This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and (...) political philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

Traditional discussions about the arrow of time in general involve the concept of entropy. In the cosmological context, the direction past-to-future is usually related to the direction of the gradient of the entropy function of the universe. But the definition of the entropy of the universe is a very controversial matter. Moreover, thermodynamics is a phenomenological theory. Geometrical properties of space-time provide a more fundamental and less controversial way of defining an arrow of time for the universe as a whole. (...) We will call the arrow defined only on the basis of the geometrical properties of space-time, independently of any entropic considerations, “the global arrow of time.” In this paper we will argue that: (i) if certain conditions are satisfied, it is possible to define a global arrow of time for the universe as a whole, and (ii) the standard models of contemporary cosmology satisfy these conditions. (shrink)

Scientific cosmology is an empirical discipline whose objects of study are the large-scale properties of the universe. In this context, it is usual to call the direction of the expansion of the universe the "cosmological arrow of time". However, there is no reason for privileging the ‘radius’ of the universe for defining the arrow of time over other geometrical properties of the space-time. Traditional discussions about the arrow of time in general involve the concept of entropy. In the cosmological context, (...) the direction past-to-future is usually related to the direction of the gradient of the entropy function of the universe. But entropy is a thermodynamic magnitude that is typically associated with subsystems of the universe: the entropy of the universe as a whole is a very controversial matter. Moreover, thermodynamics is a phenomenological theory. Geometrical properties of space-time provide a more fundamental and less controversial way of defining an arrow of time for the universe as a whole. We will call the arrow defined only on the basis of the geometrical properties of space-time, independently of any entropic considerations, the "cosmological arrow of time". In this paper we will argue that: (i) it is possible to define a cosmological arrow of time for the universe as a whole, if certain conditions are satisfied, and (ii) the standard models of contemporary cosmology satisfy these conditions. (shrink)

La Universidad Nacional San Luis Gonzaga, Ica-Perú, debido al Covid 19 se adecuó a la virtualidad implementando el aula virtual Laureasea. Esta investigación se realizó durante el semestre académico 2021-1. Objetivo: analizar de qué manera la educación virtual mejora el desempeño docente. Participaron 430 docentes de las 24 facultades respondiendo una encuesta virtual. Resultados significativos: 80% dictó una clase virtual por primera vez, 60% tenía acceso a una aula virtual, 68% ha mejorado su desempeño y 75% prefiere las clases (...) presenciales. Conclusiones: La educación virtual mejora significativamente el desempeño docente y prefieren el dictado de clases presenciales. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to analyze the association between coaches’ experience and their perceptions on the implementation of a long-term athletic development model created in 2016 by the Portuguese Swimming Federation. Eighty-six swimming coaches were assembled in groups according to their experience level: “novice”, “intermediate”, and “experienced”, and they answered a questionnaire with the following items: awareness of the existing model acceptance usefulness for practice, and implementation of this model by their peers. Regardless of experience, ~67% of the (...) coaches were aware of the model. Among those, a large number showed acceptance and confidence in its usefulness for their daily practice. Most coaches showed concerns about the fact that their peers do not respect the model frameworks, declaring the search for their swimmers’ immediate success as the main cause for such behavior. The results also showed an association between experience and knowledge about the model’s existence [χ2 = 10.223, p < 0.01, V = 0.345], and experienced coaches exhibited better knowledge than their intermediate [χ2 = 9.555, p < 0.01, V = 0.393] or novice [χ2 = 5.926, p = 0.02, V = 0.314] counterparts. While there was an association between the coaches’ experience and knowledge about the LTAD model’s existence, this situation does not seem to influence the way coaches accept and understand the usefulness of the model for their daily practice. (shrink)

