El presente trabajo elucida el axioma de “la pluralidad necesaria” a partir de algunas calas y notas del pensamiento de Judith Butler y algunos cruces procedentes de la filosofía de Michel Foucault y Friedrich Nietzsche, así como el influjo postnietzscheano contemporáneo, en contraste con el pensamiento mestizo subalterno latinoamericano de Gloria Anzaldúa. La hipótesis central es explicada en estos términos: no existe ningún fundamento metafísico que sustente al mundo; todo es una construcción cultural, resultado del poder predominante en un determinado (...) contexto histórico. El poder es el que establece lo que es normal o anormal, lo que está permitido o no está permitido. En este contexto, se postula la necesidad de someter a los dispositivos de poder reinantes, en las sociedades contemporáneas, bajo una revisión crítica que permita transformarlos en dispositivos de poder que hagan posible sociedades plurales e incluyentes. Y justo aquí, en la apertura de un nuevo horizonte postmetafísico y post-humanista es retomada la perspectiva mestiza subalterna de Gloria Anzaldúa como una forma radical de repensar la condición humana más allá del euro-logo-falocéntrismo desde los márgenes de América Latina. La pluralidad necesaria, lejos de ser un título contradictorio, es, antes bien, un título que expresa una afirmación, a saber, la necesidad de una realidad social plural, inclusiva, en la que las diferencias entre los seres humanos sean respetadas, siguiendo el ideal de una sociedad democrática en la que se cultive la apertura a los otros, en un ambiente de convivencia y diálogo. (shrink)

In this commentary to Leal (2013), we argue that the memorization of the names and symbols of the chemical elements is necessary in the study of that topic because this task is the key for the later understanding of the Periodic Table. We can make the memorization task in an enjoyable, but effective way, using some educational games in chemistry class. Some recent puzzles, card games, mnemonics rules or games based on drawings to learn the chemical elements are addressed in (...) this paper. (shrink)

Colombia padece la imagen de que, desde sus inicios como colonia española hasta el presente, el país ha sido controlado por la oligarquía. Este ensayo examinará las evidencias que apuntan a esta alegación y confirmará que en sus inicios la Nación sí fue dominado por un grupo élite y reducido. Sin embargo, en años modernos, la oligarquía persiste pero que un grupo más extendido--una para-oligarquía o el Establecimiento--tiene mayor incidencia en las determinaciones en el progreso del país a través de (...) los factores psico-sociales de cooptación y transfuguismo. (shrink)

The "people of knowledge" of traditional Mazatec medicine have preserved until today the ritual use of psilocybin mushrooms as part of their health care systems. The renewed interest in the effect of psilocybin on human consciousness for both therapeutic and recreational purposes usually obviates the historical and cultural background of indigenous peoples, as well as the legitimation of their practices and knowledge. In this article, through the case study of a foreign person who attended a Mazatec ritual specialist to participate (...) in a ritual night ceremony known as velada, we show the importance of approaching research on psychoactive plants and mushrooms from a transdisciplinary and intercultural perspective, so that we can appreciate the profound complexity of the healing processes that take place in traditional indigenous contexts, as well as the limits of recreational uses or exclusively neopositivist and clinical approaches. (shrink)

En este artículo, se analiza la documentación producida por autores franceses o afrancesados, en la cual América y sus procesos de independencia, en particular los hispanoamericanos, ocupan un lugar central. Se localiza un importante corpus documental que incluye libros e impresos periódicos. Algunos de ellos fueron de uso en las escuelas primarias y secundarias francesas, otros circularon entre académicos y profesores universitarios. También se analizan algunos textos provenientes de conmemoraciones americanistas, como discursos de legatarios o personalidades con prestigio político o (...) científico, y textos literarios que concursaron en variados eventos vinculados con las celebraciones y conmemoraciones de la Independencia. A partir de ellos, se proponen cinco ejes de reflexión: primero, desde la perspectiva de las representaciones sociales, políticas y culturales de las independencias hispanoamericanas, donde las preocupaciones investigativas están orientadas a lo que se dice que pasó y menos a lo que pasó. Segundo, la reiteración de la categoría influencia para pensar las relaciones decimonónicas entre América y Francia subraya la originalidad de las ideas ilustradas y la Revolución Francesa; en cambio, las revoluciones hispanoamericanas representarían una de sus consecuencias más o menos distorsionada a este lado del Atlántico. Tercero, el lenguaje hermenéutico de lo que se dice que pasó instituyó mitos políticos modernos, asociados directamente con una revolución exitosa, igualitaria, libertaria y fraterna. Cuarto, en el contexto planetario de las dinámicas de modernización política, “lo francés” debe ser pensado como una parte de los procesos de mundialización de la modernidad. Quinto, el examen social y cultural de la producción intelectual presentada permite una mirada crítica a las historias nacionales o continentales, de tal forma que se puedan comprender mejor los procesos de modernización. (shrink)

