This book is a multi-faceted attempt to understand the psychological mysteries of land, space, native cultures, changing eras, and geographical dislocation. It shows us that many remote and seemingly peaceful areas of the world have their own dark and silent pasts in which their original inhabitants were often brutally wiped out. Weaving history, geography, myth, philosophy, and psychoanalysis together, this book tries to understand why such atrocities were committed, how those subjected to these 'crimes' might have perceived them, and what (...) are the long-term, trans-generational consequences of these historical events. (shrink)

A growing body of research has suggested that high levels of family functioning—often measured as positive parent–child communication and low levels of parental stress—are associated with stronger cognitive development, higher levels of school engagement, and more successful peer relations as youth age. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought tremendous disruption to various aspects of daily life, especially for parents of young children, ages 3–5, who face isolation, disconnection, and unprecedented changes to how they engage and socialize. Fortunately, both youth and parent (...) brains are plastic and receptive to change. Resilience research shows that factors such as engaging in acts of kindness, developing trusting relationships, and responding compassionately to the feelings of others can help lay new neural pathways and improve quality of life. Yet, little research has investigated the effects of brain healthy parental practices of kindness with pre-school aged children. The current study examines whether an interactive, parent–child kindness curriculum can serve as a potentiator for brain health as measured by resilience and child empathy levels. During a peak of the pandemic, mother participants between the ages of 26–46 completed questionnaires on parental resilience levels and parent-reported child empathic pro-social behaviors before and after engaging in a 4 weeks online, self-paced, kindness curriculum. Half of the group received additional brain health education explaining the principles of neuroplasticity, empathy, perspective taking, and resiliency. Mothers in both groups showed increased resilience and reported higher levels of empathic behavior in their child after completing the curriculum. There was no significant difference between groups. Comparison of mean resilience levels during COVID-19 to pre-pandemic general means indicated that mothers are reporting significantly lower levels of resilience as well as decreased empathetic behaviors in their children. These results support the notion that kindness is a powerful brain health booster that can increase resilience and empathy. This research study was timely and relevant for parents in light of the myriad of stresses brought about by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. There are broader public health implications for equipping individuals with tools to take a proactive and preventative approach to their brain health. (shrink)

This contribution presents the principal features of ontologies, drawing special attention to the comparison between ontologies and the different kinds of know­ledge organization systems (KOS). The focus is on the semantic richness exhibited by ontologies, which allows the creation of a great number of relationships between terms. That establishes ontologies as the most evolved type of KOS. The concepts of “conceptualization” and “formalization” and the key components of ontologies are described and discussed, along with upper and domain ontologies and special (...) typologies, such as bibliographical ontologies and biomedical ontologies. The use of ontologies in the digital libraries environment, where they have replaced thesauri for query expansion in searching, and the role they are playing in the Semantic Web, especially for semantic interoperability, are sketched. (shrink)

Ante ciertos modelos causales del agente libre inspirados en Tomás de Aquino, resulta interesante atender al modelo causal presentado por Tomás mismo, especialmente en un texto a partir del cual se puede rastrear la exposición de la acción libre como el efecto de los cuatro sentidos causales aristotélicos. Se trata de la cuestión sobre los actos imperados (ST I–II, q. 17); en cuyos primeros cuatro artículos –y en sus textos paralelos– determina que la voluntad es causa agente; la razón práctica, (...) causa ordenadora; y el imperium de ambas (razón y voluntad) se relaciona con el acto imperado como lo formal con lo material. (shrink)

Presentación del libro de Nicolás Rosa Relatos críticos. Cosas animales discursos.

Background: This study investigated the factors affecting the acceptability in France of abortions. Method: 80 study participants from Toulouse and 124 from Metz judged the acceptability of abortion in 64 vignettes composed of five factors: 1) the adolescent's age (15 or 17.5 years), 2) the adolescent's plans to continue schooling or not, 3) the fetus' age (1, 2, 3, or 4 months), 4) the adolescent's parents' agreement or not, and 5) the agreement or not of baby's father. Results: Three clusters (...) were noted: 1) abortion is never acceptable (8% of participants), 2) abortion is always acceptable (23%), and 3) acceptability of abortion depends on the circumstances (63%). In the majority cluster (3), all five factors had significant effects, but the fetus's age accounted for most of the variance (78%). Conclusion: Most subjects in this study judged, in accordance with French law, that the acceptability of induced abortion in minors depends on the circumstances and, in particular, on the fetus' age. (shrink)

