Considering José Cadalso’s Noches Lúgubres [Lugubrious Nights], the article reflects on the possibilities ofrecognizing the other as a condition for an effective process of alterity. In Tediato, the main character and whois plunged into darkness, it is possible to recognize an existential condition pushed to the limit, which needs thepresence of the other to unveil another possibility of meaning. A reunion with oneself is, then, the condition for anopening to the other, which appears as a new existential possibility (...) because the vital meaning of existence dependslargely on our relationship with others. Hence, the relevance of understanding that human beings become humanas long as they have the ability of coming out of themselves to give themselves without reciprocity. (shrink)

This book explores the epistemic side of racial and sexual oppression. It elucidates how social insensitivities and imposed silences prevent members of different groups from listening to each other.

Introduction -- Historical perspectives of medical ethics -- The medical ethics Renaissance: a brief assessment -- Risk disclosure/'informed consent' -- Consent, control and minors: Gillick and beyond -- Sterilisation/best interests: legislation intervenes -- The end of life: total abrogation -- Medical ethics in government-commissioned reports -- Conclusion.

This paper defends a contextualist approach to epistemic injustice according to which instances of such injustice should be looked at as temporally extended phenomena (having developmental and historical trajectories) and socially extended phenomena (being rooted in patterns of social relations). Within this contextualist framework, credibility excesses appear as a form of undeserved epistemic privilege that is crucially relevant for matters of testimonial justice. While drawing on Miranda Fricker's proportional view of epistemic justice, I take issue with its lack of attention (...) to the role that credibility excesses play in testimonial injustices. I depart from Fricker's view of the relation between credibility excesses and credibility deficits, and I offer an alternative account of the contributions that undeserved epistemic privileges make to epistemic injustices. Then, through the detailed analysis of To kill a mockingbird, I elucidate the crucial role played by the social imaginary in creating and sustaining epistemic injustices, developing an analysis of the kind of social blindness produced by an oppressive social imaginary that establishes unjust patterns of credibility excesses and deficits. (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.

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)

Un análisis ameno e inteligente sobre los testimonios de los grandes pensadores del progreso: E. Fromm, F. Nietzsche, K. Popper, E. Morin, C.G. Jung, M. Ferguson, A. Finkielkraut, Ortega y Gasset, entre otros.

In this work we present some reflections about the interaction of preschool children (between 3 and 5 years old) with sound-producing objects. We implemented the phenomenological approach of Alfred Schutz, who under the influence of Edmund Husserl, elaborated his own notions concerning the Lebenswelt or life-world. We present some situations of interaction with musical instruments by children that have been documented in different research on musical education in early childhood, the same ones we use to exemplify possible analyses from the (...) perspective of the phenomenology of the social world. We conclude with some remarks that conceive of Schutz’s theory as a relevant perspective for the analysis of children’s experiences with sound-producing objects. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first we outline a version of non‐descriptivism, ‘minimal expressivism’, leaving aside certain long‐standing problems associated with conventional expressivist views. Second, we examine the way in which familiar expressivist results can be accommodated within this framework, through a particular interpretation that the expressive realm lends to a theory of meaning. Expressivist theories of meaning address only a portion of the classical problems attributed to this position when they seek to explain why the expressions they (...) deal with have a given meaning. A position can nevertheless be termed ‘expressivist’ – in the minimal sense that we favor – based simply on the following key features of the meaning of these expressions: they can be used as functions of propositions, and they are not used to describe the way the world is. (shrink)

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)

Background: The Marathon runners must have the proper technical preparation to reach excellence and to achieve adequate psychological preparation for the race. Against this background, the current study aims to describe the implementation results of a cognitive-behavioral intervention based on psychological skills training for marathon runners.Methods: Fourteen amateur male marathoners with an average age of 30 were trained with various emotional and cognitive control techniques to enhance their performance in competition. Various psychological variables, related to the subjects level of perceived (...) stress, and to qualitative characteristics of their thoughts were measured before and after the target marathon race. Results were analyzed through non-parametric tests for two related samples. The Cohen's d effect size for single-group pretest-posttest repeated measures were also performed.Results: Statistical analysis reveals that, controlling for age and running experience, the intervention decreased significantly the level of perceived stress and the occurrence of negative thoughts before the race, during, and after the race.Conclusion: Training in cognitive control and relaxation techniques, as part of the psychological skills training could determine the quality of performance of marathon runners. (shrink)