This paper applies philosophical tools from the causalists/statisticalists debate to the evo-devo idea of variational tendencies as propensities biasing phenotypic change. It contends that variational properties are present in a statistical sense in some population dynamics models, particularly quantitative genetics ones, providing ultimate variational explanations. It further argues that these properties, contrary to some recent views, cannot be subsumed under natural selection. Finally, it advocates for a causalist interpretation of these explanations, where variational statistical properties indirectly refer to evo-devo’s variational (...) propensities. (shrink)

The origin of Being as a live concept is one of the most difficult questions in history of metaphysics and ontology. This work analyses the postulate that being is constructed by the interaction of terms. In fact, being and the idea of Being has come from the possibility of relations. It is known that metaphysics and ontology has overestimated think Being like something that never change, a substance unchangeable. Reduce Being as ousía, translated as substance, does not understand central affirmation (...) of Aristotle that “The term “being” is used in various senses, but with reference to one central idea and one definite characteristic, and not as merely a common epithet.”. The usually interpretation of relations make them one of those ways, however the concept of Being is always under a relation. Is reconsidered the role of relations in the basis of ontological thinking, taking the renewal of metaphysics, of the French philosopher Jean Wahl, and postulating that Being as totality is the relation that involves beings, Change and Time. (shrink)

To date, no definition of life has been unequivocally accepted by the scientific community. In frustration, some authors advocate alternatives to standard definitions. These include using a list of characteristic features, focusing on life’s effects, or categorizing biospheres rather than life itself; treating life as a fuzzy category, a process or a cluster of contingent properties; or advocating a ‘wait-and-see’ approach until other examples of life are created or discovered. But these skeptical, operational, and pluralistic approaches have intensified the debate, (...) rather than settled it. Given the failure of even these approaches, we advocate a new strategy. In this paper, we reverse the usual line of reasoning and argue that the “life problem” arises from thinking incorrectly about the nature of life. Scientists most often conceptualize life as a class or kind, with earthly life as a single instance of it. Instead, we advocate thinking about Earth’s Life as an individual, in the way that species are now thought to be. In this view, Life is a monophyletic clade that originated with a last universal common ancestor, and includes all its descendants. We can continue to use the category ‘life’ pragmatically to refer to similarities between various phenomena and Life. But the relevant similarities are a matter of interest and preference, not a matter of fact. The search for other life in the Universe, then, is merely a search for entities that resemble parts of Life in whatever sense astrobiologists find most appealing. This does not mean that the search for evolved complexity elsewhere in the universe or its creation in the lab are futile endeavors, but that debates over whether they count as ‘life’ are. Ironically, finally abandoning the concept ‘life’ may make our searches for evolved complexity more fruitful. We explain why. (shrink)

En la vida cotidiana del ejercicio del derecho, ya sea en el campo de la judicatura, ora en el del litigio, bien sea en el de la academia, o en actividades administrativas, es bastante común que se hable de la prueba sumaria; pero desafortunadamente no es común que se tenga plena conciencia de su entidad, alcances y usos conforme a su propia naturaleza. Es preocupante observar la peligrosa y antijurídica ligereza, con la cual se acude a la prueba sumaria; pero (...) no para darle su natural uso, sino para superar omisiones de los sujetos procesales con interés de parte en el cumplimiento de las cargas probatorias. La prueba sumaria es utilizada en forma deliberada para conseguir ciertas ventajas probatorias en el proceso, con evidente desmedro del derecho de prueba de la contraparte, afectación de la garantía de la igualdad real de las partes en el proceso, y conculcación del derecho de defensa en toda su extensión. En realidad, el mal uso de la prueba sumaria implica violar los principios probatorios de necesidad, publicidad, contradicción, legalidad y formalidad de la prueba. En otros términos, la utilización indiscriminada de la prueba sumaria, sin el cuidado y la estrictez exigidos expresamente por el mismo legislador para poder usarla, constituye una manifiesta violación al derecho constitucional fundamental al debido proceso. (shrink)

