sus “estilos de vida nocivos”). Finalmente, el trabajo concluye que la narrativa de Francis moviliza algunos principios de la “teoría de la degeneración”, para explicar las situaciones experimentadas por los personajes femeninos y ofrecer un mensaje didáctico-moralizante. (shrink)

Robert Kilwardby on the Human Soul examines Kilwardby’s role in conciliating Aristotelian and Augustinian views on the soul, soul-body relation, and cognition.

"The days of the pure whites, the victors of today, are as numbered as were the days of their predecessors. Having fulfilled their destiny of mechanizing the world, they themselves have set, without knowing it, the basis for the new period: The period of the fusion and the mixing of all peoples." -- from The Cosmic Race In this influential 1925 essay, presented here in Spanish and English, José Vasconcelos predicted the coming of a new age, the Aesthetic Era, (...) in which joy, love, fantasy, and creativity would prevail over the rationalism he saw as dominating the present age. In this new age, marriages would no longer be dictated by necessity or convenience, but by love and beauty ethnic obstacles, already in the process of being broken down, especially in Latin America, would disappear altogether, giving birth to a fully mixed race, a "cosmic race," in which all the better qualities of each race would persist by the natural selection of love. "This bilingual edition of The Cosmic Race by José Vasconcelos gives the reader a clear and concise introduction to contents that have caused much critical controversy. Didier T. Jaén places this essay in perspective, discussing theories relevant to Vasconcelos's thought... [and] also provides an historical context for Vasconcelos's evolving ideas." -- Hispania. (shrink)