Identity has been widely understood in Western societies as a specular construction that operates simultaneously both from within and from outside oneself. However, this process is fiercely changing in a world in which almost every human action is mediated by information and communication technologies. This paper, from a theoretical perspective, aims to discover the main educational implications of this change. For that purpose, we first consider the traditional meaning and process of forming the self in Western culture. Afterwards, we identify (...) and describe the mechanisms for the construction of the self in our current context, highlighting the fact that technologies, in themselves and regardless of the use we make of them, hide implications. Taking this into account, we show to what extent the current development of the self presents shades, conflicts and tangible risks from an educational perspective. We finally conclude that it is essential to promote an education on technology that goes beyond the use regulation in which, up to now, it has been solely focused on. (shrink)

According to kin selection theory, indirect reproductive advantages may induce individuals to care for others with whom they share genes by common descent, and the amount of care, including self-sacrifice, will increase with the proportion of genes shared. Twins represent a natural situation in which this hypothesis can be tested. Twin pairs experience the same early environment because they were born and raised at the same time and in the same family but their genetic relatedness differs depending on zygosity. We (...) compared the degree of willingness to fight and sacrifice for the co-twin among monozygotic and dizygotic pairs in a sample of 1443 same-sex and opposite-sex twins. We also analyzed the effect of the subject’s gender and that of the co-twin on those altruistic behaviors. Results partly supported the postulated explanation. MZ twins were significantly more likely than DZ twins to self-sacrifice for their co-twins, but zygosity did not affect willingness to fight for him/her. The genders of the subject and of the co-twin, not genetic relatedness, were the best predictors of aggressive altruistic intentions. (shrink)

According to kin selection theory, indirect reproductive advantages may induce individuals to care for others with whom they share genes by common descent, and the amount of care, including self-sacrifice, will increase with the proportion of genes shared. Twins represent a natural situation in which this hypothesis can be tested. Twin pairs experience the same early environment because they were born and raised at the same time and in the same family but their genetic relatedness differs depending on zygosity. We (...) compared the degree of willingness to fight and sacrifice for the co-twin among monozygotic and dizygotic pairs in a sample of 1443 same-sex and opposite-sex twins. We also analyzed the effect of the subject’s gender and that of the co-twin on those altruistic behaviors. Results partly supported the postulated explanation. MZ twins were significantly more likely than DZ twins to self-sacrifice for their co-twins, but zygosity did not affect willingness to fight for him/her. The genders of the subject and of the co-twin, not genetic relatedness, were the best predictors of aggressive altruistic intentions. (shrink)

El análisis que se desarrolla en este artículo, está dirigido a desconstruir el modelo de episteme de la racionalidadmoderna, que tiene por pretensión la reconstrucción objetiva de la realidad y su validez universal y absoluta para cualquier contexto cognitivo. Se propone una alternativa a este tipo..

Virtuous arguers are expected to manifest virtues such as intellectual humility and open-mindedness, but from such traits the quality of arguments does not immediately follow. However, it also seems implausible that a virtuous arguer can systematically put forward bad arguments. How could virtue argumentation theory combine both insights? The solution, I argue, lies in an analogy with virtue epistemology: considering both responsibilist and reliabilist virtues gives us a fuller picture of the virtuous arguer.

La literatura mexicana de Chicago es un fenómeno de extracción obrera que reivindica la figura del migrante, rompiendo así con paradigmas establecidos en la literatura canónica mexicana. La obra colectiva de los autores mexicanos de Chicago es, por lo tanto, una literatura subversiva.

Is a virtue approach in argumentation possible without committing the ad hominem fallacy? My answer is affirmative, provided that the object study of our theory is well delimited. My proposal is that a theory of argumentative virtue should not focus on argument appraisal, as has been assumed, but on those traits that make an individual achieve excellence in argumentative practices. An agent-based approach in argumentation should be developed, not in order to find better grounds for argument appraisal, but to gain (...) insight into argumentative habits and excellence. This way we can benefit from what a virtue argumentation theory really has to offer. (shrink)

A virtue approach to argumentation would focus on the arguers’ character rather than the arguments. Therefore, it must be explained how good arguments relate to virtuous arguers. This article focus on this issue and attempts to provide an answer to the question: Could a bad arguer produce a good argument? It is argued that, besides the usual logical, dialectical, and rhetorical standards, a virtuously produced good argument must meet two additional requirements: the arguer must be in a specific state of (...) mind, and the argument must be broadly conceived of as an argumentative interaction and thus excel from every perspective. (shrink)

Harry Frankfurt characterised bullshit as assertions that are made without a concern for truth. Assertions, however, are not the only type of speech act that can be bullshit. Here, I propose the concept of argumentative bullshit and show how a speech acts account of bullshit assertions can be generalised to bullshit arguments. Argumentative bullshit, on this account, would be the production of an argument without a concern for the supporting relation between reasons and claim.