In this article we wonder about the effects of May 68 upon the history of philosophy. To address this issue, we reconstruct the philosophical framework and the academic field of the previous years of the revolt, pointing at how inside the existing philosophical styles important changes were being prepared – maninly in the relations between philosophy and sciences–. Departing from Pierre Macherey’s trajectory, we describe the features of the philosophical space of May 68 and its changes –amplification of publics, hybridization (...) of philosophy with other knowledges, collective intellectual enterprises, militant affiliation of discourses–, showing how new models of philosophy are stabilized already in the Post 68 years. At this point, we approach the philosophical practice of Michel Foucault and Louis Althusser, exploring their innovations when it comes to understand philosophy. Finally, we trace a dialogue between the philosophy conceptions’ of Althusser and Macherey; in its tensions the possibilities of a new philosophical canon and a new practice of philosophy are expressed. (shrink)

Iniciamos una aproximación general a la obra de Ken Wilber en relación con la posible formulación de una teoría integral de la comunicación que aborde, sin dejar ningún espacio sin cubrir, los grandes interrogantes que plantean las transformaciones existenciales que estamos viviendo los habitantes del universo digital. Las posibilidades del modelo AQAL de Wilber para analizar los medios de comunicación actuales son fascinantes en aspectos como las fake news o la inteligencia artificial.

Para poder entender el pensamiento de Foucault es necesario enfocarse en varios principios que utilizaba o planteaba con el propósito de ir ligando cada uno de ellos para poder alcanzar y conocer su filosofía. Entre los principios o términos que hizo más resonar dentro de su filosofía fue el del “poder”, el cual manejaba, a grandes rasgos, como un factor sustancial que se da dentro de cualquier cuerpo social y, que, a su vez, tiene cada ser humano, este es un (...) principio de dominación que es aplicado desde la antigüedad, que bien con el paso del tiempo ha ido cambiando, pero también podemos decir que sigue teniendo el mismo contenido. Por lo tanto, esta investigación tiene como propósito mostrar, cómo el concepto de poder se ha ido forjando desde filósofos clásicos, también sobre cómo se plasmaba el sentido de quién en realidad podía tenerlo y quién no, explicado de tal modo, que, como lo plantea Foucault, los hombres mediante el contrato se den su poder por una colaboración.Nuestro trabajo, pretende establecer el término “poder” en el modo en que Foucault lo contemplaba, ya sea con todos sus pros y contras, para así mediante ello, poder forjar y reafirmar nuestras ideas y así extrapolar, poco a poco, su pensamiento, para crear nuestra propia crítica y mostrar cómo la sociedad contemporánea se está deshumanizando y, a su vez, se está perdiendo en un sin sentido de “poder” y manipulación por el otro, lo cual da como resultado, hombres máquina, incapaces de pensar y de forjar su pensamiento. (shrink)

Sobre la base de la relación con los conceptos de existencia y realidad, el artículo analiza la teoría de los contenidosde- juicio de Anton Marty en tanto irrealia y truth-makers. Partiendo de su debate con el ‘psicologismo’ y el ‘a-psicologismo’, mostramos la originalidad y la tensión de su posición, que intenta de articular el contenido- de-juicio con la inmanencia del acto intencional y la trascendencia de la objetividad, a partir de los conceptos de co-percepción e intencionalidad.

The fault prediction and abductive fault diagnosis of three-phase induction motors are of great importance for improving their working safety, reliability, and economy; however, it is difficult to succeed in solving these issues. This paper proposes a fault analysis method of motors based on modified fuzzy reasoning spiking neural P systems with real numbers for fault prediction and abductive fault diagnosis. To achieve this goal, fault fuzzy production rules of three-phase induction motors are first proposed. Then, the rMFRSNPS is presented (...) to model the rules, which provides an intuitive way for modelling the motors. Moreover, to realize the parallel data computing and information reasoning in the fault prediction and diagnosis process, three reasoning algorithms for the rMFRSNPS are proposed: the pulse value reasoning algorithm, the forward fault prediction reasoning algorithm, and the backward abductive fault diagnosis reasoning algorithm. Finally, some case studies are given, in order to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. (shrink)