Stephen Jay Gould argued that replaying the ‘tape of life’ would result in radically different evolutionary outcomes. Recently, biologists and philosophers of science have paid increasing attention to the theoretical importance of convergent evolution—the independent origination of similar biological forms and functions—which many interpret as evidence against Gould’s thesis. In this paper, we examine the evidentiary relevance of convergent evolution for the radical contingency debate. We show that under the right conditions, episodes of convergent evolution can constitute valid natural experiments (...) that support inferences regarding the deep counterfactual stability of macroevolutionary outcomes. However, we argue that proponents of convergence have problematically lumped causally heterogeneous phenomena into a single evidentiary basket, in effect treating all convergent events as if they are of equivalent theoretical import. As a result, the ‘critique from convergent evolution’ fails to engage with key claims of the radical contingency thesis. To remedy this, we develop ways to break down the heterogeneous set of convergent events based on the nature of the generalizations they support. Adopting this more nuanced approach to convergent evolution allows us to differentiate iterated evolutionary outcomes that are probably common among alternative evolutionary histories and subject to law-like generalizations, from those that do little to undermine and may even support, the Gouldian view of life. (shrink)

La mirada del envejecimiento, desde una visión de derechos, tiene como antecedente la Segunda Asamblea Mundial sobre Envejecimiento, de la cual se derivó el Plan Internacional de Acción en Envejecimiento de Madrid, que ha sido un documento clave de seguimiento en las reuniones regionales intergubernamentales y no gubernamentales sobre envejecimiento en la región latinoamericana. Adicionalmente, existen dos instrumentos claves a considerar en las políticas de envejecimiento de la región: el Consenso de Montevideo y la Convención Interamericana para la Protección de (...) los Derechos de las Personas Mayores. En todos estos documentos, se abordan las siguientes áreas prioritarias: la situación económica de las personas mayores; salud y bienestar; y entornos sociales y físicos favorables. En este artículo, se analiza cómo ha sido el tratamiento, en las distintas reuniones regionales, del tema de cuidados, el cual se inserta en el área sobre salud y bienestar, además de discutir cómo se han traducido los distintos señalamientos sobre cuidados en la normativa de México. (shrink)

Neste ensaio, gostaria de esclarecer, por meio da filosofia de Mayz Vallenilla, a estreita relação que existe entre técnica e alienação, como uma filosofia da técnica que se preocupa com o comportamento do homem, portanto, com sua alienação. Como resultado, este ensaio será dividido em três partes: na primeira seção, será desenvolvido um diálogo entre um historiador e um sociólogo, para construir uma breve história da técnica; na segunda seção apresentarei um diálogo sobre o conceito de alienação entre Marx e (...) Heidegger a partir do pensamento do filósofo venezuelano Mayz Vallenilla e na última seção apresentarei a conexão entre ética e meta-técnica como alternativa atraente à alienação técnica. (shrink)

I. Teoría del derecho.--II. Teoría del estado.

Is it possible to know anything about life we have not yet encountered? We know of only one example of life: our own. Given this, many scientists are inclined to doubt that any principles of Earth’s biology will generalize to other worlds in which life might exist. Let’s call this the “N = 1 problem.” By comparison, we expect the principles of geometry, mechanics, and chemistry would generalize. Interestingly, each of these has predictable consequences when applied to biology. The surface-to-volume (...) property of geometry, for example, limits the size of unassisted cells in a given medium. This effect is real, precise, universal, and predictive. Furthermore, there are basic problems all life must solve if it is to persist, such as resistance to radiation, faithful inheritance, and energy regulation. If these universal problems have a limited set of possible solutions, some common outcomes must consistently emerge. In this chapter, I discuss the N = 1 problem, its implications, and my response (Mariscal 2014). I hold that our current knowledge of biology can justify believing certain generalizations as holding for life anywhere. Life on Earth may be our only example of life, but this is only a reason to be cautious in our approach to life in the universe, not a reason to give up altogether. In my account, a candidate biological generalization is assessed by the assumptions it makes. A claim is accepted only if its justification includes principles of evolution, but no contingent facts of life on Earth. (shrink)