How precisely to understand and evaluate counterfactuals can be an intricate issue. The aim of this article is to examine a new set of difficulties for evaluating counterfactuals that arise in the context of the dynamical spacetimes described by the theory of general relativity (GR). The initial value formulation provides us with a methodology to pin down the specific combination of features of the theory at the origin of the difficulties, namely, non-linearity and certain non-local aspects (typically captured by ellipticity (...) at the analytical level), in particular when combined with the global and/or quasi-local character of physical quantities in GR. Finally, we connect the philosophical question about counterfactuals with concrete applied physical issues in GR about extracting meaningful predictions by constructing appropriate initial data sets, leading us to question the very suitability of the Cauchy approach to fully account for the explanatory power of the theory. (shrink)

v. 1. Edad Media. 4. ed. -- v. 2. La época del Renacimiento. 2. ed. -- v. 3. El siglo del Barroco. 3. ed.

The question of how psychiatric classifications are made up and to what they refer has attracted the attention of philosophers in recent years. In this paper, I review the claims of authors who discuss psychiatric classification in terms referring both to the philosophical tradition of natural kinds and to the sociological tradition of social constructionism — especially those of Ian Hacking and his critics. I examine both the ontological and the social aspects of what it means for something to be (...) a mental disorder, and how the ontological status of these disorders hinges on social causation. Finally, I conclude by suggesting a way in which the biological and the social may be reconciled in an integrative model of variation in psychiatric disorder. (shrink)

Etude de l'extension par la negation semi-intuitionniste de la logique positive des propositions appelee logique C, developpee par A. Urquhart afin de definir une semantique relationnelle valable pour la logique des valeurs infinies de Lukasiewicz (Lw). Evitant les axiomes de contraction et de reduction propres a la logique classique de Dummett, l'A. propose une semantique de type Routley-Meyer pour le systeme d'Urquhart (CI) en tant que celle-la ne fournit que des theories consistantes pour la completude de celui-ci.

En este artículo se abordan las principales reflexiones políticas y jurídicasrealizadas por Muratori durante los últimos años de su vida. En primerlugar, estudiaré su doctrina sobre los fundamentos del poder político ycomentaré algunos de sus consejos sobre cómo deben actuar los gobernantespara fomentar la pública felicidad. Después, partiendo de la idea de que elDerecho condiciona la consecución de esa finalidad, me centraré en el análisisde la obra Dei difetti della giurisprudenza, el tratado jurídico más relevanteelaborado por nuestro autor. Y, por (...) último, desarrollaré las dos principalespropuestas jurídicas contenidas en ese trabajo: la que aboga porlimitar la función desempeñada por la jurisprudencia y la destinada a promoverla imparcialidad de la actividad jurisdiccional y la aplicación correctade las leyes frente a la arbitrariedad judicial. (shrink)

Writings on educational theory, pedagogy, and the relationship between education and popular democracy.

Groupš par double-pages, textes choisis de philosophes et penseurs sur 248 questions-db̌ats, articulš en vingt chapitres sur autant de thm̈es englobants. Un instrument pďagogique assist ̌d'une abondante iconographie.

Uscatescu, J. El tema de la Ilustración.--Flórez, R. La Ilustración y la comprensión de la historia.--González Alvarez, A. La Ilustración y el fenómeno religioso.--Merino, J. A. El hombre en Rousseau.--Mauzi, R. El problema religioso en la Nueva Eloísa.

Este libro es un recorrido por los principales temas de la filosofía orteguiana al hilo de lo que fue el tema de su (nuestro) tiempo: la superación del idealismo. Un análisis textual pone de manifiesto el fracaso de esta superación, ya que aparecen un idealismo estético basado en a metáfora, ético, en el que sustituye la utopía del "deber ser" por el "tener que ser", gnoseológico, manteniendo el planteamiento dentro-fuera y, finalmente metafísico, donde el ser es caracterizado en términos de (...) "interpretación", "posición", "acción" y "resistencia". (shrink)