Undoubtedly, democracy is in constant danger. The Athenian creation -later taken by the Latin American countries in the political-administrative figure of the Republic- has demonstrated not to be the best government model, but, the less evil, as expressed by an English politician when he saw that his empire era was coming to an end. And one of those defenders was the critical acid of the Vienna Circle and contemporary philosopher Karl Popper, who lived on his own flesh the mistakes of (...) democracy and the horrors of totalitarianism. Popper, defender of democracy to the limit, who even within his writings we can appreciate the paradoxes he sees in this, will not hesitate when the system of government of the people, for the people and the people, fall into the temptation to choose the dictatorship. For this, the philosopher tells us, democracy must create mechanisms so that this does not happen and we do not have a popular election that takes a demagogue and criminal to power, as was Hitler’s Germany. The thinking of the critical philosopher of historicism is liberal. An English liberalism and not as we understand it and we live in several States of America, where people is economic liberal and conservative in the ideas. No, Popper is liberal. A true liberal. (shrink)

The current COVID-19 crisis may have an impact on the mental health of professionals working on the frontline, especially healthcare workers due to the increase of occupational psychosocial risks, such as emotional exhaustion and secondary traumatic stress. This study explored job demands and resources during the COVID-19 crisis in predicting emotional exhaustion and STS among health professionals. The present study is a descriptive and correlational cross-sectional design, conducted in different hospitals and health centers in Spain. The sample consisted of 221 (...) health professionals with direct involvement in treating COVID-19. An online survey was created and distributed nationwide from March 20 to April 15 which assessed: sociodemographic and occupational data, fear of contagion, contact with death/suffering, lack of material and human protection resources, challenge, emotional exhaustion, and STS. Descriptive findings show high levels of workload, contact with death/suffering, lack of MHPR and challenge, and are moderately high for fear of contagion, emotional exhaustion, and STS. We found an indirect significant effect of lack of MHPR on predicting emotional exhaustion through the workload and on STS through fear of contagion, contact with death/suffering, and workload. To conclude, this study examines the immediate consequences of the crisis on health professionals' well-being in Spain, emphasizing the job demands related to COVID-19 that health professionals are facing, and the resources available in these health contexts. These findings may boost follow-up of this crisis among health professionals to prevent them from long-term consequences. (shrink)

Tissue P systems with evolutional communication rules are computational models inspired by biochemical systems consisting of multiple individuals living and cooperating in a certain environment, where objects can be modified when moving from one region to another region. In this work, cell separation, inspired from membrane fission process, is introduced in the framework of tissue P systems with evolutional communication rules. The computational complexity of this kind of P systems is investigated. It is proved that only problems in class P (...) can be efficiently solved by tissue P systems with cell separation with evolutional communication rules of length at most, for each natural number n≥1. In the case where that length is upper bounded by, a polynomial time solution to the SAT problem is provided, hence, assuming that P≠NP a new boundary between tractability and NP-hardness on the basis of the length of evolutional communication rules is provided. Finally, a new simulator for tissue P systems with evolutional communication rules is designed and is used to check the correctness of the solution to the SAT problem. (shrink)

Over the last few years, a new methodology to address the P versus NP problem has been developed, based on searching for borderlines between the nonefficiency of computing models and the presumed efficiency. These borderlines can be seen as frontiers of efficiency, which are crucial in this methodology. “Translating,” in some sense, an efficient solution in a presumably efficient model to an efficient solution in a nonefficient model would give an affirmative answer to problem P versus NP. In the framework (...) of Membrane Computing, the key of this approach is to detect the syntactic or semantic ingredients that are needed to pass from a nonefficient class of membrane systems to a presumably efficient one. This paper deals with tissue P systems with communication rules of type symport/antiport allowing the evolution of the objects triggering the rules. In previous works, frontiers of efficiency were found in these kinds of membrane systems both with division rules and with separation rules. However, since they were not optimal, it is interesting to refine these frontiers. In this work, optimal frontiers of the efficiency are obtained in terms of the total number of objects involved in the communication rules used for that kind of membrane systems. These optimizations could be easier to translate, if possible, to efficient solutions in a nonefficient model. (shrink)