Our understanding of the universe has grown rapidly in recent decades. We’ve discovered evidence of water in nearby planets, discovered planets outside our solar system, mapped the genomes of thousands of organisms, and probed the very origins and limits of life. The scientific perspective of life-as-it-could-be has expanded in part by research in astrobiology, synthetic biology, and artificial life. In the face of such scientific developments, we argue there is an ever-growing need for universal biology, life-as-it-must-be, the multidisciplinary study of (...) non-contingent aspects of life as guided by biological theory and constrained by the universe. We present three distinct but connected ways of universalizing biology—with respect to characterizing aspects of life everywhere, with respect to the explanatory scope of biological theory, and with respect to extending biological insights to the structure of nonbiological entities. For each of these, we sketch the theoretical goals and challenges, as well as give examples of current research that might be labeled universal biology. (shrink)

A disposition or dispositional property is a capacity, ability, or potential to display or exhibit some outcome. Evolvability refers to a disposition to evolve. This chapter discusses why the dispositional nature of evolvability matters—why philosophical distinctions about dispositions can have scientific implications. To that end, we build a conceptual toolkit with vocabulary from prior philosophical analyses using a different disposition: protein foldability. We then apply this toolkit to address several methodological questions related to evolvability. What entities are the bearers of (...) evolvability? What features causally contribute to the disposition of evolvability? How does evolvability manifest? The various possible answers to these questions available from philosophical distinctions suggest key implications for why the concept of evolvability as a disposition is useful in evolutionary research. These include (1) securing scientific virtues (e.g., explanatory depth and generalization, prediction or retrodiction, and control or manipulation) and (2) fostering interdisciplinary collaboration through the coordination of definitional diversity and different types of inquiry. Together these facilitate concentration on a variety of research questions at different levels of organization and on distinct time scales, all of which should be expected for a complex dispositional property such as evolvability. (shrink)

Este trabajo es un ejercicio de aproximación a la bildung de un personaje, Simón Rodríguez. La bildung de un extaño según nuestra mirada. Un ejercicio otro, distinto, al menos, sobre un venezolano, latinoamericano por antonomasia, un pensador cosmopolita; del cual se ha dicho que fue el filósofo (el Sócrates de Caracas y/o de América), un político, un educador. En él realizamos una suerte de hermenéutica del texto escrito, narrado, y de la acción contada por testigos oculares. La carta, la biografía, (...) el ensayo filosófico y pedagógico no sirvieron de pretextos para presentar a un Rodríguez, además del estraño, escritor. Finalmente, puede decirse, que se intenta contribuir, en alguna medida, con el estudio de la vida, del pensamiento y de la obra del así llamado, Don Simón Rodríguez. (shrink)

The developmental properties of organisms play important roles in the generation of variation necessary for evolutionary change. But how can individual development steer the course of evolution? To answer this question, we introduce developmental channeling as a disposition of individual organisms that shapes their possible developmental trajectories and evolutionary dappling as an evolutionary outcome in which the space of possible organismic forms is dappled—it is only partially filled. We then trace out the implications of the channeling-dappling framework for contemporary debates (...) in the philosophy of evolution, including evolvability, reciprocal causation, and the extended evolutionary synthesis. (shrink)

This book focuses on the emerging scientific discipline of astrobiology, exploring the humanistic issues of this multidisciplinary field. To be sure, there are myriad scientific questions that astrobiologists have only begun to address. However, this is not a purely scientific enterprise. More research on the broader social and conceptual aspects of astrobiology is needed. Just what are our ethical obligations toward different sorts of alien life? Should we attempt to communicate with life beyond our planet? What is “life” in the (...) most general sense? The current volume addresses these questions by looking at different perspectives from philosophers, historians, theologians, social scientists, and legal scholars. It sets a benchmark for future work in astrobiology, giving readers the groundwork from which to base the continuous scholarship coming from this ever-growing scientific field. (shrink)

