Industrial shrimp farming has been promoted by international development and financial institutions in coastal indebted poor countries as a way to obtain foreign exchange earnings, reimburse external debt, and promote development. The promotion of the shrimp industry is a clear example of a more general trend of support of export-oriented primary products, consisting in monocultures of commodities, as opposed to the promotion of more diverse, traditional production directed to feed the local population. In general, it is assumed that export-oriented aquaculture (...) and agriculture, in a framework of liberalization policies, facilitates economic growth and this is associated with poverty reduction and the improvement of food security. However, it has been shown that the promotion of export-oriented production, mostly in the hands of big corporations, can have detrimental consequences for the livelihoods of local populations and the environment. As a result, international institutions, NGOs, and the industry aim to minimize these impacts by promoting sustainable export-oriented production. But some impacts may remain, since the main issue is the primary focus on international deregulated markets and the search for cheap primary products. To illustrate the relationships between the mainstream concept of development, the environmental and social impact of industrial farming systems, and the promotion of export-oriented production in developing countries, this article analyzes the case of the shrimp aquaculture industry. (shrink)

AbstractSocial Ecological System research highlights the importance of understanding the potential of collective actions, among other factors, when it comes to influencing the transformative configuration of agri-food systems in response to global change. Such a response may result in different desired outcomes for those actors who promote collective action, one such outcome being food sovereignty. In this study, we used an SES framework to describe the configuration of local agri-food systems in Andean Ecuador in order to understand which components of (...) the SES interact, and how they support outcomes linked to five food sovereignty goals. Through a survey administered to mestizo and indigenous peasants, we analyze the key role played by the Agroecological Network of Loja in transforming the local agri-food system through the implementation of a Participatory Guarantee System. This study demonstrates that participation in the RAL and PGS increases farmers’ adoption of agroecological practices, as well as their independence from non-traditional food. Additionally, RAL lobbying with the municipality significantly increases households’ on-farm income through access to local markets. Being part of indigenous communities also influences the configuration of the food system, increasing the participation in community work and access to credit and markets, thus positively affecting animal numbers, dairy production and income diversification. The complexity of the interactions described suggests that more research is needed to understand which key factors may foster or prevent the achieving of food sovereignty goals and promote household adaptation amid high uncertainty due to global change. (shrink)

Citizen science is growing quickly, given its potential to enhance knowledge coproduction by diverse participants, generating large and global data sets. However, uneven participation in CS is still an important concern. This work aims to understand participation dynamics in CS and how they are shaped by participation barriers and drivers. We do so by examining participation in CONECT-e, a CS project that uses a wiki-like platform to document traditional ecological knowledge. More precisely, we analyze quantitative data on participants’ profile and (...) activity patterns and qualitative data on barriers and drivers of participation. Our findings suggest that overcoming the education, age, and residence participation barriers is challenging even in cocreated CS projects. This is potentially due to issues of perceived self-illegitimacy and low access to information and communication technologies. Our results also point out that participants’ alliance with the project’s objectives and trust relationships with the project team are important drivers of participation in CS projects. Finally, we also highlight the need to think beyond participation as single actions and rather consider participation diversity in CS as functional diversity in ecosystems, with participants performing a diverse set of interconnected tasks or functions. (shrink)

After the end of their time as a caregiver, former caregivers have needs and feelings that have been subject to little study to date. The aim of the study is to determine and analyse the feelings, perceptions and practices of former caregivers in the reconstruction of their daily lives. This is a qualitative study based on the Grounded Theory developed by Charmaz. The study involved 14 former caregivers who had cared for their relative for more than 2 years and who (...) had stopped caring for them more than 2 years previously. Fourteen in-depth interviews were conducted and data were collected over 13 months between 2015 and 2017. Data were analysed using the Grounded Theory Method. In addition, this study was approved by the ethics committee of the Institut Universitari d’Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol. The former caregiver experiences a transition, which begins in the days before the death of their relative and may continue for more than 3 years. Three critical moments in the post-caring transition were found: the post-caring emptiness; the end of the period as a caregiver; and the movement towards a new life. Family and professional support is needed during this transition. Former caregivers experience a transition in the rebuilding of their daily lives; furthermore, former caregivers may be a source of support for other caregivers, which is linked to positive mental health factors. Healthcare organisations need to acknowledge the emotional, psychosocial and psychological health of former caregivers. (shrink)