La propuesta de Arnold Gehlen ha sido calificada como “antropobiología”. En el presente artículo, se describe la continuidad, establecida por él, entre la biología del hombre y las dimensiones específicamente humanas, como la técnica y la cultura. Dicha continuidad se descubre, desde un punto de vista negativo, en la precariedad biológica del cuerpo humano; desde un punto de vista positivo, en la apertura al mundo mediante la acción. Con su actividad, el hombre compensa su carencia física y construye el mundo (...) en la forma de artefactos técnicos, instituciones y sistemas éticos. Por último, se examina de manera crítica el alcance y los límites de la propuesta gehleniana, principalmente acerca de la unidad del hombre, la comprensión de la acción y la idea de una vida lograda. (shrink)

Polo's philosophy is deeply rooted in Aquinas' distinction between being and essence. The author applies a circular hermeneutic. Aquinas philosophy of the person is read from the perspective of Polo's account in order to elucidate Polo's own Trascendental Anthropology. The expo-sition is structured in two parts, each one describing a fundamental thesis. The first concerns the notion of person in Thomas, which appears in his discussion of Boethius' definition. The second one deals with the problem of conciliating mind as form (...) of the body and as a spiritual substance. (shrink)

The present study seeks to determine which elements in the thought of Thomas Aquinas would make possible a transcendental expansion of kowing as proposed by Polo. For this purpose, the classical doctrine of the transcendentals is explaines, and the anthropological value of verum and bonum is underlined, especially in those passages that deal with the soul’s self-knowledge, the reditio in seipsum and the principle bonum diffusivum sui. From this analysis, a peculiar sese of being can be understood: one which is (...) proper to spirit, and which does not merely constitute being, but rather is the granting of act. This sense of being can be described as ‘openness towards the inside’ or ‘intimacy’, and allows the study of the transcendental consideration of created person. (shrink)

For a standard Finsler F on a manifold M, the domain is the whole tangent bundle T M and the fundamental tensor g is positive-definite. However, in many cases, these two conditions hold in a relaxed form only, namely one has either a psuedo-Finsler metric or a conic Finsler metric. Our aim is twofold. First, we want to give an account of quite a few subtleties that appear under such generalizations, say, for conic pseudo-finsler metrics. Second, we aim to provide (...) some criteria that determine when a pseudo-Finsler metric F obtained as a general homogeneous combination of Finsler metrics and one-forms is again a Finsler-metric -- or, more precisely, that the conic domain on which g remains positive-definite. Such a combination generalizes the known -metrics in different directions. Remarkably, classical examples of Finsler metrics are reobtained and extended, with explicit computations of their fundamental tensors. (shrink)

Despite its obvious advantages, the disruptive development of neurotechnology can pose risks to fundamental freedoms. In the context of such concerns, proposals have emerged in recent years either to design human rights de novo or to update the existing ones. These new rights in the age of neurotechnology are now widely referred to as “neurorights.” In parallel, there is a considerable amount of ongoing academic work related to updating the right to freedom of thought in order to include the protection (...) of “freedom of thinking” (i.e., freedom of thought itself) and not only its social manifestations. Neurorights such as cognitive liberty, free will, mental freedom, and mental self-determination come into play here. Importantly, freedom of thought has often been considered a prerequisite for all the other fundamental freedoms and rights. In any case, just as other rights require additional legal instruments to guarantee their compliance, substantial neurorights will probably require specific complementary developments in procedural law. In relation to this, there is a long tradition of habeas corpus as an emergency remedy to enforce the rights of a citizen against illegal or arbitrary detention. More recently, the habeas data writ has been proposed and admitted in certain countries to guarantee a person’s ownership of their personal data. In this article, we propose to expand this procedural apparatus by incorporating a third habeas, which we call habeas cogitationem: a writ aimed primarily at enforcing the right to freedom of thinking (and, subsidiarily, the rest of neurorights) against direct, harmful interferences in a person’s thought process by both public and private perpetrators. (shrink)

Virtue argumentation theory focuses on the arguers’ character, whereas pragma-dialectics focuses on argumentation as a procedure. In this paper I attempt to explain that both theories are not opposite approaches to argumentation. I argue that, with the help of some non-fundamental changes in pragma-dialectics and some restrictions in virtue argumentation theory, it is possible to regard these theories as complementary approaches to the argumentative practice.