Este artículo está motivado por el problema de la responsabilidad colectiva frente a las acciones cometidas por nuestros antepasados y por la pregunta acerca de la legitimidad de las demandas de perdón. Acudiendo al universo conceptual heredado de Hannah Arendt, en este texto se aboga por el ejercicio de la capacidad de juicio como detonante tanto de la demanda de perdón como de la responsabilidad colectiva. El perdón se presenta así no solo como una categoría moral sino fundamentalmente política, imprescindible (...) para reconciliarse con lo acontecido y mirar al futuro con esperanza. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore the concept of “courtliness” in Castiglione and Gracián. The hero of Gracián learns the art of the “courtliness” from Castiglione, but he is not a “courtier”. Gracián uses the word “courtier” in a much broader sense. The courtliness in Castiglione is a sort of meta-discipline that contains in itself all the arts and is founded on the universal rule of «grace». The article shows how the theory of the grace of Castiglione, through (...) which the count would have been able to reconcile two requirements, achieved success in Court and a life governed by the sign of elegance, loses its intensity in Gracián, who insists more on the strategic behavior, based more on prudence and discretion than on grace. The courtesan philosophy of Gracián is understood as a discourse on the life. If we understand the court as the enclosed space in which the courtier of Castiglione lives, it is not a philosophy of court but a philosophy of human life. Gracián court is the square in the world. (shrink)

Se reflexiona sobre la posible autoría del documento que se conserva en la Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, “_Censura_ sobre los Anales de Tácito…”, ms. 13086. El colector de la miscelánea lo catalogó como anónimo a pesar del nombre que figura en una hoja adjunta al documento: Pedro Ponce de León. En este artículo se plantea una hipótesis sobre su posible autoría: Pedro Ponce de León podría ser el seudónimo con el que ocultó su identidad don Diego de Saavedra Fajardo.

In his main work, The Science of Legislation , the Neapolitan Gaetano Filangieri proposed a set of extensive political and cultural reforms. These reforms were necessary to free eighteenth-century societies from the remnants of feudal institutions that obstructed international peace and economic growth. Filangieri's ideas were shaped by the international political climate between the seven Years’ War and the eve of the French Revolution. Reinterpreting Montesquieu and Genovesi through the influences of French radical and Enlightenment thought , as well as (...) the economics of Hume, Verri and the Physiocrats, he concluded that European modernity was inherently contradictory.From this perspective Filangieri set out to force a clean break between the technical horizons of mercantilism and enlightened absolutism and a society based on civil rights, a fair distribution of wealth and resources, and free trade. Proper ‘scientific’ knowledge of the rules and principles of legislation would allow governments to balance out the natural and cultural factors that characterise individual states, and to identify the appropriate model for social and economic development. If all states acted on their proper interest, international free trade and peaceful competition between states would emerge and the potential for general economic growth be materialised. Thus, the natural equilibrium and ‘universal consensus’ among nations could be restored. (shrink)

Examining the ethics of the church as an institution necessarily asks what can serve as criteria or ultimate aims for the functioning of institutions responsible for nourishing and supporting Christian witness in society. For liberation theology and ethics, orthopraxis—righteousness in the practices both within and outside the church for the sake of becoming the church of the poor—becomes such criteria. Becoming a church of liberation, the church of the poor, allows us to evaluate the church as an institution or polis (...) with a particular common good that ought to be shaped for and put at the service of prophetic Christian witness. Recent crises and challenges in the life of the Christian churches in the United States help ground this proposal in the author’s specific context. (shrink)

This article offers a review of the chapter dedicated by Strawson to the concept of a person in Individuals. Characteristics given to the concept of person by Strawson are criticized by Bernard Williams. What I set out to show is that this criticism can be answered by reviewing: a) how Strawson understands that the concept of a person is primitive, b) what are the implications of affirming the primitiveness of such concept, and, mainly c) what this philosopher understands by referring.

En este artículo se defiende la siguiente tesis: Wittgenstein “exorciza” los argumentos escépticos mostrando una concepción alternativa del lenguaje y del conocimiento que ha dado en caracterizarse como naturalismo y quietismo. Y se ofrece un deslinde entre los planteamientos quietistas y naturalistas wittgensteinianos y el naturalismo propio del empirismo mínimo de McDowell. A diferencia de este último, la propuesta wittgensteiniana nos ofrece la posibilidad de rechazar el reto escéptico.