This paper examines how The Gangster of Love (1996), the second novel by Filipino American artist and writer Jessica Hagedorn, dismantles ready-made assumptions about the construction of minority and mainstream cultures. Spanning the period from the 1970s to the early 1990s, Gangster depicts the life of Rocky Rivera, a Filipina American young artist. As it portrays Rocky's family and friends, the novel examines the drastic re-articulation of the US's self-image brought about by Filipino Americans and other groups marginalized as (...) minorities by virtue of their ethnic, socio–cultural, and/or sexual identities. The narrative challenges dominant notions of who and what makes history, juxtaposing historical references with fictionalizations of real episodes and completely fictional incidents, and making a constant use of parody, irony, jokes and clichés. This paper studies Rocky's reworks of her multiple ethnic and sociocultural allegiances in connection with her passion for music and popular culture, placing these reworks in the context of the Philippines’ colonial and neo–colonial background and multi-cultural US history. It also considers succinctly how Gangster's postcolonial dimensions intersect with a feminist and postmodern consciousness in a gendered strategy of socio–cultural resistance and critique. (shrink)

Marta Nogueroles es la primera autora española que ha escrito una biografía intelectual de Fernando Savater, el filósofo más leído en España y uno de los más influyentes en el mundo. El libro estudia la trayectoria intelectual de Savater desde 1970 a 2000, y distingue tres etapas en esa trayectoria, que van desde el anarquismo de sus primeros años hasta el humanismo ilustrado, cosmopolita y antinacionalista de su fase de madurez.

Una paradoja constitutiva de la cuestión migratoria a nivel mundial, tiene relación con el derecho humano a la libre circulación y la incapacidad política para avalarlo. Principalmente porque las garantías extendidas al emigrante no son las mismas que se ofrecen al inmigrante, y varían dependiendo de lo reconocido legítimamente por los Estados en su constitución y del interés, la conveniencia y la voluntad política de los gobiernos. Los que muchas veces tienden a politizar un problema social,..

The relationship between philosophy and science has always been complementary. Today, while science moves increasingly fast and philosophy shows some problems in catching up with it, it is not always possible to ignore such relationships, especially in some disciplines such as philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and neuroscience. However, the methodological procedures used to analyze these data are based on principles and assumptions that require a profound dialogue between philosophy and science. Following these ideas, this work aims to raise the (...) problems that a classical connectionist theory can cause and problematize them in a cognitive framework, considering both philosophy and cognitive sciences but also the disciplines that are near to them, such as AI, computer sciences, and linguistics. For this reason, we embarked on an analysis of both the computational and theoretical problems that connectionism currently has. The second aim of this work is to advocate for collaboration between neuroscience and philosophy of mind because the promotion of deeper multidisciplinarity seems necessary in order to solve connectionism’s problems. In fact, we believe that the problems that we detected can be solved by a thorough investigation at both a theoretical and an empirical level, and they do not represent an impasse but rather a starting point from which connectionism should learn and be updated while keeping its original and profoundly convincing core. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called the historian's fallacy (HF). In HF, the writing of a historical event has been skewed by way of biased hindsight on the author's part. The historian has written the details of the event down in such a way that the facts of the event, only seen after the event has occurred, cause the initial event to become distorted. HF should not be confused with a method historians use (...) in the present day when documenting the past. This is called presentism, a mode of historical analysis in which present‐day ideas are projected into the past. Another issue to address is that HF should not be confused with historical fallacy. One commits the historical fallacy when one reads into a process the results that occur because of that process. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy: red herring (RH). An RH is a distraction device and refers to an informal logical fallacy that detracts from the actual issue, allowing one to be sidetracked from what is actually happening and to draw a false conclusion. RHs can also be used as a literary device to steer readers off course such as in mystery novels like Perry Mason stories and, of course, Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur Conan (...) Doyle's Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles presents a classic example of an RH. If a topic is proposed, and we can speak or write about it without departing from the initial trail, then we have successfully avoided an RH fallacy. (shrink)

Harnecker, M. Política y clases sociales en Poulantzas (estudio crítico) -- Poulantzas, N. Sobre el concepto de política.