IntroductionRheumatologists are the primary healthcare professionals responsible for patients with rheumatic diseases and should acquire medical ethical competencies, such as the informed consent process. The objective clinical structured examination is a valuable tool for assessing clinical competencies. We report the performance of 90 rheumatologist trainees participating in a station designed to evaluate the ICP during the 2018 and 2019 national accreditations.MethodsThe station was validated and represented a medical encounter in which the rheumatologist informed a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus with (...) clinically active nephritis about renal biopsy. A trained patient–actor and an evaluator were instructed to assess ICP skills in obtaining formal informed consent, delivering bad news and overall communication with patients. The evaluator used a tailored checklist and form.ResultsCandidate performance varied with ICP content and was superior for potential benefit information but significantly reduced for potential complications and biopsy description. Only 17.8% of the candidates mentioned the legal perspective of ICP. Death was omitted by the majority of the candidates ; after the patient–actor challenged candidates, only 57.1% of them gave a clear and positive answer. Evaluators frequently rated candidate communications skills as superior, but ≥1 negative aspect was identified in 69% of the candidates.ConclusionsEthical competencies are mandatory for professional rheumatologists. It seems necessary to include an ethics competency framework in the curriculum throughout the rheumatology residency. (shrink)

En este artículo se presenta una exposición sistemática del concepto de ideología que Luis Villoro construye a lo largo de su trayectoria filosófica, como base para plantear la crítica de las ideologías y la crítica de la forma-ideología en tanto tarea práctico-social del pensamiento filosófico, en ..

There are currently serious concerns that published scientific findings often fail to be reproducible, and that some solutions may be gleaned by attending the several methodological and sociological recommendations that could be found in the literature. However, researchers would also arrive at some answers by considering the advice of the philosophy of science, particularly semantics, about theses on truth related to scientific realism. Sometimes scientists understand the correspondence thesis of truth as asserting that the next unique empirical confirmation of a (...) hypothesis suffices to attribute truth to it provisionally. Such empiricist bias is not necessarily at the core of CTT, but Mario Bunge proposed the synthetic thesis of truth, based on CTT, to explicitly avoid the bias. STT requires considering a hypothesis corroborated, both by purely empirical confirmation and external consistency or compatibility with the bulk of existing background knowledge. While a capricious understanding of CTT could be rigged to recommend the “one shot game” in hypothesis testing, STT clearly demands the use of multiple approaches, empirical as well as theoretical, and it asserts that a scientific test is effective to the extent to which it is neither purely empirical, nor viewed in isolation. Pattern consistency together with an understanding of causal relations make confirmed hypotheses robust and more reliable. The militancy of the double mechanism of hypothesis control of STT can help mitigate the reproducibility crisis. Earl Werner’s research program in community ecology is an example of the use of STT criteria, which leads to the development of reliable, cross-checked, ecological results, with high predictive capacity. (shrink)

Resumen: El tema del Otro aparece en la reflexión del filósofo mexicano Luis Villoro ligado de forma concreta a la alteridad indígena, es decir, al ser un “otro sujeto” y un “sujeto otro” del indígena mexicano, a su ser igual que nosotros y, sin embargo, diferente, distinto, en función de su propia perspectiva histórico-cultural. Enmarcamos esta exposición en la filosofía general de Villoro y en las problemáticas tanto teórico-filosóficas como prácticas y ético-políticas del mundo contemporáneo.: In the thought of (...) the Mexican philosopher Luis Villoro, the issue of the Other appears closely related to the indigenous alterity; that is, to the being “another subject” and a “different subject” of the Mexican indigenous people, to his being equal to us and, nonetheless, different, distinct, in function of his own historical-cultural perspective. We frame this exposition in the general philosophy of Villoro and in the theoretical-philosophical as well as the practical and ethical-political problems of the contemporary world. (shrink)

El pensamiento político de Mario Briceño Iragorry está atravesado por profundas pinceladas utópicas. Su preocupación por alertar las trampas de la historia y las manipulaciones de la política, le llevaron a proponer un antidiscurso desde la sensibilidad como código ético y el pasado colonial a..