El poema "De una carta de Macrobio Teodosio" de Luis Antonio de Villena se comprende más profundamente si se estudia como heredero del "Papyrus" de Ezra Pound por mostrar cómo la composición de textos fragmentarios permite crear poemas modernos de una inesperada capacidad evocadora. Asimismo, en la composición de Villena se encuentra la posible influencia de algunos imaginarios de la decadencia (Edward Gibbon, Constantinos Cavafis). Todo ello permitirá comprender las tres referencias a Virgilio, dos citas y una mención, que aparecen (...) en el poema. A propósito de la última, se propone una interpretación que actualiza el significado del mensaje final de Eneas a Palinuro en la Eneida. (shrink)

El objetivo del estudio fue examinar las prácticas pedagógicas mediadas por TIC, integradas por los docentes de la Facultad de educación de la Universidad de Las Américas ˗en tiempos de pandemia. El trabajo es una investigación de nivel exploratorio, no experimental, con una metodología mixta. Los datos se recogieron a través de una entrevista semiestructurada de 82 preguntas, abiertas y cerradas. Los resultados más importantes muestran tendencias a la integración de metodologías activas, principalmente aula invertida y uso de cápsulas digitales. (...) Finalmente, predomina la integración de herramientas de evaluación y colaboración. (shrink)

The CRISPR system for gene editing can break, repair, and replace targeted sections of DNA. Although CRISPR gene editing has important therapeutic potential, it raises several ethical concerns. Some bioethicists worry CRISPR is a prelude to a dystopian future, while others maintain it should not be feared because it is analogous to past biotechnologies. In the scientific literature, CRISPR is often discussed as a revolutionary technology. In this paper we unpack the framing of CRISPR as a revolutionary technology and contrast (...) it with framing it as a value-threatening biotechnology or business-as-usual. By drawing on a comparison between CRISPR and the Ford Model T, we argue CRISPR is revolutionary as a product, process, and as a force for social change. This characterization of CRISPR offers important conceptual clarity to the existing debates surrounding CRISPR. In particular, conceptualizing CRISPR as a revolutionary technology structures regulatory goals with respect to this new technology. Revolutionary technologies have characteristic patterns of implementation, entrenchment, and social impact. As such, early identification of technologies as revolutionary may help construct more nuanced and effective ethical frameworks for public policy. (shrink)

In this review, we describe some of the central philosophical issues facing origins-of-life research and provide a targeted history of the developments that have led to the multidisciplinary field of origins-of-life studies. We outline these issues and developments to guide researchers and students from all fields. With respect to philosophy, we provide brief summaries of debates with respect to (1) definitions (or theories) of life, what life is and how research should be conducted in the absence of an accepted theory (...) of life, (2) the distinctions between synthetic, historical, and universal projects in origins-of-life studies, issues with strategies for inferring the origins of life, such as (3) the nature of the first living entities (the “bottom up” approach) and (4) how to infer the nature of the last universal common ancestor (the “top down” approach), and (5) the status of origins of life as a science. Each of these debates influences the others. Although there are clusters of researchers that agree on some answers to these issues, each of these debates is still open. With respect to history, we outline several independent paths that have led to some of the approaches now prevalent in origins-of-life studies. These include one path from early views of life through the scientific revolutions brought about by Linnaeus (von Linn.), Wöhler, Miller, and others. In this approach, new theories, tools, and evidence guide new thoughts about the nature of life and its origin.We also describe another family of paths motivated by a” circularity” approach to life, which is guided by such thinkers as Maturana & Varela, Gánti, Rosen, and others. These views echo ideas developed by Kant and Aristotle, though they do so using modern science in ways that produce exciting avenues of investigation. By exploring the history of these ideas, we can see how many of the issues that currently interest us have been guided by the contexts in which the ideas were developed. The disciplinary backgrounds of each of these scholars has influenced the questions they sought to answer, the experiments they envisioned, and the kinds of data they collected. We conclude by encouraging scientists and scholars in the humanities and social sciences to explore ways in which they can interact to provide a deeper understanding of the conceptual assumptions, structure, and history of origins-of-life research. This may be useful to help frame future research agendas and bring awareness to the multifaceted issues facing this challenging scientific question. (shrink)

Stephen Hawking’s caution against messaging extraterrestrial intelligence is a claim of universal biology and is probably false.