Since the 1970s, the origin of cancer is being explored from the point of view of the Somatic Mutation Theory (SMT), focusing on genetic mutations and clonal expansion of somatic cells. As cancer research expanded in several directions, the dominant focus on cells remained steady, but the classes of genes and the kinds of extra-genetic factors that were shown to have causal relevance in the onset of cancer multiplied. The wild heterogeneity of cancer-related mutations and phenotypes, along with the increasing (...) complication of models, led to an oscillation between the hectic search of 'the' few key factors that cause cancer and the discouragement in face of a seeming 'endless complexity'. To tame this complexity, cancer research started to avail itself of the tools that were being developed by Systems Biology. At the same time, anti-reductionist voices began claiming that cancer research was stuck in a sterile research paradigm. This alternative discourse even gave birth to an alternative theory: the Tissue Organization Field Theory (TOFT). A deeper philosophical analysis shows the serious limits of both reductionist and anti-reductionist positions and of their polarization. This book demonstrates that a radical philosophical reflection is necessary to drive cancer research out of its impasses. At the very least, this will be a reflection on the assumptions of different kinds of cancer research, on the implications of what cancer research has been discovering over 40 years and more, on a view of scientific practice that is most able to make sense of the cognitive and social conflicts that are seen in the scientific community (and in its results), and, finally, on the nature of living entities with which we entertain this fascinating epistemological dance that we call scientific research. The proposed Dynamic and Relational View of carcinogenesis is a starting point in all these directions. (shrink)

This chapter describes the concept of enactive memory, which is quite new but increasingly discussed in contemporary philosophy of memory. Although the enactive approach has been used to investigate several memory sys- tems, e.g., procedural memory, episodic mem- ory, and autobiographical memory, this chapter focuses only on the enactive approach to epi- sodic memory because most of the current debate on enactive memory is about this mem- ory system. Section “Introduction” specifies what type of enactive memory is discussed in this (...) chapter. Section “The Concept of Enactive Memory” introduces the concept of enactive memory, clarifies its central theoretical com- mitments and goals, and describes how enactivists have explained episodic remember- ing. Section “The Philosophical Context of Enactive Memory” provides a brief contextu- alization of the enactive approach to memory with respect to approaches and theories with which, for one reason or another, it shares some theoretical insights, like the embodied, the extended, and the distributed approach, and the simulation theory. Section “Forgetting as a Challenge for Enactive Memory” explains why forgetting poses an important explanatory challenge to the enactive approach to memory and describes one philosophical proposal that has been developed to address this challenge. Section “Summary” provides a summary of the chapter, mentions some ongoing projects on enactive memory, and identifies some topics that advocates of the enactive approach to memory may want to investigate in the future. (shrink)

[1] Introduzione, lessico -- [2] Index locorum, lista di frequenza, distribuzione dei lemmi.

La exploración sobre la naturaleza, el significado y la estructura del concepto de crisis, y la definición misma de una crisis social convocan, primero, al uso, por lo general, ambiguo del término y, segundo, a las condiciones que manifiesta el mundo contemporáneo. Así, en este libro se procura analizar el, popularmente empleado pero poco esclarecido, concepto de crisis, sobre todo, en dos autores de la segunda generación de la teoría crítica, Habermas y Offe. La intención fundamental del texto es crear, (...) a partir de estos autores, un enfoque para estudiar las dinámicas patológicas de las sociedades contemporáneas. (shrink)

Two basic kinds of communitarians are discriminated. Weak communitarians reject only the liberal metaethical theses that I call universalism and neutralism, but endorse liberal norms and institutions at the normative level. Strong communitarians condemn liberalism at both levels: they reject not only universalism and neutralism, but also substantive liberal norms defending communitarian values. This article intends to show certain internal paradoxes of these two versions of communitarianism.