This article presents the results and conclusions of a research study aimed at analyzing the incidence of Colombian criminals’ discourses and other people’s discourses in the configuration of the criminals’ identity, as enunciated in the works of the Colombian author Mario Mendoza and other academic and journalistic narratives. Likewise, identities were studied as discursive signs constructed from social relations; and an explanation was provided for violence and criminality as manifestations of the criminals’ denial of their identities and the rupture (...) of the principle of discourse regulation. The study is based on the theoretical, methodological and interdisciplinary perspective of the Semiotics School of París. It showed that the violent and criminal behavior of the analyzed subjects is guided by a way of life and a narrative scheme that implies a specific configuration of discursive identities. This also involves the encounter with a self ­—oneself and others who are denied—, constant and intense dysphoric manifestations, states of nonsense and senseless that mobilize the destruction of others as representations of an unacceptable self, which tries to resignify and restore with a compensatory violence. In this way, the study seeks to contribute to the understanding of crime in Colombia and its multiple causes. (shrink)

Sostenemos aquí que la aproximación inicial de Luis Villoro a la filosofía existencialista marcó de alguna manera su trayectoria posterior y lo esencial de su perspectiva filosófica. Ciertamente, como señalaremos, Villoro buscó, por una parte, adaptar el existencialismo a la realidad mexicana y, por otra, contrastar (a lo largo de su vida) su visión inicial con las más diversas problemáticas y posturas filosóficas (fenomenología, filosofía analítica, marxismo) para arribar a lo que podemos llamar una filosofía existencial racionalmente justificada y (...) comunitariamente realizada. (shrink)

Mario Gómez-Torrente is a fundamental contribution to the issue of reference and especially of reference fixing. In this article I will focus on some questions addressed in it, especially on the relationships between some components of Kripke’s, Putnam’s and Gómez-Torrente’s theories of reference fixing as well as on the relevance of descriptions for those theories; I will then make some observations about Gómez-Torrente’s view of the reference-fixing conventions.

There are currently serious concerns that published scientific findings often fail to be reproducible, and that some solutions may be gleaned by attending the several methodological and sociological recommendations that could be found in the literature. However, researchers would also arrive at some answers by considering the advice of the philosophy of science, particularly semantics, about theses on truth related to scientific realism. Sometimes scientists understand the correspondence thesis of truth as asserting that the next unique empirical confirmation of a (...) hypothesis suffices to attribute truth to it provisionally. Such empiricist bias is not necessarily at the core of CTT, but Mario Bunge proposed the synthetic thesis of truth, based on CTT, to explicitly avoid the bias. STT requires considering a hypothesis corroborated, both by purely empirical confirmation and external consistency or compatibility with the bulk of existing background knowledge. While a capricious understanding of CTT could be rigged to recommend the “one shot game” in hypothesis testing, STT clearly demands the use of multiple approaches, empirical as well as theoretical, and it asserts that a scientific test is effective to the extent to which it is neither purely empirical, nor viewed in isolation. Pattern consistency together with an understanding of causal relations make confirmed hypotheses robust and more reliable. The militancy of the double mechanism of hypothesis control of STT can help mitigate the reproducibility crisis. Earl Werner’s research program in community ecology is an example of the use of STT criteria, which leads to the development of reliable, cross-checked, ecological results, with high predictive capacity. (shrink)