This paper argues that the diversity of conflicting comprehensive doctrines in liberal pluralist societies raises a problem of estrangement between citizens and the basic structure of society that Rawls' version of political liberalism does not successfully solve. 'Political estrangement' occurs when someone refuses to accept a political outcome that favors a comprehensive doctrine she rejects, based on what she imagines, correctly or incorrectly, to be true of her fellow citizens' comprehensive doctrines and their effect on political outcomes. Rawls argues that (...) the political conception of justice and the use of public reason ensure the incompatibility of our comprehensive doctrines will not undermine our willingness to to accept political decisions contrary to our own values. However, public reason does not guarantee this result. Imagination can allow us to see that the influence of some reasonable comprehensive doctrines can lead to oppressive political outcomes and public reason restricts us from addressing this fact. Yet, widening public reason to account for this problem is likely to increase the conditions that cause estrangement. The paper concludes that the political conception of justice and public reason may sometimes fail to adequately justify political outcomes in the sense Rawls hopes. (shrink)

Informed by Gloria Anzaldúa's and José Carlos Mariátegui's work, as well as by Andean cosmology, Omar Rivera turns to Inka stonework and architecture as an example of a "Cosmological Aesthetics." He articulates ways of sensing, feeling and remembering that are attuned to an aesthetic of water, earth and light. On this basis, Rivera brings forth a corporeal orientation that can be inhabited by the oppressed, one that withdraws from predominant modern/Western conceptions of the human. By providing an aesthetic (...) analysis of cosmological sensing, Rivera sets the stage for exploring physical dimensions of anti-colonial resistance, and furthers the Latinx and Latin American tradition of anti-colonial and liberatory philosophy. Seeingaesthetic involvements with the cosmos as a source for embodied modes of resistance, Rivera turns to the work of María Lugones and Enrique Dussel in order to make explicit the aesthetic dimensions of their work. Andean Aesthetics and Anticolonial Resistance creates a new dialogue between art historians, artists, and philosophers working on Latin American thought, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. It weaves together a Latin American philosophy that connects pre-Columbian cosmologies with contemporary thinkers. Rivera's original approach introduces us to the living, evolving and aesthetic alternatives to coloniality of power and of knowledge, overhauling current understandings of decolonial theory and opening the tradition in transformative ways. (shrink)

This essay is a revision of ?Rudiments of an Ethics of News Reporting,?; which won honorable mention in the 1985 Carol Burnett/University of Hawaii/ AEJMC Prize for Student Papers on Journalism Ethics. It argues that news reporting suffers from a misplaced faith in individual autonomy, a faith that resists a sense of social duty on the basis of negative freedom; therefore, journalism stands in need of a moral theory that recognizes community and personhood as fundamental human characteristics essential to ethical (...) decision?making. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy, 'begging the question'. Begging the question is a logical fallacy in which the premise of an argument presupposes the truth of its conclusion; in other words, the argument takes for granted what it is supposed to prove. In works such as Prior Analytics and Topics, Aristotle was the first to introduce begging the question by stating what translates to “asking the initial thing” or “asking the original point”. Labeling (...) an argument as “begging the question” is often itself using the fallacy's name incorrectly, and yet we accept this incorrect usage. Politics is a common place for begging the question. Politicians in a debate often beg the question by giving answers that give the conclusion of the person they are citing as a truth or fact and never show any real proof of the matter. (shrink)

A distinctive focus of 19th- and 20th-century Latin American philosophy is the convergence of identity formation and political liberation in ethnically and racially diverse postcolonial contexts. From this perspective, Omar Rivera interprets how a "we" is articulated and deployed in central political texts of this robust philosophical tradition. In particular, by turning to the work of Peruvian political theorist José Carlos Mariátegui among others, Rivera critiques philosophies of liberation that are invested in the redemption of oppressed identities as (...) conditions for bringing about radical social and political change, foregrounding Latin America's complex histories and socialities to illustrate the power and shortcomings of these projects. Building on this critical approach, Rivera studies interrelated epistemological, transcultural, and aesthetic delimitations of Latin American philosophy in order to explore the possibility of social and political liberation "beyond redemption.". (shrink)

This book presents a novel interpretation of Aristotle's account of how shame instils virtue, and defends its philosophical import. Shame is shown to provide motivational continuity between the actions of the learners and the virtuous dispositions that they will eventually acquire.