There are currently serious concerns that published scientific findings often fail to be reproducible, and that some solutions may be gleaned by attending the several methodological and sociological recommendations that could be found in the literature. However, researchers would also arrive at some answers by considering the advice of the philosophy of science, particularly semantics, about theses on truth related to scientific realism. Sometimes scientists understand the correspondence thesis of truth as asserting that the next unique empirical confirmation of a (...) hypothesis suffices to attribute truth to it provisionally. Such empiricist bias is not necessarily at the core of CTT, but Mario Bunge proposed the synthetic thesis of truth, based on CTT, to explicitly avoid the bias. STT requires considering a hypothesis corroborated, both by purely empirical confirmation and external consistency or compatibility with the bulk of existing background knowledge. While a capricious understanding of CTT could be rigged to recommend the “one shot game” in hypothesis testing, STT clearly demands the use of multiple approaches, empirical as well as theoretical, and it asserts that a scientific test is effective to the extent to which it is neither purely empirical, nor viewed in isolation. Pattern consistency together with an understanding of causal relations make confirmed hypotheses robust and more reliable. The militancy of the double mechanism of hypothesis control of STT can help mitigate the reproducibility crisis. Earl Werner’s research program in community ecology is an example of the use of STT criteria, which leads to the development of reliable, cross-checked, ecological results, with high predictive capacity. (shrink)

Luis Fernández Moreno has given a number of arguments that descriptive knowledge or stipulations have a greater role in the fixing of the reference of natural kind terms than I allow in my book Roads to Reference. In this note I criticize Fernández Moreno’s arguments.

En The paradox of Addition and its dissolution (1969), Mario Bunge presenta algunos argumentos para mostrar que la Regla de Adición puede ocasionar paradojas o problemas semánticos. Posteriormente, Margáin (1972) y Robles (1976) mostraron que las afirmaciones de Bunge son insostenibles, al menos desde el punto de vista de la lógica clásica. Aunque estamos de acuerdo con las críticas de Margáin y Robles, no estamos de acuerdo en el diagnóstico del origen del problema y tampoco con la manera en (...) la que se proponen solucionarlo. En esta medida, en este texto mostraremos cómo la Regla de Adición sí trae problemas semánticos que pueden ser planteados desde diferentes perspectivas contemporáneas, como la extensionalidad del condicional, los principios proscriptivos y la validez conexiva. (shrink)

The search for mechanisms has been a common practice in scientific research. However, since the empiricist critique of causality, and especially during the second third of the twentieth century, other non-mechanistic perspectives—especially deductivism—gained predominance. But the sustained effort of authors such as Michael Scriven, Mario Bunge and especially Wesley Salmon contributed to restoring the respectability of causality and mechanisms in philosophy of science. Some members of the causal family, usually lumped under the name of “new mechanistic philosophy”, emphasize the (...) description of mechanisms, especially causal ones, as a central aspect of explanation and other research practices in several areas of science. This approach offers viable solutions to the various ontological and methodological objections that are opposed to the two traditional approaches. In this work the basic characteristics of three philosophies that highlight the description of mechanisms as a central element to explanation and their suitability for the science of ecology are discussed. (shrink)

Es a todas luces evidente que los cambios globales de las últimas décadas, connotados entre otras cuestiones por el desplazamiento masivo de personas y la consolidación de identidades nacionales más borrosas y cambiantes, han repercutido de una manera significativa sobre el mundo académico, con la consecuente renovación de sus intereses. El auge adquirido por el estudio del exilio en América latina forma parte de esta nueva realidad. A la diversificación temática y aparición de nuevos y más sofisticados enfoques se han (...) sumado numerosos congresos y jornadas de estudio y debate, una importante cantidad de libros y artículos y la consolidación de grupos y redes de investigación internacionales. La publicación de Exile, Diaspora and Return es una prueba de este auge. Representa una excelente puesta al día de los alcances y sutileza de los estudios más recientes, a la vez que da cuenta de las decisivas vinculaciones de la cuestión con temas amplios como la globalización, los cambios en la idea de ciudadanía o las transiciones democráticas... (shrink)