Resumen: La presente contribución gira en torno al significado del atentado terrorista del 11 de septiembre de 2001 para la hermenéutica filosófica, en particular la de Gianni Vattimo. El turinés gestó en sus textos de entre 2006 y 2014 una versión nueva de la hermenéutica que se basa en la experiencia de este acontecimiento. Esta nueva hermenéutica estaría atenta al conflicto y a las transformaciones sociales y tendría por núcleo la noción de “evento”, Sin embargo, Vattimo mismo no ofrece una (...) definición operativa adecuada del término. Ante esto, propongo incorporar a la tradición hermenéutica conceptos como “evento” y “milagro”, acuñados por Joseph de Maistre. Se trata de una propuesta de “maistrianización” de la hermenéutica para hacer de ella un discurso viable y fructífero en un mundo violento e inestable. (shrink)

Mass media ethics and the classical liberal ideal of the autonomous individual are historically linked and professionally dominant--yet the authors of this work feel this is intrinsically flawed. They show how recent research in philosophy and social science--together with a longer tradition in theological inquiry--insist that community, mutuality, and relationship are fundamental to a full concept of personhood. The authors argue that "persons-in-community" provides a more defensible grounding for journalists' professional moral decision-making in crucial areas such as truthtelling, privacy, organizational (...) culture, and balanced coverage. With numerous examples drawn from life as well as from theory, this book will interest journalists, editors, and professionals in media management as well as students and scholars of media ethics, reporting, and media law. (shrink)

Meat?eating as a human practice has been under ethical attack from philosophers such as Peter Singer and Tom Regan on both utilitarian and deontological grounds. An organicist ethic, on the other hand, recognizes that all life other than the primary producers, the plants, must feed on life. This essay affirms, with many environmental ethicists, the moralconsiderability of biota other than the human, but denies that this enlargement of the moral community beyond Homo sapiens necessarily precludes our eating of meat. First, (...) absolute deontological arguments against meat?eating are disputed, then utilitarian?hedonistic arguments are shown not to be sufficient to require ethical vegetarianism. Both sorts of arguments have strengths, however, that set us on guard against current abuses in the meat?raising and slaughtering industries. If the principle of ?due respect? for beings with different degrees of intrinsic value is honored, then moderate meat?eating under reformed social practices can be seen as licit. Two final problems then require investigation: the problem of dietary justice for poor humans and the problem of ?speciesism?. Dealing with the latter requires discussion of cannibalism and the ethics of humans being eaten by still higher ?aliens? (shrink)

This book supports a version of the trope-bundle view of individual substances matching also with a coherent account of change, individuation and individual essences. In particular, it is argued that qualitative individuation and qualitative individual essences can be tackled within the frames of a trope account. The adoption of a trope BT together with the individuation of tropes via the bearer substance might create the feeling of circularity since tropes and substances seem mutually to individuate each other. The novel solution (...) to the problem developed here consists in showing that the individuation of concrete individual substances is independent, in crucial respects, from the fact that they are construed as bundles of tropes. Apart from metaphysician colleagues, the book is recommended for advanced students in analytic metaphysics. (shrink)

Whereas other interpreters of Feijoo's views about women have focused on their natural and moral capacity, I will focus here on his views on women in politics. I will contrast Feijoo's views with those of Malebranche and Poulain de la Barre, both cited in his own work. Feijoo is comparatively more positive than Malebranche about the rights of women, making him a pioneer in the defence of women's education in Spain. If we compare instead Feijoo's interpretation of Genesis with Poulain (...) de la Barre's, we'll see that for Feijoo the inequality of sexes is based on divine will, whereas Poulain presents a non-patriarchal interpretation of the biblical text. (shrink)